Historical Study Books - Page 6

The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers [7th Edition]

Robert L. Heilbroner

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 76 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Boring and important people omitted 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Despite being really interested in getting a good overview of the various ideas and lifes of great economists and being highly motivated I have not managed to get past page 132 - it was such a boring read. It would be much more informative and quicker to print out and read the wikipedia pages of the economists mentioned.

Furthermore the book does not discuss (in most cases not even mention) very influential economists like Friedman, van Mises and it also gives the wrong impression that the first person ever to think about economics was Adam Smith.

Editorial Review:

The Worldly Philosophers is a bestselling classic that not only enables us to see more deeply into our history but helps us better understand our own times. In this seventh edition, Robert L. Heilbroner provides a new theme that connects thinkers as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx. The theme is the common focus of their highly varied ideas -- namely, the search to understand how a capitalist society works. It is a focus never more needed than in this age of confusing economic headlines.

In a bold new concluding chapter entitled "The End of the Worldly Philosophy?" Heilbroner reminds us that the word "end" refers to both the purpose and limits of economics. This chapter conveys a concern that today's increasingly "scientific" economics may overlook fundamental social and political issues that are central to economics. Thus, unlike its predecessors, this new edition provides not just an indispensable illumination of our past but a call to action for our future.

Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul

Karen Abbott

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Total reviews: 92 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Step into the perfumed parlors of the Everleigh Club, the most famous brothel in American history–and the catalyst for a culture war that rocked the nation. Operating in Chicago’s notorious Levee district at the dawn of the last century, the Club’s proprietors, two aristocratic sisters named Minna and Ada Everleigh, welcomed moguls and actors, senators and athletes, foreign dignitaries and literary icons, into their stately double mansion, where thirty stunning Everleigh “butterflies” awaited their arrival. Courtesans named Doll, Suzy Poon Tang, and Brick Top devoured raw meat to the delight of Prince Henry of Prussia and recited poetry for Theodore Dreiser. Whereas lesser madams pocketed most of a harlot’s earnings and kept a “whipper” on staff to mete out discipline, the Everleighs made sure their girls dined on gourmet food, were examined by an honest physician, and even tutored in the literature of Balzac.

Not everyone appreciated the sisters’ attempts to elevate the industry. Rival Levee madams hatched numerous schemes to ruin the Everleighs, including an attempt to frame them for the death of department store heir Marshall Field, Jr. But the sisters’ most daunting foes were the Progressive Era reformers, who sent the entire country into a frenzy with lurid tales of “white slavery”——the allegedly rampant practice of kidnapping young girls and forcing them into brothels. This furor shaped America’s sexual culture and had repercussions all the way to the White House, including the formation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

With a cast of characters that includes Jack Johnson, John Barrymore, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., William Howard Taft, “Hinky Dink” Kenna, and Al Capone, Sin in the Second City is Karen Abbott’s colorful, nuanced portrait of the iconic Everleigh sisters, their world-famous Club, and the perennial clash between our nation’s hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots. Culminating in a dramatic last stand between brothel keepers and crusading reformers, Sin in the Second City offers a vivid snapshot of America’s journey from Victorian-era propriety to twentieth-century modernity.

Visit www.sininthesecondcity.com to learn more!

Praise for Sin in the Second City:
“Assiduously researched… [Sin in the Second City] describes a popular culture awash in wild tales of sexual abuse, crusading reformers claiming God on their side, and deep suspicion of the threat posed by “foreigners” to the nation’s Christian values.”
——Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“Lavish in her details, nicely detached in her point of view, [and with] scrupulous concern for historical accuracy, Ms. Abbott has written an immensely readable book. Sin in the Second City offers much in the way of reflection for those interested in the unending puzzle that goes by the name of human nature." — The Wall Street Journal


"Abbott's first book is meticulously researched and entertaining... a colorful history of old Chicago that reads like a novel."
——The Atlanta Journal Constitution


“With gleaming prose and authoritative knowledge Abbott elucidates one of the most colorful periods in American history, and the result reads like the very best fiction. Sex, opulence, murder — What's not to love?”
—— Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants


“A detailed and intimate portrait of the Ritz of brothels, the famed Everleigh Club of turn-of-the-century Chicago. Sisters Minna and Ada attracted the elites of the world to such glamorous chambers as the Room of 1,000 Mirrors, complete with a reflective floor. And isn’t Minna’s advice to her resident prostitutes worthy advice for us all: “Give, but give interestingly and with mystery.”’
—— Erik Larson, author of The Devil in the White City


“Karen Abbott has combined bodice-ripping salaciousness with top-notch scholarship to produce a work more vivid than a Hollywood movie.”
—— Melissa Fay Greene, author of There is No Me Without You


“Sin in the Second City is a masterful history lesson, a harrowing biography, and - best of all - a superfun read. The Everleigh story closely follows the turns of American history like a little sister. I can't recommend this book loudly enough.”
—— Darin Strauss, author of Chang and Eng


“This is a story of debauchery and corruption, but it is also a story of sisterhood, and unerring devotion. Meticulously researched, and beautifully crafted, Sin in the Second City is an utterly captivating piece of history.”
—— Julian Rubinstein, author of Ballad of the Whiskey Robber

Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness

Joshua Wolf Shenk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Insightful and Respectul Treatment of Lincoln 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Carl Becker said that every man is his own historian, and so it seems fitting that Lincoln be reinterpreted in the light of modern approaches to depression and mental illness. What is most admirable about this book is the author's respectful approach to Lincoln and the past; he insists on viewing Lincoln's behaviors in the context of the mores and culture of his time, which were far different from those prevailing today. The author persuasively argues that there was a romantic connotation to melancholy back then. This, combined with the cultural acceptance of greater emotion from single young men, explains some of Lincoln's publicly expressed emotional troubles as a young man

On the other hand, the author insists on defining Lincoln as suffering two "breakdowns." It's not clear what relevance this modern term has, nor can the author distinguish between mental illness and the culturally acceptable level of melancholy and love-sickness a young man was permitted to manifest at the time.

In short, given the lack of data (most notably the inability to interview the subject, Mr. Lincoln) and the different culture back then, why even try to import these modern day notions of depression to the 1830's-1860's?

Still, the book does make three points exceptionally well, which makes this a very worthwhile effort.

First, he destroys the idiotic notions that Lincoln was gay by virtue of close emotional relationships with men that were permitted and encouraged by the culture back then. Superficial modern day notions of sexual identity have no place in a different time with different (and perhaps healthier) approaches toward the permissibility of emotional intimacy between men.

Second, he argues that Lincoln's struggles with melancholy were part of his larger struggles against adversity that toughened him up for the greatest trial faced by any American President since Washington. This is an old theme, but it is well constructed here. On paper, hugely successful men like Buchanan, Jefferson Davis, and General McClellan should have been the ones to lead successfully during this crisis. But in some ways their previous success was a curse. The depressive's realism and ability to solider on during adversity is perhaps far better preparation. A fascinating point and one that is completley lost in modern Presidential races.

Third, the author argues that Lincoln's mental makeup allowed him to resist the compromises and stop gap measures that seduced men like Buchanan, Douglas, and Crittenden. Lincoln saw that the country had to recognize the evil of slavery and put it on the path to ultimate extinction. This was, of course, Lincoln's greatest insight, though I'm not convinced that his melancholia necessarily predisposed him to accept it. But there is some appeal in the contention that depressives can be curiously more disposed to realism in a world that is frequently evil and unfair.

This is an insightful book, though the ability to analyze Lincoln's psyche given the absence of data and intervening culutural changes is, of course, a doomed venture.

Editorial Review:

In this astonishing and illuminating book, Joshua Wolf Shenk reveals the deep melancholy that pervaded Abraham Lincoln's life and its influence on his mature character. Mired in personal suffering as a young man, Lincoln forged a hard path toward mental health. His coping strategies and depressive insight ultimately helped the sixteenth president find the strength that he, and America, needed to overcome the nation's greatest turmoil. Drawing on seven years of research, Shenk offers a nuanced, revelatory perspective on Lincoln and his legacy.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Clayborne Carson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 47 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Using Stanford University's voluminous collection of archival material, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s previously unpublished writings, public and private interviews, audio and video recordings, and personal correspondence, King scholar Clayborne Carson has constructed a remarkable first-person account of Dr. King's extraordinary life. Beginning with his boyhood as the son of a preacher, the book portrays King's education as a minister, his ascendancy as a leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, his pivotal role in the civil rights demonstrations in Washington, D.C., and his complex relationships with the Kennedy brothers, LBJ, Malcolm X, and numerous other leading political and social figures of the day.This unique autobiography will appeal to those interested in American and civil rights history, as well as to the readers of spiritually-oriented books. It is also reminiscent of Alex Haley's classic The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It is a Selection of The Book-of-the-Month Club.Also available as a Time Warner AudioBook

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (Norton Critical Editions)

Harriet Jacobs

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 65 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the first full-length narrative written by a former woman slave in America. The text is that of the 1861 first edition. Contexts includes contemporary responses to Incidents, selections from Jacobs's other published writings, and extracts from her correspondence. Criticism includes eleven important assessments of the narrative, contributed by Jean Fagan Yellin, Ann Taves, Valerie Smith, Nellie Y. McKay, Harryette Mullen, Michelle Burnham, Nell Irvin Painter, Frances Smith Foster, Sandra Gunning, Elizabeth V. Spelman, and Christine Accomando. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are included.

About the Series: No other series of classic texts equals the caliber of the Norton Critical Editions. Each volume combines the most authoritative text available with the comprehenive pedagogical apparatus necessary to appreciate the work fully. Careful editing, first-rate translation, and thorough explanatory annotations allow each text to meet the highest literary standards while remaining accessible to students. Each edition is printed on acid-free paper and every text in the series remains in print. Norton Critical Editions are the choice for excellence in scholarship for students at more than 2,000 universities worldwide.

A People's History of Sports in the United States: From Bull-Baiting to Barry Bonds . . . 250 Years of Politics, Protest, People, and Play (New Press People's Histories)

Dave Zirin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Brilliant and Mind bending 5 out of 5 stars.
8 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I am a sports fan and someone who cares about the politics of social change. This book brought these worlds together in a way that has me rethinking how I understand both the history of sports and the history of the United States. Each story told might be worth its own book but I will take with me the stories of Moses Fleetwood Walker, the African American baseball player in the 19th century who saw his career die with the end of reconstruction, and the way the famed US women's soccer team threatened to strike in 1996 - on the advice of Billie Jean King - for equal pay. This is a must read - an antidote to the narrow politics of election season.

Eye-opening 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Games are never just games. Even when children play, they are mastering the skills and cultural messages they will need to become successful adults. Yet in America, we cling to a cultural myth that sports are apolitical. We have the news channel CNN and the sports channel ESPN, and they are supposed to be entirely separate and distinct.

In this enlightening book, sportswriter Dave Zirin debunks this myth, exposing the politics, business interests, and cultural forces that have shaped modern sports. Zirin traces the history of sports from the lacrosse-playing days of the Choctaw Indians all the way to the modern steroid scandals and the behind-the-scenes politics of the international Olympic Games. Throughout, he focuses on how race-related conflicts have helped to shape modern athletics.

The host of a popular blog called "The Edge of Sports" (edgeofsports.com) and a regular contributor to the L.A. Times and the Nation magazine, Zirin has an engaging style that will appeal to sports fans, history buffs, and anyone else who wants their eyes opened. The favorable reviews and high sales certainly suggest that this book will help reduce the myth of sports as apolitical. (See the publisher's website, newpress.com, for links to recent publicity, which includes a favorable plug in Time Magazine.) Author Jeff Chang promises that after reading this book "you'll never see sports the same way again"; author Jim Bouton (Ball Four) goes even further by predicting that this is "the opening shot in the battle to reclaim sports."

Not only is the book enlightening, it is also a fun read full of engaging stories that you can share with friends and family while you are waiting for the game to begin. And if by game time you haven't yet convinced them that politics is embedded in sports, Zirin recommends an exercise that will unmask the "coercive patriotism" surrounding them: Have them try staying seated while the national anthem is being played, and they are being told to stand to support the troops in Iraq.

A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, Fall, and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books

Alex Beam

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A gossipy, uninteresting book. 1 out of 5 stars.
12 of 14 people found this review helpful.

Beam wrote a book about the history of the Great Books concept and specifically the set of Great Books promoted by Hutchins and Alder from the University of Chicago. I found the book unimpressive.

What is Beam's point in this meandering book? Is it a history of the Great Books or a critical commentary on the idea and movement?


Beam establishes no credibility with the reader, yet offers childish critiques and name calling, particularly of Adler: "brilliant, Hobbit-like sidekick, Mortimer Alder" (2); "William Benton, ad man and hustler extraordinaire" (2); "watching his [Adler's] endless, self-promotional television appearances was a nightmare for which I am trying to awake" (5); "low-born Adler"; "Adler, a troll next to the godlike Hutchins" (25). Is there a hidden fight between Beam and Adler? What is the point of this silliness?


Are readers to be impressed with anecdotes and gossip uncovered in working papers and interviews? Do they help the argument or discussion at all? Adler called Aspen Institute attendees business "bozos" (132). "A notorious philanderer, he [Adler] divorced his first wife" (32) . Later, Beam writes about an incident where someone recalled that "Adler was hitting on my mother" (142).


Yes, the sales methods of the Great Books were misplaced (selling culture books like crest toothpaste with door-to-door reps who deployed sleazy sales methods, receiving a reprimanded by the FTC). Beam and all of us can feel good, I guess, that these highly educated men from University of Chicago made this mistake.


What about people who said books had a big impact on their lives? He mentions numerous people including actor Julie Adams (67), Pilot Thomas Hyand (143), plumber David Call (146), Professor Montas (162), and Eva Braum. What is Beam's view here? Are these people blind worshipers in the cult of GB? Is their praise of the GB genuine and well placed? Beam gives us no answer (but thankfully he has fortunately dropped the snide personal commentary by this point in the book).


Stunningly, despite his obvious contempt for Adler and the Great Books, Beam admits that he got some enjoyment from the books. "Reading them [set of readings] en group turned out to be fun, and also hard (183). "How was this intellectual experience? - fantastic" [Beam ponders after attending a seminar] (185) . He writes "My first Great Books experience turns out to be one of my best" (185), and he enjoyed Epictetus's Handbook --"I fell in love with the gnarly-legged Stoic" (196).


Beam redeems himself a bit when he leaves his mindless commentary aside and reports historical facts from St. John's, University of Chicago, and seminars. (At least he attended a St. John class, a GB seminar and a GB weekend retreats, before writing the book.)


But, in the end, what IS his point? Does Beam even have a point of view? Does he agree or disagree with the educational premise? Is this a history book or commentary? Were the GB a good idea that was poorly packaged, marketed and sold; or are the GB a bad idea whose converts should be scorned? The sarcastic Beam does not share any view on this, presumably because he is unable to define and defend his point of view.

No one will ever mistake this book for a great, good, or even mildly interesting book.

Editorial Review:

Today the classics of the western canon, written by the proverbial “dead white men,” are cannon fodder in the culture wars. But in the 1950s and 1960s, they were a pop culture phenomenon. The Great Books of Western Civilization, fifty-four volumes chosen by intellectuals at the University of Chicago, began as an educational movement, and evolved into a successful marketing idea. Why did a million American households buy books by Hippocrates and Nicomachus from door-to-door salesmen? And how and why did the great books fall out of fashion?

In A Great Idea at the Time Alex Beam explores the Great Books mania, in an entertaining and strangely poignant portrait of American popular culture on the threshold of the television age. Populated with memorable characters, A Great Idea at the Time will leave readers asking themselves: Have I read Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura lately? If not, why not?

Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia

Ahmed Rashid

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Total reviews: 145 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Shrouding themselves and their aims in deepest secrecy, the leaders of the Taliban movement control Afghanistan with an inflexible, crushing fundamentalism. The most extreme and radical of all Islamic organizations, the Taliban inspires fascination, controversy, and especially fear in both the Muslim world and the West. Correspondent Ahmed Rashid brings the shadowy world of the Taliban into sharp focus in this enormously interesting and revealing book. It is the only authoritative account of the Taliban and modern day Afghanistan available to English language readers.

Based on his experiences as a journalist covering the civil war in Afghanistan for twenty years, traveling and living with the Taliban, and interviewing most of the Taliban leaders since their emergence to power in 1994, Rashid offers unparalleled firsthand information. He explains how the growth of Taliban power has already created severe instability in Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and five Central Asian republics. He describes the Taliban’s role as a major player in a new “Great Game”—a competition among Western countries and companies to build oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia to Western and Asian markets. The author also discusses the controversial changes in American attitudes toward the Taliban—from early support to recent bombings of Osama Bin Laden’s hideaway and other Taliban-protected terrorist bases—and how they have influenced the stability of the region.

Come on, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors

Bill Cosby, Alvin F. Poussaint

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 83 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

He's preaching. Who's listening? 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Bill Cosby's latest novel makes everyone uncomfortable about the realities of what slavery and institutional racism have done to America.
Cosby's take is that there comes a time when black people have to take some responsibility for making their lives and communities better. It is no wonder that he has been ostracized by the media minorities who make their livelihoods on blaming others for black America's problems. The book gets a little preachy and simplistic about solutions toward the end of the book. The beginning is better. It is worth a read.

Editorial Review:

Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint have a powerful message for families and communities as they lay out their visions for strengthening America, or for that matter the world. They address the crises of people who are stuck because of feelings of low self-esteem, abandonment, anger, fearfulness, sadness, and feelings of being used, undefended and unprotected. These feelings often impede their ability to move forward. The authors aim to help empower people make the daunting transition from victims to victors. Come On, People! is always engaging, and loaded with heart-piercing stories of the problems facing many communities.

Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife

John A. Nagl

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Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Armies are invariably accused of preparing to fight the last war. Nagl examines how armies learn during the course of conflicts for which they are initially unprepared in organization, training, and mindset. He compares the development of counterinsurgency doctrine and practice in the Malayan Emergency from 1948-1960 with that developed in the Vietnam Conflict from 1950-1975, through use of archival sources and interviews with participants in both conflicts. In examining these two events, he argues that organizational culture is the key variable in determining the success or failure of attempts to adapt to changing circumstances. Differences in organizational culture is the primary reason why the British Army learned to conduct counterinsurgency in Malaya while the American Army failed to learn in Vietnam. The American Army resisted any true attempt to learn how to fight an insurgency during the course of the Vietnam Conflict, preferring to treat the war as a conventional conflict in the tradition of the Korean War or World War II. The British Army, because of its traditional role as a colonial police force and the organizational characteristics that its history and the national culture created, was better able to quickly learn and apply the lessons of counterinsurgency during the course of the Malayan Emergency. This is the first study to apply organizational learning theory to cases in which armies were engaged in actual combat.