5 comments about Real Men: Ten Courageous Americans to Know and Admire.

1. R. Cort Kirkwood's Real Men: Ten Courageous Americans to Know and Admire, is a fine introduction to too few of America's genuine heroes. A fine compliment to your child's education, itself obsessed with the "pussification" of American men.
   
   I would recommend using the chapters as an introduction only in deciding which hero to expand upon. My biggest (and only) fault with the book is it is too short and contains too few heroes.



2. really is pointless. As a christian, the violent ethics of these men remind me only of the most terrible days of our faith. crusading with blind faith in mortal leaders.



3. An enjoyable read... However, I'd pick some others were i writing this... Not that Author Kirkwood's ten are not great, and REAL MEN: Rickenbacker, Francis Marion, Vince Lombardi, Rocky Versace, Hickok, Gehrig, Audie Murphy, Crockett, Andrew Jackson, and Robert E. Lee. I do not agree with including Robert E. Lee among the ten greatest American Real Men. After all, great as he was, he not only resigned his USA commission, he Fought Against the US. I would want to include George Washington (greatest of all), George S. Patton, and Abraham Lincoln, who held this country together. I'd also like to see two courageous men who helped Washington win our freedom in the first place: Paul Revere and Dr. Joseph Warren (hero of Bunker Hill). Of course, Patrick Henry ("Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!!) merits consideration. Booker T. Washington is another great Virgnian/West Virginian who overcame great odds... Alas, we really need a book that says "Real Men: Twenty Courageous Americans..." How about it, Author Kirkwood?



4. This book is sort of like a Cliff Notes for the biographies of these great men. I would hope that anyone who reads this book maybe inspired to read a full length version of the lives of these men. The book is a quick read and I believe is targeted for high school or young adults. I would hope that anyone over 45 knows most of these men. Most of the previous reviewers had a pretty much accurate description of the book. You can finish the book in a night or two. I agree with most of the slant the author puts on the book and these men are truly heroes in the truest sense. The book has a very conservative leaning and is not politically correct in many areas. Many people use these boards to espouse their political views, I will not. You can judge for yourself how much you enjoyed the book.



5. I bought this book specifically for several teen age boys I know. As I read it prior to giving it away, I liked the accounts and the readers style in relating them. As a voracious reader of historical books I really liked the fact that it did not pull punches about the setting and explained the context of the stories as they were. In America today it is important to provide both narration of great deeds and the context they occurred in. The education system today is sadly lacking in promoting hero's and role models for young men. I would recommend this to anyone who has a son from the middle teens on and for young adults wanting to see history in short bites.

5 comments about Anne Frank: The Biography.

1. Many of my own impressions correspond to those in the Amazon capsule review, and I shall not repeat these. Older readers may not find the manner of writing to be especially appealing, because the presentation is very much in the 'young adult book' manner of expression. As well, those of us who have previously studied Anne Frank may find little that is truly original here. It nonetheless is a superb biography for young adult use, and should be very enlightening to those of any age who know Anne only from her diary.
   
   The author is frank and detailed about Anne's recollections and those of the people who knew her and her family, and there are many contributions from those in the latter group. She also is sensitive and insightful regarding factors in the diary which may be troubling, such as in outlining the circumstances which would have coloured Anne's highly negative comments about her mother and Mr Pfeffer. It is a well balanced presentation. The treatment of, for example, how the enforced, constant isolation, at the very age when one normally expands one's life beyond one's family, could have sparked Anne's strong irritation is accurate and delicate, and could be helpful to those who wish to use the book in a classroom.



2. I think this is a great book because it gives you history about Germany and the Nazi's. Yes, yes most of us have heard all about it. But this book had vivid images of unhumane things that were done to these human beings. I think this is a book that helps you realize that even now a days we have problems with our society. I think it's a book that shows you the tolerance people had in that time. Lastly I must confess that I have never cried by reading a book. However, when I finished readying this book I was sobing. It's a book that really touched me. I would definitly recomment it!



3. Anne Frank is the most interesting book I ever read. She has interesting life with her family and friends. And it talk about her diaries and letters, including the five missing pages were found in 1998. Melissa Muller is a good writer. This is a great book to read! Beware!! in this book, it talk about who betray the eight jews in the secret annex in 1944, were never been prove who were the actual person who betray them. Read the book "The Hidden of Otto Frank" and it has a theory that someone who betray them.
   The Emmy Award winning mini-series "Anne Frank" is the best mini-series I ever seen.



4. I recently went to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam which prompted me to reread the diary. When I was in my local bookstore I came across this book and bought it. I am glad i did.
   
   This book, while not telling me anything I hadn't really heard before somewhere in all the history books, manages to portray the living conditions of Jews before WII broke out in a simplistic manner. This biog gives a superb timeline as such, of the events preceding the Franks going into hiding.
   
   I also went to Dachau while in Germany, which affected me more than I thought it would, while reading about Anne's time in the camp. I knew before going to Europe and before reading Melissa Mullers book about the conditions the Nazi victims were kept in, but again this book pulled it all together. It may have been that I've been to a camp since reading anything on the subject or it may just have been the incredibly well detailed portrayal of it in this book (I suspect it may be both) but it was all brought home to me hard. As well as being detailed this became personal. In the epilogue Miep Gies writes she doesn't like to hear Anne Frank being labelled the face of the 6 million, but that is inevitable and I don't feel that it lessens the importance of any other victims.
   
   This is a superb biography and I recommend it be read in conjunction with Anne franks Diary. I also recommend visiting the Anne Frank House should you ever have the opportunity to be in Amsterdam



5. From the years of 1939 to 1945 mankind endured the darkest period of evil and brutality that has gone unparalleled in the modern (and ancient) era. One wicked man's irrational, murderous hatred and insatiable lust for power, combined with the cruel, sociopathic personalities of cowardly henchmen such as Hoess, Himmmler, Goering, and Eichmann, to name a mere few, swept the continent of Europe into total devastation and near destruction, destroying dreams and cancelling the futures of the soldiers who fought for both sides, those who were simple bystanders in bombing raids, and others who simply had the misfortune to be considered "undesirable" and who perished in inhumane, intolerable conditions in horrendous concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Dachau, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Neuengamme. The dreadfulness of their pain and the senseless of their deaths cannot be imagined, described, forgiven, or forgotten.

   One of the millions who was murdered during the Holocaust was Anne Frank, the young Jewish girl who lived in hiding with her older sister Margot, their parents Otto and Edith, Hermann and Auguste Van Pels, their son Peter, and Dr Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist, in Amsterdam, Holland, in the secret annexe of the office building which still stands at 263 Prinsengracht. As a literary work and historical document, Anne's diary is perhaps one of the most important volumes to emerge from the twentieth century. However, when reading it, one must remember that it was written by an ordinary teenage girl who was forced to exist under extraordinary and wearisome conditions that would have strained the patience of the Lord himself. Neither Anne nor her co-habitants saw anyone but each other and their benefactors day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out. Hence I feel that the above situation must be considered when reflecting on her often harsh views of her fellow annexe dwellers.

   Melissa Muller's book is a great companion to the diary but should not be read instead of it - to do this would be severely shortchanging to oneself. It provides a rounder, fuller narrative of the times, places, and people in Anne's life and of those that decided her fate. From the rise of the Nazi's and their use of bullying tactics as their tyranny and terrorism begins, to Anne's formative years, and a broader, wider, more objective description of the Frank's life in hiding. Particularly heartrending are the chapters in which Melissa Muller describes 4 August 1944, the day the annexe dwellers were arrested, betrayed, like Judas betrayed Jesus, for a symbolic twelve pieces of silver, and previously little known details of Anne's life in the death camps Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen as she bravely fought, and bravely lost, the battle for survival. The tears will fall as the words are read, as they will fall as we share the moment that Otto Frank learns of the terrible fate of his daughters. To lose a beloved spouse is bad enough, but to lose your child, to lose both your children, is an unfathomable and unimaginable grief that never fades even with the passage of many years. And Otto Frank was only one of many parents during the war whose children would never come home..............

   Yes, this is a great biography of Anne Frank, the Jewish teenager who became world famous because of her diary, who became world famous because she expired in a concentration camp. But Anne is not merely ashes or dust - her soul lives on. And what of her diary? Her diary, the contents of which she guarded so fiercely, has become a gift to millions.

5 comments about Perdita: The Literary, Theatrical, Scandalous Life of Mary Robinson.

1. mary robinson lived her life on her on term ,when woman were told there was only one path to follow,wife and mother.



2. The late 18th Century is a fascinating period of contradiction. The circumspect lives of George III and his wife are at odds at the so-called crème de la crème of society, including the Prince of Wales. Mary Robinson's life story reveals the opulent lifestyles, decadence, and life of privilege of England's aristocracy and nobles. A great commentary on this period.



3. For the eighteenth century, I suppose you could call her a great 'beauty' as she was privileged to be painted by the famous Gainsborough and other artists of that time. She was a social climber who had her own opera box complete with mirrors. As the actress portraying 'Perdita' in Shakespeare's "The Winter's Tale" she captured the fancy of George,the Prince of Wales, and became his mistress at the risk to her reputation and career. Had it happened in today's society, she could have married him and become royalty.
   
   Born in a former monastery in Bristol, England, on November 17, 1757, she was a notorious figure of society, theatre, and literary circles. She derived from Irish roots, she was the perfect 'Juliet.' After her betrayal (in which she produced letters to negotiate a future), she became ill with rheumatic fever and turned to writing Gothic novels. Living in the old ruins of a catheral as a lonely, introverted, sad child, she had a vivid imagination and used it in her books.
   
   She was a product of her time and used whatever wiles she had as a female to further her activities, whether in theatre, politics, royalty, celebrity writers or just her own poetry and fiction. She wrote a memoir of her sordid beginnings and sham of a marriage, which had allowed her to live a fashionable life in London for a short time, then to fall to the bottom of the ladder in debtors' prison. Her early years were one of abandonment and marriage one of infedilities. She had good teachers along the way.
   
   This was well researched and much effort put forth to show the truth, no matter how bad. Her triumphs were greater than her failures.



4. For those who enjoy the Regency period and life of George IV, this is one of the most perfect books to introduce you into the life of the period. It was a brief, intense and fascinating life which pushed the established mores to their limits.
   
   The Prince of Wales (lat to be George IV) became enamoured of Mary Robinson in her portrayal of Peridita in Shakespeare's, A Winter's Tale. She was a young actress, escaped from a bad marriage and strange father. She took to the stage for some income (as many women of the period did instead of taking up prostitution as such)
   
   The Prince of Wales became known as Florizel to Robinson's Perdita and she was his first 'major' mistress. Their lives intertwined for a brief period in his early adulthood - the beginning of what is known as the 'extended regency'. Robinson was then mistress to many of the influential peers of the time, and was even friends with Georgiana, the Duchess of Devonshire;
   
   At a time when Georgian morals were of questionable value (everything in private, nothing in public)- when profligacy, spending, appearance and general splendour were the order of the day - Mary Robinson orbited on at the perimetre of acceptability. An actress, an abadoned wife, a mistress, and more.
   
   I found this book overlong, but worth the effort to read. It is one of a series of books about women on the edge of society in this period, and has been great to build up a picture of life and living in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The author has gone to enormous efforts to track down information on Robinson, and it has paid off. There seems to be a good depth of research to back up the work. Overall a good read and well worth making the effort



5. I'll confess I would never have looked at this book if it hadn't been for the fact that I decided to read the 10 nominations for Richard and Judy's Best Read 2005.This book has been the biggest surprise of the lot,because, to be honest, I was not really looking forward to it.
   How wrong could I be ? This is a dazzling story of a fascinating woman. I am afraid to say the other biography in the Richard and Judy list,"Feel" by Chris Heath, which is all about pop singer Robbie Williams, comes off a very poor second when compared to this volume. Sadly of course there's no doubt which book will sell more.I wish all Robbie Williams fans, or indeed the fans of any of the over-hyped celebrities of today, would read this book and find out that maybe their hero's or heroine's exploits are not so special after all when compared to what the subject of this biography got up to.
   Mary Robinson, whose nickname was Perdita, was married at 15 and her marriage was something of a disaster and included spending some time in prison with her husband. She then made herself into one of London's most celebrated actresses and was a friend of the outstanding theatrical figures of the day.She became a leading figure in the glamorous high society of the city, reputedly being the most beautiful woman in Britain.She voluntarily gave up her theatrical career to become the mistress of the Prince of Wales, thus heightening her celebrity even further. Reading about this time of her life it appears that she was just as famous or infamous as any contemporary celebrity.Maybe more so.There are many obvious similarities.
   In the second half of the book the plot changes almost completely as Mary, after being ditched by her royal lover, re-invents herself as a writer. She is so successful in this enterprise that she becomes one of the leading lady literary figures of the era. She is primarily a poetess, but also writes plays, novels and political tracts and she becomes friendly with both leading political and cultural figures.
   It is an absolutely fascinating tale, made more moving perhaps by the fact that she was not lucky in love, suffered a debilitating illness for many years and finally died young at the age of 43.
   All this is retold in an easy and entertaining way by Paula Byrne and I would thoroughly recommend this book to anyone.

5 comments about In the Lion's Court: Power, Ambition, and Sudden Death in the Reign of Henry VIII.

1. In the last few years Henry seems to have become a popular subject for television and novels; most presenting him as a sympathetic figure, balked of true love. Wilson paints him as those who knew him best saw him, as a vicious tyrant. This is a refreshing (in the literal sense of the word) perspective. How did Henry rule, what did he expect from his chief ministers, how did they fulfill his wishes (and manage to fulfill their own) and what happened when they failed their royal master...these are the questions tackled here. A considerable amount of attention is devoted to the role that religion played at court.
   
   This is not a biography of Henry VIII, nor a history of Henry's life and times. The book presupposes the reader's knowledge of the highpoints of Henry's life and reign. It is not an overview of the Tudor period, and does not provide "a day in the life" perspective. It is not recommended for the reader who does not already know the general outline of the Tudor period. For those who do know, it provides excellent detail and reasoned perspective absent from more general works.



2. I've continued to check this book out of the library until I finally decided to buy a copy for my personal reference. Wilson uses primary accounts quite well and convincingly to practically examine the political affairs of Henry VIII's court. It has some surprising perspectives that aren't usually associated with Thomas Wolsey, Thomas More, and the notorious Thomas Howard. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone that has an enjoyment of Tudor England because the figures covered in this book were what put the Tudors on the European map. Wilson makes a pretty convincing argument to remember Henry's six thomases sooner than his six wives.



3. There is no doubt that Mr Wilson has been a serious student of the period and that his book is the result of many years of dedicated research. It is also clear that Wilson needed a good editor. In page after page, the book becomes a jumble of information. Each fact is presented well, but the overall impression is a confused and confusing piece of work.

   It has a lot of information, but it is undermined by poor narrative and the inability to simply tell the story. He has taken a complex topic addressed it in a complex manner and then failed to resolve the tension between detail and sweep.




4. Derek Wilson's book is a brave attempt to navigate through the thickets of the Henrician court by the device of writing intertwining biographies of six men all called Thomas. This makes a refreshing change from the usual six wives approach, though it is no substitute for the work of specialist historians such as JJ Scarisbrick and Diarmaid MacCulloch. The events the book describes are so extraordinary that even a reader familiar with their outline will find it hard not to keep turning the pages like the latest thriller. Sadly Wilson's prose is too often reminiscent of that genre. The recourse to slang terms and irrelevant modern analogies is tiresome.

   More serious to this reader is Wilson's blatant hostility to Thomas More. No opportunity is missed to disparage More, usually for his involvement in persecuting heretics. At the same time he offers every extenuation for equally unsavoury conduct by Wilson's heroes (comparatively speaking), Cromwell and Cranmer. Tellingly, More's early biographers, and indeed most of his recent ones, are dismissed as hagiographers, but Protestant martyrologist, John Foxe, is often quoted as a generally reliable source.

   Underlying this seems to be an old-fashioned view of the English Reformation as the eventual triumph of light over darkness. Wilson affects even-handedness or even aloof amusement at the religious controversies which dominated Henry's reign. However his sneering tone when dealing with Catholic practices and the 'reactionaries' who defended them and his repeated likening of reformed England to newly liberated Eastern Europe rather give the game away.

   Even leaving aside the doctrinal issues involved, the cultural destruction brought about by the Reformation should cause all civilised people a shiver of horror. Centuries of art, liturgical craftswork, architecture, literature and music (because of the 'blasphemous' illuminations or 'idolatrous' texts) were destroyed in a matter of years by Cromwell's henchmen.

   Wilson is aware of the work of historians such as Eamon Duffy and Christopher Haigh, which suggests that pre-Reformation Catholicism was a popular and successful system and that the Reformation was imposed by an elite on a largely resentful population. However, he dismisses such arguments as "special pleading".

   The above cavils will obviously annoy some readers more than others and Wilson's book is still recommended reading to anyone interested in Henrician politics.




5. I recently read Alison Weir's "Henry VIII: The King And His Court" and it was interesting to read Derek Wilson's book covering Henry's reign, but looked at from a different perspective. Ms. Weir concentrated more on people and personalities, especially Henry's wives. Mr. Wilson chose to concentrate more on politics and religion. Both books are rewarding and since the approach taken by each author is different you get a fuller picture of the times by reading both.I suppose the main thought you are left with after reading Mr. Wilson's book is what a precarious existence anyone connected with Henry's court led! We are not just talking about his wives but anyone involved in the political or religious life of the court. As Henry got older and his once robust health began to deteriorate he became very moody and unpredictable. Both Wilson and Weir make the point that Henry was very athletic up until he was about 40 years old or so. He was a very vain man and could not accept his physical decline. He was also used to getting his own way and couldn't tolerate it when his desires and wishes were thwarted. He could be genial one moment and lash out verbally or physically the next. He could be ruthless if he felt that you couldn't give him what he wanted. In that case you were disposable- as several wives found out, as well as people such as Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell. You come away wondering why anyone would marry this man or choose to work for him. It was like being next to a ticking timebomb.....One example will suffice to show that there were seemingly no limits to Henry's ruthlessness. When he was intent on having his son as his heir he wanted his daughter Mary (by Catherine of Aragon) to assure him that she would not "give any trouble" about the succession. He sent over Thomas Cromwell and the Duke of Norfolk to play "good cop, bad cop". Cromwell was the "good cop" and when it became clear that his approach wasn't doing the trick, Norfolk screamed at Mary and told her that if "she were his daughter he would smash her head against the wall until it was as soft as a boiled apple".Violent times they were, and filled with violent people. Henry, without flinching, would allow the burning of "heretics", including digging up someone found after death to have been a "heretic" and having the corpse burned. You could be sent to the Tower of London at the drop of a hat, and be in constant fear that it was not only your hat that might drop off....Try both of these books, as they complement each ther nicely and are in no way redundant. I don't think you will be disappointed!

2 comments about The Book of Margery Kempe: The Autobiography of the Madwoman of God (Triumph Classic).

1. Margery Kempe was an extraordinary and driven woman who lived in a time (1373~1440s) when that was nearly unheard of, and certainly not recorded for the present generation. Her book is generally accorded to be the first autobiography written in English, an amazing feat considering she was a woman, and that she could neither read nor write. In her narration to a scribe, she described her spiritual journey through life and her love of God, and in the process gives us a glimpse of the historical world that she lived in. It is translated from old english and is broken into many small, loosely-chronological chapters, each describing an aspect of some incident or journey.

   If you are interested in medieval history, Christianity, mysticism or feminism, this is a great book to try. Its format might be a little hard to get into at first, because it is written in the third person and jumps about from topic to topic, but the introduction should fill you in on most aspects - the only problem is that this introduction is more geared towards sensationalizing Margery's experience, rather than celebrating it. Some readers do feel that Margery was mentally ill because of her wild devotional behaviors and her abnormal lifestyle, but it is equally regarded that her panache, courage and true love of her deity that made her so different.

   Margery Kempe was an eccentric wandering pilgrim for most of the time covered in the book, and she shares her exploits such as being tried for heresy before powerful men like the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, fighting and winning the right to a chaste marriage from her husband, going on Pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Rome with a group that despised her, getting chased out of towns and made fun of by monks. It also includes the spiritual side, which include Margery's direct conversations with God, her explanations of her loud, uncontrollable crying fits, her passionate love of Jesus and her knowledge of Catholic and Biblical doctrine.

   The Book of Margery Kempe has been translated and introduced by many different authors, and it would be my suggestion to find one other than this if you're interested in Margery - such as the one by Penguin Classics translated by B.A. Windeatt - ones that use research and scholarship rather than sensationalism to bolster the amazing story of this historical figure.




2. This book manages to be of interest to anyone who wishes a travelogue of medieval pilgrimages, a humble recognition that even the oddest among us can have their minds very occupied with the divine, a look at the first autobiography of an English woman, or a case study in obsessive compulsive behaviour. Margery's disjointed recollections, coupled with her constant references to her revelations and retroactive "virginity," admittedly are not a fun pursuit, but her extreme case does seem to place much of the deficiencies inherited from the worst in medieval spirituality (a legacy of the Plague ... even if the best of the era was the finest in history) into perspective. I guarantee that, while one may find Margery as troublesome as did those of her time and place, one will never find her recollections dull.

3 comments about Trains of Thought: Paris to Omaha Beach, Memories of a Wartime Youth.

1. I first heard of Victor Brombert as a lecturer on Flaubert, Tolstoy, Sartre, Woolf, Conrad and others for the Teaching Company some years ago. His depth and range were therefore first an aural experience for me, rather than one taken from a book. His easy and remarkable way with the English language (by my reckoning at least his fourth, after Russian, German and French) was an experience to be relived again and again. When I read these memoirs, I found them to be at once intimate and self-effacing, while providing a valuable historical lesson as he spun out his early years. I envy those who had the experience, either at Yale or Princeton, to be his student. I also envy someone who can use his fourth language with the musicality and depth of feeling that few can do with their first. Brombert's Trains of Thought succeeds on all levels.



2. How could a book writen by a good writer and a interesting man, with great subjects, books, history, education, ever be so boring? If this is what memoirs have come down to they need to be outlawed. I understand that writing about oneself is difficult indeed, and very few have pulled it off, but this is brutal. This gets my worse book of the year award. 0 stars



3. Books, education, thinking, and even history itself, have been collectively buried under. There is too much undifferentiated mush, a constant rush of gabbing plenty at the beleaguered individual. From under the rubble comes Victor Brombert's valiant memoir, a classic of pinpoint remembrance, a fully humane celebration of the potency of, well, something or other. For "Trains of Thought" is profoundly self-deprecating, a miraculous occurence for a fully vested professor of the highest rank. Brombert's magisterial touch with the very act of writing brings the proper lighting to every cinematic scene. "Trains of Thought" is a gift to succeeding generations, to the remaining intelligentsia, and to states whose recent horrid past is so little understood. Scholarly work on World War II, filling ocean tankers by now, cannot approach the vivid yet conflicted remembrances of a participant/onlooker. Surely there is an element of delusion in Brombert's infatuation with the representations of high culture as they apply to immense political events, but all human affairs are conducted with such vainglorious positionings. This is a towering memoir, in a almost literal sense - humanity has the chance, through this book, to look down upon the events of those times, and see what it couldn't see before: itself. Families. Schools. Boys and girls. Social events. Mass political insanity. Fathers and mothers. Death. Survival.

1 comments about Albert Speer: Conversations with Hitler's Architect.

1. In some ways this is more phycological than historical. While the facts are all there, at least all the fact that Speer allowed them to be told, it is the authors presentation of the facts that is so interesting. At every step of the unfolding drama of Speer's life, the author challenges the facts in an effort to get Speer to reveal more of his knowledge and, ultimately, his responsibility for the actions of the Third Reich. While it never really becomes clear what Speer knew and when he knew it, we do begin to understand where Speer is most sensitive to the author's probes and, as a consequence, where Speer could be hiding some detail. All in all it is a fascinating portrait of one of the key insiders to Hitler's Germany. We learn who he distrusted, who he thought stupid and who he admired. Speer was also not above gossip, particularly in his recounting of Hitler's relationship with Winifred Wagner. While this book is not a true biography of Speer, it is a fine phycological portrait of the man.

No comments about Voltaire: The Universal Man.

2 comments about In the Lion's Den: The Life of Oswald Rufeisen.

1. "In the Lion's Den: The Life of Oswald Rufeisen" may be the most amazing, gripping book I've read. On many pages I was gasping or crying; my heart was pounding, my gut, churning. Oswald Rufeisen is one of the most unforgettable human beings I've ever encountered in the pages of a book. That this book is not more widely read, known, and available is unfortunate, to say the least.
   
   Had this book been fiction, not only would I have never been able to accord it willing suspension of disbelief, I would have protested its publication. The story is that outlandish.
   
   Oswald Rufeisen was born to an undistinguished couple. His mother was an old maid; an apparent arranged marriage wed her to a younger, distant cousin. The family was poor and often in debt. They lived in a provincial backwater. Their first child died in infancy. The second child, Oswald, was short, unobtrusive, and not especially handsome.
   
   Oswald's family's life changed forever, along with millions of others, on September 1, 1939, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland. The Rufeisen family hit the road, along with other evacuees. His parents, too exhausted to go on, stopped. Oswald would discover, after the war, that his parents probably were murdered in Auschwitz.
   
   Oswald and his brother had begun their escape from Nazis in southwest Poland; they kept moving east and north, to Lwow, now in Ukraine, and then to Wilno, now in Lithuania.
   
   This region, the "kresy," was a site of deadly crossfire. As Germans advanced from the West, Soviets advanced from the East. Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians felt sometimes deadly hostility toward Poles. Nazis and Soviets did all they could to divide and conquer. Jews, of course, were targeted for complete extermination.
   
   Eventually, through a series of incredible coincidences, Oswald Rufeisen, a Jewish teenager escaping the Nazis, adrift in this terrifying ocean of conflict, became a Jewish slave laborer for Nazis, an SS interpreter, the organizer of a Ghetto revolt and escape, a forest-dwelling partisan, a Catholic monk, and then priest, and, finally, he would make aliyah to Israel, and thereby challenge the Law of Return and concepts of both Jewish identity and the nature of Christianity.
   
   The book does not depict Rufeisen as someone seeking adventure or heroism; in fact, author Tec reports he resisted publicity. Rather, fate seems to be a palpable force in his life. When he was a slave laborer, cobbling shoes for Nazis who threatened him with death were he ever to get sick and stop being productive, a Polish peasant passing in a wagon made eye contact with him. That peasant invited him onto his wagon, warned him that the Nazis were murdering all Jews, and invited him to hide out on the peasant's farm.
   
   Through that unsolicited rescue, Rufeisen eventually began to pass as a German. One event followed another, and finally he became the right-hand-man of the Nazi in charge of eliminating Jews from the district. Photos of Rufeisen reveal a boy with marked Semitic features, and, in fact, people were constantly calling him out as Jewish, and yet his German was so fluent, and his manners so reflective of German culture, that even those who met him face to face would, in later years, remark, "Oh, Oswald could pass as a German because he was tall, blond, and Nordic looking." Even a visit to a public bath, where a certain giveaway feature of Jewish manhood was on full display, did not ruin his disguise.
   
   That fate seemed to play a major role in his life is not to belittle Rufeisen's heroism. Again, though very much not the stereotypical dashing or vainglorious action hero, Rufeisen's basic, common decency caused him to do heroic things, from carefully laying aside one piece of bread from his meager food ration so that he could share it with a friend, to organizing a ghetto revolt under the nose of his Nazi superior.
   
   The moral jigsaw puzzle of the SS scenes boggles the mind. At one point, Rufeisen orchestrated the killing of a retarded boy in order to save many others from death. Rufeisen speaks of the genuine respect and affection between him and his Nazi superior.
   
   After the war, Rufeisen became, not just a Christian, but a monk. This caused his Jewish friends much distress. While admitting his wartime heroism, and the excellent mind of a man who survived by his wits and was fluent in eight languages, they attributed his Christianity, alternately, to stupidity, mental illness, childishness, and other factors that reveal an unfortunate amount of prejudice.
   
   Publication of this book lead to England's first war crimes trial. 84 year old Szymon Serafinowicz who immigrated to England after the war, was exposed by the book. He was judged to be suffering from Alzheimer's and was not tried.
   
   A student of the Holocaust cannot help but notice this book's demonstration of a frequently mentioned principle: while it took only one non-Jew to denounce a Jew, it took many to support that Jew's survival. Again and again, Rufeisen was fed, sheltered, and protected by Poles, Belorussians, and others, though they know him to be Jewish, and though those who defied Nazi law faced death. In one instance, a fellow hitchhiker Rufeisen had just met stepped forward and vouched for his not being Jewish. Even a known collaborator declined to denounce Rufeisen. The man who eventually did hand Rufeisen over to Nazis was himself Jewish. Perhaps he thought this would protect him; it didn't; that man was almost immediately killed.
   
   This anecdotal evidence jibes with Gunnar S. Paulsson's 2003 book, "Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw." Paulsson, child of a Holocaust survivor and a fellow at the US Holocaust Museum, argues that approximately seventy to ninety thousand non-Jewish Warsaw residents, in one way or another, made existence possible for 28,000 Jews who lived hidden lives in non-Jewish Warsaw during Nazi occupation.



2. It is seldom that one can view the depth of a human soul written by such a talented author. The book reads like a novel but has the pull of truth. I found it difficult to put down and wanted to share the incredible experience with others. It is worth the time to find a copy of the book. But, I warn you, you will want to own the book after reading it.

No comments about Hadrian: Empire and Conflict. Thorsten Opper.