Book Description
A reflection on everyday existence in the 'sphere of consumption of late Capitalism', this work is Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece.
Customer Reviews:
Pure thought.......2007-06-03
Though largely unknown outside of certain obscure academic circles, Theodore W. Adorno was, without a doubt, the foremost socio-political theorist of the 20th century. For truly intelligent, literate, questing minds (free of occultist nonsense) Adorno's MINIMA MORALIA is absolutely indispensible. A compendium of always eloquent, surprising, mournful, and deeply humane musings on modern capitalist society in all its terrible unfreedom, this book is among the most uncompromisingly radical ever written (cf. Max Stirner's THE EGO AND ITS OWN). To read and understand Adorno--even imperfectly--is to experience the tremendous pleasure of being in the presence of impeccable historical awareness, great moral rectitude, and visionary wisdom.
We're all damaged.......2007-03-06
This is essential reading for our times, and Adorno's insights can be applied to many different areas e.g. literature, sociology, politics, and philosophy. Highly recommended.
Firme Vatos.......2007-01-04
Dis is puro...firme vato locs. Down for Adorno por vida..Smile now, Cry later..
a damp, dark mine of of thought, with a few sparkling gems.......2005-11-21
Adorno is a sort of Nabokov of the armchair left: elitist, haughty, immaculately cultured, cynical and despairing, and capable of penetrating aphorisms and sparkling metaphors.
This collection of brief meditations on life and culture under late capitalism is maddening, provocative, illuminating, opaque, invigorating, and dour-- and often all of these on the same page.
Adorno is a writer capable of keen insights and exquisite turns of phrase, and the book contains a half dozen aphorisms that will stay with me. But reading Adorno fruitfully requires a lot of prereading: references to Hegel, Marx, Freud, Nietzche, Goethe and lesser figures of German philosophy and literature are tossed around with little hand-holding. In the end, his arcane cultural references and dour, despairing worldview cast doubts in my mind whether his books are worth the trouble.
His insights into the more subtle mechanisms of domination and comformity that pervade our society are important, but are rendered with greater clarity by writers such as Gramsci, Reich, P. Goodman, Debord, Chomsky, Marcuse, and Postman, writers who align themselves more closely with social struggles to resist these forms of oppression and thus have a more measured, hopeful view of the possibilities for reconstituting society along humane lines.
Ultimately, Adorno offers no way out of the morass, only criticism of those who seek it. His outlook of despair and non-involvement serves only to justify his elitist, impotent musings on esthetics and philosophy, and offers little instruction for resistance. Perhaps this is why his writings are so avidly championed in graduate programs in the humanities. His followers would do well to take heed of the warning Adorno himself ran afoul of:
"He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest." (MM 6)
Mediocre insights disguised and packaged in florid, flatulent prose.......2005-09-26
This book would make a perfect gift for the wanna be intelligent idiot in your family.
Theodor Adorno use his overly complex prose to dance about linguistically and make big intelligent sounding noises. It's sure to impress anyone looking for something deep SOUNDING.
"In its absurd readiness to accept these, impotently prostrate humanity tries desperately to assimilate to experience what defies all experience"
You see? Movies are bad.
Almost all reality changing ideas can be said with common language. So what is the purpose of this book?
Me thinks it amounts to simple written [...].
I actually burst out laughing more than a few times while reading this. Or in the style of Mr. Adorno...
"Whereas the blank page speaks none so much as a latent novelist who has bequeathed his mightiest thoughts, so does flooding of pages with equally blank ink. This dark coloring arranged and thoroughly thought out as to light a question unto the reader in such a manner as to ask "what is the purpose of the unnecessary prose? Thus, laughter develops, envelops and utterly denies the its intended purpose. Namely, the communication of ideas."
Sadly, I have a feeling many literary snobs and ego-maniacs will fall for Mr. Adorno's slight-of-language tricks.
Great thoughts are best disseminated though common language. Don't let his complex packaging fool you. There isn't much inside.
Try reading Mises/Hazlat/Rockwell and co....
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Correspondence: 1943 - 1955
Theodor W. Adorno , and
Thomas Mann
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
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Letters to his Parents: 1939-1951
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Dream Notes
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History and Freedom: Lectures 1964-1965
ASIN: 0745632009 |
Book Description
In December 1945 Thomas Mann wrote a famous letter to Adorno in which he formulated the principle of montage adopted in his novel Doctor Faustus. The writer expressly invited the philosopher to 'consider together just how the work - and here I mean Leverkuehn's work - might actually be realised musically'. Their close collaboration on questions concerning the character of the fictional composer's putatively late works (Adorno produced specific sketches which are included as an appendix to the present volume) effectively laid the basis for a further exchange of letters.Their ensuing correspondence documents a rare encounter of creative tension between literary tradition and aesthetic modernism which would be sustained right up until the novelist's death in 1955. In the letters, Thomas Mann openly acknowledged his 'fascinated reading' of Adorno's Minima Moralia and commented in detail on the Essay on Wagner, which he was as eager to read as 'one in the Apocalypse consuming a book that tastes as sweet as honey'. Adorno in turn offered detailed observations upon and frequently enthusiastic commendations of Mann's later writings such as The Holy Sinner, The Betrayed One, and The Confessions of Felix Krull. Their correspondence also touches upon issues of great personal significance, like the sensitive discussion of the problems of returning from exile to post-war Germany.The letters are extensively annotated and offer the reader detailed notes concerning the writings, events and personalities referred or alluded to in the correspondence.
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Adorno: A Political Biography
Lorenz Jager
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
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Adorno: An Intellectual Biography
ASIN: 0300105843 |
Book Description
Theodor W. Adorno—philosopher, cultural critic, sociologist, and music theorist—was one of the most important German intellectuals of the twentieth century. This concise, readable life is the first attempt to look at his philosophical and literary work in its essential political context.
Central to Adorno’s intellectual development were his musical training, his father’s Jewish roots, and the rise of National Socialism in Germany, which forced him to emigrate to the United States. While in exile, he and Max Horkheimer wrote Dialectic of Enlightenment, a bold attempt to illuminate the dark side of modernity, and on his own Adorno wrote a series of connected essays on the “culture industry”—his indictment of mass culture.
A co-founder of the famous Frankfurt School, Adorno returned to head it after the war, assuming a key role in the intellectual life of postwar West Germany until his untimely death in 1969. Jäger’s biography sheds new light on many aspects of Adorno’s life and writings and on his relationships with such figures as Paul Celan, Bertolt Brecht, and Walter Benjamin.
Customer Reviews:
A slim volume.......2004-11-30
Although an authoritative intellectual biography of Adorno is needed, this book doesn't fill the gap. Despite the sub-title, the author ranges freely across Adorno's work in philosophy, sociology, aesthetics, music and literature, and just over two hundred pages (of main text) is not enough space to deal adequately with the material, let alone with the additional portraits of associates such as Horkheimer and Kracauer. Some of Adorno's major works, such as Negative Dialectics, receive cursory treatment, and either the author, or possibly the translator, is not comfortable with technical philosophical arguments. Some discussions of Heidegger's views, for example, are nonsensical.
This has the appearance of a hasty piece of work, and as one reads on, the impression grows that the author has little respect for his subject. As a person and thinker, Adorno was surely flawed, but his story deserves a more balanced, detailed and informed recounting.
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Theodor W Adorno: An Introduction (Modern European Thinkers)
Matt F. Connell
Manufacturer: Pluto Press (UK)
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ASIN: 0745315275 |
Customer Reviews:
ONE OF THE OLD TIME PIONEERS.......2007-07-04
My first indication this book existed was a chapter, entitled The Making of a Scout, that Ole Hosstail (Joe Austell Small) ran in TRUE WEST magazine back around August, 1966.
Charles Goodnight was many things in the Texas Panhandle, pioneer, ranchman, Indian fighter, homesteader, leader and all around man 'with the bark on. One of the outstanding things he did, among all his other activities, was his work with the Bison (buffalo) saving a herd but also in achieving the 'cattalo' a cross between range cattle and the bison.
This book was already 20 some years old when it crossed my trail, and though I have a good hardcover copy, it is a second printing. But no matter which copy one may have, it is definately a prime source of information and no small classic in its own right.
In September, 2007, the University of Oklahoma will publish a newer biography of Charles Goodnight by William T. Hagan. Though having much fewer pages it will no doubt be worth having on a reader's western shelf as well.
No matter what your western reading interest concerning the west, Charles Goodnight is almost a must read.
Semper Fi.
Some of the best Panhandle History available.......1999-09-02
This book is not only about Charles Goodnight, but it is an excellent source on the history of the Panhandle, especially the settlement of the Palo Duro Canyon. You'll learn about the land, the wildlife, and the men who came to tame them both. It's an excellent biography, and should be required reading for anyone who lives within a hundred mile radius of the Palo Duro canyon.
Very interesting. Haven't finished it yet., but will soon........1999-03-25
Being a shirtail relative of Charles Goodnight, Ihave been anxious to learn more of him. My mother was a Goodnight, but not a direct descendant. More like a great-great niece. Would like to here from anyone who may be related. The book is very informative. I have an early copy from about the 1940's.
Book Description
Charles Henderson, Marine Corps veteran and author, chronicles the final days of America's involvement in Vietnam through the voices of those who were there-and those who would never be heard again.
On January 17, 1973, the Paris Peace Accords concluded America's involvement in Vietnam, supposedly ending decades of bloodshed. What took place, however, was far from peaceful-as the combined forces of the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong launched an all-out offensive to end the war with complete victory over the beleaguered south.
Here, culled from extensive interviews and research, are harrowing, never-before revealed accounts from people of every level and involvement in the Vietnam War-NVA and Viet Cong soldiers, U.S. embassy personnel, guerilla commanders, civilians, generals, double-agents, and leaders from both sides, including former president Gerald Ford and North Vietnamese military commander General Tran Van Tra.
From the impending invasion from the north, to the gut-wrenching hours before the fall of Saigon when a brave pilot defied orders and rescued the last five Marines from the roof of the U.S. embassy, this is the Vietnam War as it was: raw, brutal, tragic-and haunting to this very day.
Customer Reviews:
As history goes, it's a good historical novel.......2007-03-29
I make that rather pungent judgment on the basis of errors of omission and commission by the author. In the former category, we have a complete absence of maps, photographs, and footnotes. For me, leaving those things out of a military history is inexplicable and inexcusable. Why couldn't the author have included diagrams or maps of the Embassy Compound, Saigon, and Vietnam? How in the world can a reader be expected to follow the narrative? The absence of photographs is just as bad. The fall of South Vietnam and the end of the Vietnam War were profoundly photogenic events. Why couldn't the author have provided a few of the iconic images from that time (having just one picture on the cover of the book does not cut it)? Why couldn't he have provided photographs of all the people he interviewed for the book. And the absence of footnotes and endnotes is galling. I know that they are a pain to have to include, but how else can a reader determine what sources shaped the book?
In the latter category (omission), there is an even more grievous error. Like a lot of popular histories, the book includes lengthy conversations between individuals that feature in it. How could the author reconstruct these? A few might have been televised, but what about the rest? How can the author quote word for word what was said at an event that took places thirty years ago? Even for the ones that he was present at, how could he do this? I served in the military, and I have trouble remembering single sentences from conversations from just fifteen years ago under fairly memorable circumstances as well. The obvious conclusion --absent detailed notes explaining why entire conversations are reproduced-- is that the conversations were "reconstructed." They may be the gist of what was said, but having the gist of something does not entitle the author of any history to create dialog from it.
So that's why I think this book amounts to being a historical novel. Novels, after all, don't have endnotes, footnotes, pictures, and much of what happens in them may reflect actual history but is not that history itself.
Bottom line: I think there undoubtedly books about the momentous days of "Cruel April" that do not have the manifest faults that this book has.
Required Reading.......2006-03-29
Overall impression--Wow! A real tour de force. The Vietnam War was complicated, and writing a book about it is like trying to write a flow diagram for a large plate of spaghetti. And yet, Henderson has done it--at least as far as the end game goes. I give it an enthusiastic five stars.
Why required reading? As George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are destined to repeat it." And we might be repeating that history today with George Bush's so-called war on terrorism. You can't really answer that question unless you have something from the recent past to compare it with. Goodnight Saigon makes for a fine litmus test.
There are some books that are meant to be read once and discarded (e.g., the typical Stephen King novel), some that are meant to be read multiple times at differenct times in your life (e.g., Huckleberry Finn), and some that are meant to be studied (e.g., Hamlet.) Henderson's work falls somewhere between read-multiple-times and studied.
The most profound thing about the book is the Interview Notes wherein Henderson details the many players--American and both Vietnams--he interviewed first hand. It punctuates the fact that these people were real and these things happened and none of this should ever be forgotten.
Some comments on the other reviews:
No maps--true, the book could have used some maps. On the other hand, it is very easy these days to download and print a map from the Internet. Try the site at www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/vietnam/maps.htm, or for even more detail, try Jim Henthorn's excellent site at www.nexus.net/~911gfx/sea-ao.html. To do less is just plain lazy. And to mark Henderson down for this oversight is to obscure his more important achievement, the enormous body of research he collected in order to tell this tale.
The 'unended' sub-plot of LTC Tran Van Toan--See p. 302. (Also in the index) LTC Tran made it, his force of 450 men intact, and was assimilated into the defense of Saigon Under RVN Marine Corps commandant, General Bui The Lan.
--Ejner Fulsang, author of A Knavish Piece of Work, www.AarhusPublishing.com.
Great book, well written, fast moving.......2005-12-20
A great book which reviews the closing days of the Vietman conflict. The author interviews military, political leaders, civilians and press from both sides. It's a fast moving piece with plenty of action.
The downside of the book is that there are no maps or photos of some of the US Marines discussed, which would have been useful in understanding where battles were located. I found a web site, which has photos and also gives additional information at
www.fallofsaigon.org. Great book!
Great Story With Major Malfunction.......2005-11-22
"Good Night Saigon" is an impressive work of military history. Whenever this reviewer believes he has read about the Indochina war from every conceivable angle, he is proven wrong-and wrong again. GNS offers yet one more insight to that protracted conflict. The author was a member of the last detachment of Marines to be extracted from the grounds of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon on April 30, 1975. The scope of GNS is far broader than one fateful day and therein lies its' strength. We are reminded-painfully- that South Vietnam fell apart from North to South. In March, President Thieu made the disastrous decision to abandon Military Regions I and II to the advancing North Vietnamese and concentrate on the defense of the capitol. Any semblance of an orderly withdrawal evaporated as waves of South Vietnamese, both ARVN and civilian, fled south in panicked droves. The sheer amount of supplies and materiel relinquished to the NVA was incalculable. Author Henderson has interviewed some 40 subjects with first hand knowledge of that simmering time. These include media correspondents, Vietnamese military (ARVN, VC and NVA), a Communist Party official, Vietnamese civilians, many U.S. military including a former USMC Commandant, and even Nguyen Cao Ky, former Premier of South Vietnam. That guy escaped a foundering Saigon piloting his own chopper! Thanks to their collective recollections and some skillful reconstructed dialog, the reader gets a grand feeling of doom as the country imploded. We learn that many South Vietnamese fought valiantly to the bitter end, notably General Le Min Dao, commander of the ARVN 18th Division. This reviewer now believes that not all Americans were on the same page. Ambassador Graham Martin's perversely stubborn denial of the impending ruin is monstrous and had to have impeded the evacuation. This being Vietnam, there are doses of black humor: Enterprising Marines swept the Tu Do Street bars of several prostitutes and loaded them on an Air Force C130 and safety. The young ladies faced certain death by a kangaroo court. And a Marine Lance Corporal who helped evacuate 4 suspicious young males, reported to a nearby officer: "Sir, I think I just sent 4 Viet Cong corporals to Guam". There remains the lingering confusion over the order to cease the evacuation. The riddle of how the command to terminate the mission was transmitted may never be solved but Henderson's detachment was stranded for hours till a USMC higher up intervened. GNS gives the impression that most friendly South Vietnamese were extracted. Other accounts paint another picture. That riddle too, may never be solved. The final word for GNS must be negative: My hardcover edition contained NO MAPS! The text mentions many South Vietnamese cities, bodies of water and highways. All were of strategic value. Why must the curious reader follow the action with a World Atlas? This reviewer is geographically sensitive and a served In Country with the 815th Army Engineers. The 815th built Highway 14 North and part of Highway 20. He knows his roads, but what are others to do? Why do publishers pinch pennies with such stupidity? WO Henderson has produced a 5 star work, which must be reduced in rank to 3 through no fault of his. GNS remains highly recommended but readers will need that Atlas handy. If this reviewer were still over there, he would say something smart like "I'm too short to read a book with no maps!"
Starts out great but.............2005-10-27
This book starts out great but after the first chapter or so, it starts to get too 'military strategy' for my taste. I also find out the book quite hard to follow as there are so many personalites involved and the amount of military jargon is quite substantial.
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Charles Goodnight: Pioneer Cowman
Sybil Jarnagin O'Rear
Manufacturer: Eakin Press
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The Goodnight Trail (The Trail Drive)
ASIN: 0890157413 |
Book Description
Charles Goodnight was a pioneer of the early range cattle industry--an opinionated and profane but energetic and well-liked rancher.
Goodnight's story is now re-examined by William T. Hagan in this brief, authoritative account that considers the role of ranching in general--and Goodnight in particular--in the development of the Texas Panhandle. The first major reassessment of his life in seventy years, Charles Goodnight: Father of the Texas Panhandle traces its subject's life from hardscrabble farmer to cattle baron, giving close attention to lesser-known aspects of his last thirty years.
As entertaining as it is informative, Hagan's account takes readers back to the Palo Duro Canyon and the Staked Plains to share insights into the cattleman's life--riding the range, fighting grass fires, driving cattle to the nearest railhead--the very stuff of cowboy legend and lore. This fascinating biography enriches our understanding of a Texas icon.
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The Legend of Old Blue
Steven Law
Manufacturer: Goldminds Publishing
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Rodeo Summer
ASIN: 1930584059
Release Date: 2007-02-05 |
Product Description
Against the wishes of his widowed mother, seventeen year-old Josh Timmons leaves her and his sisters behind to pursue a lifelong dream of becoming a cowboy. A remarkable roping talent earns him a job on a cattle drive from New Mexico to the Texas Panhandle under the leadership of famous cattle baron Charles Goodnight. The dark side of Josh's ambition is a hidden desire to one day avenge his father's murder, but the realities of the trail make all his desires much more difficult than he had ever imagined. Josh battles the pressures of being a rookie cowboy, the discomforts of riding drag, and the hazzards of inexperience, but the spirit of Goodnight's amazing lead steer, Old Blue, helps Josh face the toughest of trials, and the richest of rewards.
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Pastores del Palo Duro
J. Evetts Haley
Manufacturer: s.n
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Binding: Unknown Binding
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ASIN: B00086KXQM |
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