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Empire, as a new postmodern paradigm, differing in form and extent from previous manifestations, is thoroughly described in this work. It is no longer a nation-state project, concerned with individual state centered territorial imperatives; instead Empire has become Global in dimension, infused by technological rapidity, subsuming cultures, supranational, and maintaining and extending geographic perimeter by replicating its values in both the individual person and the multitude. Empire is intolerant of exception, and acts to police exceptional and threatening instances with coalitions of force on the international level, and internal nation-state force at local levels. Nations may be complicit in the new Paradigm of Empire, but they do not control it. In fact, Empire is now decentralized, or one may say the central emmanation of Imperial power modulates as need requires for its maintainence and progression. The values postmodern Empire imposes are plastic, not inherent, in this adaptive manner the imposition of Global value structures can modulate, thereby subsuming further the individual and composit populations of the geography within its project. It is a work in progress, not fully realized, yet stil imposing penalty via exclusion from itself and supranational legal statute. Empire suppresses the individual and unusual, in favor of a flat manageable consistancy.

In all this Hardt and Negri are enormously descriptive and highly accurate. However, readers should and will recognize that "Empire" is hampered by the rock solid grounding of its authors in the archaic terminology of Marxism class struggle. A stuggle that is irrelavent in the context of describing a new paradigm of the organization of Global power across human dimensions, a new form of Empire. After all, Marxist theory was a reaction to 19th century industrialization and the factory of production. Economics, productive categories, class distinctions, and methodoligies of management have reorganized themselves since Marx. Even the means, methods, and motivations for Imperical and Capitalist opposition are now extant in forms which find Marx no longer pertinent. This is not to say that "Empire", as an exploration of the new structuring of Global interactions falls short, in fact it is highly useful in its focus, scope, and description of a difficult to define process and the ramifications surrounding Global power and Global Empire.

Hardt and Negri display a nostalgia for the Marxism defined working class, the legions of workers who will rise up and defeat the ominous Capitalist. I've seen this sentiment in numbers far less than legion in intellectual realms far removed from the "working class" before. It's simply a quaint antiquity of thought, a sort of marginal delusion. We see this Marxist revolutionary dogma, supposedly discarded by the authors in favor of more descriptive terms, simply restated as Empire and Multidude. Still waiting for the "Workers of the world to rise up". It's been an awfully long wait already, "Waiting for Godot"?, he ain't comming.

Reading this book is an intellectually stimualting and enlightening experience, shedding needed clarity on matters of Global significance. Even if you differ with the authors in theory and conclusions, their lucid formulations will provide you with a focus for more clearly formulating your own perspective on what constitutes Global Empire in the world in which we now live.

General Summary

In Empire political theorists Hardt and Negri describe a new form of global sovereignty called Empire. Unlike the modernist era which privileged the nation-state as the primary site of social organization and command, Empire is distinctly postmodern and ascribes to no central source of power. In replace of central power, rallied around the nation-state, sovereignty has evolved into a diffuse network of decentered nodal points. These nodal points include multinational corporations, nation-states, NGOs, and supranational institutions, all of which simultaneously vie for political and capitalistic hegemony. Empire's evolving political logic, while frightening to the extent that it attempts to reproduce global hierarchy, is, according to Hardt and Negri, a response to a crisis in capitalism that emerged sometime after 1968. While Empire is indicative of a new global order, then, Hardt and Negri view it as "better than the forms of society and modes of production that came before it" (43). Whereas previous historical epochs relied on repressive measures such as the Fordist assembly line to regulate subjectivity and discipline behavior, Empire's modes of subjectification are increasingly decentered and fragmented. This weakness in empire- a shift corresponding with the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism- is ultimately what can allow for the multitude, the locus of all production in late capitalist society, to "enter the terrain of Empire and confront their homogenizing and heterogenizing flows in all their complexity" (46). Hardt and Negri's work, as a result, reads as the "Communist Manifesto" of the 21st century; it takes Marx and Engel's theory of historical materialism and situates it in the radically different contours of late capitalist society.

Key concepts

Disciplinary societies
Hardt and Negri argue that the modernist era was characterized by a typology of social reproduction called disciplinary societies. In disciplinary societies "social command is constructed through a diffuse network of dispositifs or apparatuses that produce and regulate customs, habits, and productive practices" (p. 23). In disciplinary societies, then, power is consolidated in particular material localities such as the factory line, the prison, the school, and the psychiatric ward. This structuralist epistemology-- which views a transcendent outside as subjectifying an immanent inside-- corresponds with the model of ideology theorized by Marx and Engels.
In Marxist theory the bourgeois is believed to be coeval with the interests of capitalism. As a result, it uses this mode of production to discipline and reproduce the immanent productive forces of the proletariat. In late capitalism, however, as Hardt and Negri argue, immanence is no longer limited to the category of the proletariat. In the era Empire, a multiplicity of subject positions have all become immanent to capitalism, a consequence that derives from the emergence of immaterial labor and the global division of labor. This new terrain of immanence, then, requires a new conceptual framework, and for this Hardt and Negri turn to the concepts of control societies and biopolitical production.


Control societies
Societies of control are peculiar to postmodernity and coincide with the transition from capital's formal subsumption of labor to its real subsumption of labor. In this stage of capitalist production- a shift brought about by the multitude- "mechanisms of command become ever more `democratic,' ever more immanent to the social field" (23). In contrast to disciplinary societies, societies of control function immanently. They do not require any disciplinary practices (such as Fordism and Taylorism) to reproduce and expropriate productive social relationships. With the emergence of immaterial labor, life itself has become open to capital's command. As a result, capital can extract surplus value without even intervening politically or ideologically. This decentered form of govermentality, that characterizes societies of control, is ultimately empire's weakness, since its axes of repression are simultaneously its axes of transgression.


Biopolitical production
Biopower is a concept that originates with Michel Foucault and is used to describe "a form of power that regulates social life from its interior" (23). Foucault developed the concept of biopower as an alternative to the Marxian concept of ideology. Whereas ideology theory is interested in the way mystification takes place at the level of discourse, biopower is concerned with the way discourses and bodies are brought into being simultaneously as a "structure of feeling." The result is that biopower challenges the dual ontology between materiality and discourse, it demonstrates that discourses not only reproduce particular types consciousness (such as the bourgeois ideology) but also produce the corporeal, somatic, and affective properties of individual subjectivity.
As a mode of subjectification, biopolitical production could only develop in the modernist era; it could only exist in a time when the life sciences and research on eugenics were accorded fundamental values. Nevertheless, it is only in societies of control (or, in other words, postmodernity) that biopower has become the sole motor of social reproduction. While modernity used biopower as a tool for regulating the subjectivity of particular populations, in postmodernity biopower has subsumed the social bios as a whole. To this end, control societies and biopower (also know as biopolitical production) are one and the same: both autonomously propel the production and reproduction of global capitalist society.


Immanence
Immanence corresponds with the ideas of control societies and biopolitical production insofar as it views social organization as produced and reproduced prior to any model of human subjectification (e.g., Marx's base/superstructure, Freud's conscious/unconscious, etc.). At the same time, however, immanence is a transcendent concept; it is the Real (in the Lacanian sense) ontological state of being that exists prior to any dualistic human mediation. As a philosophical standpoint immanence reaches its zenith in the work of Baruch Spinoza who argued in the mid 17th century that man, nature, and god were one and the same to the extent that all move evanescently along the same plane of existence. Because of this belief in the immanent power of humanity, Hardt and Negri argue that Spinoza was the first genuine philosopher of modernist thought.
Spinoza's locating of the plane of immanence, nevertheless, was quickly undermined by a second set of (enlightenment) modernist thinkers such as Descartes, Hobbes, Hegel, and Marx. In their belief in the power of man to triumph over nature, all of these thinkers posed "a transcendent constituted power against an immanent constituent power, order against desire" (74). It is not until Nietzsche, Bergson, and later Deleuze that Spinoza's ontology of immanence became revitalized as a philosophical vantage point. In fact, it is Deleuze (the thinker which Hardt and Negri are most indebted to) who takes this heretical assemblage of thinkers to their logical conclusion, by developing a whole vocabulary of philosophical concepts centered on the Spinozian ideal of immanence. From an immanentist perspective, then, society always moves forward in a perpetual process of becoming. Its discourses, institutions, and technological processes are lines of flight that propel humanity forward. To this end, an immanent ontology is absolutely materialist (though not dialectical); it views history as the ultimate arbiter of human subjectivity.


Postmodernization
Hardt and Negri- echoing the thought of social theorists such as David Harvey and Fredric Jameson- "see postmodernity as a new phase of capitalist accumulation and commodification that accompanies the contemporary realization of the world market" (154). Instead of viewing postmodernity as an abstract theoretical framework, or set of ideas, then, postmodernity describes a particular assemblage of historical periodizations that have resulted from a variety of crises (or antagonisms) taking place inside capitalism. The most fundamental of these historical periodizations, according to Hardt and Negri, is the transition from a Fordist to postFordist mode of production. In postFordism "all economic activity tends to come under the dominance of the informational economy and to be qualitatively transformed by it" (p. 288). Productive practices that in the time of Marx were limited to material labor (e.g., mining, agriculture, factory manufacturing) have become transformed, from the ground up, by new informational technologies.
This incorporeal transformation means that scholars must understand the new types of immaterial labor being performed in late capitalist society. The rise of immaterial labor, or "labor that produces an immaterial good, such as a service, a cultural product, knowledge, or communication" (p. 290), demonstrates that the type of industrial labor that took place during the times of the Fordist assembly line is no longer in a hegemonic position. Although in quantitative terms industrial production appears to be the primary form of capitalist accumulation (that is, the production of surplus value), such an approach "cannot grasp either the qualitative transformation in the progression from one paradigm to another or the hierarchy among the economic sectors" (p. 281). In other words, because in late capitalism all nation-states are linked in a machinic network of power, the modes of production in the most dominant economic regions have a tendency to influence, regulate, and eventually transform the labor practices occurring in subordinate regions. While immaterial production may not be primary in regions such as Africa and Southeast Asia, then, it is the diachronic tendency and not the synchronic state of things that is necessary when theorizing the political action of tomorrow.
By understanding immaterial labor as the new hegemonic type of productivity in late capitalist society, Hardt and Negri are able to develop a new theory of antagonism and new theory of value. Because immaterial labor relies on communicatory frameworks to maintain capitalist productivity, agency lies in the constitutive power of communication, a possibility that did not exist in previous eras of production. Nevertheless, to act "as if discovering new forms of productive forces---immaterial labor, massified intellectual labor, the labor of the general intellect ---[is] enough to grasp concretely the dynamic and creative relationship between material reproduction and social reproduction" would be seriously problematic (p. 29). "The productivity of bodies and the value of affect . . . are absolutely central" to immaterial labor (p. 30).


Multitude
Although the multitude does not get developed in Empire to the extent that it does is their follow up book Mutlitutde: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire, this political/social form plays a key role in empire. The multitude is Hardt and Negri's attempt to develop a new theory of class subjectivity, one that corresponds with the variety of changes that have occurred in postmodern capitalism. While the multitude includes those struggling for economic parity, and in fact views such struggles as crucial to its democratic project, it refuses to limit its conception of labor to that of the industrial working class. The industrial working class, while perhaps hegemonic in the time Marx was writing, is no longer the primary productive force in late capitalist society. Instead, a multiplicity of subject positions (centered around affect and immaterial labor) have all become productive of capital. As a result, only the multitude, the inverse of the people, offers an appropriate metaphor for describing this new revolutionary vanguard. As "the lifeblood of Empire," the multitude are necessary for capital's reign and if they were "subtract themselves from the relationship, [Empire] . . . would simply collapse into a lifeless heap" (Hardt and Negri, 2004, p. 335). The conclusion is that prerequisites for communism are already available, it is simply "a matter of recognizing and engaging the imperial [Empire] initiatives and not allowing them continually to reestablish order; it is a matter of gathering together these experiences of resistance and wielding them in concert against the nerve centers of imperial command" (p. 399).



Two Critiques of Empire


Lacalu
Asks whether immanence can explain social struggle. Claims that without the political production of antagonisms revolution happens on autopilot.

Response: Hardt and Negri's project of immanence can be defended on the same grounds that traditional Marxists, such as Cloud, have defended their approach toward agency. In Marxist theory, as noted earlier, the proletariat is immanent to the production of capitalism. Their rebellion, while not guaranteed, is a necessary possibility due to their relationship (as opposed to identity) to an a priori mode of production. In the same sense, then, we can view the immanence of the multitude as a radical political possibility. The multitude's relationship to Empire, while not preordained by god, makes it the only class composition that has the potential to overthrow late capitalism (empire).
On another level, just as Marxism cannot say what communism looks like because it has yet to happen, Hardt and Negri cannot say what exactly the multitude's political triumph will be like, because it too is currently only a relational possibility in need of practical politics. Nevertheless, instead of focusing on the totalizing power capital and viewing all social movements that do not involve the working class as "fantasy bribes," Hardt and Negri are able to discover a Real project of social transformation that is commensurate with our current historical epoch. Moreover, since Hardt and Negri, like traditional Marxists, have recourse to some a priori social formation (albeit one of immanence) they are able to maintain a commensurability with postmodernity without falling into the relativistic pitfalls of thinker's such as Laclau, Derrida, and Lacan.


Cloud, Callinicos, Wood, Zizek:
Argue that Hardt and Negri's project is nothing more than "mystical claptrap." Charge Hardt and Negri with being apologists for late capitalism. Associate Hardt and Negri's project with the position taken up in Stephen Spielberg's "The Land Before Time."

Response: Cloud and other Marxists ignore the primary axiom of historical materialism, the need to always historicize. One of Negri's greatest contributions as a Marxist scholar, over the past 40 years, has been to demonstrate that there have been multiple antagonisms that have taken place inside capitalism (e.g., Keynesianism, the new deal, the Vietnam war, postFordism, etc.). To limit our understanding of antagonism to contradictions set up by Hegelian (dialectical) Marxism, keeps social transformation in "a permanent state of anxiety" and promotes "hierarchical state thinking" by discursively creating the illusion that one antagonism is superior to all others. Moreover, even if at one time mobilizing the working class was the best option, the hegemonic tendency of immaterial labor, forces scholars to conceptualize a new political vanguard. For this reason, Marxism must recognize that the binary between reform and revolution is untenable. Further, such thinkers must accept that while capitalism can indeed be overthrown the pathway toward this rupture is completely overdetermined. The following quote by Michael Hardt in an interview in Theory, Culture and Society summarizes this position succinctly:
Capital is fundamentally anti-democratic. Any project for democracy will have to confront the anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian element of capital production - keeping the rich rich and the poor poor. But not every democratic political project need immediately confront the capitalist order as such. Let me put it this way, I don't think we are faced today with an alternative between reform and revolution. It seems to me that that is what the question brings up - is revolution required? And I don't think we are in a historical situation where the alternative really makes sense. The pathways of revolution and reform today coincide in many ways. When I'm saying this I'm trying to avoid forms of political thinking that say, `Since our objective is revolution we don't want reforms that makes people's lives better.' This was a revolutionary logic that we've seen in the recent past and, I think, among some today - an anti-reformist position in the name of revolution. And I think it is also equally mistaken to ban any talk of revolutionary change because it is unrealistic and insist on only the most immediate and practical reformist discussion. I think that today the two necessarily go hand in hand. One can't, in fact, think about reform without having a revolutionary perspective and visa versa. I am of the view that one is forced, when thinking about global democracy, to take an anti-capitalist perspective and think about and imagine the possibilities of a post-capitalist society, but not that all political actions have to be taken with that immediate overthrow in mind.

If it were really serious postmo scholarship, it would be a bit more honest about its starting points and sources (namely, Deleuze, Guattari, Baudrillard, Lyotard). Certainly an edition edited for America should have more bibliographic information. On the other hand, this book should prove largely inaccessible to the bestselling audience who have bought it and tried to read it (Michael Moore this isn't). That's because they will lack the background in philosophy and the 'superstructuralist' approach to social theory. To conclude, at least I'm honest enough about the book and with myself: having waded the whole way through the book, I'm still reluctant to give it a great review simply because I feel proud about getting through it. It actually made me, after a 20 year hiatus, want to start reading long works of fiction again.

I think Negri might be a highly original thinker--back in the 1970s. I also think he is simply wrong in most of his analysis and predictions.
In short, because the book 'Empire' really doesn't deal well with US hegemony, I don't see it as a very serious academic book nor can I take it as a 'how to' manual for living a 'radical' life. Finally, much has been made of its pedantry, obscurantism and academic style. Please note however, that it is not really in the sort of academic style expected in American scholarship. If you have read in the so-called 'continental' traditions in philosophy and social thought, the book is not really that pedantic or obscurtantist. It's still mostly wrong in its analysis, however interesting a certain American readership might have found it, even though they do not usually read European thought in any systematic way.

It is hard to read through books like Empire and come up with a precise understanding of what the authors had in their minds while writing the book. Empire shares both ambiguity and self-contradiction embedded in most postmodern arguments. Hardt and Negri aim to provide a leftist interpretation of contemporary globalization and suggestions as to how to reduce its malevolent effects on the working class. Personally, I found their interpretations imprecise and their solutions naïve.

Hardt and Negri's basic hypothesis is that contemporary sovereignty is different from modern sovereignty and this different form of sovereignty, which they call "Empire", forms the essence of current global system and unites the whole world under a single logic of rule (p. xii). In Hardt and Negri's usage, the concept of Empire first and foremost posits a regime that "effectively encompasses the spatial totality, or really that rules over the entire `civilized' world," (p. xiv). A distinctive feature of Empire is that nation-states are no longer the only or the most powerful actors in it: "the state has been defeated and corporations now rule the earth!" (p. 306). Thus, Hardt and Negri conclude that politics lost its autonomy (p. 307).

So far, Hardt and Negri's arguments sound familiar. Indeed, my problem is that they are too familiar. I expect from any definition not only to tell me what something is but also to lay down how it differs from other things. Hardt and Negri actually do that when they contrast modern sovereignty with the "postmodern" sovereignty of Empire. However, I still do not have any clue as to how Empire differs from a world-system. Is Hardt and Negri's Empire simply a world-system with a late starting point? World-system theorists have long argued that, at least for the last two centuries, the whole world has been under a single logic of rule -namely, capital accumulation- and that capital (or Hardt and Negri's "corporations") has been the driving force throughout. In the same vein, since the very beginning of modern eras politics has never been autonomous. Capitalism and the modern nation-states were not two separate historical inventions; rather, nation-states were "constructed in order to clothe, and enclose, the developing political economy of industrial capitalism." According to Wallerstein and his colleagues, it was the capitalist world-system that reigned and nation-states were subservient to it. Thus, from a world-system perspective, Empire is older than what Hardt and Negri thinks.

A striking incoherence in Empire is Hardt and Negri's play with postmodernism. Hardt and Negri first openly criticize postmodernism for producing ineffective critiques of modernity. Similar to David Harvey's position on postmodernism, they argue that postmodernity is a new phase of capitalist accumulation and commodification. Unlike in the modern era, contemporary capitalism thrives on difference and hybridity which are celebrated by postmodernists. Thus, Hardt and Negri argue that "postmodernity is indeed the logic by which global capital operates," (p. 151). However, throughout the book, Hardt and Negri adopt postmodern positions when they find it convenient. They are particularly postmodern in rejecting all binary oppositions of modernity.

I have doubts regarding the validity of Hardt and Negri's critiques of postmodernism. It seems to me that difference is celebrated by global capitalism in a selective fashion; more specifically, it is celebrated in capitalist marketing but not in capitalist production. I agree with Hardt and Negri who argue that "postmodern marketing" recognizes the difference of each commodity and each segment of the population (p. 152). However, this acceptance of diversity is still far from the ideal in production and working relations. In the first place, global division of labor in world production resembles more to a modern binary opposition than to a postmodern hybridity. We still have labor-intensive, agricultural, and primary-goods-producing countries on the one side; and capital-intensive, industrial, and high-tech-producing countries on the other. Secondly, labor relations are still not as hybrid as Hardt and Negri argue. According to Hardt and Negri, the labor philosophy of contemporary corporations is that "people of all different races, sexes, and sexual orientations should potentially be included in the corporation," (p.153). Yet this is not the case even in the United States which they view as the embodiment of Empire. The entire low-paying industry in the US is filled with minorities -immigrants or blacks- so much so that one can consider the "white manager vs. black/latino worker" situation in the US a new type of slavery. That is why I disagree with Hardt and Negri's assertion that there is no "outside" in Empire and that there is no more a dichotomy of Third World and First World (p. 144). Postmodern times not only maintain and perpetuate the modern Third World/First World dichotomy, but also create the same dichotomy within both Third and First Worlds with increasing mobility of labor and capital. Interestingly, and only to increase contradictions in their book, in one place of Empire Hardt and Negri argue that European capital does not really remake noncapitalist territories "after its own image" as Marx once argued. Rather, each segment of the noncapitalist environment is transformed differently, and all are integrated organically into the expanding body of capital. In other words, "the different segments of the outside are internalized not on a model of similitude but as different organs that function together in one coherent body," (p. 227). I cannot read these words in any other way than an attestation to the existence of different worlds.

Hardt and Negri's arguments on the postmodernity of contemporary capitalism afflict their eventual suggestions to redeem the sufferings of working class as well. Hardt and Negri suggest that the first element of a political program for the global multitude should be a political demand for "global citizenship" (p. 400). But this political demand is simply unrealistic given the dynamics of capitalist world economy. Uneven nature of capitalist development always requires some "others" to externalize the negative consequences of development. In other words, capitalism thrives on spatial differences. Therefore, demands for global equality are contrary to the working of capitalist system. If one day it happens, global citizenry will be the most revolutionary development in history since modern times.

Empire is also interesting in that it deviates from the orthodox leftist evaluation of globalization. Whereas the common leftist reaction to globalization has been to criticize it as well as to mourn for subsequent withering of nation-states, Hardt and Negri celebrate the coming of Empire. They claim that Empire is better in the same way that Marx insists that capitalism is better than the forms of society and modes of production that came before it. They argue that Empire "does away with the cruel regimes of modern power and also increases the potential for liberation," (p. 44). I do not share Hardt and Negri's optimistic evaluation of Empire, though. True, the Internet and other technological innovations created new opportunities for the liberation of multitude. But has the capitalist-working class relation also changed in a way that help liberate the multitude? My answer is in the negative. In the past, people were forced into slavery/cheap labor; in Empire, they are doing the same job with their own will. Thanks to global poverty, no sweatshop under Empire has a problem of employment. As a World Bank report stated in 1979, "the poor... cannot afford to be unemployed; they are obliged to accept underemployment." To me, this situation not only perpetuates current inequalities between the world's rich and poor but also legitimizes it. Thus, the liberation of multitude in Empire is more apparent than real.

Finally, an important point in Empire is Hardt and Negri's rejection of the Third-Worldism embedded in some leftist arguments, particularly in the dependista school. Dependency theorist has argued that the dependent position of the Third World countries in the global economic system was the primary cause of these countries' underdevelopment. They therefore suggested to these countries to break their ties with the global system in order to achieve any type of economic development. However, like Wallerstein, Hardt and Negri argue that the global economy provides subordinate economies opportunities to grow if not to escape their subordination. Therefore, any attempt at isolation or separation will mean "only a more brutal kind of domination by the global system," (p. 284). They therefore implicitly suggest that leftist theorists should be more concerned with how underdeveloped countries can achieve `development under dependence', rather than breaking their dependence. This was one of the few arguments in Empire that I embraced. As the former Brazilian President Cardoso once put, the primary threat for the underdeveloped countries today is not their exploitation by the developed world, but rather their becoming an "unexploitable" country for the developed world. Indeed, as Knox and Agnew observed, "the structural irrelevance of sub-Saharan Africa to the contemporary global economy is probably a much more threatening condition than the dependency of the colonial period,".

"Empire", which is now going on five years, attempts in its atmospheric prose to elucidate a totalizing world view of the future of the global economy. What emerges is an optimistic, incurably Hegelian proposition that the current globalization of economics and society, despite its oppressive characteristics, are a necessary (and inevitable) stage of modern capitalist development which must exist in order to bring about the mobilization of the "multitude." Hardt and Negri's boundless faith in the eventual triumph of the "multitude" (i.e. proletariat) is definitively neo-Marxist and utopian. Hardt and Negri further view the struggle as cutting across culture, class, race, and nationality, and that it must be seen as as multi-disciplinary liberation.

Given today's bleak political environment dominated by a conservative, evangelical and thoroughly warlike United States, and a progressive dialogue principally limited to finding the faults of the power structure rather than offering any coherent alternative structures of political economy, I grasped "Empire's" cheery exposition of globalism as a necessary, if evil, transition to a utopian state like a drowning man to a raft.

The problem - or a problem - with "Empire" is that it is like the auntie's Christmas fruitcake, likely to sit on one's shelf, only partly eaten, glowering sullenly until finally stashed away. If I still taught political science, I would torture my students with this book, much as I was tortured with Althusser and Foucault, the bread and butter of 1960s academic Marxists. Marxism remains a very valuable tool of historical criticism, as evidenced by such present-day historians as Eric Hobsbawm and Howard Zinn. As a predictive tool of historical development, and as a societal endpoint, it requires tremendous and unqualified leaps of faith and adaptations which are hard to relate to reality. When pressed to explain what the "liberated multitude" would look like, it is anyone's guess. If this is the anti-globalist Bible, as one reviewer so expressively states, there better be a thick codex to go with it.

There are plenty of good observations in "Empire" of the development of globalism and the erosion of nation-state dichotomies, but this is not particularly revolutionary. In fact, what is surprising is Hardt and Negri's faithfulness to conventional Marxist conversations regarding the future of the "proletariat" and the "working class." Likewise, they fall into the trap of characterizing the national liberation struggles of the 1960s and 1970s as some sort of organic global challenge to capitalist economies, when in fact, wars such as Algeria, Angola and Vietnam were anti-colonial and distinctly nationalist. Given the chance, political autonomy ranked far higher to these emerging states than faithfulness to socialist equity. Indeed, unless one has lived as an academic hermit or (maybe this is a cheap shot at Negri) in a prison cell, capitalist corporatism is as triumphant as it has ever been.

"Empire's" analytical flaws are not hard to uncover. I had to wince at points where Negri points to the "Los Angeles uprising" (the spasm of a riot following the acquittal of Rodney King's police assaulters) as a historical event on a par with the liberation of South Africa, or opportunistically observing that rap music is the emerging voice of the liberated "multitude" (obviously Negri has not seen Spike Lee's "Bamboozled."). Unlike the late Edward Said who was unparalleled at interweaving culture and political economy with uncanny precision ("Orientalism", "The Culture of Imperialism"), Hardt and Negri mostly engage in trivialities.

The opacity of most of the prose in "Empire" is, unfortunately, endemic to European neo-Marxist theory after the 1970s. What appears on first reading as precise diction is actually quite imprecise, yielding any number of interpretations which can be shaped to fit evidentiary data or events (to the extent such data exists). Paragraphs typically start with a declarative statement introducing a "paradigm" but then we are told that the reality is "less clear", subject to "disarticulation" or complex "matrices." From page 319:

"In Empire, as indeed was also the case in modern and ancient regimes, the constitution itself is a site of struggle, but today the nature of that site and that struggle is by no means clear. The general outlines of today's imperial constitution can be conceived in the form of a rhizomatic and universal communication network in which relations are established to and from all its points or nodes. Such a network seems paradoxically to be at once completely open and completely closed to struggle and intervention." Say what? I thought asparagus was a rhizome. As good Marxist scholastics, Negri and Hardt are consummate name droppers, which frequent references propel the footnotes and the narrative, while reducing to tears the average reader whose Foucault is still in the boxes of books left over from grad school. The frequent references to authors such as Delenze and Habermas are of little value to readers who do not have their shelves crammed full of such works, let alone actually read them. Each such reference, of course, is a meaningful shorthand for a cascade of complex ideas which becomes immediately lost to the uninitiated.

In the final analysis, though, "Empire", while an entertaining utopian epic, is topically irrelevant. Since the end of the Cold War, the upward struggles of the "multitude" have been overshadowed by the epic battle for resource domination (oil) in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. After 2001, this struggle in turn has been exacerbated by the medievalist religious conflict between Wahabist Islam and Puritan America. In no way did (or could) Hardt and Negri foresee the grim, gray "forever war" now undertaken by the United States, perverting the wartime command economy created over a half-century ago by Roosevelt into a mechanism to channel untold revenue to a select circle of military-industrial corporations. This, not Negri's, is the real story of Empire.

This is one of the best anthologies I've ever found on the issues discussed within Philosophy of Religion. It covers different readings from Saint Teresa of Jesus, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, up to William Alston, Blaise Pascal, Soren Kierkegaard, C. S. Lwis, John Hick, David Hume, William Rowe among many others. The book selects readings from the following subjects: Religious Experience, Faith and Reason, the attributes of God (the problems of his existence, his omnipotence, his omniscience and its relations with voluntary action, his timelessness, etc), theistic arguments (specially the ontological and cosmological arguments), the problem of evil, knowledge of God, religious language, miracles, among many others. Highly recommended.

If the title of the book was like the title of my review, I would give the book 5 stars. I found the Biology and biography part of the book interesting. But the problem is that this book's proclaimed purpose does not match with its contents. It is about what the evolutionary biology and how to educate people about it, not really appealing to anyone to participate in saving the life except calling that someone as a pastor. Why pretending to appeal to someone when you insult them? Protecting the complexity of the ecosystem is something that those who value lives accept without the biological reasoning. I read this book expecting a good scientist arguing it with some valuable insights into other party's position (in this case, pastors) and thereby motivating them to join the force achieving the greater good despite of fundamental differences in opinions(?).

Be honest.

I can't imagine a great pastor writing a book titled as my review and starting the first page with "Dear Biologist", and then forwarding with how the Biology sucks, why the creation makes more spiritual senses, how to educate the general public about the Creation without boring them, and finally how great spiritual leaders the author met in the seminary. And in between the pastor says "By the way, we have to take care of this great evolution and its complexity." If any pastor wrote such a book, I could not call the pastor great in the good conscience.

Read this book if you are interested in the biology, especially the evolutionary biology and its education for the general public. Don't read it if you are looking for a insightful argument for the cooperation between the science and religion for the common great goal.

Thanks for writing this book. It was truly inspiration for me. I don't write many reviews so I'm going to make this short and sweet. I'm about to start my last semester of college and will soon be receiving my B.A. in Psychology. However, I had no idea what I wanted to do with it afterwards.

Typically students try to go to grad school, but I didn't know what field interested me enough to devote two more years too. Then I read this book and heard of Environmental Psychology. I've always been fascinated by our surroundings. How our natural and artificial environments affect who we are as people. In "The Creation", Wilson not only informs the reader that there IS a field of psychology that studies just that, but that many many studies have been done within that field and he mentions plenty.

So thank you Mr. Wilson for writing this book and inspiring me to further my education! This is the only book of yours I have read, but it is certainly not the last. I can't say I will agree with everything you have to say as I learn more about your ideas and theories, but I know for a fact you hold these evidence-supported-ideas and theories with great confidence and passion for your subject and your species, which is DESPERATELY needed today.

Dr Wilson is a master at explaining, in layman's terms, why we need to take care of the whole Earth, not just those organisms that are directly useful to people. This book should be required reading for all high school and college students.

I like Wilson's view that science and faith can and should try to meet on common ground. I didn't get the feeling that Wilson is a racist, misogynist, or eugenicist, as has been alleged by others--just a helluva biologist! I found it fascinating that the total weight of all of the ants is as much as that of all of the humans. Also interesting is the % of undiscovered species, from which so many advances in medicine are waiting to be found.No Time To Kill
Bruce A. Roth
Daisy Alliance
www.daisyalliance.org

Short and straight to the point:

This book may be good as an introduction to conservation and what mainstream biologists think of it. It is nice to read and the concepts are easy to get. Since it is not an expensive book i recommend you to buy.

The downside is that failed "atheism public relations" approach Dr. Wilson tries. If you change the words science and reason for phisicalism then you can really understand what he is saying to the (imaginary?) Pastor, which, in a few words is: "I respect you, but the things you believe are irrational." Is it really respect? He finishes with the played out arguments against Intelligent Design, a subject apparently he knows nothing of. Filter this and you will be fine.

The thing I liked most about Zero was the humor & sarcasm thrown in by the author. It breaks up the seriousness & complexity of some of the topics he covers & relates to zero (i.e. Calculus, Quantum Physics). Seife gave plenty of examples & metaphors to help the average joe understand the overall concepts. He also goes deeper for those readers that are math buffs.

While the entire concept of zero/infinity is constantly repeated throughout the book, I like the way the book was organized: chonologically. Zero begins with a history/religion lesson as it discusses zero's origin. Then, the book moves into philosophy/mathematics & zero's role. Last, the book covers topics on a much bigger scale such as astrology/physics/Big Bang theory, and how zero will affect the future.

Zero kept me entertained, challenged me to think abstractly regarding religion/philosophy/our universe, and kept the tone very light. I have always struggled with math & hated the subject, but this book is more than a math lesson! Try it!

The book was something like 200 pages, but it read like it was a little more than that.

The good points:

1. An interesting demonstration of how things that are only of moment to intellectuals at one point in time become things of great significance later.

2. An interesting demonstration of how ugly the fight for influence can be. (It is interesting to speculate that people now are no different to what they have been for the last 250,000 years, and that the motives of people who seek to "educate" others about environmentalism/ military-industrial complexes/ etc.) may not be as pure as what they seem.

3. The perspective on the dynamics of the Catholic Church's suppression of contrary ideas was also very interesting. Many people (preferring to spout anti-religious screed) do not treat this fact as one set of intellectuals fighting to impose their vision to the detriment of some other set of intellectuals' vision-- which it in fact seems to be.

4. It was interesting to note how slow the development of ideas was. Can a person really believe that it took nearly a thousand years to popularize the number "0" until he reads this book?

Bad points:

1. The treatment of differential calculus was diminished by the use of strange notation. It might have been easier to show how this would come up in the context of trying to solve a real problem rather than just presenting the idea the way that it was presented.

2. The treatment of integral calculus is simply poor. He could have spent a few more pages on it without diminishing the book.

3. The treatment of the Riemann plane was not good, either. I understood the calculus before reading the book, and so I could see what he was trying to get at. However, I didn't understand much of anything after that. So the weakness of the explanations became more evident when delving into new topics.

4. The book could have used some additional appendices to flush out explanations that the author didn't want to put in the text of the book.

5. The topic of the book seems to become a bit stretched at the end. It goes from explaining the intellectual history of zero to its uses in physics, and the transition is not smooth. One gets the feeling that the author was stretching to find a connection to finish the book.

All in all, worth the purchase price of a secondhand book.

This book looks at the idea of zero, and its opposite, infinity, in the history of human thought from multiple civilizations, such as the Mayans, Indians, Arabs, ancient Greeks, Renaissance Europe, and China. The book is fast-paced and the author adds in some humor here and there. For a book about math, the subject material was made quite accessible, and the author added in the occasional drawings, proofs and derivations to explain concepts better. Quite an enjoyable read.

I am a math teacher and read this book on recommendation from a fellow math teacher. The book is well-suited for high schoolers (as far as concepts go), but can also be used in middle school. I start by saying that I find history, even the history of math, fascinating; my emphasis in teaching is on the "why" and often times, that answer is found in history or in the field of ethnomathematics. Not only is the book educational, it is extremely well written. Often times it is even funny. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in history or math.

This is an interesting book that has some flaws. The most fascinating were the earlier parts of the book that addressed the various cultures around the globe and how their practical needs and philosophical points of view affected their mathematical development, and how the number zero fit into that big picture. As the book progresses the author tries to address cosmology on larger and larger scales, and he stretches things quite a bit. There also seemed to be a good bit of filler. I think if the author had stuck to the more mathematical side of the story this could have made for a really great extended magazine article, such as you might read in The Atlantic.

Excellent book highlighting the need and importance of logical reasoning for a better understanding of everything one encounters

is in this book. Socrates was proclaimed (by the Oracle at Delphi, the voice of Apollo) to be the wisest man in Athens. After the Democracy had come back after the defeat in the Peloponnesian Wars, the mob needed someone to take the blame, and Socrates was the designated victim. He continues on his path happily, knowing that he has served Athens in the best way that he could. You can't beat the price for this copy of the four dialogues that make up his trial and death, and you can't ask for a better role model than Socrates!

Highest rating!

This translation by Benjamin Jowett, a great translator of Plato's works, is the one you want to get if you are mostly concerned with beauty and elegance in a translation. There are other translations that are more accurate, but none more elegant and beautiful than Jowett. This translation was finished in the 19th century; it is the most famous of all Plato translations, although there are numerous other translations available today. (You will be able to find critics that love and hate each translator, so it is up to you to get the one that you think is most true and, if you are like me, most beautiful.) Here is a translation comparison of the same lines of a few different translations so you can see the difference:

(From the "Apology")

Tredennick:

"Well, now it is time to be off, I to die and you to live; but which of us has the happier prospect is unknown to anyone but God."

Jowett:

"The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows."

Rouse:

"And now it is time to go, I to die, and you to live; but which of us goes to a better thing is unknown to all but God."

Just so you know, the Jowett translation is a public domain text (finished in the late 19th century) that you can find on the internet if you don't want to buy it; but it only costs pennies, so go ahead and buy the book so you can make your notes in the margins...and also so you don't have to stare at a computer screen for hours.

Some links to other versions that feature the Jowett translation:
Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo (Great Books in Philosophy)

Six Great Dialogues: Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Phaedrus, Symposium, The Republic (Thrift Edition)

***It is generally agreed upon that the most accurate translation of Plato are the Grube translations. Here is a link: Plato Five Dialogues: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Phaedo

This edition of _The Trial and Death of Socrates_ contains Plato's four famous dialogues between Socrates and his friends and detractors before the noteworthy philosopher was condemned to death by the Athenian tribunal in ancient Greece. I find this topic of interest because of the close relationship between Platonic thought and early Christian philosophy during the period of roughly 250-750 A.D. when the fundamentals of Christian doctrine were formed. It is clear from a reading of this series of texts why Plato, although a pagan preceding Christ for several hundred years, was very popular among Christian prelates, monks, polemicists, theologians and philosophers. The texts make somewhat awkward reading because they are presented in the forms of dialogue between Socrates and his friends and detractors and thus Plato does not have to express unequivocally what his own opinions are regarding the debates. The first text discussed in this volume is entitled "Euthyphro" and discusses the nature of piety. Here Plato has Socrates question many of the concepts associated with the polytheistic worship and piety of ancient Athens. Socrates' famous "Apology" is a treatise against the accusations of the courts of Athens. Socrates argues for the fact that only God is ultimately the source of wisdom and in all his interactions with fellow poets, artists, philosophers, statesmen, etc., he has not found true wisdom, at least not any wisdom that he himself does not already possess. In "Crito" Socrates debates with those among his followers who entreat him to flee Athens and take up refuge in a safer city. "Phaedo" contains the account of Socrates' last dialogue and concludes with Socrates' death by consuming hemlock poison as ordered by the Athenian court. Socrates explains that he does not fear death because the physical things of this world are impermanent and only the soul is ultimately immortal. Death is in fact an improvement in man's condition and he advocates a type of otherworldly asceticism (disdaining external appearances, food, clothing and human love) as the true path for the philosopher who wants to understand and contemplate the nature of reality in a pure fashion. The body dies and the soul is immortal and therefore the most important thing is to attend to the metaphysical realities while in this life. Socrates argues, among other things, that the soul is pre-existent of the body, a concept which was taken up later by the Christian philosopher Origen and later condemned as heresy. He also believes in a concept of the afterlife where the soul is either punished for wrongdoing or rewarded for good. Some souls go through a process of purification before they can advance, similar to the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. _The Trial and Death of Socrates_ is an excellent read about an important figure in the history of religion and philosophy, especially as it shows the mindset of one who was willing to die for his beliefs (martyrdom). Not all of Plato and Socrates ideas were adopted by the Church but despite certain discrepancies they were nonetheless influential.

The four dialogues collected in this volume tell the story of the trial and death of Socrates. The "Euthrypo" is a philosophical dialogue on the subject of piety and holiness, set against the background of Socrates' having been accused of impiety towards the gods. The 'Apology' contains Socrates largely monologic defense of his own actions. In this he defends his own devotion to truth, to seeking out the way of true Wisdom. His well- known claim is not that he is wise, but rather that whatever wisdom he has comes in knowing he and others are not wise. Socrates role as gadfly, as one who questions conventional truths is here highlighted. In the 'Crito' Socrates refuses the pleas of his friends, and shows himself to be a dutiful citizen of the state by refusing to illegally escape, run away from the death- sentence. In the 'Phaedo' Socrates nobly choses to accept the verdict of Death , and indicates that his concern is more with his own immortal soul than with the evanescent life in this world.
The Four Dialogues together are central to Plato's thought, and constitute one of the central stories of Western Philosophy.
'Philosophy' as Socrates practices it is an unending searching for the truth, an unending process of questioning and dialoguing , undermining one's own assumptions in the process. It is an exposing of the folly and error which is at the heart of most conventional opinion.
In these 'Dialogues' Plato creates the figure of Socrates as first great hero of Western Philosophy. And this though Plato's own thought will have a dimension of certainty and discovery of the Absolute Ideal which aims to be go beyond Socratic activity and dialogue.
These 'Dialogues' are not simply a central work of Western thought, but also a powerful work of Literature. They portray a remarkably , courageous figure, one who stands for the 'truth' and for his own moral integrity despite the entreaties and pressures of the mass of his countrymen. Socrates ia also the great martyr of truth, and as this sets the pattern for a whole series of 'heroes' of thought who defy Authority to present the Truth as they understand it.
With all this there are questions to be raised about Socrates value- system, wisdom and general morality. He has often been faulted for neglecting not only the shrewish wife Xantippe, but his three sons, for in short holding responsibility to family as secondary value. His 'questioning - of- everything' attitude is of course one which comes most naturally to adolescence and the young people he taught, but is problematic for those adult Athenians who truly had to be responsible for running Athenian democracy under difficult times.
This neat, small Dover Edition presents a classic piece of philosophical Literature in an attractive and inexpensive popular non- scholarly edition.

I enjoyed reading Margaret Wheatley's book, "Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future". This book is easy to read, applicable and possibly life-changing.

Read this book with a group of your friends, or neighbors, or with a group of the willing. The opening premise simply states: "I believe we can change the world, if we start listening to one another again. Simple, truthful conversation where we each have a chance to speak, we each feel heard and we each listen well." The book encourages us to actually listen to each other, to different perspectives, to our own perspective, with the aim that we are better off when we have genuine connections with others. One of the best parts of the book is "A Prayer for Children" by Ina. J. Hughes; the poem is poignant, humorous and intriguing.

So simple, and yet such a fresh way of looking at life, leadership, community and conversation. I learned a ton from this book, very helpful in specific situations I am involved in. It teaches me how to become an ever better listener.

Margaret has created such a powerful book on conversation, learning, and change. I can not imagine a more powerful book telling stories that can transform how we work, play, and learn together. This is a life changing read and one that I highly recommend. And even more importantly, in such a turbulent time, keeping in conversation with others may be the only thing that helps us hold this world together. Therefore, do not only read the book, but put into action conversations that can change the world.

Margaret Wheatley's Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future is one of the most important books I've read.

It is based on the incredibly simple premise that growth, real growth begins with two people having a conversation.

Part 1 discusses a range of subjects: Wheatley's views on conversation and listening, including the importance of staying with conversations that sometimes get "messy" to reveal deeper truths and commonalities; her belief in the importance of being surprised and even shocked by the person(s) with whom she converses, versus seeking people who agree with her, affirm her thoughts, or where the conversation follows either a predictable course, or safe outcomes; the belief that differences between people can lead to deeper commonalities and greater closeness.

Quite frankly, there are simply too many gems of wisdom and insight in this book to do more than recall a handful that particularly struck me.

Part 2 is very short, restating some fundamental principles or concepts explained in greater detail in Part 1.

Part 3 is a list and explanation of 10 possible conversation openers.

This is not per se a "how to" book, as if there is "one way" either to converse, listen or relate to another person. Quite the opposite. She talks, for example, of the reality that various people can have a seemingly unlimited number of interpretations and reactions to a given event to stress (implied) that what matters is the process, the act of conversing and relating.

Wheatley's book is about possibilities, the possibilities that everyone possesses in terms of relating to one another, personal growth, healing oneself and restoring hope in the future, compared to the fragmentation, isolation, pressures of day-to-day life, the impersonality of technology, etc.

It is an exciting book to read, a book that virtually anyone can benefit from no matter where they are in their lives. It is, fundamentally, a gift that those of us fortunate to read this book should be grateful Margaret Wheatley wanted to share.

This book shipped quickly! I even bought standard shipping and I got it in a couple of days!

Many of the readings are interesting and easy to understand, but a lot of the selections are difficult and take some time to think through.

Mixture of classic writers that were pretty deep. Truthfully some of the classic writers were over my head (Plato, Aristotle, John Dewey, etc.). The rest of the book was more contemporary with essays from a culturally diverse population of writers. I had to buy it for a Philosopy of Ed. class and managed to get by with an A, but some of the classic writer's I'd like to read again, and again (since I probably won't get what in the heck they're saying the first time around). Something to put on your summer reading list for professional enrichment.

With a mingling of classical and contemporary writers this book is useful in guiding you to write about the philosophy of education.
When doing my Masters I had to write about my philosophy of education and while searching on the web net I was astonished about how many people were selling even short Essays related with their own educational philosophies. I am a teacher, and English is in reality my second language but I'm going to post together with this comment a short Essay I wrote myself, for free, related with my philosophy of education. I hope it help you to get an inside or idea on how direct your own philosophy:

What is philosophy? What is education? I could introduce this kind of statement with adorned beautiful words where the teacher gets into a classroom space as flying into a paradise occupancy full of students greeting us with impetuous hugs, kisses and flowers, but...it is not like that. It is hard work, and we want all children from different backgrounds and races to be able to read, write and think critically.

In today's days with growing populations, multicultural involvements, the age of speed and acoustics, the technological advances and all of the things that we could add to justify what is happening in the classrooms, it points us to the reality that education has become complex, very much indeed. It is not just to teach, but managing an environment which in most of the cases have to deal with discipline problems or in general managing class behaviors.

As we learned during our courses there are four major psychological theories, and however I will not incline labeling myself to one category, among the four listed, even when I disagree by the way it is explained, I would associate my words for a moment with the humanistic one, as part of my educational philosophy

It has been written much about good and evil when we are born, I myself believe that since early years we have inclination to both, positive and negative actions, but the theory creates a reality when introduces us with a concept which emphasizes that under a positive, supportive and nurturing environment humans can realize more clear their own positive potential which will eventually influence the surrounded society, in our case, the school environment.

My Philosophy of Education must include some of the humanistic approach; however mentioning that humanism is a term used lately as a very broad definition, including categories of ethical philosophies and inclinations affirming the character, dignity and worth of human beings, we can achieve by nature the ability to chose and determine between right and wrong in a rationale way. The concept appeal to universal human qualities but frequently, I suggest, forgets about we all live under different societies, some with more fairness and others very unfair. Under those pressures the citizen (student) can act in a different manner according to different approaches because of the social pressure which can vilify a human to the point to be considered as a negative one.

There are secular, religious, and educational humanism as trying to divide them for definition purposes. Spirituality has been always, since men are over the earth, an important part of their views and lives, some groups are positive directed, others are exclusive ones, and some with the wickets intentions. Religion is not always the traditional view we have because according to my own experience from a society I had to live for a long period of time under an atheism-communism system of imposed beliefs, which is as well a type of religion-belief system with Marxist rules and a very negative ideology; and I have seen in my university years in U.S how the educational system occasionally has explained the Marxist approach as a noble humanistic one. Such a lie can add to the educational spectrum how also we, as humans, can be manipulated by leaders, media, and a system to the point that generational influences can take a stand in the direction we choose and be catalogued as positive or negative depending of those who control society.

I think as an educator we have a huge responsibility in dealing with all these forces and transmit to our students the best from our knowledge and understandings, dealing as well, as we mentioned before with behaviors and tendencies that could interrupt the instruction process. We have seen, in the short years teaching in different levels, that reality in the United States public system of education. Behavior itself can be gradually changed while the human is growing throughout a lifetime, and the family and societal environment where the individual lived his/her first years of life can influence as well how positive and negatively the individual can approach the surroundings; that is why a positive environment with human dignity is very important, and we, as teachers should try to create such mentioned environment.

The plan we eventually will develop must be consistent and fair with all students. An ecological approach to this kind of situations is advised and your classroom management plan should match with the schoolwide discipline policy otherwise you will not fit in, in order to be able to try to make any positive impact (change). Your discipline plan must be discussed with your students and let them know their input is important for you as being the educator. Every day in the morning, better off for teachers that have a homeroom, there is a chance to discuss daily rules related with classroom management. It helps to develop a respectful relationship teacher-student.

We should not forget also as educators that our classrooms are not punishment cells full of dry-out regulations, we all need at some point some humor, flexibility and consideration for our own mistakes. It is needed of respect teacher-student relation when using humor. It should be directed with the purpose of the class, or the work as you, being an educator, trying to transmit a useful message to a young generation, but we are all humans who can make mistakes and learn in the process of becoming more professionals in our daily doings; but humor is essential in our lives, and it helps students in learning self-management skills.

We have to design appropriate activities as instructional tasks in a form of structure without ignoring the possible free flaw of the lesson at a certain point of the class to avoid boring situations as well which could generate discipline problems. Expository teaching favors a receptive learning moreover when the student is engaged in a practical way. In our Language class we use for example "dialogs" where the student practice the new learned words, and I used to let them innovate as well during the performance. When using grammatical instruction I try to interact with students about the subject and let them speak up if they think/ or not how important/or not, is grammar during the language learning process.

In other words, the direct or expository formal teaching must be mixed with practical activities like working in groups developing open experiences; this contributes to a divergent production. Cooperative learning activities facilitate a greater effort to achieve a better grade while developing a more positive and interpersonal relationships, incorporating a healthier psychological environment. Doing this we are more competent in the ability to manage possible discipline problems during instruction. I believe in today's days, from ES to HS in the public system of education is unrealistic to dream with "0" discipline problems on permanent basis, but we can try to make the lesson busy and attractively structured trying to avoid holes in the process that make fertile ground for cases of indiscipline.

At some point I was asked about who was the teacher that made the greater impact in my student's lifetime. I have been in different schools in different countries with different languages as well and I am unable to say: "he/she was my best teacher". I think that many of them had different qualities and encouraging skills.

I had a teacher that when we entered into the classroom had as a norm that one student will bring a new joke every day. Of course it could not be a "malicious or disrespectful" one, but a joke that will make most people laugh. After that, the class was already engaged in a friendly atmosphere, as already everybody had agreed on something as a group: "laughing". This communication skill is healthy and activates our willingness to receive instruction after a hard working day, a busy study time, or a lack of sleeping. After a ponderous time, a refreshing one is like a glass of cold water in the middle of the Saharan dessert.

On the other hand I always respect fairness on teachers and I try to apply that in my own career. If a student shows dedication and willingness to improve and work I will never deny that student of the possibility to have a good grade, let say it straight...to have an "A". A human being is the highest living structure over planet earth, influenced by so many things, busy in so many things, with so many different backgrounds and difficult private lifetime situations that could affect their ability to manage and cope with daily challenges. Saying this, I believe that when you see a human, a person that is willing to try, to make an effort, that ask for help and consideration, I think it is a worthy candidate to be considered among those who deserve an open door to progress. I have had more than two teachers with that fairness quality; they had influenced my life letting me see that all is not lost, that still we are decent candidates to live in a constantly improving society.

I have had teachers that also bring their own life and lifetime experiences to the instruction period, no matter which one the subject is. That skill of passing your own experiences from one generation to another, whatever it is, I believe is part of an educator as an integral instructor. I appreciate those teachers I had who gave me a light about what life could become ahead on my path.

That is the kind of teacher I would like to be.

(Alejandro Roque)

I am currently teaching philosophy of education to masters students, most of whom will become teachers. Cahn is a tough read. Many passages are long and others are excerpts of the whole text, which always makes for difficult reading. My biggest problem, besides some of the philosophers that Cahn uses, is that Cahn regularly fails to let the reader know the original date of the writing he has included. For my students and myself, this makes it difficult to understand the historical setting in which the original writing has taken place. If I have a difficult time figuring out the date of the excerpt, it makes teaching this material worse.

For an educator who has been writing philosophy books since the early 1970s, I find it strange that Cahn cannot take the time to include this little bit of information.

This book is a very strong introduction to the cultural shift of postmodernism. Grenz does a thorough job of giving an overview of the major post-Enlightenment trends in philosophy and epistemology. While some terms will be cumbersome to readers new to the subject (deconstructionalism, subject-object dualism, logocentrism, etc.), Grenz keeps things fairly palatable for a wide audience. One very strong aspect of the book is that it shows that postmodernism is NOT to be feared or lamented by Christians. While it certainly provides new challenges, Grenz does a remarkable job showing how the gospel can and should be contextualized to intersect the postmodern ethos. Highly recommended for those curious to do some philosophical digging.

Grenz book is written in a very scholarly tone, but not so much as to render it useless to a person more accustomed to lay-speak. He omits nothing to make the read easier, but definitely write concisely, never diverging into redundant blabber.
The only thing I would note about this book is that Grenz is a Christian Minister who openly rejects Postmodernism. The first chapter of the book and the last chapter focus on how Christians can minister and spread the gospel in the Postmodern era. Given this, he is amazingly neutral throughout the chapters between the first and the last. Essentially, if you are a Christian who is interested in spreading the gospel, you will find the entire book useful. If not, the middle chapters will be more interesting than the first and last.
Nonetheless, Grenz's writing is phenomenal. If you want to know what Postmodernism is all about, this is the book for you.
A final note: Grenz recommends that those completely unfamiliar with Postmodernism read the first chapter, then the last chapter, then go back to chapter 2 and read straight through from there. I would disagree extremely strongly. Just read the book from cover to cover, you will understand everything fine.

This book is a great introduction to a subject that can be hard to understand - postmodernism. Grenz writes from a Christian perspective as he highlights key points and the thinkers who paved the way for this emerging view of life.

Toward the end of the book Grenz contemplates some similarities between the Christian faith and postmodernism. I recommend it.

After reading Stanley Grenz title: A Primer on Postmodernism, I was almost certain that sometime over the last 30 years I had seen a greater waste of paper. After six months of contemplating the problem I am still at a lost of coming up with a name.

It seems there is another boogie man that has been set loose on society to make sure the masses are thoroughly convinced they are facing a problem which without taking head on now, will most certainly result, at the minimum, in a loss of their cherished way of life, but most likely will just go ahead and bring about the EOW. (End of the World)

As if the evil and scourge of Islamofascism, what ever that is, wasn't enough, combined with the plot of liberals to destroy the country, kill G-d, and turn us over to aforementioned Islamofascist, (my spell checker doesn't even know what that is), I guess we just had to throw in postmodernism as a safety measure. Apparently, Mr. Grenz was most happily willing to help. Causes me to wonder if he was also being funding by President Bush's, and former Secretary of Defense (SecDef), Ministry of Information project.

Call me a cynic but having lived through the cold war, where propaganda was an art form, till today's Axis of Evil, propaganda has now become a science. (Ever notice how Axis of Evil conjures up images of Nazi Germany and then guess what, we have the newly formed verbiage of "Islamofascism". Or to put it another way, America's new anti-Semitic whipping boy.

The bottom line; this whole Postmodernism drivel that is making the rounds, of which no self respecting philosophy sophomore would buy, is just another ploy to keep people in fear. I would recommend finding books about real problems we have today and look to finding real solutions to them. If that is of course still possible.

Heres a good book to consider. The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church

I feel this is one of the better introductions to Postmodernism. It is a little clearer than say "Teach Yourself Postmodernism", which is also a very good introduction. If you want to understand the Postmodern idea, get both these books, they compliment each other very well IMHO.

This analysis provides extensive excerpts, which is good for preparing theory analysis class, however, if the analysis would be provided by the composer, or have the pieces grouped according to their nature / harmonic structure, then the book would be even more beneficial and convenient to many amateurs as well.

When I read the table of contents, I was very very happy to see that this book includes women composers. My theory book from last year did not include any women composers and that made me mad, so I was excited to see Hildegard of Bingen and Ruth Crawford Seeger among others included in this book.

This anthology has a reasonably good selection of classical music works for students. The one thing I noticed regularly throughout, however, is the poor quality of some of the printing which makes some of the scores illegible. Often, the original score has been reduced in size to fit the anthology's page format, thereby reducing the graphic details to the point where they cannot be deciphered even with magnifying glasses.

Of course, every piece of music can be analyzed and discussed. The problem for the teacher is to find pieces that will yield useful principles for students to learn through their early studies in form, harmony, and voice leading. Ideally, the pieces will be representative of the music of their period and of the principles under discussion. It really does the student no good to study a piece that is unique in the way it handles the principle being studied. On the other hand, the student must be able to discover the form, or harmonic example, or voice leading with the skills they are developing. So, the selection cannot be too sophisticated for its audience nor should the piece yield its treasure too easily. The student should have to work a bit in order to develop their analytic abilities.

This collection of pieces for study has been around for quite awhile with some alterations in its various editions. This is the sixth edition and remains a great collection. The pieces are from all periods from ancient to modern, there are pieces in all genres and ensemble types. Certainly, any teacher will likely supplement what is provided here with their own preferred pieces to illustrate certain points, but there is so much valuable stuff here that it will likely provide source material for several classes over a the years of undergraduate study. Burkhart also provides helpful notes and insightful questions at the head of pieces to help the student in thinking about that piece.

While I want to complement the publisher on the clarity of printing, and the vast majority of it is very good, I do wish that the few places where the bars for the sixteenth, thirty-second, and sixty-fourth notes run together that they were more careful to make them clear as well. Yes, this is not a performing edition and it is still clear what the music is, it is still disconcerting for musicians to try to read such blurry music. Can you imagine an anthology of, say, American poetry, being acceptable if the text were smeared just because it was kind of legible? But this is a smallish (but serious) point.

This anthology would be perfectly useable for someone studying form, harmony, and voice leading on their own, as well.

Fine anthology that has earned its place in the curriculum.

The examples and pieces selected are wonderful and cover a vast cross-section of music and I was very excited to see that there are several full orchestral scores included. It is well-organized and neat and overall is clear and concise. However, I was very disappointed that there is really no actual analysis or even much prompting of the music in the book itself. You are expected to do all of the analysis yourself, which is a good exersize, but I was hoping for more professional and technical insight. It is basically just a book with a lot of sheet music. The footnotes for each piece are helpful in that they provide other resources that provide full analysis, but for the price, I was expecting this book to do just that! It is also spiral bound, so again, I don't understand the price.

I'm extremely dissatisfied with this product! I bought it thinking James Earl Jones would read the Bible with his signature slow, rich voice and I didn't notice he'd only be reading the New Testament. Unfortunately, Mr. Jones and Jon Sherberg, who reads the Old Testament, both race through the sacred texts as if the recording studio was on fire. Mr. Sherberg adds insult to injury by his flamboyant delivery ~ "eevill" a la Mike Meyer and other dramatic flourishes. With hindsight, I wouldn't buy an audio Bible without being able to listen to part of it first because you can't return CDs once they're opened. So I'm just out about $50 because I don't even know anyone who'd want this dud! FYI: Johnny Cash has an audio reading of the New Testament that's excellent. I just wish he'd done the Old Testament....

It is great to have the bible on CD. I however would have wanted the readers to slow down. It would have made the experience of listening a little more interesting. I really enjoyed the Bible Experience CD's much better.

This is a great product - the Bible on CD. I listen and read along each morning. I remember better what I have both seen and heard at the same time. I am suddenly quoting scriptures because I remember them better. I also sometimes play the CDs in the car or when I work. It puts me into a better frame of mind. My only gripe: James Earl Jones did not bother to correct his reading errors, and there are quite a few. The other reader, Jon Sherberg, is great though.

I love James Earl Jones' voice, but after listening to an extensive sample, I did not like the pace of the reading. It is a bit fast for my taste. Enunciation was great, voice was great. If you prefer a rapid delivery, this might be for you. I did not hear the other reader, so no review on the Old Testament reading.

My advice for people looking at an audio version is to go to other sites and listen to samples. It would be highly beneficial for Amazon to have audio samples in the same manner that they do for music. It would save a lot of effort!

I WAS SKEPTICAL ABOUT THE BIBLE ON CD. I BOUGHT IT BECAUSE I NEEDED TO READ THE WORD EACH DAY. IT HAS BEEN A GOOD DECISION AND ONE THAT I WOULD RECOMMEND TO ANYONE WHO NEEDS IT.