The Empire Books

Ultimately, the hardest decision about the Foundation books is to decide how to read them. Maybe I'm being ridiculous, but I think you will enjoy them more if you read them in the order they were written. If so, this is the second book. If you have not yet read Foundation, then you need to go back and do so before tackling this one.

Your other choice is to read the prequels first, then go onto Foundation. In that case, this is the fourth book you should read.

Whichever choice you make, don't read this book first.

On the surface, Foundation and Empire will seem like an uninspired playing out of Hari Seldon's vision for the future. Ah! But there's much more happening, so pay attention. When you get to the end of the book, you may find you have missed the mainstream and will have to go back. Don't worry, almost everyone has that reaction.

Asimov is a brilliant conceptual writer, but not someone who slaved over every word (in fact, he was famous for writing most of his many books in only 1 or 2 drafts, with little editing after that). This book begins to develop the full Foundation concept in all of its stunning beauty.

In many ways, you will be reading this book from the eyes of the first Foundation. But that's the unimportant one. The real action is with the second Foundation. Be sure to keep that in mind.

When you meet the Mule, don't think of him as an aberration but rather as an extension of today's potential. That will make the book more interesting for you.

Many people find this book to be the least interesting one of the Foundation series. Let me warn you that reading this one will greatly increase your pleasure in the following books beginning with the Second Foundation (which is your next pleasant reading assignment).

Enjoy this irresistible series!

The author makes a convincing case, complete with impeccable historical references, of plans put into motion many years ago to control the course of human life on earth. The continuum of those plans, for reasons cited in this book, has taken on a spectacular turn, and the architects have decided to fast-forward their agenda. The Power Elites of the Zionist Anglo-American Axis have been in control of the political systems throughout the world and, in all probability, there is not a single country in which their cunning and evil influence has not been felt. Their philosophy of 'divide and rule' bas manifested in various ways on different scales, e.g., the Cold War between Eastern communism and Western capitalism; managed conflicts in the oil-rich Middle East, aided by the creation of Israel; and the illusion of choice in apparent democracies. Wars are invariably used to abruptly change political systems, and never for the simplistic 'good-versus-evil' reasons declared vociferously. The author puts forward his propositions with sufficient proofs and documentary evidence that demonstrate: the rapid and irreversible decline of the Zionist Anglo-American Empire; the forthcoming, inevitable nuclear wars; Israel as the Iynchpin of those nuclear wars; the end of Empire Capitalism; and a New World Map by the middle of this century.

Only the best ever games for PC had made it onto this underrated package!

This book was written more than 50 years ago and still retains all the punch it featured then. Horatio Nelson is without doubt the most beloved of Britain's naval heroes and his achievements warrant this attitude. In an era when Britain was in nearly as much peril as she was in WW2, the wooden walls of the British fleet were what stood between her and defeat. Napoleon held Europe in his hands as firmly as Adolph Hitler and his Nazi's ever did. Buonaparte's accomplishments on the field of battle were more complete and the empire he built was longer lived than Hitler's. He stood on the brink of controlling the European, hence most, of the world and the only barrier between him and that totality was the Royal Navy. Nelson's ships three times smashed the French and their allied fleets, and while his victories could never, alone, have brought Napoleon to his knees, they did render Britain immune to invasion, thus making eventual victory possible.

A Game For Empires deals with Horatio Nelson from the start of his naval career until his victory at the Battle of the Nile. It details the beginnings of his affair with Emma, Lady Hamilton, and does so without passing judgement. If you are interested in Nelson and his life, here is a book written with all the impact of a history text yet in the style of the fictional novelist. Pearl Frye's descriptions of the Battles in which Nelson took part have all the flair and color of the dramatist without forcing facts to conform to theatrics.

The book is one the best , if not the best available about the history of british empire gardens. The information are very well organized and after finnish reading it, I wanted to go back in time and visit some of the gardens described.
It is really a must for all of us who enjoy history and botany.

After reviewing the various theories about power relations between the City and British upper class, authors analyze history of British investments across the globe: Asia, Africa, Latin America, Canada to name a few. They show how both City and British upper aristocracy rather than the British industrialists shaped British imperial strategies.

They demonstrate how the main Imperial and Overseas investors in are the British upper class while City professionals and middle class invest mainly in Britain and Europe. The City was used to channel British old money across the globe.

Main beneficiaries of those imperial and overseas investments are people with political power, the Lords. These in turn shape British imperial policies to fit their investments, building the British Empire along it.

But all locations are not equally influenced by them. Canadian financial markets in the interwar period for instance move according to interest rate of the dollar and pound. If dollar interest rate is lower than pound interest rate, then American influence is larger in Canada. Otherwise British influence dominates.

A detailed study about relation betweens upper classes and imperialism even if authors focused their attention on relations between the City and British Aristocracy adequatly naming it 'Gentlemanly Capitalism'.

The German Colonial Empire was a short lived phenomenon but one that played an important role in the domestic poltics of the German Reich prior to WWI. Smith shows the interplay of domestic politics and colonial policy. The development of two modes of thought about the colonies in Germany- settlement colonialism and economic colonialsim are presented as compteting ideas. He is also excellent at showing the evolutionary nature of the German colonial adminstration and how it responded to major challenges (like the Maji Maji revolt). On the whole Smith emphasizes that the German Empire was a work in progress and one that was not (Allied propoganda efforts aside) dramatically different than those of the French and English. In particular, it was, in some was reforming itself at a faster rate than older colonial powers like the English from whihc the German initially borrowed many of their adminsitarive techniques. None of this should imply that Smith glosses over the very real abuses of the German colonial adminsitration (particularly in its earliest phases when colonial compnaies control the colonies). The book is a fascinating read and well written. It is a must for any student of the German Empire before WWI.

The book also informs on Smith's later work The Ideological Origins of Nazi Imperialism.

This is a very traditional introduction to the history of the German Empire from 1871 to 1919. It does not challenge the reader with new revisionist hypotheses (like in Niall Ferguson's "The Pity of War"), but tries to offer an honest portrait of the period and introduce the reader to an analytical and very interesting, if mostly academic, bibliography of the argument.

Unlike most of other presentations, this story has the supreme gift of brevity.

Like most other studies, it tries more to cope with the questions related to the causes of World War I and World War II, than focusing on the great economic miracle that Germany experienced in the second half of XIX Century.

Traditionalism is most visible in the theses advanced to explain the disaster of the two wars: the deep sense of frustration caused by Napoleonic invasion ("This shall never happen to us again!"), Hubris for the results attained both military and economic ("We can do better"), resulting in Nemesis (war and defeat) that causes in turn even more frustration and a distinct self-defeating pattern, the logic of disaster - and an ordinary attempt to understand the sense of aggressive dissatisfaction - almost psychoanalytical - that had so crucial role in the inception of the crisis.

Traditional explanation does not mean "mediocre": it is amazing how Sturmer had been able to be exhaustive and compelling in so few pages!

Besides, this small essay is flawless and it is not easy to find weaknesses. The best part is no doubt in the central chapters with the sociological analysis of change - the weakest possibly in those parts dealing with the economic progress (that are too concise and cannot match the admiration German swift development commanded also in contemporary foreign academics and journalists - I'm thinking in the Us about Thorstein Veblen's studies on the subject).

There's a very interesting remark about the decadence of Diplomacy (praised for his stabilizing long term effects) as one important source of the instability in the fin de Siecle International politics. But the thesis is not developed as it could: diplomatic tradition (that is also "bonne manieres" and supranational ancient regime) versus promethean romanticism (that is individualism, bonapartism, will of power and nationalism). Possibly Romanticism was the true new trait in the European political arena (the uncompromising extremism of the early French Revolution, the promethean élan of the French Empire, the all encompassing dimension of German Idealism): in the transmission of this "virulent disease" German nationalism and world wars constituted only the last dramatic stage. A thesis brilliantly unfolded for the history of ideas by Isaiah Berlin in his excellent "The Roots of Romanticism".

"The great seminal catastrophe of our century, to quote the US diplomat-cum-historian George Kennan, was to leave nothing unchanged: not the proud nation-states of Europe, not the relationship of the sexes not poetry, painting or music, not the idea of the past or any vision of the future, not the human soul. To quote the title of the poet Robert Graves' memoir of the trenches, it was Goodbye to All That"(pag.80).

One question then have been patently neglected, resulting in more definite, black and white, but less accurate picture (the "gute alte Zeiten" of Bismarck opposed to the capricious and irresponsible later Wilhelmine politics).
Was Bismarck authoritarian conservatism a model for following totalitarian experiments (both in Italy and in Germany)? Did Prussian militarism play any role in setting a model for following totalitarian experiments?
I suspect the answer is YES and that the European totalitarian experiments of the `30s were initially empirical attempts to replicate the model of Bismarck conservative revolution and to confront social unrest and economic upheaval with the call for more order and discipline.
If so, some seed of disaster was deep rooted inside that same policy that had been formerly paramount in avoiding it.

National Socialist Germany is naturally one of the most researched periods of the twentieth century. Countless documents from that period are available; countless books have been written about Germany, Adolf Hitler, National Socialism, and World War II. The subject matter has too often been treated as though in a partial vacuum. In fact, these are natural if not necessary manifestations of long historical processes. Veit Valentin's "The German People" presents the necessary background for understanding this development of German culture, German thought, and the German nation.

From the Kingdom of the Franks, Valentin follows the ebb and flow of the boundaries of the homelands of the German people. We learn that many of the institutions of National Socialist Germany had first seen light in earlier times -- such as "the ambition for a national church" (p. 291), noble efforts at eradicating poverty (p. 404) long before the famous Winterhilfswerk, and the intensification of anti-semitism from the common, wavering but ever-present European sometimes distrust sometimes abhorrence of Jews to politically expedient anti-semitism to its `final pollution'. The saving grace of this excess of anti-semitism was that this is what led to the eradication of anti-semitism from Europe almost entirely, at least publicly. Germany's bid for colonies came late (p. 499), under anti-German efforts to block her geographical as well as economic growth, and eventually to plunder those colonies.

Anti-semitism was a product of then current understanding of biology and matter (materialism), and the teachings of Darwin, Hegel, and Gobineau (pp. 502ff.). That line took the Marxists to atheism, dialectical materialism, and a private disregard for [perceived to be] backward races; it took the Nazis to dialectical racism and a public disregard for [perceived to be] backward races.

Ideologically we meet such characters as Moses Hess, nicknamed "communist rabbi", who was "probably the first pure communist in Germany" (p. 405); Richard Wagner, whom all know as a composer but few as a revolutionary who had fought beside the Russian anarchist Bakunin on the barricades in Dresden in 1849 (p. 444); the today nearly forgotten Hohenlohe; and the Pan-German League, composed mostly of scholars, judges, teachers, officials, industrialists, publicists, and cosmopolitan travelers (p. 519). All contributed to the development of national socialism, either positively or negatively.

We learn of Britain's early efforts, taken out of fear of Russian advances (in Manchuria in 1899), to forge an alliance of Germany, England and the United States. (In fact, Valentin may be too forgiving, even somewhat blind, to English ambitions [p. 562]. ) Yet, Valentin laments, some who best understood these nations were "never allowed to exert substantial influence. This personal factor has to be reckoned with substantially in judging subsequent events and their consequences." (p. 528) We discover that the partition of Poland by the Soviet Union and Germany was but one of a series of the never completely settled fortunes and misfortunes of that unpredictable land. The situation of Schleswig and Holstein proved not much happier. (pp. 423, 461).

Hence, wars and revolutions. The third German revolution was "the red revolution" (p. 578) This premature exercise was followed by civil war in which the Russian ambassador had so much involved himself that Germany returned him to Moscow. Valentin expounds on "The Four Errors of the Victorious Powers" following World War I. Little need be said of the Versailles Treaty; the best understanding of that confused act of vengeance rests in the reading of the original document.

If Valentin's observations seem new to us, our ignorance is to blame -- of German history, of the interconnectedness of the generations of Germans, of the lasting effects of cultural icons, of the effects of shifting and shifty historical international relations. If Valentin's list of demagogues - Thomas Müntzer, John of Leiden, Joseph Görres, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, Friedrich Hecker, Robert Blum, Ferdinand Lassalle, Stöcker - is unfamiliar to us, how are we to compare Hitler's role as demagogue, whom Valentin calls "the last and greatest German Michel"? If we plead ignorance of German culture, especially recent culture - Lohengrin, Telramund, Siegfried, Hagen, Parsifal, Klingsor - how shall we explain National Socialism's genuine spiritual appeal to so many Germans - and to others, from America, Britain, and Spain, to Rumania, Greece, India, and the Ukraine, who enthusiastically volunteered to protect National Socialist Europe, chiefly from Bolshevism, but also from "the liberal democracies"? Valentin gives us the hard details we need to understand these results.

Valentin leads us on a journey of appreciation of the German people and culture, halting at the demise of National Socialism. "The Germans have been accustomed to invest all their tissue, all their capacity, all their creative power in what they call their duty, by which they generally mean something amounting to a mission They are prepared to neglect almost everything human in order to consummate this ambition. For it they will give up personal comfort, family happiness, even pity and personal solicitude." (p. 679) "To see, now, a whole nation put in the position of a defendant at the bar is a new thing in history, and it is a deeply moving thing to the hearts of those who perceive a meaning in history. " (p. 685)

Valentin predicts the inauguration of "a new historical life in conformity with the world conscience, as well as with the most illustrious qualities of the elder Germany herself." (p. 685) Sixty years have passed. What is your verdict?

Valentin includes informative Chronology Chart, charts of royal Houses, and Pedigree of Party Trends.

Did this book appeal to me? Yes. The historical scope explained the fundamental natural development of German politics and the rise of National Socialism. Valentin made observations on political situations and relations that I had heretofore neither read or considered. Valentin seemed less influenced by the too frequent anti-German and anti-Nazi bias and bigotry of so many other writers dealing with 20th century Germany.

Valentin's analysis of National Socialism was, for me, the weakest part of the book; nonetheless his views were moderate rather than extremist, and considered rather than thoughtlessly passionate.

I most enjoyed the sections on the 18th and 19th centuries, accounts of Germany's relations with Britain and France, and the particulars of the early German states (such as Schleswig and Holstein) with non-German neighbors (such as Denmark). The simplified maps (too few, however), Chronology Chart, and Pedigree of Party Trends were great.

D.S.J.Milne c. 2006

This book is an excellent example of how to synthesize a wide variety of archival and secondary resources. It provides a deep analysis the relationships between the Holy Roman Empire and the Scandinavian countries. There is much to learn from this book in order to understand European relationships with foreign countries. A must read!