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The Alhambra (and Generalife) is a combination fort/palace/gardens dating from the 13th century, filled with fantastic Arabic architecture (ornate plasterwork, ceramic tiles, sculpted marble fountains and archways), and lots of room for imagining the days of its former greatness, which Irving brings to life most memorably. The book is illustrated with charming and detailed watercolour engravings dating from the same period when the book was written.
Irving seamlessly winds legend, history, and a Spanish travelogue of sorts together, and even though the book is over 170 years old, it seems as if it was written yesterday. There are tales of princes, genies, lost and found loves, enchanted treasures, battles, hellish headless horses (does the inspiration seem familiar?), and commentary on the Spanish landscape and nature of the Spaniards that he lives with. Full of bewitching music, the smell of roses and exotic perfumes, firey sunsets, and the ghosts of the past, the book is a sensory treat as well. If you plan on visiting the Alhambra, read this first--it will definitely enhance your experience. If you've already visited, this makes a priceless souvenir, bringing to life once more the stately halls and fragrant gardens.
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Moore has been known as the "common sense" philosopher, and the author in his discussion brings this labeling to light in the book in detail. It is also interesting, when reading the book, to reflect on positions taken by philosophers in later decades, particularly by Jean Paul Sartre. The issue of negation for example, is discussed in the book, and Sartre's view is that one "experiences" the negation. This move by Sartre of how to handle the negation is expoused in great detail in Sartre's works, and this book gives a greater appreciation of just why the problem of negation was so important to Sartre.
The issues in this book are, interestingly enough, very important in fields such as artificial intelligence and are currently hotly debated in the attempts to build thinking machines. A field called "ontological engineering" has been evolving over the past two decades, and the logical and programming issues that arise in this field are ones that are similar to or identical to the ones addressed in this book. We are lucky to be in age where one can speak of "applied philosophy", in the attempts to bring artificial intelligence to reality. The excellent elucidation by the author in this book of these issues is, unintended by the author no doubt at the time of writing, of great assistance to those working to develop machines that can think, that can gather facts, and that can reference. These machines, when they are developed, will put forward their own unique arguments about their abilities to do this.......
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Young Tom Mix runs off to Mexico to join the revolution and becomes Pancho Villa's "gringo" aide. This is historical fact, although Irving -- for our benefit -- embroiders this for some 500 fabulous pages. Tom meets all kinds of people who were there, including George S. Patton, Emiliano Zapata, and Franz von Papen. It's a swashbuckling story, and who among us not wished he'd grown up as romantically as Mix does here?
The book gives the sights and sounds of a turn-of-the-century world real enough to touch. I note that another reviewer in the L.A. Times called it "a fantasy worthy of Mark Twain, a legendary tale." And the Houston Chronicle called it "a wonderful, big book." I agree. If you own a copy, you can sell it for ten times what you paid for it. If you can't find one to buy, try your library. It's GREAT.