Ireland Books

First, in the interest of full disclosure, the author of the book is one of my business partners -- a business that has nothing to do with the subject matter of this book. I would like to believe the author and I have the sort of relationship that allows me to be honest about what I think of his book. I must however momentarily stop and think about the wisdom of that belief. The author is considerably more senior than I am in our firm, and he commands substantial respect from his fellow senior partners. The influence he has on the portion of my career that has not yet occurred is not lost on me. I'm certain he appreciates honesty, but perhaps he may not appreciate such public honesty -- on the internet which is both very public and very permanent.

At this point, I've no doubt led you to believe that I found the book factually inaccurate, uninteresting, or simply poorly written. I must admit that I was in fact hoping that would be the case, but alas, it is not. Some background and context appears in order. I've known the author, as my business partner, for a number of years, but did not know he was the author of a book. I learned of this accomplishment while we, as part of a small group, were touring the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland. While being told about various ships and the commanders who took them into battle, I casually inquired of the author whether he knew much about maritime history. With perfect fluidity and timing, and while maintaining his gaze in a direction other than mine, he casually remarked that he had written a book on the subject. When I further inquired how he found the time and energy for this type of endeavor, he replied simply that "I don't golf." This short exchange motivated me to get my hands on the book so that I could identify and point out what I hoped was its many shortfalls.

Well, that's the context; here's my review. First, for those who care about data, I was quite simply amazed at the depth of research in the book. I cannot vouch for accuracy of the data, but knowing the author quite well, I would find it hard to believe he would pen his name on a book that didn't undergo considerable review and rigorous critique. This book is the perfect gift for the loved one in your life who desires facts about tonnage, displacement, or the exact placement of the mast on a particular ship that no longer exists. I must confess that I find this type of data, and the people who find it interesting, to be rather uninteresting. There is a time and place for learning these facts, but -- to use the words of my favorite living writer, Joseph Epstein -- that time and place is reserved for some knotty pine bench in hell.

Moving along to the quality of the writing, I must unfortunately confess I found the book very interesting -- in fact a proverbial page-turner. It is, and I do hate saying this, extremely well written. The fact that the aforementioned data and facts are weaved into such a well-written story makes the writing remarkable. The author captured my interest from the start, and held my occasionally morbid curiosity, throughout the book. Being a linear reader who does not look ahead to the end of a book, I was surprised and disappointed when I came upon the end of the story with considerable pages remaining in the book. The remainder of the book being reserved for those who desire even more data and further evidence that the author had in fact derived all that data from scholarly sources.

Overall and on a very serious note, the real story in this book is unfortunately that there is sadly no shortage of mind-bending evil in this world. As a child of holocaust survivors, I tend to avoid books and movies on that particular subject and era. This aversion is due in part to my father telling me that words and pictures cannot come close to depicting the horror he experienced, but is mostly due to the anger it generates in me. The evil and resulting horrors described in this book are less personal, but do not invoke less anger. Stones that witnessed the atrocities do in fact cry, and the ships that played such a huge role in the evil have indeed left wakes. It is important to understand this evil and learn from it -- especially today, as we learn to make sense of a world that has to some degree lost both its mind and humanity. The author has done an excellent job applying his well-known wit and keen articulation to create a factual story that enables us to learn from our past so we can better deal with our present to create an improved future for the children we will leave behind. Well done Mr. Bollinger.

This is a well researched book, relatively short with extensive appendix material on individual ships. It provides compelling evidence the US was duped into supporting the convict labor camps in Siberia. It isn't able to answer the question of whether of not people in the US knew this was happening, but some of the circumstantial evidence is, to say the least, intriguing. The only downside is that the author takes a scholary tone to the work which understates the dramatic elements of the story. But overall a fascinating tale, and very well documented.

I'm the author. I appreciate Raymond W. Jensen's kind remarks and his positive review of my book. A few mistakes crept into his review regarding the loss of the ship Indigirka in 1939. Let me correct them, just to keep the record straight: Indigirka was sold to the Soviets in early 1938 (not 1930) and it was returning from Kolyma, not traveling to it, when it ran aground.

Thanks again for the review, Mr. Jensen.

P.S.: Amazon forces me to rate my own book in order to post this. Therefore, please disregard my review of "5" as hopelessly biased.

As an undergraduate in a modern Russian literature course, I read "Kolyma Streetcar" which was about an incident that ocurred on one of the "slave ships" which is documented in this book. As gruesome and disgusting as that account was, I had no idea that it was only the tip of the iceberg.

For example, in "Stalin's Slave Ships," it is documented that:
1. The "Indigirka," a ship carrying around 1000 slaves to the icy domain of Kolyma, capsized off the Japanes coast, around 1939. Approximately 750 prisoners drowned. Many could have been saved, had the crew not been so hesitant to expose a big secret to the Japanese rescuers. Incidentally, the Indigirka was built in Manitowoc, Wisconsin and was sold to the Soviets in 1930.
2. Many "lend-lease" ships lent to the Soviets by the US during WW2 (but never returned) were used as slave ships. Yes, US tax money helped finance the Soviet gulag system.
3. On one occasion, a riot broke out amongst the prisoners in the crowded hold on a slave ship. The guards quelled the riot using seawater-which in the Sea of Okhotsk at the time was at or below freezing. The ship arrived at its destination, Magadan, with a giant ice cube in its cargo hold, dead prisoners trapped within.
4. To relieve themselves while on these ships, prisoners had to use barrels, which often toppled over on the high seas. Many had to sleep on the floor.
5. While at port in Seattle, a slave ship was undergoing repairs for use in "lend-lease" shipments of supplies from the US to the Soviet Union, again, courtesy of the US taxpayer. Workers complained of foul odors coming from the hold of the ship. Of course, they did not know what these odors were from.
6. One source tells of a contingent of US prisoners of war, from World War 2, who were being sent to gulag labor camps. A cleaning woman in a camp risked her life (and ultimately lost it) by getting names of American POWs written down, to smuggle out of the country. The document was not discovered until recently, and it turns out that some of the badly mis-spelled names matched known US POWs.
7. Once at their destination, prisoners could expect a slow and cold death. One account documents a "procession of phantoms," "not human," heading for a boat in Magadan. Many were without noses, arms, legs. They were said to be taken out to sea and drowned. When temperatures go down to 50 below and prisoners are given inadequate shelter and clothing, severe frostbite takes its toll.
8. One account (from Solzhenitsyn) claims that several starving prisoners came across specimens of ancient creatures frozen in the permafrost, creatures like never before seen. What did the prisoners do? They "promptly ate them."
9. Some recent accounts tell of mass graves, tourguides even offering skulls and bones as souvenirs.

Bollinger offers some very solid research in this book. There is no exaggeration of figures, and whenever questionable accounts are given, they are labeled as such. I hate to use the old cliche, "this ought to be required reading in schools" but it ought to be. Perhaps you will agree with me.

Anna Funder gives a sharply cut and moving (in)human face to the now defunct German Democratic Republic by interviewing former Stasi members (the top, foreign spies, informants, organizers) and their direct or indirect victims.
In `a world where there was nothing to buy, nowhere to go, and where anyone who wanted to do anything other than serve the Party, risked persecution or worse', the Stasi's aim was to know everything about everybody with all means, even radiation. As the author poetically states: everybody had `a mirror Nemesis' in a Stasi department. The result was that everyone suspected everyone else and turned into an `internal emigration' for the sheltering of their secret inner lives.
In fact, the Stasi was a formidable organization (one informant for every 6,5 citizens) created in order to defend the government against its own people.
Anna Funder exposes the real Stasi mentality: `The most important thing you have is power" (Chief E. Mielke). Its colossal archives were partly shredded after the fall of the Berlin Wall (15000 sacks) and are being puzzled together. A truly Herculean task.
The author paints a society built on ideological fiction (human nature was a work-in-progress which could be improved by Communism) and on blatant lies (a multi-party democracy, no former Nazis, not responsible for the Holocaust).
But what is left after the collapse? A `Wall in the Head'. The victims are still heavily marked (psychological damage by the terrifying effect of total surveillance) and some Stasi men still hope that the Wall will be built again.

Anna Funder wrote a formidable evocation of life in a communist one party state protected by a wall.
A must read.

When author George Orwell wrote Animal Farm and 1984 he wrote of the contemporary and future 'proletarian' dictatorships. The German Democratic Republic, more than any other state before or since, came the nearest to a state of perfected and complete absolute control over its citizens' lives. The author of Stasiland, Anna Funder, has done a suberb job of revivifying this state in her readers' minds through the personal stories of the GDR's inhabitants. I got this book for Christmas and had it read in three days, so good I never wanted to put it down.

The book's chapters trace the lives of various GDR citizens, both those being oppressed and the Stasi personnel charged with terrifying the GDR's people into abject submission. In Soviet Russia there was one KGB agent for every 5830 people, in Nazi Germany one Gestapo agent for every 2000 people, but in the GDR there was one Stasi - or full-time informer - FOR EVERY 63 PERSONS (see p. 57)!

Funder hears shocking tales of personal tragedy, bizarre - but true - stories of GDR logic, and personal justifications from ex-Stasi men themselves. One 15-year-old girl singlehandedly, without any prior planning(!), almost manages to escape over the Berlin Wall, getting within a couple meters of freedom. Another family is permanently separated from their seriously ill son for his first five years of life. And one woman's personal and career life is ruined when she refuses to submit to ideological control.

The author also interviews some famous GDR personalities, such as musician Klaus Renft, the evil-spirited Karl Von Schnitzler, and Hagen Koch (who literally wrote the plan for the wall). She also interviews the puzzle people trying to piece back together the shredded Stasi files. And she also meets with Stasi agents, who for one reason or another, decided to join the 'dark side'.

As I was reading the book, I couldn't help but become absolutely convinced that, despite the very publicized efforts of the German gov't to piece back together the Stasi files, in fact, German (and all other Eastern European) CURRENT LEADERS WANT TO COMPLETELY OBLITERATE EVIDENCE OF THEIR OWN CRIMES DURING THE COMMUNIST REGIMES. The fact of the matter is that many of the former communist elite are still in power now and are using all their gov't influence to ensure they are never, EVER going to be outed! So, in reality, many of them have gotten away with murder and look set to lead comfortable lives into retirement. Many times throughout the book I sensed a continuing cover-up and obfuscation by former Stasi men.

The German government's extremely feeble, half-hearted attempt to reassemble the Stasi files with a staff of 30 or so persons is an absolute farce! Funder calculates it will take them over 300 years to reassemble the files at this rate. With a budget in the billions of euros, it becomes patently obvious the German government's objective is to NOT reassemble the incriminating files. A person might even believe that the Stasi File Authority is headed by a person, Herr Raillard, who is secretly charged by gov't leaders with eliminating any damning evidence that is actually found. This isn't a surprise, as it is the same across the entire former Communist bloc.

This is a great book with a wonderfully direct, realistic writing style. I hope Ms. Funder writes a sequel to the book. I would have liked to have seen some photos too, though. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in life in Eastern Europe.

Stasiland is the former East Germany, a country where the Stasi, the secret police, spied on every inhabitant, kept files on everybody, and seemed all-powerful. Anna Funder has written about the Stasi in a way that sometimes seems like fiction, other times like memoir, and ultimately like an exceptionally readable history.

The Berlin of Funder's book is post-Wall Berlin, but it is as gray and paranoid as the Berlin of John le Carre's spy novels. Funder seems depressed throughout, and it is no wonder. She spends all her time interviewing former "Ossis," East Germans who were victims of the Stasi or who were former Stasi themselves. Even her irrepresible rock musician friend reveals that his band was declared "non-existent" by the Stasi. The secret police were so thorough that he cannot find any evidence that his group, which recorded several albums and was quite popular in the East, ever existed.

Through Funder, we hear from Miriam, who nearly made it over the Wall at age sixteen, but was caught, jailed, and blacklisted. Shortly after she married, her husband was arrested, then the Stasi showed up at Miriam's door to tell her that her husband had killed himself. She refused to believe the obvious lie and the subsequent funeral was a bizarre farce. Decades later, Miriam is still trying to make sense of it all, still searching for clues to explain what really happened.

Frau Paul tells of her newborn son whose East German doctors risked their careers by smuggling the infant to the West because it was his only chance to survive a life-threatening condition. Frau Paul was denied permission to visit her baby unless she agreed to help the Stasi trap an acquaintance of hers. She desperately wanted to see her son, whose condition kept him in hospital for years, but knew that if she agreed to help the Stasi just once, she would be theirs for life. The child was well-cared for, but was growing up with only the hospital staff as his family. When he left the hospital at age six and returned to his family in the East, he was polite but distant with the parents who were strangers to him. Forty years later, Frau Paul still considers herself the traitor to her country and failure as a parent that the Stasi told her she was.

Not all of the stories are tragic. Funder learns of a woman the Stasi tried to recruit to spy on her co-workers. The woman agreed, then went to work and cheerfully told everyone that the Stasi had recruited her to be a spy. Since her cover had been blown, she was no longer useful to the Stasi. They never bothered her again.

Funder visits the office of the "puzzle people," workers who put shredded documents from Stasi files back together. The papers reveal who the Stasi was watching, what they discovered, and who the informers were. Ossis may now request to see their files, but many of the files have yet to be put back together. The director tells Funder that at the rate of an average of ten reconstructed documents a day per employee, it will take forty puzzle people 375 years to reconstruct all the shredded documents. And, he explains, "as you see, we have only thirty-one employees."

Little by little, Funder allows us to realize that the Stasi does not exist as a curious and irrelevant moment in history. The torture devices in the Stasi museum and the thousands of bags of shredded documents that recall the abuses of power are evidence of a government that still haunts the lives of millions of former Ossis. It had seemed so powerful, but when the end came for the Stasi, it was without violence in a peaceful revolution of people who were just fed up.

Anna Funder is an Australian writter who found herself in Berlin several years after the Berlin wall and Communism in former GDR (German Democratic Republic; or DDR in the German language) collapsed.

Through personal stories of former East Germans, Anna tries to put together a mental pictures of what life in former GDR was like. And this mental picture is a stark, dark, oppressive, and paranoid collage of people's lives' stories.

One will learn that East Germany was 'the most perfected surveillance state of all time,' where there was one Stasi officer or informant for every 63 people. The book covers the national formation of the GDR regime and also discuss the cultural background of why Germans were willingly subjecting themselves to authority. The best torture method devised by the Stasi was sleep deprivation. With all this and more, the author makes the point that the regime would not have survived without the Soviet military muscle and presence.

The book also presents some light and funny trivia: the quasi-scientific method of 'smell sampling' used by the 'Firm' (Stasi), the East German silly dance style called 'Lipsi' and the corny or mind-numbing propaganda TV shows.

Interviewing people who lost loved ones in the evil regime's prisons, persons who taught counterintelligence classes for the Stasi, who worked as informants or undercover policeman, students who tried to escape across the Berlin Wall, and persons who are still believers in the 'proletarian' revolution and are nostalgic about the values of the former Socialist republic.

By reading this ecclectic biography collage you will learn about German cultural values, GDR political and idiological history, the Stasi (one of the most feared secret police organizations). Stasiland also shows how much the Stasi archives ruined many lives in former East Germany.

A recommended counter-balance to the gloomy and depressing theme of this non-fiction is the romance/drama/comedy movie "Good Bye Lenin (2003)."

Ms. Mumm provides important insights to the lives and motives of women in Victorian England who chose to enter the uncharted territory of active religious life in a world which not only frowned upon the notion of an independant woman but also one where it was illegal in the church for a woman to express herself thus. It was amusing to discover the ruses which some Mothers Superior devised to circumvent attempts at episcopal and clerical control. Given the difficulty in procuring access to documentation where it survives her work is an important step to futher understand an often unknown aspect of the not too distant past as seen through the eyes of women. It is all too often assumed that women both Anglican and Roman Catholic chose the cloister simply for pious reasons alone when the true picture was far more complex. This is a book that needed to be written.

I found Susan Mumm's an inspiring overview of early female Anglican orders. I was amazed at their flexibility in membership and was really surprised at the idea you did not have to be a member of the C of E or even a Christian. In addition they demonstrated such open mindedness in not dismissing anyone from their ranks for illegitimate birth. This was unique for a time when appearance and propriety were everything. These women seemed have inherently understood the true goal of life's journey.... the individual's realization of her own salvation in this case, in a community of like minded women.

What I found significant was S. Mumm's inability to get information after, if I am correct, 1915. It appears that these creative women were followed by those less inspired and perhaps more inhibited. I found it tragic.

As a young teen I was inspired by the writings of Mother Kate SSM and her efforts in the slums of London. The early efforts of these women lead to changes in education and nursing and inspired women to achieve outside the confines of the Victorian household. However, that dream appears to have been clouded and eventually lost. Few if any of the orginal Anglican women's orders kept that first creative life and inspiration. That is unfortunate.. but perhaps not.. perhaps they have finished their work or need to hear the sound of the trumpets again.

Often, scholars presume that we "know" x about a particular subject, only to discover that our knowledge is based on half-truths or, worse, mere prejudice. Susan Mumm's project in this book is to rectify our remarkably scrambled understanding of Anglican sisterhoods. Notwithstanding the work of sociologists and historians like John Shelton Reed, Geoffrey Rowell, and Nigel Yates, Victorian Anglo-Catholicism has not been an intellectual growth industry. Mumm's book is both a useful contribution to a not-overcrowded field, and an excellent introduction to a promising area of research.

As she herself admits, Mumm skimps on the theology behind Anglican sisterhoods, dwelling instead on their missions, internal politics, and conflicted relationships with the Protestant mainstream. Contrary to what may be the expectations of some, Mumm finds that "first-wave" Anglican sisters did not necessarily join religious communities out of deep piety; instead, they saw the communities as the best route to careers in fields like administration, teaching, nursing, and social work. Thus, at least in the beginning, the impulse behind such communities could well be dubbed quasi-feminist. By contrast, "second-wave" sisters were far more likely to join out of strictly religious considerations, something that put them into conflict with older members of the community. Not surprisingly, this rise in purely religious vocations coincided with the spread of secular career opportunities for women. Mumm also finds that these sisterhoods were far more successful than their male counterparts, in terms of dedication and pure longevity, and that their missions to the poor have been seriously undervalued by previous scholars of Anglo-Catholic history. Finally, Mumm does a good job laying out the basic Protestant objections to the sisterhoods, which range from the sexist (women were "unfitted" for such independence) to the sexual (sisterhoods were anti-family and anti-marriage).

The only problem with the book is one that was beyond Mumm's power to rectify: many sisterhoods either left no records or refused to allow her access to them. Readers may therefore wonder about the extent to which her sample was actually representative. Nevertheless, this is a minor quibble about an important piece of scholarship.

Religious Life, Victorian-era convents of nuns -- most peoplewould likely jump to the conclusion that this book is about totallyregressive (not to mention repessive) institutions.

Instead, Susan Mumm sets out to examine the phenomenon of a movement situated in an age and time of few opportunities for women, a movement run and directed by women, which offered them more than ample scope to found and direct important institutions, to live independent of the control of men and of families, to decide upon their own lifestyle and establish a corporate life which fostered individuality, education and creativity. Susan Mumm describes surprisingly enlightened practices among Anglican Religious -- members ecouraged to keep up with their reading and their own interests, communities which invested on behalf of each entrant in case she should ever decide to leave, so that an annuity might be provided... Anyone acquainted with a religious order knows how unique each individual in that community is, contrary to common stereotypes: this book is utterly fascinating in that it sketches out how enlightened the administration of Anglican Religious life in the nineteenth century really was. Quite an education! And extremely readable.

In 1945, 19 year-old Robert Hilliard and 25 year-old Edward Herman, two GIs stationed on an army base in Germany after WW II, were so distressed by the conditions they observed at the nearby St. Ottilien DP Camp they started a massive letter writing campaign to the American people. Ultimately, the contents of the letter came to the attention of President Truman and played a key role in reversing US policy towards the Jews. An excerpt from their lengthy letter reads:

At the hospital of St. Ottilien there are today 750 people including a staff of doctors...attempting to preserve the life they find it hard to believe they still have. Four months ago this same hospital was being used to care for German soldiers. At the same time there were thousands of Jews roaming Germany, sick, tortured, wounded, without food, clothing or help of any kind. One particular group was led by Dr. Zalman Grinberg. For months he has tried to obtain aid for these people. The Germans refused him. The local governments refused him...For these people the Red Cross, UNRRA, the various Hebrew organizations were, although present, nonexistent. If they are to survive the coming winter they need shoes...they need sheets and blankets...medical supplies...the necessities of life and they are depending on you to get it for them. The intolerable situation of the Jews having to beg the Germans for food exists...We are writing to you for you are the only ones that can help...These surviving Jews of Europe want to live. The fact that five children have already been born at St. Ottilien is proof enough."

Like a pebble thrown into the water that creates ripples far beyond what the eye can see, these two young GIs poured out their hearts in a letter to the American people that continues to make waves decades later. Surviving The Americans: The Continued Struggle of the Jews After Liberation is the miraculous story of the role Bob and Ed played in saving the lives of the Jews of St. Ottilien and changing and improving U.S. policy toward all the DP camps.

"Surviving the Americans" is a shocking and powerful book that recounts the mistreatment of Holocaust survivors by American occupying forces in Europe after World War II. The author, Robert L. Hilliard, was an American soldier stationed in Germany in 1945. This book is Hilliard's account of what he saw and the steps that he and others took to improve the conditions in the DP camps.

After World War II ended, the survivors had no place to go. They could not return to Poland, Germany, or wherever they came from, to resume the lives that they had before the war. Very few survivors were allowed to emigrate to America. Some wanted to enter Palestine, but that was not a realistic hope, since the British had set up a blockade to keep the Jews out.

In Germany, the United States Military Government (USMG) organized DP camps for the survivors. Life in these camps differed from concentration camp life in one key way. The inmates were not sent to gas chambers. However, they were deprived of basic necessities, such as food, medical supplies, and clothing. The Americans surrounded the camps with barbed wire, and some people who tried to leave the camps were shot. Ironically, many survivors of the concentration camps died from malnutrition and disease in the DP camps because of the neglect that they suffered at the hands of their American "saviors." Ironically, known Nazis received plenty of food, decent housing, and jobs, while displaced persons lived in subhuman conditions.

Hilliard focuses on a hospital, St. Ottilien, located in northern Bavaria, in which hundreds of survivors struggled to live from day to day with little food and inadequate medical treatment. Hilliard was conscience-stricken by the conditions in St. Ottilien. Soon, he and his buddies were doing everything that they could to smuggle food to the residents of this hospital. Eventually, Hilliard and a fellow G. I. named Edward Herman sent a famous letter, describing the conditions in the DP camps, that found its way to President Harry Truman. Truman was outraged; he ordered Eisenhower to end the American soldiers' abuse of the Jews in Europe.

"Surviving the Americans" is an informative, provocative, and very unsettling history lesson. It is the compelling and unforgettable story of a few men of conscience who were willing to break U. S. military laws to do what they believed was morally right. As Hilliard says, the world must never forget what happened here, and we must do whatever we can to protect our fellow human beings from those who would destroy them.

I admit this book truly astounded me. If what you know about the end of the war is the Marshall Plan, that the U.S. rebuilt Europe, you have much to learn!

After V-E Day, the end of the war in Europe, the American "Zone" became a destination for many who hoped that from the Americans, help and kinder treatment would be found. Could that be far from the truth?

Dr. Hilliard, now Professor of Communications at Emerson College in Boston, was there. What we don't know, and now must face, is that very little was done for many months after the war for D.P.s (Displaced Persons), Jews, survivors of the Concentration Camps (Jews, political prisoners, intellectuals). In fact, there was no "official" hospital to take care of those who required such medical assistance, and it took some ingenuity and subterfuge to create one. And, in September, after an article appeared in the New York Times (then a true paper of record), President Truman had to order Dwight Eisenhower to provide more assistance in the U.S. Military Zone to the survivors of the Holocaust and the Third Reich, officially....Eisenhower comfortably situated in Paris.

After V-E Day, during what GIs called "National Lorelei Month", many American soldiers were killed by unrepentant Nazis and Germans if they dared venture (armed or unarmed) from the safety of U.S. installations. Meanwhile, Germans played the black market with crafty soldiers interested in making money, bartering for sex with women (many of whom undoubtedly had lost their husbands and boyfriends to the Reich), and occasionally, supplying an unauthorized hospital which is the focus of this book.

Some 7,000 U.S. personnel lost their lives after V-E Day to the "Werewolves" recruited by Himmler and his disciples in the S.S. (Schutzstaffel), but THIS story is even more obscure and less known. It should be read by anyone interested in peace and the problems of the aftermath of war, as we find almost perpetually somewhere across the globe at any time--not only in the Middle East.

It is a sad story, but a hopeful one, because there are always some who will risk all to help others, and THESE are the meritorious whom we should really honor. These men (some of whom, unfortunately, Dr. Hilliard could not name) also belong in Yad Vashem, for they are the righteous.

This is an extremely important work, one that should be read by everyone who has any interest whatsoever in World War II in general, in the Holocaust and its aftermath, or in how the liberating American forces dealt with the 'problem' of what to do with the Jewish survivors of Hitler's death camps. It will make the reader reassess the accepted historical view of Americans as the saviors of Europe after World War II. Author Robert Hilliard was a young enlisted man stationed in Germany at the end of the war. Hilliard takes up the cause of helping the freed concentration camp survivors after attending a 'liberation concert' staged by Jews and hearing the speech of a Jewish doctor who has set up a hospital to care for the freed Jews. He learns that though the Jews are free, in most cases they have nowhere to go, no food, no medical care,and no clothing. Many are still wearing their concentration camp clothes months after the war ends, and some are even wearing the clothes of the hated SS guards because they have nothing else. In addition, Jews are dying with startling regularity at the hospital due to lack of food and medical supplies. To make matters worse, they must watch the 'former' Nazis who ran the country under Hitler resume their old lives, despite the evils they have perpetrated. Hilliard finds that American policy in Germany is little better than that of the Germans. Many Jews are kept in barbed wire installations, under MP guard, and have to try to live on 700 calories a day. They watch the former Nazis ingratiate themselves with the US brass through bribery, lies, and sexual favors. Hilliard and his friend Ed Herman decide to do what they can for the hospital, and this book chronicles their efforts. By the end of the book, they take their plea all the way to the top, and are instrumental in changing US occupation policy towards the freed Jews in Germany. Because of the actions of these two enlisted men, President Truman in effect reprimanded Gen. Eisenhower for his laissez-faire attitude in dealing with former Nazis and treatment of freed concentration camp survivors. The book is well-written, and could easily have run hundreds of pages. Hilliard has crafted a lean and powerful book. I hope that it will be read by many students of history, and I recommend it to any person who is not content to accept the sanitized, for-the-masses packaging of complicated historical periods.

Stuart Clark explains the thinking that produced the panic about witches in the seventeenth century and why the panic occurred when it did. He argues that witches should be understood as an expression of demonology, that is, thinking about demons. Traditional thinking divided the world between God and the devil, an opposition that explained everything in science, history, religion, and politics. These four categories organize the book. In each of them, Clark discusses how oppositional thinking accounted for how things worked, how things happened, how things really were, and how political relationships functioned. The book is exhaustively researched, citing authorities in all the major early modern European languages and cultures, and at the same time responding to recent scholarship about witches and language. The latter is important because of the binary thinking that Clark identifies at the heart of demonology. Few historians are as familiar both with traditional sources and with postmodern thinking about historical thinking. This is a fascinating and rewarding book. I read it straight through.

When discussing the impact of women in European society, witchcraft inevitably enters the forefront of study. Many authors have discussed the crimes and punishments of witches, but Stuart Clark's Thinking With Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe breaks away from the traditional format. Rather than focus on witchcraft itself, Clark writes about the idea of witchcraft; he concludes that the concept of witchcraft was an integral component in the general intellectual life of early modern Europe, woven into the scholarly debates about the key issues of the era. According to Clark, the emphasis was on demonology, which was a "composite subject consisting of discussions about the workings of nature, the processes of history, the maintenance of religious purity and the nature of political authority" (viii). To encompass this broad nature of demonology, Clark divides the book into five separate yet overlapping sections - Language, Science, History, Religion and Politics - each of which expresses a relatively simple argument. In `Language,' Clark discusses the antithetical nature of rhetoric and discussion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; this permitted the discussion of witchcraft as the natural malevolent balance to proper behavior. The section titled `Science' argues that demonology was part of the advancement on science, rather than an obstacle or adversary to it. Magic, both good and evil, was assumed to be part of the natural world, and subject to the scientific investigations of the time. `History' details how the people were easily convinced of the activities of the devil and his minions through the increasing emphasis on the apocalyptic vision that the world was in the Last Days. `Religion,' which focused mainly on the writings of the clergy, essentially demonstrated that the religious powers of Europe believed that witchcraft was a sin against the Lord, and involved illicit dealings with the devil. Finally, `Politics' presents that view that the power of the king was based upon his inability to engage in witchcraft. Essentially, since a monarch was conferred power through divine right - meaning the ruler was empowered by the Lord - he was inviolable and therefore immune to the effects of witchcraft.
Thinking with Demons continues with the examination of women and their relationship to criminal behavior, as was introduced in The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany by Ulinka Rublack. The most fascinating aspects of this book dealt with the importance of duality in early modern Europe, particularly in regards to the masquerade. Such dualism, and the perception that it was natural and important to society, is a fascinating concept to consider. Such a system of duality, in which everything is "distributed between a column of positive (or superior) terms and categories and a column of their negative (or inferior) opposites" (38) would seem to be an important tool in explaining the gender-based hierarchies that evolved in society.

With "Thinking . . . ," Clark has produced one of the most important history books of the 20th century. Clark voices ground breaking views of a vastly misunderstood phenomenon - the evolution and prosecution of witchcraft in the early modern period. This book is meticulously researched and well written.

When discussing the impact of women in European society, witchcraft inevitably enters the forefront of study. Many authors have discussed the crimes and punishments of witches, but Stuart Clark's Thinking With Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe breaks away from the traditional format. Rather than focus on witchcraft itself, Clark writes about the idea of witchcraft; he concludes that the concept of witchcraft was an integral component in the general intellectual life of early modern Europe, woven into the scholarly debates about the key issues of the era. According to Clark, the emphasis was on demonology, which was a "composite subject consisting of discussions about the workings of nature, the processes of history, the maintenance of religious purity and the nature of political authority" (viii). To encompass this broad nature of demonology, Clark divides the book into five separate yet overlapping sections - Language, Science, History, Religion and Politics - each of which expresses a relatively simple argument. In `Language,' Clark discusses the antithetical nature of rhetoric and discussion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; this permitted the discussion of witchcraft as the natural malevolent balance to proper behavior. The section titled `Science' argues that demonology was part of the advancement on science, rather than an obstacle or adversary to it. Magic, both good and evil, was assumed to be part of the natural world, and subject to the scientific investigations of the time. `History' details how the people were easily convinced of the activities of the devil and his minions through the increasing emphasis on the apocalyptic vision that the world was in the Last Days. `Religion,' which focused mainly on the writings of the clergy, essentially demonstrated that the religious powers of Europe believed that witchcraft was a sin against the Lord, and involved illicit dealings with the devil. Finally, `Politics' presents that view that the power of the king was based upon his inability to engage in witchcraft. Essentially, since a monarch was conferred power through divine right - meaning the ruler was empowered by the Lord - he was inviolable and therefore immune to the effects of witchcraft.
Thinking with Demons continues the examination of women and their relationship to criminal behavior that was introduced in Ulinka Rublack's The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany. The most fascinating aspects of this book dealt with the importance of duality in early modern Europe, particularly in regards to the masquerade. Such dualism, and the perception that it was natural and important to society, is a fascinating concept to consider. Such a system of duality, in which everything is "distributed between a column of positive (or superior) terms and categories and a column of their negative (or inferior) opposites" (38) would seem to be an important tool in explaining the gender-based hierarchies that evolved in society.

I have owned this book for years (mine came with cassette tapes,not CDs!) and originally learned these airs on whistle and flute. I started playing the Celtic harp three years ago and have just begun arranging some of these lovely airs for that instrument, for which they are ideally adapted. It is a wonderful resource for material that is not widely available in other collections of Irish music, which as other reviewers have mentioned tend to focus on reels, jigs, and hornpipes.

O'Canainn is a piper, and these airs are written out exactly as he would play them, with authentic ornamentation. For that reason alone the book is a gem, for anyone who's trying to learn where and how to decorate Irish music in the traditional style.

This is a fantastic collection of slow airs (some of which you will recognize from having famous ballads set to them). It is also the only such collection in print that is easily available, as far as I know. Most collections don't include many slow airs, probably because they are musical prose compared to the musical poetry of jigs & reels, which tends to make a few airs go a long way (by this I mean they don't tend to have a repetitive theme or structure, or at least it is more subtle). Nonetheless they represent a wider emotional pallette than the generally jaunty dance music, and thus are an important aspect of traditional Irish music. The accompanying CD (available from 'Sheet Music Plus')features all the airs played on a single instrument. The intruments used are: guitar, cittern (bouzouki), bagpipes, accordion, mandolin, tinwhistle, flute, fiddle, oboe, saxophone, piano, harp, concertina, and vocals. You will note that saxophone and oboe are not generally heard in traditional Celtic music. Aside from demonstrating the tunes, the cd's make great minimalist listening, helping you get back to musical basics and providing a solid foundation for understanding Celtic music.

This is my favorite book of music for playing with my tin whistle(s). I am an intermediate player, and not fast, so slow airs are perfect for me. Many of the tunes are new to me and already I have grown to love the many melodies. The tunes range from a number of Carolan tunes to many traditional tunes, all of which have Gaelic titles. THere is no background information on any of them. I recommend this highly for whistle players who are beyond the beginnining, read music and want to learn beautiful melodies well suited to the instrument. Many other instruments I am sure could use this music book, but I have little background in music so will not render an opinion in this regard. THe subtitle to the book does say, "Suitable for All instruments."

I have been playing these slow airs for a couple of years now. They provide an excellent introduction to a part of traditional Irish music that is often overlooked at sessions where you tend to hear and play reel after reel, along with a few jigs thrown in. Of particular interest is the accompanying double tape set that goes with the book. Here Tomas gives you the title, many in Gaelic(so non-Irish speakers can mangle them infront of their freinds) as well as providing some beautiful examples of sean-nos singing. In fact, itis this singing style that is the basis of the slow airs as many of the tunes do have lyrics which you can follow-up on. I had a particularly successful experience with Mo Ghile Mear, which my band perform regularly. The tunes can be played on any tradional instrument, with the tunes in D and G. One drawback of the book is that only the basic note structure is written out with very little room for interpretation which you will have to do yourself - preferably from reputable performances true to sean-nos style. This problem is also evident on the tape recordings as the notes are played strictly as writ without ornamentation and without any room for pulling the music around. Fortunately there are many recordings of these tunes that bring the written music to life. Enjoy their beauty!

This is by far the most difinitive and best work I have ever seen on the subject of medieval history. Without it, the entire discipline would suffer, as it has for centuries up until the publication of this book. It makes books like Ermengaard of Narbonne pale and hide behind their little awards. Easy to read and highly enjoyable, I recommend everyone buy this book.

This is by far the most difinitive book on the subject of medieval history i have yet encountered. Easy to read and highly enjoyable, I recommend it to everyone in the entire world, whether or not they have any knowledge at all of medieval history. Without this book the discipline would be stuck in an intellectual dark age, as it had been for centuries up until this publication.

This book was truly stunning in its comprehensiveness and ease of reading. I was amazed and could not put it down until I had read it cover to cover. Unlike many books in its field, it focuses on important information, not convoluted thoughts like the use of bear paws. I recommend this book to everyone.

Having taken several courses on Medieval History, I find Daileader's book to be very insightful. It is amazing how similar his insights and conclusions are to those of my professors. I believe this work is truly a great addition to the field.

Matilda of Canossa was one of medieval Europe's most iconoclastic characters. Her life and events are not widely known in America, but she was as much responsible as anyone for the political environment that engendered the Italian Renaisance. Matilda not only was involved in most of the great conflicts of her day, and was allied with or against men like Pope Gregory VII, Duke Robert of Normandy, and Henry IV of Germany; she also, by reason of these conflicts and alliances, came to influence the institutions these men represented. Certainly unusual for a woman, this was unheard of for a woman without a strong power base, a legitimate inheritance, or even significant military influence.

Michele Spike's treatment of Matilda is scholarly, but not pedantic. An attorney on sabbatical, Ms. Spike brings a quite skillful sense of drama as well as verissimilitude in relating events from the various sources purporting to recount Matilda's struggles, and manages to retain the readers' interest without making amateurish attempts at historical reconstruction. Spike is especially skilled at conveying the events of Matilda's life within the larger tapestry of Northern Italian politics.

I've just finished reading this compelling book about a woman who has shaped history. A history I had known very little about, and now understand what it means to us in today's world. I read the book as though I were reading an adventure story. Matlida's world stayed with me in my daily life as I walk and live in places she has been. I highly reccomend this book

Victorious warrior, careful scholar, profound believer, linguist, devoted lover, ruthless ruler and gentle nurse of battlefield wounded, the Matilda Michele Spike presents to us is a complex person, whose internal contradictions are as it were writ large across the history of Italy. She and her man Hildebrand, the adulteress and the unchaste pope, enforced clerical celibacy. The reforms by a Jew's descendant brought about the persecution of that people. They who so ardently desired to enshrine the power and glory of Rome caused its devastation. Together Gregory VII and the Tuscan countess were a formidable team, yet undone. But in the end, one woman's love triumphed, and the world has never been the same since. No wonder that another, much later pope ordered her body stolen and enshrined in St. Peter's, Rome, in a gorgeous sarcophagus by Bernini surmounted by his vision of Matilda, Athena-like in her power and grace.

The bishops of Rome certainly owe Matilda. It took her very formidable biographer to uncover just how much.

After reading this book, I had to ask myself, 'how is it that a woman who had such an impact on the church and western culture, has been unknown to me for all these years...and I consider myself a fairly bright and knowledgeable person. Where I've been?...Or more, WHERE HAS MATILDA BEEN???

A great read... I'd recommend to anyone (who wants to be "in the know")!

Jim Kauffman

I thoght this book was really good. Joan Lingard wasn't afraid to show you what things are really like. All in all it was EXCELLENT.

By John Pears Cleveden Secondary Glasgow Scotland.(Oban Drive Campus)

I'm still giving this 5 stars, though Across the Barricades was better. It was really good the way they become friends at the end.

What I enjoyed about this book was that it shows no matter how different people they can get along. Kevin and Sadie became friends in the end.

This is a book for young teenagers, set against the backdrop of Northern Ireland just before the outbreak of the Troubles.

The plot is simple: a feisty Catholic boy and a feisty Protestant girl, living in inner-city Belfast neighbourhoods separated only by a main road, lead alternate mischief-making expeditions into each other's territory until things get out of hand and a sacrifice, Romeo and Juliet style, is required to bring the sides back to their senses. The characterization is a bit perfunctory (Kevin is feisty; Sadie, on the other hand, is feisty) but the setting, leading up to the Twelfth, is well drawn. The book was written in 1970 and is unobtrusively matter-of-fact about being poor at the time: no-one has a phone, cars break down all the time, and chip pan fires play a prominent role. The police are not reacted to in an openly sectarian way, as you imagine they would have been if the book had been written only a few years later, but it's noticeable that the Catholic parents are spoiling for a fight with them more than the Protestant parents are. Missing from the book's even-handedness is any strong sense of the real asymmetry of rhetoric that you experience on the ground (Catholics are inferior, Protestants are oppressive): actions on one side are almost exactly mirrored on the other, and when the symmetry is broken it's done against type (the Catholic girl is painstaking, the Protestant girl is careless). The best parts are the set pieces: a trip to the zoo, a trip to the beach, and especially the climactic scene where, without it ever having been explicitly stated, everyone becomes aware that a big fight's coming up.

This is a slight revision of my review of the hardcover version. Such a good book should be affordable. Hiram Morgan's monograph is an excellent study for any reader interested in early modern British or Irish history. One cannot understand the contemporary Protestant versus Roman Catholic distrust, animosity, and cultural divide in Northern Ireland without understanding the English Tudor's racist Irish policy of colonization.

One of Morgan's major contributions is to put the causes of Tyrone's Rebellion into the even broader context of late 16th century Europe, where the Protestant-Catholic religious divide, intensified by the Catholic Counter-Reformation, shaped national and international politics, while at the same time, the centralizing tendencies of nations like England conflicted with the lordships of Ireland. Morgan places the England-Ireland conflict within the same overarching political and religious context as the Spanish war in the Netherlands. Catholic Spain supported the Irish rebellion.

The author is no polemicist. He has grounded his study in English and Irish manuscript sources and Spanish archives and supplied readers with decent maps, and an important revisionist interpretation of this crucial but strangely overlooked rebellion.

Tyrone's Rebellion was led by the controversial Hugh O'Neil, the earl of Tyrone. This outbreak was the culmination of growing Irish animosity towards intrusive Tudor policy, but as mentioned above, according to Morgan it was not mere "Tudor rebellion." Despite the Tudor's usually successful strategy of divide-and-conquer, the ignorance and heavy-handed tactics of Elizabeth I's English administrators managed to unite the Gaelic chieftans with the Anglo-Irish (English or Norman expatriates who had become "more Irish than the Irish themselves") in opposition to English plantation and pacification under the leadership of O'Neil. O'Neil was his own man, and Morgan refutes the old steretype that O'Neil was the "creature" of Elizabeth's court. The rebellion was fomented in 1593-94, broke out in 1598 Battle of Yellow Ford), and lasted until 1607 (after Elizabeth I had died, and been succeeded by James I).

Tyrone, the "arch rebel," ultimately came to terms days after Elizabeth's death, and went into exile (the famous "flight of the earls"). Robert Devereaux, the earl of Essex, and one of the queen's favorites, was not so fortunate. His personal ambition, military incompetence, and defiance of his majesty's orders cost him his life. While the fate of such elite persons (along with the great apologist of English policy - poet Edmund Spenser) is well known, one of Morgan's minor oversights, which is common in most books about this era, is a lack of attention to the appalling fate of the masses of English and Irish who were slaughtered on both sides of this early version of total war. Half of Ireland was destroyed. The result was famine, disease, and anarchy. The war cost the stingy Tudors a fortune in expenditures and debts. But England prevailed and secured Ireland from being a threatening base of operations for Catholic Spain or France. The "flight of the earls" - the "wild geese" - scattered throughout continental Europe, signaling the decline - but not the end - of Gaelic Ireland.

Hiram Morgan's monograph is an excellent study for any reader interested in early modern British or Irish history. One cannot understand the contemporary Protestant versus Roman Catholic distrust, animosity, and cultural divide in Northern Ireland without understanding the English Tudor's racist Irish policy of colonization. One of Morgan's major contributions is to put the causes of Tyrone's Rebellion into the even broader context of late 16th century Europe where the Protestant-Catholic religious divide shaped national and international politics. The author is no polemicist. He has grounded his study in manuscript sources and Spanish archives (Catholic Spain supported the Irish rebellion).

Tyrone's Rebellion was led by the controversial Hugh O'Neil, the earl of Tyrone. This outbreak was the culmination of growing Irish animosity towards intrusive Tudor policy. Despite the Tudor's usually successful strategy of divide-and-conquer, the ignorance and heavy-handed tactics of Elizabeth I's English administrators managed to unite the Gaelic chieftans with the Anglo-Irish (English or Norman expatriates who had become "more Irish than the Irish themselves") in opposition to English plantation and pacification under the leadership of O'Neil. The rebellion was fomented in 1593-94, broke out in 1598 (Battle of Yellow Ford), and lasted until 1607 (after Elizabeth I had died, and been succeeded by James I).

Tyrone, the "arch rebel," ultimately came to terms days after Elizabeth's death, and went into exile (the famous "flight of the earls"). Robert Devereaux, the earl of Essex, and one of the queen's favorites, was not so fortunate. His personal ambition, military incompetence, and defiance of his majesty's orders cost him his life. While the fate of such elite persons (along with the great apologist of English policy - poet Edmund Spenser) is well known, one of Morgan's minor oversights, which is common in most books about this era, is a lack of attention to the appalling fate of the masses of English and Irish who were slaughtered on both sides of this early version of total war. Half of Ireland was destroyed. The result was famine, disease, and anarchy. The war cost the stingy Tudors a fortune in expenditures and debts. But England prevailed and secured Ireland from being a threatening base of operations for Spain or France. The "flight of the earls" - the "wild geese" - scattered throughout continental Europe, signaling the decline - but not the end - of Gaelic Ireland.

A study on the influencing factors of key decisions made by Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone and events leading up to the 'Nine Years War" with England. Unlike many other works, there are references to key players in these events including the Earl's brothers Cormac and Airt as well as Hugh Maguire, Red Hugh O'Donnell, and others.
Hugh O'Neill, an Irishman who was taken into custody as a child and trained in the English manner, returns to Ireland. His eldest brother Brian dies leaving him taniste to the title of 'The O'Neill'. Political intrigue ensues when a rival family member claims the title for himself. Meanwhile, the English crown seeks to plant more settlers in Ireland. O'Neill takes the sword for England and earns his title 'Earl of Tyrone'
The temperament and willpower of a man largely ignored by the Crown comes into question as he is dogged by enemies and harrassed by the state. Further problems arise when English troops establish fortifications on his land.
The book becomes a study of the events and circumstances surrounding O'Neills decision to seek aid from the Catholic King Phillip of Spain and turn his back on the tyrannical and genocidal Tudor advance.
The tactics used by O'Neill while negotiating and fighting are the roots of 'guerilla warfare'. The successes at Clontibret, Enniskillen, and the Yellow Ford are mirrored by the Irish failure to win the disasterous battle of Kinsale.
As evidence for the author's conclusions, he includes a letter written by Cormac O'Neill, the Earl's brother, requesting aid from King Phillip II of Spain.
As the author is a historian, all references are cited.
2001 marks the 400th Anniversary of the Battle of Kinsale. This work is a must have for any serious student of Irish history.

A 'must read' for any serious student of Irish history. To fully understand why Ireland is in the political conundrum it is you must first understand where the divisions between religion and politics began. The Geraldine and Butler leagues implemented by Sir Henry Sidney are merely the start, the ineptitude of Tudor officials the catalyst, and the rising power of Hugh O'Neill and his confederacy of Irish Lords and Cheiftans who had been wronged by English policy the vehicle. This book paints the most vivid picture of the people and the events responsible for the conflict. A look at a rare letter written by Cormac Mac Baron to King Phillip II of Spain is used to re-enforce the arguments propounded within the text. The authour, a historian, has clearly done more in-depth research on the subject than any other author to date and accurately describes (for the first time ever) the true story of The O'Neill.