Ireland Books

I discovered this book by reading Mazower's book. This was a pure delight to read. The author brought me back to a Thessaloniki I had learned about in Mazower, but added the warm, personal details of family life and interaction among the groups which made up Salonica in the early 20th century. I didn't want the book to end. I was surprised to learn that it had been published quite a while ago and that the author's child added an epilogue. I wish I had read it before and wandered the streets to find some of the landmarks.

Farewell To Salonica: City At The Crossroads is the autobiography of Leon Sciaky and tells of his having grown up in Salonica (now called Thessaloniki), in Greece. A remarkable view of a place where Sephardic Jews, Greeks, Turks, Macedonians, Albanians, and Bulgarians all met, traded, and went about their daily lives. A superbly written memoir, Farewell to Salonica is a heartfelt, highly recommended testimony to a memorable city and a cultural mecca.

This book gives a concise history of Mussolini and the first Fascist regime. The book starts with an introduction by Adolph Caso describing his childhood memories growing up in an Italian village during the wartime years, his family's experience and his observations on moving to America.

The text proper summarizes Mussolini's early political associations, the state of Italy beginning some time prior to World War I and conditions following that conflict. The reader is introduced to the thinkers and activists who formulated the various doctrines that influenced Mussolini although eventually he adhered to none of them as originally conceived.

Mention is made of the other great dictators and `isms' of this period and the reader is reminded that bad as he was and although not hesitant to use violence to achieve his objectives, Mussolini did not engage in mass killings, nor did he institute the concentration camps or gulags of other regimes.

Mussolini formed a compact with the Vatican with which he restored relations and did not appear to be antagonistic to religion. He was not a racist although when he became a dependent and lackey of Hitler during World War II, he did promulgate anti Semitic laws. Prior to this Jews held prominent positions in his regime.

The author does a commendable job of laying out the conditions under which Fascism (or other `isms') arises and from time to time the reader may find some of the comparisons with our present situation disturbing. However, the book closes with a reassuring conclusion in this regard and points out how the Constitution and our system of checks and balances create a considerable obstacle to any individual or party seeking to establish a totalitarian regime in this country.
Dave Cohen

Put together a young serious historian and a "been-there; done-that" publisher, and you have an impressive interesting book entitled Fascist Italy: A Concise Historical Narrative. The book, written by 28-year-old Cristogianni Borsella, in my opinion, reveals a well-versed, knowledgeable, and dedicated author with an excellent writing and presentation style that allows readers of all ages and background to learn from him. In addition, Adolph Caso, publisher of Branden Books, brings to us in the Introduction¾ "Fascism, Italian Style: Reactions to memories and events," as a beautiful backdrop against which we gain a new and/or expanded understanding of Fascism.

Now you might quickly frown and say, "Now why would I want to learn more about Fascism?" I admit it! My first thought was, "Now what have I gotten myself into this time?" However, I was quickly dispelled of my qualms. Adolph's sharing of his memories of his early life under the regime of Benito Mussolini quickly made the book more personable. A simple little story about his mother having to give up her pots and pans, for example, emphasizes to each of us the struggles of those who have lived through those horrible times in the past. At the end of the Introduction, I was looking forward to learning more!

Just what is Fascism? "In the past 60 years it has been used egregiously as a synonym for totalitarian dictatorship and chauvinism." (P. 120). The writer continues, however, "Fascism is not just ring-wing bigotry, however; it is much more insidious. It is the merger of finance capital and state power. . .quite literally capitalism in decay. . ." (P. 120)

Now, does that make you curious? Finance Capital--Banks? State Power--the ever-present bureaucracy??? I must admit that by the time I was reading Chapter 11, "What is Fascism," I was beginning to wonder about how things are going here in the United States. Was this book relevant to me? Were we perhaps moving toward Fascism or are we already there? There's no way around it, in today's world, we are all asking questions, wondering about whether we are doing the right thing, whether we have gone too far in participating and even initiating actions against other countries.

As the title relates, Borsella has presented a concise historical narrative of the development, movement toward, and the evolution of Fascist Italy, providing both an historical accounting of Italy's place in Fascism as well as the relationship that was later developed between Mussolini and Hitler, as well as a comparative analysis with other ideologies such as Marxism, etc.

The narrative moves quickly and easily, building as is needed to gain the necessary historical background and knowledge and then moving with readers to allow us to consider how Fascism may have or is affecting us in the United States.

I leave you with a selection from 14 Characteristics of Fascism: (pps. 142-143)
Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism
Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
The supremacy of the military/avid militarism
Rampant sexism
A controlled mass media
Obsession with national security
Power of corporations protected
Fraudulent elections
Rampant cronyism and corruption

Any of these sound familiar? Want to read more? Wonder about the rest of the characteristics? Wonder how the author sees the United States based upon his extensive study? I think this book goes beyond the basic research efforts of historians. Borsella has taken a look at significant historical facts and used them intelligently and effectively to allow us to expand our own knowledge as well as explore how and if we fit within Fascism. For surely you've heard us being referred to as a Fascist nation? Are we? If you have questions at this point, I highly recommend Fascist Italy by Cristogianni Borsella!

I've always been a fan of fairy tales, as well as all things celtic, and so this particular book was pretty much perfect for me. It contains eight different stories, and I enjoyed seeing the similarities between these stories, and the myths and legends of other cultures. The way language was used was also intriguing, as there were several times that the phrasing seemed backwards; I can see, though, where these stories would benefit from being passed down orally through the generations - they just seem to flow better when read aloud. (Yes, I did read some of the passages aloud to myself, and my puppy, a Scottish Terrier; he seemed to enjoy them. *grin*)

To start off, let me first say that in general, I like the whole series of Dover Children's Thrift Classics Fairy Tales. Filled with murder and betrayal, this book is questionably appropriate for young children, though it does leave behind some important morals.

Seamus Deane and Field Day have put together a most remarkable collection of writing, culled from Ireland's rich history of composition.
The pieces presented in the three volume initial set includes writings from all the most well-known of Ireland's writers. You have the bigs ones: Joyce, W.B. Yeats, Swift, Shaw, Kavanaugh, Wilde, Stoker, Heaney, and Synge, as well as hundreds of other contributors (including a few Nobel and Pulitzer prize winners). The writings are not just the best non-fiction or fiction, there are letters, plays, editorials, poems, songs, and folk tales, among others. Joyce's "Ulysses" as well as Yeat's "The Lake Isle of Inisfree" are in my opinion the two best pieces in this collection. "Inisfree" is heartbreaking in it's lyricism and rhythm, it's just hard to fathom that an individual can write like that.
The list of contributing editors is enough to carry a collection all by itself: Seamus Deane, Seamus Heaney, Declan Kiberd, and Terence Brown. It would have been interesting to see what the inimitable Paul Muldoon would have done if he had been asked to edit a section, but Mr. Muldoon still makes a presence with his writing.
With more than 4000 pages in the three volumes, the collection will fill many a night and day. There is no other resource that will allow one to own such a varied and beautiful biography of Ireland's writing history.

A splendid collection of Irish writing from medieval Ireland to today. Poems,plays,political tracts from all the famous and not so famous authors. If you have a favorite, you will find him in these pages. It has given me untold hours of enjoyment. A super gift for those with a love of Irish literature.

I, too, have had the pleasure of studying with Dr. Horrox; however, I have had the added pleasure of having read this book. Dr. Horrox's choice of essays, her deft handling of the material, and the overall significance of the material is, not unexpectedly, superb.

i must confess that i haven't read this book just YET-- but i have looked for it forever, it seems. the reason i feel that i am justified in reviewing a book i haven't read is that i have had the extraordinary pleasure of getting it, as they say, straight from the horse's mouth. she was one of my professors at summer school in cambridge. her class was entitled life, literature and art 1000-1500 and was probably the most enjoyable class i've ever taken. she would never look at the class (we were warned that she wouldn't) but she would roam back and forth across the front of the room, looking up, looking down, and speaking almost as if to herself of the most fascinating bits of information. while other teachers were dry or commanding or chummy, she was just genuinely informative. she spoke of history as if it were the juiciest gossip that you held your breath to hear more of. if ms. horrox can write half as well as she teaches this book should be one of the greatest reads imaginable for anyone with even the slightest hint of interest on the subject. cheers, ms. horrox.

MLR Smith did an extrodinary job of portaying the military history of the IRA. He explicates the Anglo-Irish Treatry and implores the pragmatic achievments of Michael Collins. From the Civil War and hencforth, Smith examines the lapse of political ends in the IRA or the irregulars. He compares the fallacies in the bombing campaigns throughout the fifties to the philiosophies on Von Clausewitz' "On War." Never were there any political motives in the campaigns led by Sean Russel. Furthermore, One cannot expect to be victorius in limited warfare in Northern Ireland where the Protestants make up two-thirds of the population. An excellent military analysis of the IRA. Recommended to all readers.

An interesting, dispassionate analysis of IRA strategy from 1969 onwards. Smith is not concerned with moralizing, and takes no position on the justness of the IRA's campaign. Rather, he looks at the methods and strategy of the IRA and how well they have (or haven't) advanced the IRA's interests. He doesn't seem to consider the IRA's goal of a united and free Ireland as realistic, and continually evaluates the IRA's position in the most pragmatic terms possible. This can be somewhat off-putting for someone wrapped up in the principles of Irish Republicanism, but it is thought provoking and these are probably the kind of arguments that were used to bring the IRA's campaign to an end by pragmatists within it and within its political allies in Sinn Fein. For this reason it is a valuable book for Irish Republican supporters to read.

For people not very familiar with the struggle in the north of Ireland, this book is probably not the best place to start. I would suggest reading a broader and more general history first, such as "The IRA" by Tim Pat Coogan, which is excellent for those with no previous knowledge of the subject (and even for those of us who do have some). Then come back to this book.

What a great book!Retold Irish Folklore accompanied by beautiful illustrations.Small glossary to help with the pronunciation of some Gaelic names.The story kept my 4 1/2 yr.old's attention (re-read many times), and made me laugh out loud. We loved it! My favorite line..."Finn overcame with wit and wisdom that which might never have been done by force." Words we should all live by!

Robert Byrd has completely captured the original folklore in this beautifully spun tale! This is such an excellent book to help teach your children at a young age some of the wonderful stories found in Irish Folk Lore! I absolutely love it and so does my 4 1/2 year old son!!!

Yanky brings to light what all folks who have asked themselves the question "do I have what it takes to strike out on my own as an entrepreneur?" Do you have the fire in the belly? The passion in the pit (of your gut) The real guage of success is if you can make the adjustment from the security of the world of traditional 9-5 work (ladder world) to the land of freedom. Yanky's book makes you ask yourself the critical questions. I have witnessed this book's ability to change peoples lives.

I recommend it highly, and if you ever get the chance to see Yanky in person, don't pass it up you will be impacted and enlightened by the experience.

This book is simply wonderful! If you have ever wondered about the emotions that prompted you to want your own business, or if you feel displaced by your desire to run your own business or even if you aren't sure that owning a business is for you.....READ THIS BOOK! It will not tell you how to start a business, but for those who feel unfulfilled in their 9 to 5 it will help you learn about yourself, your needs and what's possible for your future. Not to mention that it's an easy read, it's clever and you will see all of your friends, family and coworkers within the anecdotes contained within. I loved this book. Not just for entrepreurs either!!!!

If you enjoy armchair travel and more specifically armchair long distance walking, then this should be the book for you. If in addition, you enjoy laughing out loud or at least snorting appreciatively, then this is certainly the book for you.

Mark Wallington has a keen sense of the ridiculous and with his canine companion Boogie, sets out to tackle the South West Coast Path covering much of Devon and Cornwall in England. Their encounters and obstacles and joys are recorded with such humour that this book is diffcult to put down and in many ways reminds me of the writing of Bill Bryson.

Do they survive and make the end of the trail - well you'll just have to get hold of the book to find out!

"Walkies" is the first of the three-book set of the author's hikes around England with his unusual dog Boogie. This is the best book of the series and well worth the read.

At the time of the Falklands War, the author decided to hike 500 miles around the southwest coast of Britain. To say the least, he knows absolutely nothing about hiking and camping outdoors, but he knows, first and foremost, he must take a dog ý Boogie in this case, who could care less. They are both unsuited and inexperienced for a long hike, but they both survive in a comical excursion that will you leave laughing to the very end.

What makes the book so enjoyable was the dog ý Boogie. This is a dog who never knows a stranger. He goes for the hike despite knowing his master is a total fool for undertaking such endeavor. His master may go without food, but Boogie never goes without.

Read about their walkies around the southwest coast of England. You will learn a lot about travel but also much about Boogie.

A darkly violent Fellinesque riff on the Bosnian war, this "graphic novel," by Joe Sacco is a fast read, a noirish examination of the relationship between a parachute journalist and the necessary local 'fixer' who serves as a local contact and makes it possible for the journalist to drop into a foriegn country and get a story. In this case, the local turns out to be a questionable ex-fighter whose war stories are both more and less true than appearances indicate. The fixer, a troubled ex-fighter scorned by his former comrades and spurned because of his ethnic background, is a terrific character, evocative of both the unresolved issues behind the Balkan wars as well as the marginalized citizens anywhere made exiles in their own land.

Just to be clear, this is not a graphic novel, as some people are saying. It is graphic non-fiction, or graphic reportage, occupying a gray area somewhere between newsprint, photojournalism, memoir, cartooning, and essay. Sacco's first such book on Bosnia, Safe Area Gorazde, is a classic -- and those who found it compelling will certainly want to read this account of his 2001 return to Sarajevo. Aided by a Guggenheim fellowship, Sacco returned to do followup research and find old friends to see how they were getting along in peacetime. In his attempt to learn more about the siege of Sarajevo and the and its aftermath, he reconnects with an paramilitary veteran who had been his "fixer" on his previous trip in 1995. In war zones and trouble spots throughout the world, fixers are the oil that lubricates the machinery of international journalism. They are the ones who steer journalists to the right translator, hotel, driver, interviewer, clean hooker, alcohol, location, etc. -- for a few hundred in hard currency per day.

Sacco's fixer was Neven, a Bosnian Serb who loves his city and fought in one of the many ad hoc brigades that were assembled by charismatic men in the early days of the war before a real Bosnian army was established.  An outsize character, Neven becomes a kind of lens through which Sacco tries to understand the war's very confusing impact on Sarajevo. The book hopscotches between various stages of the war and the present in a kaleidoscopic jumble of images, confusing nicknames, and impenetrable mix of fact and myth. Through Neven, Sacco tells the fragmentary tale of some of the more prominent warlords (almost all of whom were shady prewar characters), and of their sometimes heroic, sometimes despicable activities during the siege. To a certain extent, they are the subject of the book, populist characters who took it upon themselves to create personal armies to fight the separatist Serbs when there was no central government or army to do so (most of the Yugoslav army supplies were handed over to Serbia following the dissolution of Yugoslavia). Of course, many of these patriotic men were also probably interested in enriching themselves, and as the war dragged on, attempts were made to incorporate them into the regular army and police and things got rather messy. As Sacco recounts, many of the "facts" surrounding various killings, atrocities, and profiteering by the warlords will forever remain obscured by the fog of war, and the need for politicians to wash their hands of those dirty times.

At the same time, what becomes increasingly interesting is the relationship between Sacco and Neven, and the plausibility of Neven's endless stories about what it was like "back then." Neven is a down and out character who owes money all over town, and Sacco clearly feels guilty about walking around with bundles of Deutchmarks, while his fixer is real-life war veteran. The subtle (and not so subtle) assaults on Sacco's wallet become a running theme, and are an interesting window on the less glamorous side of being a foreign correspondent. At the same time, as Sacco spends more and more time in Sarajevo, he meets more and more people who cast doubts on Neven's veracity. He's certainly known all over town, and certainly did fight in the war, but there's also clearly a gulf between his stories and the truth. And as a Serb, he's also somewhat of a pariah in his own home city, his apartment is seized by connected refugees, and a general antipathy for Serbs hover around him.

Ultimately, readers looking for a clear understanding of who was who, and what was what during the war, are going to be frustrated -- and are perhaps missing the whole point. This book is all about the fog of war, the strange mutations of time and place that raise certain men to power and then cast them aside, as well as the guilt and confusion of being an outsider looking in