History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Book Description

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

Customer Reviews:

Has history been tampered with?.......2007-10-23

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RAZQNMXM4M9CL Has history been tampered with? Yes, it has! Did events and eras such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Roman Empire , the Dark Ages, and the Renaissance, actually occur within a very different chronology from what we've been told? Yes, they certainly did!

The history of humankind is both drastically shorter and dramatically different than generally presumed.

Why is it so? On one hand, it was usual custom to justify the claims to title and land by age and ancestry, and on the other the court historians knew only too well how to please their masters. The so called universal classic world history is a pack of intricate lies for all events prior to the 16th century. World history as we learn it today was entirely fabricated in the 16th-18th centuries. It's likely that nobody told you before, but

there is not a single piece of firm written evidence or artefact that is reliably and independently dated prior to the 11th century.

Naturally, after what you've learned in school and university, you will not easily believe that the classical history of ancient Rome, Greece, Asia, Egypt, China, Japan, India, etc., is manifestly false.

You will point accusing finger to the pyramids in Egypt, to the Coliseum in Rome and Great Wall of China etc., and claim, aren't they really ancient, thousands of years ancient? Well, there is no valid scientific proof that they are older than 1000 years!

The oldest original written document that can be reliably dated belongs to the 11th century!

New research asserts that Homo sapiens invented writing (including hieroglyphics) only 1000 years ago. Once invented, writing skills were immediately and irreversibly put to the use of ruling powers and science.

The consensual chronology we live with was essentially crafted in the 16th century by the Jesuits.

The world history was compiled from contradictory mix of innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts and other irrefutable proofs delivered by late mediaeval astronomers that were cemented by the authority of writings of the Church Fathers.

Early in life, we learn about ancient history. Children love the magical lessons of history - they are like fairy tales. Teachers recite breathtaking stories; very soon We learn by heart the names and deeds of brave warriors, wise philosophers, fabulous pharaohs, cunning high priests and greedy scribes.

We learn of gigantic pyramids and sinister castles, kings and queens, dukes and barons, powerful heroes and beautiful ladies, emaciated saints and low-life traitors.

Ancient history is based documents, manuscripts, printed books, paintings, monuments and artefacts - called primary sources.

The problem is that neither these ancient documents, nor events described therein can be irrefutably dated, moreover they contradict each other for the most part.

When a school textbook tells us that Genghis Khan in year X or Alexander in year Y, have each conquered half of the world, it means only that it is so said in some of the written sources.

There are no answers to simple questions:

When were these primary sources written?

Where and by whom were these sources found?

It is wrongly presumed that ancient and medieval chronicles, written by Genghis Khan's or Alexander the Great contemporaries and eyewitnesses, are readily available. Actually, only sources written hundreds or even thousands of years after the events are there, compiled mostly in the 16th 18th centuries, or even later.

As a rule, these sources suffered considerable multiple manipulations, falsifications and distortions by editing. At the same time,

innumerable originals of ancient documents under various pretexts were destroyed in Europe under various pretexts.

The names of persons and geographical sites often changed meaning and location during the course of the centuries.

Geographical locations became clearly defined on maps only with the advent of printing.

This made possible the circulation of identical copies of the same map for purposes of the military, navigation, education and governance tasks.

Historians from Oxford say: "hey, everybody knows that Julius Caesar lived in the first century B.C.

`Julius Caesar' statement is only a point of view as

there is simply no irrefutable documentary proof that Julius Caesar or any other great name of antiquity ever existed.

Better than that - extremely rare sources that can be reliably dated back to the 10th-14th centuries A D, do not show the polished picture of classical history.

They show a picture both contradictory and confusing.

All methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts are erroneous:

Radio-carbon C14 method produces dating with exactitude of plus minus 1500 years, therefore it is too crude for dating of events in historical timeframe!

The Almagest tractate, which lies as corner stone contemporary chronology, compiled in the 2nd century A D by Ptolemy, the founding father of astronomy, contains astronomical data of 9th to 16th century!

The Bronze Age,that has supposedly began 5000 years ago. Bronze is made of 90% copper and 10% tin, but the technology for tin extraction dates back to 14th century A D!.

All eclipses contained in manuscripts, like Thucydides one, relating 'ancient' events have exclusively medieval dating. All horoscopes cut in stone or painted in Egyptian temples, like Dendera have exclusively early medieval dating solutions.

Not quite what you have learned in school? Open your eyes, and, you will find sufficient proof to reach step by step the inevitable conclusion that the classical chronology is false and therefore, that the history of ancient and medieval world universally accepted today, is also false. Have a fresh outlook on everything said or printed about "ancient" and "enigmatic" Roman, Greek and Egyptian, medieval as well as all other "lost and found" civilizations.

Antiquity and Dark Ages are phantoms invented in the 16th 18th and polished in 19th 20thcenturies. Human civilization is in fact barely 1000 years old!

This book will change your perception of History forever!
What if Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt were invented during Renaissance?
What if The Old Testament was a rendition of events of the Middle Ages?
What if Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 AD?
Sounds Unbelievable?
Not after you've read "History: Fiction or Science?" by Anatoly Fomenko, the genius mathematician.
Armed with astronomy and computers Anatoly Fomenko turns History into a rocket science.

Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03

Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.

Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19

Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.

Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09

There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.

For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

Very Interesting.......2007-03-07

It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.

Culture and Development: A Critical Introduction

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Culture and Development: A Critical Introduction
Jane Haggis , and Susanne Schech
Manufacturer: Blackwell Publishing Limited
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Policy & Current Events | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Development & Growth | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Economic Policy & Development | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0631209514

Book Description

This book introduces students to new ways of thinking about culture and development. The book integrates the recent scholarship in the area of cultural studies within the existing frameworks of development studies, which have primarily focused on issues of political economy and structural transformation. Rather than viewing culture as simply an attribute of the societies undergoing development, this text critically examines how development itself operates as a cultural process. The authors draw on theories of modernity, poststructuralism and post-colonial studies to show how development institutions, processes and practices are inevitably caught up in a web of cultural presuppositions, values and meanings.The authors use the themes of gender, tradition and identity, human rights and new communication technologies to explore the challenges that processes of cultural change pose to conventional understandings of development. The book concludes by considering the move beyond development to a post-development paradigm.The book is made up of thematic chapters which include outlines and overviews of the specific topics, as well as case studies to illustrate the issues. The authors have designed the book specifically for students and teachers and the material included has been class-tested during their own teaching.

Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems

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A Good Book--But No Longer Pertinent.
2068
Very convincing
why this stock market book should crash
Worth the effort, but still...

Why Stock Markets Crash: Critical Events in Complex Financial Systems
Didier Sornette
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0691118507

Book Description

The scientific study of complex systems has transformed a wide range of disciplines in recent years, enabling researchers in both the natural and social sciences to model and predict phenomena as diverse as earthquakes, global warming, demographic patterns, financial crises, and the failure of materials. In this book, Didier Sornette boldly applies his varied experience in these areas to propose a simple, powerful, and general theory of how, why, and when stock markets crash.

Most attempts to explain market failures seek to pinpoint triggering mechanisms that occur hours, days, or weeks before the collapse. Sornette proposes a radically different view: the underlying cause can be sought months and even years before the abrupt, catastrophic event in the build-up of cooperative speculation, which often translates into an accelerating rise of the market price, otherwise known as a "bubble." Anchoring his sophisticated, step-by-step analysis in leading-edge physical and statistical modeling techniques, he unearths remarkable insights and some predictions--among them, that the "end of the growth era" will occur around 2050.

Sornette probes major historical precedents, from the decades-long "tulip mania" in the Netherlands that wilted suddenly in 1637 to the South Sea Bubble that ended with the first huge market crash in England in 1720, to the Great Crash of October 1929 and Black Monday in 1987, to cite just a few. He concludes that most explanations other than cooperative self-organization fail to account for the subtle bubbles by which the markets lay the groundwork for catastrophe.

Any investor or investment professional who seeks a genuine understanding of looming financial disasters should read this book. Physicists, geologists, biologists, economists, and others will welcome Why Stock Markets Crash as a highly original "scientific tale," as Sornette aptly puts it, of the exciting and sometimes fearsome--but no longer quite so unfathomable--world of stock markets.

Customer Reviews:

A Good Book--But No Longer Pertinent........2007-10-07

I could not enjoy this wonderful book with the knowledge that the unprincipled 41st and 43rd Presidents of the United States have negated all the time-tested principles of good investment strategies. The oil-rich Arab nations will soon officially join Israel and North Korea who demanded that aid (free money) be paid in Euros. The harsh freezing winds of ignoring the laws of God and man are on their way. These winds are going to rip through America's financial institutions like George H.W. Bush and the CIA ripped through the S & Ls. Like Bush's friend, Ken Lay, ripped out the hearts of hard working Americans with his Enron scheme. Before you invest ten cents of your savings in the stock market you had better take a 110 minute crash course in financial survival. If these people didn't care about the state of California, what makes you think they'll care about you? Go now, this very second, and rent the documentary, "The Smartest Guys in the Room". I'm, Bob Miller, the creator of the FreeStockSystem.

2068.......2007-07-17

1 Lorenz Weather equations: The vertical axis is time, which goes from 0 to 5 in this plot. For each time, the third dimension in perspective show the probability distribution of the wind velocity v: the maximum of the initial bell-shape distribution corresponds to the best initial guess of what is the present state of the system. The width of the bell-shape curve quantifies the initial uncertainty of our observations: we perform an initial measurement of the wind velocity and we know that any measure has some uncertainty, here quantified by the probability that the true initial condition deviates from the best estimate corresponding to the peak. As the peak decreases in amplitude and widens this suggests increasing uncertainty in the value v.

2. "Regions of decreasing uncertainty may exist in chaotic dynamics." Increasing the forecast horizon does not always lead to a degradation of the prediction, in contrast to standard views on chaotic dynamics.

3. English mathematician F.P Ramsey proved that compete disorder is impossible. Every large set of numbers, such as an ensemble of financial price series or points or objects, necessarily contains highly regular patterns. The relevant question is then, to figure out how many stars, numbers, or figures are required to guarantee a certain desired pattern. How probable is it to find a certain pattern in a given set? 50 of the 400 week intervals since 1910-1996 were chosen at random. The terms of the fit parameters correspond with three crashes in 1929, 1962, and 1987. "The probability that the log-periodic component results from chance is about or less than one in twenty."

4. A crash is not the critical or singular point itself, but its triggering rate is strongly influenced by the proximity of the critical point: the closer to the critical time, the more probable is the crash.

5. The Law of One price, states that two assets should sell for the same price. If the price differs in two markets, a profitable opportunity arises to sell the asset where it is overpriced and buy where it is under-priced. "Clearly, a noise-free stock market with all information available occupied by fully rational traders of infinite analysis abilities would have a very small trade volume, if any." A significant number of traders exhibit rational behavior. Information is incomplete and stock traders have limited abilities with respect to analyzing the available information. The market becomes rational if there are many heterogonous agents working on limited information. Perfectly rational investing won out, not because it was perfect, but because it was useful. "The machinery behind market rationality is that each investor, using the market to serve his or her own self-interest, unwittingly makes prices reflect the investor's information and analysis." The irrationalities should be studied concerning how they aggregate in the complex, long-lasting, repetitive, and subtle environment of the market.

6. What makes a share in a company valuable? It is earnings, which provide dividends and its potential appreciation, which gives rise to capital gains. Goldstone modes are the zero-energy infinite-wavelength mode fluctuations that attempt to restore broken symmetry. Value today is equal to its expected value tomorrow discounted by the discount factor. In the bubble component, there is not dividend! The bubble is playing the role of the Goldstone mode. "The bubble price can wander up or down and, in limit where it becomes very large in absolute value, dominate over the fundamental price, restoring the independence of the price with respect to dividend." Goldstone modes appear spontaneous since it has no energy cost, the rational bubble can be spontaneous without any dividend. There is a competition between the increasing growth of the company and the decreasing impact of dividends further in the future due to the effect of the discount factor. The increasing growth of dividends tends to raise price. Dividends are reduced to a risk-adjusted growth rate. When the risk adjusted growth rate becomes equal or larger than the discount rate, the fundamental valuation formula becomes meaningless. The price is the sum of all future presently adjusted dividends. Speculative phases are often stopped by successive increase of the discount rate. 1929 (3.25% to 6%), 1990 in Japan ( 2.55 to 6%)

7. The Crash Hazard rate quantifies the probability that a large group of agents place sell orders simultaneously and create enough of an imbalance in the order book for market makers to be unable to absorb the other side without lowering prices substantially. Cooperative behavior results from imitation. "Our working hypothesis is that agents tend to imitate the opinions of their connections." "A crash occurs when order wins. In stable markets buyers and sellers balance out each other, normal times are when disorder wins. When the imitation strength K gets close to a special critical value Kc, a very large group of investors share the same opinion, a may act in a coordinated way, an abrupt drop in price, infinite slope K/Kc, a crash occurs. "New demographic, technological, or economic developments prompt spontaneous innovation in financial markets and the first wave of investors and innovators become wealthy. Then imitators arrive and overdo the new techniques. In the ensuing crises, latecomers lose big before regulators and academics put out fires."

8. Log-periodic equation: Flp(t)=A2 +B2(tc-t)^m2*[C*Cos(w*log(tc-t)/T))]. Decimal year 365 days=1.00 year, Oct 19, 1987 = 87.800 or 1 day=.00274

9. Oct 19, 1987: A2=412, B2=-165, tc=87.74, C=12, w=7.4, T=2, m2=.33 Oct 1929: A2=61 B2=-0.56 Tc=29.84 C=0.08 W=5 T=3 M2=0.63

10. For a few weeks after the crash, a exponentially decaying sinusoidal function emerged. For a few weeks after the crash, a single dissipative harmonic oscillator, with a characteristic decay time of about one week equal to he period of the oscillations.

11. "The concept that emerges here is that the organization of traders in financial markets leads intrinsically to systemic instabilities, which probably result in a very robust way from the fundamental nature of human beings." "The global behavior of the market, with its log-periodic structures that emerge as a result of the cooperative behavior of traders, is reminiscent of the process of the emergence of intelligent behavior at a macroscopic scale that individuals at the microscopic scale cannot perceive."

12. It is estimated that the 25 companies that make up one-third of S&P500 index of market capitalization earn roughly half of their income from non-US sources. Oct 1987, to carry the bull-run, the market need to sustain corporate earnings, if not the cycle of rising prices would wither, concern over earnings may have been the straw that broke the camels back.

13. Bubble pathology: a. The bubble starts smoothly with some increasing production and sales or demand for some commodity in an otherwise relatively optimistic market. B. The attraction in investments with good potential gains leads to increasing investment with leverage coming from international investors. Price appreciation occurs. C. This in turn attracts less sophisticated investors, leveraging is further developed which leads to the demand for stock rising faster than the rate at which real money is put into the market. (earnings) D. At this stage, the behavior of the market becomes weakly coupled or practically uncoupled from real wealth. E. As price skyrockets, the number of speculative investors decreases and a period of nervousness starts until a point when the instability is revealed and the market collapses.

14.Pollution: Life expectancy, which the best overall index of the pollution level, has improved markedly as the world population has grown. Food: There is compelling reason to believe that human nutrition will continue to improve into the infinite future. Land: The amount of agricultural land has increased substantially, and is likely to continue to increase where needed. Natural Resources: Natural resources will progressively become less costly, hence less scarce, and will constitute a small proportion of our expense in the future. Energy: The long-term impact of more people is likely to speed the development of cheap energy supplies that are almost inexhaustible. Standard of Living: per capita income is likely to be higher with a growing population than with a stationary one. Human fertility: the contention that poor breed without constraint is wrong. Population growth: Even though the population for the world is increasing, the density of population on most of the world's surface will decrease.

15. Parabolic Trend to get the (a,b,c coefficients of the Log peridocity function)
a. Create a Price Y column and input a range of prices then sum the prices into a variable called SumY
b. Create a time interval called X representing a numeric value. For example (1..n) and sum these values with the label SumX
c. Count the number of price values and store in a variable called n
d. Xmean=X/n
e. Create a column labeled x where x=X-Xmean values
f. Create a column labeled x^2 where x^2=x*x and sum values into a variable SumX^2
g. Create a column labeled x^4 where x^4=x*x*x*x and sum values into a variable SumX^4
h. Create a column labeled x times Y=x*Y and sum values into a variable Sumx_times_SumY
i. Create a column labeled x^2_times_Y=x*x*Y and sum into a variable Sum_x^2_times_Y
j. Solve for coefficients a,b,c where
Equation 1: SumY=a*n+c*Sumx^2
And
Equation 2: Sumx^2*SumY=a*Sumx^2+c*Sumx^4
And
Equation 3: b=Sumx_times_Y/Sumx^2
k. Solve for c using substitution of values into Equation 1 and Equation 2. Here's how. Multiple equation 1 by sumx^2-1, canceling the a coefficient and solving the c coefficient value.
l. Substitute the c coefficient value into equation 1 and solve for the a coefficient value
m. Substitute values for Sumx_timesY and Sumx^2 into Equation 3 and solve for the b coeffient.
n. Plot the curve using the Y and x columns and a new column called Yprime where Yprime=a+b*x+c*x^2

Very convincing.......2007-07-07

Buy low and sell high: In trading stocks this cliché is obvious, but its ramifications can be extremely painful for all those involved, as well as many who are not, especially when a large collection of traders act in concert and engage in massive sell-offs. Financial bubbles, stock market crashes, and out-of-control speculation have been the subject of countless books and research papers and dozens of Hollywood movies, and mathematicians, economists, systems analysts, and financial engineers have spent thousands of hours of time attempting to understand and predict financial meltdowns, all with varying degrees of success. Some of these researchers have argued that it is the large-scale, collective properties of the financial markets that must be understood if stock market crashes are to be predicted or at least anticipated quantitatively.

The author of this book, a geophysicist by training, is one of these and has taken the "buy low-sell high" strategy and some straightforward mathematical constructions to give an interesting and plausible explanation of why stock markets crash. Intuitively, traders synchronously try to buy low and sell high, and a "herding effect" results in a rapid sell-off that results in a market crash. This behavior is analogous to what one observes in physical systems that are close to a `critical point', where they can undergo `phase transitions' and their behavior as they near the critical point has been shown to be "universal" in the sense that quantities called `scaling exponents' can be calculated explicitly and measure the "universality" of the systems near the critical point.

Naturally the stock market crashes of 1929 and 1987 are ones that that will stand out in every reader's mind and ones that must be test examples for the author's assertions. He discusses these two examples and many others in enough detail that a convincing case is made. The techniques he uses however are out of the mainstream of econometrics, and no doubt some in this mainstream will there be highly skeptical of his conclusions. The physicist-turned-financial engineer however will be delighted, as there will be many familiar concepts and constructions throughout the book. There may be a few new ones to such a reader however, such as `algorithmic complexity' and `computationally irreducible'. The clarity of the author's writing and the many real-world examples that he employs makes the assimilation of these concepts and others much more palatable than would be the case in a standard mathematical monograph on the subject. In addition, the techniques he uses can be applied to areas of finance that are not discussed in the book, such as the mortgage "antibubble" in net credit losses for second-lien (HELOC) loans that began in the second quarter of 2006. And with respect to applications, the author is honest enough to note that he refrains from discussing many of them in detail since his involvement in them is strictly proprietary. Most refreshingly, charts, graphs, and tables appear throughout the book, as would be necessary in the validation of any algorithm or predictor in financial theory.

There are also many interesting "toy models" in the book that enhance the didactic quality. One of these concerns the dependences that can occur in successive price variations. The author constructs a model where there is zero correlation but where one can predict the current price variation with an accuracy of over 50% by only knowing the variations in the past two days. This example serves as a good counter to the idea that the frequency distribution and two-point correlation function must always be non-zero in order to obtain successful prediction. The author goes on to use this example to show how "drawdowns", rather than the correlation structure, play the predominant role in measuring price changes. This example, among others, also illustrates the author's belief that the "standard" models in the financial industry have great difficulty in dealing with large financial crashes.

Although the author uses somewhat elementary mathematics in the book, its implications are profound. One will find for example discussions of log-periodic oscillations in hierarchical systems, the renormalization group, and complex fractal dimension. Central to the author's case is the concept of discrete scale invariance, which is a specialization of the continuous case, and which is manifested in real data by log-periodic oscillations. These should be viewed as corrections to simple power law scaling. The author discusses a few natural systems that exhibit log-periodicity, such as bats and dolphins, and in evolutionary biology. He also discusses other examples in mathematics such as the Newcomb-Benford law. Pre-crash stock market data is fitted to expressions that have log-periodic corrections to a pure power law and the validity of the fits discussed in great detail. The author's arguments are powerful and convincing, and the formalism that he outlines needs to be part of every financial analyst's toolbox.

why this stock market book should crash.......2006-11-09

After reading the book, I still didn't know why stock markets crash other than it's a greater than 3-sigma event. However, one doesn't need this book to find that out. Just a quick glance at any major stock market indices for the last 100 years indicates that crashes occur only rarely. But more to the point, how does one use any of the data presented by the author to develop a safer strategy for investing in the market? The author never once definitively enumerated the specific "a priori" signs, indications, or patterns indicative of an impending crash.

While the author presents diverse data and arguments as to why stock markets have crashed in the past, she never assembles them into an integrated and cohesive postulate as to why they really do. Nor does she take the data and extract information for predicting future trends. This book was written too early in the developmental cycle of any unified theory purporting to quantify any stock market behavior. Once I finished the book, I had this nagging feeling that this book was a "publish or perish" driven event.

If you must spend money on stock market investing, buy a simple and inexpensive book on stock charting or candlesticks or visit a John Murphy internet website. You'll have a better probability of determining a downtrend following a double top or a head and shoulder formation than you will predicting an imminent stock market crash based on any of the disintegrated data discussed in her book. And when all is said and done, who cares about why stock markets crashed? What any reasonable investor wants to know is what the market is going to do tomorrow, next month, next year, and between now and the time one retires. And that trend has always been positive in spite of the rare three-sigma events to the downside.

Worth the effort, but still..........2005-12-21

This is a very interesting book, with some intriguing propositions about the nature of stock market bubbles and crashes, but saying this there also seem to be some fundamental problems with the positions being taken. Perhaps the largest reservation I have with the arguments in this book is that they presume that financial markets are governed by the same kind of invariances as physical phenomena, which is the only way it seems to me that these arguments can be expected to hold. These assumed 'invariances' take the form of "fundamental prices," "efficient markets," and "rational expectations," the proofs for which are by no means established in anything close to the same degree as the Galilean local invariances to which they are being compared. I also found it difficult to determine whether the author does or does not advocate equilibrium theories of markets, which again are highly dubious assumptions in regards to actual markets (especially General Equilibrium assumptions, which have been definitively refuted at least as far back as 1968, with Roy Radner's "Competitive Equilibrium Under Uncertainty"). However, saying all this, the author does present an intriguing analysis of crashes being quantitatively different from the regular activity of stock markets, and he does provide some plausible techniques for perhaps discovering when these differences are present.
Still, for this treatment, as for most treatments purporting to be able to statistically identify trends in as nonstationary an environment as the stock market, the feeling I keep returning to is the same one articulated by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Eugene Wigner in his seminal paper "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences" in which the question is asked "How do we know that, if we made a theory which focuses its attention on phenomena we disregard and disregards some of the phenomena now commanding our attention, that we could not build another theory which has little in common with the present one but which, nevertheless, explains just as many phenomena as the present theory?" (and this question was being asked in the context of the natural sciences, which as mentioned before are actually subject to local invariances, which are themselves not above suspicion...).
For a more realistic and grounded treatment of physics and finance, I would definitely recommend Dynamics of Markets by Joseph L. McCauley (who is coincidentally another reviewer of Sornette's book), as well as the writings of Giovanni Dosi, who is unique among economists for his emphasis on empirical support and verification of his theories and models. In addition, I would suggest that anyone interested in this book should also read "Comment on recent claims by Sornette and Zhou," which is a disclaimer by Anders Johansen, who was a recent collaborator with Sornette.

The WTO And Anti-Dumping (2 Volume Set) (Critical Perspectives on the Global Trading System and the Wto)

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The WTO And Anti-Dumping (2 Volume Set) (Critical Perspectives on the Global Trading System and the Wto)

Manufacturer: Edward Elgar Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 1843766027

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This two-volume set contains a careful selection of the most significant papers on anti-dumping. These important articles have not only shaped the policy debate in this area but have also substantially influenced how we think about the use and role of anti-dumping in trade relations today. After an initial look at some classic articles, the collection provides an overview of the past two decades of academic research on this subject. The contributions are both empirical and theoretical with the emphasis being on the economic rather than the legal analysis involved. The volumes make these papers easily accessible to a wide audience, including academics, policymakers and all those concerned with anti-dumping issues.

Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government (A Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy Book)

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First rate
Government as the source of all evils...
Well researched classic
More significant now than ever
The hogs of war

Crisis and Leviathan: Critical Episodes in the Growth of American Government (A Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy Book)
Robert Higgs
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 019505900X

Book Description

Few topics are as timely as the growth of government. To understand why government has grown, Robert Higgs asserts, one must understand how it has grown. This book offers a coherent, multi-causal explanation, guided by a novel analytical framework firmly grounded in historical evidence. More than a study of trends in governmental spending, taxation, and employment, Crisis and Leviathan is a thorough analysis of the actual occasions when and the specific means by which Big Government developed in the United States. Naming names and highlighting the actions of significant individuals, Higgs examines how twentieth-century national emergencies--mainly wars, depressions, and labor disturbances--have prompted federal officials to take over previously private rights and activities. When the crises passed, a residue of new governmental powers remained. Even more significantly, each great crisis and the subsequent governmental measures have gone hand in hand with reinforcing shifts in public beliefs and attitudes toward the government's proper role in American life. Integrating the contributions of scholars in diverse disciplines, including history, law, political philosophy, and the social sciences, Crisis and Leviathan makes compelling reading for all those who seek to understand the transformation of America's political economy over the past century.

Customer Reviews:

First rate.......2007-04-05

Crisis and Leviathan is a hard hitting and imaginative book about the growth of government in the United States throughout the 20th Century. It is this book which has made Higgs into a modern intellectual giant of classical liberalism/libertarianism amongst the likes of Richard Epstein, Murray Rothbard, James Buchanan, Douglas North, Paul Craig Roberts, Walter Block and Hans Hermann-Hoppe.

Robert Higgs' Crisis and Leviathan is a lucid and scholarly tract with painstakingly researched references, footnoted and jam packed with nuggets of analysis which may modern historians pass by without a second thought. The reason for this can be easily pointed out. During the 20th century the dominance of functionalist in sociology has swayed many historians to embrace the growth of government as an outcome of civilized society. Therefore they tend to think of the growth of government as an exogenous factor; as if it magically appears out of thin air.

Unlike the previous reviewer, I don't think that Higgs' book is just another rehashing of libertarian theory or ideology (If it were we may ask - is this a rewriting of the Libertarian Manifesto by Rothbard or Capitalism and Freedom by Friedman; my answer would be hardly). Higgs is hardly unimaginative; in fact he is a creative thinker with a penchant for understanding history while incorporating economic theory. Anyone who would question this would profit by actually spending some time reading the theoretical section of this book instead of skimming it. Here Higgs demonstrates within a few pages a technically sound method of understanding and interpreting facts of historical value. No one is questioning the originality (Weber or Spencer thought it up before him, for example - do we need to mention Schumpeter, who is mentioned extensively) of his argument, only its application to the growth of government in the United States during the 20th century. (1st - that is the thesis of this book. 2nd - If you don't believe that government did grow - then you need a few more history lessons.)

Higgs, unlike the many of his modern conservative contemporaries, thankfully disdains war and like Robert Nisbet carefully shows why the `will-to-power' is so attractive to conservatives who are in a position to abuse it. From this vantage point it is easy to envision Higgs scorn for the dominant ideology, one which has lead to the rise of what he calls participatory fascism. He points out decisively and consistently that each successive crisis during the 20th century has begat questions by the `public' of how the government can and ought to fix the problem and ultimately "do something" to fix it.

Under the wave of new legislation, property rights by regulation are eroded concurrently so that its ownership is no longer de facto, yet still de jure. Higgs employs Schumpeter's analysis contained in `Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy' to formulate a similar conclusion to what C. Wright Mills' called (who was not a libertarian; neither was Schumpeter for that matter - it is truly amazing that someone can be a Marxist and a scholar or a Neo-Con and a scholar, but when it comes to being a libertarian and a scholar, then your intentions are no longer pure) totalitarian democracy in his famous `Sociological Imagination.' Although Higgs focus tends to gravitate towards the welfare/warfare state, rather than the gradual socialism of Schumpeter.

Higgs does tend to gloss over some historical details or the periods without crisis. While some may claim that this is inconsistent or incoherent, his reasoning doesn't seem off base to me. Its difficulty lies in the functionalist progressivism, which is more reactionary than revolutionary.

Although many assertions appear to be sweeping to some, his references are well documented and scholarly. Again, this frees him from being bogged down by anything other than the question which is pertinent to his thesis. Higgs, although selective, tastefully intertwines his historical accounts while showing how his theoretical model works. Interestingly enough, the answer that he comes up with is that ideology drives history. Again, this may be nothing new to an astute scholar; but is certainly path breaking for those who are stuck in the never-never land of pure materialism, like so many in the economics profession.

In fact, this is not an escape hatch, but a demonstration of how history used to be understood. What ultimately drives the plans of man is an ideological vision of the world, not merely the interplay of things. This was the error of many neo-classical economists, who desperately wanted to show that men were mere profit maximizers or the economic man; which has little or no way to explain the appearance of Marxism, for instance.

If his book is a polemic, then there is no question his ideological pedigree. Fortunately, unlike so many other recent scholars, he is not hiding it. After all, it is truly unfortunate that most modern scholars feel it necessary to conceal their political and philosophical origins in order to give them a false air of objectivity. (In fact, Higgs quotes Mises, as a hardcore libertarian, within the first page of the book.) This may be a reason to attack his core ideas, but I found that Higgs was no pure ideologue.

If anything, his more recent books, like `Depression, War and Cold War' are considerably more radical.

Government as the source of all evils..........2006-07-09

This book is somewhat intriguing. It is indeed an authoritative scholarly account of the growth of government in the United States, and for that reason only well worth reading. However, there is a pervading subtext of libertarian conspiracy theory about governmental power in the book that leaves the reader wondering if the author might not be masquerading a scholarly endeavour (that in itself is very rewarding) in order to suggest that government is the incarnation of evil. The fundamental truth which is developed here, that there is a permanent and necessary contradiction between the development of governmental power and individual liberty is unsophisticated, not to say outright crude. In addition, the author's thesis that after each crisis resulting in the growth of governmental capacities and power the government (always conceptualized as a large undifferentiated whole in the book) tends to rationalize its subsequent business in order not to loose what it just gained is not a discovery of the highest order. This is the rule in every institutional setting, whether corporate or bureaucratic, we know that since Max Weber's work on bureaucracy, without the libertarian hogwash.

Well researched classic.......2003-06-08

This book is a well researched classic on the horrors of the state. Tediously footnoted and well organized, the book offers the concept of the "ratchet effect"- government taking advantage of (sometimes creating) "crisis" as an excuse to dramatically increase government power, and fails to reverse this after the so called emergency passes. Higgs succeeds at proving his hypothesis beyond any doubt with history backed by many, many sources and does this in a way that is both readable and academic. In today's world, few books could be a more relevant warning about government

More significant now than ever.......2003-05-28

Robert Higgs presents an interesting and painfully obvious thesis: that government takes advantage of crises in order to grow larger, but then never shrinks to its previous size once the crisis has ended. As a case study, Higgs analyzes the growth of Big Government in the United States - a horrendous story of the degradation of constitutional values and the seemingly inevitable growth of the Leviathan State.

The book is more significant now than ever, since its publication in the 1980s. Government has grown substantially, especially the various "wars" on drugs and terror that have greatly increased the size of government and US government involvement in several aspects of domestic life and foreign affairs.

The scholarship is particularly good - mountains of empirical evidence, all relevant to his thesis, are well documented and presented concisely in this book. The book is straightforward and easy to understand; it should be accessible to economists and intelligent non-economists alike. If you've wanted to understand how government insidiously (or naturally) becomes larger regardless of constitutional constraints, read this book. It might fill you with rage, but maybe you can put that rage to good use. Are the ideas of limited government destined to be considered a failure in the far future, or can leviathan be chained down? If this is all government is about, in the United States or anywhere, do we really want a government at all?

Read this book. Libertarians will consider it a great read and invaluable intellectual ammunition; everyone else should read it, if for nothing else, to better understand the nature of the beast.

The hogs of war.......2001-11-16

As of this writing the president of the United States is prosecuting a war* with admirable objectives. But at what cost to American society?

Within weeks of the initiation of the U.S. effort the administration has announced steps that will curtail the civil liberties of citizens and visitors alike, even circumventing the right to proper trial. There appears to be a good chance that U.S. citizens will be required to carry so-called national ID cards.

Higgs explains why this should come as no suprise since war is the grand historical excuse offered by politicians to increase their powers and diminish those of their subjects, whatever the merits of their original objectives. This is one of the essential books in the literature of liberty, and it could not be more pertinent as a siren and antidote to the threat to freedom posed by ever-larger government.

*The war I referred to was against the Taliban, not the subsequent Iraq debacle.

The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy (Critical America)

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Groundbreaking

The Silicon Valley of Dreams: Environmental Injustice, Immigrant Workers, and the High-Tech Global Economy (Critical America)
David Pellow , and Lisa Park
Manufacturer: NYU Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0814767109
Release Date: 2002-12-22

Book Description

View the Table of Contents. Read the Preface.

"An important contribution to the contemporary critique of high tech industry."
— Contemporary Sociology

"Offers a lot for the general reader. The authors must be congratulated."
—International Migration Review

"Powerful and passionate exposé"
— Journal of American Ethnic History

"An important contribution to the environmental sociology literature."
— Choice

"Powerful, compelling and revealing. Pellow and Park weave a fascinating story of both the historical and current domination of gender, class and race in Silicon Valley."
— Alternatives Journal

" The Silicon Valley of Dreams . . . exposes the numerous inequities that plague the area, from the huge number of temporary workers, the highest per capita in the nation, to the obvious absence of union jobs."
—Conscious Choice

"The authors of [this] important [book] share a sense of compassion for and commitment to the struggle of labor, community, civil rights and environmental activists."
—Los Angeles Times

"The Silicon Valley of Dreams provides a progressive intervention into environmental sociology and into public discourse on the relationship between immigration and environment."
— American Journal of Sociology

"Critical reading for students and scholars in ethnic studies, immigration, urban studies, gender studies, social movements and environmental studies, as well as activists and policy-makers working to address the need of workers, communities and industry."
—Educational Book Review

Next to the nuclear industry, the largest producer of contaminants in the air, land, and water is the electronics industry. Silicon Valley hosts the highest density of Superfund sites anywhere in the nation and leads the country in the number of temporary workers per capita and in workforce gender inequities. Silicon Valley offers a sobering illustration of environmental inequality and other problems that are increasingly linked to the globalization of the world's economies.

In The Silicon Valley of Dreams, the authors take a hard look at the high-tech region of Silicon Valley to examine environmental racism within the context of immigrant patterns, labor markets, and the historical patterns of colonialism. One cannot understand Silicon Valley or the high-tech global economy in general, they contend, without also understanding the role people of color play in the labor force, working in the electronic industry's toxic environments. These toxic work environments produce chemical pollution that, in turn, disrupts the ecosystems of surrounding communities inhabited by people of color and immigrants. The authors trace the origins of this exploitation and provide a new understanding of the present-day struggles for occupational health and safety.

The Silicon Valley of Dreams will be critical reading for students and scholars in ethnic studies, immigration, urban studies, gender studies, social movements, and the environment, as well as activists and policy-makers working to address the needs of workers, communities, and industry.

Customer Reviews:

Groundbreaking.......2005-02-11

"The Silicon Valley of Dreams" by David Pellow and Lisa Sun-Hee Park is a groundbreaking book that connects the environmental justice (EJ) movement with struggles pertaining to immigration, gender, workplace, and globalization. The authors present a new historiography of Santa Clara County, California that reveals a pattern of exploitation of people and resources dating from the Spanish Colonial period to the present. The book makes a compelling case that sustainability will remain elusive as long as for-profit capitalism rules the day.

Pellow and Park study the area's historical development to find common threads between the past and the present. Each economic period was marked by the despoilation and depletion of California's natural resources, and in all cases, the production system was characterized by the exploitation of predominantly poor, immigrant and female labor.

Interestingly, the authors show how the powerful have been consistently supported by their government sponsors even as the rights of the poor have been systematically denied. We find that the Spanish government's funding of the missionaries was not substantially different from the U.S. government's support of the California gold mining industry of the 1800s, the canneries of the early to mid twentieth century or the highly lucrative defense industry of today. Yet the indigenuous peoples and the poor immigrant workers who have labored in the fields and the factories have been consistently denied their political and economic rights. In this light, the fact that the poor suffer disproportionately from environmental injustices should not be surprising, or that the struggle to overcome the powerful interests that profit from the system remains difficult.

The authors show how the electronics manufacturing that dominates Silicon Valley today is not the "clean" industry that is often promoted by corporate public relations firms. We learn how the so-called "immaterial" economy is in fact produced with enormous amounts of energy inputs and demanding physical labor. Management's criminal silence on issues pertaining to workplace safety and the pollution of the local environment clashes severely with the industry's oft-repeated hyperbole about the open and empowered society that is purportedly fostered through information technology.

The author's analysis is supported with moving testimonies from flesh-and-blood workers who have suffered the ill effects of toxic exposure. Their heart-wrenching stories bring home the human costs of our high-tech culture in a deeply compelling way. But the authors also relate how grass-roots organizations have won modest victories in their attempts to protect workers and the community from harm. Clearly, the empowerment of women and minorities and respect for the environment is critical to achieving a sustainable and egalitarian society.

I recommend this highly readable, insightful and important book to everyone.

Heads, You Win!: How the Best Companies Think--and How You Can Use Their Examples to Develop Critical Thinking Within Your Own Organization

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Heads, You Win!: How the Best Companies Think--and How You Can Use Their Examples to Develop Critical Thinking Within Your Own Organization
Quinn Spitzer , and Ron Evans
Manufacturer: Fireside
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Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0684838753

Book Description

New Coke. The Walt Disney Company's aborted theme park near the Manassas battlefield. AT&T's acquisition of NCR Corp. Were these merely the gaffes of individual decision makers, or do they represent larger, organizational deficiencies in critical thinking?

How confident are you in the collective brainpower of your organization?

The most crucial task facing any business leader in today's brutally competitive economy is to sharpen his or her organization's ability to effectively solve problems, make decisions, and cut through the information clutter. In Heads, You Win!, Kepner-Tregoe's CEO, Quinn Spitzer, and executive Ron Evans cite the experiences and share the advice of the presidents and CEOs of some of the world's most innovative companies -- organizations like Johnson & Johnson, Chrysler Corporation, British Airways, and Harley-Davidson, Inc. -- that are successful because they capitalize on the brainpower of every employee.

Book Description

The development of the modern Yale Law School is deeply intertwined with the story of a group of students in the 1960s who worked to unlock democratic visions of law and social change that they associated with Yale's past and with the social climate in which they lived. During a charged moment in the history of the United States, activists challenged senior professors, and the resulting clash pitted young against old in a very human story. By demanding changes in admissions, curriculum, grading, and law practice, Laura Kalman argues, these students transformed Yale Law School and the future of American legal education.

Inspired by Yale's legal realists of the 1930s, Yale law students between 1967 and 1970 spawned a movement that celebrated participatory democracy, black power, feminism, and the counterculture. After these students left, the repercussions hobbled the school for years. Senior law professors decided against retaining six junior scholars who had witnessed their conflict with the students in the early 1970s, shifted the school's academic focus from sociology to economics, and steered clear of critical legal studies. Ironically, explains Kalman, students of the 1960s helped to create a culture of timidity until an imaginative dean in the 1980s tapped into and domesticated the spirit of the sixties, helping to make Yale's current celebrity possible.

Customer Reviews:

Turbulence in the Legal Academy.......2005-12-06

Each of Laura Kalman's preceding books to some extent has dealt with Yale Law School: the incisive "Legal Realism at Yale"; her definitive biography of Abe Fortas; and the awesome "Strange Career of Legal Liberalism." This new and very long volume focuses upon the turbulence that descended upon Yale in the late 1960's and early 1970's. For readers whose interest in the topic does not extend to reading a 474 page, highly detailed analysis, Kalman has written an essay with the book's major themes in the volume of essays edited by Dean Kronman, "History of the Yale Law School" (also reviewed by myself on Amazon).

The typical (and welcome) Kalman thoroughness is well in evidence here. As is usual, much of the value of her analysis is found in the footnotes, here covering some 80 pages. As the "Legal Liberalism" volume demonstrated, there is nobody who can trace the evolution of professorial legal analysis with greater skill and cogency than Kalman. Kalman sets the stage by first discussing legal education in the 1960's at YLS, and develops quite a nice and concise history going back to the New Deal period as background. Particular attention is paid to individuals such as Dean Rostow, Kingman Brewster, and Charles Reich. Particularly welcome, and quite an additional bonus, is the fact that the author devotes substantial attention to Alexander Bickel, a figure too often forgotten today due to his premature death at 49.

Having set the background, Kalman then goes into a very detailed reconstruction of how highly activist students clashed with the YLS institutional structure. When one considers that this was the era of the Vietnam war, affirmative action, Kent State, Hippies, Black Panthers, and the Women's movement, it is no wonder that disruption became extreme, including at least one fire. YLS obviously survived and prospered in the post-disruption period, and Kalman addresses that as well. These later chapters I found to be the more interesting. For example, her discussion of the failure of critical legal studies, "law and society", and "law and economics" to take root in the legal realism foundation of YLS is extremenly interesting. By contrast, YLS becomes the home to a new version of the "legal process" approach to limiting judicial discretion as disappointment grew in the 1970's and 1980's with the exercise of judicial power, including even the record of the Warren Court. More prominent actors appear in this later section, to the reader's benefit: Dworking, Ely, Calabresi, Ackerman, Cover and Fiss. Interdisciplinary approaches to law flower and clinical education becomes well established and supported. In the end, the protestors brought about substantial change at YLS.

The one area that Kalman does not discuss fully enough is why should anyone with no ties to YLS take the time to digest this mighty tome. It does recapture the spirit of the period and the protests that dominated higher education in America. It does illuminated how substantial changes in the legal academy came about as a result of this period. It does afford some insight into the backgrounds of some prominent recent actors such as Justice Thomas, Anita Hill, Judge Alito, and most of all, both Clintons who were YLS students. Most importantly, it explains the impact that YLS professors had on legal scholarship in this country with a stream of articles and books arguing for new and incisive ways to confront the phenomenon of American law and the exercise of judicial power. By any measure, a timely volume to be sure.

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