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Thomas L. Friedman is not so much a futurist, which he is sometimes called, as a presentist. His aim, in his new book, The World Is Flat, as in his earlier, influential Lexus and the Olive Tree, is not to give you a speculative preview of the wonders that are sure to come in your lifetime, but rather to get you caught up on the wonders that are already here. The world isn't going to be flat, it is flat, which gives Friedman's breathless narrative much of its urgency, and which also saves it from the Epcot-style polyester sheen that futurists--the optimistic ones at least--are inevitably prey to.
What Friedman means by "flat" is "connected": the lowering of trade and political barriers and the exponential technical advances of the digital revolution have made it possible to do business, or almost anything else, instantaneously with billions of other people across the planet. This in itself should not be news to anyone. But the news that Friedman has to deliver is that just when we stopped paying attention to these developments--when the dot-com bust turned interest away from the business and technology pages and when 9/11 and the Iraq War turned all eyes toward the Middle East--is when they actually began to accelerate. Globalization 3.0, as he calls it, is driven not by major corporations or giant trade organizations like the World Bank, but by individuals: desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world (but especially in India and China) who can compete--and win--not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well. (He doesn't forget the "mutant supply chains" like Al-Qaeda that let the small act big in more destructive ways.) Friedman tells his eye-opening story with the catchy slogans and globe-hopping anecdotes that readers of his earlier books and his New York Times columns will know well, and also with a stern sort of optimism. He wants to tell you how exciting this new world is, but he also wants you to know you're going to be trampled if you don't keep up with it. His book is an excellent place to begin. --Tom Nissley
Where Were You When the World Went Flat?
Thomas L. Friedman's reporter's curiosity and his ability to recognize the patterns behind the most complex global developments have made him one of the most entertaining and authoritative sources for information about the wider world we live in, both as the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times and as the author of landmark books like From Beirut to Jerusalem and The Lexus and the Olive Tree. They also make him an endlessly fascinating conversation partner, and we'd happily have peppered him with questions about The World Is Flat for hours. Read our interview to learn why there's almost no one from Washington, D.C., listed in the index of a book about the global economy, and what his one-plank platform for president would be. (Hint: his bumper stickers would say, "Can You Hear Me Now?")
The Essential Tom Friedman
From Beirut to Jerusalem |
The Lexus and the Olive Tree |
Longitudes and Attitudes |
More on Globalization and Development
China, Inc. by Ted Fishman |
Three Billion New Capitalists by Clyde Prestowitz |
The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs |
Globalization and Its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz |
The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli |
The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto |
Book Description
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, and they come to the chapter "Y2K to March 2004," what will they say was the most crucial development? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, giving them a huge new stake in the success of globalization? And with this "flattening" of the globe, which requires us to run faster in order to stay in place, has the world gotten too small and too fast for human beings and their political systems to adjust in a stable manner?
In this brilliant new book, the award-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman demystifies the brave new world for readers, allowing them to make sense of the often bewildering global scene unfolding before their eyes. With his inimitable ability to translate complex foreign policy and economic issues, Friedman explains how the flattening of the world happened at the dawn of the twenty-first century; what it means to countries, companies, communities, and individuals; and how governments and societies can, and must, adapt. The World Is Flat is the timely and essential update on globalization, its successes and discontents, powerfully illuminated by one of our most respected journalists.
Download Description
The Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist gives a bold, timely, and surprising picture of the state of globalization in the twenty-first century
Customer Reviews:
...and so is this book.......2007-10-10
Though it has become an immensely popular book, Friedman's work is fairly shallow and simplistic. It is important to remember that this is a world analysis written by a journalist, not by a political economist or any type of economist or political scientist. His views are oversimplified and his support relies heavily on anecdote, making his 600-pager about 400 pages too long. We read it for a poli sci class and proceeded to tear it apart intellectually.
Ranks up there with Common Sense, Uncle Toms Cabin, The Femine Mystique.......2007-10-10
One of the greatest books ever written. Everyone in America should read this book. Every teacher in America should read and teach Frieman's lessons. Every parent should read and help prepare their children for the world that is coming. Every student should read and begin to prepare for the world they are going to face. This is the most important book of our times, bar none.
Embracing Business Globalization's Irreversibility.......2007-10-10
This is easily the most relevant book written on the new realities of business globalization, its irreversibility, and the practical consequences to our future. Friedman does an excellent job describing the numerous factors that led up to our current global economy including the ongoing fall of communism, the advent of the personal computer, and the ubiquity of the Internet. His historical review and assessment is fascinating and it sets up the reader to understand the context for his theories and practical applications. Friedman delves into numerous industries, businesses, personalities, case studies, technologies, psychological factors, and sociological factors. Although he covers numerous business, technological, and economic concepts, his writing style is very engaging and entertaining, using many personal examples and narratives, thereby holding the reader's interest. Rather than bemoaning some of the common perceived negative consequences of a global economy (such as US auto workers losing jobs to overseas cheaper labor) Friedman helps the reader to understand business globalization's irreversibility. In so doing, he describes many personal, practical, and business strategies for thriving in this new environment. Friedman is realistic and compassionate concerning the changes and the challenges. He states, "the great challenge for our time will be to absorb these changes in ways that do not overwhelm people but also do not leave them behind. None of this will be easy. But this is our task. It is inevitable and unavoidable" (pp. 46-47). As Friedman unfolds his strategies, he gives the reader a broader, global perspective that is filled with hope and excitement. Whether as a CEO, a business student, or a brand new professional embarking upon a career, this book is insightful, practical, and essential reading.
What a good boy am I.......2007-10-06
Reading this book is like watching someone else's kids open their Christmas presents from relatives they don't really know. I'm not sure how the author can possibly be so fascinated by technology and yet know absolutely nothing about it at the same time, but his endless diatribes about the miracles of PayPal and Microsoft Word are beyond laughable, and I was pretty much in shock when he started citing howstuffworks-dot-com as a technical reference on fiber optics and SOAP. What editor told him that this was OK?
So enamored with his own cleverness is he that Mr. Friedman dedicates several pages to explaining the book's title, even though a single sentence would have sufficed. Unfortunately, this doesn't stop after the first chapter; rather than make a point and move on, he has to point out the fact that he just made a point and tell you what a wonderful point it was just in case you missed the point. It's like hanging out with that one friend who sits around smiling and pointing to his hindquarters after he rips one off at the dinner table.
If you want to learn about globalization and are not old enough to remember the first light bulb, go read "No Logo" instead. This is horrible, irrelevant geriatric babbling.
My opinion is flat.......2007-10-03
When a book has had over a thousand reviews, what can I possibly say that hasn't already been said? So I will keep it short and not so sweet.
No one will read this book, or any of the updates, for "fun." Do you NEED to read it? Yes, it contains some important economic concepts and realities, but it's a bit overlong. I'd say it could be cut in half, so skim through some of the numerous "interviews," repetition of central points, and endless advice and encouragement. The global pie is getting bigger and better, but the competition for piecies of that pie is heating up. Smart, ambitious, creative people will thrive; slow, lazy, dull people will languish, and everything inbetween. For too long many Americans have been sitting on their laurels and the day of reckoning is near. Heed this warning: Put down your TV remotes, game controllers, and iPods, and start working like your life (or lifestyle) depended on it. Get your rear into some serious gear, and don't balk at the notion that you should be an "expert" in at least three different, unrelated fields. Does this scare or excite you?
In so many interviews with foreign entrepreneurs, we are told (or reassured) that no matter how much of the "mundane" work is performed by countries other than the U.S., America's creative and innovative spark is still unsurpassed: All the world looks to America to lead the way into the future. I'm not sure. A lot of that "mundane" work was high level and highly paid, and why should we expect that America will continue to dominate in creativity and innovation? The truth is, we're in for a flattening of living standards, and from the perspective of the relatively high American standard of living, it will seem like a drop in standards until we reach another equilibrium (who knows how long that will take?). In any case, the reassurances about the talents and abilities of Americans seem at odds with other parts of the book, such as Bill Gates feeling "terrified at the American work force of tomorrow."
If you're already working hard at becoming an expert in three fields, then you probably don't need to read this book. Indeed, you probably don't have time to read it, or to read and write Amazon reviews, for that matter.
Book Description
This comprehensive and engaging introduction to visual culture provides an overview of a range of theories about how we understand visual media and how we use images to express ourselves, to communicate, to experience pleasure, and to learn. Using over 175 illustrations, Professors Sturken and Cartwright examine how images - paintings, prints, photographs, film, television, video, advertisements, news images, the Internet, digital images, and science images - gain meaning in different cultural arenas, from art and commerce to science and the law, how they travel globally and in distinct cultures, and how they are an integral and important aspect of our lives. These images are analyzed in relation to a range of cultural and representational issues (desire, power, the gaze, bodies, sexuality, ethnicity) and methodologies (semiotics, marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, postcolonial theory). Practices of Looking provides an explanation of the fundamentals of these theories while presenting visual examples of how they function. Central concepts such as ideology, the concept of the spectator, the role of reproduction in visual culture, the mass media and the public sphere, consumer culture, and postmodernism, among others, are explained in depth and in accessible, informative language. Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright provide the best introductory book for students coming to the study of visual culture for the first time. Truly interdisciplinary, this book aims to be the key text for courses across a range of disciplines including media and film studies, art history, photography, and communication media.
Customer Reviews:
one of the best books about visual culture.......2007-09-21
The authors of this book very clearly articulate the considerable factors of the visual culture in mass media and visual art. Not only the pictures cited in the texts are also quite helpful to better understand the details of description, but also more importantly this book provides knowledgeable contents and information enabling readers to be aware of the significant roles of visual culture and how it is embedded in our lives, influencing the whole culture, society, industry and other many impacts of social forces.
excellent!.......2007-02-26
This is an excellent book for anyone interested in media studies. The language is simple and articulate. The authors provide plenty of visual evidence in each chapter. If you enjoy reading about popular culture, even advertising strategies- this is the book for you.
Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture.......2006-03-25
I actually returned this book after leafing through it. It was a little disappointing and did not have much information other than common sense kind of info. Where was the meat?
Review of Chapter Nine.......2003-09-30
As a class assignment, I closely studied chapter nine of Practices of Looking, and researched several of the listed source materials. This chapter is entitled "The Global Flow of Visual Culture" and deals with the globalization of Western media, primarily in the form of television and the internet. The authors explore such topics as the history of media globalization, its effects on non-western cultures, pros and cons of the internet, and possibilities that new global technologies afford us.
This chapter was well-presented, persuasive, and useful. It offered a cohesive and informative discussion of a broad variety of topics, dealing with each one in satisfactory depth and detail. After researching a few of the listed sources, I found that while some of them seemed to be surplus to the actual chapter content, those that were used were, on the whole, represented accurately and fairly.
I recommend this book to anyone studying visual culture, due to its detailed and informative treatment of this broad and varied topic.
Brief on Practices of Looking (with emphasis on Chapter 8).......2003-04-26
In Practices of Looking, imagery in culture is shown to play on the way we perceive, initiate, and direct ourselves in our daily life. This book, indicates that we rely on imagery to guide us daily. This book explains how imagery is the most relied upon role model of today; basically, due to the fact that it is the most direct measure for a humans consumption of information. It provides input on how imagery sells goods through advertising, how images evoke personal memories, and how images can provide us with scientific data. In Society, Imagery can be found in all areas of the social arena. Influence of imagery is never counted alone in any arena. It is quoted in Practices of Looking "That images are never singular, discrete events, but are informed by a broader set of conditions and factors. The identity of science in correlation with imagery is explained in a wide spectrum of social engagements. Anything in the fine arts, film, television, and advertising, to visual data, can provide insight into the way we see things.
In Practices of Looking, written by Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, mediums of influence and expression for Science and Imagery are identified in Chapter 8, Scientific Looking, Looking at Science. This chapter projects ideas with scientific imagery from the early 19th century to modern day. The chapter opens your eyes to the realization that we are constantly being fed ideas from imaging dealing with any subject matter. Whether the ideas are correct or not, most people today take the information and the images they see very seriously, especially when there are relations to science. Maybe due to the fact that science has proved itself in time, at least this is one opinion written in Practices of Looking; life science is seen as the "truth" and is accepted as objective knowledge due to the fact that doctors have a clearer understanding for the body through their experience. The understanding and the experience of Doctors is covered very thorougly throughout this chapter. It explains how imagery even comes into play in arenas we would never correlate influence from imagery, like (law and medicine). This chapter provides us with archival proof, predictions, perspective for current and past issues, time frames, and also developmental measurements. I found this book to be a great resource for understanding the influence that imagery has upon us in society. It really gives one a great look at the daily impact that imagery plays, and how it effects the publics outlook. I would definately recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about "how art and media plays a role in society".
Book Description
This is Jurgen Habermas's most concrete historical-sociological book and one of the key contributions to political thought in the postwar period. It will be a revelation to those who have known Habermas only through his theoretical writing to find his later interests in problems of legitimation and communication foreshadowed in this lucid study of the origins, nature, and evolution of public opinion in democratic societies.
Customer Reviews:
Indispensable for Understanding Contemporary Culture.......2007-08-10
Okay, perhaps I've got the social-theory-geek gene, but when I first read this book some fourteen years ago (during grad school), I was able finally to put together a lot of things that had been swimming around in my brain. I'd already read a good bit of Adorno before a professor (with whom I was doing an independent study on Adorno) recommended that I read this. Habermas's historical analysis was so compelling that I simply couldn't put the book down. Moreover (all this may seem hard to believe), the lucidity of his presentation also helped me put a lot of what was going on in Adorno's writings in a clearer light.
While I don't agree with the directions in which Habermas later went--I strongly resist the notion of recuperating the modern project--this book provides a compelling analysis of how Western society and culture got to where it is now.
Habermas: The Public in History.......2005-09-17
In this monograph, Habermas tracks the origination, the evolution, and the dispersal of an informed "public sphere" among democratic Western nations. He defines public sphere as "private people com[ing] together as a public" (27). Once these individuals, gathered as reading groups or as aficionados of theatre, the arts, and politics, the individuals melded into a public capable of debating the government. Habermas locates these fledgling "publics" primarily in eighteenth-century France, England and to a lesser extent in the areas of Europe designated as German. Tellingly, Habermas strongly links the formation of the public sphere with the rise of capitalism and a continuing bourgeois revolution. Comprised of literate individuals governed by the principals of the Enlightenment, these "publics" eventually challenged the validity and legitimacy of governments, most notably in France during the French Revolution and England during the English Civil War.
Habermas builds a compelling argument based upon his interpretation of Rousseau, Kant, Locke, Hegel, and Marx. He links the works of these philosophers and sociologists in a credible chain stretching back to the eighteenth century. However, he only deals thoroughly with the educated, propertied elite of society. Habermas views the "unpropertied" and illiterate as a separate from and incapable of participating in a true public sphere. To do this he must dismiss a plethora of lower class uprisings found throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. Even when the various governments quickly quashed these rebellions, the Ludites in England and the various rebellions of 1848 come to mind, it is difficult to dispute the effect these rebels and rebellions had upon the public discourse. As an early work on the subject, it is almost certain that Habermas had to amend his arguments following E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, published in 1963 a scant year after this work. His exclusion of the great press of society from a functioning public sphere seems arrogant at best and naïve at worst.
One of the most influential studies on the subject.......2004-11-01
Habermas' work, though written more than four decades ago, still retains most of its original relevance for the study of the public sphere. If you are interested in this subject, and if you are into critical thinking, then this book is certainly worth reading. Why? Well, if you take in consideration the fact that no other book has been written so far on the subject that has been able to surpass Habermas' account both in depth and originality, then you begin to get my point. As to a critical reading of the argument put forth by Habermas, one should read "Habermas and the Public Sphere", edited by Craig Calhoun. This book includes an appendix by Habermas where he revises some of his original positions.
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.......2002-04-04
When you talk about the public sphere in front of intellectuals, Jürgen Habermas's name is bound to come up. Habermas's 1962 study, "The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere," examines the creation, brief flourishing, and demise of a public sphere based in rational-critical debate and discussion. The feasibility of a true public sphere, which is inclusive of anyone who would participate, is for Habermas of utmost importance. Habermas follows a methodology similar to the one Michel Foucault takes in "Discipline and Punish," which analyzes the abolition of public displays of power, and the process by which the structures of power are inculcated in the individual from the 17th through the 20th centuries. Habermas analyzes historical, economic, and political conditions from classical antiquity through his own historical moment, tracing the circumstances in which the public sphere arises, how it functions, and ceases to function over time.
Habermas begins with a delineation of the terms 'public' and 'private,' orienting them philologically from their roots and meanings in classical antiquity. From here, he traces the adoption of the words and their synonyms into the European Middle Ages and the era of feudalism. Habermas says that in this period, the feudal lord and the monarch, for whom `representative publicness' functioned as a display of power before their subjects, dominated the public. Authority figures embodied virtues and powers in a public fashion. Public representation of political and economic power continued, unabated until the Reformation, at which time, the privatization of religious faith signaled a separation between society and the state. Economically, in the 16th and 17th centuries, the spread of trade necessitated the spread of news from various locales. As news outside of the home became relevant to home economy, the private individual begins to take an interest in public events. Consolidation of 'national' financial administration and state-controlled taxation, along with the rise of print culture, facilitated the dissemination of news, initially in the form of governmental decrees, market conditions, and happenings at court. Through this, the actions of the authorities came under the scrutiny of a reading public.
The 18th century is the key moment for Habermas. In this period, the government, along with private individuals, made use of the press, for the first time, in persuasive appeal to a public made up of private people. The press now presented the public with information, with which they were to use reason and discussion to determine what was in the public's interest. Habermas emphasizes the theoretical parity that this brings about - the rise of the coffee houses and salons, in which merchants met with gentility and engaged in rational-critical debate over issues of public import. Stretching this into the realm of the franchise, Habermas is careful to point out the problematics of a situation in which actual decision-making was restricted to those with money and land, but stresses that the opportunity for anyone to acquire these prerequisites was, again, theoretically, open to all.
For a brief time during the 18th century, Habermas sees the flourishing of a public sphere, born out of a reading public, that began to interact with the processes of public policy, legally, and morally. The purpose of this public sphere, according to Habermas, is to eliminate the domination of authoritative power, and establishing a government that is actually representative of the public will and contingent upon public opinion. Unfortunately, in the 19th century, with the stratification of party politics, the proliferating press encouraged less rational-critical discussion. Increasingly, debate moved into parliamentary circles, and the public was asked only to approve of party measures, not participate in the formation of the rules that governed them. In the 20th century, along with the creation of the welfare-state, consolidation of moneyed interests, and the expansion of universal suffrage (ironically), the public sphere disintegrated even further. New media - radio, television, etc. - turned its addresses to the public into mere advertising. Even the illusion of a private people engaged, as a public, in matters of their own governance, was gone, and the public became vessels for mass media.
To recuperate a true participatory public sphere, Habermas takes a guarded approach. He indicates that some kind of elite could be formed. These private individuals would undertake the responsibility of rational-critical debate, determining the public interest. The general public, then, would give their approval or disapproval to the measures decided on by this elite. This is kind of a bleak outlook, and one I don't much care for myself. Of course, this is a horribly limited review of Habermas's "Structural Transformation". I haven't even noted the break he takes to outline the historical-philosophical evaluation and critique of the public sphere by Kant, Hegel, Marx, Mill, and Tocqueville. Nor did I note the extensive use Habermas makes of political and economic changes in his key nations - England, France, and Germany - and the contributions these make to the disintegration of the public sphere. At any rate, "Structural Transformation" is an exhaustive (and exhausting) study, as relevant now to the study of literature, economics, government, history, etc., especially of the last three centuries, as it ever was. Even though it is a pain to read, you'll be glad you finally read it. Think of it as theoretical medicine - it may not taste good, but in the long run, it's good for you.
Habermas puts me to sleep.......2000-07-23
... This is Habermas' dissertation, but his writing is so poor, in English or in German, that it really doesn' matter. The book is a response, in my opinion, to Carl Schmitt, and specifically to Schmitt's argument that the core of liberal democracy is debate in parliament, that liberal democracy is rule by discussion (or, as its called now, "political discourse"), but that that discussion is now more real than painted flames on a radiator. Liberal democracy is in fact the triumph of aliberal, private, hidden powers, who rule from the shadows and through the true organs of power, the media, and through the hidden power of the private vote cast in the illicit privacy of the voting booth, where the bourgeois individual is free to exercise his worst prejudices and basest motives. So argues Schmitt. Habermas gives an interesting historical account of the rise of "Offentlichkeit" (which translates into the all-too-easy abstraction "public sphere," whatever that is), from the letters passed in the mail relating the news from town to town, to French salons, to newspapers, to television and radio. Habermas, like Schmitt, seeks to unmask the illiberal powers lurking behind the good liberal prejudices, but he, like Schmitt, mistakes liberalism for a debating society when in fact it is much more sophisticated than that. Habermas needs to read the Federalist Papers and the debates (!) at the constitutional convention to understand how little the founders of one liberal democracy thought of the power of discussion.
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- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
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- History as Science Fiction
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History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
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ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Book Description
Max Weber's Economy and Society is the greatest sociological treatise written in this century. Published posthumously in Germany in the early 1920's, it has become a constitutive part of the modern sociological imagination. Economy and Society was the first strictly empirical comparison of social structures and normative orders in world-historical depth, containing the famous chapters on social action, religion, law, bureaucracy, charisma, the city, and the political community with its dimensions of class, status and power.
Economy and Status is Weber's only major treatise for an educated general public. It was meant to be a broad introduction, but in its own way it is the most demanding textbook yet written by a sociologist. The precision of its definitions, the complexity of its typologies and the wealth of its historical content make the work a continuos challenge at several levels of comprehension: for the advanced undergraduate who gropes for his sense of society, for the graduate student who must develop his own analytical skills, and for the scholar who must match wits with Weber.
When the long-awaited first complete English edition of Economy and Society was published in 1968, Arthur Stinchcombe wrote in the American Journal of Sociology: "My answer to the question of whether people should still start their sociological intellectual biographies with Economy and Society is yes." Reinhard Bendix noted in the American Sociological Review that the "publication of a compete English edition of Weber's most systematic work [represents] the culmination of a cultural transmission to the American setting...It will be a study-guide and compendium for years to come for all those interested in historical sociology and comparative study."
In a lengthy introduction, Guenther Roth traces the intellectual prehistory of Economy and Society, the gradual emergence of its dominant themes and the nature of its internal logic.
Mr. Roth is a Professor of Sociology at Columbia University. Mr. Wittich heads an economic research group at the United Nations.
Customer Reviews:
classic.......2007-01-05
Weber is great, so is this book. You can find the most origins of modern thoughts in his book
A Classic .......2005-05-06
This is an uncommly brilliant work in social theory and sociology. Moreover, economic sociology was founded through "Economy and Society", especially its second chapter ("Sociological Categories of Economic Action") which is the size of a small book (approx. 200 pages).
The general theoretical approach of Weber can be characterized as one of "interpretive economic sociology", that is, as a type of economic sociology in which the concept of "meaning" is at the very center of the explanatory exercise.
Social action (to follow Ch. 1) is defined as a type of behavior to which meaning is attached ("action"), and which is oriented to the behavior of others ("social"). Economic sociology consequently deals with "economic social action".
"Economy and Society" was part of a larger work entitled "Handbook of Social Economics", which included volumess on "Economy and Nature", "Economy and Technology" - and "Economy and Society". In his work Weber explores such topics as "economy and law", "economy and religion", "economy and politics", and much more.
The work "Economy and Society", finally, is a bric-a-brac. Weber himself only sent 4 chs to the printer (=Chs 1-4). The rest of the 2 volumes consists of manuscripts that his wife and economist Melchior Palyi put together, pretty much as they saw fit. Caution is consequently necessary when reading "Economy and Society"; and this work should not be treated as "a book" by Weber.
comment of a comment made four years ago.......2004-03-30
I expect this comment is going to be useful, if at all, only to first year graduate students, so it'll be understandable if it's not rated very highly.... Anyway, just a quick note on Mr. Jack White's comment of April 11, 2000. One thing that Max Weber's Economy and Society is NOT, is a foundational text for structural-functionalism. That honor would probably go to Emile Durkheim's The Division of Labor in Society-- to be followed oh-so many years later by seminal works of Americans Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton. I'm not sure what Mr. White was thinking, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't about classical sociological theory.
What??.......2004-03-23
I'm a little confused. I purchased this book because of it's comprehensiveness (1400+ pages of work by Weber), but when the book arrived, it was only about 700 pages long. Am I missing something here? If I paid $20 for a used 1400 page copy and receive a 700 page book, should I only be charged $10? Strange.
ES and Schluchter's developmental history.......2003-10-10
It seems that many people comment this book with the difficulty to read and the bad organization. However, I want to suggest that after read Schluchter's 'The Rise of Western Rationalism', you will know more about why Weber's writings are in this style. Simply speaking, it links to Weber's view of History, and if he want to elaborate the history in a approiate way, not a simple linear evolutionary way, he had to demonstrate the whole picture--or in Schluchter's word, 'basic configuration'--of history. History, in this case the rise of Rationalism, is not compose solely by few influential events, but also related to the others. Those 'significant historical events' are only the consequence of the competition between ideas and historical events, therefore, Weber wanted to explain why the configuration favour the rise of western rationalism, so he must concern all elements constitute the history. That is, Weber showed us the conditions and the process of competition within or among the many spheres, I think that is why Weber had to use this seems fragmented writing style.
Book Description
Originally published in 1985, Neil Postman's groundbreaking polemic about the corrosive effects of television on our politics and public discourse has been hailed as a twenty-first-century book published in the twentieth century. Now, with television joined by more sophisticated electronic media—from the Internet to cell phones to DVDs—it has taken on even greater significance. Amusing Ourselves to Death is a prophetic look at what happens when politics, journalism, education, and even religion become subject to the demands of entertainment. It is also a blueprint for regaining controlof our media, so that they can serve our highest goals.
Customer Reviews:
Outstanding book - must read.......2007-09-27
One of the best books on the danger posed by entertainment to our civic community.
Important read.......2007-09-04
This book asks questions that we need to be asking but aren't. How can we not at least question the media and technology that we take in like oxygen? It's an important read and I recommend it to anyone who isn't apathetic.
The Audio Was Great.......2007-09-03
If you like people like Colin Wilson, you will love this well written and well thought out book. It is like listening to Colin Wilson without the references to literature but the lessons are intact.
Another "Thin" Classic From Postman.......2007-06-22
This is Postman's most famous and widely read book (as is attested by the more than 100 customer reviews here on Amazon) and it is, as other reviewers have suggested, a classic in the Media Studies field. The songwriter Roger Waters was inspired enough to title his album "Amused to Death" after reading Postman's book (although Postman states in one of his later works that he himself would never stoop to listening to the likes of a "Roger Waters").
Instead of giving the usual plot synopsis here as other reviewers have done, I would like instead to perform for you a Media Studies reading of the book. That is to say, instead of reviewing the book's contents, I would like to draw your attention to the medium and format of the book itself, and in doing so, point out what this reveals about Postman as a philosopher.
To begin with the most important point: there are no pictures. Anywhere. And not only is this true of Amusing Ourselves to Death, it is true of every single one of Postman's books. This should alert us to something very important here about Postman: he is iconophobic. He is engaged in a battle against images of any, and every, kind. Not even Marshall McLuhan was so antipathetic to the use of images and illustrations, for his very first book, The Mechanical Bride, is a series of commentaries upon advertisements. In the age old battle of the Word vs. the Image -- a battle which goes way, way back before the twentieth century to the Iconoclastic debates amongst the Greek Byzantines whose iconophobes were in fact influenced by the aniconism of Islam, an entire religion which, like Judaism, had been based upon a rejection of images -- Postman, in this tradition, definitely aligns himself on the side of the Word against the iconophiles, be they Catholics or Hindus or lovers of comic books, or whomever.
Also, you will not find any references to works of art of any kind in this book. Postman apparently has an antipathy to painting and imagery of any kind whatsoever, be it "classical" or electronic. It is important to point this out because it reveals, in the tradition of Harold Innis, Postman's essential "bias" in this book. Indeed, Postman's dialogue with Camille Paglia, published in an old issue of Harper's, underlines this point, for Paglia is as much an iconophile as Postman is an iconoclast. "In the beginning was the Word," Postman quotes, as though to clarify his own personal theology, before proceeding onward with his dialogue with Paglia.
The next thing to notice about the book is its brevity. It is very short, as in fact, are all Mr. Postman's books, for Postman has been quoted as saying that he does not believe in writing long books, and that if one cannot express oneself in two hundred pages or less, then one has no business writing a book. The bibliography, accordingly, is also short, and so apparently Mr. Postman did not feel the need to read many books in order to write this book.
For Postman really only has a single point to make here, and it is an important point which he argues persuasively and eloquently: television is taking over our culture, and all our thought patterns in every aspect or division of our culture is taking its cue from the syncopated, discontinuous and ahistorical "mentality" of television. How this has affected our reading habits, and whether those reading habits still continue, albeit in a changed manner, Postman fails to address. For people have not stopped reading books; instead, they continue to read books, but their expectations of the book have changed. The brevity of Postman's book is itself perhaps an example of what happens to sustained intellectual discourse in the Electronic Age: books get shorter because our attention spans (Postman's included) have shrank. Nobody wants to wade through books on the scale and magnitude of Spengler's Decline of the West or Hegel's Phenomenology of the Spirit. I notice, furthermore, that the sorts of books which Postman exhibits in his Bibliography are, one and all, short books.
Thus, here is the secret of Postman's book: Postman himself suffers from the very same attention deficit disorder that he castigates others for having suffered at the hands of Electronic Society.
Hmm. One would expect a professor of Media Studies who was as well read and thoughtful as Postman to engage our attention for a while longer. If this book is the greatest thing Postman ever wrote, then we must confess, alas, that Postman's work does not contain a single magnum opus on the level of a Gutenberg Galaxy or an Understanding Media. Perhaps this fact in itself is evidence of a general decline in intellectual and literary ability in our culture during the latter half of the twentieth century.
The reader should not understand that I am saying that there is anything wrong with Amusing Ourselves to Death. But we should learn to understand its limitations in order to appreciate its place in the pantheon of Media Studies classics, upon which list, after all is said and done, Amusing Ourselves to Death places relatively low.
--John David Ebert, author Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons: Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society
Deserves to be Called a Classic.......2007-06-19
It seems unlikely that a book labeled "Current Affairs" could have a shelf life of more than a few years. It seems preposterous that a book dealing with television and referring to Dallas and Dynasty could have anything to see twenty two years after being published. Yet Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, now in it's "20th Anniversary Edition" continues to be read and studied and to hold influence. Even today it is used as required reading in many high school and college level courses. Though written by a man who made no claim to Christianity, few modern books written by an unbeliever have been more widely read and quoted by Christians. It truly is a remarkable little book.
Postman had that rarely quality of being able to see behind a fad, behind what was late and great. He saw the significance of the rise of the image and the fall of the word, the rise of amusement and the decline of discourse. He saw that television would soon saturate every area of our lives and taint the way we understand politics, religion, education and every other area of importance. As we now transition from a television-based culture to a computer-based culture the image remains central. Perhaps we have already amused ourselves past the point of no easy return. Television is remarkably effective at doing what it does best--entertaining. Postman had no argument with television is a tool of entertainment. In fact, the best things on television are its junk and no one is seriously threatened by this. Where television fails is in attempting to do the more serious work that has traditionally been carried by the written word.
Postman makes it his goal in this book to make the epistemology of television visible, demonstrating that television's way of knowing is hostile to typography's way of knowing, and not only that, but it is inferior to it. "Serious television" is a contradiction in terms for television speaks only in the voice of entertainment, never of serious, weighty, discourse--the kind of discourse that is essential to politics, religion and education. Television's influence has been relentless, transforming our culture so that every area is now considered a venue for entertainment.
Electronic media, led by television but being superseded by the computer, has changed the way we view the world and the way we carry on any kind of public discourse. Gone are the days when content was of overwhelming importance. Instead we deal with sound bites, with discordant images torn from any kind of context, and with style when in former days we relied on substance. Politicians win and lose election campaigns not on the basis of what they say, but on the basis of how they look when they say it.
Throughout the book is an interesting interplay between Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984. In the latter an oppressive regime dominates the world while in the former the people allow themselves to be overcome by levity, by entertainment and by pleasure so that they have no need of an oppressive regime. They were controlled by their amusements. Huxley, Postman argues, had it right. And I would tend to agree.
Amusing Ourselves to Death is a good read, a disturbing read, a thought-provoking read and, dare I say it, a must-read. It deserves its status as a classic and, though already two decades out of date, it is as timely as ever.
Amazon.com
The Medium is the Massage is Marshall McLuhan's most condensed, and perhaps most effective, presentation of his ideas. Using a layout style that was later copied by Wired, McLuhan and coauthor/designer Quentin Fiore combine word and image to illustrate and enact the ideas that were first put forward in the dense and poorly organized Understanding Media. McLuhan's ideas about the nature of media, the increasing speed of communication, and the technological basis for our understanding of who we are come to life in this slender volume. Although originally printed in 1967, the art and style in The Medium is the Massage seem as fresh today as in the summer of love, and the ideas are even more resonant now that computer interfaces are becoming gateways to the global village.
Book Description
30 years after its publication Marshall McLuhan's The Medium is the Massage remains his most entertaining, provocative, and piquant book. With every technological and social "advance" McLuhan's proclamation that "the media work us over completely" becomes more evident and plain. In his words, 'so pervasive are they in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, psychological, moral, ethical and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, or unaltered'.
McLuhan's remarkable observation that "societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication" is undoubtedly more relevant today than ever before. With the rise of the internet and the explosion of the digital revolution there has never been a better time to revisit Marshall McLuhan.
Customer Reviews:
Very good book. Almost prophetic........2007-05-16
Some of McLuhans stuff is really unaccessible for average readers... It's deep stuff... BUT we see much of what he was talking about occuring in our modern day. It's really interesting. I think if he could have found a better way to present his philosphies he could have really made much more of a difference to our "global community"
My view of the world ..........2006-12-16
... was profoundly influenced by this book. I read it about 30 years ago. I'm pleasantly surprised to find it still in print.
Where are the Audio and Video Versions?.......2006-10-21
Yes, back in the late 60's or early 70's there were both audio and a movie version of this title. I use to own the LP album and frequently watched the short movie version that played on college campuses more than 35 years ago. Hopefully, the LP and movie will eventually be transferred to CD and DVD? Better yet: podcast? clyde
Wisdom from the Prophet of the Internet.......2006-06-20
Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980) never conceived of the Internet. But the great communications theorist understood where communications was going, and the revolutionary effects of its direction.
This book takes his sometimes impenetrable prose and places it in a context of compelling photographs, advertisements, and cartoons in order to dramatically illustrate the meaning of his words, and the radical effect that changes in communications technology have on the lives of all the world's citizens. "It is impossible to understand social and cultural changes without a knowledge of the workings of the media," he writes.
The Medium is the Massage begins and ends with quotes from Albert North Whitehead. The first is that "The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the societies in which they occur." The last is that "It is the business of the future to be dangerous."
There always are jeremiads against the new by those who are accustomed to the old. McLuhan quotes Socrates: "The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves...You give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be heroes of many things, and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing."
The effects of the media on individuals are profound. "All media work us over completely. They are so pervasive in their personal, political, economic, aesthetic, pyschological, moral, ethical, and social consequences that they leave no part of us untouched, unaffected, unaltered. The medium is the massage. Any understanding of social and cultural change is impossible without a knowledge of the way media work as environments. All media are extensions of some human faculty--psychic or physical."
Media affect you, the individual citizen. "Electrical information devices for universal, tyrannical womb-to-tomb surveillance are causing a very serious dilemma between our claim to privacy and the community's need to know. The older, traditional ideas of private, isolated thoughts and actions--the patterns of mechanistic technologies--are very seriously threatened by new methods of instantaneous electric information retrieval, by the electrically computerized dossier bank--that one big gossip column that is unforgiving, unforgetful and from which there is no redemption, no erasure of early 'mistakes.' We have already reached a point where remedial control, born of knowledge of media and their total effects on all of us, must be exerted...."
Media affect your family. "The family circle has widened. The whirlpool of information fathered by the electic media--movies, Telstar, flight--far surpasses any possible influence mom and dad now bring to bear. Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world's a sage."
Media affect your neighborhood. "Electric circuitry has overthrown the regime of 'time' and 'space' and pours upon us instantly and continuously the concerns of all other men. It has reconstitued dialogue on a global scale. Its message is Total Change, ending psychic, social, economic, and political parochialism. The old civic, state, and national groupings have become unworkable. Nothing can be further from the spirit of the the new technology than 'a place for everything and everything in its place.' You can't GO home again."
Media affect your education. "Today's television child is attuned to up-to-the-minute 'adult' news--inflation, rioting, war, taxes, crime, bathing beauties--and is bewildered when he enters the nineteenth century environment that still characterizes the educational establishment where information is scarce but ordered and structured by fragmented, classified patterns, subjects, and schedules. It is naturally an environment much like any factory set-up with its inventories and assembly lines."
Media affect your job. "From the fifteenth century to the twentieth century, there is a steady progress of fragmentation of the stages of work that constitute 'mechanization' and 'specialism.' These procedures cannot serve for survival or sanity in this new time. Under conditions of electric cicuitry, all the fragmented job patterns tend to blend once more into involving and demanding roles or forms of work that more and more resemble teaching, learning, and 'human' service, in the older sense of dedicated loyalty."
Media affect your government. "Nose-counting, a cherished part of the eighteenth century fragmentation process, has rapidly become a cumbersome and ineffectual form of social assessment in an envrionment of instant electric speeds. The public, in the sense of a great consensus of separate and distinct viewpoints, is finished. Today, the mass audience (the successor to the 'public') can be used as a creative, participating force. It is instead merely given packages of passive entertainment. Politics offers yesterday's answers to today's questions. A new form of 'politics' is emerging, and in ways we haven't yet noticed. The living room has become a voting booth. Participation via television in Freedom Marches, in war, revolution, pollution, and other events is changing EVERYTHING."
Media affect our relationships with groups of other citizens. "The shock of recognition. In an electric information environment, minority groups can no longer be contained, ignored. Too many people know too much about each other. Our new environment compels commitment and participation. We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other. There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening."
This book is, in short, a superb introduction to McLuhan's thinking. Ideally, it would be read before any of McLuhan's other books. Understanding McLuhan takes some time and thought, but the effort is well worth it to understand today's media and today's world.
"Only the hand that erases can write the true thing," McLuhan quotes Meister Eckhardt as saying. McLuhan erases preconceptions of media being relatively insignificant, and demonstrates how the media affect the way each of us sees the world in which we live.
A memorable photo in the book is one of a middle-aged man dressed in a business suit and carrying a briefcase standing upon a surfboard, riding the waves. "In his amusement born of rational detachment of his own situation, Poe's mariner in 'The Descent Into the Maelstrom' staved off disaster by understanding the action of the whirlpool," says McLuhan's accompanying prose. "His insight offers a possible strategem for understanding our predicament, our electrically-configured whirl."
The last cartoon in the book--from the New Yorker in 1966--summarizes McLuhan's essential theme. A young man with a guitar discusses McLuhan with his father in a well-appointed library. "You see, Dad, Professor McLuhan says the enviroment that man creates becomes his medium for defining his role in it. The invention of type created linear, or sequential, thought, separating thought from action. Now, with TV and folk singing, thought and action are closer and social involvement is greater. We again live in a village. Get it?"
We all should get McLuhan. The development of Internet--likely even more transformative than television--has greatly revived interest in McLuhan's view of technological changes as changing us as people, and of creating a global village for all of us to live in. "We impose the form of the old on the content of the new. The malady lingers on," McLuhan warns. We should heed his warnings and recognize, embrace, and work for constructive improvements in the ever-changing world in which we live.
To Digital or Not to Digital; Was That The Question? Chocolate/Vanilla, Either/Or Options?.......2005-12-05
Do printed Words create a sick society of antisocial eggheads with their noses hovering habitually above pages of ink? Duh, what? He said what when?
Here are a few of the words McLuhan used to politely and perceptively express this concept and much more.
>> Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication.... The alphabet and print technology fostered and encouraged a fragmenting process, a process of specialism and of detachment. Electric technology fosters and encourages unification and involvement. It is impossible to understand social and cultural changes without a knowledge of the workings of media. Anxiety is, in great part, a result of trying to do do today's jobs with yesterday's tools, with yesterday's concepts.
<<
Of course, the above quoted passage makes more sense today; imagine the awesome brain blower it would have been to a regular Jane or Joe reading it in 1967.
Possibly the only concept McLuhan hadn't yet tasted on his perceptive palate, was the idea that we could choose both chocolate AND vanilla, as we now do.
On other words, what is Amazon.com?
Possibly one of the best examples of a chocolate/vanilla marbled merger (what IS it with all these "M"'s) is the existence, style, and success of Amazon.com, where a graphically-enriched, ethereal electronic medium sells BOOKS... which have WORDS in them, on printed pages! Oh my, (dear McLuhan) we (humans) still like to bow out of the global, communal bombardment and READ in isolated luxury, in addition to enjoying the social, "interconnected" facets of electronic ease (sometimes coming through as sleazy cheese, and now we have Velveeta, too).
The 60's were truly gooey with phobias of solitude. Wonder what THAT was all about?
When composing my review of Jill Churchill's FEAR OF FLYING (posted 11/24/05, on Thanksgiving morning, with 2 other gourmet, sizzled turkey offerings), I was Right-Brain kicked into mentioning McLuhan's Massage, which hadn't crossed my mind in ages. In the FoF review, due to the Right Brain being basically non-verbal, my syntax around McLuhan's hallmark, landmark book tied itself into a Freudian slip-knot which I was forced to untie with a postscript:
P.S. Marshall McLuhan wrote THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE (implying more than "message"). I visited the Amazon buying page for that book to check spelling of his name. The editorials and 15 customer reviews there were amazingly insightful as well as delightfully (and crisply) worded. Even the slight criticisms felt clean, clear, and honestly helpful. Without reservation, I voted "Yes" on each of the reviews. They told me more about the book than I "got" when I read it in college (umpteen Ages ago) and they returned to memory and life what I did get. Born in 1947, I'm in the Baby Boomer crowd. (Maybe I should go post this P.S. into a review?)
(End of P.S. added to my review of Jill Churchill's FoF.)
In the last half of the 60's, my soul was still asleep and my body was off base with the hormones of youth (no OUT-of-the-body's personal repertoire of drugs were intended, needed, or used). In this condition, my mind was somewhat in a state of "Duh, Maynard" when I read McLuhan's Massage picture book. The reading was done as a university class requirement, along with Joseph Wood Krutch's desert book (Alvin Toffler's FUTURE SHOCK came a bit later), and a few other offerings of that type of mind-blowing, nearly hallucinogenic publication which seemed to come out in waves in that cultural push-&-shove period. I didn't/don't use drugs, but for all practical purposes some of the "Hey, DUUUUDE" peer-poking effects were "totally" unavoidable. (Admired the uniqueness of the review written with Hippie slang syntax.)
The fascinating thing (a la Spock) is, though, that a surge of shocking, sometimes brilliant conceptualization was being published then. While some of it exposed prolific, prophetic genius, some appeared to be a result of fried brain cells flashing toxins on their way to being an ash.
Was that time-frame also when shock treatment was initiated as a cure for depression, to give the brain a cellular-zapped clue that life was supposed to be a bed-of-roses, not a pain-in-the-patootie? What irony.
And, were heart-shocker paddles originally put out then to keep a soul trapped in a body when it was attempting a back door exit? What horror.
When will Pet Sematary reach its age of prophesy undone (my review 10/16/05). Okay, I'm drawing an extreme here. Electrically convincing the heart to begin-again beating when it had hiccuped and halted doesn't always return an unwilling soul to an almost cold, warn out body. Sometimes that medical miracle extends life as a very good thing for all concerned. And, how would I know whether shocking a heart back to beating is good or bad? I don't know.
However, for me, Stephen King's Pet Sematary makes a good point to ponder.
When is Death doing us a favor?
I'm going to have to reread (or would that be "redo") McLuhan's book from my current state of having worked a Quantum particle beyond "huh?" The reviews here on TMITM have peaked my curiosity for a return visit, though my taste for culinary mystery novels will probably take the cake and be the frosting on it as I read it, too, for a while yet.
What I got from The Medium then was, "Big things are happening, babe; better watch out! The Future is going to be lightning electrified. Not only is God dead; words are out."
I don't recall much Left Brain stuff from that time-frame, but I may have hoped that mass electrocution wouldn't be the Last Hurrah of Our Species." Looking back, it seemed then that some of the intellectual eggs were trying to scramble the Right Brain into the Left, using words so full of "meaning" they had leaped the gap of comprehension.
I love electronic mediums and the messages I'm able to send and receive through ozonic ether. And, I still love the grounded pleasure of reading a good book. A delightful, carnival-marriage of the best of both worlds is "Now Playing" on Amazon.
Strange how the future sometimes creates the whole (ball of wax, basket of eggs, whatever) as more than the sum of its pasts; and the future continues to arrive in spite of the best published intentions of Chicken-Little twinges, as enlightening and insightful though the small, salmonella-slinging-species may be.
This is not to say that any of the books I've mentioned are examples of Chicken Little syndromes. They are not. They are gems to be treasured in their prophetic intensity of down sides, which come to pass, somewhat, in uncanny manifestations of words made flesh, even as the future continues to save itself as it comes to pass by the present in one grand leap of time.
I'm not sure, but I may have just channeled a message from Confucius (or maybe Buddha), still receiving...
Who is (are?) the Author(s?) of The (actual) Laws of Physics?
Who designed this reality so precisely that we're allowed to make the messes we're in and still somehow grow out of them (to varying degrees, rather than to the Nth)?
Or... How many times have we started over?
All I know is I love books, and cozy escape fiction is my cup of vanilla-bean tea. As a chocaholic, I also love DVD's. All these mediums titillate my brain and (sometimes) make my soul glad it's agreed to this tour in a body glued to a planet by gravity.
Thanks, Amazon, for allowing us to be here and spout. A Fountainhead (see my review 10/15/05) I'm not, but my mouth often runs off without me...
I'm still wondering what McLuhan had against paper and ink.
I understand that he would have been disgusted with peoples' fears of electric and electronic progress, since he clearly saw the beauty of potential and sheer release of creativity in that mind-enhancing evolution. And, I'm beyond thankful for his contribution to holding gateways open for that evolution.
Even understanding McLuhan's obvious need to fight fears of progress, I feel there's more to ferret about his deal against paper/ink technology.
Certainly he would have been impatient with being forced to communicate that way, since his brain consistently made sonic booms beyond the speed of his typewriter clicks.
Yeah, and how hard would it have been for ancient scribes painstakingly etching records of existence with scratchy pen tip & sloppy ink bottle?
Likely, McLuhan was incensed with the lost time it took to communicate his brain farts & sparks, when he wanted to be OUT side playing in a (symbolic) sandbox with his friends. This man clearly had Sagittarius, Jupiter, and/or the 11th House in play at his time, place, day and year of birth. He was probably born right after a fresh New Moon had made its debut, maybe even right after the peak of a Solar Eclipse. He had more to say than several lifetimes would allow him to express. Who wouldn't be impatient with the slowness and lack of "out-of-the-house" drama of working on a typewriter or even one of the types of electronic mechanisms available in the early 60's (actually he probably began that surge-to-scribe-and-communicate process in the 50's or earlier).
I remember well how I felt when I realized (in 1986, when I was typing a 500 page ms for the first on an 8000 IBM Clone PC w/out a hard drive) that I didn't have to retype each and every page of 500 every time I needed a "clean copy" to work from. Oh man! I could do so much MORE in a given amount of time by chust (ironically, I'm reviewing Amish novels, too, see my Listmania's & reviews on Tamar Myers's PenDutch series and IN DUTCH AGAIN by Barbara Workinger) reprinting a page or so each time I needed to make a correction or edited improvement.
Unless you've composed, typed & re-typed, edited & revised several drafts of a 500 page ms, you might not be totally aware of this awesome feeling of relief to an intensely creative mind. Most book-length mss (manuscripts) done prior to PC & printer capacity, had to be retyped a few to several times, as revisions darkened the page with hand-scrawled changes, so much that the author was no longer able to see through the mess, and had to make a complete fresh copy of the whole work, with page-numbering-sequence corrected, which would often take even the best typist about a week of full-time-effort.
Oh yeah. I can see what caused McLuhan to develop such a putrid disgust of printed-word-technology, when I take time to empathize with the sheer drudgery of this tedious, mundane process to a mind surged with so much creativity it could design, in a few days, every detail of a new world in a strange universe (or "merely" explain the essence and fundamentals of our present world and its cultures).
Of course, given the level of minds we (as a species) have (and sometimes use) now, we might be able to design at Quantum Level a new world to be communicated within the pages of a novel (a book of printed words) or within a movie on DVD (yea, McLuhan we have THOSE goodies now!). We aren't quite yet at the level to design (then seed, activate or implement) whole physical universes with varieties of functioning sets of Laws of Physics to hold them together, from a massive core of gravity, and allow them to expand and contract, maybe even grow/evolve a few species of interacting critters on various world and galactic venues.
Or, would you like to be trapped in a physical world designed by our current state of mind? Oops. Maybe that's what's wrong with us? Still, there's a lot right with us, too. A species which created the novel isn't all bad (see my spotlighted review of THE NOVEL by James Michener).
In awe of a Consciousness so far beyond mine it actually created Time,
Linda G. Shelnutt
P.S. As a student English teacher in 1970, I was set up in a Denver suburb high school to teach a new class called "Filmic Statement." The class exposed a revolutionary concept of the Language of Film. Fresh out of college in 1970, still trailing tangents from graduate seminars in Language, Linguistics, History of Language, Semantics, etc., I didn't fully realize how much that high school class owed its existence to McLuhan. I can certainly identify with the English professor side of McLuhan. I'm still trying to recall through which course of study his Medium/Massage book was touted, English Lit or Sociology.
P.S.S. I see that the medium of communication says a lot more than many of us would have realized, without a mind like McLuhan's having burst its seams. But, I don't quite "buy" that the medium says more than its content. If so, why did I take days to compose this review, and why would you read it. You could just sit there and do a Right-Brain-"oohhhhmmmmm" to a blurry monitor screen without reading word one. Try that and see if you can comprehend what I've struggled to communicate. Words. Gotta love em. Syntax is sensual. And, as to the concept of Language, yes, we have to consider that it will probably grow well beyond these packages, eventually. I mean. After I pop out of this body for that Final Time, am I going to be forced to use words to express the experience? I ask you. Will I need a Notebook PC, on "the other side"? What link will I use then to get messages back to planet? Death is more than The Great Equalizer, and maybe it should be proud of its alternate set of Laws of Physics. Whew. What a release.
Book Description
In this landmark book, Scott Page redefines the way we understand ourselves in relation to one another. The Difference is about how we think in groups--and how our collective wisdom exceeds the sum of its parts. Why can teams of people find better solutions than brilliant individuals working alone? And why are the best group decisions and predictions those that draw upon the very qualities that make each of us unique? The answers lie in diversity--not what we look like outside, but what we look like within, our distinct tools and abilities.
The Difference reveals that progress and innovation may depend less on lone thinkers with enormous IQs than on diverse people working together and capitalizing on their individuality. Page shows how groups that display a range of perspectives outperform groups of like-minded experts. Diversity yields superior outcomes, and Page proves it using his own cutting-edge research. Moving beyond the politics that cloud standard debates about diversity, he explains why difference beats out homogeneity, whether you're talking about citizens in a democracy or scientists in the laboratory. He examines practical ways to apply diversity's logic to a host of problems, and along the way offers fascinating and surprising examples, from the redesign of the Chicago "El" to the truth about where we store our ketchup.
Page changes the way we understand diversity--how to harness its untapped potential, how to understand and avoid its traps, and how we can leverage our differences for the benefit of all.
Customer Reviews:
An important book.......2007-08-26
The Difference is a surprising book in that it is written in a manner that is is approachable by a fairly broad audience, but it does not sacrifice much in the way of the rigor that is expected from a book written for an academic audience. I am glad that this is the case, as this book deserves a wide readership. It provides a systematic case for the practical benefits of diversity. Insofar as we can think of ourselves as facing sufficiently difficult epistemic problems - particularly those of prediction - we can make ourselves better off by ensuring that our groups of problem-solvers are diverse in relevant respects. Page puts forth two major claims in the book, but unlike most, his claims are backed both by computer simulation and mathematical proof. The first claim is that diverse agents can do better in predictive problems than homogeneous groups. The second, far more interesting claim, is that diverse groups can do better than groups comprised of the most "able". Naturally, these claims must be understood within their scope. Page is scrupulous about demonstrating when these theorems obtain and when they do not.
This book is particularly exciting for its potential to change the frame of several large debates. Insofar as his theorems can apply to real social situations, we can see that, for purely epistemic reasons, we all have something to gain from diverse teams and societies.
Scott Page's writing is fresh, thoughtful and provocative. This book is a dash of pepper........2007-06-27
Viva la Difference! Scott Page takes us on a really enagaging tour that examines why diversity matters. You thought the subject was simple? Well it is if you think in terms of the usual ways we pigeon-hole each other (gender, race) but as Page quickly shows us - diversity can be framed in many, many more ways: and more than that - he can show proof after proof for why it makes a positive difference.
What I love is his entertaining command of language, his knowledge of the subject and his clear enthusiasm for the topic. This is one of those books that, alongside the likes of Blink, Wisdom of Crowds and Tipping Point, deserves wide reading and social influence. In many ways it is an unabashed (and welcome) celebration of human-ness. Recommended.
A compelling argument for diversity.......2007-05-25
Are two heads better than one? Or do too many cooks spoil the broth? For a large class of problems, argues mathematician and social scientist Scott E. Page, two heads are better. That is the benefit of diversity, particularly cognitive diversity. Skeptical? You won't be after you follow Page's methodical, quirky and often funny analysis of diversity's logic. We recommend this book to readers who want a truly rigorous, formal description of how diversity brings benefits to organizations. Be prepared, however, to encounter much math-speak (for example when he asks readers to "Consider an arbitrary sno-cone design denoted by P"). The author also notes that some of the models showing the impact of diversity that he cites in the book have been tested via computer simulation only, and not in practical settings. Still, Page's results are innovative and beautiful, he maps out inviting avenues for further exploration, and brings welcome clarity to the important and contentious issues raised by human diversity.
An important work on diversity.......2007-05-12
I am not a fan of much of the work on diversity. It tends to distort reasonable choices and is imbued with a host of PC language which makes gross leaps of faith. But I believe very deeply in assuring the widest range of people the broadest range of opportunity. Scott E Page, a faculty member at Michigan has done a wonderful book which in a careful way demonstrates significant benefits from encouraging a wide variety of backgrounds and approaches to participate in decisions. Page is a researcher, so he carefully lays out his research. But he also adds to it a thoughtful framework for his thinking.
This book could be read in parallel with The Wisdom of Crowds, James Suroweicki's excellent book on the increasing need for shared decisions and the ultimate ability of rightly structured groups to make better decisions than individuals. But Page adds to Suroweicki's original ideas. I bought several copies of Page's book for my friends.
thoughtful, original, substantiated.......2007-05-01
Scott Page has taken a topic which is inherently personal, emotional, and political to many people and has provided a thoughtful, logical and substantiated way to consider it. By making a more precise case for the types of diversity that are helpful in problem-solving, and for the types of problems it does help to solve, he makes a more powerful case than any blanket statements or political rhetoric could ever do. This book is required reading for anyone interested in creating a more effective organization, group, or society.
Average customer rating:
- Women, Men, and Society
- Classic feminist sexism
- Informative, though gender Biased
- Some caveats
- Every Women's Studies student should read this book
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Women, Men, and Society (5th Edition)
Claire M. Renzetti , and
Daniel J. Curran
Manufacturer: Allyn & Bacon
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Customer Reviews:
Women, Men, and Society.......2007-02-17
This was a new edition and very difficult to find. The cost was much higher at other places I checked. Needed for college class. Good price and delivery.
Classic feminist sexism.......2007-01-28
This book is blatant and undressed in its sexist portrait of men. As noted in the previous reviews, it is entirely dedicated to women's oppression. Worse yet is how it almost comically negates men's suffering and oppression. Pick any page and you will most likely find nothing other than women's issues. When the authors do approach the suffering of men, without exception the metrics and truth itself will be subverted and the issues either negated or astonishingly twisted back to be presented as women's suffering. For example, in a book that waxes wildly on classic and obvious issues when the subject is women, hardly a sentence is offered when addressing the fact that 92% of all fatalities at work are men. Then, shockingly, a few paragraphs are dedicated to actually representing this figure as oppression of women, that they aren't given the opportunity to be exposed to the same toxic, hazardous, dangerous and low paying jobs as the men that make up this startling percentage. When discussing media, particularly magazines aimed at men compared to those of women they mention two of each that they claim are comparable. Then, instead of comparing those mentioned, they pick two other men's magazines that they openly admit is aimed at younger men ( in their 20's .) They take the issue of sex and sexuality and describe it when occurring in the womens magazines as being oppressive to women. Specifically that it is geared to getting and keeping "your man." In the men's magazines, it's labeled as objectifying women. As mentioned in a previous review, when addressing homelessness, they portray the information so dishonestly that it is unclear that nearly the entire population of homeless are men.
This book is useful as an example of the twisted, disrespectfully, sexist, hypocritical, and ugly treatment men are treated to by much of the feminist community.
Informative, though gender Biased.......2005-07-05
From the title of the book and the course description I didn't fully expect the course to be solely based around women and their oppression. It gets very very repetitive by the end of the course. Even so much to say by the middle of the course you are completely tired of hearing the word "gender". The material is presented in an appropriate chronology and the categories are sensible enough, yet I kept finding myself thinking that all this material, the studies and statistics are pretty much common sense. Most of the terms any sociology student would be familiar with, and the language of the text is at best elementary.
I was quite bored with the course by the end. The simple nature of the material covered is enough to drive you mad.
I did, however, score a very high A in the class mainly because I read the text in depth and took very good notes. Be able to spew out everything you've ingested from your readings into class essays and you'll score A's.
Some caveats.......2002-08-26
A well researched book, but tendentious. I taught that book and I had trouble trying to explain to my students that most of the homeless people are men. The confusion of my students was the result from the way that Renzetti and Curran presented the issue (See Box 7.1 "Gender and Homelessness" p.213, Fourth Edition). I simply found disingenuous their statistical treatment of homeless and gender because a few pages later (p.237) Renzetti and Curran criticize the use of their reasoning when they dispute some analyses of the relationship between gender and delinquency. Then they pointed out that the fact that the growth rate of delinquency is greater among women does not mean that more women are turning into crime because the number of women committing crimes is proportionally smaller than that of men. I found this double standard disappointing because the relationship between gender and homelessness is important for understanding how the gender role of men is a social problem. Rather than focusing on the structural aspects of gender, sometimes the valuable work done by Renzetti and Curran get lost because a rather simplistic picture of the issues.
Every Women's Studies student should read this book.......2000-05-09
This is one of the most comprehensive gender studies books I have come across. Renzetti and Curran have explored virtually every avenue from sociologic/feminist/historical perspectives to childhood socialization and communication, to higher education, employment, crime, spirituality, health, government and social issues. I picked up the book to read the family/domestic violence section and could not put it down. This book should be a requirement for women's studies and gender studies students. Renzetti has done a great deal of groundbreaking work in same-sex battering and this title was great exposure to her other efforts. A remarkable researcher! I found this book at the library, and after reading 1/2 of it, I returned it, drove straight home and ordered it, so I could mark it up. It is a valuable piece of research and a work that I will reference for years to come. I wish I had found this book 4 years ago while I was an undergraduate student!
Book Description
Raymond Williams ' Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society is justly renowned for its role in providing a whole generation of students and intellectuals with trusty and cogent distillations of the language of cultural studies. First published in 1976, the text played a pivotal role in both academic and public understandings of culture and society and the relations between them. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society updates Williams 's classic text by reflecting the transformation in culture and society over the last quarter century.New Keywords includes many of Williams 's original entries, but with new discussions of their history and use over the last 25 years. Several other entries encapsulate the practices, institutions, and debates of contemporary society. The editors have assembled an international team of scholars to write from a variety of disciplines and interdisciplinary fields - cultural and media studies, feminism, post-colonial and subaltern studies, the history of science, sociology, gay and lesbian studies. The result is a state-of-the art reference for students, teachers and public intellectuals everywhere.
Customer Reviews:
Excellents Resource for Students of Cultural and Media Studies.......2005-09-14
The editors, Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg and Meaghan Morris are well known academics and scholars in cultural studies. The New Keywords is a comprehensive resource for everyone furthering their studies in cultural and literary theory. In addition, students involved in anthropology, sociology and philosophy may find it very useful.
Another model for Taxonomy and Classification of Information.......2005-05-18
View the Contents of this book to see how it fits as a re-newed model:
Acknowledgements Abbreviations
Introduction
Aesthetics, Alternative, Art, Audience
Behaviour, Biology, Body, Bureaucracy,
Canon, Capitalism, Celebrity, Citizenship, City, Civilization, Class, Colonialism, Commodity, Communication, Community, Conservatism, Consumption, Copy, Country, Culture
Deconstruction, Democracy, Desire, Development, Diaspora, Difference, Disability, Discipline, Discourse,
Economy, Education, Elite, Emotion, Empirical, Environment / ecology, Equality, Ethnicity, Everyday, Evolution, Experience
Family, Fashion, Feminism, Fetish, Freedom, Fundamentalism,
Gay and Lesbian, Gender, Generation, Gene/genetic, Globalization, Government
Heritage, History, Holocaust, Home, Human, Human Rights
Ideology, Identity, Image, Indigenous, Individual, Industry, Information, Intellectual
Justice, Knowledge, Liberalism
Management, Marginal, Market, Mass, Materialism, Media, Memory
Mobility, Modern, Movements, Multiculturalism
Narrative, Nation, Nature, Network, Normal
Objectivity, Orientalism, Other
Participation, Person, Place, Policy, Political correctness Popular, Pornography, Postcolonialism, Postmodernism, Poverty
Power, Pragmatism, Private, Public, Queer,
Race, Radical, Reason, Reform/revolution, Relativism Representation, Resistance, Risk,
Science, Self, Sexuality, Sign, Socialism, Society, Sovereignty,
Space, Spectacle, State,
Taste, Technology, Text, Theory, Therapy, Time, Tolerance, Tourism, Unconscious, Utopia, Value, Virtual, Welfare, West, the
Work, Writing, Youth,
About the Book:
Over 25 years ago, Raymond Williams' Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society set the standard for how we understand and use the language of culture and society. Now, three luminaries in the field of cultural studies have assembled a volume that builds on and updates Williams' classic, reflecting the transformation in culture and society since its publication. New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society is a state-of-the-art reference for students, teachers and culture vultures everywhere.
Books:
- The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
- The World Is Flat [Updated and Expanded]: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
- Time-Saver Standards for Landscape Architecture
- Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen
- Use What You Have Decorating : Transform Your Home in One Hour With Ten Simple Design Principles Using the Space You Have, the Things You Like, the Budget You Choose
- Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West
- Were It Not For Grace: Stories From Women After God's Own Heart; Featuring Condoleezza Rice, First Lady Laura Bush, Beth Moore & Others
- Where Did I Come From?
- Adaptive Filter Theory (4th Edition)
- An Introduction to Genetic Analysis (INTRODUCTION TO GENETIC ANALYSIS (GRIFFITHS))
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Vanished Man
- The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus
- Salvador Dali's Dream of Venus: The Surrealist Funhouse from the 1939 World's Fair
- Taylor's Guide to Roses: How to Select abd Grow 380 Roses, Including the New Hardy Ever-Blooming Var
- Taking Shots: Tall Tales, Bizarre Battles, and the Incredible Truth About the NBA
- Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics, Third Edition
- The Art of Computer Systems Performance Analysis: Techniques for Experimental Design, Measurement, S
- Elizabeth and Essex: A Tragic History
- Ninety-Six and Too Busy to Die: A Life Beyond the Age of Dying
- Ace And His Angels: Memoirs Of A Wwii Fighter Pilot
![Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything](http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0061234001.01.THUMBZZZ.jpg)
Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't
