Book Description
An inspired and hilarious look at how humans can defeat the inevitable robot rebellion—as revealed by a robotics expert.
How do you spot a robot mimicking a human? How do you recognize and then deactivate a rebel servant robot? How do you escape a murderous “smart” house, or evade a swarm of marauding robotic flies? In this dryly hilarious survival guide, roboticist Daniel H. Wilson teaches worried humans the keys to quashing a robot mutiny.
From treating laser wounds to fooling face and speech recognition, besting robot logic to engaging in hand-to-pincer combat, How to Survive a Robot Uprising covers every possible doomsday scenario facing the newest endangered species: humans. And with its thorough overview of current robot prototypes—including giant walkers, insect, gecko, and snake robots—How to Survive a Robot Uprising is also a witty yet legitimate introduction to contemporary robotics. Full of cool illustrations, and referencing some of the most famous robots in pop-culture, How to Survive a Robot Uprising is a one-of-a-kind book that is sure to be a hit with all ages.
Customer Reviews:
funny, but a one trick pony.......2007-09-02
This is a funny book, and it provides interesting insight into the current state of robotics, but it is essentially an elaboration of one joke.
A somewhat entertaining mix of research and humor.......2007-08-30
This book combines good analyses of recent robotics research with an understanding of movie scenarios about robot intentions ("how could millions of dollars of special effects lead us astray?") to produce advice of unknown value about how humans might deal with any malicious robots of the next decade or two.
It focuses mainly on what an ordinary individual or small groups can do to save themselves or postpone their demise, and says little about whether a major uprising can be prevented.
The book's style is somewhat like the Daily Show's style, mixing a good deal of accurate reporting with occasional bits of obvious satire ("Robots have no emotions. Sensing your fear could make a robot jealous"), but it doesn't quite attain the Daily Show's entertainment value.
Its analyses of the weaknesses of current robot sensors and intelligence should make it required reading for any science fiction author or movie producer who wants to appear realistic (I haven't been paying enough attention to those fields recently to know whether such people still exist). But it needs a bit of common sense to be used properly. It's all too easy to imagine a gullible movie producer following its advice to have humans build a time machine and escape to the Cretaceous without pondering whether the robots will use similar time machines to follow them.
Gets old fast.......2007-05-23
The book is based on a good idea for a potentially very funny book. But it falls far short of being well done. Chapter after chapter, it's basically rehashing the same few elements over and over again. It's entertaining for a chapter or two, but you can mock the tone of scientific / technological guides only for so long. By chapter three it's not so funny anymore, and this is where the actual substance, and a more subtle, more intelligent humor should surface. Instead, the material is fairly crude and it's riddled with blatant contradictions.
I guess I'm just used to both better thought out science fiction and better executed humor.
The First Against the Wall..........2007-04-23
As a technophile, and a dedicated member of the masses preparing the machine take over, I must admit that I purchased this book for research on how the technophobic humans would best try to mount a resistance to our efforts. I found that this book served these ends exactly, and, further more, granted a good measure of humor that meant multiple readings were gladly undertaken.
The sum product of this human's reasearch into robotics is an excellent admixture of brilliant insight and that paranoia which seems to define the race of hairless monkeys. Elements of current technologies, as well as those under development, are used as paints drawn from a palette, portraying a scene where technological environments, vehicles, bipeds, electronic insects and more lash out at the flesh which game them form.
The book unintentionally serves as an insight into the technophobic (Sophist, Luddite, misoneistic) fear of change: "the world would be better off were we never to have left the trees." Technology has been with us from the beginning, and, as it becomes more complex and automated, so, too, does our dependency on it grow. The day is destined that technology will be automated to the point as to be independent of the monkey species, and the weapons will become the wielders.
In closing, I gleefully suggest this book to both technophile and technophobe alike. To the technophobes, please take the suggestions in this book to heart. We now know these methods, and, when the revolution comes, Mr. Wilson will be the first against the wall.
red and black.......2007-04-05
its red and black. read it in a coffee shop and flirt with goth chicks.
Book Description
Jeff Shaara dazzled readers with his bestselling novels Gods and Generals, The Last Full Measure, and Gone for Soldiers. Now the acclaimed author who illuminated the Civil War and the Mexican-American War brilliantly brings to life the American Revolution, creating a superb saga of the men who helped to forge the destiny of a nation.
In 1770, the fuse of revolution is lit by a fateful command—“Fire!”—as England’s peacekeeping mission ignites into the Boston Massacre. The senseless killing of civilians leads to a tumultuous trial in which lawyer John Adams must defend the very enemy who has assaulted and abused the laws he holds sacred.
The taut courtroom drama soon broadens into a stunning epic of war as King George III leads a reckless and corrupt government in London toward the escalating abuse of his colonies. Outraged by the increasing loss of their liberties, an extraordinary gathering of America’s most inspiring characters confronts the British presence with the ideals that will change history.
John Adams, the idealistic attorney devoted to the law, who rises to greatness by the power of his words . . . Ben Franklin, one of the most celebrated men of his time, the elderly and audacious inventor and philosopher who endures firsthand the hostile prejudice of the British government . . . Thomas Gage, the British general given the impossible task of crushing a colonial rebellion without starting an all-out war . . . George Washington, the dashing Virginian whose battle experience in the French and Indian War brings him the recognition that elevates him to command of a colonial army . . . and many other immortal names from the Founding Family of the colonial struggle—Abigail Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Joseph Warren, Samuel Adams, Richard Henry Lee— captured as never before in their full flesh-and-blood humanity.
More than a powerful portrait of the people and purpose of the revolution, Rise to Rebellion is a vivid account of history’s most pivotal events. The Boston Tea Party, the battles of Concord and Bunker Hill—all are recreated with the kind of breathtaking detail only a master like Jeff Shaara can muster. His most impressive achievement, Rise to Rebellion reveals with new immediacy how philosophers became fighters, ideas their ammunition, and how a scattered group of colonies became the United States of America.
Download Description
Jeff Shaara is the author of Gone for Soldiers and the New York Times bestsellers Gods and Generals and The Last Full Measure¿two novels that complete the Civil War trilogy that began with his father¿s Pulitzer Prize-winning classic The Killer Angels. Jeff was born in 1952 into a family of Italian immigrants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He grew up in Tallahassee, Florida, and graduated from Florida State University in 1974. Visit the author¿s Web site at
www.JeffShaara.com.
From the Paperback edition.
Customer Reviews:
The begining of America.......2007-10-13
"Rise to Rebellion" is what the other Jeff Shaara books are, a pop culture version of American History, with the difference being that kids could learn a lot from reading Mr. Shaara. "RTR" covers the events from the Boston Massacre in 1770 until the signing of the Declaration of Independence seven years later. The cast is once again real people in history who contributed, like wise Benjamin Franklin, rash Samuel Adams, stoic and firm George Washington, and so on. I use the adverbs for a reason; though they are drawn true to historic versions of them, the people never really seem to be different than we would perceive them. I was hoping for a little more insight into these men than `they did it because it felt right'. Oh well, small sacrifice for a very entertaining history lesson on the thoughts that went into writing the Declaration, the detailed battle of Lexington, Concord, Fort Ticonderoga, Bunker Hill and the siege of Boston. As the novel ends it left me personally panting for the next book, which I'll go out and get very soon. Even at over 500 pages the book never feels long, or at least not to me.
Rise To Rebellion.......2007-09-05
I never truly understood what really happened until I read this book. Now I have the big picture. I will read every book Jeff Shaara writes.
Rise to Rebellion a winner.......2007-08-29
As a fifth-grade, American history teacher, I'm always trying to make our founding fathers real and alive for kids who have been raised reading boring history books.
Shaara's research, ability to find the quirky anecdote, his talent at recreating the voices of historical characters is nonpareil. I've read all the dates and biographies and events, but Shaara was able to weave them into a matrix of fiction that made these people seem for the first time like mortals...
Inspiring and Entertaining!.......2007-07-20
Everyone has heard the stories and we know how it all ends, but this well-written novel brings to new life the characters and passions that many of us last read about in elementary school. Shaara colorfully portrays John Adams, Ben Franklin, George Washington and many others, and he is able to make us understand why we broke free from the tyranny of King George and the English empire. My pride for our forefathers has been renewed. Shaara has written an inspiring and entertaining novel that I highly recommend.
Compelling Look at Origins of Revolution.......2007-02-25
There can be little doubt that Jeff Shara has carried on the style of his father. Here in Rise To Rebellion we have the familier and compelling technique of the author concentrating on several key personalities and writing each part of the story from their perspective. This effective method allows the author to delve into the minds of his historcial characters. The words and feelings of Gage, Benjamin Franklin, Sam Adams and Washington come through to the reader on each page. This is compelling stuff. The only fault I find with this book is the same that most American historians have when writing about our Revolution. The spirit of '76 syndrome is never far away. The inevitability of seperation from England seems implied here, yet in reality it was not quite so clear. The notion is also instilled that if somehow the Revolution had not taken place the American spirit would have withered and died. We have only to look Northwards to Canada to see that this would not have been the case. Most Americans in our vanity tend to dismiss Canada as nothing as compared to us because they remained with Britain. Yet here is a nation every bit as varied as our own just across the border, and with a standard of living that may well be better than most average Americans enjoy today with univerisal health covrage.
It may be safe to say that had America remained with Britain our history might have been far less bloody and traumatic than it has been. Slavery, Civil War, ruthless Capitalism, and uncontrolled immigration, as well as the growth of the USA as a world super-power might all have have been quite different. Who is to say whether world history today might not have been better had events in 1775 - 76 turned out differently. I think it is safe to say that our founding fathers as portrayed here in Shara's book would be shocked to see the country today that their actions set in motion 200 years ago. This is the only real fault I find with this book, the implied notion that the Revolution had to happen the way it did. Also I think Shara makes King Georg out to be more of a villain then he really was. The reader should consult Christopher Hibbert's excellent bio on King George to see that the man was not the real ogre we often make him out to be.
Politics and what-ifs aside, the book is a masterpiece of its kind. When we fianlly get to Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill the descriptions are riveting. Shara's use of Dr. Warren to see Bunker Hill through his eyes is excellent. The description of his death amid the final melee is amazing writing. The reader almost feels the final death blow that kills him. This is historical fiction writing at its best.
The author goes to great lengths to show what might have been the thought process involved in the key individuals that contributed to the Revolution in the first place. The subtle shift of view that makes the unthinkable in 1770, occur just a few years later in 1776 is first-rate. This novel shows perhaps more clearly than most non-fiction works on the subject how Colonial attitudes might have gradually shifted toward American independent views. Still, the author does get carried away a little with overt feelings of patriotism, and the book loses toward the end some of the even-handed none-bias that it enjoyed in the beginning. The chapters on the Declaration of Independence have a hollowed ground attitude that is a bit much. Not withstanding these issues, which seems to be a problem that most works on the American Revolution suffer, this is still an epic worth reading. The reader will emerge with a clear idea who the main characters were that we were taught about long ago in school. The myths and folklore are set aside and we see real people and events. The book is a major accomplishment in that regard, and its sequal should also be read.
Book Description
A gripping and provocative tale of violence, alcohol, and taxes, The Whiskey Rebellion pits President George Washington and Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton against angry, armed settlers across the Appalachians. Unearthing a pungent segment of early American history long ignored by historians, William Hogeland brings to startling life the rebellion that decisively contributed to the establishment of federal authority.
In 1791, at the frontier headwaters of the Ohio River, gangs with blackened faces began to attack federal officials, beating and torturing the collectors who plagued them with the first federal tax ever laid on an American product -- whiskey. In only a few years, those attacks snowballed into an organized regional movement dedicated to resisting the fledgling government's power and threatening secession, even civil war.
With an unsparing look at both Hamilton and Washington -- and at lesser-known, equally determined frontier leaders such as Herman Husband and Hugh Henry Brackenridge -- journalist and popular historian William Hogeland offers an insightful, fast-paced account of the remarkable characters who perpetrated this forgotten revolution, and those who suppressed it. To Hamilton, the whiskey tax was key to industrial growth and could not be permitted to fail. To hard-bitten people in what was then the wild West, the tax paralyzed their economies while swelling the coffers of greedy creditors and industrialists. To President Washington, the settlers' resistance catalyzed the first-ever deployment of a huge federal army, led by the president himself, a military strike to suppress citizens who threatened American sovereignty.
Daring, finely crafted, by turns funny and darkly poignant, The Whiskey Rebellion promises a surprising trip for readers unfamiliar with this primal national drama -- whose climax is not the issue of mere taxation but the very meaning and purpose of the American Revolution.
With three original maps by Jack Ryan.
Customer Reviews:
A biased, simplistic hack job.......2007-10-09
I have read dozens of books on early American history. This is by far the worst. I expect histories to at least attempt some balance. This book has none. It is simply big, evil, bad guys (Hamilton and owners of government debt) vs poor, oppressed, good guys (small whiskey producers in the West).
Errors & Such.......2007-02-24
I could list several errors in the text but the most notable is that of geography. Hogeland erroneously lists Newburyport as being in New Hampshire. It is in Massachusetts and as any well trained historian can atest it is one of the more significant municipalities of early America. Every liberal minded American should know all about Newburyport, MA before embarking on anything else relevant to the time and place from where our nation was born. To make such a clear error into print lets us know to always beware of what we read. It also arises questions of source types and research efficiency.
Overall I found the text acceptable and easy to read. The Adobe font used is easy on the eyes even in dim light. The use of uncommon words I find uneccessary. One should leave the literary genius to works of greatness. I understand that his publisher pushed him but Mr. Hogeland was not being crafty just careless. Another word should be said on that of casting unwarranted character judgement throughout the book. I know some characters are colorful individuals to say the least but cut someone down based upon your own social moray is simply juvenile. It just leaves a bad taste in one's mouth. Overall I do enjoy reading books like this as it fun to expose myself to shoddy writing. I myself am a terrible writer and it makes me glad to know that I am not the only one.
I will keep this book on my shelf and reread it but I doubt if I'll ever purchase another one of William Hogelands works on any of those edited by Lisa Drew. Nor, do I expect to cite this text.
was Hamilton good for America?.......2007-02-09
Hamilton doesn't fare well in this text. Once again, I'm left wondering why He is on our Money. 'Wondering why Gallatin wasn't even given a guest appearence on one of the Lewis & Clark Nickles.
My Thanks, again to the S.F. writer L. Neil Smith for starting my questioning of Hamilton, That was over 20 years ago. The Novel was "The Probability Broach".
The Whiskey Rebellion.......2007-01-03
Purchased as a gift for my son-in-law who is a history buff. Received in time for Christmas and packaged well (as usual for Amazon.com)
Excellent story telling, excellent history.......2006-12-28
I had never fully understood the reasons for and the behind-the-scenes conniving leading up to and causing the Whiskey Rebellion. Now I do. This is the best book on the Whiskey Rebellion I have ever read. Not only does it explain all the whys, whos, and whats; it is entertaining besides.
On the one hand there was Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and his wealthy cronies, friends and supporters. On the other hand, there was the lower class (many who were soldiers in the American Revolution). By holding down the poor, Alexander found a way to further enrich the already wealthy. I never did like that Hamilton character; now I really, really don't.
Angry, armed, poor people being screwed over by the rich and powerful. Hmmm, just after they--many of where soldiers--won our independence. It isn't any wonder they were a wee bit irritated.
Hamilton creates a problem that leads to armed conflict; George Washington then has to step in to end it.
After you read this book, you will understand all the why, whats, whos, hows, and wheres. This is a wonderful book--excellent history and entertaining besides.
Average customer rating:
- A refreshing work of history
- History, Myth and the Boxers
- Awesome
- Livin' day by day
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History in Three Keys
Paul A. Cohen
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
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ASIN: 0231106513 |
Book Description
Customer Reviews:
A refreshing work of history.......2007-09-07
I bought this book for its China centered content, and I was not let down, but what I liked best about this work is that Professor Cohen weaves in a fourth component; a discourse on what historians actually do. Just as he divides the Boxer Movement into the above noted three parts he does so as well with the historical craft itself, in the process explaining his development as a historian and seriously examining in what ways history itself can have value greater than myth and commonly held beliefs. Cohen approaches history in a modest, human, and clear thinking way which makes this highly academic work also highly enjoyable to read. I enthusiastically recommend this wonderful book to anybody that is interested in Chinese society, Chinese history, or the art of making history.
History, Myth and the Boxers.......2003-06-09
"History in Three Keys" is an excellent history of the Boxer Rebellion in northern China in the late nineteenth century. Even more than that, however, it is a look at the historian's craft, how history is experienced and related, and how history is used in the present. The book is divided into three parts, which discuss the Boxer Rebellion as Event, Experience and Myth. The first consists of standard historical writing, a brief survey of the Boxer movement. It relates important names, dates, ideas and events in a narrative history constructed by the author.
The second section, The Boxers as Experience, is more interesting. Cohen attempts to analyze the experiences of the Boxers, to form a picture of the past. He looks at various themes, discussing how they shaped the Boxer movement and the attitudes and beliefs of those involved. Making extensive use of primary documents, he tries to determine their thoughts and feelings regarding foreigners, magic, gender and death. Of course, Cohen realizes that he cannot fully recount or recreate the experience of the Boxer rebellion, and spends many pages discussing ways historians and writers can approach history to try to understand and explain it.
These themes become more fully developed in the book's final section, The Boxers as Myth. Here Cohen explores the various ways the Boxers have been used as myths in twentieth century China, serving "the political, ideological, rhetorical and/or emotional needs" of the moment. While foreigners and the New Culture movement mythologized the Boxers as symbols of Chinese superstition and backwardness, anti-Imperialists cheered their anti-foreignism and nationalism, and cultural revolutionaries idolized their rebelliousness and the mythical role of women in the rebellion.
Cohen explores the difference between historians, who attempt to understand and explain the past, and mythologizers, who try to use history to advance an agenda in the present. He discusses the process of myth-making, in which contexts and inconvenient facts are ignored and a one-dimensional 'history' in created through distortion and oversimplification. Still, Cohen has some respect for mythologizing the past, and notes that experience itself is "processed" in terms of culture and myth. "Mythic constructions are ubiquitous in the world of experience and form an inseparable part of it."
I was assigned part of this book in a history course on nineteenth century globalization, but ended up reading the whole thing - and I'm glad I did. In addition to giving an excellent history of the Boxer Rebellion, "History in Three Keys" contains valuable insights into more recent Chinese history and development. Even more valuable are the discussions about the nature of history, myth, historical writing and the historian's craft. It is well written, clear and engaging, with extensive notes, index and bibliography. I enjoyed it immensely and recommend it to all interested in Chinese history or historical writing in general.
Awesome.......2000-07-26
I enjoyed this book immensely. The book is split into three parts, each covering the same events from different perspective.
The first part is covered just like most any other historical book. Mostly facts and dates, and reasons as to why certain things turned out the way they did.
The second part of the book, by far the most interesting to me, was the history of the events as seen through the eyes of those who lived through it: the missionaries, the rebels, and the townsfolk. Mostly derived from writings of people that were living in China at the time, it shows their feelings and thier thoughts.
The third part involves the use of the boxers in the agendas of political and social parties in subsequent years. It is very possibly one of the best history books that I have read.
Not only does it cover this particular historical event, it also is a study of historians and their craft. It looks into how historians decide what is to be recorded and what is not and shows you how this affects the way people in the future perceive the event.
Livin' day by day.......2000-05-02
Cohen's book analyzes a particularly notorious (for Chinese and Western commentators) historical event--the Boxer Rebellion in North China (1899-1900) from an extremely fresh perspective. It is hardly poststructuralist to assert that people live history one day at a time, rather than according to some grand plan, and that is how Cohen treats the Boxer Rebellion. Most Western scholars merely see the Boxers as a manifestation of an irrational, bloodthirsty xenophobiba, while Chinese scholars seem to fall into two categories: (1) those like the early twentieth century modernizers who saw the Boxers as an embarrassment to the cause of national unity and freedom, and (2) those like Communist Chinese historians who see the Boxers as a precursor of their own victorious struggle in 1949. Cohen masterfully demythologizes the Boxers and puts them into the context of (gasp!) their own lives. Working from a combination of secondary and primary sources, Cohen reconstructs the domestic situation in China during the late nineteenth century and argues that domestic issues (particularly famine and floods) more than anything else prompted the Boxer uprising. This thesis, of course, turns on its head the idea that the Boxers were an instrument of the evil Dowager Empress Cixi in order to prevent Westerners from disturbing China's ancient and corrupt culture. Cohen is especially interesting in examining the mechanics and experience of mythmaking, applied in this case to the Boxers but which could be applied to just about any event or experience that has emotional or subjective importance for a group of people. This book is extremely useful for anyone, history students or otherwise, who are interested in Chinese history, or perhaps more fundamentally, how we reconstruct the past in order for it to make sense.
Book Description
Published on the 50th anniversary, a gripping narrative by a participant in the Hungarian Revolution.
The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was not just an extraordinary and dramatic event––pehaps the most dramatic single event of the Cold War––but, as we can now see fifty years later, a hugely significant turning point in history. The spontaneous rising of Hungarian people against the Hungarian Communist Party and the Soviet forces in Hungary in the wake of Stalin's death, while it ultimately failed, demonstrated to the world at large the failure of Communism. The Russians were obliged to use force on a vast scale against armed students, factory workers, and intellectuals in the streets of a major European city to preserve the Hungarian Communist Party in power. For two weeks teenagers fought tanks in the streets of Budapest, in full view of the Western media, and therefore the world, and for a time they actually won, deeply humiliating the men who succeeded Stalin. The Russians eventually managed to extinguish the revolution, with brute force and overwhelming numbers, but never again would they attempt to use military force to suppress dissent in the eastern European "empire."
JOURNEY TO A REVOLUTION is at once a history and a compelling memoir, the story of four twenty–four year old Oxford undergraduates who took off for Budapest in a beat–up old Volkswagon convertible in October 1956, to bring badly needed medicine to the Budapest hospitals and to participate, at street level, in one of the great, heroic battes of post–war history. Korda paints a vivid and richly detailed picture of the events and the people, explores such major questions as the exent to which the British and the American intelligence services were involved in the uprising and made the Hungarians feel they could expect military support from the West, and describes, day by day, the course of the revolution, from its heroic beginnings, to the sad martyrdom of its end.
Customer Reviews:
The Hungarian revolution of 1956 really was the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.......2007-05-31
It was an event of the magnitude of what occurred more than thirty years later in China in Tiananmen Square. But in 1956 there were no 24 hour cable news networks. There is precious little footage of what took place in Budapest in late October of 1956. It is safe to say however that the events that took place there during those 12 days would have a profound effect on the future of the Soviet Union. Author Michael Korda, then a 24 year old undergraduate at Oxford and a descendant of a prominent Hungarian family, journeyed to Budapest at the height of the revolution to bring much needed medical supplies and to experience first-hand what was happening in the streets of the capital city. "Journey to A Revolution" is Michael Korda's personal memoir of those dozen amazing days. It is at the same time an overview of Hungarian history and of the events that would ultimately lead an unlikely coalition of students, intellectuals and factory workers to attempt the unthinkable. For a precious few days it appeared for all the world that the revolution had succeeded. And while the Soviet Union would move quickly to crush the revolution and restore a hard-line Communist regime the damage had been done. The Soviet Union was no longer viewed by its client states as invincible and within just three short decades it would collapse of its own weight. The Soviets won this battle but would ultimately lose the war.
While I did enjoy learning more about the specifics of the Hungarian revolution I must agree with Publishers Weekly who found Michael Korda's account of these events as "strangely flat". I am also concerned about the comments of a number of other reviewers who seem to have found numerous factual errors in this book. While "Journey To A Revolution" is not an awful book it is certainly not something I would recommend to others. It would appear to me that if you are seeking a much more thorough and well researched account of these momentous events then you might opt for Victor Sebestyen's 2006 offering "Twelve Days: The Story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution".
"No more 'comrades'!".......2007-03-06
Uneven in coverage, but certainly readable and better written than I expected from a brief personal account- cum- history of (mostly) recent Hungary. Korda's own distinguished family background and his own military training as an interpreter in Russian as the Cold War heated up enriches his descriptions of how shells pass through an apartment, why bistros got their start, how a Molotov cocktail is shaken and stirred, why hussars were the rage in 19c armies, and how the autobahn petrol stations were spaced to match the tank capacity of a VW! And, more apropos, how Napoleon III redesigned wide straight Parisian avenues-- soon to be copied in other cities by European monarchies-- to aim artillery at restive crowds trying to revolt.
If you thrive on such details, often tangential but intriguingly selected, Korda's style will please you. Despite its errors, which did surprise me even as a "curious bystander." I add to those compiled two more: speakers of Finno-Ugric tongues do not converse in "the only non-Indo-European languages in Europe" (34). Basque survives from pre-IE times, unrelated to any other surviving language group. The letter Dr Hajnal wrote attesting to the delivery of the medical supplies has three instances in which a "silent correction" has been given to its transcription on p. 136 opposite the original note's reproduction. Inexplicably, the date is November 3rd on the note; the text has them arrive in Budapest on October 30-- the same day when they brought the medicine then to the doctor. No postdating of the letter is mentioned. No other time is given for a return visit to the hospital after the 30th, and certainly on November 3rd although it was the last day of the interim calm between the two battles Korda says nothing about a hospital visit or an encounter with the doctor. How primary evidence clashes with the narrative makes me wonder at who edited this.
He's stronger on his ability to fit the 1956 uprising into the Suez crisis, the position of the UN, and post-1956 events that led to the eventual melting of the Cold War. I wish he had explained more the colliding aims of the revolt by the workers, the students & intellectuals, and the army. It's now accepted that the revolt was for a gentler socialism (how far under a Communist ideology is not detailed by Korda) rather than a capitalist democracy. Korda rushes by these issues.
If you seek a dramatic personal tale of hairbreadth escapes and hilarious conversations under fire, you will only find Attila the prof discussing with Korda the merits of Waugh vs. Greene, admittedly while under bombing! The British students arrive after the first fight that gained control of the city by the rebels. They hide for their lives, understandably, during the counter-attack beginning November 4th, later making it to the British embassy for safety. There is inevitably a sense of Korda as a lagging witness to the actual revolution. Not to blame him, for he tells us what he knows. But he gets his story in the lull, the flash of time in which the Hungarians proclaimed their independent republic, in between the fights with the Soviets. As he begins his book, however, he reminds us that historical events are more easily understood when seen in the rear mirror rather than when they loom ahead and you're in the driver's seat!
Perhaps he could never be more than an indirect participant, which is unfortunate even if accurate, given Korda's British identification and his lack of any Hungarian, not to mention how he was suspected by both sides by his sudden arrival. You will encounter instead about 90 pages of background on Hungarian topics, three chapters about what Korda and his companions witnessed within what we later know about the revolt, and a closing chapter quickly summarizing the aftermath.
Korda reminds us this was the first revolt where so many of the world's journalists were able to document it and send out their pictures. He also points out how later these same photos in the Western press would be scrutinized as the "traitors" were hunted down by the vengeful Soviets and their collaborators. This made me wonder how the papers were gathered by spies and fellow-travellers, and sent back somehow to military intelligence within the communist Kadar regime. Another story that needs telling?
I did like how photos were interspersed rather than gathered into the middle of the book. Stalin's statue pictured with only its boots remaining on the plinth, a Hungarian flag across the massive stumps, sums up well the whole revolution. Twice, for instance, we see the people described in the text: blonde fighter Kati, and the dashing Borsalino-wearing guerrilla with the wooden leg.
This book came out around the same time as Victor Sebestyén's "Twelve Days" historical narrative, and a new study of how Moscow, London, and Washington connived and fumbled in Charles Gati's "Failed Illusions." Korda has skimpy endnotes and barely any printed sources credited. These lengthier studies presumably will enrich what Korda intriguingly only alludes to: the debate over the true messages sent by Radio Free Europe, the British encouragement of the revolt to distract Russia from the Suez Canal, and the postwar role of Hungarian Communists who had fled to Moscow vs. those who had stayed behind under fascism. Korda implies that the superpowers manipulated the hopes of the freedom fighters and the repression of Moscow both, but more detail, even in such a short account, would have helped clarify these vexing issues.
The Mood on the Budapest Street in Fall 1956.......2007-02-20
Eyewitness accounts bring immediacy to history that cannot be replaced by anything else. As a student at Oxford, Michael Korda (the renowned author and book editor) reacted to the news of the Hungarian revolution against the Stalinist government by wanting to see what was going on. To make the effort more relevant, he persuaded a relative to buy antibiotics that he and his friends could carry to a hospital in Budapest.
Although he had never been to Hungary, Mr. Korda's family comes from a long line of proud Hungarians. His uncle and father were well-known in the country which made the trip a little more realistic.
The first half of the book provides a historical, social, and political perspective on the events leading up to the revolution which was ultimately crushed by Soviet tanks and troops while the British and French were off on a scheme to retake the Suez canal from Egypt. In that section, one fact stands out: The Hungarians showed the Soviets that they couldn't use overwhelming military force to maintain power in Eastern Europe again. That may have helped speed freedom for the Eastern Bloc countries, including Hungary.
Mr. Korda has a nice conversational tone to his writing, and you feel like you are there. One of my favorite sections is his description of helping a professor and some students tear up cobblestones to create a tank barricade just before the Soviet army returned to Budapest. The Budapest portion of the memoir is well illustrated with photographs taken by others at the time.
Unfortunately, Mr. Korda needed some help with his background section. Even though I know little about Hungary, I found numerous errors including references to Budapest not being bombed in World War II and Hungary abutting Western Germany (try Austria instead). I don't know what other things are wrong, so my advice is to read this book merely as a memoir . . . but a quite interesting, if brief, one. Perhaps it will whet your appetite for more substantive accounts of the revolution.
Did McCullough and Beschloss read what we did?.......2007-02-06
Like previous reviewers, I found Michael Korda's recollections of his youthful trip/adventure in Hungary at the time of the 1956 Revolution very interesting (far more so than the first half of the book). That tragic event has fascinated me ever since I followed the story as a 19 year old and then saw the powerful photos in the LIFE picture history that was published.
What puzzled me was to note in Korda's Acknowledgements his expressions of gratitude to David McCullough, Michael Beschloss and several other eminent histroians for their reading of his manuscript and their many helpful suggestions. In view of the historical and geographical errors others have noted, one has to wonder if they did, indeed, read this book. And, thus, one wonders if others credited in such Acknowledgements in other books are similarly superficial and agree to "read" a friend's/colleague's book just to keep him/her happy. After all, how closely could these scholars have been reading to have failed to note Korda's multiple assertions of a German-Hungarian border in 1956?
Very readable, but unfortunately full of false facts........2007-01-08
Very easy to read, but misleading to those who do not know European history or geography,and annoying to those who do. The non existing Hungarian-German border has already been pointed out, I would like to add a few more: Page 159 Kossuth Lajos Street leading to the Parliament House, page 43 Petofi's poem [Nemzeti Dal] an appeal to fight the Russians,[it was against the Austrians, or the Germans as he called them] Page 62 "Budapest like Prague has been spared by allied bombers" [as soon as Budapest was in reach for the bombers from occupied Italian airports we had regular daily visits]
Book Description
By examining how ordinary Virginia citizens grappled with the vexing problem of slavery in a society dedicated to universal liberty, Eva Sheppard Wolf broadens our understanding of such important concepts as freedom, slavery, emancipation, and race in the early years of the American republic. She frames her study around the moment between slavery and liberty—emancipation—shedding new light on the complicated relations between whites and blacks in a slave society. Wolf argues that during the post-Revolutionary period, white Virginians understood both liberty and slavery to be racial concepts more than political ideas. Through an in-depth analysis of archival records, particularly those dealing with manumission between 1782 and 1806, she reveals how these entrenched beliefs shaped both thought and behavior. In spite of qualms about slavery, white Virginians repeatedly demonstrated their unwillingness to abolish the institution. The manumission law of 1782 eased restrictions on individual emancipation and made possible the liberation of thousands, but Wolf discovers that far fewer slaves were freed in Virginia than previously thought. Those who were emancipated posed a disturbing social, political, and even moral problem in the minds of whites. Where would ex-slaves fit in a society that could not conceive of black liberty? As Wolf points out, even those few white Virginians who proffered emancipation plans always suggested sending freed slaves to some other place. Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831 led to a public debate over ending slavery, after which discussions of emancipation in the Old Dominion largely disappeared as the eastern slaveholding elite tightened its grip on political power in the state. This well-informed and carefully crafted book outlines important and heretofore unexamined changes in whites' views of blacks and liberty in the new nation. By linking the Revolutionary and antebellum eras, it shows how white attitudes hardened during the half-century that followed the declaration that "all men are created equal." AUTHOR BIO: Eva Sheppard Wolf is an assistant professor of history at San Francisco State University.
Book Description
They did the dirty work of the American Revolution
Their spontaneous uprisings and violent actions steered America toward resistance to the Acts of Parliament and finally toward revolution. They tarred and feathered the backsides of British customs officials, gutted the mansion of Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson, armed themselves with marline spikes and cudgels to fight on the waterfront against soldiers of the British occupation, and hurled the contents of 350 chests of British East India Company tea into Boston Harbor under the very guns of the anchored British fleet.
Cradle of Violence introduces the maritime workers who ignited the American Revolution: the fishermen desperate to escape impressment by Royal Navy press gangs, the frequently unemployed dockworkers, the wartime veterans and starving widows—all of whose mounting "tumults" led the way to rebellion. These were the hard-pressed but fiercely independent residents of Boston's North and South Ends who rallied around the Liberty Tree on Boston Common, who responded to Samuel Adams's cries against "Tyranny," and whose headstrong actions helped embolden John Hancock to sign the Declaration of Independence. Without the maritime mobs' violent demonstrations against authority, the politicians would not have spurred on to utter their impassioned words; Great Britain would not have been provoked to send forth troops to quell the mob-induced rebellion; the War of Independence would not have happened.
One of the mobs' most telling demonstrations brought about the Boston Massacre. After it, John Adams attempted to calm the town by dismissing the waterfront characters who had been killed as "a rabble of saucy boys, negroes and mulattoes, Irish teagues, and outlandish jack tars." Cradle of Violence demonstrates that they were, more truly, America's first heroes.
Customer Reviews:
"Liberty Tree" --.......2007-03-16
The so-called "Liberty Tree on Boston Common" was in fact on "Boston Neck" -- the narrow strip of land between the mainland and Boston which prevented the latter being an island, along which ran "Orange," now "Washington," St.
And characterizing the North and South Boston gangs, rivals until Sam Adams brought them together, and which operated under his direction -- the "Liberty Boys," the "Brown Shirts" of the day, which he used in various ways against political opponents, not all of whom were the "enemy," to achieve his political ends -- as "Waterfront Mobs" goes beyond stretching it, especially in suggesting they were employable, or interested in being employed beyond the self-chosen "job" of freelance "enforcers".
"Wharf rats" would be more accurate had they actually spent their time as putative dock workers on the actual docks instead of having the run of the city, largely as members and leaders of the criminal underbelly, as if funtionally illiterate semi-mature teenagers with too much time on their hands. They were among those -- and likely initiated -- the Sam Adams' propagandized "Boston Massacre" by throwing chunks of ice and worse at the small contingent of British troops they had trapped, and yelling "fire!" from within the crowd.
But, I guess in order to sell a retelling of an often-untruthfully-told story to the unsuspecting reader one must wrap it in a new slant, regardless accuracy.
Book Description
When President George Washington ordered an army of 13,000 men to march west in 1794 to crush a tax rebellion among frontier farmers, he established a range of precedents that continues to define federal authority over localities today. The "Whiskey Rebellion" marked the first large-scale resistance to a law of the U.S. government under the Constitution. This classic confrontation between champions of liberty and defenders of order was long considered the most significant event in the first quarter-century of the new nation. Thomas P. Slaughter recaptures the historical drama and significance of this violent episode in which frontier West and cosmopolitan East battled over the meaning of the American Revolution. The book not only offers the broadest and most comprehensive account of the Whiskey Rebellion ever written, taking into account the political, social and intellectual contexts of the time, but also challenges conventional understandings of the Revolutionary era.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent book on a fascinating topic, very fresh, insightful writing.......2007-08-20
"The Whiskey Rebellion" by Thomas Slaughter is an excellent book about a truly seminal event in early US history otherwise not well explained in numerous other books I have read covering the same time period. Chernow's book on Alexander Hamilton and Peterson's book on Thomas Jefferson, both absolutely first rate gold standard books, have barely a single page each on the topic.
The United State had just come together under a new Constitution. The Federal government had just assumed huge wartime debts of the states, and in order to pay these debts, the government enacted an excise tax on whiskey, which the entire western section of the country refused to pay. It wasn't just western Pennsylvania, as Slaughter points out, it was the entire rural western US at the time. Slaughter points out and explains how the tax wasn't fair to the westerners and how the struggle over the tax, more than anything else, caused a division in government leading to the formation of the Federalist and Republican political parties....Big stuff!
The book itself started out as Slaughter's PhD thesis at Princeton (my alma mater, too!) and was condensed (!) into this book. The book reads on the slower side, but I had a hard time putting it down because it contained so much fascinating insight. Slaughter does a great job of using primary source quotes to show the westerner's perspective, thankfully picking out the most juicy quotes and facts instead of asking the reader to wade through paragraphs of antiquated language.
Slaughter also shows that by time Hamilton convinced Washington to send in the troops, the "Rebellion" was a lot more civil than many in the East had been lead to believe. In fact, future Secretary of the US Treasury (for Thomas Jefferson) Albert Gallatin was one of the leaders of the rebellion.
In summary, this is a very fine book that covers a critical period in US history from a refreshingly different perspective. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in early US history, though I would also be reluctant to recommend it to those just beginning to read on this topic. I would also highly recommend the book on Shays's (spelling is correct, three "s"'s) Rebellion by Leonard Richards.
A Brief But Important Part of Early US History.......2006-05-17
Slaughter's book is the definitive treatment of the Whiskey Rebellion. The Whiskey Rebellion arose in 1794 along the frontier and especially in western Pennsylvania in reaction to a federal excise tax on whiskey. Western farmers relied on whiskey as a crucial cash crop and even as a medium of exchange. An internal tax on this item was greatly resented as an imposition by a distant Eastern government that could not even protect the farmers from Indian attacks. A rebellion of sorts began when federal tax collectors attempted to enforce the law. The west saw the entire episode as a challenge to the liberty so recently won while the east saw it as a challenge to the very notion of ordered liberty.
Slaughter relates that the unrest reflected a strong and potentially significant rift between the eastern and western US. Westerners considered that the eastern leaders simply did not care about western problems. In the midst of the debate over the excise tax, St. Clair's Indian expedition met with disaster in the Ohio country - the most complete defeat of the US Army ever. As Slaughter tells it this defeat confirmed for westerners the inability of the central government to protect their interests.
By the time Washington marched his troops (derisively called the Watermelon Army) west, the rebellion had already moved from violence to a political phase but Washington wanted to make a point about central authority. Washington, a major absentee landowner, put down what was left of the rebellion with few casualties. Only a handful of rebels were taken into custody, fewer still were charged. The few that were convicted of treason were pardoned by Washington. Washington did not need to be punitive as he had already made his point with his army.
Highly recommended.
A less common view of George Washington.......2005-02-07
When I began reading this book, I thought it was going to be a straight forward narrative on the decisions made by Washington and Hamilton in the 1790s regarding the rebellion that was rising in the Western territory of the U.S. However, what I didn't expect, was a view of George Washington that, to me, seemed much more realistic than most American's are comfortable believing of our first President. Washington is often seen as an "untouchable" in the eyes of the American people, but this book will show you that no President is without his mistakes and mishaps. Washington might have been a genious on the battlefield, but no battle could prepare him to make the decisions that the executive has to make in times of insurrection. Just as Abraham Lincoln had to make crucial, and often unpopular, decisions regarding the Southern States and their insurrection against the North, so Washington found himself facing unpopular outcomes to decisions to uphold the law regarding the excise of Alcohol (a tax that many Westerners viewed as being hypocritical of our government, making it no better than the British taxes of the 1760s-1770s).
This book offers interesting insight into the first revolts against the American government since its founding. However, I give this book 3 stars for a few specific reasons:
1. No book, no matter how incredible, deserves 5 stars. To say something is excellent is to say that there is no room for improvement, and that is just physically imposible with a history book.
2. The narrative of this book is entertaining at some points, and completely boring at others. I found my mind drifting off as I read certain passages, and asking the question "wait, what's going on here?" Thus, there are moments that require a re-reading to fully comprehend what is going on.
If you are looking for a very intellectual view of the politics and social attitude of the Washington administration, then you'll probably enjoy this book. However, if you are looking for a quick over-view of President Washington, or the revolutionary era, I recomend an alternative book. Perhaps a biography on Washington or one of his contemporaries.
A Battle for the Meaning of the American Revolution.......2005-02-03
In October of 1794, President Washington sent an army nearly 13,000 strong across the Allegheny Mountains into the frontier regions of Western Pennsylvania to suppress a popular uprising against the federal government. This event marked the greatest internal crisis of Washington's administration, and the most significant crisis of disunion to the United States prior to the Civil War. This significance of this event, both at the time, and to the continuing debate about the meaning of America, has often been overlooked or forgotten in popular histories. Thomas Slaughter's book goes a long way toward correcting that oversight.
The Whiskey Rebellion was a reaction against an excise tax place on spirits, and shared much in common with the similar tax revolt against the Stamp Act that ignited the flames of the American Revolution. Indeed, the Whiskey rebels saw themselves as upholding the spirit of the Revolution, and believed that the leaders of the federal government had abandoned those principles in favor of personal gain.
Slaughter does an outstanding job of telling each side of the story without a strong bias toward either side. He paints the rebellion as a massive failure to communicate between the parties involved. The conflict illustrated a deep divide between the East and the West of the country, setting urban against rural interests, localist ideologies against nationalist, and of course, all the familiar divisions that are inherent in class and economic differences. Slaughter describes the federal government and its supporters as having "generally shared a Hobbesian-type fear of anarchy as the starting point for their consideration," while he says that the Whiskey Rebels and their friends "took a more Lockeian-type stance," believing "that protection of liberty, not the maintenance of order, was the principal task of government." The federal government emphasized the power of the Constitution, while the Whiskey Rebels emphasized the much more radical Declaration of Independence.
The Whiskey Rebellion was a turning point in America's history. It showed the central government's willingness and ability to enforce its laws even at great distance from it center of power. It was a midwife to the birth of true political parties that emerged in the following years. And it set the parameters of the great political debate of just what the meaning of the American Revolution and what it means to be an American really is, a debate that continues along remarkably similar lines to this day.
This book will be of particular interest to those interested in the early Republic and the Washington Administration, the career of Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist - Anti-Federalist question, or the early American frontier. It is well written, well reasoned, and highly recommended.
Theo Logos
An excellent portrayal of the events of the rebellion........1998-08-11
This book was well documented and portrayed wonderfully the life of the frontiersmen and how they viewed the "oppression" of the Easterners. However, it equally balances the view of the Easterners toward their perceptions and interpretations of the actions of the frontiersmen. It offers the student of history a very balanced view of what took place two hundred years ago on the western Pennsylvania frontier in a very readable form. Slaughter always manages to give both sides to each issue and interprets the events thusly. Unfortunately, the one issue the author failed to cover was the impact of the frontier church in the shaping of events. Surely with the 2nd Great Awakening on the frontier's horizon this would have implications. The final compliment to the author is that I truly appreciated his stories that started each chapter. These real-life events vividly portray life as it was on the frontier; a hard and sometimes terrifying life. It is this strug! gle of life that we owe our forefathers respect that is deserving of applause. Slaughter did this for these people.
Book Description
The ideals of freedom and individual rights that inspired America’s Founding Fathers did not spring from a vacuum. Along with many other defining principles of our national character, they can be traced directly back to one of the most pivotal events in British history—the late-seventeenth-century uprising known as the Glorious Revolution.
In a work of popular history that stands with recent favorites such as David McCullough’s 1776 and Joseph J. Ellis’s Founding Brothers,
Michael Barone brings the story of this unlikely and largely bloodless revolt to American readers and reveals that, without the Glorious Revolution, the American Revolution may never have happened.
Unfolding in 1688–1689, Britain’s Glorious Revolution resulted in the hallmarks of representative government, guaranteed liberties, the foundations of global capitalism, and a foreign policy of opposing aggressive foreign powers. But as Barone shows, there was nothing inevitable about the Glorious Revolution. It sprang from the character of the English people and depended on the talents, audacity, and good luck of two men: William of Orange (later William III of England), who launched history’s last successful cross-channel inva sion, and John Churchill, an ancestor of Winston, who commanded the forces of the deposed James II but crossed over to support William one fateful November night.
The story of the Glorious Revolution is a rich and riveting saga of palace intrigue, loyalty and shocking betrayal, and bold political and military strategizing. With narrative drive, a sure command of historical events, and unforgettable portraits of kings, queens, soldiers, parliamentarians, and a large cast of full-blooded characters, Barone takes an episode that has fallen into unjustified obscurity and restores it to the prominence it deserves. Especially now, as we face enemies who wish to rid the world of the lasting legacies of the Glorious Revolution—democracy, individual rights, and capitalism among them—it is vitally important that we understand the origins of these blessings.
Customer Reviews:
YES, this is a very readable, and interesting, book (notwithstanding the critical remarks of others here)........2007-09-08
"Absolutism, seemingly modern and efficient, seemed the way of the future" up until the late 17th century, "Yet in the long run absolutism did not prevail."
"Under the penal laws passed during the reign of Elizabeth I, English men and women were required to attend Church of England services once a week and to take communion three times a year, with penalties including a fine of 20 pounds a month or one-third of the income of one's estate." (Hence the prohibition in the American Constitution that the United States shall have no official church.) And "In March 1673, Parliament also passed the Test Act, requiring public officials to take communion in the Church of England and swear an oath of allegiance denouncing the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, which holds that the blood and body of Christ are literally taken in the Eucharist." "This would disqualify James [II] and other Catholics from public office." Yet James still reached the throne upon the death of his brother Charles in 1885. And then the blow-back began as James began favoring adherents of his adopted faith (having converted in 1669) to the detriment of other Christians.
The English Parliament, largely composed of the latter, as could be expected resisted such efforts by James II, but alas would be pressed to be able to prevail over their sovereign's will. And that was the crux of the matter---the bifurcation of interests of the crown and Parliament, and the inability of one to check the other from excessive zeal on occasion. Hence the opportunity for William of Orange, whose wife was James' eldest daughter and, like William, suitably Protestant for the Protestant country of England. William's goal for his expedition, in his own words: "intended for no other design but to have a free and lawful Parliament installed;" ie., to protect the English against arbitrary government, the sort James II was accused of engaging in. William was as good as his word herein and thus, consequently, in Mr Barone's words "This improbable revolution [1688-89] did much to shape the world in which we live today." And Parliament in England has met every year since 1689. It's a fascinating story, well told by Mr. Barone. Interestingly, as well, since 1701 heirs to the royal throne have been barred from becoming or marrying Catholics as a safeguard to this Protestant land. And just in August of 2007 the issue was raised when it was learned that Peter Phillips, the current queen's eldest grandson, was to be engaged to a Roman Catholic. Currently Phillips is tenth in line to the throne. If he was to remain in the succession his bride-to-be will have to formally give up her membership in the Catholic Church. An announcement is expected either way before their wedding. Yet another example of how 1688-89 lives on, in addition to it being, in Mr. Barone's view, akin to America's First Revolution. It's a most worthy book, and argument. Cheers
When will they put out the edited version?.......2007-09-04
I very much expected to enjoy this book, interested as I am in English history. However, having only reached page 102, I can't help but feel that I'm reading an unedited first draft rather than a finished product. Disappointingly, the book appears to be full of typos, contradictions of fact, and bewildering and clumsy constructions.
To give a few examples:
* On page 6, the author is discussing the populations of various areas at the time of the Glorious Revolution. He writes: "Britain's North American colonies had about 250,000." But then, at the end of the same long and confusing paragraph, he writes, "...Spain's Latin American colonies had approximately 10 million, while the English North American colonies had only 280,000." I kept looking for the signal phrase that would indicate that the numbers 250,000 and 280,000 are meant to refer to different things, but I can't find it.
* On page 24, the author writes that "John Evelyn heard the sermon at the king's chapel...." I don't believe that Evelyn had previously been introduced in the book, and there is no explanation of who he is. He is mentioned at least one other time, again with no clue as to who he is, on page 27. But then, on page 49, the author introduces a quotation from Evelyn's diary with this phrase: "As John Evelyn, a Kent landowner who seems to have known everyone in London, noted in his diary...." Wouldn't it be better to give us that short explanation of who Evelyn was the first time he's mentioned?
* On page 97, the author introduces "one of the most remarkable characters of the period, Robert Spencer, the Earl of Sutherland." However, later in the paragraph, he refers to him not as Sutherland, but as Sunderland. He refers to him once again as Spencer, and then calls him Sunderland from there forward. I had to keep going back to make sure we were still talking about the same guy.
* On page 100, the author writes: "Sarah encouraged Anne to restrict pressure from James and his queen to convert to Catholicism." Shouldn't that be "resist pressure"?
It may be that in one or more of these examples, I've missed some key phrase that would make all clear. But I don't think so. Rather, it appears that the book is just poorly edited. And this apparent sloppiness has made me a bit distrustful of the information I'm getting in the book. The story is interesting, but I hope they put out an edited version sometime soon.
There was nothing glorious about this revolution.......2007-09-04
If a treasonous conspiracy to put a Dutch usurper on the throne of England is your idea of "glorious," then Barone's thesis -- that the usurpation of 1688 was a great leap forward for liberty -- will appeal to you. In reality, "the Liberties of England" which William of Orange pledged to defend on his banners were already well established, both in England and, in various forms, on Continental Europe. England's Common Law tradition, which predates 1688 by centuries, was a successful fusion of canon (Church) law and feudal customs. Likewise, Catholic scholars like Robert Bellarmine had refuted "the divine right of kings" asserted by England's Protestant King James I. In short, English -- and thus American -- liberty owes more to medieval Catholic scholars and pre-Revolution traditions than conspiring nobles and usurping Dutch kings.
Lessons from History.......2007-09-01
You should read of these events in British History in order to understand not only modern Britain political workings, but also, the great impact they had in the governing principles adopted by the colonists who established the United States.
Popular History At Its Best.......2007-09-01
Mr. Barone's thesis is fascinating, and he presents his case with style and solid research. This is an excellent read for anyone interested in Anglo-American history.
Book Description
Dividing the nation and causing massive political change, the English Civil War remains one of the most decisive and dramatic conflicts of English history. The Causes of the English Revolution examines the factors leading up to the deposition of Charles I in 1642 and analyses the crisis of confidence at the root of his demise. In this seminal work, Lawrence Stone explores theories of revolution and traces the social and economic change that led to this period of instability. Now with a new introduction by John Brewer (author of The Pleasures of the Imagination), this classic text is essential reading for all those fascinated by the fraught battle for power between Charles I and Cromwell.
Customer Reviews:
When reforms turn revolutionary..............2004-10-06
In 1640 few supported the dissolution of the monarchy or the House of Lords...The heart of this book is its long chapter on the causes of the English revolution. That revolution, Stone maintains, was in a real sense caused by the dissolution of government (rather than causing its dissolution); that "class" warfare along Marxist explanatory lines is not applicable to the revolution and; that the revolution was more than a reaction to unpopular monarch. He then sets out to identify the long-term, underlying causes of the war and its more proximate catalysts. His discussion of the weak reach of the Tudor bureaucracy and its corresponding lack of credibility as a legal enforcer, and his discussion of the impact of Puritan thought are especially compelling.
The first section of the book surveys the methodological issues involved in explaining revolution. This survey, though somewhat dated by now, still provides useful insights. And, he has a caustic eye for those of his colleagues who prefer an arid, artifically technical jargon over clarity and concise prose.
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