Book Description
Charting over 30 years of feminist debate on the significance of gender in the making and understanding of art, this archival anthology gathers together 99 indicative texts from North America, Europe and Australasia.The volume embraces a broad range of threads and perspectives, from diverse ethnic approaches, lesbian theory, and postmodernism to education and aesthetics. The writings of artists and activists are juxtaposed with those of academics, creating an entertaining and provocative web of ideas. Some of the texts are now regarded as classic, but the anthology is particularly notable for its inclusion of rare and significant material not reprinted elsewhere.The scale and structure of the volume make it a uniquely flexible resource for study and research. Each of the nine sections focuses on a specific area of debate and is introduced by a descriptive summary. The texts within each chapter are then presented in chronological order, indexing differing positions as they developed over time. Lists of essential reading are provided for students or lay readers seeking an introduction, whilst more extensive bibliographies at the end of each chapter and at the end of the volume support further research.
Customer Reviews:
Some useful information, but there are better references.......2001-02-09
I was looking for a book on portrait lighting, and a poster on a photographer web site suggested this book.
The book begins with a so-so discussion of metering and light color and then proceeds with examples of ambient light photography. There really didn't seem much to gain from the ambient light discussion, and I quickly got the feeling that I was not getting my money's worth. It appeared as though I was going to read the whole $20 book in 20 minutes. But then you get into the section on artificial lighting, and the information becomes more valuable and substantial. The diagrams showing the light placement was actually rather good, and some other books I've seen could benefit from such good figures.
However, there still wasn't a good discussion of what to look for in precise light placement for portrait photography. (E.g., move the light forward until the nose shadow hits the edge of the eye.)
In summary, I'd give the ambient light section 2 stars and the artificial light section, 4 stars, but there are better books on artificial lighting, for example, Jenni Bidner's THE LIGHTING COOKBOOK. So I average and give the book 3.
Product Description
No matter what camera format you shoot, this definitive reference is for any photographer who uses filters to make the best of available light or enhance natural or photographic light. Chock full of photographs illustrating filter effects.
Customer Reviews:
A decent guide, but not the best.......2007-04-20
This was a decent guide to filters, but most of the information you can find online for free. The book doesn't dive into enough details and most of the filters that are covered are pretty basic. If you are just getting started with filters this book might be an option for you. I was hoping for more advanced information and technique on filter use.
This guy is a god! Learn from a master of light manipulation.......2004-10-01
What's up with the three star reviews. This guy is everywhere now. He had his own filters made to alter light in an uniquely artistic way. Something different? Too much filtering? Heaven forbid something looks so good you wished you thought of it. If your not creative or don't wish to broaden your horizons - this isn't a book for you. Go home and put on your little tu- tu!
Excellent examples and explanations. Pick up any art or photo magazine and you'll see some of his work.
Filters Shmilters..........2002-07-16
I understand what the other reviewers have said about this book and agree that a good few images are heavily filtered to the point of extreme. On the other hand I think that this is necessary in the facilitation of understanding what effect certain filters can have when placed infront of the lens in different situations. More experienced photographers will be looking for the subtle and almost impercievable use of these wonderful photographic tools and I myself would have liked an emphasis on this area far more than on the bold approach. Nevertheless I feel that this is an excellent *general* work on filters and will be useful to the broadest possible audience.
There is some good technical information in here for beginners and intermediates who have little or no knowledge of filters and their uses. Meehan covers quite a bit of ground and does the usual stuff while he's at it. This is the stuff that photographers like myself see over and over again in almost every photography book which every photo book feels it necessary to reproduce over and over again adnausium. Some of the images in this book are excellent and the theory is right on, so if you are a photographer looking for a filter book that will rock your prospective bookshelf, maybe this isn't the book for you, but I have found it generally pleasing and it has it's place among my photo books without any complaints from me.
Theory is fine, but example images could be better........2002-01-21
I came across this book in the local library. The book has a fair amount of colour theory and some in depth coverage of the different filters available. Unfortunately the example images are another story. Most of them show heavy unnatural filtration and many pictures are really strange. For example, the picture of a building on page 40 has been shot with such heavy magenta filtration, I doubt anyone would attempt anything like this in real life. In the example on page 66, all the buildings have turned magenta. There are some more extreme examples on pages 31, 90 and 91.
In a book on filters, I would have expected such examples to be the exception rather than the norm (probably to illustrate what one can do with a strong red or magenta filter, etc). If the author wanted to show the effects of such heavy filtration, he could have chosen better or more appropriate examples.
Outstanding.......2001-02-26
... I have always been overwhelmed by the seemingly infinite number of
filters available and used by professionals. This is the first
material I have ever found that not only explains the different types
of filters but also explores the science how they work. I now feel
more confident using filters and am better able to anticipate their
effects. Far from being focused on "special effects", this
book is a great reference for anyone looking to enhance their
photographs through the use of filters.
Average customer rating:
- You'll be hustling in no time!
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50 Ways To Hustle Your Friends
Jim Karol , and
Ron Schaffer
Manufacturer: CCC Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| Humor
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Mind Games
ASIN: 0918259789 |
Customer Reviews:
You'll be hustling in no time!.......1999-11-06
Reading this book will allow you to play some simple, but effective hustles on your friends and your not-so friends. Jim explains in clear detail how to accomplish each trick while giving pictures and diagrams to facilitate learning. After meeting him in person, Jim is one to watch out for!
Book Description
Although books on the comedies of the silent era abound, few have attempted to survey film comedy as a whole—its history and evolution, how the philosophical visions of its greatest artists and directors have shaped its traditions, and how these visions have informed both the meaning and manner of their work.
Blending information with interpretation, description with analysis, Mast traces the development of screen comedy from the first crude efforts of Edison and Lumière to the subtlety and psychological complexity of Annie Hall. As he guides the reader through detailed discussions of specific films, Mast reveals the structures, the values, and the cinematic techniques which have appeared and reappeared in comic cinema.
The second edition of The Comic Mind treats the comic developments of the 1970s in terms of the traditions of film comedy set forth in the first edition, including a discussion of the evolution of Jacques Tati and the emergence of Mel Brooks and Woody Allen as the two greatest American comic stylists of the seventies.
"The most comprehensive study of film comedy yet written in English. . . .The book's extensive index with references to companies from which 16mm prints of many of the cited films may be rented will be of great value to the film teacher and audiovisual librarian."—Choice
Product Description
A short history of the movies including assumptions, definitions, and catagories, primatives, Chaplin and Keaton, other silent clowns and sound comedy. The text is illustrated with eighty stills from the movies under discussion. 324 delightful pages of comedies very beginning to 1973 not including indexes.
Average customer rating:
- Excellent guide to the business
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How to Get Your Music in Film & TV: The Music Broker Guide to Soundtrack Licensing & Commissioning (Music Broker Guides)
Richard Jay
Manufacturer: Music Broker Organisation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Marketing
| Marketing & Sales
| Business & Investing
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Business
| Music
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| Music
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Entertainment
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ASIN: 0954437608 |
Book Description
For the first time ever, this book gives you a detailed look at how musicians, songwriters, publishers & indie labels producing every kind of music, can earn good money from placing their music into Film & TV in the USA - and beyond. Using inside information from The Music Broker Organisation, you can:
* Find out who needs music and where to find them
* Build strategies to market yourself effectively
* Learn to deal with Voice mail & rejection
* Negotiate your way into a better deal
* See how being unknown or unsigned doesn't matter
* Discover 3 letters that guarantee the best fee
Customer Reviews:
Excellent guide to the business.......2003-09-10
This book deals with the business of gettings songs into Film or getting work as a Film/TV composer (worldwide, not just in the US); it covers where you find people who need music, what to say to them, how to negotiate and has an excellent section on typical clauses in music contracts.
I have read most of the books on music in Film, but this one is different - it is very practical and gives you step-by-step instructions. I feel that if I follow the authors advice, I have a very good chance of hearing my music in a Film or TV show soon !
Product Description
Fifty-three (53) first prize lotto jackpots have been won with Gail Howards systems in pick-5 lotto games: Fantasy 5, Cash 5, Take 5, Match 5, Little Lotto, Lucky 5, Cash Game, Lotto 5, Badger 5. The 2006 3rd edition of Lotto Wheel Five to Win contains all the Gail Howard wheeling systems that won pick-5 lotto jackpots and identifies which of the systems won one, two or three jackpots, also the system that won eight first prize jackpots! Whether you spend a couple of dollars or join a pool or syndicate, a choice of 333 systems, from $2 to $100s, gives you complete flexibility for any possible use. Fifty systems in this book cost an affordable $5 or less to use, and more than 100 systems cost $10 or less.
Customer Reviews:
Best.......2007-01-20
very good and well going, it look like the best i have with me.
Great wheeling systems!.......2005-08-13
After using for a few months and finding the different combinations for a small group of numbers I started hitting many '4 of 5' prizes. Until I tried the 540 chart for thirteen numbers and twentyone combinations, I hit the JACKPOT! Using the option F4 to optimize I increased my winnings playing 35 numbers instead of the regular twentyone and in that JACKPOT play, all the numbers were winners! THANK YOU so much Gail for this GREAT wheeling system!
Lost out on $165,000 in Fantasy 5 using this book!.......2005-04-04
I purchased Gail's "How to Wheel a Fortune" years ago and decided to buy "Lotto Wheel 5 to Win" only because there were more wheels for the 5/39 game...and how sorry I am that I did! First of all the formulas for wheeling 12 numbers for a 3 of 4 win guarantee in the first book I purchased were NOT the same 3 of 4 win formulas found in this book. Secondly, if I had known the formulas were different I would have stuck with the "How to Wheel a Fortune" because I lost out on winning $165,000 in Michigan's Fantasy 5 game on March 30, 2005! I wheeled the same 12 numbers but the results were different in each book. I wish the author had included a note or something about the different formulas in this book as opposed to her previous books. I am so angry that I bought it. Which is why I gave it a 1!
Disappointed.......2004-09-04
I picked my field of numbers and was ready to use this book. The wheel I selected claimed that I could pick 10 numbers, but only 9 are actually played. So I thought that this was just a mistake. Wrong again, several of the wheels claim that you can pick several numbers, but they are not all played in the game panels. I would think that these mistakes would have been cleared up since this book has been reprinted several times.
I also found that many of the wheels were no better than my creating my own wheeling system. A large number of the wheels are just common sense. For example, if I'm picking 10 numbers and only playing 2 games, common sense would tell me that each number will be played only once and that there is only a 3 out of 5 chance of winning. I didn't need this book to tell me that.
I give this book 2 stars because there are some wheels that are mathematically correct and different from her Lottery Master Guide, however I don't think this book is worth the money. As always, Gail wants you to buy more of her stuff and includes order forms for you to waste more of your money chasing the big dream. By the way, I brought this book because I had a small win and was hoping this book would have been helpful in getting the big one. I find I'm better off doing my own thing, and could have spent my winnings on more tickets instead of on a book that is not very helpful.
Gail Howard's 'Lotto Wheel Five to Win'.......2004-04-17
Finally, an easy to use book on how to wheel numbers for a pick 5 type game. Everything is laid out for you in this book. See 'Excerpt' to get a peek inside this 2nd edition at how easy it is to wheel numbers for your pick 5 lottery game!
Thirty-seven (37!) first prize pick-5 lotto jackpots have already been won with the systems in Lotto Wheel Five to Win.
No other book on the market today can compare with the ease of wheeling as this book. It explains not only how to wheel numbers so you can win multiple prizes, but minimum and maximum prizes you can expect to win within your wheels. Plus much more info. Just look at the books Excerpt/contents to see what all is inside. I myself have won many prizes here in NY State in our Take-5 game.
I honestly feel a Jackpot win is within anyones grasp if they read this book and use its wheels!
Average customer rating:
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Nailed - The Biography of Jimmy Nail
Geraint Jones
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Arts & Literature
| Biographies & Memoirs
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| Actors & Actresses
| Artists, Architects & Photographers
| Authors
| Composers & Musicians
| Dancers
| Entertainers
| Movie Directors
| New Age
| Television Performers
| Theatre
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
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General
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ASIN: 0006530729 |
Customer Reviews:
Best "behind the scenes" since The Brethren.......2007-01-08
No author to date has fine-tuned the story of O'Connor from ranch to robes as well as Ms. Biskupic. The extent of her study and interviews shows, but does not become an academic report. It is fresh and insightful, and certainly as amusing and straight-shooting as its subject.
If you are interested in the law, the Supremes, history in the making, or simply the politics of what it means to be a woman in the law, this is the book you want to read.
Well written.......2006-11-10
As an admirer of SDO for quite some time, this book opened me up to admire her even more. This book told me so many things that I never knew. It also explained her reasoning behind many of her decisions, both as a justice and in life. Worth the read.
An Impressive, Engrossing Biography.......2006-06-30
Joan Biskupic's biography _Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice_ provides a compelling picture of the first woman Supreme Court justice and of the inner workings of the Supreme Court through four presidential administrations. Biskupic combines assiduous research with a writing style that makes the intricacies of Supreme Court proceedings accessible and fascinating. The biography is impressive on many counts, especially in how it captures O'Connor's skilfull handling of the challenges of being the nation's first female Supreme Court Justice. Throughout, Biskupic's stance is balanced, outlining the strengths of O'Connor's jurisprudence while acknowleding O'Connor's critics.
While the main focus of the biography is on O'Connor's work in the Supreme Court, the early chapters offer a snapshot of O'Connor as a driven career woman, a devoted wife and mother, and an adroit politician. Biskupic shows how O'Connor's life on the family's "Lazy B." farm in Arizona was a formative influence, even though her parents consciously separated her from the farm in order to give her more educational opportunities at a private school in in El Paso. Her father's independence and opposition to the expansion of federal powers in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, and O'Connor's experiences as a trial lawyer, an Arizona state senator, and a judge on the Arizona Court of Appeals shaped an approach to law based on pragmatic, narrow definitions as opposed to overarching theoretical positions in rulings. As Biskupic shows, O'Connor's Arizonan, Western roots are manifest in her respect for the Tenth Amendment, which gives to states those powers not directly assigned to the federal government.
Biskupic is sensitive in tracing O'Connor's role as a trailblazer (though, often, in a purposefully understated way), and the biography shows how attitudes toward women have evolved from the 1950s to the present. O'Connor, for instance, despite graduating in the top 10% at Stanford University's Law school in 1952 and having been a member of the Stanford Law Review, received no offers at firms. One prestigious firm, Gibson, Dunn offered her a legal secretary position, which she declined. In an irony reflective of social changes, when Fred Smith, Ronald Reagan's White House Counsel and a former lawyer with Gibson, Dunn, and Grutcher, interviewed O'Connor in 1981 for the Supreme Court vacancy, O'Connor asked him if it was an interview for "a secretarial position." Biskupic begins her book with this effective anecdote, and the biography throughout reveals how O'Connor astutely negotiated gender prejudice in public life.
Biskupic also offers a detailed picture of O'Connor's important votes related to Roe v. Wade, affirmative action, capital punishment, and Bush v. Gore as she became increasingly the fifth tie-breaking in a deadlocked court. Biskupic chronicles O'Connor's evolution as a jurist, arguing that her role as a centrist often made her a baramoter of where the nation as a whole stood. Biskupic points out that O'Connor's legislative background as an Arizona State Senator--as a person who ran for office and thus who was directly accountable to the electorate--gave her a unique perspective in the Supreme Court with its life-time appointees.
Chapter 15, "Scalia v. O'Connor," highlights O'Connor's judicial pragmatism and minimalist interpretations, offering a contrast with Scalia's philosophically driven understanding of law on originalist grounds. In this chapter, Biskupic addresses critiques of O'Connor's decisions and legal reasoning from both the right and left. This chapter is fair in its discussion and highly informative about different approaches to law and about the role of the Supreme Court, in general.
An anecdote at the end of the book reveals O'Connor's personal style. In an interview with Biskupic, Clarence Thomas recalled O'Connor's congeniality and even the subtle impact this had on the court . O'Connor had attempted for a number of years to convince the other justices to eat lunch together after listening to cases. Although Thomas and other justices initially resisted, prefering to work on cases, he and others later relented. Thomas remarks, "Now, you have a group of people who really enjoy other's company." Biskupic argues that such tact helped lead to O'Connor's ascendant role in the court.
Biskupic's biography chronicles O'Connor's own life and provides a view of the day-to-day dynamics of the Supreme Court, including shifts in the court with retirements and the investitures of new justices. The biography, while telling many important stories affecting American law and life, maintains a clear argument of O'Connor's unmistakable influence.
Engaging.......2005-12-28
This is a most engaging portrait of a model justice in the common law tradition. Justice O'Connor is a true American icon of humble and hardworking origins rising to the heights of leadership based on character, critical thinking and an ethic of service. Her good will and civility toward those with whom she disagreed is an example to follow. The narrative is well informed, nuanced and flows steadily in a current that merges national, judicial and personal events in the judge's life most artfully. A wonderful book about a wonderful lady and an excellent Supreme Court justice. It is the likes of Sandra Day O'Connor that make one proud to be an American. And though I've never (yet) voted Republican she is also one more beautiful reason to love Ronald Reagan.
Interesting Summary of an Interesting Person.......2005-12-07
Biskupic picks up where Justice O'Connor left off in her joint biography (with brother Alan) of growing up on the Lazy B ranch in southern Arizona, and includes O'Connor's decision to pursue law studies at Stanford ("to make a difference," and as an outgrowth of a professor contending that an individual had a responsibility to the community).
After graduating from Stanford, marrying, and living in Germany with her husband while he competed his military assignment, Sandra Day O'Connor eventually settled in Phoenix. Failing to find employmente commensurate with her education, she started a law firm with another attorney, had three sons (took off five years to raise them), joined many community boards, helped/led several major Republican political campaings, became an assistant State's Attorney General, was appointed to a legislative vacancy (and subsequently elected in her own right), and became President of the State Senate.
Upon William Rehnquist's nomination to the Supreme Court, Sandra O'Connor undertook considerable effort to support him, including contacting fellow Stanford classmates, U.S. Senators, and newspaper editors, as well as making supporting speeches. Afterwards she left the State Senate to run for a vacant county judge position (won).
Several years later O'Connor was appointed by Governor Babbitt (Dem) to the state Appeals Court, and then had the opportunity to spend some time vacationing with Chief Justice Burger.
O'Connor's having grown up on a Western ranch seemed to make her more attractive to President Reagan, who had made a campaign promise to appoint a woman to the Court. Her prior abortion stance (voted to end an Arizona law prohibiting it) threatened to torpedo her nomination, but supporters (including Senator Goldwater) managed to quickly move the process forward and overcome opposition.
The remainder of the book details O'Connor's actions in a number of Court cases. (It was somewhat comforting to read of how sharply she honed in on issues while on the Court - I had a brief experience before her in her County Court, and was amazed and even intimidated by her sharp questioning even then.)
Finally, while I have the highest regard for Justice O'Connor, it was disappointing to read of the large role played by politics - even in our judicial system, and especially the centrality of the abortion issue. I was also unhappy to read about O'Connor's political comments (wanting to retire while a Republican was President), her dancing around the abortion issue, and key role in the 2000 election.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from National Right to Life News, published by National Right to Life Committee, Inc. on January 1, 2006. The length of the article is 1466 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Sandra Day O'Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice by Joan Biskupic (Ecco Books, an imprint of Harper Collins), $26.95.(Review).(Book Review)
Publication:
National Right to Life News (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2006
Publisher: National Right to Life Committee, Inc.
Volume: 33
Issue: 1
Page: 12
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Average customer rating:
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IN ACTION WITH THE SAS: A Soldiers Odyssey from Dunkirk to Berlin
Roy Close
Manufacturer: Pen and Sword
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
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Military & Spies
| Professionals & Academics
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ASIN: 1844152863 |
Book Description
Roy Close's wartime experiences make breathtaking reading. Mobilized in 1939 he became part of the BEF and was fortunate to avoid death or captivity during the German blitzkrieg and escape through Dunkirk. Sent to North Africa, he joined the Paras and, from there, to the SAS. In 1944 he operated behind enemy lines with the Maquis in France, who were in open insurrection against the German occupiers.
The scene then shifts to Holland and the advance through Germany. He witnessed Paris and Berlin in very early post-war years and was part of the Quadripartite Government of the former German capital.
Book Description
From the author of the widely acclaimed King Leopold's Ghost comes the taut, gripping account of the world's first grass-roots human rights movementthe fight to free the British Empire's slaves. In early 1787, twelve mena printer, a lawyer, a clergyman, and others united by their hatred of slaverycame together in a London printing shop and, combining fiery devotion with cool practicality, began one of the most brilliantly organized campaigns of all time. Masterfully stoking public opinion, the movement's leaders pioneered a variety of techniques used by citizens" movements ever since, from consumer boycotts to posters and lapel buttons to celebrity endorsements. A deft account of the precipitous rise of this popular crusade and its fierce, powerful enemies, Bury the Chains delivers all the drama, sweep, and surprise of Hochschild's previous histories.
Customer Reviews:
change is possible.......2007-06-21
Beginning in 1555 and lasting for 350 years, the British empire bought, sold, and enslaved about 11 million African people. This required some 35,000 voyages along the so-called triangular trade route: buying slaves from African slave traders along the continent's west coast, depositing their human cargo mainly in the Caribbean to work on Britain's sugar plantations but also to ports from Quebec to Chile, and then returning to England with imports for the empire. At the end of the 18th century slavery was hardly unusual; it was the rule for most peoples and places on earth. What was unusual was that in the space of about fifty years Britain outlawed the slave trade, and then a while later slavery itself (abolition was one thing, genuine emancipation another).
How did the unthinkable happen? How did an economic system that was so deeply embedded, so profitable, and so taken for granted as normal by almost everyone, disappear so swiftly? Hochschild describes the abolition movement as "one of the most ambitious and brilliantly organized citizens's movements of all time." Many of the political means that we enjoy today were perfected back then-- investigative journalism into the real conditions of slave life, sugar boycotts, 519 petitions to the British parliament with 390,000 signatures, public debates, media campaigns, and every day activism. Progressive women's groups far ahead of their time, missionaries (despised by the plantation owners), British evangelicals, Methodists, and especially the culturally marginal Quakers all provided principled moral argument. The herculean efforts of Thomas Clarkson, the parliamentary leadership of William Wilberforce, and the legal advocacy of the eccentric Granville Sharp were essential.
But Hochschild is careful to avoid the paternalism of self-congratulatory, aristocratic benevolence. After all, when all was said and done, it was the slave-owning planters who were reimbursed for their "losses" by the British government and not the slaves. Whenever possible he allows the slaves to speak for themselves, like the remarkable Olaudah Equiano, whose 500-page best-selling autobiography Interesting Narrative provided a first person narrative of what is still considered the best account of slave life (and is still available today); and Quobna Ottobah Cugoano's Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. He describes at great length the numerous slave revolts in which fearless and skilled leaders like Toussaint L'Overture led slaves to free themselves and force the British to face reality, however reluctant they were to do so. In these violent and vicious revolts the most beleaguered people on earth defeated the world's two greatest military powers, France and Britain, in Haiti and Jamaica.
Bury the Chains joins Hochschild's previous book King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1999) about Belgium's plunder of the Congo. The stories are depressing but inspiring, for however dark these histories, however deep our national complicity, the narratives remind us that we are nor fated to accept injustice to our fellow human beings. Whether in Iraq or Darfur, whether with malaria or HIV-AIDS, the abolition of slavery reminds us that effective movements of genuine social justice are possible.
How a group of activists changed the world.......2007-05-07
Hochschild tells the story of how a small group of Quakers, Anglicans and Methodists brought about the end of the slave trade. It is a story of enormous moral courage against an accepted, and economically powerful interest, and also the story of great organizational skill. The product boycotts, public opinion campaigns, demonstrations and political pressure that the campaigners invented at the end of the eighteenth century are still the mainstays of civil society. It is a wonderful irony that Napoleon's reintroduction of slavery in the French empire was the final, clinching argument for its abolition in the English one.
Useful but one-sided study of the abolition of slavery.......2007-04-12
The British Empire, so praised by our current rulers, was at root a slave empire, held together by slave-trading between slave colonies. Between 1660 and 1807, British-owned ships carried 3.5 million Africans, 40,000 a year, across the Atlantic, more than any other country carried. British property owners were the world's chief slavers.
The British ruling class, not the nation, owned the slave ships, the slaves and the plantations. British workers did not control their own labour power, never mind own other people. William Cobbett noted that in 1832, "white men are sold, by the week and the month all over England. Do you call such men free, on account of the colour of their skin?" Black chattel slavery and white wage slavery were parts of the same system.
The abolitionists ignored the eighteen-hour-days worked by children in Bradford's mills. They backed the laws that attacked trade unions and suspended Habeas Corpus. They funded their foreign philanthropy by increasing the exploitation of their white slaves at home. The trade unionist Oates said, "The great emancipators of negro slaves were the great drivers of white slaves. The reason was obvious. The labour of the black slaves was the property of others. The labour of the white slaves they considered their own." As the Derbyshire Courier noted, "We make laws to provide protection to the Negro: let us not be less just to the children of England."
Bronterre O'Brien wrote, "What are called the working classes are the slave populations of the civilized countries." From birth, they were mortgaged to the owners of capital and land, only nominally owning their own labour power, forced into wage slavery. Britain's property owners extracted far more profit from their 16 million wage slaves than from their million chattel slaves. O'Brien again, "We pronounce there to be more slavery in England than in the West Indies ... because there is more unrequited labour in England."
The empire was based on exploiting wage slaves and used the free movement of goods, capital and labour to extend its exploitation. The wars of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries were fought to keep, or add to, Britain's imperial and slave-trading conquests. For example, in the 1790s, British slave owners united with French slave owners to try to eat Haiti's revolution. The government sent more soldiers to the West Indies, and lost more, than it had when trying to crush America's independence. Of the 89,000 sent, 45,000 died, as did 19,000 sailors. France lost 50,000 dead. Haiti's freed slaves defeated the armies of the two greatest slaver powers, but the British forces laid waste to the island, destroying almost all its sugar plantations.
Slavery lost its former importance to the metropolitan economy. The slave colonies took an ever smaller share of Britain's exports. From 1820 the slump in the West Indies grew worse and worse. In 1832, an official wrote that the West Indies system "is becoming so unprofitable when compared with the expense that for this reason only it must at no distant time be nearly abandoned."
The years 1830-32 also saw the Swing Rising in Britain, revolution in France, a major slave revolt in Jamaica and the parliamentary Reform Act. All led to the 1833 Slave Emancipation Act, which freed the 540,000 slaves in the British West Indies. Parliament gave the planters £20 million (a billion pounds in today's money) as compensation for the loss of their slaves. The working class paid the money in tax, though they pointed out that the Church should have paid, as it owned so many slaves itself and as its priests justified the slavery of both black and white, at home and abroad. The Empire then imposed another form of servitude on the `freed' slaves of the West Indies - compulsory six-year `apprenticeships'. Later in the century, it used indentured labour, workers forcibly imported from India.
Slavery had been profitable in the 18th century; abolition was even more profitable in the 19th. The effort `to stop the foreign slave trade' was designed to damage rival empires and to protect the West Indies planters, now denied annual slave imports, from competition by sugar producers Cuba and Brazil, still reliant on buying slaves. The suppression of the slave trade on Africa's West and East coasts necessitated ever closer control of West and East Africa, at first by private companies like the British East Africa Company, later by the Empire itself. Abolition was a weapon to expand the empire.
Throughout the century, the Empire continued to steal people, land and resources from Africa, reinforcing slavery there and killing millions of African people. The Empire continued to contribute to and profit from the slave trade well into the twentieth century. As Marx wrote, we see in slavery "what the bourgeoisie makes of itself and of the labourer, wherever it can, without restraint, model the world after its own image."
Abolitionism was an early form of the fake internationalism we see today - LiveAid, Live Earth, Blairite calls to intervene everywhere, Oxfam's delusions about Britain being `a force for good on the world stage'. We should be satisfied if Britain was a force for good in Britain.
A Familiar Tale Told With Verve.......2007-03-03
"Bury the Chains" has little new data, but it is still a brilliantly written synthesis of a wide range of material on British antislavery. The subject is larger and more diffuse than the author's earlier "King Leopold's Ghost," but the outlook is similar, and appropriately so. Hochschild represents the neo-abolitionist perspective on slavery: it assumes the centrality of moral issues and the necessity for reforms, and reconstructs the world of antislavery advocates and slaves while also trying to understand the institution's supporters. The author balances several factors culminating in the end of the Old Slavery: humanitarian activism, structural economic changes, and not least slave revolts and revolution. Ultimately he gives primacy to the influence of humanitarianism. The book is rather conventional, even old-fashioned in asserting individual agency in history, though there is due attention given to more impersonal economic developments. A strong chapter on British women consumers as abolitionists adds a refreshingly different dimension to the story. Tragically, there is now a burgeoning slavery promoted by globalization. This New Slavery sadly returns abolitionism to the realm of current events, and enables future historians to shed more light on earlier antislavery movements. L. Sanneh, "Abolitionists Abroad" breaks new ground on African antislavery efforts; K. Bales, "Disposable People" is most enlightening on the New Slavery.
Wonderful writing, with some obvious bias.......2007-02-18
Hochschild has written a compelling, provocative book that I heartily enjoyed. In addition to good narratives and compelling anecdotes, he shines as he tries to make the social conventions and economic realities of the time period comprehensible today.
Mr. Hochschild is of the opinion that Wilberforce has received way too much credit for what was in reality a broad-based, complex movement of many decades. I have no problem with this and I respect his research and credentials. But he does seem to have an ax to grind with Christianity. No, I am not someone naive enough to hold that Christians can do/ have not done any wrong. But while Hochschild sometimes go to great lengths to make the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries comprehensible, he does not make this same effort for the Christians of that era.
Most notably, he singles out John Newton, author of Amazing Grace, for withering commentary. While I am not here to defend John Newton or assert he had no blind spots (like so many people of his day), I do think Mr. Hochschild trashes him unfairly. Christianity is not an instantaneous transformation but a lifelong process. The fact that John Newton left the slave trade, became a pastor but did not become a leader in the abolition movement somehow is incomprehensible to the author who infers that Newton's religion was a blind and hypocritical sham. This is most glaring sore point in an otherwise wonderful book that I am very glad to have read.
Average customer rating:
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Bookshelf.(Book review)(Brief review) : An article from: Conscience
Amy Hutchinson
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
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ASIN: B000FTC43W
Release Date: 2007-07-11 |
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This digital document is an article from Conscience, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2006. The length of the article is 1519 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Bookshelf.(Book review)(Brief review)
Author: Amy Hutchinson
Publication:
Conscience (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 27
Issue: 2
Page: 47(4)
Article Type: Book review, Brief review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
This digital document is an article from Catholic Insight, published by Thomson Gale on May 1, 2006. The length of the article is 936 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves.(Book review)
Author: Leonard Kennedy
Publication:
Catholic Insight (Magazine/Journal)
Date: May 1, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 14
Issue: 5
Page: 44(2)
Article Type: Book review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Average customer rating:
- Shows its age, but still a very good book
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The Plovers, Sandpipers, and Snipes of the World
Paul A. Johnsgard
Manufacturer: University of Nebraska Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0803225539 |
Customer Reviews:
Shows its age, but still a very good book.......2005-02-12
Birders have rather ignored this book, particularly since the publication of _Shorebirds_ and, now, Denis Paulson's new photographic guide. The identification information here is decidedly out of date, and many plumages go entirely undescribed, but Johnsgard's book is still a prime source for information on the range and, particularly, the behavior of many of the waders of the world. The illustrations are of variable quality; beware, too, the misidentifications of some of the photographs. But all in all highly recommended for the shorebird enthusiast, and to be had at a very reasonable price.
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