Ireland Books

Comprehensive coverage of the subject. I had little previous knowledge of the Roman Empire of Charlemagne and I find it critical to an understanding of European history, as well as that of the Roman Catholic church. Well written, but it does not read rapidly because of the quantity of important facts it contains.

Mr. Barbero has produced a comprehensive and insightful work, while keeping the book relatively brief and accessible to those who have only rudimentary knowledge of the early Medieval period. The book is organized thematically, not chronologically, but the author maintains a consistent perspective on events, with the result that the reader does not feel as though he/she is wandering aimlessly in a period of time of more than forty years. Mr. Barbero occassionally references modern scholarly debate, adding to the issues his own viewpoints, which are usually quite convincing.

I have found only two caveats:

(1) The book is fairly breif; it is not an expansive guide to Charlemagne's life.

(2) The author spends a great deal of time on the social history of the period, leaving the king far behind. In this respect it is more a history of the kings reign; it is not strictly biography.

All in all this is a solid piece of scholarship.

This book at times seems dry because of the descriptions of bureaucracy,government,etc. and at time comes off as being like an encylopedia,although one on a specialty subject,specifically:the reign of Charlemagne.It is a thorough job on his reign and I can see the reason for the subtitle,"Father of a Continent",since Charlemagne put into motion most of the organization and ruling qualities that eventually evolved into a European nation.The first part of the book shows how closely Charlemagne was tied to the institutions inaugurated by the Roman Empire and added Frankish tribal mores into these institutions.While Charlemagne spoke Frankish(a celtic-germanic type dialect) he was also fluent in Latin although he couldn't write it.i was never able to figure out how Charlemagne managed the numerous reforms whether he "micromanaged" of just picked good legislators.At times the reforms seem like they were forces by themselves and Charlemagne was smart enough to flow with the tide.The case could also be made Charlemagne was another "petty tyrant" from which Europe would recover from and rise to the status of today. The stereotype "Dark Age" ruler is too often portrayed as a greasy bearded,wine inbibing,concubine chasing,warlord who every once in a while lets "common folk" into his prescence for an amnesty or to give out presents.Then the ruler rides off into the sunnset with a pack of hounds for the hunt all the while making ribald jest.However this book shows an intelligent,justice seeking,education minded,artistic side to the "Dark Age" ruler.As a matter of fact after reading this book,I don't see how Charlemagne could have possibly had time to squeeze in a concubine as pressed for time as he was.In regard to Charlemagne and the pope,the book says that this relationship was not as close as dramatic accounts have previously said.Instead Charlemagne and his counselours primarily looked to their own interests when it came to political issues and church doctrine,and the author suggests that Charlemagne's reverence for the pope was more due to King Charles magnaminous nature than to fear or superstition of divine wrath.Or maybe with all that barbarian cunning he was smart enough to not "upset the apple(or plum) cart.The book is fine tuned down to showing how Charlemagne's administators dealt with the "Darkage" equivalent of today's "draftdodgers" to the details of how slavery issues were treated.I found it interesting how small livestock animals were back then before steroids and that by 800 pretty much all of Europe was settled and claimed so there was little room for hunters and pillagers to operate "riskfree"without stepping on someone else's toes.This is basically still a"barter" economy,coinage not very marked.This book is not a critical bio,because of the lack of sources from this era to compare Charlemagne to so if you lived before the era of the "critical bio",you pretty much have a cakewalk on your position in history due to a lack of or complete abscence of records beyond some scribblings of monks.While the monk could no doubt do a good critique,there would considerations of keeping a good head on one's shoulders.

Barbero's recent text on Charlemagne is by some called "the most important work on Charlemagne in a generation." While I don't feel qualified to make such an assertion, there can be little doubt in my own mind that Barbero's work is a solid, scholarly, and ultimately, successful addition to the collection of works available on Charlemagne.

I ran across this book in Paris in 2004, right after the book had come out in print. A brief perusal of the pages told me that this would be a book in which I would be interested. This was not only because I was interested in Charlemagne per se, but because I was wishing to study more about the educational reforms and policies Charlemagne initiated during his reign, and the effect those movements had on subsequent history. I was delighted to discover that Barbero's book had much of its text dedicated to Charlemagne's educational reforms, and the volume has served well in learning about this important aspect of Charlemagne's reign.

The book is scholarly in its approach, and there can be little doubt that it will serve as a foundation work for subsequent scholarly investigations on Charlemagne. In addition, the work is translated from the original Italian. These two facts - a scholarly orientation and a work translated from one language into another - tend to make the text a slightly more difficult read than a truly popular history. This is in no way to denigrate either: Barbero's scholarship and authority on the subject is easily established, and the translation is first rate, nearly flawless. Nevertheless, there is a somewhat "elevated" (for lack of a better word) style at work here that can make moving through the volume a bit slower than one would expect. Perhaps this is not bad, because there is so much content present here that reducing the speed can bring about greater rewards. But it is indeed something that the reader should be aware of before diving in.

Ultimately an excellent addition to any medievalist's library (or anyone else wishing to learn more about "The King of the Franks"), Barbero's Charlemagne is worth every penny spent and every minute invested.

Tom Quinn Kumpf has written a beautiful book. The photography is outstanding and the narrative reveals an unusual insight into the plight of the children, victims of the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Kumpf does not point fingers or take sides. He tells it as he saw it in Belfast.

Like no other before him, Tom Quinn Kumpf has managed to capture, through word and image, the reality of today's Belfast streets as seen by and through the youth that live there.

Kumpf has walked ever inch of Belfast's peace line documenting the lives and stories of this troubled city's youth - youth from both sides of the divide.

Most importantly, and what sets this book apart from others like it, is Kumpf's manner of reporting their stories. Evident in his work, Kumpf has managed to gain trust in a place that doesn't easily trust. He has uncovered and exposed the human side of a terribly twisted political and religious war.

His work is genuine and truthful, and in it you will see both the pain and the hope that lies within the children of Belfast.

I met Tom this past weekend in Dublin, OH and talked to him for quite a while. Being a photographer, I was interested in hearing his thoughts on process and technique and other techie stuff. While talking to him I looked through his book and realized that this was much more than technical work. When I got home and started reading it I realized the importance of his work. I highly recommend this book not just for the photos but for the stories that go with them. Excellent work.

I picked it up , just by excident . Than , after being shocked by exellency of photography , I loked at the name of the author ... Tom Kumpf ...
I was shoked , surprised , and heart by his work ! As published author , kind of famouse photographer ... all I can say to Mr. Kumpf : WOW ! ... Highly recomended !!!

Now here's an iUniverse book well worth their otherwise high price for a paperback. I found it hard to put down for long. The battle which the title's event commemorates is dealt with clearly enough to understand why it went the way it did. But who could have guessed the French troops would decide to have a coffee and pastry break beforehand? I never realized just how inept the French commanders really were in Mexico, though Mexican president Juarez and his loyalists would have been tenacious combatants for any such unscrupulous invader. I knew the installed "Emperor" Maximilian was out of his element, but not that he was so truly foolish--or that his more realistic wife had a nervous breakdown. Austin, Texas author Miles has a great eye for colorful detail, and a lot of it is fascinating, such as that a former colonel of a volunteer New York regiment in the American Civil War almost was executed with Maximilian, until the colonel's resourceful wife talked Juarez into sparing him. It beats the dry histories, while being a respectable, well-footnoted history in itself, and with a nice bibliography for further exploration. Except for a few typos, a misleading blurb on the back cover, and some needless repetition, this is a great read.

Award-winning radio journalist Donald W. Miles presents Cinco de Mayo: What Is Everybody Celebrating?, a historical account of the events that sparked the annual Cinco de Mayo holiday in Mexico. Nearly 150 years ago, when the emperor of France ordered his generals to take over Mexico and use it as a "base" to help the Confederates in the American Civil War against the Union Army, Mexico fought back. On May 5th, 1862, Mexico won a decisive battle against French forces, preserving its independence and preventing foreign interference in the American Civil War, yet it would take Mexico another five years to expel the last of the French soldiers from its borders. Cinco de Mayo chronicles the war between Mexico and France in plain terms, accessible to readers of all backgrounds; notes and an index round out this excellent historical primer especially recommended for public library collections.

Reviewed by Leslie Granier for Reader Views (4/07)

I must admit I had no clue what the celebrations for Cinco de Mayo (May 5) were all about before I read this book. Miles provided an insightful and intuitive book that concentrated mainly on the French and Mexican forces. He also effectively included the ways in which the Civil War that was simultaneously occurring in the United States affected the events of the war in Mexico. It truly made me wonder how history might have turned out differently if the United States had been able to intervene more on Mexico's behalf.

Interestingly, the accounts of this war from France's point of view are similar to what many believe is occurring today in Iraq. As stated on page 81, "the government was concealing the real purposes for going to war, the invading army was led to believe they would be welcomed as liberators" and "there was no plan to deal with the responsibilities after a military victory." He also effectively showed how the U. S. Civil War influenced the war in Mexico."

I appreciated the inclusion of an epilogue that told what happened to many of the major players after the war ended. I enjoy finding out about people's fate after their roles in historical events are lessened with time. For me it provides an end to what would otherwise seem to be an unfinished story.

I think it would be interesting to see this same chain of events written from the French army's point of view for comparison. For me it provided an understanding that there were health issues and food issues involved but I would think the army of a world power would have been more prepared and more successful, especially since other nations did not offer help to the Mexican armed forces.

"Cinco de Mayo" is a comprehensive account of the war between Mexico and France and the role played by the United States. Through the use of vivid descriptions at times I felt I could picture the scenes and see the carnage. This book is an excellent portrayal of the events of May 5, offering immense insight into what happened both before and during the fighting. While not the turning point of the war, the Battle of Puebla inspired the Mexican forces to persevere and accomplish their mission."

... very readable ... story on the French intervention in Mexico ... great usefulness to readers who want to want to know how ... Cinco de Mayo fits into the ... struggle to keep Mexico from becoming a European colony. [Don Miles] brings out many human and colorful aspects ... often lost in traditionally technical histories. His intimate knowledge of the Mexican culture is reflected in all that he writes.
--Dr. Robert Pierce, Professor Emeritus, Journalism & Communications, University of Florida

Is this the English translation of the book published in Jerusalem in 1980? Margarita Aliger was the coauthor of that title, if I recall correctly.

If you know, please reply by responding to this comment. Thanks.

(BTW, haven't read the book, so I've given it five stars uslovno; if it's written by Grossman and Ehrenburg, it's guaranteed to be good, as far as I'm concerned)

I take this account from Robert Chandler's article on 'Life and Fate' which appeared in Prospect magazine. Chandler is one of Grossman's translators, and an outstanding interpreter and commentator on his work.


" In 1943, after the German surrender at Stalingrad, Grossman was with the first red army units to liberate the Ukraine. He learned about Babi Yar, where 100,000 people, most of them Jews, were massacred. Soon afterwards, in Berdichev, he learned the details of his mother's death. His story "The Old Teacher" and the article "Ukraine without Jews" are among the first accounts of the Shoah in any language. And Grossman's vivid yet sober "The Hell of Treblinka" (late 1944), the first article in any language about a Nazi death camp, was republished and used as testimony in the Nuremberg trials.

Grossman was the first to research both the massacres in the Ukraine that marked the beginning of the Shoah and the death camps of Poland that were its culmination. The SS tried to destroy all trace of Treblinka, but Grossman interviewed local peasants and the 40 survivors and reconstructed how the camp functioned. He writes perceptively about the role played by deceit, about how the "SS psychiatrists of death" managed "to confuse people's minds once more, to sprinkle them with hope... 'Women and children must take their shoes off... Stockings must be put into shoes ... Be tidy... Going to the bathhouse, you must have your documents, a towel...'"

The official Soviet line, however, was that all nationalities had suffered equally under Hitler; the standard retort to those who emphasised the suffering of Jews was "Do not divide the dead!" Admitting that Jews constituted the overwhelming majority of the dead would have entailed admitting that other Soviet nationalities--and especially Ukrainians--had been accomplices in the genocide; in any case, Stalin was antisemitic. From 1943 to 1946, along with Ilya Ehrenburg, Grossman worked for the Jewish anti-fascist committee on The Black Book, a documentary account of the massacres of Jews on Soviet and Polish soil. It was never published."

Grossman, the great Soviet war correspondent was a heroic man of truth, who followed the Red Army in all the major battles of the war, including Stalingrad. The 'horrors' he saw in the concentration- camps moved him to the writing of this work. His own mother had been murdered in 1941 with thirty- thousand other Jews in the Ukranian town of Berditchev.
Only the realization that Stalin was deliberately persecuting the Jews led Grossman, an assimilated Jew to heroically identify with his own people.
His honesty, his courage in recording the horrible realities of this book are the very qualities which make him such a distinctively great writer.

This book provides considerable detail on the German murders of Jews in German-conquered eastern Poland and western Soviet Union, usually by mass shootings followed by either mass burial or mass cremations in open-air pyres. WARNING: The descriptions of both gratuitous and systematic German cruelties are graphic, even by Holocaust-material standards.

Although, not surprisingly, the narratives are laced with Communist propaganda, there is a surprising lack of contempt for religious people and the clergy. And nowhere in this book does Ilya Ehrenburg display his reputed collective hatred of Germans.

The narratives follow a geographic format. Interestingly, the massacre of the Jews of Edvabny (Jedwabne) is mentioned, but not any accusation of Poles being responsible (p. 205). This contrasts with the attention devoted to Baltic collaborators in their German-occupied nations.

Perennial complaints about "Soviet citizens" and unequal victims seem baseless in view of the constant reference to Jews as victims. Moreover, Grossman (p. xxix) explicitly distinguishes between the fates of non-Jews and Jews: "In many places the murder of local residents--of Russians, Belorussians, and Ukrainians--was merely the first step toward the realization of Hitler's intended program of the eventual extermination of the Slavic people. With regard to the Jews, fascism implemented its bloody plans immediately and universally."

This volume provides one of the earliest postwar comprehensive accounts on the modus operandi of the German death camps, especially Treblinka (pp. 462-487) and Auschwitz (pp. 500-532). A Jewish-Soviet commission arrived at a figure of 4 million victims of the Auschwitz complex (p. 501, 513-514). This debunks the myth of this highly-inflated figure being some sort of later Polish invention designed to hide the Jewishness of most Auschwitz victims.

In his NEIGHBORS and FEAR, Jan T. Gross would have us believe that Poles habitually delighted in Jewish sufferings, and were intoxicated with greed towards Jewish properties. The Soviet-Jewish editors of this volume indicate just the opposite: "Honest Poles and Ukrainians were deeply disturbed by these unprecedented crimes, by the mass extermination of completely innocent people." (p. 83). "Many Jews hid among the Poles and Ukrainians. No matter how much the Germans tried to corrupt the souls of the people with the threat of death, execution, treachery, and greed, the people remained brave, honorable, and capable of heroic deeds. The Polish intelligentsia saved many Jewish children from death." (p. 84). Much the same situation prevailed in Byelorussia: "It must be said during those troubled times the friendship between Poles and Jews generally burned bright. The fascists were able to organize only the dregs of society and set them against the defenseless, persecuted Jewish people." (p. 198). The last quoted statement is identical to the conventional Polish position: Polish collaborators and killers of Jews consisted of marginal members of Polish society--again refuting Gross.

The editors of this volume provided one of the earliest postwar accounts of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. They recognize the assistance and involvement of Poles to a much greater extent than do most Holocaust materials. There is a unit of the AK mentioned, along with its act of engaging the German sentries in combat, which enabled Jews to escape the ghetto (p. 549, 557). A partial list is provided of Poles who died fighting alongside, and on behalf of, the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. (p. 554)

I have just finished reading The Complete Black Book and will try to express the effect it has had on me. I am old enough to have been a WW11 veteran that was in Germany in 1945 and had met up with the Red Army soldiers in Braunschweig close to the Elbe River. I drove past the Bergan-Belsen concentration camp when the victims still alive were sitting on the ground by the road in their stripped uniforms.But now after so many years having passed, to read the Complete Black book leaves one in a state utterly disoriented and confounded as to the true nature of the human species.

Lest one, at least of the younger generation, has not given thought to, or realized the depth to which human depravity can fall, or forgets, or wishes to forget, even though mayhem and mass murder persist in our contemporary world, one ought not be oblivious to the fact that human depravity is of serious concern. .

We don't want to be reminded, its too stressful. Most of us who are alive and have a fleeting knowledge of the unbelievable, the facts that evoke frightening, painful thoughts. That monstrous catastrophe that had happened in the not too distant past is for most of us too difficult to feel the impact of its true nature. Though many victims are still among the living, that horrible event could only be treated by most as something we knew about and was easily forgotten. We cannot dwell on such hideous thoughts. If we are alive we must dance, sing and search for the way to happiness, that is the way of human nature. But wait, are we living amidst humans who are in possession of evil genes? Are we really frightened when it comes to thinking about what our species is really capable of?

A grief stricken mournful cry of the ages against human violence was compiled and published by Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman, in their monumental, soul searing work, "The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry". Can this deliberate and depraved slaughter of millions of human beings be true; the crushing and tearing apart of every Jewish child the Hitlerites got their hands on? How is this possible from an advanced Western society, as was Germany, with its highly developed cultural life?

Shocked by what he experienced and perceived to be the insane decision of the Germans to murder every Jew on the face of the Earth or at least every Jew they could get their hands on. Ilya Ehrenburg, the prodigious and serious writer that he was, felt in the extreme that it was his obligation to see that every detail, of the German atrocities he could uncover was preserved and duly placed on the record for all the world to know. With the support of the Soviet Jewish Antifascist Committee he with the equally great writer, Vasily Grossman, enlisted some twenty-four reporters to gather eyewitness accounts of the hideous torture and murder of Soviet Jews, captured Red Army soldiers and communists.
.

By the fall of 1944 Ehrenburg and Grossman had a finished work ready for publication. Ehrenburg was most anxious to get the work printed and out to the world. But there were signs all around that this was not to happen so easily.First, and most depressing for Ehrenburg, were the roadblocks being placed before the work by the Jewish Antifascist Committee, they wanted to eliminate any references to the traitors among the Ukranians, Lithuanians and others who collaborated with the Germans openly, helping them to slaughter Jews. "Events soon discouraged him altogether" wrote Joshua Rubenstein. "Sometime in late 1944 over five hundred pages of The Black Book were sent to the United States for distribution. Ehrenburg was furious. No one had asked for his permission or even informed him of the request from America. Ehrenburg immediately understood that once the material appeared in the West it would be harder to publish in Moscow. He wanted the book to appear first in the Soviet Union where it was most needed to combat domestic anti-Semitism....Ehrenburg believed committee leaders deliberately undermined what he was trying to accomplish. Furious he broke off with the JAC and began referring to it as the `Judenrat' or the `anti-Jewish committee' in the presence of startled Jewish partisans." (1)

With this going on Ehrenburg was fearful that his friend Stalin would not sanction the work. For the Soviet government, all Jews were Soviet citizens and recognized only as such. But clearly to Ehrenburg and Grossman there was no denial that the Jews alone were held in a special and separate category, targeted by the Germans for extermination. This the Germans exploited to further their imperialist ambitions with the propaganda that the Jews were the sole cause of all their troubles. Further obstacles hampered a quick publication of the Ehrenburg - Grossman work when an appeal was sent to Andrei Zhdanov, the new secretary of the Central Committee."He sent the letter to the propaganda department who responded that the Black Book had `grave political errors' and forbade publication."(2) This pretty much crushed Ehrenburg after the years of heroic work struggling to collect the facts and document the history of the excruciating human suffering of the Jews and the repugnant human depravity of the Germans.

Until the time of his death in 1967, Ehrenburg, deeply saddened, had failed to see his wish fulfilled with the publication of his book in the Soviet Union "In 1993 the original Black Book, the version that had been approved for publication in 1946 and then forbidden in 1947 was finally published by the Jewish publishing houseYad in Vilnius."(3) This present edition, the English translation of the original 1993 edition was first published in 2002, "This is the book which Ilya Ehrenburg, and after his death, his daughter, Irina Ehrenburg dreamed and worked to have published."(4)

To immerse one self in the task of recording the history as Ehrenburg and Grossman did was almost like submitting oneself to becoming a victim. Describing the hideous procedure, the cold and calculating German action, brutes capable of laughing and joking, of taking photographs of human beings, stripped of their clothing, forced to dig their own graves and lie in them to be shot while atop blood covered victims, already shot dead. The Spanish Inquisition with its thirty-two thousand burnt at the stake, though no less an atrocity, it could not reach the intensity of the German slaughter of the one and a half million Soviet Jews that the Einsatzgruppen with their machine guns blew out the brains of beautiful and good people while smashing the heads of babies against any hard surface.The lives of every Jew that fell into the hands of the German brutes was brought to a horrendous end. It was the determination of the Germans to torture and murder every captured Red Army soldier. The Red Army prisoner, M. Sheinman, stated:

In the camp at Zhitomir the invaders first tried to exterminate all the Jews and political workers, so that they could then slowly and methodically exterminate thousans of prisoners of other nationalities. All the new arrivals had to file past a special "commission." The ones identified as Jews were turned over to the SS. They were housed separately from the other prisoners and forced to do the hardest and filthiest work. They were fed only once every three days. Every night the Gestapo and their dogs would go to the prisoners' barracks. The dogs would pounce on the people, biting and tearing at them. After being endlessly humiliated, they were taken outside of the town and shot....There were 1,500 people in Wesuw, most of whom were dying of tuberculosis. [After our liberation from Wesuw, British and Canadian soldiers and doctors came and asked those who were dying from tuberculosis how they had come to such a state. They heard shocking tales of how] the Germans sent young and healthy people, captured soldiers and officiers of the Red Army to mines and factories: there the prisoners were force to work fourteen and sixteen hours a day on one or two liters of soup made from grass and turnips and 250 grams of bread. People were subjected to humiliations and tortures never before heard of....But even in the death camps prisoners were not allowed to die peacefully. The butchers tortured them up to the last minutes of their lives with hunger, cold, beatings and other atrocities... Only the twisted mind of a sadist could have devised the system of torture that existed in the camps, especially for the officers, the politicals, and the Jews.


The Black Book, is a record of a period of history of modern times, a history of human events that should stand today as a seminal work. It causes one to question the true nature of the human species, causes us, after experiencing,through the pages of the Black Book the shocking depths of depravity to which the human is capable of and has fallen. It is a worrisome thing when we stop and think about it.The power of The Black Book is reenforced and complimented with the publication of Jasenovac And The Holocaust In Yugoslavia by Barry M. Lituchy, a work in which the atrocities committed by the Germans in the Soviet Union are repeated under the guidance of the Germans in Yugoslavia.-This raises the question about whether the existance of the inate evil nature of the human is suppressed or encouraged to develop within the structure of the social system which nurtures it - broadly speaking - the two diametrically opposed systems - one capitalist and the other communist?

This is a reminder that we cannot turn our backs on those millions trapped in the execution machine of the Germans and most cruelly slaughtered. The Black Book and Jasenovac, amongst others serve as a clear warning today when we still witness so much inhuman activity. In the preface of The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewrey Vasily Grossman wrote; "Here we should recall the words of Stalin, written in response to a request from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in America:

In answer to your question, nationalistic and racist chauvinism is a vestige of customs characteristic of a period of cannibalism. As the extreme form of racist chauvinism, anti-Semitism is the most dangerous vestige of cannabalism. Like a lightning rod protecting capitalism from the blow of the workers, anti-Semitism benefits their exploiters. Anti-Semitism is dangerous for workers, a false path leading them from the true way and luring them into a jungle. Therefore in keeping with their international outlook, communists cannot help but be the implacable and sworn enemies of anti-Semitism. In the USSR anti-Semitism is prosecuted in the most sever manner as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet order. In accordance with the laws of the USSR, active anti-Semites receive the death penalty.
J.Stalin (6)


1- Joshua Rubenstein, "Tangled Loyalties" p.216
2- Ibid. p. 217
3- Helen Segall, "Black Book" .p. xv
4- Ibid.
5- "Black Book" p.430
6- Ibid. p.xxv


Philip Stein

Review of The Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry by
Ilya Ehrenburg and Vasily Grossman

I have always been fascinated by the homey and satisfying food of traditional Irish cooking. This book is full of information on different traditional Irish dishes. There are no contemporary or imaginative dishes in here, and many don't sound very appetizing.(does oatmeal soup sound good to anyone?) That is not the point of this book though. The point is to preserve the dishes that the earliest settlers in Ireland lived off of, and to preserve the Irish heritage in doing so. Miss Allen puts a large emphasis on using seasonal, organic ingredients that are naturally available to you. If you're interested in traditional Irish cookery, this book is well worth the money.

The best of Irish country cooking all in one volume! Stews,Casseroles, nourishing natural country foods.Excellent!

A very nice cookbook,with plenty of color photos & clear concise instructions,covers all the food groups,beautifully done.

A very nice cookbook,with plenty of color photos & clear concise instructions,covers all the food groups,beautifully done.

This is the definitive source on the British peerage up to 1938. (Vol. XIV, printed recently and sold separately, updates the saga to the late 1990's.) This 4 to 1 microprint version of the original pages still leaves reasonably legible print; having a reader's magnifier might also be useful for some. The vols are well produced and come in an embossed slipcase, and though sturdy my slipcase was significantly damaged in transit (two front-to-back edges totally broken so that the case would not hold together) with subsequent pleas for amends falling on deaf ears.

This is a reprint, printed in 2000, reducing 4-1 the pages of the orignal 13 volumes into 6 volumes. The orignal was published between 1910 and 1938, so this set does not include information more recent then 1938. Be sure to track down Vol. XIV, published in 1998, to complete the information. Otherwise this is excellent information.

Begun by George E. Cokayne, the Clarenceaux King-of-Arms, this set is to the British peerage what the Oxford English Dictionary is to the English language -- absolutely the best thing of its kind. Citations to primary sources frequently fill 3/4 of the page and anecdotal text-notes put some meat on the bones. Far superior to the 19th century Burke's Peerage publications. Don't attempt serious British research without it! The numerous appendices at the ends of the volumes also are highly recommended as instructive essays.

This is by far the most complete and enjoyable peerage resource, in that it gives the full history of EVERY peerage created up to the 20th century. You cannot get more complete than this. The new edition means that people can actually buy it without going bankrupt and it will be an invaluable resource for genealogists and for people who like to look up old books just for fun as well. Christopher Catherwood, author of CHURCHILL'S FOLLY: HOW WINSTON CHURCHILL CREATED MODERN IRAQ (Carroll and Graf, 2004)

This book gives balanced detail to the different epochs of Polish history beginning with prehistory and ending with the fall of Communism.

Many interesting facts are presented in this book. For instance, the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Krakow was completed in 1397. (p. 52). In the 19th century, Russian revolutionaries Herzen and Bakunin supported the resurrection of the Polish state. (p. 163). In 1909, the Boryslaw-Drohobycz oil fields accounted for 5% of the world's oil production. (p. 162). Finally, Kiev had a large and thriving Polish intelligentsia as recently as 1917. (p. 164).

Some writers have claimed that Marie Curie-Sklodowska, following her move to France, increasingly distanced herself from her Polish heritage. In apparent refutation of this, the authors point out that Curie always maintained close contact with Poland, and was instrumental in establishing the Radium Institute in Warsaw in 1932. (p. 163). This was shortly before her death.

During the interwar period, popular illiteracy was reduced from 33% to 15%, and mortality rates were cut in half. A modest beginning was made in mechanization. In 1939, Poland had 2,000 tractors compared with France's 30,000. (pp. 221-222). (Of course, much agriculture all over Europe at the time was still non-mechanized).

A unique aspect of this book is its detailed list, in the back, of all of Poland's rulers, beginning with the dynasties. The list includes foreign rulers of Prussian-occupied, Austrian-occupied, and Russian-occupied Poland, as well the Communist rulers of Poland in the 20th century. There is even a listing of leaders of the Polish Government in Exile in London, which existed in the years 1939-1990.

This is beyond a doubt the best history of Poland I have read so far (and I run a website on Polish History). It is concise yet detailed enough for any reader or for the curious. There are fascinating facts that one does not come across in any of the other histories which add to the general background and it is written in a eminently readable fashion. Lukowski is a very familiar name amongst students of Polish History - his account of the Partitions is a classic and the partnership with Zawadzki makes me want to read that historian's work also. I cannot recommend this book enough. If you want a History of Poland then this is the definative version.

In contrast to the usual myths, it is such a pleasure to read a more honest historical account written by two ethnic Polish writers, now, after many decades of war propagandas. As the authors of this book state: 'The 20th century has added its own myths ...after the Second World War, Polish historiography was want to depict a 'Piast Poland' whose boundaries were curiously congruent with those of the post 1945 state'. James Michener's book 'Poland' (claiming that Poland should have rightfully conquered Prussia), is also one of those myths perpetuating fictions. Michener, a fiction travel writer gentlemen, was taken in by his charming hosts, during the Communist Polish government, while writing his book. Some people take his fantasy book 'Poland' as factual history of Poland. In contrast the two authors of this book, Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki have done some factual research. High time that this 'Concise History of Poland' was written and published.

If you have no knowledge of Polish history, this book is a good place the start. The authors recommend Playground of the Gods if you are looking for a more detailed history of Poland, but I haven't read those yet so I can't "offically" recommend them.

This book covers basic events and ideas that occured in Poland for the past 1000 years. In addition to politics and military events, the authors attempt to list cultural figures, such as Chopin, and how those figures reflected or affected Polish events.

There were few details on events most people normally think about when they think of Poland, such as concentration camps and WWII. However, these issues aren't ignored entirely, just given the same coverage as other events in Polish history.

Gerald Wood has written an incredibly inciteful book on this young Irishman who has yet to be fully recognised in his mother country. Mr Wood has guided us through the plays and scripts of McPherson and it becomes very obvious from the moment you read the first few pages that this is an author who has tremendous knowledge of the world McPherson comes from. It came as quite a shock to me to discover that Mr Wood is from the US but his ability to understand the concept of "The Irish Author" is remarkable. I can truthfully recommend this book to all students and professors of Irish theatre. It is a concise and very readable book and does not attempt to suffocate the reader with excessive analytical language. I agree with the above reader regarding "I Went Down." This film is one of the best we have ever seen produced in this country on such a limited budget. Hope to see more from MacPherson and Mr Wood in the near future. Excellent!

I found this book to be an excellent study and introduction to McPherson's work. Mr. Wood's analysis seems to be spot-on to me, and he makes some numerous insightful observations. Indeed, this Liffey Series is very good.

I'll admit that I have always found McPherson's work to be wildly inconsistent. Some of the plays are great (Rum & Vodka), while I always thought that others, particularly The Weir, were overvalued. My favorite is probably the movie I Go Down. This book does a good job of giving an overview of McPherson's work, and has made me better appreciate some of the plays that didn't originally mean much to me. In fact, Wood's book makes me curious about what the future holds for McPherson. I recommend this book highly.

I'm glad to see McPherson's work getting some study, especially in the US. I found this book to be a great introduction to the Irishman's works, and the author, Wood, seems to really know his stuff. Not only that, but the book is really readable. So much scholarship is poorly written, but this book is clear and intelligent without being confusing. For anyone interested in contemporary Irish writers, this book is a must for your bookshelf.

This is an interesting and well written guidebook. It was mentioned on NPR I think once and it was well deserved. Finally a guidebook for active but not agile among us. A must have for any trip to Scotland.

The Creaky Traveler In The North West Highlands Of Scotland by experienced world traveler Warren Rovetch is a personal memoir and engaging travelogue of Britain's coastal wilderness. Penned with insight, charm, and vibrant impressions of culture, natural beauty, and the unique feel of the land itself, The Creaky Traveler is a very highly recommended, expressive, and readable Scottish Highlands guide for vacationers and armchair travelers alike.

Yes this is a travel book with advice on how to get there and what to see, but really it is a book about our nature in seeking the unusual by seeing the common in a new way. It also happens to be just plain good writing-- a joy to read and to savor, like the travels in the wilds of Scotland that the book describes.

THE CREAKY TRAVELER provides an amazing amount of detail (including maps) about a small part of the northwest highlands of Scotland. Mr Rovetch has a friendly and somewhat avuncular writing style which verges on the pedantic at times. He obviously kept a diary of his travels from which this text has been extracted (the minutia could only be recorded not remembered). I found some of the detail annoying for "armchair travel" but useful for objectively planning road travel in remote Scotland. After using it to plan a trip,THE CREAKY TRAVELER is the sort of book one reads a chapter a night on the road to scope out the next day's adventures.

Rovetch and his wife Gerda who prefers the sobriquet "G" are in their late sixties-early seventies and still mobile, though as he says "not agile." Although Rovetch provides helpful hints for "older" folks, younger adventurers may find many of the suggestions useful. I bought the book because I have been seriously contemplating visiting the highlands when I travel to the UK this summer. Rovetch has convinced me road travel is the only way to go, and road travel in northwest Scotland cannot be knocked out in a few days. Also, if you truly hope to "see" anything, high summer is probably not the very best time to go.

Rovetch suggests limiting the miles covered to under 20 per day given the condition of the roads (the path is narrow and the way is hard) and the joy of slowly savoring one of the world's most beautiful rural areas. Rovetch and G made their several week journey in May when the countryside was filled with new lambs and few tourists. The places they stayed were picturesque and relatively pricey. This is a good guide for the practical traveler.

Croatia: Travels In Undiscovered Country by Tony Fabijancic is a superbly written, personal memoir and eye-witness travelogue of what it was like to experience the land and people of Croatia as both an ancestral home and an undiscovered country. Transporting the reader on one man's journey into a rich and varied landscape, Croatia: Travels In Undiscovered Country is a vividly written, deftly informative, and memorably presented experience of a land steeped in centuries of tradition and lore. Croatia: Travels In Undiscovered Country is especially recommended reading for armchair travelogue adventure enthusiasts and anyone thinking of a trip to Croatia for themselves.

A terrific book. I have found no other book on Croatia that offers such insight into the country's current way of life and historical emblems, without becoming trite or resorting solely to political fact listing. Reveals the fragile beauty of a an undiscovered country in the midst of economic and cultural change. A wonderful travel book. Accessible and imaginative writing. Very well done.

I recently returned from three weeks in Croatia and came across this book. I would say Tony's writing is fair to good, and I enjoyed his insights into how the country felt and looked in 1996 post war. Because most of my time was spent along the Dalmatian Coastline his stories have inspired me to spend time on my upcoming return to Croatia in the rurual areas. Speaking Hrvatska is going to help and for anyone contemplating travel to Croatia he does a good job of articulating the lifestyle of 10 years ago. It is changing drmatically now that it is poised to join the EU. His stories are off the beaten tourist path and defininitely reflect the flavor of a very diverse country that remains in denial about its history and its future.

This is an account of its author's travels in what for him was "undiscovered country" but for the reader, save for this book, would be forever undiscoverable. Mr. Fabiancic, a Canadian born in Croatia, fluent in the language and connected with the culture, combines a native's access with a foreigner's perspective; he thus engages deeply on our behalf with places and people that otherwise, if we encountered them at all, would be no more than two-dimensional snapshots, real or remembered.

Indeed, much of what Mr. Fabiancic saw and experienced just ten or so years ago may well already have been swept away by the riptide of progress that has swept over the newly independent nation since the disintegration of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991. His observations are keen and his descriptions immediate.

Mr. Fabiancic also shares his inner travels with his audience. That aspect of the book is not especially to the taste of this reader, for whom Mr. Fabiancic's reports of personal epiphanies and developmental milestones ("My youth is over") get in the way of his descriptions of the often striking landscape and its often colorful and, it seems, always engaging inhabitants. At times, too, his striving for literary effect can be a bit labored: in places the similes are so thickly spread as to obscure the nouns they are meant to illuminate, and more than one perfectly effective account is blunted by a last-minute effort to give it Meaning.

Should such distractions tempt you to put the book down, don't. If you find a chapter heavy going, try another; they vary in style, as in subject matter, and little is lost by reading them out of order. Later, returning to a passage that had seemed a little overblown, you may experience it more sympathetically. Especially if you have in mind to visit Croatia, the author's vivid insight into what the country and its people are and have been will make coping with the book's less successful qualities more than worth your while.