Tracking in beautiful prose the emergence of European modernity
589890
Eric Hobsbawms extraordinay, detailed, and finely written history of the 19th century frames its events well through the notion of the dual revolutioni.e., industrial revolution and Britain and political revolution in France. Tracking in beautiful prose the emergence of European modernity, Hobsbawm negotiates the difficulties of attention to empirical detail with the broad strokes of narrative. Historical materialism is his model and Marx emerges as its hero. Still, if anything this volume tracks the world historical revolutionary character of capitalism and the emergence of the bourgeois class.
3321349
J'ai eu l'occasion de feuilleter ce grand livre de table lors du Salon du livre d'Edmundston, NB 2005. Images &eacute;poustouflantes, cartes superbes, texte bien &eacute;crit, bon papier, couverture solide. J'aimerais bien le recevoir &agrave; l'occasion de la fte des P&egrave;res.
2798108
In my opinion the French text cannot match the vigor of the wonderful English prose.  Very interesting, however, to see the differences.
4160470
In Russia, the responses to the feelings of decadence spread throughout Europe in the fin-de-siecle period of the end of the 19th century manifest "utopian, millennial hopes to an extent unknown in Europe." Unconventional, exotic, feverishly imaginative sexual ideas and practices were the locus of such hopes. At the heart of these were emotions and ideas about the desirability and potency of abstinence. However, this was not chastity in the religious sense, but rather a suppressed eroticism which reflected both the sense of futility relating to an apocalyptic outlook and also the anomalous hope of spiritual regeneration and transformation. Matich--professor of Russian literature and culture at the U. of California, Berkeley--lays out the varied symbols, literature, and practices of this peculiar Russian turn relating to perceived decadence in the latter 19th-century political and social disruptions and concomitant anxieties in Russia and parts of Europe. The Russian writers Tolstoy and Alexander Blok and the philosopher Dmitri Merezhovsky and the woman Zinaida Grippius with whom he had a relationship are among those critiqued for bases and variations of this Russian blending of eroticism, spirituality, vision, and politics. Matich has a solid hand on this heretofore obscure vein of Russian fin-de-siecle culture ordinarily dominated by radical political philosophers, social anarchists, and the writer Dostoevsky. The author brings cogency and breadth, and thus allure and longevity, to the subject.
1018518
Norman Davies' "Europe: A History" spans the period from pre-history to the early 1990s.  It's 1,136 pages of text (hardcover edition) narrate the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires; the influx and outflux of tribes, peoples, and cultures; the influence of religion; the development of Western music, literature, art, and architecture; and all the standard topics in between.  Its twelve basic chapters (organized roughly by "era") are supplemented by an additional 130+ pages of indices which include lists, graphs, tables, and statistical data.  And sprinkled throughout are 300 "Capsules" which address all manner of interesting tidbits, from particular people, particular cities, and particular events.  It is fully footnoted, and contains what Davies (or his publishers) describe as a "Selective Index."  In all, it is an ambitious undertaking, and a singular achievement.

One of the real hallmarks of this work is that Davies' concept of "Europe" takes into account not only the familiar geography and events of Western Europe, but incorporates events in Eastern Europe (including, and perhaps especially, Russia), Scandinavia, and the  Balkans.  To the extent that nearby regions, such as Asia Minor, have impacted developments in "Europe," they are also incorporated into the narrative.  One of the real benefits of this book is that it will stretch the reader's conceptualization of what "Europe" is.

Be advised that Davies' is not shy about interpreting this history through the expression of his own opinions, or even value judgments.  Although not strictly objective, the insights into his own point of view -- sometimes expressed overtly, sometimes subtly -- will give the reader enough perspective on his orientation to factor in whatever bias he may have incorporated into this work.

For most readers, this will not be a casual undertaking.  It took me the better part of a year to read it.  But the writing is clear, the events and movements recounted in quite comprehensible form, and (at least in my copy) the ink did not fade from one reading session to the next.  I am certain the author did not write it in a day, and nobody should expect to read it in even two.

Of course, there has been some criticism of the book, mostly from those who believe that it does not give sufficient attention to events in Poland during the Second World War.  After reading the entire text, I am not moved by those alleged shortcomings, which, judged against the whole, seem to more reflect contemporary "political correctness" than any real grievance.  Davies did not omit to narrate the crimes against Humanity perpetrated during that recent conflict.  That he did not devote more pages or words to these topics probably had more to do with the fact that this is a survey, and not an explanation.

Davies has sufficient credentials and academic recognition to give "Europe" credibility.  He holds a handful of academic positions, perhaps most notably with Jagiellonian University in Krakow (where he is UNESCO Professor).

I'd recommend the hardcover to any reader truly interested in this topic or book.  It takes long enough to read that even that edition suffered the wear, tear, and insults of daily handlines.  It is also a valuable reference which many will want to add to their shelves.

It is hard to say if there is any particular thesis which you will take away from this reading.  One perhaps is that the eventual political unification of "Europe" is inevitable, though not likely to be easily attained.  Other lessons which may be demonstrated are those we already know: to the victor go the spoils, as well as the privilege of writing their history.

Good luck with this.  Just pace yourself, and keep at it.  You CAN finish this book.
3489746
It is a great service to scholarship to keep this wonderful book in print.  As the reader might know, Lucas was a Cambridge academic with service in the great war and brilliant service at Bletchley Park during the second world war.  He was on Hitler's hit list of intellectuals to be murdered if and when the Nazis conquered Britain.

Lucas was a poet, editor, translator and expert on literature and psychology.  The Decline and Fall of the Romantic Ideal reads like a book by a very old and very wise man; Lucas was 42 when it was published.  The book explores `romanticism' (which he describes as the exploration and freeing of the unconscious) from antiquity to the present, in Greek literature, Roman, German, Italian and, principally, English and French.  There are many long, untranslated French quotes in the text, a possible obstacle for the modern reader.

While Lucas is sympathetic to romanticism he wants it to be done very, very well and he is aware of the dangers when it descends into decadence or silliness.  Given its prominence in his time and its remaining prominence in ours, his voice is a very important one.

It is the kind of voice one seldom hears in contemporary literary criticism.  Lucas takes firm stands, offers lean and pointed distinctions and discriminations, names his favorite writers and skewers those of whom he is not particularly fond.  It would be uncommon today because of the breadth of its references and because of the author's facility with language.  It is also distinctly uncommon since it rather suddenly ends with a travelogue essay on Iceland (with many reflections on the medieval saga literature and its potential importance for us today).

In short, this is a splendid book--important for scholars but a beautiful read for the lover of poetry who enjoys a sweet and strong voice.
3212648
The best text for designing with cascading style sheets.
3286199
_Jack the Modernist_.  When I found this novel by Robert Gluck on the shelves of my local gay bookstore, it was originally the title that seduced me.  What about this book, I wondered, warrants the inclusion of the word "modernist" in the title?  Tired by the omnipresent coming-out novel, the promise of homoerotic literature marked with modernist experimentation was infinitely enticing.

Gluck certainly did not disappoint.  Almost from the first page, one is seduced by his viciously beautiful style.  The short pages are filled with an intensely dense imagery that appeals alternately to sight, sound, and taste.  The narrator's walk with his dog on page three becomes a virtual orgy of the senses.  A visit to the movies at the end of the novel becomes a visual and philosophical adventure.  Sex between the characters is so vivid that one can virtually feel it. One is consistently confronted by metaphors so strikingly unusual, by language so sonorously melodic that one cannot help but read it aloud and tremble.

Gluck is modern not just in his intense bombardment of imagery but his use of "found art" -- images that the author has collected and has included in the text to illustrate certain metaphors or points.  The book literally becomes a multimedia experience.  Meanwhile, Gluck blurs the traditional lines of fiction and non-fiction by assigning the narrator his own name and by revealing that certain elements of the plot do not match his actual experience with "Jack," the title character.  Gluck also experiments with the narrative form itself by occasionally breaking into dramatic form, marking each character's dialogue with a name and a colon.  Such characteristics are almost unheard of in the relatively naturalistic world of gay fiction, save perhaps in the recent works of Jeanette Winterson.

Ultimately, it is the marvelous, unique style is in the end that elevates this work so far above many works of gay interest.  To all interested in either gay literature or narrative experimentation, this book is a must
3861932
As a big fan of short fiction from 18th and early 19th century, accomplished homage literature like this is a pleasure to find.  I love to read the greetings and phrases that, while still familiar, are waxing archaic.  Verbica seems to have put his time in as a student of Doyle from the easy reference to specific furniture and clothing styles, means of conveyance and other prosaic details of life from a bygone time.  The way Holmes lights his pipe, addresses Watson and uses the irregulars all make the pages I'm turning feel  like weathered rag fibre, rather than bright common pulp.

Nostalgia aside (even though nostalgia is the biggest reason I picked up the book) the writing is excellent.  The stories originate with Verbica, but would have been worthy of treatment by Doyle, if only he had thought of them first!
1130622
I'm reading this text for a stylistics course, and I think it is very direct in its description of different methodologies and practices. I may be a biased though as I've already completed sociolinguistics course work, and stylistics and sociolinguistics have similar practices and theoretical perspectives.
5543
There's a lot in this book which the reader will see repeated in other books on prosody -- an introductory chapter dealing with the relations between form and rhythm on one hand and content and meaning on the other; an analysis of the changes between Romantic versification and the modern period, beginning with the work of Dickinson, Hopkins, Hardy, and Whitman; the importance of the Imagists; the opening shots by Pound and Eliot in the Modernist revolution; and a few other topics.
Most of the book is handled very well.  It's refreshing to see an analysis of Browning's pentameter style which emphasizes not his "colloquial" approach, as so many others do, but instead lauds the extent to which he moves AWAY from the colloquial style and more toward roughness and jaggedness.  The Modern period is handled with finesse as well.  The drawbacks to the book, in my opinion, begin with the period closer to the present.  Some of the analyses on free verse do not make as much sense as similar analyses in Paul Fussell's "Poetic Meter and Poetic Form," despite the more recent volume's indebtedness to the former.  As D. H. Lawrence said, it is no use manufacturing fancy laws for the governing of free verse.  Too much weight is given to some poets who are clearly minor, such as Maxine Kumin, and too little to poets whose craftsmanship is unquestioned, such as Robert Lowell.  Most oddly, there is no attention given to two of the finer formal craftsmen of recent history, James Merrill and Derek Walcott; these two use free verse but also expand the boundaries of traditional metrical approaches, and their efforts here should not go unnoticed.  And I might take issue with the expanded coverage given to the most recent trend in prosody, the New Formalists, simply because, as I noted in my review of "Rebel Angels" for Amazon, they aren't that good and they haven't ADVANCED metrical techniques that much.
Aside from these qualms, "Sound and Form" is a good survey of prosody of the ! last century.
1278028
Anyone interested in Modernist aesthetics will want to have this book.  Ortega y Gasset,as he does in all his books and essays, captures the historical progression of ideas better than anyone else of his generation.  Whether your interested in Modernist art or poetry(European or American), this book will help to elucidate important intellectual currents and better able you to challenge and explore many of the underlying philosophical and aesthetic constructs that influenced Ortega y Gasset's "generation[s]"
4780254
Postmodern Love is a rich, cohesive assembly of short stories and poetry, all touching on growth and what we learn from others. An apprenticeship, a cemetery, foreign cities, a simple hometown, and a young girl who glows in the confines of a community caught in cyclical complacency. There's much more, including poetic interludes that are pleasing to read aloud. The collection consoles, and the prose is structured in such a nimble way that readers will want to read these stories again and again, garnering further insight for lush interpretation.
4730237
A menagerie of writings, American Rococo: Essays On the Edge by Isham Cook takes a provocative look at a host of topics. The first essay in the collection is particularly important as it discusses the importance of using a smartphone wisely. The essay describes the inherent dangers in texting and sexting and the consequences of such behavior for underage participants. While getting rid of a smartphone may not be realistic, behavior when using one might have dire ramifications and should be considered.  From there, Cook explores subjects such as Airbnb, the hot springs of Japan, and even a Van Gogh museum. Kafka and Shakespeare are also explored, Shakespeare for an unearthing of life in Elizabethan times as opposed to analyzing the plays. Great attention is given to music in several of these essays, in particular, John Dowland, and oddly Sting and his contribution to a different music genre for him.  With brief tidbits on many different subjects, these essays offer the reader a light, introductory sampling.
827461
This book breaks new ground in approaching 19th-century literature through its understanding of 18th- and 19th-c associationist theories of the mind and its profound insights into the function of literature.  Cutting-edge for current trends in literary studies, with their combined emphases on cognitive functioning, literary reception, and political functions of literary works.
1096825
DK's books have earned a stellar reputation for presenting information in an attractive visual way. If you like them (and I certainly do), you appreciate how the text gets to the point, usually by explaining or illuminating something in a photo or infographic. (If you DON'T like them, you probably criticize these books for specializing in soundbytes.)

I'm far from a fashion expert; heck, my primary fashion involvement is the guilty pleasure of looking at what actresses wore on the red carpet. While I'm sitting here in a t-shirt and jeans.

But I do love to pay attention of fashion, especially when it's tied into a historical context. And as a dilettante, OH BOY is this fun book. As the book itself says, "From the extravagance of Ancient Egypt, through the legendary fashion houses of Chanel and Dior, to the latest cutting-edge labels, this gorgeous collection of costume and dress shows how fashion reflects people and places, and captures the times in which they lived."

Chapters are devoted to the ancient world (up to 600CE); Medieval romance and trade (600-1449); Renaissance splendor (1430-1624); Baroque and Rococo (1625-1789); from Revolution to Frivolity (1790-1900); La Belle Epoque and the Jazz Age (1901-1928); from glamour to utility (1929-1946); optimism and youth (1947-1963); swinging sixties to glam rock (1964-1979); the designer decades (1980 on). If you care about a particular era (I first found this book at the library when I was indulging myself in a search for clothing that might have been worn in the Downton Abbey era), you will want to note that about half the book is given to fashion since 1900.

I occasionally dove into the text -- there are two-page spreads on important fashion influencers, such as Beau Brummel, Coco Chanel, and Twiggy, and sidebars about such topics as the shape of hats during an era -- but mostly I enjoyed this book for the photographs. And with 3,000 of them, there is plenty to look at. I said, "Wow, look at that!" at least a dozen times -- and I bet you will, too.

If you're _serious_ about fashion you probably want a more in-depth study. But for my casual needs (which means "entertain me") it's just perfect.
161961
This is an oversized oversized book, weighing about 15 pounds. It's obviously not meant for toting around, nor for learning about the art of the era it covers in the standard educational way. Leafing through the book and stopping at places to take in visual content, one gets a sense of the new encounter with art works this volume is meant to create. This encounter and the ideas and craft bringing it is related to some extent in an accompanying pamphlet by the publisher on the series this volume is a part of. Baroque, Romanesque, and Art Nouveau (the latter two in preparation at this time) are the others in the series named the Collection of Art Epochs so far, with the presumption the publisher will come out with others if these go well.

The form of the publisher's pamphlet is an interview with the series general editor Rolf Toman. In answer to a question about the new approach, Toman explains that the varied genres of art of any period/epoch such as architecture, painting, sculpture, and crafts are typically studied individually, discretely, whereas this book on Gothic arts, like the others in the series, brings out the interconnections among the varied types of art. While this focus on interconnections is not novel in itself, the approach in this book is novel and different. Whereas the matter of interconnections among the diverse and multitudinous art of any period is inexhaustible and mostly covered by collected essays by academics and critics which can at best present only facets seeming like shards of the comprehension touched on, the text of this "Gothic" and the related series' titles is written by a single author versed in the academic and critical views who brings together the interconnectedness in a single sensibility, style, and voice.

The text by the professor Bruno Klein presents the interconnected perspective so the reader sees a unity to the varied art works in what is a grand embellishment of the customary perspective toward the gothic art of the Middle Ages as varieties of Christian religious art gradually evolving into humanist, secular art as it approaches the Renaissance. Professor of Christian Art of the Late Antiquity and Middle Ages at Dresden University was one of the positions Klein held in his academic career.

The text is fresh and elucidating. But one does not look to a book of this size and evident copious visual content including fold-out mainly for its text. When it comes to the publisher's advanced (which some may see as evolutionary), ambitious conception of visual content, the quality of this, and the eye and technical knowledge and ability of the photographer Achim Bednorz for photographs, the coordinated editorial hand in selecting appropriate illustrations of art of the period, and the book designer for the formatting, this is seen as a success too. The book is distinctive and effective.

From the publisher's pamphlet again, Toman says the book's aim is to convey Gothic art "in a particularly vivid and accessible manner, to take you as close as possible to the history and artworks--sometimes even closer than is possible in reality, on the spot." The size of the book is seen as both required and desirable for getting  one "as close as possible" to many art works. Bednorz's photographs (he specializes in architecture and sacred spaces) of selected representative architectural features and art works have been enhanced to balance subject, proportion, and light so the viewer can take them in optimally. These techniques minimally making use of computer technology for photographs are applied also to features and art works high in cathedrals or in dark recesses which a viewer could otherwise hardly make out or not even see on a tour.

The book brings Gothic art to the reader in a unique and memorable way. The large size seems to beckon as a doorway to lead the reader to new terrain of this important art in Western culture--a promise delivered.