Bruno Books

This is certainly not my favourite book by B. Traven, and critics have often described it as "inconsistent." That said, it is still probably one of the best attacks I've ever read on corporate American culture.

It's about a U.S. oil company that's quickly expanding its drilling rights in Mexico, but is stopped short when it cannot purchase a key piece of land from a small Indian community. The rest of the novel details how the oil company tries to claim this land for itself, first by legal means and then through violence and corruption.

Thematically, this novel parallels Traven's short story "Assembly Line" -- in both narratives there is a clash of cultures between the technocratic Americans and traditional campesinos. And in both narratives, capitalism is depicted as force that promises great wealth for everyone, but at a great expense -- total dehumanization and the loss of traditional knowledge, values and customs.

Traven's sympathies are with the Mexican Indians, of course. But by no means does he portray the oil executives as "flat" or two-dimensional characters. One of the great strengths of this book, in fact, is that it shows how a wealthy oil president finds himself trapped in a cycle of overspending -- overconsumption -- and is therefore forced to pursue bigger business ventures, all in attempt to stave of insecurity and personal financial ruin.

The few inconsistencies in this novel -- which are minor and have to do with Traven's poor use of American slang -- do not detract from "The White Rose." His attacks on big business are incisive to say the least, and his description of rural Mexican life is vivid, realistic and flawless.

Mission Song works as a relatively light or thin Le Carre book, not even so much a spy story per se as something of a minor political thriller.

The narrator and main character, Salvo, is a Congolese of mixed (father white priest, mother native Congo) heritage, and finds he fits into neither African nor British society well. He finds himself a professional interpreter of a variety of languages and dialects, working in London, occasionally for the government, and on the borders of high society through his social climber wife. He is not miserable, but he is not happy.

A surprise gig comes up, interpreting for a conference between rival African warlords/power brokers, who may be putting together a plan that might just bring lasting peace and prosperity to just the corner of the Congo from which Salvo hails. He is whisked away to an unknown location, meets a variety of, um, interesting characters, and finds the conference wasn't quite what he expected it would be. Once the conference is over and he is back home, his disillusionment bubbles over and he tries, in vain, to cry foul, call attention to what he has learned, and generally see that good triumphs over evil. Like that's going to happen.

The strength of the book is without question the rich characters written by Le Carre. The narrator is a naive and foolish man, but he tells the story with self effacing humor and some degree of insight; almost all of the other characters are similarly richly drawn, have legitimate back stories and motivations, and act rationally, particularly Haj. Le Carre can still create absorbing and unique characters to people his plots.

The story line itself is somewhat thin. A quarter of the book is back story on Salvo, not hugely absorbing by itself; and a half is the conference. The balance is taken up with Salvo's attempt to do something positive with what he has learned. The whole thing would make up a decent short play, and the book is neither very long nor all that engrossing. It's a short story, quickly told and over with.

Since the fall of the Wall, Le Carre has taken it upon himself to moralize more and more heavily on the failings not so much of the Soviets, or Chinese, or Islamofascists or the like, but of the west. This book, though the usual indictment of the crass motivation of western money men and governments, benefits from the venality of almost every postcolonial African potentate as well. Aside from Salvo and his part-time girlfriend, there are no good guys. I suppose that for Le Carre we should consider that a type of balanced approach.

The book makes a fine read; Le Carre is a craftsman of the genre. But the subject matter is nowhere near as weighty as what one used to expect of the author. It is a better than average way to spend a medium length flight.

John le Carré's THE MISSION SONG is, as one would expect coming from le Carré, a thoroughly entertaining and also very well crafted novel. Some might classify it as espionage fiction, but though it touches upon the secret world of intelligence, this is really a novel of intrigue and suspense. It is not a conventional thriller containing lots of action; this becomes readily apparent when the centerpiece of the story turns out to be, of all things, a conference. To be sure, THE MISSION SONG's true strength is in being a character-driven story.

The main character is Bruno Salvador, a brilliant polyglot who has made a living out of his fluency in several African languages and in French. Salvo, as he's generally known, was the love child of a Catholic missionary priest from Ireland and a Congolese woman. A source of great pride for his loving father, he was an embarrassment to the Church--which both sheltered him and abused him--as well as to some Africans, who regarded him as a "zebra." Eventually, Salvo made the UK his home, and married an ambitious star reporter for a leading newspaper tabloid.

As the story starts, Salvo is freelancing as an interpreter for businesses and hospitals, and does part-time classified translation work for the British government. Salvo is called by Her Majesty's Government to take on a secret weekend job as an interpreter at a conference. At the conference a mysterious "Syndicate" conspires with some Congolese leaders, especially the charismatic peacemaker, the Mwangaza, to stage a coup in Congo. Salvo's sense of the moral rightness of the mission is suddenly and forcefully shaken to the core, and he must figure out what to do to stop the coup.

Though le Carré uses this story to comment on contemporary moral, social and geopolitical issues--e.g., neocolonialism, torture, immigration, and African unity--this novel is truly worth reading because of the very well written characters, especially that of the innocent and (almost too) naive Bruno, his keenly intelligent African lover Hannah, the various shady, government-associated people for whom Salvo works, and the African delegates to the conference (especially a testy representative known as Haj). The eloquence, wit, and nimbleness of le Carré's prose, especially his gift for creating realistic dialogue, is awe-inspiring. But lest THE MISSION SONG be relegated, then, to the less-read shelves of "literary" fiction, I am quick to add that it is a darned good story, too.

Although my sampling of audio books to date has been small, I found the audio CD version of this book to feature the best reading I've had the pleasure of experiencing so far. David Ovelowo's wonderful interpretation of the material so very well captures nuances in accents and dialects that I think the story came alive for me to an extent far beyond my capacity to imagine it independently as a reader. I felt very fortunate that I had happened to listen to this book rather than first read it. It's one of the few books that I would recommend buying in audio version over the print edition--*if* one had to choose.

I'm a fan of the "Russian" Le Carre, the novelist of the Cold War. For me, Gorbachev was the worst thing that could have happened to this wonderful writer. Africa is not a successful substitute and I think I know why. The author's great talent was for intrigue and conflicts of the heart. In a way, his books were studies in mood, certainly they contained ideas about betrayal and honor. They lifted the spy novel to new heights; they were cutting edge indictments of the cold war as an assault on the human soul. Africa, in the end, functions as an international arena for business and exploitation. There is virtually no mystery. Motivation? Isn't it very clear? "The Constant Gardener" is child's play compared to his masterpieces about George Smiley. This one is no better. You might call it the heart of darkness, without the heart and without the darkness.

Another in the long line of cold war and post-cold war John LeCarre's thrillers, again with the optimistic proposal that ordinary, sometimes unremarkable people, can achieve the extraordinary. Here we meet a top translator, son of a wayward Irish missionary and a native African girl. Salvo is well trained by the church fathers and develops his skill for languages, becoming a tool of Her Majesty's Government and its somewhat unsavory allies.

LeCarre sets this story in present-day London, introducing us to Salvo at a time when his marriage is dissolving, but his career and love life are skyrocketing. In a most unusual first person narrative, we travel the first 100 pages, with no clue where we are going. Apparently this is another day in the life of Salvo, until we land in the midst of a one day conference, with a goal of coordinating Congolese tribal leaders.

Salvo meets the tribal leaders who can barely communicate with each other and certainly not with their British and French hosts. It is determined that a coup is the best option, in order to finally free the nation of its oppressors of the last 500 years.

Of course, no one is who we think they are. Salvo has learned way too much about motives, double-dealing, and unforeseen consequences to let events transpire. The best part of the book is the last few chapters where our protaganist and his African girlfriend take a more active role than most top translators.

I had never read LeCarre before, not liking 007 type spy novels, but I enjoyed this book much more than I thought I would. A very current novel about the real situation of Western nations' attempts to strip third world nations of their resouces, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. The story centers around an English-living son of a Congolese woman and a white Catholic Missionary, a genius translator of European and African languages, who is caught up in a complicated plot to turn, with the help of powerful, self-interested tribal leaders, the valuable resouces of the Congo over to control of a British corporate syndicate. In the midst of this intrigue he falls in love with a Congolese nurse living in England, studying to go back and help her people. The forces of greed being quite powerful, the end was not entirely happy for the couple, but the author leaves us with a melancholy hope for later resolution. I learned a lot about North African problems from this well-researched book and it shed some light on much of the misery there that we read about in current news. An interesting, intriguing story, and a good read on several levels.

The Cisco CCDA is a highly respected Cisco certification, although not as popular as the CCNA. The CCDA certification was created by Cisco for professionals seeking the path of a network designer.

As one would expect, Cisco Press comes to provide another fine title that will help any CCDA candidate succeed in their path to conquer the exam. While there are quite a few study guides out there promising to help you, this is perhaps the only one written by Cisco CCIE's with more than 10 years of experience.

The book is populated with around about 650 pages and 20 chapters full of great information and material that will surely cover beyond the CCDA exam needs. Of course, as with every Cisco Press title, the book is decorated with a very nice hard cover and the well known white-dark green colour combinations.

At the back of the book, you'll be happy to find a CDROM containing more than 200 practice questions for the CCDA exam and the full text in electronic format so you can carry it with you wherever you might be.

Neatly organised, the chapters are broken down into 5 main groups of which each one covers a specific range of topics related to each other:

Group 1: General Network Design

Group 2: LAN and WAN Design

Group 3: The Internet Protocol and Routing Protocols

Group 4: Security, Convergence, and Network Management

Group 5: Comprehensive Scenarios

What really amazed me is that each topic discussed contains numerous examples and adequate diagrams to ensure the reader understands what its talking about. Various questions that might popup are answered in most cases, proving that the content has been thourghly reviewed so no gaps are left.

The authors tone through out the book is comfortable and helps the reading process no matter how long a chapter might be. At the end of each chapter, you'll find the helpful `Foundation Summary' that will help you quickly revise the key points on the chapter you've read and then comes the great Q&A section which consists of around 20-25 questions to test yourself on.

Overall, I admit the book has left a very positive impression. Easy to read and follow with plenty of examples, questions and answers to help you get through the CCDA experience.

If you believe that a book is a good companion for your professional success, then this one will surely become one of your favourite!

A well earned 4/5 without hesitation!

The exam has been significantly updated while the resources for it have not. This book is seriously out-of-date compared to the exam, and the exam is the reason you are looking at this book, right?

I recommend you look elsewhere to pass the exam.

I'm a big fan of Cisco Press material, which I bought to prepare the CCNA exam. I used this book for the CCDA exam and did not come even close to the passing score.

There's so much problems with that book, I don't know where to start. Its biggest issue is that it misses several key exam topics. Usually Cisco Press offers up-to-date complementary material to download from their web site. That's not the case here.

There are more issues. It's poorly written, so you get frustrated reading it and trying to figure out what the author really meant. Many sections are repetitive and some facts are simply incorrect.

I'll buy the other Cisco Press book - Diane Teare's DESGN - to get ready to repeat the exam. I believe that Cisco Press should simply no longer offer this book, stick to a single title for the CCDA and most importantly, keep it up to date.

There's a lot of interesting material in this book. It does a good job covering different LAN and WAN technologies, routing protocols and voice over IP technologies. The problem is that it doesn't cover the same material as the exam. I read this book cover to cover and studied until I knew the answers to all of the review questions in the book and on the CD. Then I went and took the test. I was very surprised by the material covered on the test, because it wasn't what I had studied at all.

Although it contains useful information but does not come close to covering the exam objectives. The new CCDA exam (640-861) tests extensively on design and other topics such as VoIP and IPv6. I read the book cover to cover, went through all the questions at the end, covered the scenarios, but all that prep just wans't enough to cut the mustard.

Having said that, I would say at least an order of magnitude better than Lammle-Brkl book by Sybex press. That was a complete waste of some unfortunate tree.

Going with Self Study guide and Top Down design by Cisco press. Use the Exam Cert Guide as a reference but don't rely on it to pass the CCDA test.

I first would like to say that this book is most definitely not for people with no programming experience (but you could have figured that out from the rest of the reviews)

I work at a video game studio as a scripter and am working my way up to become a programmer. I picked this book up a while back and just got around to opening it a few weeks back. The first section of the book was excellent in helping me understand the programming concepts used in video game development. But only because I was able to identify the absurd amount of syntax errors in the example that a beginner wouldn't.

I only had this book on my desk for two days before I was shamed into putting it far back in one of my drawers. It seemed that every programmer who noticed this book had something bad to say about it. Criticism of the choice to use DirectX to teach beginners how to program graphics have been the most popular. That is why I can't say anything about the book's effectiveness past the first section (so that's what gets 3 stars).

The review below entitled "A note from the author" below is from the author of the second edition about the second edition, mistakenly put on the first edition's page. That one sounds better but considering the author can't even do a shameless plug for his own book correctly... I wouldn't risk it.

first, the book was great . organized in text book fashion it would be great for a high school level course on game programming. Well organized and an easy read. The quizzes at the end of each chapter make for a good way to make sure you understood the material. (Note it Is not a reference book.. It is a tutorial)

What it is not, is a course on programming in 'c/c++' be warned. you either need to program in 'c' or be taking a course in 'c'. this is quite a departure from the first edition. This is explained in the books description so it is not false advertising or anything but unless you program in `c' or perhaps have a beginners `c' tutorial book you might get lost.

for me the problem is/was the software on the disk did not work on any of my computers. If you have access to a working c/c++ compiler this is not much of a problem, if not then it will be. about a dozen calls to the publisher remain un answered..

for the price the book is worth it. but if your new to programming and do not have access to your own compiler you may not get much use out of it.

one final thought. the book teaches the game engine allegro. It teaches only the 2d controls and functions - which I think is fine.. Allegro has tons of 3d functionality.. you will want to get a supplemental guide for this. One thing I disagree with the author on is that the trend in gaming is to 3d and that should have been explored.. Perhaps material for a third edition or an second course.

Harbour presents everything in a simple manner with very little presumptions. He provides useful information on entering the game industry and making money from your games. Although the cd can have some trouble installing, it still makes for an exceptional learning tool.

I think this is a great starting point for someone who already knows the basics of c++ and wants to learn the allegro library. The examples are pretty good and progress in a logical way.

I bought this for my 15 year old son. He says it is very informative.

"The Ghosts of Hopewell: Setting the Record Straight in the Lindbergh Case", Jim Fisher, Southern Illinois Univ. Press 1999, ISBN: 0-8093-2285-4, HC 161 pgs., plus 18 pgs. Notes; 10 pgs. Biblio.; 6 pgs. Index; and 20 B & W Illus.-Photos. 9 1/4" x 6 1/4".

Author Fisher, both law graduate and former FBI agent (albeit but 6 years), writes again after some 18 years of studying the Lindbergh case. He previously authored "The Lindbergh Case" in 1987. This book is divided into 3 sections: I - The Case, II - The Theories, and III - The Evidence.

Above all, Fisher takes on the disbelieve(r)s who profess innocence of Bruno Richard Hauptmann (BRH) in the kidnapping, murder and ransom of baby Lindbergh (Eaglet), Mar. 1, 1932. Fisher underscores in great detail the Hauptmann handwriting found both at the crime scene of kidnapping and later in ransom notes - and cites detailed peculiarities believed conclusively incriminating by virtue of a writing 'tic' or unique agraphia that provided a discrete signature to BRH's written vocabulary. Further details are also proffered on Hauptmann's failed stock market transactions, purchase of ether, etc., financial difficulties by lack of employement, and a past criminal record.

Fisher is distressed by the impetuous publication of defectively researched books beseeching acquittal of BRH and culpability by 'the usual suspects' that embraced hired help, relatives, and he censures that most disturbing 1993 book "Crime of the Century: The Kidnapping Hoax" by Ahlgren and Monier.

Aside from a few unneeded repetitions, i.e. ranson letters, etc. the book's intent is to checkmate (or dispose of) opposing viewpoints and to present new supportive information - and admittedly, it is well written with legal and forensic evidence presentations which must now be balanced by the reader against Ahlgren and Monier's indictment of the father, Colonel Charles Lindbergh, whose alleged prank and subsequent kidnap hoax went awry. With all parties dead, one's beliefs may well reside within the domain of the prevailing or most current best writer of truth and/or fiction, so choose wisely or not at all. I am currently transfixed in a decision-making process akin to game theory.

For goodness' sake, how much evidence do the conspiracy wackos need before they come back to planet Earth? Fisher shows how Hauptmann a) had the money, b) owned the wood that was used to make the ladder, c) owned the nails that were used to make the ladder, d) had a criminal record involving threats on babies and the use of ladders, e) gave up work as soon as the ransom was paid, f) never worked again once the kidnapper was paid his money - and much more. His book (and his original and more comprehensive earlier work) should be a breath of fresh air for the conspiracy theorists. Unfortunately, absolutely nothing will convince them that Bruno Richard Hauptman was a thoroughly evil child murderer.

Fisher's first book was clearly a better work. This second book appears to be nothing more than Fisher's response to his many critics. It is very brief with only a thumbnail sketch of the case. I think this would have been better as a magazine article than a full book.

Additionally, Fisher makes some Herculean leaps in logic. The finding of a bottle of Ether produced after the date of the kidnapping, i.e. March 1, 1932, forms the basis of a claim by Fisher that Hauptmann was planning to kidnap again. The leap is just too great.

To his credit, Fisher does debunk many of the great fallacies of this case, especially concerning the ladder and wood evidence. Nevertheless, I think this book was unnecessary and Fisher should have just let his first book do the talking for him.

I read his first book.And knew ,it was full of lies.And his second book is even more treacherous ! This guy is a former FBI agent ?? I could write the real Lindbergh story.Without me writing out a long story here,the author Upton Sinclair and author Sinclair Lewis helped plan the Lindbergh kidnapping.They were concerned that ,Charles Jr.,would run for Jersey governour and later became President.They didn't want a "World War 3".Lindbergh was a Nazi sympathizer,big time.(In 2003,three Bavarian siblings ,exposed their mother's secret love-affair with Charles Sr.They are the products of that 1950s hidden romantic relationship.) The authoress ,Gertrude Stein, with Isodore Fish, may have written the Lindbergh ransome notes.However,that is speculation only.All the major writers of the 1920s,knew about the kidnapping plot.Hemmingway,Fitzgerald,Willa Cather,W.Somerset Maugham,George Orwell,Sherwood Anderson,Edgar Cacye,William Faulkner,etc.,knew about the plot.John Condon was a close associate of David Willentz,and was the real estate agent to Richard Hauptmann.The "Lindbergh Ladder" was of sawyered wood that came from Hauptmann's attic and ultimately from a lumber-yard in South Carolina,with contacts to David Willentz. You do the addition,and go figure . Prime example of a top government conspiracy!
Updated-nov.25.06.-Beware of the History Channel! I taped a day's worth of programmes,and watched this morning.There was a segment on Lindbergh,Edgar Cayce and ESP.The programme claimed that the baby was sadly found in the flower-box,several feet under the nursery window.That is not true.An infant was found one and half miles from the Lindbergh estate,just over the county line and by an orphanage run by David Willentz.

A typical ignorant diatribe to convince the pliable that the state does not make mistakes.

A view of the trial documents by anyone ready for a bar exam would reveal any number of reversable errors, not to mention an inadequate defense. Hauptmann's own words just before his execution are cause for reasonable doubt. It is one thing to claim there is no proof that Hauptmann was innocent, but that goes against the standard of assumption of innocence.

The fact is only Hauptman (and the real killer/killers if any) knew if he was innocent, and the state proved its case only to the jury. I can't imagine anyone the state would have had in that position going free, regardless of guilt or innocence.

To call any question of the acuracy of the verdict in this trial "revisionism" is akin to objecting to the modern day view that the segregation and Jim Crow laws up to the 60's satisfied the current legal process, but were nonetheless morally despicable.

I would like to say that the book is good, it covers a lot of material pretty well and the downloadable code is just excellent(the one in the book has errors or is not full). Well structured classes, usage of game components and services, no out-dated name conventions. The code can be downloaded and is up-to-date.

The problem is that the book covers a lot and does not explain it fully, the HLSL is really ran over through. There are portions of source that are not explained either. At places the book feels like source code listing rather than book. I think the book should be revised so that it includes better and thorough explanations of everything!. The 2D part I have not read. What I was looking for was the 3D and I have read 4 chapters so far and it is good that I had some background experience with 3D and XNA. Otherwise I would have felt completely lost. I found myself pondering over code (especially the shader code) trying to connect 2 and 2. This is not a good way to teach, by giving source code and explaining here and there.

It's a good book, however it has many pages of code. In despite of that I recommend the buy.

A fair addition to anyone's XNA library, but far from complete. The first half of the book is a good tutorial on building a 2D game from scratch. The second half makes an attempt to cover 3D programming. Given the steep learning curve behind 3D development (linear algebra, lighting and rendering, the programmable pipeline, etc.) where the subject matter could easily fill more than one book, the authors simply present the source code for each chapter with little explanation over what the average developer could grasp by simply looking at the code. Worse, certain subjects such as HLSL are discussed with such little depth that they should have been left out entirely. Combined with a decent game math book, a book on HLSL and the XNA documentation, this book will at least get you started with XNA development.

I found this book on the web and still decided to buy it. The book is the easiest time I think I have ever had learning XNA, however, like all programming books it seems that only experienced coders who correct errors as they read are the ones in charge of editing and quality control.

For example, on page 46 it tells you to include a line of code that doesn't seem to make sense (private SpriteBatch spriteBatch = null;) in the Game1 code. This of course is redundant and cause the game not to compile. And.... naturally, the downloaded source code runs fine. Why? Because this line of code is not in the project. I imagine the XNA guru they had reviewing this book (how come they don't hand the book to a total newbie and say 'here, follow this book exactly and tell us when the code examples dont work') fixed the errors he seen on the fly without thinking ..oh, a total newbie won't know this is an obvious mistake..

But I can honestly say I have NEVER read a 'teach yourself' programming book with flawless code examples. And of course the downloaded source always works and you just have to compare your file with thier file and see what is different. The only positive note I can say about the poor state of quality control with newbie programming books in general is that in a way it teaches you to troubleshoot code. But, for someone who is completely new and doesn't pick up on these things it is very frustrating. I'm lucky now in that I have learned enough that I can fix these errors, but a few years ago I would have just tossed this book out of frustration when I do exactly as instructed and it still doesnt work.

To the people who write these books I have a suggestion....

If the person in charge of quality control has ever written a single line of code they are not qualified to review a book targeting newbies. Give the book to your spouse, neighbor, 12 year old, etc. who will quickly hand it back to you 5 times every chapter and say 'hey, I did what it said and got a bunch of errors', or 'hey, it assumes here on page whatever I know where to type this'.

Now, all that being said, this is a darn good book. The authors make XNA and XBOX programming about as simple as possible... the examples are explained very well and easy to follow. If you have gone through another C# teach yourself newbie book you should minimal trouble getting a game up and running in just an hour or so!

First off this book is not for a beginning programmer. You must have at least some knowledge of object oriented programming before using this book. A basic knowledge of C, C++, or C# would also help a lot. Along with that, a slightly more-than-basic knowledge of the .NET framework is necessary.

If you have all those, this is a great book. The explanations of XNA code and corresponding programs is easy to follow. If you read the code and try to understand it without blindly copying it, you will learn a lot from this book.

There are some errors throughout the book, but most of them are minor; if you have a programming background, you can get through most of them with little trouble.

Overall, this book is for someone who is a beginner at XNA, not at programming all together.

I'm going to begin this review by explaining what the book is NOT about, since a number of reviewers seem to have been disappointed by what it contains. I will also include where to find information on some these topics.

"Giordano Bruno and The Hermetic Tradition" is NOT a biography of Bruno (1548-1600), who, according to the common view was burned at the stake for teaching Copernican astronomy (this was one of the charges, but was a side issue). There is a need for a modern biography, but this volume, first published in 1964 -- not, as the listing suggests, 1991 -- was a contribution to understanding Bruno, and not intended as a full account.

(Amazon gives the date of the current University of Chicago trade paperback; there was also a similar Midway Paperback edition in 1979, and a 1968 mass-market paperback edition, as well.)

It is NOT a study of the traditions surrounding Hermes Trismegistus ("thrice-great Hermes"), a Greco-Roman version of the Egyptian god Thoth and the Greek Hermes, among other things, who has had a long history in Western (and Islamic) tradition; it discusses some of them, in the context of Renaissance and Reformation Europe. Collected papers by Antoine Faivre, "The Eternal Hermes: From Greek God to Alchemical Magus," translated by Joscelyn Godwin, now approximate such a full account (paperback, 1995).

It is also NOT an historical account of the Greek and Latin (and Arabic, and some other) mystical / philosophical, magical, and alchemical texts purporting to be the works of Hermes and his disciples. For that, the historically-minded can turn to Garth Fowden's difficult, but rewarding, "The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind" (1986; with new Preface and corrections, as a MYTHOS paperback, 1993). The curious may also look to David Frankfurter's "Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance" (also a MYTHOS paperback, 1998) for a fuller context in popular religion. Those who want to adopt Hermeticism as part of their personal religious experience may need to go elsewhere.

It is NOT a translation of those ancient texts, some of which it summarizes for the reader unfamiliar with this rather obscure literature. For those important in Yates' account, see Brian Copenhaver's "Hermetica: The Greek 'Corpus Hermeticum' and the Latin 'Asclepius' in a new English translation, with notes and introduction" (1992; in paperback since 1995). The testimonies (references in other writers) and fragments (mainly excerpts preserved in a Byzantine anthology) are in the four-volume "Hermetica: The Ancient Greek and Latin Writings ..." (1924), edited and translated by Walter Scott (not the novelist). Yates warns against his high-handed editorial treatment of the main texts, but the testimonies, and most of the fragments, are given in more conservative forms; this too is (or was) available in paperback.

It is NOT an account of the Western Occult tradition in the Renaissance, with or without instructions for the would-be practitioner. For an account of the main texts and issues, the curious can begin with Yates' main authority in this matter, D.P. Walker's "Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella" (1958; there is a recent paperback). Walker and others are critically reviewed, with new hypotheses, in Ioan P. Couliano's "Eros and Magic in the Renaissance" (1987); a different perspective, and some important corrections to Couliano's data, are found in Noel P. Brann's "Trithemius and Magical Theology: A Chapter in the Controversy over Occult Studies in Early Modern Europe" (1999; both in paperback).

That being the case, what IS "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition," and is it worth reading?

Yates claimed that the book began as a translation of Bruno's Italian dialogue, "La Cena de le Ceneri," set in Elizabethan London, and grew. (The dialogue has since been translated, with useful notes, as "The Ash Wednesday Supper," by Edward A. Gosselin and Lawrence A. Lerner (1977; a Renaissance Society of America Reprint Texts paperback, 1995).

The book is an attempt to restore a missing, or at least neglected, chapter, in Western intellectual history. The "Hermetic Tradition" in the title is the set of beliefs about the supposed Hermes Trismegistus which Renaissance Europe inherited from the Church Fathers. They variously saw him as an ancient Prophet, and the real source of Plato's philosophy, and perhaps the disciple of Abraham or Moses, maybe even their teacher; or as a wicked tool of Satan. When Greek manuscripts of supposed Hermetic texts became available in Florence, the Medici put a priority on translating them, instead of Plato or Plotinus, and Marsilio Ficino obliged, launching a wave of excitement among some European thinkers.

What these thinkers, including, but not limited to, Bruno, did with, and to, the material they were given is the burden of the book. The enthusiasm eventually went underground, especially as it came to be realized that the wonderful Hermetic texts were not only post-Platonic, but post-Christian. This view took centuries to permeate European thought, however, and true believers in the Hermetic texts are still around. ("The Magic Flute" is just one example of originally Hermetic ideas about Egypt surviving into the Enlightenment.)

Bruno himself knocked about Europe, promoting plans for reconciling Catholics and Protestants, spending time -- not very happily -- in Elizabethan England. The Holy Office of the Inquisition eventually became aware that his plan seemed to involve the restoration of Egyptian Sun-worship -- the True, Original Religion of Mankind, as revealed by the Divine Hermes -- in a Christian cloak. There was also more than a hint of plans to use magic, and astrally empowered images, to achieve this and other goals. The heliocentric theory was for Bruno, it seems, just one more proof of the divine nature of the Sun. One can understand their indignation.

It is this Bruno, the Hermetic, the Magus, and the very amateur scientist, which is Yates' centerpiece. She continues the story with some latter-day Renaissance Hermetics, including Campanella (whose utopian "City of the Sun" seems to have revived, perhaps independently, some of Bruno's pet projects).

As someone who was a college student in the early 1970s, I can recall the impact in several areas of this book (then in its 1968 Vintage Books mass-market paperback), and its 1966 follow-up on another neglected area of European history, "The Art of Memory." Although in later writings Yates tended to leap from bold insights to unsupported conclusions, these two volumes helped rewrite the way a generation of historians would look at the European past. Some of the volumes I have mentioned would not have appeared, or would have been very different, without Yates' contribution. And yes, although not a complete portrait of either Bruno or Hermeticism, the book is still worth the reader's time and attention.

[Note, August 2005; a complaint by a more recent reviewer sent me back to take a close look at my copy of the 10th printing (1999), which is, as I remembered it, cleanly printed, with the plates as well reproduced as in earlier versions (some were made from not-very-good period originals!). Anything less, especially smudged or bleeding print, missing text, etc., as described, should be treated as a manufacturing defect, and the copy, if purchased new, should be returnable for this reason. (Or so I would think.) The University of Chicago Press certainly can do better, and usually does.]

This is not a review of Ms. Yates's writing. Instead, I am awarding the single star to the physical book perpetrated by the University of Chicago Press in 1991. The good news is that this edition doesn't cost very much. The bad news is that the 1991 edition is a bad reproduction of an earlier edition. The ink bleeds all over some of the pages. There are diagonal streaks on many pages. Sometimes the ink is light grey on one side of a diagonal streak, while it is dark and smudged on the other side. Parts of letters that landed in the streak are missing. A note on the back of the title page claims only that "The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the ... Standard ... for Library Materials." Does this less than ringing endorsement mean that the paper is acidic and will soon deteriorate? If so, it won't be much of a loss.

Actually, this book can not be evaluated at once. Rather, you should concede four stars to the greater part of the book and not any star to the rest. For this is widely an excellent book. Yates does not only prove that Bruno is not the pioneer of modern science he is often stated to be, but convincingly exposes the background against which his works have to be understood. To that purpose, she shows the impact of the Hermetic writings, an ancient source written in the second and third centuries A.D., but by some Christian Renaissance writers such as Ficino or Pico della Mirandola held to be of an authority greater and older than even Moses, on Renaissance thought. Thus it is demonstrated in chronological order how the corpus Hermeticum was received by Renaissance writers, focussing on magic that was derived from some passages of the corpus Hermeticum. Bruno is placed within this tradition. Congeniously, Yates acknowledges the significance of Casaubon's exact dating of what had been held a prophecy of Christianism for more than two centuries and discusses the following dispute which finally made the type of the Renaissance magus disappear, although this tradition of thinking never completely vanished. So this is, without any doubt, the fundamental book about Giordano Bruno and the impact of Hermetism on Renaissance thought. It provides information clear and dear also on magic in general and thus illuminates even some passages of Shakespeare and (unconsciously) Goethe's Faust.Thus the book inspires to study Renaissance authors such as Pico or Ficino or more literature on Renaissance Thought ( I recommend the overwhelming collection „Renaissance Thought and the Arts" by Paul Oskar Kristeller).
All the more it is a pity that Yates, writing with transigating passion, is lead astray to some statements about science and antique thought in general that cannot be left uncommented upon. Ancient philosophy in the time when the corpus Hermeticum was written did NOT necessarily, not even realy, stagnate (p.4, p. 449). On the contrary, Plotinus, writing about 250 A.D., renewed philosophical thought in a way that he is now often considered to be one of the greatest metaphysicians that ever lived. Furthermore, the reason for this presumed stagnation is, according to Yates, that the ancient philosophers did not know the principle of experimentation. But this principle is completely alien to philosophy, be it ancient or modern (this is quite evident, but if someone still doubts, he should read e.g. Wenisch's „Die Philosophie und ihre Methode"). The exhausting prize of modern science at the end of the book (p. 447-55) is not to the point and ignores that ancient thought must not be treated as a failing attempt at Galileo's achievements (as the German scholar Jörg Kube emphasized). Her sideswipe against Descartes (p. 454-55), finally, seems to me completely out of place. So I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know the truth about Giordano Bruno and the essence of magic, but you should not believe what is said about ancient philosophy and philosophy in general.

What is "Gordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition"?

Let me put it very simply: it is a succession of clumsily written reviews of the main Hermetic treatises, starting with the original manuscripts brought over from Byzantium after its fall and ending with the works of Bruno, Campanella and other more recent thinkers and magicians. Each chapter deals with a book or a series of books by one or several Hermeticists. Yates dutifully summarizes the book, adds a few more or less enlightened comments and biographical notes and then moves on to examine the writings of the following Renaissance crank. She makes a copious use of quotations, most of them in Latin and most of them not translated...

I want to make something very clear: this is by no way a biography of Bruno. It is not even an intellectual biography of the "Nolan philosopher": nowhere are we told by Yates why, when and how he became a Hermeticist.In fact, she starts her exposition on him when he is already a full-fledged magus in Paris, where he is trying to engratiate himself with King Henri III by publishing a treatise on mnemonics. The whole first chapter dealing with Bruno is an outline of that book. The following chapter describes another book and so on. Briefly, we never leave the libraries...

If you are looking for a insights into how Hermeticism influenced Renaissance painting, music, architecture and other aspects of civilization, you won't find them here. I repeat, this is a description of the Hermetic literature of the XVIth century in Italy and elsewhere, with a focus on the books written by Bruno.

You may now ask: OK, I understand that this is not a biography about Bruno. Does Yates do a good job in explaining the Hermetic treatises?

Would you believe a "History of Western Scientific Thought" written by a Tunguse shaman from Krasnoiarsk ? My guess is that you would at the very least take his exposition with quite a handful of salt.The reason is obvious: a Siberian sorcerer belongs to a world that is too different from ours to be able to really understand Newtonian science. And even if he could understand it, his own religious and cultural background is so hostile to mechanistic science that he is bound to be biased in his treatment of the subject.

Now why should one trust an account of Hermetic philosophy and its influence on XVIth century Catholic thinkers written by a modern historian coming from a Protestant and rationalistic tradition?

I for one do not believe that such a historian is capable of dealing properly with such a subject and Mrs Yates being precisely the modern, rationalistic, Protestant historian I am talking about(otherwise she would not be an award-winning sacred cow, see what happens to truly great but marginal historians like Hillaire Belloc who are writing from a Catholic perspective) fails in giving a truly enlightening, living picture of Hermeticism and Giordano Bruno.

To put it very simply, she does not understand what she is talking about! That is the reason why we get all those insipid summaries worthy of a first year college student.

Furthermore, although she shows on the whole more respect toward her characters than your average historian, Yates does regard the Hermetic thinkers of the Renaissance, including Bruno, as a bunch of crackpots and megalomaniacs. Deeply interesting they are but still they are crackpots as all pre-Reformation, pre-Enlightenment thinkers are bound to be in the mind of a mainstream Western historian.

Just see how she starts her book in a typical fashion: by condescendingly exposing the superstitious attitude of the ancients. Ficino, Pico, Bruno, they all believed that the Hermetic literature had been written at the time of the pyramids, before Moses! But, aha, WE know that they are in fact nothing more than pious forgeries dating from the 2nd century AD! Casaubon, an obscure Protestant Greek scholar of Swiss origin living in England has proved it. Never mind this bigot had a huge axe to grind, never mind Pico and Ficino, who believed in the remote antiquity of the Hermetic manuscripts, mastered the Greek language just as well as Casaubon, we should believe the Calvinist philologist because...because he comforts our prejudices, of course!

To say that there is absolutely nothing to be learnt from "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition" would of course be a gross exaggeration, for there are interesting pieces of information scattered throughout the book, specially when the author manages to raise her nose from her nine-point summaries and laborious sketches to give us a larger view of the fascinating world of the Renaissance but this is really such a minor aspect of "Giordano Bruno?that I wouldn't recommend it for that reason.

Much better to read Adrian Gilbert's The New Jerusalem", believe me.

This book isn't a biography of Bruno or anything close. The opinions put forth in this book are rationalistic nonsense, as another reviewer has stated, and they lack soul or understanding. This book is good for one thing: exposing yourself to Bruno's influences and using it as a bibliography for other works. This is the only defense I will give this book.

I read this book while living at the orthogenic school. To tell you the truth, I found it intriguing but I didn't really enjoy the style of writing.

For people who the the Orthogenic School was abusive- most place at the time would lock disturbed children in rooms and tie them to beds for weeks on end. Race theory was prevalent, as was insulin shock therapy. Autistic children were likely to be institutionalized for their lives in dark, cruel places. In this respect, the Orthogenic School was revolutionary- it attempted to do neither of these things and tried to treat children like human beings. Were there a lot of therories that are majorly messed up? Yes. Was Bettelhiem abusive? Probably. But I have trouble believing that the school wasn't better than the other alternatives of the time.

I ordered this book in January with an expected delivery date of 2/9 - 2/16. I recently received the 3rd "Order Delay" notification with an expected delivery date of June - July timeframe. The book is out of print and the Amazon direct page still states "This title usually ships within 2 to 3 weeks".
I ordered it from a local bookseller and will pick it up this weekend. You can also try "Used and New"...looks like many are available.

I think this book is an interesting and sad account of a child who, during his long stay at the Orthogenic School, is brainwashed into accepting that abuse is an acceptable and even a laudable form of treatment. Eliot accepts this belief because he is repeatedly abused and shamed by the person he loves so deeply, Bruno Bettelheim. Eliot seems convinced that because Bettelheim is so brilliant and gifted with children that he can somehow abuse children in an effective, therapeutic way. This way of thinking strikes me as a rationalization of the worst kind. Perhaps this rationalization is understandable in Eliot who was raised by Bettelheim for most of his early life. In fact, Eliot so deeply internalizes that hitting an emotionally troubled child is the best way to address the child's chaotic behavior that he feels justified in hitting children himself late in his stay at the Orthogenic School.

As I read the book, I wondered where were instances of Bettelheim showing remorse for hitting a child or of Bettelheim trying to search for a gentler approach. I found no such instances. I find only repeated instances of a man using his power to inflict abuse on children and generally in situations where a person with some common sense could think of another way.

I suppose, with Eliot, I see the brilliance of Bettelheim. After all, Bettelheim chose the perfect situation to act out his sadistic tendencies on a population who would be the least able to defend themselves...troubled children taken from their homes, usually at a fairly early age, and kept at the O. School for several years. Also, Bettelheim seems to have had the power to surround himself with whatever staff he pleased. And, from Eliot's account, he usually chose impressionable, young people who I guess out of loyalty never ratted on him or who accepted that his claims were rational. I guess the staff had reason to accept Bettelheim's ideas since he was supported by the University of Chicago for so many years. Indirectly, the book is an indictment against the U of C for allowing Bettelheim to inflict his sadistic approach to curing troubled children for 30 years.

I think it is extremely simplistic to think that Bettelheim who is deeply loved by the children in his care can help them by beat and shaming them. And Eliot makes it clear, Bettelheim's cruelty was not an infrequent aberration but an integral and consistant part of this "therapeutic milieu". It's just another indication of the cult mentality displayed at the O. School to suggest that this institution was superior to all others at this time in history.

Eliot questions how else to help a chaotic child except by hitting him. Even Jacqui Sanders, Bettelheim's successor, finally stopped hitting children at some point in her directorship, so I guess she was finally able to find other ways. It seems a horrid twist of logic to suggest that beating children who love you is superior to using restraints and drugs. Besides being psychologically harmful, from the research I have done on this subject, it was never legal in the U.S. for caretakers to beat their mental patients.

By the way, here's a suggestion for helping troubled children...find him or her a compassionate therapist. Not a person who is trained to tell children that getting beaten is okay, but a person who can actually help the child understand their behavior and feelings.

But, then again, this book is about the power of a child's love for his guardian (and in this case guard, not guardian angel). And if Bettelheim abuses Eliot, then the abuse becomes intricately connected to love. And this is the legacy of Bettelheim's Orthogenic School: it was a place where over and over again children were forced to accept abuse as an accepted part of love. I personally think that's sick.

In an aside, I do think another reviewer goes a little easy on Jacqui Sanders. 1)Jacqui, as well as many others, witnessed Bettelheim's repeated brutality against children and never reported it, and 2)Jacqui herself hit and beat children for many years before coming to her senses. She allowed others at the School to do the same. Jacqui documents this in her own book published by the U of C.

I am responding not only to Eliot's book, but the reviewer who describes the Orthogenic School as an abusive and bogus institution. In the interst of full disclosure, my impressions of Elliot's work were influenced by my own experiences as an attorney representing disabled children and having a mother who worked at the Orthogenic School under Jacqui Sanders (Bettelheim's successor). In addition, I am friends with Dr. Sanders and several other people mentioned in Eliot's book.

My mother took great pains to keep our family separate from her work at the Orthogenic School. In fact, I never set foot in the School until I was an adult in my 30s and I was representing children placed there. My mother had me attend another Chicago- area private high school instead of U High, in part to avoid having contact with children from the O-School. However, it would have been impossible for my mother's parenting not to have been influenced by her work.
Like Eliot, I have my own issues with some of the use of psychoanalytic interpretations in the context of every day life as a means of helping children develop insight into ordinary actions or self-control. In the wrong hands or when motivated by a need to assert control, it is more a tool to demean than to provide insight. As Eliot described, Bettelheim was not immune from indulging his own foibles and prejudices. In addition, as Eliot's angry descriptions show, when attempted by less adept therapists/counselors/teachers the resulting psychic wounds are deep.
Despite these shortcomings, the institution Elliot describes was a far better place than what currently passes as treatment facilities for most children. Despite budgets of billions of dollars for state departments of children services, education, or mental health services, most institutions "treating" emotional disturbed/mentally ill children are nothing more than modern equivalents of Dickensian era Yorkshire boarding schools. Instead of treacle to control appetites and behaviors, children are dosed with medications often without regard to side effects or proper monitoring. Behavior modification programs are often designed and implemented without regard for children's actual developmental levels or dignity. Eliot's description of the power and importance of humane and psychologically minded treatment serve as an essential reminder that an alternative to mind-numbing punititive warehousing is possible.

No discussion of Bettelheim's legacy is complete without mention of two issues, physical punishment and the influence of those he trained. Jacqui Sanders in her book "A Greenhouse for the Mind" and a 12/03 letter to the editor of the "New York Review of Books" concerning a review of Eliot's book and Theron Raines' book on Bettelheim, does a far better job than I could of addressing these issues. I would suggest that anyone interested in a rational, insightful, and balanced assessment of this aspect of Bettelheim's work and the Orthogenic School's treatment of children, consult these two publications.

Despite my support for Eliot's work, I do take issue with his criticism of Jacqui Sanders and others for failing to expand on Bettelheim's work. Eliot is critical that many of those Bettelheim trained have focused their professional lives on clinical work instead of research and writing. Moreover, Eliot is critical of Jacqui Sanders' leadership for failing to expand the Orthogenic School's role as a research center.
Eliot's criticisms fail to consider the difficult political realites created by the Orthogenic School's identity within the University of Chicago and the professional limitations created by the gender discrimination the largely female staff Bettelheim trained undoubtedly faced. In addition, many of these women not only worked but raised children at the same time. Bettelheim, like many men of his generation, focused almost exclusively on his professional life. Furthermore, it most be remembered that the hard work, and largely uncredited clinical reports made by these women produced the raw material Bettelheim relied on in his books. Most importantly, Eliot's criticism is unfair when considered in light of the fact that Bettelheim's willingness to demand sacrifice from others enabled him to achieve what other more selfless individuals cannot. Although Bettelheim worked tremendous hours, the sacrifice of time and energy above-and-beyond any "normal" job made by counselors, cooks, therapists, teachers enabled Bettelheim to achieve what he did.

Most importantly, Sanders and others have trained and mentored hundreds of individuals. Many of these individuals, including Dr. Sanders and the wonderful Leslie described by Eliot, continue to mentor young professionals or to work with children and families. They do so in a professional climate far more hostile to psychoanalytic models of treatment than the one Bettelheim experienced. That legacy should not be diminished by unfair comparisons to Bettelheim.

This book is a bogus attempt on the part of the author to excuse one of the worst, most excessive examples of institutionalized child abuse in the history of the United States of America. The Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School under the leadership of Bruno Bettelheim and his immediate followers was nothing more than a brain-washing institution which carried out a nasty, cynical psychological experiment on many legal minors. The results of this experiment were entirely predictable, had no relevance for our democratic society whatsoever and had ruinous consequences for the lives of the children who were forced by society or their parents to submit to it. If child abuse laws had been in place during the 1960s and 1970s, Bettelheim and many of his followers would have stood before criminal courts and done jail time. But it was precisely the America which sent 18 year olds off to Viet Nam without giving them the right to vote for the guy who sent them there which gave unlimited authority to a man like Bettelheim with no solid credentials in the field of psychology or psychiatry.
"Stephen Eliot's" (not his real name) book is nothing more than attempt to make money out of a boring, uneventful life of self-absorption by tying his name to Bettelheim. "Eliot" offers no explanation other than his own personal cowardice as to why he was so willing to accept his Orthogenic School "diagnosis" as schizophrenic, when there is not a shred of MEDICAL evidence listed. The day when some half-baked quack with a Ph.d. in psychology can be allowed to make such a diagnosis, particularly of an individual in their minority, is the day that the legal profession should begin to focus on the psychiatric profession as a target for damage claims.
And if "Eliot" is so successful now, why does he not use the real name he had at the Orthogenic School?

After thoroughly researching this murder and after reading several books on this subject, I find Scaduto's book to be the most factual and well researched. I know many of those who've written reviews of this book don't want to believe the facts presented in this book, but it doesn't take much effort to discover that they are, in fact, the truth.
Excellent, easy to read book. I highly recommend it!!

Mr. Scaduto's book tends to be all over the place, but the fact is that he has presented a concise, literate and very compelling case for Richard Hauptmann (he abandoned the name Bruno after he left Germany.) Mr. Scaduto presents evidence that shows Mr. Hauptmann was at best, a peripheral accessory to the Lindbergh kidnapping. However, all the evidence taken together is so compelling that you must realize that Mr. Hauptmann was just "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The police and New Jersey prosecutor's had a high profile kidnapping case and they wanted to solve it fast. The police and prosecutor David Wilentz were not above manufacturing evidence in order to solve this case.

Mr. Scaduto clearly points out that racism (Mr. Hauptmann was a German emigre and Mr. Lindbergh was a staunch conservative) was a factor; Richard Hauptmann was an experienced carpenter; it is not locical that he would have built a ladder that badly; his counsel was a drunken has-been lawyer; there were plenty of other suspects that the police rejected. Lindbergh heard only two words two years earlier from the kidnapper and he was able to identify them as Mr. Hauptmann's? That is what my father would call "a crock of ----."

The evidence that Mr. Scaduto has presented has withstood the test of time and only the most conservative of people really believe that Mr. Hauptmann was guilty. This book was worth my time and I believe it will be worth yours. I also recommend Ludovic Kennedy's book "The Airman and The Carpenter."

Mr. Scadutos book gives us an intresting way the famous are treated in criminal proceedings. The conclusion that I have drawn from reading this book is this Did Hauptmann commit the crime? I don't know. Did he get a fair trial? NO WAY, The lying witness (Amandus Hochmuth), the identification of Hauptmanns voice by Charles Lindbergh (two words that were spoken almost two years before. The inept defense counsel, and the way of the oh so helpful Doctor Condon who was threatened with arrest as an accomplice if he didn't identify Hauptmann. What I find most compelling about this book is the way Lindbergh himself took control of the investigation. I don't completly buy the Paul Wendell story but it is another facet of the book that makes the story intresting.

The book is rather boorish at some points, Scaduto goes to great lenghts to show his own skepticism about his source Murray Bleefeld perhaps to great. he does draw his own conclusions which a writer does but he does state that he was not able to get into the files of the New Jersey state police where supposedly the "smoking gun" would be.

Overall I give three stars for content due dilligence and a compelling tale

Anthony Scaduto was a police reporter for the 'New York Post' who specialized in articles on organized crime. In April 1973 he was told about "the true Lindbergh Story". Scaduto never believed in Hauptmann's guilt from childhood, and his later experiences as a police reporter. His three years of research convinced him that Hauptmann was innocent of the kidnapping and was executed as a scapegoat for a cover-up. This very readable book explains his initial investigation and background in Chapter 1. Scaduto tells about the murders of Dr. and Mrs. Nimer (pp.20-26), and how it influenced his approach to this case. Chapter 2 summarizes the kidnapping, and how this story overshadowed the real economic and social ills of that time. It helped to sell radios (p.36). Pages 43-44 tell how the upper class readily used organized crime when it suited their purposes.

The first ransom note was photographed and copies of it were distributed to identify its penmanship (this would allow forgery). After the body of a child was found, Parker asked if it could have decomposed so much in 72 days (p.65)? If the child was killed when kidnapped, why no bloodstains? There was a difference between the folding of bills passed earlier, and those in Hauptmann's possession (p.98). Anna Hauptmann gave Richard his alibi for the two days (p.104). Lindbergh's identification of Hauptmann convinced the jury of his guilt (p.124). The problem in this is described on pages 125-127. The plaster cast of "John's" footprint didn't match Hauptmann (p.137). The problem of handwriting experts is explained (pp.142-143); they're not infallible. The ladder found at the Lindbergh home was made by an amateur, not a skilled carpenter (p.167). Was Hauptmann investigated in 1933 and cleared by his handwriting (p.171)? Page 180 explains the trick use of a 3/4" chisel by Koehler. Expert witnesses testify for the side that pays them (p.182). Could Hauptmann's employment records have been tampered (p.189)? The judge reviewed the facts of the case against Hauptmann (p.219). The jury quickly found Hauptmann guilty, but were delayed by considering a recommendation of mercy (p.220). Scaduto wonders about the search in the attic; could it have been delayed (p.227)?

Chapter 12 tells of the abduction of Paul Wendel, and his confession to the kidnapping. The baby slept (p.243). To find another man guilty of the crime would damage the career of the prosecutor, and others (p.253). This story should enlighten you to the politics of justice. Could Wendel have just made it up? Everything he said was known to the public (p.261). An affidavit told where Hauptmann was on March 1, 1932 (p.280). Was there corroboration for this? There is a "retraction" on page 283. Scaduto examined the copies of the employment records (pp.284-285). There was a problem with eyewitnesses Perrone and Condon. Chapter 15 lists the problems with the original description of "John" and Hauptmann (pp.310-311). Chapter 16 tells of other discrepancies in the record. Could there have been collusion among the investigating authorities (p.340)? Hauptmann's financial records were suppressed (p.347). Hauptmann did not have any ransom money until after Fisch died (p.363). Did the note left in the nursery differ from the other ransom letters (p.370)? Did it imitate a German style (p.377)? Was Rail 16 manufactured evidence (p.382)? Chapter 17 concludes that the evidence against Hauptmann was perjured or manufactured (p.400). Chapter 18 tells how Hauptmann offered to take "lie detector" and truth-serum tests (p.415). Nothing prevented his execution. Chapter 19 has his interviews with Mrs. Hauptmann, who lived long enough to read this book. Chapter 20 tells how Isidor Fisch had the ransom gold notes in November 1933 (p.459). Chapter 21 tells of Jonathan Kwitny's article on how a mafioso profited from major land deals when the NJ Dept. of Transportation purchased lands. What bank was the silent partner? David Wilentz's son was also a lawyer and politician. As Chief Justice of the NJ Supreme Court he was adamantly opposed to capital punishment. This may be the Final Verdict on Hauptmann.

When you read this or any other book watch how they deal with the most important clue. Whoever had the Lindbergh Baby's sleeping outfit was the kidnapper and killer. Do they treat this as a minor detail?

Anthony Scaduto's book caused great controversy in 1976. It started a major trend toward the position that Bruno Richard Hauptmann was an innocent man, falsely framed for a heinous crime.

When reading this book, one must remember that Mr. Scaduto did not have access to the hundreds of thousands of documents at the New Jersey State Police Museum and Archives. If he had, he would never have made some of the wild accusations contained within this work.

There is very little substance or evidentiary support for this work. It is an excellent example of an author researching a subject with the express intent of reaching a stated cause, i.e. Hauptmann's innocence. It is much preferable to simply look for the truth and accept the evidence found. Instead, Scaduto discards contrary information and offers his own spin. The entire book is based upon the story of a man convicted of aiding Ellis Parker and several others in the kidnapping, assault, and framing of a man they forced to falsely confess to the crime. With a foundatio