Book Description
*The Culture Clash is special. Written in Jean's inimitably informal yet precise lecture style, the book races along on par with a good thriller. *The Culture Clash depicts dogs as they really are - stripped of their Hollywood fluff, with their loveable 'can I eat it, chew it, urinate on it, what's in it for me' philosophy. Jean's tremendous affection for dogs shines through at all times, as does her keen insight into the dog's mind. Relentlessly she champions the dog's point of view, always showing concern for their education and well being. Without a doubt, Jean's book is the hottest doggy item on the market. Best Training Book Of The Year! (Maxwell Award)
Customer Reviews:
One of the best books on positive dog training.......2007-09-20
I see lots of controversy in the reviews, but I think many of the negative reviewers have missed some important points in this volume, or perhaps have reacted emotionally to them. This is an excellent book on positive dog training - one of the best. If you want a close, mutually-respectful relationship with a well-behaved dog, this is really the way to go.
Jean Donaldson fully acknowledges that we can build close relationships with our animals and that the use of classical and operant conditioning are not the only methods that can be used for training. She simply shows that these approaches are the most effective ways, and the most scientifically-validated approaches for socializing and training dogs using positive methods. If you want to teach your dog good behavior or new behaviors, socialize it well and use positive behavior methods. You can still be emotionally close with your dog, but don't use your (or your dog's) emotions as the primary TRAINING tool--we all tend to respond more readily to consequences when we're learning. When applied properly, Donaldson's methods really do work with a very wide range of dogs and problems. Some reviewers may be unhappy because the currently-popular "pack theory" is not supported in this book. In my reading of it, however, I did not see Donaldson "slamming" pack theory, but merely stating that there's a lack of scientific evidence that it really works, and she offers a noncoercive method that DOES have solid science behind it. Through effective use of behavioral methods, as explained in this book, you can create a most satisfying relationship with your dog, and your dog will respect you. But at the same time, the training takes into account the unique characteristics of dogs. Dogs do not need to be subjugated in order to follow our leadership. (Actually, when you watch some of the "leader of the pack" trainers work, you'll also see them using a LOT of what Donaldson talks about. What Donaldson avoids are the aversive control measures that are sometimes employed by others.)
As a psychologist, I thought Donaldson's explanations of behavioral methods were very good, although they might be a bit technical or detailed for some. I train therapy dogs to work with children, and I also train children to interact positively with therapy dogs, and I really have no choice but to use positive methods. The kids learn how to be the leader for the dog, but we do it via all-positive methods, such as defined in this book.
I've trained a lot of dogs through the years using a variety of methods, and I've recently reviewed many training books in preparation for a book I've written about using dogs in play therapy, and I wholeheartedly endorse positive training methods as the means of training dogs for a wide range of roles: well-behaved pets, obedience, therapy work, and traditional working dogs (such as herding or hunting). Donaldson makes it clear how and why this works.
Some may want an easy manual of the "10 steps to training a dog," and this book is not organized that way. I think its aim is to educate the owner or trainer in a process, and how to apply that process to a wide range of situations and behaviors. Ultimately, understanding the material in this book permits owners/trainers much more versatility in the work they do with dogs.
I strongly recommend this book. To get the most out of it, put your preconceived notions on a back burner and really try to see what she is saying. She provides the most effective way of helping dogs learn our human ways (by requiring us to learn about their canine ways!), and ultimately, having a well-socialized and well-mannered dog can only deepen the loving relationships we have with our pets. We have 4 dogs (2 are rescues who came with some problems), and I'm as attached as ever to all of them, and a lot less frustrated when I'm trying to teach them something new!
It helped me tremendously.......2007-08-18
The most important thing to know is this: I like dogs, but I'm not a dog lover. I don't go to shows, I refuse to cook for dogs, and it disturbs me when people refer to dogs as their children. I live, however, with a partner who loves dogs and does all 3 things... We have two large, intelligent dogs from two different notoriously "willful" breeds. My partner's dog training coach loaned us a copy and I read it.
The book did a tremendous job of showing me how I was creating much of my own stress through my interactions with the dogs. The author's largest point is to not anthropomorphize dogs and assign motives to their behavior consistent with primate, rather than canine, drives and intelligence. It helped me tremedously understanding what was reasonable to expect and its helping us both in getting our dogs more consistently obedient.
It's a great book and since finishing it, I've realized that virtually everyone out there in the dog world (including me) romanticizes the behavior of dogs to the point that I'm amazed any dogs are successful as pets. If you decide to read this book, please give it a fair shot and read past the first time the author disagrees with one of your deeply held beliefs about dogs. I promise you that even if you disagree with the book, you will take away things worth considering.
Very detailed! Excellent book for beginning dog trainers.......2007-07-07
This book is very well-written. It gives LOTS of insight into the dog world. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that it is a little too detailed. People who are just wanting some basic information for why Spot won't come when he's called should not get this book. I found it very insightful as I begin to train my pugs in obedience.
Some Good Info But Too Much Clutter.......2007-06-25
Frankly I wasn't able to read the book all the way through, I had trouble with the author spending a lot of effort unnecessarily slamming other training methods and theories, and in some instances talking down to the reader. Her theories should be able to stand on their own merits without bashing other theories. Organization is also lacking, often introducing things and then noting that follow up of the will occur later in the book. I tend to prefer starting on a subject and completing it within a given section. The chapters could generally stand some editing to allow the book to be used for easier reference by issue, given that this is for the most part a training guide.
While I agree with most of the author's training methods I also see the validity in other methods since there truly appears to no given method that out shines all of the others. I do like the positive reinforcement approach to dog training that most people are now practicing,and while the method presented is a good sound method of training dogs I don't see it being heads and shoulders above the rest. All in all this book could be a very good guide if it were made to be more positive, reorganized by content, and overall cut back by about 30%.
Great Book!.......2007-06-12
Chock full of great ideas for working with your dog. Best dog training book I've read (and I've read a lot of them)! Creative, effective solutions to your dog behavior problems.
Amazon.com
The thesis of this provocative and potentially important book is the increasing threat of violence arising from renewed conflicts between countries and cultures that base their traditions on religious faith and dogma. This argument moves past the notion of ethnicity to examine the growing influence of a handful of major cultures--Western, Eastern Orthodox, Latin American, Islamic, Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, and African--in current struggles across the globe. Samuel P. Huntington, a political scientist at Harvard University and foreign policy aide to President Clinton, argues that policymakers should be mindful of this development when they interfere in other nations' affairs.
Book Description
Based on the author's seminal article in Foreign Affairs, Samuel P. Huntington's The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order is a provocative and prescient analysis of the state of world politics after the fall of communism. In this incisive work, the renowned political scientist explains how "civilizations" have replaced nations and ideologies as the driving force in global politics today and offers a brilliant analysis of the current climate and future possibilities of our world's volatile political culture.
Customer Reviews:
Pure hate... Author wants to blame everything to muslims.......2007-07-11
It scares me to find out that educated (so called intellectuals) are writing this type of hate infested books that are aimed at nothing but inflaming more hate and voilence in the world. Author has a stubborn belief that all muslim cultures have speriority complex and they are there to destroy the western influence. He needs to wake up and understand that every culture even western or african or latin is sustaining because there are good things there to fullfill the needs of the people along with bad things that represent historical events/influence, economic or social problems etc. Author completely ignores the fact that one (Malaysia) out of all muslim countries are run by our appointed dictators with the exception of Iran and Syria who are kept in isolation so they have no reason to praise us have any dialog going. I would suggest that the author should cosider psychotherepy and need to start reading outside of his shell.
A Classic?.......2007-05-18
As a retired agronomist with a strong science background I tend to check out references that are commonly used. This book is very often quoted, not always favorably. If you have recently, like I, become interested in world politics and especially Islam this is definitely one of the texts you should read. From my weak politics and history background I found Dr. Huntington making a lot of interesting observations. I found the book very intriguing and educational. I really enjoyed his take on the Bosnian War.
Helps you to understand current global affairs.......2007-05-16
This book helps you to understand current global affairs. Although one might not agree with some of the author's theories.
Although this book is from the Western perspective, the author does not glorify the western civilization and has shown respect for other civilizations.
Clash of Cultures and Politico-Religious Hegemony.......2007-05-11
Huntington provoked worldwide outrage by this book, both from conservative westerners who thought he was too "nice" about Muslim extremists, and from non-conservatives who believed him to be arrogant and ethnocentric. My opinion is that both are correct: there is a clash between those using religious identities to promote political agendas, and those attempting to keep religion at the personal level and politics at the macro level of society. This book infuriated many non-readers because of its apparent linking of Islam with political terrorism. Careful readers understood that this was merely reporting of what "experts" said, and not a personal attack by Huntington on faithful adherents to Islam. Below are a few of my favorite quotes:
--"This awakening is comprehensive--it is not just about individual piety; it is not just intellectual or cultural, nor is it just political. It is all of these, a comprehensive reconstruction of society from top to bottom."
--One study of militant leaders of Egyptian Islamist groups found they had five major characteristics, which appear to be typical of Islamists in other countries. They were young, overwhelmingly in their twenties and thirties. Eighty percent were university students or university graduates. Over half came from elite colleges or from the intellectually most demanding fields of technical specialization such as medicine or engineering. Over 70 percent were from lower middle-class, "modest, but not poor backgrounds," and were the first generation in their family to get higher education. They spent their childhoods in small towns or rural areas but had become residents of large cities. While students and intellectuals formed the militant cadres and shock troops of Islamist movements, urban middle-class people made up the bulk of the active membership. In some degree these came from what are often termed "traditional" middle class groups: merchants, traders, small business proprietors, bazaaris.
--Islamist activists "probably include a disproportionately large number of the best-educated and most intelligent young people in their respective populations," including doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, teachers, civil servants.
There is a clash today, and Huntington calls it rightly. There is violent conflict between those seeking political power through the power base of religious identities are opposed by those unwilling to give up values and ideals in their secular political system.
Already happening?.......2007-05-06
What exactly makes a 'civilization'? Why do tribal conflicts in Africa not spread too far outward? Why did the conflict in Yugoslavia prompt Orthodox Russia to support the Serbs, and Muslim Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Islamic states to support the Bosnians? Why couldn't the civil war in Lebanon be solved by dialogue? Why are Islam's borders so bloody? Even though Saddam Hussein was a vicious tyrant and killed many of his own fellow Muslims, why did so many in the Islamic world proclaim him a hero when the United States invaded Iraq? Will demographic decline in the West change the balance of economic and military power in the world? Is the West in severe decline and can it turn itself around?
If there is any book that can fit into the context of today's global political sphere and shed light on the questions above, it is this book. The book defines what a civilization consists of, and why some are incompatible with each other. World demographics are depicted and used to make predictions about the future balance of world powers. The buildup of non-Western armed forces is highlighted and used to show how the West could lose its military dominance, and what will the future hold with such a change in power. Will it be multiculturalism and tolerance, or will it end up being a giant Lebanon or Yugoslavia, and how could we prevent such a disaster if it were to occur?
Regardless of your political position on the book, I must say it is by far the most comprehensive one I have come across on this subject. Accurately and extensively researched and documented, this outstanding book may be the most important one explaining the conflicts of the 21st century.
Amazon.com
Bernard Lewis is the West's greatest historian and interpreter of the Near East. Books such as The Middle East and The Arabs in History are required reading for anybody who hopes to understand the region and its people. Now Lewis offers What Went Wrong?, a concise and timely survey of how Islamic civilization fell from worldwide leadership in almost every frontier of human knowledge five or six centuries ago to a "poor, weak, and ignorant" backwater that is today dominated by "shabby tyrannies ... modern only in their apparatus of repression and terror." He offers no easy answers, but does provide an engaging chronicle of the Arab encounter with Europe in all its military, economic, and cultural dimensions. The most dramatic reversal, he says, may have occurred in the sciences: "Those who had been disciples now became teachers; those who had been masters became pupils, often reluctant and resentful pupils." Today's Arab governments have blamed their plight on any number of external culprits, from Western imperialism to the Jews. Lewis believes they must instead commit to putting their own houses in order: "If the peoples of Middle East continue on their present path, the suicide bomber may become a metaphor for the whole region, and there will be no escape from a downward spiral of hate and spite, rage and self-pity, [and] poverty and oppression." Anybody who wants to understand the historical backdrop to September 11 would do well to look for it on these pages. --John Miller
Book Description
For centuries, the world of Islam was in the forefront of human achievement -- the foremost military and economic power in the world, the leader in the arts and sciences of civilization. Christian Europe was seen as an outer darkness of barbarism and unbelief from which there was nothing to learn or to fear. And then everything changed. The West won victory after victory, first on the battlefield and then in the marketplace.
In this elegantly written volume, Bernard Lewis, a renowned authority an Islamic affairs, examines the anguished reaction of the Islamic world as it tried to make sense of how it had been overtaken, overshadowed, and dominated by the West. In a fascinating portrait of a culture in turmoil, Lewis shows how the Middle East turned its attention to understanding European weaponry, industry, government, education, and culture. He also describes how some Middle Easterners fastened blame on a series of scapegoats, while others asked not "Who did this to us?" but rather "Where did we go wrong?"
With a new Afterword that addresses September 11 and its aftermath, What Went Wrong? is an urgent, accessible book that no one who is concerned with contemporary affairs will want to miss.
Download Description
The New York Times bestselling history of the encounter between Islam and the West and what happed to Islamic civilization in the modern era.
Customer Reviews:
Finally, a clear-eyed view.......2007-09-14
Dr. Lewis presents a rather important thesis, albeit not a new one. He suggests, that as long as the bond between religion and state power remains strong, the modern Islamic civilization will be unable to compete with the West. "In the secularization of the West, God was twice dethroned and replaced--as the source of sovereignty by the people, as the source of object of worship by the nation..."
The Optimistic Jew.......2007-08-31
The title is the theme of the book. This is a critique of the culture of victimization of the Arab world in particular - blaming all their problems on the Americans and the Jews instead of cultivating a culture of self-criticism. In my own book "The Optimistic Jew: a Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century" I claim it is also a cautionary for the future of Zionism - lest we Zionists desert our tradition of self-criticism and begin blaming our problems on external enemies and internal traitors -- as many on the paranoid Israeli right are already doing. Having the fifth most powerful army in the world and still cultivating a culture of victimization is truly in poor taste.
Abysmal.......2007-08-13
Lewis is supposed to be a major scholar of Islam but this book would probably fail a high school assignment. He may be an expert on the Ottoman Empire but he hasn't set foot in the Middle East for 40 years - and his lack of exposure shows in this book. When you take into account Lewis' neo-Conservative propensities, it becomes easier to understand the context, and more importantly the motivations, behind his work. Deeply disappointing.
Good look into the Islamic world........2007-07-28
A bit difficult to wade through, but, all in all a fascinating look into the Islamic world, a world which remains largely isolated from and unknown to the average American.
Arrested development has a life of its own and is a World-class System Generator of Interpersonal and Societal Problems .......2007-06-17
I picked up this book after seeing it referenced more than once in Ayaan Hirsi Al's two books "Infidel," and "The Caged Virgin." I wanted to get more insight into the dynamics creating the huge gap between Islamic and Western societies.
Reading between the lines of Ms. Ali's bibliography, it seemed clear that next to her own books, and those of Karen Armstrong, this book was one of the two or three most important historical sources for gaining a better understanding of the developmental gap between Islam and the West. After reading it, I am now more convinced than ever that this is true: that Bernard West's book is indeed an important source of such understanding.
The content of the book rides smoothly along on several interrelated but recurring historical themes:
(1) That continued and unjustified Islamic arrogance due to its earlier advances (mostly during the Middle Ages) over the West in art, commerce, economics, administration and military development and conquests, led the Islamic countries to over-estimate their superiority and to assume it to be immutable. Rooted in an air of moral superiority promoted by Islam, which although only an off-shoot of Judaeo-Christianity, was nevertheless seen by them as morally purer and superior to these roots. All of this allowed Moslems to develop a disdain and haughty attitude towards Westerners that exists even today.
(2) That the utter failure to acknowledge that, despite Islam's earlier superiority over the West, not only did the West eventually catch up, but by the time of the Renaissance, it had began to surpass them;
(3) That the Islamic countries also failed to see the real underlying reasons for the West's success and their own corresponding failure: the openness and plurality of Western societies compared to their own -- as this is best underscored by the priority given the development of individual freedoms, and their primary consequence, the free exchange of ideas;
(4) That the West's victory was thus not a victory over Islam so much as it was a victory over the West's own self-imposed and institutionalized ignorance as it was perpetuated through religious practices. That is to say, it was an intellectual victory mostly over the ignorance of the Catholic Church, but more generally over the very idea that religious dogma should trump or have primacy over science and scientific facts.
(5) That the closed rigid, authoritarian and hierarchical nature of Islamic societies (and by extension any society) entombed both the arrogance and the ignorance into a pressure cooker that still serves to stunt Islamic growth and promote its tensions as well as its underdevelopment.
(6) Recognizing but failing to deal with ones own lack of development (at any level, from the intrapersonal all the way up to the nation state) can have a life of its own: The denial upon which it must be based sets up the dynamics for, and the need for, rationalizations, excuses, lies and delusions that eventually create a sense of powerlessness, self-hatred, anger and frustration that cannot be contained without lashing out and blaming an external source.
The potency of the larger message of this book resonates with Samuel P. Huntington's "A Clash of Civilizations" and cannot be overlooked: that the arrogance of supposed superiority, compounded by religious ignorance, lack of intellectual development -- combined and contained within a closed delusional society are a potent interactive formula all on its own - and usually develops a life of its own. It becomes a a virtual pressure cooker for perpetuating all kinds of interpersonal, group and societal problems - all of which are best measured by tensions resulting from underdevelopment.
Put another way, these ingredients alone -- without the additional assistance of the traditional familiar litany of chauvinisms that we all know so well -- such as racism, colonialism, classism, and sexism -- can do the same work that these ills do all on their own.
In fact, myths of superiority, religious ignorance and arrogance, coupled with a closed hierarchical system seem to be a "stand-alone system generator" of societal and group ills, and tensions that lead directly to underdevelopment. These mostly internally generated pre-Fascist ingredients all by themselves form a self-sustaining system whose consistent output is group or societal misery, tensions, poverty and despair - all leading it seems inexorably to underdevelopment.
After reading this book, it cannot be overlooked that even in the West, especially in the U.S., we are now beginning a new turn of that same old wheel: With the conservative and fundamentalism movements again gaining prominence, we are slowly stumbling back into that same old Fascist like trap - using religion to whip people back into social, cultural, and political submission.
With myths of superiority, religious ignorance and arrogance, coupled with a closed hierarchical system, who needs racism, colonialism, sexism, classism, or other forms of intolerance? And although all of these maladies typically work hand-and-glove with religious ignorance, it is not at all necessary for them to do so: They alone can do all the heavy-lifting by themselves.
A tough message to swallow but thanks again to Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali this has been an eye-opener.
Five Stars
Book Description
Beginning with the chaotic post–World War I landscape in which religious belief was one way of reordering a world knocked off its axis, Sacred Causes is a penetrating critique of how religion has often been camouflaged by politics. All the bloody regimes and movements of the 20th century are masterfully captured here, from Stalin's Soviet Union, Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and Franco's Spain to the war on terror. With style and sophistication, Michael Burleigh shows how the churches, in their various guises, have been swayed by–and contributed to–conflicting secular currents. Sacred Causes brilliantly exposes the way in which fears of socialist movements tempered the churches' response to the threat of totalitarian regimes.
Burleigh combines an authoritative survey of history with a timely reminder of the dangers of radical secularism. He asks why no one foresaw the religious implications of massive Third World immigration. And he deftly investigates what is now driving calls for a civic religion to counter the terrorist threats that have so shocked the West.
Customer Reviews:
Far too difficult to read.......2007-08-16
This book is stupidly difficult to read, and it was obviously written by a scholar, for other scholars. I'm not an unintelligent person by any means, but I can't understand half of what the author is saying.
Here are a few sentences from the book:
"As this carol indicates, the carnivalesque, allegedley playful aspects of Bolshevik cultural utopias had an intolerant, sinister aspect that was as inherent in the socialist project as the coercion and repression that were coeval with the regime, and integral to its revolutionary iconoclasm and Manichean, Red-and-White worldview. To detach utopian dreams from terror or to regard them as a colourful 'if-only' before the onset of Stalin's grey 'Thermidor' is to indulge in vicarious utopianism from the safety of the modern Western campus. Bolshevik utopianism, it has been argued, oscillated between an innate and pervasive peasant desire for dignity, equality, and justice and attempts to create militarised oases of order that tantalised aristocrats infatuated with ninteenth-century Prussia."
Now, can anyone explain what the hell that meant?
The entire book is written like this. Skip it.
The Uses of Religion.......2007-06-09
Secularists and progressives have long believed that religion was in a state of terminal decline. Religion, which they view as a dangerous form of ignorance, was steadily being displaced by the ever-expanding domain of reason and scientific knowledge. In the last quarter of a century scientific knowledge has grown faster than ever before; one would have expected religion to decline proportionally. On the contrary, the opposite has happened: Religion and its agitated by-product, religious fundamentalism, are gaining ground everywhere.
This is the second of a two-volume work by historian Michael Burleigh. In the first volume "Earthly Powers," he showed how secular ideologies from the Jacobins of the French Revolution to the anarchists of the Russian Revolution were influenced by and made use of religion. Religion - Christianity in particular - furnished the myths by which people mobilized and redeemed themselves in the secular sphere. As Burleigh points out in his first volume, he owes much of this insight on political religion to the work of Eric Voeglin.
In "Sacred Causes" Burleigh traces political religions from the interwar period to the present Islamic fundamentalism. Nazism and Communism were classic examples of political religions; they were messianic movements that offered redemption in an earthly manner. Both movements attempted to displace religion. In the interwar period religion became a symbol of a discredited past. People looked to science and militant nationalism to deliver them from the depths of the economic depression. In this atmosphere of seige the church was forced to make accommodations to the secular powers, at least in Germany. In the Soviet Union, the property of the church was confiscated by the state altogether.
Burleigh spends a great deal of time in this volume defending the actions of the Catholic Church against charges that it had some complicity in the crimes of the Nazis. He comes to the defense of Pope Pius XII. He praises the pope and the church for quietly keeping the church's message alive during those dark times. Critics, however, have much evidence to the contrary: the most notable example being the pro-Nazi Catholic regime in Serbia responsible for the murder of 350,000 Serbs and 30,000 Jews. Burleigh counters with many instances of the Catholic Church aiding Jews during the holocaust. But does this absolve the church of a long history of anti-Semitism going back to the Middle Ages? I think Burleigh is unconvincing here. If the Catholic Church was the force of good that he claims it would have done more to stop the mass murder.
Burleigh also has many grievances. One of the many objects of his scorn is Islam, and the disconcerting fact that mosques are popping up all over Europe. He thinks Tariq Ramadan is an apologist for al-Qaeda. His take is more than a little unbalanced. He fails to note that Islam, like Christianity, is made up of many different strains. Both have their moderates and their fundamentalists. Burleigh himself faces the danger, in this volume, of falling into the latter category.
What was the 20th century all about?.......2007-06-08
Burleigh argues, in this rich, meaty book, that the 20th century was all about the clash between religion and the state.
The 20th century opened with a set of swaggering new philosophies that were going to create a heaven on earth. Nietzche, before he descended into gibbering madness, declared that "God was dead". He expected a New Man, freed of the old, niggling 10 commandments, to lead humanity to a bright new future. What the world got was Hitler and death camps.
Then there was fascism, led by Mussolini, whose first book was, "God Does Not Exist".
And then there was communism, most potent of all, which slaughtered some 100 million people while trying to create heaven on earth. The late Pope John Paul, who lived under both the Nazis and the communists, called the 20th century "a pile of bodies".
In this sweeping, beautifully written book, Burleigh performs like a magician, always pulling out just the right, telling anecdote.
In the early part of the century, violence against the clergy peaked. In Spain during the civil war, "nearly 7,000 clerics were murdered" (p 132"), while atrocity was piled on atrocity. In Mexico priests were hunted and shot and convents closed.
Yet the most bloodthirsty of all would be communism. The communists used everything they could to fight against religion--threats, persecutions, show trials, mass starvation, and the near total destruction of all religious clergy. "By 1938 eighty bishops had lost their lives, while thousands of clerics were sent to the Solovetsky labour camp set up in a former monastery on an island in the White Sea" (p 47.
What bitter irony, then, that many now believe that it was religion that pulled down the whole grotesque regime. "Although they were subjected to relentless assault from state-sponsored atheism, the Christian Churches remained the only licensed sanctuaries from the prevailing world of brutality and lies" (p 344). Solidarity, Pope John Paul, and Poland brought down communism.
Yet we may well face an even more troubling era. Europe is beset with problems of a very different nature. As its native populations dwindle to nothing a flood of Muslim immigrants is taking over Amsterdam, Paris and London. What was once a vital continent filled with a vibrant Christianity is now dying. Authors such as Dawkins assault the very idea of religion while immigrants swarm into the country. Statistics show a vast numbers of these new Europeans want, not to do away with religion as Dawkins suggests, but to impose Sharia law.
Uneven and Misleading.......2007-03-18
Sacred Causes is the second book of 2 devoted to the conflict of religion and politics in recent European history. The first volume, Earthly Powers, was devoted to the 19th century and this one covers the 20th century. The quality of both books is uneven. This is a huge topic and Burleigh has not attempted the difficult job of a systematic analysis or structural overview. Like Earthly Powers, Sacred Causes is essentially a series of chronically arranged essays on aspects of the central topic. This approach served Burleigh well in some of his other work, notably his excellent book, The Third Reich, where he could incorporate a continuous narrative as a unifying armature for his essays. In both Sacred Causes and Earthly Powers, there is only a general theme and the quality of the essays/chapters varies significantly. Some are very good, some indifferent, some actually poor.
The best parts of Sacred Causes are the opening chapters in which Burleigh discusses the great, and greatly destructive, `political religions' of the 20th century. These are Marxism-Leninism and Fascism. As Burleigh is quick to point out, the description of these ideologies as `political religions' is not novel. This concept originated decades ago and has been used by quite a number of scholars, not least Burleigh in his fine work on the Nazi state. The political religion idea describes these secular ideologies as having the structural features of a religion with promises of individual and communal salvation, rescue from conditions of social degeneration, charismatic-prophetic leadership, and a strongly millennial flavor. Burleigh's analyses of these features of Nazism, Communism, and Italian Fascism are vivid and very well done. He has particularly nice descriptions of the efforts of the states adopting these ideologies to develop explicit ceremonial and public experiences aimed at displacing the rituals and experiences of genuine religion.
Burleigh follows with a considerably less successful effort to describe the responses of European churches to the challenge of political religions. This simply is too large a topic to be dealt with appropriately in the space allowed in the book. He concentrates primarily on the Catholic Church, and even more narrowly on the Vatican. Burleigh takes pains to present the Catholic Church as a foe of the emerging totalitarian regimes of the interwar period. While this is true in several important ways, it is also misleading in other, equally important senses. It is clear from Burleigh's text that true to its 19th century heritage, the Catholic Church in many European countries was no friend of liberal democracy. His account shows clearly the preference of the hierarchy of many countries and of the Vatican for traditionally oriented, authoritarian states. Burleigh attempts to gloss this over by describing the Church as having a choice between totalitarianism and weak democracy, but this obscures the negative role played by the Catholic Church in some of the weaker democracies of Europe. His own account of the Partito Popolare Italiano, the ancestor of the Italian Christian Democratic Party, shows that the Vatican preferred accommodation with Mussolini to bolstering the foundations of democracy in interwar Italy. Burleigh never discusses the changing role of the important German Catholic Center party in Weimar Germany. Under the leadership of Ludwig Kaas, a priest close to the German hierarchy and the Vatican, the Center Party ceased to be a pillar of democracy and Kaas led the Center Party into accommodation with the Nazis. Burleigh has a particularly one-sided discussion of that historiographic lightning rod, the Spanish Civil War, where his commentary will probably satisfy the most dogmatic defenders of General Franco.
There is a concerted effort to defend the wartime behavior of Pope Pius XII. Burleigh does well in defending Pius XII against charges of antisemitism and indifference to the fate of the Jews. Burleigh does less well in defending Pius against the most serious charge against the Pope; that Pius failed to exercise the moral leadership expected of the Vicar of Christ. Pius spent his career in the Vatican diplomatic service before ascending the Papal throne. At a time that required prophetic moral leadership, he was a cautious diplomat.
The remainder of the book is devoted to a series of chapters of varying interest and quality. There are very good descriptions of the post-WWII assaults on the churches of Eastern Europe. Other chapters describing the secularization of Europe in the 1960s, the role of churches in the end of the Cold War, the persistent problem of Northern Ireland, and the recent 9/11 tragedy are not so good. A lot of this discussion, for example, the denunciation of cultural changes in the 1960s, and the hagiographic treatment of the roles of Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II in the end of the Cold War, is trite and inaccurate. The chapter on Northern Ireland is a rhetorically interesting combination of attention to detail and tendentious sarcasm that veers into actual bigotry. Burleigh has an unfortunate tendency for nasty and irrelevant asides that disfigures many sections.
This book also has signs of being written hastily. Parts of the concluding chapter are simply hard to follow and there are a number of careless statements. Does Burleigh really believe that the USA has no social welfare system? There are a surprising number of factual errors throughout the book. Contrary to what Burleigh writes, the Civil War President of the Spanish Republic, Azana, was not a Socialist, Pol Pot was not educated at the Sorbonne, and the US Supreme Court has never banned prayer in US public schools.
All in all, a very disappointing performance.
A Very Good Read.......2007-03-17
A genuinely historical and very well-written account of the conflict between secularism and religion over the past hundred years or so. The former -- whether under the guise of humanism, liberalism, pseudo-conservatism, communism, or Nazism -- has, far more often than not, been the victor in these clashes of culture. But, of course, might doesn't make right (in addition, these victories have been transient, and far more illusory than substantive). No, it is religion that has tended to be on the right, albeit losing, side. There's no doubt, however, that this tradition is being challenged by present-day Islam, which appears to have the upper hand.
While our Muslim brethren are correct in despising a plethora of cultural pathologies, their embrace of indiscriminate and extreme violence is problematic...to say the least! No one who claims to be truly civilized can countenance their vile actions. But it's equally impossible to lend one's support to the egregious and depraved creed that is secular humanism. The solution is rooted in the West's embracing once again, at long last, its foundational Christianity. I'm not holding my breath. Well, it will be interesting to see how it plays out -- interesting, but unpleasant.
Book Description
If your workplace feels like a battle zone and colleagues sometimes act like adversaries, you ore not alone. Today four generations glare at one another across the conference table, and the potential for conflict and confusion has never been greater.
- Traditionalist employees with their "heads down, onward and upward" attitude live out a work ethic shaped during the Great Depression.
- Eighty million Baby Boomers vacillate between their overwhelming need to succeed and their growing desire to slow down and enjoy life.
- Generation Xers try to prove themselves constantly yet dislike the image of being overly ambitious, disrespectful, and irreverent.
- Millennials, new to the workforce, mix savvy with social conscience and promise to further change the business landscape.
This insightful book provides hands-on methods to close the generation gaps. With effective tools to recruit, retain, motivate, and manage each generation, you can now create teamwork, not war, in today's highperformance workplace . . . where at any age, productivity is what counts.
Customer Reviews:
All Supervisors should learn this!.......2007-08-30
This has been very enlightning to look outside one's own generation. Awareness is half the battle. Excellent resource.
good info on generations in the workplace.......2006-07-14
This is probably your best bet for a book on generations in the workplace. It's not long on data, but it does apply knowledge about generations in a very useful way. It's not a deep treatment, but it gets the job done. A fairly quick read, and good if you just want to understand people of different ages in the workplace.
If you are interested in learning more about generations overall, and applying the knowledge yourself (easy to do), there's the classic (_Generations_ by Strauss & Howe, strong on theory and the overall picture, though outdated with its 1991 pub date) or the more recent _Generation Me_, with data on how the generations differ psychologically.
All Business.......2004-11-12
I found this book to be very informative and readable. The book gives a number of good insights about the different values of four generations in the workplace today. There are lots of examples and solutions to making the workplace more productive and fun. Unfortunately, the book's focus is on business, making money and working together better. Guess that's what pays the bills. I guess the insights can help in relationships throughout society but for those who are looking for answers outside of business this might be a hard read to get through.
Interesting observations........2003-02-10
"When Generations Collide" is a book that describes the clashes of the four generations with practical solutions. The book is separated into five sections:
Section I: Descriptions of the Generations
The book first describes the four generations (birth years): The Traditionalists (1900-1945), Baby Boomers (1946-1964), Generation Xers (1965-1980) and Millennial (1981-1999). The book also mentions the "Cusper" generation, whom are born five years into or at the end of a generation. The Cuspers are the bridge builders.
Section II: Putting the generations to work
In this section, the authors describe the generations' focus on career. In summary, Traditionalists build a legacy, Baby boomers build a stellar career, Gen X build a portable career and Millennial build parallel careers. The book describes the generation careers with explicit detail including how to reward the generations without offending the "generational culture". This section is interesting since it gives examples from companies that have built various career paths and reward programs for the four generations.
Section III: Hiring generations
In this section, the authors describe in detail how to hire generations. Since the values of the generations are different, company value propositions need to be just as various. These values are established with the help of the specific generations. The proposition should be put into action and modified as time passes. If the values do not represent the various generations then the company would have issues to retain talent.
Section IV: Retaining and managing the generations
Once you have hired the individuals the book describes, in great detail, how to manage and retain your talent using different methods of involvement. Retaining the talent needed is not easy. The book describes that it is not only up to your company but companies should learn to use their talent to keep talent. Example, part-time alumni traditionalist are helping Xers understand the longer term growth of the firm which in turn the firm will be rewarded by Xers not leaving in 6 months. As the book notes it, job changing for Traditionalist is a stigma, for Boomers is getting behind, for Xers is necessary and for Millennials is a way of life.
Section V: What's next?
This section was a six page book conclusion.
If you are thinking of issues that we deal with our bosses, parents, co-workers and others take into consideration their generation before taking action.
Have fun reading.
Not Profound but Provocative.......2002-07-03
Review of When Generations Collide
The Book's Thesis: If you work with people from other generations, you need to understand that conflicting perspectives between the generations can generate workplace conflict.
Obviously, this is an old theme. There are plenty of quotable inter-generational digs and barbs recorded in the earliest writings of antiquity.
More recently, during my youth in the tumultuous late 1960s and early '70s, we spoke openly and frequently about the "generation gap."
This perennial topic has been treated seriously by credible writers in other business books over the past decade. (I have penned a few articles on it in recent years as well.)
Of the books on this now familiar theme, this one takes a less statistical and analytical approach in favor of a more anecdotal slant on the topic.
Lancaster, a Baby Boomer, and Stillman, a Gen Xer, are business partners who write in a chatty style. They lace their broad observations about generations with illustrations derived from their own personal lives. Often, they make their point by telling stories about the conflicts between the two of them---which they blame on their age difference.
And they never miss an opportunity to remind you that they speak and give seminars on this topic. While those frequent reminders border on annoying, the authors do not seem to be indulging in crass commercialism---search all you want and you won't find information in the book about contacting the author-consultants to purchase their services.
Instead, speechmaking (and speech coaching to the likes of pop business pontificator Harvey Mackay, who penned the book's anemic Foreword) seems to define the authors' rather limited frame of reference in the business world.
As other reviewers have noted, the authors' attention to detail, facts, and rigorous analysis have taken a back seat to their breezy narrative.
In an attempt to provide statistical data on generational differences, the authors point to results from an online survey they conducted. You don't have to be a career researcher or social scientist to recognize that such surveys are comprised of small, non-random, non-representative and therefore invalid samples. That is especially true when extrapolating tiny slivers of data to reach conclusions about an entire generation representing *tens of millions* of people!
Still, these flaws notwithstanding, this engaging, readable book makes some worthwhile observations about the rather amorphous and extremely broad topic of generational strife. Despite my reservations, I found myself highlighting pithy passages and dog-earring quite a few pages.
If you can look past the authors' indulgent style and occasional gaffs and lapses, "When Generations Collide" serves as an approachable and palatable overview of potential generational friction in the workplace---and wherever people of varying ages interact.
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- A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin
- Kings
- A Clash of Kings: good follow up
- Overly complex, bloated and sluggish pacing, but still a good read
- ice and fire saga ... should "blood" be in there?
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A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 2)
George R.R. Martin
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ASIN: 0553579908
Release Date: 2000-09-05 |
Amazon.com
How does he do it? George R.R. Martin's high fantasy weaves a spell sufficient to seduce even those who vowed never to start a doorstopper fantasy series again (the first book--A Game of Thrones--runs over 700 pages). A Clash of Kings is longer and even more grim, but Martin continues to provide compelling characters in a vividly real world.
The Seven Kingdoms have come apart. Joffrey, Queen Cersei's sadistic son, ascends the Iron Throne following the death of Robert Baratheon, the Usurper, who won it in battle. Queen Cersei's family, the Lannisters, fight to hold it for him. Both the dour Stannis and the charismatic Renly Baratheon, Robert's brothers, also seek the throne. Robb Stark, declared King in the North, battles to avenge his father's execution and retrieve his sister from Joffrey's court. Daenerys, the exiled last heir of the former ruling family, nurtures three dragons and seeks a way home. Meanwhile the Night's Watch, sworn to protect the realm from dangers north of the Wall, dwindle in numbers, even as barbarian forces gather and beings out of legend stalk the Haunted Forest.
Sound complicated? It is, but fine writing makes this a thoroughly satisfying stew of dark magic, complex political intrigue, and horrific bloodshed. --Nona Vero
Book Description
In this eagerly awaited sequel to
A Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin has created a work of unsurpassed vision, power, and imagination.
A Clash of Kings transports us to a world of revelry and revenge, wizardry and warfare unlike any you have
ever experienced.
A Clash Of Kings
A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. And from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war. It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel...and the coldest hearts. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.
Download Description
Here is the second volume in GEORGE R. R. MARTIN¿S magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Game of Thrones and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, GEORGE R. R. MARTIN¿S stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction. A CLASH OF KINGS A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. Two great leaders¿Lord Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon¿who hold sway over an age of enforced peace are dead, victims of royal treachery. Now, from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing to stake their claims through tempest, turmoil, and war. It is a tale in which brother plots against brother and the dead rise to walk in the night. Here a princess masquerades as an orphan boy; a knight of the mind prepares a poison for a treacherous sorceress; and wild men descend from the Mountains of the Moon to ravage the countryside. Against a backdrop of incest and fratricide, alchemy and murder, victory may go to the men and women possessed of the coldest steel...and the coldest hearts. For when kings clash, the whole land trembles.
Customer Reviews:
A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin.......2007-09-19
A Clash of Kings is the second in the ongoing "Song of Ice and Fire" series, sequel to A Game of Thrones, and the series continues to be entertaining and interesting, one of my favorite ongoing fantasy series. What makes it different from other fantasy series is that Martin, instead of using chapter numbers and having everything be specifically chronological, has about five to ten characters whose heads you are in. So you can be immediately whisked away to another battle, another land, another family feud by the turn of the page. Plus Martin isn't afraid of killing of characters, which can be horrible if one gets really attached to certain characters, but I find it admirable that he has the bravely to do this. I think it isn't done enough in fiction, specifically fantasy. Sure the good guys need to win, but not all the time!
Near the end of A Clash of Kings there was a huge battle between two big armies: one attacking the other on a river, so starting as a naval battle, and then once the men landed on the ground moving on to trying to break into the fortress. Your regular historical or fantasy novel would have you in the head of your main character who would likely be one of the leaders of the armies. The P.O.V. might switch during the battle to the other leader's viewpoint on the other side and then come back to your main character. With Martin's literary device, the reader sees the battle unfolding from three interesting viewpoints: from the leader of the army in the fortress (who is an ugly dwarf); from one of the captains of the ships on the other side attacking the fortress, as he leads in the ship and engages the enemy (he ends up getting killed); and from a young girl who is a hostage in the fortress, under the watchful eye of the queen, in a room full of the important women who are just waiting around to find out if they are on the winning side, or if they are on the losing side and the enemy is about to break down the door and the knight will be ordered to kill them all so they won't end up as hostages. So instead of seeing the entire battle from one of possibly two P.O.V.s, the reader gets three totally different viewpoints, and it just helps to heighten the tension and suspense.
Next in the series is A Storm of Swords, with A Feast For Crows due out November 8th. As Martin was writing A Feast For Crows, passing the thousand-page mark a couple of months before the book was done, he was told by his publisher that they can't have one book be this long. He'd previously promised that his next book would not be as long as A Storm of Swords, which was 1216 pages in the mass market edition. Since he's going to long pass this, he negotiated with Random House to split the book in two. What he's decided to do, and as I get further into the series I can't understand how he's going to do this, is have half of the characters in one book, and the other half in the next book. Some of the characters can be on their own tangents, meeting different people, and not actually have anything to do with the other main character's whose heads the reader is in, but there are other main characters who interact with each other quite often, and I just don't know how Martin is going to reconcile this.
It's going to be interesting, that's for sure. And the good thing Martin said is that the new book comes out soon, and the next one is already half done.
For more book reviews, and other writings, go to www.alexctelander.com
Kings.......2007-09-11
This book was in excellent shape and a joy to read...i appreciate the quickness with which it was shipped
A Clash of Kings: good follow up.......2007-09-01
This is a good follow up to A Game of Thrones. Like many other readers, the period setting and charcterization are the strengths of this book. The point of view narration is a stand out.
I don't mind getting lost in a good book. If you're looking for loose threads to be tied up and tight plot adherence, you will be disappointed. This is not a G, PG, or PG13 fantasy epic it is R or even X rated in places. Sometimes, I found the sex and violence gratuitous. Just a caveat emptor.
I liked the characterizations. They were believable. For instance the good guys (all right, the characters I liked best) were not saint like and brilliant 100% of the time. Small side characters that seemed all right in Game show themselves be less than savory in Clash. There are some new POVs in this novel as well. The most interesting being Davos, a knight serving Stannis Baratheon. The bad guys,show that they are not static caricatures.
Plot developments were believable in that again it didn't turn on magic but mundane events.
Overly complex, bloated and sluggish pacing, but still a good read.......2007-08-19
Ok, I just finished Book 2, and I have to say I'm not quite as happy as I was with Book 1. Don't get me wrong - it's still a very entertaining read, but I'm encountering enough things that irritate me to actually speak up a bit.
(1) LEADEN PACE: Yes, I can now see what others have complained about. Book 1 moved along slowly, but Book 2 positively crawls at times.
(2) EXCESSIVE LENGTH/COMPLEXITY: The author should have put this book on a treadmill, and made it loose 250 or so pages. It's too flabby, even for someone of my laid back literary nature. The chief problem is that the author tells the tale from too many different angles at the same time, and the result is a story that's fragmentary ... and difficult to get back into if you put it down for more than a few days. Working from 8 different moving points on the same map, in simultaneous fashion, is a too fragmentary, and makes it difficult for the reader to relax into the tale. Instead, the reader is left to paddle furiously, like a poodle dropped in a swimming pool, with people shouting "over here !" from multiple different angles. It's sink or swim.
(3) EXCESSIVELY GRAPHIC VIOLENCE: I have the same complaint with movies these days ... the author seems to revel in describing sucking chest wounds, ropy intestines spilling out, and festering wounds. I'm well acquainted with the harsh realities of limited medieval medicine, but the author goes overboard at times, and there are moments when it feels like I'm watching a "splat" movie. Also, his "maester" healers seem rather under skilled, medically ... for all their supposedly great training, all the author seems capable of having them do is do simple bandages, pour boiling wine into gashes, apply leeches, and give people "milk of poppy" or "dream wine". There's a lot more to first aid, even at the medieval level, than just that.
(4) EXCESSIVE SEX: I've noticed a definite trend in both TV, SciFi and Fantasy over the past 20 years towards more and more sex. There were a few scenes in Book 1 of this series that raised my eyebrow, but not enough to carp about. This book, however, raises the bar considerably ... we see fellatio & cunnilingus, as well as repeated references to anal sex, buggery, incest, rape-murders, and even a reference to necrophilia {re: the character "Reek"}. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to name a chapter than didn't seem to have an obligatory sex scene, or sexual reference in it - and more often than not in an unsavory context. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, and these things are realities of everyday life ... but there was no warning on the cover that the book is liberally interspersed with such content. Things have come a long way from the days of Robert E. Howard's Conan, and Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars pulps, in which we occasionally see women clad in gossamer veils, the occasional flash of nipple, and a quick fade-out on people who begin to get it on. GRRM doesn't leave the room at all ... he just lowers the action from XXX to NC-17 (single x) in order to avoid excessive complaints. In other words, he's pushing the envelope of the genre. I don't mind mature content at all ... but I *do* mind the lack of notice on the cover. The book should be marked as such, for the convenience of prospective readers who don't want to get blindsided by such things.
(5) EXCESSIVE MORTALITY: Ya know, I've played in some role playing campaigns in which the mortality level was gratuitously high - to the point where it seemed like the GM was perhaps overcompensating for their own real life shortcomings (e.g., no career, no sex life, no control over their fate) by making everyone else's life a living hell. In the case of this book, the author seems (to me) to go overboard in setting up characters and sub-plots, and then killing everything (and everyone) off, just to keep people guessing. Some people call that being bold and taking risks with the plot, whereas I think of it as being excessively sadistic - what's the point of sitting though all GRRM's long and plodding buildup, only to have the author crumple it up and toss it in the trash and go off in a completely different direction ? Where's the intellectual and emotional payoff ? Although gripping and entertaining, I'd be hard pressed to find much in this book that's uplifting, comforting, secure, nostalgic or inspiring, because the author is constantly ripping down plots and characters and papering up new ones every other chapter ... like a frothing tyrant, setting up elaborate patterns of dominos, just so he can gleefully kick them over. There's a fine line between having enough mortality to make death and failure a constant presence in the overall story (as it is in real life), and having half the characters die horribly, from book to book. It's too much, IMHO.
(6) ERATTA: There are some things that the author just plain gets wrong. For instance, the author's distance terminology usage appears wrong. I haven't analyzed it too closely, but it seems (to me) like he uses the term "leagues" as if they were the same as kilometers. They are NOT the same. One league = 3 miles = 4.83 kilometers. If his usage of the term were correct, then it should take a *lot* longer for people to get from place to place than it seems to in his plot. The author, however, doesn't seem to have the patience to support that sort of slow travel pace however, so he just seems to ignore the consequences of his improper use of terminology.
(7) CULINARY SHORTCOMINGS: I enjoy writers who take their food seriously (big props to GRRM for that), but it bothers me when people make mistakes. For instance - people going on multi-week trips over rough terrain, on foot or horse, don't typically lug lots of raw eggs with them for breakfast ... they're fragile, they're heavy (mostly water), and they easily spoil. Rib bones don't have soft edible marrow ... only the bones of extremities have soft marrow that's suck able. I'd also complain about blueberries (early summer), mint (late summer & early fall), and grapes (fall) not being in season at the same time, but since the seasons in the author's world span multiples of years, I think we can let that one slide. However, if the main continent of the seven kingdoms is truly a thousand leagues long, then Dorne and The Wall should be in different hemispheres, and the growing seasons should be reversed ... however, the plot seems to imply that the entire continent is in the same hemisphere, with much the same growing season. Perhaps there's something that the author is not telling us, and that perhaps their world is 10x the diameter of Earth (and spins faster on it's axis to make up for it). Still, I find it hard to believe that they can enjoy fresh oranges way up north, at The Wall. Based on the distances involved, the author should have (instead) featured pickled lemons, instead of fresh citrus. Also, there's not enough regional variations in the cuisine depicted. We don't see much dothraki cuisine except for mares milk and horse meat, and over in the seven kingdoms, and cuisine in the north seems to differ from the south only in that the south is more wealthy, and that fruit is a bit more prevalent. The only time the author mentions spices is in spiced wine, and the only seasoning in his food is salt and pepper. For the amount of word count that the author devotes to food, he could do better, with regards to regional diversity of cuisine.
Bottom line: I'm still very much enjoying this series, but there's room for improvement.
ice and fire saga ... should "blood" be in there?.......2007-07-24
As I write this, I am 3 books through the 4 book series and will definitely read the 4th book (though I will borrow it from the library rather than buy it). I gave this book/series 3 stars ... does that seem credible as I devour the 3500+ pages of the series? I don't know, as I guess I am enjoying it ...
These comments are really general ones about the series, as the books do not really individually stand out. The best thing about book 2 was that I got a larger paperback version than normal, which was easier for me to read and handle.
Writing: On the plus side George R.R. Martin has created a detailed, fully imagined world, with at least 12 separate plot lines that he keeps going and intertwines as appropriate. Many of the characters have complex, conflicted motivations which he skillfully conveys.
On the negative side: perhaps I have been reading "young adult" pablum fiction with my son for too long, but the unremitting level of violence in the series becomes fatiguing after a while (early on it is merely shocking). I have never read a work of fiction with this level of violence. In fact Martin uses a plot device where, every time there is a chance of resolution of some major plot issue, he kills off the main character who would be essential to the resolution. Since this happens 2 to 5 times in each book, I found this predictable and manipulative. Plus no plot line has reached any sort of resolution by the end of book 3. Good way to sell book 4, I guess.
Another aspect that may be negative for some is the focus on complex relationships between the different "houses" in the novels. Each volume has 45+ pages of family tree information in an appendix in case you start to lose track of whose great grandson married whose cousin to forge an alliance between which houses. By the end of the first book I had stopped worrying about my inability to follow all these interactions. For me, the level of detail detracted from the plot.
So where does that leave me, as a net out for the series? I think the books are a monumental achievement, but in kind of the same way I think Wikipedia is a monumental achievement. My conclusion, by the end of A Clash of Kings, which was then confirmed in book 3, was that there were actually 3 series contained in the one series. If Martin had produced a 12 book series, with each book more focused and with a more cohesive plot line, I think he would be viewed as a peer and equal of Tolkien or Asimov (albeit with far more "adult" content) as an author of an ageless series.
Book Description
A complete and compelling account of the fall of Constantinople, the siege that gave rise to today's jihad.
When Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, a remarkable era in world history ended. Constantinople, the "city of the world's desire," was a wealthy, imperial, intimidating, and Christian city, influencing world opinion for a thousand years. The fall of Constantinople marked the end of the Byzantium Empire and the end of the medieval era. Thereafter, two worlds would rise -- that of the West and that of the Middle East.
1453 is brought to life by the stories of its two ambitious battling leaders-Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and Constantine XI, the 57th emperor of Byzantium. It is a vivid, intense tale of courage and cruelty, of technological ingenuity, of endurance and luck. Impeccably researched and told as a real-life adventure, the book explores the issues that led up to and resulted from the fall of Constantinople in a way that is easily grasped and jumps from the pages into the headlines of world news. 1453 is the story of a moment of change that has new relevance today -- a crucial link in the chain of events that besets the modern world.
Customer Reviews:
Great Read.......2007-09-22
Just an excellent book. The author writing style really helps you imagine in your minds eye the scenes he's describing.
Pushed my buttons........2007-08-22
I'll give this book 3 stars out of charity, and because it may succeed as a work of popular history; indeed, most readers will be satisfied with it.
I can't write an exhaustive review, because I quit reading at p.32,when Crowley says that "the Ottomans ruled their subjects with a light hand. . . . No attempts were made to convert Christians . . ." etc. Ask anyone who's lived under Ottoman rule,if you can still find one of these venerable folk, or talk to their descendants. You'll get a different picture of the situation. Crowley himself describes some of the horrors of the siege, inflicted by these "tolerant" Muslims.
It is true that some Ottoman officials developed a liberal laissez-faire attitude toward the Christians--either out of Levantine indolence or practical intelligence: why harass honest and industrious people? Plus, they pay taxes through the nose. And even Sultan Mehmed II was lenient towards the Christians once he had established his rule. Still, the many horrors remain.
If I'd been at home while reading this book, I would have thrown it across the room. As it was, I was in the car and merely commented on the nonsense to my companions.
Gentle reader, if you really want to learn about the Fall of Constaninople, read Runciman, or Sir Edwin Pears, if you can find his book. Also, the translations of the chronicles of the time.
Informative.......2007-08-13
A more technical treatment of the subject than Sir Steven Runciman's The Fall of Constantinople 1453 (Canto), but I have to admit that I prefer the style of Sir Runciman. What Sir Runciman neglected in detail, Mr. Crowley has provided. But, at the same time, there were points where Mr. Crowley seemed overly concerned with parallels to today (implied somewhat in the subtitle). Despite that minor criticism it is likely the very thing other readers will enjoy about the book. Mr. Crowley also recently did a fine article in Military History magazine concerning the fall of Constantinople and I would recommend that as well for thorough technical detail. This is a thorough and enjoyable work and an important contribution to understanding the last days of Constaniople.
1453........then and now.......2007-07-31
The name Constantinople has always conjured up vague images for me - mystery, grandeur, historical wonder. However, 1453 has expanded my understanding of the city as well as the role it played in world history. Crowley covers the siege and attack of Constantinople by the Turks in 1543. The invasion has truly changed the geopolitical landscape of Europe and Asia since that time. This was truly a Holy War - a fight both between Islam and Christianity, as well as a fight within factions of Christianity. It also highlights the great differences between the understandings of the human condition between these world religions. Neither is innocent and neither is patently evil, but they are very different. Crowley speaks about these differences and the background issues in light of the battle, placing them all in an easily accessible light.
After reading 1453, I find myself realizing that the battles of 1453 have similarities to the battles of the 21st century. The cultural battles are still very similar. The geopolitical issues are still in flux. This view helped make the book even more meaningful today.
great read for the casual reader.......2007-05-15
this book really does a good job of telling the story and focusing both upon the personalities involved and the way that life was for the people in constantinople at the time. it has the right level of depth for someone who's interested in history but is not a specialist.
Average customer rating:
- Owners Manual For Managing the Muti-generational Workplace
- For managers, with a grain of salt, please
- Very good read
- Real Generations
- You can fool some of the people, all of the time.
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Generations at Work: Managing the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters in Your Workplace
Ron Zemke ,
Claire Raines , and
Bob Filipczak
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ASIN: 0814404804 |
Book Description
Walk through the tightly packed, hierarchically flattened corridors of America's businesses and what do you hear? Not the sounds of harmony. Instead, you'll probably hear the grumbles of irritation as people with wholly different ways of working, talking, and thinking have been tossed together side by side, cubicle by cubicle. It's the teeth-gritting sound of generations in collision.
Charlie, for example, is 61 and desperate for some clear, straightforward guidance from his 43-year-old boss Mary, who, in turn, is using her trademark heartfelt, buzzword-laden management style in an attempt to radically alter Charlie's work processes. Jane, meanwhile, the 29-year-old technical wizard of the team, sits sullenly in her cubicle, unimpressed with either of them, and they with her.
None of them understands the other. None of them knows how to communicate with the other. And it's causing headaches and havoc for managers trying to mold this hodgepodge of ages, faces, values, and views into a productive, collaborative group.
Now, with GENERATIONS AT WORK, there's clear, concrete help. Written by a team of distinguished cross-generational authors, this groundbreaking book supplies fresh, provocative insights and practical solutions for understanding differences, resolving conflicts, and managing effectively in today's age-diverse workplace. Both sweeping in scope and highly specific, the book gives you:
* Astute profiles of four distinct generations: Learn about the Veterans (b. 1922-1943), Baby Boomers (b. 1943-1960), Gen Xers (b.1960-1980), and the Nexters (b.1980-), including their demographics, the events that shaped their lives and times, predominant traits, work styles, and key messages to keep in mind when recruiting, developing, and motivating these members of your workforce. * Illuminating case studies in generational peace: Go behind the scenes of five major companies that treat generational mixing as an asset. * A powerful practice exercise: Solve the plight of Charlie Roth, a fictionalized manager facing a cross-generational crisis--then read how 7 outside experts tackled the problem. * Hardhitting answers to the 21 most frequently asked questions about managing in a multigenerational workplace--plus much more!
For anyone struggling to manage people who just don't see work (or life) the same way, GENERATIONS AT WORK helps you understand the gulf that separates the generations--and offers practical guidelines for building a harmonious workforce where people rally together for the organization, not against each other.
Download Description
Supplies fresh, provocative insights and practical solutions for understanding differences, resolving conflicts, and managing effectively in today's age-diverse workplace. Profiles four distinct generations and their prominent traits and work styles, and offers key messages to keep in mind when recruiting, developing, and motivating members of each generation. Includes real-life case studies of five companies working in intergenerational harmony.
Customer Reviews:
Owners Manual For Managing the Muti-generational Workplace.......2006-08-04
The Year 2006 represents a unique place in time in the history of our workplaces in the United States. We now have four different generations in the same workplace and that has presented many challenges to business owners and managers. This book could be called an "Owner's Manual" in the sense that it provides some practical advice on how to deal with this age-diverse workforce. If you are looking for some help to "muffle" the loud sounds of colliding generations, or to bring those loud sounds into harmony, then this is a book for you. The book is a must read for business owners and managers to help understand the differences in the workforce; how to resolve conflicts and how to fully utilitze the diversity of ages to achieve success in business.
Reviewed by: J. Glenn Ebersole, Jr., Founder & Chief Executive, J. G. EBERSOLE ASSOCIATES and THE RENAISSANCE GROUP (tm), Lancaster, PA. and Author of "Glenn's Guiding Lines - Thoughts From Your Strategic Thinking Coach" newsletter www.renaissanceman4u.com
For managers, with a grain of salt, please.......2006-03-04
Never before has there been such diversity in the workforce. This is particularly true of the range of ages that co-exist on the job. In Generations At Work, the authors identify the four generations, the particular problems you may encounter managing them, and potential solutions. As the employee pool matures, this is knowledge every manager of a cross-generational workforce will need. These categories are, of course, cut rather broad. This book is probably better used as an idea toolbox than gospel writ.
The Generations:
1. Veterans (1922-1943): The World War II generation's dedication to the values of civic pride, loyalty and respect for authority have become a continuing influence in the following generations.
· Veterans tend to be more directive in leadership roles.
· Veterans are used to working in teams under strong leadership.
· Veterans can be prone to the "we've never done it that way before" mentality.
· Veterans often find technology intimidating and confusing.
2. Boomers (1943-1960): This generation tends to be idealistic and driven.
· Find out how they want to be managed.
· Expect a reaction if things don't go well.
· Motivate them with lots of public recognition, and involvement in decision-making.
· When mentoring them be tactful, let them tell you how they're doing, and think of yourself as a friendly equal.
3. Xers (1960-1980): The Xers are deeply cynical about management and the driven attitudes of the Veterans and Boomers. It is, however, possible to motivate Xers.
· Make your work environment as flexible as possible.
· Provide them with up-to-date technology.
· Give them lots of simultaneous projects and let them prioritize.
· Give them constructive feedback on their job performance.
4. Nexters (1980-2000): The most studied generation in history, Nexters are likely to be more like the veterans than any other group. When recruiting Nexters, keep the following principles in mind:
· Forget gender roles.
· Focus on teams.
· Mind the gap: there is likely to be a large generational gap between the Xers and the Nexters.
· Grow your training department.
· Establish mentor programs.
Very good read.......2006-02-27
I liked this book since it gave me an insight into the different components of each generation and how to deal with them at work as well as in general. I manage early boomers to nexters and am a Gen Xer and this book will help a great deal with that challenging task.
Real Generations.......2005-08-23
I enjoyed this book, even though I orignially got it for a class of mine on diversity. It is a great book, but as a Nexter I wish it was a little more updated on things about my generation, but it is understandable. I found that the generational stereotypes are very much in tune with my personal experiences.
You can fool some of the people, all of the time........2005-01-25
Have you ever read a "study" that contains tiny bits of truth (usually things that are obvious) but the rest is false? That's the case with Generations At Work.
If you remove the stereotypes all that remains is stuff that ought to be obvious. It may be that some CEOs with large numbers of disgruntled employees are unaware of even the most blantant trends and conflicts in the workplace but the lesson there is to fix the workplace, not the employees. All generations will be cynical if they are contstantly in danger of being laid off.
From my own experience, 3 examples that are completely the opposite of what this book describes. (1) People in my age group are supposed to be driven overachievers. How I wish that were true. Must have come from astrology or something. (2) I worked for a company that hired two young "golden collar" tech experts. These kids were outstanding. There were no personality conflicts. There were no generational conflicts. And the fact that they were so knowlegable made us worship them! So what if they preferred rock climbing to golf? (3) Speaking of stereotypes, the company shut down and we all got laid off. According to this book, young IT professionals can write their own ticket, right? False, again. Four months have passed and one of our young geniuses has a boring job with a long commute and big pay cut. The other has refused to take a crummy job and remains unemployed.
The book is not without humor, perhaps unintentional. Apparently Lucent is a good example of how waring generations can make peace. But I wonder how many managers want their company to perform as Lucent has.
In the end, the key to a productive harmonious workplace is for people to have jobs they enjoy, pay well and are reasonably secure. In a lesser work environment all managers can hope for is to tap into the stereotypes in this book to try to keep the dust down.
Average customer rating:
- deep insight into how people are motivated in politics as well as religion
- A brilliant read
- What One Expects From Burleigh: Excellence
- A Fine History of Europe's 19th Century Religious-Political Relationships Of Relevance To Today
- Relevant to today
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Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War
Michael Burleigh
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
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