Daniel
I'm not sure what to rate this book. It was a difficult read. Locke had serious issues with punctuation and sentences that covered half a page. It was basically not an easy read, and I also think he tended to ramble. In addition, there were several instances where he referred to God as more or less a final arbitrator. I don't think God needs to be used to justify the ideas. ANyway, I liked some of the ideas, but it really was a case of me forcing my way through the book.
I had to put down the english copy I started reading because it became apparent in the first few paragraphs that this book was poorly translated. Swedish colloquialism shone through and it was frustrating. In Swedish the book is well written with a lot of charm, I didn't get that sense from the English version. Quite the entertaining book and if you're not careful you may pick up quite a bit of history.
Although this book describes the last adventure of Allan, he sure had a lot of them in his time. I very much enjoyed the characters and their development.
This is an excellent read. The book is very well referenced and filled with the common legal interpretations of the time as well as discussions between all the parties involved. It gives you a framework for how to read and interpret the constitution the way it was meant to be. Think you can just read it the constitution with modern day language and understand it? I used to think so, but now that I understand the legal maxims used at the time and how legal constructs were formed, there's much more deeper meaning behind how they wrote the document. He also does a excellent job of showing how language has developed and through references to legal works and other document show the real meaning of the words the founders used, and what the intent behind them were.
The constitution was meant to be read and interpreted by the intent of the thousands of people who were involved. This book helps you understand what that intent was
I notice most people who give this book a high rating start off by saying that it is an influential piece of work; important, and so on. So what? That doesn't make the ideas in it any better. In fact, the ideas are terrible. He can babble about classes all he wants, but when he never defines what a social class is, it's utterly meaningless.
However, don't construe my rating as suggesting that you don't read it. You should read this work precisely because it was influential; because it has been important. Anything that can give you a further understanding of history and of mankind is worth spending time on.
“But even in Das Kapital Marx does not delimit precisely the concept of class, although it is of fundamental importance for his theory. He does not define what class is, but limits himself to enumerating the “great classes” into which modern capitalist society is divided.” – Ludwig Von Mises, Socialism.
I could not bear to finish reading all of this book. while intriguing enough to not give it 1 star, I found the the writing itself poor with characters unrealistic. I stopped where a grown man was weeping over something very benign. That was the last straw. The writing really read like someone with no or little writing experience.
