2 comments about Elizabeth's Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War That Saved England.

1. A little dry in style, but with good information, and a good bibliography. I enjoyed reading it.



2. I have always been fascinated by the work of Sir Francis Walsingham so I bought this book in eager anticipation - and was terribly disappointed. It is basically a mix of generalist Elizabethan history and rather boring details of Sir Francis' expenses. The one operation about which we have lots of information is his campaign against Mary Queen of Scots and this is covered in some detail in the book but we are told no more than is revealed in a lot of other books about Mary, her imprisonment and trial. I was hoping to find out exactly how Sir Francis got started in the spying business and how he built up his spy ring. Although the author implies that, as a neighbour of Lord Burlegh's he was introduced into the world of Tudor politics and espionage, this is never explained fully.
   Perhaps the irony is that Sir Francis was so good at what he did that we will never be able to find out how he did it!

5 comments about The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling.

1. At a time when the "politically correct" holds sway in much of the media for intellectuals and all too much of academia, Rudyard Kipling is persona non grata -- the author of charming Victorian children's tales, but irredeemably tainted as an advocate and apologist for the British Empire and its subjugation of so many blacks and browns in the world. This biography of Kipling shows that the popular image de jour of Kipling is oversimplified and, at bottom, unfair and wrong.
   
   David Gilmour deliberately focuses on the "imperial" Kipling, or the political (as opposed to the literary) aspect of his life. Of course, it is impossible to cleave Kipling into two selves, one political and the other literary. No one can be so compartmentalized, but Kipling resists it more than most because he was so unabashedly a political writer. And Gilmour chooses to emphasize that fact by exploring Kipling's politics and his view of the British Empire, as well as his role in celebrating it and then mourning its imminent demise (Kipling died before World War II and the death throes of empire). As Gilmour puts it in his preface: "This is the first volume to chronicle Kipling's political life, his early role as apostle of the Empire, the embodiment of imperial aspiration, and his later one of the prophet of national decline."
   
   Gilmour achives his objective quite well. His Kipling -- as I believe is true of the actual Kipling -- was NOT a jingoistic rascist (although, to be sure, certain lines of his taken as they say out of context could be stretched and cited for the opposite conclusion). Yes, Kipling was a Victorian Englishman who grew up amidst, and believed in, the glory of the British Empire. But, as Gilmour persuasively writes, the empire Kipling touted and valued was a civilizing, even humanitarian, force -- an empire of "peace and justice, quinine and canals, railways and vaccinations". His model of empire had no place for the missionary zeal to transform all the Empire's subjects into brown or black (depending on their class) fish-and-chippers or public-school-educated Church-of-Englanders. Moreover, to Kipling, it was the altruistic responsibility of the wealthy, civilized haves of the world (principally Great Britain and the United States) to relieve suffering and improve the lot in life of the myriad have nots.
   
   Gilmour's biography shows, without explicit lecturing, that Kipling was not a stock "stiff-upper-lip" Victorian cardboard cut-out; he was human, with weaknesses he sought both to overcome and to mask, and with a strength of character that ultimately more than redeems him.
   
   Gilmour does not ignore, but he does not dwell on, the literary side of Kipling. For that, the reader must go elsewhere. But for a sensitive yet objective picture of "Kipling as a figurehead of his country and his age", I don't know where else one should or would care to look.



2. Rudyard Kipling, according to David Gilmour's authoritative 'The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling' was a first-class political hater and author of children's books, as well as the virtual embodiment of the British Empire. Kipling was considered the Imperial Laureate, although he would have refused the post had it existed as he did all government posts - not in his line at all.
   
   Kipling lived much of the first half of his life in the Empire - he spent his early years in India, except for a horrid stretch when he was boarded back in England by his parents who stayed in British India, and later lived off-and-on in South Africa. Kipling loved the Empire and its civilizing mission (up to a point - he did not favor Christian religious proselytizing), but oddly was not that fond of England or the English.
   
   Gilmour paints a portrait of Kipling as a thorough-going reactionary, a pessimist, a virulent opponent of women's suffrage, Irish Home Rule, nearly all politicians (he especially hated Liberals, but also accused Winston Churchill of `political whoring'), trade unions, and imperial wavering of any kind.
   
   'The Long Recessional' (the title refers both to his poem written for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 and the decline of the Empire) is not so much a history of Kipling's literary works as it is his leading role in promoting the Empire through his literature. Readers seeking detailed literary analyses had best look elsewhere, but should read this book first to understand what it was that Kipling was so all-fired angry about most of the time. Kipling was something of a negative "prophet"; he saw the coming decline of the Empire and viewed as willful surrender, he saw the coming Great War and watched his countrymen fail to prepare or take a firm stand against 'the Hun', and he saw the coming Second World War and the repeated lack of preparation (he died before that war actually occurred).
   
   Kipling suffered great personal unhappiness from the death of his first daughter at age 6, to a seemingly unhappy marriage with Kipling as the henpecked husband and the death of his son in one of those insane headlong infantry assaults on the German trenches at the Battle of Loos. Kipling's dour personality in most of his last quarter-century of life may to some extent be attributed to a misdiagnosed (and thus mistreated) duodenal ulcer that caused him great pain - once it was correctly diagnosed in 1933, Kipling's pain departed and his personality revived.
   
   Kipling's writings were enormously influential in his time, probably to an extent difficult for the modern reader to grasp given over as we are to the visual and the aural. After the Boer War he turned his pen more and more toward political ends and a bitter-tipped pen it was. Today Kipling is more remembered for his children's classics such asThe Jungle Books (Signet Classics). His Plain Tales from the Hills explores India's impact on the British who lived there and in particular the soldiers who sometimes fought and died there.
   
   Salmon Rushdie has summarized it best when he stated, "There will always be plenty in Kipling that I will find difficult to forgive; but there is also enough truth in these stories to make them impossible to ignore."
   
   Gilmour brings Kipling back to life for some 300 pages; 'The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling' is a rewarding reading experience about a man mostly overlooked today, but of towering importance in his time.



3. I've always enjoyed Kipling's poetry, and have long known that a close reading and an adequate understanding of his writings belie the less pleasant things that habitual hand-wringers and apostles of political correctness have to say about him. Hence my willingness to read this book.
   
   This biography enumerates the stations of Kipling's life: he grew up in India, a country he never stopped loving, indeed it was Hindi and not English that was his mother tongue. After a childhood in India came boarding school in England, life as a journalist in India, becoming the unofficial poet laureate of the soldier and Empire, friendships with leading politicians, marriage to an American, and disillusionment with politics and politicians after the First World War, in which his son died in his first "battle." In this book Kipling does not come across as the ogre that some make him out to be, but he does come across as very close-minded, as a man who understood the art of poetry very well, but things such as the Irish and their grievances not at all.
   
   All the same, I found this book to be a disappointment. Ideas were rarely fully developed; when poems are discussed, only short passages are quoted. Kipling's belief that war with the hated Germans was inevitable is uncritically seen as a sign of prophecy; perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy of his times and class would me more accurate. Nor are Ireland and Kipling's fire and brimstone solutions for Ireland's troubles described with any nuance. I don't think that the author more than scrapes the surface of the topics he described. Before I draw my conclusions on Kipling, I intend to read at least another book.
   
   Unless you're a high-school student who has to write a report on Kipling, I wouldn't recommend this book to you.



4. Few have doubted Kipling's literary genius but for much of the 20th century progressive opinion has caricatured him as the bard of racism, the poet of savagery, the versifier of militarism. Gilmour focuses on Kipling's complex relationship with the British Empire, and shows that these caricatures do not do justice to the poet's nuanced views. To take only one example, Kipling was perfectly aware of the foibles of his fellow Anglo-Indians, and he often paid tribute to the nobility of ordinary Indians. But he was also aware that British rule over the Subcontinent was a great force for peace and stability. The Bloomsbury set jeered his views but he was proven tragically right after Indian independence, which resulted in a bloodbath. Let us hope that Kipling is not proven even more correct in the event of a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan.



5. Rudyard Kipling was both a great writer and a representative figure of the British Empire, dabbling in both politics and exploration and winning the Nobel Prize in literature. This biography is the first to examine not only his writing, but his world: The Long Recessional considers the history of his times and provides a lively, revealing probe of the man's changes.

No comments about The Memoirs of Captain Hugh Crow: The Life and Times of a Slave Trade Captain.

3 comments about Elizabeth I: Collected Works.

1. There are countless books on Tudor England and Elizabeth I in particular. So, it is refreshing to finally read some of the letters so many authors have used as source material in their books about the Virgin Queen. There's little doubt that she was well educated and highly intelligent. Now, readers ready and willing to dive into medieval letters, in the formal language of the time, will be rewarded by the ability to form their own opinion about whether this woman was politically savvy, or a political pawn.
   
   You be the judge--no, really:)



2. This is a beautifully designed book. As to what's inside: It contains what too many of her biographers are either too dishonest, too ignorant, or, too afraid to include, i.e. her belief in God and her understanding that her country and her country's people had a unique place and a unique role in carrying out God's plan. Elizabeth I had a complete understanding. It's difficult to write off her accomplishments in learning at such a young age as being merely the result of having royal tutors helping her along. This is what many biographers try to do. There's never been an over-supply of young genius in royal families in any era. More attention, as well, should be paid to her reading. Reading great books has never been a guarantee of anything regarding somebody's understanding of themselves and the world, but it is, without exception, a key ingredient in the education (self-education or otherwise) of everybody who eventually DOES attain a real understanding of themselves and the world. Elizabeth's understanding may have even gone beyond herself and the world around her... These writings are not ideal as a window into her, but there is enough here to work up an impression above the words, and, coupled with a good biography such as the one by Paul Johnson the picture can become very complete.



3. Queen Elizabeth I of England has had hundreds of books written *about* her, but very few of them allow us to hear what she has to say in her own words. I found this an accessible, well-edited collection, not of *all* her words, but of a very good sample. It includes all of the speeches, prayers and poems she wrote that are available from reliable contemporary sources (as with all famous people, things have been attributed to her that she never wrote). It also includes -- and this is my favorite part -- a selection of her letters; sometimes the replies are also included, as with a series of angry letters she exchanged with King James of Scotland (all the while addressing him as "my right dear brother and cousin"). The documents range from formal speeches to Parliament to the occasional playful, teasing or personal note, such as the one she wrote to Lord Leicester in the Netherlands that begins, "Rob, I am afraid you will suppose by my wandering writings that a midsummer moon hath taken large possession of my brains..." Spelling and punctuation have been modernized, and unusual words have been footnoted, but the words are otherwise unaltered, and the texts are presented in full, sometimes in several versions where they differ significantly. I did find that a basic knowledge of the outline of the events of her life is immensely helpful in understanding who she is addressing and why, which is often mentioned only briefly in the notes. There is a certain amount of theorizing in the book's Preface about the "strategic gendering of Elizabeth's self-representation" -- but the texts really speak for themselves. This is a rare chance to see historical material that's often hard to locate, and an enjoyable chance to be "inside the head" of a fascinating historical person.

5 comments about The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England: 1327--1330.

1. I read this book while on holiday in England. It was the perfect companion. If you enjoy history, especially history that is alive and vibrant, you will like this book.
   Mortimer takes us back 700 years to become engaged with Sir Roger and his world. We come to understand what a familial dynasty and legacy meant to a medieval knight/baron. We come to fully understand the failures of Edward II, and how those failures drove Mortimer and others to do the unthinkable - overthrow their king.
   The scholarship and research that went into this account are top notch and the authors theory (I won't give it away) is quite compelling.
   Great book!



2. This biography offers a far different perspective than one usually finds in studies of the unfortunate Edward II. The son and the father of the brilliant Edwards I and III, Edward II was an ineffective king who seemed to actively repel the support of nobility that would otherwise have been loyal to the crown, while promoting "favourites" on whom he showered power and wealth. Edward's queen, Isabella, and her lover Roger Mortimer launched a successful invasion and defeated Edward's army, deposed and imprisoned Edward, and (the conventional wisdom says) murdered him in a particulary grisly manner. (I have read other speculation that he escaped and lived in exile in France, and I want to believe that, but who knows?) It would be helpful to the reader to have some background knowledge, at least in broad strokes, of the era before beginning. I would recommend having read Alison Weir's biography of Isabella or even some Sharon Kay Penman period fiction before tackling "The Greatest Traitor". That said, this biography is clear, detailed, and provides fairly extensive insight into the era and Roger Mortimer's possible motivations. Mortimer (the author) thankfully does not tell the reader what Mortimer (the subject) thought or felt--rather he provides documentary evidence of where Roger Mortimer was, when his children were born, with whom he was allied, and so forth. He suggests some motivations based upon the evidence and the known events. The book is, in my view, compelling. The Mortimer name has always connoted a somewhat unsavory character for me: Marcher lords exploiting the Welsh, opportunistic, smart and brave but not trustworthy or loyal. This biography does not completely alter that impression, but provides motivations that make Roger Mortimer's actions seem less opportunistic and more responsive to the crises provoked by the Despensers and Edward's failed reign. Perhaps this is biography is not the place to start exploring Edward II's era, but once you've been hooked on the drama of the period, I think it's a must-read.



3. This year's reading has included three of my all-time favorite histories. The Princes in the Tower was lucid and reasoned in its indictment of Richard III, with the kindness to provide sufficient context in the reigns of both Richard's predecessor (Edward IV) and successor (Henry VII). The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry was an engaging recounting of the physical tapestry's own amazing story, and a critical exegesis of the tapestry's tale.
   
   Better than both is Ian Mortimer's The Greatest Traitor: The Life of Sir Roger Mortimer, Ruler of England: 1327--1330.
   
   Like Bridgeford's illumination of Eustace II of Boulogne, Ian Mortimer brings light to Roger Mortimer's upbringing and exploits, mitigating his rebellions against Edward II and his domination of Edward III while exposing Mortimer's descent into the same arrogant tyranny that brought down Edward II's favorites Gaveston and Despenser. He also brings compelling documentary evidence to substantiate what chroniclers of the time considered wild rumors. In short, nothing but a gripping tale wrapped in conscientious scholarship.
   
   And you can complain about Mortimer's (and Alison Weir's) assertions that Ed. II lived out his life in Ireland and then Italy all you want. Mortimer makes a compelling case from documentary evidence. So there.



4. I do not see what all the yelling is about. Mortimer's conclusion that Edward II secretly survived some years into his son's reign are not logical. He tells us the Edward II considered himself the absolute monarch of England and Ireland and would share no control of the contry with anyone except his very close favorites. After he lost then regained control of the country he so abused his nobles and gentry (the ruling classes) that they would not turn a hand against him. In regaining control Roger Mortimer fled to France. Eventually Roger hooked up with Edward II's wife who was sent to France, her home, on a diplomatic mission. Eventually Roger and Isabelle returned to England to overthow Edward II and claim the crown for Edward III. This is where I think he argues unconvincingly. Edward II is reported dead, a body purportedly his is buried with full honors in a noticable grave. The author aruges that Edward III was told by his mother and Roger his father was still alive and if he wanted to stay king he had better play along. Edward III gets tired of Roger's increasing abuse of power behind the throne and arranges his judicial murder. He also goes after those who are considered responsible for his father's death, but most get away.
   
   Then comes a letter supposedly reporting that Edward II did survive, being moved to Corfe Castle instead of killed, but killing a sleeping porter on the way out of the castle he was being held in, thoughtfully accounting for the substitute corpse. After being held at Corfe for 1 1/2 or 2 1/2 years, he is taken to Ireland where 9 months later he is apparently released, goes on foot in the guise of a pilgram across England, sailing to Europe, dropping in on the Pope to whom he is admitted on the strenght of having a sovereign to bribe the porter there, eventually joining a hermitage and maybe seeing his son and second grandson some years later.
   
   Excuse me. A man who genuinely believed he was autocrat of England shuffles across the width of it without visiting any of his remaining friends and without trying to reclaim his throne? The Pope sees people because his porter is bribed? And the man who is supposed to have been keeping him, when accused of murdering him, gets away with saying, in effect, "what do you mean? I didn't know he was dead!" To which Edward III does not say: if he is not dead, who did I pay to bury with such honor and such visibility? Nor does Queen Isabelle or any member of the nobility ask any of these questions either. Bottom line: Ian Mortimer's conclusion that Edward II got a way simply does not mesh with the man he spends the greatest part of the book describing.



5. It was with extreme pleasure that I read The Greatest Traitor, life and time of Sir Roger Mortimer written by Ian Mortimer although the author insisted that there is no relationship between himself and his subject. The book proves to be well written and researched although lack of primary sources in many part of Roger Mortimer's life hampered the author's effort. Many of these parts lies with Mortimer's personal life. He did married young and had host of children but there's really nothing in the book that reflects what Mortimer was like, as a father and husband outside of few references. This proves to be the book's only weakness and it may have been out of the author's control to provide.
   
   The author make his case very well that Roger Mortimer was one of England's greatest traitors. Mortimer's actions against his country, his King Edward II, his oath of fealty, his relationship with Queen Isabella and his dominates over Edward III clearly marked him as worst offender of his class. However, the author also tempered that case with the reasoning that many of the things Mortimer did was in self-defense of his lands, honor and life. That Edward II was a bad ruler who ruled terribly. It wasn't until Mortimer and Isabella had total control during the regency of Edward III that they began to act and ruled like tyrants.
   
   This book goes well with Alison Weir's Queen Isabella biography as both of them reflects on the same theory about the fate of Edward II. The Fieschi letter dominate both books that Edward II died peacefully as a religious exile in Italy and not murdered horribly in Berkely Castle as regular history books goes. Weir introduced that theory openly to exonerate Isabella from Edward II's murder and author in this book did the same to exonerate Roger Mortimer as well from that charge.
   
   Overall, very interesting book about an important mediveal English nobleman who effectively ruled England for nearly 3 and half years with his lover, Queen Isabella. While regular history books shows Edward III following his father in rule, anyone reading this book will realized that there's an footnote between the two. Mandatory reading material for anyone interested in this time period and subject matter.

5 comments about Twenty Years A-Growing.

1. I haven't yet read the book but I will submit a review when completed. However the book came highly recommended to me by many people. they found it a delightful memoir and as i just returend from the Dingle Peninsula, i wanted to read it myself.



2. This is an extraordinary book, described by the well-know author E.M. Forster as "here is the egg of a seabird - lovely, perfect and laid this very morning".

   The author, Muiris Ó Súilleabháin, is an Irish-speaking boy growing up on the Great Blasket Island (An Blascaod Mór). He describes his childhood in the twenties on this 100% Irish-speaking island in Co. Kerry. The population of the island never reached 200, and life there was very archaic - resembling the society in Europe thousands of years ago. Nowhere else in Europe did the shear joy of speaking and love of words live on as here, where thousands of pages of folklore has been collected as well. This love of the language is obvious in this vivid book, in which Muiris presents an affectionate, lively and interesting account of a way of life that no longer is.

   Despite being published 70 years ago, the book still feels fresh and manages to blend fond memories and humour in an extraordinary way. This is definitely THE book to buy for anyone interested in the Irish way of life.




3. Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O'Sullivan is one heck of a "coming of age" story. I'd never even heard of it until a friend of mine told me that he was reading it. I'm sure glad he did. This is a great book!

   I've actually read several coming of age stories recently. I didn't plan to...it just kind of occurred that way. Some of them were really good (David Copperfield by Dickens being one of them); but none of them, Copperfield included, spoke to my heart like Twenty Years A-Growing.

   Twenty Years A-Growing was translated into English from Gaelic. I personally find this astounding. They (whoever "they" might be) say a book always loses something in translation. Yet Twenty Years absolutely sings in English...the translation is so powerful that the original must truly be a thing of beauty.

   It is an autobiographical tale of growing up in the Blasket Islands off the coast of Ireland around the time of the first world war. For me at least, it was a thing of wonder to be able to enter into this world which has since moved on. It is a story told in a wonderfully simple yet almost lyrically beautiful way. Each chapter is a story in itself. The story as a whole slowly ingrains itself upon your heart and mind.

   I felt an affinity with Maurice and his friend Thomas. The adventures they find themselves in ring true even as they entertain the reader. Likewise, the character of the grandfather in particular now feels like an old friend to me. I particularly appreciated some of the wisdom he espouses to Maurice.

   I dare anyone to read this book and not be charmed by the lives of these wonderful people who lived almost a hundred years ago in a kind of societal setting that seems all at once foreign, yet somehow more sane than today's world of constant "time management" in pursuit of hollow "muchness" and "manyness."

   It does not happen often that I do not to want a book to end. I usually approach the end of a book with satisfaction. Rarely am I left wanting more. Yet that was the case with Twenty Years A-Growing. It is a truly special book.




4. Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O'Sullivan is one heck of a "coming of age" story. I'd never even heard of it until a friend of mine told me that he was reading it. I'm sure glad he did. This is a great book!

   I've actually read several coming of age stories recently. I didn't plan to...it just kind of occurred that way. Some of them were really good (David Copperfield by Dickens being one of them); but none of them, Copperfield included, spoke to my heart like Twenty Years A-Growing.

   Twenty Years A-Growing was translated into English from Gaelic. I personally find this astounding. They (whoever "they" might be) say a book always loses something in translation. Yet Twenty Years absolutely sings in English...the translation is so powerful that the original must truly be a thing of beauty.

   It is an autobiographical tale of growing up in the Blasket Islands off the coast of Ireland around the time of the first world war. For me at least, it was a thing of wonder to be able to enter into this world which has since moved on. It is a story told in a wonderfully simple yet almost lyrically beautiful way. Each chapter is a story in itself. The story as a whole slowly ingrains itself upon your heart and mind.

   I felt an affinity with Maurice and his friend Thomas. The adventures they find themselves in ring true even as they entertain the reader. Likewise, the character of the grandfather in particular now feels like an old friend to me now. I particularly appreciated some of the wisdom he espouses to Maurice.

   I dare anyone to read this book and not be charmed by the lives of these wonderful people who lived almost a hundred years ago in a kind of societal setting that seems all at once foreign, yet somehow more sane than today's world of constant "time management" in pursuit of hollow "muchness" and "manyness."

   It does not happen often that I do not to want a book to end. I usually approach the end of a book with satisfaction. Rarely am I left wanting more. Yet that was the case with Twenty Years A-Growing. It is a truly special book.




5. Twenty Years A-Growing, or Fiche Bliain ag Fás in its original Irish, is a humorous and well written book about the sometimes hard life at the great western island, An Blascaod Mór, off the cost of Ireland. It tells about the everyday of the islanders in the beginning of the century in a surprisingly modern and lively way. The language of the Island was Irish, and although the Great Blasket is now abandoned, the Irish language still lives on in the mainland parishes in this area. I strongly recommend this book to everyone interested in Ireland, its culture, the Irish language or readerswho just want a fun and good book. I myself have only read the whole of it in its Irish original, but the passes I've read in English shows a well-done translation

5 comments about Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan.

1. I found this to be a superbly written book, filled with fascinating details and enough excitement to fill a novel. Using quotes from contemporary sources, Milton brings history to life by focusing on the human elements rather than dry chronology. I can't wait to read the rest of Milton's books.



2. I'm moving to Japan in a few months and one of my buddies suggested I read the book before I go. It's very entertaining and gives you the mindset behind what makes the Japanese tick-truly amazing culture.



3. In my case, I learned about William Adams watching the PBS Empire Series which I recommend as a complement of this delightful book. What a story, supposedly bound to the East Indies as part of a Dutch Enterprise, Williams Adams is one of the few to reach Japan after a long and difficult voyage. From there comes an exquisite recount of Adams stay in feudal Japan of the 1600 which include a view of their customs and cities and the efforts made by other English Men to establish a trade spot in the Land of the Rising Sun. Is impressive how Williams Adams became a personal advisor of the Shogun Ieyasu and how he became part of this culture that remember him even after 200 years of his death. This book was also an excellent portrait of the Portuguese and Dutch East Indies Company of the time, the expulsion of Jesuits and eradication of Catholicism from Japan, and also provide some interesting information about the natives of Africa's Guinea Ecuatorial and of course, the South of Chile (passing the Magellan Strait).
   
   You can see a letter sent by Adams in 1613 in the British library site. Enjoy!!!



4. Everyone is familiar with "Shogun"; if not the book, then surely the lengthy TV mini-series. But the real story of the English pilot, William Adams is far more interesting. This is a wonderful book that encapsulate an era of exploration, the first halting attempts of economic empire-building, and the dawn of the Shogunate. And while Adams' personal story is not quite as dramatic as James Clavell's pilot, it is certainly more interesting and entertaining. Especially remarkable was to watch the speed of navigational developement and international operations over a period of a mere thirty years. One forgets at times that Jamestown and Plymouth were established within a few years after Adams' arrival in Japan, and by the time of his death, the Eastern Seaboard was almost entirely settled. A wonderful view of a time less well understood and frequently miscaracterized.



5. Did you know that James Clavell's "Shogun" was based on the story of an actual Westerner who had gone native in Japan in the early 1600's? I sure didn't.
   
   I thought Clavell was just spinning tales out of whole cloth. No, no; there really was a marooned Englishman there named William Adams, although as we learn from Milton's book, he wasn't quite as mixed up in high politics as was John Blackthorne.
   
   Milton relates Adams's intriguing story in the straightforward style of popular history. It is not written in the form of fiction; Milton here is writing for a large non-scholarly audience. There are no footnotes: Any references or Japanese terms the general reader probably can't handle are explained in the running text.
   
   In addition to an index, the book features several maps and black-and-white woodcut-type illustrations throughout the text.

5 comments about Lilla's Feast: One Woman's True Story of Love and War in the Orient.

1. "Lilla's Feast" describes a time not so very long ago that seems impossibly distant. The world-wide expansion of European colonialism in the 19th century caused thousands of people, especially British, to seek their fortunes in the colonies and the trading emporiums in the exotic East, especially India and China. Lilla, the great-grandmother of the author was one of them. She was born in Chefoo, China in 1882 and spent most of her life in China or India.
   
   Lilla never did anything of great importance, but she stands for all the Brits born and raised abroad who felt a bit foreign when they returned "home" to England on visits. During the course of her 100-year life Lilla was present during the peak of Western power and prestige in the Orient before 1900 and its rapid decline thereafter culminating in World War II in which Lilla and her family ended up in a Japanese concentration camp.
   
   We follow Lilla through marriages, births,deaths, family troubles in India and China, the hardships of Weihsien internee camp in China during World War II, and finally back to an uneasy old age in England -- the money, power, and prestige of life as a privileged Westener in China now gone. It's a good story to be read about a class of people who saw their pleasant lives and lucrative livelihoods destroyed by war and politics. We don't feel all that sorry for Lilla, nor even that fond of her, but we are interested in her experiences. Along the way we get some fascinating pictures of the life of Brits in China -- and especially the hardships of Weihsien, a concentration camp that has catalyzed a sizeable body of literature. See "The Call" by John Hersey, a novel about a missionary who is interned in Weihsien and "Shantung Compound" by Lawrence Gilkey, a sociological classic about people under the stress of imprisonment.
   
   Smallchief



2. This is one of the most amazing stories that I have recently read. The book is beautifully produced, and the Author has gone to an enormous amount of trouble in collecting photographs and information concerning her Great Grandmother, who defied every hardship she faced. This incredible Lady lived to the age of 100, having survived a Japanese concentration camp in World War 2, preceded by other trials and tribulations. Her story is an object lesson to us all, in how not to give in, how to keep going whatever the circumstances that life brings to us. The early days of her first Marriage tell us how to keep a man happy even though she had a miserable time with him!!!This is a book to be read again and again, a wonderful read and most inspiring.



3. What we have here is a woman's life spanning just over 100 years. Lilla is not a particularly likeable woman, but if you digest the details you can see why (possibly). She is an interesting woman who weathered particularly exhausting situations and managed her life so that she did what was expedient.
   This book has numerous photographs.
   The book isn't well-written or edited. That aside, the details of survival, one way or another, are quite out of the ordinary and at times fascinating. It became even more so when I realized I had actually seen this cookbook when I was lucky enough to come across it several years ago at the Imperial War Museum. It was a nice , unexpected connection. And I have never before read of the Japanese prison camp existence within China. An easy read of eras gone by.



4. The previous review which reviles the colonial bias of this biography has little relevance ... this is the world as it was then and the story is not being told to address the right or wrong of it, but rather to tell the story of the author's great grandmother in the grand sweep of WWII. The woman in this incredible story makes the best of deprivations and a bad marriage and far flung family, circumstances take her from her beloved China to England, India, all of this in that bygone time with none of todays conveniences and she remained a figure of dignity and elegance who also has experiences of sublime beauty and love... I think this little masterpiece will make its way into your heart and stay there, it did with me.



5. But I for one was not. The book is steeped in a bias towards colonialism. The tone of the book encourages the reader to think of the Chinese, Japanese, and Indians as faceless "others" surrounding the more civilised and elegant British and European populations, only to be depicted in elementary-school-textbook-like passages about historical events.
   Although the author's inclination to view her great-grandmother as a victim of nearly everyone and everything (fate as well!)is certainly understandable, it hardly makes for captivating reading. The writing style is a dry mix of "facts" derived from personal effects and sheer speculation.
   This book is based upon a recipe book which was donated to a British museum.... as opposed to the priceless artifacts which Britain so self-righteously helped itself to during it's tyrannical episode of colonization... and still doesn't feel the need to return.
   I suppose it's hardly possible to expect an unbiased view of colonization from the wife of the youngest conservative member of Parliament, but one can hope.

5 comments about The Last Days of Henry VIII.

1. In response to the fellow that gave this book a 1-star, one cannot possibly understand the important political maneuverings in the final days of Henry without explaining details of his reign, of which I feel was the point of the book. I also did not mind the review of other parts of his reign because it included interesting primary sources.
   
   This book is a good starting point to understanding the Tudor political atmosphere and why it is how it is in the wake of Henry's death, backed with good solid sources of letters and financial records. It is also remarkably readable and interesting.
   
   The only thing I didn't prefer are the conjectures of Henry's ailments. At this point it's just a guess - and I'd prefer to just have the symptoms stated instead of a guess stated like a fact.



2. This book does a remarkably good job of presenting the facts about the final years of Henry VIII, a time when political and religious factions were vying for control over the course England would take after Henry's imminent death. I've read a lot about Henry over the years but this book taught me many things about him that I never knew before. This book contains an overview of the political and religious situation towards the end of Henry's time and also presents many interesting new findings and details you probably won't read anywhere else. It's written in an erudite yet relaxed style that is easy, even entertaining to read, and feels like listening to a lecture by a skilled history professor with a sense of humor. This book is a valuable and very welcome recent addition to the world's historical knowledge of Henry's time. I heartily recommend it to anyone who shares my fascination with Henry VIII or English history in general.



3. This book was extremely disappointing, especially for a person well read in Tudor History. The title is very misleading. I thought this book would examine in depth the final years of Henry's reign. Theses final years were full of scandal, intrigue and death but the book read like a summary of his whole reign. There are plenty of other books that do this and do it better (Alison Weir for example). It's pages and pages of he said, she said quotes followed by summaries of crucial events that surely deserve more description. If you are looking for a thorough historical analysis of the final years of Henry, save your money.



4. at last someone has ventured to give Henry's insanity a medical label,Cushings Syndrome,which encompasses alot of pathologies,from alcoholism to an uncontrollable desire to kill your advisors,even one's wife,not to mention obesity and including that overstuffed gassy feeling.This is not to mention the numerous diseases and frequent out break of plaque that Henry would be susceptible to,although he had a place to flee to get some fresh air.Hutchinson proclaims Henry,the English Nero,(maybe even Caligula),that's why British actors play degenerated Romans and Greeks so well in the movies.The history of the British Monarchy is so loaded with these sociopaths,that you can be a lunatic on the stage,and seeing as you're wearing a toga or centurian outfit,noone suspects that you're actually playing an English Monarch.The scholarship for this book is so thorough i well deserve a lashing for even attempting to review it.With the wars of the roses over and nothing left to war over but a few acres of land in Europe here and there,it's was time for henry to tackle the final frontier that being correct religious and political thought as seen through the eyes of Cushings Syndrome,(and alot of other mysterious symptoms).shakespeare sums it up well in Richard the third."our arms and battlements hung up" replaced by the lovers couch and the lute.Better hope that the you didn't design the couch when Henry's bulk and constipated flatulence renders it in pieces.You won't be able to put this book down.If henry had caught you reading this book in 1540,"no comment"!!!What a shame that Henry's unrivalled military skills and courage are sometimes overshadowed by the bad treatment he gave his wives.



5. If you're a Tudor buff, you'll love this book even though it portrays Henry VIII as a monster. Hutchinson believes that Henry was responsible for some 150,000 deaths. Towards the end of his life he was so viciously unpredictable his courtiers must have been in constant fear that they would go next to the block. His severe illness pushed him over the brink of any sense of fair play or decency. He was always a tyrant, however.
   
   What was Henry's illness? There's been 400 years of speculation.
   Hutchinson believes along with others including the surgeon Clifford Brewer's "The Death of Kings" (available at Amazon)that Henry did not have syphilis, but varicose ulcers on his legs. Both legs. Syphilis was treated in those days with mercury, and since hundreds of potions Henry was given by his doctors are recorded, mercury would most certainly have been administered. Also, none of Henry's wives or children showed any sign of congenital syphilis. Anyway, when the ulcers healed over,infections resulted underneath the skin, and very likely spread into the bones. The king's physical sufferings played a large role in shaping his behavior towards the end of his life.
   
   Here is one Hutchinson's descriptions of Henry's awful disease: "He is the personification of geriatric decay. One can almost smell the the putrid stench of the rank pus oozing from his ulcers, staining the bandages on his swollen legs. Chapuys [the Spanish ambassador] labelled them 'the worst legs in the world.'"
   
   Henry weighed, according to Hutchinson, 28 stone or 392 pounds. His waist was 54 inches around. Many suits of Henry's armor survive, so his physical proportions are easy to calculate. His gluttony contributed to his health problems, so his obesity and his ulcers did him in at age 55, and just before his death he lost the power of speech, finally sinking into a uremic coma.
   
   "The Last Days of Henry VIII" goes into great detail about the state of England towards the end of Henry's life, but my interests lie in character portrayal. Edward VI, Henry's only son, is described as a boy of unattractive "prissiness". The stupidity of Kathryn Howard, Henry's fifth wife, in cuckolding the king right under his nose, is discussed. Anne of Cleves emerges as "no fool, behind her pock-marked face". Interestingly, Anne and Henry's daughter, Mary, became fast friends. They died at the same age, 42, one year apart. The Duke of Norfolk emerges as a coward and hypocrite. The power behind the throne towards the end of Henry's life was Sir Anthony Denny, a man I had never heard of. Sir Anthony was Chief Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and controlled all access to the monarch and managed all of Henry's finances.The power behind the throne.All of these character studies, along with many more, are what interest me the most in the book.
   
   There's an especiially interesting plate in the book, in black and white, of Mary, painted in 1536 by Holbein when Mary was twenty years old. Mary looks like a woman of forty, her face shadowed with fatigue, her thin lips rigid and uncompromising. Facing the page of Mary is the superb portait of Elizabeth when she was 13. It's very odd, but Mary and ELizabeth facing eachother, look astoundingly alike even though Elizabeth is fresh-faced and young.In real life, the sisters did not resemble eachother and yet these two portraits, side by side, are food for thought. It's a bit eerie!
   
   The tangled web of conspiracies and heresies and treason are brought forth in the book to great effect, including character studies and influence of the clergymen Cranmer and Gardiner. Henry VIII was responsible for many burnings at the stake of people from all walks of life. As his illness became more incapacitating, the more ruthless Henry became so that in the end, he died a lonely old man with no friends. And horribly, it was rumored that Henry's immense coffin burst a seam and issued forth a stream of corrupted matter. A dog was caught trying to lap up the blood, like the dogs who lapped up the blood of Ahab. The story may be apocryphal, of course, but maybe not.
   
   To get a real gut feeling for the times of Henry VIII "The Last Days" is recommended.

1 comments about Cavalier: A Tale of Chivalry, Passion, and Great Houses.

1. 
   The Cavendish family from middle England (Sheffield to Sherwood Forest to Nottingham), knighted, rich, powerful, and land entitled, is the focus of this recently issued study of an English family both pre and post civil war, one losing almost everything in their support of Charles I.
   
   This book may be a little known one at present but for any interested in the English Civil War years of 1642-1660, it offers an in depth view of one family during those years. This family loved horse, castles, great estates, Charles I and family, and just plain high living whenever possible. A book not soon to be forgotten, but very enjoyable as the reader moves along.
   
   The author has spent nearly 10 years researching and reviewing extant written materials from the family, with the book indeed giving evidence of that study. William Cavendish left many writings and a diary covering almost every topic of his personal life. Several color photos of the lands and houses left by these people are dutifully included. By books end the reader fairly well comes to know this cavalier family in specific and many other cavaliers in general.
   
   This is a definate addition to English history during these years, for both major figures and minor alike. Check this one out you lovers of Roundheads versus Cavaliers.
   
   Recommended.
   
   Semper Fi.