Westerns Books

I should note that although I do not have a background in economics, I might be the perfect layperson for this book as I do have a degree in history. I understand probably about as much economic theory as most semi-educated people, and hopefully a little more history. For the most part, I could follow along the economic arguments, although a few theoretical points required some review. However, there were quite a few parts where I was glad that I already knew which historic events they referred to, because sometimes they made a mention of it and then simply moved on. The most obvious was the second world war and the Holocaust, although it could be reasonably argued that most (semi-educated) people are pretty well-versed in the most basic facts of that conflict.

That would be my only complaint about this book, and as I said, one that didn't negatively affect my enjoyment of it. The book opens with a survey of where the major and minor geo-political players were at the beginning of the Second Millenium. Yes, we all know that the area roughly referred to as the Middle East made the rest of the world look like barbarians at the time (and yes, pun intended), but the authors still do a good job of impressing the reader with the vast scope of their economic activities. However, they also show that other areas, particularly East Asia but even Western Europe, were more sophisticated than they are usually given credit for. What is most valuable though is the explanation of the interactions all of the regions had with each other. Although the Middle East had the most far-reaching and complex and Europe the fewest, the total picture makes it clear that on balance the world at the beginning of the Second Millenium was much more connected than most people realize. One of the major themes of the story is not just the effect of political jockeying on trade but also the ebb and flow of the interconnections between the regions of the world.

The discussion on the effects of the Black Plague/Black Death was the one that felt the most appropriate for an economics textbook. This section was very dependent upon a number of graphs and seemed to use the most economic theory. I expected subsequent sections to be in the same vein, but the scope seemed to get bigger afterwards, for lack of a better word.

The importance of taxes and free trade- as well as the economic advantage that slavery provided to slave holders (a practice they repeatedly condemn)- were important themes in the book. However, the climax of the story as the authors see it is the Industrial Revolution, and this subject got the most ink out of any in the book. A "conspiracy" of politics, history, the clear need for certain innovations and, most importantly, the special relationship between England and the sparsely populated United States puts the center of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, but its presence and influence soon spread well beyond. The most important aspect of this economic phenomenon, and what makes it revolutionary, is that it enables its participants to break away from the Malthusian model that ties standard of living to population density. The subsequent, dramatic rise in the standard of living- and the expectation of such high standards- is probably what is most responsible for continued economic and political innovations.

As much as the Industrial Revolution raised the bar and showed what was possible, the First World War and the Interwar period show, perhaps, how fragile our systems were and how interconnected they were to politics and the peculiar balance of power that existed worldwide between 1815 and 1914. Although the United States and parts of Western Europe found ways to take advantage of the new political opportunities, the authors convincingly argue that the rest of the world did not truly recover until the end of the 20th century.

At the end of the book, the authors draw parallels to both the Germany before the First World War and Japan before the Second. The authors imply that at least some of their belligerence may have been justified by the repeated attempts by established players (Great Britain and the United States) to block their access to favorable trading conditions. The authors see an analogous potential in both China and India, who are seemingly suddenly viable participants on the verge not only matching the US' capacity but exceeding it, and countries with newer nuclear capability. We are left to ponder if we can learn from the lessons of history- and what that lesson might be.

This book is like a six layer cake with as layers the periods 1000-1500, 1500 to 1650, 1650 to 1780, 1780 to 1814, 1914 to 1939, 1939 to 2007, and speculations about the future. Within each layer you find descriptions of what happened in seven regions that is Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North Africa with Southwest Asia, Central or Inner Asia, South Asia, and South East Asia. For each region you find wars, rulers, economic development including trade. And, especially important, the interaction and interdependence between regions

This is about as holistic, systematic and complex presentation you can ever hope to find. By the way the development of North and South America is included in Western Europe and Africa as it relates to other regions. The book is an outstanding example of a multidisciplinary approach combining the science of history with the science of economics. The book is written by an Irish and American professor. You can see from the choice of regions that it is not a European centric presentation. Asia dominated with many regions in year 1000 at the start and is moving to domination in 2007.

You will learn about many examples of interconnectedness you did not know about. For example the industrial revolution in the UK would never have happened as a consequence of only steam power and mechanisation in cotton spinning and weaving. It was dependent on a rapid increasing supply of low cost cotton that was produced to almost 100% by slave labour in the Americas, continuous land grabbing in the Americas, military control of the seas by the UK Navy to transport the cotton to the UK and transporting cotton cloth for export and an industrial policy of protection of the UK cotton industry from foreign competition in the UK. You will also find many examples of causes of unforeseeable change. Just as an example consider the rapid expansion of population and wealth during the Song dynasty in China. That was made possible by the introduction of a different type of rice from what is now Vietnam that allowed three harvests per year.

The book demonstrates conclusively that major changes in the fortunes of countries' history cannot be understood without economics and wars and the other way around. It is disappointing even frightening to see how personal greed and greed by nations has been the driving factor of most of the major changes Concern for the well-being of others as a driving force is almost totally absent.

That should be a lesson for the future. When the increasing interdependence between nations is combined with greed as the driving force, disaster is likely to occur. A disaster that can as yet can not be identified. Governments were never were able to predict disasters in time in the past. That means that it is imperative that country leaders have to change their mind - sets and consider the well-being of other countries next to their own. Anybody reading this book will become convinced of this is an absolute necessity.

This book is to be bought for the first 7 and a half chapters. It's a solid 4 star rating then. The topic is simply too broad for any single volume book to get 5 stars. In other words, this is a readable bibliography. It doesn't always handle the sources well, so truly, use it as a bibliography!

The reduction to three stars is entirely based on that the authors completely dropped the ball on colonialization. How it was formed, what role it played in the local economy, how force was used, and how it buttressed the world economy, these were all missing, or had one line apologetic acknowledgements. It led to charts that show how the Belgian Congo and French West Africa were some of the fastest expanding economies in the world, when most people reading this are going to be familiar with Joseph Conrad's opus. There were other highly autistic use of data when it refers to the colonial states. The relunctance to frankly deal with colonialism impacted the book from the latter half of the seventh chapter on. Lastly, perhaps related, or unrelated, some of the fairly critical events of the latter half of the 20th century but in the Third World, like the debt crisis of the 1970s, the iranian revolution and war with Iraq, the Mexican Peso Crisis, and the 1997 asian finacial crisis all apparently merited little or no mention. Anyone reading this book by itself is going to be somewhat misinformed without something on third world (and Marxist--it was pretty thin there as well) economic history.

It is a good book, just understand that the typical Western Triumphalist outlook starts peaking out towards the end.

Ronald Findlay and Kevin O'Rourke demonstrate with much detail how trade, war, and peace have closely interacted with each other in the last millennium. Findlay and O'Rourke clearly show how three apparently unrelated events, i.e., the Black Death of the 14th century C.E. and its different impact on several regions of the world, the integration of the New World into that of the Old at the turn of the 16th century C.E., and the Industrial Revolution at the turn of the 19th century C.E., have shaped the world as we know it today. Thankfully, Findlay and O'Rourke have compiled the existing research to allow their audience to better understand the close interaction that exists between Power and Plenty. To summarize, Findlay and O'Rourke's demanding volume clearly does not target readers who have a short attention span, do not acknowledge the importance of the past to peruse the future, lack persistence, or are interested in simplistic answers to complex issues.

This well written book is a successful effort to summarize and synthesize a large secondary literature on the history of international trade over the last millenium. The authors adopt a chronological approach starting at 1000 CE and conclude with the recent re-emergence of the high degree of global trade in the last half century. The first chapter offers an overview and methodological discussion. Chapter 2, which stresses the economic importance and sophistication of the Islamic world and China, reconstructs the state of the Eurasian international economy. Chapter 3 describes the positive effects of the emergence of the Mongol Empire with its great facilitation of trans-Eurasian trade, followed by wholesale transformation of the Eurasian world by the consequent Black Death and its various sequealae. Chapter 4 describes the European voyages around Africa and the beginning of the integration of the Western Hemisphere into the Eurasian, now world economy. This is all very well done and the authors do a good job of summarizing the significant secondary literature on these topics with a nicely critical approach to the often fragmentary data. The emphasis, throughout, is on the interaction of economics and political history. Much of this, however, will be familiar to those with a good knowledge of history.

The authors really hit their stride and introduce a significant level of analysis with Chapter 5, which discusses European Mercantilism, and the succeeding chapters. The higher level of description and analysis is probably due to the availability of more complete data, particularly for European trade and economic performance. Chapter 6, on the Industrial Revolution, is a very thoughtful discussion of the literature on the origins of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, concluding with a sophisticated multifactorial description of the emergence of the first Industrial economy. The authors do a very nice job of stressing contingent features and the role of political and social history. The subsequent chapters, on the 19th century economy, the disatrous effects of the World Wars and the re-emergence of a high degree of global trade in the last half century, are excellent.

The quality of writing is quite good, the authors are careful to avoid using a lot of economics technical language, though a basic knowledge of economics is very helpful in reading this book, and the bibliography is comprehensive. Unlike many historians, and like many economists, the authors make good use of charts and graphs. It would have been helpful to have a few overview figures summarizing trade flows during the different periods discussed by the authors.

The "Library of Chinese classics" is excellent. You may have Chinese text and English translation on facing pages. This is the best thing.
Unfortunately, there aren't any notes.
I advice this book they who can read Chinese and want to profit from the facilities of this edition. The general reader should integrate this edition with the excellent translations already published, such as Mencius' Da Liu, anyway.

Regardless of my rating, if you wish to understand Chinese thought in that era you must read this book. Mencius is considered only second to Confucius himself.

In this book, translated by David Hinton, is a compilation of teachings of Chinese sage Mencius, who the book claims trained with the grandson of Confucius in the fourth century B.C.E. Here we have fourteen chapters that highlight Mencius's central belief in inherent goodness of human nature.

Mencius is easier to read then most other Chinese sages because of his use analogies and his optimistic point of view. And the translator's introduction provides us with historical background to place the writings into the correct perspective.

What can I say? This book is probably the closest Chinese book involving the art of parallel-argumentation that a person will ever get out of a Chinese book.

I love this book. Plus, Lau really adds desert by his five highly detailed appendixes. Way to go Lau!

I have read a great deal of Chinese history. I have also read many of the philosophy classics; Confucius Analects, the Tao Te Ching, the I Ching, and the Chuang Tsu. Chinese philosophy does not set forth ideas as directly as Western philosophy. You can read three sentences and search for the meaning for fifteen minutes. The writing conveys ideas in what is to me an abstruse fashion. I briefly studied the Chinese language and it conveys a lot of ideas in a short space.
After the thinking I do get an idea. It is amazing what is conveyed in a few words. There is no attempt to set forth an ordered set of ideas. What I understand are thoughts that form a point of view. That is what I mean by inscrutable.
Mencius is not nearly as minimalist as the Analects. He tells short tales with a moral. To that extent he is easier to understand. The same ideas appear with different emphasis in tales. The writing does not present a clear direct system of ideas, such as Aristotle. My interpretation may be much different than yours.
I enjoyed Mencius. I felt it was worth while and gave me insight into Chinese thought. It must be remembered that he is second only to Confucius in Confucian thought.
What worked for me was to read slowly and take notes. I had to invest a great deal of time in reading what is a short book. I still feel I need to read some type of treatise to get a better understanding of the philosophy of Mencius. Reading Mencius first gives the basis to build a greater understanding of Chinese philosophy and the Chinese point of view.

Having read the Analects, I wanted to read further in Chinese philosophy. It was recommended that I pick up the Lau translation of Mencius, as it was widely considered the best.

Even as a reader approaching his thinking for the first time, I was able to get quite a bit from reading the seven books. They were thought-provoking and crisp. I was interested in the notions of morality and good as treated in his analogies. This point is the famous difference between Confucius and Mencius and alone makes this book valuable reading.

The Penguin edition may well be the best available translation and I am sure that the essays at the beginning and end are useful for more knowledgeable scholars. Unfortunately, as a reader largely unfamiliar with his life and work (beyond knowing his role as a student of Confucius) these essays assumed a level of knowledge beyond that which I actually possessed. It would have been helpful for me if the introduction had been more concerned with basic context setting.

The appendices bound with the book contain essays on dating events in the life of Mencius, early traditions about Mencius, textual notes, history as depicted in the text, and the use of analogy as argument.

classic selections that provide the best remnants of Stoicism, Epicureanism, and Skepticism that has been expanded to include representation of Plutarch and Cicero and some recent papyrological evidence. The collection is especially strong in ethical reasoning.

I just finished using this text in a graduate course on ancient skepticism. I have to say I was not particularly enamored of the organization of the material. I found the breakdown into subject matter less helpful than a breakdown by source would have been.

That said, the translations are good, read well, and communicate meanings effectively. The sweep of the material is impressive. Some of the cuts and emendations are rather odd, though, particularly in the Sextian Modes. In comparison to Annas and Barnes' translation ("Outlines of Scepticism"), which preserves the complete text, "HP" was lacking.

This book does not offer much in the way of analysis or historical context, either. If you're studying Sextus, go with either of Annas' books (her other is "Modes of Scepticism") as an intro text. If you want a truncated reader in the area, this book will do.

don't listen to the negative reviews. I had Dr. Hillerbrand as a professor during my undergrad time at duke, and not only is he a solid scholar of the reformation, but this book is a solid primary source collection as well.

One of the few books that makes sources of the Protestant Reformation available and accessible to students. A well thought out collection of documents with useful introductions that covers the Reformation from Luther through the English Reformation. The introductions are clear and to the point. The sources are well-chosen to bring out some of the major literature of the period.

This is a selection of primary source readings from the period. It isn't designed to take the place of a more comprehensive narrative history. Hillerbrand includes a helpful variety of extracts from Luther, Zwingli, the Anabaptists, Calvin, and the English Reformation, all with brief introductions.

If you're interested in learning about the history of the Protestant Reformation and the impact it has had on the world, this is not the first book I would recommend. Hillerbrand's book is, however, probably the 2nd book I would recommend. Start with a broader, more comprehensive history that ties everything together, then read this book for the actual writings by the people who shaped the Reformation. Hillerbrand writes an excellent introduction, and a chronology/timeline lists the major events, but the real strength of the book is in presenting the actual writings by the movers and shakers of the Reformation.

My favorite part was the chapter on Martin Luther. Luther wrote for the common man, and his words are amazingly clear and concise. The theological issues that Luther wrote about are as relevant today as they were five centuries ago when Luther lived.

One fascinating chapter contained parts of William Tyndale's New Testament, published about 80 years before the King James Bible. It's amazing how much the English language changed in those years. The Tyndale Bible is very difficult to read, while the KJ version is close to modern English.

These writings make the Reformers come alive as real people. Fascinating reading.

This is a great collection of works that changed the face of Christianity in the 16th century. Using original source documents compiled into this reader, Hillerbrand gives space to explore the major reformation movements of the Evangelicals (Luther), the Reformed Church (Calvin), as well as the Anabaptists and other movements so commonly reduced to the Reformation. I used this book for an undergraduate course on the History of Reformation Europe and found it to be an excellent source, especially when paired with John Olin's compilation of original source documents on the Catholic Reformation.

The book I received was exactly what I was expecting! Would definitely do business with again.

Edit of 29 August 2008: Am adding a couple of images to help clarify the importance of actually understanding new ways of creating, sharing, and leveraging knowledge. YES, the Internet has led to an order of magnitude or more knowledge creation and sharing but NO, it has not led to a dramatic change in the definition of knowledge or the role played by knowledge.

With a tip of the hat to SALON and book reviewer Laura Miller, whose review can be found at the URL in the comment, I want to add this book to those I recommend for the growing body of citizens who are truly skeptical of the Internet as a panacea, and suspicious of Google and other "snake oil" vendors.

Use the "see inside the book" feature just under the book cover above to examine details provided by the publisher.

Bottom line: we are entering a period when the "wealth of networks" may reinvent knowledge, but having read and reviewed The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals And Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World only to be stunned at the end with its discussion of how many non-human primates are learning 500-1000 human words in sign language, I am now convinced, from a system of systems perspective, that the next big leap in reinventing knowledge will be not the emergence of smart mobs, armies of davids, the power of us, but rather, when Pierre Tielhard de Chardin's noosphere becomes a reality, and all living things have co-equal standing "in communion" with one another.

The nicest thing I can say about this book, other than to recommend it, is to link to other books that support the thesis the book presents: the Internet is NOT the big leap forward.

See also:

In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations
Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway
The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It
The Age of Missing Information
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Biodiversity Crisis: Losing What Counts (American Museum of Natural History Books)
The First Idea: How Symbols, Language, And Intelligence Evolved From Our Primate Ancestors To Modern Humans