History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10

Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.

I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.

Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.

Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.

I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.

This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.

Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America)

Average customer rating:

The construction of the illegal immigrant and discriminatory US policies
This book makes me want to hop the border to Canada
Reframing immigration history
The legally constructed "illegal aliens"

Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America)
Mae M. Ngai
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Americas | History | Subjects | Books

Civics | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

U.S. | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Emigration & Immigration | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Constitutional Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Emigration & Immigration | Administrative Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Look Inside History Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Nonfiction Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Professional | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0691124299

Book Description

This book traces the origins of the "illegal alien" in American law and society, explaining why and how illegal migration became the central problem in U.S. immigration policy--a process that profoundly shaped ideas and practices about citizenship, race, and state authority in the twentieth century.

Mae Ngai offers a close reading of the legal regime of restriction that commenced in the 1920s--its statutory architecture, judicial genealogies, administrative enforcement, differential treatment of European and non-European migrants, and long-term effects. In well-drawn historical portraits, Ngai peoples her study with the Filipinos, Mexicans, Japanese, and Chinese who comprised, variously, illegal aliens, alien citizens, colonial subjects, and imported contract workers. She shows that immigration restriction, particularly national-origin and numerical quotas, re-mapped the nation both by creating new categories of racial difference and by emphasizing as never before the nation's contiguous land borders and their patrol. This yielded the "illegal alien," a new legal and political subject whose inclusion in the nation was a social reality but a legal impossibility--a subject without rights and excluded from citizenship. Questions of fundamental legal status created new challenges for liberal democratic society and have directly informed the politics of multiculturalism and national belonging in our time.

Ngai's analysis is based on extensive archival research, including previously unstudied records of the U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Naturalization Service. Contributing to American history, legal history, and ethnic studies, Impossible Subjects is a major reconsideration of U.S. immigration in the twentieth century.

Customer Reviews:

The construction of the illegal immigrant and discriminatory US policies.......2006-12-01

The United States of America is the great melting pot of the world's immigrants, or is it? A white, middle-class, Protestant, European American lifestyle is what the great melting pot of American folklore was truly intended to articulate to the immigrants of the early 20th century. Mai Ngai counters this image of the US as the embracive playground of diverse immigrants and powerfully weaves the tale of how race, nationality, assimilation, and immigration all became interwoven concepts in overtly discriminatory US immigration policy of the mid-20th century in her newest book Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. As Mae says, "The telos of immigrant settlement, assimilation, and citizenship has been an enduring narrative of American history, but it has not always been the reality of migrants' desires or their experiences and interactions with American society and state." (5)
Throughout the history of the United States, there has been a clear struggle to define who can gain citizenship in this great nation. Ngai's book attempts not to tackle this debate, but rather how the construction of the illegal immigrant came about because "the promise of citizenship applies only to the legal alien, the lawfully present immigrant. The illegal immigrant has no right to be present, let alone embark on the path to citizenship." (6) Her book begins in 1924 with the adoption of the Johnson-Reed Act which established numeric quotas for immigration from countries across the globe. Prior to the 1920s, immigration was relatively unrestricted as, "the free global movement of labor was essential to economic development in the New World." (17) Ngai points out that it is vital to note that this pre-Johnson Reed Act period did see the exclusion of Chinese laborers who migration disturbed the precious ideas of manifest destiny in the West. She stresses that the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 was most important because the Supreme Court gave Congress absolute control over immigration as part of foreign relations.
Throughout her book, Ngai focuses on what she believes to be the two biggest consequences of the Johnson-Reed Act, the first being creation of the concept of illegal alien and the second being racially ranking the desirability for certain groups to immigrate to the United States. Perhaps the most powerful quote of the entire book goes, "Immigration restriction produced the illegal alien as a new legal and political subject, whose inclusion within the nation was simultaneously a social reality and a legal impossibility - a subject barred from citizenship and without rights." (4) Ngai points out that the irony of this newly created status is that the undocumented or illegal immigrants are woven into the economic fabric and labor market of our nation, and yet as they are cheap labor, they are disposable labor who can easily lose their ability to live in even the subhuman conditions in this oh so great nation.
Now that this new quota system was to be implemented, how would the country establish what the quotas would be for the varying countries of the world? Easy, they compared it to the approximate composition of the US population circa 1790, a clearly discriminatory and completely inaccurate and unreliable practice! As the rising popularity of eugenics was during this time period, there had been increased emphasis on census and racial definition and maintaining "racial hygiene". "Euro-American identities turned both on ethnicity - that is, a nationality-based cultural identity that is defined as capable of transformation and assimilation - and on racial identity defined by whiteness." (7) In this construction of the white American, those non-white, browner immigrants from Asia, Africa, and Mexico were deemed less desirable and lower class peoples who subsequently had a lower quota for the number of immigrants allowed. Ngai points to Mexicans as a changing population in regards to the immigration and whiteness policy of time, as originally they were deemed white as the need for immigrant farm workers was needed in the Southwest, but then subsequently deportation and repatriation of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans became the common practice.
Ngai wonderfully illustrates how as this period of quota-based immigration restrictions continued, the treatment of Filipinos, Mexicans, Chinese, and Japanese worsened to the extent of which no matter how long they or their families had been woven into the fabric of the US, they were viewed and abused as second-class foreigners. Ngai urges you to remember, these were systematic attempts at ranking races, excusing maltreatment, and elevating the political, economic, and racial status of white Euro-Americans, and not just subtle nuances of American policies. As the US struggled with its policies towards the Philippines, practices bounced back and forth from Filipinos being portrayed as being capable of "benevolent assimilation" but at the same time clearly of Asian ancestry and eventually was pushed towards independence and repatriation. As World War II arose, the massive discrimination and maltreatment that the Japanese and Chinese Americans endured only further reinforced their cultural ties to their home countries and therefore they were portrayed as disloyal citizens. In many cases these were actual citizens of the US, native-born patriotic people who had protected rights unlike those of their illegal immigrant counterparts. Ngai reminds us not to forget about the Cold War and the extreme measures that were taken to exclude Chinese people from immigration to the US and even participation as US citizens in order to protect us from evil communist China.
Ngai's phenomenal history comes to a close with the Immigration Act of 1965. Although this act overturned the racialized, discriminatory numeric quota system, it did sadly further extend the reach of numeric restrictions. For anyone who believes that racial hierarchy as part of US policy is a thing of the ancient past, for anyone who believes that African-Americans and their struggles for civil rights were the only systematically discriminated against population in recent US history, this is the book for you! Sit back and relax as Ngai takes you through this tremendously researched sensational tale of the United States and the construction of the illegal immigrant.

This book makes me want to hop the border to Canada.......2005-11-20

This book is truly awful. I don't know what her publisher was thinking by letting this book get out. The tone: Nasal. The language: Sociological jargon. The argument: Garbage. Save a tree and find something better.

Reframing immigration history.......2005-11-03

Mae Ngai's ambitious book compels historians and general readers alike to critically reassess traditional understandings of and approaches to U.S. immigration. Much of the histories on U.S. immigration and immigration policies have told a similar tale. The United States, the narrative goes, has been tainted by a long history of exclusion, a blight on the nation's democratic tradition that was only recently removed with the passage of the Immigration Act of 1965. Such a narrative not only reaffirms the myth of American universalism, but also consistently fails to produce any new critical knowledge about U.S. immigration and U.S. history. Impossible Subjects differs from these other works of immigration history in this important respect: it proceeds with the conviction that the United States was never a "nation of immigrants."

Ngai examines the era between 1924 and 1965, an unconventional periodization in immigration history that situates the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act (usually signifying the end of one regime) at the beginning of her study, and the Immigration Act of 1965 (usually signifying the beginning of another) at the end. Beyond simply filling a historiographical gap in immigration history, the focus on this period of immigration restriction enables a reevaluation of U.S. immigration laws, and more broadly of U.S history, on several levels. First, it demonstrates that restrictionist policies did not merely function as a tool for exclusion, but more, it created-through a racial and geographical remapping of the nation-new categories and concepts deeply implicated in race that defined the spaces and limits of national inclusion. Second, these categories and concepts, most notably "illegal aliens" and "national origins," are not natural or fixed conditions and markers, but are the product of positive law that, when scrutinized, reveal the ways in which its uses have shaped and defined the United States in the twentieth century, particularly its ideas and practices about race, citizenship, and the nation-state. Finally, this periodization allows for a reconfiguration of immigration history beyond a nationalist framework. By suggesting that the making of modern America rested on the exclusion of nonwhites from the geographical and ideological borders of the nation during this regime of restriction, the book argues against the normative telos of immigrant settlement, assimilation, and citizenship as the defining narrative of American history, a narrative that is confined to the nation-state and that invariably reproduces American exceptionalism.

By charting the historical origins of the "illegal alien" and the genealogy of immigration laws that have consistently reproduced it, Ngai has ultimately written a stunning history that goes far beyond narrating the history of U.S. immigration restriction. It is a book that deserves to be read widely.

The legally constructed "illegal aliens".......2004-07-04

IMPOSSIBLE SUBJECTS, written by Mae Ngai, is the best of recent books on the 20th-century American history of immigration. She reveals that the problem of "illegal immigrants," which has been regarded as one of the most serious problems since the late 20th century, is indeed a legal construction. According to the author, immigrants from Mexico were drawn into the U.S. Southeast because the Southeast political economy, especially agri-business, raised need for the massive wave of low-wage immigrant workers and at the same time defined them as the racially "foreign" people who were rendered alien to America, which was defined as the nation of Caucasians. What enabled the American Government and people to attach racialized foreignness to the Mexican immigrants (and, inevitably, American citizens of Mexican origin) were Immigration Acts, border policing, and discriminatory control of visas.

Mae Ngai argues that positive laws concerning immigration policy have constructed the category of "illegal aliens" from Mexico, and the implementation of the laws by Border Patrols and INS has reinforced the labeling of racially alien immigrants. She bases her analysis on the critical legal theory which suggests that laws constitute social formations. Her usage of the new legal theory in her inquiry into the American immigration history is highly excellent and persuasive.

The historical analysis of the immigration problems in this book seems to be applicable to other countries' history. For example, Ngai's insight shall give light to the recent Japanese conservative media discourses on the "illegal migrants" from China, South Korea, and Latin American nations which describe the undocumented migrant workers as illegal, criminal and, in case of women, prostitutes.

Book Description

Legal history has usually been written in terms of writs and legislation, and the development of legal doctrine. Christopher Brooks, in this series of essays roughly half of which are previously unpublished, approaches the law from two different angles: the uses made of courts and the fluctuations in the fortunes of the legal profession. Based on extensive original research, his work has helped to redefine the parameters of British legal history, away from procedural development and the refinement of legal doctrine and towards the real impact that the law had in society. He also places the law into a wider social and political context, showing how changes in the law often reflected, but at the same time influenced, changes in intellectual assumptions and political thought.Lawyers as a profession flourished in the second half of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century. This great age of lawyers was followed by a decline in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, reflecting both a decline in litigation and the perception of the law as slow, artificially complicated and ruinously expensive.In Lawyers, Litigation and Society, 1450-1900, Christopher Brooks also looks at the sorts of cases brought before different courts, showing why particular courts were used and for what reasons, as well as showing why the popularity of individual courts changed over the years.

Liberty against the Law: Some Seventeenth-Century Controversies

Average customer rating:

A LITERARY LOOK AT THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN
Indigenous Land Rights in England

Liberty against the Law: Some Seventeenth-Century Controversies
Christopher Hill
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Early Civilization | Ancient | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0140240330

Amazon.com

Christopher Hill, the peerless people's historian of the 17th century, has written a book that challenges the common history of liberty and the birth of liberal politics. While historians from Lord Acton to J. H. Hexter have written histories in which property-holding men figure as the champions of liberal freedom, Professor Hill deftly illustrates the manner in which enclosure laws and claims to property were used to deny the traditional rights of the common folk of 17th-century England. Drawing evidence from popular ballads, plays, and his extensive knowledge of the period's literature, Professor Hill demonstrates that the supposed "dawn" of liberal rights and freedoms brought economic dependence, penal punishment, and the loss of freedom for the rural poor and artisan classes who were being swiftly enveloped in a burgeoning commercial society.

Book Description

In the plays and popular folklore of the 17th and 18th centuries are many expressions of liberty against the law: there are the colorful beggars of "The Jovial Crew" who are no worse than the eminent politicians; the ballads of Robin Hood personify the opposition between the freedom of the outlaw in the woods and the status constraints on the society man. Christopher Hill considers how the peasantry was effected by enclosures, the loss of many traditional rights, and draconian punishments for minor transgressions. These expressions of contempt for the law challenge the equation of law with property and begin to pose the question, "Freedom for Whom?" Wrote Keith Thomas in The Guardian, "Hill must have read more of the literature written in and about 17-century England than anyone who has ever lived. He misses nothing."

Customer Reviews:

A LITERARY LOOK AT THE WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN.......2007-09-10

The late pre-eminent historian of the under classes of the English Revolution, Christopher Hill, has taken the myriad literary and cultural ideas, serious and zany, that surfaced during the period between 1620-1720, the heart of the conversion of England from an agricultural to an embryonic capitalist economy, and given us his take on some previously understudied and misunderstood notions, many that have not made the conventional history books. I note that he uses as his endpoint John Gay's Beggar's Opera, a work later adapted for the stage by Bertolt Brecht, and that I have reviewed elsewhere in this space (see September 2007 archives). One of the points discussed in that review is whether the figure of one MacHealth the central figure of the work, former imperial soldier and leader of a profitable criminal gang is an incipient capitalist or the relic of an earlier age. Professor Hill's book would seem to provide ammunition for the proposition that Mac Health, like the legendary Robin Hood, was a representative figure of `freedom' from the imperatives of capitalist contract, routine and law and harked back to the values of the old pastoral society.

In this expansively footnoted book Mr. Hill, as he has done elsewhere, connects the dramatic break-up of traditional agrarian English society; the resulting vast increase of 'masterless' men not bound to traditional authority and potentially receptive to new ideas; the widespread availability of the protestant Bible brought about by the revolution in printing and thus permitting widespread distribution to the masses; the effects of the Protestant Reformation on individual responsibility; the discrediting of the theology of the divine right of kings; the role of the priesthood of all believers that foreshadow a very modern concept of the validity of individual religious expression; radical interpretations of equality and primitive communism, particularly the work of Gerrard Winstanley ; the Puritan ethic and many more subjects of interests to bring to life what the common people who hitherto had barely entered the stage of history were reading, watching, thinking and doing.

Professor Hill as well, using the extensive prose and poetic literature of the age as a guide, gives us a rudimentary cultural tour of how the under classes responded to the break down of their tradition agrarian lives (and the generally brutal reply of the ruling classes). Elsewhere he has discussed `masterless' men driven out of the villages, forests and fens by the enclosures of the land in the interest of capitalist agricultural production for the market. Here he discusses the literature developed around those men (and women). He tackles, for those who know his work, the now familiar themes of Robin Hood, highwaymen, vagrants, beggars and the like. He moreover, as always, connects trends in biblical interpretation with their effect on the on-going social changes. Furthermore he does an extensive study of the literature of English imperialist expansion during the period connecting up such subjects as the `noble savage', `going native' and the effects of imperial expansion on both the oppressed and the oppressor. While he brings in his usual cast of characters like the Seekers, Ranters and Quakers and individuals like Abiezer Coppe and others they are more background figures in this exposition. I would suggest that before one tackles this work that a reading of Professor Hill's The World Turned Upside Down is in order.

Indigenous Land Rights in England.......1998-08-11

Christopher Hill analyses the most traumatic event in English history - the loss of Land Rights by a large part of the English population around the seventeenth century. Under the Enclosures and other related Acts, large landowners seized land hitherto under common ownership, forcing the villagers to migrate to shanty towns on the edges of cities, to wait, handily, as a pool of cheap labour for the burgeoning industrial capitalist economy, a picture now all too readily associated with the third world in this century.

The results were very similar to those found today in third world countries where indigenous peoples are deprived of their cultural heritage and their physical means of survival, by the seizing of their garden, grazing, and hunting lands, and Hill follows - as well as the cargo cults of the time - the libertarian reactions to this dispossession: the Diggers, Levellers, pirates (research Burroughs must have drawn on for his fine last book "Ghost of! Chance"), and the very considerable literary rebellion against the beginnings of what, with the final flowering of agribusiness, is today referred to as "The Killing of the Countryside" (Graham Harvey, Cape.)

Customer Reviews:

A Classic of Intellectual History.......2004-05-23

Although it is now almost fifty years since the first edition appeared, a recent rereading reminded me why this has long been considered the essential English-language oveview of the social thought of turn-of-the-century continental Europe (Germany, France, Italy, and Austria). Hughes focuses on the central issues in social theory--positivism, pragmatism, idealism, irrationalism, materialism, liberalism--as they were addressed by the most innovative and influential thinkers of the period (notably Freud, Durkheim, Croce, Bergson, Sorel, and Pareto, and--Hughes' hero--Weber). Hughes assess ideas at a high level of abstraction, so this is probably not the book for a reader with no previous acquaintance with modern social theory. And although he sketches in the social and political background and offers penetrating biographical sketches, Hughes does not undertake the kind of close reading exemplified by Carl Schorske's Fin-de-Siecle Vienna, which demonstrates the intimate links between intellectuals' life experience and their ideas. But not many works of history age this well. One sign of Hughes' success: closing this book, I wanted to pick up Freud and Durkheim and Weber again.

Positivistic Influences.......2003-07-14

This is an important book that is deservedly back in print and well worth reading at a time when we seem to be reliving the mistakes of the positivistic surge at the end of the nineteenth century, deja vu all over again. The crash of the Hegelian movement and the reversal of thought in the post-Hegelian generation saw many influenced by the (quite metaphysical) Comtean positivism, among them none other than Charles Darwin. The effect is practically cast in granite in the works of Marx who unwittinlgy signatures the trend. The tide of positivism carrying its distinct set of hidden metaphysical premises and limits was fairly well exposed at the time, but in the age of dominant Darwinism it has made a comeback in disguise. Hughes goes through the whole development tracing the stream of influences and gives us an significant portrait of intellectual history we seemed doomed to relive none the wiser. (Reviewed from memory, I think I got it right)

A Tribal Order: Politics and Law in the Mountains of Yemen (CMES Modern Middle East Series)

Average customer rating:

A Tribal Order: Politics and Law in the Mountains of Yemen (CMES Modern Middle East Series)
Shelagh Weir
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

Yemen | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0292714238

Book Description

A Tribal Order describes the politico-legal system of Jabal Razih, a remote massif in northern Yemen inhabited by farmers and traders. Contrary to the popular image of Middle Eastern tribes as warlike, lawless, and invariably opposed to states, the tribes of Razih have stable structures of governance and elaborate laws and procedures for maintaining order and resolving conflicts with a minimum of physical violence. Razihi leaders also historically cooperated with states, provided the latter respected their customs, ideals, and interests. Weir considers this system in the context of the rugged environment and productive agricultural economy of Razih, and of centuries of continuous rule by Zaydi Muslim regimes and (latterly) the republican governments of Yemen.

The book is based on Weir's extended anthropological fieldwork on Jabal Razih, and on her detailed study of hundreds of handwritten contracts and treaties among and between the tribes and rulers of Razih. These documents provide a fascinating insight into tribal politics and law, as well as state-tribe relations, from the early seventeenth to the late twentieth century. A Tribal Order is also enriched by case histories that vividly illuminate tribal practices. Overall, this unusually wide-ranging work provides an accessible account of a remarkable Arabian society through time.

Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic Family Law Iran and Morocco Compared (Society and Culture in the Modern Middle East)

Average customer rating:

Marriage on Trial: A Study of Islamic Family Law Iran and Morocco Compared (Society and Culture in the Modern Middle East)
Ziba Mir-Hosseini
Manufacturer: I B Tauris & Co Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Law | Subjects | Books

Islamic | Legal History | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Women's Studies | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Islamic | World | History | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Parenting Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 1850436851

Civil Law in Qing and Republican China (Law, Society, and Culture in China)

Average customer rating:

Civil Law in Qing and Republican China (Law, Society, and Culture in China)
Kathryn Bernhardt , and Philip Huang
Manufacturer: Stanford University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

General | Administrative Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Law | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0804737797

Book Description

The opening of local archives to Western scholars in the 1980’s has provided the basis for this reexamination of civil law in Qing and Republican China. This pathbreaking volume demonstrates that, contrary to previous scholarly understanding, Qing and Republican courts dealt extensively with such civil matters as land rights, debt, marriage, and inheritance, and did so with striking consistency and in conformity with the written code.

Planetary Politics: Human Rights, Terror, and Global Society (Logos: Perspectives on Modern Society and Culture)

Average customer rating:

Planetary Politics: Human Rights, Terror, and Global Society (Logos: Perspectives on Modern Society and Culture)
Stephen Eric Bronner
Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Human Rights | Constitutional Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

History & Theory | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Human Rights | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Terrorism | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Global society has been analyzed in any number of ways: books dealing with its economic and cultural implications flood the market. But Planetary Politics highlights something unique. It explores globalization with an eye on the transformation of politics into a planetary enterprise. Bringing together the work of major scholars with national and international reputations, this exciting new work offers perspectives for dealing with the complexity of power in the planetary life of the new millennium.

Average customer rating:

Law in Modern Society
Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Law | Subjects | Books

Jurisprudence | Perspectives on Law | Law | Subjects | Books

General | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Modern | Philosophy | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Law | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0029328802

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books