Bookpedia : Library WWWisdom : Author : N

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Summary: In 1954 Vladimir Nabokov asked one American publisher to consider "a firebomb that I have just finished putting together." The explosive device: Lolita, his morality play about a middle-aged European's obsession with a 12-year-old American girl. Two years later, the New York Times called it "great art." Other reviewers staked a higher moral ground (the editor of the London Sunday Express declaring it "the filthiest book I've ever read"). Since then, the sinuous novel has never ceased to astound. Even Nabokov was astonished by its place in the popular imagination. One biographer writes that "he was quite shocked when a little girl of eight or nine came to his door for candy on Halloween, dressed up by her parents as Lolita." And when it came time to casting the film, Nabokov declared, "Let them find a dwarfess!"
The character Lolita's power now exists almost separately from the endlessly inventive novel. If only it were read as often as it is alluded to. Alfred Appel Jr., editor of the annotated edition, has appended some 900 notes, an exhaustive, good-humored introduction, and a recent preface in which he admits that the "reader familiar with Lolita can approach the apparatus as a separate unit, but the perspicacious student who keeps turning back and forth from text to Notes risks vertigo." No matter. The notes range from translations to the anatomical to the complex textual. Appel is also happy to point out the Great Punster's supposedly unintended word play: he defends the phrase "Beaver Eaters" as "a portmanteau of 'Beefeaters' (the yeoman of the British royal guard) and their beaver hats."

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Summary: I pittori e l'ambiente artistico di Parigi dal 1910

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Summary: I found this book an invaluable source of information about the intricacies of Japanese society. A must for anyone who wants to live in Japan or work with the Japanese. Nakane Chie provides an inside look into the way of thinking that permeates Japanese society. A must for any foreigner.

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Summary: Considerazioni sulla storia del pensiero economico

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Summary: Style and technique in comic discourse

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Summary: Problèmes du travail et de l'automation

Summary: Voilà un livre dangereux. L'éditeur prend des risques à rappeler que pendant 13 siècles, les Arabes ont razzié l'Afrique et déporté des millions de noirs vendus comme esclaves. L'auteur et l'éditeur devraient naturellement subir d'ici peu une pression intellectuelle comme celle qui a condamné il y a quelques mois Sylvain Gougenheim, l'auteur d'"Aristote au Mont Saint-Michel", coupable d'avoir affirmé que l'Europe ne devait pas tout aux arabes. Il est donc urgent d'acheter ce livre "Le génocide voilé : Enquête historique" et de méditer sur l'étendue de la catastrophe. Oui, vraiment, Tidiane N'Diaye et Gallimard ont pris un sérieux risque avec ce livre palpitant, merveilleusement bien écrit et superbement documenté. Bravo l'auteur ! Courage !

Titre : Le génocide voilé. Enquête historique
Auteur : Tidiane N'Diaye
Paru le : 17/01/2008
Editeur : GALLIMARD
Isbn : 978-2-07-011958-5 / Ean 13 : 9782070119585

Biographie de Tidiane N'Diaye (source EVENE)

Economiste et cadre de l'INSEE (Institut National de la Statistique et des
Etudes Economiques)Guadeloupe, Tidiane N'Diaye est également directeur de
recherche à Sup de Co Caraïbes. Il est l'auteur de nombreux ouvrages sur les
civilisations négro-africaines qu'il essaie de mieuxfaire connaître et de
nombreuses études sur les départements français d'Amerique, d'un point de
vue économique et social. Il est notamment l'auteur de 'Mémoire d'errance',
un essai décrivant la longue marche des peuples noirs, de l'Egypte antique à
nos jours. En 2008, Tidiane N'Diaye sort 'Le Génocide voilé', un ouvrage à
la fois historique et actuel où il réécrit l'histoire africaine.


quelques extraits du livre Le génocide oublié de Tidiane N'Diaye :

Sous l'avancée arabe, des millions d'Africains furent razziés, massacrés ou
capturés, castrés et déportés vers le monde arabo-musulman. Cela dans des
conditions inhumaines, par caravanes à travers le Sahara ou par mer, à
partir des comptoirs à chair humaine de l'Afrique orientale.
Telle était en réalité la première entreprise de la majorité des Arabes qui
islamisaient les peuples africains, en se faisant passer pour des piliers de
la foi et les modèles des croyants. Ils allaient souvent de contrées en
contrées, le Coran d'une main, le couteau à eunuque de l'autre, menant
hypocritement une «vie de prière», ne prononçant pas une parole sans
invoquer Allah et les hadiths de son Prophète.

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Stanley constata que dans certaines régions d'Afrique, après leur passage,
il ne subsistait guère plus de 1% de la population. Dans le Tanganyika, les
images des horreurs de la traite étaient visibles partout. Nachtigal, qui ne
connaissait pas encore la région, voulut s'avancer jusqu'au bord du lac.
Mais, à la vue des nombreux cadavres semés le long du sentier, à moitié
dévorés par les hyènes ou les oiseaux de proie, il recula d'épouvante.
Il demanda à un Arabe pourquoi les cadavres étaient si nombreux aux environs
d'Oujiji et pourquoi on les laissait aussi près de la ville, au risque d'une
infection générale. L'Arabe lui répondit sur un ton tout naturel, comme s'il
se fût agi de la chose la plus simple du monde: «Autrefois, nous étions
habitués à jeter en cet endroit les cadavres de nos esclaves morts et chaque
nuit les hyènes venaient les emporter: mais, cette année, le nombre des
morts a été si considérable que ces animaux ne suffisent plus à les dévorer.
Ils se sont dégoûtés de la chair humaine.»

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Il serait grand temps que la génocidaire traite négrière arabo-musulmane
soit examinée et versée au débat, au même titre que la ponction
transatlantique. Car, bien qu'il n'existe pas de degrés dans l'horreur ni de
monopole de la cruauté, on peut soutenir, sans risque de se tromper, que le
commerce négrier arabo-musulman et les jihâd provoqués par ses impitoyables
prédateurs pour se procurer des captifs furent pour l'Afrique noire bien
plus dévastateurs que la traite transatlantique. Et ce, encore sous nos yeux
aujourd'hui (janvier 2008), avec son lot de massacres, avec son génocide à
ciel ouvert.

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L'esclavage étant validé et institutionnalisé par l'Islam, il eût été impie
chez les Arabes de le remettre en cause. «L'esclavage en terre d'Islam reste
un sujet à la fois obscur et hypersensible, dont la seule mention est
souvent ressentie comme le signe d'intentions hostiles», notait ainsi l'historien
Bernard Lewis.

Ces Arabes commettaient les pires crimes en Afrique, mais pensaient qu'ils n'en
restaient pas moins fidèles aux principes de l'Islam, qui autorisent l'esclavage.
Leurs actions étaient favorisées par les moeurs et encouragées par des
traditions religieuses qui, à leurs yeux, étaient plus fortes que toutes les
lois de la terre. Ils n'avaient donc à cacher leurs crimes qu'aux croiseurs
européens, puisque leurs gouvernements les approuvaient entièrement.

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Summary: An essay on the rise of industrial civilization

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Summary: Vita di uno strgone dei Sioux Oglala

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Summary: Una esperienza educativa rivoluzionaria

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Summary: Philosopher, sociologist, systems design and visionary, Ted Nelson wrote this two-book book in 1974, revised it in 1975 and gave it a major overhaul and update in 1987. Side one is Computer Lib which covers the history of computers, their development and how they work in a comicbook/magazine style. Side two is Dream Machines in which he examines upcoming technologies such as AI, high resolution 3D graphics and the idea of a globally networked hypertext system, not the web but his own Xanadu project. In both parts the later revisions are in italics to help you see how things have moved along.
Both sides are packed full of Nelson's enthusiasm for the possibilities of computing and give a good grounding into many of the technologies that today tend to be taken for granted.
Ted, if you are listening, it really is time for another edition.

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Summary: Dans un hameau du centre de la Fiance, au début des années 1930, un vieil homme, Silvio, se souvient, observant la comédie humaine des campagnes, le cours tranquille des vies paysannes brusquement secoué par la mort et les passions amoureuses. Devant lui, François et Hélène Erard racontent leur première et fugitive rencontre, le mariage d'Hélène avec un vieux et riche propriétaire, son veuvage, leurs retrouvailles. Lorsque leur fille Colette épouse Jean Dorin, la voie d'un bonheur tranquille semble tracée. Mais quelques mois plus tard, la noyade de Jean vient détruire la fausse quiétude de ce milieu provincial. L'un après l'autre, les lourds secrets qui unissent malgré eux les protagonistes de cette intrigue vont resurgir dans le récit de Silvio, jusqu’à  une ultime et troublante révélation... Ce drame familial, entrepris dès 1937, conduit comme une enquéte policère, raconte la tempète des pulsions dans le vase clos d'une société trop lisse. Ce roman d'Irène Nemirovsky refait surface près de soixante-dix ans après sa composition.

Summary: L'argent roi, l'argent qui rend fou, l'argent qui dirige la vie....tel est le constat que le lecteur peut faire après avoir lu ce livre. Le protagoniste débute dans la vie, selon lui, avec un handicap: c'est un immigré. De ce fait, il n'aura de cesse de réussir et s'intégrer au monde du paraître qui l'attire tant.
Certes, le sujet a été maintes fois traité, que ce soit dans les nouvelles de Maupassant ou chez Balzac, mais cette oeuvre nous donne des infos sur la France de l'entre deux guerres, les mentalités face aux nouvelles médecines (la psychanalyse entre autres), et nous livre une succulente démonstration de la complexité de l'âme humaine.

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Summary: This book is a Puffin Classic. The children in this book are the same ones in `the Five Children and It' & `The Amulet'. Their names are Robert, Anthea, Jane, Cyril and baby Hilary, or as called in `the Five Children and It' - Lamb. If you don't know the story or have forgotten it, then I will jog your memory: It is about a second hand carpet that was bought for the nursery which had magical powers; it could transport them to wherever they wanted to go; also, a strange egg dropped out of it and it was the egg of a phoenix...
I thought that this book was ok. It was a bit boring at parts but some of the bits were more thrilling than going to the circus or even to Alton Towers! I would rate the book, overall, 8/ 10 and would recommend it to all!

Summary: This book was first read to me about 18 years when I was at school. The school was next to a working steam railway. This was to have a wonderful affect on the reading of the story. I was totally draw into the story, it's highs and lows. I really liked the charcter Bobbie as I was a similar age. I felt Bobbie's charcter was growing up as I was and beginning to join (but not quite) the adult world. My eldest daughter is now of a similar age and I will be reading this and other children's classics to her. I have found the best thing about having children is I can read my favourites from childhood to them. The joy I get is finding they love books such as The Railway children as much as I do.

Summary: E. Nesbit completed her best known trilogy of fantasy books with The story of the Amulet. It returns us to the lives of the brothers and sisters we met in Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet. But the tone is darker and the freedom from adult observation is due to lonelyness rather than holiday freedoms, as was the case in the earlier novels. The children's parents are in danger of their life, and they find themselves faced with the chance to help when they meet the iracible Psammiad again. It leads them to a time travelling amulet, which might have the power to grant them their hearts desire.
Much of the charm of this book comes from the realism of the children's characters. No matter that they dress in the plus fours and petticoats of the Edwardian age, their bickering and wonder in the face of magical events makes them timeless.
A marvelous book, and a farewell to a familier group of children hovering on the verge of adulthood.

Summary: This magnificent classic story, by E Nesbit, about the incorrigible Bastable children and their dog Pincher has been a favourite for both children and adults over the years. Their wild and wonderful attempts to retrieve their own family fortunes will have everyone enthralled in this book. `The Treasure Seekers' is a fabulous book which I really enjoyed reading. I would strongly recommend it to everyone who likes adventures about lonely children and normally there is a dog involved.
You might recognise E Nesbit from `The Amulet', `The Railway Children', `The Five Children and It' or some others. Generations have taken pleasure in reading them and they will be classics forever, if not decades to come.

Summary: .....Hakan Nesser erzählt in dem ihm eigenen minimalistischen Stil die Geschichte über einen Mann, der verurteilt für zwei Morde, 24 Jahre seines Lebens im Gefängnis verbracht hat und offenbar genau in diesem Moment, da er entlassen wird, ermordet wird. Kommissar Van Veeteren, dieser eigentümliche kauzige und unorthodoxe Ermittler muss tief in die Vergangenheit eintauchen und am Ende sogar in Zweifel ziehen, ob der Ermordete Verhaven wirklich damals zurecht verurteilt wurde.
Der Plot des Romans verspricht Spannung, doch das Ergebnis konnte mich persönlich nicht nachhaltig überzeugen, einzig Kommissar Van Veeteren ist ein kleiner Lichtblick. Der gesamte Rest der Charaktere bleibt schwammig und difus und ich habe zwischendurch überhaupt nicht mehr durchgeblickt, von wem jetzt gerade die Rede ist; bei den vielen Namen auch nicht gerade einfach. Undramatisch läppert sich die Geschichte so dahin, und am Ende hatte ich das Gefühl, Nesser wusste beim Schreiben auch nicht genau, wer jetzt eigentlich der Täter sein soll und so hat er einfach eine Person bestimmt, ziemlich überraschend und leider auch unglaubwürdig für den Leser, denn dieser Charakter wurde nicht mal annäherungsweise angelegt. Das Mord-Motiv: unglaubwürdig konstruiert und unbefriedigend. Wirklich schade, denn der Autor kann es bestimmt besser, aber "Das falsche Urteil" lässt mich persönlich zurück mit hochgezogenen Augenbrauen und einem fragenden Blick: Buch zu Ende - und das solls jetzt gewesen sein?

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Summary: Eric Newby has here given us a wonderful travel anthology, great introductions to lots of writers/works. The entries are arranged by geographical region, and are chronological within each region, with representative entries from antiquity to modern times. Very highly recommend this anthology! My sister recently gave my Dad a copy, and he called to tell me about one entry, and that sparked my memory that I had a copy languishing with my other travel books. So I finally read, or rather, inhaled, this! Highly recommended!

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Summary: How to prepare, write and successfully complete an Essay, a Research Paper, a Dissertation, a Thesis

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Summary: Sir Isaac Newton, Optics
Christiaan Huygens, Treatise on Light

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Summary: With his denunciation of philosophers before him as lacking critical thought and mindlessly adhering to Christian tenets, Nietzsche took philosophy beyond religion, thus founding the Existentialist Movement. Questioning even the most basic of truths, Nietzsche writes that “from every point of view the erroneousness of the world in which we believe we live is the surest and firmest thing we can get our eyes on.” Staging a complete overhaul of the philosophical landscape is beyond ambitious and worthy of your attention. No matter what your beliefs, it is good to examine why you believe what you believe without fear of what you might discover.

Summary: This is Nietzsche at his best. Dangerous, ferocious , cunning and ultimately devastating. Here Nietzsche bares his teeth at the world and rips apart covention but always, always with a demonic grin on his satirical face. 'Human all to Human - can any man create a title more apt? His criticism of humanity is so incisive and decisive that many may quail on reading this text. Yet let all you faint hearted people be assured that Nietzsche's intention was not ridicule, per se. He challenges all our concepts and forces us to question our behaviour and thoughts - both as individuals and as a society.
Nieztsche is, in this work, inherently contradictory but this is , as always, his aim. His view is that there are no such things as absolutes yet he openly asks us to question his own statement on the grounds that if this is the case then his ideas are themselves doubtfull.
Thus 'Human all to Human' is a book of tremendous power and one that gives a novice, as well as the expert, more than a litte to dwell on.

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Summary: This book is an excellent introduction to the development of the sociological tradition and is also recommended reading for anyone interested in nineteenth-century intellectual history. Nisbet's book would be an excellent complement to H. Stuart Hughes' CONCIOUSNESS AND SOCIETY and Raymond Williams' CULTURE AND SOCIETY: 1780-1950. Nisbet's book clarifies key concepts of nineteenth-century social thought without assuming (as Hughes does) that the reader is already fully versed in the works of the thinkers he examines.

Summary: An introduction to the sociology of deviant behavior and social disorganization

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Summary: This gentleman has forever opened my eyes to the common denominator that exposes the state for what it is. Namely, the engine that allows the machine of plunder to operate with remarkable efficiency.
Anyone who dares to take the chance of contemplating Mr. Nock's revisionist history lesson will indeed reexamine the very nature of government.

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Summary: I giochi con le mani, le parole, i numeri

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Summary: Nazionalismo, bolscevismo, questione ebraica nella storia del Novecento

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Summary: Norberg's book is a carefully argued and meticulously sourced demolition of many of the myths and shibboleths that surround the globalization debate. For those of us, like me, who have grown up suffused with the anti-capitalist consensus of the left, this book makes for pretty devastating reading.
The point of this book, as Norberg explains early on, is not so much to defend the status quo, but to argue passionately for a better future, especially for the poor and oppressed of this world. This vision is based on freedom. Freedom to vote, freedom to choose our leaders, freedom to travel, to work and above all to buy and sell without hindrance and without borders. For Norberg believes that only a system of willing buyers and willing sellers, operating without hindrance, can produce a just global trading system, which he argues can benefit the poor just as much as the rich.

The most noticeable thing about Norberg's book is how carefully he sources his material - no anecdotes or hearsay evidence here, everything is thoroughly footnoted and statistics put into proper context. For example, Norberg demonstrates how the West, then East Asia, and now India and China, lifted millions out of poverty by liberalising trade arrangements. Most startling of all, Norberg shows how world poverty and global inequality are actually decreasing. Until reading this book I, like most people, believed the exact opposite. Aren't rich countries GDPs pulling away from those of poor countries? But this analysis is flawed, as Norberg demonstrates.
The key is that the statistics used by the anti-globalization movement to try to demonstrate widening inequality do not take account of the cost of living. Rather than raw dollar income, you have to factor in the "cost of living index". Once you understand this, everything slots into place. To put it simply, an income of $2,000 a year in low-cost India will buy you a better standard of living than one of $10,000 a year in expensive Britain. It's obvious when you think about it. Also, most statistics do not take account of where exactly poor people live. Poverty world-wide is decreasing because the huge populations of China and India now have such high growth rates. You can only "prove" that poverty is worsening on the planet by assigning countries like Haiti the same population as countries like China and then drawing a graph! Once you factor in these crucial requirements it is indisputable that inequality between the richest and poorest peoples on earth is narrowing. It really is simple, straightforward economics.
Not that Norberg is an uncritical admirer of current trading arrangements. Some poor countries have remained poor or sunk further because of, he argues, political corruption and exclusion from free-trade arrangements. He attacks the hypocrisy of rich Western nations who preach free trade but fail to practise it by imposing tariffs and trade barriers on poor farmers and producers in (some) developing countries. As Norberg demonstrates, the restriction on wealth creation in some parts of the 3rd world is caused by their exclusion from free-market capitalism, not by an excess of it!
Norberg deconstructs many other popular fads and myths of our time. He says that drug companies should keep their profits, Nike should open more factories in Asia, and all trade barriers should be abolished. He says that globalization is good because far from producing a bland, homogenized 'McWorld', it has given so many the chance to sample so much, from whichever country they like. Whatever your views, and I was unsure I agreed with some of his ideas, it is hard not to be impressed when his arguments are based on logic, facts and statistics not taken out of context or in isolation.
Visit any bookshop and you will see a proliferation of works decrying the capitalist system, and globalization, as A Bad Thing. Naomi Klein, Noreena Hertz, William Stiglitz; the list is endless. As someone who approached this whole topic with an open mind, I am thankful that Johan Norberg has produced this very readable and accessible book as a counter-argument. Admirers of Naomi Klein's 'No Logo', for example, are in for a rude awakening if they read this book. With surgical precision Norberg picks apart her arguments and buries them beneath an avalanche of facts and logic. This book is mandatory reading for all those interested in global justice, poverty and globalization. I challenge anyone to read this book and not be rendered at the very least sceptical about the anti-globalization arguments.
As Norberg says, he hates poverty - not wealth. His book presents a highly convincing manifesto for a just and better world.

Summary: Scritti sulla realtà del governo, della democrazia parlamentare e dello sfruttamento democratico

Summary: "Conventional Lies of our Civilization" from Max Nordau. Zionist leader, physician, author, and social critic (1849-1923).

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Summary: Same book as the paperback "The Design of Everyday Things". Just as good a book under either title. (You'll find more reviews of it under the other title.)

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Summary: An Anthology of Medieval Poetry and Prose

Summary: Dall'età feudale alla vigilia della rivoluzione industriale

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Summary: So, you've been through a bad time, you can't seem to come out the other side smiling , or maybe you can't even find the way out. So you are recommended to buy 'women who love too much'. You sit, you read, you cry, you read and somewhere, fairly near the start of the book, you realise that you are reading about yourself.
So cleverly worded it is too that you realise that once you posess this book, you have in fact taken the first step in your addiction recovery,
You need to keep it as a reference point because the journey that you're on now will be the hardest one you have ever embarked upon, believe me, I'm doing it while you read.
But it will work and now you are on the right road....

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Summary: A concise and objective study of the growing pains of a giant tracing the economy of the USSR from the war communism of the very early 20th century, through the New Economic Policy of the 1920s and Stalin's coercion, to the Soviet Great Leap Forward of five-year plans, collectivization and Stakhanovism.

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Summary: Robert Nozick argues from the (Kantian) principle that nothing and nobody can use an individual as a means rather than an end. We are inviolable in ourselves as individuals and as owners of our property (legitimately acquired in the form of land etc.; or understood as our bodies/minds). Any boundary crossing not expressly consented to, is a violation of these fundamental negative rights. Understood as such, any state that seeks to redistribute through taxation is performing an unconsented-to boundary crossing, and is therefore guilty of violation of these fundamental rights.
It’s altogether a very impressive feat of logical, consistent argumentation from first principles. I find the book impeccable. I am not a libertarian after reading Nozick’s book, but it has forced me to devote a lot of time and energy to working out why I’m not a libertarian. After all, who can disagree with the principle of ‘don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want others to do to you’? The morality underlying Nozick’s edifice is entirely acceptable, and yet as the argument progresses I found myself getting more and more uncomfortable. The problem has to do with which rights you might agree are fundamental and inviolable. Is the right to property, however acquired, fundamental to liberty? Nozick argues that it is. Without justice in property, there is no justice. Or Freedom. Or Liberty. Without the concept of private property, we are all potentially slaves to the State.
Concomitant with that proposition is an attitude which can be labelled ‘individual atomism’. Nozick, in keeping with other libertarians like Von Mises, Rothbard and Hoppe believes that individuals are paramount, unique and indivisible. Nothing may impinge on them. They enter the world fully formed (philosophically speaking) and exist before, above and outside of society. Indeed, I suspect that for most libertarians, society is a rootless (pointless?) concept. This isn’t necessarily a provable falsity. It is a view-point which however, is myopic. For by focussing so exclusively on one aspect of individuality, it ignores a host of other elements that contribute to individuality. Humans do not grow up alone. Our very being – in whatever category you choose to view it (philosophically, developmentally, ethically, biologically) – is formed in relation to, in opposition to, in agreement with others of our species (and, indeed, with other species). There is a totality which, through a ‘perspective shift’ suddenly leaps into sight. It is this – society? – which Nozick et. al. are uncomfortable with. To be fair to Nozick, he is perhaps an abstainer on the concept of society. In the ‘Utopia’ part of his book, he argues that as individuals we have the freedom to choose whichever society we might, assuming we can find enough other individuals who share our value preferences. And indeed, by going back to the first ethical principle of ‘don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you’ Nozick can claim that he’s arguing from a principle which recognises other individuals as equal to – if completely separate – from ourselves.
If there is a flaw in the libertarian and/or Nightwatchman State position, we must seek it in the so-called inviolability of private property rights. Nozick is very fuzzy here, and such fuzziness is telling. He disagrees with the Lockian formula for justice in acquisition and replaces it with a notion that there is justice in acquisition if by such acquisition we don’t leave others any worse off. If we do, then compensation (however determined) is due. That’s a very ‘nice’ principle, but it seems to me to be a fairytale. A libertarian political philosophy has to, at some stage, come to grips with the notion of origins, and it is here that Nozick fails. Can there ever be justice in acquisition of private property? How much property is needed? Can somebody allowably grab more than others? If so, then they will have more ‘freedom’ than the rest, and more liberty. A secondary consideration has to do with demographics. Libertarianism seems to me to be a view-point ideally suited to frontier communities. Where are we to find such communities these days? And how could you possible recreate them?
A final word on the usual association of libertarianism and free-market economics. Clearly Nozick thinks that only the unfettered operations of a free-market can sort out the competing claims of individuals in a State Of Nature; and that through such operations a minimal or Nightwatchman State can arise. He is, to be fair, agnostic on the rights of individuals to choose other forms of economic arrangements in his Utopia. But I suspect that he’ll have his bets firmly behind the capitalists who will out-compete all other social systems…

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