James Bowman (1) (1948–)

One of the premises of this book is that honour codes of some form or another have been nearly universal across cultures and time throughout history—with the exception of contemporary north Atlantic democracies, and it is the disappearance of honour that needs explanation, not its ubiquity in previous eras. I am inclined to go along with this, but the author provides precious little evidence to support it. His explanation for the disappearance of honour range from plausible (the widespread disgust at the carnage of WWI and the military honour code widely presumed to have brought it on) to the less plausible (feminism), but in all cases there is a real lack of support for these explanations.… (mehr)

(Alistair) Well, now. I'm not entirely sure what I think of this latest of my non-fiction books. I think it's certainly an interesting book, as it has provided me with interesting material for thought, that I certainly can say.

I do not think, however, that I would accept Mr. Bowman's general thesis. I would tend to agree with Nick Jamilla's review on Amazon.com, in which he claims that Mr. Bowman accepts a very broad definition of honor, which conflates it with many other things, including "pride", "respectability", "prestige" and "celebrity", which I would not recognize as appropriate synonyms or near-synonyms. Nor would "integrity" be, for that matter. Also, I think he makes insufficient distinction between two quite different value systems, honor and thar (see The World's Most Toxic Value System, Steven Dutch), which are often popularly conflated, and I don't find his evolutionary hypothesis from one to the other all that convincing.

I found it an interesting book, as I said, but I think I shall keep looking for another treatment of the subject that I can recommend to others, rather than this.
( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/cerebrate/2008/02/honor-a-history-james-bowma... )… (mehr)