OK, why should everyone else have all the fun ? Here are my 3 choices ( 1 ) William H. McNeill / The Rise of the West / 1964 Comprehensive view of human history from 3000 BC to the middle of the 20th century. The first such history to make full use of social science theories throughout in explaining the past, that and the first serious use ( that I know about ) of environmental explanations to account for a least a few developments . Very ecumenical outlook about the world's religions, and a lot of attention to the "Axial Age," roughly 700 BC to the time of Christ, with an extension to cover Islam, seeking to account for the rise of today's major faiths in terms of the rise of an early form of global culture. ( 2 ) Raphael Patai / The Hebrew Goddess / 1967, rev. 1990 Many people's views of Biblical religion ( or religion more generally ) have been revolutionized by Patai's book, and this includes me ^2 Scholarly study of the feminine Holy Spirit of the OT, provides an abundance of archaeological evidence, plus internal evidence from close reading of the Hebrew of the Bible, that the ancient Hebrews ( until almost the time of Christ among some people ) worshipped "Yahweh and his Asherah," aka Astarte / Ishtar. ( 3 ) Roughing It / Mark Twain -------------------------------------------------------------- I was really tempted to include Machiavelli's " The Prince," or Plato's Republic. Or Sun Tzu, "The Art of War," and, yes, I am, a fan 'of Max Weber also. "Purpose Driven Life" was another possibility except that Warren, since that book, has said and done some s-t-r-a-n-g-e things and am I wary of him now . It is pretty hard to go wrong with Christian Hoff Summers, " Who Stole Feminism ? " but there is a limit of 3, and anyway, no way could I have written a book from her special perspective, so that didn't make the list. Otherwise, the three chosen are as good as any books ever get. Billy
_______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
