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Summary: Another Outstanding Thesis
Review: Read it and weep, social "scientists." This is another terrific text by Murray that thoughtfully and systematically supports one undeniable fact: Virtually every significant advance in civilization and technology is the product of those awful, mostly dead, European white guys. Along with "The Bell Curve," these texts beautifully refute those who continue to promote failed policies such as "affirmative action" and "diversity." Thanks to Murray and others, we have a record of what actually happened, regardless of the revisionists, the likes of Jesse Jackson, and university leftists.Read it. Study it. Pass it along to your kids.
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Summary: Corporate funded Eurocentrism.
Review: The author of the Bell Curve is at it again, this time with a thesis that misinterprets the data of world history very badly. The rise of modernity was not the creation of the people who now run thinktanks, all that is left is for conservatives to spoil its potential. Another gift to postmodern disillusion.
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Summary: Heart of Darkness
Review: The great point of this book, indeed the great fact of Western "civilization," its unfathomable tragedy, its heart of darkness, can be found in the spectacular statistics for Jewish accomplishment in Europe, that cauldron of Christian Jew hate and mass murder. The great question is Why do the Christians hate, persecute and try to wipe out the very people whose brilliance has contributed so spectacularly to the civilizing of the human race? And what has the murder of six million in the mid-20th century done to impede human progress, given the brilliance, and more importantly the altruistic brilliance (all historic and ongoing screeds against them to the contrary), of this people, who now number 12 million souls on earth.
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Summary: Take a breath
Review: The other day Charles Murray said "Good morning." His Pavlovian critics typed for a month.
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Summary: deserves consideration: not knee-jerk liberal reaction
Review: the research in this book might be flawed: but consider the premise- if cultural and technological progress happens in spurts of growth-then why shouldn't 1400-1900 Europe just happen to have the greatest concentration of accomplishment? This is not a racist thesis. If accomplishment in arts and science is unevenly distributed, some places and times will see greater concentrations. I find it refreshing that he doesn't make some argument for the US the center of cultural advancement. Deserves serious thought.
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Summary: hate of religion caused our progress
Review: the writings of nietzsche attribute human achievement to the breaking-away from societal constraints BY "uebermensch" - supermen. in nietzsche's view, achievement is due to those who can defy and innovate on what society expects. compare galileo to st augustine, for example. if galileo was not skeptical of the church's doctrines, we'd probably still not have spacecraft. i believe the basic claim he is making, viz., that the west has achieved the most, culturally, is NOT because it has protestant christianity (think of michelangelo and leonardo da vinci and plato!) - rather, i believe it is because christianity was so repulsive to intelligent persons that they strove to __defeat__ it by examining nature. now that christianity is defeated, in other words, now that secularism, capitalism, and free speech, are the moral norms, naturally, the scientists no longer have a serious real enemy, so they have slackened off. furthermore, i believe that there are too many scientists now; in the nineteenth century, only an elite of rich "gentlemen" could afford to study science. now everyone does. so there are more monkeys looking at the same data and writing the same stuff.
hence less progress and more nitpicking about details of standard
ideas. if one reads thomas kuhn's work - the structure of scientific revolutions - one sees that science progresses in bursts where a genius steps forward to make a change. but what, actually, is left for science to do? cure aids? cure cancer? get to mars? get close-to-lightspeed space travel? and what else? not much. i conclude that science is slowing down because it's done its job.
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Summary: Caucasian Male Dominance Properly Reaffirmed
Review: There is abundant evidence to the effect that the white male is the most intelligent life form on the face of the earth even without this book. The statistics offered by Mr. Murray are irrefutable in demonstrating the intellectual dominance of the white male in all areas of human endeavor and the numbers serve simply to state the obvious. The author takes us on a whirlwind tour of man's intellectual history and identifies the most important contributors to that history. He focuses on literature, art, science, music, philosophy, technology, and mathematics as areas of human accomplishment that are the corner stone of Western Civilization and which no significant counterparts exist in other non-Caucasian cultures. Although he includes accomplishments by Orientals, these accomplishments pale before those of the West. In this regard there is good reason to ignore other cultures because they can offer no contribution to the advancement of mankind nor have they contributed to man's advancement in the past.
An interesting consequence of the statistics that the author seems to have missed is the reason that the white male dominates all other members of the species in terms of intellectual development when in fact the Mongolian race has a higher average IQ than the Caucasian race. The answer lies in the wider distribution of the IQ curve for the Caucasian race than for the Mongoloid race. The homogeneity of the Mongoloid race reflected in the lower standard deviation of their average intelligence prevents that race from producing a large number of geniuses while also limiting the number of morons produced. The lower homogeneity of the Caucasian race as reflected in the higher standard deviation of the average intelligence accounts for the larger number of geniuses and therefore the dominance of the white male. The higher standard deviation for the Caucasian raced also accounts for the higher level of morons produced by this race. Murray hints at the difference in standard deviation as accounting for differences between races when he accounts for the fact that the Caucasian female is not as productive as the Caucasian male despite the equality in average IQ. He explains correctly that this difference is due to the lower standard deviation in the average female IQ as opposed to the average male IQ. A book expanding on this concept as applied between races would be most enlightening and it would complement the present work and Mr. Murray's earlier "The Bell Curve".
The present work serves to identify the environments and conditions which are most likely to result in genius manifesting itself. One of the theories that Mr. Murray puts forth to explain the concentration of genius in particular locations is that genius exists in the population at all times, but it takes a nurturing environment to bring it to the fore. Mr. Murray argues that the West provided such an environment and this explains the concentration of genius in the West. This assessment is correct in the sense that genius begets genius, i.e. the physical, cultural, and political environments are themselves products of genius. It is interesting that Mr. Murray left out of the equation the fields of political and military accomplishments. Had he included these fields then the West's dominance over the rest of the world would have even been more profound, yet it is accomplishments in these fields that created the environments that gave rise to genius in the other areas.
While hinting at the general nature of genius, Mr. Murray did not, in my view, provide a sufficient enough explanation of its nature. As the evidence in his book demonstrates the most distinguishing feature of genius is its attention to detail. From music to art to science to literature to technology it is the attention to detail that distinguishes the truly great accomplishments and thereby the truly great genius from the lesser. Whatever else genius might be it is first and foremost attention to detail. It is the application of the capable mind to detail that gives rise to what Mr. Murray refers to as the meta-inventions.
Mr. Murray also suggests that genius requires inspiration as well as a nurturing environment to enable it to create something out of nothing. Religion serves that purpose. The most glorious works of art, the greatest philosophical works, the most magnificent architectural achievements, and the most beautiful music were all done to glorify God and not man. Thus genius exists for God's sake and not for man's.
Mr. Murray is to be commended for this book. He has done a yeoman's job to bring the truth to the attention of an otherwise hostile world. The book should be required reading in history and philosophy classes and I highly recommend it to those who seek out what the atheistic and multicultural left does not want us to know or wishes for us to forget.
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Summary: The Meaning and the Pursuit of Excellence
Review: This book is much more than cataloguing accomplishments of the arts and sciences and adjudicating their relative greatness. More importantly, this is a book about the meaning and the pursuit of excellence. Murray has an important message, which crystallizes toward the end of the book. An important part of the human spirit, after the basic needs of survival and procreation are met, is its natural attraction to truth, beauty and good. (This is the best elaboration I have seen of what is meant by the "pursuit of Happiness" in our Declaration of Independence) Given the right cultural climate, the emergence of excellence in the pursuit of truth, beauty and good, will thrive. I do not know if Murray had that message in mind and used the data to support it, or that he analyzed the data to conclude on that message. Either way, the message is powerful. Murray also made the point the religion (not organized religion, but a mature contemplation of truth, beauty and good) and its contagiousness is what is behind the waves of achievements and discoveries in history, entailing superhuman efforts and sacrifices that produced the greatest art and the articulation of the most insightful truths. There is in this book a detail list of "inventories" of great and significant figures and an elaboration of how they are selected, with special consideration -- allowing quotas, if you will -- for non-Western achievements. The inventories will undoubtedly generate a lot of debate from the PC crowd. Murray anticipated that and did quite a bit of that debate within the book. If you are a serious reader of the book, you will find that the inventories, despite the amount of space devoted to them, are mere launching pad for the thesis of what is the meaning of excellence. Like "The Bell Curve", this book is not for everybody. But for those who are drawn to the pursuit and appreciation of greatness and deference to truth, this book resonates powerfully with the mind.
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Summary: Documenting the Obvious
Review: This book provides potent ammunition against the central part of the current dogma of multiculturalism, that urges us to accept all cultures as equally praiseworthy. The principle antidote to this pernicious doctrine is to recognize that excellence exists, and to celebrate the undeniable fact of inequality in achievement that have enabled some to enrich us all. While we are perhaps all born equal in some sense, it is really an equality of zeroes; for babies have no political rights--they don't vote or hold office, and their only talent is to find their mother's breast. As individuals grow, the inequalities in them also inexorably grow, and differences become more and more obvious, sometimes even to the professors of sociology, anthropology and education. Murray's methodology and the data he uses and shows us in all of its glorious detail are refreshingly straightforward to understand, and represents an advance in the application of historiometry that he can be proud of. His finding about the dominance of Western European culture and white males in producing the inventions of the modern world is undeniable. The steam engine, transistor, and the scientific method were not discovered by the Yanomamo, Zulus or Eskimos. Sometimes it is not such a bad thing to state the obvious. The important endeavor, as Murray emphasizes, is to try to understand the things that make for greatness. What role is played by the accidents of history, the availability of minerals in our territories, the success of our warriors, minorities in our cities, and population genetics? What causes the rise and fall of nations, and what can be done to be sure that our own culture of the West is preserved and protected against the eternal Barbarian at the gate?
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: This book should be re-titled: The Exploration of Various Statistical Methods for Analyzing Biographical Resources.
I purchased this book expecting an interesting, and perhaps controversial, survey of human endeavor and accomplishment. However, the book turned out to be an uninteresting account of the survey techniques that Murray used to compile the mountains of lists, charts, and graphs which make up the majority of this disappointing book.
After the caveat filled introduction Murray begins the book with a well written and fascinating look into some of the greatest cultures in the history of humanity such as Imperial China and Victorian London. This "sense of time" section, which lasts only a few pages, is then abruptly cut short, and Murray spends the remainder of the book attempting to explain the formula he used in compiling his lists of greatest accomplishers. He goes into great detail on his statistical methods, and in case the reader can't comprehend Murray's fascination with statistics he continues to explain the same method in a dozen different ways. The cost of this statistics lesson is that he never gets around to exploring the greatness of the people on his lists. For instance, the only reason Murray offers for why Wagner is considered to be such a great composer is that musicians and those who write about music hold him in high regard. So it turns out that this idea is the theme of the book: people who are written about the most often are the best at what they did. Murray spends 90% of the book explaining how he took that idea and tried to make fair and accurate lists of the greatest human accomplishments. He ended up writing a boring and disappointing book.
I recommend taking a look at the finalized lists in this book to get some ideas of a good biography to buy, but leave the book on the shelf.
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