Book Description
First published in 1946, this autobiography of the well-known Filipino poet describes his boyhood in the Philippines, his voyage to America, and his years of hardship and despair as an itinerant laborer following the harvest trail in the rural West. Bulosan does not spare the reader any of the horrors that accompanied the migrant's life; but his quiet, stoic voice is the most convincing witness to those terrible events.
Customer Reviews:
A beautifully-told tale of tragedy...........2007-06-10
I first read AMERICA IS IN THE HEART as a young teenager in high school. Writer Carlos Bulosan goes the semi-autobiographical route to re-examine some of the most painful memories of his life, starting as a youth in the Philippines up to his last days on the West Coast of the United States. Carlos Bulosan, born on November 24, 1913 in Pangasinan, Philippines, came from a very poor background. His family had no choice but to work, collectively, while he and his siblings toiled in the fields of Pangasinan, and abroad in the United States, just so they could [barely] subsist on their earnings and scrap by.
The main character, Allos, must relocate to the United States, to find work in various odd jobs (including the canneries of California and Washington state). He is faced with racism from all sides--Caucasians, exploitative Chinese and Japanese bosses, and just about everyone else. The darker your skin, the harder the discrimination fell on workers of the 1930s and 1940s. This came with strict laws again miscygenation. If you were Filipino, just speaking to a White woman could get you in a lot of hot water. Yet, in the face of all of this pain, Allos becomes involved as a labor organizer and demonstrator for the rights of exploited laborers. What's more, he meets and is reunited with friends and family, over the course of the story, and even finds friendship with a Caucasian woman, Mary.
AMERICA IS IN THE HEART beautifully recounts the pain that faced countless laborers who arrived in the United States to bring in income for their families, in their countries. Many of the passages read like poetry, yet remain very accessable to people for whom the concept of the plight of migrant workers is a fairly foreign concept. Great reading.
Voice to FilAms.......2006-11-26
I first read this book for a Filipino History class at UCLA in 1991. I read it again this year and have appreciated it more. Age and the fact that I re-read it for pleasure this time around can make a difference.... Though I do miss the book discussion at UCLA.
What I love about "America is in the Heart" is that the book gives voice to Filipino Americans, particularly to the forgotten ones from the early part of last century. Just like the Filipino American War, only a few knows about this chapter of American History. The struggles and successes of this group of Filipino men should be heard and this book gives good account of their experiences.
My own thoughts/reflections on America..........2004-09-10
This book tells the story of Allos (or Carlos) Bulosan - from his early days as a peasant child in the Phillipines to his days as an itinerant laborer and reformer for the Filipinos in America. This autobiography reflects the hard life of a persecuted nationality. With no rights to own agricultural land and the risks of being beaten for even conversing with a white women, Filipinos were despised along the West Coast and treated as criminals and monkeys. With no legal recourse or organizations, Filipino workers were often exploited by the contractors and the Chinese and Japanese who owned the gambling houses and whorehouses. This exploitation led many to drinking and violence, only to aggravate the hatred of their kind. Bulosan tells of the brutalities endured by Filipinos at the hands of the white community and of the terrors of disease and unemployment. How many times did Bulosan have to hear "You're fired!" after trying to stand up for himself and his people.
One thing that struck me about the book was the concept of meeting your siblings when you're old enough to remember it. Having grown up with my older sister always at my side, the first scene in which he firsts meets his older brother, Leon seemed very foreign to me. It brought home the point that working families didn't always have the luxury of living together. To survive, each family member had to contribute whether it was working the fields or selling goods in the market, but it meant that the whole family was not united. This family never seemed to be fully together, at least one sibling or parent was always away, trying to do their part. It was hard for me to really relate to that, although I certainly felt for them.
Another concept that I noticed was the sense of time in the book. While Carlos was in America, I never really grasped how much time was passing, and it seemed that Carlos himself didn't either. When reflecting, he often wondered at how many years it had been since he arrived in Seattle. Even after reading the book, I'm not sure exactly of the years that this autobiography covers, although I'm given a few references to historical events and figures. While years seemed to be pass by unnoticed, Carlos writes of an "acute sense of time" because he has to focus on the present just to survive. He writes, "yesterday seemed long ago and tomorrow was too far away. It was today that I lived for aimless, this hour - this moment." That to me was an interesting contrast.
Carlos also wrote of the conflicting visions of America - how it could be so cruel at times, while certain aspects could be so kind. He could not understand the country that terrorized his people, and yet contained some people so willing to help. The violence and pain Carlos experienced made him fear even himself - that he would not be able to contain his rage and would last out. He was afraid of his own brutality, even when he longed for goodness and love in the country of opportunity.
This book is filled with names and places, and it is often difficult to remember exactly who's who or what happened in which city. As Carlos travels all along the West Coast and meets a great many people. Surprisingly to me, his world seems small, as he meets most of his friends and companions multiple times during his travels. Seemingly by chance, he encounters his brothers who came to America before him. Maybe it was vastly different then, but I have a hard time imagining that continuous traveling on the coast would lead you to your family and friends as often as it did for Carlos. However, since the Filipinos were confined to certain districts, I guess it shouldn't be so surprising.
The last parts of the book relate Carlos' experience in trying to organize the Filipino labor movement, and his intellectual emergence as a writer. Throughout this section, Carlos regains his faith in America, as he meets more people fighting for his people and reads dozens of books proving that situations can get better and uneducated people can write the story of their people and their struggles. America became a part of Carlos - through it's land and his struggles and successes in it. He wanted desperately to help America grow into the country he knew it could be, and he sacrificed so much for America. His hopes were contained within America, and so America was contained within him.
The subaltern has spoken........2003-08-17
Writing a review of Carlos Bulosan's AMERICA IS IN THE HEART is a deceptively difficult thing to do. What gives? It is an easy read, very straightforward, and well articulated. On the surface, the ARCHIVE (in the Foucault sense) point to a death by a broken heart. However, closer examination points to a death brought on by the collective affliction, deprivation, and maltreatment since his arrival in the early 30s - not to mention the bouts of excessive drinking and violence. The book, moreover, leans toward a united effort to combat global fascism; but this poignant autobiography is really a testimony to those years of struggle against racism and violence.
An autobiography in four parts, Bulosan takes us back (literally and figuratively) to his roots in Binalonan, Pangasinan. Bulosan is keen to intimate his adolescent years were his family barely survived on four hectares of land (which they eventually lost to the moneylender and the absentee landlords) and the efforts of the DYNAMIC LITTLE PEASANT WOMAN. In the end, things just got SO BAD that the men (most barely boys) in the clan eventually opted for the promise of jobs and such in America. This begs the question (and often overlooked by scholars) that the suffering really started at home. His habitus was so bad, it seems, that despite the ravages he (and his direct kin as well as kababayans) experienced, they elected to remain in the US. That seems to be the common plight of most immigrants to the US - and I say this guardedly.
At this point, I would like to juxtapose the optimism and the rage that formed the collective consciousness of Carlos Bulosan and his inability to reconcile the contradiction.
AMERICA IS ALSO THE NAMELESS FOREIGNER, THE HOMELESS REFUGEE, THE HUNGRY BOY BEGGING FOR A JOB AND THE BLACK BODY DANGLING ON A TREE. AMERICA IS THE ILLITERATE IMMIGRANT WHO IS ASHAMED THAT THE WORLD OF BOOKS AND THE INTELLECTUAL OPPORTUNITIES IS CLOSED TO HIM.
WE ARE ALL THAT NAMELESS FOREIGNER, THE HOMELESS REFUGEE, THAT HUNGRY BOY, THAT ILLITERATE IMMIGRANT AND THAT LYNCHED BLACK BODY. ALL OF US, FROM THE FIRST ADAMS TO THE LAST FILIPINO, NATIVE BORN OR ALIEN, EDUCATED OR ILLITERATE. WE ARE AMERICA!
Carlos Bulosan, excerpt from AMERICA IS IN THE HEART
Almost echoing the angst of Richard Wright, Bulosan and his proletarian experience is translated quickly to a racism tour-de-force. It cuts right into the heart of his critique. Despite being laced with communist verbiage, the autobiography is a critique against the savagery of prejudice. The subaltern has spoken. We simply need to take heed.
One of the most compelling or fascinating issues brought up in AMERICA IS IN THE HEART is the issue of gender discrimination. The laws prohibiting marriage to white women by so-called Mongolian (and later changed to include Malay) was to exacerbate the racist problems. What is the REAL impact on the psyche of a law such as this? What are the long-term effects of ignorant eugenic laws such as these? Who knows?
Despite the clarity of the writing, it would seem that the book was written in good faith but it certainly fumbles from a lack of sophistication (which does not pose a problem for me). I don't think Bulosan meant this work to be representative of the entire Filipino-American experience but it certainly suffers an editorial/historical problem. Bulosan certainly edits his experience. Punctuated with a sense of disgust for the human experience it makes me feel that he lacks pathos. In terms of the veracity of the entire book, I have no problem believing the accuracy of the experience but history is already removed one step to us via the writer and one more step removed again by the writer to his actual experience. We may never get to the REAL truth and the REAL extent of the violence. However, if but one experience of violence against a Filipino AS SUCH, or a denial of lodging to a Filipino AS SUCH (or any group for that matter) is accurate then an injustice has occurred. We as a body politic should take note. AMERICA IS IN THE HEART is therefore a book that is also a call for collective agency.
To re-iterate, this book may not be fully representative of the PINOY experience and certainly Bulosan should be read carefully. It is an indictment on a negative social condition - where one man can create an OTHER in a society that plays up universal brotherhood. Not to trivialize the concern, this is not an uncommon malady. The question that begs to be asked is: Does Bulosan write AS IF he is writing about the whole truth?
In closing, Bulosan is a necessary read because it augments the selection of the Asian-American experience in general and ethnic studies in general. It is a deep and cutting exploration into a Filipino experience - it adds to the complexity of identity creation. If anything, this book is a pause to be self-reflective of the past for both the SAME and the OTHER. In loving memory to a brave kababayan...
Miguel Llora
A Tragic Attempt at Tragedy.......2003-05-28
Those looking for an uplifting read need to look elsewhere; Bulosan's "America..." reads like a laundry list of suffering and hopelessness. Bulosan writes powerfully, compellingly and beatifully, but he would have been better off sticking to his own story instead of trying to create a composite.
With tragedy so frequently present nowadays, it doesn't seem hard to believe that Bulosan's protagonist would experience so much tragedy (extreme poverty, deaths, heartbreak in every sense of the word, a severely debilitating disease, etc., etc.). A closer reading reveals that he has indeed created a composite, mashing the numerous hard-luck stories of the Filipino migrant workers of that time into a single person's life. It is difficult to believe, but if you can get beyond that fact, "America..." proves a depressing read with important historical weight, chronicling the ups and mostly downs of the Filipino migrant, with a progression from childhood to the life's winding down phase.
I lent this book to my grandfather, who lived at approximately the same time, and could very well have been in the provincial areas, practicing the customs Bulosan described. It was extremely disappointing but enlightening to have him give the book a thumbs down based on accuracy. Many descriptions of the hardships of not only Bulosan but those around him, particularly in the Philippines, were much too tragic for my grandfather to take, although he had suffered plenty in his childhood.
Often in writing stories, reality is much more interesting than fiction; by trying to unrealistically include everyone's experiences as one individual's trial does create an unbelievable tale, that will be even more difficult for those unaccustomed to the goings-on and atmosphere of a third-world country.
Bulosan's work is important as it is one of the select pieces of Filipino-American literature that has made the rounds in universities and literary circles, and that it covers an often forgotten group and struggle in American history. However, his attempt to create an all-encompassing experience within a single character is his downfall. A read recommended with a grain of salt.
Book Description
This book is highly entertaining, but it also provides significant insight into contemporary life in America. Caudron reveals why people are indulging in their fanatical passions, and how that indulgence is transforming community life.
Customer Reviews:
Searching for passion.......2007-09-03
I loved reading this book. Shari's writing style hooked me in the introduction. She chose fascinating subjects. Her insights were wonderful and she used her journalist's curiosity to ask great questions while avoiding judgement. I learned a lot from the book. I think Shari's passion is in learning new things. I am sure she can find a conference hosted by those with a similar hobby!
Likeable author on misguided mission.......2007-03-04
I took to Shari as a person who was very outfront about her own perceived flaw of a life lacking in passionate persistence at hobbies; she right away reveals many other personal proclivities that helped win my trust and affection. But after the first few chapters reporting on assorted offbeat hobbyist groups, I felt I wasn't learning anything terribly interesting or being well entertained. I think we all instinctively know there any number of people in our own hometowns with idiosyncratic recreational interests; it seemed contrived for Shari to have fashioned a 3-year cross country oddysey to 'discover' that there are groups obsessively dedicated to their Barbie doll collections or to memorizing trivia from, and re-enacting episdoes of, their long-gone favored TV sit-coms. A catalog of a dozen or so peculiar pastimes and some cursory chats with a few ardent devotees is suitable for a quick magazine-length read; the heft required to make a book-worthy effort takes far more passionate digging than Shari musters here. An excellent example of a superlative book about the addictiveness of an offbeat hobby is Dan Koeppel's "To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, A Son, and a Lifetime Obsession" -- for which I gave a 5-star review.
Good but not great.......2007-02-23
This is a good book and gives good info about stuff that is not vital information. Enjoyable reading but "put-downable".
interesting and entertaining.......2007-01-21
I'll be honest..when this book arrived in my mailbox, I wasn't overly excited about reading it. You know that old saying "don't judge a book by its cover?" Well, I didn't do that exactly, in fact I think the cover is interesting in this case. I did however, judge the book by its subtitle.
"A Personal Journey Into the Heart of Fanatical Passion in America."
Oh. Swell.
I think I was supposed to read this is a sociology class in college or something..
All that said, imagine my surprise when after reading the first few pages I wasn't miserably bored. Not only was I not miserably bored, I was sincerely entertained. Mental note to self, never judge a book by its subtitle.
The author, Shari Caudron, is sharp--she's intelligent, witty and borderline sarcastic, and as a result the stories she shares in her book made me smile.
Shari felt she had no passion in her life. All around her she noticed fanatically obsessed people and wondered why she didn't have a passion of her own. She set out on a journey to discover who these people were, and what exactly it was that made them tick.
Her book details hobbies such as collecting Barbie dolls, board gaming, pigeon racers and of course the imfamous trekkers. Over the course of three years she ventures around the county to meet these people and experience their passions first hand. The result is this book which made me laugh and shake my head in amusement, for I too have witnessed these people in their elements. This book is about the quirkiness of our fellow Americans, and its an entertaining subject to read about.
My suggestion to the author though..maybe rethink that subtitle.
Interesting and informative.......2006-11-06
The book was a good insite into interests that people have that I did not
have any first hand knowledge of.
Customer Reviews:
Patriotism in the Face of Prejudice.......2000-08-30
I was presented this book as a gift and what a wonderful gift it was. Written in the first-person, the book exemplifies the attitudes of both the Issei (first-generation Japanese immigrants) and the Nisei (second-generation, American-born Japanese). Each story, written by both well-known individuals and everyday soldiers, tells of a fascinating time in U.S. history. I guarantee that each reader will find at least one individual story that will be forever be ingrained in their minds.
Outstanding Hawaiian Heritage History.......2000-08-03
I couldn't put this book down! I bought it as a gift to my daughter's best friend of Japanese Hawaiian descent. I read half before we could giftwrap it! Written in first person, autobiographical chapters, it is easy flowing and deeply personal to each author. The stories portray early 1900s Hawaii history through the nisei WWII experiences. Included, are stories of Hawaiian Japanese family life, pride and shame, commitment and loyalty. Dedicated to Hawaii's unique history, this book is greatly undercirculated in mainland America! Thank you to the Hawaii Nikkei History Editorial Board for sharing these people and their lives! I loved it!
Average customer rating:
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Cry Heart
Lee Jacob
Manufacturer: John Culler & Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Civil War
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Confederacy
| Civil War
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1887269061 |
Book Description
brings the reader close to those exciting days when heroism on both sides was as common as the sunrise.
Average customer rating:
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Cry Heart: Stories And Memoirs From the Confederacy
Lee Jacobs
Manufacturer: Burd Street Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Civil War
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Confederacy
| Civil War
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 1572491884 |
Book Description
Cry Heart brings the life of the Confederacy to readers. More than 75 stories and memoirs from Southern generals, soldiers and civilians are collected from diaries, letters, newspapers and other firsthand accounts.
Customer Reviews:
cry heart.......2000-07-12
Excellent reading! Heart warming and heart wrenching stories about our ancestors. The stories are vivid accounts of the history of our great nation. Please write more Mr. Jacobs!
Average customer rating:
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Hearts and Minds: A Personal Chronicle of Race in America
Harry S. Ashmore
Manufacturer: Seven Locks Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Ethnic & National
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Cultural
| Anthropology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Civil Rights
| United States
| Political Science
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Social Groups
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
English (British)
| Dictionaries & Thesauruses
| Reference
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0932020585 |
Average customer rating:
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Indignant Heart: A Black Worker's Journal (African American Life)
Charles Denby
Manufacturer: Wayne State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
African-American & Black
| Ethnic & National
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Ethnic & National
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Memoirs
| Biographies & Memoirs
| Subjects
| Books
Industry
| Automotive
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0814322204 |
Book Description
90 color plates & 8 x 11 & Exquisite color photos of more than 800 Navy aviation patches make this a must for the collector or anyone interested in military decorations. Includes patches for Top Gun units, Fighter and Attack squadrons, Aggressor squadrons, and aircraft carriers.
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The naval aviator's guide
Malcolm W Cagle
Manufacturer: United States Naval Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
General
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B0007EKCFM |
Book Description
In this important new study Ian Hacking continues the enquiry into the origins and development of certain characteristic modes of contemporary thought undertaken in such previous works as his best selling Emergence of Probability. Professor Hacking shows how by the late nineteenth century it became possible to think of statistical patterns as explanatory in themselves, and to regard the world as not necessarily deterministic in character. Combining detailed scientific historical research with characteristic philosophic breath and verve, The Taming of Chance brings out the relations among philosophy, the physical sciences, mathematics and the development of social institutions, and provides a unique and authoritative analysis of the "probabilization" of the Western world.
Customer Reviews:
A fascinating chapter in the 'history of the present'........2007-09-30
This is a fascinating book, which charts the gradual development of statistical ideas in the nineteenth century, along with associated concepts, such as normalcy, chance, and determinism.
However, a few criticisms are in order. Hacking reports that there was a certain conceptual incoherence surrounding ideas relating to statistics in the 19th century, especially concerning ideas relating to determinism and chance. But I'm not quite sure that Hacking has been able to find the thread out of this confusion, as some confusions appear to remain rather resistant in spite of the narrative, which in general is admiringly clear. Three points will serve as examples:
Eastern and Western: Hacking describes two broad classes of reaction to the development of statistical reasoning; 'Western' (U.K. and France) and 'Eastern' (centred on what was then Prussia) approaches. Western thought, which was largely open to statistical reasoning, is described by Hacking as 'atomistic, individualistic, and liberal'. Eastern thought on the other hand was 'holistic, collectivist, and conservative', and critical of the developing trends of statistics.
Geographical and political issues aside, this characterization almost at once falls apart. For instance, slightly later in the book we are told that statistical methods were resisted in (French) medicine, as medicine was concerned with the individual case, not the average or normal, and hence statistical data was of no use. Immediately after reporting this, Hacking queries, without irony, 'how then could there be a use of statistics in human affairs? In the very institution designed to strip away the individuality of man, namely the court of law'. To add to the confusion, we later find out that Engel, the Prussian apparatchik, and hence 'Eastern' thinker, considered statistical reasoning to be part of a certain mentality he wished to avoid, that of determinism, which denies individual freedom. Likewise, the economist Wagner, Hacking reports, also adhered to this view. In fact there appears to have been a general resistance to statistical methods in the 'East' precisely because the so-called individualistic methods of the statisticians were seen as a threat to the concept of human freedom and individuality.
Durkheim, the French sociologist, whom we are at one point told was 'immersed' in the Western mentality, nevertheless ascribed the functioning of statistical laws to 'collective tendencies', in fact to 'social forces', rather than to the 'underlying little independent causes' of Quetelet, the French pioneer of statistical methodology.
No doubt there was some sort of difference at play here between East and West, but it strikes me that trying to distinguish these two cultures by calling one individualistic and the other collectivist does little to help.
The Title of the book: 'The Taming of Chance', especially if one recalls the title of Hacking's earlier book, 'The Emergence of Probability' which dealt with the preceding era, leads one to think that there are two parts to the development of the ideas mentioned in the book - initially, the emergence of ideas relating to chance and probability, and later their gradual 'taming'. But that would be a mistake. Hacking makes it quite clear that probabilistic and statistical laws were not initially seen to be in conflict with necessity or determinism. Hume, and other enlightenment thinkers, regarded chance as unreal, as merely an illusion caused by lack of knowledge. There was simply no chance around to be tamed, before the nineteenth century. It would appear instead that chance and its 'taming' emerged at the same time - the book then might have been more aptly titled 'The Emergence of Chance'. The idea of 'taming' seems to have slipped in from one of the book's sub-themes, the idea that statistical methods led to greater institutional control of human affairs, or from a certain conception of causality that I shall mention below.
Multiple causality, or causal sets: Quetelet, the French astronomer turned statistician, proposed a theory of 'little independent causes' to explain statistical regularity. The causes of individual cases of, say, suicide, or coin tosses, work independently of each other, but taken as a group, over all cases, they total up in a way predictable by probabilities. As far as Hacking is concerned this explanation 'does not hang together'. Be that as it may, it strikes me that there is an important aspect of Quetelet's purported explanation that deserves attention, and that is the idea that causes are best understood as existing in sets or groups. This idea is reinforced by similar attempts to explain the workings of statistical regularity later mentioned in the book - the holism of Boutroux and Durkheim, as well as the ideas of Peirce and Nietzsche. The latter two, for instance, tried to accommodate probability within causality by claiming that while causality itself may act in a determinate manner, the existence of specific causal laws themselves are a matter of chance. This explanation is not meaningful, it seems to me, unless one brings a prior notion of possibility to play in the existence of particular causal laws - not simply their actuality - as is done with the contemporary notion of possible worlds. To say that laws p, q, and r are possible in certain situations, but only p is actual in this case, is to use the idea of sets or classes of laws which are compossible with certain situations.
There is certainly an ambiguity in the concept of chance; there are at least two ideas involved: chance as opposed to causality, as pure chaos; and chance in consort with causality, 'tamed' chance, so-to-speak, chance that can '[bring] order out of chaos', chance that can support 'laws of chance' (quoted from the book's chapter summaries). Perhaps the idea of causal sets can bring some clarity to a familiar but nevertheless obscure concept, and to help to distinguish between different kinds of indeterminism that are often conflated.
Probable cause to read.......2007-06-17
Some works of non-fiction manage to be engaging throughout. Others, like the Taming of Chance, are important but can be tough to read through much of the text. Hacking takes on the history of probability; which he describes as "the philosophical success story of the first half of the 20th century." The taming of chance refers to the way apparently irregular events have been brought under the control of natural or social law.
Hacking takes us through the 19th century intellectual battle between adherents of determinism and probability's champions. The book devolves at times into more of a history of thought than a discussion of the implications of these changes in thinking. In fact, the author admits late in the book, "My chapters have become successively more removed from daily affairs."
He describes chance first as a concept that had no place in reasonable discourse during the Enlightenment. With the development of measures of probability around 1830, chance is condemned by "statistical fatalism" to irrelevance. Finally, with the development of quantum mechanics in 1930, chance becomes the critical element of life with which we are all too familiar.
Along the way, we learn that some proponents of probability helped create the idea that free will existed only in theory (from 1830 until 1930). Thus, criminals are behaving predictably and the degree of their personal responsibility is at issue. Hacking concludes, "we have not made our peace with statistical laws about people. They jostle far too roughly with our ideas about personal responsibility."
While I would not consider this book as light summer reading, it will reveal to the determined reader changes in historical thought with which he is not likely to be previously familiar.
not for everyone, maybe.......2005-12-26
but a mind-opener for those who are ready, an awesomely rewarding book for those who are willing to make the extra effort
Why bother?.......2005-07-24
If, somewhere, deep within the tortured bowels of this book, there is a central thesis that could be stated in a few short sentences and comprehended by most educated English-speaking peoples, I have yet to find it. Endless restatement, obfuscated in painfully cultivated strings of verbiage, of trivial fact is used to document an hypothesis that if stated clearly could be supported or refuted in about a page-and-a-half and then likely consigned to the graveyard of such endeavor. The prose is a true caricature of Derrida's; the logic is a laTour de force. Typical of such works, the author begins with a premise and then selectivley seeks textual support. Of course, such an approach can be conveniently utilized to support any premise and if written with sufficient opacity will pass for scholarship and great insight.
The book is an unreadable bloody bore; its value is restricted to its caloric content relative to the market price of a barrel of Texas sweet.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Geographical Review, published by American Geographical Society on April 1, 1998. The length of the article is 1962 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: The Enchanted Amazon Rain Forest: Stories from a Vanishing World.(Review)
Author: Edward A. Whitesell
Publication:
The Geographical Review (Refereed)
Date: April 1, 1998
Publisher: American Geographical Society
Volume: 88
Issue: 2
Page: 311(4)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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