5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Decent--but Not cohesive..., October 8, 2007
This review is from: The Human Mosaic (Paperback)
My main gripe about this book is that it is organized in such a fashion that it makes it difficult to outline. The chapters don't develop in a manner that lends itself easily to straightforward interpretation of main ideas. Instead, the authors rely primarily on providing definitions of terms, and then presenting information that is of secondary consequence.
The book is informative, but not linearly coherent.
To address the issues raised by another reviewer about Islam, after some more scrupulous reading of those sections, I believe the reviewer let his anger get the best of him. For example, on the section dealing with the "Sour Grapes" reaction, he automatically combined the imposition of pork-eating taboos with the "sour grapes" reaction, which the authors clearly didn't do. They develop the idea and geographical importance of pork-eating, and gives the "sour grapes" reaction as a possible explanation to the eschewing of pork--and they offer others as well. The idea was to show that we don't know where it began, from a cultural stance. The author attaches from an early stage that eschewing pork was part of Judaism, a much older tradition than Islam or Christianity, and makes the point that the distribution of the taboo follows in line with areas that pork isn't easy to cultivate, since a nomadic lifestyle is not suitable for pork farming.
Note that this is different than saying "Islamic people made conquered peoples eschew pork because Islamic people were jealous of those who raised pork." This statement is almost nonsensical, but if you were to simplify the claim raised by the other reviewer, this is what you get.
Did later islamic kingdoms impose the non-eating of pork in the regions of Babylon and those cities near rivers? Yes they did. The author was wrong to use the language of "for revenge," as it puts a slightly moral stance on the books position, and does paint Islam in a negative light--which a good textbook shouldn't do.
And in dealing with the oft-violent histories of all three monotheist religions, the authors spent a great deal of time on the christian enslavement and mistreatment of Indians by the sword here in the Americas--showing that Christians did bad things in the name of their faith, just as Muslims did.
As far as religions go however, the treatment of buddhism and hinduism is even more sparse than it is on Islam, though I have yet to read a western-written book that covers eastern traditions in an interesting fashion. Most of them have a sudden style-shift from seeming interested in the subject matter to suddenly seeming more like an encyclopaedic regurgitation of well-known facts.
This book is guilty of this as well. Docked one star for its non-linear style, and one star for its poor treatment of eastern religions.
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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I give it 2 "horns" up, October 31, 2000
I am currently enrolled in Professor Terry Jordan-Bychkov's Cultural Geography class, and the book is basically a culmination of his travels all over the world. The majority of the pictures in the book were personally taken by Professor Jordan himself, and it makes the class even more interesting. Professor Jordan's love for Geography emulates throughout the entire book, and it is easy to read as a result. The book is set in very vivid outlines, so it is easy to follow, and each chapter builds upon one another to form the, in words frequently used by Professor Jordan, the "Human Mosiac." The book is intersting, easy reading, and the class is even better. For those of you former, future, or current Longhorns, I HIGHLY reccommend the class; for those of you who cannot have the opportunity to learn from such a brilliant and cultured man, the book is the next best thing
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10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
informative but biased, February 4, 2001
I took courses with Dr. Lester Rowntree during 1981 and 1990 at San Jose State University. I found him to be very knowledgeable except about Islam. This textbook which is co-authored by Dr. Rowntree contains misleading or inaccurate statements about Islam. For example, It stated in page 180 and 181 (fourth edition), that Islam spread by militaristic conquests while christianity spread by contact conversion. This is not accurate. In page 185 the authors contended that, despite the Muslims belief, the black stone in the Holy Mosque in Mecca is a meteorite. In the next page the authors stated, under the picture of the Ka'aba, that pilgrims come from afar to Mecca, for they believe that the black stone was sent down from heaven by Allah, the Islamic god. The problems with this understatement are, first: Muslims believe that Allah is the personal name of God the creator and lord of all creatures not just Muslims; second: Muslims come to Mecca not for the sake of the black stone, but because they were commanded in the Holy Quran to perform Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetimes. It is also appropriate to mention that the pilgrimage was first initiated at the time of the prophets Abraham and his son Ismail who built the Holy Mosque in Mecca long before the advent of Islam. Unlike the case with Judaism in page 191 this book ignored, in pages 192-193, the fact that the Islamic taboo on eating pork meat was also decreed by devine revelation in the Holy Quran. It stated that it was a "sour grapes" reaction to the inability of the Muslim nomads to raise and own pigs. Professor Rowntree and his co-author also stated in page 193 that in the seventh century A.D., the Muslim nomads imposed their religion, complete with the pork taboo, on the farming people of the river valleys as a final "revenge". In conclusion, this is a very informative and useful book. However, on behalf of the one billion Muslims in the world today, I strongly suggest rewriting the parts dealing with the Islamic culture. Thank you in advavce.
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