Customer Reviews

World Politics and You

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Dan Caldwell is innovative in his approach to make the learning experience practical, informative, and interesting. Perhaps the greatest asset to World Politics and You are the critexes (Critical Thinking Exercises) at the beginning of each chapter. Each critex helps wet the palate for the reading that follows. These exercises challenge the reader to move outside of their comfort zone and contemplate issues relative to the reading. While starting each chapter in critical thought, I found the reading to be much more applicable and thought-provoking. It is truly a revolutionary way of challenging learners to be thinkers, rather than simply fact-gatherers. Way to go, Dr Caldwell!

Caldwell makes learning facts about international politics interesting enough not to fall asleep while reading it. Unlike other books that are used for college courses this one flows. It makes the reading more enjoyable.

This book is laced with incorrect historical information, such as the author's statement that Prince Metternich represented the "Austro-Hungarian Empire" at the Congress of Vienna 1814-1815. For a political scientist who uses models founded in European history he should know better than this. The "Dual Monarchy" that the moniker "Austro-Hungarian" stands for did not begin until 1867. This was as a result of Vienna losing a war to Prussia, in which it had bid unsuccessfully for leadership of the German Confederation. The resulting re-organization of the Hapsburg domains resulted in the dual monarchy. Caldwell should know this, but he refers to the dual monarchy as if it existed well before 1867 all throughout this book. I attended a lecture of his years ago and he was even making this mistake then.
He also refers to Julius Caesar as a "great Roman emperor." Anyone who knows their Roman history knows that Caesar himself never held such a title. He was counsel in the First Triumpherate, then a self-declared dictator of Rome, and always a general, but never made emperor.

Caldwell also cites the Christian Crusades of the High Middle Ages as the beginning of Christian-Muslim enmity. He implies that these episodes of Christian expansionism were responsible for much tragedy and suffering; it is plain to see that he connects the crusades to today's troubles. But he ignores the fact that Arab soldiers invaded the Iberia peninsula (and hence Europe) in the early 8th century, and their over-run of western Europe was only stopped during 732 by Charles Martell and the Franks at the Battle of Poitiers. But I guess we are to assume these events had nothing to do with any long-lasting Christian-Muslim discord.

The book also starts off with a silly, and with respect to his thesis, non-sequitur fulmination on African slavery. Caldwell, without any apparent connections to his book's themes, sees fit to dwell on African slavery and seems to imply that students should feel sorry for fellow students who are of African ancestry. Never mind that Slavey was destroyed a century and a half ago, that problems since then (as stated by Eric Foner) have stemmed from the botched Recontruction of the South, and that the descendants of those slaves are today much better off then if they were living today in Africa. If Caldwell's sentiments are to be taken seriously, then as much pity and externally-obligated respect shouild also be due to Hispanics, who lost family lands in the Southwest after the Mexican War, and to Irish and Scottish, many of whom came here as indentured servants following Oliver Cromwell's trashing of the Celt lands or came here in absolute destitution after the famine.

The book is written to the level of a 10th grader, I'd guess. I'm not certain if this is a virtue or a flaw. I suspect some of both. A great writer such as Norman Davies should not have to resort to such over-simplification, as it causes generalities that leave out salient facts. But Caldwell apparently is not in Davies' class.