Conferences Books

Lindsey Gordon isn't a detective, but she is one of these characters who is constantly getting embroiled in murder investigations. This is the fourth such experience for the British lesbian and former journalist who has been transplanted to the US where she now teaches Journalism.

When Lindsey returns to the UK to complete research for her dissertation, she finds herself not only involved in UK trade union politics, but also a murder suspect. Intent on clearing her name and ensuring that she can return to the States, Lindsey and her girlfriend dive head first into solving one, or maybe two, murders.

This is a great whodunnit with well developed and likeable characters and a plot that keeps you guessing right up until the very end.

A final comment I'll add is that while the book is about trade unions, there was remarkably little politics and what was included actually served the story -- unlike some novels that seem to be more politics than plot.

If you've ever enjoyed any lesbian mystery novel in the past, you're likely to enjoy this one.

Lindsay Gordon is a former journalist who returns to the United Kingdom to attend a trade union conference that will provide material for her doctoral dissertation. She is not a stranger to these meetings since she used to work as a trade delegate ten years ago. Nothing has changed in a decade. There is hypocrisy, prejudice, sexual harassment and debauchery among the attendants. Somebody is also writing a newsletter that is making accusations on the members of the conference.

To make matters worse Tom Jack, a union boss, dies when he falls out of Lindsay's tenth floor hotel room. The police are quick to suspect on Lindsay due to her animosity towards Jack as well as it being her hotel room. In order to clear her name she decides to investigate the death with the help of her lover, Sophie Hartley. What they discovered is an ugly blackmail and embezzling scheme involving several people at the trade union.

I liked reading this novel with its satire and quick wit. The plotting is well done and the story ends well. I am aware that this is not the first Lindsay Gordon novel but I will try to read the others. I am enjoying Ms. McDermid's novels and characters.

Lindsay Gordon is a former journalist who returns to the United Kingdom to attend a trade union conference that will provide material for her doctoral dissertation. She is not a stranger to these meetings since she used to work as a trade delegate ten years ago. Nothing has changed in a decade. There is hypocrisy, prejudice, sexual harassment and debauchery among the attendants. Somebody is also writing a newsletter that is making accusations on the members of the conference.

To make matters worse Tom Jack, a union boss, dies when he falls out of Lindsay's tenth floor hotel room. The police are quick to suspect on Lindsay due to her animosity towards Jack as well as it being her hotel room. In order to clear her name she decides to investigate the death with the help of her lover, Sophie Hartley. What they discovered is an ugly blackmail and embezzling scheme involving several people at the trade union.

I liked reading this novel with its satire and quick wit. The plotting is well done and the story ends well. I am aware that this is not the first Lindsay Gordon novel but I will try to read the others. I am enjoying Ms. McDermid's novels and characters.

I didn't like this book...and I worship Val McDermid's writing!

I could understand virtually none of the union babble that took up a great deal of the book. I felt like I was reading one of those papers you are assigned in school that you read to say you read, but very little of it actually sinks in.

I was able to follow both the beginning and ending parts of the novel (both of which I liked), and I did not guess who was behind the murder. However, this just wasn't Val's strongest novel, and as much as I'm a supporter of her work, I have to say, unless you're a journalist yoursels, skip over this book.

I enjoyed this book because of the atmosphere, and also because you don't expect the end, which should always be the case in a good crime story.

It's a nice change to read good lesbian crime story that's taking place outside the US

`Under the Duvet' is a collection of journalism by Marian Keyes, some of it published previously in papers such as Irish Tatler, other pieces which are making their debut. The subjects Marian writes about cover everything that young, middle-aged women want to read about: career, relationships, weight, etc in a light-humoured way. Each `piece' is completely unrelated to the rest which means you can start reading anywhere in the book, although I found myself going from start to end just to be methodical.

I was not really sure what to expect when I first opened the pages of `Under the Duvet' but luckily the author had the foresight to include a brief introduction to explain the approach she had taken. I found the style of writing easy to read and quickly got through half the book in one evening. The articles seemed a bit abrupt and while I appreciate that they were originally intended as newspaper articles, perhaps the writer could have modified them slightly so that the reader was left feeling more satisfied.

The autobiographical way of writing made it feel like I was reading someone's diary and even though the writer is Irish (I'm not) and older, I was able to relate easily to her troubles and thoughts. There were a number of hilarious articles which were highly original, however I felt that others were merely written from a general expectation of women in this day and age. In these stereotypical sections I got a sense of deja vue and realised that I had read something very similar in another book or even seen it played out on shows such as `Sex and the City'.
A light-hearted, brainless piece of writing that will keep you momentarily entertained. Having said that I do not think I would pay to buy this book a second time round.

I had never read a Marian Keyes book before......Under the Duvet was a gift with magazine purchase. She is hilarious! This book is a collection of short stories and anecdotes that every woman can relate to - it will have you laughing out loud. You won't be able to put it down. I am off to order more of her books - I am hooked!

This is a collection of Marian Keyes's journalism and a few previously unpublished non-fiction pieces. Just as funny and self-deprecating as her novels, it offers a personal glimpse into the life of one of Ireland's most-loved authors. You can't help but come away with the impression that it would be lovely to have a girlfriend like her.

In spite of the humorous and imaginative spoof above by A reader from Ann Arbor, MI, I found this to be an enlightening set of essays about the man and his work, including reflections by Mahan's son. Of particular interest were the articles relating to the role of Mahan's work at the turn of the century, the evolution of strategic thought post-Mahan, and chapters concerning Latin American, German and Japanese reaction to Mahan's theories. Mahan's theories are thought to be responsible for the build-up of the German Navy which, because of the determination of the English Navy to be supreme, led directly to a naval arms race and the outbreak of World War I. This work puts this assertion into context, and raises significant questions about the nature of military protection of commerce, and the relation of commerce (and democracy) to war, that we must still face today.

Deep within this rather dry and sloppily written book is a bombshell of a revelation: that Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-1914), one of the most important naval strategists and author of the widely influential "The Influence of Sea Power upon History," wasn't always a man. Though Mr. Hattendorf tries mightily to downplay the most salacious parts of his subject's private diary, he is forced to reveal that Mahan led an extravagant double life since his graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy. We now know, for example, that Mahan always wore a female corset underneath his garment and dressed up and cavorted as a society hostess in his private home at least once a week. The fact that Mahan was a life-long bachelor may have had a lot to do with his keeping his secret to the grave. Mr. Hattendorf does relate, however, one of the few close calls when President Grant paid a surprise visit to the home of the aspiring naval captain only to be met and entertained by Mahan's spinster sister, Maybelline. Mahan records in his diary that the President imbibed so much sherry that he started making passes and pawing him. It is a pity that Mr. Hattendorf doesn't have an eye for human detail and is ultimately unable to balance high theory and low camp.

The U.S. Navy's official, centenary commemoration marking the pub. of Alfred Mahan's most famous book, which became one of the most influential books of the 19th cent. Papers include: The Influence of History on Mahan; Mahan, Tactics & Principles of Strategy: Mahan: Then & Now; Japan & Mahan; The Influence of A. T. Mahan Upon German Sea Power; 140 Years of German Navies; The Character & Extent of Mahan's Influence in Latin Amer. (LA); Low Intensity Conflict in LA; Reflections of Mahan's Son, Lyle E. Mahan; Christianity & Sea Power: The Religion of Alfred Thayer Mahan; Mahan on the War of 1812; Mahan, World Politics & Naval Rivalries, 1904-1914; Mahan & Amer. Naval Thought Since 1914; & Mahan, Russia, & the Next 100 Years

I'm an atheist.
Unless it is a joke of poor taste, this book is disaster.
I'm not talking about the dozens of similar questions asked over and over, and the repetitive answers.
The author simply doesn't have the scientific and theological knowledge to write about the matter.
And saying god is the time is surrealistic.

In fact, Hutchins makes so much sense as Jeremiah, God's press secretary, I found myself thinking as I read that I like this God. God is funny, thoughtful, realistic, sensible, and completely objective. I had to remind myself this is fiction. A fun, thoughtful read.

If you're a born-again Christian, then you probably won't like this book, but everyone else should get it. It really makes you think and laugh at the same time. A VERY different way of looking at God and The Big Questions. Check out Question 133 about Rrrrumsfeld.

This book provides an excellant source of information for the 'principles of operation' of modern avionics systems. Its the first of such texts that I have seen that takes the mystery out of the 'glass' environment. I highly recommend it for pilots trying to gain a better understanding of what is really going on behind the Cathode Ray Tubes and Flight Management Systems. I know of few other texts that provide such well organized information in such a concise collection of subject chapters.

It is a good avionics reference book I ever read for who are interested in exploring the basic knowledge of avaition communication and aircraft electrical systems.

I was disappointed with this book almost immediately. Having paid $ for this text, I was expecting to see some high quality work. the first thing I noticed was that instead of being a well considered text that takes the reader logically from one topic to the next (as you might expect from a "Handbook"), its really just a collection of scientific papers written by various authors in the aerospace community over time and then bound together by the "author". Second, the graphics are not only not in color, they are often low resolution.

My advice: keep shopping.

I found this book to be an excellent work on Internet programming. Although I am an experienced programmer, I'm fairly new to a lot of Web concepts. This book fills in the gap very nicely! I don't think you can say this book is for "beginners" or "advanced users"--I think there is something there for everybody.

Two topics I found particulary clear & useful dealt with security and Web databases. There is also a lot of useful material on HTML, Java, and CGI gateways. There is also in-depth coverage of material for Web administration which is probably pretty good too, but since I'm not involved with that, I can't say for sure. But I heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in Web development, especially programmer-types.

I could not use this book for a reference. The content is to brief. This book is like a novel, Once you've read it, your're done, and will never go back read it again. The pictures inside is also very poor, some even completely can not be read. I bought this book because I wanted to know about web site security. But the security chapter only (briefly) discuss on several types encryption. This book should not titled as Web Programming Methods.

It would be quite a physical fete to hold this hefty tome throughout a Pontifical Solemn High Mass!Perhaps some thought should have been given to issuing the Psalter in a second volume. The one over riding dissapointment was the omission of appropiate front matter i.e., a preface, introduction etc. This would have been of special interest to collectors of liturgical works and others interested in liturgy. Cost is always a factor in publishing however I like to see the rubrics printed in red.
On the positive side it will much appreciated by former Episcopalians who are now within the Roman fold.

This is the principle liturgical source for the 'Anglican Use.' For those of you who haven't heard of it, the Anglican Use is a pastoral provision in the Catholic Church that allows for an Anglican parish that converts to Catholicism to retain elements of the Anglican liturgical and spiritual tradition. Sadly, Anglican parishes seeking to become Anglican-Use-Catholic ones need the approval of the local Catholic bishop, which is almost never given.

This book contains the order of mass plus all the collects (opening prayers) and secrets (prayers over the gifts) throughout the year. It also contains the order of matins and vespers and has two psalters in the back -- one Coverdale (archaic language) and the other in contempory English.

The binding is quite beautiful and the text is very well set out and is easy to read. Its only real let-down is that it is physically quite bulky and cumbersome.

MacMillan's The Peacemakers fails to live up to its promise of providing a fresh look at the Treaty of Versailles.

`In many cases the peacemakers found themselves dealing with faits accomplis', says MacMillan and `Hitler did not wage war because of the Treaty of Versailles'. True, and very right for a historian to point her finger at commonplace views that only reflect hindsight. The trouble is that this appears in the conclusion, and that the rest of the book gives the opposite impression.

The Peacemakers read to me like a laundry list indictment of the Versailles treaty. On each issue, the problems the treaty set in store take centre ground. It is blamed for an endless list of ills ranging from Eastern Europe in the 1930s to the Middle East today. And the peacemakers' own private weaknesses, elaborated on in colourful detail, systematically add to the impression of failure. Perhaps this is where MacMillan provides a fresh view: behind the scenes analysis, portrayal of the actors as well the action. While that is indeed the book's most interesting feature, however, it makes an already confused account even more so. The book's scope is broad, but by trying to draw even broader consequences, it inevitably veers into superficiality.

There were deep flaws in the treaty, which everyone is taught at school: the war guilt clause, the reparations, the make-up of the League. These would have been worth examining in more depth (For example how high were the German reparations really? My own guess is a huge 25% to 75% of German GDP. Just providing a well-researched estimate of that would have been illuminating, rather than sounding once again like debatable hearsay), and could have been set against some of the more positive achievements of this momentous peace agreement.

A superb and very readable account of the policies and personalities of those who concocted the peace settlement at the end of the First World War. The general story will be known to most who have an interest in the period, but here we have details that will be known to only a few. The pen portraits of Woodrow Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau are excellent and flesh out the picture that many readers will already have of them, but so are those of participants the names of whom figure in few text-books, like Billy Hughes, the coarse prime minister of Australia, or Prince Saionji and Baron Makino of the Japanese delegation, to mention just a few. And there is a wonderful set piece near the end about the closing scenes at Versailles.

The negotiations and the differences between the peace makers are set out in lucid detail, together with the nicely ironic comment, often as asides in brackets. The author pilots us skilfully through the complications of the Balkans, and only the treatment of the admittedly tortuous developments in Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq) are a little on the stodgy side. There are model succinct summaries of the past history of the areas under discussion, and equally succinct ones of what happened to them after the peace treaties, right up to the present day.

As at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, there is constant mistrust among the peace makers: France did not want a strong Italy; Britain (looking back to the rivalry before the Entente of 1904) distrusted France; Italy constantly tried to thwart the new Yugoslavia and was in competition with Greece. It should be no surprise to any student of politics that double standards were constantly in evidence: statesmen who had got what they wanted described the demands of others as `greedy' (except, unfortunately, for Lloyd George who was bewitched by Venizelos of Greece, possibly the greediest of the lot). There was the sordid haggling over the allocation of reparation payments from Germany, with contempt being shown to little Belgium's claim for a fair share of them. The high-minded and high-handed Wilson simply overruled the majority vote in one of the commissions that the Covenant of the League should include a racial equality clause proposed by the Japanese. He then compensated the Japanese with another betrayal of his own principles by accepting the Japanese claim on Chinese Shantung.

Macmillan is particularly illuminating on the Japanese. They were initially included in the Supreme Council which made all the decisions, but were then simply dropped. The service chiefs in Britain and the United States were already contemplating that one day they would have to go to war with Japan - not altogether surprising, since Japan was clearly already set on expansion.

But the Supreme Council often gave only cursory attention to areas outside of Europe, and did not listen carefully to what experts could tell them. This accounts to a large extent to the shambles they made in the Middle East. The consequences, as far as the Arabs were concerned, took some time to show themselves; but the stupidity of the peace makers' dealings with Turkey proper were quickly exposed by the success of Kemal Ataturk, who swiftly destroyed the Treaty of Sèvres which had been imposed on the Sultan.

Only Clemenceau wanted the League of Nations to have `teeth': he saw it first and foremost as an organization to prevent future German aggression. The other members of the Supreme Council were not prepared to sacrifice any of their sovereignty; and even President Wilson, for whom the League was of greater importance than anything else, knew that Congress would never stand for giving the League real power and did not press for it.

Macmillan concludes that Germany was actually better placed after the Versailles Settlement than it had been in 1914: Poland was now a barrier against Russia, and in the South East there were only small states instead of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This is presumably what Andrew Roberts had in mind when he commended the book as `splendidly revisionist and daringly politically incorrect'. Splendid though this book is, I can see only one other sentence, on p. 476, that would merit that description, and it is one of only two sentences in the book with which I disagree: if you read article 231, you can hardly say, as she does, that this has been inaccurately described as `the war guilt clause'.

My other disagreement is that the Sykes-Picot Agreement had not promised Palestine to the French (p.427): only the Upper Galilee. The rest was to be under joint British-French-Russian protection.

I cannot fully agree with the author's conclusion, which might perhaps be called revisionist. So many parts of the Peace Settlement left time-bombs, many of which detonated in the Nazi period and some of which (Kosovo, Iraq, Israel-Palestine) are still detonating today. Some of the advice which the peace makers received, but ignored, warned them of the dangers. But Macmillan thinks that the main responsibility for allowing them to detonate lies with the decisions taken or not taken by the next generation, not with the peace makers: `They tried, even cynical old Clemenceau, to build a better order. They could not foresee the future and they certainly could not control it. That was up to their successors.'

These very few criticisms aside, I have nothing but praise for this fine achievement.

This slim volume consists of six essays, one on the historiography of the Second Polish Republic, two on the post-independence strife, one on treatment of ethnic minorities, one on freedom of the press in Poland and one on Poland's defence preparations in 1939. The subjects are narrow and they are discussed in an apologetic manner on behalf of the conservative authoritarian leaders who ruled Poland during the twenties and thirties. The book is representative of a larger problem in Central European historiography. Historians of France, Germany, Italy, Russia, or Spain will recognize that these countries are often divided by class, ethnicity, religion, region, political persuasion and a large number of other factors. People who are not particularly sympathetic to these countries will still study them because they are intrinsically important. There is a certain expectation that historians will learn foreign languages, and historians will learn Italian, French, German or Russian without necessarily being enamoured of the nationality's government.

By contrast people who study Poland are likely to be highly sympathetic to Poland and are likely to study under Polish emigre scholars. The problem that arises is that many of these scholars are sympathetic to an authoritarian regime. And no matter how better the Second Polish republic may been compared to the Postwar Communist regime, support for authoritarianism does not encourage the critical approach needed to study history. It also means that one is studying under scholars who are not only very conservative, but are also unimaginative historically. The result is that they will ignore every trend that has revolutionized history over the past forty years. Gender, class, the revolution in intellectual history, the whole complex history of nationality; all ignored in a narrow and apologetic concentration on diplomatic and political history.

The result of this can be best seen in Stachura's essay on National Minorities. Stachura argues that if there was conflict between the government and the minorities, it was all the latter's fault. In particular he says How does he go about this? He does so by self-contradiction, omission, and question begging. At one point he claims that the Jews isolated themselves from Polish society, at another he claims they dominated many leading professions. He does not mention the prominent Polish cardinal who before 1939 linked the Jews to prostitution and white slavery (see Arno Mayer's Why the Heavens did not Darken). He does not mention the post 1945 pogrom in Kielce. And he does not mention General Sikorski's January 1942 meeting with Anthony Eden in which the General suggested to Eden that "It is quite impossible...for Poland to continue to maintain 3.5 million Jews after the war." (see Anita Prazmowska, Britain and Poland, 1939-1943: the Betrayed Ally at 122). He makes much of Jewish sympathies to Communism, although such support was electorally insignificant before 1939 and was dwarfed by Belorussian support. The most astonishing passage in Stachura's account occurs on page 75. He challenges the conduct of Zionist leader Yitshak Gruenbaum in the following way: "The destructive nature of Gruenbaum's creation was revealed all too starkly in December 1922, when it tipped the balance of botes in the presidential election in favour of the leftist candidate Gabriel Narutowicz, who was immediately stigmatized by the Right as a `Jewish president' and assasinated a few days later by an ultra-Nationalist. The ensuing poisonous atmosphere in Polish political life, which threatened to break out into civil war, owed much, therefore, to the nefarious activity of Gruenbaum and his fellow Zionists..." One is struck by the sheer non-sequitur, in which it is the exercise of one's democratic rights, and not the foul political motiviated assassination, that is blamed for undermining civic harmony. But it is all of a piece with an author who could write of Gruenbaum that "He exploited press freedom to mount his propaganda attacks," a phrasing more suitable to Franco and Pinochet than of a scholar published by St. Martin's Press.

Rather than reading Andrzej Suchcitz's indulgent essay on Poland's defence preparations, one should read A. Prazmowska's tougher Britian, Poland and the Eastern Front, 1939. She points out that the amazingly complacent attitude the British had on the vital question of getting Soviet aid, while the attitude of the Poles "was not merely one of obduracy but even more so of unrelieved reality." All in all we have not progressed beyond Antony Polonsky's study, now more than a quarter-century old.

This book has been mischaracterized as a nationalistic tome, one which attempts to blame prewar Polish minorities for all their problems. This is manifestly incorrect. Stachura never says that minorities' conflicts with Poles are all of their own making. He merely says that their steadfast enmity towards Poland, and constant rebuffing of positive Polish overtures, influenced their fate.

There is no contradiction whatsoever between the self-chosen nonassimilated status of most Polish Jews and the fact of their overall economic dominance. Also, Jewish involvement vis a vis the Bloc of National minorities and relative to Narutowicz was hardly a free-speech matter. It was, as described by Stachura, nothing less than "a declaration of political warfare against the state" (p. 75), and one with intrusive German involvement to boot. Finally, complaints about Stachura not mentioning Sikorski's 1942 comments and the Kielce pogrom of 1946 are doubly ridiculous in that they both occurred after the stated time scope of this book (1918-1939), an elementary fact obvious from even its title. (Parenthetically, Sikorski was not the only one who contended that Poland had far too many Jews. This opinion was shared by the Zionist Vladimir Jabotinsky, among others. As for the Kielce pogrom, there is ample evidence, from Russian and Jewish sources alone, that it was a Soviet Communist staged event).

Instead of being nationalistic, Stachura repeats the common criticism of nationalist Roman Dmowski being an anti-Semite, and one whose views, when repeated in the US, created an unfavorable reaction that had to be countered through the efforts of Ignace Jan Paderewski (p. 68). Far from trying to whitewash Poles, Stachura does not spare them from criticism [e. g., their disunity (p. 51), the slow pace of their military industrialization stemming from overconfidence following the stunning Polish victory over the Soviets in 1920 (p. 55), etc.]. Throughout his book, Stachura cites numerous sources that exhibit a diversity of viewpoints, not only pro-Polish ones. He is just as condemnatory of source materials that exhibit an adulatory attitude towards Polish figures and policies as he is towards those which are one-sidedly critical of them (e. g., Communist ones).

A major shortcoming of Stachura's book is his inadequate treatment of the agendas behind the demonization of Poland vis a vis her minorities. He does mention the Soviet-imposed Communist puppet government's need to appear legitimate by trying to make prewar Poland as bleak as possible. However, Britain and the US also needed to belittle prewar Poland in order to rationalize their dirty, stinking doublecross of Poland at Yalta. Finally, the emergence of the Holocaust Industry has created a need to blur the distinction between prewar Poland and Nazi Germany as much as possible in the public eye, and even to create an artificial continuity between the experiences of Polish Jews in prewar Poland and their subsequent genocide in Nazi-German ruled Poland.

Stachura depicts the Zionist leader Yitshak Gruenbaum in a very negative light. In this respect, his opinion is somewhat shared by the Jewish author Joseph Marcus, who in his SOCIAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY OF THE JEWS IN POLAND, 1919-1939, sees Gruenbaum as an unnecessarily polarizing figure in Polish-Jewish relations.

As related by Stachura, the Jewish hostility to the Polish state took on nothing less than staggering dimensions. A "Jewish lobby" at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 had opposed the creation of the Polish state. Jewish collaboration with the Communists was extensive, and was much more significant than any Byelorussian-Communist cooperation owing to the economic and political power of the Jews. Indeed, numerous world Jewish organizations and personages spared no efforts to continually defame Poles and Poland Reading this, it sounds so familiar to what occurs today under the auspices of Holocaust programming and Holocaust education. All we ever hear about is Polish anti-Semitism. Yet Stachura documents many specific examples of Jewish Polonophobia. For instance, bogus accounts of pograms in Poland were created and circulated, only to be almost entirely discredited later through the investigative efforts of a delegation headed by Henry Morgenthau, a Jew himself. The so-called Minorities Treaty presented a platform for Poland's allies and enemies to meddle in her internal affairs. An ironic situation developed wherein, for instance, Britain, with her global empire, dubious treatment of the Irish, and having almost no local Jewish population to deal with, used the Minorities Treaty to moralize Poland on her treatment of minorities!

Polish anti-Semitism had been the reason given by many Jewish organizations and individuals for refusing to support the emergence of an independent Polish state. However, Stachura misses the opportunity to call the bluff on this excuse. The fact is that, if anything, czarist Russia had been far more anti-Semitic than the Poles. On the basis of this alone, Jews should have preferred Polish self-rule over continued Russian rule. As for Communism, its totalitarian and barbaric nature had, if nothing else, been well demonstrated by the Russian Revolution. The reluctance or refusal of Jewish organizations to support the independence of Poland, even after its inception, owes, in actuality, to long-term Jewish financial and economic interests in Russia (and also the other partitioning powers, Austria and Prussia).

Stachura makes it clear that, in general, Poland was very tolerant of minorities. The Jews enjoyed a flourishing economic, cultural, and economic life unparalled in any other nation. Although there were necessary repressive acts done by Poland against her seditious minorities, they were never systematic nor continuous. Stachura could have mentioned the commutation of the death penalty against Ukrainian nationalist leaders Bandera, Lebed, and Shukevych, who had been involved in assassinations of Polish and pro-Polish Ukrainian leaders. How did they return the favor? By organizing and implementing (during the later German occupation) an unspeakably sadistic genocide of 100,000 Poles (and thousands of Ukrainians who desired good Polish-Ukrainian relations or otherwise refused to submit to the fascist dictates of the OUN-UPA leadership). Stachura's work needs to be expanded, and it is hoped that a future edition will do this.

This book is a transcript of the Joint Fighter Conference along with related materials--photos of the aircraft involved and their data and "comment" cards. It is a difficult read. Basic reference material on aeronuatical and engineering terms may be necessary for the average reader and helpful for the informed reader. An overall impression is that this book is still timely. One point that comes to mind is that the qualities of a good day light dog fighter, are unchanged and may be timeless (good visibiility, maneuverability, and acceleration [think F-16]). Also there was criticism of aerodynamic add-on shortcuts to solve a problem-- something that is happening currenntly with the Super Hornet. Topics of discussion are varied ranging from maneuverability to cockpit visibility to armour and armament with stops at stroboscopic effects of propellers, to external fuel tanks. What would come to be called ergonomics was discussed in regard to making the cockpit more comfortable and usable for the pilot. A fair number of those in attendance and a large number of those flying the conference aircraft were manufacturer test pilots and reps. I got the impression there may have been some company one-upsmanship going on. Incidentally the "comment cards" are based on "one hop" impressions, so if your favorite aircraft is disrespected a little, don't worry too much. I was surprised by a number of things such as the mention of some fairly obscure aircraft (eg. the G.M. P-75, Curtis XF-14) and the absence of any discussion of enemy aircraft then being encountered. I was shocked by a comment near the end of the conference that the air war is being won by "quantity rather than by quality" (the P-38 and P-51 are specifically mentioned) and at least one contractor agrees. I have never read of heard anything before suggesting quality was lacking in late War U.S. aircraft as a whole. If you're a WWII fighter buff and don't mind having to put some research and effort into your reading you will be rewarded by this book.

Despite a title to fill the mouth ( _Report of Joint Fighter Conference, NAS Patuxent River, MD 16-23 October 1944_) this book is a gem to those who have a serious interest in understanding the deeper layers of air combat during WWII. Briefly, the Joint Conference was a gathering of 400 Allied combat pilots, engineers and test pilots. They had a "fly off" of every major US aircraft at the time. The British delegation brought a Seafire II and a Mosquito. The evaluators even had a late model Zero to use for comparison. Edited by noted aviation author Francis Dean, the book is in two parts. The 250 page report itself is a transcript of the discussion among experts that took place each afternoon after the morning's fly-off. Each session centered on one topic or another, although the tangents were numerous. I should warn that the conversation is far over the head of the material presented in garden variety books about aircraft. But I found it fascinating being a "fly on the wall" as the men who made and flew the great fighters of WWII dissect them piece by piece. The last 100 pages is made up of technical evaluations of the respective aircraft. This is not a work for the casual reader. However, if you know the rudiments of aviation and have the WWII "Warbird" bug, there's really nothing like this. (The Conference Report provided Mr. Dean with some of the material used in his splendid _America's One Hundred Thousand: US Production Fighters of World War Two_ [Schiffer, 1997])