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One of the beautiful things about comics is that it is possibly the best medium for combining education and entertainment. No one knows this better than Larry Gonick, whose Cartoon History series spans many subjects. Whether you are a fan of history, comics, or Gonick's books,
The Cartoon History of the Universe I is a great place to start. Part I contains volumes 1 to 7, from the Big Bang to Alexander the Great.
Book Description
An entertaining and informative illustrated guide that makes world history accessible, appealing, and funny.
Customer Reviews:
readable history.......2007-10-19
This book and the other two in this series don't make history less complex but they sure make it readable!
Funny History.......2007-10-10
My older sister originally bought me and my younger sister the computer program. That was a few years ago, but it was a nice dry sarcastic, but silly humor.
Then I ordered this book, which has much the same type of humor. I wish it were in color instead of black and white, but otherwise, a fun way to "read" history.
I wish we had this during grade school?.......2007-06-09
I highly recommend this book. It's well written, it's occasionally funny and very readable. Volumes 1 to 7 starts with the Big Bang, to the evolution, to the first great civilizations (Sumer, Egypt and the Greeks), and ends with Alexander the Great reaching India.
I was so impressed about the presentation that I thought - why isn't there an animated version of this book (and the other volumes)? Wouldn't it be nice for kids to be able to get their history lessons via Cartoon Network?
But then I reached the part about what early Greek women did with their goats and sheep and how the Spartans treated young boys and I thought "well, maybe it's better if it stays in book form".
My only gripe is the lack of an index. Certainly handy when important names and places are regularly mentioned (like any other history book) .
!.......2007-02-28
This book is amazingly good. It is funny and educational and incredibly well drawn. You should BUY it.
Great Classroom Library Addition.......2006-03-17
I bought this book for my 6th grade classroom and ended up reading it myself. It's a favorite with the students though there is a bit of nudity that I had to censor with a black marker.
Average customer rating:
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Larry Gonick's the Cartoon History of the Universe, Book 1
Larry Gonick
Manufacturer: William Morrow & Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0688010113 |
Customer Reviews:
This is radical!.......2005-02-10
Some parts of Cartoon history of the Universe I do not understand. That's because I'm only 9 year old. There is also a load of bad words and bad material. But still, it has good puns and really good history. Plus, it has a realy good mixture of humor and history.
The start of a great series.......2004-12-10
I have no idea what original cover might have been on the first edition of THE CARTOON HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE VOLUMES 1~7 by Larry Gonick, published by Doubleday in September 1990, but it is entirely black and white hand-lettered drawings on the inside. This is just the beginning of a cartoon history set, ending on page 358 with suggestions for further reading on ancient Greece. I was worried about being able to find a title page for each of the seven volumes, since there is no table of contents at the beginning and no index, but each volume is exactly 50 pages, and the pages are numbered. The main question I had about actually reading this book was how funny could history be, after all these years, going back to creatures and situations that are as remote as anything modern authors might imagine. The first totally fantastic laugh is on page 2, where the author admits the book "is the outcome of my nine years at HARVARD, where I studied mathematics--" and time travel, though professors who are "mathematicians can't tell a second hand from a second base!! We parted ways in 1972..." Volume 1, starting on page 3, covers The Evolution of Everything. The first footnote appears on page 7, another on page 9, and the footnote on page 10 reveals "Since it's in the nature of radioactive elements to decay into stable ones, the Earth must have been far more radioactive 4 billion years ago than it is today." That is not as funny as the first joke by a rock about life: "You close yer eyes for a hundred million years, and the next thing you know, yer covered with green slime!!"
The molecular biology is comic when you actually get the picture of "The first crude cells." (p. 12). By the next page, the planet has eating and "an ozone layer in the upper atmosphere which screened out cosmic rays..." Still on a microscopic level, sex starts getting promoted early and often, and it's "also a way to sell comic books!" (p. 17). The need for natural death is pointed out in a footnote on page 19, trilobites become the predominant form of life on page 21, but died out in the first of three great extinctions on page 29, "While on land many primitive amphibians croaked. Urk! A lethal pun!" Then the continental drift splits the original landmass on page 35, and puns are back on page 39 with "Duck! A dinosaur!!" Primates get more interesting. "You are such a swinger, you big ape!" (p. 47).
Volume 2, Sticks and Stones, has a big picture of Africa at the beginning. Volume 3, River Realms, starts at "Seven thousand years ago," (p. 103). Volume 4, Part of the Old Testament, shows Jericho, the first walled city. Volume 5, Brains and Bronze, shows Aegean civilization starting on Crete. Greeks "first harnessed the horse." (p. 208). Oedipus (="swollen foot") is shown on pages 212-214 might be unfunny. Like Jocasta says, "Get serious!" Dionysos is explained on pages 242-245. Volume 6, Who Are These Athenians? reports on the history of Herodotos. "And the best thing about Herodotos: he makes up all the dialogue!! A historian after my own heart!" (p. 252). Volume 7, All About Athens, starts with the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 B.C. Alexander the Great gets as far as the armored elephants of India on page 350, and the cartoonist promises more volumes to explore the civilization there. In the years since this appeared in 1990, I am sure more volumes have been published.
Book Description
First published in 1956
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Macroeconmoics: Principles and Policy
Baumol
Manufacturer: Holt Rinehart & Winston
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0030282683 |
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- Nihilism, Misanthropy and Black Humor, But in a Good Way
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Omnipotence for the Millions
Brook Ziporyn
Manufacturer: Authors Choice Press
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The Masochistic Playpen
ASIN: 0595184146 |
Book Description
Yes, I wore rose-colored glasses for a long time because life is easier that way. However, in doing so, I never gave myself credit that perhaps I could look at the situation that confronted me head-on. Loving and loosing is hard work-but the perks are enormous! Now when a problem arises, rather than running from it, I face it and say: "I can do this because I am a Phenomenal Woman." This book is a must read for every phenomenal woman and man.
Customer Reviews:
Nihilism, Misanthropy and Black Humor, But in a Good Way.......2001-07-15
A very strange book, but gripping and really in the end engrossing and even--I would say--persuasive. The writing is great, the comic timing impeccable. The story is so hopelessly true that in spite of all the cynicism you feel something about the human condition is affirmed here. Two guys who hate each other and therefore love each other, who can't get rid of each other, all the troubles of being seen and objectified, the old existential problems of being a subject and object at once. A lot of sex, gloriously pleasureless. Being human is here to be constantly betraying everyone else and yourself, for lack of anything better to do. This might be the truth. I really felt in a bit of a blissful daze for a day or two after reading this, seeing the world a little differently. Has to be experienced. I recommend it highly.
Product Description
Softcover edition. How can a band that started as a joke become of music's most unstoppable forces? These sonic soulmates have endured death, addiction, an unstable line-up and have stilled managed to produce some of the most vital rock'n'roll of the past three decades.
Customer Reviews:
RHCP better and more interesting than the Beatles.......2005-07-12
Fornication: The Red Hot Chili Peppers Story is a great story of one of the greatest bands ever! RHCP!!!
They are 100 times more interesting and talented than those dopey boys from Liverpool, the Beatles.
Book Description
Built for the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Crystal Palace originally graced London’s Hyde Park with Joseph Paxton’s remarkable geometric design and groundbreaking use of glass elements, prefiguring the modern movement in architecture. After the exhibition a group of bankers, railway directors, and men of influence moved the structure to a new site in south London, rebuilt it to an even grander scale, and set about its promotion as a "palace for the multitude." Here were exhibitions, concerts, and spectaculars to fill a splendid day out for Londoners of all classes and interests. Filled with plaster casts of great art treasures, life-sized models of dinosaurs, waterworks, and gardens, the Crystal Palace became a center of both education and entertainment from the Victorian era through its destruction by fire in1936.
Copublished with C. Hurst & Co., London
Wisconsin edition for sale only in North and South America, U.S. territories and dependencies, and the Philippines.
Customer Reviews:
The book that admitted it about McGoohan.......2004-10-11
That he had problems with intimacy on the set of his tv show The Prisoner. He never did kiss any pretty lady on the mouth on his tv show. This book testifies by a crewmember of the Prisoner that McGoohan had trouble with intimacy on the set of the show.
it is what you would expect and nothing more.......2003-04-18
For thsoe who liked the series and want to know a littlle more about it this book is it. But it is not to much more than a reference book in my opinion and can put you asleep if you are not excited about the subject matter. If you own the TV series on DVD or tape this book is recommended.
Historical Inaccuracies.......2003-01-29
In this book, it is stated:
"On a different note, in their "Observations" regarding the episode 'A Change of Mind', the authors suggest that "it is easy to make comparisons between the committee in this episode and McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee of the 1950s."
If the authors knew a little more about the period when The Prisoner was filmed they might have made the rather more relevant observation that the various events in this episode very closely resemble the excesses of the Chinese Cultural Revolution - of the 1960s."
Even worse than missing the importance of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the authors show even less knowledge of US history. McCarthy was NOT a member of the House Un-American Activities Committee. He was a Republican Senator from Wisconsin, thus, not even a member of the House.
HUAC's primary interest in those days seemed to be in rooting out left-wingers from Hollywood. McCarthy made his fame from claims, never established, of as many as 205 Communists or sympathizers (whatever that might mean) in the Army and the State Department. McCarthy never undertook investigations of former spies nor did his tactics, based more on implications of guilt by association or skillfully worded queries of the "do you still beat your wife?" type, that trapped witnesses into unintended and incorrect answers, ever kidnap or imprison those suspected of wrongdoing.
In the days of the Red Scare, simply implying a person was "soft" on Communism could ruin a career.
The information on McCarthy and HUAC is readily available. Errors of this sort mean sloppy research by the authors. What, then, of their critique can we trust?
A bit weak.......2001-10-15
The book is written for a fan of the show who has average intelligence; unfortunately, the average fan is brighter than that. Much to much of the obvious and not enough insight. A decent book at best.
Great idea - shame about the execution.......2001-01-06
I suspect that a lot of the shortcomings of this book are due to it being written no less than 20 years after the original airing of the series. Put this together with the fact that the authors are (apparently) Americans, and you can begin to see why the book fails to show any great depth of understanding of what is a very profoundly British TV series.
At one point, for example, we are told that the Scots, Irish and Welsh Napoleans (in 'The Girl Who was Death') "represent various components of the British Commonwealth". I guess they meant the British Isles, or the United Kingdom - though neither of those groups includes Ireland, of course, only Northern Ireland. And in any case, how does this explain the Yorkshire Napolean?
On a different note, in their "Observations" regarding the episode 'A Change of Mind', the authors suggest that "it is easy to make comparisons between the committee in this episode and McCarthy's House Un-American Activities Committee of the 1950s."
If the authors knew a little more about the period when The Prisoner was filmed they might have made the rather more relevant observation that the various events in this episode very closely resemble the excesses of the Chinese Cultural Revolution - of the 1960s.
I was also less than impressed by the actual episode guides. Most of these are written in a very uninspired style and contain regular, if largely trivial, errors of fact and grammar.
In the commentary for 'It's Your Funeral', for example, one of the photos shows McGoohan standing beside the helicopter with Eric Portman sitting at the controls and holding a phone. In fact, Number 2 in this episode was played by Andre Van Gyseghem (with Derren Nesbitt as his stand-in), whilst Eric Portman played Number 2 back in episode 4 - 'Free for All'.
Having said that, the book is certainly not a complete waste of space, containing material from production company handouts, script fragments, etc. As in The Prisoner itself, the reader simply needs to be careful about sorting fact (official material) from fiction.
Be seeing you 8¬)
Book Description
It's 35 years since Patrick McGoohan's thriller series The Prisoner, a strange blend of espionage, psychodrama and fantasy, first entranced the British public. Every week, viewers watched as the eponymous prisoner, Number 6, imprisoned in a hi-tech Shangri-La-style village, was subjected to bizarre interrogation techniques and sinister scientific experiments. In turn, the Prisoner would try to escape his captors and, although always frustrated in his bids for freedom, he would sometimes be the moral victor by turning the tables on his anonymous persecutors.
Customer Reviews:
a well-written,comprehensive guide to "The Prisoner".......2007-07-17
One of the more recently published guides on the show. The book includes a bonus DVD, containing two episodes of the show("The Arrival" and the alternate version of "The Chimes of Big Ben"),both of which are readily available on the DVD boxset collection. Definitely recommended for fans of The Prisoner. :)
Comprehensive look at cult series.......2003-01-03
Every artist starts out with a cult following, Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner turned out to be no exception. While the series hasn't blossomed into mass market appeal, it has clearly reached an appreciative audience. The Prisoner exhibited all the best traits of great theater or film: the writing and direction was top notch; the material has transcended its era capturing the imagination of sucessive generations.
Fairclough's book is THE book to pick up on the series. Unlike The Prisoner Companion (different book and author(s)), The Offical Companion documents each episode with authority. It also has the plots for a number of scripts that co-creator George Markstein solicited but were rejected by McGoohan. One can see why McGoohan rejected them; his vision of the series ultimately turned out to be quite different from Markstein's.
The series plays like a variation on many of Kafka's themes. In this age of post X-Files paranoia, it's hard to appreciate just how groundbreaking The Prisoner was. Unlike a series like The X-Files, The Prisoner has stood the test of time because it's view of conspiracy is less a us vs. them approach and much more of the individual vs. the rest of society.
The book also gives compelling and interesting background on McGoohan. It raises his deep religious conviction as an important part to understanding the series. Born in the US but raised in Ireland, McGoohan, like No. 6, had his feet in two different worlds but didn't belong to either of them. The sense of alienation exhibited by the character and moral strength make No. 6 an anti-antihero.
The book is generously illustrated and is in a large format. Additionally, if you haven't purchased the series on DVD yet wait on picking up Arrival/The Chimes of Big Ben as the version included is identical to A&E's box set from two years ago. Be seeing you.
Pretty Good Prisoner Companion.......2002-10-24
Some good "behind the scenes" stories and photos.
Has quite a few spelling errors and a couple of sentences that just end in mid thought. Map has errors with missing location numbers and some mismatched descriptions of the location numbers.
The included DVD is a disappointment. It contains 2 episodes: "Arrival" and the alternate "Chimes of Big Ben". Any Prisoner fan that would be buying this book already has these. Something new would have been nice.
Average customer rating:
- Great book!
- Answers to Today's Questions
- True Story of Technology Development & Deployment Well Told
- I lived it!
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When Computers Went to Sea: The Digitization of the United States Navy (Perspectives)
David L. Boslaugh
Manufacturer: Wiley-IEEE Computer Society Pr
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ASIN: 0471472204 |
Book Description
When Computers Went to Sea explores the history of the United States Navy's secret development of code-breaking computers and their adaptation to solve a critical fleet radar data handling problem in the Navy's first seaborne digital computer system - that went to sea in 1962. This is the only book written on the United States Navy's initial application of shipboard digital computers to naval warfare.
Considered one of the most successful projects ever undertaken by the US Navy, the Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS) was the subject of numerous studies attempting to pinpoint the reason for the systems inordinate success in the face of seemingly impossible technical challenges and stiff resistance from some in the military. The system's success precipitated a digital revolution in naval warfare systems.
Dave Boslaugh details the innovations developed by the NTDS project managers including: project management techniques, modular digital hardware for ship systems, top-down modular computer programming techniques, innovative computer program documentation, and other novel real-time computer system concepts.
Automated military systems users and developers, real-time process control systems designers, automated system project managers, and digital technology history students will find this account of a United States military organization's initial foray into computerization interesting and thought provoking.
Customer Reviews:
Great book!.......2002-06-15
A well written book that managed to hold my attention. Good, understandable technical explanations and fascinating tales of organizational intrigue. Important lessons for anyone taking part in complex development projects. The acchievements described are quite mindboggling. As I have been personally involved in naval command and control development, and am a naval technology freak, I found this book extremely interesting.
A bit long for a casual read, but easily lends to skipping around.
Answers to Today's Questions.......2001-07-13
When Computers Went To Sea is an outstanding book because it takes us back almost 60 years (October, 1944) to define the problem to be solved and traces how this definition evolved to the threats our nation and our world face today. There's an important story here for all of us as we think about current questions like the 7/11/01, Page 1, Wall Street Journal article on Risk Assessment - Plans for a Small Ship Pose Big Questions for the U.S. Navy.
NTDS was a successful early (starting in the 1950s) large-scale digital computer hardware and software development project. How could NTDS be so successful in a hostile environment when so many comparable military and commercial development projects experienced major problems? This book also tells that story very well, with important lessons for all who manage large software and hardware developments.
Some readers unfamiliar with NTDS and the Navy ships and people involved may find the book a bit difficult to read because it is filled with well researched and documented names and facts. However, the important stories and lessons are written in a way we can all understand and appreciate as we learn more about the roles Alan Turing and Seymour Cray, and many other well-recognized people, played in this important part of our history.
I bought this book because I thought it might help our grown children understand what I did in the Navy. Now I will have to buy another copy for them because I'm sure not going to give them mine!
True Story of Technology Development & Deployment Well Told.......2000-03-25
Today's high bandwidth technologists have nothing over the NTDS architects who masterminded the solution to the very complex engineering problems presented by warfare: real time data acquisition and weapons assignment. (The penalty for error is death of comrades in battle.)
The story is told with all the warts and struggles, which ring true: inter-departments squabbles, jousting with Congress and contractors, resistance of the fleet commanders. It's all there.
The complexity of engineering project management with multiple contractors, tough cost and schedule constraints remain the same in the new millennium. A good addition to the reading list for any business school.
I confess to being biased. My father, Captain Joseph Stoutenburgh, USN Ret., is a principal in the book. When I was 6 years old I did not understand why Dad was gone for weeks at a time. Now I know he was altering forever the nature of tactical warfare and in turn the geopolitical reach of the United States.
I lived it!.......1999-12-08
As a sailor who served as a computer technician from 1967 to 1978, many of the issues that this book documents bring back a flood of memories. The historical background is well laid out in chronological order and contains many personal perspectives on what would normally be a dry and very technical subject. An extensive table of contents, a good glossary and index make this a prized reference book in my library alongside my Jane's publications. The sparseness of illustrations and photos are my only criticism of this fascinating historical compilation.
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Cartoon History of the Universe 2: Volumes 8-13
The Cartoon History of the Universe III: From the Rise of Arabia to the Renaissance
Cartoon History of the United States
The Cartoon History of the Modern World Part 1: From Columbus to the U.S. Constitution
The Cartoon Guide to Physics
