United Kingdom Books

Jihad, by Mr. Murray Fradin serves as a great primer to understanding that the current geopolitical unraveling did not spring upon us suddenly. Today's events have been fermenting for hundreds of years. Mr. Murray's Jihad is a well documented and succinct treatment that will emerge you into a late nineteenth century conflict that has continued to grow and become globally relevant today. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but unless we take heed to what was learned in the Sudan over 100 years ago, that light will remain that of an oncoming train.

JIHAD: The Mahdi Rebellion in the Sudan is a welcome break from the spate of fantasy and romance novels currently being churned out in infinite numbers. It is a thoroughly researched yet colorful and exciting narrative centered around the rise of a charismatic Moslem leader in 19th century Sudan, Mohammed Ahmed, who raises a religious war against Britain and her Allies.The author does a commendable job of showing historical parallels between late 19th century Middle East politics and today's Mid-East Crisis. The book is a "tour de force" on the
subject complete with maps (including one drawn by the author),graphics,a comprehensive Appendix, and a ton of foot- notes (carefully arranged at the back of the book for the reader's convenience). Mr. Fradin's main thesis is that the United States is doing at the start of the 21st century in the Middle East what Great Britain did there in the late 19th century- planting an overt footprint in the region to protect her national interests-thus giving at first appearance the image of an imperialist thrust into the area by the Middle East inhabitants. He firmly believes that democracy and its institutions are the future for this region. However. it will take careful negotiation between the Islamic and Western Worlds to achieve a lasting and just peace. Highly-recommended!!!

Many Americans seem to have a peculiar sense of dualism about themselves, a feeling at once slightly elitist and fiercely victimized. The United States attempts to be the great savior of the world, but is cast off by many other nations, and it is from this so many Americans draw both superiority and resentment. While U.S. citizens have much to be proud of, so many seem to be neurotically opposed to admitting any shortcomings, and it is this arrogance--not, as is so often cited, hatred of American culture or freedom--that is a primary source of a bias against the United States from Sweden to Somalia. Two phrases plastered across American newspapers a year ago demonstrate this bipolar affliction: "Everything has changed" and "Why do they hate us?" Only Americans could claim that their indeed heart-wrenching loss of 3,000 lives had superseded every other such atrocity the world over, yet simultaneously sequester themselves with a flippant "us."

U.S. newspapers and their journalists were dramatically affected by Sept. 11. From the instant iconicity of "9/11" (a date so beautifully Ameri-centric) to the violent and sudden loss of any pretense of objectivity, American journalism is in not in the same state today as it has very recently been.

Chronicling the myriad shifts over the past year, Journalism After September 11 takes a hard, academic look at nearly every aspect of journalism--structure, stereotypes, objectivity, conglomeration, globalization, patriotic journalism, risks to reporters' health, tabloids (both American and British), talk shows, online media, and photography. All of the writers included are from the world of academia, and it shows in a few of the chapters, which dive headlong into obscure sociology. The authors' distance from the world of news media, however, unquestionably enhances most of the work. There is also a range of opinions on American journalism--though all authors seem to agree that it is flawed, several believe that it can be saved. After being under the microscope its prognosis is cautiously--though barely--optimistic.

In James W. Carey's essay, "American journalism on, before, and after September 11," he argues that American journalists were in the midst of a "vacation from reality," one that began sometime before the 1988 presidential election and peaked with the impeachment of Bill Clinton. During this time, Carey writes, news media did "serious damage" to democracy. They pulled expensive foreign affairs correspondents, integrated news and entertainment programs, and increasingly moved toward tabloid-style scandals in order to sell their papers. When the airplanes struck that morning, Carey says, journalists performed adroitly--but not for very long:

"The calm and poise of the television networks during these fateful hours of ignorance represented an admirable professionalism. Perhaps it couldn't last. By the end of the day speculation was pouring forth from the political centers of the country. As the week progressed, television coverage degenerated. Banners were unfurled, inevitably in red, white, and blue, along the crawl space at the bottom of the television screen announcing 'America at War,' or 'America under Attack' as if the story were about a basketball or football tournament."

In the days that followed, Sylvio Waisbord argues, American news media "resorted to standard formulas and stock-in-trade themes." The national news media served primarily to comfort and to warn, and to do little else. The centerpiece of the book is surely Waisbord's chapter, "Journalism, risk, and patriotism," which builds on the other contributors' conclusions. With the news media's growing ignorance of foreign affairs, Waisbord writes, insecurity itself became "othered"--terrorism was simply something that occurred, however unfortunately, to other people in other places. This begins to account for why the American public did not react so viscerally (or, in some cases, at all) to either massive genocides or attacks on American holdings abroad. There was no general American revulsion following Rwanda. After massive atrocities were revealed in the former Yugoslavia, Hollywood stars did not proclaim how suddenly "meaningless" their work had become. This cultural sense of invincibility was truly what broke down last September, and Waisbord argues it may have taken the news media along with it. In addition, professional journalists felt that, in the wake of a violent message interpreted against American "freedoms" (and certainly after the death of reporter Daniel Pearl), they were being specifically targeted. Thus, Waisbord writes, they increasingly used patriotism to inoculate themselves against the threat. News had suddenly become legitimate in the eyes of the public, and journalists were more than willing to write what the public wanted to hear. Gone was the subtle elitism that Carey describes, which had pervaded the media since Watergate. Patriotism allowed journalists to be a visible part of what they interpreted as a united nation. With the combination of a supposed attack on the freedoms that supported their own enterprise and a newly-admiring public, the news media embraced patriotism as their rightful purpose.

As Robert W. McChesney laments in "September 11 and the structural limitations of US journalism," this deference to patriotism--or, more frequently, rabid nationalism--gave journalists an extremely limited framework in which to operate:

"What is most striking in the US news coverage following the September 11 attacks is how that very debate over whether to go to war, or how best to respond, did not even EXIST. It was presumed, almost from the moment the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, that the United States was at war, world war. The picture conveyed by the media was as follows: a benevolent, democratic, and peace-loving nation was brutally attacked by insane evil terrorists who hated the United States for its freedoms and affluent way of life."

There is considerable reason to believe that the text selected by most media and politicians--of "evil" or "insane" terrorists--was not merely a gut reaction, but carefully selected vocabulary. If the terrorists were evil, then they had no motivations, and it was absurd to attempt to discover what led them to carry out such an act; their motivation was evil alone. But as another author points out elsewhere in Journalism, "There has emerged over the last three decades a set of journalistic narratives on 'Muslim terrorism,' whose construction is dependent on basic cultural perceptions about the global system of nation-states, violence, and the relationship between Western and Muslim societies." Doubtless these tropes reinforced the predominant feelings of "having to do something" ("something" which inevitably translated into "war") to combat the evil marshaled against us.

Not coincidentally, risk suddenly became real, not by a measurable increase in danger (virulent anti-Americanism had been flowing for quite some time), but primarily by the media's own increase in focus. They--meaning both the public and the journalists who were now, proudly, a part of it--had been attacked, and they would stand sentinel against any further threats. The anthrax attacks were a good example of this: perpetrators were almost immediately assumed to be foreign, working against a unified American public, and a relatively small number of deaths created a firestorm of articles for more than a month. Waisbord and several other authors lament modern journalism's reliance on official sources and "events" for their news. This policy precludes long-term explorations of structural violence, such as the building threat of terrorism against the United States in the previous decade. In the case of the anthrax attacks, the news promptly dropped off the front page shortly after the final death, despite the fact that no perpetrator had been identified.

It is this combination of legitimizing patriotism, reliance only on official sources, and risk based on definable events that did the most harm to American journalism after Sept. 11. Carey places the blame for these policies primarily on the conglomeration that governs most news organizations, writing that "in recent years journalism has been sold, to a significant degree, to the entertainment and information industries which market commodities globally ... This condition cannot be allowed to persist." With Sept. 11, however, Carey seems more hopeful. In their introduction to Carey's piece, the editors write that journalists "just might have realized that democratic institutions are not guaranteed; rather, they are fragile and can be destroyed by journalists as well as by politicians."

The remaining authors in Journalism After September 11 offer a wide panorama of the state of the news media today. Barbie Zelizer (an editor of the book) describes how the use of still photography in newspapers allowed the American public to "bear witness" in a similar way as following the Holocaust--yet this time, there were no bodies to be seen. Karim H. Karim notes that Islamic and Middle Eastern stereotypes are still in wide use when explaining notions such as "terrorism" or "violence." Several authors tackle more specific areas of news--tabloids, talk shows, and newspaper commentaries--and there is an intriguing look by Ingrid Volkmer at how news media is increasingly defined not by national boundaries, but by sub- and supra-national organizations. Journalism gives one an in-depth look at how different facets of American news reporting operate, and how that may be affecting, for good or ill, the American democracy.

The two, of course, have always been intertwined, with patriotism frequently substituted for democracy when threats arise. "Patriotism" is itself a nebulous term, and Waisbord questions why journalism opted so forcefully to embrace "hawkish patriotism," parroting the official line and increasing the level of anxiety. A more traditional "constitutional patriotism" would have preserved civil rights and freedom of speech, while holding government accountable for its actions, he writes:

"Journalism needs to resist the temptation to dance to the tune of deafening nationalism often found in public opinion. Instead, it could courageously show patriotic spirit by keeping criticism alive ... [it] could provide reassurance by lowering the fear volume and offer community by defending diversity and tolerance rather than foundational, ethnocentric patriotism. A choice for the latter not only excludes democratic dissent from patriotism, but it also minimizes the possibility that citizens of the nation imagine that they also belong to a world community of equals."

Journalism After September 11 raises many such questions about the choices of mainstream journalism, and answers few of them--yet those in the news media need to be having such debates. And in a nation in which reporters take their strength from an empowering democracy, the issue is one of importance beyond the news media. These are concerns everyone must attempt to resolve.

This profile of both journalism and events after September 11th provides a blend of social history and a survey of how journalism's classic structure was shaken by the events of September 11th. Ideological beliefs flourished after the tragedy and ultimate transformed the nature and content of journalistic reporting. Journalism After September 11th packs in a host of internationally respected journalists and academics who probe the face of modern journalism and its many challenges.

There are some photographs that could only be photographs. Christopher Burkett's work is like that. But othere are obviously inspired by painting, and Harry Cory Wright's work is of that kind. These numersous medium-to-large photos chronicle a months-long journey Wright took around Great Britain and its offshore islands (not Ireland). He took photos of the sea, woods, cliffs, fields and hedgerows, a waterfall, a few human artifacts and a few children.

The color palette tends to the dark, although there is glorious sunlight shining through some photos. Wright likes dark green and brown and favors yellow-green highlights when the sun is in evidence. The pictures were taken with a large-format camera, but Wright is often going for a painterly level of detail. In fact he reminds me of the French realist painter Breton, known for the work "Song of the Lark."

This is not the candy-coated nature photography of Galen Rowell, but neither is it the unmanicured stuff of Thomas Struth. It is stylized but in a subtle way that does not detract from the appearance of realism.

This is a glorious book filled with gorgeous, full-page color photographs of the various landscapes of Scotland, England and Wales. It is most definitely worth having.

The K-Boats were an attempt to build a fleet of "underwater cruisers"-- huge submarines that could travel on the surface and operate with surface vessels, rather than alone (as had been the norm) and then dive to attack, thus increasing protection of the surface vessels. The key was that they were equipped with steam powered surface turbines rather than standard diesel engines (but were equipped with electric motors for undersea use.) The "Ks" were the largest, most powerful submarines built until the advent of the nuclear boat fleets in the 1950s.

The vessels were plagued with disasters-- crewmembers were killed in virtually all of them. They had been posted to picket duties, with the result that the crews were bored with little to do; they were undertrained and the submarines incorporated technology that was completely unfamiliar.

This book traces the boats from their genesis to their end. They were originally planned to counter Germany's high speed, ocean-going submarines. After WWI, when the files of the German High Seas Fleet were investigated by the British, they found that Germany had no such submarines and had never planned any. The K Boats were developed to counter a threat which had never existed at all.

Readers with an interest in naval submarine history and the way in which politics determines naval decision making should read this book. In addition to text it contains a host of photographs of K Boats underway and a fold-out of a schematic of a K. An excellent read.

This is a concise and highly interesting book of a time of early submarine development and the ill fated K Boats. My Grandfather Stoker 1st Class Henry Fulcher was one of the few survivors following a collision at night during the Battle of May Island (Jan 31st 1918) where his submarine(K17) was rammed and sunk by one of our own ships (HMS Fearless). There were 9 survivors and there would have been more if our own destroyers were aware of them in the water that fateful night and did not mow them down !

Myself and my wife used this Ireland guide to travel. Each place listed was a gem. This guide takes the hit-and-miss nature out of B&Bs.

My wife and I found this to be a very useful guide book to use with others during the week that we were making a limited driving tour of Wales.

This is a great book. It should be a model of how historians approach the period. It is full of insightful detail such a quotes, vignettes and illustrations that illustrate Parr's life and her impact on society. The book is wonderful in striking a balance between the author's reflections on Parr's life, framing the historical times to give context and historical detail to support her conclusions.

So many books on the women of the English Renaissance seem to be written by little old ladies in Tropesshire, who rattle on about Virgin Queens, duty and stiff upper lips, that sort of tripe. The "see no evil, hear no evil, write no evil" school of history. Susan James's book is a refreshing departure from all that. I can only hope she takes on Elizabeth I as a subject after this book. A really modern, complete book on Elizabeth that has some semblance to historical reality has yet to be printed.

One, small detail, Susan James believe that Parr's daughter, Mary Seymour died before the age of two. She did not. She was placed in the home of another noble family. If she emails me, pfstreitz@aol.com, I'll tell her where Mary went.

This book has everything in it, from pillage and mayhem, royal murders, romance, sex and violence. And besides that, you're learning information never before published about the Tudor royal family. I thought Kateryn Parr was just a weepy widow who married a king and instead she turns out to be Scarlett O'Hara. What a surprise! A strong and well-presented book. Totally fascinating!

Simon Sheridan has if you can pardon this and other puns in this piece, done a "bang-up" job of documenting the history of sex movies in British cinema. From the nudist films of the 1950's to the titilating "sex-coms" of the 1960's and 70's, it's all here in chronological detail complete with movie stills, posters and "behind the scenes" stories. Now if you're already thinking that this subject is something you'll find unintersting or offensive, well let me just say that it's really the same as watching Benny Hill on TV or a "Carry On" movie that basically pioneered the whole genre in the first place. Only it's taken to the next step or mis-step depending on your tolerance for such things. With titles like "Confession's Of A Window Cleaner", "Can You Keep It Up For A Week", "I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight" and alike, this was the state of the British movie industry in the 70's and was all that was keeping it alive. A far cry from the day's of the great Ealing comedies and epics like "Lawrence Of Arabia", it was a sign of the times. Whereas in America "hard core" films like "Deep Throat" were becoming the "in-thing", that kind of pornography was still very much illegal in Britain. So to enhance the "soft core" simulated sex, the comedic element was added in typical naughty British "seaside humour" style. Indeed, many of the same big name comedic actors who were on TV, found their way into doing cameos in these pictures. You even had such stars as Joan Collins stripping off in "The Bitch" and "The Stud", thats right the same star of TV's "Dynasty". You had veteran directors like Val Guest and American Jack Arnold, trying their hand at it. As well as newcomers like Martin Campbell, who later went on to direct a few James Bond movies. Big name studios like EMI and Columbia Pictures, certainly didn't mind getting in on the act either.

As the author saids "these were movies that put boobs on screens and bums on seats". What with most of Britain's cinema's already converted to bingo halls and supermarkets, exhibitor's were desperate to get the public or as they like to say over here "punters", to fill up those seats. As you might expect -they did and it prooved very profitable specially when they were produced so cheaply and so fast. I can even remember going to my local ABC theatre in London and getting amused and somewhat modestly aroused by them. Looking back, it's all very dated and tame by today's "in your face" digital standards. A good supplement to this book, is Sheridan's other book on Amazon, a look at British sex star Mary Millington in "Come Play With Me". Taken from the title of Mary's biggest hit sexcom, which also incidently holds the record for being the longest-ever theatrical booking in British cinema history!

I have had this book for ages now. It was bought for me as I am a fan of the Carry On films.
I read about all of the films and saw the Confessions films on television, I thought that they were fun. To me these films are only one step up from the Carry On's, in there sex content.
I found them so good I made it my mission in life to find these movies and watch as many as I could. This book has become invaluable to me as a reference book.
People are so busy trying to be politically correct that they have forgotten how to laugh, at the women and the men! Do we have to analyse everything? can't we just enjoy it?

This book is fantastic. It is a well researched look into the long chain of events that allowed the Germans to buy two prized English Legends, Rolls Royce Motorcars and Bentley. The author does not wag his finger or denounce the Germans from taking Rolls Royce away from the Brits. He lays it on the line. He details the bad decisions and market forces that eventualy forced the English automaker's hand. This book must be read for its look into the automotive industry. This book is not filled with dreamy eyed descriptions of "the best car in the world." The various executives who speak in the book are realistic in describing the problems Roll Royce had suffered over the years, regarding build quality and financial issues.

Walk into the local supermart of bookstores, leaf through the "business" section and within five minutes know the sum total of five best sellers. The "transportation" shelves typically offer little better: business histories that read like the old notes of a reporter or minutiae on a historical marque.

Then comes Richard Feast, with his compelling saga of the world's most revered automotive name, its trials and (sometimes) self-inflicted tribulations, linked carefully and accurately to the industry around it and to the particular travails of British industry in the second half of the 20th Century. Filled with first-rate reportage and wonderful characters, it is a wonderfully spun, brilliantly paced history that no doubt will become a reference work for generations of car lovers and business watchers.

A great and comprehensive biography of one of the most amazing figures of history. Although some may take a little time getting used to the Saxon names and genealogy anyone who enjoys biographies or history should love this book.

Although filled with detail Smyth breaths life into the days of Alfred. A religious man who was both a brilliant scholar a brilliant tactician and one tough soldier. Such was his brilliance he did such remarkable things as help to adapt the Viking boat to suit his own army's needs for a craft more suited to navigating the coast of Britain.

He almost single-handedly created what we know today as England and through his treaty with the Vikings he established an economic zone of a type shared by both the Saxons and the Vikings and in so doing played an important role in the creation of the English language.

After his peace with the Vikings he established a just system of laws and an aggressive plan to educate the populace of England.

The biography starts with the peculiar and unfortunate circumstances within his family that led to his succession. He found himself, trained as monk, in the midst of one of the great watershed moments of British history when England was being overrun by the Vikings. His campaigns as a defeated underdog reclaiming his kingdom makes for truly exciting reading. The book is filled with detail including shedding light on how the main biography historians in the past (Asser's "Life") had been drawing from was a forgery.

The story of the forgery of Asser's "Life" , what was the standard biography of Alfred the great up until recent times, is in itself a story within a story in this book.

Through the examination of works of Alfred himself we come to understand his great wisdom.

A fascinating read about a monumental figure of history.

Highly recommended.

Alfred Smith, a professor of medieval history at the University of Kent, provides us with a masterful biography of Alfred the Great. Smith's biography is a radical departure from the traditional view of Alfred as a neurotic invalid who remained piously illiterate until he was almost 40. Alfred's life is thoroughly examined to reveal a man of great physical stamina who had been a scholar all his life and who used his intellectual abilities, military prowess and administrative skills to change the course of English history prior to the Norman Conquest. This beautifully written biography examines Alfred's writings and charters, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, and Asser's biography of Alfred (which Smith believes was a medieval forgery). This biography should be added to the library of historians, students and lovers of medieval history!

A very thorough and perceptive analysis of the Reign of James VI of Scotland, later to be James I of England. Patterson's depiction of James as a conciliatory force within British Christendom is well supported in this excellent period history. Articulate and intellectually stimulating.

Dr. Patterson's King James VI and I and the Reunion of Christendom is a significant contribution to the volume of works written about early 17th Century . The work shows that James tried to acheive an ecumenical union among the fractured states of Europe in a century that saw one crisis after another. The incredible amount of research that went into this book is clearly evident. This would make an excellent addition to anyone's library.