5 comments about The Flamboya Tree: Memories of a Mother's Wartime Courage.

1. This is the story of a mother's incredible determination, devotion, courage and strength all aimed at saving her children from the ravages of a Japanese concentration camp.
   
   We do not get to know the role religious faith may have played in Clara Olink Kelly's mother's life prior to the Japanese invasion of Java. However, given the times, her Dutch culture and her social status, one can imagine that she lived a Calvinist role of being a submissive, demure, obediant wife. Religious faith obviously were very important to her during the three and a half concentration camp years as she read scripture stories to her children. One wonders, however, would Clara's mother have survived if she had been alone with no children dependent upon her?
   
   The real downer of this memoir is the betrayal committed by Clara's father. It is not difficult to understand how after nearly four years of being separated from his family and all that he endured in working on construction of the railroad line over the River Kwai, that he would be most vulnerable to entering into an extra-marital relationship, especially not knowing if his family was even alive. However, once he knew they had survived, it seems he did not give a hoot. He was totally responsible for his wife and children languishing four more months in an Allied concentration camp. In the meantime he enjoyed himself exploring post-war business opportunities.
   
   The result of his neglect was that his wife's berberi worsened and his son nearly died. We do not know but perhaps Mr. Olink was a jerk from the beginning. If so, then after the war he took being a jerk to a whole new heighth!
   
   This reviewer is not like the others who have commented here so far. I had no relatives who experienced anything like what Clara Olink Kelly describes. However, Paul, an acquaintance of mine who is from Holland, tells how it was that his parents and younger siblings endured the Japanese concentration camp in Sumatra. Paul's father also was a forced laborer on the River Kwai rail line. Paul's mother and siblings experienced the same deprived and depraved conditions as Claras' family. Paul's family came out of the ordeal as an intact family. Clara was not so fortunate.
   
   Some readers might wonder how Clara, nearly six decades later, could possibly remember the "exact" words uttered by the others in her life when she was but four to seven or eight years old at the time. We must remember that all autobiography's and memoirs reveal a process that we all go through as we tell our life stories. We repeat those stories over and over again until we get them "right."



2. I loved this book. It tells a story of courage, bravery, and family. It vividly captures an aspect of WWII that (sadly) is unknown by most people. My grandmother was also a prisoner of war in a Japanese camp in Indonesia and gave birth to my dad while in the camp. They are both gone now and this book helped fill in so many of the details of their story. Thank you Clara Kelly for telling your story, and telling it well.



3. ...It's awesome! I am so thankful to Ms. Kelly for sharing her experience. My Grandmother was also a prisoner of the Japanese in Indonesia during WWII. She had 2 babies (my dad, 6 months, & uncle, 1.5 years). I have heard 'pieces' of my Grandmothers story, but she has never been able to speak of it all. Now I know why. This book is truely a favorite of mine and always will be. Thank you Ms. Kelly. God Bless.



4. The Flamboya Tree, by Clara Olink Kelly, was very touching.
   This is a part of history that people should know about. We know about Japan invading Pearl Harbor,and other places, but what we don't know is the people who became effected by the war.
   Clara tells this story so well, she makes you feel like you are there seeing all the tragic events yourself.
   This is one book that I would highly recommend to everyone, I think we can learn a great deal from it and have a better understanding of war itself.



5. We were bowled over by this book! Clara Kelly presents vivid and heart rending images of the heroic acts of her mother to save her children from the devastating conditions in a Japanese concentration camp during WWII. This tribute to her mother also reveals the tenacity of the author and her older brother under unbelievably inhumane conditions. We will read it again.

1 comments about East Wind Melts the Ice: A Memoir through the Seasons.

1. I have been looking for a written chronicle of the Asian Monthly Ordinances since I first read a reference to this calendar in Liza Dalby's other book 'The Tale Of Murasaki' (which I might add, is also an excellent read). As an artist whose work is greatly influenced by Asian art, I find the aesthetics of this Farmer's Almanac style calender very inspirational and Liza Dalby's explanation and interpretation of the individual calendar entries weaves a virtual tapestry of beautiful imagery and ceremony along with historical references that help to understand the Asian culture more thoroughly. When I first heard of this book, I ordered it from the Public Library but within the first few pages, realized that borrowing it would not do, I had to buy a copy to add to my own personal library of art and reference books.

5 comments about Flyboys: A True Story of Courage.

1. My dad loves true military stories, and I got this for him for Christmas. The previous Christmas I had gotten him "Flags of our fathers." He loved it. My dad is a good reader, but he never reads for hours on end putting other stuff aside just to do so. But, this book had him reading for the better part of his Christmas break. He also said it was somewhat sad, but not overly.



2. I had seen the book but never made the connection to the author of The Flags of our Fathers. I decided to pick it up and give it a read after chatting with an older gentleman about the war. He said it was good.
   
   I had never hear of Chichi Jima. A bypassed island which was overshadowed by the Battle of Iwo Jima. Chichi Jima was a communications center for the Japaneses. American pilots "flyboys" were assigned to try and take out the radio stations so they could not inform Japan that bombers were on the way. Bradley tells the story of what happened to the flyboys that were shot down. Their names were Dick Woellhof, Floyd Hall, Marve Mershon, Jimmy Dye, Grady York, Warren Earl Vaughn, the future President George HW Bush, Glenn Frazier, Bill Connell and an unnamed B-24 crewman. Only George Bush and Bill Connell would survive.
   
   
   What I found interesting is the way Bradley tries to explain the two cultures and the history leading up to the war. The history mentioned ranges from the Samurai, the restoration of the Mejii, Perry and the rise of the Militaristic powers. Bradley made an attempt to explain the pseudo-Samurai culture that arose and the actions of the so called "Spirit Warriors" committed. Actions which the real Samurai would have never done.
   
   Bradley makes no attempt to "white wash" the history and the wars that were fought. Bradeley tells of barbarous acts committed by Japan, the US, and even China throughout the years. Actions which at the time people thought they were the right thing to do and with future generations can question.
   
   The clash of the two cultures does come into play. To the Japanese soldier the act of surrender was a shameful horrendous act. It basically made you the lowest of the low. Treatment of such men was horrible especially with the brutal thugs that ran the army.
   
   War is about dehumanizing the enemy. It makes it easier to kill them. The US even practiced it with songs such as "I am going to slap that dirty little Jap" and the use of a parade float which showed scurrying yellow rats being bombed.
   
   Hollywood likes to paint a noble John Wayneish view of the war and yet our boys could be a brutal as the enemy. As mentioned by flyboys who strafed Japanese soldiers and sailors. Bradley doesn't try to paint an evil image of the US soldier. Simply that war can make decent people do bad things in war.
   
   I knew prisoners were executed as I have seen the famous photo of the Australian soldier about to be beheaded. What I did not know was the acts cannibalism that went on.
   
   Such acts happened to the flyboys that crashed and were captured on Chichi Jima. Such acts suggested the War Department thought it was not a good idea to tell the families of the flyboys as they were told they were MIA. It's kind of sad hearing the mothers went to their graves not knowing what happened to their sons. Yet, would you want to tell a mother that her son was beheaded and partially eaten?
   
   This story only made it to light because of Bill Doran felt the flyboys stories needed to be told and he contacted the author and told him about them. Bill Doran was present at the war crimes trials for the leaders and soldiers involved with the killings on Chichi Jima.
   
   Bradley talked to endless people and even Japanese soldiers who were on the island an interacted with the flyboys. The cannibalistic commands were executed in 1947. The stories told about the flyboys facing their deaths is indeed courageous and noble. Depending on your viewpoints you can take it as true or simply soldiers making them honorable rather then what happened.
   
   Bradley also visited the islands of Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima with President Bush. He asked the author if he knew anything about what happened to the two men he lost when he was shot down that day. President Bush stayed with his plane longer then he should have and even tried to turn it so they could get out safer. They didn't make it even though it was thought two parachutes were seen.
   
   President Bush said to this day he still thinks of them.
   
   Overall this is a great book to read and I highly recommend it.



3. "Fly Boys" an incredible botch. The book promises to tell of American fliers shot down over Japanese-held Chichi Jima. Not far from Iwo Jima, scores of Japanese on Chichi could only watch impotent as a huge American force utterly devastated their nearby comrades, opening the door for fiery assaults against the Japanese home islands. The Japanese proved far better at amassing forces than maintaining them, effectively stranding troops across the Pacific. (Imperial doctrine called for troops to "provision" themselves - by stealing from local inhabitants or by subsisting on insects and flora.) As a result, islands like Chichi and Guadalcanal became home to thousands of starving Japanese troops barely able to bring the fight to the enemy. Desperation exacerbates the sort of hysteria already endemic to every level of the Japanese military when the war began, and the "Fly Boys" suffer their captors' wrath.
   
   Some reviews complain about Bradely's use of "moral equivalence" (Bradley compares Imperial brutalities with those of an expansionist America from the post-Civil War era through the war in the Philippines) to anti-American effect. But those problems mask the book's larger flaw: that it really isn't about anything at all. What starts out a story of American prisoners, goes back to the dawn of Japanese-American relations, the birth of modern Japan and the road to war. Then there is the rise of American airpower, the battles of Coral Sea and Midway, and finally the landings at Iwo Jima and the firebombing of Japan. These historic events don't simply form a backdrop to the story, but become the story, grabbing as much of Bradley's focus as the plight of his downed airmen. Bradley never integrates these threads into a common historic theme, and never explains what they're all doing in the same book. In a book about nothing in particular, everything is irrelevant.
   
   For his research, or maybe because of it, Bradley loses his way almost immediately. Instead of learning about the downed Chichi fliers, Bradley begins with the historical roots of the Pacific war...and then works backward. We see how Commodore Perry "opened" the closed yet sophisticated and highly regimented Japanese society to the outside world. Japan's honor system - epitomized by Bushido - was blameless for the barbarities of WWII. Instead, the modern combat experience of the Japanese demonstrates both compliance with that code and extraordinarily humane (Russians captured in the 1907 war received treatment little worse than that for guests). Bradley contrasts this with the aforementioned brutality of Americans in war.
   
   Getting to WWII, Bradley barely touches on his subjects - instead rehashing more milestones already familiar to anybody with the least basic grasp of military history (or with basic cable). From the court martial of Billy Mitchell to Doolittle's raid on Tokyo; from the Battle of Midway to the fire-bombing of the home islands of the Empire - Bradley gives some marginal insight, but again little bearing on the downed American fliers who become extras in their own story. Bradley not only forgets whom he's writing about, but never clarifies whose perspective. (Bradley compares the cruelties perpetrated by Americans in giving some shape to those committed by the Imperial Japanese, but did the Japanese know of "Wounded Knee" during the Bataan March? Is Bradley is arguing for moral relativism, or merely demonstrating that the Japanese had done so?)
   
   When it's clear that Bradley is writing from his own perspective, the result is a soft concoction of history and euphemism, with little hard fact. This is especially true of the title - nothing in Bradley's book gets to the meat of what it means to be one of the "Fly Boys", though he uses the term throughout. In that vein, "fly boys" may be an image, like the one used in "The Right Stuff" in which pilots were the lone shining knights of the nuclear powered space age. But Wolfe fleshed out his metaphors without being conquered by them (by the end of "Stuff", Wolfe's America has matured beyond its need for such archaic heroes like the Mercury 7 - the era of the lone, shining and supersonic knight had come to an end). Bradley instead uses "Flyboys" to refer to fliers in general - ignoring much distinction between the fliers of different services. Instead, Bradley has "flyboys" as FDR's one-word answer in the desperate early days of the war (was FDR such a fan of naval aviation?), without saying much about how FDR turned that answer into the force that won the war. Other glossed over points - the relative industrial might of America and Japan, and the exhaustion faced by Japan in China even before hostilities began with America. Bradley "shows" much, yet teaches little.
   
   As to the problem of moral-equivalence touched upon by unfavorable reviewers, "Flyboys" engages in a sort of thematic shell-game. In turns, he eschews then embraces the sentimentality of American pluck over Imperial aggression. In a work that reveals the contrasting imagery that each side used for the other (uniformly hostile, of course), Bradley freely engages in imagery and sentimentality of his own - of spirit warriors and Samurai, of those betrayed the warrior's honor code, and those who've inherited it. Bradley charts Japan's ironic metamorphosis from honorable warrior to barbaric marauder, fleshing out the contrasting extremes for each. Yet having plumbed American atrocities, reverses direction for Americans without explanation, and makes them the heirs of the Bushido - a characterization (much like "Fly Boy") qualified or even defined. "Flyboys" is supposed to be an unflinching look at WWII as we haven't seen before, yet its subtitle, offering a story of "courage" suggests he's as much reliant on heroic and unreal imagery as those who written before him.



4. What could have been an excellent piece of historical research is fatally flawed by an unflinching and blatant diatribe against American culture and action going back to the first settlers in the East.
   
   Under the pretext of explaining why the Japanese resented American "meddling" in the Pacific, Bradley clumsily brings up a litany of (in his mind) evil American policies and acts that gradually become the dominant theme of at least his first few chapters. His graphic depiction of the Rape of Nanking is followed by a diatribe against the Americans' treatment of their aboriginals ( Indians, Native Americans, or whatever term floats your boat this week), and Bradley's intent of establishing moral equivalence is quite clear. As this pattern goes on, and on, and on, one begins to harbor a secret suspicion that this anti-American propaganda -- for there is no other appropriate word for his slick and dishonest portrayal -- was indeed the real raison d'etre behind this book.
   
   No historian worthy of the name would seriously argue that Japan's megalomaniacal conquer-and-slaughter policies were merely a natural response to America's westward expansion, but that is exactly what Bradley tries to do. He is certainly entitled to his opinion, no matter how bizarre, but he is not entitled to play fast and loose with historical fact, and claiming that the US conquered the Philippines and Hawaii at bayonet point in the same way as the Japanese conquered Nanking is not just a stretch -- it's a lie.
   
   Bradley's carefully-calculated weaving of every available piece of anti-American propaganda into the fabric of this book is especially distressing because his research and portrayal of the actual facts surrounding the Chichi Jima incident is otherwise excellent. His analysis of Japanese history and cultural change is succinct and, occasionally, perceptive. Clearly, there are either huge gaps in his knowledge of these areas or, more likely, he has picked and chosen the parts he likes and ignored others. He could have done us all a service by mentioning the Japanese plans for conqest and empire, including specifically everything up to and including Hawaii -- plans that went back almost to the turn of the century and were certainly no secret among the Japanese military or any Japanese citizen that read books and newspapers. He may not be comfortable with direct research into Japanese-language material, but there is at least one recent book in English on the subject of Japan's plans for Hawaii (Hawaii Under the Rising Sun, by John J. Stephan). Japan's militaristic culture and birth rate drove her imperial dreams since the population of tiny Japan, believe it or not, was almost two-thirds that of the whole United States.
   
   For those with a firm grounding in history that can stomach Bradley's distortions, this book can be useful and definitely add to one's knowledge. Personally, I got a lot out of this book, but I deeply resent the deliberate distortions and untruths, and this is one book I would only recommend to other readers with a giant, bold warning label: "Inside these covers lies much good data, but with a large helping of politically correct B.S."
   
   Unfortunately, I suspect this book will get wide readership among students and academics since the leftist history professors will simply love the message in this screed.



5. I picked this book up on a whim and was unable to put it down. James Bradley's book is graphic at times, but enlightening. I found myself extremely curious as to what happened to members of my own family who fought in the Pacific.

5 comments about Give Us This Day.

1. Yes it sounds oxymoronic but it is so! Sidney Stewart manages to make us share the most awful condtions human beings can be submitted to but never get desperate about a possible change.A lesson of humility and courage.



2. In this picture of the Bataan Death march, you will see it from a totally unique point of view. The atrocities, pain and suffering remain the same as in all accounts, but the element of faith stands alone as the catalyst for survival. The faith of a Godly priest and the faith of those men around him. Sidney Stewart didn't hate his captors in spite of their brutality. He had faith in God and his fellow man. That faith was laced by a tenacity and will to live that is seldom seen. No matter how many books you have read on this subject, you MUST read this one. it will humble you.



3. I cannot recommend this book more highly if, for no other reason, than to help us value freedom and recognize what has been..and is being...lost to preserve it. This is an astounding story.
   
   Mr. Stewart describes his experiences after the fall of Bataan in prose that I could not. He was...calm, objective, fair. The torture, starvation, suffering, and gross and endless inhumanity were beyond my capacity for such rational treatment.
   
   When you read a chapter, you go, "My God, that was unbelievable." Then the next chapter exceeds the previous. This goes on throughout the book and that is why I could not put it down.
   
   I didn't get the sense Mr. Stewart had any agenda in writing this book, but there are very powerful lessons to be learned. First, de-emphasize your problems and consider yourself very blessed - it's a matter of perspective and if you don't get it from this book, you never will. Second, freedom is not free and the price becomes infinite if you wait for the bad guys to act first.



4. I first read this book about 35 years ago when I found in my summer camp's library. Turns out my father, who survived Bataan and spent the rest of the war as a POW, knew the author while imprisoned. He said it was as accurate a portrayal as he had seen.



5. Stewart's memoir of the appalling horrors of the Bataan Death March are a testimony to the heights and depths of humanity. His gripping description of the battle and experiences of captivity continue to inspire and shock sixty years later. Every student of World War II and history should read this story. I've often wondered what became of Mr. Stewart after the war and what the families of his comrades who did not survive their ordeal thought of their loved ones' heroism. Father Cummings should have been canonized or beatified. A must read.

2 comments about Last Man Out: Surviving the Burma-Thailand Death Railway: A Memoir.

1. This was a very uplifting writing about surviving the deplorable and dire circumstances during WWII in a Japanese prison camp. Dr Hekking was a very remarkable man practicing medicine under such conditions. After reading this book...I have a deeper respect for veterans and survivors.
   In ending, the doctor and the Americans seemed to help each other psychologically to survive....



2. I have had the pleasure of knowing the author for going on 8 years now. His memoir of his time as a prisoner of the Japanese, building the Death Railroad, the real Bridge on the River Kwai, is riveting, and sadly the suffering of POWs is little known.
   
   In the decades since returning from the War, the author has had a distinguished career requiring excellent writing and editing skills, and this book reflects that. It's an easy read, and when you've finished it, you will most likely re-evaluate the struggles and low points of your daily routine.
   
   Lastly, the man who is the subject of the book, Dr. Henri Hekking of the Dutch Colonial Army, will instill in you a sense of awe in the medical skills he learned from native Javanese sources, and how these skills, scorned by English and American doctors, saved *so many* of the men under his care, the author included.
   
   This book adds greatly to, and dovetails with, Hornfisher's latest, and compliments Winslow's "Galloping Ghost...".

5 comments about History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1).

1. The professional historians faint as prominent mathematician Doctor Fomenko et al research the known historical data and come to fairly controversial conclusions.
   
   For example, the English historians rage at the suggestion that the history of Ancient England was de facto a Byzantine import transplanted to the English soil by the fugitive Byzantine nobility. As the sign of recognition of the special role of the English historians who consider themselves the true scribes of World History, the cover of the present book portrays Tintoretto's Jesus Christ crucified on the Big Ben.
   
   The Russian historians brand it as pseudoscience because Dr Fomenko asserts that there was no such thing as the Tartar and Mongol invasion followed by over two centuries of slavery, providing a formidable body of documental evidence to prove his assertion. The so-called `Tartars and Mongols' were the actual ancestors of the modern Russians, living in a trilingual state and aspiring Global Empire with Arabic and Turkic spoken as freely as Russian.
   
   The ancient proto-Russian state was governed by a double structure of civil and military authorities and the hordes were actually professional armies with a tradition of lifelong conscription (the recruitment being the so-called `blood tax'). Their `invasions' were punitive operations against the regions that attempted tax evasion.
   
   Fomenko proves for a fact that official Russian history is a blatant forgery concocted by a host of German scholars brought to Russia by the usurper dynasty of the Romanovs. Their ascension to the throne was the result of conspiracy, so they charged these German historians-imports with the noble mission of making Romanov's reign look legitimate.
   
   Dr Fomenko et al prove Ivan the Terrible to be a collation of four rulers, no less. These rulers represented the two rival dynasties - the legitimate Godounovs and the ambitious Romanov upstarts.
   
   The European historians fume not only because Fomenko blows consensual Russian history to smithereens, successfully removing a crucial cornerstone from underneath the otherwise impeccable edifice of World History but for asserting that all medieval European Kings and Princes were but breakaway vice-regents and vassals of the Global Empire who badly needed glorious and very `ancient' past in order to legitimize their new independence from the Empire.
   
   Dr Fomenko adds insult to injury, wiping out one by one: the Ancient Rome: the foundation of Rome in Italy is dated to the 14th century A. D., the Ancient Greece and its numerous poleis, which he identifies as the mediaeval crusader settlements on the territory of Greece, the Ancient Egypt: the pyramids of Giza become dated to the 11th to 14th century A. D. and identified as the royal cemetery of the Global Empire, no less.
   
   The civilization of the `ancient'' Egypt is irrefutably dated to the 11th to 15th century A. D. following the breakthrough in decoding of the ancient Egyptian horoscopes cut in stone and painted on the temple walls.
   
   Arabic historians may find some consolation in the crucial historical role of the Ottoman Empire as a part of the Global empire in the 15th - 17th century. The trouble is that this Empire was initially a proto-Christian state, with Hagia Sophia identifiable as Temple of Solomon, but built in 1550-1557 A.D. by Sultan Suleiman according to Fomenko and Islam with all its key figures is datable to 15th 16th century A. D.!
   
   The Chinese historians are also an unhappy lot because Fomenko wipes out the Ancient History of China outright. No such history. Period. The compilation of the so-called Ancient Chinese History is reliably datable to the 17th 18th century only. It is perfectly recognizable as the Ancient European history, reworked and transcribed in hieroglyphs as yet another historical transplantation.
   
   The Divinity excommunicates Dr Fomenko because the history of religions according to Fomenko looks as follows: the pre-Christian period (before the 11th century and Jesus Christ ), Bacchic Christianity (11th to 12th century, before and after Jesus Christ), Jesus Christ Christianity (12th to 14th century) and its subsequent mutations (15th to 17th cy) into Orthodox Christianity, the Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, and so on..; and The Old Testament written after the New Testament in xiv-xvi cy A.D., if you please! Everybody served? Saint Augustine was quite prescient when he said: "be wary of mathematicians, particularly when they speak the truth."



2. Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RAZQNMXM4M9CL Has history been tampered with? Yes, it has! Did events and eras such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Roman Empire , the Dark Ages, and the Renaissance, actually occur within a very different chronology from what we've been told? Yes, they certainly did!
   
   The history of humankind is both drastically shorter and dramatically different than generally presumed.
   
   Why is it so? On one hand, it was usual custom to justify the claims to title and land by age and ancestry, and on the other the court historians knew only too well how to please their masters. The so called universal classic world history is a pack of intricate lies for all events prior to the 16th century. World history as we learn it today was entirely fabricated in the 16th-18th centuries. It's likely that nobody told you before, but
   
   there is not a single piece of firm written evidence or artefact that is reliably and independently dated prior to the 11th century.
   
   Naturally, after what you've learned in school and university, you will not easily believe that the classical history of ancient Rome, Greece, Asia, Egypt, China, Japan, India, etc., is manifestly false.
   
   You will point accusing finger to the pyramids in Egypt, to the Coliseum in Rome and Great Wall of China etc., and claim, aren't they really ancient, thousands of years ancient? Well, there is no valid scientific proof that they are older than 1000 years!
   
   The oldest original written document that can be reliably dated belongs to the 11th century!
   
   New research asserts that Homo sapiens invented writing (including hieroglyphics) only 1000 years ago. Once invented, writing skills were immediately and irreversibly put to the use of ruling powers and science.
   
   The consensual chronology we live with was essentially crafted in the 16th century by the Jesuits.
   
   The world history was compiled from contradictory mix of innumerable copies of ancient Latin and Greek manuscripts and other irrefutable proofs delivered by late mediaeval astronomers that were cemented by the authority of writings of the Church Fathers.
   
   Early in life, we learn about ancient history. Children love the magical lessons of history - they are like fairy tales. Teachers recite breathtaking stories; very soon We learn by heart the names and deeds of brave warriors, wise philosophers, fabulous pharaohs, cunning high priests and greedy scribes.
   
   We learn of gigantic pyramids and sinister castles, kings and queens, dukes and barons, powerful heroes and beautiful ladies, emaciated saints and low-life traitors.
   
   Ancient history is based documents, manuscripts, printed books, paintings, monuments and artefacts - called primary sources.
   
   The problem is that neither these ancient documents, nor events described therein can be irrefutably dated, moreover they contradict each other for the most part.
   
   When a school textbook tells us that Genghis Khan in year X or Alexander in year Y, have each conquered half of the world, it means only that it is so said in some of the written sources.
   
   There are no answers to simple questions:
   
   When were these primary sources written?
   
   Where and by whom were these sources found?
   
   It is wrongly presumed that ancient and medieval chronicles, written by Genghis Khan's or Alexander the Great contemporaries and eyewitnesses, are readily available. Actually, only sources written hundreds or even thousands of years after the events are there, compiled mostly in the 16th 18th centuries, or even later.
   
   As a rule, these sources suffered considerable multiple manipulations, falsifications and distortions by editing. At the same time,
   
   innumerable originals of ancient documents under various pretexts were destroyed in Europe under various pretexts.
   
   The names of persons and geographical sites often changed meaning and location during the course of the centuries.
   
   Geographical locations became clearly defined on maps only with the advent of printing.
   
   This made possible the circulation of identical copies of the same map for purposes of the military, navigation, education and governance tasks.
   
   Historians from Oxford say: "hey, everybody knows that Julius Caesar lived in the first century B.C.
   
   `Julius Caesar' statement is only a point of view as
   
   there is simply no irrefutable documentary proof that Julius Caesar or any other great name of antiquity ever existed.
   
   Better than that - extremely rare sources that can be reliably dated back to the 10th-14th centuries A D, do not show the polished picture of classical history.
   
   They show a picture both contradictory and confusing.
   
   All methods of dating of ancient sources and artefacts are erroneous:
   
   Radio-carbon C14 method produces dating with exactitude of plus minus 1500 years, therefore it is too crude for dating of events in historical timeframe!
   
   The Almagest tractate, which lies as corner stone contemporary chronology, compiled in the 2nd century A D by Ptolemy, the founding father of astronomy, contains astronomical data of 9th to 16th century!
   
   The Bronze Age,that has supposedly began 5000 years ago. Bronze is made of 90% copper and 10% tin, but the technology for tin extraction dates back to 14th century A D!.
   
   All eclipses contained in manuscripts, like Thucydides one, relating 'ancient' events have exclusively medieval dating. All horoscopes cut in stone or painted in Egyptian temples, like Dendera have exclusively early medieval dating solutions.
   
   Not quite what you have learned in school? Open your eyes, and, you will find sufficient proof to reach step by step the inevitable conclusion that the classical chronology is false and therefore, that the history of ancient and medieval world universally accepted today, is also false. Have a fresh outlook on everything said or printed about "ancient" and "enigmatic" Roman, Greek and Egyptian, medieval as well as all other "lost and found" civilizations.
   
   Antiquity and Dark Ages are phantoms invented in the 16th 18th and polished in 19th 20thcenturies. Human civilization is in fact barely 1000 years old!
   
   This book will change your perception of History forever!
   What if Ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt were invented during Renaissance?
   What if The Old Testament was a rendition of events of the Middle Ages?
   What if Jesus Christ was born in 1053 and crucified in 1086 AD?
   Sounds Unbelievable?
   Not after you've read "History: Fiction or Science?" by Anatoly Fomenko, the genius mathematician.
   Armed with astronomy and computers Anatoly Fomenko turns History into a rocket science.



3. Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun (ie. closer), different tilt on its axis (ie. less than 23.5 degrees), different orbit (ie. more circular), different rotation (ie. in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different relative positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently from how we would today? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history or geography is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.



4. Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.



5. There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
   
   For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.

5 comments about The Principled Politician: The Ralph Carr Story.

1. Ralph Carr has so far been an unsung hero of the 20th century. His courage during a time of great tragedy in American history is nothing less than inspiring. Still, his story has gone mostly unheard as we have reached a time of similar uncertainty in the 21st century. Thanks to Adam Schrager, Carr's story can be more widely seen, heard, and understood.
   
   Carr's story is enriching and Schrager's style fits the bill. The author does not just recount the life and most important moments in Carr's contribution to history, he tells Carr's story. Schrager puts us in the Colorado State Capitol where Carr made important decisions about the state, the country, and the American people; the author also brings us to the Governor's mansion and his piles of mail, as well as the Brown Palace during meetings that decided Carr's political life. Schrager does well to paint a descriptive picture of who Carr was and what he was like during his time as a leader, both physically and emotionally.
   
   What's more is that Schrager impacts why the former Colorado governor's story is so important and what it means to so many Coloradans and Americans still today. It's made clear that Carr is a political leader and human being that shouldn't have been forgotten to begin with. Governor Carr is somebody everybody should know with steadfast principles, strong patriotism, and a sense of compassion everybody should live by. At least, that's what I walked away from the book feeling; and it's a feeling I won't soon forget. Hopefully more of our leaders gain the same guidance from this book and its hero, Ralph Carr.



2. In June/08, I was privileged to hear a speech presented to our family by Adam Schrager. The topic was his book: The Principled Politician - The Ralph Carr Story. Mr. Schrager's resonant voice would hold one's interest on any topic, but his presentation and his words were most important and captivating. He began his speech by quoting Gov. Carr:
   "Never speak beyond the bladder capacity of your audience." The hour long talk extended to a question and answer period. None would admit that bladders were about to burst, but none would leave before the presentation was ended.
   
   We bought all the books available to us that day.
   
   The Principled Politician is a thoroughly researched, objectively written, long overdue book. Often, insincere plaudits are heaped upon deceased persons, most especially on noted politicians, but Schrager tells a different story. "Principled" is an accurate description of Ralph Carr, Governor of CO from 1939 to 1943. His entire life and political career were guided by sound moral principles from which he never backed down. Mr. Schrager convinces the reader of the truth behind the character label by revealing hundreds of facts, incidents, and quotations seldom or never before stated in complete form.
   
   We learn about Mr. Carr's early life in the mining villages of CO and his days studying law at the Univ of CO, but the emphasis of the book is on the years he served as CO's Gov - the WW2 years when most all politicians and most of the country denounced "yellow bellied Japs" in the US. Carr stood virtually alone in voicing the rights and the honor of the Japanese in America. When evacuation and incarceration of all Japanese - non-citizens and native born US citizens alike - living on the west coast, were ordered, Carr did not "invite" the Japanese to CO, but he "welcomed" them, unlike any other politician in all the states. Concentration camps were not welcomed in any state or neighborhood even though decreed by the US gov't and guarded behind barbed wire. Carr listened to his inner voice, heeded his principles and followed gov't rules and demands with a sincere welcome to the "dirty Japs."
   
   Carr's vociferous opponents and the anti-Carr press were overwhelmingly in the majority. His civil rights stance and friendliness to the Japanese in America assured his defeat for a run in the US senate. Nevertheless, he never caved in.
   
   Japanese Americans owe much to this incredible man. In reality, all Americans benefited by his courage and stubborn defiance of what he knew was wrong. Some say we need politicians like him today. The truth is, we ALWAYS need politicians like Ralph Carr.
   
   Thanks to Mr. Adam Schrager to whom we also owe much. I believe, he, like Mr. Carr, is a principled man. Six years of his life were devoted to the research and writing of this book.



3. Adam Schrager has brought a piece of history to life that everyone needs to read. Ralph Carr was an amazing man who stood tall on his principles. The book is a very nice read and you don't won't to put it down. There is a lesson in this book for everyone.



4. I found this book to be an inspriring story of a man standing by his principles despite great opposition. After the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, while many were calling for Japanese-Americans to be moved from the west coast and put into camps, Colorado Governor Ralph Carr said often, and with conviction, that no American-born citizen should lose their constitutional rights. In this time of fear and outrage, many citizens from Colorado and across the country strongly disagreed with the Governor and frequently told him so.
   
   Weaving together such letters to the Governor, along with newspaper clippings, and Governor Carr's own writing, Adam Schrager brings us a detailed account of one man who stuck to his convictions despite the personal and political costs. Some of the letters and articles were difficult to read. I often said to myself, "How could people think that way?" But at other times, after reading Schrager's account of media reports of the time, I had to also ask myself, "In that environment, in that time, what would I have thought?"
   
   Governor Carr knew what he felt and what he believed in. I only wish more of today's politicians put the welfare of citizens over their own political aspirations.
   
   I recommend this book to anyone who would enjoy reading about a unique aspect of World War II. More broadly, I recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading about people of conviction and principle.



5. Colorado's governors beyond the past quarter-century occupy a nearly anonymous place in the state's history. Most served for short times, leading the 21st-Century resident to wonder if any truly made a mark. Even Ralph Carr is honored in the Capitol by just a small plaque outside the governor's office, and few state officials know much about him. Until now.
   
   What Adam Schrager has done is crack open a previously sealed historical vault and reanimate a man whose principled stand brings to mind the fate of Christian martyrs, American revolutionaries and anyone who has lost their lives for a cause. What Carr lost by standing up for American citizens of Japanese ancestry during World War II was his political life, and Schrager is able to point out just how shocking that was by taking the reader on a concise but detailed look at the rise of someone who may have been the most popular governor in state history at the time.
   
   The book shines in bringing forth Carr's character through well-placed anecdotes - including the story of him shouting down a fellow motorist while leaving a football game - and thoroughly researched details of his life. It also paints for the reader a picture of the age, when hatred toward one nationality of people is far more savage than anything we witness from Americans today. Its only slight downfall is that it goes into such enormous detail to describe the hostile racism in the letters that Carr received on his stand that it sometimes veers too far from the character himself who makes you care about this episode. But Schrager always brings you back in ways that are neither sentimental nor slanted but a lively historical retelling of Carr's career as governor.
   
   The Principled Politician is a fairly quick and enveloping read.

3 comments about Manchurian Legacy: Memoirs Of A Japanese Colonist.

1. I ended up reading the book, Manchurian Legacy, in one sitting even though I had a lot of other things to do. That is rare for me. The story mesmerized me as I felt like I was learning something about my roots, my mother.
   
   My Japanese mother, to get away from the merciless firebombing of her city, at the age of 19 volunteered as a member of a repatriation team assigned to travel to Manchuria and to help in the repatriation of Japanese colonials there. After training for about a month, she flew to a city in the center of Manchuria on what happened to be the same day that the Russians invaded. She had quite an adventure hiding, being captured, incarcerated, starving, transported by rail in box cars and then force marched thru Korea, to be saved ironically by the enemy American soldiers that she was trying to escape. I am amazed at what she had to go through to get back to Japan.
   
   Not only did this book gave me an insight to what life was like in Manchuria for the Japanese during the end of World War II, it also gave me a glimpse of post-war Japan where both my father and father-in-law were stationed as part of the occupation forces. The stories about the period during the Russian invasion and how they and the local Chinese treated the Japanese colonials was very revealing. Even though Mrs. Kuramoto's experience was not so harrowing as my mother's adventure, the description of the area and the everyday life of the colonials helped me to understand this period of history in this part of the world.
   
   Even though the second part of the book about post-war Japan did not relate to my mother since she had a support system in place when she returned to Japan, the description of Mrs. Kuramoto's experiences with members of the American occupation force helped me to understand the situation that my father lived through during his term of duty in Japan.
   
   Enough of how the book impacted me. Here is a synopsis of the book: The Manchurian Legacy is a story about the life of a young woman born in Manchuria to Japanese parents living there during World War II. Her father is a minor Japanese government official which gave the family trappings of luxury which were not enjoyed by the local occupied Chinese residents. Kazuko was a patriotic 17 year old and to her parent's dismay, volunteered to join the Red Cross to aid in the war effort against the corrupt capitalists and communists. When Japan surrendered, the Russians invaded and the Chinese revolted, sending the Japanese colonialists into hiding. How the colonialists fared over the next year is a testament to their entrepreneurship and tenacious desire to survive in a culture hostile to their former oppressors. The post-war portion of the book focused on how Kazuko coped in Japan after being shipped there on U.S. transport ship and after being rejected by other relatives. This is also a story of her relationship with soldiers and contractors with the American occupation forces, and her struggles in a country not so accepting of the returning colonialists.
   
   A great read and highly recommended.



2. Recently I was given this book to read by a friend who is preparing to teach a university course on Japanese culture and women's narrative. I am voraciously reading the books that she is considering for her course and giving her feedback. I couldn't put this book down and cried at the end. What more can one say? I sit here now as a foreigner living in Japan and find this book offers me a window into Japanese history, culture and the voice of women that is not normally acknowledged. Everyone should read this book.



3. Manchurian Legacy is the book,I wished that I could have read when I was in the sixth grade.Readers of that age group could easily identify with the character of Kazuko as a young woman. It is rare to find a book that can appeal to both young and old readers. The author, Kazuko Kuramoto apologizes for her writing, as English is her third language. I believe, this is what makes the book so readable. She does not bog the reader down with flowery language. What Kazuko does give the reader is a feeling of what it was like to have lived in Manchuria as a colonialist before and doing WW II.The real charm of the book is that it does not assume the reader has any knowledge of the historical events that shaped the narrative.A brief explanation that doesn't bog down the story gives you a context to understand and enjoy her memoir. The immense popularity of a book, "Angela's Ashes" shows that readers have a desire for personal stories of the ordinary man. Kazuko's story deserves to be read by as wide a audience as "Angela's Ashes"

5 comments about Grass Sandals : The Travels of Basho.

1. I am a huge haiku fan, and it was that interest that lead me to this little book. Grass Sandals: The Travels of Basho offers a beautiful, multi-sensory introduction to Japanese literature and ancient Japanese culture. Indeed the peaceful, flowing artwork looks like fine paintings rather than images in a children's story, and thick, full pages speak for the book's quality.
   
   Basho's journey is one of peace, curiosity, and observation. Along the way, lessons of simplicity, keen observation, genuine appreciation for the natural world, gratitude, promises, and respect are subtly revealed.
   
   In addition to the story (told in prose) and well-placed haiku samples, certain pages include a unique Japanese character, pronunciation, and translation that highlights an event or observation from that part of the tale. Thus, with adult guidance, a child can learn to look into the illustrations for specific details, learn to read the text of the story and the haiku, learn to trace a Japanese character with his / her finger, and learn to speak a Japanese word. Engaged children may take their knowledge to the next level by attempting to write the characters or their own haiku.
   
   This book definitely provides an appreciation for Japan, and it is worth reading, sharing, and discussing.
   
   My favorite haiku sample from the text is this one:
   
   a tiny pink crab
   tickling me climbs up my leg
   from glistening sea



2. This picture book presents Basho's travels, with a curious focus on the Japanese characters for various words in his haiku; I wished there had been more emphasis on the haiku themselves. But the illustrations are enchanting and evocative, deep and glowing, with a whimsical touch. While this book doesn't have the deep understanding of haiku found in Cool Melons - Turn To Frogs!: The Life And Poems Of Issa, it would be a charming supplemental text for grade school units on haiku, poetry, biography, and historical Japan.



3. I read the book Grass Sandals. The main character is Basho. In the story, Basho travels all over Japan. He lives in Edo. The story takes place in the 1600's. Basho wrote poems about nature and by listening and looking at his surroundings.
   
   It liked this book because it made me feel like I was there with Basho.



4. In the story Grass Sandals, there is a Japanese man named after a banana tree called basho. Basho loved nature so much that he wrote about it as a haiku poet. He lived in his small house in Edo surrounded by the morning glories in the 1600's. But one day, Basho decides he wants to travel because he is restless back at his home in Edo. Before his trip, Basho's friends give him supplies for his trip including grass sandals. On the trip he writes about what he sees, meets friends, and discovers different places in this adventurous book!
   
   I enjoyed this book very much because I loved all the places he traveled and all the creative poems he wrote. I recommend this book for all afes. It is very well written!



5. Grass Sandals is a great book about friendship and poems. The main character's name is Basho. Basho liked to have tea on his porch every morning under his basho tree. Basho lives in Edo. Basho likes to travel around his country. When Basho is traveling he gets many gifts from his friends. Basho is great for his blue grass sandals (from his friend) and for haikus. This story took place 300 years ago in Japan.
   
   I really liked this book because of its illustrations and of how well it is written. I think that this book would be good for people who like books from other countries. I also think parents would enjoy this story too!

2 comments about Isami's House: Three Centuries of a Japanese Family.

1. Contrary to the first reviewer on this site, I found Isami's House eminently readable, from first to last. The book's concept is, indeed, highly original and should serve well as a resource for understanding the evolution of family life in modern Japan.
   
   Essentially, this is the story of fourteen generations of the Matsuura family, who, until the postwar years, served as headmen of a village in northeastern Japan called Yamashiraishi. A substantial amount of information is provided about the family during Tokugawa and Meiji times, but the heart of the book concerns the family's triumphs and travails in the twentieth century. Many people in the family are discussed, including numerous in-laws, and several stand out prominently. The hero of the story, essentially, is Matsuura Isami, who lived from 1879 into the early 1960s. His wife, Ko, is also given considerable attention, as is the daughter named Toyo. It was Toyo who served as the host for Gail Lee Bernstein, the author, during her first stay in Japan, in 1963, when she was there as a graduate student of Japanese history. Since 1963 was when I, as a graduate student, also first visited Japan, I feel a personal connection to her experiences.
   
   Bernstein hit a mother lode in becoming close to Toyo's remarkable family, as Toyo was one of fourteen siblings (seven sisters and seven brothers); a fifteenth died young. This rich field of close relatives provides the author with a wealth of material for recounting the ups and downs of modern family life in Japan, taking us through the prewar years, the war years (Toyo's family was in Hiroshima when it was atom-bombed), the Occupation, and after, when Japanese values changed so rapidly in the midst of unparalleled economic development. Although there are so many characters that one occasionally has trouble keeping track of who is who, Bernstein does her best to keep the narrative clear, and we get to celebrate the various characters' achievements while also sympathizing with their catastrophes. The Confucian values Isami assiduously cultivated in his children bring rewards to some, but by the century's end they no longer have much relevance to the younger generation, and the strong familial rope Isami wove comes close to breaking. Japan, too, the author suggests, has suffered such a breakdown, and the family's often heartbreaking history comes to be seen as a microcosm of the nation's journey.
   
   Although extensively researched and documented, Isami's House is not a standard sociological tract for use in college classes; in fact, it often--especially the final chapters--reads like gossip, since Bernstein has maintained her ties to the family until quite recently, despite the eventual loss of the principal players. She is, to a degree, like a family member herself; still, her detailed recounting of the less savory deeds of some family members are unlikely to have been exposed to the world at large by the family members themselves. Thus we are given the kinds of insights into Isami's family that only someone with Bernstein's privileged position could provide. Perhaps one could raise ethical questions about the appropriateness of such revelations; on the other hand, the information--apart from the appeal it will have for most readers--has great historical, cultural, and sociological value for outsiders interested in the dynamics of modern Japanese family life.
   
   It should be noted that although Bernstein herself, mainly in the final chapters, becomes increasingly present as a family participant (albeit at one step removed), she never reveals much about who she is. She discusses arranged marriages, love marriages, divorce, childbearing problems, childraising problems, religion, work, etc., but never tells us whether she herself is married, has children, or has shared in any experiences akin to those she so closely chronicles. Her name suggests that she is Jewish. If true, what did this mean to a family that followed Buddhist and Shinto practices but which saw a good many of its members convert to Christianity? I, for one, would have found such personal information useful in understanding her position vis a vis some of the subjects she addresses. She injects herself into the narrative as a way of explaining how the family treated her; I believe we are just as entitled to ask, who is Gail Lee Bernstein?



2. Isami's House is a fascinating book that provides a view of general Japanese history through the history of one family. As the back cover tease promises, this is an entirely new approach to history, one that presents the drama of modern Japanese history through the gripping ordeal of a single family. In this sense, Isami's House is a fascinating, gripping and original approach to Japanese history.
   
   Nevertheless, I found myself put off greatly by Bernstein's uneven writing style and odd organization. Bernstein's paragraphs are haphazardly organized, and her sentences are riddled with clause after clause. Often, it is difficult to tell exactly where the story is going, and sentences are so dominated by detail that the point behind each story is nearly impossible to decipher.
   
   Take, for example, this selection from page 60: "A ten-day spree of rioting by three thousand farmers in the Asakawa area in January 1798 - nine years after the French Revolution - brought a crowd to the Matsuura family's door on the morning of January 26. The fifth-generation patriarch, also called Yuemon (though his name was not written with the same characters as his deceased father's), had left with his wife and mother several days before; only family servants and a "young couple" remained at home. Rampaging peasants spilled out large amounts of the sake manufactured on the grounds of the family's compound and damaged other property as well." Did the ten-day spree of rioting begin on the 26th, or end then? Why does it matter that this happened 9 years after the French Revolution? Each sentence has a different subject, and little is done to link each separate idea together. Overall, this flaw in Bernstein's style leads to very bad, almost unreadable, prose.
   
   Bernstein's organization is also rather odd. The first half of the book seems to be organized topic by topic, and parallels are directly made between the family's exploits around the Meiji years and earlier family experiences. The second half, however, deals exclusively with the family's experiences during and after World War II. This leads to discontinuity: the first half seems to contain no narrative, and the second half seems to completely abandon the lessons learned in the first. I would have been much happier had Bernstein stuck with one style throughout.
   
   Nevertheless, it is a noble concept, and still a good book to read.