Europe Books

Harry captures it all. Being a navigator in one of the most colorful bomber groups of the 8th Air Force in WWII, (if not the most colorful.) Harry is there as an original crewmember of the Bloody Hundredth. In a time where your life expectancy was 8 missions and you had to fly 25... Harry's a one off, what a story, what a history. Should be mandatory reading for anyone who claims to be American.. Well done.
Mark

This book is real, deep and insightful. I find myself in awe of the personal courage of the men who ventured over Festung Europa during the darkest days of 1943 and early 1944. I read and reread this book whenever I need inspiration to face daunting and/or painful circumstances. I really wish that it was back in print.

Find a copy of this book somewhere, it is well worth the extra effort. Only the new WWII airwar novel, The Triumph and the Glory, moved me as much as Crosby's epic tale of the 100th Bomb Group

Harry Crosby's account of the 100th Bomb Group and the air war against Naze Germany from mid-1943 till the end is one of the most informative and thoughtful memoirs of those dark days. Crosby relates many stories in his accounts, of his own experiences as a navigator, of the impact that Curtis LeMay and other group commanders had on combat techniques, of the sometimes touchy relationships between AAF personnel and their British hosts, and some thoughtful observations of the nature of war and the overall bombing campaign.

Crosby with a degree in English and considerable writing experience writes lucid, stripped-down prose, and his accounts of navigating under difficult circumstances brought a reality than few other accounts--written mainly by former pilots--have done. His story of an early mission to Trondheim, in Norway, is a gem of the navigator's problems--of unexpected cloud cover, of flying over Norway where, as Hobler put it, one fjiord from the air looks like another, and the element of luck and chance in any mission. As a WWII navigator in the Pacific, these types of details were welcome, as was his understanding of the "place" of navigator's in the AAF pecking order. When I was informed in December 1945 that I was on a preferred list of those to man the postwar Air Force, I politely declined knowing that navigators would be highly unlikely to advance at the rate of pilots. (I did, however, remain the reserves for 20 years}.

What comes through most clearly, however, was the terrible losses that the 8th suffered in its campaign against Germany's manufacturing capacity and infrastructure, and of the courage and perseverence of those who served. The 100th BG, for example, arrived in midyear, 1943, with 35 crews; only one intact crew completed 25 missions, though a few other crew members from crews broken up because of casualities and other reasons also survived. Was it worth it? Did the damage done justify the loss in life, not only of the air crews but also those of German civilians and others killed by the raids. Crosby is a bit ambilavent--he joined the anti-war movement in the 1960s. Nonetheless, no one can take away from the aircrews, and those who did not return, their courage and belief that they were part of a grand but terrible endeavor to bring the war to an end and of the demented policies of Hitler and his Nazi cohorts . May they rest in peace.

Harry Crosby was a navigator in the 100th Bomb Group in World War II. He was one of the original members of the 100th, a bomb group that, because it ventured into battle with less training than groups preceding it, and because of its unenviable position flying in the lower part of the formation on many missions, suffered heavy losses and became known as "The Bloody Hundredth". Crosby uses his obvious skill as a student of the English language to recreate the drama, the humor, and the terror of flying B-17's out of East Anglia in the war. He describes many of the historic missions flown by the 8th Air Force as an eyewitness. I have read the book several times and it is good history as well as a good study of human beings and the stresses they face daily in war. I highly recommend this book.

David Burke's new guide is enormously entertaining. It's jam-packed full of intriguing little tales about dozens of literary giants in Paris: where they wrote, drank, loved, fought, and influenced each other. Maps and addresses throughout the book enable literature lovers to visit these haunts physically as well as imaginatively. The photos are a treat, too.

This book is spectacular. It brings the writers alive in a Paris of the past but one that most travelers merely sense. The book is a must read for those who want to feel and see how Paris complimented the writers' lives. The meticulous research coupled with wonderful photos make this a pure joy to read.
I think this book would be of interest to anyone who enjoys a literary tour of Paris whether they visit the City of Light or take an armchair tour.

Literary Paris comes alive on the pages of David Burke's new book, Writer's In Paris. A beautiful and comprehensive book about the writers who lived, loved and created in the City of Light.
David Burke navigates the Arrondissements of Paris as easily as a native Frenchman, taking us through
the haunts of the likes of Andre Gide, Proust , Jean-Paul Sartre as well as the expatriate writers who
called it home, such as Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, F.Scott Fitzgerald and many others. Buy this
book and take it to Paris - you won't regret it!

How many streets in the city you live are named after writers?

In Paris: more than 400.

David Burke seems to have walked them all.

And that's just for starters. He also seems to have read all the books by those writers, cross-referenced their friendships, and then figured out a clever way to summarize his knowledge in a modest 240 pages, with 125 photos along the way.

But then, David Burke --- a "60 Minutes" producer who moved to Paris for a year and simply forgot to leave --- is a lifelong reader and Francophile. As a kid in the `50s, he went to Pamplona not just for the running of the bulls, but "because that was where the climax of `The Sun Also Rises' takes place." Later, he tried to find Jean-Paul Sartre in Saint Germain-des-Prés.

Now he's divided the city he loves into three sensible zones --- the Left Bank, the Islands, and the Right Bank --- and slotted in the writers who lived and work there, working mostly chronologically, delivering the most salient stories about each. Like...

The Church of Saint-Julien-le Pauvre
It's the oldest church in town. When we're in Paris, we like to go to concerts there. I had forgotten that Ford Madox Ford took his mistress Jean Rhys there - or, in one of her novels, his alter-ego did.

39 rue Descartes
Verlaine died there. Hemingway rented the garret he'd occupied.

Rue Mouffetard
What's in a name? Mouffle means "stink", and "skinners, tanners and tripe butchers" set up shop along the river here. No surprise that young, unknown George Orwell lived here.

Deux Magots
James Baldwin was taken here directly on his arrival in Paris to meet Richard Wright.

Colette
I don't know that she got her break with her "Claudine" book three years after it was universally rejected. Then another book about schoolgirls was a hit, her husband showed her manuscript around again, et voila --- Colette had a best seller.

Hotel du Vieux Paris
They called it "the Beat hotel". Allen Ginsberg lived here. He produced 56 lines of "Kaddish", "weeping as the wrote them in Café Sélect."

Gertrude Stein's Picassos
I never knew that the Gestapo searched her apartment and decided the Picassos were "Jewish trash, good for burning." But they left them hanging.

Hours Press
And I didn't know about Nancy Cunard's poetry contest. A young writer heard about it on the last day, wrote 98 lines and stuffed them in an envelope. He won ten pounds. Samuel Beckett, aged 24. Of course.

Luxembourg Gardens
"Balzac circled the garden at night in his monk's cowl, candelabra in hand" --- another tidbit I didn't know.

Le Dome
The first big café. One night when Sinclair Lewis was boasting about one of his books on the terrase, someone shouted, "Sit down, you're just a best seller."

Rue de la Gaité
Henry Miller was "drawn to the erotic as a bear to honey." He loved the sex shops and vaudeville theatres here.

Georges Simenon
Colette advised him, "No literature. Suppress all the literature and it will go fine."

Jim Morrison
And I didn't know this: No one recognized his corpse, including "the man who came every day to keep the body packed in dry ice because of the city's heat wave."

Emile Zola
I had no idea he died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The police said it was an accident. Some evidence suggests he was murdered. A tantalizing incident, briefly told, that leaves you wanting more.

Proust
And I certainly didn't know he inherited the equivalent of $6 million, giving him $180,000 or so in today's money to live on each year.

And there's so much more, much of it exhilarating. But watch out --- you'll read with a pencil, you'll mark titles and writers, and before you know it, you'll have a stack so tall you might as well have bought a plane ticket.

David Burke's Writers in Paris: Literary Lives in the City of Light is simply perfect; not only does it present a treasure house of information (who knew it was Gargantua's tale that gave Paris its name?) but it's also written extremely well, with the scholarship balanced with wit and charm. I found so much in this book I had never known and timely connections between writers I had never guessed at. The joy of finding additional information about a particular writer popping up later in someone else's section gave Burke's book a rich sense of dovetailing detail. This book finally puts it all together for me, and I found great pleasure in reading it. Writers in Paris makes me exclaim: Euro be damned; I must get back to Paris!

Fascinating book, very worthwhile. Tons of well organized and documented information. Wonderful and thorough reference.

I've made armor using the diagrams of existing armor types from this book. I didn't much care for some of the strapping arrangements described, so I designed my own. (Hey, this is the armor the regular fighters left behind - Wisby was defended by the teens and the oldsters to judge from the age of the bodies. This suggests the men of prime fighting-age were elsewhere, with their primary armor.) It worked, well, and protected me in combat. And the illustrations and text were clear, clear, clear.

This book has a very special meaning to me since I'm from the town of Wisby(nowdays spelled Visby). Born and raised on the island Gotland and lived most of my life thete. I'v built several of these coats of armour and so far everyone I've tried on have been of satisfatcion. The book is so far the best resource book I've ever found. I have for a long time tried to find the first edition, but IF you can find it somewhere it's incredibly expensive. So jus imagine my joy when I saw there was a reissue! And very soon I'm going to be proud owner of this masterpiece...
The book is really easy to use and have exceptional drawings and scetches. Transforming the scale of the objects in the book to original size is really easy and there's a lot of information i general. At last a recommendation for all you SCA-fighters out there. Try out armour no.6 and no.9 because they give very good protection and are comfortable to wear.

This book has a very special meaning to me since I'm from the town of Wisby(nowdays spelled Visby). Born and raised on the island Gotland and lived most of my life thete. I'v built several of these coats of armour and so far everyone I've tried on have been of satisfatcion. The book is so far the best resource book I've ever found. I have for a long time tried to find the first edition, but IF you can find it somewhere it's incredibly expensive. So jus imagine my joy when I saw there was a reissue! And very soon I'm going to be proud owner of this masterpiece...
The book is really easy to use and have exceptional drawings and scetches. Transforming the scale of the objects in the book to original size is really easy and there's a lot of information i general. At last a recommendation for all you SCA-fighters out there. Try out armour no.6 and no.9 because they give very good protection and are comfortable to wear.

This book contains a wealth of knowledge about medieval armour and the effects of weapons. The pictures are fantastic, skeletons buried in their armour, rarely does one get to see how armour was actually worn. The breakdowns and detail of actual armour construction is immaculate and enables any competant armourer to reproduce the examples shown. The detail from an archeologist's point of view was a little too in depth for my interest but if you are that way inclined then great. Only issue I have is the "analysis" of some of the wounds seen, Mr. Thordeman seems to imply that this battle was unusual in some way, that the combatants fought with unusual fury. He sites one incident of one combatant having both legs severed by a single blow as an indication of some great fury and intensity. I only disagree as there are very few examples of medieval battle wound pathology to compare the Wisby corpses. It seems that the author is looking at the battle from too detached a viewpoint, forgetting that killing was the purpose of the people who showed up to battle that day. This is a small detail but supposition as to the mental states of combatants, by someone who has no first hand experience of battle is unproductive. Otherwise a great book.

if you are looking at a way to make the ordinary special, looking at the images contained in Atget definitely intrigues your imagination. details and compostion place the viewer in the scene, an active particpant.

Now that it is so cheap, don't miss this great book! Excellent prose by Szarkowski and beautiful pictures by a master... hard combination to beat.

Eugene Atget is known to everyone, perhaps not by name in all instances, but at least by the images of Paris and environs that grace all manner of books, essays, brochures, museums, art collections, and postcards throughout the world. At the time of his death in 1927 his enormous output of images was archived and has subsequently been studied, purchased and shared with exhibitions too numerous to mention. Yet in this fine book the essence of Atget the observer is appreciated as well as any publication of the many about the pioneering photographer, a man who served as an important bridge from studio formality of the art to entering the human realm of images of people on the streets of Paris and the surrounding areas.

Each of the 100 tritone and 5 duotone photographs in this elegant volume is accompanied by an insightful comment by the superb writer John Szarkowski who also happens to be the former director of the Department of Photography at the MOMA in New York. Rarely have photographic images been so enhanced by the written word: Szarkowski is in complete synchrony with the vision of Atget. Here are images of simple people of early 20th century Paris, images of streets, still lifes, woods, streams, rivers great and small, each captured with immediacy and yet with timelessness.

For those looking for an affordable introduction of Atget's work for the library, this is certainly the volume of choice. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, March 06

This book is another gift from a great writer and observer, an homage to Atget, to photography, to art and to Western civilization. For anyone who pretends to be a photographer or to love Art, it is a joy to share Szarkowski's easy erudition, one or two pages at a time.

Atget showed us the axioms of photography and axioms cannot be explained by analysis. The test of an Atget, Bach, or Cezanne, is that it is impossible to find the source of their revelation and impossible not to find their influence in future artists.

"Good pictures are not explained by words...With exceptional good luck criticism might with words construct meanings that are different from but consonant with the meanings of pictures. Such constructs of words might possibly guide us toward the neighborhoods where pictorial meanings live.", he says in this book. (Please, if you are an art historian or critic, take this pledge!)

Thus Szarkowski tours the photographs he has selected and writes a thought or two somehow connected to each one - sometimes a revelation, often a question. Each page of writing stands alone and will engage the reader in a conversation with the author and the photographer. Many times Szarkowski puts us somewhere behind the camera a hundred years ago, or on a bridge in Paris 600 years ago. He really brings Atget to life by putting us in his time and place.

There are plenty of revealing facts stashed throughout the writing. Szarkowski talks of the influence of Atget on Weston, Walker Evans, Winogrand, and others and leaves us to recognize the Atget in Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, and ourselves. He mentions just the relevant technical and biographical details.

He shows examples of how Atget handled Time,the essence of photography. As he wrote in "Photography Until Now" about Atget, "Perhaps from the practice of looking attentively and repeatedly at the same thing from different vantage points and in different lights he came to see that ...one tree, or one reflecting pool, was never twice the same, and would therefore last as a subject as long as one's concentrated attention. With this realization he became, surely not intentionally, a modern artist."

The reflecting pools and trees are in this book along with the more familiar Parisian architecture. Different views of the same subjects are also in other books such as Berenice Abbott's "The World Of Atget". Szarkowski thus, enriches the literature on Atget, giving meaning to many of the published mindless catalogs of his photographs.

Szarkowski shows another reason Atget is a modern artist. His work is meticulously constructed in the same cultural elements as the works of his more famous contemporary French painters and sculptures. There are no accidents and no mistakes in his work. The result is a richness that reveals something new every time we look at it.

The same is true of this book by Szarkowsi. I've read it three times. It is a masterpiece, "...seductively and deceptively simple, wholly poised, reticent, dense with experience, mysterious and true." To use the words Szarkowski wrote of Atget in Looking At Photographs.

Again, John Szarkowski takes us by the hand and leads us into the photographs of Eugene Atget, as through the magic of a looking glass. In these writings, on a selection of photographs from the first quarter of the 20th century, in his historically aware and individual way, Szarkowski instructs on how to read a photograph by doing so himself. We not only see into the environs of Paris through the eyes of the eclectic, determined and tender Atget, but also through the eyes and the keen, attentive mind of Szarkowski, who writes as though he lives inside these pictures, and tends them, and the photographer, with great devotion.

This edition is set up by the previous 4 volume study, The Work of Atget, by Maria Morris Hambourg and John Szarkowski, Museum of Modern Art, 1985. But this new book comes from a persistent, deep seam miner, one who knows that what it is about these photographs is so fertile, they can be studied throughout one's life, and still give more.

How rich is the mind that can bring another mind to light? Would it be bearable if everything in life could be keyed into focus, for us too busy and bothered to pay attention, by a poet as revelatory as Szarkowski? When considering entree des jardins, 1921-22, he says, "except occasionally, as (for example) during revolutions, the French have managed very well to sublimate the periodic human tendency to behave violently toward one's fellow human men, and have directed these impulses toward their trees", you cannot help but love the gardener who built the gate here, the photographer for seeing it, and Szarkowski, for bringing it to our attention in this way. He tells you what is on the menu, who lived in the house, how the hotel got its name, who built it, what may have motivated them to sculpt a Dionysus over a doorway, what member of the court of Louis the XIV was cast to live where, what other photographer may have attempted to photograph the same scene, and sometimes, what led Atget there.

The book is a beautiful masterpiece, and an accomplishment worthy of a life spent looking deeply. If you love (really looking at) photographs, you should consider your shelves incomplete without it.

I've read about 40 first-person books written by survivors of the Japanese POW camps and this is one of the best. When I began reading the book I didn't realize that I knew Lt. Boyt's family and when I did the story became even more compelling. Lt. Boyt and his biographer did an excellent job of telling his story, outlining what life was like for the young people during the 1930s and early 40s and how overcoming the hardships of that life was what made this the "Greatest Generation". Boyt's story tells how he used determination to overcome barrier after barrier to become a successful and useful citizen. Those traits did him well when he was suddenly thrust into the horror of prison camp under the brutal heel of the Japanese. He and his buddies withstood more than is hardly believable. Young Americans should be required to read this book so they can better understand that this is the "Home of the Free BECAUSE of the Brave!"

Pleased with the prompt delivery. Good doing business with you.

This is a fascinating, well-written account of the life of a man who symbolizes the best qualities of "the greatest generation." Men like Mr. Boyt endured unimaginable suffering and then came home to live quiet, decent lives without seeking the attention and respect they deserved. We need to hear their stories and learn from them before they pass away. This book is inspiring and easy to read. I highly recommend it.

Great read! Clear, concise, draws you in. Gene Boyt's outstanding character and his attitude about the horrible ordeal he is forced to endure comes through clearly as a big reason for his survival. Mr Boyt's story is one of true heroism, although he states he considered himself only a survivor. This excellent book shares a special place on my bookshelf next to other stories of Mr Boyt's great generation. -Forever Greatful

This is the story of my Grandpa. I hope you all enjoy this book! Now that my Pops is in a better place I can read this book and feel closer to him than ever. Through reading this book my family and I have learned so much that we never knew about our Pops. It shows the best and worst of the people of the Death March and the angels that helped my pops to survive so that I may be here today. I hope you enjoy this as much as we have! Thank you for reading it.
Shoni Boyt

This book, along with a couple by Henry Miller and a few others of Durrell's, was responsible for causing my husband and me to leave life and jobs in LA and move to Greece for nearly a year. Bitter Lemons is part memoir, part political commentary, part travel writing, and part philosophy. It's the story of Durrell's fairly brief stay on the island of Cyprus, conflict between Greeks and Turks, impending world war, buying a house and trying to settle into a unique niche of the world. It's a book about Life and all its myriad difficulties.
Tip-top - and wonderful writing. It's one of those books whose memory will stay with me always.

An evocative memoir of the author's stay [1953-6] in what's now Northern Cyprus. Much of the landscape was still as he described it when we visited Belle Pais, Famagusta, Kyrenia, and Nicosia, the Tree of Idleness and other sites on our hiking trip to Cyprus in 2001. His adventures in buying and maintaining a house rival those of Peter Mayle's "A Year in Provence"written many years later. The peaceful interludes in the hills are marred by foreshadowing of the political turmoil and tragedies that would engulf Cyprus in the following decades, leading to the departure of Durrell and other foreign nationals. Some of those towns and even cities remain ghost towns to this day

This book, along with a couple by Henry Miller and a few others of Durrell's, was responsible for causing my husband and me to leave life and jobs in LA and move to Greece for nearly a year. Bitter Lemons is part memoir, part political commentary, part travel writing, and part philosophy. It's the story of Durrell's fairly brief stay on the island of Cyprus, conflict between Greeks and Turks, impending world war, buying a house and trying to settle into a unique niche of the world. It's a book about Life and all its myriad difficulties.
Tip-top - and wonderful writing. It's one of those books whose memory will stay with me always.

I visited Mr. Durrell's house in 1991 while visiting my relatives in the American Embassy (it has a little sign that says Bitter Lemons). I didn't want to go to Cypress; it was just something to do to kill time one summer with my family. I read the book on the way there and finished it a day before the trip to the Turkish side of the island. It was like a light had been turned on and it has never been out since. I plan and I go everywhere now and as often as I can. Good enough to purchase another copy after 15 years of use.

I read this book because I'm planning a trip to Cyprus next year. My only previous exposure to Lawrence Durrell's work was PROSPERO'S CELL, his evocative memoir of Corfu. In that book, he tells of having to leave the beautiful island because of the impending World War II. In BITTER LEMONS, Durrell once again finds an island paradise that he has to leave because of political violence. The early chapters of the book are mostly humorous sketches about the lazy life of beautiful Cyprus and the colorful local characters. His happy island home becomes a kind of salon for globetrotting artists and intellectuals. Then about halfway through the book, political trouble starts brewing and terrorism becomes a fact of daily life, destroying Durrell's friendships with the people he had come to love. During this crisis, Durrell, a schoolmaster, is enlisted to serve as an administrator in the British government. There, he finds himself in the frustrating position of watching the crisis escalating all around him and being powerless to do anything about it. Durrell documents the events leading up to a standoff between the British and the Cypriots, primarily the result of British bureaucratic indifference. The book is beautifully written. Durrell was a poet and novelist and his descriptive prose evokes the colors, tastes and smells of the island in a way that is very moving. I enjoyed the early part of the book more than the parts dealing with politics. Durrell could easily have written this as two books and, in a way, I wish he had. The book left me with a terrible sense of loss, but that is perhaps what Durrell intended. This is a sad book.

Blitz Cat is the love story of a cat and her special person. When Lord Gort, a cat, discovers her special person has left, she goes in search of him. It's WWII and he's a fighter pilot she seeks through psi trailing.

The story reveals the vulnerability a lone cat faces as she traverses across countries. People and other animals can be friends or foes. Lord Gort's determination never waivers and you cheer her through myriad adventures.

Blitz cat is a great and detailed story about a cat who runs away from home during the war to find her true owner. Along the way she meats many friends,has many kittens and brings good and BAD luck to people she meets.

This book won the "Smarty Award" for children's literature in the 9-11 year old age group. If you understand that literary awards are given for political correctness, not literary merit, you'll know what's going on

The book is actually a rattling good yarn about life on the Home Front in World War II. The only problem is that it is written from the anti-war perspective of the 1980s. As a result, it dwells excessively on the horrors of war, especially the war in the air, with great emphasis on the gruesome details of what happens to people on the ground when bombs go off:

" ... the metal was all buckled and shiny where the bullets had knocked the paint off... And red seeped from the holes. A drop fell on his hand, and he licked it and it tasted of blood... "

"... a fireman being led by two others, his face like a cooked steak and his pale eyes unseeing, rolling in all directions..."

"... in the dim light of the distant fire he saw the dried foam around [the horses'] mouths, the tiny burns and wounds from the cinders..."

"... she went up in tiny bloody morsels for the birds to eat off the trees and the telegraph wires..."

" ... the man in the road was blown into eight separate pieces; head, torso, limbs flew up like curving birds..."

Is this the kind of thing you want your nine to eleven year old reading?

I was born in London, less than 4 years after WWII ended. The war dominated my childhood. I grew up with the people who lived through the blitz. And I heard and read story after story of the heroism and courage of ordinary people. Mr Westall chooses, instead, to focus on the ugliness, on the opportunism, on the occasional inevitable breakdown of human decency. Anything to make the politically correct point that war is ugly. Evidently Nr Westall never heard of John Stuart Mill, the rather pathetic english philospher whose one great statement amongst all the rubbish he spouted was

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

Did I enjoy the book? Yes I did. Would I recommend it to mature discerning adults for a slice of reality of life on the Home Front in WWII? Of course! Would I give it to my grand kids to read? Not just "no", but "hell no!!" Not until they're in their twenties!

this book was very good. It was a compeling story of a cat named lord gort who tries to find his way home. He is many miles from home and he makes his way throught many sad and rough parts of the war. On his way he meets many people of all ages and shares his story. I would recomend this book to many people of all ages.

This is one exrodinary book. This book combines the tragedy of WWII with the humor of several odd europeans. The cat is merely another character that joins together the basic outlines of True stories. Even if you aren't a cat lover or aircraft fanatic you can still enjoy the odd (and sometimes drunken) europeans. I am not usually such a book worm, but this book has turned me into such (only for this particular book though). Though I am in only jr. high this is by no means a kids book. It will most adults guessing at the constant flow of long past and forgotten terms and phrases. Yet this book does not include the graphic descriptions often related to wartime stories. The thing that most interested me was that all the stories were based around true ones. Sam

I read this book, here in Brazil.This book is full of correct things, and I must tell you, that this book isn't very biased or ridiculous.This book even has some appendixes about bombers, losts e even one appendix with a letter.
Failures of this book are small.The biggest of them is the fact, that this book has almost nothing, about american bombers and its results.
Even so, this book is good.To example, on page 350 , the author writes:"The two great archivements of the allied strategic air offensive must be conceded to the Americans:the defeat of the Luftwaffe by the Mustang escort-fighter, and the inception of the deadly oil offensive."The British inflicted grevious injurious upon us,'said Milch after the war, 'but the Americans stabbed us to the heart.'

Bomber Command is a great book if you want to know about how bad war can be, and should be read by anyone that thinks there is some glory in war. However, the conclusion drawn by Jerry Saperstein, "as Hastings notes, there was no such thing as an innocent German civilian" is not supported by the text, and is full of hate, and is obnoxious. The statement apparently relates to the rationalization of "strategic" bombing that England the USA chose as being less expensive in US/UK lives, even if more expensive in civilian lives. In fact, at the start of WWII, bombers only got 10% of all loads withing fifty miles of the target, so setting cities on fire and then bombing them made targets that the bombers could find. The rational was that people who live in cities go to work in factories that either produce weapons or produce food, or electricity; something that supports the war effort. If this means that every German was guilty of war crimes, consider these two parallels: (1) Recently Hizboallah was accused by Amnesty International of war crime for firing rockets and aiming some of them cities (Hizbollah did kill more Israeli soldiers than civilians, so they were MUCH better than the British and US in WWII), (2) in August and September (2006) Israeli troops killed 37 children under 18 in Palestinian territory (Gaza, mostly), supported my weapons made in the USA, and by a huge amount of foreign aid from the USA. If Saperstein is correct, every Israeli, every Jew, and every American is guilty of killing each of those children (one was a young boy, killed while playing his own yard. The killing was followed by a call to his parents from Israel telling them to get out of their home). If we are all guilty of shooting children, I want out. Had any number like that of Israeli children been killed, certainly Mr. Saperstein would have found all Palestinians guilty, and it would justify taking more land from them. The facts are, you are responsible only for those things that you can change, millions of Jews/Israelis want Israel to implement UN Security Council Resolution 242, and every German knew that those who stood up the Hitler were soon killed. "Bomber Command" shows, as the war in Iraq has, that a few politicians can make huge decisions without the public even being told the facts, but the public will pay the price, even when they have no control over the actions. Guilt is not something that one person (even a writer) determines, and we have rightly condemned the German army for collective punishment for shooting civilians when they could not find partisans, a lesson we all need to appreciate.

Bomber Command is a great read, full of facts that will amaze you by their brutality, but any theory of common guilt was a rationalization to support collective punishment, just as Israel has recently done to Lebanon. Just as the bombing did not work in Lebanon, it did not work in Germany. Destroying people's homes does not make them stop supporting war, it leaves them with no alternative but fighting. If you are a war buff, or just want to know why Churchill put off invading Europe for so long, this is a must buy.

In this era of political correctness and "sensitivity," it may strike many as repulsive that hundreds of thousands of German civilians were the target of tons of bombs night after night from British aircraft. But the reality is that the campaign was intended to terrorize the German populaion into demanding that their leadership end the barbarous war they started. Ultimately, as Hastings notes, there was no such thing as an innocent German civilian. Each in their own way contributed or supported the slaughter and enslavement of millions by German soldiers and bureaucrats.

Hasting's contribution is to strip the British effort down to its barest essentials: its beginnings as the only effort the otherwise defeated and defenseless British could muster to the excesses of the bombing in the last few months of the war when almost everythng that could be destroyed had been destroyed.

Hasting has a wonderful approach, weaving general history into individual stories of the bombers, the planners, the civilians and soldiers.

For everyone with an interest in accurate history, "Bomber Command" is essential reading.

Jerry

It is simple really to understand. The Germans started the war, enslaved milllions, killed multi-millions, displaced millions, experimented on thousands and euthanized thousands. Why are the apoligists 60 years later saying that we should not have bombed German cities back to the stone age? In the context of that era what other resolution could there have been? Innocents on both sides were slaughtered.

First of all, it is easy to see how this work won the 1980 Somerset Maugham Award for Non-Fiction. I was totally riveted throughout. After reading the book in nearly one sitting, I felt exhausted and numb. The book is an indictment against the entire theory of strategic bombing in WWII and the wholesale slaughter of civilians specifically. While Max Hastings devotes much time to "Bomber" Harris who conducted the night-air campaign without reflection or apologies, his sharpest barbs are for those politicians (Churchill included) and senior military planners that made policy. These hid behind an unspoken but widely understood policy that wide-area terror bombing was the only avenue available to Bomber Command for most of the war but refused to discuss the subject honestly in the public arena in the hopes that they could maintain some sense of moral superiority over their enemy. Hastings also correlates Bomber Command's policy and operations with that of the USAAF, who he writes also hid behind a pretense that collateral casualties were a regrettable but unavoidable tragedy of war. Of course the hypocrisy of this position was laid bare following the continued slaughter of unprotected German cities in 1945 long after everyone knew that the bombing would make no difference to the outcome or even pace of the war, it became bombing just for bombing's sake, or in the case of Dresden, showing the Soviets what Anglo-American air power could do; slaughtering refugees fleeing from the advancing Soviet horde. In fact, the Associated Press reported in February 1945 that the Allied Air Chiefs had embarked on a terror campaign against the German civilian population, but Hastings points out that this news scoop was 3 years late (it had of course been policy soon after the British realized they could not hit specific targets at night). The most mind numbing account is late in the book in which Hastings describes in detail the bombing of Darmstadt. The Allied armies were within 100 miles of Darmstadt and the civilians were under the mistaken impression that they would be spared. In September 1944 Bomber Command made Darmstadt its next target for destruction. As Hastings makes the point, the horror is not that the attack was particularly special or difficult, it was the routine of it all that made it so terrible. The entire process reminds me of the banal evil more often associated with the murder of the Jews; being led into the concentration camps were "the system" would process and prepare them for organized and efficient death. Such was the case of German cities by late 1944. The Luftwaffe had nearly run out of aviation fuel and could only put up a meaningful defense on occasion. The Anglo-American armies had overrun the Luftwaffe's radar belts, so even when fuel was available, the Luftwaffe night-fighters could receive no warnings or directions. The "system" identified a German city for destruction, the bombers went up, everyone did their job and went home. Numbers were difficult to come by, but perhaps 10,000 died in that raid. 1 out of every 5 was a child under 16. 1.81 women for every man (at this stage of the war most men away from the war fronts were elderly). The casualties inflicted upon the citizens of Darmstadt were less than that of many larger German cities, but demonstrates that no German city regardless of size or importance was immune to terror bombing. In fact, Hastings describes how several German cities were identified for destruction not because they contributed to the German war effort, but because they could be easily destroyed, as in the case of medieval cities with a preponderance of wooden housing. Hastings describes the eventual unspoken shame that the wholesale slaughter of the German civilian population left in the minds of the British royalty and government. After the war, Churchill tried his best to distance himself from it and declined to secure a peerage for "Bomber" Harris (a reward given to many with lesser responsibilities). The Bomber Command aircrew were not awarded a Campaign Medal, though the Luftwaffe night-fighters and flak crews inflicted between 72,000-73,000 casualties on British Bomber Command alone. "Bomber" Harris himself emigrated with his family to South Africa soon after the war, shunned by those that used him to conduct their own policies. Hastings makes clear that nobody wanted to take credit for the terror bombing policies of Bomber Command after the smoke of WWII cleared. Hastings does not fault the young aircrew themselves and has nothing but admiration for them. Even so, during his research for the book, he interviews a surviving pilot who became a teacher after the war. The former Bomber Command pilot asks Hastings if others he interviewed complained of nightmares. Perhaps something for the young to think about the next time their government orders then to bomb civilians. Does a state of war really justify the killing of defenseless civilians? Does it really matter that the other side did it first (though in fact many give credit to Churchill for having a German city bombed first in the hopes of redirecting Luftwaffe focus from the RAF airfields to British cities, giving the RAF a new lease on life at the height of the Battle of Britain. This strategy proved successful). Regardless who bombed who first, can killing nearly a million German (and thousands of French) civilians be morally justified? There seems no doubt that the western Allies gave up much of the moral superiority they seem so fond of taking for granted. The biggest irony of all is a point Hastings makes again and again, would not the war have been conducted more efficiently had the resources lavishly spent on Bomber Command been used to assist the British armies and Royal Navy instead? The morale of the German civilian population and their industrial production levels never faltered throughout the day (USAAF) and night (Bomber Command) bombings, only when the German war machine ran out of manpower and fuel did Hitler's armies finally fall back and eventually become overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. It seems quite probable that the horrors unleashed on the civilian populations did little to actually win the war.

My wife is of Calabrian descent -- via both grandparents -- and I bought the book for her. She is delighted with the gift, and reads for a while in bed at night before retiring. She is engrossed in stories of where and how her ancestors managed to stay alive with so little.

Every Italian American should read this book to understand why our forfathers and mothers came here!

This story is more than a tale of a Calabrian family's fortunes and misfortunes, it is an accurate look at a culture during a period of hardship that would eventually lead to great change. The author adds depth to the characters through more than just words, he gives them life through their thoughts and actions. An excellent book for those interested in a true picture of the times and events that shaped the people of southern Italy.

You really feel what it's like to know you will starve once the food you are growing runs out. That overwhelming insecurity was the life of many of our parents and grandparents. The story is fascinating and truly holds your attention. It illuminates our emotional inheritance while it entertains. I want to give this book to all the people who go on about how hard life is these days.

This is a heart-rending story of triumph over tragedy. The characters come alive and invite the reader to see how determination of the human spirit lives on through their valiant lives. Ths story unfolds with a trip through this part of Italy and its history.

HOW IS IT POSSIBLE THAT OUR BRITISH ALLIES, HAVE A LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE JEWS? IN THE 19th CENTURY THERE WAS A LARGE MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND OF "CHRISTIAN ZIONIST". WINSTON CHURCHILL WAS THEIR ALLIE AND SUPPORTER. BRITISH POLICY REFLECTED THIS PRO-JEWISH ATTITUDE AT VARIOUS ERA's OF POLITICAL CHANGE. AUTHOR MARTIN GILBERT, WHO IS EMINANTLY REGARDED AS BRITISH HISTORIAN OF WWII, RELATES THE AMAZING POLITICAL LIFE OF WINSTON CHURCHILL, BEING IN THE FOREFRONT OF BRITISH POLITICS & POLICY; AND THEN REMOVED FROM POLITICAL LIFE, ONLY TO BE REBORN AS THE SAVIOUR OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. HE NEVER ABANDONED WITH "CHRISTIAN ZIONIST" AFFILIATIONS THROUGH ALL THE TURMOIL OF HIS POLITICAL CAREER.
AMPLY ILLUSTRATED, HOWEVER, ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHS WOULD HAVE BEEN AN ADDED BONUS TO A TRUELY HISTORIC NON-FICTION BIOGRAPHY, THAT GIVES EVERY READER AN INSIGHT TO THE CURRENT STRUGGLES OF ARAB AGGRESSION AGAINST WESTERN (JUDEO-CHRISTIAN) SOCIETIES.

I began with a prejudice. Winston Churchill is one of my greatest heroes.
Another prejudice. Martin Gilbert is also one of my favorite authors. Gilbert writing on Churchill could be nothing but wonderful.
The book was up to my expectations, and then some. I have read volumes and volumes on the life and activities of Winston Churchill, but found many new facts in insights. I was totally pleased and highly reccomend this book to any one . Admirer or critic.
Herschel Sennett

The 20th Century produced many astounding men, many of them evil. One of the few great democrats of the age was Winston S. Churchill. Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Churchill, has produced one enthralling volume after another.

Churchill's involvement with public life and, more importantly, his impact upon it never ceases to amaze. To read of everything Churchill was involved with - some of the most momentous events of the century that still reverberate today - staggers the imagination.

In this volume, Gilbert examines Churchill's relationship with Jews in general and his involvement with the Balfour Declaration, Zionism and the creation of the State of Israel.

Churchill's first 'political involvement in Jewish concerns" occurred in 1904 when he stood for election for Manchester North-West, where a third of the population was Jewish.

From that point on, Churchill's career often came into contact with Jewish concerns or, conversely, concerns about the Jews. He long supported the aspirations for a Jewish homeland. He protested mistreatment of the Jews by the Russians, Germans and others. He was deeply offended by the radical Jewish terrorists who sought to hasten the creation of Israel. He believed there was a need to turn Jews toward Zionism and away from Bolshevism.

Churchill, indeed, considered himself to be a Zionist.

Churchill's humanism, tolerance, foresight, classic liberalism and just plain decency are all on display in this wonderful volume. By concentrating on this one small aspect of Churchill's many interests, the magnificence of the man is brought into sharp relief. Others, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ernest Bevan suffer in comparison to Churchill in this particular area.

All in all, this is a wonderful book, typical of Gilbert's skill as a researcher, historian and writer. It is also necessary reading for anyone who wishes to be more fully informed about the seemingly intractable problems we face in the area today.

Jerry

From the vast materials that he has accumulated about Churchill, Sir Martin Gilbert has now selected material relating to Churchill's relationship with the Jews. Throughout his life, Churchill was a staunch supporter of the Jews and of the Zionist cause. His father had many friends among the wealthy leaders of Anglo-Jewish society - Lord Rothschild, Sir Ernest Cassel, Baron de Hirsch - friendships which his son inherited. Churchill entered Parliament in 1901, where he strongly opposed both the Conservatives' Aliens Bill of 1904 and the Liberals' Aliens Act of 1906. At the 1906 General Election he had become MP for North-West Manchester, where a third of the electorate was Jewish (and where he first met Chaim Weizmann, who had settled in Manchester in 1904.) Long before the Balfour Declaration in November 1917, Churchill spoke up in favour of Zionism, and he was of course an enthusiastic supporter of that document. When he was made Colonial Secretary in 1921, he became responsible for Mandate Palestine.

At that time Arab opposition to the Balfour Declaration and to Jewish immigration into Palestine was already very strong, and in Britain also there were second thoughts about the wisdom of the Declaration and attempts to undo it. Churchill vigorously opposed these, admired the contribution the Jews had already made to Palestine, and insisted that the Arabs would themselves benefit from this. He had no intention of limiting immigration or of allowing any representative institutions to Palestine as a whole because the Arabs would have a majority there. The Churchill White Paper of 1922 reaffirmed this policy, but also said that `the Jewish National Home in Palestine is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole'. Gilbert quotes from a letter of gratitude from Weizmann soon afterwards, but does not mention that actually many Zionists, Weizmann included, felt let down by the White Paper, because they in fact hoped that Palestine as a whole would eventually become a Jewish State. But Churchill, now in opposition, attacked the Passfield White Paper of 1930, which recommended restrictions on Jewish immigration into Palestine.

Churchill - out of office in the 1930s - early saw the danger that Hitler's accession to power represented; and among the articles he wrote and the speeches he made on the subject, the Nazi persecution of the Jews was always among the items he singled out. It led to an increase in Jewish immigration, which in turn contributed to the Arab Revolt of 1936. The Peel Commission in 1937 eventually came out with a Report recommending that no more than 12,000 Jews should be admitted to Palestine in any one year. Giving evidence before it, Churchill thought that it would be wise for tactical reasons temporarily to limit immigration somewhat (later in 1937 he proposed a figure of between 30,000 and 35,000 a year - comparable to the increase of the Arab population); but in principle he maintained that Britain should admit as many Jews as possible, and he envisaged the possibility that one day in the distant future they might indeed be the majority in Palestine. He expressed some contempt for the Arabs, and some of his answers to the questions he was asked (unpublished at the time) make for crude and intemperate reading today for anyone who is not an insensitive Zionist. The Peel Commission also proposed the partition of Palestine between an Arab state and a tiny Jewish state about a third of the size of Israel of 1948. Weizmann reluctantly accepted this, but Churchill, siding with Jabotinsky, vigorously opposed it on the grounds that such a small state could not defend itself against Arab attacks. And he made a blistering speech against the government's adoption of the MacDonald White Paper in May 1939 which effectively was a repudiation of the Balfour Declaration.

When Churchill became Prime Minister, he pressed repeatedly for a change of policy embodied in the MacDonald White Paper: for arming the Jews in Palestine, for admitting illegal immigrants, for ignoring Arab objections; but he could not get this through Cabinet against the stubborn resistance from the Foreign Office, and the War Office and the administration in Palestine. Only in September 1944 did he get his way to the extent that the War Office agreed to the formation of a Jewish Brigade with its own Star of David flag.

There were Zionists who had long regarded the British government as hostile to their aspirations, and, with the MacDonald White Paper still in force, the fact that the British prime minister was personally pro-Zionist cut little ice with some of them. The Irgun and the Stern Gang fought British troops in Palestine, and in November 1944 the Stern Gang assassinated Lord Moyne, a personal friend of Churchill's. (A month later, during the trial of Moyne's murderers, it even considered assassinating Churchill himself.) But Churchill remained committed to the Zionist cause, in the teeth of his Cabinet's opposition, which, to Weizmann's despair, made it impossible for him to abolish the White Paper immediately after the surrender of Germany and the liberation of the concentration camps.

But then he lost office in 1945 and had to watch the events in Palestine from the sidelines. From the Opposition benches he continued to make powerful speeches against the `squalid' war which the British were fighting against the Jewish militants; rather than that, he suggested the surrender of the Mandate which in due course the government was forced to do.

Right at the end of his second premiership, in 1955, Churchill supported the idea that Israel might join the Commonwealth; and when, soon after his retirement, the Suez War broke out, he publicly supported the actions that Eden's government had taken and justified the participation of Israel, which had acted `under the gravest provocation'.

Throughout this comprehensive account, the superb eloquence of Churchill sparkles magnificently against Gilbert's sober prose.

Winston Churchill, for as long as he can remember, has been connected with Jews. Coming from a family with close Jewish ties, though not through blood, he has always had friends from this ethnicity. His father, Lord Randolph Churchill was often rebuked by the English aristocrats about his many Jewish friends. Learning about the biblical characters in his school, he was often fascinated with their stories and with their lives.

Martin Gilbert, Churchill's official biographer, draws on letters, speeches, newspaper articles and other resources to provide a clear depiction of his friendship with one of the most persecuted races in the world: the Jews.

Reading this book was very eye opening. I have always heard about Churchill through his famous quotes often featured at graduations and other ceremonies-and through those I had developed a certain respect for him. However, after reading this book, I consider him one of the greatest men who ever lived. Sure he had faults; he would be the first to admit that. But what set him apart was the fact that he was willing to stand up for what he believed in, even when popular opinion was against it. He was an ardent supporter for a Jewish state and played a key role in bringing that to pass. Many considered his love for Jews one of his major faults; however, he was not swayed by what others thought him.

Martin Gilbert's portrayal of Churchill and his relationship with Jews is very enlightening. It explores this often-neglected topic, captivating the readers from the very beginning as it traces his first Jewish friendships to his Jewish friends he had during the time he was Prime Minister. I really enjoyed this book that also includes photographs that chronicle his relationship with them.

Armchair Interviews says: Highly recommended to any history buff!