Social Sciences Books

Imagine you begin to see the Nazis gaining influence in Germany. Imagine they have already killed several thousand Jews and are talking of killing more. Imagine the German people are doing nothing to stop them, and are afraid to speak out against them. Then imagine somebody writes a book saying, "What are you worried about? Nine in ten Germans are moderate. Only one in ten Germans think the concentration camps are COMPLETELY justified. So stop saying there's a problem with Germany. If you keep saying there's a problem with Germany, you're nothing but a paranoid Germaphobe." Imagine that, and you'd have something like "Who Speaks for Islam?"

Espositio and Mogahed reassure Westerners that Muslims are just like Westerners, but caution them that Muslims are totally different and therefore Westerners have to be careful not to offend them. (I know, it's confusing.) To prove their point, they use a set of Gallup Poll data that is not available to the public for examination. (That's OK. They'll be happy to interpret the data for you.) The ultimate message of this book is: stop being such and Islamaphobic bigot. Stop suggesting that terrorism has something to do with Muslims. Stop saying that Islam is oppresive to women. Stop suggesting that fanaticism is a greater problem in modern Islam than it is in modern Judaism or Christianity.

The book has its virtues. It provides a helpful overview of Muslim denominations and the history of western/Islamic relations. It reminds the western reader that Islam is not a monolith and dispels the neo-conservative and liberal myths that inside every Muslim is an American just dying to get out. It cautions westerners that if they hope to improve the lives of Muslims, reform should be promoted within an Islamic framework, since Muslim pride will resist any changes that seem to imply Western cultural superiority. And it reminds liberals who are concerned abut how we Americans appear to Muslims that the number one thing Muslims dislike about us is our sexual liberalism.

Now for my difficulties. The authors refuse to consider the possibility that there is anything in Islam that might make it difficult for progress, freedom, equality, and religious tolerance to occur in Muslim countries. They dispel Western concerns about Islam by calling them "myths," rather than by actually marshalling a great deal of evidence to the contrary. For instance, it's a "myth" that Muslims are the "culprits" in terrorism. To explain how this is only a myth, the authors offer several paragraphs condemning the bigotry and Islamaphobia of westerners. They don't actually suggest who it was who flew those airplanes into the World Trade Center or blew up the buses in England or the trains in Spain, if not Muslims. Perhaps they were Baptists. But no matter if they were Muslims, because what we really need to understand, the authors tell us, is that Muslim reactions are the result of a Western lack of respect for Islam, and Muslim actions have to be "understood in context."

When, for instance, the Pope makes a negative statement about Islam, and Muslims react by beating Christians and setting their churches on fire, those beatings and burnings are the fault of the Pope's insensitivity, and not any reflection whatsoever on the influence of Islam as a religion. When a cartoonist ridicules the Prophet, and Muslims react by setting cars on fire and damaging property, we have to understand that the vandalism and destruction is the fault of western rudeness, and not any reflection whatsoever on the influence of Islam as a religion. (It's interesting to note, however, that Jews did not react to Pope Benedict's reinstament of The Prayer for the Jews by burning churches and beating Christians; nor did the Catholics react to the "Dung Virgin Mary" by setting cars on fire.)

In the event that you are an Islamaphobic bigot who believes Islam has a problem restraining its radical fringe, you can rest assured that, according to Esposito and Mogahed's analysis of the Gallup Poll data, nine in ten Muslims are moderate. They don't mention this, but, if you do the math, that means there are a mere ONE HUNDRED MILLION "radicalized" Muslims in the world. So, if you were an American killed today by a terrorist while you sat peacefully at your computer at work, the Muslims who would delight in your death number only one-third the entire population of the United States. Be comforted.

Of course, there is also the question of how the authors are defining "moderate" when they say that nine in ten Muslims are "moderate." The authors don't actually say what, specifically, they mean by "moderate," but it's clear from piecing together the scattered information that a "moderate" can include any of the following: a Muslim who wants to see the imposition of sharia law; a Muslim who believes women should not have equal legal rights as men; a Muslim who believes suicide bombings of civilians is justified, or a Muslim who believes the 9/11 attacks were "partially justified." Indeed, it seems that the only thing that excludes a Muslim from being counted as "moderate" in the authors' analysis is if he or she answers that the 9/11 attacks were "completely justified." So be comforted. Only 100 million Muslims think the 9/11 attacks were "COMPLETELY justified."

How do the authors attempt to re-inform the misguided westerner, who so prejudicially believes that Muslims are, _on average_, somewhat more likely to want to punish apostasy, repress women, drive the Jews into the sea, and riot in response to religious slights than are, say, Methodists? First, they are certain to quote primarily the verses from the Koran enjoining peace and tolerance, and they are prudent to omit all but one verse enjoining violence and exclusion. Then they make careful use of vocabulary, beginning with their frequently repeated claim that Islam means "a strong commitment to God." (In what language? Literally translated, it means "submission," but I suppose that's too rough for western ears.) They speak of the empire the Muslims "created," of course, and not of the empire they "conquered." The language is all very warm and inviting and non-threatening.

Next, the authors level assumptions about Islamic terrorism by making some surprising claims about Christians, such as this remarkable accusation: "The vast majority of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil have been perpetrated by Christian terrorist groups in the past 15 years." Oh, really? Could you name two or three of these "Christian terrorist groups" please? No. No group names will be given. Not one. Just a blanket statement. In fact, the only name they mention at all is Timothy McVeigh, whom they classify as a "Christian terrorist," despite the fact that he never committed his acts in the name of Christ, never screamed "Praise Jesus!", never claimed to be motivated by religion, and described himself as an "agnostic," telling his friends, "Science is my religion."

For a book on polls, "Who Speaks for Islam?" contains a surprisingly limited number of raw statistics. The most frequently used word in the book is the vague "many." Sometimes the authors will make a statement and then support it not by reference to the Gallup poll, but by reference to a single anecdote. When the data is contradictory, they don't notice or comment. Finally, the authors do not seem willing to consider the obvious possibility that very different cultures might interpret the same questions very differently, so even if their answers are similar, they may not mean the same thing.

This book seems to be one more entry in the litany of suggestions that, really, all fundamentalists of all religions are EQUALLY dangerous, and, really, all religions and scriptures are EQUALLY conducive to peace, economic prosperity, freedom, gender equality, and religious tolerance. If the state of the world's predominantly Muslim nations doesn't seem to substantiate the fact that Islam is perfectly compatible with democracy, religious freedom, and gender equality, then the reason can't possibly have anything at all to do with Islam. How then does one explain the relative prevalence of oppression in the Muslim world, if one cannot cite Islam as even a single factor? I'm not sure, but from reading this book, I think it has something to do with the fact that Americans are all a bunch of arrogant, smug, small-minded meddlers, and if we would just stop criticizing Islam and instead start miraculously fixing the economic infrastructures of all Muslim countries without, at the same time, interfering in the internal affairs of Islamic states, we wouldn't have to worry about airplanes flying into office buildings.

I am more than willing to believe that women-oppressing, terrorist-supporting Muslims represent a radical fringe in Islam, but when a fringe numbers 100 million people, that fringe ought to be a subject of genuine concern. And even if 9 in 10 Muslims are moderate (as they probably are, if you're using a very broad definition of "moderate"), that still leaves us with the question as to why mainstream Islam fails to repress its radical fringe in the same way mainstream Christianity represses and contains and (when necessary) punishes its radical fringe. Why does Islam's radical fringe have such influence and such free reign, such power to silence Islam's moderates? The book speaks of the "silenced" moderate majority, but if the moderates are "silenced," they aren't "speaking" for Islam, are they? And so really the book has answered its own title question, and the answer is not encouraging.

In 1920s-30s, Palestinian Muslims committed massacre of Jews in Jewish land of Palestine murdering thousands of children and civilians. The murder was organized by the founder and supreme leader of the Arab Higher Committee, Haj Amin al Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem, and supported by British Administration of Palestine. The massacre was, in reality, the Holocaust committed by Palestinian Arabs in compliance with Islamic Koran which demand killing Christians and Jews.
Haj Amin was close friend of Hitler. In 1941, Haj Amin came to Berlin and visited Hitler. He brought the Holocaust idea to Hitler. In 1943, Amin organized Bosnian Muslim battalions in Croatia comprising some twenty thousand men. The battalions were put in Waffen-SS units, fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia; thousands of Serbs, Roma ('Gypsies') and Jews hunted down by Haj Amin's SS troops were killed by those same troops, or they were sent to the Islamic death camp Jasenovac. After the WWII, the International tribunal declared Haj Amin was crime criminal; however, he escaped prosecution, fled to Egypt and then Palestine where he organized Fatah. After his death in 1974, Arafat, who was Haj Amin lieutenant, became Fatah commander. He organized PLO. PLO and Fatah committed numerous murders around the world killing American and European Christian and Jews.
From 1948 to 1953, Arab countries expelled almost million Jews and stall their properties. Laws of some Islamic countries ban Christians and Jews from living there, in compliance with Koran. In 1999, Kosovo Liberation Army stormed homes of the last 15 Jews in Kosovo's capital, who had to clear out, with just the clothes on their backs
The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, a United States Senator and brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, took place shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968. He was killed following celebrations of his successful campaign in the Californian primary elections while seeking the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. The perpetrator was a twenty-four year old Palestinian immigrant named Sirhan Sirhan.
In 1985, the Achille Lauro cruise ship was hijacked. During the hijacking, an elderly, wheelchair-bound American from New York, Leon Klinghoffer, was shot and pushed overboard. The hijacking was organized by the militant Palestinian Liberation Front in part to demand the freedom of Samir Kuntar, the convicted gunman now at the center of a prisoner swap between Israel and Hezbollah. (Unclear, why US has never demanded his extradition to US for trail)
There are more:
Iran Embassy Hostages, 1979;
Beirut, Lebanon Embassy 1983;
Beirut, Lebanon Marine Barracks 1983;
Lockerbie, Scotland Pan-Am flight to New York 1988;
First New York World Trade Center attack 1993;
Dhahran, Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers Military complex 1996;
Nairobi, Kenya US Embassy 1998;
Dares Salaam, Tanzania US Embassy 1998;
Aden, Yemen USS Cole 2000;
New York World Trade Center 2001;
Pentagon 2001.
(Note: during the period from 1981 to 2001 there were 7,581 terrorist attacks worldwide.)
The above is only a minuscule part of islam criminal and murderous history.;

Don't look at what FOX news claims about Muslims, look at the hard facts on the ground....

As I write this review ( On July 28 2008) the first headline of Google is about three women Sunni suicide bombers who have just murdered in Iraq fifty Shiite religious pilgrims. No doubt these three suicide bombers are a minority among the Sunnis of Iraq and the Sunnis of the world, who disapprove of murdering other Muslims. But the minority sets the tone and creates the reality.
This fact points out the weakness of this present book. It aims to show that the Islamic world is more diverse, more desirous and admiring of Democracy, more eager to learn modern Science and Technology, more deserving of Western respect than has it been given credit for being.It tries to undermine stereotypical views of Muslims as terrorists and suicide- bombers. And it presents much evidence that in the world of opinions Muslims are more moderate, more eager for accomodation with the United States and the West than is generally understood in the West.
But in presenting the results of the Gallup polls which were done in a wide variety of Islamic societies the authors misrepresent the total reality behind Western distate for the Islamic world. They do not point out the tens of areas around the globe in which Islamic groups are in violent conflict with others. They do not focus on the major role in Terrorism which those who adhere to Islam have.
So while their call for greater understanding about, learning about Islam is justified they do not deal with the basic reason why the Islamic world is seen as a threat. Nor do they speak about the passivity of Islamic populations in allowing themselves to be ruled by cruel authoritarian leaders.
They too underplay the whole inciteful and violent side of Islamic media, and their spreading of anti-Western anti- Christian and anti-Jewish views through their populations.

This is an excellent book. It's a summary of the 2006 World Gallup Poll, which represents nearly all the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. Ordinary people don't appear too often in the media, and this poll gives statistics on what most Muslims in Muslim-majority countries think. This book gives the statistics but also puts them into a helpful, real-world context.

For those wanting a conversational, often humorous, yet academically reliable introduction to Islam filled with stories and anecdotes of growing up Muslim in America, check out The Muslim Next Door: The Qur'an, the Media, and That Veil Thing.

I purchased this book for a course I am taking in food policy and find it a very readable companion to the course. I think it provides a firm grounding in the underlying structures that shape our food landscape, namely the powerful influence of industry over government.

Amazing, well thought out and researched book. I found it to be an interesting book as well. One of the best in the type of genre.

Marion Nestle is an amazing researcher that worked diligently to unravel the truth about Lobbyists for the food industry, and their effect on the Food Pyramid. Americans are eating today based on the misnomers of a politized Congressional debate. It is the most fascinating read I have ever had. It will not only inform you, but change the way we eat and the way we feed our families. This book has had a tremendous impact on my life and I'm sure it will have the same effect on yours. Since the "Super Size Me" experiment of Morgan Spurlock, who called Marion Nestle his mentor, Americans are more concerned about our food source. Marion Nestles research will not oly help you to understand the problems of food labeling, but teach you what questions we should be asking our selves before we choose what we eat. I have attached a copy of the link to her book. It is a must read. So, be sure to treat yourself and your loved ones to a whole new understanding of how "Political" food truly can be. http://www.amazon.com/Food-Politics-Influences-Nutrition-California/dp/0520254031/ref=cm_cmu_up_add_glance

There's much to say about Nestle's "Food Politics" and "What To Eat," but the overarching message is that the food industries lie compulsively in order to maximize profits. There's no reason to assume that food-company profit maximization would lead to any desirable outcome: they will produce more food every year in the quest for profit growth, and that food will be as artificial and toxic as the laws will allow them. They will resist any food labeling that might harm their sales. This includes:

* "organic" (which implies that some foods are better than others)
* warnings about toxicity (e.g., methylmercury in tuna)
* the USDA food pyramid, which explicitly places junk food at the top and low-profit vegetables near the bottom

They offload the regulatory burden onto consumers: if you're getting fat, it's your own fault. Of course, they say this while they fight tooth and nail against any labeling requirement that might help you choose. And they fight against any regulation that might make you safer at their expense.

And of course there's the advertising. The same companies that tearfully demand your 'freedom to choose' with hand over heart are the same ones that target your children: everything from Saturday-morning cartoon ads to McDonald's sponsorship of Teletubbies to Coca-Cola branded baby bottles. In-depth psychological research understands exactly what will make your child tug at your sleeve in the grocery store and beg for the most profitable sugary cereal. So you have the 'freedom to choose', defended by companies that do all they can to deny it.

Marion Nestle's magisterial books prove these points in extraordinary detail, yet they pull off the trick with an eloquence that makes them read like novels. The basic premise, though, is beyond dispute: food companies exist to maximize shareholder return. Their investors demand growth every year. There's no reason to expect that this demand will work in your favor.

Marion Nestle has a lot of useful and important information in this book; however, her style is very clinical and mundane. I found myself working to stay awake whenever I read the book. I did finish it, because I think it's good knowledge to have, but a better writer could have made the material pop.

Dr. Johnson takes the "isms" and turns them on thier head. In doing so, he transforms the vase into two faces, and concepts that seemed alien became clear.

He masterfully illustrates why he uses the concept of privilege instead of the "isms", and explains the ramifications of this in everyday life. He shows how we perpetuate privilege in how we teach our children and how we shape our institutions. By showing how the system is complicit, he shows how none of us are to blame - and yet all of us are responsible. He even manages to make it clear how the more subtle, "reasonable" forms of privilege still have a profound impact today.

The one thing this book lacks is a discussion of what the end-goal would look like. With the more "reasonable" and subtle forms that privilege takes today it's hard to discern the motive behind the actions. Simply saying that motive is irrelevant doesn't give us an end-state to work toward.

Despite this missing element, this book is a fantastic and easy-to-read (and easy to understand) journey into a new way to look at all the "isms" that confront us today.

This was one of the texts for my English 102 course, and I loved it. It was wonderful to have such a short book be packed with so much information. The claims are well supported and it opened up new ideas to me, and I always considered myself to be pretty knowledgeable already! I've read on here that some people feel that the author was pretty hostile towards the white guys, but I really felt like he used a pretty gentle voice throughout the book. Overall peeps, it's a worth while read. It's not filled with a bunch of BS, it's a power packed book on today's world, whether you like it or not! ;)I highly recommend!

This book adds nothing that isn't known about problems with discrimination and does nothing to heal. the idea the author makes that we must stop wounding before we can experience healing gives me an uncomfortable feeling he's out to throw bricks through supermarket windows and to breed hate and contempt until he becomes one of privilege. I feel this book is filled with venom that will hurt and not heal. If you are a person of privilege and have no idea and are looking for a book to give you a clue into the hurt and pain that minorities feel read this book. If you want to fill yourself with rage and fuel your hatred for the privileged read this book.

This book is easy to read and gets to the heart of the matter where Privilege, Power, and Difference make a difference in our culture and in our quality of life. Highly recommended reading for anyone!

This is a great book that will ennable you to see aspects of our culture that are so interwoven in our everyday experience that we're not even aware of them. It helped me see what we take for granted and understand what we can all do to make changes in our society so that it will become a place where people are truly equal. We all need to read this book and become more aware so things can change to become a more compassionate, just society.

It has been said that the wealthy are different. Well, not so much. In fact, according the in-depth study done by the authors of this book, the wealthy came not from wealth but from middle class backgrounds. They therefore have all of the middle class ethics and needs, wants and desires.

Yet within the wealthy, there are differences. From first becoming wealthy to having had wealth over a decade or more, money brings different meaning to the groups within the wealthy.

If you're a marketer, you should read this book. I came to it as someone who makes a living understanding different groups and how to sell to them. To that end, I got a good deal of useful information from the book.

You'll learn what they read, what they buy, how they feel about their wealth and money in general. You'll learn far more about them by reading this book than anything you might see on television.

It is full of research. It has lots of facts and figures and very little editorializing, which I like. This is by far the most interesting and best written book on this subject that I've read and I highly recommend it to you.

- Susanna K. Hutcheson

I've spent the last 18 months researching academic journals, scientific and popular literature about how those who achieve the top 5% of wealth end up where they are. I've gone through three dozen books, of which four were quite good and the others were brutally poor.

The New Elite by Taylor, Harrison and Kraus stands head and shoulders above the rest.

The book serves two broad purposes.

1) You learn how wealthy people think and who they really are.
2) You learn the fundamentals of how they will perceive your marketing to them. (Are they interested in what you have to sell?)

Either of the two is a good enough resaon to pick up and devour this book.

THK have undertaken their own research which asks all the right questions. Their analysis is spot on and what readers of every income bracket can gain from what is here could be life changing.

This is not a self help/how to be successful book. It does not set out to accomplish that, but if you simply read between the lines...

Five stars.

Kevin Hogan
Author of The Science of Influence

Interesting subject, thorough research, well-written. Even the digressions (about the author's family and their histories in and out of China) are fascinating, though they don't quite mesh with the rest of the book. The experiences the factory girls have and their personal transformations will resonate with American readers - here is the self-improvement, hard work and confidence that used to inspire America transplanted into a culture that is receptive and eager to absorb them, and here, too, are lucid accounts of the sad gaps between ambition and ability, ideals and reality, success and failure that go with immigrant experiences. The author was able to get closer to her subjects than anyone else I have read and writes very well indeed. Her account of how the internal migrant experience has changed in China over the last 10-15 years is particularly fascinating. I read this cover to cover with great interest and hope the author is a work on a new book. (I don't know what is bothering the one star reviewer -- this review is written in Henan where I am visiting my Chinese wife's family, and I have read countless books on China and spent lots of time here and can vouch for the authenticity of this book).

In summary, Factory Girls is very difficult and slow to read, and the content is highly suspect. There are too many simple sentences that make the reading choppy, making the author's thoughts disjointed and lacking in cohesion. Complex sentences are often used at awkward places in the paragraph, contributing to the difficult reading. The author's experience as a factory girl was approximately 20 years ago, not a couple of years ago like she tries to make it in the content. I have worked and lived in China for many years and have traveled for both work and leisure to over 30 cities in China. I can tell you this: Most (as in 90%) of the girls who work in factories do so because of one primary reason - money. Secondary reasons would be for personal development or what have you, but it would be intellectually dishonest to say that money is not the only primary reason. Maybe that is true for a small number of the girls (as in 10%), who go to work in factories for personal development and "see the world," but I can assure you, from first-hand experience and having been in the trenches, most are motivated by money as THE primary reason to migrate to the cities and work in factories. Other items (content) are also suspect, but I don't need to make this review an essay.

This book was really helpful...especially when my daughter missed a meeting and needed to make up badge requirements on her own.

I highly recommend investing in this book if
you have a girl in Junior Girl Scouts.
Although GSUSA tells us they are coming out
with new Junior-level programming, we do
not have a date when the new materials are
going to become available, so this book will
be current and the badges will still be earned
by Juniors for years to come.
I personally do not care for the way most
badges are written. Some of the requirements
seem impractical or irrelevant at times and I
wish that there were more options for some
of them, but this volume is the major programming
material that we have at this time.
If you have a daughter in Junior Girl Scouts,
please purchase for her a personal copy of this
book... even if her leader says she does not
NEED it. If she does not have a copy of
the book at home, earning badges will be
much for difficult for her.

This is a very good book for those who are trying to understand how innovations can be adopted and how they affect our lifes.

This is, and has been for some time, an important leadership concept. The book is very well written.

Rogers' five stages of the innovation-decision process appears simple on the surface, but the detail and substance behind the simplicity bear reflective thinking by leaders of both large and small organizations. Busy leaders may be inclined to shy away from this text, simply because of its length; however, the case studies of real-life situations are worth the expense of time and money. Serious, committed organizational leaders at both strategic and operational levels should review this text in order to better understand the innovation-decision process, the generation of innovations, and how attributes of innovations affect adoption rates. Furthermore, the changing nature and structure of 21st century organizations dictate that leaders need to be aware of, and engaged in, diffusion networks through which innovation and growth can be accelerated. Rogers' text is a must read for the knowledgeable leader who seeks to gain competitive advantage in an accelerating world of disruptive, non-evolutionary change.

This book is fascinating. It discusses the spread of ideas and products through communities, how they spread and why. Rogers breaks down the process and describes different categories of people depending on when they take up the innovation. This book is very readable, and although written by an academic, not written in academese. It covers various domains of interest (agriculture, sociology, marketing) and has something for everyone.

The one thing I think Rogers has missed is subjective norm. Not only do people weigh the relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability and observability, but they also weigh up what they believe their personal network believes what they should do.

For instance, I will do something that someone important (to me)tells me to do, even if I personally find it silly, simply because I put enough weight and consideration into what I believe is their opinion.

Rogers gets close to that with the discussion of personal networks and adoption of innovations by organisations, but still misses the point. That is why this book only gets four stars, from me.

Very insightful. A must read for a variety of academic disciplines. I don't know that I've been in a professor's office at my university and not seen this book on the shelf!

Frank Hanna's book introducing readers to the mysteries of making and retaining money is easy-going in its language and arguments from the beginning. What permeates the whole book is this ease that comes from experience and a world-view that gives him relaxation with his own nature as a money-maker. Hanna knows how to gauge morally the dangers and achievements of "filthy lucre." With a trained legal and rhetorical mind, Hanna can perceive the differences in ideas and language that determine the boundaries of good and evil in that most ambiguous of human arenas, the market place. In this sense, the book is a breakthrough because it dares to encompass larger spheres as well as the most practical.

This book is a must read for anyone concerned about the proper use and management of their wealth. Frank Hanna is one of the leading financial minds of our generation, and his wise counsel provides answers to the troubling questions of the role of wealth in our lives.

This brilliant and challenging book is not a manual for how to make money. It's an examination of what money means for your life. I recognized the author Frank Hanna from a show called The Call of the Entrepreneur -- he is a venture capitalist who examines the role of money in our lives, whether we're wealthy or just getting by. Once we have money, what do we do with it, and why? He takes us through a series of steps, each with entertaining stories, to distinguish between what we really need and what is inessential. Although his approach is rigorous and intellectually modest - he doesn't paint with broad brush strokes - some of his conclusions are provocative. For example, he suggests that in most cases, the best gift we can give to our family and friends is not to leave them with too much money. He also suggests that even people with relatively little income should find ways to give money away, and that everyone, wealthy or not, should give away their money earlier rather than later in life, so that we still have time to assess how the money is being used, and so that people can begin benefiting right away from our gifts.

I bought the book because I'm in my 40's, and these issues loom large in my life. I don't have much money, but I have more than many others and so have started asking what I'd like to do with my money. What kind of "legacy" do I want to leave? This book did more than offer me a few good ideas - it has helped me change the way I think about money and how it works, or at least how it can work. I can't give a full review of the book `til I've had some time to think about this new vision of money, but for now, it's challenged a lot of my assumptions (liberal and conservative) about what money is and how I can use it best.

I had no idea that this book would be as compelling as it was. Really, it was a bit of a pleasant surprise. I bought it because it was required reading for a class, but ended up liking it... Who knew?

It's obvious the difficulty slaves endured. Ironic, but she endures a great deal more than most. How her story ends is not predictable.

Concerning this edition (the book is a must read)... Dover's thrift editions are just that--thrifty. The text is close together and the overall readability of the edition is fair. It works, but I'd like to see Oxford or Penguin make a "classic" edition with a scholary introduction, footnoting and contextual information like 19th century reviews, etc... A good edition, needs improvement, but then it wouldn't have a "thrifty" price!

Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is unique in that it is one of the few firsthand accounts written by a woman. The book is a tribute to an extraordinary woman who spent much of her life fighting against slavery. She also provides details into the reality of this dark period of American history, constantly struggling with how a nation can be Christian and yet allow the practice to continue. It is impossible to read this book and not be impressed with the quality of this historical figure.

I used an excerpt from this book included in a women's literary anthology used in my women's literature class. It was one of the many classes' favorite reads. For their final they were allowed to concentrate on one class assignment, write a documented essay, and from it, give an oral presentation with visuals....several successfully replicated, small scale, the yard and house with attic where Jacobs describes as being hidden for years... an incredible true story for everyone of all ages!

If I hadn't already taken a look at nihilism and sociology years before, this book might've been too much of a read for me. I agree with all of what was covered. If it's a bit too "crazy" for you, try not to approach this book with your socialface on. Save that face for when you're with your friends, at work, or with family.

Although this is a very original work I cannot help to think that maybe it would of been better as a single short essay, and not some elaborate spiel hoping to convince the reader of his correctness. Maybe much of the thesis is lost in translation, maybe not and it is an uninteresting read.

Granted simulation is often accepted as THE reality by much of the masses, worldly prose is not the solution. Philosophy should be something everyone (with a 11th grade public education) can understand, appreciate, and apply to their own lives. This book, although initially provoking becomes trivial, it writes itself out of its own existence. The only reason why the book will endure is it has much originality but overall I agree with the reviewer who stated that a person would be better off reading "green eggs and ham"...

Fell into this straight away, Used to reading similar but find it hard to read heavy theory, this was surprisingly easy to read, although some of the ideas are extreme, a lot can be taken from them and i look forward to reading every last word. truly tasty

A thought provoking book. Do not be shocked however if you find yourself reading it extremely slowly. The text is wordy and thick at best but often times necessarily to bring its points across. If you are not an avid reader, enjoy abstract thinking, or want to learn more about the differences between Simulacrum and Simulations avoid this book.

This is still a great read although convoluted at times so all others should enjoy. But those who are not well read have been warned.

Then again if you looked for this book odds are you are ready for this. I only wanted to warn those with out college education or advanced vocabulary to so that they wont lose their appetite for knowledge from heavy text, such an event would be regrettable.

The text is heavy, full of valuable info on what it pertains and much like this review it sometimes seems to repeat facts redundantly. Did I mention it was a hard read? (just kidding. lol)

1. The first two chapters are more or less verbatim permutations of his 'Simulations', which this reviewer finds more substantial, though this book contains a few elaborations that are left aching for in Simulations. In every other respect, the first two chapters say little that Baudrillard had not already accomplished in previous publications in greater depth. The possible advantage herein could be lie in that the less extensive use of Semiotical and Marxist concepts may make this more accessible. But this assumes the utility of accessibility. Elsewise, the Semiotext(e) translation of 'Simulations' was more than adequate, you may just want to start there.

2. This text will likely be indecipherable jabberwocky to anyone not acquainted with Semiology and economics. Furthermore, if these thing bore or otherwise hold no relevance to one, there is no real point in reading any of Baudrillard unless one is in possession of a patience willing to wade through some genre specific terminology and verbiage to get some cultural and social analysis out of it; those critiques stand on their own for the most part.

3. The Matrix: low relevance to the film, his earlier writings are more radical.

4. Baudrillard has little reverence for the institutions of Socialism and Democracy, reading this may infuriate or otherwise cause a lapse of faith in those deus ex machinas.