Reviews Books

Frederick J. Veale's THE ADVANCE TO BARBARISM is a concise exposure of the injustice and hypocrisy of the Nuremberg Trials which began in 1946. Veale simply wrote a great book, and this book should be a warning to those who considere "war criminals" to be those who are far away and so defined by phony media "experts" who are ignorant of these staged trials and morality plays.

Veale begins this study with a brief but informative review of how the victors treated the vanquished during Ancient History. Basically, the ancients usually tortured and massacred the vanquished without the pretense of "trial." In other words they were more honest in their treatment of the losers.

Veale explains the transition from vengence to limited aims and goals that gradually occured in early modern European History. This transition took place after the terrible Thirty Years War (1618-1648). Crowned rulers sent forces to war commanded by men who usually conformed to the phrase of "an officer and gentleman." There was usually a concerted effort to avoid harm to the enemy's civilian population. Rulers and commanders understood war as a limited effort to gain land, resources, and economic access. The Europeans did not resort to wars of extermination or crusades against the forces of evil when the Europeans were at war with other Europeans.

However, this mutual understanding ended during World War II. The beginning of World War II began as a small war of the Germans and Soviets invading Poland in 1939. One should note that the view of an innocent Poland is false. For example, the Polish had already used military force to land from the Czechs, Lituanians, etc., in 1938 which obviously concerned the Soviets. One must remember that some of the Polish poltical leaders claimed that a Greater Poland's borders extended from Berlin to Moscow. As one historian commented, the Polish thought they were the carnary who could swollow two cats. As an aside, one might ask why the Germans were "war criminals" when they invaded Poland, but the Soviets were not.

Veale presents a clear case that some of the charges brought against German political leaders arose ex post facto. Prior to the Nurmemberg "Trials," there was no international law defining internal laws and acts of a soverign state as violations of international law. Yet, some of the charges were based on such flawed legal reasoning.

Other charges were "crimes against humanity and starting an aggressive war." This was bogus based on 6,000 years of history. The "jurists" representing the "victors" of World War II were citizens of governments who waged "aggressive" wars throughout history and continued to do so when European colonies were in a state of rebellion. One of the most hypocritical aspects of these trials was the presence of Soviet "jurists" sitting in judgement of the German defendants. The Soviet leaders under the sponsorhship of Lenin and Stalin committed mass concentration camp brutality and mass murder that made the accusations of the Germans almost look tame. Veale calls attention to the unprovoked Soviet invasion of Finland in 1940 plus Soviet forced absorbtion of the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. The hypocrisy of the jurists ignoring all this is startling.

Even upon closer examination, the charges of waging an "aggressive war" against the Germans appear ludicrous regarding Goring's plans to invade Norway in 1940. Veale proves beyond doubt that the British planned such an invasion in 1940 and started their invasion plans before the Germans did. The only thing the Germans did that was considered criminal was the fact the German effort was successful. Veale cites Churchill's speeches and Hansard's PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY to prove his case.

The accusation leveled against the Germans that they deliberately caused harm to civilians is refuted by the fact that the British started this breach of international law. Veale cites J.M. Spaight's book BOMBING VINDICATED to prove that the British started the deleiberate of German civilians on May 11, 1940 which Spaight called the "Splendid Decision." While the battle for France was being waged hundreds of miles from German civilians, the British, who should have focused their bombing to military targets such as bridge networks in France, bombed innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the Battle of France. In fact, Veale makes a good point that had the British concentrated their bombing on these bridge networks, destruction of these networks would have stopped Hitler's mechanized forces due to the lack of getting gasoline supplies. The German offensive would have stalled and would have been defeated.

An interesting episode of the Nuremberg Trials was the cross examination of Goring by the late Supreme Court Justice Jackson. Goring admitted to the charges that he planned to assist in ending the Weimar Republic and revise the unjust conditions of the Versailles Treaty. He bluntly admitted to having planned to create the German airforce and use military force to correct what many Germans considered unjust territorial impositions at the Versailles Treaty. Goring stated that he had planned to use military force to achieve political objectives as statesmen had done throughout history. Some of the British "justices" admitted to a grudging admiration of Goring's performance at the Nuremberg Trials.

What Veale suggests in a nuclear age is that the Nurember Trials only sufficed to make future wars worse. If the "losers" think that losing a war will resulet in their executiion, they may very well use the most destructive weapons to either salvage their tenure or to threaten possible "winners" with mutual destruction.

While recent events are well beyond the scope of Veale's book, one should note that some of the Serbian leaders who stalled their "war crimes" trials by arguing that they ordered counter terror campaigns to serious political threats. The recent attempts to try to Saddam Hussain have proven difficult when one considers that during the 1980s, Hussain only did what his then American sponsors wanted him to. Now to try him as a war criminal is so hypocritial as to deserve little comment.

Veale's book was first published in 1953 during the Cold War. Yet the implications in this book are thought provoking and applicable to contemporary events. Another feature of this book is that Veale's work is clear and readable. One should read this book as it is more than worth the price of the book.

Perhaps the most devasting of all the revisionist debunking of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and the other post-WWII trials. Knowledgeable, lucid English attorney F.J.P. Veale does more than skewer the judicial outrages of the trials of the Germans and their allies: he shows that these trials, by demonizing the defeated and glossing over the crimes of the victors, abolished the traditional code that had ruled European warfare for centuries. In a revisionist refresher course on mdern history, Veale draws on precedents from Napoleonic wars onto demonstrate the hollowness and hypocrisy of the Allies' judgement of the Germans. The Gulf War, Bosnia, and Kosovo seem validation for this books' prediction, grounded in its author's analysis of the IMT that Nuremburg would make future warfare worse for non-combatants by dividing warring nations into good (us) and evil (them).

This is an amazing story...very engaging and one learns a great deal about bees and ecology in a fun way. Maya has much attitude!

Many years ago I gave this book to my former elementary school teacher; I was happy to find out later that she read it to every generation of students until she retired.

Waldemar Bonsels masterfully crafted a book in which the insect world is a metaphore/allegory of the humans'. Its stories are about compasion, love, loss, loyalty, heroism, life and death, even ethics, and maybe provide the reader with a better understanding of the world's diversity.

Maya's story starts from the moment the little bee is born. Although she was supposed to be a working bee, she is too inquisitive to be satisfied with that, so she leaves the beehive to learn more about the world. Every creature she encounters and every experience, good or bad, seem to bring a bit of wisdom into little Maya's mind and eventually into the reader's.

This is a book that was written almost a century ago in Europe, yet it's as great a read today as it was the first day it was published. It's a book rich in many ways: the stories are fascinating, endearing, meaningful and told in a form that is intellectually evolved enough to be enjoyed by an adult, yet very accessible to a child's level of comprehension. I read this book first when I was 8 and had fun reading it again at 38.

Maya the Bee seems to be a much more popular character in Europe. I always wondered why, although published here a long time ago, this book never became popular in the States. Then again, at the time Maya was spreading her wings in Europe, Disney was begining to captivate the imagination of children on this side of the Atlantic.
Oooh, the power of marketing...

This book presents perhaps the greatest scientific discovery so far of the 21st century - that the institution of science as of 2008 is beginning to look more and more like a combination of an organized religion and a totalitarian government, in which those who are loyal to the faith and party are rewarded with money and honors and who question the faith or party are excommunicated and sent to Cyberia (the cyberspace version of the Siberia of the old Soviet Union). I predict that this book will be studied as a classic for many years to come, and I commend its authors for having the courage to speak out about this important matter.

The public is staked out on the beach, with the rising tide about to drown the trapped! Are you bored with today's "Press Release" Science news? Wonder why that is just about all the public is given? This book gives, in impressive detail, the reasons for this scandalous treatment of new knowledge. Politicians, in cahoots with sequestered socialists/collegians have enjoyed a cozy, non-productive business: monetary grants, political plaudits, exclusion for non-conforming scientists, dumbing-down of the public via "Press Release" Science broadcast and/or published by news media outlets staffed by Science-ignorant reporters. The numerous chapters, all penned by real and financially vulernable researchers in Europe and North America confronting a corrupted international R&D system,deftly outline the startling organizational flaws of that unproductive R&D system. The public pays with taxes but gets a very poor quality, very often exceeding impractical, R&D product. The authors are excellent writers, know their various topics in superb detail, and are generous in giving the reader true insights. An informed public can demand a better R&D product! This book is a rarity on a complex and little-noticed---so far---aspect of modern-day life in a changing world that increasingly finds great survival and prosperity need for Science.

This remarkable anthology brings together texts from 15 Alaska Native languages with facing translations, and contemporary Alaska Native stories, essays & poems. The book seems to me to be a great service to the native peoples of Alaska, and should be of interest to any reader with a concern for preserving the native literary heritage. An unusual and exciting reading experience.

I was amazed to find a book that looked unpromising turn out to be a fascinating read. I discovered new voices and intriguing ideas from kinds of people I've never met. The oral tradition people seemed to be from a different planet, and the contemporary native writers like Susie Silook and Diane Lxeis Benson read like very sophisticated moderns with a distinct native style.

The amg books are quite exceptional but this one is really something. There are a few omissions I noted (Rotary Connection and Fanny)yet the proof is in the pudding. Prove it to yourself by finding an artist with several works you have a view on and see what their writer says...often the observations are right on whether you fully agree or not. The reviews and bios are quite interesting, and it is a volume to get lost in...a real treasure. A few artists will get more attention than you might like, but it leaves all other volumes like it in the dust.

I've found the "All Music Guide" to be such a useful research tool, that I start lapsing into an "info-mercial-esque" tone when I begin extolling its virtues: "Hi. My name is Alan, and I'm a freelance music writer. When I'm assigned to write about a band that I know next-to-nothing about, I always turn to the 'All Music Guide'. This mammoth music encyclopedia is not only useful, but a ton o' fun! Let's say that I need a quick factoid about some rock group that I despise--like, I dunno, The Scorpions. I just pull out my 'AMG', turn to page 329, and voila; I quickly learn that Scorp's, co-founder Michael Schenker quit the band in 1973 to join fellow metal-meisters UFO. Wow...UFO! But they don't call it the 'All Music Guide' for nothin'; flip over to page 1351, and you'll find incisive reviews of almost every available record by legendary jazz saxophonist/heroin addict Art Pepper. If you only buy one music research book this year, make it 'All Music Guide'." In all seriousness, this thing has saved me hours of net-surfing, in addition to helping me avoid a few hundred research sojourns to Tower Records trying to find out what year Buddy Guy's first record was released.

Since the marginal films of " Boca do Lixo" until "Macunaíma", this book shows the post-Cinema Novo.

Since the marginal films of " Boca do Lixo" until "Macunaíma", this book shows the pos-Cinema Novo. Enjoy, 'cause here in Brazil we don't have hardcover of this book!

This book is fantastic. I recommend it to all my friends!! I'm so glad to find out that I wasn't crazy, I wasn't imagining those symptoms, and other people really do go through these things! This book is a life and sanity saver.

I loved this book. I've loaned it to several friends during their pregnancies and each one has made comments that they are SOOOO happy that they are not alone in what they think is their own problems.... or imaginery!

Reluctantly, I gave this book five stars. It's not a five-star book at all by amazon.com standards. It's a ten-star book (at least). It's the best short story collection I've read in years. Brazaitis is a master of the form. Every single story is precise, powerful, poignant. This collection deserves a lot more attention than it's getting. I don't know what's up with the Texas Review Press, but AN AMERICAN AFFAIR was published in Fall 2005, and a cover image is still not here on amazon.com in February 2006. It's a shame that one of the big publishing houses didn't get this extraordinary book and promote it in the way it deserves. It would be a national bestseller.

While Mark Brazaitis's RIVER OF LOST VOICES was an extraordinary debut, he has come into his own as a master storyteller in AN AMERICAN AFFAIR. Together, the two volumes cement his place as the leading chronicler in American fiction of the ins and outs of life in Guatemala. Brazaitis is uniquely qualified to do this work, by his extensive in-country experience (in the Peace Corps) and by his nuanced understanding of the contexts-historical, social and political-in which his stories take place. Brazaitis's background in history (a B.A from Harvard) and comprehensive reading about Guatemala enable him to ground the action of his stories in the reality of place in a way that is extraordinary in expatriate fiction. The ghost of Graham Greene animates this work, and that is a high compliment.

While many of the stories in AN AMERICAN AFFAIR do have a political edge-and this is one of their virtues, they teach-Brazaitis never allows politics to hijack a story. Indeed, it is in the mastering of narrative that these stories move forward from his previous work: every piece in the collection, no matter what formal strategy it pursues, maintains a spanking pace. Brazaitis has done a remarkable job of wedding the concerns of serious fiction with the narrative pull of the best popular fiction. That this book is written to a high literary standard is evident by its winning the George Garrett Prize in Short Fiction. But readers will not need the prize citation to recognize just how good the book is: the prose is extremely economical and yet also beautiful; the movement of the sentences is so assured, no word, no pause out of place.

Brazaitis has a deep understanding of the many ways of being human, and this allows him to convincingly tell stories from the perspective of men and women, Americans and native Guatemalans. Because he is able to inhabit so many different points of view, the world of AN AMERICAN AFFAIR achieves a kind of 3-D vividness. It's there in each particular story, but the stories together suggest a whole world, as multifarious as reality itself. As readers, we both know the stories we read and come to believe that each of the minor characters must also have a story to tell. And we've no sooner finished AN AMERICAN AFFAIR then we want to hear those stories...

I would like to single out "Air Conditioning and Heat," "The Foreign Correspondent," and "Iris, Thirty Years Later," as three of the best stories I've read in years (and I've read plenty). All three delve deep into the heart of the matter. They generate both pathos and understanding; they move us, so what's said can count deep down. These stories can stand with the best short fiction written by an American writer in the last 10 years.

As a pre-nursing student, the competition is fierce to get into a program. When I first received these study guides I thought I had paid way too much for what I got and thought the material simplistic. What I found is that 25% to 35% of my test questions were very close to the examples given. If you are a serious student, these guides are another tool in your total study regime. They are not intended to be your ONLY source of study and review. There are no easy ways to learn the Sciences, but these focus on some of the commonly tested areas. I wanted all the resources I could find and it paid off with A's.

This book made studying the Nervous System In Anatomy and Physiology very easy, being that the nervous system is one of the hardest topics to learn. This sudy guide helped me gain the knowledge thoroughly. The questions were thorough and covered all the areas of the nervous system

This helped me tremendously for studying for my lab practical exams (bones and muscles). It has all the needed detail while keeping it simple as to not detract from the task at hand. Great product, highly recommended.

Visual learners need to see and experience what they are learning. What a great way to learn anatomy! I find coloring to be a very relaxing activity too.