gross and offensive historical revisionism
352308
This is gross and offensive historical revisionism, even most honest Calvinist preachers admit that the early Church would have rejected most of their doctrines. For example even John Gill admitted that Irenaeus who this author extolled and praised had a similar view to God' s sovereignty as Jacob Arminius. Irenaeus also taught that disobeying God will mean you no longer are his son, or what about his understanding of who hardened Pharoah's heart?  So much for the Church Fathers defending TULIP! Also Augustine had taught that it was possible for one to lose their salvation, again a rejection of TULIP. Also what about baptismal regeneration? Zwingli had asserted that EVERYONE before him was wrong on the subject while asserting it was purely symbolic and nothing more!

To assert that the church fathers would have accepted TULIP is intellectual dishonesty at its best, Underhile in his book asserted that the fathers overstated human freedom and claimed John Calvin demonstrated such a thing, so how can they agree with Calvin when he disagrees with them?
3098769
For the first 75 pages or so I loved this book.  The true underlying story is fascinating and was new information to me.  The "what if" scenario is pregnant (no pun intended) with possibility.  That said, the historical inaccuracies and characterizations were so jarring and non-nuanced that it almost read like parody or farce - "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" or "Guliver's Travels" without the insight or the humor of Twain or Swift.  This woman - no matter how progressive. open-minded, and highly-sexed - simply could not have lived in the time.  It was like the author dropped Marlo Thomas into the 19th century.  Mae's husband was a cardboard cut-out; in my minds-eye he was the Indian paddling down the river with a tear running down his cheek as he viewed what the white man had done to Mother Earth (a wonderful and iconic 30-second advertising image, but one-dimensional for a novel).  I was also put-off by the oversimplified "white man bad red man good" approach.  At this juncture no reasonable person could deny that what the US Government and the various churches did to Native Americans was an attrocity, an American Holocaust.  That said, there were good men and women on both sides doing what they beleived was the right thing.  To ignore that and turn this into a cartoonish battle between good and evil is simply silly and ultimately insulting to all the players.
1526399
If you want to gauge the complete lack of care and scholarship that went into writing this homophobic, white nationalist, screed of fake history, you can start with the typo in the title (look for yourself, Amazon didn't correct it), using the word "Tranformation" instead of "Transformation."  There are typos and factual errors on almost every page; my favorites include McClay's practice of being so fuzzy about historical events that she has people doing things long after they're dead (see for example, see page 437-438 which has Ruth Benedict rising from the grave to burst into a Columbia University board meeting to protest the firing of Gene Weltfish, almost five years after Benedict's death). This book conforms to the basic rule about self published historical books: there's a reason they're self published, and it usually has to do with the lack of scholarship and ability to comply with facts. There are so many errors and fake historical accounts that all add up to the sort of White Nationalist racial supremacy and homophobia that I surprised that Fox News hasn't made a miniseries out of this flawed an poorly written book. I can't say enough good things about this book; literally.
3340689
This was an enjoyable read but totally disregarded historical timelines. Famous characters were long dead or very young and the mix of wooden ships and airplanes was absurd.
The other distraction was the out of context and inappropriate limericks. They showed poor taste.
  Maybe this "steam punk" style is popular with some readers, but you have to be ignorant of history for it to really make sense.
With better research the author would be on to something far better.
1964523
This book has many false and biased representations of history. It's depiction of Indian history is completely and utterly false. Check the statement that Indian civilization was influnced by Mesopotamia (which started around 6000-4000BCE) than check Indian civilization which started around (8000BCE). How can Mesopotamian civilization influence Indian civilization, if according to the book, Indian cilization started 2000 years before Mesopotamia? Should it not be the other way round? All these thinking came from MaCaulay's bias of a great civilization and Max Muller's obedience to Macaulay. Please write a better book with some true substance. Stop teaching kids false history.
1806472
This is a work of clunky and malicious propaganda. Anecdotes and misinformation are slapped together in a crass, manipulative pr style lamenting that Hitler and Sanjay Gandhi's excesses discredited eugenics. Under the flimsy veil of feminist concern for reproductive freedom, Goldberg launches a creepy white supremacist revival of eugenics mythology, bemoaning that there aren't enough "Europeans" but there are too many of everyone else. While the book purports to be a kind of history of "overpopulation" remedies, she never brings herself to say what's unsatisfactory about the population status quo; with snark alone she dismisses the consensus among social scientists regarding the anticommunist and imperialist motives for such programs and their crackpot Social Darwinist guiding philosophies. Goldberg defends Margaret Sanger's odious racism with childish vulgar historicism and at the same time seems to give credit to Sanger's absurd racial anthropology, herself deploying it to ring the alarm about Muslims conquering Europe by breeding populations of threatening Semitic aliens 'within their secular host societites.'

Unsupported dogmatic statements are followed by streams of speculation and psychologistic fantasizing: John D Rockefeller III, we are told, was an "altrustic" man who funded the program that trained Mengele through the Rockefeller foundation and founded the Population Council after the war to continue his family's eugenics project for, Goldberg assures the reader, selfless and laudable motives. Goldberg insists the 'modest' JD Rockefeller III was a man whose concerns that "Modern civilization has reduced natural selection,
saving more `weak' lives and allowing them to reproduce" were prompted by "compassion" and whose project to reduce population growth among African-Americans, deemed "socially inadequate" by his organization, were admirable and benevolent. Goldberg insintuates that African Americans resisting these contraception and sterilization drives were mad misguided militants. (The proof Goldberg offers of this "fact" of Rockefeller's benevolence, altruism and "feminism" is that an employee of his said he used to say he prefered to talk to the wives of politicians when dining at events.)

Goldberg's final chapter "the Birth Strike" replicates all the nauseous phantasmagoric Islamophobic propaganda of Europe's extreme right, repeating the complaints expressed in the manifesto of the fascist mass murderer Andras Behring Breivik who slaughtered dozens of Norwegian students at a labour party summer camp for the declared purpose of terrorizing Norwegians into a white supremacist immigration policy. Breivik fretted in his manifesto that Europe was being destroyed from within by Muslim immigrants who took advantage of the sissified and weakened male that feminism had created in Europe. Goldberg shares Breivik's obsession with one Mullah Krekar, quoted by Breivik repeatedly and centrally staged by Goldberg in her depiction of the Muslim  demographic menace posing a threat to "European values" (feminism, gay rights) and European standard of living (by, she suggests without  a shred of evidence, reluctance to pay taxes to support their welfare states). While admitting that the "conservative" analysis that appear as Breivik's rationale for murdering socialist Norwegian schoolchildren is "exaggerated", Goldberg stresses it is "not wrong."  It's truly a disgusting performance, a wonky, genteel, euphemistic rehashing of Sanger's hideous Pivot of Civilization, mixed with Malthus, Laughlin, the Ehrlichs, and a splash of Hitler. For a sane alternative on the topics this lunatic, unresearched and repulsive book treats, see _The Crisis of Multiculturalism_ by Lentin and Titley, on these themes of the demographic Muslim intruder threat of "Eurabia" that Goldberg recycles, _the Myth of Population Control__, by Mahmood Mamdani (husband of director Mira Nair) and _the Legacy of Malthus_ by Allan Chase.
3111168
Ms. Moss has published another revisionist history which takes a backhanded swipe at the Christian religion.  If you wish to have your negative viewpoint of Christianity reinforced please feel free to read this book. However if you are actually seeking a historically accurate view of the period and Roman Christian interaction you would be well advised to pass it by.  Just one quote:
"When Christians appeared in Roman courtrooms, they were not tried as heretics, blasphemers, or even fools. Christians had a reputation for being socially reclusive, refusing to join the military, and refusing to swear oaths. Once in the courtroom Christians said things that sounded like sedition. They were rude, subversive, and disrespectful. Most important, they were threatening. Even if the actions of the Romans still seem unjust, we must admit that they had reasons for treating Christians the way they did. The fact that religion and politics were so intimately blended with one another means that it is difficult to parse the motivations of Roman administrators as either religious or political. But from a Roman perspective and from the perspective of members of most ancient religious groups and political organizations, the Romans had the moral high ground. They were protecting the Empire from the wrath of the gods and its effects. That Christians were executed should not surprise us, this is a world in which people paid the "ultimate price" for seemingly small offenses."

Now replace Christian with Jew and Roman and Empire with Nazi and Reich and see if the shoe does not fit.  Ms. Moss just cannot understand (or possibly believe in) people dedicated to a religious faith that they followed even to death.  She also seems completely sympathetic to a totalitarian regime that believes its continued existence justifies any action.
4234962
Because of the right to freedom of speech in this country (something the South denied to it's slave population), we have to endure pseudo-historical tomes like this.  My great great grandfather fought honorably in the Confederate army, and I had other relatives on both sides of the line.  I reside in Tennessee, but was born in Montana.  Hardly a "Yankee". My convictions regarding the war come from reading histories written by men from both regions of the country (remember Shelby Foote?), and it is apparent that the South threw themselves into a conflict based on their own racial and social misconceptions which propped up both their economy and their culture.  To write a book like this as a justification for a war that cost thousands of lives, and untold loss of property is an insult to the dead on both sides.  To brand Northerners as bigoted, exploitive haters of everything below the Mason Dixon line shows that the authors have some deep seated problems of their own to work out.  After they apologise for reinforcing the unjust stereotypes of Southerners with this hare brained, twisted version of history.
886753
What is this book? History? Hardly.  A reference book that can be trusted? Hardly.
The histories of the WWII correspondents may be right, the photographs are most likely right but the rest?
The author clearly belongs to military-baiters praising bad generals, denigrating good generals. He uses the sneering, nasty language that is so typical of the "progressive left" - and without any foundation.
Seems to pick on one of the favorite targets of the Left: Gen George Patton. In the view of this nasty kid writer, Patton is "bleating".
He attacks him in one place about his strategy in Sicily, agreeing with the Brits "Patton only faced Italians". Of course then he describes fights against Germans (actually one of the most formidable German units: the Hermann Goering Panzer Parachute Division).
On the subject of using the amphibious leaps on the north coast of Sicily he quotes the well-known scene from the movie "Patton" as Patton orders Gen Lucian Truscott for another one of the leaps and Truscott objects as an example of "recklessness" - but then somewhat later he describes that Patton was "lucky" because in fact there were no Germans at the landing site. And it goes on and on, not just about Patton.
The book collects facts - but then becomes worthless because of the injected opinions of the author.
His language at places reminds me of the Bolshevik Party in the 1920s and 1930s.
2601616
A 700 page thesis of history and analysis, from a scholarly person, all for what?

To conclude that we must always carry on thinking in terms of tribalism and rivalry. To arm and 'defend' yourselves against the (other) savage hoardes. If this is what Europe is (many Europeans and others would definitely subscribe to the author's views), it might as well not exist. Such a 'civilization' is a mere blot on the face of humanity, and people like this Kissinger loving author would not know the meaning of the word.

This book is recommended for soulless, educated, intellectual monsters who like to enjoy their lies, propaganda and insanity, with a cup of coffee at some outdoor upscale cafe.

For one alternative to the nightmare of centuries of warfare (history) try this book:&nbsp;<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Being-Different-An-Indian-Challenge-to-Western-Universalism/dp/B005UQ3YT8/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Being Different: An Indian Challenge to Western Universalism</a>
887830
This account of Indian history is written by a Westernized Indian with an ingrained inferiority complex due to British and Muslim rule.  This work is not based on his own analysis of Sanskrit literature but rather the English and Hindi translations of the Vedas by various European scholars and other Westernized Indian hacks with similar inferiority complex about their indigenous culture.

This author is ignorant and on a quest for fame by writing a "popular" (his own description) account of ancient Indian history.  The publisher Elibron Classics is happy to republish a 1889 text by an Indian author that supports the now discounted Aryan Invasion Theory.  The original printing was published by another British racist group named Thacker, Spink and Co., Calcutta; Trubner and Co., London.  Elibron and Elibron Classics are trademarks of Adamant Media Corporation (probably another racist group).

Many Indian understandably had an inferiority complex versus the British. These Indians who had lost faith in religious teachings believed anything the British told them about their own ancient history. India's ancient history was purposefully clouded due to 800 years of Muslim rule so that the Muslims could not distort and negate its past glory.

In this book, there is no original translation analysis from the original Sanskrit by this author. It is not clear from the reading whether he even knows Sanskrit since he depends so heavily of English translations. He simply reiterates the racist, colonialist account of the imagined Aryan invasion popular at the time by European translators of Hindu religious texts.

Religious sages and teachers who have studied the Vedas in their original Sanskrit have a much different account of the Hindu religion which they believe to be 10,000 plus years old.  It is no wonder why Hinduism is referred to as Sanatan (Eternal) Dharma.  Krishna birth (and the subsequent Mahabharat war) is dated by Indian religious scholars to have occurred 5000 years ago during the onset of the Indus River Civilization. Rama Bhagwan's virtuous kingdom existed a few thousand years previous to Krishna's birth.

European and specifically British colonialist scholars vehemently opposed this historical account since it didn't support their racist agenda to subvert Indian history.  Weaker Indians with an inferiority complex such as the author of this text quickly adopted the Eurocentric view that Indian culture and languages came about from white Aryan conquest.  Fortunately this racist myth has now been put to rest by archeological evidence which is still discounted by Western scholars who have more faith in vague and extremely hypothetical linguistics analysis.

It is not surprising why an outdated book such as this by an Indian author is being republished and sold on Amazon with free Super Saver Shipping. Anyone who is not racist would see that the Aryan invasion theory has been disproved by simple common sense analysis of archeological facts and a true literary analysis of the Rig Veda and subsequent Saraswati River Civilization Vedas. Eurocentric Westerners have a hard time accepting that civilization did not arise from noble white conquerors of inferior dark-skinned "aborigines" as this author likes to call them.  A better translation of the Sanskrit word arya is not "noble" but rather civilized.  And civilized people are not racists. Rather they have to fight an ongoing "war" against forces of untruth and ignorance, who use propaganda to bolster their selfish agendas.
260757
If you're looking for an inspired, interesting piece of alternate history, look elsewhere. The sign reads: Here be stereotypes.

The author very clearly means to draw the "good, progressive guys" and the "regressive, villains" along current US foreign policy. He assigns each of them what I would call "powers" in that he gives good and bad characteristics to the civilizations based on prevailing stereotypes and foreign fears.

1. Muslims: Uniformly portrayed as regressive both technologically and socially. The definitive villains and punching bags of the story.
2. Chinese: The USA's "pivot to Asia" to contain an increasingly powerful China manifests in the author's portrayal at a China that, unchecked by Europe and America, swallows up Asia and drowns it by numbers
3. Japanese: A good US ally is given the comically ridiculous role of having a lone Japanese samurai somehow uniting all the native American tribes from coast to coast. Sillier than even the most die hard Samurai obsessed cartoons out there
4. Native Americans: the "Noble Savages"
5. Indians: Another good US ally. Free from the yoke of those dastardly Muslims, are technologically advanced and prosperous

Historically Hindu rajas, Chinese kingdoms, native American tribes etc were busy with internecine warfare as well, but only the Muslims get the dubious honor of being disunited here, everyone else is happy and perfectly unified. A couple hundred Spaniards and the diseases they brought took down many native American nations far more numerous, why can't thousands of Chinese and Muslim warriors do the same? Are they inferior to Europeans? Why are small European countries able to do conquer far more countries than a unified China?

To cap it off, he goes on pages long philosophical tangents about Muslims hating women and a host of other subjects.

This is not the alternate history the world deserves. But the alternate history that the current political climate has created.
1606096
Like most really bad pieces of scholarship this book starts with politically-correct assumptions whose validity is never examined.  The most egregious of these in this book is the assumption that the social philosophy of the entire 1,000 history of White Christianity among Northern Europeans is invalid, and that the multi-cultural ideology of the authors that has been imposed on Europeans for all of 75 years now is so unassailably morally superior that there's no need to examine its premises.  The book ends up being propaganda rather than research and proper argument as a result.  I agree with the social philosophy of 99.9% of the ancestors of all White folks going back into pre-history, which is that preserving one's own race is a paramount value.  It's pointless to cite examples of great minds in the White race's history before 1930 who held this view, since it's almost accurate to simply say: all of them.  The most pathetic aspect of this book is that the authors have the arrogance to berate evangelicals for not being racially self-destructive enough, even though these poor deluded individuals are already traipsing all over the Third World, spending their own savings to import non-White converts into their ancestors' European homelands as fast as they can drain their bank accounts and bust their States' welfare and social services budgets!
The main reason that this book is a snore is its fundamental dishonesty in assuming its own arguments to be true and never even presenting any arguments of their oppoisition.  The definition of propaganda.
1689423
Just awful. Poorly edited with spelling errors and grammatical problems. The worst part is the revisionist description of how kindly most of the sailors treated natives, especially women.  It was also idiotic that he had the characters keep using three Spanish words (si, amigo and padre) to remind us they were from Spain.

This is the third book I have read by this author. While I dislike his habit of recycling large chunks of his books in his later works I liked his books about 20th century Jewish history. This book was a confused mush of overly detailed imaginings about Christopher Columbus' voyage and not enough about the lives of the Spanish Jews. Really awful.
1203643
Factually so inaccurate, revisionist history filled with person point of views that is far skewed from reality. I liked the idea of a simplified tone making history accessible to young children. But no simple language can overlook the gross factual inaccuracies. I would never want my child to read this and actually mistake it for real history.
2974306
Carl Trueman argues a work of history should not seek to be neutral, but it should seek to be objective in nature. The historian should use such procedures and methods so that other historians can comprehend how came to his conclusions about what happened. The author uses the terms verifiability and accountability of how the historian came to his conclusions. This work is an attempt to equip the reader with the tools to identify a bad work of history and/or a fallacies argument made in an otherwise good work of history.  All historians need to select material, arrange it, and interpret the material. The historian operates under certain principles and rules so the history presented is an honest effort to bring "re-presentation of the past" that is concluded based on vigorous research. The author calls it a representation of the past because all works of history is an interpretation of what happened in the past and a presentation of the author's interpretation of that past.

I sought out to read this because of an item in March 2012 Tabletalk magazine published through Ligonier ministries. Trueman argued in his short article that Christianity needs Christians who need to know good history. The author states that he enjoys many good histories that are coming out today. First in the article he demonstrated bad theological arguments based on inaccurate history based nonobjective means of gathering information then presenting a misleading conclusions based on so-call facts. This book is an attempt to equip the reader to understand when a work is bad history. The author Trueman does believe a presentation of bad history can be engaging and entertaining. In this book the author discusses how a historian may seem to be objective in his research of collecting evidence and the use coherent logic in making an engaging presentation of the past. Yet in reality the writer uses faulty logic and not allowing contradictory evidence interfere in writing a history based on the bad historians hypothesis.

This work starts out with an argument against postmodern thought in creation of history and interpreting information. Although a historian may bring understanding of what happened in the past, his work is a presentation of the past. The fact, no one can understand totally what is happening today or happened yesterday, does not mean a narrative of the past is not a more accurate portrayal of what happened then another history. Not all interpretations of the past are equally valid. There are differences of opinion about what happened based on honest efforts of a good historian, but there are also silly interpretations of the past based on notion, bad information, or fallacies of logic. Not all histories are equally valid. The author uses those deny the Holocaust as example.

I found the book an interesting read. I am not sure how much better I am equipped to identify bad history after reading the work.
1225227
This may be the most revisionist piece of filth I have ever read. I find it ironic that the American conservative movement is following in the footsteps of people like Alfre3d Regnery who fought to keep America out of WWII because of his infatuation with Adolph Hitler and his policies.  What a piece of mind numbing trash.