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

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (Phoenix Books)

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Sleeping Societies rarely awake before its too late
One of the most important books of our time
Chilling Look at Nazism from the German Perspective
Chilling parallels with today's society

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (Phoenix Books)
Milton Mayer
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226511928

Book Description

"Among the many books written on Germany after the collapse of Hitler's Thousand Year Reich, this book by Milton Mayer is one of the most readable and most enlightening."—Hans Kohn, New York Times Book Review

"It is a fascinating story and a deeply moving one. And it is a story that should make people pause and think—think not only about the Germans, but also about themselves."—Ernest S. Pisko, Christian Science Monitor

"Writing as a liberal American journalist of German descent and Jewish religious persuasion Mr. Mayer aims—and in the opinion of this reviewer largely succeeds—at scrupulous fairness and unsparing honesty. It is this that gives his book its muscular punch."—Walter L. Dorn, Saturday Review

"Once again the German problem is at the center of our politics. No better, or more humane, or more literate discussion of its underlying nature could be had than in this book."—August Heckscher, New York Herald Tribune

Customer Reviews:

Sleeping Societies rarely awake before its too late.......2007-06-07

Mayer, a Jew on Sabbatical in post-WW-II Kronenberg, sets his goal as that of better understanding the life-story of the ordinary German under National Socialism.

As he tells the story, Nazism was not just a political system or just an ideology it was a worldview peculiarly suited for and congruent with the German Post WW-I temperament and mentality. In the aftermath of the much-hated Versailles Treaty, Nazism arrived on the scene just in time to not just conquer the minds of both little and big Germans but to overwhelm them. Mayer's phrase has described it nicely: German enthusiasm for Nazism was clearly a case of "little men-gone wild."

The true value of this book and hence Mayer's most valuable contribution has been to draw a graphic conceptual picture of how the system of Nazism worked as seen at ground level by ten ordinary Germans and from the interior of German society: To a man, they all agreed that it brought them untold economic success, bound them patriotically and politically into a coherent cultural unit, restored the nation's pride and gave all Germans renewed reasons for hope in the future.

Given this rosy and very much interior and insulated backdrop, it is no wonder there was no basis for ordinary Germans to see (or even to be able to perceive) Nazi excesses, or to see Nazism itself, as an inherently evil system until it was too late.

This was true in part because all Germans already had community permission to hate Jews. The excesses, reserved mostly for Jews, thus seemed normal and in any case were always introduced in carefully orchestrated, slowly escalating, but easily digestible bites. This was done specifically to stay below the radar of the everyday German conscience -- so as to never assault German sensibilities too abruptly. Even the most alert of Germans and the least anti-Semitic Germans were lulled to sleep by this strategy.

But more importantly, because all Germans were wedded to the Nazi worldview thorough its benefits, both tangible and intangible, there were few incentives for them to "rock the boat" by pointing to its excesses. Dissension was left for victims and outsiders to engage in. However, being identified as an outsider or as a dissenter, at a minimum, could ensure social exclusion and a slow social death; and if one were very unlucky, it could mean disappearance into a concentration camp, or even a swift bullet to the temple.

Ordinary Germans thus were willing contributors to their own self-imposed trap: They needed the community's approval on its own terms. Sometimes this meant turning a blind eye to community sanctioned criminal activity, such as was the case in the event that set off a cascading sequence of pogroms against Jews, Crystal-nacht. Ordinary Germans did not want to approve of the criminal behavior involved, but was it not the community to which they were bound that decided what was criminal and who should be rewarded and punished for community-defined criminal behavior? It is easy enough for outsiders to exaggerate the actual relationship between man and state under tyranny, but from the inside, it is always made to seem normal and seamless.

Like a thief in the night, tyranny always descends upon sleeping societies in a cloak of patriotic conformity. It attacks when one is unguarded psychologically and least wary of an assault. By the time the citizen is prepared to raise a dissenting voice, in the name of state security, his throat (and presumably his vocal cords) have already been cut and he has been rendered mute. Once the national conscience has been drugged, sedated, or put to sleep, it is difficult to reawaken it.

Since there are no political systems that are entirely insulated against criminal activity, corruption or evil, only healthy, timely, vigorous and authentic dissent can act as an antidote to the evil inherent in tyrannical political systems like Fascism and Nazism.

Without drawing too fine a distinction, it is difficult to miss the many parallels between contemporary American society and 1933-1939 German society.

One of the most important books of our time.......2005-03-24

Among the impossibly vast literature about how the Nazis took and held power, this book is one of a kind. It is an honest look into the minds of "typical" Germans, not as we see them, but as they saw themselves. The author admits his biases and overcomes them to let his subjects speak for themselves. We hear them, in their own words, make their excuses and justifications and evasions, but the same question will not stop coming up in our minds: "What would I have done?" This book is a journey of questions without final answers, and it deserves to be ranked as one of the essential books of our time. The fact that it is so little known, and particularly that it is not required reading in college courses, is a disgrace.

Chilling Look at Nazism from the German Perspective.......2001-09-11

Mayer gives us a chilling look at Nazi Germany through conversations and interviews with ten self described 'little men', who were all members of the party. The men tell of their beliefs and experiences during the years of the Third Reich. In some ways the scariest aspect of the book is how normal the men seem to be. Their Nazi beliefs are somehow more frightning as they do not come from high ranking officials like Himmler and Goebbles, but rather from ordinary civilians.

Mayer lived in Germany for several years after the Second World War and learned quite a bit about Germany. His book gives us a fascinating look at the Germans and why they behave as they do. We learn a great deal about why they supported Hitler, their love for law and order, and their general outlook.

The one weakness here is that his material is out of date. His statements may accurately reflect on the Germany of the 40's and 50's, but most likely do not apply to that country in the Twenty-First Century. The Germany of today is largely free of the hatred and fear that existed in earlier times.

Chilling parallels with today's society.......1999-06-06

Shortly after World War II, Milton Sanford Mayer traveled to Germany to find out the mind set of ordinary Germans who were "little men" in the Nazi Party. They did not know that he was an American Jew, although he did not lie to them. To a man, they declared that their days under Hitler were the best in their lives. I found the parallels with current day America to be much to close for comfort, if you substitute white rural culture for Jews in Germany. This book will open your eyes as to how totalitarianism is welcomed by the mass of people if the media support it, and the economy is good.

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Sophistical look inside Middle East oil companies
Very Informative!
A rare find for the National Oil Companies!

Oil Titans
Valerie Marcel , and John V. Mitchell
Manufacturer: Brookings Institution Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0815754736

Product Description

Ninety percent of the worlds oil reserves are entrusted to state-owned companies. Originally created as political instruments, these so-called national oil companies (NOCs) face new demands amid todays dwindling oil reserves and simmering social pressures. Increasingly, state-owned oil firms--particularly in the Middle East--must balance the political demands of their governments with the need to be commercially competitive. In this ground-breaking new volume, Valérie Marcel draws on unprecedented access to the politicians, engineers, and businessmen directing five Middle Eastern state oil companies to illuminate one of international industrys most secretive yet powerful sectors. The author tells the stories of Saudi Aramco, the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, the National Iranian Oil Company, Sonatrach of Algeria, and the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. Taken together, these oil titans produce one quarter of the worlds oil and hold half of the worlds known oil and gas reserves. Marcel explains the complex bond between each state and its oil company, tracing evolution of the companies from the politically charged days of foreign concessions to todays world of profit-driven decisionmaking. Drawing on numerous and extensive interviews with company executives, middle managers, and oil ministry officials, Marcel identifies a number of surprising new trends in NOC strategy. She also paints a picture of their operating culture, capturing their nascent sense of corporate identity. Contributor John V. Mitchell, a renowned oil industry analyst, puts the operations and culture of NOCs into a wider macroeconomic context. He shows how the hydrocarbon sector fits into the overall national economies and discusses how it must adapt to rapidly changing circumstances in order to offset economic weaknesses elsewhere. Oil Titans provides rare and timely insight into how state-owned companies are striking a new balance between their national mission and their commercial needs. It provides an insiders guide to their unique culture while demonstrating the critically important role they plan in developing and maintaining their countrys economic welfare.

Customer Reviews:

Sophistical look inside Middle East oil companies.......2007-03-30

Don't look now, but five nationally owned oil companies (NOCs) control more than half the world's reserves of oil and natural gas. In today's media-steeped culture you might expect those companies to be under a constant microscope, but actually their operations tend to be cloaked in bureaucratic smoke. Valerie Marcel's book sheds valuable light on the way these companies operate and the red-tape constraints they face. While the book suffers from a rather colorless presentation, it more than compensates for this with insights into what the NOCs are and how they relate to the world's insatiable thirst for petroleum. We recommend this book to serious students of the global energy business.

Very Informative!.......2006-11-30

This is a very informative book about the real economic situation in the countries of the middle east and the business of oil. Is startling to realize that, thought there is a big income because of the oil now days, the producers countries face problems regarding internal subsidies and that the NOCs (National Oil Companies) are the source of jobs for the country, even thought most cases are not needed. The book show the companies that are doing well and also those with problems. In my opinion is vital for these countries to diversify its economy, thinking on what to do next after the oil age, and I'm not talking of gas only.

A rare find for the National Oil Companies!.......2006-08-13

Everyone knows the seven sisters: Standard Oil (Exxon), Royal Dutch Shell, Anglo-Iranian Oil (British Petroleum), Texaco, Socony (then Mobil), Gulf, and Standard Oil California (Chevron). Gulf, Texaco merged with Chevron. Exxon merged with Mobil. Seven became four. French Total merged with Fina, is another giant. Very few people knew anything about the Middle East oil companies. This book covers 5 of them: 1. Abu Dubai National Oil Company (ADNOC), 2. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), 3. National Iran Oil Company (NIOC), 4. Saudi Arabia Aramco, and 5. Sonatrach of Algeria. The government owns at least 51% of these national oil companies. In the west, most oil engineers are 50 years old. In these 5 companies, majority are young men, 25 to 30 years old. They speak English, make nice PowerPoint presentation, and have good IT skills. They are learning the oil business and they are very proud to be employed by the national oil firms. The rest of the countries are not doing well, even with the high oil rents collected by the government. Oil rents cannot be the only source of income. These government need to develop other industries to provide jobs for the young. Other OPEC countris: Iraq, Qatar, Libya, Indonesia, Venezuela have national oil companies too. It has good coverage on National Oil Libya, Petronas of Malaysia, Petrobras Brazil, Pertamina Indonesia, Qatar National Gas Company, Statoil Norway, Nigeria National Petroleum Corp, Petroleos De Venezuela SA(PDVSA), Pemex Mexico, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), and Gazprom Russia. With the increasing global demand and the rise of the oil prices, these companies need to train their engineers, collaborate with the 5 international oil giants, and continue to develop pipelines and distributions. Their work is cut out for them for the next 20 years. I recommend this book for any one who wishes to learn the global oil buiness. It would be better if CEOs, company information, websites of these five firms are included.

Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism

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Jargon PoMo Fluff
Too much useless jargon & outdated theoretical framework
Case studies

Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism
Lisa Rofel
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0520210794

Book Description

In this analysis of three generations of women in a Chinese silk factory, Lisa Rofel brilliantly interweaves the intimate details of her observations with a broad-ranging critique of the meaning of modernity in a postmodern age.
The author based her study at a silk factory in the city of Hangzhou in eastern China. She compares the lives of three generations of women workers: those who entered the factory right around the Communist revolution in 1949, those who were youths during the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s, and those who have come of age in the Deng era. Exploring attitudes toward work, marriage, society, and culture, she convincingly connects the changing meanings of the modern in official discourse to the stories women tell about themselves and what they make of their lives.
One of the first studies to take up theoretically sophisticated issues about gender, modernity, and power based on a solid ethnographic ground, this much-needed cross-generational study will be a model for future anthropological work around the world.

Customer Reviews:

Jargon PoMo Fluff.......2003-05-29

But lacking substance and a forcefully argued coherent thesis. Journalistic and useful ethnography, but without much substance.

Too much useless jargon & outdated theoretical framework.......2003-01-23

Rofel, a feminist herself, justifies her own subjectivity by framing her research subjects' testimonies within her politically-charged gender/modernity framework. She does not propose a coherent thesis, but merely attempts to debunk the modernity paradigm that other scholars have done decades ago. There is too much social science jargon that doesn't serve to legitimize her research but only serves to mask the inadequecies of her method and her ill-conceived theories and biased interpretations.

Case studies.......1999-12-12

It was not a bad book if in politics you like to read about one area and one factory. If you like this it is a very good book; however, I do not like this kind of politics I like the bigger picture and to get a better overall understanding of the country or even city. This book through only gave me an understanding of the dinamics of one factory and I do not think that is effective for a whole book. Another major problem with the book was that it seemed like two books that where writen at different times and then put together in other words she wrote her disertation and then whent back got some more stuff and turned it into a book withou trying to make it flow better. So I did not really like this book.

Transcendental Utopias: Individual and Community at Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Walden

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Scholarly
Scholarly Research

Transcendental Utopias: Individual and Community at Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Walden
Richard Francis
Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Utopian Alternative: Fourierism in Nineteenth-Century America (Cornell Paperbacks)

ASIN: 0801430933

Book Description

New England Transcendentalism was a vibrant and many-sided movement whose members are probably best remembered for their utopian experiments, their attempts to reconcile the contingent world of history with what they perceived as the stable and patterned world of nature. Richard Francis has written the first book to explore in detail the ideological basis of the three famous experiments during the 1840s: Brook Farm, Fruitlands, and Henry David Thoreau's "community of one" on the shores of Walden Pond.

Francis suggests that at the heart of Transcendentalism was a belief that all phenomena are connected in a repetitive sequence. The task was to explain how human society could be reordered to benefit from this seriality. Some members of the movement believed in evolutionary progress, whereas others hoped to be the agents of a sudden millennial transformation. They differed, as well, in their views as to whether the fundamental social unit was the individual, the family, the phalanstery, or the community.

The story of the three communities was, inevitably, also the story of particular individuals, and Francis highlights the lives and ideas of such leaders as George Ripley, W. H. Channing, Bronson Alcott, Charles Lane, and Theodore Parker. The consistent underlying beliefs of the New England Transcendentalists have exerted a powerful influence on American intellectual and cultural history ever since.

Customer Reviews:

Scholarly.......2000-09-27

This is a scholarly work and reads like a thesis - a bit dense, but well documented. The focus is on the intellectual underpinnings of the Transcendentalist movement in the mid 19th Century. With the name "Utopias", however, it seams lacking in a clearer treatment of Utopianism is general, or in influences from Thomas Moore, in specific. Perhaps that isn't considered relevent, but I would have liked to have seen it. None-the-less, an excellent source for research in this area of early intentional communities, which were truly the New Age movements of their time.

Scholarly Research.......2000-09-27

This is quite a scholarly work and reads like a thesis - a bit dense but well documented. The focus is in on the theory and intellectual aspects of Transcendentalism. Surprisingly little, however, on Utopianism in general, or influences of Thomas Moore in specific. I was living in Harvard MA, site of the Fruitlands, and found the book useful for research purposes.

Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community

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What do the Mormons, the Shakers, and the Oneida Perfectionists have in common?

Religion and Sexuality: The Shakers, the Mormons, and the Oneida Community
Lawrence Foster
Manufacturer: University of Illinois Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0252011198

Customer Reviews:

What do the Mormons, the Shakers, and the Oneida Perfectionists have in common? .......2006-02-06

The answer is quite a lot, according to historian Lawrence Foster, a member of the history faculty at Georgia Tech, a former president of the Mormon History Association, and a longstanding friend and colleague in the study of the Mormon past. Foster begins his discussion of the marriage practices of these three groups by focusing on the larger milieu of antebellum American society. During that era virtually all of the institutions of humankind received serious scrutiny and some alteration. The most obvious example was the abolition of slavery in much of the Western World; of course it came to an end in the United States only because of the radical realignment of political power coming through the Civil War. But other institutions such as marriage and family patterns also found their critics and experimenters abounded. Some of those alterations led to the creation of the Victorian family so elegantly described in a succession of books on the subject such as in "Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865" (Cambridge University Press, 1981) by Mary P. Ryan.

This book explores Mormon plural marriage, Shaker celibacy, and Oneida Perfectionist group marriage as it originated and evolved in the nineteenth century. Foster treats these experiments in marriage and family not as aberrations from a well=established norm, but as legitimate permutations of the reform impulse of the era. Each of these groups was founded by a charismatic leader, and Foster spends considerable energe probing the mind of Josepm Smith, ann Lee, and John Humphery Noyes. In the process he substantially illuminates the groups he focuses on, helps explain their marriage practices, and draws interesting comparisons between them. In this latter regard, especially, Foster's concluding chapter is a welcome addition to the literature, addressing such issues as the role of women in these various groups, the concept of religious authority and power and who has it and why, and family and childrearing practices. Foster takes a heavily anthropological approach toward his work, and theories ranging from Arnold Van Gennep to Victor Turner abound. He is intrigued by rituals, and by "rites of passage" ceremonial practices.

This is an exceptionally fine study that holds a central place in the historiogtraphy of the Mormon religion. Enjoy!

An Interracial Movement of the Poor: Community Organizing and the New Left in the 1960s

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An Interracial Movement of the Poor: Community Organizing and the New Left in the 1960s
Jennifer Frost
Manufacturer: NYU Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0814726984
Release Date: 2005-11-01

Book Description

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2002

"Frost has created a usable past capable of enriching our understanding of the difficulties of democracy and the tough realities of American politics."
—Peace & Change

"The finest study to date on the ill-fated Economic research and Action ProjectÂ….An outstanding work."
—Choice

"Frost contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the era and pushes past stereotypes of the sixties."
—Journal of Social History

"Frost has provided a coherent examination of the role of American women during the poor people's movement of the 1960s...there are many different things for scholars to admire about this book."
—American Historical Review

"I highly recommend this very accessible book...[it] includes rich archival and oral historical detail that should appeal to historians of the 1960s. For those of us interested in a more complex and intersectional analysis of the 1960s, this book is a welcome addition to the historical record."
— Contemporary Sociology

",,,A solid contribution to the literature on the history of community organizing and radical resistance, one that can also add to contemporary debates about rebuilding public life and reviving democratic dissent and practice in America."
— The Journal of American History

Community organizing became an integral part of the activist repertoire of the New Left in the 1960s. Students for a Democratic Society, the organization that came to be seen as synonymous with the white New Left, began community organizing in 1963, hoping to build an interracial movement of the poor through which to demand social and political change. SDS sought nothing less than to abolish poverty and extend democratic participation in America.

Over the next five years, organizers established a strong presence in numerous low-income, racially diverse urban neighborhoods in Chicago, Cleveland, Newark, and Boston, as well as other cities. Rejecting the strategies of the old left and labor movement and inspired by the Civil Rights Movement, activists sought to combine a number of single issues into a broader, more powerful coalition. Organizers never limited themselves to today's simple dichotomies of race vs. class or of identity politics vs. economic inequality. They actively synthesized emerging identity politics with class and coalition politics and with a drive for a more participatory welfare state, treating these diverse political approaches as inextricably intertwined. While common wisdom holds that the New Left rejected all state involvement as cooptative at best, Jennifer Frost traces the ways in which New Left and community activists did in fact put forward a prescriptive, even visionary, alternative to the welfare state.

After Students for a Democratic Society and its community organizing unit, the Economic Research and Action Project, disbanded, New Left and community participants went on to apply their strategies and goals to the welfare rights, women's liberation, and the antiwar movements. In her study of activism before the age of identity politics, Frost has given us the first full-fledged history of what was arguably the most innovative community organizing campaign in post-war American history.

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The Case for Socialism
Excellent traditional pamphlet and introduction
Very good piece of work!
Caution
Well-presented but doesn't make its case

The Case for Socialism
Alan Maass
Manufacturer: Haymarket Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1931859094

Book Description

"Vivid and urgent prose."--Jeffrey St. Clair

Mass argues that another world-a socialist world-is possible, one in which people come before profit and working people control society democratically, putting the world's resources to meeting human needs.

Customer Reviews:

The Case for Socialism.......2007-09-23

I've read quite a few books on socialism and the history thereof, but this one really stands out.

The first three or four chapters go into all the problems with and inequalities which characterize modern American society. While this section of the book is PACKED full of useful and sometimes astounding facts, it's too strongly worded for my taste. The thing that has always turned me off of the "liberal" label is the bleeding-heart aspect of it. If you are the same way, you might want to just skim these chapters, or at least take them with a grain of salt. The author wears his emotions on his sleeve in this part of the book. I actually came close to putting the book down before I got through these chapters.

Then, starting around chapter 5, he launches into the single best explanation of socialism I've ever come across--EVER. Group interests, not empathy; collective action, not top-down reforms; and so on. There's no confusing socialism with mere "extreme liberalism" as you read this part of the book.

This little book (or big tract--however you like to think about it) is the best I've ever come across for (1) introducing the reader to socialism and (2) underscoring it's continued relevance to the modern (post-Soviet, post-labor movement, post-Fukuyama) world. In fact, I've long had a profound respect for socialists, but my perception of them as dogmatists and closet authoritarians kept me from actually beginning to identify myself as one. The Case for Socialism is the book that threw me over to the other side.

Chapter 6--"If There is No Struggle, There is No Progress"--is, by itself, worth double the asking price of the book. It makes a strong case against the Democratic Party, a strong case FOR direct action/agitation, and persuasively argues the centrality of labor struggles among the long list of important social struggles. I anticipate photocopying this chapter for many people in the future.

Thanks, Maass.

Excellent traditional pamphlet and introduction.......2007-07-06

This small and easily readable book is a good introduction. Some of the other criticisms are fair but I know of no more straightforward introduction. After this there are many documented books you can read -the author even starts the journey with "further reading " recommendations. Stop procrastinating, get it, enjoy a good weekend's reading and who knows you may even like some of the ideas.

Very good piece of work!.......2007-03-15

I enjoyed this book very much, it laid down the problems that occur because of the capialist mode of production. However, he does not use footnotes and does not cite sources. (This is the reason for the 3 star rating)
The ultimate goal of this book (in my opinion) is to create a dialogue about the problems of capitalism and the ultimate solution.

Caution.......2006-08-11

Caution. If you plan on reading this book please mitigate the potential damage by reading Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom, or Henry Hazlit's Economics in One Lesson.

I'm not saying that this book is wrong or that the author is misinformed, at least not yet, but that it is important to remain amenable to opposing views--which is why I picked up this book in the first place.

It starts off with anecdotal accounts of why the American Dream is a farce and no longer applies to those not born into wealth. This, while being effective at invoking pity, unfortunately provides little argument for why reform is needed. Saying that 43 million people are without healthcare is not an argument for socialism, it is an argument for healthcare reform, which does not exclude free-market approaches. I would recommend this book if the author included the other side, but he does not, and consequently his arguments stagger.

The theme of "blame government blame capitalism" pervades throughout each chapter, without being conscious of its fundamental flaw. Attacking the status quo of capitalism is not an effective argument against capitalism for one simple reason. Subsidies, the welfare state, taxes, tariffs, and protectionism pervert and pollute the free market. What we have today, (a foreign policy motivated by greed, farm subsidies that favor the rich, special interest groups that run Washington D.C.) is not the product of nor is it unique to capitalism, but the result of an overinflated and corrupt government-- precisely what socialism would yield.

At one point the author concedes that a socialist revolution would be impossible without the achievements of capitalism. Maass writes, "Only under capitalism has human knowledge and technology been raised to the point that we could feed every person on the planet, clothe them, put a roof over their heads, and so on" (p. 90). This is why, he claims, socialist revolutions were impossible hundreds of years ago. In other words, capitalism has progressed and advanced society, but according to Maass, is evil because goods and services are not distributed equally.

I could go on about the inconsistencies of his argument, about how he attacks Coke for wasting resources on advertising which provide people with jobs, but I will spare you since most of you reading these reviews are probably already convinced of socialism and are looking for confirmation. Well, look harder and beyond the myopic text of this book. Read the other side, even if it pains you.

Of course I may be wrong, and that is up to you to decide, but the author's arguments could have gained more ground if he addressed and debunked the aforementioned claims, instead of appealing to pity. Also, Maass decided not to use footnotes, which I find suspicious.

Well-presented but doesn't make its case.......2006-03-06

Well-organized, good material, well-written.

Criticism of capitalism seems easy and Maass has no problem with that. What's less clear is some of the characterization of capitalism and how socialists would proceed.

Maass writes: "Capitalism is built around organized theft - the theft of value of what workers produce by the people who employ them." But entrepreneurs provide ideas and jobs. Investors risk their investment. Is it that clear that this is a process of theft? Perhaps it is, but Maass seem short on explanation. He repeats briefly the Marxist charge that the capitalists unfairly control the means of production. Issues of risk and incentive
go unaddressed.

Maass presents better the ecological dangers that capitalism contributes to and the continuation of wide-spread poverty and hunger in the world. Although it may seem less certain that American workers are "exploited", Maass's example of Nike's manufacturing activity in Indonesia where the legal minimum is less than $1 a day is alarming. Can $1 a day make for much of a life in Indonesia?

I found Maass effective when he stayed away from anything like doctrinaire Marxism: for most of the book he does, providing specific examples and usually avoiding cliche.

But when he writes that what a future socialist society would look like is up to future generations, I feel uneasy. Some may call it "utopian socialism", but, after decades of socialist activity and thought, I'd like to understand how we can get to and sustain a working socialist society. Even if future generations find a more suitable way, it would help to read an attempt at how effective socialism could be realized and maintained.

Essentially, Maass has written an easy book because we can see the ecological dangers , we dislike a lot about our jobs and possessions, and we feel uneasy about the extent of poverty, hunger, disease and untimely deaths in much of the world. That makes a case for how bad things are that we hardly need Maass for. Something needs to be done but that establishes the case for doing something, not the case for socialism.

This long after Marx, Maass seems only able to make a moral appeal. That's important but more seems due. Even if the blueprint for future socialists is up to them, can't Maass, after many years of socialist activity, contribute to what the blueprint would be for us? As a thought experiment, how might we get to a socialist world and how might it maintain itself? Maass dismisses the failure of the Russian experience but seems no better prepared than they were to carry on.

And why socialism? Why not anarchism?

And which socialism? There seem to be so many separate and non-coperating socialist groups. What are their real agendas?

Many of the issues Maass raises are important. But we need to go into them ourselves and find our own answers rather than be herded into someone else's incomplete conclusions and steered to new leaders who don't say where they are going. Can the current way be changed? What new ways really addresse the problems well?

P.S. In fairness to Maass, his newspaper "Socialist Worker" does provide (in the online version, at least, in March 2006) such responses to questions about socialism as "What would a socialist economy look like" and "How will workers run society?". Responses are brief (a few pages). As in the book, Russia for a few years beginning in 1917, is cited. I would expect, however, that someone with Maass background with socialism, could provide a considerably more thorough take on getting to a socialist society, on maintaining it, on how it would defend itself, how it would be ecologically sustainable, and how it would reach out to the rest of the world including the Third World.

A similar anarchist vision might appeal to Spain around the time of the civil war, when anarchists ran much of the country for several years.

On a much smaller scale, when B.F. Skinner wanted to show what a community based on the principles of Radical Behaviorism would be like, he wrote the novel "Walden Two", about a fictitous community based on Radical Behaviorism. I don't see why something similar, although at a higher level, can't be done to really help make a case for socialism (or anarchism).

Fire in the Hearth: The Radical Politics of Place in America (The Year Left, Vol. 4)

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Fire in the Hearth: The Radical Politics of Place in America (The Year Left, Vol. 4)
Mike Davis
Manufacturer: Verso Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Markets and Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism

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Markets and Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism

Manufacturer: Berg Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Policy & Current Events | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 185973572X

Book Description

Before the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, private marketeering was regarded not only as criminal, but even immoral by socialist regimes. Ten years after taking on board western market-orientated shock therapy, post-socialist societies are still struggling to come to terms with the clash between these deeply engrained moralities and the daily pressures to sell and consume.

This book explores the new market and its resulting contradictions in a rapidly developing Eastern Europe and Russia. Will Western fast-food industries irrevocably alter local culinary practices? What effect has the privatization of land had upon ownership and exchange? What role do new commodities play within the household? Based on original, first-hand ethnography, this book is a long-awaited addition to existing literature on post-socialist societies. It will be essential reading for students of anthropology, sociology, European and cultural studies, as well as professional groups working in Eastern Europe and Russia, including NGOs, development organizations and businesses.

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