History Books

Maybe I am biased, but in my opinion, one of the good things about being an American is that our history is really interesting. Sure, other countries have their moments, but it was the United States that went toe-to-toe against the mighty British Empire - and won. Ours was the only example in world history of a violent revolution bringing about a change in government in which those who engaged in the fighting did not try to maintain their own power, but voluntarily stepped down when voted out. And although slavery existed for thousands of years over large sections of the planet, it was Americans who voted in a President knowing full well it would probably tear us apart and force a civil war. Man, this is high drama.

There is, of course, so much to American history that it can be daunting. If one wants a single, albeit lengthy, book for an excellent overview, it would be hard to top A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, by the prolific Paul Johnson. From pre-Revolutionary times to the near present day, Johnson presents this nation's history in a manner that gives enough of the facts to learn something meaningful without focusing so sharply on any one period or issue as a more focused book would do. To make it all the better, Johnson is actually a good writer, making the book as interesting as it is informative.

Many of Johnson's critics accuse him of putting a conservative slant on his writing. I have been around the block enough to know how this argument works. Conservatives tell America's story warts and all, while liberals tell America's story as all warts. Liberals then accuse conservatives of being slanted, not because conservatives exclude the bad parts, but because they include the good parts, as well. And for all the anti-Americanism out there, telling all the bad and all the good of America does not balance the scale. If one judges a nation not on the amount of problems it has or the amount of injustice within that country, but on the willingness of that country to face such injustice head on and deal with it, then the U.S. deserves its pre-eminent place among world societies. For all the griping on the left, I am convinced that many on that side of the spectrum know this as well.

A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE demonstrates this. Although I think Johnson does show his beliefs a bit too much in those sections on the mid to late 20th Century, the book overall is biased only in its attempt to portray American history accurately. Although Johnson is obviously fond of Americans, anyone expecting an uncritical cheerleader for U.S policy and history will be sorely disappointed. As the book is over 1,000 pages, selectively picking passages to demonstrate bias is a bit tough to take.

For anyone who wants to learn about American history, and for those Americans not ashamed of their own country, this book is highly recommended. Do not let the size of it intimidate you. I myself picked it up and put it down several times before finally making my way through it. Like many lengthy endeavors, it will be well worth it when it's done.

This is a very informative book to read because I have read this book in History class and made an "A". Everybody in class was required to buy the book but I was not disappointed with its historical values.

I 'ain't' smart enough to see that much of a political slant. Especially early in History, I forget the position the whigs had on immigration.

Forget all that liberal/conservative stuff this book is just a really good, in-depth american history. You cant read it in a weekend. I couldn't read it in a month...but I kept picking it up till I finished it. Considering how big a volume it is and my preference for only reading the 1st third a book. The only explanation that I got through this one is that it is really well written and interesting as hell.

I recommend this book to anyone.

Recommended for two types of readers: 1) The person who wants to get an overview of U.S. history in one easy-to-read (but large) volume; and 2) those who, like myself, have read many American biographies and histories. We can benefit in at least two respects. First, we get to share a history of our nation as seen from an outsider's perspective. Second, we learn factual history that somehow never made it into the books we have read, perhaps because we, collectively, were not much interested.
My comment avoids political controversy, so I'll stick with the earlier portion of the book.
First, the beginnings of American slavery were brand new to me, and fascinating.
Second -- and as a Philadelphian news to me -- was Johnson's view of the northern colonies/States' support of slavery. Quakers in Barbados, rich from slave trading, moving to North America! news to me.
Especially appreciated was Johnson's discussion of the "thousand years of political traditions, inherited from England," which formed the basis of our Founding Fathers' political actions.
Johnson attributes to Madison's famous "We, the people" Lincoln's rationale for not permitting States to leave the Union.
And more, much more. Buy it. Enjoy it!
One word of warning: read cautiously; Johnson has some blunders, the funniest of which is calling Horatio Gates "Horatio Alger."

Lengthy, but fascinating. I'm reading this to go along with my eldest's study of Am.History. It is refreshing and eye-opening to read a text from a European historian who actually agrees that America did some good in the world. JFK is not a saint, Nixon is not a villain. The truth is somewhere in between. A good education for me!

Very good read. Still reading it but the first section alone is worth the price. I wish they would have released it in 3 sections so I can easily travel with this book.

The hacker ethos is beautifully captured in this anthology. I've often skimmed 2600 at bookstores but it was only when I went through this hefty tome that I realized how deep and rich are the culture and accomplishments of the hacking community.

More than just the cartoonish representation in popular media, the hacking movement is a testament to creativity and innovation. Rightly so, this book is a celebration of cleverness and ingenious engineering instead of the more malevolent applications.

Emmanuel Goldstien and his companions have written alot about hacking over the years, but now most of their writings have come together in tome form.

If there was anything you ever wanted to know concerting what hacking was like before the explosion of the Internet, or how hackers have been portrayed with biased by the media and in some cases the government, this is a must read book.

If you subscribe to 2600: The Hacker Quarterly or if you patiently wait at the book store or mail box for a new issue every three months, you will definitely want to pick up this book.

It will be interesting to see in the future, online hacker zines to try their hand at publishing their writings such as TOTSE and Phrack.

I am attending Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) in NYC this week-end, and have just spent time with this volume. Unlike the individual issues, all of which I have had in my possession over the years, this volume is HUGE, readable, indexed, and priceless. I mean that--PRICELESS.

The publisher is to be saluted for not only putting a great deal of effort along with the editor, the founder of 2600 Magazine and also of the HOPE conference, for making this volume a true reference work. I was immediately impressed by the selection of "best of the best," the organization of the material, the index, and the fact that the publisher moved away from the micro-print that was used to keep costs down on the volume of knowledge being transmitted in the individual journal issues, and instead went for a high-end glossy, "just right" white space presentation that should be in every Information Technology library across the country, and is also a collectible for anyone who pretends to know anything at all about information INsecurity.

If you got this far, this lovely volume, easily worth $60, is a real value at the much lower price being offered, and I hope enough people buy it to occasion a reprint or a second volume.

It merits comment that this is not just a volume of hand-picked items from a single journal. The editor and his closest colleagues created a community of over 30,000 hackers (whom I have always said are like astronauts on the edge with the "right stuff") and this volume LITERALLY represents the 30,000 who were decades ahead of the US Government, which is still--as are corporations and public utilities--largely stupid about information system security, to include our Supervisory Control and Direction (SCADA) systems, all of them on the Internet.

For a really good time on what the Chinese know and can do that we cannot, see my Memorandum, easily found online, . They brought Dick Cheney's plane down over Singapore in Feburary 2007, and when he got off to stretch his legs, told him exactly what they could do, and what the US would not be allowed to do. Thus did the power of the information age move East.

Other great Hacker books (the last one is the ultimate public hack, taking back the power):
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, Twentieth Anniversary Edition
The Hacker Crackdown: Law And Disorder On The Electronic Frontier
The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders & Deceivers
The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
Cybershock: Surviving Hackers, Phreakers, Identity Thieves, Internet Terrorists and Weapons of Mass Disruption
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

Three DVDs, the first based on the real-life of the editor of this book:
Hackers
The Net
Live Free or Die Hard (Unrated Edition)

There are two sets of hackers: these, and the ones who came out of the Homebrew Garage Club (Lee Felsenstein, Eric Hughes, etc) and tended to created businesses rather than live free. Bill Gates is certainly in that number, as are Stewart Brand and others. The most famous Free/Open Hacker in the first group is Richard Stahlman, whose book on the origins of Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) is most recently complemented by Yochai Benkler's book on Wealth of Networks. With a tip of the hat to Nat at O'Reilly, open source software is Darwinism, while malware and proprietary software are Intelligent Design that is not so intelligence. VISTA by Microsoft is the biggest scam in history, for the first time forcing documents to be uniquely tied to the Microsoft operating system and not processable anywhere else. It is time for Microsoft to die, or come to its senses and put its money into F/OSS while monetizing the transactions. Bill Gates has called F/OSS communist. In my view, that makes Bill Gates a fascist. My money is on F/OSS.

I would like to first point out that information in this book and others does not mean that someone should go into someones system or other types of areas. Informing people on potentials that may hurt them in the future does not mean or imply someone will steal or hurt another. It's mealy for security. For example if you told someone their sneakers were untied that doesn't invoke a reaction that you wanted to steal them!
The problem with any form of security is it assumes that people breaking generally cannot think. It's been said that locks keep honest criminals out. Of course the other problem with this is if there's no forced point of energy that could nullify insurance claims!

I listen to 2600's Off the Hook and Off the Wall radio shows (streaming, wbcq, wbai, wusb). I encourage people to do so because they are brining up things that frankly most of the media won't. For example practically all locksets on the market are compromised via "bump keys" not a peep came out of the major media on this. Top rated mainstream locks are about 15 minutes for someone to open! Like it or not the more we obtain new technology the more we better get used to using it.

Getting into this book it has quite a large amount of articles going back decades. Much of this stems from the concept that somehow someone has created something that cannot be opened. Never assume something cannot be done with a piece of electronics!

I've experienced a number of interesting related things. I worked for a company that hosted all internal finance documents on a server that granted access not only to everyone in the building but everyone in the company! No password required! At the very least put a password, restrict access to certain terminals etc. I also worked for a major retailer that had back doors into their own systems from a hr portal people could view at home. Huge amounts of data could be found on policies and procedures that the management did not want people to know. All of this was access one could get at work without passwords so it wasn't even violating a law.I should say that I myself was hacked a number of years ago. Someone ended up saying I was selling a motorcycle on ebay using my account! Not cool but it was a learning experience.

Also 2600 makes good points as that it seems that we are no longer simply buying products but buying licenses. But since a license is an agreement it technically is NOT an agreement when there's only one party engaging.The innovations that have been achieved with technology should not be used by the government to data mine people and/or for companies to dictate their usage.

Most people believe that the products and services they buy and use will work properly and have (hopefully) integrity. When that trust is taken away it means everything is compromised. If a building collpases you can physically determine as to why but with a network it is not always apparent.

I highly recommend this book because it reinforces the mindset that technology is supposed to be free and open to use.

I've never even heard of Mr. Robert Leo Smith. Is he a Nobel prize winner? The world's most renowned ecologist? What is so special about this book that it can justify a whopping $120 price tag? It's no secret college textbook authors reap from a captive market in students who are forced to buy texts for required reading, but this takes the cake. And it will lead me to find other courses that don't require a student's entire paycheck to unearth the secrets.

a very readable text...interesting, well written, and full of colorful diagrams. a good introduction to a discipline i had taken for granted.

This is a must-read text for anyone interested in a general overview of ecology. The chapters are thorough yet concise and the topics are laid out in a logical progression.

"Marita Sturken is Associate Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California."

"Lisa Cartwright is Associate Professor of English and of Visual and Cultural Studies, and Director of the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Rochester."

"a REMARKABLY WELL-WRITTEN, lucidly organized, and pedagogically astute book"
--- Donald Preziosi,
Department of Art History,
University of California, Los Angeles

"an EXEMPLARY TEXTBOOK... it offers an impressively comprehensive survey of debates in the field, illustrated by accessible interpretations of up-to-date and familiar examples from contemporary visual culture"
--- Jackie Stacey,
Department of Sociology,
Lancaster University

"a WIDE-RANGING, supple, historical, and analytical approach to visual culture, full of lively examples... a pleasure to read"
--- Toby Miller,
Department of Cinema Studies,
New York University

"a COMPREHENSIVE and compelling introduction to the wide range of critical thought"
--- Nicholas Mirzoeff,
Department of Art,
SUNY Stony Brook
[from the book of the back cover]

This was a painfully written book for an actually quite interesting topic. Bought this book for a class and enjoyed the class, just not the reading assignments as the book went on and on seemingly talking about nothing. When it would finally get to a point, it was unclear on if this was the point the author was intending or just another side remark.

The authors of this book very clearly articulate the considerable factors of the visual culture in mass media and visual art. Not only the pictures cited in the texts are also quite helpful to better understand the details of description, but also more importantly this book provides knowledgeable contents and information enabling readers to be aware of the significant roles of visual culture and how it is embedded in our lives, influencing the whole culture, society, industry and other many impacts of social forces.

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in media studies. The language is simple and articulate. The authors provide plenty of visual evidence in each chapter. If you enjoy reading about popular culture, even advertising strategies- this is the book for you.

I actually returned this book after leafing through it. It was a little disappointing and did not have much information other than common sense kind of info. Where was the meat?

This definitive edition has been edited and provided with a Foreword and Introduction by Bruce Caldwell who retained the prefaces and forewords of earlier editions. The text has been enhanced by explanatory notes and new appendices that are listed at the end of this review.

Even after six decades, The Road To Serfdom remains essential for understanding economics, politics and history. Hayek's main point, that whatever the problem, human nature demands that government provide the solution and that this is the road to hell, remains more valid than ever. He demonstrated the similarities between Soviet communism and fascism in Germany and Italy.

The consensus in post-war Europe was for the welfare state which seemed humane and sensible for a long time. Now it is clear that this has led to declining birth-rates amongst native Europeans, mass immigration from North Africa and the Middle East, and a tendency to exchange their ancient cultural values for multiculturalism and moral relativism which is just another form of nihilism as the French philosopher Chantal Delsol observes.

In this timeless classic, Hayek examines issues like planning and power, the fallacy of the utopian idea, state planning versus the rule of law, economic control, totalitarianism, security and economic freedom. He brilliantly explains how we are faced with two irreconcilable forms of social organization. Choice and risk either reside with the individual or s/he is relieved of both. Societies that opt for security instead of economic freedom will in the long run have neither.

Complete economic security is inseparable from restrictions on liberty - it becomes the security of the barracks. When the striving for security becomes stronger than the love of freedom, a society gets into deep, deep trouble. The way to prosperity for all is to remove the obstacles of bureaucracy in order to release the creative energy of individuals.

The government's job is not to plan for progress but to create the conditions favorable to progress. This has been proved by the impressive economic expansion under Reagan and Thatcher and by the amazing growth of the Asian Tiger economies, and most recently India since it started implementing sensible economic policies. Everywhere entrepreneurial energy is unshackled, massive improvements follow.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the contrast between phenomenal growth in formerly communist countries like Estonia or Poland or even the economic health of the UK as measured against the stagnant economies of Germany and France during the first years of the millennium. Old Europe would have benefited by a Thatcher and the French would have welcomed Polish plumbers instead of being resentful.

Hayek warns against utopian yearnings that are exploited by politicians, the stealthy way in which welfarism diminishes individual freedom, the totalitarian impulse and different types of propaganda. As pointed out by Chantal Delsol in Icarus Fallen, lack of personal responsibility leads to perpetual adolescence where citizens conflate desires with rights. Defining this process as the "sacralization" of rights, she shows that freedoms are then transformed into entitlements.

What a pity people don't learn; what a blessing we have in The Road to Serfdom as a reminder and a warning. The new Appendix of Related Documents include: Nazi-Socialism (1933), Reader's Report by Frank Knight (1943), Reader's Report by Jacob Marschak (1943), Foreword to the 1944 American Edition by John Chamberlain, Letter from John Scoon to C. Hartley Grattan (1945) and Introduction to the 1994 Edition by Milton Friedman. The book concludes with an index.

Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel prize winning economist, wrote this brilliant classic as a critique of government intervention and manipulation in markets. I am neither an economist nor a political scientist, but I was led to this book after watching with horror the recent outrages that are consciously being inflicted on us by our elected officials, most recently the bailout and socialization of the two giant mortgage lenders, Freddie and Fannie. I couldn't remember that I ever received any share of the loot when those companies were making huge profits and their CEOs were earning tens of millions per year, but now I find that our elected officials have written a blank check in my name, the taxpayer, to bail out these companies' losses and stupidity, and then handed the check to a group of unelected officials (and, surprise, surprise, those two companies spend hundreds of millions on congressional lobbying). Privatize the gains, socialize the losses: sounds like a win-win situation for somebody.

This kind of disastrous socialism is exactly what Hayek critiques in devastating form in this book, specifically government control of the economy. Apparently, they say, this book has been very influential, but a layman could certainly never tell by looking around. Hayek was writing from the perspective of a central European who had recently witnessed first-hand the unfolding development of National Socialism (Nazism) in Germany, and he is warning that the exact same attitudes and policies that had been followed in Germany were uncritically being followed by the Allies, merely at a few years distance.

He begins by recollecting the ideals of old, classic liberalism, "the forgotten road". Of course, in Hayek's context, "liberal" means the true, historic liberalism of limited government, free markets, and private property, not "liberal" in the bastardized sense somehow hijacked by Leftists to mean unlimited government, socialized markets and massive forced wealth redistribution. He looks at the rise of collectivist thinking versus individual (it's all for the greater good); the problems of central planning in a democracy (someone in power makes the economic decisions for everybody else); the downfall of the Rule of Law (government is no longer bound by fixed rules announced beforehand but instead possesses arbitrary power limited only by its own discretion); the inextricable link between centralized economic planning and totalitarian regimes (if we're going to follow a plan, someone's got to force everyone to follow it); the problem of deciding how the society's production will be distributed; a chapter showing that "nothing is more fatal than the present fashion among intellectual leaders of extolling security at the expense of freedom" (Republicans apparently didn't get the memo); how in a socialized economy the worst individuals inevitably rise to the top (Really? Can it be? Obama and McCain?); the necessity of manipulating truth in a socialized society; and the fact that Nazism was a direct outgrowth of socialism and socialist ideology.

The relevance of the points enumerated above does not require comment. We are running madly down the road to serfdom, which is the road of socialism. Unfortunately for those of us who are being dragged along against our will, history is not neutral, and we will suffer the consequences of other peoples' decisions, just as the Jews in Germany did and the Russians in the Soviet Union did. Socialism has always led to poverty and oppression, and freedom, on the rare occasions it has been tried, has produced unparalleled prosperity. Hayek shows in detail why. We've decided to give socialism another try. God help us.

I read this book while in high school, many people thought that I was radical and was being taken in by ideas that sounded great but never worked in principle. Essentially I was surrounded by people who approved of government expansion, as long as it was in their interest, this included fellow students and teachers, who in lectures about US history and government espoused the greatness of the government and those presidents who contributed the most to its expansion. This book readily refutes many of the claims that government expansion is not bad so long as the people helming the expansion are benevolent.

It has become to be interesting to watch the news after reading this book, you will instantly see claims to more regulation of the lives of others and appointing people from academia to run these operations. If ever someone questions this arrangement, such as with the Fed, people will either claim that they do not know enough about the area being regulated or that the examples they point to of regulation gone wrong was an anomaly, enlightened and well-written legislation will solve the problems that may arise from regulation. But through reading this book you realize that the very nature and incentive structure of the bureaucratic system leads even the most well-meaning individuals to stray and even those that do not face the inevitable negative consequences that develop when the government tries to defy economic laws and limit the freedom of its constituents.

This book should be required reading for those in high school (maybe even middle school, but many would not have the historical or vocabulary necessary to understand much of the book) and above. It was relevant in its time, yet it is even more relevant now, because then the fight was obvious, the enemies clear, and the motives and goals of all involved clearly defined. Now the enemies are those who wish us well, those who believe they are doing good when they are actually doing the most harm. The enemies of freedom today, more than ever, use gradual erosion, much like boiling frog, of liberty until waking up one day, we realize much of our freedom is gone. Hayek discusses concepts like these and more, it is a testament to his understanding of the workings of government and the incentives that go along with in addition to understanding basic economic principles that make this work so timeless.

This edition is indeed the definitive, it corrects some of the citation errors in the original and provides many footnotes that help with some of the references Hayek makes to lesser known historical figures, works and events. The index is well done and helps greatly in finding those concepts you want to look over. The Preface to the Original Editions, Foreword to the 1956 and the Preface to the 1976 editions are welcome, they provide added insight, such as what the author wished to change and why he left certain elements the same across the editions. The introduction is something else, a great summary of what Hayek went through to publish this book and what lead him down the path to publishing the book while also putting the book into a historical context and explaining its continued relevance. It is a wonderful look at the history behind the book itself and Hayek as well. Lastly, the Appendix provides several reads that are insightful, the introduction to the 1994 edition by Milton Friedman is welcome. Bruce Caldwell has done a brilliant job with this edition, I find it hard to see anyone making a better edition, this is indeed the definitive.

People, scenarios, governments - these all change with time, but the basic laws underlying economics and the workings of government do not. Just because people want to end poverty, hunger, unequal distribution of wealth and other malaises of modern life, does not mean using force and the government will cure them. As Hayek noted, "Is there a greater tragedy imaginable than that, in our endeavour consciously to shape our future in accordance with high ideals, we should in fact unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving."

This new edition includes a foreword by Bruce Caldwell explaining the book's origins and publishing history and assessing common misinterpretations of Hayek's thought. Caldwell has also standardized and corrected Hayek's references and added useful explanatory notes.

Hayek's central thesis of "The road to serfdom" is that all forms of collectivism lead logically and inevitably to tyranny, and he used the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany as examples of countries which had gone down "the road to serfdom" and reached tyranny.

The book has many worthy observations. For example, all people are different by their mental development (which is also influenced by family environment and education, not counting the physical differences of the brain and endocrine system) and thus the classes of the society are needed at least to give more developed people to fully put into action their potential. Liquidation of social classes will also liquidate the abilities of more developed individuals. The same is on the international level. Consider international planning. Whichever honest and democratically open panning system will be adopted, it will be opposed by less developed and poorer nations, because they will see it as ignorance or oppression of their interests. This is obvious - the needs and goals of poor or underdeveloped countries cannot match the goals of rich or developed countries; as the interests of more educated people cannot match the interests of less educated ones.

Many people came to a conclusion that the wealth, in some extent, depends on a level of education. The problem is that not all the people in equal extend incline to the education, to their self-improvement. This is because of the differences of their needs, habits, abilities, capabilities, and so on. Leo Tolstoy in his novel "Resurrection" arose a question of how to improve the level of education: from inside of each individual or from outside? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Should first the level of education in the society be risen which yields a revolution (dialectic transition of quantity into quality) or the revolution should make the environment to foster the education. Hayek doesn't explicitly raise this issue, but brings parallel between delegation of decision making in managing an enterprise and managing the state. Hayek thought that if a company boss makes all decision making solely by himself and doesn't give the work (of decision making) back to the people (see Ronald Heifetz's publications), it is similar to the states with totalitarian government. Such a dictatorship, enterprise-wide or country-wide, can be used in particular circumstances, but should not be used in all cases as the absolutely correct way of management, according to Hayek.

Without question one of the finest books every written in the realm of economics and politics. This is required reading for all whom love liberty and freedom.

As we move towards the next election, this book serves as a timely reminder of how we became the nation that we are. By focusing on the dead, we are forced to consider how personal loss affected the mindset of so many families in the North and the South. These deaths remain alive for these families and their descendants and we would do well to remember their influence on contemporary politics. It is also appropriate to consider the religious zeal, so well described by the author, with which the majority of young men went into battle to meet death face to face. They were as convinced of eternal life in heaven as any suicide bomber today, and their relatives expected to meet them in heaven too. There is much to learn and much to ponder in this beautifully written book.

This is a monumentally important work which will explain Americans' attitude towards our war dead. This is the short-term gain.

The long-term gain, the more provocative reading, is how the Civil War dead became a constituency in our Post-War Republic which tacitly spoke in favor of Manifest Destiny and the expanding American Empire.

Another reading would hint that American Individualism doesn't end with death.

All-in-all, a treasure trove of ideas about who we are and how we relate to death--specifically violent death in the name of "defending our country."

A beautifully written and conceived book. The author approaches the United States and civil war from the perspective of death; a perspective I have never seen addressed. Fascinating in her descriptions of a "good death" and in the stress, grieving and emotional toil knowing or not knowing, finding or not finding a deceased beloved, burying or not burying, had on the families and loved ones of soldiers who fought and died in the Civil War.

While the author does not make the conceptual or "time" leap to the present, the issues and themes are relevent for those who served, and their famiies, in Viet Nam, Iraq and other conflicts.

I was especially moved by the author's purposely emphasizing that one death has meaning, one death communuictes, one death can be devistating, even as she recounts the tens and tens of thousands who died, and what this mass killing and dying meant for the American psyche.

Anyone interested in the Civil War will learn from this book.

Academic. Readable. Redundant in places. Should have been longer in some ways, and shorter in others.

My primary disappointment was to finish the book with no perspective on how our American way of coping with death in the latter half of the 19th century fit with the European world. Was the concept of "a good death" peculiarly American? Did the Germans or English or French have systems for recovering battlefield corpses and notifying kin? Were the Eurpopean's horrified by the Civil War? Were our death rates for this war unusual compared to European wars? Why did Maine have a population larger than Connecticut in 1860? Was our civilian army unusual?

But it was an excellent book, and Ms. Gilpin should be commended for writing this social history on an under-examined topic. I think adding illustrations to it of folk-art responses to death would have been interesting - perhaps a companion volume?

Readers of Civil War histories will inevitably come across the gruesome death statistics which are shocking even today after the wholesale bloodletting of the two world wars. What they won't come across, at least in my experience, is a thoughtful examination of the meaning and long-term implications of those statistics, at least until now in this wonderful examination of the subject. Ms. Faust sets the stage by highlighting two facts often given short shrift in discussions of the war's carnage: both sides' shock when they realized that the it likely would last years and not the months many had anticipated, exacting many more casualties than anyone anticipated, and that these deaths were not taking place on some foreign field where their impact was at least to some extent softened by the distance, but rather in a neighbor's field and sometimes literally on one's doorstep. On a more prosaic level, I would bet I'm not alone in never having pondered how the Civil War dead were identified or otherwise accounted for before the inroduction of "dog tags", how their remains were disposed of, whether an effort was made to return them to their homes, etc. Well, Ms. Faust certainly has done so and has produced a reasonably brief but obviously deeply considered volume which I believe will hereafter become an essential adjunct to a thorough understanding of the war and its consequences for the country.

I did not rec' this book. The seller was unaware that I had purchased it and did not mail it to me. I was unable to read the chapters required for my first test. I would like a refund.

Book is good got to use it for 3 papers, then was pulled from class. Thats a long story.

This is a great book. I bought it to replace a tattered copy a had bought at a book sale, and read it again. I enjoyed it just as much the second time. Ms. Fernea is a very sensitive author. Her other books are also excellent.

I just finished this book and thoroughly enjoyed it, both her writing style and her subject matter. Yes, she may have gone in somewhat ignorant about many aspects of the lives of Iraqi women but she left with an obvious affection for those same women as well as a deeper understanding of herself. That affection was clearly reciprocated by the Iraqi women she met and lived among. That she lived as they did, was genuinely curious about them as people and made an effort to learn their language negates any criticism of her being a typical, arrogant American. She may have had preconceived notions about the culture but she also seemed perfectly comfortable admitting her mistakes and learning from them. For the reader the book was like being along with the writer and enjoying the journey. I can't think of a much higher compliment to give someone writing about a relatively isolated place over 50 years ago.

This is another great book by this author. I enjoy her story telling ability and feel lucky that she has shared it with us.
I think it's remarkable book. No one can imagine they could have ever have the chance to experience what she did and Iraq will never be the same. It's too bad we have lost so many interesting cultures which had survived since the beginning of mankind. I'm sure it must make her quite sad to see what has happened to Iraq's rich culture during these past 40+ years.

I have never in my life come across a book that has captured me in the way this book has. It's amazing in every sense of the word. The difference between the Middle Eastern world and the world where Elizabeth came from is great. It's definitely the most honest book. The stereo types that people carry with them every day, the assumption that you know a group of people when in reality you never know how different someone might be, and how that can change your life in many wonderful ways. It's definitely educational, informational, and just plain entertaining to read. I have read this book over and over again. I lost it, and I had to buy it again, so that I can...(guess what) read it again!! :)

This book is very candid. Elizabeth Fernea describes two years of life in the Shiite village of El Nahara, Iraq. In this tribal village women are completely seperated from the men. They don the traditional Abaya, which covers them from head to feet.

The focus of the book is Fernea's relationship with the women of the village. How they slowly begin to accept her, and finally to befriend her. Yet, as she admits, even after two years, she could not bridge the cultural gap between her and her village friends.

The book is terse, fast paced, and well written. It is also profoundly enlightening. For those who have only a western perspective on women, marriage, and friendship, it should serve as a painless eye-opener.

The on problem that I had with Fernea's writing was its contrived nature. Her account of her problematic acculturation; of the women's struggles and emotions; of the pigrimage to Karbala; and of most every touching situation, seemed artificial. It is as if she is trying, in mechanical fashion, to press the underlying pathos upon us. Something in her prose is a little unbelievable. I could not quite feel like I was in her shoes. There was a certain, ineffable distance between her descriptions and my own feelings of the situation.

I prefer an author who takes you with them, inside them, and makes you feel as if you are a partner on their journey. Fernea rides alone, leaving the reader frustratingly behind.


The above notwithstanding, her book is a terrific, lucid read.

Philippa Gregory hit yet another high note with The Queen's Fool. I love reading Philippa's books because I never feel like I'm reading fact after fact. I feel like I'm reading just another story I love, like Twilight and other books such as those. Even though this is a different genre I never feel as if it's a bunch of facts. The Queen's Fool is a story of a girl named Hannah Verde. Though she changed it to Hannah Green when she came to England. Hannah came to England with her father; her father is a scholor and a bookseller. Back in Spain Hannah's mother was burned to death for being in the Jewish religon. Now her and her father have to keep their religon hidden at all times. While there in England Robert Dudley and his comrad John Dee visit the book shop. John Dee claims that Hannah has the "sight". So Hannah is sent to court to be the King's holy fool. When the king dies at the age of 15 his sister Mary steps up to the thrown. History knows this queen as the bloody Mary. Hannah then becomes Mary's holy fool. The Queen's Fool is a great story of Hannah, and you learn many things about Mary and her sister Elizabeth. I highly reccommend this book to all who are interested in history and I also recommened it to people who enjoy a thrilling book. Great book, give a chance, don't let the whole historical novel thing throw you off this is a great book!

Gregory is a great writer. She draws you in immediately and it's hard to put the book down.

WONDERFUL BOOK, COULDN'T PUT IT DOWN. CAN'T WAIT TO READ THE NEXT BOOK BY GREGORY.

You will love this book if you love English history and novels written in that period. We are going to London in one month, and I am anxious to see some of the places talked about in the book. I highly recommend - the story keeps you interested throughout the whole book!!

I slogged through this novel, hoping to find some redeeming value, only to be disappointed. I found the pace slow, repetitive, and mostly boring. Some of the plot twists were interesting, but barely believable. The main character, Hannah, had no integrity. She curried favor with whomever she happened to be with at the time, and was very disappointing. No heroine here, really. I really wanted to like her, but her feminism and intermittant chutzpa just didn't correlate with what is known about women of the time.