Humanities Books

These step by step meditation practices and lessons take me directly to Knowledge, my own authority. This has given me a way to live and a way to be at peace with myself.

This book is an inner guidence training. It helps me to learn compassion, patience, discipline, observation and concentration while giving me inspiration, a sense of purpose, wisdom and the ability to experience a greater life. It is spirituality for this time, without historic rituals but with a modern context and view of the world. The steps all tie together and each one speaks to me right where I am; they bring up my fears, limitations, mistakes and challenges.

I have fewer conflicts. My life is simpler and my actions have more meaning since I've been a student of this teaching.

This is book is a curriculum - a curriculum for living - a curriculum for Truth. Until I found this book and this teaching, I always felt that something was missing. Situations seem to arise in my life as a result of my practicing these steps and slowly I begin to see what I need to know or do to move on to the next phase of learning. It is peeling away the layers of error thinking and bringing a depth to my understanding that I have never experienced before. I've gone through it step by step at many different paces and each time an "issue" arises, the step I am on seems to be exactly what I need to know at that particular time. I highly recommend it.

There are a number of companion volumes which point one in the direction of seeking contact with Knowledge (holy spirit). The 365 exercises, suggesting a daily curriculum, is like ACIM. They are less intellectual in wording, but powerfully take one down a path to connect with your own life. As I write this I am on step 231 "I have a calling in this world." The process is giving me a broader perspective on life and my place in it. An ACIM reader will recognize concepts, but Steps lead one to engagement in the world - not rejecting it as an illusion. In this respect it logically carries forward from The Urantia Book which ends with an empahsis on the life of Jesus as an example of how humans could live. Steps to Knowledge is a means of self-development within a greater community which is available to all. It is a way to find your small part and contribute to the world.

This book is an aid not just for the teacher, but for the studio artist. As an educator, I benefit from its cogent analysis, but as a dedicated studio artist, I find the Eight Studio Habits of Mind the first tangible distillation of the process and thinking that happens in my studio. There are so many books about what artists do and how to access creativity. Hetland et al have shown that critical and creative thinking is not a matter of magic or divine inspiration, but rather the result of a mind set that can be used by students and artists alike. This book provides the connection between the teacher and the artist and the artist and her/his studio.

I am planning on posting a VIDEO review here very soon, to make my thinking on Lois's amazing book visible to the world.

Please do think about getting this book if you are a teacher, artist, instructional leader/principal, policy maker or interested citizen who is interested in developing quality arts education...

Lois Hetlund and her colleagues have written an important book that grounds academic research firmly in the real world of schools. It is readable, accessable, and yet contains profound truths. Documenting and describing the sorts of thinking that can take place in high quality arts programs, the authors remind us of what a true education should contain, despite the teach-to-the-standardized-test momentum in many public schools.
Here is an article about the authors' work:
[...]
Highly recommend the book.

Lois Hetland and Ellen Winner (et al) make a strong case for arts education for every child based on solid research. Their initial analysis of arts education research sets the stage for their in-depth, immersive inquiry into the practices of highly-skilled, professional teaching artists. The blending of theoretical perspectives with 'in-the-trenches' data collection, analysis and synthesis surround the types of teaching and learning occuring in the visual arts studio classrooms. Selecting such qualified teachers who also have vibrant art practices strengthens the relationships between the ideal professional who is an artist, educator and researcher. The practical examples will motivate teachers and the thoughtfully built argument for the arts in education will provide a valuable source for any advocate and policy maker.

As a former K-12 art educator and current teacher of art education at the college level, I find this book a major contribution to the field and invaluable for pre-service and practicing teaching artists.

Although not my favorite work by Shakespeare, I acknowledge the frequency that "Romeo and Juliet" is taught in schools and understand the importance of a good teaching aid to do so. This book epitomizes a helpful tool in the classroom, providing well thought out lessons and activities that have held my students interests throughout the play. I commend these authors for their approach to teaching, not just with Romeo and Juliet, by as displayed in their other works such as Fairchild's "Compassionate Classroom." Further works by any of these authors will be a must-have for my classroom. Well done!

There are so many great books on Shakespeare teaching but they seem to be focused on only one approach, such as Shakespeare through performance or attacking Shakespeare's language or "here's a pack of quizzes and vocab exercises." This book acknowledges that best practices include a range of approaches -- that ed reforms don't require we discard affective education or the five-paragraph essay or dramatic performance but rather take the essentials of each and use them all. This book is Understanding by Design meets principles of Tomlinson meets drama class meets reading instruction. My only critique is make the book longer with the following: ESL-directed reading instruction, more vocabulary guides and worksheets, and how about some more writing instruction? The book's already 300-some pages, so it's possible that publication thwarts it being too big a tome. The book makes a nod to all methods and reminds you as teacher to make the right choices from your heart. Unfortunately few thank teachers for making the good choices when there are a million to make and no one's every perfectly served by our work. That aside, it's sure nice to view the whole buffet of teaching options at a glance and get a sense of what's out there and compare that to the needs of the students sitting in front of you. The book encourages you to be a teacher researcher as you sample the dishes.

I would buy this book along with either the Oxford, Folger, or Arden editions of the play. Also, I'm a big fan of any of Tomlinson's books, but in particular, check out Differentiation in Practice: A Resource Guide for Differentiating Curriculum, Grades 9-12, and How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms, and Understanding By Design Expanded 2nd Edition. Also very good, particularly for all the performance activities: Shakespeare Set Free: Teaching A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and Macbeth. Basically, with all these titles, you can't go wrong, because with all of these you're looking at teacher-made materials, created by veterans of the classroom who care about helping other teachers and most importantly, the students.

Teaching Romeo & Juliet: A Differentiated Approach is an outstanding source. The book is practical and easy-to-follow with wonderful activities. (I especially like "Skill Strands", pp. 221-228.)

I applaud authors Fairchild, Follet, and DeCourcy for their thorough and well-designed lessons. I'd like to see similar teaching guides for "Hamlet" and "Julius Caesar." I recommend this book to all teachers who want to make Shakespeare fun and interesting for all students.

This is an incredibly helpful resource for English teachers with diverse classrooms. I particularly like the Skill Strands lessons for bringing sections of Romeo and Juliet alive in performance. Shakespeare's plays were meant to be brought from the page to the stage - or at least in front of the classroom! - and I found the performance related exercises to be fresh and engaging for my entire class. Thanks for producing such a functional reader that makes lesson planning so much easier.

I seem to be the only person who has gone to SAS to actually have read this book. It was really good, pretty bleak, but I loved it.

All SAS students should read this book to get some insight into JWO!

...
I can honestly say that I have not read J-Wo's book yet, but I will for sure because it's gotta be totally good. i am also going to purchase: This Book is for All Kids but Especially My Sister Libby. libby died- by jack simon who is also known as breakfastclub and is dairyman88's boyfriend.
Anyways good luck reading this book. i totally recommend it just becuase J-Wo is the author.

Although i have yet to read this book- J. Works (J-wo) is the coolest man ever. GO J-WO!

A heady treatise on altered states of being and how free will plays a role in our time space continuum. I highly recommend this book.

Bergson's works are always inspirational and the remarkable thing is that he doesn't assume anything he always explains what is needed (almost always) unlike the standard treatises on philosophy by other philosophers. It is never that much of an effort to read Bergson and as such it makes his works far more accessible than usual for a philosopher, probably one of the reasons he was all the rage in the early 20th Century, people can actually understand what he was talking about. What is the reason for this ? I think much of it has to do with his unwillingness to separate his insights into distinct pieces as is the norm in philosophy. His essays tend to flow along nicely without being stuck in difficult terminology which must be remembered as you progress, anything such as the word duration which has a special significance in Bergson work becomes part of the flow of the essay rather than being in any way special it is always reinforced through the dialogue. Another interesting aspect is his lack of references to others, possibly a result of the French way of Education which encourages self reliance and expression as much as possible.

In this work, one of his earliest (1887), Bergson introduces his concept of duration which is less of a concept than a real lived sense that is happening in your life right at this moment. But first he introduces the reader to the intensities of psychic states such as beauty, grace, joy, sorrow, pain etc and how a misinterpretation of real lived experience gives rise to a way of philosophy which separates real duration as it is experienced into space-like time, this is also evident in feelings which are modified through the space-like construction of experience. Although this first chapter fails to convince once you proceed onto the construction of the idea of duration you feel on much safer ground, one feels Bergson has seriously studied this phenomenon, not of course just in thought or conceptualisation but, in his own lived experience present at every moment. He goes on to explain the falseness of the spacialisation of time which inevitably leads to the paradoxes of Zeno in ancient days and determinism with its lack of human freedom. He overcomes the usual arguments of determinism by simply just not defining freedom or its prior conditions since this would once again introduce determinism and spacialise duration.

Bergson's work is simply highly insightful of the human condition far more than any dry attempt at it through the usual approaches such as Descarte's or Kant's. He literally lives his work using his own experience to enliven it, I mean literally enliven it, Bergson's work is living in a sense. It is less an argument than a movement through your own feelings and intuitions which then allow you to understand what he is saying, it isn't difficult concepts you can't wrap yourself round. It does occasionally suffer from a lack of clarity wich is an advantage other philosophers have over him but a careful reading will help.

Superb as always.

Bergson, all the rage in the early 1900's, has now been rediscovered,thanks in part to the work of Deleuze et al. Time and Free Will is a great exemplar of Bergson's work and his idea of the duree and the spatialization of time. Bergson presents to the reader an energetic flux which is the precondition of our more vulgar concept of time. With this flux, the past is pulled along by the future and presented to consciousness in the present as a heterogeneous conglomeration, inseperable and uncategorizable. It is this work which inspired the stream of consciousness novelists, especially Proust. But the most remarkable element of Time and Free Will is its demand on the reader to live the duree, to return to the duree and forget oneself in it. The goal is freedom and authenticity and this can only be achieved when letting oneself go, flying like a bird, and despatializing time. This book does not only open the door to phenomenology, but it also contributes in a significant way to french existentialist thought.

Aged 80, already ill, Henri Bergson (1859-1941) went downstairs to the street (in his slippers and a sleep skirt) to underwrite a Nazi-registration-form, that he was one of the so called unworthy living creatures, a Jew, having no rights, being discharged, honourless, defenseless, unprotected. When in the "Etat Francais" also a Jew statute had been announced, the French government had offered an exception treatment to Bergson, that famous citizen of Jewish birth. However professor Bergson refused receiving such a gift from such hand. 1920, on the occasion of the establishment of the United Nations, Henri Bergson had been a first president of the commission for mental co-operation (when times were to be called still worthy to human beings). 1927 he had received the Nobelprize of literature regarding to his main-publication "Creative Evolution". At the end of his life the public ethic level had been fallen down immeasurably deep. Commissions for "mental co-operation" (1920) evidently had disappeared and instead had been replaced by tanks, execution committees, gasification camps and other genocide methods. The esteem of an human being you cannot measure exactly via empiric sciences (i.e. Nazi biological race sciences). An anthropology of such a bedeviled horizon of course fails his subject. The risk of every empiric, specialized science (i.e. psychology, social and political sciences) is to underestimate human beings via shortened views, operating with the handicap of false subtle ideologies, conceptions, definitions - and the practice to analyze only a small section of time. To seize the "life melody" of a human being, it is not sufficient to emerge ridiculously only one or two notes. The entire "SPAN", if possible from the birth to the end of a biography, - only such a span (the complete melody, not a single note) is able to illuminate the secret of a human personality to a sympathizing viewer. Only via this method you can discover the dynamics, movements, changing spirals, the will to carry through, the persistent believe at the own worth of a person - even if the social associates have lost such a horizon long time ago. Bergson's father had been a music teacher and a composer - considering this fact, the idea of talking metaphorically about "single notes" and a complete "life-melody" touches the heart. The upcoming of the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud surely inspired Bergson - and though there are some mad, too punctual views in this Vienna theories: this specialized science delivered a plenty of hypotheses better than the usual biological ones. Otherwise Bergson inspired a lot of novelists: Marcel Proust or James Joyce, Sartre (his writings about Flaubert) or Nikos Kazantzakis' movie "Alexis Sorbas" (featuring Anthony Quinn as the pure embodiment of "elan vital"). Erik H. Erikson with his innovative book "Identity and life cycle" also is one of the innumerable researchers, who developed knowledge into this advanced direction: the concept of duration, of showing a complete life-melody. A quotation out of a lecture held 1911 by Bergson at the university of Oxford: "Via philosophy we can get accustomed, never to isolate the present from the past. Via philosophy all things gain a depth of field, something like a fourth dimension, which permits to associate the earlier perceptions with the present." In the title of Bergson's book "Creative Evolution" the nature of this unusual human is as crystallizing as in that delivered gesture, underwriting the Nazi-registration-form, just as the inhumanity of German occupiers required. Surely none of them understood the nonchalant irony of this doing (in the spirit of a mind, which never loses a sort of a "BIRDS VIEW"). I like to compare this scene with a fragment of Emile Cioran, another French author; he wrote: "Did you see, how the birds, at first hunting in the roads, suddenly did ascend high above the roofs: to regard Paris in a distance?" This is a remarkable metaphor: visually strong - alike the "LIFE-MELODY", giving a hint to the long time memory of ears ...

This book is a must read for any person interested in philosophy or ethics.
I had the pleasure of taking his course and so far it has been my favorite up to date. His writing style will keep you awake and interested, he writes to an average audience, meaning you don't have to be a philosophy scholar to understand. His book covers everything from animal rights, war, sexuality, liberty, drugs, pornography, speech, justice/equality, etc. He applies the views of major classical philosophers-such as Locke, Aristotle, Mill, Kant- as well as new views from modern intellectuals. (Most importantly he provides opposing or contrasting views on every subject). The chapters are conveniently broken down into essays that only require a few minutes to read and understand, you will walk away from each chapter and easily be able to apply the theories.
In real life, this professor is very witty and articulate, having a conversation with him is simply wonderful, having said that I feel that his book gets the best of his personality. I have kept this book and continue to go over and re-read it, amazing every time.

I would have to say that this author has done a fine job creating this book. I am using this book in a Philosopy course and Bonevac has done a good job getting the main idea's of these famous philosophers across. I would highly recomend this book to anyone who is studying Philosopy or is just interested in learning something new.

I am again amazed at Dr. Bonevac prose...they are brilliant!! I am sure this text is difficult to understand for some (see previous review), but to those with the ability to think for themselves, this is one of the best books EVER written.

This book is fantastic!! Unlike my fellow southern counter part, I could actually understand what was written - and I loved it. I am not a philosophy major, but this book is easy to understand and makes the topic come alive. I will read more of Bonevac's titles. This is a great read!! Thank you Dr. Bonevac for enlightening me!!

I am very happy with the product I received. Actually, received it before the estimated arrival date. Fast, Easy, and Great Service.

Even a putz like me can understand Dr. McGuire's insightful romp into the world of the Supreme Court. I believe that this would be a great addition to any classroom study of law and the court system.

Clarity is a highpoint of Dr. McGuire's work.

Even a putz like me can understand Dr. McGuire's insightful romp into the world of the Supreme Court. I believe that this would be a great addition to any classroom study of law and the court system.

Clarity is a highpoint of Dr. McGuire's work.

This is a terrific book that explains the "ins and outs" of the Supreme Court. McGuire takes you inside the action through a series of in-depth case studies. He looks at the nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, and cases the Court decided that deal with federal control of the drinking age, racial discrimination in the death penalty, free speech for organized crime figures, and campaign finance law. But, he chooses these cases wisely, because each of them is used to illustrate the findings of political science research. The stories McGuire tells are great to read, but you end up learning a lot about the things that determine how the Court makes its decisions, from the law and Court precedent to interest groups and the justices' own personal preferences. He's really very fair in his evaluation of these issues, too. McGuire packs a lot of information into this little book, so if you're looking for a great way to learn about the politics of the Supreme Court, this is it!

As an elementary art teacher, I find this book helpful in coordinating a lesson in conjunction with popular artist. The lessons are based on concepts rather than copying a style or subject matter.

This is a great resource for any art teacher! After teaching elementary art for five years, I was looking for new ideas and new approaches to favorite artists... this book has them! Each artist has a short biography and several projects based on his/her work. The projects are easily adaptable for any grade/skill level. The color examples of the projects are wonderful. I can't wait to try more of the projects with my students!

Using Art To Make Art is a useful hands-on guide to inspire any artist of any age. Wendy Libby is a masterful art teacher who has won the Art Teacher of the Year Award and has earned it. This book is useful not only to art educators but to parents and children as well. Two paintbrushes up to Ms. Libby for making an easy to understand art appreciation workbook. Her perserverence in getting the permisson and researching such masters such as Matisse et al., is no small feat. Ms. Libby should be commended. I give this book not only a 5 star rating but also "two-paintbrushes-up". Congratulations Wendy for your gift to us.

This book is a treasure in any primary classroom. Exploring masterpieces through the medium of the art process brings the age old greats to life. This book provides the teacher with ideas which will inspire the child to create his own modern Mona Lisa and mould degas's ballerina from tinfoil and pipecleaners. It is an invaluable resource for any teacher who loves art and creativity it can awaken.

I have been teaching American History for the last five years. In my experience, I have found the History of US series by Joy Hakim, to be a great supplemental resource to educational textbooks and curriculum. In particular, I have found War Terrible War to be one of the finest books of the series. I highly recommend this book and series to students, parents, and people who enjoy history.

"War, Terrible War: 1855-1865," the sixth volume in Joy Hakim's A History of US series, tells the story of the Civil War, although the author points out that there was nothing civil about it. Instead, Hakim favors Lincoln's notion that the purpose of the war was to give the nation a "new birth of freedom." Within these pages young readers will learn about the bloody conflict, beginning with Fort Sumter and the battle of Manassas to Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House and the assassination of President Lincoln.

However, I have to admit I was a bit distracted because while I understood 1865 was the year the Civil War ended I was not sure what 1855 was supposed to signify as a starting point. The previous volume in the series, "Liberty for All?" set up the slavery issue and created some overlap in covering the years 1820-1860. But why the year 1855? The Compromise of 1850 was in 1850, Harriet Beecher Stowe published "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in 1852, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was in 1854, the Dred Scott decision in 1857, the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, and John Brown's attack on Harpers Ferry in 1859. Off the top of my head I would say that the Republican Party might have been founded in 1855, since they put up their first candidate in 1856, but that is not mentioned in this volume.

In fact, after a preface that sets the stage for the Civil War by recalling the infamous dinner in 1830 when President Andrew Jackson and his Vice President John C. Calhoun quarreled over the issue of Union, the first chapter of this book is devoted Southern states leaving the Union after Lincoln's election in 1860. The war begins in the second chapter with the Confederates firing on Fort Sumter and the battle of First Manassas (note Hakim lets the winning side name the battle). Then Hakim goes back in time to Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the story of Harriet Tubman, and the mythological political career of Abraham Lincoln. Chronology continues to become a secondary consideration as Hakim devotes a chapter to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, before looking at the slavery issue and the story of John Brown. Only after establishing Lincoln's problem in trying to hold the Union together does Hakim return to a chronological account of the major campaigns and battles. But never a mention of why 1855 is the starting point for the volume.

That is a minor concern, because I prefer a solid argumentative structure to mere chronology. Consequently "War, Terrible War" can be seen as having four distinct sections. The first (Chapters 1-2), establishes the spark that started the Civil War. The second (Chapters 3-10) goes back and provides key background elements that will help young readers to understand the issues and personalities that are played out in this particular drama. The third (Chapters 11-25) covers the Civil War through the Battle of Gettysburg and includes both the Emancipation Proclamation that made this a war to free the slaves and the Gettysburg Address that reestablished the idea that "all men are created equal" as the supreme American principle. The final unit (Chapters 26-31) covers the end of the war and the brutal irony of Lincoln's assassination once the threat to the Union was ended.

Throughout the book Hakim not only relates events, she captures the passion and commitment of abolitionists and slave owners through a series of profiles of politicians and soldiers on both sides, slave owners, abolitionists, average citizens, and others. These books are richly illustrated with historic photographs, etchings, political cartoons, maps, and the like. The margins are crammed with definitions and mini-biographies, as well as quotations from both historic figures and contemporary historians. As always, the major strength of this series is that Hakim keeps her young audience first and foremost in mind. Constantly asking her readers to think about these events from the perspective of the participants, she also does a marvelous job of anticipating questions from them as well. For example, if anyone has seen the Ken Burns documentary on "The Civil War" or the film "Gettysburg" and is wondering why Hakim does not talk about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, there is a note in the margins to check out the book "The Killer Angels."

If there is a better juvenile American history series out there for young students who are being home schooled, then I have yet to see it. This is a superb series that does an admirable job of adapting a wealth of information and historical details to its audience. Hakim knows that her readers have grown up on computers and the Internet, but she does not sacrifice her subject matter on the altar of stylish presentation.

"War, Terrible War: 1855-1865," the sixth volume in Joy Hakim's A History of US series, tells the story of the Civil War, although the author points out that there was nothing civil about it. Instead, Hakim favors Lincoln's notion that the purpose of the war was to give the nation a "new birth of freedom." Within these pages young readers will learn about the bloody conflict, beginning with Fort Sumter and the battle of Manassas to Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House and the assassination of President Lincoln.

However, I have to admit I was a bit distracted because while I understood 1865 was the year the Civil War ended I was not sure what 1855 was supposed to signify as a starting point. The previous volume in the series, "Liberty for All?" set up the slavery issue and created some overlap in covering the years 1820-1860. But why the year 1855? The Compromise of 1850 was in 1850, Harriet Beecher Stowe published "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in 1852, the Kansas-Nebraska Act was in 1854, the Dred Scott decision in 1857, the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, and John Brown's attack on Harpers Ferry in 1859. Off the top of my head I would say that the Republican Party might have been founded in 1855, since they put up their first candidate in 1856, but that is not mentioned in this volume.

In fact, after a preface that sets the stage for the Civil War by recalling the infamous dinner in 1830 when President Andrew Jackson and his Vice President John C. Calhoun quarreled over the issue of Union, the first chapter of this book is devoted Southern states leaving the Union after Lincoln's election in 1860. The war begins in the second chapter with the Confederates firing on Fort Sumter and the battle of First Manassas (note Hakim lets the winning side name the battle). Then Hakim goes back in time to Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin," the story of Harriet Tubman, and the mythological political career of Abraham Lincoln. Chronology continues to become a secondary consideration as Hakim devotes a chapter to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, before looking at the slavery issue and the story of John Brown. Only after establishing Lincoln's problem in trying to hold the Union together does Hakim return to a chronological account of the major campaigns and battles. But never a mention of why 1855 is the starting point for the volume.

That is a minor concern, because I prefer a solid argumentative structure to mere chronology. Consequently "War, Terrible War" can be seen as having four distinct sections. The first (Chapters 1-2), establishes the spark that started the Civil War. The second (Chapters 3-10) goes back and provides key background elements that will help young readers to understand the issues and personalities that are played out in this particular drama. The third (Chapters 11-25) covers the Civil War through the Battle of Gettysburg and includes both the Emancipation Proclamation that made this a war to free the slaves and the Gettysburg Address that reestablished the idea that "all men are created equal" as the supreme American principle. The final unit (Chapters 26-31) covers the end of the war and the brutal irony of Lincoln's assassination once the threat to the Union was ended.

Throughout the book Hakim not only relates events, she captures the passion and commitment of abolitionists and slave owners through a series of profiles of politicians and soldiers on both sides, slave owners, abolitionists, average citizens, and others. These books are richly illustrated with historic photographs, etchings, political cartoons, maps, and the like. The margins are crammed with definitions and mini-biographies, as well as quotations from both historic figures and contemporary historians. As always, the major strength of this series is that Hakim keeps her young audience first and foremost in mind. Constantly asking her readers to think about these events from the perspective of the participants, she also does a marvelous job of anticipating questions from them as well. For example, if anyone has seen the Ken Burns documentary on "The Civil War" or the film "Gettysburg" and is wondering why Hakim does not talk about Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, there is a note in the margins to check out the book "The Killer Angels."

If there is a better juvenile American history series out there for young students who are being home schooled, then I have yet to see it. This is a superb series that does an admirable job of adapting a wealth of information and historical details to its audience. Hakim knows that her readers have grown up on computers and the Internet, but she does not sacrifice her subject matter on the altar of stylish presentation.

Both my sons are reluctant readers, and I've never seen them respond to books like they have to War, Terribe, War. I've read them too, and it's the most engaging, honest, and informative history of the Civil War I've ever encountered. Horn Book (above) says the pictures are "gruesome"--wasn't the Civil War gruesome? When are these educators going to realize that kids are far more saavy and capable of thinking about tough issues than they think? That's why my children are usually so reluctant to read. Hakim treats them with respect and the results are amazing. As for the writing not being clear and true, did the reviewer even read the book? I can't believe they did if that's what they're saying. I highly recommend this book to curious readers of all ages. We're going to order all the other History of US books.

Hello. I have used this book as a textbook for two courses at the University of California. It proved to be the most 'edutaining' of texts I've so far read. Tierney and his co-author do a brilliant job of retelling Medieval history as it happened in Western Europe. The first chapter of the book delivers a romantic summary of Europe under the hegemony of Greece and Rome up until Late Antiquity. The authors then take the reader through early Medieval France, Germany, northern Italy, and England. The chapters can be read by themselves and are not organized chronologically, but by themes and places. The only issue I have with the book is that it focuses sharply on Franco-English history. Germany is center but not part of the core in the book, so the reader is not submerged in the same depth as France and England run. Tierney devotes some subchapters to the periphery of Western Europe, but what is lacking is the same in-depth coverage as France and England. If the reader wants to find only introductory knowledge to Byzantium, Spain, Central, and Eastern Europe he/she will be satisfied with the light coverage Tierney gives: the important details of people and places. The periphary of Europe has not heavily influenced Western civilization, but should never be overlooked; Spain is only mentioned during the Inquisition and Moorish conquest. It is more worthy of note than what Tierney says of it. The book is still a pleasure to read and understand even with its emphasis on France and Britain.

Salutations all. I have used this book as a text for two courses covering the Early and Late Middle Ages while as a student at UC Riverside. Tierney and his co-author do a laudable job of presenting Western Medieval Europe to readers. The book is organized thematically and in each theme the material is presented chonologically. The reader may choose any chapter and read with little prior knowledege. That said, it starts by summarizing Classical Antiquity and moves onto Frankish history. Indeed, Franco-British history is the core of the book and that makes reading somewhat frustrating: gobs of legal and parliamentary history are scattered throughout the pages. However, dry as it is, Tierney makes the history and conception of the Western nation-state interesting and provocative with his theories of English parliament and monarchial constitution. And the papal monarchy illustrates the shrewdness and Machiavellian politics of the period: Medieval Europeans were highly civilized and intelligent as the Papacy shows. Those bonuses come at the expense of he periphery of Europe: Byzantium, Spain, and the Frontier East. To be sure, Tierney does not neglect them, but the pages he devotes serve as springboards for the reader to investigate by him/herself. And for its even-handedness, the book is worth reading for pleasure or academic learning.

This was a great, if at times slightly overwhelming read. It served as a central textbook for a medieval history class at my school and I found it acessible, enjoyable and orderly. At times approached chronologically, other times thematically, I found it to be a useful and insightful tool.

the book is a wonderful primer for those just delving into the world of medieval history for the first time such as myself...
Tierney has given many humorous accounts of the characters and events which i did not feel took anything away from the credibility of the facts.

I couldn't help but laugh when envisioning King Edward climbing up a windmill to watch the fighting at the Battle of Crecy. During one raid of a castle, the Frech mined a hole under the defensive wall. The English found out, started a hole on the other side, and the two eventually met...The hole was too small for heavy fighting so "two men poked swords at one another. As it was impossible for knights to in armor to hurt each other in this way, it was a thoroughly enjoyable affair."

His irony and humor well emphasize the degragation of some of leaders during the middle ages....I had a feeling that this time period was filled with much intrigue, murder, rape, plunder, and complete ludicrousy....the book did not fail in conveying that...Most topics were lightly breezed over: the crusades, pilgrimages, chivaly, the plague, the art and architecture, heresy, troubadours, and peasant society.......but not too much was needed to whet my interest...from there, i'm off buying books that are more detailed on these topics.....

the book is layed out in general sections: end of the roman empire, the beginning, middle, and late middle ages. within each section it's further broken down into to the main topics of each period: politics, economy, society, religion...these topics are repeated in each section; however there is often a gap of 100 pages or so between the same topic in different periods. (ex. religion in the 10th century and religion in 13th century)...

for me, at least, it was hard to remember all that went on in religion 100 pages ago.....there's just such an onslaught of information in between ...it's impossible to keep it all straight....so maybe it would have been better for him to keep all the topics together--seperate sections on religion, culture, politics, etc...or maybe i just have short term memory.....Tierney's point undoubtedly was for the reader to get a "feel" for each period and all that it incompased.....it was just hard to remember
everything from one period to the next....but ok.....it was a fine book overall......and it would be wise to jot down notes on the subjects that interest you so can pursue them once you exit this jam-packed cornicopia of information....