5 comments about Journey into the Whirlwind (Helen and Kurt Wolff Books).

1. This is a book I probably wouldn't have read at all, but it was a book club selection at our local university, Ferris State. Considering the awful and primitive conditions of Ginzburg's 20-year ordeal, the writing is very genteel, and even peppered with quotations from various Soviet poets and writers, and even some original verse from the author herself, which she composed to break the monotony and dreariness of her two years of solitary. The 18 yrs she spent subsequently in the Siberian labor camps of the Stalinist era is given less attention, but the horrors and the dangers - of starvation, rape and all manner of brutalizations - are made clear enough. I found it odd, and surprisingly refreshing, that, in spite of its subject, the language of the book remains G-rated, perhaps because of when the book was written (first published in 1967), but more probably because it is, as Ginzburg states at the close of her narrative, "the story of an ordinary Communist woman during the period of the 'personality cult'." There is nothing ordinary about Eugenia Ginzburg though; to pampered westerners like us, her story is nothing short of extraordinary. She survived several brushes with death and remained a loyal Communist, living into her 80s. - Tim Bazzett, author of Love, War & Polio



2. The mindset and belief system of the early Soviet Union, as defined by the Bolsheviks' neurotic obsession with the ideals of perpetual revolution and the existence of nigh-infinite capitalist and ideological foes that constantly threatened the continued subsistence of the Soviet entity, cannot realistically be classed as rational or conducive to internal stability; with nervous eyes turned forever to the capitalist West, it was only a matter of time before terror of internal enemies gripped the Soviet hierarchy. When, in 1934, Sergey Kirov, a top Party official in Leningrad, was assassinated under dubious and mysterious circumstances, Josef Stalin, then leader of the Soviet Union, took advantage of the killing in order to brew an intense horror in the hearts of the Russian people; no longer simply assailed by their external Capitalist foes, Stalin led the people to believe that they were also threatened by more dangerous enemies with the Communist Party itself. Using the killing of Kirov and the ideal of internal foes, Stalin was able to launch a brutal and hideous campaign to eliminate dissenters with the Party, while numerous innocent Party members found their lives obliterated as they were caught in what has become known as the "Great Purge." First thrown out of the Party on charges most often both false and ludicrous, these unfortunate souls then found themselves jailed under horrific circumstances, many being sent to perish in labor camps in remote Siberia; by the time of Stalin's death, roughly 5 million Party members had been detained in such a way. Eugenia Ginzburg, an editor for a newspaper in Kazan, was one such victim of Stalin's senseless purges; arrested in 1937 following years of police harassment, Ginzburg was sent to numerous prisons where she endured abysmal treatment before finally being detained in Siberia until 1953. In documenting her horrific ordeal, Ginzburg amply addressed not only the confusion of the purges and the inhumanity of the prisons, but also explored the sheer motivating power of fear in the actions of all classes and ranks; irrational fear, it is shown, was what ultimately fueled the escalating madness and accusations, and destroyed forever the lives of so many.
   At the time of Kirov's assassination, Eugenia Ginzburg was leading a successful life as a member of the Communist Party, even marrying a top Communist official of Kazan. As she so eloquently and persistently notes throughout the account of her struggles, Ginzburg was nothing save a loyal and dedicated Communist, adhering to and accepting the Party's line of policy. Such an upstanding member of society surely could not have been dragged into the insanity of the purges, yet she was; although she amply demonstrates her loyalty to the Party and complies fully with her early accusers, vying to convince them of her ideological orthodoxy, she is nonetheless made the recipient of increasingly outlandish charges. This is pivotal, as the reader begins to understand all along that the purges were not, as popular rhetoric espoused, an attack upon dissenting and criminal elements within the party, but a monstrous, all-consuming, bloodletting of the entire Party in which any and all could become victims; even the officials that prosecuted the accused and the guards who abused them often found themselves becoming victims themselves and sharing prisons with those they had wrongly imprisoned. Even the wife who, out of blind loyalty to the Party, denounces her husband when he is arrested as a traitor is herself later accused and jailed. Similarly disturbing is the fact that mere association, however indirect, with anyone suspected of being a traitor was enough to end one's life and lead to one's arrest; Ginzburg's brief association with Elvov, who was himself wrongly accused of treachery, was the key factor in her expulsion from the Party and subsequent sufferings. As such accusations by association continued, the purges assumed the heir and hysteria of a witch hunt, with friend turning against friend in desperate self-preservation; Ginzburg is herself forced to endure the treachery of one of her greatest friends, who under pressure and in looking after her own interests validates the charges leveled against Ginzburg. It is perhaps one of Ginzburg's most admirable qualities to never herself accuse any innocents in the way she was denounced. Gripped by such extreme levels of terror and paranoia, the Communist Party simply turned its aggressions upon itself, fueling a terrible madness that only grew in intensity and senselessness the longer it continued. Indeed, these purges served only to weaken the Communist party, greatly harm the economy and agriculture, and, more vitally, to drive away potential members who were horrified at the thought of being caught in the killings. Far from strengthening the Party by eliminating its enemies, Stalins purges only weakened it and left it with a cloying odor of death and suspicion. The pervasive influence of fear is evident throughout the account, and it is quite apparent the even the most vile interrogators or guards likely act as they do out of fear for their own lives, often to no avail. So it was that Stalin's terrorism against his own people drove those within his own government to new heights of irrationality, cruelty, and falseness.
   In detailing her early troubles before her arrest, Ginzburg, despite her continued assertions of loyalty and railings against the absurdity of the suspicion laid upon her, is accused of increasingly severe charges ranging from "lack of vigilance" to a later accusation of being the ringleader of a terrorist network; yet all the while Ginzburg remains devoted to the Party, refusing the advice of her mother and friends to flee, desperately believing that she could clear her name through the legal practice. This naivety, or refusal to recognize the reality of the situation or to see fault with the Party, led ultimately to Ginzburg's travails; most commonly, those wrongly accused believed their case merely to be a correctable mistake, while the innumerable others locked away must surely have been truly guilty. In her continued astonishment at the absurdity and irrationality of the process of the purges, Gunzburg vividly illustrates the clash of a ration mind with an inherently irrational and violent system. The level of ignorance toward the intent of the purges is perhaps best illustrated when Ginzburg learns that the vans she sees throughout city do not carry milk as he had believed, but instead contained prisoners; the unwillingness to see or believe in impending doom led many to their demise in this period. Even Ginzburg's disdain for Stalin, the worship of whom by the persons around him genuinely disturbing her, was not enough to overcome her deadly faith in the Party.
   Of particular note throughout Ginzburg's account is the juxtaposition of the illegal and immoral force, coercion, and violence of the purges with the absurd pursuit of legality by the interrogators. Although the interrogators and other accusers know the charges leveled again those such as Ginzburg are false, or that their "confessions" are similarly falsified, they nonetheless insist upon obtaining real signatures for said false documents. When the prisoners refuse, they are subjected to various forms of physical and mental abuse, ranging from extended periods of intense interrogation with food or rest to more wrenching mentions of the prisoners' families. Many interrogators work themselves into murderous rages in pursuit of signatures for their false confessions, perhaps out of fear of not obtaining them or out of sheer contradictory nature. One cannot but be amazed at the level of bureaucratization of the purges, an essentially illogical and illegal proceeding; like the Holocaust, it is disturbingly evident that the central government held no reservations for their actions, nor any desire to bury them away. It is the ability to carry on such an open and grand persecution that perhaps best illustrates Stalin's immense dominion at the time, a dominion he gained through overt terror such as that which Ginzburg encounters.
   Although Ginzburg wrote her account of her imprisonment and travails, during which she learned that relationships formed in such horrific circumstances often proved closer than any others and that when reduced to such a state all people must be accepted, her memory of complex events and names astounds the reader; names of those that Ginzburg only ephemerally interacted with decades ago are still fresh in her mind, as are conversations and poems. One may deduce that such extreme and trying events as those experienced by Ginzburg indelibly imprint themselves upon the mind forever, as evidenced the Ginzburg's ability to produce entire sections of books from her mind at command; one could simply never forget such vivid suffering or trial. That, then, is the most important aspect of Ginzburg's account. The Soviet purges, a terrible period of internal destruction and death on a massive scale, is here presented in all its horror and grittiness from the perspective of one who endured them personally; in this way, such a monstrous and massive event becomes personal, thus far more moving and instructional.



3. This was a very good book, one of the best I had read about people sentenced to prison. Most of the books in this genre have been written by men, it was nice to see Eugenia Ginzburg give a woman's perspective. She tells a very touching tale & every page you feel closer to this brave / intelligent woman. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn was the most recent book I have read on the same topic. This is also a very good book but I would say I preferred "Journey into the Whirlwind" a little more just because it was one person's personal tale & I think her translator did a very good book translating this book into English.
   
   I did have a few minor questions & if you haven't read this book you may want to stop reading here ....
   
   What I wanted to know as I was reading the book & never did find out by the end of the story was : 1) She mentions her husband countless times through the book but you never find out what happens to him. 2) She has two children that she is separated from while they are young - you never do hear what happens to them & how they get together (if they do). She does mention in the epilogue that she wrote things intending to give them to her grandchildren so I assume she gets reunited with her children & lives to see her grandchildren. 3) She is sentenced to a 10 term & 417 out of 418 pages total are dedicated to her first three years in captivity - the last page is an epilogue that says she ended up serving 18 years in total. It doesn't say why she ended up serving 8 extra years & really 15 of her 18 years in captivity aren't even mentioned in the story.
   
   If you haven't read this book don't let these last few points stop you from reading her story - you would be missing out on a great read.



4. This book reminded me of Holocaust accounts and the novel 1984, but it surpassed both of them in terms of what humanity is capable of. It is simply unthinkable that Ginzburg could be put into jail and tortured by the party that she was devoutly loyal to, and that she could hold out hope and stick to her moral values for so long. The stories of some of the prisoners are heart wrenching- escaping the Gestapo only to be sent to the gulag, or having your son raised essentially his entire life in jail after jail. This memoir illustrates the whole range of human capability from the evil party leaders, the spiteful accusers (life-ruiners), the brainwashed party followers, and the disillusioned survivors.



5. Eugenia "Genie" Semyonovna Ginzburg spent seventeen years in the Soviet prison system, escaping death, unlike millions of others. She never again saw her husband after being imprisoned. The Gulag Archipelago by Solzhenitsyn, Man is Wolf to Man by Bardach, Kolyma Tales by Shalamov and Journey into the Whirlwind all include overlapping and similar information, but differ in format and style (although hers is most similar to Man is Wolf to Man in its telling). Her memoir of life in the Gulag is one of few written by women and so provides a unique and interesting perspective. All are fantastic books, well-written, often unbelievable and mesmerizing, but there is a noticeable difference between the multi-volume The Gulag Archipelago and Journey into the Whirlwind (seemingly short at just over 400 pages).
   
   Genie is first brought in for questioning in 1934. With her young children in the other room and her husband away on business, she takes the call. Her beliefs at that time are such that she would willingly die for the party. Soon thereafter, she is incarcerated at Black Lake and is eventually sentenced to ten years of solitary confinement for not denouncing a coworker who had written an article offensive to the party.
   
   During her interrogation sessions, in which she repeatedly refuses to "denounce" that is, lie, about the activities of acquaintances facing the same fate, she comes face to face with people who she thought were friends, but who have willingly denounced her in hopes of receiving special treatment, or lighter sentences. She herself never caves. Some of the interesting and different information found in her telling of life in the prison system during Stalin's rule, she is able to provide information about life within prison and receive information about the outside world using (coded) "Aesopian Language." Prisoners also use a system of knocks to communicate messages to one another and keep track of goings on within the prison and the status of their prison mates. Although it's a boring, lonely, (she has one cell mate most of the time), damp, horrible, hungry life, she survives long enough to be sent to Kolyma, where she realizes just how "good" she'd had it in solitary confinement. What she recounts from Kolyma is similar in many instances to the recollections of other Gulag prisoners, except for anecdotes referring specifically to life among the women.
   
   Readers who enjoyed the aforementioned books should include Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum, which provides a general overview of the prison system, in their list of companion reads.

5 comments about Churchill: A Life.

1. From 1962 until now Martin Gilbert is officially the biographer of Winston S. Churchill.
   His narrative is complete from Victoria England into his forays of World War I onto the offices he held in the 1920's, which included living at 11 Downing Street, when he held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.
   Martin Gilbert goes into detail of Winston's wilderness years and explains the reasons of his inability to gain high office. His take of Winston during the fight for survival and his dealings with FDR are insightful.
   Gilbert's take on the life and times of a very active and dynamic person as Winston Churchill shows no bias. Gilbert shows Churchill's entire work as a politician, orator, journalist, writer and historian not to mention artist and bricklayer.
   Of all the biographies of Winston Churchill I must take as gospel that Martin Gilbert has covered most aspects dealing with this great behemoth of the 20th Century. I rate this work at 5 Stars. I, however do confess that the 2 books written by William Manchester were far more interesting and entertaining. The intellectual professional historian will disagree. But I am but a common man! Gilbert's work was a good read.



2. This book is a wonderful achievement, and paints a portrait of one of the 20th Century's most decisive political figures. List the top five and you would have Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, and perhaps Gandhi and Mao, but Churchill would have to be in the top five by almost any reckoning. By that token, almost anyone interested in the political and military history of the Century ought to have an interest in Winston.
   
   There is more to Winston, however, than just the War, which in any case we should not mention for fear of upsetting the German guests. His life is an exciting enough story in its own right. Born to a great Parliamentarian, he was probably fated to be another significant figure whatever happened, but Churchill had a habit of making political enemies, as the book clearly documents. On the other hand, he was a genuinely larger-than-life character in his own right, and probably irrepressible. At any rate, this biography provides enough material to speculate either way. This is a man who left a comfortable seat in Parliament to join a unit in the trenches of France in the Great War, for instance, although he clearly did not find it that great and came away with impressions of modern technological warfare which he desperately tried to share in the following decade. These impressions began to form even earlier, when he joined the Boer War as a correspondent and simply could not keep himself from leading the troops he was meant to be reporting upon. When captured, Churchill alone escaped, stowed away in a railway wagon full of coal sacks and when he reached a British Consulate, practically his first act was to telegraph the camp commander to exonerate the Boer guards of responsibility for his flight. Clearly this is a many of rare qualities and needs to be read for his personal merits alone, let alone his place in history!
   
   The book is perhaps a little heavy-going on account of its near 1,000 pages, but leavened with Churchill's familiar wit. Churchill is often abused by the right in justification of the latest proposed war, and by the left as an imperialist and gasser of Iraqis, but this account paints a picture of the Churchill the British grew up with - the lone and indefatigable hero steering the country through a shared destiny, indomitable in public but occasionally plagued with doubt in private. The great irony of his life may be that he was to lead a war that he felt to have been unnecessary and that, having passed on, his name is invoked again and again to justify more unnecessary wars of which he would undoubtedly have disapproved. The boom reveals this magnanimous and conciliatory side, as well; no petty bully of the weaker or the defeated was Winston.
   
   While it documents a whole life, when considering Churchill we will always come back to his wartime premiership, and rightly so. The lasting impression which this excellent biography leaves is that history itself knew this and was preparing him. No matter what scrapes and adventures he thrust himself into, he survived to meet his date with destiny, and this book makes you feel that he was being saved for it.



3. There are biographies and then there are biographies! This is one of those that belong on that lofty summit above those that try to ascend to such heights but fail miserably because they are either rather dull bios about rather dull people or the biographer is simply not up to the task. Martin Gilbert is most definitely up to the task and more.
   
   This is an abridgment of the eight-volume edition written by Winston Churchill's official biographer Sir Martin Gilbert. I was rather reluctant to buy it because it looked rather daunting being 959 pages long but wanting to know more about Sir Winston Churchill my curiosity finally got the better of me. Not only did this book reveal things about Sir Winston that I did and did not know but also the author's prose and vocabulary made this an absolute pleasure to read. I was very reluctant to finish this book simply because I wanted more to read. If you don't know much about Winston Churchill then this is the book to get. Even if you do know quite a bit about Sir Winston Churchill I'm sure you'll find a few things in here that you may not have known. If you are looking for bios that are well written, or any book that is, then this is one for you. Buy it and enjoy!



4. Even the most historically illiterate students are familiar with the role Winston Churchill played in the victory over Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, many students of history remain uninformed of the true breadth and scope of his life. This work, a condensation of Martin Gilbert's earlier two volume history, is an excellent antidote for such ignorance.
   
   It is no exaggeration to credit Winston Churchill for the survival of England in the years between the fall of France and the U.S. entry in the conflict with Germany and Japan. Such was the lingering horror of the events of World War I, that Churchill was virtually alone in fighting the appeasement policies of his own government which contributed to the early success of Nazi Germany.
   
   But, it should be noted that Winston Churchill was in his mid-60s when he became Prime Minister of a coalition government formed to prosecute the war with the Axis powers. He already had 40 years of parliamentary service under his belt, stints as First Lord of the Admiralty during World War I (where he presided over the disastrous Gallipoli campaign) and Chancellor of the Exchequer, service in the trenches of World War I as well as the Boer War and the Sudan campaign, time as both a war correspondent and published author.
   
   Despite this nearly unprecedented scope of accomplishments, were it not for the rise of Nazi Germany and Adolph Hitler, he would be virtually unknown outside the realm of British historians. For, as great protagonists and great events are required to bring out the greatness of our heroes (Grant needed Lee, Caesar, Pompeii), none is a better example of this than Winston Churchill.
   
   Were it not for Adolph Hitler, Churchill would have likely served out his later parliamentary years as little more than a back bench Conservative crank, labeled as a warmonger and kept on the fringes of party politics. Even in the months preceding the invasion of Poland, Churchill was kept outside of the Cabinet of his own party's government. He was never neatly pigeonholed in the existing English party system. It was only the formation of a coalition government that allowed his ascension to the Prime Ministership. As it was, the perfect combination of personalities and events allowed Churchill to achieve greatness on a historical scale. It is no accident that almost immediately following successful conclusion of the war, Churchill and the Conservative party were bounced from power by the Labour Party, only to be returned to face the Soviet Union in the early stages of the Cold War. Churchill was a "crisis" manager and ill suited for periods of peace and tranquility.
   
   As a man in his late 60s and early 70s, Churchill displayed an endurance and a level of accomplishments nearly unprecedented in human history. Consider that he likely logged more miles of travel (both in the air and on sea, during a time of great danger for each) and wrote and published more works of literature than nearly anyone else alive during a period when he was quite literally standing alone in what was almost a personal fight for the continued existence of the British Empire. The catalog of heart attacks and strokes suffered and recovered from are a source of absolute amazement
   
   Now, it is a common failing of many biographers to enhance the accomplishments and gloss over he failings of their subjects, and I doubt not that Gilbert has done so here. However, the historical record is quite clear and Churchill's life and accomplishments are well documented. His love of the grog is rarely mentioned, though it was obviously a personal vice which he passed on to his children. His relationship with his wife seems quite unusual, though perhaps not so in the context of Victorian and early 20th century upper class English society.
   
   Gilbert's writing style consists almost entirely of reference to and quotation from letters, diary entries and other correspondence to, from and about Churchill. While this would seem to create a work both choppy and halting, it is quite the opposite. Gilbert does a masterful job splicing these observations into historical events and produces a smoothly flowing and captivating narrative which should be required reading for any serious student of modern history.



5. If you are new to Churchill - this is the book to buy - its in paperback which is a drawback, however the skill Sir Martin has put into this compliation and chronology of his works on Churchill make this one to read, have and use for study.
   
   It has many quotes and not all from Churchill along with some amazing photos.

5 comments about The Jim Morrison Scrapbook.

1. I am a big fan of the Doors, and Jim Morrison (went to his grave in Pere La Chaise twice) and I had long been looking for a coffee table book on Jim that was both interesting to look at and a fine read, too. This pop-up book has pockets and slides of letters, photos and mementos so well reproduced they look like originals; it's a must-have for anyone who loves arts and crafts and The Doors! Enjoy it!!



2. The Jim Morrison Scrapbook *****
   
   With the abundance of material that has been released and re-released and alternately released from the Jim Morrison estate in the past decade very little of it has been any good. It is mostly things that had already been released on one thing or another deeming it pointless to own, but not The Jim Morrison Scrapbook. Oh-no! This is phenomenal and a must have for Doors-geeks like myself. This shows sides of Morrison rarely or never shown.
   
   Chronicling the genius from birth, poet, songwriter, lover, performer, and death. This is a book explaining all of those things about the man, but with actually tangible documents like his will, report cards, letters, his handwritten lyrics, rare seen photos; some of which have never been released to the mass public.
   
   The Jim Morrison Scrapbook is the first in a series of "scrapbooks" being released of famous legends. As of right now a Bob Dylan, and John Lennon version is also available. This is essential for all rock fans! A must read!



3. I am a devoted Jim Morrison/Doors fan but wasn't aware of this book until my nephew mentioned it to me while we were at a Ozzie/Rob Zombie concert. I promised to give it to him for his birthday. I bought it from Amazon and before I wrapped it I spent at least two hours going through it. This is the most well-conceived, cohesive, unbelievably put-together book I have ever seen. I could not stop going through it and taking all the papers out of their pockets and reading Jim Morrison's letters to his mother, report cards, letters to Jim from his pastor, teachers, etc. Every insert looks like the original document. I cannot say enough good things about this book. I gushed over it so much I hope my kids get the hint and give it to me for Mother's Day!



4. Excellent collector's edition book for any Jim Morrison/The Doors fan. Full of never before published pictures, handwritten lyrics and letters by Jim Morrison. A must buy for any Doors fan.



5. My husband loved this book and all it has to offer. This is for a true fan of The Doors and collectors.

5 comments about The Story of My Life (Penguin Classics).

1. I gave this book four stars only because Casanova is such a well-known figure whose name has actually entered the English language. The book is a supposed autobiography and Casanova's sexual escapades and has much more in common with Baron von Munchhausen's fanciful tales than they do with reality. Casanova, who regarded himself as an artistic man of letters, tells literally unbelievable stories on himself. I especially like the tale in which a town's physician tells him to return "anytime" because he's infected half the women in the city with venereal diseases!
   
   The whole thing is one long dirty joke and, if you believe this thing, the joke is on you and Casanova gets the last laugh.
   
   Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico



2. There are dozens of different versions of this book, and they are all DRAMATICALLY different. Do not buy this "Penguin Classics" edition!!!!!!!!!
   
   It is horrible! All the good parts have been "abridged" out of it.
   
   
   This is one of the silliest ideas I ever heard-but Penguin apparently tried to "clean up" Casanova. They have removed most of his stories about seduction from his auto-biography! Since Casanova was the world's greatest lover, I don't know why they think anyone would want the book except to read about seductions but those are exactly the parts they took out!
   
   Only Penguin could make Casanova boring.
   
   Buy a different edition of the book!



3. I love reading about Casanova's exploits, so I bought this copy for my collection. The pages are durable and strong, the spine doesn't bend or break like some books tend to do, so you end up with that funny "bump", you know what I mean? The text is legible and large enough, the font is a good choice. The front photo is cute to look at, and it doesn't fade. Over all, an excellent copy of this often reprinted story.



4. Giacomo Casanova (his name has become synonymous with that of a fiery amatory male!) was born in 1725. Somehow he managed to live until 1798 in a life which would make many people tired by just reading about his countless adventures!
   Among his many avocations was that of priest; soldier; courtier; gambler; violinist; spy;translator and famed author. Casanova managed to cram several lifetimes into his 73 wild years. If you want to follow this ultimate rake across the world be prepared to visit Italy, Germany,England,France, Spain, Switzerland, the Ottoman Empire of Turkey and Russia. Along the roue's route he met such luminaries as Voltaire, Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great.
   Casanova a serial lover of the fair and innocent maidens he seduce dwith wit, charm and seductive skills. He was imprisoned at times always managing a daring escape or the ability to have friends in high place save his love machine hide. He was no dunce being able to write and converse in many languages. His autobiography was written in French being widely published in his lifetime and ever since.
   The Penguin edition is an abridgement of his monumental work which in its entirety would swell to over 3,000 pages. The translators add material which connects the episodes. The book is filled with colorful characters; excellent descriptions of what Europe was like among the elite and filled with enough sex scenes to keep the reader searching for more.
   Casanova was not someone you would want your daughter to bring home to meet her family. He would make an excellent guest on the TV chat shows!
   Enjoy a few hours of pure escapism with this famous work!



5. I found the book delightful. Not so much all of Casanova's exploits, they became a bit boring in time, but the descriptions of life around him, the rentals of houses, rooms, parlors, the modes of transportation, the meetings with others, the management of money, they were told splendidly and believably. The now so popular movie can't do justice to the story told in the book. Even the advertisements are bad. No one ever called Casanova a "pig."
   
   For anyone who likes to explore living situations of any class of people in the past, this is a great book.

4 comments about John Maynard Keynes: 1883-1946: Economist, Philosopher, Statesman.

1. I have been looking forward to reading a bio of the great economist, philosopher and trader and bought this book after seeing many positive comments. Sorry to say, I got bogged down very quickly. The author never misses a chance to blow up to 2 pages what could have been said in a single paragraph. The book is a like sea-going ship so overgrown with barnacles that it can no longer move forward.



2. This tome (including more than 100 pages of notes and indices) is an abridgment of author Robert Skidelsky's original three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes. It is in all respects an extraordinary work. The author offers a portrait of Keynes not only as an economist but also as a philosopher and a statesman. He does not segregate these three dimensions, but rather shows how they interpenetrate and inform each other. He sets Keynes in the context of his time and circumstances. Skidelsky is unsparing in his treatment of the inconsistencies and contradictions in Keynes' life and character, but he is fair and balanced; he avoids sensationalism even in the treatment of the sensational. getAbstract finds that this book merits multiple readings and should intrigue not only economists but also anyone interested in the ideas and events of the 20th century.



3. Anyone who has taken a course in macroeconomics knows who Keynes is. Economics is full of camps, conflicting doctrines, feuds, rivalries, etc. Keynes was unique in that, unlike other economists who are indoctrinated or are in love with a theory, he was never scared of giving up an idea that did not work. If one was to read his "Tract on Monetary Reform" one might be fooled into thinking that it was Milton Friedman that was writing and not the J.M Keynes who revolutionized economic thought with his General Theory. This pragmatism is what sets Keynes apart from every other economist. But why Keynes was so different from others is something students never learn. This biography does an admirable job of tracing Keynes' upbringing, his education, career, and contributions in the light of circumstances that Keynes lived through and shaped his ideas. It is also full of nuggets about Keynes' idiosyncracies which humanizes the biography and shows the real person behind the aura. The book is long, but 63 years of action-packed life requires such detail. The Chinese say, May we live in interesting times. Keynes certainly lived in interesting times with the result that this book is just as interesting.



4. This book is Skidelsky's one volume abridged version of his previous three volume biography(1983,1992,2000)on J M Keynes.Skidelsky successfully weaves all of the different aspects and strands(personal,familial,historical,social,political,economic) of Keynes's life into a beautifully constructed historical tapestry that will keep the reader's attention from the first page to the last.All of the different talents Keynes possessed and displayed during his lifetime come alive on the pages of this book.Skidelsky is the master of his material as long as he concentrates on the vast nontechnical aspects of the life of his subject.Skidelsky has clearly mastered the historical and chronological events and interrelationships that occurred during Keynes's life. Unfortunately,Skidelsky does not have the necessary formal training in mathematics,logic,statistics or probability in order to properly understand or assess any of those parts of Keynes's scholarship that involves the use of formal logical and mathematicalmethods or analysis.These technical deficiencies in Skidelsky's academic training are the main defect,not only in this book but in the entire corpus of Skidelsky's writings on Keynes going back over 30 years.I will concentrate on Skidelsky's error filled statements concerning Keynes's A Treatise on Probability(1921;TP) and the logical theory of probability.On p.95,Skidelsky conflates the principle of indifference(poi) with the principle of insufficient reason.They are not the same.Keynes's poi requires a balance or symmetry of the relevant,available evidence or factors involved before equiprobabilities are assigned.The poi can't be applied if there is no relevant evidence.Advocates of the principle of insufficient reason,on the other hand, argue that equiprobabilities can be applied in states where no relevant evidence exists.Keynes always rejected this kind of reasoning.Skidelsky bases his assessment of Keynes's logical theory of probability on the error filled work of A. Carabelli and R.O'Donnell.Carabelli and O'Donnell base their assessments of the TP on four sources:1)Keynes's introductory guide to the measurement of probability in chapter III of the TP;2)F. Ramsey's 1922 book review of the TP in The Cambridge Magazine;3)F.Ramsey's 1926 book review of the TP in his article,"Truth and Probability",published in 1931 in a book of articles;and 4)Keynes's 4 page eulogy and very brief review of the book in 1931.In chapter III,Keynes had already made it clear to the alert reader,who had a mind of his/her own (and would not ape the preposterous ,nonsensical claims made by F. Ramsey that by nonnumerical and nonmeasurable Keynes meant that numbers could not be used in general to estimate probabilities,i.e.,that Keynesian probabilities were like a surveyor assigning nonnumerical heights to a mountain hidden in the mist)that the vast majority of Keynesian probabilities used in common discourse were/are interval estimates.John Maynard Keynes is the originator and founder of the interval estimate approach to probability.Keynes spells it out in a number of places in the TP:"...we judge that the probability of the actual argument lies between these two(numbers;reviewers note).Since our standards,therefore,are referred to numerical measures in many cases where actual measurement is impossible,and since the probability lies BETWEEN(Keynes's emphasis)two numerical measures..."(1921,p.32).After warning the reader not to reach any conclusions based on chapter III alone until after Part II of the TP was reached(p.37),Keynes gives his definition of nonnumerical in chapter 15 of Part II on p.160 of the TP.On pp.161-163 and pp.186-194(ch.17),Keynes presents his approximation approach .It has nothing to do with ordinal rankings(see Skidelsky's queer claims on pp.284-285,for instance).An upper bound and a lower bound are specified for some 13 worked out probability problems.One of these problems(a revision of Boole's problem 10)is then made the foundation for Part III of the TP.Part III is then made the logical foundation for Part V. Carabelli's and O'Donnell's "reading" of Keynes's TP is very poor,at best.Skidelsky's conclusions,based on their very poor reading,are very poor.Skidelsky also appears to have been misled by Richard Kahn and Joan Robinson into believing that Keynes was a strictly literary economist, who was a poor mathematician by 1927. Supposedly,Keynes had never taken the twenty minutes that was necessary to understand the theory of value(microeconomics).Based on these bizarre beliefs,Skidelsky comes to the queer conclusion that Keynes deliberately refused to present any formal mathematical model of his general theory in the General Theory(1936;GT).Any mathematically trained reader can find Keynes's completely worked out model,with the results presented in the form of elasticities so that a reader of the GT can compare Keynes's results with those of A C Pigou,in chapters 19,20,and 21 of the GT.Keynes then compares and contrasts his model with Pigou's model,who had also presented his results in the form of elasticities, in the appendix to chapter 19 of the GT.A technically trained economist should purchase a copy of the GT instead of this book.

5 comments about Barefoot Gen, Vol. 1: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima.

1. This manga is unsophisticated in its artwork, storytelling, and politics. Yet that very lack of sophistication seems to me to be what gives it power that probably could only otherwise be generated by poetry, or perhaps opera.
   
   You might as well go ahead and buy the four volumes in this series now, to save time & postage. Then you can wait, like I am waiting, in the hope that Project Gen manages to publish the next six volumes in the series.
   
   Note: there is at least one prior English edition of Barefoot Gen, and the volume contents are not the same as in the latest edition. So if, for example, you buy volume 3 of the earlier edition (1979), you will find that it overlaps the latter part of volume 2 of the current edition (issued in 2004.) The volume titles seem to be the same in each edition, so things can get confusing if you don't stick with the same edition. If you buy used, pay attention to which edition you are getting.
   
   According to Wikipedia, these are the published & projected volumes in the current English translation series of Barefoot Gen:
   
   * Barefoot Gen #1: A Cartoon Story Of Hiroshima (ISBN 0-86719-602-5)
   * Barefoot Gen #2: The Day After (ISBN 0-86719-619-X)
   * Barefoot Gen #3: Life After The Bomb (ISBN 0-86719-594-0)
   * Barefoot Gen #4: Out Of The Ashes (ISBN 0-86719-595-9)
   * Barefoot Gen #5: The Never-Ending War (17 April 2008, ISBN-10: 0867195967)
   * Barefoot Gen #6: Writing the Truth (17 April 2008, ISBN-10: 0867195975)
   * Barefoot Gen #7: (Not published in English)
   * Barefoot Gen #8: (Not published in English)
   * Barefoot Gen #9: (Not published in English)
   * Barefoot Gen #10: (Not published in English)



2. Barefoot Gen - I grew up with this famous comic series by Nakazawa. It's about a boy called 'Gen' and his life in Hiroshima during the WWII and soon after the atomic bomb. Volumes 1 & 2 are probably the most important ones. After I read them in English, I just had to lend them to everyone I knew. If you read this story, you'll realise how silly to hear some popular opiniton 'Dropping two atomic bombs in Japan was necessary to end the war'. The author Nakazawa says that each and every event illustrated here is a true story. You'll see, for example, that two young brothers fight against each other for a little grain of rice. Gen trying to encourage a girl who used to be dreaming about one day becoming a professional dancer, but now her face was badly burnt by the bomb, although she still didn't know it - he refuses to let her see the mirror.
   
   The bombs were dropped onto civilians in the two cities, and, in Hiroshima alone, 100,000 people, including children, elderly people and western prisoners of war, were killed instantly, and the pain they suffered from it was tremendous. The way some of Gen's family members, including a new born baby sister, were slowly dying is simply too sad to look at. But the reality is that it actually took place and was caused by human hands.
   
   I sincerely hope that many people will find the opportunity to read this book at least once in their life-time, and I strongly believe that this book will enlighten the whole world with the message: 'What really happens when a nuclear bomb is dropped onto humanity', which hasn't really been talked about in history books for some reason. But I think it's time to face reality.



3. In our present time this portal to the topic of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and our nature as the only nation to build and to use nuclear weapons, and against strictly civilian population centers may inform our moral consideration of the present failure of our total war alone against civilians to establish a peaceful and stable and democratic society.
   
   This present volume serves as an excellent introduction to the topic. Centering on Hiroshima, as may supplement this strong introductory reading with the recent study by Prof. Takaki, or the new Racing the Enemy, which explores the lack of military reason for dropping the Bomb against an already defeated Japanese Empire. We may also read on this specific event of crisis the moving Letters from the End of the World, or HIroshima Diary, written as was Gen by eyewitnesses and civilian victims of this our nuclear holocaust. Hershey is also important to read of course, and the reissue of Hiroshima Mon Amour, but I keep returning to this child's eye view in Barefoot Gen.
   
   We are fortunate in this reprinting for the informed and astute introduction by Art Spiegelman, the creator of the Maus series which does a similar though more symbolic treatment of the Nazi Holocaust. Art strongly recomends this first person account of a small boy on the morning of the Bomb, and its immediate effects upon himself and upon his family. Please read this book and remember. Our Popes continue to visit the Peace Park at Ground Zero in Hiroshima, to pray for peace and nonviolence and for the development of peoples.



4. The manga form of presentation makes reading about the prelude to this event easy and fast. The book seemed to be reasonably accurate with historical documentation and the visual format allowed the author to include detail that might otherwise have become difficult to work into the story. The clothing, clogs, air raid hoods, etc. that are be depicted add depth of information to a quick read.



5. Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen (New Society Publishing, 1983)
   
   Keiji Nakazawa's four-volume graphic epic Barefoot Gen has become legendary in the field of graphic literature, and also, in no small way, out of it. While many Japanese artists working in every medium have examined the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their aftereffects, Nakazawa, who lived in Hiroshima at the time the bombs were dropped, has an understandably closer perspective than most others who have tried it. For sheer power, Barefoot Gen's only rival in the subgenre is the similarly legendary Grave of the Fireflies.
   
   This eponymous first volume takes us through the life of Gen, an elementary school student, and his family in the months before the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. Gen's father, while not a pacifist, is notorious in town for his speaking out against the war, which gets him and his family branded traitors. Because of this, they don't have an easy life. The family members try to find various ways to survive in the face of shunning at best, and aggression at worst, from the rest of the townspeople.
   
   Do you need to be told that this is a book that's going to hit you in the face like a sledgehammer with its message? The artistry, or lack of same, in the delivery is the place where Grave of the Fireflies is clearly superior to Barefoot Gen, but while Nakazawa is not above letting his message get in the way of his story on occasion, it never happens for too long a period of time. Nakazawa's characters are well-drawn, and the story spends more time focused on its characters than on its message. There is a lot to be liked here, and a good deal to be mulled over, as well. Well worth your time. ****

5 comments about John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life.

1. John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life is a very good read. Its easy to understand. The author manages to keep my interest by his writing style. You don't have to have a masters degree to read this book.
   After reading this book, one will have a better informed idea of JQA's life. Overall I felt that the book was a little brief and should have dug a little deeper, but there is only so much you can say in 427 pages. Another 300 pages would have allowed the auther to dig a little deeper in the life and presidency of John Quincy Adams. That being said, I highly recommend this book.



2. So much revolves in the live of JQA in terms of his parents. Yes he did benefit from their guidance, but most of his life was in an aspect of difference. He did get many political positions because of the Adams heritage but he wore that as a crown of thorns. Though he relished his father JQA was always fighting his mother on so many issues. Abigail Adams was the worst person to follow in these times. If she could not control something she would destroy it. And she desired to destroy her son in both his love for Louisa his wife and his career plans. I do not know for the life of me why feminists have embraced this woman. She was in error so many times and suffocated her children.
   
   JQA rose above her admonitions and grew as a human being who was interested in letters and thoughts. He never turned back from her protests. He was about thought and not about control. Louisa, his wife was a wonderful match. She encouraged his interests and got him to follow her interests as well. Adams lived during a very changing environment. It was in this time that slave and free states became important. It was no longer about what Massachusetts said, things were perculating on national issues. He understood that. His presidency albeit dereft of many accomplishments, tried very hard to rid America of the leftovers of the War of 1812. He wanted a national vision. AQnd he was scolded by Jackson, Clay, and many others who wanted his office.
   
   Adams had it all. He had a wonderful and brilliant wife in Louisa, He had a family pedicree who served him well. But he had a one term presidency. He was looked at as a dour and sour personality. Yes that was true in his latter years but not so as a young man. Adams knew his place in time and he knew he had to do meanially things for the benefit of the republic. Very much like Truman, his decisions were linked to what others did before. So he never got to do the things he wanted.
   
   This man has been so tarred and relegated to the ashbin of history. That is not right. He did the best he could with what he had to work with. God bless JQA. He made America a better place to be. And also a hurrah for Louisa who really did much to set out what first ladies need to be.



3. A great biography on John Quincy Adams. The author thoroughly went through everything from childhood to death. He was able to describe him very well. I liked hearing about his various government jobs and living in Europe. I only have a minor nitpick the author should have sticked with refering to him as JQA instead of rotating from JQA, John and Adams given his famous father it would have been better to stick with just JQA. Other that it was a great biography.



4. A fine biography about America's most important second generation citizen. Nagel manages the tricky balancing act of covering the relevant topic without overstaying his welcome with everything and the kitchen sink. Nagel also earns due credit for resisting, for the most part, the urge to apply today's psychological interpretations to the mind and motives of a man who lived two hundred years ago. Discussion is important but speculation is just that. It also helps Nagel's cause that JQA led a pretty uncontroversial life.
   
   A great legislator and a (by his own admission) below average President, JQA proved his mettle as a Secretary of State and congressman. The only President to return to congress, he fought vehemently for abolition and civil liberties. He even died on the job. How's that for service to the nation.
   
   If the personal aspect of the biography seems underwhelming, perhaps that is due to the subject's relative colorlessness. A staid, serious individual who may have even suffered from mild depression, JQA lived his entire life as his father's son. Hard to live up to a man revered around the world as a living or recently deceased god. JQA lived a very quiet, serious life for a public figure.



5. I'm nearly at the halfway point of my mission to read a biography of each President. I would put this bio in the top third of those I've read for a variety of reasons.
   
   First, it was the perfect length. JQA was an important President but was he TJ, Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon, Lincoln... no. Nothing that important happened when he was President at least in a very broad, international sense. I'm very glad the author didn't lengthen the biography and make it detailed to a fault just to make it look like he did more research or overvalued the importance of JQA.
   
   JQA was quite a character. Clearly he was an intelligent man. I loved the way the author talked about what JQA read. In fact, I might even read some of those books myself because as with nearly every President, they gathered most of their intelligence from reading on their own. I liked the fact that the author included all the info about JQA's literary, research and professorship.
   
   I didn't get the point of how the author pointed out JQA's schedule so often, when he got up, what he did all day, that got a bit old.
   
   Other than that, it was really a great biography that shed a lot of light on this man.
   
   A few things I found interesting about JQA that the author did a good job detailing.
   
   1. Abigail and John Adams really put a lot of pressure on their son. That was very apparent and made JQA a sympathetic person at times.
   
   2. JQA was a stick in the mud a lot of times so it is easy to see why a lot of people didn't like him. It also explains why his presidency isn't held in such high regard. I thought it very telling that on Andrew Jackson's deathbed JQA was very uncomplementary. I would've hated to cross him.
   
   3. And perhaps this is the most interesting. JQA couldn't rise above the pressure that was put on him by his parents. He passed that pressure on to his kids, causing one to kill himself. Of course, I do think he mellowed as he got older which the author detailed allowing him to become a sympathetic figure again.
   
   Lastly, how about the fact that JQA died pretty much in congress. Wow, what dedication.
   
   Good bio that I would recommend.

2 comments about Heinrich Himmler: The SS, Gestapo, His Life and Career.

1. A fascinating insight into the mind of the madman Himmler. A must read for any student of World War II. Part of the incredible Himmler / Goebbels / Goering series by Roger Manvell & Heinrich Fraenkel. Great book.



2. I read this book as part of a class I took on Nazism. This is truly an engrossing account of the life and times of Himmler. This is the tale of how one young boy can turn into one of the Nazi leaders, and head of the SS. This was one of the best books I read in my course, and best books I've read period. It is informative and entertaining, pick it up.

5 comments about Wild Steps of Heaven.

1. It was a used book but was in good shape.
   the book was send really fast.



2. I first read "Wild Steps of Heaven" while I was in college. I have never been one who was able to finish a full book, but I couldn't get enough of this one. And once I was through with it I had to go out and find more books by Victor Villaseñor. He makes everything seem magical but at the same time believeable. It is like the ultimate adult fairy tale. Each character has so much life. The story is one that you just want to follow, you want it to keep going. Even the sad and painful stories shine with beauty as Villaseñor tells them. This is my absolute favorite book and I highly recommend it. You won't understand until you read it.



3. Read this book before you read "Rain of Gold". "Wild Steps of Heaven" is a short read and actually the paternal part of the family story. I wish Villasenor had included the info in Wild Steps of Heaven" in "Rain of Gold". Both books are a wonderful patchwork of history,and genuine family integrity. Excellent summer read!



4. This is a wonderful book. This book is about a family living during the Mexican Revolution.His writing just takes into this magical world and even though you know that he has made a little piece of history into this great big piece of fiction, he does it so as a matter-of -fact that you just can't believe that it's not true.



5. In times of hardship heroes are needed and none moreso than in Mexico as revolution rages. The Villasenor family patriarch, an exiled red-haired Spaniard, has married an Indian woman. The first ten years of the marriage are a time of great love and passion, and the children born first are fair and favor Don Juan Villasenor. Later children are dark like their mother. One of the dark ones, Jose, from age 12 must live in the barn because he defied his father and gentled a stallion to rescue his baby brother holding onto the leg rather than shoot the horse. In his exile and solitude a hero begins his training with Grandfather Don Pio Castro who knows Jose understands the power of love and gentleness. This will be the son who defends la familia during the revolution from the soldiers who time and again attach the village. The colonel commanding the troops more particularly desires Jose's true love Mariposa and destroys her. Ultimately, the younger brother Juan (author Villasenor's father) begins to show heroic tendencies himself and will be the one to defend his mother and the remaining family against the colonel. Villasenor moves the tale along with a powerful, songlike cadence. Notable characters are the giant cousins, Basilio and Agustin, who strip naked and race the lightning and then Halley's comet on January 17, 1910, a night of magic and love, the day before el colonel begins shooting up the home village, el paraiso de Los Altos de Jalisco. Each chapter begins with epigrams featuring "Great Father Sun" that provide a sense of power from above, as in "the heavens smile . . . as all around him the gods and serpents did battle." When the final epigram tells us "and out of these children of the earth and of the stars would now come a glorious new gente in all their wonder and fire," we realize that while we have been traveling through an exciting story with more twists and turns than fiction, we also have been participating in something approximating a creation myth. Highly recommended is Villasenor's first tale of the family Villasenor, Rain of Gold.

5 comments about A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation.

1. In a confluence of events that is hardly short of providential, not one, two unpublished slave narratives fell into David Blight's hands. The narratives, kept lovingly for over a century by the families of former slaves Wallace Turnage and John Washington, chronicle the early lives and desperate circumstances that propelled these two oppressed human beings onto the historical stage. Wallace and Turnage, while sharing the common bondage of slavery, led very different lives. Washington had relatively easier life and shorter route to freedom. Turnage's life was shot through with physical assaults, peril and cinematic close calls. Both men wrote with an urgency that revealed their thirst for freedom and deep desire to preserve their tales for their posterity.
   
   The first half of the book allows David Blight to provide the historical and cultural contexts that his two protagonists could only guess at. Ensnared in the day-to-day turmoil of slavery and survival, they could only guess at the political and military forces that were moving them toward eventual liberation. Blight muses too on the oft-asked question of who freed the slaves - Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation or the salves themselves. his complex and nuanced answer is seconded by the experiences captured by Washington and Turnage. The book's second half contains the unedited narratives, told in soaring but often rough prose, by the men themselves.
   
   "A Slave No More" is gripping, significantly because it is true. The poetry of freedom sings from its pages, crafted by the literary hands of men who were not expected to learn the alphabet, much less to pen epic odes to the liberation of the human body and spirit. Wonderful and worthwhile.



2. Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs are among a handful of former slaves in the Old South who wrote famous narratives of their lives in slavery and their ultimate escape to freedom. It is a rare and important event to find additional first-person narratives that document the efforts of slaves to become free. The noted historian David Blight had the good fortune to become aware of two such narratives which had previously been held close by the families of their authors. Blight has published these accounts in his recent book "A Slave no More" (2007), together with background information on the manuscripts, a discussion of the lives of the authors following their escapes from slavery, and a brief history of Emancipation during and following the Civil War.
   
   The attraction of this book lies more in the narratives than in Blight's commentary. The narratives were composed by John Washington (1838 -- 1918) and Wallace Turnage (1846-1916). Washington and Turnage both discuss their lives in slavery and the factors impelling them to make their escape. The narratives do not extend to the subsequent lives of the narrators in freedom. The narratives are written in a non-literary style which nevertheless have great power from their very simplicity. Neither man was writing for the public. Their accounts of slavery offer the opportunity to get to know two people who did not make it into the history books but whose storyies have much to teach.
   
   The narrative of John Washington, which he titled "Memorys of the Past" is the more literary of the two. Washington vowed to escape from slavery when his mother was sold away when he was a child. Washington spent most of his early life as an urban slave in Virginia working as a house servant,in a tobacco factory, and in an inn, among other places. With the advance of the Union army through Fredericksburg in 1862, Washington saw his opportunity to cross the river to the Union lines. He became an aide to several Union officers and ultimately established himself with his wife, who had been born free, in Washington D.C. Washington's narrative has some excellent portrayals of the movements of the soldiers on both sides and of his experiences with the Union army.
   
   Turnage's account is untitled and substantially less polished that Washington's. Turnage spent most of his time in slavery in the deep south near Pickensville, Alabama. He was a field hand and subjected to more cruelty and violence than was Washington. His account is replete with descriptions of whippings given to himself and, especially, to women. Witnessing and receiving these whippings made Turnage determined to escape. Turnage made at least four unsuccessful attempts at escape before he succeeded, after each of which he was punished with increasing severity. In the first several attempts, Turnage went west to try to reach the Union lines in Corinth, Mississippi. He nearly succeeded but was returned to his master on each occasion. Turnage finally succeeded in a daring attempt to reach Mobile Bay, the site of a great Union naval victory. Turnage had to cross snake-infested swamps and achieved freedom only when Union soldiers rescued him from the sinking makeshift boat in which he had been riding to freedom. Turnage offers a graphic, gritty account of his escape and of the harshness of slavery in the deep south. Importantly, Turnage does not show bitterness towards his oppressors. He writes at the outset of his narrative: "I do not mean to speak disparagingly of those who sold me, nor of those who bought me. Though I seen a hard time, it had an attendency to make a man out of me." (Blight, page 213)
   
   In his introductory material, Blight retells and expands upon the narratives of Washington and Turnage. Through laborious historical research, Blight also describes the lives of the two men and their families after their escape. Washington spent most of his life as a painter in Washington D.C. and was active in the church and the developing African-American community. His five children went on to careers, with his youngest son enjoying success as a science teacher and athletic coach. Turnage had a much more difficult time of it living in the overcrowded, disease-infested sections of New York City and witnessing the deaths of his mother, wife, and several children. One of his daughters was able to "pass" for white, and she was the source for recovering her father's manuscript.
   
   Blight also offers an interesting discussion of the Emancipation Proclamation which focuses on the immediate reaction to it in African American communities in both North and South. I found Blight's discussion somewhat broader and more polemical than it needed to be to elucidate the narratives of Washington and Turnage. But most of his discussion makes for interesting reading.
   
   Washington and Turnage wrote inspiring narratives of their journey from slavery to freedom. Blight has done a service in making these narratives available to the public. This book will be of interest to readers concerned with American slavery, the Civil War, and African American history. Readers unfamiliar with other slave narratives may wish to explore Frederick Douglass's autobiographies and the volume titled "Slave Narratives," both of which are available from the Library of America.
   
   Robin Friedman



3. Recently two new important African-American slave narratives have come to light, published here along with scholarly commentary for the first time. They are considered significant by historians because they support a theory that slaves played a role in bringing about their own freedom. Traditionally slavery is thought to have ended with Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation - Lincoln freed the slaves, we are taught in school. However, is it possible that the slaves themselves played a role in their own freedom, that their own actions, conscious or not, helped bring about Emancipation? This is what today many historians contend, and these two narratives support that view. "For most slaves", Blight says, "freedom did not come on a particular day; it evolved by process." It was the process of waves of slaves escaping into Union lines as the war moved south, often forming shanty towns of "contrabands" (as the Union called escaped slaves, they were initially classified by the north as property). Eventually something had to be done about the"contraband" and Lincoln signed some limited laws that gave them freedom, which eventually morphed into the Emancipation Proclamation. But it was the slaves desire for freedom, willing to risk life by escaping, that forced the issue of Emancipation. Further, many of these freed slaves then took up arms and joined the Union army. It is estimated over 700,000 of the nearly 4 million slaves found freedom through this "process", the remaining 3.3 million achieving freedom with the 13th Amendment.
   
   Whatever the historical debates, these narratives are interesting and even thrilling. Although not as well written as Frederick Douglass, in many ways the adventures of these young men are more real and tangible - as private documents they were not written to be published, not filtered through an editor. They were meant for friends and family and thus have a rough, raw real edge to them.
   
   David Blight has done a great service to historians and the public by both publishing the original sources and summarizing and expanding on them. Each of the two narratives has a corresponding chapter that re-creates the narrative in more detail and clarity for the modern reader. In addition there are two chapters that examine what happened to the men after the war including some fascinating pictures. No two slave narratives are alike and these will surely not disappoint as important historical case examples and thrilling stories. America has two new unsung heroes representative of 100s of thousands who sought and found their own freedom.



4. This book makes the Civil War period and slavery come alive, partly through the real voices of 2 emancipated slaves, and partly through the consumate writing skill of the author. The level is just right: carefully documented sources (endnotes) that authenticate the story, plus a wonderfully accessible writing style that is clear, never boring, and quietly compassionate. This is an engaging book I recommend even to those having only a casual interest in history.



5. The book provides an in depth look at the lives of two black men who were determined to escape slavery. The book also reveals the hopelessness experienced by slaves in their daily lives. It also exposed the cruelty of slave owners, who were considered in all other respects to be genteel and upstanding citizens in their community.