Reviews (219)

This book
This book is one of the most beautiful I have ever read. Every page is like poetry.

Takes patience at first of course, but definitely worth it.

Complex fairy tale
Love in the Time of Cholera is a simple fairy tale filled with the complexities and intrigues of life.Undergirding the book is a fantasic love story, beautiful and yet tragic at the same time.Here, the poetry of all-consuming love flourishes, but so does its insanity and sadness, its betrayal and artifice.The ambition of other-earthly love is constantly contrasted with the banality of everyday matrimony.There is love and there is cholera, yet in between these opposite poles there is old age, false expectations, and mutual misunderstanding.

Florentino Ariza, the main protagonist, is a parody of the medieval lover of romantic literature.He is the man totally devoted to love that any women would dream of, and yet just for that reason the woman he loves, Fermina Daza, rejects him as strange and weak.Florentino maintains his love, even as the woman he loves marries a more socially acceptable man, and as the city he lives in loses its unspoiled charm to the forces of modernization.Florentino is no angel, and Fermina herself is at times exceptionally ordinary.In fact, Florentino's obsession with her often seems to be a self-defeating personality disorder.Mania or not, Florentino's "love" is the most pure and enduring motivation that animates the story.In the end, Garica Marquez's satire of love is its most appropriate tribute.Whether it is a tribute to authentic "real world" love, or just the stuff of novels, I leave to your judgment to decide.

Editorial Review

Reviews (360)

Sweet and Long Overdue Revenge
Apart from 'The Three Musketeers', this is probably Alexandre Dumas' most famous work and one of the greatest novels in Western literature: a novel every literate and educated person should read at least once in their lives.

In this story, Edmond Dantes is an innocent man who was caught in the intrigues of Napoleon's escape from Elba and his 100 days of power until Waterloo.A sailor entrusted with a sealed letter of highest importance by his dying captain, Dantes delivers it into the hands of the evil prosecutor Villefort who, for reasons unkown to him, immediately sends him without trial or appeal to spend the rest of his days at the Chateau D'Iffe: a dark and isolated island prison presumed to be inescapable.With the help of Abbot Faria, a dying prisoner who knows the secret of a great hidden treasure on the small islet of Monte Cristo, Dantes escapes and prepares to unleash his revenge on those who did him wrong. For years he spends his time meticulously preparing his vengeful scheme against the treacherous friends and characters who left him to rot in prison for years and years.He refines his arts of disguise, alchemy, and manipulation to content himself with the ruin of his enemies.

Unlike the adventure themes in his works such as 'The Three Musketeers', this story is a deep character study on being the victim of utmost injustice and how cruel revenge is sweet after all: how a wronged man is entitled to become the agent of divine retribution when God and mortal laws have abandoned his cause.The various themes, complex plot, profound character development, and rich prose makes this long work undoubtedly one of the greatest works of literature ever written: Dumas was without question a literary genius.

This is a great story for people of all ages and should not be ignored by anyone who has a profound love of literature.I think this is Dumas greatest work far surpassing 'Queen Margo' 'The Three Musketeers' or 'The Corsican Brothers.'

GREAT READ!!!!!
I wish i hadn't read this book, so i could do it again for the first time.a thrilling, suspensful, satisfying, swashbuckling story - a great read!!

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Reviews (22)

Ideas dazzle but a muddled narrative
Three stars for this novel means five for Augie March; I'm rating the author against himself! Bellow's later work, of which this might be the first harbinger, tends to muse rather than move given the lack of energetic plot. After the first hundred pages, setting up the major and minor characters and promising a half-satirical, half-serious look at intellectuals in 1970 NYC--sort of an updated Glass family from Salinger's oeuvre--MSP's pace settles into a rut until it wears out 150 pp. later. Yet, the last paragraph is beautiful!

Parts of this novel do shine. Especially at the start, the bruised condition of Sammler invites pity more than put-downs, and the criticisms he makes of his urban jungle have only become more prescient, sadly, with 35 years to erode further the Gotham infrastructure. I found much less ranting than obituaries of the late Bellow had set me up to expect here. Stanley Crouch's introduction helps place the context of the novel within black-Jewish relations at the end of the 60s and the slide into the catastrophic 70s decade and "drop dead, New York." Crouch understandably given his interests promotes the black pickpocket figure that motivates the first section of the book, but this character largely drops out until the rather forced, awkwardly staged, and overly symbolic climactic scene very late in the story. Still, I wish the introduction in the 2004 Penguin paperback was inserted at the end of the novel, as Crouch does include story spoilers.

Equally crucial are the Dr Lal's and the setting's lunar subtexts, the aftermath of a napalm attack by the Israelis in the Six Day War (the best scene in the book, and I wish there was more of the Jesuit photojournalist Fr Newell), the Holocaust and the return from the grave and the murder of a German soldier, the post-60s collapse of a livable city, liberal cant, Wellesian asides, and failed Olaf Stapleton Cosmopolis world scheme--Crouch correctly draws your attention to these as key elements that carom off Sammler's own musings and longings, as with many of his later novels from this point on, especially on Judaism and the (non?)existence of the soul after death in the minds of aging protagonists. The use of "we" by the omniscient narrator a couple of times only unsettles more the reader.

But Shula, Eisen, Fetter, Wallace, and Lim all disappoint as the supporting cast after initially promising entrances, the subplot of Wallace and Fetter's plane never engages, and that of Lim makes the middle of the book (as Crouch notes) sag for at least fifty pages as the Indian prof and Sammler chat in a conversation that probably only Goethe could have pulled off, not two speakers in English as a second (or fifth) language after a weary day in a sultry city, no matter how learned they both were.

This is Bellow's flaw: much of his high-flown thoughts here could've been placed better in essays rather than as fiction. Far too much of this content drifts and loses dynamism, and I do not believe this is intentional for the character of Sammler, for it characterizes Bellow's figureheads that from this novel on began to take over his novels. They're fascinating in small doses, but fail to leap off the page into convincing figures you could imagine meeting given your own presumed lack of erudition and creature comfort that his metropolitan bon vivants possess.

To be read with a pen, a dictionary, and patience!
Slightly less than mid-way through Mr. Sammler's Planet, Sammler is described as having thing about "unprofitable moments of clarity." To me, herein lies the novel's value. It is packed with clear, striking, and , yes, profitable observations of our contemperary world. Of his many pregnant observations, he looks at the strange confluence of sex, militancy, and the "will to offend". We witness an episode where students rudely reject his views given in a lecture about his experiences in London (this could have been a terrific short story) and the narrator asks, "Who raised the diaper flag?" This is not a lament for lost Victorian values, but a look at the consequences of discarding our sexual mores.These consequences are ugliness, not liberation.

However, while this and other observations may be dead-on and intellectually stimulating, there is no real aesthetic pleasure in reading them. There is no memorable character, and the plot is forgettable, if not a nuisance. My moments of frustration with this book were not in its internal monologues (to steal other reviewers' approprate phrase), but in the tedious and weak plot that carries them. It makes me think of a clothes-line where beautiful articles of clothing hang, connecting by a thin, rusty wire. Despite the book's many observations, they rest could be discarded, and thus it could be read as a collection of aphorisms.Grab your highlighter!

Saul Bellow is a hyper-intellectual and makes no apologies in writing difficult books, and this book is certainly difficult.I gave "Mr. Sammler's Planet" 3 stars not because of its difficultly, which I can respect (no one should dumb-down their books), but because there is no joy in it, and barring the phrases I've underlined, don't care to read it again.Ultimately, this book plays with the theme of a lost coherence between the generations of a family, and with our own intellectual and spiritual traditions.I wish the story rose to the occasion in the way that philosophy did.

Reviews (12)

Wonderful Little Book
This one was a joy to read.Like one reviewer said "another book about books."(My, I do love those).This is a absolute delight to read though.It is funny, flows well and most of all, is highly entertaining.So many works written near or at the turn of the last century are burried, seldom read and difficult to find.It is a pitty.There are so many wonderful, little known works out there, that simply are not in the public eye as they deserve to be. This is one of them.Highly recommend this one.

A bibliophile's delight
Gutenberg made the printed word available to the masses, but that doesn't mean that everybody bothered. That problem fuels "Parnassus on Wheels," a sweet little story about books and an unlikely romance, between a quirky bookseller and a stodgy spinster.

Andrew McGill became an unexpected literary hit when he wrote a book called "Paradise Regained" about a farmer's rural life. For his second book, he went trudging around the countryside for more material, leaving his middle-aged sister Helen to stay home and keep house for him. But one day a strange little man arrives at Helen's home, in a bookshop on wheels. The odd Roger Mifflin wants to sell Andrew his Parnassus -- his portable bookshop -- and intends to wait until Andrew returns.

Desperate to keep her brother from vanishing into the sunset, Helen takes her savings and buys the Parnassus herself. Then, out of regret for the life she has never gotten to experience off the farm, Helen decides to spend some time driving the Parnassus around the countryside. And as Roger teaches her about books and their importance, she begins to see just how a book -- any book -- can change a person's life.

"Parnassus on Wheels" is not a really outstanding book, but it is charming and sometimes very funny. Christopher Morley gives a glimpse into an earlier era, when rural areas didn't have libraries, there was no Internet to show people what was for sale, and a lot of people read nothing but the Bible.

There really isn't much of a plot, since most of it consists of Roger and Helen puttering around the countryside in the Parnassus. If there is a plot at all, it's the sort-of-romance between the two of them. It's cute and slightly sentimental, but peppered with humor such as Andrew and Roger getting into a very undignified fistfight in the road.

Helen starts out as a rather annoying character -- she's prejudiced against people who read, and seems to think that people should simply stay on the farm. That makes it all the more enjoyable when she starts appreciating the written word, and decides that she's not going to be an unappreciated bread-making automaton anymore. Roger Mifflin is actually not as odd as he seems to Helen's eyes, although he does have some charming quirks.

"Parnassus on Wheels" isn't deep or detailed enough to really be a classic, but it is a charming little early-1900s novel. Not to mention a must-read for bibliophiles.

Reviews (35)

A sad ending ...
... but not in the fashion of what Julio Cortazar called the female reader, but in the sense that, in an act of editorial indiscretion, the author failed to let go of the entire Part 3, making a bona-fide, in fact a supreme book matching Under the Volcano in emotional intensity into something with a large appendix of (sometimes amusing) existentialist musings. If you are into novelist anticlimax, or antinovelish (Cortazar's word) fettishes, go ahead and read part 3. If you want to go out on a high note, stop after you have done Part 2.

The above notwithstanding, Cortazar was a supreme talent. The story is a simple one, but Cortazar was able to make it extremely complicated in words, intellectual virtuosity, and existentialist absurdities. If the reader finds the start tedious and pointless, I can assure you that you will find your reward near the end of Part 2 (in fact for most of Part 2). Certain scenes and narratives were just acts of genius, and it was emotionally moving.

However, don't go to Part 3, if you do not want your emotional resonance deconstructed -- maybe that is the point of Part 3, but I am just a little too old-fashioned.

Not for the plot-hungry, but worth it for enthusiasts
I suppose it's unreasonable to expect the world's first so-called hypertext novel - one in which you can read the chapters sequentially, or in an order recommended by the author, or in any other order you choose - to have a compelling plot.After all, plot relies on anticipation and surprise, both of which come from authorial control over how and when information is revealed.A lot of the delight in fiction comes from this, and most of the rest from character, theme and the texture of the language.Cortazar's revolutionary novel is big on the last few, but not unexpectedly fails to be very engaging when it comes to story.It's more of a character study, or rather an elaboration of a philosophical position through the depiction of certain people in a particular place and time, i.e. left-leaning international emigres in 1950s Paris, and later the locals in Buenos Aires, who spend most of their time smoking, drinking, listening to jazz, competing for affection, philosophizing about life, and trying not to be the creative geniuses they obviously know they are.There are some wonderful set pieces: the infamous Chapter 28 involving a baby in a darkened room; the afternoon a plank bridge is erected to join two hotel rooms on opposite sides of a busy Buenos Aires street; an elaborate booby trap of water-filled basins, tangled threads and ball-bearings to thwart a vengeful lover in the night; and, obviously, the hopscotch squares of the title which are drawn in the courtyard of an insane asylum.These incidents are all engaging, comic, and wonderfully laden with a metaphorical/philosophical import which serves Cortazar's embedded theme: that is, the conundrum of consciousness; the unending desire to break through "the wall" to the other side of life in order to achieve the "unity" we intuitively feel exists but to which there is no easy path.This is the novel's engine, but it does take a while to fire up.If slowly savouring 500+ pages of that kind of thing interests you, then you'll enjoy "Hopscotch" immensely.If it doesn't, then reading this novel will be somewhat like being trapped at a really bad party with drunk and depressive philosophy undergraduates who think they know everything about jazz.I had the urge to leave early, but I'm glad I stayed until the end.Eventually, someone shut the music off, opened all the windows, and in the silence of dawn something clicked.

Editorial Review

Reviews (61)

Wow
This is one of those books that you can't put down until you are done. Who cares if it is somewhat biased... who is not??!!

A Great Work for Research and Philosophy
Bertrand Russell's history of western philosophy makes a great reference work to philosophers and philosophy at large.Naturally Russell, being a philosopher less than a historian, he is critical of the thinkers he canvasses throughout the work.That being said, the history really is great. Russell, being the positivist, isn't too critical on the great thinkers of less enlightened times.Understanding that Russell's views don't discount the philosophies but provide an argument to them, we can use this work as a great reference to philosophy without a great investment of time.

This is the real beauty of the work: it makes a great reference work.If you don't feel like reading the entire thing (which I do suggest) you can use the work in piecemeal. This book provides basic understanding of the tenets of a philosopher while also provide a quick background of the life and times of the philosopher.I have used this book on several occasions to cross reference ideas and re-acquaint myself with the philosophers.

Russell, in writing this book, chose to be concise and this can be seen as a drawback.His descriptions of philosophers and philosophies are by no means complete but they are in the short space he uses filled with information and anecdotes.Naturally he weights the time he spends towards the more important philosophers: he gives a vast section to St Augustine while we spends a scant page and a half on William of Ockham. This makes sense of course and the data he provides on the obscure is certainly enough to wet the mouth so to speak and allow the reader to do some research on his own -- you will have no trouble doing this because the research is well document through a great bibliography.

A major complaint I have seen in regards to this book is that it covers little of the 20th century.I can see why this can be seen as a defect but we must remember that Russell was writing a history and not a field guide.At the time this was first written and even in the times later additions could have been produced the philosophies of existentialism and postmodern relativism etc were still at the forefront of the philosophical debate (in the present) and writing a history on this probably seem absurd.

While Russell himself was apologetic about the way he handled this book in making it less than complete, we should praise him for creating it.Overall it is an excellent work and handled with the command of subject and history that is most rare especially in our times.I wont say that this is the only history of philosophy you should read but it may well be the best.I implore students of philosophy and students of history to get and use this book.If you do not fit into those categories get this book anyway... you will find it not dry but delightful.

-- Ted Murena

Reviews (23)

A Reckoning.
This review is dedicated, in friendship and grateful memory, to Bob Zeidler, one of Amazon's best and brightest customer reviewers.It is partly inspired by an exchange with Bob, whose comments hereon are sorely missed.
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"Yes ... we are lost.That is to say: the war is lost, but that means more than a lost military campaign, in fact it means that *we* are lost, lost is our substance and our soul, our faith and our history.It is over with Germany; ... an unnamable collapse, economical, political, moral and spiritual, in short, all-encompassing, is becoming apparent, - I don't want to have wished for what is looming, because it is despair, it is madness."*

Thus, the narrator of Thomas Mann's last completed and, I think, greatest novel sums up Germany's fate after the barbarities of national-socialism.But this is no mere character speaking:This is Mann himself - the erstwhile self-proclaimed "Unpolitical Man," condemned to watch the Nazi tyranny's horrors from the distance of his Californian exile, taking up the mighty pen that had gained him his Literature Nobel Prize and, through the voice of a narrator named Dr. Serenus Zeitbloom (in itself, supremely ironic comment on Mann's own circumstances) composing his final reckoning with the country he left when the Nazis came to power, and where he never returned to live, although he finally did leave the U.S. in 1952, driven out by McCarthyism.

According to his diaries, as early as 1904 Mann had the idea of using a composer's temptation by the devil (and thus, updating the Faustian legend, *the* quintessential theme of Germany's cultural history at least since the Middle Ages) to illustrate the corruption of art by evil.Seeing the country's intoxication with the glorious promises of Hitler and his henchmen, seeing all of German society fall under the spell of evil, including the "Bildungsbürgertum," the educated middle class considering itself guardians of Germany's cultural tradition (and for whose acceptance the dark-haired merchant's son without a university education struggled throughout his life, much as they bought his books), reviving that idea first conceived forty years earlier was a logical choice; now further inspired by the personalities of Arnold Schoenberg, whom Mann met in exile and whose twelve-tone scale became that of his novel's protagonist Adrian Leverkuehn, and Friedrich Nietzsche, with whose writings and personal fate Mann had been fascinated early on.Philosophically and musically, the novel is also influenced by critical theorist Theodor Adorno, with whom Mann entertained an in-depth epistolary dialogue.

Blending together musical theory, the decline of humanist philosophy, the rise of fascism and the powers of black magic (most of which Mann had already explored in earlier works like "The Magic Mountain" and, very pointedly, in the 1930 short story "Mario and the Magician"), "Doctor Faustus" is thus simultaneously a comment on the political developments, a warning, an attempt to come to grips with Germany's high-flying, yet so easily destructible philosophical and moral compass - and, masterfully construed though it is, a cry of despair in the face of utter madness.For while the novel is brimming with references to the better part of German (and European) cultural history, from the medieval "Faustus" tale to Goethe, Weber's "Freischuetz," Martin Luther, Protestantism, and Thuringia and Saxony as focal points of all things German, Mann's central point remains the parallel between his country's fate and that of his novel's protagonist, both ending in ruin and madness-induced stupor after their deal with the devil has run its evil course.

Unlike Goethe, who places his Faust's temptation at his tragedy's beginning, leaving no doubt about the event's physical reality, Mann even narratively lifts Leverkuehn's temptation into the realm of allegory and imagination, by splitting it into two incidents, whose combined effect will only come to fruition in the novel's final part.On neither occasion Zeitbloom, the narrator, is present; for both we thus have only Leverkuehn's own words.Yet, even the first account, a letter describing how the would-be composer is mischievously led to a brothel and falls under the spell of a prostitute, already intimates the evil to come, the venereal disease that will later constitute the outward cause of his madness; and not only does Leverkuehn ask his friend to destroy that letter, he also closes it imploring him to pray for his soul.

Much later in the narrative - although indicating that it was actually written earlier; thus employing yet another level of (temporal) abstraction - Mann introduces Leverkuehn's transcript of his exchange with the devil; a dream-like sequence during which shape-shifting "Sammael," in language hearkening back to Goethe and even the Middle Ages, promises Leverkuehn nothing short of "the metamorphosis of a god": that by his name a whole generation of "receptively healthy boys"* will swear, "those who thanks to [his] madness will no longer have to be mad themselves;"* and that, indeed, his name will live forever.Still, at this point we have already witnessed Leverkuehn explaining the foundations of his twelve-tone scale, only to be challenged by Zeitbloom's question whether the strictness of his concept doesn't deprive the composer of all freedom (which Leverkuehn denies, rather seeing the composer as "bound by a self-imposed order, hence free").*And when in an exchange laden with symbolism Zeitbloom then presses whether the formation of harmony wouldn't be left to chance, Leverkuehn's response is, "Rather say: to constellation"* - thus squarely introducing, as his friend will quickly note, concepts of black magic, which in addition to the dialogue's musical and political references again drive home Leverkuehn's exposure to the irrational and evil, long before the reader actually learns about his interview with the devil.

Doubtlessly among Mann's most intimately personal works, "Doctor Faustus" is also among his most complex ones; and while hardly any of his writings make for a leisurely read, the sardonic "Felix Krull," the near-humoristic "Royal Highness" and even his early masterpiece "Buddenbrooks" are foils to the seasoned master craftsman's rapier that is drawn here.Demanding, certainly - but also highly recommended!
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*Translation mine.

A great book, but very rough going!
First of all, I think Thomas Mann is without doubt the very greatest 20th century author! I am familiar with about everything he wrote, as well as his very interesting life. But I have found Dr. Faustus to be simply very rough going. The book's basic theme is outlined by many other reviews here. Though a very serious subject (life and death and the horrors of WW2), there is still not the wry humor I find in Mann in his other blockbusters (MagicMountain,Buddonbrooks,Royal Highness,Felix Krull,etc), so that solemnity overwhelms this great enterprise. In fact,in my humble opinion, the 2 best parts are his descriptions of prehistoric life under the sea, and the bombings of great German cities. The characterizations seem a bit dry, with nothing like the amusing personages in say, the Magic Mountain. And the descriptions of musical compositions practically require an advanced degree from the Julliard School. So these small criticisms simply suggest that great patience, learning, and thinking are required to fully appreciate this great novel, and probably this reviewer does not have these three qualities in ample quantity to really appreciate Dr. Faustus!

A Book for all the Ages
Unfortunately I don't know German well enough to be able to read Mann in the original, but I find the translation by Helen Lowe-Porter (not the one by Woods, which I have never seen) to be admirable.For as long as there are humans able to read, this monument of a book will bear witness to Mann's age, a glorious epoch marking the zenith of Western culture, in the artistic form best suited to it.This is a high and wonderful achievement.This novel, ostensibly a biography of the great composer Adrian Leverku"hn, represents Mann's ultimate fulfillment as an artist, something he had been working toward ever since the day in 1910 when, left uncharacteristically speechless after the premiere of Mahler's Eighth Symphony conducted by the composer himself, he penned a letter of admiration in which he thanked Mahler for expressing the highest ideals of the age in the form best suited to it.In Dr. Faustus, Mann has accomplished something equally astounding, but using literature instead of music.As such it represents his crowning achievement (and his other books such as Joseph and His Brothers, Magic Mountain, and Buddenbrooks, to name only the best known, are masterpieces too -- I consider Mann to be the greatest writer who ever lived).

In her preface Lowe-Porter likens the book to a cathedral.And indeed it is a complex and magnificent structure in which ideas replace stained glass windows, architectural details, soaring arches and echoing spaces, each doing its part to create the whole.The true characters in the book are actually the ideas; the protagonists are identified with the ideas they represent and act on their behalf.The narrator Zeitblom is a humanist; the composer Leverku"hn, who has made a pact with the Devil, lies at the intersection of the humane and the demonic.Although primarily interested in ideas, Mann gives rich and probing characterizations of half-a-dozen characters in the book, and he knows how to add telling ironic and human touches.As if that were not enough, with true virtuosity he also interweaves the horrific fate of Germany with that of Leverku"hn, and by drawing on the historical antecedents of both humanism and demonism in Germany (and indeed in all of Western culture) he manages to make the reader almost sympathetic to Germany's and Leverkuhn's plight. But it would be a mistake to focus on the demonic in the book at the expense of the other strands in the tapestry that Mann weaves.

In order to enjoy this book you MUST be interested in the ideas. They form the basis of Western civilization and were very highly developed in Mann's time, when true giants were in the world.Cultural standards have declined since, but the same ideas are still relevant to our lesser age.Ranging as it does over the whole of civilized thought and culture, Mann's acute artistic intelligence might seem a bit dry and abstract at first, and some readers find the first sixty pages or so to be slow going (but they improve on rereading, because you will understand why they are there). There is also much dialog on cultural themes (e.g., at the Kridwis gatherings) which helps to set the intellectual background of the times.Some of it is so scholarly and even arcane that the chances that anyone could ever actually say such things seem impossibly remote; one is reminded of the comically precise speech of certain characters in Jane Austen.But there is a great deal of substance in this intellectual give-and-take and I think it is one of the high points of the book.

Reviews (12)

A fun survey of Chinese history
This was the first book on China I read, and I did it at my own leisure. I must say that this book was quite the enjoyable read for the most part. It has a wonderful source and works cited section in the back as well as a very useful refrence index. This should be the first book anyone reads if he/she is intrested in Chinese history.

The author has taken the privalege to refrence many other authoritative books and material on specific subjects when mentioned (for instance, mateiral on ancient Chinese warfare). I am a bad judge of "bias" or anything like this, although I did not detect any in my first reading of this book (although I may notice some if I were to read this for a second time).

The only "borring" part of the book, in my opinion, was the first 1/8 of the book which discussed early human records in China and some of the earlier dynasties (although this is probably just my temperment). Otherwise, the book is excellently written and holds a lot of information for a survey.

Saved my butt in history class!!!
A simple, easy to understand overview.Great for those of us who have been denied China's beautiful history, and just about everyone else.Covers basic themes and is not just from a western perspective.Very helpful.

Great History; Great Writing
This, along with Wing-Tsit Chan's A SOURCE BOOK IN CHINESE PHILOSOPHY provided my first serious look at Chinese culture.

Fairbank's CHINA details the development of China from earliest times through the Tiananmen massacre: Xia & Shang, Zhou, the Spring and Autumn period, the Warring States period, the Qin Unification, the Han dynasty, disintegration, the subsequent rise of Sia and Tang dynasties, disintegration and the rise of the Song, the Northern and Southern Song along with the development of the kingdoms and empires of the Mongols who slowly conquered China, the Ming dynasty that expelled the Mongols, the Manchurian Qing dynasty that conquered all China and ruled until China became a Republic, Sun Yatsen, Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kaishek), fascism and communism, the rise of Mao and the Nationalist flight to Taiwan, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and Deng Xiaphing (Dong Zai-phong).

Of special interest are discussions on the rise of Confucianism, Daoism, Chinese Buddhism and Christian in-roads created by missionaries; the respective roles of Legalism, early imperial Confucianism and neo-Confucianism in the formation and evolution of the Chinese state; the horrors and extent of foot-binding among Chinese women; the influence of both communists and fascists in the Guomindang party and the open conflict between the "blue shirt" fascists (formed by Chiang Kaishek) and the Communist party; and the role of the USSR and Comintern in the development and organization of Communism in China (originally in the Guomindang and later in the Chinese Communist Party).

Thought-provoking and interesting, the book does suffer from infrequent flaws such as irrelevant personal attacks (e.g., Reaganesque = simple-minded) and giving too little details in some areas.Despite these (and the fact that the author once thought Maoisim the greatest thing to happen in China for centuries), anyone interested in Chinese history cannot afford to pass up this important work.

Editorial Review

Reviews (45)

You don't have to live like a refugee
I urge everyone who hasn't read this to do so, and those who have to pick it up again. A strange book, borrowing nearly everything from other works in antiquity, it remains entirely original. Virgil takes his readers through the adventures of a band of refugees who are on their way to their destiny, the founding of the Roman republic. Unlike Odysseus, Aeneas is fleeing defeat and destruction, not returning to his homeland as a conquering hero.

It's a great book. Aeneas, full of nobility, is not outsized in nearly inhuman greatness like Achilles. He's not the resourceful Everyman that Odysseus is. Aeneas is bound by duty and piety and finds his identity in them. There's something here that a lot of fathers and sons can relate to, the grim determination to be faithful to clan and vocation.

There's also a disturbing sense of circularity here. According to legend, Dardanus, the founder of Troy, was an emigrant from Italy, so his descendant, the refugee Aeneas, is also returning to a storied ancestral homeland in returning to Latium. In completing this circle, he finds himself in Carthage with Queen Dido, dooming her and setting up an emnity between Rome and Carthage that will come to fruition in the bloody Punic Wars that result in the total destruction of Carthage. Upon landing in Latium, he wrests the princess Lavinia from a would-be suitor Turnus, thus reenacting the ravishing of Helen by Alexander, and in the same manner, this causes a bloody war and siege. All history is a vertiginous cycle, round and round, no rest from the iron cycles of history, no respite from the caprices of the gods.

At the center of this is a journey to the underworld, similar to the one in the Odyssey. Unlike that trip, in this journey our hero passes through the netherworld to the upper regions, the Elysian fields, which somehow seem less than heavenly: they appear more like a pleasant distracting earthly holiday in a nice bit of real estate. From this vantage, Aeneas's dead father Anchises surveys future Roman history and the critical role his descendents will play in it.

Fitzgerald's translation is commendable. A friend compared it to Ray Bradbury, and I quite like that: strong, vigorous, manly, unpretentious. This a gift to give yourself, something you can keep going back to your whole life.

Aeneid The Great
This classic Roman book is based on the life of Aeneid, son of Venus (Aphrodite in Greek Culture). Home, the writter, writes about Aeneids trubles, and his misfortunes. It is a great adventure book that you will fall in love with, such as my peers and myself. Enjoy!

Reviews (3)

A Great Book on a Dry Topic
A great presentation of what I expected to be an unexciting topic. Examines the workings of the political system in a highly readable way. I was not only well-informed after I read the book, but entertained as well!

Excellent Theoretical Framework
This is excellent material if you are conducting any kind of serious research on NAFTA and its negotiations' development and outcome.It provides with a huge theoretical framework, every step of the process.If your line of work is game theory, this book will really help you (or at least it worked wonders for me).This is mandatory reference material for anyone interested in studying NAFTA.