<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: one of the best presents you can give a friend
Review: I especially admire the structure; what Kundera achieves in the novel Zeldin realises in a modern history of human emotions. It could be that people living in America will find the subjects too Eurocentric. They're all French and all women. But steer away from your preconceptions, please and enjoy the bravest work of history for the past decade. I have bought about a dozen copies of this book - I found it important to give it to friends.
Rating:
Summary: A history of everything
Review: I find it difficult to praise this book enough. It is definitely not just a book about history--it is more a book about philosophy and the human condition. I could say that this is a book about everything--or rather everything that deals with being human.Even though it certainly is not a chronological story of human events, it examines many of the aspects of intrapersonal and interpersonal behavior we take for granted every day. He states himself, "But this book is not a summary of history: it has deliberately limited itself to finding lock that look as though they will not open, and to showing how they can be opened." The author, Theodore Zeldin, raises the question of what freedom really is, the history of conversation, loneliness, sex, dating, religion, and much more. He has interviewed people from all over the world to find commonalities and differences in the way we lead our lives. I think this is the kind of book that everyone can relate to and must be somewhat interested in as long as one cares about the human condition. As the author states himself, "This book has tried to show how great a difference to the conduct of daily life the ability to alter the focus of one's perceptions can make. To be hospitable to the nuances of life, it is no use treating the mind as an automatic camera; only by composing one's picture and playing with light and shadow can one hope to see something interesting." This book is in the end optimistic and Zeldin believes that humanity is merely at the beginnings of worldwide hospitality and sharing and understanding of ideas. Personally, this is the kind of reading I particularly enjoy--a compelling work that gets you thinking, a work which raises as many questions as it answers. However, it is also an extremely well researched work (as evidenced by the notes at the end of each chapter) with all kinds of fascinating information on the side. He provides a comparison of different attitudes and philosophies of different cultures. It is like reading a book about behind the scenes of history. Instead of tracing the history of things like kings and battles, he traces the history behind more intangible concepts like the concept of romantic love and contentment. Overall, I cannot begin to describe the entire work here, nor do I feel obliged to. I would highly recommend that you read this book yourself to fully understand everything it is about. In case you are interested, here is a listing of the chapters:
1. How humans have repeatedly lost hope, and how new encounters, and a new pair of spectacles, revive them
2. How men and women have slowly learned to have interesting conversations
3. How people searching for their roots are only beginning to look far and deep enough
4. How some people have acquired an immunity to loneliness
5. How new forms of love have been invented
6. Why there has been more progress in cooking than in sex
7. How the desire that men feel for women, and for other men, has altered through the centuries
8. How respect has become more desirable than power
9. How those who want neither to give orders nor to receive them can become intermediaries
10. How people have freed themselves from fear by finding new fears
11. How curiosity has become the key to freedom
12. Why it has become increasingly difficult to destroy one's enemies
13. How the art of escaping from one's troubles has developed, but not the art of knowing where to escape to
14. Why compassion has flowered even in stony ground
15. Why toleration has never been enough
16. Why even the privileged are often somewhat gloomy about life, even when they can have anything the consumer society offers, and even after sexual liberation
17. How travellers are becoming the largest nation in the world, and how they have learned not to see only what they are looking for
18. Why friendship between men and women has become so fragile
19. How even astrologers resist their destiny
20. Why people have not been able to find the time to lead several lives
21. Why fathers and their children are changing their minds about what they want from each other
22. Why the crisis in the family is only one stage in the evolution of generosity
23. How people choose a way of life, and how it does not wholly satisfy them
24. How humans become hospitable to each other
25. What becomes possible when soul-mates meet
Rating: 
Summary: Good book.....
Review: I must say that while this is an amazing book, it is written in the guise of being a guide to the future of humanity. How can this possibly be done by studying the history, as we are constantly shown that the future is impossible to predict and more often than not history does not repeat itself. What should be shown is that people are unpredictable as the future and that the content of the book is simply as the title implies.
Rating:
Summary: The book's OK but grossly overrated
Review: Not much to add to the title--the book is curious, and I've read it without a major effort (though some parts of it are more interesting than other, it's uneven.) But one of the blurbs said something like Mr Zeldin is the most important thinker of the 20th century because of this book. Well, I can't see what in this book necessitated such an absurd comment. The book's OK, if you got the time, read it (and btw, if you haven't got the time, don't read it <g>) but there's nothing earth shattering there.
Rating: 
Summary: Whose humanity?
Review: Theodore Zeldin announces his project in a brief preface. It bristles with the energy of ambition. We sense that we may be about to launch into something truly revolutionary: "I want to show how, today, it is possible for individuals to form a fresh view both of their own personal history and of humanity's whole record of cruelty, misunderstanding, and joy. To have a new vision of the future, it has always first been necessary to have a new vision of the past.... Instead of explaining the peculiarity of individuals by pointing to their family or childhood, I take a longer view: I show how they pay attention to--or ignore--the experience of previous, more distant generations, and how they are continuing the struggles of many other communities all over the world ... among whom they have more soul-mates than they may realize." The 25 chapters that follow bear titles like "How humans have repeatedly lost hope, and how new encounters, and a new pair of spectacles, revive them," and "How people choose a way of life, and how it does not wholly satisfy them." Each chapter begins with a portrait of one or several people in the contemporary world--usually French women--focusing on a particular life problem, or a creative attempt at solving such a problem. Zeldin follows this portrait with a brief history of that problem, or of a clearly related phenomenon. For instance, the first chapter opens with a portrait of Juliette, a domestic servant who feels trapped in her job, in her social class, and by the unbridgeable distance between her and potential friends. This portrait is followed by a history of slavery--not a linear history, but a selective highlighting of relevant themes and moments in the history of slavery. Zeldin emphasizes that not all slaves have been so involuntarily, nor is there such a great difference between those who are enslaved forcibly and those who are enslaved by their own lack of imagination. The overall effect is that we gain a stronger sense of kinship with medieval Slavs and others whose history is contrasted with Juliette's, as well as a stronger sense of our own agency in determining how we might fit ourselves into the patterns of history. This first chapter is one of the strongest in the book, and I summarize it as an example of Zeldin's project at its brightest. Throughout the book, Zeldin writes with admirable compassion, as well as with an unapologetic earnestness that would read as idealistically naïve if it weren't for the intelligence and determined sincerity of his prose. These qualities made me want his project to succeed, and yet by the hundredth page I had already almost given up on it. I had hoped to find a deep history of psychology and morality, a revelation that our preoccupations, passions, and needs, and the consequent values that they engender, have a long genealogy that is far from transparent. Such a history might help to disabuse us of the feelings of necessity and immutability that hover about our frustrations. However, rather than present us with a rich diversity of psychological and ethical concerns, Zeldin is keen to impose modern values and preoccupations on that past, dictating the morals we are to learn from his histories rather than allowing us to draw our own lessons and conclusions. I believe the lack of relativism is quite intentional. Zeldin is inspired by the universalism of the Enlightenment, and speaks admiringly of the Declaration of the Rights of Man as being a declaration not just for the French people, but for all people. He wants us to see that all humans share a great deal, that people of different eras and cultures are not so different from us. Applying liberal values and contemporary emotional preoccupations to times past may foster a greater sense of kinship, but I think it is also deeply misleading. If our aim is to understand people of other cultures, we must make a determined effort to understand them as they understand themselves. How useful is a feeling of kinship if it is based ultimately on misrepresentation? A further unfortunate consequence of Zeldin's imposition of liberal values on the past is that, despite an impressive range of examples, the book becomes repetitive. An exhortation toward open-mindedness can be given quite thoroughly in twenty pages. If a book of 472 pages returns again and again to a very basic set of themes, without elaborating on them or moving beyond them, it becomes tiresome no matter how many engaging historical anecdotes it contains. Despite the staggering breadth of Zeldin's reading, despite the range and diversity of the lives he portrays, this book ultimately makes for a disappointingly narrow read. And while it is hard to fault the impressive range of material that Zeldin leads us through quite comfortably, certain choices narrow the breadth of the book even further. His justification for interviewing French women almost exclusively (he doesn't seem to register that almost all these women are also white) reads as a half-hearted apology for Francophilia. While we do get the occasional glimpse into the rich cultures of India, China, and Japan (less so with cultures with less sophisticated literary traditions) most of his anecdotes draw from the history of the Christian and Muslim West. While it would be unreasonable to demand a deep knowledge of all aspects of world history (though a project this ambitious would seem to require it) there are moments that the need for a non-Western point of contrast or comparison is sorely felt. Zeldin wishes to speak for all humanity, but he succeeds only in speaking of all humanity, and even there his effort is lackluster. In truth, he only speaks for those of us in the modern West, and in addressing our current preoccupations with a therapeutic aim, his book reads as much like self-help as it does like a history.
Rating:
Summary: Fascintating, inspired, insightful
Review: This book is a rich, thought-provoking assimilation of human experience, addressing inumerable topics whilst maintaining a fascinating, coherent whole. Topics include "How people choose a way of life, and how it does not truly satisfy them", and "Why there has been more progress in cooking than sex". For me what reading really did was to fire my imagination to look afresh at what it means to be human. In the introduction Zeldin argues that too often we look in terms only of the immediate past, and of our near surroundings, rather than considering the experiences of all individuals throughout history. He takes detailed conversations with individuals about their personal experiences to show in context the significance of the "silent", intimate battles of history, from which he argues we have as much to learn and draw from as from our more well-documented, public history. Zeldin writes that the book should represent the starting point, with each chapter including a bibliography on the many topics touched upon. I found this book extremely readable and succinctly expressed, and as absorbing as any novel.
Rating:
Summary: Fascintating, inspired, insightful
Review: This book is a rich, thought-provoking assimilation of human experience, addressing inumerable topics whilst maintaining a fascinating, coherent whole. Topics include "How people choose a way of life, and how it does not truly satisfy them", and "Why there has been more progress in cooking than sex". For me what reading really did was to fire my imagination to look afresh at what it means to be human. In the introduction Zeldin argues that too often we look in terms only of the immediate past, and of our near surroundings, rather than considering the experiences of all individuals throughout history. He takes detailed conversations with individuals about their personal experiences to show in context the significance of the "silent", intimate battles of history, from which he argues we have as much to learn and draw from as from our more well-documented, public history. Zeldin writes that the book should represent the starting point, with each chapter including a bibliography on the many topics touched upon. I found this book extremely readable and succinctly expressed, and as absorbing as any novel.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: This is a unique read... Not a novel, but equally engrossing; not a historical account, but namedrops events from history which most readers will probably be unaware of; my first philosophical read but not intimidatingly so! Chapters are split into themes such as "how respect has become more desirable than power", "why there has been more progress in cooking than in sex" and so on. It was the index which made me buy this book, oddly enough: "Caesar, Cairo, Cardano, Calcuta, Calvin (John), camerada, cancer..." Any book which includes such a diverse range of topics has to teach you many things. I'm jealous of the author and have bought this book for friends - and would recommend it to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: Overrated
Review: This is social history at its best by an intellectual who clearly has some French roots, speaking wonderfully about whatever subject he chooses to elaborate on. In this case this results in a kaleidoscope of images of private human life over time. I liked the multi-disciplinary approach and the almost poetic language and impressionistic canvas used here. Not a book to learn history from as commonly understood but definitely a refreshing complement to other social histories.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary...
Review: What a wonderful and intelligent book to read agian and again. Theodore Zeldin discusses in 25 chapters the past, the present and the future.
He has a different subject for each chapter analyzing the issue in his simple and challenging form, and he pushes the reader to get smarter...
Some of the chapters are: How men and woman have slowley learned to have interesting conversations, how some people have acquired an immunity to loneliness, how respect has become more desirable than power, how humams become hospitable to each other, and why people have not been able to find the time to lead several lives. These are just some of the titles in the book, and as you can see the subjects are just enchanting in every way, and it drives the reader to get involved in every way, and make his own beliefs and thoughts. one of the best books for sure...
<< 1 >>
|
