Amazon.com

From abortion to "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias, Abrams vs. United States tothe Zenger trial, and abstract impressionism to Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, The Oxford Companion to United States History is an encyclopedic overview covering the pre-Columbian era to the election of George W. Bush in 2000.

The Companion examines the notable men and women and major events in U.S. history, such as wars or the Depression, as well as ideas and ideologies, technological innovations and economic developments, and long-term processes such as immigration and urbanization. Each entry is written by an authority on the subject, thoroughly cross-referenced in the 78-page index, and arranged alphabetically for easy reference. The alphabetic organization makes for some strange (or amusing) combinations ofpeople on the same page: Billy Graham and Martha Graham; "Mother" Jones andMichael Jordan; Persian Gulf War and Petroleum Industry; Income Tax, Federal,and Indentured Servitude.

A browser's delight, but full of solid scholarship, The Oxford Companion to United States History deserves the treatment its editors recommend--as "a work to be thumbed and worn out, not a book to be put behind glass on a shelf!" Absolutely essential for the well-stocked history library. --Sunny Delaney ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Fails as a Guide to American History
Students and history buffs need a good, comprehensive volume on the significant people, events, movements and changes in the United States over the course of its history. This volume, from the leading publisher of reference books in the English language, fails and disappoints with regard to these goals. This Oxford Companion tries to be the United States History of Everything, as a result it misses key aspects of political history and what it does cover is often inadequate and incomplete.

The Companion tries to cover too many aspects of cultural history and its icons. As a result it sacrifices information on many important political and public figures. We get biographies of Michael Jordan and Marilyn Monroe but no separate bios of George Mason, William Borah, Hiram Johnson, Henry Cabot Lodge, Tom Watson, Joseph Cannon, Thomas Dewey, Nelson Rockefeller, Clarence Darrow, Sam Rayburn, Jesse Jackson -- and the list goes on and on. When they are covered it is often in snipets in subject area articles, which does not give a complete overview of their public careers.

What it does cover in cultural and intellectual history is often incomplete. The Companion has separate artices on the history of the blues, jazz and a weak article on rural country and folk music, but absolutely nothing on bluegrass or commercial country music and its pioneers. The index doesn't even mention the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Bill Monroe or Hank Williams. Yet country music far exceeds both the blues and jazz in popularity in terms of its fan base and are certainly deserving popular art forms for inclusion.

The selection of significant figures for separate biographies is often strange and arbitrary. The Companion offers a bio of physicist Eugene Wigner but not of Hans Bethe or Richard Feynman, like Wigner both Nobel Prize winners. Feynman is considered by many to be the most important theoretical physicist of the second half of the 20th century. This arbitrariness in selecting subjects for biographies can be repeated in many different subject areas.

The Companion contains 26 black and white maps, often of poor resolution, and follows the same arbitrary editing in terms of subject matter. You get a map of the properties of U.S. Steel, but no map on how the United States looked at the end of the Revolution or after the Louisiana Purchase, though there is a barely readable map of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. No reference tables and charts are included to tell the reader Presidential election results, who were the Chief Justices of the Supreme Court, or who occupied important positions in Congress or the military over the course of American history.

On the positive side there are many good articles here on political and social history. However the reader must use this book carefully and supplement it with other Oxford Companions and reference books. At $... I would examine this book in a library before considering a purchase.

a vital and reliable companion to u.s. history today
This volume contains entries that deal with concepts, events, persons, and movements in u.s. history. The length of the entries is appropriate to the topic considered. In addition, the entires both inform the reader with up-to-date information and indicate how revisionist historians have resahped opionions or refocused the discipline. The entries are clearly written and eminently readable. They are persuasive in thier opionions, yet respectful of other stances. The cross references are helpful and ample. The same obtains for the bibliographies. The Oxford Companion to U.S. History far surpasses some other contemporary dictionaries in U.S. history. Its articles are treated in more depth and greater nuances. The entries in the other dictionaries are too short and far too superficial. I would highly recommend this for people involved in serious historical study and research. The price, especially the discounted one offered by amazon.com, is well worth the investment for scholars,libraries, and families.

excellent reference material
This book is a must have for anyone with an interest in American History. It gives a clear, concise explanation on most important aspects of the United States history and the history of the lands that would eventually become the United States. The most unique aspect of this book is that, unlike a school textbook, it explains a topics role throughout the history of the United States in on section. In other words, if you looked up Civil Rights, you would find a history of Civil Rights in America from the colonial period to present. All the background information you would need would be in one place, not scattered throughout the book. This is beneficial for teachers who need to quickly find some basic information to answer a student's question, or for a student who needs to quickly brush up on a topic. This is a work that I will definetly use for years to come. ... Read more

Book Description

`History: Fiction or Science?` is the most explosive tractate on history ever written - however, every theory it contains, no matter how unorthodox, is backed by solid scientific data.

The book is well-illustrated, contains over 446 graphs and illustrations, copies of ancient manuscripts, and countless facts attesting to the falsity of the chronology used nowadays, which never cease to amaze the reader.

Eminent mathematician proves that: Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 The Old Testament refers to mediaeval events. Apocalypse was written after 1486. Does this sound uncanny?

This version of events is substantiated by hard facts and logic - validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources - to a greater extent than everything you may have read and heard about history before.

The dominating historical discourse in its current state was essentially crafted in the XVI century from a rather contradictory jumble of sources such as innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts whose originals had vanished in the Dark Ages and the allegedly irrefutable proof offered by late mediaeval astronomers, resting upon the power of ecclesial authorities. Nearly all of its components are blatantly untrue!

For some of us, it shall possibly be quite disturbing to see the magnificent edifice of classical history to turn into an ominous simulacrum brooding over the snake pit of mediaeval politics. Twice so, in fact: the first seeing the legendary millenarian dust on the ancient marble turn into a mere layer of dirt - one that meticulous unprejudiced research can eventually remove.

The second, and greater, attack of unease comes with the awareness of just how many areas of human knowledge still trust the three elephants of the consensual chronology to support them. Nothing can remedy that except for an individual chronological revolution happening in the minds of a large enough number of people. ... Read more

Reviews (31)

Sky&Telescope Magazine confirms results
Sky&Telescope Magazine confirms results, but does not buy Fomenko's theory
Fomenko uses astronomy data to support his argument that history is too long and that many historical events happened more recently than we thought. The temple walls and sarcophagi of some Egyptian ruins are decorated with depictions of the sun, moon, and planets as observed in the different zodiacal constellations. If a given depiction is accurate - that the celestial bodies were observed and placed correctly in the constellations - a horoscope can be used for dating. Fomenko has deciphered over a dozen Egyptian horoscopes. He claims, that the latter show dates that are 2-3 thousand of years later than conventionally thought. Most well-documented ancient eclipses actually took place in the Middle Ages.

Roger Sinnott, studied astronomy at Harvard and is an editor at the respected Sky & Telescope Magazine checked Fomenko's calculations for the famous trio of eclipses from Thucydides's account of the Pelopponesian War. The three eclipses are conventionally dated to 431, 424, and 413 BC. Fomenko finds these dates as non adequate to narrative of Thucydides's and finds exact solutions as late as in 1133, 1140, and 1151 AD.

The second example is the eclipse of 190 BC described in Livy's history
of Rome. Fomenko redates this event to 967 AD.

Fomenko`s dates accommodate details from ancient descriptions that the conventional dates do not. For example, Thucydides wrote that the first of his three eclipses was solar and that the stars were visible, that means that the eclipse was total. The accepted solution of August 3, 431 BC involves an eclipse that was only partial in Greece. Similarly, the Livy eclipse is supposed to have happened five days before the ides of July, which by our conventional reckoning would date it July 10. Fomenko's 967 AD solution nails that date, while the conventional 190 BC eclipse actually occurred on March 14.

Sinnott confirms that eclipses did take place on the dates Fomenko has chosen and concludes, "Even though Fomenko has found valid eclipse dates that seem to fit the descriptions, I think it is far-fetched in the extreme to conclude that the chronology of the ancient world is 'off' by more than one thousand years." Free country, isn't it?
Check Fomenko's calculations with ANY sky mapping software, professional or amateur, you'll get his results confirmed.

Deals with a very serious issue
History: Fiction Or Science? is a quite scholarly expose of the extreme limitations of our understanding of human history. So few physical records have survived hundreds, let alone thousands of years that it casts even the most conventional understanding of what really happened into doubt. Chapters address the problems of historical chronology in general, astronomical datings, astronomy in the Old Testament, methods of dating ancient events via mathematical statistics, the construction of a global chronological map, the Dark Ages, and much more. Black-and-white illustrations add a vivid touch to this scholarly work that may appear controversial yet deals with a very serious issue directly affecting humanity's comprehension of its own past.

Crackpots. Conspiracies. History. Science.
When I picked up "History: Fiction or Science?" for the first time, it was out of sheer curiosity. I appreciate crackpots and crackpot conspiracy theories of all sorts - one could say that I have a private freak collection on a separate bookshelf. Therefore, this entire history revision business looked very much like it belonged there as well, so I decided to give it a go. My initial reaction was disappointment; the author sounded perfectly sane, which is simply out of order, if you ask me (a good crackpot theorist is always stark raving mad, hence the interest - never a dull moment anywhere). Then I started to read deeper into the book and, as I submerged about thirty pages deep, the remnants of my ironic grin dropped to the floor along with my jaw. The stuff actually made sense. No hysterical overtones or complex paranoid theorizing anywhere - it is certainly a scientific work written in a manner that has academia stamped all over, no doubt about it.

The critic in me would keep arguing with the authors every now and then - yet they never fail to emphasize the hypothetical nature of their reconstructions. Some of the hypotheses make perfect sense, others do not - which pleases me greatly, since I am most wary of books that make me agree with everything instantly; their integrity is nearly always heavily compromised in some way, yet never too obviously (the best crackpot conspiracy theorists are the ones you can't help agreeing with, and once you agree with enough, you find yourself ready to agree with the bloke who says reptiles rule the world). Here, you may be offered several contradictory renditions of the same historical event. Once again, I wouldn't have it any other way - anyone who is gullible enough to believe simple and unequivocal explanations offered by the official historical sources is usually unaware that those, in turn, contain numerous gaps, inconsistencies, and contradictions.

I always knew that history, especially ancient history, has been a collection of fairy tales all along; still it took me some time to accommodate the thought that, for want of a better metaphor, even the fairy tales it consists of were culled from a wide variety of books, shuffled together like a very dodgy deck of cards, then put into a random sequence, given a new index and proclaimed the only authorised collection of fairy tales in the world (and children who ask silly questions about why certain things make no sense or whether there are any other, more interesting tales available elsewhere need spanking, of course - a time-honoured tradition, isn't it then?). Well, the Russian mathematicians do ask questions. Lots of questions. Questions which there was a very long tradition of not asking; ones that concern the very foundations of modern chronology (although "modern" might be a misleading term here, since said chronology is a child of the Middle Ages). And the historians who demand a spanking shaking fists and frothing at the mouth make me want to put every book on history that I own on the crackpot shelf - certainly not Fomenko and team. Indeed, I haven't put them on any shelf yet, since I'm reading the book for the third time over, and eagerly anticipating the second volume.

I laughed a lot with this book
In the middle of a lot of forced texts, the first think that made me laugh the most was the fact that, 16th century paintings depicting Classic age personalities were painted in 16th century style, thus proving that there was no middle ages.

Even high school children can see that renaissance painters painted using their imagination, because therer were no archaelogical findings to sho how the ancient dressed and most of the painters had no formation in the classics.

If I use this reasoning, maybe we can say that the americas wrere only discovered in the 19 th century since all paintings and drawings between the 15 to 18 century were innacurate in the depiction of the florsa and fauna

I really don't know whether I must laugh or cry.
According to this chronology (which we can name "Ultra High Revised Chronology"), Jesus died in 1086 AD. More or less, in this time, the Cid was fighting against the Moors in medieval Spain.
Taking this theory to extreme, then Jesus/Joshua would be Rodrigo Díaz alias "the Cid, the Champion Knight" (el Cid Campeador in Spanish), who took Valencia (i.e. Jericho), because he was exiled from the kingdom of Castilla (i. e. Egypt) by King Alphonse VI (i.e. the Pharaoh of Exodus)!!!. We don't have to forget that, according with Spanish medieval legends, the Cid rode after his own death and won a battle (resurrection???).
Ergo Jesus/Joshua was the Cid.
On chronology, I am arranged to think anything. ... Read more

Book Description

Winner of the 1996 American Book Award and the Oliver Cromwell Cox Award for Distinguished Anti-Racist Scholarship

Americans have lost touch with their history, and in this thought-provoking book, Professor James Loewen shows why. After surveying twelve leading high school American history texts, he has concluded that not one does a decent job of making history interesting or memorable. Marred by an embarrassing combination of blind patriotism, mindless optimism, sheer misinformation, and outright lies, these books omit almost all the ambiguity, passion, conflict, and drama from our past. In ten powerful chapters, Loewen reveals that:

• The United States dropped three times as many tons of explosives in Vietman as it dropped in all theaters of World War II, including Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• Ponce de Leon went to Florida mainly to capture Native Americans as slaves for Hispaniola, not to find the mythical fountain of youth
• Woodrow Wilson, known as a progressive leader, was in fact a white supremacist who personally vetoed a clause on racial equality in the Covenant of the League of Nations
• The first colony to legalize slavery was not Virginia but Massachusetts

From the truth about Columbus's historic voyages to an honest evaluation of our national leaders, Loewen revives our history, restoring to it the vitality and relevance it truly possesses. ... Read more

Reviews (258)

Lies that some of these readers have told you...
...

I'm not a leftist or a marxist or even a socialist - I think, in general, they're a bunch of idealistic freaks. I'm an educated person in search of the truth. This book angered me more than any book that I've read in the past 20 years. All of the things that I suspected and have researched about history were illustrated here. Columbus' true behavior as a man of his time, Wilson and the difference between his theories and his actions, the way Indians were treated, the way slavery was a serious factor in the Civil War, the lingering racism all over the country (even in my own family, I've seen it, and I'm from New York), even the way Vietnam was glossed over. It's maddening to think that for the sake of patriotism, we can't handle the truth of our own nation. If we can't love it even with its flaws, how can we truly love it at all?

Anyway, I've really enjoyed the book, even as it has made me mad. Loewen, despite his apparent leftist leanings, manages to impart a sense of logic and truth throughout the text - something that other history authors should emulate. It's pretty sad when a sociologist can write a more interesting history book than most history writers.

Prompting the Intellect
So you thought you know your history?

Loewen offers a provocative perspective of American history by questioning European
heroification oriented history through the retelling American history from the perspective(s) the
Native and African Americans. Challenging the European dominated American myth, Loewen
questions the basis for much of America's storied history providing ample support for his
position.
One historical reckoning does not provide complete accuracy. Yet, societies' educational
systems attempt to instill their own societal ideas and methods to preserve the societies' identity
and integrity. As Loewen accurately states, American social studies textbooks omit or downplay
our nation's shortcomings. Our society promotes a positive self-image to motivate patriotic and
loyalty. It's not surprising that historical figures are made mythological for this purpose. Ancient
Egypt created gods from tale tails of early kings; the Old Testament draws from Babylonian myths
to explain creation; America glorifies the stories of Columbus and the Pilgrims to explain our
presence in the country.
In an informational age the American story needs to suit its cultural kaleidoscope
however. Loewen whets the appetite for historic cultural reconciliation. America is not solely the
Eurocentric melding pot. It never was. Such an image presents a shallow attempt to understand a
multi-dimensional past.
To properly understand a concept, one must understand both its positive and negative
elements. Loewen teaches us the America story is not an exception. Be teaching negative
perspectives of American history, Loewen challenges us to critically consider what we teach. By
understanding our society as viewed by all its parts, we can fully comprehend our stories and
consciously strive for ongoing betterment.
The book does have some weak elements. While Loewen appears at times overzealous in
his efforts, oversupporting his viewpoints with a plethora of support documentation. His support
and conclusions about some historical figures create some concern. Yet, the nature of Loewen's
subject matter requires this degree of support to overcome the storied past. More examples are
needed to overcome deep-rooted perceptions than are required to create initial impressions. His
discussion of John Brown raises some concern about advocacy of vigilante murder methods.
For all his criticism, Loewen appears vague and short on solutions. This shortcoming
results from the nature of the subject matter. In discovering historical half-truths have systemic
causes, Loewen appears to lack a definate method to address the need for systemic change. He
reasons this method must occur through the classroom, however. The chapter on governmentally
tainted information questions the accuracy of accounts of nonconforming social movements.
Thus a direct challenge to the system does not appear feasible. Just as a steamship can't pivot
suddenly, so much systemic change evolve.
Loewen stimulates an interest in knowing our historic truths. He provides a springboard for more
investigation into our past. The classroom is an excellent place to start this process
systematically.

Read the whole thing.
If when reading this book, you find that the author is completely one sided and biased, it's because you didn't read the next paragraph. The author shows the liberal view first, and gives the reader credit to keep reading to see the conservative side. Although I believe the topics and conclusions are largely liberal, they are fair and well balanced. I don't believe there is much to argue here.

If you don't think the history referenced in this book is accurate, you are free to research it yourself. The author does not claim to use any secret sources.

For instance, the author mentions that early european settlers dug up and ate dead native americans. I don't know where his source is for this, but I wouldn't be surprised if that source turned out to be primary source material. Whether or not the primary source is accurate, or corroborated, would also require more research.

It would be embarrassing if the author just made it up, and judging by the topic of the book, counter-productive.

Do yourself a favor and read the whole thing. Don't stop short like your teacher did with your history book.

An amazing book
This is am amazing look at not only the lies fed to american's youth as unquestiable truth, it also offers an interesting look at how history books are approved by state boards.

Unlike "A People's History of the United States". This book can not be used as a "History Book" Or even as supplementary material. It does do the job of despelling certain lies well! For an adult interested in discover the long hidden lies this book is for you.

A pretty interesting read.
The book definately has a slant to it, but that is to be expected of all books. I don't believe Loewen claims to be objective. He is just another perspective to take into account. I think he would be mystified if you read his book and took it as the gospel truth. He advocates questioning history, and that includes his viewpoint of history too. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The "Langer Encyclopedia," as the professional academics call TheEncyclopedia of World History originally edited by the late William L.Langer, is basically a history of everything--and an outstanding referencevolume. Want to know why the English called their 10th-century king Ethelred"the Unready"? See page 181. Or what the Ottoman Empire's constitution of 1876said? See page 531. Or when women in Honduras got the vote? See page 955. Thissixth edition, completely updated and revised by a team of scholars led byGeorge Mason University's Peter N. Stearns, packs all it can into a year-by-yearand region-by-region chronicle of human life on planet Earth. The book is big,the type is small, and the maps and genealogical tables are excellent. Stearnshas added more material on women, leisure activities, and demographics to thisedition, and the sections on Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and LatinAmerica are much different from the previous version. As if this weren't enough,the book comes with a CD-ROM featuring the complete text and fantastic searchcapabilities. The Encyclopedia of World History is highly recommended forserious history buffs. --John Miller ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Best Single Volume Reference Available
William Langer's original daunting task - to offer a single volume encyclopedia that would be the standard reference volume for historians - was admirably fulfilled in past editions. This sixth edition, with Peter Stearn and his team of scholars of unquestioned authority, continues the tradition. For the layman, this book offers a remarkable brevity and depth. Often within just two or three pages entire significant periods or trends are covered thoroughly. There are rare factual errors, as is the case with any encyclopedic work, but this new edition still delivers the most exhaustive reference with the least errors. For those who love dates and places, people and trends, this is an invaluable reference. For those who hate such detailed information but must keep it around for work or school, this is still the best single volume encyclopedia available. The CD-ROM is painless to install. The integration into MS Word is only mildly quirky - for most terms the desired reference information pops up within seconds and is reasonably relevant. David R. Bannon, Ph.D.; author "Race Against Evil."

Typical ivory tower academic bias
Don't look to this book for a balanced even-handed look at history. It has the unfortunately all-too-typical biases now running rampant on cloistered university campuses. There is a not-so-subtle slant throughout the book against all things "Western," essentially placing the blame for all of the world's ills on people of European ancestry....

Find another volume that is able to deal with history more objectively.

A Classic Updated
The 1972 Langer was THE standard reference for history students, as I ws for six years of graduate school. It bailed me out numerous times. It parallels the value of the CRC for chemistry students or the OED for scholars of the English language. This splendid revision and updating belongs in the collection of anyone wanting a handy, convenient reference to all phases of history. It has splendid essays that lay out the basics in many fields, like art, math, science, and culture. It should not be the last word on a topic, which you can get from poking through amazon.com, or visitng your local library. The CD-ROM is a dream, and the maps printed out fine, even though they are just an outline of say, the partition of Africa. As for Lindbergh, the error was perpetuated from the 1972 book, but that should not detract from the overwhelmingly excellent job. Any general reference work that cites my obscure dissertation hero, even thought it is spelled in the English and not the Polish style, is truly remarkable!

An Encyclopedia of World History
I'm a history buff and I have been using this reference book since 1972. It's the best book of its kind. Whether you want facts, maps, or genealogical tables; it's all there.

How many more errors are there?
This volume is very handsome--beautifully typeset. And the illustrations are nicely done, too. However, the very first person I looked up, Charles A. Lindbergh, revealed an error. At the bottom of the first column on page 729, the year for CAL's flight is given as 1925, not 1927 as it should be. (It is correctly noted on page 428.) Needless to say, finding such a significant error almost immediately after opening the book has made me more than a little untrusting of the book's other dates and facts. Buyer beware. ... Read more

Amazon.com

The Condition of Postmodernity is David Harvey's seminal history of our most equivocal of eras. What does postmodernism mean? Where did it come from? Harvey, a professor of geography and a key mover behind extending the scope and influence of the discipline of geography itself, does a thorough job here delineating the passage through to postmodernity and the economic, social, and political changes that underscored and accompanied it. As he clearly states, the rise in postmodernist cultural forms is related to a new intensity in what Harvey terms "time-space compression," but this new intensity is a qualitative rather than quantitative change in social organization, and it does not point to an era beyond capitalism as "the basic rules of capitalistic accumulation" remain unchanged. Unlike Fredric Jameson (whose equally rewarding Postmodernism stands as the twin pillar to Harvey's critique), who explicitly relies on Ernest Mandel's periodization of late capitalism, Harvey eschews a narrowly economic focus, the limits and contradictions of production that have led to the rise in the service sector, and takes a more multidisciplinary approach to his history. As comfortable discussing Manet as he is labor markets, Harvey is an excellent writer, and The Condition of Postmodernity is an exceptionally informative and enjoyable read. --Mark Thwaite, Amazon.co.uk ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Po-Mo Schmomo?
Ask ten academics about what to call our present fin-de-siecle epoch and you'll get ten different labels, but "postmodernism" seems always the default term. Although it's twelve years old, Harvey's book is the best I've read about the pluralistic fabric we daily inhabit. It's edifyingly reader-friendly (especially compared to some of the Franco-drunk rhetoricians out there trying to get a handle on our current world). In precise prose Harvey outlines the shift to our information-as-capital paradigm since the mid-sixties, and the causes of the growth of the temp sector and "just-in-time" production capabilities. Harvey traces the arrival of "flexible accumulation" to the collapse of Fordist production practices in the 1966-73 waves of recession, but covers far more than just economic factors--architecture, art, literature, cinema--without any self-conscious Neo-Marxist whistling-in-the-dark. In his project to articulate a new (meta?)narrative, Harvey's book will probably give post-structuralists a new constellation of ideas to obfuscate with hip terminology and dense prose...
Manuel Castell's "The Rise of the Network Society" is another good book along these lines.

Best overview of modern/postmodern condition I have found
This is a great overview of concepts that are, by definition, very fractured. Harvey clarifies and pulls together a number of seemingly disparate elements in a masterful manner. Though this book could work as a good introduction to these concepts, I think readers with some background in the major writers of modernism and postmodernism will get more out of it. Dogmatic postmodernists may be put off that Harvey has the "temerity" to suggest that postmodernism might be an extension of modernism or that he finds some good in modernism and some excesses in postmodern approaches but, they should get over themselves and realize that their insistence that "all meta-narratives are bad" is their own meta-narrative. Overall, Harvey manages to convincingly express his ideas while maintaining a remarkably evenhanded approach. I especially enjoy the fact that he avoids the postmodernist tendency to ignore the complexities of modernism and, thus create a postmodern meta-narrative about the modernist project.

Excellent overview of modernity and post-modernity
David Harvey's "Condition of Post-Modernity" provides excellent representational cases to show the differences between modernity and post-modernity. Although sometimes difficult to follow (I had problems with the chapter pertaining to architecture), Harvey uses enough examples (i.e., economics, art, cinema, etc.) to make sure one understands the differences between post-modernism and modernism. The economic chapter, "Fordism and Flexible Accumulation" is particulary good and shows the gradual transformation from a moderninst to a post-modernist economy and society. I was disappointed, however, that Harvey didn't have a complete section focused towards the differences between modernist and post-modernist lit.

The Best Analysis of Postmodernism
I am a graduate student and use this book in a course I teach on postmodernism. I think it is the most convincing analysis of postmodernism available. The book is involved and complex, ranging widely over many areas of culture, but Harvey is a clear writer and a lucid thinker. He defines his terms with precision and the work is relatively free of unnecessary jargon -- a rarity in debates over postmodernism.

But be forewarned: Harvey himself is no "postmodernist," and is often (though not always) critical of postmodern culture. The point of Harvey's book is to understand what postmodernism is and why it came about, and to answer these questions he relies heavily on economic and sociological models of social change. In this sense at least, Harvey's methodology is significantly removed from that of the thinkers he discusses.

An all emcompassing 'must buy' for the social sciences
The Condition of Postmodernity, although suffering from the author's modernist attitude, provides a vital and continually influential work on the percieved shift towards a postmodern cultural epoch. This shift is equated with the economic change from Fordist to Post-Fordist economies and the new regime of flexible accumulation. The book draws on theoretical examples as diverse as the work of Michel Foucault and Karl Marx and brings together empirical examples that are equally wide ranging. It has to be said that although Harvey provides a a substantial appraisal and critique of the postmodern condition the meta-narrative employed leaves the author as the outsider looking in rather than the insider looking out. ... Read more

Book Description

Since ancient times, the pundits have lamented young people's lack of historical knowledge and warned that ignorance of the past surely condemns humanity to repeating its mistakes. In the contemporary United States, this dire outlook drives a contentious debate about what key events, nations, and people are essential for history students. Sam Wineburg says that we are asking the wrong questions. This book demolishes the conventional notion that there is one true history and one best way to teach it.

Although most of us think of history—and learn it—as a conglomeration of facts, dates, and key figures, for professional historians it is a way of knowing, a method for developing an understanding about the relationships of peoples and events in the past. A cognitive psychologist, Wineburg has been engaged in studying what is intrinsic to historical thinking, how it might be taught, and why most students still adhere to the "one damned thing after another" concept of history.

Whether he is comparing how students and historians interpret documentary evidence or analyzing children's drawings, Wineburg's essays offer "rough maps of how ordinary people think about the past and use it to understand the present." Arguing that we all absorb lessons about history in many settings—in kitchen table conversations, at the movies, or on the world-wide web, for instance—these essays acknowledge the role of collective memory in filtering what we learn in school and shaping our historical thinking. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Calling all educators: A MUST HAVE!
OK, the fact that he is "the" professor who changed the course of my life notwithstanding: This is a terrific book, one that opens doors for teachers who want to think about "what" they do, "how" they do it, "why" they use the materials that they do, and, ultimately, what critical pathways they have opened in their students at the end of the day.

Thought provoking, stirring without being preachy, at times quite funny -- Wineburg quickly shows why he one of the most important voices in Ed Psych -- in Education -- in History -- today.

Most of the folks in the History department at my school now own it. Don't think, just buy. You'll have lots of time to think later.



Go. Click. It's not too late.



It's still not too late. Stop reading. Quickly now...click!

An Interview with Sam Wineburg about "Historical Thinking"

Taped to the door of Sam Wineburg's office at the University of Washington's College of Education are paired photos of dogs and their comically similar owners. Professor Wineburg greeted me with a pop quiz: "Which twins look most alike?"

Behind this playful question is an educational psychologist's interest in how people think, especially about history. Wineburg's "Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts" (Temple U. Press, 255 pages, [price]) shows that historical thought is not a natural process: it "goes against the grain of how we ordinarily think, one of the reasons why it is much easier to learn names, dates, and stories than it is to [understand] the past."

Wineburg told me his interest in this subject first awoke when he took a history class he couldn't ace with his good memory. He learned that histories aren't objective summaries of the facts but interpretations and arguments made out of information that's always incomplete. "But how did historians do that?" Wineburg asked. "Their books seemed like products of naturally systematic thought--which wasn't how my mind worked, but maybe I was just dumb!"

Wineburg's research into history and the mind has won many honors during his 12 years at the University of Washington. Through having students and professors think aloud while reading documents, he found that only novices just read something and decide what it means. "A historian's thought process is full of hunches and reverses, constant self-questionings and I-don't-knows," Wineburg explained.

Standardized history tests inhibit this kind of thinking, besides guaranteeing that students will seem vastly ignorant. "Periodically, starting with the first national survey in 1917, Americans have concluded from factual tests that kids don't know history. The conclusion isn't logical." Wineburg smiled wryly. "Kids have just never remembered the facts that adults sitting around a table making up a test say they should remember."

He pulled a U.S. history text from a shelf. "Why not teach how to question the facts? Here's Rosa Parks: 'Tired after a long day's work, she sat down in the front section reserved for whites.' Actually, Parks sat in the middle of the bus, available to anyone unless the front was full. Other accounts have her saying she wasn't especially tired and wasn't sure why she kept her seat when challenged. Did Parks intend an act of civil disobedience? Why do these historians disagree?"

Comparing documents, Wineburg added, "is detective work that kids are usually deprived of. It shows them that no single authority has the whole story, and it raises real questions of meaning." He paused, considering. "Every topic doesn't need endless debate. Students stay engaged once they realize history's not a fixed story they must swallow whole but a way of thinking they can apply to life."

Americans need this way of thinking, Wineburg told me. "We're deluged by conflicting, fragmented information that tries to steer us in particular directions. We need to raise citizens who ask themselves, 'Is this true? Who's saying so? What's the nature of the evidence?' Taught this way, history is a training ground for democracy."

Is such training too hard for schoolchildren? "We underestimate kids' abilities to think. Or we believe their self-esteem depends on having tasks they easily do. But we feel good about ourselves by doing things we thought we couldn't do, with capable people around to pick us up after a tumble and show us our reach can exceed our grasp."

"Historical Thinking" is an academic book, but not daunting or dry, and full of stories any reader can enjoy. Wineburg describes Primo Levi's moving encounter with the student who swore that if sent to Auschwitz he could have escaped. There's a chapter on drawings that schoolchildren made of their mental pictures of Pilgrims, Settlers, and Hippies for one of Wineburg's studies--readers can bypass the statistical tables and walk right into these young imaginations. The high-school history class discussion that veers off the rails is as gripping as well-crafted fiction.

Wineburg's conversation with me was no merely academic exercise either. "History gives us a kind of humility," he mused at one point. "I can read something written in 1860 but not know what it meant to live in 1860. I never lived in a world where you could wake up in the morning and go to an auction and buy people. Studying history, we think our way into what living in that world was like. It's the only form of time travel that exists."

Small wonder that Wineburg was an early winner of the University of Washington's Distinguished Teaching Award.

Historical Thinking: Training Ground for Democracy
[Note: This review appeared in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on June 1, 2001. Go to online copy at the newspaper's website ..., or see the text below:

Taped to the door of Sam Wineburg's office at the University of Washington's College of Education are paired photos of dogs and their comically similar owners. Professor Wineburg greeted me with a pop quiz: "Which twins look most alike?"

Behind this playful question is an educational psychologist's interest in how people think, especially about history. Wineburg's "Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts" (Temple U. Press, 255 pages, ...) shows that historical thought is not a natural process: it "goes against the grain of how we ordinarily think, one of the reasons why it is much easier to learn names, dates, and stories than it is to [understand] the past."

Wineburg told me his interest in this subject first awoke when he took a history class he couldn't ace with his good memory. He learned that histories aren't objective summaries of the facts but interpretations and arguments made out of information that's always incomplete. "But how did historians do that?" Wineburg asked. "Their books seemed like products of naturally systematic thought--which wasn't how my mind worked, but maybe I was just dumb!"

Wineburg's research into history and the mind has won many honors during his 12 years at the University of Washington. Through having students and professors think aloud while reading documents, he found that only novices just read something and decide what it means. "A historian's thought process is full of hunches and reverses, constant self-questionings and I-don't-knows," Wineburg explained.

Standardized history tests inhibit this kind of thinking, besides guaranteeing that students will seem vastly ignorant. "Periodically, starting with the first national survey in 1917, Americans have concluded from factual tests that kids don't know history. The conclusion isn't logical." Wineburg smiled wryly. "Kids have just never remembered the facts that adults sitting around a table making up a test say they should remember."

He pulled a U.S. history text from a shelf. "Why not teach how to question the facts? Here's Rosa Parks: 'Tired after a long day's work, she sat down in the front section reserved for whites.' Actually, Parks sat in the middle of the bus, available to anyone unless the front was full. Other accounts have her saying she wasn't especially tired and wasn't sure why she kept her seat when challenged. Did Parks intend an act of civil disobedience? Why do these historians disagree?"

Comparing documents, Wineburg added, "is detective work that kids are usually deprived of. It shows them that no single authority has the whole story, and it raises real questions of meaning." He paused, considering. "Every topic doesn't need endless debate. Students stay engaged once they realize history's not a fixed story they must swallow whole but a way of thinking they can apply to life."

Americans need this way of thinking, Wineburg told me. "We're deluged by conflicting, fragmented information that tries to steer us in particular directions. We need to raise citizens who ask themselves, 'Is this true? Who's saying so? What's the nature of the evidence?' Taught this way, history is a training ground for democracy."

Is such training too hard for schoolchildren? "We underestimate kids' abilities to think. Or we believe their self-esteem depends on having tasks they easily do. But we feel good about ourselves by doing things we thought we couldn't do, with capable people around to pick us up after a tumble and show us our reach can exceed our grasp."

"Historical Thinking" is an academic book, but not daunting or dry, and full of stories any reader can enjoy. Wineburg describes Primo Levi's moving encounter with the student who swore that if sent to Auschwitz he could have escaped. There's a chapter on drawings that schoolchildren made of their mental pictures of Pilgrims, Settlers, and Hippies for one of Wineburg's studies--readers can bypass the statistical tables and walk right into these young imaginations. The high-school history class discussion that veers off the rails is as gripping as well-crafted fiction.

Wineburg's conversation with me was no merely academic exercise either. "History gives us a kind of humility," he mused at one point. "I can read something written in 1860 but not know what it meant to live in 1860. I never lived in a world where you could wake up in the morning and go to an auction and buy people. Studying history, we think our way into what living in that world was like. It's the only form of time travel that exists."

Small wonder that Wineburg was an early winner of the University of Washington's Distinguished Teaching Award. ... Read more

Book Description

Moving beyond the limited focus of the individual strategic theorist or the great military leader, The Making of Strategy concentrates instead on the processes by which rulers and states have formed strategy.Seventeen case studies--from the fifth century B.C. to the present--analyze through a common framework how strategists have sought to implement a coherent course of action against their adversaries. This fascinating book considers the impact of such complexities as the geographic, political, economic and technical forces that have driven the transformation of strategy since the beginning of civilization and seem likely to alter the making of strategy in the future. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Essential reading for the seriuos student of strategy.
The purpose of "The Making of Strategy" is to give the reader an insight into how strategy has been made in the past. This is done through various historical case studies which range from Ancient Greece to American Cold War nuclear policy. Each essay tries to show events from the perspectives of those who were involved and attempts to get inside the mindset of the people who had to forumlate and then implement the various strategies.

As has been stated, the essays span a considerable time period, though there is perhaps (definitely in fact) a weighting towards 20th century strategy. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is probably dependant upon the reader's personal taste but I didn't have a problem with it.

The quality of the essays is invariably of a very high quality and the contributors are leaders in the field of Strategic Studies (Colin Gray, Donald Kagan, Eliot Cohen, the late Michael Handel, Williamson Murray, Macgregor Knox etc). Standout chapters include Holger Herwig's withering analysis of Imperial German strategy in the post-Bismarck period and (by virtue both of quality and of the fact that it tackles a relatively obscure and much neglected power's policy) Brian Sullivan's chapter on Italian grand strategy in the build-up to the First World War.

The chapters (excluding the excellent and extensive introduction and conclusion) cover the following periods;

- Athenian Strategy in The Peloponnesian Wars
- Roman Strategy against Carthage
- Chinese Strategy from the 14th to the 17th centuries
- Spanish Strategy under Philip II
- English Strategy, 1558-1713
- French Strategy under Louis XIV
- The United States, 1783-1865
- Prussia-Germany 1871-1918
- British Strategy, 1890-1918
- Italian Strategy, 1882-1922
- Germany, 1918-1945
- British Strategy, 1918-1945
- U.S. Strategy, 1920-1945
- French Strategy in the inter-war period
- Soviet Strategy, 1917-1945
- Israeli Strategy
- U.S. Nuclear Strategy

Aside from the fact that the quality of the chapters is of a very high standard, the great virtue of this book is the way in which it looks into the way nations have made strategy, rather than dealing with specific strategic theories or trying to provide a guide on how strategy should be made (lessons drawn from history aside). It illustrates clearly the frustrations, the balancing of interests, the difficulty in seeing the big picture, the weighing up of ends and means and the FRICTION that plagues policymakers when they put the books away and actually have to make the magic happen.

This book should be read by anybody with a serious interest in Strategic/War Studies. It's a little gem. At over 600 pages, you get your money's worth too.

Essential for strategy in any field of action
The book brings back historically those features that are essential in any strategy for most activities, altgough is focused in war. Basic reading for bussines.

Excellent & Easy reading
"The Making of Strategy" examines the strategy-making processes through the cultural, social, political, organisational and historical ( not just the military ) lenses, starting from the Peloponnesian Wars to the Nuclear Age. The book is also excellent in inrtoducing the concept of Weltanschauung; how a nation's strategic choices are often products of its strategic culture. This helps the reader to understand that despite advances in military technologies; why most wars are fought the way they are fought. Very easy reading and excellent book on the little known process of how strategy is often made. ... Read more

Book Description

Two full-length model AP examinations with answer keys plus a chronological general review of world history make up the greater part of this brand new Advanced Placement test prep manual. Other helpful features include an overview of the exam, and strategies for success in answering multiple-choice and document-based questions, as well as help in answering the comparative essay question. Historical eras in the subject review fall within the five following general categories: Foundations of World Civilization (4000 B.C.-1000 A.D.); World Cultures Maturing (1000-1450); World Cultures Interacting (1450-1750); World Cultures in the Modern Era (1750-1914); and The Twentieth Century and Contemporary World Cultures (1914-present). ... Read more

Reviews (27)

Great Helper
I bought this book at the beginning of the school year to help me with my AP World History exam.It was excellent. I was able to pass the test and recieved credit for college which I begin this fall. I recommend this for anyone who wishes to pass this test. Though you should read throughout the year, not just a week before the exam. The multiple choice and essay questions are great and just like the exam. If you want to pass this test, buy this Barons book.

AP World
This book does a pretty good job at reviewing for the exam. Since this was a new class last year, the course was somewhat disorganized in the first semester. This book really helped me refresh things from the beginning of the year (primarily from 1000 to 1450 ce). I had a great teacher and our class' text book had an enourmous amount of information. This review book only seemed to get a small part of all of it. But, it turned out that the test didn't have nearly as much as my text book. I did read through parts of this book and did the practice tests. The test was really easy though. You shouldn't worry if you do somewhat well in the class. I thought I didn't write very good essays, but I got a 5. It is still good review though, but it is a bit long.

an awesome study tool
if you read the book front to back like i did, there is no way in hell that you won't get a five. My suggestions is to come up with a reading schedule starting during spring break and read it all the way until the exam. Good luck and use this book!

Wonderful
To be quite honest, AP World History is, in general, a bad course. The scope of material is too wide, there isn't nearly enough time to get through the ungodly amount of history, and frankly, the name of the class, itself, is false advertisement. I think that AP World History should really be called 'The History of Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa Through the Perspective of the White Protestant Male,' because that's really what this class is, in essence. Basically, the course description tries to cover all of this material from the perspectives of the entire "world," but fails. In our class, for example, we spent FORTY MINUTES talking about World War I. There is NO WAY that a high school student (or any student, for that matter) can get a feel of World War I in a rushed 40-minute lecture. Granted, this *was* the first year that our school offered APWH, which made us the "guinea pig" class. Perhaps our teacher should have given us a summer supplement, but frankly, even with an entire summer of studying the material that this class tries to cover, a student will NEVER learn the history of the entire world outside of the USA. That brings me to another point: I think it's very interesting how, at our US high school, all students are required to take an entire year of US history, a relatively new country with about 300 years of history, while the school expects us to learn about the ENTIRE OUTSIDE WORLD in the same length of time.

Because of the time crunch we were in (a time predicament that ANY APWH would face in order to adequately prepare for the exam), our classes turned into mundane, lifeless lectures about dates, names, and places, rather than the "cause and effect" aspects to history. As a result, history was never brought to life, and I can honestly say, if I hadn't used this book, there is no way that I would have done well on this exam.

After spacing out during every lecture, I finally caved in and bought the Barron's book, which I studied from cover to cover during the exam PREPARATION. The Barron's book isn't designed to bring history to life--it's merely designed to give the student the necessary information needed to do well on the AP. I consider my score to be something that I earned on my own, and honestly, I do not credit the school for it. The practice tests are much like the ones you will see on the AP, although, the sample essays written by the author are unrealistically long. Still, the actually essay QUESTIONS are much like the ones that will appear on the test.

This book was, really, the sole reason that I scored a 4 on my exam. Our time predicament prevented us from taking a practice exam and from having adequate practice on the essays. Our class, in the end, had to rush through modern history (WWI, WWII, and the Cold War); the history that was supposed to be the most interesting of all was crunched into dates and facts. It was actually quite disappointing.

The AP exam, itself, was also unbalanced. I was expecting the test to be about a quarter Euro, a quarter Asian, a quarter South America, and a quarter Africa, since that's basically the extent of what we learned (or, rather, the extent of the material we were given). However, upon receiving the test, I discovered that, the test was about 80% ancient Asian history.
Again, ETS's attempt to be politically correct leads to false advertising.

If given the choice between World History and European History, TAKE AP EURO, I cannot stress that enough. If the school gives you some sort of speech that APWH will make you more "well-rounded" of a scholar of history, they feeding you a horrendous lie. But, if, like me, you were stuck with APWH, this book is the best exam preparation you can get.

Buy the book. It's only 12 dollars
Contrary to some reviewers, my APWH teacher did not make a good effort in teaching our class, so this book was the only reference that i could go by. The text review in the front of the book was very helpful and i still use it for history competitions and whatnot. However, the mosst helpful thing was the sample essays that they wrote for their own practice tests. Those helped me learn the format of an acceptable essay and how test graders think. During the actual ap test, i was sure that i would get a 5. That's how well this book prepared me. ... Read more

Book Description

Will the end of superpower rivalry bring greater international harmony--or more volatile and dangerously unpredictable conflicts? Where two massive spheres of influence once divided the globe, now regional conflicts erupt into scenes of tragedy and confusion.In Africa, the new Europe, Asia, and the Americas, nations chart a bold course toward democracy.But they cannot break free of old divisions, as ethnic nationalism emerges amidst economic devastation.Indeed, nations everywhere, however powerful, are buffeted on every side. Their sovereignty is checked by the global economy as well as powerful regional economic and political blocs.At a time of exceptional ferment, Oxford is pleased to present the most authoritative, timely, in-depth reference available for understanding the people, nations, conflicts, movements, institutions, and issues that dominate the world political stage.

Edited by a team of eminent political scientists, The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World provides readers the depth of coverage, the historical contexts, and the richness of interpretation needed to come to terms with today's volatile international scene. Drawing on the insights of nearly 500 authors from more than 40 countries, the volume provides comprehensive coverage of international affairs and domestic politics throughout the world.

Articles discuss virtually every nation in the world, and include extensive information on institutions, political parties, leaders, and the sources of political mobilization and conflict.The volume also includes biographies of more than seventy-five political leaders and thinkers who have shaped the contemporary political world, and detailed discussions of critical historical developments and events, concepts, international law, and organizations.For example, there is a biography of Richard M. Nixon by Garry Wills and one of Winston Churchill by Martin Gilbert; an essay on development and underdevelopment by Claude Ake; an article on human rights by Aryeh Neier; coverage of such subjects as Hiroshima, sovereignty, and the International Court of Justice by Richard Falk. Todd Gitlin writes on the New Left, Anthony Lake on the Vietnam War, and Robert B. Reich on deindustrialization. Charlotte Bunch examines feminism, and Zhores A. Medvedev explains Chernobyl.

The Companion also presents major interpretive essays treating seminal contemporary themes such as ethnicity, nationalism, war, gender and politics, and environmentalism, essays that offer readers a deeper, more substantial understanding of headlines day after day. Drawn from a wide range of disciplines, including political science, economics, women's studies, law, anthropology, history, and business, the contributors to the volume provide factual information, new insights, and fresh interpretations as they consider the critical political developments of the twentieth century.

The Oxford Companions have long been respected for their lively and informative presentation of the finest scholarship. (Harper's has called the "the best reference books in the language.") The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World maintains this high standard in an accessible, timely, thought-provoking, and comprehensive reference that captures the complexity, vitality, and endless fascination of contemporary world affairs. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Essential for all Political Science students
This is the bible, for lack of a better term, of political science.

I may be biased as several of the articles/definitions are contributions of my past professors, but the consistency of the writing doesn't hint that it is a compilation from many different experts.

In most cases, the contributing authors are the foremost authorities in their respective fields. That is apparent in the quality of this world-class publication. ... Read more

Book Description

Unabridged Audiobook. 2 CDs - 2 hours, 8 minutes. Narrated by Scott Brick & Shelly Frasier

"All warfare is based on deception. Thus, when able to attack, we must seem unable. Hold out bait to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him. If he is in superior strength, evade him. If your opponent is quick to anger, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant."

Written before Alexander the Great was born, this Chinese treatise on war has become one of the most influential works on the subject. Read widely in the east since its appearance 2500 years ago, The Art of War first came to the west with a French Jesuit in1782. It has been studied by generals from Napoleon to Rommel and it is still required reading in most military academies of the world.

Although it was meant to be a practical guide to warfare in the age of chariots, many corporate and government leaders have successfully applied its lessons to battles in the modern dog-eat-dog world. Sun Tzu covers all aspects of war in his time, from strategy and tactics to the proper use of terrain and spies. In this version, Sun Tzu's lessons are brought to life with commentaries from ancient Chinese history, which illustrate both the philosophy and the principles of his teachings. ... Read more

Reviews (230)

How to run a war or Business
Sun Tzu "The Art of War" was excellent. This book is a great book on strategy. Whether you command a nations army, war games or a moderen business. If the reader uses some of these war tactics and strategies in the modern world, they may find it easy to relate. Thus it is easy to relate to this book. Even rivals in sports and entertainment can be outwitted by the wisdom in this book. It also adds examples of some actions, which show how these sayings and writings apply to the real world.

So no matter what you were looking for in this book, whether it be business, sports, war games, or actual wars, you can be sure to learn more on how to best deal with the situation through the strategies in this book.

The book is timeless....and should be required reading for all persons.

Truths worth understanding
The Art of War is considered a classic of military strategy, and is frequently rapplied in the business arena. Is it about the military, or achieving victory with the mind? Was Sun Tzu really a general? Did he really behead 50 maidens for not taking his military drills seriously? (The next 50 were more serious students - motivation!)

Independent of the truth of the legend, the truths in this book are worth pondering.

Take one piece of advice, roughly paraphrased as,
"Know thy self, win some of the time.
Know thy enemy, win some of the time.
Know both thy self and thy enemy, and win all of the time"

At the surface, this is so obvious as to not be profound.
But look at it's applicability...

How many companies worry so much about their competitors that they don't understand what they're good at? To defeat a corporate competitor, you must know your competitive advantage.

How many people think, "This purchase is in my best interest, so I'll buy it" without considering the price.

How many politicians are willing to say, "It doesn't matter what the Al Quada was thinking, it was wrong, so we must bomb them" How can we truly beat them if we don't understand them?

There are literally hundreds of these truths to ponder - so obvious until you look at how infrequently they're done.

This ancient wisdom is worth more than reading, it's worth understanding.

The ultimate point in strategy !
Sun Tzu's 'The Art of War' is the best book ever written on earth. If I had a chance to read only one book in life, it would be The Art of War.

Sun Tzu tels you how to crush your enemy but the book has deep meanings far beyond the violent side of the war. It teaches strategy, preparation, patience, timing, and basically the mind and the spirit of a real strategist.

The best thing in this book is that it is completely transferable to many things in life: You can apply it to stock investments, to management and to interpersonal relationships and so on.

One last thing as an example : Sun Tzu in some part of the book states the things common in winning armies. In this list one of the items is "[the winning army is] whose ranks are all animated by the same spirit". Here is what they tell you in MBA programs, in organizational behaviour courses : the importance of organizational culture. There are many others to discover in this book.

I recommend you read it and see how a book can be so popular after 2500 years passed since it is written!

I will mention the president
This book has nothing to do with George Bush or terrorism, but I feel the need to bring up both issues. George W. Bush is the greatest president in the history of the United States. He might like this book. Terrorism is bad. It must be stopped.

Thank you for your support.

The Best of the Best
This book is absolutely brilliant, and reading it is a tremendous experience. Sun Tzu is the master, and the Art of War, though aimed specifically on military warfare, is a masterpiece on general strategy and tactics that can be used in many sitautions. In fact, I will bet you that many of the most succesful sports coaches, boxers, businessmen, ploiticians, etc use tactics similar to those found in this book.

The Art of War is not a long book, but despite its size, it is totally packed with content. Some themes of the book include

- always ensuring you are prepared

- adapting and responding to circumstances

- knowing yourself, the enemy, and the environment

- being unpredictable, secretive, and deceptive

- making calculations

- exploiting opportunities

- avoiding your enemy's strengths, and attacking his weak spots

- causing disorder among your enemy

- using baits to manipulate others

- ensuring good teamwork through picking the right people to do the right job, good communication, and synergy

- knowing when to fight and when not to fight

The book is an absolute gem. It is invaluable and a must read. Sun Tzu has a beatiful style, and I really love the Lionel Giles translation, which although old, is still hihgly readable and among the best there is. I also recommend Rodney Ohebsion's tranlsation and selection and arrangement of passages, which is an adaptation of the Giles translation, and is in the book A Collection of Wisdom.

In summary, I would just like to say that The Art of War is definitely one of the greatest texts ever written, and is a must for the student of life. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Tasty tidbits
History (with a capital H) is usually presented with the heavy thud of finality. But Mr. Beyer celebrates those moments when history turned on a whim, in this delightful bite-sized book. And so we discover that the Civil War changed its course thanks to three cigars, that the stethoscope was invented by a bashful physician, and that a sex goddess provided the know-how for cell phones.

Those who love history will find new bits to wonder over. And those of us who nodded off in class get to discover that history is, in fact, packed with the wonderful quirks of human nature. Mr. Beyer has collected a broad assortment of stories and tells them with wit and aplomb.

This book makes a great conversation starter. And probably a good gift for dads and graduates.

Fascinating facts
A very entertaining collection of stories of unusual events and people from history. Arranged chronologicaly, starting with the Romans who stole time, and proceeding through such enthralling tales as the man who didn't discover America because he wanted to get home,and king Edward II' valiant but futile attempt to ban soccer (now I know why he was murdered, it was enraged footer fans). Some cherished myths are briskly disposed of, like the notion that medieval people thought the world was flat, and we learn that the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock because they'd run out of beer. A few of the stories in this book were known to me already, most weren't. At $12.57, that's only about 12 cents per fascinating fact, cheap at the price I would say. Who would you say was the most unlikely person to have saved the life of Abraham Lincoln's son? If you don't know already you need to buy this book.

Obscure History 101
This was an interesting book and a quick read. However, each item only has one page (one side) of information, and this book would have earned a five star review from me if only the content was a bit more fleshed out. Still, a great book for the beginner trivia buff.

200 Pages of WOW!
In the past, I have typically not been one for advocating the idea of revising history as we know it, but this book has caused me to wonder if the lessons from the past that have been taught to so many of us have amounted to a series of partially distorted articles, at best, or a pack of lies, at worst.

In one account, there was a leading nineteenth-century American literary figure who wrote a fictional work on one of the most famous explorers from the late 1400's. It portrayed this particular individual as mainly a visionary who overcame the superstitions of his time in order to make great discoveries. Though this picture might be partly true, a key issue brought forth was entirely fictional. Nevertheless, this particular book became very popular as a required reading for schoolchildren and over time, because of the heroic elements espoused, the tales were so popular that people wanted to believe them to be factual. Since then, this author's version of this explorer's events "would long endure in the national consciousness" and be immortalized as history as it actually happened. Talk about a paradox: to be regarded as someone who would go down in history as someone who overcame myths in such a way that it, itself, is another myth. Sheesh!!

Though many a fact finder might wish that this particular legend could be isolated as the only fairy tale that has been misconstrued for truth, The Greatest Stories Never Told reveals to the reader that this is not so. There are other accounts that show that our significant historical events are not always due to forthright purposes set out by forthcoming, stout individuals. Sometimes random elements come into play à la The Butterfly Effect that can have a significant impact upon the outcome of a war. For instance, without giving away the details, so little as one piece of paper might have prevented General George Washington's rise to greatness against the British.

In sum, The Greatest Stories Never Told is a fascinating book. In my opinion, it can set forth arguments and debates covering other specialized fields, especially philosophy, political science, physics, and theology. I have always been convinced that we have a tendency to portray history the way we want to either remember it or learn it, but the manner in which some of these bits and pieces have been espoused for decades and centuries is quite disturbing.

The overlooked past brought into the spotlight
Beyer is an author who is dedicated to making history interesting and fun, which he does so well in this collection of one page stories. I found the book especially interesting because of the background work the author had put into his research (the imprint of the History Channel did not hurt either) which raised these tidbits above the normal trivia, or potential urban legends. Beyer highlights some things that should not be lost in the mists of history, and points out historical facts that may be glossed over in many other history books. There is nothing earth shattering here, but more than a few will make you scratch your head, or share with others in conversation. A great book for dipping your toe in history - each story is about a page of text and is well illustrated. There is just enough to get you the interesting point without boring you. It's a truly fun and fascinating book. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Very detailed
I would have loved to had seen the pieces of the garment drawn in their pattern shapes, but otherwise an excellent book with much detail written about each garment. Only other problem was that sometimes the writer's handwriting about the details on the drawings were a bit hard to decifer.

The BEST
Until this book dissapeared from my local library I must have borrowed it for over half its shelf life there, in all of 15 years this book has been THE reference for me, no mean feat to hold my attention since I was 11.
I love it because of the minute detail of the fabric patterns which although hard to find today similar items can be found for those wanting to recreate the dresses.
The value for money is unreproachable, you just have to buy this book. Thank the publishers for reprinting in the U.S and here in U.K !

The best costume books I've ever read to date!
This book remains my favorite costume book, even 10 years after I first checked it out of the library. I find myself coming back to this book time after time, either to study a particular point of fashion or just to browse the fabulous drawings.

Nancy Bradfield has done a great service to all who enjoy studying vintage clothing and their construction. Each item includes 2 to 4 full-page, detailed drawings so the reader can see every detail of the original garment -- inside AND out. Many of them include measurements, so if you're a very talented seamstress/tailor, you can recreate the garments and scale them to fit a modern body.

Some books seem to just throw pictures or drawings together in no particular order, which makes it difficult to fully understand the fashion changes that took place. Nancy Bradfield has arranged the drawings in chronological order, which I find much easier to follow. She also has rather detailed comments along the bottom of each 2-page spread which explains particular details of the item or the fashion changes that were occuring at the time the dress was made. Those comments are in addition to the description found on the top left side of the left page, which is specific to the dress in question.

This is the Bible for any costumer or vintage clothing collector! The only thing that would be better is examining the clothes in person...And unlike seeing the clothes in person, you can keep going back to the drawings again and again.

a great book.
I had checked this book out of my high school library, er. . .almost 20 years ago (can it be)? It was one of those that I'd check out over and over again. Something reminded me of it the other day, and now I'm going to buy it, yeah!
The illustrations and descriptions are excellent.

Don't miss it!
This is the single most outstanding study of period construction detail out there. No one who loves clothes should be without this book. I highly recommend the first edition, which has a few color plates. ... Read more<