The Empire Books

Elizabeth Peyton's work fascinates me. She creates the art I never thought I could get a way with, and she does it beautifully. This collection of photos and drawings focus on one man who supposedly looks like a painting of Napoleon. I suppose he does, but her view of him is what is important.

She looks at him with more than a loving eye. She sees things in him that he obviously doesn't see in himself, and she shows those things to us. We are intimate partners in her adoration, never feeling voyeuristic or inappropriate. This feels natural and right, the way each of us should feel about someone.

The informality of the settings and the casual drawings - often on hotel stationery - give an "of the moment", casual feeling that adds to the intimacy and the mystery. Has she been staring at him as he sleeps? Did she quickly dash off a sketch to remember a certain attitude or expression? This is a truly beautiful collection.

Too many peoples have wrong ideas about the managerial and, more important, military capabilities of this incredible man, the only one that not only gave orders to the empire militarty elite but had the courage to pretend respect from them not by his position but for with his examples (this gained him the Mac Donald hate and his tempative to appear as the real organizer of the 1809 italian campaign.
As the president of the main italian napoleonic reenactment group, I had access to the documents and the real battlefield and this make me able to understand many facts about this man and how deep is the work done on this book.
Before the 1809 austrian aggressor, the real commander of the Italian Army had no military experience over the one in Marengo so, he understimate the enemy gaining an heavy defeat in Sacile (a battle bad planned and conduced in a hand to mouth style) but he learned from his mistakes, was so strong to admit his guilty with his stepfather and reorganize the army in a so incredible way that in the successive real battle, near Nervesa, he conduces his army over the Piave River neverthless the spring flood and broke the back of austrian army pushing it from Italy to the Raab river conquering on his way oll the austrian alpine forts guarding the alpine passages.
The author conduce you hand by hand from the arrive of Eugene in Milan to the Raab battle explaining with precision and ability the plans of both commanders let Eugene appear like a real commander, not only as the puppet that Mac Donald wanted to present.

This is an extensive account of Graham's influence on many President's attitudes and/or actions and has been needed for a long time. It is particularly appropriate in a time when so many mainstream religions seek to influence government actions. They have lost sight of the importance our constitutional provision--separation of Church and State. It details many incidents of the use of Graham's presence to provide endorsement for unethical decisions.

Joseph Haun
Asheville, NC USA

The title comes from Graham's support for every American war since Korea, but I found the civil rights material most interesting.

Cecil Bothwell portrays Graham as the political opposite of Martin Luther King and says the historical record does not support Graham's recent insistence that he was a friend of King's and of integration, pointing out that Graham "was absent from every civil rights march, rally or celebration over the years."

Sample paragraph: "Graham's frequent claims about King's approval are at odds with King's widely circulated exhortation from the Birmingham jail, in which he categorically condemned the position of clergymen who opposed civil disobedience, took them to task for obeying unjust laws, and spoke at eloquent length about the necessity for those of faith to demand change. He could have been directly rebutting Graham when he wrote, `You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations.' "

Bothwell notes that when King was killed 200,000 people attended the funeral. A long list of notables from every field came, the Academy Awards were postponed, and the start of major league baseball was delayed, but Billy Graham did not attend.

I found The Prince of War to be well worth reading.

Back cover reads:
AN OFFER SHE COULDN'T REFUSE
Deciding to focus on her thriving business as a wedding planner, Emily Parks had given up her dream of finding the perfect man. Yet when handsome Prince Lazhar Eban asked Emily to plan his royal wedding, she accepted, never guessing that she was the bride-to-be!
He'd agreed to marry Emily as part of a business deal and to please his own ailing father, but Lazhar had never expected to fall for the beautiful career woman. Soon he realized that she'd capture his heart. He knew she felt the same way--but what would she think once she discovered the false pretenses behind his proposal?

Mr Bonnabeau captures the essence of one of America's (make that the world's) most innovative and unique institutions of higher learning.

Conceived during the turbulent early seventies when bell bottoms were in, Empire State College took the unique energy of that time and turned it into college credit for you and me.

Today, institutions of all kinds have mimicked ESC's innovations and special brand of individual education such as credit for prior learning, learning contracts and one-on-one mentoring.

Avalon was settled by miners but war cut off the planet from the rest of the empire. In the year 8729 AD the empire has returned to Avalon only to find the inhabitants have devolved into hunting and gathering tribes. The empire plans to leave as their prime belief is not to teach advanced technology to primitives.

The empire's first imperial ranger hopes to retire and make his home on this beautiful paradise. From the planet Sparta he buys a slave warrior Beda-Loo and upon her arrival, he frees her in the hopes that she will want to make a life with him here. Beda-Loo quickly realizes that Jake is an honorable warrior and decides to stay with him as his mate. The tribes accept them as true Avalonians. However, their peaceful way of life is threatened by a rival tribe led by a renegade who cold bloodedly killed the leader. He intends to take control of all the tribes but Jake and Beda-Loo plan to stop him. They also intend to keep secret the truth about Avalon that if known will destroy this unique planet.

The hero of this book is an honorable, moralistic warrior with a kind heart who sees what must be done and does it. His wife is his equal in every sense of the word and when she learns the secret of Avalon she too wants to protect it from outsiders who will want to exploit the natives. S. Roy L. Hawkins is a gifted storyteller whose innovative ideas inside a strong plot captivate readers who can only dream of traveling to Avalon.

Harriet Klausner

I suppose most people interested in owning a copy of this book will already know what it is, but for those who are history buffs like me, but who (like me until a few weeks ago) have never heard of "prosopography", I will note a few things, primarily about the format of the book. Basically, this book (which actually comes slipcased as two volumes) is a bibliographical dictionary, covering every known person in the aristocracy, Roman and otherwise, except those whose entire lives were spent in religious pursuits. Also, emperors lives are covered in detail only up to the point when that individual became emperor. Almost all entries contain cross references to other entries, in some case quite a few such references. All the sources used in obtaining the information about a given individual are explicitly mentioned within the body of the entry. Most entries utilize some Greek and Latin, and a few short entries (of apparently very minor individuals) are in those languages only, but the vast bulk of the book is in English, and enough of it so that if you want to study the period in detail, plan on years of reading! The entry on Belisarius is the longest in the book, and comes in at 42 pages. Narses is about half that long, but dozens of other generals rate four to twelve pages. And not only generals are covered--the entries on the Apion family from Egypt total many pages. The Franks are covered in detail (mostly via Gregory of Tours). The Lombards and Visigoths are covered in somewhat less detail (I think primarily because of limitations in the sources). Purposely, only those Persians, Arabs, and Moslems whose activities impinged significantly on the Empire are covered. Britain is omitted completely. Several individuals whose important activities began before 527 (Bessas, Liberius, and Germanus among others) are covered in detail in the previous volume of the Prosopography, and are only given a few lines here. Essentially, what the author of this book has done is collate an enormous amount of information about individuals into a readable and useful format. I have found the book to be wonderful for browsing, and also as a handy reference to check up on names encountered during the course of other reading.

Imagine a Who's Who for the world of late Classical Antiquity through the early Dark Ages. The PLRE Vol II lists all of the names, jobs, and genealogies of everybody known in the West. It lists all of the jobs people held and when they held them, small articles or paragraphs on people, many of whom are only known from an inscription or coin, and stemmata of these famous names. Not only histories, but letters, saint's lives, and amphiteater chairs are used as sources. In short, the PSLRE II is the book if you want to put structure to a very confusing period of history.

For any college/university student, graduate student, or anyone simply interested in the Carolingian period of the early Middle Ages, Smith's book is a must-read. The Carolingian Empire was vast, covering most of western Europe, so the best way to understand how things worked is through regional studies. Smith admirably accomplishes her task of describing the structures of power relations inside Brittany as well as how this region played a role in the wider civilization. She shows how kings and emperors dealt with rebellious nobles and managed the distribution of lands and offices to secure their power. Just as important, she illustrates how Bretons used their relationships with Frankish kings to strengthen their own positions. In the early Middle Ages, churches and monasteries were major players in the game of power politics, and by no means does Smith neglect these entities. What is more, her view encompasses more than just the elite, taking in people whose sphere of activity was more localized as well. Since the Carolingians initiated a program of cultural reform, Smith reserves a chapter to illustrate the Breton conditions of that as well. All in all, this is a first-rate study.

This books a wonderful story. There is all the characters you see from Star Wars, the setting is great, the plot is awesome, and the way it fits tigether is really cool. It's amazing how Paul can put a story together using only Episode 6, then writing on. It's a truely amazing book. It's for girls and boys. It a book to read if you LOVE Star Wars like me!