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

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World

Average customer rating:

Entertaining biographical sketches that shaped the world after 1453
Tremendous work
A Great History of a Lost Empire
Forget Byzantium at Your Peril!
Cultural and religious dispersal

Sailing from Byzantium: How a Lost Empire Shaped the World
Colin Wells
Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0553803816
Release Date: 2006-07-25

Book Description

A gripping intellectual adventure story, Sailing from Byzantium sweeps you from the deserts of Arabia to the dark forests of northern Russia, from the colorful towns of Renaissance Italy to the final moments of a millennial city under siege….

Byzantium: the successor of Greece and Rome, this magnificent empire bridged the ancient and modern worlds for more than a thousand years. Without Byzantium, the works of Homer and Herodotus, Plato and Aristotle, Sophocles and Aeschylus, would never have survived. Yet very few of us have any idea of the enormous debt we owe them.

The story of Byzantium is a real-life adventure of electrifying ideas, high drama, colorful characters, and inspiring feats of daring. In Sailing from Byzantium, Colin Wells tells of the missionaries, mystics, philosophers, and artists who against great odds and often at peril of their own lives spread Greek ideas to the Italians, the Arabs, and the Slavs.

Their heroic efforts inspired the Renaissance, the golden age of Islamic learning, and Russian Orthodox Christianity, which came complete with a new alphabet, architecture, and one of the world’s greatest artistic traditions.

The story’s central reference point is an arcane squabble called the Hesychast controversy that pitted humanist scholars led by the brilliant, acerbic intellectual Barlaam against the powerful monks of Mount Athos led by the stern Gregory Palamas, who denounced “pagan” rationalism in favor of Christian mysticism.

Within a few decades, the light of Byzantium would be extinguished forever by the invading Turks, but not before the humanists found a safe haven for Greek literature. The controversy of rationalism versus faith would continue to be argued by some of history’s greatest minds.

Fast-paced, compulsively readable, and filled with fascinating insights, Sailing from Byzantium is one of the great historical dramas–the gripping story of how the flame of civilization was saved and passed on.

Customer Reviews:

Entertaining biographical sketches that shaped the world after 1453.......2007-08-28

This readable history of the historical waves emanating from Byzantine influences is an indispensable work. The style is partly biographical sketches and partly telling of a story making it easily accessible and useful to novice and professional historian alike. The biographical flavor provides the structure for history as events involving human beings with complex characters and mixed motivations acting on the society in their time. The story-telling aspect provides the glue that sweeps the characters and their influence through their geographical dispersions to reveal their influence in Russia, western Europe, and Islam.

An enjoyable read for any historian looking for hints of the Byzantine in the world today. Well done.

Tremendous work.......2007-08-14

This is a great work about an empire that was - and indeed still is - important in our world today. Back when I took a course in Classics in college, my professor lectured us on the importance of the Byzantine Empire, and yet, how few people understand it, and can convey the importance. The author, in my view, has done a truly tremendous job of condensing history down into a very readable, non-intimidating book, which conveys the entire history of Byzantium, from its founding in 500 A.D. to its end in 1493 A.D. The author commands an encyclopedic knowledge of the Classical world, as well as an ability to write. I can't say enough about this work of history. And anyone who might think this is ancient history and doesn't affect us: the history of the clash and cooperation between Islam and Christian civilizations continues to this day (of course). As the author mentions, if the walls of Constantinople had not been so well designed, the Muslims might well have put Europe in a pincer movement in 750 A.D. Instead of being stopped by Charles Martel at Poitiers in France, and turned back, the Muslims might have conquered all of Europe. We would be speaking Arabic now. Yes, it is relevant ! At the same time, the author shows attempts made inside the Arabic Muslim world (which stretched from Spain to Afghanistan) to integrate Greek rationalism and Greek knowledge. Averroes was a famous Arab philosopher who not only championed rationalism, but also kick-started the European Scholastic movement. Unfortunately, Averoes lost out in the Arab world, and the reaction to rationalism, in 850 A.D. began, and continues to this day as Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia. We feel the reverberations to this day...

A very valuable work, at once encyclopedic, and very accessible.

A Great History of a Lost Empire.......2007-06-18

I have always had a fasination with byzantium. This book as well as John Julius Norwich's series of books has helped to appreciate this lost empire more than ever. I especially liked the end of the book where it is just abruptly ended. In a way it made me cry a little to see what could have happened to the world if Byzantium had never have existed. I feel that more people should read this book and be aware of the several contribution that Byzantium has bestowed upon out modern world.

Forget Byzantium at Your Peril!.......2007-05-19

Ignorance of Byzantium (in two senses: lack of knowledge and lack of attention) has confounded Islamicists and Western European historians alike in the past 100 or so years. Colin Wells offers a concise and cogent description of the role Byzantium,including exiled or conquered Byzantines, played in the preservation and transmission of ancient Greek science and philosophy to the Muslim empires of the pre-Crusade "golden age" and directly to Western Europe chiefly by way of Italy. For nearly a thousand years, Byzantium WAS Rome, the hinge of civilization, linking rising and sinking cultures from the Visigoths of North Africa to the Vikings who called themselves Rus, from the humanists of Renaissance Florence to the Nestorian Christians of Syria, the primary translators of the Greek classics into Arabic.
Yet despite the significance of the material presented, it's a fun book, a quick read, written in a relaxed and simple style, accessible even to people who couldn't locate Byzantium on the map. (Hint: "Istanbul is Constantinople, now you can't go back to constantinople...")

Cultural and religious dispersal.......2007-04-20

This is not a "history" book in the exact sense of the term, if you think of "history" books as a linear progression of events. What this author has done is written a very valuable work detailing how the Byzantine Empire spread its culture and religion to its neighbors. The book is divided into three parts, each one showing the effect of Byzantium on 1: Western or "Latin" Christianity, 2: the states in the Balkan area, and 3: what eventually bcame Russia. It's a fascinating tale, extremely well told, and reveals to us that, even though 1453 saw the political end of the Empire, its influence in many different aspects spread and remain even today in many areas. These are subjects rarely, if ever, covered in this context, and should be required reading for anyone interested in obtaining a well-rounded knowledge of Byzantium.

The Highly Sensitive Person's Survival Guide: Essential Skills for Living Well in an Overstimulating World (Step-By-Step Guides)

Average customer rating:

Non Judgemental, Supportive with Good Suggestions
EVERTHING I NEED TO KNOW AS A SENSITIVE PERSON IN OUR TENSE WORLD
Very Helpful Book!
Creating a Greater Sense of Well Being
Elementary Reading

The Highly Sensitive Person's Survival Guide: Essential Skills for Living Well in an Overstimulating World (Step-By-Step Guides)
Ted Zeff , and Elaine N. Aron
Manufacturer: New Harbinger Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1572243961

Book Description

A Step-by-Step Guide

Highly sensitive people (HSPs), who make up some 20 percent of the population, are individuals who both enjoy and suffer from a finely tuned neurological system. This condition can be a gift, but, until HSPs master their sensitive nervous systems, they operate in a constant state of overstimulation. Conditions that most of us ignore completely overwhelm the HSP: bright light, loud sounds, and strong smells. More importantly, HSPs are also very sensitive to their internal worlds. They tend to be deeply affected by pain, both emotional and physical. The emotional demands of relationships and inevitable consequences of change often leave them reeling.

If you're a HSP, the most important thing you must learn is how to manage your increased volume of sensory experience, both physical and emotional stimulation. This accessible, practical guide contains strategies that help you master this critical skill. The book starts with a brief description of the highly sensitive person, and then offers a self-examination quiz, which allows you to assess whether you are highly sensitive. Then the book outlines coping techniques specific to the plight of the HSP. You'll learn tips for reducing the influence of provocative sensory experiences, such as excessive light and noise in the home and office. Meditation and relaxation techniques help you to reduce the anxiety caused by heightened sensitivity. Easy-to-follow exercises guide you through the challenges of communicating and interacting with others in both social and intimate relationships.

Customer Reviews:

Non Judgemental, Supportive with Good Suggestions.......2007-08-17

Although this may not be the major work on this topic, this author writes plainly and could even be seen to provide comfort for individuals dealing with high sensitivity. Many students entering adolescence, especially young men, cannot succeed in our large, demanding, overcrowded classrooms and this is the book to give them. Maybe even sit down with them and help them to understand that the combination of what they can control (their diet, amount of intense TV, video games they consume) and what they cannot (school lighting, crowded classrooms, demanding teachers) there is a balance in which they can find success. Highly recommended for parents and teens w/ ADD/ADHD.

EVERTHING I NEED TO KNOW AS A SENSITIVE PERSON IN OUR TENSE WORLD.......2007-08-06

Dr. Zeff has given me the skills I need to manage my sensitivity. His book includes relaxation techniques, getting proper nutrition and exercise for the sensitive person as well as the importance of having adequate "downtime." He shows how to align the mind, body and soul for inner-peace. He also includes practical information for coping at work and in relationships for the HSP. I now realize that I have a choice in life and don't have to be swept away by the currents of our stressed out culture. Thank you Dr. Zeff!

Very Helpful Book!.......2007-08-03

I really enjoyed reading Ted Zeff's book and found a great deal of practical coping strategies to deal with overstimulation. Since I've begun using many of the techniques in this book I feel less stressed out! I highly recommend this book for all highly sensitive people. Also family and friends of sensitive people would benefit by reading the book to better understand the HSP.

Creating a Greater Sense of Well Being.......2007-07-30

For those who have been successful in creating a sense of well being from our overstimulating world, this book may not offer any thing new.

However, if you just discovered that you are a Highly Sensitive Person and are having trouble coping with the trait, The HSP Survival Guide by Ted Zeff will give you many suggestions on how to start integrating the trait into your daily life. You will learn how to separate yourself from an overstimulating world and create new rituals and habits for a greater sense well being. For that reason, this book is more than helpful - it is necessary.
Jacquelyn Strickland, Licensed Professional Counselor

Elementary Reading.......2007-06-06

Nothing new here. Basic arithmetic. I'm sure most sensitive people have figured out all of these coping strategies long before reading this book.

God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams

Average customer rating:

Caution - This book might shake your faith...
A Classic
Strong Evidence for repentance and faith among the church
Very insightful and thought provoking .
Thoughtful, educating, meant for someone who wants to think

God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams
David F. Wells
Manufacturer: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0802841791

Customer Reviews:

Caution - This book might shake your faith..........2004-11-24

I was amazed at the depth of this book. Chapter after chapter Wells was able to pin point weaknesses and compromises being made daily in our churches. This book is not just a for pastors and clergy, its a laity book that takes the reader into areas of church life that will make or break Christianity.

A Classic.......2002-10-18

In this sequel to the groundbreaking 1993 book entitled "No Place for Truth" (which is also strongly recommended), a professor from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary shows how evangelical churches have slowly but surely fallen for the values of postmodern society. Christian ministers in particular should pay close attention to Wells' thoughts, as he calls for a return to preaching God's holiness as an antidote to the church's compromised state.

Strong Evidence for repentance and faith among the church.......2001-01-26

This second in Well's trinity follows on the heels of "No Place For Truth." In it, Well's strongly presents evidence that Christianity is on the brink of caving into the pressures of a postmodern culture and world that it finds itself in.

As in the kings in the Divided Kingdom, many chose to compromise and/or align with the enemies or allies. We know how this turned out for the church. Will the church today heed prophecy such as Well's before it's too late?

Expressing the opinion that the church is being attacked both within and without to speak different messages with different words, Wells challenges the church to be the church; to say a different message which confronts and challenges the world to align itself with the world's Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.

Very insightful and thought provoking ........1999-11-06

I am reading this book as part of a course in basic theology, and it is very illuminating. I would highly recommend this book to anyone in the church who wants to tell about "the reason for the hope that lies within you..." It is not just for a few pastors and teachers to know theology; it is the opportunity of everyone in the church.

Thoughtful, educating, meant for someone who wants to think.......1999-07-11

I think this is one of the best books I've read of serious Christian thought in the last few years. He teaches on ramifications of our po-mo thinking and also brings out clearly the way our consumer bent way of thinking has dictated the presentation of the gospel. Many times in ways we do not even see or sense...yet the 'consumer as king' mentality has not been challenged in the church and the believer feels at home sitting in judgement on eternal truths. An extremely worthwhile read,

Average customer rating:

Mischevious Max makes for great stories
My toddler's favorite
Perfect Bedtime Story
GOODNIGHT MAX
You have to be a fan

Goodnight Max (Max and Ruby)
Rosemary Wells
Manufacturer: Viking Juvenile
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Board book

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ASIN: 0670887072

Book Description

"Goodnight, Max," says Max's sister Ruby. But Max can't get comfortable. First he spills a glass of water. Then there are all those itchy cookie crumbs in his bed...and the moon shining through his window. Will poor Max ever fall asleep? Rosemary Wells' beloved Max and Ruby are back in an irresistibly touchable book that is also a satisfying bedtime story. Toddlers won't be able to resist all the tactile elements--fourteen tempting things to touch, move, even smell--while a gently humorous story makes this the perfect book for bedtime, naptime, or anytime!

Customer Reviews:

Mischevious Max makes for great stories.......2007-07-19

The stories of mishechvious yet charming Max and his older sister Ruby makes great reading especially for boys, but also for girls too. My kids really delighted in reading these books, and I'm sure yours would as well.

My toddler's favorite.......2007-05-20

We received this book as a gift and it was my toddler's first introduction to Max and Ruby. She loves this book and will ask for "Max" at bedtime. She enjoys the interactive aspects (the window that goes up and down, the blanket, etc.) and it has a cute storyline.

Perfect Bedtime Story.......2006-08-23

My 2-year-old son, Max, LOVES this book. He insists we read it every night, immediately followed by _Max's Toys_. The touch-and-feel areas are very small, although it doesn't seem to bother him. He just loves to open and close the window.

GOODNIGHT MAX.......2006-03-27

It's a very sweet, short story-good for 2's and 3's. A great book? No. A cute story with two rabbits? Yes!

You have to be a fan.......2001-07-30

I bought this book after reading all the great reviews. It is a nice book, bright colors, lots of attention to detail, silly story line, but I didn't think the areas for the child to feel were large enough. The sticky candy in Max's pajamas is just about the size of a child's fingertip, the lace curtain is just a thin slip of fabric, the lightning is a skinny zig-zag of foil and the "cookie crumbs" sandpaper is only about a quarter-inch high. There are other touch-and-feel books that provide a much larger exploratory surface. Still, this book does contain a good variety (sticky candy, rough crumbs, fur, smelly sock, etc.)I'm not sure why, but that smelly sock always seems to be such a hit!

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: Comprehensive Concepts and Techniques (Shelly Cashman Series)

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Learning Macromedia Dreamweaver MX
Great learning tool.

Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: Comprehensive Concepts and Techniques (Shelly Cashman Series)
Gary B. Shelly , Thomas J. Cashman , and Dolores J. Wells
Manufacturer: Course Technology
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0789565412

Book Description

Using the Shelly Cashman Series step-by-step, screen-by-screen proven approach to learning, students of all levels will stay on track while learning the latest Dreamweaver MX skills. Starting from scratch, each user will build a fully functional web site in the Dreamweaver MX environment that they can easily incorporate into their Web portfolio. Dreamweaver MX is the latest in building Web sites and Internet applications, and using texts from the Shelly Cashman Series is your solution to teaching it!

Customer Reviews:

Learning Macromedia Dreamweaver MX.......2007-05-18

If need some help for Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: this book can sure help you.
That is if you read it! Good luck, The Larghe's

Great learning tool........2006-06-01

This book is formatted nicley. One can just follow the step by step examples in the tutorials from beginning to end. Also, the provided case studies at the end of each chapter further reinforces what was learned within that chapter (if one attempts to do them). It makes the whole idea of designing web pages seem simple. Granted, you will want to be fairly familiar with HTML if you plan to use Dreamweaver often. This book is a wonderful teaching tool. I recommend using this book as an aid for anymone diving into Dreamweaver.

The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950

Average customer rating:

Wealth of information and insightful interpretation

The Challenge of Affluence: Self-Control and Well-Being in the United States and Britain since 1950
Avner Offer
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0198208537

Book Description

Since the 1940s Americans and Britons have come to enjoy an era of rising material abundance. Yet this has been accompanied by a range of social and personal disorders, including family breakdown, addiction, mental instability, crime, obesity, inequality, economic insecurity, and declining trust. Avner Offer argues that well-being has lagged behind affluence in these societies, because they present an environment in which consistent choices are difficult to achieve over different time ranges and in which the capacity for personal and social commitment is undermined by the flow of novelty. His approach draws on economics and social science, makes use of the latest cognitive research, and provides a detailed and reasoned critique of modern consumer society, especially the assumption that freedom of choice necessarily maximizes individual and social well-being. The book falls into three parts. Part one analyses the ways in which economic resources map on to human welfare, why choice is so intractable, and how commitment to people and institutions is sustained. It argues that choice is constrained by prior obligation and reciprocity. The second section then applies these conceptual arguments to comparative empirical studies of advertising, of eating and obesity, and of the production and acquisition of appliances and automobiles. Finally, in part three, Offer investigates social and personal relations in the USA and Britain, including inter-personal regard, the rewards and reversals of status, the social and psychological costs of inequality, and the challenges posed to heterosexual love and to parenthood by the rise of affluence.

Customer Reviews:

Wealth of information and insightful interpretation.......2007-03-08

The great American vaudeville singer Sophie Tucker remarked, "I've been rich and I've been poor---and believe me, rich is better." This book, which documents in great detail and insight the vast growth in per capita income in the United States and Britain (with some attention to other countries) over the past century, contrasts Sophie Tucker's widely shared sentiment with the carefully researched fact that people are getting richer, but they are not getting happier. What, asks Offer, accounts for this curious situation?

An earlier generation answered this question by noting that being richer involves both having more than before, and having more than others. If relative status is important but absolute wealth is not, argued Robert Frank (1985), then when everyone becomes richer, average well-being will not increase. Indeed, this had been the common view (although with numerous dissenters), since James Duesenbury's famous "ratchet effect" explanation of the macroeconomic consumption to income ratio (Duesenberry, 1949) and the similar view of Modigliani (1949). While relative status is clearly important for some individuals, there is no convincing evidence that it of great importance to most individuals. Certainly many individuals are eager to become a smaller frog in a larger pond by moving to a richer community, and the rate of migration from poor to rich countries is hardly favorable to the relative status hypothesis. Moreover this "hedonic treadmill" explanation ran afoul of the data in a brilliant study by Brickman et al. (1978). They found that large exogenously-generated changes in material circumstances, such as winning the lottery or becoming handicapped through accident exhibit little difference in subjective well-being even several months thereafter. The general implication of this line of research is that some people are happy and some are unhappy, and changes in wealth position has little long run effect on their subjective well-being.

Offer appears basically to accept this position (although he is quick to stress that insightfully interpreting the Modern Condition is not his forté9), updating it using information from several recent studies that find that poverty, divorce and unemployment have major negative impact on personal well-being, and there is a small but significant positive slope to the income and well-being relationship even above the poverty line, both within and across countries, especially when objective measures of well-being are used (mortality, morbidity, life expectancy, major incidence of mental illness, infant mortality, and the like).

Many environmentalists and progressive egalitarians accept this view on the basis of personal observation, using it to suggest alternatives to GDP growth and redistribution towards the poor. But, the hedonic treadmill is deeply counter-intuitive. People make great sacrifices to achieve financial security and to assure their children with the fruits of material progress, and upon serious introspection, few will affirm that the benefits are either relative or short-lived. Personally, I have been poor and did not like it, and I am now comfortably well-off, and I like it quite a bit---every day and every little luxury (such as sitting here overlooking the Danube writing this book review on a first-class laptop, every keystroke of which gives me great pleasure, and which plays whatever enchanting music happens to be my current whim, over an Internet connection, using a music service that I---and millions of others---can afford a subscription). Moreover, subjective well-being is very important, but the fact is that neither I nor my wife, nor my son, would be alive today if it were not for modern amenities (in this case, medical services).

Offer explains the hedonic treadmill (the term is due to Brickman and Campbell (1971), and is not used by Offer) using modern behavioral economics. Because of the common tendency to prefer small short-term rewards to large long-term rewards, we do not know how to turn the vast increases in material wealth that has come to us into real well-being (Ainslie, 1975, Elster, 1979, Loewenstein and Hoch, 1991, Laibson, 1997, Oswald, 1997, O'Donoghue and Rabin, 1999). The "challenge of affluence" is, according to Offer, the problem of learning to dealing with affluence in a manner that turns material comfort into human self-actualization. Observing the antics of (a highly visible but unknown fraction of) the newly rich, with their obscene displays of opulence, their vulgar tastes, their substance addictions and broken families, and their corrupted children does indeed remind one of the prejudices of "old wealth" that has had a few generations to adjust to material comforts against the base aspirations and untutored behavior of"new wealth." Perhaps, then, there is a hope for the affluent societies after all.

Unfortunately, there is no known science of self-actualization, so my remarks on the topic must perforce flow from observation and introspection (it is little solice to be reminded that Hume, Locke, Shakespeare, Voltaire, and their like, relied almost exclusively on such forms of knowledge). I recall my concern for such issues in writing my Ph.D. dissertation some forty years ago, the head quote of which was from the jazz pianist Mose Allison, who wrote "things are getting better and better. It's people I'm worried about." I took my inspiration from the Karl Marx of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, which precede his development of historical materialism, and reflect the Zeitgeist of Hegel and Feuerbach (Marx, 1959). My interpretation of Marx's argument was that human nature (Marx used the term Gattungswesen---species-being) consists in several capacities, physical, psychomotor, cognitive, affective, aesthetic, and spiritual, and well-being consisted in the full development of these personal capacities. While a high level of material affluence is not an absolute prerequisite to such personal development, for those of use lacking an innately saintly character, it surely helps. Goods, services, and leisure, in this view, are merely instruments that facilitate the growth of personal capacities, and the cardinal sin of life in the affluent society is to "fetishize" commodities in the vain belief that they represent a direct route to self-fulfillment: what you cannot be, your money can buy for you. The correct position, I believe, is that what you are not, your money can help you become---a far more engaging, yet optimistic, take on the challenge of affluence. I developed this theme in several articles (Gintis 1972a,b 1974). The theme has been developed in an extremely powerful manner by Nobel prize economist Amartya Sen (1985).

Does affluence lead to the demand for the development of personal capacities, or to the deepening of commodity fetishism? The picture is not uniform. While there is no doubt but that American and British workers trade off income for job quality and leisure, they appear to do so at a lesser rate than their European counterparts. Indeed as Offer notes (p. 324), family work hours have reversed their long-term downward trend in the United States and has been increasing in recent years, in large part due to increase female labor market participation. Of course, both work hours and leisure have increased for American families due to the prevalence of labor-saving technology in the home and the movement of health care, food preparation, and education from the home to the market. Moreover, the quality of jobs has doubtless improved with the shift from unskilled manual labor to skilled white collar labor, and many individuals consider their work experience as a positive contribution to their well-being, much as our hunter-gatherer forebears did, with a joy that perhaps was confined to a small minority in the long diaspora between life in the Pleistocene and life in modern, technologically advanced, society. On the other hand, there is nothing quite as revolting as a statistic reported in The Economist several months back that 80% of French college students aspire to a career of lifetime security as functionaries in the French government bureaucracy. Such a career may be self-actualizing for a fraction of French youth, but my insight into human nature judges 80% as an order of magnitude too high.

Offer's analysis makes it clear that economic research and proactive social policy may play an important role in meeting the challenge of affluence. The American public, for instance, voraciously consumes advice on living the good life, the news being full of the latest studies on proper diet, health maintenance practices, spiritual life, and management of interpersonal relations. It is likely that future improvements in the treatment of mental and physical illness will somewhat level the playing field in the capacity of individuals to live fulfilled lives, liberating the self-help books from the realm of self-survival to that of self-actualization. There has been a notable increase in research in this area (Frey and Stutzer, 2005), including the impressively thorough work of Daniel Kahneman and his co-workers (Kahneman and Krueger, 2006).

Throughout most of its history, economic theory has followed Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism. It was Bentham who opined "Prejudice apart, the game of push-pin is of equal value with the arts and sciences of music and poetry. If the game of push-pin furnish more pleasure, it is more valuable than either. Everybody can play at push-pin: poetry and music are relished only by a few." Bentham's egalitarianism is laudable, but the alternative is that Pushkin is better than pushpin, and the uneducated are cut off from fruitful paths of self-realization by not being capable of appreciating Pushkin. Indeed, my early publications took the position that not all preferences are equal, a position advocated before me by John Stuart Mill in his opposition to Bentham's utilitarianism. Happiness, I argued in support of Mill, is as much the development of preferences as their satisfaction. What are more developed preferences? They are ones that draw more heavily on our innate capacities, physical, psychomotor, affective, cognitive, aesthetic, and spiritual. My viewpoint was considered virtually heretical at the time. I still remember the embarrassed chuckles of my fellow graduate students in Robert Dorfman's Microeconomic I class when I suggested that some tastes are better than others. I analyzed the welfare implications of preference change in a less off-hand manner in my Ph.D. dissertation (Harvard University, 1969). To my surprise (and delight) in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1970, Paul Samuelson pointedly criticized my writings on the grounds that economists should not impose their personal tastes and moral choices on others. "Just recently, says Samuelson, I was reading an article... written in blank verse...The writer was scathing on the notion of Pareto-optimality. Yet...it seemed to me that precisely in a society grown affluent...there arises an especial importance to the notion of giving people what they want." My foray into blank verse may not have panned out, but as evidence of progress in economic theory, there are probably few economists alive today that do not believe that an important contribution of the economy to well-being is the improvement of moral character and personal capacities to enjoy what life has to offer.

Offer's book covers consumption and leisure as source of personal well being, but there is strong evidence that social conditions are also important source of happiness and unhappiness. For instance, Frey and Stutzer (2000) exhibit a strong correlation between the level of political democracy and individual well-being, correcting for the effects of democracy on material wealth. However, there is some evidence that the correlation is bidirectional. There is also evidence that some minority groups who are victims of social prejudice suffer attenuated well-being. These phenomena should be included in an overall assessment of the causes of well-being.

The major innovation in Offer's analysis is his deployment of the results of behavioral research in economics and psychology towards understanding the relationship between economic growth and individual well-being. By well-being, Offer almost always means subjective well-being, and despite an excellent treatment of the relationship between health, status, and income, I would have liked and expanded treatment of the objective aspects of well-being, such as mortality and infant mortality. I suspect that Offer will be the start of a trend in economic growth research that uses behavioral measures and experiments to assess the success of various policies, and to suggest ways of transcending the human weaknesses that prevent the translation of material comforts into happiness and self-actualization.

Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World

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A Tour de Force
A Timely And Important Warning
A vital book written by a careful, thoughtful theologian and scholar
Good critque, but without a move forward
Important Reading, Not Easy Reading

Above All Earthly Pow'rs: Christ in a Postmodern World
David F. Wells
Manufacturer: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0802824552

Book Description

In our postmodern world, every view has a place at the table but none has the final say. How should the church confess Christ in today's cultural context?

Above All Earthly Pow'rs, the fourth and final volume of the series that began in 1993 with No Place for Truth, portrays the West in all its complexity, brilliance, and emptiness. As David F. Wells masterfully depicts it, the postmodern ethos of the West is relativistic, individualistic, therapeutic, and yet remarkably spiritual. Wells shows how this postmodern ethos has incorporated into itself the new religious and cultural relativism, the fear and confusion, that began with the last century's waves of immigration and have continued apace in recent decades.

Wells's book culminates in a critique of contemporary evangelicalism aimed at both unsettling and reinvigorating readers. Churches that market themselves as relevant and palatable to consumption-oriented postmoderns are indeed swelling in size. But they are doing so, Wells contends, at the expense of the truth of the gospel. By placing a premium on marketing rather than truth, the evangelical church is in danger of trading authentic engagement with culture for worldly success.

Welding extensive cultural analysis with serious theology, Above All Earthly Pow'rs issues a prophetic call that the evangelical church cannot afford to ignore.

Customer Reviews:

A Tour de Force .......2007-06-03

Above All Earthly Pow'rs takes the reader on a panoramic tour of contemporary Evangelicalism. Along the way, David F. Wells touches on numerous subjects of considerable importance. Wells' comments are insightful and he leaves the reader little doubt as to where he stands on various issues, and references some of the very best works available for further study.
This work is a rather remarkable investigation that traverses a number of disciplines including: Biblical & Systematic Theology, Philosophy, History, Sociology, Missiology and Practical Theology. New Testament Theology, Systematics, and Philosophy are utilized with great skill, and history and sociology provide the context for much of what is written. These disciplines in turn, are brought to bear upon topics such as Postmodernism, the Seeker-Sensitive Movement, and the Emergent Church. Theological issues include the Atonement, Open Theism, the New Perspective, and Eschatology.
Wells points out many of the errors prevalent in contemporary Evangelicalism, but ends the book with hope and helpful suggestions for the road ahead. The final chapter is entitled The Day of New Beginnings, and closes with these words:

It is only ours to see the victory of Christ on the Cross being realized afresh in the actual circumstances of our time. That will happen when the church humbles itself afresh, seeks the power and cleansing of God, and asks to have its vision renewed of the victory of Christ and to see, once again, his greatness. So may it be!

One other benefit of this book is the modeling of an engaging writing style filled with substance and humor.
This book should be compulsory reading for everyone who aspires to Christian leadership. The Evangelical world owes Dr. Wells a word of thanks for his labors on behalf of Christ and His church.

A Timely And Important Warning.......2007-05-09

Other reviewers have indicated how important & difficult this book is to read. It is dense and requires sustained thought. But the insights in this book are absolutely essential to understanding how dramatically, comprehensively and severly Evangelical Christianity has been compromised or is being compromised in the post-modern cultural context.

I will focus on what I consider to be the hinge-point of the book (pg. 123). Wells states... "..the current evangelical disposition to shuck off its cognitive structures and minimize the practical place of revealed truth in the life of the Church means that it has brought itself to the edge of a precipice. It is a precipice precisely because as evangelical faith has chosen to minimize itself in these way ....it is losing what makes it distinctive from all of the other postmodern spiritualities."

There you have the complexity of thought, density of writing and insights which characterize the entire work. You also have the major premise. The post-modern world is a reversion to pagan spiritualities at the same time it is distancing itself from religion (you have to think about that). These spiritualities manifest themselves in an accumulating, individual, syncretic attitude toward life that is distant from any external authority. The Evangelical Church, in seeking to engage this culture, is too often joining it in a fundamental manner and by doing so, is in almost certain danger of losing the actual gospel that Jesus was so adamant to proclaim (the precipice).

This book needs to be widely read and digested by Christians throughout the world. It is only by recognizing the threat that it can be resisted and yet, all too often, Evangelical zeal has blindly charged on, perhaps, already, into the chasm. Give yourself time to read it and work on following the thought. It is worth the effort. In fact, it is perhaps absolutely necessary that it be done.

A vital book written by a careful, thoughtful theologian and scholar.......2007-05-08

Above All Earthly Pow'rs is the fourth and final volume in a series that includes No Place for Truth, God in the Wasteland and Losing Our Virtue. Each of these books deals with a theological issue in light of the times. Above All Earthly Pow'rs follows the same format, this time addressing Christology and how it "is to be preached, in a postmodern, multiethnic, multireligious society" (pp. 7-8).

As in the earlier works, Wells ably sounds the alarm, warning of the inward seeds of destruction now present in evangelicalism. He deals with relevant issues as diverse as the Enlightenment, psychotherapy, immigration, the new spirituality, nihilism, postmodernity, the resurrection of Christ, self-help programs, debates over substitionary atonement, justification, open theism, the seeker-sensitive church growth movement, and more.

All of these issues are examined in light of what Christology has become in a postmodern world and what must be done to re-establish Christology's biblical understanding and role.

This is a vital book written by a careful, thoughtful theologian and scholar. I believe that, along with the first three books in the series, Above all Earthly Pow'rs is a must read for pastors, theologians and church leaders who want to render biblical guidance to the people of God in the twenty-first century. There are, however, a few minor drawbacks/disappointments with the book:

1. It is not an easy read and will require perseverance, time and careful attention.

2. Wells quotes from some dubious sources; e.g. Lesslie Newbigin, N. T. Wright, Bultman, Bonhoeffer, etc. While he is careful to note that he does not endorse all that these men teach, one has to wonder why he gives credence to these men at all.

3. He does not address in any detail the emergent church movement. He does give copious analysis of the seeker-sensitive movement, but the true postmodern expression of the church is the emerging "conversation." It would have been most enlightening to read Well's analysis of that movement.

Good critque, but without a move forward.......2007-04-02

Wells, did a good job critquing the culture from an Christian wroldview, but although he laid out what the church should not be doing to preach Christ to the culture he did not offer many specifics of what the church should do.

Important Reading, Not Easy Reading.......2007-02-25

David Wells is to the late 20th Century and the early 21st Century what Francis Schaeffer was to the second half of the 20th Century. Both men were astute students of history and culture and both men were brilliant biblical thinkers. Like Schaeffer, Wells provacatively integrates sociology, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, history, and theology, always with theology as the controlling grid.

That said, "Above All Earthly Powers" is not an "easy" read. It's not the type of book that one picks up and thumbs through while multi-tasking. Nor is it a book to read all in one sitting. Because Wells integrates so many important topics and themes and weaves them together, readers need to dedicate the time to wade through the deep meaning.

As the subtitle suggets, Wells focuses on Christ in our postmodern world. To do so, he provides a splendid chapter on modernity. This is important since some critics of post-modernity are criticized because they appear to be lovers of modernity. Instead, Wells shows how the hubris of modernity naturally led to the arrogance and pride of post-modernity.

But Wells' most important contribution in "Above All Earthly Powers" is not his sociology, but his ecclesiology: his theology of church life. Since Christ is above all powers, since humanity is fallen, how Christian engage those who are not Christians must flow from these fundamental truths. As Wells sees it, the "seeker" model and the "emergent" model both have fatal Pelagian flaws. They both adhere to too optimistic a view of the nature of human nature apart from the power and grace of Christ.

What Wells suggests then, is a model for ministry and outreach based upon the simple but profound Gospel truth that we can do nothing apart from God and His grace. That's the "Readers' Digest" version. Pick up a copy for yourself and read the rest of the story.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Spiritual Friends: A Methodology of Soul Care And Spiritual Direction, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction, Soul Physicians, "Biblical Psychology," and "Martin Luther's Pastoral Counseling."

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The classic
Good timeline; poor theory
Wonderful book!
Preoccupation with Race Ruins an Otherwise Enjoyable Read
A MAJOR PRE POST-WESTERN WORK

Outline Of History (2 Volumes)
H. G. Wells
Manufacturer: Reprint Services Corp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Library Binding

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ASIN: 0781206618

Customer Reviews:

The classic.......2006-10-02

Wells's classic is still a useful book. It is most out of date on the early history and archeology, which has changed substantially in recent years. One only needs to look at the great volume by Jacquetta Hawkes and Sir Leonard Wooley, Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization, which covers the period from the end of the Calcolithic (about 40,000 years ago) down to the founding of the earliest towns (about 10,000 years ago), to see how much that has changed since their volume was published in the early 60s. But it shows Wells's range and depth of intellect, and it's interesting to note that Wells was considered the universal intellect of his day, and before people said "As smart as Einstein," they said, "As smart as H.G. Wells." The section on Alexander the Great I found one of the best. As a serious work of pedagogy intended for the intelligent layman, it presaged by decades later similar works. But although much of the history is still valid, today the book will be of most interest to Wells fans and scholars, though, rather than as an "Outline of History."

Good timeline; poor theory.......2005-10-21

For those interested in reading about the species' history, Wells' _Outline_ is a nice supplement to new, more scholarly history books that make closer studies of power distributions and events in certain places at certain times. His timeline of Western European History is generally accurate (though by no means comprehensive) and makes for enjoyable reading.

While a well-educated reader will overlook Wells' racism (he holds the absurd belief that a monolithic culture once ranged from Ireland to China and is destined to be recreated by the superior Germanic builders of Europe) and skim for facts, a younger or less-informed reader might find it difficult to recognize the author's regular slips into a defunct worldview.

Above all, this book will gratify those readers whose memories of papal, royal, and cultural (primarily Western European) successions need to be revamped.

Wonderful book!.......2005-08-04

The earliest chapters of this remarkable book deal with the actual history of the planet we call Earth and the rudiments and development of early life. Afterward the book tells a fairly succinct story of the Dawn of Time and the lifestyles and development of early hominids leading up to and including Man. Once Wells reaches periods of written history, the story bogs down while he attempts to cover the rise of early cities, political and economic development, and early empires, which he does fairly ably though switching back and forth between the histories of individual continents is somewhat tedious. Wells speaks of the development of early religion and early communities in a very cogent, convincing and interesting way, but the disjointed concurrent treatment of ongoing empires (China, India, Rome, Egypt, Greece, etc) tends to choke and even halt the fluid style as we try to catch up on coexisting cultures around the globe. South America, Antarctica, and Australia are almost nonexistent in this book as Wells reconstructs the history of Europe, Asia and to a lesser extent, Africa. Still a very enjoyable and highly informative book.

Preoccupation with Race Ruins an Otherwise Enjoyable Read.......2005-04-24

H.G. Wells is a fine writer and 'The Outline of History' is generally enjoyable to read. However after a while one gets tired of his emphasis on race and the centrality of Aryans in history and his anti-semitism. Wells is an example of that mixture of socialism and racism that appeared at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Other examples are Jack London and the young Adolph Hitler.

It is ironic that his general thesis that there is a progression in human history, though not a necessary or inevitable one, is a reasonable proposition and flatly contradicts his racist notions. Wells appears to be recounting from books recently read and frequently gets his facts just plain wrong. Most of his writing is conveying his personal and generally intelligent reflections on general stereotypes of various periods of history.

Were it not for its persistent emphasis on race, 'The Outline of History' would be a valuable and enjoyable book. I wish I could recommend it to the general reader, because there is a real need for a readable one volume survey of world history, but I cannot. Race has been shown over and over again to have little or no explanatory power. Wells' racist preoccupations will annoy informed readers and mislead uninformed ones.

A MAJOR PRE POST-WESTERN WORK.......2005-02-01

Today, when there is little but propaganda on TV and at the bookstore, it is astonishing to read a 20th century English-speaking author write in a way devoid of the propaganda. I doubt that the work could be published as is today were it new, even if by such a well-known author. Those were the days of free, or at least freeer press.

Because the time span is so great, more attention is paid to 19th Century history up to the end of WW I, where it stops than to older periods. But earlier periods are treated in ways according to the information available to the non-specialist. Wells' history is easier to read than that of the Durants and lacks their obvious bias. With the exception of Spengler, Wells' History is perhaps the last history or biography in which the European point of view is taken as matter-of-fact.

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A gorgeous book, from presentation to content.
too esoteric to feed my apocalypse-hungry soul
These Zombies Are Not A Metaphor

The Apocalypse Reader

Manufacturer: Thunder's Mouth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1560259590

Book Description

These are the ways the world ends.
Thirty-four new and selected Doomsday scenarios: an enthralling collection of work by canonical literary figures, contemporary masters, and a few rising stars, all of whom have looked into the future and found it missing. Across boundaries of place and time, these writers celebrate the variety and vitality of the short story as a form by writing their own conclusions to the story of the world. Obliteration has never hurt so good.
Contributors include Grace Aguilar, Steve Aylett, Robert Bradley, Dennis Cooper, Lucy Corin, Elliott David, Matthew Derby, Carol Emshwiller, Brian Evenson, Neil Gaiman, Jeff Goldberg, Theodora Goss, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jared Hohl, Shelley Jackson, Ursula K. Le Guin, Stacey Levine, Tao Lin, Kelly Link, H.P. Lovecraft, Gary Lutz, Rick Moody, Michael Moorcock, Adam Nemett, Josip Novakovich, Joyce Carol Oates, Colette Phair, Edgar Allan Poe, Terese Svoboda, Justin Taylor, Lynne Tillman, Deb Olin, Unferth, H.G. Wells, Allison Whittenberg, and Diane Williams.

Customer Reviews:

A gorgeous book, from presentation to content........2007-09-19

"THESE ARE THE WAYS THE WORLD ENDS--THIRTY-FOUR NEW AND SELECTED DOOMSDAY SCENARIOS"

This is a gorgeous book, from presentation to content. The selections are humorous, serious, simple, complex, and much more--thirty-four stories, some short, some long, make for a wide spectrum of apocalypses. Taylor, in the foreword, expounds on his conception of an apocalypse:

"It's worth pointing out that the word Apocalypse comes from the Greek, and literally means "a revelation" or "an unveiling." It can be used to describe cataclysmic changes of any sort. Revolution, for example, or social upheaval. [...] There are micro-Apocalypses that mark moments in our lives: childhood's end, a relationship's sudden implosion, Death."

The selections do span the gamut--some were written so long ago as to be in the public domain, and some were freshly minted in the late 2000's; some focus on religious upheavals, some macro, some micro; there are personal upheavals, student rantings, surreal recountings of madmen; and of course many take the reader through more conventional "end of the world" scenarios. And even with all that diversity, perhaps guided by the introduction, the theme of the anthology runs strong.

If there were a criticism I could make of this volume, that, ironically, would be it. I consider myself a bit of an Apocalypse afficionado--I particularly enjoy reading such stories, along with dystopias--and I would have thought that I could never grow tired of reading well-wrought incarnations of such--and these stories were all well-wrought and well-edited, there is no doubt about that--but this volume overwhelmed me. I was tired, even weary, by the time I had wended my way through the collection (and that in the course of several "sittings")..

The lead story, a piece of flash fiction by H. P. Lovecraft, starts the anthology out elegantly, and slowly. It warns you, implicitly, that you're in for some heavy reading, even if you're a fan of Mr. Lovecraft's writing (and not just his mythos, which more people are familiar with, and is much easier to get into third hand). On that end of the scale, there's also a piece from Edgar Allan Poe that is ponderous but worth an examination, entitled "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion".

Some of my favorites included:

"The Apocalypse Commentery of Bob Paisner" by Rick Moody -- This is an essay detailing the allegorical depths of the Book of Revelation with regard to Bob Paisner's life. The tone is both erudite and a bit delirious, and the piece as a whole is both informative and immersive--I found myself eagerly wondering where Moody was going to take us next, what dark or clinical humor would next be presented.

"Fraise, Menthe, et Poivre 1978" by Jared Hohl -- Another piece of meta-fiction, this follows a group of people through the more traditional trope of being the last survivors in a ruined post-apocalyptic city. What makes this piece stand out is the manic bent of the narrator and the push for the show to go on--the story weaves the primary narrative with a small handful of abbreviated stageplays that emphasize much about human nature, hope, and despair, while retaining a very human humor.

"An Accounting" by Brian Evenson -- An "honest" accounting of how one explorer fell into becoming a reborn Jesus and how he helps his flock survive. I don't want to say too much about this, but the voice is clear, the narrative is well woven and unrolls at a compelling pace, and other than, perhaps, the initial fanaticism he encounters, it is all quite believable.

"Some Approaches to the Problem of the Shortage of Time" by Ursula K. Le Guin -- This is a clever set of abstracts that are ever timely and consider a novel scenario for the end of the modern-day universe. The shortage of time is pervasive, and this story is brief to give you a maximum pleasure for what it takes.

"Think Warm Thoughts" by Allison Whittenberg -- A bite-sized slice of apocalypse that is poetically poignant; every word counts.

"When We Went to See the End of the World by Dawnie Morningside, age 11 1/4" by Neil Gaiman -- This is the end of the world, everyone and everything together, through the playful, somewhat naiive eyes of an eleven year old. It's told in the vein of "What I did over Summer vacation", and is very evocative, sweet, and strange.

"The Escape--a Tale of 1755" by Grace Aguilar -- This is an elegant tale of a woman's love for her husband, religious persecution, and a prison escape. It is written with a very modern feel despite its age (originally published in 1844).

That's not to say I disliked the other stories; and on another day I would have different favorites, though there were some pieces that didn't work for me. But I hope this selection will help give you a feel for the collection as a whole, beyond my simple regard for it. In all, it's a beautiful collection, and I recommend it strongly, with the caveat that you may want to take it in small doses.

too esoteric to feed my apocalypse-hungry soul.......2007-09-12

I was initially excited to discover the collection and didn't see how such a broad-based compilation could go wrong. I'm an avid reader of post-apocalyptic fiction, science fiction and futurism, so I'm no slouch, but this turned out to be quite different from what I was hoping for.

While a few of the pieces are good reads, so many of them are abstract, esoteric, or even reminiscent of the scribblings from slightly disturbed angst-ridden teenage diaries. There's no good "meat" here, no concrete scenarios, suspense or drama to drive fear into your heart and make your mind race. The circumstances under which "apocalypse" occurs are rarely even revealed. Even the subject matter is open to interpretation - "apocalypse" is made to mean many things, not simply the end of the world. Which it does, of course, but that's not what I was hungry for when I picked up this book. The book description should have done a better job of managing those expectations.

Perhaps if you are looking for a broad literary "treatment" of the subject, that kind of interpretation will appeal to you (or if you enjoy the just plain bizarre) then this collection is for you. It was not for me.

These Zombies Are Not A Metaphor.......2007-05-16

This is a fun collection of stories from some well known and serious talent (Gaiman, Lovecraft, Poe) and some newly minted authors. I found myself particularly amused by "These Zombies Are Not A Metaphor," the work of one of the new authors named Jeff Goldberg. I'll be keeping an eye peeled for future work from him.

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