Berkeley linguistics professor John McWhorter; born at the dawn of the post-Civil Rights era; spent years trying to make sense of this question. Now he dares to say the unsayable: racism's ugliest legacy is the disease of defeatism that has infected black America. Losing the Race explores the three main components of this cultural virus: the cults of victimology; separatism; and antiintellectualism that are making blacks their own worst enemies in the struggle for success.More angry than Stephen Carter; more pragmatic and compassionate than Shelby Steele; more forward-looking than Stanley Crouch; McWhorter represents an original and provocative point of view. With Losing the Race; a bold new voice rises among black intellectuals.
#1023319 in Books Cantor; Norman F. 2004-09-14 2004-09-14Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.00 x .68 x 5.31l; .50 #File Name: 0060930985272 pages
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Simplistic; opinionated but worth readingBy StargazerThis book serves as a rough and ready introduction to antiquity. It's short and covers a lot of ground. The writing is breezy and easy to digest.If you have no background in this area and want some rough guidelines-- go for it. It covers the most important broad stokes well.If you are familiar with ancient history this book suffers from many generalizations; oversimplifications and even some outright errors. Oh and the writing isn't very elegant. But Cantor still makes many good points and it's a challenge to spot some of these above problems and turn them over in your mind. Kind of auto-Socratic! Any big survey book spanning this range of time and cultures typically has lots of problems. At least this one makes some useful bridges between the ideas and cultures of antiquity and is a quick read.This book has it's place among many better books on ancient history in my library.9 of 12 people found the following review helpful. A huge waste of time--rated one start because there are no fractionsBy K. CluckFortunately the book was not that expensive so I simply wasted time and did not match it with wasted money. The book is portrayed as a survey from Ancient Sumeria through the Roman Empire. This is patently false. I have looked all through for any reference to either the Sumerians or the Assyrians and find none. This could of course be because I read about half and decided I had wasted enough valuable time. Any information prior to the Hellenists is almost unheard of.The author makes grand assumptions that are fine for a writer of historical fiction but not for an academic study of a subject. For example his claim that it is now "a proven fact" that the Hebrew slavery; delivery and migration to Palesine are simply myths is patently over-reaching. I know there is little archeological evidence to support the complete Biblical narrative but that is far from proof of falsehood. The author should take a clue from all those who at one time claimed that Nineveh; the Hittites and many other ancient cultures and events were myths. It is fine to speculate; but to claim as fact something that is still unknown is poor scholarship at best.1 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Not worth the timeBy J. AdamsWhile Cantor has written a lot about history; this book is not really very good. Some of his writting is too cynical; some is just plain wrong; and some so contrdictory as to be silly. His chapter about the Justinian code is ridiculous because the Justinian code is the wave of the future; a code subject to abuse; a threat to the left and right in Europe who model the European Union's proposed constitution after it; etc. I read the chapter twice to see if i missed something or that Cantor must not have read his own material because it was just plain dumb.There are many books about this subject matter; thousands in fact; but i wouldn't waste my time with this book which is more like a Reader's Digest for Cliff Note readers about Antiquity. I read it because there were so many positive reviews; but the readers who are critical of the book have good reason to call Cantor to task.
