Ireland Books

Plakans' dictionary is well thought out and reads extremely well with supporting background material. A must for scholars and historians as well as the casual Baltic observer or student!

For anyone who is interest in the history of Latvia, this book is a MUST. The book does not go in great depth. But presents the reader with highlights of Latvian history, culture, and chronology. Most of the book consists of a historical dictionary. The historical dictionary, portion of the book, is interesting. After the dictionary, I would rate the bibliography as interesting and useful. It is 25-1/2 pages long.

This book is a MUST, for the Latvian historian.

Having stayed in 38 paradors in Spain, I found this book to be most interesting and illustrated with beautiful photographs; I only wish it had included a few more of the paradors. Many of our friends know that we are devoted to the Paradores, and now plan our yearly trips to Spain around them, so I consider this book to be an appropriate Christmas gift.

About 80% beautiful photos and 20% useful information, Historical Paradors : A Journey Through Spanish Hotels shows a side of beautiful Spain that most tourists never see. The photos of these stunning architectural wonders stir the imagination of the Old World and makes me twitch towards planning my next trip to Spain. This book is DEFINITELY coffee-table caliber!!! And if MadridMan of MadridMan.com likes it, it's GOT to be gooooood!

This review is necesary for understand the History Teory, it's more importand for thaformation of de Historian

This review is necesary for understand the History Teory, it's more importand for thaformation of de Historian

J.B. Bury wrote his "History of Greece" before World War I, but it was such a good overview of classical Greek history that the third edition was still being used as a college textbook in the late 1960's. Although only selected portions of the text were assigned reading, I read the book cover to cover and have kept it to this day. Bury writes in a lucid, easily understood style that entertains as it educates. Although Bury recounts campaigns and battles in stirring fashion, he does not neglect the Greek contributions to politics, the arts, and sciences. Except for his obvious dislike of the Spartan King Agesilaus, I found Bury to be fair and even-handed in his evaluation of the peoples and events that shaped Greek history.

I've read about 20 books on ancient Greek history, and this is by far my favorite of the secondary sources. Oddly, it was a college textbook -- otherwise, I probably never would have come across it. As I read more Greek History books, I always came back to this one.

Bury not only is an engaging author, but he doesn't ascribe to a 'special' school. History is not just economics and sociology, governmental systems, or great leaders. All of these elements of history are well presented. Furthermore, Bury has just the right mix of presenting history and of speculation, with an emphaisis on the former (as a textbook); nonetheless, his speculations and comments are thoughtful and outstanding. He is balanced. When he talks about tyrants, he went through the gamut of beneficial ones like Cleithenes of Sicyon, enlightened but despotic like Cypsalis of Corinth, and the usual bad ones.

As an example of his insights, he discusses how clever Cyrus II was (the man that tried to take over the Persian throne with Greek mercenaries, leading to the Anabasis), and how he at an early time made military innovations with the Greek phalanx he had as his mercenary army. Bury speculates how a Greek victory, putting Cyrus on the throne, would have been bad for Greece as a whole, since Persia would have an innovative and energetic king.

The book is full of facts. It is not a fast read. Noentheless, it is simply a great source book and very good reead for ancient Greek History.

Of all the books I've read on this subject, this one is by far the most impressive. Hennessy has managed to present an unbelievably fair account of how each community viewed the major events in Northern Ireland's brief but contentious history. Most books I've read have a slight nationalist slant, which is usually understandable. However, as an Irish American who has outgrown the simplistic version of the story, I find that too many of these books leave me with more questions than answers. Not so with Hennessy - there is more information in this single volume than in the combined weight of all I've read.

Be warned, however, that if you're looking for an easy read and a rough outline, this book will be way too much for you. It is absolutely nothing but the facts. But if you want to read one book that will give you the straight story, free of the media's distortions, the politicians' spin, and yesterday's version of Irish nationalism, PLEASE read this one!

Thomas Hennessey has managed to achieve a feat few have managed before him. He has created an informative, yet balanced account of the history of the Northern Ireland state. He manages to put across all viewpoints to the conflict, without allowing any one to prevail. For those who wish to read an unbiased, and highly informative account this is the book. Beware however those looking to find information to back up their prejudices - they won't find them here.

John R. Walsh and Thomas Bradley are a pair of expert history and religion teachers. They draw upon their considerable expertise in A History Of The Irish Church 400-700 AD, offering the reader a straightforward overview of the 300 year time span that characterized a true golden age in Irish art and an era when Ireland earned its lasting and justifiable reputation as a land of saints and scholars. A deftly researched study, narrated in a style as completely accessible to non-specialist general readers as it is to history scholars, A History Of The Irish Church 400-700 AD is a welcome and recommended addition to Irish History and Christian Historical Studies supplemental reading lists and library reference collections.

There have, over the past several years, been many texts highlighting the unique contribution of the Irish church to the preservation of the church, culture, and general literacy and administrative strength to Western civilisation. This book by John Walsh and Thomas Bradley fits well in this genre, exploring the history of the Irish church from the years 400-700, roughly corresponding to the time period from the fall of Rome to the beginnings of medievalism in Europe.

During this period, Ireland was saved much of the trouble caused during the general collapse of the Roman Imperial establishment and way of life across Western Europe, as such Imperium had never been established in Ireland. Even the Christianity that was brought over assumed a different character pastorally, academically and liturgically from its British and Continental sources. Walsh and Bradley begin with a brief chapter on Christianity prior to the advent of Patrick, and then devote three chapters to looking at Patrick, the great apostle to the Irish, in terms of who he was, his mission and its setting, and the Church at Armagh.

Following this, Walsh and Bradley look at Irish monasticism, its origins in France and Britain, and the way in which monastic structures came to rival the more traditional diocesan pattern of church authority and administration. Different theories are advanced, including the possibility of plague and the fact that Ireland lacked the secular Diocletian-instituted settings of administration the Continental church co-opted. Walsh and Bradley also look at the character of Irish monastic life liturgically, architecturally, administratively, and from a day-to-day living basis. Many leading Irish thinkers and saints came from the monastic tradition, and many of these leaders are highlighted.

Of particular note for Walsh and Bradley are Colum Cille, an Irish monastic who worked in Britain, and Columba, who saw as his mission field the areas of Continental Europe. Colum Cille was the first great Irish missionary abroad. Colum Cille might have had royal positions had he not turned his attention to the church instead. His upper-class connections likewise might have provided a respectability for the church among the royal and aristocratic classes, and ultimately providing it with an authority beyond simple moral authority. Colum Cille continued as a monastic to be involved in secular affairs, perhaps even being the cause of battles and strife such that he was driven into exile, where he established the community at Iona, famous to this day, and mother monastery to other famous places, such as Kells.

Columba is a very accessible person, having been a prolific writer who established communities and schools with libraries across the continent. Columba's missions took him all across Gaul, and into Italy and Germanic territories. His influence went even further afield, as did that of Irish monasticism generally, as people from Britain and the Continent decided to be trained and educated in the monasteries in Ireland, and then return to their homes with such influence as would be gained there.

Walsh and Bradley conclude by exploring issues such as the Easter-dating controversy and the wider issues it raised for local autonomy and diversity over against central authority and uniformity of practice, and by looking at the unique character and qualities of Celtic art as expressed through Irish Christian artists. Celtic crosses and illuminated manuscripts are but a few of the magnificent productions of this period.

Overall, this is a well-written and engaging book, meant for the casual reader as well as the general scholar. It includes a few endnotes with each chapter, and a bibliography arranged with general titles as well as resources specific to each chapter and topic covered. There are several basic but useful maps highlighting locations in Ireland, Britain and Continental Europe of monasteries, missions, and other important landmarks.

Columba Press (name for St. Columba, 'the dove of the church') is a growing press based in Ireland, begun in 1985 with three titles relating to religious and spiritual themes. Since then, they have grown substantially and now publish across a broad range of areas, including pastoral resources, spirituality, theology, the arts, and history. With over 200 books in print, they add another 30 or so each year. Additionally, they are the British/Irish/European distributors for many other titles in the same fields.

This is the wonderfully affordable paperback version of Volume VII of Charles Oman's definitive study of the Peninsular War. In it, the Duke of Wellington, at the head of an Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish Army, crosses the French border as part of a larger Allied coalition campaign to end Napoleon's reign as Empereor of France. Wellington's campaign is paced by the on-again, off-again negotiations between Napoleon and the Coalition. A series of victories by Wellington's Army over the forces of French Marshal Soult are therefore never quite decisive. Wellington's Army, in addition, faced formidable challenges conducting an offensive inside France over difficult terrain and against a nominally hostile population. However, Wellington's task is made easier by Marshal Soult's seeming inability to manage his army in close combat, and by the slow wasting of what had once been a veteran French Army, as enthusiasm for Napoleon begins to dwindle.

Oman's mastery of his subject and of his prose is complete. The narrative flows smoothly. His retelling of the second siege of San Sebastian is remarkably vivid, capturing both the heroism and the horror of the final Allied storming of that fortress. His account of the confusing multi-day Battle of the Nive is clear and easy to follow. Oman highlights the remarkable tenacity of British and Portuguese infantry battalions that withstood a series of French counterattacks at unequal odds. Oman's narrative of the campaign across southern France is clearer than any other studies this reader is familiar with.

The primary focus of this book is the confrontation between Wellington's Army and the French Army under Marshal Soult. However, Oman does not neglect the campaign in Catalonia or the political background to the last nine months of the Peninsular War. Oman includes a nice concluding essay about the fates of the more prominent generals after the war, as well as an acknowledgement of the messy end of the conflict in Spain.

In this volume, the last of seven, Oman assumes that readers are already familiar with the history of the Peninsular War up through the fall of 1813 and the Battle of the Pyrenees. Oman does not recap the story, nor does he reintroduce personalities from earlier volumes. There is just a slight sense that Oman was pushing to finish a project that had already taken nearly thirty years.

This volume and series are highly recommended to dedicated readers of the Peninsular War and the Napoleonic era. The casual reader without background in the conflict may find this volume the wrong place to start.

Sir Charles Oman's comprehensive seven volume history of the Peninsular War is the yardstick by which any other history of this theatre must be measured. It is exhaustive in detail and in breadth of coverage. If it happened, it is in one of these volumes. Napoleon may have considered Spain a side show, but as results turned out it was a bleeding ulcer. French losses here, combined with the 1812 campaign, placed a strain on the Empire which could not be overcome by even the best generalship. Any true student of the Napoleonic Wars should find these books and read them. They are essential to a complete understanding of the conflict.

Reviewed by Johanna Granville, Clemson University, Clemson, SC USA

James Forsyth's History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581-1990 is a much needed addition to the extant literature on Soviet history. The policies of glasnost and end of censorship after the 1991 Soviet collapse have led to greater interest in the history of non-Russian nationalities. The dearth of reliable historical information on Russia east of the Urals is becoming increasingly clear as Siberia and the Russian Pacific littoral develop into a significant geopolitical and economic entity. Russia's expansion eastward may have been as defining for Russian society as was the United States' advance westward for American society. Thus, it is surprising that historians are just beginning to concentrate on this vast landscape. This is not to say that Western scholarship has completely overlooked Asiatic Russia, but there is still much work to do. In this ethnohistory of Siberia, Forsyth attempts to "narrate and interpret the stages in the conquest and exploitation of Siberia" (defined as "everything lying east of 60 degrees E and 50 degrees N") and "the place of this process in Russian and world history." Forsyth's narrative tends to emphasize the role of ordinary people--the inhabitants of Siberia--rather than of prominent decision makers. He raises several questions about the indigenous peoples of Siberia (e.g. Buryat Mongols, Yakuts, Tatars, Samoyeds, Tunguses, and Chukchis). What was the role of the native peoples, who up to the 18th century, inhabited Siberia? Who were they, and how did they live before the Russian invasion? How did the Russian invasion affect their lives? Has the fate of the Siberian natives been similar to that of the Indians and Eskimos of North America? Forsyth's main argument is fairly simple: despite the Leninist rhetoric that the Russian occupation of Siberia was a peaceful process and that it brought the indigenous peoples into contact with a "higher culture," the Siberian peoples in reality suffered a great deal from collectivization, "denomadisation," and the consequent destruction of their traditional cultures and occupations. The book is particularly strong on the early Russian conquest of Siberia after 1456 and the folk heroes like Yermak Timofeyevich who emerged in the process. Forsyth attributes the Russian success in subjugating the indigenous tribes to a number of factors: demanding tribute, trading ruthlessly for furs, dominating by superior numbers, spreading disease (especially smallpox), exploiting intra-tribal conflict, and employing superior firepower. For centuries after taking control of a certain Siberian tribes' land, the Russians would exploit that tribe by requiring them to pay "yasak" (a Turkic word meaning tribute). Yasak was often collected in the form of furs, such as sable, fox, and marten---as precious to the Russians as gold to the Spanish conquistadors in Mexico and Peru. Russian Marxist historians have made Yermak and the Cossacks into folk heroes comparable to the pioneers of the American West. (Just as the Soviet media routinely sanitized news about Soviet society, so historians also self-servingly rewrote history.) However, the actual record of the Cossacks and "voyevodys" may be closer to the genocidal campaigns of the Nazis in the occupied regions of Belarus and the Ukraine. According to Forsyth, these interlopers were "courageous but ruthless men-of-action, mainly belonging to the petty nobility." Both tsarist and Soviet regimes abused the Siberian territory and its aborigines. Whereas the tsarist regimes extracted yasak, furs, and minerals, the Soviet regimes built vast projects in the region that disrupted the environment and local way of life. Gold dredging threatened rivers, industrial pollution affected Lake Baikal, and projects such as the Baikal/Amur railway (BAM) caused ecological damage, while the KGB harrassed local people who complained. Overall, the book is grim on the future of Siberia. The native ethnic groups are still minorities in their own land. Forsyth believes that some communities may resort to creating reservations akin to the ones for Indians in Canada and the United States. The book is solid, but not flawless. Although it synthesizes multivolume ethnographic and historical works of German, imperial Russian, and Soviet scholars in one volume, the extensive bibliography will not benefit those who read neither Russian nor German. Moreover, Forsyth apparently has not worked with recently declassified archival documents, and his balance is skewed a bit toward the seventeenth century. Readers may also find the beginning section on geography extremely dry, and the multitude of ethnic groups confusing. Nevertheless, since the scope of this finely produced book is vast, and its subject very timely, it will indeed benefit both nonspecialists and general readers. It contains twelve useful historical maps of the Siberian region and fifteen illustrations.

Johanna Granville, Clemson University

This book may well be the very best history of the native peoples of Siberia and their conquest by the Russians in the past centuries.
Though the title is exaggrating a bit - with Siberia today having an overwhelmingly Russian majority population I don't find it more of a "colony" than the USA, Canada, or Australia, where natives have been even more outnumbered by European settlers - the book itself is very thoroughly-researched, amazingly up to date and is even fair enough to compare the current situation of the Siberian peoples to that of Northern minorities elsewhere.
No doubt, it is a somewhat disturbing read - but then so is the situation of these often diminishing ethinc groups even today.

Vilhelm Moberg (1898-1973) was one of Sweden's leading men of letters, chiefly remembered today for his peerless emigrant tetralogy. His Min Svenska Historia was his life's work, and only completed after his death. Published in Swedish in two volumes, this book is the English translation of the first book, taking the history of Sweden from prehistory, through to the Kalmar Union and the death of Queen Margareta.

Unlike most history books of the era, though, this one is written with a definite slant. Moberg became disillusioned with the heroic history that he had been taught in his school days, finding that the great men and women of Swedish history actually had feet of clay that made their enshrining ludicrous. Embracing socialism in everything, he sought to write a book that reached past the kings and bigwigs of history, and told the story of the peasants that made the country everything that it was.

The book is quite iconoclastic, poking fun at many people who figure large in other history books - kings, magnates, and Viking warriors. In many ways it is a book ahead of its time, refusing to genuflect before anyone, and making for some humorous and fascinating reading. My one complaint against this book is that this first book contains no index, which limits its usefulness for everyday use (though I presume that there may be an index in the second volume).

So, if you are interested in reading a history of Sweden that is not like any other, or if you are interested in reading the thoughts of the great Vilhelm Moberg, then I highly recommend this book to you.

Mr. Moberg provides us with an insight into history from some angles that are not often assessed by other authors in the field. In Volume 1, he covers Scandinavia from prehistory, to the Renaissance. Major points of interest: the Viking Age, the arrival of the Black Plague, the Union Of Kalmar presided over by Queen Margaret...when all Scandinavia was ruled by one crown, culminating with the Dacke Rebellion.
Moberg was not impressed by the the role of kings, aristocracy, or statesmen. He considered the common-citizens and their contributions to be far more sincere and significant to the growth of a nation. One chapter features a discussion of the study of ancient laws as a reflection on the conditions in a particular time and place. Moberg's two volumes are not so much a detailed chronology, but a collection of essays on varying subjects pertainent to the theme. This is the kind of book one can open at random and find something interesting in any chapter.

I agree with the review from the person in Berkley that this is a concise and precise overview of the topic. It's an excellent text for the college student (and general reader) wishing to study the issues in more detail and balance.

It raises many of the basic questions and points to how to proceed with the further research.

This crisp, concise, precise book contains the core of what you need to know about the rise and fall of Hitler & Nazi Germany. In a mere 100 pages, Jackel gives the essential facts and offers well-reasoned, useful insights about such important questions as what sociological forces brought Hitler to power, what Hitler's long-term plans were, what Hitler's personal role in the Holocaust was and when he began formulating his plans for genocide, etc. etc.

Scrupulously researched, well-written and well-organized. Read it in conjunction with Jackel's classic "Hitler's World View: A Blueprint for Power" and with Lucy Dawidowicz's masterly analysis "The War Against the Jews".