Perhaps I would like the book more, but now I am speaking about the post (which didn’t convince me that the book is worth reading).
“X myths about Y” is a fairly common format for short pamphlets, not that much for books. Seeing things like “10 myths about sex” or “20 myths about diet” is common when I stumble upon a tabloid newspaper; always (well, memory may be leaky, I can’t guarantee that always) the myth has been given significantly less space than its rebuttal. Not so long ago I’ve read a website defending trams against buses, part of it was “debunking myths about streetcars”, perhaps it was this presentation (there the rebuttals aren’t given more space than the myths, but it’s because they are both short and many of the rebuttals even don’t adress the myths).
As for books, two years ago I’ve bought “100 myths about Beria” mainly to improve my Russian (the book was in Russian) and I was unable to finish it. It was written by some Armenian crackpot who thought it was his duty to defend Beria against mainstream historians whom he often called names. The author’s position was that whatever Beria did was good, whatever Stalin did was good except when it was in conflict with Beria’s interests, when it was bad, and whatever everybody else did was bad.
Debunking assorted myths is a very convenient platform for political arguments. First, I can pick up the weakest part of the opposing platform’s position and ignore the stronger parts (after all, I am only trying to debunk myths, not to destroy the opponent altogether, right?), I can even distort it a bit (the myths aren’t quotations of a concrete author, so nobody is entitled to say “but this isn’t what I believe”), I pack it all in one or few sentences with further distortion (for practical reason, it’s not my obligation to describe it in detail, let the myth proponents argue for it), then provide all arguments I have against, written in exquisite details and eloquent language, in contrast to the crude simple myth presentation above, and when I run out of arguments, I can move on to another myth.
Unfortunately this format is so convenient that the authors aren’t forced to use strong arguments; even a mediocre one usually creates good first impression, and if not, one can alwasy either skip the relevant myth or distort it to fit some better counter-argument.
Perhaps you’d like the book better if you think that there isn’t enough support in the paragraphs? What other “X myths about Y” books have you read?
Perhaps I would like the book more, but now I am speaking about the post (which didn’t convince me that the book is worth reading).
“X myths about Y” is a fairly common format for short pamphlets, not that much for books. Seeing things like “10 myths about sex” or “20 myths about diet” is common when I stumble upon a tabloid newspaper; always (well, memory may be leaky, I can’t guarantee that always) the myth has been given significantly less space than its rebuttal. Not so long ago I’ve read a website defending trams against buses, part of it was “debunking myths about streetcars”, perhaps it was this presentation (there the rebuttals aren’t given more space than the myths, but it’s because they are both short and many of the rebuttals even don’t adress the myths).
As for books, two years ago I’ve bought “100 myths about Beria” mainly to improve my Russian (the book was in Russian) and I was unable to finish it. It was written by some Armenian crackpot who thought it was his duty to defend Beria against mainstream historians whom he often called names. The author’s position was that whatever Beria did was good, whatever Stalin did was good except when it was in conflict with Beria’s interests, when it was bad, and whatever everybody else did was bad.
Debunking assorted myths is a very convenient platform for political arguments. First, I can pick up the weakest part of the opposing platform’s position and ignore the stronger parts (after all, I am only trying to debunk myths, not to destroy the opponent altogether, right?), I can even distort it a bit (the myths aren’t quotations of a concrete author, so nobody is entitled to say “but this isn’t what I believe”), I pack it all in one or few sentences with further distortion (for practical reason, it’s not my obligation to describe it in detail, let the myth proponents argue for it), then provide all arguments I have against, written in exquisite details and eloquent language, in contrast to the crude simple myth presentation above, and when I run out of arguments, I can move on to another myth.
Unfortunately this format is so convenient that the authors aren’t forced to use strong arguments; even a mediocre one usually creates good first impression, and if not, one can alwasy either skip the relevant myth or distort it to fit some better counter-argument.