iPod and iTunes Hacks: Tips and Tools for Ripping, Mixing and Burning (Hacks)

Book Description

Some people are content to use their iPod simply to play music. Some people want to do much more. Those people, and you know who you are,aren't satisfied until they get under the hood and tap every iPod trick available to them. They want to explore and experiment, create shortcuts, and unearth cool and unexpected things to do with their iPod that have never even occurred to their friends. Maybe they want to use their iPod to read email. Maybe they want to use it as a voice recorder, or a device to store their digital photos. Maybe they want to use iTunes visuals as a screensaver, use Java to expand iTunes functionally, or use a cheap Linux box as a server and access MP3 tunes. Or, maybe they just want to paint their iPod a custom color. For those people who want to get more much more out of their iPod iPod and iTunes Hacks is brimming with undocumented tips, tricks, and trade secrets for getting the very most from your iPod. This guide takes curious and clever iPod owners beyond the obvious with 100 ingenious hacks that will delight, entertain, and add astonishing power to the iPod and iTunes experience.

Customer Reviews:

If you're a very serious Mac/iPod addict, fine . . . otherwise, no........2006-03-25

After the first few titles, the "Hacks" series quickly deterioriated. "iPodf & iTunes Hacks" is evidence of this deterioriation. There is no content of value here unless you are seriously obsessed with your iPod and your Macintosh. Yes, Macintosh. There is virtually nothing in here for the Windows user, although Windows has better than a 95% marketshare. Get the idea that this book is intended for serious Mac zealots? The author(s) make it crystal clear with numerous uncomplimentary remarks about Windows and Windows users along the "you're dumb if you don't use a Mac" vein. So better than 95% of the market is dumb . . . The book has a 2005 copyright, so the Windows version of iTunes was available, it was just ignored.

The author(s) (the volume is a compendium of attributed entries)were obviously desperate for content. Four pages are given over to iTunes Keyboard Shortcuts, something you can find in the iTunes help file. Fourteen pages are devoted to spending $400 - $500 on building from scratch a plastic center console for your car to hold your iPod. (The cost is for materials only: considering that you have to create a mold and so forth, the labor component would be considerable.) One the key components is an Apple logo decal. You can see this book is for people with a very peculiar mindset.

Other hacks are of equally dubious value, such as the one that shows you how to "clutter your desktop with click-to-play album covers from your iTunes library." Many of the so-called hacks are nothing more than referrals to third-party software which isn't free.

The devoted Macintosh fanatic, the kind of person who wants to decorate their car with Apple logo decals might find something of value in this book. I surely didn't. Except for strangeness like building the car console, everything in the book can be found on the web.

Jerry

Common Hacks, Convenient Package.......2005-03-07

I flipped through this in a local bookstore recently while trying to kill some time waiting for my girlfriend. Like most hack books this book contains a collection of some simple, obvious hacks and some that are slightly more complex. Most if not all of these can probably be found by doing a few targeted searches on the web or digging through news groups but the convenience of having it all in one bound book at your fingertips is probably worth the price. This book covers hacks for Mac, Win and Linux with the bulk of the "good" hacks for Mac only thanks to AppleScripts.

For the serious hacker.......2005-02-27

While most of the hacks in this book are fairly benign, some are not for the feint of heart. In true hacker form, the author dismantles not only his iPod, but his car! You say you want to connect your iPod to a Linux machine? How about installing Linux right on your iPod!

This is a terrific book for anyone with the hacker spirit. But be careful. It will definitely leave you wanting to buy at least one more iPod to play with.

Cool Book.......2005-01-21

I must say I love this book. If you have a iPod, GET THIS

Fun book .......2004-11-30

I am really enjoying this book. It's a breezy romp through a lot of different technology all in some way connected to novel uses of the iPod. Many of the articles are simply features or aspects of using the iPod or iTunes that simply may not have been apparent. My personal favorites are the ones where the iPod is used with something else. Though I don't own a BMW nor do I have the inclination to fabricate fiberglass, it was fun to see how you integrate your iPod to a BMW, including its onboard computer and electrical system. Booting linux on an iPod is almost a punk gesture, one that you might not consider especially useful, but seeing how it has been accomplished is half the fun.

Its also a book about reverse engineering using the iPod as the center of several case histories. What is interesting is not just what you can do with an iPod but how you find out for yourself.

By all means buy this book if you want to twist your iPod(s) (you may need a few to explore it all) but ... even if you want to do nothing and just live vicariously through others accomplishments, buy it anyway.

I did find it really hard to play my iPod (which I enjoy doing while I read) and also to play with my iPod, something the book constantly challenged me to do. So, that's another reason to get two ... so you can listen to music on one and hack the other. Lots and lots of fun.

Book Description

This book will be of particular relevance for readers interested in a thorough analysis of international capital flows, their determinants and their macroeconomic implications. It also provides information about the origines of international financial crisis and assess proposals to overcome and avoid financial crisis in the future.The book is an outcome of a conference held at the Kiel Institute of World Economics. The papers cover the track record of financial integration, the changing structure of financial markets and the implications for macroeconomics and growth. Particular emphasis is placed on the various financial crises of the 1990s and on proposals for a reform of the international financial system.

Gone With the Kudzu
Average customer rating:
Gone With the Kudzu

Manufacturer: Rutledge Hill Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Drawing | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

I Am Not a Televangelist!: The Continuing Saga of Reverend Will B. Dunn

Theres No Business Like Soul Business

Even White Boys Get the Blues

Shred This Book: The Scandalous Cartoons of Doug Marlette

Chocolate Is My Life: Featuring Doris the Parakeet

ASIN: 1558533362

Gambling and the Social Structure: A Sociological Study of Lotteries and Horse Racing in Contemporary America (Dissertations on Sociology)
Average customer rating:
Gambling and the Social Structure: A Sociological Study of Lotteries and Horse Racing in Contemporary America (Dissertations on Sociology)
Edward Clifton Devereux
Manufacturer: Arno Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Culture | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0405129645

ANYTHING GOES ! : What I've Learned from Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents (Numbered, Signed First Edition)
Average customer rating:
ANYTHING GOES ! : What I've Learned from Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents (Numbered, Signed First Edition)

Manufacturer: Easton Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Leather Bound
ASIN: B000CJWE8U

Product Description

True first edition, limited to 1350 copies, signed by the author.

ANYTHING GOES ! : What I've Learned from Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents (Numbered, Signed First Edition)

Average customer rating:

ANYTHING GOES ! : What I've Learned from Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents (Numbered, Signed First Edition)
Larry with Pat Piper King
Manufacturer: Easton Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Leather Bound
ASIN: B000JJ0ZDO

Average customer rating:

April Safara Must Be an Idiot
Undecided...
Disapointed
The world today in Politicians and Presidents
The King of TV Talk Continues to Reign

Anything Goes! : What I've Learned from Pundits, Politicians, and Presidents
Larry King , and Pat Piper
Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Television | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Reference | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

History & Theory | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Journalism | Writing | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0446525286

Book Description

As host of Larry King Liveone of the most popular daily forums for political news and commentaryLarry King has asked probing questions of North Americas movers and shakers: the major world leaders, politicians, pundits, spin doctors, and reporters who are directly involved with the North American scene. Now, in Anything Goes!, King takes an in-depth look at how North Americathrough the prism of the electronic and print mediahas gotten to the point where it is today. Bipartisan politics, bimbo eruptions, grandstanding in Congress, backstabbing tactics, and more are covered in this fascinating and revealing memoir of the last decade. Its Larry King at his bestincluding inside political stories and anecdotes never before reported anywhere. Since its 1985 debut, Larry King Live has consistently been CNNs highest-rated program. Viewers in more than 170 million households from 210 countries and territories worldwide tune in regularly. Larry King has been named Broadcaster of the Year by the International Radio and Television Society and has won numerous Cable Ace Awards. His coverage of the 1992 presidential elections won him the prestigious George Foster Peabody Award. Timed to coincide with the presidential elections of 2000, Anything Goes! should receive considerable attention from both the media and public.

Download Description

In an era when news rules, Larry King has the best seat in the house. With our world being shaped and reshaped by a dizzying cast of characters and a merry-go-round of incredible events--from the blockbuster murder trial of a football icon to the near impeachment of the US president, charged for lying under oath about sex with an intern--Larry King is the man who asks the questions we all want to ask and gets the answers that make tomorrow's headlines. Now, in this fascinating, fast-paced book, King takes you inside his world and offers his perspective on American culture in overdrive at the turn of the millennium.Anything Goes! is a whirlwind tour of the 1990s as seen through the prism of CNN's Larry King Live, as Larry faces the cameras and phone calls with Monica and O.J., Al Gore, George W. Bush, and, of course, President Bill Clinton. Along the way, King analyzes the frantic interplay between the media and events, as a US presidential election is played out on talk shows, policies are made on network TV, and life-and-death trials become the electronic wallpaper of daily American life.As Larry relives his most controversial and surprising shows, he looks for a pattern in the madness. He asks probing questions about the way society is being changed by technology and why the line between news makers and news reporters has become nearly invisible. The answers Larry offers may not be what we want to hear. But no one is in a better position to give them.Full of fascinating side trips through the realm of the famous and the infamous, Anything Goes! shows Larry and Bill Clinton swapping football talk an hour after the 1998 impeachment vote, a message from Yugoslavian dictator Slobodan Milosevic while NATO planes bomb Milosevic's country, and a series of on- and off-the-air discussions with actor Marlon Brando, who ended one interview by kissing Larry full on the lips.Whether he is gaining unprecedented access or providing an unrivaled political forum that mixes

Customer Reviews:

April Safara Must Be an Idiot.......2004-07-23

Everyone else wrote an interesting, well thought-out review, but April Safara seems to be a total moron. Her review would even receive a failing grade in a fourth grade lit class. I'm surprised she was even able to read the book at all, considering how poor her literary skills are. Looks like you need a refresher course in Writing 101! Moron.

Undecided..........2003-03-07

Larry King is usually the background noise during dinner time in my (single) household so I pretend that I know him rather well. So when I started the book I expected the wise and experienced uncle to provide some wisdom and tell me about invaluable experiences. Well, it did not live up to that, especially in the first half of the book. But every now and again - moreso towards the end - I could hear him saying what he was writing. Much in the beginning just does not sound like him.

The books offers a great overview of what moved the media during the 90ies: so, here is your entertaining history lesson - not entirely comprehensive but certainly the basics for the media small talk. He does not show off, he is honest with himself and he displays the very down-to-earth side of himself. Maybe it just lacks more wicked, unheard-of experiences that I expected to get a better rating. You got to have this "wise uncle at 9 PM EST" with him to like the book.

Disapointed.......2002-12-20

This book reminded me of a collage term paper being done at the last minute when you increase the font size and margins to try and stretch the meager text to the length requirement. I have never been a big fan of his interview show, but I was hoping given the amount of time he has been at it, he would have some interesting "during the break" type of stories from his guests. It turned out that this was not the case.

I would like to say that I enjoyed this book or at least found parts interesting or well written, but that would not be honest. I had to keep reading given it was the only book I had on a 9 hour flight. How can someone that has interviewed so many interesting and influential people over the years have this little to say? Thank goodness for the professional writer he hired or who knows if we would have even had complete sentences to read. Overall the book was dull, no insights and barely anything interesting.

The world today in Politicians and Presidents.......2000-11-03

Well never having read a larry King book considering he wrote so many this book was great. It gave you inside edge on what larry king has seen, heard, and talked about in the years of his careers. It's was great reading about all the people he talk too. I would definely recommand this book to a friend.

The King of TV Talk Continues to Reign.......2000-11-02

Kudos to Larry King (and Pat Piper) for their riveting account of the rich, famous and powerful during the final, tumultuous decade of the late (and unlamented) century. While "Anything Goes" provides fascinating insight into the lives of Washington's movers and shakers, it also gives a good glimpse of the talkmeister king himself, just a "poor kid from Brooklyn" embued with a rare gift of knowing whom to talk to, when, and what to ask. "Anything Goes" is a great chronicle of one of the most topsy-turvy periods in American history. It's also enormously entertaining.

Book Description

OFDM-based Broadband Wireless Networks covers the latest technological advances in digital broadcasting, wireless LAN, and mobile networks to achieve high spectral efficiency, and to meet peak requirements for multimedia traffic. The book emphasizes the OFDM modem, air-interface, medium access-control (MAC), radio link protocols, and radio network planning.

An Instructor Support FTP site is available from the Wiley editorial department.

Download Description

Customer Reviews:

A good introductory book.......2006-03-17

I'm working on cross-layer design of OFDM based wireless system such as 802.16e and 802.11n. This book gave me a good overview of whole system from physical layer, MAC layer, to frequency planning. Basic concepts are clearly defined and key design issues are well investigated. This book is especially useful for those networking guys, like me, who want to move from networking layer down to physical layer to do cross-layer optimization. You may want to know physical layer but not every single detail. This book gives me a good abstraction of physical layer for OFDM as well as MIMO.

Book Description

This classic account of the French War in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia is back in hardcover. Includes an introduction by George C. Herring.

Customer Reviews:

An early version of the Vietnam War.......2007-06-10

A gripping history of dedicated and professional soldiers who fought the battles of Indochina with valor and integrity, but were not supported by their countrymen. Bernard Fall "walked the walk" with the fighters of Indochina and put a lot of heart into his work.

Strange how the US was fully knowledgeable of the struggles of the French and was actively supporting them, but in spite of their advance exposure to the complexities of the political and strategic situation the US policy makers repeated many of the same strategic mistakes and also failed to rally popular support for a war in a faraway land.

Bernard Fall had it right! .......2007-03-09

As a Vietnam vet I am constantly faced with people who can't understand why we became involved in that tragic place. Bernard Fall in this book and in his others ( see "Two Vietnams" "Vietnam Reader" and "The Siege of Dien Bien Phu") accurately forcasted the demise of the French in Indo-China. It would have been nice if someone in our Government had read and headed Mr. Fall's predictions. His descriptions of the military defeat of the French was to me gut wrenching. The task will be to find some one with Mr. Fall's prescience for SW Asia.

On Deaf Ears.......2006-09-13

Mr. Fall showed how Ho Chi Minh worked his strategy to perfection against a rising red tide in post-war France. The Communist leader advanced his plans and followed them to the letter. The Viet-Minh fought on their terms, annihilating small French military outposts in Indochina. Ho knew that the enemy would eventually pass from the offensive to the defensive. He knew that the (initial) enemy would lack the psychological and political wherewithal to fight a protracted war, even as Communist advances in southeast Asia "sanctified" French colonialism there. Fall's ensuing effort, Hell in A Very Small Place, revealed that Dien Bien Phu was France's swan song in Asia. American policymakers obviously learned little from the French experience.

One of The Best. Of Viet Nam.......2006-03-04

This is one of the best books anyone will ever read on Viet Nam. It covers the French attempt to beat the forces of Uncle Ho. The book details the slow but sure beating of the French forces by a far less supplied nationalistic force that were to become the Viet Cong and North Viet regulars. The French tried to set up strong points around to control the country. It didn't work. It is too bad none of our military leaders took this book to heart as it details our own defeat because we did not learn the lesson taught by the French. They said we would lose and we did. The author was killed in Viet Nam not long after the book came out. Do yourself a favor and get it.I think you will be glad you did.

Timeless.......2005-02-26

I picked up this book after reading The Best and the Brightest, Halberstam's epic on the US involvement in the Vietnam war. Would actually recommend folks read this before Halberstam's book, then jump into more detailed coverage of the US involvement in Vietnam.

Fall was a mentor to many US journalists covering Vietnam, based on his experience covering the country during the French war, and as a reader you will recognize the tone throughout. The book starts with a description of different battles during the French Indochina war, beginning with those of the "set piece" variety and then moving to those where mobility was a factor. The more mobility involved, the worse it got for the French, and you can see the Vietnamese evolve their tactics as the war unfolds.

There are some very interesting chapters on life in the French army during Vietnam, as well as some closing chapters on the 'future of revolutionary war' and the like. There is a fascinating analysis on the subject of 'active sanctuary' that provides a preview of both the balance of the Vietnam war, the wars in Africa, as well as an entirely period as well: the Reagan Doctrine, the Russian experience in Afghanistan, etc.

This book is timeless, and that it was published before the US became involved in Vietnam makes it a classic. I read alot of history, and was prepared for it to be more "dry;" I actually found it pretty easy to read if you like the subject and would highly recommend it to anyone interested not just in Vietnam but in world affairs in general.

Street Without Joy: The French Debacle In Indochina (Stackpole Military History Series)

Average customer rating:

Hard Hitting History with Important Lessons About Guerilla War
How Soon We Forgot!

Street Without Joy: The French Debacle In Indochina (Stackpole Military History Series)
Bernard B. Fall
Manufacturer: Stackpole Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Southeast Asia | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

General | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

General | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Vietnam War | Military | History | Subjects | Books

Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York Review Books Classics)
The Last Valley: Dien Bien Phu and the French Defeat in Vietnam
Bernard Fall: Memories of a Soldier-Scholar
Dien Bien Phu: The Epic Battle America Forgot (History of War)

ASIN: 0811732363

Book Description

Originally published in 1961, before the United States escalated its involvement in South Vietnam, Street without Joy offered a clear warning about what American forces would face in the jungles of Southeast Asia: a costly and protracted revolutionary war fought without fronts against a mobile enemy. In harrowing detail, Fall describes the brutality and frustrations of the Indochina War, the savage eight-year conflict-ending in 1954 after the fall of Dien Bien Phu-in which French forces suffered a staggering defeat at the hands of Communist-led Vietnamese nationalists. With its frontline perspective, vivid reporting, and careful analysis, Street without Joy was required reading for policymakers in Washington and GIs in the field and is now considered a classic.

Customer Reviews:

Hard Hitting History with Important Lessons About Guerilla War.......2007-06-04

Street Without Joy is an excellent work by Bernard Fall about the French War in Indochina (also known as the First Indochina War). It is an honest, hard hitting history book that traces the struggles of both the French and the Vietnamese as they fought an eight year long war mostly in the northern part of Vietnam.
Bernard Fall writing is clear and easy to follow for the average reader. He is at his best when giving an analysis on battles like Bac Khan (Operation Lea), the Border Campaign (with the Chinese border), and Dien Bien Phu. Fall puts these battles in perspective by comparing them with other battles in French military history (e.g. the Battle of Quebec was cited in comparison with the Border Campaign). In addition, he gives an excellent description of the nature of guerilla warfare, and how the French, fighting a conventional war, were unable to adapt to this form of war.
Although one may find history of the Vietnam War a touchy subject (especially when compared to today's war in Iraq), Street Without Joy is nevertheless an excellent book for anyone learning about counterinsurgency. I would recommend this book as part of the US Army's recommended reading list for leaders as opposed to books on the Civil War, which I find it to be more romance than serious history.

How Soon We Forgot!.......2006-06-23

The French involvement in Vietnam or Indochina has always been fascinating. France vainly tried to hang on to its far-flung and difficult to administer far eastern colonies after WW II without success. Bernard Fall was by far the expert on this endeavor and explains the intracasies and operations conducted by France in this failed attempt at maintaining their grip on their doomed colonialism. The book is extremely detailed, insightful, and tactically precise. This book should have been commited to memory by our military and political leaders during the early to middle 60s. We may not have repeated the historical mistakes, or maybe it was fate that we did. Once you are finished with this book, immediately read Fall's "Hell in A Very Small Place." It is as equally excellent.

Street Without Joy from the Indo-China War to the War in Viet-nam

Average customer rating:

Street Without Joy from the Indo-China War to the War in Viet-nam
Bernard B. Fall
Manufacturer: Stackpole
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000IYYCT8

Average customer rating:

Street Without Joy
Bernard B. Fall
Manufacturer: The Stackpole Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000K0K1X6

Average customer rating:

Street Without Joy
Bernard Fall
Manufacturer: Stackpole Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000CMINF

Average customer rating:

Street Without Joy -
Bernard Fall -
Manufacturer: Stackpole Press -
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NPHK1O

Street Without Joy - Insurgency in Indochina, 1946-1963. Foreword by Marshall Andrews

Average customer rating:

Street Without Joy - Insurgency in Indochina, 1946-1963. Foreword by Marshall Andrews
Bernard B. Fall
Manufacturer: Pall Mall, London
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000H448WK

Average customer rating:

Street Without Joy 4TH Edition
Bernard B Fall
Manufacturer: STACKPOLE BOOKS +
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000TTMNT8

Average customer rating:

Street Without Joy From the Indo-China war to the war in Viet-Nam
Bernard B. Fall
Manufacturer: Pall Mall Press Ltd.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VW89QO

Street Without Joy Indochina at War, 1946 - 54

Average customer rating:

Street Without Joy Indochina at War, 1946 - 54
Bernard B. Fall
Manufacturer: The Stackpole Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000VZMHI2

Book Description

An important, controversial account of the history of the Jewish people that is both scholarly and compulsively readable.

Customer Reviews:

Can be renamed "Opinionated review of Jewish history".......2007-07-11

I am a Norman Cantor fan. One does not have to agree completely with his views, but one must admit that there is some truth to what he says. Reading a Cantor book can benefit you on many fronts: factual content, interesting research, very strong points of view. Reading these highly one-sided view points from Cantor can be very entertaining. Better than watching standup comic show for me.

Biased, but thought provoking.......2007-04-08

I found little or no facts in the book, mostly biased opinions. Some facts were totally off: Rav Nachman was from Breslav, not Bratislav; Trotsky made no effort to save the Jews from pogroms, etc...

A provocative book from a "candid friend" of Judaism........2006-03-14

This stimulating and provocative book will irritate a large number of its Jewish readers both through its contents and probably also through its manner. The book's title, to begin with, is misleading if it suggests that there is a central tradition which runs through the History of the Jews. The title of one of the chapters, "Jewish Diversity" corresponds more closely with the theme of the work; but few of those diversities escape without some reprimand from Professor Cantor, Judaism's "candid friend". Thus the orthodox rabbinate is repeatedly criticized for erecting, from Hellenic times onwards, a high barrier between Judaism and the more advanced cultures surrounding them: Jews must bear some responsibility for ghettoization, for to an extent they ghettoized themselves. On the other hand, he refers several times to Emancipation as a Faustian bargain; and the efforts of Reform rabbis in the 19th and 20th centuries to promote acculturation without assimilation are described as "feeble and inconsequential". The "marvellous varieties of Jewish responses [to the modern world] which have so enriched Western culture" are due to the fact that orthodox and reform rabbis alike have failed to provide adequate intellectual leadership. Only a few Jewish religious thinkers - like Martin Buber, Gershom Sholem, Hermann Cohen, Franz Rosenzweig - have, in Professor Cantor's view, made an effort which could compare to the attempts of Catholic theologians to meet the challenges of modernity.

Cantor is throughout illuminating on Jewish historiography, and he frequently takes issue with its one-sided view of Jewish History. Thus Graetz is criticized for being "insensitive to the Christian side of the story". Writing about the Chmielnicki Massacres, Cantor comments, "the Ukranians had a right to resent the Jews, if not to kill them". A similar line is taken in explaining Tsarist policies with regard to the Jews between the 1820s and the 1860s: the rabbis and tsaddikim had after all done nothing to get the Jews "out of their stinking and impoverished domiciles and into an improved systemic situation."

Some readers may be startled to have some received ideas challenged by the revisionist historians whom Cantor quotes. Some examples: the Maccabean War is better understood as a civil war between orthodox and Hellenized Jews than as a national uprising. Jewish historians have stressed how much Aquinas borrowed from Maimonides: here we read that "Maimonides' Guide is simply not comparable as an intellectual achievement with Aquinas's Summa Theologica." Contemporary scholarship drastically reduces the size of the Diaspora of the Sephardi Jews after 1492: so far from the traditional 150,000 Jews having had to leave, there were only some 80,000 professing Jews in Spain before 1492, and of these about half refused to convert and were therefore expelled.

Coming to the present, Cantor is very critical of Israeli policy; and he thinks that much Catholic anti-Semitism in France, the United States and Canada (Quebec) stems from the unwise alliance between Jews and secular liberals against State funds going to religious schools.

But it is Cantor's last chapter, on the Future of the Jews, which has drawn most criticism in reviews I have read. Like many others, he sees intermarriage as "a one-way ticket to disappearance as a distinct ethnic group" (leaving only the 15% or so of orthodox Jews unassimilated); and he suggests that the likely peace and economic cooperation in the Middle East will in due course lead to a similar cultural and ethnic blending between Jews and Arabs. (Any such prospect now looks remote indeed; but the book was first published in 1994, just after the end of the First Intifada and the signing of the first Oslo Accord). But whereas all religious and quite a number of non-religious Jews would regard this as a catastrophe, Cantor suggests that perhaps "the Jews have fulfilled their role in history... The Jews served their own purpose, and God's purpose, and mankind's purpose. Pragmatically, they are no longer very much needed as a distinct race." They have given so much to the world (from monotheism to shaping modernist and post-modernist culture) that "the Jewish heritage would endure if the Jews disappeared as a major group in the world in the twenty-first century." That disappearance could be avoided only by a revival of Jewish education on a scale and of a quality which he does not think will happen.

It is impossible to do justice to this meaty and vigorous book in a short review; and I have concentrated on a few of those aspects which are unusual in Jewish writing. Whether you like it or dislike it, agree or disagree with it, this is a book which will make you think and anyone interested in the History of the Jews should read it.

I was so dissapointed, .......2004-12-21

I have to admit that Cantor is an incredible historian. The book happens to be a great book for information. And it is also an easy book to read, compared to most books on Jewish History.
The problem I had with this book is that he made me feel very uncomfortable. Whenever something happened in History he has his own ideology which happens to be terrible. It was so sad for me to see how a person can write a book on the Jews, and make us look pretty bad. One thing is forsure that Cantor must have a grudge on orthodox Jews. Acc. to him it seems that the orthodox were always the ones at fault.
To top it off, he couldnt find anything nice to say about the Bal Shem Tov. To me I dont understand why Cantor has such negative views on Jews. My favorite of course is the way he ends off his book with his suppositon synopsis of the Jewish future. It was pretty gloomy. Acc. to Cantor in fifty years bc of assimilation we will be pretty much finished off. I dont know where he lives, but this past Hannukah if he turned on the T.V. for a second he would have seen Jews celebrating the holiday like never before, all over the entire world.
Did i forget to write that when i finished the book i had a sick taste left in my mouth. ltennenhaus@hotmail.com

This book is both really good and really bad........2003-03-02

SACRED CHAIN is a fun book to read for anyone interested in history, and especially the influence that religion and economics has had in it. The book is very well written and surprisingly lucid and easy to follow, not a single part of it was uninteresting. What the SACRED CHAIN represents is the pure, unmitigated view of Establishment history. There are few in the sea as hypocritical as this fish. Cantor's analysis and summary of 3,000 years of Jewish history is interpreted in only two ways: Marx's dialectic materialism and whether or not a social movement, religion, government, etc. was beneficial to the Jews economically.

Cantor explains everything in Marxist terms--that all events and ideas in history are shaped by an individual's or group's economic status. And anything is good as long as it helped the Jews in general. Communist leader Trotsky/Bronstein is lauded as being an avenger of the Jews upon the peasants of the pro-Czarist Christians of the Ukraine. But earlier on, it is acknowledged that these peasants actually had legitamate grievances against Jews in the region that provoked a pogrom in earlier centuries. Another example is where Cantor praises Jewish anthropologist Franz Boas as being the foremost propagator of the idealogy that all races and cultures of mankind are equal, but on the next page Cantor goes on about the Jews' "superior genes," and his belief that "Jews have to be better than everyone else." Cantor is in constant awareness of "anti-Semitism," and references to the Holocaust can be found on every page. He even accuses the authors of the New Testament Gospels of being hatemongers who would have had no problem if their writings inspired the Holocaust. As for the scattered Jewish communities around the globe in the latter half of the twentieth century, Cantor judges their worth by how much they did to stop the Holocaust.

For a social policy, he likes to see non-Jews following free-market capitalism and moral relativism. But as for Jews, he wants them to be racially conscious (he figures the intermarraige rate of Jews with non-Jews a type of "Holocaust"), and devoted to (some) of their old traditions and religion. Cantor's analysis of the Bible period is terrible, because he does not cite any sources to where he gets his information, so the book is one long Norman Cantor's opinion of everything. In fact, on the back cover, a review is quoted praising Cantor for not concealing his biases. This stands in sharp contrast to a writer from any other ethnic group. Imagine if someone were to write a biased history of the Anglo-Saxons of Britain and Germany, and after catalouging their history and speculating on their religious outlook, philosophy and technical achievements, said that white Anglo-Saxons were just "better than anybody else?" Again the liberal double standard applies in writing the history books.

SACRED CHAIN is intentionally biased, praised for it. It is well worth reading, because some the massive influence of the Jews upon the West is catalouged, but take every statement Cantor makes with a couple grains of salt.

Sacred Chain : History of the Jews
Average customer rating:
Sacred Chain : History of the Jews
Norman F Cantor
Manufacturer: Fontana Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

World | History | Subjects | Books | 17th Century | 18th Century | 19th Century | 20th Century | 21st Century | Byzantine | Expeditions & Discoveries | General | Islamic | Jewish | Medieval | Renaissance | Revolution | Slavery & Emancipation | Transportation | Women in History
General | Judaism | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
History | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0006863450

The Sacred Chain: A History of the Jews
Average customer rating:
The Sacred Chain: A History of the Jews
Norman Cantor
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000O8OJGY

Average customer rating:
The Sacred Chain: A History of the Jews.
Norman F. Cantor
Manufacturer: Harpercollins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OEAVVA

Book Description

Does life (for the living) differ from that of the non-living? If so, how? And how, in that case, does biology as the study of living things differ from other sciences? These questions are examined through an exploration of episodes in the history of biology and philosophy.

Customer Reviews:

hazardous wastes treatment.......2000-10-20

treatment technology , hazardous wastes ,solidification ,stabilitation,chemical fixation

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books