matthew perry book review

matthew perry book review

Matthew Perry’s Book Review

1. Introduction

Using the worker in a factory, we can depict almost all jobs of the average everyday worker. The work is often repetitive, and 8 hours seems like an eternity. Usually, the worker’s only bonus is the paycheck at the end of the week or two weeks. The worker soon becomes tired and feels jaded. This is the same vision Perry sees the factory worker experiencing: “In the end, the effort seems futile and meaningless” (Perry 568). This is a thought the vast majority of workers experience, whether at their job, in school, or playing sports. They soon realize it’s a dead end and look for a different job.

Matthew Perry’s essay on hard work, “The Book Review: The Work Itself Has Meaning – An Essay in Human Worthwhile,” is one of the most valuable essays for a young high school student. He has created a realistic real-world example of the daily grind of a worker in a factory. He does an excellent job displaying the pitfalls of the average worker.

2. Overview of Matthew Perry’s Book

The book is divided into three parts. The first part describes the agony and loss caused by the expansion of the western white man over the Indians’ way of life. The second part describes the bitter armed struggle between the whites and the Indians, and the third part tells of the humiliation and defeat of the American Indian. The author examines the book with two main questions which form the title and the closing chapter of the book. Were the American Indians savages? Or noble men? And is the American Indian a vanishing American, as the author writes the Indian has been faced with the menacing white expansion, has he not? Or lastly, is the American Indian a race destined to extermination, and a race which the white man will do well to get rid of? These questions, which form and close the book, are the fabric that holds the book together, and are perfectly answered throughout.

3. Key Themes Explored

Perkins’ initial workbooks have a tendency to suffer from poor explanations and the introduction of too many complicated terms at once. Perry’s book review attempts to make the distinction between simple and complex clearer and help students understand that the development and learning of complex concepts is not a linear process. Some students might have a good understanding of a simple concept, but be completely confused when it gets discussed in relation to a more complex one. He believes that the latter stages of Perkins books do a good job of this, and found that they helped him think about and understand probability in a different and more complex way than he had previously. Perry identifies the importance of a teacher or tutor’s role in the learning process of complex concepts, as the book does not work through everything in explicit detail and can often leave students with a shaky understanding of certain topics. He suggests sometimes it might be better for the student to just put the book down and discuss a topic with a teacher that has a good understanding of it.

4. Analysis and Critique

Perry discusses aspects of the minster’s history and provides a detailed account of its nineteenth-century restoration. He writes about his own experiences of the minster in today’s context, and the history of the building becomes interwoven throughout his account. This consideration of the historical context was my favorite part of the book, and at times Perry’s examinations are so detailed and interesting that the minster emerges as a character of its own. I did, however, also find some of Perry’s historical account a little excessive, and it is perhaps explored in more depth than one would require for the sake of understanding the novel. The majority of Perry’s book is about the sublime, which he describes in the introductory chapter as “the possibility of representing with grandeur and of moving us with more than ordinary power.” His intention is to determine how the sublime translates to our present-day experience of Gothic writing, and in doing so, he hopes to enhance our appreciation of the literature: “Gothic writing, unlike Gothic architecture, no longer builds edifices. If we are to understand its roots, we must scrutinize the ones it has deserted.” Using the text primarily as a springboard, Perry explores an abundance of topics linked to the sublime and the Gothic. He considers whether a knowledge of historical context can enhance our appreciation of Gothic literature and examines at length whether Gothic writing’s loss of the sublime’s physical manifestation has affected its capacity to create sublime effects. Throughout these considerations, Perry provides a wealth of theoretical approaches from various critics, ranging from a discussion of the sublime’s “historical” and “eternal” nature to the contrast between Wordsworthian and Burkean views of the sublime.

5. Conclusion

Using the Gadamerian approach, we begin by looking at the hidden meanings of the term ‘health’. Gadamer suggests that before approaching a text or a concept, we should begin by recognizing any pre-existing knowledge we might hold. This method of analysis is particularly relevant in health promotion, where the meanings of ‘health’ and ‘disease’ are commonly perceived as straightforward terms. However, interpretations of the same word by individuals can carry a vast array of different meanings and emotions. An example often used by Matthews is that of ‘cancer’, which means very different things to different people. By defining health first in his assessment, Gadamer has pinpointed the ideal subject for interrogation by testing its various interpretations against what is true and what is false (presocratic element). This was also adopted by Matthews.

Applying three different themes, Gadamer, Prescott, and Matthews (pp 2) have approached how we examine the health of populations. Although they use different terminology, they all aim to do the same thing, which is to investigate an understanding we all possess.