No comments about 274 Things You Should Know About Churchill.

2 comments about Famine Diary: Journey to a New World.

1. Please note:
   
   This book has been proven to be a fake, insofar as the so-called 'diary' is actually based on a short story written in 1895. See Jim Jackson, 'Famine Diary: The Making of a Best Seller,' Irish Review no. 11 (Winter 1991-2), p. 1-8. While some of the historical conditions is describes may be accurate, it should not in any case be read as an 'authentic' first hand account.



2. To read Keegan's diary is to re-live the nightmare he is retelling. A schoolteacher, he had to live with the fact that his students couldn't concentrate because they were literally starving to death. In shutting down the schoolhouse he was performing a humanitarian service, but admitting defeat as well.

   He then takes his bride on a journey to the new Promised Land -- America. His horror at seeing hundreds crammed into the hold of the ship, food withheld by the crew, and larceny performed constantly, comes across with such alacrity that the reader wants to rush up and punish the offenders.

   The gripping tale spares no one -- the British, the greedy Irish landowners, the uncaring ship's crew -- all are painted with the honesty needed -- no Emperor's new clothes here.

   Although the ending is known, throughout the book the reader keeps hoping that history will change, that the circumstances will suddenly alter, and that the suffering passengers will somehow, miraculously be comforted.

   This is a very disquieting book if you have believed all the stories that the Famine was somehow brought on by the Irish, and that the emigration to America, Canada and Australia was a voluntary one.

   Those of Irish ancestry (like me) should read this to weep over lost loved ones, and ensure that nothing similar ever occurs again.

1 comments about The Fast Set: Three Extraordinary Men and Their Race for the Land Speed Record.

1. Really interesting and well conceived book, written in an easy-to-read style ... but I found myself putting the book down and firing up the internet to see an image of what he was talking about ... time after time ... e.g. racetracks, cars etc
   I know its not meant to be an encyclopaedia but it needs more photos and illustrations - then it would be a lot better and get the "4" it probably deserves.
   Don't read it in bed, you'll drive yourself nuts getting up to go to your computer to find photos of what you're reading about. Read it at your desk, preferably next to your computer ... and you will enjoy it.

1 comments about Children of the Katyn Massacre: Accounts of Life After the 1940 Soviet Murder of Polish POWs.

1. In the massacre at Katyn and surrounding locations, some 22,000 members of the cream of Polish society were systematically murdered--all to prevent the Polish nation from possessing the necessary leadership to ever rise again. It was a cold-blooded act of genocide done by the Soviet Union against Poland, and its effects continue today: "Poland would today be a different country if the Soviets together with the Germans had not deprived it of its most enlightened citizens. Their extermination resulted in the next generation being taught and raised by opportunists, traitors, and betrayers. The liquidation of Poland's elite is permanent and irreversible." (Ewa Gruner, p. 49).
   
   The content of this volume goes far beyond the authors' childhood experiences of losing their fathers. In fact, the authors present a good deal of information of historical value. One of the most enduring themes mentioned is the fact that NO ONE has ever been punished for the crime of Katyn (p. 4, 46, 90, 104, 161, etc.). (Then again, this must be contextualized. The ends of the Earth are, to this day, searched for geriatric Nazi criminals, but no comparable effort is ever made to find and punish Communist criminals. Why?)
   
   Wes Adamczyk, who wrote the Foreward of this book, provides more historical detail than just about any other author in this book. (Adamczyk has subsequently expanded his essay into an excellent book: WHEN GOD LOOKED THE OTHER WAY.).
   
   A number of the children of Katyn live (or lived) in Wilno (Vilnius). Witold Swianiewicz personally remembers how the local Jews warmly welcomed the Soviet invaders (p. 203), and how he was nearly betrayed to the Soviets by a Jewish acquaintance who had evidently become an NKVD agent (trying unsuccessfully to learn exactly where the Swianiewicz's were living at the time.) (p. 204). Jozef Wasilewski describes the subsequent murders of several tens of thousands of Jews, and a few tens of thousands of Poles, in the nearby wooded area of Ponary (pp. 140-142). The murderers were mostly German-serving Lithuanian collaborators, notably the "Ypatingas Burys". Halina Kalwajt (p. 130) provides excellent detail on the seizure of Wilno from the Germans by the AK, just before the 1944 entrance of the Red Army, as part of Operation Burza (or Tempest).
   
   Halina Kozlowska describes the entry of the Red Army into Skierniewice in 1944 (pp. 181-182). The Soviets threw Poles out of their homes, broke locks, and stole at will. Those who protested were often shot. Other Poles were shot in the nearby forests. The Soviets also raped Polish women and girls. Later, the Kozlowski domicile was, for a time, confiscated by the new Soviet puppet government of Poland (p. 182). Generations later, some unscrupulous Poles, attempting to take advantage of the unresolved question of the ownership of the home, came to claim it. (This situation shows that it was not only the returning Polish Jews who sometimes experienced resistance to the reclamation of their properties.)
   
   In the decades following the Katyn massacre, and especially after the fall of Communism, many Katyn Societies have sprung up all over the world in order to memorialize the victims. In Israel, the Yad Vashem Institute, focusing exclusively on the Jewish victims of the Nazis, has refused to include the Polish-Jewish victims of Katyn in its purview (p. 231).
   
   Many of the children of Katyn victims have, during and since the 1990's, visited the several sites of the murders. Locally, excavations were conducted (pp. 35-37, 44). Some of the graves of the Poles had obviously been looted by Russians: "The local population began to find bones, Polish buttons, and military decorations when they, in need of fuel, were demolishing the fence that, during the war, had still bordered the burial areas. They would dig through this place in pursuit of military accessories and valuables. They destroyed a lot of remains." (Ewa Gruner, p. 41). (Holocaust materials commonly mention that Poles looted places where the remains of Jews were interred--all in search for valuables. The Katyn experience shows, once again, that such looting was a common occurrence. It obviously involved a variety of perpetrators and victims.)
   
   Wanda Wasserman touches on her life in prewar Poland as an assimilated Polish Jew: "She admits that she personally never experienced any anti-Semitic sentiments on the part of Poles. She has even had many Polish friends. However, from other Jews she heard about the negative feelings of Poles toward her people." (p. 222). Her direct experience adds support to the premise that prewar Polish anti-Semitism had been sporadic and intermittent, not constant and relentless. It also contradicts Celia Heller, who, in her ON THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION, would have us believe that assimilated Polish Jews experienced Polish anti-Semitism about as often as their non-assimilated counterparts.

No comments about The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam: Translated by Edward Fitzgerald. With a Commentary by H. M. Batson and a Biographical Introduction by E. D. Ross.

3 comments about Horse of Pride: Life in a Breton Village.

1. This is an amazingly detailed description of childhood in the last generation of Breton peasant society. Helias was born and raised in Pouldreuzic, a village in Brittany not far from the coast (but far enough a trip on foot for the villagers to consider themselves inland farmers, not coastal fishermen). Helias was born just before the outbreak of World War I, and his much of his childhood was framed by the departure of the fathers from the village to fight in the French army, and the societal changes that came about on their return. After graduating from the village grammar school, Helias was selected for a scholarship so that he could continue his education at a lyceum in Quimper. Although studying in Quimper meant that he had to adopt a new French rather than Breton persona, his felt that his roots would always remain in Pouldreuzic. This book, written when Helias was in his 60s, is a reliving of Helias' youthful years in Pouldreuzic, covering village economic life, social mores, religion, education, work, and attitudes towards the society of greater France.
   
   Helias' family was neither well-off nor poor by village standards. They owned a cow, they had sufficient food and clothing, and best of all, Helias' grandfather owned their plot of land. Many other villagers often went hungry, and some had no place to live, so Helias considered himself fortunate as a child. Nevertheless, the living conditions that Helias describes as normal sound shockingly primitive by modern standards. Of course, there was no central heat, but there was also frequently no fuel for the luxury of heating their simple one or two-room houses. Laundry was washed once or twice a year, and the floors of the houses were made of mud. Not only was there no running water, but latrines were also apparently not in vogue, and people relieved themselves in the fields or behind bushes. There was a great value in being part of the community, since the entire village would gather for work parties to thresh grain or gather hay. Religion was extremely important to the community, and served to preserve the cohesiveness of the Breton culture since the priests gave validity to the Breton society by addressing the villagers in their own language. Education, in contrast, took place in French, and the brightest children, those with the most promise for future leadership, found themselves drawn away from the village as their skills in French developed.
   
   Though Breton peasant life was hard, Helias finds much to recommend in it. He appreciated honest labor, and a story well-told. Helias closes the book with a chapter examining the changes that have come to Brittany since his childhood and weighing whether these changes have been for the good. This is not a book that can be skimmed quickly. With Helias' incredible eye for detail, this book requires a long and careful reading.



2. Helias eloquently writes of life in his home village in this classic portrait of Breton folklife. He provides sufficient historical context to help readers understand the culture, but most of his descriptions come from his own memories and experiences. Sections where he describes life in the village and fields are especially interesting, and they provide rich details about everyday life. Helias left the village for higher education. The book's final chapters balance out the rich experiences of his childhood with the reflections of a seasoned scholar. This mixture of autobiography and ethnographic study makes the book especially interesting and poignant.



3. Helias's book is one of the classics of a genre known as "literary ethnography." Works in this style are designed both to provide a thorough understanding of life in a community as well as to artistically portray the experience of doing field research through well-written and elegant prose. Helias grew up in the community that he returned to study. Consequently, he knows about the daily life of his community, and his training in European folklife studies provides him with an amazing resource for writing about the quotidian realities of Breton folk culture. The book provides solid ethnographic description of daily life in the peasant village, and he writes of the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of daily life with equal grace and ease. The book reads beautifully, and the insights are timely and even more poignant 20 years after he completed his insightful study. This book is an inspiration to writers who present studies of folklife throughout the world, and it is essential reading for anyone interested in ethnographic writing.

5 comments about The Lives of the Kings and Queens of England, Revised and Updated (Kings & Queens of England).

1. If you enjoy and read novels, biographies or history books about England and Europe this is a must have reference book. Very condensed, dry and factual history but a tremendous help in keeping people, time and places in order and perspective.



2. If your a history buff like I am you will love this book. It is a must for those interested in the past.



3. I love this book. Even with all of the reading I have done on the British Monarchy, this book had never before seen pictures. My only complaint would be that it often focuses more on political events rather than personal lives. But, there is wonderful information in this book, and I have enjoyed every page.



4. As a lover of British royal history, I think this is a fantastic overview that 'sums' things up, devoting a few pages to tell the story of each monarch. Antonia Fraser manages to pass on a lot of information in short form. The illustrations are wonderful, as are the charts (although as someone else mentioned, they are missing some details for us serious fanatics). I consider this is a great compilation if you just want the big picture, or a starting point to jump off into detailed biographies of individual monarchs and/or houses.



5. My dad gave me this lovely book for Christmas back in '99, and I have used it as a reference ever since. Although it is a splendid read from cover-to-cover, I find that it is one of the best books out there to really whet the appetite for more in-depth research into the monarch, rebel or time period of your choice.
   
   The genealogy charts are fun to puzzle out, and the illustrations, including coats of arms, maps, tapestries and portraits, add extra personality to the history, which is, in itself, fascinating.
   
   Of course, a book of this length only scratches the surface of the noble, scandalous, shocking and never-dull lives of the British monarchs, their families, friends and enemies, so you must dig deeper if any one subject appeals to you. All in all, a well-written, organized and illustrated overview of a sizeable chunk of history.

No comments about Henry VIII (Very Interesting People).

3 comments about Alfred the Great: The King and His England (Phoenix Books).

1. Duckett's biography of King Alfred is an enjoyable and interesting read. We are drawn a picture of Alfred that shows how great a king he was to overcome the Danes from what little he had left. Duckett takes us from when he was a boy to his death with a fluid grace not easily found in biographers and their writings. Additionally, Duckett does well in interpreting the many stories and legends and presenting them in a way to give a real picture of Alfred, one of what really happened and one of what the stories and legends of the time thought of him. Her short commentaries of the travails that befell the Continent at the hands of the Vikings added a lot of insight and perspective as well.
   
   There did seem to be two chapters out of place. King Alfred and His Earlier Translations and Later Translations. Both, it would seem, are important to King Alfred's life since he devoted much of it to translating texts into his native tongue. But analyzing the meaning of the books as well as the lives of those author's whose books Alfred translated did nothing more than take up space and waste time. Granted, it is important and would have been a great appendix, but it didn't seem to fit into the style of biography that Duckett wrote.
   
   I, too, as Duckett mentioned at the end, would have liked to have seen some of Alfred's flaws interspersed with his attributes. But this isn't something that one can find easily, leaving us relying on what is available, notably Asser's rendition of Alfred. That being said I would definitely recommend this biography to everyone. If it weren't for the two chapters on translation I would have rated this a five star.
   
   4 stars.



2. I chose to read a book about King Arthur followed by one on Alfred the Great. Talk about putting the post Roman period into perspective!
   
   Both books are old ones, Leslie Alcock's Arthur's Britain (1971) and Eleanor Shipley Duckett's Alfred The Great The King and his England (1956). Both are superb, but of the two, Alcock's is the more thorough. Although there are doubtless things which have come to light about the time period of the two, roughly 400-900 A.D., I suspect that the general content of the history of the period is still unchanged by virtue of the lack of any substantially new information.
   
   For Arthur there is still little more than the later medieval legends that we still enjoy hearing to illuminate his character. Whether he was a Romanized Britain serving a local king in the fight against invading Angles, Saxons, Juts and others, or a king as he is described in the later chronicles, we will probably never know. Even whether he was one man or a composite is up for grabs, although Alcock makes no bones about where he stands on this issue. Arthur's significance in his own time was dictated by the needs and interests of the period; his significance in ours is his model of a true and heroic king. These two aspects have little to do with one another.
   
   What Alcock does in lieu of concrete data on Arthur the man, is to define with great clarity the character of his time. Alcock is an archaeologist and it shows, for he brings to life the information produced from habitation and defensive sites in a way that makes silent stones speak. His study of the character of pottery finds, their distribution, source and manufacture through time, suggests that the England of Arthur's time had lost much of its native industry and returned to local cottage industry. The absence of coinage suggests that a money economy had evaporated as the Roman Empire pulled out of the country to defend itself closer to home. The failure of cities suggests that they were no longer needed and that the population wasn't there to require them. The integration of economy, education, elaborate political and judicial structures could no longer be supported and it disappeared. Without the core of Roman establishment to support it, society returned to simpler forms perhaps even declining in numbers
   
   He also points out that the tale of carnage and barbarity that the history of the time portrays may not have been quite the reality of those living then, but more the convention of heroic poetry. Like many archaeologists, he questions the motives of the sources for the period. Little evidence in the form of burned and destroyed layers in settlements suggests to him that the time was as violent as it has been believed to have been. Instead, the movements of continental people into England are envisioned as having been of some long standing, beginning in the time of the Romans as a matter of defense against the same areas of military difficulty that presented William the Conqueror with problems in his time: Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. That the inhabitants of England moved back and forth between the island and the continent is surely suggested by the fact that when prospects arose for adventure and advancement in Europe during the decline of the Empire, the young men of England crossed the channel. That Vortigern was able to encourage continental people to move to England to settle and defend the land suggests that a great deal of exchange was possible. It also suggests that Vortegern felt he could trust these people and that his greatest concern for the safety of his society came from the same sources it had always come, from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Certainly the concept of a national identity in this region was well in the future, and allegiance was more to the person and character of an individual leader than to a set nationality. Even in Alfred's time almost 300 years later, individuals tended to collect at the court of a victorious and virtuous leader.
   
   Alfred on the other hand is an historic figure about whom a fair amount of information is at hand. Professor Duckett does an excellent job of pulling together the events of his reign, making a coherent story of the defense of England against the Danes. Here we make an about face of some note. Instead of being the dreaded pagan outsiders, invaders of the island, and despoilers of British society, the Saxons are seen as the center of society, defenders of the realm, supporters of the faith against the pagan Vikings. In something like three hundred years, the Saxons have become the people of England. That there were battles between Britains and Saxons during Arthur's time is very likely. But there were battles between individual British kings as well. It was an age of struggle between leaders of various groups to see who would serve whom. It was sort of the "wild west" of Europe. By Alfred's time, these issues had largely been settled. The island had been subdivided into kingdoms, whose borders fluctuated with the abilities of the reigning monarchs vis a vis one another, but for the most part, society itself was stable. Enter the Vikings, however, and again things are up for grabs. It seems likely, although Duckett doesn't mention it, that the climate of the period had changed enough to bring about population movements. Certainly the political climate of the northern countries had changed, which she does mention, as Harold Fairhair began to reorganize them into his own large domain. This left a large body of people at lose ends and brought trouble to the shores of both the English isles and to the coasts and fluvial plains of Europe.
   
   Duckett is an historian and classicist. As such she focuses on the written history of the Angles and Saxons. It would have been enjoyable to have had more information about the material remains from the period, a la Alcock, to throw the story of Alfred into greater relief against the background of what remains. One would especially like to have known if the violence and destruction was really as wide spread as suggested and if the people living in Dane held and Saxon held lands were really as distinctive as their national identities suggest. Were they treated any differently by their masters. Did they mix more freely than indicated, etc. This type of information is likely to come from archaeology than from written records, most of which come from biased sources.
   
   Altogether two wonderful books that go a long way toward making a murky period clearer. Read them together.



3. This book is outstanding. It draw a vibrant picture of a king whose life is otherwise obscured by the mists of time. Duckett presents a picture of a man who is simultaneously legendary and very human. This book is a wonderful choice for anyone interested in medieval times or the roots of British culture. Duckett's writing style is clean and consice, free of the usual scholarly jargon. It is a must for any student of history, amature or professional.

2 comments about Casualty of War: A Childhood Remembered (Eastern European Studies, 18).

1. This book should be read by all Danube Swabians and their offsprings as well as all freedom-loving, truth seeking and fair minded people of this world.



2. Luisa Lang Owen's recounting of her childhood and the losses she and others experienced before, during and after the war, including three years in a concentration camp is, at once, both hauntingly beautiful and horrific. Her captors, in seeking to exterminate individuals and their culture ironically distilled, in this young woman, the essence of being. Her lush and loving attention to detail, her artistic perceptions were heightened and strengthened in those years, and what we sometimes refer to as the "strength of the human spirit" is clearly defined in the telling of this woman's coming of age under life-threatening conditions. Both fascinated and saddened by the telling, I felt as if I'd entered the spirit of someone who has always lived and continues to live fully and attentively in the world.