Westerns Books

To attempt to put the entire history of Western Art into one volume containing all the necessary illustrations that is nonetheless light enough for students to carry is indeed an ambitious undertaking, and the Jansons do an outstanding job of it. I found it pretty darn fabulous up until it got to the 20th Century. Then I felt that it lost focus as a survey of Western Art and became more of a cheerleading squad for particular artists. But there are more things to admire about this book than to denigrate. First of all, the text is quite readable and tells what's important. Second, the quality of the color illustrations is excellent, especially for a book of this price. My biggest complaint is that certain works that I think are important, or were important in their time, are not mentioned. For example, can one really talk about Surrealism and not even mention Salvador Dali? Whether you like him or not, I don't think you can just ignore him when you talk about 20th Century art. Can you talk about Victorian art and not mention Alma-Tadema? The sections on late 20th Century art completely ignore such influential artists as Robert Crumb and Keith Haring, but yet devote a lot of space to work that could only be of interest to frequent gallery-goers. (I regarded these final pages as the equivalent of including some current off-off-Broadway shows in an anthology Western Drama along with Sophocles, Shakespeare, Shaw and Tennessee Williams.) Of course, you can't include everything and the authors have, I'm sure, had a lot of pressure put on them to include works by people who fit certain demographics. An artist friend of mine, who happens to be a lady of a certain age, told me that she had used an earlier edition of this textbook 40 years ago. She said that there was a big protest at that time because there were no women artists included. That is not the case with this edition. I felt that women artists were well represented by top-notch works, and it wasn't just the usual suspects (e.g., Rosa Bonheur, Mary Cassat, Georgia O'keefe). This edition includes a couple of great ones that I was previously unfamiliar with, like Artemesia Gentilischi and Judith Leyster. And then for all the omissions of artists I have a particular liking for, I was delighted to see discussions of John Singleton Copley and Caspar David Friedrich included.

Despite my criticism, I think that this is an excellent choice for an art history textbook. It manages to take a large and complex subject and put it into one plainspoken and cohesive volume. That's an accomplishment: Four stars.

If your an artist or interested in art history...this book is very helpful....I had to get it for class..but i still reference it to this day...

In the introduction to this revised seventh edition, Anthony Janson (whose father, H.W. Janson, still has top billing for the volume) talks about the long tradition he and his father have had toward this volume and the larger work that carries the same name. It has been a standard in Western art education for decades, and the revisions periodically placed serve to bring new interpretations, perspectives and finds into the mix of history.

Prior to diving into the depths of art, Janson provides a primer - art history is a relatively new discipline, and often studied by historians and others with interest but relatively little training in artistic areas themselves. This book is about the visual arts (those of drama, music, etc. are not included here, but architecture is to some degree); Janson gives a brief survey of key concepts that are critical to understanding the mediums (artists, Janson states, prefer to use the plural of medium as mediums rather than media). Geometric and visual appreciation concepts are introduced, as are philosophical/aesthetic ideas.

The majority of the text is divided into four broad sections: The Ancient World, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance through the Rococo, and the Modern World. This is a book that really a survey or history of Western art - it does have a brief section at the beginning of the Ancient World on cave art and neolithic art in North America, but apart from this never wanders outside the main courses of Western art even in the modern period. As an introductory text, this is not surprising - many of the values and concepts of art in non-Western cultures require more explanation for adequate aesthetic appreciation of their art than an introductory survey course could cover. Still, it is a deficit worthy of note for those who are looking for a more comprehensive volume.

The Ancient World covers art of Egypt, the Fertile Crescent and Persia, Aegean/Greek art, Etruscan art, and Roman art. The section on the Middle Ages begins primarily with the rise of Christendom as the dominant political power - this includes Byzantine art, early Medieval art (Carolingian and Ottonian times), Romanesque, and the ascendancy of the Gothic style, including the great Abbey of St-Denis. The Renaissance focusses early on Italy, but also explores the Renaissance influences in Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and England. The Modern Period is the most diverse, with movements such as Neoclassicism, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Art Nouveau and other schools that had a greater tendency to cross national boundaries. The twentieth century brought about a great explosion of artistic expressions, in architecture, sculpture, painting and photography, each of which get a chapter. While the fourth section begins with a discussion of modernism, it ends with the discussion of post-modernism, a period of transition.

The colour reproductions throughout are stunning, and the use of black-and-white images to highlight details is also useful. Two-thirds of the 600 illustrations are in colour. The photographs showing architectural styles are interesting, far from being boring 'sample' shots. The text is engaging and informative, achieving a good balance between the artistic, the philosophical and the historical. There are maps, chronological tables, a glossary of terms, suggestions for further readings arranged topically, and a very useful index (always a plus for students and scholars).

The predecessor edition was entitled 'A Basic History of Art'; this one has added the word 'Western' to the title, very appropriately. This new edition has included new essays in the introduction, including 'The Power of Art', 'The Impact of Context', and 'Experiencing Art in Museums'. The maps and timelines have been revised, and there are new Cultural Context boxes alongside the text. Also, 'Materials and Techniques' pull-quote boxes give an explanation of principal art practices, methods and conventions through history.

I love the 101 Things To Do With a Cake Mix cookbook. I've already
made one cake and we loved it. This book makes having wonderful desserts very affordable, because they all start with a cake mix, and I love seeing just what kind of cake mixes are used with other different ingredients. I love to put cream cheese in cakes and this book allows me to do that. I enjoying making cakes to take to work and this book is just what I need. I've already shared with a couple of friends about the cookbook and in fact, took it camping last weekend and shared it with one of my best friends. She loved it so I am thinking it would make a wonderful Christmas present for her. I'll probably get my daughter and daughter-in-law one also. As a matter of fact, as I am typing these comments I can think of about 5 or 6 other ladies I will give it to them as Christmas gifts. How soon do I need to order for Christmas gifts? Thanks for such a wonderful cookbook.

I like to cook, but I've never been much of a baker. 101 Things To Do With A Cake Mix changed all that! Even with a cheap box of supermarket Brand-X cake mix, I can whip up something that delights the company and absolutely amazes me!

Trust me, please... You will actually turn out baked goods that will make you wonder how you ever managed to do it.

Folks, believe ALL the good reviews, and plunk (very little) money down for a little book that will make you the star baker of your circle. No one will ever think of throwing a barbeque, dinner party or luncheon without you ever, ever again!

Go for it!

Great Book! Everything I've tried is wonderful and I highly recommend this book. Especially if you want to make something in a hurry that's not exactly from a box (just kinda sorta). The recipes are all great tasting and easy/quick to prepare. It was also shipped in a timely manner and in the condition as described.

This is a great book. I bought this for a friend. The Lemon cake is one I have make about 50 times. Everyone asks for this one.

Gee, I feel like a bully being critical of this book that so many others have praised, but. . .

Many of the recipes are almost identical but have different names or the most insignificant ingredient change. For example, the old favorite "Gooey Bars/Cake/Brownies" recipe appears many times, albeit with different names, sometimes with nuts, sometimes without, sometimes with chocolate chips, sometimes with white chips, etc.

Same thing with cookies. There is a basic recipe for making cookies out of a cake mix, and most of us have enough imagination to substitue M&M's for Reese's pieces, or a chocolate cake mix for a yellow for a lemon.

And there are probably inadvertent ommissions such as the oven temperature.

If you're an experienced cook, you will probably find this too simplistic. If you're not experienced, or not very imaginative, then you'll probably enjoy it.

The text book is well written and well organized. One concern is the preface. It depicts a website for the book indicating availability of student resources including an Investment Analysis Calculator. The web site has changed and the publisher has acknowledged that there are no student resources available.

Great book and great teacher...I won't sell this book because I've learned too much from it and it will help me later on in life I'm sure.

This is by far the worst business book I have ever owned. I could hardley make it half a page without my mind wandering. It needs more real life examples to make it more appealing and understandable to the layperson.

This book is so full of useful information and detail that I want to keep it to myself.....

Mayo is a clear writer who has a knack for making this material easy to understand. You may wish to compare to his other ( less expensive) textbooks that are even more basic and understandable. You should also look at the textbooks written by Bodie, Kane and Marcus. These books are somewhat more technical. I guess that most students using any of these books are only buying what is assigned. Mayo is perhaps the easiest to understand.

The item came within 4 days and it came in excellent condition. It could of been a little cheaper, but it was satisfactory.

Harold Bloom is one of the best living critics. There, I said it. He's controversial, he's sometimes infuriating, but by God, he's right, and he never ceases to illuminate.

I was first exposed to the idea of the Western Canon about four years ago, in my 11th grade English class, where we compared the ideas of Harold Bloom and Henry Louis Gate, Jr. on the (actually nonexistent) canon. I didn't make much of it then, as I wasn't quite the literature junkie I am now, but it gave me a taste of the academic battle that is raging right now.

Gates, whose criticism I have no read, but who seems an admirable man, is a proponent of a more inclusive canon, that gives weight to works based on their writers. Bloom is much more of a purist, and I agree with him far more, in that he demands works be included strictly on the basis of the work alone. The author is almost nonexistent in the question of inclusion; all that matters is the quality of the work. Ever the controversialist, Bloom points out that the current "canon" is being watered-down by what he terms the "School of Resentment"; namely, the multiculturalist, feminist, Marxist, deconstructionist, etc. literary theorists. He is sensationalist at times, declaring in his `Elegy for the Canon' that he doesn't believe literature will ever return to its previous, exalted state, but for the most part he hits the nail on the head.

As an English majour forced to take many classes expounding the "School of Resentment" theories, I admit I have a bias toward Bloom and probably see it as more of a crisis than most. However, there is a sense in which literature is in danger. The number of readers of great literature seems to be decreasing, and when compared with the number of TV viewers and partakers of other, cheaper forms of entertainment, reading is all but disappeared. The "School of Resentment" is yet another undermining factor to the already endangered art of reading great literature, seeking to supplant the Wordsworths and Miltons with sub-par writers, simply because these sub-par writers happen(ed) to belong to a particular group. This is flat-out wrong, and makes English departments nationwide a laughingstock, in many cases.

But enough of my English majour's complaining: the criticism in THE WESTERN CANON is what matters most for many, and it tends to be good. I have had a general issue with Bloom in his at times anachronistic comparisons of authors, or application of ideas that don't always belong (Gnosticism seems to be his favourite, but I'm not sure it applies as widely as Bloom believes it does), but he is unparalleled in the land of general critics. One will not get anything extremely in-depth, as this is a book of general criticism, but many of the connections and erudite ideas Bloom expounds are stimulating, and encourage reading or re-readings of the great authors.

And perhaps, as some other reviewers have noted, that is what matters most about Bloom. His enthusiasm for reading, his religious devotion to literature, his unparalleled sense for the importance of the great authors--these are the factors that make him great. Reading Dr. Bloom--I call him that with intentional reference to Dr. Johnson!--is like finding an especially enthusiastic (and yes, opinionated) friend, with whom one can sit and share a cup of tea and discuss literature. He inspires you to read, and to think, and to think about what you read. All the complaints about the "School of Resentment" are right, though hyperbolic, but it is his unabashed love of literature that makes Dr. Bloom a critic of the ages.

Harold Bloom presents a robust, deep, pessimistic and impassioned defence of the canon in this vast book. His thesis is simple - the great books, with Shakespeare at the centre, and other canonical writers radiating out from him, are the ones central to life (if you don't know what they are there is an appendix at the back to get you thinking - and, no, it is not exclusive, nor does Bloom ever claim it is). The value of such books is not social, or economic, or political or moral, or anything but aesthetic. They demand to be read because they offer the highest that human literary endeavor can reach.

And bravo to Bloom for saying this. In Britain, we now have an education system where Meera Syal, a stand up comedian who has penned a couple of novels, has displaced Joyce and Pope from A level reading lists. Shame, shame and shame. Bloom follows Samuel Johnson in advancing great literature as something that makes particular representations universal. And how much contemporary fiction or poetry does this? Bloom's book, with its vast array of literary love and learning, and formidable memory links that ebb and flow like winged messengers between great writers of the ages, demands to be read more than ever. But sadly, Bloom fears he is part of a dying breed. In the conclusion, he articulates his worry that people now alive may witness a time when Shakespeare plays are no longer performed because there is no need. If this happens, then we cannot claim to be living in any sort of civilized society, no matter how democratic our leaders might claim it is.

While reading this book I found myself getting more interested in just about everything. Bloom has such personality, swooning and melodramatic and unable to go on at turns and brave and defiant at others: "I achieved the success of being hissed by much of the audience" (326).

I laughed out loud at some points, because his style can be so amusing, the way he makes gargantuan overstatements and then meanders and returns and lulls you into thicker criticism with his hefty ruminations on single passages and then leaps off in a different direction before packing an exquisite compliment into a sudden aside.

It's funny too how he'll completely leave a work to talk about the world of literary criticism, while never caring to organize such thoughts into their own extended chapter. It has such a spontaneous feel that it can seem like you are alone with him in his study and he's talking and talking like the wordy Shakespearean characters he so admires--Falstaff and Hamlet.

It is a deep book, not something to skate across. You'll have to find your own way to read it. After following it along chronologically, I decided to read bits of it here and there and jump to authors I felt like reading at the time. I didn't want to wait to read the section on Kafka, so I read that, and I wanted to read the sections on Dickens and Austen, and then I thought I'd read something I didn't care as much about, so I read the Freud section and loved it.

There are parts that don't reach the great heights he achieves at other places in the book, but it's remarkable how insightful his interpretations can be, and told with such a breezy tone at times as though it were so easily done. That's part of the showoff, and it's funny and engaging, but if such a personality annoys you then the book will probably annoy you too. I think Bloom sought to become Johnson, Emerson, and Hamlet when writing this book and the playfulness and seriousness and ambition of that combination creates an aesthetic that acts out his ideas as much it explains them.

Mr Bloom seems to have run out of gas, or whatever fuels him. He has become careless and repeats himself frequently.

He also contradicts himself. For example, on page 45 he says, "No other writer has ever had anything like Shakespeare's resources of language, ...," with which I agree. But then on page 59 he says, "Shakespeare's command of language, though overwhelming, is not unique and is capable of imitation."

I hate to say it, because I have enjoyed Mr Bloom's books, but I often have the feeling that he is just playing with words and hasn't really got the the heart (or the spirit) of the various writers he discusses, most especially, and ironically, Shakespeare himself.

Mr. Bloom's favorite critic is, I believe, Dr. Samuel Johnson. Johnson has given us the best of all critical advice about Shakespeare: don't read the critics, forget them, read Shakespeare, then read him again. I am afraid that I must second this view of the critics; in my experience they are a hindrance to one's understanding.

I wish Mr Bloom's publishers would do us readers a favor: put an asterisk at the top of each page on which Mr Bloom quotes Nietzsche's remark about what is already dead in our hearts. Enough already!

I knew, prior to reading this book, that I didn't like Harold Bloom.

I've encountered him over the years, primarily when he's condescended to comment on "popular literature," to inform us that we don't really know what we're about and are reading the wrong stuff.

I've always believed though that to truly have license to hate something, a fair hearing is required, and so I picked up The Western Canon. Maybe I would find my prejudice inaccurate (as has happened in the past)?

Not in this case, as it turns out.

There are things to be admired about Mr. Bloom. That he has built a career for himself; that he cares about promoting great works; that he sees through what he calls The School of Resentment, which seeks to redefine "good literature" according to the ethnicity/gender/social class of authors; that he has the integrity to fight the tide within his profession; that he is passionate.

This, however, is a poor book.

Other reviewers within these pages have already identified some of the reasons why it is poor -- Bloom's prose is nigh-unreadable, written (perhaps) for some incredibly rarefied audience, but not for any professor I've ever had, let alone a general reader. He uses effusive praise with large and impressive-sounding, but ultimately rather empty, words and phrases. He does all of this according to his own peculiar theories of "agon" and influence, which sometimes seem as cryptic and arcane as the criticism schools he dismisses.

His worship of Shakespeare, in particular, is just bizarre. I'm very fond of Shakespeare, but reading Bloom one gets the sense that, had Shakespeare not come about we wouldn't have a Canon to discuss at all. Indeed, Bloom seems to suggest that our very conscious lives -- yours and mine -- are somehow defined by Shakespeare's writings; that Shakespeare, somehow, "invented" us. I agree that Hamlet is a great character, but I believe that I could exist without him. Bloom apparently disagrees.

This book will not demonstrate to most or many why they truly ought to read the books Bloom mentions -- I find Bloom's aesthetic metric of influence to be cold, and very far removed from the joys I find in reading. However, I will take it from Bloom that there is *something* to be gained in the writers he cites, and will take value in the appendices he includes as a starting point for a deeper education.

Apart from the appendices, I believe that a prospective reader's time would be far better served reading Shakespeare, or Dante, or Milton, or any of the great writers that Bloom mentions, instead of reading Bloom himself. In short, The Western Canon does not make the western canon.

I find myself, at last, wondering what Shakespeare would have made of Bloom's Western Canon. I somehow suspect that he would decide that it really didn't have much to do with the plays he was writing, dismiss it, and get back to work.

I have recently ordered this book on August 8, 2008 and it is now September 8 and I have still not yet received it. My book is in great demands for school right now and i do not have a clue who to call or what to do.

A very good book that has problems and solutions for issues with horses. All of his books that I have read have been well worth reading and this one is no exception.

This is a book for someone who is already a horseman and is looking for clearer ways to think about his horsemanship. While probably not for everyone I find this type of book much more helpful than the "do this and then do that" type of material.
If you liked this book you'll like True Horsemanship Through Feel by Bill Dorrance and Leslie Desmond

Mark Rashid really has a way with words! And with horses.
He makes you feel right there with him, and learning everything
right along with him. Very enjoyable reading.

Easy to read and understand makes all horse people really open their eyes!! I just got the book this afternoon and am almost finished with it a definate MUST READ for horse owners!!!!

Mark Rashid's story format is very mindful of my days under the spell of cowboy and farrier story tellers. Mr. Rashid is absolutely generous in getting a point across without shaking a finger or being cryptic or evasive. He softly delivers the idea and lets the reader sift out their own application.

I love the 'old man'. I actually think I might have known him, in probably about 20 different people who counseled me in my early horse days. Whether the old man is/was a real person is superfilious as he functions as a terrific metaphor providing the conduit for learning and understanding.

But,actually he really is a very, very real personality in the cowboy and farrier world at large.

Amazon very nicely allowed me to return the product because my professor decided to use another book for class.
However it was weird how they said that if you printed out this slip and put it on the original package it would be free but then they just ended up taking the shipping money out of my refund.

Like many Dutch, Ian Buruma probably found himself at a loss to describe the roots that led to the death of provocateur filmmaker Theo van Gogh. He returned home for a time and reimmersed himself in modern Holland. `Murder In Amsterdam,` the result, is an easy-to-read introduction to the rifts within modern Islam, the plight of immigrant states in Europe, and the cultural skirmishes and uneasy peace that defines the relationship between the two.

The author sets the stage with a bit of Dutch postwar history and a series of relevant interviews, and Buruma makes it clear that he is out to sanctify no-one. Van Gogh uses colorful unprintables to describe Christians, Jews, and Muslims. His murderer, Mohammed Bouyeri, sees Holland as the cradle of a new Islamic Revolution (because of its civil liberties, which he despises). The Dutch establishment is overwhelmed and directionless, as well as racist; the Moroccans and Turks who comprise nearly 40% of the population of the Netherlands are almost too free: cut loose from their traditional culture, they drift in a world full of overwhelming choice and no direction. Some Muslims are for assimilation; others are see the former as apostates. Yet they all are still mostly rejected from society at large by those invisible chains of education, class, and race. Over 250 pages, the only answer Buruma gives is that there is no easy answer.

Buruma attempts to balance himself on the knife-edge that is the middle ground, and mostly succeeds. Yet despite his best attempts at a reporter`s objectivity, between the lines one can still see the author`s muted sorrow at the plight of men like Ahmed Aboutaleb, the city councillor who works hard to be a bridge in a society separated by an ever-widening gulf.

For an overarching look at the issues of assimilation and cultural respect facing many countries in Europe today, Ian Buruma is a good place to start.

In November 2004 Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered in the streets of Amsterdam. With the murder in 2002 of the prime-minister to be, Pim Fortuyn, the Netherlands was stunned by two horrendous crimes. Nothing comparable had happened in 300 years. Holland was such a peaceful little country, famous for its tolerance and liberalism. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll - everything seemed permissible.
Ian Buruma was raised in the nicer parts of the Hague. He has been active in Oxford, Tokyo and Washington. Since 2005 he lives in New York. Following the two murders he went back to the Netherlands to try to come to grips with this new situation in his native country. His inquiry resulted in this book. He knew some of the people he interviews from back then. With one of them he had been playing in the sandbox; the future professor of Philosophy, Herman Philipse, the guy who seduced Ayaan Hirsi Ali both to a personal relationship - and to Atheism. Buruma thought of him even then as a somewhat pompous child. I suppose you have to be Dutch to be able to picture him heaving a rubber spade in his Oxford tweed jacket...(note that I'm actually a fan of his).
Ian Buruma tries to expose the background for the two murders. Historically he illustrates this with the famous `Regenten'- paintings by Frans Hals in Haarlem. `Regenten' were representatives from the republican merchant elite who opposed both the royal House of Orange and the Calvinist church. In these gloomy but superb paintings, we, as present-day tourists, are haughtily and coldly observed by these members of the board - men as well as women. Sends shivers down your spine.
Pim Fortuyn was certainly no Calvinist and only a lukewarm royalist, but Buruma contrasts his populism with the might of the Left Church; social democrats, liberals and the Green Party. Fortuyn was friendly with Theo van Gogh who also wrote some of his speeches and used to call him `the divine baldy'. Van Gogh was an astounding enfant terrible. Unlike Fortuyn he grew up in an upper-class family. In high school he started a magazine which he christened the Dirty Paper. The topics were typically puberal in the toilet-humor vein. His partner in crime was a certain Johan Quarles van Ufford. The magazine only ever appeared twice, but it gives a nice idea of Van Goghs shock-tactics. He loved to provoke all and sundry. Some of his utterances are probably not fit for printing, although he would punch my nose for saying so, but they are of the caliber of describing Jesus as a `rotten fish' and famously - and fatefully - calling Muslims, well, something I apparently can't reveal here although it's all in the book. Many felt he actually deserved to die. But what about freedom of speech? Is it absolute and without any restrictions whatsoever? Isn't there something in the constitution about discrimination and harassment ? The law forbidding heresy had not been used since the sixties, when a well-known author portrayed God as a donkey. He was acquitted. Now this law has been revived and passions run high. The subtitle of the book is `Liberal Europe, Islam, and the Limits of Tolerance' but Buruma only lightly touches on this. You would probably need yet another book to seriously address such an ambitious agenda.
A scary thing I wasn't aware of, is how the soccer-fans of Rotterdam greet AJAX Amsterdam when they come to town. Apart from the customary `filthy Jews' or `cancer Jews', they collectively let out a hissing sound which slowly grows stronger. Buruma didn't know what to make of it until a friend explained: they are mimicking the sound of escaping gas.
Who said that the Netherlands was so very tolerant?

This book, by a Dutch ex-patriot, does a good job of pretending to be fair-minded and even-handed in trashing all the parties involved. But it won't stand up to careful examination.

Most importantly, none of the assertions and allegations made in this book are even documented, let alone corroborated from other sources. We are simply supposed to take the author's word for it.

To show that in effect the Dutch are getting what they deserve (although the author would, of course, never put it in those terms), the author describes in lurid detail the red-light district of Amsterdam. (red herring fallacy). He also describes every incident in which a mosque was defaced, and counterposes that against the burning of Christian churches. (two wrongs make a right)

To trash van Gogh, the author presents him as a loud critic of many practices and positions, as if van Gogh's personal appearance and off-beat personality justifies his assassination. (ad hominem)

The author also has a go at Pym Fortuna, doing the same number on him. He was loud and brash and maybe a right-winger as well, so it's sort of okay that he was murdered. Besides, he wasn't murdered by an Islamist, so that proves that the problem is not Islam, doesn't it?

The message seems to be that the Dutch are not tolerant enough! Another theme is that whole thing has been blown way out of proportion by the press and the politicians--especially the right-wing politicians.

See While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within. Also, read America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It.

[...]

The day after Benazir Bhutto's assasination -- this book is perhaps even more relevant than ever. Theo Van Gogh was a provocateur -- and he paid for that stance with his life. This is a very well written book that makes us think and consider the continuing instability in today's world. There are no answers, only more questions. I highly recommend it.

I had traveled to Amsterdam twice before picking up Buruma's book with only a faint understanding of who Theo Van Gogh was or why he was murdered, but this book weaves European history, demographics and an understanding of radical Islam into a cogent explanation of why the Dutch filmmaker was murdered. I was impressed by Buruma's explanation of the motives of T. Van Gogh's assassin, the Moroccan émigré Mohammed Bouyeri, primarily because pernicious rationalizations of poverty, isolation and disillusionment were avoided in favor of focusing on Bouyeri's Muslim faith. Radical Islam, and to a large extent the entire body of `moderate' Islam, is incapable of taking rational criticism even when protestations of, say, the treatment of women are made in good faith. This is no where more clearly exemplified than the hysteria that followed the Danish Mohammed cartoons, which stills lingers as of March 2008, and the anticipatory ire which the Dutch MP Geert Wilders has aroused in the Middle East, namely Iran, upon announcing the release of a film that will be critical of Islam. Take note that Wilder's film has yet to be released, as of early March 2008, although he has already received death threats, and is under 24/7 guard, as the murder of Theo Van Gogh proved was utterly necessary.

T. Van Gogh was an implacable iconoclast whose work with the Somali émigré Ayaan Hirsi Ali on the short film `Submission' highlighted the abominable treatment and objectification of women in Islam. In `Submission', a nude female actor is covered in misogynist verses from the Koran. In the liberal democracies of the west, this is freedom of speech, but to Islam, an egregious sin.

Europe is undergoing radical demographic changes today with ever increasing immigration from Muslim nations. I'd recommend Mark Steyn's `America Alone' to place Buruma's book with a larger context.