Which book are you reading now? Volume XI

[Flying Pig]

I read them; have to say, I thought the first three were excellent, the rest merely very good.

 

[Mouthwash]

I read them; have to say, I thought the first three were excellent, the rest merely very good.

You're joking, right?

 

[JohannaK]

I agree with Flying Pig to some extent, since I have read only Foundation and a bit of Foundation and Empire.

 

[Mouthwash]

I agree with Flying Pig to some extent, since I have read only Foundation and a bit of Foundation and Empire.

What could you possibly see in it? It's like he read about the fall of the Roman Empire but gained all the wrong lessons from it. Only the intro, when it discusses Trantor's vulnerabilities, seems to be remotely interesting.

 

[JohannaK]

A good book. That's what I saw.

 

[Mouthwash]

A good book. That's what I saw.

Sorry, that's not going to be enough.

 

[JohannaK]

Obviously not for you. It is for me. Never pass on the chance to read A Hundred Years of Solitude, by the way. It's my favourite book.

 

[Flying Pig]

What could you possibly see in it? It's like he read about the fall of the Roman Empire but gained all the wrong lessons from it. Only the intro, when it discusses Trantor's vulnerabilities, seems to be remotely interesting.

I found the whole concept of psychohistory intruiging, and the extent to which such predictions were able to right themselves: I don't believe in reading books as allegories, so I'm not sure that getting the wrong lessons from history and transferring them into a work of fiction is really something I'd use as a weakness.

 

[sophie]

Obviously not for you. It is for me. Never pass on the chance to read A Hundred Years of Solitude, by the way. It's my favourite book.

Only if it's in Spanish though.

 

[Dachs]

I love this book. I am around page 200 and I'm devouring 40-50 page chapters in half the time it usually takes. The whole Oxford History of da USA series is a godsend. Wood does not god-worship the FF's but he doesn't slam them for the sake of being controversial. He draws out complexities very well.

A good thing there isn't much war stuff to cover because sometimes the OHUSA series is a little weak in that area.

That book is a bit of a pain because of Wood's embarrassing Republican bias.

See recent posts here, here, and here.

One of the most uncomfortable parts of the book is that Wood sort of swept slavery under the rug and only really mentioned it in Chapter 14. (This is a common trope in intro US history textbooks: founding fathers, Federalists and Republicans, War of 1812, and incidentally there's also this slavery thing. It's the so-called "Chapter 13 syndrome".) No, Wood didn't try to say that slavery was a Good Thing or that the Republicans could be sort of forgiven for that. The problem is more that he analyzed most of the politics of the 1790s and 1800s with barely any reference to slavery at all, making it seem as though the Republicans were "right" in all the other contexts but oh by the way they're incidentally awful people for holding humans in bondage. This is sort of hard for me to fathom, because it's impossible to disentangle the Republican Party from the slaveholding planter class and many if not most of that party's political actions were taken with slavery in mind. Even the so-called Revolution of 1800 was only possible because of the three-fifths clause granting the Republican South enough electoral votes to make the fate of New York's electorate a serious issue.

With that said, the book is frequently a fun read, and apart from those glaring issues of presentation and Wood's ideological sentiment, as an introductory text to the period it's useful and enjoyable.

 

[Mouthwash]

I found the whole concept of psychohistory intruiging, and the extent to which such predictions were able to right themselves: I don't believe in reading books as allegories, so I'm not sure that getting the wrong lessons from history and transferring them into a work of fiction is really something I'd use as a weakness.

I actually found it intriguing, too, until I read it. "Oh, I predict they'll invent a religion which they'll use to control other planets, and they'll become more advanced than anyone else and make the rest dependent on trade!" Seriously, the entire plot is a joke and you're not telling me anything to convince me otherwise.

What I meant by "wrong lessons" was that he didn't read about the collapse of the Roman Empire and determine certain sociopolitical consistencies which he could adapt to the story of another falling empire, he basically just told the SAME story. But in space.

 

[Dachs]

What I meant by "wrong lessons" was that he didn't read about the collapse of the Roman Empire and determine certain sociopolitical consistencies which he could adapt to the story of another falling empire, he basically just told the SAME story. But in space.

Also the wrong version of the story of the fall of the Empire but that is largely incidental

 

[Azale]

That book is a bit of a pain because of Wood's embarrassing Republican bias.

See recent posts here, here, and here.

One of the most uncomfortable parts of the book is that Wood sort of swept slavery under the rug and only really mentioned it in Chapter 14. (This is a common trope in intro US history textbooks: founding fathers, Federalists and Republicans, War of 1812, and incidentally there's also this slavery thing. It's the so-called "Chapter 13 syndrome".) No, Wood didn't try to say that slavery was a Good Thing or that the Republicans could be sort of forgiven for that. The problem is more that he analyzed most of the politics of the 1790s and 1800s with barely any reference to slavery at all, making it seem as though the Republicans were "right" in all the other contexts but oh by the way they're incidentally awful people for holding humans in bondage. This is sort of hard for me to fathom, because it's impossible to disentangle the Republican Party from the slaveholding planter class and many if not most of that party's political actions were taken with slavery in mind. Even the so-called Revolution of 1800 was only possible because of the three-fifths clause granting the Republican South enough electoral votes to make the fate of New York's electorate a serious issue.

With that said, the book is frequently a fun read, and apart from those glaring issues of presentation and Wood's ideological sentiment, as an introductory text to the period it's useful and enjoyable.

Thanks for the links. It's curious, I can pick out Wood's boner (tee hee) for the Jeffpubs, but it is almost as if he has to grudgingly admit that the Federalist program was completely superior in pretty much every way. Only Hamilton and the Federalists seemed to have any kind of coherent economic program or way forward for a functional union government that I can recall. He tries to throw lots of digs at the Federalists aristocratic airs, but then kinda just forgives the Jeffpubs for the same thing because it was 'how things were done' or whatever.

It is as if he thinks the whole aristocratic planter class and slavery just adds some token complexity to the Jeffpubs, not an entire veneer of hypocrisy that completely undermines their ideological platform. I mean, yea, John Adams is a jerk and Hamilton doesn't like poor people...are the Jeffpubs really the saviors of the common man? Is that the conclusion we're supposed to reach?

Their slavish devotion to France is pretty gross too, and after the XYZ Affair they lose pretty much any sympathy I have for that stance. The Federalists were several orders of magnitude less Anglophile (at least openly) than the Jeffpubs were Francophile.

So yea, god they sucked. Your "helped Napoleon" argument would be a great "Harms" attack in an organized debate setting you know

You'll probably disagree, but I liked Freedom From Fear the most in the series so far.

 

[Dachs]

Thanks for the links. It's curious, I can pick out Wood's boner (tee hee) for the Jeffpubs, but it is almost as if he has to grudgingly admit that the Federalist program was completely superior in pretty much every way. Only Hamilton and the Federalists seemed to have any kind of coherent economic program or way forward for a functional union government that I can recall. He tries to throw lots of digs at the Federalists aristocratic airs, but then kinda just forgives the Jeffpubs for the same thing because it was 'how things were done' or whatever.

It is as if he thinks the whole aristocratic planter class and slavery just adds some token complexity to the Jeffpubs, not an entire veneer of hypocrisy that completely undermines their ideological platform. I mean, yea, John Adams is a jerk and Hamilton doesn't like poor people...are the Jeffpubs really the saviors of the common man? Is that the conclusion we're supposed to reach?

Their slavish devotion to France is pretty gross too, and after the XYZ Affair they lose pretty much any sympathy I have for that stance. The Federalists were several orders of magnitude less Anglophile (at least openly) than the Jeffpubs were Francophile.

So yea, god they sucked. Your "helped Napoleon" argument would be a great "Harms" attack in an organized debate setting you know

You'll probably disagree, but I liked Freedom From Fear the most in the series so far.

Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything you said.

Haven't actually read Freedom From Fear though. Why do you think I wouldn't like it, the subject matter?

 

[Bowsling]

Foundation and Empire. I liked Foundation when I read it a few years ago, so I got this book of the Foundation trilogy at uni's library. Once I finish it I'm going to start Dune.

Foundation is great.

As for me,

Sailing from Byzantium by Colin Wells. Interesting, very short and readable book about Byzantine cultural influences and such. The "saved Western civilization" rhetoric comes up slightly less and much less obnoxiously than Cahill.

An Assault on Reason by Albert Gore, Jr. Well, I'm sure most of you are familiar with Al Gore.

 

[Azale]

Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything you said.

Haven't actually read Freedom From Fear though. Why do you think I wouldn't like it, the subject matter?

Well, not so much that, just mainly because Battle Cry of Freedom is your personal bible

Also I need a Gilded Age survey badly. Amazon has failed me so far, as has HalfPrice books. I have some Vann Woodward, but historians from that era always seemed more...biased, I guess.

 

[Dachs]

Oh, hah. Hardly a bible. It's pretty good, somewhat flawed, and while I recognize that skimping on military matters might be fashionable or even necessary, it doesn't mean that I have to enjoy it.

 

[Antilogic]

I have the same book on my shelf now (Empire of Liberty) because I've been working through the Oxford History of the US series. I hope the community can come across a less biased work to read for contrast in the meantime.

EDIT: As to the question asked in the OP: I'm still working on Imperial Spain and The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Blew through Fatherland, and I have to say I ended up really liking it, if not only for the last third. The first 2/3rds of the book were ok, interesting but nothing special, but once you get to the last third it really picks up and takes some interesting turns. Would recommend.

Now I've got City of Thieves in my possession, looks interesting, and should be another one to easily blow through in like a week.

 

[Borachio]

The Power of Now Eckhart Tolle. It's not at all bad. For what it is. It explains the basic idea(s) very nicely and simply.

Where he comes a little unstuck, I feel, is when he starts talking about various "energies" and some being of a "higher" or "lower" "frequency." This is just too much New Age claptrap for me to feel comfortable. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't really know what the word frequency means. I suspect he may actually mean amplitude. Though I'm not sure.

I already read his A New Earth, which is a kind of sequel. But of the two The Power of Now is the better read.