Rating: 
Summary: Horrible history!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and Pointed
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A Hysterical History by College and Graduate Students!
Review: 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?"
Rating:
Summary: Animal House Desecrated
Review: This is American humor returned to us through all the Sept 11 downturn. I am sure a movie will also be made of this American Graffiti. The real truth from a college educated point of view lets us know our children better start learning earlier, like in Kindergarden. Well, Bill recommends SB 1 or God By Kark Mark Maddox
Rating:
Summary: The Panama Canal is in Mexico. Where else would it be?
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: an amazing book
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Off to college...
Review: My parents gave me this book as a gift before my first semester of freshamn classes and said, "Don't make these mistakes." Some mistakes are really funny, some are really sad, and others just plain stupid. Since then I have made a few typos myself when writing essay exams with a time constraint. These comments are belivable especially because with a time limit all students make a mistake now and then. It is a light hearted book and should be taken that way.
Rating:
Summary: Sadly Funny
Review: "Non Campus Mentis" is a short entertaining volume filled with the mistaken knowledge of college students. Henriksson has compiled a hilarious collection of mistakes that students have written in their college term papers. However, at the same time that you find yourself laughing at their humorous wrongs, you realize how truly sad their mistaken knowledge is.
"Non Campus Mentis" is arranged into different eras of history. It weaves students' mistakes in with doctored pictures of historical figures and places. It makes for a funny read, even if it is better to read in small spurts - perfect toilet reading.
As entertaining as these mistakes are, what makes this whole colelction rather sad, is the knowledge that these students who wrote these humorous passages have no clue that they're wrong. It demonstrates a sad state of affairs in American education.
Rating:
Summary: Selected history from College and Graduate Students
Review: This is a selected collection of history papers by Collage students. They have been adjusted for publication and sorted into 26 categories, from "Hindsight into the Future" to "The Age of Now". The items are full of misunderstandings and euphemisms.
Some samples are:
* Christianity was just another mystery cult until Jesus was born.
* Hannabelle crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants and thus invaded Africa.
* The five European grade powers were England, France, Germany, Russia, and Australia-Mongolia.
At fires it seems dump but then you get hooked and almost want to top them.
Rating:
Summary: Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Studen
Review: Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students
by Anders Henriksson is an outrageously funny and sad book. It is funny because of the answers such as 'Marie Curie won the Noel Prize for inventing he radiator'. It is sad because these are supposed to be bright and inteligent young people at their outmost best. One can not help to love it though for inane answers such as this regarding Florence Nightingale. 'Florence Nightingale was a singer who became involved with American Flag'. This is a keeper.
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