Europe Books

In recent years there have been a number of books published featuring color photography of the World War II era. George Forty's GERMANY AT WAR is unique in focusing solely on the Third Reich and its rise and fall. Featuring over 280 images, Forty's book is a fascinating, compelling visual guide to that long-ago evil empire.

The photographs in GERMANY AT WAR run the gamut from 'glamour' shots of Hitler, Nazi officials, Generals, Admirals and various war heroes to frontline photos of Wehrmacht soldiers freezing on the Russian front; homefront scenes of ecstatic Germans celebrating Der Fuhrer's rise balanced by later shots of ravaged German cities; assorted German airplanes, tanks and ships; photos of Jews, Gypsies and other victims of the Third Reich; etc.

Some of the images have appeared previously but in black and white. Seeing those images in color does produce a more visceral response. Those previously black-and-white villains and assorted scenes take on life. Looking at the party rally photographs, for instance, you start to laugh at the ridiculous appearance of some of those Nazi henchmen in their comic-opera uniforms until you remember those 'super-men' helped kill illions of people.

Given its broad coverage of Third Reich personalities and events, GERMANY AT WAR is a wonderful time-capsule and a must-have selection. It really brings the Third Reich to life. Recommended.

Este livro do Geroge Forty trata essencialmente de um ensaio fotográfico da Alemanha durante a 2ª Guerra Mundial. Com mais de 300 fotos a cores, é possível ser transportado para a época examente pela cor das fotos que variam ente a vida comum do dia-a-dia do povo alemão quanto a vida no front.

Em um conflito onde a maioria das fotos são em preto e branco, uma copilação de exposições a cores dá uma sensação diferente, trazendo uma realidade que intrínsecamente se encontrava distante devido ao distanciamente provocado pela falta de cor. Com esse livro a questão se coloca diferente. Lá estão vários personagens importantes da Alemanha na época vestindo os uniformes em uma naturalidade nunca antes vista. Tal naturalidade, provocada pela cor, é um dos pontos máximos desta obra de Forty.

O texto é bem simples e pequeno, apenas apresentando ao leitor uma introdução e contextualização do período de forma que este se localize tanto geograficamente quanto temporalmente. Há também, para cada foto, um pequeno texto acompanhando.

Porém o autor, que já foi diretor e curador do famoso Museu de Tanques de Bovington em Dorset na Inglaterra, inexplicavelmente apresenta alguns erros no texto que acompanha as fotos que, para um olho treinado como o dele não deveria acontecer. Como por exemplo na página 154 na foto do Stuka. Obviamente que os mecânicos não estão em cima da asa do avião aproveitando o sol do Mediterrâneo e sim fazendo um contrapeso de modo que o avião seja puxado para fora do buraco onde está atolado. Tal foto é repetida no livro Luftwaffe Colours - Stuka Volume One de Peter Simth publicado pela Classic na página 49. Segundo Smith, o Stuka não está no Mediterrâneo e sim na França durante a primeira ofensiva alemã na Batalha da Inglaterra.

E na foto da página 170, está claro que Hitler examina junto ao Dr. Porsche um tanque alemão, no caso o protótipo do SdKfz 184 Ferdinand (ou Elefant) e não no PzKpfw VI Tiger Ausf. E.

Afora estes pequenos contratempos, o livro é muito bom e recomendado tanto para modelistas quanto para historiadores e aficcionados.

I commend the author & editor for the selection of photos & informed captioning. This book is unlike no other in that it shows the full glamour of the Nazi's in color & helps serve to explain why they had such appeal to their fellow countrymen. The pictures have been excellently reproduced here & the printing is of the highest quality (I have the hardcover). If you want forget the evil for a moment & see the Nazi's as the world saw them at both the genesis & height of their power, awe-inspiring, you should have this book as a photo companion any history you read. The devastation of the war & holocaust is included to bring you back to reality.

This book is a compilation of color photographs from Nazi Germany during the Third Reich era. The photos were from archives as well as participants' personal collections. There are photos of the military in battle, the politicians prosecuting the war (especially Hitler), and ordinary citizens on the home front. The author adds narrative background information on the war from the German perspective. While there are several books of American wartime color photography, this is the first I have seen from the enemy point of view. I recommend it to all persons interested in visual imagery from the Second World War.

This is a fantastic collection of color photographs from Nazi Germany. They are a combination of pictures from offical archives and personal collections, most of which I have never seen before. The photos include everything from party rallies and parades, to the Russian front and the Luftwaffe. Many are just pictures of everyday life in the Third Reich. They include both the leading henchmen of the day, as well as ordinary Germans and even Jews and other persecuted persons. As I was flipping through the book, I was really struck by how the sharp color photographs made the images that much more real and personal. The picture quality is excellent and many of the photos look like they could have been taken yesterday. This is quite the contrast to the black and white photographs that we have all seen, which just don't convey the same feeling of realism and proximity. With these, you really feel like you could be "there" and thus the era is brought to life. Highly recommended for students of Third Reich history.

I have always liked this book, with its vast international canvas and 'fin de siecle' feel. It was the only one HS Bhabra published under his own name, but fans may like to try the thrillers he wrote as A M KABAL too.

Sometimes novelists overreach. Bhabra almost certainly did, when he undertook to write a book that encompasses all the upheaval, dislocation, pain, betrayal and romance of pre-WWII Venice and post-WWII Amsterdam, as seen through the eyes of an aging aristocratic British career diplomat. Yet what is astonishing is how close this book comes to perfection. It is, after whatever criticism one might have of the plot and the development of the central character, a beautifully written book that displays a formidable knowledge of history and geography. You may not remember the twists and turns of the story, but you will never forget the sense of being completely engrossed in the world that Bhabra creates and of the array of emotions it evokes. It may not be a perfect book, if in fact there is such a thing, but it comes within a hair's breadth of being so. Don't miss it.

For those who appreciate the old-fashioned British style of novel writing, this Penguin paperback telling of life as a British consul in the 1920's-1930's Venice will be a delight. The man plays as if in his 80's, writing of his youthful work when sent out to Venice. (The author in fact seems to be an Anglo-Indian born in 1955!) He tells of interesting English ex-patriates enjoying the cheap prices of post-WWI Europe, and life in Venice amongst their charms, their parties, their endless hours of leisure. He becomes fond of one Jewish art appraiser and comes to his rescue, he finds himself in confusion over love, and he comments always as if he were now very old and considering all of it again, but in retrospect.

I thoroughly enjoyed this style, and his ability to keep one attached and interested in the motley characters who are tied together by time, place, English language and money, but who then find themselves blown apart by the rise of the Fascisti and the revolutionary forces afloat in Europe.

...It is a joy to read, and transports the reader to a world that is lost and which few of us living today ever knew existed. But that is only part 1.
It gets better! Taking up the narrative twenty years later in the shambles of post-war Amsterdam, the story, like life, gets deeper. I guessed at less than half of the intrigues and interconnections that are revealed in the denouement.
I was up half the night trying to finish this book, and the other half trying to comprehend what I had read. It is a compelling commetary on the interplay of good and evil, the limits of government, and the tension between truth and diplomacy. I was left turning over in my mind the well-worn words of Edmund Burke "In order for evil to flourish, all that is required is for good men to do nothing". But which of us is good, and which "nothing" should we not do?

I hesitate writing a review for this book because I fear I lack the words to do it justice. Still, I like to try - if only for the hope that maybe I end up saying something that might convince another reader to pick up this exceptional novel. Certain that he/she will at the end agree that the reading of this novel has been one of the richest reading experiences in his/her life; I know it has been for me.

I first read Gestures over a decade ago and the memory of that experience is still vivid in my mind. What H.S. Bhabra managed to do was draw me in in such an artful way that I wasn't even aware of what was happening. And not until I found myself surrounded by the atmosphere of the characters and places was it that I knew that I was lost in the tale that H.S. Bhabra was telling. A tale told with the virtuosity of an extremely gifted writer.

Like the other reviewer I too stayed up till deep in the night, experiencing a wide range of emotions and feelings that to this day impresses me deeply. Rarely has an author's words managed to evoke half that many emotions and feelings from me as H.S. Bhabra has.

I could, of course, talk about what befalls the characters. Tell about their fate, the places they visit, the relations they have, but I won't. I won't because I'd hate to ruin the surprise. All I will say is that to not read this novel will make you poorer by having missed out on what undoubtedly would have been one of the best reading experiences of your entire life. A big statement, yet I'm certain of its truth.

One last remark. For years I've searched for other books by H.S. Bhabra, to my surprise Amazon did not even have Gestures for sale (this made me anxiously guard my copy of Gestures as I feared losing it and never again being able to read it), and today was the first time when searching for books by Bhabra yielded results. To my surprise I found Gestures. :) It makes me very happy to see this story in print again (it was first published in Great Britain in 1986). Some stories are simply too great to ever be out of print.

Fifteen year old Getorix, the son of a Celtic leader, is captured and is eager to be sacrificed with honor. To his horror, he is selected as a slave to a boy his age. Talk about a major attitude adjustment! The setting is Rome, a hundred years before Christ. The time is before Julius Caesar. Geary's storytelling weaves history and details of the city of Rome into an easily read adventure story of two boys forced to be together who navigate a relationship through culture clashes, status expectations between owner and slave and the bull-headedness of youth. Getorix even takes you through the sewer system of ancient Rome.

This is the type of book you recommend to friends.

Getorix is a teenage son of a Cimbri ruler who is captured, along with his father, and taken to Rome for a triumph and eventual execution. His father is killed, but he is spared and becomes a slave in the household of Quintus Lutatius Catulus, a Roman general and official. The story concerns the developing relationship between Getorix, Catulus' son, Lucius, and Keltus, a Celtic slave of the household. The author gives us a taste of what the life of a Roman household slave would be like, plus a description of some of the politics existing in the time before Julius Caesar becomes absolute ruler. An excellent appendix gives the neophyte reader a list of Latin and 'barbarian' words and what they mean. This book may be boring to adults, but is quite good for pre-teens and teenagers. It is fortunate that the activities and perversions of Sulla are not discussed fully, or it would not be suitable for young readers. The story ends without a satisfactory ending, leading me to believe there will be a sequel as Getorix deals with his status as a slave and his vow to make his father proud of him.

Getorix: The Eagle and the Bull is a story of a young boy's adventures in Rome that is comperable to the Harry Potter novels in that the concept is equally as fascinating. Geary's attention to historical detail paints a vivid image of Rome during a time period that is educational as well as entertaining. Getorix's incessant stubborness in fufilling his promise to his father emphasizes the cultural difference between the Celts and Romans and is the foundation of an unlikely friendship in the end. This book leaves the reader awaiting a young adult adventure series that has the potential to be brilliant.

This is a beautifully written, riveting tale of a Celtic boy on the cusp of manhood, who along with his father, was captured in battle by the Romans. The boy, Getorix, is determined to honor a vow to his father made just before the father is executed. He is spared by General Catulus and given to his son, Lucius, as a slave. However, Getorix will be no one's slave, especially not a slave to a Roman enemy. His growing friendship to a boy who would be his master, and his desperate need to become a man his father would have been proud of sends him on a journey of pain and self-discovery which will ultimately chart his course in life. I see this book as a young adult book only in that there are no scenes of sexuality or obscene language. It is a wealth of insight into the life and politics of Rome before Julius Caesar and has been meticulously researched. The author, Judith Geary, speaks to an intelligent reader with language that propels the reader to another time and commands the reader to experience a slice of history along side her richly developed characters. I was hooked from the first page to the last and can not wait to read it's sequel.

Judith Geary's debut novel, Getorix: The Eagle And The Bull is set in the days of the Roman Republic (rather than the later Roman Empire) and is the story of a young Celt named Getorix. Following the adventurous life of Getorix which includes the depressing defeat of his father in a battle with the Romans, Getorix: The Eagle And The Bull deftly carries readers through a Celtic family struggles and Getorix befriending a Roman soldier who has spared his life. A superbly written novel whose author has taken great pains to be as historically accurate as possible in the little details so important to background settings and plot developments, Getorix: The Eagle And The Bull is very strongly recommended as a thoroughly captivating and intimate story of a young man's struggle with identity and pride. Written for a young adult readership, Getoix: The Eagle And The Bull is the first installment of a three volume trilogy and will leave the reader looking eagerly toward the next two titles in this superbly crafted and original series.

"GIs and Frauleins" presents a comprehensive review of the cultural and economic impact the massive American military machine imposed on a small, agrarian, and relatively poor German state at the peak of the Cold War. This book presents a seminal work for the comprehension of later cultural clashes that dominated both the United States and Germany and continue to the present.

I recommend it for both the serious scholar as well as the casual reader of social and demographic history.

Unlike the previous reviewer, who took issue with the allegedly "academic" style of the book, I found it was very readable, avoiding a lot of the "constructing the other" and "conflicting gender identities" type of language one might expect to find in an academic book of this sort. This does not mean, however, that the book does not address the kind of conceptual, academic issues that are frequently raised in such stilted terms. In no sense is the book merely an antiquarian show-and-tell kind of catalog; it quite thoroughly discusses the "holy Trinity" of race, class, and gender issues. I found the discussion of German and American forms of racism to be especially interesting.

The content of the book has, for the most part, been adequately addressed in the "official" Amazon review as well as in the previous customer review. There is one aspect, however, that deserves further mention, and which I found particularly insightful: Höhn's discussion of whether the changes that came to the rural areas she discusses would be best described as modernization or as Americanization. This sort of issue is something which would interest anyone who is concerned with the cultural issues of globalization and the dominance of American cultural products in today's markets. Because she focuses on an area in which there was a very strong American presence in the immediate post-war years, it is not surprising that her evidence shows a significant American component to the modernization process. It would be interesting to compare her conclusions in this regard to those of someone studying an area where American influence was less direct and personal. This comparison would better demonstrate whether the American influence was a necessary, or merely a contemporary, component of German societal modernization. Such a comparison, however, would not fit very well into a book titled "GIs and Fräuleins." Höhn is to be commended for putting the abundant evidence which she presents into such a larger context of modernization debates, and not faulted for not being more encyclopedic.

To the postwar German churches, the great moral issue was not what the German government and military had done to millions of innocent people in World War II; the "moral" issue was the sexual freedom enjoyed by German women who chose to sleep with American soldiers.

German elites wanted a good relationship with the United States, so plans were dropped to label every German woman who slept with an American a "prostitute." Besides, too many respectable German families acquired American sons-in-law. Germans couldn't help but notice that "Negro" soldiers were despised by their fellow Americans, so women who slept with "black" Americans were the only ones labeled prostitutes.

Interesting fact: One German judge released a mulatto Fräulein who was accused of prostitution for sleeping with a "black" American soldier. He reasoned that, since she wasn't good enough to marry a white man, she was only engaged in some innocent "husband hunting."Passing for Who You Really Are

This book is a truely fascinating study of German-American encounters after World War II. It is full of interesting details and also extremely well written. A MUST for anyone interested in German history!

"GIs and Fraeuleins"
Maria Hoehn
ISBN 0-8078-5375-5

This book explores the culture clash that occurred during the Cold War in the 1950's when American GIs were first stationed in large numbers in the towns of Baumholder and Kaiserslautern in the rural Rhineland-Palatinate state of Germany, between the Rhine and Mosel rivers. Having served in Germany a decade later, I was surprised at the extent to which there had been such problems. In Mannheim, most of the issues that Maria Hoehn describes were not readily apparent. But Mannheim was urban versus the relatively provincial character of Baumholder and Kaiserlautern of the previous decade.

Some of Hoehn's themes in this book include the impact the American soldier's money and lifestyle on rural German society, the German conservatives' attempt to punish German women who associated with GIs, especially black GIs, and the irony of the Germans' rejection of discrimination against Jews in the new Federal democracy vis-à-vis their acceptance of it against black American soldiers. Certainly, Hoehn points out, white attitudes toward fellow black soldiers played a role in the German view.

Hoehn's documentation from publications of the time convincingly demonstrates that there were significant racial problems and that many Germans vehemently opposed intimate associations between German women and American blacks, so much so that the conservative CDU political party and various religious organizations tried to have these women legally classified as prostitutes.

Hoehn writes that many Germans including those who had lost ancestral lands to American military installations began to cash in on the boom by renting rooms to Americans. Barns and attics were transformed into apartments. German families moved into their own kitchens to be able rent out the rest of the house to the Americans who were willing to pay four or five times the going rate. Hoehn quips that in the small towns where everyone usually kept animals that some Germans had to choose between having a pig or an American, an "Ami" in the German parlance of the time.

Due to high unemployment throughout Germany at this time, many young women came to the area hoping for a job as a maid for an American family, a waitress, or a dancer at an establishment that catered to American soldiers. Many, who had lost homes and parents during the war, hoped to escape from a life of poverty. Some were refugees from the former territories or East Germany. These women did not find favor in the traditional view of the residents of the area for their fraternization with American soldiers, especially black American soldiers. Such women were dubbed "Veronikas". A number of them were arrested and subjected to humiliating trials in local courts by extremist judges. Efforts for national legislation classifying these women as prostitutes by the coalition of CDU, Protestant, and Catholic leaders ultimately failed.

This book is an excellent, well-documented piece of research. Although Hoehn's writing is somewhat academic and redundant in places, this is a commendable book of considerable merit. Those interested in postwar German history and even some former GIs may get new insight from it.

The 82nd Airborne Division Association, Winter issue 2003 has a full page book review on "Glide to Glory" Is consists of unedited stories of the 325 Glider Infantry Regiment from North Africa to Berlin and contains the list of honor by Father Thuring, Goesbeek, Holland as the last chapter in the book. Many never seen combat glider photo's. The web site for this book is . It is available for immediate shipment. It has been classified as one of the best books to come out of WWII and the author was a gliderman of Company D.

Glide to Glory is a great collection of stories
submitted by the people who lived them.Jerry has
put them together with pictures that can bring them
to life for all who read the book..

GLIDE TO GLORY is a fresh breeze in the Book Market. Written in the style of The Greatest Generation, this book fills a void with personal stories of courage, bravery and desparate situations told by the men who lived through them. Serving in the Glider Infantry of the 82nd Airborne Division these men were on the front line of World War II. Their stories have never previously been told. With unpublished photos, this book is a treasure you will want to keep. Wayne Pierce

This is a big, impressive book,(coffee table size) written about an impressive war (WWII)and the exceptionally brave young men who had to fight it. The story relates a complete day-to-day account of each combat action for the 325 Glider Infantry Regiemnt of the 82nd Airborne Division. It details the actual experiences of an airborne regiment who landed in North Africa and subsequently fought in every major battle in Europe. This is the story by the men who fought those battles, and in their own unedited words and in GI vernacular, whether good or bad. It is truly their story right from the heart. Father Thuring of Groesbeek, Holland authors the final chapter which includes a memorial of those Airborne Glidermen killed in action (748) The book also contains many photographs out of the "Liberation Museum" Groesbeek, Holland.The book is loaded with photographs never before seen of some actual combat landings and the "Crosses Of Normandy" on how the soldiers killed in action were processed in the first burial. The book is loaded with all kinds of stories --- witty, homorous, gripping, and courageous,too. It's a story of young men at war, filled with bravery and high adventure. It's a story, too, of death in the afternoon. Here is another side of war as stressed in Glide to Glory - often brutal statistics of Death in the Afternoon, in particular, of the 325 Glider Infantry Regiment: 280 KIA, Normandy, June 1944, 217 KIA Holland, September 1944: 205 KIA, the Battle of the Bulge. Records indicate that out of 2500 in the regiment, 2,375 purple hearts were awarded. A minimum of 3,089 were either killed in actin or wounde. Much of their combat time was behind enemy lines for atotal of 190 combat days. This is just the bare stats for one airborne infantry regiment...the 325 GIR. Never Before, Never again will ring forever as combat gliders only were used from 1943 to 1946 by he U.S. Army Airborne. No other book is available on only Glidermen during WWII.

This book is no disappointment. It cuts no corners in its size and quality as well as the number of pages, 457 of them. The book details the experiences of the glider infantry soldiers, specifically the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division. Never heard about gliders being used in WWII? Don't know what a glider infantry soldier is? Then this is the book for you. Imagine having to sit aboard a glider having wood wings, a wooden floor, a tubular steel fuselage and covered with fabric being towed behind a C-47 at 100 mph at low altitudes where ground fire and flak ripped through the wings, the floor, the canvas, and you. They were to low to bail out if your glider was hit, so no one had a parachute. Then if you survived the long flight, which could have been up to 4 hours, you hoped the skill of the trained glider pilot could bring you in onto a safe landing. But quite often, the glider pilots had to fly into postage stamp size fields where other gliders had already landed and crashes were inevitable into either another glider or the many hedgerows found along the fields. Then there were the trained German 88 crews just waiting for you to touch down so they could throw a round or two into the glider as you came to a rolling stop or the German troops who peppered the side of your glider as you sat inside watching the holes tear into the fabric hoping you would make it out as you waited for the glider to stop rolling. And if you survived the flight as well as the landing, now you had to unload your cargo of equipment and assemble into your company while being a moving target for German troops. Read about Glider Infantry Heros because that is what these guys were as told by them about them and those who didn't make it back. This book is their story and their history. You will find your emotions being tapped into as you read their personal stories and at times feel your eyes begin to well up. The glidermen played a key role in the war as did the use of the glider. Casualties and injuries were high for the C-47 crews, the glider pilots and glidermen BUT, they did what they had to do in preserving freedom. This book honors them with text, photos, maps, documents, and the names of all who died. You will not be disappointed, unless you don't have a copy of your own.

Nancy Garrison Jenn has taken upon herself the challenge of boiling down a highly fragmented industry into a meaningful knowledge base that can be used by corporate executives and individuals to network to solve both business and career needs. Her summary chapters on how to select a recruiter and advice to both corporations and individuals provides a quick study on critical issues affecting all parties concerned. While some in the industry may quibble with her selection of individuals, without question she has identified the "Who's Who" of the search industry, reflecting a credible balance between US-based and global search professionals. Without question it is the only work of its kind.

In writing The Global 200, Nancy Garrison Jean has combined her enthusiasm for the international executive search industry with rigorous analysis to create a must read for clients, candidates, and search professionals. Bravo, Nancy!

The Global 200 is quite simply the most authoritative work on the global search business. A 'must' for every CEO

Nancy Garrison Jenn has pulled off another first in the retainer executive search field - a comprehensive list of 200 executive search consultants who work in a global environment. This is an excellent cross section of the experienced people in our profession. "The Global 200 Executive Recruiters" should be in every person's library.

The Global 200 Executive Recruiters is another proof of Nancy Garrison Jenn's in-depth knowledge of the world's executive recruitment market. Though interesting for recruiting companies to learn about their sector and their competitive position, the book is particularly of help to their clients and potential clients in assessing executive search firms and the recruiters with those firms. The Global 200 provides very useful and detailed information regarding recruiters and their expertise, both in terms of business sector specialization, as well as local, regional or global orientation. It is an excellent guide for both smaller companies and larger corporations on their path to find the executive talent they need to build a sustainable competitive edge.

un libro altamente recomendable.
lleno de fotografías y lo más interesante ,secuencias enteras de una acción.
Fotografías de alta calidad.

muy bueno.

Really a first class effort, as the other reviewers have stated. The vast majority of photos have not, I believe, been published previously, and the reproduction is crisp and clear. The very detailed captions are a real plus.
For anyone with even a modest interest in the Heer of WWII, this is a must. My only,minor, complaint,is that it ends in 1944, but I surmise that good photos after that were few and far between. Highly recommended.

God, Honor, Fatherland is an excellent pictoral study of one of the Whermacht's truly elite divisions. The author covers "GD" from 1942 to 1944. Although I have a fairly extensive collection of books covering the German Army on the Eastern front, most photos in this book were new to me. The author made contact with numerous "GD" veterans and got many previously unpublished photos, many of which the people in them are listed by name and sub-unit. The author also gives 1 to 2 page narratives of the various major battles GD participated in during this time frame. As well as descriptions of the various sub-units that made up GD, including rarely covered support/maitenance units.

My favorite part of the book were the biographical sketches of various GD personalities. These include not only senior and company grade officers, but several NCO's as well. I recomend this book to anyone interested in German units or the Eastern front of WW2, particularly armor buffs and modelers.

Having purchased many Grossdeutschland photo histories over the years, I was pleasantly surprised to find this outstanding RZM product at a used bookstore. Yep...that doesn't happen every day. Naturally I snapped this gem up and am still amazed at the quality of pictures and narrative.

This volume follows the GD from 1942-1944, which are the years focused on the Soviet front. The pictures cover all aspects of the division from the maintenance and logistics elements to the Infantry, Panzer, and Reconnaissance units. As earlier reviews indicated, the captions are very well done and specific attention is paid to naming the individuals pictured. Another great plus is the large format size of many pictures. For modellers these are a window into details often missed in smaller format photos.

So if you already think you already have enough volumes of GD related history...think again. This volume is one that you don't want to be without.

Another first rate job by RZM.

Not just another mundane collection of photos, this book is perhaps one of the best volumes in English regarding German soldiers, and especially the GD Division. The captions cast light on many arcance areas of study - uniforms, organization, history, tactics - and all the details are consistently correct and well researched. The only minor nit I was able to find is the mis-captioning of an NCO equivalent beamten as a "Hauptmann" - (p. 114)

Overall, a thoroughly excellent photographic record, with emphasis on naming photo subjects (a very nice touch). Of course, as with any collection of WW II photos, most of the pictures in this book are obviously posed, and there is nothing in the way of "real action" shots. This is not a drawback, and few "real action" shots were taken during the war by any of the combatants.

There are also some excellent biographical sketches of Knight' Cross winners and unit commanders.

really intersting read with lots of interesting facts, not for the faint hearted, makes you think and relise alot of different things

Extremely fascinating text! It is no surprise Oxford University Press chose to publish this work. Whether the reader is a scholar specializing in the folklore of the British Isles, a student enrolled in a Viking seminar, or an individual with an interest in the topic, this work is informative and captivating. The text not only aids the reader in his or her study of British Isle folklore, but allows the reader to draw connections between Scandinavian culture on the mainland and other isles. I have read a fair amount of works concerning this topic, but none have kept me as interested as "Gods, Heroes, & Kings." A definite buy!

Gods, Heroes, and Kings: The Battle for Mythic Britain

Gods, Heroes, and Kings, written by Christopher R. Fee and David A. Leeming and published in 2001 by Oxford University Press is a fine overall introduction to the mythologies of the pre-Christian inhabitants of the British Isles, who can be divided into two groups, each of which, in turn, has two subdivisions. First came the Celts, both Goidelic (Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man) and Brythonic (Wales, Cornwall and the French region of Brittany).
Most of the mythology of the Celts was written down long after the coming of Christianity to Ireland and Wales. Many Deities appear in both literatures, but the precise relationship between the religions of the two main branches of the Celts is not completely clear.
Long afterward came the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons, a loose assemblage of Germanic tribes who became the English and transformed most of the island of Great Britain into England (Angle-Land). These newcomers wrote down little of their mythology, but a fair amount of it can be reconstructed by comparing off-hand references in works such as Beowulf with the much more extant mythology of Scandinavia, many of whose inhabitants raided and later settled in the British Isles during the Viking Era.
While closely related, certainly more so than the religions of the Goidelic and Brythonic Celts, the precise relationship between the Troth of the Heathen Anglo-Saxons and that of the Viking-Age Scandinavians, as well as the relationship between both of them and the pre-Christian beliefs of the Continental Germanic peoples (German, Dutch, and Frisian speakers) will probably always remain a bone of scholarly contention.
Despite being a work of more recent scholarship, Gods, Heroes, and Kings reflects in many ways the scholarship of the 1970's and 1980's, with considerable influence from the work of the late Joseph Campbell, author of the book The Hero with a Thousand Faces and the Masks of God series. The prominent influence of this scholar rather surprised me, as his ideas seem to be at the present time somewhat out of favor. However, just as in mythology and in clothing fashions, the popularity of ideas and theories in Academia can also have a cyclical element.
The writing style is very readable, and the combination of a section retelling a myth with a section commenting on it is both effective and enjoyable to read. The main idea of this book is that the battle for mythic Britain was not "a struggle between factions of ancient gods and heroes, but rather a war of attrition, a continual reformulation and assertion of age-old archetypes in the garb most appropriate for the audience who heard their stories" (p. 192). Many of the mythic themes survived Christianization amazingly intact, and contributed to the uniqueness of the Christianity of the British Isles.
Much attention is given to heroic themes, and the authors hold that the mythic Hero is actually Everyman (and Everywoman), and the Gods, including by implication Yahweh, are "competing masks of the same ancient beings," and that the masks are just the surface of what they represent (p. 220). Obviously, this is not a theological idea which most Heathens, nor for that matter most Christians would embrace wholeheartedly, but nevertheless it does open the door for fertile theorizing on such topics as the nature and essence of Divinity and the relationship between the Pantheons and Deities of different religions.
The persistence of these mythical themes, both mythological and heroic, is due to the fact that "certain universal concerns remain constant: proper planting, fertile soil, a timely and sufficient harvest (p. 220) and so "the battle for mythic Britain represents the ongoing attempt by humans everywhere to make sense of their present reality by drawing on those aspects of past traditions that fit the most appropriate mask" (p. 221).
The chapter headings of this work provide a good idea of what it contains: The Pantheons, already alluded to in this review, Deity Types, Sacred Objects and Places, Heroes and Heroines, Creation and Apocalypse, and The Sagas (in the broader sense of the term, not just the Icelandic ones). The conclusion of the book is "Five Reflections on the Face of the Hero in the Medieval English Romance - Trials, Tribulations, and Transformative Quests."
As I read Gods, Heroes, and Kings, I found that my overall impression of the book kept going up and down. The lack of footnotes is at least mildly disturbing in a scholarly work. However, the inclusion of fine a "further reading" section together with an impressive bibliography partly makes up for this serious flaw. I am left with the impression that it is trying to be both a scholarly and popular work, with mixed success.
For the Heathen reader, this book is a fine introduction to some of the major extant Celtic myths, and a good overview of our own lore. It is also a good beginning to the important and fascinating Heathen scholarly task of comparing and contrasting Germanic lore with that of the Celts, whose languages are related to the our own tongues, and in terms of geography, history and culture are even more closely our kin. This is a question which most serious Heathen scholars will sooner or later find themselves looking at. The book also provides much material for unraveling how ancient mythological themes continue to influence the core ideas of our culture, and shows one way in which our Gods and Goddesses managed to remain active among us during the centuries in which their worship, where it continued at all, was the furtive undertaking of a very few people.
All in all, I do recommend that you read Gods, Heroes, and Kings. It can be read and enjoyed on a number of different levels, and the fact that Oxford University Press chose to publish it says much. In addition, it is nice for a change to review a book that is in print and readily available at a reasonable price!
Patrick "Jordsvin" Buck
http://home.earthlink.net/~jordsvin

This book is a great read. It's obviously well-researched, and filled with intriguing facts. Furthermore, Fee has a writing style that draws the reader in and keeps him/her interested throughout. Highly recommended!

Drs. Christopher Fee and David Leeming have crafted an extraordinary work examining the marriage of Celtic, Germanic, and Norse cultures and religious beliefs in Britain (particularly as they are seen via the literary traditions that chronicled them) in an effort to understand how the impact of pre-Christian peoples influenced the unique Christianity of Medieval Britain. While Dr. Leeming has provided extensive retellings of pagan myths, Dr. Fee has written insightful analyses of these myths and their import to the creation of a British religious ideology. Beginning with a scrutiny of the various pagan pantheons, the work then moves through detailed examinations of, among other things, types of deities, heroes and heroines, and the different sagas of the individual cultures. As an apocalypticist, I found the retellings and subsequent commentaries on Ragnarok and the Anglo-Saxon Fire of Judgment immensely informative and useful.
This is an extraordinarily accessible book. It is intended for the non-specialist and, as such, would be perfect for an undergraduate survey course, for an upper-level topical course on British mythology/religion, or for any scholar seeking an understanding of Britain's pre-Christian culture. I would also recommend it highly as a handbook for any medievalist who needs quick and informed accounts of any and all of these topics. Not only have Drs. Fee and Leeming eloquently opened up the field of pagan Britain to further inquiry and discussion, but they have done so in a work that is, above all, easy and enjoyable to read.

In Good Neighbors, Bad Times, Mimi Schwartz writes a highly nuanced account of the Holocaust and how it affected the small German town where her father was born and which he remembered fondly until his death in the 1970s. While other reviewers have suggested this memoir for a Holocaust shelf or course, I recommend it to Christians seeking to understand how religious prejudice can blind us to the humanity of those who worship differently.

Schwartz writes engagingly of growing up in a neighborhood of mostly Jews and longing to break out. She did this by first attending the University of Michigan and later (after marrying her Jewish boyfriend) assimilating into the predominantly Christian town of Princeton, NJ. Schwartz seems to have identified more with her mother, a city girl, than her father, who was born into a cattle trading family and left the village referred to here as Benheim to fight in World War I. As a soldier, he saw how Jews were treated in Russia and when, in 1933, he attended a rally at which thousands of enthusiastic Germans saluted Adolph Hitler, he knew to leave.

While Arthur Loewengart and his brothers came to the United States, other villagers emigrated to Palestine, which was still under British rule. In the end, all but 89 of the village's Jews escaped. They were deported to camps where only two survived. Throughout her childhood, Arthur told Mimi that people in Benheim were different, kinder and more principled than the typical Nazi. After he died, she wondered if what he said was true. She began to connect the dots between survivors in New York and Israel and the German village where no Jews live today.

Her journey both physical and metaphysical is told here. It is a story of small kindnesses (and cruelties) in the midst of unimaginable larger horrors, and how truth is deeply textured but well worth knowing.

"Before Hitler, everyone got along," according to the author of "Good Neighbors, Bad Times: Echoes of My Father's German Village". This a true story of decency and compassion in a small German village and how its generosity stood in the face of an empire of Nazi hatred. Author Mimi Schwartz recalls tales from her father and goes on a journey that spanned over three continents and a dozen years to get the more complete story of her father's village and learns interesting details about it all from every interview and discussion. "Good Neighbors, Bad Times: Echoes of My Father's German Village" is highly recommended for Holocaust studies shelves and for anyone seeking a more upbeat account of 1930s Germany.

As those who lived through the Holocaust are rapidly disappearing, this sensitive and open-minded work captures the anguish and inner conflicts of Jews and Gentiles living in a small German village during the Nazi period.
Knowing a number of the people Mimi Schwartz depicts, I can enthusiastically attest to her accurate portrayals.
For those of us born after this time, but still bearing some of its burden, there are important questions: What was the flavor of 400 years of mutual tolerance? How did this harmony disappear? What can we understand about ourselves in reflecting on the daily moral challenges of life lived under an evil regime?
There are no easy answers here, but a moving and true story.

Mimi Schwartz tells the stories of real people. Her book is a new and provocative look at a small German village through fascinating interviews with Christians and Jews who had lived side by side for generations. Readers of all faiths and backgrounds will appreciate her research and writing.
Emily Rose, author, Portraits of Our Past: Jews of the German Countryside.

2008 marks seventy years since the tragic events of Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. On November 9, 1938, the Nazis unleashed a wave of destruction against Germany's Jews. In the space of a few hours, thousands of synagogues and Jewish businesses and homes were damaged or destroyed. Mimi Schwartz, author of "Good Neighbors / Bad Times: Echoes of My Father's German Village" wasn't born yet. She would be grow up in Queens, New York, on milkshakes and hamburgers, and her father's stories of life in Germany, a life she had very little interest in. Her father grew up in Benheim (the name of the village has been changed to protect privacy), a little village of Christians and Jews in southwest Germany where according to all accounts Jews and Christians lived peacefully side by side. No allied bombs fell on Benheim during WWII so much of it is still preserved. The synagogue which was attacked during Kristallnacht is still there, now as an Evangelical Church. One can still visit the Jewish cemetery with 946 old graves.

Schwartz was in a village in Israel when she saw an old Benheim Torah and was told that "the Christians of Benheim rescued the Torah for us during Kristallnacht." That story sent her on a quest to discover all that she could about this little village, to determine if, like her father had always told her, Benheim was special in that the people there got along and would do anything to help one another.

In "Good Neighbors / Bad Times" Schwarz interviews many old Benheimers, some in Israel and some in America. She also visits Benheim several times, a village which now has no Jews. The Jews that were there either escaped in time or were killed in the concentration camps. Only two Benheimers who were interred in the concentration camps survived. The other eighty-seven were murdered. On her journey, Schwarz discovers a series of individual stories and individual perspectives which each tell part of the whole story. She discovers both the Jewish and the Gentile perspective on what happened. She struggles with knowing what everyone knows now versus what people knew then. There was a large swastika that had been erected in the town in 1934, but as one Benheimer stated, "It was not important; no one knew what it would mean." She learned of other kind deeds that occurred in Benheim and of a second Torah that was saved and is now located in Burlington, Vermont. She learned of how good people struggled to live through such difficult times, of people too scared to take a stand and the punishments that came to those who did. She learned of children being indoctrinated with hate in the local school and parents who struggled to fight against it.

"Good Neighbors / Bad Times" is a valuable work of social history. It is so important to preserve the stories of those who lived through these tragic events. In the end, Schwartz decides that Benheim was special, that decency managed to prevail there despite the Nazi hate that infected the land. As Schwartz states, "decency is often such a solitary act; it's evil that draws a noisy crowd." "Good Neighbors / bad Times" is recommended for anyone who wants to learn more about Jewish / Christian relationships during the World War II era. It would also make a wonderful text for a college course on the topic.

The author weaves this chapter in Spanish history with ease. The result is very impressive. Comparisons to other periods in history prove very enlightening, especially those related to the follies of micromanagement.

Geoffrey Parker's study of Philip II is a landmark. In this penetrating analysis, Parker has successfully distilled and tied together four decades of modern scholarship on strategy, decision making, and organization theory with an original evaluation of Philip of Spain's motivations, priorities, and execution. Gone are the nationalistic generalizations and the structural excuses. Structural and institutional factors get coverage, but the real story is in the man at the top, who had to make the decisions, good and bad.

Parker starts with a discussion on the strategic culture surrounding Philip, to include his "strategic inheritence" from his father, Charles V, the massive information network over which Philip presided (and the irresistable temptation to micro-manage), and the 'messianic imperialism' context that was of Philip's own making.

Messianic imperialism is the backbone for the rest of the book, which deals with the formation and the execution of grand strategy. Parker clearly evaluates Philip's strategy v. the Dutch and the English. For reasons that he explained early in his preface, the Mediterranean theater gets shorter coverage, but it is clear that the Med. concerns were never far from Philip's mind. The French Huguenots also don't get as detailed treatment as they could have gotten, but Parker's summation of the results of Philip's policy towards France is still satisfying.

Parker makes many allusions to strategic and policy issues of the recent past, and it is clear that Philip's problems were not all the different in scope, if not in scale, than those faced by political and military leaders today. Philip's inability to discipline himself to focus on one event to see it through to completion, his inabiltiy to keep himself from micromanaging decisions from over 600 miles away, and his inability to see past his divine mission to perceive reality will all strike familiar chords.

Bottom line: Great history, great interpretation, great analysis. It has got to be a classic in the field.

Some people still insist military tactics apply to business. Once I took a public relations course, and our textbook was Clausewitz's treaty on war. If you want to avoid mistakes, to design a sound and practical strategy for whatever your business, then read Geoffrey Parker. In this book, Philip II is judged through the lenses of planning, and most importantly, of results and achievements. Why did Philip failed in his great enterprise? To make decisions is not only a matter of information -Philip was well informed of affairs- but of judgement, passion, and careful coordination with those who execute decisions.

This very good book is an examination of Philip II's methods of foreign policy formulation and execution. As such, this is a detailed look at the governance methods of the most powerful monarch of the early modern period and is illuminating on how states and monarchs functioned during this period. This detailed examination is possible because of the extensive documentation surviving from much of Philip's reign including a huge amount of his personal correspondence and own state papers. Parker is a leading expert on Philip and early modern Europe and a good writer.
Philip emerges as a man with many admirable features, in some respects, a model King. Clearly intelligent and well educated, he was remarkably diligent, spending many hours per day engaged in state business and was very conscientious about his responsibilities. While his work capacity and attention waned in his later years, he was able to sustain a prodigious work load over a period of decades. If there can be said to be a heroic bureaucrat, it was Philip. Given the huge extent of the world wide empire he inherited and the wide array of challenges he faced with a relatively primitive supporting bureacracy and poor communications technologies, Philip did surprisingly well. There were, however, significant limitations, some structural, some a function of Philip's personality. The enormous diversity of the empire creates a huge variety of problems, and policies useful for on part of the empire could be destructive for other parts of the empire. The relatively primitive administrative apparatus made these conflicts difficult to reconcile. This system demanded an active and hard working autocrat at the center and while Philip did well in this role, it was simply not humanly possible for one man to shoulder the burdens he assumed. As Parker makes clear, many of Philip's problems were inherent in the nature of monarchy in early modern Europe, though of greater magnitude because of the scope of the empire. Philip's personality added additional significant problems. Philip, like many autocrats, was a micromanager who had difficulty in discriminating when to delegate and when to be personally involved. This often led to inefficient formulation and execution of policy. He was also intensely pious. His dedication to orthodox Catholicism led him to policies that were sometimes counter to the pragmatic interests of the empire. This is certainly true of his failure to deal successfully with Protestantism in the Netherlands and the Dutch Revolt. His faith also led him to the conclusion that when things were uncertain, divine providence would somehow provide. This religous assurance was probably personally comforting but didn't help the Armada overcome key tactical obstacles during the attempted conquest of England.
Parker provides some comparative perspective by comparing Philip to other contemporary monarchs, particularly Elizabeth I of England. He also tries to develop a more general perspective by extracting broad lessons about executive performance. This effort has mixed success. His resort to Business school literature about efficient executives is not very informative. His broad historical comparisons are more fruitful though his attempts to differentiate his analyses from those of Paul Kennedy in The Rise and Fall of Great Powers are not entirely successful. In a couple of respects, however, I found Parker's analyses surprisingly apposite. Writing about the use of intelligence information, Parker makes the good point that decision makers under pressure, like Philip in 1587-1588, tend to interpret intelligence in a way that confirms their preconceptions, often willfully distorting potentially contradictory information. Sound familiar? Parker has a telling discussion of how Philip used diplomacy (we would now say soft power) in Italy as the most resource effective method of obtaining objectives and quotes one of Philip's administrative officials as pointing out that once you lose your diplomatic credibility, it is difficult and expensive to recover. Another familiar problem.

"The Grand Strategy of Philip II" is a rare book. On the one hand, it is a convincing scholarly reassessment of Spanish imperial policy during the pivotal late 16th century. In that sense, the book is written to the high standards of the academy: exhaustive primary research - much of it in the original Spanish, Latin, Italian and French - and close consideration of competing theories from previous, notable works on the period. On the other hand, the book is an exemplary work of modern strategic studies, with a dash of business school case study analysis. This is a piece of academic history that cites such distinguished and diverse authorities as Peter Drucker, Carl von Clausewitz and John Lewis Gaddis and uses a broad range of historical analogies - from the Vietnam War, the Second World War and the US Civil War - to illuminate and contrast critical points. The end result is one of the more compelling works on strategy written in the past few decades.

Geoffrey Parker very much wrote this book in response to Paul Kennedy's poor treatment of Philip II and the decline of the Spanish empire in Kennedy's enormously popular and influential 1987 book "The rise and fall of the Great Powers." On the surface, Parker seeks to refute the conventional academic wisdom that Philip II had no grand strategy in any sense of the term. While the issue of "grand strategy" is discussed throughout, the book really revolves around Philip's planned 1588 invasion of England, which featured the legendary Spanish Armada and ended in utter catastrophe before it really began.

The book is broken into three more-or-less equal components. The first section offers a fascinating overview of the world Philip lived in and the unmanageable world of paperwork and decision-making that he created for himself. Parker is none too kind to Philip in this book. Most of the challenges and failures of Philip's half-century reign Parker attributes to Philip's insistence on the centralization and compartmentalization of all information and decision-making (Parker openly compares his style and system to that of Hitler). Parker suggests that if Philip had been born 500 years later in similarly privileged circumstances, he might have been an awful CEO of a family-owned business. One of his great faults, in Parker's estimation, was his "zero-defects mentality" - the fear of failure that so dominated his actions that it paralyzed his ability to act on anything but certain knowledge.

Parker describes stunning scenes of Philip working 18-hours-a-day like some Wall Street attorney, hunched over a mountain of papers and embroiled in the most arcane details of imperial appointments and financial management (of which he had little understanding).

Much has been made of the long time it took for messages to travel from place to place in the 16th century. Parker argues that it was more the uncertainty of communications that presented the truly vexing problem of the age, not necessarily the long time it took for information to travel. For instance, a message from Venice to Paris could take anywhere from one to six weeks to arrive. It was the unknown margin that led leaders to fits of despair and uncertainty. Finally, Parker raises an issue in this first section that forms a central part of his indictment against Philip II - his profound and unshakeable conviction that the mission of Spain and that of God were one in the same, and thus any obstacle or shortfall could be overcome by the miraculous intervention of the Lord himself, a phenomenon that Parker calls "messianic imperialism." The issue of religion - Catholic vs. Protestant - trumped all other considerations and Philip consistently and confidently undertook any effort that involved upholding or reclaiming the faith with the sincere expectation of a Moses-parting-the-Red-Sea style miracle to carry him to victory.

The second section is a review of the situation in the Netherlands and foreign relations with England's Elizabeth Tudor. As background, these chapters are necessary and highly informative, but they aren't nearly as absorbing and exciting to the layman as the first and final sections.

The third and final section offers a focused treatment of the question: "Why did the Armada fail?" For contemporary strategists, this section is by far the most compelling. He addresses in turn the three topics most often cited as the reasons for the failure of the Armada to link with the ground forces under the duke of Parma in the Netherlands and then to launch the cross channel conquest of England.

First, Parker addresses the fact that the planned invasion of England was "the worst kept secret in Europe." Parker likens the intelligence situation facing Elizabeth to that of the US government before Pearl Harbor. Yes, much of the enemy's plan was compromised, but the high noise-to-signals ratio and the repeated false warnings of impending invasion meant that strategic surprise, especially the well-concealed intended landing site of Kent, was still achieved. Like the FDR administration in 1941, Elizabeth knew everything, and yet knew nothing.

Second, and perhaps most dramatically given the generally sober and academic tone of the rest of the book, Parker vigorously defends the actions and preparations of the invasion forces commander in the Netherlands, the duke of Parma. He argues that Parma achieved unparalleled logistical feats to get his 27,000-man invasion force in place and ready to embark within a day-and-a-half, so any notion that the plan failed because Parma either intentionally sabotaged the invasion or was incompetent must be rejected, if one accepts Parker's reasoning.

Finally, Parked concludes that the superior English naval capabilities - better ships, bigger guns, more effective leadership, better tactics, more experience in general - ultimately doomed the Armada and thus the invasion plans to failure. Everything hinged on the ability of the Spanish to establish sea control in the Channel to get Parma's forces to England, and the British naval superiority made that basic objective nearly impossible. The British advantage is very much described in terms that we today would refer to a "revolution in military affairs " (RMA). Indeed, Max Boot used the defeat of the Armada as one of his case studies in his recent, excellent review of the RMA argument in "War Made New." Parker writes that the Spanish fully anticipated English tactics and appreciated their advantages in long-range gunnery and maneuverability, and were simply unable to overcome them.

Parker sums up the Armada's failure and Philip's direct role in causing the disaster this way: "Philip's flawed 'management style' frustrated the Armada's success far more than the loss of secrecy, the lack of communication between the two theater commanders, and the technical differences between the two fleets. His refusal to delegate, his 'zero-defects mentality', his self-generated information overload and his messianic outlook produced grave strategic errors that rendered operational success almost impossible."