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.

Artworks for Elementary Teachers with Art Starts

Average customer rating:

Good ideas for your students

Artworks for Elementary Teachers with Art Starts
Barbara Herberholz , and Donald Herberholz
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
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Binding: Paperback

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Integrating Music into the Elementary Classroom, Media Edition (with CD and Keyboarding Booklet)
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Artworks for Elementary Teachers: Looseleaf

ASIN: 0072515805

Book Description

Artworks for Elementary Teachers serves elementary education majors with little or no prior background in art. It provides introductory experiences both in knowing how to create art and how to respond to it. The four areas of study in discipline-based art education--aesthetics, art production, art criticism and art history--are covered thoroughly and include the latest in state and national standards.

Customer Reviews:

Good ideas for your students.......2000-12-17

I love the thought of this book -- an art book for teachers who may not know much about art, but are planning on teaching art to their students. It's a great idea, and the book covers a great deal of information in a thin volume, from the principles of art, to the schools of artists and their works, to methods used to create art, to visiting the museum.

The book also contains suggested projects for your elementary school art students, as well as jumping-off points for discussion and activity. I only wish the book had even more ideas, but perhaps that is another book!

If you are a teacher who wants to teach art, but doesn't know much about it, and doesn't know where to begin, I suggest beginning with this book. It's a crash course not only in art, but in teaching art to elementary students and instilling a love of art within your students.

Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body
Average customer rating:

insightful critique of patriarchy/modern culture/postmodernism

This book was earthshattering!

Convincing

Brilliant, relevant, a must-read for feminists

Brutally honest, insightful, and most challenging read.

Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body
Susan Bordo
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and in Private

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The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women

Fasting Girls: The History of Anorexia Nervosa

Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism (Theories of Representation and Difference)

ASIN: 0520088832

Book Description

In this provocative book, Susan Bordo untangles the myths, ideologies, and pathologies of the modern female body. Bordo explores our tortured fascination with food, hunger, desire, and control, and its effects on women's lives.

Customer Reviews:

insightful critique of patriarchy/modern culture/postmodernism.......2007-07-01

my favorite aspect of this collection of essays were the ones critiquing the excesses of postmodernism since they encourage a feminism grounded in reality. for instance, she critiques a music video produced by madonna in which she is the object of the voyeur. a postmodernist reviewer admired the film for playing with the boundaries of gender (due to a throwaway moment at the end of the video), but seriously, what is the reaction of normal viewers to the video? it just promotes the objectification of women. bordo acknowledges that race, class, and sexual orientation make it impossible to envision a quintessential female subject, but that power structures in society still impose similar demands of most women and postmodern critiques detract attention from reconstructing the power structures. her essays insightfully critique the media for producing images which encourage the repression of women (for example, images of slenderness, which values a "masculine" domination of the inner will). as a psychology student with faith in the ability of the clinical field to cure, her discussion of anorexia and bulimia as a culturally-driven phenomenon overcame my tendency to classify them as "psychological" problems.

as for her writing style, bordo is straightforward and persuasive. she presents examples to support each of her arguments, and she displays the power of philosophy to address societal concerns instead of being a field ultimately detached from the concerns of the modern subject. i would enthusiastically recommend this collection of essays to everyone.

This book was earthshattering!.......2005-04-25

The first time I read Ms. Bordo's book, I was so into it that I didn't get enough sleep that night. This book tells us the brainwashing media and society use to control women as well as to maintain the power elite. If the elite, media or otherwise, didn't use impossibly thin, beautiful, made up blonde women to keep them divided and in control, the whole structure would have collapsed long time ago.

Thanks Ms. Bordo for informing me about this, for I've been in darkness for many years.

Convincing.......2003-02-18

The one thing you want to keep in mind when purchasing this book: it's not a light read and it ain't supposed to be. If three syllable words throw you for a loop, stay away. If you feel every fat acceptance book you've read recently has insulted the depth of your intelligence, then read up! At the very least, you can't walk away from this book failing to be convinced that the world at large is at war with our bodies.
Warning: not a feel-good book! You'll be angry and start snapping at your husband, but righteous fury is where change begins.

Brilliant, relevant, a must-read for feminists.......2002-08-30

Although a challenging read for me at times, this book was full of "aha!" moments. I think Bordo nails it when it comes to how the issues women's size and appearance are portrayed in the media. I recommend this book highly to other feminists and those interested in media literacy.

Brutally honest, insightful, and most challenging read........2002-07-27

Susan Bordo's "Unbearable Weight" presents a thoroughly researched, well-balanced, detailed and illustrative account of the female postmodern "body politic." Bordo explores myriad concepts of the body juxtaposed against cultural norms and expectations. For Bordo, the body has both natural and cultural meanings, and gender is a social construct defined by men. Anorexia nervosa is simply a "logical" protest reaction against male dominance and the constraints of female sex-role conditioning. No doubt, while women were not chained in the dark shadows of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave," they were, indeed, shackled outside it but silenced. I, too, like these women, was manacled and confined inside the cave of male social conditioning and what it meant to be a man. And I did not find kindred spirits there. What finally emerged outside the cave was a man with eyes without a face with his very own protest and autobiographical "Sisyphus and the Struggle Within" written inside the heart on stone. While the body is, indeed, a heavy "unbearable weight," it can be made light and bearable through conscious self-definition and identity, mental and intellectual transcendence. Though it poses great danger, it takes Sisyphean strength and courage to break free from, and revolt against the barriers of dominant social control and gender inequality.

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The Future of the Image
Jacques Ranciere
Manufacturer: Verso
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1844671070

Book Description

A leading philosopher presents a radical manifesto for the future of art and film.

In The Future of the Image, Jacques Ranci&232;re develops a fascinating new concept of the image in contemporary art, showing how art and politics have always been intrinsically intertwined. Covering a range of art movements, and thinkers such as Foucault, Deleuze, Adorno, Barthes, Lyotard and Greenberg, Ranci&232;re argues that contemporary theorists of the image are suffering from religious tendencies. He suggests that there is a stark political choice in art: it can either reinforce a radical democracy, or create a new reactionary mysticism. For Ranci&232;re there is never a pure art: the aesthetic revolution will always embrace egalitarian ideals.

The Good European: Nietzsche's Work Sites in Word and Image

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Beautiful Book
Travel with Nietzsche
Take a Hike with Fritz!

The Good European: Nietzsche's Work Sites in Word and Image
David Farrell Krell , and Donald L. Bates
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0226452794

Book Description

Through photographs and translations of Friedrich Nietzsche's evocative writings on his work sites, David Farrell Krell and Donald L. Bates explore the cities and landscapes in which Nietzsche lived and worked.

"A brilliant juxtaposition of life and thought. . . . The sympathy of this pictorial biography is rivaled by few books on Nietzsche."—Charles M. Stang, Boston Book Review

"[A] distinguished addition to the Nietzsche-friendly corpus."—Alain de Botton, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"An odd and oddly endearing record of Nietzsche's travels."—John Banville, New York Review of Books

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful Book.......2007-02-08

David Krell and Donald Bates trace the major sites of Nietzsche's productive period, tracing the French and Italian Riviera, Sils Maria, Turin, and the mountains of the Engadine in an attempt to examine the role of space in the creative work of this great philosopher. The book also serves the role of a miniature biography, the authors have done a great deal of research in the primary literature, reproducing a number of letters between friends, family, and colleagues. The book does not attempt to pinpoint the exact influence of landscape on the content of Nietzsche's work per se, still one does get the impression that the atmosphere of these places contributed to the dramatic flare of Nietzsche's style. The photographs are truly beautiful, but one still feels unsatisfied by the lack of analysis of the actual philosophy itself.

Travel with Nietzsche.......2001-06-25

Although at first glance this book might appear to be simply a "coffee table" book, it actually presents a totally engaging, very personal view of Nietzsche by Krell and Bates. After I recently read various works by Nietzsche, and was somewhat astonished by the heart-on-the-sleeve baring of the soul that characterizes so much of Nietzsche's writing (e.g. Thus Spoke Zarathustra), I found it very interesting to read Mr. Krell's splendid prose as he shares with us highlights of the many journals, notes, and letters that document the inner life of Nietzsche. In particular, the wonderful way that Krell matches up Nietzsche's physical surroundings with the various images and metaphors of his published work provide a tremendous insight into both the meaning and the poetic beauty of Nietzsche's writings. I especially appreciated learning about the internal tension and ambivalence that Nietzsche experienced regarding whether his work would be interpreted as genuine philosophy or merely poetry. This is an excellent book to read from cover to cover as well as to browse.

Take a Hike with Fritz!.......1997-11-08

just got the expensive book 'The Good European' last night at berkeley's Black Oak bookstore, 55$, phew. great idea for a book, kind of book where you envy the writer all the travelling they got to do in the process of writing it. Ressentiment, get thee behind me! this book is the first time i have seen a picture of the famous 'Zarathustra rock' the pyramid rock where N. was struck with the realization of the eternal return. Just wish it was in color and full-page. The photos are a little awkwardly placed sometimes. Lots of photos of doors. Was this an obsession of N. or the photographer? funny that author Krell does not mention Nietzsche's encounter with the flogged horse as the precipitator of his god-realized-madness though, Krell seems to buy in totally to the syphilis hypothesis. Truly, the west is still so naive re the vagaries and risks of metanoia/spiritual transformation. It really amazes me sometimes how these academic Nietzscheans like Krell and Yalom can completely disregard the insights of Bataille into the epic significance of N.'s 'madness' and its implications for our own illusory collective consensual sanity. oh well. not even a picture of the Piazza Carlo-(something) in Turin, as far as I could see, but might be there, havent read it closely. lots of good stuff in the book though. have always wanted to go on a hike along some of N.'s favorite paths, and this book is the next best thing.

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume I: From the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire (Menil Foundation)

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Go to the Menil Foundation
luminous and luscious pictures

The Image of the Black in Western Art, Volume I: From the Pharaohs to the Fall of the Roman Empire (Menil Foundation)
Amadou-Mahtar M'Bow , Jean Vercoutter , Jean Leclant , Frank M. Snowden , and Jehan Desanges
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0939594013

Customer Reviews:

Go to the Menil Foundation.......2006-04-09

This is a great book - and a fantastic resource for art history students. However, get the book at the Menil Foundation's online shop, where it only costs $12.50.

luminous and luscious pictures.......2000-05-25

If you are seeking visually glorious evidence of the beauty of the people from Africa, look no further. While I take exception to the sometimes euro-centric narratives, the art work featured in this series speaks for itself!

The Square Halo and Other Mysteries of Western Art: Images and the Stories That Inspired Them

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Outstanding & Unique ArtHistory Book!
Symbols and their meanings...
Insightful, appreciative, and humorous
Don't read fairy tales to your kids....

The Square Halo and Other Mysteries of Western Art: Images and the Stories That Inspired Them
Sally Fisher
Manufacturer: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Signs and Symbols in Christian Art: With Illustrations from Paintings from the Renaissance (Galaxy Books)

ASIN: 0810944634

Amazon.com

The very symbols and stories that imbue much of Western art with its meaning and drama are often enigmatic to contemporary viewers. Why, for example, are some saints represented by certain animals, or why are they depicted with square or triangular halos? The answers, which were once clear to viewers of previous eras, are now long-forgotten and obscure. Paintings from earlier centuries can be totally mystifying if viewers do not understand certain iconography and what it once meant to the artist and his or her patrons. Author Sally Fisher, who worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for 17 years, bridges that gap with this fascinating, clearly written book. Each of the 150 works of art included (most in full color) illustrates age-old beliefs, stories, and symbols, from Old Testament stories and the lives of the Madonna, Christ, and the saints, to the peculiar symbolism of classical mythology.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding & Unique ArtHistory Book!.......2004-12-22

First, this book is chock full of some fine color pics of European art mainly from about 1300-1600. The text descibes unusual, hidden, and symbolic aspects of the paintings, and a few sculptures. Artists like Raphael, Corregio, ElGreco,Titian, Bosch, are given the master's treatment, and less known artists also get their due. From Biblical tales to Greek and Roman myth, we are given a special look at clothing, religious symbols, haloes, snakes and dragons, and about every theme and motif of the times. And the author has a nice sense of humor which makes the book not only visually brilliant,and serious, but fun at the same time!

Symbols and their meanings..........2003-05-18

Sally Fisher's book, 'The Square Halo', is a small but great book on some of the mysterious, often overlooked, symbols in Western art.

The idea of art for art's sake is a relatively new one -- the idea of using art solely for aesthetic reasons is largely one of the modern age. Art was, in fact, an important medium of communication when the majority or at least a significant minority of the populace was illiterate.

Paintings and works of art that we see today as mysterious, or sometimes without mystery and think are fairly straight-forward presentations, are in fact hiding meanings that we, because we have not generally been taught to look for meanings in these places, easily overlook.

'To many educated persons, a museum visit is mystifying. There is Aristotle--we know who he is--but why is he crawling on all fours with a woman named Phyllis on his back? There is a group of gorgeously dressed persons. Each holds an object: keys, a sword, a small dragon on a leash, a little tower, a pair of eyes on a plate. They gaze into space. No one says a word. The title is Sacred Conversation. What can it mean?'

Some symbols, however, we take for granted that we do know. For instance, the halo -- a common symbol. But is it?

'Now and then a person simply glows. We have all seen it, or perhaps more accurately, felt it. In the Mediterranean world this experience found pictorial expression. It began, as we might expect, with the sun. The fan of beams splaying from the edge of a cloud became the rays that emanated from the garland on the head of the Greek sun god Helios.'

The Christian adaptation brought about an outward expression of an inward light (much in the way Christian sacraments were considered outward expressions of inward grace). Halos come in many forms, hollow or full, head-only or bodily encompassing, and, of course, square.

Square??

Of course (the title of the book had to have derived from something, after all). One image that is used is that of Pope John VII, who is portrayed in a mosaic in the Vatican Museums. A square halo is a symbol. It tells us that the wearer was still living at the time of the art work.

A circle is perfect; so is Heaven. Earth is imperfect; so is the square.

Thus, the person was considered blessed and saintly, but, as official sainthood cannot be conveyed until after the death of the person, an 'official' round halo would be inappropriate.

Often a person will be holding an object (like a church, a house, etc.). These objects are in fact things that they built, or caused to be built (the same mosaic shows Pope John VII holding a model chapel which he had built).

Biblical stories are played out in art work, often the entire story (or a significant portion) portrayed by the symbols on one canvas or panel, which would have triggered memories of the complete story in the viewer, and which we, in our modern 'literate' phase have forgotten.

We also learn of some of the quirkiness of art -- the apostle Paul, for instance, is sometimes portrayed on horseback, and other times not. Generally, the horsey Paul is a Catholic painting; the pedestrian Paul is a Protestant painting. How do we know this? Because in the Catholic world, Paul was considered a person of importance, and people of importance travelled by horse. However, by the Protestant era, with a more literal reading of the text, as no horse was mentioned, no horse was painted.

Fisher examines 150 works of art, grouped into chapters on The Old Testament, The Virgin Mary, The Life of Jesus, Earth and Heaven, Saints, and Rome Revisited (which looks at mythological influences in art).

This is a fascinating book, lavishly illustrated in wonder colour plates, well written and intriguing.

Insightful, appreciative, and humorous.......1998-12-05

This is a marvelous overview of western religious art of the late medieval period through the rennaisance. Ms. Fisher uses familiar examples of painting and sculpture, and explains painting traditions and conventions, and does so frequently through the use of subtle humor. This is a pleasurable books for the student of art history, the lover of western religious art, and anyone who enjoys expanding their horizons! A great read, which lifts the veil on many of our current religious and artistic traditions.

Don't read fairy tales to your kids...........1998-06-23

This book is great, if you can still find it. I've purchased 6 copies to give as gifts and my friends loved it! This is perfect as a coffee table book, or one that may inspire you! I highly recommend it! The pictures are beautiful and the stories complement. Don't read fairy tales to your kids, this is what they can inspire with and question.

Western Civilization: Sources, Images, and Interpretations, Volume 1, To 1700

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Thorough, Generous, Beautifully Illustrated

Western Civilization: Sources, Images, and Interpretations, Volume 1, To 1700
Dennis Sherman
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0072565675

Book Description

This collection of primary, secondary, and visual sources for the Western Civilization survey course provides a broad introduction to the materials historians use, the interpretations historians make, and thousands of years of Western civilization. Its broad selection of documents, photographs, maps, and charts, and its full array of accompanying commentaries--drawn from a balanced spectrum of perspectives and approaches--offer valuable insight into the work of historians and provide the context that helps students understand the texts' full historical significance.

Customer Reviews:

Thorough, Generous, Beautifully Illustrated.......2004-02-11

This book is unique in its balance of primary sources and their interpretations. All the figures you'd expect are present: Macchiavelli, Luther, Locke, Paine, Engles, Freud, etc. And with secondary sources coming from Fromm, Ulam, et. al, the data is clearly and comprehensively analyzed. What readers will appreciate are the generous illustrations throughout the text which give you some idea how the philosophies/theories/values of the times are reflected in visual media. What some readers won't appreaciate is the single-spaced type that changes font and styles so often that one might get motion sickness. It's a minor point that has nothing to do with the value of the texts presented, but it does interfere with the pleasure of reading. Still, this is a great history book to teach from or just as a casual read/refresher for the history fan.

The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact (Talking Images)

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One of Baudrillard's Best Books
Read no Evil ...
Standard fare

The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact (Talking Images)
Jean Baudrillard
Manufacturer: Berg Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Conspiracy of Art
Simulacra and Simulation (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)
The Illusion of the End
The System of Objects (Radical Thinkers)
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ASIN: 1845203348
Release Date: 2005-11-15

Book Description

There are few philosophers today cool enough to be referenced in the Matrix, interesting enough to be mentioned on Six Feet Under, and popular enough to get over 400,000 hits on Google. Jean Baudrillard has succeeded in all of this and more. Now, in his latest book, Baudrillard presents his most popular themes symbolic exchange, hyper-reality, technology and warand applies them to the current global conflict between the West and the Rest, including Islam. Ultimately, it is not simply about the war against terror but about the bigger picture of capitalism versus everything else. This book serves as the summation of Baudrillards work over the last 20 years and is the essential analysis of the fundamental conflict of our time.

Customer Reviews:

One of Baudrillard's Best Books.......2007-08-31

For anyone casting about for a place to begin with Baudrillard, this might be a good place to start. It is a sort of summing up of his main themes, and the curious reader who has heard about such things as 'simulacra,' 'virtual reality,' 'integral reality,' and the like can rest assured that he will find Baudrillard discoursing here upon the themes which made him most famous.

Is there enough room, Baudrillard asks, for both the world and its (virtual) double? As we attempt to seal the world shut beneath a dome of virtuality that attempts to eliminate all forms of noise and chaos, the inherent evil in the world continually resists this Western sanitization in the form of accidents, crashes, terrorist violence and natural disasters. The attempt to virtualize the world is simultaneously an attempt to eliminate all forms of evil from it, but Baudrillard seems fairly confident that this will never happen. A complete sealing shut of the world behind a dome of virtuality can never be a success since evil is part of the very nature of the world that is in process of being cloned. To clone the world is also to clone its evil.

Baudrillard is at his best when discoursing upon the death of the spectator or the effects of electronic technology upon society, but he is less effective in his discussions of ethics and evil. The reader constantly finds himself fighting the urge to categorize Baudrillard as Manichean, but this is a myth that is too radically certain of itself to fit comfortably within Baudrillard's nihilism, with its decentered and ironic gaze. At times, though, one suspects Baudrillard of being a closet mystic. Wouldn't THAT be a wonderful irony! At the root of all his sceptical perspectives would lie an urge to be free of Western culture forms and to dissolve himself into the white radiance of a non-existent certainty.

--John David Ebert, author of Celluloid Heroes & Mechanical Dragons: Film as the Mythology of Electronic Society

Read no Evil ..........2006-05-06

Gotta give it for France for bringing so many heavyweights in the Postmodern ring of thoughts. Baudrillard is something of a post-Marxist academic gone wild, hitting you from every angle, slowly decentering the virtual world of the subject into the ritualistic world of objects. A must-read, Worth the time deciphering through the countless paradoxes and hints of esoterism.

Standard fare.......2005-12-30

This review is admittedly brief and frankly only directed at those familiar with Baudrillard's work, since it's not really possible to buy the argument of The Intelligence of Evil without having bought the notion of the Impossible Exchange. That being said, the editor's word "summation" to describe this work in relation to Baudrillard's career is a little flattering--nothing significantly new appears here, and the kinds of things Baudrillard tends to say are fairly derivative of standard polemics a la Nietzsche, Bataille, Marcuse, and so on. Baudrillard once complained that no one describes his work as being 'serious', even when he thinks there are philosophically serious things in his works. One wonders why he feels entitled to that description when nothing in his writing invites the kind of attitude he thinks should be taken to his work. It is one thing to be philosophical and quite another to do philosophy. At best Baudrillard qualifies for the former since nothing about the way he writes could pass for 'philosophy', even if one is not particularly wedded to an Anglo-American idea of what 'philosophy' should be (as I am not myself). His paragraphs are at times provocative, but rambling and more often than not vague. The translator calls Baudrillard's work "philosophical analyses of current events in the best Deleuzian fashion", which again is a little flattering--Deleuze and Guattari's Capitalism and Schizophrenia 1 and 2 are incomparable with regard to the intellectual and philosophical challenge they present to the reader, regardless of whether or not one finds their arguments any more or less compelling than Baudrillard's. Baudrillard's jargon and terminology simply have nowhere near the rigor or historical depth of many of his compatriots.

The title 'The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact' relies on a Platonic reading of a line from Adorno (strange in itself!): "It is no longer a question of a thought critical of reality, but of a subversion of reality in its principle, in its very self-evidence. The greater the positivity, the more violent is the--possibly silent--denial. ... But this denial does not lead to hope, as Adorno would have it: 'Hope, as it emerges from reality by struggling against it to deny it, is the only manifestation of lucidity.' Whether for good or for ill, this is not true. Hope, if we were still to have it, would be hope for intelligence--for insight into--good. Now, what we have left is intelligence of evil, that is to say, not intelligence of a critical reality, but of a reality that has become unreal by dint of positivity, that has become speculative by dint of simulation." (I read Baudrillard's reading of negation and transcendence as Platonic in this context.) In other words, Baudrillard is rehashing comments about hyperreality in Simulacra and Simulation or the kinds of things said by any number of social critics since Simmel, Marx, and Nietzsche that talk about the outstripping of the subject by the objective world. (Incidentally, Baudrillard's conception of the dual illusion of subjectivity and objectivity is one that I find incoherent with other criticisms he gives about the failure of transcendence and the loss of reality.) As for the "pact" part of "the lucidity pact", this relies on a distinction between a "pact" and "contract" which is interesting, but undeveloped.

Regardless of Baudrillard's work as a whole, what I really wanted to say about this work in particular is simply that it's only really useful either for those who have already read others of Baudrillard's works or those who are tired of (in my opinion) better social critics saying much the same thing about the loss of reality (the other theorists with whom Baudrillard aligns himself, such as Zizek and Agamben, seem to have more understandable criteria for knowing when we are actually experiencing reality) and/or ungrounding the war on terror. The motive is admirable even if the execution is not.

Barbarian Lens: Western Photographers of the Qianlong Emperor's European Palaces (Documenting the Image Series)

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Groundbreaking new research on early photography in China.

Barbarian Lens: Western Photographers of the Qianlong Emperor's European Palaces (Documenting the Image Series)
Regine Thiriez
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 9057005190

Book Description

The latest volume in the prestigious academic book series Documenting the Image, this is a fascinating survey illustrated by extremely rare photographs of the burned architectural and landscape complex known as the Rape of the Summer Palace.
In 1860, Western armies brought ruin to the treasured seat of the Qing emperors near Beijing. One hundred and fifty images have been collected to date as a support for an extensive study of the building of the palaces and their subsequent destruction.
This book is a rigourous analysis of the work and experiences of the European photographers, both amateur and professional, working in Beijing during this period, and, as such, becomes an account of the development of photography itself. Offering a fascinating glimpse into 19th-Century China, the book gives an historical overview of the political situation.

Customer Reviews:

Groundbreaking new research on early photography in China........1999-03-18

Régine Thiriez, an independent scholar who holds a Ph.D. in art history and is currently an associate research fellow in the East Asia Institute in Lyon (France), preparing an inventory of China photography, presents a substantial body of important new research on photography in China from the early years in the mid-19th century to 1860 as well as Qing dynasty China's reception of European technology. Her study, Barbarian Lens: Western Photographer's of the Qianlong Emperor's European Palaces, explores the Western involvement with the ruins of the European-style buildings constructed for the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-1795) in his summer palace of the Yuanmingyuan, the "old" summer palace outside Beijing. The Yuanmingyuan was sacked and burned in 1860 by a French and British expeditionary force. Only the European part of the garden, constructed of brick and masonry, left substantial ruins. Standing mysteriously on the overgrown grounds of the half-abandoned site, the ruins exerted a powerful pull on European memories of the humiliation of the Emperor of China, and the shameful part played by Western armies in the destruction of the incomparable garden-palace and the treasures kept there. Such are the troubled feelings invoked by photographic images of the ruins. Placing the extant photographs in their historical context, Thiriez makes available to the interested reader and China specialist alike unprecedented primary research on the beginnings of photography in China, the identities and careers of the mostly little-known men who produced photographic images, and the complex relationships between photography and Western penetration of China. Barbarian Lens contains a wealth of scholarly information, presented in clear and succinct detail. Individual chapters focus on the practice of photography in Beijing (beginning in the early 1860s), the tragic encounter of China and Europe in the destruction of the Summer Palace, the amateur and professional photographers of the ruins, as well as the overlapping personal, political, and photographic ambitions of men in the Qing Imperial Maritime Customs, Western diplomatic missions, and other various undertakings. The volume is amply illustrated with more than 50 images-most of them previously unpublished-and includes extensive appendices on such subjects as the pioneering French Mission Palais d'Été studies of the European palaces. Perhaps the most impressive appendix is an exhaustive 24-page list of all the photographs of the European ruins identified by Thiriez to date. It tabulates photographers, photographic collections and sources, cataloguing information on the individual prints surveyed, the most likely date of the photo, additional reprints or rephotography of the same images (a very thorny problem in early photography), and the importance of the photo to the study of the place. It also cross-references the images, showing how they complement each other through the years. The appendices, notes, and bibliography supplement a richly rewarding text and generously make available the result of a decade of painstaking research in an almost unknown and unstudied field. In a volume that presents a complex, fascinating, and sometimes horrifying story of destruction and recovery, Régine Thiriez's contributions to the history of China photography and the fast-growing field of Qing dynasty historical studies are invaluable.

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