Open Books

This book really takes a very complex subject and makes sense out of it. The examples help make a real life case for why it is great to give out your content for free to the public and how you can commercialize the results. I have to say it has added something very special to our community.

"Handy...the real value of this book is the insight it offers into the industrial history of the United States" - Library Journal

"engaging...it's practicality and readability make it a sound investment...for all libraries" - Choice

"Purchase is recommended for travel, business, and general reference collections" - Booklist

This is one of those books that, the more you know about the subject coming in, the more you learn. I had read or at least recognized a large enough minority of the figures Sharpe describes so that all the new names didn't quite overwhelm me. (It would help if he wouldn't assume his readers know all the European languages, though -- how would he like having Japanese and Chinese thrown at him in important footnotes and even the text?)

In some ways, this is a very straight-forward history of comparative religion. Sharpe begins with a few ancients, a few missionaries, and Enlightenment precursors, then plunges into early theories about fetishes, totems, animism, and the "evolution of religions" schools of the late 19th Century. His discussion of The Golden Bough, of Fraser, and all the rest of that era, is excellent. I also appreciate his fair and judicious take on Andrew Lang and the "high god" phenomena -- which confuses a lot of moderns. [...]. He takes a chapter out to describe the early psychology of religions school, centered around James and a few other Americans.

In later chapters, Sharpe veers off to discuss Freud's zany horror-flick theory of the origins of religion, and (with deservedly more respect) Jung's interest in and influence on comparative religion. He talks a bit about structuralism, diffusion of cultures, and more about phenomenology. In each case, he tells the history of the movement -- and almost always offers reasonable and temperate evaluations. He has, perhaps, learned from John Farquhar, because in some ways his approach is very like Farquhar's in The Crown of Hinduism -- he finds something of value even in conflicting takes on religion.

Sharpe knew the subject deeply. I am sure I will find this book invaluable as I continue a research project I am conducting on the relationship between Chinese philosophy and Christianity.

I do have a few criticisms. Like many autobiographies, the book sort of dies towards the end, spreading out like a river into its delta. His description of the Tokyo conference is confusing -- who said what, exactly?

I disagree with Sharpe's view that the Bible uniformly views other religions as "the work of fallen angels or other evil spirits;" and am developing a response to that view.

I also missed a few names. Where was James Legge, the single greatest Western sinologist of all times? In general, Sharpe was weak on East Asia -- he plays to his strength usually, which was India. And where were Girard or Stark? Maybe they were just acquiring fame when Sharpe wrote this book -- discussion of their ideas would have been more interesting than the in-house politics that Sharpe ends with.

All in all, though, I strongly recommend this book. Sharpe is sympathetic, kind, and wise, and I'm sure this magisterial treatment will be of help to people in many different fields.

Why are Christians waging war against each other?
The complaint of peace: I belong to the most stupid cattle rather than to the humans.
Bitter is his comment on the Lord's Prayer.
It is a shame for humanity that this text is still burning topical.

More than a century after his death in 1897, Henry George remains one of the most original and influential economic thinkers in American history. His revolutionary theory on land taxation gained a tremendous following, reshaped the nation's political and economic debate, and continues to be widely discussed throughout the world. His writings shaped a generation of statesmen and intellectuals, including Winston Churchill, Robert La Follette, Clarence Darrow, George Bernard Shaw, and Milton Freedman.

Contemporary American Cinema is what it says it is: an overview of post-1960 American cinema that is so thorough and so clear that it will be useful to all film specialists and accessible to virtually all film students. This book is also authoritative, bringing together an all-star lineup of critics and scholars in one fairly compact volume. It was this lineup that convinced me, a reader with avid interest in film and media studies but not a teacher or student per se, to buy the book in the first place. What has made this purchase truly economical is not only the weight of information conveyed by the book but the efficiency with which the book conveys it. Contemporary American Cinema will remind you of what you know even as it tells you something fresh, smart, and disruptive in every new paragraph: and all without knee-breaking trips to the library.

Any review of this book must, then, include a review of its editors and contributors, many of whom are luminaries in film and media studies. (See the list below.) Given that most of these individuals are located in the United Kingdom rather than in the United States, it is worth asking whether it is wise to turn to so many non-American voices when studying American cinema. My short answer: good grief, yes! One of the best aspects of this book is that it provides the sociopolitical contexts that American textbooks often ignore or marginalize. As it happens, American cinema may be even more compelling viewed from the outside--if, that is, there is any true "outside" to American cinema, given that it is so often a global commodity from inception to consumption.

Another thing to notice about this group of contributors is its variety. Such diversity affords Contemporary American Cinema its truly outstanding coverage of the field. One of the book's unifying messages, if that is the right word, is the necessity of specialized integration. To understand what American cinema is all about, this book suggests, readers must confront it in as much breadth and depth as possible, while jettisoning value judgments regarding authenticity, aesthetic value, and the like. This is easier said than done, of course, but readers have a better shot of approaching an ideal of specialized integration if they own a book in which the contributors specialize in many forms and many approaches--and if said contributors are committed to summarizing the detail of what they know in the clearest, most communally oriented prose.

As a result, this survey dismantles preconceptions rooted in partial visions and in elitist valuations. Contemporary American cinema, it seems, is equally blockbuster spectacle and "underground" spectacle. It is equally the modernist narratives of "the Hollywood Renaissance" (e.g., Bonnie and Clyde) and the more traditional narratives of "family entertainment" (e.g., The Love Bug). It is simultaneously "blaxploitation," New Queer Cinema, and "smart cinema." It is an evolving array of documentary practices. It is, moreover, the low-budget horror of cult cinema (from Night of the Living Dead to Eraserhead), the mid-budget horror of neo-noir (from Looking for Mr. Goodbar to Body Heat), and the high-budget horror of the disaster movie (from The Poseidon Adventure to The Towering Inferno). It is changing uses of sex-and-gender codes. It is changing technologies and viewer routines. It is a highly unstable collection of rival definitions (of "auteurism," of "independent," of "Hollywood," and so on). It is, moreover, a blizzard of economic figures and an ever-fluctuating set of corporate nameplates. It is all these interlinked data and so many others. And it is all irreducible.

Some notes on the organization of this book. Contemporary American Cinema is divided into four overarching sections that are based on the four decades under examination, with some necessary "bleeding across" these artificial period boundaries. Each of these four sections is then divided into four-to-seven chapters as written by different experts. These chapters provide each writer the most space to delve into the films and filmmakers of each decade--and to explore the critical, cultural, and political contexts that enmesh these films, filmmakers, and decades. Each chapter is, in turn, "interrupted" by short capsule essays devoted to key genres or movements, key films, or key players. At the end of each period section is a set of helpful ancillary materials: box-office figures, award winners, suggestions for reading, and questions for discussion. And at the end of the book as a whole, the editors have included a glossary, a bibliography, a filmography, and an index. What is more, Contemporary American Cinema is amply illustrated with color plates and with black-and-white prints. I found the capsule essays particularly enjoyable. Because of their brevity, I expected these short essays to sacrifice content for ease-of-use. But I found no discernible drop-off in substance relative to the chapters. The capsules break up the chapters by focusing attention on single ideas, objects, or individuals--and they provide some of the book's most astute commentary.

Which parts did I find most useful? That's hard to say. Each of the seven chapters on the 1990s had clear strengths, with the pieces by Geoff King ("Spectacle and Narrative in the Contemporary Blockbuster"), Barbara Klinger ("Home Viewing, New Technologies and DVD"), Michael Hammond ("New Black Cinema"), Michele Aaron ("New Queer Cinema"), Yvonne Tasker ("Women in Contemporary US Action Cinema"), and Jeffrey Sconce ("Smart Cinema") proving indispensable. My only regret with these pieces is that I didn't read them years ago. This section also includes fine capsule essays by Hammond, Tasker, Linda Ruth Williams, and Mark Kermode, among others. In the earlier sections, I found the chapters by Michael O'Pray ("American Underground Cinema of the 1960s"), Steve Neale ("Revising the Hollywood Renaissance"), Eithne Quinn and Peter Krämer ("Blaxploitation"), Stephen Prince ("Hollywood in the Age of Reagan"), Jim Hillier ("US Independent Cinema since the 1980s"), Krämer ("Disney and Family Entertainment"), and Williams ("Women in Recent US Cinema") to be excellent. These sections also contain insightful capsule essays. Williams on auteurism and on Taxi Driver; Hammond on Richard Pryor; Kermode on Miramax and on Heaven's Gate; Helen Hanson on Psycho; Kim Newman on Roger Corman and on Night of the Living Dead; Christine Cornea on the Hollywood musical: the list is long and diverse.

In sum, the editors of this book are to be congratulated on their selection of contributor material and on their creation of a structure that keeps readers moving along a fairly broad span of years. If you are a teacher of contemporary American cinema, you should assign this book, pronto. But even if you are in my position--which is to say in no position, harshly cut off from the strange and beautiful world of desk copies--you should get this book in paperback. It compresses a wealth of important recent scholarship into one readerly whole and thus represents an incredible value.

Contemporary American Cinema. McGraw-Hill Education/Open University Press. 2006. Editors: Linda Ruth Williams and Michael Hammond. Contributors: Michele Aaron, Christine Cornea, Sheldon Hall, Michael Hammond, Helen Hanson, Jim Hillier, Susan Jeffords, Jonathan Kahana, Mark Kermode, Geoff King, Barbara Klinger, Peter Krämer, Steve Neale, Kim Newman, Michael O'Pray, Carl Plantinga, Stephen Prince, Eithne Quinn, James Russell, Jeffrey Sconce, Mark Shiel, Peter Stanfield, Yvonne Tasker, Linda Ruth Williams, Brian Winston, and Patricia Zimmerman.

The book introduces the student to the sometimes difficult ideas of contemporary thinkers such as Foucault, Derrida, Habermas and so forth. Organised thematically and covering topics such as 'power', 'language', 'culture', 'the body' and 'the subject' the book is comprehensive yet always readable and informative. It is certainly essential reading for students looking to orient themselves in the study of contemporary social and political theory. I found it a very helpful introduction to the area and have used it a lot for essays I have had to write. Although I have only had the book for a few weeks it is already almost falling apart due to over-use. It made the things my professors have been teaching me much more clear than I ever thought they would be. I highly recommend it to students everywhere.

I can't praise this book enough. Corot's work in Italy are in my mind some of the greatest plein air painting ever done.Seeing his work compared to his contemporaries etc. is very interesting. One also appreciates the allure of the Italian landscape. Corot is sometimes viewed as the father of Impressionism(his later work). But I could look at these landscapes all day. His realism and fresh painting technique is really sumptuous, and it's a good thing he found his niche in painting rather late.Buy this book, you won't regret it if you love landscape.

To make clear what this book is: it is a collection of essays that were typed from speeches given at a convention on science and religion. It's uniquness lies in its objectivity and honesty concerning the issue of the relationship between these two spheres of influence. It includes a wide range of contributors, including scientists, biologists, philosophers and even a brain surgeon. This is NOT simply a bunch of creationists attempting to plead their case. I am a Christian, but I find much of the literature that comes out of the Institute for Creation Research to be full of ad-hoc reasoning and generally simple minded (not to mention bad science). This book is nothing like the poor representations of science to come out of the ICR. In fact, I know that at least one of the contributors, Timothy Ferris of the university of California Berkeley, is an agnostic & not even a believer. The book also includes an essay by John Leslie, who is the definitive authority on the Anthropic Principle. The greatest attribute of this book is that it is not so much about trying to make you believe or disbelieve in God, but rather that it makes one genuinely ponder the question. I have met many atheists and theists alike who have never truly done this. For the believers, it is also inspiring to find that (contrary to popular belief) there are plenty of reputable scientists out there who believe in God & have justifiable reasons for doing so. In fact, if anything, the trend seems to be that there is actually a growning number of them. A truly wonderful book.

Provide essential foundations for Social Work Practice that can be referred to time and time again throughout the professionals career!