Washington Books

For the afficionado of the political genre, there is no better book than this. Barry's access was not equally granted by all the players, but he was sufficiently "in the room" and privy to frank discussion that he places the reader in the Congress during the end of a Speaker's tenure. This episode really marks the rise of Newt Gingrich, the end of Democrat control of the U.S. House, and profound changes in America. The book doesn't explain how it all came about. It does, however, live up to its title by showing how ambition and power collide. In this instance, ambition won. That Gingrich eventually suffered an ignominous political end is one of the great ironies of recent American politics.

This book is incredible in depth of research, interviews with key players in the House of Representatives, a balanced approached, and analysis. It reveals more of the inner workings of the House of Representatives than any other single source. A must read for anyone who wants to understand how the House works, and at the same time how Speaker Jim Wright lost the speakership.

An amazing read of the rise of Newt Gingrich and the fall of Speaker Wright. If you want a behind the scenes look at leadership and power in the US House - you must read this book. It basically follows how Newt dogged Speaker Wright and pushed him out the door with questionable tactics. Ironic that as Speaker himself, Newt had a lot of trouble with a book deal. Cannot recommend more highly.

Barry, who wrote for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications, was allowed unbelievable access to former Speaker of the House Jim Wright's private meetings, and also got cooperation from then-back bencher Gingrich and others of Wright's enemies. The result is an absolutely brilliant study of how power works in Washington, inside the Congress, between the Congress and the White House, the media. Well-written and provocative, this book will give you an understanding of Washington like nothing else I have ever read. Ever since it came out (in 1989), I have been waiting for Edmund Morris's Reagan biography to get the other side of the story. If only Morris had done what Barry did. But Morris failed. Barry didn't.

This book gives an insight into the private lives of the first families. We learn about their extended families, hobbies, illnesses, preparations for leaving the White House when their terms are completed, etc. The pictures are what really makes this book great. We see Lyndon Johnson in bed with his wife watching tv and we see the older George Bush in bed too (can you imagine Nixon or Clinton letting down his guard like this?). We see Gerald Ford in his bathrobe. If you always wanted to see such a sight, there is a photo of Eleanor Roosevelt in a bathing suit and a rare photo of Franklin in shorts with his polio ravaged legs exposed to the camera. We see painful personal moments such as the famous photo of Nixon hugging his daughter Julie when he made the decision to resign. In short this is, at times, a very rare personal and intimate glimpse into the lives of the first families. I enjoyed it and recommend it highly.

I have been fortunate enough to read Mr. Anthony's brilliant "First Ladies" mini-opuses, and highly looked forward to this epic on the lives of our First Families. I sat for three hours stright with an almost constant smile on my face as I ran through the pages. What an amazing acheivement Mr. Anthony has pulled together! I can only imagine the painstaking research needed to find out the tidbits sprinkled throughout. There is so much information in this novel that it almost boggles the mind at times and is a bit overwhelming. I wondered if everything was sinking in, when I saw Mr. Anthony speak at the Richard Nixon library on CSPAN one night recounting the tales found here. Every story he told was instantly recalled and sentences finished before explaining. The sheer knowledge that one can gain from reading this novel is tremendous. (Where else can you find a list of President's favorite movies? By Reagan selecting Rambo, it does nothing but prove what a complete and utter moron we had occupying the White House under his reign).....Point proven further....When listing President's favorite reading options, Mr Anthony lays out beautiful examples of this. President Clinton enjoys biographies of his predecessors, Eisenhower military biographies and TR, anything he could get his hands on. Reagan? Newspaper comics.....I shall leave my review at that.

This is a fascinating book. It is a wonderful compendium of trivia, probably not available in any other volume. It contains a wonderful assortment of pictures of First Families, some of which have never before been published. The book is well organized into chapters detailing various aspects of the Presidential families' lives and activities. for me, one of its prime attractions is that it does not include the politics or issues of the President's era.
At times, it is a little confusing, because the author skips from one family to another rather abruptly, so it requires a little getting used to in order to follow the narrative.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in the social and "human" aspects of the White House families.

I purchased this book yesterday and I can't put it down. It is filled with great pictures and stories of the forty-one famlies who lived in the White House. This is a great source of presidential trivia and provides a human element to the most famous family in America. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in American history and the lives of the presidents.

U.S. history, the government, and personae of American Presidents is a fascinating subject. While many scholarly work in the market have done in-depth investigation to profile American presidents, this title by David C Whitney and Robin Vaughn Whitney in its 9th edition from Reader's Digest is classically written and readily accessible to the general audience. Its objectivity and candor serves well as a gentle and educational introduction, an abridged version, on the development of American Presidents in relation to the unfolding drama of U.S. history.

The perennial best-seller, an enjoyable reading, excels in its elegance and clarity in comparison to many (auto)biographies of modern day C(orporate)EO/leadership titles.

We have been truly blessed with good men in the White House. Through the brilliant Constitution our founding fathers set up for our republic we emerged a country for all nations to envy. Through checks and balances we have created a system that works; it is at times not perfect, but there is none better.

Like any history book, "American Presidents" should not be used alone. It can not fulfill the task of evaluating the office of each of these men on its own. The author covers in detail each President's life growing up, offices held, as the executive and his achievements after the Oval Office. The vice president's, the cabinet, and historical sites are found at the end of the book. Photos are displaced throughout. One of the better books covering the Presidents.

I became increasingly interested in our Presidents, so I decide to research each one further, going as far as rating them. This is nothing new; there have been many such ratings done by scholars and intellectuals over the years. Of course I am neither. But I do find the ratings systems tend to focus on single merits and not the whole presidency. I have decided to do my own rating through these recourses:

"The American Presidents"-----Whitney
"A Patriot's History of the U.S."-----Schweikart and Allen
"The Oxford Companion to U.S. History"-----Boyer
"The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History"-----Woods
"Character"-----Wallace
"A Republic Not An Empire"-----Buchanan
and other misc. books

There is no way to fully list all of the positives and negatives of each Presidency. I have compiled a list of just a few of the important issues, then rated each according to the overall effect on the nation and the world. I admit bias cannot be removed totally. There will be some who will completely disagree with my system. You will find that I have lowered some who have been praised as great leaders and raised others that have been overlooked.

It can be hard to compare a Washington to a Bush, because these men lived at different times. The state of affairs and who they followed will have a major impact. I added W. Bush with reservation. His rating, along with the others are subject to change over time. In some cases I have added the same issue or attribute in both the pro and con column. Enjoy, take your time and feel free to comment:

After I copied and pasted I realized I could not fit the pros and cons on Amazon, so I deleted them. If any of you wish to have them you can write to me.


Rating President Held office Party
1 George Washington 1st 1789-97 Federalist

2 Thomas Jefferson 3rd 1801-09 Democrat-Republican(new)

3 Abraham Lincoln 16th 1861-65 Republican (first)

4 Calvin Coolidge 13th 1923-29 Republican

5 James Monroe 5th 1818-25 Democrat-Republican

6 Ronald Reagan 40th 1981-89 Republican

7 Grover Cleveland 22nd 1885-89 Democrat
24th 1893-97

8 James Madison 4th 1809-17 Democrat-Republican

9 John Adams 2nd 1797-1801 Federalist

10 Warren Harding 29th 1921-23 Republican

11 William McKinley 25th 1897-1901 Republican

12 Rutherford Hays 19th 1877-81 Republican

13 George W. Bush 43rd 2001- Republican

14 Dwight Eisenhower 34th 1953-61 Republican

15 Andrew Jackson 7th 1829-37 Democrat (first)

16 George H.W. Bush 41st 1989-93 Republican

17 Chester Arthur 21st 1881-85 Republican

18 Andrew Johnson 17th 1865-69 Unionist (only)

19 Franklin Pierce 14th 1853-57 Democrat

20 Gerald Ford 38th 1974-77 Republican

21 Richard Nixon 37th 1969-74 Republican

22 James Polk 11th 1845-49 Democrat

23 Martin Van Buren 8th 1837-41 Democrat (father of)

24 Harry Truman 33rd 1945-53 Democrat

25 John Kennedy 35th 1961-63 Democrat

26 Theodore Roosevelt 26th 1901-09 Republican

27 James Garfield 20th 1881 Republican

28 John Tyler 10th 1841-45 Whig

29 Benjamin Harrison 23rd 1889-93 Republican

30 John Quincy Adams 6th 1825-29 Coalition (mix)

31 James Buchanan 15th 1857-61 Democrat

32 Franklin Roosevelt 32nd 1933-45 Democrat

33 Herbert Hoover 31st 1929-33 Republican

34 Jimmy Carter 39th 1977-81 Democrat

35 Woodrow Wilson 28th 1913-21 Democrat

36 Lyndon Johnson 36th 1963-69 Democrat

37 Zachary Taylor 12th 1849-50 Whig

38 William Clinton 42nd 1993-2001 Democrat

39 William Harrison 9th 1841 whig (first)

40 Ulysses Grant 18th 1869-77 Republican

41 William Taft 27th 1909-13 Republican

42 Millard Fillmore 13th 1850-53 Whig (last)

This is an excellent book. It is great for people beginning to learn about American politics. It's a great source for quick handy reminders. It's a great gift. ( I bought seven copies for that reason). This would be a great book for teachers to have their high school students study.
While it is not possible to have one book completely cover all the Presidents, this single volumn outlines many important events.
There is an index in the back for quick searches.
Political views?
I have heard people claim this book is written with a Republican slant, and other claim it's written with a Democratic slant!
Using the above paragraph, one would have to think it was pretty fairly written.
I have went back to this book more often, during the election season, to brief my memory.

As a single volumn book; I repeat, this is an excellent book.

THIS IS A WONDERFUL OVERVIEW OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTS, AND QUITE ACCURATE. I HAVE READ BIOGRAPHIES OF MOST PRESIDENTS, VISITED MOST PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARIES, AND THOUGHT DAVID WHITNEY DID A GREAT JOB ON THIS SERIES.

I read this book in DC Jail in chapters my mother xeroxed and sent. I remembered it when she mentioned it at DC's National Shrine, where we were having breakfast. Now I am thinking of giving it to my 70-year-old, profoundly yet peacefully religious friend Bill MacKaye. In this book, Gotfryd rescues the humanity he saw brutalized and destroyed. I've read several Holocaust books and the horror is unspeakable, and it is in this book too, but Gotfryd recovers the crucified grace. It's a great gift to humanity and a life-changing read.

This is a great book. Its simple, precise style and its focus on detail of everyday life convey the horrors, which are mostly left out of the narrative but which hover above and beyond it, so that the effect is as unsettling as anything one is bound to read on the H. This book should be reissued so that it can reach many more readers.

Anton the Dove Fancier is a collection of autobiographical short stories about a teenage Jewish boy in Poland during World War II. The stories are so well linked together that the book reads like a novel. In it we discover the Nazi occupation and the death camps through the eyes of an adolescent, which gives this book a different slant compared to much Holocaust literature.

The author, Bernard Gotfryd, shows himself to be a keen observer of people, as well as of the small, humble details of everyday life. He has the gift of being able to illuminate those details, so that they take on a transcendant beauty. We see a world--one which others might find dull and ordinary--through the consciousness of a mind which is itself radiant. Thus, the stories do not only address the horrors of the nazi occupation and the camps; those horrors are set against a backdrop of everyday life and people, the memories of which are interspersed throughout the book. This gives it a chiaroscuro quality which I find to be rare in literature, and through the play of light and shadow the author creates an ambiguous, complex world. This ambiguity is another way in which the book differs from much Holocaust literature. Many of the characters themselves are ambiguous, and after reading about them we find ourselves asking, "Was he good, or bad?" The answer is yes.....

This book indirectly leads the reader to ponder the issues of suffering and healing. Despite the optimistic teachings of the growth psychology movement, there are wounds which are too traumatic to fully heal. Growth psychology would have us believe that without integration, and psychological "functionality," we cannot realize our full potential. It posits a future goal that we can attain through work on ourselves. However, Gotfryd shows us, through the power of his words, that we are most fully human when we can really open our eyes and see the world in its complexity and irrationality, as well as its simplicity and beauty, right now.

Why is Anton The Dove Fancier out of print? It is an extraordinary collection of true stories that ought not be buried away. This book illustrates that human behavior is, simultaneously, both the most fascinating and disturbing form of contemplation. Anton The Dove Fancier is well worth any effort it takes to track down. Buried treasure indeed - it is profound, intensely moving, raw in its simplicity. Humanity and its many layers are exposed without judgement. Quite a trick, and something afforded only to the calm, quiet truth tellers. Such as Bernard Gotfryd. Find this priceless gem... and hold on to it. Tight.

This is Susan Cheever at her eloquent, incisive, sweet-rhythmed best. She writes that her children are the center of her world. Lucky children. And lucky us to be the recipients of her loving, hilarious, honest report back to the outer reaches.

"Real me" is my favorite of all the chapters but all of them are fantastic!!! Cheever has shown us the funny side of parenting, this is not a "boring how-to-guide" but more sharing of cheever's experence, strenght and hope!!!! Moving, funny, witty and revealing!!!!

This book is warm, encouraging and very funny. She demonstates that having had a difficult childhood does not mean that one cannot be a terrific parent. I enjoyed the way she wrote aobut her children; so much respect, empathy and love.

This is not a "how-to" book or even a book of advice. It is more a memoir of parenting. If you are looking for parenting information, try one of Penelope Leach's or Terry Brazelton's excellent books.

"ON Christmas Eve we all go to church to watch the Christmas Pageant, a thrilling performance involving some real baby sheep and a live donkey who once bucked off the Virgin Mary in a fit of holy exaltation." I was unprepared when I picked up this book for how funny it would be. I also hadn't expected it to be so shrewd in its cultural appraisal. But it is--it's funny and startling, beautifully written. And so smart on the subject of raising children. I really loved it.

I orginally bought this book in 1988 and thought it a beautifully written book on not only bird watching but of a Washington that no longer exists due to modern highways and bustle. I recently purchased this book for a friend who is a bird watcher and has lived in DC. I hope he will like it as much as I do. Jenny Brake

This is one of those rare books that lifts you out of your chair and brings you along on a soaring journey to the natural world beyond the government office windows. It is written as a daily journal of nature explorations in and around Washington, D.C. and makes a perfect companion for any watcher of spring. The author was a keen observer of natural life when he wrote the book in 1945, and the watchful naturalist today will find much to celebrate in the wildlife that is still here today, and also much to mourn that has been lost in the intervening decades. No more do we have rafts of mergansers resting in the Tidal Basin, but Dyke Marsh is still the place to see waterthrushes, and herons still stop by the ponds on the Mall. Halle's eloquent musings on the question of "What is important?" are still relevant today, as the press and government continue to occupy themselves with matters of man-made events and ignore the real news happening all around us--the news of the actual world going about its business completely unconcerned with scandal or finance. Swans still fly south over government office buildings, and anyone who notices and rejoices in such happenings will find a true friend in this marvelous book.

This a book from another time which is still relevant to our day and age. The writer takes time from a boring desk job in wartime Washington to provide timeless observations about nature along the Potomac river as he experiences it in early morning bicycle rides. He indirectly puts man in his place and foretells many of the things environmentalists have rediscovered in the last 20 years. Highly recommended in general, but especially if you have any familiarity with the area around Washington, DC.

Louis Halle reveals his soul in this evocative love letter to the stirrings of spring. Though set along Rock Creek and the Potomac River in and around Washington, this work will transport you away from this world into another time and place in which the sheer joy of seeing nature burst into color will overwhelm you. Close your eyes and have someone read this book to you and you will be able to smell the tidal waters and hear the wind in the marsh grass. Halle's book is pure pleasure.

In the last weeks of the Reagan administration, clueless ex-congressman Charles Dingleman, dumped by his district's voters and by two ex-wives, is now floundering in a private sector law firm. A ray of hope arrives in the form of a possible appointment to the prospective Dukakis White House. But over lunch, Dingleman offends an over-reactive young associate, Judith Grust--first by leering at an underdressed woman, then unaccountably trying to recover via a piece of movie repartee that once worked out great between Broderick Crawford and Virginia Mayo. (If I were a dog and you were a steak, I wouldn't care, Dingleman remembers the line--"or something to that effect.") Dingleman's bungled rendition is actually even worse than that (I worry that if I were a mangy dog and you were roast beef. . .). Worse still is how Judith's ear memorializes it ("Something about raw meat").

She complains to an inept founding partner, whose reflex for putting out the fire is to lie to her that Dingleham knows he has a disorder and is getting treatment for it. Grust, though, is still haunted by the violation she's been through, and convinces herself that in the national interest she must forward the information to network news anchor Reynolds Mund. (The dull welfare reformer she's begun dating, while gazing at Judith's bare upper leg, agrees to make the actual phone call.) Dingleman is soon a jobless pariah, and enlists the blundering, high-priced publicity firm Big Tooth to restore his good name.

The locus of this firm brings into play a whole third-person world of losers and climbers, all fatally human, many of whom will eventually fail upward in what seems to be a sort of train-wreck historical dialectic. ("Put the lazy bastards to work is my thought," Dingleman eventually says about welfare reform, and the former liberal theorist he's talking to feels "a sort of primal agreement.") Everyone is basically in over his head; everyone but Dingleman bluffs having slightly more connections than he really does. Poor slobs are undone by their concealed masturbation fantasies--and in a different book we would feel that a brave, timely statement about forgiveness, hypocrisy and human nature might be made.

The book's only frustration is that Frank's comedy is so smart, one suspects this could have been just as funny and possibly more serious as well. The farce is all too believable, and the humanity Frank draws with his left hand is better than most of us could do with our right. But the book pulls up somewhat abruptly, in a world that bumbles forward without real breakthroughs or breakdowns.

Frank's voice is acid but somehow weirdly sympathetic. Each biographical sketch lingers on the perfect note of self-importance, each physical description contains the perfect repellant flaw. The Russian Expert Suzanne Smule "smiled a wonderful smile, and Hank understood her charm at once. She wore a dark green suit loose enough to hide her stocky body. She was also wearing a perfume he'd never smelled before, a mixture of lilac and olive oil, and he noticed a long scar along the base of her neck." A mediocre couple "had not had many serious conversations, although now and then they talked about having a child. Many of the people they saw at their offices had children, and sometimes, when they watched television, they would imagine how nice it would be to watch television with their child."

When Gorbachev visits Washington, the elderly lecher Alfred Schmalz tells Judith excitedly "that he'd seen the Russian outside the Soviet embassy and had never felt so hopeful about the future; he could imagine his grandson on a playground with little Russian children, jumping rope in a peaceful world."

In case the point has not been driven home, most, if not all, the characters are betting on plum jobs or profitable connections in the wrong candidate's administration.

Jeffrey Frank is a brilliant novelist specializing in acid portraits of a totally loveless world, one in which people bump into each other but never connect--either emotionally or sexually. In a Frank novel one always feels that one is observing the world through the wrong end of a telescope; the characters are infinitely distant from us, and from the narrator. We identify with these characters only at our own risk.

Frank has for some reason disowned his own early novel, *The Creep*, which I recall (very well) reading in high school, circa 1968. This novel is in the same mold; the only difference is in the specificity of the portrayal of the Washington D.C. lobbyist/think tank/legal milieu. But the utter alienation of the male characters, and the frigid but caustically funny style through which they are depicted, remains unchanged.

If you enjoyed, or were obsessed by, *The Creep*, check out this novel; it's like meeeting a dysfunctional friend, 30+ years later, and finding out where he's been.

In this period of anxious anticipation of the 2004 presidential campaign and general election, we can learn a great deal from those political campaigns of the past and that includes the late '80s. Or maybe we can't. I'm not sure.

Since Jeffrey Frank's earlier novel, "The Columnist," was a big hit at our house, not to mention our whole neighborhood -- okay, maybe the entire Washington, D.C. area -- we are really looking forward to reading his new book.

We would have done so already, but we're waiting for it to arrive in shipment from Amazon.com.

We gave it four stars, only because we haven't actually read it yet. Who knows? After reading it, maybe five stars. We'll see.

I lived in Washington D.C. once upon a time, but that --- or the fact that I was once married to a washed up politico -- has absolutely nothing to do with why I LOVED this hilarious novel. Well, perhaps a tiny bit. But personal experience of the various and dreadful games in the Nation's Capital, or even your basic lobbying law firm, isn't necessary in order to enjoy this wicked, wicked book. You'll scream with laughter. I did.

This book tells how to confront the harasser. If the harassment continues, the legal steps are covered. For an employer, it provides information on policies, complaint procedures, training sessions and monitoring to prevent harassment.
NOLO Press is noted for making legal information accessible to ordinary people. This topic is something that every supervisor and employer needs to be briefed on.

As an employment attorney and human resource consultant who trains organizations on harassment policy, I use this book as a great reference material. I often suggest it to supervisors who want to know more about how to deal with this complex and difficult problem....

I found the book to be pretty straightforward and easy to read. It gives all the pertinent information on the subject from the law to how to stop sexual harassment to your legal remedies. One of the best features is that provides an array of case studies that clear up a lot of the gray areas. I used the book to help me develop a training on the subject, I recommend it to anyone who needs more info on the subject.

Every business with employees that does not have a sexual harassment policy in place needs to buy this book now.

Actions the authors say employers need to implement regarding sexual harassment include: Do whatever it takes to understand the law, the issues, and keep current; put in place a zero tolerance sexual harassment prevention policy that prohibits specific behaviors of verbal harassment, non-verbal tactics, and physical harassment; take action to stop sexual harassment that does occur and prevent reoccurrence and reprisals.

If you're serious about the research you do on your family's history -- if you're not satisfied with merely collecting names, if you expect to see proof for statements made by other researchers, if you want those who come after you to be able to pick up where you've left off -- then this review can be boiled down a simple statement: Read this book. Buy it, consult it regularly, learn its principles. Since 1964, the BCG has developed and promulgated reliable methods for genealogical research, standards for proof, and a code of ethics for genealogists. This Manual is designed to clarify, codify, and present these standards in an easily accessible form. The first section presents standards for genealogical proof, data collection, and evaluation of evidence, the second lays out standards for genealogical instructors, lecturers, and authors, and the third discusses continuing genealogical education. These are followed by seven lengthy appendices that give examples of lineage compilations and the proof summaries that should accompany them, the most widely accepted formats for lineage publication, and researcher client reports -- which are a very useful tool even if you're only doing research for yourself. There certainly are thousands of books out there begging genealogists to buy them, but the "essential" bookshelf for American researchers is really rather small: _The Source,_ Greenwood's _Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy,_ Everton's _Handybook,_ perhaps _Guide to Genealogical Research in the National Archives,_ and a few others. The _Manual_ should be on that shelf.

Since its start in 1964, the Board for Certification of Genealogists has promoted standards of competence and ethics in genealogy designed to protect the public, the consumer, and the profession of genealogy.

This excellent book from the BCG distills these standards into clear statements regarding:

Genealogical Research - genealogical proof, data collection, evidence evaluation, & compilations. (If any of these terms are unfamiliar to you, this book might be a real eye-opener.)

Genealogical Teaching - for lecturers, instructors & educational writers.

Continuing Education in Genealogy.

The bulk of the book is in its excellent appendices where examples of genealogical reports, proof summaries, compiled lineages, pedigrees, and genealogies are given to clearly illustrate what good genealogy looks like.

This book is great for measuring yourself against how the very best genealogists conduct and report their research. Seeing how proper genealogy should be done makes us all better genealogists.

This book should be read and on the library shelf of every "non professional" genealogist. I can't recommend it highly enough, especially for anyone who is the least bit interested in genealogy. It helps to turn a "myth" into a "fact".

The book is a great source of information. It could be a "must have" for any genealogist, amateur or professional. The extensive use of pseudonyms detracts from the importance of the sample documentation given. I could barely get through reading the numerous sample documents or reports from Traditional Storey to Ima Goodresearcher! I would recommend using real names and not ficticious ones in the next edition.

Just wanted to say I've had this book for 8 years now and it is still one of the greatest treasures in my library. Thanks to the author for writing it. I just recommended it yesterday to another great writer of things Indian - pass it on. This book's a keeper.

Richard Lannoy's "Benaras Seen from Within" is a passionately insightful spiritual/aesthetic inquiry on the holy city of Kashi (Benaras). It is more a work of ardent love than a work of curiosity. It is more a work of the seeking spirit than a work of art. Teeming with the elusive cosmic energy that has pervaded the city of Kashi since times immemorial, his photographs and his insightful writings in this book are testament to his seeking soul, his acute eye and his brilliant mind that have fueled the creation of this monumental body of work.

Inspite of several scholarly and scientific studies undertaken of this holy city, Mr. Lannoy's work stands out as a unique and exhaustive seeking of its kind. For one, it is the result of a passionate dedication of a lifetime of love, energy and effort by this acclaimed Indologist. (It has taken him about five decades to accomplish this work). Being a trained artist, a scholar and a deeply insightful writer, his love for the country of India and his sincere reverence for the city of Kashi have all contributed effectively to create this spiritually rich and inwardly seeking work. His lengthy span of over five decades to research and document this book has been a boon to reflect on the ever-changing yet never-changing cosmic landscape of Kashi. (This is paramount to the unique quality of this work). Besides, it takes a deeply dedicated and spiritually aware soul to see through the distracting and distorted layers of the teeming microcosmic city of Benaras and to reveal the transcendental cosmic city of Kashi. It is amply clear through this book that Mr. Lannoy seems to be all that in addition to being a master photographer.

Through the lens, he has succeeded in capturing the elusively spiritual; the hauntingly mythic. (This, I think, is the most difficult and worthy achievement of a photographer.) His works in entirety are wrapped around this theme and are reflected all over in secret cues. His visual vocabulary effuses the language of the mysterious and taunts the viewer to search his pictures. Like Henri Cartier Bresson, he is the master of the moment, but very unlike Bresson, he is concerned with the spiritual exuberance of the picture than the merely aesthetic. His pictures are more felt than seen. Some of his successes enjoy a brilliant quality of aesthetic, insightful and the inwardly. Mr. Lannoy is also kind and reverent to the subject of his study. In his pictures, he seeks for deeper moments with the grace and expectancy of an earnest and seeking student. Pictures of the people and the abundant petite bourgeoisie are not pictures of the materially poor, but the spiritually rich. Some of his captured moments are events of everyday life : ceremonies, ablutions, prayers, journeys....yet moments that celebrate metaphysical insight and inquiry.

Through his pen, he offers a penetrative and insightful documentation on the holy city of Benaras. Steeped in myth, religion and spirituality; Benaras is one of the last remaining living ancient cities where visitors, pilgrims and scholars throng; attracted by the enigmatic energy that radiates in this place. As a peculiar convergence between the present and the past, the sacred and the profane, this pervading dichotomy of sorts presents a very unique challenge to the inquirer and Mr. Lannoy acknowledges this very nature by interspersing his works between words and pictures. In a sense, what cannot be conveyed with words is reflected within his pictures and what fails to be seen is written with acuity and ardor. With this hard earned creation of a lifetime, he seems to have collected the ripest and the most mystically beautiful fruit from the sacred tree of Kashi.

Mr. Lannoy's book is a seminal and masterly work of an artist and intellect in search of the soul of a cosmic city. In many ways, his works are reminiscent of the scholarly undertakings of the pioneer Indian art historian and original thinker Mr. Ananda Coomaraswamy. Like him, Mr. Lannoy is intuitively gifted in his ability to grasp the metaphysical leanings of his subject and writes with a passion and an inwardly conviction that years of patient seeking and searching have granted him.

I highly recommend this book for any student of artistic and philosophical seeking. For those in proximity to New York City, there is an exhibition of his works on display till the 8th of April 2000 at Sepia International Inc. Galley, 148, W 24 Street, 11 Floor, NY.

-Lokesh Muthuramalingam, February 25 2000, lmuthura@att.com

This huge book about India's most holy city has two parts, either of which would be worth the journey through its beautifully produced pages. In the first, hundreds of photographs are cunningly arranged to lead us into the ancient, wonderful city where the Buddha first began his mission. The images take us along lanes and ways, up to rooftops, among pressing crowds, and down to the sacred ghats by the River Ganges; where Hindus have gone for millennia to cleanse their sins and burn their dead. In the second part, we get a lively description of the inner life of Benares--and by extension, all of India. This book should be read by anyone interested in Hindu art and religion, but also by city planners and would-be travelers.

Remarkably, the book spans over 40 years of thought and effort by Lannoy-- with a great caesura between the early 60's and the present. How this happened is that Lannoy began his project in the early 50's and worked at it for over 10 years during extended residences in the city. Then he struggled to find a publisher who would take the risk of printing so many rich photographs. Struggled and failed, and the photos crossed the oceans several times in steamer trunks, before finally coming sadly to rest. Until 1998, when the old sage, painter, and author of other books that are scholarly classics at last turns his eye again to this troublesome love of his youth. Now he takes up his camera for the first time in years and, armed with new possibilities for small press runs, returns to Benares for fresh photography, contracts a Hong Kong printer, works furiously, takes a huge financial risk, and at long last publishes this unique masterpiece, on his own, exactly as he wants it.

The fifties, for Americans anyway, are remembered as a time of great cultural certainty. We recall images--often in black and white--of an uncluttered land, at once carefree and supremely purposeful. India, we learn through these photographs, had a golden age of its own in this same era. But while America's purpose was transcendent materialism, Indians, newly independent, could at last strive for spiritual fulfillment in their own land. We sense this confidence, somehow, in the pictures and Lannoy is at pains to point out their psychological portent. It is as if he were an art critic analyzing the imagery Indians create by assembling, unselfconsciously, for their rituals and pageants--imagery which he is skillful enough to capture. For example, I might not have perceived the spiritual melding in crowds assembled for ritual bathing without the convincing captions Lannoy provides. Nor would I have seen the change wrought between the 50's and the present, when crowds have lost their unity of belief and become mere collections of individuals.

"Benares Seen From Within" works as a coffee table book. Many of the pictures are conventionally gorgeous and certainly exotic. But the collection is much, much more. Photographs are grouped, according to subject, in a more or less straightforward way. But within the groupings are subtle structures and by-plays with the captioning. For example, in one section shows a series of contact prints (miniature photographs are used to effect in several places). They show a mural painter drawing a devotional subject while a sahdu (holy man) regales a group of followers with a parable. At the climax of the story, the caption informs us, the muralist draws the pupil of the eye-the moment the image gains a soul. "Oh" one thinks and turns the page. There is a charming picture of the river side and a veranda. Turn another page and pow! A sahdu leans forward with burning eyes and points right into the lens. This moment, one realizes after paging back, was the climax of the story. Elsewhere, Lannoy describes the excitement and difficulty of photographing the Naga Baba, but without saying exactly what the Naga Baba are exactly. For this, and much more, we have to delve into the pages ourselves.

Earlier books by the Lannoy (Speaking Tree, The Eye of Love) have established his credentials as a scholar of Indian art and culture. Here, we get a more personal statement, informed by the passage of time, and insightful of the disturbing changes underway. The text is rich and lively-and illustrated with additional photographs. Where the detail is overmuch for a first reading, the layout allows one to skip ahead; and meticulous indexing refers one to the photographs for fresh examination. It is rare to get a book of photographs that contains such easy scholarship and it is even more unusual to get art and religious history enlivened with photographs that are art in their own right.

For all the pleasure, we are never far from a grim sense that Benares is under threat. Due to pollution, the Ganges is now extremely unsafe for even the most stalwart bathers. Urban blight and traffic has savaged the ancient city plan. Lannoy looks at this unflinchingly. Indeed the photography often acts as a time-series showing decay and loss.

At this point, I should confess that I have known Richard Lannoy for many years-since he was my tutor at college in England over 20 years ago. I can recall him showing us students some of the photographs now published. Tarot-like, he would deal pictures out onto a cloth laid on the floor, intone on their meaning, then whisk them away for a fresh set. They created a spell then that still enchants. In the truest way, this book is a gift from Richard-a giving back and a sharing about a place at once loved and mourned. Lucky us that he was able finally to not only show the beauty of Benares, but sound an alarm for the future.

This landmark book is a life's work and sings a soul song of one of the most deeply beloved spiritual places, a place where religious life is still the center.

Lannoy's photographs have all too rarely been published, and this book would be a visual feast if only for the chance to see a master photographer at work, composing foreground and background moments simultaneously so that they breathe life and a story in a complete message.

The text is also the best piece of writing about Benares that I've read. So many books describe only the obvious and most prurient sites of Benares (the burning ghats, the naga babas) and miss the true depth and richness of the city. From this text and photographs, the reader looks at the numerous facets of this multilayered city.

I, too, must confess to having met and now knowing Richard Lannoy, as a fellow traveler in Benares, where I had the extreme good fortune to meet him and to accompany him on photographic jaunts throughout the city and its outskirts.

His running dialog about things Benarsi is a gift of the gods...For anyone who is interested in India, I would say this is the first and best book you should buy. You can learn more about the country, and a great city, from this book. An incomparable experience and hours of absorbing reading and looking...