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27 reviews
Jacques Derrida

The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998

The perennial postponement of signification
Of grammatology is a tour-de-force of Derrida's ideas about reading and writing; it encapsulates his view of de-construction, and his reformulation of such complex issues as phenomenology and structuralism. I have to admit that there were times when I felt that I was just turning the pages. I needed to go back several times just to get a sense of what I had just read. Spivak's introduction is a ...

Washington: The Indispensable Man

55 reviews
James Thomas Flexner

Back Bay Books, 1994

An excellent overview.....
George Washington is known, of course, as the "father of our country"; that's not completely true, but what is true is that without Washington we might still be flying the Union Jack; he was "The Indespensable Man". He was a reticent, self-controlled, man who never let others get too close; this makes a biographer's task difficult, but it hasn't kept a LOT of people from trying. Washington may ...

Rembrandt A&I (Art and Ideas)

2 reviews
Mariet Westermann

Phaidon Press, 2000

Understanding Rembrandt.
In her book Mariet Westerman guides us through the life and works of Rembrandt - from his earliest self-portraits to the introspective works of his later days. And she does so with empathy and a deep understanding of both the artist's character and the artistic, economic and social environment which he was a part of. Westerman writes in a matter-of-fact way without being superficial. Thus the ...

Red, White, and Black: The Peoples of Early North America (5th Edition)
Gary B. Nash

Prentice Hall, 2005

Written by highly acclaimed historian Gary B. Nash, this book presents an interpretive account of the interactions between Native Americans, African Americans, and Euroamericans during the colonial and revolutionary eras. It reveals the crucial interconnections between North America's many peoples– illustrating the ease of their interactions in the first two centuries of European and African presence–to develop a fuller, deeper ...

The Americans: The Colonial Experience

14 reviews
Daniel J. Boorstin

Vintage, 1964

This is why Boorstin is one of my favorites
I love to read American history and Daniel Boorstin is one of the best. After reading this book, I had a much better understanding of the American colonial experience. I also understood to a greater degree the affects that Christianity has had on our culture. In this book, Boorstin compares three colonies. It is interesting to read the cultural differences. I strongly recommend this book to ...

The Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)

1 review
Margaret C. Jacob

Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000

A good survey of the Enlightenment
After reading a bunch of these Bedford series in History books for a history class, I have really come to appreciate them. They are all pretty short, smooth reads that give a historical overview of the time, then include selections of documents written during that time related to the topic or whatever. As only having a vague knowledge of such things as the Enlightenment before reading these ...

The Portable Enlightenment Reader (The Viking Portable Library) (The Viking Portable Library)

5 reviews

Penguin (Non-Classics), 1995

An Enlightenment Buffet
The eighteenth century Enlightenment is one of the most interesting and exciting periods of intellectual history. The thinkers of that age had a sizable impact on concepts of science, nature, politics, religion and society. How do we become immersed in the wealth of writing of that period, however, without giving up job and family in order to read the works of the Enlightenment authors? This ...

Early American Women: A Documentary History, 1600 - 1900

2 reviews
Nancy Woloch

McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2001

very good
Its a shame that in many history classes, half of the human experience is virtually ignored. This is even more apparent in terms of anthologies of documents. Nancy Woloch has made an outstanding contribution in correcting this in her _Early American Women_. The book is marvelous in the wide variety of documents it contains. There is census data from Spanish California, accounts of Iroquois ...

American Slavery, American Freedom

9 reviews
Edmund S. Morgan

W. W. Norton & Company, 2003

Excellent
This very well written and researched book is an effort to answer a single interesting question; why were so many of the great Founders slaveholding Virginians? To address this apparent paradox, Morgan investigates the history of colonial Virginia from its founding to the mid-18th century, reconstructing the evolution of the planter caste and their attitudes. Morgan shows that despite the ...

European Architecture 1750-1890 (Oxford History of Art)

2 reviews
Barry Bergdoll

Oxford University Press, USA, 2000

History of architecture
this book must be read with Modern Architecture by Oxford in order to understand the history of architecture. This book covers the must needed areas of the field including, the hut to Palladio, and others up until the rise of modernism, where incidently the book Modern Architecture takes over. I recommend this book in concordance to that book and for the architecture student whether for class or ...

American Slavery American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia

5 reviews
Edmund S. Morgan

W. W. Norton & Company, 1995

Brilliant
This is an excellent, in depth survey of Virginiaýs colonial experience, with an emphasis on how the seemingly contradictory institutions of slavery and equalitarian republicanism developed simultaneously. Indeed, Morgan argues that Virginiansý definition of freedom, and their very ability to establish a republican political system, rested upon the creation of African slavery. Morgan shows that ...

The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688-1783

2 reviews
John Brewer

Harvard University Press, 1990

A true work of real genius!
"From its modest beginnings as... a minor, infrequent almost inconsequential participant in the great wars that ravaged sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe... Britain emerged in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as the military Wunderkind of the age.... [B]y the reign of George III Britain had become one of the heaviest weights in the balance of power in Europe [and]... ...

Habermas: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

3 reviews
Gordon Finlayson

Oxford University Press, USA, 2005

Best Introduction to Habermas
I have been reading Habermas and books about Habermas on and off since 2000. Habermas' writings are clearly difficult, and so do most introductions to Habermas. Most introductions to Habermas follow the chronology of Habermas' work, usually starting with the work on Public Sphere through to the tome on legal theory (Between Facts and Norms). Those introductions usually succeed in portraying ...

The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power (European History in Perspective)
Colin Imber

Palgrave Macmillan, 2004

This stimulating and ground-breaking book surveys the history of the Ottoman Empire from its obscure origins in the early 1300s, through its rise to the status of a world power and its struggles in the 17th century. Written in an accessible, narrative style, The Ottoman Empire examines the internal structure and politics of the Ottoman dynasty, revealing the growth and development of the power, politics, and institutions through which the ...

Common Landscape of America, 1580-1845

1 review
John R. Stilgoe

Yale University Press, 1983

Scholarly History of the American Landscape
This groundbreaking 1982 work by Harvard landscape scholar John Stilgoe remains a standard text for cultural geographers, landscape historians and others interested in historic patterns of development throughout this country. It still has not been equalled in its depth or scope. Stilgoe weaves together an astounding amount of historical detail in a scholarly yet readable style that offers ...

Freedom Just Around the Corner: A New American History: 1585-1828

10 reviews
Walter A. Mcdougall

Harper Perennial, 2005

The Textbook You Wish You'd Had in School
Did we need one more history of the US? Even McDougall isn't so sure about that. But he manages to find a path that hasn't been beaten down. Where the tendency of American historians has been to find One Big Peg on which to hang their histories, McDougall pitches a big tent and tries hard to fit everybody under it. He works hard to tell the whole story without trying to shape it to lead to a ...

Religion and Science

7 reviews
Bertrand Russell

Oxford University Press, USA, 1997

"Religion and Science" as opposed to "Religion vs. Science"
This book is the culmination of lengthy and grueling contemplations. It really reveals the author's depth of knowledge. Religion and science are two major aspects of life. Religion (or to worship something more superior and powerful) has been around since the day humankind was created. In every epoch, in every land, human beings felt a need to believe in something which they can seek refuge ...

Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity

9 reviews
Stephen Edelston Toulmin

University of Chicago Press, 1992

On the Madness of the West
and How it Ended up Creating the World as We Know It_ could have been another title of this superb book that is written with cogency, urgency, and a real desire to get across the reader what the author has to say. The synopsis of the story is as another reveiwer has already described below: namely that the kick-off of modernity with Descartes' "I think therefore I am" was not something that ...

Hubbub: Filth, Noise, and Stench in England, 1600-1770

5 reviews
Emily Cockayne

Yale University Press, 2008

A wonder-filled and unique take on a turbulent era
Cockayne has served up a marvelous tour of the underside of early modern England, filled with the wild, the weird and the harrowing facts of everyday life on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. I was especially impressed with her survey of the maimed and crippled among even the privileged and the intelligentsia, a side of English history never shown on "Masterpiece Theatre."

Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis

1 review

Oxford University Press, USA, 2004

After basic theory, what's next? Books like this.
Where do you go when you know first year theory, and most books are too smart or too dumb? Engaging Music does not suppose a large degree of knowledge on the part of its readers, though it does presume basic first year theory, which is what makes it great. Ostensibly about analysis the book contains a wealth of ideas in many areas. A broad range of genres are covered include the common ...

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