Book Description
Far from a monolithic block of diehard slave states, the antebellum South was, in William Freehling's words, "a world so lushly various as to be a storyteller's dream." It was a world where Deep South cotton planters clashed with South Carolina rice growers, as Northern egalitarianism infiltrated border states already bitterly divided on key issues. It was the world of Jefferson Davis, John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, and Thomas Jefferson, and also of Gullah Jack, Nat Turner, and Frederick Douglass. Now, in the first volume of his long awaited, monumental study of the South's road to disunion, historian William Freehling offers a sweeping political and social history of the antebellum South from 1776 to 1854. All the dramatic events leading to secession are here: the Missouri Compromise, the Nullification Controversy, the Gag Rule, the Annexation of Texas, the Compromise of 1850, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Vivid accounts of each crisis reveal the surprising extent to which slavery influenced national politics before 1850 and provide important reinterpretations of American republicanism, Jeffersonian states' rights, Jacksonian democracy, and the causes of the American Civil War. Freehling's brilliant historical insights illustrate a work of rich social observation. In the cities of the Antebellum South, in the big house of a typical plantation, we feel anew the tensions between the slaveowner and his family, poor whites and planters, the Old and New Souths, and most powerfully between slave and master. Freehling has evoked the Old South in all its color, cruelty, and diversity. It is a memorable portrait, certain to be a key analysis of this crucial era in American history.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent social and political history.......2007-09-20
Many good reviews have already been written so I am going to keep this short and sweet. If you want to read a good, in-depth look at the social and political history and ultimate causes of the Civil War, this is an excellent place to start. Freehling covers just about every conceivable topic in the years 1776-1854 that caused friction between the North and South, but also touches on many social and political topics that are sometimes overlooked. He also writes some great mini-biographies of the many differing players and you will walk away with an excellent working knowledge of many topics, such as Thomas Jefferson and his thoughts on slavery, the Missouri Compromise, Virginia's slavery debate of 1832, the Wilmot Proviso, Texas' Annexation, and much more.
The only potential negatives are that Freehling's writing style does take getting used to and the book is massive. For quick readers, not a big deal. For slower readers like me, plan on investing time in this book.
In the end, I would highly suggest this for any people looking to bone up on antebellum U.S. history and/or causes of the Civil War.
A Plow Through.......2007-07-05
I debated giving this one 3 stars but the information in it is very good. A thurough evaluation of the subject. If you want a detailed history, this is it.
On the downside, it is a dense read. It took me a while to plow through the entire book. Part of this is the density of info but much is due to writting style. I also found it to be a bit redundant in parts, particularly early on (especially Part II, which you might want to just skip). Another reviewer stated it helps to know the background prior to opening this tome and I agree.
For a much easier intro to the topic, try: "The Approaching Fury: Voices of the Storm, 1820-1861 (Voices of the Storm)" by Stephen B. Oates.
Beginning a Journey in American History.......2007-06-09
Visiting a bookshop in 1990 I faced a choice of two books to purchase: America in 1857 by Kenneth Stampp and The Road to Disunion Vol. I by Wm. Freehling. Having read Freehling's book on the nulification crisis, I very fortunately chose The Road to Disunion. One of the most important revelations in this book is the tracing of the secesson movement's seeds to the forming of the United States. To any one acquainted with Freehling's writing will not be surprised by the depth of his research and thought provoking text. His views are always overviews that narrow their scope to individual incidents.
I spent seveteen years badgering the author for the second volume of this work. Readers now who have not yet read this book are more fortunate because they have the benefit of seeing the complete work at once. This is a volume well worth reading on its own, but it is a much better read when followed by volume two.
Bill Freehling is without doubt the dean of 19th century American history, a great human being with an appreciation of human feeling and a strict code of research taking the author wherever it will. There are no preconcieved notions of how history should be percieved.
Fear and Loathing in the Antebellum South.......2007-02-08
After a long time, in which a combination of increased workload and diversified reading interests have kept me away, it is good to be back to the world of antebellum 19th century America. Meeting Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson and a dozen secondary characters feels a little like coming home. But as the saying goes, you can dip into the same river twice. William W. Freehling's antebellum South is both familiar and foreign. Freehling brings forward a provocative thesis, which throws a bright light on some elements of the period, but also blinds you to some vital aspects.
I have previously read Freehling's brilliant essay collection, The Reintegration of American History: Slavery and the Civil War. That was one of the best books about 19th century America I've ever read. Using cultural history, comparative studies, biography, and even autobiography, Freehling brought a provocative new thesis to the field of 19th century antebellum South.
According to Freehling, the South was torn between two conflicting, contradictory ideologies - Aristocratic Paternalism, the 18th century view that the enlightened rich should govern all others, black and white and female, and Jacksonian 'Herrenvolk Democracy' - the view that America is the republic of the free white male, where the color line separates the master race - the Herrenvolk - from the inferior black folk.
The idea that the clash between these two ideologies, and indeed, the fractions between the various, and very different, elements of the South, is Freehling's key argument. And it illuminates many things:
The clash between Paternalists and Herrenvolk Democrats was most evident during the struggles for control of the legislations of Southern states, particularly Virginia. There, the lines were drawn most sharply between aristocratic slaveholders and slaveless white folks.
Freehling's high concept is also a part of the explanation for episodes such as the Texas annexation and particularly the gag rule. Slavocrats insisted that antislavery petitions to the United States Congress would not only be ignored, but actively rejected, thus 'gagging' opposition to Slavery and making a mockery of the democratic process. The gag rule was designed and led by South Carolina extremists, the most radical faction of the aristocrats.
But the explanation works less well when describing the major sectional conflicts - as one approaches the 1850s, Paternalists and Democrats all but disappear, and the struggle becomes one between Free and Slave states, with the Upper South and the Lower North trapped between them. This is a familiar story, and while Freehling tells it well, he does not really add much to the description.
A major point that is scored is Freehling's description of Slavery's malcontents. There really was, particularly in Texas and in Kentucky, an antislavery undercurrent, and Freehling does a superb job of describing its protagonists and enemies. As long as the North left the South alone, Southern Slaveholders could probably squash such movements, but their existence helps explain Southern fear of the rise of the Republican party - a strong Northern ally that could help Southern fifth columnist destroy the Peculiar institution from within.
But for the most part, Freehling's book fails to meet expectations. The title is more than a little Misleading - The Road to Disunion does not really show a path that led to the irreconcilable conflict. Unlike the events of 1848-1860, when each event called for its successor - the Compromise of 1850 led to the destruction of the Whig party in the lower south, which led to the radicalization of the Southern Democratic Party, and to the Kansas-Nebraska act and so on, the earlier incidents were fairly disjoint. The Virginia Slavery debate, the Nullification crises, the Gag rule - all ended without any real increase in animosity. Nor do we see "secessionists at Bay" - with marginal exceptions, until the late 1840s, few major Southerners were bona fide disunionists. Rather, like John C. Calhoun, they wanted to weaken the Union in order to save it.
For all of its sophistication and scale, Freehling's account feels incomplete. Mainly, I think, because until the middle 1840s, the themes Freehling invokes (sectionalism, slavery, colonialism) were relatively minor elements of political scene, where the major issues were banks, Indian genocide, internal improvements and the fans and enemies of `King Andrew` Jackson.
Ultimately, I think the road to disunion was not paved by Southern extremists. Southerners tried mainly to preserve their way of life against a world that was rapidly changing - Industrial rather then Agricultural, increasingly National rather than Local, and yes, Democratic rather than aristocratic. For all their belligerency, the Slavepower was essentially passive and fearful, lashing out in desperation against a new, modern world where there was place neither for slaves nor for masters.
The social roots of politics.......2005-10-08
With a sharp eye and witty word for the setting, William Freehling delivers a sprawling and most satisfactory account of the antebellum South's queasy lurches towards secession. Contrary to the strained obfuscation of many histories bearing on the Civil War's causes, Freehling effortlessly restores slavery, and the social, cultural and political dilemmas it spawned, to the center of the story where it belongs. The second chapter is pure genius: the disjointed, patchwork nature of the antebellum South is vividly illustrated with an imagined overland journey from New Orleans to Charleston in the 1850s. Freehling describes the frustrating alternative routes one might have wished to take, the constant and comically inconvenient switches between independent railroads with incompatible gauges and timetables, their respective stations often miles apart. With an accomplished historian's power to simultaneously portray minute details and grand themes, the author sinks us into the setting--its pace, its weather, its sights and sounds. Gripped by this elegant evocation, we are then drawn into the book's purpose: an exploration of the uneasy social dynamics of different regions in the Old South, and how they bent and twisted its resulting ideologies and politics. How these, in turn, redounded upon each other and shaped the confrontations and compromises at the national level becomes the sturdy spine of the story, and Freehling never loses his keen appreciation for the place, people and material culture of the period.
Many here have disparaged his writing style, and I understand what they are saying. For instance, try and decode the sentence that begins Chapter 21: "The first plotter Ashbel Smith inflamed Abel P. Upshur by naming was no famous London schemer." Without having read the last sentence of Chapter 20, it seems to defy grammar. Time after time I found that certain sentences made sense only by repeating them with different stresses laid on different words. But after awhile, I found there was a sort of breezy conversational logic to it, and it occurred to me that if Freehling were reading his book aloud we would have no problem with his usage. But, of course, that is no way to write effectively, and I have taken a star off for an otherwise flawless slab of rich historiography.
Amazon.com
Daniel Yergin's first prize-winning book, Shattered Peace, was a history of the Cold War. Afterwards the young academic star joined the energy project of the Harvard Business School and wrote the best-seller Energy Future. Following on from there,
The Prize, winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, is a comprehensive history of one of the commodities that powers the world--oil. Founded in the 19th century, the oil industry began producing kerosene for lamps and progressed to gasoline. Huge personal fortunes arose from it, and whole nations sprung out of the power politics of the oil wells. Yergin's fascinating account sweeps from early robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, to the oil crisis of the 1970s, through to the Gulf War.
Book Description
Pulitzer Prize Winner -- and Now an Epic PBS Series
The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth power that has always surrounded oil. This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations. The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself. The canvas of this history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm.
The cast extends from wildcatters and rogues to oil tycoons, and from Winston Churchill and Ibn Saud to George Bush and Saddam Hussein. The definitive work on the subject of oil and a major contribution to understanding our century, The Prize is a book of extraordinary breadth, riveting excitement -- and great importance.
Customer Reviews:
First to cover the topic, but still a facile book.......2007-09-17
Yergen gets kudos for being the first to cover this topic, but his account (perhaps because it's now outdated) is facile and pro-oil company. Every time the oil companies are thwarted he seems to blame straw men for it: tree huggers, the people that hounded poor misunderstood Tricky Dick Nixon, the Saudi sheiks (best friends of Bush, Cheney, et al). He never turns his gaze on the corruption of the oil companies themselves. We hit peak oil in the U.S. in the 1960s. The oil companies suppressed any attempts since then to find alternative fuels. Now we are up the creek, so to speak, with the Oil Men running the Show. Some "Prize". I'd say it's the booby prize. The best overview of our current fix is Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower.
The Age of Oil.......2007-07-04
We are living in the Age of oil.
World and human civilization have experienced different "ages" such as the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Gilded Age, and so on. The 20th and 21st Centuries are indeed, the "Oil Age." We are living in it. This book is one of the most informative and relevant books published in recent years, In my opinion. This work by Daniel Yergin was and still is prescient today, in 2007. "The Prize" tells the story of where we are today, and how we got here. It also latently foresees where we're going in the future. The book doesn't tell us - we just know. We're human. This book is so comprehensive and has so much information only a small portion of it can be noted. Below relates to WWII, and former Iranian leader Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh.
"The Prize" proceeds chronologically. And within the chapters there are numerous mini-subtitles for sub-chapters that connect the big picture. The bibliography and index are excellent and can be used to tie in different figures and historical occurrences. The 'history of oil' is actually the history of the world: humankind, business, innovations, globalization, war, and geo-political power-plays. The very survival of a nation-state is based upon oil.
"The Prize" begins with tiny puddles of black, sticky, goo, in Pennsylvania in the mid 1800s. Locals collected this goo and realized its many uses. In 1859 oil was struck. Almost immediately, the wealth and power amassed from possession and control of oil was realized. The initial trust acts in the U.S. are related to the oil industry, in which Barons quickly gained gargantuan amounts of wealth and political power.
Enter WWII:
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because of oil. Japanese conquests throughout South-East Asia and the Pacific were motivated not only by the quest for dominance but for securing oil and keeping their oil (fuel) supply lines open. Without supply lines of oil, the war machine would completely break down, as it later did (Chapter 8).
The Americans sacrificed a lot, but Japan in large part lost WWII because of its lack of fuel for planes, ships, and ground forces. Domestically, the Japanese economy collapsed because of its inability to import oil. The Kamikazes were brought into existence after the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Philippines, in 1944. Lack of oil meant lack of fighter plane fuel. Fuel supplies became so low they actually stopped training Japanese pilots at all. Pilots were ordered to "follow the leader" to the attack site because they didn't even have navigation training.
There was even an "Oil Czar" In the U.S. during World War II in PAW, the Petroleum Administration for War. The Oil Czar was Harold Ickes.
In the European Theater's Eastern Front Germany invaded Russia with Operation Barbarossa mostly to get the oil in the Caucuses (In addition to "lebensraum" and "untermensch" beliefs). In addition, a needed land-route to Iron Ore in Scandinavia via the Baltic SSR Republics was a factor. Hitler also began making synthetic oil because without enough of it Germany's war machine, domestic economy, and arms production were doomed. These synthetic oil factories were top targets in Allied bombing missions.
Oil and the Cold War World:
The Soviets dominated Eastern Europe and exerted its influence after WWII for 45 years because the Allies ran out of gasoline. When the British 3rd Army and U.S. 1st Army were advancing eastward toward Berlin chasing demoralized, retreating, and broken German troops in disarray. But because of the lack of gasoline for the Allied Armies, a million people ended up losing their lives and war was prolonged because the Germans were able to retreat and re-organize (page 388).
If someone says "it's not about the oil" today in 2007, tell them to read this book. Oil encompasses almost all things in our daily lives, whether we are are conscious of it, or not.
Oil, Military, and Economic Interests:
Democratically elected governments are overthrown by foreign governments because of oil. In 1953 Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was democratically elected in Iran. He was an anti-communist. He didn't like the 93% to 7% profit sharing split with a British Oil company operating inside Iran. He changed it to 50-50. The CIA sponsored a coup to overthrow him. Americans were repeatedly told by the U.S. media that Mossadegh was a communist and communist sympathizer, although factually untrue. The American public believed this propaganda, according to poll results. Gullible? Mossadegh was ousted and the Shah was placed in power. Democracy has never been supported in the Middle East and it isn't now by the U.S. government. Also see the Carter Doctrine of 1980.
Most of us as individual consumers literally need oil to function. Dependence upon oil is for the continuation of the nation-state, its military machines, and domestic economy. More critical today, is that nation-states need a *sufficient* supply of it.
This is a positive book. It's a history book.
We're in the heart of the "Oil Age."
Amaze.......2007-06-19
This book is the better form to say what means the oil in the world. The history is well clear end real. There are many important information and who is curious or needs to know the subject this is a perfect one.
It's interesting to know the past to forecast the future..........2007-06-14
I really appreciated Daniel YERGIN's book.
The history of oil is crucial to try to solve the huge demand for future oil. History tells us that oil is limitless in virgin deserts...
The Prize : The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power.......2007-06-12
Excellent, well chronicled book showing the inside of the oil world history. Amazon shipment was a slick execution which makes the book more valuable..This book is a must-have for oil and gas pros.
Book Description
Filled with headline-making revelations, this explosive account by two award-winning investigative reporters tracks the behind-the-scenes story of the forged intelligence document that the Bush administration used to push the nation into war with Iraq
Like Barbara Tuchman’s 1958 classic, The Zimmerman Telegram, about the decoded German wire that drew the United States into World War I, or the recent bestseller Cobra II, The Italian Letter traces the road to war by following the scandal surrounding the Italian Letter, a fraudulent intelligence document that cooked up proof that the African country of Niger was prepared to supply Saddam Hussein with uranium for nuclear weapons.
What is the real story that led to President Bush’s 16 famous words in his 2003 State of the Union address, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."? In the first book to uncover the details of the scandal that has already led to the indictment of one administration official—a scandal bigger than the Iran-Contra affair—the authors have drawn on their unique access to a large group of CIA, FBI, and international sources as well as whistle-blowers.
As frustration over the increasing deaths in Iraq continues to mount, this timely, page-turning narrative provides fresh insights for a nation hungry for greater understanding of the Iraq War and the manipulated intelligence document that altered the course of contemporary history.
Book Description
As one of the first titles in Atlantic Monthly Press’ “Books That Changed the World” series, America’s most provocative satirist, P. J. O’Rourke, reads Adam Smith’s revolutionary The Wealth of Nations so you don’t have to. Recognized almost instantly on its publication in 1776 as the fundamental work of economics, The Wealth of Nations was also recognized as really long: the original edition totaled over nine hundred pages in two volumes—including the blockbuster sixty-seven-page “digression concerning the variations in the value of silver during the course of the last four centuries,” which, “to those uninterested in the historiography of currency supply, is like reading Modern Maturity in Urdu.” Although daunting, Smith’s tome is still essential to understanding such current hot-topics as outsourcing, trade imbalances, and Angelina Jolie. In this hilarious, approachable, and insightful examination of Smith and his groundbreaking work, P. J. puts his trademark wit to good use, and shows us why Smith is still relevant, why what seems obvious now was once revolutionary, and why the pursuit of self-interest is so important.
Customer Reviews:
A Waste of Time if You Want to Understand Adam Smith.......2007-10-02
I got this book because I wanted to read something on Smith, an author who is not, contrary to what is repeatedly said by other reviewers, difficult to read or superseded by later writers. What I quickly realized was that O'Rourke has no intention of seriously engaging with Smith at all and that the book might easily have been written without his having read the Wealth of Nations at all using a research assistant to pull out some quotes to sprinkle around. That he didn't read the book is the only explanation for the presence of so many gross errors in the book, such as when O'Rourke lumps labor unions together with chartered companies, etc. as a market distorting institution that Smith abhors; whereas, as any reader of the book knows, Adam Smith is quite explicit in his defense of collective bargaining for workers and condemns the laws of his day that impede workers' ability to organize. Whatever one thinks of these matters, Smith was clear as to his own view.
There is also a generally philistine and puerile element to O'Rourke's style and humour which I found extremely grating. If you are interested in work of Adam Smith, don't waste your time with this book. Just because O'Rourke didn't read the original doesn't mean you ought not to. So save your money and but a copy of the Wealth of Nations itself if you haven't read it already.
Recommend highly.......2007-09-02
P. J. O'Rourke makes Adam Smith's master work come alive with witty asides and modern examples to succinctly illustrate principles that Smith had expanded upon at daunting length. Everyone who thinks they might someday want to go into business, run for office, vote, or engage in intelligent conversation should read it, as should those who just want thought-provoking entertainment. The lengthy "dictionary" of quotations in the back is an added bonus.
A terrific guide to the ideas and writings of Adam Smith - with some jokes, too.......2007-08-13
Adam Smith has been written off my many people who find themselves too sophisticated for his 18th Century views. Each time, it is they who prove themselves and their ideas dispensable. Adam Smith continues to influence new generations of people trying to understand not only economics, but what Smith called Moral Sentiments. Was Smith a Prophet? Of course not. Did he get everything right? No. But there is more right there than you will likely find in a library full of most other writers on economics who think they know more than Smith.
However, there are many fundamental concepts that have become central to our understanding of how human beings interact and create wealth that some of us treat him with a kind of devotion and veneration. We probably overdo it. Still, like scripture, he is more often talked about than read. And that is why the wonderful humorist P.J. O'Rourke wrote this book. It is a short guide through Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" (a much shortened title).
O'Rourke also gives us a brief view of Smith's "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and a very brief look at Smith's life and times. As O'Rourke quote William Kristol, most of us only read in Smith. It is just so long and dry and tied to his times, it takes a special reason to read every darn word. O'Rourke did so he could write this book.
While there is much to enjoy in the book, O'Rourke has created a dictionary of Smith's best sayings (lightly edited). He also provides a list of other readings and points you to the best editions of Smith's works.
This book isn't just a funny book that riffs on Smith. Yes, O'Rourke is great at making things funny, to the point you will laugh out loud. But his humor is most often insightful rather and it is a way of getting the reader to take in the point thinking he is getting dessert. I like this insight from page 62:
"A recurring lesson in "The Wealth of Nations" is that we shouldn't get greedy. And no people are as rapacious and grabby as those who work for the public good. They don't want mere millions or billions of dollars to satisfy personal avarice. They seek the trillions of dollars necessary to make life on earth better for everyone. The World Bank should content itself with private good, from which all good things flow"
Yeah, it isn't that funny. But it is concise and right with a nice bite.
Get it, read it and enjoy it. And, hey, you will probably learn something. Especially if you haven't read Smith (or even read much in his writings).
This was my O'Levels assignment!.......2007-07-25
This is the best book I have read so far this year. The author succeeds in presenting this heavy work in an entertaining and humorous way. I think anyone reading this book will be encouraged to read the Wealth of Nations and inquire more on Adam Smith, if they haven't already done so.
The Wealth of Nations, a book of free-market thinking and a book that shapes the world to this day, was first published in 1776, the year The United States of America gained its independence from Britain. The book was instantly recognized as being fundamental to an understanding of Economics. The original edition totaled over nine hundred pages in two volumes, which was considered long. It is a large volume because Adam Smith felt he was at the end of his life and he wanted to say all he could. In fact, The Wealth of Nations was orally dictated, significantly contributing to its length.
According to P.J. O'Rourke, to understand The Wealth of Nations, you also need to read Smith's first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. But now with On The Wealth of Nations, you don't need to read either, or so the book back cover claims. In fact, this book reads like a Cliff Notes, with laughter added.
Adam Smith only wrote three books, the third, on law, being left uncompleted.
P.J. Rourke shows us why Smith is still relevant today, why what seems obvious now was once revolutionary, and how the division of labor, freedom of trade, absence of government interference (the famous two words, `invisible hand'), and pursuit of self-interest espoused by Smith are vital to the welfare of mankind. There is nothing inherently wrong with the pursuit of self-interest. That was Smith's best insight. Smith further gives suggestions on how governments should be run, and how various classes of men should behave. Smith illuminated the mystery of economics in one flash: "Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production."
Far from being an avatar of capitalism, Smith was actually a moralist of liberty. O'Rourke says, "it's as if Smith, having proved that we can all have more money, then went on to prove that money doesn't buy happiness. And it doesn't. It rents it." (I just love this quote!)
I had to read Wealth of Nations for my O-Levels, and I got a B, the highest score in my class. I was hoping for an `A' actually, but I didn't have O'Rourke's book at the time.
Some interesting quotes from the book:
"Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery, but of liberty. It denotes that he is subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master."
"To improve land with profit requires an exact attention to small savings and small gains, of which a man born to a great fortune...is very seldom capable."
Never complain that the people in power are stupid. It is their best trait. In recent years we've seen a variety of powerful figures barter their authority for the gratification of childish vanities. Perhaps the Saudi royal family will be next to suffer the fate that Adam Smith described: "Having sold their birth-right, not like Esau for a mess of pottage in time of hunger and necessity, but in the wantonness of plenty, for trinkets and baubles, fitter to be the playthings of children than the serious pursuits of men, they became as insignificant as any substantial burgher or tradesman in a city.
In 1776, Britain was the most powerful country on earth. The reason for this, wrote Smith, was plain: "That security which the laws in Great Britain give to every man that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is alone sufficient to make any country flourish."
Military power depends on economic success. Economic success depends on freedom. "No regulation of commerce," Smith wrote, "can increase the quantity of industry in any society... It can only divert a part of it into a direction into which it might not otherwise have gone."
The rulers of Great Britain have, for more than a century past, amused the people with the imagination that they possessed a great empire on the west side of the Atlantic. This empire, however, has hitherto existed in imagination only. It has hitherto been, not an empire, but the project of an empire; not a gold mine, but the project of a gold mine...It is surely now time that our rulers should either realize this golden dream, in which they have been indulging themselves, perhaps, as well as the people; or, that they should awake from it themselves, and endeavour to awaken the people. If the project cannot be completed, it ought to be given up...Great Britain should free herself from the expence of defending those provinces in time of war, and of supporting any part of their civil or military establishments in time of peace, and endeavour to accommodate her future views and designs to the real mediocrity of her circumstances."
"What institution of government could tend so much to promote the happiness of mankind as the general prevalence of wisdom and virtue? All government is but an imperfect remedy for the deficiency of these."
One reviewer on Amazon.com had the following to say:
"Socialism can work, but it requires people with the qualities of saints. The difference between O'Rourke's rant and the reality of earthly socialism was aptly seen by Leacock, who explained `socialism won't work except in Heaven, where they don't need it, or in Hell, where they already have it.' "
Adam Smith died on July 17, 1790, leaving us a book that is still shaping our way of thinking! His stoic attitude toward death, recorded in his Moral Sentiments, was as follows: "Walk forth without repining; without murmuring or complaining. Walk forth calm, contented, rejoicing, returning thanks to the Gods, who, from their infinite bounty, have opened the safe and quiet harbor of death, at all times ready to receive us from the stormy ocean of human life."
If you find The Wealth of Nations too long or too hard to read, then read P.J. O'Rourke's On The Wealth of Nations, and you will understand all the major concepts of Smith's book.
Interesting and VERY funny.......2007-07-12
I really, really enjoyed this Book on CD.....I think it made it much better than if I had just read the book. Listen to the jokes was really cool. Lots of very good information.
Book Description
Niall Fergusson's most important book to date-a revolutionary reinterpretation of the modern era that resolves its central paradox: why unprecedented progress coincided with unprecedented violence and why the seeming triumph of the West bore the seeds of its undoing.
From the conflicts that presaged the First World War to the aftershocks of the cold war, the twentieth century was by far the bloodiest in all of human history. How can we explain the astonishing scale and intensity of its violence when, thanks to the advances of science and economics, most people were better off than ever before-eating better, growing taller, and living longer? Wherever one looked, the world in 1900 offered the happy prospect of ever-greater interconnection. Why, then, did global progress descend into internecine war and genocide? Drawing on a pioneering combination of history, economics, and evolutionary theory, Niall Ferguson-one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People"-masterfully examines what he calls the age of hatred and sets out to explain what went wrong with modernity.
On a quest that takes him from the Siberian steppe to the plains of Poland, from the streets of Sarajevo to the beaches of Okinawa, Ferguson reveals an age turned upside down by economic volatility, multicultural communities torn apart by the irregularities of boom and bust, an era poisoned by the idea of irreconcilable racial differences, and a struggle between decaying old empires and predatory new states. Who won the war of the world? We tend to assume it was the West. Some even talk of the American century. But for Ferguson, the biggest upshot of twentieth-century upheaval was the decline of Western dominance over Asia.
A work of revelatory interpretive power, The War of the World is Niall Ferguson's masterwork.
Customer Reviews:
A True Face of War.......2007-10-08
Ferguson's War of the World makes all other war history books narrow and shallow. His view covers them all: the Axis and the Allies, the East and the West, the first and the second World Wars. What is most astunishing is his war pshychology; the insight of the minds that waged, fought, suffered and traumatized by the war.
Ethnic Struggles Undermine Civilization.......2007-09-24
This major work by a British historian teaching both at Harvard and Oxford paints a dismal picture of man's inhumanity to man. More particularly, Ferguson persuasively views the 20th century as a series of deadly ethnic struggles precipitated by economic volatility, the breakup or decline of the large multi-ethnic empires (Austria-Hungary, Ottoman, Chinese, Russian, etc.), and the counter rise of ethnic nationalisms with concomitant ethnic cleansings as nationality groups try to purify the state or monopolize power. In this context, Central European pograms have much in common with Balkan, African, and Northeast Asian bloodlettings and leave the reader with limited optimism for the future. The end of the nineteenth century was an era of unprecedented globalization, free trade, and free movement, even more liberal than our own, yet the 20th century contained the largest bloodlettings yet, with the decimation of minority populations in vast areas. The century demonstrated that:
"the fragile edifice of civilization can very quickly collapse even where different ethnic groups seem quite well integrated, sharing the same language, if not the same faith or the same genes. . . . Ethnic minorities are more likely to be viewed with greater hostility when times are hard or when income differentials are widening. . . . We shall avoid another century of conflict only if we understand the forces that caused the last one -- the dark forces that conjure up ethnic conflict and imperial rivalry out of economic crisis, and in doing so negate our common humanity. They are forces that stir within us still."
We must learn from history!.......2007-07-25
Life was rapidly improving as the twentieth century began. People in the developed world had the highest standard of living as compared to their forefathers. Goods from all over the world were available to Europeans, and the advance in health care improved and extended people's lives. However, the author asks why did the rest of the century become so bloody? Among the factors he cites are ethnic conflict and economic turbulence (ethnic unrest is prone to break out during periods of economic volatility), and the decline of the old empires, and the emergence of the new empires, namely Turkey, Russia, Japan and Germany.
H.G. Wells starts his novel, the War of the Worlds, with Martians invading our planet and destroying it. Niall Ferguson successfully demonstrates in his book that it does not take aliens from outer space to destroy us. Mankind, with hatred ingrained in him, has done just that. The aliens are in our midst, and they are from our own planet!
Our history has been marked by brutal conflict and hatred towards each other... the Holocaust during World War II, the Armenian genocide in Turkey, the slaughter of the Tutsis in Rwanda, the ethnic cleansing against Bosnians, the cruelties in Cambodia and Korea, the Japanese rape of Chinese women (The Rape of Nanking), and the Russian Gulag, to name just a few of the atrocities of the twentieth Century that killed over 100 million people!
During war, no regard is given to civilians. The American bombing of German towns during World War II, for example, killed more civilians than the atomic bomb on Hiroshima! Stalin killed far more people than Hitler. The atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more innocent Japanese civilians than Hitler killed Jews. Mao in China killed millions of people (some believe more than 10 million). The Tokyo bombings by the Americans killed over 100,000 civilians, and displaced hundreds of thousands others. The actions of the armies of the allied forces during the 20th century wars are equated with those of the Nazis and Japanese. There are no good people or the good side in war. All parties are evil, and Ferguson successfully demonstrates this in his book.
This book will reveal to the readers the horror man can bestow on his fellowman.
Life will end up killing us, so why do we so hastily do its job? This is a depressing thought, and is the major theme of the book. Maybe we should start learning from history to prevent these atrocities of ever happening again.
Missing The Point.......2007-07-20
the most important points of the book deal with the fact that democracy and the idea of self-determination are two concepts whose implementation often lead not in any advances of personal liberty or tolerance for the human race but simply turn loose the worst instincts of murderous tyranny. In the case of democracy, we often get what Tocqueville warned us of - the tyranny of the majority, yes, but not in domination of public opinion. Rather it assumes the form of active oppression - the majority using its power to persecute minorities and shut the minorities out of employment or other essential areas of participation in national life and their own personal and economic security.
Ferguson speaks brilliantly of a "fundamental contradiction" between the right of self determination and freedom of minorities. For example, after World War One, the Poles immediately turned against their minorities. The Poles, mainly interested in national aggrandizement, fought several wars between 1918 and 1921 including such antagonists as the Ukraine, Germany, Lithuania, Czech, and Russia, in the end extending Poland's boundaries over a great areas. Yet the hope that underlay the idea of self-determination was the hope that in forming a new state, the majority and its minorities would be able to accommodate or submerge their ethnic or religious differences in a new, collective identity. Instead, majorities used their predominance to exclude and divide and oppress the weaker party from the start. When the Poles took power, they excluded Ukrainians from employment. This resulted in Ukrainians forming terrorist organizations to retaliate. The German populations in the new states that sprang up at the war's end were persecuted because they were vulnerable. The Poles attacked them, the Czechs shut them out of the 1919 elections, Germans were bullied by Rumanians. A German in Romania wrote that "a thin foil of civilization appeared to have been superimposed on an untidily assorted ethnic conglomerate from which it could be peeled off all too readily."
But civilization is itself nothing but a thin foil too readily peeled off. I think that is the most disturbing point of Ferguson's book - it highlights the failure of so many optimistic and superficial estimates of human nature that we have tended to believe in as truth. Such an optimism is not warranted, is his message. There slumbers in human beings a horrible pitilessness, a horrible delight in inflicting pain and death on people who cannot resist. There are supposed to exist moral restraints that keep human beings from crushing the weak among the human race. F says that they do not exist. F seems to think that the desire of human beings to want to belong to a group result from feelings of individual inferiority that will only go away if people belong to a group because that membership conveys superiorities that people can't enjoy without the group. Within the group an individual must curb violent instincts (or be expelled), but the individual knows these same violent qualities can be given full range in collective action by the group towards an outsider. In brief, the group, in acting, seems to free itself from any moral curbs, rules of decency or other restraints. There is in German the word, Zivilcourage, or consideration for the weak or infirm. Such concern is part of the Western heritage of individualism. Yet Ferguson argues that any vestige of Zivilcourage disappears when a majority in a group takes power. The important, indispensable qualities of liberal democracy - kindness, a sense of humor, personal tolerance, respect for privacy and belief in the good intentions of one's neighbor, all disappear when a group gains the majority. What supplants them is a taste for power and the delights of making other obey. Groups, majorities, seem to feel that they have to free themselves from every moral rule or they will somehow end by failing. The road to do evil is the path to promotion and power. That is the tragic message of Ferguson. Few got it.
excellent - one parallel worthy of addition.......2007-07-15
Excellent!! I suggest one important parallel: the current situation in the USA where the Whistling Weasel Gang openly notoriously poisons irradiate stalks harasses tortures and murders while the corrupt or inneffectual police and governments just watch. Same mass involvement just like the Nazi party. Excellent! I wonder if this truth will evade the censors.
Book Description
It is one of the great questions of American history--why did the Southern states bolt from the Union and help precipitate the Civil War? Now, acclaimed historian William W. Freehling offers a new answer, in the final volume of his monumental history The Road to Disunion. Here is history in the grand manner, a powerful narrative peopled with dozens of memorable portraits, telling this important story with skill and relish. Freehling highlights all the key moments on the road to war, including the violence in Bleeding Kansas, Preston Brooks's beating of Charles Sumner in the Senate chambers, the Dred Scott Decision, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, and much more. As Freehling shows, the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked a political crisis, but at first most Southerners took a cautious approach, willing to wait and see what Lincoln would do--especially, whether he would take any antagonistic measures against the South. But at this moment, the extreme fringe in the South took charge, first in South Carolina and Mississippi, but then throughout the lower South, sounding the drum roll for secession. Indeed, The Road to Disunion is the first book to fully document how this decided minority of Southern hotspurs took hold of the secessionist issue and, aided by a series of fortuitous events, drove the South out of the Union. Freehling provides compelling profiles of the leaders of this movement--many of them members of the South Carolina elite. Throughout the narrative, he evokes a world of fascinating characters and places as he captures the drama of one of America's most important--and least understood--stories. The long-awaited sequel to the award-winning Secessionists at Bay, which was hailed as "the most important history of the Old South ever published," this volume concludes a major contribution to our understanding of the Civil War. A compelling, vivid portrait of the final years of the antebellum South, The Road to Disunion will stand as an important history of its subject.
Customer Reviews:
Mixed Feelings.......2007-09-19
I was a little bit disappointed because the book lacked a fair bit of context. For example, I know that a Senator from South Carolina preferred his slave concubine to his wife, but otherwise I would have to read another book to really understand what was going on. So, I appreciated the mini-biographies of the players leading up to the war, but I felt that there was a huge hole in my understanding of 1854 - 1861.
Good, but flawed.......2007-07-08
Freehling's research is quite good, but his analysis often seems flawed. Like so many Civil War researchers, Freehling generally seems to blur the distinction between what issues caused the conflict and what issues motivated Southerners to actually join the army and risk their lives in the fight. While slavery was certainly a prominent, but hardly exclusive, cause of the war, it seems to have played a relatively minor role in motivating the bulk of the Southerners who actually died fighting. Freehling's error is a common one, but it detracts from an otherwise interesting book. Still, the book is worth reading for people interested in the period -- just be sure to complement your reading with other books to get a more complete set of perspectives.
What a shame..........2007-06-06
No matter how good your research is, you get a 1 star if your writing is poor!
A Proof of Genius.......2007-05-12
Seventeen years ago Freehling's Road to Disunion Vol. I was published and we Freehling fans have been impatient for this book to come out. It has been along wait but worth it. Professor Freehling has outdone himself on Road II. If there is a problem with this book it is that you can't afford to "skip" a paragraph because you think you know all about the subject. You find a fact, a thought, or a conclusion you never thought of before. Thid book is surely the crowning jewel in Wm. Freehling's bejeweled crown. Thank you, Dr. Freehling.
Barrie W. Bracken, Researcher
Wonderful part 2.......2007-04-12
If you like Freehings Road to disunion volume I: Secessionists at bay, then you wan't be sorry getting volume II. It is written in the same style and with great analysis. You can just pick this up where you left part one. Just like volume I had many topics and events that have not been included in other antebellum histoybooks, this volume offers a lot of fresh insights about the storming 1850:s that other books miss. This book must be considered, if not the best general history of the south during theese years, one of the top 3 best. If you are interested in the pre civil war era...don't miss this book!!
Product Description
Win the War Within gives you one rapid, yet powerful solution for virtually every health problem and major disease that you may face in your lifetime. And it doesn?t just mask the symptoms, it helps eliminate the root cause for over 30 chronic and even deadly ailments-naturally.
Customer Reviews:
Missed the point.......2007-03-27
Since this book is a slight update of Chilton's 2005 book INFLAMMATION NATION, it has the same deficiencies. One cause of imflammation is treated quite well, but other even greater causes are not even mentioned. To deal with chronic inflammation, you need to know the causes, which include toxins, homocysteine, drugs, stress, cooking oils, and others. You might try THE INFLAMMATION SYNDROME or NONEST NUTRITION.
Win the War Within.......2007-02-19
This book was very helpful, easy to read and understand. From reading it, I received not only good nutritional information, but concrete things to do to reduce my inflammation immediately.
People I talk to are shocked.......2007-01-15
I was just talking to a friend about this book today, and she was quite surprised to hear that chicken, (and turkey even more so) are among the least healthful foods you can eat. We've been hearing how much better it is than beef. We've been hearing that eating fish is fabulous. But it's actually DETRIMENTAL to your health if it is not the right kind of fish. Pregnant women have been making misinformed choices based on word from our own government, and our health crisis is worsening.
The science in War Within is solid already, but Chilton et al are continuing to vigorously study real world results where their science is applied, and it's become undeniable: the balance of fatty acids in our diet is a leading factor in the majority of our current disease cases (most cases of heart disease, athsma and allergies, diabetes, arthritis, and a growing host). If you get informed, you'll soon be paying more attention to the arachidonic acid (AA) in our modern diet than cholesterol. You'll realize that while developed countries eradicated deficiancy diseases such as scurvy in the last century, the same countries are the ones with the most threatening deficiencies in the world as we enter the 21st century.
The other key ingredient to this book is the characterization of the relationship between obesity and other diseases. Obesity and overweight affect some 60% of Americans. One problem is the common view that body fat content and heart disease, diabetes, and other diseases, are merely parallel factors. On the contrary, obesity actually CAUSES inflammatory conditions in the body and has been proven to play a role in worsening and causing other disease, so that it's not merely that diet and inactivity contribute to both obesity and heart disease (e.g.), but once overweight exists, it in turn increases blood triglycerides, C-reactive protien, interleukin-6, etc., and thus other disease.
The writing if fine, though not top notch (I found several omitted or extra words in the second half of the book). Most importantly, the book should be easy to understand for a layman, while at the same time including the information needed to validate the science for yourself. For the bioscience versed, a key research paper of Chilton's team is in the Appendix.
It worked for me!.......2007-01-08
60 yo female, diagnosed with heart disease(elevated CRP/blood pressure, etc., genetically predisposed) and compromised immune system. I've used the diet, primarily organic, and, especially, the recommended EPA,DHA,GLA for eight months. I'm using fish oil and borage oil softgels. My blood pressure is normal for the first time in years, averaging 110/70. I was averaging 140/85. More energy, less fatigue. Read the book. Thank you Dr. Chilton!
your price.......2006-10-22
I got a promotion piece from Prevention and with that, I can get this book for $29.96 plus shipping and handling. So, why is it still so expensive on Amazon?
Book Description
March 2003: The United States invades Iraq.
October 2006: The world finds out why.
What was really behind the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq? As George W. Bush steered the nation to war, who spoke the truth and who tried to hide it? Hubris takes us behind the scenes at the Bush White House, the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department, and Congress to answer all the vital questions about how the Bush administration came to invade Iraq.
Filled with new revelations, Hubris is a gripping narrative of intrigue that connects the dots between George W. Bush’s expletive-laden outbursts at Saddam Hussein, the bitter battles between the CIA and the White House, the fights within the intelligence community over Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, the startling influence of an obscure academic on top government officials, the real reason Valerie Plame was outed, and a top reporter’s ties to wily Iraqi exiles trying to start a war. Written by veteran reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn, this is the inside story of how President Bush took the nation to war using faulty and fraudulent intelligence. It is a news-making account of conspiracy, backstabbing, bureaucratic ineptitude, journalistic malfeasance, and, especially, arrogance.
Customer Reviews:
The disastrous results of self-assuredness and deficient critical thinking.......2007-10-03
Michael Isikoff and David Cron have put together a compelling, detailed report of the faulty case for going to war with Iraq. If you want to know the story behind the various pieces of faulty intelligence that the Bush administration used to sell the war, this is the book for you.
This is a great case study for what happens when arrogant self-assuredness is married to deficient critical thinking.
It may very well have turned out that we would have eventually had to go to war with Iraq. But there was no compelling reason to do it at the time we did, and the reasons the Bush administration cited for going to war were all faulty and the information to suggest it was faulty was available all along, just ignored.
A news story rehash.......2007-09-11
Unless you haven't read the newspapers for the last 4 years or so, this book is not worth the effort. A rehash of their and others work.
Bloated book with nothing new to offer.......2007-09-06
This title presents the reader with a basic rehash of public reported on stories regarding the administrations rush to war. After reading it, there was hardly anything new, rather there was a summary of all the events that took place regarding the WMD case and the subsequent investigations.
I have to say that the book made no compelling characters stand out, nor did it make anyone, aside from perhaps Karl Rove seem the bad guy. In fact it's annoying habit of making everyone seem equally guilty serves to cut hard edge out of the book. All in all I kept on reading expecting something new to come up or some succinct revelation to appear yet in the end all we saw was a rebroadcast of old news.
Important Stuff Missing.......2007-08-22
I see this is a best-selling book by two prominent journalists. It is shocking, then, that there is no mention in the book of either the "Downing Street Memo" from July 2002 which documents the fact that Bush, at least as far back is middle of 2002 (and many contend even earlier - when the Bushies came into office in January 2001 - wanting war with Iraq), had decided to go to war with the small details like the "cause" or "justification" for the war to be left up to the spin-meisters and Karl Rove.
Neither is the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) mentioned in the book. The PNAC is the Neo-Con, war-mongering think-tank which had advocated war with Iraq as far back as 1997-98.
It is sad that the Mainstream Media and the journalistic establishment has almost completely ignored the Downing Street Memo and the Project for a New American Century in their coverage and analysis of the Iraq war and the Bush administration. An even better book in this regard is Armed Madhouse: From Baghdad to New Orleans--Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild
Atlas Shrugged.......2007-08-15
Whatever you think of Mike Isikoff's ultimate contentions & analysis regarding the adventures of Team Bush in the Middle East, you gotta admit the title is just killer.
Isn't it? HUBRIS. Wow. Just---wow.
No, stay with me on this: think of your worst, most hated Enemy (no silly, I admire your partisanship you Kos-Sack you, but it can't be Bush---at least not for *this* little mind-exercise).
Now imagine that Enemy getting you fired at work, sneaking into your house & introducing the sneaky snake to your wife (or the Great Oscillating Cavern of Tempation to your hubby), then killing your cat, burning your house down, & dancing up and down on the ashes.
Got that in mind? Good: now consider the word you would come up with to describe your Enemy's actions. Got that word in mind? Yes? Now: honestly, would it be 'Hubris'?
Yes? Great! Keep reading.
Isikoff has cobbled together an unsurprising critique of Bush war policy, which centers in on the primary flaw of BUSHIDO: the Bush guys, unlike the Clinton guys, did something against Saddam Hussein and Islamic terrorists. Doing something in America these days---whatever it is---is dangerous. Risky.
This isn't really a nation of big tough he-men risking it all to make the world safe for big-D Democracy anymore: it's more like a bunch of trousered knats spending lotsa time flaunting their Lance Armstrong 'livestrong' love bracelets, cycling around in their girly-girly little tightpants, and jogging.
So as you can see, in the New America(tm), the old-fashioned BUSHIDO was doomed from the start. Isikoff's book is lovingly, brutally detailed, & pretty much supports the contention that Bush should have done absolutely nothing. Maybe lobbed a cruise missile or two 'over there', but that's about it. It's also boring.
But never mind that: if you don't groove on the title, you'll really be down with the cover art. Yeah, buy it for Reservoir Dogs-esque cover art. Dig it. Quentin Tarnantino couldn't have crafted a better shot of the BUSHIDO team ambling down a stretch of Dark Territory into the next big gunfight. You can just about hear the strains of "Little Green Bag" as Condi, W., Rummy, & 'Shotgun Dick' Cheney stride down the Road to pull off that one last Job, or to face down that Bad, Bad Man.
HUBRIS! The old Greek tragic flaw that brought down great heroes, like Oedipus, or Agisthus, or Agamemnon, or Jimmy the Greek.
HUBRIS! Fortunately Curious George's case of hubris isn't quite as nasty as, say, Oedipus, whose version of the old greek disease impelled him to whack Dad, nail Mom, and gouge his eyeballs out.
HUBRIS! But it's bad, evidently, really bad, because now we're mired in the much and quicksand and blood and sludge of Iraq, and the world really hates us, a stark turnaround from the morning of 9/11, when the Nasty Cowboy hadn't invaded anybody and the world loved us all.
Why not just say what you want to say, Isikoff? Why not just call your book "Axxholes"? Why 'Hubris'? Why weaken the whiskey? Why not just come out and say what you think, guys? How about "Dumbaxxes"? Or better still, "Lying Nazi Pigs"? Or better still, "Big Ugly Poopyheads"?
Isikoff brings the same eye for detail found in his book "Uncovering Clinton", back in the day when Isikoff was famous for rooting around in Bill Clinton's underwear drawer and saving fluid samples.
Fortunately, we don't get any stained blue dresses here, but we do get the usual whack-a-Bush talking points: basically 1) the Bush administration either manufactured evidence claiming Saddam had a WMD program; 2) All the Kings Men were either too sycophantic or too incompetent to investigate such claims and 3) consequently, we now find ourselves embroiled in the GREATEST MILITARY DISASTER OF ALL TIME! Yeah.
Anyhoo, though, there are a few mysteries raised by all of this Sturm Und Drang, signifying NICHT. Among them:
1)Alright, Isikoff skirts the line of calling Bush a liar, but only barely: the whole point of "Hubris" is that the Administration knew better---so if it wasn't mendacity they were guilty of, it was close to it. So Bush lied, fine.
But if you accept that---that Bush positively *knew* there were no WMDs in Iraq, and pushed for invasion anyway---then didn't he know the later revelation that Saddam didn't have a WMD program would make him look silly, or mendacious, or both? I mean, if he's gonna lie about the WMD program to begin with, why not have a couple of trusty guys in the black helicopters plant a few nukes on the scene, after the fact?
2)If the yardstick by which our success is measured is largely temporal---that is, our troops are still *there* dangit---then why are we still in Europe, Japan, & Korea? God knows Europe is a total basket-case, Japan is cranking out manga---have you seen that stuff, especially with the tentacles?---and they have Video-gamers Anonymous in Korea, so let's bring AlL the boys home, now!
3)Isn't it a bit of a stretch to contend that Saddam was a WMD virgin, given all the NOOK-lear proms in the region he'd gone too?
I guess that's one mystery too many for me. Poor planning, sure. But Greek Tragedy? I don't think so. I'm for readability, credibility, a touch of nerdability, and truth in advertising: a wonkish analysis would have been just fine in my book.
But from its stupid title, to its mind-bendingly dull writing, to its even duller thesis, to its complete lack of strategic imagination, "Hubris" gets a big fat "F". Or better yet, in the Greek spirit, "P." For Polymachus, Python, or Prometheus, you ask?
None of the above. For "Poop".
JSG
Average customer rating:
- Great book!!!!!!!
- Excellent Book.
- Love it...
- If my office caught fire, this is what I'd bring with me.
- Spitz and Fishers Medicolegal Investigation of Death.
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Spitz And Fisher's Medicolegal Investigation Of Death: Guidelines For The Application Of Pathology To Crime Investigation
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ASIN: 0398075441 |
Book Description
MEDICOLEGAL INVESTIGATION OF DEATH, known as the "bible" of forensic pathology to pathologists around the world, has withstood the test of time, recently celebrating its twentieth year of publication. Totally rewritten and updated throughout, the text is oriented to forensic pathologists, criminal investigators, and attorneys. It embraces all aspects of the pathology of trauma as it is witnessed daily by law enforcement officers, interpreted by pathologists of varying experience and expertise in forensic pathology, and used by lawyers involved in the prosecution and defense in criminal cases as well as those engaged in civil litigation. This authoritative and complete textbook is written by some of the most respected experts in the United States. The book continues to use a simple and practical approach in keeping with the tradition established by the previous editions. It avoids technical terminology, where possible, in compliance with the aim of addressing not only physicians but all parties with an interest in the study of injury patterns and the practice of pathology as it relates to the law. A large amount of new information and abundant material not previously covered are included in this volume. The many new illustrations, diagrams and sketches showing patterns and mechanisms of injury as well as an inclusive index render this book unique.
Customer Reviews:
Great book!!!!!!!.......2007-05-13
This is a great book, it's easy to read, it has excellent, detalied and graphic photographs. I highly recomend this book as a text or reference book.
Excellent Book........2007-03-15
This a must read & a book to hold on to for reference.
Love it..........2007-02-26
All the information you need for death investigation...has a couple extra chapters in the new edition that were not in the last one...
If my office caught fire, this is what I'd bring with me........2006-06-30
At first I was hesitant to spend $120 on a reference book I couldn't manually look through (aside from the pages available for viewing through Amazon), but I took a chance. As a forensic scientist who is new to death investigation, this reference is well worth the money. From front to back, this book is packed with well-written, thorough discussions of the different causes and manners of death. The written information, complimented by hundreds of photos and illustrations, is presented in terms that are comprehensible even to those without a background in forensic pathology or medicine. For the amount and quality of information packed into this large volume, $120 is actually a steal. I absolutely recommend this reference for anyone who has a role in death investigation. Students of forensic science, if you're too broke to buy this, put it on your wish list and hope you get it as a graduation gift. It's a must-have that is worth the three-digit price tag.
Spitz and Fishers Medicolegal Investigation of Death........2005-08-18
This text is a requirement in some forensic fellowships. While in some subjects, the text is out-of-date, in other subjects, the facts never change and provide for a overall great reference text. I would recommend this book to anyone who is considering forensics as a career.
Book Description
Beginning with the chaotic post–World War I landscape in which religious belief was one way of reordering a world knocked off its axis, Sacred Causes is a penetrating critique of how religion has often been camouflaged by politics. All the bloody regimes and movements of the 20th century are masterfully captured here, from Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain to the war on terror. With style and sophistication, Michael Burleigh shows how the churches, in their various guises, have been swayed by–and contributed to–conflicting secular currents. Sacred Causes brilliantly exposes the way in which fears of socialist movements tempered the churches' response to the threat of totalitarian regimes.
Burleigh combines an authoritative survey of history with a timely reminder of the dangers of radical secularism. He asks why no one foresaw the religious implications of massive Third World immigration. And he deftly investigates what is now driving calls for a civic religion to counter the terrorist threats that have so shocked the West.
Customer Reviews:
Far too difficult to read.......2007-08-16
This book is stupidly difficult to read, and it was obviously written by a scholar, for other scholars. I'm not an unintelligent person by any means, but I can't understand half of what the author is saying.
Here are a few sentences from the book:
"As this carol indicates, the carnivalesque, allegedley playful aspects of Bolshevik cultural utopias had an intolerant, sinister aspect that was as inherent in the socialist project as the coercion and repression that were coeval with the regime, and integral to its revolutionary iconoclasm and Manichean, Red-and-White worldview. To detach utopian dreams from terror or to regard them as a colourful 'if-only' before the onset of Stalin's grey 'Thermidor' is to indulge in vicarious utopianism from the safety of the modern Western campus. Bolshevik utopianism, it has been argued, oscillated between an innate and pervasive peasant desire for dignity, equality, and justice and attempts to create militarised oases of order that tantalised aristocrats infatuated with ninteenth-century Prussia."
Now, can anyone explain what the hell that meant?
The entire book is written like this. Skip it.
The Uses of Religion.......2007-06-09
Secularists and progressives have long believed that religion was in a state of terminal decline. Religion, which they view as a dangerous form of ignorance, was steadily being displaced by the ever-expanding domain of reason and scientific knowledge. In the last quarter of a century scientific knowledge has grown faster than ever before; one would have expected religion to decline proportionally. On the contrary, the opposite has happened: Religion and its agitated by-product, religious fundamentalism, are gaining ground everywhere.
This is the second of a two-volume work by historian Michael Burleigh. In the first volume "Earthly Powers," he showed how secular ideologies from the Jacobins of the French Revolution to the anarchists of the Russian Revolution were influenced by and made use of religion. Religion - Christianity in particular - furnished the myths by which people mobilized and redeemed themselves in the secular sphere. As Burleigh points out in his first volume, he owes much of this insight on political religion to the work of Eric Voeglin.
In "Sacred Causes" Burleigh traces political religions from the interwar period to the present Islamic fundamentalism. Nazism and Communism were classic examples of political religions; they were messianic movements that offered redemption in an earthly manner. Both movements attempted to displace religion. In the interwar period religion became a symbol of a discredited past. People looked to science and militant nationalism to deliver them from the depths of the economic depression. In this atmosphere of seige the church was forced to make accommodations to the secular powers, at least in Germany. In the Soviet Union, the property of the church was confiscated by the state altogether.
Burleigh spends a great deal of time in this volume defending the actions of the Catholic Church against charges that it had some complicity in the crimes of the Nazis. He comes to the defense of Pope Pius XII. He praises the pope and the church for quietly keeping the church's message alive during those dark times. Critics, however, have much evidence to the contrary: the most notable example being the pro-Nazi Catholic regime in Serbia responsible for the murder of 350,000 Serbs and 30,000 Jews. Burleigh counters with many instances of the Catholic Church aiding Jews during the holocaust. But does this absolve the church of a long history of anti-Semitism going back to the Middle Ages? I think Burleigh is unconvincing here. If the Catholic Church was the force of good that he claims it would have done more to stop the mass murder.
Burleigh also has many grievances. One of the many objects of his scorn is Islam, and the disconcerting fact that mosques are popping up all over Europe. He thinks Tariq Ramadan is an apologist for al-Qaeda. His take is more than a little unbalanced. He fails to note that Islam, like Christianity, is made up of many different strains. Both have their moderates and their fundamentalists. Burleigh himself faces the danger, in this volume, of falling into the latter category.
What was the 20th century all about?.......2007-06-08
Burleigh argues, in this rich, meaty book, that the 20th century was all about the clash between religion and the state.
The 20th century opened with a set of swaggering new philosophies that were going to create a heaven on earth. Nietzche, before he descended into gibbering madness, declared that "God was dead". He expected a New Man, freed of the old, niggling 10 commandments, to lead humanity to a bright new future. What the world got was Hitler and death camps.
Then there was fascism, led by Mussolini, whose first book was, "God Does Not Exist".
And then there was communism, most potent of all, which slaughtered some 100 million people while trying to create heaven on earth. The late Pope John Paul, who lived under both the Nazis and the communists, called the 20th century "a pile of bodies".
In this sweeping, beautifully written book, Burleigh performs like a magician, always pulling out just the right, telling anecdote.
In the early part of the century, violence against the clergy peaked. In Spain during the civil war, "nearly 7,000 clerics were murdered" (p 132"), while atrocity was piled on atrocity. In Mexico priests were hunted and shot and convents closed.
Yet the most bloodthirsty of all would be communism. The communists used everything they could to fight against religion--threats, persecutions, show trials, mass starvation, and the near total destruction of all religious clergy. "By 1938 eighty bishops had lost their lives, while thousands of clerics were sent to the Solovetsky labour camp set up in a former monastery on an island in the White Sea" (p 47.
What bitter irony, then, that many now believe that it was religion that pulled down the whole grotesque regime. "Although they were subjected to relentless assault from state-sponsored atheism, the Christian Churches remained the only licensed sanctuaries from the prevailing world of brutality and lies" (p 344). Solidarity, Pope John Paul, and Poland brought down communism.
Yet we may well face an even more troubling era. Europe is beset with problems of a very different nature. As its native populations dwindle to nothing a flood of Muslim immigrants is taking over Amsterdam, Paris and London. What was once a vital continent filled with a vibrant Christianity is now dying. Authors such as Dawkins assault the very idea of religion while immigrants swarm into the country. Statistics show a vast numbers of these new Europeans want, not to do away with religion as Dawkins suggests, but to impose Sharia law.
Uneven and Misleading.......2007-03-18
Sacred Causes is the second book of 2 devoted to the conflict of religion and politics in recent European history. The first volume, Earthly Powers, was devoted to the 19th century and this one covers the 20th century. The quality of both books is uneven. This is a huge topic and Burleigh has not attempted the difficult job of a systematic analysis or structural overview. Like Earthly Powers, Sacred Causes is essentially a series of chronically arranged essays on aspects of the central topic. This approach served Burleigh well in some of his other work, notably his excellent book, The Third Reich, where he could incorporate a continuous narrative as a unifying armature for his essays. In both Sacred Causes and Earthly Powers, there is only a general theme and the quality of the essays/chapters varies significantly. Some are very good, some indifferent, some actually poor.
The best parts of Sacred Causes are the opening chapters in which Burleigh discusses the great, and greatly destructive, `political religions' of the 20th century. These are Marxism-Leninism and Fascism. As Burleigh is quick to point out, the description of these ideologies as `political religions' is not novel. This concept originated decades ago and has been used by quite a number of scholars, not least Burleigh in his fine work on the Nazi state. The political religion idea describes these secular ideologies as having the structural features of a religion with promises of individual and communal salvation, rescue from conditions of social degeneration, charismatic-prophetic leadership, and a strongly millennial flavor. Burleigh's analyses of these features of Nazism, Communism, and Italian Fascism are vivid and very well done. He has particularly nice descriptions of the efforts of the states adopting these ideologies to develop explicit ceremonial and public experiences aimed at displacing the rituals and experiences of genuine religion.
Burleigh follows with a considerably less successful effort to describe the responses of European churches to the challenge of political religions. This simply is too large a topic to be dealt with appropriately in the space allowed in the book. He concentrates primarily on the Catholic Church, and even more narrowly on the Vatican. Burleigh takes pains to present the Catholic Church as a foe of the emerging totalitarian regimes of the interwar period. While this is true in several important ways, it is also misleading in other, equally important senses. It is clear from Burleigh's text that true to its 19th century heritage, the Catholic Church in many European countries was no friend of liberal democracy. His account shows clearly the preference of the hierarchy of many countries and of the Vatican for traditionally oriented, authoritarian states. Burleigh attempts to gloss this over by describing the Church as having a choice between totalitarianism and weak democracy, but this obscures the negative role played by the Catholic Church in some of the weaker democracies of Europe. His own account of the Partito Popolare Italiano, the ancestor of the Italian Christian Democratic Party, shows that the Vatican preferred accommodation with Mussolini to bolstering the foundations of democracy in interwar Italy. Burleigh never discusses the changing role of the important German Catholic Center party in Weimar Germany. Under the leadership of Ludwig Kaas, a priest close to the German hierarchy and the Vatican, the Center Party ceased to be a pillar of democracy and Kaas led the Center Party into accommodation with the Nazis. Burleigh has a particularly one-sided discussion of that historiographic lightning rod, the Spanish Civil War, where his commentary will probably satisfy the most dogmatic defenders of General Franco.
There is a concerted effort to defend the wartime behavior of Pope Pius XII. Burleigh does well in defending Pius XII against charges of antisemitism and indifference to the fate of the Jews. Burleigh does less well in defending Pius against the most serious charge against the Pope; that Pius failed to exercise the moral leadership expected of the Vicar of Christ. Pius spent his career in the Vatican diplomatic service before ascending the Papal throne. At a time that required prophetic moral leadership, he was a cautious diplomat.
The remainder of the book is devoted to a series of chapters of varying interest and quality. There are very good descriptions of the post-WWII assaults on the churches of Eastern Europe. Other chapters describing the secularization of Europe in the 1960s, the role of churches in the end of the Cold War, the persistent problem of Northern Ireland, and the recent 9/11 tragedy are not so good. A lot of this discussion, for example, the denunciation of cultural changes in the 1960s, and the hagiographic treatment of the roles of Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II in the end of the Cold War, is trite and inaccurate. The chapter on Northern Ireland is a rhetorically interesting combination of attention to detail and tendentious sarcasm that veers into actual bigotry. Burleigh has an unfortunate tendency for nasty and irrelevant asides that disfigures many sections.
This book also has signs of being written hastily. Parts of the concluding chapter are simply hard to follow and there are a number of careless statements. Does Burleigh really believe that the USA has no social welfare system? There are a surprising number of factual errors throughout the book. Contrary to what Burleigh writes, the Civil War President of the Spanish Republic, Azana, was not a Socialist, Pol Pot was not educated at the Sorbonne, and the US Supreme Court has never banned prayer in US public schools.
All in all, a very disappointing performance.
A Very Good Read.......2007-03-17
A genuinely historical and very well-written account of the conflict between secularism and religion over the past hundred years or so. The former -- whether under the guise of humanism, liberalism, pseudo-conservatism, communism, or Nazism -- has, far more often than not, been the victor in these clashes of culture. But, of course, might doesn't make right (in addition, these victories have been transient, and far more illusory than substantive). No, it is religion that has tended to be on the right, albeit losing, side. There's no doubt, however, that this tradition is being challenged by present-day Islam, which appears to have the upper hand.
While our Muslim brethren are correct in despising a plethora of cultural pathologies, their embrace of indiscriminate and extreme violence is problematic...to say the least! No one who claims to be truly civilized can countenance their vile actions. But it's equally impossible to lend one's support to the egregious and depraved creed that is secular humanism. The solution is rooted in the West's embracing once again, at long last, its foundational Christianity. I'm not holding my breath. Well, it will be interesting to see how it plays out -- interesting, but unpleasant.
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