McNeill wishes to "demonstrate the feasability as well as the importance of explicitly seeking an overall interpretive scheme for European history." Such an "architectonic vision" already permeates the conventional view in the form of the growth of liberty. McNeill offers an apologia for the "grand design" approach to history and sketches an alternative "cultural pattern," his model being "metropolitan centers"; he says, "Successful innovations tend to cluster in time and space," producing a "cultural slope" of developments in technology and economics. Such centers (McNeill particularly stresses the impact of the Italian city-states) are emulated by neighboring peoples, characteristically as they — the centers — begin their own cultural decline. It is a model which has tacitly informed his work for some time; its explicit enunciation is enlightening.
Pub Date: May 9, 1974
ISBN: 0195018060
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
Van der Meer and Berkeley (The Art Pack, not reviewed) present a pop-up book for grown-ups, with a cavalcade of inventive pull- tabs, flaps, and paper-engineering gewgaws. Brass, woodwinds, strings, and voice: The principles behind these diverse ways of making noise are explained. Particularly fun is the rattle used to explain the principle of percussion. It has a handle and a thin membrane from which two orange beads, attached by strings, hang. If you don't learn much about drumming from it, you'll at least have a good game of paddleball. In between gadgets, there's a tolerable history of Western music capped by a time line; a small musical dictionary; and a 75-minute CD with ``Twenty Masterpieces,'' covering, chronologically, Josquin des Prez to Berlioz. (First printing of 100,000; Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection)
Pub Date: Nov. 22, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-43098-9
Page Count: -
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Flush with the success of his gonzo attack on big government- -last year's Parliament of Whores—the self-proclaimed ``Republican Party Reptile'' here collects his recent articles, mostly from Rolling Stone and The American Spectator. O'Rourke finds a certain singularity of purpose in his ongoing fight against evil, which he defines loosely as communism, Iraq, and liberals. Hardly as bully or bellicose as his title suggests, these essays nevertheless take no prisoners. At his best when goofing off across the globe, O'Rourke reminds us that most of the world isn't worth visiting. Not East Berlin after the Wall came down; not Russia before and after the failed coup; and certainly not Northern Ireland, with its ``acceptable level of violence.'' In Nicaragua, O'Rourke celebrates the defeat of Ortega and his North American sympathizers, those ``Birkenstock Bolshies.'' In Paraguay, during their elections, he discovers an unlikely outbreak of democracy and freedom. And in the Persian Gulf throughout the war, he notices that it's the first conflict ever covered by sober journalists. For all the governmental silliness, O'Rourke finds lots of good cheer and patience among the enlisted men. And his post-Vietnam sensibility emerges in liberated Kuwait City, which looks like ``the fall of Saigon with the film run backward.'' The domestic enemies here include: politically correct rock-and-rollers; Lee Iacocca (``conceited big-mouth gladhanding huckster''); Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter (``prissy old ratchet-jaw hicks yammering away about nothing''); and the Kennedys (``a large and dirty family''). O'Rourke treats Dr. Ruth rather gently, while he declares ``the sexual revolution is over and the microbes won.'' Other essays chart his turn from the radicalism of his youth; celebrate cars over people; condemn drug testing; and call for a new, improved McCarthyism. O'Rourke is an antitourist of revolution, a capitalist John Reed who delights in breaking every ``rule'' of journalism, especially staying sober. You don't have to share his peculiar, right-wing politics to love his fuel-injected prose—but it helps.
Pub Date: April 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-87713-520-5
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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