The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: The Lost Legacy of Ancient Mesopotamia

Amazon.com

At once heartbreaking and inspiring, this remarkable art book seeks to document what was lost when 15,000 objects at Baghdad's Iraq Museum were lost in the 2003 war and the ongoing art destruction. Treasures like the beautiful carved-ivory Mona Lisa of Nimrud survived ten centuries, only to fall victim to chaos and looters, some sent by international art dealers. The scholar authors show that the loss isn't local, it's everybody's. Iraq saw the birth of cities, epic verse, and codified religion; the lions guarding the New York Public Library are esthetic descendants of the smashed terracotta masterpieces of Baghdad. The book is a quickie history course, with 190 handsome color illustrations. Editorially, it's a bit rushed and confusing. But look: these aren't ivory-tower scholars, they're heroes putting themselves on the line to save humanity's legacy. One had to be rescued from kidnappers with the help of Muqtada al-Sadr. Part of what you pay for the book goes to reconstruct the museum, and the book itself constitutes a kind of virtual museum preserving some works that are lost, and some that will be relocated, in part because it exists. --Tim Appelo

Book Description

In April of 2003, the world reacted in shock at the news of the looting of the Iraq Museum in Baghdad. Priceless antiquities, spanning ten thousand years of human history, were smashed into pieces or stolen, and one of the most important storehouses of ancient culture was forever compromised. This exquisitely illustrated volume is a reconstruction in book form of one of the world's great museums, and it stands as the definitive single-volume history of the art and archaeology of ancient Mesopotamia-the cradle of civilization.

The contributors to this book consist of a cadre of international archaeologists whose excavations helped piece together the rich tapestry of Mesopotamian life from earliest prehistory to the advent of Islam. A portion of the book's royalties will aid in the reconstruction of the museum and in the preservation of Mesopotamia's cultural treasures. Told through the art and artifacts that were lost recently in Iraq, this fascinating history of the civilizations of the Near East is sure to be a timeless and enduring book. AUTHOR BIO: Milbry Polk, a photojournalist and author of A History of Arabian Transportation and Egyptian Mummies, has edited a series of biographies on women explorers and coauthored the award-winning book Women of Discovery. Angela M. H. Schuster, editor of the award-winning preservation magazine Icon and The Explorers Journal, is also a contributing editor of Archaeology magazine and frequent contributor to The New York Times.

Customer Reviews:

"The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Bagdad -- a Disappointment.......2005-09-14

Instead of writing about the looting, what was lost, what has since been recovered and how, the various contributors seem to be very busy tell the reader how they had discovered the various items in the museum. If one were interested in discoveries, there are plenty of places to have read about them previously. The book seems to have been put together with minimum thought, poor photos of items that have already been published in much better form.

The Pity of War.......2005-08-23

As discontent over the continued American presence and the mounting loss of lives of not only soldiers from this country but also from other supporting countries and certainly for the countless loss of civilian lives in Iraq, artists and writers are responding in kind to the woe of war. One of the saddest tragedies of the Iraq invasion was the decimation of the Iraq Museum of Baghdad. Many of the rarest of antiquities housed there are now reduced to dust while others suffered irreparable damage.

This fine book provides many illustrations of the collection of the Iraq Museum and with that, naturally, comes a timeline of civilization as we know it. The treasures are/were wondrous and the history as summarized by Milbry and William Polk, Selma Al-Radi, Angela Schuster, Zainab Bahrani, Usam Ghaidan, Anna Paolini, and Donny George in their fine essays should be required reading for all of us.

This fine and beautifully designed book marks a sad moment in our history, but it also provides an invaluable resource guide for those interested in the cradle of civilization that was Mesopotamia - aka Iraq! Highly recommended. Grady Harp, August 05

Lootng of the Iraq Museum.......2005-07-28

This edited book offers a summary of archaeology in Iraq and some assessment of the damage done by the Iraq war. It will serve as a basic source, which can be amplified by a growing specialist literature. Useful for students and people teaching about conservation and the archaeology of Mesopotamia.

The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad.......2005-07-16

This gorgeously illustrated and very detailed guide to the cultural atrocoties committed in April of 2003 is a masterpiece of literature. I am very glad that someone took the time to make a wonderful guide to this event. Flipping through the pages and looking at the many artifacts, one cannot help feeling a sense of melancholy. Looking at the gorgeous photos of the artifacts taken much before the looting occured, admiring them, and knowing that they are now damaged are destroyed is very unsettling, but it is wonderful that many of these brilliant archeologists, curators, and journalists took the time to create such a wonderful book to aknowledge the horrible event and show the world, even just the few people that actually buy the book and spend the time reading it. I truly enjoyed the book, which has so much information not just about the looting, but of the history of Mesopotamian, Persian and Islamic society, and the country of Iraq, specifically Baghdad, a beautiful, but tragic metropolis between the Tigris and Euphrates. The Land Between Two Rivers is brought back to life, for a brief, but beautiful, glimpse.

"My goodness, were there that many vases?".......2005-05-20

I remember Secretary Rumsfeld getting a laugh when he tried putting the looting of Baghdad in proper perspective. "The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over," he said, "and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it twenty times, and you think, 'My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?'" Well, this book shouts out from the audience, "Yup!" and in doing so, puts a new face on the war in Iraq, and tells a story as ironic and poignant as what we saw in the Iraqi soccer team at the Olympics last summer. Here the team is a group of experts -- a kind of dream team of Iraqis, Americans, Italians and Brits -- each taking a turn as an expert witness in the most talked about art heist in history. Unlike most of the reporting at the time, this book doesn't presume you already know your Ancient Near Eastern and Islamic history. Ralph Solecki takes us to the very beginning and recalls his prehistoric discoveries in Northern Iraq, where we have possibly the earliest known evidence of human compassion. Harriet Crawford's coverage of the dawn of civilization brings the dawning realization that ancient Mesopotamia is a lot closer to life today than we thought. Paul Collins presents an account of the amazing developments in Sumer, illustrated with some of the most beloved pieces from the Iraq Museum. All right, the Iraqis invented human emotion, agriculture, cities, empires -- what else? Robert Biggs adds writing and literature, using macro lens close-ups and a cuneiform comparison chart. And if you wonder why a quarter million people in America call themselves Assyrians, you'll certainly know after reading Julian Reade's chapter about these great achievers 2500 years ago. The East-meets-West story, starting with Alexander the Great, is vividly told by Elisabetta Fino. After seeing news photos of the mosque in Samarra vandalized, reading Alastair Northedge's piece on Islamic architecture was a form of grief counseling for me. Now as I watch daily footage of car bombings in Baghdad, I think of Vincenzo Strika's review of Baghdad through the ages, and put my hope in his last line: "Baghdad, for all its tumult and suffering, has the potential to become again, as it was in the Middle Ages, the cultural bridge between East and West." Other parts of the book use the museum building itself or specific artifacts as a point of departure: the essential "A Museum is Born" by Lamia Al-Gailani Werr and the exquisite "Small Treasures of the Iraq Museum" by Fiorella Strika. When I first opened the book, I skipped through it reading the double-page spreads here and there by Diana McDonald, and that made me want to read everything else. It was strong stuff for me to read kidnapping survivor Micah Garen's words on universal ideas - heroism, friendship, and our fear of death - drawing a comparison between the quest of Gilgamesh and the purpose of archaeology. Garen and his partner, Marie-Helene Carleton, remind us that we are all Gilgamesh, and archaeologists are our genius scribes. This elegant invitation to preserve our historical memory is echoed throughout the book, in most urgent terms by Selma Al-Radi, by Angela Schuster and Zainab Bahrani, by William and Milbry Polk, by Usam Ghaidan and Anna Paolini, and by the tireless Iraqi archaeologist, Donny George. All of these contributors are within two degrees of separation from everyone else in the cultural heritage community that reacted to the looting of the Iraq Museum. Although they are distinguished writers individually -- worthy of their own Listmania List -- this is a fine ensemble piece. Of course, the real stars of the book are the antiquities themselves, the figurines, bas reliefs, stelae and other vocabulary-building artifacts, along with, yes, the vases. The 190 color pictures on heavy paper make this a compact coffee-table book, but not too heavy to read in bed as well. University archaeology departments would be nuts not to make this required reading for new students. I can't think of a book that will more directly engage and motivate the newcomer, and possibly spark a thousand careers as luminous as those referenced in its pages. The book itself is an example of how people can work together across borders, across cultures and civilizations, clash or no clash. Many of these writers were first responders, rushing in to protect fragile human knowledge, and in the process modeling for the rest of us what we most need these days in Iraq: charity, hope and faith.

Average customer rating:
Peleas de enamorados, vol. 2/ Love Fights Vol. 2 (Peleas De Enamorados)/ Spanish Edition
Andi Watson
Manufacturer: Public Square Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 1594971439

Book Description

The scandal surrounding the Flamer's alleged love child has left Jack out in the cold romantically. Nora's journalistic ambition has nearly cost him his job, but he's not sure that any of that matters when his heart is in such dire straits. For her part, Nora seems to have picked up and moved on, working with the Fader to get to the bottom of the superhero sex scandal she broke - and which may very well be a fake. Little does she know that Jack's cat, the furball also known as the Future Feline, is dogging her, suspicious of the girl's true motives. It's a complicated world when flying crimefighters patrol your skies...but an old romantic like Andi Watson is ready to tackle these super affairs of the heart with the usual wry wit and skillful brush strucks that earned him an Eisner nomination.

Average customer rating:

A good book to read.

Jokes 'n' Smiles
DEJI ADEDOYIN
Manufacturer: Imprintbooks
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1591096006
Release Date: 2003-06-19

Book Description

About the Book This book, Jokes N smiles is a collection of very funny jokes/humors. These jokes are in a different class of their own and are guaranteed to bring smiles to the face. The jokes are classified under five different headings namely:  Drunkards Jokes  Husband and wife Jokes  Kiddies Jokes  Police Jokes  Miscellaneous Jokes These jokes have been carefully written so that they can easily be understood by anyone who wants to forget their sorrow and lighten their hearts. The book is like a stress relief. It is particularly recommended for comedians and masters of ceremonies (MC) and they should find these jokes handy during social gatherings/ceremonies

Customer Reviews:

A good book to read........2003-09-30

I must admit once I started reading this book I couldn't put it down. There is a joke in this book for everyone. I'm glad I had the chance to read it and I look forward to more being written by this author he really has a gift to share and that gift is laughter.

Book Description

Arranged for Piano/Guitar With Lyrics. Selling more than 100 million albums worldwide, topping the Billboard® charts, and winning 5 Grammy® awards has made Celine Dion one of the biggest international pop stars of our time. Her latest release, A New Day…Live in Las Vegas, features selections from her successful concert series at The Colosseum in Caesars Palace. More than a million loyal fans attended this show the first year alone. This is a one-of-a-kind album-matching folio.It includes eight pages of photos with shots from the phenomenal show in Las Vegas. Titles are: Ain't Gonna Look the Other Way * At Last * Because You Loved Me (Love Theme from Up Close and Personal) * Et Je T'Aime Encore * Fever * I Drove All Night * I Wish * I'm Alive * I've Got the World on a String * If I Could * It's All Coming Back to Me Now * My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from Titanic) * Nature Boy * What a Wonderful World * You and I.

Customer Reviews:

Another Celine Dion Song Book.......2007-03-07

Most of these songs appear in other Celine Dion Songbooks--this is one of the only to contain "Je T'aime Encore" ("I Love You, Sill") And to my knowledge the only book readily available in the US to cotain that song--it is also available in the Songbook that parallels the "On Ne Change Pas" French Greatest Hits album.

Book Description

In this terrific introduction to music basics, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and other beloved Disney characters teach kids the principles of music through songs, games, puzzles, coloring pages and other fun activities. This deluxe full-color edition features favorite songs from Disney movies and theme parks, including: Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo * Chim Chim Cher-ee * Feed the Birds * It's a Small World * Let's Go Fly a Kite * Mickey Mouse March * The Siamese Cat Song * Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious * The Unbirthday Song * Under the Sea * Winnie the Pooh * Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah * and more. Also includes solutions to the puzzles. The Disney Family Fun Activity Book is ideal for music classes, or fun for the entire family!

Customer Reviews:

Good ... but how do you use the color bar coding?.......2000-03-25

This is a very good music primer which has 16 original Disney songs and 4 non-Disney (or Disney-adopted) songs (Mary Had A Little Lamb, etc - simple rhythms to introduce the notes). It would seem that this book was prepared by the Hal Leonard staff since it does a very good job of covering all the basic music elements (staffs, notes, repeats, rests, ties, flats, sharps, et al). The illustrations for explaining whole, half, quarter and eighth notes are clear. It also has a few activity pages (coloring pages, connect the dots, crosswords and more) and 9 simple quizes. The notes are identified by letter and color bar coding to allow younger children to play the tunes. However, unlike a similar book by Hal Leonard ("Kid Songs: EZ Play Today&quot), this Disney primer did not have any stickers for your keyboard to make use of the color coding. I should also note that the color coding used by the Disney primer is different from the coding used by "Kid Songs"; so even if you have the stickers from the latter, they will be of little use with the former. That notable shortcoming aside (which is why I struck out a star), it is still a very good music primer which, thanks to the attraction of the Disney characters, should make learning music more enjoyable (or palatable). It works for my daughter.

Customer Reviews:

Student of one of the Authors.......1999-04-29

I am a former student of Dra. Benito-Vessels and I have to say that I loved this book. It was used in a class about Spanish Women in the Middle Ages and this book was interesting and informative. Both of the authors did a great job presenting different facets of the lives of Spanish women in the middle ages and it really taught a great deal about those times. On a topic that does not have a great deal of information, these two women made the book come alive with history and got me interested in learning more and more about the topic. I would recommend this book to any Spanish History buff that is interested in the rols of women in the Middle Ages. Particularly facinating are the stories about Jewish Women in the Middle Ages and what they went through to survive the Expulsions/Conversions of Jews in 1492. This is a MUST READ. Felicitaciones a las dos escritoras!

Product Description

This book was written for the working mother and can be read in less than one hour. I am hoping this book will be an encouragement to parents everywhere to spend time with their children. Spending time to make a difference in our children's lives. Babies grow fast. And, we'll never get that time back.

Average customer rating:

One of the forerunners of the Green Berets

THE SUPERCOMMANDOS, First Special Service Force, 1942-1944,

Well Done!

INCREDIBLE UNIT HISTORY!

The Supercommandos: First Special Service Force, 1942-1944 An Illustrated History
Robert Todd Ross
Manufacturer: Schiffer Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books
General | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Home Front | World War II | Military | History | Subjects | Books
Canada | Military | History | Subjects | Books
20th Century | Canada | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
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With the Black Devils: A Soldier's World War II Account With the First Special Service Force And the 82nd Airborne

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The Devil's Brigade

A Perfect Hell: The True Story of the Black Devils, the Forefathers of the Special Forces

ASIN: 0764311719

Book Description

"Vigorous training, hazardous duty." These were the words that lured prospective volunteers to the First Special Service Force, and that promised, for those who measured up, the chance of getting into the war quickly. Unique during World War II, the First Special Service Force evolved as the amalgam of two Armies, Canadian and American, and the men who filled its ranks were among the hand-picked best from throughout North America. Their diverse and intensive training took them from the dust-covered prairies of Montana, to the bitterly-cold peaks of the Great Divide, to the waters of Chesapeake Bay. Their skillfulness, their remarkable esprit de corps, and their legendary endurance saw them through tough combat missions in both the Asiatic-Pacific and the European Theaters of operation. The Supercommandos chronicles the organization, training, and combat operations of the First Special Service Force during its brief but exhilarating history. Accompanying the broad text are nearly 400 black and white images, most unpublished, including a photo-essay by renowned combat photographer, Robert Capa. As well, there are more than forty extraordinary full-color wartime images of the Force both in training and in the combat zone. Beautifully rendered full-color maps, highly detailed Order of Battle graphics, charts, and numerous facsimiles of noteworthy original Force documents are also included. Completing this volume are over eighty full-color images of exceptionally rare, authentic First Special Service Force uniforms, insignia, weapons and equipment. The Supercommandos offers an unparalleled view of one of the world's all-time military elites, and will prove to be an invaluable resource for any collector, reenactor, veteran, or historian., over 400 and b/w photographs, over eighty color photographs, maps, documents, 8 1/2" x 11"

Customer Reviews:

One of the forerunners of the Green Berets.......2001-01-22

If only one word could be used to describe Todd Ross's book the Supercommando's, that word would have to be awesome! Ross's book is the most definitive work about the unit known as the 1st Special Service Force since Robert Burhan's book War History of the North Americans. The book contains many never seen before photographs of the force and is worth the price of the book alone. Maps are in vivid color, and are very easy to read and understand. The Force equipment and weapons are authentic and not cheap reproduction look a likes. A real highlight of the book is Ross's attention to detail and accuracy. Ross is to be commended for the outstanding layout of the book and its smooth transition from one point to the next. This book traces the force from its inception to its heartbreaking disbandment and shows the force for what it really was, a tough, daring, resouceful, highly specialized special force that had few equals in WWII. This book dispells the myth created by the highly entertaining but highly inaccurate movie the "Devils Brigade and the book by the same name, No Dirty Dozen here! This is a must have book for those interested in Special Forces, and military history. This book is a must have reference for the professor of military history and historians. This is not a book to be read once and then put away, this is a reference book to be used over and over again. If you have Robert Burhan's book and Ross's book the Supercommandos, you have the history, expolits and unparalleled view of the 1st Special Service Force. I salute Mr. Ross for a job well done!

THE SUPERCOMMANDOS, First Special Service Force, 1942-1944,.......2000-12-14

This is a book about the unit with which I served in World War II. It's the book for which veterans of the Force, like me, have been waiting since Robert Burhans wrote the first Force history in 1947. It's a true successor to Burhans because it contains none of the bombast,mistruths and basic errors of many other writings. Author Todd Ross, in his first book, has proven what a careful, conscientious,and honorable researcher he is, and the book amply demonstrates that. During World War II, there was no other elite unit as unique as the First Special Service Force, if one were to consider only the fact that its Combat Echelon contained trained soldiers from the Canadian Army. They served alongside their U. S. Army compatriots, wearing the same uniform, totally integrated. When I and a fellow Canadian Sergeant walked into our pyramidal tent in 5th Company, Second Regiment, we found two trained American volunteers awaiting our arrival.Within days, it was hard to tell American from Canadian as we learned to parachute together, laughed over trying to integrate basic drill commands and actions. In his text, Ross covers this uniqueness, before moving on to our weapons training, demolitions, mountain climbing, skiing, unarmed combat, the use of German weapons,and the range of other training elements, including development of the Weasel, the first truly effective over-the-snow vehicle. He follows our path into combat, with the dry run at Kiska when the Japanese left before we and others landed. Our sudden shift to Italy: fighting in the mountains leading to Cassino;our 98 days without relief at Anzio holding almost one quarter of the entire Beachhead;the road to Rome--the first Allied troops to enter the Eternal City in force, two days before Normandy; our role in leading the invasion of S. France; and the saddest day of all when the Force was disbanded in December, 1944, in S. France. This is an illustrated history, with photos by Robert Capa, famed WWII photographer, as well as many others; maps which give battle details, charts, reports,an extensive bibliography, and a host of color plates showing our uniforming and equipment. This is the best-appearing and most complete book on the Force ever published. As veterans who lived through the life of the Force, we have nothing but praise for it, and heartily recommend it to Amazon.com readers.

Well Done!.......2000-12-08

Having just received my copy of this book in the mail, I can't say that I've read through the entire text yet. But this is not necessarily the type of book that you plod through dutifully from the first to the last page in rigid sequence. After all, as one veteran of the First Special Service Force commented to me, this is a "coffee table" book. And, as with the best of that species (whatever the subject matter), it's meant to be savored slowly and appreciated over time!

Lavishly illustrated in both colour and black and white, it presents a fine visual record of almost every aspect of the First Special Service Force. Numerous contemporary photos are complemented by frequent carefully constructed plates which meticulously document more than half a century later the uniforms, equipment, and insignia of the Force. (The author, incidentally, is present in more than one, photographed wearing the typical "kit" of Forcemen from various periods of the unit's short but significant existence.) Maps show the major areas of operations, and are graphically clean and easily absorbed. An appendix at the end even corrects omissions made in a previously published list of all men who served with the Force.

While the illustrations immediately catch the eye, there is also a detailed and rigorously annotated text. A quick examination of the extensive bibliographic notes at the end of the book reveals an impressive depth and comprehensiveness of background research. That matches the overall production values of this large book, which is simply a pleasure to hold in your lap and and enjoy the more you browse through it.

Well done!

INCREDIBLE UNIT HISTORY!.......2000-12-07

This is perhaps one of the finest unit histories I have read. It is a fine tribute to the men of an incredible unit -- the First Special Service Force. There hasn't been a book on this unit in over 30 years, and this book certainly sets the record straight. Everything you want to know about the Force is here. Not only is it full of never before seen photgraphs of the Force, it includes comprenhensive information on how the unit was organized and fought. There is information and photographs detailing everything from the weapons used to the uniforms worn. The text is quite excellent, and includes detailed footnotes (which is unusual for a book of this sort.) This book will appeal to all those interested in the Force, special forces, and WWII in general. I hope to see more work like this from the author. This book is truly a treasure!

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Anyone who forecasts or does formal planning for a living...

A classic of Political Science & Cognitive Psychology

An Ode to the Obvious

brilliant and encouraging

Careful, Plodding, Objective

Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?
Philip E. Tetlock
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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Social Psychology & Interactions | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0691128715

Book Description

The intelligence failures surrounding the invasion of Iraq dramatically illustrate the necessity of developing standards for evaluating expert opinion. This book fills that need. Here, Philip E. Tetlock explores what constitutes good judgment in predicting future events, and looks at why experts are often wrong in their forecasts.

Tetlock first discusses arguments about whether the world is too complex for people to find the tools to understand political phenomena, let alone predict the future. He evaluates predictions from experts in different fields, comparing them to predictions by well-informed laity or those based on simple extrapolation from current trends. He goes on to analyze which styles of thinking are more successful in forecasting. Classifying thinking styles using Isaiah Berlin's prototypes of the fox and the hedgehog, Tetlock contends that the fox--the thinker who knows many little things, draws from an eclectic array of traditions, and is better able to improvise in response to changing events--is more successful in predicting the future than the hedgehog, who knows one big thing, toils devotedly within one tradition, and imposes formulaic solutions on ill-defined problems. He notes a perversely inverse relationship between the best scientific indicators of good judgement and the qualities that the media most prizes in pundits--the single-minded determination required to prevail in ideological combat.

Clearly written and impeccably researched, the book fills a huge void in the literature on evaluating expert opinion. It will appeal across many academic disciplines as well as to corporations seeking to develop standards for judging expert decision-making.

Customer Reviews:

Anyone who forecasts or does formal planning for a living..........2007-03-31

...can't afford to do without this book. It is scary to think that many people will be writing PhDs in the Social Sciences, and then be called upon to make or influence policy without being familiar with this book's central arguments and evidence.

A classic of Political Science & Cognitive Psychology.......2007-01-06

Tetlock shows conclusively two key points: First, the best experts in making political estimates and forecasts are no more accurate than fairly simple mathematical models of their estimative processes. This is yet another confirmation of what Robyn Dawes termed "the robust beauty of simple linear models." The inability of human experts to out-perform models based on their expertise has been demonstrated in over one hundred fields of expertise over fifty years of research; one of the most robust findings in social science. Political experts are no exception.
Secondly, Tetlock demonstrates that experts who know something about a number of related topics (foxes) predict better than experts who know a great deal about one thing (hedgehogs). Generalist knowledge adds to accuracy.
Tetlock's survey of this research is clear, crisp, and compelling. His work has direct application to world affairs. For example he is presenting his findings to a conference of Intelligence Community leaders next week (Jan 2007) at the invitation of the Director of National Intelligence.
"Expert Political Judgment" is recommended to anyone who depends on political experts, which is pretty much all of us. Tetlock helps the non-experts to know more about what the experts know, how they know it, and how much good it does them in making predictions.

An Ode to the Obvious.......2006-12-09

I was a house-guest just before the 2006 elections in
the U.S. and found this book on the bedside table in
my room. Reading it made me giggle. I remark on this
for two reasons: first, I don't usually giggle. Second,
it's not usual for books from university presses to
provoke any kind of emotion.

What got the chuckle from me was proof of something
that you may have long suspected. Those pundits on TV
and the op-ed page have no more idea of what's going
on and what's going to happen than the average intelligent
adult. Remember when The Economist Magazine predicted
that the bottom was going to fall out of oil prices?
Apparently, neither do they. Where are all the people
who said that there would be western-style democracy
flourishing in Iraq?

What I never thought about before was the reason that
the overly-well-informed are not better than the rest
of us when it comes to predictions: they know too much.
Right, the more information you have, the greater number
of obscure details you can command, the more likely you
are to consider them important in making predictions
about future events. What's wrong with that?

Well, there's an old maxim that if you hear barking, you
shouldn't look for hyenas, dingoes or wombats. Chances
are, it's a dog. The odds always favor the obvious, which
is how the obvious became obvious in the first place.

The author's conclusions about the fallibity of experts is
founded in a lot more than a hunch. He gathered and analyzed
predictions-over 80,000 of them. He found that the experts were
wrong more often than blind chance. He has some other
observations about cognitive style and the differences in our
ways of thinking about the past (which seems inevitable once
it's passed) and the future.

Is it too much to hope that some news-gathering, pundit-
using organization would make a list of the predictions
that it broadcasts and revisit them a year or two later
to see how well the experts did?

I predict there's not a chance of it happening.

--Lynn Hoffman, author of THE NEW SHORT COURSE IN WINE and
the forthcoming novel bang BANG from Kunati Books.ISBN 9781601640005

brilliant and encouraging.......2006-10-25

Why isn't this book on the front page of every newspaper everywhere? The author makes a cogent argument that informed amateurs are as good as "experts" in seriously important fields from investing to politics. He provides experimental evidence that this is the case. This is the hypothesis that a bunch of farmers and merchants tested when they sat down and organized the United States of America. This is the hypothesis that every smart investor proves when he meets or beats hedge funds spending millions on experts and computer power. A very empowering book. Well-written, well-argued, well-referenced. I dare you to read this one and not give it to a friend.

Careful, Plodding, Objective.......2006-09-23

This book is a rather dry description of good research into the forecasting abilities of people who are regarded as political experts. It is unusually fair and unbiased.
His most important finding about what distinguishes the worst from the not-so-bad is that those on the hedgehog end of Isaiah Berlin's spectrum (who derive predictions from a single grand vision) are wrong more often than those near the fox end (who use many different ideas). He convinced me that that finding is approximately right, but leaves me with questions.
Does the correlation persist at the fox end of the spectrum, or do the most fox-like subjects show some diminished accuracy?
How do we reconcile his evidence that humans with more complex thinking do better than simplistic humans, but simple autoregressive models beat all humans? That seems to suggest there's something imperfect in using the hedgehog-fox spectrum. Maybe a better spectrum would use evidence on how much data influences their worldviews?
Another interesting finding is that optimists tend to be more accurate than pessimists. I'd like to know how broad a set of domains this applies to. It certainly doesn't apply to predicting software shipment dates. Does it apply mainly to domains where experts depend on media attention?
To what extent can different ways of selecting experts change the results? Tetlock probably chose subjects that resemble those who most people regard as experts, but there must be ways of selecting experts which produce better forecasts. It seems unlikely they can match prediction markets, but there are situations where we probably can't avoid relying on experts.
He doesn't document his results as thoroughly as I would like (even though he's thorough enough to be tedious in places):
I can't find his definition of extremists. Is it those who predict the most change from the status quo? Or the farthest from the average forecast?
His description of how he measured the hedgehog-fox spectrum has a good deal of quantitative evidence, but not quite enough for me check where I would be on that spectrum.
How does he produce a numerical timeseries for his autoregressive models? It's not hard to guess for inflation, but for the end of apartheid I'm rather uncertain.
Here's one quote that says a lot about his results:

Beyond a stark minimum, subject matter expertise in world politics translates less into forecasting accuracy than it does into overconfidence

Expert Political Judgment : How Good is It? How Can We Know?

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Expert Political Judgment : How Good is It? How Can We Know?
Philip E. Tetlock
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MU8V5Y

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