Customer Reviews

Non Campus Mentis

5 star:		(79)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is the funniest book I have read in years!!!!!!

Knowing that I was a history major, my teenage daughter raced in last night to tell me I had to read this book and review it. Since her tips are usually outstanding, I went off in search of the book and found it hidden on the back shelf of a local book store. I glanced at one page . . . and was hooked! Soon, my loud laughs were drawing puzzled glances from all directions. Even after I finished the book, I kept rereading it. Some of the humor is even richer the second time.

Professor Henriksson worked with friends and colleagues at over two dozen colleges and universities to locate these quotes from actual term papers and blue-book examinations. In some cases, he has done a little editing to improve the flow, but he says the actual words and spellings are unchanged. Apparently, these examples reflect what students have written over the last 30 years in U.S. and Canadian colleges and universities.

"Every generation has to make sense of the past for itself." This is a book of errors, but ones that show "the ingenious and often comic ways we all attempt to make sense of information we can't understand because we have no context or frame of reference for it."

The entire history of humanity as we understand it is covered, from the Garden of Eden to prehistoric times to the world of the 1990s.

The errors broadly fall into the following categories:

1. Astonishing misstatements ("History . . . started in 1815." "Plato invented reality.").

2. Misspellings based on not understanding what the real word is or means ("Fryers were required to take a vow of pottery." "Unoccupied Bishop Bricks could be cause for problems.").

3. Geographical misplacements ("The French king moved the Popes to Arizona where he could keep an eye on them." "The Boston Tea Party was held at Pearl Harbor.").

4. People substitutions ("Dick Cavett was the first European to visit Newfoundland." "Yorktown was sight of Robert E. Lee's greatest victory.")

5. Misidentifications (". . . Spinning Jenny, a young girl forced to work more than 40 hours a week." "During the Middle Ages everyone was middle aged.").

6. Sexual Innuendoes ("Vauban was the royal Minister of Flirtation.").

At the end of the book are some hilarious maps that show where various countries and empires are "located."

To bring back a sense of reality, there's a brief quiz at the end (with no answers) that you can take to see how well you know your world history. I'm afraid that I failed the test. And my answers weren't nearly as funny as these. So the best laugh is on me!

I do hope that Professor Henriksson will gift us with another volume of marvelous work on fractured history.

For teachers of all subjects, this book points out the importance of getting feedback on what has been heard and understood in order to correct misunderstandings before testing students. That same lesson applies to all of us in overcoming the communications stall that plagues all human efforts at cooperation.

Where do you "make it up" when you don't know the answer? When would you be better off "looking it up" rather than "making it up?"

If God is indeed merciful, then we will not be condemned to repeat the history presented by these college students. Professor Henriksson has excerpted some stunning examples of "higher" learning from his student's essays, including such gems as:

* "The Wholey Roman Empire amazed many when it was found in Germany."

* "The Hundred Years War (1320-1600) was fought over English holidays in France."

* "World War II became the Cold War, because Benjamin Franklin Roosevelt did not trust Lenin and Stalin. An ironed curtain fell across the haunches of Europe."

And my personal favorite:

* "Anarchism is a system of government headed by an Anarch. Canada, for example, became an anarchy in 1867."

If you enjoy this sort of dry humor, then get a copy of this book for yourself or for the teacher in your life. And for the sake of humanity, MAKE YOUR KIDS DO THEIR HOMEWORK!

Over the past 10 years or so, I've been the recipient of several e-mails containing the history of America (or of the world) according to student term papers, they have invariably been quite funny, and this book, which is a much expanded collection of similar writings, is also very good.

After reading about 10-20 pages at a sitting, though, I find I begin to get tired of the endless strings of mis-heard, mistyped, or just plain confused ramblings of people who actually managed to make it into college somehow (and worse yet, people who may already have gotten out of college). In small doses, though, this book really is quite hysterical.

This one goes straight to the magazine basket in the bathroom, where it will be much appreciated.

With apologies to all who contributed to this book I laughed really hard while reading most of it, right up to where I got to the self test. I then said to myself "oh my. I dont know who or what or when either!" In any case I think this book can be a great teaching tool. Not only is it a perfect example of how ineffective our school systems can be but as soon as I finished the book, I went straight to the web and researched every question on that self test. I have hope that other readers will do the same.

I enjoyed this book on a recent train ride, and I fear I frightened my fellow passengers with my frequent guffaws. While I wonder if this book wasn't a bit unfair to Henriksson's students, his seamless weaving together of history examination errors into a Bizarro-universe world history is original and uproarious.

One warning: Some of the jokes will be lost on those unfamiliar with the minutae of history. I am a history buff, and my wife a history teacher, and even we missed some references. At times, I felt as uninformed as those poor dunces Henriksson has exposed.

A hysterical look at the butchery of history by students across the country. Lists of things like this regularly pop up on the Internet, but those fall far short of the true ineptitude shown by some of our nation's students in the pages of this book. Might bring tears to your eyes--caused by both horror and laughter. The funniest ones might be those that show some inventive qualities--unable to come up with the answer, some students resorted to wild interpretations of what little they knew, with outrageous results. The perfect gift for history buffs, teachers, or professors...well, anyone who enjoys a good laugh. Hands down, this has to be one of the funniest things I've read in a while. As a student of history and a former teacher's assistant, I've seen things like this before...but these are far crazier. If you need a good laugh, here's the ticket.

Practically the only book out there where you can learn about how, in the nineteenth century, "America was an unequal society where only White males could download access to the power serge" or that "the Second World War was not concluded until 1957". The perfect holiday gift for the academic in your life, or for anyone who suspects that Dublin is not located in South Africa, China, Boston or Chicago.

...because you'll bust your stitches. Neither should you attempt to read this while sitting alone in a crowded waiting room or train/plane. People will think you are nuts when you laugh out loud. I gave this book to my sophisticated collegiate son and even he couldn't keep a straight face for more than 5 pages. The maps at the end are worth the price of the book where you will see, for instance, that New England hangs just south of England in the Artic (which is designated the "Antarctica", complete with a "South Pole") and that Bermuda is in Northern Canada (aka USSR). You will also learn that the Alps are in Northern Africa and that the Amazon River flows through "Upper Lower Down Egypt." Please do read the author's opinion of his students toward the end of the book and try his quiz which will inspire your sympathy toward the students who provided the material for this book.

I have been a devoted reader of Richard Lederer's "Anguished English" series for many years; one of my very favorite sections in each of his books has been history according to student bloopers. When I stumbled across "Non Campus Mentis" compiled by Anders Henriksson, I jumped at the chance to own an entire book of hilarious student errors.

To put it bluntly, I love this book. I enjoy the bloopers themselves and the very presentation of the book; it is organized into chapters by historical era, with the type on wide rule lines. Pictures of historical figures and places enhance the text, especially since the captions reflect the bloopers. There are even Post-it notes of bloopers scattered across the pages. Whoever designed this book did a brilliant job, for the presentation is unrivaled.

Here are a few of my favorite lines from the book:
"Mary and Joseph went from inn to inn trying to find a place for Jesus to be born, but they were refused everywhere because they were Jewish."

"Girls were typically sent to finishing schools, where the point was to finish them off."

"Japan boomed Pearl Harbor, the main U.S. base in southern California. American sailors watched in shock as the sky filled with Japanese zebras."

If you already own or have read Non Campus Mentis, do NOT buy this book. I read Non Campus Mentis about a year ago and howled my way through it, so when I went online and saw that the author had written another book (Ignorance is Blitz), I ordered it right away. Imagine my dismay when I began to read the book and discovered that IT IS THE SAME BOOK as Non Campus Mentis. The publishers have simply reprinted Non Campus Mentis under a new title. So in other words, I have two copies of the same book. On the other hand, if you haven't read Non Campus Mentis, you will love this book. Just don't get both.