Reviews for Lost Lands, Forgotten Realms (EasyRead Comfort Edition): Sunken Continents, Vanished Cities,...

The average rating for Lost Lands, Forgotten Realms (EasyRead Comfort Edition): Sunken Continents, Vanished Cities,... based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-09-24 00:00:00 Vicki Maccrimmon One of the best history books I have ever read. Norling uses an extensive array of examples and citations to explore some very big questions. The book does not merely seek to document an event, or shed light on a little known corner of history, instead it looks at centuries of history to explore large themes related to the course of human events. Chapters include: -Is anything inevitable -Are revolutions worth the cost -Does national character actually exist -What are the conditions for cultural achievement There are a few others as well, but these were my favorites. It is well written and accessible to all readers, not just historians. Of particular note is how well the text has stood the test of time. Written in the late 1960's, I was a bit concerned that the chapter on national character might be a bit behind the times in terms of a tolerant world view. I was wrong, other than a few outdated terms, the author addresses race, ethnicity, and notions of superiority in a way that could have been written yesterday. Overall, I strongly recommend it for everyone.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-11-10 00:00:00 Shawn Eric I was assigned this book as part of my undergrad studies in 1998. I decided, upon forming a Near-Eastern music ensemble this year, to go back and re-read this in its entirety. My goal was to see if there was more detailed information about maqamat or cultural terms for musical ideas from the Middle East, North Africa, and Baltic regions. I found the material to be already outdated by the 90's when it was written, finding most of the fieldwork or examples were from the 1970's. That was disappointment #1. Disappointment #2 was that much of the terminology, instrumentation naming, and styles were barely touched on, or were using terms that were Anglicized or simply no longer employed. I did learn a bit about Chinese and Japanese music that I didn't know from before, but that's because I knew essentially nothing! And disappointment #3 was that there is supposed to be an audio recording companion to this text, which was missing. I wanted to look at the discography, but none of the artists are credited by name, and not even song names were used. They use things like "karnatic song". That's not even remotely useful if you're using this as a launch point for primary music sources. In summary, there wasn't enough technical/ethnic background to make this interesting for even intermediate-level studies of Ethnomusicology, but you would require some background knowledge or training to follow some of the nuances of music theory (meters, phrasing, AABB, etc.). Overall, I wouldn't recommend this as a course book nor as layperson reading, as it fell short in both arenas.