I consider this book the most complete on the Taino's art and crafts. The collection presented here was gathered from all over the world and represents all the islands of the Greater Antilles. Yet, it is not merely a "coffee table book" full of great pictures. The authors of the essays included represent some of the most important researchers of the Caribbean. Ricardo E. Alegría's essay "An Introduction to Taino Culture and History" is the best summary of this ancient people's way of life. This was a real achievement for the Museo del Barrio and Monacelli Press.

Here, the interested reader will find an unparalleled account of a great people sadly wiped out by greed. This book is the foremost reference on the people and culture from the carribean. Nowhere can there be found a more complete account. No other book can compare to what one can learn from this book. This is by far the best book I have found on the subject of precolumbian culture in the Carribean!

The book is based on El Museo del Barrio which resurrected the Taino culture for native New Yorkers in the late 1970's. It is a must read on the Taino people and culture. The color prints of the artifacts and the English translation of archive material brings one closer to what the Taino people were.

Reading diaries from the dead, has always made me feel like a voyeur, looking into half open windows, the curtains partially drawn, and seeing what shouldn't be seen. Granted, some diarists write to be read, while most, in my opinion, do not. But there is a kind of sweet pleasure in committing a misdemeanour and getting away with it - which is the sensation one feels when reading this anthology.

There are some 170 diarists in this anthology, some well known and others not so, and well over 1800 entries, containing profound thoughts of the time from a few great historical figures to the routine-filled humdrum of the day-to-day. The humdrum day-to-day, in most cases, was a lot more interesting because it is usually what people do everyday that provides insight into their character and the times in which they lived.

On the front flap of the cover is a single line that really defines a great diarist - "The best diarists are those who write without looking over their shoulders." That total lack of self-consciousness, that pure honesty that comes with writing about self and others, is certainly a pleasure for the reader. For example, a simple line, almost an after thought, written by the French novelist, Andre Gide - "It requires a great effort to convince myself that I am as old as those who seemed to me old when I was young."

Because this anthology includes both famous diarists and those not so famous, many unknown individuals in some cases, there is a biography section at the back which gives a brief history for each contributor, that for me, managed to provide enough background information for the entries to be much more meaningful.

As with most anthologies, one does not necessarily need to read them chronologically, but can dip, skip and choose ar random as the particular mood dictates. This is the perfect book to have by your bed to read a few short or long entries before falling to sleep. One can sample a taste of the 16th century with one of the most famous diarists, Samuel Pepys, and jump a few pages ahead to read Andy Warhol and his unusual observations about some famous people and New York's art world of the sixties.

Great stuff.

I don't recall hearing any press buzz when this book came out, and I can't understand why. This is a brilliantly edited collection of excerpts from diarists both famous and obscure. Some of the most interesting entries were written by total unknowns, including people of whom one would not even suspect literacy. One-paragraph biographies of all diarists appear at the end of the book, for reference.

The genius of the editors, which sounds like a gimmick but isn't, is their arrangment of the excerpts by the month and day that the entries were written. Within each day, the entries jump magnificently from century to century, and from author to author, so that the voices that the reader hears, and the perspectives on history and society that the reader gains, are constantly shifting. For example, entries of European Jews in the midst of the Holocaust are juxtaposed with British entries from the same era--and German entries from twenty years earlier.

The format makes for more richness of texture than any one diarist could. This book calls to mind Thomas Mallon's _A Book of One's Own_. Mallon's book groups diarists by type, however, not entries by day, and Mallon provides a great deal more commentary than the editors of _The Assassin's Cloak_ do. The Taylors let their own quirky choices of entries provide implied commentary.

Warning: this book is 600 pages long, and highly addictive. A must read for anyone interested in diaries and journals.

This huge, juicy anthology is packed chock-full, in chronological order, of tasty tidbits from diarists of four centuries -- some the usual suspects (Pepys, de Beauvoir, Warhol), others you've probably never heard of, or at least not in this context (who knew Brian Eno kept a diary?). Some were writing for themselves alone, others knew darn well their journals would be published some day. All are eminently readable and completely intriguing. Expect to spend many happy evenings curled up in a chair reading May Sarton's opinion on why people under 40 shouldn't live alone, Liane de Pougy's memory of her wedding night, Noel Coward's description of a Beatles concert, Stendahl's observation that eating peas made him less lustful, and many, many more.

Steven Brams and Alan Taylor accomplish something quite interesting and worth paying attention to. They move concepts traditionally treated in policy debate and law with simple hit-or-miss human judgment and discretion into concrete analyzable mathematical processes. In the more than ten years that I've worked on the mathematics of child support, I have not yet been so convincing that such a transformation from subjective into objective is possible. Let the games continue!

Roger F. Gay, Project Leader Project for the Improvement of Child Support Litigation Technology http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5910/index.html

This was easily the book I referred to most in my Master's paper on fair division. It covers a lot of topics, including envy-free and equitable division, fair division by auctions, and fair division by elections. The authors devote a chapter to their favorite method, the so-called "combined procedure" that is equitable, envy-free, and Pareto-optimal for two players and would be invaluable to any divorce lawyer.

For those accustomed to reading mathematics or economics, this book is readable. For the layperson, it might be a little bit too technical in spots. While it has many practical examples, it isn't really a fair division manual for the do-it-yourselfer. But it's as close as you're going to get, for now.

Taylor concentrates on the influence Germans divided history and expansion into Slavic areas had on their actions toward other nations. Not everyone will like his thesis, but it deserves a hearing. The book, which was long out of print, is well written, making it a pleasure to read.

The book is a valuable guide to how humans can live, work, and play in forest ecosystems in a way that does not destroy forests. The authors have compiled a wide range of articles most of which were originally published by the Ecoforestry Institute in their Journal of Ecoforestry. The articles lay the philosophical base upon which ecoforestry is premised. Ecological forestry seems to be the solution to many of the environmental problems seen in forests and forestry today, a way to resolve many of the vexing issues of forestry. This book is a must read for all forest activists, foresters, academics, and people concerned with humans relationships with forests and nature.

Well upon reading this book I did not only find it very interesting but also it had other very good points of the book. Every page I turned to there were detailed illustrations complete with pictures and diagrams. I have also been though the intermediate book and I personally thought that this was well illustrated and presented, but this book is in a new league of GNVQ books, if you are interested in taking the GNVQ then I would highly recommend this book for reference and ideas. This book for me gets 5 starts.

This book is probably of most use to the seasoned New Orleans traveler, as it deals with the city from the perspective of a native telling you the best places to go. Think about it - would a New Yorker send you to Tavern on the Green or to their favorite local hangout? Would a San Franciscan send you to Ma Maison or to a hole-in-the-wall sandwiched between a Chinese grocery and a laundromat? Well, "New Orleans on the Half-Shell" is no different; local, unknown places take the front seat here, leaving the touristy places to the other guides.

This is not to say that there is no consideration for the casual tourist here. You'll get all the information you need from this slim volume, from shopping to dining, tours to bar-hopping. But I'd recommend that you use this particular guide in conjunction with another, more complete guide, specifically the terrific Insight guide that doubles as a history book and cultural primary.

On a personal note, I found my favorite restaurant in all the world in "New Orleans on the Half Shell", a place not mentioned in any other guidebook. I won't tell you where it is; you'll have to read it yourself to find it.

A.J. P. Taylor generated a lot of controversy with what he recorded here about the causes leading up to the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, and it's not because of some weakness in his personal conclusions. If you read it for yourself, you'll learn so much that you actually won't be dependent on anyone else's conclusions. The book is now a familiar topic to all World War Two historians, but it amazed them all the more because Taylor is considered by many to rank among the finest historians the Western World ever produced.

He points out that what most people have learned about the outbreak of WW2 isn't actually in serious error, but it skips over all the embarrassing controversies and gray areas. Those deficiencies leave politicians with very few insights about how they could avert future tragedies. It's also a dangerously simplistic view planted in the minds of millions by the power of modern media, but there's actually no one person, government, regime, or creed, that can be blamed for the ignorance, as much as we would like to believe that only the good guys (or bad guys) who rule dished the perspective out to us... Misconceptions about WW2 era need to be grappled with honestly, and this particular book is a good start...Modern sociologists and religious people are moving away from a blanket condemnation of any individual or nation, especially those which are no longer in existence, and the insights offered by Taylor apply intelligence and sensitivity to the history of our last century. It is among the finest literary contributions offered for a more peaceful world.

'The Origins of the Second World War' remains one of A. J. P. Taylor's most controversial works. Published barely sixteen years after the end of the second world war his thesis challenges the conventional view of history.

The main thrust of Taylor's book is that Hitler, the German Chancellor, did not plan the Second World War. Mr Taylor expands upon his main theme by explaining that war was caused by the failure of the league of Nations and that 'International anarchy' made war possible. He argues that Hitler's foreign policy was like that of his predecessors: to destroy the Versailles settlement and, by restoring the German army, make Germany the greatest power in Europe. He claims that Hitler never took the initiative but waited for others to do the work for him. Mr Taylor continues by suggesting that the idea of destroying Austria, probably never entered Hitler's head.

The Nuremberg war trials established, using the Hossbach Memorandum as key evidence, that Hitler had planned for the conquest of Europe through National Socialism. This was the accepted conclusion reached by most historians. It is, therefore, not surprising that Mr Taylor's book courts such controversy, his thesis disowns the conclusions reached at Nuremberg and thus challenges the validity of the moral judgements reached against the German defendants.

Taylor, with one small exception, fails to draw on Hitler's ideological and racist doctrine, and to suggest that he was in principle and doctrine no more wicked and unscrupulous than many other contemporary statesmen is misleading. The historian Trevor-Roper has gone as far as to suggest that Taylor was pandering to Nazi sympathisers. Taylor in second thoughts, the prelude to the 1963 edition of his book, treats this suggestion with the contempt that it deserves.

Taylor's argument is convincing on first inspection, however further examination reveals various contradictions and inaccuracies. However this in its self should not take away from the importance of Taylor's thesis. Taylor rightly questions the conventional view of the origins of the second world war, which was formulated at Nuremberg. The Nuremberg trials were concerned with judicial proof and not historical record. The method by which many of the documents were selected is criticised by Taylor, who attempts to show that the historical record might well be different to the conclusions reached at Nuremberg. In his attempt to discredit the conventional, he relies on a selection of documents which suit his narrative.

In trying to show a different interpretation of the facts, Taylor finds himself arguing that Hitler was no different from his predecessors, he wanted justice for Germany. Justice for Germany is one thing, but Taylor rejects the ideas that Hitler planned the war or indeed took the initiative. Although Taylor concedes that 'in wicked acts he [Hitler] out did them all', perhaps he is too lenient towards Hitler and under-plays his role in the origins of the second world war.

Taylor's contribution to the literature on the Second World Waris a must read. He exhaustively researched the diplomatic dealingsthat preceded the outbreak of war and provided a wealth ofinformation. He shows that neither was Hitler simply a raving,irrational madman, nor were the British, French and other leadersparagons of virtue and sterling defenders of democratic ideals. As inmost cases in history in which "high politics" are involved, thediplomatic dealings occuring on the eve of World War II show that itis difficult to clearly distinguish between the "good" and the"bad" - even when detestable ghouls like Hitler areinvolved. Another important aspect of Taylor's work here is to showhow much history is more than just a series of broad processes, butalso a matter of minute human interactions. Thus, one can only go sofar in explaining the Second World War in terms of socio-economicfactors (which were, to be sure, crucial) - one also has to look athow events are the result of actions taken by powerful leaders andtheir back-room dealings with each other. All in all, an excellent andvery illuminating book. END

In "American Colonies," historian Alan Taylor has created an easily accessible yet highly informative overview of the crucial first era of the history of North America. Taylor does an admirable job of elaborating on the simple framework of names and dates that bore so many contemporary students; he discusses geography, agriculture, trade, as well as the cultures and religions of the myriad groups (both native and European) that created colonial America.

Rather than attempting to cover the entire continent in a continuous chronology, Taylor breaks the book into 19 chapters, each describing one geographic area during a given time period (e.g. "Virginia 1570-1650," "New England 1600-1700"). I found this organizational choice to be very effective; it makes the scope of the topic manageable and also allows one to easily research a specific area. The chapter setup is all the better due to the content choices Taylor has made. Rather than focus solely on the 13 British colonies, the book also spends time on the Spanish and French settlements. I fear that many people think Columbus discovered North America in 1492 and then nothing happened until the Pilgrims landed in 1620. Taylor corrects that misperception by including two chapters on the Spanish settlements in Mexico, New Mexico, and Florida before even touching on the British colonies. There are also two chapters on New France and Canada that give greater meaning to the Seven Years War. I was most pleased, however, with the chapter discussing the British West Indies, a geographic area completely ignored by many US History courses. Yet as Taylor explains, the West Indies at that time were FAR more valuable to the Crown than the mainland colonies! These chapters are a much needed corrective, but they are not given disproportionate coverage: a large majority of the book focuses on what was to become the continental United States.

The story of the early United States is largely a story of European-Indian interactions, another topic Taylor handles well. Rather than taking Native Americans for granted, he spends the first chapter explaining their origins, the migrations across the Bering Strait, and their lives before European contact. But the eventual clash of cultures is the dominant story and Taylor states the case bluntly: beginning with the Taino on Hispaniola (p. 38-39), Europeans conquered, murdered, and enslaved native peoples on an unthinkable scale. But Taylor lets the evidence speak for itself and does not lecture the reader or take the opportunity to moralize. Furthermore, he dispels several myths about Indians that seem to be creeping into popular belief. Indians were not inherently peaceful peoples: the Five Nation Iroquois had gruesome rituals of torture ("The seventeenth century was a merciless time for the defeated on either side of the Atlantic" [p. 103]) and raided the Huron to near extinction. Nor were they pre-modern environmentalists: "Natives usually showed restraint, not because they were ecologically minded in the twentieth century sense, but because spirits, who could harm people, lurked in the animals and plants" (p. 19). All in all, I thought the book presented a very balanced and detailed account of the Native Americans.

Although I read this book on my own time, I could not help but appreciate what a great book it would be for students, either high school or college. (It is the first volume of The Penguin History of the United States, edited by Eric Foner.) First, Taylor does not assume a great deal of prior knowledge and goes out of his way to clearly explain concepts that other books might not. For example, Taylor explains the English Parliament in a way that would be very helpful to those not familiar with British history while not boring those of us who know more (p. 120). The Glorious Revolution (p. 278) and the advent of Quakers (p. 264) are both handled in a similarly informative way. The book also includes the relevant maps for each chapter, a great boon to students familiarizing themselves with geography. Finally, the book is based almost exclusively on secondary sources. This point concerned me at first, but I came to love the fact that for any topic I could look in the extensive bibliography and find an entire book on that particular subject.

Given this praise, why only four stars? Basically, I'm stingy with the five star reviews. While I found this book extremely informative and easy to read, it was never thrilling. This lack of excitement is no fault of the author, the topic is just too broad to be gripping: colonial America covers too much time, too much space, and too many figures (none of whom can be adequately fleshed out in such a broad survey). Ultimately I found "American Colonies" to be a consistently good book (perhaps the best on the subject as a whole) but not an excellent book. I do, however, very much look forward to reading Professor Taylor's other book, "William Cooper's Town," for which he won the Pulitzer Prize.

Alan Taylor has written a magnificent, fresh overview of the history of American colonies--the plural is intentional because he treats not just the thirteen colonies, but the Spanish, French, Russian, and other English colonies like Nova Scotia and Barbados. The author achieves a balance from the anti-colonial bashing of some current historical writing--while giving an accurate picture of the terrible effects of colonization on native peoples and African slaves, he gives the colonists their due as tamers of demanding environments and founders of a New World. For anyone looking for a broader picture of the colonization process, this is the book to read. The first in a series of Penguin histories of the U.S., this excellent book bodes well for the volumes to come!

Alan Taylor has painted for the reader, in his book American Colonies, a fantastic picture of the early years of the entire North American continent. His book provides the reader with a structure not always seen in history books; the chapters focus on a geographic region within a specific time frame.

For those people that have learned that American history started only with the original 13 British colonies (as is so frequently taught in American schools today), this book will dispel that myth by introducing the reader to such areas as Spanish New Mexico and Florida, early Hawaii, and Russian Alaska.

The author has provided us with a spectacular view of these different aspects of the North American colonial history, and should be read by anyone interested in the formation of America as it exists today or any aspect of its early creation.

Readers should be aware that since Taylor is looking at such an expansive area and time frames, the book is not a comprehensive study of early America, but is more like a detailed introduction, with many avenues worthy of further exploration in more detailed studies.

What A. J. P. Taylor's The Struggle for Mastery in Europe suffers from in being nearly fifty years old, it more than makes up for in style. It is a riveting book that is smattered with wit and an author's thorough knowledge of his subject. Alternate titles might have been The Struggle to Prevent the Mastery of Europe, or the Decline and Fall of the Balance of Power.

Taylor's unyielding faith in diplomacy reflects a Cold War notion that any political problem can be solved by maintaining a diplomatic balance. He deftly navigates the Byzantine web of diplomatic intrigue to show how negotiations, not war, ultimately resolves crises. His whig interpretations are at times blatant. Conservative Russia and Prussia are often "humiliated" and "old fashioned" while liberal France fell victim to its own "ingenuity" or suffered "shattered prestige."

Not all events are treated equal. The 1867 Anschloss or the 1894 Dreyfus Affair receive practically no attention, while obscure diplomatic conventions receive detailed analysis. Great leaders like Napoleon III or Bismarck receive Taylor's praise while British statesmen of lesser stature receive criticism. Taylor is also anti-imperial, stating that colonies are a sign of weakness (though he later seems to suggest the opposite). His treatment of the coming of World War One is perhaps his greatest weakness, or perhaps this is where the book is most dated. He seems to be somewhat surprised that war erupted in the face of diplomatic failure. He fails to see that many at the time lost faith in diplomacy and allowed the war to happen.

In the end, though, this is a fine work. Taylor interjects personal philosophies throughout the book. "Men learn from their mistakes how to make new ones (p. 111);" "Once men imagine a danger they soon turn it into a reality (p. 450); and "A historian should never deal in speculations about what did not happen" (p. 513) are but a few examples. (This last is a personal favorite as it flies in the face of alternative history.) Clever recto page headings and use of dates keep the reader aware of what is happening, and Taylor is a master of the semi colon. All in all this remains a very informative work.

I think what made me start loving Alan Taylor is the passage from "Struggle" about Louis Napoleon's government being "run by gangsters". After a lifetime of school histories unwilling to venture a judgement, scrupulous in their aridness, this was a revelation.

Taylor suffered ostracism for his outspoken views, especially from Oxford, where his trampling of sacred cows prevented him from gaining a professorship. On the other hand, his rival, Hugh Trevor-Roper, played the Tory historian and prospered. (It was, of course, Trevor-Roper who staked his reputation as an historian on the authenticity of the fraudulent Hitler diaries of 1983, hopefully giving Taylor the last laugh. But being an establishment historian, Sir Hugh was immunized from serious career consequences.)

If you want to understand the century past, you must begin in the century previous, in about 1848. When Taylor deposits you in 1918, you will be on secure footing while reading his, "Origins of the Second World War" or Ian Brendon's "Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s," leading you in turn to WWII, which brings the nineteenth century to a close in 1945. It is said that Alan Taylor liked paradox. I wonder how he liked this one.

This is A.J.P. Taylor's masterpiece of history. Taylor is an exquisite writer, with a unique style that cannot resist the irony and contradictions inherent in the actual fabric of European diplomacy. This sprawling tale of folly and pretension is informed by Taylor's exhaustive reading of the official foreign affairs correspondence of the respective nations involved, as well as his own mastery of modern European history. His prose is consistently edged with wit on the verge of sarcasm, always keen to the absurd roots of tragedy. For Taylor there are no sacred cows: every class, every institution, every political party, even cynicism itself, fumbles in the dark, toiling under the weight of its illusions and contradictions. One does not emerge from this book with an enhanced respect for statesmen, generals or revolutionaries. This is one of the few history books I plan on reading at least twice.