Nicholson Books

This book will leave you with a different impression depending on your purpose in reading it.

If you want to begin a serious scholarly inquiry on the subject, you will be disappointed.

There are plenty of footnotes and citations, but I don't think I found any that cited primary sources.
Most were references to various biographies of Wagner--many of which undoubtedly begin with the phrase "Richard Wagner was born..." This author reserves this phrase for the beginning of the third chapter.

Even easy to find primary sources were not researched or cited.
Nicholson quotes an English translation from "Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland" by Heinrich Heine, however he cites "Newman, Life of Richard Wagner, vol.2, 261" for the quote.

The book almost reads like something Novosti Press might have published in English during the Cold War. Here is an example:
"Did Heine know that his own works would be...thrown on the great fires...when the nation threw its soul at the devil?"
This is typical of the writing style of the entire work.

There are also statements I wish had a footnote; e.g. "Hitler's fear arose from specters of those he had killed, visiting him--principally his erstwhile comrade-at-arms and lover Ernst Rölm..." This statement had no source or footnote, not even something like: "Patton, George C, On Hitler and his relationship with Rölm, Speech given to the US Third Army, Oppenheim, March 22, 1945."--except Nicholson would have cited "Wallace, The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People". Wallace in turn might have gotten the information from Patton's speech. In all fairness, Nicholson cites Machtan, "Hidden Hitler" for most of his innuendo that Hitler was a closet homosexual.

In fact, huge portions of the book are devoted to Nietzsche, Ludwig II Siegfried Wagner, Hitler, and Richard Wagner's trysts, perversions, or sexual liaisons. While these would be necessary in a biography, I didn't see how they help answer the question asked in the title.

HOWEVER

If you are looking for an overview of Wagner's life and anti-Semitism written in easy to understand language without having to read seventeen different biographies of Wagner written in Universitese with long quotes in French or German this will probably fit the bill nicely.

It does a good job of describing the roots of Wagner's anti-Semitism in his own personal life, his anti-Semitic essays and innuendo in his operas, his relationship with Nietzsche, Chamberlain, etc.

It reads like a History Channel special- and does have a lot of good information. I never knew about the Spear of Longinus before reading this book, and found it fascinating!

I found the last chapter, "Wagner in Israel," very interesting and definitely worth reading.

The binding, paper type, printing and typeset are excellent.

I hope this review has been helpful to both types of readers

Richard and Adolf
By
Christopher Nicholson

A Review
By
Colin J. Edwards

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". (Samuel Johnson 1775)

Patriotism seems a rather pedestrian word to use when considering the activities of Richard Wagner and Adolf Hitler in Germany during the first half of the 20th century. It was extreme patriotism, amplified by mental instability that created these monsters. They were not alone of course; Japan demonstrated similar traits in the same period.

Christopher Nicholson's book, `Richard and Adolf', records in the minutest detail the manifestations of Wagner's and Hitler's obsessions, and the impact they had on European Jewry. He postulates that Wagners anti-Semitism as demonstrated in his major musical works provided the launch pad for Hitler's excesses.

The book is beautifully produced. It is well bound and the pages are fine quality paper that will accommodate many readings.

The work is catalogued as a Holocaust book, but it is more than that. It is a detailed expose of how two disturbed people are hypnotized by an 800 year old poem, and use that as a justification for the calculated murder of 5 million innocent people. That is not to mention the millions that died as a result of their dementia.

Nicholson's book is a scholarly tome. All facts are annotated, and his bibliography runs to 7 pages.

However, Mr. Nicholson is a lawyer - a High Court Judge in fact, and his book reads rather like a brief. That does not in any way detract from the value of this work, but I did have the feeling that `Richard and Adolf' read like 2 briefs presented to condemn these individuals. That is not to suggest that these indefensible lunatics shouldn't be condemned, but I didn't think the numerous abusive after-thoughts at the end of paragraphs was appropriate. Facts alone are sufficient to condemn Wagner and Hitler, and personal evaluations serve little purpose.


I heartily recommend this book to anyone who wants a greater understanding of why someone would want to legislate to harass, hound and murder innocent families. But be prepared for the realization that Hitler didn't do it alone - indeed, he didn't do it at all. Nicholson doesn't site one incident of any resistance movement in Germany or anywhere else against Germany's attempt to exterminate European Jews.

This is an important work particularly for a generation to whom World War II was something someone mentioned during a history lesson. `Richard and Adolf', describes how a population with exaggerated patriotic zeal, can be manipulated by one individual to destroy their own people, the people in the continent around them and ultimately themselves.

Everyone should read this book to remind themselves of the cataclysmic dangers of Nationalism.

This great master work deserves to be greatly admired and applauded. Rarely had I read a book which was so thoroughly researched as this was. Rarely have I read such wonderful English. And rarely has an author produced such a powerful, incontrovertible case.
How I hope those who have insisted on playing Wagner's music will read your book from start to finish.

This is a very valuable book. Music lovers have long argued about the merits of Wagner's operas, their artistic versus contextual values and liabilities. Many have stated that the fact, that Hitler liked this composer's music and that they actually played them in the death camps, should not be used as an argument against Wagner, long dead at the time, or his music. Mr. Nicholson rightly points out the uglier sides of Richard Wagner's psyche, and the fact that he actually developed many of the theories about the "final solution of the Jewish question", namely mass murder. Adolf Hitler enthusiastically put his theories into practice. The book should be a compulsory read for musicologists.

It has long been known that Richard Wagner's operas were influential in Nazi ideology and thus the name Wagner has become controversial to this day. However it has been some time since the philosophies and ideologies underpinning Nazism have been explored in depth, especially in relation to Hitler and Wagner. This thoroughly enlightening and well researched text fills a gap in this literature and provides a number of important and interesting contributions and insights into the history of Nazi ideology and its Wagnerian influence.

Wagner lived from 1813 to 1883 while Hitler was born in 1889 and died in his bunker in 1945. What is truly fascinating about this book is the way in which it paints a picture of a family tree of hate for Nazi ideology stretching back to Wagner, explaining in detail the power that Wagner's operas and racial manifestos cast over a generation or more. The cast of characters is grand, from Thomas Mann to Renoir and Nietzsche. The period 1850-1950 is one of the most fascinating in showing the underpinnings of modernity and modern philosophy and this author is brilliantly familiar with the period.

Wagner toyed with ideas of Nordic mythology and he weaved Jewish-like characters into many of his works, from the dwarfs in `The Ring of the Nibelungs' to the `Flying Dutchman'. The mythology of Barbaroosa and the return to an Aryan paganism were found in Wagner. In addition the mythology surrounding the Spear that was reputed to have pierced the side of Christ was woven into this story. Amazingly we are told of how Nietzsche called Wagner a `disease' and condemned in later in life. The text moves from a biography of Wagner and his works to an examination of his anti-Semitism, his Beyrouth festival and then Hitler's own connection to Wagner and his motif's. Amazingly we see that Wagner's own family had connections with Henry Ford who was a rabid anti-Semite.

The only thing that detracts from this study is a preoccupation with the rumored `sexual depravity' of Hitler and Wagner with allegations that Hitler was both involved in incest and homosexuality. This detracts from an overall fascinating book and takes away from the central theme of the development of anti-Semitism in Germany and the ethos of Wagner.

Seth J. Frantzman

This book speaks for itself. GET IT GET IT GET IT!!!!!!!!!!! It was recommended to me by a friend when I was going through a difficult time. It is absolutely one of the best books I've ever read.

When I first picked it up I thought, "Oh great, another book that is going to offer complete perfection in my life, and actually just leave me feeling guilty". This was not the case at all. The first chapters were really slow, but then it just got phenomenal.

Get a little notebook to keep with the book as you read it, and do the exercises she assigns. You will walk away with a new outlook on yourself and on those around you.

I was disappointed in the content. I had purchased 6 sets hoping to give the books as gifts at Christmas. After reading the Velveteen Prinicples, I returned 5 sets.

This is a quick and easy read on complex subjects that leaves the reader with a compass for continued thought and development. The table of contents speaks for itself. Life has little meaning without values.

I found this book almost by mistake, and when it arrived I began reading immediately. It is one of the first books in a long time that I was compelled to read in one sitting. Author Toni Raiten-D'Antonio's writing is clear, compassionate, accessible and stimulating. It didn't hurt that the text was crafted around the children's story, 'The Velveteen Rabbit', one of the stories from my childhood that I loved dearly. I recall both the book and the film, and being moved to tears each time, both with the rabbit's becoming real, and the realisation that this reality came with a heavy cost.

'The Velveteen Rabbit' is a short children's story written in 1922 by Margery Williams. Simple in plot and idea, it nonetheless contains wisdom beyond its seeming simplicity. The issues brought up are those that concern children and adults in many ways, and Toni Raiten-D'Antonio taps into the key issue - living a life that is real, not fake or phony. Some authors in the area of vocational discernment and personal fulfillment talk about living an authentic life; this is another term for what is here meant to as being real.

What does being real mean? For the Velveteen Rabbit, being real was a goal to strive for, not in a material sense (the rabbit did exist), but in a spiritual and emotional sense. The rabbit was one of many toys in the boy's room, many of which were flashier, more complex, brighter, shinier, or just 'more' in some way than the seemingly cheaply constructed Velveteen Rabbit. Yet the wise old horse, the Skin Horse, loved so much that his fur had rubbed off, inspired the rabbit by his acceptance, sense of self, and grace he extended, even sometimes to other toys that did not seem to deserve it.

One of the key concepts in the story that Raiten-D'Antonio highlights is that 'real' isn't a product, but rather a process. 'It doesn't happen all at once,' the Skin Horse tells the rabbit. It is a process that can be slow, it can be painful, and it can lead where one doesn't expect. But the first concept is that being real is possible - Raiten-D'Antonio states that from the moment the rabbit realised that `real' was a possibility, the rabbit was on the road to becoming real.

For us as human beings, becoming real is not something we're likely to find in a self-help video or encounter workshop, going in as one thing and coming out as another. There is no `eight-minute abs' variant for becoming real. Nor is being real always pretty. Again, according to the Skin Horse, 'It doesn't happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.' However, these are things that matter only to those who don't understand (which, unfortunately, is much of our society). Raiten-D'Antonio coins the term 'United States of Generica' (U.S. of G., for short) for the kind of plastic, flashy society that runs on media-hyped images of what good and desirable should be.

Raiten-D'Antonio is a therapist, having left the more glitzy world of television behind - once a mover on the corporate ladder (even if the intention was to produce PBS/educational 'worthwhile' television), she found herself in a place personally and vocationally that was inauthentic, and worried that by the time she would be permitted to do what she wanted to do, she might not be herself any longer. The culture in which we live has misplaced values (she highlights the fact that we pay more attention to models than to Nobel Prize winners; even the term 'model' has implications beyond what in fact they are), and it is a struggle, a process, to become real - real to oneself and real to what is truly important in life.

One of the tasks toward becoming real, according to Raiten-D'Antonio, is to learn empathy, and in particular self-empathy. The Skin Horse had great powers of empathy. The rabbit grew in this during the course of the story. Empathy and self-empathy an important principle, as are all twelve principles gleaned from the story. Being real is meaningful, as Raiten-D'Antonio describes in her epilogue, and leaves a legacy more lasting and real than stocks, bonds, real estate, etc. 'If you become more Real in your own life and bring that to your relationships, you are practically guaranteed to leave behind an inspiring example for others.'

The transformation of the rabbit from toy to real is dramatic and poignant, and has lessons that can help transform our lives, too. This is a remarkable book, one that will stay with me for a long time to come, long after the whiskers have faded, the tail has become unsewn, and the fur has been loved off.

This wonderful book, paired with the original 'Velveteen Rabbit', makes a wonderful gift for oneself as well as a special someone.

I first came upon Toni's book one day by accident. Intrigued after looking through the chapter content, I purchased the book and found myself deeply effected by the author's observations. I have to confess, I wasn't really familiar with the story of the "Velveteen Rabbit", as I never had that story introduced to me as a child. I wish I had, as there is some real power behind the story's message. Toni Raiten-D'Antonio does a great job in the book illustrating how this children's classic has a great message for children and adults alike. I highly recommend this book.

The book itself is great. It's probably the best in its subject area. But the Kindle version is extremely difficult to navigate. The mythological characters are listed in alphabetical order with no efficient way of finding the character you want. There is no click-able list of A-Z to access the section you want, nor is there a list of just each character's name or any kind of index to get you to the person you want. So if you want to find the entry for, say, Zeus, you can't just click on "Z" or find a list and click on "Zeus." You can search for his name, but it results in 680 results in the book, or over 114 "pages" of search results. You could try randomly typing in location areas trying to find the "Z" section, but that's not easy either. Even a lesser-known character search brings up several hits and it's not easy from the little blurbs to determine which one is the entry you want, so it takes several tries to find exactly what you're looking for.

Also, many of the genealogy charts are impossible to read because they have been shrunken down too much to fit the screen. There is no way to change the font size on the charts. It's a minor thing, but there you go.

This isn't a problem with just this Kindle edition book, but it's a big problem. The book itself I'd give 5 stars, but the Kindle edition only 2 because of its major flaws.

Who's Who is an excellent resource, but it is not meant for those who wish to sit down and read Greek myths. The book is set up in an encyclopedic fashion. References to specific Greek mythological figures are easy to locate. However if you are looking for Greek myths in story form, this is not the text for you.

I bought this book as preparation for a Mediterranean study-cruise. It is a sort of encyclopedia of Greek and Roman mythology. Any classical mythological name can be found here with a synopsis of their major stories Just be warned: each character's story tends to be so interesting as to lead you to look up all the other characters that appear, and you will find yourself reading for hours.

This book is one of the best i've ever read on Greek/Roman myth, and i've read many in my life. This book contains entries on characters rarely found anywhere else such as Nox, the Greek personification of night. As such i often use this book as a measuring stick against other books in this area.

Grant and Hazel have provided a finely grained and authoritative dictionary-style reference that is quite handy for identification of any figure from classical mythology. The book will prove useful for keeping at one's side when reading Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Euripides and company. Very helpful appendices include genealogical trees, alphabetical list of classical authors referred to, and clear and informative maps.

About 300 pages long with 2-3 articles per page. It is probably not useful for highly knowledgeable Egyptologists (for example, the stunning site of Abu Simbal gets about half a page - whereas a book could be written on it) but is a very compact resource for those who know a little and want to find out about particular topics. Or you can just flick through it and read about particular topics as they catch your eye - the maps, illustrations and photos are well selected and quite attractive. Also, since it is written by Englishmen it is mercifully quite free of the tedious P.C. stuff that is so prevalent in the academy today.
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About 300 pages long with 2-3 articles per page. It is probably not useful for highly knowledgeable Egyptologists (for example, the stunning site of Abu Simbal gets about half a page - whereas a book could be written on it) but is a very compact resource for those who know a little and want to find out about particular topics. Or you can just flick through it and read about particular topics as they catch your eye - the maps, illustrations and photos are well selected and quite attractive. Also, since it is written by Englishmen it is mercifully quite free of the tedious P.C. stuff that is so prevalent in the academy today.

This is a fantastic book! It helped my kids with their projects about Egypt. I reccomend this book to everyone!

A well thought out and comprehensive dictionary. Includes a wealth of information and photographs and should be on the bookshelf of anyone interested in Ancient Egypt

This is another good book from Scholastic. It deals with the many animals one might find on a farm. Cows, ducks, pigs, chickens, horses, geese, sheep and more, are all here and presented with eye pleasing photos.

We see babies with their mothers, and have a chance to see what types of food they eat. (Baby animals nurse, of course.) We also get to see what a sheep looks like before, during, and after it is shorn.

That said, there is no way that this is a book for just beginning readers. First there are too many words on some of the pages and some of the vocabulary is a bit sophisticated. Words like : orange, goslings, milking, through, webbed, oily, and noise.

Three Stars. Good book with attractive pictures of farm animals. Should be of interest to older babies thru 1st Graders. I wouldn't purchase it as a beginning reader though

Small children are fascinated by farm animals and this book has beautiful pictures of these animals along with very nice text for when they are older. Our one year old loves it now and "reads" it to herself.

a must have for your classroom if you are studying farms! my students chose to read this book over and over again during SSR. You will be impressed - buy it today!

i grew up on a farm, and this book brought back a lot of those childhood memories for me. i really thought this book had some great content, and i enjoyed it thouroughly.

The author certainly gives you a descriptive idea of what life was like during the Elizabethan period. It is well documented, and I am finding it easy and enjoyable reading.

I stumbled on Liza Picard's books quite by chance. After looking at the publishing date in some of the books it is apparent some of them have been around for several years. I am now recommending them to anyone and everyone and I am so glad I stumbled across this one on a bookshop shelf. I have now read them all, but this one was the first.

As soon as you start to read the book it becomes apparent that the author is passionate about the subject and wants the reader to enjoy the experience as much as she has in the writing of it. How apt that the author starts the book with the life blood of the great City of London. Meandering like a great artery through the heart of the City. It moves on to the streets, houses and gardens; cooking, housework and shopping; clothes, jewellery and make-up; health and medicine; sex and food; education, etiquette and hobbies; religion, law and crime.

Liza Picard was born in 1927. She read law and qualified as a barrister but did not practice. Quite where she gleaned all this information from I am not sure. That it was a labour of love is obvious to anyone who reads her books and I for one am grateful.

This book is unique in that it doesn't deal with the great sweep of history and its players so much as dwell on day to day life. In particular, the daily life of ordinary people who, in their own way, were not players on the larger stage. Rather, these people were those folk just going about their life.

Any moderately well read student of the 16th century would be familiar with the world of Henry VIII, Elizabeth, Shakespeare, Francis Drake and the Spanish Armada. Yet how many of these students would be familiar with the gardens, religious beliefs, medicine, fashions and diets of the era? Yes, many would have a smattering of knowledge but Liza Picard has done a fine job in providing many of these details of life plus a host of others. Who, for example, would be familiar with such amusements as bull, bear or even lion baiting? Imagine the spectacle of setting a lion in a pit with a team of dogs for a fight to the finish; unthinkable today but of the greatest sport during Elizabeth's time.

Liza Picard's book is an unusual work of history. She has chosen to deconstruct a different world to that of most historians. Her focus has been upon the ordinary rather than the glamorous. Ms Picard has chosen a different road to travel but one that is very fulfilling for the reader. Elizabeth I was, in my opinion, the most important woman to ever live. This book goes some of the way to providing background to an extraordinary woman living in an extraordinary age.

This book does a very good job at portraying how ordinary people lived their lives in the time of the Good Queen Bessie, from what they ate and wore to their furniture and sewage conditions. The only complaint that I have about it is that it is very difficult to visualize the descriptions of the clothing, and when referenced to one of the pictures I still didn't know what part of the outfit she was talking about. I would have rated this a 5 out of 5 if it would have included labled diagrams of the clothing.

a very good connection between the percy family and british history, so detailed with perfect details

The Percy family's rise from small landholders to virtual kings of the north of England. The book is not only about the Percy's: it is about the period, but with them at the centre. They lived in a tumultous era and they were very much part of it. The author has done a splendid job with his source material and paints a fascinating history of the politics and warfare of the period. The tone of the book is slightly irreverent, which is good, since the protagonists are not always the nicest people.
This book is very much about politics, not so much about culture or life in the middle ages. The only drawback is a lack of maps, which makes much of the activity in the book unclear.

This was a good, popular, history of Northern England, the Anglo-Scottish wars and their impact on Late Medieval, Renaissance, and Early Modern Britain told through the prism of the Percy family. But the Percys appear and fade from this history with an annoying regularity. Also much of this history is reasoned conjecture...as it necessarily must be since documentation is rather spotty at times. This is not the fault of the author...the records, it would seem, just were not there to access.

All-in-all a good and informative read about an area of British history in which little is in print for the average reader. A recommended read for anyone interested in British history...and, really, who couldn't be interested in British history...such an anodyne to the flood of American history that every press, these days, seems obsessed with.

Kings in the North is the best kind of history. It has been extensively researched and is written in a style accessible even to to non-historians. I am a psychologist and I couldn't put it down! It's a must-read for anyone interested in the details of what really happened in early England. Shakespeare and Hollywood have sold us many fictions, but in this book you can find out the facts about Hotspur, Prince Hal and what really happened to William Wallace (Braveheart.)

This book is strictly based on historical sources. However, the history of the templars results to be more less charming and mysterious as ever. Nicholson cancels all doubts but all beautiful elements of the texture as well. Her historical method is too rationalistic, and it doesn't give room to mystical or philosophical hypoteses. There are only some hints at baphomet and at the so-called "islamic" components of the tenets of Templars. Even though it is well documented, it represents a very harsh or arid reading.

Fortunately, among the incredible amount of books dedicated to the subject of the Knights Templar there are some of them which deal with the real history of this military and religious order running away from the astonishing nonsenses that have soiled it like holy bloodlines, Christ's identity and nature, fantastic secrets of ancient cultures, religious deviations, freemasonry, and all those absurdities.

Helen Nicholson's book deals principally with the life and grewth of the order, including some countries or European regions that have been left aside by other authors in the past due to the lack of documentation. Here is one of the merits of her book. But she also dedicates a place to the Templar sisters, who indeed existed, no matter what the Templar rule says, and that have been ignored until now in despite of the existing documentation.

I would endorse this book to anyone who wishes to the facts about the Knights Templar without having to wade through a lot of foggy mysticism and conspiracy theory. It gives a much truer picture of what the Templars were, what made them tick, and what life was like for them. So I believe, anyway, having researched the Order for some years myself.

The author is a worthy historian and a leading expert in the field. It is quite right that she based her conclusion on the evidence, rather than what she thought would make a good story and wild speculation. She also covers some interesting and hiterto neglected aspects of the Order of the Temple's history, such as its presence in Eastern Europe where they encountered the invading Mongols. It is engagingly written, for the most part, not too long, and does not go into excessively great detail.

There are, additionally, many great photographs of Templar buildings from throughout Europe and the Middle East.

Along with Malcolm Barber's classic "The New Knighthood", "The Knights Templar: A New History" is probably the best scholarly treatment of the Knights available to the general reader. She does a very admirable job of tracing the development of the Knights Templar from their founding in about 1119 to their end in 1314. Nicholson an expert on the medieval military orders, and her book is based on the best of scholarship. "DaVinci Code", "The Templar Revelations", and "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" fans will probably be disappointed. This work is based on historical facts about the Knights Templar and dispenses with the utter nonsense of linking the order to the Freemasons and other esoteric traditions. The fact is that the true history of the Knights Templar is fascinating and exciting enough without the ridiculous fiction that has so recently saturated the market. Another strength of this work is it's layout. It is a physically large book which allows for a large typeset and many pictures, timelines, and maps -- all of which are all of which are relevant and attractive.

I really don't see any glaring weaknesses in the book. As one who is interested in military history, I probably wished that Nicholson gave more detailed and specific accounts of the Templars' responsibilities and actions in such battles as Hattin, Arsuf, Al Mansurah, La Forbie, and the siege of Acre. That said, a detailed military history is not what Nicholson set out to accomplish, so such criticism is certainly not warranted.

All in all, a great study of the Knights Templar by a SCHOLAR. No "mystical" or "esoteric" hypotheses, guesses, assumptions, or lies. Certainly, it deserves to be on the shelf next to Barber's "The New Knighthood".

As Clarke says in the introduction to this book, he is not, in it, trying to predict the future per se, but rather defining the boundaries in which all possible futures must lie. Hence the subtitle, "An Inquiry Into The Limits of the Possible." Thus, even though the book was published in 1962 (with many of the articles written before that) subsequent advances in science (and indeed, in imagination itself) have dated it very little. On top of this, there is now a new Millennium Edition of the book out (although Amazon seems not to know of it's existence) in which ACC has updated his essays, making correction where necessary, and discussing when and where he went wrong, and mentioning when he was correct. On some topics, such as, unsurprisingly, satellite communications, he is almost dead-on accurate with the events that have occurred since the book was written. However, on the other end of the spectrum, on such subjects as future transportation methods, he was quite clearly off target. He is the first to admit this, and indeed, devotes two chapters of the book to "Hazards of Prophecy." Perhaps the most interesting chapter is "The Obolescence of Man" in which Clarke waxes thoughtful on the future relationship between Man and Machine. It leads to some rather startling conclusions that many of the more self-important among us may be reluctant to accept. There is also a chart in the back of the book where Arthur lays out the major scientific advances of the last 150 years, and his predictions up to the year 2100. In these are such seemingly optimistic predictions as weather control by 2010 and IMMORTALITY BY 2100. The more conservative among us may be keen to laugh at such statements, but remember, this is the man who talked of broadcasting satellite TV IN 1945. Arthur is not one to be taken lightly, and this book shows why.

If you are looking for a book with scientific facts, I don't think you will find much to your liking. But if you are interested in human imagination (more or less based upon facts), this might be something for you.

Arthur C.Clarke is an English scientist and Science-Fiction writer. 'Profiles of The Future' was first published in 1962. There are nineteen chapters each with a different subject. Arthur C.Clarke calls it 'An inquiry into the limits of the possible.'

One of the chapters is the future of transport. In the future cargo will be stowed in some kind of a submersible container. They could be linked together as the wagons of a train and pulled by a submarine. The idea is that ships are too heavy and loose too much time and energy during a storm. Up until now I'm wondering whether A.C.Clarke is joking or not.
In the chapter 'The Obsolescence of Man' he discusses the future of the Homo Sapiens. Much of this chapter is used for the film '2001: A Space Odyssey'.

At the end of the book there is a 'Chart of the Future'. It's a list of discoveries in the future as far as 2100. (Remember that 'Profiles of the Future' was first published in 1962). To name a few: in 2000, colonising planets (The optimism of the sixties !).In 21OO, immortality (!?).

As you can see, don't take this book too seriously. But it's a engrossing read.

Glance at A.C.'s table in the back of what will happen then next 100 years!!! Profiles is important to any one thinking about thinking of the future. So much to go! Thanks A.C.C.

This is a reissue of the original book which came out in 1962, containing essays by the author which were published in various other venues over the years, if I remember right. Although best known as a science fiction writer, Clarke wrote prodigiously in the field of nonfiction as well, was the inventor of the communications satellite concept, collaborated on several nature films on the Mediterannean with a friend, and was an invited commentator for the Apollo moon landing. Fans of his fiction may notice the similarity between the speculations contained in this book and two of his novels about the far future, Against the Fall of Night, and The City and the Stars (basically a later and rewritten version of the earlier book).

In these essays, Clarke engages in some of his most entertaining and far-reaching speculations on the future of science and technology and how that will affect man and society in the future. Very little of the science is dated despite it being over 40 years since the book came out. Various topics are covered, such as communications, computers, shipping and transport, and my favorite was the last chapter, The Obsolescence of Man. Clarke suspects humans will eventually be made "obsolete" by advances in science and medicine, with machines doing everything, better, faster, and cheaper, despite the extension of the human lifespan.

By the way, as of a few years ago when I visited his website once, Clarke was still travelling and speaking, despite being confined to a wheelchair because of a recent medical problem, and answering fan mail on his website. Truly one of the giants of science fiction, Clarke is most remembered for the movie, 2001, but his novel, Childhood's End, published about ten years earlier, would be my pick for the top sci-fi novel of all time. (Note: 2001 is actually based on the short story, The Sentinel, which Clarke published in 1948). In this poignant and captivating story, the human race comes to a bittersweet ending by evolving into a strange communal intelligence, thereby leaving the limitations of individual, corporeal minds behind. The Overlords, whose minds are perhaps a hundred times more powerful than a humans, are memorable characters. But I'll also remember him for this fascinating and vivid book about the future of science, technology, and man himself.

Those searching for a bleak view of humanity should look no further than Arthur Schopenhauer. His conception of "the Will" as a purposeless, Sisyphean automaton that never satiates its depthless desires stands as one of Western thought's most life-negating metaphysical posits. A Herculean challenge to peppy optimists, Schopenhauer's philosophy outlines some of life's most miserable, yet undeniable, characteristics. This tiny book provides a good overview of the ups and downs, origins, and influences of Western philosophy's grim reaper (he even looks grim in photos).

The easily digestible essay carries the subtitle "Metaphysics and Art." That serves as the most concise summary possible of the subsequent 54 pages. Michael Tanner, who has also written introductory books on both Wagner and Nietzsche, begins with the origins of Schopenhauer's metaphysics in Kant. Those unfamiliar with the classic story of Hume's skepticism leading to the grand Kantian Transcendentalist program might have to re-read a few sentences here and there, but overall the discussion remains accessible. Schopenhauer's idea of "representation" derives from Kant's bifurcation of phenomenon (the physical world as we perceive it) and noumenon (the world as it is in itself, inaccessible to us) in "The Critique of Pure Reason." In essence, he disagrees with Kant's dichotomy and instead suggests that we can know the world as it is through "the Will." In a very Buddhist and Vedantic manner, Schopenhauer says that we are all a part of a unity, a "Primal One," and thus humanity harbors an illusion of individuality. This mirage, called the "Principle of Individuation" or "principium individuationis," lies at the heart of our unquenchable desires. We are all in fact part of the universal "will," which manifests itself, according to Schopenhauer, everywhere, even in gravitation. Humanity remains enslaved to this massive "Will." We can't sate it and one fulfilled desire turns into ten additional desires. As such, the voluminous nastiness we experience, directly or indirectly, througout our lives are not illusions we can write off as "appearances." They exist. Tanner summarizes: "One of the things that distinguishes Schopenhauer from most other philosophers is his insistence that the world is not the place we would like it to be." Some philosophers begin their systems with how they would like the world and then argue in reverse to fill that conclusion. Schopenhauer may be pulling the same sleight of hand with his system, but his gloomy outlook suggests otherwise. Ultimately, he almost represents the philosophical equivalent of stealing candy from a baby.

Though Schopenhauer often gets, understandably, categorized as a pessimist, Tanner defends him against such brickbats. At this point the metaphysical discussion turns to art. First off, Schopenhauer does not condone suicide, even in the ugly face of the oppressive "Will." He calls it a "futile and foolish act." Tanner sees Christian morality peeking out here. Second, the arts provide some solace for the will, particularly music (here's where Wagner's mouth fell open). Though he strangely turns to Platonic forms as the "highest grade of objectification of the will" he nonetheless gives special status to music as the way one experiences the will directly. Tanner asks the obvious question why anyone would want to know the will given its depiction as an evil tyrant over humanity. Schopenhauerian "salvation" then becomes a puzzle; it is suggested that we could throw off the illusion of individuality and become one with the will. But is that desirable? Tanner scrutinizes this tension that runs through Schopenhauer's philosophy.

The book thus concludes with a head-scratcher. Nonetheless, it provides a great introduction to the pros, cons, and seeming contradictions in Schopenhauer's philosophy. Tanner also points out his legacy in figures such as Nietzsche and Wagner. The former later rejected "artist's metaphysics" while the latter seemed to embrace it, even though Schopenhauer openly advocated Rossini and supposedly disliked Wagner's music. In the end, everybody goes whichever way the will goes. At least Schopenhauer, slightly presaging psychology, thought so.

For anyone who still thinks of philosophy as a loose collection of schools of thought or method headed by major thinkers, as Randall Collins roughly pictured in 1098 pages in THE SOCIOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHIES / A GLOBAL THEORY OF INTELLECTUAL CHANGE, then the major thinkers Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche had differing degrees of success, as Kant and Hegel have far more lines in the index of the Randall Collins book than Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Nietzsche expressed a contrary view, possibly more ancient than modern, which applied far more accurately to the pre-Platonic Greeks, that there is no philosophy, only philosophers. For those whose idea of meaning depends mainly on context, Schopenhauer must now be evaluated primarily in what he was able to learn from Kant, how he reacted to his contemporary Hegel, and whether he deserved the repudiation which Nietzsche eventually expressed as a sign of triumph over the denial of will lying in the heart of Schopenhauer's philosophy. I have the big major volumes of Schopenhauer's philosophy, but I was hoping to find more when I checked the shelf in a used book store and found something tiny by Michael Tanner called SCHOPENHAUER / Metaphysics and Art (1997, 1999).

There is too much of Schopenhauer's work to expect a short explanation of all of it. He wrote at such great length on so many topics that the 54 pages of Michael Tanner's book would only be valuable as a summary of a particular aspect that is important for distinguishing Schopenhauer from the other thinkers with which he has become inextricably entwined in the minds of readers whose approach to philosophy has not been as systematic as the great books approach. My own interest would be more perverse than usual because I would like to find, somewhere in the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), some indication that his interest in music was in some way on the upskirts of rock 'n' roll, even when he is writing, "No one has kept so free from this mistake as Rossini; hence his music speaks its own language so distinctly and purely that it requires no words at all, and produces its full effect even when rendered by instruments alone." (pp. 48-49).

Schopenhauer playing flute by himself for several hours a day is probably the opposite of the kind of music appreciation of modern youngsters who expect to hear, "Let's party, let's get down. Turn the radio on, this is the meltdown" as in Sheryl Crow's "There Goes the Neighborhood" song. Schopenhauer was not even a seminar type thinker, as Michael Tanner seems to expect whenever a universal truth stated by Schopenhauer does not conform to our modern reduction of philosophy to a group discussion format in which individuals take turns expressing points of view. Since Plato, philosophy has been adept at condemning the poets and trying to think in ways that speak with more validity than music, so what do you expect? I think Michael Tanner blames Schopenhauer for indicating that music says more than philosophy, when Schopenhauer's main point of view would then be foolish:

This tiresome need of art to be `truthful', when the truth is disgusting, is what Nietzsche only came to free himself from -- granted his general outlook -- late in life when he wrote (and then only in a notebook): `We have art in order that we may not perish of truth. Truth is ugly.' Why didn't Schopenhauer say the same? (p. 47).

I must say that I was highly impressed by the first page of this book, which mentioned THE WORLD AS WILL AND REPRESENTATION and Kant's CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON with "he espoused some of its key doctrines, and it is necessary to grasp them to see how Schopenhauer moved on, as he saw it, from them to his own highly idiosyncratic position." Pages 2 and 3 trace the fundamental problem back to David Hume, and the beginning of THE WORLD AS WILL AND REPRESENTATION is quoted on pages 5-6. Pages 9-11 quote the second chapter of Book II for the inner nature of the individual for whom "The act of will and the action of the body are not two different states objectively known, . . ." At the end of the second book, Schopenhauer has a position of "Eternal becoming, endless flux, belong to the revelation of the essential nature of the will." (p. 16). In Volume II, in a chapter called `Characterization of the Will-to-Live', most unfortunately, "everyone perseveres in such a mock existence as long as he possibly can" (p. 18).

Finally Richard Wagner, Tolstory, Thomas Mann, Hardy, and Conrad are mentioned as having "a strong satisfaction in having what they regard as the necessary, inescapable misery of life so lucidly conveyed." (p. 19). Book III gives us:

"Thus the subject of willing is constantly lying on the revolving wheel of Ixion, is always drawing water in the sieve of the Danaids, and is the eternally thirsting Tantalus." (p. 20).

Then a discussion of earthly happiness and pain quotes pages with particular sentences examined to find "this is more of the registering of a tendency than the statement of a universal truth, and it is certainly not a necessary or conceptual truth." (p. 28).

On the upskirts of rock 'n' roll, Michael Tanner observes "that the way in which we usually appreciate music, when we are concerned with it from the point of view of emotional expression, is something that we value because it, at best, takes us into the deepest recesses of our empirical selves, the selves which maintain a constant attempt to remain sharply individuated. So whatever the truth about music, how and even if it is expressive, it can't be expressive of ultimate reality." (p. 51). He must mean that when Aimee Mann sings "You Could Make a Killing" on the `I'm with Stupid' CD, it might be true for an individual listener, but if everybody tried it, the chaos would be unreal.

Despite the lack of a bibliolography, this brief book explores Schopenhauer's main thoughts on Will and Aesthetics. The writing is crisp and easily understood. The many quotations from the philosopher's main work are clear, inspiring me to read Schopenhauer directly.

Dr. Tanner introduces Shopenhauer by way of Kant, and in my opinion gives a clear and relevant account. He contrasts Schopenhauer with Nietzsche, who first adopted his predecessor's thoughts, but who later overcame the apparent pessimism of Schopenhauer with his own Uebermensch.

I love this book! The author really gives a clear understanding of Schopenhauer. I've tried to read and understand S. for a few years, and always left frustrated. I don't have the time to engage in a thorough analysis of this deep thinker. But Mr. Tanner gives a graet summary, with well chosen quotes to give an introductory overview of his thinking. I've read a lot of Nietzche, and I always viewed S. as "pre-Nietzche". But, i'm drawn more and more to the conclusions that S. presents. He sticks with what he observes, and doesn't add his own thoughts on how things should be. The author helps you understand S.'s magnum opus "The World as Will and Representation" very clearly.
Highly recommended.