Having worked in insurance for years, I expected this book would be of interest to people like me. I was surprised, however, to find it has a much broader appeal. It was fascinating to read how commercial insurance developed in conjunction with and support of our country's development. Many will be surprised to learn of its significant role in protecting our society and promoting our economy.

The personal stories about the people who developed the business are especially enjoyable--some of the most interesting are
about founders of major brokerages and those associated with
problems at Lloyds of London in the eighties.

I recommend this book to insurance and business professionals and to general readers with interest in American history.

Spreading the Risks: Insuring the American Experience is a fascinating account of the key events shaping the development of property and casualty insurance as an indigenous American business -- from colonial times to the present day. It is based on 13 years of research by an industry insider who had unique access to insurance leaders and records. It also is the most complete account I've found of how the insurance agency and brokerage system evolved through disasters and economic transformations into the 21st century.

It has an extensive bibliography and a comprehensive index that make it especially useful as a source of information.

Spreading the Risks does an outstanding job of telling the amazing story of the insurance industry. Who knew that insurance could be so interesting?

John Bogardus and Robert Moore have clearly spent considerable time researching this material and their "real life" experience in the field shines through beautifully. This book is incredibly valuable to people in the insurance field. However, it is written in a way that also appeals to the person who is simply curious about business, history, and life in general.

The book does a great job of demonstrating how the insurance business (in the past, and now ) affects all of us.

This book describes the way creationists approach evolution. If they can find just one thing that evolutionary biologists have yet to explain, they figure that one thing is enough to throw the whole thing out. Such a view is just wrong, and shows an abysmal understanding - or abuse - of science. There are more than enough transitional fossils to convince a fair minded skeptic, but no creationist would ever agree to classify anything as a transitional fossil. Not Archeoptryx, not Acanthostega (sp?), not the mammal-like reptiles. The beautiful documention of the evolution of the mammalian jaw from the reptilian jaw should convince anybody, but it will never convince a creationist.

Of course, there is a lot that scientists don't know about evolution. But there is a lot that we DO know, and there is just too much evidence to simply toss out evolution. This is a theory that will not go away, although I wouldn't be surprised to see it change as we learn more about genetics.

This book is not written for creationists, but for people who might be sympathetic to their cause. If people would learn more about the nature of science, they would be offended by the utter dishonesty and lack of integrity you find in scientific creationism.

FGTG is a 200-page overview of the 2300-year history of the development of the E/C dispute. As an overview, it has the typical advantages and disadvantages of that genre, being written in very simple language, with only a minimum of technical detail. It would be a good introduction to the subject for someone with little prior knowledge of the history of the dispute, but it might not be very satisfying for people looking for a discussion of the most up-to-date, scientific analysis.

The Preface states that science rests on two principles: (1) scientists must base their analysis about how the world operates, not on idiosyncratic, a priori beliefs, but on empirical data; and (2) scientists must subject their analysis to testing and confirmation by others. In this two-step process, scientists failing to follow step 1, would be caught and exposed by other scientists in step 2. The self-correcting nature of the scientific enterprise is perhaps its most important feature. Any human enterprise is subject to error, so having a built-in, error-correction mechanism is essential.

FGTG describes young-Earth creationist organizations, like the Institute for Creation Research, that do not follow the error-correction methods of traditional science. The logical conclusion from that is inescapable.

FGTG analogizes the E/C dispute to the on-going dispute over the 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man skeleton found in Washington. Scientists want to use traditional scientific methods to identify the remains, but local Indian tribes insist that such tests are unnecessary, because their ancient, tribal, religious beliefs have already led them to conclude that the skeleton is the remains of one of their ancestors; and conducting any scientific tests at all would violate the Indians' religious beliefs. The point here is clear: injecting religion into a debate brings science to a halt.

FGTG reviews some of the differences between religion and science as knowledge systems. Beliefs based on religious considerations have a very strong emotional basis and may produce strong feelings of personal satisfaction. Beliefs based on scientific considerations tend to have a much weaker emotional impact. Scientific beliefs, by their very nature, are tentative, because all such beliefs are based only on the evidence acquired to date, and that evidence is ALWAYS incomplete. No matter how much data has been acquired to date in support of Theory X and no matter how compelling the inferences from that data may be, it is ALWAYS the case that evidence discovered next week may totally invalidate today's "unassailable" theory. Ptolemy gave way to Copernicus, Copernicus gave way to Newton, and Newton to Einstein. Science marches on, and that may be threatening to people craving certainty in their lives. For such people, unchanging, superstitious explanations may be more satisfying emotionally than any rational analysis, no matter how brilliant it may be.

FGTG sketches the development of biological explanations, both supernatural and scientific, from ancient Greece to the present. One interesting tidbit reported that religious groups sometimes incorporated scientific work into their religious beliefs. Galen's scientific studies on anatomy and Ptolemy's on astronomy were incorporated into the religious doctrines of some Christian denominations (Protestant and Catholic), changing their character from tentative statements about science into unchallengeable religious doctrines. So when Michael Servetus, a Spanish physician, pointed out mistakes in Galen's anatomical descriptions, the Catholic Church burned him at the stake in 1553. Giordano Bruno met the same fate in 1600 for preferring Copernican over Ptolemaic astronomy. So empirical data and analysis can be incorporated into religious systems, but the data and analysis are then no longer open to question, which violates the second characteristic of genuine science as described in the beginning of the book.

Another interesting chapter compared the dramatically different versions of creation given in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. If creationists believe that the Bible is inerrant in all its parts, then it is difficult to reconcile the fact that these two chapters are diametrically opposed to each other.

FGTG also points out that none of the original Biblical manuscripts survive and that the copies that do survive are significantly different from each other in many aspects. In the story about Noah's Flood, another key, creationist concept, one version says that only man, land animals, and birds will be destroyed, while another version says that all animals, apparently including even whales and fishes, will be destroyed. Again, if the Bible is supposed to be error free, it is difficult to explain why the Bible contradicts itself.

The history of the study of fossils and early attempts to reconcile them with the Bible was also interesting. The idea that a species could ever go extinct challenged belief in God's "perfect" creation as described in Eccl. 4:14.

FGTG reviews the early history of evolutionary theories, and very briefly reviews the data that evolution explains: sequential order of fossils (including Precambrian organisms); classification of organisms into nested categories (based on both gross anatomy and genetic data); data related to embryonic development (specifically recapitulating the embryonic evolution of the mammalian ear from its reptilian predecessor, and the vertebrate kidney); numerous intermediate forms (especially Archaeopteryx and horses); and radioactive dating.

The last quarter of the book reviews some of the major court battles over evolution education, especially the Scopes and McLean cases. One of the editorial reviewers complained about Moore's presenting evolutionists as "fearless truth seekers," but the sad fact of the matter is that evolutionists really have had to be fearless in opposing the religious bigotry that kept legitimate science from being taught. Michael Servetus, Giordano Bruno, John Scopes, and Bill McLean were indeed demonstrating fearlessness in opposing the religious bigots of their day.

The book's conclusion that both religion and science have a place in human affairs, but that the place of religion is not in a science classroom will come as no surprise. What may be surprising is the list of religious groups that agree with that conclusion, including Presbyterian, Jewish, Episcopal, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Unitarian, and Methodist organizations.

Very interesting book, easy to read, and full of worthwhile insights. I recommend it!

What a breadth of knowledge this man has! What humanity! What generousity of spirit! I read it in one sitting because I found it so fascinating. It was worth sacrificing a weekend.