Westerns Books

A good introduction to beginning an understanding of a philosopher that has a complex and insightful approach to power relations, and ways of viewing human history. However, this is a basic introduction - and one shouldn't hope for a thorough review of the works of Foucault. I think this is a book that invites anyone interested to pick up a further book on Foucault to follow on and learn more.

As a beginner, the book presents Foucault as a documenter - discussing and disecting the history of power and professional relations. He covers knowledge and power, sexuality, prisons, mental health.... The span is enormous, highlighting Foucault's multidisciplinary reputation.

The downside of the book (indeed a limit of the Manga-like series) is it spends too much time on Foucault's role as as a chronicler of data, and leaves the reader on their own for much of his conclusions. An example: the book talks of Foucault's description of the medical clinic and doctor's "Gaze" but the book doesn't share if Foucault thought this was good or bad. Given Foucault's well deserved reputation as a complicated writer, this beginner could use the help.

This is by far the best intro to Foucault I've read. Thinking like Foucault use lots of complex language and have really complex ideas, but this book explains those ideas in a very easy-to-understand way. It's short, so you'll be finished quickly, but you will get a really good (introductory) sense of Foucault's entire project. That sense will stick with you pretty well, too, because every page is illustrated. This is an important thinker, and I can't imagine a better introduction. Read it.

Beginners books sets out to simplify Foucaults work and essentially does so. Sometimes almost too simple. I enjoyed the material, as I had no clue what Foucault was about previous to reading, however, I also felt the writing was a little too sparse. The pictures are nice, which makes this series attractive, yet, they filled the page often with splash words and large fonts which sometimes seemed unnecessary or only to fill a page. Regardless, the text is good and informative and reccomended for anyone who is interested in reading Foucault for the first time but does not know where to begin.

I picked up this book to help me prepare for a short presentation I had to give on Foucault. Since I had very little time to do reasearch (only 2 weeks), reading through a book such as Discipline and Punish or even the Foucault Reader was out of the question. This was a great introduction to Foucault's general theories, and it included brief synopses of specific works. The writing style is quick-to-the-point and full of light humor, and the comic book style added to this feeling. I especially enjoyed the way this book used certain stories and situations to put some of Foucault's points into "lamens terms". It also tells you which of Foucault's books make the best starting points, for anyone who wants to read "the real thing".

I will agree with some of the other reviewers that some of the explanations were a little TOO brief, but that's to be expected with such a short book. Despite this minor imperfection, I was able to walk away completely understanding the major points of Foucault's study. Not to be counted on as a single source, this book is best used as an introduction, or a companion, to the works of Foucault.

This is a pathbreaking book that explores the unstable frontier between what we consider human and what we still define as animal. This book paves the way for other attempts to discuss this crucial difference which has been relatively unexplored. Agamben achieves a genealogy of the anthropological machine (as he calls it) from the Hebrew Bible to Heidegger and Foucault. I wonder why he didn't explore another barrier that this book also leaves open: the difference between human and machine, which usually accompanies the problematization of the diad animal-human (think about Junger's organische konstruktion and
Spengler Der Mensch und die Technik). This is an intelligent and well written book although I wish it would have been longer. Why not an essay on Aristotle's zoon politikon or on Nietszche's blond beast? I guess I will have to wait for his next book.

A magisterial meditation on the question of the "human" -- used as an adjective. This short book is Agamben's 'Duino Elegies': thalassically poetic and swirling with thought that hovers, indifferent to the gravity of common sense.

The title refers to Heidegger's term for the possibility of Dasein but Agamben is not doing a pro-Heidegger critique here. The Italian is thinking against the German: Agamben mentions that Heidegger was in fact the harshest separator of man and animal in modern thought, denying animals the very possibility of ever seeing the OFFEN (Open) that is (supposedly) available to man alone. But forget Heidegger--the book's not about him. Agamben questions the very ground of Western thought that made it possible for Marty to make such an inhumane declaration at all.

Agamben's meditation begins with a medieval illustration that depicts the world after the end of the world (post-judgment) in which all the Saved are shown with various animal heads. Agamben wants to know what to make of this strange, unexplained overlapping of man and animal.
And so he weaves a series of tales -- each only a few pages long and Kafkaesque in their brevity, mysteriousness, and flash of insight -- of how the idea that man and animal are two separate categories of being came to be. He weaves by unraveling the secret codes, the invisible knots that have held, and still hold, the most basic assumptions that drive Western thought, beginning with theology / philosophy and now, the bio-sciences.

I was startled to learn how seemingly silly hair-splitting arguments of the theologians concerning the resurrected body could be so consequential later in the modern age in the formulation (and separation) of man and animal. An example: Would the intestines of the resurrected be full or empty? If full, then what to do about the problem of excrement in the Kingdom of God? If empty, is it because they are no longer needed? And if that is the case, what have them at all? Etc.
(BTW, it was decided that there would be no animals in Heaven.)

Agamben continues here what he began in his earlier works -- namely the meaning and consequence of NAKED or RAW LIFE, devoid of any qualifiers, such as "human" such that a "human" being becomes just a living thing.
Agamben states that his purpose is to expose and figure out a way to stop what he calls the 'anthropological machine' whose rise and history made possible the most "logical" outcome of such thinking: The Holocaust. But Agamben does not limt the phenomenon of the Holocaust only to what happened to the Jews --he extends it the entire spectrum of modern political thinking that permits the stripping of human beings of humanity. (See HOMO SACER.)

Having said all that, I must confess, one cannot possibly do justice to this book by summarizing Agamben's little molecules of thought, so compact and phosphorescent are they.

Since I recently moved to North Carolina, spending my free time towards the mountains became a must. Carolyn has saved me countless hours of researching where to go and what to do. I am glad to find such an informative book.

This will lead you to interesting places that are mostly not well known. The views are stunning. A hiker on the Appalachian Trail said the view from Wayah Bald is the best on the trail. The only problem we had is that road numbers have been changed to names, but most of the numbers were still in fine print on the signs.

This guidebook, unlike most, is so encyclopedic in scope that I give it as a gift to newcomers to the area. It is also an invaluable reference for the visitor who wants to see more than the fabulous Biltmore Estate. Even though I am a native of the area, I learned nearly everything I know about Western North Carolina from this book alone and it is my primary reference. I am still amazed at how much fact, history and folklore [just enough to bring alive the curve of the road, the odd landmark, the abandoned building] is packed in its 300 pages. The author, who must have collapsed from exhaustion when she finished it, takes you on a detailed tour, laid out by the tenth of the mile, of carefully drawn sections of backroads that you can follow leisurely without getting lost. The author is completely absent from the text. The lucid style will please readers who want the facts, not editorial comment. This book, as well as the others in this publisher's backroads series, makes an excellent gift for anyone, especially the many seniors who have relocated, or are considering relocating to this fascinating region. It is also a valuable reference for natives, like me, who didn't know how much they didn't know.

I was introduced to this book by a friend and ended up buying the whole series! If you want to know more about western NC and spend your days enjoying a well written dialog that accurately directs you to place the other guides don't even mention, Buy this book. If you want a restaurant guide look elsewhere. I can wholeheartedly recommend the entire series from this publisher. Similar to the "off the beaten path" series only better, written by life long residents that obviously love their home state!

I spent time reading this book.It was fun at the begining then it became a little bit confusing. some chapters are excellents others are not so easy to follow and sometimes boring.I think the exercises should have a model answers for some of the question.The auther kept refering to two examples he gave at the begining of the book in most of the chapters;I think it would have been better if he had more examples .

After reading a few books with argument or debate in the title, I finally found one that I really like. In fact I liked it so much that I am buying his other books about the subjects he covers in these chapters. He seems to take the state of the Art in informal Logic and argument studies and makes it easy to read for the lay person. In my opinion he does a better job of explaining the concepts that van Eemeren and Grootendorst write about than they do. If you are looking for a serious book about argument, and don't want to wade through the details of competitive debate preparation or the seminar style 'how to win an argument' self-help books then look no further. Douglas Walton is involved in developing algorithms behind aspects of Artificial Intelligence and many of his books are listed in the bibliography on the nonsequitur(dot)com blog (a logical analysis of political media). Check out his downloadable articles on his website. You can find it through Google.

Patricia Curd brings together the major Presocratic philosophers in this petite reader. Inside are fragments related to the individual authors from a wide variety of texts such as "Lives of the Philosophers" and Plutarch's "Table Talk" which cuts down research time by a huge bit.

All in all this is a great reference for in depth study and perusal of the Presocratics' ideologies.

I found it very interesting to read many of the ideas that the ancient philosophers had about various subjects. It is interesting to compare the ideas to what we know today.

This book was very helpful in deciding what to see on a recent trip to Yellowstone. I really liked that it had what to do if you only have one or two days in the park and then went much more in depth if you have more time.

This book helped us alot! The information is detailed and just what we wanted. We only were in Yellowstone for 2 days, so we wanted to see all we could, and there is a chapter that is just for that. You can use this kind of like a tour guide. It tells you what you'll see, some history (not too much though), what to expect, etc. It was VERY helpful. We also used this is Grand Teton. The book also give you ideas where to eat and stay (we used the dining info, we had already made our lodging plans before I got the book). I highly recommend this book. I also purchased the Bryce and Zion book, as we were going there too on this vacation.

I found it very helpful in mapping out our trip that we will take this summer. great insight into where to stay and eat.

This book was not what I expected - I would not recommend it at all. It stayed in the car packed away. I also bought Scenic Driving Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, 2nd (Scenic Driving Series) and Outdoor Family Guide to Yellowstone & Grand Teton National Parks (Outdoor Family Guides) which were excellent.

We bought this book, but ended up using other guides. It is a fine reference for some people, but I'd recommend:
Yellowstone Treasures: The Traveler's Companion to the National Park (Great for more in-depth research)
and
National Geographic Road Guide to Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks (NG Road Guides) (Quick roadside reference)
instead.

I am a huge Diana Palmer fan, and have read everything she has ever written. I usually lover her books and there is usually no question the book is going to be well written , have a great story line and good flow. This book was definately the exception. While reading the book I kept waiting for the story line to get interesting but it just never happen. I took me a very long time to get through this book and when I finally did I felt like I had just wasted my time and money. I even went so far as to return the book because it was so bad. I was sadly disappointed. So anyone reading this review I'm not knocking Diana Palmer's books just this one. Any other book written by Mrs. Palmer is well worth the money spent on it just not "Trilby"

I thought this book was well worth the purchase. It was one of those books you start and have to keep reading until the happy ending.

I had a hard time getting through this book because of all the characters and the sub-plots. I was so bored with Trilby's brother and his love interest I skipped through allot of the book. I never do that with a Diana Palmer book!
I must say I was disappointed in the writing also, just not her best. Don't recommend. Gave it three stars because it was Diana Palmer.

The story was nice. It had a lot of history in it, so you also get an education on the war of 1910. Thorn is a good, strong character. Betrayed by his wife, its easy to know why he doesnt have a lot of trust in women. Trilby is a very weak character at the beginning but starts to flourish a little in the middle and end. However, there are so many characters in this book that sometimes you forget you are reading about Trilby and Thorn. Theres Naki, Sissy, Ben, Richard, Julie, Lisa, Selina, Powell, Jack, etc. the list goes on. Overall a good love story, i liked it, but i would have liked it even better if Diana would have stuck with the war education and Trilby/Thorn instead of looking like a 5 in 1 book.

This book should not be penalized because the first reviewer didn't get the right story! "Trilby" is a terrific story, with a strong heroine, engaging secondary characters and fascinating history. I devoured it in a weekend because I wanted to know if everyone got their happy endings, and I was not disappointed. Palmer is an amazing talent, able to write contempory romance *and* historicals with the same spice and drama. This one is a keeper for sure.

I will agree with a number of the other reviewers that this book was rather shallow, but that's the way the book was meant. A "very short introduction" is just that -- a quick hit. If you want to know more about philosophy, take this book as point A and use the suggested reading list as point B and then go on from there. The only real problem I have with the book is the author's treatment of C.S. Lewis. He takes a quote from him completely out of context (Lewis wasn't speaking of Darwinism, but basic morality) and then criticizes the misinterpretation. This is really just a cheap jab at christianity and I've sadly come to expect it from most of what I read these days.

I bought this book to introduce this topic to one of my 10th grade English students. We will then get into the next book (Logic: A Very Short Introduction, same publisher). So far, the student is enjoying the books, and he is not intimidated by these friendly, paperback books as he is with the larger, hardbound college-type textbooks.

I agree with much of the positive reviews below, so I won't repeat their points. Edward Craig does an excellent job to familiarize the reader with the discipline of philosophy by way of looking at snapshots of philosophers that represent key aspects of philosophy. What Craig does present, he presents clearly and succinctly, and he certainly stimulates interest in the subject. So the book happily succeeds as an introduction.

While "biased" may be too strong a term to describe the book, it may suffer a bit from being a bit selective in topic coverage, although this is forgivable given the introductory nature of the book. Particularly, the absence of any discussion about the existence of God is striking, as it is a perennial topic in Western philosophy and a very lively one. Someone like Thomas Aquinas would have been a perfect philosopher to reference on this topic, especially given the lack of medieval philosophers represented by Craig. Incidentally, he does quote Aquinas, but it is a statement about animals, which is surely more obscure than his well known arguments for the existence of God. Furthermore, if Craig's goal was to present primarily philosophy that argues from reason rather than sacred texts, Acquinas' and others' arguments for God's existence (as well as detractors' rebuttals) would surely have been a better fit than a Scriptural reference.

All in all, though, Craig's book is only meant to be a sampling of philosophy, and such gaps do not take away much from the overall value of the book because Craig is so good at digesting and summarizing philosophers' thoughts for newbies.

I suppose one cannot expect too much of a book which aims only to be a "very short introduction", but I did expect a little more than this book gave. I read through it at the request of a friend who wanted to know whether this would give him an adequate starting point for some philosophical reading, as he's entirely new to the field. I found myself shaking my head over most of the book, although certainly there are some portions of the writing which are impartial and informative.

However, as a GENERAL overview, I can't recommend this book. It often bears a rather patronising tone, and in the very first chapter declares its own bias without realising it does so. The examination of the Platonic work is superficial; the discussion of Humes' work is given an extraordinary weighting without reference to other philosophical works pertinent to that discussion; the Indian dialogue is treated in a lopsided fashion; and so on. If discussion of these selections (which are in themselves odd choices in an introductory work) can only be maintained at so superficial a level, better they had been dropped altogether. I am strongly of the opinion that the questions and topics raised in the selections (some of which were not even mentioned) deserve either more elaborate treatment or should be given many more possible interpretations so as to avoid laying a personal interpretation upon the ideas of the writers thus represented.

At no point is the reader to be permitted to make up his mind when it comes to Humes, for instance.

The writing style is simple and clear. This will appeal to some readers. The examples are shallow - again, this will appeal to some readers. The reader is guided into following the writer's own viewpoint - this is what one would expect of a philosopher's own work, not of what purports to be an overview or introduction, which ought of necessity to be more disinterested.

This will appeal to those who have little or no experience with reading Plato themselves, or who have never sat down to embark upon a course of reading including Kant, Freud, Thomas Aquinas, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, C.S. Lewis, Stephen Meyer, Descartes, Rousseau, etc. I can't even say this is a good introductory book. It is a good book in terms of presenting some of the philosophical ideas or works that have influenced its writer.

But even as an introduction, it walks too narrow a path along the shoreline, where only certain waves are permitted to splash and which certainly does not delve into any depths.

This little book is a gem. A couple of reviews here are too hard on this a 125 page tour. I came to this book as somewhat of a philosophy novice unlike, it seems, a couple of the disappointed reviewers here, so my perspective may be naïve, but the book did it's job for me and then some. Early on Craig correctly recommends reading slowly, because he packs a lot into the short tour. Apologies to a previous reviewer who found it shallow, keep in mind it's a large task for a small book.

If you know nothing of philosophy, I'd recommend first, as Craig does also, Thomas Nagel's "What Does It All Mean". My first read was Bertrand Russell's "History of Western Philosophy" which was too much for a beginner, although it did give me a sense of the history of western thought as it was intended. Russell's "The Problems of Philosophy" would have been a better start, but Russell can be a bit technical for the beginner.

Craig's book is not so much an intro to the problems of philosophy as a whirlwind tour of the major ideas that encompass western (and some eastern) thought, beginning with Plato, jumping to Hume and touching on some of the authors favorites: Descartes, Hegel, Nietzsche, and the impact of Darwin. He discusses some themes and introduces some "isms". He recommends readings along the way, and the end provides a list of other recommended intro and intermediate texts. He wraps it up with a chapter titled, "What's in it for whom": The individual; The priesthood; The working class; Women; Animals.

Craig did an excellent job piquing my interest in further readings. His enthusiasm for the subject matter is obvious.