5 comments about A Rumor of War.

1. I thought this book was the best book on Vietnam that I have ever read. Its a facinating look into life as a line officer in a front line Marine Infantry batallion during the early part of the war. Caputo holds nothing back when it comes to describing life on the front line and what goes through the minds of these young, too young Marines who fought on the front line. An excellent read and I highly reccomend it.



2. Its a page turner from start to finish. A very unique view of the war.



3. Caputo wasn't much of a marine. He started complaining about Vietnam before he arrived. Every page is filled with criticism, cynicism, griping, complaining, and self-serving tripe. He wanted to be a hero, but he didn't have what it took to be anything but a whining wimp. Certainly he writes well. But writing well and living well are entirely different. He doesn't understand honor or duty. Sure the war was politicized, but so is every war. Sure the rules of engagement were stupid, but a soldier serves. Caputo did not serve; rather he whined. Many of us who served in Vietnam believed there were many things that made no sense. But we didn't turn tail and run. We served. For those who want to understand what is was like to be a soldier in Vietnam, read "We Were Soldiers Once... and Young" or "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts". If you want to know what is was like to be useless in Vietnam, read this book.



4. I assigned this book to my college students for a closer glimpse of the Vietnam Conflict. I had not read it before, but had done research and study on the subject. I found Caputo's book to be insightful, controversial and thought provoking. He doesn't glamorize the war but explains how it effected soldiers and one of the many reasons it was such a mess. Throughout the book, Caputo shows how the conditions changed the average American teenager into a robotic killer and how their experiences stayed with them. In the end, he speaks against the war, but not in the normal Jane Fonda version of bashing the military and labeling them rapists and baby killer. Caputo talks about how the government was at fault and created the situations that lead to PTSD and other issues for returning soldiers.
   
   A must read to understand the war and its effects on our soldiers.



5. In keeping with the theme of this Memorial Day weekend, I would like to offer my thoughts on "A Rumor of War," a classic tale of Vietnam. Philip Caputo has crafted one of the most moving and disturbing testaments to the men who fought and died in that far away land. When the book was first published in 1977, the New York Times called it "The troubled conscience of America speaking passionately, truthfully, finally." I became aware of this classic memoir when my friend, Capt. Kyle Kalkwarf, West Point Class of 2002, told me that it was one of the best books about war he had ever read. He recommended that I add it to my reading list. He was right in doing so.
   
   Caputo's recollections of his time as a Marine in Vietnam are filled with anger and sorrow at the misbegotten policies promulgated in Washington and carried out with disastrous results by General Westmorland and his subordinates. The author makes it clear in his introductory remarks how he felt and feels about that war and the impact that it had upon him and his comrades in arms:
   
   "Beyond adding a few more corpses to the weekly body count, none of these encounters achieved anything; none will ever appear in military histories or be studied by cadets at West Point. Still, they changed us and taught us, the men who fought in them; in those obscure skirmishes we learned the old lessons about fear, cowardice, courage, suffering, cruelty and comradeship. Most of all, we learned about death at an age when it is common to think of oneself as immortal. Everyone loses that illusion eventually, but in civilian life it is lost in installments over the years. We lost it all at once, and in the span of months, passed from boyhood through manhood to a premature middle age. The knowledge of death, of the implacable limits placed on a man's existence, severed us from our youth as irrevocably as a surgeon's scissors had once severed us from the womb. And yet, few of us were past twenty-five. We left Vietnam peculiar creatures, with young shoulders that bore rather old heads. . .
   
   This book is partly an attempt to capture something of its [the war's] ambivalent realities. Anyone who fought in Vietnam, if he is honest about himself, will have to admit he enjoyed the compelling attractiveness of combat. It was a peculiar enjoyment because it was mixed with a commensurate pain. Under fire, a man's powers of life heightened in proportion to the proximity of death, so that he felt an elation as extreme as his dread. His senses quickened, and he attained an acuity of consciousness at once pleasurable and excruciating. It was something like the elevated state of awareness induced by drugs. And it could be just as addictive, for it made whatever else life offered in the way of delights or torments see pedestrian." (Pages xv-xvii)
   
   Caputo's last comments in the section just quoted seem to be eerily in keeping with the themes of the stunning films, "The Deer Hunter" and "Apocalypse Now."
   
   In one of the most gripping passages in the book, Caputo recaptures the spectrum of emotions he felt during a helicopter assault - running the gamut from fear to courage:
   
   "A helicopter assault on a hot landing zone creates emotional pressures far more intense than a conventional ground assault. It is the enclosed space, the noise, the speed, and, above all, the sense of total helplessness. There is a certain excitement to it the first time, but after that it is one of the more unpleasant experiences offered by modern war. On the ground, an infantryman has some control over his destiny, or at least the illusion of it. In a helicopter under fire, he hasn't even the illusion. Confronted by the indifferent forces of gravity, ballistics and machinery, he is himself pulled in several directions at once by a range of extreme, conflicting emotions. Claustrophobia plagues him in the small space: the sense of being trapped and powerless in a machine in unbearable, and yet he has to bear it. Bearing it, he begins to feel a blind fury toward the forces that made him powerless, but has to control his fury until he is out of the helicopter and on the ground again. He yearns to be on the ground, but the desire is countered by the danger he knows is there. Yet, he is also attracted by the danger, for he knows he can only overcome his fear by facing it. His blind rage then begins to focus on the men who are the source of the danger - and of his fear. It concentrates inside him, and through some chemistry is transformed into a fierce resolve to fight until the danger ceases to exist. But this resolve, which is sometimes called courage, cannot be separated from the fear that has aroused it. Its very measure is the measure of that fear. It is, in fact, a powerful urge not to be afraid anymore, to rid himself of fear by eliminating the source of it. This inner, emotional war produces tension almost sexual in its intensity. It is too painful to endure for long. All a soldier can think about is the moment when he can escape his impotent confinement and release this tension. All other considerations, the rights and wrongs of what he is doing, the chances for victory or defeat in the battle, the battle's purpose or lack of it, become so absurd as to be less than irrelevant. Nothing matters except the final, critical instant when he leaps out into the violent catharsis he both seeks and dreads." (Pages 277-8)
   
   Caputo's thoughtful and passionate recounting of the growing up that he did in the cauldron of Vietnam added to my understanding of what many of my generation experienced as they fought in Southeast Asia and returned to a country that had grown sick of the fighting. As our nation once again wrestles with combat fatigue and the questions of when to withdraw and how to withdraw from Iraq, I am grateful that this time around - unlike the situation that existed in the late `60's and 70's - even those who oppose the war have not showered those returning from the Gulf with opprobrium. They desire our admiration and our gratitude.
   
   Thanks Kyle, for recommending this book, and for your continuing service to our nation.
   
   Al

5 comments about Caesar: Life of a Colossus.

1. Prior to this Caesar biography we essentially had Shakespeare's version and, in modern times, Meier's as respectively the popular and definitive versions of Caesar's life. This new biography reminds us once and for all that Shakespeare's play is a dramatic butchery. And it makes by comparison Meier's version read like a dry text book bereft of the dramatic juice and blood that were in fact Caesar's life. As a coincidental aside, Goldsworthy lives up to his name as a biographical historian. It requires a master of both genres to weave together the complex political machinations and upheavals, ethnic infighting, cultural norms, economic compulsions, military dispositions, and personal ambitions in Caesar's Rome that helped form who he was as, ultimately, a man. As a fairly knowledgeable fan of Julius Caesar the historical figure I found this book enlightening. As a fan of Caesar the man, I found it completely enjoyable.



2. This is a book I would recommend to anyone with some curiousity about "how Rome worked"...provided the reader has a strong mental filter to separate fact from fiction. It is readable, and the author's English is delightful, in the sense that there is something of the turn of the Century (19th-to-20th - not 20th-to-21st) elegance in it. The focus is perhaps more on the "workings of Rome" than on Caesar's most important years affecting Rome - the author is a bit too shy to appear to "endorse a Dictator". And, this is the weakness of the book. It is somewhat like historical works published in the Soviet era in the Soviet Union or one of its satellites. (Yevgeniy Tarlé's works on Napolean and Talleyrand come to mind [ Bonaparte, ]. Superb history, but Tarlé, a Soviet author, must pay homage to dialectic materialism).. In this case the author cannot keep himself from paying homage to all the "important" concepts that make a British academic "politicaly acceptable". Why, oh why, do so many today contaminate their excellent work with the eager additions to show that their thinking, by they way, corresponds to what is required? In this respect, the Introduction is outright painful. Also, to be popular in the early 21st Century, we must write about sex, sex, sex... Of course, we are just speculating, and therefore to avoid any danger of being accused of mixing history with fiction, we put in some weasel-words when we have no sources... The reason why this otherwise excellent work does not get five stars is the author's self-demeaning with his eagerness to prove that he is Politically Correct.



3. This is a good book, though it lacks a little organization. It's linear and accumulative. The story is not that well broken down into smaller issues like different size pieces of a puzzle, rather it's more like an accumulation of identical logs or bricks that amount to the thick book we have here. Facts and dates just follow each other in sequence. The truth is the author has enough talent to not get too messy, though at times it is monotonous. A clearer structure and less blurry lines between issues, dates and locations could have helped. If you want to go back and find the exact page where a certain issue is dealt with, it is going to be hard.
   
   Looks like a lot of cons but overall the book is readable thanks to its almost popular style, modern students friendly.
   
   A note that meant a lot to me as a Spaniard, and that I can't help mentioning: "In 92 BC an edict closed down schools teaching rhetoric Latin, stating that instruction in Greek was superior, even for teaching a man to make speeches in Latin (...) this measure was in part intended to prevent the oratorical skills useful in public life from becoming too common, for such schools were not likely to have taken pupils from those families outside the Senate (...) so this continued the emphasis on what would be useful rather than on acquiring purely academic learning." This reminded me of the banning of the Spanish language in schools in Cataluña (Spain) for the partisan interests of the entrenched nazionalist class; a class that lives on well-paid government jobs and subsidies and is throwing overboard a whole cultural legacy that belongs to a larger community than their own clan.
   
   A whole lot we still have to learn from history (and from books like this one), from Roman history specifically. Treat yourself and take sides between Cato and Caesar. But try to understand the other side too.



4. As a non-professional reviewer, I'll just give a few comments. This book gives a wonderful picture of a fascinating man. As is often the case with a good historical biography, the book also provides a revealing insight into the subject's society, the late Roman Republic, and the amazing, alien, and yet very human characters that played a part in forming it. The book is, furthermore, a joy to read - well written, detailed without being overwhelming, and full of interesting stories. Highly recommended.



5. Ever since the great German historian Theodor Mommsen portrayed Caius Julius Caesar as Rome's "perfect man," the dictator has been the subject of many biographies. There are some excellent scholarly materials on the general, such as Mattias Gelzer's translated Caesar: Politician and Statesman and Christian Meier's Caesar. Some more contemporary biographies geared toward the layperson, such as The Education of Julius Caesar by Arthur Kahn and The Assassination of Julius Caesar by Michael Parenti, present the general as a popular reformer. With Caesar: Life of a Colossus by Adrian Keith Goldsworthy, an excellent combination of the scholarly and popular is presented.
   
   In Caesar: Life of a Colossus , Mr. Goldsworthy explains technical and historical terms concisely and comprehensively. (There is also a glossary included.) Detailed endnotes and a thorough bibliography are included. The author's writing style is both lively and engaging. Although sympathetic to Caesar, Mr. Goldsworthy is objective, both with the general and his adversaries. He portrays both Caesar and Rome in the late Republic in a vivid and understandable manner.
   
   Two interesting aspects that Mr. Goldsworthy ponders are Caesar's view on religious matters and the impact that the general's personal life had on political events. Our historical resources are meager on these two subjects, so Mr. Goldsworthy makes some educated guesses. Caesar was Pontifex Maximus , though some of the ancient sources and modern historians portray the dictator as a skeptic. Still, Mr. Goldsworthy speculates on how religion impacted Caesar's life and actions. For the scholar, Stefan Weinstock's Divus Julius presents the official political-religious aspects of Caesar's reign, as well as his successors' contribution to the cult of Caesar.
   There is also some discussion on the role that Caesar's family played in his formation, particularly the women in his life, such as his mother Aurelia and his daughter Julia. Again, the primary sources are limited, but the author tries to piece together the familial relationships.

5 comments about Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor.

1. Any list of most successful politicians throughout history must include the Emperor Augustus at the top. Victorious at Actium in 31 BC after the chaos that followed the death of Julius Caesar, he was the most powerful man in the Western world until his death in 14 AD. Anthony Everitt's lucid biography gives a great description of the times and political life of the man who established the Roman Empire.
   
   I found this book particularly satisfying after reading "I Claudius" and viewing the HBO production "Rome". The author provides an excellent description of historical context for this fascinating rise from obscurity to preeminence.



2. `Augustus' by Anthony Everitt
   
   In this eponymous titled work Mr. Everitt tells the remarkable story of Rome's first emperor, Augustus. Clearly, it is brilliantly researched, extremely well written and a really enjoyable book to read. Anyone looking for an entry into ancient history would be well served reading this book. Mr. Everitt does spend an inordinate time on Octavian, Augustus' name before he became emperor, however the book remains a comprehensive source of information not only on the life of this truly unparalleled Roman leader, but the Julio-Claudian family overall. The family lineage, which is a difficult feat for anyone to successfully describe, is very well laid out and clearly organized in both text and helpful chart inserts.
   
   I had read Everitt's earlier work on Cicero and was immediately hooked on his writing style. Fans of the aforementioned book will not be disappointed with his follow up, `Augustus'. Enjoy.



3. Although a well-written and well-researched book, it becomes obvious very quickly that Anthony Everitt does not like his subject: Augustus. This shouldn't have surprised me, considering Everitt's unflattering portrayal of Caesar in his previous biographical effort (Cicero).
   
   Despite Everitt's disdain (and the challenges inherent in reading a book from such a biased perspective), I recommend this considering the amount of rich, historical detail present.
   
   Silvestre Vallejo



4. Very good read. It gives great insight into the life of Rome's first emperor. The book is very well reserched.Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor



5. Having read and enjoyed his biography of Cicero I immediately wanted to read his follow on book about Augustus when it came out. It is a solid piece of biography.
   
   However, I was a bit put off when he started his book with the dramatic scenario of Augustus' wife poisoning him. This is generally considered by classicists (disclaimer: I have a graduate degree in Ancient History) as a bit of character assassination from the time period and not likely to be truthful. The author by the end of the book does readdress this scenario and say that this is questionable. Beyond this my only nit-pick is I would have liked to have seen more time spent with Augustus when he was Augustus. Over half the book covers his early life as Octavian. Interesting and important to be sure, but to cram his very lengthy and highly successful Principate into less than half of a biography was disappointing.
   
   Having said all this he covers the material and writes it in a readable fashion. There aren't that many biographies of Augustus out there considering his importance, and I would say this is one of the better ones.

5 comments about Truman.

1. I have read most of McCullough's books, and so I knew that after reading this I would understand Harry S. Truman more deeply than I ever had. What I didn't know what was that I would learn so much about 20th century American history. McCullough is a great story-teller. His use of historical details to recreate the man and the times is magnificent. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.



2. Author David McCullough gives us an in-depth look into the life of President Truman. He shows how he evolved from a simple farmer to become the President of the United States. McCullough pulls no punches in his biography, and yet, Mr. Truman comes through as a simple man who rose to the challenge of becoming a true statesman and world leader. A Very compelling read.



3. This is one of those rare biographies which pulls you in from the beginning and never lets go. It is an excellent look at one of the truly under-appreciated presidents. Truman was an amazing man and an incredible public servant. The sense of history that this biography brings makes it a must-read for anyone interested in American history and/or American politics.



4. An absolutely fantastic biography. McCullough not only gives us an incredibly in-depth account of Truman's role in such momentous events as the decision to drop the Atomic Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Potsdam Conference (Truman's only face-to-face meeting with Stalin or Uncle Joe as he called him), the Truman Doctrine, The Marshall Plan, the Berlin Airlift, the Korean War, the firing of General MacArthur and so on, but he also succeeds wonderfully in injecting joviality into this rather thick tome through his unsurpassed ability to recount the human side of Truman, the quirkiness, the common trials and errors of a human being and the like.
   
   I am not an American, but I always tell my friends that if I were Truman would be my favorite president. This book only serves to reinforce my view. Overall, one of the best biographies I've read. If I ever became famous one day, I'd really love someone of McCullough's caliber to write my biography. Highly recommended.



5. Truman dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II. He did what he had to do and what had to be done to end the worst war in the history of the planet. He was essentially carrying out the policies of Roosevelt, who died in office. Truman passed the buck when he sent troops to Korea to contain Communism. He fired General Douglas MacArthur, who wanted to nuke the Chinese. Limited war as policy set a precedent for Vietnam. Korea is still a problem. Peaceful reunification is the only solution.

5 comments about The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr..

1. It's an inspirational read and clearly establishes King amongst the finest examples of portraying a 'Purpose Driven Life" in recent generations.



2. I haven't quite finished the book yet but I am impressed at how well the book is written. Martin Luther King,jr. is one of the most memorable historic figures in history and this book eloquently accomplishes portraying him as such.



3. THIS BOOK WILL INSPIRE YOU TO DO GOOD. ITS VERY INSPIRATIONAL. A GREAT MAN WHO DIED TO YOUNG LIKE SO MANY OTHERS. KING NEVER WAS ABLE TO WRITE HIS OWN AUTOBIOGRAPHY. THIS AUTHOR TOOK ALL THE INFO AVAILABLE TO HIM TO CREATE THIS PHENOMENAL BOOK. AFTER THIS BOOK I FELT I COULD DO ANYTHING. ITS JUST SO INSPIRING. I WOULD BUY IT IF I WERE YOU. SEE YA.



4. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a very brave man, an unyielding pacifist---and a radical leftist who greatly damaged the United States. He literally argued that his own country carried out a racist and imperialist war against the Vietnamese. MLK believed in affirmative action programs and socialism. He pushed the myth that right-wing conservatives assassinated John F. Kennedy instead of the committed Communist, Lee Harvey Oswald (Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism). And no, you don't have to take my word for it. Clayborne Carson has put together the hard evidence. King was also a plagiarist who didn't hesitate to steal other authors' writings. Nonetheless, we know for sure that these essays were at least approved by him. Many people who read MLK's approved texts for the first time will be appalled. This is especially true for those who reject the morally relativistic notion that a few lies on behalf of a noble cause can ever be justified.
   
   There is another book you should read. Theodore Pappas released his own meticulously researched Plagiarism and The Culture War : The Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Other Prominent Americans only a few months earlier than Carson's. It turns out that MLK's PhD was not earned. At best, he was a pseudointellectual. Hard core left-wingers like Stanley Levinson and Andrew Young took full advantage of his shallowness. Americans need to learn the truth about Rev. King. The fact that these two books were published roughly ten years ago is not relevant. You should put them on your must read list for 2008. Truth is always more valuable than even the most well meaning deceptions.



5. I really enjoyed reading this book. The style of prose used by Dr. King is very easy to follow and flows very well. The book is also an inspiring example of how civil disobedience can change the world.
   
   I also am glad that he did not sneeze. (If you read the book you will know the context of this statement).
   
   The only reason that I did not give the book a 5 star rating is I thought that the editor could have added an addendum or chapter on the end of the book concerning the assassination of Dr King and how this affected the rest of the Civil Rights movement and the rest of the country as a whole.
   
   But I would definetely recommend this book.

2 comments about The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves.

1. This is a superb telling of the story of the Civil War with running commentary in the actual words of slaves who saw it, fought it, endured it and lived to tell about what it was like for them and their fellows before, during and after the war. For anyone interested in the war, it provides a unique and invaluable perspective never seen before. For anyone interested in African American history, which of course should be every American who wants to be politically awake, this is a wonderful opportunity to let the people speak for themselves, a most welcome change in historical writing about these terrible and awesome events. Must read.....



2. There are many excellent studies of black Civil War soldiers and equally good editions of letters and reminiscences from black veterans. (In fact, following the 1989 release of the film "Glory" about the black Massachusetts 54th, there was something of a flood of such books.) But until now, there really hasn't been a good study of the reactions of southern slaves to the war. Andrew Ward, familiar to Civil War buffs from his excellent River Run Red (2005) has changed that with his The Slaves' War.
   
   Mr. Ward's book is perhaps best described as a hybrid between straightforward narrative and oral history. In ten well-written and organized chapters, he transcribes the chronological reminiscences of slaves from both eastern and western theaters of the war. The witnesses come from all walks: house and field slaves; skilled and unskilled; men, women, and children; slaves who eagerly followed the course of the war, and slaves who wanted nothing to do with it; slaves who were rented by their masters to dig fortifications, and slaves who remained on the farm while their white owners went to the front; slaves who remained convinced until their dying day that they'd met Lincoln on an incognito journey through the south he made before the war, and slaves who actually did observe Jefferson Davis on a regular basis (one black preacher humorously prayed: "Shake Jeff Davis over the mouth of hell, Lord, but don't drop him in"); slaves who welcomed blue-coated soldiers as harbingers of Jubilo, and slaves who, frightened by their masters' tales of northern barbarism, were frightened; and slaves, always and everywhere, distrusted by masters worried that all the northern-spawned talk of abolition would spawn rebellion south of the Mason-Dixon line.
   
   Ward tells us that he surveyed thousands of recorded interviews, memoirs, obituaries, diaries, and letters in compiling The Slaves' War. It's both remarkable and a bit disconcerting that this material hasn't been mined until now. Hopefully Ward's revitalization of these slaves' voices, with all their eloquence, hope, fear, pain, joy, anger, pride and even humor, will spark more research into this too neglected Civil War perspective.
   __________
   * This joyous cry was raised by plantation slaves upon the news that the Confederacy was defeated. But as would prove all too often the case in the post-war years, the joy of freedom was quickly shadowed by threats. Immediately after the slaves shouted their thanksgivings, "a white man come along and told them that if he heard them say that again, he would kill the last one of them." From Addie Vinson's reminiscences, p. 263.

5 comments about An American Family: The Buckleys.

1. Reid, once again, captures the truth of what our Founders sought. This time, through the personal story of his family, An American Family. What a gift he has given us!



2. This is a wonderful book. It shows us the joy,and sometimes sadness,which comes from being in a strong family.It also gives us wise political and cultural observations about what has made the USA great.It portrays the power of love. As WFBsr said, love for "God, Family,and Country in that order".In doing all this, it makes clear the profound good brought to this earth by disciplined,loving parents. It is full of awe inspiring history and stories about this great and hugely talented family. I laughed frequently,experienced sadness occasionally, and was inspired always. WFBjr was one my American heroes since my grad school days in Politics. I own more than 50 of his books and have cherished them all. Reid's new book will be a wonderful addition. I hope it can serve as powerful encouragement to all who love the American family and America itself.



3. I have been fascinated with the Buckley's since I first discovered a copy of National Review at a teenage friend's home in the 1960's. Throughout the succeeding decades I gobbled up anything Buckley. I must admit after reading Reid's book, that they are a different type of Irish American especially when juxtaposed with the Kennedy's of Massachusetts. However when you combine a heritage of Wild West frontier, New Orleans, Swiss heritage, oil money with a big heaping teaspoon of old fashioned Catholicism you get the Buckley's. You'll read this book with a feeling of nostalgia for a time and place that has disappeared forever just as the New York City of my childhood is long gone as well as the parents and grandparents who were once part of that world. Mr. Buckley writes with this nostalgic tone while at the same time still railing and kicking about what is wrong with this modern world. What would his beloved parents think of this non-republic USA, gay marriage, inarticulate President, Brittney Spears et al.? Alas, the Buckley's and their kind s we will see no more and what a treasure they were while these two generations graced our world. Thank you Mr. Buckley for a delightful glimpse of your wonderful world and a description of the family values that made this a great country.



4. Well, here I am, at the opposite end of the political spectrum of the Buckley clan, and I must say I enjoyed Reid's family history very much.
   
   "Boy, can those Catholics write."
   
   I heard Reid Buckley in an interview on "Morning Joe" (if you don't watch "Morning Joe", you're missing a great early morning show!) a couple of weeks ago. I really didn't know much about the Buckley family - aside from their conservative magazine and other "nefarious" enterprises. But Reid made his family sound so interesting, that I bought his book. And enjoyed reading it.
   
   It's good to learn about the "other side", and enjoy myself while doing it. By the way, Reid, hopefully we liberals can start to straighten out the problems you conservatives have put us in for the last seven years.
   
   But, of course, I did come away from reading your book with the feeling that you don't quite approve of the Bush years any more than I do. George Bush is not the "true" conservative you and your family are. There's a lot of lamenting to be done...on both sides.



5. I just finished reading this poignant tome and am quite surprised to find that this review shall be its first within this arena. I scarcely imagine that any hastily-crafted lines that I manage to put down can match the warmth, the elegance and the humility with which this book is written. Certainly, there are many other avenues with which to gain insight into the lives that were, and remain, the Buckley. "Miles To Go" comes to mind first, along with Priscilla's memoirs from The National Review days a close second, followed by the many other words/works of William Buckley, Jr. and Christopher. Nonetheless, this is a different take and, although there were never any doubts to begin with, upon its completion one is left with the unequivocal sense of a family firmly rooted in all that has come to be colloquially know as "family values," and one which served as a bastion of Conservatism, duty and honor. It's a fine portrait that has been crafted here, and one which will futher serve to solidfy the warm admiration of William Buckley, Jr. and his family.
   
   Highly recommended - for Buckley-ites, as well as non.

5 comments about Marie Antoinette: The Journey.

1. I have read many books on the Dauphine over the years and this is one of the best.
   It covers in detail all of the daily life of a queen and the sacrifice she made by becoming a queen.
   It seems that the paparazzi today are angels compared to what the people of France and all of Europe did to their monarchs.
   The book is well researched, and well done and like all good books on her, this one doesnt speculate but clarifies the life of this often misunderstood young woman.
   I recommend it highly.
   But be warned - it is very detailed and there are tons of people to keep track of,
   Even so, it reads well and you never get bored with it.



2. Hard to get into. The movie is better except the movie leaves out one of the children and I am sure alot more. Maybe onday I will be able to get into it.



3. I really liked this book and finished it in record time--even though I knew how MA's story would end, it was fascinating to see that she was not entirely the arrogant and unapproachable Queen of lore. Yes, she made some mistakes and was extravagant at times, but certainly no more extravagant than previous Queens of France. Minimally any reader will say after reading this book that it is sad she was a Queen who did not pay more attention outside the walls of Versailles so that she might be less oblivious--but even then, I'm not sure she could have escaped her doomed fate.
   
   The treatment of the family during their captivity and particularly the treatment of their children is startling (not to mention the legendary treatment of the Princesse de Lamballe). In the end, I'm not sure what was worse--the royal family or the revolutionaries.



4. Over halfway through in a just a few days. I love this book! I'm definitely looking into purchasing others by the author.



5. If you are looking for a good histoical book on Marie Antoinette, this is it! It is well written and provides plenty of historical facts. Fraser also manages to paint a rather sympathetic portrait of Marie Antoinette as a human rather than a royal, without blurring the lines of history vs. folklore.

5 comments about Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love.

1. I had expected a fictionalized narrative following the daughter of the famous astronomer. What I got was a detailed biography of Galileo himself. However, I still continued reading to the end.
   With more warmth and humanity than your average historical account, Sobel's story weaves the life and family of its subject in among the facts of his life. Such things as his recurring illnesses and his struggles with the church authorities are brought to life and made more interesting.
   I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the life of Galileo, or anyone who is interested in the day-to-day activities of Italy in the 17th Century.



2. I've got a secret. This book is not really about Galileo's daughter, Virginia. It is about Galileo and his life and times as seen through letters from his daughter to him (the letters from him to his daughter were destroyed). As a book about Virginia, it is largely uninteresting and unenlightening. As a book about Galileo, it is terrific. Dava Sobel captures the essence of Galileo's work and his fight with the religious authorities. My emotions as I read the book were: enlightenment in that it shows Galileo to be a far better person than I had given him credit for; sadness because of how he was mistreated; amazement for the honor he showed in all his dealings; and frustration at how much science was held back by religious authorities. And it puts into perspective how little my own daughter actually demands from me. I strongly recommend this book and I look forward to reading other of Sobel's works, including Longitude.



3. GALILEO'S DAUGHTER
   By
   Dava Sobel
   (Penguin Books 2000)
   Sour Marie Celeste was the illegitimate daughter of Galileo Galelei - the eldest of his three, and only, children At the age of 13 her father had her admitted to the convent of San Mateo in Arcetri, where she would remain until her death at the age of 34 in 1634. Once admitted, or shortly thereafter, she started writing letters to her father - the most loving, beautiful, intelligent letters I have ever read. There aren't too many of them, but they have been preserved and form the excuse (if that is the right word) for this book - which is a part history of the life of Galileo, part comment on his times and a setting to publish the letters chronologically along with and in tune with events in his life.
   Every school child knows something about Galileo - whether it was his "invention" of the telescope (he didn't invent it; he improved it immeasurably) or his "discovery" of the fact that it was the earth which revolved around the sun rather than vice versa - and this too was wrong, He didn't "discover" this. The sun-centered universe (heliocentered) had been discovered and described by Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) in 1543, 21 years before Galileo was born in 1564. Using Copernican theory Tycho Brahe (1545-61) had fixed the positions of may stars both as to distance and location and Johannes Kepler (1591-1630) had established the planetary motion of the planets - or most of them. So it wasn't what he invented or what he "discovered" that eventually got him into trouble with the Catholic Church, it was the fact that he was by far the most gifted and the most prominent man to have advocated - or thought to advocate - the heresy of a heliocentered universe.
   He had been a star from the start, one of the most gifted mathematicians of his age or any other, one of the few who, instead of taking things as they are said to be, tried to find out how they really are. And thus was one of the first true scientists, a man who dropped balls of different weights from the tower of Pisa, who rolled balls of different weight and different sizes down inclines of different pitches, who measured the tides, floating bodies - always studying motion and/or the laws of motion - and almost all of modern physics is the study of motion whether it's string theory - action at a distance - or general relativity or the measurement of the effect of a collision of protons in the CORE tunnel in Switzerland this summer.
   He was always an academician, teaching mathematics at the University of Pisa or Padua or being the resident mathematician and experimenter for one of the Medici's. And on retainer to the same. He was always ill. He never married. His work was his spouse. However, he recognized his three children by his liaison with the beautiful Marina Gamba of Venice. Domestic life was not for him. To the end he worked and thought, living as a guest or retainer in many ducal palaces in Tuscany and Rome. He lived as an untitled man at the highest level of worldly or ecclesiastical aristocracy. He made enemies - many of them - but he persevered and died in a kind of house arrest at the age of 72, still working and under banishment for daring to support the idea that the earth moved about the sun which the Catholic Church, relying on Aristotelian and Pythagorean thought and on the literal word of Holy Scripter believed as holy writ that it was the sun which revolved about the earth.
   I have just spoken of his many enemies and of the ducal residences in which he often made his abode: and the book is full of this detail - too full in my opinion. It would have been better if much of this had either been omitted or if Ms. Sobel had taken the time to tell us something about the governance of his time, I would have been much better informed had I known something of the Medici's or the Doges of Venice or the politics of the Popes who were involved in his life. And I would like to have known more about how people lived in his time.
   Similarly I would have liked to know more about convent life. There is enough in the book to indicate that it was perfectly dreadful -cruel, inhuman by our standards. Hared work, cold water, bad food, no rest, small quarters, iron discipline and no sleep. The Hanoi Hilton in San Matteo. Why would anybody lived this way? And why did Galileo put his daughters "away" at age 13. He robbed them of a life! (The excuse given by Sobel is that he learned he had known enemies in court because of his success and wanted to protect them; but this doesn't wash with me. All he had to do was to acknowledge them and, as his heirs, they would have properly evaded his enemy's attempts to take his property. I think he put them away because he was selfish. He didn't want three illegitimate children to be staining his record as he surged his way upward, buoyed by talent and reputation.)
   As Galileo stepped through his professional life he wrote to Sour Marie Celeste, but his letters did not survive. Her replies and her spontaneous letters to him did survive, however, and manly of them are quoted here. Would that all children would love their father so much. Would that any one of us would have a child as intelligent, as articulate as she. Would that she were here today - or those like her - to call our attention to enduring love as contrasted to the conditions in which we live.
   There are a couple of other comments I want to get down here on paper before I quit. First - about Galileo's "Trial". It is covered accurately and well in the book. In brief Galileo had published in Dialogues the essence of Copernican thought spoken through the mouth of a neutral that was just saying what it was. Then there were two characters, one of which was Galileo under a false name, who discussed it. Thus he never on paper espoused the Copernican heresy. He just said what it was. He thought he had a deal with Cardinal Bellarmino (later Saint Bellarmine) that as long as he didn't teach or espouse it he was not in conflict with Church teaching. However, 15 years later he fell out of favor with Pope Urban VIII. His enemies in the Vatican called on the Inquisition to question him and it was as the result of this that he was sentenced to house arrests.
   The trial is well covered in the book, but I wish Sobel had told us more about the Inquisition, how long it lasted, what it did, what procedures were followed, how it was independent (if it was) of the Vatican. What was the Index? What happened to people who wrote things that made their way to the Index of banned books? What kind of books? How many?
   I also wish she had told us more about the thirty Years War because it is frequently mentioned and apparently played a direct role in the attitude of the Catholic Church at the time.
   Woven through out this history of Galileo's life and the beautiful love expressed by his daughter (who was every bit as bright as he was) is the conflict between science and religion. Sobel never addresses it. But it's pretty clear to me. Religious belief cannot overrule, change or ignore true scientific discovery. And the greatest conflicts in this area have been the Galileo incident with respect to the heliocentered universe and Darwinism. God made the world and He made the rules of nature and God doesn't bend, break or ignore His rules because they are contrary to the ideas of His people



4. This book must be read if not for the depth of the actual telling, then for the elegant writing itself. The intertwining of primary source material and the author's own pen is done beautifully. The story's theme of the supposed clash between faith and reason/ science is as relevant today as it was in Galileo's time. Food for thought.



5. My real issue with this book is that Sobel's writing leaves me cold. I had avoided reading this for a long time because I had not really enjoyed Longitude. But countless critical raves and the response from friends caused me to decide to give Galileo's Daughter a try.
   
   The subject matter is interesting enough. The book is very little about Galileo's daughter and is more a book about the man himself. That is not really a bad thing, since there is sadly not very much to know about Suor Maria Celeste. The episodes Sobel chooses to highlight are interesting, and I believe she succeeds in making Galileo human to the readers.
   
   I would be hard pressed to say what exactly it is that I do not like about Sobel as a writer. It is not something that I can easily articulate. I think that it has something to do with the fact that her prose feels like an overextended magazine article. Both in Longitude and in this book, I felt as though the material were too thin for the weight that she was trying to hang on the pages. I am not sure that this is true, and suspect it may have something to do with the structure. In any case, with both books I had the experience that I was quite impatient with the prose even as I was interested in the material.
   
   If you are interested in scientific history and in the mood for some reasonably light reading, then my review should not discourage you from picking up Galileo's Daughter. Myself, I am probably going to avoid Sobel in the future.

5 comments about A Treasury of Royal Scandals: The Shocking True Stories History's Wickedest, Weirdest, Most Wanton Kings, Queens, Tsars, Popes, and Emperors.

1. A fun read that will have you laughing from beginning to end at the wickedest, weirdest and funniest true stories and the witty way the author writes them right down to the funny titles for each chapter.



2. Well written and informative short stories about lesser known historical figures. Fun to read because you can finish a story quicklly, perfect for just before going to sleep at night. You will be amazed by these stories.



3. As an avid reader of historical novels I bought this book out of curiosity and I found it to be really funny and wonderfully written. Michael Farquhar has written in a such a humorous way, each tale about a historical figure is combined with shocking scandals and funny gossip.
   
   A great read. Highly recommended.



4. As I walked past this book at the local mega-bookstore my interest was fancied and I bought it on impulse, and because it was an impulsive buy I most certainly not take the time to look at the author's credentials, or look at the research done. As such I cannot blame anyone but myself for reading a book based almost entirely on gossip and propaganda.
   
   Granted, there were some stuff that could be "proved", but much of what this book talks about cannot be proved one way or the other and is nothing more than a collection of he said she said gossip around the various towns or from the various nobles. And oftentimes the sources are the subjects sworn enemy! Of course the enemy is going to claim so and so is a pedophile, or was a murderous, tortuous monarch. Of course this isn't a means to ignore what they say or to discount it as a falsehood. Europe's past ruling families are known far and wide for their hobbies and past times, for their sexual desires and cruel interest in sport and torture, but Farquhar's book implies that this was how the monarchs and queens always acted and, as another reviewer states, ignores the good that many monarchs have produced (yes, even some of the murderous monarchs as well). Of course this would diminish the appeal that this book would draw upon.
   
   After all, who doesn't like to read a good gossip? This is exactly what Farguhar has compiled, and is most definitely the feel of the book as a whole.
   
   I give it three stars because it was a very light and fun read, something you can pick up while sitting on the toilet or as a light vacation read. I would not recommend to those looking for more a more serious look at history, even for those who are not familiar with the times at all. So, 3 stars for sheer mindless entertainment for a few hours.
   
   3 stars.



5. A Treasury of Royal Scandals is a compendium of all the deliciously, scandalously bad things kings, queens, emperors, and popes have done over the past thousand years or so. Covering adultery to homosexuality to alcoholism, torture, murder, and beyond, it turns out that the ruling classes of Europe, especially in France, England, the Holy Roman Empire, and Russia, were quite badly behaved at times. We're given, in short form, everything from Henry VIII and his six wives to the Babylonian Captivity.
   
   Farquhar provides the reader with several family trees and appendices, which include timelines and the various royal houses. The writing style is witty and lively, and I was very much caught up in the various stories, which tend to be told in short chapters.
   
   I didn't like the way the book was laid out--there didn't seem to be any kind of coherent organization (ie, chronological or geographical) to it. As someone who gets a bit of a voyeuristic thrill out of this kind of thing, I was delighted with this compendium. Because the book was written by a journalist, A Treasury of Royal Scandals isn't, perhaps, the most scholarly work of nonfiction (and some of the incidents and tidbits seem as though they're merely gossip). But it sure is fun.