2 comments about The Wild Geese of the Antrim Macdonnells.

1. I discovered this book's existence from a bibliography in a similar book about Hugh O'Neill, the Earl of Tyrone (that of the Flight of the Earls), by Sean O'Faolain. This is a related story about the similar exile and diaspora of the Ulster clan McDonnell around Europe, following the Protestant usurption of Catholic James II in the Glorious Rovolution. It details the different cadet branches of the of McDonnell family from different generations who left Ireland and formed Irish Regiments, fought for foreign kings, aswell as supported the Jacobite cause from abroad.
   
   It is a truly astonishing tale of Irish family history aswell as personal narrative European history of the conflicts and wars fought within Europe throughout the 17th and 18th centuries.
   
   However, because of the former it did seem to be a book that can only be fully appreciated by fellow McDonnells and not necessarily by the general reader, who could, through certain tracts react by exclaiming, "so what?" to it all. Because of this I have to say I also struggled to remember the different McDonnells and their kinsmen despite three genealogical charts contained in the book.
   
   The research is excellent, however, using the Stuart Papers at Windsor and several other archives around Europe. The writing is clear and concise and despite the complicated narrative which travels from one family and time period in each chapter I felt I came to understand a small part of Irish history in Europe.



2. This book examines the problems confronting the Irish immigrants to Europe by concentrating on the lives of a series of emigrants from one Irish family, the MacDonnells of Antrim. A continuous succession of MacDonnells served in the armies of Spain, France and Austria between 1600 and 1820. One of them kept a diary of his experiences with Bonnie Prince Charlie in the '45 rebellion, another was a Spanish admiral at Trafalgar. Other Irish families covered by the book include the O'Neills, Magennises, O'Briens, Maguires, Butlers, Wogans and Sarsfields.

No comments about Michael Collins: A Life in Pictures.

No comments about Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third.

5 comments about Harold: The Last Anglo-Saxon King.

1. This book has enough detail and judicious use of sources to be of great use to the academic historian, while the author's lucid writing style and the sensible structure of the book will no doubt make it accesible to the interested layperson. Well done!



2. In terms of English history,not much is ever really said about Harold. Those who are looking for an informative and surprisingly entertaining work on the Monarch should look no further.

   Ian Walker has left no stone unturned in the telling of Harold Godwineson and his family. Starting from his grandfather and father and ending with his grandson becoming the prince of Kiev.
   After reading the book, you come away with a sense of the time that he lived in and more importantly a sense of the man. Walker is also very good at surmising how certain decisions and choices that were made having an effect on the people at the time. Case in point the effect of how Harold's contemporaries veiwed his oath breaking to William. Few historians are able to do this.

   The author does love his dates and locations, but he is very thorough when it comes to extended family. Also and most importantly, he writes with a point. Instead of going off on a half page tangent, Walker writes in brief and consise paragraphs. When a major player such as William, Tosti or Harald Hardrada comes along, he writes a full chapter.

   I have been looking for a book on this king for long time and this has surpassed my expectations. A definite "must-have" for English Monarch and Anglo-Saxon enthusiasts.




3. Everyone who takes English history probably remembers 1066, William of Normandy, the Battle of Hastings, and King Harold; essentially the date, the location and the leaders of the combatant armies. Some may remember that the fight was over the right of succession to the throne of England after the heirless death of King Edward the Confessor. A few may even remember that Edmond Halley's famous comet made an appearance just beforehand, creating great consternation that was immortalized in the Bayeux tapestry. For most, Harold's reign seems almost a foot note, hardly more than an intermission before the main event of the Norman conquest. With William and his successors come castle building, classic knighthood, feudal society, all the "romance" of the middle ages. Harold is so often treated as a cipher to all of this that the true drama of this transitional age is often lost on the student. Harold is just "the loser."

   Ian Walker's book brings this period more into focus. He approaches his subject by examining, not only Harold's own life and career, but that of his grandfather and father, creating a sense of the venue for the events of the Conquest. Harold is no longer just "the loser." He is a powerful and intelligent warrior, dealing as often in diplomacy as in bloodshed, able to play the chess game of power politics in a very turbulent time. He was in fact "the last Anglo Saxon king," and his time, like the withdrawal of the elves from Tolkien's Middle Earth, is the end of an era. His predecessor Edward was the last of the line of Alfred the Great, the king who had wielded the tiny Anglo Saxon kingdoms into the one kingdom of England. William and his successors would turn the island into a developing nation state striving for a place in a world among other rising nation states.

   I found particularly interesting the author's approach to the period as one of a family biography. Harold was not just a famous figure in history, he was a member of an ambitious extended family. Like the Borgias in a later time and place, Harold's father and his grandfather played major roles in English political life during the years preceding the Conquest, as did he and his brothers in their own time. Walker follows these careers, because it is the net created by their liaisons that defined the period. Pull out any of these lynch pins, and the history of the era would have been vastly different. Interesting too were the careers of Harold's children, who went on to carry the family into succeeding generations of international leaders. I have often wondered what the fates of descendants of famous people have been. What did happen to Cleopatra's surviving children for instance? At least in this instance, more is documented about Harold's children which gives a sense of closure to Walker's book.

   Thoroughly enjoyable and informative study.




4. This is a great book for anyone interested in the mysterious and obscure events of England in the year 1066. Walker does a great job, trying to bring Harold Godwinson to life.



5. This was an excellent, intense account of a unique king's biography. I read this book to get more info on William the Conqueror, but now I'm obsessed with Harold II. A must-read for history buffs.

No comments about The Divorce of Catherine of Aragon: The Story as Told by the Imperial Ambassadors Resident at the Court of Henry VIII. In Usum Laicorum.

2 comments about The Life of David Brainerd (The Works of Jonathan Edwards Series, Volume 7).

1. David Brainerd's recorded life speaks my heart and breath--my longings for my heavenly home. This is a must read for all as it washes away the deceiving beguilement of trendy Christianity.
   
   Traveling through his pages of life, you witness his true mission that of only knowing Christ and Him crucified, 1 Corinthians 2:1-2. He was one of few who despised this vile world with its entertaining ways.
   
   His soul displayed was that of a faithful, humble, loyal pastor who ministered to the natives in isolated areas of New England. He never set himself above these socially rejected ones who he found to be quite refreshing in contrast to snobbish white folk. He became known among fur trappers as "the man who trapped Indians with love."
   
   Below are experts from David Brainerd's diary. The initial are the quotes of "His Heart." The following are observances of "His Natives."
   
   His Heart:
   
   "I know I long for God and conformity to His will, in inward purity and holiness, ten thousand times more than for anything here below."
   
   "God was so precious to my soul, that the world, with all its enjoyments, was infinitely vile. I had no more value for the favor of men, than for pebbles."
   
   "Spent the day mainly in conversing with friends; yet enjoyed little satisfaction, because I could not find but few disposed to converse on divine and heavenly things. Alas, what are the things of this world, to afford satisfaction to the soul! In secret, I blessed the God for retirement, and that I am not always exposed to the company and conversation of the world. Oh, that I could live in the secret of God's presence!"
   
   His Natives:
   
   "Discoursed from John 4:13, 14. There was a great attention, a desirable affection, and an unaffected melting in the assembly. It is surprising to see how eager they are to hear the Word of God. I have oftentimes thought that they would cheerfully and diligently attend divine worship twenty-four hours together if they had an opportunity so to do."
   
   "I never saw any appearance of bitterness or censoriousness (being critical) in these, nor any disposition to `esteem themselves better than others.'"



2. This is a rare, almost forgotten document depicting life in pre-Revolutionary America during the period when religious enthusiasm swept the colonial frontier. From 1743 to 1747 Brainerd had been a missionary to the Indians. Riding alone, thousands of miles on horseback, he kept a journal of daily events that he continued until the week before he died, at the age of twenty-nine, in Edwards' house. First published in 1749, the book became a spiritual classic in its own time. As the first popular biography to be published in America, it went through numerous editions and has been reprinted more frequently than has any other of Edwards' works. But what has not until now been known is that Edwards made drastic alterations in the original text. He shaped the narrative events to fit his own needs, presenting Brainerd as an example of a man who by example and deed opposed the rationalist, Arminian stance. Because the Yale edition is the first to print that portion of Brainerd's manuscript that survives, set in parallel columns with Edwards' text, these alterations can readily be discerned.

5 comments about John Maynard Keynes: Volume 1: Hopes Betrayed 1883-1920 (John Maynard Keynes).

1. This book is an excellent choice for a potential reader who is searching for a general overview of Keynes's early life.Like Moggridge's one volume study,Skidelsky's first volume(of three)has many interesting anecdotes and discussions of Keynes's interactions and involvement with a wide range of people.Unfortunately,Skidelsky drops the ball when he tries to evaluate the technical and intellectual contributions that Keynes made to applied probability,statistics and decision science in the period from 1904 to 1920. Keynes finally published his pathbreaking work in 1921 in his A Treatise on Probability(TP).A specialist can only come to the conclusion that Keynes made no breakthroughs in his TP after reading Skidelsky's bare bones treatment.This is most likely due to the fact that Skidelsky is a historian who has no training in the fields of mathematics, probability and statistics.It is true that Skidelsky limits his discussion of the TP in his first volume because he wanted to make an extended discussion of it in the second volume.Unfortunately,the treatment of the TP in volume II is badly marred by a number of mathematical errors.The interested potential book buyer is advised to read my review of volume II.Skidelsky fails to mention anywhere in Volume I that Keynes is the founder of the interval estimate approach to probability.In general,excluding the cases of symmetry and series or sequences composed of homogeneous frequency data,it takes two numbers,not one,to correctly specify an estimate of probability.A probability estimate is thus made up of a lower bound and an upper bound.Further,Keynes specified a clearcut approximation method based on the original work of George Boole in chapters 15 and 17 of the TP.The reader should note that all of this material is present in Keynes's 1907 and 1909 fellowship theses that he submitted to Cambridge University.Also present in these theses is an index created to measure the weight of the evidence,w.Keynes used different terms to describe weight,such as value,before settling for the term weight in the final published 1921 version.w measure the completeness of the relevant, potential evidence upon which a decision maker is going to base an estimate of probability.w is defined on the unit interval between 0 and 1,i.e.,0<=w<=1.Finally,Skidelsky ignores Keynes's conventional coefficient of risk and weight,c.Keynes presented this coefficient in both the 1907 thesis and the 1909 thesis ,which was accepted.This coefficient is the first time in history that a decision rule incorporated nonlinear probability preferences, as well as the weight of the evidence ,or what D.Ellsberg later called the ambiguity of the evidence in a 1961 Quarterly Journal of Economics article.



2. This profoundly researched and uncensored (sexually speaking) biography gives us a fascinating look into a highly privileged group of people in England when the British Empire was at its zenith. Half (sic) of the world's trade was financed by British credits in 1914.
   It pictures the education of young Keynes, groomed by his parents for the highest civil duties, his acceptance in the exclusive Cambridge Apostles Circle (a main discussion point was Higher Sodomy) and his membership of the, in all aspects, anarchic Bloomsbury group. It shows without restaint Keynes' (homo)sexual awakening and his conventional (based on the Gold Standard) beginnings as an economist.
   In the meantime, this book reveals the functioning of the British elitist School system (Eton, Cambridge) as well as the 'moral' environment of this period: the death of God and the birth of mass democracy.
   Prof. Skidelsky's book contains a wealth of information on e.g. the conservative reasoning behind the Gold Standard, Utilitarianism or Moore's essentialistic, but influential, ethic system.
   He shows us Keynes as a fundamental nationalist: 'it is better to have Englishmen running the world than foreigners'.
   But nothwithstanding his exhausting efforts, he saw Britain and mainland Europe sinking under the war debts and being taken over by the US as world power, which was effectively controlled by one man, J.P. Morgan.
   He attacked severely the Versailles Treaty but was devastated that politicians preferred suicidal short-time revenge and election success rather than long-time beneficial solutions.
   This book is sometimes too detailed with extensive letter excerpts. Nonetheless, it is a fascinating read.



3. John Maynard Keynes' life faithfully portrayed by Robert Skidelsky, is a life of a man grown up amidst the intelectual aristocracy of his time, which coincided with the beginning of the downfall of the Victorian age and was to culminate in the First World War. His father John Neville Keynes was a famous economist of his time and had many other intelectual atributes which he didn't want to put up to test in the academic arena, despite a lot of incentives by the famous economist Alfred Marshall, the most proeminent thinker of the neo-classics school of thought. Neville Keynes was determined instead to follow closely and have influence upon the professional careers of his most inteligent son. To anyone who whished to compare this situation to the education the philosopher James Mill gave to his son John Stuart Mill, I would warn he/she to be cautious cause the result is very much different than could be foresaw.
   What the book shows is the fascinating formative years of one of the most influential men of all times, who had a strong appetite for getting all the knowledge he could get and who didn't hide behind his geniality. Quite to the contrary, Keynes was up for everything he could grab, be it different sexual male partners, a lot of trips to Italy and a lot of academic prizes, estimulated by the spirit of competion his father tried to assert on him, at the end to no avail. Also, the pace of his intelectual output is outstanding, being Keynes almost always pushed to the limit to do a lot of different things at the same time.
   Some crude aspects of Keynes sexual life are also all there via the transcriptions of the many letters he exchanged with his male lovers and friends of the many different intelectual cycles he was part of.
   His education at the noblest institutions in England (Eton and Cambridge)where he got the opportunity to intermingle with the likes of Bertrand Russell, Virginia Wolf, Whitehead and the philosopher Moore, the latter certainly the most fundamental influence he had in these formative years, provided the social and intelectual backgrounds needed to awake the geniality of the most brilliant economist of the last century.



4. Hopes betrayed is an exceptionally well researched and insightful book. The author goes into detail, and confirms previously unspoken truths about Keynes early life. It pays particular attention to Keynes homosexuality, such as his long held affections for Duncan Grant, and also his relationships, coiteries, and philosophies. Personally I found the chapters deailing Keynes' influence in the war most interesting.

   Although the book goes into ample detail, it is a little dry, and possibly lacks a little life. One sometimes feels as if there are a few too many quotes, names and places. This somewhat detracts from the interest of the book.

   However, overall anyone who is curious as to what made father of modern economics ought to read this book.




5. Robert Skidelsky provides a punctilious account of the most influential economist of the 20th century and the intellectual and social milieu's that shaped him. Keynes is easily the most recognizable name in 20th century economics, followed somewhat closely by John Kenneth Galbraith and Milton Friedman.

   In the book's preface, Skidelsky claims he was the first biographer to attempt to go into detail about Keynes' hitherto undiscussed homosexual relationships. The most notable and emotionally involved of these affairs occured with painter and fellow Bloomsbury member Duncan Grant. Skidelsky confirms that Keynes also slept with Bloomsbury biographer Lytton Strachey. Several corresponding letters between Keynes and Strachey not only confirm this, but a subsequent sexual rivalry over the affections of Grant. G.E. Moore's 'Principia Ethica' unquestionably wrought out a strong influence on Keynes and Strachey's radical sexual attitudes after they had read it. Some unfastidious anti-Keynesians have tried to tie in Keynes' early predispositions to homosexuality (he later in life married a Russian Ballet dancer named Lydia Lopokova) with his rejection of the gold standard. This probably isn't a valid argument, given the level of abstraction Keynes' mind reached at an early age to develop and entertain such unorthadox methods.

   Keynesian economics has been repudiated by many laissez-faire proponents over the past two decades. The most well reasoned of these critiques have come from Friedman and Robert Lucas; who have each received Nobel Prizes for their work. Notwithstanding, both pale in comparison with the impact Keynesianism has had on post-WW2 macroeconomics.

   Whether or not you're an unyeilding Keynesian or a free market capitalist, you'll find it impossible not to marvel at this remarkable biography of a remarkable man. Keynes should be included at the top of anyone's list of the 20th century's most important intellectuals.

No comments about A Distant Prospect.

1 comments about Winston Churchill (A&E Biography).

1. The pictures are great and the summary history is OK for this nice little read about one of the great leaders of the 20th Century. Humes met Churchill three times and knew many of his advisers, so who better to write a summary history of this great man. Humes nicely portrays the man and his deep convictions. Since this is a summary, there is not a lot of meat in this little book, but one can get an essence of this man by reading this book.
   This is a great picture book, and the writing is adequate about the subject.

2 comments about Royal Charles: Charles II and the Restoration.

1. If you enjoy biographical works that are not only full of information but convey a sense of the actual character, this book is for you. Immensely readable account of a king with more than the usual share of strengths and weaknesses, surprisingly varied interests, and even a sense of humor as well as irony. Admittedly I find Restoration England to be one of the single most historical periods and Charles II is its poster child. This books is an excellent means to getting a broad view of the period and this interesting ruler.



2. In this wonderful book, Antonia chronicles the doings of the 17th-century royal Stuart family in such detail that I for one feel as though I lived among them. At this locus in space-time we probably know more about Charles II than did his own family. We know, for example, that he was a paid French agent for most of his reign.
   
   That Charles II was the man for the job and the times and may have been Britain's best king is hard to dispute. He was certainly the first people's king. His handling of government foreshadowed the checks and balances developed more formally in the next century, but he did not formulate it into a doctrine. That is simply the way it happened.
   
   The Stuarts acquired the throne of Britain through Mary, Queen of Scots, who descended from a Tudor. Elizabeth Tudor had her executed, but not before she married had a son with the unfortunate alcoholic, Darnley. The boy was taken from his mother to be raised a Protestant and became James I on the death of Elizabeth, who died without heir.
   
   The reign of James I (of King James Bible fame) was happy and prosperous and his son, Charles I, was looking forward to the same. History did not smile on this upright but unlucky king. Society bolted under him, so to speak, and threw him from his horse. The Swiss reform crept down the Rhine and across the channel and lodged in Britain as numerous sects of Puritanism. Meanwhile, the creeping disease of enclosure, the seizure of formerly public lands by private individuals interested in raising sheep and selling wool, and the subsequent forced evacuation of those lands, was slowly but surely building a fury in the common man. Charles I found that he could not govern.
   
   Successive parliaments called in the hope of financial relief became ever more unruly until at last they refused to be dismissed! Not the brightest man, though a decent one, Charles I failed to see the impending end of absolute monarchy. He made a fatal mistake, sending soldiers into parliament to arrest 5 MPs, who evaded him anyway. The English Civil War was on. The king ultimately surrendered to parliamentary forces. He might have been spared, but he refused to cooperate in any way with the diminution of the divine right of kings. The parliamentarians played their trump card of executing the king (1649), a blunder on their part. His death aroused mainly grief and horror.
   
   Faced with overwhelming adversity, Charles II was not overwhelmed. He shone like the star he was. There are few other teen-age generals in history, but that is what he became fighting for his father, and alone after 1649. Often seen in the front line leading the charge, he was born under a lucky star, surviving somehow. Even Cromwell admitted that his last battle, the Battle of Worcester, was the hardest fought of the war. The king went dodging through the countryside, hiding out in a huge oak while the soldiers beat the bushes for him. He escaped to France and then other points, with the help mainly of ordinary people.
   
   Charles' exile whetted his talents and forged his future. He and ragamuffin court were often without knowledge of the source of their next meal. He kept on wheeling and dealing, unsuccessfully. He lifted their spirits by creating a sort of ongoing pool party, which moved from country to country and estate to estate. They derived their emotional support from this circle of intimacy, which went on after the king was restored.
   
   And he was restored. Cromwell died. His son, "Tumbledown Dick", was not up to the job of being the lord high protector of the Commonwealth. The army had kept Charles under constant surveillance wherever he went. They knew that he was an extraordinarily talented man. To avoid disintegration of the government and renewed conflict between factions, General Monck convinced parliament to restore Charles, rather suddenly, with but short notice, in 1660.
   
   And what a resoration it was! A fleet of refurbished ships sailed from Holland and a small army of royalists dressed in the very finest uniforms money could buy paraded through the streets of London with the king flanked by his brothers, all at the center of a roaring crowd. The king knew exactly what they wanted and he spared no expense to give it to them. He had thoroughly learned that God may give kings a divine right to rule, but only through the medium of the people.
   
   The party went on. Charles and his wife and mistresses and a total of 12 illegitimate children lived happily together in Whitehall Palace. The queen, a Portuguese princess, was unfortunately barren, but the king did not desert her on that account. He was content to pass on the succession to his brother, James II. The author compares this arrangement to that of the cruel Henry the 8th, who executed his successive wives so that he could get on to the next one. The king owned horses, dogs and yachts. Sometimes he raced his own horses. He associated freely with all walks of life. He despised to put on royal airs.
   
   Meanwhile a steady stream of sparks flew from the flint of his creative genius. He forgave his enemies (except the regicides). He was as often in parliament as the MPs themselves, arguing his point of view himself. He created the first standing army in Britain, using its offices as a means to reward friends and placate enemies. He founded the Royal Society, built the observatory at Greenwich, built a hospital, personally assisted in fighting the great fire of London, and hired Christopher Wren to rebuild the burned area.
   
   In politics the king and parliament often disagreed. He called them when he needed money. They passed laws and granted or refused the money. All the same old issues still existed, but now neither side was willing to start a civil war over them. King and parliament in fact checked and balanced each other, even though no constitution defined them. Seeking to be less dependent on parliament, the king made a secret treaty with Louis the 14th, by which he would become a pro-French advocate in exchange for a large annuity. It wasn't as bad as it seems. The king's mother was French. Family connections were already in place. The king had to agree to become Catholic, which he only dared to do on his deathbed, after apologizing for taking so long to die.
   
   This work by Fraser might as well have been an epic poem, lacking only the versification. We laugh or weep as it soars into sublimity or pathos and we yawn at the tedious details of the king's devious machinations. A word of warning. The author takes a totally royalist view. She has no space or inclination to present the details of the rebel cause. Reading this book, we wonder why those stubborn parliamentary fools held out against such a jolly good fellow as the king. Perhaps the lives of the Stuarts were so interesting and momentous as to compel their biographers to loyalty.