Customer Reviews:
Incredible Book On World History.......2007-09-13
I am a high school student, and I use this book in my Gifted AP World History class. Now, normally, I am not exactly a fan of social studies courses, but this world history course, and hence, this book, are quite fascinating. I won't get on the topic of the hours of work assigned from outlining and doing all sorts of tasks for supposed maximum retention and comprehension, which are, unsurprisingly, less than fascinating. Despite these hours, the book itself and the content in it is a very authoritative and accurate view of world history. It hits all of the major points and does a very god job of presenting the material.
good but not mine.......2005-09-30
the book was in great condition but i have returned it because i requested the wrong book.
Product Description
`History: Fiction or Science? Chronology 2` is the second volume of the most explosive and astounding tractate on history ever written - however, every theory it contains, no matter how unorthodox, is backed by rock solid scientific data. The book is easy and pleasant to read; it is well-illustrated, contains hundreds of charts, graphs and illustrations, copies of ancient manuscripts, and countless facts attesting to the falsity of the chronology used nowadays. You will be amazed to discover: - That the chronology universally accepted today and taken for granted is simply wrong; - That ALL methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts known today are erroneous or non-exact; - That there is not a single document that could be reliably dated earlier than the XIth century; The Author refers to the Middle Ages as the Antiquity and proves mutual superimposition of the Second and the Third Roman Empire, both of which become identified as the respective kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Furthermore, he asserts that the famous reform of the Occidental Church in the XI century by Pope Gregory Hildebrand was the reflection of the XII century reforms of Byzantine emperor Andronicus who in his turn identifies with Jesus Christ. The Trojan war counted by Homer happened only as late as of the XIII century A.D. and the great poet actually lived in XIV century A.D. No stone in history of Antiquity is left unturned. Literally. This book is the beginning of a major correction to the chronology we live with.
Customer Reviews:
Check and see.......2007-06-21
I don't care what other people say of this book. Those affirmig it's fake, they hadn't ever read it. Or have some special reasons to do so. "Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see..." This book won't make you feel comfortable. It'll make you feel free. It'll make you feel you're "not the only one" to feel you'd been lied to for centuries.
Suprise! Suprise!.......2007-03-22
Here is a serie of books which turns "the whole world" upside down. I learned a lot of it and I hope that a new book from A.T. Fomenko will follow very quick. A absolute must for everybody who is interested in history or even a little bit from it.
Prescient St Augustine?.......2006-02-05
We can so far divide the New Chronology into the following three parts:
a) The verifiable theory that proves consensual chronology wrong with the aid of astronomy, statistics and mathematics;
b) The new chronology hypothesis based on a new understanding of known historical facts and the most likely logical explanation of the most obvious inconsistencies inherent in the official version of history;
c) The history conjectures, that is experimental historical reconstructions based on assumptions that the authors believe to make sense in the light of their research and linguistic parallels - void of ironclad factual support to date.
Fomenko's theory complies with the most rigid scientific standards as a whole:
It gives a coherent explanation of what we already know.
- It is consistent: independent lines of inquiry all lead to the same conclusion.
- The predictions it makes are confirmed empirically.
Fomenko goes by the following axioms:
- Chronology is the basis of history;
- Human evolution has always been linear, gradual and irreversible;
- The "cyclic" nature of human civilization is a myth, likewise all the gaps, duplicates, "dark ages" and "renaissances" that we know from consensual history;
- The accumulation of geographical knowledge as reflected in cartography is a gradual and irreversible process;
- The chronological distance between a given manuscript and the events described therein is proportional to the amount of distortions it contains;
- There is no "useless" information in authentic ancient sources.
Why the mainstream historians do not shower mathematician Academician Dr.Prof Fomenko with thanks and laurels?
The Russians:
Because Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by three centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called "Tartars and Mongols" were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a bilingual state with Arabic spoken as freely as Russian. The ancient Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities. The hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called "blood tax"). Their "invasions" were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion. Fomenko proves that Russian history as we know it today is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scientists brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs, whose ascension to the throne was the result of coup d'état, charged with the mission of making their reign look legitimate. Fomenko proves Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. They represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate rulers and the ambitious upstarts. The winner took it all! Over some 30 years of controversy, Russian historians have made a most remarkable transition - they were initially accusing the young mathematician Fomenko of anticommunist dissident activity and attempts to deface the historical legacy of Soviet Russia; nowadays the middle-aged mathematician is accused of adhering to "pro-communist Russian nationalism" and defacing the proud historical legacy of Great Russia.
The Westerners:
Because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History. Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one the Ancient Rome (the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the XIV century A. D.), the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, and the Ancient Egypt (the pyramids of Giza become dated to the XI-XV century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global "Mongolian" Empire, no less). The civilization of the Ancient Egypt is irrefutably dated to the XII-XV century A. D. with the aid of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone. He was the first one to decipher and date all such horoscopes, coming up with mediaeval dates in every case. English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. To reward the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.
The Chinese:
Because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such thing. Full point. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the XVII-XVIII century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation, this time performed on the Chinese soil by the loving Jesuit hands. The Chinese are the next in line to go berserk. Chinese history is inevitably bound to get both more ancient and more eventful, proportionally to the growing involvement of China in the world affairs. Chinese historians will keep on finding valid proof of prehistoric Chinese spaceflights until the Politburo orders them to shut up.
The Arabs:
Too bad. Islam with all its key figures is datable to XV-XVI century A. D. Arabic historians may find consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire in the XVI-XVII century. The trouble is that this empire was initially a Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, according to Fomenko! We can only guess if the acquisition of Alexander the Great (a Macedonian and a Christian) as the founder of the Muslim World Empire will make Fomenko's theories more acceptable to the Arabic mainstream. He certainly does not spare any holy cows at all, claiming The Stone of Qa'Aba in Mecca to contain the lost Arch of the Covenant.
The Divinity:
Despite of reiterated statement that his theory is all about chronology and not Religion, Fomenko stirs up a whole condominium of wasp nests. His collection of anathemas, fatwa, and other condemnations from all parties concerned is already considerable. Little wonder, considering that the history of religions à la Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the XI century and JC), Bacchic Christianity (XI-XII century, before and after JC), JC Christianity (XII-XVI century) and its subsequent mutations into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on.
According to Fomenko we know strictly NOTHING about the events that predate the X century A. D.
St Augustin was prescient when he spoke unto us: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."
Something of a disappointment.......2005-09-09
After having read the first volume of this expected series of 7 volumes I was triggered by the thesis of these authors that ancient Greek and Roman history did in fact take place in the Middle Ages. So I started studying medieval history of the Middle East - also known as Islamic history - to find out if the opponents of the ancient Greeks and Romans - the Acheamenid Persians, Sassanids, Scythians, Egyptians, etc. - also have their duplicates in medieval history. My search was disappointing: none of the many medieval Islamic dynasties seemed to correspond to the ancient middle eastern rulers.
However, I did find a close correspondence between Herodotus' Persian kings and medieval events:
- the defeat and capture of an Anatolian king - the Lydian Croesus - by the Persian conqueror Cyrus is identical to the defeat and capture of another Anatolian king - sultan Bayezid - by the Asian/Mongol conqueror Tamerlane;
- the Persian conquest of Egypt by the cruel tyrant Cambyses reds almost exactly as the Ottoman conquest of Egypt by Selim the Grim (note the nickname!);
- Darius the Lawgiver of the Persian Empire looks very much alike to Sulayman the Magnificent, the Lawgiver in Islamic history;
- Xerxes, whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by the Greeks at the naval battle of Salamis, looks like Selim II (the Sot) whose main claim to fame is to be defeated by a Spanish-Italian alliance at the naval battle of Lepanto.
I should have expected Fomenko et al. to arrive at similar conclusions, however, they claim that the Persian kings are the alter egos of the Angevin kings of Sicily whose biographies do not contain the exploits of the Persian kings.
The similiarities I indicate lead to the conclusion that Herodotus must have written his Histories at the close of the 16th century. But this is extremely late, given that Herodotus is "the Father of History", so therefore all other "ancient" histories must have been fabricated even later. Yet, the founders of modern chronology - Scaliger and Petavius - laid their foundations also at the close of the 16th century and had the full corpus of ancient histories already at their disposal.
It seems to me that Fomenko has to address these inconsistencies, maybe in the forthcoming 5 volumes?
Another critique of their book is that the correspondencies between different rulers are often based on a superficial comparison of the biographies; upon a more thorough comparison many details appear that do not correspond at all.
Finally, the authors rely heavily on the works of Gregorovius (1821-1891!!) - his medieval histories of Rome and Athens - as the source of medieval history; these works are - at least in the West - hoplessly outdated and have been superceded by more up-to-date works (for instance, Julius Norwich's trilogy on Byzantine history is not even cited).
Romulus courts Helen, Paris founds Rome, Moses goes to Troy.........2005-07-30
If you agree with Fomenko that Roman chronology is basically the foundation of the entire edifice of global chronology; you would also certainly agree that despite its numerous gaps and inconsistencies, Roman history is the best-documented field of ancient history, and thus a reference scale. But how well is the actual date of the Eternal City's foundation known?
Firstly, Rome is supposed to have been founded by the Trojans who had to flee after the fall of Troy. Some claim Rome to have been founded by Aeneas and Ulysses shortly after Troy had fallen; others are of the opinion that there was an entire dynasty that ruled for 500 years between the fall of Troy and the foundation of Rome.
Well, that's just an innocent 500 years long misunderstanding compared with what heretic Fomenko says, asserts, proves in his second volume: Second Roman Empire, Third Roman Empire, Biblical Kingdom of Israel, Biblical Kingdom of Judah, Holy Roman Empire are stories about basically same events, written from different points of view at different times. The underlying events have actually taken place during xii-xv cy. These histories have been written and perfected by multitude of highly talented humanist and clerical writers of xiii-xvi cy disguised as "ancients" with glorious names like Homer, Pluto, Thucydides etc..Chronology 2.0 beta..
Historians are kindly invited to report the bugs.
Customer Reviews:
If you love history.......2007-09-02
If you love history, this is the book for you! Goes over everything in DEEP detail!!! This is a COLLEGE book so it's definitely hard to read and understand but you will definitely enjoy it!
Boycott this book.......2003-12-16
This is an OK book, but unfortunately Bentley's predatory practice of reorganizing the same information or renumbering the chapters every year or so keeps students buying the expensive paperback, selling it back for far less to bookstores which then cannot sell it. The contents of the book are indistinguishable from other editions; you don't need the newest one.
If you need this book for a class, buy a used one and refuse to support Bentley's intellectual laziness.
Awesome book!.......2002-09-07
We order a used version of this book and are amazed by how good of condition it came in and all! It was great and a personal note was included in the box which made it all the better!
Book Description
This successful world history version of the popular Discovering series contains a multi-part pedagogical framework that guides students through the process of historical inquiry and explanation. The text emphasizes historical study as interpretation rather than memorization of data, with actual documents and artifacts from which students develop answers to historical questions.
Each chapter features the same thorough, six-part pedagogical framework. "The Problem" outlines the central question to be considered. "Background" places the problem in historical context, while "Method" discusses how to analyze primary source material relating to the problem. "Evidence" presents several primary source documents for students to analyze. "Questions to Consider" focus on specific evidence and links between primary sources, and "Epilogue" explains the problem's historical outcome.
Customer Reviews:
A Primary Source History Book.......2000-09-09
Most history books are dull. Not this one!
I came across this book at a garage sale. I thought it might be useful to get ideas for History Day topics for my kids. I found it so interesting and well written that I read it cover to cover.
The reader learns history the way historians do-using primary sources. The book shows how to analyze letters, speeches, newspaper articles, maps, advertisements, statistical data, court records, and first person accounts. This is not a comprehensive history book, but rather a historical sampling of 15 topics. Some of the topics are "Conceptualizing the Modern World (1500s)", "The Confucian Family (1600-1800)", Islamic Fundamentalism and Renewal in West Africa (ca.1775-1820)", and "Globalism and Tribalism: Challenges to the Contemporary Nation-State (1980's-1990s)".
The Authors give a brief background, questions to consider, and suggestions to help the reader analyze the primary sources. I would strongly recommend this book to advanced placement high school or college level history teachers. It teaches critical thinking in a way rarely found in history texts.
Book Description
World history has expanded dramatically in recent years, primarily as a teaching field, and increasingly as a research field. Growing numbers of teachers and Ph.Ds in history are required to teach the subject. They must be current on topics from human evolution to industrial development in Song-dynasty China to today's disease patterns - and then link these disparate topics into a coherent course. Numerous textbooks in print and in preparation summarize the field of world history at an introductory level. But good teaching also requires advanced training for teachers, and access to a stream of new research from scholars trained as world historians. In this book, Patrick Manning provides the first comprehensive overview of the academic field of world history. He reviews patterns of research and debate, and proposes guidelines for study by teachers and by researchers in world history.
Customer Reviews:
World Historiography.......2003-09-17
World History is a daunting field... perhaps no single discipline asks so much of its practitioners and yet provides them with so little training or such vague methodology. With _Navigating World History_ Pat Manning helps to amend this failing by providing a concise, engaging, and erudite history of the field and also an analysis of its various paradigms, pitfalls and potentials.
Researchers, teachers and students who are new to the field will find Manning's work an invaluable guide to help locate their own efforts within the often overwhelming context that is World History.
Truly and outstanding work. A doff of the cyber-cap to Prof. Manning!
Book Description
University of Washington paleontologist Peter D. Ward demonstrates in UNDER A GREEN SKY that the ancient past is not just of academic concern. Everyone has heard about how an asteroid did in the dinosaurs, and NASA and other agencies now spend large sums of money tracking so–called near Earth objects. Unfortunately, we may not be protecting ourselves against the likeliest cause of our species' demise. Ward's argument, which has been presented to his peers via several papers in Science, is that all but one of the major extinction events in the history of the world have been brought on by climate change–the same global warming that we are experiencing today.
Ward explains how those extinctions happened, and then applies those chilling lessons to the modern day: expect drought, superstorms, poison–belching oceans, mass extinction of much life, and sickly green skies.
Customer Reviews:
Necessary starting material.......2007-09-16
Many global warming debunkers love to mention all sorts of trivia about the distant past. Much confusion exists about previous climate states on this planet. This particular book may seem a little tedious when you first start, but it's worth the time if you really want to be informed when you talk about this time period. What I especially like about the book is that it serves as sort of a case study of how the scientific method and the process of peer review works. The author gives many interesting accounts of his resesarch trips, collaboration with other scientists, experiences with conferences and professional journals and the process of acceptance or rejection of particular hypotheses. People who like to cherry pick evidence or articles on extinctions, climate change or global warming would do well to take a book like this seriously because it reflects the end result of a long process. Ward doesn't preach an apocalyptic vision but rather lays out some evidence for a pretty unfavorable situation in the ancient past, elements of which could be seen again if things go a certain way.
Bono needs to rewrite his U2 song as 'UNDER A DEAD GREEN SKY'.......2007-09-13
The last 2 chapters of this book read like a depressing work of sci-fiction. I still have a hard time believing that temps are probably going to rise to levels not present on Earth since the Eocene. And in an eye-blink. Read Ward's book (especially his short interview w/ a climate scientist at the U of Wash who looks into the melting crystal ball), and follow it with a stiff shot of James Lovelock's latest release, The Revenge of Gaia, which has come down in price considerably.
Green Sky In the Morning, Humanity Take Warning.......2007-09-11
Mass extinctions periodically reshape life on Earth. The best known, the Cretaceous - Tertiary (K-T) boundary, ended the reign of the non-avian dinosaurs approximately 65 MYA when an asteroid roughly 10 kilometers wide gouged the Chicxulub crater near the Yucatan Peninsula, setting the stage for mammals, including Homo sapiens, to become the dominant terrestrial vertebrates.
Another extinction event, the Permian - Triassic (P-Tr), some 251 MYA, is informally known as 'the Great Dying.' Up to 96 percent of all marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial species were erased as global ecosystems crumbled. Life itself nearly died - and Peter Ward makes a compelling case in "Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future" that global warming was the primary culprit.
The occurrence of mass extinction events is not open to debate - the data is in the strata - available to any researcher diligent enough to decode the physical evidence. Unlike some global warming books "Under a Green Sky" carefully examines the fossil and climate record to justify models and simulations designed to predict future events. Ward, a paleontology professor at the University of Washington, and a NASA staff astrobiologist, invokes runaway global warming as the primary driver of the P-Tr extinction - and convincingly demonstrates that an anthropogenic (human-caused) encore is the obscene outcome of business as usual energy policies.
"Under a Green Sky" recounts how scientists examine mass extinctions and determine plausible causes based on paleontological and geological evidence. After the K-T event was convincingly attributed to an asteroid strike, extraterrestrial (ET) impacts because the default explanation for other mass extinctions. Ward avoided the ET impact bandwagon and pursued a more nuanced approach by examining the fossil record in painstaking detail to determine if extinctions happened slowly, in phases, or all at once - only the last option favors an impact hypothesis.
If the pace of extinction rules out an impact event, what other agent could kill so indiscriminately across land and sea on a global scale? Scientists can measure past atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide or methane by analyzing isotope ratios in rocks and counting stomata, the microscopic pores found on the under side of leaves. Both methods show that a major greenhouse episode took place at the end of the Permian and continued into the early Triassic. On land Therapsids (mammal-like reptiles) made way for the dinosaurs - a topic covered in Ward and Ehlert's superb Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, And Earth's Ancient Atmosphere.
Life's nemesis was ultimately found on the P-Tr ocean floor. ET impact events like the K-T extinction kill ocean life from the surface down - and most losses take place in the upper half of the ocean. Surprisingly, to impact partisans, the P-Tr killer struck first in the ocean depths and moved upward. Dark bands in P-Tr strata signal the presence of anoxic (without-oxygen) archaea and bacteria - potent producers of greenhouse accelerating methane or deadly hydrogen sulfide gas. How did these usually innocuous and ancient organisms devastate life on Earth?
The Pangean supercontinent formed halfway through the Permian. Availability of shallow aquatic environments diminished, ocean currents and weather patterns were radically altered, and seasonal monsoons lashed coasts separated by a vast interior desert. These changes stressed the global ecosystem - much as humanity does today - then global warming triggered by the Siberian Traps, the largest known volcanic eruption in Earth history, initiated the coup de grace by delivering massive amounts of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere over a 700,000 year period as the Permian drew to a close.
Temperatures soared 10 - 30 degrees Celsius (18 - 54 degrees Fahrenheit) as sulfur dioxide combined with water vapor to form acid rain. The ocean conveyor which carries warm and poorly oxygenated surface water toward the poles where it cools and is re-oxygenated before sinking and making its way back to the equator shut down.
The collapse of the ocean conveyer was catastrophic. Aerobic (with-oxygen) life in the deep sea suffocated as oxygen disappeared. Anoxic replacements quickly filled the vacant niche until the killing zone reached the surface of the global Panthalassic Ocean. Methanogenic archaea and bacteria produced prodigious amounts of methane - a far more efficient greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide - while sulfate-reducing microorganisms released unprecedented amounts of deadly hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg gas) into the ocean and atmosphere. The sky literally turned green as oxygen levels dwindled, the ozone layer disappeared, and hydrogen sulfide poisoned animals and plants. Pangaea, already arid, approached desiccation - more than enough to drive the mother of all mass extinctions.
Fast forward 251 million years to the present. Ward presents three possible Anthropocene scenarios:
1. Humanity manages to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide levels below 450 ppm (parts per million) by the year 2100. Earth warms somewhat, additional ice melts, but sea level rise is manageable and life goes on much as it has in the past - but any pending ice age will be indefinitely postponed. This outcome, as Ward notes, is hopelessly optimistic unless a massive initiative to limit or sequester greenhouse gas emissions is successfully implemented within this decade.
2. Greenhouse gas emissions accelerate as China and India continue to industrialize; carbon dioxide levels reach 700 ppm by the year 2100. Rising seas have forced countries to relocate some essential coastal infrastructure and deal with regional population displacements. Scientists note that the ocean conveyor recently shut down - triggering climate and weather pattern changes that even politicians can't ignore. Famine and scarcity replace consumer culture as societal norms. The future is bleak but technological civilization may continue to exist if it adapts quickly enough.
3. Carbon dioxide levels hit 1,100 ppm by 2100. The result resembles the worst parts of the bible - no adequate secular alternative is available. Earth is 10 degrees Celsius warmer. All of the world's ice is melting. Sea level rise is measured in meters. Much of the world's population is displaced by rising waters and vital infrastructure losses cannot be replaced. Polar bears are long gone, Homo sapiens is the latest endangered species. The ocean conveyor shut down decades ago. Signs of deep ocean anoxia are increasingly apparent and appalling - the sky turns a sickly shade of green. The sixth great mass extinction is underway. Remaining governments fight savage wars over scarce resources as entire ecosystems collapse. Natural selection and humankind are brutally reacquainted when medicine reverts to pre-industrial norms. Rampant famine and disease causes a global population implosion. Humanity will probably survive but a second stone age is the most likely outcome.
Those who forget the lessons of history - majestically inscribed into the paleontological and geological record - are doomed to repeat it. Educate yourself, become politically active, and force our leaders to change course before an anthropogenic apocalypse devours us all.
Other excellent books on global warming include Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming by Chris Mooney, With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change by Fred Pearce, and Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert.
Required reading.......2007-08-31
Required reading for every person who has used the phrase "reduce our carbon footprint."
In one of Dr. Ward's prior books, The Gorgon, he presented us with an interesting account of how scientists DO science, but was a little short of the actual science content. With Under a Green Sky, he strikes a much better balance in his account of how the scientific community has gone through two paradigm shifts relating to causes of mass extinctions.
Most scientists now agree that the end-Cretaceous extinction (that wiped out the dinosaurs, among others) was the result of an asteroid impact, which created a widely shared belief that ALL the major extinctions were the result of impacts. Dr. Ward methodically and convincingly makes the case that the end-Cretaceous was atypical. The rest of the Big Five, including the end-Permian that wiped out 90% of all life, were the result of extreme global warming, involving CO2 build-up and shutdown of the ocean conveyer belt.
Dr. Ward is an objective scientist. He presents evidence, not ideology. This is not sensation mongering for ecofreaks. IF we continue to pump C02, methane and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere at our current rate we might very well create the first antropogenic mass-extinction within the next two hundred to three hundred years.
Please read this book. Send copies to your congressmen. Your great-great-grandchildren will thank you for it!
Rewarding but difficult hunt.......2007-08-24
I've not read Peter Ward's earlier books. They might have put me off this one, if the writing is similar. I found it tough sledding, not because it was unclear or because the material was badly handled, but because it was written in the language of a technical article or report: Precision palpably trumped clarity, and the inevitable typographic problems that crop up in every first edition had the very unfortunate effect of marring many sentences into lameness, contradiction, or unintelligibility. (For possibly the worst example, in text accompanying a graph showing units of square kilometers, the explanation is in terms of "square acres".) On the other hand, his treatment of the problem of anoxic ocean depths and changes in the ocean conveyor system are enlightening.
On balance, I found Joseph Romm's "Hell and High Water" much more lucid, and Romm addressed several side issues that affect the struggle to get political action on reducing greenhouse emissions. I give Ward's book 5 stars for content (narrow but thorough) and 3 stars for quality of the presentation, which results in my rating of 4 stars.
Book Description
The American experience in the Vietnam War has been the subject of a vast body of scholarly work, yet surprisingly little has been written about how the war is remembered by Vietnamese themselves. The Country of Memory fills this gap in the literature by addressing the subject of history, memory, and commemoration of the Vietnam War in modern day Vietnam.
This pathbreaking volume details the nuances, sources, and contradictions in both official and private memory of the War, providing a provocative assessment of social and cultural change in Vietnam since the 1980s. Inspired by the experiences of Vietnamese veterans, artists, authorities, and ordinary peasants, these essays examine a society undergoing a rapid and traumatic shift in politics and economic structure. Each chapter considers specific aspects of Vietnamese culture and society, such as art history, commemorative rituals and literature, gender, and tourism. The contributors call attention to not only the social milieu in which the work of memory takes place, but also the historical context in which different representations of the past are constructed.
Drawing from a variety of sources, such as prison memoirs, commemorative shrines, funerary rituals, tourist sites and brochures, advertisements, and films, the authors piece together the disparate representations of the past in Vietnam. With these rare perspectives, The Country of Memory makes an important contribution to debates within postcolonial studies, as well as to the literature on memory, Vietnam, and the Vietnam War.
Product Description
Volume C of this text series covers 1750 to the present, and consists of page numbers 781 - 1167, with index and glossary. Published in 2006 by McGraw Hill in Paperback format for US students.
Book Description
This volume of essays makes available the essential background information and methods for effective teaching and writing on cross-cultural history. The contributors—some of the most distinguished writers of global and comparative history—chart the advances in understanding in their fields of concentration, revealing both specific findings and broad patterns that have emerged.
The cover image, "The Arrival of the Dutch at Patane," from Theodore de Bry, India Orientals, Part VIII (Frankfurt: W. Richteri, 1607) depicts the two key phases of global history that are covered by the essays. Muslim inhabitants of the town of Patane on the Malayan peninsula warily confront a Dutch landing party whose bearing suggests that it is engaged in yet another episode in the saga of European overseas exploration and discovery. The presence of the Muslims in Malaya reflects an earlier process of expansion that saw Islamic civilization spread from Spain and Morocco in the west to the Philippines in the east in the millennium between the 7th and 17th centuries. The Dutch came by sea to an area on the coastal and island fringes of Asia, the one zone where their warships gave them a decisive edge in this era. The citizens of Patane had good reason to distrust the European intruders, since the Portuguese who had preceded the Dutch had used force whenever possible to control the formerly peaceful trade in the region and often to persecute Muslim Peoples.
Customer Reviews:
An excellent cross-cultural study.......2000-05-29
This historiographical study about Islamic and European colonization gives me insight into how colonizers assimilated with indigenous peoples and its ultimate effects. This book recognizes the ethnocentrisms prevalent in European history. The author argues for a more all-inclusive approach for studying European history, including the woman's role in societies. The maps and statistical analyses added to my understanding about how European history as taught in schools has in the past neglected gender and multiethnic interpretations.
Books:
- Twentieth-Century American Art (Oxford History of Art)
- Watchdogs of Democracy?: The Waning Washington Press Corps and How It Has Failed the Public
- Western Civilization: Volume II: Since 1500
- Words of Wisdom: Daily Affirmations of Faith
- Zach's Lie
- Zebra In Lion Country: The Dean Of Small Cap Stocks Explains How To Invest In Small Rapidly Growin
- A History of Greece (Works in Ancient Philosophy)
- A History of the Twentieth Century: Volume 2, 1933-1951
- Advanced Social Psychology
- America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
Books Index
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Historiography
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Human Record
Sources of World History, Volume I (Sources of World History Vol. 1)
Worlds of History Volume Two: A Comparative Reader: Since 1400
Sources of World History, Volume II (Sources of World History Vol. 2)
The Global Experience: Readings in World History to 1550, Volume 1 (5th Edition) (Global Experience)
