3 comments about Sir Edward Coke and the Elizabethan Age (Jurists: Profiles in Legal Theory).

1. I purchased this book for my husband, but read it myself first. It is very well written with good insight as to Sir Edward Coke. I would cheerfully recommend this to anyone with an interest in legal history.



2. Whether one is interested in History, Law or just seeking some insight into someone who has shaped our world Allen Boyer's work is a pleasure. I must confess my exposure to Sir Edward Coke was rudimentary at best but over the course of this text I became familiar with his accomplishments and gained an intimate insight into Sir Edward Coke's life. Allen Boyer's mastery of the written word is quite apparent and his ability to entertain and bring life to this important historical figure makes the work a true joy to read. His tireless research and familiarity with the subject matter is found in almost every crafted word.
   Simply stated, it is a must have for anyone interested in the history of Law, Sir Edward Coke and those who wish to read a finely crafted text.



3. Allen Boyer has produced a worthy successor to Bowen's The Lion and the Throne.
   
   Boyer shows us the pragmatic Coke, the shrewd lawyer who energetically represented his clients. He also shows us the idealistic Coke, the jurist who championed and clarified the English common law.
   
   Boyer's legal background makes Coke come alive, a lawyer's lawyer. Still an inspiration after 400 years!

1 comments about Another Country: Growing Up in 50's Ireland.

1. I picked up this book while waiting at Dublun Airport, and at a cursory glance, saw that this told the real story of Dublin in the 50's. It was just like reading the story of my own childhood. The prejudices, the puritanical "straight-laced" attitudes, which were designed to turn out designer kids... models of the establishment which needed an easy means to control and protect its own environment. However, to say that it is a depressing book would not be true, as the mischevious traits of the young characters proved that the supression of their individuality and personality was a lost cause from the beginning.

5 comments about The God Squad: The Bestselling Story of One Child's Triumph over Adversity.

1. This is the fascinating true story of a little boy who through no fault of his own is incarcerated in one of the appalling Irish industrial schools in existence in Ireland until 1970. He suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse and as if this were not enough, he was then taken by the nuns of the industrial school and left to spend years of his precious life in different hospitals where he appears to have been no more than a guinea pig and was left with a permanent disability. Up to this day, no-one within the system has accounted for the brain operations, his eventual disability or any reason why he was in the different hospitals.
   The book is very well written and although it describes the horrors inflicted on a small child, the sadistic treatment he received in the hands of the nuns, one can sense a healthy resignation which comes across every page thus making the unbearably sad story a little easier to read.
   I found the book an inspiration, an ode to life, for after the total deprivation of affection, protection, a simple toy even, and having had his life taken away from him and practicaly destroyed, he not only survives with sanity but he wins in a superhuman way as he tells with such dignity about the perverse system under which he and so many other children were detained.
   It must have been very difficult to relive the horrors whilst writing this very informative book. And for such an effort, I am indebted.



2. When The God Squad was first published in Ireland in 1988, the Irish public were confronted with the reality of life behind the walls of religious-run orphanages and industrial schools. However, perhaps because it was seen as just one unfortunate boy's story, there was no general sense of outrage directed at the perpetrators or at the system which allowed supposedly 'religious' men and women to ill-treat children entrusted to their care. That had to wait until another expose by the journalist Mary Raftery eight years later.
   
   But Paddy Doyle broke the silence and for that we must all be grateful. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand the real Ireland of the recent past. Paddy tells his story eloquently and without self-pity. The God Squad will break your heart. Read it.



3. Excellent and a very good read. I have read a few books about Ireland's Industrial Schools and saw the movie "The Magdeline (sp?)Sisters." All are helpful in understanding what the children Of Ireland's Industrial Schools went thru. Although Paddy only wrote about his experiences in "The God Squad," I feel great love and compassion and sadness for these children as well as a sense of great strength coming from them as adults to have the courage to tell their tales. God Bless every one of them and hope that they can find a sense of release and closure from the pain by letting the rest of the world know their stories.



4. "The God Squad" by: Paddy Doyle is an extremely well written book that took me through the whole range of human emotion. I laughed, cryed, was angry and happy as the author led me through his life from 4 1/2 years old through the epilogue. It is a book that I could not cast aside to finish later.....the 236 pages were rapidly devoured in a few hours. I recommend it very highly to everyone. The education, alone, is very well worth the price that one would pay for ANY book!....No wonder that it was a best seller in the United Kingdom. It will hit the USA in a big storm too!



5. I know this book is not out of print because I ordered it and read it in one day. Any intelligent reader knows that the mark of a good writer is the ability to write masterful, engaging narrative, and Paddy Doyle tells the story of his young life honestly and directly. It is this straightforward essential truthfulness which will keep your attention from page 1 through the epilogue. Of particular import in this literary journey is the challenge to see that the beauty of life is not there because of or in spite of what one survives, but because the human spirit, so brilliantly demonstrated in the Irish spirit of Paddy Doyle, is a fire that cannot be damped down. It's also a fine example of what happens when the church and state relationship gets too cozy; something we Yanks take for granted won't happen. Point and click your way to owning this book, it *is* available!

No comments about Profiles of a Lost World: Memoirs of East European Jewish Life Before World War II (Raphael Patai Series in Jewish Folklore and Anthropology).

5 comments about The Land That Never Was: Sir Gregor Macgregor and the Most Audacious Fraud in History.

1. Sinclair using too long quotes, sometimes going for 2-plus pages. More thorough and in-depth despcription of the hardships the colonists went through could have contributed to this book that was frankly hard-to-finish. Too much time was spent talking about various interest rates he was charging where the true bread and butter of the story takes place across the Atlantic.



2. In an amazing bit of marketing, Macgregor created a "country" and sold land that he had no claim to, amassing and losing a fortune several time over!



3. The author makes a habit of extensively quoting other authors memoirs of the events surround the Poyais scheme. When he is not doing that he is listing loan interest rates and payment schedules involved in the plot and there is enough unnecessary number crunching in the book to teach an economics class with. It seems that the author had a hard time finding any new original material in his research and so what we get is a mix of speculation and facts that have already been arrived at by the authors Davis researched. But other than that I suppose this was an interesting story. I wouldn't say that Gregors Poyais scheme was the Most 'Audacious Fraud in History' by the end of the book even Davis agrees that the Poyais scheme barely supported his family.



4. Poyais was a lush Caribbean paradise - perfect climate for comfortable living and fertile agriculture, peaceful natives, and beautiful scenery. It was the perfect place to start a new living or simply invest in. The only problem? It didn't actually exist.
   
   The Land That Never Was chronicles the life and times of Gregor MacGregor - one of the most outrageous, balls-out con artists of all time - who, in the early 1800s, tricked the world into believing he was an aristocrat, a knight, a hero of countless South American military campaigns, and the cazique (king) of an untouched, beautiful land. His powers of charm and manipulation were so great that even as his fraud was unraveled, he still managed to escape unscathed, legally and reputation-wise. Even the settlers of this new land - that is, those who survived the barren, disease-ridden nightmare of a place where they were dumped and abandoned - never blamed MacGregor, but the various intermediaries MacGregor had put in place.
   
   The swindle was so well thought out and detailed that the fake land of Poyais had its own 300-page guidebook, Constitution, purchase orders for tracts of land, various other forged documents, and travel agencies throughout England and Scotland, that helped recruit hundreds of new settlers. The book begins with the predicament that these settlers found themselves in after arriving in "Poyais"; namely, having given up everything they had to die in a horrible place - and spending their life savings for the opportunity!
   
   The book then looks at MacGregor's colorful past prior to the Poyais scheme, spending much time on his cowardly misadventures as a soldier for fortune in South America. The narrative then focuses on the second half of his life, as he sought every which way to make money off of a complete fantasy, even bankrupting and killing hundreds of innocents in the process, and always staying one step ahead of the law.
   
   This is a fascinating story of chutzpah and creative swindling, and of a delusional man who may have even began believing his own tall tales. The only drawback to the book is the lack of broader research during MacGregor's wartime years, of which a good portion of the book is spent: most of the research is from the memoirs of a disillusioned colonel that served with MacGregor (though his version of events are likely more accurate than MacGregor's, who would have you believe he single-handedly liberated South America!). All other aspects of the book are great: it is richly detailed and engaging, and a must-read for anyone interested in the lesser-known annals of history.



5. The biggest thing to jump out at me, was why all these different people kept getting suckered in by this guy, it became more frustrating than entertaining.

No comments about William and Mary (Very Interesting People S.).

No comments about Conor: A Biography of Conor Cruise O'Brien.

1 comments about Peter the Great (Seminar Studies in History).

1. Peter the Great, written by William Marshall and published by Longman Group Limited in 1996, is a nonfiction historical work about the life and works of what some from the time hailed as "the greatest Monarch of our age (p 88)." The text lends a good deal of understanding to the now defunct U.S.S.R. and present-day Russia. Marshall presents Peter as a rather nontraditional ruler whose genius schemes and manipulations (though not always immediately successful) ushered in a new era for Russia and laid the foundation on the world scene and in Russia for what was to come in following centuries. Perhaps the most striking feature of Peter the Great as presented in this text was his unconventionality as a ruler. Peter's lifestyle was rather crass as far a world leaders go, and extremely unorthodox when compared to his Russian predecessors. Peter's shabby, foreign dress combined with his heavy drinking and love of the company of "common folk" were just a few peculiarities that contributed to his rough image. Marshall points out that at times this was to his advantage and at others it may have worked against him. Perhaps Peter wanted it that way, being the manipulator that he was. Peter lived the way he ruled. It was his way or the high way, and this may have been one of his ingredients for success (at least initially). One of the main emphases of the book (and rightly so) is the military ventures of Peter the Great. Marshall attributes Peter's love of the military to his growing up in the foreign districts of Moscow. Indeed much of Peter's character and behaviors are attributed to this. From the moment that Peter assumed authority, his immediate and long term goals centered around the military. Russia needed a warm-water outlet to western Europe. Peter desired conquest of foreign held territories bordering Russia. A large and effective military was needed to defend what Russia already held against its enemies. At the time Russia's infrastructure was infantile or nonexistent. The course of action that Peter pursued to attain his goals set Russia on a hurried pace to a seat at the world's table. Marshall repeatedly points out that Russia was already on a course for prominence and development (set by Ivan IV) but Peter did a great deal to speed the process. For Peter the key to advancing Russia lay in the Westernization of his empire. Peter was constantly recruiting foreigners for service and leadership in the military and his government, a process that Ivan IV had begun. The need for funds to finance Peter's great military and naval schemes as well as interior development had many significant short term and long term effects upon Russia. Extremely heavy taxes were imposed upon the Russian people as well as the Church. Soldiers for the army and sailors for the navy were forcibly enlisted. Forced migrations to areas where labor was needed were common. This was cause for much dissent at the time, but it had a much more far reaching effect. A general feeling of the need for service to the state was being instilled in the Russian people. People were becoming nothing more than a cog in the wheel of the great machine which Russia was to become. As Marshall puts it, "The hallmark of his working life was service to the state, for the common good (p 10)." This is a sentiment that the U.S.S.R. played heavily upon and one of the reasons Russia was able to do so much so fast. Peter eventually assumed the title of Emperor, and allowed no opposition. While Peter was a religious man, he certainly lacked the piety of previous tsars. The Church was strong and the Patriarch held considerable authority with the people. Peter cowed the Church, ended the position of Patriarch and made the Church no more than a department of the state to be used for its benefit. A darker side of Peter is revealed when he founded the "Most Drunken Synod (p 56)." The ceremonies performed were a mockery and meant to weaken the Church, but it also raises questions about the mental stability of Peter. While Peter was not an extremely educated man, he was intelligent and he understood the power of education. He founded many schools and academies to teach the art of warfare, medicine, and shipbuilding among other things. His emphasis on practical knowledge and technology as opposed to basic research and theory illuminates Peter's impatient and demanding nature. He desired that the only things taught or learned were those of immediate importance and that could be implemented directly. In all things that he did, Peter wanted what he wanted the way he wanted and as soon as possible. That is evident in the building of St. Petersburg against the council of his advisors. He then had to force the population and development of the city. Peter wanted to glorify his empire, he sought to do that by expanding. To expand Russia needed a large up-to-date military and navy. To achieve that Russia needed money and people and foreign help. To advance the military and support expansion Russia needed to develop its infrastructure. I believe Peter went about meeting these needs in the wrong order. I dispute the claim by Marshall that Peter was a social egalitarian (p 11). He failed to recognize any rights at all, save that of his autocracy to rule unchallenged. Some may say that this was what was needed at the time, but a garden sown with weeds will always grow weeds and will eventually leach everything it can out of the soil and die. We have seen such a thing happen in our own lifetime with the demise of the U.S.S.R. and the poor state of Russia.

2 comments about Henry VIII and the English Nobility.

1. While I did not love this book, it is well-researched and makes a solid contribution to a relatively under-researched area of Tudor history. Given the extent of the shadowy way in which Henry VII came to the thrown influenced Henry VII and Henry VIII's actions, you would think there would be more books written on Henry VIII's relationship with his nobles.
   This book is relatively bland but it gives real insight in to the pressures of faction politics in HVIII's court, discussing how some nobles refused to participate in the trial of Anne Boleyn, how Henry VIII's succesful "judicial murder" of Buckingham cowed the nobles and encouraged Henry in his other outrageously tyrannical prosecution of nobles, and how some nobles would be complicit in these actions since they occasionally benefited if the victim's land was divided amongst the jurors.



2. Whatever his personal and political faults, Henry VIII was astute in the art of government, weaving a network around the throne, and around the dynasty he was setting out to create, of old aristocratic families and newly created noblemen. By examining the way in which the king selected "new men," created new titles, promoted existing peers, and saw to it that the extinction of a title was always to his own advantage, Miller shows how Henry's attitudes, policies, and use of patronage reflected his dynastic insecurities.

3 comments about Bitter Waters: Life And Work In Stalin's Russia.

1. This book was very well written and shows what effect being a political prisoner has on one man even after he returns to the "real world." This is an intelligent man who works in manufacturing and views Soviet life under Stalin in an unfavorable light. He knows how to work the system and keep himself under the radar until World War II breaks out. I found this book compelling and enjoyed reading it very much.



2. Many people think that Stalin's Russia was a productive industrializing country in the 1930s. Andreev-Khomiakov points out that it wasn't. This was a country which gave minimal wages to most of its workers. It was also a country that did not provide materially for its citizens. In a sense, this country was a totalitarian dictatorship where a few got rich, and most were poor. Industry was poorly run, since nobody was competing against another company. People also stole and cheated on the system because they had to. The author gives a convincing story on the system that Communism placed in Russia.
   
   This is certainly a great book to read about how Stalin's system did not work. This shows the inner workings of Communism and why this system died in the 1990s. An interesting read for those interested in Stalin's Russia.



3. If you're one of those people fascinated by the Soviet Union in the 1930s your mind will be blown by this quite fabulous book. Like virtually no other work I've read on the subject it brings home quite how anarchic life was for many people and how the ludicrously inhuman way in which the Soviet Union was run helped crush the population's soul. Anyone interested enough in this topic to probe further should also read "An American Engineer in Stalin's Russia", which is almost as good as this work. Andreev-Khomiakov's greatest talent is his ability to wriggle right into the psyches of the opposers and the opposed to produce a graphic explanation of what was so wrong with the Soviet Union in the 1930s. He also produces enough anecdotes to show how some people can retain their most human qualities at a time when everyone around them is descending into brutality. I say again -- this is a quite extraordinary work. Buy it now!