Book Description
On Wall Street, in the culture of high tech, in American government: Libertarianism-the simple but radical idea that the only purpose of government is to protect its citizens and their property against direct violence and threat-has become an extremely influential strain of thought. But while many books talk about libertarian ideas, none until now has explored the history of this uniquely American movement-where and who it came from, how it evolved, and what impact it has had on our country.
In this revelatory book, based on original research and interviews with more than 100 key sources, Brian Doherty traces the evolution of the movement through the unconventional life stories of its most influential leaders-Ludwig von Mises, F.A. Hayek, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, and Milton Friedman-and through the personal battles, character flaws, love affairs, and historical events that altered its course. And by doing so, he provides a fascinating new perspective on American history-from the New Deal through the culture wars of the 1960s to today's most divisive political issues. Neither an exposi nor a political polemic, this entertaining historical narrative will enlighten anyone interested in American politics.
Customer Reviews:
Thorough History Of The Libertarian Movement.......2007-07-18
I am not a libertarian. But I do support their stance on certain issues such as being pro-immigration, against military imperialism and for civil liberties, including the legalization of prostitution and drugs. This book is a very thorough and well researched history of the movement. But, at over 600 pages, it is not really for those seeking a brief introduction.
Doherty begins the movement's history with the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises and proceeds, more or less, chronologically describing key libertarian figures such as F.A. Hayek, Rose Wilder Lane, Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard and Milton Friedman. Doherty is a senior editor at Reason magazine and thus obviously a libertarian himself. But I found his overall approach to be balanced and he certainly wasn't afraid to describe the personal faults of important libertarian figures. For instance, Ayn Rand comes across as an insufferable egomaniac who turned her Objectivist philosophy movement into something resembling a religious cult (based on the worship of her) before eventually driving away nearly everyone associated with her. On the other hand, I found Murray Rothbard to be a more likable character, at least during his Circle Bastiat days.
Rothbard is also the person who was most involved in bringing libertarian ideas to the radicals of the 1960's. As someone who came of age in the counter-culture, I have always recognized that there was a link between the bohemian's and the libertarian's emphasis on individual freedom. However, the truth is that most politically minded counter-cultural types tend to lean towards a sort of leftist communal anarchism and would probably identify as "radicals against capitalism" instead of "radicals for capitalism". Still I do see some similarties there and will be interested to read another of Doherty's books - "This Is Burning Man: The Rise Of A New American Underground".
In any case, I agree with the previous reviewer that every significant political philosophy deserves it's own written history and this one is very well written, detailed and worthy of being read.
Uninspiring history.......2007-07-17
This is a beefy book that needs a strong dose of willpower to finish. It reads more like a brain dump than something that's had some thought devoted to its structure (hence presumably requiring the "freewheeling" qualifier in the title), or some editorial pruning to its frequent repetition. It is useful, though, as a single source to look up the names that crop up in any discussion with _American_ libertarians (libertarians/anarchists in the rest of the world are dogmatically anti-capitalist).
The book confirms that the American libertarian philosophy is the economic-determinist twin of the Marxist one, with the premise that a simple economic formula will free everyone. For the libertarians, its "private property and free markets"; for the Marxist, it is "state-owned production and central planning". With the libertarians, you just hand over your freedom to the property owner. That is, if you can even afford to participate in their free market.
One logical corollary of the formula shows up in the book in the person of Andrew Galambos, the guru of Harry Browne, twice Presidential candidate of the American Libertarian Party. Galambos taught courses on capitalism, but attendees could not talk to anyone about the content, since the ideas were owned by Galambos. (However, there are apparently a few American libertarians who oppose intellectual property.)
A really good analysis of the absurdities underlying what passes for the political philosophy underlying "libertarianism" and "anarcho-capitalism", even assuming their central proposition of the State being an inherently evil institution, is a document available on the web called "An Anarchist FAQ", written by left-libertarians and anarchists, who are obviously sceptical of any government. Since this book is a history, there understandably aren't any pages devoted to a _decent_ defence of the ideology from its critics.
As the other reviews describe, the central flow of the narrative is woven around Mises, Hayek, Rand, Friedman and Rothbard, with the other libertarians and institutions discussed in major digressions. Of all the people mentioned in this hagiography, one person who stood out was Robert Anton Wilson, a recently deceased libertarian science fiction author, who seemed to have a genuine interest in seeing the whether the professed aims of libertarianism would help those who needed it the most.
The material on Austrian economics is interesting, since it's perhaps not well known that it's quite sceptical of the ideas underlying the dominant neo-classical school, which seems to the uninitiated to be all about market-driven solutions. There is some discussion of Hayek's screed against central planning, but too little about how it applies to the central planning that takes place inside any corporation. It was striking that Mises, the founding Austrian economist, rejected, _on principle_, any empirical verification of Austrian theory against real-world data. Quite a "rational " position, that, perhaps explaining why Austrian economics was not (and perhaps still is not) taken seriously.
An Excellent and Fun History.......2007-06-29
This book is the first comprehensive history of the American libertarian movement, from its roots in the American Revolution, to Ron Paul, Cato and beyond. Along the way, the author looks at 19th Century philosophers whose anarchism was based in a strong belief in individual liberty to the nadir of American individual in the crisis of the Great Depression and the patriotic collectivism of World War Two. In 1943, it seemed that individualism was dead, so much so that the last "classic" individual anarchist, Albert Jay Nock, entitled his autobiography "The Memoirs of a Superfluous Man."
It is at that point that the story really picks up. For also in 1943, three remarkable women, Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane and Ayn Rand each published works that would rally believers in individual liberty. The following year, Frederick Hayek would publish "The Road to Serfdom" and the battle against government control would begin. Doherty makes many stops along the way, addressing the many disparate strands that are American libertarianism. From the respectable businessmen who joined the Foundation for Economic Education, to the students at the Freedom School, to the anarchism of Murray Rothbard, the radicalism of Karl Hess and the back to the land movement, Doherty shows the characters, the freewheeling, and the backstabbing.
While the term libertarian is still somewhat loaded, thanks to the sometimes strange people that inhibit the Libertarian Party, Doherty also shows how libertarianism has gone mainstream. While early Austrian economists Mises and Hayek had trouble finding academic berths in the United States, the "Chicago School" has built a network of academics. Milton Freidman advised presidents and one of his disciples now sits as head of the Federal Reserve (ironic as Friedman wanted to abolish the Federal Reserve). Whereas in the early 1960s, libertarian ideas were often passed around in mimeographed newsletters, today, it is discussed in libertarian think tanks and in glossy magazines.
Doherty really did his homework. Much of the book contains personal remembrances gleaned from an incredible number of interviews conducted over about 10 years. And as the book comes to present day, Doherty, an editor at Reason Magazine and connected with many modern libertarian organizations, takes on a very conversational tone.
In short, the book is well researched, easy to read and fun. I highly recommend it.
The Story of an Awakening.......2007-06-25
What a great read! Doherty researched his subject (and subjects) almost exhaustively and gave a sometimes breezy, sometimes dense, all the time entertaining portrait of Libertarianism and its founders. Libertarians (and I count myself as one) who boast that their "time has come" are as deluded as the conspiracy nuts who KNOW that Bush is in cohoots with Osama, Saddam, Jews, Saudis, Nazis, aliens - take your pick. I've always contended that Libertarianism will never be a political force because of the very nature of the philosophy - an anti-collectivist attitude that rejecting the sublimation of the individual to the group that is the hallmark of modern politics. In this Brave New World, everything from bathroom flushes to the size of holes in Swiss cheese is politicized. Incredibly, there are those who argue these issues with the passion of the newly converted - I mark it down to the substitution of ideology for religion.
Libertarians are critical thinkers, intelligent and questioning. Even a casual perusal of this work makes that evident. They somehow found the intellectual fortitude to reject the overwhelming majority belief in a nanny State. The movement has the highest percentage of atheists of any political group and yet, for all their smarts, they are constantly battling one another. They can only agree on the broadest and vaguest concepts - non-coercion, limited government, individual and property rights. Maybe it's the absence of the ubiquitious "Vote for me and I'll start a program" politics that voters need. The personalities in the book are heavy hitters - Von Mises, Rand, Rothbard, Hayek, Freidman and then there are all the others - Ron Paul, Popper, Brown, etc. Rand is mainly discussed through her fiction although her non-fiction is almost highlighted. Hayek's advocacy of freedom along with the brilliant but turgid von Mises is contrasted with the almost sunny, public Friedman.
Libertarianism arose in the GOP and it remains almost exclusively in that realm. (Paul says that Republicans were the original Libertarians.) The only "leftist" thread in Libertarianism is the anarchist leaning of some. The Democrat embrace of group rights, the nanny state, high taxes and (until recently) foreign intervention has prevented the rise of any movement from that side. The common thread, the glue that holds the book together is Rothbard. His decades-long search to find his philosophical base was both repelling and fascinating as he switched allegiances, picked fights, protested this or that perceived slight and yet remained in the spotlight. One is suspicious that this was his real goal at times. His claim never to have changed views is absurd and yet his machinations give the book a well-needed "spine" that allows the action to flow chronologically. As in most books about Libertarianism, the subjects of economic and human rights arise since there is a direct correlation between the two.
Doherty strikes a fine balance between theory, biography, gossip and commentary. In many books like this, either the ideology or the personalities receive short shrift. I found the reading incredibly interesting but for others it will be a chore. In the end one is both awed at the human effort that has been expended toward the idea of freedom and saddened that so few seem to grasp those ideas.
Push Back the State.......2007-06-24
Every movement deserves its 700 page history and Brian Doherty has written an outstanding one for the libertarian movement. He focuses on five seminal libertarian thinkers, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, F.A. Hayek, Murray Rothbard and Milton Friedman, but certainly doesn't ignore the other people who have made the movement so colorful. The book is consistently enlightening and provides biographical details of its major players that I didn't know. And, contrary to those who would rewrite history, Doherty makes it clear that Rand's "Objectivist" movement left a trail of broken lives in its wake, not the least of which was Rand's.
As other reviewers have noted, perhaps a few too many mistakes crept into this book and there are certainly some questionable judgments, but this is "our history" and all libertarians should be grateful to Mr. Doherty.
Amazon.com
The Condition of Postmodernity is David Harvey's seminal history of our most equivocal of eras. What does postmodernism mean? Where did it come from? Harvey, a professor of geography and a key mover behind extending the scope and influence of the discipline of geography itself, does a thorough job here delineating the passage through to postmodernity and the economic, social, and political changes that underscored and accompanied it. As he clearly states, the rise in postmodernist cultural forms is related to a new intensity in what Harvey terms "time-space compression," but this new intensity is a qualitative rather than quantitative change in social organization, and it does not point to an era beyond capitalism as "the basic rules of capitalistic accumulation" remain unchanged. Unlike Fredric Jameson (whose equally rewarding Postmodernism stands as the twin pillar to Harvey's critique), who explicitly relies on Ernest Mandel's periodization of late capitalism, Harvey eschews a narrowly economic focus, the limits and contradictions of production that have led to the rise in the service sector, and takes a more multidisciplinary approach to his history. As comfortable discussing Manet as he is labor markets, Harvey is an excellent writer, and The Condition of Postmodernity is an exceptionally informative and enjoyable read. --Mark Thwaite, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description
A great deal has been written on what has variously been described as the post-modern condition and on post-modern culture, architecture, art and society. In this new book, David Harvey seeks to determine what is meant by the term in its different contexts and to identify how accurate and useful it is as a description of contemporary experience. But the book is much more than this: in the course of his investigation the author provides a social and semantic history - from the Enlightenment to the present - of modernism and its expression in political and social ideas and movements, as well as in art, literature and architecture. He considers in particular how the meaning and perception of time and space themselves vary over time and space, and shows that this variance affects individual values and social processes of the most fundamental kind. This book will be widely welcomed, not only for its clear and critical account of the arguments surrounding the propositions of modernity and post-modernity, but as an incisive contribution to the history of ideas and their relation to social and political change.
Customer Reviews:
Good lord.......2005-09-16
Wow, this book is about as dense as the crust of the earth. It takes at least a few reads over to understand what the arguments are. While the arguments in this book are very well articulated, I found myself wanting to shoot myself in the face sometimes while reading this book. It can be really boring, but brings up some very interesting ideas of 80's culture and society.
Po-Mo Schmomo?.......2003-03-04
Ask ten academics about what to call our present fin-de-siecle epoch and you'll get ten different labels, but "postmodernism" seems always the default term. Although it's twelve years old, Harvey's book is the best I've read about the pluralistic fabric we daily inhabit. It's edifyingly reader-friendly (especially compared to some of the Franco-drunk rhetoricians out there trying to get a handle on our current world). In precise prose Harvey outlines the shift to our information-as-capital paradigm since the mid-sixties, and the causes of the growth of the temp sector and "just-in-time" production capabilities. Harvey traces the arrival of "flexible accumulation" to the collapse of Fordist production practices in the 1966-73 waves of recession, but covers far more than just economic factors--architecture, art, literature, cinema--without any self-conscious Neo-Marxist whistling-in-the-dark. In his project to articulate a new (meta?)narrative, Harvey's book will probably give post-structuralists a new constellation of ideas to obfuscate with hip terminology and dense prose...
Manuel Castell's "The Rise of the Network Society" is another good book along these lines.
Best overview of modern/postmodern condition I have found.......2002-08-22
This is a great overview of concepts that are, by definition, very fractured. Harvey clarifies and pulls together a number of seemingly disparate elements in a masterful manner. Though this book could work as a good introduction to these concepts, I think readers with some background in the major writers of modernism and postmodernism will get more out of it. Dogmatic postmodernists may be put off that Harvey has the "temerity" to suggest that postmodernism might be an extension of modernism or that he finds some good in modernism and some excesses in postmodern approaches but, they should get over themselves and realize that their insistence that "all meta-narratives are bad" is their own meta-narrative. Overall, Harvey manages to convincingly express his ideas while maintaining a remarkably evenhanded approach. I especially enjoy the fact that he avoids the postmodernist tendency to ignore the complexities of modernism and, thus create a postmodern meta-narrative about the modernist project.
Excellent overview of modernity and post-modernity.......2001-11-27
David Harvey's "Condition of Post-Modernity" provides excellent representational cases to show the differences between modernity and post-modernity. Although sometimes difficult to follow (I had problems with the chapter pertaining to architecture), Harvey uses enough examples (i.e., economics, art, cinema, etc.) to make sure one understands the differences between post-modernism and modernism. The economic chapter, "Fordism and Flexible Accumulation" is particulary good and shows the gradual transformation from a modernist to a post-modernist economy and society. I was disappointed, however, that Harvey didn't have a complete section focused towards the differences between modernist and post-modernist lit.
Excellent overview of modernity and post-modernity.......2001-11-27
David Harvey's "Condition of Post-Modernity" provides excellent representational cases to show the differences between modernity and post-modernity. Although sometimes difficult to follow (I had problems with the chapter pertaining to architecture), Harvey uses enough examples (i.e., economics, art, cinema, etc.) to make sure one understands the differences between post-modernism and modernism. The economic chapter, "Fordism and Flexible Accumulation" is particulary good and shows the gradual transformation from a moderninst to a post-modernist economy and society. I was disappointed, however, that Harvey didn't have a complete section focused towards the differences between modernist and post-modernist lit.
Customer Reviews:
more art than philosophy.......2007-08-19
however, is philosophy not an art? perhaps this question is the most illuminating one with regard to this book. I described it to a friend as "shamanism meets psychoanalysis in a 19th century drawing room." Of course this description is inadequate but it made me laugh. The "rigor" of this book takes place in a different form, in a different plane, from analytic thought. Where one might oversimplify analytic philosophy and call it linear with its pretensions of precision; this sort of philosophy has depth and shading, it has contours; it seems as though the mind of God has gone fractal in this book. Of course it is not perfect, but all philosophy necessarily must fall short of the mark if we are so ambitious as to set the "mark" as "truth." Deleuze and Guattari understand the shortcomings of language as a conveyance of truth, of its inherent incomprehensibility; in reaction to this insight they have decided to have fun, to play within the field of reference and see what comes out. One of the more interesting treatises you will ever read, even if you don't finish. I suppose you could say it is the lunar to the solar pretensions of reason and logic.
Abstractionist Exploitation.......2005-09-28
For all its cleverness, the kind of dodgy, edgy, self-important prose that lures wannabe philosophers into its trap, this book is one incorrect premise after another, one humanocentric argument posing as "ecological" thought on top of another.
Deleuze and Guattari refer to "wolves" that are not wolves, "rhizomes" that have nothing to do with rhizomes. They favor the symbolic half of a metaphor over its physically realizable counterpart to the point at which a rhizome could be anything vaguely multiplicitous and knotty and branchy--at which point it ceases to be a rhizome and becomes what the quasi-philosopher loves: a product to be sold.
Ecology is a science, and not as soft a science as its made out to be by those who haven't lately picked up an ecology textbook or read the history of its development. There's far more fashion to "science studies" than rigor, and D & G fall right into the mode of conflating ecology with other disciplines and methods. Interdisciplinary is fine; undisiciplined isn't. Like Andrew Ross, D & G are dilettanti. They dabble and play and get clever and, in this case, use fundamental natural facts as exploitively as any lab tester, hunter, or junk scientist that science studies likes to indict.
In the chapter on Freud's Wolf-Man, D & G save us from one projected and hyperbolic interpretation of a dream to their own worse one. In correcting Freud for his misuse of both dreams and wolves, they essentialize the species, make assumptions about wolf behavior, and provide a vague replacement for Freud's symbolism of lesser value. Lesser because they fail both to recognize the fairy tale images behind Freud's analysis (the goat/wolf conflation, the tree symbol) and to cite source work backing their declarations about wolves, the real animals they invoke several times in the chapter. This is an abstraction of convenience, and while dabblers in environmentalism from the sidewalk-bound perspective of Theory and Cultural Studies might find it enticing, they should also find it about as corroborated as a high school research paper with a bibliography gleaned from a couple of hours on the internet.
Likewise the "rhizome" chapter, foundational to the book. D & G make ridiculous statements about rivers being "without beginning or ending" about the rhizome being "always intermezzo," and other hyperbolic claims that serve their purpose of using the nonhuman world to fulfill entirely humanocentric claims and spins. A river has a source and a mouth, and the concept of interconnectedness so cherished by those who would use ecology to justify any cobbled amalgam of thoughts they have can, as it does here a thousand times, turn to mere rationalization and exploitation.
An analytical philosopher would indeed find this book to be nonsense, but not because Deleuze and Guattari are pressing the philosophical envelope with new ideas. They cite themselves (!) several times--and not just in references to prior pages that follow a thread of the text. They employ transparently circular logic, arguments spun off of premises that are only premises because D & G repeat them. Fundamental logic and argumentation work--not because they're patriarchally dominating forms of rhetoric that keep us from seeing the world as it is, but because they come from the world as it is. The very structure of argumentation demands corroboration ultimately from the basic laws of nature.
My one star rating of this act of charlatanism isn't because the book is poorly written. It's because the book gives us all the tools we need for an irresponsible, rationalized, finally damaging environmental thought--one posing as some new map of the world, some new ecology. There is no new ecology. There is only the gathering, the accrual of fact, that ensues from our increased understanding of the raw material out of which we hammer our civilizations.
Deleuze and Guattari only know our civilizations, and those not as well as their tremendous egos would assert. They paint nature in their own image, start the cult of Deleuzians, and profer a tempting "philosophy" that ends in the bait and switch typical of current cultural studies. In the end, what has any wolf, any rhizome, any river, gotten out of the grand Deleuzians?
The only reason to read this book is to find out what's happened to the brains of an unfortunately sizeable number of academics. It saddens me to know where the interdisciplinary work of philosophy and ecology could go if it weren't dragging around this dead weight.
The Crowning Achievement Of (Post)Modern French Philosophy.......2005-05-20
That this book is receiving one star, given the title of my review, should surprise no one.
Look, say what you will; I am a classically trained, analytic, Anglophone philosopher with a penchant for clarity and rigor. That is where I stand. If you are looking for a text which purports to be theoretical, and yet is obviously densely literary and aphoristic, perhaps I don't understand what you're on about, and perhaps you don't either.
This book is neither clear nor rigorous. Where it doesn't mutate truly elementary understandings of science (not to say that either Deleuze understands what the difference between science and pseudoscience is), psychology, and economics to suit its incoherent purposes, it avoids any understanding whatsoever.
The philosophical work contained herein is non-starting. That is, it is not philosophy, as it is neither argumentative, interpretive, nor logical. There are no discernible conclusions (which is not to say that there are none in this pig latin dog's dinner, but they probably aren't deduced from premisses ) where there is anything like 'argument' at all.
To say that I'm missing the point, you'd first have to show that such work can have a point. That it violates hard-won conventions of philosophical discourse, which are taken as primitive (I can't tell you how many times the Law of Excluded Middle was violated), is not a victory for this work. It is a setback. That it has not been translated into English, but rather some retarded cousin of English, is perhaps partly to blame for my lack of understanding. I tend only to be able to read natural languages.
But then, again, perhaps my rhizomatic foreshortening (to wit: to SHORTEN is also to LENGTHEN) is in part quasiculpable (that is, retrodogmatically) as a blamematic(viz. contraposto) which tends inter alia to produce (and re-produce, as Malreaux reads Sartre in referential milieus of Darwinian technologies of traffic control) my congnitive disfunctionabilities.
I recommend the work of W.V.O. Quine if you're looking for a 'philosophy of our time,' as one reviewer suggested we must.
Works Well with Techno Music.......2005-01-03
This is a fascinating work whose multidisciplinarity and complexity challenge any library taxonomy: once I saw it filed under psychiatry. All the same, classical analytical thinkers fail to understand "A Thousands Plateaus" in its own terms, irritating conventionally trained intellectuals (and those who vote this review "unhelpful").
In addition to criticizing master narratives (psychoanalysis, Marxism and structuralism), "A Thousand Plateaus" provides a radically different mindframe for conceptualizing the emerging realities of globalization and subjectivity formation. Nomadology and schizoanalysis are new styles for accessing and assessing mobile and metamorphic identities in an age of digital capital and semiotic flows. To wit, Foucault declared that this century is Deleuzian.
Certainly, it is much easier to read commentators. Yet, my favorite way to get into this book is by plugging loud techno trance music on my headphones, reading it as pure Power Poetry, "harnessing its forces" as Deleuze puts it: a war-machine that undermines monolithic thought, opening up multiple possibilities for the renewed experiencing of the self and reality. (Deleuze and Guattari claimed to have had hallucinations while writing the book).
Book translator Brian Massumi suggests that "A Thousand Plateaus" may be better handled like a music album, freely and pragmatically. Deleuze himself continously entices us to create affect, and employ philosophy; not as the cultivation of dead closed concepts, but to foster multiple thinking...
Long live the barbarian nomads of reason!
October 17 2004 - a review.......2004-10-17
I don't normally bother reviewing books. However I had to respond to something another reviewer said:
"you can't read this while listening to music, trust me"
Actually you can but I recommend the music of anti-essentialists, Phoenicia's "Brownout" is an excellent soundtrack to the plateau on the refrain. The text of the book is the opsign of time-images, music, or, rather, sound, of deterritorialisation is the sonsign. Fittingly, the releases from Germany's Mille Plateaux label are really good for reading these works.
I can't recommend this book enough but I will give some advice in your approach:
1. Even though this might seem the most intimidating entry to D&G's thought I suggest it anyway. Compared to "Difference and Repetition" or "The Logic of Sense" this is a walk in the park when it comes to penetrating the prose.
2. Don't expect a book of philosophy where an argument is clearly defined and developed. This is nothing like that. It's a work of "nomad thought", just try and follow what's happening *before* you judge it.
3. Come back to it. Regularly. Your appreciation and engagement will deepen as your knowledge of Deleuze's oeuvre deepens. You won't 'get it' at first but you have to enter his work somewhere. Eventually you'll realise this is a challenge to develop new ontologies, you were never meant to get it. You were and are meant to think it in new directions. After all, that's the basic lesson of the return.
4. Read widely. I really recommend Rodowick's 1997 book "Gilles Deleuze's Time Machine". On the surface Rodowick is working with the cinema books but the cinema books themselves are philosophical works developing Bergson. If you grasp Rodowick's less dense (though just as challenging) argument for deterritorialised thought you'll be on your way. Another area: Nietzsche's concepts of return, the will to power and active/reactive force is crucial. Read Deleuze's Nietzsche book.
5. The geology stuff isn't a metaphor, it's an isomorphism. If nothing else read DeLanda's "Immanence and Transcendence in the Genesis of Forms" in the 1999 book "A Deleuzian Century" (edited by Ian Buchanon).
And last but certainly not least, Deleuze & Guattari's work is playful, enjoy the challenges they set you. You'll never see the world the same way again.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating!.......2005-01-21
I don't care for (or much understand) economics. And I often find history to be very dry.
This book, however, was a VERY enjoyable read. I originally checked it out of the library because I needed some information for a paper I was writing...and I was hooked enough to buy this books and others by this author.
Braudel sees the big picture AND the details -- and not only that, he writes in such an interesting manner that I was able to assimilate a vast amount of information before I knew it.
Book Description
Giddens’s analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Weber has become the classic text for any student seeking to understand the three thinkers who established the basic framework of contemporary sociology. The first three sections of the book, based on close textual examination of the original sources, contain separate treatments of each writer. The author demonstrates the internal coherence of their respective contributions to social theory. The concluding section discusses the principal ways in which Marx can be compared with the other two authors, and discusses misconceptions of some conventional views on the subject.
Customer Reviews:
Great Book for Sociology Theory Students.......2003-08-04
Giddens outdid himself for sure! He definitely knew that me and my friends would use this book in our Sociology theory assignment as supplemental reading to aid out paper. Although I did not read this book from cover to cover, it found the Durkheim commentary very useful. Two of my friends also used the Weber and Marx sections, and thanked me so much for purchasing the book. Giddens gets straight to the point, explaning himself very clearly to the reader . . . which is often difficult in theory. The best way to use the book is to look up your subject of interest in the index while you have your primary source in front of you. Enjoy it and save it . . . it'll come in handy een after you're done with your theory class.
Seeing master through master.......2002-06-27
Giddens is the most well-known British social scientist after Keynes and one of three masters in sociology with Bourdieu and Habermas. This book has been widely used as textbook in classes on the history of sociology, while his more recent book, ¡®Introduction to Sociology¡¯ ahs occupied most introductory classes of sociology.
1. Giddens might be the best and deepest understander of three father of sociology. The prestige and appeal of his structuration theory might be rooted in that mastery. Before proposed the outline of structuration theory in ¡®New Rules of Sociological Method¡¯, he spent about ten years in digging into three founders: Marx, Weber, and Durkheim. This book is the fruit of that effort.
Unlike usual textbook, this book us not simple introduction to classical theorists. The need to read classics lies in the problem sociology poses to itself: ¡®what is the modernity?¡¯ Whereas other sister disciplines pose somewhat narrower problems-capitalism for economics, democracy for political sciences- sociology questions the modernity itself. That¡¯s the very problem three fathers posed over a century ago. But still we question the same problem in the way they set. So we should always return to classics when meeting the fundamental problem.
2. The style of this book is clear, easy-to-follow, and jargon-free enough to be used in undergraduate introductory class. But it doesn¡¯t mean that there is no depth in this book. Giddens argues that thoughts of Weber and Durkheim should be understood as the reaction to Marx. His emphasis is convincing and offers a good standpoint to look up three fathers as a whole. Such a point is invaluable to beginners. Moreover, his interpretations are opposite to conventional wisdom, with solid grounds. He contends that there is no discontinuity between young Marx and late Marx, against humanist views like Frankfurt school¡¯s and structuralist exposition like Althusser¡¯s; there is no inconsistency I Weber. He was always a radical neo-Kantian; the relationship of Weber and Marx should be seen as creative tension rather than antagonism; Durkheim¡¯s point lies in not primarily in ¡®the problem of order¡¯ but in the changing nature of order in the context of social development.
Great Book!.......2001-01-21
Well, to sort of disagree with the previous review, I feel that this book is great for Undergrads! I, myself had the opportunity to read this book in a social theory class and have since relied upon Giddens excellent analysis of these theorists! It really helped me grasp the detailed (and often times confusing) ideas and theories of the classical theorists. After reading the book, I was able to more fully understand the actual works of these individuals. I use this book as reference guide to refer back to what Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber said.
As good an analysis as there is... even 30 years later.......2000-06-16
I'm quite surprised this hasn't been reviewed yet; it's a wonderful book. Likely not for undergrads, Giddens is able to tie together in novel ways some of the key concepts that connect the writings of Marx, Weber and Durkheim. A good deal of the book summarizes the key writings of each author-- which is useful in itself-- and supports much of the summary material with compelling quotes and citations of both the author in question, as well as others who have done secondary analyses. Giddens also devotes a few chapters to analyzing the three authors in comparison, and spends a good deal of time teasing out differences between the three that were not, for me at least, apparent right away. In other words, a solid and original analysis. Not five stars because there was less on similarities of thought between the authors than I would have liked to have seen (and no explicit comparative analysis of Weber and Durkheim, only Marx vis-a-vis the other two), but this is probably due to the fact that Marx, Weber and Durkheim diverge in so many fundamental ways. Nevertheless, truly a must read for those who want to begin to get a grip on classical western social theory in a more sophisticated fashion than what most textbooks (which this is not) might have to offer. Get it, because if it's this old and still in print in the academic world, there's a reason for it...
Book Description
"Magisterial history...one of the most comprehensive histories of modern capitalism yet written."—New York Times Book Review
In 1900 international trade reached unprecedented levels and the world's economies were more open to one another than ever before. Then as now, many people considered globalization to be inevitable and irreversible. Yet the entire edifice collapsed in a few months in 1914.
Globalization is a choice, not a fact. It is a result of policy decisions and the politics that shape them. Jeffry A. Frieden's insightful history explores the golden age of globalization during the early years of the century, its swift collapse in the crises of 1914-45, the divisions of the Cold War world, and the turn again toward global integration at the end of the century. His history is full of character and event, as entertaining as it is enlightening.
Customer Reviews:
HAPHAZARD NARRATIVE; AUTHOR HAS VERY WEAK UNDERSTANDING OF SUBJECT MATTER.......2007-06-21
Of all the many books that have come out in recent years about global capitalism, finance and economics, this is certainly the worst. The author, a professor of government at Harvard, professes to specialize in international monetary history, but is really what his tenure title says he is, a professor of International Peace. He appears to be trying to reinvent his career by tackling the subject of capitalism but thoroughly lacks understanding of the subject matter, as made evident by his book.
1. The author makes the same mistake that virtually all political science professors do when they write about capitalism: he glorifies the gold standard, he glorifies the Rothschilds and glorifies everything that had nothing to do with the emergence of twentieth century capitalism. The author is using his expertise in international relations to analyze a subject that is really never about governments, or grand alliances or fancy bankers. He thus fails to root the story in the advent of technology, or of business procedures or of the individual investor, but focuses instead of John Foster Dulles and Dean Acheson and Lord Halifax.
2. Wherever the subject matter is strong, the book still fails badly. It does so because political economy is better analyzed by Robert Gilpin and others, whose books are mandatory reading and well written and which do not pretend to sell that subject matter as a study of capitalism.
3. The book's sections are surprisingly badly arranged. Sometimes one feels the author may have a method to the madness but I doubt it after having read it. It is certainly not thematic, or designed to trigger thought or chronological.
4. The book refers to a poem only twice in the 500 pages and it is about the King of Ghana! I mean a professor at Harvard should surely know how to maintain balance in his subject matter. Is that the one poem he could find worth including?
5. Stunning is the lack of understanding of the issues. He describes Britain as fully supportive of free trade mid-19th century but fails to consider how colonialism could be a form of free trade. He describes China Turkey and India as the only failures of the early 20th century without making the same connection with colonialism.
6. Worse is his understanding of the gold standard. He never mentions that that relic was responsible for more misery than anything other than world wars. He fails to consider that since the gold standard was weakened in the Forties, there have been NO PANICS RAVAGING SOCIETY. He is a gold bug.
7. He repeats William Bryan's Cross of Gold speech twice in the narrative with no suggestion that he is even aware his haphazard narrative is repeating the same quote. He also fails to mention that William Bryan was not buried in the election of 1896 but actually came to dominate the 20th century, what with unionism, minimum wages, no gold standard, empowerment of the individual investor and every other idea that Bryan first espoused. TR's and FDR's reforms were nothing if not Bryanism.
8. Why would a book mention so much about Rothschild's and their family in the US without mentioning Jacob Schiff, or detailing JP Morgan, or RObert Lehman or Albert Gordon. I mean the author simply has no balance on the subject matter because he knows so little about it.
9. Finally, it is not clear what Jeffrey Frieden is doing at Harvard. Such poorly researched fare is common to COlumbia Business School and its Dean Glenn Hubbard, or to the Hoover Institution or some place like that. Harvard on the other hand puts out more balanced and far more thoughtful pieces.
BAD BOOK THAT MUST BE AVOIDED.
Almost tempted to give it a miss.......2007-04-23
I was almost tempted to give the book a miss after seeing the high ratings that were given by reviewers that seemed to be anti-globalizationists (what an awkward term!)
However, I came across the book at my library and gave it a chance, and I was not disappointed. It is a book that does a creditable job of summing up the ups and downs of the world economy over the past hundred years and more. And it also does a fairly good job of raising some issues and problems with the world economic system, and how the system had evolved to meet those issues and problems. On the whole, I think it's a balanced book, pointing out the critical need for free and integrated markets to raising millions in the world out of poverty, as well as some of the problems facing them.
The only reason why I gave the book a four rather than a five is that it is not an easy read, and it is best read with some thought and analysis on the reader's part. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not something for everyone.
By the way, do ignore those reviews that pretend to tell you what the author was saying in his book. I'm not sure that he's actually saying what they say he is saying.
Read the book for yourself. It's worth the time and effort.
Globalization 2.0.......2006-07-12
Jeffrey Frieden, a Harvard professor specializing in international trade and finance, has written a masterly and comprehensive history of capitalism from 1870 to the present. His history of globalization reminds us that it is not a recent develpment and that its current success is not guaranteed.
The first era of globalization (1870 to 1914) had many of the same characteristics as today's. There was an unprecedented cross-border movement of goods, capital, and labor. (Labor more so in the first era.) During these years huge amounts of capital moved overseas to America, Canada, and Argentina mainly due to the reduced costs of communication and transportation. The technologies driving this globalization were the telegraph and railroads. It was also facilitated by the fact that most currencies were convertible to gold. The investment in the Americas was also followed by a huge immigrant population. In these years, America, Canada, and Argentina had much larger immmigrant populations at the turn of the 20th century than today.
The main thing that distinguishes the present globalization from the first is what happened in between. After the Great Depression and World War II remedies were put into place to mitigate the damaging effects of these economic and social catastrophes. Social benefits such as unions, minimum wage, healthcare and pensions were established as safety nets. In the era between the two globalizations when economies were mostly national the safety nets were part of the social contract between capital and labor.
In 1980, when our current era of globalization begins, capital began to move overseas again in order to find countries with lower labor and social costs. This time, however, labor did not follow. The industrialized countries now have large middle classes with social benefits promised who are not certain about how they are going to be paid. This is causing many in the industrialized world to have second thoughts about our current phase of globalization.
Frieden has a guarded optimism about global capitalism and thinks it is still the best system for distributing wealth. Yet, his last chapter "Global Capitalism Troubled" points to some more clouds on the horizon. There seems to be a growing gap between those who control capital and those who work for a living. People understand that globalization is inevitable but they want a new set of rules to address the growing inequalities.
Frieden is a cheerleader for a more equitable capitalism that can deliver both social benefits and robust economic growth.
Bottom Line: Unfettered Capitalism is Destructive, Need Government.......2006-06-27
I read books in groups, and bought this one along with David Walsh's "Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations" which I recommend above this one is you are only buying one book. I also read and have reviewed "Global Class Wars" as well as all other books I recommend below.
Although I was less interested in the history, which is very well documented and clearly explained, and more in the lessons for the future, I found two clear bottom lines in this book that are supported by its extensive research:
1) Open societies and open democracies generate more money and more opportunity and more innovation than closed or failed societies; and
2) Keynes was right, there is an urgent vital role for government to play in addressing the social networks, including education, transportation, rules of commerce, and so on, that allow capitalism to work.
The author distinguishes between individual, cooperative, and competitive capitalism, and I found validation in this book for my concept of communal capitalism, a capitalism that is guided by government in avoiding the exportation of jobs, the importation of poverty, and the impoverishment of the middle class.
Unlike David Walsh's book, this book has more of a focus on what is moral and pragmatic, and so I recommend William Greider's "The Soul of Capitalism" as well as John Perkins "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man."
I have a very strong feeling from this book and others, that the era of "out of control" capitalism is drawing to an end. We may even see the end of the corporation as a separate legal personality in the next 12 years. The transparency of information that is available when people attach themselves leech-like to a corporation and hold it accountable (see my review of "No Logo") is creating a powerful antidote against the Enrons and Exxons and Wal-Marts of the world who bribe elites and screw over the publics on both ends. I also see Wall Street losing its ability to "explode the client" (see my review of "Liar's Poker"). A great deal of good will be done in the next quarter century, and it will come from a combination of good government and educated engaged citizens working together across all boundaries.
Very Pleasing to Read (Even for a Proletariat like Me).......2006-06-25
I read this book for a graduate-level economics course. It's not an "Econ for Dummys" book, but it really enightens the reader about the history of economics in the 20th Century. It's smart and straight-forward. The author does not interject his personal perspectives, which is nice. He just puts it out there. A definite must-read for those entering the field of economics/history.
Product Description
The bestselling author of No Logo shows how the global free market has exploited crises and shock for three decades, from Chile to Iraq
In her groundbreaking reporting over the past few years, Naomi Klein introduced the term disaster capitalism. Whether covering Baghdad after the U.S. occupation, Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami, or New Orleans post-Katrina, she witnessed something remarkably similar. People still reeling from catastrophe were being hit again, this time with economic shock treatment, losing their land and homes to rapid-fire corporate makeovers.
The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman s free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement s peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and extreme violence in order to implement its economic policies in so many parts of the world from Latin America and Eastern Europe to South Africa, Russia, and Iraq.
At the core of disaster capitalism is the use of cataclysmic events to advance radical privatization combined with the privatization of the disaster response itself. Klein argues that by capitalizing on crises, created by nature or war, the disaster capitalism complex now exists as a booming new economy, and is the violent culmination of a radical economic project that has been incubating for fifty years.
Customer Reviews:
Reveals the anti-democratic underbelly of neoliberal economics.......2007-10-07
I've been listening to the (abridged) audio version of Ms. Klein's book over the past week. I suspect the parallels she draws between electroshock therapy, torture, and economic "reforms" may alienate those on the ideological right.
That said, this is an important book, in that it documents (for a lay audience) the anti-democratic (and anti-social) nature of so-called "neoliberalism." Hayek and Friedman may well have held human freedom as their highest goal, but their inability, their unwillingness to see past their narrow ideology, their fetishism of capital and the individual, led them to promote some of the most violently anti-democratic and anti-freedom policies the world has seen since feudalism.
As Ms. Klein documents, the so-called "freedom" of Friedman's free-market economics has been - and still is - repeatedly (and quite predictably) abused by the few who have the connections and capital to play in that system.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then Friedman and Hayek's absolutist views on the world corrupted them and their followers so absolutely that they refuse to acknowledge the great violence they have done to the goal of human liberation.
Many thanks to Ms. Klein for taking the time and effort to document this travesty for those of us who did not join that cult.
Every American Should Read This Book .......2007-10-07
This book illustrates the context in which we all live. We are all wrapped up in it, and we have to find a way out. The solution the neoliberals and the neocons advocate - privatize, give handouts to corporations, overthrow democracies at home and abroad, wage wars, create crisis, and/or wait for crisis to happen (Katrina), are not only violations of human rights (including the right not to be tortured), but they are not sustainable and have to be stopped. Naomi Klein details the history of neoliberalism from Chile in 1973 to Iraq right now, providing clear and accessible examples, well researched and painfully beautiful sentences that bring home the many wrongs committed by the US in the name of Economic Policy and the Free Market - the only thing truly free is the market, people are of little matter, they can be shocked, their democracies can be intentionally overthrown in order to make their countries more hospitable to American Corporations and if the people should happen to fight back, to speak out, they can be tortured, killed, and disappeared. This book has changed my life. I know one solution to the context of oppression, fear, domination, endless war-creating-for-private-US/Western-profit, is to stop buying things that come from those profiting from neoliberal policies and goals. It won't be easy, because so many corporations are involved in so many ways, but it is a goal that I will strive toward.
Under-rated.......2007-10-07
This is far and away the seminal book of the past several months. I don't feel the points it makes were always presented in a clear cut, easily digestible manner, which is why I did not give it 5 stars. But the ideas so very strong, at times bordering on genius.
Recommended.
Social Trauma.......2007-10-07
As Ms Klein explains, "Shock Doctrine" is about the exploitation of natural disasters and man-made trauma as a philosophy of power.Her book provides an important resource for anyone interested in and/or affected by the political and economic consequences of individual and social trauma.
Anngwyn St.Just Ph.D. Director of the Arizona Center for Social Trauma and author of " Relative Balance in an Unstable World: The Search for New Models for Trauma Education and Recovery( 2006 Carl-Auer Verlag, Heidelberg )
BUYERS BEWARE!!!.......2007-10-07
BUYERS BEWARE!!!!
Do not waste your valuable time or your hard earned money on this book!
What a disappointment.
Customer Reviews:
guide to an anti-fascist life.......2007-05-10
While studying philosophy at university, I was fortunate enough to have read this book. Some years hence, I am now middle management at a Fortune 500 company (it's very strange to me), and have just recently re-read it. The ideas about egalitarian models of leadership in this book are almost solely responsible for allowing me to remain a fundamentally good person. Without this book, I know there would have been instances where I would have done things unthinkingly and in error.
Amazing Stories.......2007-01-08
Although Deleuze and Guattari are usually invoked as part of a "postmodernist" litany, this work is refreshingly different from most postwar French theory. Derrida and Foucault, for all their revolutionary ambitions, are fairly traditional *maitre-penseurs*: the expectation is that you have a tip-top understanding of Hegel and other historical heavyweights, the better to appreciate their reversal. By contrast, *Anti-Oedipus* resembles nothing so much as the "philosophical" part of a work of hip science fiction: the line of argument is neither dialectically nor formally elaborated, but asserts only its plausibility in the context of the world being evoked.
I say this as a form of praise: in fact, unless you are (somewhat foolishly) expecting that an "intimate" knowledge of this book will advance your academic fortunes, your reading doesn't have to be especially careful to get something useful out of the book. As for its relation to thinkers who are properly venerated in the academy, it is (for all its contrariness) more accepting of Freud and Marx than most contemporary discourse is, so it actually isn't all that devastating a critique of them. But the enthusiasm they display for new hypotheses about these two is infectious: this is a book that makes you want to read *more* economics and psychology, not slam your head against the wall in protest against the impossibility of all understanding.
In the theory of schizophrenia advanced here, the "clinical" schizophrenic is carefully marked off from their treatment of schizophrenia as a process, so the anti-psychiatric implications of the book are only of the most general kind. Furthermore, a great deal of this process is elaborated with respect to imaginative literature by eccentric writers, not case studies of the clinically ill. But this means the results are not fundamentally incompatible with a contemporary understanding of psychotic illnesses: what opposes their resituation of schizoid desire as located at the most basic levels of work and social interaction are the normative intentions of those who study and control (or simply detest) the mentally ill, not scientific findings per se.
A thought-provoking book requiring no "theory" masochism to enjoy.
Oh god.......2006-07-03
What a dialectical post-modern absurdity that is the meaning of the life of some random people, clumped together in a multiplicity of neo-Neitzschean thought-waves.
Get what you will from this book, it is wordy--on purpose--and was written to try to piss you off. You may or may not get pissed off, but you will certainly take away something from this book: either a) it is stupid and so is D+G, or b) it is a solid critique of Freud and all those globe-controlling institutions that subliminally followed in his footsteps.
Original, brilliant... insightful, but distorted in perspective........2006-02-04
Why am I giving this book a five star rating? Because this work is an effort at a new theory that is systematic and terminologically consistent and must have been a torture for the writers to conjure up in their head.
It certainly is a torture to read this work. Not because I can't understand hard-core philosophy - I have read, understood and liked Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre and Derrida, considered amongst the most abstruse stylists - but because it is difficult to empathize with writers who characterize themselves and their readers as 'desiring machines' rather than as subjects with consciousness and will.
Is desire the only thing that defines human beings - what about will, thinking, compassion, judgment? And further why am I supposed to be a machine and in what sense? These are the questions that came to my mind. The authors never explain. The question of the subject is dismissed in one sentence.
It is also difficult to agree with writers who dismiss all seeking of power and all active resistance by implication as fascism and preach escape/flight as the most radical ideology of resistance and hope.
And it is difficult to find hope in the vain jargon of molecular vs. molar, in the lines of escape or flight, or in a schizoid approach to life (a schizophrenic has no control over himself - is a machine and hence is the authors' favorite).
The authors fail in their synthesis of Marx and Freud although they come close and fail to understand Nietzsche, one of their favorite philosophers. Marx, Freud and Nietzsche would turn violently in their graves, if they ever know what Deleuze/Guattari did to their philosophies. They speculations on incest, kinship etc., are just too weak, sketchy and merely assertoric to be taken seriously.
I do not endorse the philosophy of Deleuze/Guattari. To be sure they offer brilliant insights but their line of argument has as many holes as Swiss cheese.
Yet there are a few things that are brilliant in the work and it certainly remains an original and challenging work. Having, stated my disappointment with the work, now let me also state the better aspects of this work. This work has a very well argued theory of control mechanisms in primitive, barbarian and capitalist societies.
The authors rightly point out that capitalism governs well because it always generates new rules to survive (new axiomatic) and controls because all social codes are 'decoded' (de-codified) into flows (loose, lawlike systems of control) and de-territorialized. (Other writers have explained the same things in simpler jargon, but Deleuze-Guattari need to be given due credit for the brilliance of their analysis of capitalism, although their libidnalization of economics doesn't add anything valueable to the analysis of either libido or economics and seems forced).
The other hallmark of this work is that it offers one of the more interesting critiques of Freud's Oedipal complex, psychotherapy and its role in making humans conformist. They demolish the Daddy-Mommy-Me triangle and its implications in making us conformists quite effectively.
However, it may be borne in mind that there have been better criticisms of Freud's theories and Deleuze/Guattari are in some respects more Freudian than Freud with their libidinal interpretations of human beings as desiring machines and of economy as investment of desire (libidnal economy).
To sum up, this work is worth reading for its analysis of capitalism, and to some extent for its critique of psychoanalysis. However this is not a work that offers hope for the oppressed or an agenda for political action although followers of Deleuze/Guattari like Antonio Negri and Alain Badiou take their philosophy in a more positive direction. The best portion is the third section, followed by second. The least satisfactory portions and the last and the first, although they are essential to read in order to understand the relevant middle portion of the work.
And of course human beings are not desiring machines no matter what Deleuze/Guattari say. Beyond a metaphor, machinism is delusory. We are what we are. Happy to be human and animal rather than machines. Much as post-structuralist and post-modernists dismiss the question of the subject, the question remains - alive and active and kicking.
Good Book.......2005-11-29
This one is classic. I read it first, a long time ago, before I read A Thousand Plateaus. ATP is a lot more accessible. I recommend that you read Eugene Holland's commentary on Anti-Oedipus while you read D&G. And, by the way, there is a new Deleuze Dictionary out that is very useful. On the other hand, it is fun to read D&G when you have no idea what the hell they are going on about. If you do then you have to work hard and be more creative, really making the book your own. I think that was D&G's intention. They make themselves almost impossible to use (in a name-dropping way) superficially. If one does that, then one just ends up sounding like an idiot.
Customer Reviews:
Fascinating historical perspective on capitalism.......2003-01-15
Details of microscopic granularity make this tome a pleasure. A breadth of trivial details (did you know that 16th century Paris tried to dress streetwalkers in Indian calico to reduce the demand for this import? did you know speculators became wealthy gambling on the outcome of the Revolutionary War? did you know that herrings were bought before they were caught in 1688?) that presage the modern financial markets. If you enjoyed Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay, Bernard M. Baruch you will enjoy this dense work.
Book Description
The subject of The Wheels of Commerce is the development of mechanisms of exchange--shops, markets, trade networks, and banking--in the pre-industrial stages of capitalism.
Customer Reviews:
One of the best books I will ever read.......2007-04-08
Wow, by far one of the best books that I have ever read. I usually do not like history because I prefer to be more proactive and immersed in today's world. But the clarity on our society's current situation that this book gives by examining the roots of the movement to capitalism is incredible and was so worth my time that I had to take a week's vacation off work in order to make sure that I could focus to read this. The writing conveys only one thing - complete clarity into the world today. It is an incredible opus; I loved it.
There is no easy answer to the challenges we humans face in organizing and creating a shared activity to enable the greatest overall productivity and happiness. The evolution of humanity during the early Renaissance years provides the explanation for where and why we are organized in this way today. Understanding this time in this way (through the lens of the economics of that time period) gives a much greater appreciation for the world today that we have constructed. The most core problems of humanity - social mobility, equitable distribution of resources, stability, and collective cooperation, have never (and may never) become solvable. This book explains these dynamics so eloquently that I wish I had time to read it again and again - much like a great adventure novel that as a kid you just wished would never end and felt a real loss once it did and you had to re-emerge into the real world around you.
Braudel is phenomenal in his depth of understanding about how society of the 15-18th centuries operated. I can't recommend it more highly.
Very Annalesesque.......2006-06-09
In The Wheels of Commerce, Fernand Braudel deftly blended history and economics with the result that neither suffers. His goal in this book, the second volume in his Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, was "to analyse the machinery of exchange as a whole, from primitive barter up to and including the most sophisticated capitalism" (21). In the process of examining this machinery of exchange, Braudel also proposed an ambitious thesis concerning the origins of capitalism. The book itself is a monumental work, an impressive combination of statistical analyses and illustrations from primary sources.
Braudel's first two chapters, "The Instruments of Exchange" and "Markets and the Economy," investigated the role of circulation. In chapter one, he concentrated on the mechanisms by which goods (and money) were traded. Braudel explained that markets and shops were at the bottom of the world of commerce. Markets took place once or twice a week, and shops were open everyday. Fairs, the wholesale markets, were on the higher level. Participants traded large amounts of goods and settled their accounts at the end. Braudel pointed out the importance of fairs in the development of capitalism: "The fair itself created credit" (91). If one merchant had a negative trade balance with another merchant, he would either offer a bill of exchange (a promise of payment on another exchange) or defer payment with interest until another fair. Additionally, these bills of exchange could be sold to a third party if necessary, introducing speculation. The trading mechanisms of the fair were eventually consolidated into the large exchanges of cities like Amsterdam and London, and eventually these exchanges grew into the stock markets. Chapter two investigated the manner in which merchants engaged in trade. Braudel stressed the importance of trading circuits and the use of paper (especially in the form of bills of exchange) for profitability. One of the key ideas in this chapter is the role of distance on price. Price was not set solely by supply and demand, but was also affected by the distance the product had to travel. His insight into system was helpful. "Any capitalist market has a series of links in a chain, and somewhere near the middle there is a point higher and more remunerative than the rest" (193).
The next two chapters, "Capitalism Away from Home" and "Capitalism on Home Ground," dealt primarily with issues regarding production. Chapter three dealt with what could be considered the lower world of production. One of the key issues that Braudel explicated was the role of fixed and circulating capital. The fixed capital that was invested in production was tied up in equipment and other items, while the circulating capital was more liquid and included wages. Braudel also investigated the role of land in production and capitalism, noting: "The great landowner was not a capitalist, but he was a tool and a collaborator in the service of capitalism" (271). He also focused on the peculiarities of production in these pre-industrial years. In chapter four, Braudel investigated the higher world of production. His explanation of the development of banking practices, which would fund production, was illuminating, as was his discussion on the development of companies from private family business to joint stock companies.
Though the book focused on capitalism's development in Europe, Braudel integrated discussions on other geographical locales as well. Braudel did not present Europe as arriving at its capitalist system in a vacuum. He noted the role that other cultures had in aiding the formation of the European model, not just through trade, but also through Europe's adoption of foreign innovation. However, Braudel surprisingly downplayed the importance of double-entry book-keeping to the emergence of capitalism. He asserted that the practice did not spread quickly and was not universally adopted, giving notable examples (574).
Even though successful merchants were found all over the world during this time period (especially in Islamic lands that provided them with a favorable status), full-blown capitalism developed first in Europe. Braudel attempted to provide an explanation as to why this was the case. His thesis regarding this matter is the raison d'ýtre of the book. Braudel believed that three conditions were necessary for the emergence of capitalism. The first was a "vigorous and expanding market economy" (600). Braudel noted that many regions fulfilled this qualification. The second necessity, which hindered many prime candidates, was a strong hierarchy was necessary. This hierarchy encouraged the accumulation of wealth. Landed positions were not hereditary in India, China, and Islamic lands making the nobility's position precarious and the accumulation of wealth difficult. Braudel only mentioned two areas that fulfilled these first two necessities: Europe and Japan. However, Japan closed herself off to world trade, the third necessity. Braudel noted, "Long-distance trading ... was the only doorway to a superior profit level" (601). Braudel's case is a compelling one that must be addressed by anyone investigating this topic.
The Wheels of Commerce is immense, but immensely readable. Braudel portrayed for his reader a heady, exciting Europe, one in which the prime goal was to spend money faster than it could be made. However, even during his descriptions of the dizzying pace at which money was circulated, Braudel did not lose sight of his objective. His scope was large, but he remained precise in both style and purpose, obviating the befuddlement of the layperson (which I confess to being). The book is a balanced work, exhibiting a variety of historical methods. Braudel made extensive use of statistics and mathematical models (the book contains a plethora of charts and tables), but he also included numerous narratives regarding business practices of the time (demonstrating an astonishing knowledge of the primary sources). Because of the attention with which he supported his claims, historians of all stripes can admire this book.
Finally, the student of economic history should not overlook one of the finer aspects of The Wheels of Commerce. This book contains over 120 excellent illustrations from the 15th-18th centuries. The pictures, which vary from woodblock prints to oil paintings, depict the lives of those involved in commerce at the time. Not only do the abundant illustrations make this book a more attractive read, but also they provide the book with a certain level of completeness, giving the reader more tools by which he or she can comprehend the emergence of capitalism in Europe
Capitaliism, trade and globalization explained.......2006-05-17
There are various pretenders to the throne of explaining globalization, such as Thomas Friedman's recent The World Is Flat, but all such efforts seem shallow and pallid compared to the masterwork of the genre, Fernamd Braudel's trilogy Civilization & Capitalism, 15th - 18th Century (The Structure
General
| 20th Century
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
On The Wealth of Nations (Books That Changed the World)
The Age of Abundance: How Prosperity Transformed America's Politics and Culture
Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction
The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies
The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party
