Average customer rating:
- Amazing!
- Recommended reading to understand the right questions
- Brilliant Futurist Architecture Built on Weak Foundations
- Not very good...
- Tomorrow Never Knows
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Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next Fifty Years
Bruce Sterling
Manufacturer: Random House
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0679463224 |
Book Description
“Nobody knows better than Bruce Sterling how thin the membrane between science fiction and real life has become, a state he correctly depicts as both thrilling and terrifying in this frisky, literate, clear-eyed sketch of the next half-century. Like all of the most interesting futurists, Sterling isn’t just talking about machines and biochemistry: what he really cares about are the interstices of technology with culture and human history.” -Kurt Andersen, author of
Turn of the Century
Visionary author Bruce Sterling views the future like no other writer. In his first nonfiction book since his classic
The Hacker Crackdown, Sterling describes the world our children might be living in over the next fifty years and what to expect next in culture, geopolitics, and business.
Time calls Bruce Sterling “one of America’s best-known science fiction writers and perhaps the sharpest observer of our media-choked culture working today in any genre.”
Tomorrow
Now is, as Sterling wryly describes it, “an ambitious, sprawling effort in thundering futurist punditry, in the pulsing vein of the futurists I’ve read and admired over the years: H. G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, and Alvin Toffler; Lewis Mumford, Reyner Banham, Peter Drucker, and Michael Dertouzos. This book asks the future two questions: What does it mean? and How does it feel? ”
Taking a cue from one of William Shakespeare’s greatest soliloquies, Sterling devotes one chapter to each of the seven stages of humanity: birth, school, love, war, politics, business, and old age. As our children progress through Sterling’s Shakespearean life cycle, they will encounter new products; new weapons; new crimes; new moral conundrums, such as cloning and genetic alteration; and new political movements, which will augur the way wars of the future will be fought.
Here are some of the author’s predictions:
• Human clone babies will grow into the bitterest and surliest adolescents ever.
• Microbes will be more important than the family farm.
• Consumer items will look more and more like cuddly, squeezable pets.
• Tomorrow’s kids will learn more from randomly clicking the Internet than they ever will from their textbooks.
• Enemy governments will be nice to you and will badly want your tourist money, but global outlaws will scheme to kill you, loudly and publicly, on their Jihad TVs.
• The future of politics is blandness punctuated with insanity.
The future of activism belongs to a sophisticated, urbane global network that can make money—the Disney World version of Al Qaeda.
Tomorrow Now will change the way you think about the future and our place in it.
Customer Reviews:
Amazing!.......2006-10-29
Tomorrow Now is essentially a long and brilliant essay by Bruce Sterling, a noted science fiction writer and futurist covering some of his ideas of what the future may hold. Sterling very cleverly breaks the book into seven parts based upon a soliloquoy from Shakespeare covering the ages of man from birth to death, and wittily prophesies what life may shape itself into in our near future.
Two things struck me about this book. The first is that it is not nearly as focused on the next fifty years as the title purports. There is a fair deal of what the future may hold, but there is also a great deal of the present thrown in (especially in the soldier section), and some futurism that is more than 50 years out. Surprisingly this didn't bother me at all because his analysis of the present, especially an exposition on three different terrorists warlords, was fascinating, absolutely fascinating. This book ranges far and wide, and colors outside the lines of the 50 years stated, but I was glad it did as I read.
The second thing that struck me was that this is one of the most amazingly well-written books I've ever read. I am not sure I have ever read something as engaging, fascinating, informative and so easy to read at the same time. I have always enjoyed Sterling's fiction work but, frankly, the quality of this non-fiction book trumps his fictional stories. His writing style is very chatty, more or less as if you are sitting across the table from him, and at first this threw me. It's not something you expect in a science book. Yet once I adjusted I realized that this may be one of the clearest pieces of writing I have ever had the pleasure to read. When I say "pleasure to read" I actually mean it. That is a phrase far too over-used, but in choosing it I mean it literally: reading the words was a pleasure regardless of what he was talking about. His sentence construction and word choices were simply pleasurable to read in and of themself, and I have never seen adjectives used so well to create shades and nuances of meaning before.
Much of the speculation for the future involves biotechnology, changes in workplace dynamics, and what we actually produce, the change of market dynamics, consumerism to end-user, medical advances, and the rift between the New World Order (the first world) and the New World Disorder (the third world). If I had one reservation about this book it is that Sterling promised to show why the Islamic terrorism today will be irrelevant in the future. I don't think he ever really did that; he set the stage for it, and provided the backstory necessary to see the writing on the wall, but he never came out and posited why. I agree with him that the terrorism is not a long-term problem but it would have been nice to see him forcefully make that conclusion. That one quibble aside, this is a book that anyone who cares about current events, the future, or science will find compelling, interesting, and incredibly easy to understand and follow. This is a first class work and I highly recommend it.
Recommended reading to understand the right questions.......2006-03-22
This is entertaining, informative, funny, and grim at the same time. A bittersweet look at the future.
When you look at the reviews, just remember that republicans will hate this book because they have a belief system impervious to the reality happening outside of their heads. They alone have the power to be right and rightness is affirmed by belief! They read Fred Barnes and John Stossel for whats really going on because they're closed and finite. Ambiguity is kryptonite to republicans.
Read this book to find out more about the small print at the bottom of the social contract. There is no threat of a New World Order. There is a New World Disorder that is already here and devolving. Order is not on the horizon anywhere except in one's own chosen orthodoxy.
Brilliant Futurist Architecture Built on Weak Foundations.......2004-02-03
Bruce Sterling is, without doubt, a brilliant futurist. In "Tomorrow Now", he serves up a feast of clever and entertaining prognostications about humanity's near future. But reader beware! The book is like a gleaming, new building whose stunning design, lavish decoration and gleaming contours can blind observers to many small architectural flaws and the crucial fact that it's built on shaky foundations.
To take one example, Sterling tells us in one paragraph that a "cruise missile ... is just a rich guy's truck bomb". But in the very next paragraph he emphasizes that there are in fact huge differences between cruise missiles and truck bombs that go far beyond the class background of their users. Cruise missiles are produced and deployed by complex, industrially advanced societies, while truck bombs are used by terrorists who operate beyond the ken of settled governments and civilized society.
Another, more serious example of some of the less-than-deep thinking that went into this book is its overall organizational gimmick, which is based on the "Seven Ages of Man" so poetically described by Shakespeare and Marlowe. Sterling emhasizes the chronological aspect of these "Ages" by labelling his chapters as stages. Stage 1 is the Infant, Stage 2 is the Student, and so on. He uses these stages as conceptual launching pads for fascinating riffs on a variety of subjects related to 21st century technology, culture and politics. In the chapter on the Infant, for instance, he writes at length about future bioengineering not just for babies but also adults and what this will mean for huminaty as a whole. In "Stage 4: The Soldier" he speculates on the nature of future warfare. Thus, Sterling is really often talking about cross-cutting themes rather that chronological ages, which is more than a little confusing. Why he did this, except that it is so cool to quote from Shakespeare, escapes me.
A final example of Sterling's inconsistency is the subtitle of the book itself: "Envisioning the Next 50 Years". In fact, he often describes trends from the late 21st century, which puts us more than 50 years ahead. So why didn't he just call the book "Envisioning the 21st Century"? Search me.
This is a great book, but Sterling's slickness can't completely compensate for these weaknesses. Cool soundbytes, technological virtuosity, cute wordplay and even large dollops of honest-to-God weighty insight are not enough to make up for some rather shoddy underlying illogic and conceptual weaknesses.
Not very good..........2004-01-12
Not very good... tries to examine the social and institutional trends, but goes into much self-serving prose.
Tomorrow Never Knows.......2003-10-27
Paradigm-shifts can stick in our collective craw like jawbreakers in a goose-neck. Galileo's carpet-pull on Ptolemy was no amateur-hour prank, and Darwin trumping Yahweh left a cantelope-sized goiter that still makes religious fundies bark and fume. Earth-shaking, yes, but taking decades, sometimes centuries to evolve their total, terraforming, reality-torquing impact -- slow-flying dreadnaughts of cultural metamorphosis whose meaning and trajectory still won't let us sleep at night.
Sterling's question is: What happens when the winds of change start storming the reality-studio at supersonic speeds? When whiplash upgrades seem to convulse the Zeitgeist every other minute? When dimensions start spinning like nerve-cells in a centrifuge, when ontology itself becomes as fluid as the global market? Leaning into the stormwinds of these queries, *Tomorrow Now* is less a bland Tofflerian forecast than a smoking flak-helmet pocked with the dents, scars, and impact-profiles of paradigm-shifts concussing like hot shrapnel.
"Apocalypse is boring," as Sterling likes to say, the last-ditch noctuary of the evangelical, the helpless, the neo-Luddite, the future-shocked. Better to encounter futurity with all the Olympian resources of the secular visionary imagination, with conceptual thaumaturgy and high comedy, with new languages to be learned and created, new disciplines picked up and dropped on the fly, a new world racing a hairsbreadth ahead of social and environmental holocausts that have always accompanied technological innovation....
But hey, enough of my hero-worshipping agit-prop, here are some snapshots from Sterling's globalist Bazaar of the Bizarre:
BIOTECH: Let's learn a lesson from our ancestor and brethren, the prokaryote -- let's pay homage to the two pounds of living bacteria that all humans carry within. In the microbe-literate society of the future, the elasticity and survival-skills of the bacterial swarm will make human cloning look like "a simpleminded stunt"(27) by comparison. Genetic engineering will heal the sick, fortify new deadly viruses, darken and transfigure every certainty, pump ontological coolants into the icy elysium of the posthuman. When evolution is reverse-engineered, becoming another stock-option in the industrial market sweep, Homo Prometheus will tap into genetic realms of unprecedented freedom, complexity, beauty, disfigurement, and terror.
EDUCATION: Whisked and pummeled by constant change, traditions will corrode, protocols will deliquesce, and canons will bloom with rot like beached whales. Fields of learning and praxis will ooze squishily from discipline to discipline, producing a steady stream of dynamic hybrids to stay on top of the market. Cultural memory will become like Leonard in *Memento* trying to reassemble and deploy his rapidly obsolescing past, swimming inside of whirlpool of innovation, competition, ecological catastrophe, and an elephant's graveyard of accumulating dead tech.
DESIGN: When things start to think, when domestic objects "love" you, when Shopping starts to look like Art and Philosophy, "visionary materialism" becomes a tasteless euphemism for a phase of cybernetic immersion that would have given McLuhan the spins. We will all be owned by our machines the way tribal peoples feel "owned" by the horizon, by the regenerative landscape of moon and tide, river and mountain, animal and insect. (In case you mistake my tone, this is not a "good" thing. It is simply inevitable.) We will all be passionate, obsessed fetishists. Think of the current ubiquity of cell-phones and telecom gear, and multiply it a thousandfold, in every direction. Trying to write "predictive" science-fiction in this maelstrom of voices and priorities will be like trying to set up a house of cards inside a wind-tunnel.
WAR: Cocksure superpowers trying to net a swarm of locusts in Fourth World zones run by pirates, drug-runners, mercs, ethnic-genociders, and cold-eyed Arab theology students jumping from wreckage to wreckage in the transnational narco-arms bazaar. Just think Belgrade, Kabul, Chechnya, Baghdad, and Mogadishu on crack. And the Third World zones of controlled anarchy embedded in every First World technocracy.
LAW, BUSINESS, POLITICS: Will there be much for governments to do in a post-ideological world, where public policy simpers beneath the windfalls of corporate underwriting, where human rights become a browser plug-in, where success and happiness is sold in terraced upgrades to graduated bidders? Will lawyers and legislators and police superstructures be installed as ornamental horticulture, migrant tenants surfing the crest of technology's raw, surging power? Will a democratic electorate retain its passion for activism and involvement, or will we vote with our money, our investments, our channel flipping, our site surfing, our zodiac of recorded purchases and credit histories?
DEATH: Sure, the Atomic Age may have decked us out in a cozy, suburban Cold War where mutually assured destruction and commie witchhunts could guarantee rigid cultural identity, war-fever eschatology, and a sober sense of imperialist mission (in short, the technocratic inheritor of Judaeo-Christian End Times), but where's the corporate payoff in that? Why not treat human mortality as another marketing-scenario to be spun, merchandized, glossed and sold? But if Sterling is right, our species may, in the end, "outsmart itself to death, [if] human knowledge is...not compatible with human survival"(264). We've burrowed too deep and too greedily into the planet to give birth and sustenance to our machines. Every species lost in the quest to infect the ecosystem with our ubiquity is a piece of the planetary survival-plan that's been irretrievably eroded by our narcissism, our fear, our all-too-human frenzy for mastery and technique, our Faustian gamble with machine-interface....
All in all, Mr. Sterling puts the Zeit in Geist, and *Tomorrow Now* has enough Plutarchan zing, erudition, and vervy wisdom to keep you buzzing for weeks. Some awesome riffs here. Kept me on tenterhooks throughout. Highest recommendation.
--for Ian Vance
Amazon.com
Scientists love to speculate about the direction research and technology will take us, and editor John Brockman has given a stellar panel free rein to imagine the future in The Next Fifty Years. From brain-swapping and the hunt for extraterrestrials to the genetic elimination of unhappiness and a new scientific morality, the ideas in this book are wild and thought-provoking. The list of scientists and thinkers who participate is impressive: Lee Smolin and Martin Rees on cosmology; Ian Stewart on mathematics; and Richard Dawkins and Paul Davies on the life sciences, just to name a few. Many of the authors remind readers that science has changed a lot since the blind optimism of the early 20th century, and they are unanimously aware of the potential consequences of the developments they describe. Fifty years is a long time in the information age, and these essays do a credible and entertaining job of guessing where we're going. --Therese Littleton
Book Description
A brilliant ensemble of the world’s most visionary scientists provides twenty-five original never-before-published essays about the advances in science and technology that we may see within our lifetimes.
Theoretical physicist and bestselling author Paul Davies examines the likelihood that by the year 2050 we will be able to establish a continuing human presence on Mars. Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi investigates the ramifications of engineering high-IQ, geneticially happy babies. Psychiatrist Nancy Etcoff explains current research into the creation of emotion-sensing jewelry that could gauge our moods and tell us when to take an anti-depressant pill. And evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins explores the probability that we will soon be able to obtain a genome printout that predicts our natural end for the same cost as a chest x-ray. (Will we want to read it? And will insurance companies and governments have access to it?) This fascinating and unprecedented book explores not only the practical possibilities of the near future, but also the social and political ramifications of the developments of the strange new world to come.
Also includes original essays by:
Lee Smolin
Martin Rees
Ian Stewart
Brian Goodwin
Marc D. Hauser
Alison Gopnik
Paul Bloom
Geoffrey Miller
Robert M. Sapolsky
Steven Strogatz
Stuart Kauffman
John H. Holland
Rodney Brooks
Peter Atkins
Roger C. Schank
Jaron Lanier
David Gelernter
Joseph LeDoux
Judith Rich Harris
Samuel Barondes
Paul W. Ewald
Customer Reviews:
Predictions, Past Present Future.......2006-07-27
Prophecy has been having a bad press lately. Despite the seeming millions of folks who either chat with a divinity, channel the dead, "solve" crimes, see ghosts or converse with aliens, not one predicted 911, the London bombings or the Indonesian tsunami. It's not just the fringe that strikes out. "Experts" routinely choose wrong whether in politics, sports, finance, entertainment or cultural trends. It's disillusioning, but the record of science is not much better in terms of "things to come". This is not to say that energy is not expended on that task. It is safe to say that the intervention of the computer, TV, car, discovery of DNA, cloning, medical advances, etc renders past predictions useless. That is one reason I liked this book so well. It is divided into 2 parts - the first philosophical, the second practical.
The first part asks basic questions to which we still have no answer - How did life start? What is life? Do aliens exist? What is the nature of gravity and the universe? How will manipulation of genes, nanotechnology and quantum mechanics affect us? These and other questions such as morality, death, artificial intelligence and life extension are also discussed in a series of brilliant essays by a wide range of (for want of a better word) "experts". The last half of the book looks at the practical side - education, politics, entertainment, happiness, love, medicine. the biggest change that a book written fifty years ago and this book is the emphasis upon biology - the manipulation of our bodies, our genes, the emerging synthesis of humans and machine.
Perhaps one of the most startling essays was THE MERGER OF FLESH AND MACHINES by Rodney Brooks who heads the MIT artificial intelligence library. It has migrated from machine to flesh over the last few years and this is the way of the future. So what will it be like in 50 years?
Most everyone agrees that we will live longer and be healthier, that computers will become smaller, faster and smarter, that we will find the cure to many diseases and that things will change even faster. If any one trend dominates, it is the increasing importance of biology for a host of social concerns - designer babies, specialized children, disease-resistant beings, mental and physical augmentation...the choices are almost endless. A few of the writers caution against taking any prediction too seriously since scientists have always overstated their case. From Drake (who said he would receive an alien message before the 21st century) to the doomsayers who promised we'd all die of famine by 1980 to those who declared a cheapt renewable energy source was here. A great summer read for the beach.
Informative .......2005-09-09
I thought this was a good book for the most part. It did get a little long winded in places and the view of the future was a bit dark for me. The author made a few very profound statements that really impacted me, but I had to sort through a lot of repetative philosophy. It started to drag at the end. I enjoyed the first few chapters the most. I think it is worth reading if you are interested in the future of science and genetics. Just be prepared to sort through a lot of words to get to the good information.
Captivating.......2005-08-07
Twenty-five scientists expound on what the world will be like in 2050. The quality in my opinion is a little spotty and too many of them preface their story with a disclaimer about the fallacy of making predictions - but well over half of them are absolutely invigorating. Each new chapter is like taste-testing a new flavor of ice cream blindfolded. They all tend to focus on big developments in their own field, as they should. My favorite approach for this assignment was by Judith Rich Harris who gave a lecture in 2050 at the age of 125. She first thanked previous scientists for the contributions they had made to human longevity. Overall, this is a superb read.
Lee Smolin - We will have a more detailed history of the universe which will constrain current theories about INFLATION...we may or may not have observed dark matter and dark energy. String Theory (its only mention in this book) will be ruled in or out by observations within a few years.
Ian Stewart - The concept of "proof" in mathematics will come under scrutiny and will survive. The use of computers in mathematical proofs will be ingrained. We will have a rigorous mathematical theory of emergent phenomenon and the high level dynamics of complex relationships.
Martin Rees - We will know how life began on earth.
Allison Gopnik - The emergence of the disciplines of philosophy of science, AI, statistics and developmental psychology will lead to a full-fledged theory of how we learn.
Paul Bloom - The fact that evolutionary considerations exist as a source of evidence in the study of psychology will no longer be questioned.
Geoffrey Miller - The charge that evolutionary psychology is a set of "just-so stories" will vanish, as we see the genetic footprints of evolution all over our brains.
Milahy Csikszentmihalyi - We will have the ability to control the genetic make-up of the human species.
Robert Sapolsky - Our traditional sources of solace will progressively atrophy...we will become sadder.
Steven Strogatz - Our brains are hardwired by evolution to visualize only three dimensions. We will be rescued from the demon of dimensionality by computers. We may end up as bystanders, unable to follow along with the machines we've built, flabbergasted by their startling conclusions.
Richard Dawkins - A patient will purchase the read-out of his entire genome for $160 (today's money). The doctor will hand out a prescription suited precisely to his/her genome. Detectives finding a blood-stain may be able to issue a computer image of the suspect's face. The "Lucy Genome Project" will create Lucy (Jurassic Park style). The existence of a living, breathing Lucy in our midst will change forever our complacent human-centered view of morals and politics.
Paul Davies - We will go to Mars.
John Holland - We will still know surprisingly little about the relationship between consciousness and neural activity. We will wear a wrist-watch sized multi-function device which assists us with all aspects of living, including social and political decisions. This will create a logarithmic increase in the number of people who routinely explore options in a principled way. We will have robotic trained assistants, but they will be brittle in unexpected situations. We will have engineered solutions to diseases and artificial immune systems. We will have flexible individual or group transport, without confinement to roads, making highway systems obsolete. Surveillance will be so advanced, privacy and freedom will be an issue. We will have bases on the Moon, Mars and circling Jupiter. This writer gets a gold star for creativity and bold predictions.
Rodney Brooks - We will perhaps be able to add a few sheets of neurons to our brains. We can expect radical alterations to the human body through genetic manipulation. What responsibilities does the individual scientist have for whatever forms of life he manipulates - or creates? Questions like these will thrashed out, accompanied by vandalism, terrorism and full-fledged war. Another gold star.
Peter Atkins - We will produce working proteins and a good synthetic approximation of cell membranes, but we will not yet synthesize life. Carbon nanotubes will be used to build suspension bridges. Bacteria, already being milked for pharmaceuticals and other chemicals, will be engineered to excrete whole machines.
Roger Schank - Knowledge will be so easy to obtain that virtual reality systems will replace schools. The creation of virtual experience will be a major industry.
Jaron Lanier - Computers files will be replaced and an alternative to protocol adherence will be found. In a wide variety of explorations, we will be limited by complexity ceilings, which cannot be breached by faster computers.
David Gelernter - The standard shape of information will be a form he calls the "information beam." The affiliated Cybersphere will replace the Internet. We will still be reading books, but most universities will be gone. Technology will be vastly more powerful but we will be less fixated upon it. A school will be a random collection of kids, each tapped into his information beam. We won't need cities any more, except as gigantic museums/theme parks/shopping malls.
Joseph Ledoux - Brain fMRI techniques will be refined enough to identify potential criminals. As we discover more about the balance between the conscious and unconscious mind, lawyers will thrash out the nature and limits of human responsibility. Drugs will treat troubled networks in the brain without affecting others, and recreational re-wiring will be available.
Judith Rich Harris - In 2016, the US government will refuse to fund any more developmental psychology studies that don't include genetic controls. The older generation of developmental psychologists will promptly retire. In 2021, it will be discovered that Neanderthals were furry, that humans and Neanderthals viewed each other as food, and that humans viewed Neanderthals as a source of warm clothing.
Samuel Barondes - Anyone visiting a psychiatrist will bring his personal DNA file. There will be hundreds of medications to choose from, matched to one's genome.
Paul Ewald - Atherosclerosis, diabetes, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, most cancers and most fertility problems will be known to be caused by infections.
There is much to mull over in the fascinating speculations and predictions in this book. Despite the shortcomings of a multi-authored book, it definitely earns FIVE ENTHUSIASTIC STARS!!!
A nice collection of prophecies.......2005-07-12
This is a nice collection of mind-stretching essays covering math, the future of happiness, swappable minds etc. The next 50 years are certainly going to be a lot fun! What a great, captivating read this book is!
-Simon
Nice book for aspiring (young) scientists.......2005-06-20
It's a good science book in its own with comments on current developments and states of many fields of science. The essays are very informational and quite easy to read. I'd say the prerequisite will be that you like reading about science. A science AP course might be helpful to a high schooler.
It is fun to learn what some of the leading scientists believe will happen during our lifetime. Of course, many of the predictions might turn out dead wrong, but even so, it is a good read for people interested in science.
Book Description
In a lucid, colorful account, Stanley Meisler brings alive the personalities and events of the first fifty years of the United Nations. It is a story filled with action and heartbreak. "Stanley Meisler tells the story of the United Nations, its promise and its problems, with clarity and authority. He brings to life the history of the world organization and a half-century of America's hopes for and frustration with world government . . . . You will learn why China is almost by chance one of five permanent members on the Security Council, how the Council's veto power was adopted at Stalin's demand, why Adlai Stevenson left his post as U.S. ambassador in lonely despair, how Kurt Waldheim hid his past to become Secretary General, how the Bush administration maneuvered the United Nations into supporting Operation Desert Storm, and much, much more. This is the definitive account of the United Nations for a general audience, told by a master." -- Jim Hoagland, chief foreign correspondent, The Washington Post
Customer Reviews:
Underrated.......2007-03-12
I cannot recommend this book enough. Get it before it disappears from the world! (It was written in 1995)
It is an easy, quick read filled with interesting quirks and quotes from the most important figures in recent history.
It provides a condensed history of crisis, war, leaders and resolutions from 1945 to 1995.
Definitely worth reading, it's the most entertaining way i have come across of learning 50 years of dynamic history.
An interesting book.......2006-08-03
Stanley Meisler's fascinating book takes us through the history of the United Nations' first fifty years. And the focus is on the UN's incredible series of disasters in international policy. We see nothing about, say, Planned Parenthood or the elimination of smallpox. But we do see U.N. involvement in one war after another.
We see the U.N. mess up as early as 1946, with Iran. Next we see the U.N. fail to defend Israel in 1948 when it was attacked by Arabs. In addition, we see how the United States managed to have its President espouse one policy (recognition of Israel) while its State Department and United Nations representative did the opposite! And we see how a U.N. mediator, Count Bernadotte, did a truly terrible job that would probably have been even worse had be not been assassinated.
The next section is about the Korean War. Even here, the UN failed to accomplish much. And then we read about Suez and Hungary in 1956. Meisler admits that the Soviet suppression of the Hungarians in 1956 "mocked the power of the U.N." I agree. But he then boasts that "settlement of the Suez crisis was one of the most spectacular single achievements of the U.N. during its first fifty years." I disagree about this, and I encourage folks to read what Arthur Herman has said about Suez this year. Herman says that Suez "destroyed the United Nations." He adds "instead of teaching Nasser and his fellow dictators that breaking international law does not pay, Suez taught them that every transgression will be forgotten and forgiven, especially if oil is at stake." This "ushered in a new era of international gangsterism" and "destroyed the moral authority of the world community." I agree with Herman here. And I think that Meisler ought to have mentioned Egypt's closing of the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping in 1956, which was significant both then and in 1967.
After this, we see further United Nations misadventures: in the Congo, with the Cuban missile crisis, with Viet Nam, and then the Six Day War, in which the UN peacekeeping force pulled out of the Sinai at once, as soon as it was actually needed. Even Meisler admits that the Six Day War dealt the U.N. a "devastating blow."
After that, Kurt Waldheim, a former member of a cavalry unit of the Sturmabteilung (also known as the Storm Troopers, S.A., or Brownshirts) became the secretary-general of the United Nations. And perhaps it should be no surprise that Yasser Arafat actually was permitted to address the U.N. in 1974 (a major turning point for the U.N. that Meisler does not even mention in this book). Meisler does discuss the infamous "Zionism Is Racism" resolution of 1975, which was finally repealed in 1991. And he does admit that this resolution hurt the U.N. badly (he shows that before this, U.S. public opinion polls generally showed support for the idea that the U.S. should cooperate fully with the U.N. at over 60%, but that after this, that support immediately went below 50%). Nevertheless, I think he still manages to underestimate the significance of this absurd resolution. I think the appointment by Caligula of a horse to the Roman Senate has finally been overshadowed by this gratuitous and cheap act of wickedness.
If a person is willing to commit a disgraceful act of violence in public to steal ten dollars, we'll all realize that this person would be even more eager to do such a thing to steal ten thousand dollars, ten million dollars, or ten billion dollars. I think that the "Zionism Is Racism" resolution is an example of the U.N. being willing to disgrace itself for practically nothing. The fact that it could do such a thing convinces me that it is capable of doing literally anything, no matter how wicked, should it get the opportunity. And that convinces me that the U.N. is dangerous and counterproductive. It also makes me very suspicious of global organizations in general. Some folks say that such organizations will eventually wind up supporting tyranny, with the worst available people rising to the top. And after witnessing the U.N. and its first fifty years, I have to agree.
Meisler does mention the hijacking of the U.N. 1975 Conference on Women by anti-Zionists. But he does not follow this up by explaining the extent to which the General Assembly became obsessed with Israel, passing one absurd resolution against it after another and confirming that the General Assembly had been reduced to an opponent of human rights and a propaganda arm of a terrorist organization.
Oh, there's more in this book, including material about Iraq, Rwanda, and Bosnia. But it is interesting to see that the U.N. has not been helpful in any of these situations. And that brings us to Meisler's conclusions. He quotes Arthur Goldberg as saying that "if the U.N. were junked, we'd have to recreate it tomorrow." I surely do not believe that. I think if one is cured of a serious illness today, the last thing one would want or need to do is fall prey to it tomorrow. And his final words in this book are "the United Nations has served the world nobly and well for fifty years." Well, he wrote these words over ten years ago. But I very strongly disagree with them. I think the U.N. has done far worse than pretty much anyone could have predicted back in 1945. And my advice is simple: outlaw the U.N. and make sure we never try to establish anything like it again.
This book is interesting and informative, so I'm giving it three stars. But I think it vastly overestimates the value of the United Nations.
a good introduction.......2003-01-31
Meisler writes in an engaging style and with an eye for the telling detail. He often manages to convey the crux of a complex situation in relatively few words. Given the length of the book, it is to be expected that the discussion is thin in places, and, of course, some fairly important elements of UN history are omitted.
I would add that the chapter on the Suez crisis is marred by a glaring lacuna: Meisler fails to mention that along with nationalizing the Suez Canal, Nasser closed off the Strait of Tiran to Israeli shipping. As a result of this omission, Israel's motivations for going along with Anglo-French adventure are left wholly unexplained. (Indeed, the question of what might be in it for Israel was never so much as raised.) Furthermore, when it comes to the war of June 1967, the full significance of Nasser's closing of the Strait on that occasion--i.e. his re-closing in violation of previous agreements--is lost.
Good for "UN 101", but a little thin.......2002-07-26
Meisler has done an excellent job in introducing the UN to the general public with a format and language that makes it an entertaining and easy read. The most intense crises that the UN faced since its creation after WWII are all here, as are some of the greater personalities like Ralph Bunche and Dag Hammarskjold.
However, the book only briefly discusses the creation of the outlying organizations of the UN family - like UNESCO, UNICEF, and FAO. I find this to be a flaw due to the fact that these are the organizations that the UN is mostly associated with today - and not the major crises of the Cold War and beyond.
But all in all Meisler has done a magnificent job that will deepen your understanding of the UN's origins, mission, potentials, and short-comings.
Essential Reading For Those Interested In World Politics.......2001-01-14
This book is a gem in terms of the analysis it presents. Its concise easy to read and broken in to parts which allows the reader to examine major events involving the united nations during the last 50 years. It of course deals with the establishment of the UN in 1945 and quickly moves to its first major test in 1948, the construction of a Palestinian settlement involving the Ralph Bunche who following his efforts received the noble peace prise. The reader gets enough information to work out exactly the main players and positions relating to many of the crisis which have faced the organisation since 1945.
The Suez crisis of 1956 and the role of the Dag Hammershold receive particular attention. It explained the establishment of the first peace keeping force to be set up with a mandate agreed by the parties to the conflict. Later under the direction of Secretary General Uthant this force was withdrawn under pressure from the Egyptian Government leading ultimately to the Six-Day war of 1967. This and many other issues like it are examined with a critical eye. The book is not shy on pointing out the failures of the organisation however in doing this one is challenged to consider whether or not we could have afforded to live the last half century without some form of internationally agreed political/security organisation.
Product Description
Includes detailed model features and specs, rare catalog reprints, classic advertisements, endorsee promo photos, and hundreds of close-up photos of these American beauties. Includes a 40-page full-color section (complete with a 2-page pullout group shot of over 60 amps!) and the choicest vintage catalog covers. Also includes sections on how amps work, basic amp maintenance, set-up tips, and detailed parts info necessary for dating and restoring Fender amps.
Customer Reviews:
great book full of information and entertainment.......2007-05-06
well, why is it that fender amps are so great? there's no one specific thing that makes old fender products so great, but some ineffible combination of form and function. Leo Fender and his cohorts throughout the 50s and 60s not only designed circuits that worked, but put them into beautifully designed cabinets - not to mention, of course, the guitars and basses that were designed to play through these items.
anyhow, this book guides the reader verbally and pictorally through the history of the design and deployment of some of the greatest sounding guitar amplifiers on earth and how they changed both in response to changing musical demands and in advance of those same demands, essentially helping to create the vocabulary of rock and country music in the world over the course of the 50s, 60s, 70s and onward.
GREAT!!!.......2005-09-26
This book is probably the most beneficial book I have ever bought! I have been really trying to get into the old vintage tube amps and when I saw this, I figured that Fender was probably the best place to start! This book is worth 5x's what they actually charge!
anorak bonanza!.......2001-11-21
To some eyes, a paean to the mecca of tone. To others, a Geek Fiesta. The casual rock fan/guitarist will find at least something in this - plenty of luscious photes of delightful old grandpa amps of the sort that spur observations of the They Just Don't Make Them Like They Used To variety. The owner of a Fender Amp will be thrilled and excited to be able to identify in exacting detail how old and rare his (or her) beauty is, and from what era it comes from. But pity his (or her) friends.
It's a worthy, thorough, not especially flamboyant book for anyone else. But given the subject matter, you can hardly scold messrs Teagle and Sprung for that.
an excellent history.......2001-10-05
This is a seemingly very complete history of all fender amps and effects boxes - a pleasure to read and full of good gossip too. Detailed descriptions of the advances introduced with each line, as well as tube specs! I wish it had a collector's value/price guide as well, but perhaps that is hard to generalise.
Fender Amps: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know...(and more).......2001-10-02
This book is a 'must' for any guitar player, collector, hobbyist or afficianado who loves electric guitars and Fender amps. It provides a wealth of information on every aspect of Fender amplifiers and traces the development of Fender amps from the very first models manufactured during the company's beginnings in the mid-1940s up to the most recent models of the 1990s. In addition to detailed descriptions of each model there are many excellent color photos which illustrate the stylistic changes that occurred as amp designs were improved and developed and provide the reader with a delightful visual catalog of the entire Fender amp 'family', including all the 'classic' models sought after by collectors and players alike. For anyone who has an interest in vintage guitars and amps, this book is the definitive reference book on the subject.
Book Description
A compendious anthology of women's writing on film.
As viewers, actresses, directors and writers, women were centrally involved in cinema throughout the first half of the twentieth century—indeed film-going was the most important way in which women participated in the era's urban mass culture. However, the significance of women's early contributions has until now remained scant and dispersed, eclipsed in historical opinion formed through the texts of men.
In magisterial scale and including extracts from Woolf, HD, Flanner and others, Red Velvet Seat restores this film culture to visibility, using women's written accounts to understand the significance of cinema for them.
With birth control pioneer Marie Stopes, novelist Virginia Woolf, social reformer Jane Addams, Imagist poet H. D., New Yorker correspondent Janet Flanner, black actress Fredi Washington, labor organizer Mary Heaton Vorse, psychoanalyst Barbara Low, suffragist Lillie Devereux Blake, and lesbian activist Barbara Deming.
Average customer rating:
- The Ransom Center is better than this!
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Collecting the Imagination: The First Fifty Years of the Ransom Center (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Imprint Series)
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0292714890 |
Book Description
The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the world's preeminent institutions for the study of literature, photography, and the humanities. The Ransom Center is renowned for its remarkable collections of literary manuscripts, rare books, photographs, art, and film and performing arts materials. Founded in 1957 with a core collection of rare books, the Ransom Center has expanded its holdings at a phenomenal rate, so that it now houses 36 million leaves of manuscripts, 1 million rare books, 5 million photographs, and one hundred thousand works of art. Among its most famous holdings are a Gutenberg Bible; the Helmut Gernsheim Collection, a major photohistorical archive that contains the world's first photograph (ca. 1826); the Carl H. Pforzheimer Library of Early English Literature; the Watergate papers of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein; the archive and costume collection of Robert De Niro; and the personal literary archives of hundreds of major twentieth-century writers, from Samuel Beckett and James Joyce to Tom Stoppard and Norman Mailer.
This volume celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of the Harry Ransom Center. Staff members describe the Center's founding, the remarkable growth of its collections as part of a thoughtful and deliberate acquisition plan, and its extensive outreach to scholars, students, and the general public. They pay tribute to the leadership of Harry Ransom, who conceived the idea of a research center in the humanities that would be for the state of Texas what the Bibliothèque Nationale is for France. The authors also tell fascinating stories of how individual collections and archives were acquired, as well as some of the controversies and myths that have arisen as a result of the Ransom Center's liberal spending and rapid growth. Photographs of treasures from the Ransom Center and key figures in its history round out this lovely and authoritative volume.
Customer Reviews:
The Ransom Center is better than this!.......2007-03-26
While many of the cultural treasures of the Harry Ransom Center are beautifully displayed in this "history" of the Center,this sweetened, coffee-table version of that history is generally flat, without heart or excitement, and steps around the personal conflicts, the financial and political obstacles, that so frequently, and for so long, stood in the way of its growth and the availability of its holdings to the full spectrum of students, scholars, and broader public who now have eased access in person and online.
Having spent the full fifty years, and more, from the birth of the Ransom Center to this birthday, this reader had the privilege of sharing in the broad partnership of campus libraries who overcame initial suspicion and helped provide financial, technological and people skill support to bring the Ransom Center to its present recognition -- collaborations ignored, and inaccuracies included that could have been avoided.
One can hope that the remarkable kind of leadership that its present director brought to the management of this international wonder can be continued in the future, the Center flourish ... and a more imaginative reflection on the Center will some day do it justice.
Average customer rating:
- Wonderful Lassie Biography
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Lassie: A Dog's Life, The First Fifty Years
Ace Collins
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0140231838 |
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful Lassie Biography.......2005-04-25
This is a fantastic biography of the most famous canine in Hollywood history - Lassie. From Lassie 1 to Lassie 8, this book gives the reader a true history of Lassie, from 1938 to 1993. Full of wonderful photographs. A great companion book to this one is The Legacy of Lassie, An Unauthorized Information and Price Guide on Lassie Collectibles.
Average customer rating:
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Helicopters in Combat: The First Fifty Years
John Everett-Heath
Manufacturer: Arms & Armour
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1854090666 |
Average customer rating:
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Television: The First Fifty Years
Rh Value Publishing
Manufacturer: Random House Value Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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| Romance
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ASIN: 0517328186
Release Date: 1982-03-31 |
Books:
- Up from Slavery (Dover Thrift Editions)
- Walter: The Story of a Rat
- Way of Aikido, The: Life Lessons from an American Sensei: Life Lessons from an American Sensei
- What Jesus Meant
- When God Winks at You: How God Speaks Directly to You Through the Power of Coincidence
- Where Have All the Leaders Gone?
- Why Didn't I Learn This in College?
- Winning
- Wired (Fearless)
- Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture
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