A scholarly, entertaining look at the objectives and techniques of economic historiography. Cipolla (Economics and History/Berkeley) explains that economic historians must rely on business and political documents and other numismatic, artistic, and cultural evidence contemporary to the period they are studying, but cannot take such data at face value. Because of human error, purposeful falsification of records for a wide variety of motives, and lack of emphasis in certain cultures on precise record-keeping, the economic historian must play sleuth. In addition, Cipolla summarizes the myriad sources of economic history—including warehouse accounts, tax receipts, customs registers, legislative sources, contemporary statistical compilations, foreign intelligence reports, church records. Indeed, he shows, the most mundane residue from vanished societies (records of baptisms, legal records, deeds of gift, etc.) can provide the economic historian with valuable information. Cipolla argues convincingly that the modern community of economic historians, in its emphasis on purely mathematical analyses of economic aspects, has put too much distance between itself and purely historical scholarship. While recognizing that economic history investigates economic phenomena, he argues persuasively that economic history is a distinctly historical enterprise that uses tools different from those of economics to answer distinctly different questions. Cipolla's presentation of economic history as a humanistic rather than scientific discipline makes economic historiography seem fascinating and rather fun.
Pub Date: July 29, 1991
ISBN: 0-393-02977-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1991
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
Noted jazz and pop record producer Thiele offers a chatty autobiography. Aided by record-business colleague Golden, Thiele traces his career from his start as a ``pubescent, novice jazz record producer'' in the 1940s through the '50s, when he headed Coral, Dot, and Roulette Records, and the '60s, when he worked for ABC and ran the famous Impulse! jazz label. At Coral, Thiele championed the work of ``hillbilly'' singer Buddy Holly, although the only sessions he produced with Holly were marred by saccharine strings. The producer specialized in more mainstream popsters like the irrepressibly perky Teresa Brewer (who later became his fourth wife) and the bubble-machine muzak-meister Lawrence Welk. At Dot, Thiele was instrumental in recording Jack Kerouac's famous beat- generation ramblings to jazz accompaniment (recordings that Dot's president found ``pornographic''), while also overseeing a steady stream of pop hits. He then moved to the Mafia-controlled Roulette label, where he observed the ``silk-suited, pinky-ringed'' entourage who frequented the label's offices. Incredibly, however, Thiele remembers the famously hard-nosed Morris Levy, who ran the label and was eventually convicted of extortion, as ``one of the kindest, most warm-hearted, and classiest music men I have ever known.'' At ABC/Impulse!, Thiele oversaw the classic recordings of John Coltrane, although he is the first to admit that Coltrane essentially produced his own sessions. Like many producers of the day, Thiele participated in the ownership of publishing rights to some of the songs he recorded; he makes no apology for this practice, which he calls ``entirely appropriate and without any ethical conflicts.'' A pleasant, if not exactly riveting, memoir that will be of most interest to those with a thirst for cocktail-hour stories of the record biz. (25 halftones, not seen)
Pub Date: May 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-19-508629-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1995
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
Categories: GENERAL NONFICTION
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