History Books

The Heretic's Daughter is a wonderful read set in Salem Mass during the witch trials. The book is about the author's ancestor, Martha Carrier, who was accused of witchcraft. It's told from POV of Martha's daughter Sarah, who was forced to testify against her mother at only eight years old.

This is a heart-wrenching story about the consequences of greed, jealousy, and emotional neglect (Sarah finds a more loving family with her aunt and uncle than she does with her mother and father). It is also very much a story of early American hardship. Living in Salem was not an easy prospect at the time, not just because people were superstitious, but because life itself was hard: people had to contend with extreme poverty, extreme weather, and possible starvation.

Highly recommended, especially for those interested in American history.

The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent is one of the best novels I've read this year; certainly in the top five. The fact that Kent is a descendent of the Carriers adds an emotional connection to the story that makes the account even more personal.

Sarah Carrier, the ten year old narrator of the story, lives with her parents Thomas and Martha, along with three brothers and a younger sister Hannah. They live a bleak existence on a small farm near Salem. Kent's ability to bring the toughness of these people to the forefront is interesting, though I think letting Sarah be the narrator limits the impact of the story for the reader. Still, the novel moves quickly with crisp prose and a well rounded plot. There is an element of terror in the pages of The Heretic's Daughter. Knowing that others may be conspiring against you with rumors and innuendo, half truths, and out and out lies may be vaguely familiar to some of the readers. The insanity of it all is that those in charge, those who are relied upon for leadership and for guidance in living our lives, have given up reason and submitted blind fear and in doing so removes Sarah's ability to defend her self.

The Heretic's Daughter is also a story about love. One can't always judge by exterior signs the depth of love and devotion people have for each other. This is especially true in the love between a mother and daughter.

Most readers are familiar with the Salem witch trials of 1692, though having an intimate knowledge of the historical facts isn't required to enjoy The Heretic's Daughter. In fact, having only a sketchy understanding might be an asset.

I found The Heretic's Daughter to be an engaging and worthwhile read.

As other reviewers have already outlined, this book takes place during the Salem Witch Trials, and the author is a tenth-generation descendant of Martha Carrier, one of the first women to be tried under the trials. The book is told from the perspective of her pre-adolescent daughter Sarah.

The author has done her research, and she does a beautiful job of depicting the harsh realities of life during this time, including plagues, crop failures, and attacks by indigenous tribes. This harshness is partly what fuels the trials' momentum, as a fearful community struggles with the causes of their suffering. Surely there must be some offense, some sin, that God is punishing them for? In their desperation, they seek out the 'sinners' amongst them, literally demonizing their own neighbors for the smallest of offenses. They seek to scapegoat and purge - as so many have done in the name of religion throughout history.

From there, the paralysis of fear takes over, with each new charge silencing more people within the community, all seeking to protect their own lives and families. Children as young as four are taken into custody - since the 'devil' is behind it all, and can take over anyone's mind, no one is considered innocent. Quite the contrary, during the trials the defendants are most definitely considered guilty until proven innocent. And their innocence is in the hands of several hysterical, adolescent girls no less (I'll let you read the book to learn more about this.)

One of the most touching aspects of the book is how Martha gets Sarah to save herself, helping Sarah to realize that behind her mother's stern exterior lies the greatest of maternal loves. While Sarah at first despises her mother's difficult personality, wishing she would just capitulate to others, she comes to realize her mother's seeming obstinance is actually born of tremendous faith and wisdom. This is exactly the opposite of what her community elders teach - that strict obedience is the foundation for faith. As Sarah observes, that obedience, along with fear, is what allows the madness to continue for so long.

And so The Heretic's Daughter works on at least three levels. First, as a gripping historical novel that masterfully depicts a certain setting and time period. Second, as a personal story of a mother and adolescent daughter struggling to understand each other. And third, as a cautionary tale about how religion can be twisted when a society is ruled by fear.

I was intrigued with the idea of this book but once I got it I wasn't sure I wanted to read it. It is a period in history that doesn't particular interest me. For some reason, however, possibly because Martha Carrier was a real woman, hanged as a witch at Salem, I picked this book up then read for the sheer enjoyment of Kathleen Kent's writing.

An introductory letter, penned in 1752, is from Sarah Carrier Chapman to a granddaughter, giving her the document about the witch trials. Sarah, Martha Carrier's daughter, wants her to understand her family and what really happened.

The language of this book is lyrical yet simple, reflecting the lives of the people living in New England in the 1690s; bound by the seasons, the hard work of a farm, and the religious prejudices and fears.

The setting is Andover, near Salem, in the time period 1691-1693. We learn of Sarah's early life and of her family and the strife between her family and that of her aunt and uncle. We experience Martha's trial, the tribulations of the prisons, the deaths of the people accused of being witches, and the freeing of the children and ultimately the freeing of the rest of the accused. There is a last chapter that carries us through 1735 and tells what happened to some of Sarah's family members and neighbors.

It is amazingly well written and flows beautifully. The characters are vividly drawn. Sarah reveals in anecdotes the traits that eventually earn her mother a place on the hanging tree - her intelligence, her assertiveness, her unwillingness to lie and give in, her strength of conviction and will. Martha Carrier was an admirable woman. So, too, is Sarah.

I highly recommend this book to anybody interested in Puritan America, the witch trials of Salem, and farm life in the late 17th century. It is very good historical fiction.

The Heretic's Daughter tells the story of the Salem witch trials from the perspective of 10-year-old Sarah Carrier, whose family becomes a target of her community's hysteria. Kent's unadorned prose captures the immediacy and emotion of Sarah's story and evokes an authentic setting by using old-fashioned phrases and metaphors drawn from familiar tasks (scything grass, harvesting wheat) and materials (beeswax, homespun cloth) of the era. The quick-moving plot and well-developed characters make this an easy book to get caught up in.

Because Sarah is a young narrator, she doesn't fully understand the horrible events unfolding around her. This perspective adds an agreeable innocence to the tale, but also creates a bit of distance between the action and the reader's experience of the action. As a narrator, Sarah is incapable of stepping back from the events at hand and considering the frightening implications of those events for human society in general. Overall, The Heretic's Daughter is a heartbreaking story well told.

I purchased the audio version of the book; complex topic made amazingly simple in a superb narration.

If all audiobooks are this good, I will look forward to my 27 mile commute to work!

Briefer isn't always better. While this treatment is much more accessible than the merely Brief version, it is disappointing by not exploring the more paradoxical and complex issues of quantum uncertainty and paired-particles.

If you haven't read Hawkings before, read this book first. If you are still curious, then read the denser, "merely brief" version for a fuller treatment.

This is an excellent book. It is easy to understand with good illustrations. I liked the first book, A Brief History of Time, and this one was even better with more illustrations and updated information including information on the string theory.

Of all of Hawking's books, and I believe I own and have read them all, this one is by far the easiest to read and understand. Difficult topics to comprehend are taken step by step, mostly in laymen's terms, from the beginnings of astronomy thru current efforts to find a unified theory for everything. If you really want to begin to understand our place in the universe this is a good place to start, followed by earlier books written by Dr. Hawking. You can knock this book out on a Saturday morning a dazzle your friends with your newfound knowledge on Saturday night.

I've heard it said that Stephen Hawking's 1988 bestseller A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME is the book everybody owns but hardly anyone has read. In this 2005 book Hawking adds an "er" to the title and makes the content much more accessible to a lay audience while bringing them up to date with the latest developments in string theory and the discovery of dark energy. In 150 pages everything important in the field is discussed from the work of early astronomers to the possibility of time travel. Helpful color pictures/diagrams are included as well as a glossary of terms related to the content. The writing may be a little dry in a few places but when the book is finished the reader will have a much better understanding of the difficult but fascinating concepts addressed.

"Blackwater: The rise of the world's most powerful mercenary army" is nice book. It's really biased, but it calls up for a problem that doesn't appears in the media: the private military contractors. Few people knows about Blackwater and other firms, its ideologies, beliefs, associations, etc. It's a company, so its primary objective is profit, with its business, but its business is war. Sounds creep, but this is the true, and it's not only in Iraq. Many humanitarian organization rely on these companies for security in risk areas and failed states.

Scahill begans his investigation narrating the incident in Nisour Square, with morbid details, and how the perpetrators were not punished. The first chapter is to make clear that this book won't be nice with Blackwater. After talking about Rumsfeld plan's to increase outsource in the military industry, he describe the life of Blackwater's founder, Erik Prince, its family, home and influences and how he started Blackwater. AS a critic of the war in Iraq, he writes about the situation of the country and the job of the PMCs. He dedicates two chapters for Scott Helvenston and describe the ambush, which resulted in his death and his teammates. Then he descibres the battles of Najaf (which Blackwater employees were giving orders to US soldiers, acting like commanders) and Fallujah. The next chapters, is about lobbying, operations in Azerbaijan, lawsuits, the "air force" of Blackwater. Then the targets are the executives: Black e Schmitz, with the death squad between their chapters. Then he talks about the operation in Katrina and other charities. And ends with a discussion about the power of the industry and the future.

When I finished the book I was astonished of how can this happen. This industry doesn't need to be a devil, but Bremer's rules are transforming they in a demon. Without regulation, since they will not simply become extinct, there will be no limits of what their soldiers can do. They don't need to answer to anyone. It's very dangerous stimulate the corruption in the human being, and it is necessary put some limits imediatily in their job.

And I didn't understand very well the connection that Scahill makes with Blackwater and the Christian right. But, I must confess that I don't understand how a man self declared Christian can make war and death his business and give glory to the Lord. I am Christian and some kind of conservative, but I don't believe in the American Christian right. See for example, this quotation: "Many Christians in Southern Sudan desire to break free form international handouts and learn free-market principles, useful skills and technologies that will move them form depence to independence". I couldn't belive that this was written. I was looking for the original article, but I didn't find a free version in the net. If it's true then I understand what Stiglitz meant with "free-market fundamentalism". Free-market is not the Gospel. It's disgusting how our brothers in Darfur are dying and nobody is doing anything, because it's just about oil, the cursed oil. China let the Sudanese government kill Christian just for the oil. If the US strike, they will only go after the oil. But it's equally disgusting how Scahill and other members of the left show no compassion with the people that are dying there. Someday everybody involved in this tragedy will receive their judgements.

Scahill also writes about the use of PMCs to protect humanitarian NGOs but, here he just relate the situation, perhaps because he understood the gravity of the situation, and let the reader decide.

Last advice: read with open mind, whether you are a conservative or liberal.

Liberals love to push and fight over who was first to be against the war in Iraq. This distracts from the far more interesting questions that books like this seek to expose. The triumph of private mercenaries who discredit this great country and are allowed to operate unchecked by the noble traditions of military justice is unpatriotic and criminal. How this terrible "business" arose is well worth investigation and exposure. It is irrelevant whether one supports the war or not. Both sides should agree that turning over our national dignity to Mcmilitary operations is a scandal. Democrats and Republican should decry our loss of civilian and military control. That Democrats against the war are silent on this outrage shows their hypocrisy. This is pure profiteering at its worst, but more outrageous is the shame and national dishonor brought to our nation in the eyes of the world who see these incompetent criminals murdering people in cold blood in the name of the USA.

I loved this book for what it had to say about Blackwater, and it's extremely right-wing leanings.

I post on a "Conspiracy Theory" Forum, and received "Blackwater Expert" rank because of the information I read and conveyed based on this book, as well as my insight into all things military, and the countless other topics I investigate for my own personal interest.

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread352934/pg1

I hope everyone who reads this book finds it intriguing and informative, to say the least. It's not that it's right-wing, so much as the current Administration has abused power so much, that it has left a bad taste in anyone who loves Democracy, can see the writing on the wall towards shredding the United States Consitution that is supposed to protect us as citizens from our Government becoming too powerful, and becoming a tyranny.

tHE BOOK IS THOUGHT PROVOKING AND FRIGHTENING,IT NEEDS TO BE READ BY AMERICANS AND FELLOW CITIZENS OF THE WORLD!

So what is reporter Jeremy Schahill's problem with the mercenary company Blackwater? Well, it's run by Christian conservatives who are rigorous supporters of the Bush presidency, and it enables the American government to pursue an imperialist agenda, without the support of either the American people or military. And sometimes Blackwater mercenaries kill innocent civilians, and with their lax safety standards Blackwater permits their own soldiers to be killed.

Jeremy Schahill reports for the Nation magazine and Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" so he's used to preaching to the choir. Mercenaries? Christian right? George Bush? Imperialism? Well, that's an open and shut case: Blackwater is evil, and must be stopped now.

Now Blackwater is a very interesting topic and a lot of readers who are not knee-jerk liberals -- such as myself -- will want to read up on it, and so Jeremy Schahill needs to articulate his case against Blackwater better -- and unfortunately he doesn't even try.

Blackwater, after all, is merely a company that is meeting market demand. George W. Bush decided to invade and occupy Iraq, and he needed a reliable mercenary company to protect American diplomats -- and Blackwater has maintained a perfect record in the protection of "high value targets." Violence is a brutal, subjective business, and now and then Blackwater mercenaries will over-use force in order to protect American officials and diplomats -- resulting in the wanton killing of civilians. But, again, they're just doing their job, and they're doing it very well.

Another of Jeremy Schahill's concern is the Bush cabal's -- as best represented by Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney -- push to privatize the military. Donald Rumsfeld has consistently argued that privatizing the military would make it more efficient and cost-effective, and permit America to fight the asymmetrical wars of the 21st century. Again here Jeremy Schahill takes it on faith that this is a very bad idea -- but Mr. Rumsfeld could well be right -- there just isn't enough history and evidence to ascertain who is right and wrong.

Now and then Mr. Schahill tries to explain why Blackwater is bad for the American republic. Remember Rome, and its use of mercenaries? Well, eventually these mercenary armies turned against Rome -- but this a point that Mr. Schahill doesn't really articulate.

But besides the trite and over-used example of Rome Mr. Schahill could have also used the example of Britain and the East India Company. In the beginning of the 19th century East India Company officials or "nabobs" were getting filthy rich in India, returning to Great Britain, spending their wealth lavishly to cultivate political connections, and became a strong lobby for Britain's imperialistic drive which ultimately corrupted its republican virtues. America's nascent mercenary lobby is extremely close to the Bush presidency, and there's very good reason to believe that Erik Prince, Blackwater's king, will enter the political arena one day.

If Mr. Schahill were to delve deeper and conduct true investigative journalism he may well discover that his case against Blackwater is a lot stronger than mere speculating and complaining. Mr. Schahill tells us that Blackwater mercenaries are responsible for protecting the top American officials in Iraq and have immunity from prosecution -- and so what's going to happen when you give professional killers a lot of power and nothing to restrain them?

When I was in Afghanistan working for the United Nations I would hear now and then of international soldiers involved in the drug trade and in smuggling cultural relics out of the country. It made perfect sense for these soldiers to engage in these activities because they had the means -- the planes, the weapons, and the time -- and there was little risk of them actually getting caught. By now we know that Blackwater mercenaries stand accused of selling guns and weapons to insurgent groups in Iraq -- and why not? We are talking about extreme risk-takers put in a situation where they can make a lot of money with little risk, and so why wouldn't Blackwater mercenaries sell guns to their enemies? And why wouldn't they sell drugs and smuggle relics?

"Blackwater" runs to almost 500 pages, and if the author spent as much time actually investigating what Blackwater is doing in Iraq as he did in writing the book he would have done his country a great service.

While I cannot claim to be able to read this classic work in the original German, I share many of the other reviewers' frustrations with regard to Talcott Parson's English translation of it. First is all the passages from other authors which are left in the original French, Latin etc. and which the average anglophone reader today will be hard-pressed to decipher. Second is the shortage of explanatory notes pertaining to the various minutiae upon which Weber dwells. Contemporary readers can't be expected to know anything about Pietism, for example, so a few footnotes would have been helpful. Finally, there's the dated quality of Parsons' language which seems more redolent of the 19th century than the mid-20th. Every time he uses the word "to-day" complete with its archaic hyphen, it's hard not to be reminded of how musty this translation is and how the far the "to-day" he's writing about is removed from the "today" we live in.

For all the above reasons I would be reluctant to assign this book to an undergraduate class. Surely there's someone out there willing to take a shot at a new, fresher rendering of this book for the 21st century and fix some of the shortcomings of this rather flawed translation.

this book was somewhat difficult to get through because of the footnotes (i have trouble with footnotes), once you get that point though, it's a fantastic book. it discusses why the capitalist system we have now, and the morality we have now is the way it is. we have all heard of the protestant ethic yes? it is that you must work hard, without pleasuring yourself too much, for the sake of pleasing god. working as hard as you can allows a person to 'most effectively' utilize the gifts god has given them, but they cannot take pleasure in the fruits if this because too much pleasure would result in the breaking of some sin, greed or sloth or what have you, pretty much all of them can be connected i'm sure. but if you can't have fun with what you're working so hard to create, why work so hard? because you are pleasing god, setting yourself up for the next life if you will. well this is wonderful for a historical reference, but we're very much secularized in society today so why does any of this matter? well, weber contends that a man named calvin (yes calvinism) took the protestant ethic and tied it to capitalism. calvin took the protestant ethic, which was good because it got things done with little complaint from the workers, and connected it to the economic system by turning god into money. we can imagine the problems with this, if nothing else, there would be trouble behind the fact that what motivated people before was spiritual, and now we expect the same results because of different motivations. that's like using a car to float down a river instead of a boat. ya cars go forward wonderfully, on the medium they were designed for.

so now we all ascetically put ourselves into our work towards the end of making more money. i'm not a history buff so i don't know if this is true or was just used as an example of how religion effected capitalism, but i don't really care as i can see the connections between the protesant ethic and our capitalist morality.

weber calls where we are now the iron cage, kind of pessimistic, but he believes that now we're here, we're stuck here. we can't get out of the mental state we are in now, which i don't necessarily agree with, but can see how someone could. if you leave the economic system today, chances are you'll end up on the street. i think this is my favourite quote, it's right at the end of the book and sums up the final point quite well.

"No one knows who will live in this cage in the future, or whether at the end of this tremendous development entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a great rebirth of old ideas and ideals, or, if neither, mechanized petrification, embellished with a sort of convulsive self- importance. For the last stage of this cultural development, it might well be truly said: Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart; this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never achieved before "

an eye opener to say the least, but a really good read.

A decisive intellectual victory over the numbing utilitarianism of the day -- as important now as it was a hundred years ago. In his masterpiece, Max Weber traces the development of the worldly Protestant ascetic spirit from its predecessor (medieval otherworldly asceticism) to its modern religious peak (Puritan social ethics) and beyond, to the current utilitarian economic thought (with no religious elements whatsoever).

Weber also reveals the development of the spirit of capitalism as a tautologous paradigm of thought that has a long time ago abandoned its original religious motives, leaving behind only a system -- a ghost of a ghost -- that everyone must reproduce in order to survive. This is the "iron cage of [capitalistic] modernity" which we inhabit, and as Weber says, it will not be gone before "the last load of coal has been burned"... A chilling remark in retrospect, as we have now found out that the ever-growing global economy -- a growth for the sake of growth in both communist countries (especially China) and Western democracies -- is cooking up the Globe.

I suggest you waste your money on this.

In my youth I used to believe that Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism was the very last word in understanding, sociologically, the driving force behind capitalism in its prime. His premise, at least his expressed narrowly- defined one, that out of the mishmash of feudalism a `new' man and a `new' woman were being created who could subordinate their temporal desires enough to begin the tedious process of primitive capitalist accumulation that got the whole mode started, hit home hard to my young mind. Of course, that was not my conscious take on it at the time, although parts of it certainly were. What interested me the most wa that Weber was using some examples that were close to home, the Massachusetts Bay Colony experiment, and, being from Boston and steeped in Purtian history, that is why I was glad to get a copy of the work.

Strangely, in recently re-reading the work I found that I was drawn by those same examples. Additionally, I was drawn by the huge set of footnotes at the end that I did not remember going through in my youth but offer some very interesting insights into how Weber put his argument together and the sources that he had available at the time and that he used. The re-reading poses this question, though. How does the work itself hold up?

Of course today my class struggle perspective derived from a Marxist world view notes that Weber is clearly a political opponent. Not so much for his argument, which actually has a certain merit, but for his tenacious desire to use a quasi-Marxism materialist approach to sociology without drawing those requisite class struggle conclusions. I might add that the class struggle was fully raging in Germany at the time of the publication of this work as the Social Democratic Party was becoming the voice of the German working class. Weber, thus, really needed to keep his blinders on. Moreover, as a work of scholarship, which I will grant it certainly is, it is an early effort in the very long struggle to divorce sociological observations from any practical use. A militant today in order to benefit from reading this work has to do the equivalent of suspending disbelieve in the plot of a novel to realize that it is important to know what made capitalism tick in the old days and why we have to move on. Here, nevertheless is my very condensed take on the work today.

In some place in 16th and 17th century Europe, the scope of Weber's study, individuals and small communities were breaking from the established churches, Roman Catholic and mainstream Protestant and creating, in some cases 'hit or miss', a culture that we today describe as secular but in the nature of those times had a religious connotation. That breakout, not without opposition and oppression by the constituted authorities, formed the nucleus of an ethic that made accumulation of wealth through hard work and thrift the norm-in short that private accumulation mentioned above. This, dear reader, was a historically progressive series of actions. In the year 2007 those traits have long since failed to be progressive. What is necessary, as Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and even someone like Che Guevara recognized is in the interest of social solidarity we need to create `the new socialist man and woman' out of the muck and mire of capitalism. Hell, we need our own version of the Protestant ethic-and if current worldwide economic conditions are any judge- we need it pronto. Read this one at your leisure.

Weber is the definitive introductory text in Modernization theory. Although somewhat western-centric, this book is essential reading for any college student, as it gave rise to many theories in every branch of social science, and still has more influence on theoretical thought than most social scientists would like to admit.

Kishore Mahbubani is the Professor of Public Policy of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. His previous books carry the interesting titles of Can Asian Think? and Beyond the Age of Innocence.

In this book, Kishore, a former diplomat explores the reaction of the West especially the United States towards the shift of global power to the east. By 2050, the world's three largest economies will be in Asia: Japan, India, and China.

Kishore's thesis is that the east like to replicate, not dominate. This was always so with Asian and Western countries. However much depends on the response of the United States. If the United States are willing to share and not dominate, then there will be much benefit to everyone. However if the United States decide to try to dominate the rising economies, there will be much chaos.

History unfortunately has shown that the Western response when threatened by the east was always a retreat into protectionism and attacks. The Japan-bashing of the 1980s, have been replaced by India-bashing of the 1990s (due to outsourcing) and now we have China-bashing in the 2000s. Looks like we in Asia are in a stormy ride.

Kishore Mahbubani presents an engrossing account, written with clarity and incite, detailing the shifting landscape of our human planet. He is able to comprehensively portray the changing forces - strengths and weaknesses, economically, politically, and culturally - affecting the dynamics of the interactions and changing powers of the world's civilizations. I became interested in the book after watching Mr. Mahbubani on an interview on UCTV in which he made a potentially boring-sounding topic sound potentially interesting. IT WAS FASCINATING!

By 2050, three of the world's largest economies will be Asian - China, Japan, and India, and America's domination of global institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, G-7, and the U.N. Security Council will be over.

The U.S. needs to take a broader view of morality than it has. The rise of Asia has brought more "goodness" (lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty) into the world in the last several decades; at current growth rates standards of living in China may rise 100X within a human life span, contrasted with Russia's 45% decline after following American advice to leap into democracy without reforming the economy first. Facilitating widespread acquisition of consumer goods removes the feeling of hopelessness and futility, increases sense of self-worth, lowers crime rates, encourages the teaching of history to become less ideological (eg. China's new texts mention Mao only once), and improves education standards. However, accomplishing this requires not freedom from authoritarianism (as most Americans think), but freedom from chaos and anarchy. (Part of the government's reaction to Tiananmen Square was supposedly due to their support for a Russian-style economic and political conversion.)

Mao's initial implementation of central planning was not a failure - thanks to his ending almost a century of political turmoil the first Five-Year Plan brought average annual increases in industrial and agricultural output of 19.6 and 4.8% respectively. The 1955 Great Leap Forward, on the other hand, was a failure.

The success of Chinese expatriates overseas and their low productivity on the mainland confirmed (along with initial small experiments that partially reversed collectivization of agriculture) Deng's suspicion that China had adopted the wrong economic system. Thus, he became a pragmatist ("It doesn't matter whether a cat is black or white - as long as it catches mice it is a good cat."), calling for an end to name-calling, emphasizing responsibility, and stating that "To get rich is glorious." Regardless, China's development has now reached a need for a legal system that borrows from Western concepts, thereby decentralizing financial power and property rights (and further encouraging economic investment).

Asia had slipped behind Western scientific development because of a religious mindset that spurned the material world and a lack of critical questioning. Richard Smalley, Nobel Laureate in chemistry, predicted that by 2010, 905 of PhD scientists and engineers would be living in Asia. China's 200,000 returnees make up 81% of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, enticed by patriotism and growing opportunities, resistance to research in some areas (eg. stem-cell), and increased government funding. (China has increased from 0.6% in 1995 to 1.3% in 2005, vs. U.S. federal outlays declining over the past 30 years to 0.05% in 2003.

The China Central Committee's (CCC) average age in 2002 was 55; membership is based on merit, not seniority (eg. Russia's Politburo). Another lesson learned from Russia's implosion was to avoid an early overfocus on military development.

Arab Muslims make up on about 1/6 of the world's 1.5 billion Muslims. Most live in Asia; throughout the world Islamist parties are gaining ground.

Hopefully, the Western nations will accept Asia's rise. America's star is not dimming, though it is shining relatively less brightly. In addition, our supporting Israel, Arab and other despots, speaking non-proliferation while silent on Israeli nukes, modernizing American weapons, and supporting India's nuclearization, supporting democracy, while punishing Palestinians for not voting the way we want, lack of leadership on global warming (includes insisting on too much, too soon from developing nations), name-calling and refusing to talk to Iran do not compare well with China's no-strings aid to eg. Africa, without dictating terms for economic and political reforms.

An excellent outside perspective!

First I noticed the controversy about this book in Hard Talk on BBC, where the host and the author did some very unsatisfactory pirouettes around the contentious issues, which are related to the Western reservations about current Asian progress. Then I read an even worse interview in Der Spiegel, where the interviewers excelled in stupidity while the author excelled in stubbornness.
Consequently I had to pick up the book and read it. KM expects to provoke 'us' Westerners, but he asks some pundits to write blurbs, which Summers and Zbig and others did.
KM's thesis is this: Asia rises, and that is good for the world. The Western leaders have trouble in adjusting their mental maps, which are trapped in the past. Asia has benefitted from the world system as established after WW2 and has no interest in endangering it. The current wave of optimism will enter West Asia as well and Pakistan, Iran and others will want to have the same progress as China and India etc...
The March to Modernity is good for all, and it is not just material, rather the escape from poverty has far reaching immaterial value for the masses of Asia.
In short, KM is a 'hopeless' optimist, and I do hope that his victorious scenario wins. My biggest doubts are over the Islamic world's ability to join the trend. Maybe KM knows better. I do hope so.
One surprise for me was that KM steps away from the old litany of Lee Kuan Yew and others, i.e. that Asian economic success is due to traditonal Confucian values. In the contrary, KM argues that China, India, and the others, are following Japan in adopting the '7 pillars' that were the basis of the West's surge forward some centuries ago. These 7 pillars are: 1. free economy (expect Adam Smith in the Asian pantheon of the future!), 2.science (enormous push forward; quote Rajiv Gandhi: better brain drain than brain in the drain); 3. meritocracy/equal opportunity, a trend which requires overcoming huge traditional obstacles, but which is clearly on the way; 4.pragmatism: possibly a euphemism for copying; 5.a culture of peace (maybe hard to believe for many in the West); 6. the rule of law: far from being an attained target so far; 7.education.
If KM is right, the adoption of Western values is going far beyond copying Gucci bags and Lacoste shirts. In that sense I would'nt be surprised if he got as much headwind in Asia as in the West.
The headwind in the West comes from his criticism of the exportation of democracy into nations that are not ready for it. And of course from his criticism of the way the West dominates the international institutions and applies double standards.
Why are we not happy with the Asians following our example? Because it means loss of power, plain and simple.
Can't say that I don't see his point. Equally I think he is right in blaming the current Western leadership for gross incompetence in critical issues such as Middle East policy (the Iraq invasion as the single worst case of bad judgment and terrible implementation), free trade, nuclear non-proliferation, global warming...
Incidentally, KM points out, at the time when Giordano Bruno was burned for heresy in Rome, the Muslim emperor Akbar the Great pronounced principles of a secular government in India. So much for Western conceipt.

Kishore Mahbubani, former diplomat and currently dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, was one of the leading exponents of "Asian values" in the 1980s. Although they were in vogue for a time, the merits of those values were lost on many during the Asian financial crises of the 1990s. But since then Asian countries have made a remarkable recovery, and now Mahbubani is back taking his argument to a new level.

With 7-10% annual economic growth rates, Mahbubani sees global power shifting from West to East. He attributes this success not only to Asian values, but also to what he calls "the seven pillars of Western wisdom." Those pillars are free-market economics; science and technology; meritocracy; pragmatism; a culture of peace; rule of law; and education. Modernization in Asia began in the late 19th century with Japan opening to the West, then followed by the 4 tigers, and finally China and India. This march to modernity, as he calls it, has not only raised living standards but also Asian expectations in global power-sharing.

Mahbubani's grudge against the West is that the West is not playing by the rules which it created. The West, which he sees as Europe and North America, has only 15% of the world's population and 48% of global GDP; whereas the East - which is everyone else - has 85% of the world's population and 52% of GDP. The West is still dominating the world through outdated institutions such as the UN Security Council, the IMF, and the World Bank. Under a system of meritocracy or democracy the East should have a much larger role in global affairs.

Mahbubani makes many suggestions that would rectify this situation such as making India and China members of the G8, and opening up some of the top jobs at the IMF and World Bank to Asians. I couldn't agree more. His criticisms of the West have, for the most part, been correct. America's botched operation in Iraq is an easy target. Nuclear proliferation issues and the West's failure to stop genocide the Balkans and Rwanda are also given as examples of the West's incompentence. True again. This should not, however, be contrued as being anti-Western, it is only constructive criticism.

Unfortunately Mahbubani is as uncritical of Asia's shortcomings as he critical of the West's. When he says that the Chinese are freer today than they have been at any time in their history, one would have to agree. (This is also the view of Parag Khanna in The Second World.) But what about the rights of Tibetans and other minorities in China? What about legal and political rights in general? Autocracies only allow economic freedom. He also conveniently overlooks the violence in Kashmir, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia. And why blame only the West when nuclear proliferation in North Korea, Pakistan, and now Iran is mostly a result of China's neglect? Asian ascendancy has not been without its own fiascoes.

Parag Khanna argued that there will be three global leaders in the new century: the US, the EU, and China. Mahbubani would like to add India, for he sees India as a bridge between the East and the West. This is a valid point since many Indian intellectuals are at home in both the East and the West. He claims there is still a resistance among public intellectuals and journalists in the West to accept the East on equal terms, but I myself have not seen this resistance. I see a greater recognition of the East almost on a daily basis. With Asia's growing economic power, political power will follow no matter how much real or imagined resistance there is.

I really looked forward to this book and will give it kudos for being nicely written. Quite frankly though I found the story lame. It follows the poor planning, bad decision making, and vast ego of Teddy Roosevelt. He picks the wrong people and endangers many others for an expedition that if anyone else were involved the book would be called Fools Rush In. Right from the start you know their doomed and sure enough its let the suffering begin. By the time the book was over I hoped never to hear another thing about good old Teddy and his over indulged family again. He stands despite attempts in the book to make him bigger than life an exploded ego driven by celebrity. If your a Teddy fan I'd pass on this book. If you like reading about people making really dumb decisions (ie picking a guy who failed at an artic expedition to plan you tropical one) and almost dying from them then this is the book for you.

This fascinating account of Theodore Roosevelt's disastrous trip on the River of Doubt is well-written and meticulously researched. It has many "micro histories" on the flora and fauna of Brazil (hint: don't read this outside around a lot of bugs) as well as the native peoples of the region. My only frustration had to do with all the diversions when, on a few occasions, I just wanted to find out what happened next. The epilogue tells the reader the sometimes tragic personal stories once the journey ended and was one of the portions of the book that I shall remember the most. I read this as a book club assignment and we had a lengthy and lively discussion on Roosevelt, his son, and the men who played such a critical part of their journey. If you like a lot of detail in harrowing stories of exploration and adventure, this would be a perfect choice.

Wonderful Read
Candice Millard's book about Theodore Roosevelt's darkest journey, The River of Doubt, is absolutely superb. 5+ stars. Not only does Ms. Millard's work read like a suspense thriller, but it is very informative, highly educational and all true as well. The book is about Teddy Roosevelt's nearly disastrous exploration of the then unknown Amazon after his humiliating presidential defeat in 1912. During the difficult journey both TR and his son Kermit almost die while most in the expedition feared they ALL would. It is an amazing and educational book not only about TR the man, but also about the mysterious, dangerous, unknown Amazon of 1914. It is the best non-fiction book I've read in the last few years.
Ms. Millard writes in a very engaging style. Very well documented, The River of Doubt presents this extreme exploration challenge of a then unknown Amazon tributary in such a way as to reel the reader into the heart of the adventure. You actually feel as if you are on the trek along with Teddy Roosevelt and the other explorers. Feeling their heartaches, emotional swings, fears, and physical victories and failures, you root for their success. As the expedition nears disaster and TR faces death, the expedition finally reaches the outside world and success.
An amazing story that will keep you on the edge of your seat, I heartily recommend this superb book. It is one of the best biographical works I have read in several years.
Enjoy.

If the events in this book weren't so well documented I would have accused the author of making them up to increase the drama. I haven't been so engaged in a story in a long time.

An amazing story, extremely well excuted by the author.

I first bought this for my brother in law, and he couldn't stop raving about it. I had planned on buying myself a copy at some point anyway, but after hearing him talk about it, I decided to buy it a little sooner than planned. I wasn't sure what to expect from it, but it turned out to be a very good read. It's not written as an adventure novel - It's simply a play-by-play of what happened, and what some of the participants wrote about it. One could liken it to watching something on the History Channel - basically just giving the facts, but less dry than being told in a textbook. The passages of quoted letters, etc. work like the personal commentaries would - just giving a little extra insight to what the people were feeling. What I really liked about it though, was that it didn't focus solely on Roosevelt and his party - you also were given insight into the previously unknown inhabitants of the rainforest (both people and animals). The author also didn't try to paint the native people as "savages". While their violent acts were depicted, their reasons for such were explained. Their way of life, of "kill or be killed" was how they survived the violent unpredictable world around them. I think Millard did a wonderful job with this book, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who's even remotely interested in history.

something wrong while it's handling... and it didn't deliver to me in time, so I just refund instead of keep waiting.

It's very helpful for the class that I'm taking this semester and it's a good book to have because it's very informative and easy to use.

History of Modern Art is a well sructure resource textbook for students who are seeking information about Contemporary and/or Modern Art History. Great grasps of information on every page is a journey through space time and the people who made this possible in the 20th century . You will never find a better textbook on the market.

This was excellent. Very comprehensive, to say the least, and very well organized. This is my only book from art class that I actually sustained my interest! Definitely worth it.

I used this book in college for my two course survey of Modern Art. I absolutely loved the book and when I found out there was a hardback edition I had to have it. Let me tell you, getting it for 66 bucks is a STEAL! I saw this book brand new in a brick and mortar store and it was 110 DOLLARS! If you are at all interested in 20th Century Art I highly recommend this book as a general overview. This was one of the FEW books I read in college and actually enjoyed it.

First let me say this is a great book I would recomend it to anyone. I read some of the 1 star reviews and was amazed how misinformed these nay sayers were. One person said that it taught that life is for us to fulfill our own perpose instead of living for God. What the book teachs is that serving God is our purpose. Another person said Rick Warren wrote this book just to make money, I guess he doesn't know Rick warren gives away 90% of his income and lives off 10%. He accepts no sallery at all from his church, that doesn't sound much like a person who is motivated by money only to me. The people who have writen these negitive reviews obviously don't get what they call a simple book or have not read it at all. The gospel is not complicated God made it delibritly simple. The purpose driven life is a book that will change your life if you read it with humility and are willing to live a life that is purposely serving God.

This is a tremendous book for everyone including the ones whose faith is lost or non-existent. It gives the reader a more confident starting point to turn their life around and incorporate values that God has laid before us. Rick Warren's undeniable faith is an illuminating source of God's will that inspires oneself to take that leap of faith and place your salvation in the Hands of God.

I had heard of this book many times but never bought or read it. I was especially impressed a few years ago when someone (in Atlanta, I think) used material from it to help her deal effectively with someone who broke into her house. The person had already shot someone the same day. She was struggling with many issues before the intruder came. Together they talked about content of the book in a way that made a difference.

Finally, I was moved to get the book after the faith forum between McCain and Obama at Saddleback Church in August 2008. I was so impressed with the way he dealt with both candidates. I wanted to read more about what Warren says and learn more about how he says it.

I highly recommend the book.

My copy, from Christmas 2004, says "over 15 million copies sold". I see cover copy on books in stores now showing 20 or 30 million sold.

So, this is not a new or little-known book, and obviously, many people have read it and find it very good, and indeed it is. Warren gives five Biblical purposes for life, consistently using scripture (in many different translations where they help convey meaning). And while the book does occasionally reference other "PDL" products like the journal, it doesn't appear to be a sales tool for these other products.

In fact, the The Purpose-Driven Life Journal in conjunction with a good study translation (New American Standard, New Internation, or King James) is a great way to study and make notes.

Wow-really good book!! On a side note, would have prefered the Bible references at the point of reference ( eg Psalm 23:1 and not '2' so as to prevent the need to continually turn to the back of the book. I am at day 12 and I am really impressed at how applicable this book is to my life. Again, I wonderful read

Professor West's translations here are the standard translations for those who know, which is to say those who believe interpretation is fundamentally dependent upon exactly which words Plato chose to use. This should simply be a given, but there are too many who believe loose interpretations which border slang are able to provide one with a sound understanding of Plato's insight (dido for Aristophanes). My primary interest in posting this review, however, is to counter the reviewer who gave this book one star and proceeded at great length to skewer the translation and translator. I don't make it a habit of responding to such patently flawed reviews, but I make an exception in this case because of how grossly inaccurate the reviewer is on virtually all counts. In short, I find his review offensive to academic integrity and intellectual honesty. Quite simply, the man is a charlatan, wishing to pick a fight with a man who is by far his intellectual superior. It is lamentable that such incompetence can so easily be posted on these public domains.

This is a real rarity in Platonic scholarship--a synoptic translation of four important works on the life of Socrates; in other words, the translators use the same English words to convey the same important Greek terms in each of their translations in order to aid the reader in recognizing how those terms evolve in meaning and shape the drama of each of the works, or in short, in recognizing the dialogue which exists between the works rather than merely within them. A former reviewer seems to have missed the point of this work: if you want someone to TELL YOU WHAT PLATO MEANS, you can read a two line summary in an encyclopedia, but if you want to find out why Plato went and wrote an entire dialogue rather than a two line summary, you have to pay close attention to what he actually says. These translations are about as close as you can get without having advanced knowledge of Greek, and even then, the Wests note specific usages of key terms which even a native speaker of ancient Greek might not have noticed on a first reading, and which are largely ignored by the scholarly community. This is an ideal translation for students of politics, history, philosophy, and classical literature who want to know why the most profound and poetic civilization of antiquity put the first philosopher to death, and why he let them.

Never in my life have I been so outraged by what I have read as by the drivel spouted by Dr. West in this book (in his Translator's Note), and by the use of `unponderingly' and "the Thinkery" (among other things) in his translation of The Clouds. I also read his translation of Plato's Apology of Socrates, and found it grossly inferior to Jowett.

Four Texts on Socrates is not a book to be tossed aside lightly: it should be hurled with great force. (Apologies to Dorothy Parker.)

Not only are the translations themselves inexcusably inept, almost everything that he writes in his Translator's Note is wrong.

"The Clouds" is a play, not a scientific or mathematical treatise. As such, it has characters and dialogue. A 'modern' translation of a play must be something that could be presented on a stage and make sense to a 'modern' audience. If a character is supposed to be bizarre or out of the ordinary, one does not make him spout drivel such as 'unponderingly'; one gives him a 'shtick', which is a theatrical term. It's more or less a running gag associated with a particular character. You create, through clever ways of speaking or odd ways of stringing his words together, a characterization. He could be made to speak like a parody of William F. Buckley or the Star Wars character Yoda. As it stands, West's text cannot be presented as a play.

It is neither necessary nor useful to coin such nonsense as 'unponderingly'; indeed, it is inexcusable. It conveys neither humor nor cleverness. It comes off simply as stupid. The translator of a play must know something about theatre and drawing characters, which Dr. West obviously does not. To state it bluntly: The translation of plays should be left to people who understand theatre and characterization, and who are creative. Dr. West doesn't have a creative bone in his body.

In regard to his translation of Plato's The Apology of Socrates, the translation by Dr. West is both original and good, but the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good. After all, when one has the work of such a brilliant predecessor as Benjamin Jowett to follow, the temptation to do something entirely different is strong. But it must be resisted. If Dr. West had merely lightly revised Jowett's great work, he would have made a contribution to learning. Alas, he did neither.

The version by Jowett is clearly superior. Here is a short excerpt:

"And I must beg of you to grant me a favor: If I defend myself in my accustomed manner, and you hear me using the words which I have been in the habit of using in the agora, at the tables of the money-changers, or anywhere else, I would ask you not to be surprised, and not to interrupt me on this account. For I am more than seventy years of age, and appearing now for the first time in a court of law, I am quite a stranger to the language of the place; and therefore I would have you regard me as if I were really a stranger, whom you would accuse if he spoke in his native tongue, and after the fashion of his country: Am I making an unfair request of you? Never mind the manner, which may or may not be good; but think only of the truth of my words, and give heed to that: let the speaker speak truly and the judge decide justly."

Compare West's inept version:

"...I do very much beg and beseech this of you: if you hear me speaking in my defense with the same speeches I am accustomed to speak both in the marketplace at the money-tables, where many of you have heard me, and elsewhere, do not wonder or make a disturbance because of this. For this is how it is: now is the first time I have come before a law court, at the age of seventy; hence I am simply foreign to the manner of speech here. So just as, if I really did happen to be a foreigner, you would surely sympathize with me if I spoke in the dialect and way in which I was raised, so also I do beg of you now (and it is just, at least, as it seems to me): leave aside the manner of my speech--for perhaps it may be worse, but perhaps better--and instead consider this very thing and apply your mind to this: whether the things I say are just or not. For this is the virtue of a judge, while that of an orator is to speak the truth."

"Speaking...with the same speeches I am accustomed to speak"? How utterly inept and repetitive! Didn't he even proof-read? One doesn't speak with 'speeches', one speaks with words!

It is obvious that Dr. West never read his version aloud as a test of its appropriateness, which is surprising, because this work is supposed to be a speech. Dr. West's version is clearly not suited to speaking aloud, whereas Jowett's is. In West's translation, Socrates is a clumsy, repetitive, and inept speaker. Needlessly so. If you want to read a good translation, see Jowett's 3rd edition (1892).

Why does Dr. West believe himself qualified to make translations? Nothing in his work suggests that he is competent in any way to do so. This is not the work of a scholar, but that of a bungling hack. These translations are travesties. How does work this nauseatingly bad get published?

NOT RECOMMENDED

Thomas and Grace West translate Plato's Euthyphro, Apology and Crito and Aristophanes' Clouds in a clear and modern fashion. The useful background information and clear footnotes help make this an important book to have if you want to read about Socrates. This book is a "must have" for any Socrates fan indeed!

This is an outstanding translation of these Greek texts. These are texts that many of us regularly teach in introductory classes, and it is a great help to have such a reliable translation: the translation is clear and accessible, but maintains an unusually strict adherence to the form of the original Greek. This makes it useful for advanced study as well. The running footnotes to the text are especially helpful for giving students the relevant points of historical and legal context for understanding Socrates's position, but they are sparse enough that they do not intrude in the interpretation of the text. This is the only translation of these texts that I will use in my courses.