Reviews and Comments

Wonderful book! The values-based integration exercise is gonna take me awhile though

Essential reading for anyone looking to understand the experiences of the enslaved in the U.S. south.

An admonishment of the wretched King of Belgium and his crimes against humanity in the Congo. The satire is characteristically witty and outraging--even reaching through history to shock the reader.

An engaging, captivating, necessary story about the ravages of colonialism under the Belgian King. Hochschild ties together numerous angles from the key players in the story, with evidence spanning over a century and including how this story impacts the global south today. Reading this book should give you a righteous anger to demand more to ensure the rights of your global neighbors cease being destroyed, and that reparations--true, substantive reparations--are paid for the theft endured by the Congolese, even up to this day.

A breathtaking recollection of an intense sequence of events carrying the protagonist to safety from the heart of Germany with Europe roiled in war. These events--especially the encounters with helpful strangers even behind enemy lines--encourage the reader that even in horrific circumstances we may find help where we don't expect it. The story sometimes renders the reader incredulous that the story is true, as the author should have died or been recaptured numerous times!

Interesting, methodical, and thorough insight into the deterministic-ness of war. Although I don't appreciate the romanticization of war, the lessons learned here can be applied to other circumstances in life with great utility.

Very useful synopsis of the past several centuries' philosophical underpinnings. Read the Librivox version by Pamela Nagami, M.D. -- great recording!

Nietzsche again drags his unnecessary pessimism and blind belief in intrinsic human hierarchy into this work. Like some other philosophers, he frequently takes the liberty to not justify his ideas to the audience, which would have been helpful to understand his position! In general, the man seems depressed and angry at a changing world, which is a very sad place to live.

Prof. Davis' voice shines in these interviews and speeches. A must-read for students of history looking to enter activism for modern movements.

An excellent, entertaining account of the development of the basic sciences over the millenia--essential reading for scientists and philosophers! I appreciated the authors' exposition in the final chapter, and throughout the book, on the need for the democratization of science--of scientists, and of subject material--to reach a more equal society, and stand firmly against the interfering hierarchical model of knowledge and expertise which Nietzsche seems poisoned by. Overall an excellent book, although the language and some politics are a bit dated.

Far more concrete than Russell's earlier book, he takes the reader through basic logical argumentation with "philosophical grammar", then encourages his readers to take these powerful tools from carefully distinguishing between similar things elsewhere in their lives. His care in addressing these subjects is appreciated, although the elementarity of the subjects he touches may make some readers impatient, especially if they are keen on finding applications of these ideas readily. He touches upon a crucial idea in the final lecture--that of humans as sequences of experiences, or the results of experiencing a sequence of experiences. Such a framework has piqued my interest in writing an essay on the subject in the near future, because I think it is a critical idea for understanding the world that has been left out of predominant thought.