History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

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:

A wonderful step back in time!
I Love A Mystery!
Reason it is the same material
Another Scam Perpetrated on Us OTR Fans
A Must Have!!

I Love A Mystery: Old Time Radio Shows

Manufacturer: Nostalgia Ventures
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 1932806121
Release Date: 2005-09-13

Customer Reviews:

A wonderful step back in time!.......2007-09-09

The issue of all the old Radio Shows is by far the best decision ever made. I think I now own most of them and always look forward to adding more to my collection. Wonderful!

I Love A Mystery!.......2007-08-09

I used to listen to this show when I was younger. I was so excited to hear it again on a cd. The quality of this cd is good. I recommend this cd to anyone that liked the show.

Reason it is the same material.......2006-04-14

To the other reviewer's point, there is a reason that this collection features the "same old shows" that have been kicking around for years, etc. If you read the Encylopedia of Old-Time Radio, you'll see that tapes of the other shows have not been found to date -- the only ones out there are from the later Hollywood shows, not the New York shows with the original cast. Rumors have circulated for years that the tapes are being hoarded somewhere ... but at any rate, these are the ones that are available, until more are discovered.

Another Scam Perpetrated on Us OTR Fans.......2005-12-19

Here again we have the same shows that have been kicking around for decades hugely over-priced to make yet ANOTHER buck out of someone else's work. There is nothing new here so don't waste your money.

Someday (maybe) someone will put together one of these things and will give us something that will make the collection worthwhile. How about the ORIGINAL CAST of "I LOVE A MYSTERY"?
Michael Raffeto is the original Jack Packard (and is the guy creator Carleton E Morse had in mind when he created the part) He, along with Barton Yarborough as "Doc Long" and Reggie Patterson as "Reggie York", are the cast who put I LOVE A MYSTERY into our living rooms back in the good old days...but...no...we get the same old version everybody's been hearing for years with Russell Thorson as Jack, Jim Boles as Doc and Tony Randall as Reggie.

Now, please, I'm saying nothing against these three actors...(nor against Tom Collins, who took over the part of Reggie after Mr Patterson's death --Tom sure got around---he inherited the part of Chandu the Magician too---the original Chandu was Gayne Whitman---interesting because he's the guy trying to get radio stations to buy ADVENTURES BY MORSE on those two "audition shows" you hear on this cd---they did a FINE job recreating these classic shows back in the early 50s but everyone HAS these or can get them much cheaper than they are being offered here...my point is if you're gonna charge me over twenty bucks for something it better not be something I can get free from any collector (minus the cost of a blank cd or dvd). Give me something I haven't heard!!! Please!!!

In the meantime save your money until the people putting these albums out finally realize they are going to have to put in some work if they want to make some money.

A Must Have!!.......2004-12-07

After being out of print for a long time I Love A Mystery returns. This set is an excellent representation of Carlton E. Morse's radio series. The set of 20 CDs contains the following programs:
From I Love A Mystery:
The Thing that Cried In the Night
Bury Your Dead Arizona
The Million Dollar Curse (still missing episode 10)

The complete run of Morse's I Love Adventure

The complete first story, "City of the Dead", from Adventures by Morse
Plus the two audition shows for Adventures by Morse.

All sound like they have some cleaning done to them, and sound fantastic. This is a great set, and highly recommended!

A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement (Dance to the Music of Time)

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Slow waltz
An Anglophile's Delight
The first volume of a massive but worthy literary effort
The Fall of the British Empire
Heaven is a place....

A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement (Dance to the Music of Time)
Anthony Powell
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

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ASIN: 0226677141

Book Description

Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art. In the second volume they move to London in a whirl of marriage and adulteries, fashions and frivolities, personal triumphs and failures. These books "provide an unsurpassed picture, at once gay and melancholy, of social and artistic life in Britain between the wars" (Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.). The third volume follows Nick into army life and evokes London during the blitz. In the climactic final volume, England has won the war and must now count the losses.

Four very different young men on the threshold of manhood dominate this opening volume of A Dance to the Music of Time. The narrator, Jenkins--a budding writer--shares a room with Templer, already a passionate womanizer, and Stringham, aristocratic and reckless. Widermerpool, as hopelessly awkward as he is intensely ambitious, lurks on the periphery of their world. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, these four gain their initiations into sex, society, business, and art. Considered a masterpiece of modern fiction, Powell's epic creates a rich parorama of life in England between the wars.

Includes these novels:
A Question of Upbringing
A Buyer's Market
The Acceptance World

"Anthony Powell is the best living English novelist by far. His admirers are addicts, let us face it, held in thrall by a magician."--Chicago Tribune

"A book which creates a world and explores it in depth, which ponders changing relationships and values, which creates brilliantly living and diverse characters and then watches them grow and change in their milieu. . . . Powell's world is as large and as complex as Proust's."--Elizabeth Janeway, New York Times

"One of the most important works of fiction since the Second World War. . . . The novel looked, as it began, something like a comedy of manners; then, for a while, like a tragedy of manners; now like a vastly entertaining, deeply melancholy, yet somehow courageous statement about human experience."--Naomi Bliven, New Yorker

Customer Reviews:

Slow waltz.......2006-11-25

Just as the taste of some "petites madeleines" with tea was the impetus that started Proust on his seven volumed A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, the sight of workmen gathered around a coke fire, served as a similar spark for Anthony Powell's own epic literay effort. Although the two works differ in the language used to write them and deal with different stratum of society, the similarities are obvious to anyone who has read the two works. Both are fairly obsessed with the concept of time and how it influences memory and imagination; both authors create elaborate universes, peopled with hundreds of characters and places, which are then minutely examined and described from a vantage point somewhere in the future (the examination and description themselves affected by the passing of time); both dealt obliquely with the idea of war and how it impacts the accepted social milieu, and both works are quintessentially passive in style.

The "First Movment" of the Dance comprises the first three novels of the series and centers on the years immediately following Worl War I through the first part of the 1930s. Although these years would prove to be momentous in the history of Britain and, indeed, the rest of the world, Powell is less interested in history (compare this to Proust's detailed account of the Dreyfus case) than he is in the human condition. The four main characters of these three novels - Jenkins, the narrator; Templer and Stringham, school friends who find the adjustment to adulthood difficult; and Widmerpool, the ambitious outsider - seem to exist in a world of social functions and very rarely comment on the historical realities of their time such as the Germany's slide toward fascism or the depression affecting the economic foundation of Britain's world position. To Powell, the passage of time has more to do with the interaction between people than it does with political and economic machinations.

Indeed, it is Powell's elaborate creation of believable characters that makes the work succeed as it does. The main characters become so well known to the reader that their actions are almost anticipated in advance, and the cast of supporting actors is brilliantly crafted - Jenkins' iconoclastic relative, Uncle Giles; the inimical literati, Members and Quiqqin; the womanizing artist, Barby; and the pathetic Mr. Deacon. However, Powell's women characters are not as impressive and, with the exception of Gypsy Jones, seem to be more mannequins (indeed a couple of the women characters are former models) than living, breathing humans. Predictably, the interrelations between the male characters have more life than those between the sexes. The sexual dynamics, such as exist, are as passive as the other action of the novel and described in such a way that would not cause even Jerry Falwell to blush.

Powell's style takes a while to get use to, but soon the diligent reader becomes immersed in its languidnesss and, because of the sheer length of the work, begins to feel the various rhythms of one's own music of time.

An Anglophile's Delight.......2006-07-08

Very dry social comedy, very English, not terribly profound, but lots of well drawn characters, one or two of whom stand comparison with the best of Shakespeare and Dickens. The style is lapidary, like Evelyn Waugh's, but without that writer's gift for wild farce. You don't have to be an Anglophile to enjoy these books, but it certainly helps.

The first volume of a massive but worthy literary effort.......2005-11-19

Anthony Powell's twelve-volume sequence "A Dance to the Music of Time" tracks wealthy Englishman Nicholas Jenkins and his social circle from youth in 1921 to senescence in 1971 and features a cast of over four hundred characters. The title and concept behind the work are expressed through Jenkins' reminisces while watching constructionmen at work on a winter's day:

"Something in the physical attitudes of the men themselves as they turned from the fire suddenly suggested Poussin's scene which the Seasons, hand in hand and facing outward, tread in rhythm to the notes of the lyre that the winged and naked greybeard places. The image of Time brought thoughts of mortality: of human beings, facing outward like the Seasons, moving hand in hand in intricate measure: stepping slowly, methodically, sometimes a trifle awkwardly, in evolutions that take recognisable shape: or breaking into seemingly meaningless gyrations, while partners disappear only to reappear again."

The grand theme of Powell's work is nothing less than life itself--specifically, how our lives are defined by our relation to other people. In A QUESTION OF UPBRINGING, we are introduced to Nicholas while he is in his final years at Eton, along with his roommates Templer (a young man desirious of women and money) and Stringham (a melancholy soul with a tumultuous family life). Widmerpool, who eventually becomes the villain of the cycle, is an awkward and little-liked boy who exists on the edges of this world. As the novel progresses, Jenkins finishes school, stays for a time with both of his former roommates, spends a summer in France, and experiences the first year at university. It may seem like there is little to it, but Powell's observations about life and growing up are more than substantial enough to make for a novel.

In A BUYER'S MARKET we catch up with Jenkins three years or so later, when he's finished with university and working at a firm that publishes art books. Here he and his peers are entering society, attending numerous parties and balls meant to facilitate this process, and already having some taste of power. A large portion of the novel takes place in the course of a single night as Jenkins goes from dinner to ball to low house party, a homage to Joyce's ULYSSES. He runs into Widmerpool again, who starts to show something of his true nature, and a few other characters already known to the reader, as well as a host of new associates who play major roles here and in the future.

The main topics of THE ACCEPTANCE WORLD, set at the end of the 1920s not long after the Great Depression, are the literary world and Marxist politics. Two men known to Jenkins at university have become writers and are vying for favour from the elder statesman of literary life, St. John Clarke. Quiggin, one of the promising writers, a fervent supporter of the Party (later dismayed that another character has become a Trotskyist). Jenkins begins his first serious relationship--while his friends are already married, some already divorced--and feels that he has finally come of age.

My only real complaint about this thoroughly entertaining set of novels is that Powell is quite imprecise about chronology, favouring expressions like "a year or more earlier", "eighteen months or less", "ages ago", etc. to relate one event to another. I felt that with a little great effort he could have made the reader more certain of what happens when.

"A Dance to the Music of Time" is not accessible to many readers simply because of the concentration and spare time required to get through it. Still, if you are taking a long sea voyage or boarding the Trans-Siberian, this is a good book to take along. Few writers have been capable of so massive a work with so grand a theme.

The Fall of the British Empire.......2005-09-26

Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, First Movement introduces us to Jenkins, the writer, Templer, the sex addict, Stringham, the rich man, and Widmerpool, the aspiring but inept businessman. The excitement of the 1920's gives us insight into a world of hope and idealism amidst rapidly changing dynamics of 20th century British society.

Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, Second Movement continues the story at the eve of World War II. The idealism and hope of the 20's is muted amidst the growing fears of war, and the even greater fear of a loss of an empire.

Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, Third Movement reminds us that there is no center to any war, especially World War II. Instead there are literally thousands of events which still present just a glimpse of the horrors of the war. The idealism of the 1920's is gone, replaced with uncertainty as to the post-war world on the horizon.

Anthony Powell's Dance to the Music of Time, Fourth Movement introduces us to the notion of a social melancholy, a lost empire. Orhan Pamuk, author of Istanbul describes the state of huzun, translated as melancholy, as he describes the social emotions in Istanbul between the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the uncertainty of the embrace of western values. As Powell concludes his epic, "it might be much worse," we wonder in the context of the 21st century, when the horizon suggests an even deeper huzun as the culture of the west and the east both face uncertainty.

As we witness the encounter between the western culture, past its apex, and the new Islamic culture, on its ascendancy, one only wonders how Powell and Pamuk may be describing the same melancholy or huzun. While often compared to C.P. Snow's epic Strangers and Brothers, Powell's portrayal of the fall of the British Empire is sloppier and filled with a greater variety of social characters, more like Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. In this it is more realistic and compelling in its presentation of a dynamics of social emotions.

Heaven is a place...........2005-06-02

thoughts after completing the first volume...
If this magnificently droll farce were played more broadly than it (is? "appears to be" might be a more suitable term given that I have only cracked the tip of this very dry iceberg)
it would bear an even greater resemblance, in a certain very odd way, to the television series "Seinfeld"....that is,it appears to be an immense series featuring the same characters in manifold and perverse situations who keep turning up at the oddest moments,and further, most importantly, that it is about...NOTHING. In fact it appears to exceed the television series in this respect....it is REALLY about NOTHING. These characters appear to walk through their lives and we are witnesses to this unbelievably slow and prosaic process, with even the melodramatic situations,though inherently farcical, (and hilarious) somehow so unbelievably understated that one cannot imagine not being exposed, in equally droll fashion, to Nick Jenkins' morning toilet rituals at some distant point further down the road...the only salient feature giving the movements meaning are the magnificent interpretive pontifications of Nick, who appears to have gained a vast and intricate knowledge of the subtleties of the English language at some point vastly removed in time from the events of the first volume...this drollery is an art form that appears to have passed from the world entirely,and it makes me curious to explore Balzac's "Droll Stories"; somehow I don't think they will be this hysterical.

Radio Classics: Old Time Radio Shows (Orginal Radio Broadcasts Collector Series)

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Old Time Radio Broadcasts

Radio Classics: Old Time Radio Shows (Orginal Radio Broadcasts Collector Series)
Various Various
Manufacturer: Nostalgia Ventures
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: 1932806105
Release Date: 2004-05-25

Customer Reviews:

Old Time Radio Broadcasts.......2005-04-10

We do a lot of traveling and trying to keep your car radio on a station is not easy. However we have become addicted to the Old Time Radio Broadcasts. We have listened to broadcast going back to the 20's, 30's, 40's, and 50's. These CD's are so interesting and entertaining. To be able to listen to Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, and Abbot & Costello is great. Not to overlook the mystery series, The Whistler, The Green Hornet, Boston Blackie. And don't forget the westerns...Try them you'll like them and they do make your trip easier on you.

Dance to the Music of Time: Fourth Movement (3 Vols in 1)

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A BAD END to a DELIGHTFUL SERIES
culmination of one the novels of the century
Last segments of the finest English novel of the 20th C.
The worst thing about it is that it came to an end
Final steps of the "Dance'

Dance to the Music of Time: Fourth Movement (3 Vols in 1)
Anthony Powell
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0316715484

Customer Reviews:

A BAD END to a DELIGHTFUL SERIES.......2003-08-06

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the Dance series for a graduate level course over the summer of 2003....until I got to the last volume. In my opinion the books peaked with the sixth, "The Kindly Ones" and finshed delightfully at book nine "The Military Philosophers". Most major character lines were completed and the story had reached a logical and chronological end. For this reason Volume Four reads like a long and arduous addendum. The new characters are unappealing and the loss of the most interesting personalities from the prior three volumes is immense. Further, a personal irritation of mine is the continued use of archaic verse lifted from often bad and lugubrious poetry. Powell is indiscrimant in adding pages from irrelevant works while not advancing the story line. Did he write these last three novels to augment his income as he approached his later years? Regardless they alloy this otherwise delightful series. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR, END AT BOOK 9, DON'T BOTHER WITH THIS VOLUME.

culmination of one the novels of the century.......2002-06-29

While I would recommend starting at an earlier stage of Powell's intimate epic (a contradiction in terms? maybe not), this is essential reading.

Last segments of the finest English novel of the 20th C........2000-07-15

_A Dance to the Music of Time_ is an extremely absorbing and well-crafted novel (composed of 12 smaller novels). Its subject is the decline of the English upper classes from the First World War to about 1970, a decline seen is inevitable and probably necessary, but somehow also regrettable.

Such a description might make the novel seem stuffy, but it is not. _A Dance to the Music of Time_ is at times very funny indeed, and always interesting. always involving. It features an enormous cast of characters, and Powell has the remarkable ability to make his characters memorable with the briefest of descriptions. In addition, Powell's prose is addictive: very characteristic, idiosyncratic, and elegant.

The long novel follows the life of the narrator, Nicholas Jenkins, from his time at Eton just after World War I to retirement in the English countryside in the late '60s. But Jenkins, though the narrator, is in many ways not the most important character. The comic villain Widmerpool, a creature of pure will, and awkward malevolence, is the other fulcrum around which the novel pivots.

This final volume of the University of Chicago's beautiful Trade Paperback edition includes the last three books. _Books Do Furnish a Room_ is set shortly after World War II, when Nick Jenkins is moving in London literary circles, dealing with such characters as the doomed, eccentric, novelist X. Trapnel, his mistress Pamela Flitton Widmerpool, and of course Kenneth Widmerpool himself, clumsily but successfully trying to maximize his political influence with the help of a literary magazine. _Temporary Kings_ features Jenkins at a conference in Venice, then back in London, and introduces a couple of curious Americans, Louis Glober and Russell Gwinnett. It also features the final destructive acts of the terrible Pamela Flitton's life. _Hearing Secret Harmonies_ concludes the sequence, as Jenkins rather bitterly views the radicalism of the '60s, and especially Widmerpool's usual attempts at ingratiating himself with the latest fads in power. The novel closes with a remarkable vision of Widmerpool's end, oddly, bitterly echoing his first appearance.

A great, great, series of novels. Incomparable.

The worst thing about it is that it came to an end.......1999-08-10

C. S. Lewis once wrote that one of the greatest services that literature offers is the opportunity to experience worlds and lives not our own. This is rarely more true than with Powell's magnificent series. I had come to feel that Nicholas Jenkins's friends were my friends, and by the end I felt almost as if I had experienced another life.

If one is willing to make the commitment of time, I wholeheartedly recommend this superb series. In a hundred years time, it might be the single work that I would recommend to anyone wanting to know what life in the 20th century was like.

Final steps of the "Dance'.......1998-10-31

The last three novels of this twelve-volume series take place in post-World War II England. The cast of characters has been substantially trimmed, as many of the narrator's closest friends have died, but new and unforgettable individuals emerge in the feverish literary world of London and the international conference circuit. We wait, and root for, the horrible Widmerpool to get his comeuppance, and watch as the other characters grow older, some gracefully, some less so, but always moving to the stately rhythms of time's music. Those who have read the first three-quarters of the series should definitely go on to the end--many treats are in store for you!

Dance to the Music of Time: Second Movement (3 Vols in 1)

Average customer rating:

Reserve-the Pole Position
Hazardous reading
More of the greatest 20th Century English novel
One of the best novels written in English

Dance to the Music of Time: Second Movement (3 Vols in 1)
Anthony Powell
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

A Dance to the Music of Time: Third Movement (Dance to the Music of Time)
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Loving; Living; Party Going (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
Invitation to the Dance

ASIN: 0316715360

Customer Reviews:

Reserve-the Pole Position.......2007-04-18

Quite a nice series. If one desires to understand the English qualities of reserve, humor, and understatement this the book to read. They are embedded in the story and most importantly in the author's approach.

It would be a bit Widmerpool of me to say much more. Please give it a try.

Hazardous reading.......2001-12-12

There are two hazards in reading Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time (12 books in 4 volumes or "Movements). First, you may be too bored to continue (so buy only the first volume to start). "Nothing" happens in the first two volumes I've read. Fans of action, suspense, romance, light, or even historical novels may be most unhappy with this series. For the many characters living through the 1920's and '30's described in the first two movements, life is an endless round of parties and conversations over food, through which the characters, in ever mutating combinations, drift while insightfully discussing each other. In a sense this is high-brow and high-toned soap opera. Only in Book 6, as World War II impinges on the characters, does an outside structure of events impose itself on the actions and reactions of the characters. Previously they have seemed largely to float in an hermetically sealed world of university-educated gentlemen and their women (mothers, wives, and ex-wives). In this upper class void no chronological dates are supplied, although if you are an octogenerian the names dropped may supply a framework to the intricate sets of flashbacks and occasional anticipations Powell employs. We learn much about the main characters, but rarely see them at work or play, and never domestically or with children.

The second hazard is that you may be forever spoiled for reading anything less well crafted. The next author you read after Powell may seem shallow, simplistic, juvenile, obvious, crude, banal, overheated, or even vulgar. Powell's writing is objective, distanced, understated, intricate, subtle, acute, and highly precise; the apotheosis of ordinary detail. Powell's strength lies in closely observed and particularized character development, our understanding of each person altering slightly from one vignette, glimpse, or reference to the next. Allegedly a masterpiece of comedic writing, "Dance" is not, however, funny, farcical, or obviously, satirical. I really think it takes an English person to see and enjoy fully the comedy of manners I sense behind the prose. I felt I was always on the outside, vaguely aware that people might be not quite right, or "dotty," except for one passage in Book 5 where I laughed out loud. I probably need an "Annotated Powell."

You can see I'm deeply conflicted about this series: it is marvelously well-written yet I am not well entertained. An honest reviewer admitted that Powell "evokes a wry poetry from drabness and boredom." It took me 5 years to finish the first Movement, and dogged determination to read the next, and still I want to read one more! Just not immediately.

More of the greatest 20th Century English novel.......2000-07-15

This second volume of the University of Chicago's beautiful trade paperback editions features books 4, 5 and 6 of the novel series. _At Lady Molly's_ is centered around the eccentric title character and her parties, as well as such other characters as her eccentric husband, Ted Jeavons, and even Nick Jenkins' wife-to-be, Isobel. _Casanova's Chinese Restaurant_ opens with a bravura prose set-piece of flashback within flashback, and deals with Jenkins' great friend the composer Hugh Moreland, and with the tragically unhappily married critic Maclintick. The subject of the novel is marriage. The last novel in this book is _The Kindly Ones_, which deals with the coming of World War II. It begins with a flashback to 1914, as the First World War breaks out and impinges on Jenkins' childhood, then continues in the late '30s as Europe heads again into war.

One of the best novels written in English.......1998-10-30

This volume contains the second three novels of Anthony Powell's masterpiece, A Dance to the Music of Time. Readers coming to this series for the first time should start with the first volume. Powell's work is social comedy in the tradition of Jane Austen and George Meredith. Contemporary writers with whom he is often compared include Marcel Proust and Evelyn Waugh. The 12 short novels of A Dance to the Music of Time give a panoramic picture of English upper-class social life from 1921 to 1971 that is both intensely realistic and amazingly funny. Readers either love Powell's work or can't understand what others see in it. My own opinion is that Dance is the best novel written in the twentieth century. Others share this view: A Dance to the Music of Time is #43 on the recently constructed Random House/Modern Library 100 Best Poll (of twentieth century fiction) and was made into a 4-part miniseries on British television just about a year ago.

Dance to the Music of Time: Third Movement (3 Vols in 1)

Average customer rating:

DON'T STOP AT VOLUME 9
Powell's Most Intriguing Volume
Literary gossip-mongering that you can't put down
Characterful
Good, but not the best of A Dance to the Music of Time

Dance to the Music of Time: Third Movement (3 Vols in 1)
Anthony Powell
Manufacturer: Little Brown & Co (T)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Similar Items:

A Dance to the Music of Time: Fourth Movement (Dance to the Music of Time)
A Dance to the Music of Time: Second Movement (Dance to the Music of Time)
A Dance to the Music of Time: First Movement (Dance to the Music of Time)
Loving; Living; Party Going (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)
Invitation to the Dance

ASIN: 0316715468

Customer Reviews:

DON'T STOP AT VOLUME 9.......2004-10-19

This summer I started reading Powell's series in consecutive volumes --just finished "Books Do Furnish A room" which follows "The Military Philosphers" --It's fine, completely up to the quality of the preceding volumes but now treating the post-WW II period, our characters and some new ones, in a more hum-drum time. I don't know about the quality of the followng books but so far Powell is not in his dotage by any means .

By the way, I took each individual book out of the library-- didn't use any of the compound or collected books.
easier to handle, and on the eyes ---

Powell's Most Intriguing Volume.......2003-08-06

I chose to read the Dance series for a graduate school course over the summer of 2003. This third volume is delicious. It logically ends the most important story lines. The volume also contains perhaps the two best loved books in the series, "The Valley of Bones" and "The Military Philospohers". I have studied military history for over the past 25 years. In my opinion these three volumes provide one of the best insights to the bureaucratic dimension of war. They are an opposite yet complementary view of World War II as compared with a more corporeal work such as Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead". Powell the penultimate characterist becomes an expert narrator in this volume. As usual he continues to dazzle thorugh his use of the English language. Practical yet esoteric words that I added to my vocabulary from this volume include "palimpsest", "aperient" and "anent". Beware, exemplary writing ends with book nine. Volume IV, written in the novelist's dotage, is perhaps the very reason many view this series as dull and plodding. END YOUR PLEASURABLE EXPERIENCE of this series WITH VOLUME III.

Literary gossip-mongering that you can't put down.......2003-03-24

The third season into Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time" series, and I finally feel that I'm understanding what's going on. Powell's series is very British, and early on I missed a lot of action because it was hidden amongst the understatements and other polite forms of communication. I read this group of three much more closely, and I feel that I got much more out of it. "Autumn" (as my three in one volume calls this group of three) is the World War II years for Jenkins and his life comrades, although in the first volume, The Valley of Bones, we don't get to see too many of his schoolmates until the very end. Jenkins, who waited too long to join the British army and slightly too old for the rank and file, is assigned to a Welsh regiment made up mostly of the men of one small town. The lieutenant is an ex-bank clerk with delusions of grandeur, who is frustrated by the abilities of the men assigned to him as well as his own ambition. In some ways, this lieutenant resembles Widmerpool; both men are driven by their desire for acceptance by society. Jenkins, the bobbing buoy in the storm of all this ambition, seems almost goal-less. Even his previous occupation as a writer seems worthless in the light of war, and he flounders, searching for a place to fit in and make something of himself. The Welsh regiment is not it, and at the end of The Valley of Bones, Jenkins finds himself becoming an aide de camp of Widmerpool, who has become the Q&A (roughly, the military police) of a division. At the end of the book, this prospect seems quite despairing to Jenkins, although he is resigned to his fate, which could be worse, he surmises, but not much.

We learn much more about Widmerpool and his ambition in The Soldier's Art. Jenkins, acting as his lackey, gets first hand knowledge of both Widmerpool's strengths (hard-working, detailed, thorough) as well as his weaknesses (vain, petty, unscrupulous). One of the strongest scenes yet in the series is a segment herein where Jenkins attempts to help Stringham, who has recovered from his alcoholism, but only managed to achieve a position as a waiter in the Army. Jenkins wants Widmerpool to find Stringham a better position, but Widmerpool at first will have none of it. Widmerpool feels that a man must achieve his own positions, without any string-pulling from his friends. Of course, this is totally hypocritical--he is quite willing to let people pull strings to help his fortunes, and is willing to manipulate the course of actions if they are beneficial to himself (such as having Jenkins assigned to him). Jenkins goes on R&R, and when he returns, he finds that Stringham's been reassigned to the laundry on Widmerpool's suggestion. Thinking Widmerpool has turned a new leaf, he thanks him, then learns that the laundry is due to be shipped out to a nasty portion of the war. The strength of this series by Powell is that all the action above takes place in amongst three of four other developing storylines, including a rivalry between Widmerpool and a office at the same rank, a chance for Jenkins to get out from under Widmerpool's office, and the ongoing blitz of London. Keeping it all straight is difficult at times. Of the books in the series, this is probably my favorite or next favorite so far.

The "Autumn" trilogy ends with The Military Philosophers. Jenkins and Widmerpool separate, each into different parts of the military governance--Widmerpool into intelligence, Jenkins into foreign liaisons. Now that he's back in the city, Jenkins is reunited with his wife and many of the parts of society that being assigned to a country regiment had denied him. Even though the war goes on, and some of Jenkins' in-laws are killed by German bombing raids, the book is concerned as much with the love affairs of the characters as the affairs of the war. Most prominently, Templar's sister, Pamela Flitton, is introduced herein, and the information regarding her dealings with characters that we have met in the preceding eight volumes provides much of the plot. In fact, at one point, where Jenkins is grilling another character regarding Pamela, the character says, "Why do I need to tell you this? Are you from MI5?" because Jenkins, and the reader, has already tied much of what has happened together through the grapevine of other friends and relatives.

I don't think of "The Dance" as a gossip novel, but in many ways, that is how it seems. Action often takes a back seat to the machinations of talk, and the most interesting bits are the surprises that spring from how characters do not relate to one another as seen through Jenkins' eyes. Things do happen--bombs burst, sugar gets poured over heads, intercourse happens--but they become stronger by how they are perceived by the characters than their actual effect. I'm looking forward to the next few books, anticipating Widmerpool's fall from grace and some truth and reconciliation that ties up a lot of what has gone before.

Characterful.......2002-10-04

Powell's prose is elegantly uncorroded by the modern fast paced advertising style, as suggested by his fondness for commas and involved yet utterly precise sentences. He obliquely approaches a bleak war as it was experienced on the home front, and in the rear areas frequented by his narrator, Nick Jenkins, a remarkably incisive yet detached and circumspect character of whom we learn very little of the quotidian despite his ever presence. Powell is a master of underplayed scenes. WW II takes some familiar characters in casually shocking ways, invariably reported second-hand. It may be offputting that locations and outside events are frequently allusive, depending as they do on the state of the reader's prior knowledge for their significance, dating, and rationale. (This technique is not specifically intended to reproduce "the fog of war"-which it quite effectively does-but is generic to Powell's style.) Then again, this chronicle of the decline of a group of classmates, girlfriends, and relatives from rather upper-class Britain is not intended for Americans. It is an intensely observed and analysed view of people doing their none too good best at trivial jobs. The second novel here (each about 250 pages long and separately paginated), The Soldier's Art, features Widmerpool especially, one of the most socially awkward self-important incompetents ever to blunder through fine literature yet inexorably advancing, earlier in trade and now into ministerial levels. By this the third book in the handsome Chicago edition, I am beginning to appreciate the low-key but thorough humour of this masterpiece, although French is needed for several outright jokes here. The individual novels progress from one set of character studies to another, set pieces in social situations (often society parties, especially in the earlier novels), with three to five of these revealing episodes per novel. In sum, splendid writing, but not everyone's cup of tea.

Good, but not the best of A Dance to the Music of Time.......2001-10-06

This trilogy takes up the war years, and Nick Jenkins' experiences in the Army. The Army is portrayed not as a fighting machine, but as a giant bureaucracy. Of course, this is the experience that many of the millions of men who served in the Armed Forces for Britain and the US had. The frustrations Jenkins experiences are similar to those described in Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honor trilogy. The emphasis on the bureaucratic aspects of war makes the success of Widmerpool -- in many ways the least military of men, and one who would be completely incompetent as a leader on a battlefield -- completely believable. Powell proves as adept as ever as a creater of characters. I would rate these three novels as quite good, but not as memorable as the earlier two trilogies. Even for Powell, the novels seem rather weak on plot, and to be more a series of character sketches. However, this weakness is overbalanced by the dry humor and the author's ability to create believable characters who are funny, and engaging. While obviously not the place to start, this trilogy is essential for anyone who has read Powell.

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Time and the Dancing Image
Deborah Jowitt
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0520066278

Book Description

As a study of theatrical dance which places developments in dance within the larger artistic and historical environment, Deborah Jowitt's generously illustrated book makes a valuable contribution to modern cultural history.

Show Time: Music, Dance, and Drama Activities for Kids

Average customer rating:

Wow!
Great Activities

Show Time: Music, Dance, and Drama Activities for Kids
Lisa Bany-Winters
Manufacturer: Chicago Review Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1556523610

Book Description

Gotta dance! Gotta sing! Gotta do most anything because it's show time! In Show Time! kids will learn to become "triple threat" performers, developing their skills as singers, dancers, and actors through more than 80 activities that include imitating a musician or musical instrument, acting out a song, creating a mirror dance, making puppets and playbills, and more. Along the way, they'll learn about the history of musicals, discover musicals about history, and find out how to get it all together before the curtain goes up. Show Time! is perfect for teachers needing to prepare performers for a show; for parents looking for fun ways to fill spare minutes with their kids at home, in the car, or in a doctor's waiting room; and for kids wanting ways to enjoy themselves on their own or in a small group. Several play scripts, a list of suggested musicals for kids, and a play glossary are included.

Customer Reviews:

Wow!.......2000-12-11

Mrs. Bany-Winters writes a great book! I've tried all of the theatre games and they are all very fun to do.. even if you aren't into theatre! I recommend this book to everyone.. try it at parties, try it by yourself, try with friends.. just try it!

Great Activities.......2000-07-15

I LOVED this book and Lisa's other book. I think her games and activities are great ways to get kids interested in theatre. Keep up the good work, Lisa!

The Radio City Rockettes: A Dance Through Time

Average customer rating:

A little disappointed
a huge disappointment
Rockette Book
Rockettes ROCK!
Unflattering photos UGH!

The Radio City Rockettes: A Dance Through Time
James Porto
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Photography | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

And She Danced for the King: Memoirs of a Rockette
Radio City Christmas Spectacular
Christmas in New York: A Pop-Up Book
Time Steps: My Musical Comedy Life
White Christmas

ASIN: 0061255076
Release Date: 2006-11-07

Customer Reviews:

A little disappointed.......2007-08-23

The photos are lovely but I was disappointed by the lack of historical photos. I wanted to see earlier costumes and dancers instead of the same costumes on different dancers and the same dancers in different costumes. I also thought there could have been more historical text - what was included was a little sketchy.

a huge disappointment.......2007-02-03

My sister was a Rockette and I was a Rockette myself for 21 years.I was looking forward to getting this book and after checking it out I was ready to return it.The costumes are great, most of them I had worn but with all the costumes the Rockettes have worn through the years each girl could have worn something different.
The photo archives,what happened to them.Though it was great to see the photo of the four gals on the trolly in San Francisco and I worked with them, that made me proud.
One more thing,the Rockettes are a group,the individual photos bothered me,the magic is in the group of women.

Rockette Book.......2007-01-16

Was expecting a hardcover book but that is my fault b/c I didn't double check and just assumed it was but all in all it is a very neat book! I gave it as a Christmas gift to a friend that is auditioning for Rockettes this year and thought it would be a cute keepsake but again, it would have been a little nicer if it was a hardcover b/c I'm afraid that the edges will bend easily.

Rockettes ROCK!.......2007-01-10

I wish this book were 750 pages, because then more and more pictures of all the dancers could have been included! I got this very neat book for my thirteen year old daughter as a Christmas present, and she loved it! After seeing the Christmas Spectacular together at Radio City Music Hall a few years ago, the whole family loves the Rockettes. But no one loves them more than I do. I just have the biggest smile while reading this book as I imagine how the performances would appear in each of the many different costumes shown in this fun book! I especially like the way the dancers are presented individually, in a full-body portrait, as they model a variety of costumes from the history of their spectacular performances... its almost like being introduced to them all! The Rockettes ROCK! and if you are their fan, you'll really have a lot of fun reading this book.

Unflattering photos UGH!.......2006-12-27

As a former Rockette, this was at the top of my Christmas List. I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Boy, was I disappointed. The vintage and candid photos are GREAT, but they are few and far between. The new photos of the Rockettes are horrible; the photos are poorly lit, their faces are shadowed, some of the poses look awkward and uncomfortable. I have worn some of these costumes and seen them up close, and this book falls way short of showcasing the masterpieces of Erte, Bob Mackie, etc...

I am shocked that Radio City Rockettes would approve such photos. Most of the new photos have REALLY BAD LIGHTING, and make the Rockettes look old, tired and the costumes dull.

I was surprised this book was photographed by an acclaimed photographer. With digital photography and photoshop being all the rage these days, I would have expected so much more.

I love the Rockettes and I am proud to have been part of such a legendary organization. I am disappointed that this book didn't showcase the dancers in the way in which they deserve.

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