5 comments about Kobe: The Story of the NBA's Rising Young Star Kobe Bryant.

1. i don't care if you like this review or not, but kobe should realize now what he had w/ shaq: the best player in the game, and now that it's his team they are not even going to make the playoffs- and kobe cares too much what the media says about him- blaming everyone else and telling on shaq and his "hush money" and karl malone "harassing" his wife- shut up kobe and just play your selfish game



2. The book Kobe is one of my all time favorites. It talks about the life of Kobe Bryant. Kobe is my all time favorite basketball player along with Michael Jordan. I see a lot in Kobe like in mj. This book talks about the life of the young rising star Kobe Bryant and how he got to where he is now. It is a great book.



3. "The Story of the NBA's Rising Young Star Kobe Bryant" great for Lakers' fans. If you like basketball you will like this nonfiction book. Joseph Layden .I thought that the book was very easy to read and young children could read it by themselves. In my mind he is the best player ever. It the best book I ever read. I like the book, because I like to play basketball too.
   In the beginning of the book it talks about his father and mother how they met each other. The book talked a bit about his family and also where he attend at school. I like the book, because you can image in your mind what it is talking about, and you can learn a little bit of vocabulary.
   The setting of the book is in Philadelphia and also in Los Angeles. The author wrote the book very well, because it gives a lot of important information, it the best book I ever read. I like the book, because I like to play basketball too. I want to read more byJoseph Laden.
   I want to recommend to book to people that like the Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe Bryant and who like to play basketball. The book makes you think that you could be a great basketball player like Kobe, if you keep on practicing. I would recommend this book to grade school and also high school students.



4. I chose the book, Kobe, because I love basketball, and I was interested in knowing more about the life of Kobe Bryant. I was surprised to learn about Kobe's upbringing and background because it was totally different than what I had expected.

   I liked this book because it tells all about Kobe Bryant's love for basketball, and his determination and drive to improve his skills. Kobe's basketball career begins when his family moves back to his hometown in America. The book also contains a lot of really cool pictures.

   Learn about how this young star athlete developed into an all star basketball player. Joe Layden does a terrific job in revealing what makes Kobe a superstar. I recommend this book to anyone interested in basketball. It is very inspirational!




5. I chose the book, Kobe, because I was interested in knowing more about the life of Kobe Bryant. I was surprised to learn about Kobe's upbringing and background because it was totally different than what I had expected.

   I liked this book because it tells all about Kobe Bryant's love for basketball, and his determination and drive to improve his skills. Kobe's basketball career begins when his family moves back to his hometown in America. The book also contains a lot of really cool pictures.

   Learn about how this young star athlete developed into an all star basketball player. Joe Layden does a terrific job in revealing what makes Kobe a superstar. I recommend this book to anyone interested in basketball. It is very inspirational!

5 comments about An American Dream: The Life of an African American Soldier and Pow Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China.

1. Clarence Admas was one of my mom's best friend during the Foreign Langauges Press (Beijing) time between 1961 and 1966. I was a yound child at the time and played with Della a lot as childhood friends. Even I was young, Adams had clearly left me a deep impression as a hard working and happy man.
   
   This book, An American Dream, through his personal acconts, taught me the race issues that existed in United States and I also learned how his choice was made to pursue freedom and happiness. I fully understand how he chose China now.
   
   Both China and United states are(were) not "perfect" countries and they are all in their learning curve based on their own cultural, historical backgrounds including ecomonic conditions, etc.. We all should go beyond labeling people or country. This book builds a small but effective bridge on mutural understanding of our past.
   
   For Adams, I admire his determination to make his life in the United States against overwelming odds to find a job in Memphis. This shows that for people who want to to work will be able to find a job. Success is indeed a life choice. Adams' life is a successful story on surving the Korean war, making the right choice for himself in 1954, did well in China, and again did well in Memphis againt unthinkable difficulties. Clarence Adams' character is truly memorable.
   
   
   I suggest people who want to understand China, want to understand racial issues in the United States and want to learn history ... this is book provides an unvarnished personal accounts.
   
   For people want to find out more, please search Internat "They Chose China"... a documentary film.



2. I came across Clarence Adams' story by chance. I was doing research on a documentary he was featured in, and intrigued by the little I read about him, I made a point of tracking down his book.
   When I got hold of An American Dream, I read it in one sitting. It's a phenomenal story! Adams' strength of character and guts shine through on each page. I wish I could have met him.
   If you're interested in modern China, the Korean war, or civil rights in America or if you just like reading about heroes, you'll enjoy this book. I encourage you to add it to your collection.



3. I found this book so interesting, that I finished it in a matter of hours. I have a deep respect for Clarence Adams and the choice he made to refuse repatriation to his country and seek a new life elsewhere. History now shows that the fear of Communism (through wars abroad and McCarthyism at home) was blown out of proportion. Furthermore, Clarence Adams grew up in a time of segregation and injustice against racial minorities. It makes only logical sense for him to seek a better life somewhere else.
   
   I do not view him as a traitor or turncoat. In fact, by exercising his rights to have 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,' he is more "American" than many of the detractors and exaggerators of the American Media Machine as well as some members of the military and government.
   
   Some may say that his fight was at home for Civil Rights and that he should have been here. However, that view is only spoken through hindsight. For Clarence Adams, he had no idea that equal rights would even be acheived in his lifetime. Furthermore, he was only one person of humble origins and was a high school dropout. When the odds are that far stacked against you, sometimes the only way to fight a broken system is to refuse to be a part of it.
   
   I would like to thank his daughter, Della, for sharing her father's story. I would also like to thank Lewis H. Carlson for the work and research that went into this book.



4. Anyone with an open mind would have to conclude that Mr. Adams lived an honorable and remarkable life. Through this book, I saw a man whose love for freedom was above everything else. It is the true essence of an American dream.



5. This book should be listed under Fiction. The truth is he deserted his country and then realized how great it was. He suffered poverty and hardships for his traitorous decision and came running back with his tail between his legs. He shouldn't have been allowed back. He never said he was sorry. He never said he made a mistake. He played a victim to the end. Shame on him for this (very capitalistic) attempt to make money. A real man would have come back and joined the fight for Civil Rights in America. It bothers me that he enjoyed the benefits of something he wouldn't fight for...

2 comments about Morgan Freeman: A Biography.

1. Morgan Freeman is an icon in the world of film and theater. As someone in this book says, everything in which he appears becomes better because of his presence. Author Kathleen Tracy shows us Freeman's early days and his rise to fame, but somehow she never gets inside his head. She writes the facts as a reporter would, but I never felt as if I got to know what makes this man "tick". There are lots of quotes about what he thinks and feels about acting, but not much about what he feels about life. His family life is glossed over, both his early years and his relationship to his wife and children. I have the utmost respect for this man, but was disappointed not to learn more about what makes him the great actor that he is.



2. I was very disappointed with this book and can not recommend it. I think that Morgan Freeman is a very dynamic actor. I enjoy his performances in every movie he had a part in. I read a lot of biographical books. A good one will leaving you feeling like you have had a one-on-one conversation about one's life journey. I felt that this book should have been marketed as a behind the movie scenes type of book. Either Mr. Freeman was being parsimonious with his biography or Kathleen Tracy just could not get him to share. Even the "behind the movie scenes" info was slow and boring.
   
   However, Mr. Freeman some of your fans (like me) really want to know more about you, your journey, and pearls of wisdom. I look forward to another biographical book about you in the future.
   
   By:
   Pam Jarmon-Wade

No comments about A Navajo Legacy: The Life and Teachings of John Holiday.

2 comments about Bob Marley: A Biography (Greenwood Biographies).

1. I thought that the book really explained more than just the musical side of Bob that we all know. I also love how it starts from the beggining of his life, explaining how he got into music. The book was a little small, but for the amount of pages it had, it got everything you needed to know. Another thing that I liked about the book was how it explained more than just his love for music. He put all his thoughts, feelings, and his surroundings into the music. I would reccomend this book to anyone. If you like music then this is the book for you!!!!



2. I bought this book new as a gift and was very disappointed to see how small and cheap it seemed. $34.66 for this little thing that looks like a kids book is NOT WORTH IT! I would have given it zero stars if it was an option.

1 comments about William Sheppard: Congo's African-American Livingstone.

1. William E. Phipps reconstructs the past and tells the story of the African American Livingston utilizing thorough research. Phipps details his preparation throughout his adolescent years, his journey to the Congo, his efforts to challenge human right violations and his return back to America. The author reveals to the readers to the forgotten African American missionary, which has been ignored by Black history for so long. There are two significance reasons why the story of William Sheppard has not been shared. First, Sheppard resigned from the Congo mission at its peak, due to being confronted about having affairs and an illegitimate child. Second, historians studying African American religion have paid relatively little attention to the overwhelmingly Caucasian Protestant churches. Sheppard was a pioneer missionary and an explorer that was second only to Livingston and Stanley in the opening of Central Africa. Phillips crafts a historical study in a seamless outline about Sheppard to help describe the colonization of the Congo. It is a perfect book for students wanting to learn the true story of King Leopold's Congo.

3 comments about "Strong Medicine" Speaks: A Native American Elder Has Her Say.

1. Great book. Story of woman native American. Thought the Lenni Lenape Indians had died out. Find out they are alive and strong in NJ.



2. I had no idea I've been waiting for words of wisdom from a Native American Elder. But Strong Medicine is (forgive me) just what the doctor ordered.
   
   Marion "Strong Medicine" Gould's story is a big one. She has suffered. She inspires. She laughs. She shares wisdom you'll want to reflect on. And she does not shrink down from saying what many of us think but might not say out loud. (Or in a book.)
   
   I'm not a history buff, but I loved learning about Strong Medicine's life--precisely because of the way Hearth presented the information. I didn't feel like I was getting a lesson. I felt like I was making a new friend. A really compassionate and wise and funny one.



3. This book is a gem! I acutally felt each story as though it were "Stong Medicine" actually speaking directly to me. I felt all emotions, happy, excited, anticipation, and sad as she told this beautiful story.
   
   Amy captured her and this book will truly capture you!
   
   What a testimony of true Native American life.

5 comments about What Every Mother Should Tell Their Daughters: A Book for Women.

1. I appreciate the author's openness in sharing her story with us. I'm sharing this book with each of my daughters.



2. TheNita has written a very short, but insightful book to be shared between mothers and daughters, and even grandmothers. WHAT EVERY MOTHER SHOULD TELL THEIR DAUGHTERS is packed with encouraging advice dealing with life, love, finances, and even spiritual guidance. In seven short chapters the author shares lessons, such as not letting circumstances control you, not allowing someone else to determine your worth, the importance of chasing dreams, and going after what you want. These, along with several other lessons are used as teaching modules and backed by relevant experiences in the author's life, what she learned from them, and a final mother/daughter lesson placed at the end of each section for reflection.
   
   Though the book was short and could've used a thorough proofreading, I enjoyed the lessons shared by the author; especially about the mother being a daughter's #1 fan. It is perceived by many that the father has this role. But, I tend to agree with TheNita in that the mother plays a very important part of the woman her child grows up to be.
   
   WHAT EVERY MOTHER SHOULD TELL THEIR DAUGHTERS is an encouraging overview of life and how to make the best of it. It is written in an easy to read tone and Christian-based, but not preachy, which will aid in the delivery of the message and assist those who choose to employ the tools in their own family. TheNita concludes the book with an additional chapter reflecting on her own life and an appreciation letter to her own mother.
   
   Reviewed by Tee C. Royal
   of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers



3. This book is very engaging. After initially planning to read a chapter or two, I finished the entire book in one sitting. The author, TheNita, shared many personal moments of her life in which she gained wisdom to share with the reader. It's written in a style which is more reminiscent of a personal journal than a instructive guide or researched material. While it's clear that her perspective is as an African-American woman, the lessons learned are applicable to any woman regardless of racial, ethnic, or soci-economic background. Her honesty about her childhood and her own subsequent mistakes is so compelling that you'll sometimes cringe while reading. However, it may give other women the courage to be honest about their own mistakes as well and to learn the lesson from it. It is the right step to begin the healing process and break generational curses over women in families.



4. Reviewed by Kelli Glesige for Reader Views (3/07)
   
   The relationship between a mother and daughter is explored in this book about healthy emotional connections. It discusses giving the very best that life has to offer in the hopes of stopping generational illness that is passed from mother to daughter to granddaughter. The book is all about love; first how to love yourself, and then how to love your daughter while teaching her to love herself. Giving motherly love and wisdom can save a daughter from much heartache and pain that she would, otherwise, eventually learn the hard way and on her own.
   
   Author TheNita overcame life lessons learned the hard way by pulling herself up from difficult circumstances, overcoming adversities and bad decisions, living in far from ideal living conditions, and abuse. Sharing her recollections, TheNita tells what she has learned, hoping to curb others from making the same mistakes. She shares the critical role God has played in her life, encouraging others to seek his strength and guidance also.
   
   At only 58 pages, this book is small, but it offers helpful information that can benefit others immensely. Troubled teens or single moms might find it to their particular advantage. Reading about how the author made changes in her life can motivate others to know they too can change. One has the power to change if the desire and knowledge is present. TheNita provides her method of obtaining both to enable that change.
   
   "What Every Mother Should Tell Their Daughters" was not what I thought it would be: it is more than just an advice book for mothers. Through her counsel, the author has helped her own mother and her sons. She gives guidance because of the love she holds for her mother and because she wants her mother to enjoy the things she is blessed with now. "The goal," states TheNita, "is to stop negative and abusive cycles now--do not carry them to future generations." I recommend this book to anyone, particularly females, hoping to raise well-rounded and emotionally stable daughters or sons.



5. Written by The Nita, an African-American survivor of domestic abuse who has risen above her destructive path through her faith in God and became the first Armed Services Officer in her family, What Every Mother Should Tell Their Daughters: A Book For Women is a guide written especially for mothers and daughters everywhere to avoiding harmful patterns in one's life. Peppered with vignette's from the author's life and her memories of her own mother and grandmother, What Every Mother Should Tell Their Daughters includes such pearls of wisdom as "Don't let circumstances control you", "Never compromise your beliefs or your principles; the results will be pain", "When you want a change in life, do something different", and "Teach your daughters how to manage their finances" . ("For some odd reason we seem to believe that the first sign of growing up and being on our own is to get as many credit cards as we can and max them all out! Completely untrue!") A Best Books Award Finalist at USABookNews.com, What Every Mother Should Tell Their Daughters is a tenderly written, solidly grounded guide especially recommended as a mother's day or daughter's birthday gift.

5 comments about My Son Jimi.

1. Al Hendrix shares his entire relationship with Jimi from birth to death in this book. He writes a lot about Jimi's childhood, Jimi's mother, Al's brothers and parents, etc. He talks about Jimi's visits home and how everyone would then come over and the house would be full. He talks verbatim about the conversations he had with Jimi during these visits to Seattle: whether Jimi was involved with drugs, Jimi saying that he was going to get married, how much Jimi liked to come home to get away from everything. He describes the Seattle concerts in 1969 and 1970. There are a lot of great photos of Jimi with June, Al and Janie during these visits home. Then Al explains what happened to Jimi's possessions and estate after his death and the subsequent posthumous recordings. This is a very informative book and I learned a lot about Jimi and Jimi's family.



2. Don't expect to find out a lot about what Jimi thought while he was growing up. It appears that he, like fellow dreamer Bix Beiderbecke, grew up in families that were incapable of understanding the genius in their midst. It is a fascinating read though. One begins to grasp the grinding poverty, familial insecurity, and multiculturalism that shaped James Marshall Hendrix. It is fascinating to explore the human vessels that the universe decides to pour its greatest talent into.
   Jimi Henrix was also a very talented songwriter and artist. His penmanship was beautiful. This book shows you the roots of a very sad little boy that mysteriously flowered into one of the most gifted musicians of all time. It makes it doubly sad that he never made it to a secure base in life from which he could look back and give his own perspective on his meteoric career that continues to reverberate with each passing generation.
   After this book I suggest 'Room Full of Mirrors' by Charles Cross for the rest of the known story.



3. I know it's wrong to criticise the dead, but this book is very much written through bright rosey red coloured spectacles. Al was getting on in years when he collaborated on this book and I suspect a lot of it was very much taken from one-to-one chats between Al and his 'ghost writer'; but unfortunately the book appears to have been very much influenced by the step -daughter from hell (and not a blood relative of Jimi)....one Janie Hendrix. Therefore, although Al's early memories of Jimi as a child and early adolescent are interesting and have some value, his assertions that Leon was not his child and how much Jimi was fond of his 'little sister Janie' devalue the rest of the book. Even if Leon was not Al's child, he was Lucille's son and that makes him Jimi's blood half-brother....which is a damn site closer to Jimi than Janie will ever be (he only met Janie on a couple of occasions)...........I suspect that Janie poisoned Al's mind at the time that this book was written with one thing in mind...Al's will and inheritance and the control of Jimi's music...which all spells one word......GREED. Unfortunately her scheming paid off, as Al effectively disowned Leon and gifted more or less evrything to Janie (including the rights to Jimi's music).
   
   Finally, I am sure Al loved Jimi in his own way and I am sure Jimi had some affection for Al, but it is all overplayed in this book and Jimi told a lot of people that Al beat him quite badly when he was growing up and Kathy Etchingham in particular recalls a number of occasions when Al was not exactly a loving father..........however times were very hard for Al and Jimi (and Leon) and it is unfair to be too hard on Al in the early days....and to some degree in later life when I suspect he was slightly senile and therefore very susceptible to Janie's worm tonguery.



4. when sharon lawrence called al hendrix to plead with him to not make jimi's funeral a spectacle, Mr. Hendrix's first response to her was. do you know how much money he had?
   
   This man was only ever interested in his son as a meal ticket and even 29 years later here he is tryig to make money off his dead genius son. all i can say is shame on you al hendrix!
   
   JOHN HOVING



5. For years, while reading conflicting opinions by numerous authors of all things Jimi, it seemed natural to wonder what Jimi's dad would have had to say about it. Fortunately, rather than sit back and wonder about it, Jas Obrecht worked with Al Hendrix to get the story told. Of all people, Jimi's father surely had an important story to tell, from a vital perspective - that being the family anchor throughout most of Jimi's often scattered childhood.

   "My Son Jimi" is a tender yet objective look into the life of a uniquely gifted soul. The childhood personality traits that Al reveals sync well with what we know of the adult Jimi. With so much known about nearly every breath of his life once he became famous, it's refreshing to hear so many stories and details of Jimi's early days and the events that influenced his view of the world. Al's memory was obviously sharp, as evidenced by the depth of chronological details and his ability to wrap the up-close human perspective into those details. For example, in describing the lean years when money was tight, Al was forced to move from place to place and chase employment opportunities. Al closes the history loop by describing the impact these events had on young Jimi. Likewise, the descriptions of home life when Jimi's mother Lucille was living elsewhere, often with other men, are treated with respect to all, allowing as much dignity to be preserved as possible, even in very undignified circumstances. These touches add a healthy coating of reality and personality that can never be touched upon by an author merely reporting a historical perspective.

   I found Al's descriptions of Jimi's music illuminating and intriguing. Obviously, Al was proud of his son's accomplishments, but was still able to hear the music for what it was, with open ears. I believe that his need to be honest and realistic was a key component leading to the success of Experience Hendrix once the family had acquired the Hendrix legacy. Look at it this way - for decades, Alan Douglas had been the caretaker of Jimi's music and although I don't think he was deserving of all of the hateful criticism he received, I do believe he was a puppet in the machine that turned its head away from Jimi's clearly stated intentions of where his music was headed. Al listened to Jimi, for example Jimi's eagerness to work with and appreciation of Eddie Kramer and Al then brought Eddie into the fold to help move the music in the right direction. This was no mistake - it was action motivated by love.

   Al's prose is not particularly colorful, nor embellished - instead he speaks economically, to the point and from the heart. This may lead some to criticize this book unfairly, but I believe that the content, honesty and perspective Al has brought forth make My Son Jimi essential reading for those interested in learning the true story of Jimi Hendrix.

5 comments about Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans: Expanded Edition New Foreword by Elizabeth Burgos.

1. After 10 years of research, Stoll has shown that Menchu's book is an imperfect biography. How shocking! She went to sixth grade! She didn't witness her mother being tortured and murdered (although it did happen)!! There is no record of one of her brothers dying of malnutrition!!! For a time she participated in the unarmed political wing of the Guerrillas!!!!

   As one who has spent several years living and working among Guatemalans who (barely) survived army massacres, tortures and disappearances, and who was in Guatemala when Stoll's book came out, I find these revelations to hardly be capital crimes.

   Rigoberta's book was an attempt to bring international attention to the Guatemalan army's genocide campaign against the indigenous population. To that effect it was successful, although not nearly successful enough.

   Is Menchu's book a perfect account of her life? Apparently not. Is it an accurate portrayal of what happened to millions of other indigenous Guatemalans? The UN-sponsored Truth Commission, and the Catholic Church's REMHI report have definatively answered in the affirmative.

   In the end, you could say that Rigoberta's book is more accurately the story of "all poor Guatemalans" than it is her own. What Stoll sees as a fault is really one of the book's main virtues.

   There are many stories that urgently need to be told about Guatemala. That Stoll would choose to spend his professional career attacking someone who has tirelessly fought for the human and cultural rights of Guatemala's indigenous people is the real mystery here. Instead of focusing on Rigoberta Menchu, a marginal, if noble, figure in Guatemala's sad history, why not undo the country's more dangerous mythic figure, Efrain Rios Montt (killed tens of thousands during his 16 month reign of terror, and now currently runs Guatemala's Congress and ruling party).

   How many as-told-to autobiographies would stand up to 10 years of background checking? Personally, I'm waiting for Stoll's account of his own life story...




2. Stoll doggedly and biasly challenges Mechu's authenticity. By focusing on discrepancies within her testimony as told to Elisabeth Burgos-DeBray and drawing minimal attention to Menchu's actual and substantial political work on the behalf of indigenous people world wide, he paints the picture of an alternately manipulative and naïve puppet of the left. Furthermore, he suggests teachers who use Menchu in the classroom have bought into a romantic myth about virtuous Latin American rebels.

   Stoll's argument is three-fold: Firstly, he balks at the
   Postmodern notion that view "truth" is subjective, and, through a laundry list of discrepancies, aims at exposing Menchu's truths as false. Secondly, he frets that teachers present I, Rigoberta Menchu, an Indian Woman in Guatemala as a stable, simplistic, and de-contextualized account of the massacres of Guatemalan indigenous persons. Most significantly, Stoll argues that in fetishizing Menchu we not supporting the cause of "all poor Guatemalans," as Menchu suggests in the opening lines of her testimonio, but the cause of Marxist-indoctrinated guerillas. Stoll even goes so far as to assert that the testimony of the Nobel Peace Prizewinner may have extended the violence in the Guatemalan highlands, prolonging "an unpopular war" (p.278).

   Like Dinesh d'Souza's extreme right-wing book Illiberal Education, Stoll's poses a critique of the academic left. Unlike d'Souza's rant, Stoll's book is in turn a fascinating, but infuriating read, but ultimately mean-spirited, academically disingenuous and far from "objective."

   For example, when Stoll points to debatable discrepancies within the testimony, he offers other voices and political contexts. He interviews people from Menchu's village El Chimel; he interviews I Rigoberta Menchu editor Elisabeth Burgos-Debray and the ambassador who survived the army-induced embassy fire in which Menchu's father ---who along with protesters had taken the ambassador hostage---dies. A chapter is devoted to fragmented interviews with women who allegedly attended a convent school with Menchu. Stoll relishs each detail that invalidates Menchu's claim that, like many other Mayan children, she did not attend formal school and only learned Spanish as she became an activist.

   In many respects, Stoll's fieldwork seems exhaustive. It starts to pay off when Stoll deviates from his from his attack on Menchu's authenticity to historicize Guatemalan politics and trace the alliances of peasant and indigenous organizations. However, these discussions tend to break down as condemnations --- and conflations --- of Menchu and Marxism. Stoll's motives appear particularly ominous when it is revealed that, despite ten years of work in Guatemala, he listens to a mere two-and-a-half-hours of the eighteen hours of recorded testimony Rigoberta Menchu gives Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. And Stoll was right there in Burgos-Debray's apartment.

   Many years have passed since the week in 1982 when Menchu, a political refugee, gave oral testimony to the Argentine anthropologist. Until recently, that week long meeting represented most of what the public gleaned about Rigoberta Menchu. Since the testimony concludes at the point of exile, it does not reveal Menchu's constant lobbying for indigenous rights and Guatemalan peace treaties at the UN, prior to winning the Nobel Peaceprize. It is fortunate that months before the Stoll hatchet job, Menchu's own account of her political work, including life after the Peaceprize, and episodes that were obscured in the first work, was published. Stoll's self-serving book should only be read along with its source material and her second book. Considered together, the three books fashion an intriguing matrix of truth-making, of interpretations and re-interpretations that shift based on political circumstance and personal positioning.

   Still, my fundamental feeling is that Stoll was out to frame Menchu at any cost. It saddens me to see so many people jumping on his bandwagon, serving the purpose of further empowering the wealthy and privileged, and casting doubt on one of the rare voices of Central American indigenous people to reach us. Her story of oppression, resistence and survival is more important than any minor discrepencies Stoll so relishes. Stoll's book is pure careerism and is nasty to the core. Menchu's meaningful life work speaks louder. It inspires while Stoll's knarled intentions digust.




3. My wife is Guatemalan, so I have a special interest in the case of R. Menchu.

   Long before this book appeared I found it odd that I couldn't find a single Guatemalan who believed the popularized story of Menchu. I had doubts myself since the historic highway of leftism is paved with the remains of frauds and tyrants.

   This book lays my doubts to rest. Menchu is a fraud. She has been used by the Left to bash the U.S., and she used them and a gullible international media to become a star. Menchu is to the misty eyed utopian dreamers what Fabio is to lonely, yearning readers of romance novels, or what Miss February is to adolescent men. Rigoberta is the socialist pin-up girl.

   But the fantasy of the left always turns violent and ugly. In the Guatemalan case the author also demonstrates that the indians were used as pawns to further the objectives of the Left and their guerilla surrogates. The Left pushed the mostly uninterested indians into the face of the repressive right-wing government while shouting, "they say you are fascists murderers." Wedged between the bloodthirsty Left and Right, the indians got slaughtered.

   Menchu, like Lenin, Castro, Foucault, and so many before her, is a symbol of the moral corruption of the Left. People drawn to utopian reformism are also ideal candidates for the cult of personality. Menchu became (and still is) a useful invention of those who build castles in sand saturated with the blood of innocents.

   One thing is certain, this book will cause no general reassessment by the Left. Few leftists will ask themselves, "How did I get taken in by the myth of Menchu?" The Left merely steps over the bodies and havoc it precipitates, moving on to the next big religious crusade. After all, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, can you? The thousands of innocent Guatemalan eggs cracked in the leftist guerilla war merely join the millions of others around the world. Yet very few leftists have found that mass murders associated with their beliefs are reason to rethink. Even one prior reviewer of this book reduces his rating because one of the rare leftists who rethought his views has given support to the conclusions of David Stoll.

   Several thousand people were sadly murdered during the Pinochet regime in Chile, and the Left pursues this relentlessly. Millions were killed in the name of socialism in the USSR and China, and the countries they subjugated, yet the Left demands no trials, no accountability. Why?

   Have you ever heard one leftist suggest that Castro should be tried for torturing, murdering, and filling his prisons with dissidents, homosexuals, etc.? Castro is merely making socialist omelets, thus he remains a hero.

   The reaction to this book by the Left has mostly been to repudiate it as rightist disinformation (despite the fact that the author is on the Left), or to ignore it. Menchu remains a useful myth for those who detest the U.S. and still harbor utopian dreams that require more broken eggs.

   If your teacher makes you read "I, Rigoberta," read this book as well and ask some hard questions. You will be branded a racist, anti-third world, anti-multicultural, reactionary, but you will at least know the truth and it will set you free . . . especially when you flunk the course!




4. David Stoll's book makes important points. To what extent can the testimony of a single person represent the situation faced by a larger community? What happens when a single figure comes to embody a movement, and that figure has conveyed misrepresentations of the truth?
   Stoll does not claim that many poor Guatemalans did not face unbearable oppression, or that they were not massacred by para-military death squads. However, he does note that, like 1980s and early 1990s Peru, the indigenous sometimes felt trapped. He suggests that both the military and leftist guerrillas would use murder as a means to coerce the indigenous into subordination.
   Although Stoll pats himself on the back for having waited until Guatemala's lengthy civil war ended, one must question whether his timing was appropriate. His book provided ammunition for the military government to negate claims of torture and disappearances at a time when United Nations Truth Commissions were investigating military abuses.
   The issues brought up by Stoll are important, but could be addressed in a less slanderous manner. As Victor Montejo points out, the picture of Rigoberta Menchu on the cover is inappropriate. If Stoll is in fact claiming not to be an iconoclast, why is the photograph on the cover? Why is Rigoberta's name in the title?
   Let there be no doubt that Rigoberta did have a political agenda. However, if there are several exaggerations, the story should not be discredited. Consider the genre: testimony. Rigoberta was interviewed for hours a day, for about a week (I believe). Rigoberta did not edit the text. Also, we do not know what questions were asked, and how they influenced Rigoberta's responses. We do know that Burgos-Debray has marxist connections. An interviewer can have a profound effect upon the interviewee, in this case a young twenty-three year-old.



5. To start from the proverbial beginning, Rigoberta Menchu, the Mayan Guatemalan who graced the world with her autobiographical account of the terror of the countryside of that land during its lengthy civil war, lied. The author was curious how one person could have done all that Menchu claimed to have done. It turned out she hadn't. She wasn't the eyewitness at her brother's murder; her father wasn't the organizer of various rebel groups. Indeed, witnesses who knew him claimed to have known a very different personality from the one described by Rigoberta. Further, while Rigoberta was allegedly forming various political organizations in her home village--wherein she claimed she was illiterate and monolingual--she was really the scholarship student at a girls' school and quite fluent in Spanish as well as in her native, Mayan tongue.

   The consequences of that myth? romanticism? are among the analyses of Stoll's work. And I must commend him on the depth of his analysis. But...

   The Guatemalans have gone through a devestating civil war in which hundreds of thousands of civilians, most of them poor, have "been disappeared"--for which that new use of those verbs was created. It means, simply, that they don't exist any more (and that they're buried in one of those body dumps in which most were thrown and are now the subject of exhumations by forensic anthropologists). Stoll agrees that the Guatemalan army, civil patrols, and vigilantes have an inexcusable history. He doesn't seem to evade that. But...

   Contemporary American and European leftists have made that war a battle between the victimized Mayan indigenas, and the nasty, unscrupulous, and, of course, wealthier ladinos (known elsewhere in Central America as Mestizos). Stoll points out that Rigoberta's father's major conflict was not with ladinos--with many of whom he got along just fine, thank you--but with his in- laws who were, like him, Mayan. But...

   A number of guerilla groups infiltrated the countryside. Stoll examines that the bulk of Mayan and other poor were not supporters of the guerillas. Rather, they saw the guerillas as just another faction with arms. But...

   I had some struggles with the book. I, like the author, am critical of white middle and upper middle class analyses of armed struggles--as if those doing the analyzing could tell the difference between a trigger and a plate of Brie cheese. At the same time, as one who is fairly well-versed in the history of the war there and is familiar with many who've suffered as a result of it--and who has been there and stopped by the army for no reason--I find it difficult to so easily exonerate the army. Sure the guerillas were not saints, despite what some of their supporters would have us believe. But desperation leads to armed conflict when there is no hope but to fight. That strikes me as common sense, and has provided the basis for any "revolution" including the American, French, Russian, etc. It's not necessarily "right" let alone "good," but simply fact.

   In short, Stoll acknowledges that the Guatemalan army has, in a relative way, rivaled the Nazis (my comparison rather than his). But he clearly--and repeatedly--implies that the army's brutality was instigated by the actions of the guerillas. For instance, a couple of ladinos were killed by guerillas therefore the army became vioent and wiped out villages. Doubtless there was some guerilla activity that stimulated a violent response. But the extent of the army's violence--the formal, objective report issued less than two years ago says that of the violence, the army was responsible for 97 percent leaving little to blame on the guerillas--so overshadowed that of the rebels that the latter's is negligible, barely exists in a statistical sense.

   Further, I was turned off by Stoll's overuse of the word "Marxist." Whether Stoll is a right wing activist, I don't know. (As he claims to be a scholar, I hope not.) But the words "the right" came up seldom while nearly everyone, from Allende in Chile to most of the guerilla groups came up as "Marxist." And that's all too often a devil term used to classify as "enemy" rather than to examine one's political or economic policies.

   Still, I recommend the book's analyses. I agree with Stoll that even the human rights movement is compelled to draw a good vs. evil distinction rather than examining the complexities of an issue; the academy these days has too much influence of the post-modernists who love to designate others as victims (thereby often freeing those who've done the designating from amending their own comfortable lifestyles to do anything about it).

   Indeed, to his credit, Stoll, in at least four places in the text, tries to examine why Rigoberta would have manufactured her story. He asks others too why they think she would do so. He niether frees her from the fallacy nor indicts her for perjury but examines. That attempt to understand her is particularly well-taken.

   I must confess too that, despite my appreciation for his analyses, I can give him at best three stars due to guilt by association. That right wing demagog David Horowitz in one of his tracts uses Rigoberta's fabrication as an excuse to refute human rights causes in general. Perhaps--again, ideally--Stoll did not intend that with his examination. But I can't help thinking of Horowitz's reference which I read before reading this work. And that doesn't help Stoll's credibility.

   If nothing else, if you read this volume, learn from the technique that the author uses to investigate a story, who he talks with and how he reaches a conclusion. If you come to different conclusions, as I have, more power to you.