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58th out of 148 books
—
18 voters
My rating:
add to my books
Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means
Twenty-three years in the making, Rising Up and Rising Down (the original, published by McSweeney's in October 2003, spans seven volumes) is a rich amalgam of historical analysis, contemporary case studies, anecdotes, essays, theory, charts, graphs, photographs and drawings. Convinced that there is "a finite number of excuses" for violence and that some excuses "
...morePaperback, 733 pages
Published
October 1st 2005
by Harper Perennial
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Note: This review was written about 7 years ago on another website. I'm just copying and pasting it here so that it can live with my more 'modern' reviews'. The 'reviews' on this website were supposed to be 'consumer friendly' and help people make educated decisions about buying products, maybe that explains some of the awkwardness here. The voting system on that site also forced me to stay more on topic than I grown used to writing here on goodreads.com.
A couple of years ago William ...more
A couple of years ago William ...more
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I own this shit, signed. I give it five stars just for its existence. Not like I've read it yet. One day when I settle into my upstate rocking chair, my velvet smoking jacket, when I cultivate a taste for brandy, hunting dogs, rifles, prostitutes, genocide, the north pole . . .
This book is kind of about power more than violence per se, but I guess power is nothing more than the ability to inflict violence on others (as I think some skinhead said in one of WV’s other books, maybe 13 Stories and 13 Epitaphs).
In his other nonfiction work, Vollmann has displayed an endless capacity for talking to people who have no idea what’s going on (cf. Poor People, Riding Toward Everywhere, and to a lesser extent Atlas). Poor People was the extreme example of this, and Vo...more
In his other nonfiction work, Vollmann has displayed an endless capacity for talking to people who have no idea what’s going on (cf. Poor People, Riding Toward Everywhere, and to a lesser extent Atlas). Poor People was the extreme example of this, and Vo...more
Vollman strips back the calculus of self-defense and the practice of war. With historical examples and explicit logical diagrams, he tries to demonstrate the causes, effects and justifications of violence in society. What he sees isn't pretty, and neither is the behavior of mass violence.
I have another soft spot in my heart for Vollmann, so I bought the 7 volume set of Rising Up and Rising Down. Best purchase of my life...
Micah
marked it as started-reading-but-sucked
His writing style was so annoying that I couldn't read more than 3 or 4 pages of it. 3 similies in about a page is way too much.
In the premable to Rising Up and Rising Down , Vollman admits that this 'short' 700+ pages version of a project that originally existed across seven volumes was released in order that someone would read it. He also confesses that the book has been hurriedly edited with cross references referring to parts of the treatise that don't appear here and the whole resembling a slightly bitty selection that one can dip in and out of.
Extraordinarily thought provoking, the central aim of the p...more
Extraordinarily thought provoking, the central aim of the p...more
Il punto però non è capire se Stalin avesse o meno ragione. Stabiliamo che avesse torto marcio. Ora resta da capire, ed è qui la strada si fa in salita (forse insuperabile), com'è possibile che per vent'anni e oltre tutti ritenessero, per amore o per forza, che Stalin, un uomo solo contro un paese di centinaia di milioni di individui, non potesse che avere ragione.
Il punto non è capire se Hitler fosse o meno malvagio, se fosse uno statista ragionevole condannato da un destino avverso o un ...more
Il punto non è capire se Hitler fosse o meno malvagio, se fosse uno statista ragionevole condannato da un destino avverso o un ...more
Scott Neigh
added it
I almost never do this, but I am going to set this one aside without finishing it. It is a 700 page abbreviated version of a much longer work (which, believe it or not, was actually published) that sets out to use detailed case studies and inductive reasoning to develop a comprehensive moral calculus on the use of violence. It's an audacious idea, and the writer is very talented, but I decided about a hundred pages in that finishing it would just not be worth the effort. The first big hint that ...more
The reason that turned this from a five star book to a four star has little to do with the books actual value. Vollmann does a magnificent job giving up a moral calculus for approaching violence. When is it right? When is it wrong? He tells you, and from all I can see he is correct. He succeeded at his goal for sure. My problem with this book is that it forgets almost completely about the reader. There are hundreds of pages devoted to the formulas of violence with little regard to the readers de...more
It is going to take me a long time to finish this book. It has taken me a long time just to begin. Apparently it took him 23 years to write it. I find the author's use of words immensely charming. It is also amazingly painful. More soon.
When I started reading this book, I felt like my mind was falling apart. I was in such terrible pain that reading Vollmann's terrible pain, felt like a comfort. I can't now remember what the terrible pain was about. It seems that that may be t...more
When I started reading this book, I felt like my mind was falling apart. I was in such terrible pain that reading Vollmann's terrible pain, felt like a comfort. I can't now remember what the terrible pain was about. It seems that that may be t...more
This single volume is an abridgment of the books Vollmann has called his life's work. It presents a framework for decisions about when violence is or is not justified, his Moral Calculus.
His Preface to the Abridgement begins, "In its original form, Rising Up and Rising Down occupies seven volumes. The single justification which I can offer is that I believe it needed to be that long. This abridgment likewise has only one justification: I did it for the money."
...more
His Preface to the Abridgement begins, "In its original form, Rising Up and Rising Down occupies seven volumes. The single justification which I can offer is that I believe it needed to be that long. This abridgment likewise has only one justification: I did it for the money."
...more
Adam
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
A person who's not sure if rampant murder is for them.
Let's face it: the heft of this book (and this is the abridged version), Vollman's sadsack writing style and even more sadsack photo, and the huge portions of the book devoted to detailing in excruciating detail the "moral calculus" of the author do not bode well. But in spite of the pompousness and excess this is an amazing book, or compilation, or whatever. Vollman goes through his life as a witness of war zones and poverty and attempts to figure out a rational philosophy of when it'...more
I'd give the book 5 stars for ambition. This is an 800pp abridgement of a seven-volume, 3500pp work on violence and its possible justifications. Vollmann illustrates all the "justifications" he can think of by discussing historical events and people, like Stalin, Trotsky, Pol Pot, Napoleon, Ghandi, Lincoln, and John Brown. He also uses people and places from his travels in Africa, Europe, North America, and Asia to talk about current rationales for violence. His intention is to cre...more
This is a really excellent book for someone, like me, who struggles with and addresses questions of what is right or wrong often.
Vollmann basically sets out to describe a complete, logical system for deciding when any violent act is justified or not. He uses extensive historical research as well as examples from his own vast experience as a reporter working in a variety of "hot spots" around the world like former Yugoslavia, Southeast Asia, inner city gang neighborhoods of...more
Vollmann basically sets out to describe a complete, logical system for deciding when any violent act is justified or not. He uses extensive historical research as well as examples from his own vast experience as a reporter working in a variety of "hot spots" around the world like former Yugoslavia, Southeast Asia, inner city gang neighborhoods of...more
Essentially a well researched collection of essays on faithlessness and humankind's propensity for finding novel ways to reify our self-destructive sinfulness. It's worth reading just to take in the scope and get an interesting perspective on certain periods in history.
maybe I'll finish this behemoth one of these days, but, frankly, it's pretty slow slogging. Apparently, there's a segment of the Atlantic Ocean that has no winds or currents whatsoever and in the midst of this anomoly is the Sargasso Sea, right? Well, I'm at that moment in the midst of this tome that would be the equivalent of the Sargasso Sea, whereas Vollman is basically riffing through oodles and oodles and oodles of statistics of how violence is shaped by just about every conceivable facti...more
Zachary
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Revolutionaries, politicians, philosophers, and the like.
Shelves:
nonfiction
This book asks the question: "When is violence justified?"
700 pages later you are not sure yet, and that is the point. W.T. Vollman makes you think, makes you consider everything, makes you challenge your own beliefs about deterence and punishment. He compares figures like Lincoln and Trotsky, Gandhi and Hitler, Marquis de sade and many others. His case studies take us from Thailand to Serbia to Haiti, always places he himself has been.
This book is difficult to ge...more
700 pages later you are not sure yet, and that is the point. W.T. Vollman makes you think, makes you consider everything, makes you challenge your own beliefs about deterence and punishment. He compares figures like Lincoln and Trotsky, Gandhi and Hitler, Marquis de sade and many others. His case studies take us from Thailand to Serbia to Haiti, always places he himself has been.
This book is difficult to ge...more
Great, great book. The author's pen is just bleeding pure uncompromised writting poweress here. The language is very diverse (which did not always make it easy for me as a non-native speaker).
The philosophy was for the most part very convincing to me (even though his arguing did not always work for me: e.g. defense of ground, defense of honor) although not entirely cohesive (but admittingly maybe unfair to judge by the abridged version alone).
The case studies were terrific. And they ...more
The philosophy was for the most part very convincing to me (even though his arguing did not always work for me: e.g. defense of ground, defense of honor) although not entirely cohesive (but admittingly maybe unfair to judge by the abridged version alone).
The case studies were terrific. And they ...more
Whew, that was a slog. Mostly worth it. I have trouble imagining the unabridged version. But Vollman always impresses me, with his accounts of unbelieveable first-hand experiences, his self-deprecating honesty (which may be simply a disguise for self-aggrandizing honesty, but who cares?) and mostly for his thoughtful, sometimes refreshing, always inconclusive moralizing. Though I found the first few things I read by him just after college quite unappealing, he is now rapidly becoming one of ...more
In a straight and deep dive into humanity's justifications for violence, Volmann covers everything from Abel's murder of Cain to the breakup of Yugoslavia. A life of violent encounters is distilled into this work, including voices from his war correspondence work in Afghanistan and Bosnia, stories of turning the other cheek when beat up by school bullies, and mulling over euthanasia when his wife is diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Volmann is a brilliant student of history and a keen ...more
Volmann is a brilliant student of history and a keen ...more
This abridgement to the 7 volume original is a feat in its own right. In his witty, awe inspiring, repulsive prose Vollmann delivers not only an encyclopediac analysis of violence through both personal witness and historical study, but presents the reader with a moral calaculus which can be used to aid in the determination of the justification of violent acts. Vollmann challenges assumptions and, thankfully, leaves the reader with no easy answers. This is a work not to be taken lightly.
Nearly impossible to read - it took me about a year - but oh so rewarding if you do. Full of astounding and provocative thoughts and ideas, bolstered with an incredible amount of history and research. It deals with one of the most fundamental issues of life on this planet. I laughed, I cried, I was terrified and scared, I was amused and amazed. What an incredible read. I would never dare actually recommend it to anyone, but it is one of the greatest things I've ever read.
This, the unabridged version of the seven volume work, was daunting enough. Vollmann explores violence and violent uprising through modern history. Some he witnessed himself (Sarajevo, Afghanistan, Jamaica), others he views through the lens of history (especially the party purges and gulags of Stalin and Trotsky). The piece on Sarajevo affected me the most, as the author described a place on the back of his head that he always felt a sniper was going to draw a bead on.
Holy Crap. He crippled himself to write this. Before you write a piece on conflict, or war, or violence, flip through this to make sure Volman didn't write it already. This is one of those books that's probably available for $7.99 at your local book warehouse, and in 10 years no one but some diehards will remember it. All high schoolers should have to read this book before they graduate. But not just over the summer, that might warp them.
Sprawling is one of the great book cliches but this 7 vol set does indeed sprawl. It's also ambitious and fascinating. I can't say I've ever encountered anything quite like it. It's very publication is a small miracle. The constant zooming in on the trees, no, the leaves, and back out on the forest can be dizzying. Now I'm curious as to what the abridgement left out.
Tut tut I have a lot of these unfinished books lying around.
But come on now, he goes on and on and I kept thinking...didn't he make his points already? Not to say I don't enjoy the endless variety of illustrations of man's inhumanity to man and so on (how bourgeois of me) but his moralizing is a drag after the first several outlines of what-he-thinks-ought-to-be-done.
But come on now, he goes on and on and I kept thinking...didn't he make his points already? Not to say I don't enjoy the endless variety of illustrations of man's inhumanity to man and so on (how bourgeois of me) but his moralizing is a drag after the first several outlines of what-he-thinks-ought-to-be-done.
The introduction made me think that I could manage the 700 page abridgment. Unfortunately at about 200 pages I realized that reading this felt something like being led through a deep woods by a guide who brought pamphlets with exquisite descriptions of all the flora and fauna but left the trail map at home.
Jeff
marked it as paused
The words "hope" and "intention" show up a lot in the author's and publisher's introductions to this brick-like, 733-page abridgement (!) to the 7-volume, er, books (treatise? manifesto? user's manual?) on the acceptable and unacceptable uses of violence.
In other words, this does not bode well.
In other words, this does not bode well.
Imagine that one of the French Encyclopedists had been reborn 50 years ago...and that he has a wierd gun fetish and is so nerdy, in that creepy might-be-a-serial-killer kind of way, that he resorts to hiring prostitutes just for companionship. This is the book that guy would write.
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William Tanner Vollmann is an American novelist, journalist, short story writer and essayist. He lives in Sacramento, California with his wife and daughter.
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