Amazon.com
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
It is typical of Gabriel García Márquez that it will be many pages before his narrative circles back to the ice, and many chapters before the hero of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Buendía, stands before the firing squad. In between, he recounts such wonders as an entire town struck with insomnia, a woman who ascends to heaven while hanging laundry, and a suicide that defies the laws of physics:
A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta's chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.
"Holy Mother of God!" Úrsula shouted.
The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez's magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom José Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man's shade that it haunts Buendía's house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. Buendía's wife, Úrsula, is so moved that "the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house."
With One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez introduced Latin American literature to a world-wide readership. Translated into more than two dozen languages, his brilliant novel of love and loss in Macondo stands at the apex of 20th-century literature. --Alix Wilber
Book Description
One of the 20th century's enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world, and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize-winning career.
The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. It is a rich and brilliant chronicle of life and death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the noble, ridiculous, beautiful, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America.
Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility -- the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth -- these universal themes dominate the novel. Whether he is describing an affair of passion or the voracity of capitalism and the corruption of government, Gabriel García Márquez always writes with the simplicity, ease, and purity that are the mark of a master.
Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an accounting of the history of the human race.
Customer Reviews:
Reminds Me of America's Keenest City, by Mongo.......2007-10-06
This is a marvelous book that remind's me in both style and message of America's Keenest City, by Mongo. I would recommend that if you like Marquez, you should read Mongo also. Both books use surrealism to expose political and cultural phenomena. Marquez enlightens us about Latin America and Mongo about North America.
"...because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude do not have a second opportunity on earth".......2007-09-12
Reading ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE is like discovering the world for the very first time. This discovery is experianced anew each time one reads it (for me, this is the eighth time). The Book -- yes, with the capital B, because it has the aura of sacredness about it -- the Book, I say, is an epiphany of both the familiar and unfamiliar; Macondo is a universe in which we have always lived, and yet one that we could never have imagined on our own. One compares it not with the other great works of modern literature, but with the myths and legends that go back to the beginning of Time, the Illiads and the Mahabharatas. It evokes the timeless sense of having always existed. It comes across not as the creation of a single man, but as the product of a cosmic consciousness. Garcia Marquez seems to have dreamed this rather than written it. Each page has the evanescence of a dream, a touch-me-not quickness, a water-colour transparency, abstraction and fluidity. Don't expect the characters to be fully fleshed-out three-dimensional figures; here they are quickly drawn archetypes who seem insubstantial but, paradoxically, also irresistable. They flit in and out of a century of wonderful dreams towards the final moment of self-annihilation, when Aureliano reads in the Sanskrit parchments the destruction of Macondo foretold, at the very instant when the cataclysmic winds bear down upon the town to wipe it off the face of the earth. So ends humanity and all Creation. In Marquez's vision, the earth is a rock of solitude in the cosmos; and man a speck of solitude on earth. And when Marquez says in the final sentence "...because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude do not have a second opportunity on earth", isn't this an almost oracular prophecy of the fate of all mankind ?
U will never read anything like it.......2007-08-02
I read One Hudred Years of SOlitude like 6 times over the years, and it still holds its magic and atmosphyre. Just an unbelievable classic. It feels weary and long at moments, also distracting at moments but its originality and magical ventures arise and fill the soul. Must have.
a great book but..........2007-06-25
a great book but it can be a little decieving. It will be different than anything you have ever read... and that can make it a little troubling... and tedious at times, however when you finish youl feel great about it and love it. so there ya go.
check it out.
Undeniably amazing!.......2007-06-22
Though it is arrogant and superficial to make such claims, I would wager that this is one of the greatest books ever written. It is difficult to say anything about Garcia Marquez's magnum opus that hasn't been said-- One Hundred Years of Solitude is an incredible tale of the human condition, and Garcia Marquez perhaps the greatest prophet of literature since Shakespeare.
Many readers will find it difficult, as the names (especially to Americans like me!) can sound very similar, and are frequently exactly the same. It will take much flipping back to the family tree at the front of the novel to make it through, and quite a bit of effort remembering each individual character's attributes and story, but trust me and the thousands of other Garcia Marquez admirers-- it's well worth it!
My only wish is that I spoke fluent enough Spanish to read this in its original language!
Book Description
One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, and alive with unforgettable men and women -- brimming with truth, compassion, and a lyrical magic that strikes the soul -- this novel is a masterpiece in the art of fiction.
Customer Reviews:
set upon the luminous pillars of passion and tragedy.......2007-10-12
A mythical town in South America (Macondo) is the setting for an intergenerational history, pervaded by pathos, sexuality, and the dark comedy of futility. This the chronicle of the Aureliano dynasty: one hundred years of lust, continuity, and then, fatality - all clothed in surreal, symbolic language and images.
The thematic of solitude underlies the tumult and calamities in the mundane events of this history - the solitude of that which will be forgotten. The characters are together in this isolated town; and yet, they are separated by their beauty, idiocy, or trauma. The silences and solitude which result are the glue that adheres this amazing story together. You can forget about involved plot and developed characterizations - they are secondary to the generational repetitions, the circular time flow, and the fantastically incredible events on these pages.
This can be very dense reading at times - the symbolic wisdom, the fables and superstitions that give this narrative it's ferment and texture; but, the allegorical structure does completely mesmerize. There is a languid, compelling flow to the narration - time seems irrelevant while seemingly impossible events of the supernatural occur frequently, chronicled as if they were part of the everyday life in Macondo.
Marquez, the consummate prose-poet, sits this narrative upon the twin pillars of passion and tragedy. After 40 years, this tale has aged well. Given its "legs", it will still be read by many future generations.
Most highly recommended.
Extracts: A Field Guide for Iconoclasts
The Cloud Reckoner
A masterpiece- but of what?.......2007-10-07
When you purchase and read this book you will be exposed to many wonderful and fanciful narrative techniques. There is no arguing that the way in which the latter chapters of One Hundred Years of Solitude mirror the first ones is very skilfully done, or that there is a lot of depth and reflection on the subject of solitude in what's actually a novel.
But buyer beware- a book is composed of both technique and content, and the content is not up to par. One Hundred Years of Solitude narrates the fictional tale of a family which lives in a small south american village in the midst of nowhere. It's the fatalistic and depressing story of the south america that has-been, with all the usual low-lifes from corrupt banana-republic officials to self-styled revolutionary "coronels". It's a tale of two-dimensional, impulse-driven characters with no depth and little to make them memorable or likeable. Most of all, it's a tale in which hope and happiness and most that is good in human beings is absent, and the few moments in which they seem to appear are illusory. Think of it as a Lord of the Flies but with a less interesting, adult, south american cast- and written with a very clever structure.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a talented and powerful author. But much of what he writes about is distasteful (his latest book concerns an elderly man enjoying child prostitution), and in the case of this novel both the characterization and ultimate message are downright repelling. I finished reading it against my better judgment. I would only recommend this novel to literary critics and others like them who derive most of their enjoyment from the technique of a book rather than its contents. For a more palatable study of themes like the darkness of the human heart, I suggest reading Joseph Conrad instead.
Like America's Keenest City.......2007-10-06
I had trouble following the book at first, but eventually caught on to the message. I recently read another book, America's Keenest City, by Mongo which reads the same for me. Both Marquez and Mongo use bizarre characters and situations to hide their true commentary on their respective societies. Marquez writes about Latin America and Mongo writes about North America. I would recommend both books as essential reading and would suggest reading Mongo if you enjoy reading Marquez.
One Hundred Years of Solitude: an enduring masterpiece........2007-09-26
There is nothing I can say about this novel that hasn't already been said before, so let me just add one more voice to the choir already praising One Hundred Years of Solitude. Colombian novelist, Gabriel Márquez (1927) received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. Considered his masterpiece, his second novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) has sold 36 million copies since it was published in 1967. In addition, Márquez won the Rómulo Gallegos Prize in 1972 for the novel. It follows seven generations of the Buendía family, who survive Civil War (the Thousand Days War), massacre, heavy rains, death, and solitude in the fictional South American village Macondo for one hundred years, at which point the entire town is obliterated from the world. In his novel, Márquez brilliantly weaves together elements of history, fiction, politics, economics, and magical realism to explore love, loss, and what it means to be human. For me, this novel will always be an example of why reading great literature is such a worthwhile experience.
G. Merritt
Yira Prado.......2007-09-26
Yira Prado gave this book to me and I couldn't stop reading. It's an amazing book from an amazing girl with good taste!
Book Description
Combining the impact of the classic bestseller Silent Spring with Fast Food Nation, The Hundred-Year Lie presents a devastating exposé of how chemicals in everyday products are ruining our health.
Over the past one hundred years, we have been guinea pigs in a vast chemistry experiment that uses our bodies, our health, and our good will to test the proposition that modern science can improve upon nature.
In The Hundred-Year Lie, investigative journalist RandallFitzgerald shatters dozens of myths being perpetuated by the chemical, pharmaceutical and processed food industries.
Find out why you would never be FDA-approved—and why humans are becoming one of the most polluted species on the planet:
• The average American now carries a “body burden” of 700 or more synthetic chemicals, including Teflon, plastics, and dozens of pesticides.
• Musk fragrances used in detergents and air fresheners are not filtered out by our current water treatment facilities, ending up in our drinking water.
• The artificial sweetener aspartame, an ingredient in 1,200 food products from diet drinks to chewing gum, has been linked to eighty-eight toxic symptoms.
Fitzgerald not only sheds light on the problems we face from the unprecedented chemical onslaught, he presents suggestions for what we can to do to turn the tide.
Customer Reviews:
Well researched truth that may save your 200+ toxin saturated life!.......2007-09-02
As an engineer that lives and dies through a working knowledge of cause and effect, I have impatiently read through many books crying of our toxic environment with only bits and pieces of truth and the rest filled in with passionate fluff. This book, however, is well researched, using primarily professional medical and federal study information to show us the increasingly hopeless degree of the problem, a beautiful timeline showing/inferring a whole host of cause and effect issues, as well as a better path to prepare us for healthier living. As a result of this book, I researched several detox programs, setting on DrNatura's Detox Diet. After just 30 days on the colon cleanse/detox I had my eyeglass restrictions lifted from my license (which I've had for 20+ yrs). A more amplified section on how to find out your toxicity as well as your vitamin and mineral balance would really make this an excellent book. Still, I gave it a 5, since it is the best of the 7 books I've read on the subject of profiteering homicide by the chemical and processed food giants of the west.
Your Health.......2007-08-26
If you want to know what our media and salesmen for food are feeding us and our loved ones, this is the place. Your health is your responsibility, this helps you know things you can do.
SCARED AND MAD AS HELL!.......2007-08-01
WOW, what an eye-opener! All these years I've been thinking the FDA was out to protect me, only to find they are really responding to pressure from big business and special interests. And the job I thought they were doing is NOT BEING DONE AT ALL! If you care about your health and would like to know where the health-threats are coming from, READ THIS, it will scare you to death! But it will also give you information to help you stay away from the worst risks.
TO THE AUTHOR......THANK YOU RANDALL FITZGERALD!
A sobering look at the dire consequences of the highly toxic world we have created in just the past century. .......2007-04-02
Just over a century ago, the Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. According to author Randall Fitzgerald it was this legislation that reassured the American public that the food and medicines they were consuming had been thoroughly tested and were safe to use. As it turns out nothing could be further from the truth! "The Hundred Year Lie" tells the sordid story of a century of deception and irresponsibility by the companies who process our food and manufacture the drugs and chemicals we use everyday. Indeed, the promise of "a better life through chemistry" is a notion we all need to examine and seriously reconsider.
At a bare minimum, reading "The One Hundred Year Lie" will make you stop in your tracks and think about all of the different chemicals you are ingesting and coming into contact with every day. It is not just the voluminous amounts of additives in your food that you must worry about. Stop and consider all of the personal care products you use on a daily basis. Add to that the over-the-counter and prescription drugs you may be taking and all of the household cleaning products that you employ. Then think about all of the chemicals that are applied to our clothing, our bedding and to our furniture. Next, you might want to consider the flouride in your municipal water supply and maybe the highly toxic arsenic in all of that pressure treated lumber around your property. Now if you are a pretty unscientific sort like me you will then appreciate Randall Fitzgerald's attempt to explain the concept of "synergy". Most people just take it for granted that the products they use must have been thoroughly tested and deemed completely safe to use. It is when you discover that the scientific community, the manufacturers themselves and various government regulators really have absolutely no idea how these different chemical concoctions are going react with each other in the real world that you just might become a bit concerned. On many different levels "The Hundred Year Lie" challenges the way we live our lives today and implores each of us as individuals and society in general to make the necessary changes before more damage is done. I simply cannot imagine that anyone who reads this book will not feel compelled to make some significant changes in his or her own lifestyle. In our never-ending quest for comfort and convenience we have done considerable damage to our our own personal well-being and to our environment. Some say the damage may be irreparable. This is a fascinating and well written book that is certainly worth your time and attention.
Highly recommended!
Essential reading for your health.......2007-03-24
This is a great book that details all the harmful substances you should be aware of in your daily life. The only thing could possibly be added is information on how to protect yourself from these dangers. But that would be another book entirely, and there are a few out there like The Recipe for Living Without Disease, by Dr. Vonderplanitz that serve that purpose.
Book Description
"Textile Designs is a dazzling, informative fabric encyclopedia of archival beauty. It is a necessary tool for the fashion industry, schools, and libraries."
—Women's Wear Daily
"An iconography of textile motifs and a vocabulary of pattern. . . . Highly recommended." —Choice
Never before have printed textiles been celebrated in a book of this magnitude. Now in paperback, Textile Designs is the indispensable sourcebook for the colorful patterned materials that have been used in fashion and interiors for the past 200 years. Organized not chronologically or geographically but by motif—Floral, Geometric, Conversational, Ethnic, and Art Movements and Period Styles—this bible of textile design presents a stunning cross-section of the materials of everyday life: printed calicos and cottons, flowered cretonnes and chintzes, polka-dot silks and foulards. With its informative text and pattern names provided not only in English but also in French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese, this is a must-have for everyone interested in color and pattern.
Customer Reviews:
It's Awsome!.......2007-08-02
I've already known this book, because of this I've bought it!
It's really great ideia to have one if you are a Fashion and Patern Design!
Source Book.......2007-04-26
This book is a fabulous resource for artists and designers. Unlike many textile books, it is not arranged by cloth, but by the patterns on the cloth. Every time I open this book, I find something new. There isn't much text, which is fine by me, just plenty of eye candy.
Textile Designs: Two Hundred Years of European and American Patterns Organized by Motif, Style, Color, Layout, and Period.......2007-01-11
This is another Xmas request from my daughter who is a graphic designer; she thinks this book is a valuable edition to her professional library as reference.
my favore.......2007-01-05
a great book.
if you are intersted in textile and even if your not this book is good for any designer . this book contain many patterns all over the historey and all over the world.
im highly recommend about this one.
Through the Eyes of a Historical Consultant and Designer.......2006-11-13
I find books of this nature to be invaluable - both in dating articles of extant clothing in my research and becoming more knowledgeable of fabrics in certain time periods, to make the right fabric choices for the reproduction clothing I design and produce. This book does not disappoint!
Amazon.com
"Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice."
It is typical of Gabriel García Márquez that it will be many pages before his narrative circles back to the ice, and many chapters before the hero of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Buendía, stands before the firing squad. In between, he recounts such wonders as an entire town struck with insomnia, a woman who ascends to heaven while hanging laundry, and a suicide that defies the laws of physics:
A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranta's chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.
"Holy Mother of God!" Úrsula shouted.
The story follows 100 years in the life of Macondo, a village founded by José Arcadio Buendía and occupied by descendants all sporting variations on their progenitor's name: his sons, José Arcadio and Aureliano, and grandsons, Aureliano José, Aureliano Segundo, and José Arcadio Segundo. Then there are the women--the two Úrsulas, a handful of Remedios, Fernanda, and Pilar--who struggle to remain grounded even as their menfolk build castles in the air. If it is possible for a novel to be highly comic and deeply tragic at the same time, then One Hundred Years of Solitude does the trick. Civil war rages throughout, hearts break, dreams shatter, and lives are lost, yet the effect is literary pentimento, with sorrow's outlines bleeding through the vibrant colors of García Márquez's magical realism. Consider, for example, the ghost of Prudencio Aguilar, whom José Arcadio Buendía has killed in a fight. So lonely is the man's shade that it haunts Buendía's house, searching anxiously for water with which to clean its wound. Buendía's wife, Úrsula, is so moved that "the next time she saw the dead man uncovering the pots on the stove she understood what he was looking for, and from then on she placed water jugs all about the house."
With One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel García Márquez introduced Latin American literature to a world-wide readership. Translated into more than two dozen languages, his brilliant novel of love and loss in Macondo stands at the apex of 20th-century literature. --Alix Wilber
Book Description
Probably García Márquez finest and most famous work. One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of a mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul. One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of the art of fiction.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating, but depressing!.......2007-06-08
Captivated by Love In The Time Of Cholera, I had to have this book to continue with the works of this author. Couldn't put it down, then struggled with overwhelming gloom after finishing it. He pulls the reader into the tale; you smell, touch, feel, and live the moment. Unfortunately, the moment is a bad place to be. Not for the faint of heart.
Visual exercise.......2007-05-26
We took turns reading this book aloud to each other. Each night, just a few pages. Nice escape from tv and videos.
good, but not spectacular.......2007-05-13
Let me first say: This book, compared to most other 20th-century classics (Joyce, Mann, Proust, Kafka,...), is NOT a difficult read! Its actually easily accessible. What are people reading when they have problems with this one?
"One Hundred Years of Solitude" is the story of a family and a city, and, of course, a tale of the whole human history. In other words, this is a book about everything. This is usually not good, because very many authors cannot handle a very wide focus. But Marquez is a very good writer. There are so many characters and plots in this book that many writers would have problems to organize it without losing focus. Marquez however manages to finish every subplot, to relate it to the other plots, and to keep track of all of his characters.
The book is the strongest if it describes family life and the weaknesses of its characters. Here, the book offers a lot of wisdom. Its much less convincing when it becomes political. I don't like political books in general, and its no different for this one. Being Fidel Castro's best buddy, Marquez cannot resist to bring in some anti-Americanism (I am not American and certainly not biased!) and anti-imperialism (the evil is an american Banana Company, and its arrival is basically the beginning of the end). I find that a little "cheap", and I don't exactly see what it adds to the story.
Everyone interested in serious literature should certainly read this one. Its a very good starting point for those who have not read a lot of literature before, because as I already mentioned, its easily accessible without being shallow.
Hardcover Book.......2007-05-13
This is a wonderful but complex book.
However, I was surprised that Amazon would send a book with a library stamp on the outside pages, as well as inside, wothout advising beforehand.
Good book, but not worth re-reading.......2007-04-03
The book is indeed a masterpiece and the story is good, but it can be monotonous at times. There's too much sex in the book for my taste (nearly every 20 pages!), and the author presents an overly pessimistic view of humanity, as most of the characters are driven by sex, food, and egocentrism. It was an interesting read, but I wouldn't read it again.
Book Description
Out of the stories heard in her childhood in Los Angeles's Chinatown and years of research, See has constructed this sweeping chronicle of her Chinese-American family, a work that takes in stories of racism and romance, entrepreneurial genius and domestic heartache, secret marriages and sibling rivalries, in a powerful history of two cultures meeting in a new world. 82 photos.
Customer Reviews:
Made a nice gift.......2007-09-21
The person I gave this to thought it was a very nice read and recommends it.
Incredible Book.......2007-07-31
I am a new fan of Lisa See and I have to say that this is one of the best books I have ever read. It is a fascinating story. There were times I had to remind myself that this was a work of non-fiction. I only wish there were more photographs. A great read and hard to put down.
generational story.......2006-11-10
I like Lisa See's books and this is another example of her fine writing. This time, however, her focus is the story of her own family and their impact on their new country.
Engaging and educational..........2006-11-07
Lisa See is one of those rare authors that can draw you into and keep you engaged in a story weaved with historial significance as well as personal emotions. A must read for any first or second generation immigrant who has always been curious about the lives and struggles of our ancestors who first settled into this new "free" land called America.
Fascinating.......2006-08-27
This is a most interesting book. I am 75 years old and grew up in Los Angeles, visiting Chinatown many times, and knew nothing of the people who lived there, so it was particularly interesting to me. I have read other books by Lisa See and find her to be an excellent writer. I highly recommend this book, especially to people interested in the history of California.
Customer Reviews:
As a fan of cinema history I found this book enlightening!.......1998-11-13
I found this book filled in many gaps I had of my early cinema knowledge. Often making references to many little known events, it set the stage for what was to become mainstream animation.
Better with some revisions........1998-05-12
As a brazilian animator I tried to start to read this book by the Latin american section, and comprehensively, by the one that shows the status of animation in my country, Brazil, a reality that I know very well.I don't know where Mr. Bendazzi got his informations for this part of the book.What I know is that it's full of strange or, at least unknown names of people for most of the brazilian animators, illustrators figuring as animators, besides the absence of five or six of the really most important animators in my country.Because of all that,I'm affraid the rest of the book, at least in those sections telling about the animation in Latin America still needs to be revised.
Average customer rating:
- The voice of the authority
|
One Hundred Years of Art in Israel
Gideon Ofrat
Manufacturer: Westview Pr (Trd)
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Israeli Painting
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After Rabin: New Art from Israel
ASIN: 0813333776 |
Customer Reviews:
The voice of the authority .......2006-04-23
No one knows the world of Israel Art better than Gideon Ofrat. In this survey work he traces the story from the beginning of the great Jewish return to the land, up and through the present.
Book Description
No book before this one has rendered the story of cigarettes -- mankind's most common self-destructive instrument and its most profitable consumer product -- with such sweep and enlivening detail.
Here for the first time, in a story full of the complexities and contradictions of human nature, all the strands of the historical process -- financial, social, psychological, medical, political, and legal -- are woven together in a riveting narrative. The key characters are the top corporate executives, public health investigators, and antismoking activists who have clashed ever more stridently as Americans debate whether smoking should be closely regulated as a major health menace.
We see tobacco spread rapidly from its aboriginal sources in the New World 500 years ago, as it becomes increasingly viewed by some as sinful and some as alluring, and by government as a windfall source of tax revenue. With the arrival of the cigarette in the late-nineteenth century, smoking changes from a luxury and occasional pastime to an everyday -- to some, indispensable -- habit, aided markedly by the exuberance of the tobacco huskers.
This free-enterprise success saga grows shadowed, from the middle of this century, as science begins to understand the cigarette's toxicity. Ironically the more detailed and persuasive the findings by medical investigators, the more cigarette makers prosper by seeming to modify their product with filters and reduced dosages of tar and nicotine.
We see the tobacco manufacturers come under intensifying assault as a rogue industry for knowingly and callously plying their hazardous wares while insisting that the health charges against them (a) remain unproven, and (b) are universally understood, so smokers indulge at their own risk.
Among the eye-opening disclosures here: outrageous pseudo-scientific claims made for cigarettes throughout the '30s and '40s, and the story of how the tobacco industry and the National Cancer Institute spent millions to develop a "safer" cigarette that was never brought to market.
Dealing with an emotional subject that has generated more heat than light, this book is a dispassionate tour de force that examines the nature of the companies' culpability, the complicity of society as a whole, and the shaky moral ground claimed by smokers who are now demanding recompense.
Customer Reviews:
Great history book.......2005-10-15
Just about every great society has one crop whose presence is intertwined throughout its history, effecting the history, culture, and economics of the nation. For China it would be rice, potatoes for Ireland, coca for Columbia, and most likely tobacco for America. This Pulitzer-Prize winning book shows how and why tobacco is so important to America's history. Specifically, the book traces and examines the economic role of tobacco and the economic policies of the tobacco companies (growers, traders, sellers, etc...) from the 1800s on through the 1990s.
Subjects that are covered in this tome include tobacco farming, the making of cigarettes, advertising in papers, radio, TV and billboards, lobbying of govt officials to reduce regulation, PR wars with health advocates, promotion of overseas sales, and of course, the court cases fought between Big Tobacco (RJR,Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, etc...) and various consumers, consumer groups, government agencies, and governments. The book puts all of this together in a chronological history of tobacco with an emphasis on the role of big corporations like Philip Morris. The author has put this book together using a wide variety of sources both primary and secondary, including a lot of interviews with former and current employees at tobacco companies.
By reading this book, one learns a lot about various aspects of American law, culture, economics, and history. These include consumer relations, agro-business, medical research, lobbying, and advertising. OVerall, this is a great book, and I highly recommend it for anyone to read.
Wall Street Journal Reporter Narrates History of CIgarette Making.......2005-08-03
Well deserving of the Pulitzer Prize that it won, this book
tells the story of the growth of the industry - and the political
controversies about it - largely through the eyes of the main Tobacco Industry executives and lawyers. Beautifully written and
wittily objective, this is the best single place to start to understand this complex 20th century American phenomeon.
A History Lesson in Tobacco.......2002-10-21
I highly recommend Ashes to Ashes, by Richard Kluger, to anyone who wants to know more about the tobacco industry. Kluger provides a comprehensive history, beginning with the temperance of the tobacco leaf and the physical labor involved in producing marketable tobacco, and ending with the struggles the tobacco industry now faces with public health groups and government regulations. Kluger's narrative style makes this thick, fact packed book easy to read. Rich in history, critical, and thought provoking, Ashes to Ashes is a worthwhile read.
Long, but good.......2002-07-03
I'm not a smoker (fortunately my parents totally discouraged me from it, and I had enough smarts to avoid it anyway) but I found this history of the cigarette industry to be quite interesting--especially the facts about the early years.
It got a little dry towards the end, and the whole indictment of the industry has gotten a bit repetitious; I suspect at the time the book was published the message was new, but the message has gotten old fast. (Yes, it's clear that they knew about the health issues, and yes, they did very little about it.)
Overall it's a good read, especially the first half. If you're at all curious about how the cigarette industry came to be, the book does a great job of describing the companies and personalities involved.
Y'all said it: good but loooooong.......2001-09-28
Kluger's research is impressively thorough, his writing is lucid, and his insights -- well, insightful. But his inability to leave any detail unexamined makes this more of a resource book than a narrative. Slogging through to the end, became a chore. I mean, there ARE a few other books I'd like to get to before I die . . .
Book Description
Emerging out of the era of the robber barons and Theodore Roosevelt’s desire to “civilize capitalism,” the Food and Drug Administration was created to stop the trade in adulterated meats and quack drugs. In the almost one hundred years since, it has evolved from a squad of eleven inspectors dogging dishonest tradesmen into America’s most important regulatory agency, keeping tabs on the products of about 95,000 businesses and more than $1 trillion worth of goods annually.
This book shows how the agency combats self-serving political and industrial interests and protects Americans from hazardous medicines, medical devices, and foodstuffs while enforcing rigorous scientific standards. Hilts takes us back to the FDA’s beginnings, when it confronted businesses that acknowledged no limitations on what could be brought to market or on the claims they could make for a product. With the coming of the FDA, our government, for the first time, was able to force the removal of toxic elixirs from the shelves and to insist on accurate labeling.
We see the subsequent fights the FDA waged, and won, for mandatory testing, and against such conservatives as—in our own time—Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, who tried to curtail regulation. We see how the FDA protected the American consumer from thalidomide and other lethal pharmaceuticals, how it took on the tobacco industry, and how it stumbled in confronting the deadly mysteries of AIDS. And we are given, as well, a litany of extraordinary corporate excesses that the FDA has exposed and successfully battled.
Protecting America’s Health shows society adapting to both the burgeoning of science and technology and the ascendancy of the capitalist market. It makes startlingly clear the essential role the FDA has played in maintaining and protecting the quality of life—and health—to which the American public has long been accustomed.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent introduction to an important agency.......2006-09-03
This book is one of the few ones available on the FDA that is not a polemical attack on the agency. This agency, which is short on man-power and funds, is tasked with an incredibly daunting mission, i.e. to ensure the health of most foods, drugs, and cosmetics. Hilts provides a good history of the agency, often focusing on various individuals involved at all levels, which I liked. He talks about parties affected in various ways by FDA actions, such as consumers, patients, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, politicians, etc.. The only thing I felt misssing was a little more criticism of the FDA. No institution can be perfect or be completely staffed with ideal employees, and Hilts seems to limit his critiques of the FDA to outsiders, particularly politicians and corporations, while not focusing on any legitimate internal problems. But nevertheless I highly recommend to anyone wanting an overview of this critical area of regulation and of the players involved.
The friendly side of the FDA.......2005-01-11
As with many institutions, the FDA servers a perceived needed purpose. This book is a history of why the agency was needed and its design. It is filled with horror stories and how the FDA came to the rescue. Some of these stories even scared me as I recognized the products and or brands. The chapter "Capitalism in Crisis" reads more like a political statement against capitalism than a "FDA is out to help" statement.
What they do not say is that the FDA is the Government to the point that they can carry guns and badges. Now with the fast pace of drugs and device invention the FDA is needed more than ever. The other side of the coin is that thy have become an unwatched agency that can and does set its own rules to how a business can do their job down to describing the data field that are to be stored in their computer. Their regulations read like a phone book of conflicting statements (with no recourse). And you can be shut down on a whim if you do not follow the regulations as interpreted by their agent as they are the law.
The book contains an excellent set of notes. They are divided in to chapters. And there is a fair index. For people that like pictures there are eight pages of monochrome photographs.
The author has written several articles on medicine for various periodicals.
A Much Better Book.......2004-11-15
Hilts is a journalist so perhaps he can be forgiven for writing such a biased book, although to give him credit, he does not seem to even try to hide his bias, which makes the book a kind of comedy.
A much better (and thinner) book on the FDA is written by a former FDA regulator and a M.D., To America's Health, by Henery Miller.
Great intro to public health regulation.......2004-10-16
Sorry the other reviewer didn't like this, but as an FDA employee when Reagan would not allow the regulation of unpasturized cheese, where the listeria bacteria consumed in it caused the deaths of dozens of babies and pregnant women, I have to agree with the author. That cheese example is just the beginning; it doesn't include the dozens children who died after it was clear that aspirin use in children with fever caused the deadly Reye syndrome and the administration refused to allow FDA to put warning instructions on the label. It does not include the dozens of children who were poisoned by pills in easy-opening containers (iron pills look like candy and overdoses not treated promptly are irreversibly fatal). This book does name courageous industry people as well as public servants. It can open your eyes to the critical role the government played in assuring the availability of penicillin during WWII and vaccines today. It is the history of germs and cures in the US in a plain-spoken format.
History or Propaganda?.......2004-09-28
I came across this book when it was assigned to me in one of my MBA classes, and I thought it would be very interesting to finally read about how the FDA was created. I have a strong interest in the pharmaceutical industry and the agencies that regulate it, and the idea of a definitive 'history of the FDA' really appealed to me. From the very start, it was obvious that this book had an extrememly liberal slant, to the point that any good practices seen in the industry, or good companies within it, were completely obscured. However, I kept an open mind, and figured that the basic facts were still in order. However, I just got to the chapters regarding the Reagan years, which are perhaps the furthest back my memory goes. I was appalled by the vitriol the author spewed against all conservatives, and the conservative ideology, calling all conservatives a group of "white men" who were bound by "their anger against minorities, government, and established elites". Leaders such as Ronald Reagan were desribed as having an ideology that was "a bundle of fears and dislikes", and an "anger that holds together the radical conservatives". Now, I don't mean to say that the author isn't entitled to his opinion, but the degree to which he carries these extreme beliefs into a book that is described as a history is disturbing. I now doubt everything I've read so far, and will be looking for an unbiased account in order to get the TRUE story.
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