Book Description
"If one laughs when David Hackett Fischer sits down to play, one will stay to cheer. His book must be read three times: the first in anger, the srcond in laughter, the third in respect....The wisdom is expressed with a certin ruthlessness. Scarcly a major historian escapes unscathed. Ten thousand members of the AmericanHistorical Association will rush to the index and breathe a little easier to find their names absent.
Customer Reviews:
Belongs on every historians reference shelf.......2007-04-26
I have just read Fischer's work and have ordered my own copy. In my specialty I have read many works that commit many of the fallacies that Fischer describes. I am going to read this book carefully again, both to improve my work and to better understand that of others. Folks who run history graduate education programs need to attend to Fischer's concerns. Editors of scholarly journals and series need to read this again to better inform their work.
Entertaining/instructive catalogue of historians' errors.......2006-12-06
Though hardly an earth-shattering assessment of the state of the historians' art, ca. 1970, HF is nonetheless a useful and not infrequently entertaining disquisition on the perils and pitfalls of fallacious reasoning in historical argumentation. DH pulls no punches, assembling a dense catalogue of errors of divers type, by type, that have been committed by a wide range of historians (mostly practitioners of US history). The result is a bit of slog, not quite the systematic set of logical guidelines for errant historians or would-be historians that HF might have envisioned, but certainly -- and resoundingly -- the seeds of one. It was particularly sobering to read, at several decades' remove, DF's concerns to justify the practice of history to an increasingly skeptical public. The drumbeat of a- and anti-historicism goes on. DF's cautions -- to historians and to critical readers of history -- are as important today as they were when he first published them. I highly recommend this book.
One of the best treatments of Historical understanding........2006-08-03
Having read this book several times, Fischer's insight is not fallacious. I have lent it to friends and never get the copies back. That is why I do not lend books and have two copies of this title.
In-depth, education with its own fallacies.......2006-03-02
David Fischer's book is a good resource for any reader, specifically those in the discipline of history. It identifies and explains possible pitfalls with any type of investigative reporting. The book is divided into 3 sections: Inquiry, Explanation and Argument which cover the main areas these fallacies can occur. Since everything is relative, others have found fallacies in Fischer's work(s), this one is no different. I was assigned this book for a graduate course on historiography. Historians' Fallacies is a good companion to Mark Gilderhus' History and Historians, Davidson and Lytle's After the Fact and Richard Evans' In Defense of History.
Let's Hear it for Truth.......2005-11-15
Of David's far-flung corpus, including his Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington's Crossing, Historians' Fallacies particularly interests me. I'm surprised that he has not been hounded out of the profession, because in it he demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that so many of the most prominent historians have committed such gross fallacies of logic. But then again, in history as in law, rhetoric often prevails over reason. I wish only that David had included the Presumption of Heterosexuality among his fallacies. Even if a person is not married, biographers routinely presume exclusive heterosexuality, though aware of the famous examples of Oscar Wilde and Julius Caesar - fathers both. It is as logically impossible to prove beyond reasonable doubt that George Washington ever had sex with a woman as it is to prove that Abraham Lincoln ever had sex with a man. Both of those presidents seem to have been "indictable" cases, i.e., meriting further investigation. In law, cases are closed. Not so in history. The jury is still out and a verdict not soon forthcoming.
Book Description
A reporter in Iraq shows how the U.S. squandered its early victories and goodwill among the Iraqi people, and allowed the newly freed society to slip into violence and chaos.
As a reporter for the staunchly antiwar Pacifica Radio, twenty-seven-year-old Aaron Glantz had spent much of early 2003 warning of catastrophe if the U.S. invaded Iraq. But, as he watched the statue of Saddam topple, he wondered whether he had been mistaken: In interviews with regular Iraqis, he found wide support for the Americans.
Then, public opinion changed.
In early 2004, the U.S. military initiated a completely unprovoked bombing campaign against the population of Fallujah, increasing support for an armed resistance. The attack confounded many anti-Saddam Iraqis, and plunged the nation into chaos. In How America Lost Iraq, Glantz tells his story of working on the front lines, while revealing truths that most media outlets have missed or failed to report. For instance, 50 percent of the U.S.-trained Iraqi army has either mutinied or refused to fight; the Iraqi public has sustained appalling civilian casualties; corporate contractors including Halliburton and Bechtel have failed to supply Iraqis with the basic necessities of daily life, such as clean water and electricity; and a respected poll shows that 82 percent of Iraqis want the U.S. to leave.
Here is the brutally honest account of a reporter who discovered how popular the U.S. presence was in Iraq-and who then watched this popularity disappear as the Bush administration mishandled the war, leaving us with the intractable conflict we face today.
Customer Reviews:
Who knew there was a Middle?.......2007-08-14
I was more than a little leery coming into this book knowing Mr. Glantz worked for Pacifica. I was afraid I might find a one-sided diatribe about how the U.S. invasion and the government is terrible and what a horrible crime the invasion was, but what I found was a balanced look at the situation and firsthand account from some Iraqis on how the invasion and occupation have affected them.
One of the telling moments of this book for me was when Mr. Glantz talks about having problems with his editors only wanting stories that paint a certain kind of picture of the Iraqi situation. With U.S. media this is so often the problem; a story will be bent depending upon the people reporting the stories own political leanings rather than the unvarnished truth. So often the Right and Left are pulling so hard that the story, which is actually somewhere in the Middle, gets lost, and the people who end up getting hurt are the victims (Iraqis) and the people who are relying on these reports to understand the situation and make informed decisions based on this information (U.S. citizens).
Mr. Glantz chronicles the failures of this administration and military leaders to understand the peoples they came to free. As I read his interviews with everyday Iraqis a picture emerges that should have been seen early on this occupation. Iraqis were happy the Americans toppled this mostly hated regime, but this enthusiasm would only go so far. It would only last so long. As the U.S. military continued to commit excesses and as life on the ground for ordinary Iraqis either deteriorated or remained the same, as under Saddam, that patience and enthusiasm wore thin until finally it broke.
As the U.S. broke every rule of fighting a counter-insurgency in Iraq, I have to ask myself what did they expect would be the result of this policy? What did they expect Iraqis with no jobs, no money and no prospects to do?
Here in the U.S. we too often forget about those we have chosen "liberate" and only focus on ourselves. Mr. Glantz gives us an Iraqi perspective that is sorely missed in our media today. He gives us a fair portrait of life in Iraq and for that he should be thanked. It is the stories from the Middle that are the most honest and important.
IS MR. GLANTZ PROPHETIC? I DON'T THINK SO.......2007-03-04
Mr. Glantz's book reads like a narrative of many of the events in Iraq told through experiential stories of conversations with every day Iraqi's. Mr. Glantz visits Iraq and travels through out the country talking with people about America in Iraq and how the Iraqi's he is talking to view the United States presence in Iraq.
Mr. Glantz is careful to paint the picture in 2005 as a loss for the United States. This is prior to any with drawl of American forces in the region, and demonstrates a bias noting the leveling of Fallujah and the picking of a fight with al-Sadr as mistakes the United States government undertook.
There is also an interesting perspective that isn't addressed in this book and that troubles me the most about Iraq and the discussion about the hardships of the average Iraqi in general. These perspectives in this book miss them completely.
In Iraq, you have a country that has known only war and destruction for over 20 years. From a societal perspective, if you had skills, and were not in the weapons making business you did your best to leave Iraq. The brain-drain in Iraq has hurt the Iraqi people more than any single cultural factor and rightly so.
Saddam has brutalized the Iraqi people until 2003 when the United States showed up and liberated the country from Saddam. The country suffered a horrible war against Iran where millions of people died and there were terrible exchanges of chemical weapons and all these horrible things happened to people in this country. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis disappeared in the Middle of the Night as they may have been considered political dissidents. Their mass graves prove that a terrible tragedy has been committed against the Iraqi people.
Given this unique circumstance, unique to the history of the world, the Americans have come to assist in the rebuilding of the country. When Saddam's regime disappeared, there were many plays for power in the local and regional governments. The United States made some difficult choices in the newly emerging democratic state and those choices were not supposed to be popular or easy decisions to be made.
While the author is quick to criticize the US Civilian contractors in Iraq who have not had a perfect record that meets American standards in terms of production, the author misses a broader point. The local corruption of the Iraqi's and the sectarian strife associated with the vacuum left by Saddam's removal make companies like Bectel and Halliburton the logical choice even given the challenges.
It fails to address the non Iraqi nationals flowing into the country and the inability of the sovereign Iraqi government to control its own borders as though America is supposed to be viewed as occupiers by the Average Iraqi when Syrians and Iranians are coming into their country to spread hate and violence and sabotage their own oil infrastructure.
The apathy created by all those years of destruction creates problems for many Iraqi's and villages. It creates problems of trust. This book gives a very human perspective on some of those perspectives but should be taken into the context that although the United States is responsible for the removal of Saddam Hussein, the assumption of the United States government has been that freed people would rise to their own occasion and commit to their own civil service projects with their own money. This has not happened effectively in Iraqi due to the brain-drain. Saddam often killed smart people. It was a control mechanism of the old régime.
Let us hope that this problem can resolve itself over the next few years, as this is not a problem that Mr. Glantz can take out of context of a few months. The historical precedents for this are rare if any and if you make comparisons to Germany and Japan, they did not have the Brain-Drain as we do in Iraq. That being said the Iraqi's were sovereign and operational with in a shorter time than either of those two countries. The Iraqi's in 2007 appear to be developing a sound oil policy for the entire world, which will help with oil companies and investment dollars.
The Americans will come home eventually, when their job is done. Perhaps the Iraqi people should worry more about their own security now that they have control of their own country and the ability to have their own elections. The war is not lost by America. It was won. Saddam is gone. That was public law and the goal. The rest of the pros and cons are the United States doing Iraq a favor. Reconstruction is the American people doing their best to help the Iraqi's help themselves. That is hard to do with militants from other countries crossing the border and attempting to kill you in Iraq just because you are an American. What Mr. Glantz isn't talking about is Arab on Arab, Muslim on Muslim violence which isn't there because Saddam is not in power anymore-- there is a different social reason for that and I'm afraid that Mr. Glantz wasn't too fair in his book for addressing those cultural aspects on the ground level between Iraqi's.
America has learned from those kinds of issues when we had millions of decent Americans fight for their civil rights. There were riots, massacres, violence, civil strife, and best of all heroes that came out of that. We are a great society because we were able to overcome our differences in many ways and have the ability to see each other as Americans and secularize our society. There was a lot of blood shed, involvement with National Guards, the Klu Klux Clan, and all kinds of other clashes between groups in this country. Ultimately it can be defined as great because if Mr. Glantz was writing the same kind of history about the American Civil Rights movement in the 1960's he would have called it a loss before it was really over...
Mr. Glantz, give those processes of democracy a chance and provide a better forum to show the Iraqi's how to do that. America is great because we were able to do it... we have the Stewardship to show Iraqis how to do it too. They can because they are human beings. They have a chance because Saddam and his brutes are no longer in power. That is the decent thing for Americans to do...
If that means eliminating Sadr in the political process through violent means, he is not a peaceful man. He should not be hiding in his Mosques taking shots at Americans like a coward behind those walls. He should show his followers a better way. He should lead them in a peaceful process to reform the politics of his newly formed country. Sunnis and Shiites have more in common than they are different and in that they should build their common framework for a new Iraqi society. Start by making the neighborhoods safe again. Take the violent criminals off the street...just as all civil societies do. Help secure the borders and eliminate corruption in your organization.
Mr. Glantz should not pick on Halliburton or George Bush and the Administration. Pick on the Iraqi's for not doing what they need to do now in this time of transition for their better way of life. I realize this is not ever the dream of the 'Hate America First Crowd', however, let us at least level the playing field.
Let us talk about some Iraqi heroes who are fighting for justice and freedom in their country for their compatriots...not about some folks who focus thier misfortune on the USA. That's always an easy scapegoat that fails to address some real purriahs in Iraq.
Should be required reading for Bush' adminirstration.......2007-01-22
Glanz shows in a progressive manor, through Iraqi opinions how things spun out of control. He shows occurances that have been well hidden. Long before the Abu Ghraib debacle, there were injustices that lead up to copmplete frustrated as illustrated by the Iraqi opinions. He does present things as he witnesses them and tries to offer no opinion, but there are some stories that are gut wrenching, and he admits that he cried often. That is the part I liked the best.
Balanced.......2006-05-18
Glantz punctures both left and right in this balanced analysis of what has gone wrong in Iraq. A powerful story that should be required reading for politicians and political groupies of all leanings.
We would know what the Iraqi people wanted if we actually listened to them!.......2005-09-30
Aaron Glantz, a Pacifica radio correspondent, painstakingly traces where and how the United States repeatedly messed up in Iraq. His title radically differs from other books on the subject, using multiple sources to deliver one of the most multidimensional and sophisticated critiques of Iraq.
Specifically, he talks to the Iraqi people themselves to get their own perspectives on this event. Not surprisingly, they were initially skeptical of his intentions, but he built up enough trust to produce this book. It is disturbing that talking to the Iraqi people themselves is considered a radical action.
Saddam Hussein was this infamous tyrant who appeared uninterested in his own people's well being so they were happy to get rid of him--until they also lost what basic services which they had been previously receiving. Glantz then writes that suicide bombings can be profitable for people who have been and are receiving little money otherwise in an allegedly rebuilt Iraq (pp. 119-120).
Because I predominantly receive my own news about Iraq (and the Middle East) from American news media, I had not previously considered the economic incentives to participate in a suicide bombing. Some people are participating in these activities to feed themselves and/or their families, with many other options currently unavailable. I had honestly assumed that the people who participated in these events were doing this for socioreligious sincerity alone; however I guess it's easy for Washington officials to moralize and grandstand when they don't have to worry about their own children starving.
Glantz also critiques us on the left for getting too in love with protesting against this very war. According to him, we are loosing perspective of the larger goal, again because we are also predominantly coming from and with an American-centric perspective.
While we need to be concerned what is happening with American soldiers and tax dollars, we cannot forget that the Iraqi people might lack even the most rudimentary services which we take for granted. We talk about how hard organizing is, but many American activists (myself included) live in a country where we know that sanitation and electricity is working and we do not have to worry about roadside bombs as we travel around our cities. Perspective is everything in and to effective community organizing.
There is considerable irony that President Bush and the Republican-controlled United States Government are so eager to talk about self-rule and democracy, but will not let the Iraqi people actually control their own lives.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Progressive, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2005. The length of the article is 3145 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 Iraq Debacle.(Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq)(How America Lost Iraq)(Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War)(Book Review)
Author: Matthew Rothschild
Publication:
The Progressive (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 69
Issue: 11
Page: 48(5)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Customer Reviews:
Probably good for classroom use.......2006-08-02
I bought this book to teach myself plumbing skills, not for use in a classroom, but just for DIY information to maintain my home and rental property. I find that hiring plumbers is very expensive. It has a good overview of the plumbing field and introduces many topics such as connecting a home to the public sewer and water supply, a good discussion of fittings, and information on installing fixtures.
I believe the book could have been much longer (compare this book's 600 pages to Modern Refrigeration and Air Conditioning - about 1200 pages)which would have allowed for more in depth coverage. I found myself wanting more detail in most of the 30 rather short chapters.
The book probably works OK in a classroom with an instructor nearby to fill in the gaps and show actual examples of the pipe, fittings, fixtures, etc. In some cases terms are used before being defined and terms are used inconsistently which makes it hard for the self learner. Some of the explanations seem confusing.
The book also probably works OK for an apprentice plumber who is working in the field. However it is probably not the best book for the self learner due to its lack of complete detail of the topics covered.
The book is professionally presented with many color pictures, diagrams, etc. There are some typos but most are minor and do not affect the book's readability. Questions at the end of each chapter are good for assessing your understanding.
I feel this book and many trips to Home Depot will help save me money on future plumbing jobs.
Average customer rating:
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Modern Plumbing
E. Keith Blankenbaker
Manufacturer: Goodheart-Wilcox Publisher
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ASIN: 156637345X |
Customer Reviews:
A must have reference.......2004-09-11
Whether you are a pro or a do-it-yourselfer, this book is an absolute must have for everything that has to do with plumbing. It takes you from design to implementation seemlessly and in plain english. Get yourself a copy and you'll never be in the dark about the how's and why's of all aspects of plumbing. Hope you enjoy as much as I did...
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- Long-overdue book by an American author
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All The Modern Conveniences (Johns Hopkins Studies in the History of Technology)
OGLE
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Book Description
As any American who has traveled abroad knows, the American home contains more, and more elaborate, plumbing than any other in the world. Indeed, Americans are renowned for their obsession with cleanliness. Although plumbing has occupied a central position in American life since the mid-nineteenth century, little scholarly attention has been paid to its history. Now, in All the Modern Conveniences, Maureen Ogle presents a fascinating study that explores the development of household plumbing in nineteenth-century America.
Until 1840, indoor plumbing could be found only in mansions and first-class hotels. Then, in the decade before midcentury, Americans representing a wider range of economic circumstances began to install household plumbing with increasing eagerness. Ogle draws on a wide assortment of contemporary sources--sanitation reports, builders' manuals, fixture catalogues, patent applications, and popular scientific tracts--to show how the demand for plumbing was prompted more by an emerging middle-class culture of convenience, reform, and domestic life than by fears about poor hygiene and inadequate sanitation. She also examines advancements in water-supply and waste-management technology, the architectural considerations these amenities entailed, and the scientific approach to sanitation that began to emerge by century's end.
"As part of this well-researched study, Maureen Ogle links cities, politicians, systems, sanitarians, and ideas to produce a compelling account of household plumbing--a taken-for-granted set of devices that allowed Americans to express their individualism and their commitment to 'science.'"--Mark H. Rose, Florida Atlantic University
Customer Reviews:
Long-overdue book by an American author.......2000-06-30
Several British authors have written books similar to this one, and I've always wondered why no American books had been written, especially in view of Americans' legendary love of plumbing. Ms Ogle extensively explores the socoiological aspects of the development of domestic plumbing pretty thoroughly, and also explodes the myth that indoor plumbing was developed only after large municipal water supply systems were developed. I would have liked a slightly more details on the techincal angles of things, but overall, her work is good. It's a definite "must read" for people who are interested in such things.
Customer Reviews:
It's a test.......2000-06-14
The paperback is a set of questions for the book Modern Plumbing.
Average customer rating:
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LEAD In MODERN INDUSTRY
Manufacturer: Lead Industries Association
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000F55P6Y |
Product Description
"No metal, perhaps, has as wide a variety of uses as lead nor contributes more broadly to our modern way of life." Produced by Lead Industries Association, this is the technical guide to lead and its uses.
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What Des Moines really needs is a _____. (Opinion).(Iowa Primate Learning Sanctuary)(Brief Article) : An article from: Business Record (Des Moines)
Ted Townsend
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- Historical Atlas of the Islamic World
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- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History on Trial: Culture Wars and the Teaching of the Past
- How to Do Civil War Research
- Jane's Aircraft Recognition Guide Fourth Edition (Jane's Recognition Guides)
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