Average customer rating:
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
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History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
Manufacturer: Mithec
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Average customer rating:
- Not Free SF Reader
- Slow, unbelievable and poorly written
- Saga of Recluse, Part 3
- textbook Extruded Fantasy Product
- And yet again.
|
The Magic Engineer (Recluce series, Book 3)
L. E. Modesitt Jr.
Manufacturer: Tor Fantasy
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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The Magic of Recluce (Recluce series, Book 1)
ASIN: 0812534050 |
Book Description
Return now to the world of Recluce in The Magic Engineer.
Customer Reviews:
Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03
Dorris wants to be an engineer. He is also one of those Black wizard types, and a powerful one. When conflict arrives his instinct is to build gadgets, machines and transport to deal with it. This is helped by his other talents.
Black vs White, spy vs spy. Well, not quite that silly of course, but that sort of thing.
Slow, unbelievable and poorly written.......2006-04-07
Somehow, I enjoy reading this book. Somehow, I want to keep reading. But at least once a page, I wonder why.
The book is broken down into nearly two hundred chapters, most of which are brief character sketches (of the same few characters!) or "a day in the life of..." static stories. Some of the chapters touch on world events in a very loose sort of way. Most, though, are full of details about what the main character has for lunch and in what order he eats it, which unimportant side-characters he speaks to about unimportant matters, and the steps involved in forging this or that object out of iron. I'd estimate that fully a quarter of the book is a list of steps in iron-smithing, and the steps aren't even given in a way that helps me visualize it. I really don't need to know.
You'd think that, with scores and scores of character sketches, the reader would at least become attached to the characters. Nope. The characters are inconsistent and uninteresting, with unbelievable dialogue. Even Dorrin, the main and most interesting (or only interesting) character in the book, so frequently breaks character that I have trouble believing he's a real person.
The prose bothers me even more than the uninteresting characters and slow-paced story. The author is incredibly repetitive, predicting an event, mentioning it several times (often in the exact same words from different characters' mouths), and then reiterating it. Contradictions abound. Characters or narrative will say one thing, and then a few chapters, pages, paragraphs, sentences or even words later, the opposite will be said. Many times while reading this book, I found myself looking up at the sky and shouting, "Why! You just said X two sentences ago!"
I feel like I'm reading a story written by a high-school student. Mistakes I'd think any author would know to avoid are made every page -- repeating the same word many times in the same sentence, narrating an observation and immediately having a character make the same observation, having characters "begin to do" things instead of actually do them, saying things "look as if" or "are almost as if" instead of just straight out saying how they are. Ellipses are used profusely, for no apparent reason. Am I really to believe that the character heard every word of a dialogue except for "I" and "and?" Characters are called "young" without any real indication of their age. The main character's physical description is limited to "a wiry, red-headed youth." I've met many people, including writers, who make these kinds of mistakes their whole lives. They're usually people who don't seek out criticism and can't take it when it's given.
And finally, there's the central love story. Two characters barely speak to each other. Every six months or so, they have a page or so of dialog before the woman has to ride across the country again, and we're given no reason to believe they have more contact than that. Then, suddenly, they're in love and have their hands all over each other. No explanation. No transition.
So why do I enjoy reading this book? Maybe I just like torturing myself. Maybe I'm attracted by the loose but somewhat interesting plot, and hope from chapter to chapter that I might get just _one_ more detail that has any relevance to the story. The main character, despite his inconsistencies, makes use of an interesting set of abilities, and gets headaches when he lies, which I find amusing. Those few things are enough to merit two stars instead of one.
Saga of Recluse, Part 3.......2005-07-10
The Magic Engineer is the third book (in order of publication) in L. E. Modesitt, Jr.'s Saga of Recluse. This book takes place some two hundred years after the events chronicled in The Towers of the Sunset. In many ways this book is similar to the first in the series, The Magic of Recluse. Young, Black (Order-based) mage gets sent out into the world to (seemingly) figure out his role in the constant struggle between Order and Chaos. In this book, the role of young cats-off is filled by Dorrin, a descendant of Creslin from the prior book. One word of warning here, for the first part of the book, Dorrin is an extremely annoying character. Once he settles in as an apprentice blacksmith in part two, his character starts to mature and he becomes much more likable.
Like the first two books in the series, Modesitt enjoys showing us virtually every detail of everyday life. It is through these details that Modesitt pulls you into this world he's created, and this is what makes it real. Although you wouldn't think it would be interesting to read about all of the mundane things like black smithing, cooking, or gardening, these details make the characters come to life.
Overall I rank this as one of the better fantasy novels I've read in awhile. Modesitt's system of magic (Order vs. Chaos) is one of the more well-developed and original out there. This book also is a great study in character development as Dorrin starts out a whiny, naive character and ends up as, well you'll have to read the book to find out! Also, this book does a good job of standing on it's own. There are some references to characters and events in the second book, but nothing necessary to know before starting this one.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys rich, well-crafted fantasy!
textbook Extruded Fantasy Product.......2005-03-15
This is 600 pages of some guy building a boat. Elsewhere in the mystical land of Recluce a titanic battle is being fought across seas and continents -- but we don't get to see any of this, cause we're stuck watching this guy build his blasted boat. Eventually the war moves closer to home. Will the guy and his friends actually get caught up in an interesting plot? You needn't worry on that score, as Modesitt is able to quickly wrap everything up inside twenty pages. You quickly wonder why the rest of the story wasn't as short.
Blame me if you like, I made no attempt to read the earlier volumes before starting this one. Still, Recluce on first blush seems a fairly whitebread, uninteresting fantasy world; the twin forces of Chaos and Order little more than Evil and Good, renamed; and Modesitt's present-tense prose more irritating than illuminating.
And yet again........2005-01-10
Oy. Is this the third book or the 1st? Once again, it's the story of a young lad who doesn't want to admit he has powerfull magic powers as a healer and so hides in a village of the 'norms' and makes his living as a blacksmith.
And once again, in the end our young hero learns to manage his powers and uses them to defeat the evil. Yet, at a cost.
Oh man, why do I keep reading this series. I've got the 4th (or 5th, I can't tell the way this series keeps jumping between sequels and prequels) on my bookshelf at home. So I'll probably read it, even if it -is- just the same story I've read 3 other times.
Book Description
The world at the turn of the twentieth century was in the throes of "Marconi-mania"-brought on by an incredible invention that no one could quite explain, and by a dapper and eccentric figure (who would one day win the newly minted Nobel Prize) at the center of it all. At a time when the telephone, telegraph, and electricity made the whole world wonder just what science would think of next, the startling answer had come in 1896 in the form of two mysterious wooden boxes containing a device Marconi had rigged up to transmit messages "through the ether." It was the birth of the radio, and no scientist in Europe or America, not even Marconi himself, could at first explain how it worked...it just did.
Here is a rich portrait of the man and his era-a captivating tale of British blowhards, American con artists, and Marconi himself-a character par excellence, who eventually winds up a virtual prisoner of his worldwide fame and fortune.
Customer Reviews:
the Tesla thief, still glorified...?.......2005-12-10
Surprised that the book fails on a major point: to talk about the highly supportable contention that Marconi stole Tesla's technological ideas, since Marconi visited Tesla and since Tesla was such a "businessman innocent" that he let people root around in his papers for ideas as a friendship gesture.
Still, an intersting read on the early 20th century through various technological vingnettes about the effects of radio that you would find no where else--until a better book is published of course, in my opinion.
We learn much about aerials, but not much about inventions........2005-02-22
This book, at 291 pages, is a quick read. It can be read in about two hours. We learn that Marconi's main contribution was to combine Heinrich Hertz's invention of radio waves with Oliver Lodge's invention of the coherer. We learn of Marconi's discovery of radio waves bouncing off the upper atmosphere, an effect essential for trans-Atlantic radio waves (paves 53-55, 258). We learn of Marconi's "spark method" which worked better than Edison's jumping current method. We learn that it was actually David Hughes (pages 97-98) and Oliver Heaviside (pages 128-131), not Marconi, who built the first wireless. We also learn that Nathan Stubblefield was the inventor of a wireless that could transmit not just Morse code, but also voices and music.
Much of the book tells about Marconi's efforts at building higher aerials and scouting out locations to build aerials, e.g., on various ships, in Cape Cod, Newfoundland, or Santa Catalina Island. In fact, this is the major thrust of the book: scouting out locations for building aerials. The book should not have been called "Signor Marconi's Magic Box," since we learn nothing about the "spark method" or the "coherer" beyond their names. Instead, the book should have been called "Signor Marconi Builder of Aerials." The word "patent" occurs 19 times in the book, but here the word patent is just used in passing, and we learn nothing about the patents, or how they represented improvements over the earlier state of the radio art. "Patent" does not even occur in the index.
The book spends a good deal of time utilizing literary devices, especially the literary device of describing the weather, and the literary device of naming personalities with little or no direct relevance to Marconi. For example, we are told that "on a misty morning three days later a Russian hospital ship sighted another vessel" (page 200). We learn that "the men who were working ran out into the snow in mad rejoicing" (page 146). We find that "day after day through the hot summer months of 1895 . . ."(page 16). We are told that "tens of thousands of chimneys filled the air with the sooty haze" (page 21). We read that "this was a deeply romantic corner of England, a treacherous rocky coast. . . where people still talked of lost bounties of wrecked . . . Spanish galleons" (page 72). We also read that "outside, his men braved the icy winds which blew small icebergs into Glace Bay" (page 100). Moreover, we learn about "out on the snowy wastes of Brant Rock . . ." (page 208). Additionally, we read that "in the summer heat the stony earth shimmers" (page 281) and that "a storm blew up from the northwest" (page 264). The author is a confirmed name-dropper. We learn the names of Marconi's competitors, and the names of Marconi's love interests, literary figures, sports figures, and political figures of the time (e.g., King Victor Emmanuel; Reginald Fessenden; Nevil Maskelyne; Frank Fayant; Alexander Popov; Gordon Bennett; Eugene Ducretet; Inez Milholland; Thomas Lipton; Lionel James; Rossini; Chopin; Arthur Conan Doyle; Frederick Treves; Amos Dolbear; Alaxandre Dumas; Nellie Melba; Beatrice O'Brien; Edmund Gurney; Frederic Myers; Leonore Piper; George Bernard Shaw; Joseph Pulitzer; and Cristina Bezza-Scali; Rudyard Kipling; Bob Fitzsimmons; Jim Jeffries; Jack Dempsey; Henry McClure; just to name a few). On and on and on goes the list of irrelevant names. The book devotes atleast ten times more space describing Marconi's romantic interests than describing the engineers who work for Marconi.
To conclude, the author Gavin Weightman provides us with a book having a misleading title (Signor Marconi's Magic Box) and a misleading subtitle (The Most Remarkable Invention of the 19th Century). The book contains only a moderate amount of interesting material, but a huge amount of fluff. The book does not explain the nature of a coherer, a Herzian wave, or the spark method, and reveals very little about Marconi's collaborators and coworkers, essentially nothing about Marconi's business partners, and essentially nothing about what Marconi had actually invented. In striking contrast is Tom Lewis' book Empire of the Air. Tom Lewis covers the history of radio with the insight expected of somebody who is an electrical engineer having a J.D. and an M.B.A. Five stars to Tom Lewis' book Empire of the Air.
Like Early Wireless Itself: Useful, but Flawed.......2005-02-08
From the title, you might suppose this book to be a history of early wireless, with an emphasis on Marconi's work. And so it is, to some degree. It is much more a biography of Marconi, for whom Weightman has an evident fondness. But it is a weak biography, in that it does not delve into Marconi's life too deeply, or too long. Indeed, the book effectively ends (or rather, just stops) at the First World War, with a final chapter or two about the last years of Marconi's life 20 years later. And it's a somewhat incomplete story of early wireless, concentrating (understandably) mostly on Marconi's work, with only glimpses of the advances made by so many other pioneers. Still, it is an interesting and informative read, fleshing out the bare bones of the earliest years of an emerging technology. It just left me wondering what happened to the second half of the book.
Looking (and thinking) inside the box.......2004-04-08
The story of the development of wireless technology is complicated and surrounded by claim and counter claim. Marconi is undoubtedly the central figure of this story but the main characters are interwoven like the twisted pair wires that were replaced by the increasing use of telegraph communications.
Einstein has said that scientific advance is opaque with foresight, transparent with hindsight, and this book amply illustrates the point. It is easy to look back on the breakthroughs of Guiglielmo Marconi and belittle the impact. Yet much of the enormous advances at the end of the 20th century would not have been possible without Marconi (or rather the technology STARTED by Marconi's discoveries). Marconi was a strange mixture of modern and ancient, and did not understand the theoretical background of his advances. Nor does the reader need to understand the science of signal transmission to thoroughly enjoy the book. It is interesting and enlightening to see the attempts to rationalise how `radio' worked, particularly by some of his contemporaries. I suspect that some of our own imperfect understandings will be viewed with similar wonder when viewed from the other side of lucid explanations.
The story is generally well told, and is particularly effective when describing three Atlantic dramas in the years just before the First World War. The passengers rescued from the steam ships Republic and Titanic owed their rescue to both the technology, and to the seriously dedicated wireless operators. Indeed, the operators from the Titanic only ceased transmitting about 20 minutes before the vessel went down, and one of the pair perished. In the third drama, Dr Crippen was apprehended in New York after `escaping' on a trans-Atlantic voyage - the ship's captain recognised the man who had murdered his wife, and the `Marconi men' on board informed the authorities. Both English and French newspapers published the `chase', charting the positions of both Crippen's vessel, and that of the following Inspector Drew (in a faster vessel, which arrived first in New York).
Marconi's advances shine through the pages of the book, but even though it is not dwelt upon, Marconi as a man receives very much less favourable coverage. I suppose if he had been a `better' person, he would not have made the breakthroughs of which we are all grateful.
Peter Morgan (morganp@supanet.com)
A good look at the early 20th century.......2004-01-27
This book is easily read and handles technical issues without getting bogged down in detail. An amateur radio enthusiast would be left hungering for more on the devices, antennas, etc. that Marconi used, but those who are not familiar with the principles of radio should find this book very satisfying. Hertz, Maxwell, Heaviside, DeForest are all here but, as the author makes clear, Marconi himself had no idea about the science underlying his success but was persistent nonetheless. The author ventures into personalities and sensations of the period that will keep you moving through the chapters. Imagine projecting news headlines onto the clouds with high powered lights! Weightman will tell you about it. I had no idea that there was a successful broadcasting service by telephone in Budapest before 1900, with music and news. Threading it all together is Marconi's remarkable life of staying ahead of the pack until the development of the electron tube. You'll get a wonderful sense of the optimism, excitement and wonder of the pre-WWI period in a well told story. I closed the book amazed that all that I had read took place only 100 years, such a short time, ago.
Average customer rating:
|
Engineer's Spell
Drew Blake
Manufacturer: iUniverse, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0595452493 |
Book Description
With the world dying around him, young Jules must undertake a pilgrimage to seek a long lost spell that his aged and feeble master needs to set things right again.
Together with his lifelong companion, he sets out on what he hopes to be the adventure of his life, a coming of age and confirmation of his apprenticeship. But the way is not easy. There are those who want to steal the magic for themselves, mutated creatures that have long gone savage, and a rival power intent on world domination to stand in his way. Worst of all, Jules learns that his own lack of control and inexperience with the magic of the Janiers may drive him mad or even kill him before he can complete his mission.
To save his home, his family and a whole world that is tearing itself apart, Jules must brave catacombs, wild weather and a dark brotherhood of magic users. His only chance is the desperate hope he can master the power of the ancients before they consume him forever.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Industrial Engineer, published by Thomson Gale on April 1, 2006. The length of the article is 794 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Magic city: enchanting Orlando awaits the IIE Annual Conference.(KEEPING PACE WITH IIE)(Institute of Industrial Engineers)(Calendar)
Publication:
Industrial Engineer (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 38
Issue: 4
Page: 54(2)
Article Type: Calendar
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Product Description
multiple books ship as one item. save on shipping/handling charges.
Books:
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- House of Chains (The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 4)
- How to Build Wooden Gates and Picket Fences: 100 Classic Designs
- Inside the Not So Big House: Discovering the Details that Bring a Home to Life (Susanka)
- Insurrection: Holding History
- Into The Labyrinth (The Death Gate Cycle, Vol 6)
- Ironside: A Modern Faery's Tale
- It's Called a Breakup Because It's Broken: The Smart Girl's Break-Up Buddy
- JBoss at Work: A Practical Guide
Books Index
Books Home
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