The Wild Child: The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser (Free Press Paperbacks)

Average customer rating:
The Wild Child: The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser (Free Press Paperbacks)
Jeffrey Moussaief Masson
Manufacturer: Touchstone
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Murder & Mayhem | True Accounts | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Germany | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
Look Inside History Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Letters from an American Farmer and Sketches of Eighteenth-Century America (Penguin Classics)

King Lear, A Longman Cultural Edition (Longman Cultural Editions)

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser

The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: with Related Documents (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)

Two Treatises of Government

ASIN: 0684830965

Book Description

Kept in a dungeon for his entire childhood, Kaspar Hauser appeared in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1828 at age sixteen, barely able to walk or talk. When he was killed in 1833, his true identity and the motives for his unsolved murder became the subjects of intense speculation. This provocative essay sheds new light on this mystery and delves into fundamental questions about the long-term effects of child abuse.

Average customer rating:

Kaspar Hauser: Europe's Child
Martin Kitchen
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

History | Special Topics | Medicine | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0333962141

Book Description

On Whit Monday 1828, a strange youth, barely able to speak and hardly able to walk appeared in Nuremberg. This new case of a "wild man" excited widespread curiosity, and many prominent figures wanted to test their pedagogical and medical theories on such a promising subject. Who was he? Was he, as many claimed, the rightful heir to the Grand Duchy of Baden, or was he simply an ingenious fraud? This book examines the many ramifications of this fascinating case, and offers many insights into the social, political and intellectual life of Biedermeier Germany.

Average customer rating:
Sampras: a Legend in the Works
H.A. Branham
Manufacturer: Bonus Books, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OLZNLG

Book Description

An intriguing portrait of a complex personality. --Michael Medved,Sneak Preview

Customer Reviews:

Well-Researched and Interesting.......2000-02-28

This is an excellent biography, authorized by George Sander's sister. It details Sander's life from his unusual childhood, his exploits in South America and his drifting into the movies in Britain and then Hollywood. The author delves into why Sanders preferred his movie personna as a "cad" and used it in to keep everyone at bay. His relationships and marriages are explored, and also his final days. For anyone who would like to see beyond the mask that Sanders showed the world, this is a great read.

Book Description

On small-town ballfields and county fairgrounds, the sideshow performers set up their tents and trailers in the shadow of the Ferris wheel. There they amazed us with daring feats such as fire eating and sword swallowing, intrigued us with exhibitions of human oddities and various "anatomical wonders," and yes, deceived us with illusions such as "Atasha the Gorilla Girl" and even outright fakes.

These bizarre spectacles engaged the mind as well as the eye. Was the human blockhead act, in which the performer pounded a large nail or ice pick into his nostril, real or fake? Was the so-called alligator boy genuine or a "gaffed" oddity, painted with glue to produce a scaly simulation of reptilian skin? While the sideshows have now all but vanished from the American landscape, they leave a fascinating legacy of romance and mystery. Many of their secrets remain, only grudgingly given up, if at all, by aging showmen and "bally talkers."

Joe Nickell—once a carnival pitchman, then a magician, a private detective, and an investigative writer—has pursued sideshow secrets for years. He has interviewed the showmen and performers, collected carnival memorabilia, researched the published literature, and even performed some classic sideshow feats, such as eating fire and lying on a bed of nails while a cinderblock was broken on his chest.

Secrets of the Sideshows reveals the specific methods and tricks behind the performances, the showmen's tactics for recruiting performers and attracting crowds, and more. Nickell also examines the behind-the-scenes secrets of sideshow life, including details of the remarkable personal lives of those men and women billed as "freaks."

Customer Reviews:

secrets of the sideshows.......2007-07-24

Well, what I have recently purchased is a very interesting book. It unveils a rather dark and unknown world that for centuries has been with us. The pictures are fine but scarce, and the prose has wit and many secrets of the trade are rather amusing. In fact a very fine book

Nothing paranormal for a change.......2005-11-30

Joe Nickell's latest is quite different to other books published by him during the last few years. It's not really an investigative book and it doesn't discuss anything paranormal or unexplainable, and also, the entire books feels more like a pursuit of a personal hobby than the critical examination usually delivered by Nickell's sharp pen. However, in no way does this mean it's not worth reading, just because it happens to be more personal and relaxed than his other works. Quite the opposite, actually. Secrets of the Sideshows is an exciting experience of the mostly American phenomenon of carnys, sideshows, freaks, and carnivals.

It's not easy to find fitting translations to the above terms, and no American-style sideshows have ever made it big in Sweden. But it's still very possible to enjoy the book, even though one happens to be Swedish.

History is filled with numerous examples of strange people having displayed strange abilities, exotic animals from far-away countries have always fascinated the audience, and the grotesque, different, and sometimes flat out revolting have always been sure to make people curious. During the latter half of the 19th century traveling sideshows and carnivals started gaining more and more popularity, and the circuses of today can be considered to be the descendants of these productions. Nickell - who himself used to be a carny - paints a fascinating portrait of these pioneers of an odd business concept, and he makes it very clear to the reader that people throughout all of history, including contemporary man of course, have been exploited by shrewd entrepreneurs who have been quick to realize how to make big money from letting people witness what they have a problem comprehending.

However, the main focus of the book is on the people, animals, or objects that were exhibited. Giants, midgets, fat people, snake women, Guerilla Girl, "human skeletons", Frog Boy, fire eaters, bearded ladies, normal-looking people with not-so normal abilities, and many, many more are discussed, often accompanied by photographs from Nickell's personal collection. Cows with five legs, infants with two heads, alleged mermaids, Bigfoot and other weird are mentioned also. Nickell isn't afraid to expose how many of the magical acts were done, and he's also not afraid to expose how many of the faked oddities were manufactured (for instance, it was possible to make a "mermaid" using the upper body of an ape and the lower half of a fish). But still Nickell is keen not to neither romanticize nor ridicule anything. It's a fascinating study - or rather exploration - of both human behavior and strange individuals, and these days when the days of glory for the sideshows are all but gone the book becomes an important documentation of the strangest of all creatures: the human being.

(But on page 201, Nickell makes a major blunder when he refers to Anton LaVey, the founder of the first openly satanic movement, Church of Satan, as a "Satanist" in quotation marks. I've never encountered this spelling before, and I honestly would never have thought a learned man such as Joe Nickell would make such a strange mistake.)

The Gifted, The Grifted, The Grafted & The Gaffed .......2005-11-12

Joe Nickell's Secrets of the Sideshows (2005) presents its audience with an adequate but lackluster overview of its subject. The volume suffers from two problems. The first, and more significant, is that most of the material included has long been available elsewhere, as Nickell's numerous references to a variety of other works makes clear. The second is that, despite the author's long employment history as a carnival hand in an apparent variety of capacities, his writing style is so perfunctory that he manages to make what should be a fascinating subject seem quite dull. Therefore, the best audience for the book will be readers with a budding interest in the subject; those already conversant on the topic are unlikely to learn anything new.

Nickell, who is also a "senior research fellow" of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is honest, upfront, and unapologetic about the tone and moral tenor of most sideshow and midway personnel, who routinely, though not exclusively, defraud their thrill-seeking public in any number of ways. The author quotes a "carnival owner" as saying, "You have all the ingredients necessary to rise in your profession-a deceptively honest face, a genius for legitimate fraud, no conscience, a golden tongue, and a feeling that a quarter in somebody else's pocket is a personal rebuke." Interestingly, Nickell seems to find this sociopathic approach to life, commerce, and human relationships fully acceptable, and perhaps even inevitable. As a result, readers may come away with the impression that all or most people associated with carnival work are con men and passive aggressive bottom-feeders who would rather attempt to trick another man out of his money than work honestly to earn their own. Nickell quotes another showman, whom he believes he has caught "in a particularly cynical moment": "On my tombstone, you know what they're going to write? 'Screw you. I got your dollar.'"

Needless to say, few of the 'secrets of the sideshow,' outside of the authentic 'human oddities' and performers with a genuine skill are very fascinating: the rubber aliens, faked two-headed geese, 'giant rats,' 'jackelopes,' false 'psychics,' 'headless girls,' and enormous 'spiders' with human heads are as absurd, tawdry, and patently obvious as one would expect.

It's worth speculating whether Nickell, who has become a ubiquitous debunking presence on the National Geographic Channel and the History Channel, believes all "claims of the paranormal" are either honest mistakes of perception or outright hoaxes, however subtly accomplished, because he himself has been, via his carnival work, so experienced in promoting, selling, and by default, perpetrating hoaxes himself.

A walk down the Midway.......2005-11-09

Joe Nickell's latest book, Secrets of the Sideshow is a thoroughly researched tome that is worth the cover price for the pictures alone.
The cover effectively uses a 'banner art' style with 'Frog Boy' charmingly gracing the spine. The title is a little misleading, it is not a revelatory guide or 'masked magician' type of book at all. More of a scholarly attempt to document a lost part of American theatre. Mr. Nickell's previous works were largely concerned with his role as editor of the Skeptical Enquirer. So deal with the Shroud of Turin, Bigfoot etc. Not having read any of those I cannot comment, but suffice to say that this history of bringing a scientific mind to apparent miracles may have impacted the choice of title. What is apparent is that he has a real love of this subject. He has worked the midway at various fairs as a magician and obviously the carnival world got into his blood. Relying heavily on interviews with carnival legends Ward Hall, Chris Christ and Bobby Reynolds the author details the history of this unique piece of Americana. Bobby Reynold's contributions are fairly ascerbic with a certain bitterness when compared to Ward Hall's more agreeable approach. No attempt appears to have been made to edit any of these contributions. There are copious references to other works, Ricky Jay, Daniel Mannix and Al Stencell are quoted liberally and these authors works would make excellent companion reads.
As one goes through the book the reader does learn how effects are achieved, the use of gaffs, fakery and general deception are discussed. However, this remains a secondary facet of this work. It is much more of a historical encyclopedia and includes a thorough list of references and detailed index. Overshadowing the mechanical 'How To' aspects of the book are the wonderful characters that one meets within its pages. Poobah the fire eating dwarf, Percilla the monkey girl, Doug Higley phantom of the midway and purveyor of Area 51 artifacts. [Of course they are real]. And numerous other fascinating people who often show more grace and dignity than the so called 'normal' specimens of the human family.
The writing style is a mixture of academic investigation and whimsical fan. Despite his natural instincts for scientific rigor the author's joy in the subject and obvious sadness at the demise of the sideshow shine through.
It ends on a positive and up to date note with a piece on the sideshow school at Coney Island, one of the last bastions of the traditional arts.
I reccomend this book to anyone whoever thought about running away to the circus and I enjoyed reading it tremendously.
PS. One small piece of pedantry. On page 214, Joe Nickell decribes the turn of the century magician Chung Ling Soo as an 'Englishman pretending to be a Chinaman'. In his excellent biography of Chung Ling Soo, The Glorious Deception, Jim Steinmeyer details Soo's life as an American who often pretended to be an Englishman, or more commonly a Scotsman pretending to be a Chinaman. Which goes to show that even a skeptical investigator can be confounded by a fellow conjurer, from beyond the grave to boot! My sense is that Mr. Nickell would be delighted.

Hurry, Hurry! Step Right This Way!.......2005-08-20

For centuries, millions of people have enjoyed looking at commercial exhibits of the odd and curious. Joe Nickell is one of those people. Growing up in Kentucky, he never missed the carnivals and circuses that had human and animal oddities on display as sideshows. Nickell is well known for investigating frauds and hoaxes for the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, but it doesn't matter to him that many sideshow acts were bogus or at least grossly exaggerated on the banners outside the shows. He obviously loves the now-disappearing shows, and in _Secrets of the Sideshows_ (University Press of Kentucky), that affection is made plain. To be sure, he gives plenty of secrets away here, most of them open secrets, but the book works best as a tribute to the imagination of the performers and organizers of the exhibits which were meant to provoke and satisfy that admirable old human characteristic, curiosity. The book provokes and satisfies in the same way.

Nickell notes that "sideshow" means an adjunct to the main show. The "midway" where these shows were located was midway between the entrance and the main attraction. He briefly recounts early history, and then goes into their heyday starting in the early 1900s. Sideshows featured magic performances, often with one big trick like sawing the woman in half or the escape from a chained box. The way these sorts of tricks are done is explained here, but the explanations would not ruin the fun of a good performance. Fire-eating and sword-swallowing are explained, as is how to eat glass or walk barefoot on it, or how to walk barefoot up a ladder of swords. The explanations are enough to show how the tricks are done, but few readers are going to be tempted to try them. There were performers who didn't perform, but just showed themselves. Dwarves, giants, fatties are all here, all respectively taller, shorter, or lighter than their publicity banners proclaimed. Giants of such acts, for instance, sometimes had a contract that specified that they would not be measured. A bearded lady ("The Monkey Girl") and a man with the skin disease ichthyosis ("The Alligator Man") eloped in 1938, and were a sideshow feature as "The World's Strangest Married Couple"; they were happy together for over sixty years. Not all the displays were real, but as one carny said, "Oh, it's _all_ real. Some of it's really real, some of it's really fake, but it's all really good.") Hilariously, these exhibits which used to go under names like "Mother Nature's Mistakes" are sometimes now displayed in a "Horrors of Drug Abuse!" scare show.

Nickell closes with analysis of why the sideshows are fading into the past; it isn't because of any attempt to become politically correct, or any triumph of good taste; it comes down to simple economics, as fairs can make more money with, for instance, rides that take up the same space a midway does. Because it tells secrets of the sideshows, Nickell's book is a miscellany that is full of good humor and bizarre stories, like that of the bank robber who was killed by a sheriff's posse in 1916, and his mummified body passed from carnival to carnival. Somehow it became part of the "Laff-in-the-Dark" funhouse in Long Beach about forty years later, but everyone thought it was just a spray-painted mannequin until it broke and showed bones inside. He finally got laid to rest after a long postmortem career. There is a description of how to enlist fleas into a flea circus, and how to harness them to their particular tricks. There is an even more interesting description of the comic flea circus ("The Most Minuscule Show on Earth!") that has no fleas, only the colorful banter of the proprietor over the tiny apparatus ("She's blindfolded herself!... She's walking backward!"). If you want the lowdown on sideshows, step right up, ladies and gentlemen, Joe Nickell presents the best show on the midway.

Average customer rating:
Learn and Play the Recycle Way: Homemade Toys That Teach
Rhoda Redleaf , and Audrey S. Robertson
Manufacturer: Redleaf Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Puzzles & Games | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | Crafts & Hobbies | Home & Garden | Subjects | Books
General | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Family Activities | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
General | Education | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
Look Inside Parenting Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Making Toys for Preschool Children: Using Ordinary Stuff for Extraordinary Play (Making Toys Series)

Making Toys for Infants and Toddlers: Using Ordinary Stuff for Extraordinary Play (Making Toys Series)

Do-it-yourself Early Learning: Easy And Fun Activities And Toys from Everyday Home Center Materials

Make Your Own Play Dough, Paint, And Other Craft Materials: Easy Recipes to Use With Young Children

Designs for Living and Learning: Transforming Early Childhood Environments

Accessories:

philosophy hope in a jar daily moisturizer

Braun IRT 4020 ThermoScan Ear Thermometer

ASIN: 188483440X

Book Description

Dont throw that away! Recycle and Play! Turn items headed for the trash into safe and fun toys for teaching. Learn and Play the Recycle Way contains the best activities from the best-selling Teachables from Trashables series as well as new ways to make learning fun with homemade toys.

Over 100 homemade teaching tools were designed by authors Rhoda Redleaf and Audrey Robertson and solicited from centers, homes, and trainers. Children will love helping to make fun things like drums from coffee cans, cactus gardens from peanut butter jars, and planters from plastic bottles.

Learn and Play the Recycle Way is organized by age group with sections for infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and school-agers. Each activity is illustrated and contains a list of materials needed, descriptions of how to use the homemade toy, and ideas for teaching with the item thats being recycled. Detailed instructions will make it easy to focus on the fun in creating toys with children.

Book Description

Authored by a well-known figure in the field.

Overview chapters explore topics such as electronic marketing strategies, funding, budgeting, promotion, and advertising.
Individual chapters address the differences involved in marketing different types of events.
Examines future trends and key issues such as how to reach new event attendees.
Includes appendices with sample forms, contracts, and more.

Download Description

Authored by a well-known figure in the field.
* Overview chapters explore topics such as electronic marketing strategies, funding, budgeting, promotion, and advertising.
* Individual chapters address the differences involved in marketing different types of events.
* Examines future trends and key issues such as how to reach new event attendees.
* Includes appendices with sample forms, contracts, and more.

Customer Reviews:

Didn't help me at all.......2007-06-12

$65 on a book that's only based on theory and didn't give any insights or executions to help get the job done. A compete waste of money when you can buy a better book for less than $20.

Very Useful and Easy to Follow.......2002-08-21

Event Marketing explores the promotions industry. Though it is a textbook, Hoyle delightfully surprises the reader by writing in a witty style. Why intimidate or bore the reader when you can engage them? Hoyle takes this obvious, but overlooked, premise and runs with it as he explains the events promotions business.

Like Michael Levine's Guerrilla PR: Wired, which also has case histories and strategies in how to promote events in a low-cost fashion, Hoyle seeks to turn a confusing and frantic arena into one that, like all other areas, is more easily understood once clear and discrete steps have been demonstrated. The personal examples at the end of each chapter only serve to add credibility and weight to Hoyle's words.

Raves for Event Marketing by Leonard H. Hoyle.......2002-06-27

When I began reading this book, I knew it was a textbook and expected the normal dry, wordy textbook in which information is buried under an avalance of prose. I was delighted to find a work that was clear, complete, informative, and interesting to read. I found that I looked forward to each chapter and subject. The information is presented in prose, lists of important topics, and highlighting of certain need-to-know material in such a way that cross-refencing and finding previously studied material are amazingly accessible. Added bonuses are the quotes before each chapter and the personal experiences at the end of each chapter.
The suggestions about organization, multitasking, and people management are so original and all-encompassing that I heartily recommend this book for everyone -- not only those interesting in planning events.

so helpful!!.......2002-05-29

The great insight on how to reach new event attendees was very helpful. I appreciated the variety of events that were mentioned in the book, along with the helpful appendice chocked full of information. Definitely a great purchase.

Book Description

Begun in 1690, this diary of a forty-four-year-old German Jewish widow, mother of fourteen children, tells how she guided the financial and personal destinies of her children, how she engaged in trade, ran her own factory, and promoted the welfare of her large family. Her memoir, a rare account of an ordinary woman, enlightens not just her children, for whom she wrote it, but all posterity about her life and community. Gluckel speaks to us with determination and humor from the seventeenth century. She tells of war, plague, pirates, soldiers, the hysteria of the false messiah Sabbtai Zevi, murder, bankruptcy, wedding feasts, births, deaths, in fact, of all the human events that befell her during her lifetime. She writes in a matter of fact way of the frightening and precarious situation under which the Jews of northern Germany lived. Accepting this situation as given, she boldly and fearlessly promotes her business, her family and her faith. This memoir is a document in the history of women and of life in the seventeenth century.

Customer Reviews:

Fascinating History.......2007-10-11

It is a privilege to read a personal memoir of an inhabitant of 17th-century Germany. I have read "history books" about this period, but Glueckel's memoir tells me how it felt to be actually present. Glueckel is a good writer, although I'm sure the translator also deserves some of the credit.

A glimpse at historical religious Jewry.......2007-10-03

Gluckel of Hameln is the diary of a frum woman from the 1600's. We don't have any real information from this period except from some unavailable books of Rabbi Yaakov Emden. In her diary, she speaks of events of life, death, the Plague, Shabsai Tzvi, and how she raised her family during this hard time in Jewish History.
This version of the book come in paperback and is annotated. The translation from the original version is pretty good considering that some words don't translate well from one language to another. The introduction gives some of her story away but important to read to understand her approach in writing this diary.
I bought this book and have given it to my best friends for motivational and historical reading. BUY THIS BOOK!

Outstanding.......2007-09-05

Anyone wanting to get a profound insight into the life of Jews in Germany during the 17th Century as told with true life experiences by an outstanding mother, wife and businesswoman of the time, must read this book. My wife and I bought two so that we could read and discuss every paragraph together, and we really got caught up in the emotions and life experiences of this era in Jewish and German history. Told in simple language and with profound true life experiences and deep religious belief, as only this extraordinary Jewess could have transposed us to this era and the every day life and the hardships and tribulations of German Jews already then.

Memoirs of Glueckel of Hameln.......2006-03-03

Fascinating description of an educated Jewish woman's life in the 1600's with an amazing amount of travel in Northern Europe pertaining to family matters and business. It was not a small world by any means. She was a bit effusive in her thanks and acceptance of her life with moralising, but her description of her life is outstanding.

A well worth-reading document of historical significance .......2004-12-21

Almost all of the human beings who have lived on this earth have left behind no name or story. This is also true about the vast majority of Jews even when the Jews are a people for whom remembrance is a sacred act. The great great majority of Jews who have lived on this planet too have no names and no stories.
Thus the memoir of Gluckel of Hameln is so welcome .In it she tells the story of her family, her struggling as a widow to make a living , to marry off the eleven surviving of her fourteen children. She tells too something of the incredibly difficult and limited world she lived in, and of the special difficulties Jews had to contend with to remain alive. Gluckel may go into too much detail and not be the greatest writer in the world but she certainly is a person of tremendous moxie, courageous, dedication , insight . How wonderful it would be if we could have the stories of many others of great value who lived, gave to the world and then passed from it as if they were not here at all. This is a well- worth reading document of both historical and human significance

Average customer rating:

The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln
Gluckel Glueckel; Hamelin
Manufacturer: Schocken Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000PVV9TA

Average customer rating:

Memoirs of Glueckel of Hameln
Glueckel
Manufacturer: Schocken Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000N76ZTU

Average customer rating:

The memoirs of GluÌˆckel of Hameln;
Glueckel
Manufacturer: Harper & Brothers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Book Description

This volume of essays is designed to fill an existing gap in the literature devoted to modern British naval history by providing a scholarly analysis of the First Sea Lords from the time of Admiral Fisher to that of Earl Mountbatten. Apart from assessing the role and performance in office of the individual First Sea Lords from the time of the Entente Cordiale in 1904 to the heyday of the Macmillan premiership in 1959, this book also reveals the extent of the influence each of these experienced sailor-administrators exerted upon British naval policy-making in the 20th century. Strongly rooted in primary as distinct from purely secondary source material, these essays are informative, fair and balanced portrayals of the individual First Sea Lords and the impact they have had upon both the Admiralty's administrative and strategic domains. Written by a range of established and emerging naval historians from around the world, this book gives praise where it is due, but it is also sharply critical of the shortcomings of those who, once installed in office, did precious little.

Average customer rating:

A Departure From Traditional African Studies

Criminal States and State's Criminals in Africa

Criminalization of the State in Africa (African Issues)
Jean-Francois Bayart , Stephen Ellis , and Beatrice Hibou
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Africa | History | Subjects | Books
Non-US Legal Systems | Perspectives on Law | Law | Subjects | Books
Criminology | Crime & Criminals | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Africa Works: Disorder As Political Instrument (African Issues)

Warlord Politics and African States

The African Stakes of the Congo War

Angola: The Anatomy of an Oil State (African Issues)

Citizen and Subject

ASIN: 0253212863

Book Description

The growth of fraud and smuggling, the plunder of natural resources, the increasing use of private armie--all of these features of public life in Africa suggest that the state itself is becoming a vehicle of organized criminal activity. The three authors propose criteria for gauging the criminalisation of African states and present a novel prognosis.

Customer Reviews:

A Departure From Traditional African Studies.......2002-02-28

The best essay in the book is Beatrice Hibou's, on the nature of the African state. She terms the 1980s as Africa's "lost decade," and views development strategies of economic growth that ignore social and consequences as being politically destabilizing. But her conception of the triggering mechanism for this destabilization is much different from that of most traditional political scientists (like Samuel Huntington's, for instance) perhaps owing to the different historical contexts in which they write (the institution-building of the 1960s versus the institutional decay of the 1990s).

Huntington and other past scholars posit that under conditions of economic stimulus in a modernizing society, social mobilization is the trigger for destabilization. Hibou, however, points to the nature of the African state itself as being responsible for political instability under conditions of economic stimulus. In other words, neoliberal market stimulus fails in Africa not because of mobilized citizens whose demands cannot be met, but because of the complex nature of the African state.

What is Hibou's conception of the African state, and how does it differ from Huntington's? Huntington tends to see the state in terms of how "institutionalized" it is, with a well-institutionalized state presumably having well-functioning formal political institutions that are adaptable, complex, autonomous and coherent. Hibou, however, goes far beyond a conventional political science view of institutions, by conceptualizing the African state as a "shadow" state:

"the relationships, institutions and people most prominently in public view are not necessarily the most powerful. Elements which at first sight appear to be obstacles to the functioning of the state may turn out, on closer inspection, actually to belong to the state . . . via a web of informal concessions, carefully negotiated privileges - notably including impunity for economic offences - and personal and political relationships" (88-89).

Accordingly, Hibou argues that neoliberalism has failed in Africa because it fails to take account of the state's informal shadow as an economic actor. In seeking to tie the hands of formal state actors to prevent conventional "rent-seeking" behavior, neoliberals have given more power to the informal sector, which tends to engage in economic activity that may not only be "rent-seeking," but also "criminal" by many standards. Neoliberalism thus destroys formal institutions in Africa, and encourages "the development of personal networks, of informal or even illegal practices" (93).

Thus, unlike Huntington's theory that social mobilization coupled with economic inequality destabilizes developing polities, Hibou posits instead that the nature of African states should be given prime explanatory weight in showing why economic stimulus might produce results opposite to those intended.

Criminal States and State's Criminals in Africa.......2001-02-16

Drawing extensively on first-hand fieldwork in several African states (namely Cameroon, Liberia, Sierra-Leone) and on a truely impressive array of high-level academic works, this book offers a deeply stimulating analysis of contemporary state-formation processes in Africa. It shows that war itself can become the vehicle of a far-reaching reorganization of political allegiances and life-styles, which at last consolidates the state apparatus by helping it to reach out to new sources of wealth. Army-backed criminal business ventures in border-zones and the use of private militias to help secure ressource-rich territories are seen as a defining feature of contemporary African power-systems. The authors, who all are leading european political scientists already well known in the field of African Studies, aptly show how these current transformations of war and state-sponsored criminality lead to the risk of region-wide violences. The relationship between petty thugs, professional mercenaries and state officials is highly unstable, but also extremely efficient as far as the reaping out of natural resources (such as diamonds) is at stake. The authors also demonstrate that the International Monetary Fund so-called "structural adjustment programs" didn't manage in getting rid of corruption practices, but that, on the contrary, they helped local and overseas financial crooks devise new schemes of underground economic transactions. The whole book is full of gloomy details about state-terror and financial mismanagement practices in Sub-saharian Africa. It is also very well-written and therefore remains accessible to a wide readers' audience. It is a necessary reading for those who are interested both in African politics and in the analysis of Third-World post-colonial states.

Book Description

"We're looking at a biological holocaust of unprecedented magnitude."
- Paul Watson

Paul Watson has rammed fishing trawlers, sunk whaling ships, sailed boldly into Soviet waters (when the Cold War still brewed) and brazenly taunted the governments of several powerful countries. He has stood in the path of oncoming icebreakers to protect seal nurseries, and overturned the law that shielded hunters of baby seals from protest and active intervention to stop slaughter. He is the environmentalist who scathingly referred to Greenpeace, an organization he helped found, as "the Avon ladies of the environmental movement." Now he owns a submarine.

Why? Paul Watson's unswerving mission is to publicize -- and stop -- the atrocities committed against the creatures who inhabit the world's oceans.

His life story is one of a man with more than the courage of his convictions -- time and time again he has risked his life for his beliefs. He rammed the Sierra, a whaling vessel whose masters illegally slaughtered 25,000 whales; he sailed up to a whale processing plant in the former Soviet Union and calmly snapped photographs when confronted with armed guards; he drove a Cuban fishing boat off the Grand Banks to protect the depleted cod population and he founded the radical and confrontationalist Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, after he became disillusioned with Greenpeace tactics.

Ocean Warrior is the story of Paul Watson's conservation career -- an amazing chronicle of bravery, horrifying slaughter and international intrigue. A story of passion and principles, it will not easily be forgotten by anyone who cares about the fate of our oceans -- or our planet.

Customer Reviews:

amazing!.......2002-11-05

This book will make you laugh and cry all at once. Paul is a great writer and has packed more adventure into his life that all the Star Trek episodes put together. Time after time as you read you are sure he is done for this time, will be dead or in jail, but time after time he miraculously prevails in his Pirate Vikinq quest to save the whales.

READ THIS BOOK!.......2001-10-23

One of the best books I have ever read! Without any question. Watson will make you laugh, cry, and most of all, get up and take action. He is one of the few humans I admire. For the most part I am so disgusted with my species I am ashamed to belong to the human race. Capt'n Watson and his crew are amoung the few souls I have any respect for. He is a true Mahatma. READ THIS BOOK!
I was taught humans are neither demons nor angels but occupy the spectrum in between. Well far too many of us gravitate towards one end of the spectrum don't we? And that's why our homeworld has become the cesspool that it is. If we make it out of this mess, it will be because of people like Watson.

Watson is a criminal.......2001-10-18

Watson wasn't enforcing international law, there was no international LAW against the "crimes" he claims whalers committed. He has stated elsewhere that he has authority to "enforce" this law from a [non binding] UN resolution that was issued many months AFTER he started sinking ships.
This is a self aggrandizing piece of droll from a common criminal. He gives a bad name to a good cause.
I'm very glad I had someone else's copy and I didn't spend my money on it.

We need many more like him........2001-03-20

I worked and sailed with Captain Watson for more than three years. You may not like the what he does or how he writes, but that doesn't matter one bit to him! His only concern is for those animals and ecosystems that he is fighting so hard to protect. He is an gifted leader and speaker, one of the world's most successful activists (if you count results rather than media attention), and has been an inspiration to and mentor of many others that fight for environmental justice.

Read this book, try to soak up some of his message and his passion - then do something with it.

Eco-terrorists of the world unite!!!!!.......1999-05-23

Paul Watson is one of the few hominids on this planet who actually knows what he's doing with his life. Over the last two hundred years humanity's impact upon Gaia has become exponential. Only people with his courage, compassion and vision offer us any hope. "Whether 'tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them" -Shakespeare

Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas

Average customer rating:

Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas
Paul Watson
Manufacturer: see notes for publisher info
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000M3PPZA

Average customer rating:

Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas
Paul Watson
Manufacturer: Key Porter Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KPVQ26

Average customer rating:

Ocean Warrior: My Battle to End the Illegal Slaughter on the High Seas

Manufacturer: 0
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ICU1S6

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books