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What books are you reading?
tomos:
He doesn't go in for soggy mysticism of the "earth energies" variety either. He comes over to me, lacking qualifications for sensible criticism myself, as having been carried away by his idea.
-rjbull (December 06, 2010, 02:29 PM)
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I know nothing about them myself. There could well be a scientific/archaeological basis for it, but once, eh, enthusuaists start talking about 'spiritual' powers related to some site or concept, the archaeologists/scientists tend to avoid the whole thing like the plague. Which means it's nearly impossible to find out what's really the case. Wikipedia is disputed and doesnt really have very much info, although it is interesting to read what the dowsers have to say about it [In the 1930s, two British dowsers...]- I grew up in a town in the west of Ireland, but in the surrounding countryside dowsers were used to find a location for a well. From what I heard they would even be able to tell how deep you'd have to go. So I have great respect for dowsers...
40hz:
It made the middle ages sound very appealing compared to our current Western capitalist culture, and I'd like to read more about the European guilds system. Any one know a good book on the subject?
-Ampa (December 06, 2010, 02:44 PM)
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If you don't mind something that focuses primarily on the economic ramifications of the guild system, Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe by Steven Epstein is a good read. We used it in an economics course I took a few years ago, and I thought it was a pretty fascinating book.
Amazon sells it for a lot less than the college bookstore wanted for it! :'( Link here.
For excellent general introductions to medieval lifestyles try the "Daily Life" books by Frances & Joseph Gies. There are three titles in the series:
* Life in a Medieval Castle
* Life in a Medieval City
* Life in a Medieval Village
I just discovered there's also a 400-page omnibus edition (if you want all three in a single volume :mrgreen:) called: Daily Life in Medieval Times: A Vivid, Detailed Account of Birth, Marriage and Death; Food, Clothing and Housing; Love and Labor in the Middle Ages
What books are you reading?
Amazon carries all of these too. But your local bookstore and library usually have copies since this is an extremely popular series. You can always check it out at those places before you buy.
:Thmbsup:
mouser:
thanks for the recommendation of the Daily Life book, i think i'm going to pick that up -- looks cool.
rjbull:
I know nothing about them myself. There could well be a scientific/archaeological basis for it, but once, eh, enthusuaists start talking about 'spiritual' powers related to some site or concept, the archaeologists/scientists tend to avoid the whole thing like the plague.-tomos (December 06, 2010, 02:52 PM)
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Quite so, very sensible of them. But... there's a book called The Experience of Landscape by Jay Appleton (Wiley, revised edition 1996, ISBN 0-471-96235-X). It starts from the question, "What do we like about landscape and why do we like it?" I've never managed to finish the book, but have heard others who have speak of it. The thesis appears to be that since humans evolved as hunter-gatherers, the landscape is very much the arena in which life happens. The ideal landscape consists of a location where one can look out for potential prey and for potential predators, with somewhere close by to rapidly retreat to in the case of the latter. He calls this idea Prospect-Refuge-Hazard theory. No way to prove this, but it seems to make sense, and would indicate a deep and emotional relationship with the landscape would be likely. That might be the stimulus for 'spirituality' notions.
Which means it's nearly impossible to find out what's really the case. Wikipedia is disputed and doesnt really have very much info, although it is interesting to read what the dowsers have to say about it [In the 1930s, two British dowsers...]- I grew up in a town in the west of Ireland, but in the surrounding countryside dowsers were used to find a location for a well. From what I heard they would even be able to tell how deep you'd have to go. So I have great respect for dowsers...
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The Wikipedia article does justice to Watkins, as far as I read him; it quotes him from other sources than The Old Straight Track.
I haven't heard much about dowsing recently, but it works well enough to be at least semi-respectable. My former boss is a Ph.D and a very good scientist and technologist; he found it worked for him on at least one occasion. It's been mentioned in New Scientist magazine, albeit not (I think) for a long time. The last speculation I remember seeing was that dowsing is a naturally-occurring form of nuclear magnetic resonance in the brain.
40hz:
Just finished reading Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff (who also wrote Fool on the Hill, which is one of my absolute favorite novels. :Thmbsup:)
What books are you reading?
Bad Monkeys is dark, disturbing, and quasi sci-fi. It deals with Ms. Jane Charlotte, operative for The Department for the Final Disposition of Irredeemable Persons, a shadowy and elusive organization which investigates, judges, and removes from society those deemed beyond hope of redemption. Jane is one of their hatchet men.
The story unfolds as a series of flashbacks and interviews with her prison psychologist. Jane has been arrested for murder. The government is trying to determine if she is criminally insane since nobody seems to believe her truly weird tale of how she was recruited and became part of what she insists is an actual government agency.
As her interviews progress, her story begins to get stranger and stranger. And more and more believable...
Disturbing book. And a very relevant moral tale in this era of "rendition," extrajudicial government enforcement actions, secret prisons, and wars on terror.
8)
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