History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

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.

Fairy Flight (The Fairy Houses Series) (Fairy Houses Series)

Average customer rating:

of cousins & Monarch Butterflies
Celebrate life through a child's eyes
A simply joyous fantasy picture book

Fairy Flight (The Fairy Houses Series) (Fairy Houses Series)
Tracy Kane
Manufacturer: Light Beams Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0970810423

Book Description

"I believe butterflies are really fairies in disguise," whispered Kinsey. Raising butterflies from caterpillars, Sarah and Kinsey are certain there is magic in the air.

Both ponder how the Monarchs can migrate so many miles without directions. Will they reach their final destination in time for the Butterfly Parade?

Maybe it's time for a pinch of fairy magic!

Customer Reviews:

of cousins & Monarch Butterflies.......2004-01-27

Cousins Kinsey & Sarah share summer days creating fairy houses, boats & learning about the great migration of the Monarch Butterflies.

Illustrated in Monet-like drawings in various shades from cheery pastels to deep night dark, which carry over through each page, the adventures of the two cousins will enchant young readers everywhere.

Rebeccasreads highly recommends FAIRY FLIGHT as a fun book while being educational, with hidden messages & crafty ideas. It should be on every grandmother's gift list!

Celebrate life through a child's eyes.......2004-01-15

A beautifully illustrated hardcover book for children "Fairy Flight" is a delight to read. Written for the under age 10 market it celebrates the imagination of children. In the book Kinsey and Sarah are cousins and friends who moved away from each other. During a visit to Sarah's house in California the children use their imagination to build fairy habitats. During this imaginative play they notice some monarch butterfly caterpillars. Sarah shares her knowledge of these butterflies with Kinsey who takes a few caterpillars back home along with some milkweed to keep them fed. Eventually they become butterflies and join all the other monarchs in their flight to California for the winter. Throughout the book there is a thread of childhood magic and their belief in fairies. "Fairy Flight" is a recommended read for young children who are sure to relate to the fantasy and enjoy the detail of the vivid illustrations.

A simply joyous fantasy picture book.......2003-07-27

Deftly written and superbly illustrated by Tracy Kane, Fairy Flight is a simply joyous fantasy picture book for young readers ages 4 to 9 about Sarah and Kinsey, two cousins who delight in summer days pondering the miraculous ability of monarch butterflies to migrate, while raising these majestic insects from caterpillars to Monarch butterflies. A thoroughly cheery tale, Fairy Flight is imbued with a genuine awe at the wondrous, fairy-like complexities within these tiny, intrinsically beautiful insects.

Average customer rating:

Beautifully written, but not the 'ghost story' you might expect
Haunting
Haunting, in the best possible way.
A surprisingly affecting novel.
A Funny Thing, Life

The Inhabited World
David Long
Manufacturer: Houghton Mifflin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 061854335X

Book Description

Evan Molloya son, husband, and stepfatherfatally shot himself but doesn't know why. He is now stuck in a state of purgatory in the house in Washington State where he lived and died. Currently, a woman named Maureen Keniston lives there. She is in her late thirties and is trying to restart her life after breaking off a long affair with a married man. The novel moves back and forth between the story of Evan's increasingly troubled life and Maureen's efforts to emerge from her own purgatory. In watching Maureen's struggles and ultimate triumph, Evan comes to see his own life and death in a completely new way.

Customer Reviews:

Beautifully written, but not the 'ghost story' you might expect.......2007-07-14

The premise of a lonely ghost observing life going on in the house in which he died is what attracted me to David Long's novel. But that idea is actually a rather slight portion of this story.

For reasons neither he, nor the reader, ever understand, Evan is doomed to remain in the house in which he committed suicide 10 years earlier. While the premise is fantastical, the tone of the novel is not. We see Evan's life is fragmented, almost swirling snapshots, which seem appropriate for a lost soul still piecing his recollections together. Long writes beautifully in a very literate style and much of the story is Evan reflecting upon his life. And the events of his life are rather prosaic and mundane. He meets his wife, marries her, has an affair, is divorced, reunites with his wife and her troubled daughter. Perhaps Long's point is that life is mundane. But Long's elegant, somewhat melacholy prose holds the reader more than the story itself.

There's a slightness to the narrative. And Evan's connection to Maureen, the woman living in 'his' house doesn't seem fully fleshed out. What is it about her that touches him more than the previous tenants in the house? (She seems to most resemble the woman with whom he had an affair, but that connection is never made explicit.) We follow Evan's mental collapse leading to his suicide in the flashbacks, but it feels a bit arbitrary. There's a slightly aloof quality to Long's story and prose and Evan remains an oddly generic character. It's clear long before the reader gets to the end of this book that there will be no tidy conclusion to this story. And there isn't. And since the emotional impact of the ending hinges on Evan's connection with Maureen, it's puzzling that this connection is what is slighted for much of the novel.

This is a lovely novel -- readable, if not entirely compelling, but perhaps not what many readers might expect from its other-worldly premise.

Haunting.......2007-01-31

I have not, in the past, felt compelled to write reviews on the internet, but this book is so haunting, smart, poetic, and strange, I can't help myself from asserting to potential readers: read it. This is an author who has such a sense of the nature of human beings, their motivations, the depths of the psyche--it changed the way I'll ever again see some of the people in my life. While I was reading it, I found myself talking to its characters, recalling its details, singings its praises to strangers. It entered my dreams! I'm not doing it just, but will say, you won't find another novel like this, and you won't forget it.

Haunting, in the best possible way........2006-12-20

It's been a week since I finished The Inhabited World, and I still can't shake its spell. I read the terrific review in the NY Times, which piqued my interest, but I had no idea the experience of entering the world of this book would be so fulfilling and moving.
I have to say that I'm flabbergasted by the review printed here on Amazon, claiming the book is "slight" -- flabbergasted. I really don't know how anyone could arrive at that word. The daily life of the protagonist was so specific, small in scope but precise and utterly believeable, all of which qualities are rendered so poignant by the circumstances of the present (his suicide).
It is written with mastery; no new writer could achieve this simplicity, could so completely put his words to the service of his story. I never marvelled at his prose, just at the characters' behavior, and only after the book was laid down did I marvel at the exquisite and invisible engine that had driven the story to its conclusion. A heartbreaking and life-affirming conclusion.

A surprisingly affecting novel........2006-11-07

I don't typically write Amazon reviews, but I'm really amazed this book hasn't received more attention. I picked this book up at random in the library, and I will be forever grateful for that instance of serendipity. This is just a really well-written novel. I completely identified with the characters, which was surprising for me, as I often find fiction to be frustrating. As Roger Ebert says about movies, it's not what the movie is about, but how it is about it. This statement can apply here, as the story is wonderfully realized. This is a terrific novel. Read it.

A Funny Thing, Life.......2006-08-31

"What a funny thing, life," thinks Evan Malloy, the main character in David Long's new novel, The Inhabited World. And it is, despite the fact that Evan is a ghost, having died by suicide but existing now in a kind of purgatory, confined to wandering the house and yard where he once lived with his wife, Claudia. Now he invisibly observes the house's string of new inhabitants, including the current one, Maureen.

The Inhabited World is not your usual ghost story by any stretch but rather a deeply moving meditation on life's meaning--or lack of meaning if the life dead ends, if human connections fail to offer solace or succor. Though we learn in the first pages that Evan is dead by his own hand, and that the story of his life and death will come through him in fragments or revealed "tiles" that finally form a full picture, The Inhabited World is curiously life-affirming. Evan may have killed himself, and in the process--as he fully understands from his purgatorial fourth dimension--caused unbearable suffering to those he leaves behind, especially his wife, Claudia and father, Donovan. Still, Evan does atone in a strange way by watching after the house's current occupant, Maureen, a young woman trapped in an abusive relationship with an older married man. Evan cannot physically protect Maureen against the cruel manipulations of Ned, but Evan is not without an ability to influence the human world--that is, his world, the house and yard beyond which he cannot go--and, in the case of Maureen, guide her toward her own strength to resist and take back control. Evan's tenderness for Maureen becomes the purpose of his life after death, and there's a hint that his abiding watchfulness, his role as her "angel of mercy," will lead to Evan's release from his term of confinement.

The story of Evan, Maureen, Claudia and Claudia's almost existentially unhappy teenage daughter Janey--for whom Evan, during the brief period of his second marriage to Claudia, forms a bond of empathy and understanding--flips intricately from past to present, from Evan's life with Claudia to his "new life" (as he calls it), the one with Maureen. Chapters are intense, economical, revelatory. One, "Sleep on the Beach," has the living Evan and Claudia, now newly remarried, experiencing the hugeness of the star-flecked cosmos and, as a corollary, their own fragility. "This is just very powerful, Ev, looking out into all that," says Claudia. "You know? I'm sort of tongue-tied." And for good reason. Evan's infidelity ended their first marriage. Now, many years later, they've tried a second time. And the second time, complicated by the upheavals of step-daughter Janey, often works, though ultimately it will not. It's this foreknowing--Evan's descent into depression, his suicide, his "re-awakening," the imprisonment of his spirit in the old house--that gives this scene on the beach a deep pathos.

The Inhabited World resonates with Long's empathy for the inhabitants of his fictional world. The writing comes from intimate knowledge of how people work, how men and women interact, either as allies or combatants (or, variously, both), saying one thing, meaning three others. No novelist I know has a more finely tuned ear to the nuances of how people speak. No one writes more observantly or truthfully about sex than Long, about how the dynamics can range from tenderness and mutuality to power and control: sex as communion or sex as warfare. And no one knows better how to lay down deft brush strokes of humor, as when Evan and Claudia, in the second marriage, lie in bed. "`Your feet still cold?'" he asked. `Icy.' `Then don't get them near mine,' Evan said. Claudia immediately put her feet on his."

But what may be the most remarkable feature is the writing itself. There is simply never a sentence in The Inhabited World that seems pedestrian, tossed off. Paragraph after paragraph, sentences have a new-minted glint, always surprising, never straining to be stylistically showy but always perfectly pitched, almost tactile in their sensory and sensual architecture. It would be next to impossible to illustrate this well by pulling sentences from their narrative context, but here's a brief passage that gives an idea. In a late chapter, Maureen has one more time endured the sexual demands of Ned, the married radiologist who knows what he wants, everyone else be damned. After Ned drives off and Maureen is alone in the house--so she believes--she has to deal with the glass of iced tea she'd earlier offered him out of perfunctory hospitality:

"Maureen stares, adjusts the kimono where it blouses open, finally takes the tumbler between two fingers, hurries it to the trash like a used diaper, clomps the lid down, turns to look around as if someone might have caught her in the act."

It's this continual care with detailing, the rendering of these human moments, that illuminates the entire novel, that makes us believe a man can be more alive--more conscious--in death than in life. In death, not only is raging insomnia no longer an issue, Evan learns, since he exists in a continuous state of observant wakefulness, neither is depression, anger, the need for medications, and the host of other earth-bound maladies. In the simple act of observing Maureen's comings and goings, Evan learns that he can, in a mysterious way, help the living Maureen find the strength to move forward, and in doing so, redeem himself for that one moment when he could not get beyond what he recognizes as "surmountable despair." And that may be the book's central and brave notion: despair is surmountable.

In The Inhabited World David Long presents readers a great gift in language that climbs to a high promontory of imaginative engagement and stays there. The gift is wisdom about the human condition ("the whips and scorns of time," as Hamlet, another suicidal, famously soliloquizes), about what's worthwhile and what's mere distraction from the worthwhile, about not enduring those insurmountables stoically alone but having the courage to call out for the love of others. The beauty of this novel--perhaps of art itself--is that it offers reasons for living, for forging ahead, for accepting life as weird, mysterious, maddening (in all its senses), for seeing it like Evan, as "a funny thing"--and not, after all, as a lightless narrowing cave, not as unfathomable. David Long fathoms life. So does Evan, finally. In The Inhabited World, we are given the same chance as Evan--to "reconsider" the world from a certain perspective of remove, to return to a sense of wonder and awe, like a night on the beach under stars with someone you love.

The End of the House Windsor: Birth of a British Republic

Average customer rating:

I wanted to give it -10000000000000000 stars cause it's bull
Off with his head
Essential reading

The End of the House Windsor: Birth of a British Republic
Stephen Haseler
Manufacturer: I. B. Tauris
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Is the British monarchy an absurd anachronism or the lynchpin of the nation state? Is the Royal Family the guardian of our national heritage or has it, in fact, been responsible for the decline of Britain by promoting the idea of the Great British historical theme park?

With the current shenanigans and revelations involving the royals, much of the mystique that has surrounded the monarchy over the centuries has been stripped away.

In this controversial book, Stephen Haseler argues that, as a result, a British republic is now inevitable. He calls for immediate action to ensure a smooth transition of power during the present queen's lifetime, and vividly conjures up life in a Republic of Britain - for the Royal family, its court and courtiers, the peerage and the church, and above all ordinary people.

Customer Reviews:

I wanted to give it -10000000000000000 stars cause it's bull.......2003-12-17

This book is down right treasonist and anyone that reads it and agree's should be tried aswell. I beleive this book should be banned and I'm very angry that Amazon has it available

Off with his head.......2002-05-01

I am not by temperament a royalist. Three and a half centuries ago, given the circumstances of the time, I would have been a Commonwealthsman, though nearer John Lilburne than Cromwell. So I'm open to persuasion that it might sometimes be worthwhile tearing up old constitutional arrangements in favor of shiny new ones. The French did it once a generation for the past two centuries, and look where it got them. Still, there might be something to be said for it.

The survival of the British monarchy is an historical accident. Britain was never defeated in a European war, which is what induced the birth of most European republics. Nothing daunted, Prof. Haseler stands high in the ranks, all two dozen of them, pressing for a British Republic. He starts his book by observing - I paraphrase - that Monarchy is bad. This applies in particular to the supposedly house-trained British variety, which turns out to be responsible for the decline of the nation to a point where we have only the fourth largest economy in the world and a derisory international presence. On the other hand, a Republic is good. He reprises this in various keys, pointing out that there is no such thing as Englishness let alone Britishness, but not to worry, that will be no problem once we come into the EU apotheosis (what would God's Englishman or Freeborn John have said to that?). He goes on repeating it for 200 pages. He may be right; a centuries-old constitutional monarchy may be the worst system, except for all the others.

Things have moved on since the book was written and parts of it now look quaint. He seems to think that the Diana cult, not yet crowned by martyrdom when he was writing, might provide the leverage that he wants against the monarchy. He's wrong; it's all part of the same thing. In truth the British polity has its problems but the monarchy is among the least of them (the exact opposite of 350 years ago). The moral is: if it ain't broke, don't write a book on how to fix it. Sorry if I sound flippant, but the republican movement, such as it is, will have to do better than this if it wants my vote.

To the reviewer above: if people want to write books like this and other people want to read them, it isn't treasonable, you nincompoop. That's one of the things we fought about all those centuries ago.

Essential reading.......2000-10-04

Ignore the picture on the cover. This is NOT a "Diana" book and it was written years before she died.

This is an extremely well-written critique of the institution of the British monarchy and it's survival to the present day at the heart of a supposedly democratic system of government. It's author is a Professor of Government Studies and also chair-person of Republic (the UK Republican Society).

The book systematically demolishes traditional arguments put forward by royalist constitutional experts, and clearly puts forward the case for a smooth transition to republican government under a written constitution when the present Queen's reign comes to an end. It attempts to explain the failure of the short-lived republic which followed Britain's 17th century revolution, and exposes the negative influence of the monarchy on the nation's social, political and economic well-being.

Although it is now several years old, it is still a very important book for anyone in Britian interested in constitutional reform. It is also good reading for Americans who come to Britain as tourists and think that the monarchy is cute, quaint and entertaining. The monarchy is none of those things. It's power, although cloaked in the language of democracy is still real and threatening.

Average customer rating:

The Soul of a Hero Reborn

Direct, searing

still so painfully true...

The man in the gray flannel suit

A pleasant find

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana)
Sloan Wilson
Manufacturer: Arbor House Pub Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Organization Man

The Lonely Crowd, Revised edition: A Study of the Changing American Character

The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit

Peyton Place

In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam

ASIN: 0877955530

Book Description

Universally acclaimed when first published in 1955, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit captured the mood of a generation. Its title — like Catch-22 and Fahrenheit 451 — has become a part of America’s cultural vocabulary. Tom Rath doesn’t want anything extraordinary out of life: just a decent home, enough money to support his family, and a career that won’t crush his spirit. After returning from World War II, he takes a PR job at a television network. It is inane, dehumanizing work. But when a series of personal crises force him to reexamine his priorities — and take responsibility for his past — he is finally moved to carve out an identity for himself. This is Sloan Wilson’s searing indictment of a society that had just begun to lose touch with its citizens. The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit is a classic of American literature and the basis of the award-winning film starring Gregory Peck. “A consequential novel.” — Saturday Review

Customer Reviews:

The Soul of a Hero Reborn.......2007-02-08

Tom Rath, a WWII veteran who survived against incredible odds, feels stressed, distant and unhappy. He has a wife and three kids and works in an unchallenging administrative job that affords him but modest pay and no real room for advancement. He tries for and gets what turns out to be an uncertain, but better paying, position at the United Broadcasting Corp. With his new salary and the sudden death of his 93 year old grandmother, his discontented wife decides to sell their modest house in a boring suburb and move the family into the estate Tom has inherited. Meanwhile Tom, feeling detached and cynical, struggles in his new job to provide what he thinks is expected of him. At the root of this are his growing WWII recollections of a long romantic affair with Maria and, later, of accidentally killing his best friend -both memories triggered by repeatedly running across a fellow war vet now working as an elevator operator in his building.

There are many interesting and important subplots, but the three interrelated central issues confronting Tom regard his attitude toward his wife, his employer, and his past (Maria and the son struggling to survive in post-war Italy). The tension and joylessness that pervade his life hinge on whether or not he can resolve these conflicts. He resolves the issues at home by standing up and fighting for passage of a school bond measure; the issue with his employer by being completely open and honest (instead of playing the cynical game he thinks he is expected to play); and the issue with his past, by committing to send $100 a month to help his son in Italy -and coming clean with his wife Betty about his affair with Maria.

In confronting every painful or difficult decision he knows to be right he goes through the same thought process that gave him the mental strength and self-control he needed in the war (1. "It doesn't really matter." 2. "Here goes nothing"; and 3. "It will be interesting to see what happens").

In my view, Wilson's thesis -especially given the happy ending -is that, by being honest and taking responsibility for your life and choices you allow everything to turn out -if not exactly how you expected- then at least for the best. Your life then becomes authentic and joyful, not merely a stressful, dutiful, and impersonal routine to be endured until things somehow work out (because they never will, and you will simply remain unhappy until you die).

In other words, by successfully confronting the past you reclaim the present (and future) -and every moment becomes precious once more.

Looking at the novel as a historical document, it gives me a deeper understanding of the sense of ennui or drift that many WWII vets underwent after returning from the war, and their feeling of being between wars -a desire to enjoy life now while there's peace, and not throw enjoyment of the now away on an ultimately futile or empty pursuit of title or status.

Implicitly, it communicates well the feeling of survival-guilt or a soldier's sense of unreality toward his surroundings after the unimaginable death and horror he has experienced during the war. Tom Rath must wake up from the past by developing a real connection to the world around him in the present. He resists the pervasive and lethal cynicism by playing it straight and taking full responsibility for his life.

Direct, searing.......2007-01-30

I read it many years ago and never forgot it. At the time Tom should have been too old for me to identify with, but the author created a man so human it was jarring. You worry about this character. Tom appears calm, but underneath the water his feet are churning and the reader churns with him.

still so painfully true..........2005-08-30

Sloan Wilson, to begin with, is a great writer. He is able to capture a mood, a tention and an empathy for his main character, Mr. Rath, that many authors simply can't. I found myself able to identify with this man (who is my age, 33, though male) so closely it was creepy. He is like me in his tendency to worry so much about the "what if's" in life, that sometimes he doesn't take the risks that maybe he should. Or, if he does take the risks, he is so nervous that everything will fall apart, he can't truly enjoy it. I found myself rooting for him, and feeling his anxiety at every work conference or family incident. I was glad when the story ended, and that it ended as it did, because I don't know if I could have taken any more stress. This book DID stress me out because it is so true, then as well as now. Definitely worth reading.

The man in the gray flannel suit.......2005-08-08

Sloan Wilson's novel is a must for everybody interested in contemporary Americal literature. Over the last years it has not lost any actuality.

A pleasant find.......2004-06-18

With so much being written about the "Greatest Generation" the story generally ends sometime around V-J day. Sloan Wilson's insightful novel gives readers an opportunity to see how a World War II veteran might handle the rat race in 1950s New York City.

Tom and Betsey Rath are married with three kids trying to keep up with the Joneses in their Connecticut suburb while Tom climbs the corporate ladder in Manhatten. The day to day conflicts are pretty interesting, but about halfway through the novel, Tom sees someone that brings his war past into the present.

The title of the book has come to mean the bland working man of the 1950s, but our hero Tom Rath is not bland. He has enough inner conflicts to field an Olympic team. Tom isn't some sycophant trying to get ahead, but a guy who killed and watched his friends get killed in the war. I wasn't expecting the depth of character.

The novel is written in clear direct language that makes it easy to follow the story and the real complexities of life. Stylistically, the omnipotent narrator is usually in the head of our hero Tom, but he occasionally jumps around to other minds for variation. Just as you've made up your mind about a simple character the narrator jumps into their skin and they too become a flesh and blood person.

Book Description

The Soviet Union was hardly the first large, continuous, land-based, multinational empire to collapse in modern times. The USSR itself was, ironically, the direct result of one such demise, that of imperial Russia, which in turn was but one of several other such empires that did not survive the stresses of the times: the Austro-Hungarian Empire of the Habsburgs and the Ottoman Empire.

The Civil War and Yadkin County, North Carolina: A History With Contemporary Photographs and Letters; New Evidence Regarding Home Guard Activity and the Shootout at the Bond School House; A Roster of

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Must Have Book for Yadkin County Genealogists
The war within the war in western North Carolina.

The Civil War and Yadkin County, North Carolina: A History With Contemporary Photographs and Letters; New Evidence Regarding Home Guard Activity and the Shootout at the Bond School House; A Roster of
Frances H. Casstevens
Manufacturer: McFarland & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0786402881

Book Description

Located in the western piedmont of North Carolina, Yadkin County was hardly a hotbed of rebellion at the start of the Civil War. Many of the 1,200 men from Yadkin who served in the Confederate Army did so with distinction, but a number deserted. When the militia attempted to arrest them, four were killed and several others were wounded. This is a comprehensive accounting of how the county responded to the Civil War and the effect it had on Yadkin's citizens, civilian and military alike.

Customer Reviews:

Must Have Book for Yadkin County Genealogists.......2007-04-23

This book was well researched, nicely written and contains wonderful facts and stories about Yadkin County, N.C. before, during, and after the Civil War. It presents actual letters from the people of that era giving their personal accounts of the horror of the Civil War and how Yadkin County residents coped with the changes that the Confederacy and War brought to them. If you are studying the family history of someone in or around Yadkin County, this book will really help you understand what your relatives went through in the early days of this section of our country.

The war within the war in western North Carolina........1999-01-29

A small western Piedmont county in North Carolina is the subject of this very unusual Civil War history. Written by a local historian with a rich knowledge of the county and its people, the book weaves the colorful threads of local characters and events into the big picture of the greatest war in our history. Battlefield stories and army life are recounted, partly in letters writen home by Yadkin soldiers in the field, but the most intriguing events are those that occurred on the home front. In a region of sharply divided loyalties, the woods of Yadkin County soon filled with "bushwhackers", men hiding out to escape concription into the Confederate army. The book tell of the locally famous shoot-out between some of these men and the Militia, of their arrest and the jail breaks that set them free, of executions by the Home Guard, and of the treks to Tennessee to join the Union army. In the last days of the war a Yankee Cavalry division led by George Stoneman rode through the county and Cassstevens treats us to previously unpublished stories of his famous raid.

Book Description

This book shows how to use the wisdom in the book of Proverbs for guidance in finances, marriage, sex, family, religion, education, vocation, and politics.

Customer Reviews:

Great Book On Proverbs.............2007-02-26

If you have a difficult time understanding the Bible and the book of Proverbs this book will help you better understand and find wisdom. The KJV is not used in this book, but everything else is right on!

Wayne House's work is better than Cody Jones.......2002-12-22

Wayne House's work is better than Cody Jones' work and unfortunately Mr. Jones like to blast others using these reviews as a PR mechanicism to advertise his terrible book on Proverbs. I prefer Wayne House's work.

The Complete Guide to the Book of Proverbs is much better!.......1999-12-29

I found this "Contemporary Look at the Wisdom of Proverbs" inaccurate, intolerant and judgemental. On page 13 the authors list the book of Ecclesiastes as recording the thoughts of King Solomon. Contemporary Bible scholars are unanimous that Ecclesiastes was written 700 years after Solomon died! Under foolishness in Proverbs the authors climb their soapbox to attach abortion and homosexuality on page 11. A much more positive and accurate approach to Proverbs is THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE BOOK OF PROVERBS by Cody Jones. The comments are interesting and very readable and put things into a historical setting. The in-depth guide (568 pages) includes 6 translations in parallel and many historical photos to give the reader a sense of the culture of the time.

Company K (The Arbor House library of contemporary Americana)

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The Most Underrated of ALL War Novels
Almost a Classic
a surprisingly modern old book
a classic veteran's tale from WW1

Company K (The Arbor House library of contemporary Americana)
William March
Manufacturer: Arbor House Pub Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0877956472

Customer Reviews:

The Most Underrated of ALL War Novels.......2007-07-01

Do not take it from me, Graham Greene, one of the most respected names in Twentieth Century Fiction hails March's "Company K" as the greatest of all anti-war novels, while Hemingway thought it superior to almost all other WWI novels. This novel is not an almost-classic, it is a classic, borrowing the format made popular by Edgar Lee Masters, March expounds on the concept of individual soldier stories encompassing the full breath of the war. This novel is as appropriate now as it ever was in the post-WWI era. This novel is a must read for anyone remotely concerned with WWI and the impact war has on the survivors.

Almost a Classic.......2004-07-04

March makes a compelling case in this text that he should be well entrenched in the second tier of American authors, if not the first. His WWI recollections do a fine job of bringing out the terrors and guilts of a war long forgotton and little remembered, except for the short period of the Twenties. If there is any shortcoming in this fine work, it is that it draws far too much from Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthologies. My guess is that March, who was trained as a lawyer like Masters (a former partner of the unethical (...) Clarence Darrow) grasped onto Masters' then-current work . It's not a heroic idea, but one that's occurred to me. In any event, Company K is a work that ought to be read far more than it is a century later. WWI [is] seldom remembered as the great trauma that it was in the US. Here's a book that tells how bad it was, and more importantly, why.

a surprisingly modern old book.......2000-12-29

This edition of "Company K," by William March (a native of Mobile, graduate of The University of Alabama's law school, and WW I veteran), is one in a series called The Library of Alabama Classics, and it warrants its status as a classic. It's a beautiful little book, nicely typeset in a somewhat nostalgic manner, and deserves to be better known than it is--as does its author. Kudos to Alabama's UP for making this book available in paperback for a wide audience.

The book, first published in 1933, is a collection of short first-person narratives by the members of a company caught in the frontline in the first World War. Remarkable is March's ability to place himself (and the reader) in the positions of a great many very different characters--the company is a cross section of American society. This, his first novel, shows that March is an intelligent and sensitive storyteller.

More remarkable, perhaps, is how easily this book might be hypertexted--since all the narratives intersect, and various characters appear in various guises in other's narratives, it would lend itself easily to an HTML version in which a reader could click their way through the book without having to follow the book's order. Surely March must have seen this as a possible way of reading, since the chapter headings are the characters' names, allowing a reader of the book to easily flip from one character to another. The book, which seems to be suitable more for a spatial than a chronological way of reading, disrupts the boundaries of its printed format. I don't mean to call March a post-structuralist avant la lettre, but it is a feature that enhances, in my opinion, one of the themes of the book: the horror of war recognizes no hierarchy; war disrupts the human order.

As for horror, there is plenty of that. The point of view March has chosen is excellent in that it allows for multiple readings of the same event (for instance, the unnecessary and criminal shelling of a recon party); some of the voices come from beyond the grave and are particularly chilling.

One final note on the edition: it is introduced (not designed, as the Amazon heading states erroneously) by Phil Beidler, a professor of American lit at U of A. Beidler has shown a great interest in and loyalty to the literature of Alabama (see, for instance, his anthologies "The Art of Fiction in the Heart of Dixie" and "Many Voices, Many Rooms"), and his introduction to this book is insightful and touching. Beidler obviously knows his stuff; he knows both war and Alabama.

I believe that this book, as has been noted by others, is of the rank of Remarque's "All Quiet," and it is a wonderful and chilling read. Like most good war novels, it says "don't let this happen again," while realizing that it probably will, knowing human nature.

a classic veteran's tale from WW1.......1998-07-11

Slaughterhouse-five, and Catch-22 both borrowed from a powerful predecessor. Company-k is a simple read, short chapters each one a character of many narratives. Each one an insightful and heart-rending tale. It would be easy to ignore Company-K and most don't know it - except that it's written by a man who was there. Hemingway glorified war made it seem almost fun - March tells it as it was. Only Johnny Got His Gun, and All Quite On the Western Front come close to this passionate and shocking book.

The Wars of the Roses: From Richard II to the Fall of Richard III at Bosworth Field-Seen Through the Eyes of Their Contemporaries

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The Wars of the Roses: From Richard II to the Fall of Richard III at Bosworth Field-Seen Through the Eyes of Their Contemporaries

Manufacturer: Grove Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1555842402

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