Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)

Amazon.com

Throughout history, humans have used clothing and accessories to lift, squeeze, frame and pad the body. In Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed, Harold Koda deftly weaves anthropology, sociology, art history, and haute couture into a lively survey of shifting notions of the body beautiful. Divided into five sections--Neck and Shoulders, Chest, Waist, Hips, and Feet--the book surveys fashion's literal imprint on the body while tracing the history of clothing styles. The long neck may be the only bodily ideal equally prized by all cultures. Young Padaung women of Burma traditionally wore weighted brass coils that pushed down their collarbones and shoulders, creating the illusion of a remarkably long neck. The wide van Dyke lace collar achieved a similar "triangulated" shoulder-line in 17th-century Europe. Fashionable women in the 1830s relied on hugely inflated sleeves—-held up with down-filled or wire-ribbed supports—-to create the rounded dropped shoulder then in vogue. In the "Feet" section, Koda, who remains scrupulously nonjudgmental throughout, juxtaposes the miniaturized "Golden Lotus" bound foot of pre-Revolutionary China with the reshaping effect of today's stiletto heels. The platform shoe was another way of encumbering a woman's gait, whether as a way of keeping her at home (away from sexual temptation) or as a means of showing her off (the courtesans of Japan and Renaissance Venice perched on elevated soles). Men's body-altering fashions also get their due, from sculpted codpieces and male waist-binding to a front-padded shirt by Issey Miyake that resembles a baseball catcher's uniform. Koda's discussions of the historical allusions of avant-garde designers like Viktor and Rolf, Olivier Theyskens, and Hussein Chalayan vividly illuminate an often murky aspect of contemporary couture. Copiously illustrated with works of art and photographs of clothing and undergarments from many eras, Extreme Beauty packs a wealth of information into a slender volume. —-Cathy Curtis
Book Description
Over time and across cultures, shifting concepts of beauty have given rise to extraordinary fashions that constrict, enhance, minimize, or exaggerate various zones of the human body. This stimulating book displays and discusses an array of such extreme fashion practices, from the bound feet of aristocratic Manchu women to the tea-tray supporting bustle of an 1880s French visiting dress.
Customer Reviews:

Unexpected Beauty Transformation.......2007-07-16
To read this book reveals not only plenty of interesting and quite often surprising information on fashions past and current but its text and pictures are highly complementary. In addition a lot of the provided information gives insight into social structures of the centuries referred to - and once more it is proven that fashion is one of the quickest instruments to testify social and historical changes to the world.
A brilliant book to celebrate a brilliant exhibit.......2007-04-11
Extreme Beauty is a wonderful book that celebrates the Metropolitan's equally brilliant exhibit about fashion and it's different preoccupations with the body. The exhibit was magnificent, and the book truly honors the tone and feeling of it, while being extremely informative in it's own right. The book is divided into different chapters such as neck and shoulders, waist, chest, etc. Each chapter features photos of the garments displayed in the original exhibit, as well as additional historical drawings and photographs of the various fashions and cultural trends that have celebrated the parts of the body. And, as promised in the title, the book explores the cultural foundations of bodily transformation and mutilation(?) through everything from extreme corsetry, [..] footwear and peircing to the tribal women who use metal rings to actually elongate their vertebrae. Harold Koda's insightful and meticulously researched commentary is just the icing on the cake. This is a must for any fashion library, but also of great interest to non-fashionistas.
Human preoccupation for Millennia.......2002-02-22
Sentient humans with brains as well as bodies have always been fascinated by the way we adorn ourselves and why. Once we can get past the cultural anthropology of fashion, and the fads that make it a billion-dollar world industry, we can dig down to discover the roots of historical and current adorned beauty, and EXTREME BEAUTY does this . . . beautifully.
It is pleasing--in an era in which physical beauty and adornment typified by fashion have been roundly rejected by most of the jeans-wearing public--to find a book that lets beauty out and helps us exercise our sense of mystery and wonder, based in no small part on human sexuality and attraction. Harold Koda (curator of the Costume Institute at New York's Met) has mounted a show and created a book with marvelous insights and passion, and the illustrations are wondrous--consider, as a case in point, Thiery Mugler's 'Chimere,' with its savage eroticism.
One could quibble with Koda's arbitrary division of the body into 'neck and shoulders,' 'chest,' 'waist,' 'hips' and 'feet,'
and his exclusion of the fascinating face/head/hair perplex, and the hands, with their magical touch and allure. But this book and its illustrations will become a benchmark by which human adornment is judged, and is a keeper of power and importance.
Considers the evolving, changing strategies of beauty.......2002-01-06
Harold Koda's Extreme Beauty surveys concepts of fashion and beauty. Koda considers the evolving, changing strategies of beauty around the world, focussing on different body parts and how they are accented and displayed through varying uses of clothing and cultural perception. Black and white and color photos of unusual fashion choices and styles make for some eye-opening insights.

Average customer rating:
Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed
Philippe de Montebello Harold Koda
Manufacturer: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORVC7O

Average customer rating:
Extreme Beauty: The Body Transformed (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)
Harold Koda
Manufacturer: Metropolitan Museum of Art
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORZWXE

Average customer rating:

Thought it would be better

GREAT

Print in Fashion: Design, Development and Technique in Fashion Textiles
Marnie Fogg
Manufacturer: Batsford
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description
Here is the first and only book to explore cutting-edge print design for fashion through the designer’s eyes—complete with interviews, exclusive archive material from international fashion houses, and full-color photographs of patterns. Innovators such as Eley Kishimoto and Jonathan Saunders explain their work, take us through their artistic process, and consider the relationship between fashion designer and print designer. Every page offers something beautiful and striking—motifs based on nature, others drawn from urban graffiti and graphics, and still more that go retro, abstract, or folkloric. The material is exquisite and invaluable to anyone interested in fashion and design.

Customer Reviews:

Thought it would be better.......2007-05-12
I got this book for a digital surface design class that I am taking. I thought that it would be a really cool book and I had actually flipped through it once. Yet when I got it, I was a little dissapointed. The author does not carry her thoughts well from one paragraph to another. I feel like she uses big words that she might not necessarily understand completely...oh and there is a missing page :(
GREAT.......2006-11-18
I loved this book - very inspirational - gave me lots of insight on top designers that I hadn't read about elsewhere. Total eye candy. I highly suggest this book for anyone in the design biz or who just needs inspiration and is a real lover of prints and patterns.

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Honest Profits: Your Hands on Guide to Successful Real Estate Investing
Robert Shemin
Manufacturer: Eggman Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Hollywood Abroad: Audiences and Cultural Exchange

Manufacturer: British Film Institute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 1844570517

Book Description
Hollywood Abroad is the first book to examine the reception of Hollywood movies by non-American audiences. Although numerous books on film history have analyzed the ways in which American films came to dominate world markets, there has so far been very little published work on how audiences outside the United States have responded to Hollywood-produced films. Hollywood Abroad explores the reception of U.S. films in Britain, France, Belgium, Turkey, Australia, India, Japan, and Central Africa. The book covers topics from the first major penetration of American films into France, Britain, and Australia to the impact of such films as The Best Years of Our Lives to the response of Belgian young people in the age of the multiplex. It demonstrates that the story of the reception of American films overseas is less one of domination than of a complex adoption of Hollywood into various cultures.

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Unscholarly study gives readers the shaft

Fails to entertain or inform very well...

Fails to entertain or inform very well...

Going up?

Lanza does it again

Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong; Revised and Expanded Edition
Joseph Lanza
Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0472089420

Book Description

It's campy, it's cool, empty, intrusive, trite, and treacly. It's Big Brother singing. Call it what you will -- elevator music, Moodsong ® easy listening, or Muzak ®. For a musical genre that was supposed to offend no one, it has a lot of enemies.

Musical cognoscenti decry its insipid content; regular folk -- if they notice -- bemoan its pervasiveness; while hipsters and campsters celebrate its retro chic. Mindful of the many voices, Joseph Lanza's Elevator Music sings seriously, with tongue in cheek, the praises of this venerable American institution.

Lanza addresses the criticisms of elites who say that Muzak and its ilk are dehumanized, vapid, or cheesy. These reactions, he argues, are based more on cultural prejudices than honest musical appraisal.

Says Lanza, today's so-called mood music is the inheritor of a long tradition of mood-altering music stretching back to the ancients; Nero's fiddle and the sirens of Odysseus being two famous examples. Contemporary atmospheric music, Lanza argues, not only serves the same purpose, it is also the inevitable background for our media-dominated age.

One of Lanza's premises, to quote Mark Twain, is that this music is "better than it sounds." "This book will have succeeded in its purpose," he writes, "if I can help efface...the distinction between one person's elevator music and another's prized recording."

Joseph Lanza is an author, producer, and music historian. His most recent book is Russ Columbo and the Crooner Mystique.

Customer Reviews:

Unscholarly study gives readers the shaft.......2005-04-24
"Elevator Music" packs the car pretty tightly with information, but the ride is aimless and, ultimately, frustrating. Much of the problem lies with the musicology, which is nearly nonexistent. That is to say, most of the analysis focuses on non-musical subjects (there's even two pages of elevator history). When the text lets off for occasional commentary of a musical sort, it misses the floor entirely. We're told, for example, that Erik Satie's music differed completely from Debussy's, especially in regard to "parallel chords"--when, of course, Satie's harmonic language anticipated Debussy's to the point that the controversy over who influenced whom will probably never be resolved. Elsewhere, performance marks are treated as an invention of mood music--when, in fact, such manuscript markings as "agitato," "dolce," "cantabile," etc. not only predate Muzak, but silent film music, as well, and by quite a few years! Worst of all, "Elevator Music" caters to the common misconception that easy-listening, or mood, music emerged during the hi-fi era. To wit, after 70 pages of data to the contrary, the book informs us that such music is/was "tailored exclusively to the electronic revolution" (meaning, hi-fi and stereo). It could be claimed, I suppose, that the pop-instrumental fare common to radio and discs in the 1930s and 1940s (Andre Kostelanetz, Morton Gould, David Rose, et al) proved ideal for hi-fi rigs and hi-fi owners who may not have wanted to listen to jazz or Stravinsky. However, to claim that the music was "tailored for" a given era, rather than "adapted to," is quite a jump, and historically inaccurate. One listen to Andre Kostelanetz' massed-strings version of "Clair de Lune" from 1939 is enough to dispel the myth that mood music was born during the rock and roll era, but "Elevator Music" seems determined to feed this myth. The poorly-selected discography, in fact, focuses mostly on the 1950s-1970s, in keeping with the journalistic cliche of "pop" vs. rock, or Mantovani vs. Elvis, a cliche that needs to be sent down the shaft if pop music studies are ever to be elevated to the level of serious scholarship.
Fails to entertain or inform very well..........2003-02-19
Despite the fact that this book is endorsed (on the back cover) by no less than Wendy Carlos (a fairly well-known composer and musical traditionalist), and despite the fact that I personally like a lot of "easy listening" type music, Lanza still fails here in his attempt to write a good book.
Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that there really is no definable genre that could be called "moodsong." All music creates a mood of some sort, when it comes right down to it (whether by accident or design, what's the real difference?). And Lanza does a poor job of covering the history of the Muzak Corp. or any specific area of "easy listening" (all are drastically short-shrifted in a mere 233 pages). In defining the genre, it seems Lanza defined it too broadly -- it would take a thousand pages at least to really do justice to the material he covers -- not to mention, a lot more in-depth research than he apparently did or was willing to do.
What's more, his speculative arguments fail to convince me... I do enjoy most of the music (aesthetically) and am not ashamed to say so, but it's my right-brain, emotional side that likes it. Lanza's attempts to analyze or 'justify' easy-listening and mood music in general fall flat, and his utopian speculation just ends up sounding silly and contrived. I agree with most of the points the previous reviewer made.
Fails to entertain or inform very well..........2003-02-19
Despite the fact that this book is endorsed (on the back cover) by no less than Wendy Carlos (a fairly well-known composer and musical traditionalist), and despite the fact that I personally like a lot of "easy listening" type music, Lanza still fails here in his attempt to write a good book.
Part of the problem, in my opinion, is that there really is no definable genre that could be called "moodsong." All music creates a mood of some sort, when it comes right down to it (whether by accident or design, what's the real difference?). And Lanza does a poor job of covering the history of the Muzak Corp. or any specific area of "easy listening" (all are drastically short-shrifted in a mere 233 pages). In defining the genre, it seems Lanza defined it too broadly -- it would take a thousand pages at least to really do justice to the material he covers -- not to mention, a lot more in-depth research than he apparently did or was willing to do.
What's more, his speculative arguments fail to convince me... I do enjoy most of the music (aesthetically) and am not ashamed to say so, but it's my right-brain, emotional side that likes it. Lanza's attempts to analyze or 'justify' easy-listening and mood music in general fall flat, and his utopian speculation just ends up sounding silly and contrived. I agree with most of the points the previous reviewer made.
Going up?.......2002-11-16
I wanted to like this book. Whatever its aesthetic merits, "elevator music" and its cognates -- easy-listening, Muzac, mood music, etc. -- have been such a pervasive phenomenon that the subject deserves serious investigation. Unfortunately, Lanza wants to extend his case beyond the seriousness of the subject to arguing that elevator music deserves to be regarded as serious music.
Maybe someone out there is capable of sustaining that argument; Lanza can't. For starters, his grip on other forms of music that many of us do take seriously (such as classical, jazz and rock) is shakey at best. What do you make of an author who describes the jazz trumpeter Bobby Hackett's stints with Muzak as a departure from "improvisation dementia"? In addition to being a broad and inaccurate swipe at jazz, the comment demonstrates complete ignorance of Hackett, a musician famed for his golden tone and smooth, melodic interpretations of Dixieland and popular songs.
Or consider the following regarding easy-listening interpretations of famous rock songs: "Many from Bob Dylan, the Doors, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Mamas and the Papas, R.E.M., the B-52s, U2, and Van Morrison have been refurbished from loud, plodding, adolescent thunder to something tasteful, airy, and mystical." Dylan, adolescent? Van Morrison, plodding? The Mamas and the Papas, loud? But the root problem -- and authorial prejudice -- is in his assignment of the adjectives "tasteful, airy, and mystical" to music that's best described as bland, flat, and deliberately unengaging.
"Mystical," is a term Lanza frequently applies to elevator music. Bottom line: he cannot distinguish the amniotic state of neutered consciousness that Muzak acheives from the genuine achievement of goodness, truth and beauty that can be enjoyed in better music, whether it be folk, rock, jazz or classical.
In the end, Lanza's posture shifts from being one that provokes curiousity to one that seems downright perverse. Lanza concludes his book with a sympathetic reading of the "emotional engineers" in Huxley's "Brave New World." As I read Lanza's praise of the artificial ("most of us, in our hearts, want a world tailored by Walt Disney's 'imagineers'") I couldn't help but think of George Orwell and the sad conclusion to "1984" in which the hero, numbed by falsehood, confesses his love for Big Brother.
Lanza does it again.......2002-04-23
Elevator Music: A surreal History of Muzak, Easy-Listening, and Other Moodsong is the greatest book on music that I have ever read. Mr. Lanza is an absolute musical genius, the type of author that comes along once in a generation. Shakespeare, Chaucer, Hemingway ... Lanza. Now, I suppose that some may feel as though I am giving the man too much credit. While he may never be the darling of the so-called 'city fathers' who cluck their tongues, stoke their beards, and say 'What's to do with this Joseph Lanza?' - I feel just the opposite. Words cannot describe the impact that this man has had on American literature, and one can only imagine the great works he will produce in the future. In closing, I don't use the word 'hero' very often, but Joseph Lanza is the greatest hero in American history. I feel privelaged to have been among his loyal readers for these many years. Well-played, Mr. Lanza, well played!

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Mind Magic: Extraordinary Tricks to Mystify, Baffle and Entertain
Marc Lemezma
Manufacturer: New Holland
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Everyone knows that most magic tricks are simply sleight-of-hand. Mental magic, on the other hand, can give the illusion of real paranormal powers. This dazzling collection offers a rich selection of mind-reading, spirit-raising, future-telling illusions, complete with tips on how to present them most effectively. Read palms with amazing accuracy, predict the future with tarot cards, conjure up table-tipping spirits, find psychic connections between people and their possessions, receive uncanny messages from the beyond, and even seem to know what people are thinking. Of course, it's all in fun and all the explanations include the magician's "patter" that goes with each trick--assuring that no matter how spooky the effect, the audience isn't shocked or terrified, but delightfully amazed.

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Mildly disappointed in the direction

Fantastic Book

BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT!

more about sam than the brewery

Brewing a business

Brewing Up a Business: Adventures in Entrepreneurship from the Founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery
Sam Calagione
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description
Brewing Up a Business is an entertaining, enlightening first-person account of author Sam Calagione's nontraditional success as an entrepreneur. Starting out with a home brewing kit cobbled together from used kegs, Calagione turned his entrepreneurial dream into a reality. Relying on unique brews, lots of loving technique, and hard work, Calagione built Dogfish Head Craft Beer into America's fastest growing brewery. Without the benefit of an advertising budget, Dogfish went from a tiny operation in Delaware to one of the country's most popular craft breweries, distributed in 29 states and four countries. As revenues grow at lightning speed-an increase of 105 percent in 2003-Dogfish's success is the result of dreaming big, working hard, and thinking unconventionally. With real lessons on entrepreneurship and success from a real entrepreneur, as well as practical ideas on nontraditional marketing, this is a business story that will open readers' eyes to the unquantifiable benefits of thinking differently.
Download Description
Brewing Up a Business is an entertaining, enlightening first-person account of author Sam Calagione's nontraditional success as an entrepreneur. Starting out with a home brewing kit cobbled together from used kegs, Calagione turned his entrepreneurial dream into a reality. Relying on unique brews, lots of loving technique, and hard work, Calagione built Dogfish Head Craft Beer into America's fastest growing brewery. Without the benefit of an advertising budget, Dogfish went from a tiny operation in Delaware to one of the country's most popular craft breweries, distributed in 29 states and four countries. As revenues grow at lightning speed-an increase of 105 percent in 2003-Dogfish's success is the result of dreaming big, working hard, and thinking unconventionally. With real lessons on entrepreneurship and success from a real entrepreneur, as well as practical ideas on nontraditional marketing, this is a business story that will open readers' eyes to the unquantifiable benefits of thinking differently.
Customer Reviews:

Mildly disappointed in the direction.......2007-09-16
I bought this book looking for a little more insight into developing a microbrewey but found although it is interesting, it is full of platitiudes concerning what I would call "business culture." The author has had unbelievable success as an enterprising brewer but the book does not translate this into any advice for someone who hopes to follow in his footsteps. Read it for the story and for sheer enjoyment but don't look to it for any kind of blueprint to microbrewery business success.
Fantastic Book.......2007-08-15
Great book and a fantastic read. While the book is directed towards entrepreneurs, the guiding principles can be applied to all aspects of business. The manner in which it is written makes it a quick read and I found myself laughing out loud often. Well written Sam! - John
BUY THIS BOOK AND READ IT!.......2007-06-25
I'm a brewpub owner and a professional brewer and the book was inspiring. If you're thinking of starting your own business or if you already own a business I highly recommend this book. Sam is a great writer and after reading "Brewing Up a Business" you will understand why DogFish Head is so successful.
more about sam than the brewery.......2007-03-03
The book is well named - its more about entrepreneurship, and not very much about the beer industry, and frankly, its about Sam, and Sam's business, and what Sam thinks about Sam's business. There is a great deal about Sam's incredibly brilliant product strategy - and it **is** a brilliant product strategy!

If you are interested in the brewing industry / business, there is not so much here.

The book is entertaining although not that informative, and reads like many new age business books. The founder has been tremendously successful. Suggest "beer school" if you want to learn about critical factors in brewing industry.
Brewing a business.......2007-02-09
Very good book. A good book for anyone who is brewing beer and has aspirations of going to the next level. Also a good read for anyone who is into success stories.

Average customer rating:

As if we all don't

Best of the Genre

"it'll be absolutely nothing like you expected it to be"

Solid Read, Great Perspective on the War in Iraq

Couldn't put it down

My War: Killing Time in Iraq
Colby Buzzell
Manufacturer: Berkley Trade
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Amazon.com
My War is a book that will challenge many of the most common assumptions about the Iraq War and the people fighting in it. Colby Buzzell, the book's author and a U.S. Army machine-gunner who did a year-long tour in Iraq, is not the stereotypical small-town soldier from a Red State. He grew up in San Francisco eating pot brownies at the Haight-Ashbury Street Fair, skateboarding, and listening to punk and heavy metal. He supported Ralph Nader for president, reads George Orwell, and his dad worked in Silicon Valley. But he was sick of his "life in oblivion," bouncing around from one dead-end job to another. As Buzzell writes in his typically gritty prose, "I didn't want to get all old and have my bratty grandkids ask me, 'Grandpa, where were you during the Iraq war?' and me going, 'Oh, I was busy doing temp work and data entry for 12 bucks an hour.'"
In search of adventure, Buzzell joined the army and got sent to Iraq. First stationed in the ultra-dangerous Sunni Triangle, he quickly mastered how to use the M240 Bravo machine gun: "Just get behind that muthafucka and just fire it." His fellow soldiers, mostly hip-hop fans or headbanging metal-heads like him, killed time watching porn on mini-portable DVD players or listening to Metallica on their iPods while on patrol. Long boring spells were interrupted by wild fits of confusing action. On one of Buzzell's first missions, two platoons fired thousands of rounds at near point-blank range at an unarmed Iraqi civilian. Amazingly, he survived. Out of boredom, Buzzell started a blog, one of the first by an ordinary "Joe" grunt in Iraq. It became a media sensation and got Buzzell in trouble with the REMFs ("Rear Echelon Mutha Fuckers") because of his less-than-glamorous portrayal of the war and his superiors, whom he accuses of constantly lying to the public and the soldiers under their command. My War may be disappointing to readers looking for deeper introspections on the moral questions behind the war, but it is a pretty convincing case against the claim that everything in Iraq is going fine. --Alex Roslin
Book Description
Skateboarding party animal Colby Buzzell traded a dead-end future for the army-and ended up a machine gunner in Iraq. To make sense of the bloody insanity surrounding him, he started a blog about the war and how it differed from the government's official version. As his blog's popularity grew, Buzzell became the embedded reporter the Army couldn't control-despite its often comical efforts to do so.

The result is an extraordinary narrative, rich with unforgettable scenes: the Iraqi woman crying uncontrollably during a raid on her home; the soldier too afraid to fight; the troops chain-smoking in a guard tower and counting tracer rounds. Drawing comparisons to everything from Charles Bukowski to Catch-22, My War depicts a generation caught in a complicated and dangerous world-and marks the debut of a raw, remarkable new voice.
Customer Reviews:

As if we all don't.......2007-09-23
It is ignorant enough reading it. This stuff should not be sold especially while the war is still going on. Granted if you saw something like you would just tell everyone about it as if they would understand. Unless if you were selling your soul for the money. I was there for 15 months and I don't care to tell the story to people who won't understand. Only those close by could ever know because I guard my integrity from being a sellout, obviously I'm not from San Francisco although I do live in California. And if the author does have PTSD; well I would like to know how he lied to the system because there should have been personal resistance in authoring an account. It is different when part of a covert group such and MACVSOG who never had any credit. You had your credit had your medals take 'em and shut up.
Best of the Genre.......2007-09-19
Some day this war's going to end. Maybe not so much end as just stop. Decades after that happens we'll probably still be trying to figure out why we went, what we accomplished, and whether or not it was worth it. Buzzell's book has nothing to do with that. It's a raw, sometimes jaded, often hilarious, but always honest account of daily military life in a war zone. We can all be thankful that men like Buzzell volunteered to serve, did so honorably, and passed along their stories.
"it'll be absolutely nothing like you expected it to be".......2007-08-09
Colby Buzzell wrote a blog during his deployment in Iraq by the same title as his book. _My War_ details his experiences as an infantryman there, as well as his run-ins with the Army over his blog. There is much to like here: Colby is brutally honest and writes exactly what is on his mind.

He "stream of conscious" writing (at least the first third of the book) was a bit difficult - long, rambling, run-on sentences, reminiscent of a high school student's journal. As the book progresses, his writing tightens up, becomes much clearer, and his "voice" much stronger. Whether this is intentional or not, it is telling of what is happening to Colby: he is maturing, growing up and finding his voice (and himself.)

As a Gulf War veteran, I have mixed feelings about _My War_. Writing about his life before he joined the Army, I honestly didn't like him. As Buzzell entered the Army and was sent to Iraq, a palpable change took place - as his writing changed, so did my opinion of him. By the end of the book, I became genuinely fond of him. Similarly, I found some of the things he complained about ridiculous: you're a grunt. Suck it up. On the other hand, I shared his frustration at the bureaucracy and underhanded methods the Army used in handling him and his blog. His commitment to his platoon members and fidelity to his battallion CO was inspiring.

I would recommend it along with John Crawford's _The Last True Story I'll Ever Tell_ and Nathaniel Fick's _One Bullet Away_ for other perspectives on the infantry in general and OIF specifically.
Solid Read, Great Perspective on the War in Iraq.......2007-07-22
This is a must read for everyone interested in a contemporary perspective on war and the politics of the current Iraq conflict. Buzzell gives us an honest appraisal of himself, the Army, war and his comrades with humor and humility.
Couldn't put it down.......2007-06-27
Im one of those people that read for leisure. I take my time and enjoy my book. However with My War it was the kind of book I couldnt take my time with. I just wanted more! Its a truly fantastic read. A true page turner. Colby Buzzel is funny and honest and writes things as he sees it. I thought the book would be a bit political (being American) but some how despite all thats going on with this war he keeps politics to a minium and writes it how it is. How the troops cope on the ground. A great book which I would recommend to anyone. Well Done Mr Buzzell.

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War Reporting For Cowards by C. Ayres
Chris Ayres
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Nonfiction | Subjects | Books | Audiobooks | Automotive | Books on CD | Books on Cassette | Crime & Criminals | Current Events | Economics | Education | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Government | Holidays | Law | Philosophy | Politics | Social Sciences | Transportation | True Accounts | Urban Planning & Development | Women's Studies
ASIN: B000P1O8NY

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Gottfried talks only of hell: from the killing fields of Iraq: four voices.(War Reporting for Cowards)(Over There: From the Bronx to Baghdad, A Memoir)(My ... An article from: Columbia Journalism Review
Anthony Swofford
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000CFWJCK
Release Date: 2006-04-06

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Columbia Journalism Review, published by Thomson Gale on November 1, 2005. The length of the article is 3307 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: Gottfried talks only of hell: from the killing fields of Iraq: four voices.(War Reporting for Cowards)(Over There: From the Bronx to Baghdad, A Memoir)(My War: Killing Time in Iraq)(Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War)(Book Review)
Author: Anthony Swofford
Publication: Columbia Journalism Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: November 1, 2005
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 44 Issue: 4 Page: 60(6)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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From Leningrad to Hungary: Notes of a Red Army Soldier, 1941-1946 (Soviet (Russian) Military Experience)
E. Moniushko
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books
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Hungary | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 041535000X

Book Description

This book is a chronological narrative of the experiences of Evgenii Moniushko, who lived through and survived the first year of the siege of Leningrad and who served as a junior officer in the Red Army during the last 18 months of war and the first year of the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia and Hungary. As such, it provides an intensely human view of daily army life in both combat and garrison duty and unique perspectives on the conditions he and other soldiers endured while in army service.

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Rabid, lying paganism RUN AMOK

Down with lobbyists!

Is Bill Moyers really a Bleeding Heart Liberal?

A Man of Our Times

excellent journalist, a true american patriot

Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times
Bill Moyers
Manufacturer: Anchor
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Democracy | Government | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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Welcome to Doomsday (New York Review Books Collection)

Healing and the Mind

Thomas Paine and the Promise of America

Doing Democracy

The Language of Life

ASIN: 1400095360
Release Date: 2005-06-14

Book Description
During the fifty years he has been variously a reporter, a political spokesperson, and a broadcaster, Bill Moyers has demonstrated a deep commitment to understanding the workings of our government and the role of the individual in society. His essays and commentaries, such as the recent “Shivers Down the Spine,” “A Time for Anger,” and “Journalism Under Fire,” are argued over and passed along as soon as they appear in print or on the Internet. Identifying what he sees as a political system increasingly at the mercy of a corporate ruling class, he urges a reengagement with the spirit of community that makes the work of democracy possible. Not only a trenchant critique of what is wrong, Moyers on America is also a call to arms for the progressive promise of the people of America, in whom his faith is strong.
Customer Reviews:

Rabid, lying paganism RUN AMOK.......2007-08-27
Listen to Chris Wallace's closing remarks on Bill Moyers on Fox News Sunday (8/26/07) and you will understand who and what we are dealing with in Bill Moyers - a radical, pagan, left wing, bomb throwing crazy!!!
Down with lobbyists!.......2007-06-28
Both Moyers and Whitman have helped to reaffirm my thoughts on where I stand in the political spectrum. I just recently decided that I would label myself as an independent. My belief was that as an independent I would not already be swayed to one party or the other and therefore would have less bias in choosing whom I wanted to vote for. So far so good even though I still hold some connection to the Republican camp, of which Whitman has helped me see that there is a large moderate side to the Republicans. Why is it that people become so connected to a group that they don't see what is really best for our country? Why is it that winning an argument is more important than governing for the people? Moyers does a good job of describing some of these issues in his articles and speeches. Then he is able to go beyond politics to journalism, friendships, and death. Even though he does cut down the current administration at times these are thoughts and issues that should be of concern to both sides.
Is Bill Moyers really a Bleeding Heart Liberal?.......2007-02-26
If scratching the issues on the surface is to your liking then "Moyers On American" is an exceptional glimpse at the failings of media. But if you are looking for the crux of the matter then look elsewhere because Moyers belongs to the gatekeepers of America.
The problem I had with this book was that Moyers never connects the dots. He just pontificates about how the media doesn't report the real in-depth stories when actually he doesn't either. By avoiding the fact that the CIA indirectly funds NPR, CPB, and PBS (the station he works for) he does his readers a disservice. Moyers misrepresents himself as a man of the people. There is nothing bourgeois about this man.
In the book he quotes Thomas Paine, but one has to ascertain that Paine really believed in what he said in the pamphlet "Common Sense," unlike Moyers who promotes the New World Order's left/right paradigm. When I was finished reading this book I felt cheated. Surface history is not enough. I wanted to know whose in control of the economy, the media, and the government. If Moyers really wanted to do an in-depth investigation he would have climbed the corporate pyramid, and revealed that families such as the Rothschilds, and the Rockefellers control certain aspects of the world through institutions such as the Bilderberg Group, The Trilateral Commission, The Federal Reserve Bank, and the Council on Foreign Relations. By circumventing around this fact is yellow journalism.
Gil Scott-Heron said "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," and if Moyers and many others continue to gate-keep, it sure won't be televised. Their actions will continue to keep us marginalized in a state of apraxia.
The most significant part was the end. His historical look at Lyndon Johnson's achievements and failures is the only redeeming subject that made this long-winded book worth reading. I've read 500 page books faster than I read this one, but what I will states is that he is a free-flowing writer/speaker, it's just too bad that he wasted his talent on dry-as-dust surface tripe.

A Man of Our Times.......2006-07-13
One thing when you get when you read Bill Moyers is a man who speaks from his soul. This journalist and minister laments the disappearance of a free and diverse press being taken over by conglomerates that filter our information with a singular point of view.

He is a populist who believes that our elected representatives are supposed to represent the people who vote for them, not the corporations who give contributions to them. In any other place that is called bribery. In Congress, it is called a contribution.

Equally disconcerting to Moyers is his perception that Americans no longer thirst for the news and the political decisions that affect their lives on a daily basis. Americans care less even about the information that is filtered to them.

I was unable to connect some of the experiences he wrote here to his central theme, but I was always able to imagine the words on the page being spoken by the man with a calm, reassuring voice, the same man who received more than thirty years of Emmy and other awards for outstanding journalism.

Naturally, there is always someone like Bernie Goldberg who saw fit to place this patriotic American and gentleman on his list of 100 people who are ruining America. But, it took no time to feel good again. All I had to do was consider the source. (You don't make comparisons between a Goldberg and a Moyers.)

Read Moyers, watch Moyers every time you can. National treasures are hard to come by.
excellent journalist, a true american patriot.......2006-04-23
fantastic book. moyers is an unbelievabel journalist and a true american citizen. he has served his country in government and in public life. a wonderful writer and excellent speaker.

Average customer rating:
Moyers on America a Journalist and His Time
Bill Moyers
Manufacturer: The New Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NBALBO

Average customer rating:
Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times
Bill Moyers
Manufacturer: New Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MC0Z4M

Average customer rating:
Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times
Bill Moyer
Manufacturer: New Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Waterfowl in Winter: Selected Papers from Symposium and Workshop Held in Galvestion, Texas, 7-10 January 1985
Milton W. Weller
Manufacturer: Univ of Minnesota Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0816615705

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