Amazon.com
Professor David S. Landes takes a historic approach to the analysis of the distribution of wealth in this landmark study of world economics. Landes argues that the key to today's disparity between the rich and poor nations of the world stems directly from the industrial revolution, in which some countries made the leap to industrialization and became fabulously rich, while other countries failed to adapt and remained poor. Why some countries were able to industrialize and others weren't has been the subject of much heated debate over the decades; climate, natural resources, and geography have all been put forward as explanations--and are all brushed aside by Landes in favor of his own controversial theory: that the ability to effect an industrial revolution is dependent on certain cultural traits, without which industrialization is impossible to sustain. Landes contrasts the characteristics of successfully industrialized nations--work, thrift, honesty, patience, and tenacity--with those of nonindustrial countries, arguing that until these values are internalized by all nations, the gulf between the rich and poor will continue to grow.
Book Description
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is David S. Landes's acclaimed, best-selling exploration of one of the most contentious and hotly debated questions of our time: Why do some nations achieve economic success while others remain mired in poverty? The answer, as Landes definitively illustrates, is a complex interplay of cultural mores and historical circumstance. Rich with anecdotal evidence, piercing analysis, and a truly astonishing range of erudition, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations is a "picture of enormous sweep and brilliant insight" (Kenneth Arrow) as well as one of the most audaciously ambitious works of history in decades.
Customer Reviews:
Everyone should read this book.......2007-08-08
Landes is the man, and this book pretty much sums it up. His primary thesis, that when humans are given the freedom to be innovative and pursue their own interest, is familiar from Adam Smith, but Landes does it better, it's a convincing argument. Culture is the determining factor in the success and failure of nations, not chance, not geography, not even resources, and Landes makes it obvious, it seems.
Take this book if you are willing to question.......2007-06-30
I had already read Guns, Germs and Steel so was braced for a lot of redundant concepts in "The Wealth and Poverty of Nations" by Professor Landes. 500+ pages later though, this is the clear winner on the subject. More reasonable and deeper in the theories, backed by many examples, interspersed with an easy reading of summarized histories that allow the reader to put it all together.
My recommendation to anyone out to read this book would be to take a "beginners' mindset," understand the hypotheses, and feel free to subsequently cross-reference on the historical data points if left unconvinced by some. All the nonsense propaganda that we are fed with in the early years of our lives makes this task that much more challenging, but that much more important as well.
A good antidote to PC view popular now.......2007-04-02
I found this book very interesting but a little directionless. His basic premise that culture not geography (or evil Europeans) is a large factor in where a country stands today. Notice I said large factor not the only factor which his detractors claim he says. As to my complaint on the writing, I enjoyed all the information but I feel it could have been funnelled toward his basic point better it was a little scattershot. Most of the 10 or so detractors I read either used falsehoods or distortions for their complaints. The point about the chopsticks was a tiny point but true! Why do parents teach babies dexterity exercises with those toys. And to the guy who claimed that Landes said all Asians are frugal you must have read a different. He did say that throughout Asia Chinese are the middle class managers. Anyone who goes to that part of the world knows this to be true. One final point He did show the flaws in European (especially the Iberean Peninsula) thinking but horror of horrors when you are evaluating numerous cultures for 1 issue- economic- 1 is going to come out on top and say it loud and say it proud WESTERN CIV. provides the best overall life for human beings
Trampled to Death with Footnotes!.......2007-02-12
I found Landes' opinion to be just that--his opinion. An interesting opinion, although it seemed to be backed up more by anecdotal evidence than hard data. But then there's not a lot of hard data on the subject he's dealing with: namely, why did Western European nations (and their progeny, the USA and Canada) come to rule the world while other cultures that began with great promise ended up backwaters?
Landes' answer is a comforting one to lots of First World people: our culture has just always been geared more toward success, we have the traits of successful people, so we succeeded. Is it true? Well, I'm not real big on eugenics, but if you take a dispassionate look around the globe (perhaps with Jared Diamond as your tour guide), it does seem to look that way. That's Landes' view and he's pretty persuasive about it; and even if you disagree, the examples he cites are interesting in themselves.
But what is with the avalanche of footnotes? Every few sentences, just as you get in sync with the argument Landes is putting forth...there's another asterisk or dagger jolting your eye down the page to some digression that makes you forget what you were reading in the first place. It's sort of manic and disorienting, to the point where I just finally stopped even looking at the footnotes. It would have been much better to have made them endnotes; then they wouldn't be so distracting, and could be read all at once by those so inclined. Publisher, for the love of God move the notes when you put out the next edition!
Interesting economic history.......2006-12-14
This is a great look at world economic history and thinking about why the world developed the way it did. It focuses on two distinct ideas
1. Why did the west (Europe and the United States develop before the east)
2. Why did the north develop before the south
The first question is answered very well and many factors including free trade, cultural decisions, and superior technology. The north and south question is much harder to answer and needs more economic analysis which is lakcing here.
It took time for this book to grow on me but once it did I was very excited to read it and loved it by the end. I highly recommend it for those who want to get a sense of world history.
Book Description
The first and possibly the greatest sociological study of poverty in 19th-century London. Mayhew and his collaborators explored hundreds of miles of London streets in the 1840s and 1850s, gathering thousands of pages of testimony from the city's humblest residents. A classic reference source for sociologists, historians, and criminologists.
Customer Reviews:
View into the underbelly of Victorian England.......2007-10-23
The book is heavily referenced in Theodore Dalrymple's "Life at the Bottom" and due to the impact of that work, I placed an order for Mayhew's classic work.
Personally, for a survey of the side of London that Merchant Ivory films tend to miss, this book isn't the way to go.
Ideally, this should be a resource for Sociologists like Dalrymple or perhaps criminologists.
The extensive statistics and, frankly, difficult to decipher language of that time, make for a tedious read for the layperson.
Book Description
In this new and expanded edition of Chossudovsky's international best-seller, the author outlines the contours of a New World Order which feeds on human poverty and the destruction of the environment, generates social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife and undermines the rights of women. The result as his detailed examples from all parts of the world show so convincingly, is a globalization of poverty.
This book is a skilful combination of lucid explanation and cogently argued critique of the fundamental directions in which our world is moving financially and economically.
In this new enlarged edition -which includes ten new chapters and a new introduction-- the author reviews the causes and consequences of famine in Sub-Saharan Africa, the dramatic meltdown of financial markets, the demise of State social programs and the devastation resulting from corporate downsizing and trade liberalisation.
Published in 11 languages. More than 100,000 copies sold Worldwide.
Customer Reviews:
Another brilliant book by Chossudovsky!.......2007-04-16
Chossudovsky is a brilliant economist and a burning torch for the truth that people are unable to see, hear, or accept due to the propaganda schemas that are embedded in their minds (like a microchip programming) by the global media cartel and the political demagogues.
Chossudovski analyzes the past and the present in relation to debt, globalization, and international financing. He dispels the myth of the good samaritan (like the IMF, the World bank, and the Federal Reserve, etc) that destroys economies of other countries, and impoverish them under the guise of capitalism (actually corporate socialism) and freedom, in order to own them. He clearly elucidates the dollarization process and its role in the New World Order. This book makes a powerful reading that sheds the light on a vanishing truth. I would highly recommend this volume to anyone who is interested in world finance as well as their future, and the future of their children.
Brilliant and Comprehensive.......2006-05-06
Although it saddens me to see a strong literature emerging today that was largely anticipated and ignored by people like David Barnett with his Global Reach work in the 1970's, it is a good thing that strong voices like those of this author are now making very comprehensive documented cases for how corporate power and privatized wealth are collapsing nations, bankrupting economies, and impoverishing more and more people unnecessarily.
The table of contents of this book is extraordinarily details and brilliant in its organization. Although the book is mostly case studies that one can read through rapidly if accepting of the author's key points, this may well be one of the finest itemizations of the ills of the 21st century: corporate power run amok, privatization and concentration of wealth (which is, incidentally, one of the precondition for revolution), the collapse of national and local economies (e.g. Wal-Mart), the dismantling of the welfare safety net in most countries, and the outbreak and spread of famine and civil war.
The author is probably the foremost scholar and commentator on how the "free" market is not so free, and how the existing capitalist system is predatory, aided by locked in privileges that the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank impose on nations foolish enough to accept their intervention. In this the author is consistent with Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty) who has put forward the need for a complete make-over of developmental economics, to include an end of the normal business practices of the IMF and the World Bank.
I was tempted to remove one star for lack of sufficient reference to the works of others, but the personal insights and comprehensive review caused me to leave the ranking at five stars. I see a clear pattern emerging in the literature (see my other 700+ reviews) and what I am waiting for is for someone to cut the spines off all these books and "make sense" of the total picture in a manner comprehensible to the indivdual voter.
If we are to restore informed democracy and moral capitalism, this book is one of the foundation stones.
A rigged free market system.......2006-03-30
M. Chossudovsky attacks head on the New World Order imposed by the World Bank (WB0), the IMF and the WTO, calling their economic 'reforms' enforced on countries in distress not less than genocides.
Their 'free market' system is rigged. The WTO agreements grant entrenched rights to the world's largest financial and industrial conglomerates, derogating the ability of national governments to regulate their economies. The IMF programs enforce governments to privatize big chunks of their national economy, liberalize their markets and downsize social provisions (education, health, social security).
Their 'free' market system is synonym of human poverty, destruction of the natural environment, social apartheid, racism and ethnic strife, undermining of women's rights, economic dislocations, forced displacements, landless farmers, shuttered factories and jobless workers.
More, he accuses the IMF of supporting the appropriation of global wealth by speculators through manipulation of currency and commodity markets. It even manipulates itself its economic statistics in order to show that its policies work. Finally, it cooperates with warmongerers and 'peace keepers'.
He illustrates his verdicts with a host of examples.
Somalia: the entire social fabric of the pastoralist economy was undone through duty-free beef and dairy products from the EU.
Rwanda: the restructuring of the agricultural system precipitated the population into destitution, leading to a genocide.
Ethiopia: the Structural Adjustment Programme caused starvation.
Bangladesh: a devaluation and price liberalization exacerbated famine. Deregulation of the grain market meant dumping of US grain surpluses.
Brazil: enhancement of social polarization by supporting the land-owning class.
Peru: after liberalization, the price of bread increased more than 12 times.
Russia: helping the oligarchs.
India (Andhra Pradesh): repeal of minimum wages and support of caste exploitation
Yugoslavia: serving the strategic interests of Germany and the US by cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics.
Korea, Thailand, Indonesia: the vaults of the central banks (100 billion $) were pillaged by international speculators. The bail-outs of those countries were underwritten and guaranteed by the same Wall Street banks involved in the speculative assaults.
The author proposes a solution which will be extremely difficult to implement in our actual world, where media and governments are controlled by the powerful: democratization of the economic system and ownership structures, disarming of speculation, redistribution of income and wealth and rebuilding the Welfare State.
Michel Chossudovsky's book constitutes a devastating denunciation of an inhuman system sold by economic strangulating wolves clad in sheepskins.
It confirms the forceful analysis of globalization by Joseph Stiglitz.
A must read.
I also recommend a voice from the South: Walden Bello.
The Road to Serfdom.......2005-01-11
I was originally born in Uganda and I can assure you that Africans have always been suspicious of the so-called "aid" they receive since it almost always comes after a crisis that they can't quite explain (like how did a bunch of poor, illiterate preteens get the money to buy those fancy weapons, or why won't aid agencies buy food from the local farmers and distribute THAT).
Suspicions and rumors are insufficient to counter what appears, on the surface, to be international generosity. That is why I am grateful for Chossudosky's contrarian masterwork. It confirms the fears and suspicions regarding a return to colonialism and economic slavery. The fact that Chossudosky was willing to put his career on the line to write this hard-hitting book is worthy of our attention. He shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that there is a deliberate and systematic campaign of "economic genocide" against Africa and all other resource-rich regions. Neoliberalism have mastered the British colonial-era double-speak of "liberty", "democracy", "markets", etc. "Market liberalization" is nothing more than armed robbery. And "investment" is really nothing more than "asset stripping". The Adam Smith phraseology of free-trade and free markets is used, much like their British predecessors, to recolonize the world. Chossudosky shows how the "Washington Consesus" has embarked on a foreign policy strategy of economic sabotage and "strangulation." As Kissinger famously ordered, in the now declassified National Security Memorandum 200, Africans should be kept from becoming consumers of their own raw materials.
Chossudosky does an enormous favors to us neophytes by decoding the neoclassical econo-babble. His brilliant deconstruction of IMF structural adjustment policies is worth the price of this book alone. But he goes beyond that. He shows how nations can be brought to their knees through currency devaluations and speculative attacks. The whole cynical process of creating the crisis then blaming it on the victims, i.e. the "Asian" Crisis which is in fact an American Crisis, or the excuse used to maintain Odious Debt on impoverished nations: "their corrupt leaders are to blame for the Odious Debt". Yes but those "corrupt" leaders were trained at American military bases (much like the 9/11 hijackers), and are killing us with American made weapons (thanks again Kissinger). Besides, everytimes Africans (or Latin Americans) try to put a reformer or socialist democrat in power, he develops a nasty habit of being assisinated.
This book will make you angry at how long and how often you've been lied to. Everything you thought you knew about economics will be tested as the Machiavellian machinations of international creditors, grain companies, and financial "investors" is revealed in page after riveting page. I also recommend Michael Hudson's Super Imperialism and Horowitz' Emerging Viruses. If it's not out of print then get The Merchants of Grain. Some publishing companies are refusing to publish some of these books because of their controvesial nature so get them before they're made "out of print".
"There are none so blind . . . ".......2004-03-29
With the North American governments and their media flacks noisily championing "economic liberalisation", dissenting voices are muted. The voices of those most directly affected by "globalisation" are fainter yet. Michel Chossudovsky attempts to overcome the raucous proponents of "international free trade" with an examination of just what it does and how it impacts civil societies. The picture he provides isn't pleasant. However, turning away will not cause it to fade from lack of our attention. In fact, reading this book is an eye-opening, if not eyebrow raising experience.
Among the rare critics of globalization Chossudovsky has "on-site" credentials beyond his academic base. He's been on the scene of several nations subjected to International Monetary Fund and World Bank policies. He examines the results of these and other international financial agencies' policies. From Chile through Rwanda to Somlia and Korea, he shows how a new form of warfare is under way. Conquest no longer requires bullets to occupy a nation nor suppress a people. Conquerers now wield position papers, American dollars or Euros and trade impositions. Surrender agreements come in the form of "conditions" accompanying loans and investments. These dicta result in the stripping away of social programmes, alienation of subsistence farm holdings and displacement of vast numbers. These people, deprived of income, traditions and opportunity have become a new breed. They are the hopeless poor for which no amount of "aid" can provide succour.
As he demonstrates repeatedly, the mechanism is simple. The formation of the IMF gave financiers, chiefly North American, a cudgel to change governments, force farmers and pastoralists to convert to cash crop economies, and reduce or eliminate government services. The initial steps were instituted by the Bretton Woods conferences designed to restore nations devastated by World War II. Private financial institutions imposed conditions on loans granted to recovering countries. "Recovering" countries rapidly expanded into "developing" countries as these institutions recognised the value of cheap labour in them. Accepting "foreign investment" led to indebtedness difficult to repay. Defaulting was unacceptable to both borrower and lender, leading to new rounds of loans. These, however, rarely reached the borrowing nation since the new funds were set against the older debt. "Servicing the debt" meant imposition of stringent conditions, ranging from privatisation of services, amalgamation of small land holdings to produce crops to be purchased cheaply, but sold at inflated prices. The consumers of these goods are you and your neighbours.
Each of the nations Chossudovsky examines suffers the same schedule of "structural adjustment programmes" imposed by the IMF. These SAPs outline the changes a nation must endure to receive the "benefits" of globalization. Restrictions on outside investment must be eliminated, with the concomitant privatisation of state-owned facilities and services. Where workers aren't laid off, their wages are frozen or reduced. Local currencies must be adjusted to American dollars, which has the impact of intense inflation spirals almost overnight. The result is a populace under increasing pressure, marginal or famine-stricken and powerless. Civil unrest isn't an option, since disruption brings reprisals - often, of course, the withdrawal of investment, failure to renew loan guarantees or simply real military action.
Although the repetitive nature of the manipulations of the financial institutions on national sovereignty leads Chossudovsky to some redundancy, the reader should understand we are dealing with a global crisis. "Bitter medicine" and "bitter irony" recur, because the circumstances he describes are redundant. An imposing and sometimes intimidating account, he is careful to shift the responsibility to institutions rather than consumers. It is, however, the developed country consumer that provides motivation for many levels of the problem. Chossudovsky's analysis is thorough, well-founded and expressive. He shows why social unrest in "developing" countries is the result of imposed conditions, not unstable populations and environments. That he offers little in the way of solutions for the predicament the world now suffers is only testimony to the immensity of the task ahead. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Book Description
Unflinching reports of London's poor from a prolific and influential English writer
London Labour and the London Poor originated in a series of articles, later published in four volumes, written for the Morning Chronicle in 1849 and 1850 when journalist Henry Mayhew was at the height of his career. Mayhew aimed simply to report the realities of the poor from a compassionate and practical outlook. This penetrating selection shows how well he succeeded: the underprivileged of London become extraordinarily and often shockingly alive.
Customer Reviews:
Indispensable: Portraits of Victorian Working Class People.......2004-09-15
This review refers to the Penguin Classics edition of Henry Mayhew's 'London Labour and the London Poor' which is an abridged version of the original four volume version published in 1851-52.
Though Henry Mayhew wrote several novels, his name is primarily remembered as the author/complier of this journalistic work 'London Labour and the London Poor.' The present selection gives the best part of the original four volume book, which captures exactly what the title says -- London labour and the poverty-stricken people living there.
The selction includes some figures or statistics about the working class people, such as the estimated amount of money these workers gain every day (and meagre one), but the most interesting part is the first-hand records about the ways of life of various lines of works in London, directly taken from the people engaged in these works.
The jobs (and some of them hardly deserve the name 'jobs') recorded here are, to name a few, street-sellers such as fried fish, watercresses, matches, baked potatoes, etc.; street-buyers such as old clothes or 'dust'; street-performers like 'conjurors,' musicians, or fire-eaters (with his own descriptions about how to eat fire), but the most fascinating is the records about boys (and some girls) who run away from parents, and lives in the street of London, who literally lives by begging or stealing.
Many interesting facts are recorded by Mayhew (or his assistants), directly from the persons the book deals with, and the original words spoken by there labourers are preserved as much as possible. To read, or to listen to them is one of the greatest merits of the book, for the languages of the interviewees retain the peculiar speeches you find in many Dickensian characters, and in fact you will realize that Dickens didn't exaggerate when he created Sam Weller.
And the London you see here is the London Charles Dickens knew. What did Jo in 'Bleak House' was sweeping in the street? Who gave that permission? What is the nature of 'the dust' you hear in 'Our Mutual Friend'? What was the regulations of the 'workhouse'? All these thing are answered in this vividly realized collections of the Victorian working class portraits.
This book is still a valuable source for anyone who is interested in Victorian period, and will be. Buy one now.
Look up "humour" in the Britannica. This is it........1999-08-17
Henry Mayhew, having created this delightful encyclopoedia of humanity, has probably been ripped off more frequently than any writer since Shakespeare. His characters are so animated they have jumped full-fleshed from the pages of his books into the works of many another humorist or novelist, and we all owe more to him than we can know.
While the living conditions suffered by the poor were truly deplorable, Mayhew might have enjoyed the company of street people more than that of his peers. He put so much life into his characters we can see them, hear them, smell them. I only wonder what the street people thought about Mr. Mayhew, the journalist who bought them beers,inveigled invitations to tea, listened tirelessly to their stories. Mayhew is neither sentimental nor brutal, but rather a true and tolerant humourist, and I believe that, for all the misery depicted, his work was undertaken with great, and contagious, joy.
A must-read for those interested in Victorian England.......1999-07-10
Henry Mayhew, founder of Punch magazine, wrote this four-volume sociological classic during the 1850's. If you are at all interested in the Victorian era, in British history, in London, or in urban history in general, this is a must-read. The Penguin version is abridged and is a distillation of the "best" of the multiple-volume set. This distillation is itself over 500 pages, so imagine the impact of the entire set! The utter destitution of the London poor is set out in such vivid detail than one cannot help being shocked at the conditions human beings were forced to live in in the greatest city of its time. The only fault I find with this book is Mayhew's occasional lapses into preaching. Otherwise a fine book
Customer Reviews:
This American GIrl--.......2007-09-11
Girls of Many Lands books completes my set. This is a wonderful story for girls of all ages. I have 5 granddaughters and they all read this series. Highly recommended.
Amazing Book.......2006-05-23
I love anything to do with Irish dance (I'm an Irish dancer) so this book was especially great to me, but it would have been a wonderful, historic story no matter who was reading it, and I give it five stars. A wonderful, inspiring story!
Miracles happen.......2006-02-20
Kathleen, a twelve year old Dublin girl, is living among a struggling family in the early depression. When she shows up late to her strict, Catholic school a few to many times, the nuns suggest she enroll in Irish dance lessons in order to keep out of trouble. Upon the first lesson, she finds that she loves Irish dancing--and has a talent for it. The only problem is, her family has many financial problems, which ends the dream that never was.
Kathleen does not give up hope. When she is chosen to represent her class in a competition, she is thrilled, but finds herself in need of a miracle. With her mother's declining health and her family's lack of money, all she can do is pray for a miracle.
Beautifully written, and a very sweet addition to the Girls of Many Lands series.
Kathleen/The Celtic Knot by,Emelia Rose.......2005-03-17
Do you like books about different places and the people who live there?This book is about a girl named Kathleen who lives in Ireland.I think that it is a good book,becouse it teaches you about how you should never give up on something.I realy liked it and would give it a four star rating.It tells you how her life is and gives you an idea about how life might be growing up in Ireland.I think that the book Kathleen/The Celtic Knot is one of the best books I've ever read!
Miracles Happen.......2005-01-11
The year is 1937, and twelve-year-old Kathleen Murphy lives in the poverty stricken part of Dublin, Ireland, where she is made fun of for her torn clothes, and has a hard time making it to school everyday, what with having to try and help her Mother with the other children. It is only when strict Mother Rosario recommends that Kathleen begin taking Irish dance lessons, to keep her out of trouble and give her something constructive to do in her spare time, that Kathleen finds something in life that she loves more than anything. However, when Kathleen is chosen to dance at the feis - a dance competition - she begins feeling badly that she is so selfish as to pray to God for a special costume to wear, as her Mother is sick in bed. It is only when her marvelous Aunt Polly comes up with a fabulous idea for Kathleen's costume that she realizes that miracles do happen.
I have read three GIRLS OF MANY LANDS books since Christmas, and I will admit that KATHLEEN: THE CELTIC KNOT is one of my favorites. Kathleen is a wonderful character, whose fabulous spirit, and friendly nature will make her an appealing character to readers of all ages. Siobhan Parkinson has done a lovely job with the story of Kathleen, and has added many wonderful facts about life in Ireland during the 1930's which will attract history buffs. Overall, this is a wonderful addition to the GIRLS OF MANY LANDS book series.
Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper
Book Description
The practical realities of everyday life are rarely described in history books. To remedy this, and to satisfy her own curiosity about the lives of our ancestors, Liza Picard immersed herself in contemporary sources - diaries and journals, almanacs and newspapers, government papers and reports, advice books and memoirs - to examine the substance of life in mid-18th century London. The fascinating result of her research, Dr. Johnson's London introduces the reader to every facet of that period: from houses and gardens to transport and traffic; from occupations and work to pleasure and amusements; from health and medicine to sex, food, and fashion. Stops along the way focus on education, etiquette, public executions as popular entertainment, and a melange of other historical curiosities.
This book spans the period from 1740 to 1770-very much the city of Dr. Johnson, who published his great Dictionary in 1755. It starts when the gin craze was gaining ground and ends just before America ceased being a colony. In its enthralling review of an exhilarating era, Dr. Johnson's London brilliantly records the strangeness and individuality of the past--and continually reminds us of parallels with the present day.
Customer Reviews:
Dr. Johnson's point of view, expressed via Liza Picard.......2007-06-28
I'm enjoying this book! I'm almost done with it and I am finding the information very interesting.
I've always wanted to know what London was like back in the pre-Victorian days and this book attempts to do just that.
Since the excerpts were taken from actual written documentations (eg: Dr. Johnson's diaries,etc.)---in other words, a person that was actually there. Liza Picard was merely the person that compiled all the information for this book.
Therefore, I'm reading this book by keeping this fact in mind.
The language expressed in this book may sound "old fashioned" because most of the excerpts were written by a pre-Victorian Era person, and also that person lived in London. Thus, there is a difference between reading a book written today in modern English, as opposed to the written English style of a century ago. (I actually enjoyed reading the written "old fashioned" English excerpts).
There are not alot of photos in this book, so if you are looking for a picture book ,then this book may not be of your liking.
Instead, this book is categorized into various chapters regarding pre-Victorian London (ie:such as the political occurences of the times, or for example the medical view points of a century ago, etc...). Each chapter discusses the aspects of "old" London, as seen through the eyes of the people that were there at that time.
Eminently Readable History.......2007-01-09
New to Liza Picard's writing I so enjoyed this very readable historian I ordered the rest of her titles. The book portrays the lives of the common 'man in the street' as well as many facts of the period.
As a regular reader of History, I find Liza's slightly lighter approach refreshing - even her footnotes are humorous and enlighten the reader, rather than confuse.
A fascinating insight to a city I love.
Eighteenth Century London: A facinating place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live there!.......2007-01-04
This book looks deep beneath the surface of London society during the Age of Enlightment and describes in minute detail what life was really like for one and all, from the lowest street urchin to the royal family. The daily struggle for existence by London's residents is covered -- all those unsavory things you probably didn't learn in history class. Overflowing cespits, Orphans apprentenced into professions where an early death from industrial pollutants was a near certainty, bakeries that regularly adulterated their bread with caulk, these are just a few of the many examples found on these pages. No detail is overlooked: What they wore, what they did for fun, the cost of living, the cost of dying, the capricious justice system under which a significant number of lawbreakers managed to avoid punishment, even for murder, while an unlucky few were hanged for crimes that today would draw only a small fine.
I highly recommend Dr. Johnson's London to anyone who is looking for an in-depth look at Georgian London.
London 1740-1770.......2006-09-06
I stumbled on Liza Picard's books quite by chance. After looking at the publishing date in some of the books it is apparent some of them have been around for several years. I am now recommending them to anyone and everyone and I am so glad I stumbled across the first one I read on a rainy afternoon, lonely and far away from home. I have now read them all.
As soon as you start to read the book it becomes apparent that the author is passionate about her subject and wants the reader to enjoy the reading experience as much as she has in the writing of it. Liza Picard presents an enthralling picture of how life in London was really lived. The book is about the period from 1740 to 1770 when many great men walked the streets of London, among them Hogarth, Fielding and Dr Johnson. Names that are well known in history, but the author puts meat on the bones and brings these people to life for the enjoyment of the reader.
Liza Picard was born in 1927. She read law and qualified as a barrister but did not practice. Quite where she gleaned all this information from I am not sure. That it was a labour of love is obvious to anyone who reads her books and I for one am grateful.
About the era of Samuel Johnson, not about Johnson himself.......2005-08-15
Picard covers an era of British social history, the 1700s, that has received relatively little attention. The book is divided into four parts: The first part covers London's infrastructure, and the other three parts cover the three major socioeconomic categories: poor, "middling," and rich, although the rich get rather little page space. There are over 50 illustrations.
This book is reminiscent of an encyclopedia: For each heading there is a description of one-to-five paragraphs, making this an easy book to jump around in as the spirit moves you. A less charitable description would be to say that the style is disjointed. The amount of detail is impressive, and the reader is given a thorough introduction to daily life of that era. The author often launches into remarks that are intended to be humorous. I imagine this was done so the book would not be dry reading, but her comments often seem gratuitous or disruptive to the flow of the material. There is very little here specifically about Samuel Johnson; this is a book about his era, not about him.
I preferred a very similar book, "1700: Scenes from London Life" by Maureen Waller. Waller's book covers the identical material (50 years earlier) and has a more cohesive style of writing.
Average customer rating:
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Poverty, Progress, and Population
E. A. Wrigley
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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A Farewell to Alms: A Brief Economic History of the World (Princeton Economic History of the Western World)
ASIN: 0521529743 |
Book Description
E.A. Wrigley, the leading historian of industrial England, exposes the inadequacy of what was once accepted wisdom regarding England's industrial revolution and suggests what he believes should replace it. He examines the issues from three viewpoints: economic growth; the transformation of the urban-rural balance; and demographic change in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In addition, he shows why England's early modern economy and society grew faster and more dynamically than its continental neighbors.
Book Description
In the 1790s, for the first time, reformers proposed bringing poverty to an end. Inspired by scientific progress, the promise of an international economy, and the revolutions in France and the United States, political thinkers such as Thomas Paine and Antoine-Nicolas Condorcet argued that all citizens could be protected against the hazards of economic insecurity. In An End to Poverty? Gareth Stedman Jones revisits this founding moment in the history of social democracy and examines how it was derailed by conservative as well as leftist thinkers. By tracing the historical evolution of debates concerning poverty, Stedman Jones revives an important, but forgotten strain of progressive thought. He also demonstrates that current discussions about economic issues -- downsizing, globalization, and financial regulation -- were shaped by the ideological conflicts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Paine and Condorcet believed that republicanism combined with universal pensions, grants to support education, and other social programs could alleviate poverty. In tracing the inspiration for their beliefs, Stedman Jones locates an unlikely source-Adam Smith. Paine and Condorcet believed that Smith's vision of a dynamic commercial society laid the groundwork for creating economic security and a more equal society.
But these early visions of social democracy were deemed too threatening to a Europe still reeling from the traumatic aftermath of the French Revolution and increasingly anxious about a changing global economy. Paine and Condorcet were demonized by Christian and conservative thinkers such as Burke and Malthus, who used Smith's ideas to support a harsher vision of society based on individualism and laissez-faire economics. Meanwhile, as the nineteenth century wore on, thinkers on the left developed more firmly anticapitalist views and criticized Paine and Condorcet for being too "bourgeois" in their thinking. Stedman Jones however, argues that contemporary social democracy should take up the mantle of these earlier thinkers, and he suggests that the elimination of poverty need not be a utopian dream but may once again be profitably made the subject of practical, political, and social-policy debates.
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant Historical Underpining to Sachs' Current Work.......2006-04-04
It is very disappointing to see so little information provided by the publisher on this book, not even a table of contents. The time has come for Amazon to demand a higher standard of due diligence by publishers.
For those who wish to immerse themselves on the pros and cons of the debate over poverty, this is an essential intellectual foundation to the current work by Jeffrey Sachs who is both the advisor to the Secretary General of the UN on the Millennium project, and the head of the Columbia Earth Institute.
Thomas Jefferson said that "A Nation's best defense is an educated citizenry." He probably would have agreed to amend that to say an educated, healthy citizenry able to work. A historical appreciation of the phrase "pursuit of happiness" suggests that Jefferson actually meant, in lieu of selfish pleasure, the pursuit of self- actualization.
This book completes a circle with C. K. Prahalad's "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," which suggests that there is a four trillion a year marketplace among the five billion poorest, and that unleashing their entrepreneurial initiative could save the world, and the definitive work by Jeffrey Sachs, on how can end poverty for $70 per year per person.
Book Description
As events highlight deep divisions in attitudes between America and Europe, this is a very timely study of different approaches to the problems of domestic inequality and poverty. Based on careful and systematic analysis of national data, the authors describe just how much the two continents differ in their level of State engagement in the redistribution of income. Discussing various possible economic explanations for the difference, they cover different levels of pre-tax income, openness, and social mobility; they survey politico-historical differences such as the varying physical size of nations, their electoral and legal systems, and the character of their political parties, as well as their experiences of war; and they examine sociological explanations, which include different attitudes to the poor and notions of social responsibility. Most importantly, they address attitudes to race, calculating that attitudes to race explain half the observed difference in levels of public redistribution of income. This important and provocative analysis will captivate academic and serious lay readers in economics and welfare systems.
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The Workhouse: An Everyday Tale of Ultimate Degradation
Simon Fowler
Manufacturer: The National Archives Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1905615035
Release Date: 2007-03-09 |
Product Description
We are all familiar with the moment when Oliver Twist dares to ask for more and his subsequent abuse at the hands of the workhouse system. Charlie Chaplin was another workhouse inmate and Florence Nightingale an outspoken critic of the system. These were institutions, we popularly believe, where families were torn asunder and the sick and needy subjected to the grimmest of regimes. What kind of society saw a solution in this uneasy mix of compassion and deterrence? And why did the workhouse strike terror into people's hearts so long into this century? This popular history conducts a full tour of the workhouse from 1696 to 1948. It draws upon The National Archives' (UK) unique and personal accounts of inmates and staff. For those interested in researching further - including their own pauper ancestors - the book contains a guide to the sources.
Books:
- The Working Poor: Invisible in America
- Tough Choices or Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce
- Tough Choices or Tough Times: The Report of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce
- Toward a North American Community: Lessons from the Old World for the New
- Training to See: A Value Stream Mapping Workshop: A Value Stream Mapping Workshop (Lean Enterprise Institute)
- Transfer Pricing Methods: An Applications Guide
- Understanding Emerging Markets: Building Business Bric by Brick (Response Books) (Response Books)
- A Thousand Barrels a Second: The Coming Oil Break Point and the Challenges Facing an Energy Dependent World
- Accident Prevention Manual for Business & Industry: Administration & Programs (Occupational Safety and Health) (Occupational Safety and Health Series (Chicago, Ill.).)
- After the Washington Consensus: Restarting Growth and Reform in Latin America
Books Index
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Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
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The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists' Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics
Development as Freedom
