Shadow Books

We all know about Wolfgang Mozart, the wonderfully talented musician, but what many of us don't know is that his older sister, Nannerl, was also incredibly talented. She was, in the beginning, thought of as her brother's equivalent. They played together in concerts, sometimes in front of royalty, making money for their family. But soon, she was overshadowed by her brother, but that didn't stop her from playing.

She wanted, more than anything, to go to a prestigious music school -- but her father would not allow it and forced her to stay in boring Salzburg with her mother. IN MOZART'S SHADOW follows Nannerl from the time she and her brother begin playing throughout her entire life.

To be honest, the book dragged a bit at the beginning, but after the first fifty pages or so I felt myself being dragged into the world of Nannerl and her family. Her story is both heartbreaking and easy to relate to. Though she lived in a completely different time and led a much different life, I could feel myself understanding her actions and cheering her on. The writing was great and the voice was true to the characters, who were all very realistic.

I'd recommend this to anyone who likes reading historical fiction or who admires the Mozart family.

Reviewed by: Harmony

I have loved every single one of Carolyn Meyer's books. She draws characters so life-like that we grow to love each and every one of them like we personally know them. Princess Catherine has always been my favorite, yet Nannerl might take her place.
Nannerl Mozart is the older and very talented sister of the more famous Wolfgang. She never gives up hope that one day she will be sent to Italy to study, therefore becoming Europe's best female clavier player. However, her control-freak and ambitious father is concentrated fully on young Wolferl, who he believes can bring fame and fortune to the family. Much of their childhood is spent traveling to the grand courts, but when Nannerl wants to go to Italy with her brother she is denied. She has been left home and abandoned mentally by her father. Throughout the book several love intrests pop up, but her true love is an aging captain named Armand, who is by her side all the time even when her father forbids them from marrying.
The writing in this book is flawless. Although a little dragging at parts, I found the detail and imagining very accurate. The only comment I have is that characters with no particular significance to the story, like Davey, shouldn't really have been put in as they have nothing to add. As this is a work that has real people in it, I understand why Nannerl didn't have a happy ending, but at the same time I wish she became a big star and married Armand. But that's history, so it cannot be changed for romantics such as me.
This new Carolyn Meyer book pleases. Nannerl is a strong and hopeful girl, and she might become your new favorite character. If you enjoyed the author's other books, you will certainly like this one.

I was thrilled to see a new Carolyn Meyer book! I own four other books by her(including the Young Royals Series) and I continue to be huge fan! I thoroughly enjoyed this book. She did a great job describing Nannerl's life while not forgetting about events in Mozart's life. I think it was a great subject to write a novel about and I am thrilled that I gained some new insight into a woman I had never heard of before! It was a great read and Carolyn Meyer did not disappoint me at all. I highly recommend it!

Beautifully evoked in every way, this is the story of the forgotten Mozart: his charming, pretty, highly gifted musical sister Nannerl. Beginning in the backwater town of Salzburg in the early 1760's, the father of the family Leopold Mozart (who was a gifted composer himself), realized his six year old son Wolfgang and eleven year old daughter Nannerl were extraordinary musicians and toured them all over Europe to play before royalty and the elite. But the spirited, imaginative boy Wolfgang Mozart soon drew all the attention. Nannerl was a gifted keyboardist and he was a genius in performing and composition. For the rest of her long life she would live in his shadow.

As an 18th century woman, Nannerl could have made her way in music as a singer, but she was not a singer and thus her love of music, which she had shared with her little brother and which equaled his, largely lay frustrated within her. All the family energy went to further her brother's career, for as a man and a composer, he could one day support them well. But he grew up and away from his father's possessive hold and Nannerl went on to make her own life.

One so loves Nannerl in this sypathetic book as she tries gently to find who she is apart from her brilliant brother and domineering father. The Mozart family, friends and times are warmly, wonderfully drawn. She grows up, tries to find love and to compromise and still, even as her correspondance with her beloved brother who is now famous in Vienna draws to an end, she is determined to keep the music she shared with him as a child alive in her.

In the end this novel is not just for someone who wants to read about the Mozart family, but for any girl or young woman who ever struggled between adoration and envy of a brilliant brother and goes on loving him long after he has left her for a brighter life.

I am the author of the novel MARRYING MOZART (Viking Penguin).

So realistic it brought back memories that I had forgotten.

The journey of Larry Gaiser from wide-eyed grunt to hard-nosed veteran is very convincing, and the combat scenes have an eloquence and ring of truth that leave a long-lasting impression.. You can hear it, smell it and feel it. Campbell takes you there and plants you in the Korean mud for the duration, and you leave, as he did, knowing what war really means-that the experience alone can take a young life just as surely a bullet.

Reading IN THE SHADOW OF GLORY was like a nostalgic trip to a period of time 50 years ago when I was a young and naive Marine not really prepared for the stark realities of combat... I would highly recommend this fast-paced novel to all Korea veterans, military history buffs and anyone who enjoys a good read.
Donald E. Chab, USMC Korea, 1951-1952

"In the Shadow of Glory" serves a profound purpose for those of us who have not, nor will ever serve in combat. Through the eyes of a young, patriotic marine, one is taken to the extremes of both the heroism and horror that were the intrinsic bi-products of the Korean war. The reader hardens with him in an effort to survive. Written in an appropriate, straightforward style, this book is an enlightening yet emotionally challenging read. I highly recommend it.

It's indeed strange to read about oneself after 30 years-to relive those moments-to know for the first time that you actually helped someone you loved and to wonder why you did not express your feelings more directly in your personal relationship that lasted sporadically for those many years. David's years from age 14 to 21 or 22.

Despite the fact that I am already reading 3 other books concurrently, I am revisiting David Wojnarowicz for the umpteenth time. I simply can't stay away. There is no amount of time that can pass where I will have found that I'm still not in love with the man. And not just because I'm queer but because I am truly in love with his heart and the everlasting life of his spirit. No other writer has touched me so deeply or influeneced the reconstruction of my ethics as him. I could only dream of living a life so passionately and generously, a life which is evidenced by this book.

Thank you, Amy Scholder (editor and introductionalist). I have just read a review of "In the Shadow of the American Dream" in one of Seattle's weekly newspapers, and I am so glad that I did. Immediately, my curiosity was peaked. Not having ever heard of David Wojnarowicz, I am now a devoted fan of his work. As an artist and a writer, David Wojnarowicz speaks with a rare truthfulness unlike any other writer that I have read in recent times. Wojnarowicz speaks of a world not many people are aware of, the world of "seedy Times Square" where he spent his youth hustling, desperately trying to make a living by selling his body to total strangers; the world of a gay activist, vehemently seeking to make the world a more tolerant place for all; the world of a Person Living with AIDS, conciously, creatively expressing his pain, his hurt and his sadness, but not without hope. "In the Shadow of the American Dream" is a collection of excerpts of the 31 diaries that Wojnarowicz spent his life writing, from the age of 17 until he died of AIDS in 1992. With writing such as "I saw a face in a passing car that looked like someone I once knew. It's like that when you move on to other places in your life--memories of faces fading like thin ice sheets in winter sidewalk puddles, they melt, become only a part of the water so you can't separate them ever again, but they do remain there." Wow! Like passing an automobile accident, you don't want to look (or read) but then you can't put it down. I highly recommend "In the Shadow of the American Dream" to anyone who is slightly interested in what artistry, activism, creativity, and hope really means.

These journals of David Worjnarowicz are an account of the famed writer, artist. They begin when he is seveteen years old and end at the time of his death. The beginning explains some of his troubled background: his alcholoic father, his street hustlering in Times Square at a young age, and so on. The entries are most appealing when David speaks about his relationship with other men, especially about his love affair with Jean-Pierre, a man he meet while in Paris. These entries are fluid, full of a joy that one is in touch with when in the throes of love. Eventually David leaves Paris and is back in New York. It is this particular time and place, New York in the late 1970's to early 80's do we see an extreme sexual behavior of many gay men. This is seen not only with this work, but in the photos of Mapplethrope, and many accounts of gay men that have lived in this time period. The other entries concerning his HIV status and all the myriad emotions concerned with the fatal disease are rivetting. The diaries are, at times, disjointed, and some of the early entries I feel really don't need to be within the book. However, the book reveals a man of true in insight, an artist who felt everything, and wrote it all down word for word. A very good book!!!

This is a small book, it can be read in a few hours, but it is an important book, hard to read, because of its brutal honesty. It is the story of a ten-year-old boy, whose childhood was forever shattered because of a parent's obsession and a child's innocence in trusting someone that their parent was willingly giving access to them.

This book should be a "must read" for all parents in order to make them more aware of the dangers that surround their children. Much more than just clergy, predators stalk our children be they teachers, scout leaders, coaches, or relatives who become too "friendly" with a child. Parents who are obsessed with making their child into something they want leave them open to such abuse.

It also is a "must read" for victims of such abuse. Many have suffered for years and years, thinking that they were alone, or worse, that they were somehow at fault for what happened to them. It will be a healing process for them that another, who shares their pain, has had the courage to share his story with the world.

You will cry from the horror this child went through, but wonder at how he managed to overcome this experience and become an exemplary member of society, not only a good and stable husband and father and gradfather, but an avocate for saving children everywhere from such abuse.

I have never met the Charles "Charley" Bailey, author of In the Shadow of the Cross, but over the last two decades, I have interviewed many Charles Baileys, victim/survivors of clerical sexual abuse in connection with my own book The Rite of Sodomy - Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church. I think every adult Catholic, lay person and clergy, needs to read at least one personal account of clerical sexual abuse as seen through the eyes of the victim/survivor, in order to begin to understand the implications of criminal pedophilia and pederasty by priests and religious. In The Shadow Of The Cross is a good place to start.



Charles Bailey was ten years old when he was sodomized, anally and orally, by Father Thomas Neary, a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, in his own bedroom while his mother and his siblings were downstairs - just a scream away if he could only manage one scream - but he could not. With the 175 pound plus weight pressing down on his back it was all he could do to breathe. And so Charley screamed silently, inwardly.



These criminal acts by Neary, more than 100 incidents in all, went on until Charley was twelve and entering puberty at which time Neary told him that he was not pleasing to God, and his "counseling" sessions to assess Charley's vocation to the priesthood were terminated.



In a sense, Charley's life was put on hold the day he met Father Neary. Charley kept Father's "dirty little secret" and Father's "dirty little secret" kept him in a state of emotional, mental, spiritual turmoil for more than forty years. The dam finally burst on the fateful Memorial Day of 2002 when Charles finally revealed to his wife Sue the story of his sexual abuse by Father Neary. On that day, Charley got his life back - and much more.



Bailey's assessment of the "collateral damage" he suffered for more than four decades as a result of his sexual abuse at the hands of an audacious and ruthless serial rapist and felon, Father Thomas Neary, and Bailey's advice to victims of sexual abuse on seeking competent psychological and legal assistance is the book's strong suit. Whatever the book's shortcoming in other areas, such as the area of confronting officials of the Diocese of Syracuse - a sorry lot if there ever was one - Charles tells his story well.



Clerics who sexually molest minors of either sex are guilty of felonious crimes. On a spiritual level they are slayers of souls, and destroyers of lives, a crime of an ever greater magnitude. Yes, both the priest and his accuser deserve their day in court. The Church should allow them to have that day and put an end to cover-ups, secret settlements and under-the-table payouts by diocesan and Vatican officials.



In The Shadow Of The Cross - get it. Read it. And if you are tempted to be hyper-critical of some of the wrong choices that Charles Bailey may have made along the way, ask yourself - What if Father Neary had molested ME - or MY son or grandson or nephew or someone else I really love?

I am a trauma therapist who works with clergy abuse survivors, and a survivor myself. This book is a powerful testament to resilience, and a courageous account of betrayal and the demonic sickness of sexual and spiritual abuse . I especially recommend this for clinicians and for clergy who have the courage to face the pain that their church has inflicted on survivors.

Let me begin by saying that I too am a survivor of clergy sexual abuse and rating a book like this is quite crass. It isn't the words you will read that earn one or ten stars. It is in the human experience of hope and despair, of prayer and need, of holding the pain of millions of papercuts and never letting on that pain even exists until the resiliency of humanity breaks through and truth must be shouted out in tremors and tears and nightmares and finally in the least efficacious means...with words, that you will have the privilege of sharing in another's personal Auschwitz. This book isn't to be read like any other. It is something to be experienced like sitting on the floor after dropping one's most prized object and feeling the reality that it is shattered and gone forever. How does one put "stars" to that. So give your seat belt another extra tug and sink into the human emotion of every word, for they each say more than you could possibly take in!

In 1947, Hanson Baldwin, the military correspondent for The New York Times asked whether the United States could "prepare for the next, truly total war...without becoming a `garrison state.'" According to Princeton Professor Aaron Friedberg, by the middle of the 20th, "the imminent threat of war produced pressures for the permanent construction of a powerful central state." Friedberg argues, however, that the size and scope of the federal government was held in check during the Cold War by a tradition and ideology of anti-statism. Although this book merely synthesizes previously- published works, it effectively argues that the apparatus of the American state grew less during the Cold War than might have been have been expected.

Friedberg examines "five main mechanisms of power creation: those intended to extract money and manpower and those designed to direct national resources toward arms production, military research, and defense-supporting industries." Friedberg explains: "In the span of only two decades the United States was engulfed in three waves of crisis as depression, world war, and cold war followed each other in rapid succession. The onset of each emergency produced a powerful impetus toward state-building." The early-Cold War debate about defense spending demonstrates Friedberg's point. He writes that "the American people wanted a state that was strong enough to defend them against their foreign enemies but not strong enough to threaten their domestic liberties," defending the country was expensive. In 1949, when President Truman wanted to hold defense spending for the next fiscal year, to $14.4 billion, the Secretary of Defense instructed the service chiefs to base their estimates "on military considerations alone," which resulted in a "wish list with a staggering $30 billion price tag." Truman's final budget message estimated the annual cost of sustaining his planned long-term force posture to be $35 to $40 billion. According to Friedberg, President Eisenhower's "commitment to holding down defense spending was a logical outgrowth of his essentially anti-statist philosophy of political economy," and, in June 1954, he warned that a massive new buildup would involving transformation of the United States into "a garrison state." In 1960, John Kennedy asserted that Eisenhower's "excessive attention to the budget" had "resulted in a serious weakening of the nation's defenses." Compulsory military service also generated intense debate. Senator Robert Taft warned that the adoption of universal military training would transform the United States into a "militaristic and totalitarian country." According to Friedberg, "the strongest and most consistent congressional opposition to came from the Republican party, and in particular from its conservative midwestern wing. It was in this part of the country that principled anticompulsion arguments struck their most responsive chord." According to Friedberg: "The widespread animosity to statism that characterized the early post-war period...played a critical role in blocking the creation of new, powerful governmental industrial planning institutions." Friedberg explains: "Even in the face of an enemy, and to a remarkable degree even in wartime, the American system has proven itself to be highly resistant to centralized industrial planning." Friedberg writes: "[T]he push for privatization, and the ideological language in which it was couched, also raised troubling questions about the legitimacy of the military's large-scale industrial activities, even those with long traditions. In the context of a worldwide contest with communism, private ownership of the means of production came to be regarded...as morally superior to any alternative form of economic organization." According to Friedberg: "The postwar privatization of American arms production was the end result of a protracted process of debate and political struggle...At the most general ideological level the burgeoning anti-statist sentiments in the 1940s and 1950s tended to strengthen the hands of the privatizers and to discredit those who advocated anything that savored of socialism." In discussing the structure of the U.S. research and development system and its performance during the Cold War, Friedberg asserts that the "large, open, and loose-limbed American system was well suited for promoting innovation, and it tended over time to outperform its more rigid, closed, and hierarchical Soviet counterpart." According to Friedberg: "[F]or nearly a half century, the pursuit of qualitative superiority [in military technology] was a central, persistent feature of the entire American defense effort." Friedberg explains: "Before the Second World War had ended and the Cold war began, senior American scientists and top military planners were already agreed that the preservation of a `preeminent position' in weapons technology must be a central goal of peacetime defense policy." "The clear emergence of the Soviet Union as the most likely enemy in any future war added urgency and a clear focus to the discussion of the role of technology in American strategy." Friedberg reports: "`Atomic weapons used tactically are the natural armaments of numerically inferior but technologically superior nations,' declared one congressional enthusiast in 1951." He explains: "The Eisenhower administration elevated the substitution of firepower for manpower to the position of key organizing principle of national strategy. Atomic and thermonuclear weapons of every conceivable yield were...at the heart of Western defenses;" and "For the West, by the mid-1950s, preserving technological supremacy had become even more essential and urgent than it had appeared only a few years before." According to Friedberg: "Critics and enthusiasts alike agree that the American research and development system was highly productive of technological advances, that it tended over time to outpace its Soviet counterpart, and that the superior performance of the American system was connected in some way to its structure."

Was there ever a real likelihood that Cold War America would turn into a "garrison state?" The clear answer is: No. References to the garrison state were rhetorical devices used most often by congressional opponents of the concentration of power in the executive branch in Washington, D.C. But Friedberg is absolutely correct that anti- statist rhetoric had powerful antecedents in American history and, therefore, resonated deeply with the public. The specter of creating a garrison state was ominous, even when it was intentionally exaggerated.

Friedberg has written the best book on international relations since John Gaddis' "Strategies of Containment". Like Gaddis, Friedberg is one of a handful of authors who possess a sophisticated knowledge of both American diplomatic history and modern theories of international relations.

With the aid of his groundbreaking archival research, Friedberg shatters existing paradigms by showing that American culture played a leading, perhaps dominant role in the forging of the United States' Cold War grand strategy.

Friedberg's book is indispensable reading for every scholar and student of international relations. It is a classic that will be read and reread for generations.

Harold Lasswell developed the idea of the garrison state in the late 1930s and early 1940s. He proposed that "under conditions of continual crisis and perpetual preparedness for total war, every aspect of life would eventually come under state control." In 1947, Hanson Baldwin, the military correspondent for The New York Times asked whether the United States could "prepare for the next, truly total war...without becoming a garrison state." George Orwell popularized the notion with his 1949 release of 1984, a harrowing view of totalitarian control by the garrison state. To a large extent, these arguments fuel Aaron Friedberger's premise that "war and the threat of war required the creation of military power, and, over time, the creation of military power led to the construction of strong, modern states." (3)

From this premise Friedberg contends that the growth of the American state was held in check during the Cold War by a tradition and ideology of anti-statism. The Cold War produced pressures for the permanent construction of a powerful central state. "In the American case," Friedberg argues, "these pressures came comparatively late in the process of political development... they were met and, to a degree, counterbalanced, by the strong anti-statist influences that were deeply rooted in the circumstances of the nation's founding. (3-4) Friedberg identifies the mechanisms for state growth between 1945 and 1960 as "the product of a collision between these two sets of conflicting forces." (4) He effectively demonstrates that the apparatus of the American state grew less during the early years of the Cold War than might have been have been expected.

Friedberg examines "five main mechanisms of power creation: those intended to extract money and manpower and those designed to direct national resources toward arms production, military research, and defense-supporting industries." (5) In each of these areas he finds anti-statist influences holding state-building in check. "Mounting popular and congressional resistance to taxes and controls compelled the Truman administration to lower its sights and to accept the necessity of a slower and, in the end, smaller military buildup." (121) Friedberg concludes "Eisenhower's commitment to holding down defense spending was a logical outgrowth of his essentially anti-statist philosophy of political economy." (127) Friedberg finds that "in the absence of sustained public opposition, the pressures for universal military training would probably have proved overwhelming," except that it raised doubts over legitimacy. (167) Like the rejection of universal military training, Friedberg also identifies the demise of centralized defense industrialization policy as "at least as much a product of domestic anti-statist influences" as a "logical, inevitable response to the advent of nuclear weapons." (199) Anti-statist influence not only resisted centralized planning and industrial dispersal, but it also strengthened the hand of privatizers, discrediting "those who advocated anything that savored of socialism." (247) Finally, Friedberg maintains that "each of the essential structural characteristics of the American Cold War research and development system was strongly influenced by ideological considerations and by the workings of American domestic political institutions [both identified as anti-statist forces]." (296) Friedberg identifies the strengthening of civilian rule in the Department of Defense, resistance to centralization, heavy reliance on private contracting and government sponsorship of domestic vice purely military technology as anti-statist influences that reduced the size, scope and effect of America's garrison state. With remarkable clarity Friedberg is able to conclude that domestic constraints on state expansion--including those stemming from mean self-interest as well as those guided by a principled belief in the virtues of limiting federal power--protected economic vitality, technological superiority, and public support for Cold War activities. He identifies the strategic synthesis that emerged by the early 1960s from this collision between anti-statist ideology and security imperative as functional and stable; it enabled the United States to deter, contain, and ultimately outlive the Soviet Union precisely because the American state did not limit political, personal, and economic freedom.

Friedberg is not a historian, and at times his lack of attention to culture, race, gender and class make this abundantly clear. Several broad assertions, while supported in the text, lack specificity. For example, Friedberg describes American business's post-war ideology in their own simplistic terms, "Free enterprise was good; too much government was not only bad for the economy, it was a profound threat to traditional American liberties," (50) without putting those statements in an anti-New Deal context.

In Friedberg's well documented 351-page text synthesis, one sees Samuel Huntington's influence (The Soldier and the State, 1957). Friedberg provides a nice tonic for Huntington's pessimism and places the entire civil-military, liberal-statist conflict in perspective. He takes a much more positive view of American liberalism's retardation of military professionalism and other state influences. Essentially agreeing with Huntington, Friedberg comes to a different conclusion: that this was not a bad thing. Of course, Friedberg has the luxury of viewing the Cold War from its successful conclusion whereas Huntington contemplated its ominous beginnings. Because it gives us insight into our current reaction to September 11, 2001, and hope that militaristic trends as expressed in the current war in Iraq will not leave permanent scars on the American state, In the Shadow of the Garrison State deserves attention at all levels in the collegiate setting.

For those interested in the dynamics and interplay of domestic and national security issues, this book is fantastic. Friedberg frames and then details key power transforming institutions and elements such arms, technology, supporting industrial complex, money and manpower, and how they formed the basis of both a powerful deterrence and a relative stable, non-garrison state that excelled economically.

Not a book for all readers, but for those pundits and novices of national security or Cold War history, this is a must have book. Sure to become required reading for top notice public policy and political science departments in leading universities.

What a wonderful job Carol Spindel has done describing her year in an Ivory Coast village. So many writers have written about Africa from the perspective of "oppressed" colonialists or uninvolved observers. Ms. Spindel allowed herself to learn from the villagers, to earn their trust and friendship, and to become a contributing part of their circle. In turn, she becomes an effective teacher to readers who hunger to understand.

This book in incredible. I read the book while in the Ivory Coast and can account for it's authenticity. In fact, I have read it over three times as it brings back the culture and the people that are so dear to my heart. Through her incredible writing skills the author brings Africa to life and provides a more complete accurate picture of West Africa. Excellent book, a definite must read.

This is an extraordinarily sensitive portrait of a West African village. The writer really made the effort to know and understand her environment, and it pays off in a warm and tender account of her experience that brings the people and the culture vividly to life. I read this book six years ago, in preparation for a trip to Africa, and the strong sense of place she evokes stays with me still.

Spindel's book humanizes and softens our often bleak view of Africa. The adventures of the American student of West African language and culture remind us that people are not so different as they seem. Furthermore, she reminds us that before European interference, there was gentility and natural wealth in African society.

Highly recommended for those readers who desire another perspective on the continent's people.

I found this novel a very troubling story. Killing came so matter-of-factly. It unfortunately made me see how Tim McVeigh could come to the conclusion of "collateral damage" for his own actions. In this story, however, death comes as no real surprise to its victims: Everybody's got a Glock! The political treatment was very insightful.

Simanga's insightful and often ironic depiction of a blackman's fight for survival reveals dimensions of the urban existenceoverlooked by our evening newsmen. And if life does indeed imitateart, then Simanga's account of big city political corruption sounds a warning bell to all progressive black Americans. Recommended reading!

This book is about a middle-aged black man living/teaching in the inner city who is thrown into the middle of a political-gang war that nearly kills him and several people that he loves. The main character is a former VietNam veteran who is struggling with the duality of suppressing his war demons and maintaining the peace that he discovered through teaching--a peace that he almost loses in this battle of the ghetto that forces his rage and animal instincts to the surface. This story is full of culture, drama, mystery, and emotion, and is a must-read for young and old alike. This book is as diverse as the African-American race itself.

This book takes us into a world of black manhood, political corruption and love. Simanga uses language to inspire and evoke emotions about people some of us are not always comfortable with. He causes us to think about the lives of black men and how their choices affect us all. I like his poetry and his chilling, realistic description of inner-city life. Most of all, I admire this writer's ability to make this a story about love, despite the violence he describes.

I met Mark Wygoda at a Yom Hashoah event last night in New Orleans. After watching his presentation on his father, Hermann Wygoda, I bought the book and read it cover-to-cover last night.

Absolutely stunning and fantastical - lost in the detritus of human tragedy is often the point that adversity creates heroes of ordinary people.

Hermann Wygoda was just that - a hero.

This is an important story to be shared throughout the generations.

"One of the best stories I have ever read." This is an eye witness account of an able bodied Jewish man who decided not to give up without a fight. Despite terrible personal loss he fought back, and helped many people along the way. It is extremely hard to write a review of such an unbelievable story. There don't seem to be any words to do it justice. The story tells a side of the war many people never hear about. It explains through Wygoda's experiences what the war was like for Jews from the very beginning. Why so many Jews didn't fight back, and how the Nazi's got them into those horrible death camps. I have personally thanked Hermann Wygoda's family for letting the world know him, and his unbelieveable story.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who does not believe that one man can make a difference in the world.

Kelly Mallett Lowe

If Wygoda's story wasn't documented, you wouldn't believe it.
"Audacity", he said, "is a prerequisite for survival", and Wygoda had plenty. Escaping occupied Poland, actually travelling into Germany to work under the noses of the Nazis (even those who could "smell a Jew"), and eventually commanding a division of Italian partisans, the author exhibited a rare courage and determination that earned awards from three Allied nations.
His story, written in later life for his children, is recommended for WWII readers, Holocaust students, and anyone else who enjoys true-life action adventures.(The "score" rating is an unfortunately ineradicable feature of the page. This reviewer does not "score" books.)

I would like to share what my father, Harry L. Meyer, a B-17 radio operator during WW II, recently wrote me about this book (with his permission): " In the Shadow of the Swastika" is fascinating reading about the exploits of a remarkable individual. Hermann Wygoda was a man of indomitable will who was blessed with courage, ingenuity, resilience and, by his own admission, occasional good fortune which allowed him to escape some desparate circumstances. The horrendous conditions wrought by the ruthless Nazi regime in Poland and wherever it came into power is the stuff of an appalling nightmare. For a man of his ethnic persuasion to escape the suffocating death trap the Nazis created borders on the miraculous. To do so and ultimately become a respected leader of a heroic partisan resistance movement is the material of legends. His normal disposition was not to be a warrior, for I believe by nature and cultural influence he was philosophic, altruistic and tolerant. This is manifested in his just dealings with others even in the trying and dehumanizing conditions of war. I respect him for not passively submitting to his tormentors, but opposing them with determination and fortitude, thereby helping in no small way to defeat them. When the fabric of a decent society is threatened by the forces of an unconscionable tyrrany, it is to be hoped that individuals like Hermann Wygoda will always be there to oppose them. I have always been proud of my combat service in WW II, but by reading works such as this which so graphically portray the consummate evil of a regime that operated outside the scope of human decency, I am more proud than ever to have contributed in some measure to destroy it.

Well, of course I give this book five stars. I wrote it. It offers a review of the historical events that led up to the trial of Plenty Horses for shooting an Army lieutenant in the back of the head shortly after the Wounded Knee shoot out. In writing the book, I wanted to cover an incident that marked the end of the Indian Wars but that had scarcely been treated to more than a footnote in most books covering those conflicts. I also tried to show the West as it truly was, which is to say that I was interested in showing how reality differed from the myth of the West that underlies so much of our nation's self identity. I also wanted to give readers a dramatic story that would hold their interest and compete well against other activities. I wish the best of reading experiences to those who do pick up the book.

"In the Shadow of Wounded Knee" is a deftly written account of several trials that served as an epilogue to the better-known events of Wounded Knee. DiSilvestro does an excellent job of setting the stage for the trial of Plenty Horses, a Lakota Indian accused of murdering Edward Casey, the last white soldier killed in the Indian Wars, and a secondary trial in which several low-life cattlemen were accused of killing a well-known and well-liked Indian. DiSilvestro describes the sad state of affairs that led to the massacre of Indians at Wounded Knee, and how reaction to the massacre colored, in particular, the trial of Plenty Horses. DiSilvestro provides a lively account of the uneasy state of affairs between whites and Indians, the specific events leading the two murder cases, the trials, and their aftermath. The influence of politics on both trials says a great deal about that time in history, but also left me thinking more about how politics still influences justice (think of the current debate about our obligations to prisoners in the war on terror). "In the Shadow of Wounded Knee" is a fluid, thought-provoking, even-handed treatment of a fascinating topic that continues to be of great relevance.

The more you read about American history the more you come to realize the significance that so many obscure and long forgotten events had on the history of our nation. I have read about a great many such events over the past few years and this was a major reason that I was drawn to Roger DiSilvestro's new book "In The Shadow Of Wounded Knee". Certainly I had read about the tragic events that had taken place at Wounded Knee SD in that last week of December 1890. But I was totally clueless about the subsequent assassination of Lt. Edward Casey
by a young Lakota warrier known as Plenty Horses and of the ambush and cold-blooded killing just days later of a middle-aged Lakota Indian known as Few Tails by three brothers named Culbertson. Both Plenty Horses and the Culbertson brothers would be accused of murder and be forced to stand trial. The outcomes of these trials were assumed to be a foregone conclusion but events were rapidly unfolding that had the potential to alter the outcomes of one or both of these trials.
There was much at stake for both the Lakota Indians and for the newly arrived ranchers and settlers.
Understanding just what was going on in the Dakotas during these troubled times would be extremely difficult without an understanding of the history of relations between the U.S. government and the Indian nations. In the first four chapters of "In The Shadow Of Wounded Knee" Roger DiSilvestro does a superb job of getting the reader up to speed on this checkered history. And so when these two unfortunate killings occur in January 1891 the reader is abundantly aware of the context in which this violence took place. At the same time you will be much more likely to understand the highly charged climate that surrounded each of these trials. If you are an avid reader of history like I am then "In The Shadow of Wounded Knee" will give you another little piece of the puzzle that will help you to understand just what was going on in the Plains as hostilities between the U.S. Army and the Indian nations were beginning to wind down. Clearly most Indian leaders could see the handwriting on the wall. "In The Shadow of Wounded Knee" is extremely well researched and very well written. My kudos to Roger DiSilvestro for a job well done.
Highly Recommended.

The author is to be commended for exploring in the depth and detail that only a book can provide, an incident receiving heretofore scant attention in previous histories of this campaign. Robert Utley's 1960s "American Heritage" article on Plenty Horses and Casey has stood as the best source on Casey's death, until now. As with many such books, the author spends a great deal of time with historical background and context, which, if you are a Sioux Wars student, you may already be familiar with in one form or another. To his credit, these sections are well-written and engaging as well as revealing of some new insight. Clearly, he has done his homework.

The best part of the book lies in the courtroom drama that unfolded when Plenty Horses was put on trial for the killing of Lt. Casey (see background description provided by Amazon) that was held in eastern South Dakota at Sioux Falls, far removed from the scene of conflict. The excitement that pervaded the town is related quite well through the use of contemporary newspaper quotes. The first trial ended in a hung jury; the second trial produced his acquital. The author fully explores how it was established that the U.S. military and the Lakota were at war and therefore the killing of Casey by Plenty Horses was not a murder but a legitimate wartime killing. The defense attorneys for Plenty Horses built a case resting on a number of issues proving that a wartime climate prevailed which impacted on the way Plenty Horses reacted to Lt. Casey's close approach to the the Lakota camp that resulted in his being shot: the large troop deployments, the fights at Wounded Knee and Drexel Mission that preceded the Casey killing, the issuance of army rations rather than Indian Bureau rations to those Lakota who surrendered and the testimony of Captain Frank Baldwin, close underling of none other than General Nelson Miles, who expressed Miles' opinion as to the nature of state of war prevailing at that time. The author makes clear and cites evidence concerning the military's fear that if Plenty Horsees was convivted of murder, the door might have been opened to legally question the nature of the numerous Lakota deaths that occured as a result of Wounded Knee, especially the number of women and children killed.

In the end, Plenty Horses escaped capital punishment, returned to the reservation where he lived until the 1930s. As for Wounded Knee itself, the author wisely states that "the truth of what happened at Wounded Knee is beyond reach."

This novel is a must read for Americans during this time of the Iraq war. Parsons illuminates a facet of WWII, the so-called "good" war, that reveals just how devastating it really was, both for the losers and the "winners." We see how a humble New Mexican ranching family, patriotic to the core, is betrayed by our government, which takes their land and then their son. The lessons are haunting when applied to our age, and this new war. Read this novel, and you will not only better understand our country's history, but our present as well.

This is a rare gem: a page-turner that is beautifully crafted. It's the best book about the Southwest I've read.

Executive Order 9029. This one order from the Federal Government displaces ranching leaseholders from their land in New Mexico, establishing the government's wartime authority to establish a test site on the land. With a war going on, there is no one to gainsay the right of the government to use the land in a manner that will aid the war effort. For those who must move from the land it is a wrenching, irrevocable order.

The Strickland brothers are hard, proud men who have worked the land, making their living from it and raising generations of family and both Baylis and Ross fight against embitterment when their livelihood is taken away. Baylis's wife has long wanted to live in town, although her husband refuses to acknowledge her; Ross is the older, more stubborn of the two, still nursing a grudge after the accidental death of their father. Just before the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Ross' son Jack enlists, but he refuses to say goodbye or wish him well. Not knowing the fate of his son since Pearl Harbor, Ross is smothered under his rage and general sense of injustice, while Baylis tries to make peace with the future.

Meanwhile, Jack endures the agony of the Bataan Death March, living corpses plodding through an eternity of days to reach the end of their journey. As Jack's friends fall away by the roadside, the young soldier keeps moving, his youthful enthusiasm as a soldier pounded into painful monotony under the weight of unrelenting horrors. But Jack carries the blood of his family, determined to survive his ordeal.

This unsparing novel of the high mountain desert of New Mexico and the jungles of the Philippines is as plain-spoken as the rugged country that requires all a man has to survive. While a young man wills himself to live and return home, his journey is made more poignant by the desperate straits of the Strickland's left behind. It would appear that there is little love in this family, what there is damaged by illicit romance and bitter regret, pitting brother against brother. But the love in this novels runs far below the surface; it is the deep-rooted affection of generations nurtured on their own land, the essence and endurance of family.

In sparse prose reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, Parsons paints a compelling portrait of a harsh land and the men it breeds, their loyalties and resentments, those who are the heart of this country. With images as powerful as the harrowing dust-bowl years of the Great Depression, the author's characters stand alone, proud and immutable, citizens of a world they have built with their own hands. Bleak and plaintive, the novel resonates with its own spare beauty. In a country devastated by a world war, two brothers are stripped and bared, their personal demons exposed. A son struggles far from home, his parents beset with inexplicable grief over his fate. Then finally, the great leveler is released, the awesome glare of incomprehensible destruction as the world watches, illuminated by the transcendent glare of the atomic bomb. Luan Gaines/2005.

Poignant and poetic, In The Shadows of The Sun is as enjoyable as it is significant. A well-researched and beautiful character study full of description and metaphor. Timeless. I was torn between wanting to find out what happens next and wanting to savor every word.