Thursday, February 6, 2025

Review of 1789: The Threshold of the Modern Age by David Andress

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

Book can be found in: 
Genre = History


Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“The monarchy’s practice for centuries had been to reward status with privilege, and sometimes to sell that privilege for short-term income, compounding the longer-term problem.  For what privilege meant, beyond mere social cachet, was the right not to have to pay tax.  State office-holders, along with tens of thousands of nobles, the inhabitants of some entire provinces and anyone else with any real social status were effectively outside the regular system of taxation.” – David Andress, Chapter 1: ‘he snatched lightning from the heavens’, Page 22

 

“The individual states lived through the post-war years in circumstances of continual tension and dispute scarcely different from those of the Old World kingdoms their inhabitants had left behind.  Freed from the heavy hand of British imperial direction, the commercial interests of the various states had struck out in support of their own goals, dominating local legislature often chosen on narrow franchises of wealth, and using the real powers of the states to engross and monopolise the two routes to American prosperity: seaborne trade and landward expansion.” – David Andress, Chapter 2: ‘The best model the world has even produced’, Page 36-37

 

“Alongside the Sedition Act, Congress also passed three separate Alien Acts, restricting the rights of foreigners to be naturalised as Americans, and allowing citizens of hostile nations, and those merely suspected of antipathies ‘dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States,’ to be deported on presidential authority.” – David Andress, Conclusion, Page 382


Review

Is This An Overview?

Many social changes were happening to the United States, France, and British during the 1780s-1790s.  Obtaining independence from a monarchy, to defending sovereignty, to economics, to social rights.  Each were forced to reconsider what they thought of liberty and freedom.  Each considered the rights and treatment of slaves, along with the penal system.  Methods were used to protect free speech, to prevent persecution for disagreement with those in power.  The privileges of the elite, the nobles were challenged.  Exploitation by those in power were to be resisted.  As power shifted to private entities, to the market system, those in power had their own exploitation methods which were challenged.  Developing a need for workers’ rights.  Technological development changed infrastructure. 

 

Caveats?

The book covers a range of topics, and therefore there is limited information on each topic.  More research would be needed to understand each society and event.  The history is represented using contemporary values, of the early 21st century.  Creating a narrative fallacy for what was right and wrong.


Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?
•What are some limitations of the book?
•To whom would you suggest this book?
•How did the U.S. change?
•Hod did France change?
•How did the British (U.K.) change?
•What were coffee-houses?  
•What were salons?
•What were the privileges of the elite? 
•How was power distributed? 
•What happened to the U.S. after independence?  
•How were patents used? 
•What were the articles that defended the Glorious Revolution? 
•What happened to slavery?
•How did business respond to their political situation? 
•How did the penal system change?
•What happed to the market system?
•What were worker rights?
•How did technology change? 


Book Details
Edition:                   First American Edition
Publisher:               Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Edition ISBN:         9780374100131
Pages to read:          398
Publication:             2009
1st Edition:              2008
Format:                    Hardcover 

Ratings out of 5:
Readability    3
Content          3
Overall          3






Monday, February 3, 2025

Review of The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements by Eric Hoffer

This book review was written by Eugene Kernes   

Book can be found in: 
Genre = Sociology
Book Club Event = Book List (04/12/2025)


Watch Short Review

Excerpts

“When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need of something apart from us to live for.  All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives.” – Eric Hoffer, Chapter II: The Desire for Substitutes, Page 22

 

“The discarded and rejected are often the raw material of a nation’s future.  The stone the builders reject becomes the cornerstone of a new world.  A nation without dregs and malcontents is orderly, decent, peaceful and pleasant, but perhaps without the seed of things to come.  It was not the irony of history that the undesired in the countries of Europe should have crossed an ocean to build a new world on this continent.  Only they could do it.” – Eric Hoffer, Chapter IV: The Role of the Undesirables in Human Affairs, Page 29

 

“The vigor of a mass movement stems from the propensity of its followers for united action and self-sacrifice.  When we ascribe the success of a movement to its faith, doctrine, propaganda, leadership, ruthlessness and so on, we are but referring to instruments of unification and to means used to inculcate a readiness for self-sacrifice.  It is perhaps impossible to understand the nature of mass movements unless it is recognized that their chief preoccupation is to foster, perfect and perpetuate a facility for united action and self-sacrifice.” – Eric Hoffer, Chapter XII: Preface, Page 57


Review

Is This An Overview?

Mass movements are a method for people to change society, a method for the individual to change themself.  Each movement might make different claims, but their methodology is the same.  Movements enable collective action, but at the cost of individual’s identity and sovereignty.  Each individual defers to the values and views of the group, rather than proclaim their own values.  Movements are perpetuated when members are willing to participate in collective action and self-sacrifice.

 

Movements enable change.  People who have accepted their conditions and are comfortable with their lives are not susceptible to a movement.  Those who want change are the dispossessed, the disillusioned, the discarded, the rejected, those who cannot find meaning in their lives.  Those who want change think that the future holds more value for them than the present.  They are willing to substitute their own lack of self-worth and meaning by seeking to change others and dedicate themselves to a cause.  Lack of self-worth enables the person to want to relegate the responsibility of choosing to others, to be free of freedom, to be free of one’s own individual failures and frustrations. 

 

Members of the group become willing to harm others, as their cause is perceived as righteous.  Persecution justifies more persecution as those acts validate the movements beliefs.  Movements have an enemy which must be vanquished for the better future to come about.  An enemy provides a common source of hatred, which unifies the members and reduces the opposition’s resistance.

 

Caveats?

The references to mass movements is of the totalitarian variety.  Not all movements are totalitarian, and various movements have factions that use different methods other than repression.  Not all change requires totalitarianism.  What this book provides is a way to identify totalitarian movements.  Explains how and why totalitarian movements develop.


Questions to Consider while Reading the Book

•What is the raison d’etre of the book?  For what purpose did the author write the book?  Why do people read this book?
•What are some limitations of the book?
•To whom would you suggest this book?
•What are mass movements?
•What is the purpose of a movement?
•How do mass movements operate?
•Who joins movements?
•How does power effect a person?
•How does ideas about the future effect a movement’s ideology?
•What do people who do not have self-worth do? 
•What substitutions are made when someone lacks something of themselves? 
•What kind of movements are there? 
•Who wants change?  Who does not want change? 
•When are people frustrated? 
•When do slaves want freedom?
•When do people not want freedom?
•What is the effects of universal love and the love of family?
•How to be an effect colonizer? 
•How to make people productive?
•How is sin used by movements? 
•How do movements effect crime?
•What enables movements to perpetuate? 
•How do movements effect a person’s identity? 
•When does harming others become acceptable?
•How does the impossible effect movements? 
•Why do movements need an enemy? 
•Why persecute others? 
•Who can be persuaded?  
•What is the role of leadership?
•What effect do movements have on the creation of literature and art? 

Book Details
Edition:                   Digital Edition
Publisher:               HarperCollins
Edition ISBN:         9780062029355
Pages to read:          136
Publication:             2011
1st Edition:              1951
Format:                    eBook 

Ratings out of 5:
Readability    5
Content          5
Overall          5