this is arguably a great book
598238
i cant believe  i am the first - were i not i may not have bothered - but this is arguably a great book so i must, and am told, regarded as a classic my yachties in the med
this man is scorned by historians (does dorky things like quote encyclopaedias?) & his style can be amateurish, but hey - rarely dull
great choice of subject - a/ the med is the hub of most history & b/ the bridge between east & west so he can wander off in either direction - whatever is interesting - his passion tho is naval technology - which is fine as it was the determiner of power.
so - read all about it - the suez canal of 500bc, the phoenicians rounding the cape of good hope in 500bc, the greatest scammer of all time - the doge of venice at 80 (he went along) conned the crusaders into sacking a fellow christian city - the greatest prize ever - constantinople - for a few crumbs - and got a nice bribe from the mayor of alexandria as well for diverting them from this original target
3271935
This is a great book. It maybe paints the Angels in an excessively positive light, yet to condemn the book for this is harsh. The whole piece is fascinating, giving a rare insight into a culture we would all probably  like to give a bash (for a few hours at least). Hells Angels is the  emergence of a genius.
4573607
This is a great book, and seems to be very thorough.
4403372
Still reading it, but thus far, it's an excellent book!
1502578
This book is well-written and very nicely designed. Beyond that, it's hard to see what the fuss is about.

First of all, and on the one hand, the book isn't the torrent of Machiavellian amorality you may have been led to believe. The author does go out of his way to make it _sound_ as though he's presenting you with sophisticated, in-the-know, just-between-us-hardheaded-realists amoral guidance. But as a matter of fact almost every bit of this advice _could_ have been presented without offense to the most traditional of morality.

(For example, the law about letting other people do the work while you take the credit is made to sound worse than it really is. Sure, it admits of a "low" interpretation. But it's also, read slightly differently, a pretty apt description of what any good manager does.)

Second, and on the other hand, the advice isn't _that_ good; it's merely well-presented. How it works will depend on who follows it; as the old Chinese proverb has it, when the wrong person does the right thing, it's the wrong thing.

And that's why I have to deduct some stars from the book. For it seems to be designed to appeal precisely to the "wrong people."

Despite some sound advice, this book is aimed not at those who (like Socrates) share the power of reason with the gods, but at those who (like Ulysses) share it with the foxes. It seeks not to make you reasonable but to make you canny and cunning. And as a result, even when it advises you to do things that really do work out best for all concerned, it promotes an unhealthy sense that your best interests are at odds with nearly everyone else's. (And that the only reason for being helpful to other people is that it will advance your own cloak-and-dagger "career.")

No matter how helpful some of the advice may be, it's hard to get around the book's rather pompous conceit that the reader is learning the perennial secrets of crafty courtiers everywhere. Even if only by its tone, this volume will tend to turn the reader into a lean and hungry Cassius rather than a confident and competent Caesar.

In general the book does have some useful things to say about power and how to acquire and wield it. Unfortunately its approach will probably render the advice useless to the people who need it most. Readers who come to it for guidance will come away from it pretentiously self-absorbed if not downright narcissistic; the readers who can see through its Machiavellian posturing and recognize it for what it is will be the very readers who didn't need it in the first place.

Recommended only to readers who _aren't_ unhealthily fascinated by Sun-Tzu, Balthasar Gracian, and Michael Korda.
420140
The negative reviews seem divided over whether the conclusions of the book are obvious or outrageous.

Perhaps if you have been reading Keith Simler's blog you may have been exposed to many of these ideas and might now regard them as obvious. I had already heard of some of these ideas, but in a kind of half-baked and undigested form. In the book they are presented in a very illuminating and coherent fashion.

Some of the ideas in the book are outrageous in the sense that they attack, implicitly, many of our sacred cows. How dare they suggest less spending on education might be a good thing. Let alone medicine! If you a person who reacts to everything in a thoughtless, emotional, reactive fashion, you should probably skip this book. If you are prepared to think and to reexamine your beliefs it is a treasure trove.

For me, the book takes a few powerful ideas and uses them to explain many otherwise puzzling things.

One sign to me of a good book is that it is hard to summarize into a few key ideas. I will post my summary as  a comment off my review. I have many takeaways. Just be aware that the summary omits the preparatory material that takes you on the journey to understand the justification for the conclusions.

Having read a number of Robin Hanson's books, I would now buy pretty well any book he published. Having said that, there are some opportunities for improvement.

1. His writing style is not very exciting. Even boring.

2. He could also be more concise, I think. But on the other hand it's hard to know which words I would remove.
2059798
If you're interested in seeing how a well-planned survival scenario plays out in the context of an actual disaster, this is a great book. The heroes are more-or-less two-dimensional, but the survival teaching that undergirds the book is excellent.

If you're looking for an enjoyable aesthetic reading experience, you may want to look elsewhere, but you will definitely benefit from this book if educating yourself on survival is your goal.
3263845
There are so many wonderful things in this book.  Cahill does a terrific job of giving us the flavor of the Tain in one brief chapter, and he sketches the classical world and contrasts Roman Christianity with Celtic Christianity in a way I (not well-read on either of these topics) found very useful.  I also loved the portraits of the Irish monks, in love with books and hard at work in their scriptoria.

No, the book didn't convince me the Irish saved civilization, and I admit I found the gap between title and content to be a little jarring.  But there were so many great and useful things here that I can't say I mind very much.

This book is not a history text, but it's definitely worth your time.  (In my case, 5 hours.)
1826331
All in all, I found this book to be flat-out enjoyable.
But before I mention that, I'd like to address some of the elements that the previous reviewer brought up. This book is divided between four characters, each of who are written (in an excellent, albiet sometimes unbelievably extreme manner) to correspond with their atypical standard kabbalistic standing. In fact, to explain this, there's even a small diagram at the very beggining of the book that demonstraits this.
Characters come across not as steriotypes, but instead as being firm characterisations of their personality archtypes. Jensen writes these characters to focus not only on giving them believable personalities, but to epitomise the concepts in kabbalistic mythos. Although, I suppose this is easy to not understand...
And as for the comments on gay characters.. Ermm, I'm gay, and wasn't at all insulted. So I don't know what the previous reviewer was talking about with that.
Now, about the book itself. This book is an excellent exploration of hypothetical philosophy, with a vague concept of physics passed across two. The idea of physics and philosophy being one and the same is not new, it's been tackled before, but not in such a manner. Here, said philosophy takes the form of kabbalism, a form of conceptual mystical-science of jewish descent.
From this, the reader is presented (via the character of the scientist and the militant) with the idea that the philosophical concept of good and evil may be, in fact, a physical force - an equation. At the same time, two other characters (the hedonist and the religious-scholar) explore the storyline behind this discovery - the character of Kobinski, a polish jew and kabbalist scholar imprisoned in Auschwitz, who disapeared under mysterious circumstances. Through mysticism and science, both the teachings of the kabbalist scholar and the discovery of the equation lead to the sudden and unexpected journey into four other universes - four seperate heavens and hells for the characters.
It's a facinating book, and should be looked upon for it's theoretical concepts as much as it's literary merit.
1985749
This is a wonderful accomplishment. Although fairly long, the book reads easily and quickly. Vidda Crochetta has an enviable knack for clear, straightforward writing, free of stylistic device. It moves. It is a tour de force.

My criticism is that at my age, I have read a few similar books. Also some parts could be eliminated, some could be more outrageous or more eventful. The author may have been too literal if the book was based (loosely?) on actual life actual experiences. The several explicit sexual acts are also not to my taste. They were too real, no mystery in them.

Having said that, I feel enlarged having read the book, even though the narrator offers no moral perspective or insight. The author leaves the readers to draw their own conclusions. In any case, I wish I were in it since I felt I knew so many characters that were. It is of tremendous value as it is and I wish I had written it.
2679431
This is a great book, especially timely in our current age of anthrax scares and contaminated beef.  I would give it 5 stars, but I don't think it is an 'all time' classic, although it is certainly very good.  You can get a sense of what it is about from the reviews that are also posted here.  The comments from some customers who mentioned things like "so much potential, so poorly realized" are way off base in my opinion.  I think it is fine for an author to enter their own personality into a story - it gives you a context to evaluate their reporting and views on the topic at the same time as you evaluate the story.  The writing in this book is definitely a kind of new journalism - perhaps 'gonzo' is the term - if you will.  To me that means that the writer can take some liberties with the traditional definition of subject and reporter/author.  I find the fact that Gilbert reveals her quirky desire to constantly postulate on the sex lives of people she meets amusing.  Lighten up folks!  One reviewer even mentioned that "she tends to insert unnecessary italics."  Who gives a flyin' f**k?  To me, that reviewer was clearly a classic whiner, although of course everyone is entitled to their opinion.  Probably a frustrated writer.  I think Gilbert had a lot of ground to cover and did so without making this into an epic 1000 page saga.  I liked the overal simplicity of the book too - it went right along with Eustace and his character.  She is not afraid to point out his flaws and attempt to put them into context.  The section on the mule, Peter Rabbit, was hysterically funny to me as well.  I went to a book reading here in North Carolina recently, and Eustace was a lot less stern than he comes across at times in the book.  He was great with all the kids that came, so I guess he must be mellowing out a bit.  In conclusion, this is a great book, for those who like the outdoors and for those who like personal, engaging writing.  Check it out sometime.
3134837
This is a really great book, especially if you are intuitive and not sure exactly what to do with it. I am really enjoying this read.
567156
Sorry for the double post here.  (I'll try to get this one removed.)
Still, I can say a bit more about this book.  This isn't a technical book, and I think it should be accessible to anyone interested in general philosophical issues.  It's not an easy read--it's subtle and Nagel is sometimes a bit obscure--but it's not forbiddingly difficult and it doesn't presume that the reader is as knowledgeable about contemporary philosopohy as its author is.  However, that's not to say that this is a book that fails to engage with the literature on these topics.  It's clear that Nagel is familiar with the relevant contemporary work on these topics, and the book is accessible enough that it might server as a high-level introdution to the more technical literature in these areas.  And it certainly provides you with a way to see the technical literature as concerned with fundamental human concerns.
Also, it's somewhat inspiring to see someone take on a grand project of this sort.  Philosophy is becoming an increasingly specialized discipline, and it's nice to see someone trying to fit a lot of what is going on into a general picture of the origins and nature of genuine philosophical problems.
3396957
I would say that this book may frustrate most people, mainly because most people are looking for "black or white" ideas, and are looking to simplistic advice on how to resolve their love/sex related challenges.

Now, if you're the kind of person who deals well with uncertainty and the "grayness" that is natural to our current limited understanding of the brain as it relates to specific behavior/emotions, as well as the ambiguity of human/social behavior, you will like this book.

It's neither too technical, nor too personal, and some chapters are amazing, specially when the author connects the concept/idea she's discussing, to her own life and the moment she's going through. By the way, Kayt's soul is here in this book, and this making the reading really delightful for many moments.

It's an honest, delightful, interesting and intriguing book, it really sheds a light into love/sex, but it's not for everyone unfortunately.
4694535
This book is extremely good. Its prose is extraordinarily lucid, its arguments are clear and irrefutable, and its organization and development are superb.

I have only two complaints. First: in the Introduction there are a few thinly veiled and unsupported pot shots taken at major economists with whom Hazlitt disagrees (Keynes). Second: The title of the book is misleading. This book is a polemic and not a survey of the field of economics.

I should also address the very silly criticisms made against this book by some of the other revewiers. Most of these critical reviewers entirely misunderstand the point of the book. The book is intended as a lucid refutation of certain extremely common anti-capitalist economic fallacies. That is all. Thus, criticisms like "this book fails to address: game theory, natural monopolies, the pricple-agent problem, labor market friction, some advanced math technique, etc" are simply irrelevant. It would be an absurd detour were Hazlitt to address those things when they aren't the topic of his book, and aren't relevant to the fallacies he's refuting. None of the fallacies he refutes use game theory, even if economics in general does. And "this book is simple and doesn't advance economics in any way" is another ridiculous criticism, because OBVIOUSLY any book entitled "[subject] in one lesson" or "intro to [subject]" is not intended to advance the state of the science.

In its intended purpose, which is to refute certain specific fallacies and in so doing explain a certain kind of thinking, this book succeeds incredibly well.
1136927
I agree with a lot of the other 5-star reviews about the sheer utility of this book and the depth of resources. The airline ticket purchasing strategy is a good example of that. Yet, there's something else here that's difficult to put your finger on -- It's the possibility heartbeat of the book, the stirring enthusiasm that exhorts you to go take some chances, test some ideas (on the cheap) and explore your life. This is the reason this book will endure for quite some time.
1774555
Let me revise my previous review with a few brief things to say about this.

First, this book has a lot of pictures and diagrams and you'll want to frequently go back to them and take your time. For this reason, it's probably a pretty bad idea to buy the kindle version.

Second, this books starts out as super-light reading (for me anyway) and then starts getting much harder and denser. For that reason I can't give it 5-stars. The preview you get for your kindle might be misleading for that reason. The pacing, in my opinion, was too slow in the beginning and too fast in the middle.

You'll want to take your time with this book. This is very close to a Malcolm Gladwell or Freakonomics style book, but it's not quite.

But, on the other hand, this really is a good book if you want to learn about this sort of thing. Unlike Gladwell or Freakonomics, you really are learning stuff. I see no reason why this couldn't be used in a college course, but it won't feel like you're reading a textbook. For what it is, it's extremely accessible. And I don't think there's another book quite like this, certainly not of this quality. It is extremely well written. I did wind up taking a few flashcards, though, since it is harder than other books that follow the template of: "one-syllable-word: the amazing hidden side of superlative everythingness." But it's still done in a style that is very close to that. And you'll actually learn things that are true, and not figure out a later after you read the book that studies were misrepresented and facts distorted to fit the narrative of the book.

So that's why I revised this review. I know a bit more than I did when I first wrote it and my expectations of what the book is has changed, too. I'm going to buy whatever this guy puts out next. Four stars only because the pacing was a little off and it might not be exactly what you expect it is from the first couple of chapters. If you want to actually learn about how computers work, there has never been a book this well-written. But you do have to actually want to know how computers work.