Western Books

I can't believe there are so many of you out there that have the same memories as my wife and I have for this wonderful book. We to read it to our daughter over and over again but somehow misplaced or lost our copy. We were able to find on on Ebay a few years back and presented it to our daughter on her graduation from college. Needless to say she was quite surprised and overjoyed to recieve it. She had been asking for it for years.

I, too, am in search of this book - my sisters and I loved it and I would love to get copies for my own daughter and each of my sisters, for their children.

Where else can we make this request, so that it is properly channeled?

I read this book over and over to my children now 32 and 30 and would like to have several copies for my grandchildren. This is a wonderful, happy book and the children love it. Please bring this book back in to print. I would be in line to buy several copies.

I cannot believe they have taken this book out of print I use to read it to my brother and I still have it memorized he is now 31 and I wanted to get it for his daughter who is 2. I read his book to my children ages 19 and 15 this was the best childrens book and it should be put back into print for all of the little ones growing up now.

I read this book to my oldest daughter, now age 29, over and over and over until I had it memorized (and still have the first part memorized). She now has a daughter, age 9 months, and I wanted to get this book for her. I can't believe it is out of print. Bring it back, please!!

My husband works in a gold mine in Nevada. He, as his father before him, has worked in mines for many many years. I enjoy buying him mining related books which he collects. This book, Deep Enough: A Working Stiff in the Western Mine Camps by Frank A. Crampton , I have not read yet, but my husband says it is a , "really good book". When my hubby say's THAT then it IS a really good book! I'm glad I bought it and I'm looking forward to reading it myself soon.

A great way to learn about life in the American wild west arid zone in the early 1900's. The author describes his life experiences with a rich cast of rugged characters who are hard to find these days. If you have either visited or lived in a mining town or been to the Australian outback opal diggings, you'll have extra appreciation for the entertaining detail and perspectives on what really is important in life. One of the better books I have read in a while!

An excellent book about life in the western mining camps
in the early 1900s. Born to privilege and wealth in New York
and with a good education, Crampton ran away from home, riding
the blinds to the western US. He worked as an ordinary stiff
in the toughest conditions, but unlike most of his fellow
miners, his education also let him work as an assayer and
surveyor, and later as a mining engineer. So he became
thoroughly knowledgable about all the aspects--from prospecting
in Death Valley to being chief engineer at large mines. About
the only side of mining that he didn't experience was a Wall
Street mineowner. His education also gave him fine writing
skills--this is definitely not an "as told to..." book ghost-
written by someone else.

You'll encounter a plethora of wonderful characters, and a
wealth of old photographs. There are stories about gold,
silver, uranium--all the kinds of elements you can hard-rock
mine for. Crampton was trapped for 10 days when a shaft
collapsed. He shows what can happen when you use a metal
spoon (rather than wood) to tamp down a shot hole. He was
nearby Ludlow and barely missed being part of the massacre,
but had friends killed. Deep Enough is not a social "cri de
coeur" as are "The Banditti of the Plains" about the Johnson
County War in Wyoming or Sinclair's "The Jungle". It's very
honest and heartfelt, and completely up close. Crampton
enjoyed the life, the camps, the people, and the work, and
it shows. If you want an honest view about what mining was
like, this it it.

I live in Arizona and picked this book up in a map store. Once I started reading I couldn't stop. The style of Frank Crampton's writing is so descriptive that you feel you are listening to him tell the stories of his life as a hard rock miner in Arizona. This is not a documentary, but accounts told by the one that lived them. One chapter is so graphically described that I could feel the pain of the miners. This chapter is followed by the funniest of any I have read. I have used this book as a guide book of the mines and ghost towns of this area and have found many of them. I've given this book as a gift to many people and highly recommend it for anyone interested in the old west and mining.

Frank Crampton didn't have to become a tramp miner, he chose too. Born well conneced, he gave it all up to discover what it is like to become a working stiff in the western mines. His discriptive writings of the every day workings under ground are so real one can smell the powder after a blast. His experience while being traped under ground in the Bingham Canyon Mine, and being cold boiled,made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The loyalty of his fellow miners to rescue his crew,espically his two old friends who traveled hundreds of miles to help get Frank out can only be understood by a miner of that era. Frank Crampton's drive for self improvement is in it's self a blueprint for any young person to succeed the hard knocks of life. The Frank Crampton's built this country, what a wonderful gift he left us.

I bought this book for a class, and although we were only required to read sections of the book I ended up reading the entire thing, including the extra two essays (Immortality of the Soul & Suicide). The entire thing was extremely well-written and thought-provoking, even to a novice philosopher such as myself.

This isn't a book you can fly through. Hume requires the reader to slow down and really think about what is being said. The main section of the book (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) involves four characters, three discussing theories, and one student (technically the narrator) listening and occasionally commenting. By using this dialogue technique, Hume is able to present several sides of each argument in a unique way, and not simply expound his own theories. The method is most effective.

I won't go into depth of what this book discusses, the theory of design, arguments about God's nature and being, the argument from the existence of evil, and whether a posteriori or a priori arguments are best suited for proving God's existence. Overall this book is interesting and exciting, even for a 200 year old publication. Even if you're interested in modern philosophy, this book still offers some interesting theories. And obviously if you're interested in philosophy at all, it's a good book to check out for some history on the subject.

The introduction offers a good deal of information about the essays included in the book as well as Hume himself.

While being a theist I do not accept Hume's conclusions, he is no doubt the finest philosophical skeptic in the West since the time of Sextus Empiricus.

Hume, the philosopher who woke Kant from his 'dogmatic slumbers', takes a very empirical approach to reality and philosophy. In Hume's mind, the pretensions of the human mind to certain truth and knowledge do not accord with the way things are. Many things are believed on insufficient evidence or sloppy thinking or for reasons of emotional need rather than on evidence and reason. The task he set himself was in many ways like that of Descartes, except unlike Descartes Hume did not believe that either the methods of science or God (Hume was an atheist) could give us grounds for certain knowledge.

The dialogues on Natural Religion are one of his supreme masterpieces. Published after his death, this dialogue features a conversation between two philosophers about the nature and existence of God and the proofs for his existence. One philosopher is a skeptic, Philo, and the other is a theist, Carneades. Demea the Deist provides a third interlocutor in the dialogue. Carneades states several popular arguments for God's existence in Hume's time, including the teleological argument, moral argument, and argument from design. Philo responds to this arguments, mostly using the argument from evil as well as appeals to the rule of regular law in nature, to refute ideas about miracles, providence, and evidential design from a supreme 'architect.' Hume states the counter-arguments in extremely powerful terms, essentially completely demolishing the position of Carnedes and concluding that at best, only a very weak inference can be made for God's existence from the structure of the world.

Hume's arguments have been recently re-stated by several atheist philosophers, including J.L. Mackie and Daniel Dennett. For Mackie, Hume was right in arguing theism is philosophical nonsense, and for Dennett, God is a redundant hypothesis when the order and beauty of the universe is readily and clearly explained by science, and at best a kind of Spinoza-style pantheism is where the sacred can enter into the cosmos. While I disagree, the adoption of Hume's arguments by many leading philosophers shows both the power, beauty and logical coherence of Hume's position, which should be read carefully by any philosopher who wants to offer a rational proof that God exists.

For me it is not the order but the beauty of the universe which suggests God exists, but perhaps for others this beauty is marred too much by suffering and evil to come to such a conclusion, and Hume would surely agree.

David Hume, a philosopher of the period often classified as British Empiricism, is the intellectual associate of philosophers John Locke and George Berkeley. Born in Edinburgh in 1711, he attended the University of Edinburgh but did not graduate. He went to France during his 20s, and spent time there working on what would become his most famous work, 'An Enquiry into Human Understanding', first published under the title 'Treatise of Human Nature'. However, Hume was a prolific writer, and dealt with many areas of philosophy, including politics and ethics, epistemology, and metaphysics. He wrote in the area of history as well, and had a politic career as British ambassador to France and a post as a minister in the government for a few years. His final work, 'Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion', was published posthumously in 1779, although work had begun on it as early as the 1750s.

Hume was very concerned about rationality. Hume was never publicly and explicitly an atheist, but his rational mind, concerned about sensory and intelligible evidence, led him to question and doubt most major systems of religion, including the more general philosophical sense of religion and proofs of the existence of God. The primary arguments in his 'Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion' deal with the Argument from Design, and the Cosmological Argument. There is an assumed distinction here between natural religion and revealed religion, an especially important distinction in the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment philosophical structure.


- Natural Religion and Revealed Religion -

Natural religion is the idea that we come to know and understand God (and, consequently, what God wants or expects of us, if anything) simply from nature and our sensory perceptions, as well as our interpretations (emotion and rational) of this kind of understanding. From very early in his writing career, Hume attacked the idea of natural religion and most of its conclusions, drawing a sharp line between what we can actually know and what ends up being fanciful extrapolations based on other-than-rational ideas and evidence. Revealed religion is primary what most religions base themselves upon - the burning bush to Moses, the resurrection and post-resurrection appearances to the Apostles, the Buddha's enlightenment under the tree - these are examples of revelation. While Hume does take on the idea of revealed religion in his other works, this particular text does not concern itself with that topic, and stays in the domain of addressing natural religion.


- The Argument from Design -

Arguments from Design have always had a strong appeal to believers within religious frameworks; they have often been used as tools of evangelism, as attempts to show that beyond the revealed doctrines, the very nature of things points to a creator. In very short order, the Argument from Design in Hume's newly-industrial time might have read like this:

- Machines are designed by beings with intelligence.
- The world and the universe it is in resembles a machine.
- Therefore, the world must have been created by means of intelligent design.

This is an argument by analogy, and is convincing to some, but often more convincing to those already inclined to believe in the existence of God.


- The Cosmological Argument -

The Cosmological Argument is at once both more subtle and more simple. The most simple way of stating it would be that God is the 'first cause' of everything. If everything has to have a cause (even the whole universe), then that first cause must be God. In the twentieth century era of thinking of a universe that began with a Big Bang, it seemed to some that the Cosmological Argument was confirmed.

Hume would have been familiar with Leibniz's more subtle form of the Cosmological Argument, which argues for a world of infinite contingent causes. However, there has to be something outside of this system of infinite causes that produced the series - thus, even in a universe with no set beginning or ending, there would still need to be an overarching cause.


- Hume's Arguments -

Hume argues on many levels. His first criticism of the Argument from Design is that this analogy (as are most arguments from analogy) is faulty and not exact; we have no idea if the universe is like a machine. Even if it was, machines are often designed and built by several designers - why argue for one God rather than several? How do we know that matter and the universe don't have their own, internal self-organising principles?

With regard to the Cosmological Argument, the argument is a little more strained. Hume argues that, in any series of causality, once one knows about each cause, it makes no sense to inquire beyond the sequence of causes to some other effect. This is a very Empirical argument, to be sure, and while perhaps not entirely satisfying, it still has merit in philosophy to this day.


- Hume's Structure -

This is a dialogue, set up in the classical way of people talking with each other about the subjects. Hume draws primarily from Cicero, whose work 'On the Nature of the Gods' uses characters of the same names. However, whereas Cicero was concerned about the nature of the Gods (their attributes, powers, etc.) and not their existence, it is the very existence of God that occupies Hume's thoughts.

Hume, despite many years of work on this text, probably never quite thought it was finished. He left the work to Adam Smith (the noted economist, and friend of Hume in Edinburgh), who also thought the arguments against the existence of God were too strong, and likely too damaging to Hume's overall reputation. The tug-of-war over the publication makes for interesting reading in and of itself.

These are important arguments, worthy of discussion and dialogue in philosophy classes, theology classes, and among others who ponder the existence of God.

This nearly pamphlet sized book is pretty dense with things to ponder. Hume speaks mostly about how a deity would function as the head of the world. The reviewer is not intent on being cute here. Hume addresses many notions about "God" through a series of dialogues amongst three intellectuals. They are intent on convincing each other of their individual views. Essentially those three have to come to terms with the anthropomorphism associated with the God of Christian belief system. It really is more complicated than that but this is a short review.

In addition to the Dialogues are a short essays on the Immortality of the Soul and the rationality of Suicide. Finally there is a discussion of Miracles. The latter three are well placed with the Dialogues as they address the philosophy of religion in much the same manner but come from Hume rather than the fictional characters of the Dialogue.

This book as short as it is, requires a considerable amount of time to consume. Not only are the concepts that Hume presents detailed and valuable, but the language is particularly arcane and often requires re-reading in order to understand where Hume is going.

The two excellent reviews of this book , one by Kurt Messick and the other by CT Dreyer outline the background to, and the principal content of the work. Hume takes apart the argument from Design as proof of God's Existence, raising objections to the analogy between Machine- design and world- design. I do not believe however that Hume in the work really considers two other major arguments for belief in God. One argument might be called the existensial - personal decision argument , in which the individual out of his own need and will decides for belief in God. This decision can be a rational calculation as Pascal suggests that we should make in order to give our own immortality a chance, or it can be a profound deeply moving conviction something that grows out of our own deepest being and need. Another path to belief in God is through the kinds of mystical experience that thousands of human beings from all cultures have had. William James collects some of these testimonies in 'The Variety of Religious Experience'. Another path is through the path of accepting the Tradition given us by our ancestors.
Now it might be said that these alternative paths to belief in God do not deal with the kind of ' proofs ' Hume is talking about. Hume is really talking about the ' rational way' to God through mind and reason. But I believe that every reader should have these other ways to God in mind , if only not to be devastingly shattered by Hume 's demolition job of the Design Argument.
It is well to remember that there are other ways to God aside from the ones spoken of and questioned here.
I write this as a believer in God who also believes that a very great share of Mankind needs God, needs the belief in God to make their own lives ultimately meaningful. And this when I would also keep in mind the following idea. If the Proof of God were certain and absolute , then there would be no test/ trial / challenge for humanity in its belief in God.
And here I add the idea central in the Jewish tradition, and probably important in others, that God wants our decision for God, our free choice of God, and not a slavish obedience even to an airtight logical principle.

This a great book for the outdoors person & naturalist who wishes not always to eat out of Costco & eliminate the danger of MONSANTO & the world of unnatural & unsafe foods. Great pix & descriptions, also uses both medicinal & edible

This book has provided me with the ability to further my daily quest to eat only raw food. With Global warming now upon us and with the rising cost of organic vegetables this book will allow me to supplement me diet with raw wild plants.

I own three copies of this - an autographed hardbound that I keep at home and two duct-tape reinforced softback copies that have been on many trips into the field on personal trips, as part of field reference libraries on wilderness kayaking trips, at camps and on natural history cruises, and even in my day pack from time to time (though this is really too big to be a backpacker field guide). When this first came out it was THE gift of the year among my coastal Alaskan friends with any interest in nature (thus my three copies).

What can be said besides pointing out that it is a very thorough and and relevant reference for plant identification and consumption for Alaskans? One of, if not "The" quintessential guide to wild Alaskan edibles.

I found this book at the Library on the Island of Popov, in the Aleutian chain, in the school library on Sand Point. I was learning about the local flora and this book was like a gold mine. Not only did they have pictures, but told where to pick, when to pick, what part to pick. There were receipes. I was interested in the medicinal uses and these were listed for each item. It was truly a find. The Fish and Wildlife associate teaching classes with us had their own book and let me borrow theirs. I used it daily and ordered my own when I got home.

This is the first time I had a problem with Amazon shipment. I ordered the 1995 edition, but Amazon repeatedly (twice) shipped the 1966 edition. However, the customer service was excellent. I could ship back without charge and the amount was credited to my account. That is the reason I am giving 4 stars.

Peter Gay needs no introduction, but I still feel that this work needs to be lauded for what it manages to achieve: it provides an exhaustively detailed socio-cultural account of the enlightenment that is as enjoyable as it is informative. The main slant of this work, namely that the 18th century enlightenment was a reprisal/continuation/adoration of classical (hence Pagan) culture is coherent and functions as a solid structure to this work. Highly recommended.

A magnificent, thorough, and long book (419 pages), impeccably documented, the first volume of two. A "must read" for anyone interested in the Enlightenment. The "cheerleaders" of the Enlightenment, from all over Europe, called themselves the philosophes. For a preview, read the 25 page beginning, "Overture."

BOOK ONE: THE APPEAL TO ANTIQUITY

CHAPTER ONE: The Useful and Beloved Past

1. Hebrews and Hellenes: As the philosophes of the Enlightenment saw it, the world was divided into two irreconcilable patterns of life: superstition versus the affirmation of life; mythmakers versus realists; priests versus philosophers. The historical writings of the Enlightenment were all part of their comprehensive effort to secure rational control over the world and freedom from the pervasive domination of myth. The most glaring and notorious defect of the Enlightenment was its unsympathetic, often brutal, estimate of Christianity.

2. A Congenial Sense and Spirit: Rome belonged to every educated man Classic antiquity was inescapable, therefore, some of the philosophes' seemingly pagan ideas were simply the property of thinking men in their time. The philosophes identified with their favorite ancient philosophers, especially Cicero, who had contempt for the fear of death, contempt for superstition, and admiration for sturdy pagan self-reliance. Modern historians no longer think of Christianity as a complete swamp, but the reliance of the Enlightenment on ancient classicism has withstood two centuries of criticism.

3. The Search for Paganism: From Identification to Identity: The philosophes had been born into a Christian world. They knew their Bible, their catechism, their articles of faith, their apologetics, retained many of their Christian friends, and even had clergy in their families. Gibbons was not without anxiety when he wrote his notorious chapters on the origin of Christianity in "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The German philosophes were reluctant to completely abandon the religion of the past. Diderot, the most ebullient of the French philosophes was driven and harassed by doubts. In a letter to his mistress, he cursed the atheism he accepted as true that "reduced their love to a blind encounter of atoms." Even David Hume, whose good cheer was celebrated, had to brood and struggle his way into paganism.

CHAPTER TWO: The First Enlightenment

1. Greece: From Myth to Reason: The philosophes' historical thought was closely tied and deeply, if unconsciously, indebted to the Renaissance. Pious historians during the Renaissance and in the 17th century aided secularization by refining techniques of research, throwing doubt on extravagant tales of Hebrew prophets or Christian saints. The Old Testament, which had served countless generations as authoritative was in decline. The philosophes used it as neither authoritative nor historical, but as an incriminating document. Petrarch removed the label "Dark Ages" from classical pre-Christian times and fastened it instead on the Christian era.

2. The Roman Enlightenment: The Greeks were the teachers of the Romans, but the Romans were the Greeks made plain. The philosophes' two most reliable sources of literature were the Romans Lucretius and Cicero. No propagandist ever conducted a battle of science against religion more exuberantly than Lucretius. Religion was just superstition maintained by terror. Science was reason, offering a complete and coherent account of the universe. Cicero gave them even more - a philosophy of the public servant was that of humanism. Not far behind was the historian Tacitus, who was Gibbon's source of much of what is in "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." These and other Roman Stoics and Epicurians gave the philosophes much fuel for their political and religious criticisms.

CHAPTER THREE: The Climate of Criticism

1. Criticism as Philosophy: Hume proclaimed philosophy the supreme, indeed, the only, cure for superstition. Diderot - The philosopher should not be the inventor of systems but the apostle of truth. Adam Smith - Cultivation of philosophy is "the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition." For the Enlightenment, the Age of Philosophy was also, and mainly, the Age of Criticism - they were synonyms - and there were plenty of liberal Christians ready to allow the new philosophy elbow room, provided it stopped barely short of the holiest of matters.

2. The Hospitable Pantheon: Each philosophe took what suited him from the Romans (or from anywhere) and added their characteristic touches, leading to eclecticism - the school that denied being a school. The eclectic "makes a philosophy for himself, individual and personal, one that is his own." The favorite theft of the philosophes was from the Stoicism of Cicero, but since they addressed their propaganda to a largely Christian audience, they also quoted the founders of Christianity, including Jesus. Such adroit posturing barely concealed the philosophes' convictions that Christianity was the worst of fanaticisms.

3. The Primacy of Moral Realism: The philosophes' practicalities were worldly, designed to translate into reality Bacon's and Descarte's grandiose vision of man controlling nature for his profit and desire. In a culture in which men believed in God and yearned for salvation, the study of His nature were matters of intense blessed concern - but during the Enlightenment, they seemed more like verbal games. Nor could the philosophes separate the study of nature from the study of morality. They were confident that the public needed to be educated and it was their calling to educate them.

4. Candide: The Epicurean as Stoic: Voltaire wrote a reality tale - a dialogue on behalf of Newton's empiricism in a world that had discarded myth; and one that caricaturized and satirized Leibniz. Candide is essentially a declaration of war on Christianity.

BOOK TWO: THE TENSION WITH CHRISTIANITY

CHAPTER FOUR: The Retreat From Reason: Educated Romans had at least made a serious attempt to construct a civilization based on reason, not myth. Then came Christianity, which claimed to bring light, hope, and truth - but its central myth was incredible, its dogma a mixture of older superstitions, and its sacred book an incoherent collection of primitive tales. Once the church had discarded its apocalyptic expectations, it settled down to the business of organizing a Christian community - eventually a rigid hierarchy.

1. The Adulteration of Antiquity: In the callous hands of Christians, Greek and Roman literature survived, but barely, and at great cost. The church fathers could not deal generously with secular literature - they were at war for a higher cause. However, there was a minority that maintained an interest - and Christian policy ran somewhere between these two extremes. The great compromise, in the fourth and fifth centuries, was to adapt from paganism whatever could be adapted to religious purposes and to throw the rest away. They invented pious meanings for secular passages, converting and allegorizing meanings - but at least it kept the classics from extinction, though at the price of covering them with pious legends. Cicero was persistently misread into the thirteenth century.

2. The Betrayal of Criticism: Medieval philosophers believed the advent of Jesus had subordinated the need for higher degrees of insight. Abelard devoted much of his ethical and theological speculation to the disappointing thought that his favorite pagan philosophers had been born too early for Christ, thus missing out on salvation. The philosophes saw this as despising and abusing the resources of the mind.

3. The Rehabilitation of Myth: In the Christian millennium, myth was preserved, transcended, and raised to a higher level. The philosophes liked to deride medieval categories as infantile or vicious, but the myths merely followed inevitably from the medieval mind bent on finding religious significance everywhere. Science was done, but like philosophy, it was guided by man's search for holiness and salvation. The enormous distance separating the philosophes from the medieval world view is proof that the Enlightenment was the terminal point of a long process of alienation that had begun centuries before, in the Renaissance.

CHAPTER FIVE: The Era of Pagan Christianity - For all their enormous but gradual contributions to secular thought, Europeans were still overwhelmingly religious - religious fervor attenuating slowly and uncertainly.

1. The Purification of the Sources: Humanists of the Renaissance began to correct the corrupt interpretations of the Greek and Roman philosophers. Many new manuscripts, stored in monastery libraries and guarded by monks, were uncovered, although covered with dust, torn, and mutilated. Unknown copies of Cicero, a single copy of Lucretius's "De Rerum Natura," a single copy of Catullus, and whatever we have of Tacitus were uncovered by persistent Humanist effort bordering at times on thievery. Gradually, classis after classic was reborn, and Humanist scholars purified them of the corrupt accretions of centuries. The veil of pious interpretation was pierced.

2. Ancients and Moderns - The Ancients: The protestant heresy persisted and thus stripped Christian Europe of one of its most tenacious myths, the myth of a Catholic commonwealth centered at Rome. Exploration discovered strange cultures which raised disturbing questions about the souls of heathens and the value of Christian civilization. The Copernican revolution in cosmology began to reverberate among educated men. The printing press and translations, the book trade, the growth of science, and the explosion of interest in accurate interpretations of ancient Greeks and Romans - all these things questioned the authority of the papacy. As Voltaire put it, "a corner of the veil was lifted. The nations, aroused, wanted to judge what they had worshipped."

3. Ancients and Moderns - The Moderns: By the force of its logic, science began to cut its ties with philosophy and to assume a posture at first equal, and then hostile, to theology - less by literary than by scientific means. Even so, the Church first took the findings of Gallileo, Boyle, and Newton as evidence of faith rather than as a threat. Locke called for liberation from the shackles of antique and medieval rules of thought and his impact was huge, the last in a long line of pagan Christians. The philosophes, arrogant as they were, still displayed great reverence for this Age of Genius.

CHAPTER SIX: In Dubious Battle

1. The Christian Component: Locke and his disciple, Toland, both wrote books in 1695 and 1696. Locke tried to prove that Christianity was acceptable to reasonable men; Toland, that what was mysterious and miraculous about Christianity must be discarded - and within those two years the essence of revealed, dogmatic religion evaporated. The philosophes took advantage, striving to maintain a separation between reason and religion while well-meaning Christians continued to try to unite them. This was the beginning of deism, which maintained a healthy respect for Jesus as a teacher, but held that his teachings were distinct from what resulted as the Christian religion.

2. The Treason of the Clerks: Clerical establishments didn't collapse, but every part of life became more secular - there was a subtle shift where religious institutions and religious explanations for events were slowly being displaced from the center of life to its periphery. The evidence for a growing critical rationalism among educated Christians is overwhelming, with a decline in religious fervor. They were thus open to the antireligious propaganda of the philosophes, as Sunday sermons simultaneously grew less severe and more accommodating to an easier life. As the Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists fought amongst themselves, the philosophes triumphed over them all.

CHAPTER SEVEN: Beyond the Holy Circle - the philosophes appropriated Christian labors for their own purposes.

1. The Abuse of Learning: This was a time of the beginnings of Biblical critical scholarship. Diderot, Voltaire, and Gibbon each took particular advantage of a different scholarly friend, and applied that scholarship where it could be devastating to Christianity. The philosophes were missionaries - for the sake of their calling they were ready to exploit the best their enemy had to offer, without mercy or gratitude.

2. The Mission of Lucretius: Lucretius was to Epicureus what the philosophes were to the Enlightenment - purveyors of savage, brutal, and relentless diatribes against superstition and religion. Religion retreated to the extent that philosophy and science advanced.

3. David Hume: The Complete Modern Pagan - Whatever misgivings the philosophes had about their passion, Hume had the least. He thought all houses of faith were houses of infection and that a rational man must escape, after exposing, the squabbles of theologians. His philosophy embodies the dialectic of the Enlightenment at its most ruthless. Without melodrama, Hume lived cheerfully and without complaining, with no supernatural justifications, demanding no complete explanations, no promise of permanent stability, with guides of merely probable validity. He was a cheerful Stoic.

Peter Gay is an important intellectual historian and in his lengthy work "The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism" he summarizes the ideas of the great philosophers and how they changed the world. This book is a work of great erudition, of synthesis and he begins with the relationship between the philosophers of the 18th century and those of the classical period. The philosophers of the Enlightenment, active in the late seventeenth through the middle of the eighteenth century, had an affection for the Greek and Roman era, but felt the recent discoveries in science, the search for empirical fact, had allowed their own era to supercede the work of the great classical philosophers.
While the classicists inspired the philosophers of the Enlightenment, theis new breed of thinkers were generally contemptuous of religion and they sought to confront, to challenge and to overturn the philosophical concepts of the Hebrew and Christian thinkers who they viewed as their rhetorical adversaries in the battle beaten reason and faith.
Gay is an engaging writer with a gift for synthesizing a raft of material. Here he neatly summarizes the philosophical historians work: "...the philosophes wrote history with rage and with partisanship, and their very passion allowed them to penetrate into regions hitherto inaccessible to historical explorers. Yet it also made them condescending and oddly parochial: their sense of the past merged all too readily with their sense of the present." Although the philosophes view of history was critical, pessimistic, they saw the world "divided between ascetic superstitious enemies of the flesh, and men who affirmed life, the body, knowledge, and generosity; between mythmakers and realists, priests and philosophers."
Gay's book neatly depicts an age, the conflicts between enlightenment thinkers and the past, their areas of agreement and disagreement and, their battles with the weakened Christianity of the day. He points out how te philosophers used the scholarship and erudition of the Catholic orders against them. "The Enlightenment" is not a history of philosophy, summarizing the work of each major philosopher, but a history of the way that the ideas and the debate developed in the period. In this volume, he writes of Voltaire, Hume, Smith, Bentham, Gibbon, Diderot, Montsequieu, Lessing, Locke, Holbach, Rousseau and finally, Jefferson and Franklin, intertwining them in a consistent narrative. He concludes the book with a helpful bibliographical essay which will help point those of us who want to do further reading in the right direction. Elegantly written, in clear, crisp prose, "The Enlightenment" is a detailed and nuanced account of the men and ideas that gave us the gift - and curse - of modernity.

The Enlightenment has met many critics nowadays, which even make people overlook the positive worth of the enlightenment to modren society. This great book can help readers make a comprehensive and positive view to the enlightenment. I recommend it !

Husserl published two long books, The Logical Invesigatnons and Ideas Pertaining to the Pure Phenomenology. He wrote very much more than he published, leaving shelves of unfinished manuscripts. He also gave some fairly complete public lectures. Relative to the volume of his total output, only fragments of his work are tranlated into English and these aren't always representative of Husserl's best ideas or affordable for the student. Examples: as far as I know, Thing and Space has no English translation and Husserl would agree that the price of Cartesian Mediations is absurd. It's nice to have this reasonably priced and representative selection of Husserl texts. They start near the beginning of Husserl's published work (around 1900 if I remember rightly) and take us through about 40 years of his phenomenological labors.

This collection of Husserl's writings comes from Husserl's polemic against the "excesses" of radical empiricists and psychological skeptics at the end of the XIX century such as Ernst Mach and Richard Avenarius. For Husserl, phenomenology was a project to defend scientific objectivity against the radical empirical reduction of sense-data to subjective, private feelings and perception. If this were the case, then communicating concepts or establishing consensus of what is valid or invalid would be impossible. Husserl, therefore, tries to find objective truth in the realm of subjective experience. His solution is to distinguish a moment of intention, where the subject represents the object as an essence, separated from other objects, to perceive it as a "pure" phenomenon, without biases or prejudices. Husserl's concept of science is very unique, and it may seem strange to our positive conception of science as the quantification, and measurement of things. For Husserl, science is rather how we experience certainty at the psychological level without becoming a relativist. Besides proving a thing certain, we have to experience its certainty, and this experience is universal. It is the foundation of science. Husserl's philosophical style is extremely complicated, and as a good writer in German, his use of long sentences and neologisms makes the English reading very difficult. Yet, his philosophy was extremely influential in the development of XX. century European thought. I highly recommend this book for those interested in the "prehistory" of deconstruction, existentialism, and post-structuralism.

Though a difficult text to read, it offers a great overview of husserl's phenomenology. should be combined w/ heideggers time and being

This text is the most comprehensive, representative, and cost effective compendium of Husserl's early and late philosophy currently available in English. Given the astronomical prices of the original works excerpted here, this text is indispensible to anyone seeking a comprehensive overview of Husserl's philosophy at a reasonable price - there is literally no competition. The editor, Donn Welton [SUNY /Stony Brook], is an internationally recognized authority in the field of Husserl studies, and the author of a number of authoritative and innovative studies on Husserl's philosophy.

One caveat: the text does need a more comprehensive introductory essay that would give the novice reader a better overview of Husserl's philosophical project and writings. I would suggest Walter Biemel's essay, "The Decisive Phases in the Development of Husserl's Philosophy", in R.O. Elverton, The Phenomenology of Husserl, Noesis Press, 1970 - Biemel was the first editor of Husserl's Collected Works / Husserliana.

New readers in this area should also note that reading a good Introduction to Husserl's work before tackling his works in the original will pay big dividends. I would recommend Robert Sokolowski's Introduction to Phenomenology [Cambridge UP], or David Woodruff Smith's new 2007 Introduction entitled, Husserl [Routledge].

There is also a very good online overview at the Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy ["Phenomenology"] by Dr, Smith, which is available at no cost to the reader - I would also concur that this free philosophical resource deserves your financial support.

This work is better appreciated after one has gained some introduction to HUsserl. I suggest starting off with the Cartesian Meditations, and trying to find a good commentary on them. UNDERSTANDING PHENOMENOLOGY is a fantastic book, albeit unavailable.

Actually, this is directed to the Author: "Tracy Lee you have a vivid sense of expression. Extremities set me off in a world-wind; sort-of-speak. Open are your characters and Real is your material. Your style of writing is fresh - keep it up - I'd like to see you on our 10 list someday soon!"

Rarely has a book left me with such a feeling of wonder and empathy toward it's characters. I felt as if I knew each player in this grand drama personally. I can hardly wait for the next release! This an author that is going places! Bravo!

I started to read it on a Tuesday and finished it on Wednesday (the next day)!! Extremities definately kept me interested and anxious as to what will happen next. Real life, real people, real issues are at hand. The story deals with love, happiness, desire, sisterhood, deceit, and pain. All the ingredients of life. I aniticipate reading another novel by Tracey Lee.

This book provides a complete visualization of the characters and what they go through from beginning to the end. Once I started reading it, I found if very difficult to put down. Even as I write this, I still can visualize each character/person and have even placed faces with each of them. I have given this book 5 stars and look forward to reading more books from Tracy Lee.

Loved it. Just loved this book. I can see it on the big screen.... only, I want to play the part of Brian. I think there should've been more to this character and I can make that happen on the screen. Extremities is everything you can ask for in a basic reading explosive, un-edited, story. I give this story of the nineties 5 stars.

I enjoyed this story about a cowboy and his girl told as the tale develped and it kept me up way past my bedtime to see how it all turned out. Altogether it was an enjoyable tale and very moving. The loss of a loved one was an undercurrent throughout the book until a new life is born into this world. Good stuff!!

When reading this book you may not realize just how much of Mr. Cord's own life experience influenced the characters. However, by reading this story you'll actually gain insight into his personal life tragedies. In effect, this book is part autobiography and part fiction, truly a labor of love from Mr. Cord.

A Hollywood legend who starred in "Airwolf" (1984-1986), Mr. Cord is perhaps best known for his proficient horsemanship and appearances in high-profile westerns such as "Stagecoach."

This book is absolutely amazing. Having lost a child, I found that Alex Cord captured the true essence of a parent facing the loss of a child. I laughed and cried at the touching force he gives as a greiving parent, finding the love of his life and bringing a new being into the world to love and cherish, but never trying to let him take Damien Zachary's place, just fill the void. The horse language is true in every sense of the word, to imagine the majestic beauty of the Cutting Horse. Truly a book well worth reading. Thank you, Alex!!

As a Radio Talk Show Host I have interviewed 100's of authors. Alex Cords' "A Feather in the Rain" is a MUST READ! To find out about the real Alex Cord, I would recommend that you read this book. Its to bad that there are not more men like him in the world today! If you have ever seen a horse, I say READ THIS BOOK! I would also have to say that, BAR NONE!, also the best Radio interview that I have ever had and, believe me, I have had alot. Without ever meeting Alex in person I consider him a true friend.

If you have suffered loss, some personal healing will be found in the pages of this book. Alex opened up his heart on this one. Just read it!

Colonel Steve Pisanos is a true hero and an inspiration. His autobiography captures, not only his flying expertise and experiences, but also his driving desire to become an American Citizen. He has a pride in America, and a humbleness about his World War II service. His writing is from the heart, is extremely readable, and is very accurately told. His story is absolutely gripping!
By the end of the book, you consider him a friend and realize just how honored we are that he is a part of our history.

Col. Steve Pasanos is a true American hero. His book is a must read for young people that have doubts about what the word "Patriotism" means. This is an exciting story of a man who survived the best of the German Luftwaffe in the air, the wicked Gestapo on the ground, and perilous adventures at sea. Eight years in the making, Steve Pasanos writes in a style that is wonderfully fascinating. If there is one book you buy this year this is it!

Scott Graham
Escondido, Ca

A great book full of examples of determination and patriotism. He certainly puts alot of people born in the United States to shame when it comes to his patriotism. We are fortunate to have him as a citizen of the U.S. The book is well written and tells of his desire to be an American and a pilot!

I have read many, many biographies on World War II aces. This book, by far, is the best I have read. Steve Pisanos' story is such a facinating one. I could not put this book down until I finished it. It has it all. The struggle to get to America, his flight training, a RAF Eagle Squadron volunteer, founding member of the 4th Fighter Group. What a life this great AMERICAN has had! You will not be disappointed if you buy this book.

Leigh Barratt
San Diego, CA

Steve Pisanos, my good friend and golf partner, has lived a remarkably challenging and adventurous life. The courage, and the tenacity to achieve his goal, demonstrated during his life in Greece as a working class young boy with no knowledge of the English language, and progressing to a high ranking U. S. Air Force Officer, is expertly told in his book, The Flying Greek. A reader will find it as intriguing as the best novel, yet genuinely instructive as to life's true values such as bravery, commitment, friends, and loyalty.

You can't judge a book by its cover or, in the case "Following the Wrong God Home", by the advertising blurb on the dust jacket. An acquaintance who works at a local bookstore fairly frothed at the mouth while singing the praises of this book, and she had only finished half of it (the first half). As her tastes agree with my own generally and as Mormon history happens to be my bag, I bought it and started to read.

After the first chapter, I put it down and scratched my head. Somehow the reading wasn't going as planned. I've read hundreds of volumes on as many aspects of Mormonism as I can think of, but something wasn't clicking with me. I didn't want to admit to my bookstore acquaintance that I didn't "get it". So in an act of preemptive bravado, I plunged back into its pages, determined not to be outunderstood by the bookstore lady. As chapters rolled by, I grew more accustomed to Scott Chisholm's meter. Although I'm sure his method may be shoehorned into "the seven holy principles of good prose" and thereby explained, this book does not have the feel of such an effort. Rather, the structure and tenor of the tale mirror the rhythms of the difficulty of those first Mormon pioneers. Instead of simply describing the experience, he paints it as a work or art. Like the Russian masters, the most poignant observations of life are made by those who have experienced the worst of it. Suffering has no value without the introspection that follows and Scott Chisholm guides us through that experience.

Spoiler: the Mormons do make it to Utah.

Clive Scott Chisholm recounts his walking retracement of the Morman trail across Nebraska and Wyoming to Brigham Young's"Zion",Utah.This book is about people,places,perceptions,and the nebulous envisagement of the American Dream.
To Chisholm,born into a Morman Family and faith,the walk it vividly personal.He weaves parenthetical"Acccording to Hoyle" chronicles of Morman history in each chapter.
The author crosses the bounds of genre with timely placed sidebars.He touches geography,natural history,hydraulics,soil management,native indian movements,railway and highway beginnings,politics and a host of others.
He describes eating,sleeping and entertainment establishments past and present;"watering-holes",museums and libraries with a generous portion of humor.There are no sacred cows,be it presidents or prophets.
This book just gets better as it goes.Clive Scott Chisholm doesn't disappoint his readers by slipping off the rails in the final chapter.He runs strong to the end.
The last entry adds a homey"Where are they now"(fifteen years later) about many of the people and personalities we meet in the book.
End

scott MacDonald wrote a book called "The Garden in the Machine" and this book reminds me of "Following the Wrong god home" because they both discuss the meaning of landscape. But if you read both books together you can see how Chisolm's book on the mormons is much more personal mostly because he actually is doing the traveling himself and having the experiences he is talking about. I think that a lot of people who don't know anything about Mormon history could love this book because he is using the mormon history as a way of writing about the western dream. The writing of this book is superb and it is one of those rare books that I never wanted to finish.

I was enthralled by Clive Scott Chisholm's brilliant meld of personal experience, social criticism, and history. On his 1100 mile trek from Omaha to Salt Lake City, he encounters a rich variety of experiences involving the weather,the landscape, historical markers, towns, and human personalities which he describes in vivid detail. Independence Rock in Wyoming, for instance, evokes a discussion of the natural forces which created it and its role as "a geological semaphore of good-bye" for travelers venturing into the unknown West.
Threaded through this account are Chisholm's thoughts about his life, his friends, western history, and particularly about "the American Dream" and the Mormons. He is often brutally frank in his judgments, especially of the Mormon leader, Brigham Young, for whom he can say nothing good. All-in-all, this is a brilliantly written, deeply personal account of one man's adventure in space and time.

Is the American Dream an empty hole(or whole)? Clive Chisholm takes a hard look at that in his trek across the American West, following the trail the Mormons blazed in 1847. Those Mormons were seeking their dream, their promised land. Chisholm, looking deeply at their experience through their journals, overlaps them with his modern day rediscovery of what is left of their trail. In the process, he digs deeply at the Mormon faith, at himself and at all of us, trying to find what gives us the courage and the passion to get up each morning and try it all again. The stories of the young brides who, far from home, died the horrible death of cholera, and his battles with dysentery and toothache; how they drug all their worldly belongings in handcarts, and he a dilapidated hand-golfcart, soon discarded in a highway culvert. Their is no shortage of dispair and heartache for either story, yet there is hope. Chisholm fills the pages with his gift of humor, and the quirky characters that he collects like mile markers on his road. He masterfully weaves both stories together. In the end, he questions what it all meant. Americans, he determines, believe everything works out simply because they are Americans. It's not the same experience for the rest of the world but we, as americans, are comprised of the peoples of all the world. We inherit a legacy of ancestral dreams. The dream is a lie, but it's the dreaming that counts. That's what fills our "common well of human hope." Buy it.