Russia Books

Los documentos en este libro son una no cierta tentativa de cambiar historia, sino los documentos de la lucha política pasada de la vida de V.I. Lenin, una lucha política que fue continuada en la lucha de León Trotsky, una lucha política que fue junatada con tiempo por la mayoría de los collaborations políticos reales de Lenin, una lucha para defender las conquistas revolucionarias de la revolución de octubre contra la casta conservadora orientada clase media encabezada de José Stalin.

Debemos leer-obreros, jovenes, otro/as luchadores por cambio social fundamental--esto para entender las luchas de otra revolución, seguida al ejemplo de Lenin para intentar conducir trabajadores y naciones oprimadas a la libertad, la revolución cubana. Las discusiones aquí y en el trabajo de Lenin y de Trotsky (véase al series de libros llamados " la lucha de la oposición izqueirda" de os escritos de Trotsky) son casi idénticas de la discusión queErnesto Che Guevara planteó contra los modelos de estalinista en Cuba, y que han planteado Fidel y otros líderes cubanos para luchar en contra las fuerzas de la burocracia y otras fuerzas procapitalista en Cuba sobre los últimos 20 años. Esta lucha vive.

La ultima lucha de V.I. Lenín fue en contra de la burocrácia encabezada de José Stalin. A pesar de su enfermedad mortal , el líder bolchevique, conjunto con León Trotsky, co-dirigente de la primera revolución socialista , Lenin lucho desesperadamente en defensa de las fundaciónes económicas del primer estado obrero, en defensa de una politica internacionalista en contra el echauvinismo de los nacionalidades oprimadores, en contra de los privilegios burocraticos, y en defensa de la democracia proletaria. En otras palabras, luchó por la politica simplemente verdadera comunista. Este libro se pueda leer casi como una novela porque las notas de los editores. El libro tiene los documentos fundamentals de esta lucha contra el burocratismo pequeña burgues que se llama cientificamente el estalinismo-el opositivo del comunismo-que eventualmente derrumbó-- "como un meringue" dijo Fidel Castro-en los finales de los 1990s

The documents in this book are not some attempt to change history, but the documents of the last political struggle of Lenin's Life, a political struggle that was continued in the struggle of Trotsky, a political struggle that was joined eventually by most of Lenin's actual political collaborations, a struggle to defend the revolutionary conquests of the October Revolution against the middle-class oriented conservative caste led by Joseph Stalin.\ This battle had a number of fronts. Its great spark was over the question of Georgia and the Great Russian nationalist approach Stalin and his henchmen took against the heroic communists and people of Georgia. This is quite important as in this discussion Lenin developed a policy similar to affirmative action in the accompanying works by Lenin on that national question. The other front was over the encroaching bureaucracy who aimed at smothering the revolution, and against the idea that this was simply an administrative task involving better organization rather than the social struggle Lenin saw this as, to bring 'workers from the bench' as he said into the struggle. Finally, this became a struggle to remove Stalin from command of the party to block his crude bureaucratic threats against Lenin himself. These documents were suppressed in the Soviet Union during the Stalin decades, but published by Trotsky and other supporters of real Leninism in the 1920s and 1930s. The introduction and glossary and notes make the issues understandable. With the former Soviet Union and China still ruled by the old Stalinist clique of bureaucrats, now mixed with naked profiteers and gangsters (not that the bureaucrats were anything other than profiteers and gangsters themselves back to the days Lenin and Trotsky battled them), the origins of their struggle, and the direction needed to preserve the goals of working people are clear. Stalinism didn't grow out of a life and death struggle against Leninism. It was not for nothing that Stalin murdered almost every member of the Lenin's central committee. It was not for nothing that the big business governments of the US, Britain, and France favored Stalin's victory in this struggle. They wanted to kill the great October revolution that Lenin and Trotsky presided over. We should read this to understand the struggles of another revolution, still following Lenin's example to try to lead workers and oppressed nations to freedom, the Cuban Revolution. The discussions here and in Lenin and Trotsky's work (see the struggle of the Left Opposition series of Trotsky's writings) are almost identical to the discussion that Che Guevara raised against Stalinist models in Cuba, and that Fidel and other Cuban leaders have raised to fight bureaucracy and procapitalist forces in Cuba over the past 20 years. This struggle lives.
Also recommended: Che Guevara Speaks, History of the Russian Revolution, Changing Face of US Politics, Revolution Betrayed

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While I may or may not agree with the other reviewers' suggestions, I am puzzled by one thing: their inability to call things by their name. I am specifically referring here to their use of terms like "Fascists" or "Nazis". Is the war in Iraq being fought by "Republicans"? Was it the "Nixonites" who committed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam? The Germans may be trying to whitewash themselves - and they have indeed been doing so since the end of the war - but why is the rest of the world playing by?

Otherwise, I heartily recommend Kruk's compelling book to anyone interested in 20th century history - and the general history of mankind as well.

This is a deeply affecting work, compulsively readable, yet always painful to read, account of the slow garroting of the Jewish community in Vilna. From one page to the next, one is amazed (even now) at the viciousness of the Fascists and the humanity, ingenuity, courage of those they oppressed. God and the devil are both in the details and Kruk gives us plenty of all three.

Herman Kruk was a librarian. Even as the Vilna [Vilnius] ghetto was reduced to inhuman conditions, Kruk risked his life to smuggle books into the public library he set up. While the Nazi regime tried to reduce Jews to a subhuman status, with harsh labor, restrictions, and eventual extermination; Kruk helped to initiate literary contests, plays, and lecture series. His diary reflects the intellectual and cultural activities of the ghetto, as well as the minutiae of the library.

Kruk's diary is an overwhelmingly human document. His tears for the destruction of his beloved Warsaw and the personal horror felt when hearing rumors of the massacre of Jews elsewhere in Europe are not diluted or diminished by his desire that his diary become a publicly read record of the destruction of Jewish Vilna.

Quandour has excelled again with this uniquly massive but very readable novel of the new Russia. It flows beautifully from its first pages to the last and the thrills and conflicts in it are so real and so exciting you cannot put the book down. The author, who must have had first hand experience of the Yeltsin years in Russia has superbly explained how so few managed to gorge themselves on the wealth of Rusia; how they managed to steal fortunes and become zilionares overnight. It took the rockefellers and Rothchilds of the world hudreds of years to accuulate the wealth these Russian oligarcs managed to steal within a short period of a few years. A shameful chapter of our history no doubt but still, Russia survives all intrigues and rebuilds its strngth to become once more a giant in world economy. The Yesltsin American advisors nearly brought our country down to its knees during the terrible years of Yeltsin. The book is full of revelations and truths about the evnts of the period. But it is also a grat read and a great entertainment.

I have read most of this authors works, some of them in Russian translation. I have to say that this work rates as the best, or maybe as good as his 'Kavkas Trilogy'. It is an exciting revelation of what happened in Russia during the Yeltsin years (1990s). I r3commend it to all my compatriots but also to those in the West who want to know truths about how Russia was nearly taken over by ethnic oligarchs supoported by American interests.

Very few novels or books have been written about the Yeltsin period and what really happened in Russia during the mid Ninties. This historical novel is gripping and exciting in its narration of actual facts but conveyed within a fictional format to avoid causing embarrasment. The culprits are, afterall still alive and in power. I think it is a must read for all Russia watchers. But it is also a great entertainemnt which grabs your imagination and does not let you put it down to the final page. I look forward to more titles from this amazing author.

Someone once asked Chekhov why he didn't write novels. He said that he did, but none of them was over 12,000 words long. These are some of those 'novels'. Each one of them has an intellectual and emotional heft that will blow away most full-size novels. They are like magic tricks, lots of very serious clowns climbing out of an impossibly small car. Chekhov was not the first modernist, but he was probably the greatest.

Have to agree with the previous reviewer, this is Chekov at his best. It is interesting to see that he matured from writing serial comic stories to such sustained narratives full of compassion and sympathy for the human condition. A friend of mine once said a writer really needs to live in a place for a long time and observe people floating in and out of that context in order to be able to write good narrative. Well I feel these stories are the culmination of a lifetime of Chekov observing the people around him, their hopes and their disappointments, how their lives arc across the passing of years. And it feels true and straight from life, without mannerism or affectation or judgment, the various heartbreak and apathy and small joys of Chekov's characters, these are recognizable as fundamental and immediate to our lives.

I can't think of who can rival Chekov's characterization. A man in "An Anonymous Story", a somewhat spineless bureaucrat and hanger-on who makes fun of his wife and children while among his friends (but whom one can imagine being extremely tender to them in person), he often sits at a piano and fingers hackneyed tunes. But then there is a moment when everything we have known about him becomes transformed, and that glimpse carries the burden of years of disappointment and failure; and he is a minor character in the story!

In the last story of the collection, "The Ravine", a character says: "We can't know everything, how and wherefore...and so it is ordained for man not to know everything but only a half or a quarter. As much as he knows to live, so much he knows." Chekov states beautifully in these stories what it means to be human, our weakness, frailty, and blindness. I'm not sure what good it does us. Make us more cognizant of suffering and sadness (like the Japanese concept of mono no aware)? To what end? I don't know. His is a beautiful statement of it, at any rate.

Since the previous volumes of the Modern Library Chekhov were titled Early and Late (with the Late ending with his death), I had thought that they were the complete series. My review on the Later Stories actually had a small complaint that precisely these longer stories were missing.

Well, this is wonderful: everything essential from his short stories (that I've come across) is in these three volumes - making them, I suppose, the greatest collection of short stories every printed. I wish the Modern Library would publish them in paperback, like they did with the six volumes of In Search of Lost Time - I think there's still an audience, although the fact that I found Karlinsky's edition of Chekhov's letters in the bargain bin at my local bookstore (an independent, literary bookstore, no less!) has further lowered my faith in the existence of a large, intelligent American readership.

In any case, publishing more books like this is a small first step in creating one: people who think that anything praised as literature today must be either pointlessly obscure or unconcerned with the real business of life will find an author who'll make it clear why we bother distinguishing between art and trash at all. Reviewers, instead of holding up the masterpiece of the month, may want to take the time to point out wonderful re-issues like this.

This intelligent and kind man all too often falls through the cracks of history. People forget that there was a completely different school of socialist thought that existed concurrently with the ideas of Marx. Kropotkin, like many others who believed in the ability of people to make their own economic relations, had the distinction of being persecuted by people on both sides of the political spectrum. Yet his book is remarkable for its lack of self-pity or resentment. The book is dense and full of the musings of a highly educated man of the late 19th century who indulged many other interests besides politics. His journey is remarkable, and we can only hope that he will become better known.

This work by Peter Kropotkin's is, I say this without reservations, a work of genius and an amazing reflection on the life of an amazing man. Kropotkin's stories of his childhood and his relations with his servants and other lower-calss individuals (he was born a prince) are very interesting, as are his tales of exploration. His version of anarcho-socialism is very intriguing, largely because he bears no hate or grudge towards anyone and he is a very gentle man. In his book, it becomes clear (without him saying it, of course) that he did not recognize just how unique of a man he was. This book is filled with marvelous anecdotes, from cutting political commentary to fascinating stories of journeys down the Amur River to a splendid little collection of stupid Russian Spy stories. This book is fantastic.

Prince Piotr Alekseyevich Kropotkin, 1842-1921, was a Russian geographer and anarchist. He came from a wealthy princely family and as a boy was a page to the czar. Repelled by court life, he obtained permission to serve as an army officer in Siberia, where his explorations and scientific observations established his reputation as a geographer. After returning to European Russia, he became an adherent of the Bakuninist faction of the narodniki and engaged in clandestine propaganda activities until arrested in 1874. Two years later he escaped to Western Europe, where he worked with various anarchist groups until his imprisonment in France (1883). Pardoned in 1886, partly as the result of the popular clamor for his release, he moved to England and spent the next 30 years mainly as a scholar and writer developing a coherent anarchist theory. In his most famous book, Mutual Aid (1902), he attacked T. H. Huxley and the Social Darwinists for their picture of nature and human society as essentially competitive. He insisted that cooperation and mutual aid were the norms in both the natural and social worlds. From this perspective he developed a theory of social organizationin Fields, Factories and Workshops (1898) and elsewherethat was based upon communes of producers linked with each other through common custom and free contract. Returning to Russia following the February Revolution of 1917, he attempted to engender support for a continued Russian effort in World War I and to combat the rising influence of Bolshevism. Following the Bolshevik triumph in the October Revolution (1917), he retired from active politics. Consistently nonviolent in his anarchist beliefs, Kropotkin,as both thinker and man, was admired and acclaimed by many far removed from anarchist circles.

Very interesting insight into the mind of a strong woman that lived long ago. Human nature never really changes does it? :-)

Catherine the Great has long suffered from mixed press. Jeesh, I mean there was the fact she almost certainly had her demented husband, who just happened to be the Czar, conveniently snuffed, she enacted brutal laws in retaliation for a wee bit of disloyalty on behalf of the Russian peasantry, and, well, let's not forget that nasty rumor about how fond she was of horses. Ahem. But you know, this was also one of the greatest rulers in Russian history, a pen-pal of Voltaire, hand-picked agent of Frederick the Great, and above all else, an improbable survivor against whom the deck was stacked pretty high.

I think Catherine used these memoirs to sway the public's feelings about her. That's a nice way of saying I suspect the ol' gal fibbed a time or two. But so what? This is still an invaluable first-hand account of a time and place about which we might otherwise have known far less than we do, but for courtesy of her gifted prose. Sure, Catherine wasn't perfect but she wasn't a monster, either, as so many other Russian rulers have been. She had a good sense of humor, she liked to read and she made an art of political pragmatism. Catherine also tried to do what was right (especially what was right for her) and early in her reign, this German on the Russian throne brought about a number of amazingly liberal reforms that ended laws that were suffocating Mother Russia, even during the Age of Enlightenment.

I say, let historians debate all they want, Catherine deserved to have her say and her point of view is privileged. If for nothing else than the details of her era, this memoir is worth its weight in sable and caviar.

This rather large collection can be very absorbing in spite of its "pedestrian" style. Even a bad translation (which it likely was not) couldn't be an excuse to call it good writing, but memoirs are not really known for being Pulitzer material. "Alibiographies," these are sometimes called, and the stories in "Memoirs" are very often told by Catherine to make herself a favorable picture. As historian Will Durant says about the work, it is not so much false, as it is partial. Truthfully, though, it would be hard to name any other autobiography that did not do the same. The most glaring difference between "her version" and the "world's version," for example, has to be her thoughts and descriptions of her husband, Czar Peter III. The reader will find this easy -- and interesting -- to spot all through the memoirs!

Durant also implies, though, that Catherine's memoirs fills many gaps, at least as material for further reading. No matter the partiality shown in the book, it is blindingly clear that Catherine was head and shoulders above almost all her contemporaries in intelligence, energy, curiosity, and shrewdness.

A word of personal annoyance with this book. It took more than three-quarters of the pages to run across the telling of her first non-husband love relationship. Even then the fateful paragraph was extra-long and in an unexpectedly different style, and had to be read twice to catch on. All that work for so little naughty information!

This a beautiful and evocative book. The photographer really got all over the country and he really caught the essence of the Russian people. Every image is stunning and tells a story.

It's got a permanent (and prominent) place on my coffee table!

Motherland is a fascinating insight into Russian life and people. As someone who has never been to Russia, I was particularly impressed with Roberts' accessible and open style, which allowed me to experience the surprising diversity and beauty of Russia from the comfort of home. I know that Roberts and his wife spent a year traveling across this enormous territory and their knowledge, sympathy and regard for the country really shines through. The photographs are sensitive but unsentimental, honest but never critical. For me, Roberts' Motherland opened a door onto another world; I haven't seen a better photographic representation of contemporary Russia.

A friend sent me a copy of "Motherland" as a gift, knowing that I had spent eight years in Russia prior to returning to a more predictable, "normal" (boring) suburban American life two years ago. I have not been back to Russia, since, though my wife is Russian, and two of our children were born there. As time passes, memories of the Russia I became a part of begin to fade; images of the people I met and places I visited begin to blur. But what time and a failing memory have taken away, Simon Roberts' "Motherland" has helped to restore.

Russia is not as tragic or desparate as the nightly news would have us believe, and much of what Roberts in his travels with his wife has managed to capture is the softer, more human side of the country that would simply never make the editor's cut. While some of his photographs do capture the desparation of a country in painful, often violent transition, he also uncovers the hope and dignity of the people they encountered on their journey. The honesty he is able to coax from his subjects and onto the page is very unusual. What passes for ordinary or every-day in Russia is what for me in many ways is the real Russia, and Roberts manages masterly to capture the true essence of the country, with all its warts and beauty.

Roberts and his wife spent a year traveling throughout the vast country, riding trains, mixing with locals, and going to places that ordinary tourists - or even those of us who spent most of our time in the expatriate ghetto of Moscow - would never dream of venturing. In the process, they seem to have come away with an intimate understanding - and empathy - for the people and places that make up "the other" 99% of the country. Roberts' photographs seem to be taken from the inside looking out, not the other way around. In the process, he has, for me, captured in this book the essence of what is so often referred to as the "Russian soul." It's what I miss the most.

Mary is taking you to the Stalin era... in imagination I lived her life while reading the book..When I went to Moscow it felt as if I have already been there.

A great account of how people lived in the Soviet Union during Stalin's rule. The advantage of this book is that it gives you the facts in such a way that it is up to you to decide whether or not the author is right in her conclusions. I strongly recommend this book for both academic and private reading for I believe it is one of the most unique books ever written about the lifes of regular Soviet citizens.

Although I have read a number of books on the Soviet Union, much to my surprise, I found myself totally absorbed by Mary Leder's odyssey. Starting with her travels across the US, and thence to Birobidzhan (Siberia), later asked to spy and, of course, spied upon, I believe Ms. Leder spins an eloquent and gripping tale. From Mary the dedicated communist to Mary the disenchanted one, from Mary the factory worker to Mary the editor-translator, she paints a totally honest and courageous picture of herself and her travails and those of so many of her fellow citizens. I recommend this book highly.

I would like to ask every person who read this book to help me find the german version of it. It would be very important for my father to have it. Maybe one of the readers knows where to find it. Thanks for your help...

This is a superb, well researched, highly organized, and very readable biography of an important Russian emperor. The author provides an indepth description and intelligent analysis of Nicholas' personality and character, the emperor's orientation to autocratic rule, Russian political, economic, social, and cultural history during his reign, and the importance of the political, economic, and social influences of Western European nations on Russia. Lincoln goes much beyond just presenting a chronology of events, by explaining why historical events happened as they did. The final epilogue nicely places the reign of Nicholas in the broader context of Russian history that preceded his reign and the events that would unfold subsequent to his time. My only slight criticism of the book is that maps were not included. Nevertheless, it is one of the best historical biographies I have ever read. Lincoln's larger worker, The Romanozs is equally terrific.

Nicholas I has always had a bad press in Russia as well as abroad. The Russians considered his regime to be harsh, riddled with contemptuous foreigners, in short 'un-Russian'. This image was created by exiles such as Herzen and Bakunin, and reinforced in communist times. In the West, Nicholas rigorous opposition to political novelties like constitutions and republics did little to improve his public relations. Lincoln sets out to make clear what made this remarkable man 'tick'. He does that by commencing his biography with the Decembrist revolution, which gave a clear indication of the new tsar's state of mind. Time and again, the two key elements of Nicholas' reign are called to mind: autocracy and legitimacy. Lincoln has produced a convincing, and very well-written, biography of Russia's most important tsar of the nineteenth century. I am uncertain whether this or Nicholas V. Riasanovsky's _Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia_ is the best biography of this man, but Lincolns extensive references appear to tip the scale in his favour.

For better or for worse, for richer or poorer, this is the real Nietzsche (who is the only philosopher worthy of the name since the pre-Socratics). At last he is rescued from the preposterous distortions of some of his English interpreters, primarily the egregious Hollingdale and the even worse Kaufmann.

The book consists largely of wholesale quotations from the man himself, on various themes. I have read enough of N. to know what he is really all about and have seen most of this before, and much more along the same lines as well, but seeing some of these statements laid out in a row like this makes the author's case crystal clear and nearly indisputable. What is astounding is that anyone could have ever taken him any other way. Sometimes the obvious is the most difficult thing to see.

The stuff about the esoteric aspect of the Nazis will also be of some value to those not familiar with the existing literature on the subject, but is almost incidental to the real content of this book, which is to give us the esoteric Nietzsche.

_Nietzsche, Prophet of Nazism: The Cult of the Superman: Unveiling the Nazi Secret Doctrine_ by Abir Taha is a rather strange book which attempts to argue that Friedrich Nietzsche, the philosopher of the Superman, was in fact a Nazi (or proto-Nazi). Contrary to previous criticism of Nietzsche in English such as that of Kaufman and Hollingdale, which has presented a softened version of Nietzsche arguing that he was not a Nazi and indeed that his philosophy was in fact perverted by the Nazis, the author of this book contends that these readings are superficial and fail to make several important distinctions which lead to the inevitable conclusion that Nietzsche was in fact a Nazi. This book regards Nazism as having two components, an exoteric component which focused specifically on German nationalism, biological Aryan racism, and anti-Semitism and an esoteric component which focused on elitism, a spiritual form of racism (a racism quite distinct from nationalism in actuality), and a spiritual anti-Semitism. The exoteric component was best exemplified by the S.A. and the esoteric component was best exemplified by the elite of the S.S. In addition, the esoteric component was linked closely with the occult. The author makes two important distinctions which have enabled her to show the superficiality of previous Nietzsche scholarship. The first of these is the distinction between racism and nationalism. While the Nazis were indeed "racial nationalists", it should be noted that they were racists first and this means an international ideology which focuses on the master race and not merely a nationalistic ideology. This can explain Nietzsche's many disparaging comments towards "the Germans", in that he was opposed to the weakness of the German nation but not the superiority of the Aryan race. Secondly, the author disguishes later in the book between two types of anti-Semitism. On the one hand there is the traditional Christian anti-Semitism (which Nietzsche disparages in his writings) and on the other there is the elitist aristocratic anti-Semitism (which Nietzsche advocates). This distinction again shows how Nietzsche's previous writings have been superficially interpreted. The author contends that there have been three possible interpretations of Nietzsche in the past. The first of these is that Nietzsche was indeed a Nazi (advocated by Alfred Bauemler, Nietzsche's sister, Elisabeth Foerster-Nietzsche, and Anthony Ludovici, as well as the Marxist scholar Georg Luckacs). The second is that Nietzsche was partly Nazi (advocated by Crane Brinton, Arthur Knight, and William Bluhm). The third is that Nietzsche was anti-Nazi (advocated by Walter Kaufman, George Morgan, the Marxist scholar H. Lefebvre, and Karl Jaspers). Those in the anti-Nazi camp claim that Nietzsche's anti-nationalism, his opposition to the Germans, his opposition to the anti-Semites, and his anti-statism make him contrary to the Nazis. However, as the author shows in this book, these understandings of Nietzsche are mistaken and based on a superficial understanding of Nazism (failing to recognize the distinction between the exoteric and esoteric Nazi doctrines).

The author begins this book by noting the role of the Superman (or Ubermensch) in Nietzsche's philosophy and bringing to light the revival of Aryan paganism. The advent of the Superman or "God-man" had long been hoped for across the myths of all traditional cultures, and this ideal was merely given form by Nietzsche's philosophy and later by the Nazis. The author notes the role of paganism in esoteric Nazism (emphasizing the writings of individuals such as Hitler, Himmler, and Rosenberg) as well as in the philosophy of Nietzsche. The goal of Nazism appears to have been the breeding of the Aryan "God-man" or Superman as advocated by Nietzschean philosophy. The author also notes the role of Greece in both Nazi belief and in Nietzschean philosophy, emphasizing for example the role of the titan Prometheus, believed to be the progenitor of the Aryan race. The author also discusses the Aryan myth and the role of Atlantis in the creation of that myth. The author also distinguishes between the Aryan Christ and the Judeo-Christian conception of Christ, as seen in both the philosophies of Nietzsche and Nazism. The author also notes the role of the dread eternal recurrence in Nietzschean philosophy. Next the author turns her attention to morality, and the role of Nietzsche as immoralist who sought to go beyond good and evil, and thus a progenitor of Nazism. The author notes the hatred of Nietzsche and the Nazis for the Judeo-Christian foundation of modern civilization. Both sought eagerly the death of God and his replacement by the Aryan Superman. As immoralist, Nietzsche sought to overcome all "slave morality" to adopt "master morality" by transvaluating all values. The same idea was carried out by the Nazis in the way they embraced radical evil. In addition, the author discusses Nietzsche's conception of the Will to Power, showing how this conception played out in the worship of the Will by the Nazis. The author next turns her attention to the aristocratic worldview, emphasizing Nietzsche's and the Nazi's elitism and hatred for the herd. The author shows both the hatred of Nietzsche and the Nazis for socialism, liberalism, and humanism, the values of the herd. The author shows how both Nietzsche and the Nazis advocated the extermination of the weak and unfit while at the same time advocating a system of eugenics to breed the Aryan Superman. This emphasis upon a cult of blood was to play out in the worst horrors of the Nazi Third Reich regime. Finally, the author turns her attention to Nietzsche's anti-Semitism, showing the distinction between Nietzsche's anti-Semitism in regarding the Jews as a race (the ultimate decadents) to be exterminated and earlier anti-Semitism which regarded the Jews as a religion. While Nietzsche attacked those weaker anti-Semites who came before him, as was seen by scholars such as Kaufman, he also advocated a more pronounced form of anti-Semitism which led to the creation of the Nazi state.

This book offers an interesting reading of Nietzsche's philosophy and an interpretation of it which is sure not to please many in academia. While I believe the author leaves out much, such as Nietzsche's break with Wagner or many of his personal letters, this book nevertheless provides an interesting take on Nietzsche's radical aristocratic philosophy. In any event, it offers a unique study of Nietzsche independently of many of his modern interpreters.

Friedrich Nietzsche is probably best known as the philosopher who "killed" God. However, Abir Taha offers a new vision of him, one that involves the Nazi occult thought, which she details in her groundbreaking new book, Nietzsche, Prophet of Nazism: The Cult of the Superman; Unveiling the Nazi Secret Doctrine.

"From times immemorial, humanity has dreamt of creating the perfect man, the `God-man' or `Superman'. Yet this cult was only clearly expressed in the philosophy of its modern prophet, Nietzsche, and culminated in its fiercest supporter, the National Socialist ideology, a political religion whose main ideal and objective were the creation of a superman species," Taha says.

Her book, Nietzsche, Prophet of Nazism, unveils what she calls "The Nazi Secret Doctrine" or "Esoteric Nazism." According to Taha, this doctrine is "purely Nietzschean in character." Through her book, she draws a clear distinction between the hidden Hitlerian thought, which was "aristocratic, supra-national, spiritual and universal," and the "exoteric, popular, vulgar version of Nazism," which was based on Pan-German nationalism, socialism and racism. Taha reveals the "spiritual pagan Aryanism" she found inherent in both doctrines.

By taking this stance, Taha has created a unique, intelligent and innovative portrayal of Nietzsche and the Nazis because the book shows both the real Nazi doctrine, which "goes beyond nationalism and biological racism," as well as Nietzsche's "hidden eugenicist, spiritual and universal Aryanism." Taha explains each in detail while establishing a clear, direct link between these two doctrines by analyzing Nazism in the light of Nietzsche's philosophy. From religious beliefs to views on power, morality and superiority, the book exposes the seams that Taha believes hold the two ideologies together in world history.

A unique portrayal of the link between one of the most controversial philosophers and one of the most enigmatic political groups in history, Nietzsche, Prophet of Nazism reveals the depths of the spiritual, racial and political dynamics of their philosophies and the impact they have had on the world.

For more information, visit the book's web site.