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.

Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate

Average customer rating:

Readable User-Friendly Book on Innovation
Three years on, still a great book
Preaching to the choir
Enlightening
I kept refering it, and i DON't usually do that..

Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate
Michael Schrage
Manufacturer: Harvard Business School Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0875848141

Amazon.com

Recall the old saying about all work and no play making Jack a dull boy? World-class companies today need play--serious play--if they want to make truly innovative products, argues Michael Schrage, an MIT Media Lab fellow and Fortune magazine columnist. In Serious Play he writes, "When talented innovators innovate, you don't listen to the specs they quote. You look at the models they've created." Whether it's a spreadsheet that tests a new financial model or a foam prototype of a calculator, what interests Schrage is not the model itself, but the behavior that play--be it modeling, prototyping, or simulation--inspires.

Schrage examines the approaches to successful prototyping at companies such as AT&T, Boeing, Microsoft, and DaimlerChrysler and describes the kind of culture that's needed for encouraging innovation. In the last chapter, he lays out the 10 rules of serious play, including: Be willing to fail early and often; know when the costs outweigh the benefits; know who wins and who loses from an innovation; build a prototype that engages customers, vendors, and colleagues; create markets around prototypes; and simulate the customer experience. Well-written and inspiring, Serious Play, is a first-rate user's guide for managers, project leaders, and other innovators. --Dan Ring

Book Description

Serious Play is about serious work: how the world's leading companies model, prototype, and simulate to innovate. Increasingly, prototypes are the key platforms and models are the core media for managing risk and creating value. They allow for cost-effective creativity, encourage profitable improvisation, and inspire organizations to collaborate in unexpected ways. Serious Play is a crisply written handbook for product, process and project leaders who are determined to manage their innovation initiatives successfully.

As digital technologies for modeling and simulation offer more value for less money, they provoke fundamental challenges to organizational culture and design. MIT research associate Michael Schrage asserts that conventional wisdom surrounding innovation gets turned inside out: What innovative companies choose not to model often proves more important than what they do. Contrary to the popular assumption that innovative teams generate innovative prototypes, in fact innovative prototypes generate innovative teams. How innovators play with their models and simulations invariably matters far more than what they actually plan. In fact, Schrage shows why innovative firms cannot seriously plan unless they seriously play.

Drawing upon a range of companies as diverse as Walt Disney, Boeing, Merrill Lynch, General Electric, IBM, IDEO, Microsoft, Royal Dutch Shell, DaimlerChrysler and American Airlines, Schrage identifies the common patterns and practices that distinguish productive prototyping cultures from pathological ones. He explores the intimate connection between how leading innovators model reality and how they actually manage it. He examines prototyping failures as rigorously as he explains prototyping successes.

The essential message of Serious Play is that tomorrow's innovations will increasingly be the byproduct of how companies and their customers behave-and misbehave-around this new generation of models, prototypes, and simulations. The distinction between serious play and serious work dissolves as technology gives innovators ever-increasing opportunities to simulate and prototype their ideas. As the media for modeling radically change, so will the organizations that use them.

With real-world examples and engaging anecdotes, Schrage argues that the future of prototyping is the future of innovation. A User's Guide included in the book helps readers quickly take away the innovation practices profiled throughout. A landmark book by one of the most perceptive voices in the field of innovation, Serious Play will lay serious claim to the hearts and minds of forward-looking business managers.

Download Description

Successful innovation demands more than a good strategic plan; it requires creative improvisation. Much of the "serious play" that leads to breakthrough innovations is increasingly linked to experiments with models, prototypes, and simulations. As digital technology makes prototyping more cost-effective, serious play will soon lie at the heart of all innovation strategies, influencing how businesses define themselves and their markets. Author Michael Schrage is one of today's most widely recognized experts on the relationship between technology and work. In Serious Play, Schrage argues that the real value in building models comes less from the help they offer with troubleshooting and problem solving than from the insights they reveal about the organization itself. Technological models can actually change us--improving the way we communicate, collaborate, learn, and innovate. With real-world examples and engaging anecdotes, Schrage shows how companies such as Disney, Microsoft, Boeing, IDEO, and DaimlerChrysler use serious play with modeling technologies to facilitate the collaborative interactions that lead to innovation. A user's guide included with the book helps readers apply many of the innovation practices profiled throughout. A landmark book by one of the most perceptive voices in the field of innovation.

Customer Reviews:

Readable User-Friendly Book on Innovation.......2005-04-30

I am enjoying this book. I like the title "Serious Play", but I dislike the sub-title "How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate". Companies don't innovate people do is my thought. I think the author could have taken this concept one step further. That is tie in the concepts of how innovation relates to chaos theory and fractals and larger concepts. The author's ideas are not that new to me because I am a project manager in a software engineering environment where prototyping and iterations is the name of the game. We have at most 3 months to make a difference, to deliver and then we are swept into the ocean of change. You have a small window of opportunity before both the game and the players change.

I think that the world may be on the verge of moving so fast that we begin to see things like the wiki, open source culture in that it takes all of us innovating collectively in serious play. Long term I wonder if you are not free, workable and now, you are not in the game.

Some concepts for me are:
1) Importance of being able to improvise in the moment
2) Prototyping both reveals the underlying power cutural structures and changes them.
3) Human beings are relationship morphing entities.
4) the importance of shared collaboration space that invite clever interactions between people.
5) Treating prototypes as conversation pieces
6) Watch for the underlying feeling of geniune fun
7) The importance of the challenge or obstacles to the game
8) We shape our models, our models shape us
9) "In order to have actionable meaning, the fuzzy mental models ... must be externalized in representations in ways... that can be grasped"
10) Prototypes force individuals to confront the tyranny of tradeoffs (i.e. difficult decisions)
11) "All models are attempt to manage the complexity by making it simpler and more accessible"

While the text is very readable I had trouble pulling out the underlying structure of the book. But I felt redeemed when I read the User's Guide at the end of the book. Interesting you would think a User's Guide would go at the beginning. Fortunately I do not read sequentially so I found that chapter fairly quickly.

Three years on, still a great book.......2002-09-16

Here's the best review I can give Michael Schrage's "Serious Play": Three years on, it's consistently the first book I pull out of my bookshelf when I'm looking for ideas for presentations, thoughts on introducing new products or services, etc. His commentary on "mean-time-to-payback" is something that will stick with you for years. It's brilliant stuff, written in clear, concise terms. And, surprisingly, very little of it is dated. Unlike many books from that era, there's no .com or Enron fixation for the author to be embarrassed about. Schrage's examples are pulled from health care technology, animation, theater...in short, an eye-opening spectrum of ideas. I consider "Serious Play" one of my best purchases ever.

Preaching to the choir.......2002-08-22

This is a good book for someone to read if they are skeptical of the benefits of prototypes. However, since I already know the value of interactive prototypes I became quickly tired with the book.

Other critiques: it felt like the author had a bunch of cool little examples lying around and finally got the idea to put it together, surrounded by some fluffy text to make it thick enough to sell as a book, and put it on the market. Lots of space is taken up by these excerpts, as well as big text in the margins summing up "important points," which I would usually find useful but instead gave the impression of just taking up space.

Also, the author makes repeated use of similes to the point that it got annoying; "Just like a is to b, c is to d."

At one point, the author brings up the difference between a "simulation" and a "prototype," and just when you think the core of the matter is going to be distinguished the author backs out, leaving you wondering why they brought it up in the first place if they weren't going to take a stab at defining and differentiating them.

Sorry, but given the hype I was sorely disappointed. Read the first chapter or so in a bookstore before actually buying this.

Enlightening.......2002-07-11

This book gave me a very good and new insight of how to manage prototyping. It is enlightening for not only it explains and lists the topics that are important. It also gives us lots of practical examples of implementations.

I kept refering it, and i DON't usually do that.........2001-03-14

The most significant aspect of this book is that it provides a vocabulary and a language to discuss the nature of creative prototyping and modeling behaviors. The first thing you do is take off the cover, otherwise people think you're reading a really cheesy book. It's everything but that. It's been 4 weeks, and i'm on my 3rd time through it. I reference it and re-use it over and over. I've since recommended it to a genetic scientist friend of mine that works for a major drug company, a software engineer, and a broadcast designer. The thinking in this book has an epidemic effect with those that read it, and the excitement that it carries into their work and mine is the most influential and direct I have ever experienced. Some books are relevant once, but this will be accessed for years to come. This is my first book recommendation i have ever made. that is all...

Thinking In Time : The Uses Of History For Decision Makers

Average customer rating:

A Waste of Time so far
Unreadable
A Powerful System for Using Historical Examples
An indispensable aid for decision makers.
A System for Learning from History

Thinking In Time : The Uses Of History For Decision Makers
Richard E. Neustadt
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0029227917

Customer Reviews:

A Waste of Time so far .......2006-11-26

I have to admit I'm not finished reading this book and generally hate reviews that haven't read the entire book. But this time there's a particular reason why I'm writing this review now.

That reason is that the first sentence in this book is: "They're too busy. Can't read what they get now" referring to leaders and decision-makers, the very people this book is intended to help. Apparently the authors didn't take the VERY FIRST line in their own book to heart. Perhaps in a bizarre attempt to prove the mediocrity of anything done by committee the authors have written a ridiculously convoluted, meandering, unorganized, semi-pointless, quasi-sort-of history book, that really, really, REALLY takes it time to get to it's sort-of point. If you ever want to be completely befuddled as to how Harvard -supposedly the best university in the world- picks its professors just read the like 12 pages too long and completely pointless preface to this book. Just as Jeremy Rifkin's total bunk has taken the sheen off of Wharton for me, these two have achieved the same sizing down for Haw-vad.

Anyway, from what I can tell so far you can read the two very good spotlight reviews -whose authors fortunately seemed to enjoy the book a good deal- and get the entire point of the book without actually having to buy or read it. Otherwise the actual meat and potatoes of the book is: One (and the authors even admit to this point in their preface!!) not very good history (the authors admit to it being "tight" and scaled down) of selected case studies, which actually don't even support their method of using history. (At the end of the very first case study on the Cuban Missile Crisis, supposedly the success story to grab your attention and show the uses of history, the authors summarize by stating that the crisis was probably a success purely by accident, and that some of the supposedly wonderful decisions made by Kennedy and his advisor were even made on the basis of AVOIDING history! So remember kids, go ahead and avoid history sometimes, use it other times, and poof, by accident, history will help you to . . . err . . . do, um . . . well, I forgot.) And two, a bunch of platitudes like you should study history "carefully" (as opposed to carelessly I guess . . .), thinking can improve things on the margin (I'll be sure to start thinking now and see if I can earn a couple more percent a year), and you should look before you leap, and, like, wait 30 minutes before swimming after you eat your sandwich, and if you don't touch your tuna casserole it's going to get cold, and . . .

I might continue reading this thing, but right now it's a lot of work for very little payoff, and I've got better things to do with my time. It's too bad because I really do believe history is important in forming good decisions, but this book just isn't reaching me on how to read and use history.

Unreadable.......2005-07-09

A few years ago, I was assigned to read this book for a course in my MA War Studies programme at King's College London.

This book was utterly unreadable. I am still unable to fathom how professors at Harvard could produce such convoluted nonsense.

There is no 'quick and easy' method to master the use of history when making decisions. I pity those who would seek to discover such a chimera in this book.

A Powerful System for Using Historical Examples.......2005-05-01

For years, Richard Neustadt and Ernest May taught a course in Decision Making at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. It must have been one heck of a course.

The subtitle of this book is "The Uses of History for Decision-Makers." That could actually be broadened a bit to something like "The Uses of Precedents and Analogies for Decision-Makers."

Remember when we were debating going to war in Iraq? How many times did you hear the precedent of Viet Nam invoked?

And, if you're old enough, remember Viet Nam? How many times did you hear about Munich?

How many times in business have you heard a colleague invoke a historical precedent to justify a particular course of action?

We use historical precedents and analogies all the time. Most of the time we use them as if history repeats itself. It doesn't.

Mark Twain's aphorism captures best what really happens. "History does not repeat, but it does rhyme." This book will give you tools that you can use to sort out what's the same (the rhymes) and what's different and then use your analysis to make better decisions.

The authors introduce you to methods that will help you sort things out in all kinds of different situations. They teach you about separating "facts" into known, unknown, and presumed. They discuss analyzing precedents that you're about to base a decision on in terms of likes and differences from the current situation.

By itself, no individual idea or tool is unique. None of this is rocket science. But the authors give you a systematic application of common sense and proven techniques. That system gives you power.

There are lots of little "sidebar" points as well. For example, there's the Goldberg Rule.

That rule tells you not to ask, "What's the problem?" Instead ask, "What's the story?" I picked up that technique from this book when I first read it years ago and I've used it ever since in my consulting work and research. Try it. You'll like it.

There's also Dr. Alexander's question, which: "What fresh facts, if at hand, by when, would cause you to change your presumption?" Instead of presumption, you can insert direction, or recommendation. This simple question forces decision-makers in a group to look at underlying assumptions and to look at when those assumptions need to be changed. It, too, is simple and powerful.

The techniques in this book will definitely help you sharpen your decision-making skills. But there's an added benefit for you if you're a history buff. You'll enjoy the anecdotes and analysis of historical events, such as The Bay of Pigs, where one of the authors was an advisor.

There are a lot of books on decision-making. This is the only one I'm aware of that deals clearly and systematically with the use of precedent and historical analogy.

An indispensable aid for decision makers........2003-02-11

As an avid reader of history, I've long struggled with putting my learning to use in day-to-day situations, whether that be in evaluating critical business decisions or in helping me better observe and understand the world around me. On the one hand, there is the familiar aphorism attributed to George Santayana that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. But, on the other hand, each situation is truly unique, and the use of historical analogies is clearly fraught with pitfalls. "Thinking in Time" addresses this conundrum and provides a sound basis for using historical knowledge intelligently and responsibly.

To overcome the temptation of using history incorrectly, the authors put forward a specific process for decision makers in crisis situations, and they use case studies to highlight successes and failures in the use of history as guide to decision making. The case studies are all drawn from domestic and foreign policy scenarios, but the lessons are applicable to any organization (private sector, non-profit, etc.).

The authors' decision making methodology may seem a bit didactic or formulaic at first, but it is meant to be used with the greatest flexibility. The heart of the process is to establish a system of critical inquiry and resist the temptation to jump to the "options phase" of decision making immediately. Rather, the authors argue, focus clearly on the situation at hand and confirm the intended objective. This can be started by listing what is known, what is unclear and what is presumed about the situation. Next, analogies will come to mind or will likely be invoked for advocacy (intentionally or otherwise), so quickly highlight all the "likenesses" and "differences" between the present situation and the historical analogies. This should further clarify the present situation and the intended objectives

The authors suggest other tools that, while useful, are a bit more cumbersome than separating the known from the unclear from the presumed in any given situation, which I know do religiously at work. Some of the other techniques covered include laying out a timeline of the event, including major concurrent events along with the details; asking journalistic questions (where, how, why, what, etc.) for each major event along the timeline; setting odds for given "if - then" scenarios; explicitly laying out what kind of information (new "knowns") would change your various "presumeds"; and for various options asking "For the objective of X, Y is the best option because...."

In closing, "Thinking in Time" is one of the ten most influential books I've ever read. If you are in a leadership position in business, government or even the local lodge, this book can make you a more effective leader. The only thing I regret about reading "Thinking in Time" is that I didn't do it sooner.

A System for Learning from History.......2002-09-02

This book presents a terrific tool to anyone who would choose to lead in politics. In it, Neustadt presents a systematic way for dissecting situations in terms of past history (starting with figuring out what is known, unknown, or assumed in any particular crisis). The book presents several situations in which Presidents either did or did not accurately read past precedents in history. Neustadt's cogent analysis provides terrific insights into situations like Kennedy's successful use of history to avoid disaster in the Cuban Missile Crisis. One of the chapters I found most interesting was Neustadt's discussion on how President Carter misread the "honeymoon" period presidents actually receive with Congress.

Learning and Expectations in Macroeconomics (Frontiers of Economic Research)

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Learning and Expectations in Macroeconomics (Frontiers of Economic Research)
George W. Evans , and Seppo Honkapohja
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0691049211

Book Description

A crucial challenge for economists is figuring out how people interpret the world and form expectations that will likely influence their economic activity. Inflation, asset prices, exchange rates, investment, and consumption are just some of the economic variables that are largely explained by expectations. Here George Evans and Seppo Honkapohja bring new explanatory power to a variety of expectation formation models by focusing on the learning factor. Whereas the rational expectations paradigm offers the prevailing method to determining expectations, it assumes very theoretical knowledge on the part of economic actors. Evans and Honkapohja contribute to a growing body of research positing that households and firms learn by making forecasts using observed data, updating their forecast rules over time in response to errors. This book is the first systematic development of the new statistical learning approach.

Depending on the particular economic structure, the economy may converge to a standard rational-expectations or a "rational bubble" solution, or exhibit persistent learning dynamics. The learning approach also provides tools to assess the importance of new models with expectational indeterminacy, in which expectations are an independent cause of macroeconomic fluctuations. Moreover, learning dynamics provide a theory for the evolution of expectations and selection between alternative equilibria, with implications for business cycles, asset price volatility, and policy. This book provides an authoritative treatment of this emerging field, developing the analytical techniques in detail and using them to synthesize and extend existing research.

The Idea of History: With Lectures 1926-1928

Average customer rating:

Easier reads of those not well versed in historiography
Yes, it is cheaper than the University Bookstore
An Excellent Edition of Collingwood's Art.
R. G. Collingwood's Most Famous Book
A magnificent book if you're motivated enough

The Idea of History: With Lectures 1926-1928
R. G. Collingwood
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0192853066

Book Description

The Idea of History is the best-known work of the great Oxford philosopher, historian, and archaeologist R. G. Collingwood. Published posthumously in 1946, it examines how the idea of history has evolved from the time of Herodotus to the twentieth century, and offers Collingwood's own view of what history is. This revised edition has a substantial new introduction which discusses how scholars have responded to Collingwood's classic over the last fifty years. It also makes available for the first time some of Collingwood's lectures on the philosophy of history - essential for a fuller understanding of his thought, and in particular for the interpretation of The Idea of History itself.

Customer Reviews:

Easier reads of those not well versed in historiography.......2007-05-28

This is a good book but very esoteric. "What is History?" by E.H. Carr is an easier selection for the causal reader or someone beginning to study historiography.

Yes, it is cheaper than the University Bookstore.......2006-11-10

My daughter, a freshman at Indiana University, e-mailed me a list of the books she needed. This was on it... I ordered it, paid for it, and had it shipped directly to her. It arrived sooner than expected, and before she needed it for class.

Great Job.

Julie K.

An Excellent Edition of Collingwood's Art........2004-02-03

This is a very fine edition of Collingwood's magnum opus The Idea of History. It also includes two earlier papers on the philosophy of history, etc. Any student or scholar who studies the discipline of history will need this book, and should read it closely. Van Der Dussen's introductory essay is also very good. Highly recommended.

R. G. Collingwood's Most Famous Book.......2003-07-02

Highly Recommended.
This book is one of the best books ever written on the Nature and Aims of History. This along with his "Principles of History" should give most readers all they need to know about the how and why of history.
The book is extremely easy to read; harder to understand. Some criticisms of the book are not up to the mark, as for example complaints that Collingwood used Greek and Latin phrases in the book, and not everyone understands them. Most of the Greek and Latin are very easy to understand, any good comprehensive foreign phrase dictionary will readily yield them. In fact everyone at the Oxford of Collingwood's day, and nearly everyone who considered themselves a philosopher at that time, could read Latin, and most of them Greek. Don't complain because Kant wrote in German (and Latin and Greek), and that Collingwood writes British English (and Latin and Greek). His style is beautiful, the thoughts expressed profound.
One does not get Collingwood's complete philosophy in this book, and indeed, parts of it cannot be understood without reading his other works. I think particularly of his famous doctrine of "re-enactment" of past thought, which is best understood in the light of the chapters on language presented in his "Principles of Art" (Oxford, 1938). Much invalid criticism has been written by those who have assumed this meant some kind of mental telepathy or intuition.
This book, and everything Collingwood has written, will amply repay the thinking reader. He may, in fact, soon find himself armed with new philosophical ideas with which to think about the world.

A magnificent book if you're motivated enough.......2003-04-04

R. G. Collingwood's The Idea of History would be more correctly classified as a work of philosophy than a work of history, as the primary goal of the work is to present Collingwood's philosophical conception of the nature of history. In terms of methodology, Collingwood's book can be divided into two main sections.
Parts I-IV are more historical as Collingwood traces the development of the practice of history. It begins with its Greco-Roman roots, examines the influence of Christianity, and moves on toward the development of modern scientific history, and finally finishes by examining the concept of history up to the then-present day. Throughout this first portion Collingwood does not directly present his philosophy, leaving it to the reader to infer it from his critiques of other historians. Part V is where Collingwood finally lays out his entire philosophy of history, fully elaborating what he only partially revealed in parts I-IV.

Bargaining and Market Behavior: Essays in Experimental Economics

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Bargaining and Market Behavior: Essays in Experimental Economics
Vernon L. Smith
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521584507

Book Description

This second collection of papers by Vernon L. Smith, a creator of the field of experimental economics, includes many of his primary authored and coauthored contributions on bargaining and market behavior between 1990 and 1998. The essays explore the use of laboratory experiments to test propositions derived from economics and game theory. They also investigate the relationship between experimental economics and psychology, particularly the field of evolutionary psychology, using the latter to broaden the perspective in which experimental results are interpreted. Specific themes investigated include rational choice, the notion of fairness, game theory and extensive form experimental interactions, institutions and market behavior, and the study of laboratory stock markets.

A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society

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A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society
Mary Poovey
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0226675254

Book Description

How did the fact become modernity's most favored unit of knowledge? How did description come to seem separable from theory in the precursors of economics and the social sciences?

Mary Poovey explores these questions in A History of the Modern Fact, ranging across an astonishing array of texts and ideas from the publication of the first British manual on double-entry bookkeeping in 1588 to the institutionalization of statistics in the 1830s. She shows how the production of systematic knowledge from descriptions of observed particulars influenced government, how numerical representation became the privileged vehicle for generating useful facts, and how belief—whether figured as credit, credibility, or credulity—remained essential to the production of knowledge.

Illuminating the epistemological conditions that have made modern social and economic knowledge possible, A History of the Modern Fact provides important contributions to the history of political thought, economics, science, and philosophy, as well as to literary and cultural criticism.

The Search Conference: A Powerful Method for Planning Organizational Change and Community Action (Jossey-Bass Public Administration)

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Searching for Participation and Community
How-To for Professionals

The Search Conference: A Powerful Method for Planning Organizational Change and Community Action (Jossey-Bass Public Administration)
Merrelyn Emery , and Ronald E. Purser
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 078790192X

Book Description

A comprehensive introduction to a powerful new approach for planning organizational change and community action. You'll discover a simple framework for understanding the process and clear step-by-step instructions to guide you in conducting your own Search Conferences.

Customer Reviews:

Searching for Participation and Community.......2001-12-03

The Search Conference: A Powerful Method for Planning Organizational Change and Community Action
By Merrelyn Emery and Ronald Purser
Copyright 1996 by Jossey Bass, Inc. Publishers, San Francisco, CA

As we look more and more to encourage participative processes for creating community plans and improving business strategies, the Search Conference offers a design developed to maximize common ground and community building. The book written by Merrelyn Emery and Ronald Purser, The Search Conference: A Powerful Method for Planning Organizational Change and Community Action, provides an easy to comprehend, outline of the psychological theory and background that are the basis for the design of the process and reasons for its effectiveness. This isn't just a book about theory, however. It is a step by step assistant to managing successful Search Conferences and generating participative democracy. When managed correctly, participants in a Search Conference agree to take on the responsibility of committing to be a part of the collaborative solution.

Purser and Emery use real examples of Search Conference designs and results to illustrate the necessity for certain elements of the process and where others can be readily adapted as needed. The "Pointers" and "Pitfalls" section reinforces specific elements that effect the outcomes of the Search Conference event. The section, "Some Rules of Thumb for Search Conference Managers" (Page 233) is especially helpful. Having experienced a Search Conference with an improperly trained process manager, I would hope that more managers would read this book and stop sliding into the "pitfalls" that can easily be avoided if you guide the process according to the documented suggestions.

The book is published in hard cover with easy to read text. 306 Pages. Interesting insight and epilogue by Fred Emery.

How-To for Professionals.......2000-06-30

This is a good book if you are planning or facilitating a strategic change effort. The Search Conference is a very specific way to plan change. It brings together a cross-section about 25 to 40 people from inside the organization (or community) for an intense two-night, three-day meeting, usually in a remote setting.

Fred Emery, who wrote the epilogue, is best known as the Australian who helped pioneer the concept of self-managed work teams in the 1950s and 1960s. His wife Merrelyn is a co-author of the book.

I have used a Search Conference to help a major food manufacturer optimize its supply chain. Governor Roy Romer of Colorado used the technique to help resolve a regional conflict over water resources, and Microsoft used it for planning in a very creative product development group.

This approach is especially well-suited to more introverted, analytical types of people (engineers, software developers, etc.)

For those who have strong experience as facilitators of interactive meetings, this book is all you need to plan a good conference. If in doubt, it would be a good idea to use an outside resource, because this is far different than the typical conference where people stand up and give speeches.

The book tells you what to do and why to do it.

Customer Reviews:

Very uneven quality and too expensive.......2005-11-12

This is another handbook(companion,guide,encyclopedia)in which each author's contribution is too small to do justice to the ideas or writers being discussed.The price is far too expensive to justify purchasing this book.There are too many errors of omission and commission in the various essays.My recommendation is that the book should be purchased only by College or University Libraries whose economics departments include the study of Institutionalist and Post Keynesian economics.I have selected three essays to review:J Runde's "Uncertainty,Keynesian/Knightian",P Mirowski's "Probability",and A Cottrell's" Keynes,John Maynard".Runde completely overlooks the fundamental interval estimate nature of Keynesian probability.Runde essentially bases his study of Keynes's analysis of probability on the claims made in two highly inaccurate book reviews done by Frank Ramsey in 1922 and 1926,respectively,of Keynes's A Treatise on Probability(1921;TP).Ramsey's conclusion was the nonsensical claim that by the term nonnumerical Keynes meant that numerical probabilities could only be used to represent the probability relationship if the principle of indifference was applicable(Runde,p.513).Another error appears in the claim made by Runde that"Both Keynes and Knight regard uncertainty as arising in situations in which it is not possible to determine a priori probabilities or where there are not enough 'like'instances to form a reference class relative to which numerically definite probabilities can be determined"(Runde,p.514).Uncertainty and weight are completely separate from probability.Only in the very special case of complete uncertainty(ignorance),where the weight of the evidence variable,w,0 <=w <=1,=0(or Ellsberg's rho = 0),is Runde's assertion correct.Mirowski's essay on Probability contains an error and a serious omission that completely vitiates any possible reading value.Mirowski makes the following claim:"In Keynes's own version(of the logicist approach),individual probabilities would be two valued(a numerical attribution accompanied by a measure of'weight'),but in many instances...would not be numerical at all"(Mirowski,p.392).Of course,the confusions and ambiguities in Mirowski can be corrected by noting that most probabilities for Keynes are intervals(see chapter 15,pp.160-163 and chapter 17,pp.186-194 of the A Treatise on Probability).It is a sad commentary when socalled experts like Runde and Mirowski demonstrate by their reviews that they have not read the book they claim to be reviewing or incorporating in their review(Keynes's TP).Many errors are present in Cottrell's essay.First,contrary to Cottrell, Keynes did not recognize the force of Ramsey's critique except in the very special case where the mathematical laws of the probability calculus were applicable.In such a case the addition and multiplication laws were a consistency and coherence constraint preventing the making of a Dutch book against those decision makers who were willing to bet on any and all sides of a bet.Ramsey's subjective theory is completely inapplicable for decision makers who refuses to bet at all times.Second,Cottrell has made a horrible mess(p.263)concerning Keynes's views on the measurability of probabilities.Cottrell again misinterprets Keynes's views by looking at them based on the strange ,unsupportable claims made by Ramsey about Keynes's"mysterious" nonnumerical probabilities.Third,Cottrell claims that Keynes refused"... to employ a conception of aggregate real output..." in the General Theory.On p.283(and p.285) of the General theory,Keynes defines just such an aggregate.It is the foundation for his general theory result that w/p=mpl/(mpc+mpi),where w/p(expected price p =the actual price) is the real wage,mpl is the aggregated marginal product of labor derived from an aggregated neoclassical production function,mpc is the marginal propensity to spend on consumption goods,and mpi is the marginal propensity to spend on investment goods.Without the assumption of an aggregate production function,it would have been impossible for Keynes to have compared his theory to the theory presented by Pigou, in 1933 in Pigou's The Theory Of Unemployment, in the appendix to chapter 19 of the GT.Note that Pigou's missing equation is specified by Keynes on page 261 of the GT.If mpc+mpi <1, a set of multiple unemployment equilibriums exists that are stable.Full employment equilibrium only exists in the case where mpc+mpi =1 or,if the capital stock is at an optimal level,mpc=1.Keynes repeats this conclusion twice on p.261 of the GT.It is the main result promised by Keynes back in chapters 2 and 3 of the GT concerning involuntary unemployment.On p.264,Cottrell claims that the mathematical analysis contained in chapters 20 and 21 of the GT involves the manipulation of identities.This is mathematically impossible since the p variable is defined as an expected price,the P variable is defined as an expected profit,and Keynes derives his results under the assumption that the entreprenuers are attempting to maximize expected future profits,P(Pw,Pwr),an empirical behavioral assumption.Finally,there is no such concept in Keynes's GT terminology as Cottrell's "incalculable uncertainty"(p.264).It doesn't appear in any of Keynes's published works.Cottrell is confusing "incalculable uncertainty" with ignorance, a special case that occurs when w,the weight of the evidence,which was defined by Keynes to be an element of the unit interval between 0 and 1,is equal to 0(here Ellsberg's rho would also = 0).One can only conclude from reading this essay that Cottrell is mathematically and logically illiterate,innumerant,and inept when it comes to comprehending the technical analysis made by Keynes in the GT or TP.

Excellent.......2004-08-19

The book is a "must have" for economic methodologists and students of the art. It also serves as an excellent overview for those working in related fields such as the philosophies of natural and social sciences.

Not only does it cover a vast array of "classic" and "contemporary" topics on economic methodology, but also includes topics that, arguably, are not strictly "methodological" in nature (which is a Good Thing). Nonetheless, all the entries are good overviews of particular topics in some way relevant to the philosophical study of economic methods. The Handbook also has some entries on luminaries of the field and related fields (although this is by no means comprehensive, and somewhat uneven - e.g. Terrance Hutchinson gets an entry but Fritz Machlup doesn't; Karl Polanyi gets one, but his more methodologically-minded brother Michael doesn't; Otto Neurath gets one, but Carl Hempel doesn't; Paul Feyerabend gets one, but Thomas Kuhn doesn't).

The topic-entries are relatively brief, and usually reflect the presuppositions of the entry-author. This is fine - maybe even desirable - for readers who are already "in" the field, but neophytes should be wary of taking the entries as "definitive statements". (In most cases, the reference list at the end of each entry serves as an implicit corrective however.)

All in all, an excellent, if insanely priced, asset.

Statistics and the German State, 19001945: The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge (Cambridge Studies in Modern Economic History)

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Statistics and the German State, 19001945: The Making of Modern Economic Knowledge (Cambridge Studies in Modern Economic History)
J. Adam Tooze
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0521803187

Book Description

Tooze provides an interpretation of the period of dramatic statistical innovation between 1900 and 1945. The Weimar Republic and the Third Reich were in the forefront of statistical innovation in the interwar decades. New ways of measuring the economy were inspired both by contemporary developments in macroeconomic theory and the needs of government. Under the Nazi regime, these statistical tools provided the basis for a radical experiment in economic planning. Based on the German example, Tooze argues for a more wide-ranging reconsideration of the history of modern economic knowledge.

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