Book Description

Teaching history should not be reciting an endless list of dead men, entombed between the covers of a textbook. Instead, Breaking Away from the Textbook offers a fascinating journey through world history. Not a comprehensive, theory-heavy guide, this book focuses on active classroom activities, methods for students to grapple with humanity's issues, and innovative ways to show students the relevance of the past to the world today. Simply put, this book makes world history fun. Soon, your students will be busy debating, thinking, applying, and learning about information that will stay with them for a lifetime. The key to this wonderful work is its incorporation of various disciplines including art, music, and writing to create a fun and active classroom. Volume 1 covers prehistory to the Renaissance and volume 2 covers the Enlightenment to the 20th century. Includes pictures and drawings, appendices, indexes, maps, and a bibliography. Appropriate for all grade levels. ... Read more

Book Description

This is the first major work to be written on one of the largest and most important of the islands of the Hebrides. The book incorporates a vast amount of original research and work and also a depth of knowledge of every aspect of the life of an island that is unlikely to be surpassed. ... Read more

Book Description

A master practitioner gives us an entertaining tour of the historian's workshop and a spirited defense of the search for historical truth. E. H. Carr's What Is History?, a classic introduction to the field, may now give way to a worthy successor. In his compact, intriguing survey, Richard J. Evans shows us how historians manage to extract meaning from the recalcitrant past. To materials that are frustratingly meager, or overwhelmingly profuse, they bring an array of tools that range from agreed-upon rules of documentation and powerful computer models to the skilled investigator's sudden insight, all employed with the aim of reconstructing a verifiable, usable past. Evans defends this commitment to historical knowledge from the attacks of postmodernist critics who see all judgments as subjective. Evans brings "a remarkable range, a nose for the archives, a taste for controversy, and a fluent pen" (The New Republic) to this splendid work. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Not the last word but enjoyable and provocative.
There has been an ongoing and vigorous debate in the philosophy of history for the last thirty or so years concerning the ways in which postmodernism should or should not impact the writing of history.
In this delightfully polemical book, Richard Evans does not try to engage the writings of the major postmodernists. Do not expect to find counterarguments to the writings of Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard or de Certeau. It is in the writings of thinkers like Hayden White, Frank Ankersmit, Dominick LaCapra, Keith Jenkins, Elizabeth Ermath, Joan Scott, etc. that the major claims of the postmodernists have been made for history in the English speaking world. It is with their writings that Evans engages in debate. This does not, however, put him in the camp of conservatives like Gertrude Himmelfarb, John Vincent, David Harlan and Keith Windschuttle.
Evans is arguing for a middle position- one that emphasizes the recalcitrance of the "facts", i.e., the historical records. Evans denies that all of history is interpretation and that no one interpretation is better than any other. He believes that careful and honest shifting of the historical record will show some or one interpretations to be better grounded in that record than others. On the other hand, he is excited by some of the possibilities for history that have been opened up by those working historians whose work he admires and who are identified with the postmodern camp, e.g., Simon Schama, Theodore Zeldin and Orlando Figes.
One of the main points of his critique is that Evans feels that postmodernism removes the possibility of any sort of critical perspective- he reiterates the old point that if there is no grounds to prefer one interpretation over another, if there is no such thing as a fact than there is no reason to prefer the views of the standard histories of the Holocaust over those of a denier, e.g., David Irving.
This is not the best of the books I have read recently on historiography. Berkhofer's Beyond the Great Story retains that distinction. It does have the advantage of being very well written, very clear in it's presentation and quite enjoyably feisty. Evans' style is like that of a good lightweight- constantly circling, jabbing his opponents, sensing a weakness and then throwing the combination.
If you think my pugilistic metaphor to be inappropriate, ... for a series of short essays Evans wrote in reply to his many and equally nasty critics. This site is probably the best way to figure out if this book is for you.
As for me, I have come to realize that this is a debate without end. Evans did not really settle anything for me. Neither has anyone else I have read lately. He does give you a lot to think about and he points the reader in the direction of a lot of interesting work done by other people.

Enigmatically Oblique
Richard Evans is a British historian. In this book he sets out a considered course for the practice of history, one that aims to pursue a course between the twin evils of overly conservative, objective positivism and a left-leaning, liberal postmodernism. The book has been billed as a defence of history against its more postmodernist abusers but I don't think this is true. Evans attacks the sterility of fellow British historians Sir Geoffrey Elton and E.H. Carr (and American historian Gertrude Himmelfarb) as much as he attacks a Hayden White, Keith Jenkins or Frank Ankersmit (all devils in disguise to conservative historians).

For all this I don't think that Evans says much for all the ink he has spilt. What perseveres through Evans' prose is nothing more (but perhaps nothing more is needed) than Evans' belief that we can do history, we can get at what happened in the past and we can deal critically, and beneficially, with the materials at our disposal. Evans writes what amounts to a defence of "doing history" as oppsed to theorising about history. Indeed, Evans is not hot on theory (he should perhaps steer clear of it in future) and his less than ample interaction with his opponents of the postmodernist persuasion in this book suggests to this reader that he is more of a distant acquaitance of their work than an intimate. A historian's rule of thumb comes into play here: if they mention something but don't interact with it to any great degree then assume they don't really know much about it.

Evans is largely an irenic and uncontroversial supporter of a broadly conservative historical approach. He is in defence of all the traditional (that is, post-Enlightenment) things such as "facts", "objectivity" and "truth" whilst espousing a weak acceptance of some postmodernist proposals. Evans' usual trick here is to claim that actually the benefits of a lightly-worn postmodernism (such as accepting that historians affect and colour their own historical researches) are actually things that all real historians knew all along anyway. This is a neat, if obvious, trick and sometimes he almost gets away with it.

I have one major complaint. Evans repeatedly refers to "postmodernist hyper-relativism" but he never tells us what this is either briefly or, which would be more satisfactory, in detail. Once again, Evans might be proffering a phantom menace. At the very least it allows us, story-like, to conjure up our own historical demon to fight against as we read. In the end one is left with the conviction that theorists should theorise and historians like Evans should get on with DOING history. Personally I think that Evans' history books are a better defence of "history" (whatever that is, again he never defines) than this book turns out to be.

Somewhat disappointing
Evans sets out to defend to "history" from its deconstructionist, post-modern critics, and, simultaneously, aspires to replace the English historiographic standards, written by Edward H. Carr and Geoffrey Elton. Evans, repeatedly and insistently, dismisses the deconstructionist critique as a form of "extreme relativism." This is unfortunate, because they have important points to make, regarding what, in olden days, might have been called, the epistemology of history. The deconstructionists are, typically, glibly provocative, superficial, prone to introducing opaque jargon and unjustifiably arrogant. One can certainly understand why Evans might be angry with them, and impatient.

The deconstructionist critique of history, however, has important insights to offer, however. "History" in its classic form, is a dramatic, interpretative narrative. A simple-minded claim to "objectivity" in history is unsupportable; the "objects" of real events are incredibly numerous, long-gone and did not really occur within a context of future events. "History" is always highly selective in retelling events, and always looking for meaning, drawn from subsequent events. ("The historian remembers the future and imagines the past.") Evans will not or cannot let loose or revise his belief in "objectivity" as a standard of value, however, and rails against the deconstructionists as "extreme relativists" for trying to make him consider it.

Without fully crediting the deconstructionists, he adopts their methods to demolish the pretentious historiography of a previous generation, represented (on the left) by Edward H. Carr and (on the right) by Geoffrey Elton. Although it is clear that he aspires to provide a replacement for the classic works of Carr and Elton, for use in graduate seminars everywhere, the book he provides leaves much to be desired.

Comfortable with the methods of the professional interpreter and processor of historical source material, and defensive of the value of those methods, he seems to be at a bit of loss, when it comes to the methods of composing a narrative. (It is, of course, at this higher level of abstraction, where the deconstructionists have aimed their missiles.) Rather lamely, he ends his book, with the defiant assertion, ". . . I will look humbly at the past and say, despite them all: it really happened, and we really can, if we are very scrupulous and careful and self-critical, find out how it did and reach some tenable conclusions about what it all meant."

I cannot help, feeling great disappointment. Mistaking the deconstructionist criticism as "relativism," he has foregone the opportunity to really come to grips with the fundamental nature of the historical enterprise. What is the nature of "historical truth"? It is certainly not "objective" in any simple-minded sense. No historian can be without a point of view, nor should any be allowed to pretend to be. The meaningful interconnections created by a dramatic narrative have no correspondence with any observable "event" in the past -- they could not possibly have such a correspondence, for a variety of reasons, literary and scientific. (Hume established that the operation of cause and effect are never directly observable in the 18th century! You don't have to be a post-modernist to see that the "truth" of history can be problematic.)

Evidently too frightened by these challenges to think, Evans brands the deconstructionists as extreme relativists, and proceeds to demolish the value of extreme relativism. Evans spends a lot of time shooting fish in the barrel of "extreme relativism," without realizing that the postmodernists and deconstructionists are not swimming in that barrel. He delights in turning the methods of deconstructionist critique on the critics, demonstrating to his own satisfaction, if no one else's, that the deconstructionists are hypocrits at best, for denying "any" value, and then turning around and asserting the value of their own frameworks. It never seems to occur to him that the deconstructionists, despite their glib provocations, are not hypocrits, because they are not, in fact, extreme relativists.

Failing to tackle the epistemological challenges, Evans misses the opportunity to begin laying a solid foundation for historiography. It is terribly unfortunate, because he has intelligence, wit and the great advantage of professional competence and experience, all of which are evident throughout this book.

He offers some useful insights and comments along the way, and his passion is evident. I still wish that,instead of the courage of his convictions, he had shown more courage to question his convictions.

Engaging, scholarly refutation of the post-modern attack
Dr. Evans produced an enlightening, thorough defense of history against its post-modernist opponents. We gain further insight into how professional historians work. We learn how they manage to assemble a useful, accurate version of the past from meager, convoluted, or disintegrating sources.

Of special interest to students of history like myself is the section "The History of History." This chapter chronicles and examines the various historical methods such as Rankean document analysis.

Evans mounts a thorough defense of history by exposing post-modernism's inherent contradictions. For instance, post-modernism crumbles when its reliance on relativism is applied to itself. For example, if absolute relativism is correct, Holocaust deniers and racists construct history just as accurate as anyone else.

Furthermore, post-modernists criticize historians for using the past to advance their own agendas while at the same time doing likewise! One need only look at how "black studies" makes ludicrous, historically implausible claims presumably in an attempt to raise African American student's self-esteem.

However, I think that Evans may be too respectful toward the post-modernists. These so-called scholars are intellectually dishonest. Their supposed contributions to the close examination of documents have been around for nearly two centuries (1830).

Please consider "The Truth of History" by C. Behan McCullagh and "The Killing of History" by Keith Windschuttle for additional reading.

Note: I use the term post-modernist, but similar terms like "post-structuralist", "cultural studies", and so forth mean the same thing. Academic fashion among post-modernists helps brush critiques of post-modernism aside (e.g. "post-modernism is out of date").

A lively, erudite and thorough defense of history.
+AH4-A most enjoyable and stimulating review of the purpose, methods and practice of history. Professor Evans is most adept at exposing fallacies and contradictions in the post-modern critique of history; while at the same time pointing out how some concepts of postmodernism can bring a breath of fresh air to history. His discussion of sources is excellent. He colorfully reviews individual historians and their methods and thoughts; not holding back where criticsm is needed. His analysis of the Paul+AH4-+AH4- De Man controversy seemed right on the money. A wonderful overview of the current state of history with emphasis on postmodern attacks, with a staunch and stout defense of the classical, objective center.+AH4- ... Read more

Reviews (4)

great book of the basics
While I own many Civil War books, I found this to be a fun read.It covers all the basics and goes over the key events in such a way as to keep the readers attention.Get recap for Civil War buffs

~ A complete overview~
I have always been interested in war history, mainly WWII and have read much on that subject but had never read anything on The Civil War. As of late I decided to read some books on the subject and this book was given to me for Christmas. This is a wonderful book in that it gives the reader a complete, precise fact filled overview of the war. It is easy to read and move through ( I finished it in 2 days) and lays the groundwork for the reader to move on to a deeper study of the subject with this as the foundation. Highly recommend!

Best Civil War Book Around!
For school, I have to do a 40 page report on the Civil War.Obviously, I would know where the good Civil War books are and where the bad ones are.Believe me, if you want a book on the Civil War, this is the best!It has everything you need to know, and more!With pictures, diagrams, and more, it goes into detail, but is very understandable.An all-around A+ and highly reccommended!

Fun and Fascinating History
This is a fun, fact-filled overview of the Civil War. Highlights include biographies of the major political and military participants, and a fascinating glimpse at mid-century America. Vaughan has definitely done his homework -- this is a wonderful read, accurate and loaded with little known facts and intriguing minutae. A must for Civil War aficianados and history buffs in general. ... Read more

Book Description

To the Finald Station is one of the greatest works by 20th-century America’s heralded man of letters. This magisterial study of the revolutionary dream reaches from the French Revolution through the Paris Commune to Russia in 1917, and features brilliant portraits of such figures as Jules Michelet, the great historian of the French people; the utopians Robert Owen and Charles Fourier; the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin; and of course Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. Combining his polymathic talents as critic, journalist, historian, and novelist, Edmund Wilson offers an incisive and enduring tribute to the resilience, depth, and passion of the modern culture of protest. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

The history of the revolutionary dream.
I had decided to read TTFS because so many other books that I have read cited it as a good book to read. I have to admit with some shame that I had very little sense what it was about when I picked it up and began. Wilson starts in on Michelet and the history of the historians of the French revolution, and without really being clear what he's doing he drags the reader into the mindset of revolution and reaction that was current at Michelet's time. The great thing is that I didn't need to know what the book was about, I was hooked and willing to follow it wherever it was going to lead after just reading one chapter.

He explains just what he found so great about Michelet as a historian and then happily goes on to write his own history in the same style. As a reading experience, TTFS is by turns sly, informative, moving and funny. Wilson incorporates anecdotes from the lives of his history's characters, but I never had the feeling that he was distracting me with funny stories. I felt like I learned an enormous amount from reading the book, but I never felt lectured to. Best of all was the feeling of Wilson himself leaning over your shoulder commenting on the history-- I liked the tone of the man (critic) that came through as commentary on the people he was discussing. He was definitely present, though not intrusive.

The only thing I missed was footnotes-- the version that I was reading was old (1960) and there wasn't anything in the way of footnotes or bibliography provided. I hope that the newer versions are annotated, because it cost me some time tracking down books which Wilson was referring to.

A must-read.

grand intellectual history of an idea for action
This is the story of the journey of an idea - that of engineering a society conceived as an organism - from its roots in the romantic movement with Michelet to Lenin, the ultimate man of action, on the threshold of power. Only Edmund Wilson, whose erudition as an autodidact was unsurpassed in his time, could have pulled this off: the ideas and inspiration pulse with life on every page. You get to know Marx, ENgels, and scores of other characters intimately as they dream of building a socialist order that would fundamentally re-order society and its economy. WHile I was never a sympathiser for communism, this most certainly gave me a feeling for the seductive beauty of the dream. THere is even a forward by Wilson, who admits to being overly optimistic, that what he chronicled with such excitment actually led to "one of the most horrible tyrannies in the history of mankind." THis is intellectual history at its very best, freed in the hands of a master writer from the pedantry and puffery of academia, and unflinching in the audacity of its partisan interpretations. Also beautifully written, it is a window into the hopes and dream of the 20C.

Warmly recommended.

A Signal Book About The Soviet Revolution!
It is a singularly ironic fact that one of the most important books of the 20th century, written and published in 1940 by one of its most perceptive, intellectually gifted, and universally accepted authors, Edmund Wilson, would, until very recently, find itself sadly out of print. To my mind this is a scathing indictment of our current level of intellectual prowess. Or, perhaps it is more properly a reflection of the decreased public and academic interest in communism based on the collapse of the former Soviet Union as well as the curious transmogrification of China into some version of a politically correct socialist state practicing along the margins of capitalism. Yet in truth this book is such a marvel of intellectual achievement and writing skill that it should be read, if not devoured, by anyone with any serious interest in non-fiction writing as an avocation.

Edmund Wilson has suffered the same fate as the book, which is equally as curious. Of course, he was not as notorious as literary figure as one of his 20th century colleagues, H.L Mencken, who is still largely in print and in vogue, but Wilson so towers over all of his contemporaries that it is indeed mysterious that he has fallen into relative obscurity both as a writer and as a critic, as well. Yet Wilson was truly a renaissance figure, a gifted and talented poet, playwright, novelist, historian, and critical reviewer for a variety of magazines and periodicals such as the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The New Republic, a man able to articulate his position with regard to a plethora of social and political issues with great power and verve.

Yet it was in tomes such as this that he achieved his greatest powers of exposition, in this penetrating, quite detailed, and absorbing review of all the chief philosophical, political, social and economic elements of the chief architects of the Soviet revolution. Wilson had been a great student and admirer of the collected works of Karl Marx, and brought his immense intellectual and reporting skills to bear in describing the men, the ideas, and the issues of the so-called October revolution of 1918. It is the single best source of information regarding all of the various components of the massively important revolutionary process, neatly synthesizing the ways in which the various personalities, political circumstances, philosophical predispositions, and historical happenstance combined in the moist unlikely of revolutions in what Karl Marx considered one of the least likely of states, one so rural, so backward, and so vastly composed of uneducated ragged proletariat.

And in this stunning exploration we find new reason to understand and appreciate the power of individual personalities in the historical process, and the way that exceptional figures like Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin, and the ways in which various aspects of Marxist theory were used and abused in promulgating what would become Soviet socialism's dogmatic approach to creating a worker's paradise. As we thread our way through the particulars of Marxian theory Wilson is so intricately familiar with, we begin to understand his fascination with both Marx's genius and the subtleties of Marx's exposition. Too many of us forget how bastardized and vulgarized the versions of Marxism promulgated by Stalin were, and how much they worked against the inexorable truths Marx found ticking away in the universal time-clock he saw operating behind history's time.

So, too, is Wilson's examination of Lenin a wondrous thing to read through, with his thoughtful if perhaps too sympathetic explanations of Lenin's goals, motives, and frustrations in trying to set the revolution on course and on-mark with the needs of the modern socialist state he envisioned to grow from the original seizure of power. Unfortunately, he never lived to see the radical experiment through to its fruition, nor the fateful poisoning of the spirit of the revolution accomplished by Stalin in his paranoid and sociopathic manipulations and purges. This is an absolutely magnetic reading experience, one that will illustrate just how powerfully and how memorably a writer with extraordinary gifts and an incredible intellectual acumen can be. I highly recommend this book for anyone aspiring to a serious education about the events of the 20th century, of which the Soviet revolution of October 1918 is certainly an extraordinarily important part. Enjoy!

Omage for a Great Man of Letters
It has been twenty years since I read "To the Finland Station", a story of the rise of communist thinking, from its earliest beginnings to Lenin's triumphal return to St. Petersburg. I don't recall much of it, except this: it is the best work of history I have ever read.

Anyone who wants to know what it means to be a writer should read this book, regardless of his or her interest in the subject. As night follows from day, those who are interested should read it, as well. It is a perfect illustration for one who believes that how a story is told is ever as important as the story, itself, and who wants to study an example where both are exceptional.

The content will prove valuable to anyone concerned with modern world history.

One of the best written by the great Edmund Wilson.
Edmund Wilson has undeservingly fallen into obscurity, but in the 21st century I have no doubt that he'll be recognized as one of the greatest of writers in English, and especially important to understanding the 20th century.The title of his book, _To the Finland Station_ refers to Lenin's trip to Russia, financed by the German government. It is a history of religious and secular communalist movements in America, and surprisingly humorous. Starting from the early 1800's to the Communist Party of 1917, Wilson's elegant study remains ever relevant. ... Read more

Book Description

Oral history is vital to our understanding of the cultures and experiences of the past. Unlike written history, oral history forever captures people's feelings, expressions, and nuances of language. But what exactly is oral history? How reliable is the information gathered by oral history? And what does it take to become an oral historian? Donald A. Ritchie, a leading expert in the field, answers these questions and in particular, explains the principles and guidelines created by the Oral History Association to ensure the professional standards of oral historians. Doing Oral History has become one of the premier resources in the field of oral history. It explores all aspects of oral history, from starting an oral history project, including funding, staffing, and equipment to conducting interviews; publishing; videotaping; preserving materials; teaching oral history; and using oral history in museums and on the radio. In this second edition, the author has incorporated new trends and scholarship, updated and expanded the bibliography and appendices, and added a new focus on digital technology and the Internet. Appendices include sample legal release forms and information on oral history organizations. Doing Oral History is a definitive step-by-step guide that provides advice and explanations on how to create recordings that illuminate human experience for generations to come. Illustrated with examples from a wide range of fascinating projects, this authoritative guide offers clear, practical, and detailed advice for students, teachers, researchers, and amateur genealogists who wish to record the history of their own families and communities. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

The ABCs of Oral History
Ritchie covers the topic like a blanket. Everything from how to manage one's collection and stay out of legal trouble with the interviewee (and anyone you may discuss); down to remembering to punch out the little tabs on the back of each cassette in order to prevent accidental erasure.

This is a very complete and very practical guide to the processes and thinking of our country's oral historians from an author who's been in the middle of some pretty interesting stories. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

history
This review is necesary for understand the History Teory, it's more importand for thaformation of de Historian ... Read more

Reviews (4)

post-Bard Arendtian
Vassar Students can always be depended upon to do mediocre work cribbed from unattributed sources.

Revolution and Revulsion
The guy/girl who wrote the 'I'm doing an essay...' review needs a slap

Brilliant
This book is yet another deep, original and controversial contribution of Hannah Arendt to twentieth century political theory. In this book, Arendt analyzes the phenomenon of revolution by focusing almost exclusively on the great XVIIIth century revolutions, the American and the French. Arendt's deep insights allow her to compare, both on a theoretical and a practical level, the similarities and differences between the two and on how and why the American Revolution allowed the foundation of freedom while the French failed miserably in this attempt almost from the beginning. The great themes in this book are the social question (necessity) in its relation to politics (the realm of freedom) and the ever-present distinction between liberation and freedom properly speaking. Thus, constitutions and their significance, the problem of secular law in relation to its need for an Absolute with which to provide a foundation for it, the problem of hypocrisy and Robespierre's Terror, and insightful interpretations of some of the Founding Fathers' political thought (though in my opinion a bit too far reaching in her inferences thereof), are all issues with which she deals with in this book and which are rounded up in a great closing chapter. Deep, powerful, perceptive, intense: like most of Arendt's writings, a must read for anyone interested in political thought and theory.

Ugh!
I have to write a paper on this book, and there are no customer reviews for it? Bleh, that is not very helpful at all. I'm disappointed in all of you. ... Read more

Book Description

The impact of Europe on a newly-discovered world of America has long been a subject of historical fascination. Yet the impact of that discovery and conquest for the European conquering powers has traditionally received less attention. In this pioneering book J. H. Elliott set out to show how traditional European assumptions about geography, theology, history and the nature of man were challenged by the encounter with new lands and people; trading relationships around the world were affected by an influx of gold and silver imports from America; while politically, the sources of power were no longer confined to European territory. The 500th anniversary of Columbus's discovery has prompted renewed enquiry into the relationship of the Old World and the New; John Elliott's fascinating and now classic account is here reissued with a new foreword addressing the significance of the book's insights for a new generation of readers. ... Read more

Book Description

Since its first publication in two volumes between 1918-1923, The Decline of the West has ranked as one of the most widely read and most talked about books of our time.In all its various editions, it has sold nearly 100,000 copies.A twentieth-century Cassandra, Oswald Spengler thoroughly probed the origin and "fate" of our civilization, and the result can be (and has been) read as a prophesy of the Nazi regime.His challenging views have led to harsh criticism over the years, but the knowledge and eloquence that went into his sweeping study of Western culture have kept The Decline of the West alive.As the face of Germany and Europe as a whole continues to change each day, The Decline of the West cannot be ignored.

The abridgment, prepared by the German scholar Helmut Werner, with the blessing of the Spengler estate, consists of selections from the original (translated into English by Charles Francis Atkinson) linked by explanatory passages which have been put into English by Arthur Helps. H. Stuart Hughes has written a new introduction for this edition.

In this engrossing and highly controversial philosophy of history, Spengler describes how we have entered into a centuries-long "world-historical" phase comparable to late antiquity. Guided by the philosophies of Goethe and Nietzsche, he rejects linear progression, and instead presents a world view based on the cyclical rise and decline of civilizations.He argues that a culture blossoms from the soil of a definable landscape and dies when it has exhausted all of its possibilities.

Despite Spengler's reputation today as an extreme pessimist, The Decline of the West remains essential reading for anyone interested in the history of civilization. ... Read more

Reviews (28)

Challenging but Accessible.. with some effort
History ebbs and flows. The illusion that we are somehow at the 'end of history' and that civil organization and values as they now stand are beyond history's broader and deeper currents might be the great popular Myopia of our time. Spengler in this book has applied his voluminous knowledge and interpretive skills to the rise and fall of civilizations. Does the 'West' conform to the definition of a civilization in the age of global communications and entertainment? If so, are its prospects different than those of its predecessors? Schools no longer prepare the mainstream student for learning and argument at this level. Spengler's thesis hinges on the leading intellectual & aesthetic edges of the last 1000 years of our culture as compared to those of civilizations of antiquity, notably the Greco Roman.

There are scholarly contrasts to Spengler's study. William McNeill's 'Rise of the West' provides a direct challenge to many of its conclusions. Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' or Werner Jaeger's 'Paedeia' (on Greek classical culture) might be good comparative reference books, but these have now been relegated in public familiarity to dusty and esoteric academic departments. Spengler's work, however, falls squarely and uniquely into the realm of a great work of the Deist tradition of Western social philosophy, from which its reputation for skepticism comes. Its apparent mysticism emanates from the deep investigation into the intellectual attitude of the Western mind. There are, of course, other traditions in the 'Western' mix which have broad and predictive implications. This opus should not be misconstrued of as a work of pessimism. Constructive action and faith are, in fact, its basis for the prospect of vigorous and sustained regeneration of the human cause.

This is an exacting study. It requires a critical attitude to penetrate and to see that it has a fundamentally human and hopeful (and debatable) message. Decline of the West does in fact provide drama, grandeur, context and understanding to the sweep of history. It is accessible, though, to the determined general reader and constitutes a significant contribution to 20th Century thought. Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.

"The Decline of the West" is a Guiding Light of Our Time.
Decline of The West is a book squarely beyond the range of typical modern literary critique.
The fact that Dr.Spengler discovered a true existence of a living form in the history- and life-cycles of civilizations has been deliberately ignored by critics. The importance of this discovery for History as a science is on a level of Copernican helio-centric (Sun-at-the-Center) discovery in spatial sciences which inaugurated the modern advance of physical science. Yet it has not brought the official recognition that is its due.
Today, as it was 500 years ago in "The Middle Ages", the ruling spirit of the establishment feels threatened by the new revolutionary discovery and is trying to find ways to live with it without the consequences and implications of Dr.Spengler's discovery presented in this book. The Roman Catholic Church tried to spread ignorance of Copernicus as well, but will its modern-day equivalents be more successful in hiding the discovery?
It is up to the interested reader not to let this crime happen any longer.
Having in mind the huge scope and distance both in Time and Space that Dr.Spengler's book covers, the enormous energy and time spent by him in creating the material presented in this book becomes even more astonishing considering that the book is so deeply involved and touching upon the daily events of the times we live in.
Dr.Spengler in his work definitely belongs to the realm of the modern "TABOO," and precisely uncovers all the important facts and ideas, that our "accepted" intellectuals of the day DARE NOT touch upon, and prefer to avoid and misinterpret and misrepresent Dr.Spengler's thought and observations---for these are all too unnerving to them and too uncomfotably revealing about the character and direction of the times we live in.
Even though the Author has died many years ago, his insight and thought is squarely present in our every day problems, troubles and uncertainties.
Seldom will one find a philosopher, political scientist and a natural scientist-all in one and yet so penetrating in his thought and truly relevant and accurate to the daily life many years after his death.
Despite our civilization's boasting about the hitherto unheard-of levels of progress, creativity and prosperity unimaginable only a few dozen years ago, "Decline of the West" deals with the significance in them. The vision, understanding and practical forecasts of Dr.Spengler's scientific discipline of History encompass all of those and go beyond, at all times maintaining the "eagle's view from above" of life.
The 20th century is known for its false prophets and broken ideologies, yet amid all the storm and dust raised in the conflicts of this century, people have not noticed that all this time there existed a profound voice of calm unshaken in his beliefs and unmistaken, unshakeable in the strength of his experience and position, always proven right by facts beyond his control.
This is Dr.Spengler, and that makes him a lone example of a true scientist of politics.
This revelation then has to tell us something profoundly significant about the nature of our Western civilization's Information Age stage and the direction it is heading in, when a person from a 100 years ago can tell us so much more intimate and relevant things about the politics, science and life of people many years after his death, than the leading historians of the day can.
The average person's inability to tell truth from faleshood in the news goes beyond mere wealth of information phenomenon, and the popular Computer represents the vehicle of the Information Age, nothing more.
Today it is easy to be unaware of the profound and deep metaphysical roots underlying our advanced technical civilization's materialistic developments, yet Dr.Spengler in this work masterfully uncovers them.
That is why this book, Decline of The West is so important, and will help the modern reader understand much better, than through any other immediate means, the true scope, understanding and meaning of the age we live in and of the age our descendants will live in.
It is a true example of the intellectual nihilism of our times when works such as those of Dr.Spengler are deliberately passed by the intellectual elite keenly aware of its inability to deal with the disturbing insights of Dr.Spengler's mind, and consequently of its inability to rise to the rank of Spengler, prefering instead to sometimes select quotations from this great thinker in order to make themselves look bigger and wiser, --thinkers such as Hughes, Fischer and Connelly are among those.
To paraphrase Spengler, nobody can escape from History's all-encompassing reach, we humans only have a luxury of pretending that we can, and like a grotesque Ostrich we bury our heads into the daily mass-circulation media training our minds, making us increasingly less capable of exercising independent thought and judgement.
In the introduction, Spengler quotes his spiritual father, poet-philosopher Goethe with the description of confidence in life:"Inward form of significant life which unaware and unobserved inspires every thought and every action." That this description is no longer adequate for the life of Western Man provides a food for thought, since everything genuine in the way of feeling and thought is left open for unrestrained dissection and criticism by the standard-bearers of the modern intellectual inquisition which stifles any richness in the modes of thought in our universities, and has assumed the role of the judge, prosecutor and the jury in Media's daily virtual courtrooms, alias mass-circulation news. Hence the public truth of the moment holds sway.
The lack of inward form in our daily personal lives should not therefore come as a surprise since we are trained daily to seek programmable inspiration from the external world of the macrocosm, shunning away from our own inbred microcosm and the wealth of inspiration it could have provided us with, had we given it a chance.
At the very least "Decline of The West" enables the interested reader to form his or her own conclusion, which is something that Spengler's past critics could not afford to do.

Interesting contrast with our time
There is no doubt about how Spengler defined the West: In terms of race. Not religion or democracy or capitalism or any other sort of philosophy. On the TV and magazines and such of the 21st century "The West" is variously defined in terms of liberalism, democracy, sexual expression, multi-culturalism, fee-market economics--anything except Spengler's definition.

In the early 1920s, before Hitler was heard from and after WW I, Spengler wrote a little article in which he stated his definition of The West, gave an appraisal of its then current health and gave a prescription for its survival. He said in this article that the German defeat in the Great War (WW I of course) was the first great step in the decline of the West via its subordination to the "colored world". Spengler stated that the SINGLE hope for the survival of the West was "The Prussian spirit, not only in Germany but in other countries as well." He went on to say that the "next war" would determine whether the West lived or died.

It is, looking back, as if Spengler wrote the history of WW II in advance, with the ending he seems to have expected but not wanted, omitted. It is interesting to ask the degree to which Roosevelt, Churchill and Hitler were aware of themselves playing out roles in Spengler's vision, with hopes of saving or destroying the West as Spengler defined it. It is tempting to think so. British and American war policy, the fire-bombing of Dresden as the best bit of evidence, seems specifically bent upon destroying Spengler's West. It seems, on the other hand, that Hitler's extreme rish-taking was driven by a vision that now was the time to save the West, which would be soon destroyed if not now preserved for the years to come. Spengler's race-based view of decline appears to be the rotting away of the "Transendental Aesthetic" to use Kant's term.

The presence of large numbers of non-Europeans in London and Amsterdam today seems to support Spengler's argument in the article I cited, but as an overall theory about the decline of Civilizations Toynbee's "Nemesis of Creativity" (control over creativity being in hands not supportive of the civilization)seems more generally appealing than Spengler's biological model. Perhaps they are both right. Or both wrong.

impressive
No brief phrase will summarize this book or my feelings about it. I simply wanted to rate it. Enjoy this impressive work.

Civilization equals decadence?
The Decline of the West", first published in 1917, is the major contribution of the German Oswald Spengler to Western thought. And what a contribution it was!!! First of all, the work, which this edition is an abridged version, is tainted by accusations of being pro nazi and amiable to fascism in general and to Mussolini in particular , something that tormented the author all trough his reclusive life.

But, polemics apart, "The Decline of the West" is a major opus, indeed a masterwork, with a dense text full of a very Spenglerianian terminology and new concepts, which added lustre to the difficult task the translator faced and settled in the best possible way. After reading the first pages, the reader realizes that he is facing the work of a man of genius, of a man endowed with a polymath knowledge and with appetite for solving the puzzles of Western History, which he revisited and intended to set to a new course. His thinker of choice is Goethe, to whom he acknowledges the foundations of his thinking, being Goethe, in Spengler's view, the first and the only one who, despite not being a philosopher in the strict sense of the world, truly understood, via the mechanism of analogies, how the Western world ascended to its present condition and would eventually fall, in the way it happened earlier with the Classic antiquity of Greece & Rome.

The myth to be atacked is that Civilization is a step forward in the development of the human race, being Civilization a word that, in Oswald Spengler's view is synonimous with decadence or rather absence of Culture. The idea that the Western world is a development of things happened in classical antiquity is, again in Spengler's views, fallacious, because the Classical Antiquity vanished altogether in the collapse of the Roman Empire and our Western World began circa 1.000 A.D. One of the important tools to be reckoned with is analogies and it is used all the time to illustrate similarities in the rise and fall of earlier cultures and ours, which is to collapse after the exhaustion provoked by the money devotion present in our Western World. As it happened earlier in this final stage, some signs are important to be noticed, being the creation of so-called megopolis, or big cities, one of them, along with the surging of a quasi mythical personnage (Napoleon, Julius Cesar, Alexander, etc...) who was to be welcome by the peoples as a leader. Exactly here lies the intersection with the figures of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. It is up to the reader to judge by his own parameters if this interconnection is only ideal or was something transported into the real life of nazi German or Italian fascism.

Without any exageration, I should say that this is the type of book that jump-starts you in many fields of knowledge and, specially of interest, is , in my opinion, the exgese the author does of the Theory of Mathemathics as a way of explaining the different Cultural environments of Ancient Greece, Egypt and Arabian regions.

Despite this being an abridged version, I think that the present edition preserved in the best possible way the thinking and polemic points of view of the author. ... Read more

Book Description

Some people make photo albums, collect antiques, or visit historic battlefields. Others keep diaries, plan annual family gatherings, or stitch together patchwork quilts in a tradition learned from grandparents. Each of us has ways of communing with the past, and our reasons for doing so are as varied as our memories. In a sweeping survey, Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen asked 1,500 Americans about their connection to the past and how it influences their daily lives and hopes for the future. The result is a surprisingly candid series of conversations and reflections on how the past infuses the present with meaning. Rosenzweig and Thelen found that people assemble their experiences into narratives that allow them to make sense of their personal histories, set priorities, project what might happen next, and try to shape the future. By using these narratives to mark change and create continuity, people chart the courses of their lives. A young woman from Ohio speaks of giving birth to her first child, which caused her to reflect upon her parents and the ways that their example would help her to become a good mother. An African American man from Georgia tells how he and his wife were drawn to each other by their shared experiences and lessons learned from growing up in the South in the 1950s. Others reveal how they personalize historical events, as in the case of a Massachusetts woman who traces much of her guarded attitude toward life to witnessing the assassination of John F. Kennedy on television when she was a child. While the past is omnipresent to Americans, "history" as it is usually defined in textbooks leaves many people cold. Rosenzweig and Thelen found that history as taught in school does not inspire a strong connection to the past. And they reveal how race and ethnicity affects how Americans perceive the past: while most white Americans tend to think of it as something personal, African Americans and American Indians are more likely to think in terms of broadly shared experiences--like slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and the violation of Indian treaties." Rosenzweig and Thelen´s conclusions about the ways people use their personal, family, and national stories have profound implications for anyone involved in researching or presenting history, as well as for all those who struggle to engage with the past in a meaningful way. ... Read more

Reviews (13)

Reader-friendly, places history in the hands of Americans.
In "The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life," Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen approach the subject of what history means to Americans in the course of their everyday lives. Through a nationwide survey, funded by the NEH among others, the authors seek a fundamental set of common references across race, gender, age, income, and education. Their findings indicate that Americans, across these aforementioned demographic characteristics, see history in light of a personal relationship. Rosenzweig and Thelen propose that a participatory historical culture exists and can co-exist with the traditional in this fundamentally historical culture. Recognition and empathy, resulting from "active participation with history as a process of inquiry and exploration," (p. 182), are vital elements in connecting people with themselves and others, as well as their past, present, and future. The "Presence of the Past" asks not only what purpose does history serve, but who will best record it in order to make it approachable. Americans responded to questions regarding trustworthiness of sources by consistently rating highest those willing to consider various points of view in presenting history. Museums, personal accounts, and college professors rated far higher than sources viewed as influenced by economic gain such as books, movies, and television programs. Oral histories played a significant role in giving history a personal connection as many respondents named not only family members but those who experienced situations first-hand as highly realiable sources while recognizing the limitations of time, memory, and bias. Rosenzweig and Thelen suggest that Americans themselves are, in fact, very comfortable recording and personalizing history in a variety of ways. This book encourages readers to redefine and expand their interpretation of not only what history is, but what it is good for. The standard of the traditional view of history out of a high school text is challenged by the inclusion of seemingly unconventional and unorthodox applications such as the use of inherited recipes at family gatherings, photography, hobbies, collections, gathering of genealogies, visits to museums and historical sites, reminiscing at reunions, re-enactments, and other escapist jaunts. Americans dispute the assumption that history is an ethereal manifestation that is to be beheld rather than experienced. Thus, this is a subject field that should be used and not just studied. According to the observations of the authors, content lacks connection without participation. To Americans, history is that which affirms a sense of self. The pursuit for roots, identity, and immortality emerge as the ultimate focus for the study of history. A need for a sense of placement within a framework of self, family, community, time, and therefore, immortality, seemed to be at the core of Americans' interpretation of what history is and should be. Personal, family, community, cultural, ethnic, religious, and national identities determine singularity as well as mutuality as barriers fade and blend with a changing society. Yet, "choice and invention," (p. 57), reflect not only standard history written by scholars and scoffed at by interest groups, but that personal history validated by individuals. Unsurprisingly, there were inconsistencies in certain voices. Evangelical Christians, noted for their dedication to the teachings of the Bible as an historical document, accepted such histories as authoritative, yet refuted others, such as the evolution of dinosaurs. A Virginia lawyer insisted the "most reliable is eyewitness testimony," (p. 94), when in her own court of law such testimony is not enough to insure a conviction. To individuals, choices as to what is most credible and acceptable to their own view of the world determine their personal identification with history. Thelen mentions that, "Hobbyists chose the arenas and terms of participation with the past," (p. 196). Perhaps this serves as an autobiographical comment for the authors as not only Americans, but historians also chose particular paths. The relevant questions asked in the survey reflect fresh directions historians seem to be following in their pursuit of knowledge and understanding. It is encouraging to find scholars such as Rosenzweig and Thelen willing to cross into and encompass other fields of study such as anthropology, psychology, and sociology in the clarification of man's relationship to and use of history. In separating cultural,ethnic, and racial characteristics for such a study, certain generalizations and extrapolations are inevitable. While Mexican Americans have a special position the history of the United States, they are not necessarily representative of all Hispanics, as was similarly noted in the study of the Oglala Sioux in respect to other Native Americans. And, unfortunately, the blatant lack of inclusion of Asian Americans ignores another large part of the population. However, in the realms of historical research, it is an eye-opening and encouraging study. Moreover, the fact that its findings promote further subsidy of public and non-profit association projects reflects well on the NEH's choice of funding. Regardless of the occasional typographical error, this work is reader-friendly, successfully bringing the allegedly dull subject of textbook history out of the classroom and placing it firmly in the hands of everyday Americans. With refreshing perpectives, Rosenzweig and Thelen present the consciousness of individuals and groups in such a manner that enables the reader to identify with this personalization of history and entice him or her with the ordinaryness of the observations and conclusions.

Defining Down History
There is much to learn from Presence of the Past but notnecessarily what the authors have in mind. Rosenzweig and Thelenpurport to give us good news about the historical consciousness of the American people, finding that most Americans are, in some way, "connected to the past." They do this by defining down the definition of history to mean things like talking with relatives, keeping a diary, collecting antique motorcycles, and even attending Bible classes. History teachers become the heavies because they insist that students regurgitate historical facts about which average Americans express a profound lack of interest (although paradoxically they also say that they would like their children to have the same experience).

It's as if those who bemoaned the mathematical illiteracy of the American public were suddenly challenged by a survey noting that virtually all Americans could read house numbers, tell the time, and make change while using a calculator. These hypothetical respondents would probably also criticize their teachers for burdening them with irrelevant information.

Because the majority of the Americans surveyed for Presence of the Past have little sense of history outside their family or group, their knowledge of broader history is both sketchy and distorted. Rosenzweig and Thelen celebrate the fact that Americans put more trust in museums than in books for their knowledge of history, but such a faith only demonstrates naivete about museums. (In the wake of the Enola Gay fiasco at the Smithsonian and a subsequent symposium of articles in the Journal of American History, one JAH reader noted that the "true tragedy" was that "both sides believed that the people who saw the exhibit would be swayed, unquestioningly, by the 'facts' presented to them and that the visitors would not stop, even briefly, to think of possible biases in the exhibition itself, let alone about WWII-i.e. that they would think critically. Unfortunately, because of the state of education in this country, I agree with them.")

Using such a low common denominator to define history also reveals that those with the most congruent view of the past are "evangelicals" (defined by Rosenzweig and Thelen as Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses as well as Protestant fundamentalists and evangelicals). Thelen notes that the appeal of evangelical religion is so powerful "that it seems the most likely common ground on which some respondents from different cultures can recognize each other." "What," asks Rosenzweig, "does a largely secular group like historians have to say to them?"

The authors' greatest fear is that the "privatized and parochial past" of their informants will not support history as "a vehicle for social justice" or inspire people "to work for social change in the present." Not to worry. Ignorance, parochialism, and naivete are a fertile soil for those who wish to use "history" as a tool to promote social and political agendas. "Black Athena" and its kin are only a recent example.

Awareness of one's own past is helpful (we often call it maturity), and extending understanding of the past to the lives of one's relatives is even better. But without an appreciation of the broader past, democracy is in danger. Much of what passes for present truth is, in the words of C. S. Lewis, "merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age."ÿ

Their research raises more questions than answers.
In recent years it has been popular to lambaste the American as unlettered in history; gullible and vulnerable to the whims of the popular media. Rosenzwieg and Thelen take issue with this assertion through the results of their survey of popular American attitudes and perceptions toward history. In deference to the positive, they crafted their survey to discover what Americans do know about their past, and which aspects therein possess special meaning to the individual. Through their findings they hoped to locate a common ground that would engage both scholar and layman in the search for understanding in history.

Rosenzweig and Thelen found that many Americans regard the past as a well-spring for moral guidance and personal identity. In contrast to the professional historian, it is less the specific event (e.g. World War II) than the familial tie (e.g. grandpa going off to war) that determines relevance and interpretation for the layman. For many Americans history is alive and ever-present: through keepsakes, family lore, and observations. It is subject to an unending reinterpretation and definition, and, most importantly, it is what defines aspiration and identity.

Rosenzweig and Thelen also found little to suggest homogeneity among Americans in historical interpretation. In areas such as ethnicity and religion the variance was profound. Their findings suggested that such identifications influence meaning and interpretation, and speak of divisions within American society. This was particularly true in comparisons between the reminisces of European Americans, African Americans, and Native Americans. In some areas of history (e.g. slavery and the westward movement), there appeared little ground for a broad and unifying consensus.

Is there a paradigm that would unite scholar and layman? Rosenzweig and Thelen suggest it may exist in popular history, a form of historical presentation steeped in relevance to the individual. This 'democratization' of history would spring forth from a productive dialogue between the layman and the scholar. In the view of Rosenzweig and Thelen, the professional historian is wont to wallow in esoterica and narrow specialization. While impressive, such research does not engage the layman; instead, it perpetuates the popular perception of history as a dry compendium of dates and facts. Rather a productive dialogue could draw both layman and scholar in a common pursuit.

Does this mean that history is alive and well in the United States? Unfortunately, the optimism effused from Rosenzweig and Thelen's study provides little room for comfort. Despite their stated intention to survey a cross section of Americans, the design of their survey provides evidence they fell short of this goal. Asian Ameicans were under-represented, as were people living in multi-ethnic neighborhoods. Also, socio-economic status did not receive the attention it merited; previous studies have found correlation between socio-economic status and knowledge in many fields, including history. Yet, Rosenzweig and Thelen have provided both scholars and laymen with food for thought as to what direction history should be taken.

Harvey
I met ³Harvey² on the stairs leading to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. I was going up; he was going down. He had just dropped off wife and kids inside the museum, but preferred to listen to the hockey game in the car, rather than ³have anything to do with something historical.² I saw him two hours later. While looking for the restrooms, he had stumbled on a poorly lit room that hosted a small exhibit on toys from the 1940¹s to the 1970¹s. He was now talking with two men his own age, ³John and Steve.² Half phrases, shouted words, hands quickly drawing circles and lines, they were describing -- reliving I should say -- the games they used to play when they were kids. ³Oh, that was the best and....² ³....and mom would call and we kept....² ³But we didn¹t have all the....² While written specifically for writers, teachers, and professionals in the field of history, Roy Rosenzweig¹s and David Thelen¹s work is about people like ³Harvey, John, and Steve.² The Presence of the Past is an act of accusation toward the historical profession as a whole for the dicothomy created between History with the capital H, and the general public, increasingly alienated by its specialization and sterility. Taking advantage of the results of a national survey specifically tailored to their demands, the co-authors are convincingly able to demonstrate that if perception of scholastic history is still filled with adjectives like boring and useless, the average American considers a dip in the past a very exiting and a very purpeseful activity. To be connected with one¹s roots, to research one¹s who, where, when, what, and why serves many functions: it helps understand the present, connect with one¹s culture, and even go for the ultimate prize, immortality. As Rosenzweig notes in his conclusion, the professional historian¹s inability to make use of the past represents the general public¹s main complaint. Much can be said about the evidence presented by Rosenzweig and Thelen. If the two authors dedicate a full twenty-two page explanation to the why certain people were and were not selected, a few doubts still linger on the possibility that another result could have been obtained with a difficult system of selection (in particular with the minority groups). And it is somewhat surprising that twenty-three tables are used to describe what were for the most part, open-ended questions. Couldn¹t those pages be put to better use with the transcripts of a few interviews? But a mild critique of the selection and use of the evidence cannot hide the relevance of this survey at a time in which a renewed passion for history is flourishing on small and big screens, bookstores and travel agencies, while the soul of the discipline is confused by cries of cultural relativism, objectivity, and post-structuralism. The customers have spoken: they like the product, but not the way it¹s presented. Should history corrupt its ³purity² to meet popular demand for a simplification of its themes and a stronger emphasis on subjects closer to the general public? Or was history¹s ³purity² corrupted in the first place by its separation from a narrative more attached to people rather than abstract concepts like liberty, justice, or democracy? Through a skillful use of citations, Rosenzweig and Thelen have been able to show that history (as the aseptic, distant, formal result of research done by others) is out, while a personal quest for the past is in. Contents and even results are not nearly as important as participation or experience are. This is why the number one choice on how to connect with the past is the family gathering where ³historiae² are told, passed on, and, sometimes, invented. Studying history in school? Sixth out of six choices. Scholastic history is not viewed as relevant because the one offered in American schools is a prepackaged product that doesn¹t answer personal wants. In a society dominated less by conformity and more by individuality, a quest for one¹s past necessitates an attention to individual needs that modern history is unable to offer. It is ironic that two trained historians have raised the issue of scholastic history¹s inability to cope with people¹s demand (and its related problems), but now the ball is in their court.

Presence of the Past
In the book The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life, Roy Rosenzweig and David Thelen interviewed 1,500 Americans regarding their association to the past and how it impacts their daily lives and dreams for the future. They were motivated to write this book due to an acknowledgement that most professional historians were unaware of how non- historians felt about the past. The authors believe that most historians look "down" on the average American's knowledge of history. Yet Rosenzweig and Thelen argue that ordinary people "take and active role in using and understanding the past- that they are not just passive consumers of histories constructed by others (pg. 3)".

The authors labeled the responders by race (Mexican-American, Native American, African American, and White). They ignore d Asian-Americans for the vague reason that there were not enough interviewers who could speak Mandarin and it was not cost-effective. They didn't mention other Asian groups or any attempts to interview them. This struck me as odd since the United States has the largest Korean population outside Korea, the largest Vietnamese population outside Vietnam, and a large number of Filipinos. One trip to California could have added a fine balance to their research. While the authors mention a responder's occupation and location, they don't consider location and net worth to be a factor in the conclusions. Most of their conclusions are broken down to how a particular ethic group responded rather than to location or income level of the respondent. Perhaps they believed that an African-American in California is no different than a Black in the South, or that a poor factory worker might have a different opinion of the past than a wealthy factory owner.

They state that participation in historical activities is not for the most part tied to particular social groups or backgrounds Their findings would disturb most high school History teachers. They state that most respondents had little good to say about the actual classroom experience of studying history. Rosenzweig and Thelen conclude that while som e admitted that they admired History teachers who helped them to revisit and investigate the past for themselves, most related the word "history" to something dead and gone, irrelevant, beyond any use in the present. One overall conclusion that Rosenzweig and Thelen found was an: "overwhelming evidence that Americans participate regularly in a wide range of past-related activities (page 9).

The authors debate that an activity such as going to a museum, or looking at photos could be considered an involvement in preserving or presenting the past. For proof, the authors present very clear graphs show n the percentages of how many people looked at photographs, how many wrote in a journal, or participated in a "history-related" club. The respondents felt most strongly connected to the past when they either met with family members or did something "historical" like visiting a museum with family members. The authors repeatedly maintain that people have a deep appreciation of history if it involves them personally or their family personally. For example, one respondent enjoyed visiting Civil War sites, not because he was just interested in this time period but he had a past relative who fought in the War. Overall, if an event didn't involve one's past relatives, the responder wasn't interested. This presents a challenge for teachers of ancien t Greek history, for how many people can find a family connection to historical events so long ago. The authors fail to address this problem. None of the respondents mentioned an interest in history before the time of Christ. Do we ignore the ideas of Plato because students won't find a family connection? In several pages, the authors repeat themselves over and over how respon dents dreaded studying the past. History was boring. The authors argue that History teacher overall are the enigma. Teachers view the past as something to be memorized. Students desire to know their own personal background. The authors state that people can view the past as a "reservoir of experience they could use in their own lives." (Pg. 38). Students want to trace how they became the kind of person they came to be. Thus, while teachers lecture on European migration, their audience would much rather be learning about their family's migration or how their family was able to survive in the New World. As a whole, the authors found that responders wanted to make a difference in the world and that studying the past was a means to that end. They wanted to see how past figures responded to crisis situations to be able themselves to have a better response to modern situations. The authors fail to give concrete examples of how a teacher could meet this particular interest of students. Th e authors state:' responders admired teachers who helped them to revisit and investigate the past for themselves." An example was how one teacher took her students on frequent field trips to Civil War sites. But what about teachers in Oregon? Again, the authors fail to give some helpful teaching tips that an y teacher could use. Responders gave horror stories of teachers who "taught out of the book" (pg. 112). Yet the authors failed to mention the state exams tha t many high school seniors have to pass, or even the Advanced Placement exams. The authors conclude that many Black Americans are not interested in the Kennedy assassination (graph page 150.) But these students will probably be asked about this event on an exam. The trend now is for more exams to assess students. Teachers are pressured to have students perform well. Good bye fiel d trips. Hello rote memorization of facts. Rosenzweig's solution is to increase oral history and biography (page 185). Thelen's solution is to present students with artifacts, pictures, etc. ^Eintroducing them to a variety of perspectives on moral issues, etc. Both are fantastic ways to liven up the History classroom. But the government and school boards cry "assessment". Neither of these solutions will prepare students for the formal assessment tools which teachers are forced to use. ... Read more

Book Description

This new edition of the Dictionary of World History (formerly published under the Larousse imprint), contains within a single volume comprehensive coverage of the key figures and events of world history.Thoroughly revised and updated to reflect recent world events, this new edition includes even more information on all aspects of history, and boasts an in-depth focus on the period 1000-2000 AD.Together with hundreds of new entries, the book features over 60 short essays covering themes of particular historical interest, essential history before 1000 AD, and concise coverage of the nations of the world in their historical settings.Key topics presented in clear, concise language. Straightforward, easy-to-use A-Z listing of over 7500 entries.36 specially commissioned maps supplement the text. Over 40 tables and over 25 family trees list the members of important dynasties and monarchies.Cross-references. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Great for Quiz Bowl or any history buff
This book is a great reference for any history buff, but is especially adequate for quiz bowl players who want to improve in Social Studies.It provides a wide range of entries (7,500+) that allows a quiz bowl player to learn general information about thousands of topics.The cross-reference system is effective in creating an effective knowledge base.Although the entries are sometimes brief and the alphabetical list leaves related topics separated, it is a great starting point in learning about a history topic for quiz bowl. ... Read more

Book Description

Why are we interested in history at all?Why do we feel the need to distinguish between past and present?In this book, the author argues that the past originates from an experience of rupture separating past and present.Think of the radical rupture with Europe's past that was effected by the French and the Industrial Revolutions."Sublime Historical Experience" investigates how the notion of sublime historical experience complicates and challenges existing conceptions of language, truth, and knowledge.These experiences of rupture are paradoxical since they involve both the separation of past and present and, at the same time, the effort to overcome this separation in terms of historical knowledge.The experience unites feelings of loss/pain with those of love/satisfaction, and thus is in agreement with how sublime experience is ordinarily defined.The experience is also precognitive since it precedes (the possibility of) historical knowledge.As such it is a challenge to traditional conceptions of the relationship between experience and truth or language.It compels us to disconnect the notions of experience and truth. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

Not the "Whole" Truth
Telling the Truth presents a very solid overview of western historiography's evolution and provides a provocative argument for the broadening of perspectives of what is valid for historians to include in their search for accurate causes for past events. The authors' intent to model the democratic practice they preach through collective authorship of the essay was evident, and one wonders if it would have been strengthened further by an examination of the impact their own historical context has had on the creation of their individual ideologies. In short, use themselves as case studies. This would be revolutionary of course, but a potentially very interesting historical version of self-analysis: three professional historians, women educated in the United States, during the 1970s, examining how their own environment and training shaped their views.

The emphasis on the significance of the printing press and the loss of clerical authority over publication was well stated. Left unexamined was the importance of the rise of the merchant middle class in Southern Europe, which is surprising considering the social history described later in the text. The Civil War's nationalizing effect and the lack of Black America's inclusion in the traditional American narrative are well founded, but leaves the subject's treatment woefully incomplete. The authors would have been able to draw a more accurate picture of rising American nationalism by including the War of 1812 in their analysis for example. And the nation's history of immigration and resulting discrimination, which includes Asians and Latin Americans as well as Europeans and Africans, is far more complex than presented. In short, the opportunity to use the immigrant experience as historical evidence for the authors' views was under utilized. The passing reference to Native American experiences underscored the authors' main point, but is not drawn out. And for American historians promoting a more gendered approach to history to leave out the suffrage movement was shocking to this reader.

Questionable Historiography
Did history begin with European theorists and scientists? From the perspective of Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob, it appears that way. They make immense references to Michel Foucault, Martin Heidegger, Jacques Deridda, and Isaac Newtown without really coming to a conclusion to their contribution to the "truth" about history. These major contributors to history, be it to European or American, belong within the confines of a philosophical and theoretical analysis rather than trying to convince the reader that they make the bulk of historiography or the study of history.

Appleby and cohorts rant back and forth about the Englightenment and the age of old, the eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, but never quite come to a consensus of history as a whole. The chapter entitled "Competing Histories of America" merely appeared to be a snore that name dropped and did not represent an objective and revealing analysis as it appeared it should have. The section, "The Implication of Social History for Multiculturalism" should have presented what the title stated, however, it did not. It had been quite disappointing reading this. Not one mention of Native Americans, Asian Americans, oh one name drop of W.E.B. Dubois in reference to African Americans.

Overall analysis, this has been an assessment towards intellectual history. This book should not be taught in a history and theory class, but rather be provided for those who seek an optional supplementary reading list that the professor assigns. Tbis book has too much bias that leans toward the left. Possibly, the authors had a little free time on their hands and they decided to collaborate for the fun of it. Postmodernism appears to be a complex topic that even these three scholars had not been able to explain in laymen terms. Otherwise, TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT HISTORY does not cut it as a title.

I'm so glad that history is alive and well even if one does not read this book. If one wants a good conversation and debate about history, these three scholars' perspective would lend much to the discussion. It would probably raise much opinions on the subject of history, and its place in society no matter what place in the world you live and learn.

Historical joy ride
Well written with ample empirical examples and insights most of us would never consider. This book is for anyone interested in tracing Western perspectives from the emergence of reason under the thumb of ignorance and dogma, through the advent of science, to muddlings of our present era returning to ignorance and dogma under the confines of censorship and totalitarian Political Correctness.

Driving forces that made America and the West what it became are surveyed - forces including the birth of reason, influence of science and our Western notion of progress. Focused on their topic, our authors properly consider what matters most to America and the West, excluding a vast array of other cultures because those cultures (Mayan, Hutu, Chilean, Eskimo - a virtually endless list) have little or absolutely nothing to do with Western development. Thus we are saved from useless inclusion of irrelevance. Nor do they waste trees on a cacophony of "voices" with something opposing to say about the facts of history as though their intent is to produce committee minutes. Noted, repeatedly, are oversights and outright suppression of females as bared from the men's club, but it is treated as a fact of history, not a call to arms.

Results of these forces included exaltation of history and "heroic science" as a means of positive reference for America (and Europe) that has since been attacked by factions wishing in part to make history's picture larger while reinventing history in ways that deny credit for anyone but their own group. It requires imagination, but the authors clarify how successful Postmodernist relatives have been in advancing the most ridiculous ideas, and, as noted, would not be given a second thought were they not becoming so dominant at our universities. Ideas such as; We invent theories in science, we do not discover them; What was not said or not written is more important than what was - as everyone in every period is said to have been political and fully so with no regard for truth. Thus whatever point was made was in fact a diversion hiding what they "really" meant. This brings to bear creative talents of our finest historians and "text interpreters" as they expend lifetimes inventing, out of thin air, what the truth "really" was. A boundless exercise as what was not spoken or written remains infinite, while what was is limited. And such conclusions from those who paradoxically preach "the truth is, there is no truth, and that's the truth".

Thankfully the authors state the obvious. "Relativism, a modern corollary of skepticism" not only reasonably questions but is now used to promote doubt in knowledge of any kind, while to the contrary our authors argue "truths about the past are possible, even if they are not absolute". For those who claim we can know nothing, and that even our theories of nature are pure, politicized imagination, we are reminded that artifacts exist - remains of civilizations, buildings, monuments, graveyards on battlegrounds, movements resulting from written words and speeches. As for inventing scientific theories as simply another false Western bias, one may wonder how all those atoms and galaxies know our political views well enough to behave precisely as predicted by theory.

The authors commit the error of confusing science with scientists - science being an ideal, while scientists remain human - and they wrongly promote a reference which claims the defense industry as dominated by scientists when it is rather dominated by engineers. This offering to reinforce a notion that science is political. (Indeed, scientists may be.) With an open mindedness bordering on mere "inclusivity" Postmodernists are given limited credit, stating they "deserve" to be heard on some matters - which left me wondering why serious historians would squander time on sophomoric reflections of declining education and trite exercises in sensitivity toward the absurd. We might consider the notion of a moon made of green cheese still holds promise if a certain vast system of conditions concerning our measurements and conceptions exist - say that we are in fact being manipulated by aliens. But any advancement in our understanding of the human condition is bound to be wasted. As a German engineer once said, "I have no time to waste on probable failures." So why waste it?

An assumption is made from the outset - common to anyone's era, which is not challenged - that the past was incorrect in their perspective. Perhaps we are wrong in refuting their positivism. Instead we assume without question the heroic models were flawed. Despite what we consider the past's delusions and narrow mindedness, we are never offered an option that their perspective, though incomplete, was superior to our own in which winners at the auction are those with the most terrible things to say about who we are. Perhaps the authors saw this as too "inclusive" and a probable failure.

I hate this book, yet it is good
I am taking my History capstoneatfor my undergrad and I have to say I hate this book. Appleby, Jacob and Hunt all teach history at UCLA. Not known for it's ultra-liberal persepective. SO they bash the church, white males and consevative historians. THey have done their work and the book is well done. I wish that teachers using this book would show the other persepective of historical progress.

Excellent Text for History Graduate Students
Telling the Truth About History by Joyce Appleby, Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob is both a history book as well as an attempt to outline a new approach to history altogether. At first, Telling the Truth About History reads like a lamentation for the original, scientific historical approach that was born during the enlightenment, but with sound historical data as well as their own theories, it is obvious that the authors are trying to show how all the different movements towards the telling of history originated, and how and why they all ultimately failed. In the beginning of Telling the Truth About History, the authors tell us that history is simply a search for a basic law of human development. The first laws of human development came with Isaac Newton's Principia and defined the "scientist as hero" or "heroic model of science." The book continues to explain how Newtonian science manifested in applied mechanics and became the "mental capital" (23) of the Industrial Revolution. With Newton's laws of mechanics came mechanization of other realms of science and even society. Engines. mines, and even labor could all operate under Newton's mechanization theory. The authors of Telling the Truth About History continue to outline how Newtonian science propagated itself outside of science...meaning that it created more leisure time, and allowed physics and new political laws to be discussed during this leisure time. With "commercial expansion, enlightened reform, and revolution," science was undeniably the backbone of modernity. With modernity and other changes in science, namely Darwin's theory of evolution came new schools of thought, including the Philosophes, positivism, nationalism and Marxism. From this point on, Telling the Truth About History becomes, in a sense, a History of Relativism, and is a story of how American historical scholars gained and lost scientific objectivity, and their struggle to find it again. The American Historical Profession saw great changes in the years after 1880s and professional standards themselves were born. During this time, the authors argue, national -1- identity became one of the most fatal unsuspected blows to scientific history because, especially with the diversity in America, trying to find national identity derailed scholars from telling one agreed upon notion of history. As Peter Novick does in That Noble Dream, the authors chronicle how growing professionalism in history also meant the growing pressure by different special interest/political groups to write a separate, relative history that also pushed scholars away from scientific objectivity. Truth itself began to seem to be an unattainable and idealistic notion with different groups arguing that their truth was right, and "denying the possibility of truth produces a relativism that makes it impossible to choose between Ethical systems." (194) With great care and much evidence, Telling the Truth About History chronicles the search for one truth in history, and it discusses how the latest movements in telling history are right and wrong. Social historians "with their passion for breaking apart the historical record had dug a potentially fatal hole into which history as a discipline might disappear altogether." (200) but postmodernist historians "question the superiority of present and the usefulness of general worldviews." The authors don't say that these two examples are without their respective pros and cons. Social history made room for cultural history, which seeks to explain that human reason is shaped by culture, not social or scientific contexts and infers meaning rather than telling a cause-and-effect history. Likewise, postmodernists attacked the very foundation of history and became ununified and their aim unclear. (206) Both cultural historians and postmodernists attacked the idea of historical narrative, seeing it as unuseful. It is with these very recent developments in history that the authors of Telling the Truth About History make their call to arms in a new approach to telling history. The authors defend the validity of the narrative saying it is a main ingredient in describing individualism and social identity. They make an appeal for Practical Realism, a somewhat romantic search for interpretation of the meaning of events. Through Practical Realism one can recognize both the existence f an event and its interpretations simultaneously(250). In this way, the author argue, the Postmodernists were right to have destroyed meaning that "sustains itself" in objects (257) so that the ditinctions between the objects/events and their meaning can become more clear. Chronicling the rise and fall of scientific history as well as explaining the various movements that grew out of the Enlightenment and and how it was otherwise detrimental to telling history, Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob all argue that the meaning of events already exist, and through a summoning of the original hypothetical and theoretical aspects of the Scientific Model as well as adopting a realism in practice, we can again tell history from a more collective, truthful standpoint. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Be Wary.
Just a quick comment. The book seems extremely biased and appears to analyze a medieval event using a variety of modern perspectives, such as nationalism and economic determinism. The author seems to be have overestimated the power of man to control events and underestimated the complexity, unpredictability, and recalcitrance of the events themselves. In addition, although the Latins and Greeks shared a common faith, they disagreed over key theological issues and differed in history, language, and habits. Therefore, one must not conclude that the crusaders of the Fourth Crusade were acting against the same force that drove crusaders to the First Crusade. The Greeks were outsiders to Latin communities, and thus were treated in a manner similar to that of Muslims and heretics.

Very Unevenly Written Work
I found this book of very uneven quality. Although the author obviously knows his subject, he fails to present it cogently or with fludidity. A too frequent experience was to be jolted into an entirely unrelated idea after the first sentence of a paragraph. The few but glaring grammatical/spelling errors did not help, though that is the falut of the editor and not the author. The maps provided were wholly inadequate to the topic and the information provided by the author. Read this book only if you must absolutely read everything every written about the Fourth Crusade.

Excellent!
This book was a huge help in my research paper on the Fourth Crusade and it lasting effects on Constantinople. There is an abundance of usefull information which is all understandable and easy to read. This is an excellent work of popular history geared tward general readers, but scholars will apperciate the acuracy and insight that Bartlett displays. ... Read more

Book Description

With the unusual clarity, distinctive and engaging style, and penetrating insight that have drawn such a wide range of readers to his work, Ian Hacking here offers his reflections on the philosophical uses of history. The focus of this volume, which collects both recent and now-classic essays, is the historical emergence of concepts and objects, through new uses of words and sentences in specific settings, and new patterns or styles of reasoning within those sentences. In its lucid and thoroughgoing look at the historical dimension of concepts, the book is at once a systematic formulation of Hacking�s approach and its relation to other types of intellectual history, and a valuable contribution to philosophical understanding.

Hacking opens the volume with an extended meditation on the philosophical significance of history. The importance of Michel Foucault--for the development of this theme, and for Hacking�s own work in intellectual history--emerges in the following chapters, which place Hacking's classic essays on Foucault within the wider context of general reflections on historical methodology. Against this background, Hacking then develops ideas about how language, styles of reasoning, and "psychological" phenomena figure in the articulation of concepts--and in the very prospect of doing philosophy as historical ontology.

Book Description

Reviews (9)

A Nobel Prize for Stupid(2)?
My first review of this book is the Customer Review dated June 6, 2000. Without retracting anything I wrote in that review or my rating of the book, I would like to supplement my first review by suggesting three "entry-points" into the book for serious-minded readers:

(1) Robert Fogel writes on page 180 - '....the reform agenda spelled out by the religious Right......more fully addresses the new issues of egalitarianism than does the Agenda of the Third Great Awakening.' (The T.G.A. being the widespread reforms in America beginning at the end of the nineteenth century which led to the rise of the welfare state and policies to promote diversity.)

Imagine what Mr. Fogel means by the word 'egalitarianism.'

(2) Mr. Fogel writes on page 177 - 'The new equity issues in the United States do not arise from the shocks of rapid urbanization, the destruction of small businesses by competition from industrial giants, the massive destitution created by the prolonged unemployment of up to one-quarter of prime-aged workers, the disappearance of the frontier as a safety valve for urban unemployment and poverty, or the undernutrition and premature death of the great majority of urban workers and their family members. Quite the contrary, the new issues are to a large extent the product of the solutions to these problems achieved by a combination of economic growth and the success of the reforms advocated by the Social Gospelers, their allies, and their successors.'

Imagine what he means by the word 'solutions.'

(3) Mr. Fogel writes on page 10 - 'Technological advances in distilling reduced the costs of spirits and made it possible for the urban poor to afford immoderate amounts of alcohol. Reductions in the cost of ocean transportation brought huge waves of immigrants into American labor markets, lowering wages and promoting urban unemployment.'

Consider the perspective of a 'historian' who acknowledges the massive destitution of last century's immigrant workers and their families in America, but who finds remarkable causally their alcohol consumption and the cheap ocean transportation rates they paid to get here. Consider, that is, whether Mr. Fogel even approaches the status of a historian in writing this book or is simply another social scientist concerned with making astonishingly shallow but verifiable factual observations.

Four stars...
I found Robert Fogel's perspective on the American cyclical progression of political/religious synthesis enlightening, and refreshing.
Fogel's secular views chime in now and then, but they are under a veneer of worldly experience, not biased partisanism.
I particularly found this book useful, (as I am pursuing a political science degree), and revealing pertaining to the history of American society, and the foundation of American government.

Why aren't Americans Happier?
Robert Fogel discusses what he calls 'spiritual inequality", in the hope that the next american spiritual awakening 'fourth great awakening" in American religious Faith will change things. Fogel points ou that change has come in an astonishingy short period, he oints out, technical process has made it possible for almost everyone in the rich world to have food, clothing and shelter: which, a century ago, absorbed 8o% of the average household's consumption. The very meaning of poverty has changed. His book deals with the relationship between, on the one hand, organised religion and its periodic "awakenings", often stimulated by technological change; and, on the other, the political drive of equality. The first "great awakening in the 173os, laid the'Logical basis for the American Revolution, starting in 1800, built up to the abolition of slavery. The "Fourth great wakening" of the book's title is the religious revival that began around 1960. Like the two awakenings, it stressed equality of opportunity. But tis has set it at odds with the third awakening, which began late in the 19th century but cast its shadow throug the 2oth century. Because equality even of opportunity is hard to achieve, it may be that equality of remains forever an unattainable dream. I was disappointed by Fogel's reluctance to go deeper into the religious debate. Will American Christian fundamentalism rise - just as the Islamic one is and roughly as a reaction to modern secular life - and will it clash with secualr Europe?
all in all the book has a worthy purpose but I would have also preferred to see a less 'scientific' or econometric approach. Thomas Frank, Sennett and even Ortega's biography of Sam Walton offer a less theoretical but more compelling view of modern American life.

Beyond Utilitarianism
Robert Fogel already demonstrated, decades ago, that he could apply econometrics to historical data to good effect. He is a founder of cliometrics, the systematic quantitative study of historical data. From railroads to slavery to nutritional improvements on work capacity, he has had few peers in penetrating tough and politically charged topics.

In this book he asks readers to conjoin political and religious movements with deeper longings for satisfaction from living. Thanks to Richard Easterlin we know that money does not buy happiness. Fogel explores what long-term tendencies in the American past sought to look beyond Benthamite utility for larger meanings. His search will not always be satifying to all readers, particularly those expecting to find a Marxian dialectic at the root of positive change.

In reading the book, non-specialists get a special treat: a non-technical survey of factors that brought on the unprecedented improvements in levels of living in North Atlantic countries over the past two hundred years.

A Must Read for Understanding America's Past and Present
I am a former teaching assistant for Professor Fogel and read his book as both a student and as his assistant. I have discussed the book with him in private and listened to him defend its propositions before skeptical students. I am also a student of America's religious history. I am not entirely uncritical of his argument but I believe it to be a must read for understanding where we've come from. Despite one reviewer's (Lloyd) misinformed aspertions, Professor Fogel is an historian of the first rank. He won his Nobel prize for his economic history of slavery. He is one of the founding fathers and still one of the best practitioners of scientific economic history (cliometrics). But rather than allowing his empirical approach to history make his writing arid and mathematical, his evident love of the past and its complexities shines through. It is enough of a testiment to the man's extra-ordinary ability to be objective while still being intensely interested that he, as a secular person, is able to correctly credit evangelicals and other religious people with most of the significant ethical advances in American history.

I believe the above reviews from the Wall Street Journal and Mr. Morris do a sufficient job. I am here to recommend it to you. John B. Carpenter jamits@juno.com ... Read more

Book Description

Third printing. This thorough guide follows the '03 through its unparalleled tenure of service - covering all of the interesting variations, modifications and accessories of this highly collectible military weapon. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

I liked it...
I liked this book in that it gave me a basic knowledge of the M1903 rifle - that's what I was looking for. It didn't go as deep as Scott Duff did in his books on the Garand, but still a good beginner's book. I recommend it.

Excellent introduction to the US Model 1903 Rifle.
This is a fast and easy read, and much more enjoyable than the more "authoritative" texts on the subject, such as Lt. Col. Brophy's volume. Canfield narrows his focus to only the 1903 variants that actually served in training and combat in the US armed forces. This narrower view allows him to cover the subject in 160 pages.

Canfield takes you step-by-step through the evolution of the Model 1903, with good close-up photographs showing design changes alongside of earlier or later models for comparison purposes.

There's a lot of great history in this book as well, with many excellent photographs of the 1903 in action, from World War One to the Korean War. Canfield includes a wonderful story about the demise of the early "rod bayonet" after President Theodore Roosevelt demonstrated its ineffectiveness by snapping it in two with one blow from his Krag rifle bayonet.

This is a great book for the entry-level collector, for the war history buff, or even someone who wants to find out more about that "old Springfield rifle" that was inherited from Father or Grandfather. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (7)

Completely Biased against French Rev
The author completely disregards many important factors that contributed to the divergent paths of the French Revolution and the American Revolution. If you have read J.M. Thompson's The French Revolution, you know that France had fundamental differences from America in the latter half of the 18th Century. Also, Dunn ignores the fact that the leaders of the American Revolution merely glossed over one very crucial issue when defining the new nation - Slavery. This important issue led to a bloody Civil War less than a century later!

French Revolution: For Good Things, Against Bad Things
It's not possible to seriously study the American Revolution without having a knowledge of the French Revolution, as well. Both having been in the name of "the people", why did one work so well, giving us the world's oldest operating constitution, while the other descended into a chaotic, paranoid killing spree?

The short answer is that the French committed the classical blunder of "people's movements" : stirring unbridled emotion in with the idea that the people reign supreme, this is the people's government, so question it and you're against the people.....now prepare to have your height reduced by a foot or so. As an example, the Declaration of the Rights of Man states such laughably contradictory statements of "rights" that it's hard to imagine anyone ever thought it could work in the first place: from Article 4 "Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else;" I guess it would be insulting you to draw the line from freedom to tyranny when you're using statements that fatuous as your guiding light. It's kind of like describing your political ideology as "being for good things and against bad things". That's a bit open-ended, don't you think?

History shows hoards of people running like lemmings into the arms of movements that do this again and again at the urging of intellectuals who, in the attempt to reconcile theory with practical solutions, fail miserably and leave an atrocious body-count in their wake. By now, you'd think this dismal little scenario, playing itself like an endless loop of a bad horror film, would recede into history but that just doesn't seem to be the case. After being beaten down by some megalomaniacal ruler, the "people" tend to make the classical over-step of tearing everything to ground level in an effort to scrub themselves clean of the past. What's usually left is a barren wasteland that's as bad or worse than the original offense.

To put it very briefly, the American Revolution differed in that it didn't discard every last remnant of Britain, keeping the best while discarding the worst.

This is an excellent effort, although I think it steps beyond its limits in the final chapters as the author understandably attempts to integrate the lessons from both revolutions to the present. This seems to brief to be of much value and probably should have been the subject of another book.

French Rev Bad; American Rev Good
I am surprised that there aren't more books out there tying together the American and French Revolutions. I read this book as part of the Brother's Book Club (BBC) and thoroughly enjoyed the e-mail discussions it generated. If you are looking for a chronological historical breakdown of the two revolutions, this would not be the book to get. If, however, an analytical breakdown of the causes that generated and fueled the two revolutions, the thought that kept them aloft, the intellectual connection and differences between the revolutions, and lastly the impact that they had upon the rest of the world; all sound compelling to you, then by all means go buy this book.

One detractor is Dunn's oversimplification in her critical look at everything involving the French Revolution and high praise for all things American Revolution. She follows this code, almost without exception. A more objective analysis would have been more meaningful and valid. The strength of the book is Dunn's revelation of the power of ideas. She makes it inducingly clear that the historically decisive actions of the world were driven by the power of ideas.

Perhaps the most compelling chapters come at the end, as Dunn stretches intellectually by portraying the two revolutions as models and exploring the effect they have had on subsequent revolutions around the globe. The biggest surprise is that after Dunn praises the American model, she concludes by finding America's current system of government inefficient and suggests that the British Parliamentary model is the best fitting for modern day democracies. How we come full circle.

Good book for those interested in the thought process behind the American and French revolution, but not so much for a historical breakdown of the two. Through exploring the power of ideas, Dunn comes up with some powerful ideas of her own.

Explores Why a Revolution Succeeds
Author Dunn explores the French and American Revolutions of the late 18th century. She does an excellent job of describing the differences between the two political systems, one based on concensus but with a loyal opposition (American) and one based on total unity (French). The most interesting idea developed is that the French Revolution served as a harbinger of the Russian Revolution. The will of the people would be served by an elite few who remained convinced of their leadership even when deserted by the people they served. The French leaders are portrayed as idealist who tried to create an impossible system while the American leaders were politicians who knew that to create a workable system, some ideas had to be sacrificed.

I would strongly recommend this book to any reader with an interest in history. Well written and well researched, the author ends the book with two chapters about the revolutions in Russia and Vietnam and how these revolutions borrowed ideas from the French and American revolutions.

A Great Read!
Having read quite a bit about both the French and American Revolutions, I found this book to be a wonderfully written comparison of both the ideology underlying the movements and the continuing consequences of those ideologies. This is a very meaningful book, both for students of the two revolutions, as well as for people interested in political science and government in general. Not only does it do an excellent job of distilling the movements, but it is extremely well written. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An essential reference work on WWII Yugoslavia
Tomasevich did a phenomenal job on a daunting subject: the political and economic history of Yugoslavia during the Second World War, focusing on Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. This massive book will be especially valuable for the chapters on economic activity in the Axis-occupied Independent State of Croatia from 1941 to 1945, material that has rarely been presented in English in such detail (over a hundred pages in the two chapters on this subject). The sections on the many religious groups of Yugoslavia are likewise comprehensive, with a great deal of new information. The bibliography is in itself a triumph of thoroughness.

What makes the book not only useful but remarkable is the author's story of how he conducted his research, interviewing contentious sources and wading through the conflicting evidence on controversial topics such as the numbers of people murdered by the several parties to the conflict (Nazis, Italian Fascists, Ustase, Chetniks, Partisans). His analysis is masterful and sensible.

My only complaint is the book's high price. I can only hope that there will be a paperback edition, as this work is too significant to go out of print. ... Read more