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A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

admin — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:16:10 +0000

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From the renowned director of the British Museum, a kaleidoscopic history of humanity told through things we have made.

When did people first start to wear jewelry or play music? When were cows domesticated and why do we feed their milk to our children? Where were the first cities and what made them succeed? Who invented math-or came up with money?

The history of humanity is a history of invention and innovation, as we have continually created new items to use, to admire, or to leave our mark on the world. In this original and thought-provoking book, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, has selected one hundred man-made artifacts, each of which gives us an intimate glimpse of an unexpected turning point in human civilization. A History of the World in 100 Objects stretches back two million years and covers the globe. From the very first hand axe to the ubiquitous credit card, each item has a story to tell; together they relate the larger history of mankind-revealing who we are by looking at what we have made.

Handsomely designed, with more than 150 color photographs throughout the text, A History of the World in 100 Objects is a gorgeous reading book and makes a great gift for anyone interested in history.

Editorial Review

In A History of the World in 100 Objects, Neal MacGregor, director of the British Museum, takes readers on a tour of the world by way of its material goods. From everyday items such as pots, utensils, and money to valuables such as art and jewelry, MacGregor shows that the things humans have left behind are often as rich and informative as written texts. Whether it’s a strange and unique object like a throne made of rifles from Mozambique or a medieval German crystal, or a familiar one like a sculpture of the head of Augustus or Hokusai’s painting The Great Wave, MacGregor skillfully weaves each one into the fabric of the society that it came from. In that sense, the book is much more than a museum catalog: it’s a hundred keyhole views into a hundred different societies from around the world and throughout history. – Amazon.Com Review

Reader Review

One of the joys of being resident in the UK is the presence of the wonderful BBC Radio 4 a channel with which listeners have a true lifelong love affair. To Dear American chums a quick scan across the internet to the BBC “i” player will find this rich source and life will be all the better for it. Radio 4 challenges, it provokes and gets as near to that much sought after but rarely achieved quality “the heart of the matter” as is humanly possible (the probing questions of presenters on the Today programme makes me think that democracy still has a fighting chance). The channel also carries many brilliant series of which “A History of the World in 100 Objects” by Neil MacGregor is a prime example, even the trailers leading up to its broadcast in January this year were great. What a pleasure therefore to have copy in the written word of this weighty book (738 pages) to accompany the series and to revisit the passion and authority of Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum and cultivator of fabulous facts.

The whole premise underpinning this epic journey was predicated on a wicked idea conceived by Mark Damazer, then head of Radio 4 to challenge our hugely knowledgeable bods at the British Museum to undertake a somewhat mischievous and loaded exercise. Indeed on the surface any attempt to tell a rather large tale like the history of the world over a modest 2 million years in this manner seems like a piece of First Class honours inspired lunacy. “Baby and bathwater” is the phrase that comes to mind and even if the radio series and the following book were outright bilge you would at least have to give Neil MacGregor three stars for accepting the challenge and embracing with gusto the humongous concept. Yet he succeeds triumphantly and as the BBC blurb states he sets out in copious detail the sheer importance of “A chipped stone that was one of the first things ever made by human hands; a clay tablet telling the story of the great flood centuries before the Bible; a broken hunter’s spear dropped by one of the earliest settlers in America; a hoard of gold abandoned in the Wars of the Roses … every object tells a story” The use of this quote shows just how bloody difficult it is to summarize the sheer diversity of the subject matter and scale of the challenge that the author faced. I frankly remain in awe of his herculean task not least of all for his chapter on the English pepper pot dating from 350 BC which should be required reading for every child of school age. Most of all he understands the true value of encyclopaedic knowledge, in short the ability to illuminate through a fine selection of the facts while at the same time employing the skills of the story teller and then re-connecting his narratives with the present.

Certainly it is true that the hugely hyped and momentous unveiling of THE one object that defines the modern age was somewhat of a disappointment (I will not spoil it – read the book). That said you suspect that MacGregor probably faced the same horrific challenge as Douglas Adams encountered in “The Hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy” coming up with something simple but clever enough to answer the Ultimate Question. Anyway give him a break since he was probably in need of a rest by this time.

To his eternal credit it is understood that as a result of the radio series and now this book, citizens of our curious nation have been flocking to Bloomsbury to seek out the hereto unknown treasures/pleasures of the British Museum and examine for themselves the Mexican ceremonial ballgame belt (AD100-500) and yes the good old pepperpot. Satisfying the other key factor of the whole exercise is that some of more obvious choices that he could have gone for are ignored at the expense of the more quirky but equally illustrative. This then is a wonderful book, full of lavish illustrations and crystal clear maps. And yes I know that times are hard and deep cuts stalk the land but “A History of the World in 100 Objects” by Neil MacGregor is a fairly priced volume full of unparalleled treasure and should be included on all lists heading up the chimney to Santa in the next few months. – Red on Black, Amazon.Com Customer Review

A Global History, Told Through ’100 Objects’

NPR Book Review – November 5, 2011 (Excerpt)

Sometimes it’s the little things that tell the best story. Across the ages, everyday items like plates, pots and even pipes have stood the test of time — and they are just as integral to our history as any monument or cathedral.

A new book takes a selection of these everyday objects and weaves their stories together to tell the ultimate story — a history of the world. In A History of the World in 100 Objects, author Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum, culled 100 artifacts from his museum’s collection to help him with the task.

“The whole project is an absurd one, obviously,” MacGregor tells NPR’s Scott Simon. “To try to tell a history of the world anyway, let alone in 100 objects.”

To tackle such a daunting challenge, MacGregor first established some ground rules. He decided to start at the very beginning — with the museum’s oldest object — and select artifacts through the present day. Within the 2-million-year interim, MacGregor and his team made sure to regularly select objects from different continents.

“We’d keep trying to go around the world so that we would keep spinning the globe at different moments and see what people are up to,” he says. [Read the full article...]

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/11/a-history-of-the-world-in-100-objects-by-neil-macgregor/

Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman by Robert K. Massie

admin — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:16:08 +0000

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The Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Peter the Great, Nicholas and Alexandra, and The Romanovs returns with another masterpiece of narrative biography, the extraordinary story of an obscure young German princess who traveled to Russia at fourteen and rose to become one of the most remarkable, powerful, and captivating women in history.

Born into a minor noble family, Catherine transformed herself into Empress of Russia by sheer determination. Possessing a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity as a young woman, she devoured the works of Enlightenment philosophers and, when she reached the throne, attempted to use their principles to guide her rule of the vast and backward Russian empire. She knew or corresponded with the preeminent historical figures of her time: Voltaire, Diderot, Frederick the Great, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, Marie Antoinette, and, surprisingly, the American naval hero, John Paul Jones.

Reaching the throne fired by Enlightenment philosophy and determined to become the embodiment of the “benevolent despot” idealized by Montesquieu, she found herself always contending with the deeply ingrained realities of Russian life, including serfdom. She persevered, and for thirty-four years the government, foreign policy, cultural development, and welfare of the Russian people were in her hands. She dealt with domestic rebellion, foreign wars, and the tidal wave of political change and violence churned up by the French Revolution that swept across Europe. Her reputation depended entirely on the perspective of the speaker. She was praised by Voltaire as the equal of the greatest of classical philosophers; she was condemned by her enemies, mostly foreign, as “the Messalina of the north.”

Catherine’s family, friends, ministers, generals, lovers, and enemies—all are here, vividly described. These included her ambitious, perpetually scheming mother; her weak, bullying husband, Peter (who left her lying untouched beside him for nine years after their marriage); her unhappy son and heir, Paul; her beloved grandchildren; and her “favorites”—the parade of young men from whom she sought companionship and the recapture of youth as well as sex. Here, too, is the giant figure of Gregory Potemkin, her most significant lover and possible husband, with whom she shared a passionate correspondence of love and separation, followed by seventeen years of unparalleled mutual achievement.

The story is superbly told. All the special qualities that Robert K. Massie brought to Nicholas and Alexandra and Peter the Great are present here: historical accuracy, depth of understanding, felicity of style, mastery of detail, ability to shatter myth, and a rare genius for finding and expressing the human drama in extraordinary lives.

History offers few stories richer in drama than that of Catherine the Great. In this book, this eternally fascinating woman is returned to life.

Editorial Review

Once upon a time, there was a minor German princess named Sophia. She went on to become the world’s richest and most powerful woman, ruler of its then-largest empire, revered as “Catherine the Great.” Her accomplishments and shortcomings as an autocrat and a woman make for a remarkable saga, and though many have tried, there may be no better author to take on the daunting task of chronicling than Robert K. Massie, a seasoned biographer of the 400-year Romanov dynasty, most notably with Peter the Great: His Life and World, which won a 1981 Pulitzer Prize. Massie situates Catherine’s early life and three-decade reign amidst the tumult of the European Enlightenment, enriching his own narrative with telling excerpts of her letters and rich discussions of her political environment and personal motivations. The result is an utterly memorable book, a towering accomplishment, one of the year’s best in any genre. –Jason Kirk, Amazon.Com Review

Reader Review

I really enjoyed this biography of Catherine the Great. Like Robert K. Massie’s other biographies, *Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman* is well-researched and well-written. His deep connection and understanding of the ways of Imperial Russia are strangely effortless. He steps into his subject’s world and takes us there, too.

I was immediately struck by the way Massie made Catherine *accessible.* I felt empathy for her — an empathy I didn’t feel before. The story of her hideous marriage to Grand Duke Peter has been portrayed often in film and in print. All sources agree he was a monster who preferred his mistress to his wife, was scarred mentally as well as physically by small pox, and had he lived, would have gutted the Russian Orthodox Church — and probably brought down an entire empire. *Portrait of a Woman* shows not only how badly Catherine was treated by her so-called “husband” but also how quickly she learned the *game* of the Imperial Court. Catherine was beautiful and intelligent — and frankly, a better ruler than Peter could ever have been. She was well-read and well-educated in a time when most women couldn’t read or write. In order to survive in the court, she spent years honing her skills in diplomacy. When her husband didn’t produce an heir, she found a lover who would. I felt compassion for this Catherine, *because* she was resourceful and *because* she took action when it was needed. And some of those actions as Empress were taken with her subjects in mind.

Reading *Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman,* allowed me to rediscover a strong, intelligent woman who wanted to bring her Imperial Russia *forward.* In 1768, she and her son Paul were inoculated with small pox — hoping to show her subjects that there was a way to avoid getting a devastating case of the disease. This small act of bravery on her part was completely overshadowed by the epidemic of bubonic plague which decimated the population of Moscow and eventually led to rioting. How could I have forgotten these important pieces of history? And yet, I had. There are no new answers regarding the murder of Grand Duke Peter — did she or didn’t she? And as to Catherine’s relationships with other men in her life, it becomes apparent that there was always that underlying, chafing question of balance of power. (But on the whole, she had good relationships with her lovers; and she rewarded their loyalty.) Her own son, Paul, hated her — believing that she’d murdered his father, when he wasn’t Grand Duke Peter’s son in the first place. Paul punished her after her death by reinstating the right of male succession only.

Massie reintroduced me to the very human Catherine, who so loved her dogs that she had a special cemetery created for them at Tsarskoe Selo, And this flawed, yet generous Empress once made a gift of an expensive diamond ring to a serf — in spite of the uproar it caused. And finally, Catherine, who enjoyed books, reading and philosophy, purchased Voltaire’s library of books from his niece after he died. I liked seeing this side of Catherine the Great. I needed to be reminded that her passions and loves were varied as my own are varied.

I spent my weekend immersed in *Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman.* I was transported into Catherine’s life — and into a rich, harsh, ugly, beautiful, lost past. Massie’s latest biography joins *Nicholas Alexandra,* *Peter the Great: His Life and World,* and *The Romanovs: The Final Chapter* as must-have books about the rulers of Imperial Russia. – Kayla Rigney, Amazon.Com Customer Review

Catherine The Great: First She Read, Then She Ruled

NPR Book Review – November 5, 2011 (Excerpt)

How did a German princess from a minor noble family become the empress of Russia, and win the praise of Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot and other giants of The Enlightenment? In Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman, Robert Massie explains the story of Catherine II, who ruled Russia for 34 years.

So how does a German teenager become the empress of Russia?

“That is what makes this such a great story,” Massie tells NPR’s Scott Simon. Empress Elizabeth — daughter of Peter the Great — couldn’t have children. Her nephew, who became Peter III, was raised in Germany, so Elizabeth reached out to his distant cousin — young, German Catherine — to be Peter’s wife, Massie explains.

The marriage wasn’t a happy one. “Peter was a very strange man, to put it mildly,” Massie says. “He was childish into his late adolescence, and he was strange throughout his life.”

Peter played with little toy soldiers all the time — and wasn’t particularly interested in his wife. “He was glad to see her, because she was German and he was German,” Massie says. “But he had no romantic or sexual interest in her at all.”

For the nearly two decades before she became empress, Catherine endured a miserable marriage; her husband didn’t pay attention to her, and she was under constant pressure from the empress to produce a child. To escape, she began to read. [Read the full article...]

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/11/catherine-the-great-portrait-of-a-woman-by-robert-k-massie/

Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics by Steven J. Ross

admin — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:16:05 +0000

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In Hollywood Left and Right, Steven J. Ross tells a story that has escaped public attention: the emergence of Hollywood as a vital center of political life and the important role that movie stars have played in shaping the course of American politics.

Ever since the film industry relocated to Hollywood early in the twentieth century, it has had an outsized influence on American politics. Through compelling larger-than-life figures in American cinema–Charlie Chaplin, Louis B. Mayer, Edward G. Robinson, George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, and Arnold Schwarzenegger–Hollywood Left and Right reveals how the film industry’s engagement in politics has been longer, deeper, and more varied than most people would imagine. As shown in alternating chapters, the Left and the Right each gained ascendancy in Tinseltown at different times. From Chaplin, whose movies almost always displayed his leftist convictions, to Schwarzenegger’s nearly seamless transition from action blockbusters to the California governor’s mansion, Steven J. Ross traces the intersection of Hollywood and political activism from the early twentieth century to the present.

Hollywood Left and Right challenges the commonly held belief that Hollywood has always been a bastion of liberalism. The real story, as Ross shows in this passionate and entertaining work, is far more complicated. First, Hollywood has a longer history of conservatism than liberalism. Second, and most surprising, while the Hollywood Left was usually more vocal and visible, the Right had a greater impact on American political life, capturing a senate seat (Murphy), a governorship (Schwarzenegger), and the ultimate achievement, the Presidency (Reagan).

Book review: ‘Hollywood Left and Right: How Movie Stars Shaped American Politics’ by Steven J. Ross

The Chicago Tribune Book Review – November 5, 2011 (Excerpt)

Republicans take heart: Hollywood is not as liberal as you think. Steven J. Ross convincingly shows in “Hollywood Left and Right” that since its early days, the movie industry has been as quietly conservative as publicly liberal. After all, where did Ronald Reagancome from?

Reagan may be the most successful actor-turned-politician, but Ross makes the case that his transition owes much to George Murphy and the conservative legacy built by Louis B. Mayer at MGM. Mayer was an up-from-nothing immigrant who became a titan ruling Hollywood’s grandest studio back when the studio system was Hollywood. He also turned his ambitions to politics: He was chair of the California Republican Party, and his friendship with Herbert Hoover led him to be the first Hollywood executive to spend a night in the White House. He had no compunctions about combining work and politics: He brought on executive secretary Ida Koverman, who served as a political tutor and liaison, and he required MGM staff to contribute to the causes he chose. His efforts nurtured the thinking and political career of Murphy, who became head of the Screen Actors Guild and U.S. senator and in turn served as mentor to Reagan, who went from heading SAG to governor of California and president.

Ross combines biographical sketches with detailed political history of 10 Hollywood figures, five left and five right, to show that the dream factory has been equally devoted to politics on both sides of the aisle. He moves chronologically, beginning with Charlie Chaplin (left) and following with Mayer (right),Edward G. Robinson (left), Murphy (right) and Reagan (left to right), Harry Belafonte (left), Jane Fonda (left), Charlton Heston (left to right),Warren Beatty (left) and Arnold Schwarzenegger (right). [Read the full article...]

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/11/hollywood-left-and-right-how-movie-stars-shaped-american-politics-by-steven-j-ross/

Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York by James Wolcott

admin — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:11:35 +0000

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“How lucky I was, arriving in New York just as everything was about to go to hell.”

That would be in the autumn of 1972, when a very young and green James Wolcott arrived from Maryland, full of literary dreams, equipped with a letter of introduction from Norman Mailer, and having no idea what was about to hit him. Landing at a time of accelerating municipal squalor and, paradoxically, gathering cultural energy in all spheres as “Downtown” became a category of art and life unto itself, he embarked upon his sentimental education, seventies New York style.

This portrait of a critic as a young man is also a rollicking, acutely observant portrait of a legendary time and place. Wolcott was taken up by fabled film critic Pauline Kael as one of her “Paulettes” and witnessed the immensely vital film culture of the period. He became an early observer-participant in the nascent punk scene at CBGB, mixing with Patti Smith, Lester Bangs, and Tom Verlaine. As a Village Voice writer he got an eyeful of the literary scene when such giants as Mailer, Gore Vidal, and George Plimpton strode the earth, and writing really mattered.

A beguiling mixture of Kafka Was the Rage and Please Kill Me, this memoir is a sharp-eyed rendering, at once intimate and shrewdly distanced, of a fabled milieu captured just before it slips into myth. Mixing grit and glitter in just the right proportions, suffused with affection for the talented and sometimes half-crazed denizens of the scene, it will make readers long for a time when you really could get mugged around here.

About James Wolcott

JAMES WOLCOTT is the longtime culture critic for Vanity Fair and a blogger for the magazine. He is the author of a novel, The Catsitters, and the nonfiction work Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants. He lives in New York.

Editorial Reviews

“Longtime Vanity Fair cultural critic Wolcott (Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants, 2004, etc.) celebrates the Big Apple as a haven for the writers, artists, musicians and eccentrics who thrived at its core in the 1970s. Of the many sentences in Wolcott’s memoir that will have contemporary Manhattan-philes gnashing their teeth in envy is this one recounting how the author dealt with losing his on-site staff job at the Village Voice: “From that point onward I never worked a regular office job again, solely writing for a living, something that would have been impossible if New York hadn’t been a city of low rents and crappy expectations that didn’t require a trust fund or a six-figure income for the privilege of watching everything fall apart before your eyes.” Actually, the entire book is not only a bittersweet valentine to a much-maligned era but a model of exemplary prose that any writer would do well to study. Wolcott’s talent for choosing words, shaping sentences, constructing paragraphs and crafting each of the five sections into an essay that stands on its own reveals an architectonic approach lacking in many current memoirs. The author also understands how to apply his individual experiences to the larger context of the zeitgeist. For example, the section entitled “Bodily Contact” weaves personal encounters into a critique of “Me Decade” sexual mores, drawing on Bob Fosse films, the seedy atmosphere of pre–tourist friendly Times Square, the emerging gay-rights movement and concerns about the dark side of the pick-up culture prevalent at both straight and gay bars. Wolcott also rubbed shoulders with the luminaries of the day, including his mentor, the rabble-rousing author Norman Mailer, punk songstress Patti Smith and legendary movie critic Pauline Kael. His poignant reminiscences of Kael pave the way for the book’s plaintive conclusion. Gives the lie to the belief that the ’70s contained nothing but disco decadence and self-help solipsism.” —Kirkus Reviews

“No fan of memoirs, Vanity Fair cultural critic Wolcott has nonetheless written one about his wonder years in New York City in the 1970s. Given his role as tastemaker in writing about music, movies, television, and books, Wolcott presents both a self-portrait as a novice arts journalist and a portrait gallery of the scene makers during the heyday of consequences-be-damned criticism. With some offhand encouragement from Norman Mailer, Wolcott quixotically quit college, moved to New York, and badgered his way into a job at the then enormously influential Village Voice. His hilarious account of his trial by fire at this veritable “gladiator school” for journalism is acidly revealing of the dynamics at work in crisis-riddled New York, a crucible for gutsy creativity. Wolcott incisively celebrates such key figures as Patti Smith and David Byrne, caustically annihilates prominent writers, and praises to the skies his guiding light, film critic extraordinaire Pauline Kael. A work of mettlesome personal remembrance and piercing cultural history, Wolcott’s electrifying tale of the forging of a writer can also serve as a course on writing laser-precise and propulsive prose.” —Booklist

“Lucking Out is a sleek, funny memoir of James Wolcott’s adventures as a freelance writer in the seventies. Wolcott and I shared that decade and those deadlines, so I can attest to the veracity of his tone and tempo, to the gaga adrenaline rush of writing about everything all the time: Stiv Bators in the morning, Balanchine that afternoon, Mailer from midnight to dawn, then a nap before David Hockney—all alone we were, up in the treetops, floating from limb to limb like flying squirrels with tigers down below. This rough joy is borne out in Wolcott’s bubbling pace, in his invariable preference for amusing modesty over mythological grandeur, and, most admirably, in the delicate candor with which he treats the cruelty and competitive savagery of that decade in New York—vicious but fair would be my characterization. For myself I am happy to be reminded that, once upon a time, we were not only quick and funny but kind of brave as well.”—Dave Hickey, author of Air Guitar

Reader Review

Is the modest title of James Wolcott’s “Lucking Out” a discreet rebuke to Norman Podhoeretz’s bullish “Making It”? I suspect so.

“Lucking Out — Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York” (full title) — is a compact charmer of a book. It taught me things about the 1970s I didn’t know, and described what I did know in better prose and with more style and wit than I’ve read anywhere else. As a memoir, this one has the advantage of being written by someone more interested in the rest of the world than in himself, so what personal details we get are telling, touching, and to the point, rather than rambling, irritating, and self-involved. (i.e., the usual memoir.)

The portrait of the late New Yorker film critic, Pauline Kael, is just fabulous. Though I grew up on her reviews, I knew very little about Kael herself, and reading this intimate, first-hand account was a real treat. (Not just because it was about a famous critic, either. It’s because she’s a great character, and because Wolcott is a great observer.) The section on the Village Voice in its uber self-serious heyday makes fascinating reading for anyone interested in (a) journalism or (b) how the computer changed everything.

Not only can Wolcott write better than almost anyone, he really has a story (or rather, a cluster of intersecting stories) to tell here, and when you reach the final page you just wish he’d dive straight into the 1980s, however soulless they may have seemed compared with the previous decade, and keep going.

For anyone even mildly curious about New York, movies, punk, journalism, writing, ballet, or the Times Square of the “Taxi Driver” era, this book should not be missed. Think of it as Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” only with real intellectuals as opposed to fake ones. It’s a treat from start to finish, and the only reason I’m not giving it five stars is that there’s no indication given that the author intends to continue his reminiscences with at least two more volumes, taking us up to the turn of the century. - ChesterM, Amazon.Com Customer Review

Starting Out in the ’70s

The New York Times Book Review – November 3, 2011 (Excerpt)

False modesty is running amok. In the past month or so, these memoirs have been published: “Luck and Circumstance,” by Michael Lindsay-Hogg; “Lucky Bruce,” by Bruce Jay Friedman; and now “Lucking Out,” by James Wolcott. Any one of these authors might have borrowed the title “Making It” from Norman Podhoretz, who could have used a little false modesty.

To be fair, Wolcott was always an outsider and needed some luck. In the fall of 1972, he came through Port Authority not as a precocious Ivy League graduate but as a college dropout from working-class Maryland, arriving in New York “just as everything was about to go to hell.” In fact, the 1970s were made to order for an aspiring critic and sexually frustrated young man like him: it was the decade of Hilly Kristal (the owner of CBGB), Vanessa del Rio (a vivacious porn star) and Ugly George (an ugly guy named George).

As a sophomore at Frostburg State, Wolcott had written a piece for the student newspaper about the rumbustious “Dick Cavett Show” featuring Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer and Janet Flanner. Unlike the rest of the world, Wolcott thought Mailer had acquitted himself well, so he mailed him the article. Easily flattered, the Great Man — “I had been a hero-worshiper of Mailer’s since being zapped by his writing, the closest my brain has come to hosting a meteor shower,” Wolcott mind-blowingly declares — was kind enough to send a letter of recommendation to Dan Wolf, the editor and co-founder (as was Mailer) of The Village Voice. [Read the full article...]

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/11/lucking-out-my-life-getting-down-and-semi-dirty-in-seventies-new-york-by-james-wolcott/

Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy by President Bill Clinton

admin — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:11:33 +0000

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President Bill Clinton gives us his views on the challenges facing the United States today and why government matters—presenting his ideas on restoring energyeconomic growth, job creation, financial responsibility, resolving the mortgage crisis, and pursuing a strategy , job creation, and financial responsibility and offering a plan to get us “back in the future business.” He explains how we got into the current economic crisis, and lays down a plan for long-term prosperity. He offers specific recommendations on how we can put people back to work, increase bank lending and corporate investment, double our exports, restore our manufacturing base, and create new businesses. He supports President Obama’s emphasis on green technology, saying that change changing in the way we produce and consume energy is the strategy most likely to spark a fast-growing economy while enhancing our national security.

Clinton also stresses that we need a strong private sector and a smart government working together to restore prosperity and progress, demonstrating that whenever we’ve given in to the temptation to blame government for all our problems, we’ve lost our ability to produce sustained economic growth and shared prosperity.commitment to shared prosperity, balanced growth, financial responsibility, and investment for the future. For example, he believes our ability to compete in the twenty-first century is dependent on our willingness to invest in infrastructure: we need faster broadband, a state-of-the-art national electrical grid, modernized water and sewer systems, and the best, airports, trains, roads, and bridges.

Clinton writes, “There is simply no evidence that we can succeed in the twenty-first century with an antigovernment strategy,” writes Clinton, based on “a philosophy grounded in ‘you’re on your own’ rather than ‘we’re all in this together.’ ” He believes that conflict between government and the private sector has proved to be good politics but has produced bad policies, giving us a weak economy with not enough jobs, growing income inequality and poverty, and a decline in our competitive position. In the real world, cooperation works much better than conflict, and “Americans need victories in real life.”

“I wrote this book because I love my country and I’m concerned about our future,” writes Bill Clinton. “As I often said when I first ran for President in 1992, America at its core is an idea—the idea that no matter who you are or where you’re from, if you work hard and play by the rules, you’ll have the freedom and opportunity to pursue your own dreams and leave your kids a country where they can chase theirs.” In Back to Work, Clinton details how we can get out of the current economic crisis and lay a foundation for long-term prosperity. He offers specific recommendations on how we can put people back to work and create new businesses, increase bank lending and corporate investment, double our exports, and restore our manufacturing base.

He supports President Obama’s emphasis on green technology, saying that change in the way we produce and consume energy is the strategy most likely to spark a fast-growing economy and enhance our national security. Clinton also says that we need both a strong economy and a smart government working together to restore prosperity and progress. He demonstrates that whenever we’ve given in to the temptation to blame government for our problems, we’ve lost our commitment to shared prosperity, balanced growth, financial responsibility, and investment in the future. That has led our nation into trouble because there are some things we have to do together. For example, he says, “Our ability to compete in the twenty-first century is dependent on our willingness to invest in infrastructure: we need faster broadband, a state-of-the-art national electrical grid, modernized water and sewer systems, and the best airports, trains, roads, and bridges.

“There is no evidence that we can succeed in the twenty-first century with an antigovernment strategy,” writes Clinton, “with a philosophy grounded in ‘You’re on your own’ rather than ‘We’re all in this together.’” Clinton believes that conflict between government and the private sector has proved to be remarkably good politics, but it has produced bad policies, giving us a weak economy with few jobs, growing income inequality and poverty, and a decline in our competitive position. In the real world, cooperation works much better than conflict, and “we need victories in the real world.”

Bill Clinton has advice, and some criticism, for President Obama in new book

The Washington Post – November 4, 2011 (Excerpt)

President Obama and his Democratic allies made two key political missteps in recent years, according to former president Bill Clinton in a new book to be released Tuesday.

First was not raising the federal debt ceiling in the first two years of the president’s term, when Democrats still had a majority in Congress, and then failing to devise an effective national campaign message during the midterm elections of 2010.

Clinton also suggests, obliquely, that Obama’s criticism of Wall Street has been too harsh and counterproductive.

The 42nd president periodically surfaces with cheerful tips on how he managed the economy and offers these observations in his book “Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy.”

The Washington Post obtained a copy of the book before its publication.

The volume is dense with criticism of Republicans; it devotes substantial attention to what Clinton describes as the GOP’s relentless “antigovernment ideology,” identified as the cause of the anemic economy, high unemployment and American inability to compete on the world stage.

But the subtext of the book is that Obama has struggled, both to identify workable economic policies and to outmaneuver his Republican foes.

“The Democrats did not counter the national Republican message with one of their own,” Clinton writes of the Democratic losses in 2010. “There was no national advertising campaign to explain and defend what they had done and to compare their agenda for the next two years with the GOP proposals.” He compares it with his own congressional defeats in 1994. [Read the full article...]

Bill Clinton’s ‘Back to Work: Why We Need Smart Government for a Strong Economy’

The Washington Post Book Review – November 4, 2011 (Excerpt)

With the 2012 election a year away, Democrats can latch onto an articulate, reality-based strategy for economic renewal that threads the needle between extremes. But this engaging, center-left manifesto wasn’t written by the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Rather, it was penned by someone who is constitutionally barred from seeking the highest office: former president Bill Clinton.

Clinton burst onto the national scene 20 years ago at a time of national economic self-doubt spurred by high unemployment and fears over a rising power in Asia. Sound familiar? In“Back to Work,” a slim volume packed with ideas on how to fix America’s broken job machine, the Man from Hope offers some well-timed optimism in the face of depressing statistics, such as the fact that the United States ranks 18th in high school graduation rates and 24th in infrastructure quality.

Clintonian to the core, “Back to Work” cribs proposals and anecdotes from all over — from Democrats and Republicans, from the public and private sectors — and includes a lengthy, somewhat windy list of 46 prescriptions. They consist of two parts wonkery and one part down-home common sense. While professors would call the functional difference between a tax credit and a spending increase, as Clinton writes, “a distinction without a difference,” he adds that “when I was growing up in Arkansas, we called it straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel.” [Read the full article...]

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/11/back-to-work-why-we-need-smart-government-for-a-strong-economy-by-president-bill-clinton/

The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade by Andrew Feinstein

admin — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 16:11:24 +0000

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

The Shadow World is the harrowing behind-the-scenes tale of the global arms trade, revealing the deadly collusion that all too often exists among senior politicians, weapons manufacturers, felonious arms dealers, and the military—a situation that compromises our security and undermines our democracy.

Pulling back the curtain on this secretive world, Andrew Feinstein reveals the corruption and the cover-ups behind a range of weapons deals, from the largest in history—between the British and Saudi governments—to the guns-for-diamonds deals in Africa and the imminent $60 billion U.S. weapons contract with Saudi Arabia. He exposes in forensic detail both the formal government-to-government trade in arms and the shadow world of illicit weapons dealing, and lays bare the shockingly frequent links between the two. Drawing on his experience as a member of the African National Congress who resigned when the ANC refused to launch a corruption investigation into a major South African arms deal, Feinstein illuminates the impact this network has not only on conflicts around the world but also on the democratic institutions of the United States and the United Kingdom.

Based on pathbreaking reporting and unprecedented access to top-secret information and major players in this clandestine realm, The Shadow World places us in the midst of the arms trade’s dramatic wheeling and dealing—from corporate boardrooms to seedy out-of-the-way hotels—and reveals the profound danger and enormous financial cost this network represents to all of us.

About Andrew Feinstein

Andrew Feinstein is the author of After the Party, a political memoir. He is currently an Open Society Institute Fellow and the founding codirector of Corruption Watch in London.

“The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade,” by Andrew Feinstein

The Washington Post Book Review – November 4, 2011 (Excerpt)

That the world is awash in weapons is not news. But the way weapons large and small flow from the United States, Britain and other producers to the world’s villains is ever astonishing. In “The Shadow World,” Andrew Feinstein gives us a sweeping and troubling story of how this happens, who benefits, and what consequences follow.

It is troubling because we have been at it for so long — the United States has been easily the largest arms exporter in the post-Cold War era — and still can’t seem to learn the ABCs of the arms trade: (A) the weapons we produce and sell or give away very often fall into the hands of people who want to use them to shoot at us; (B) the networks of arms merchants are also attracted to other forms of illicit commerce, like nuclear materials, drugs and human trafficking; and (C) the purported benefits of sustaining the “defense industrial base” by exporting weapons are grossly exaggerated. Yet none of these sturdy facts deters policy makers of all political persuasions from pushing lethal technologies onto petty tyrants and intermittent allies in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and indeed just about everywhere else.

Feinstein, a South African politicianwho helped expose an infamous arms scandal involving $100 million in bribes allegedly paid to ANC politicians, writes with a crusading spirit and a depth of detail that lend “The Shadow World” urgency and authority. Many of the sensational stories he tells have earned attention before, but he adds depth and shows how often patterns repeat. The essential method of arms dealing is bribery, payoffs on a grand scale that enrich both the elites in the buying country and the arms makers in the selling country. While political agendas at times play a role in who gets what, the reigning ideology in the shadow world is greed.

The Saudis come in for a thrashing on this, the corrupters par excellence. Feinstein draws scathing portraits of Prince Bandar and Prince Turki, among other familiar figures in Washington, whose thirst for extravagance was matched only by their sheer brazenness in the arts of exploitation. For example, when quashing a British inquiry into bribery in the largest-ever arms deal, the so-called Al-Yamanah (“The Dove”) sale of British fighter jets to the Saudis, Bandar threatened to stop further purchases and intelligence cooperation if the inquiry went forward, a threat he delivered to Tony Blair at No. 10 Downing Street, saying that the cessation of Saudi intelligence cooperation would lead to “blood on the streets of London.” Blair buckled. [Read the full article...]

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/11/the-shadow-world-inside-the-global-arms-trade-by-andrew-feinstein/

Hoarding vs Clutter Phobia, which one is really OCD?

admin — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 04:08:32 +0000

Why is the media so fixated on OCD being about hoarding, when hoarding is the opposite of everything that OCD stands for? People with OCD tend to be organized, neat freaks and clean. Hoarders on the other hand are disorganized, messy and a general health and safety hazard. They could not be further from the definition of obsessive compulsive disorder if they tried.

The clutter phobes, however, really do obsess about their space and their stuff, organizing, counting, arranging, rearranging and purging, constantly feeling cluttered even though they live in minimalistic, Spartan conditions.

Do hoarders even have the obsessions and compulsions that are so integral to OCD, or is their hoarding mindless? Most hoarders will tell you that they don’t even know how their hoarding got so out of hand. Is that the meticulous attitude of someone with OCD? I don’t think so! It’s a mystery how hoarding ever got labeled as OCD. Less than 1% of the population hoards, and 2.5% of the population has OCD. According to the Mayo Clinic, many people who hoard don’t have other OCD-related symptoms. Furthermore, according to Dr Staab of the Mayo Clinic, “recent functional brain imaging studies suggest a different pattern of brain activity in patients with hoarding versus other OCD symptoms. All of these data support the separation of hoarding from OCD.”

I therefore propose that we debunk the hoarding myth and get the world to understand that clutter phobia, when taken to it’s extreme, is a real and distressing symptom of OCD that deserves to be recognized.

I am using the term ‘clutter phobia’ to describe people who are so strict about what comes into and what remains in their home, that it causes major distress and/or disruption to daily living. I have also heard it called Obsessive Compulsive Spartanism, which is good news, as the first step to recognizing something is naming it. Sadly though, The American Psychiatric Association does not officially recognize obsessive compulsive spartanism as a psychiatric disorder. Even more frustrating is that, in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV, hoarding has been categorized as a symptom of OCD. Thankfully and finally hoarding will be classified as a separate illness in the DSM V edition, due to be published in 2013.

It is very important to note that obsessive compulsive spartanism has NOTHING to do with contamination OCD (cleaning, hand washing etc). And that just like cleaning and checking, clutter phobia can stand alone and cause plenty of distress as is.

I would suggest that clutter phobia (or obsessive compulsive spartanism) manifests itself as follows:
1) Need to have minimum things in your home.
2) Need to have specific numbers of everything that you do have in your home.
3) Everything must fit into a category, or you cannot have it at all
4) Everything has a very specific place.

The OCD part is the constant editing: Is this the right shelf for my books, why do I have 6 pairs of trousers, maybe I should have five? A screwdriver doesn’t fit into any of my acceptable categories, so I won’t have one even if it means constantly bothering the neighbor to borrow theirs. I know I’m about to miss my flight but I can’t leave the house until I am happy that my kitchen cabinet doesn’t look cluttered.

Because this brand of OCD never appears in any of the textbooks, and is never spoken about, it is likely there are many sufferers out there struggling in silence and wishing they had any other more famous OCD symptoms instead, just so they wouldn’t feel so weird and alone. Some unfortunate souls probably have no idea they have OCD at all, and that treatment is available, just as it is to other OCD patients.

Hoarders have recognition of their suffering, obsessive compulsive spartans do not. If there are enough out there, then we need to get together and raise serious awareness about this type of torment. Perhaps it is far less interesting or scandalous than hoarding, but it is torture, as only an OCD sufferer can know.

Think about it. There’s:

Contamination OCD
Checking
Ordering
Counting
Hoarding !!!
Scrupulosity (religious OCD)
HOCD
Sexual OCD
Pure O
Skin picking

Everyone’s pain is recognized, except for the obsessive compulsive spartans! If you are a clutter phobe, this should make you furious.

Time to come out of some very neat closets

And hoarders, please go away, get out of our space and get your own diagnosis. OCD belongs to the clutter phobes!!

I mean seriously, which looks more like OCD to you?

A Life Lived Ridiculously
When a girl with obsessive compulsive disorder falls in love with a sociopath, she must fight for her sanity and her life.
http://www.ridiculouslife.net/

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/11/hoarding-vs-clutter-phobia-which-one-is-really-ocd/

The truth about Hurricane Irene

admin — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 04:08:29 +0000

What was really happening in the mandatory evacuation zone in New York during the great Hurricane Irene…

They warned that it would be historical, and certainly Hurricane Irene caused damage in the South. But what was happening in New York? Aside from Mayor Bloomberg hijacking all the news channels for days, with desperate pleas to evacuate, the only thing historical about Hurricane Irene in New York (cat 3 – cat 2 – cat 1 – ooops nope tropical storm) was how empty the streets of New York were.

Let’s not be fooled, the only reason Mayor Bloomberg overreacted to Hurricane Irene was to make up for his under reaction during the December snowstorm. Did he fool us into thinking that he cares? Not really. Aside from impressively inconveniencing all of Manhattan (we get that Long Island actually did get winds and floods), guess who’s going to foot the bill for this needless evacuation? That’s right, you the Manhattan taxpayer! Thanks Mayor BS for continuing to think about yourself and only yourself.

For those who think I’m an ungrateful bitch, allow me to provide you with the cost to us (husband, baby and me) of evacuating for nothing !!

1) Evacuation. Cost: Three friendships. persons who turned us down during this time of apocalyptic emergency.

2) Evacuating to bed bug infested house. Cost: bed bugs hitched a ride home with us. See photo of bed bug bitten calf below.

3) Diagnosing bed bugs in our own home. Cost $350. But the beagle was cute.

4) Cryogenically treating bedbugs in our home. Cost $900 !!

5) New washer/dryer, after we set ours on fire trying to dry our bed bug infested pillows. Cost $1359. Note to self do not wash and dry feather pillows.

6) Four new pillows. Cost $200.

7) Friends who bitched me out for complaining about being evacuated for no good reason and being ungrateful that I didn’t get flooded. Cost: at least ten people.

So there you have it. Had we stayed home and been flooded the cost would have been ZERO, since we have flood insurance.

So please, all I ask is that you be kind to me and forgive my lack of foresight for not getting ‘fake evacuation insurance’. However fear not I am on the case as we speak. Already called five insurance companies. Idiots don’t cover for fake evacuations, but I shalln’t rest until I find one who does….

A Life Lived Ridiculously
When a girl with obsessive compulsive disorder falls in love with a sociopath, she must fight for her sanity and her life.
http://www.ridiculouslife.net/

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/11/the-truth-about-hurricane-irene/

And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life by Charles J. Shields

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:07:32 +0000

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

The first authoritative biography of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., a writer who changed the conversation of American literature

In 2006, Charles Shields reached out to Kurt Vonnegut in a letter, asking for his endorsement for a planned biography. The first response was no (“A most respectful demurring by me for the excellent writer Charles J. Shields, who offered to be my biographer”). Unwilling to take no for an answer, propelled by a passion for his subject, and already deep into his research, Shields wrote again and this time, to his delight, the answer came back: “O.K.” For the next year—a year that ended up being Vonnegut’s last—Shields had access to Vonnegut and his letters.

And So It Goes is the culmination of five years of research and writing—the first-ever biography of the life of Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut resonates with readers of all generations from the baby boomers who grew up with him to high-school and college students who are discovering his work for the first time. Vonnegut’s concise collection of personal essays, Man Without a Country, published in 2006, spent fifteen weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has sold more than 300,000 copies to date. The twenty-first century has seen interest in and scholarship about Vonnegut’s works grow even stronger, and this is the first book to examine in full the life of one of the most influential iconoclasts of his time.

About Charles J. Shields

Charles J. Shields is the author of And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life, Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, the highly acclaimed, bestselling biography of Harper Lee, and I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers). He grew up in the Midwest and taught in a rural school in central Illinois for several years. He has been a reporter for public radio, a journalist, and the author of nonfiction books for young people. He and his wife live near Charlottesville, Virginia.

Editorial Reviews

“This first authorized biography probes both Vonnegut’s creative struggles and family life, detailing his transition from ‘the bowery of the book world’ to counterculture icon. Shields delivers a vivid recreation of Vonnegut’s ghastly WWII experiences as a POW during the Dresden firebombing that became the basis for Slaughterhouse-Five. . . . Tragedies and triumphs are contrasted throughout, along with an adroit literary analysis that highlights obscure or overlooked influences on Vonnegut. . . . With access to more than 1,500 letters, Shields conducted hundreds of interviews to produce this engrossing, definitive biography.”—PW, Starred Review

“This book fills a much-needed gap, since very little seems to be known about the late Kurt Vonnegut, despite his immense popularity over almost five decades. Shields did a thorough job, interviewing Vonnegut and his friends and family, and examining many letters. Vonnegut was one of the most influential authors of the late twentieth century, and this biography is essential reading.”—Anis Shivani, Huffington Post

“A triumphant biography: scrupulously researched and powerfully written, compassionate, clear-eyed and compelling. Charles J. Shields manages a rare feat: offering a lucid assessment of Kurt Vonnegut’s literary life alongside the moving tale of an American original and a misunderstood hero. From his harrowing survival of the Dresden firebombing through forty years of culture clashes and domestic battles, here is the Vonnegut we all thought we knew and the man we never got to see, a writer of searing wit and wisdom, of driving ambition, and perhaps most of all, of aching loneliness.”—Jess Walker, author of The Financial Lives of the Poets and Citizen Vince

Vonnegut in All His Complexity

The New York Times Book Review – November 2, 2011 (Excerpt)

Charles J. Shields got nowhere with Harper Lee when he tried to interview her for the 2006 biography “Mockingbird.” But he got lucky with Kurt Vonnegut. Mr. Shields found a lonely talkative octogenarian who had scores to settle and a reputation that badly needed restoring. Vonnegut had once told Martin Amis that the only way he could regain credit for his early work, those books from the 1950s and 1960s once so beloved by college kids, would be to die. He died on April 11, 2007, less than a year after Mr. Shields first approached him. And the two did not spend much time together. But Vonnegut gave the go-ahead that has allowed Mr. Shields to construct “And So It Goes,” an incisive, gossipy page-turner of a biography, even if it’s hard to tell just how authorized this book really is. Denied permission to quote from Vonnegut’s letters, Mr. Shields relies on paraphrases and patchwork to create a seamless-sounding account. Astonishingly, this book has nearly 1,900 notes to identify separate sources and quotations. But it doesn’t sound choppy at all.

Although he does not acknowledge it, Mr. Shields shares the slick commercial instincts that shaped Vonnegut’s early career. He has written about Central America, sexual disorders, test taking, Saddam Hussein, Martha Stewart and Buffalo Bill Cody in books never meant for the mainstream. Vonnegut began his career with journalism, writing public relations copy and paperbacks that were sold in drugstores (although those paperbacks, “Player Piano” and “The Sirens of Titan,” would be reprinted with the requisite fanfare some day). He was married, in his mid-40s and a father of three, teaching at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop (“This clown is going to teach us how to write?”) by the time he became an overnight sensation. [Read the full article...]

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/11/and-so-it-goes-kurt-vonnegut-a-life-by-charles-j-shields/

Civilization: The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 16:07:29 +0000

Click on image to buy from Amazon.Com

From one of our most renowned historians, Civilization is the definitive history of Western civilization’s rise to global dominance-and the “killer applications” that made this improbable ascent possible.

The rise to global predominance of Western civilization is the single most important historical phenomenon of the past five hundred years. All over the world, an astonishing proportion of people now work for Western-style companies, study at Western-style universities, vote for Western-style governments, take Western medicines, wear Western clothes, and even work Western hours. Yet six hundred years ago the petty kingdoms of Western Europe seemed unlikely to achieve much more than perpetual internecine warfare. It was Ming China or Ottoman Turkey that had the look of world civilizations. How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed?

In Civilization: The West and the Rest, bestselling author Niall Ferguson argues that, beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts that the Rest lacked: competition, science, the rule of law, consumerism, modern medicine, and the work ethic. These were the “killer applications” that allowed the West to leap ahead of the Rest, opening global trade routes, exploiting newly discovered scientific laws, evolving a system of representative government, more than doubling life expectancy, unleashing the Industrial Revolution, and embracing a dynamic work ethic. Civilization shows just how fewer than a dozen Western empires came to control more than half of humanity and four fifths of the world economy.

Yet now, Ferguson argues, the days of Western predominance are numbered-not because of clashes with rival civilizations, but simply because the Rest have now downloaded the six killer apps we once monopolized-while the West has literally lost faith in itself.

Civilization does more than tell the gripping story of the West’s slow rise and sudden demise; it also explains world history with verve, clarity, and wit. Controversial but cogent and compelling, Civilization is Ferguson at his very best.

About Niall Ferguson

Niall Ferguson is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University and William Ziegler Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, a Senior Research Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford University, and a Senior Research Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He is the bestselling author of nine books, including The Ascent of Money, Colossus, and High Financier.

Editorial Review

Ferguson is the most brilliant British historian of his generation … he writes with splendid panache The Times One of the world’s leading historians — Hamish McRae Independent Civilization is another masterpiece … a pulsing energy suffuses his account [and] fascinating facts burst like fireworks on every page — Dominic Lawson Sunday Times This is sharp. It feels urgent. Ferguson, with a properly financially literate mind, twists his knife with great literary brio — Andrew Marr Financial Times A dazzling history of Western ideas Economist

Reader Review

While I suspect that David Starkey would violently object the two current giants of television history in the UK in terms of providing a worldview are the left leaning Simon Schama and the combative neo conservative Niall Ferguson. Their dust up at last years Hay Literary festival in Wales was a colourful sparring session between two big intellects firing verbal potshots at each other and a joy to behold. Schama concentrated on providing a robust defense of Barack Obama while Ferguson spent much of his allotted time dissing the President’s now famous speech delivered in Cairo in 2009. Indeed he has described it as “touchy feely nonsense” and has in recent weeks sent out lurid warnings about Obama’s failure to anticipate the demise of Mubarak and to come to terms with what Ferguson sees as the potential rise of the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt and the possible “restoration of the caliphate and the strict application of Sharia”. Strong stuff, but Ferguson does like a good row. (see his feud with the nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman)

These themes above are the heart of this new book “Civilization: The West and the Rest” since Ferguson comes from the controversial standpoint that Western dominance has on the whole been a progressive force and that on the basis of a cost benefit analysis the good outweighs the bad (it is a constant theme in all his books). He recently argued that “the rulers of western Africa prior to the European empires were not running some kind of scout camp. They were engaged in the slave trade. They showed zero sign of developing the country’s economic resources….and the counterfactual idea that somehow the indigenous rulers would have been more successful in economic development doesn’t have any credibility at all.” This is a bold, confrontational, contentious and provocative thesis and his new book reinforces these arguments postulating that there were six killer “apps” which propelled the West to a position of predominance. These were competition, science, property, modern science, consumption and work ethic all with a dedicated chapter in the book.

Space precludes a detailed debate on each theme but for example he contrasts how China was the world’s most advanced civilization in the 15th century but stagnated and was overtaken by Dutch mercantilism and the rise of capitalism employing his six “skills”. He will equally generate a furious response to the view that scientific development was “by any scientific measure, wholly European”. Other ideas that the spread of the market was as influential in the rise of the West as the role of force tends to neglect that the often were inseparable and rather evil twins. Just look at the bloody history of German East Africa prior to the First World War, But even more close to home Ferguson has himself previously recognized in another part of his prodigious output that “When imperial authority was challenged – in India in 1857, in Jamaica in 1831 and 1865, in South Africa in 1899 – the British response was brutal”.

That said all Ferguson books, whether you love or hate his arguments, are immensely readable and his historical sweep is vast. There is little doubt that he relishes the big strategic themes and his tone is one of super confidence and often compulsively provocative not least in his view that the West must relearn some of its old tricks to maintain its position. His ability however to take a small example and write it large often leads to accusations of research selectivity and the fact that the successful Chinese business city Wenzou also has 1,400 churches is used to tie some of his “apps” together in what is a very unconvincing argument. The title for this narrative is oddly lifted from another very recent book by the conservative philosopher Roger Scruton albeit the latters theme was Islamic terrorism. Similarly other historians such as Ian Morris, Eric Ringmar and John A Hall have covered these issues with much more subtlety and nuance. Yet Ferguson’s strengths are his readability, populism and his headlong assault on some sacred cows. His weaknesses are the employment of the sweeping generalization and a strong streak of cultural arrogance. You can clap loudly or boo vehemently at Niall Ferguson when the television series to accompany this book commences on US television. – Red on Black, Amazon.Com Customer Review

How ‘The West’ Beat ‘The Rest’ With Six ‘Killer Apps’

NPR Book Review – November 2, 2011 (Excerpt)

Historians have long struggled to explain how the West became the preeminent political and economic force in the modern world, and why so many people aspire to emulate the lifestyles, fashions and popular culture of America and Western Europe.

Now, historian Niall Ferguson says he has the answer. In his new book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, Ferguson credits six “killer apps,” or social developments: competition, science, property, medicine, consumption and work.

Through the rubric of these apps, Ferguson tells NPR’s Neil Conan that Western countries created a unique set of social institutions — from the rule of law and modern science to a unique work ethic and a thriving consumer society — that enabled them to surpass their non-Western neighbors.

But these days China is quickly catching on — and catching up. [Read the full article...]

http://frogenyozurt.com/2011/11/civilization-the-west-and-the-rest-by-niall-ferguson/