Europe Books

One could almost draw paralleles, with fate of Danilo Kis and his novel, in former Yugoslavia, with every "free thinker" troughout the known history. Nobody, especially totalitarian regime, likes "the voice that yells in the desert". So it became that this book was putted on a certain kind of "index librorum prohibitorum". What makes it tragic, is the fact that that was happening in the upper half of twentieth century.

What was so incriminating in that book, that communist party simply had to make that move? When one starts to question revollution, when one starts to question necessity of one voice-one peolpe doctrine, when one sees in "fight of the oppressed" just a certain kind of tragedy, human misery that has been manifesting repeatedly through human existene, one must become "enemy of the state". And that has not changed up until today, nor it will. But that is the story for some other place and time.

There is much of J.L. Borges influence in this work, especially in the short stoy called "Dogs and books", but you mustn't think that this is Borgesian "collection" of stories. These work are much less artistic (whatever that means) and much more they resemble reality, life itself, than Borges work does.

By telling the story of seven individuals, the lived their life in a countries rich with political struggles, Danilo Kis draws excellent portrait oh human ability to endure, and even so, to somehow fail miserably and be forever gone from this world.

Why the four stars? I was hearing so much of this book, and when I finally read it, it somehow dissapointed me, probably was expecting to much, or maybe is just that, taht I have failed to grasp entire meaning of the novel. So, better to read it again :) If you looked for great writer from, Mid-Southern Europe, Kis is the one you could deffinitely start with.

I have enjoyed this (and all other Danilo Kis's books) immensly.

This book of Kis' is a masterful work. The author said they are short stories but the publisher pushed it as a novel and in a way it is something between the two. The stories are seperate and there is not one main plot but a common theme runs through the work and occasionally characters from one story will reoccur or turn up in another story. They are connected though it seems in the sort of way as when someone might say it is a small world that we live in.
In his native land this book caused an uproar as the stories pass themselves off as fact but in Kis' style fact and fiction, history and imagination blend for a common aesthetic goal. This he picked up from Borges and his use of "document" in fiction.
All this helps the book stand out as a superior work of literature without even getting to the political theme of revolution and the role of individuals in mass movements.
This edition is perfect with the intro by Brodsky and William T. Vollmann's afterword.
A must read for anyone.

he shall live no longer in monument than the bell rings and the widow weeps. Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing.

Danilo Kis was born in Serbia in 1935 to a Hungarian Jewish father and Montenegrin Serbian mother. His father perished in the Holocaust. Kis died of cancer in 1990 at age 55. As noted in an excellent introduction by the writer, poet and Nobel Prize winner Joseph Brodsky, publication of A Tomb for Boris Davidovich in Yugoslavia in 1976 created a firestorm in Belgrade similar to the controversies that flared up when Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published in the USSR during Khrushchev's thaw. The book was savaged by the Yugoslav writer's union. As Brodsky notes in one memorable line, "there are several topics an author may deal with which can jeopardize his well-being, and history is one of them". The controversy, standing alone, may justify reading Tomb for Boris Davidovich. I am pleased to report that these stories are so well-constructed and laden with meaning that it would be worth reading even if its publication had been greeted with equanimity by the apparatchiks that manned the Yugoslav writers' union.

The seven stories that comprise Danilo Kis' A Tomb for Boris Davidovich have a few elements in common. Each involves a protagonist from a different country, Ireland, Hungary, Rumania, Poland, or Russia. In effect, each protagonist comes from a nation or a group that participated in the Comintern (the Soviet led Third International that coordinated the worldwide activities of various Communist organizations established by Lenin in 1919). Each gets swept up in the machinations that swirled around the Soviet Union's Great Terror of the 1930s. Each ends up either dead or in the Gulag.

With one exception each of the stories takes places in the 1930s. The one exception, "Dogs and Books" is set in 14th-century France at the time of the inquisition. Although that story seems out of place, when one compares the structure and fact-pattern of this story to the title story of the book one can only be struck by the obvious similarities between the methods and mind-set of the inquisitors and the methods and mind-sets of the interrogator in the story Tomb for Boris Davidovich.

The title story is also jarring because it contains many of the same themes set out in Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon. In the context of a short story, the brevity and terseness of Kis' language makes the telling of the story considerably more powerful in some respects than Koestler's novel length telling of a similar tale. Even if a reader feels that Kis' story does not quite match Koestler's, the fact that the comparison can be made with a straight face is high praise.

Last, Tomb for Boris Davidovich should be of great interest to anyone interested in the work of the great Argentine writer, Jorge Luis Borges. The structure and theme of Tomb for Boris Davidovich was intended by Kis to be part of a literary polemic between Kis and Borges, specifically concerning the title of Borge's Universal History of Infamy. Kis discusses this literary exchange in one of his essays. In it he asserted that the universal infamies related by Borges were those of gangsters, pirates and highwaymen. Kis argues that as far as infamy was concerned, "infamy is when in the name of the idea of a better world for which whole generations have perished, in the name of a humanistic idea, you build camps and destroy both people and their most intimate drams of a better world."

In many respects, Tomb for Boris Davidovich may be considered as an exquisitely crafted attempt to construct a literary monument to those who died (perhaps naively and foolishly) and for whom bells never rang and for whom the widows have long since stopped weeping.

L.Fleisig

Beautifully written, surprisingly nonchalant portrayal of the actual driving force behind the Russian Communist Revolution, namely an international gang of charismatic professional criminals. Makes you think twice before you empathise with all the victims of Stalin's camps indiscriminantly - some of them obviously deserved their terrible fate.

I bought this book to add to my collection of Greene Knowe Books that I read to my children when they were small. The stories kept the kids on the edge of their seats wondering what would happen next.

I almost had a fit when I saw this title, but with a little research learned that I already had it. The whole series is first rate.

Tolly has returned to Green Knowe and his Grandmother full of excitement at being there once more, but an unhappy surprise lies in wait for him: the portrait of the children Toby, Alexander and Linnet is missing from the wall. It would seem a small loss but for the fact that its absence means that the children's spirits are also not present in the house.

Grandmother Oldknow explains the painting's loss due to poor finances, though soon sparks hope in Tolly for its return due to the tale of the missing treasure of Green Knowe (which he vows to find), and stories of another family ancestor: Susan Oldknow. Born to a vain mother, a kind but absent father, a spoilt older brother Sefton, and an overly pious grandmother, Susan knows her blindness is a terrible blow to the family's pride: "I can't take her into society, she'll never be married, and I'll have her *always*!" her mother laments when the sad truth is revealed.

Smothered by a good-hearted but utterly disillusioned Nanny, Susan is not allowed to do a thing on her own, till her Captain father brings back a gift from his travels that shocks the entire family: a West Indian boy named Jacob to keep her company. Their extraordinary friendship can only be describe through L. M. Boston's beautiful prose, as when the two meet:

"'Who is it Papa?' Susan asked. Jacob answered for himself, in a voice whose smallest half-utterance she was never afterwards to mistake for any other. 'It's me, Missy.'"

As with Tolly's previous summer in the house, the line between past and present blurs, and he once again interacts with the older inhabitants of the house, though this time in a far more influential manner, going so far as to actively participate in the stories his Grandmother tells him each night. While other time-travelling stories leave me completely cross-eyed, the "Green Knowe" stories treat it as something utterly natural, and thus so do the readers.

As a sequel to "Children of Green Knowe", this second part (also published as "Chimneys of Green Knowe") is undoubtably superior to its predecessor. Though I missed Toby, Alexander and Linnet, their part in the first story was as whimsical spirits - Susan and Jacob have a definite story assigned to them, and interact with Tolly in a more important way, stirring events into being on both sides of the centuries.

Lucy Boston creates a sophisticated commentary on prejudice that still rings true today in her use of blind Susan and West Indian Jacob. As she comments, blind people were either poor and beggars, or rich and had servants to live for them, and Susan was certainly of the latter group. As such, the poor girl often finds herself strapped to a chair with her doll tied to its arm, disliked by her grandmother who thinks her condition a judgement for her mother's vain lifestyle, and punished for fingering things. Boston's descriptions of blindness in both Susan's life: "things stuck out of space like icebergs out of the sea", and Tolly's experiments (he discovers feet are more useful than hands in such an instance) are evocatively written, and so imaginatively told that it won't simply be children so have their minds expanded.

Second is Jacob, whose place in the story is still whilst England allowed slavery. This book was first published in 1958, and I was both impressed by Boston's distaste for slavery, and refreshed by the lack of extreme political correctness that so often clogs books on the subject written today. Boston presents the Slave Trade as a simple factuality, that could be neither explained nor excused, but simply a reality.

Truly, the "Green Knowe" stories are among the lost masterpieces of children's literature. Do everyone in your family a favour and read them - the house, the characters, the situations, and the sublime use of language that Lucy Boston uses is unforgettable.

I will never forget reading this book - and the others in this series - when I was in grade school. This was actually the first volume I read, although it's not chronologically the first in the group. It was one of those wonderful discoveries you sometimes make wandering aimlessly through the stacks in the local library - cracking a random volume, reading the first little bit, and realizing at once that you are beginning a literary love affair.

Then, as now, I was captivated by the magical "otherness" of L.M. Boston's Green Knowe and by the wonderful characterizations and tales within the tale. I couldn't put it down until I'd learned the fates of all the characters, and I wished that my suburban row house had even half the romance of the old manor house, and that my own prosaic grandma was a bit more mysterious.

Now that I'm much older (although not nearly as old as Grandmother Oldknow), I realize that the book is quite well-written - accessible for children but sophisticated enough to be enjoyed by anyone with a taste for the supernatural. And I've purchased a copy for my 11-year-old niece, who thankfully shares her auntie's interest in reading and love for stories with an otherworldly component. A must-read for book-lovers young and old.

It's the spring immediately following the events of "The Children of Green Knowe," and young Tolly Oldknow returns to the ancient manor of his family to stay with his great-grandmother over the Easter break. He barely steps through the door when he senses that something is wrong--and how horribly wrong it is: his ghost-friends, Toby, Alexander, and Linnet, have accompanied their portrait on loan-out to an exhibition, and may never return, for Mrs. Oldknow is desperate for money to make repairs to the house and has been offered a high price for the picture. Tolly resolves to search for the long-lost jewels of Maria Oldknow, the stylish wife of his 18th-century ancestor, which disappeared when the grand "new annex" of the manor burned down in a suspicious fire in 1798. Yet he soon finds that ghosts still lurk in Green Knowe--or perhaps not ghosts at all, since his blind ancestress Susan and her young black companion Jacob lived far beyond the ages at which they manifest to him. As is often the case at this house, time becomes a half-meaningless concept, past and present blend and communicate, and Mrs. Oldknow's stories of Susan and Jacob, Susan's vain and flighty mother and spoiled older brother Sefton, her young tutor Jonathan Morley (who, years later, she married), and the sinister manservant Caxton seem to draw these Georgians even closer to Now. Tolly himself finds that his modern-day actions resonate into the past and that--in one memorable sequence--he can even travel back to it and help Susan and Jacob conceal a young poacher from Caxton in a secret tunnel he has discovered. And in the end, even before those stories lead him to the hiding place of the jewels, the portrait is returned, and in a beautiful closing scene we get a hint of the possibility that Susan and Jacob may come to know Toby and his sibs as Tolly does. A worthy sequel to the first book and nearly as good.

The True Prince is a wonderful book set in London somewhere in the 1600's. It is a mystery, wraped in a play, tied in a cursed web of lies,seen through the eyes of an aprentice of the Lord Chamberlain's Men, and set in the mistery of a young man's life, a man who never had a childhood.
That mystery is Kit: Merchendise of his own father at six, actor of so many roles at eight,and, what is he now? Which role did he ever play as himself? Is he all of them? Or is he none?...

The book starts off with William Shakespeare's playgroup practicing a new play, "The House of Maximus", which happens to be on e of the worst plays invented. A new player, Davy, arrives with a mysterious Welsh man. When the "Putrid Play", as it was nicknamed, was performed, the audience hated the play more than the players, showing their contempt by throwing their lunch leftovers. The next day, Kit, one of the best boy players in London, was in a court session for fooling around with Peregrine Penny, a corruptor of youth. Kit's bail was payed by a mysterious donor. After the court session, The troup returned to the Theater to find it locked up by Giles Allen, the landlord. So, the troup moved to another theater named the Curtain. Many plays and lawsuits later, to defend the Welsh Boy, as Davy is called, Richard fights Kit in a boxing match. This is where Dacy is somewhat revealed as what he really is, a theif trying to frame Kit. "King Henry IV", a great play, is thought up and soon they are performing it in the Swan, another theater. They perform the play many times until the summer tour, where Kit leaves the company right before the tour. Upon returning, Richard is launched into solving a series of crimes committed by Kit and his theiving friends. Eventually, with the help of the detective's assisstant named Bartholomew Finch and a penny gatherer named Starling Shaw, Richard is led to the Theater once more, where a kidnapping takes place and the mystery is solved.
The previous posts did not lie. This is a great book and i recommend it to everyone who likes reading.

First may I say that the above 2 reviews do not exaggerate in the least! I have never read a book with such deftly drawn characters! The description also amazes me; I feel like I know Elizabethian London as if I lived there and I never get bored of reading more about it in this book, whereas normally I am dying for it to end so I can get on with the real story! Kit is a fascinating character, as are the rest. An amazing book, all in all. You must read it!

I recommend J. B. Cheaney's books "The Playmaker" and "The True Prince" to my community college literature classes for two reasons. First, these books have obviously been painstakingly researched because they give readers a "feel" for the time. Shakespeare emerged from and was nurtured by a vibrant, energetic (and a little dangerous) era, full of possibility. These times come alive in Cheaney's books. Second, in additon to the full-fleshed characters and engaging plots many young adult books have, Cheaney also gives readers something they don't experience as often: good style--"sparkling" one reviewer called it, and sparkling it is!

True Prince, a worthy, but complicated read. Its plot is a complex one, with a sub plot joining the fray every other chapter. So I'll do my best to give you the gist of it. The book is about London's finest acting troop, with none other than William Shakespeare, yes the real one. Their first problem is that their play house is taken away, so they set off to find another one. 50 pages later they accomplish this task, before anyone has a chance to catch their breath from hauling everything from their old theater to the new one; a bitter rivalry is born between Kit and Davy, two aspiring boy actors. Kit being London's finest. The only thing keeping Kit from killing little Davy, is Richard, the books main character. While Richard is protecting Davy, he finds that the troop may be harboring a thief, Kit the main suspect. Apparently Cheaney felt that Shakespeare's cameo appearance needed a follow up, Robin Hood joins the melee of characters.
Some of the flaws in this book were that it had too many characters, around 20 of them, some with the same first or last name. It was also kind of long and could've moved a little faster, even take out some bits. Now, don't get me wrong, I did like this book, it did have its redeeming qualities. Being an actor I liked this book just because it was about theater, but not the plays themselves, but what happened behind the curtain, where the real drama is. Also, Cheaney is a fantastic writer of realistic fiction. It seems so real and all of the many characters are well developed.
My over all rating of this book is a four out of five stars, could've been shorted, but it was worth it

Joel Agee's Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany offers a hilarious and universal account of the passage from boyhood to manhood. Enjoying this book does not require an interest in its unique setting. Never mind that the entire work occurs between 1948 and 1960 in the Stalinist dictatorship of the German (un)Democratic Republic; or that the author's Jewish American mother is living with her children and second husband in the anti-fascist Soviet Satellite of the only recently vanquished Third Reich; or that the author's biological father is Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, James Agee; or that his stepfather is an East German writer whose socialist themes become less relevant the more the dictatorship he lives in takes hold. Joel Agee so powerfully conveys the challenging and exciting passage of a male from age eight to twenty, that distinctions of place, time, name, and circumstance meld into a broader truth.

By page thirteen, the book's ever more ironic and outrageously funny form takes shape -- the fibs to Mom, friendship mischief, the struggle to fit in with peer groups, and the stirrings of sexual awakening that should have long ago made this work a classic.

I too have been urged by friends to write a book about my youth. In 1981, at the age of 18, I decided to reunite with my father and immigrated from the USA to the DDR. I was later expelled in 1986 for political reasons and lived elsewhere in Europe until my return in 1991 following the Fall of The Berlin Wall. I remained there until April of 2000 at which time I returned to the USA.
This book brought back some memories despite the difference in time. (The Author went to the DDR in 1948 at the age of 8. I went to the DDR in 1981 at the age of 18) I had no idea that there had been any other Americans that shared an even remotely similar story and Joel Agee does a great job of telling his story with far more emotion and prose than I ever could.
The book is a wonderful insight into life in a country that no longer exists...from the view point of an American child/young adult. I especially recommend it to anyone who has grown-up or lived in a country where they felt they did not belong. In my opinion, Agee entered the DDR in its infancy and left just as its darkest period began. I entered The DDR at the height of the Reagan Era and witnessed its collapse from within. Two historic phases. I only wish that both of us could have witnessed more.

I read Joel Agee's book "Twelve Years. An American Boyhood in East Germany" in German and in English and tried very hard to get a used copy of his first american edition - without any success. Finally, he is back again with a new edition, and allthough my english is not as good as it should be, I just want to write down some words abaout this book. For me who always lived in Western Germany it is one of the most interesting books about the communist part of Germany, the GDR (in german it's DDR). It was not meant to be a political book, but it has become one anyhow. The reader is not only enabled to follow a very private story of growing up as a boy (including all the problems most man - since they have been boys - know and prefer not to talk about it), but to understand how culture and everyday life had been transformed by the communist ideology in a way that could be critizised only by children: some simply laughed about it and learned, that even only to laugh could have negative consequences. And getting some idea of how adults did discuss the political penetration of everyday life makes you feel glad to be grown up in a non communist state - but still you can understand that this adults they had their living like others had, and that they were fathers and mothers having everyday problems like others had. This book indeed touched and pleased me. It is a marvellous written autobiographical kind of literature. If you'll read it, it will take a part of your heart and your intellect to. You'll have to love it.

I'm delighted to see that Joel Agee's memoir is now available again, and I look forward, with pleasure, to re-reading it. In beautiful prose, Agee not only reveals the pains and pleasures of his growing up (it could be anywhere), but gives us a portrait, from an unusual angle, of life in the newly formed German Democratic Republic, i.e.,communist East Germany, during the period 1948-1960. The historian will find the book of particular interest, but so will anyone else who enjoys entering the unsual world of a sensitive young man with a terrific eye for detail, and who is frank about his inner life.

Agee returned to the U.S. just as the amazing 60s were about to roll their thunder, and I can't wait to read his follow-up memoir, his "American Manhood" in another world far removed from the East Berlin of his youth.

"Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany" is a fascinating memoir. Eight-year-old Joel Agee was brought by his mother and stepfather to the Soviet zone of Germany (what would become East Germany) in 1948 and lived there for the next 12 years. As Agee's stepfather, Bodo Uhse, was a prominent Communist, Agee had the best that East Germany could offer: a villa with servants, summers at the Baltic Sea, and numerous opportunities to recover from his dismal performance at school. Agee does provide an insight as to how the Communist intelligentsia in that country thought -- their explanations for the closed border, their view of the Stalinist (and Soviet-bloc) purges in the early 50s, and their conflicting views of Khruschev's revelations. This memoir is also a coming-of-age story, filled with teenage angst and sexual frustration. What distinguishes this from many other memoirs is that it is exceptionally well-written. Although Agee was never able to get his bearings in the East German school system (or was, as we would say today, a "slacker") his descriptions are almost poetic. Well worth reading.

This was just the book I needed to get up to speed on the Euro. Written in a lively, informative style, it gave all the background info and nuts-and-bolts workings of the new currency. I plan to keep it by my desk to answer questions over the next few years before the conversion process is complete. Even if you studied Economics in college, you'll find yourself learning a great deal through this book.

This is an excellent introductory book. It is very easy to read and is very concise. It is written from a general rather than a particualar nationalist view as are several other books on the EURO. It also has a large listing of web sites where other interesting information is available.

I have read 2 other books about the Euro and this one is by far the best. It offers an unbiased view of the Euro unlike most other books. It is very easy to read, informative, well organized... I could go on and on. If you want to learn about the Euro if you are a student or businessman, get this book.

I bought this baby as the background for an advanced level international econ paper on the fluctuations of the Euro, and it is wicked good. It hands out the basic knowledge like the Rams hand out touchdown balls, and even though it was written before the Euro's current problems, you can easily piece together the reasons behind the malaise.

The only caveat is that if you're really into the mathematical and graphical side of economics -- this puppy ain't for you. If you look at the overload of math that Krugman's International Economics textbook gives you, this pales in comparison. I wish it had more of that, if only so that on those nights I can't sleep, I have one more resource to use. But that's what I have my girlfriend's stories for.

Anyway, go buy it. It's good.

Three words describe Chabot's book: clear, concise and informative. It's a dog eat dog world for my small business and I needed quick answers to my Euro questions. "Understanding the Euro" is ideal if you need to get up to speed fast but can't just call a buddy at the European Central Bank. Before finding Chabot's book, I purchased quite a few expensive executive summaries that soon made their way to the recycle bin. Chabot's book, on the other hand, was a quick read filled with concrete answers in plain English. It gave me a quick introduction to the politics surrounding the currency and explained seemingly complex economic issues using easy to understand charts. My accountant and I both liked the Q&A format for quick reference to our more practical questions. I liked the book so much that I bought copies for everyone on my team preparing our Portugal project launch. The project VP (now nicknamed "Mr. Eurotrash") now loves to pepper his cocktail party conversations with Euro-speak a la Chabot.

In short, Chabot's book is one stop shopping for my staff's Euro questions so don't bother wasting your time and money on other books. Buy it!

This is a non fiction book by Joseph Roth whose other books are mainly fiction - he was a prized journalist and writes like the best of both worlds - this book is an extraordinary picture of a period of life which we don't know enough about - because WW II got in the way and rendered information about Jews and life in Germany and eastern Europe in the 20's and 30's sort of academic and moot - It is an important and compelling and sad book - sad because we readers know facts that the author doesn't - we know what happened and he doesn't know the future. It is a valuable book which I have recommended and given to many friends.

"The Wandering Jews" of the title are the displaced and unwanted Jews of Eastern Europe (from where Roth himself came before he made himself into one of Western Europe's foremost journalists and writers) before World War II. As Roth puts it, "Eastern Jews have no home anywhere, but their graves may be found in every cemetery." And as Roth foreshadowed (that line originally was published in 1925; this translation also includes the preface and an afterword to the later 1937 edition), the plight of the Eastern Jews only promised to become more dire. Indeed, one senses that Roth despaired that any strident alarm would be in vain. Thus, more than an alarm, THE WANDERING JEWS is a requiem. (And Roth went on to drink himself to death in 1939.)

In the first part of the book, Roth sets out to limn the character and essence of the Eastern Jew. I am willing to believe that he is thoroughly successful. (Example: "None of the many untrue and unjust accusations that are brought against Eastern Jews by the West are as untrue and unjust as the accusation that they are what the gutter press likes to call Bolshevik. Of all the world's poor, the poor Jew is surely the most conservative.")

In the second part of the book, Roth provides snapshots of five different aggregations of the Eastern Jews -- in the ghettoes of Vienna, Berlin, and Paris, in America (where there are "people who are more Jewish than the Jews, which is to say the Negroes"), and in Soviet Russia. As for the future of the Jews in Russia, Roth was somewhat optimistic in 1925, but by 1937 that optimism had been dispelled altogether. (Roth thus proved himself more cold-bloodedly realistic than many contemporary European liberals.)

Joseph Roth was a superb writer and a masterful polemicist. (I recently read a collection of H.L. Mencken's journalism, this particular one "A Religious Orgy in Tennessee", dealing with the Scopes Monkey Trial, and while there are obvious similarities between Roth and Mencken, who were contemporaries, Roth was by far the better and more cultured writer.) Here, the sardonic and sarcastic tone, albeit understandable, is at times wearing, but it is readily tolerated and forgiven by virtue of the sheer acuity of Roth's intellect and insights and by his compassion.

Roth is extremely prescient, not only about communism and Soviet Russia and about the Nazis and the Holocaust ("Centuries of civilization are no guarantee that a European people, by some ghastly curse of fate, will not revert to barbarism."), but also, startlingly so, about the Zionist/Palestinian dilemma. With regard to that last conundrum, I will let Roth, once again, speak for himself:

"Zionism and nationhood are by their nature Western European ideals * * *. Only in the East do people live who are unconcerned with their "nationality", in the Western European sense. They speak several languages, are themselves the product of several generations of mixed marriages, and fatherland for them is whichever country happens to conscript them. * * * Natiionality is a Western concept."

"The young halutzim [Zionist Jews who seek to establish a Jewish presence in Palestine] are brave farmers and workers, and they demonstrate the willingness of the Jew to work and till the fields and become sons of the soil, in spite of having spent hundreds of years among books. Unfortunately the halutzim are also oblighed to take up arms, to be soldiers, and to protect the land against the Arabs. Thus the European example has been carried into Palestine. * * * The Jew has a right to Palestine, not because he once came from there but because no other country will have him. The Arab's fear for his freedom is just as easy to understand as the Jew's genuine intention to play fair by his neighbor. And despite all that, the immigration of young Jews into Palestine increasingly suggests a kind of Jewish Crusade, because, unfortunately, they also shoot."

This is a remarkable and brilliant portrait of a marginal and now tragically vanished people by a remarkable and brilliant person.

Joseph Roth's "The Wandering Jews" is one of the best written and most important books about East European Jews ever published. At a time of growing anti-Semitism (the first edition was written in 1926 and an update was published in Paris in 1937) and an immigration crisis affecting Germany as countless refugees poured into Berlin from the East, Roth--himself a Jew from Galicia, the easternmost part of the former Austrian empire--creates a sympathetic yet clearsighted portrait of contemporary Jewish life. In the process he effectively responds to all the stereotypes and libels heaped on East European Jews. For the contemporary reader, however, what is most affecting about this portrait is Roth's ability to convey a panorama of Jewish life on the brink of destruction. Though no one (except maybe Hitler) could have predicted, even in 1937, the extent of the devastation that would be visited on European Jewry, Roth's writing in this book serves as an indelible and moving memorial to a civilization that would soon disappear forever. It must therefore count among the first books in what would now be called "Holocaust literature," and one of the most meaningful works of protest literature--protest against the stereotypes that reduced Jews to objects of scorn and contempt; protest against the violence that would ensue from these stereotypes--of all time. Michael Hofmann's understated and articulate translation of this poignant, heartbreaking little book is a tremendous service for English-language readers. It fills in a vital space in the emerging image of Joesph Roth, a writer finally receiving his due in the precincts of European modernism, and it should be read by everyone interested in good writing and the problems of 20th century history.

Again and again--with one neat phrase--Roth puts anxieties into words that it took others whole books to communicate, and then, only vaguely. Not even the magnificent Kafka comes close to a tidy phrase of self-condemnation such as this, referring to the deracinated Western Jew, with his "secret perversities, his cringing before the law, his well-bred hat held in his anxious hand". This statement took my breath away. So did many others in this short book throbbing with love, fear, and sadness. Roth was himself a Jew, one of the thousands who had served his "adopted 'country' " in the Great War (as so many other Jews did for so many other countries) only to have reality--eternal victimhood, eternal wandering--thrust him away, from Vienna, to Berlin, and then to Paris. Like so many educated Western Jews, he looked back to the shtetl with admiration for its nurturing of an authentic self (coupled with a faint relief at not having to live there). This tension--and its guilt-feelings--are so tidily explained in Roth, and his predictions made in the 1930's so chilling--that I jumped almost with relief on his touting the Soviet Union as a better place for Jews. Ah...but an afterward to the second edition contains Roth's warning that things in the USSR have changed, and perhaps his enthusiasm was misplaced...

Then, reader, I cried uncle. Joseph Roth was perfect. Anger and love mix with poetry and humility. He neither rolls in the mud of guilt, nor clutches an ideology through all contrary evidence. Instead, he sings Kaddish for a people gone, a people authentic and pure and of, as Kafka said, "the prayer shawl, now flying away from us..."

This book was a paen by a 'civilized (read westernized)' Jew on the cusp of WW2 and the holocaust. Roth travelled in most of post-WW1 Eastern Europe to learn the plight of his Jewish compatriots. In the original edition (written in 1926) he speaks of Eastern European Jews (mostly those of Galicia and the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires) being able to find freedom of conscience and a world without anti-semitism by moving to the West. Unfortunately, by the West he meant Germany.

In the epilogue of the 1937 edition (which he wrote from self-exile in Paris) he takes the "New Germany" to task for the treatment of the Jews. He make major points as to the failure of the League of Nations to protect the Versailles Treaty 'national minorities' and specifically the treatment of DPs (displaced persons, people literally without a country). He makes the point that animals are protected in most countries better than Jews and DPs.

He is prescient when he speaks of an 'impending disaster' and seems to presage 'donor burnout'. He tells how right after a calamity, everyone seems to want to pitch in, but after awhile, except for a few philantropists, everyone pretty much wants to go back to their own lives.
This book is among the strongest statements made prior to WW2 of the approaching calamity, not just for Jews but all of Europe.

Col. North does a great job of intermixing strait facts of history with the first hand accounts of the men and women who were there. It really helps bring the historical facts to life.

I think this should be required reading for WW2 history classes, and is great reading for any history buff.

Added bonus- it comes with a great DVD.

This book does, for the war in Europe, what 'War Stories II' did for the war in the Pacific. It is an excellent,complete account. Of course, the input of actual participants only enhance this great read. Don't miss reading this one.

I am enthusiastic about the book and want the book read generally rather than on special merit. Why do I want the book read? Well, there is a whole rising generation for whom WWII is so old and far gone that they really know NOTHING about it. This book is a fine quick overview and quite readable. It doesn't get bogged down in the details of tactics, strategies, or troop movements.

What it does offer that is very inviting is what makes the TV show a success and is suggested by the title. It has the war stories of many individuals to flesh out the brief summaries of aspects of the war. These stories include regular soldiers, people who have since become famous like Senators (and Presidential hopefuls) Dole and McGovern, and Chuck Yeager. There are also stories from women, people who were children at the time, several women including a Russian woman who fought against the German, and a German pilot. As you can tell, these are not the political leader, the generals, or important commanders in the war. The events they participated in were not the key turning points of the war, generally. However, they help us understand how the war was experienced by some of the millions of individuals whose participation in it made the defeat of Hitler possible.

My hope is that young people will read this book and not only learn about the war, but will also become interested enough to move on to other books on World War II and American History. This material is easy to read and is far from being comprehensive or complete, but it does tell its stories well and can be the springboard to something more.

The book also comes with a DVD with three of the episodes of the TV show that inspired this book. Several of the stories in the book are included on the DVD. So, maybe the DVD will spark someone to then read the book.

Oliver North has a great affection for the men and women who fought to keep our country free. This book covers the European theater of World War II, and contains a multitude of stories told by those who fought in it. Sometimes it's difficult to imagine what these folks had to go through to defeat a very determined emeny, and those of us who are the inheritors of that legacy of freedom should always honor them. My own father was one of these people (although he died many years ago), and I thank him, and these others, every day for the life of liberty I, and my family, enjoy because of their sacrifices.

We are reaching a time when the members of the greatest generation, those that fought against the Nazi's and the Japanese are rapidly leaving us. It is good to see this series of stories from individuals who were there. By capturing their stories it may be possible for us to catch just a glimpse of what it must have been like to live when the country was more together than at any time before or since.

As with the other books in this series, this book presents a rather eclectic collection of stories. All services are represented. And the story tellers are as different as they can be. Bob Dole relates the day he was wounded with the 10th Mountain Division. One of the Tuskegee Airman relates the story of a 'colored' pilot during the war. Chuck Yeager tells of being hit by German cannon fire and the propeller of his airplane coming off.

This is a series of personal stories. It does not ahve the broad expanse of an integrated history, it's about real people.

Best treatment of weapons and Renaissance-era warfare !!

Bert Hall delves deep into the technological history of Renaissance warfare and demonstrates both how much and how little new technologies have changed the face of battle. It deftly combines both a technical understanding of how those technologies were made with Mr. Hall's detailed understanding of the military history of that period.

The work is primarily focussed on the effects of gunpowder and firearms, but begins in the pre-gunpowder era of the late middle ages. By demonstrating how wars in this period were waged, the author shows the reader just how little the first gunpowder technology changed the way wars were fought. In essence, he shows how commanders faced with the new technology tried to fit it into traditional roles previously occupied by the longbow and crossbow any it did not immediately eclipse those weapons in such roles.

From there, the author goes on to show how the peculiar advantages and disadvantages of the increasingly sophisticated gunpowder technology came to revolutionize strategic and tactical thought.

It is a rare work that considers topics ranging from the way in which the differing "recipes" that existed for gunpowder vastly altered the explosive potential of the substance to the tactical innovations and battles of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba. Mr. Hall handles both technological and historical matters with equal ease and effectively demonstrates how deeply the two are intertwined.

It is a tremendously engaging and enlightening work, and very well documented in its more than 800 endnotes. Perhaps surprisingly for an historical work, it was a real page-turner. When forced to set it down, I found myself counting the hours until I could get back to it. I will definitely be looking for additional books by this author.

It didn't take long for me to be pleasantly surprised at the high level of scholarship and clearly presented facts, the sort of writing all too often lacking from this area of history. As the author notes, many technology historians, military historians, and arms and armor writers propagate continuing myths and assumptions that can't be supported when the facts are examined closely. Here, Hall does the topic justice and it is clear he did his homework. The chapter discussing the technology of gunpowder was especially interesting, and supports his case for the reasons firearms developed as they did. I recommend a trip to the Metropolitan Museum in New York to have a look at their firearms, where many aspects of his discussion will further illuminate the items on display.

1.000 words could be not enough to praise this book. Bert Hall produced a long needed work that will remain a foundation-stone in military technology of the black powder era.

This book presents a serious, unbiased and well documented view on gunpowder-technology origins and evolution and its real significance in medieval and Renaissance land warfare. However, only the projectile weapons have a good coverage, and warfare (and use of gunpowder) at sea is almost totally forgotten! If its title reflected its contents this book would get SIX stars from me.

This was a book that changed my life. It's fast and spell binding reading. An amazing drama that's only too real.

This is one of the most important books written on the Shoah.
To reply to the reviewer who wanted to know what America could have done I dont know maybe excepted boats of Jews when they tried to come to America instead of refusing to and sending them back to their eventual slaughter. Thats just one of many.

I had read suggestions over the years that the Roosevelt (FDR) Administration had a weak and obstructionist policy towards the plight of the Jews in Europe in the years leading up to WWII. Unfortunately, I let this book sit on the bookshelf for nearly twenty years before I got around to reading it. I was appalled at the extent of US governmental indifference and interference! One of the major problems facing the Jews who could sense the imminent danger in Germany was that of finding some place to move to. Most of the Western world did not want to accept them as refugees and especially in the numbers that were materializing. As the grandson of an immigrant, I had written a term paper on the US immigration policy with apparrent pride when I was in junior high school. I understood the various quota systems that favored North Western Europeans and heavily discriminated against those of other races. I had understood the reasons that it took two of my grandfather's brothers so long to immigrate here. I understood why many immigrants went to Canada instead (including the fact that Canada is a fine country). I had understood the laws requiring that persons coming to this country needed to provide proof that they would be able to provide for their own support once they got here. However, Arthur Morse gave examples after examples of how all of the existing immigration laws were twisted, tightened and squeezed to keep the Jewish refugees from finding a new home here. We were just another country that left them to fend helplessly for themselves in Nazi Germany. "While Six Million Died" is a difficult book to read for an American. It is a reminder of the anti-semitism that generations after the Holocaust find hard to understand. At best Americans can say that their government's behavior at the time wasn't any worse than that of other governments. The shame is that it wasn't any better either. America has faced its' disgrace over its' past racism and the scandal of the Japanese internment camps. However, I have not noticed much ado about the issues that Morse raises in "While Six Million Died". That is why this is such an important book to read.

This volume tells of how the USA and Britain during World War II, were not only apathetic to the fate of the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust, but actually obstructed all efforts to save them.
The book explores the questions:
What did the rest of the world, in particular the United States and Great Britain, know about the Nazi plans for the annihilation of the Jews?
What was their reaction to this knowledge?
After it was learned from a German industrialist, and relayed by the representative in Switzerland of the World Jewish Congress, Gerhardt Riegner, of the plans by the Nazis to exterminate European Jewry (and after well over a million Jewish men, women and children had already been butchered , Czech exile Ernest Frischer urged the Allies urged the Allies to ease the blockade of Nazi-occupied Europe so that relief supplies could reach occupied Europe, and proposed that the International Red Cross supply food parcels to ghettos and concentration camps as it did prisoner of war camps. He asked that Jewish children be evacuated from German-occupied territories.
It was debated but no action in this regard was taken.

By January 1943, new evidence had come to light about Nazi mass murder. Riegner provided the American State Department a detrailed 4 page description of Nazi atrocities.
It was reported that the Nazis were killing six thousand Jews each day in Poland.
A 'Stop Hitler Now' Rally was organized by Rabbi Stephen Wise at Madison Square Gardens on March 1, 1943.Chaim Weizmann, President of the Jewish Agency for Palestine stated that "The world can no longer plead that the ghastly facts are unknown and uncomfirmed. At this moment expressions of sympathy without accompanying attempts to launch acts become a hollow mockery in the ears of the dying. The democracies have a clear duty before them. Let them negotiate with Germany through the neutral countries concerning the possible release of the Jews in the occupied countries. Let havens be designated in the vast territories of the United Nations which will give sanctuary to those fleeing from imminent murder. Let the gates of Palestine be opened...the Jewish community of Palestine will welcome with joy and and thanksgiving all delivered from Nazi hands".
Due to violent Arab opposition to Jews entering Palestine, the British closed the gates of the Palestine Mandate and turned back thousands of Jews fleeing Hitler back to the Nazi ovens.
The British announced that there would be no Jewish immigration into the ancient Jewish homeland "unless the Arabs are prepared to acquiesce in it.". They were not, and so millions of Jews who could have been saved died.

The British also rejected the idea of a Jewish parachute unit from Palestine to rescue Jews in Europe, as they were afraid this would advance Jewish Nationhood in the Land of Israel.
The USA refused entry to many Jewish refugees, including a consignment of ten thousand Jewish children, because of domestic objection to Jewish immigration. There was no objection however to the refuge in the USA of thousands of British children, from the German blitz of Britain.

Australia, with it's vast unsettled spaces, announced at the Evian Conference of 1938, that 'As we have no real racial problem we are not desirous of importing one."
Refuges were suggested in such places as the Dominican Republic, Mindanao, British Guiana, the Orinoco basin in Venezuela and Angola.
It all came to nothing.
The proposal, by Dr Weizmann, for the Allies to bombing the gas chambers and furnaces in the death camps was rejected after it was opposed by the Soviets.
And a deal offered by Eichmann to exchange hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives for ten thousand trucks was also rejected.
The Ghetto Fighters House, a kibbutz in Israel founded by survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto published the Vittel Diary by Itzhak Katznelson whose recurring theme was apathy in the face of Nazi murder:
"Sure enough, the nations did not interfere, nor did they they warn the murderers, never a murmur. It was as if the leaders of the nations were afraid the killings might stop."
The Allied powers could have saved millions of Jews and chose not to.
Great Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union bare some responsibility for the Holocaust.
The Jews realized that only their own state and army could save Jewish lives, and citizens of countries that did not lift a finger to save Jewish lives have no right to condemn Israel in any way for saving her children against those who would murder them.

I have written my review in the form of a poem.I dedicate this poem to Arthur D. Morse:

I am Liberty. I am Columbia. I am the Mother of Exiles!

Never again will my head be bowed down in tears, My torch held low and dim. Shame on you Franklin Roosevelt for the Bloody stain on my gown, which shall Never wash off.

I am the Mother of Exiles! Suffer my children unto me and I will protect thee. Woe be unto those who commit murder and mayhem upon thee! For I will step down from my pedestal, Not with books in my hand but with a flaming sword, And my shining torch. And lead my children to freedom and safety!

Heed my words, those who choose to destroy freedom. For I am Liberty. I am Columbia. I am America!

Wings, Women, and War by Reina Pennington was a delightfully quick read. There is a lot of research and in depth coverage that is very informative. At the same time you laugh at stories of Liliia Litviak's fur collar and flowers and stand amazed at her combat exploits. The book exposes you to the lives of many women volunteers and their transformation from civilians to military pilots, navigators, armorers, mechanics, and commanders. There is no propaganda. Just pure facts based upon interviews of participators and archives. No matter what your politics, or issues with women in combat, you will find yourself captivated and surprised by many discoveries.

I recently had the occasion to read Dr. Reina Pennington's book, Wings, Women, and War: Soviet Airwomen in World War II Combat. It was required reading for a masters program I am completing. I had my doubts about the value of this book based on many prior textbook experiences. I was extremely surprised with this one.

The book was part of a class on race, gender and sexuality issues in the military. My male sensitivities and defenses were heightened when first opening this book, but my curiosity convinced me to proceed (as well as the required reading part!). It convinced me that gender issues are important when it comes to studying things military. Dr. Pennington gave a face to and personified the women warriors and their male counterparts in the air force of the Soviet Union during World War II. This is something she accomplished while at the same time supporting her academic theoretical work this book represents. The book reads like a novel and draws the reader in to its stories about these very brave and determined Russian women. The stories are often funny; very funny. It proved to me that Russians during the war were people just like us in their humanity.

If you are unconvinced of women as warriors or want to understand something about how the Soviet Union treated women, recruited women and encounter their successes and their failures, then this book is what you need.

Dr. Pennington provides a remarkable bibliography including archival materials, correspondence and personal interviews. She spent time in Russia following the fall of the Soviet Union when war time documents and records became available. One thing that you might not find answered or answered to your satisfaction is the fundamental question about why the Soviets allowed women into combat. Like all the other belligerents involved in the war, the Soviets resisted this at first. Just like the others the Soviets dismantled their women warriors after the war. If it were not for scholastic efforts like Dr. Pennington's the efforts of women like Evgeniia Prokhorova and Liliia Latviak would be forever forgotten.

I read this book cover to cover on Friday (in the office, door shut, looking very busy). Living with WW 2 aviation everyday through the collection of fighter aircraft we restore and fly in England, it is easy to become a little blasé about the way people lived their extraordinary lives in that time. This book hauled me right up by the collar all over again.

It is remarkable - the pages turn as easily as reading the most engrossing novel and yet this is clearly a thoroughly researched review of these womens' history. I am utterly impressed. To communicate passion for a subject while speaking with such authority - the authority that can only come with knowing and understanding a subject as well as Pennington does - is so rare.

Having read almost every single book available in the narrow field that covers these Soviet women, I belive this book sets the new benchmark.

If only history could always be communicated like this!

For most Americans World War II is John Wayne, Tom Hanks, D-Day, and Pearl Harbor. The plucky British gave a hand now and then and the ungrateful French needed us once more to pull their goose-fat from the fire. Oh yes, it snowed a lot on the Eastern Front. Yet, more than a cursory examination of the Second World War shows even first year history students that the Atlantic Theatre was very much a Russo-German War, with the Western Front playing a secondary role. The Russian story of the Great Patriotic War has not imprinted itself on the American popular imagination. Even less known is the role played in that great struggle by Russia's women.

Over 800,000 women served their Motherland in World War II, nearly 200,000 of them decorated. 89 of those women eventually received Russia's highest award, the Hero of the Soviet Union. Reina Pennington's book tells the story of Russia's airwomen during World War II with the passion of a best selling novel. Yet, the well documented footnotes and thorough Appendix attest to the research that has gone into this scholarly work.

Pennington's book focuses on three female regiments formed by Soviet hero, Marina Raskova, but also gives insight into women who served in mostly male regiments. She provides a gripping account that will satisfy those hearing about the USSR's airwomen for the first time, as well as adding new information about command struggles within the fighter regiment.

The story of 46th Guards Night Bomber Aviation Regiment, staffed through the entire war completely with women pilots, navigators, mechanics and commanding officers, makes any current debates about the suitability of women in combat seem like a convocation of the flat earth society. These women settled that debate long ago. Pennington quotes Soviet test pilot and HSU Mark Gallai on what it was like for the women bombers to fly their missions in the outdated biplanes to which they were assigned:

"It means coming under fire from anti-aircraft weapons of every calibre...it means enemy night fighters, blinding searchlights and often bad weather, too; low cloud, fog, snow, ice, and gales that throw a light aircraft from one wingtip to the other...all this in a Po-2, which is small, slow and as easily set alight as a match."

Yet, these women, averaging 5-15 flights a night(more in the winter, less in the summer), surviving on 2-4 hours of sleep a day for four years, managed to fly over 24,000 sorties, drop 23,000 tons of bombs, and account for 23 Hero of the Soviet Union awards.

Up to this point English language readers interested in the heroic stories of these women have had the excellent works of Kazimiera Cottam ("Women in Air War," "Women in War and Resistance")and the interesting interviews conducted by Anne Noggle ("A Dance with Death"). Yet, as important as these works are, none attempts to tell the story of Soviet airwomen as a complete narrative. Pennington weaves the individual tales of these women into a fabric that is compelling in its humanity. Hers is the story of ordinary women in extraordinary times who achieved what today seems impossible. They gave the full measure of their devotion in a valiant fight that deserves to be known. Reina Pennington's "Wings, Women, & War" does honor and justice to the stories of these women.

This is an important book which dispells the usual misconceptions about women in combat in general and Soviet airwomen's contribution in particular. The chapter on Soviet women fighter pilots is especially valuable. Through personal interaction with several surviving former members of the 586th Fighter Regiment, especially its second permanent commander Aleksandr Gridnev, Pennington has gained a lot of inside knowledge pertaining to this regiment, the most controversial of the three combat units formed by Marina Raskova, the "Soviet Amelia Earhart." This reader was surprised to encounter six misspelled Russian and Ukrainian place names in the book. In addition, the name of the first chief of staff in the 125th "M.M. Raskova" Borisov Dive Bomber Regiment has been rendered as "Militsiya Kazarinova" instead of "Militsa Kazarinova." However, these misspellings can still be corrected using an errata slip affixed to the inside of the back cover of the book.