DWD's Reviews

An entertaining read W. Hodding Carter covers plumbing from the Ancient Indians, Greeks and Romans to modern day Japanese badet toilet in  Flushed: How the Plumber Saved Civilization , a meandering romp through sewers, both past and present. Carter's light-hearted writing style makes it a fun read. He meanders all over the world of bathrooms, pipes and open-pit sewers but the trip is a fun one. There are a lot of detours, but it's fun and informative. W. Hodding Carter That being said, there are a couple of stumbles. On page 30 he claims the Hellenistic Age is named for Helen of Troy, which is ridiculous. Chapter 8 "Blame It On the Christians" is an equally ridiculous attempt to blame all of the Western world's issues with defecation and urination (mostly cutesy names like poo-poo and the desire to defecate alone) on Christianity. He quotes Francis of Assisi to make his case that Christianity made using the bathroom and being physically clean a "d

Wow! What a Stinker! When I saw this title I was thrilled to pick this book up. I am a high school history teacher that loves classical history. I was eager to see what someone had to say about these 5 world class cities. What I got was a poorly written mishmash of ideas that sort of worked themselves into some kind of theme that sort of held together to make a vague point from time to time. In other words, it read like one of my high school student's research papers. I am a fan of Thomas Nelson publishing - they are a religious publisher that generally holds themselves to high standards. This book, however, makes me doubt my previous impression. Five Cities has a clever premise, an interesting cover but has no real substance and is full of too much supposition and theory rather than solid history. What do I mean? To be specific, on pages 8-9 he asserts that the Phoenicians, as part of a trade alliance with King Solomon, set across the Indian and Pacific Oceans (coloni