Westerns Books

I enjoyed this book. I had read another in the series and I wanted to know what happened to Caroline and the other sister. It was a good story and had a happy ending for the girls. The story of each girl was different and thus was not redundant as some series are.

Orphaned as a child and raised by two spinster sisters, Wyoming schoolmistress Caroline Chalmers needs to get her fiancé out of jail. Seaton Flynn has convinced her he's innocent, and needs to somehow escape the hangman's noose. Boldly Caroline marches into a bar to seek help from a notorious Confederate raider, Guthrie Hayes. Guthrie's not so sure of Seaton's innocence, but they set out together. In the meantime, Caroline also continues her search for her two sisters, all of whom were separated as children.

This was my first read by Ms. Miller, despite the fact this is the third installment in a series. The book started out pretty good, but I soon got bored. This story seemed to be more about how many times, places and positions they could do the deed. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy reading romantic fiction, and the love scenes that go with it, but this was a little over the top. I did finish the book, but I was glad when that last page arrived! If you're a Miller fan, this book is probably for you, otherwise I can't recommend it.

This book held my attention and I wanted to know what happened. There were a lot of different settings which made it interesting and how each was played out.
This is a book I plan to keep to reread later.

Caroline calls Gutherie out of the local bar to seek his assistance in breaking her intended out of a jail for a crime he convinces her that he did not committ. It doesn't take long for Gutherie to fall for Caroline, whom he promptly begins calling "wildcat" for the remainder of the book. The hero and heroine are funny and hot and their adventure is a page-turner. Underneath their story is the reunion of Caroline with her two sisters from Lily and the Major and Emma and the Outlaw stories. Read the book in one sitting, like many of Ms. Miller's books.

I just couldn't put this book down. I found it incredibly interesting, exciting and very sexy. This is a "must read" for all who love romance novels!!!!

Professor Stancill, an icon at the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, shows a unique approach to entrepreneurial / mid-market finance. If you are looking for a traditional discussion of financial concepts get one of the the many fine textbooks on the market. But if you are are ready to "get down and dirty", especially if you intend to acquire a small business in an LBO scenario, apply the lessons learned from this book. Stancill applies street-smarts to structuring a deal, and he offers a hands-on, step-by-step approach that is easy to follow even by non-financial types.

I was lucky enough to be able to have Jim Stancill as one of my MBA professors at USC -- this book is a great book if you want to learn how to REALLY start a company. Specially for academics and non-business people, this is NOT your corporate finance book. This is how small companies start up and how to run a small company and even how to buy a company.

"The Future of the Image" by Jacques Ranciere offers an unique critique and perspective on contemporary art forms ranging from film to painting, photography and theater. As an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris, Mr. Ranciere approaches the subject matter not as an art historian but as an intellectual who is interested in exploring the importance of art in society. This fascinating book succeeds in presenting a sophisticated analysis of the image that can help artists and audiences better appreciate the emancipatory potential of art.

Mr. Ranciere reminds us that the autonomy of art was first asserted in the 1760s when highly representational art forms that were based on a shared cultural history were beginning to be abandoned. Mr. Ranciere explains that modern art represents a neo-Platonic discourse that derives its meaning from the interaction between the image and the audience. For example, the canvas is merely a surface upon which the painter's ideals are expressed and communicated to viewers. Mr. Ranciere contends that whether the artist produces figurative representations or abstract symbols, their forms are always endowed with meaning; indeed, art remains art insofar as the image stimulates interpretation. In this manner, the author questions the popular notion that 20th century artists merely strove to emphasize the flatness of the medium for its own sake, and challenges us to look at art anew.

Mr. Ranciere contends that modern art can achieve sublimity through varied techniques such as juxtaposition and narration. In particular, Mr. Ranciere believes that the early film noir classic 'The Spiral Staircase' and its depiction of the stalking of a vulnerable invalid is successful in that it symbolically conveys the film maker's horror about the clinical extermination of the weak in Nazi Germany. In such films, Mr. Ranciere sees a dialectical process at work where art helps to humanize us by writing a history that opposes violence and power.

I highly recommend this challenging but highly rewarding book to demanding readers who may be interested in the meaning of contemporary art.

The best enlightening history in English of this period remains C.V. Wedgwood's "The Thirty Years War", originally published in 1938 and now available in the NYRB paperback (2005, 536 pages, 1590171462) or a Book Club hardcover (1995, no isbn, but can be found used under the above isbn at half.com) or other older editions. Wedgwood's narrative breaths life into the crosscurrents of religion, politics, economics, military operations, and leading personalities. Her solid analysis of the underlying situation, the trends and the final results brings the whole picture into focus while supplying fascinating details. As a comparison, if you have read any history by Barbara Tuchman, Wedgwood's style is similar and just as engaging, suitable to take in the full flavor of this pivitol half century, and not just a dry compilation of facts and figures. Includes maps, footnotes, bibliography, and genealogical table. As previous rewiewers have written, clearly a dazzling and sophisticated history, with lessons still so relevant today.

While the data is accurate, I didn't find this an engrossing read, too much emphasis on details on less on the whole. But many history books make this mistake.

I have had this book high on my reading list for over 40 years now, ever since a took a course in German Baroque literature as an undergraduate. It is far better than I had imagined, both in style and content. My only regret is that I didn't get around to reading it 40 years ago.

This is the best single-volume account of the Thirty Years War
(1618-1648). The war was very complex but Wedgwood provides singular
clarity. Other interpretations are possible, but her vision is strong
and memorable. The Machiavellian machinations are head-spinning, one has
to read carefully, the reward is a solid understanding of not only
17th C dynastic politics but how Medieval politics operated
before the rise of the nation state.

Wedgwood is an old-fashioned historian like Gibbon, retelling the events
in highly-readable prose, focused on the "great men". This can be
problematic, the Thirty Years War was more than just the decisions made
by a few elites - social, economic and other forces were at work. Her
sources are almost all 19th century. There are no new insights on the
war, it is a retelling of established views. As a political narrative it
is not only a great work of history but also literature.

For the English-language reader Wedgwood's book, which has been in print for over sixty years, is still an excellent introduction and synoptic narrative of this lengthy and turbulent period of European history. It gives brief and judicious biographical sketches of the major political and military actors of three generations: The principal antagonists at the outset -- Ferdinand II of Austria and Frederick V, Elector Palatine; the condottieri-style generals - Spinola, von Mansfeld, Tilly, Wallenstein, Piccolomini, Christian of Halberstadt, Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, the duc d'Enghien (Conde); the contentious minor rulers -- Maximilian V of Bavaria, Johann Georg of Saxony; the northern monarchs -- Christian IV of Denmark and Gustavus Adophus of Sweden (and his daughter Christina and prime minister, Oxenstierna); the "spoiler", Cardinal Richelieu; the new Emperor Ferdinand III and his cousin, the warlord Cardinal-Infant Ferdinand of Spain; and many others. This book is written in a traditional English historian's prose style that is clear, eloquent and totally lacking the jargon of concurrent and later social and economic histories, while still covering these aspects of the period. In spite of some reviewers' claims of a "Protestant bias" in her interpretation, the author seems extremely fair when assessing responsibility for the long-running disaster of the war, taking the position that it was the self-serving political interests of the participants (dynasties, rulers, generals and paymasters) that kept the war going at the expense of the social and economic welfare of the vast majority of inhabitants of Germany and Bohemia.

Although I am not familiar with this new edition (and Grafton's introduction) I emphasize that any reissuing of this book should have a brief scholarly introduction which supplies more details on the constitutional arrangements and crises of the Holy Roman Empire during the sixteenth century, with a special emphasis on the composition of the Bohemian estates and the conflicts between the estates and the Habsburg king-emperors. The extent and internal organization of "the Bohemian crown lands" should also be outlined. A succinct review of the political status of Lutheranism, Calvinism, the Bohemian Brethren, and other Protestant confessions throughout all of Europe around the year 1600 and a note on how their status had altered by 1700 would also be useful in "setting the stage" for the events of 1618 and understanding the relgious-denomination consequences of the war.

The author supplies sufficient details on the major battles, but this is not a work of military history. As Wedgwood knows, battles were only significant in the larger view as a result of their political consequences. And it is in the elucidation of the underlying politics of the war (including how political prospects shifted with the waxing and waning of military fortunes) that Wedgwood excels. In her analysis of the general European situation at the outset of the war she proposes that there were three sets of forces which underlay and drove contemporary events. Each was a source of conflict and each might cross-cut the others, complicating the declared interests and objectives of the dynasties and nations involved. In brief, the forces were: (a) Religion, with three major competing factions (Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist; she notes that the conflict between the latter two forms of Protestantism was often as extreme as it was between each of them and the Roman Catholic Church). (b) Nationalism (French, German, Czech, etc.), which was a new force on the scene, crystallizing the idea that political entities might be defined by nationality (which here equals some combination of ethnicity and native language) rather than conceived of as polyglot territorial agglomerations brought about by dynastic interests. (c) Monarchic-constitutional issues, which were especially complicated and ambiguous within the "constitutional" grouping of major and minor powers known as The Holy Roman Empire (HRE).

The constitutional problem was twofold. Within the small arenas of developing nation states and the yet smaller ones of traditional rulerships throughout Europe (duchies, counties, "free-city" areas ruled by town councils and mayors) contests over the basis and extent of the rulers' powers and privileges were taking place. Aristocrats, oligarchs and merchants had traditional corporate bodies (estates) reluctant to cede their own powers (taxation, the organization of military service) to a central authority. The same conflict was also being played out on the larger scale of the Hly Roman Epire, that loose grouping of special obligations and exemptions which was the final residue of an earlier system of vassalage binding together the elected Emperor (who had been a Habsburg for several centuries) and the smaller rulerships of Central Europe. The religious reforms, rebellions and wars of the sixteenth century had produced a system that appeared to resolve some of the potential problems through the won privilege of cujus regio, eius religio ("whoever rules, his religion [is the religion of the ruled area]"). In the year of the war's inception, 1618, this new balance was very fragile, comprising four Catholic and three Protestant imperial Electors. In Germany the special arrangements regulating relationships between the Emperor (resident in Vienna or Prague) and local rulers and guaranteeing a great deal of political autonomy to the locals, especially the Protestant Electors, had been somewhat codified by the Augsburg Treaty of 1555, and were known as the "German Liberties". These would prove to be especially important to the three Protestant Electors at the outset of the war.

In the developing continental war one could be pro- or anti-Habsburg based on any one of the above factors or any combination of two or three of them. For example, a Catholic ruler (including the papacy) might seek Protestant allies in order to combat Habsburg territorial expansion in his direction or to combat constitutional changes in the Empire which affected his position adversely. Or a Protestant power might accept the Habsburg "program" in any given case because it did not wish to disturb constitutional arrangements that were to its advantage (this characterization is apt for Saxony and Brandenburg during the first twelve years of the war.)

As Wedgwood notes, all three considerations (religion, nationality, constitutional relations) could be and were used cynically to advance the positions and interests of individual rulers and factions. From the point of view of rationality or predictability, political choices and commitments were often self-contradictory (e.g., a Catholic power supporting a Protestant venture; a German Liberties party accepting occupation by the army of a foreign power, etc.) or temporary expedients that made the overall European situation more chaotic. The war began locally in Bohemia, but its complications and consequences radiated outward as far west as Spain and England (even farther, to the Caribbean naval theater), as far north as Sweden and northeast to Poland, as far south as Italy and southeast as Transylvania; in other words, it was a European continental war with global impact.

When the war broke out in 1618 it was over the Habsburg violation of a "constitutional guarantee" of religious freedom in Bohemia (the concessions stated in Rudolf II's Letter of Majesty). And here is where individual personalities and beliefs played an important role. Ferdinand II, who had knowingly violated the terms of the Letter soon after being selected by the Bohemian Diet as King (and therefore the first in precedence of the HRE Electors) was determined not only to expand the political powers of the Habsburg dynasty in Bohemia and elsewhere, he was firmly committed to the goals of the Catholic Counter-Reformation (i.e., re-Catholicizing all of the areas within the HRE which had become Protestant during the last one hundred years). When he was deposed by a special convention of the Bohemian estates (the defenestration of his deputies in Prague being the signal event of this deposition), the crown of Bohemia was offered to the Elector of the (Rhineland) Palatinate, Frederick V, who considered himself a champion of the Protestant cause. The religious zeal of these two antagonists led to extreme fixed positions at the very outset of the war.

Given the other major conflict hovering in the background -- the Spanish Habsburg determination to recover the now Protestant area of the Netherlands which had become the successful and defiant (Dutch) United Provinces - the war soon became international. While the entry of France and then Denmark followed by Sweden, into the war during the 1620's changed its nature and extended its duration, Wedgwood concentrates much of her analysis on the behavior of the two Protestant Electors, Johann Georg of Saxony and Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg and one Catholic ruler, Maximilian of Bavaria. It is her contention throughout the book that Johann Georg and Maximilian in particular could have prevented the war's spread and forced Ferdinand into a compromise very early in the course of events that acquired their own dynamism once they got out of hand. Despite their religious differences these two were always strong "German Liberties" proponents, and each had the same view of the Austrian Habsburg rulers: they should be kept for the broader protections they offered, but kept in place with respect to encroachments on the traditional rights of local rulers. In the end both of these rulers survived the lengthy war in spite of numerous diplomatic and military reversals (Saxony switched sides and joined the Swedes for several years, while Maximilian's position was constantly and secretly supported by his nominal enemies, the French, as their potential foot in the Habsburg camp.) Wedgwood believes that the price of their survival was far too costly for the rest of Germany.

Wedgwood's gloss on the changing nature of the conflict is that by the year 1635 the war had become one of great-power politics, and that the earlier religious and ideological causes were losing their ability to motivate the antagonists. Her summary of the changes emphasizes the following:

(a) Religion had discredited itself as a plausible source of political programs and a legitimate cause for war. Religion was becoming more interiorized and private, and losing ground philosophically and ethically to the new prestige of empirical and applied science (this was the era of Galileo and Kepler, with Descartes, Harvey, Hook, Newton, Huygens, etc. on the near horizon; a time of laboratory science and scientific societies.) As the basis of a political program religion was viewed cynically by those who saw the devastation it had brought about.

(b) For thinking men, nationalism began to fill the emotional void in public life left by the withdrawal of religion as the underlying motive for political and cultural action. This was very obvious in France, but even true of Ferdinand III, for whom the new main cause was the construction of an Austrian-based hereditary monarchy whose additional obligations as the Holy Roman Imperial protector of far-flung German Catholics were no longer perceived as worthwhile. In the minds of both Germans and Austrian Habsburgs the Holy Roman Empire was becoming an honorific entity with ambiguous and weak political commitments in Germany. The Elbe-North German-Pomeranian ideal empire of Wallenstein was never again revived as a dynastic program. Austria began to move south and east (toward Italy, Croatia, and Hungary) in its expansionist aims.

(c) The control of immense polyglot, multi-religious, mercenary armies and their huge camp followings had become a pressing matter of concern for all of the political authorities that hired them - they were neither religious nor national in their motives and aims and were in fact independent "mobile states" unto themselves, cynical and rapacious and often as dangerous to their paymasters as to their foes; whenever their immediate prospects for pay and maintenance looked bad, they changed sides. The most successful mercenary generals had become mini-sovereigns. Officers were all "out for themselves" and for their troops (rather than for the cause or nation of their paymaster), since without troop loyalty they had no means of personal advancement -- the most famous commanders, Ernst von Mansfeld, Wallenstein, Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar, the Swedish general Wrangel, all expected (and some received) grants of territory and titles of nobility as their rewards for service. The "national" armies of conscripts that came to the fore in the 18th century was the answer to this problem.

The pace of the war wound down during its last five years (although there were several major battles fought even then), which was a period of extended negotiatons in Münster and Osnabrück, with the "final treaty" being signed late in 1648. For the next five years a series of conferences met at Nürnberg to implement and enforce the peace treaty and to deal with difficult problems raised by demobilizing huge armies. Many of the loans of this period, which were raised to cover the demobilization costs, were not paid off for a century. Individual rulers such as Charles of Lorraine and the Duke of Savoy (who got nothing from the treaty) refused to vacate various fortresses for five or six years, but the war did not break out again. France and Spain continued at war with each other, but not in Germany. Numerous soldiers, especially officers, went into mercenary service all over Europe. Others took to the hills as professional bandits - for the next 20 years merchants traveled through certain parts of Germany and Bohemia in armed caravans.

Wedgwood accepts the more recent (1900-1930's) historical estimate that the population of the Imperial German lands (excluding Alsace and the Netherlands) dropped from about 21 million in 1618 to 13 million in 1648. The number of dislocated people was also substantial. While she acknowledges that the number of towns and villages destroyed and other "infrastructural" and economic losses were very large, she feels that all contemporary sources (e.g., the pamphlet literature of the next 100 years) exaggerated local losses, since all parties in the war continued to seek indemnities and restitution. The free peasantry benefited briefly, since landowners were desperate for manpower to restore their estates - prices fell while wages rose for a number of years, which increased the standard of living of peasants and artisans. But within a decade of the peace treaty the landowning gentry was pleading with Imperial, royal and local rulers to impose legal restrictions which would re-create bonded, serf-like conditions for peasants. Town councils now became pawns and bureaucrats of the dynastic courts of their rulers and also implemented restrictive legislations on peasants (e.g., prohibitions against mobility, domestic industry, and household craft production -- a trend which later historians refer to as "neo-serfdom"). Class stratification was as rigid as it was before the war started. There was a new, large class of mobile petty nobles and gentry seeking court-backed military and bureaucratic appointments, at the expense of town and peasant taxpayers.

Germany and the Austrian-based monarchy and empire were totally excluded from the international competition to establish overseas colonies and from the developing "Atlantic trade". For a number of years the outlets of Germany's major rivers (Rhine, Elbe, Oder, and for Brandenburg-Prussia, Vistula) were controlled by foreign powers, reducing Germany's commercial strength. Hamburg was the exception, becoming the major maritime merchant city of the North Sea coast, at the expense of the other Hanseatic cities and the Scandinavian powers. The only medium-sized German state to emerge with positive prospects was Brandenburg, soon to become the administratively efficient and militarily powerful Prussia. The peace, while ending the "wars of religion", set the stage for a long series of "nationalistic" wars that subsumed dynastic and religious sources of conflict. France replaced the Habsburg Spanish-Austrian coalition as the menacing and tyrannical continental power willing to disturb the peace. Austria turned to the south and east and Spain lost its great power status and became an economic and cultural backwater. There was no politically or culturally unified Germany within the boundaries of the old Empire (French culture began to reign supreme) and the cosmopolitanism (its openness to outside influences) of this area during the 18th century, instead of being a source of pride over its achievements, became a source of lament for later cultural and ethnic purists of revived German nationalism.

Author's Judgment and Conclusions: In terms of responsibility for the overall disaster, Wedgwood points to the futility and self-destructiveness of sincere religious zeal in the cases of Ferdinand II and the Elector Palatine. But, from the point of view of failures of practical (and ethical) politics, she highlights the behavior of Maximilian and Johann Georg, who could have prevented the spread of the conflict in 1620 and could have brought the war to an early end in 1635 if they had agreed to work together on a "unified German program" which would have forced Imperial compromises and concessions had they both stood behind it. Between these two she sees the Saxon as the greater victim of military circumstances (pressed by the Swedish juggernaut) and therefore less culpable for the mess, while she judges the Bavarian as too subtle and too ambitious in pursuit of his own dynastic and territorial ambitions at the expense of a general settlement good for his fellow Germans, thus identifying him as the more culpable.

Beautiful in its style and concision, Wedgwood's final summary is also gloomy (as one might expect of a work completed in 1939, on the verge of World War II):

"As there was no compulsion towards a conflict which, in despite of the apparent bitterness of the parties, took so long to engage and needed so much assiduous blowing to fan the flame, so no right was vindicated by its ragged end. The war solved no problem. Its effects, both immediate and indirect, were either negative or disastrous. Morally subversive, economically destructive, socially degrading, confused in its causes, devious in its course, futile in its result, it is the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict."

This was a well researched book. So I take it for pretty close to the truth. It gave a full and detailed impression of Jesse..Makes you really like him and find him quite interesting and intelligent. Gave an impression of how things were after the Civil War for most folks and the vast "kin" these people had. I thought it was also insturctive to find out what ever happened to Robert Ford. Yet, I felt that part of the book was a bit to long, even though new to me. In fact never even wondered what became of R. Ford. You will fully enjoy the funeral parts for Jesse.

I heard of the book through the film adaptation, and was amazed of the story that Hansen brought to readers. He does a fantastic job bring the old days of the American Wild West . Hansen shows the live of Jesse and his nature and the jealousy of Robert Ford. Hansen makes Ford appear timid at first but has him evolve into a dangerous mastermind.

This book is great for western readers and those who enloy novels that have been turned into feature films.

PARTY ON, DUDES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Look, I don't know how much of the "novel" THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD is true; I don't know how much of the dialogue and interaction and actions of the characters actually took place, or were embellished by a very gifted Ron Hansen.

But does it matter? The account of the final days of infamous outlaw Jesse James (and the subsequent final days of his killer) is "historical fiction", in any case (the definitive oxymoron, if you ask me). What does matter is this tightly written tale is as fun a read as I've come across in years. Hansen has vividly captured the flavor and pysche--and grit--of post-Civil War Americana. His prose recreates the flare and panache of the 19th Century dime novel; his book is heavily (and delightfully) populated by descriptive passages such as this:

'Zerelda gazed at Bob and mushed vegetables with zig-zag motions of her gums, her lips protruding like the clasp of a purse. She looked to Jesse and said, "I don't know what it is about him, but that boy can aggravate me more by just sitting still than most boys can by pitching rocks." '

Depicting the final train robbery of the notorious James Gang, followed by the band's break-up (and some of its members exited stage left involuntarily), THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD is a fascinating look inside the head of Jesse Woodson James--a calculating, diabolical killer, yet devoted and cherished family man. As a bonus, we get to climb around inside the head of Robert Newton Ford, an undistinguished nobody who yearned for attention. Surrounded by a cast of very colorful characters--most of whom die prematurely--this is a fabulous novel, an absorbing, entertaining read. Any truth, as they say, is somewhere in between.
--D. Mikels, Author, The Reckoning

Osborne's survey of the history of Western Civilization was a fascinating read, striking a perfect balance between presenting the facts of history and his provocative idea that the Western value of rationalism and its belief in the progression towards an ideal society has led Western civilization to commit some of the worst atrocities in history. Frankly, this book was life changing for me. I will never again be able to look at the brutalities committed by another nation, cultural group, or religious group and suspect that the inferiority of their belief system to the Western ideals of democracy and rational thought is somehow responsible. I still value these ideals, but I more deeply understand the danger of imposing them upon other nations and cultures. I grasp how our cultural values can be (and always have been) used to justify ends that actually have little to do with spreading the values of freedom and truth, but actually those other ingrained Western values of greed and arrogance.

The problem that the U.S. runs into as a nation built on the high ideals of equality and justice, is that we profess our belief that certain things are wrong, like torture and killing civilians, but then we change that view when it serves our interests. Most of us can agree that certain atrocities are unethical or immoral, like torture and murdering innocent people. When we start to make excuses for committing acts that we previously have found deplorable, we are in trouble. History has shown that we can commit genocide for gold (as the Conquistadors did) and justify it as ordained by God; we can enslave human beings and equate their dignity to that of a mule and justify it by denigrating the slaves' own culture and religion and calling their enslavement progress; we can incinerate hundreds of thousands of innocent people with a nuclear bomb and justify it as less painful than continued warfare; we can justify torture of both innocent and guilty Muslims as necessary to save the precious lives of Americans. But if we justify away our ideals and values, they were never more than an illusion anyway, just something to give us a false sense of our superiority to other individuals and nations that justified-away their own high ideals as well.

My big complaint with Osborne's book is the glaring omission of a discussion of the change in women's status in Western societies throughout history. Feminism got one sentence (nothing about suffrage) - equal to the attention given to Quentin Tarantino. No mention of the emergence of half the population into the political sphere from which they were previously forbidden. One vague sentence about the granting of the rights of choice and autonomy to women at levels previously unknown to humankind. I found this omission interesting given that the liberation of women in the 20th century might be one example of how the Western values of democracy and equality have been made a reality and positively impacted human rights in cultures worldwide.

very good with a somewhat negative view of the united states; can't help but mention the My lai massacre but not one mention of the greatest accomplishment of the 20th century-sending 12 men to the moon and returning them back to earth.

This book is well written. This is probably the only good thing that can be said about it. The content is the usual new age, liberal, "progressive", victimologist, pick your term, propaganda. Old (and long debunked) myths are cleverly woven into the well written narrative to make them appear common and uncontested knowledge.
There is the usual claim that middle eastern and pre-columbian societies didn't practice the same kind of indiscriminate violence that Europeans brought to them. Then, of course, Celts are good, Romans are bad. Greeks fighting for freedom? Pah, this was just propaganda. Why did the Greeks win? Economics, of course (Marx would be proud).
His explanation for Greeks' achievements? Alphabetical writing. Simple isn't it? He never pauses to explain how exactly did this work nor why other societies that discovered alphabetical or other kind of writing didn't achieve that much in such short time.
I stopped reading this book after the chapter about colonization of America. As expected it was full of the usual moralism (bad Spaniards poor natives) and empty of anything worth reading.
To conclude it's a pity that the author doesn't follow its own ruminations about how societies view on history is shaped by their preconceptions. It might have made him pause and consider how laughable his opinions might become in 2108.

On my car radio I heard Osborne being interviewed about this book and was induced to order it. Not being a history buff -- except for dabbling in specific topics like the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages and events like the battle at Agincourt (click on "See all my reviews") -- his book sounded like a good comprehensive survey. When it arrived I was encouraged by his Prologue wherein he sets his task as examining what western civilization means, not just in theory but in practice, by tracing the history of the western world. And I wasn't disappointed. His is a very scholarly yet readable survey principally of Europe from prehistoric times up to the present day.

Having lived over two-thirds of the past century, I felt able to judge his assessment of that history -- and by extension to surmise the veracity of the rest of his western history. He gets high marks from me on his history but what about his conclusions regarding the meaning of `civilization' as he set out to examine? I think he falters on that question.

In my book Concepts: A ProtoTheist Quest for Science-Minded Skeptics I take a less detailed but much longer view, tracing the history of our Universe from the Big Bank to the present, and even beyond, in order to gauge evolution's trajectory. True, as Keynes famously observed, "In the long run we are all dead," but our progeny won't be (unless we really screw up)! So it seems to me, with our runaway materialism, we're acting like shortsighted adolescents rather than farsighted parents, concerned about our progeny's future. Today it seems that the only criterion in decision-making is financial, but those who measure their lives in money are indeed very poor in what really counts in life. Yet decisions based on archaic teachings can be just as calamitous.

In his final chapter, Osborne elaborates on these trends. He cites many current examples of misguided or one-sided strategies to help us better see what's happening in our world. He doesn't prescribe solutions; indeed in the end he seems wary of broad solutions instead favoring local actions. So I can recommend reading Osborne's book to understand the problems with our current mentality, but then read mine for a comprehensive worldview which we might each embrace to guide both our long- and short-range decisions.

Osborne's book opens with a nineteen-page "Prologue", which is a helpful summary of his thesis that contributes useful coherence to the remaining 473 pages of historical narrative. The book also has a bibliography for further reading and an index.

In his "Prologue" the author notes that the events of 9/11 and their aftermath have brought the vague idea of Western civilization, a reflection of who we are and what we value, into the foreground, as what we are defending in the war on terror.

But he adds that civilization is not merely a set of virtuous concepts; it is also the effects that these concepts have generated in history, and he therefore offers a historical approach to understanding the meaning of civilization.

From the time of the ancient Greeks civilization has been opposed to the barbarianism of other societies. Western historians have typically attempted to trace a thread of European civilization from ancient Greece, through Rome, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and into the nineteenth-century society of the British Empire. And this thread was spun with optimism and the idea of progress.

But the needless and futile carnage of World War I changed the idea of European civilization to one that carries pessimism and the negation of the idea of progress. Freud said of the First World War "It is not that we sank so low, but that we never came so high as we thought." Thus barbarism is not others, but rather is in each man with his base and brutal instincts that can never be expunged, so every man is both civilized and barbarian. Osborne sees this pessimism as a throwback to St. Augustine, who wrote: "Take away the barriers created by laws, men's brazen capacity to do harm, their urge to self-indulgence, would rage to the full."

Osborne's thesis is not a new historical interpretation. For example in his book Rococo to Revolution: Major Trends in Eighteenth-Century Painting (World of Art) (1969), Michael Levey of King's College, Cambridge University, wrote that that the eighteenth century - from Watteau to Goya - saw a violent collision of opposing forces, which was at base a clash between the conscious and the unconscious mind - a very Freudian approach. And he notes that after the fall of the Bastille, optimism and belief in nature as a guide were shot to pieces by the fusillades that followed and that continued to Waterloo.

Nonetheless I enjoy reading a history with a thesis more than reading a chronology of tedious details.

Thomas J. Hickey