An excellent translation and commentary. This book should be ranked with commentaries of yoga masters such as McAfee's "Beyond the Siddhis" and Satchidananda's "Yoga Sutras", as one of the best books available on Patanjali's sutras. It is well written, focused, easily understood and goes to the core of the sutras - self understanding, with great insight. Shearer has done a great job.

Fascinating, though too long. I recommend starting with Taylor's _Liberty Men and Great Proprietors_, which seems to have been less of a "labor of love."

The tale of James Fenimore Cooper's father on the New York frontier in the 1790s is an Horatio Alger story run amuck. Born to a poor Quaker farm family, William Cooper learned the craft of making and repairing wheels before reinventing himself as a land speculator, founder of Cooperstown, judge, congressman, patrician farmer and Federalist party powerhouse.

Alan Taylor's WILLIAM COOPER'S TOWN: POWER AND PERSUASION ON THE FRONTIER OF THE EARLY AMERICAN REPUBLIC is an outstanding biography of an archetypical American character, an extraordinary social history of life and politics on the late eighteenth-century frontier and a brilliant exercise in literary analysis.

This is a wonderful read. Taylor's lively prose, compelling narrative and original, fresh story sustained my interest from cover to cover. I never would have imagined such a dull title could cover such a marvelous book. WILLIAM COOPER'S TOWN certainly deserves the Pulitzer Prize it was awarded.

Taylor not only describes William Cooper's rise from rags to riches and even more meteoric fall but analyzes Cooper's political odyssey in America's frontier democratic workshop.

"As an ambitious man of great wealth but flawed gentility, Cooper became caught up in the great contest of postrevolutionary politics: whether power should belong to traditional gentlemen who styled themselves 'Fathers of the People' or to cruder democrats who acted out the new role of 'Friends of the People.'"

Taylor argues "Cooper faced a fundamental decision as he ventured into New York's contentious politics. Would he affiliate with the governor and the revolutionary politics of democratic assertion? Or would he endorse the traditional elitism championed by...Hamilton." "Brawny, ill educated, blunt spoken, and newly enriched," writes Taylor, "Cooper had more in common with George Clinton than with his aristocratic rivals." "For a rough-hewn, new man like Cooper, the democratic politics practiced by Clinton certainly offered an easier path to power. Yet, like Hamilton, Cooper wanted to escape his origins by winning acceptance into the genteel social circles where Clinton was anathema." Taylor concludes "Cooper's origins pulled him in one political direction, his longing in another."

James Fenimore Cooper's third novel, THE PIONEERS, is an ambivalent, fictionalized examination of his father's failure to measure up to the genteel stardards William Cooper set for himself and that his son James internalized. The father's longing became the son's demand.

Taylor analyzes the father-son relationship, strained by Williams decline before ever fully measuring up to the stardards he had set, and the son's fictionalized account of this relationship.

James Fenimore Cooper spent most of his adult life seeking the "natural aristocrat" his father wanted to be and compensating for his father's shortcomings. It is ironic that the person James Fenimore Cooper found to be the embodiment of the "natural aristocrat" his father had longed to be and that he had created in THE CRATER and his most famous character, Natty Bumppo, was the quintessential "Friend of the People"--Andrew Jackson.

I enjoyed this book immensely and give it my strongest recommendation!

This is the story of William Cooper, the founder of Cooperstown, New York, and of how his son, James Fenimore Cooper, used his father's life and experiences in his novels. Described in this way, this sounds like a narrow book, of interest mainly to specialists. But anyone interested in early America should read this book: it reveals truths not only about these two men but about the whole period. One of the key themes of the book is that the Revolution, which in a sense made William Cooper by pushing aside the old aristocracy of New York, also unmade him by creating an anti-aristocratic politics that ousted him and other Federalists in 1800. A fascinating minor detail: the city fathers, in their effort to maintain a proper tone in Cooperstown in the early 1800s, outlawed stick ball, the precursor of baseball.

Kids love this book. Get with it and put it back in print. It is a favorite for circle-time reading and evening oral reading time. Please reconsider its availability and print it again!

This is a child's fantasy about what his birthday party could be. We don't know why Hooper Humperdink shouldn't come, and I felt sorry for the little guy as he hung around the periphery and watched the hundreds of other children swarm to this fantastic party. Fortunately, the party giver forgives Hooper for his failings and invites him after all. Phew!

This is an alphabet book in disguise because the guest list is written in alphabetical order. Children whose names are featured will get an extra lit bit of joy when they get to read their name, especially if it's an unusual one. My daughter is in there, so I know this. :-)

When we were younger, my mother use to read to my older brother, my older sister, and I every night. Although the census was generally divided, my mother could always appease each of us by reading "Hooper Humperdink...Not Him!" It was and still is undoubtedly our favorite book. My brother is now a US Marine. My sister is, as always, excelling in her second year of pharmacy school. I am attending a liberal arts university on scholarship with a major in biochemistry. The three of us still recall the back inside cover of the book, an illustration of a rollercoaster dotted with the letters of the alphabet. The routine after reading the book was to find all the letters of your name the quickest--and to this day we still know how to spell our names! Imagine that! My mother also remembers almost every line to the story. However, she now needs some refreshing and has now ordered a new copy, as we had given away our haggered original long ago to those we deemed worthy.

The writings themselves are excellent. The print is often hard to read and the typeface varies from section to section. The introductions and footnotes show the editors biases and are best skipped -- let the writings speak for themselves.

This 10-volume set is a treasure trove of the writings of the early church translated into English, from the Apostolic Fathers to the Nicene Council. The problem with it is that it is only a reprint of a collection originally published in 1885. Because of this it carries over many of the pruderies Alexandria's Miscellanies (in volume 2 of this set) is printed only in enters upon the refutation of the false-Gnostics and their licentious tenets. Professing a stricter rule to begin with, and despising the ordinances of the Creator, their result was the grossest immorality in practice. The melancholy consequences of an enforced celibacy are, here, all forseen and foreshown; and this Book, though necessarily offensive to our Christian tastes, is most useful as a commentary upon the history of monasticism, and the celibacy of priests, in the Western churches. The resolution of the Edinburgh editors to give this Book to scholars _only_, in the Latin, is probably wise." In other words, because it may corrupt our Christian morals, we won't print it in the venacular, but instead keep it only in the hands of professors. This editorial decision was disgustingly illiberal; a scholar should make all information accessible. Besides, Clement of Alexandria isn't considered a heretic; he's one of the official Church Fathers. Now a decision like that may have been acceptable in 1885, but it can scarcely be defended today. I do not see what could have kept this set's reprinters from providing a translation of Book III, if only as an appendix. I have not noticed any other example of suppression in these volumes, although the fact that there is even one instance is disturbing. This only serves to convince me that a new, fresh edition of these writers is needed. Many new writings have been discovered in the century since, including complete books by Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Melito of Sardis - this alone makes a new collection desirable. In the late nineteenth century all kinds of collections of these early writers were being published - why not now?

This is the (basically) complete set of the Early church writings up until 325 A.D. These 10 volumes contain quite a lot of material. Volume 10 is actually an index of all of the earlier books. The complete works of Justin, Clement, Athenagoras, Ignatius, etc are found within. I agree with the other poster that there are some problems. The issue of new texts discovered is a big one. Since the time this series was published many new texts have been found, such as the Gospel of Thomas and 2 works by Origen. So that is an issue. Also the way they put Clement of Alexandria's third book in Latin is silly today. Luckily I managed to find another translation that had it. The third problem is the English is pretty stagnant at times. Its very stiff and complex at times, but I actually have come to like it (don't ask me why!). But I am still giving this 5 stars because the set is fairly affordable, and there is a lot of great stuff in here for the price. Virtually every pre-Nicene writing, from the Didache to Alexander of Alexandria's letters to Arius, is in here. I would never be without this set.

Boswell persuaded Johnson, almost age 64, to visit the highlands of Scotland with him in August, 1773. Both Boswell and Johnson wrote small books about it. Johnson's view, both in his letters to Hester Thrale and in this book, was as a social scientist cum historian, taking a clinical examination of the changes that were occurring in Scotland after the Union. Where Boswell's volume (sometimes paired with Johnson's) tends to focus on dialogs with Johnson, Johnson discusses the decaying of the clan structure, emigration, assimilation into the Union... Johnson is very careful as he describes what he sees, carefully measuring distances and relating his observations to historical context.

This review may appear with other editions, but the Oxford edition, edited by Fleeman, is a very thorough and detailed edition for the specialist. For the specialist, it's worth the relatively high price. Fleeman provides detailed notes, and appendices on the the various early editions, cancelled sheets, clans structures, etc. If you are a serious reader of Johnson, as I am, this is the edition to have.

If you are -not- a serious reader, then you would do well to buy the penguin paperback, which combines Johnson's and Boswell's volumes. The two books are fascinating to read in tandem, and it's revealing about Boswell that Johnson doesn't even mention conversations which meant so much to Boswell. In addition, the notes in the Penguin edition (by Peter Levi) are also very helpful.

The -third- part of the story, however -- Johnson's letters to Hester Thrale while J & B were traveling -- are not included in any current edition that I know of. I suspect we will have to wait for an electronic version in order to be able to compare all three resources at once.

This book was my companion on my first trip to Norway, the origin in viking times of the settlement of much of Northern Scotland and the Hebrides. I was curious to know how the region looked in earlier times and, is always the case with the writing of Johnson and Boswell, was happily entertained. If one reads only one travel book then maybe this one is the right one--maybe Lawrence's 'Travels in Italy' is second on my list.

Quite a while back I posted a review of the Oxford edition of Samuel Johnson's writings in which I included a short review of the Penguin edition of the Sctoland journey/journal. Reposting that review to the newest edition of the Oxford book, it occurred to me I ought to place this review where it belongs.

There is little with which one might compare these two wonderful pieces of writing today -- and yet to some extent they are, each in its own way, foundations upon which much of modern writing has been built. Johnson is here, if not at his finest, still nearing an apogee of clarity, lucidity and intellectual rigor. Boswell is making his initial foray into the published first-hand journal, written only half-a-thought out of the public eye, that would eventually lead him to write his enormous and enormously popular Life of Johnson.

Reading the two interlaced is an utter delight -- moving from the formality, grace and power of Johnson to the smaller, more intimate pleasures of Boswell gives one the feeling of having captured, in the adventurous peregrinations of these two inimitable characters, the very breadth and depth of eighteenth century English writing. (I must point out that the Penguin book does not print the two Journals in interlaced fashion, but with a little effort the reader can move between the two so as to get the efect of Johnson and Boswell speaking in turns on the same topology, if not always the same topic...)

To love and admire Johnson, but not appreciate the brilliant, even if much different, stylistic inventions of Boswell seems to me somewhat perverse. Certainly Boswell had his shortcomings, but half the joy of reading and 'knowing' Johnson and his circle comes from appreciating the little peccadilloes and foibles that each displayed in his turn--not the least the Great Cham, Johnson, himself. Having said that I hope I may be allowed one short comment on Frank Lynch's review below. While meaning no disrespect to Frank it seems odd to me that he would note that Johnson does not comment on conversations that Boswell took as very important. Johnson knew of Boswell's journals as they were being written and encouraged Boswell to publish them. Moreover, Johnson was writing a topographical piece and not the more intimate "Travels with the Great Cham" journal that Boswell was writing.

In the long run, that Boswell found these conversations important is what delights us -- his ability to possess and bring weight to the smallness of life contrasts wonderfully with Johnson's ability to enlarge and ennoble life -- and the reflection is an interesting one when we find some of the Great Cham's noble thoughts somewhat bitterly missing the mark while Boswell's little thoughts can roll about one's mind for a very long time.

I cannot think of either of these two men that I don't see Thomas Rowlandson's wonderful caricature of the two walking arm in arm -- the older man a head taller, wagging his finger and pontificating casually and brilliantly on some weighty matter, and the other rolling along beside him smiling with sweet admiration and pride of association. To read Johnson and bypass Boswell, is to find one great treasure and forsake another.

If I must add one small quibble it is that the notes to the Penguin edition seem rather eccentric -- more the product of a dyspeptic travel writer than a Johnsonian scholar.

This is a well-edited edition of Sun Tzu; the only aspect that left something to be desired was the inclusion of illustrative anecdotes; I would have preferred if they were left to the end of the chapter.

I can understand why this book was a fad in the business world but object to claims that the tactics described in this book are easily applied to business. This is a book about conflict, specifically, war, and there is much wisdom lost if it is taken out of its context. There is much excellent advice for analogous situations; political persuasion and debate, games of Go, Shogi or Chess, or even sporting events.

When taken from the world of conflict to the business, the realm of cooperation (in the sense that competing businesses compete to cooperate the best with their customers), The Art of War becomes yet another tome of "Eastern" sayings which sound pretty and can be "applied to any situation" only because they come to mean very little.

Those who will be in a conflict situation or wish to prepare for one, even if it is a simple game of Go, should study this book. Read the text and the anecdotes, and come back later to read it again gaining fresh insight.

War is not really based on honor... or glory, or even whose right. It's all about conditions, who has the advantage and how to dishearten your opponents while making sure your own resources are protected. It tells you what to look for through hundreds of various quotes and snippets of advice. This book was not entirely by Sun Tzu, but a collection of famous tacticians through-out history. Each seem to add another element to the concept of how to win in conflict.

In life, you can see a little of this in each day... but just remember not too get too carried away. After all, even Sun Tzu himself said 'A battle not fought, is a battle won.' For broadening your perspective, I'd suggest adding this book to your collection as well as 'Open Your Mind, Open Your Life: A Book of Eastern Wisdom' by Taro Gold.

Sun Tzu "The Art of War" was excellent. This book is a great book on strategy. Whether you command a nations army, war games or a moderen business. If the reader uses some of these war tactics and strategies in the modern world, they may find it easy to relate. Thus it is easy to relate to this book. Even rivals in sports and entertainment can be outwitted by the wisdom in this book. It also adds examples of some actions, which show how these sayings and writings apply to the real world.

So no matter what you were looking for in this book, whether it be business, sports, war games, or actual wars, you can be sure to learn more on how to best deal with the situation through the strategies in this book.

The book is timeless....and should be required reading for all persons.

Prosec's view of life, even just angling and love, from the elevation of >26 years is underwhelming, especially compared to his pictures which are little devotions for my eye. By comparison, his topic and his prose here is like reading a cloying love letter from camp.

Keep drawing, Jim!

Don't think twice..buy anything authored by Prosek. He is an amazing writer now. As he ages his writer's (and painter's) eye will absorb more. If we are lucky, we will look at his observations and see if we can learn his methods. This is the examined life and it is worth every minute of the very fast read.

GRO

I have been a public school teacher since 1982, and I have taught in five different school systems.

Over the summer I read James Prosek's latest book on: Early Love and Trout. I found myself re-reading certain lines and smiling. I thought it was wonderful to find a book for Middle School and High School students that they can identify with at their present stage in life. The emotions and feelings James writes of, are theirs at this moment - the value of friendship, the excitement of new love and the pain caused by divorce. I think is particularly poignant how James describes how he dealt with that pain. Instead of anger, drugs and alcohol, James put all of his energy into nature. Finding new fishing places, and re-gaining his innocence, rather than becoming an angry and bitter individual.

Throughout the book, James's art compliments the stories like beautiful lyrics to a haunting melody.

I truly recommend this book as a gift or as an excellent choice as requirement reading for High School or Middle School Students.

James Dunn has done a masterful job of portraying the range of beliefs within first century Christianity. The earliest Christians were not a monolithic group who had an official doctrinal statement such as those we find in today's denominations. However, the one central characteristic which gave unity to the term "Christian" was the belief in the continuity between the earthly Jesus of Nazareth and the exalted Christ who was raised from the dead.

In regards to first century Christianity, Dunn examines the different confessions used in reference to Jesus (Son of Man, Messiah, Lord, Son of God). He examines the various ways in which the Old Testament was used or not used. He also covers diversity in worship, sacraments, religious experience, and christology. All of these areas and others demonstrate Dunn's thesis - which is that there was a tremendous amount of diversity accepted within the New Testament churches.

He then examines different segments of Christianity - Jewish, Hellenistic, Apocalyptic, and Early catholic. Within each of these categories he reviews what the dividing line was between acceptability and heresy. For example, Jewish Christianity became heretical if it "persisted in clinging to a limited view of Jesus and his role". The Ebionites were an example of this. As mentioned earlier, the dividing line in each area was in how Jesus was perceived.

One area of disagreement I have with Dunn is in how he overstates his case in some ways by being too simplistic. For example, he seems to treat each New Testament book as if it were a complete summary of the beliefs of the writer of that particular book. This often gives a skewed perspective on things. We know this by examining Paul's letters. If we only had 1 Thessalonians, then we would have a much different perspective on Paul than we do by comparing all seven (or more) of his letters. In the same way, I don't think we can claim as much as Dunn does in regards to the writers of such books as Hebrews, James, Matthew, and others. However, this doesn't detract from the fact that this is a highly informative book which accomplishes its task of showing how diverse Christianity was in the first century.

For the pensive and discerning reader, struggling through Professor Dunn's compact and rich text can be as significant an event, as reading Luther's "Introduction to Romans" turned out to be for Wesley. Certainly for those of us who attended traditional, conservative and orthodox Christian seminaries, this text can be an eye-opener. Similarly, for the laity whose spiritual guides graduated from such seminaries, this book can be liberating.

Contrary to what many of us learned in seminary (and others have simply assumed through denominational hubris), Dr. Dunn goes to great lengths to demonstrate -- from the canon of the New Testament, itself -- that there is no historically-mandated, one, proper way to be a Christian. Bishops and Church Councils may declare what they wish to declare, but often those declarations are simply not supported by the experience of the earliest Christians, as recorded in the New Testament. In one, bold move Professor Dunn minimizes both the teaching magisterium of Rome, and the most confrontive claims of the Protestant traditions.

Quoting extensively from Scripture, Professor Dunn demonstrates that: (1) there was not one expression of the Gospel, but several within the earliest Christian communities; (2) the confessional formulae and their settings for proclamation varied; (3) that the concept and structure of ministry varied widely among the earliest Christians; (4) that the structure and practice of worship was not unified; (5) that different Christian communities experienced the Spirit of the living God in different ways; and (6) that while all of the early Christian communities were unified by centering their lives and proclamations around the risen Christ, all of the early Christian communities did not understand the risen Christ in the same way. In short, Professor Dunn shows us that the earliest Christians were unified in their devotion to the risen Christ, but greatly diverse in the way that they experienced his presence among them, and told his story to the world.

Living in an era when denominational antagonisms are too often glossed over by a thin veneer of polite ecumenicity, reading Professor Dunn's book can be a humbling experience. Buy two copies of this book: one for yourself, and one for your least favorite, pompous member of the clergy

James Dunn's book, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament, is his endeavor to demonstrate the unity and diversity of first-century Christianity. He extends back into the New Testament to inquire whether we can speak of orthodoxy and heresy in early Christianity. He attempts to answer the question, "Was there a unifying strand in earliest Christianity which identifies it as Christian?" (page 6).

The book is divided into to main sections. In the first part, Dunn attempts to find the unifying strand in earliest Christianity, locating it in the " affirmation of the identity of the man Jesus with the risen Lord" (page 227). In this first part, Dunn examines the major kerygmata of the New Testament (of Jesus, Paul, Acts, John, Dunn seems to favor John), the primitive confessional formula (Dunn feels that early faith could be reduced to slogans), the role of tradition, the use of the Old Testament, the ideas of ministry, patterns of worship, sacraments, Spirit and experience, and Christology. Dunn shows a unity, Jesus, in each area he examined, while simultaneously illustrating the diversity of belief and practice.

In second part of the book investigates the diversity in early Christianity, with emphases on Jewish, Hellenistic, Apocalyptic Christianity, and Early Catholicism. Dunn shows that the center of unity here also exists in Jesus, "The unifying element was the unity between the historical Jesus and the exalted Christ" (page 369). He demonstrates that the early Christians accepted a wide range of beliefs and practices provided only that a connection to the human and exalted Jesus was established. This was all that orthodoxy embodied for early Christians, "there is no single normative form of Christianity in the first century" (page 373).

Dunn concludes the book with a chapter on "The Authority of the New Testament." Here he examines the diverse New Testament canon's role for Christians today. He makes a good suggestion that the canon limits the acceptable diversity of Christianity.

What first impressed me about this book was the breadth and at times depth of the material covered. Dunn has selected a wide range of topics to cover, it is a good collection of important issues with very good bibliographical references. Examples of sections that I found helpful are 16.1 "The role of tradition within Judaism," and 22 "Jewish Exegesis in the Time of Jesus," (page 82). These two sections contain good definitions and comparisons of Midrash, Halakah, Haggadah, Targum, and Pesher. The data presented in Section Two on the early sects was also excellent, I like the case for pre-gnostic thought existing in the first century.

In 9,"Jesus is the Son of Man," (page 35) Dunn argues that the Son of Man title grew out of a conviction of the early church, and was a distinctive theology in early Christianity. The expression also occurs in three Jewish apocalyptic works, Daniel, 2 Esdras, and 1 Enoch, although there it is applied to non-human or superhuman figures. The term also appears in some Qumran texts. There is much more debate on the titular use of Son of Man then Dunn gives credit. It's lack of use by Paul is may have been due to its awkwardness in Greek (it works better in Aramaic), and not necessarily a divergent Christology.

The title Son of God (page 45) is found in Dead Sea Scrolls, 4QDanA, and is mentioned by Dunn. The siglum 4Q246 also contains Son of the Most High. Dunn states that the title "came to full flower within the widening mission of Hellenistic Jewish Christianity." If this titles appear in the Qumran texts, wouldn't they have closer ties with Palestinian Jewish Christianity?

Dunn presents his arguments well, and I coincide with him on most issues and with his conclusion. It is one of the better books I have read in New Testament studies, I found all of it interesting. I still feel that in the end I have been short changed with Dunn's findings. Intuitively, I feel there should have been more unifying the early Christians. By claiming Jesus alone to be the unifying force is a not far removed from claiming all early Christians believed in Christ, and therefore shared a common name.

As a long-time student of magick and the occult, I have been on the lookout for this book for a very long time. Having read over excerpts downloaded from the internet, as well as material covered in other books of similar theme, I was rather amazed at how difficult of a read this book was. Its centuries old syntax and grammar make for an work that is like sojourning through the Bible. The information within, however, is solid, and extremely so. It is, indeed, one of the foundation works on the study of magick and the occult. It can be neatly used as a reference, but I wouldn't recommend actually sitting down and reading it.

I'm normally very skeptical about anything produced by Llewellyn, but not only is this an honest reproduction of Agrippa's brilliant works (I've seen the first English translation for myself--1560, I think), but Donald Tyson's scholarship is almost comparable to Agrippa's own. The notes are extensive & do a marvelous job of fleshing out the myriad brief & passing references in the text. Quotes from Agrippa's most likely sources provide timely insights into his own mind, and Tyson in addition offers a notes on sources foreign to or later than Agrippa for comparative study. Tyson's editing does not disturb the text at all, but rather makes it that much more clear. His diagrams & seals are well produced, & his corrections (which include skilled reanalysis of the Hebrew) & major additions are saved for the back of each chapter and of the whole volume. These appendices, and the bibliographical notes as well, are intelligent, clearheaded & very useful. Agrippa's genius is well known, but Tyson's fine scholarship for this volume deserves acknowledgment as well. I recommend this book especially strongly to serious students of magic who are tired of the flood of New Age-y magical manuals & gothic garbage tossed out like so much glitter by these shallow modern writers who use "magic" as a substitute for intelligence, or as a solution to their ego problems.

Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy must rank as one of, if not the most important work ever written on the Western Occult tradition. Written in relative youth, it nevertheless has an immensely broad range of topics covering Goetia ("Black magic") and Theurgia ("White magic') while still remaining in the Christian tradition. Agrippa's work certainly provides numerous practical instructions, but always ties together a wide range of classical and traditional sources in a broad theorectical framework. As a traditional astrologer I found his exposition of astrological magic to be among the best available in English, better than Marsilio Ficino's Three Books of Life (though the Boer translation is fairly universally disliked). Much of astrological magic still remains locked up in Latin, Thabit Ibn Qurra's De Imaginibus, edited by Carmody and Picatrix, edited by Pingree being the most salient examples. I should note, however, that Brill has just published a new edition of Agrippa in the original Latin which does differ in some respects from the Freake translation that Tyson has edited in this edition. For example, Chapter 50, Book II at 403 Agrippa describes the construction of amulets for love and concord between two people. The first full paragraph in the Tyson edition ends, "...let them [the two images] be wrapped up in silk and cast away or spolied. In the Latin Brill edition the sentence states that the images should be wrapped in "fine linen cloth" and "buried". Nonetheless if I could have only one book on the Western occult tradition (perish the thought!) this would be it. Anyone with a serious interest in studying or practicing in this area should have this book

This is a somewhat eccentric book. It is by an English professor and it wishes to counter the anti-Marxist consensus that has grown up around the origins of the English revolution. The book comes in two parts. The first discusses the revisionist historiography of the English Revolution, the Foucault-New Historicist influences on literary criticism, and Marxist revisions of the theory of class struggle. The second part looks at five special aspects of the revolution: the supporters of the assasin of the Duke of Buckingham, the praxis of the New Model Army, a female prophet named Anna Trapnel, a supporter of tyrannicide named Edward Sexby, and Gerrard Winstanely and the Diggers.

The first, smaller part is the more useful. Holstun makes some telling points against the revisionists, such as the way they define pre-revolutionary ideology so broadly that any opposition to the king before 1640 can be defined out of existence. Because no one broke absolutely with the views of the past, we can supposedly argue that none broke at all. He notes the way revisionists euphemize Stuart censorship, how they crudely psychoanalyze revolutionaries or reduce their concerns to envy, and how they describe the English revolution as a "war of three kingdoms" "instead of complex societies in a structured hierarchy dominated by England." In his critique of the New Historicists Holstun aptly focuses on their obsession with power, on the grotesque or barbaric gesture (such as the execution of Damiens). His defence of Class Struggle is also interesting, though less original in his reservations about the base and superstructure model. Sartre, rather unusually, serves as an inspiration and there is some interesting criticisms of Habermas.

The second part is much more disappointing. Each of the five chapters concentrates on a series of texts. Instead of advancing beyond previous Marxist arguments, there is a tendency to simple recapitulate old verities. There is a long summary and paraphrase which becomes increasingly tedious, while there is little new evidence brought forth. Meanwhile the relationship between the anti-Buckinghamites, the Agitators, Trapnel, Sexby and Winstanley and the larger population is never made clear. Holstun could have said more, in his discussion of the Agitators, about their suggestions for redistributing land. The chapter on Trapnel, included in order to bring some discussion of gender, does not succeed in this, since female Fifth Monarchy prophets were very untypical of their sex. Moreover there is a rather sentimental appreciation of Baptism and Quakerism as radical movements. He cites E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class, to emphasize the complex heritage of Dissent. Yet Thompson's chapter "The Transforming power of the Cross," emphasizes Methodism's philistinism, its reactionary and sycophantic nature, its hatred of pleasure and curiosity. Holstun also argues that without the experience of their female prophets Mary Wollstonecraft and her feminism could not have existed. Perhaps, but the absence of these movements in France did not stop the Marquis de Condorcet and the radical Herbertistes. The chapter on Sexby is actually more nuanced, agreeing that Sexby's anti-Cromwellian pamphlet, Killing no Murder, is still within the Protestant theory of anti-tyrannical writing. (But one should not forget that the Sexby chapter concludes with some fatuous comments on assasination.) The chapter on Winstanley also provides some useful refutations on Winstanely as a minor, time-bound, envious, totalitarian misogynist. Ultimately, there is a major problem with tone: Holstun always finds a radical movement or an inspiring vision from the past. Ultimately, this optimistic note rings hollow.

Winner of the 2001 Isaac Deutscher Memorial Prize, Ehud's Dagger: Class Struggle In The English Revolution by James Holstun (Professor of English, State University of New York - Buffalo) is an extensive, 460-page historical survey and analysis of seventeenth-century England's first capitalist and anti-capitalist revolutions. Examining the concepts of Marxist history and class struggle as applied to hierarchy and history, Ehud's Dagger expertly dissects and analyzes social evolution and society motives of the times. Meticulous, scholarly, and thoroughly "reader friendly", Ehud's Dagger is a welcome and highly recommended addition to English History and The History of Economics reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

In Ehud's Dagger: Class Struggle In The English Revolution, James Holstun surveys 17th century England and the rise of capitalist influence and the first anti-capitalist revolution by working men and women seeking to create a libertarian future and escape the hardships of an industrializing society. Holstun writes with meticulous attention to historical detail, evoking the sense of peering into the past through a window in time and surveying John Felton's assassination of the Duke of Buckingham, the political debates in the Puritan New Model Army, the anti-Cromwellian prophesying of the Fifth Monarchist prophetess, Anna Trapnel, and more. Ehud's Dagger is a scholarly, engaging, accessible, and highly recommended contribution to the annals of British history in terms of class struggle and the emergence of an industrial society.