Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students

by Anders Henriksson

Mangled Moments of Western Civilization from Term Papers & Blue Book Exams

Did You

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction, History, Education, Writing, Adult, Language

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, while Anders Henriksson's Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students is often (and generally) amazingly laugh-out-loud funny (as fact is often stranger than fiction, and I have in fact read a few similar such doozies editing my students' assignments and term papers), I am actually not only giggling loudly at Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students but also shaking my head rather sadly at times (I mean, the examples encountered in Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students, they have ALL been gleaned from the term papers and exams of university and college students, and a number of them supposedly even from graduate student term papers, in other words, from students enrolled in advanced Master's and PhD programs). And while I can definitely understand high school students (or even college/university freshmen and freshettes) writing a blooper like "Hitler crawled under Berlin and shot himself in the bonker" it really does baffle me a bit to have upper year undergraduate or graduate students make such mistakes (and yay for the yikes of March that seemingly were the downfall of Julius Caesar).

But then again, we are all prone to making silly mistakes and with this salient fact in mind, I personally do very much think it indeed and in fact would be considerably more entertaining and perhaps also rather less "student-oriented" (and well, a bit less holier than thou, high and mighty, somewhat less preachy) if author (or rather if compiler) Anders Henriksson would in Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students also be listing similar blunders and gaffes made by teaching assistants, lecturers, even full professors. For not only students have the tendency to make funny mistakes and use inadvertent bloopers, professors, instructors, lab technicians etc. also have done so and do so. And yes, I have most certainly written some inadvertently funny sentences as examples on German language exam questions, and I am not at all ashamed admitting this fact. And I bet that the author, that Anders Henriksson himself has also made his share of errors and uttered bloopers, a fact that might be worthwhile mentioning by Henricksson in Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students (as there is definitely a bit of a feeling of a professor not only laughing at his students but also considering himself as in all ways superior to them present in Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students, and this does indeed make me feel more than a bit uncomfortable).

[Arminzerella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back in the day when people forwarded silly things to me that they'd spent hours downloading from obscure sites on the internets or usenet groups, there was a collection of excerpts culled from essays written by students explaining "history" over the ages as they'd interpreted/absorbed/or misspelled it. I have a paper printout of this from back in the day. Somewhere. It's 15 years old now, and has probably eaten itself. It was part of a large print job I had to send somewhere special on campus and then pick up LATER IN THE WEEK. Shocking, I know. Anyway, it never failed to make me giggle. I thought, hey, this "Non Campus Mentis" thing sounds exactly like that! It is similar. And it's funny, but also sad, pathetic. I don't know if I've lost my ability to laugh at this sort of thing, or if seeing that movie about the future where everyone is stupid (the title of which I have stupidly forgotten...Ah, Google says - after I searched for 'movie about future where everyone is stupid' - Idiocracy! THAT.) has made that seem like a distinct possibility. I closed the book with shaking hands, wondering if reading it was actually lowering my IQ. Also, correcting people's spelling, grammar, and historical data was giving me a headache. I should dig up my printout and see if that makes me feel the same way. Or the one about the little soaps and the hotel room. Maybe the problem is that I've lost my sense of humor! ACK!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have a weakness for this kind of stuff. I don't necessarily really believe that an actual student somewhere really wrote that 'Joan of Ark was famous as Noah's wife', but you'll still find me laughing like a drain.

In my defence, someone gave me my copy - I didn't actually, like, pay money for it or anything.

I promise not to send you e-mails with hilarious lists of similar bloopers, honestly.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book makes me a little sad... but only after I laughed so hard I cried.

[Jeannie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hard to do better for me than a collection of accidental and/or trying-to-sound-like-you-studied errors in about every core academic area.

I’m not sure this book didn’t contribute to the hernia surgery I needed surrounding the months my son and I read this together.

[J · Rating 1 out of 5]

The world right now is a darkening age where literacy and intelligence are quickly giving away to lack of commonsense and emotional outbursts. And what a perfect way to display that stupidity is king then publish parts of essays from those people who are spending millions of dollars to become "experts" in their fields and be renowned for degrees that are mere slips of almost useless paper.

The book itself is a quick read as the author combed through college papers from more than one institute of higher learning and then combined them together to form a history, which he splits into various eras. These summaries aren't meant to be detailed and as such just make for a brief summary of reading that more or less throws what would have been normally important points thrown together for the reader.

The mistakes, the grammar issues and the misspellings all made this rather quite a cringeworthy read for me although I do have to give props that these ones knew Hitler unlike other more modern coeds who are clueless when it comes to the Holocaust. And the fact that one student mistook the ideas of capitalism and democracy for socialism does explain unfortunately this political mess that the United States is in right now.

Although I do understand the author's point of the test in the back and the reason why he uses it to defend the students it also makes for no excuse to me about their education. In my case I haven't been in school since 2005 so my history is a bit rusty but the fact that my husband who didn't finish college and knew more just makes that a double strike.

In the end I couldn't really say I would recommend this book to anyone although some may find some humor in it or just enjoy it for its revisionist changes to history.

[Snowfire · Rating 1 out of 5]

Maybe funny if you're 9 years old or in touch with your inner-9 year old that thinks misspelling "Ottoman Empire" as "Automaton Empire" is inherently hilarious, but... MEH. This book is filled with the raw elements to build a funny joke, but just that, untouched and unprocessed elements. There's a reason that stories like to build up to a punchline, even with totally fictitious characters: it gives the mistake at the end meaning. Some swaggering sophist gets their comeuppance, a ploy to cheat with Internet plagiarism goes wrong, or hell, on the cruel side you (guiltily?) laugh at someone who is very very stupid. None of that backstory is in this book. We just have a lot of raw mistakes. As far as we know, this mistake was merely made by someone for whom English isn't their first language, or just a bad student who took the class out of obligation but did zero studying, in which case their wrong answers just Aren't Funny. This book is like telling somebody to meet at the park at 2:00, then standing them up, then saying "pranked you bro!" No, that was just lying. Misdirecting someone might well be *part* of a successful prank, but you need to add that something more to make it humorous.

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the back cover of the book:

' Mangled Moments of Western Civilization from Term Papers & Blue Book Exams.
From college students' own authentic and inimitable voices comes a collection of bloopers, malapropisms, revisionist hypotheses, and creative interpretations of history, the subject that grinds our critical, seething minds to a halt." '

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

My thoughts:

Revisionist history at its finest! Very, very funny - at times even hilarious - re-telling of Western Civ history, based on the, um... "recollections" of college students. Priceless. Highly recommended to history buffs, or to anyone with even a little knowledge of history.

One thing the readers will get from this is Hit the books, people!

Just don't use this book to study. :)

To quote from the opening of Chapter 15 - The Industrial Revolution: The Fast Paste of Change:

'The industrial revolution was slow to start due to the lack of factories. European nations had the raw materials to start an industrial revolution, but they did not have the knowledge to start a revolution and thus they were retarded.'

Or from Chapter 11 - The Reformation:

'The Catholic church sold indulgences as a form of remission control. Luthar (*) was into reorientation mutation. An angry Martin Luther nailed ninety-five theocrats to a church door. The Pope's response was to declare Luther hereditary.'

'Calvin was born a generation after Luther and is seen as one of Luther's greatest predecessors. He accepted all Luther's ideas except that of birth.'

(*): actual spelling in the book; not a typo!

[Tony Laplume · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun, if slight, read. One imagines the results are inspired equally by bad note-taking, poor testing itself, and probably little to no reading from the actual textbooks. All the bad spelling would come from that, at least. I would probably prefer a less literal survey of poor scholastic performance. This should actually be required reading by students, at the very least as a warning (twice over; you could end up contributing!).

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will keep you laughing out loud! "History" according to these students is hysterical.

[LOVEROFBOOKS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Made me laugh out loud several times and snort twice. That's good enough for me for a humor book!

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's pretty funny stuff. Easy, short little read, but you have to be paying attention sometimes to catch the humor. It's great!

[Darragh Moloney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Made me laugh loud and long. Very re-readable great for long toilet sittings.

[Marisa Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of college student responses on term papers and exams. The spelling will drive you crazy, but their bloopers and "knowledge" of world history is hysterical........and scary.

[Bernie4444 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Selected history from College and Graduate Students

This is a selected collection of history papers by College 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.

[Kathy Elrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those who enjoy Mad Libs, History, the English language, and reading college papers, this book is for you. Great for teachers and soon-to-be teachers to just laugh at either how closely these papers look like their own students' writing, or just that the point too quickly gets away from the writers...

[Elexndra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very Funny book. However, book has been republished with different title (Ignorance is Blitz) so be aware..... I thought Ignorance book would be new material in a similar to the Previous title....... NOPE same material page for page!

[Dwayne Coleman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very, very funny--mostly because I have seen examples of similar things from students with my own eyes.

[Kolby Keller · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was laughs from beginning to end! I work at a history museum so I took it in with me to share with my coworkers. just what we needed on crazy days!

[Misha Fredericks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very funny!

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost too clever to be 100% from students, maybe a little editing was involved. So funny!

[Candy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I laughed because I made a few of these mistakes myself, just always had a review check before turning the final product in.

[Hank Hoeft · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any English or social studies teacher of high school or college students will find this book hilarious and totally authentic.

[Fyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a history tutor for four years.

I think I laughed so hard I cried reading this.

[Tom Woodard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an easy read filled with educational atrocities.

[Karen Cowgill · Rating 5 out of 5]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Susan Crowell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have not laughed so much!

[Pranjal Awasthi · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fun little book with not much substance. Manages to effect a few chuckles here and there. Interesting concept though

[GG Danzig]

Autographed to me by Dr. Henriksson as a Student at Shepherd College

[Mark A.]

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