Twentieth-Century Russian and East European Painting: The Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection

Book Description

At the heart of this pioneering study - the result of exhaustive comparative research in Russian, European and American collections - is an illustrated catalogue which provides detailed descriptions of each work in the context of the artist's career and the broader artistic developments of the age. The condition, provenance, and previous location of the works are also detailed.

The catalogue is introduced by three essays: The Russian Avant-Garde, the Hungarian Avant-Garde, and the history of the collecting of Russian Avant-Garde art. The volume concludes with artists' biographies, bibliographical information, a glossary and index.

A catalogue of 59 works, written by two of the most eminent scholars in the field.

The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West

Average customer rating:

Ethnic Struggles Undermine Civilization
We must learn from history!
Missing The Point
excellent - one parallel worthy of addition
Depressing and Frightening

The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West
Niall Ferguson
Manufacturer: Penguin Press HC, The
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1594201005

Book Description

Niall Fergusson's most important book to date-a revolutionary reinterpretation of the modern era that resolves its central paradox: why unprecedented progress coincided with unprecedented violence and why the seeming triumph of the West bore the seeds of its undoing.

From the conflicts that presaged the First World War to the aftershocks of the cold war, the twentieth century was by far the bloodiest in all of human history. How can we explain the astonishing scale and intensity of its violence when, thanks to the advances of science and economics, most people were better off than ever before-eating better, growing taller, and living longer? Wherever one looked, the world in 1900 offered the happy prospect of ever-greater interconnection. Why, then, did global progress descend into internecine war and genocide? Drawing on a pioneering combination of history, economics, and evolutionary theory, Niall Ferguson-one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People"-masterfully examines what he calls the age of hatred and sets out to explain what went wrong with modernity.

On a quest that takes him from the Siberian steppe to the plains of Poland, from the streets of Sarajevo to the beaches of Okinawa, Ferguson reveals an age turned upside down by economic volatility, multicultural communities torn apart by the irregularities of boom and bust, an era poisoned by the idea of irreconcilable racial differences, and a struggle between decaying old empires and predatory new states. Who won the war of the world? We tend to assume it was the West. Some even talk of the American century. But for Ferguson, the biggest upshot of twentieth-century upheaval was the decline of Western dominance over Asia.

A work of revelatory interpretive power, The War of the World is Niall Ferguson's masterwork.

Customer Reviews:

Ethnic Struggles Undermine Civilization.......2007-09-24

This major work by a British historian teaching both at Harvard and Oxford paints a dismal picture of man's inhumanity to man. More particularly, Ferguson persuasively views the 20th century as a series of deadly ethnic struggles precipitated by economic volatility, the breakup or decline of the large multi-ethnic empires (Austria-Hungary, Ottoman, Chinese, Russian, etc.), and the counter rise of ethnic nationalisms with concomitant ethnic cleansings as nationality groups try to purify the state or monopolize power. In this context, Central European pograms have much in common with Balkan, African, and Northeast Asian bloodlettings and leave the reader with limited optimism for the future. The end of the nineteenth century was an era of unprecedented globalization, free trade, and free movement, even more liberal than our own, yet the 20th century contained the largest bloodlettings yet, with the decimation of minority populations in vast areas. The century demonstrated that:
"the fragile edifice of civilization can very quickly collapse even where different ethnic groups seem quite well integrated, sharing the same language, if not the same faith or the same genes. . . . Ethnic minorities are more likely to be viewed with greater hostility when times are hard or when income differentials are widening. . . . We shall avoid another century of conflict only if we understand the forces that caused the last one -- the dark forces that conjure up ethnic conflict and imperial rivalry out of economic crisis, and in doing so negate our common humanity. They are forces that stir within us still."

We must learn from history!.......2007-07-25

Life was rapidly improving as the twentieth century began. People in the developed world had the highest standard of living as compared to their forefathers. Goods from all over the world were available to Europeans, and the advance in health care improved and extended people's lives. However, the author asks why did the rest of the century become so bloody? Among the factors he cites are ethnic conflict and economic turbulence (ethnic unrest is prone to break out during periods of economic volatility), and the decline of the old empires, and the emergence of the new empires, namely Turkey, Russia, Japan and Germany.

H.G. Wells starts his novel, the War of the Worlds, with Martians invading our planet and destroying it. Niall Ferguson successfully demonstrates in his book that it does not take aliens from outer space to destroy us. Mankind, with hatred ingrained in him, has done just that. The aliens are in our midst, and they are from our own planet!

Our history has been marked by brutal conflict and hatred towards each other... the Holocaust during World War II, the Armenian genocide in Turkey, the slaughter of the Tutsis in Rwanda, the ethnic cleansing against Bosnians, the cruelties in Cambodia and Korea, the Japanese rape of Chinese women (The Rape of Nanking), and the Russian Gulag, to name just a few of the atrocities of the twentieth Century that killed over 100 million people!

During war, no regard is given to civilians. The American bombing of German towns during World War II, for example, killed more civilians than the atomic bomb on Hiroshima! Stalin killed far more people than Hitler. The atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed more innocent Japanese civilians than Hitler killed Jews. Mao in China killed millions of people (some believe more than 10 million). The Tokyo bombings by the Americans killed over 100,000 civilians, and displaced hundreds of thousands others. The actions of the armies of the allied forces during the 20th century wars are equated with those of the Nazis and Japanese. There are no good people or the good side in war. All parties are evil, and Ferguson successfully demonstrates this in his book.

This book will reveal to the readers the horror man can bestow on his fellowman.

Life will end up killing us, so why do we so hastily do its job? This is a depressing thought, and is the major theme of the book. Maybe we should start learning from history to prevent these atrocities of ever happening again.

Missing The Point.......2007-07-20

the most important points of the book deal with the fact that democracy and the idea of self-determination are two concepts whose implementation often lead not in any advances of personal liberty or tolerance for the human race but simply turn loose the worst instincts of murderous tyranny. In the case of democracy, we often get what Tocqueville warned us of - the tyranny of the majority, yes, but not in domination of public opinion. Rather it assumes the form of active oppression - the majority using its power to persecute minorities and shut the minorities out of employment or other essential areas of participation in national life and their own personal and economic security.
Ferguson speaks brilliantly of a "fundamental contradiction" between the right of self determination and freedom of minorities. For example, after World War One, the Poles immediately turned against their minorities. The Poles, mainly interested in national aggrandizement, fought several wars between 1918 and 1921 including such antagonists as the Ukraine, Germany, Lithuania, Czech, and Russia, in the end extending Poland's boundaries over a great areas. Yet the hope that underlay the idea of self-determination was the hope that in forming a new state, the majority and its minorities would be able to accommodate or submerge their ethnic or religious differences in a new, collective identity. Instead, majorities used their predominance to exclude and divide and oppress the weaker party from the start. When the Poles took power, they excluded Ukrainians from employment. This resulted in Ukrainians forming terrorist organizations to retaliate. The German populations in the new states that sprang up at the war's end were persecuted because they were vulnerable. The Poles attacked them, the Czechs shut them out of the 1919 elections, Germans were bullied by Rumanians. A German in Romania wrote that "a thin foil of civilization appeared to have been superimposed on an untidily assorted ethnic conglomerate from which it could be peeled off all too readily."
But civilization is itself nothing but a thin foil too readily peeled off. I think that is the most disturbing point of Ferguson's book - it highlights the failure of so many optimistic and superficial estimates of human nature that we have tended to believe in as truth. Such an optimism is not warranted, is his message. There slumbers in human beings a horrible pitilessness, a horrible delight in inflicting pain and death on people who cannot resist. There are supposed to exist moral restraints that keep human beings from crushing the weak among the human race. F says that they do not exist. F seems to think that the desire of human beings to want to belong to a group result from feelings of individual inferiority that will only go away if people belong to a group because that membership conveys superiorities that people can't enjoy without the group. Within the group an individual must curb violent instincts (or be expelled), but the individual knows these same violent qualities can be given full range in collective action by the group towards an outsider. In brief, the group, in acting, seems to free itself from any moral curbs, rules of decency or other restraints. There is in German the word, Zivilcourage, or consideration for the weak or infirm. Such concern is part of the Western heritage of individualism. Yet Ferguson argues that any vestige of Zivilcourage disappears when a majority in a group takes power. The important, indispensable qualities of liberal democracy - kindness, a sense of humor, personal tolerance, respect for privacy and belief in the good intentions of one's neighbor, all disappear when a group gains the majority. What supplants them is a taste for power and the delights of making other obey. Groups, majorities, seem to feel that they have to free themselves from every moral rule or they will somehow end by failing. The road to do evil is the path to promotion and power. That is the tragic message of Ferguson. Few got it.

excellent - one parallel worthy of addition.......2007-07-15

Excellent!! I suggest one important parallel: the current situation in the USA where the Whistling Weasel Gang openly notoriously poisons irradiate stalks harasses tortures and murders while the corrupt or inneffectual police and governments just watch. Same mass involvement just like the Nazi party. Excellent! I wonder if this truth will evade the censors.

Depressing and Frightening.......2007-07-05

Ferguson is a gifted writer who has done extensive homework to fit the facts into his theory that the violent 20th Century was caused by three forces: the decline of western imperialism, economic crisis and ethnic conflict. Reading each chapter was somewhat akin to witnessing a train wreck - too compelling to look away, yet gruesome to behold.

The terrible atrocities of war are recounted in detail and in context of the larger metanarrative of the confluence of the three forces. The facts are indisputable, and the theory thus looms as a menacing threat to the fractured world we know today. As our society splinters into multiple groups of intolerant extremists, it's not difficult to see the potential for history to repeat itself throughout the Western Hemisphere. Let's hope that strong, intelligent and moderate voices start to drown out the hateful chants of fanaticism.

Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America)

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Interesting Subject...
Analyzes the 'warrior' battle plan of the 1950's and 1960's
Good, but not great
Rhetorical, but ok
Absorbing,Thorough Analysis Of Neoconservative Ascent !

Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America)
Lisa McGirr
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Federal Government | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0691096112

Book Description

In the early 1960s, American conservatives seemed to have fallen on hard times. McCarthyism was on the run, and movements on the political left were grabbing headlines. The media lampooned John Birchers's accusations that Dwight Eisenhower was a communist puppet. Mainstream America snickered at warnings by California Congressman James B. Utt that "barefooted Africans" were training in Georgia to help the United Nations take over the country. Yet, in Utt's home district of Orange County, thousands of middle-class suburbanites proceeded to organize a powerful conservative movement that would land Ronald Reagan in the White House and redefine the spectrum of acceptable politics into the next century.

Suburban Warriors introduces us to these people: women hosting coffee klatches for Barry Goldwater in their tract houses; members of anticommunist reading groups organizing against sex education; pro-life Democrats gradually drawn into conservative circles; and new arrivals finding work in defense companies and a sense of community in Orange County's mushrooming evangelical churches. We learn what motivated them and how they interpreted their political activity. Lisa McGirr shows that their movement was not one of marginal people suffering from status anxiety, but rather one formed by successful entrepreneurial types with modern lifestyles and bright futures. She describes how these suburban pioneers created new political and social philosophies anchored in a fusion of Christian fundamentalism, xenophobic nationalism, and western libertarianism.

While introducing these rank-and-file activists, McGirr chronicles Orange County's rise from "nut country" to political vanguard. Through this history, she traces the evolution of the New Right from a virulent anticommunist, anti-establishment fringe to a broad national movement nourished by evangelical Protestantism. Her original contribution to the social history of politics broadens--and often upsets--our understanding of the deep and tenacious roots of popular conservatism in America.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting Subject..........2006-03-09

I was assigned this book for class and therefore didn't have a huge interest in the subject before I read the book. I haven't finished it, but I also don't plan to finish it. The subject was interesting, but the book wasn't captivating.

I found that the author sometimes became overly concerned with statistical information and details which left me (as well as my classmates) confused and frustrated. When too many facts are thrown at you at once, you just want to skip it and move along.

If you actually know about the John Birch Society and are highly interested in the Conservative Right, I'm sure you will like the book, even in spite of those "factual" sections. Historically, it's very accurate and I know that those who were interested really enjoyed the author's style.

Analyzes the 'warrior' battle plan of the 1950's and 1960's.......2005-05-30

This book is neat precisely because it takes a scholarly approach to examining the new right. Instead of writing a frenzied treatise why the right is bad, Lisa McGirr lets readers draw conclusions from her fact-based historical analysis.

The suburban new right emerged in the 1950's and early 1960's out of a desire for self-preservation. People in these newly emergent suburbs were alternating between the 'self-reliant' model of conservative libertarianism and 'big-government' social conservatism which placed its premiums on social and political conformity as a tool for ensuring order in the community. The then cold war united the two periodically disparate strains of conservatism into a unified school of thought; conformity was good for national security.

Because it upheld the values which they supported (and felt were in the best benefit for America) the people who would become part of the New Right honestly did not mind when they and/or their companies received economic subsidies from the government. They had to defend the country against the reds after all. This was not mooching off the system, but ensuring the country would be able to produce the best resources and the brightest people to outmatch 'the reds'.

The 'red-baiting' and 'race-baiting' which I and other people have publicly and psychologically associated with the right only came into existence when the status quo was being threatened.

The same people who had not protested (and in fact welcomed) government benefits for themselves became genuinely anxious upon realizing that the civil rights movement was attempting to reconfigure the American state to offer more benefits to more groups of people. This exposed contradictions in the American state as it currently existed and hinted that a reconfigured American state would not provide exactly the same order of things as they had known it to exist.

Fearful of these 'other' people, some southern states undertook the-then shocking action of voting for Barry Goldwater in 1964, disrupting the solidly Democratic south. Prior to this time, a southerner voting Republican was unthinkable. The party of Lincoln after all was responsible for both emancipation and reconstruction.

Although Goldwater would loose to Johnson, his candidacy and campaign positions (including against the civil rights act) further laid the foundations for the present day situation. Voting shifts in the 1964 presidential election ultimately encouraged the Reagan revolution of the 1980's and George W. Bush's promotion of faith based initiatives today.

Good, but not great.......2004-05-05

McGirr's book traces the rise of what I would call the (white, middle-class) suburban right and the Christian right, beginning in the early 60s. The new right coalesced around anti-Communism, laissez faire capitalism, states' rights and local government, the "traditional" family, Christian values, individual economic responsibility, and low taxes.

It was the suburban Christian right that first brought these views together. Barry Goldwater, who ran for President in 1964 against Johnson, was an early exemplar of new right views. However, his strong opposition to the Civil Rights acts won him the lower South and, along with his virulent anti-Communism, helped him lose the rest of the country.

The suburban Christian right shed the virulent and conspiratorial anti-Communism that they initially directed at domestic enemies; south-eastern politics moved away from the New Deal order and shed legal segregation and overt biological racism; they all joined their Christian and conservative forces and formed a conservative coalition behind Ronald Reagan.

McGirr's is a "bottom up" analysis that begins with the grass roots social base of the suburban Christian right, using Orange County as a prototypical case study. She also examines the interplay of grass roots leaders, rank and file members, regional business elites, and national intellectual and political leaders.

The book doesn't delve into how the suburban right teamed up with south-eastern conservatives, but their shared Christianity, shared social conservatism, and shared opposition to civil rights, busing, and affirmative action makes it fairly easy to guess what that part of the story in general looks like. However, McGirr's would be a better book if she examined some of these connections, at least briefly. This is what makes the book good but not great.

Post-script: Today, the Cold War is over, terrorism has replaced communism as America's global enemy, and George W. Bush has combined the Christian right with the post-Cold War, neo-conservative, neo-imperialist right. Bush has tried to combine anti-terrorism, neo-imperialism, and Christian conservativism without provoking Christian-Islamic antagonisms--antagonisms already strained by Christian conseravtive and neo-conservative support for Israel. These topics would make an interesting post-script to McGirr's book.

Rhetorical, but ok.......2004-05-01

I had to read this book for a history class. It provides enough incite on the origin of conservatism in Orange County, but to me, she overemphasizes her status as a historian. Instead of telling one point just once, she repeats it again in another segment, which, as a reader, I already knew because she said it before. She is non-biased in her approach of the conservative uprooting, yet she does seem to make them out to look like the enemy rather than a large group of people that were encouraging enrollment for causes they believed in. I recommend it to anyone who likes to read the word "Knott" over and over again.

Absorbing,Thorough Analysis Of Neoconservative Ascent !.......2002-04-27

This book represents both a fascinating study of the evolution of `60s politics as well as a historical attempt to document and explain the perplexing fact that a country flirting with the danger of a social and political revolution from the left suddenly veered so much farther to the right toward a broad-based popular conservatism. Herein Lisa McGirr, a gifted author and Harvard professor comes closer to making her prose swing than one would expect of a book of this type. Meanwhile, she also spins a convincing argument regarding the origins of the American neo-conservative revival in the late `60s and early `70s. At the time, domestic conservatism had been badly eclipsed by the burgeoning youth culture and their radical leftist notions. To her credit, the account rendered here is not only academically spirited, but is written in a way that makes this serious work of scholarship accessible to the general public.

She focuses meaningfully on the activities within a specific congressional district, in Orange County California, where, she argues quite persuasively, the seeds of the neo-conservative revival were most fruitfully planted and sown. Within this district, literally thousands of affluent and educated suburban "warriors" combined to launch a powerful movement destined less than a decade later to propel Ronald Reagan into the White House. In the process they also helped to chisel a new agenda into the granite pillars of the American pantheon, one that helped to define the very nature of domestic political battles for decades to come.

This book gives us a graphic and detail introduction to these hearty, healthy and enthusiastic warriors; housewives arguing political strategy over coffee and Danish, young and well-educated defense engineers arriving to live out the American dream, impressionable young religious workers convinced that the only way to save the country and themselves from Hellfire and brimstone was to work fervently against the designs of the "godless democrats". From this well-detailed work we begin to see how the movement came into being, how it organized itself, what motivated the individuals as well as what their evolving political agenda became and why.

McGirr demonstrates that this was far from being a movement of marginalized or isolated extremists; on the contrary, from the beginning it was more accurately characterized as an intensely enthusiastic enterprise, one formed and energized by the social, economic, and political elite, people with both means and motive for becoming involved to better control their own futures as well as those of the country at large. In what is perhaps her best set of insights, she demonstrates how these young and innovative neo-conservatives established a new set of political philosophies and precepts, forged in a alloy of Christian fundamentalism, misguided nationalism, and more traditional true conservatism (i.e. an old-style libertine attitude).

This is a seminal work, an effort at true scholarship which dares to look at Rosemary's baby in the face by searching through the afterbirth of the not so immaculate birthing of modern neo-conservatism. What she discovers and demonstrates along the way may often upset our traditional notions of what happened and why, but it never fails to inform or edify us as to what transpired or why. This is an interesting and worthwhile book, and one that I can heartily recommend. Enjoy!

Average customer rating:

Good Primer

Did You Ever See a Dream Walking? American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century
William Frank Buckley
Manufacturer: Bobbs-Merrill Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945

ASIN: 0672512408

Customer Reviews:

Good Primer.......2005-07-29

This is an anthology of articles defining Conservatism in America in modern times. Chapters include the limitations of the state, the social order (race, education, religion), and the impact of social science. Somewhat outdated now, but in defining what Conservatism is all about, it's still pretty strong.

A Vision Unfulfilled: Russia & the Soviet Union in the Twentieth Century

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A Vision Unfulfilled: Russia & the Soviet Union in the Twentieth Century
John M. Thompson
Manufacturer: D.C. Heath
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 066928291X

Book Description

Unlike most Soviet-centered histories, A Vision Unfulfilled begins with a chapter summarizing late nineteenth-century Russian history, allowing instructors to begin their course with 1894, 1905, 1914, or 1917. The book also gives fuller attention to the history of the non-Russian populations in the tsarist and Soviet empires than other texts of its kind.

The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements

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An eye-opener, with a few typos
Well argued opinions
We will conquer you!
IMPORTANT BOOK FOR THE 22 ND CENTURY
Eye-opening

The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements
Kevin MacDonald
Manufacturer: 1st Books Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0759672229

Book Description

MacDonald provides a theoretical analysis and review of data on the widespread tendency among certain highly influential, Jewish-dominated intellectual movements to develop radical critiques of gentile culture that are compatible with the continuity of Jewish identification. Particular attention is paid to Boasian anthropology, psychoanalysis, leftist political ideology and behavior, the Frankfurt School of Social Research, and the efforts to influence United States immigration policy.

Customer Reviews:

An eye-opener, with a few typos.......2007-09-06

In my country there are very few jews, apparently not even 10.000 in a population of 42.000.000, so it was very easy to grow up without being aware of their existence. However, they were very much present as I was growing up. The comic books heroes I idolized as a boy were mostly jewish creations: Superman (Siegel and Schuster), Batman (Kane), the Fantastic Four (Lee and Kirby), Spiderman (Lee and Ditko). So were one's favorite comedians, like the Marx Brothers or the 3 Stooges. And let's not even mention movies or saturday morning cartoons. As I grew up I became aware that many important thinkers and scientists were jewish, that many jews won Nobel prizes (49 so far in Medicine, 27 in Chemistry, 20 in Economics, 44 in Physics). Let's keep in mind that there are probably no more than 15 million jews. No one else can beat those numbers. I also learned that many were very rich. Peculiarly, it was also true that many jews had been at the forefront of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European offshoots, and that many also had been part of the counterculture, and not just in the USA. But anytime anyone said something that might be construed as disparaging of Jews, they presented a united front, and fought back. Jews appeared smarter, more motivated and more cohesive than anyone else. But many matters were hard to explain: how could jews be over-represented both among the plutocrats and the revolutionaries? It did seem like a Nazi slander to accuse them of both. Why was it that even as data supported the view that jews were smarter than others (i.e., Murray and Herrnstein), important jewish scientists wrote in opposition to this (i.e. Gould, Lewontin,Pinker)? And just why were there so many jews involved in progressive causes all over the world, such as contraception, abortion rights, black and minority rights and free immigration?

I had no answer to these questions until I read this book. MacDonald's thesis is as follows: human action is mostly defined by competition for scarce resources. In this competition, who's in one's group and who's not is a very important issue, because people are more likely to be altruistic towards those who belong rather than those who don't. Once people move beyond the extended families common to hunter-gatherers, the in-group will be defined by ethnicity, which in turn will mean race. People who are ethnically similar are more likely to be related than those who are dissimilar, and are also more likely to share genes. Hence, in-group solidarity is justified from an evolutionary advantage perspective. Through history, jews have been better than others are retaining their collective identity mainly through refusing absorption by other groups, a very difficult result to obtain during many millenia of various diasporae. This they have done by giving high priority to the survival of the jewish ethnicity, while attempting to prevent other groups achieving similar levels of collective action by delegitimizing their right to do so. The Egyptians, the Mesopotamians, the Greeks and the Romans tried to assimilate them, but without success. This was attempted later by the various European kingdoms (particularly the Spanish), the Russians and the Americans, who again failed. Each time the host society developed strong collectivistic views around ethnic categories the result was anti-semitism and persecution (Spain under Isabella and Ferdinand, Russia with the Czars and at the time of Kruschev and Brezhnev, Germany under Hitler, even the US during the "Red Scare" -1920s- and at the height of the Cold War -1950s-). The jewish reaction was to conceive and communicate highly compelling worldviews in which the categories of jewish v. gentile are weakened or where traditional rallying points such as Christianity or patriotism are dismantled (such as Communism or psychoanalisis), or where even the very existence of ethnic differentiations of any sort is rejected and all intergroup variations are attributed to environmental factors (such as in Boasian Antropology). Eventually even the possibility of universal concepts is rejected (as explicity argued by the Frankfurt School) and all reality is subject to corrosive criticism that leaves nothing standing (as in Derridian deconstructivism). MacDonald reviews extensively these intellectual movements and shows how they were led by individuals who thought of themselves as jews (mostly not as members of a religion, but of an ethnicity), and shows that they generally pursued a "party line", which was to preserve the right of jews to continue to exist and prosper as such, while denying other groups the right to oppose them, by delegitimizing and even by pathologizing them.

How did jews come to these behaviors? In this book MacDonald does not explain it, but he suggests that there was no need for some hidden cabal to establish and implement a plan. All that was required was strong ethnic identification along with the realization that a clever, powerful minority who refuses to be assimilated will attract antipathy from others and might eventually be harmed. Hence, the development of arguments that eliminate the legitimacy for such reaction would be a reasonable response. This might explain how jews can both be a very rich and powerful group (because they are more intelligent, highly motivated and capable of collective action than others) and also an enemy of the status quo (because it is a good strategy to weaken traditional institutions around which ethnocentric feelings have clustered in the past, such as Christianity, both protestant and catholic or patriotism). In any event, it is indisputable that jewish presence was paramount among early Russian Bolsheviks, among Eastern European communists, among early mentors of the civil rights movement, among proponents of unrestricted immigration, among countercultural heavyweights and among the radical intelligentsia. And it is also indisputable that jews are a leading force in media, finance and law. These are verifiable facts. That jewish leaders worked very hard to change the ethnic composition of several countries (such as the USA, Canada or Australia) is well-known because they themselves have said so, that they were successful is a fact, and that this has weakened the status (political, economic, cultural) of traditional WASP elites is indisputable. That the fragmentation of fairly homogeneous societies would be to be benefit of well-organized minorities able to to keep themselves apart is also very likely.

Particularly interesting to this reader was how the Frankfurt School pathologized the same attributes that make any group good at internal solidarity and external competition, such as a strong work ethic, identification with shared values and committed parenting. These traits among gentiles were seen as conducive to a fascist mindset, whereas among jews their legitimacy is taken for granted and never discussed. It was also fascinating to learn that jewish authors of published papers are much more likely to quote other jews rather than gentiles. I don't know if this is the case, but somebody should look it up because it is interesting. Further, according to MacDonald, neoconservatism is an attempt by former jewish radicals to influence American domestic and foreign policy to make it harmonize with jewish interests. This is not easy to refute and in fact recent authoritative books say so.

It is indeed possible to carry this arguments too far away and to fall into a conspiracy theory mindset. But MacDonald doesn't do so and he always grounds his opinions in the facts. Clearly, he believes that jews are too powerful, and that they are steering the US too far from its own interest as a country. But he merely describes the situation, he does not suggest ways to address it. He does fear that eventually this situation might lead to a resurgence of antisemitism (as has been seen in Europe) and ethnic strife, which he clearly believes are undesirable outcomes. Unfortunately, it seems to be the case that competition for scarce resources among jews and others (especially in the Mideast) is an important source of political instability and violence in today's world. Not the only one, but a significant one. While it is surely not the case that jews have caused events such as the Afghanistan and Iran wars, it is true that well-known people of that ethnic persuasion have been instrumental in the decisions leading to them, and that these actions benefit the situation of their co-religionists in Israel.

I don't know if the author's views are correct from a scientific viewpoint, but it is a compelling theory. It is consistent with observed facts and with actual human behavior, which is much more oriented to ethnic differentiation than to universal identification irrespective of efforts by many people. It also explains many things that otherwise would remain obscure. I do not think the book is anti-semitic, or conducive to anti-semitism, as some have said. It describes one group's strategies to pursue its own interests. That is surely legitimate, as it is legitimate to analyse it. While one must sympathise with jewish concerns about this type or arguments giving legitimacy to persecution and violence against them, surely people also owe a duty to the truth and are entitled to their own opinions. Silencing reasonable lines of enquiry with appeals to common interests or to historical catastrophes is just preaching to the choir. People who don't already buy into such arguments will not be moved by them. Instead of calling into question MacDonald's motivations, or the possible consequences of his books, those who disagree should show he is wrong, or dispute the facts he quotes.

I give the book 4 stars because it has a few irritating typos that shouldn't turn up in an academic book. "Principle" (fundamental) is not identical to "principal" (main). MP does not mean "Minister of Parliament" but "Member of Parliament" (this howler happens twice). And at the very end the author is confused on whether jews give between one quarter and a half of political contributions, or between a third and a half. Make up your mind, Dr. MacDonald, so that we might feel more comfortable believing you.

Well argued opinions.......2007-08-09

The author analyzes a select few of the major political and cultural movements having shaped Western political thought in the last century, among them marxism, multiculturalism and psychoanalysis. In my view the weakest link in MacDonald's attack on the proponents of these movements as being servants of a Jewish agenda is that he concludes thus because of their Jewish ethnicity. It appears as if he does not consider the possibility of that Freud, Marx (and others) and their Jewish followers developed and held the views they did, not because they were Jewish, but because these were the views they developed and held. I would be more careful than MacDonald is in attributing viewpoints to ethnicity just like that. Although MacDonald argues well, his views stand as _opinions_. During his testimony for David Irving the author professed being an agnostic in the case of the Holocaust: After having read this book, I would have to profess being an agnostic in the case he is making.

It is probably unfair to label this book anti-semitic. It would be more correct to say it is scepti-semitic.

The book is well worth reading.

We will conquer you!.......2007-05-24

Might as well give it up, we took over your culture by promoting socialism and immigration of non-white people. Well not including blacks of course. There were a goodly number of immigrants that came in from different places like China on the west coast in the 19th century, though I suppose they were needed at the time to build railroads and things. But then the real waves of immigration started with the Italians and the Irish in the second part of the 19th century, I guess you couldn't blame us Jews for that. The Irish were fleeing from the potato famine of course, the Italians from poverty -- but even though they were duly hated for seveal decades, and not considered really white or Europeans by those who lived there for a long time, at least they were Christian (well, Catholic, so sort of). The Jews really wanted to keep their cultural identity, good thing they didn't try to push it on non-Jews. But why did they need to push immigration so much? Maybe it was because they were so poor, despised and sometimes killed over there, that many wanted to come over here. Luckily the immigration policies that had brought swarms of immigrants of all kinds had tightened up by 1920, so that we weren't letting them all in anymore... if that hadn't happened, a lot more Jews would have come over fleeing the Holocaust. If they hadn't tightened those quotes, there'd be at least twice as many in the US by 1940!

What's really amazing, though, is how Jews managed to be at the forefront of Socialist and Communist movements, and at the same time were in charge of global capitalism and western finance. Thus they were both opposed to personal property, and the driving force behind it and the laws that enshrined it's preservation. How did Jews pull that off?

Read this book, it will certainly give you some ideas on how we kicked your butts.

IMPORTANT BOOK FOR THE 22 ND CENTURY.......2007-03-21

Amazon should be congratulated for having these books. With the rise of Anti Semitism, its important to be able to argue with historical facts and data.

congratulations amazon

Eye-opening.......2007-01-22

Professor Macdonald has written an eye-opening treatise on Jewish involvement in 20th century political movements. The book is entitled 'Culture of Critique' because many of these Jewish movements/organizations were formed to critique white Christian American institutions and beliefs. The basic premise of the book is that these Jewish organizations sought to make American more pluralistic and multicultural, while simultaneously maintaining their group solidarity. Through pschoanalysis, the Boasian school of anthropology, the New York intellectuals, advocating non-white immigration, communism, and other means, the Jews essentially broke the WASP establishment and displaced it with themselves. This was done in the name of combating anti-Semitism.

I once heard someone say that the Jewish people are inherently self-destructive. They were compared to the scorpion that rides the frog's back across the river, and then stings the frog when it gets across. Upon the frog asking the scorpion why it would have done this, the scorpion replies it is simply in its nature. It could help itself from stinging the frog. I constantly thought of this metaphor while reading this book. The Jewish people did not need to engage in this attack on the white Christian American establishment. They were relatively safe and prosperous in this country. However, they simply could not help themselves. It is just their nature.

Average customer rating:

Good overview of World events and patterns.

Twentieth-Century World History
William J. Duiker
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

20th Century | World | History | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0495095923

Book Description

Duiker's comprehensive, balanced history of the world in the twentieth century provides you with context for interpreting the events that you hear about in the news each day. You'll view history from the broader global perspective, while at the same time gaining insight into the distinctive character of individual civilizations and regions. And to ensure that you'll have a well-rounded understanding of the most decisive moments in recent times, Duiker integrates political, economic, social, and cultural history into a smoothly written narrative. What's more, the text includes a special insert that guides you in using the text's many detailed maps, which help you make important connections between geography and the turn of historic events; timelines that highlight and contrast different cultures and nations, thus giving you an "at-a-glance," holistic perspective on eras and their defining events; photos from William Duiker's own collection that giving you a closer, more personal look at the world we live in; and primary-source documents that illustrate and clarify key points.

Customer Reviews:

Good overview of World events and patterns........2000-08-02

This book was fun to read. The narrative flowed nicely and was easy to get through. It covered all of the major events of the World however I felt there should have been a deeper discussion of Africa and Latin America. The book goes beyond a mere recitation of facts but successfully conveys the character and essence of the 20th century. The author captures the spirit and patterns of change that rocked the century and made an exciting and violent one.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2: The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century (Norton Anthology of English Literature)

Average customer rating:

Incredibly but True
It's Required
A very complete guide to English literature
Norton Anthology of English Literature
Better for Grads Than Under

The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume 2: The Romantic Period through the Twentieth Century (Norton Anthology of English Literature)

Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0393925323

Book Description

A legendary bestseller for more than forty years, this is the classic survey to the field from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century.

With 274 authors, the Eighth Edition deepens its representation of essential works in all genres, ranging from Seamas Heaney's award-winning translation of Beowulf, Milton's Paradise Lost, and More's Utopia to the great poets and prose writers of the nineteenth century—Blake and Austen, Wordsworth and Byron, Tennyson and Barrett Browning—to twentieth-century classics of a truly global English literature—Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Woolf's A Room of One's Own, Achebe's Things Fall Apart, and Friel's Translations, to name but a few. Color plates—over 75 in all—and thematic clusters of brief and historically significant texts bring to life the cultural concerns of each period. Concise glosses and annotations, period introductions, biographical headnotes, timelines, and selected bibliographies help readers understand and enjoy the rich diversity of English literature.

Customer Reviews:

Incredibly but True.......2007-03-10

I bougth this book out of necessity, because is obligated for my English class this semester. It turn out to be pretty good. It is all poetry from the romantic period to our time. It has great writers, so as T. S. Eliot and more. I got to admmit it thought it will be dull but I was wrong. It is a great book. One thing is for sure, half the poems that I read so far are all related to death, for some reason.

It's Required.......2007-03-09

I needed this book for a college British Literature Class. There's a lot of poetry and great footnotes. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the romantic and victorian periods.

A very complete guide to English literature.......2006-12-07

This anthology provides lots of samples of the English literature from Romanticism to our days. In addition, it includes essays on some relevant literary topics, and an excelent appendix that contains information about rhetorical figures, poetic forms, etc.

Norton Anthology of English Literature.......2006-11-03

My professor was very concerned with background info of the time period and author and this text gives an introduction to each author with exactly that.

Better for Grads Than Under.......2006-11-01

This is a terrific volume, however, I would change some content to give a wider appeal. Right now, the volume is great for grad students, but limited for undergrads. Example: undergrads will like Waiting for Godot more than Endgame. I believe the choice was space-determined: Endgame is shorter. However, it would be better to do with a little less Wordsworth and a little more Beckett.

However, these are nitpicks. Good move including Mary Robinson, and the intros are terrific.

Norton Anthology of Western Music: Volume 2: Classic to Twentieth Century

Average customer rating:

its a classic
history

Norton Anthology of Western Music: Volume 2: Classic to Twentieth Century

Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0393925625

Book Description

The ideal companion to A History of Western Music, Seventh Edition, the two-volume Norton Anthology of Western Music, Fifth Edition, includes 172 historically significant scores, 71 of them new to this edition, with a strengthened emphasis on twentieth-century music. Revised and enlivened commentaries closely examine the scores to clarify their historical significance, and professional recordings of all works in the anthology are included on CDs, many in dynamic new performances.

Customer Reviews:

its a classic.......2007-03-13

this is vol 2 of the 2 classic texts for studying the history of european music. These are a must have for the serious student of music

history.......2006-02-27

I had to buy this new volume for my last history class. I'm a tad bit pist that I had to spend so much but it is indeed alot better and more indept.

Landmarks of Twentieth-Century Design: An Illustrated Handbook

Average customer rating:

Landmarks Help to Guide the Way

Landmarks of Twentieth-Century Design: An Illustrated Handbook
Kathryn B. Hiesinger , and George Marcus
Manufacturer: Abbeville Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | History & Criticism | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Decorative Arts | Design & Decorative Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1558592792

Customer Reviews:

Landmarks Help to Guide the Way.......2005-06-22

This is a Terrific encyclopedia in the best sense of the word. Each decade receives a well written, thoughtful overview that address not only design but history and social views from many perspectives. A fine read for the this reason alone.

But wait there is more, approximately 30 individual pieces of design are chosen for each section, photographed and described in 100-300 words. The effect is like a cherished museum exhibition catalog. The choices range from iconic artworks to mass produced consumer goods, but no matter the pedigree the text and photos are illuminating and enjoyable.

In addition to all of this the designer's biographies will likely seem very familiar. This book appears to be one of the most widely used, and non-credited, sources of information on the internet.

The cost of this book has crept up in the last few years; however, it is among the few reference books that I find indispensable when researching, and more importantly it just seems to make me smile when I browse through the pages.

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