Editorial Review

In this thorough and evocative analysis, Martina Sprague tackles the myth of the Vikings, their unconventional battle tactics, cunning strategies, and bold use of any means at their disposal. From the innovative shipbuilding methods that produced flexible hulls and the ability to glide silently into shallow water, to Asatro, the polytheistic religion that honored the god of war, Sprague casts a fresh light and a scholarly eye on these fiercely independent people.

From the late 700s to the early 1000s, waves of strange and ferocious warriors from the barren lands of the North routinely swept into Britain and the Western Roman Empire. Plundering and pillaging, they left ruins in their wake; their trembling victims never knew when or where they would strike next.

Hailing from Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, yet beholden to no single king, government, or god, the Vikings fought for personal glory, material wealth, and a longing for adventure. They roamed as far as the Arab world, always following the code, "live hard, die with honor." ... Read more

Reviews

Title DOES NOT match contents!, October 3, 2008
I thought I would get a book with a lot more. Instead, I get a book that basically says Vikings used longships and that made them awesome.

I expected military history on the order of Dunnigan or Massie, but instead I got in-depth analysis such as Vikings drank beer before battle to get over their fear.

I only gave it two stars because it has some nice pictures of ships and weapons, although you could easily get the same ones elsewhere.

Stay away from this book. Its lightweight and has nothing new or interesting to say.

Written from a Tactician's Point of View, March 25, 2010
An excellent survey of Norse tactics, written from the point of view of someone who understands martial tactics. As a historian, special operations tactical analyst, and former Navy SEAL, I found the book to be a useful secondary source in writing a history of pirate hunting. Highly recommended.

Dissappointing to say the least., December 1, 2008
This book is extremely bad. Not only does the author not mention essential elements of Viking stratgey, such as the Hersyrs, the shield wall or the Swynfilking formation, but she says that the Vikings fought from ships in naval battles, for which there is absolutely no evidence. Worst of all, she assumes that the Jomsvikings existed, when much archaeological evidence, and most Viking historians, agree that they were mythical. Neither does she consider in any detail the Housecarls or the Byzantine Varangian Guard, both of which were important components of the Viking war machine. She also says very little about the circular fortifications of the Vikings discovered in several cities in Scandinavia, or the Vikings mastery of seigecraft. And, although she does quote primary sources, she does so without discussing the implications of them, and her selection of quotable material relates little to her topic. Altogether a purile and amateurish job of research from an author who, because she holds an MA, should know better.

Useless retread, July 26, 2009
As one of the other reviewers has said, the title of this book is a misnomer. It is really nothing more than a hodge-podge of Viking era political and cultural history, structured mostly in anecdotal form. There is nothing in this book that hasn't appeared in other, better, histories. That is also true of the pictures, clear though they are. I give the book two stars only because it is reasonably well-written. However, if you are interested in the Viking era and own more than three or four of the standard historical surveys of the era, you may well be able to write a better book than this one is. I am sorry I bought it.

Ok but misleading title, December 2, 2010
Note: I am reviewing based on a skim rather then a close read. While that might not seem fair to readers, I think it is acceptable as long as I frankly admit it.

I got this book because free is a very good price and so I was reasonably pleased. However the title is inaccurate and being so is annoying. Vikings didn't have unconventional battle strategies; they barely had anything that could be recognized as strategy or tactics at all. Vikings had no military system above the level of the primitive war band and armies and fleets were simply large war bands. Nor did they have any systematic science of warfare and or even a particularly sophisticated native style of warfare; battles were bar fights with weapons. The closest thing to "strategies" was the off-the-cuff improvisations of a given warlord which makes an entertaining read but is not really the same thing. This description sounds like the peculiarly militaristic form of intellectual snobbery, except the point is not to disdain, but to warn would be readers not to be deceived as to what they are getting. The book makes up for this with nice if overly glorified descriptions of Scandinavian culture at the time. In fact the book may be best compared with sagas then with military study. To say the former is inferior to the later is as absurd as saying poetry is inferior to science. The point is rather that poetry is not science.

If you want a reasonably good pop-history that is also entertaining(and indeed that is all the Vikings themselves would have asked of a historian)this book is satisfactory. It gives good narrative and quotes from sagas. It is not however a "military history" or a "military study" and indeed could not be.

Swift, prompt service, June 8, 2010
The prompt service I received from this vendor was remarkable. Within a week of placing my order, it arrived at my house. I'm very impressed.
... Read more

Editorial Review

Ben Macintyre’s Agent Zigzag was hailed as “rollicking, spellbinding” (New York Times), “wildly improbable but entirely true” (Entertainment Weekly), and, quite simply, “the best book ever written” (Boston Globe). In his new book, Operation Mincemeat, he tells an extraordinary story that will delight his legions of fans.

In 1943, from a windowless basement office in London, two brilliant intelligence officers conceived a plan that was both simple and complicated— Operation Mincemeat. The purpose? To deceive the Nazis into thinking that Allied forces were planning to attack southern Europe by way of Greece or Sardinia, rather than Sicily, as the Nazis had assumed, and the Allies ultimately chose.
 
Charles Cholmondeley of MI5 and the British naval intelligence officer Ewen Montagu could not have been more different. Cholmondeley was a dreamer seeking adventure. Montagu was an aristocratic, detail-oriented barrister. But together they were the perfect team and created an ingenious plan: Get a corpse, equip it with secret (but false and misleading) papers concerning the invasion, then drop it off the coast of Spain where German spies would, they hoped, take the bait. The idea was approved by British intelligence officials, including Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond). Winston Churchill believed it might ring true to the Axis and help bring victory to the Allies.

Filled with spies, double agents, rogues, fearless heroes, and one very important corpse, the story of Operation Mincemeat reads like an international thriller.

Unveiling never-before-released material, Ben Macintyre brings the reader right into the minds of intelligence officers, their moles and spies, and the German Abwehr agents who suffered the “twin frailties of wishfulness and yesmanship.” He weaves together the eccentric personalities of Cholmondeley and Montagu and their near-impossible feats into a riveting adventure that not only saved thousands of lives but paved the way for a pivotal battle in Sicily and, ultimately, Allied success in the war. ... Read more

Reviews

A Rollicking Good Read!, April 4, 2010

A masterwork of historical storytelling, April 1, 2010

Tasty Mincemeat, April 2, 2010

Good read, not great, May 26, 2010
I read an occasional spy book for their entertainment value. This one came highly recommended. I enjoyed it, but I did not find it nearly as great as many of the other reviewers.
It is the true story of a spy caper that is credited with diverting Hitler's attention away from the Allies invading Sicily in 1943. It is the same incident that was dramatized in an earlier book called "The Man Who Never Was," which was also turned into a movie back in the 50's. The author presents some new details these 50 years on that were suppressed in the original due to security considerations at the time.
There are certainly some interesting characters involved, including some of the leading lights of the British MI5 & MI6 operation. Ian Fleming makes a brief, but pivotal appearance, as do the real life inspirations for his "M" and "Q" characters in the James Bond novels. Kim Philby and Winston Churchill also make cameo appearances.

The gist of the spy story is the British secret service dropped a dead body off the coast of Spain rigged with phony letters designed to put the German army off the scent of the upcoming invasion of Sicily. The fact that this crackpot scheme worked certainly makes a good story. As in all books of this type, the British triumph, so there's not much in the way of suspense. There was a great deal of spycraft necessary to make this work that is elaborated in great detail, and there is certainly a lot of spying going on.

One of the more interesting ideas mentioned in the book was that the gambit's success may have hinged on the willingness on the head of the German intelligence effort, someone named von Renne, to swallow this "fish" story, not because he believed the story, but because he figured it for a plant. He wanted Hitler to fail, so he may have put his stamp of approval on the intelligence gathered in Spain because he doubted its probity. If this is true, it makes for a very different story. Unfortunately, it is not possible to do more than speculate about this possibility because von Renne was rounded up, tried and executed in the aftermath of the undersuccessful attempt to assassinate Hitler known as "Operation Valkyrie." So we will never know, but it certainly seems fishy that he never asked the hard questions about the veracity of the original intelligence reports emanating from Spain, which is unusual behavior for a spymaster of his stature.

Another interesting aspect is how the British's Project Ultra that cracked the German navy's Enigma coding scheme allowed British Intelligence to monitor how well their ruse was actually working. The Ultra project gave the British access to all manner of secret military communications and was a pivotal to the success of the entire war effort. Operation Mincemeat is certainly an interesting episode, but Project Ultra was much more important and, at least, to this Reader, a more engrossing story.

An Intricate, Tricky, Brilliant Plot, May 19, 2010
You may well be aware that in World War II the British played a fine trick on the Germans by letting them find a floating a body bearing bogus secret invasion plans. This is a well known and factual story, which was the basis of a 1956 film The Man Who Never Was. It might seem an easy enough trick, but the Nazis and their military intelligence branch Abwehr were no fools. The deception was one of astonishing intricacy, and has not been told in full until now. Ben Macintyre, who has given us fine presentations of slices of WWII history in _Agent Zigzag_ and of WWI in _The Englishman's Daughter_, turns his researcher's doggedness and storytelling skill to the tale of probably the greatest of military deceptions. _Operation Mincemeat: How a Dead Man and a Bizarre Plan Fooled the Nazis and Ensured an Allied Victory_ (Harmony Books) is a grand story, full of colorful and odd characters on both sides of the battle, and it traces the plot from its conception through the victory it brought. The plotters were careful to work their scheme down to the smallest of details, and it was because of this that the trick succeeded (and also because of a good deal of luck and because of taking advantage of the wishful thinking of individuals within German intelligence). All the details are here, and it is an exciting tale.

The point of the deception was to fool Germany about where Allied forces would land coming from the southern Mediterranean. Hitler had to be convinced that the push from Africa would not be to the obvious Sicily, but that the canny Allies were going to head toward Sardinia to the west and Greece to the east. The idea man whose "corkscrew mind" was most responsible for the corpse trick was Charles Cholmondeley (pronounced "Chumly"), a gangling giant with a six inch waxed mustache, who worked for MI5. His boss was Ewan Montagu, a wealthy barrister who had become an intelligence officer for the war. There were plenty of other contributors, including the creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming, who worked in intelligence during the war and had found the corpse plot - "A Suggestion (not a very nice one)" - in a detective novel. Macintyre has revealed that the body was that of Glyndwr Michael, a homeless Welshman who was found dead in London after eating rat poison, deliberately or by accident. Poor Michael had been a nobody when alive; when dead he was to change the course of history. It would not do just to put phony secret plans upon the body and float it away. Anything that might raise a Nazi eyebrow had to be anticipated. A new uniform, for instance, would look suspect, so Cholmondeley put on Marine battle dress and wore it every day for three months while the body was on ice. The secret plans were sealed carefully, including a deliberately-placed eyelash that would stay in their folds if they were undisturbed, but would fall out if they were opened. The body was taken by submarine to Spain, where it washed up as planned. The resultant dance between the pro-Nazi officers of neutral Spain, the German spies, and the British contacts resulted in the documents being carefully extracted from their envelopes without disturbing the seals, photographed, and replaced (without that eyelash) so that the Germans could think they had fooled the British undetected. Their head of intelligence in Madrid, eager to please and to make a name for himself, personally took the documents to Berlin, embellishing the story of how they came into his hands to make them seem even more plausible. There were questions the Nazis should have asked, holes in the story they should have seen, but the eagerness to believe this spectacular intelligence coup extended all the way to Hitler. (Goebbels alone seems to have had his doubts, but kept his skepticism to his diary.) The Fuhrer gave commands to fortify preparations in Greece and Sardinia, and Sicily dropped from precedence.

The exact degree of success of Operation Mincemeat cannot be calculated, and taking Sicily was no milk run, but British casualties were a seventh of what had been expected. By the time the Nazis realized that their forces were in the wrong places, Sicily was an Allied territory. The operation was deadly serious, but a reader gets the sense throughout that the plotters were having fun despite all the detailed steps and bureaucratic shufflings it took to make the plan go through. Macintyre, in a sparkling and gripping book, reminds us that in war, having plenty of guns is important, as is having well-trained soldiers. But imagination, and even whimsy, have their place in battle, too.

The definitive account of the "Man Who Never Was", April 15, 2010

Excellent update based upon recently declassified documents, May 19, 2010

Tried to like it, but..., September 13, 2010
2.5 stars. It took three weeks to muddle through this book. When the story stayed on point, I flipped through the pages with ease and looked forward to learning more. Unfortunately, the author provides too much rambling, irrelevant, mundane information that serves only to distract the reader from the real story. Maybe Mr. McIntyre thought the reader would find the mind-numbing minutia interesting...maybe he needed to meet a page requirement. For whatever reason, I found his style of writing very frustrating. Had this subject been placed in the care of a more fluid writer, I think I would have enjoyed it very much. Guess I'll skip Agent Zigzag.

Amazing and entertaining,, April 7, 2010

Better than the movie -- a real spy story to sink your teeth into!, May 10, 2010
Ben Macintyre can't seem to write a bad book, and he has a knack for finding unusual, quirky stories and characters or, as in the case of this book, the unusual twist/angle to a story that may already be well known to readers and movie-goers thanks to the 1950s publication and film of The Man Who Never Was. That film was an indifferent drama based on an incredible story, and Macintyre has done even better, delivering a far more complete narrative of that story, jam packed with interesting characters and coincidences.

Essentially, it's a spy story, set at the height of World War II, in the months leading up to the invasion of Sicily. Already the Allies were using all kinds of misdirection to feed inaccurate intelligence back to the Germans, but they were particularly concerned about the Sicily landings, not just as a trial run for D-Day but in their own right: if they were repulsed, there might very well never be a D-Day, just a stalemate. How to convince the Germans that the Sicilian attack was only a feint; a cover for the real attack on Sardinia or Greece? Some of the smart and very eccentric minds in the intelligence operations got pondering this, and decided to float a body, containing secret documents, onto a Spanish beach in hopes that the ostensibly neutral Spanish fascists would share the information they found with the Germans AND that the Germans would believe it. Sound incredible? This is the story of that operation, from idea all the way through to the Sicily landings, and it's quite something. Even those familiar with the story will find all kinds of quirky sidenotes -- the main protagonist, for instance, had a brother who was a Soviet spy: he was a typical ecccentric in that he founded a cheese-eating society at Cambridge, was a table-tennis nut, collected rare species of mice and, oh yes, spied for the Soviet Union. (In between producing films for Hitchcock and Eisenstein, and teaching Charlie Chaplin to swear in Russian, of course...)

If you're interested in taking a broader look at this kind of World War 2 intelligence coup, the best book of all (although not as lively or succinct a read as this one) is Churchill's Wizards: The British Genius for Deception, 1914-1945 by Nicholas Rankin, which covers Mincemeat and the various misdirection operations that surrounded D-Day itself.

Meanwhile, do hunt out Macintyre's other books, which include a book about jewel thief Adam Worth and one focusing on a little-known event in World War One that is a poignant mystery -- The Englishman's Daughter: A True Story of Love and Betrayal in World War I.

Highly recommended, and not just to military history buffs (whose ranks I would not include myself in.) ... Read more

Editorial Review

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Reviews

U concise introduction to Kant's thought, October 27, 2009
Kant is not considered as one of the more accessible philosophers, and most of his monumental works are too long and beyond reach of an average reader. This short book is still fairly advanced and conceptually sophisticated, but fortunately due to its length it does not go much too deep in philosophical concepts. The book deals on several occasions with the central concept in Kant's moral philosophy, and that is the concept of categorical imperative. This imperative can be summed up in Kant's famous dictum: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." Several other famous Kant concepts - like practical reason, pure reason, treating humans like ends and not as means in moral considerations, etc. - are dealt with throughout the book. You might need to read the book several times before you get a better understanding of what is being discussed, but again, since it is so short, this can be easily done. The language of the translation sounds a bit archaic to the modern ear, but this does not obscure the meaning at all. Overall, reading this book would be a worthwhile endeavor and as good of a starting point to start reading Kant as they come.

Read this book more than once, May 24, 2005
This short compendium is noteworthy in its pith. Kant can say an awful lot in a short book. To get the full value of this read, be sure to take plenty of notes and re read it in a few months when you have mulled the book over, perhaps talking to friends about it.

There is one essential concept here and of course that is morals. How do we come by them and how do we distinguish them. In contemporary America, the most strident and vocal "moralists" will explain that it takes the acceptance of a personal God. Kant makes us look more closely at this concept.

Essentially he distinguishes between a moral that has "ends". We do the right thing, perhaps even the noblest thing because of various ends. Those may include the good graces of others who admire your morality or the desire to avoid the shame of acting in an immoral fashion for two examples.
... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

An Eye-Opening Account of the Ethnic & Geographic Impact of Stalin & Hitler, October 14, 2010
Rarely have I encountered a history that is as enlightening and thought-provoking as Snyder's account of the impact of forced starvation, genocide, war, ethnic cleansing, and geographic re-location on the peoples of Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, the Baltic Republics, and the formerly German Reich over the two decades between 1933 and 1953, when Stalin died. Residents of the region of Europe he calls the Bloodlands experienced atrocities of an unprecedented nature and scope in this period. What is especially striking is how many people were victimized multiple times in this relatively brief period--first by the Soviet authorities, then by the Germans, and then again by the Soviets as Stalin and Hitler imposed their insane doctrines on civilian populations.

Snyder is an extremely skillful writer and holds the reader's attention throughout in what could easily have been a dry treatise on the demographic dimensions of human suffering. He skillfully weaves in the gripping stories of individual people caught in the maelstrom, giving a human face to the numbers. I have to disagree with one reviewer who alleges this is just another study of the similarities between Soviet and Nazi totalitarianism; Snyder is careful to compare and contrast these two tyrannical regimes.

This is an engrossing book, but may be a bit too ambitious for people without some familiarity with modern European history. However, it is certainly worth reading and gives valuable new perspectives on the impact of the 30s, World War II, and the Postwar Era on residents of Eastern Europe. I recommend it highly to anyone interested in the history of the period.

Objective, well-written book about the horrors that occurred, October 29, 2010
"Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin" by Timothy Snyder, is a book about the intentional mass murder of over 14 million people between 1930 and 1947 in a general area that encompasses what is now Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, and western Russia. And by murder, I mean that. As part of that 14 million number, Mr. Snyder counts only those that were outright killed, intentionally starved, or otherwise were put to death outside of military actions or by being worked to death. If you were to include the deaths that could have been predictably forseen as a result of certain actions taken, that number jumps to between 17 and 21 million people who were killed.

The author breaks the killing periods into 5 general subsets ... Stalin starving the Ukrainian kulaks in 1932-1933, Stalin's Great Terror of 1937-1938, Hitler and Stalin murdering and otherwise removing Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian intelligentsias from 1939-1941, Hitler's murdering the Jewish population and "undesirables" of many countries, intentionally starving Russian POWs and Soviet civilians, and executing civilians as part of partisan reprisals in 1941 - 1945, and people who died as a result of forced resettlements in 1945-1947.

While I've read extensively about World War II, I learned a great deal from this book. As one example, there were no purely death camps in Germany proper, they were all in Poland. While there were concentrations camps in Germany and many of these camps contained extermination chambers, their primary function was as forced-labor camps. Personnel assigned to the labor camps had a slim chance of surviving. There were 6 death, or extermination, camps set up in Poland ... Auschwitz, Chelmno, Belzed, Majdanek, Soribor, and Treblinka. Only Auschwitz had a labor camp attached to it, the other 5 existed purely to murder people. Of the people who arrived at the death camps other than Auschwitz, they were all usually killed within hours of arrival, and of those sent there, only about 100 people saw the inside of the camp and lived to tell of it. At Auschwitz, new arrivals were separated into those who would be killed immediately, and those who would work in the labor camp until they weakened and then they were killed. The survivor's tales from Auschwitz come from those assigned to the labor camps.

This book attempts, with great success, to show the vast scope of death in the bloodlands, and how Hitler's and Stalin's extermination policies were alike and how they differed. He also shows how the Wehrmacht was much more complicit in atrocities than the German soldiers of the time would have liked you to believe, and how international and allied policies overlooked much of the killing for a variety of reasons.

The book is grim reading, and while it is more of a scholarly study of the depredations of Hitler and Stalin, there are anecdotes contained within that are heartbreaking, such as the Polish-Jewish mother breastfeeding her infant mere seconds before they're shot, and a starving Ukrainian toddler hallucinating that he sees the food that will save his family's lives. It is not a sensationalist text; it calmly, objectively, and concisely discusses the horrors that occurred.

I highly recommend this book. It is the first book I've read that ties so many of the atrocities committed against the helpless into one highly readable and informative tome, and shows them as part of a larger tapestry against the framework of the times.

Excellent account of the loss of millions caught between two evils, October 15, 2010
Prof Synder has made a valuable addition to the history of the geonocide of the eastern european people who were caught between the expanionist and ethnic evil of nazi germany and the totalitarian political evil of soviet untion in the 1930's and WWII. While we are all familiar with the loss of life in this area from the Holocaust and death camps, we are reminded how many many more people were systematically killed by these two evil regimes. The soviet deliberate starvation of the ukranian people is 1933, the division of poland between the two nations and the subsequent extinguishing of the polish intelligentsia by both regimes, followed by the ethnice cleansing of jews by the nazis, and the politcal executions of anyone who stalin felt opposed his power. This geographical area was the site of the worst of human nature in the 20th century and this book does justice to the many who died there simply by being in this area caught between two of the centuries most evil regimes.

Bloodcurdling history, October 21, 2010
I would suggest taking a careful look at the Kindle edition of this book (the free sample) before ordering it: I downloaded the sample of this book and quickly discovered that the maps in the Kindle version were almost illegible. The book looked fascinating, and the maps are important, so I ordered the hardbound version instead.
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I have now owned the hardbound edition of this book for a week or two, and, although the book is excellent in every way, my reading progress has been slow because the subject matter is both terrifying and depressing. So far, the book has demolished many of my hazy ideas about what happened in the Bloodlands.

For example, I had a never-closely-examined "picture" of how Hitler killed six million Jews. That would be as follows: he rounded up the Jews living in Germany, took them to concentration camps like Auschwitz, and gassed them. We have all seen the film footage, which makes an indelible impression.

It turns out that my "picture" is completely wrong. Germany simply did not have enough Jews, and a huge number escaped through emigration while it was still allowed. The total of German Jews killed was 175,000. That is (don't mistake my meaning) in itself an incomprehensible, enormous number, but it does not account for six million dead. What Hitler did, in fact, was to conquer Poland (with the connivance of Stalin) and begin massacring Polish and East European Jews. A huge number were simply shot and tossed into unmarked mass graves. There were also "killing camps" (NOT concentration camps) where the average "stay" was just a day or two, and the victims were gassed without any pretense of work whatsoever.

One reason we Americans were slow in understanding the truth is that we (our troops) never even got to the Bloodlands, and so the massive crimes of Hitler and Stalin, amounting to 14 million dead, were simply things that we remained unaware of. I could recite the names of the monstrous killing camps and you most likely would not recognize them --- neither did I.

What we remain ignorant of are horrendous crimes such as Stalin's collectivization drive in the Ukraine, which was an utter failure. Shortly after his wife committed suicide (with a bullet through her heart), Stalin became actively malicious towards the Ukraine, seizing all their grain and selling it abroad, and causing a famine which killed 3.3 million people. This is described in the chapter on "Class Terror."

But then came the show trials and the Great Terror. This time, Stalin went after nationalities which he suspected --- Poles, Ukrainians, Belorussians -- and the Ukraine experienced a second wave of terror-murder, described in the chapter on "National Terror." All of this happened well before World War II, and all of this time Hitler was able to point to Stalin as a horrific example of Bolshevism ("Why You Should Vote for the Nazis").

Very soon, Hitler invaded Poland from the West, and Stalin (after a cautious pause) invaded from the East, and the stage was set for some of the worst crimes in human history. When you realize that Hitler, in annexing "his half" of Poland, had suddenly created a nation with more Slavs than any other nation in the world (aside from the USSR), and when you think of Hitler's lunatic insistence on "racial purity" --- in addition to his initial plan to steal the land of the Slavs, annihilate them, and populate the lands with German farmers --- a genuine shiver of terror runs down your back.

This is a long overdue, magisterial work, which will be a very valuable source for students, teachers, and researchers in the future.

The very best book on those murdered by Stalin and Hitler, October 11, 2010
In his first book, THE RECONSTRUCTION OF NATIONS, Timothy Snyder made the history of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth his own. Doubtless few without ethnic ties to that vast region (those not Polish, Balt, Ukrainian, Belarusian or Ashkenazi Jewish) were interested in that seemingly obscure history. But anyone concerned with the mass murders of the 1930's and 1940's in Europe needs a second look, for it was in this region that the evil work of Stalin and Hitler most importantly occurred. It was here that Stalin taught other dictators how to kill and here that Hitler became his most accomplished pupil.

There has not appeared any previous book as brilliantly authoritative on this subject as Snyder's BLOODLANDS. He deserves a medal!

Superb geography of crimes against humanity, November 5, 2010
Bottom line: Buy this book for the reader on your holiday list who only has room on the shelf for one more book about WW2 history.

Look here for the best professional review of "Bloodlands" book by the Literary Review: [...].

Americans do not study geography in school the way Europeans and Asians do, and we have much to learn from Timothy Snyder's approach to counting, narrating and explaining some of the worst crimes against humanity committed during World War Two. They took place in a region where no GIs ever traveled, between Berlin and Moscow conprising all of Poland, Belarus and the Ukraine (among other regions). This bloody stage was covered up by the Iron Curtain from 1945 until 1989. As a result, the way World War Two history has been written (mostly by the victorious Allies) up til now misses fact, context and nuance.

"The best died first," Snyder writes in a paragraph that will haunt me the rest of my life.

Adding to the problems that historians face, according to Snyder, most of what is known about this planned killing has come from, and has been framed by, survivors. Survivors had luck or made choices which alter their view of the killing field, Snyder notes, and that in turn makes history problematic. For instance, it is hard for the survivor to accurately report or even understand the odds of his or her own survival, to detail the resources available at the time and compare them with resoruces available to others (especially in terms of energy--calories), or to comprehend all the possible choices which he or she did not take under extreme distress. Survivors cannot always remember every moral hazard they encountered, and they are not the best people to rate them. Snyder comments about this, both in the beginning and at the end of "Bloodlands," raising objections to conventional scholarship. But the dead victims of crimes against humanity never spoke. The dead perpetrators have rarely spoken. Less so the bystanders, living or dead. Survivors tell a tale that must be told, and they are in the majority when telling it. It is hard to see a way out of the perils Snyder warns of.

Getting underway with the narrative, Snyder chillingly introduces the reader to horrific killing fields where there were no survivors. Take Ukraine, for instance. There in 1932-1933, Stalin literally starved three million by ordering paid & well-fed employees ("party members") to take the grain away from the Ukrainian people before their eyes so they could not plant next season's crop, upon which they solely subsisted. To minimize the chances of resistance, the perpetrators regularly round up large numbers of people, took them away in the middle of the night to trenches dug in the woods farther than anybody could walk to (based on a rough estimate of the calories available), and shot them dead. These facts are undisputed. A third alternative fate was banishment to concentration camps in Siberia, where 25% died (not, apparently, the low number of 10% that Snyder asserts).

After killing all the livestock in the country, the remaining Ukranians starved to death. Men, women, children--all starved according to plan. Almost none of these people could read or write. They left almost no diaries. The few survivors had nobody to tell their stories to, unless they made contact with Westerners or Soviet dissidents. Afterwards, a few Russian homesteaders took the bait and migrated east to take over "abandoned" (I would say "widowed") Ukranian farms, only to return east when they could not abide the stench, no matter how hard they tried to fix up the dwellings. A few of these people wrote about what they found and sensed, particularly the silence that accompanies barren farmland bereft of animal presence. Even all the birds had been shot. Those few who told this story catalogued artifacts: skulls, bones, shallow graves, slowly decomposing human remains. At the time of the Ukrainian forced starvations, about 40% of the Soviet intelligence bureau whose employees perpetrated this horror was Jewish. (This can be verified because very Soviet passport contained the ethnic or national identity of the bearer. In addition, stalin kept lists.) These perps were later murdered ("purged" is a needlessly political term for having been tortured then hanged or shot), in turn, by Stalin, and before they died some of them clearly told the truth about what they had done in Ukraine in 1932. So there is a record. But statistically speaking, it is a miracle that primary sources even exist. Add to that the fact that Snyder has done most of his own translations of primary sources which many native speakers never even knew of, and you have a linguistic feat in itself which puts this book in the Pantheon.

Snyder places blame squarely and personally on Hitler and Stalin who imagined, designed and crafted the massacres detailed here, then set and controlled conditions to that the massacres could be carried out. I approve of the general movement by historians towards this approach, labeling leaders with the personal crimes they actually commit--in particular, these two men who were murderous psychopaths first, "political leaders" second. I am also aware that two men did not murder fourteen million people. I kept asking myself how many other killers were involved in every incident where Snyder counts the victims, and I noticed that (as he forewarns) it is easier to understand what the victim experienced than to understand what the actual perpetrators experienced. In the case of German bystanders who gathered to view a pile of Jewish bodies, or starving Ukranians who ate their own children, the reader almost cannnot make sense of the scene. Snyder points out that to say "it is senseless" is just as unhelpful; when any crime is regarded as beyond understanding, "beyond history," then we play into the hands of the mass murderer.

The facts are overwhelming, and I had trouble keeping tabs on the numbers. Paradoxically, Snyder realizes that when we focus on the statistics and logistics of massacres, we are only validating the aims of the killers. He admits that it is necessary for the historian to imagine, to try to understand, every single extinguished life, but on the scale of what Stalin and Hitler accomplished this is clearly impossible, and so Snyder's paradox makes for uneasy reading and digestion.

There are apparently some mistakes, as in any sweeping history, and Snyder's attempts to distinguish different kinds of killing and murderous policies sometimes seem forced. This may be because we are not used to thinking in these terms yet. We are not used to making distinctions yet between war and war crimes, between planned massacres and political policy, between necessary killing and murder, between leaders of a willing populace and criminals with power over a willing populace. I urge interested readers to compliment "Bloodlands" with "Human Smoke" by Nicholson Baker. Baker's book is a completely different kind of history, intimate vignettes compiled chronologically, but Snyder's answers only raise more of Baker's questions.

These two books are a good start for American readers training themselves to think holistically about war and global conflicts. No matter what your war experience, ethnic identity, personal beliefs or political leanings, these books will challenge you and horrify you. Read them both.

Three and a half stars.

How many is 17 million?, October 21, 2010
I cannot add to the factual content of other reviewers here. This is a great book. It is extremely well written.

I just want to comment on my reaction to the first chapter, which outlines the scope of the slaughter and genocide. I was remembering the "paper clip project" done by students in a middle school in Tennessee. They were studying the Holocaust and wanted to know "how many is a million?" Well, it takes a railcar similar to those used in the Holocaust to hold one million paperclips.

So how many is 17 million persons? Caught between Stalin's hammer and Hitler's anvil, the slaughter of whole populations of kulaks, intellectuals, Jews, army officers--any displaced person, or displaceable person--stuns one's imagination.

I found this book to complement Catherine Epstein's Model Nazi, about the development of a Nazi overlord in the part of Poland appropriated by the Nazi's early in WW II.

Humanist History, October 31, 2010
To the American reader with Easter European origins, perhaps the author's most fundamental achievement is to bring back to life the countless relatives that vanished.

As The Guardian wrote in its review: ' The figures are so huge and so awful that grief could grow numb. But Snyder, who is a noble writer as well as a great researcher, knows that. He asks us not to think in those round numbers. "It is perhaps easier to think of 780,863 different people at Treblinka: where the three at the end might be Tamara and Itta Willenberg, whose clothes clung together after they were gassed, and Ruth Dorfmann, who was able to cry with the man who cut her hair before she entered the gas chamber." The Nazi and Soviet regimes turned people into numbers. "It is for us as humanists to turn the numbers back into people." '

bloodlands, November 15, 2010
The most frightening book ever written...14 million people intentionally murdered by first the Soviets (Russians), then the Nazis (Germans), then local governments between 1930 and roughly 1948. Not many things keep me up at night, but this one did: graphic tales of murder and death, starvation of children, other items which border on the pornographic. I was familiar but not expert on the Final Solution, purges, Collectivization. What this book does is to add context to a series of events that can only be understood if considered together. Quite a feat of research and scholarship to bring it all together. My only complaint is that the book is perhaps about 50 pages too long. I also wish the publisher had placed the abstract in the front of the book (Kindle edition) vice the end, where I found it late. Shakespeare wrote that Nero was a fisher in the lake of darkness (Lear?). The lake was the bloodlands, and Hitler and Stalin were right there beside him.

Magisterial Work Highlights the Little-Known Genocides of Slavs, and Why No Slav Extermination, November 14, 2010
The single-volume work is very detailed and scholarly. It goes a long way towards redressing the imbalanced attention to the Holocaust, and the neglect of Soviet Communist crimes. Snyder concludes: "Fourteen million people were deliberately murdered by two regimes over twelve years." (p. 406).

During the Holodomor (Soviet famine-genocide of 1932-1933), at least 3.3 million Soviet citizens perished. Though most of these were Ukrainians, there were also many Polish and other victims. (p. 53).

Moving on to the Great Terror (1937-1938), Snyder comments: "Even as the Popular Front presented the Soviet Union as the homeland of toleration, Stalin ordered the mass killing of several Soviet nationalities...The most persecuted European national minority in the second half of the 1930's was not the four hundred thousand or so German Jews...but the six hundred thousand or so Soviet Poles..." (p. 89). "In 1937 and 1938, Poles were twelve times more likely than the rest of the Soviet Ukrainian population to be arrested." (p. 99)(and 40 times more likely to be murdered: p. 104). One-eighth of all Great Terror victims were Poles, although Poles were only 0.4% of the USSR's population. (p. 104).

Snyder continues (bear in mind the Jews constituted 1-2% of the population of the USSR): "The Jewish officers who brought the Polish operation to Ukraine and Belarus, such as Izrail Leplevskii, Lev Raikhman, and Boris Berman, were arrested and executed. This was part of a larger trend. When the mass killing of the Great Terror began, about a third of the high-ranking NKVD officers were Jewish by nationality. By the time Stalin brought it to an end on 17 November 1938, about twenty percent of the high-ranking officers were. A year later that figure was less than four percent." (p. 108). Snyder portrays all this as Stalin (before de-Judaizing the CP) having Jews do all his dirty work so that Jews would be the scapegoats for it. (This will not do. Jews had been strongly, and by deliberate choice, overrepresented in Communism long before Stalin. Jews in high positions in the USSR certainly knew what they were doing. They were active perpetrators, not pawns).

Contrary to recent revisionist Russian propaganda, at no time was a 1930's Polish-German alliance against the USSR in the offing: pp. 64-65. During the WWII period up to Barbarossa, some 200,000 Poles (mainly the intelligentsia) were murdered by the Soviets and Nazis. (p. 153). However, the Polish intelligentsia proved too large, and robust, to eliminate. (p. 293). Snyder downgrades the total eventual number of Poles murdered by the Germans to 1 million, along with another 1 million dead from mistreatment and casualties of war. (p. 406). In doing so, he ignores other sources (and NOT just postwar propaganda estimates) that cite a much higher number of Polish-gentile victims of the Nazis.

About eight million people, mostly Slavs, were eventually deported to the Reich for forced labor. (p. 294). The consequences of the German invasion of their erstwhile Soviet ally were as follows: "During this eastern war, the Germans also deliberately murdered some ten million people, including more than five million Jews and more than three million prisoners of war." (p. 155). On the other side of the coin, a much smaller number of captive Germans perished in Soviet captivity, comprising 185,000 civilians and 363,000 POWs. (p. 318).

The fact that the Germans did not murder many more Slavs owed entirely to practical reasons. Plans to exterminate tens of millions of Slavs by starvation (Hunger Plan, or as part of Himmler's proposal of 30 million locals' deaths: p. 234, 389), on the heels of Operation Barbarossa, fell through. (pp. 162-163, 187). The Germans, unlike their earlier Soviet counterparts, had proved incapable of inflicting Holodomor-style genocides owing to such things as a shortage of personnel needed to seal-off collective farms and cities against a transfer of food. (pp. 166-168; 172). Even the long-besieged Leningrad retained some access to outside food. (p. 173). Long-term German plans calling for the massive extermination of tens of millions of Slavs (GENERALPLAN OST), including 80-85% of Poles (p. 160), became moot as a result of Germany's defeat.

Snyder devotes some chapters to the Holocaust, and includes seldom-mentioned information, such as the function of KL Warschau (pp. 296-297), which was later reused as an NKVD camp. (p. 311). Snyder also realizes that the Germans sent Jews out into the countryside as spies (as by taking their families hostage)(p. 237) and that Poles' cut-throat gestures directed at doomed Jews [as in Lanzmann's SHOAH] did not necessarily imply an approval of their fate. (p. 266).

German revisionists, focusing on the vertriebiene, have tried to cover up Germany's genocidal crimes by inventing a nonexistent genocide of 2 million Germans by the victorious Allies. What are the facts? Snyder writes: "In all of this flight and transport, from early 1945 to late 1947, perhaps four hundred thousand Germans native to lands that were annexed by Poland died: most of them in Soviet and Polish camps, and a second large group caught between armies or drowned at sea." (pp. 323-324). However, Snyder has reversed the actual proportions of causes of death. In any case, the 400,000 figure, long buried in German archives (p. 405), is likely a maximum.

Interestingly, some Germans were afraid to board enclosed deportation trains, fearing that they were disguised gas chambers! (p. 322). During the actual postwar expulsion processes, probably no more than a few thousand (or at most a few tens of thousands) of Germans died. (p. 323). Perhaps about 30,000 Germans died in Polish-Communist camps in 1945 and 1946 (p. 322), and 19,000-30,000 were killed in Czechoslovakia. (p. 320, 499).

Germans were not the only ones massively relocated. For instance, 1.5 million Poles from the Kresy (Poland's eastern half, conquered by the USSR in 1939 and given away during the Teheran betrayal of Poland) were unilaterally deprived of their centuries-old domiciles without so much as being consulted.
... Read more

Editorial Review

At a secret arms-design contest in Stalin’s Soviet Union, army technicians submitted a stubby rifle with a curved magazine. Dubbed the AK-47, it was selected as the Eastern Bloc’s standard arm. Scoffed at in the Pentagon as crude and unimpressive, it was in fact a breakthrough—a compact automatic that could be mastered by almost anyone, last decades in the field, and would rarely jam. Manufactured by tens of millions in planned economies, it became first an instrument of repression and then the most lethal weapon of the Cold War. Soon it was in the hands of terrorists.In a searing examination of modern conflict and official folly, C. J. Chivers mixes meticulous historical research, investigative reporting, and battlefield reportage to illuminate the origins of the world’s most abundant firearm and the consequences of its spread. The result, a tour de force of history and storytelling, sweeps through the miniaturization and distribution of automatic firepower, and puts an iconic object in fuller context than ever before. The Gun dismantles myths as it moves from the naïve optimism of the Industrial Revolution through the treacherous milieu of the Soviet Union to the inside records of the Taliban. Chivers tells of the 19th-century inventor in Indianapolis who designs a Civil War killing machine, insisting that more-efficient slaughter will save lives. A German attaché who observes British machine guns killing Islamic warriors along the Nile advises his government to amass the weapons that would later flatten British ranks in World War I. In communist Hungary, a locksmith acquires an AK-47 to help wrest his country from the Kremlin’s yoke, beginning a journey to the gallows. The Pentagon suppresses the results of firing tests on severed human heads that might have prevented faulty rifles from being rushed to G.I.s in Vietnam. In Africa, a millennial madman arms abducted children and turns them on their neighbors, setting his country ablaze. Neither pro-gun nor anti-gun, The Gun builds to a terrifying sequence, in which a young man who confronts a trio of assassins is shattered by 23 bullets at close range. The man survives to ask questions that Chivers examines with rigor and flair.

Throughout, The Gun animates unforgettable characters—inventors, salesmen, heroes, megalomaniacs, racists, dictators, gunrunners, terrorists, child soldiers, government careerists, and fools. Drawing from years of research, interviews, and from declassified records revealed for the first time, he presents a richly human account of an evolution in the very experience of war. ... Read more

Reviews

Compelling History, October 15, 2010
Chris Chivers knows how to tell a story that has historical significance, depth and insight. The Gun explains how one rifle changed the face of war in the late 20th Century. Formerly the New York Times correspondent in Moscow, Chivers takes the reader behind the scenes inside the Soviet industrial and propaganda machine, laying out a fascinating narrative of how the regime plotted and schemed to engineer myth while designing the automatic rifle that was the most significant technical factor in the North Vietnamese victory over the south. Chivers wraps his deep understanding about military history inside a refreshing compendium of characters - heroes, inventors, knaves and entrepreneurs. He knows the secret of story-tellling; the reader finishes each page by asking, and then what happened? - Bing West, Newport, RI

The Power of Iron, October 24, 2010
The AK-47 and its numerous variants and successors are ubiquitous instruments of destruction currently appearing in all troubled regions of the globe. The rifle, known for its quadruple attributes of extreme design simplicity, rugged durability, ease of use and tremendous destructive capacity has achieved legendary status. Of course, this is all well known and has been thoroughly discussed and written about. After all, the AK series are instantly recognizable to military, police, criminals, terrorists and the general public as the seminal firearms of the 20th Century.

C.J. Chivers of "The New York Times" and late of the USMC has, in "The Gun" provided, through the history of the AK series, a lucid exposition of the development of automatic weapons from their inception to the present time. Additionally and more importantly, "The Gun" explores a hitherto largely uninvestigated dimension of the modern assault weapon. He asks, "What is its role as a socio-political instrument of state and how did it achieve this goal?"

As might be expected, the originator of the eponymous weapon, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has become a mythical figure. It well-served the propaganda purposes of the Soviet Union to extol the virtues of a genuine, nearly unlettered proletarian who, enjoying the Benefits of the Worker's Paradise, arose from a humble and unassuming background to the pinnacle of firearms design. By legend, he proceeded virtually unaided and motivated primarily by Love of the Fatherland.

Hagiography aside, Kalashnikov (and the state-supported teams of machinists, engineers, industrialists, ballistics experts and legions of others) served a realpolitik purpose: they built a foundational weapon in accord with pragmatic considerations of state defense and did so expediently, logically, methodically and cheaply. The AK is a model of the axiom, "Form follows function." Its presence over 60 years after its inception is a testament to that, just as the Colt M1911, Browning Hi-Power, Bren, MG42 and their successors enjoy similar prominence in their own niches.

Chivers traces the history of the Gatling and Maxim guns; the prototype of the assault rifle, the German machinenpistole 43/sturmgewehr 44; the role of ammunition in the genesis of the military rifle, beginning again with WW-II German advances in the form of the 7.92x33mm Kurz cartridge, evolving to the M1943 Soviet round that powered the AK; the introduction and dissemination of AK rifles according to Soviet policy and, of course, the introduction of the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle, soon to become the standard US arm in the form of the M-16 series. In doing so, he acknowledges the role of the PPSh-41 submachine gun (a Soviet WW-II era arm featuring metal stamping, chromed barrel lining and a blowback action) but, in my estimation, underplays its contribution. Like the AK, this weapon was extremely simple, very robust, easily manufactured (millions were made in factories and small Russian machine shops during the war) and murderously effective at usual combat ranges. Also like the AK, it turned up in many subsequent conflicts, ranging from Korea to Vietnam. A curious omission from the history was the fallschirmjagergewehr-42(FG42)which also featured a gas-operated mechanism, a plastic stock (initially), a 20 round magazine and a selector for semiautomatic and full automatic fire. In other words, the FG42 was also a legitimate precursor to the modern assault rifle. Of course, the Thompson M1921, the "Chicago Piano", makes its necessary appearance. Despite its minor role in the civilian arena, the fearsome performance of this weapon in gangster-era criminal activities gave it a larger-than-life role in the American conscience and lead to laws banning the private ownership of automatic weapons in the US, laws which Chivers notes were not generally implemented outside Western Europe and North America...with devastating consequences.

As Chivers notes, no history of the AK series would be complete without a recounting of the follies and foibles surrounding its US counterpart, the M16. Initially, the US military assumed a dismissive attitude toward the concept of the assault rifle, despite emerging evidence of its deadly utility. Rather than simply stealing the design and reverse-engineering an American version of an obviously successful weapon, ideological blinkers initially prevented development of a comparable US combat arm. The M14 (successor to the M1 Garand) was heavy and cumbersome. It fired a round that was ill-suited to modern combat. By the time an alliance of arms manufacturers and unscrupulous agents convinced influential elements of the American military hierarchy of the need to purchase an American version of the assault rifle (which just happened to be on hand in the form of the Colt's AR-15), the AK was routinely arming the current adversary: the Viet Cong. The AR was rushed into action, despite known problems with the ammunition propellant and the propensity of the weapon to jam in use. Soon, it was discovered that the weapon was prone to rust and the gas-operated bolt assembly to fouling. No matter: a cover-up was in order and, despite losses to American personnel from misfiring in combat, perpetuated. While the modern version (the M4 carbine) is better, it is still suboptimal in comparison to its Russian counterpart in the author's estimation and as noted in a separate chapter at the book's end.

Arms sales and transfers have become a standard form of political influence. The USSR, as a centrally-controlled, "non-market" economy, manufactured, stockpiled, licensed and exported AK weapons to satellite nations and client states. With the collapse of the system, enormous weapons and ammunition stocks became available. Private arms dealers, corrupt government officials and simple thievery resulted in the appearance of AK variants in every "hot zone" on the planet. Chivers acerbically notes that, at present, the largest purchaser of AK weapons is...the US. We send them to regimes we are hoping to influence and whose loyalties we wish to secure worldwide and to proxies. Not surprisingly, other nations do that as well. So, Chivers reports that, with a humble small arm, the AK, weapons systems producers (US, Russia, France, China, Israel and others) have become major arms merchants, themselves; this is the socio-political connection which was not begun by, but seems to have been cemented into convention, by the AK-47. Chivers does well to remind the reader of the modern engine of this phenomenon.

The book concludes with some horrible vignettes dealing with the effects of assault weaponry in the Third World: the murderous Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, the attack on an official in the Kurdish region of Iraq being two of them. Chivers readily acknowledges that "small wars" will be with us forever, AK or no AK. Its just that the tremendous destructive potential of the modern assault rifle magnifies the carnage. Despite the experiences of child soldiers; despite the combat experiences of literally millions of veterans worldwide; despite the adoption of RPGs and AK type weaponry by terrorists, wars will persist for all the reasons they always have. Perhaps, aside from the pragmatic and ideological attractions of armed conflict, there is another and more elemental aspect of combat. It was Homer in "The Odyssey" who wrote, "Iron has powers to draw a man to ruin"; true then and true now.

Interesting, but disjointed, October 31, 2010
"The Gun" provides some very interesting insights into the history of machine guns and modern arms trade, yet it is not a complete book, but rather a series of separate articles. It is hard to find a leading idea that would join the separate stories conveyed in "The Gun".

The book starts with an excellent historical account of developments of the machine gun and goes on to describe the invention of AK-47 and M-16 in this way. But then it stops - for no apparent reason. I would very much like to read about what were the developments in assault rifle design since 1960's, but the historical account stops there.

A very interesting chapter describes all the problems with the adoption of M-16 by the US armed forces. But the description is tiresome and definetely too detailed. For no good reason the author delves into who-said-what-to-whom-and-when and tries to figure out who deserves the blame for US Marines' deaths in Vietnam. It is an interesting story, but a different one from the historical account in other chapters. And just when I hoped that the author would describe a similar problems with a botched implementation of UK's SA80 rifle - the story shifts again.

Third topic covered in this book is terrorism and warfare in third world countries. But since the first part of the book was taken up by other subjects, this one is also covered in a partial fashion - with no real background or details. This part of the book reads more like a collection of trivia - from strange beliefs of African rebels, through partial retelling of terrorist attack during the Munich Olympics, to description of one person's gunshot injuries - with no clear train of thought to connect it.

There is also a discussion of morals and life story of M. Kalashnikov, which could be a nice study of lifestyle choices in a totalitarian state, but - when jammed between three other subjects - is just too brief and disjointed.

Despite those problems, the book is a fine read, interesting and engaging, but it feels like a "bait and switch" - starting on one topic for just long enough to instill curiosity, and then switching to different matters.

Don't buy the Kindle version. It is too expensive and full of bugs - simply an inferior product, and with no text-to-speech. (The bugs include: bad typesetting, typos, errors in format conversion, notes that are in wrong order, special formatting - i.e. bold text, chapter titles' emphasis - that is only visible when you use "next page" function and not when you skip directly to some chapter, the illustrations at the end are not listed in the table of contents and can be easily missed).

The Gun, November 17, 2010
I bought the book after hearing the author being interviewed on NPR's "Fresh Air ". He was fascinating. The book is very well written. Unfortunately it contains no photographs or diagrams of the various inventors or guns mentioned. I find this diminished my enjoyment in reading.

Fantastic read, October 27, 2010
Chivers' book, The Gun, is a masterpiece on many levels. Using the history of this weapon as a lens through which to analyze recent history is brilliant. The battle scenes are riveting and heartwrenching, and the characters are rendered with charisma.
The politics are head spinning, chiefly because most of us don't look at the world this way and I think we don't appreciate how much battle tactics reflect times, politics and ideologies. It's an important book with extraordinary analysis, but full of swashbuckling tales.

First rate - very well written and extremely well researched, October 29, 2010
If you have a even a passing interest in firearms, you should buy this book - I couldn't put it down!

From Armament to Icon - Unfortunately, November 11, 2010
It is scary how many people recognize the silhouette of the AK: the distinct banana clip, stubby barrel, and steep sight post. I realized this when my wife (perhaps due to my unfortunate influence) properly identified it in a book club discussion. As the author points out it has become the primary firearm of the world - "a weapon that rearranged the rules". It is carried by more than fifty national armies, hoisted by passionate guerillas, provided by dictators, used for intimidation and more by criminals, and wielded by child soldiers.

Seldom jamming, easy to maintain, simplistic in components and design, and lightweight with incredible firepower, the AK has been massed produced, "licensed" for production, and knocked off with impunity. If there was an accurate count on casualties inflicted by the AK since its inception, it may well be the leader far ahead of any single conventional weapon. The author notes, "The United Nations convened a conference in 2001 by noting that small arms were principal weapons in forty-six of the forty-nine major conflicts in the 1990s, in which 4 million people died." The AK has proved to be the perfect instrument for the proxy conflicts of the Cold War which eased itself smoothly into the terrorist weapon of choice.

The book covers Avtomat Kalashnikova and the propaganda surrounding the AK's development, includes a history of small arms weapon development covering Gatling, Maxim, Spandau, Thompson, and Schmeisser, features an examination of the differences in the process of development which leads to an overly long comparison with the US's M16, along with historic uses of the AK including Sadat's assassination and the Munich Olympics. And this is where Chivers may have gone wrong with this effort - it was just too long. However. it is now the new standard on the subject surpassing Kahaner's AK-47: The Weapon that Changed the Face of War, Cutshaw's Legends and Reality of the AK, Burrows Trigger Issues: Kalashnikov AK47, and Iannamico's AK-47 The Grim Reaper (along with many other efforts).

Samuel Cummings, a noted and colorful arms dealer, called the flow of arms "an index of the world's folly." The AK may well be the primary factor in that index. For those interested in a similar type of exploratory, look to Patrick Wright's "Tank: The Progress of a Monstrous War Machine".

Jack of all trades, master of none, November 2, 2010
This book tries to be everything for everyone and fails. I read glowing reviews and at least one excerpt from this book before buying it. It tries to be more than a history of the AK-47 but it is less than a book on intermediate caliber automatic weapons. On the plus side, it informed me of Soviet post- World War II small arms development and how it related to German developments. But it seems more of a collection of vaguely related topics, discussing Gatling and Maxim while almost skipping over John M. Browning and other innovators. The reviews indicated that this book would do much to discuss the early problem with the M-16 in Vietnam, yet it failed to provide any new information. Even with Soviet small arms, it leaves huge gaps. Although it discusses the Automat, there is no discussion of why this was chambered in 6.5mm Ariska or how it was operationally employed.

There certainly is not enough useful or complete information to keep this as a reference. I suggest you wait until it comes out in paperback or pick up a slightly used copy. I am certain that the price will fall dramatically in the next few months.

Four stories in one, December 28, 2010
C.J. Chivers knows wars and weapons very well. In The Gun, he sets out to tell us about the rise of automatic weapons, the development of the most widely manufactured automatic weapon in history (the AK-47), what happened when US forces first encounter the weapon and attempted to respond with their own, and the lasting legacy of the AK-47 in the post Soviet world.

On the plus side, this book is very well researched, has copious and helpful notes, and benefits from both the author's experience of being a Marine infantry captain as well as his time as the Moscow bureau chief for the New York Times. It is hard to imagine an author with a more suitable background for such a tale.

On the minus side, Chivers sometimes gives us too much detail, or stops a story in mid stride, only to detour to another before coming back to the first story. His style is a bit staccato, but the reader will be well rewarded for hanging in there to the end.

Of the four stories, I thought the section on the introduction of the M-16 into Vietnam, and the subsequent problems with that gun were the strongest part of the book. Chivers knows exactly what went wrong, who caused it, and can tell heart-breaking anecdote after anecdote about the US soldiers who died while trying to unjam their weapons as the Viet Cong approached with the far more reliable AK-47's. This is emotional stuff, told with the kind of detail that removes any doubt about the author's veracity. If he is looking for another book to write, I'd suggest making this a full length book.

I also enjoyed the section which detailed the AK-47's antecedents, especially the Gatling gun and the Maxim machine gun. Here, Chivers is blessed by two interesting and individualistic inventors, and by the story of how each gun changed the practice of warfare. He is really well informed here and this section makes a cracking good read.

I liked the section on the impact of the AK-47 as it becomes "...the world's gun...", but it is in this section that his urge to break away in mid stream from one story line to another becomes a bit exasperating. He does a very credible job of describing how the socialist countries had a tendency to overproduce arms to ridiculous extremes, and how the breakup of the Soviet empire dispersed a vast trove of weapons with a half life of fifty years or more int the third world.

Ironically, the section I liked the least was about the development of the AK-47 itself. Mikhail Kalashnikov's early life is interesting, but as he gets older, the story line becomes less compelling. The simple fact is that he is one of those guys who does something really impressive early in life, and never comes close to matching it as he gets older. Perhaps if Chivers had done more to explain step by step how the gun worked with visual diagrams, this would have caught my fancy more.

If you like well researched history by someone who knows what he's talking about, or you like military history, this will be a good book for you. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Edited and introduced by Bill Bryson, with original contributions from "a glittering array of scientific writing talent" (Sunday Observer) including Richard Dawkins, Margaret Atwood, Richard Holmes, Martin Rees, Richard Fortey, Steve Jones, James Gleick, and Neal Stephenson, among others, this incomparable book tells the spectacular story of science and the international Royal Society, from 1660 to the present. Seeing Further is also gorgeously illustrated with photographs, documents, and treasures from the Society's exclusive archives.

On a damp weeknight in November three hundred and fifty years ago, a dozen men gathered in London. After hearing an obscure twenty-eight-year-old named Christopher Wren lecture on the wonders of astronomy, his rapt audience was moved to create a society to promote the accumulation of useful—and fascinating—knowledge. At that, the Royal Society was born, and with it, modern science.

Since then, the Royal Society has pioneered global scientific exploration and discovery. Its members have split the atom, discovered the double helix and the electron, and given us the computer and the World Wide Web. Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, Joseph Banks, Humphry Davy, John Locke, Alexander Fleming, Stephen Hawking—all have been fellows. Bill Bryson's favorite fellow is the Reverend Thomas Bayes, a brilliant mathematician who devised Bayes' theorem. Its complexity meant that it had little practical use in Bayes' own lifetime, but today his theorem is used for weather forecasting, astrophysics, and even stock-market analysis. A milestone in mathematical history, it exists only because the Royal Society decided to preserve it—just in case.

Truly global in its outlook, the Royal Society now is credited with creating modern science. Seeing Further is an unprecedented celebration of its history and the power of ideas, bringing together the very best of science writing.

Reviews

A great read for the person with general knowledge about science., November 9, 2010
Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery & the Genius of the Royal Society with Bill Bryson as the editor is a marvelous book. I have read thousands of times that the pace of science and innovation causes knowledge to double and replace itself at an alarmingly fast rate. Of course, it's not in the actual doubling of knowledge that a problem exists but in the fact that it is virtually impossible for us to keep track of that very same new knowledge. However, even in a world that is creating so much new knowledge it is reassuring to consider that the Royal Society is celebrating its 350th anniversary this year. That is a marvelous accomplishment and to be honest I can't name many institutions that have been around that long.

Bill Bryson is the perfect person to have headed this project. As a general science writer Bryson is aware of how important science and the Royal Society has been to the development of modern society. Then there is the rather eclectic group of contributors that have each offered a discussion on the development of science. Authors include James Gleick, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Wertheim, Neal Stephenson, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Simon Schaffer, Richard Holmes, Richard Fortey, Richard Dawkins, Henry Petroski, Georgiana Ferry, Steve Jones, Philip Ball, Paul Davies, Ian Stewart, John D. Barrow, Oliver Morton, Maggie Gee, Stephen H. Schneider, Gregory Benford, and Martin Rees. I'd have to admit that Margaret Atwoods discussion of Jonathan Swift's Academy, and Richard Dawkins' Darwin's Five Bridges: The Way to Natural Selection is for me the highlight of the book. However, each and every chapter is eye opening and worthy of your time.

It is a difficult fact to get your head around that when the Royal Society was established in 1660 we knew so little of the causes of the physical phenomenon of our planet. Whether the topic was the causes of the tides or why summer was warmer than winter, mystery tended to shroud almost everything. The Royal Society created the scientific method thus allowing discoveries to be measured and duplicated and encouraged good scientific exploration. "Good" in this case is relative, meaning that it was better than what preceded it. "Good" by today's standard still left much to be desired.

Seeing Further is written for the general public and even the most "unscientific" of us will have no problem making sense of what is read.

Well written and containing a section devoted to further reading, Seeing Further is a fun and inspiring read.

I give it five stars after reading the whole book.

Peace to all.

Bryson highlights the discoveries and geniuses of science, December 9, 2010
First, every reader should know that Seeing Further is GORGEOUS book. It is filled with color photographs of everything from Newton's death mask to beautiful glimpses of distant galaxies. But it's also a treasure trove of fascinating stories about the personalities, geniuses, mad scientist, and the like who have made the extraordinary discoveries of modern science. Bryson is in top form in bringing together this remarkable look at the glories of science.

Bryson Demonstrates a Consistent Level of Excellence that Even Great Writers Don't Seem to Aspire to - Five Stars !!!!, December 20, 2010



Bill Bryson's latest book is the story of the founding of the Royal Society of London, a unique group if there ever was one. Founded in 1660, it has done more to advance science than any other institution in the world including all the great English universities, including the great German institutions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries where so much applied science was achieved, and including our finest schools in the early part of this century.


Twelve men got together at Gresham College in London 350 years ago, and together founded a group dedicated to the assistance and promotion of the accumulation of knowledge. Could you imagine the difficulty of keeping such a group together for 3 � centuries? There was no endowment to bind them to a common cause, and no lineage of professor and student. There were wars, famine, depressions, and radical changes in government, and yet the society survived, and prospered through it all, based on the need for each of the members to add to the body of knowledge that we all benefit from today.


Bryson (he's the editor) by putting this book together has created a gift for those of us who truly appreciate great books. This story has never been told in anything approaching this kind of quality. From the exquisite artwork and graphics to the selection of contributing writers, it's first class all the way. The basis of the Royal Society was CLARITY OF EXPRESSION. They did not want scholars who were interested in impressing you with their language. It was about the power of their intellectual achievements, but people at the same time had to understand those achievements. Fortunately, the Royal Society had a succession of noteworthy secretaries who enforced clarity, a full 100 years before the English government adopted the idea of secretaries for itself.


Some of the unique characteristics of the Royal Society of London include:


* The Society was truly international in nature. That is why it is the Royal Society of London, not Great Britain. Had it been Great Britain, it might not have survived the centuries, and certainly had it survived, it would not be in its present form. It was the international flavoring that created the international acceptance.


* Prior to its formation, all science was done in Latin, the language of the ages. The Royal Society implemented the universal acceptance of English as the language of science, and it has been that way ever since.


* The Society basically invented the concept of scientific publishing with rigorous standards, and PEER REVIEW. Both concepts are still employed today universally.


* They systematized experimentation in science, and this was a revolution by itself.


* Have you ever noticed how many scientists talk using jingoistic language? To the extent that this is no longer prevalent today is the direct result of the Royal Society which argued vehemently for simple, direct language.



LAYOUT OF THE BOOK


There are 22 chapters in a narrative stretching 486 pages. There is then a list for further reading, and a list of illustrations followed by an excellent index. There are 22 outstanding authors that have contributed diverse works to this book. A few examples are James Gleick who is probably Isaac Newton's definitive biographer.


Richard Dawkins has written about Charles Darwin who was a celebrated member of the Royal Society. Paul Davies writes about the universe, and Ian Stewart writes a beautiful piece about math. It is left to Martin Rees to write about 50 years from NOW. There is not a single selection that I would not categorize as outstanding.

Bryson has also done something totally unique that I have seen employed by the publishing industy. Next to each of the 22 chapters in the book, he puts a distinctive colored bar next to the author's name. If you now hold the book closed in your hand and look at the edge of the book, the publishers have run a series of color bars along the edge of the closed pages. You literally only have to look at the color on the edging to find the chapter you want. You do not have to go by page number. It is absolutley ingenious, and amazing that no one has used this technique.


CONCLUSION:


In 350 years there have been 8200 members of the Royal Society of London, that's it. Today there are approximately 1400 Fellows. There have been 69 Nobel Laureates. If you made a list of the most extraordinary members, it would be at least a page in length. Bill Bryson has once again put together a magnificent book that covers enormous ground, and reading it is an education in itself. After reading Bryson's, A Short History of Nearly Everything, I was hoping that this book would be just as good. It may be even better, because of the assortment of great minds that have contributed to it. You are going to love this book, and thank you for reading this review.


Richard C. Stoyeck

Content is A+, wish I hadn't wasted $ on kindle version, December 10, 2010
This is a book that exemplifies the opportunity for a great reading experience on the electronic medium. Wonderful writing that is complemented by graphics and pictures that support the content.

Pity that this was neglected. No visual content was included and oddly, the picture/graphic references are embedded in the paragraph content.

Loved the writing and short stories. I have to assume that it was rushed to kindle and they ran short on $ to do the electronic version correctly. I'm holding out hope that amazon comes through for the customer and improves upon this release and then offers the update to those who have already purchased. I'm nothing if not an optimist.

Not exactly "by Bill Bryson", December 2, 2010
This is a pretty good book, but not what I was expecting. I am a big fan of Bill Bryson's writing, so when I saw a new book that was "by Bill Bryson" I eagerly bought it on my Kindle without even reading the description. I knew I'd like it because I've enjoyed all his books. It wasn't until I got to the first chapter that I realized he only wrote the introduction of this book. Mea culpa, but caveat emptor.

Worth reading, but beware the formatting of the American Kindle version ..., November 9, 2010
Published in the 350th anniversary year of the Royal Society of London, "Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society" is more a book about science than a book about the Royal Society.

Of all the qualifications in the world, the letters FRS (fellow of the Royal Society) would certainly be the mostly highly prized ones, much better than PhD (which merely indicates that the individual at one time did enough work to earn a degree). FRS indicates that the individual has accomplished work of high standard over a prolonged period recognised by his or her fellow scientists.

This book is worth reading, but one caveat; be aware that the American eBook doesn't come with the illustrations (not in itself a bad thing - the illustrations are pretty to look at, but in the main don't add much to the text), but do include the captions, in the middle of the text, which is a little off-putting. One example, in a discussion of the experiments which could have been performed on the peak of Tenerife, the Kindle version includes:

... And many more: candles, vials of smoky liquor, sheep's bladders filled with air, pieces of iron and copper, and various living things, to be carried thither.
Opposite & Previous Page:
A record of the founding of the Royal Society and the first meeting, 28 November 1660.
A stew of good questions, but to no avail ...

Buyer beware! This is the reason I initially gave it 1 star as a warning.

The book consists of 21 essays by 21 authors, so it's difficult to give an overall opinion. What I liked, others won't (and vice versa). I personally prefer books to be written by the one author who then has enough space to develop his or her ideas (there's a chapter by Paul Davies who has condensed several of his books, such as "the Eerie Silence" and "the Goldilocks Zone" and one by Richard Holmes writing about ballooning, which was also discussed in his "the Age of Wonder").

The chapter I liked most of all was the one by Oliver Morton "Globe and Sphere, Cycles and Flows: How to See the World" which starts with the evocative image from Apollo 17 on December 7, 1972 of the fully illuminated Earth from 29,000 km. It finishes with the Earth as seen by the Mars Exploration Rover 'Spirit'. Without the images, it wouldn't mean much ...

Great book, poor Kindle formatting, November 14, 2010
Review on the Kindle book as of November 10th...

Someone has argued that a poor review solely based on the formatting of the book is inadequate. However good the point may be, I still would not recommend a book, whether paperback or Kindle, to a friend if the organization of it were bad. This book is poorly formatted, and given the dramatically increasing number of people using Kindle, I think the two stars I am giving this book are relevant.

The content is great. Fascinating as usual with Bryson, though most of it obviously has not been written by himself but by 21 different scholars.

But the KINDLE formatting make reading it a slightly annoying experience. As mentioned previously, not only have the illustrations been completely omitted, but their captions have been left behind right in the text. Really?

Kindle books are outrageously expensive, sometimes more than plain, good old paperbacks. Don't get me wrong, I love the Kindle. But if we're going to pay so much for a book (that we can't sell, exchange or return) the least we can expect from Amazon is to provide quality stuff.

Disappointed I have to say. If you are looking into the paperback, you should go for it though.

seeing further, November 12, 2010
If a publisher decides to offer a book electronically and not include illustrations, Kindle must be obligated to state this clearly. Why a publisher would do this is mysterious to me. But the point is I tend to count on amazon/kindle to be trusworthy and forthcoming about such things, otherwise trust frays, and there are an ever growing number of ways to download books...

An Editor is Not an Author, December 20, 2010
Though I agree it is my responsibility to read the fine print, when a bookseller actively solicits my early order for a title that it bills as by "Bill Bryson," I did not think it necessary to search to see if Mr.Bryson (whose books I relish)were the author or the editor. I returned the book and asked not to be charged postage because of this confusion. The book is lush and, I'm sure, fascinating, but my appetite when I ordered was for more of Bryson, having just finished his recent tour of "Home." I will look more carefully next time; however, I would also ask Amazon copy editors to be more careful, if not more honest, about the authorship of books. ... Read more

Editorial Review

In this inspiring new book, Lidia Bastianich awakens in us a new respect for food and for the people who produce it in the little-known parts of Italy that she explores. All of the recipes reflect the regions from which they spring, and in translating them to our home kitchens, Lidia passes on time-honored techniques and wonderful, uncomplicated recipes for dishes bursting with different regional flavors—the kind of elemental, good family cooking that is particularly appreciated today.

Penetrating the heart of Italy—starting at the north, working down to the tip, and ending in Sardinia—Lidia unearths a wealth of recipes:

From Trentino–Alto Adige: Delicious Dumplings with Speck (cured pork); apples accenting soup, pasta, salsa, and salad; local beer used to roast a chicken and to braise beef
From Lombardy: A world of rice—baked in a frittata, with lentils, with butternut squash, with gorgonzola, and the special treat of Risotto Milan-Style with Marrow and Saffron
From Valle d’Aosta: Polenta with Black Beans and Kale, and local fontina featured in fondue, in a roasted pepper salad, and embedded in veal chops
From Liguria: An array of Stuffed Vegetables, a bread salad, and elegant Veal Stuffed with a Mosaic of Vegetables
From Emilia-Romagna: An olive oil dough for making the traditional, versatile vegetable tart erbazzone, as well as the secrets of making tagliatelle and other pasta doughs, and an irresistible Veal Scaloppine Bolognese
From Le Marche: Farro with Roasted Pepper Sauce, Lamb Chunks with Olives, and Stuffed Quail in Parchment
From Umbria: A taste of the sweet Norcino black truffle, and seductive dishes such as Potato-Mushroom Cake with Braised Lentils, Sausages in the Skillet with Grapes, and Chocolate Bread Parfait
From Abruzzo: Fresh scrippelle (crêpe) ribbons baked with spinach or garnishing a soup, fresh pasta made with a “guitar,” Rabbit with Onions, and Lamb Chops with Olives
From Molise: Fried Ricotta; homemade cavatelli pasta in a variety of ways; Spaghetti with Calamari, Shrimp, and Scallops; and Braised Octopus
From Basilicata: Wedding Soup, Fiery Maccheroni, and Farro with Pork Ragù
From Calabria: Shepherd’s Rigatoni, steamed swordfish, and Almond Biscottini
From Sardinia: Flatbread Lasagna, two lovely eggplant dishes, and Roast Lobster with Bread Crumb Topping

This is just a sampling of the many delights Lidia has uncovered. All the recipes she shares with us in this rich feast of a book represent the work of the local people and friends with whom she made intimate contact—the farmers, shepherds, foragers, and artisans who produce local cheeses, meats, olive oils, and wines. And in addition, her daughter, Tanya, takes us on side trips in each of the twelve regions to share her love of the country and its art. ... Read more

Reviews

Another exquisite culinary journey through Italy!, November 28, 2009
Once again, without any hesitation, this is a most fabulous cookbook/tour guide/education of the Italian experience through the most capable palate of Lidia and her daughter, Tanya. They are becoming synonomous with each other as this is another collaboration of love from this most lovely mother-daughter team of experts.

For anyone who knows of Lidia, she does not just give you recipes and photos; you can get those from any Italian cookbook, and there nothing wrong in that. But I truly feel that her purpose in all her books and endeavors is to appreciate the Italian history and culture hence her books are three-fold: you are given a geographical and culinary education along with the historical education so that you will be able to appreciate how, why, and where the recipes have been given.

So in essence, you are educated on the past history and influence that brought certain dishes to that region and how the geographical region lent itself to encourage certain meals and traditions due to the hard work and joy of the people who lived there. It is through the collaboration of Lidia and her lovely daughter Tanya, that we are given not just the standard information and recipes but instead, the food history, the rich culture, and the appreciation for what you are preparing so that you are not just cooking; you are creating the generations of family joy and culinary history that was passed on from parents to children and to which we need to cling to especially today.

In this particular book, her dedication is to her father, Vittorio. Her childhood and coming of age in this country leaves you with the sincere appreoiation of Lidia's need for acknowledging all who helped to shape and influence her ideology and vocation to this culinary artform. Her parents very humble beginnings started in the former Yugoslavia and have brought her to New York today.

The book is a heavy, well-printed and sectioned gift of love with its text printed on high-quality paper and with exquisite photographs of the Italian regions that she presents to us through her recipes. There is a particular photograph of a shepherd and his flock that is amazing; it will remind you of a Renaissance painting. I felt that her Acknowledgment page was just as wonderful to read as the rest of the book in that she has many gifted and loved people in her life whom she revolves her life, most notably her family as well as all the talented people whom she met and worked with to produce this latest offering.

There are 175 recipes selected within the 12 regions of Italy which are:
Trentino-Alto Adige
Lombardy
Valee D'Acosta
Liguria
Emilia-Romagna
Le Marche
Umbria
Abruzzo
Molise
Basilicata
Calabria
Sardinia

Each section gives you her history with that region whether personal or professional. Each recipe has a short introduction of sorts along with hints and suggestions in both preparing and serving the dishes. Throughout the chapters are wonderful photographs of the meals and people and countryside that the recipes come from; I could not imagine a more enjoyable journey in making this book albeit the hard work and energy it took in legistics, transportation, compilation of information, etc. At the end of each chapter is the wonderful listing of places and sites to see particular to that region that you would not want to miss should you be blessed enough to be able to travel to this glorious country. A small legendary map of sorts is posted at the start of each region with that region being highlighted so as to know from which area you are taking the recipes.

I particularly appreciated the actual ingredients of the recipes highlighted in red; I can't seem to quite put my finger on why that seemed to make the reading and preparation easier but it did.

The recipes themselves are full of the foods that are both expected and indigenous to Italy such as pastas, breads, wines, seafood, desserts, etc as well as others that some may not know as part of the Italian culture. There are even vegetarian recipes to choose from if you, or someone within your circle, prefer to stay away from meats, though many of the pastas and soups will fare well with vegetarians also. For those recipes which require standard preparations such as sauces and stocks, there is a short section at the end of the book that one can reference to in a quicker mode. Her sources for many of the ingredients are listed as well are sources for specific items that you might not find within your area. She also broke down the dishes by course so as to help section them for easier reference.

And last, but certainly not the least, is a listing of what can be found on her accompnaying series that began this month on local PBS stations. Each region and what she will be cooking on each episode is listed along with corresponding page number so that you could read along while watching her show.

You will truly enjoy this book for many reasons, therefore you will be most pleased. Peace.

Italy in a plate, October 27, 2009
The food pictures in this book make me salivate and the pictures of Italy show the true Italy. I have tried the recipes and they are easy and extremely flavorful. I love Lidia's cookbooks because they allow for some personal interpretation and they really bring the flavor of Italy to my kitchen and family.

A good, simple, home-cooking take on Italian food, November 17, 2009
We'll see if this becomes an Italian home cooking standard, but it's a beautiful mix of recipes (with a real eye towards fairly simple preparations, though delicious), excellent food photography (better than any other Italian cookbook that I have), and some text and photos of Italy to inspire the connections between the food and the land.

The writing is casual and friendly, and the photos genuinely enhance the cookbook. But mostly we're here for the recipes. And they do not fail us. We have a roasted lobster dish from Sardinia, heading north to polenta with white beans and black kale from Valle d'Aosta, and finally beer-basted roast chicken from Trento. The regional cuisines of Italy, local ingredients and preparations, are on display here, and with the wonders of the American grocery store, are quite accessible.

Brava, Bravissima, Lidia!, December 14, 2009
Lidia Bastianich's latest cookbook "Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy" is a masterpiece of collected recipes from many less well known regions of Italy. Those which I have tried are truly from the earth, from the land of Italy. You can just feel it, you can taste it with the unique combinations of sometimes unexpected ingredients. Some are familiar from our own family links and still-cooked handed-down recipes from our immigrant ancestors, and thus their authenticity at least per these cases is right on. Others which I have tried are equally fantastic. But then we have grown to expect this from Lidia and are not disappointed once again. This book is a must have for the Italian Cooking admirer and enthusiast alike. Brava, Bravissima, Lidia!

Wonderful, January 2, 2010
In the week I have had this book, I have tried four recipes from the first region featured (Trentino-Alto Adige): Country Salad, Spaghetti in Tomato-Apple Sauce, Whole-Grain Spaetzle, and Beef Braised in Beer. All were so simple that I feared the results would be boring, but all turned out to be delicious.

Family-friendly and sumptuous, March 21, 2010
Organized by region, north to south, and written with her daughter, PBS cooking star and restaurateur Bastianich's sixth book features a must-try dish on practically every well-designed page. Photos highlight the countryside the dishes come from - as well as the food itself. Chapter introductions offer food-themed tours and recipes focus on local specialties, from starters, through first and second courses and dessert; some classic, some unfamiliar.

Like Spaghetti in Tomato-Apple Sauce (Trentino-Alto Adige), Risotto Milan-Style with Marrow & Saffron (Lombardy), Beef Filet with Wine Sauce (Valle D'Aosta), Tagliatelle with ricotta-based Walnut Pesto (Emilia-Romagna), Fish with Pepper Sauce (bell pepper based, with orange zest, tomatoes, and a dash of peperoncino flakes) (Le Marche), Crostini with Black Truffle Butter (Umbria), Meatless Pecorino Meatballs (cheese, eggs, breadcrumbs, herbs) (Abruzzo), Fresh Cavatelli with Cauliflower (Molise), Rigatoni with Lentils (Basilicata), Spicy Calamari (Calabria), Flatbread Lasagna (Sardinia).

Familiar and peasant dishes include: Braised Veal Shanks (Lombardy), Roasted-Pepper & Olive Salad with Fontina (Valle D'Aosta), Bread Salad with Summer Vegetables (Liguria), Spaghetti with Clam Sauce (Le Marche), Wedding Soup (Basilicata), Baked Eggplant in Tomato Sauce (Sardinia).

There are numerous recipes for making fresh pasta and dumplings and many family-friendly comfort foods. A particular favorite of mine is Meat Sauce Genova Style which features a beef pot roast braised slowly in a wine-tomato sauce flavored with sage and rosemary, thickened with toasted pine nuts. There's plenty of sauce for a second meal (or a first course, as Bastianich suggests) of pasta and the whole thing can be made a day ahead. Scrumptious!

Bastianich's short intros give a sense of the dish and offer tips for the novice or the seasoned cook and appendices include her TV series' menus, a recipe finder by course, and a list of sources.

While dishes appeal to a range of ambitions, abilities and tastes, Bastianich assumes an uncomplicated love of cooking.

True provincial cooking for any kitchen, December 20, 2009
Unlike a mere-how-to book of cold print on white paper, the very first page of this cookbook casts a heart-warming feel over the entire piece; in it, Lidia Matticchio Bastianich expresses a brief but very moving tribute to her father, whose favorite dishes she included in this compilation. Such a beginning voices well the focus on family gathering which is so much a part of cooking in Italy; having married into a Sicilian-American family, I found much of this book pleasantly familiar in the authentic recipes as well as its traditional feel. The recipes themselves are--like Italy--divided by region; the result is a tantalizing array of dishes to prepare: Stuffed Cabbage Rolls from Lombardy, Beef Braised in Beer, Whole-grain Spaetzle of Trentino-Alto Adige, Veal Scaloppine from Umbria, Calabrese Onion Soup and Sardinian Pasta "Pearls" and Flatbread Lasagna. The "General Reference" recipes were a welcome addendum to the book, including the basic building blocks of Italian cuisine, such as chicken stock and marinara sauce.

A cook with several published recipe books and a television series, Lidia Bastianich (with the help of her daughter Tanya) presents treasured recipes from her own family and her travels, including charming pictures taken along the way, as well as mouth-watering photographs of select dishes. This is a must-have book for any kitchen inhabitant.

This Book is a Treasure, December 27, 2009
As always, Lidia transports you right to the various locals in Italy that she writes about. The photography (of the food and locations) is exquisite. And the recipes are wonderful - easy to follow and to replicate. Lidia gives you the feeling that you are right there with her, and then you prepare the food and it feels even more like you are sitting in a trattoria in Italia. Having been raised as a second generation Italian-American, some of the recipes are as familiar as family, yet others are new to me. And having Lidia explain the origin and evolution of these dishes and their indigenous regions makes them feel like I've known them forever - I just needed to get reacquainted with them. A must-have book for any lover of Italian cuisine.

Marvelously, Easy To Follow Italian Recipes, February 25, 2010
I am a big fan of Lidia, as well as the owner of one of her earlier cook books. I found this particular cookbook chock full of easy to follow recipes that even a less experienced cook would be able to prepare. Instructions were clear and precise. Ingredients were readily available in the neighborhood supermarket. An all-around delightful book, picturesque, enhanced with Lidia's personal touch.

Good recipes for everyday and weekends, February 2, 2010
This book is a good compliment to my Italian cookbooks by Hazan, Bugialli and Rosetto-Kasper. The voice of the cook is fun, you sense Bastianich's quirks and preferences easily but you are never talked down to. She loves to cook and eat this food and wants you to share her passion. The techniques in most recipes are not beyond even a beginning cook. Simple recipes like penne and mushrooms and rice and butternut squash have already become part of my regular dinner line-up. The socca casserole of cabbage, beef and potato is great for winter weekend meals, just the thing for family and friends after outdoor exercise. I took this book out of the library and tried out some of the recipes before I bought it and recommend that folks do this before they purchase any cookbook. ... Read more

Editorial Review

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Reviews

A Very Long Difficult Read, December 26, 2010
I think there is useful information in this work. It's a very difficult read. If you need to read everything about the French Revolution, save this till last. If you know almost everything when you start,this might make more sense. I knew a little and was often confused by this book.
John Beyerlein
Liz & Dick ... Read more

Editorial Review

The complete 6-volume work, which covers from the reign of Marcus Aurelius to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The table of contents has links to each of the 71 chapters. On 10/26/2009 we improved the formatting of this book.If you bought a copy before, you should be able to download the new version at no extra charge.

According to Wikipedia: "Edward Gibbon (1737 - 1794) was an English historian and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. The History is known principally for the quality and irony of its prose..." ... Read more

Reviews

Great value for dollar, and TOC and line break problems appear to have been fixed, May 17, 2008
This is an enormous amount of content and value for just 99 cents. Regarding this Kindle edition: I have purchased a number of inexpensive books on the Kindle, and as I have posted elsewhere, I feel that getting great works at cheap prices is one of the great things the Kindle enables. This Kindle version of Gibbon is fine - the table of contents are active, the formatting looks good to me at all of the font sizes. In reading the comments to the prior review, it sounds like the publisher made these changes in response to comments.

Reading Gibbon, July 22, 2009
For those with as much interest in the English language as in Roman history, Gibbon is one of the greatest stylists who ever lived. Moreover, his dramatic sense is manifest not only in the events he describes,but also in the very sentences he uses to describe them.

I wonder what he would think of the language of the internet.

Bless the internet for making Gibbon available for everybody; and Gibbon for making great language available on the internet!

A fantastic text for students of history, February 4, 2009
This is a fantastic text for students of history. The author had a gift for explaining this turbulent period in world history. As for the quality of the layout of this book, i only have the most recent edition and it is fine.

This book is not a light read. If you are not ready for a very healthy and deep read then you may want to skip this selection. If you are up to it though this is a great book.

For my money, this was a must have.

A treasure, March 27, 2010
edited by Hans-Fredrich Mueller

I finally finished this massive treasure, which isn't even exhaustive. And I can't imagine the colossal task in both time and energy it took to write it. It took Gibbon twelve years, from 1776 to 1788. I find it more than a coincidence that he began writing in the year of our independence. Even in this abridged form (which is what you will more likely come across) it is still a huge undertaking; though Mueller, in his critical forward, tells us it is necessary for it to become readable. Mueller also says he prided himself in being meticulous and accurate while still being manageable. And very helpful is the addition of dates bracketed throughout the text. An index would have been useful. In Boorstin's introduction he cites the major impact this work had on him; he calls it intimate. I would have never thought of it in that way, but now after ingesting all six volumes I understand why he calls it intimate. Gibbon does not mince words either. His work will always be remembered and its impact can still be felt today. He is an artist, like no one I have read before. Keep a dictionary handy. I also recommend reading the forward and the introduction, especially after studying Gibbon's great work. They take into question Gibbon's devotion to Christianity and his offensiveness towards it. I see Gibbon as mixed in his beliefs, though he wrote as he saw it; and I find that he saw the truth when he found it. Did he believe infrastructure was valued over its people?

The role of emperor was not a secure job. "Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors that, whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same." The polytheistic Roman Empire was very much a melting pot (half slaves) and within it were many schisms. I see parallels---such as the oppressive taxes, the corrupt politicians, the tyrannical government, the effemination, and the endless warfare---to our United States, and a warning for our future.

So what caused the fall? For Gibbon, the gradual decline began after Christ, until the eventual fall some fifteen hundred years later. Chapters are built upon the reigns of the emperors as they came to power, except where he periodically inserts chapters concerning the Christian influence, the Christian persecutions, the corrupt church, the persecution of the church toward others, the Crusades, the rise of Islam, the debilitating taxes and, towards the end, he concentrates on the impact by the surrounding nations. The Empire became a black hole and split to form an East and a West---the West to totally collapse. There were many causes: the slow introduction of Christianity over Paganism and the conversion to it, the collapse of the military, the always and increasing threat of outside peoples, alienating allies and provoking enemies, the corruption within (the people), and of course the self righteous emperors. Entropy would take over and finally lead to the collapse of the infrastructure.

Rome was both a curse and a blessing for Christianity. Many were converted, but the power of Catholicism and the Pope led to the eventual corruption and apostasy of the church. We have our many deists and polytheists just as the Romans. Do you not find a familiarity to us and the Romans?

LORD bless
Scott

TOC still broken, March 3, 2009
The TOC is still broken, or perhaps they fixed it for a while and then it broke again. In either case, I bought this book yesterday (March 2 2009) and the TOC is definitely disabled. Given the size of the book, a functional TOC would be very nice.

I emailed customer support, they verified the TOC was broken, and offered a refund.

Easy to follow information/historical caracters, June 26, 2010
This is a complex but quick review on the cast of caracters who made Rome, its history, and culture. Since I love this type of ancient history, I find this book almost like a reference. Not a novel for sure. One can quickly find the era and events.

Better, October 25, 2009
The price is right, but I found the text more or less unreadable. Am now trying the $9.99 version (in sample), will see if one gets what one pays for.

The above was written before the published juploaded a new version. The type face is MUCH better (or I am in a better mood). It still looks too much
like a ms., with lots of spaces between some words (problems of a fixed width font) and footnotes placed in the text. But the new version is clearly readable.

For my taste I will go with the $9.99 version (I am going to spend quite a while with Gibbon), but this version surely now is very good value.

Good, but probably better in paper, September 26, 2010
Great reading, that I could hardly lay down. My only qualms are with the improvable quality of the Kindle edition. There are frequent typos, some sentences are repeated and words missing. What I find most annoying, though, is that in a book where the footnotes are an integral part of the text they appear so far from the citing text. Usually I had to page forward two or three pages to find the text of a footnote, and given the number of them and the non-instantaneous refresh time of the screen in the Kindle, this quickly become tedious. This book, my first long reading in the Kindle, is probably the one I would prefer to have read in paper.

Many footnotes are in Latin. Clearly, Gibbon writes for learned people and assumes they all read Latin. Even though Spanish is my native tongue, I found it difficult to decipher most of the Latin footnotes, and I wonder if a learned kind soul would produce an edition with translations for people like me.

All in all, in spite of the shortcomings I mentioned, I am satisfied.

bad edition, November 4, 2010
This edition is unreadable. Multi-page long footnotes written by the editor interrupt the actual text and it is nearly impossible to tell where they end and Gibbon's text resumes. DO NOT buy this edition unless you are mostly interested in reading these footnotes and not Gibbon. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Along with the plays of William Shakespeare and the works of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen’s novels are among the most beloved books of Western literature. Pride and Prejudice (1813) was in Austen’s lifetime her most popular novel, and it was the author’s personal favorite. Adapted many times to the screen and stage, and the inspiration for numerous imitations, it remains today her most widely read book. Now, in this beautifully illustrated and annotated edition, distinguished scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks instructs the reader in a larger appreciation of the novel’s enduring pleasures and provides analysis of Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet, Lady Catherine, and all the characters who inhabit the world of Pride and Prejudice.

This edition will be treasured by specialists and first-time readers, and especially by devoted Austen fans who think of themselves as Friends of Jane. In her Introduction, Spacks considers Austen’s life and career, the continuing appeal of Pride and Prejudice, and its power as a stimulus for fantasy (Maureen Dowd, writing in The New York Times, can hold forth at length on Obama as a Darcy-figure, knowing full well her readers will “understand that she wished to suggest glamour and sexiness”). Her Introduction also explores the value and art of literary annotation. In her running commentary on the novel, she provides notes on literary and historical contexts, allusions, and language likely to cause difficulty to modern readers. She offers interpretation and analysis, always with the wisdom, humor, and light touch of an experienced and sensitive teacher.

Reviews

Beautiful, sumptuous and satisfying, September 24, 2010
Just when I thought I had more editions of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE than I should ever own up to, I will freely admit to just one more. After all, what Janeite could resist this tempting package? An unabridged first edition text; Annotations by an Austen scholar; Color illustrations; Over-sized coffee table format; Extensive introduction; And, supplemental material - all pulled together in a beautifully designed interior and stunning cover. *swoon* Where are my aromatic vinegars?

This new annotated edition appeals to modern readers on many levels beyond being a pretty package of a beloved classic. Austen is renowned for her witty dialogue and finely drawn characters, but not for her elaborate physical descriptions or historical context. When PRIDE AND PREJUDICE was originally published in 1813, this brevity was accessible to her contemporary readers who assumed the inferences, but after close to two hundred years words have changed their meaning, insinuations and subtle asides have become fuzzy, and cultural differences from Regency to twenty-first century are worlds apart. Anyone can read PRIDE AND PREJUDICE and follow the narrative, but it is so much more enjoyable if you can read it on an expanded level understanding it in social, cultural and historical context. Editor Patricia Meyer Spacks has not only added extensive notes on plot, characters, events, history, culture and critical analysis from a vast array of Austen and literary scholars, but added her own personal insights and observations from years of reading Austen and her experience as a college professor. From shoe roses to Fordyces Sermons to military floggings to the 19th-century meaning of condescension, readers will be informed and enlightened on every aspect related to the novel, the author and her times. In a nut shell, she has vetted great resources, gathered nuggets of knowledge and placed them at our feet.

As with all of Austen's characters, this new annotated edition of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE has its own charms, "frailties, foibles and follies." Weighing in at over three pounds, and encompassing 464 pages of unabridged text and fine print margin notes, this book easily reigns as the most all-inclusive and well-researched edition of Jane Austen's masterpiece that I have ever encountered. Considering that the elaborate annotation classifies it as a reference work in addition to a full text, it is quite puzzling that it lacks an index. In addition, the illustrations are expertly selected but sadly lost some of their refinement in the printing process, coming across dark and murky in places. However, I was pleased to see a list of further reading and illustration credits listed in the back of the book to encourage readers to "add something more substantial, in the improvement of [their] minds by extensive reading."

Beautiful, sumptuous and satisfying, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE: AN ANNOTATED EDITION is a monumental achievement that should be on the top of your holiday wish list and considered one of few editions available to be esteemed truly accomplished.

Laurel Ann, Austenprose

More than an Annotation, A Visually Beautiful Experience As Well, September 25, 2010
Jane Austen scholar Patricia Meyer Spacks has written many books, but none so lush and lovely as Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition. Not only will this beautiful annotated edition of Jane Austen's beloved novel look fabulous on your coffee table, but after reading it you will feel that you've come to understand Pride and Prejudice as you never have before.

Dr. Spacks's definitions, descriptions, and clarifications of arcane words, Regency customs, and obscure passages add dimension to a novel that I have read over 22 times and thought I knew inside and out. But I was wrong. Take her annotation of this rather unassuming sentence in Chapter 4, for example: "With no greater events than these in the Longbourn family, and otherwise diversified by little beyond the walks to Meryton, sometimes dirty and sometimes cold, did January and February pass away."

Dr. Spacks explains that in this instance, dirty meant muddy. Thinking of how uneventful life in a semi-rural setting must be, she adds, "Aside from the arrival of the militia and of Wickham, virtually everything of significance that has happened in the novel so far has been psychological..." She then goes on to describe the states of mind in Jane, Elizabeth, Darcy and Mr. Collins as they interact with each other.

In Chapter 2, Volume III, she introduces Michael Kramp's idea that Mr. Darcy's kindness to Mrs. Gardiner during Elizabeth's and the Gardiners visit to Pemberly is evidence of the changing nature of England's social arrangements and that "the gap between new and old money is shrinking." (p. 307)

Dr. Spacks's new annotated edition provides an erudite commentary on Pride and Prejudice, refers to many scholarly sources, and includes a large assortment of images. As she explained in a recent interview with me: "we looked for images that were beautiful in themselves and that illuminated some aspect of Austen's period."

Her 24-page introduction explores the continuing appeal of Pride and Prejudice: that it is considered safe for teaching in school and appeals to both feminists and sentimental individuals who are attracted to a romantic English past. "It has also emerged clearly as a repository for and stimulus of fantasy, and thus possibly less safe than it seems. In the film versions...Darcy, romanticized, tends to turn into a Heathcliff figure, passionate, beautiful, and overwhelmingly physical." Someone recently asked how this annotation of Pride and Prejudice differed from David M. Shapard's 2004 annotation. The Spacks volume comes in a lavishly color-illustrated, hardback edition, while Shapard's book was published as a trade paperback. Scattered thinly throughout its pages are a few black and white illustrations. Aside from the difference in physical appearance, Spacks's annotations are more scholarly

Flipping through the first page of the novel, you can immediately spot the difference. Dr. Spacks, the Edgar F. Shannon Professor of English, Emerita at the University of Virginia, discusses the famous first sentence as material for a critical debate on the ambiguity of "want", whereas Dr. Shapard, an 18th century expert, emphasizes the introduction of two central themes of the novel, marriage and financial considerations. The two annotations are so different, that I believe there is room on the shelves for both of them.

Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice: An Annotated Edition, edited by Patricia Meyer Spacks is a perfect gift for oneself and for a beloved friend or family member. If the purchase price seems a bit steep in this economy, place it on your Holiday gift wish list. You will not be disappointed when you unwrap your package. - Vic from Jane Austen's World blog

Spectacular collector's edition, September 20, 2010
I was so happily surprised when I received this book--much nicer than expected! It is small coffee table-sized, is printed on nice, thick paper, and has a lovely mustard cloth cover under the dust jacket. When you open it, the layout of the pages make the book lovely to look at and read. In one column are the annotations: notes about the text, the history of the time, and etc. Throughout the book are illustrations of period art, beautiful to look at. This edition is a wonderful collector's piece and you get so much more than the story (I would have been happy with just the story and illustrations, too!). Janeites and others, don't miss this book.

P&P an annoted edition, November 1, 2010
A beautifully produced book. Excellent value for money. Can't change the magnificance of the original story but Patricia's annotations add to the depth of the story. Some of the annotations are a bit odd though, defining words that are very obvious, for example on the first page the description that "Netherfield Park is let", do we have to be told "let" means "rented"? Otherwise the only difficulty is trying to keep the story going and read the book itself. ... Read more

Editorial Review

On June 14, 1940, German tanks rolled into a silent and deserted Paris. Eight days later, a humbled France accepted defeat along with foreign occupation. The only consolation was that, while the swastika now flew over Paris, the City of Light was undamaged. Soon, a peculiar kind of normality returned as theaters, opera houses, movie theaters and nightclubs reopened for business. This suited both conquerors and vanquished: the Germans wanted Parisians to be distracted, while the French could show that, culturally at least, they had not been defeated. Over the next four years, the artistic life of Paris flourished with as much verve as in peacetime. Only a handful of writers and intellectuals asked if this was an appropriate response to the horrors of a world war.

Alan Riding introduces us to a panoply of writers, painters, composers, actors and dancers who kept working throughout the occupation. Maurice Chevalier and Édith Piaf sang before French and German audiences. Pablo Picasso, whose art was officially banned, continued to paint in his Left Bank apartment. More than two hundred new French films were made, including Marcel Carné’s classic, Les Enfants du paradis. Thousands of books were published by authors as different as the virulent anti-Semite Céline and the anti-Nazis Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre. Meanwhile, as Jewish performers and creators were being forced to flee or, as was Irène Némirovsky, deported to death camps, a small number of artists and intellectuals joined the resistance.

Throughout this penetrating and unsettling account, Riding keeps alive the quandaries facing many of these artists. Were they “saving” French culture by working? Were they betraying France if they performed before German soldiers or made movies with Nazi approval? Was it the intellectual’s duty to take up arms against the occupier? Then, after Paris was liberated, what was deserving punishment for artists who had committed “intelligence with the enemy”?

By throwing light on this critical moment of twentieth-century European cultural history, And the Show Went On focuses anew on whether artists and writers have a special duty to show moral leadership in moments of national trauma. ... Read more

Reviews

A Panoramic View, November 8, 2010
Presents a vivid and readable panorama of French life during the German occupation of Paris, with particular attention paid to the various artists, journalists, film makers, writers and intellectuals of the time. The activies of many notables are featured--i.e. Coco Chanel, Maurice Chavalier, Sartre, Camus, Picasso, etc.

Only toward the end of the war, did the Resistance garner active moral and armed support. Prior to that, complacency and/or collaboration seemed to have been the rule. Several interesting photographs add to the value and interest level of this historical account.

The artist's dilemma, December 16, 2010
Alan Riding's book raises one of the most difficult issues concerning intellectuals living under foreign occupation:to what extent should they resist the enemy? Should they show defiance or show indifference to the occupying forces? What is the intellectual's role in a situation of war?
These questions started bothering Mr.Riding thirty years ago when he asked the same questions about the artists' response to dictatorships in South America. He writes that "few sold out to the dictatorships" then. After started living in Paris, he realized that the same questions could be asked about the French intellectuals and artists during the Nazi occupation in the forties.(p.10,Introduction)
His book starts with the fall of France in June,1940, when the German army drove into Paris unopposed. Within weeks, the remnants of French democracy were quietly buried. Riding continues to introduce us to a very big number of writers, painters, actors, entertainers and dancers who kept being busy under the Nazi occupation.
Broadly speaking, the artists were divided into three main groups: those who collaborated, those who opposed the enemy and those who chose to remain indifferent in a no-man's land. Among those artists discussed are Edit Piaf,Picasso, Chevalier, the pianist Alfred Cortot, the composers Boulez and Messiaen as well as the virulent anti-Semitic writers Celine, Brasillach and Drieu La Rochelle. Camus and Sartre are also discussed in detail. Marguerite Duras joined the resistance along with her husband, Robert Antelme, while the writer Colette spent much of the occupation in her apartment where her Jewish husband was forced to hide every night in a maid's room in the building's attic.
Theaters, nightclubs and cabarets made sure the show went on.
In one of the best chapters of his fascinating book, Mr. Riding discusses in great detail the trials held after the war against those who actively collaborated with the enemy. Laval's trial in October 1945 was most dramatic and then the trials of some artists followed, among them the trial of Brasillach who was condemned to death. Another writer, Charles Maurras, was condemned to life imprisonment.
Riding emphasizes one main thing and that was about writers who had shared one fundamental need during the occupation: that of seeing their words in print. Other artists acted in the same way, showing their motivation to keep appearing under the limelight.
Although some purges were conducted, the cultural life of the French continued after the war and only some artists have undergone judicial procedures.
The main conclusion of the book is that the answers to the questions posed at its very beginning are hard to answer and diverge. Life under the Nazi occupation was not a contrast betweeen black and white, and the many ambiguities, the numerous variants of the German occupiers, the many cases of collaboration or resistance-all these only emphasize the complexities of the whole central issue examined in this interesting book, which is based on extensive research (documents and diaries,mainly) and interviews and also includes sixteen pictures og the main protagonists.
In short, this book is extremely informative, extremely entertaining and a brilliant cultural history which shows how the elites in France reacted during a relatively short time when they were facing evil.

Right, Left and caught in the Middle, December 15, 2010
France was the major cultural space of the western world in the 1920s and 30s. But it was increasingly wracked by intense cultural conflict in the 1930s between a reactionary and anti-Semitic Right and a socialist and often Communist Left. Intellectuals in the two camps engaged in literary warfare against a wider cultural backdrop of world-class art, music, ballet, and theater.

Then came 1940 and total political defeat. The German Occupation became a petri dish in which to gauge how different individuals and groups reacted under an often deathly stress. Many French gave a grudging acquiescence to the Vichy government under old Marshal Petain since when you lose, you lose. Many turned against this government "by stooge." After Germany invaded Russia in 1941, the French Communists organized and executed a highly effective and very brave resistance. Many non-Communist resistants also joined the overall movement. So there was a small, vibrant underground cultural resistance.

More interesting is the journey of the Right Wing writers. From being hate-filled polemicists in the 1930s, this group now had the power through their magazines to denounce other Frenchmen and cause their arrest by the Germans, possible deportation to concentration camps, or simple execution in France. Somewhere in here you find the Seventh Circle of Cultural Hell. The irony was that many were brilliant writers and thinkers who took a wrong turn in their personal development, the lure of the romance of extreme ideology with its promise of total commitment so beloved by intellectuals. This is one of the most fascinating sections of Riding's book.

Another interesting section is the account of American Florence Gould, who hosted a very popular salon in Paris during the Occupation. She was also involved in shady financial shenanigans with high-ranking Nazis in a Monaco bank. She said she did this to protect her husband, who was suspected of being Jewish. After the war, she survived investigations into possible collaboration and went on to become a prestigious supporter of the arts and recipient of the French Legion d'Honneur. Riding concludes, "Over the years, Florence's wartime salon and her questionable choice of friends have been quietly forgotten." So for the right people, money buys the prestige of privilege, which can be counted on to buy "understanding" from the right people.

The last section deals with the "epuration," or period of revenge starting with the Liberation and lasting into the peacetime years. This became the mirror-image of the denunciations by the Right Wing writers--a period of false denunciation, settling scores, and for many the safety of silence.

What is not emphasized, but does come out, is that many average French people and workers behaved well under difficult circumstances while many of the elite and privileged behaved rather badly. This book is a beautiful exposition of how a good people behaved in an awful war.

ONLY ABOUT THE COVER - Careless designer, October 24, 2010
Ready to read this recently acquired book, I'm amazed at the lack of detail --and absolutely lack of editorial respect-- shown by the designer of its cover (although the editor of the book is the one ultimately to blame). The upper photo of the female dancers is clearly not a genuine image taken at the period described in the book. Make-up, costumes, lights and style belong evidently to a much later date in history and may not even be from a show performed in France. To me, this substracts a lot of feeling and authenticity from the cover, which should always be an essential part of the book. I'm giving an average three-star rate just because this systems forces me to give something. This does not reflect the quality of the text, which I haven't read yet (and which could be worth a higher evalution). ... Read more

Editorial Review

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Reviews

A great scientific book for and a great moment in science., November 28, 2010
Considering that Michael Faraday had very little formal education, he is one of the greatest scientists in history. Without him, we wouldn't have a Kindle, let alone things we depend on.

The book itself is top notch - Faraday greatly detailed his experiements, so much that if you had the background and the equipment, you could easily follow his work. If I were in high school, college or a science buff, this book would be a great work to get as a gift - it places you in the scientific mindset of a great scientist. There's very little graphs or diagrams, and mainly the book is a narrative. If you're not a scientist, this book might seem rather boring to you, but I find it fascinating, if not a bit too technical for casual reading.

surprising changes in scientific publication, November 6, 2010
When one considers that this volume was written by one of the greatest scientists of all time, it is quite surprising to examine the way he approaches the work of documenting his discoveries. It wasn't so very long ago that scientific publication was so loosely governed and composed. When one considers that the science behind the publication was flawless and thorough, one has to be a little taken aback.

Free version from Public Domain is the best version to get 'for the money'., October 10, 2010
The $2.99 version from Amazon is essentially the same as the free ($0.00) version from publisher 'Public Domain Books' and both have much better formatting than the Einstein Books version which is $0.99. I'm not sure, but it seems that I got both the $2.99 version and the $0.00 version at the same time from Amazon - even though I paid for the $2.99 version. So try to get the free one first since it's formatting is just as good.

(Update after posting review) In fact this review shows up on both of the versions from Amazon - so I got both together. ... Read more

Editorial Review

In Citizens of London, Lynne Olson has written a work of World War II history even more relevant and revealing than her acclaimed Troublesome Young Men. Here is the behind-the-scenes story of how the United States forged its wartime alliance with Britain, told from the perspective of three key American players in London: Edward R. Murrow, Averell Harriman, and John Gilbert Winant. Drawing from a variety of primary sources, Olson skillfully depicts the dramatic personal journeys of these men who, determined to save Britain from Hitler, helped convince a cautious Franklin Roosevelt and a reluctant American public to support the British at a critical time.

The three—Murrow, the handsome, chain-smoking head of CBS News in Europe; Harriman, the hard-driving millionaire who ran FDR’s Lend-Lease program in London; and Winant, the shy, idealistic U.S. ambassador to Britain—formed close ties with Winston Churchill and were drawn into Churchill’s official and personal circles. So intense were their relationships with the Churchills that they all became romantically involved with members of the prime minister’s family: Harriman and Murrow with Churchill’s daughter-in-law, Pamela, and Winant with his favorite daughter, Sarah. 
 
Others were honorary “citizens of London” as well, including the gregarious, fiercely ambitious Dwight D. Eisenhower, an obscure general who, as the first commander of American forces in Britain, was determined to do everything in his power to make the alliance a success, and Tommy Hitchcock, a world-famous polo player and World War I fighter pilot who helped save the Allies’ bombing campaign against Germany.

Citizens of London, however, is more than just the story of these Americans and the world leaders they aided and influenced. It’s an engrossing account of the transformative power of personal diplomacy and, above all, a rich, panoramic tale of two cities: Washington, D.C., a lazy Southern town slowly growing into a hub of international power, and London, a class-conscious capital transformed by the Blitz into a model of stoic grace under violent pressure and deprivation. Deeply human, brilliantly researched, and beautifully written, Citizens of London is a new triumph from an author swiftly becoming one of the finest in her field. ... Read more

Reviews

"These are the times that try men's souls.", January 9, 2010

London at war, January 10, 2010

Outstanding New Book on WWII, January 10, 2010

Dissenting opinion - Unfocused, secondary references, not much new, February 3, 2010

Really outstanding, but could have been a 6 star book, January 13, 2010

A Fresh Subject, February 1, 2010

Men of vision in humanity's darkest hour., January 14, 2010

Superlatives fail me., January 13, 2010

International diplomacy and the realities of life in Britain during WW2, January 31, 2010

London Calling, January 15, 2010

Editorial Review

The secrets of the City of Light, revealed in the lives of the great,the near-great, and the forgotten—by the author of the acclaimed The Discovery of France.This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction, of the lives of the great, the near-great, and the forgotten.

A young artillery lieutenant, strolling through the Palais-Royal, observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. A well-dressed woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map—there were no reliable ones at the time—Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine.

Baudelaire, the photographer Marville, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Bohème, Proust, Adolf Hitler touring the occupied capital in the company of his generals, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt in Notre Dame)—these and many more are Robb’s cast of characters, and the settings range from the quarries and catacombs beneath the streets to the grand monuments to the appalling suburbs ringing the city today. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel. 16 pages of illustrations ... Read more

Reviews

Paris for the Flaneur, April 14, 2010
Graham Robb is a modern-day flaneur. The concept of the flaneur was popularized by Charles Baudelaire who defined it as someone who strolls about the city in order to observe it and experience it, someone who might also be an esthete and a dandy. This book contains 19 anecdotes that are meditations on historical characters and the geographical locations with which they are associated. There is of course no better city to be a flaneur than Paris, a city where every street and building has a story to tell.

Robb has a novelist's imagination and eye for detail. The first episode is set in the late 18th century and concerns a young man coming to Paris from Corsica. The lad makes his way to the Palais Royal to experience to the pleasures of the flesh for the first time. The young man we find out later on was Napoleon. Apparently the residence Cardinal Richelieu and French Royalty had become the place to go for nightlife in Paris.

Before Baron Haussmann cleared whole neighborhoods to lay out wide boulevards along straight lines, Paris was a network of convoluted, narrow streets. It was a city without maps. Robb tells the story of Marie-Antoinette as she was fleeing the mobs during the French Revolution. She was trying to get to Vincennes but accidentally gave her coachman the wrong directions and ended up in the hands of her enemies.

One of the most interesting and little-known figures brought to light by this study is Charles Axel Guillaumot. In the late 1700s the streets of the Left Bank were starting to cave in as a result of many years of quarrying below the city. Guillaumot, who was an architect and surveyor, decided to reinforce the caverns underneath the city and use them as a place to bury the dead, thus creating the infamous Catacombs.

There is also a chapter on Hitler's one and only whirlwind tour of the city with his sculptor Arno Breker and architect Albert Speer. The tour lasted only two and half hours but apparently Hilter beside himself after absorbing the splendor of the city. It reminds us that he was an artist before he became a politician.

Every chapter is beautifully written and full of surprises. One can imagine that there are many more stories such as these. They seem arbitrary but nevertheless insightful. Robb has repeated the succuss of an earlier work, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geographyin which he does for rural France what he does for Paris in this volume.

Good but also frustrating, August 30, 2010
If you have a passion for Paris, or France in general the Parisians is likely worth the read. There is much to enjoy about Robb's book. Bits about the construction of the catacombs were fascinating, Marie Antoinette getting lost for half a night just feet outside the Royal Palace added to the legend of her general cluelessness, the story of Emile Zola's wife was heartbreaking, and there's a bit about Alchemy's influence on chemistry, physics and one particular Alchemist's knowledge of the nuclear energy well before it was harnessed for the atom bomb.

But there were many times I found myself frustrated with the book. Robb clearly knows his Parisian history but chooses to play coy often not telling us who the chapters are about until the last few paragraphs. Moreover he writes as if the reader should know many of facts and dates of Parisian history. My Parisian history is rather weak (why I was interested in the book) so I muddled through as best I could. In one chapter the two unnamed major players of the story were both men and I found myself realizing that the "he" Robb had started to tell me about, was no longer the "he" I was now reading about--you see the difficulty? It's not like this is Faulkner or Joyce we're tackling here. I don't feel it's too much to ask to feel secure in repeating a fact or two of history after I'm finished reading some historical non-fiction.

Other nit-picking:

*Robb makes much of the fact that there wasn't a decent map of Paris up until a certain point but couldn't a *readable* one have been included in the book for reference? (There is a quaint little map included at the beginning of the book--it just wasn't terribly helpful)

*There is an entire section talking about Marville's photographs of the city which sounded lovely but the photos reproduced in the book were so small as to make all the details Robb discusses nearly impossible to see.

I admit to not finishing the last 100 or so pages of this book. With two other books on my shelf and other Amazon reviewers claiming things got less cogent as the book went into it's final pages I felt like I'd done what I could with The Parisians.

On the other hand, the Parisians has piqued my curiosity about reading some classic French literature and looking more into the lives of some of the character in this book. I'd say all and all I've come out better for having spent time with it.

Hidden Gems of Paris History, May 6, 2010
I could not put this book down. I love not knowing who the protagonists are. For instance, in the story Restoration, I like not knowing for sure who is getting revenge though I have a feeling I know where the story was going.

There are so many history books about Paris, done in various ways. I have studied Paris for years and am tired of the same old stories of famous people and landmark events. The stories in this book are a welcome relief. I also enjoyed the narrative that puts us there at the moment. I am sure that the information has been gathered from accounts of the time. The Man Who Saved Paris is a wonderful story I never knew.

All in all, I would recommend this people to anybody who wants a fresh view of the city. No wonder it is at the top of the seller lists in the U.K. and U.S.

A successful self-sabotage, July 23, 2010
After the fabulous Victor Hugo's biography and the Discovery of France masterpiece, I was impatiently awaiting the latest book from my favourite historian. Alas, for a reason known only to himself, Mr. Robb opted for a new literary style. His attempts at confusing the reader begin early and, toward the end, they intensify to the point of incomprehension. I don't even want to know the purpose of the Black Prince segments - it seems to me that they belong to a surreal manuscript accidentally combined with Mr. Robb's effort.

Frustration frequently follows confusion. Consider the following excerpt (pages 340-341):

The OAS has discovered that, between eight and nine o'clock every evening, the old painter who lived above the antiques shop at 86, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore closed his shutters for the night. The windows of his living room looked directly through the gateway opposite and, in a slightly descending line, at the entrance of the Elysee Palace. On 23 May, de Gaulle was to receive the visit of the President of Mauritania. The protocol for such visits never varied. When the visitor's car entered the courtyard, de Gaulle emerged from the palace and stood still at the top of the steps for at least ninety seconds. On 21 May, the plot was discovered; on 22 May, the painter closed his shutters and went to bed as usual; and on 23 May, de Gaulle stood on the steps and welcomed the Mauritanian President into the Elysee Palace.

What are we supposed to do with this information? Is it the reader's duty to fill in what happened between 21 May and the 23 May?

Dear Graham, if you continue on this path, you'll end up alienating your base which consists of readers accustomed to clarity and dependable information. While the book still offers a quantity of interesting facts, your attempts at artistry and mystery produce nothing except irritation. Please don't do it again.

Wordy, frustrating, and disappointing, July 25, 2010
I wanted so much to like this book. The format and concept of the book are brilliant: short vignettes describing the characters (some well known, others not) that have made Paris what it is today.

However, the execution is terribly lacking. Mr. Robb is, no doubt, a gifted writer. One gets the sense, however, that he's trying TOO hard here. While a couple of the stories are somewhat interesting, the bulk of them are barely readable. The author gets so caught up in extraneous metaphors, flowery language, and coy pronouns that it becomes difficult to determine if two consecutive paragraphs even belong in the same story. More often than not I found myself finishing a story only to wonder "what the hell was that even about?"

The book is 436 pages long. I'm finally giving up on page 400. Had this book been one continuous story instead of short vignettes, I probably would have given up a lot sooner. But each vignette is only 15-25 pages long. Every time I finished a story, I found myself desperately hoping that the next one would knock my socks off and would make this painstaking effort worthwhile. And, again, more often than not, I found myself disappointed and frustrated.

I rarely take the time to post a review on Amazon but that's how frustrating and disappointing "Parisians" was. I am giving it two stars because the _idea_ was excellent. Unfortunately, the author and his writing did not live up to it.

Layers of Architecture and History Told as Adventures, May 25, 2010
"For what happens to the sons of men also happens to animals; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over animals, for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust." -- Ecclesiastes 3:19-20 (NKJV)

Parisians is the most unusual look at a major city that I have ever read. Graham Robb knows Paris well for someone who isn't a Parisian and builds a verbal picture of the city through describing layers of change during which many things don't really change all that much. You have to use your imagination and a good sense of French history to fully appreciate the book. If you have only a slight knowledge of both, you'll probably be a little puzzled by the book. If you are a regular traveler, you'll probably find yourself wanting to visit the locales that he describes over the last two centuries.

Some of the book will seem gratuitous in terms of their shock value. I couldn't quite make up my mind about whether those parts could have been skipped.

In other places, the story telling is fascinating, and the contrasts are portrayed with winning irony that will amuse and delight most readers who don't have a political ax to grind. In that regard, I was especially pleased with the following sections:

- The Man Who Saved Paris
- Lost
- Restoration
- Files of the S�ret�
- Marville
- Madame Zola
- The Notre-Dame Equation
- The Day of the Fox
- Terminus: The North Col

The photographs in the book also add a lot of depth to the story-telling. Look at them closely!

The book's subtitle is a little misleading. Few of these little tales have the kind of adventure element that you would expect to find in a thriller. They are more often adventures in terms of being a sharp break from what had gone on before.

I would have liked a somewhat shorter book that omitted some of the less intriguing stories. I suspect that each reader will be drawn to a different subset of the tales. And that's good. This is my way of indicating that you may well like the book more or less than I did, and such differences would be natural for a book such as this one.

Bon voyage!

Contextual reading, September 17, 2010
If visiting Paris - or after visiting, this book helps put a lot of the sights in context. Written well in a reader friendly style- would recommend to anyone who prefers a more than a superficial experience of Paris. Not a travel guide but fascinating to relive events in the various districts of Paris- some relatively recent.
Robb is an excellent writer and his other book is also recommended- outlining the history of French language, bureaucracy and mapping over all geographic areas of France.

Frustrating, May 5, 2010
Each chapter in this book is an individual story. I gave up reading after 5 of them. The problem? Coyness.
For some reason, Robb begins each chapter without introducing the protagonist(s). Only on or near the final page is that person identified. For instance, the subject of the initial chapter is Napoleon. One might suspect that, but the suspicion is only confirmed 11 pages later. This stylistic novelty might be OK if employed in one or two chapters. Based on what I've read (and some skimming) ahead, Robb seems to use it in nearly every story.
I found that very annoying. Although he writes well, my frustration level would not permit me to continue beyond about page 70. If this kind of writing appeals to you, have at it. Otherwise, beware.

Parisians, June 16, 2010
For those who love Paris, just open at any page and start reading...a great book to have next to the bed for a 5 minute or an hour read...was especially fascinated with the article on the very old photos of Paris. ... Read more

Editorial Review

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Reviews

The book that changed the world, January 19, 2009
Published in 1893, Beautiful Joe was the first Canadian book to sell a million copies and was extremely popular in America, too (selling almost a million copies by 1900). A work of fiction told from the dog's point of view, it is based upon the true story of an abused dog (in the tradition of 1877's Black Beauty). It reflects many of the unfortunate realities of society in those days, but it had an incredible impact upon the Western world's ideas about humane treatment of animals. Interestingly, it is still published with the author listed as Marshall Saunders. In fact, it was written by Margaret Marshall Saunders, and published using her middle name since it was felt that no one would want to buy a book written by a woman. (She was in fact the first woman to write a book which sold a million copies!)

Every animal shelter and rescue organization in America and Canada owes a debt to Beautiful Joe.
[...]

Good children's classic, March 5, 2009
This was the first novel-sized book I read many, many years ago at age seven; it was my favorite book for some time, so I would recommend it for children. Some portions may be viewed differently in today's world. For example, early in the book one character is described "giving a beating" to another for abusing an animal, and this is both acceptable and desirable.

The story is narrated by Joe the dog. As described in the introduction, it is in the same style and tone as BLACK BEAUTY. It is a classic children's book that may be enjoyed by some older people.

Some good animal stories, March 1, 2009
I liked this book overall, but the author sometimes bogged me down with his morality. People who pick up a book that claims to be a biography about a dog will more than likely be animal lovers and therefore not need emphasized a lot of what is said in this book. However, there are quite a few different stories about animals that Joe meets in his life, and some of them made me laugh or smile or appreciate the animals in my life more. At this price, not a bad way to spend some time. (From the title, I would have expected more grammatical errors then there were. As it was, there was maybe one every 10 pages or so. Not enough to ruin the book for me.)

Moving Story, March 9, 2007
Poor Joe, he goes thru so much. I read this book when I was about 12 and LOVED it. Now at 50 I still remembered it and got it for my 12 year old niece. She loved it as much as I did. Both of us would love to scoop up Joe & bring him home & save him from the hard life he lives.

Phoenix Edition, Red Cover, September 4, 2010
I actually have an old edition of this book I found thrown in garbage out at the curb. The book is old and the binding is not great, but I remember reading this book. I can't wait to read it again.

Classic, November 24, 2010
I love this book, it is a great freebie for the Kindle. Some of the content is quite outdated but is actually really forward thinking for the time it was published!

ABC: A Beautiful Classic, October 1, 2010
Thanks to my Kindle, I've been reading books I would not otherwise have found.
This is one of them. Beautiful Joe brims with emotion between humans & those of the
animal kingdon. But, the story equally includes the abuse animals endure at the hands
of those who should care for them.
Beautiful Joe escapes his miserable circumstances & lives to tell this lovely story
from a dogs perspective. He proves how much more faithful & true our canine friends are
than the people their so earnestly want to serve.
Although this is classified as a children's book, some of the story describles brutality
& heartbreaking circumstances. Sadly, many of the circumstances have not changed, though this
book was written over a century ago.
I did not read this book as a child but I am glad I read it now. Beautiful Joe, a character to fall
in love with shines with sincerity, humor, and his unquestionable
faithfulness, reinforces every positive feeling associated with our pets.

A wonderful read, a slice of history, a beautful classic.

Beautiful Joe/review by Beth Brandt, May 21, 2007
i have not finished this book but it's very good so far. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The diary as Anne Frank wrote it. At last, in a��new translation, this definitive edition contains��entries about Anne's burgeoning sexuality and��confrontations with her mother that were cut from��previous editions. Anne Frank's The Diary of a��Young Girl is among the most enduring��documents of the twentieth century. Since its��publication in 1947, it has been a beloved and deeply��admired monument to the indestructible nature of the��human spirit, read by millions of people and��translated into more than fifty-five languages.��Doubleday, which published the first English translation��of the diary in 1952, now offers a new translation��that captures Anne's youthful spirit and restores��the original material omitted by Anne's father,��Otto -- approximately thirty percent of the diary.��The elder Frank excised details about Anne's��emerging sexuality, and about the often-stormy relations��between Anne and her mother. Anne Frank and her��family, fleeing the horrors of Nazi occupation��forces, hid in the back of an Amsterdam office building��for two years. This is Anne's record of that time.��She was thirteen when the family went into the��"Secret Annex," and in these pages, she grows��to be a young woman and proves to be an insightful��observer of human nature as well. A timeless story��discovered by each new generation, The��Diary of a Young Girl stands without peer.��For young readers and adults, it continues to��bring to life this young woman, who for a time��survived the worst horrors the modern world had seen -- and��who remained triumphantly and heartbreakingly��human throughout her ordeal.


From the Hardcover edition. ... Read more

Reviews

Young girl, heck. Diary of a young woman is more like it., July 30, 2004
Imagine that someday you are remembered for all eternity at a very particular time and at a very particular age. You could be remembered forever as being 25 on September the 11th or you could be remembered as being 44 when JFK was shot. It seems awfully cruel for someone to be remembered between the ages of 13 to 15. Do you remember what you were like at that age? Would you want anyone to think of you as that old for as long as your name is remembered? Such is the fate of Anne Frank. Now, I never read this book when I was young. High schools, in my experience, tend to assign the play version of this story when they want to convey Anne Frank's tale. Anne tends to be remembered as the little girl who once wrote, "I still believe that people are really good at heart" in spite of her sufferings. So I should be forgiven for expecting this book to be the dewy-eyed suppositions of a saintly little girl. Instead, I found someone with verve, complexity, and a personality that I did not always particularly like. What I discovered, was the true Anne Frank.

The diary of Anne begins when she is 13 years of age and the Jews are already wearing yellow stars in Amsterdam. Anne is your usual precocious girl, flirting with boys and being impudent when she can get away with it. When at last the time comes for the Franks to go into hiding (Margot Frank, Anne's sister, has been issued an order for her removal) they do so with another family, the Van Daans. In a small floor hidden above Otto Frank's old workplace the two families are aided by faithful friends and employees. Over the course of the diary we watch and listen through Anne's eyes as, for two years, the people in the attic are put through terrible deprivations and trials. There are good times and bad, but Anne is a singularly biased narrator and her observations must usually be taken with a grain of salt. After a while you become so comfortable with Anne's observations and voice that the final page of the narrative comes as a shock when the capture of Anne and her family is finally announced.

I recently had the mixed pleasure of finding and rereading my own diary from around the age of 14. After forcing myself to look through the occasional passage here and there I was forced to conclude that for her age, Anne is a marvelous writer. She has a sense of drama, tension, and narrative that is particularly enthralling. It's painful to think about what a great writer she could have been had she lived any longer. Honestly, the Anne I met in this book showed all the worst characteristics of her age. I found her detestation of her own mother to be particularly repugnant. Then I remembered... she's an early adolescent. Of course she hates her mother! Of course she's just simply awful a lot of the time. But you can see who she's becoming, and that's what makes the book so hard to get through. You can see her growth and her character. You know that she's learning and trying to understand what it means to be a human being during World War II. It's all the more awful that this would be the age she was preserved at.

The book is remarkable on so many levels. I think young teenage girls will understand Anne's plight intrinsically. Who couldn't? Who doesn't remember the rocky years of 13-15? The need for attention? The sobbing for no particular reason? By the end of the diary, Anne becomes far more philosophical. She no longer records the family's every move and action. Instead, she ponders questions like whether or not young people are lonelier than old people. Or what it means to be good. Though you may not like the protagonist of this book at all times, you come to understand and sympathize with her. She is a remarkable author, all the more so when you consider that this diary was written for her eyes alone at the time. If I could require kids to read something in school, I think this would top the list. It probably remains the best Holocaust children's book in existence today.

Dear Kitty, August 20, 2007
An innocuous gift, a diary a girl treasures. She writes in it, "I will call you, Kitty." A scrawny teenage girl begins writing her way into the hearts and minds of mankind around the world. This book will be her legacy and her memorial.

Her family, refugees from Germany, immigrates to Holland where the boots of nazi oppression and psychopathic poison are not far behind. Ann's family hides from the invader in an attic where the Dutch who are the antithesis of German intolerance give them meager rations.

Ann's writing tells us about herself, and her relations with her family and the van Danns cramped in an attic always starving, and never being sure when they will be brought food, or if the police will find them. Through the turmoil of maturation from girl to woman,we learn of a girl's decency, innocence, and goodness.

All the hope for freedom is gone as the police discover the hide-out, and Ann is taken to a concentration camp where she dies two months before its liberation. Going back to the attic, her father finds her diary that will bring her immortality. Her legacy begins.

We all would have wanted to see Ann Frank and thousands of others like her live. No one, especially a young innocent girl should be treated so inhumanly without the least iota of mercy or decency. The irony is that her seemingly meaningless death among millions is what gave her life meaning, and allowed her story to be told to the world.

This book is a reminder that love and kindness survives the most vile lack of humanity. It is a testament to the human spirit.

Ann Frank would have been seventy-eight June 12, 2007.

There, but for the grace of God, go I, December 25, 2000
I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Germany and Austria for two weeks (I just got back two days ago, in fact), and one of the most poignant memories was my trip to KLB, or Konzentration Lager Buchenwald. Better known simply as Buchenwald, it was a labor camp filled primarily with political prisoners, Gypsies, Jews, homosexuals and other "untermenschen", distinguishing it from the death camps of Auschwitz and Dachau. Despite it's nature as a "mere" labor camp, thousands died there and were incenerated in the specially constructed crematorium there (which, ironically enough, was placed in viewing distance of the specially contructed zoo and pleasure zone built for the officers' families). Walking through those silent halls and down the treaded paths of history, I was struck for the first time in my life of the awful truth that was the Holocaust - not simply that 6 million Jews were eradicated, along with millions of others. 6 million is simply a number, "full of sound and fury," but also "signifying nothing."

To understand the Holocaust (if one can understand such a thing at all), you simply have to look into the cell of a soon to be dead prisoner; to stand in the mustering ground of the prisoners' barracks and feel the hard gravel crunch beneath your feet; to peer into the terrifyingly etched interior of a human oven and let your mind try to wander its way through it all; to imagine, at the end of all other imaginings, what it must've felt like to live HERE. Not 6 million. Just you. Or someone you love.

THAT'S why Anne Frank and her diary will live on. Not because it' s a well written example of literary prowess. Not because it has a magnificent plot. Not because it has lasting value as a work of literature. It will live on because it's the voice of so many people who went voiceless, who went into the night, into the dark, to be shot from behind or in front, blindfolded or eyes open, gassed in sterile shower rooms or tortured to death in the name of "science."

I've read some of the reviews here, and the majority of those who gave this book anything less than five stars usually point to the diary's defecincies in the "interesting" section. Time and time again, that's exactly why I found this book to be so engrossing - whatever faults it has comes from the writer not being a writer! She was a girl, on verge of her flowering into womanhood, full of the hopes and dreams and fears we all are at that age. Whatever picture this book paints is one of her, to remind us not only of who she was and that she was real but also to remind us of those 6 million (and more, so many more, in those ghastly 6 years of death) silent voices.

The trip to Buchenwald was not totally disenheartening. In the middle of the mustering grounds is a small marker, maybe 4 feet by 4 feet, surrounding by a small collection of flowers and cards. It's made entirely of a steely gray metal, and in the middle of it is a small square with words on it: Albaner, Algerier, Andarraner, Argentinier, Agypter, Belgier, Baenier.... These are the German names of all the nationalities of all the people who died in World War II. They comprise 60 different nationalities. At the bottom is written K.L.B. But the most spectacular thing happened when I touched the plaque - it was warm.

It's kept heated, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, in the depths of winter or in the middle of Germany's summer season, in the memory of all those who died. Our tour guide explained it to me, in his accented English: "It stands for the warmth of those who have passed, the life. They are gone, yet this warmth remains. Life remains."

That's why Anne Frank's diary is what it is: life remains because of it.

A poignant book filled with tears and laughter, April 29, 2000
A lot has been said about "The Diary of Anne Frank." Some people have even claimed that it is a fake, which is an outrageous claim that denigrates those who died in the Holocaust and those that survived. This book is testament to a child's spirit and humanity as she hides in ever deteriorating circumstances with her family in an attic over an office in Amsterdam. We are witnesses to her first kiss with Peter a boy also in hiding, and her stormy relationship with her mother which she tries to resolve often unsuccessfully. We see flares of brilliance as she tries to understand human nature as well as the innocence of youth when she says, "basically I believe most people are good." The Diary of Anne Frank would probably be just an ordinary young girl's memoirs if the Holocaust had not happened. However the Holocaust did happen and Anne Frank's diary stands for all the young girls whose lives were ended before they had a chance to blossom. If any book was to be made compulsory reading in schools then this book should be it. Through Anne Frank we will never forget her humanity or for that matter our own.

Amazing and moving, June 23, 2002
Like many, I read this book in elementary school. It was one of the most moving, powerful experiences I've ever had. We all know the story by now. Anne Frank and her family are Jews hiding from the Nazis during World War II. The book is Anne's diary about her time in hiding.

Every detail of Anne's experience rang true -- there were no doubts in my mind as I read it that this truly was Anne's diary, even though I knew parts of it were missing. The way she wrote spoke to me as a human being in general, but as a 12 year old it was amazing to me to realize that this person who was going through such an awful ordeal also had some of the same feelings, experiences, emotions, worries, hopes, and dreams that I did. Anne Frank's diary encouraged me to start keeping my own. This is obviously a book about World War II, but it's also about adolescence, the human condition, families, and writing. It's possibly one of the most important books of the 20th century.

The Desperate Writings of a Girl and Wartime Tragedy, May 20, 2007
Although this book is indispensable in the history of Hitler's antisemitism.

Ann Ann is very optimistic, very confident even in such a small and isolated confinement. To read such meaningful, young dreams in her diary is like really knowing and understanding her.

It's so very hard to imagine such a young girl could be happy, be romantic ,lively and so hopeful in these terrible circumstances.

The book closes on the morbid reality that only Ann's father survived the camps, the other five expired.

I recommend it highly, especially to young people who may not appreciate , or who may have thought their situation is oppressive.

A bright soul in a dark time, August 23, 2008
I have finally, at the age of 33, gotten around to reading Anne Frank's diary. There is little point in adding another glowing review. Everything has been said. But after reading some of the negative reviews, I feel compelled to respond. It seems there are two primary criticisms (Three if you count the ridiculous idea that the diary is a forgery, which I won't dignify). The first is that Anne doesn't talk a lot about the war or the holocaust. To this, I can only say, that's all for the better. She was a thirteen year girl living in total isolation from the rest of the world. She really had no special expertise or light to shed on these subjects. There are many excellent history books on both of these subjects. The second criticism is simply that the book is boring. She talks too much about her day to day life, her thoughts, her feelings, and so on. To this I can only say, what part of "Diary of a Young Girl" is ambiguous? The annex was her entire world. What do you expect her to write about?

What a few don't seem to understand is that this is not a "book about World War II", or even about the holocaust. If that is what she had written about, the diary wouldn't even be a footnote in history. This is the story of one young girl, in her own voice, trying to figure out what it means to live, to grow, and to be human in the most depraved and inhumane circumstances. She wrote about her hopes, her dreams, her fears, and occasionally about peeling potatoes. But the thing that some people don't see is that even when writing about the most mundane topics, she was actually writing about people, about how they endure and falter, about how they come together and how they fall apart. And despite the enormous injustice she endured, she always made the case for optimism, for hope in humanity, and for love of life. I don't know that I can agree with her, having adopted a more cynical outlook, but that just increases my admiration for her and my shame in myself for not living the gift of live to the fullest.

The other thing that stands out is the maturity of the writing. After reading just the first entry, I was blown away by the eloquence and clarity of Anne's writing. I could hardly believe that I was reading the prose of a 13 year old girl. She does write a lot about the trials and tribulations of being a teenage girl, but the voice of the writing does not feel childish at all, except perhaps in its optimism. The world lost a great talent and a brilliant soul to those murderous barbarians.

This is a difficult book to digest, and two days after finishing, I'm still haunted by it. Anne's optimism, faith, and courage inspired me throughout, but made the knowledge of what would come at the end all the more a bitter pill to swallow. All that we can do is to honor her by making sure her story and the story of millions of holocaust victims are never forgotten and never happen again. So far, we're not doing so well with that.

And there, I've done it. I've written a review. I didn't intend to, but I did. So go out and read it, if you haven't.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, May 15, 2007
Great book. A valuable addendum when reading The Freedom Writers. A very positive teaching tool. My 17 year old daughter has enjoyed the book and it has enhanced her views and opened her mind to many issues that still exist in the world today.

A Great Read, December 11, 2000
I am shocked to see so many negative comments about this book! I think that the previous (negative)reviewers are forgetting that this was not written to entertain - it is a diary not a novel! People should realize when they read this that they are reading a piece of history. How lucky we are to have this - a diary from the war - it is a treasure!

I admire Anne Frank. Some negative reviewers said that there is nothing to admire about Anne - that she only reacted to a situation that she had no choice but to be in. They also stated that she is not a good writer - but I disagree. I admire the way she was able to see herself and to be able to put her thoughts and feelings into words. I tried keeping a diary myself, but found that the only things I put in it were descriptions of my daily events - I was unable to portray any emotion or feelings.

I loved this book because it is about the holocaust which is one of the most significant events in history. It is an easy way to learn about the holocaust. Obviously if someone is looking for extensive knowledge regarding this then a diary of a young lady is not the right type of book. But for those of you who would like to learn about it from someone who was there - then this is the book for you.

And, for those who have negative comments - try keeping a diary and let's see if yours is interesting enough to be published - let alone considered to be one of the best books of all time!

One of the most powerful and influential books of the Twentieth Century!, April 14, 2007

"Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl" is one of the most significant historical records in the history of mankind. It is a diary that leaves one forever changed for the better to have been through the emotional and heart-wrenching experience of sharing the thoughts, ideas, emotions, and observations of a teenage girl who died during the final days of World War Two. Anne was a teenager whose keen insight and profound intellect speaks to the heart, soul, and mind of every reader....she has been widely loved and respected all over our world for the messages of love and hope she leaves to us from so long ago......

Anne Frank was born in 1929 and died of starvation, neglect, and disease shortly before her sixteenth birthday. She and her family were forced into hiding by the evil force that mercilessly and relentlessly hunted them. While trapped in a tiny set of rooms, Anne wrote what would become the most moving account of what it was like to suffer under Nazi tyranny that was to survive and emerge from this dark age in our world's history, thus leaving the world a vivid account of what the end result of state-sponsored prejudice and discrimination can spawn.

While Anne's diary still has the power to make people weep decades after her tragic death, this remarkable teenager's writing ultimately had the power to do what no other diary or essay of the time accomplished --- Anne Frank's work bankrupted the idelology of National Socialism.

It's almost impossible for those of the Twenty-First Century to understand that in the first half of the Twentieth Century the ideology of National Socialism had the support of some in the intellectual community. While it took the combined might of the Allied Armed Forces to militarily defeat the military forces representing the ideology of National Socialism, it has never been possible for military force to defeat an ideology. Anne Frank's diary accomplished what no other intellectual of her time was able to do.....her diary bankrupted the intellectual foundations of the National Socialist ideology that had led the world to such agony and grief during the Second World War. Anne Frank's influence on future generations is multi-faceted..... she speaks to those who read her diary as an account of what it is like to cross the bridge from childhood to adulthood and to travel this bridge under the most difficult conditions imagineable, as well as those who read her diary as an account of what the ultimate result becomes when a nation embraces the ideology of hate, fear, and force.

Anne Frank is one of the most influential historical figures of our era, and her diary is one of the most significant first-person historical accounts of tragedy and triumph that has ever been left as a priceless gift for future generations........Her diary will remain as a beacon of hope and understanding for all mankind forever and ever and always and always to the end of time!

----- John Michael O'Loughlin ... Read more

Editorial Review

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The Age of Wonder is a colorful and utterly absorbing history of the men and women whose discoveries and inventions at the end of the eighteenth century gave birth to the Romantic Age of Science. 

When young Joseph Banks stepped onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, he hoped to discover Paradise. Inspired by the scientific ferment sweeping through Britain, the botanist had sailed with Captain Cook in search of new worlds. Other voyages of discovery—astronomical, chemical, poetical, philosophical—swiftly follow in Richard Holmes's thrilling evocation of the second scientific revolution. Through the lives of William Herschel and his sister Caroline, who forever changed the public conception of the solar system; of Humphry Davy, whose near-suicidal gas experiments revolutionized chemistry; and of the great Romantic writers, from Mary Shelley to Coleridge and Keats, who were inspired by the scientific breakthroughs of their day, Holmes brings to life the era in which we first realized both the awe-inspiring and the frightening possibilities of science—an era whose consequences are with us still. ... Read more

Reviews

Just Before the Golden Age of Victorian Science, September 8, 2009
I have found the history of British science to be one of the best ways to study the intellectual history of the 19th century. This book, which focuses upon the period between Captain Cook's first voyage in 1768 and Darwin's Beagle journey in 1831,takes the story of British science back a bit earlier, and explains some of the important precursor developments to the later dazzling Victorian period. If that was all it did, that would be plenty for the author has written a fine scientific history. But the book is far richer than even this accomplishment for it seeks to establish ties between science and the British Romantics, surprisingly demonstrating that not only did Romantic poets and painters not run away from science, some of them embraced and even engaged in it. Along the way, the profession of scientific researcher emerged as well as some of our basic ideas about scientific progress.

The narrative is built around a series of significant individuals, for whom the author creates scientific biographies. The first is Joseph Banks (1743-1820) who became the godfather of British science during this period from his post as President of the Royal Society. One of the major sciences that underwent development during this period was astronomy; several chapters are devoted to the pathbreaking work of William Herschel (who discovered Uranus) and his sister Carolyn who pioneered new developments and telescopic designs. In the process their work turned the attention of artists to the skies and the evolutin of universe. A chapter catches the excitement of early balloonists and the Romantic wake they left behind as they explored the skies. Exploration was anordsother feature of the period, and was encouraged by Banks who had been on Cook's first voyage to the South Pacific. Mungo Park (1771-1806) anchors a chapter on this, and his tragic disappearance (as well as many other African explorers) reminds us how overwhelming a challenge African exploration presented during this period. Chemistry was another of the major sciences that took off during this period, as demonstrated in the fascinating activities of Humphry Davy (1778-1829), who pioneered in studying gases, electro-chemical analysis, agricultural chemistry, and became a great popularizer of scientific developments. The author frequently links up scientific developments with poetry, with Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, and Tennyson all making appearances, some supportive others not, and with painters whose portrayals of balloons and scientific breakthroughs conveyed the excitement of the period. Davy himself wrote poetry which he recorded in his lab books along with experimental data.

Many of these scientific developments seemed to challenge traditional religious views and raised new philosophical issues. I found the discussion of "Dr Frankenstein and the Soul" highly interesting. The "Vitalism debate" of 1816-22 centered on the issue of whether there was a life force at work, despite scientific scepticism. Naturphilosohie, a form of scientific mysticism, arose to challenge materialistic interpretations of life. The author does a fine job in explaining how Mary Shelley's novel pictured scientists as being potentially dangerous and raised fundamental issues about the human soul. By the 1830's the British Association for the Advancement of Science is launched and we are on the cusp of the "golden age of Victorian science."

The author seems equally at home in science or poetry and art, having written extensively on Coleridge. The book includes a large number of breathtaking color plates which help the reader grasp what the narrative is discussing. The research is impeccable, with 27 pages of notes, a 12-page cast list of mini-biographies of anyone mentioned in the text, and an 11-page bibliography broken down by topic. Poetry is not my thing. Nonetheless, i found this book to be incredibly rich in ideas and perceptive analysis. A rare bird to be sure.

Wonderful Age of Wonder, August 5, 2009
This is a marvelous book, depicting an era where scientific work was far different than it is now. One did not need years of training or huge government investment to make a major discovery back then, but rather hard work and ingenuity. As an example, an amateur like William Hershel, a composer and instrument-maker could become the greatest astronomer of his generation. What's more, the discoveries were intelligible to all educated men of the time and could affect the arts, as we see from scientific comments of writers such as Samuel Johnson, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley. Who would ever have known that the author of the RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER also coined the word "psychosomatic" and may have coined the word "scientist"? The writer of this book did.

The title is a misnomer, December 27, 2009
I always feel bad when I disagree with those glowing reviews. But in this case, it's warranted.

This is a fine book, well worth reading. It just isn't that groundbreaking, or novel. It does not come close to paying off the elegant title.

Holmes may be an expert on Romantic era poetry, and he has obviously learned a lot about the lives of Banks, Faraday, et al. But he falls short, far short of linking the philosophy of the Romantics to the science of the day. There is no consideration of the "beauty and terror of science." A few pages are given over to Mary W. Shelley's creation of Frankenstein's monster, but no connection is forged between the piece of fiction and the terror of science.

All that being said, I am glad I read it, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading superficial biographies of great minds.

Romantic science?, September 1, 2009
What's Romantic science? Fear not, there's no discussion of the particularity, it's just science.
Richard Holmes is a celebrated biographer of the romantic poets. Here he turns his attention to the scientific geniuses of the age. Beautifully written as ever, it is only when you finish the book that you'll start to have doubts.
Was Astronomer Royal Maskelyne as fluffy a bunny as here he appears? (in Dava Sobel's viewLongitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time he was the very picture of the selfish machiavellian bureaucrat)
Why is there a long chapter on (mostly French) ballooning which even Holmes (nice pun) describes as "something of a scientific cul-de-sac"?
Why is Shelley so prominent? He never met any of the principals of this book (Banks, Herschel, Davy).
Is the selection of scientific geniuses a bit skewed? Nothing about medicine, little about geology, metallurgy, biology - and as for practical progress based on science like manufacturing and engineering, forget about it.
Do Davy's poems merit pages and pages? Might we not appreciate some laboratory notes?
The illustrations are nice, but why so many poets, especially the standard views of them?
This book on reflection seems to be a bit of a grab bag of discards from the author's researches in the romantic age. To be fair, Holmes has mastered the science as it appeared then. He could probably even explain the nuances of the phlogiston / oxygen debate. But he has not written a comprehensive history of Romantic science. He has written well, though. You'll enjoy this book.

A great book by an eloquent biographer, July 27, 2009
The Romantic era is indeed an age of wonder, when science was fun and close to punk rock. Holmes' 500 page account brings all these stories of discovery to life with sweet details. It does not take a historian or a scholar of Romanticism to see the beauty of this book and the message it conveys. Through a series of connected biographical accounts, or what the author calls "a relay race of scientific stories," readers are taken on a kaleidoscope tour of one breakthrough after another. There are more to the era than such household names as Newton and Descartes.

what a wonderful book, August 22, 2009
Brilliant job--a great topic, excellent writing, everything you want in a book. Don't be set off by the length. It is an easy read.

I am fascinated by the history of science and technology. This book is a must for those interested in a broad overview of the time period covered. Davy, those wonderful and crazy fellows with air balloons, the voyages to the Pacific to explore....and so on. A real delight is how the author eemplifies what CP Snow alluded to as two cultures---science and the humanities. In this book they find one another. There's even some hints of sex...scientists and sex--what a tease!

Just as important as its relevancy is the writing. This is a gifted author. His writing flows effortless, it is punctuated with pithy observations (e.g., the author must have had a great time visiting the homes and neighborhoods of many of the main characters--how poignant that most are still there but not even celebrated for what happened there).

The book made me wish that we might still have individual greatness in the sciences, that we had something akin to a singular scientific academy like the one that existed in those days. Perhaps a hundred years from now humans will be able to recognize, like this author, the important social, literary, and scientific currents that flow through today. I hope so.

Chronicling the transition from natural philosophy to science, November 28, 2009
I loved this book. For me it captured some sense of the transition from "natural philosophy" (thinking about and speculating about nature) to science (making careful observations and weaving those observations into theories of nature). I loved how Richard Holmes brought some of the people involved in this transition to life. The role of Joseph Banks, the relationship between William and Caroline and John Herschel and many, many more delightful insights into the people who influenced the transition to scientific thought.

Here's a quote from John Herschel in the book that to me captures some of the sense of the Age of Wonder:

"To the natural philosopher there is no natural object unimportant or trifling...A mind that has once imbibed a taste for scientific enquiry has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations. One would think that Shakespeare had such a mind in view when he describes a contemplative man finding:

Tongues in trees - books in the running brooks
Sermons in stones - and good in everything

Where the uninformed and unenquiring eye perceives neither novelty nor beauty, he walks in the midst of wonders."

I know we all have our particular tastes, but this was for me the best book I've read - on any topic.

To read it is to read the opening of the human mind-a must have for any library., August 5, 2009
Like the polymath intellectuals of the times, The Age of Wonder reaches across multiple themes and disciplines, combining biography with the history of science, literature and even social change. Holmes' biographical accounts carry the reader through the book, each figure serving as a new torchbearer in the progression of science in the age--and each figure also bringing new questions as that same science slowly reveals a universe far vaster and stranger than the easily defined world of the old philosophy. The Age of Wonder is a book about discovery, both exciting and frightening--discovery that removes surety as much as it offers hope. To read it is to read the opening of the human mind, and to be called again to look at the world with wonder.

I am Scott C. Waring, author of novels George's Pond & West's Time Machine.
West's Time Machine
George's Pond: Created in the Beloved Tradition of Charlotte's Web

Pick a Richard Holmes, either Richard Holmes, February 3, 2010
It must be tough to be this Richard Homes and at a cocktail party where a guest comes up and says, "Gee, I loved your book `Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of Horse and Musket,'" and have to explain that while you appreciate the compliment, that book is by the other Richard Holmes. Yes, History lovers, we are very fortunate that there are two Richard Holmes, one a marvelous biographer, this one, and the other among the finest military historians of the age, the other one, and after reading `The Age of Wonder' by this Richard Holmes, and `Redcoat' by that Richard Holmes, I've come to the conclusion that one can't go wrong in choosing either for one's next read. There are enough excellent five-star reviews of `The Age of Wonder' for me to add only that any book whose frontispiece is one of my favorite paintings, `The Orrery,' by Joseph Wright of Derby, is likely to be a hit with me, and it was. If you're interested in the period, you will be fascinated by the read. Then buy and read `Redcoat' and you'll be prepared if you ever find yourself at that cocktail party.

Wonderful stories of science and art in the Romantic Age, July 8, 2010
This book is a fascinating voyage back to the Romantic Age in Europe when there were still far flung parts of the globe to explore, most of the chemical elements awaited discovery, and time and space were found to be much vaster than anyone had expected. Even more wonderfully, scientists and artists were not naturally at odds--chemist Humphry Davy and poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge were friends, Percy Bysshe Shelley attended science lectures at the Royal Society and a musician, William Herschel, became the leading astronomer of England. Poets looked to the brave new world of science for inspiration, and many scientists--including Davy and Charles Darwin's grandfather Erasmus--wrote poetry. While scientists were perfecting the inductive reasoning of Newton and Francis Bacon they also used poetic devices like analogies to advance their understanding and inspire their research. It was an exciting and unsettling time and that makes for a great reading experience. ... Read more

Editorial Review

The past is a foreign country.
This is your guidebook.

A time machine has just transported you back to the fourteenth century. What do you see? How do you dress? How do you earn a living and how much are you paid? What sort of food will you be offered by a peasant or a monk or a lord? And more important, where will you stay?

The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England is not your typical look at a historical period. This radical new approach shows us that the past is not just something to be studied; it is also something to be lived. All facets of everyday life in this fascinating period are revealed, from the horrors of the plague and war to the ridiculous excesses of roasted larks and medieval haute couture.

Through the use of daily chronicles, letters, household accounts, and poems of the day, Morti-mer transports you back in time, providing answers to questions typically ignored by traditional historians. You will learn how to greet people on the street, what to use as toilet paper, why a physician might want to taste your blood, and how to know whether you are coming down with leprosy.

From the first step on the road to the medieval city of Exeter, through meals of roast beaver and puffin, Mortimer re-creates this strange and complex period of history. Here, the lives of serf, merchant, and aristocrat are illuminated with re-markable detail in this engaging literary journey. The result is the most astonishing social history book you're ever likely to read: revolutionary in its concept, informative and entertaining in its detail, and startling for its portrayal of humanity in an age of violence, exuberance, and fear. ... Read more

Reviews

I have been to medieval England, January 1, 2010
I have been to medieval England by immersion in the writing of Ian Mortimer. The smells, the sites, the attitudes of the time have surrounded me. As the reader you become part of the fabric of the place. His writing leads the you through the homes and halls, the churches and landscape of the time. The reading is easy, not cold and academic, but warm and compassionate. For those of us that have only experienced a brief, school based, introduction to history, life in medieval England was probably described as 'nasty, brutish and short'. This is far from a complete picture. Ian brings the time and place to life. You will find that the book not only expands your understanding of the time, but when you finish reading it, you may be left with the feeing that you are leaving old friends behind.

Vivid, intimate look at a vanished era, January 6, 2010
Ian Mortimer's "The Time Travelers' Guide to Medieval England: A Guidebook for Visitors to the Fourteenth Century" is a highly detailed look at life in England several centuries ago, related as if the reader were preparing for an actual journey back in time, studying on what to do (and how to survive) in a vastly different world. The benefits of such an approach are large. The author explains: "As soon as you start to think of the past happening (as opposed to it having happened), a new way of conceiving history becomes possible ... You start to gain an inkling as to why people did this or that, and even why they believed things we find simply incredible."

The book covers virtually every aspect of life and death in Fourteenth century England, from the highest royalty to the lowest peasant (peasants, Mortimer explains, did not call themselves "peasants", but instead would have conceived themselves as members of some subset of society as "rustici" -- countrymen -- or "villani" -- villeins). Social hierarchies, food, clothing, housing, law and order, medicine, travel ... Mortimer seemingly touches upon and describes every aspect of life. He deliberately limits himself to a single century as "medieval" actually covers too extensive a slice of time for accurate summary and even so the author frequently addresses changing behavior over the course of that single century.

A vast amount of information is conveyed in an engaging, lively style. In the very first chapter Mortimer emphasizes his approach to social history by submerging the reader in an ocean of sensory imaginings, descrbing sights and sounds and especially smells of a visit to a medieval English city. And repeatedly thereafter the author reinforces this "you are there" experience. All in all, this is an excellent and highly vivid look at a past era.

Excellent pop history, January 8, 2010
The Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England is just that--a comprehensive traveler's guide to the fourteenth century in England. It covers pretty much anything and everything of day-to-day life, from the people you would have encountered, to the clothes you would have worn, to the kind of medical treatment you would have received if you had gotten sick, and much, much more.

There's a lot here I already knew, but a lot I didn't--for example, that pockets were introduced during this century, as were differentiated shoes (left foot versus right, in other words). It's details like this, that you wouldn't normally think are important, that really are important in daily life. At first, the present-tense writing threw me off; but, as Mortimer says in his introduction, once you begin understanding history as happening rather than as has happened, then you'll better understand the complexities of fourteenth-century life.

As the back of the book paraphrases LP Hartley, "the past is a foreign country, they did things differently there..." It's not that things were bad or wrong with the way that people lived six hundred years ago; it's just that people back then had different ways of seeing the world. Take, for example, the chapter on health and medical practices. It's not that medical physicians and surgeons (two different things, up until the 17th century) were ignorant in the sense that we mean it; it's just that they used different areas of knowledge to make a diagnosis and treat a patient. Doctors and surgeons in the fourteenth century probably had as much knowledge as doctors do today--they just used things such as astronomy, religion, and blind faith in their practice. I wish the author had focused a little more on religion and education, however. In all, though, a fascinating study of medieval social life, and unlike any other history book I've read (and much more enjoyable than most). I read this book straight through, but it can also be used a a reference book, to dip into from time to time.

Even Chaucer would love this book!, January 26, 2010
There are so many wonderful uses for this witty, good-natured, and lovingly assembled compendium of all things "medieval" that I scarcely know where to begin. Anyone who is about to plunge into the literature, politics, culture, or sociology of the 1300's for their school assignments or just for their own pleasure will find both the material and the writing so engaging as to be addictive; it will be with great sorrow when you finish the book. That is, until you realise that NOW you can read Chaucer with an enhanced confidence and giddiness that the human heart does not change. And for those who love medieval mysteries (try Paul Doherty, if I might suggest just one author) this fascinating "tour" by Mortimer will answer (perhaps) many a question and reassure the reader that no, their mystery writers have not exaggerated the challenges and curiosities of the fourteenth century! For those who prefer a non-fiction analysis of some political situation (with monarchy or wars or even the repercussions of the Great Plague) even here this book will provide an immediate and provocative feel for the whole environment. For myself I was smitten with his initial suggestion: approach the century and its people from 1300 moving forward, forget what you thought you knew, what myth and maybe Hollywood have told you, and instead, sit back and let Mortimer steer you through the countryside and cityscape of the unfolding century with all the ease of a meandering skiff as it floats down a river on a warm afternoon. This book is a rare treat indeed. Mortimer wrote this compilation as a detailed survey but it is never burdensome; his humor is often pointed, but never embittered or crude. Mortimer's manner is respectful and he has a charming felicity with language. And, if you still need additional incentive to get this book, the reader may dip in and out of various chapters without doing irreparable harm to the flow or understanding of the whole. Now ... how do I convince this author to do the same for the 15th century?!

A must read for medieval enthusiasts of all fashions and at all levels!, January 28, 2010
In THE TIME TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND, Ian Mortimer takes readers on a voyage to fourteenth-century England. Exploring the time period as if it were a foreign country rather than dry facts in a dusty textbook, Ian Mortimer imagines the past as virtual history, a history that is happening. Ian Mortimer extends the approach of architectural historians who recreate images of buildings as they were during the period to cover more topics, especially those topics that a visitor would need to know, much like tourist guides for visiting foreign cultures. Ian Mortimer's approach looks not only at the evidence but also the humanity of people living during the time. Ian Mortimer combines "what if" scenarios in which outcomes are not necessarily guaranteed with an awareness of our perspectives and life today in order to pinpoint those areas of medieval life that clearly differ from our own routines, values, and expectations. As visitors to a fourteenth century present before us, we ask different questions than would someone viewing the period from a safe, comfortable distance. Consequently, the questions we ask and the answers we discover have a vitality sometimes lacking in traditional history.

THE TIME TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND examines topics a time traveler from our century would want and need to know for a successful visit to fourteenth century England. Chapters include the following topics: the landscape, the people (with a look at the roles of fighters, workers, the religious and more), the medieval character, basic essentials, what to wear, traveling, where to stay, what to eat and drink, health and hygiene, the law, and what to do. Ian Mortimer gives a perspective to the landscape that allows a reader to visualize the world before them. The chapter on medieval character delves into such sub-topics as violence and cruelty, the sense of humor and a warrior's love of flowers, education and more. Basic essentials covers topics any time traveler (or scholar) would need to know such as languages, dates, measuring time, units of measurement, manners and politeness, shopping, money, and more. Each chapter takes a reader deeper and deeper into the culture of the time, building upon the other so that by the end of the book, a reader feels one has visited the time and culture. Each chapter presents a new look at topics, even for those well-versed in the literature or history of the period. Chapters on health and hygiene and the law bring a particularly powerful vision and insight into the period. No matter how much one has studied the plague, Ian Mortimer's presentation of it and other diseases makes a reader feel the devastation from the perspective of people living through the event much more than facts and figures. Ian Mortimer focuses on the cultural differences between our time and that of fourteenth century England. Mortimer's examination of medieval England disperses modern stereotypes of "the Dark Ages" as a time of ignorance and lack of civilization. Particularly compelling are his discussions of cleanliness within the social and religious context as well as his discussion of knowledge. Science and medicine differ from today's perspective not through ignorance or a lack of study but because the two incorporate other areas of study that modern times discounts. Sixteen pages of rich illustrations, mostly from medieval manuscrips accompany the text, adding to the visual image built up by the author's words.

THE TIME TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND is an excellent choice for neophytes and medieval scholars alike. For readers wanting to explore Medieval England, the travel guide format brings the period alive in memorable, vivid imagery with relevant historical details. Readers who love historical fiction who tend to avoid history due to its dryness will particularly appreciate the humanity and sense of vibrancy Ian Mortimer brings to history. THE TIME TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND is highly recommended to medieval enthusiasts and lovers of medieval literature. THE TIME TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND would make an important resource for both undergraduate and graduate medieval literary students, helping readers to visualize the time period and its literature in new and exciting ways. This reader would have most appreciated this book as a background resource during my graduate medieval studies, above all for visualizing the background behind the literature. THE TIME TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND is a fine example of the use of imagination to ask relevant questions of history for literature lovers. Even though those familiar with the period may already know the material, at least in part, Ian Mortimer brings historical facts and concepts together in an exciting combination to provide a background for the reading of medieval literature. Even such details as the size and lay-outs of medieval towns become more memorable through his presentation. For those well-versed in the period, Ian Mortimer brings a wonderful sense of humor to medieval history. Last but not least, THE TIME TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND is highly recommended to historical fiction, romance and mystery authors writing in this period. Not only will his research help provide more accuracy to historical fiction, but his imagination asks the kinds of questions fictional authors should ask. Ian Mortimer's THE TIME TRAVELER'S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND is a must read for medieval enthusiasts of all fashions and at all levels!

COURTESY OF BOOK ILLUMINATIONS

Some quibbles, but over all an excellent look at the time, July 15, 2010
As other reviewers have said, this is a very good overview of the 14th century in England, in terms of the social history (not a place to go if you are looking for political history. I think Barbara Tuchman's Distant Mirror would fit that bill, and would be a fascinating companion read). He has an easy going style that is readable, without the 'lets make this really funny' kind of trap that some popular historians fall into. I felt that he made it interesting and accessible enough for readers with little background, and yet was novel enough for those of us who have some background with the time and place. I liked how much day to day details he found for us, and brought us to what life was like for the 'peasants' (interesting that they were not called that at the time). I did think some of his details were overdone. While I enjoyed looking at some of the lists of household items and such, putting costs weren't that necessary. But his sections on clothing, food, and housing were excellent.

There were a few glaring omissions: maps!!! There should have been a general English one, as well as a map of London and other places mentioned, as well as drawings of the houses and such that he describes. There was also nothing about child rearing or discipline, schooling or apprentiship. I was very surprised to see that he left out midwives and herbalists from the section on medical practitioners. Otherwise, this is a very written book that I would recommend to others.

A wonderful guide book, July 19, 2010
If I were going to write a novel set in Medieval England this book would be my bible. Mortimer packs an amazing amount of information into 340 pages (enhanced by sixteen full color plates). While he covers all the areas we expect in a "daily life" book, he goes well beyond them. He lays bare the social structure (far more complex than the idealized Three Estates), demographics (the median age was only twenty-one), mentalities--such things as sense of humor, attitudes towards women, violence, and credulity. The author's tone throughout is genial: he addresses the reader--the putative time-traveler--as "you" ("You would be crazy to engage a fourteenth century man in combat and have a chance of surviving. Most of them are much stronger than you."). Mortimer's focus is on the fourteenth century and, although this is the century that Barbara Tuchman in A Distant Mirror called "calamitous," the picture that he paints is not absolutely bleak. These were men and women who, even in the face of plague, famine, and peasant revolt, could still sing and dance and compose some of the finest poetry in our language. In fact, much of what we know about the age comes from Chaucer. And anyone who is planning to read or re-read the Canterbury Tales could find no better companion than this wonderful book.

An immersing read; not the typical nonfiction work, August 16, 2010
I just finished The Time Traveler's Guide, and loved every minute of it. The author has a clear viewpoint that history is not a dead time in the past, but a living time that we can all experience and learn from now, and he demonstrates that customs and fashions and cultures might change over time, but people don't, and judging people through our own subjective viewpoints says more about our own time than it lets us learn about another time. I read tons of non-fiction books, and there were many new things I learned in this book. The section on the law was fascinating. I had no idea that animals could be tried for crimes (which makes me wonder how they were able to find a jury of their peers, but that's another story). Also, when discussing money, the author makes a very good point that I had never thought about, and had never been brought up, that I can remember, in any history books I've read. When discussing the value of things, most people just do a rough translation, so if they say that someone spent 600 pounds on a house, they then put the modern value of that in today's currency. But the point that the author made was that that's really not helpful because the value of things change over time. Food was valued much more so than labor, for example, in medieval England. So it was common for a poor laborer to have to spend a day's salary on food; whereas today, labor and land are valued much more highly, mostly because we have easy ways to transport, store, and make food. Really interesting points.

I loved this book, and highly recommend it for anyone who has an interest in the middle ages. The only thing that could have been added on was a little more discussion of some of the important characters. The author mentions that Chaucer knew Katherine Swynford, but there really isn't much discussion of who Katherine Swynford was, for example. I suppose there are plenty of biographies of those people, so if he would have done that, the book would have been way too long.

-Heather Teysko
Creator of the Renaissance English History Podcast
[...]

Entertaining... but like all "visits," open to interpretation, February 6, 2010
This book is entertaining, yes, and there's a lot in it that is reasonably well researched, but this work falls into the pitfall that often looms in front of academics writing popular works: the temptation to present things "as they really were" ignores gaps or controversies in the evidence. In the first 17 pages that I read, I noted two misleading statements: the claim that in the fourteenth century most houses in medieval cities were being reworked into stone from timber originals (in fact the evidence seems to indicate the reverse-- timber framed houses were in their heyday), and that poor 'rental' style single-room lodgings had a space for cooking. Both of these statements are directly opposite the established view held by recent scholarly studies of medieval architecture (see for example Anthony Quiney's "Townhouses of Medieval Britain"- most poor rental lodgings did not have either cooking or heating facilities, though Mortimer is absolutely right about the dismal lack of plumbing.)
Granted, most people who enjoy this kind of book will not want to embroil themselves in footnotes, caveats and scholarly theories. For that very reason, though, books that profess to show things "as they really were" should be more careful not to mislead the general public. There's a lot in here that is reasonably well researched, but the book should be treated with care, and its limitations recognized. As a medievalist myself, I confess I had expected more, and was disappointed.

Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England, May 3, 2010
Mortimer's thoroughly researched and deftly written volume is a welcome respite from the "great man," "cosmic force," or economic determinant look at history. He provides a look at all estates of 14th-century society and enables us to understand what they held important in their lives and how they acted on those beliefs. The book is a powerful, understated refutation of "presentism," the tempatation to criticize other periods in history simply because they do not mirror the sensibilities of our age. Well done and highly recommended. ... Read more

Editorial Review

Reviews

those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it
This is a frightening account of the German, Austrian and Hungarian hyperinflations of the early 1920's. It includes blow-by-blow accounts by diplomats, bankers, and ordinary folk who survived the total annihilation of their currencies. Fergusson has done an outstanding job of documentation and must have spent thousands of hours in archives. It is indeed a shame that this book is out-of-print.

Review of the 1st Edition "Making the Same Old Mistakes, but not Makin' Mo' Money" or "Zeros in -- Zeros out. Naught is Naught."
Review of the First Edition (rare hardcover) of When Money Dies, written by me on May 25, 2006, & not reedited:

I first read this book some 25 years ago. I was so impressed I immediately bought a dozen copies & gave them to pals. (In 1980 they were 3-4 pounds sterling each--it's ironic & interesting that the price of this out-of-print book now fetches multiple zeros).
Here are some parallels with our time:
The Germany of the '20s finds it cannot meet the costs of war reparations. The US of the 2000s starts a war intending to pay reparations before it begins, and then finds itself unable to meet the mounting costs of war reparations it originally thought would leap out of the ground and just pay themselves. (Meanwhile, the US's wounded soldiers [& the families of its dead soldiers] are going to require entire lifetimes of domestic reparations).
The Germany of the '20s attempted to buy/finance prosperity with ballooning deficits. The US of the 2000s wants to buy/finance prosperity with ballooning deficits. Neither nation-State can be told it is wrong--and neither admits (or even recognizes) inflation is a hidden and pernicious tax.
Germany before the '20s had every confidence in the mark. The US in the 2000s believes the only currency in the world is the dollar, & the only thing money can be made of is paper and ink (never gold or silver). But as one mixes ink with paper, hoping the mixture will have exchange value, one finds that one has given value to neither material.
As Germany becomes more unhinged in the '20s, it moves towards a strong man as a moth to a flame. As the US grows more unhinged, it loses faith in its 'strong man' (even if he does not lose faith in himself). If the US should subsequently shun whoever wants to be the next 'strong man', there may yet be be hope. Since it is possible for the next wannabe 'strong man' to be laughed off the stage, it is yet possible the US will not succumb. The jury is still out.
At times the mark strenghthens (goes against the ultimate trend, for short periods): the Germans of the '20s (and other investors) think the crisis is over and it is time to buy. At times the dollar strengthens (goes against the ultmate trend [?], for short periods): the world of the 2000s thinks the crisis may end--isn't it now time to buy cheap US assets?
The Germans of the '20s can add more zeros to their paper--but paper production does not keep up with the 'demand' for money. The US of the 2000s has but to generate a computer entry and like magic, the 'demand' for money is met. The paper of Germany leaves a trail [Fergusson proves this]--computer entries can be a hidden and dirty little State Secret [until prices rise as the money actually depreciates, the state can suppress much of the evidence].
At many levels, this book about a frightening past speaks to a menacing present. Because of its price, many will not get to read that message. Between the Germany of the '20s and the US of the 2000s, there are differences too, but not differences that necessarily help. The potential for money supply to soar (the Fed's ability to create credit by computer without even having to buy ink, paper, and printers) has never been so boundless. We of the 2000s prefer to believe we are more intellegent than the Germans of the 20s. We live with the hope that our enlightened leaders [!] comprehend inflation & understand that deficit spending shall ruin us. Enlighted people that they are, from government top to government bottom, we know and rely upon our leaders' fiscal responsibility. Just look at how enlightenment runs through the Nation--budgetary constraints are placed upon our brilliant leader, by those guardians of the Public Purse & Trust, a US legislature that checks and balances all his raw power. In truthiness [that is, if one buys their spin], they all do their utmost to preserve & protect the currency, while shouldering their duties to preserve and protect our Constitution. Tonight, can I sleep contentedly, knowing both these National Treasures are safe and sound?
Read this book: it is still found in libraries. You will be witness to ink on paper that actually has and holds its value.
May 25, 2006

Everybody talks about inflation, but nobody knows anything about it
This book tells the story of the hyperinflation in Weimar Germany and its aftermath (1919-1926) and, to some extent, the ensuing rise of Hitler's Nazi Germany. It is a story which is so complex and convoluted that it takes a historian to even begin to do it justice. Fortunately, this book's author is not only an accomplished historian, well versed in his subject, but also a gifted writer. The result is a remarkable book about an almost indescribable and incomprehensible period in the world's history.

So, if you've ever wondered about the hyperinflation in Germany following the Great War (WWI), and by extension what the REAL consequences of inflation, hyperinflation, deflation and depression might be, this is the book you've been looking for. In fact, I've only read one other book which even comes close; that being `The Fiat Money Inflation in France: How It Came, What it Brought, and How It Ended' by Andrew Dickson White. But this book is much more timely, much broader in scope, much more comprehensive, and much easier to relate to our more modern times.

In it, you'll learn a lot and find the answers to many puzzling questions. Among them: what caused the inflation, what were its impacts, and why it was allowed to continue; which groups and social classes fared the best, which the worst, and why; how the inflation resulted in the redistribution of wealth; what happened to landlords, shop owners, government employees, members of unions, free workers, and pensioners, as well as the middle-class; what the man or woman on the street had to do simply to survive; who prospered, who lost everything, and why; what the government did and didn't do and what the impacts were on people at all social levels, and on industry; how the hyperinflation was finally ended, why the resulting deflation and depression was worse in many ways, and why; and what those living through the deflation/depression period had then to do in order to survive and, in some cases, prosper.

There is also much anecdotal evidence as to just how much misery both inflation and deflation can cause. For example: the well dressed elderly man who couldn't afford two cents (American money) for a bag of apples; the little old lady who supported herself by selling her crucifix chain one tiny gold link at a tme; the foreign students who bought rows of houses out of their allowance; the substitution of paste-board coffins for wooden ones; the life insurance policies that eventually were worth less than their annual premiums; the banks that did away with smaller savings accounts because the paper required to book them was worth more that the money in the accounts; the man who said it was better to have a prostitute in the house than the corpse of a dead baby; the beggars who, in October 1923, purportedly wouldn't accept anything smaller than a one million mark note; and finally, that even with the first "billiard" [a thousand million million] and five billiard notes being printed in November 1923, people still clamored for more.

Apart from the Weimar Republic: This book is essentially a case study in inflation and its aftermath which should be of interest to anyone contemplating or concerned about the current state of America's, and the world's economic future, and the direction America is headed. In reading it, it is well to keep in mind what Gunter Schmolders articulates (pg. 248), "With inflation alone can a government extinguish debt without repayment, or wage war and engage in other non-productive activities on a large scale: it is still not recognized as a tax by the tax-payer."

In any event, if you do read this book, and if you are anything like me: You'll likely conclude, as I did, that everyone talks about inflation, but no one, especially the politicians who cause it, really knows what they are dealing with or what the consequences may be.

Can history repeat?
"When Money Dies" is very well written, and historically accurate. What a terrible situation that the German government put their people in! ... Read more