YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Absence of Mind: The Dispelling of Inwardness from the Modern Myth of the Self (Terry Lectures)

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The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World

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Excellent Book, 2010-03-19
I couldn't praise this book enough! I have the upmost respect for the author who's clearly spent along time and a lot of effort researching and writing the book. For such a broad scope, the hypothesis always rings true, and fits like a jigsaw into what I was already beginning to feel about the world today. It was so refreshing to read a book written confidently and proposing a world view which covers all aspects of thinking, something many academics wouldn't dare do. What's more amazing is that I rarely had to question or doubt what the author was saying.

I expected to skip by much of the brain science in part 1 but the author keeps it accessible and interesting, interweaving with philosophy and physchology. The second part is as brilliant as I hoped, providing a concise history of the western world and how it relates to his hypothesis on the right and left brain. My favourite part is on the Reformation and the Romantic period, although all of it is exceedingly interesting! Anyone interested in the religious aspect should read GK Chesterton, I'd be very interested to know if the author has read Orthodoxy by Chesterton as the first couple of chapters say exactly the same thing about the modern world, written 80 years ago.

Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England

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Wonderful, readable history, 2009-12-01
I am a great fan of Amanda Vickery's books. And I think that they should be required reading for anyone interested in the social history of the Georgian era.

Her previous work, "The Gentleman's Daughter" was a wonderfully detailed exploration of the intimate lives of women in the 18th century and helped many of us to a greater understanding of Jane Austen's female character's lives, setting them in a recognisable historical context .Her new book "Behind Closed Doors : at home in Georgian England" once again takes the domestic realm as it subject but details it on a much wider scale.

She does not concentrate on one class of people but considers, in minute detail, the intimate lives of landladies and lodgers, tradesmen and women, professionals and aristocrats living in both London and in the provinces.

Its scale is breathtaking and the detail, delicious. And what I really adore is that she admits the historical truth of Jane Austen's writings by including copious quotes from the six novels to illustrate her points. Indeed, she devotes almost half a chapter of the book to consider the way in which the subject of the home is treated by Austen's heroines and heroes, even going so far as to paraphrase the famous opening sentence of Pride and Prejudice.

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Georgian house with a drawing room,French windows and lawns must be in want of a mistress..."

It was an irresistible and understandable opportunity ....I daresay had I been given the chance to play with that famous line, I would not have let it pass either...

While reading Professor Vickery's descriptions of the lives and experiences of real individuals the Jane Austen devotee will find many parallels with the situations in which her characters find themselves.

The book is beautifully produced , printed on fine glossy paper and illustrated in black and white and colour with very appropriate and carefully chosen illustrations.

I confess I have devoured this book and read it quickly almost at one sittting.I am going to revisit it over the next few weeks savouring its detail. I highly recommend this book to you: anyone who is keen on Jane Austen's works will enjoy delving into the minutiae of real people's lives - especially as many of the lives have telling details which echo in Austen's works.

Is it too much to hope that this book will soon appear in a Kindle edition?

Losing Control: Why the West's Economic Prosperity Can No Longer be Taken for Granted

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Ihrem Ende eilen sie zu?, 2010-05-06
In the year 1776, the historian Edward Gibbon wrote'If a man were called to fix the period in the history of the world, during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus' (Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Everymans Library (1910, 1993, Vol I, Ch.iii, p.90 - the period in question comprises of just over 80 years - between 98AD and 180AD).

Gibbon defined the world by reference to a Europe which was, for him, the sole index of civilisation, and by reference to the narrow class that presided over it, but, from the Western perspective at least, it is possible to argue that the period between the succession of Harold MacMillan and that of Gordon Brown (1956 - 2007 - a little over 50 years)might compete with the heyday of the Antonines, and that it has a universal dimension of which the pessimistic historian did not dream: consider, if you will, the foundation in Western Europe of social systems supporting the nation's sick and unemployed; the provision of state education, subsidised housing, complete with working plumbing, sanitation and central heating; the rise of the supermarket and the megastore; the general availability of mass transport, personal entertainment technology... and, er, easy credit.

What did we do deserve it?

Well, not much: the achievement was that of our energetic, industrious, and bloody-minded forbears: they were in there first; they got a head start; they trashed the opposition; and they got the rest of the world in an economic headlock What the post-war generation discovered was that you could exploit resources without the trouble and expense of physically possessing them: we were the only, and if not the only, certainly among the most powerful players in the global commodity and food markets.

The argument of this lucid and cogently argued book by Stephen King, HSBC's Group Chief Economist and Global Head of Economics and Asset Allocation Research is that the ground is shifting under our feet.

I'm no economist,but the great virtue of Mr King's book is that you feel, while reading it, that you don't have to be: many of us have been asking ourselves for years how it was that The UK seemed to be getting richer and richer whilst producing less and less, and the catastrophic events of the last 18 months have provided us with the beginnings of an answer: the banks may have been lending, but it hasn't just been them that's been doing the borrowing - the euphoria of the Blair years was mostly down to unrestrained borrowing and spending.

Mr King argument runs as follows: in pursuit of cheap labour and bigger profits the West has exported its technologies and outsourced industrial production to emerging economies - notably China and India. In consequence, the West earns less and less but aspires to consume, and, through its governments, to bestow upon itself, more and more. In addition, the West thinks to bridge the impossible gulf between production and provision by borrowing from the very economies on which it depends, and issuing them with paper securities in return. The finite volume of food, energy and commodities means that their price increases with demand - and the money to pay for them has to be found from somewhere.

A number of experts thought that the West could create a virtuous circle in which its investments in the emerging world and a consequent proliferation of world trade increaseed the power and prosperity of the developed economies - but that hasn't really happenned: the populations of the emerging economies save, but they don't buy - or not nearly enough - and there have, says Mr.King been more losers in the West then there have been winners: workers have seen their jobs go east, and the returns made by investors in emerging markets have proved less impressive, and more unstable than was expected: hence growing inequalities of wealth, particularly in the USA and the UK, despite the fact that the UK, at least, has had a socialist government for 13 years.

And then, if more were needed, Western Europe has an ageing population which is expecting, in its retirement, to be provided for through pensions subsidised by tax exacted from a declining workforce, or through investments in economies that have interests of their own and are perfectly alert to the by no means unrealistic possibility that there may be more rewarding markets elsewhere than in the West. Russia, China, India and Brazil are creating economic links and systems that threaten the established patterns that underlay western trade dominance, and their populations increasingly look towards living standards that the West has long enjoyed at other people's expense. The West's commodity dependence opens up interesting possibilities for regimes not known for their historical restraint or charitable instincts.

Mr King suggests that the central banks misconstrue the realities and strut about in a fiction that the stable prices which probably owe to prevailing global conditions can be attributed to their sage manipulation of national interest rates. Politicians promise ever increasing standards of health, education and material well-being, instead of seeking to rein in expectations. The media are to, a large extent, uncomprehending, self-deluding or complicit. The general population, who have been encouraged by banks, mortgage companies, politicians and their own gullibility, now look around for someone to blame.

Meanwhile the growing wealth of emerging economies and sovereign wealth funds finds few outlets of investment in the West; becomes increasingly impatient with a weakening dollar; meditates upon an alternative reserve currency or trade grouping; and snakes increasingly into investments which will, in the long term, control sources of food, energy, and commodities which have hithertoo underwritten the unseasonal luxuries of the developed nations.

What is to be done about it all?

Mr King's call is for a civilised, and somewhat counter-intuitive response involving the acceptance of a relative decline in the international and economic standing of the West in general, and of the USA and the UK in particular; a proper recognition of the just and reasonable aspirations to even a modest level of comfort in the population of the world at large; a preparation for a stagnation, if not a decline, in our material standards of living; an openess to immigration (which, he daringly advances, contributes in real terms to the nation's productive wealth and not, as the marginally paranoid allege, the number of its parasitic dependents - who are, in fact, mostly home grown); and a restraint on the part of main stream politicians in the face of populist, uninformed, and unrealistic pressure. the alternative, as he sees it, would be a narrow protectionism which would contribute to stagnation and not avoid it.

All very sensible - and yet yet the West's democratic instincts are not only populist, protectionist, and conditioned by a culture impatient of self - let alone imposed - restraint but manipulated by a sensationalising and and self-indulgent media. Hereto, societies with little in the way of the traditions of human rights -which derive ultimately from christian patterns of reason and morality - may be more strongly placed to cope with emerging social pressures than the West.

Of course all predictions of the future are notoriously falsifiable, and Mr King gives ample evidence of them - think how transitory have proved the reputations of Alan Greenspan and Gordon Brown for economic omniscience, unassailable judgment, and fiscal virtue. And we may well wonder what will happen in the great emerging economies as social tensions make themselves felt, the new middle classes seek to put their hands on the levers of power, and rural populations get a sniff of the standards of living enjoyed by their manufacturing fellow countrymen. A look at the pressures released by changes in the balance of power as the West moved from agricultural to industrial status hardly suggests an untroubled future.

This is a first rate and compellingly-argued book which sets out a powerful prima facie case.

Who will answer it?

Art and Its Histories: A Reader

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A constant help., 2010-01-17
I started my Art History and Theory degree over three years ago and have now graduated with a 1st. And I can say that this text was consistently helpful throughout my studdies. There is always something to look back over whether it be a specific chapter or just a few pages. But an essential and easy to read book for any art history/theory or visual culture undergrads.

On Evil

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Berkshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides)

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Music and Sentiment

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Yemen: Dancing on the Heads of Snakes

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yemen, 2010-04-01
This excellent book deals with the the history of Yemen and how the present situation in the cocntry developed.
The history is divided into four a)1539-1918 b)1918-1967 c)1967-1990 and d)1990-2000.All the revolutions,assassinations,murders,developments of communism in the south and eventual unification are well documeented.
The second part records the development of problems with Al-Queda and terrorism.This section is very well written and erudite and the aauthor is to be congratulated.
Ther is a good bibliography and notes section but the pictures are of poor quality.
A book to be highly recommended.

A Little History of the World

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An excellent find. Essential reading., 2010-02-11
Much more serious and informative than the title suggests. Buy the hardback as you may well want to keep this book.

Well thought out themes that link ideas across the ages.

I knew most of the content but was pleasently surprised at some of the links and connections Gombrich made... that I should have picked up on.

John O'Farrell's An Utterly Impartial History of Britain is also recommended. Humourous and of course biased (!) but very well written and informative.