David N. Reiss

B5 was a great show, April 4 2004

Babylon 5 was one of the best television series ever in the medium. Taken for all in all, it was the best SF/F show ever on television. This was because it didn't dodge the big questions:

Who are we?
What do we want?
Where are we going?

It made the big questions the central focus of the series. It didn't always provide clear and succinct answers to them either. It also made things very much like they are in the real world. Impure or evil motives might lead to actions with overall good outcomes, and good intentions may well pave the road to hell.

J. Michael Straczynski is the reason is stayed focus on the large themes. JMS created the series and wrote all the episodes of… Read more

Good History Atlas that is affordable for anyone, Mar 24 2004

This History Atlas is probably the best generally available. I find it to be very good as a general overview of history timelines with maps and charts. It doesn't really dig deep; it is the proverbial two miles and two inches deep view of history.

For a through understanding a reader should move on to other books. That being said any true student of history needs to have a good overview of things before they can dig into the details. And this good gives a great overview of the major topics. Which is why I would recommend it to people.

One group that could really benefit from a book like this, of course, are high school students studying history or social studies or whatever they… Read more

Dense starting point, but good., Mar 23 2004

This is a short little book that is tackling a very large subject. It also, self-consciously is limiting the extent it covers its subject, thus the limiting of 400 A.D. to 1000 A.D. It is also limited in that originally the book was written in 1952, only with some updating done in both '67 and '85. At its core is still a good framework for what was known on the subject in 1950.

All that said it does provide a good little introduction to the topic of post-Roman Barbarian folk movements. The major tribes involved in those movements in Western Europe were the Franks, Goths, Lombards, and a few others. Because of the historical record being a lot of Swiss-cheese, with writers from the… Read more