Antisemitism

This book has received some bad reviews on Amazon which are, for the most part, focussed on the last 2 or 3 pages where the author deals with modern day anti-Israel forces and separates these from anti-semitism. I too disagree with this separation, however that is a point for debate and should not mar an otherwise excellent introduction to an important subject. The author gives a fairly short view of medieval anti-semitism, with the first blood-libel occurring in England but most of the book is devoted to central and western europe and the differences between German and the other forms of Antisemitism. The Holocaust is very well covered as are the developments in the virulent Viennese antisemitism of the late 19th and early 20th century. This is a great introduction and even though one may disagree with the conclusion about modern anti-zionism it is a worthy member of the series.

Archaeology

This one doesn't really belong in this series. It should be a "for idiots" book. It is written in a jocular flippant manner that adds very little to ones understanding of the subject and, honestly isn't that funny. Of course along the way there is some good information here. It is, again, more a history of archaeology than a short text on the subject itself. The move from stratigraphy to todays techniques of mapping and reconstruction, the place of the discipline along side anthropology and the ethics of it all are covered.  If the cartoons were removed further coverage of some of these important aspects could be given, Instead there are many specially drawn full page cartoons and a lot of silly remarks and adolescent wordplays. The section on the modern and post-modern approaches is too short with little time given to a through analysis of the subject beyond the point that it is all basically a grey area and no one is completely ever right or wrong. The area of how to treat human remains gets similar short shrift. This book is in desperate need of a new edition.

Animal Rights

Great book, written by a fervent animal rights supporter but in a clear and logically defended way.
The book begins with a discussion of the changes in our attitudes towards animal suffering and treatment over the past few decades. It begins to use philosophical theory to decide whether animals have rights or not, whether they are sentient and whether they have a concept of "the future" without which killing them humanely would not be cruelty. What is clear is that he does not think that Animal Husbandry should be allowed  certainly not with modern farming methods and probably not with even a "family farm". He does allow that pets, particularly cats and dogs, may be permissible under his ethical guidelines and the odd zoo might still be in existence. The chapter on research is the most nuanced and this is clearly where the frontier of the argument lies, he seems to have little sympathy for the animal campaigners who destroy research labs and states that the main thrust of their efforts would best be directed at factory farms 5 billion animals a year being slaughtered rather than a maximum of 100 million in research labs.  I did not agree with all his arguments but they were cogently put and it has certainly accomplished the purpose of the book, it has made me think about animal rights in a different light.

Anglicanism

I have to admit that I now know a great deal more about this subject than I did before I read the book, Much more detail than I would ever need. An excellent book, concise writing which deals both with the conflicts in the modern communion and the history of the church from its founding to date. I  was sure that there were going to be an awful lot of theological arguments in the church almost along the "how many angles can be on the end of a pin" variety and I was not disappointed. Although in the 60's most English people would have declared Cof E as their religion this is no longer the case. "the church ceased to be the major voice in the state after the idea of "national character" on which the state was founded collapsed".  So the modern Church in its highly devolved form is merely a collection of very different churches from Liberal to very conservative. Amazingly however, the British Prime minister is still involved in picking Bishops and parliament still has a say in how the church is run. There was a wonderful " Yes, Prime Minister" about the changes in the church of England and the selection of Bishops which is reflected in this introduction. A great example for the rest of teh series.

The Anglo-Saxons

This book was a real disappointment.  Firstly it is a word for word copy of a chapter from the Oxford History of Britain and not a new one either but from the '80's. This means that the book is straight history without any discussion of the points of conflict between various historians. The pointing out of current ideas and  what is "new" thinking has been the best part of the series so far, this book has none of that. I was aware of much of the history admittedly only in general, but the Danegold, Offa  and the spread of Christianity into England are well documented elsewhere. In short, this was a reasonable 75 page introduction to the era but readers could save some money and buy the original book as several of the chapters appear as separate volumes in this series.

Ancient Warfare

The sub-title of this book could be "the invention of the western way of war". It is an excellent text which describes the many aspects of ancient warfare from the simple soldier through to tactics and the skill of generals. It does this with simple language and with many contemporary references. The author also uses this opportunity to decry the methods and theories of a number of modern historians with whom he has issues. Again this is a combination of the actual history of ancient warfare and the "history of the history of ancient warfare. From Greek hoplites to the roman legions and on to their influence on the citizen soldiers of the French revolution this book provides an insight into the lasting tradition of war. The methods of historical comparison are brought under suspicion as are the pitfalls of  deducing ancient techniques from modern equivalents. An excellent book.

Ancient Egypt

I really enjoyed this book. It is very well written and the author is clearly very knowledgable. Basically this book covers the major themes of Egyptology but not in chronological order. This sometimes leads to confusion and some of the pieces are hard to follow. I understand that a chronological history would have been impossible in the VSI format. My take home message from this book is that nearly everything we suppose we know from our general knowledge about ancient Egypt is untrue or at the best more complicated than we thought. Indeed, all the suppositions of earlier archeologists are biased because only certain types of artifacts have survived or yet to be unearthed. The book does deal with some of the postmodern inventions, the nubianization of history and the more outlandish ideas about the pyramids for instance.