Interesting but a Tad Repetetive

books:

	• It Seemed Like a Good Idea...: A Compendium Of Great Historical Fiascoes William R. Forstchen, Bill Fawcett Harper Paperbacks, 2000 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 6 reviews view larger image
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Fun and Accurate

This book was not only great to read and certainly isn't like history as taught as a dry list of dates and platitudes in too many schools. Nothing in great depth, but hundreds of historical events and facts I didn't know were given me in a way that made them enjoyable. Obviously the book historians create to when they want to have fun. I'd always wondered why the vikings never came back.

Interesting but a Tad Repetetive

I love and have read a number of books of this sort, and while not being a bad example of the short article fact book format, it did tend to get a little repetetive. The three to four page segments are written by different people so some of the pieces tend to overlap with the same information from one segment to the next. Also, I had read most of the "good idea turned bad" information in other books of this type (usually with more conciseness) so there weren't many surprises.
The reading is quick and light and fun, so if you aren't familiar with the "this is what REALLY happened" branch of literature, you may enjoy this quite a bit. Otherwise, I would suggest one stick with broader and more interesting works like "An Underground Education" by Richard Zacks which covers a number of the same points found in this work as well as branching out into many other arenas of human stupidity.

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Good Easy Read

This is a very good easy read. History has been simplified, but this is a wonderful "bathroom book" or "travel book" because most sections aren't more than four or five pages. Don't read this if you want deep historical knowledge, but instead if you want educational easy reading or to know some interesting facts.

In Limbo, but still fun

Historian/author William Forstchen brings us "It Seemed Like a Good Idea" as a quasi-humorous look at mistaken judgements throughout history. Each chapter is fairly short, and the chunks of history make for great "alternate history speculation" by scholars. However, this book is not fiction. It is also not serious history, as there is a lot more behind each story than Forstchen presents (for instance, "Big Guns" doesn't really point out that the Byzantine Empire was already doomed by a shrinking tax base, the sweeping tide of Islam, and the harm done to the Eastern Empire by the Latinate Dictatorship, the Crusades, etc.).

For serious history, with a readable, well-researched look at REALLY big blunders, the reader might want to move on to Barbara Tuchmann's "The March of Folly," a true classic. For alternate history, Forstchen's own novels are as good an entry point to the genre as any.

It Seemed Like a Good Idea is a hybrid and is sort of in limbo, but is well-written and engageing nonetheless. It's main failing is that it uses 20-20 hindsight and information not available to decision-makers at the time to cast them as idiots. Otherwise, it's a fine read, informative, and well worth your time.

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reviews: page 1, 2

Throughout the annals of history, the best of intentions?and sometimes the worst?have set in motion events with a vastly different outcome than originally intended. In this entertaining, fact-filled chronicle, William Forstchen and Bill Fawcett explore the watersheds of history that began as the best of ideas and ended as the worst of fiascoes.

A Holy War?The Medieval Crusades for religious liberation become centuries of slaughter and destruction.

Sibling Rivalry?Leif Erikson spares his sister's life and delays the discovery of the New World for five hundred years.

Big Guns?Emperor Constantine XI refuses to buy a new supercannon that would let him dominate his enemies, so its creator sells the cannon to the Turks, who then crush Constantinople.

With casual wit and subtle insight, It Seemed Like a Good Idea...tucks tongue in cheek and rides out the fiascoes of history.

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