Atlantic Monthly Books

Wonderful look at an area which is often overlooked for it's beauty and rich culture because of all the constant turmoil of the region. Glass grew up with some of the language and culture. This is obvious as he explores in-depth the areas he travels to and attempts to reproduce the travels of those before him. I thought the book was a good mix of history and culture intertwined into his daily travel and musings. The book is somewhat of a cathartic reminiscence as he relates his humbling time of kidnapping. But as such the recounting helps to bring stark reality back to the nature of that region and force us to consider the reasons 'why' pain and suffering are necessary in such a mythical and adventurous place. I've recommended this book to two friends who are news correspondents and love to travel. Thumbs up!

Havel, president of the Czech Republic, first president of free Czechoslovakia after the Velvet Revolution, is portrayed in an attractive light by Kriseova, who evidently knows Havel fairly well. In any event, the glossary of names is useful for anyone trying to get a better grip on the personalities involved in Theater of the Balustrade and in the Velvet Revolution. A fast paced read, indexed. OP hunters: St. Martin's imprint is also on some versions of this book

The Introduction gives a short history of spying in America. The Civil War spies were amateurs from other varied backgrounds, just like the soldiers. Chapter 1 tells the story about President-elect Lincoln's secret journey to Washington. Chapter 2 tells of William A. Lloyd, a businessman who traveled to the South with his wife and maid. His information was passed to his courier Thomas H. S. Boyd for delivery to Washington. Boyd often used released prisoners to carry back his information. Chapter 3 tells of Rose Greenhow's spying in Washington, where she was the intimate friend of the Senator from Massachusetts. Her reports were corroborated by the news in Northern newspapers. Page 66 tells of the prewar partnership between William P. Wood and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton! The activities of Belle Boyd sound like a work of fiction if they weren't known as fact (Chapter 4). Chapter 5 tells of Confederate spies. Pinkerton's men were told to look at a man's shoes. Northerners wore the new style of different shoes for left and right feet, southerners wore the old style with the same shoe for either foot. The Confederates' early successes were due in part to better intelligence (p.92). Thomas N. Conrad led a colorful life as a Confederate spy. His haircut and mustache configuration (p.95) suggests he acted as a false double, and was involved in the Booth plot.

Chapter 6 tells of other Union spies, such as the talented Timothy Webster, Pinkerton agent (pp.125-130). Were his real exploits greater than the fictional James Bond? But Webster's luck changed after he was laid up with rheumatism. Chapter 8 tells of Benjamin F. Stringfellow, another colorful Confederate spy who had an interesting career. Chapter 9 tells of the Secret Services. By early 1863 the Union's intelligence was now better than the Confederates'. Gettysburg was a Union victory, not a draw. Chapter 10 tells of Lafayette C. Baker and his work in counter-intelligence. Chapter 11 tells of counter-intelligence in Europe, and the Trent Affair. Page 208 explains diplomatic appointments then; would today's news media report this?

Chapter 12 tells of the "Northwest Conspiracy". The bankers and merchants of New York City were the economic partners of the Southern cotton planters; profit was more important than the principle of Union (p.211). There were uprisings against the Conscription Act, the worst was the Draft Riots in July 1863. Opponents of the war wore the head of Liberty from a penny; hence the name "Copperheads". Chapter 13 tells of the attempts to raise an insurrection from Copperheads and Confederate agents and prisoners; it failed (pp.235-7). The raid on St. Albans VT was a success. Pages 247-250 tells of the attempt to burn Manhattan. Chapter 14 tells of the attempt to raid Richmond and free the Union prisoners. Colonel Dahlgren was killed, and his orders to kill Jeff Davis and his Cabinet were published. The US Government denied this as a fabrication or forgery. This angered many Southerners, and may have inspired John Wilkes Booth's fatal attack. Lincoln believed he would not be assassinated because the assassin would in turn die. No government would order such a thing, and only a madman would do it (p.273). The rest of this chapter discusses the conspiracy, and the capture of JW Booth.

The last 9 pages of Sources list many books as reference.

Jill Jonnes' debut book will be of interest to all residents of New York City, past or present. It also contains important lessons on failed welfare policies and insurance practices.

She delivers sweeping historical background on the creation and ethnic make-up of the Bronx, overloaded with names and statistics, showing her abilities as a researcher. The Bronx was once a well-kept borough, but over the decades the ethnic mix changed and with it, the average income level. The Bronx began a long decline, unchecked by politicians. By the mid 70s, fueled by rampant crime, drug abuse, and a welfare policy that paid out $2,000 to $3,000 in emergency funds to victims of fire, the city was set ablaze. In a ten-year period, a staggering 80% of structures in the South Bronx were damaged or destroyed by fire--predominantly by arson. This left a city landscape reminiscent of nuclear holocaust.

But as the title, We're Still Here, hints, the city still lives, and a motivated group of concerned residents and politicians fight to resurrect their home. It's worth trying to locate a copy of this out-of-print book for the fascinating and complex history of this storied borough. -Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.

This cookbook - like all of Marilyn Moore's cookbooks - provides clear, straightforward recipies that can be mastered by cooks of all levels. From fancy fowl recipies suitable for holidays (and presented as such) to daily recipies, such as roasted chicken and vegetables - it doesn't disappoint. A nice array of side dishes - plain to fancy - are also presented.

Not a big cookbook, but a quality book

Beautifully poetic. You want to both nibble it slowly to make it last and swallow it whole in one sitting.

I have written a review about this book when I first read it and I must say it really is a wonderful fiction piece. I read this novel during the junior year of highschool, and now as a Graduate Student who has a more in-depth understanding on literary works, this books still continues to hold up and remains in my top-3 books of all time. Although some casual readers may be turned off by the length of it, I suggest stick with it and you will not be disappointed.

By the time he published his first novel, Charles Frazier was already forty-seven years old and heading toward his golden years. However, his debut "Cold Mountain" struck a chord when it began populating bookshelves in 1997, so much so that it sold a whopping three million copies worldwide and won the National Book Award. It just goes to show that in the literary world, it's never too late for a star to rise. Frazier has since penned his second novel "Thirteen Moons", another Civil War-centered story, but it is his first novel that set the bar for his superb writing style.

"Cold Mountain" begins with wounded Confederate soldier W.P. Inman (a character loosely based on Frazier's own great-great-uncle William Pinkey Inman) lying in a hospital in Raleigh, NC with a bullet hole in his neck. Never having understood or agreed with the reason for the war or his duty to fight in it, Inman finds himself well enough to leave and climbs through a window in the quiet of the night, knowing full well he will be punished for his desertion. His ultimate quest is to return to his home of Cold Mountain and to the farm at Black Cove to proclaim his love to Ada Monroe, a woman for whom he has pined the last four years.

Meanwhile Ada is struggling to preserve the homestead at Black Cove on her own after her father, the Reverend Monroe, dies suddenly from heart failure. Seemingly out of the mist of the Blue Ridge mountaintops appears Ruby, a young but tough-as-nails frontierswoman who whips the farm back into shape, dictating and divvying out labor as good as she gives it. All the while Ada nods in reply, hastily taking notes in her journal amongst her innermost ramblings and delicate sketches. There is little time allotted for Ada to grieve for her father, as the work of the farm is constant and time-consuming, distracting her from the misery her memories can create.

Frazier's descriptions of the Cold Mountain region are vivid and well detailed, his personal knowledge of the topography of the area working to great effect (Frazier was born in Asheville, only 35 miles north of Cold Mountain). Frazier mentions in the novel's acknowledgments page that he was given a writer's retreat by friends in the North Carolina Mountains and that "the long view from the porch is the book's presiding spirit". Frazier not only referred to his father for all the family stories but researched several different texts to recreate the gritty feel of a Civil War battlefield, in particular the Siege of Petersburg (which he was told his great-great-uncle participated in).

The dialogue is simplistic and appropriately pastoral; nary an anachronism is present in the form of a catch phrase, inside joke or out-of-place mannerism (as a man blows his own horn about his skill in courting women, another man tells him, "You think you bore with a mighty big auger"). Because the lot of these folk live in back country, you have the inevitable slang that suggests a Deep South ignorance and/or lack of proper education ("And they still done him like they did? Spiked him up and knifed him and all?"). You also have the well-educated Ada, whose big-city articulation seems displaced in a wild countryside. As you can see, you get great examples of both sides of the tracks. Most of what is spoken is a far cry from how we communicate today. Some of it (particularly on Ada's side) is, I dare say, disappointingly absent from people today who desperately need better manners and/or a more delicate approach.

In 2003, the novel was adapted to film by the late director Anthony Minghella and starred Nicole Kidman, Jude Law and Renee Zellweger. In the movie, Kidman's portrayal of Ada is one of overt naivete, almost complete uselessness. Ruby has to teach her everything and it's a struggle to get her out of bed to assist in the duties of the farm; she even displays some resistance to learning the tricks and trades of farm work. In the novel, this is hardly mentioned - Ada goes straight to work, knowing full well her obligation and displaying a talent for quick learning. She also abandons her vanity promptly, using one of her best dresses and hats to create a scarecrow for the vegetable crop. There is little change in Ruby's character from book to film; in fact, Zellweger makes her a bit more colorful without losing that fierce independence that Ruby is so known for. Inman remains intact nearly 100%, Jude Law giving a reserved and dignified performance that brings great justice to Frazier's main character.

The love story, however, becomes over-dramatized and cliché. In the book, Ada is a lot more silent and reserved about her feelings for Inman, a bit aloof I would say. It's not until they meet up again in the woods beyond Black Cove that her heart's desires truly start spilling forth. In the movie, Ada is weepy and perpetually emotional, awaiting Inman's return with a heavy heart, wistful letters and watery eyes. In the end we have an epic love scene that serves to sate a viewer's desire to watch two beautiful people in the semi-nude simulate mind-blowing lovemaking (I'll admit I was one of those people - Jude Law is so dreamy, even though he is a scoundrel).

Even after having seen the film before reading the book, I'd have to say that I have no preference for one or the other - I like them both equally. I can appreciate the differences between the two and what was changed for dramatic effect to fit the medium in which it was presented (and I'm referring to the film). I also appreciate what the film managed to preserve about the book - after all, the central point of the story is the most important and it indisputably remained.

Whether you see the film or read the book first, there is one singular certainty - the story will captivate you. There is a reason that this novel has its accolades - it is one of the better novels of our waning generation that seeks to revive another generation long since passed. Experience these unique generations simultaneously by picking up a copy today.

Inman, the protagonist, part Jeremiah Johnson, part the Outlaw Josey Wales, part John Muir, is one of the most ridiculously unbelievable characters in the history of modern fiction. He has no flaws. Temptations on the road?; he eschews them. Wrongs being exacted on the dispossessed?; he rectifies them, usually chivalrously or gallantly. Starving?; he finds food. Shot and buried alive?; he rises from his interment and staggers off. To the woman he loves, this preposterous beacon he's focused on. Frazier is what I call a flora and fauna novelist. He's one of those writers who has assiduously researched the time down to the tiniest fern, or snail. We admire his research. We admire his prose rendering of all this flora and fauna. But when you strip that away you're left with a story so absurd -- see the movie if you don't believe me -- that it defies credulity. Incontrovertibly, one of the most overrated novels of the past ten years. Don't believe me? Read his second book. This one-trick pony did a major face plant. He's finished now, of course. But he's got enough money for three lifetimes so he can drink himself into a stupor and never again have to write about all those plants and animals and cerulean skies. A great southern literary con.

I started reading this book four years ago, during winter break, and put it down fifty pages in, swearing that I would finish reading it as soon as projects, homework, and life let up. During the four years that I let the book sit, those fifty pages haunted me. I'd already seen the movie, knew how it would end up, more or less - but what I wanted to know was what Frazier said about it. What was the lesson about life, the aphorism I could pack up and take away with me at the story's end? When I finished reading it this time, I found it.

Some people say that this is just a regular old 'heroe's quest': man sets out on a journey to return to the woman he loves, and encounters a lot of obstacles and temptations (think: The Odyssey) along the way. And sure, Inman comes across as a hero; flawless, brave, repentant, ever-loving.

But the real hardships for him happen on the inside. His problem is not that he's being shot at during his journey home, his problem is that he himself has done shooting. Killed. That he himself has participated in the war machine, taken lives, broken some part of himself. The real question - for Inman at least - is how to recover his damaged soul. How can you love or be loved after you've done the unthinkable?

Dealing with that question, providing some sort of answer, consolation, hope, is what this story does best. If you've ever done something you think was irrevocably wrong, think you've ruined whatever chance at happiness you may have had, hurt your beloved, hurt yourself, wasted years: no matter what you've done, there is some sort of redemption for you. You can 'grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self,' but in the end you can overcome it,. you can find a purpose, you can become whole again. The most powerful message of the book, the one that makes this book worth reading, that might, if you're hurting, put you back on track, is this: 'People can be mended.'

It was a good read. The writer manipulated my assumptions of the characters in a subtle, yet effective way. Also, I enjoyed the detail of description that people in the story went to cope with life with the lack of today's infrastructure. Thought provoking.

You need to read "The Long Emergency" by Kunstler before you read this book. The former is his projection of the breakdown of the hydrocarbon based society we live in today "World Made By Hand" is a fictionalized account of the society which follows the collapse of that world. The book is believable and adheres to the authors vision of the future. It's a good work of science fiction and provides some "food for thought" along the way.

Kunstler's fictional account of our future without oil is overly dismal and lacking in heart. While I have been a follower of his theories on suburbia and the built environment, he has gone over the edge of reason in his peak oil theories which demonize technology and cars of all types.
In his fictitious future not only is there no oil, but no trade or transportation of any type. The skills our ancestors relied on to live civilized lives have disappeared- even bicycles and horses are not readily available. All those with practical skills, such as carpentry, mechanics, farming etc have been mysteriously wiped out by pandemics, leaving inept computer jockeys to scrape and claw out an existence.
The problem with this book is not only that this dismal portrayal is unrealistic, but the characters and plot do not engage us enough to make it through their dismal world with any feeling. As others have pointed out, the female characters exist primarily to have sex with the male characters, and have no other development. The main character has been deadened by all the tragedy he has lived through, which provides a thin excuse for the flatness of his ride through this apocalyptic landscape.

James Howard Kunstler is best known for nonfiction writing in which he speculates about whether or not "peak oil" has been reached and how an ever-decreasing oil supply might impact society from that point onward. Kunstler's nonfiction paints a gruesome picture of what life will be like when there is no more oil to be had and he places that scenario in the relatively near future. I'm not particularly inclined to agree with what Kunstler has to say in his role of gloom and doom prophet, but I did enjoy World Made by Hand, the novel based upon his predictions of what is to come.

World Made by Hand, and the post-apocalyptic world Kunstler has created within it, can certainly be challenged as to the likelihood that a gradually disappearing oil supply would ever create such a drastic societal change. But if one reads the novel as simply a depiction of one of an infinite number of possible futures for this country, it starts to resemble science fiction and can be a good bit of fun.

The novel is set in Union Grove, New York, a little Adirondack community peopled by survivors of a series of catastrophes that have devastated the United States over the last decade. They have survived a major flu epidemic that seems to have wiped out a huge segment of the population, nuclear explosions in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, and the complete disappearance of the crude oil supply that made their former lifestyle possible. They have created their own little world, one without contact with anyone much more than thirty miles in any direction, and they have settled into a relatively apathetic new existence of making-do and doing-without.

The Union Grove area is already home to three separate groups when what appears to be a fundamentalist Christian sect searching for a new home suddenly appears in town, buys the old high school, and begins to create a new home for itself there. The townspeople themselves are, for the most part, people who had formerly lived a middle-class, white-collar lifestyle. There is also a self-sustaining group living a serf-like existence on a large paternalistic farm where they give up much of their independence in exchange for better food and a few of the luxuries, like electricity, that have disappeared elsewhere in the area. And there is a lawless group, living in trailers and whatever other shelter they can throw together on the edge of town, that is headed up by a ruthless leader determined to take from those weaker than himself whatever he needs or wants.

When conflict and violence threaten the citizens of Union Grove, distrust of outsiders has to be set aside and new alliances formed if any semblance of an orderly society is to survive there. World Made by Hand is the story of good people forced to adapt in ways they never expected to have to adapt, and not all of the changes pertain to their physical lifestyles. They are also challenged to change their whole concept of right and wrong, their willingness to use whatever force is necessary to protect themselves, and the way that they see their place in this diminished world.

Kunstler has created a post-apocalyptic world that still offers hope to those determined to live a moral life under such changed circumstances. His novel maintains a realistic atmosphere throughout until his unfortunate decision near the very end to give it a touch of the supernatural, a change of tone that largely diminishes the novel that it could have been. Whether or not Kunstler was having difficulty finding an ending for his book or not is only something he can answer, but his decision to end it the way he did, with a Cormac-McCarthy-meets-Stephen-King ending, was so jarring to me that I rated the novel a full point lower than I otherwise would have. That said, this one was still a good bit of fun.

To mix metaphors - I had great expectations and instead found a shipwreck on the island of apathy.

First, I will give credit where due - the protagonist is well described and I can empathize with his feelings, depression and apathy. That's basically it for the positive.

It's as if Kunstler did a minimal bit of research and then zero critical thinking on how a society would revert to a more primitive form of social organization once the technological foundation of that modern society was completely removed.

The entire premise of the story revolves around apathy - personal and societal. I find that not only abhorrent, but also unrealistic. If - or maybe it's when - our technology and oil based society fails because of lack of cheap oil and its benefits - travel - long and short distance, cheap heat, chemicals, electrical generation etc., we will find alternatives - whether it's coal derivatives, electrical or some other technology that will only be viable when oil is expensive and scarce.

Does this mean that society will keep up its frenetic pace of change and "progress"? Not at all. Especially if one adds into the mix terrorists with nukes and rampant epidemics that destabilize world society and kill hundreds of millions, if not billions. Society will most likely have to revert to an earlier era where technology is much simpler and supportable for those needs that are "Made by Hand". But that does not mean that some semblance of `modern' technology won't remain and be maintained as viable - steam trains is but one example.

Another example - Kunstler has most (an implied ~99%) of the cars recycled for their steel. Ok, not a bad idea if there isn't any gasoline from foreign oil fields being imported any longer. But... it's fairly simple to convert a gas engine to run on alcohol or even "wood gas" (Google that and you'll be amazed). So there'll be some sort of short range transportation made possible by individuals with an engineering proclivity. Will this sort of thing be wide spread like today's trucks and autos? Not likely nor practical. But it will exist in some form. Why? My answer is human nature. Find the unknown and unworkable and make it work.

Another glaring hole in my opinion is the fact the Kunstler allows the electricity to come on at random intervals and for short random times. If trains, planes and automobiles are non-functioning and non-existent, then where the heck are the electrical generators in this grand scheme? If society can't make a wood fired steam train work, how can a complex power grid be maintained? If apathy is the watchword of the decade, then who the heck is climbing the power poles to connect the power lines? Furthermore, if most of the trucks and autos have been recycled for their metal content, why haven't the power lines been recycled for their copper and aluminum content? I can't willingly suspend my disbelief to cover that large and glaring of a gap.

Guns. Though never specified, it's implied that this story takes place 10 to 15 years after a `crash' where the whole world just stops functioning. Given the number of guns in America in 2008, given the rural setting depicted in the story, the near absence and rarity of guns is one more point where it appears that Kunstler has discarded critical thinking. Even though the population has been devastated by virulent disease, gun violence seems out of the norm and relatively rare. Rare enough to shock the protagonist when it appears early in the narrative. I'd posit that regardless of the number of people that succumbed to the uncontrolled diseases, gangs of thugs would have been, or are still, ravaging the country far and wide, scrounging for food, more guns and women to rape. Survivors would have had to deal with these gangs of thugs time and again - or be killed by them. I would suggest that violence would remain distasteful to thinking and feeling humans, but it would not be as shocking as Kunstler has portrayed it.

I could detail a half-dozen other oversights or outright goofs, but suffice to say that this was not an enjoyable post-apocalyptic story. Way too many gaps of logic to be remotely probable. And for my money that's what makes these sorts of tales enjoyable or not. And this one was not either probable or enjoyable.

Let us all join with Sebastian Dangerfield to rear up in horror at the abominable way in which society treats its antiheroes! Such a rascal is Dangerfield - a drunken womanizer, a leech and a lech, a brilliant schemer, self-righteous prude, a man in decline, yet rising up, each time, from the bowels of hell through a catharsis of his own wit and imagination. J.P. Donleavy is brilliant. This picaresque novel, written in a modified style of stream of consciousness, is constantly moving, giving the reader little time to ponder a moral or ethical dissection of Dangerfield's antics.

Dangerfield is, after all, a manifestation of human desire in its physical state. He desires, and attains, the finer things in life; yet, each attainment is followed by his own predictable calamity of foibles and follies, through gluttony and his own rapacious wolfishness. Mr. Donleavy is masterful in his choice of every word. Short phrases, separated by periods, create a visual world in full bloom, while pulling the observer (you, insatiable reader) through the emotional rollercoaster being felt by Dangerfield's soul. Such a scoundrel deserves hatred and banishment. In our own observance, we become the enablers of Dangerfield's unconscionable acts, finding ourselves, (surprisingly), unwilling to give him his deserved punishment, forgiving him his transgressions as swiftly as his Mary does. He is, after all, a sensitive soul. Who could argue with that?

J.P. Donleavy's prose dances on the edge with his poetic verve and descriptive style. Each chapter ends with a slice of verse - a summary of each poignant situation in which our roguish suitor finds himself:

"I set sail
On this crucifixion Friday
With the stormy heavens
Crushing the sea
And my heart
Twisted
With dying."

This was honestly one of the dumbest books I've ever read, and there's not much else I can say about it.

If there isn't a little Ginger Man in you, you're a bore.

I read this book in awe, my jaw hitting the floor with each beautiful sentence that went by. Donleavy was a master wordsmith, who created an amazing character in Sebastian Dangerfied. He's pathetic, he's horrible, he's a waste of space, and yet Donleavy somehow makes him kind of likable, and finds the beauty in this very human story.

This was an almost incredible, maybe even impossible character and story if it wasn't for the fact that I've actually MET people like this -many were my friends... and me!

People going nowhere, people setting up scams to make the next meal, people not having a plot to their lives -even if they do they may as well not have one, and trying not to die with their pants down in the process. And in all this one has got to laugh at the preposterous hot waters they find themselves in; case in point, one Sebastian Dangerfield (the protagonist). Harsh situations that are all the funnier because they are creatures of the protagonist's own creation; not only making his own life but the lives of others miserable. He admits this himself throughout the novel and doesn't care to let one know, for he is the `ginger man'.

Sebastian Dangerfield is not completely callous, however. He is a complex individual; similar to the hero of 'The Catcher in the Rye'; that is if the latter were more... inclined toward whoring and boozing it up (my hero!). There are moments of deep feeling and even shock at the way the world has been let go to the gutter, and of course the culpability is on everyone. There are instances of very human qualities in the heart of this character -at least a longing for these, for despite it all things like love, warmth, friendship, simplicity, true joy, are all things awfully hard to come by... one has to wonder how true these are in our own lives. The author skillfully portrays it all with brilliant sentences that swing effortlessly from powerful poetics to sports-bar speak to choppy machinegun descriptions of inner and outer worlds (my hero!). All this is quickly missed if the reader is unimaginative, `slow', moralistic, and insensitive.

Nevertheless, none of the above should detract from what is the main feature of the novel: it is funny as hell!!! Read it.

I found that Lily King didn't delve in quite far enough into her characters for me to really become attached. Even so, I did want to keep reading after each chapter ended. Good quick read.

The Pleasing Hour is the story of an American au-pair who comes to Paris after her life in the states has been shattered. While struggling with emotions for what she left behind, Rosie makes her life and family in Paris her own. Intertwined in the story is the life of Nicole, the mother of the family, who under utterly Parisian appearances hides the hurt and feelings from her childhood and teenagehood in the South of France - secrets uncovered by Rosie now living with an elderly woman sometime after her stay with the family in Paris - the link that connects her to Nicole.
Lily King is a talented author and she does a very fine job with this story. Recommended.

I found this book to have no spark or excitement to the story line. Writing style was OK but the story could have been more energetic.

This novel wanted to encompass too many things in its mere 237 pages. The central issue is Rosie and her new life as an au-pair in Paris. At first we learn of Rosie's circumstances, how she lost her mother so young, how her sister watched over her, how her sister could not conceive, and how Rosie had the idea to get pregnant so that her sister could become a mother. So far, so good, although slightly contrived for my taste. But when Rosie arrives to Paris, she has to deal with a dysfunctional family, with an emasculated husband, Marc, and a narcissistic wife, Nicole. Rosie feels alienated, unimportant, lonely, and rather than exploring those feelings some more, we get rushed into a WWII post memory of Nicole's mother, and we learn about a teenager's homosexual awakening and confusion, and about religious vocations, plus vacations abroad, extra-marital affairs, Nicole's secret past, etc, etc. The lack of detail in any given area of the book left me very unsatisfied. The descriptions of all French and Spanish things I found redundant and narrow-minded, and gave me no perspective on those countries and their way of life.

Smith was a Rhetorician in the days where philosophy and logic were grouped under Rhetoric (since Aristotle) and the label did not have negative connotations as today. There was little in the way of economic theory in those days. Today Smith's reputation rests on his explanation of how rational self-interest in a free-market economy leads to economic well-being.

It may surprise those who would discount Smith as an advocate of ruthless individualism that his first major work concentrated on ethics and charity. In fact, while chair at the University of Glasgow, Smith's lecture subjects, in order of preference, were natural theology, ethics, jurisprudence, and economics, according to John Millar, Smith's pupil at the time. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith wrote: "How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature which interest him in the fortune of others and render their happiness necessary to him though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it."

At the same time, Smith had a benign view of self-interest. He denied the view that self-love "was a principle which could never be virtuous in any degree." Smith argued that life would be tough if our "affections, which, by the very nature of our being, ought frequently to influence our conduct, could upon no occasion appear virtuous, or deserve esteem and commendation from anybody."

To Smith sympathy and self-interest were not antithetical; they were complementary. "Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only," he explained in The Wealth of Nations.

Charity, while a virtuous act, could not alone provide the essentials for living. Self-interest was the mechanism that could remedy this shortcoming. Said Smith: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

Someone earning money by his own labor benefits himself. Unknowingly, he also benefits society, because to earn income on his labor in a competitive market, he must produce something others value. In Adam Smith's lasting imagery, "By directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."

The five-book series of The Wealth of Nations sought to reveal the nature and cause of a nation's prosperity. The main cause of prosperity, argued Smith, was increasing division of labor. Smith gave the famous example of pins. He asserted that ten workers could produce 48,000 pins per day if each of eighteen specialized tasks was assigned to particular workers. Average productivity: 4,800 pins per worker per day. But absent the division of labor, a worker would be lucky to produce even one pin per day.

Just how individuals can best apply their own labor or any other resource is a central subject in the first book of the series. Smith claimed that an individual would invest a resource, for example, land or labor, so as to earn the highest possible return on it. Consequently, all uses of the resource must yield an equal rate of return (adjusted for the relative riskiness of each enterprise). Otherwise reallocation would result. This idea, wrote George Stigler, is the central proposition of economic theory. Not surprisingly, and consistent with another Stigler claim that the originator of an idea in economics almost never gets the credit, Smith's idea was not original. French economist Turgot had made the same point in 1766.

Smith used this insight on equality of returns to explain why wage rates differed. Wage rates would be higher, he argued, for trades that were more difficult to learn, because people would not be willing to learn them if they were not compensated by a higher wage. His thought gave rise to the modern notion of human capital (see Human Capital). Similarly, wage rates would also be higher for those who engaged in dirty or unsafe occupations (see Job Safety), such as coal mining and butchering, and for those, like the hangman, who performed odious jobs. In short, differences in work were compensated by differences in pay. Modern economists call Smith's insight the theory of compensating wage differentials.

Smith used numerate economics not just to explain production of pins or differences in pay between butchers and hangmen, but to address some of the most pressing political issues of the day. In the fourth book of The Wealth of Nations--published, remember, in 1776--Smith tells Great Britain that her American colonies are not worth the cost of keeping. His reasoning about the excessively high cost of British imperialism is worth repeating, both to show Smith at his numerate best, and to show that simple clear economics can lead to radical conclusions:

A great empire has been established for the sole purpose of raising up a nation of customers who should be obliged to buy from the shops of our different producers all the goods with which these could supply them. For the sake of that little enhancement of price which this monopoly might afford our producers, the home-consumers have been burdened with the whole expense of maintaining and defending that empire. For this purpose, and for this purpose only, in the two last wars, more than a hundred and seventy millions has been contracted over and above all that had been expended for the same purpose in former wars. The interest of this debt alone is not only greater than the whole extraordinary profit, which, it ever could be pretended, was made by the monopoly of the colony trade, but than the whole value of that trade, or than the whole value of the goods, which at an average have been annually exported to the colonies.

Smith vehemently opposed mercantilism--the practice of artificially maintaining a trade surplus on the erroneous belief that doing so increased wealth. The primary advantage of trade, he argued, was that it opened up new markets for surplus goods and also provided some commodities at less cost from abroad than at home. With that, Smith launched a succession of free trade economists and paved the way for David Ricardo's and John Stuart Mill's theories of comparative advantage a generation later.

Adam Smith has sometimes been caricatured as someone who saw no role for government in economic life. In fact, he believed that government had an important role to play. Like most modern believers in free markets, Smith believed that the government should enforce contracts and grant patents and copyrights to encourage inventions and new ideas. He also thought that the government should provide public works, such as roads and bridges, that, he assumed, would not be worthwhile for individuals to provide. Interestingly, though, he wanted the users of such public works to pay in proportion to their use. One definite difference between Smith and most modern believers in free markets is that Smith favored retaliatory tariffs.

Retaliation to bring down high tariff rates in other countries, he thought, would work. "The recovery of a great foreign market," he wrote "will generally more than compensate the transitory inconvenience of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods."

Some of Smith's ideas are testimony to his breadth of imagination. Today, vouchers and school choice programs are touted as the latest reform in public education. But it was Adam Smith who addressed the issue more than two hundred years ago:

Were the students upon such charitable foundations left free to choose what college they liked best, such liberty might contribute to excite some emulation among different colleges. A regulation, on the contrary, which prohibited even the independent members of every particular college from leaving it, and going to any other, without leave first asked and obtained of that which they meant to abandon, would tend very much to extinguish that emulation.

Smith's own student days at Oxford (1740-46), whose professors, he complained, had "given up altogether even the pretense of teaching," left Smith with lasting disdain for the universities of Cambridge and Oxford.

Smith's writings were both an inquiry into the science of economics and a policy guide for realizing the wealth of nations. Smith believed that economic development was best fostered in an environment of free competition that operated in accordance with universal "natural laws." Because Smith's was the most systematic and comprehensive study of economics up until that time, his economic thinking became the basis for classical economics. And because more of his ideas have lasted than those of any other economist, Adam Smith truly is the alpha and the omega of economic science.

This is supposed to explain "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith. It is dull and a little hard to follow. If you are trying to learn more about today's Economy, there are better books. This is really for anyone trying to understand a book written over 200 years ago about Economics.

not orourkes fault cause this is a dry subject, but this one is hard to read. I have been working through for over a year and swear I will finish one day. it is a good insight into Smiths wealth of nations and it is great to see that many economic factors do not change only the time period in which they occur.

With his acerbic tongue and sharp mind, P.J. O'Rourke handles the tough material of Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" making it not only comprehensible (a hard task, believe me), but funny. And current.

It is always a pleasure reading this man's work.

The surfeit of reviews complaining about the author's insights and accuracy in summarizing "Wealth Of Nations" has finally spurred me to post my own review, which I'll also crib, right up front:

It's jokes, people! Jokes from a guy you know is libertarian! It's not Cliff's Notes!

If you have a conservative slant to your politics, you'll love the jokes about how fruitless central economic planning, government-run corporations and labor unions prove.

If you have a liberal slant to your politics, you'll love the jokes that point out how dumb it is for governments to try to control people's behaviors, when simple selfishness will generally do the trick.

But whatever your slant, if you have a term paper due on Adam Smith, don't use this as source! "Wealth of Nations" was huge. Its thoughts draw directly from other huge books Smith wrote, which you must also read to fully understand the man (which O'Rourke freely admits in the book, repeatedly).

Nothing in this book is erected to portray it as an authoritative summary of "Wealth." The author and publisher clearly tell you that, again, it's jokes, people: jokes from someone who is well-known as acerbic, contrary and cranky; jokes from someone whose political viewpoint cannot be more readily exposed.

If you don't like free markets, fine. If you hate "conservatives," fine. If you hold 120 postgraduate degrees in economics and the Adam Smith Distinguished Chair In Annoying Minutiae at Ivy League University, fine.

That doesn't change the fact that your reviews bemoaning the accuracy of this book or the interpretations of the author are sophisms, because, again:

It's jokes, people! Jokes from a guy you know is libertarian! It's not Cliff's Notes!