No comments about WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

1 comments about Oliver Cromwell (Historic Lives).

1. We bought this book for my daughter's class report. It did a decent job of going over Cromwell's life. However, it is not very in-depth and would not suffice for a report done by anyone over 9th grade. On the other hand we did not find a lot of information about Cromwell easily; so this did it's job.

No comments about oeuvres d\'Augustin Thierry, membre de l\'institut. Lettres sur l\'histoire de France. Histoire de la conquête d\'Angleterre par les Normands. Dix ans d\'études historiques.

No comments about A Biography of Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox,(1515-1578): Niece of Henry VIII and Mother-In-Law of Mary, Queen of Scots (Studies in British History, V. 62).

No comments about British Women in the Twentieth Century.

No comments about ONE LEG: The Life and Letters of Henry William Paget KG, First Marquess of Anglesey, 1768-1854.

3 comments about John the Painter: Terrorist of the American Revolution.

1. This book delivers. It is not an exhaustive treatise on the nature of terrorism (which it could have been had the author bowed to the whims of our modern backdrop) but rather a very real and lifelike account of the brief step into the limelight that characterized the life of James Aitken.
   
   The reader truly sees the era through the eyes of not only Aitken, but of the lawmen who chase him and the harried/bumbling port authority that lamented not acting swifter in his pursuit. We feel inside the story, both saddened at a life led astray as well as excited at the narrow escapes and missed opportunities.
   
   John the Painter is a great story that is told with panache and style.



2. Any Americans who pay attention to history take pride in the Revolution that brought the nation its freedom, and all Americans have been shocked by recent attacks by terrorists. What if during the Revolution, there had been a terrorist operating in England on behalf of American freedom? It seems an impossible anachronism, but the strange truth is that there was such a man. He is a historical footnote now, but at the end of his brief life he was one of the most notorious men in England because of his crimes of arson performed against naval targets in furtherance of the American cause against England. This bizarre story is told in _John the Painter: Terrorist of the American Revolution_ (Thunder's Mouth Press) by Jessica Warner, which fetches its subject back from obscurity. The saying "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" does not really apply to John the Painter, whose real name was James Aitken. Shifting through the often obscure vestiges of fact, Warner is not able to document that Aitken was inspired by any patriotic fervor or love of liberty. His motivations remain mysterious, and his crimes ineffectual, at least as far as affecting the American Revolution, so his obscurity is deserved; but this is a lively and welcome examination of a tiny and surprising patch of history.
   
   Aitken was born in 1752, in an impoverished section of Edinburgh. He became a painter, and got an introduction into some basic chemistry and had easy access to flammables, but had small success in his trade. He opted to try his luck in the New World. He arrived in Jamestown in 1773 as an indentured servant. He ran away from his master, and was in different areas of the eastern seaboard for two years. He did not get imbued with the love of liberty while he was there; in fact, he was part of an exodus of Scots back to England in 1775. He heard a conversation in a pub in Oxford to the effect that if the naval dockyards were lost, the navy would be lost, and thus the war would be lost. He then formed the plan of torching Britain's docks. He may have thought that in doing so he could have returned to America as a hero, and become (his great goal) a military officer, but any clear explanation of what he was thinking is impossible. He met with the American representative in Paris, got a small amount of money, and thought he was doing American duty as he torched a few warehouses and docks, with the aim of crippling Britain's navy. He had houses as well as naval buildings as targets, and although no one died, he did (as terrorists do) inflict psychological damage. He was not particularly careful about his work and keeping from suspicion, but policing at the time was primitive. Eventually, someone recognized him, others realized that a housepainter always seemed to be around town before a blaze, and a hunt was begun. It quickly succeeded when a large reward was offered for his capture.
   
   Aitken's efforts terrified Britons, but had none of the effects he had planned. Americans had been suspected of setting the fires (Aitken's incendiary devices had convinced authorities that there was more than one arsonist about) and those who had sympathy for the American cause had reason to be less enthusiastic. He was put on trial for the offence of arson in a naval dockyard, one of the many crimes punishable by death. Warner explains how limited justice was for those accused at the time, and how an informer was hired to befriend the unsuspecting Aitken in jail, in order to get details of his activities. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be hung. There was a customary, but unseemly, race to get his life into print, with different authors vying to be the one responsible for his true final confession. None of them turned out to be very reliable. The prison chaplain refused to give Aitken final communion until he gave a final confession that might be published on its own (with profits to the chaplain). Aitken was hung on high, specifically from a ship's 60-foot mast especially erected in Portsmouth for the occasion. His body was tarred and gibbeted, hanging for years in an iron cage to serve as a warning to others, and pieces of him were taken away for souvenirs. A finger was turned into a tobacco stopper, and was destroyed, as luck would have it, in an incendiary raid on Portsmouth by the Germans in World War II. John the Painter's life was not useful to the Americans, who forgot him entirely, and serves only as a historical anomaly. Warner's telling of a sad tale, however, is full of sympathy for a flawed protagonist and good humor for his peculiar style of making himself famous. He was a failure; his biography is a vigorous, ironic success.



3. I picked this book up because I am very interested in revolutionary America. I found the subject to be interesting, as I had never heard of John the Painter.
   
   This book is written as history books should be written: Like it involves people and not dates. I was given a great sense of how John the Painter's life must have been and what his motivations were.
   
   I also enjoyed the parallels of John Aitken's life with that of many modern day terrorists. The author does not throw these parallels in your face, instead she lays the facts out and you must draw your own conclusions.
   
   Highly recommended for anyone interested in history or current politics.

5 comments about Nelson: Love and Fame.

1. I have been wanting to read a biography of Lord Nelson for some time now - mostly due to my reading of the entire "Master and Commander" series. It may be that I wished too much for Patrick O'Brian's passion when detailing the life of a real person but this entire biography felt like nothing more than a series of quotes being strung together. And, too often, the quotes were so out of context it was hard to even understand them. Besides that, often the quotes completely contradicted each other. I never got any real sense of the man or what it was like to live his life. If anything, it was like a time line with occasional context. There must be a better read out there about this fascinating man.



2. I like this book very much, even though I concede that another reviewer is right: Edgar Vincent does analyse Nelson's personality and motivations through a modern (21st century) lense.
   
   My other complaint is that the book deals too much with the topics identified in the sub-title (love and fame) but not enough on the qualities that made Nelson the great historical figure he is. Those relate to his naval mastery. To understand Nelson as an admiral, a warrior and a hero, see the new books by Joel Hayward, Brian Lavery, Jo Callo and, for Nelson's early career, John Sugden. Remember also that the doyen of Nelson studies, Colin White, has just published NELSON THE NEW LETTERS, which is an invaluable source collection.
   
   Now, is Vincent's book good on the stuff that I'm not personally that interested in? The short answer is YES. Mr Vincent has researched admirably and painstakingly and created a three-dimensional portrait of the little fellow that generally rings true.
   
   Vincent's Nelson is vainglorious, passionate, complex, humane and sometimes a bit foolish. We knew all that, but Mr Vincent has depicted all these qualities and weaknesses with considerable empathy and an obvious unwillingness to sensationalise or trivialise.
   
   The book itself is a handsome volume, one that looks as good as it reads.



3. In 1805, almost exactly 200 years ago, Horatio Nelson was killed just as his plans to defeat the French fleet were suceeding. Beautiful timing for a new biography that brings new light on Nelson's life.
   
   The basics of the his life are not unknown. The interesting points addressed in this work concern things like his rise to such heights of power within the British Navy. The navy was a bastion of priveledge. The higher the social/royal ranking of a person, and the more wealth to impress one's peers the greater likelihood of promotion and power.
   
   As the fifth son of a clergyman his rise to power had to depend on performance, fame, competance. Also there had to be hidden drives and an ability to self-promote in a manner that would not be offensive. How did Nelson rise to the top of the power pyramid? How did he get the captains of other ships, often people of higher social standing to follow his commands. The author was a senior manager at a large firm in England. He is able to analyze Nelson's life from a slightly different point of view than that of the more normal academic writer.
   
   The result is a book that is likely to remain a classic for many years.



4. This is a new perspective about "Love and Fame", and so it emphasizes the women he loved. I have read other bios. of Nelson, where the authors seem to know Nelson better. Here in this bio., Vincent gives psychological explanations for the motivations of Nelson, and gets them wrong. The author seems to be a 21st-century person explaining an 18th-century man in today's terms, and ultimately not understanding him. Nevertheless, the numerous large, color pictures of Nelson and his very lovely Lady Hamilton were wonderful additions.



5. There are new works on Nelson that contain more originality--that's true. But I believe that this may be the most accessible single-volume biography and will thus probably sell well, and deservedly so, during 2005, the bicentennial of the Battle of Trafalgar. I hope so. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

1 comments about D-Day Hero: CSM Stanley Hollis VC.

1. This book written by Mike Morgan is an absolute must for anyone interested in military history.Stan Hollis cannot be praised enough for his superb bravery and courage and Mike Morgan does him proud,Hollis is one of the all time British Heroes who makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Highly recommended well researched and well written.

No comments about For Her Good Estate: The Life of Elizabeth de Burgh (The New Middle Ages).