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
Unlike most Soviet-centered histories, A Vision Unfulfilled begins with a chapter summarizing late nineteenth-century Russian history, allowing instructors to begin their course with 1894, 1905, 1914, or 1917. The book also gives fuller attention to the history of the non-Russian populations in the tsarist and Soviet empires than other texts of its kind.
Book Description
Duiker's comprehensive, balanced history of the world in the twentieth century provides you with context for interpreting the events that you hear about in the news each day. You'll view history from the broader global perspective, while at the same time gaining insight into the distinctive character of individual civilizations and regions. And to ensure that you'll have a well-rounded understanding of the most decisive moments in recent times, Duiker integrates political, economic, social, and cultural history into a smoothly written narrative. What's more, the text includes a special insert that guides you in using the text's many detailed maps, which help you make important connections between geography and the turn of historic events; timelines that highlight and contrast different cultures and nations, thus giving you an "at-a-glance," holistic perspective on eras and their defining events; photos from William Duiker's own collection that giving you a closer, more personal look at the world we live in; and primary-source documents that illustrate and clarify key points.
Customer Reviews:
Good overview of World events and patterns........2000-08-02
This book was fun to read. The narrative flowed nicely and was easy to get through. It covered all of the major events of the World however I felt there should have been a deeper discussion of Africa and Latin America. The book goes beyond a mere recitation of facts but successfully conveys the character and essence of the 20th century. The author captures the spirit and patterns of change that rocked the century and made an exciting and violent one.
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- The Evolution of Surgical Instruments: An Illustrated History from Ancient Tiems to the Twentieth Century
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The Evolution of Surgical Instruments: An Illustrated History (Norman Surgery Series)
John Kirkup
Manufacturer: Norman Publishing
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ASIN: 0930405862 |
Book Description
The Evolution of Surgical Instruments is the first comprehensive work on the subject published in over sixty years and arguably the most important general history of surgical instruments ever published. The only prior work on the subject, C. J. S. Thompson's The History and Evolution of Surgical Instruments (1942) attempted to cover the entire history in only 113 pages. Elisabeth Bennion's Antique Medical Instruments (1979) concentrated chiefly upon the aesthetic aspects of medical and surgical instruments to 1870. James Edmonson's comprehensive history, American Surgical Instruments (1997), focused on instruments manufactured in the United States up to 1900.
xviii, 510 pp. 579 illus., 30 in color. 8 1/2" × 11". Index. Cloth, dust jacket, acid-free paper. ISBN 0-430405-86-2. Norman Surgery Series No. 12.
Customer Reviews:
The Evolution of Surgical Instruments: An Illustrated History from Ancient Tiems to the Twentieth Century.......2006-11-04
As an advanced collector of pre-1900 surgical instruments and sets, I have found this text very valuable as a reference and research source. It covers English, European, and American instruments which allows comparative analysis of instruments for identification and dating. Since I specialize in Civil War surgical instruments, I have found the information invaluable in making decisions about instruments which are of Civil War or earlier production and thus correct or incorrect for a given maker or set.
Dr. Michael Echols
American Surgical Antiques
Book Description
"Magisterial history...one of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written."—New York Times Book Review
In 1900 international trade reached unprecedented levels and the world's economies were more open to one another than ever before. Then as now, many people considered globalization to be inevitable and irreversible. Yet the entire edifice collapsed in a few months in 1914.
Globalization is a choice, not a fact. It is a result of policy decisions and the politics that shape them. Jeffry A. Frieden's insightful history explores the golden age of globalization during the early years of the century, its swift collapse in the crises of 1914-45, the divisions of the Cold War world, and the turn again toward global integration at the end of the century. His history is full of character and event, as entertaining as it is enlightening.
Customer Reviews:
HAPHAZARD NARRATIVE; AUTHOR HAS VERY WEAK UNDERSTANDING OF SUBJECT MATTER.......2007-06-21
Of all the many books that have come out in recent years about global capitalism, finance and economics, this is certainly the worst. The author, a professor of government at Harvard, professes to specialize in international monetary history, but is really what his tenure title says he is, a professor of International Peace. He appears to be trying to reinvent his career by tackling the subject of capitalism but thoroughly lacks understanding of the subject matter, as made evident by his book.
1. The author makes the same mistake that virtually all political science professors do when they write about capitalism: he glorifies the gold standard, he glorifies the Rothschilds and glorifies everything that had nothing to do with the emergence of twentieth century capitalism. The author is using his expertise in international relations to analyze a subject that is really never about governments, or grand alliances or fancy bankers. He thus fails to root the story in the advent of technology, or of business procedures or of the individual investor, but focuses instead of John Foster Dulles and Dean Acheson and Lord Halifax.
2. Wherever the subject matter is strong, the book still fails badly. It does so because political economy is better analyzed by Robert Gilpin and others, whose books are mandatory reading and well written and which do not pretend to sell that subject matter as a study of capitalism.
3. The book's sections are surprisingly badly arranged. Sometimes one feels the author may have a method to the madness but I doubt it after having read it. It is certainly not thematic, or designed to trigger thought or chronological.
4. The book refers to a poem only twice in the 500 pages and it is about the King of Ghana! I mean a professor at Harvard should surely know how to maintain balance in his subject matter. Is that the one poem he could find worth including?
5. Stunning is the lack of understanding of the issues. He describes Britain as fully supportive of free trade mid-19th century but fails to consider how colonialism could be a form of free trade. He describes China Turkey and India as the only failures of the early 20th century without making the same connection with colonialism.
6. Worse is his understanding of the gold standard. He never mentions that that relic was responsible for more misery than anything other than world wars. He fails to consider that since the gold standard was weakened in the Forties, there have been NO PANICS RAVAGING SOCIETY. He is a gold bug.
7. He repeats William Bryan's Cross of Gold speech twice in the narrative with no suggestion that he is even aware his haphazard narrative is repeating the same quote. He also fails to mention that William Bryan was not buried in the election of 1896 but actually came to dominate the 20th century, what with unionism, minimum wages, no gold standard, empowerment of the individual investor and every other idea that Bryan first espoused. TR's and FDR's reforms were nothing if not Bryanism.
8. Why would a book mention so much about Rothschild's and their family in the US without mentioning Jacob Schiff, or detailing JP Morgan, or RObert Lehman or Albert Gordon. I mean the author simply has no balance on the subject matter because he knows so little about it.
9. Finally, it is not clear what Jeffrey Frieden is doing at Harvard. Such poorly researched fare is common to COlumbia Business School and its Dean Glenn Hubbard, or to the Hoover Institution or some place like that. Harvard on the other hand puts out more balanced and far more thoughtful pieces.
BAD BOOK THAT MUST BE AVOIDED.
Almost tempted to give it a miss.......2007-04-23
I was almost tempted to give the book a miss after seeing the high ratings that were given by reviewers that seemed to be anti-globalizationists (what an awkward term!)
However, I came across the book at my library and gave it a chance, and I was not disappointed. It is a book that does a creditable job of summing up the ups and downs of the world economy over the past hundred years and more. And it also does a fairly good job of raising some issues and problems with the world economic system, and how the system had evolved to meet those issues and problems. On the whole, I think it's a balanced book, pointing out the critical need for free and integrated markets to raising millions in the world out of poverty, as well as some of the problems facing them.
The only reason why I gave the book a four rather than a five is that it is not an easy read, and it is best read with some thought and analysis on the reader's part. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not something for everyone.
By the way, do ignore those reviews that pretend to tell you what the author was saying in his book. I'm not sure that he's actually saying what they say he is saying.
Read the book for yourself. It's worth the time and effort.
Globalization 2.0.......2006-07-12
Jeffrey Frieden, a Harvard professor specializing in international trade and finance, has written a masterly and comprehensive history of capitalism from 1870 to the present. His history of globalization reminds us that it is not a recent develpment and that its current success is not guaranteed.
The first era of globalization (1870 to 1914) had many of the same characteristics as today's. There was an unprecedented cross-border movement of goods, capital, and labor. (Labor more so in the first era.) During these years huge amounts of capital moved overseas to America, Canada, and Argentina mainly due to the reduced costs of communication and transportation. The technologies driving this globalization were the telegraph and railroads. It was also facilitated by the fact that most currencies were convertible to gold. The investment in the Americas was also followed by a huge immigrant population. In these years, America, Canada, and Argentina had much larger immmigrant populations at the turn of the 20th century than today.
The main thing that distinguishes the present globalization from the first is what happened in between. After the Great Depression and World War II remedies were put into place to mitigate the damaging effects of these economic and social catastrophes. Social benefits such as unions, minimum wage, healthcare and pensions were established as safety nets. In the era between the two globalizations when economies were mostly national the safety nets were part of the social contract between capital and labor.
In 1980, when our current era of globalization begins, capital began to move overseas again in order to find countries with lower labor and social costs. This time, however, labor did not follow. The industrialized countries now have large middle classes with social benefits promised who are not certain about how they are going to be paid. This is causing many in the industrialized world to have second thoughts about our current phase of globalization.
Frieden has a guarded optimism about global capitalism and thinks it is still the best system for distributing wealth. Yet, his last chapter "Global Capitalism Troubled" points to some more clouds on the horizon. There seems to be a growing gap between those who control capital and those who work for a living. People understand that globalization is inevitable but they want a new set of rules to address the growing inequalities.
Frieden is a cheerleader for a more equitable capitalism that can deliver both social benefits and robust economic growth.
Bottom Line: Unfettered Capitalism is Destructive, Need Government.......2006-06-27
I read books in groups, and bought this one along with David Walsh's "Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations" which I recommend above this one is you are only buying one book. I also read and have reviewed "Global Class Wars" as well as all other books I recommend below.
Although I was less interested in the history, which is very well documented and clearly explained, and more in the lessons for the future, I found two clear bottom lines in this book that are supported by its extensive research:
1) Open societies and open democracies generate more money and more opportunity and more innovation than closed or failed societies; and
2) Keynes was right, there is an urgent vital role for government to play in addressing the social networks, including education, transportation, rules of commerce, and so on, that allow capitalism to work.
The author distinguishes between individual, cooperative, and competitive capitalism, and I found validation in this book for my concept of communal capitalism, a capitalism that is guided by government in avoiding the exportation of jobs, the importation of poverty, and the impoverishment of the middle class.
Unlike David Walsh's book, this book has more of a focus on what is moral and pragmatic, and so I recommend William Greider's "The Soul of Capitalism" as well as John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man."
I have a very strong feeling from this book and others, that the era of "out of control" capitalism is drawing to an end. We may even see the end of the corporation as a separate legal personality in the next 12 years. The transparency of information that is available when people attach themselves leech-like to a corporation and hold it accountable (see my review of "No Logo") is creating a powerful antidote against the Enrons and Exxons and Wal-Marts of the world who bribe elites and screw over the publics on both ends. I also see Wall Street losing its ability to "explode the client" (see my review of "Liar's Poker"). A great deal of good will be done in the next quarter century, and it will come from a combination of good government and educated engaged citizens working together across all boundaries.
Very Pleasing to Read (Even for a Proletariat like Me).......2006-06-25
I read this book for a graduate-level economics course. It's not an "Econ for Dummys" book, but it really enightens the reader about the history of economics in the 20th Century. It's smart and straight-forward. The author does not interject his personal perspectives, which is nice. He just puts it out there. A definite must-read for those entering the field of economics/history.
Book Description
This primary source reader, designed to supplement twentieth-century world history courses, contains both textual and visual sources from around the world. Strong pedagogical learning aids ensure that students are equipped with the information they need to understand and appreciate each document. The book contains a general introduction, as well as part, chapter, section, and source introductions. "Questions to Consider" precede each source and explanatory footnotes are provided for all unfamiliar names and terms.
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Century
Alain Badiou
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Hatred of Democracy
ASIN: 0745636322 |
Book Description
Everywhere, the twentieth century has been judged and condemned as the century of totalitarian terror, of utopian and criminal ideologies, of empty illusions, of genocides, of false avant-gardes, of democratic realism everywhere replaced by abstraction. It is not this book's wish to plead for an accused that is perfectly capable of defending itself without the author's help. Nor does it seek to proclaim, like Frantz, the hero of Sartre's Prisoners of Altona: 'I have taken the century on my shoulders and I have said: I will answer for it!' The Century simply aims to examine what this accursed century, from within its own unfolding, said that it was. Alain Badiou's proposal is to reopen the dossier on the century - not from the angle of those wise and sated judges that too often we claim to be, but from the standpoint of the century itself. In order to do this, The Century makes use of poems (Mandelstam, Pessoa), philosophical fragments (Sartre, Foucault), political visions (Mao), theatre pieces (Brecht, Pirandello)... This is the material through which the century declares, in thought, its life, its drama, its creations, its passion. Against the grain of all the judgments hitherto pronounced on the century, Badiou argues that this passion was not at all the passion for the imaginary or the passion for ideologies. Even less was it a messianic passion. The terrible passion of the twentieth century was - in contradistinction to the prophetic character of the nineteenth century - the passion for the real. It was a question of activating the True, here and now. This translation features a commentary and notes by Alberto Toscano.
Book Description
Jews lived in Egypt without interruption since Biblical times. The community knew an apogee in the first half of 20th century. Political events during the second half of the 20th century caused the Jews to leave Egypt and disperse throughout the world. This book contains 28 interviews of middle class Egyptian Jews describing their life in Egypt in their own voices just before their final departure. They bring to life the charm and diversities of the lives they led with its many contradictions. A cosmopolitan life they shared with many other groups living in Egypt at that time.
"As a professional historian, I found the material of immense potential scholarly value. As a Jew who left Egypt during the 1956 Suez crisis, it touches me in a deep and personal way. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the forces that affect cultural dynamics, political conflict and, last but not least, human nature."
-Jean Marc R. Openheim, PHD
Teachers College, Columbia University
"We have been given an extraordinary gift in this compilation of poignant memories of an Egypt of long ago. These oral histories not only capture the rich way of life of Egyptian Jews, but they also inform of their caring for this land and its people."
-Nimet Habachy
Author, Broadcaster (WQXR)
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating history.......2007-04-11
The world of the Egyptian Jewish community would be lost to us if it were not for Lilliane Dammond's efforts to preserve their memories. Like it's authors, it reflects the emotions, issues and foibles relating to families, friends, and identity. I highly recommend it.
A touching memorial.......2007-03-31
In the first half of the 20th century the "foreign" communities in both Cairo and Alexandria had developed into a sophisticated, well educated group.
Following the creation of Israel in 1948, Arab nationalism expulsed and dispossesed this entire class of people. Many of these were Jews who were forced to leave, without their livelihood and savings.
More than a generation later, Lilianne Dammond has interviewed some of those who were obliged to create new lives for themselves in many new countries. These individuals recount their memories in the first person, lending a touch of pathos and affection to their wistful recollection of a country which ejected them.
It is a touching work, which I heartily recommend.
Customer Reviews:
History and Our Times.......2007-07-12
The Houses of History is a very complete book for those who are enthralled by history. Preferably, for those who like to understand first the big picture concerning our changing times. This unique book takes you throughout the stages of history during the twentieth century and better yet, through the different trends that those who record history have faced from the modern to the post modern times.It also includes interesting excerpts for each particular history theory. This product must be read by anyone who wants to understand nowadays' social, cultural and political movements.
useful.......2007-01-23
I read this book for a methods course as well as some of the other reviewers. The format of the book is useful since it provides a synopsis of the selected perspectives as well as a reading that provides an example of the method/interpretation in action. While it is not always entertaining, it is not designed to be; it is a critical reader designed to promote critical discussion. I completed an annotated bibliography of the work (since Troup references many scholars and their works) and found this very useful so that I could read the better known examples that Troup discusses in each section. This book is a good spring board to further studies in the historian's journey to becoming thinking historian who is sensitive to the relationship between worldview, interpretation and methods in the historian's research.
Dull Dull Dull This Book needs to be reworked........2005-12-12
I am a university student majoring in history. I was forced to endure the reading of this book for a course in historical methods. I found the book to be very dull in its presentation and arguments about the historical house. This is not just my opinion but that of my fellow students as well. In a class of thirty people only two or three found the book excellent to use the rest of us found it a disaster. There are numerous other sources out there that present this material in a more colorful and interesting fashion. I am no fan of this book. The book does present the very broad subdivisions of historical research. I disagree with anyone who is in the study of history that allows one book, one professor, or one course to mold their like or dislike for this discipline. I suffered through this book because it was mandated for the course. I did learn something about the topic. So in that way the book did have useful information in it. I just would like to suggest to those who want to learn about the historical houses of history that there is an abundant amount of material available both on the web and published that is much better in presentation then this book. For the dullness and lackluster presentation of the material I gave this book only 3 stars.
Great intro text - which Jay obviously couldn't handle.......2005-07-11
Great book. Before I read it, I had been confused by the various historiographical 'houses.' Now I know what's what. Anyone who's doing a historiography course at university should read this book because it (a) explains most things well and (b) makes it clear that there is a lot of conscious consideration behind how historians approach the past, which I think anyone who plans to study the past for a living needs to know. Jay's negative review shows he isn't willing to engage in a sophisticated analysis of the historian's influence on history.
Don't listen to Jay!.......2002-12-05
This is a response to the first review written by Jay, who claims that this book made him hate history, and further, change majors because of it. If this is the case, then that it great. The study of history doesn't need people like Jay! The value of this text is that it presents a brief synopsis of the main schools of historical thought, and an according sample with each. Jay is obviously of the dominant school (empiricist) that thinks history chould be treated like a science, without concern for philosophical questions. Despite what you may think about postmodernism, it has unearthed the deception of the empiricist school. By professing their method as THE path to THE truth, empiricists cut off unthought ideas by setting up a power discourse. They rule the universities, and anyone who wants to become a 'professional' historian must take his/her PHD pill from them. HOUSES OF HISTORY is a great text for the beginner in that it provides a brief summary of the schools of history, which is invaluable in undertaking a historiography course. Historiography is NOT boring and useless, and any historian who thinks it is is simply trying to prevent new ideas from emerging, ideas that might (oh no!) compromise his/her position. Don't listen to Jay.
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- The Alfred Hitchcock Story
- The Jungle Book: A Pop-Up Adventure
- The Ant and the Elephant: Leadership For the Self
- The Power Of The 7 Habits: Applications And Insights
- Perfect Competition and the Transformation of Economics
- Kompass Singapore, 2002
COLOSSUS
Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power
The God Delusion
Dangerous Nation
Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq
