Conquests and Cultures: An International History

Rating:
Summary: great historical referance
Review: Thomas has written several great books on ethnic groups and histroy like ethnic america and race and culture. Conquest and culture fallows this trend. It looks at several different cultures and looked at how they changed through time. The cultures he looks at are the English, Native Americans, Africans, and Slavs. All of these groups have important histories that need to be told. Conquest is definetely something you should read if you're interested in learning about how cultures change through time and are affected by different cultures.

Rating:
Summary: Politically incorrect, and it's about time.
Review: Why do some societies advance and succeed, while others stagnate? While Europe created great mercantile empires and scientific advances, Africa and the Americas never advanced beyond a primitive level. Sowell's insight and intellect (he holds a PhD in Economics, and is a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institute) come to the fore in this well researched and presented argument that successful societies are the products of a combination of geography, history, and "accrued cultural capital". From the Roman conquest of Britain to the European colonization of Africa and the New World, from the Chinese to the Mayans, cultural clashes throughout history have influenced the course of social development, sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better. It's often too easy to blame European exploitation for the ills of the third world. Sowell shows that, more often than not, colonialism cost the colonizing power more than it received. This book should be required reading for students of history, sociology, and economics.