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3.24 AVERAGE
3.24 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
medium-paced
Very very disappointed with this. What could be an interesting topic reads like chapters of Wikipedia and chatGPT combined.
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Really ambitious project that in my opinion did not live up to the hype. I think Mr. Furtado should have either picked less countries and have a better in depth analysis or cram in less information with each chapter.
The variety of historical periods covered in the chapters, and the events that the authors had chosen to include were intriguing. I enjoyed the fact that each essay was concise enough that I could read about a different country each day on my commute.
informative
reflective
medium-paced
informative
medium-paced
Although I liked the idea, the book doesn't really work as a whole. It's a collection of essays about the shaping of nation states, its (brief) histories and the way its inhabitants look at themselves and the rest of the world accordingly. It's not only the differences in style, but notably the differences in approach between the different authors that make this far less interesting (and fun) to read than it should.
The result is a very mixed set of essays, some of which are pure historical, scholastic accounts with dates and names, and some are more philosophical in nature, avoiding almost all factual instances altogether.
The reason I'm giving this 2 stars (actually it's more 2.5 stars) is that some of these essays are virtually unreadable. I was very keen to learn more about the history and the nature of the Irish, for instance, but the way it was written made me not being able to remember a single thing I read. And that's a shame, because there are some truly insightful chapters in here as well.
The result is a very mixed set of essays, some of which are pure historical, scholastic accounts with dates and names, and some are more philosophical in nature, avoiding almost all factual instances altogether.
The reason I'm giving this 2 stars (actually it's more 2.5 stars) is that some of these essays are virtually unreadable. I was very keen to learn more about the history and the nature of the Irish, for instance, but the way it was written made me not being able to remember a single thing I read. And that's a shame, because there are some truly insightful chapters in here as well.
informative
reflective
slow-paced
informative
reflective
fast-paced
The stories nations tell about their histories reveal so much about the national conciousness therein. It's no surprise, then that the best of these essays were fantastic. But they were so short that some of the essays felt more like a list of events, or a flashpoint of one small view rather than a plurality. Also, I didn't like the way they ordered the chapters- there didn't seem to be much organizing factor, and I would have liked less of a focus on Western countries.