Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies, by Sacha Stern

Stern, Sacha. Calendars in Antiquity: Empires, States, and Societies. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Link: http://amzn.com/0199589445

From the biography page at University College London:

Sacha Stern is Professor of Rabbinic Judaism and Head of Department at the UCL Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies. He holds a BA in Ancient History from Oxford (1986), an MA in Social Anthropology from UCL (1988), and a D.Phil in Jewish Studies from Oxford (1992). He has also studied in Yeshivot in Israel. Before joining UCL in 2005, he was Lecturer in Jewish Studies at Jews' College, London and then Reader in Jewish Studies at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies). [link]

Stern has done extensive academic research and publication on the reckoning of time in the ancient world, especially as those relate to the peoples and cultures of the Bible.

Calendars in Antiquity is 430 pages, 20 page dibliography, and index.

Stern's focus is to counter the generally held theories concerning the development of calendars which he belives are flawed. Two main issues addressed are:

1.  that the development of the calendar "cannot be simply explained as the result of Egyptian influence" (p. 427)
2.  that the calendar is not "the inevitable outcome of some deterministic progression from 'primitive' to 'advanced'; indeed, the evolution of calendars had little to do with what we would call scientific progress.' (ibid.)

In this review I will focus on just a few of Stern's arguments with some detail and then summarize. My hope is to help draw out some examples of the benefits of this work to the Biblical exegete.

Stern's methodology is to focus on the historical cultural aspects of how calendars functioned in their societies and the societal influences that can be shown or reasonably understood to have influenced the changes. Since those influences can be very broad, Stern focuses particularly on the political aspects of cultural forces. Stern limits his calendrical focus chiefly to units of time as they affect annual reckoning. Thus he does not go into detail on how each of the different societies reckoned the hours of the day except as it relates to how the begining of a month or year was fixed. He also limited his study to societies of Classical Antiquity and their interactions leading to the development of the Julian Calendar in late antiquity. Stern does not include calendar traditions from the Far East, ancient America, or later developments like the Islamic calendar.

The study is divided into two main parts: 

• Part I: From City States to Great Empires: The Rise of the Fixed Calendar.
• Part II: The Empires Challenged and Dissolved: Calendar Diversity and Fragmentation.

The first part looks at how the various societies that participated in Classical Antiquity reckoned time.

In ancient Greece and Babylon (Chaptes 1 and 2) the calendars were lunar, as was the calendar of Republican Rome. The evidence from Europe also leads us to conclude that the Celtic/Gaulic and German calendars were also lunar.

And there was, for example: among the Greeks and Babylonians, great variety in naming and reckoning months, festivals, and when the new year was to be counted. Individual city-states kept their own month-names and methods of intercalation. This is shown by multiple dating on inscriptions of treaties and contracts.

Intercalation and calendar "tampering" were essentially political tools which not only helped keep the lunar reckoning of time in line with the yearly seasons, but also allowed rulers to do things like: avoid missing a religious festival because a battle was taking place; extend the days to allow tribute and taxes to be brought in before a deadline; and extend their term of office. In the case of the Babylonian city states and the rise of the neo-Assyrian (8th-7th cent. BC) it was the king who declared the first of the month.

The process of unifying calendars between these groups took place when city-states formed alliances or were made part of a larger regional political power.

Stern argues that these lunar calendars were not less rational, less scientific, or less emperical than our current Gregorian/Julian Calendar. These calendars were actually very much emperical as they depended upon the actual observation of the new moon to establish the beginning of a month. The intercalations were based on both natural and societal realities (agricultural, political, and religious). And, being tied to the moon, they were solidly based in a method of reckoning that was available to and understood by most members of their societies. 

They were not origninally solar nor were they originally stellar calendars. Thus the first month (moon) of a year would not begin on the same day of the solar year as we reckon time. Religious festivals, which also varied from one city-state to another, could be delayed with intercalation (the adding of a month) or hastened by suppression (ignoring or eliminating days from the count). But they were not at first tied to solar events (equinox, solstice, etc.) nor to the direct timing of stellar events (the heliacal rising of Pliedes). 

The development of astronomical calendars in Ancient Greece from the late 5th century BC (Meton) and early 4th century BC (Callippus) is a feature limited mainly to Athens. Stern uses inscriptional and historical writings from the period to demonstrate that the astronomical calendars were not used for civic dating. For example, astronomical dates based on these reckonings are ignored by Herotodus and Thucidides. Medical works from the Classical period reference astronomical phenomena, but not as a chronological dating tool. It is only in later with writers [like Diodorus and Geminus (mid to late 1st cent. BC)] who project the Callipic Cycle or Metonic Cycle back upon historical events as an absolute chronological dating scheme. Other lines of evidence include the later (3rd cent. BC) introduction of the parapegmata (a calendar peg-board set up in public) which mentioned astronomical and weather events as part of the count of days.

For the early Babylonians the calenders consisted of months of either 29 or 30 days. This calendar length of the month determined by the sighting of the next new moon. The unification of calendars in Mesopotamia began in the 2nd millenium BC and is tied together with the unification of the city-states under the Assyrian kingdom in 1100 BC. From the influence of this kingdom the month names it chose as standard were spread throughout its region of influence. 

These month names and calendar practice influenced also the names of the months and how they were reckoned by the people of Israel as they settled in Canaan and were impacted by Assyria and neo-Babylonia.

While literature of astronomy/astrology began earlier in Mesopotamia than in Greece (Astrological Omen Lists, letters of astrologers to kings), the chief calendrical function of the astrologer was to site the new moon and report to the king. These documents demonstrate that they had the astronomical knowledge to predict when the new moon should occur. However the calendar still depended upon emperical sighting and political authority. The king would choose to declare the new month. The year consisted of 12 or 13 months, depending upon choice of intercalation.

Reports of new moon sightings from the astrologers to the king become very rare from the 6th-1st cent. BC. However, a group of documents called the Astronomical Diaries yield a great deal of information that allow for reasonably precise dates for this period when the modern calendar is retrojected upon the Babylonian lunar calendar. Stern points out that even though there is a very high degree of astronomical knowledge, this did not effect a change from a lunar to a solar calendar. The basic change in the calendar from the older to the newer is in a greater reliance upon predictions of new moons. This reduced dependency upon the limits of a courier to relay the proclamation of new moons, allowing political administration of wider territories.

It is not until the Achaemenid period (5th cent. BC) that evidence of a fixed calendrical cycle to regulate the lunar year. Firm evidence exists from Cyrus' conquest of Babylon in 539 BC. The main evidence comes from the astronomical texts called MUL.APIN and the Saros Cannon texts.

By the Selucid period (312-63 BC) a method of calculating the vernal Equinox was developed. This method differs from modern methods and yields different, usually later, dates than the actual equinox. But this calculation seems to have had no clearly evident affect on the method of intercalation used for the Babylonian calendar.

Data of regular intercalations for the Parthian period from AD 224 and following is unclear.

The Babylonian Calendar remained lunar, but became more fixed through time. The method of regularizing the calendar remained true to its emperical use with the lunar month through better and more reliable predictability of the new moon. This reliability of prediction allowed for the calendar's use over a much wider area of political control. The Babylonian Calendar influenced many regional and local calendars. Both its naming conventions and its methods were incorporated by subject peoples. The calendars of the Old Testament Israelites were strongly influenced.

The Egyptian Calendar (Chapter 3) represents the only fixed (and ideally solar) calendar in Classical Antiquity. But as the Egyptian Calendar was fixed at 365 days the first day of the year drifted forward through the actual solar year by 1 day every four years. This method of reckoning the number of days in the year was adopted by many peoples.

The Persian Zoroastrian Calendar, for example, used the same 365 day scheme with the first day of the year moving one solar day earlier every four years. There is no evidence of the Zoroastrian Calendar before the 6th century BC. Also, the only period at which the Persian Zoroastrian Calendar year actually began on or near the vernal equinox was the years 481-479 BC. The source of Egyptian influence most probably came after the Achaemenid empire conquered Egypt under Cambysus in 525 BC. 

Likewise, the Egyptian Calendar's soar length year became the basis for the Julian reforms of the Republican Roman Calendar. Julius Caesar included an extra day every fourth year. This was to prevent the solar drift that occured in the Egyptian and Persian Zoroastrian Calendars. 

The use of a fixed, predictable calendar was a tool of empire that allowed the Romans to manage a much larger region of influence more conveniently than under the previous lunar calendar of the Republic. 

However, the Julian Calendar reforms were not carried out well at first. The use of inclusive counting by Romans appears to have lead to an over intercalation of leap years in the early period so that Augustus had to revise the leap year schedule temporarily in 8 BC.  Also, while the calendar reforms spread very quickly and widely in the western provinces of the empire, the eastern provinces retained a great deal of calendar independence. 

The calendars of Antioch, Gaza, Ashkelon, Jerusalem, and many other cities individualistic. Often they adopted the form of the Julian calendar but retained regional cultural names for the months; maintained a different new year's date; or --as in the case of Jerusalem-- kept a parallel lunar civic calendar that was important to the culture and religion of the local people. The adoption of the Julian reforms in these regions also was not immediate, in some cases not being adopted until the end of the 1st or mid 2nd cent. AD.

In his second part, Stern describes various examples and ways in which local cultures expressed a kind of dissidence to political authority or subversion by modification of the Julian reforms. 

The data and study of the evidence in the above mentioned examples are more than sufficient to recommend this work to the Biblical exegete. The research presented on the Gallic and Jewish Calendars in the sixth chapter stand out as especially useful.

But the closing chapter is extremely valuable. "Secterianism and heresy: From Qumran Calendars to the Christian Easter Controversies."

In this chapter Stern describes, among other things, some of the formative issues for the Rabbinic Calendar as a distinct expression differing from the Judaean/Palestinian Calendar that preceeded it. And in his discussion of the development of the Christian Calendar Stern brings out some very good arguments about how the Christian Calendar began be a confession of Orthodoxy. Highlighted in this discussion are groups which diverged from this calendrical confession for the purpose of expressing their distinction from the Orthodox Catholic Church, such as the Nestorians, Novations, and the Arians when they were opposing the reinstatement of Athanasius.

While Stern's focus is mainly on the political aspects of these divisions, combining his research with a reading of doctrinal and liturgical history is very helpful and enlightening. 

The book is expensive.  $180. Perhaps one can find it for less than that somewhere online. But I would highly recommend this book for seminary libraries, college libraries, and for those interested in chronology, chronography, ancient history, doctrinal history, and the history of the liturgical year.

The History Of Time, by Leofranck Holford-Strevens

The History of Time: A Very Short Introduction
by Leofranc Holford-Strevens
Link: http://amzn.com/0192804995 

 Oxford University Press, 2005.

Holford-Strevens' discussion is kept at an introductory level, the glossary is necessary. The study of time keeping, days, and calendars requires learning a little specialized vocabulary. And while Holford-Strevens does a good job explaining terms, once they are explained the terms are used.

The book is an introduction. This means that there are no large discussions over controverted issues, no detailed footnotes. But, the discussion and presentation is based on very sound scholarship. The brief discussion in the text does make reference to primary sources where it is beneficial. And Holford-Strevens includes an annotated list of works for further reading.

Seven chapters are followed by two appendixes, a list for further reading, a glossary, and an index.

The chapters follow on the main themes of time keeping:

1. The day
2. Months and years
3. Prehistory and history of the modern calendar
4. Easter
5. Weeks and seasons
6. Other calendars
7. Marking the year

The introductions to these topics are very helpful in demonstrating not only where certain concepts and structures came from, but also how they were discussed historically.

For example, subdividing the month into 7-day weeks was not a common idea in ancient times. The Romans, from whom our main system of months derive, actually used an 8-day market cycle. It is called nundial (nine-day).

The Romans (and to some extent other cultures too) used an inclusive count for days. Thus a "nine-day" was a Roman market "week" consisting of eight days, starting over again on the ninth day. In the Gospel of John when the disciples are gathered on the "eighth-day" that means a week later, the same day of the week as before. "The third day" is today, tomorrow, and the third.

All in all, the introduction is very helpful for western and near eastern calendars. Holford-Strevens also discusses Chinese, Japanese, and Mesoamerican calendars. While these latter calendars fall a bit outside my research interest, I would still say that this volume's introductions to those calenders were, perhaps, too brief to be helpful.

It is "very short"--only 142 pages in a 4.5x6.75 inch volume, just over 1/4" thick. There are 26 illustrations, mainly of ancient calendars. The format of the book and the size of the page makes many of these illustrations hard to see. For example, the first illustration "Detail of Egyptian diagonal calendar" is photo reduced to fit 5 3/4 x 1 1/2 inch space. This makes any features noted of the calendar in the text very difficult to see because of the small size. Illustration 12, a photo of a sixth century mosaic of Dionysius Exiguus's tables for calculating Easter is printed inverted.

Leofranc Holford-Strevens is also co-editor/author of The Oxford Book of Days (2000), and The Oxford Companion to the Year (1999).

Revolt in Paradise

by K'Tut Tantri

Thumbs up.

I picked this book up at a second hand store, while just quickly perusing the shelves and randomly grabbing books with covers or titles that looked interesting.  I'm glad I did.  Although I read this book several months ago, I didn't take the time to write about it immediately, so I'll have to try to reconstruct all the thoughts I had at that time.

K'tut Tantri as she came to be known, was born in Scotland, of Manx (from the Isle of Man) parentage.  She moved with her mother after the first World War to Hollywood, California, where she eventually ended up writing for British publications about various facets of the film industry.  But K'tut describes herself as having too much of the Manx in her to really fit in, in America.  She was an artist and a dreamer.

After seeing a film set in Bali, she decided that is where she was meant to be.  She packed up and moved there in a somewhat haphazard fashion, with little money or preparation.

The book describes her life there, from her first interactions with the Dutch colonial government; to her stumbling upon the palace of the Rajah and coming to secure the close friendship of the Rajah's son, Anak Agung Nura; her stint as a hotel operator; her imprisonment at the hands of the Japanese during World War II; and her time as a freedom fighter for the Indonesians.

I found her account fascinating.  I learned much about the history of Indonesia.  I was appalled at the treatment of the Indonesian peoples by the Dutch during the colonial era, and especially in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when Indonesians were seeking their freedom.

The book would be a useful tie-in when teaching about imperialism or for a southeast Asian supplement to a World War II unit.  The content is appropriate for any age; I think the writing itself could be readily enjoyed by a capable junior high aged reader.

I've read a little more about K'tut Tantri since reading this book. Although the book is presented as non-fiction, historians and anthropologists would find her account a reflection of the artistic and dreamy personality embodied in K'tut.  It's filled with a good bit of truth, but also, disappointingly, contains a fantasy element.  I found this obituary interesting.

Stolen Genes, Stolen Children

by G. R. Revelle

One half of a thumb up, one and a half down.

This is a hard review for me to do because it's by a start-up author who I believe self-publishes under his own company, Smultron Publications.  Since I myself hope to have some of my writing published one day, I want to support the effort of Mr. Revelle.  But there are things within this book that make it impossible for me to give it a two thumbs up.

The book is historical fiction, including bits of 20th century Norwegian and Swedish history, and World War II history.  The historical information and several main themes within this book appeal to me.  Progressivism, eugenics, and genetic manipulation are exposed and discussed.  These are important ideas.  Society benefits from conversations about the sins of its past.  Too often they are forgotten under the broiling current of contemporary societal conversations, even when those conversations follow lines of reasoning similar to the ideas acknowledged as mistakes of past generations.  From the introduction to Stolen Genes, Stolen Children, Mr. Revelle himself appears to have written, at least partially, with a goal of inspiring such conversation.

The plot is compelling.  I was drawn in, although it took me several chapters to feel the pull.  The characters are well done, although a few are somewhat one-dimensional.  Mr. Revelle does a good job describing scenery and sounds in nature and the city.

The story is set in 1965, but also contains many flashbacks to the days before, during, and immediately after World War II.  In some ways, the flashbacks are the story, more than the later story line.

While reading the paper one afternoon, Karin sees the name, Arlene Angel, in a list of nurses being tried for their participation in the euthanasia programs practiced under the Third Reich.  This name jumped out at Karin, because it was a pseudonym occasionally used long ago by Alena Engela, a good friend from Karin's nursing school days.  Reminded of the close friendship they had enjoyed in their early years, Karin sets out to contact this Arlene Angel to determine if it is indeed her friend.   And if so, to lend whatever aid and support she can to Alena during the trial.

In the process of digging through old records, hoping to find a way to exonerate her friend, and at the same time experiencing continuing mortification at the extent of the euthanasia program, Karin discovers several unexpected connections.

The flashbacks in the narrative trace the history of Alena; aeronautics engineer, Lorentz Klein; the Norwegian Resistance movement; and Karin, herself; along with a number of less major characters.

The story line is very interesting and contains a few twists and turns that I perhaps ought to have seen coming, but didn't.

The negative aspects of the book begin immediately, in the first paragraphs of the prologue.  The author introduces his work with a somewhat hoaky fictional account of how an early farming woman discovered fertilizer when an early herdsman let his water buffalo wander onto the woman's garden.  The somewhat silly account seems unrelated to the point for which the author uses it.  And it presents a weak beginning to what later in the prologue becomes a very good introduction to the philosophies presented in Stolen Genes, Stolen Children.

Regarding the narrative's exploration of the philosophies or ideals of genetic engineering and eugenics, the connection between the fictional narrative and a deeper analysis of such philosophies is somewhat weak.  The author leaves to the reader most of the thinking and exploring .  The narrative certainly introduces the the subject and shows it from several angles.  But from the build-up in the introduction, I was expecting a richer or somehow different depth of discussion of the subject.

The biggest negative for this story, however, is that it is a prime example of the risks of self-publishing; or put another way, it lends credence to the importance of a professional editorial staff.  The book is filled with grammatical errors.  Truly filled.  To the point of distracting from the story line.  There are many points at which a sentence begins one way and ends in a different direction.  The reader is left interpreting what the author intended.  There are sentences in which the subject or object of a clause is missing, and again the reader must guess.  Sentence parts often don't agree in person, number, tense, voice, etc.  Commas are used very sloppily, often giving the sentence an entirely different sense than that which the author obviously intends.  There are many places the spellcheck or auto-correct was trusted in error.

And let me reiterate.  The book is filled with mistakes of this sort.  Sometimes there are several examples per page.

The narrative also contains at least one historical error, of the sort which a professional editor is trained to catch.  The author includes as historical, the mythology surrounding the song, Edelweiss, that Richard Rogers wrote for the 1959, The Sound of Music.  One scene in the book describes a character getting sentimental over the song as an Austrian folk song from his childhood in the early years of the 20th century.

From the prologue, "The novel... is based on facts, figures, and personalities, though the characters and plot themselves are purely fictional."  The author is making a claim to the historicity of the information presented within the fictional plot.  The somewhat lengthy introductory pages of the prologue seem to be intended to make people consider and evaluate the idea of eugenics and its place in the world today.  Besides just being annoying and distracting to a reader, the sloppy presentation of the story distracts from the author's purpose.

A reader is left wondering about the care that went into the historical research and the accuracy with which it is presented.  "If the author is so careless with his editing, how can I trust his research?"

Especially when an author is making a claim toward a certain ideal, such an author ought to use care in presenting the material.  The carelessness of presentation casts doubt upon the entire issue.

Giants in the Earth

by O. E. Rolvaag

Thumbs up.

This classic tale of Norwegian immigration to Dakota Territory, tells the story of the Spring Creek Settlement.  Per and Beret Hansa, Hans and Sorrina Olsa, Syvert and Kjersti Tonseten, and the two Solum brothers face together, the perils of westward expansion.  Among the hardships they must bear are hunger, backbreaking labor, difficulties in childbirth, fear of the native people, grasshoppers, and summer and winter storms.  But worse by far for some, is the fear and loneliness of this new country.  The openness and stillness are so pervasive they are hard to ignore.  And for some settlers, including Per Hansa's Beret, they sometimes lead to insanity.

Rolvaag, himself a Norwegian immigrant as a young man, tells all too realistically the sights and sounds of the prairie and the various emotions of the settlers.  We laugh and cry with them.  We appreciate the noble sacrifices they made in order to turn what is described as a desolate and forbidding landscape into the communities and farms that thrive in those prairie lands today. 

We hear with Per Hansa and Beret the, "Squeak, squeak," of the wagon wheels and the, "Tish-ah, tish-ah," of the grasses opening before and closing behind the wagon.

We share with Beret the fear of the open spaces and the almost supernatural forces that inhabit them. We can feel the great silence along with those first settlers.

We experience the manic energy of Per Hansa to get more and more ground broken and keep ahead of his neighbors.  And we rejoice over each acre of sod he breaks and the large sod house and stable he provides his family.

We feel Syvert and Kjersti's sadness, and even bitterness, when they are not able to have children.  We breath a sigh of relief with Per Hansa, when his wife and child make it through a frighteningly difficult birth.

We rejoice Per Hansa's faithful friends, Hans Olsa and Sorrina, when their friend's wife returns to her senses.  We can appreciate the import of their steadfastness to Per Hansa and his family.

But most of all, we feel gratitude and awe toward our forebears for the hardships they surmounted that we might have the farms and towns that make the great plains the great communities they are today.  These people were truly giants in the earth.

The Day They Came to Arrest the Book

by Nat Hentoff

Thumbs mostly up.

More than telling a story, Mr. Hentoff uses this book as a platform from which to introduce, in a manner interesting to middle through high school aged kids, the idea of censorship and book banning.  The setting is a somewhat generic Anywhere, USA, town high school, aptly named, George Mason High School.  The cast of characters includes students: Barnaby, the high school newspaper editor of Jewish descent; Gordon, an African American young man; Kate, an aspiring feminist; and several other minor characters: students, teachers, the principle, a past and present librarian, and various townspeople.

The basic story line begins with a history teacher, Mrs. Baines, juxtaposing Huckleberry Finn with readings from Alexis de Tocqueville in order to introduce her 19th century American history class.  Gordon, the African American student, is frustrated, seething would be more accurate, over the racial slurs and constant use of the "n-word" in Huckleberry Finn.  After his father demands the principle remove this book from the school entirely, Mr. Moore, the smooth talking principle tries to deal with the situation discretely.  He encounters resistance, however, from both Mrs. Baines and the new librarian, Miss Fitzgerald.  They demand the principle follow official procedure.

This leads to the school board appointing a review committee which will hold community hearings.  The committee will then approve a recommendation by vote and present it to the school board for guidance.  The school board must then hold its own open meetings and cast a vote.  Throughout this process the faculty, student body, and entire community becomes involved.  Eventually the situation ends up on national news.

Mr. Hentoff does a fairly good job of trying to portray all the various sides of the issue of censorship within a school setting.  He addresses the ideas of students being a captive audience, of schools being houses of learning, and the debate over at what age and in what way students ought to be introduced to analyzing ideas different than their own.  He addresses the idea of a restricted book shelf and students opting out of certain class materials.  He addresses teachers having autonomy within their classes.  He is a little weak, in my opinion, on parental authority and rights.

I think Mr. Hentoff did a pretty good job of spinning a compelling plot out of a civics lesson.

The characters are somewhat unevenly drawn.  The adults are developed very well.  They are often quite comical in their idiosyncrasies.  The kids are not very well developed except to tell us one or two things that might be important to them.  The author takes a couple of chapters to introduce the students, but it seemed a bit rushed.

There is one somewhat blaring irony that I can't decide if the author stuck in intentionally. I think I've decided it was an oversight, since it was mentioned, but it's irony never brought out.   At one point the kids are trying to think of an example of a book nobody could disapprove.  Kate, the budding feminist, who has jumped on the anti-Huck Finn bandwagon for it's portrayal of women's place in society, suggests Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as a book about which nobody could complain.  Since so many of the issues in Pride and Prejudice revolve around what we might consider very restrictive roles for women in society, it somewhat surprised me.  It was either done intentionally, in order to show the blunders any strongly opinionated person might sometimes stumble into, or it was sloppy work on the part of the author and editor.

Another interesting point of view is portrayed in a conversation about a new class offering the content of which is aimed at teaching different sides of cultural issues.  The stated goal is to pacify parents who might worry that teachers are too liberal on social issues.  The list of typical issues with which conservatives might be concerned:  flat earth, forced sterilization of the poor, and the use of military might against Russia.  (This was written in 1982).  I found it interesting that forced sterilization is portrayed as a conservative issue, since in its heyday, it was quite obviously a progressive issue. I also, even as an active Conservative, don't know too may people (read: any) who believe the earth is flat.

All in all this book could be useful for teaching about political activism, the role of community and parental involvement in schools, and the obvious topic of censorship and banning of books.  But I would say that a parent would want to read this book along with a child, because of the many shades of opinion portrayed.  The book also leads to a conclusion with which all parents may not totally agree.

I myself mostly agree with the solution, but there are things within the book I would have discussed further with a student.  I didn't like the way some of the opinions were presented and the slant that was taken toward some viewpoints.

Progressivism, the Great Depression and the New Deal: 1901-1941

Two thumbs way down.

Brothers Christopher Collier and James Lincon Colier eliminate everything from their presentation of the Progressive Movement which would cast any bad light upon the movement. Any reference to Eugenics from Theodore Roosevelt to FDR is expunged. The mass sterilization of "unfit" Americans is left out of their record.

The Racism of the Progressive movement is not recorded in the Coliers' small volume. And, indeed, most of the descendants of Progressivism in today's Liberal movement try to hide this heritage which still forms the basis of their classist division of American politics.

Further, the Colliers fail to discuss how FDR's programs, from the CCC to the Blue Eagle in the National Recovery Act had terrorized the citizens of the United States contrary to the limits placed on the Federal Government by the Constitution.

The authors fail to discuss the fact that Progressivists were at the root of the Prohibitionist movement and the source of gangster movements during prohibition.

FDR's threat to pack the Supreme Court with pro-Statist judges is left undisclosed.

Also, the authors failed to include the fact that the Communist Party was at the root of the movement to unionize labor through the end of the 19th Century and throughout the 20th Century in the period they discuss.

This volume was designed for instructing Jr and Sr. Highschool students in the benefits of the Progressive movement of the early 20th Century. 

Repeated throughout the volume is the Marxist ideology that the source of good for the common citizen had to be Big Government and that in America the "wealth was not being fairly shared." (P. 17 and throughout)

Instead they present a negative picture of Capitalism and "laissez-faire" policy. The individual citizen, his or her own desires, personal trade and property do not matter to these authors.

What they do present is a fictional recreation of a world that did not exist, where Progressivism actually cares for the individual (despite massive data to the contrary), and where Progressivism helped the country out of the Depression (despite the economic facts of history). The authors' negligence in discussing Social Darwinism leaves this reader to conclude that they yearn for the Marxist and racist eugenic and economic policies of the early 20th Century.