Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Past and Present (Thomas Carlyle) by Thomas Carlyle, Richard D. Altick ISBN: 0-8147-0562-6 Publisher: New York University Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 1977 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (3 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Salvation for the Western World
Comment: A review of Carlyle's Past and Present written in Carlylese (he's much better at it than I am...)
This book could change the whole Western world, if only men would read it, and believe it! -We could have several Utopias springing up in North American and throughout Europe within the space of five years! So here you are. In this work, Carlyle criticizes the social, economic, and political arrangements in England of the 1840s. I will not bother to explain what those arrangements were; I will only say that his criticism is as relevant to us now as it was to the people of his own time. My friends, very simply put, then as now, we have 'parted company with the eternal inner Facts of this Universe, and followed the outer transient Appearances thereof...[we] have forgotten the right Inner True, and taken up with the Outer Sham-true.' Yes Carlyle's English is a bit strange, but try not to be distracted by outer appearances, that is his point! In many aspects of our Western life, we have forgotten what is true and at the heart of the matter, and taken up with superficial nonsense.
Let's begin with economics. In Carlyle's day, the Industrialists were trying their damnedest to figure out a way to make the production of cotton cheaper. This is a sham! Instead, figure out a way, with all your cotton cloth, to 'cover all the backs of England.' How like our present day Global Economists, wracking their brains trying to get the poor fools of the Third World to buy our products. Why don't they stop a moment and see if everyone at home is yet sufficiently provided for. Do your own fellow citizens need what you are producing, or have they enough of it, need they some other product which it is in your power to produce? And what is this of Advertising? Carlyle remembers a hat-maker who built a seven-foot hat of wood and plaster; wheeled it about the streets of London to attract customers to his shop. Does this improve the quality or utility of your hats, man, or does it only fool people into thinking that you have done honest work? I begin to think that more money is made in Advertising in these times of ours than in any other enterprise. What are our cities but places to tack up Billboards, to display Clothes in shop windows, to produce commercials for television, all to fool people into buying rubbish they don't need. Don't Advertise, Just Work!
Religion? Why all the silly ceremonies, the controversies, feuding between different sects. Do we need absurd ceremonies and idolatrous rituals to believe in a Divine Power? True Religion is 'Moral Conscience, Inner Light' 'All Religion [is] here to remind us, better or worse, of what we already know, better or worse, of the quite infinite difference between a Good man, and a Bad, to bid us love infinitely the one, abhor infinitely the other, to strive infinitely to be the one, and not the other.' A Religious man is he who makes his whole life an appeal to Heaven, to Divine Justice, to Goodness, and who cannot be happy if he do not always choose the right thing for his family, his country, his God and himself.
Politics? Why do we continue to elect Bill Slicktons and Tony Blears, vicious Garry Condits and brainless Bushes, when these rotten Governors have in their own souls nothing to govern by. They are play-actors, nothing more, and very poor ones at that. Behind the smile, the make-up, the $400 hair-cut lies only one thing: 'impudent dishonesty--brazen insensibility to lying and to making others lie' Look into the souls of such men and what will you see: 'a general grey twilight, looming with shapes of expediencies, parliamentary traditions, division lists [like opinion polls], election-funds, leading articles...' The true leader, on the other hand, is a hero: he wants none of our material rewards, fears none of our punishments, believes that there is such a thing as eternal justice, will stop at nothing until he has made life better, happier, more fruitful for his fellow citizens. How do we elect such a man, instead of another politician, that is, another professional liar, wood and plaster dummy? We as voters must cease to vote wrong! How is that to be accomplished? Well that is not so easily done. We must all awaken from this state of enchantment, says Carlyle, must begin to learn to distinguish just and unjust, admirable and despicable in our fellow men, and in ourselves. READ THE BOOK!!!
Rating: 5
Summary: Buyer beware!!
Comment: This is for sure a great book, if you have the ability to concentrate for more than five minutes, unlike the majority of the Herd, in mean people, of today. If your intrest lies in the substance of this book, read some other review, I'm only going to tell you that, the (1909) publication, stinks; the so called book, is more like a oversized magizine, and the print is about the size of a footnote in the bible.
Rating: 5
Summary: The Best Carlyle- As lucid as Acid
Comment: Widely known is the lucid and acid historic sense of Thomas Carlyle. This is what you will find in this book. More accessible than the monumental 'Sartor Resartus', but at the same high level. I strongly recomend that book as a way to enter into the vivid world of Carlyle.
 |
Title: Sartor Resartus (Oxford World's Classics) by Thomas Carlyle, Kerry McSweeney, Peter Sabor ISBN: 0192836730 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
 |
Title: On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle ISBN: 0803250304 Publisher: University of Nebraska Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1966 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
 |
Title: Unto This Last: And Other Writings (Penguin Classics) by John Ruskin ISBN: 0140432116 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 1985 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
 |
Title: Culture and Anarchy and Other Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thoughts) by Matthew Arnold, Stefan Collini ISBN: 052137796X Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 01 February, 1993 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (Oxford World's Classics) by Walter Pater, Adam Phillips ISBN: 019283553X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
