The Ascendancy of Europe by M.S. Anderson

How does one review a historical book? I suppose it depends on what you're looking for when you read a history book: information, a basic understanding of the period and events, maybe a cohesive vision or story (maybe not).

Let's start with what this book is about. This book concerns itself with what happened in European history during 1815-1914. 1815 was the year Napoleon was defeated and 1914 was the beginning of World War I. Consequently, much is said about the rise of nationalism, the balance of power in European politics, the growing economies and the innovations in technology.

As far as information is concerned, this book gives much information. Unfortunately, I wish there were more about Eastern and Central Europe. Being a "survey" book the focus is on the "great powers" of Europe at the time: Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria, and Russia. The author uses a pretty straightforward method--he uses a topical approach. There is a section on the political history, a history of how the economies changed, colonial history, intellectual history, etc. Each section tackles that particular slice and shows how it is reflected in Great Britain, France, etc. There is space provided for "minor" players like Italy and Spain but it would be interesting to know a little more.

The main thrust of the book is the rise of nationalism. From the interest in folk cultures to the growing rhetoric about the German people's mission, or the French people's mission, nationalism pretty much informs the entire book. And, at the end of each section, the author shows how that led into the conflicts and alliances that gave rise to the first world war.

Any good historian knows a little something about historiography. In other words, what is this particular source's biases and/or prejudices? I thought he (she?) was a breath of fresh air in this perspective. I am sick of hearing from the academically inclined about the glories of Marxism and the evils of imperialism. This historian seems to be a little more objective in showing some of the wholly dogmatic and impractical aspects of Marxism and some of the benefits of imperialism. (But M.S. Anderson isn't so dogmatic either by also concluding that imperialism had its own grave errors and arrogance).

All in all it is not a bad book. It didn't thrill me (and I'm not kidding when I say some history books do thrill me), but it does have a certain charm in its approach. I would say it's a useful introduction to 19th century (Western) European history.

The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins

(orig. posted on Jan. 6 2006: http://sirrealswordsofwisdom.blogspot.com/2006/01/blind-watchmaker-by-richard-dawkins.html)

I just finished Richard Dawkins' now classic The Blind Watchmaker. Not a bad book at all. But before I tell you about it I should provide some background.

I have a degree in English and American Literature and my minor was in History. In other words, I'm not great at science or math. But I've always been interested in some aspects of science and biology and evolution happen to be subjects I like. I'm not a complete moron when it comes to scientific subjects but I'm sure any 8th grade science geek could probably run rings around me.

Consequently, this book by Richard Dawkins is made for me. The way I understood it it was written with a general reader in mind. The book is well written and plausibly argued. And as long as you pay attention and follow the logic of the author's arguments it's not that hard to follow.

The basic premise of the book is to show how life could appear in the universe without a creator or any pre-conceived notion of design (the whole "Intelligent Design" argument now being debated across the U.S.). Dawkins obviously loves Darwin and bases his argument on cumulative evolution over billions of years (the age of the Earth [and please shut-up you stupid creationists trying to argue that the Earth is only 6,000 years old!]). Dawkins patiently explains how such a slow and random process like natural selection could evolve our life-forms over vast amounts of time. Like I said, I'm no great scientist, but the argument makes perfect sense and I still fail to see why anyone tries to argue otherwise (except, of course, for religious reasons, but those are very silly reasons).

Overall, this is a good way to try to understand evolution in more depth than the few words hopefully given to you in high school and college. There are a few parts which I found to be boring (like the taxonomy debates and different schools of thought in taxonomy) but I think this book is an important read--especially now that religious nuts are trying to dumb people down.