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bradley_jf's reviews
1247 reviews
The Prince: Second Edition by Niccolò Machiavelli
4.0
I remember trying to read this book about 15 years ago when I was still in high school and not being able to get through it. It had a great infamous reputation, but it was just too dense. Having done a lot of studying of history and the history of empires (at the BA and MA level) what this guy says makes a lot more sense. It's a good book to read and think about, in terms of methods of governing and controlling land. It may not have as much applicability today, but in terms of thinking about historical dynasties and empires, it's a useful tool, I think.
Jamilia by Chingiz Aïtmatov
3.0
The writing style is simple to the point I felt it was intended for an elementary school audience, but the story is good. It's interesting, inspiring, and maybe gives a little insight into the world of rural Kyrgyz during World War II.
Society of the Spectacle by Guy Debord
4.0
Very very dense, but very much worth the time it took to dig through it.
An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States by Charles a. Beard
2.0
My rating is probably partially the result of the fact that the copy I read, the Kindle eBook copy, was horribly formatted. It was a straight-up scan, with footnotes mixed directly into the text and no spacing between chapter titles, subsections and the text itself. It was very difficult to read, on top of the material itself just being terribly dry and horribly organized. The author addressed different topics in a list format, turning entire chapters into something akin to encyclopedia entries. He would have been better off addressing each state in turn, in a flowing, linear narrative.
As for what he proposes, it's very interesting and it's a take on American history that I haven't seen before, not that I'm particularly well read in American history. Every course I've taken up to now has been on Middle Eastern and South Asian history. It is very unfortunate that my first intro to college level American history is a graduate historiography course. That being said, I can't tell if his arguments are valid or not, but from the information he presents, it's certainly something worth looking into more, and something that probably has been addressed by later authors. I would not recommend this as a starter book on American constitutional history though.
As for what he proposes, it's very interesting and it's a take on American history that I haven't seen before, not that I'm particularly well read in American history. Every course I've taken up to now has been on Middle Eastern and South Asian history. It is very unfortunate that my first intro to college level American history is a graduate historiography course. That being said, I can't tell if his arguments are valid or not, but from the information he presents, it's certainly something worth looking into more, and something that probably has been addressed by later authors. I would not recommend this as a starter book on American constitutional history though.
Slavery and American Economic Development by Gavin Wright
3.0
This book is extremely important in terms of the information presented and is a great companion to reading Fogel's Time on the Cross, but it is exceptionally dry and not an area I'm particularly interested in, so it was a struggle to finish. I put myself through this read for a graduate history course.
City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920 by Timothy J. Gilfoyle
5.0
Outstanding. Very well written. Learned a lot about the city I live in.