Social Sciences Books

Natalia's response makes one wonder whether she herself was perhaps among the unfortunate babies born without a brain. Yes, if there were no other human beings in the world other than this one brainless baby, maybe I would keep the brainless baby around to help comfort me by reminding me of the lost human species. However, in fact there are lots of other human beings, most of whom have brains, so in reality there's no need to keep brainless babies around as pets.

Natalia also seems to be unaware of what a brain is. Brainless babies do not experience pain or anguish. (Nor do they experience pleasure.) Without a brain, 'you' have no experiences of any kind, no beliefs, no desires, and you don't care about anything to any degree. It's just a body lying in a hospital bed. There's no such thing as being insensitive to such a thing, any more than you can be insensitive to a rock.

If it's true that every object, including pebbles on the beach, has something to teach, then I'd rather learn from the rocks, which you don't have to expend thousands of dollars in medical bills to support.

I don't know about the previous editions of this book, but the present edition is really not biased, unless in the sense of being biased towards rationality and quality. In the case of issues where there is significant debate in moral philosophy, there are articles explaining both sides (e.g., abortion). In some cases, there's only one article (e.g., on homosexuality), but these are the issues where there is almost no disagreement in the field, and you'd have to scrape the bottom of the barrel, admitting really low-quality pieces, if you insisted on having an opposing article.

My sister bought this book as a text book for a introduction into philosophy class. I found it on the family book shelf later on and started flipping through it. The book is well written and interesting; although for the price there must be something better. I came on Amazon today looking for books to read on long trip and this came to mind. It has been a few years since I first read it and I'd like to read it again. I highly suggest you read this book; regardless of the other reviewer (who's two critizisms come from the first chapter).

DISCLAIMER: The 4 rating is a not-so-random guess, as I haven't read the whole book yet, but had to put a number down in order to give this critique of Natalia's post. As soon as I bought this book, I read the section on Infanticide, which Natalia so poorly criticized. Natalia's criticism is so poor that you don't even need to read the article to critique her criticism, but I thought I would read it first in case anyone thought differently. She basically argues that even in cases where the baby is a 'vegetable', that it's still good to keep him or her alive because of the benefits they will serve to others. Is there a less compassionate and more selfish position possible than this? I've read a few articles from this book, mainly essays by professional philosophers who give at least strong, if not compelling, arguments for their positions. Rachels himself is good philosopher, specifically a good ethicist, so I recommend him for the strength of his arguments and the lucidity of his writing.

I ordered this book for a college class. A classmate of mine discovered that her book was missing pages. I checked my book and found the same problem. Apparently the publisher did not perform a quality check on their books. Pages 90-127 are missing from this book.

I used Rachel's text for my students in an undergraduate course in Ethics, and was extremely disappointed and frustrated. Rachels freely promotes his political views and concerns by mean of his narrow selection of primary texts, and thereby curtails effective classroom discussion.

I read this book hoping for some insight into the dynamics of the global power divide, and what those at the top of the power pile are doing to exacerbate the have/have not split or (possibly) ameliorate certain aspects of it. That's not what I got. Instead, I plodded through 300+ vapid pages that told me exactly two things: the modern aristocracy enjoy hanging around with people like themselves, and so does the author of the book.

Mr. Rothkopf makes a couple of mild points that are accurate enough, as when he points to 'conspicuous conscience' (think the Gates Foundation) as a modern manifestation of the more familiar term 'conspicuous consumption,' and when he notes--almost nervously, I thought--that maybe the rich/poor divide wouldn't be getting worse in so many places today if this super-powerful bunch of people *really* wanted to try doing something effective about the structural reasons for global poverty. But such criticisms are rare and hold no sting. Mr. Rothkopf is a cheerleader for markets, markets, markets, at one point even ballyhooing the vigorous international arms trade; in his strange and scary world, "the benefits cascade outward" from rising arms sales in southeast Asia. Really?

And, thank you anyway, Mr. Rothkopf, but it is possible to oppose globalization in its current form without being some sort of xenophobic freak or knuckle-dragging troglodyte. That straw man won't stand.

Reading this book is a huge waste of time. If you haven't picked it up already, substitute Naomi Klein's _Shock Doctrine_ for this self-indulgent silliness; you'll be glad you did.

well, not this book actually, but a related book by Parag Khanna titled The Second World.

Some of the various, and numerous, factual errors that riddle the book are relatively trivial, but suggest serious sloppiness and disregard for getting facts right. For example, Yugoslavia was not part of Warsaw pact, as Khanna states. Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov was appointed to office in 1992 by Boris Yeltsin, and not by Vladimir Putin. Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia and Albania are not all smaller by population than Manhattan, and the death toll from the civil wars in former Yugoslavia was not greater than half a million. Other obviously wrong assertions seem to be made up simply to provide lurid background color to Khanna's travelogue: the former KGB headquarters in Moscow has not been turned into "a high-class disco," expensive Moscow malls do not charge entrance fees, and police road checkpoints in Uzbekistan do not stop and check all vehicles. And other gross misstatements of fact display a simple complete lack of understanding the history and culture of the countries of which he writes: the (Orthodox) Uspenky cave monastery in Crimea is not representative of Ukraine's "proud Catholic heritage," Zoran Djindjic was not the first democratically elected leader since World War II in former Yugoslavia , and in the 1980s Yugoslav republics like Bosnia and Macedonia were not richer than Spain. Many of Khanna's wildly wrong claims sound like local myths that he has taken at face value. I can easily imagine some misguided elderly Belgrade resident waxing nostalgically for the days "when every one of our republics was richer than Spain!"

Yet more of Khanna's assertions are not merely factually wrong, but far exceed the ludicrous. In the fast paced and dangerous Russian business world, "one is safe only in the sauna, where everyone is naked and no weapons are allowed." It was news to me to learn from Khanna that every winter "waves" of Russians and "thousands of Ukrainians" freeze to death in "crumbling heatless apartment blocks." And he employs gross mischaracterizations of fact to buttress his claims. For example, according to Khanna, in 2006 Greek GDP increased 25% when the government started to account for prostitution and cigarette smuggling in its figures. In fact, the government said it would include all unreported economic activity, mostly in construction and trade, but including a "small" amount for illegal activities such as smuggling. And this is merely a sampling of patently ridiculous claims.

And for a "foreign policy whiz-kid," Khanna makes numerous and serious analytical mistakes, showing a clear misunderstanding of economics, international institutions, and international relations. The unhedged statement, "Russia's diplomatic position is purely residual," will surely surprise diplomats from Brussels to Tokyo. Noting that Gazprom's market capitalization is $300 billion leads Khanna to the conclusion that Gazprom is one third of the Russian economy, confusing market capitalization with GDP. And his bald assertion that "[n]one of Central Asian legal systems have evolved beyond Kakfaaesque" is belied by the numerous successful legislative accomplishments of Kazakhstan and its quite sophisticated legal code, for example.


But the worst moments of Khanna's book are when he quotes conversations that seem of such dubious authenticity as to make me believe they may be fabricated, or at best the result of very selective reporting, only relating those comments that fit within his pre-existing views. "'Our pride has suffered'" explains a "Moscow intellectual over a narrow glass of [of course] ice-chilled vodka, `but this only drives our nationalism further.'" In Kiev, the locals "give lifts to strangers for a token fare." Why? "We suffered enough together, so we still trust each other." There are just too many such (anonymous) quotations that fail to ring true to trust in the author's integrity. And he also reports statements by national leaders as if they were heard in personal conversation, yet in a curiously indirect fashion that suggests otherwise.

This book is an attempt to present a picture of people at the top of their fields with high-profile international roles (the global elite), and to assess their collective impact on the course of world events and the behavior and policy choices of governments.

The book has many strengths. One is the close personal experience the author has from having worked in the circles he writes about. While this sometimes sounds too much like a vicarious trip around the planet to elite dinner parties, it does give the author practical understanding of who these people are, what they do and how they interact with government, all of which is of benefit to the reader.

Another strength is the author's use of some elite theorists of the past, particularly C Wright Mills, though he does not really develop an analytical framework along these lines, which is unfortunate. The book might have benefitted from the thought of other elite theorists, such as Mosca and Pareto, though he mentions Pareto in another context. While the use of elite theory provides a nice intellectual framework, it is underdeveloped and, as a result, seems directionless.

For example, the author notes variously how elites circulate in and out off various positions at the top (business, government, the arts, etc.), suggesting Mills' idea of interlocking directorates. But what is his ultimate evaluation of this? In Mills, the idea implied a door closed to outsiders, which meant these elites were unresponsive to democratic mechanisms. If true, then democracy is but window dressing. Does the author believe this or not? Sometimes it seems he does and sometimes it seems he doesn't.

Related to this is the circulation of elites from the lower orders up to the elite and the opposite movement of older elites downward. How does this work with the global elite? Is it a process of meritocratic and competitive advancement or is it a process of caste, privilege, etc., all supported by various networks? The author seems to imply both in different places without synthesizing his analysis into a cogent whole. He does speak at length about the rise and fall of elites, but sometimes we think that a person's attendance at an elite university offers social networking opportunities that promote advancement, while, at other times, we think the elite in question are driven, skilled and smart and that's how they got there. It's likely a combination of the two, but why? What are the recruitment mechanisms (aside from elite universities)? What are the relevant correlates of elite circulation or lack thereof? This is the type of circulation of elites that Mosca and Parerto discussed, but the author makes no use of them here. It would also be a great opportunity for the author to use the data he seems to have on the 6,000 persons identified as being in the global elite. There is a treasure trove of testable hypotheses in elite literature.

The author does attempt to synthesize the characteristics of this superclass (e.g., he tells us where most went to school and where most originate from), but I'd liked to have seen a more systematic analysis of this group. It's possible, however, that the group of 6,000 is so diverse that they are really not a single group. It's easy to see top business and government elites as being in the same overall group, but how does Sting come into play here? He wants a voice on African development, but will Sting ever circulate out of music into the World Bank? Would Sting's skills translate into worthwhile economic and financial analysis? Maybe Sting and similar characters are in a different tier of the global elite.

Last, the book attempts to address the problems that governments face in dealing with this class of people. It seems that government policies that might be adverse to the interests of the global elite, even if beneficial to the public at large, will cause the elite to make financial decisions that will harm a society (such as moving billions of dollars around the globe in a short order of time). This forces governments to dance to the tune of the elite to keep them happy, but prevents them from pursuing policies that may be necessary for their publics. This is one of the conundrums of globalization and the author's discussion of this issue is well worth reading.

The world is ruled by an elite class , the superclass consisting in roughly six- thousand people, overwhelmingly male. This Superclass includes not only the Big Business elite, but heads of State, and even religious leaders like the Pope, and crime - bosses. These people, the one in a million who influence many millions are part of a global structure in which they trade and deal with each other.
They are the few who influence the many.
Rothkopf takes a tour around the world with them, speaks privately and interviews many. He goes to their famous meeting grounds, perhaps most famously, Davos and learns how they operate with global and not national concerns in mine.
In the course of the exploration Rothkopf provides a great deal of information, and insight. He provides portraits of figures most of us have never heard anything about, no matter how powerful they be.
All this is fine, but my sense is the central thesis is somewhat exaggerated and mistaken. Another world- affairs analyst Fred Kagan has recently written about how old national rivalries are as alive as ever, how competition between states still rules the world. The picture of these Davos people does not exactly expunge that of the Chinese now staging their grand show in Beijing. Old- style nationalism and national pride is helping drive them to leadership in the world. There are forces at work in history beyond those which Rothkopf attributes as being in the hands of elite.
One can learn much from this book, but it only tells a small part of the whole story of how the world moves and decides.

David Rothkopf, an ex-director of Kissinger Associates, has written a revealing book. He notes that a tiny group of about 6,000 people has vastly more power than any other group on the planet, and that the richest 1,000 have more than twice the wealth of the poorest 2.5 billion.

This class comprises mostly top businessmen, mainly from the USA and the EU. Concentration of capital leads to fewer and richer CEOs. Giant firms, banks and private equity companies are this class's base. It advances its interests through self-regulation, liberalised markets, privatisation, and the free movement of capital, labour and services. Increasingly, private firms now decide what public, elected bodies used to decide.

This class pretends to help solve AIDS and Africa's poverty by throwing money at the problems - but who does the work of doctoring and nursing, of planting and harvesting? Not Bill Gates or George Soros!

What drives this accumulation of wealth at one pole and of poverty at the other? Could there be some connection? Rothkopf never thinks to ask where all this wealth comes from.

He notes that some `defend elites for their role in globalization, believing that by globalizing they will ultimately help create a more equitable system'. But this globalising has created this hugely unjust system. How could it turn into its opposite and create a fairer society?

He argues, of course, against national sovereignty, and praises all capital's favoured bodies - the EU, the IMF, the World Bank, etc. But far from analysing what is happening and why, Rothkopf tells us little stories about his brief chats with the rich and famous. His favourite meeting is the annual World Economic Forum at Davos, where he can fawn on the godlike figures of Merkel, Sarkozy, Brown and Straw.

This is an embarrassing book, like a long Hello! Magazine without the pictures. Preparing it doubtless extended Mr Rothkopf's social network, but it reveals little of the class he dotes on, while showing all too clearly that he has the mind and morals of a groupie.

this is a smaller version of a bigger set.. these are nice sort of like excerpts from a larger text.. if you're only studying a small section of history and don't need to ever compare before or after they are ok..but you're better off getting the vol. I or II or both depending on what your needs are. most profs are going to want you to compare and contrast what came before and after ... these books have great pics..but get the larger versions.. as these are a lot of little books, and depending on your class you may need to carry 6 little books with you instead of 1 text..

I wasn't expecting to recieve a new book but I am glad I did and didn't go to the expensive bookstore across the street

I highly recommend this series of six books. When I was in college, I bought one of the books because it looked so interesting even though I wasn't taking the course. In the past year, I've ordered the other books in the series. The books are very interesting and informative, with many color pictures of the art and architecture discussed. The books also discuss literature, philosophy, and the history of science. The graphic layout of the books is excellent and there are many reading selections of literature and philosophy. Even though the series concentrates on western humanities, there are also excellent sections on Asian, African, Islamic, and Native American arts.

After using this book (as well as books 2 and 3) as texts for a class, I must say that I found all of them to be overrated and a poor choice of reference. The volumes contain nice photographs but are ineffective as textbooks. For example, as material is introduced a sudden segue to a new subject leaves the reader cold. I would not recommend any of this series to those who need detail. These books support a teaching methodology that relies upon mundane memorization of incidental information rather than comprehensive study.

"The wisdom of the Egyptians was a proverb with the Greeks, who felt themselves children beside this ancient race." Plato, Timaeus, 22B, (Quoted from Will Durant, the Story of civilization:I)



Early Civilizations:
As summarized by Will Durant, the development of agriculture helped people to settle in villages and create communities, where the early civilizations gradually developed. Ancient people developed their specialized trades, arts, and crafts, establishing an economy based on trade, which led to the first civilizations. Since there were but few written records, as in the case of ancient Egypt, archaeologists have patiently recreated the history of the first civilizations by putting together artifacts and studying ruins which have been discovered over time. A cardinal characteristic of civilizations was that each had a leader, ruler, priests, and civil administrators. It has been discovered also that early civilizations were tinted by a class system of rich and poor people. First great civilizations were built around rivers, which were crucial to their development, and became a catalyst for the growth of agricultural civilization.

The Humanistic Tradition:
This colorful work is a thoughtful, methodical topical approach to the first classical civilizations that helps not only humanity students but all seekers of common global experience understand humanity's creative traditions as a continuum in space and time, rather than isolated events by human races or nations. This compelling acclaimed survey offers a global perspective, through a gifted editor of many vivid illustrations, integrating an amazing ocean of literary sources. It explores the sociopolitical, economic, and artistic contexts of human culture, providing an analytical perspective of the global multicultural quest which humanity pursued. Gloria Fiero's popular work offers the reader an opportunity to be introduced to 'The Humanistic Tradition' clearly demonstrating the close relationship between the culture of the past and sophisticated life and rich culture of the present. The book explores the arts and thought of the West in relation to ideas of other world cultures, from the ancient mid-East to the modern far East.

Ancient World's Light:
The above being said, I would like to caution the reader that the colorful author, and creative editor adopts a rather questionably biased theory, lately in great doubt (Ps. see: Barnel's Black Athena,) that Greek philosophy is the foundation of the Humanistic tradition, at least/ even in the West. Late Medieval Alexandria, Egypt was no doubt, the "Mind of Western Tradition". Eugene Holley Jr. expressed it beautifully, "Historians of philosophy have been wont to begin their story with the Greeks. It may be that we are all mistaken; for among the most ancient fragments left to us by the Egyptians are writings that belong under the rubric of moral philosophy. The Egyptians were the light of the ancient world. They produced many early medical instruments, designed the world's first step pyramid, and laid the empirical groundwork for scientific reasoning. Akhenaton, the rebel pharaoh, is cited as "the Father of Monotheism." Asante stresses throughout the book that these developments came from a confluence of African cultures, and not from other parts of the world. "The practice of the African philosophers along the Nile was a practice of maintaining Maat [the principle of truth, order, and justice] in every aspect of life," he writes. "If we could only learn from them the value of harmony, balance, and righteousness, we would be on our way toward a revival of the spirit of human victory."

Sonia's fine Review:
"The Humanistic Tradition is quite simply the finest book of its type. Fiero manages to integrate the political, cultural, and social history of the world into one coherent and fascinating whole. It is a masterpiece of scholarship... balanced, interesting, easy to read, and consummately beautiful." -- Sonia Sorrell, Pepperdine University

I was stationed in Naples from '91-'94. I roamed all over as military police. I saw corners of Naples that many Americans living there never even dream of visiting. My knowledge was based in hear-say though and I have now many years later begun to study the city and the country to better understand what I lived there. This book has been a real eye-opener. I suspect it is slightly sensationalistic but he tackles a topic that few authors want to and his life is on the line for it today. Hopefully more Italians will follow his lead and step up and make their society a better one free of the crime that haunts their land today. This is a long, long way from the other Italian books that I love - the ones by Francis Mayes.

I was shocked to see that I spent much of my free time in the heart of Camorra territory - Casal di Principe. I have friends there and we never spoke about the mafia. I was in that town day and night many, many times.

FWIW I felt safer in Naples at all hours than I have in many American cities and hope to go back someday for another extended visit.

I've read this book to find out more about the reality of Naples and surrounding areas. I found out instead what happens around all of us no matter where we are. The book helped me understand better what organized crime does (besides selling drungs and racketeering). I had NO IDEA.
This is not fiction and it is not narrative. This is information.

This is almost a documentary about an Italian Mafia nobody talks about, the one concentrated in Naples. The facts and the documentation are scarily accurate and, also, very enjoyable to read. I highly recommend this book!

I picked this up expecting an interesting and in-depth look at the author's infiltration of the Mafia in Sicily. I didn't make it far enough to see if it actually happened. This book failed the 50 page rule, meaning that it didn't get to the point and was not interesting enough to compel me to read past page 50.

A full-throttle look at Cammora crime from the nitty gritty ground level, "Gomorrah" is a look behind the curtain that suffers from an author with too intimate an approach to his subject. For a Neopolitan perhaps the geography, family and clan names, capos and underbosses, murders, victims and characters are a uniting thread; but, to the average American reader I think this translation of Saviano's originial Italian work lacks some critical elements that would help to make this story more than the timeline of crime it ends up being.

There is no real protagonist to unite the series of seemingly only loosely-related vignettes, unless one counts Saviano himself, but his role is more that of tour guide, standard-bearer and narrator.

Mixed in are some really interesting details about Cammora business, the purpose and organization of the system, and the lifestyle both for the connected and unconnected. But, these are sprinkled in among dizzying references to different criminal systems, families, clans and characters. Further complicating matters, the translation (I can't speak for whether it reflects the original work) is stark and breathless. In spite of the occasional turn of phrase, metaphor or analogy, the writing is spare and unadorned.

All in all, a staccato and stilted trip through what remains -- even after reading -- an unfamiliar vantage point on Italy.

In my first year in marketing, chapter two of this book "how to produce advertising that sells" helped me immensely. I cannot say enough about this chapter. Ogilvy details his copy success, and a few of his failures, and provides invaluable insight into the mind of one of the greatest ad men of all time.

Overall the book goes on to some more specific topics, like how to run an ad agency, which is also a good primer into what it is like in the boiler room environment that an agency career can be.

This book is truly a classic, but chapter two has been invaluable to my thinking and learning about advertising.

Despite some of the reviewers comments that Ogilvy's "On Adversting" is irrelevant because his work predates the Internet, this book is a 'must read' for anyone venturing into the world of advertising.

I prefer that you not read it, as I do not need any more knowledgeable competition. I would disregard is basic advice only grudgingly, and probably to my, my agency's and my client's detriment.

I would be surprised if 2% of his comments are truly outdated. He knows more about how to sell via ads than almost anyone in the business. He clearly and simply makes point after point about how to get and keep the attention of the audience... not to entertain...but to sell. Although many would like you to think that human nature suddenly changed with the web, it hasn't. His comments and the vast majority of his techniques remain today, highly valuable. His general business advice is invaluable.

For those expecting to get information based on current times, make sure you read the date this book was written. Ogilvy was considered an advertising genius "of his time" - with good reason. The book is entertaining and interesting. Most of the advertising information could be used today (in principal). A lot of the copy writing information he shares was very inspirational and right-on (again for the time). For those of you giving this book a low rating solely based on outdated content...SHAME ON YOU. Do your homework! Who doesn't know who Ogilvy is and when he made his mark.

Some of his designs may seem old fashioned looking (hey! these are from the 60s thru the 80s)... but the elements of design still hold. A lot of his basic advertising and customer relations advice are solid. Obviously some of it may or may not hold as strong in today's mobile media market but again the basic tenets still ring true. I really enjoy his humor and his "tell it like is" tone- I recommend this book to everyone- from fellow graphic designers to anyone looking for a smart read. Enjoy it!

Tips from a legend. Some of it might be a bit out dated, but Ogilvy's advice is timeless. A must for any copywriter.

Great summaries of different theoretical approaches to working with families including techniques and where the theory originated from.

This is a clear, concise and informative text that outlines the fundementals of family therapy. The title accurately describes the text. A must for those who are entering into family therapy!

I am currently taking a Family Therapy course and I mistakenly bought this book. After buying the required text and examining the two, I decided that this one was a "keeper."

The authors are practioners in the field who have accumulated years of wisdom and knowledge about how the family functions. They do an excellent job of presenting the major treatment paradigms, without injecting their own biases into the explanation. I found this book to be immensely readable, and easy to digest and apply. I have been using this book more than the required text for the simple reason that it is very well organized, the theoretical presentations well thought out, and the writing style is warm and engaging.

I definately recommend this book. No way I will resell this one.

This is one of the best textbooks I have encountered for the beginning family therapist. It offers great theoretical explanation with helpful application to everyday practice. I would recommend it to anyone!

Here is an astonishing story in which two unlikely and oddly paired attorneys (read heroes) take on the United States government on behalf of a Yemeni citizen detained at Guantanamo. Neither Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, the navy lawyer assigned to the case, nor Neal Katyal, the Georgetown law professor who volunteered to help, could have imagined where the case would take them nor what it would require of their careers, family, and personal well being. But the story of what they did, how they did it, what it took, who helped, and how it all came out is as amazing as it is important, resulting in one of the most significant legal decisions of the post 9/11 era, the Supreme Court's ruling on Hamdan Against Rumsfeld. Jonathan Mahler relates the tangled and extraordinarily complex sequence of events and legal maneuvers with such mastery of the material, you have to believe he had a degree in law was on hand for every conversation, discussion, and encounter. The Challenge is a gratifying David and Goliath story, but its real worth lies in the issues of justice and constitutionality which this case brings to the fore and which determine whether anyone will receive the justice presumably guaranteed by our constitution and international law.

Mr. Mahler has researched a griping courtroom drama in the tradition of "A Few Good Men" where the murder charges have been replaced by a constitutional crisis. Does terrorists have any rights under the Constitution or can they be have forever without a trial? The book could have used some tighter editing, but otherwise is quite readable and clear as to the legal issues and maneuverings. Following the case as it slowly makes it way to the Supreme Court, the author illustrates the lives of the lawyers involved and the costs that they paid to win a victory before the Roberts court to have a trial. As A coda, the newspapers reported this week that the defendent was acquitted of the serious charges and will be released in six months.