HundredFlowersBloom

Although beginning slowly with the unimpressive beginnings of early 20th century American art, the rest of the book makes a valiant effort to summarise all the culturally significant art happenings in America. The book truly excels when Rose gets to the subjects of her expertise: abstract expressionism, pop art, and modern sculpture.

What a letdown following Manufacturing Consent. This book is no more than a weak addendum to that masterpiece. Where the Herman-Chomsky opus has concise examples, clear argument, and engaging structure, Necessary Illusions has examples that go on too long without reaching a defined point, a stagnant and vague thesis of “media serves power”, and is mystifyingly structured into a short text followed by a series of plotless appendices. This book could be simply formulated as a comparison of the case studies of US media treatment of Nicaragua and Israel. That's all this book is. Instead, Chomsky flits between the two studies without rhyme or reason, alternating information about the case studies in nonsensical sequence.

Certainly a better analysis of H. P. Lovecraft's literary themes than biography of his life, and Lovecraft is not so abstruse that one would need a separate text to understand his work. There are still some interesting parts, namely Houllebecq's summary of Lovecraft's racism, contempt for modernity, and disregard for sex and money, both in his life and his books, and they are what make this biography worth reading, though they might have worked better as an introduction to a collection of Lovecraft's short stories.

One of the most informative, best-written histories I have ever read. Hobsbawm takes on the Herculean task of summarising over half a century of general European history and pulls it off. His socialist perspective on history is invaluable, as he transforms historical materialism from theory to actual analysis. This book is dry and dense, yet engaging it in its interface of the impact of Hobsbawm's “dual revolution” to class development.

An appreciatively broad history that is too liberal in outlook to give “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (or the post-colonial African variant) its fair shake, though its scepticism is warranted for the various other perversions of Mao's project. This book could have focused more on the Chinese context and the specifics of Tse-tung's policies, given that these provide the entire impetus for Maoism's global reach.

Not so enamoured with this popular book. Taleb finds himself incredibly intelligent for stating that hedging one's bets is a good idea and that randomness exists. Much of the book is spent on autofellatio and disparaging complex philosophy. It starts being a worthwhile read at about page 206. The typeface is the book's greatest achievement.

Although I do not doubt the credibility of this book's various claims, this was a poor history. The chapters jump between periods and narratives so frequently that I found no use in attempting to form a conceptual sequence of events. A “history of Rome” is simply too great a task for any single publication to accomplish, and this book ends up disjointed and spread thin over many concepts.

My second Foucault. While he makes some interesting general ideas, most of what he writes is unsourced, unconvincing, and nonsensical. I approached this text with an appreciative eye and I still got very little out of it, at best an appreciation for the historical trend of sexual discourse Foucault identifies. Had I been more sceptical a reader I would have put the book down long before I finished it.

Although it isn't quite “easy reading”, Literary Theory condenses major philosophical-literary movements into somewhat accessible summaries and histories. Eagleton handles straightforward theories like reception theory and psychoanalysis well, but the more enigmatic areas of semiotics and post-structuralism are best left uncondensed.