Europe Books

A sympathetic portrayal of a very admirable young scientist, "Invention" also conveys a sense of the popularization of scientific culture at the beginning of the 18th century. Hamblyn touches on the effects of the emergence of periodicals, societies of (nongentry) scientists, and even the postal system on this new culture. Diverse facts (half-kg hail and volcanic eruptions) balance the overall somewhat romantic tone. Hamblyn was obviously acutely aware of the tension between instrumented science and romantic arts; that is an explicit theme of the book as well as modulating his writing. My only complaints: too many long unnecessary quotes (Goethe!), tables not adequately explained (were Smeaton's data calculated as I think or measured as Hamblyn elliptically suggests?), and the seminal article by Howard was never really systematically discussed (just rather disconnected dribs and drabs).

This book takes you to England of around 1800, when a young amateur scientist managed to come up with the nomenclature we use to this day to classify clouds. The life of Luke Howard is fascinating in and of itself as he goes about his scientific and business dealings. The author also notes why Mr. Howard's system became the system used today, even though it was only one of several major attempts to classify clouds as meteorology became more systematic. The book covers its topic well and would be of interest to anyone interested in the history of meteorology or scientific inquiry.

A young man, obsessed with clouds and their formation, makes a detailed study of them. All this has been done before, but never in such a concise, visionary way, nor with a naming convention as brilliant in its simplicity, expressiveness and utility as Luke Howard's.

His story is dealt with in a series of chapters that digress from the main thrust of the book to outline the history of the philosophical changes that were taking place, in Europe particularly. Almost any cockeyed idea found a ready audience, who were equally ready to dismiss ideas out-of-hand. The trick was presentation. Many of the famous names in science at the end of the 18th century were showmen, financing their researches by giving displays or private shows... getting your name known was half the battle.
Luke Howard was born into a world where being in the right place at the right time meant more than any social connections or political clout.
But, being a Dissenter, he had no formal education, no political clout and no social connections - not much chance for him to get his ideas aired, it seemed. Nor was he a showman - his Quaker upbringing saw to that - so luck, and dedication, came to his assistance.

Philosophical societies and journals were in their infancy, and were ready to embrace anyone who could increase membership or circulation. This was the chance, and in an hour-long presentation, young Howard captivated his audience and introduced a naming system for clouds, which is still in use today, 200 years on. This was what meteorology had been waiting for - a standard method of logging cloud formations. This was invaluable too for poets and writers, who suddenly found a new addition to their descriptive vocabulary. Small wonder that cirrus, cumulus and nimbus quickly entered everyday conversation (the Englishman's main topic being the weather).

The book is very well written, giving us a feel for the social, political and philosophical climate in the Napoleonic era. By various pertinent descriptions of people and events directly and indirectly connected with Howard, we are introduced to some of the greats of the Age of Enlightenment; but none of it feels contrived or beside the point, nor is it ever boring.

This is an enthralling read, illustrating how easily a single person or idea can change the direction and thrust of a science... Well worth reading.

Luke Howard was an amateur in the true sense of the word; Luke Howard named the clouds for the love of them. Richard Hamblyn does a fine job telling the story of Luke Howard's life, his naming of the clouds, and Howard's milieu in the book The Invention Of Clouds. Howard, a Quaker and a pharmacist, went from unknown working man to celebrity when he presented his paper "On The Modifications Of Clouds" to the Askesian Society in London on a night in December of 1802. The paper had the right combination of insights, poetry, and luck to insure that the terms cirrus, stratus, cumulus, and nimbus [or derivatives] are still being used by meteorologists today. Hamblyn's weave of biography, history, art, and science was enjoyable to read and held together most of the time [Chapter 10: The Beaufort Scale was not as well connected to book as the rest of the material]. The hardback is such a beautiful and unusual book, I shelved my copy, waited for the paperback to read it, and then donated the paperback to the high school library. I highly recommend The Invention Of Clouds to anyone with an interest in meteorology, history, Quakerism, or biography.

"The Invention of Clouds" is an endearing little book about a generally forgotten moment in the history of science. It seems obvious to us today but until Englishman Luke Howard, a chemist with an interest in the then-young science of meteorology, gave a public lecture on cloud classification in London in 1802, nobody had been able to categorize cloud formations in an easily-understood and consistent manner. The terms we take for granted-cumulus, cirrus, stratus and so forth-were applied by the 30 year-old Howard for the first time. He drew upon his classical education to find suitable Latin names for what he termed "the modifications of clouds." He understood that clouds pass through stages and in his lecture he described the changes they underwent. His audience understood immediately the importance of his lecture and it was published soon afterwards to great acclaim.

Luke Howard became famous throughout the world. It is clear that he must have viewed this with mixed feelings. As a modest Quaker, he did not seek celebrity but as a scientist he was undoubtedly proud of his accomplishment. It is a beautiful achievement. By naming that which was ever-present but unnamed, Luke Howard helped forge the language of meteorology and provided some of the most important tools for weather observation and forecasting. His Latin names speak to the universality of climate and his detractors, who felt that the classifications should have been in English, were soon silenced. The book describes the reaction of artists as well. On the one hand, there were those who believed that clouds, as objects of great natural beauty and a symbol of freedom, would lose something by being systematically classified, as if they were species of beetles, but others, including the painter Constable, used the classification of the clouds as a basis for their art. The great genius of the period, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, completely enchanted by Luke Howard's work and personality, dedicated a series of marvellous poems to him, with each stanza based on one of the new cloud-forms.

But even having poetry dedicated to you by Goethe is not enough to claim enduring fame. Luke Howard seems to have lived a quiet existence, marked by some success in business and a happy family life. He died at the age of 91, remembered fondly by only his relatives. Richard Hamblyn, in writing this book, must have struggled to develop enough material as it appears that the lecture of 1802 was the high point of Luke Howard's scientific life and his attention was then taken up more by commerce and religious issues. Mr. Hamblyn gives us a history of the earlier attempts to define clouds, reaching back to Aristotle. He throws in the story of the Beaufort Wind Scale, which was inspired by but not as readily-accepted as Luke Howard's cloud system. He deals with the subsequent amendments to the cloud classifications and we learn of the International Meterological Conference and its winsomely-named Cloud Committee, which was to produce the International Cloud Atlas.

All very interesting, but it is in the sections about Luke Howard and his contemporaries, fascinated by the rapid progress in science at the end of the 18th Century, where the book is most alive. Richard Hamblyn ably paints a picture of London's crowded lecture halls where science was popular culture, of dangerous experiments and fantastic personalities. Men of brilliant and adventurous minds, often denied higher education due to their religion, could look into the future and stake a claim. The author, in sharing Luke Howard's triumph with us, has written an elegant work brimming with enthusiasm.

What have different thinkers said about capitalism during the last 250 years? That is the topic of this book. The author is better at describing certain thinkers (e.g. Smith) and you wonder why others were included, but that always happens in a book like this. Overall the author is very knowledgeable and interesting

Where this book REALLY STANDS OUT is the engaging style of writing. It is a sheer joy to read this book. That is not always the case even if you like a book. So even if you are just moderately interested in the topic, I could fully recommend this book. It is excellent.

This is essential reading for anybody who is seriously interested in the tradeoffs between capitalism and socialism. As Hugo puts the matter in "Les Miserables", socialism is a great system for distributing wealth, but poor for creating wealth. Capitalism is a great system for creating wealth, but poor for distributing it.

Muller documents very well, and very fairly, the fact that this basic conundrum was well understood by most thinkers since the 18th centry. Muller presents the various solutions proposed by thinkers from all sides of the political spectrum to solve the conundrum.

In a way, the book is depressing, because it shows that all possible solutions have already been thought of, and tried.

This book is an amazing book and goes through and discusses exactly what many of the previous economic philosophers believe. Muller writes this wonderfully, and is typically an easy read. I wouldn't mind reading this book for fun actually.

This is a remarkable book. Besides the usual variety that appears in most books on economic thought (Smith, Marx, Keynes, Hayek, Schumpeter) it includes a nice selection of non-economists such as Voltaire, Burke and Marcuse. Muller is a master of situating intellectuals in their respective context and presenting them in lively detail. Having read Voltaire's "Candide", it was remarkable to find out about his personal adventures with financial speculation. When dealing with Smith, Muller takes pains to retain all the nuances, such as Smith's claim that division of labor, no matter how productive, could make human beings "as stupid and ignorant as it possible for a human creature to become". As Muller is a specialist on conservative thought, his treatment of a variety of criticisms of the market by conservatives is very intriguing. Furthermore, although chapters are written in a way to make them independent of each other, Muller links them nicely using common themes and referring back to already discussed, older ideas. One of such themes is the identification of capitalism with Jews. One might find it surprising how old and often recurring this identification was in European thought.

My main qualm regards Muller's treatment of the left. Although all of the selections are understandable (Marx is a must, Lukacs is representative of 20th century communism and easy to juxtapose with Freyer, while Marcuse is representative of the New Left), large strands of interesting left-wing thought are omitted. Karl Polanyi who wrote the classic about the industrial revolution and the nature of the market ("The Great Transformation") and who seems like a perfect addition to such a book is only mentioned in one of the hundreds of footnotes. Anarchists seem non-existent. The reader might walk away with the feeling that the only things the left has to offer are nagging and central-planning. In the meantime, Hayek and Schumpeter - classical liberals with overlapping ideas (e.g. the role of the entrepreneur) are both given separate chapters. On an unrelated note, some might find the treatment of Keynes inadequate as well. In the first page of the Keynes/Marcuse chapter, Muller states that "[Keynes] provided an economic rationale for governments to try to actively combat unemployment by raising the level of government spending" (p. 317). You will hear the same reductionism in an intro to macro college course, but Keynes' insights were way more nuanced (the role of uncertainty - see: Duncan Foley's "Adam's Falalcy"; the need for a fundamentally different monetary policy - see: Allan Meltzer's and Geoff Tily's work) and often cannot be described as "Keynesian" (or rather, what came to be viewed as "Keynesian").

Despite these flaws, this is a very well-written, insightful and stimulating book. If you are interested in the history of economic thought and more broadly - the different attitudes toward the market economy, make sure to check it out.

The world of capitalism is presented to us through the eyes of the greatest European thinkers. Muller examines the relationship between the individual and the state though the prism of the marketplace tapping into the writings from thinkers such as Adam Smith, Marx, Voltaire, Schumpeter and Hayek. The depth and breath of this economic treatise on the marketplace presents perspectives from all sides of the political spectrum while taking the time and care to place that thinker's perspective within its proper historical context.

The thinkers that are tapped into come from a very broad swath of history. Their perspectives trace how western civilization left the feudal period where commerce and finance where frowned upon as immoral or dirty and how Europe eventually developed market-based institutions that we are so familiar with today. This book clearly shows how thinking men viewed the development of markets and how societies dealt with the social and moral benefits and costs of markets. Muller also describes how different societies in different time periods came to different conclusions on how a market should be regulated and managed as a result of the efforts of these great thinkers.

The way we operate today is linked inextricably to the past. Market-based societies are a product of western European history and culture. The answer to why things are like today can be found in the past and Mueller provides the key.

I've read the whole Jacky Faber series. I am an avid reader. That said I've found that a good writer is a good writer; but this series of books goes beyond that. It's a clever, it's imaginative, it's fun. Very few authors surprize me, cudos to Mr. L. A. Meyer. The Jacky Faber Books to my mind, uplift a persons morals. Parents your teens get a glimpse into past history without being bored.
I highly recommend the whole series
Lastly I've contacted the author the next is due out 8/09, I can't wait.

Once again, Meyer's delivers a masterpiece in MY BONNY LIGHT HORSEMAN. If it's even possible, Jacky finds herself in even more action-packed trouble in the newest BLOODY JACK book of the series, which left me on the edge of my seat throughout the entire novel. I particularly loved the new characters and setting that Meyer's introduced to us in the newest adventures of Jacky Faber, where I could see exactly what was going on throughout the novel. He left me being able to picture parts of Europe that I one day want to visit myself, and I got to know so many new characters so well, and revisit some of my favorites from previous books.

I would recommend this book to anyone that loves to read a good action-packed, adventurous book that also enjoys learning about history. This is a must read for the entire family. Go out and buy it today!

Wonderful, exciting, funny series for teens and adults as well. The whole Bloody Jack series is wonderful! Sure hope there is more coming.

As with some other reviewers, I was also baffled at some parts of the book.

*SPOILERS:Do Not Read Unless You Have Finished the Book*

For example, the part when she went off and made friends with her superior Baronet (I don't think it's spelt right), and then as their friendship progressed he became her protector and great friend. What confused me a lot was why the title of the book was dedicated to him. He was her Bonny Light Horseman. I suppose in a way it could be used interchangeably for her as she is also light and bonny and a horseman in this series. However it was clear that the title was meant for him, so was this book in dedication for this departed friend? It would be odd as Jacky has had a lot of adventures and has lost a lot of dear friends.
Another thing that just boggled my mind...her love affair with Jean Paul. She had so many other little flings here and there...the one with Randall (which was pretty dam steamy if I do say so myself) and alll those other ones too. I just sat there, four hours after reading the book and, still now, wondering why out of all the men she has ever met and kissed, did she finally lose her emotional faithfulness to Jaimy over to Jean Paul? I mean Jaimy has always always been The One for Jacky, despite whatever happened. You read about her kissing him and that, but this is really and truly the first time her emotions have ever been swayed by any other guy.
And then I realized maybe it was because Jean Paul was the only other man who was able to see Jaimy at a very vulnerable time and fully commit to her and love her for it. I suppose being tied to a chair and being tortured can also be incredibly vulnerable (if you don't remember that's where she and Randall have that steamy scene). Randall seemed to have respected and envied Jacky a lot, but I don't think he was ready to love her. He was more of an admirer. Oh and I just remembered...Jared was also there to hold her as she laid in a dark, wasteland of a prison...screaming out from nightmares. So what gives? If I were Jacky, I would've picked Jared pfft. :T. I guess Jared was more of a big brother and friend? They had too much past history? That one miffs me.
There also aren't a lot of things that can knock Jacky down. Threatening her life is one thing, threatening her family, friends, and everything else she holds important...that is a completely different story. So there she was as a threatened spy and sort of hooker and there this french dude was. Young love with Jaimy versus new and mature love with Oolala Jean Paul.
And if Jacky was like any other girl, after having learning her boyfriend Jaimy has given himself to another girl...I think that's enough to sway a little of her own feelings for him. I suppose this is just the point where their relationship is developing/maturing.

In the end, she never doubted that Jaimy was still The One for her. She also never doubted that she also now shared a piece of herself with Jean Paul. Oh yeah and when Jean Paul thanked her for letting him love her and that marriage for him was possible because he now knew what love was, and when even though they were to part, he would remember those days spent in the Paris cafe...that good bye just broke my own heart.

There were a lot of things I didn't understand in this book, but maybe it's because I need to read it twice or maybe even three times. I like to think that it's because as Jacky and the characters are maturing, so is the book. But no matter what happens, I will be the loyal reader that I am and follow the series to the end , because I'm very sure the author is capable enough :D. Thank you L.A. Meyer!

I finished reading MY BONNY LIGHT HORSEMAN, the sixth book in the "Bloody Jack" series, a few weeks ago and am just now getting around to commenting on it. The other reviewers here have basically written about the plot and characters, so I won't repeat what has already been said.

In this tale of the further adventures and misadventures of our dear Miss Jacky, she finds herself again at the mercy of the Royal Navy's Intelligence Department. She is to be sent to spy on the Grand Army of Napoleon in France. Posing as Mademoiselle Jacqueline Ophelia Bouvier (Jacqui O.? H'mmm That sounds familiar for some reason.) a dancer/seductress/spy with Madame Pelletier's troupe "Les Petites Gamines" in Paris, and then as a Cadet courier with Napoleon's Grand Army in France and Germany, charged with training a squad of raw enlistees knicknamed "The Clodhoppers," since they are all clumsy farmboys. She again involves herself in many dangers and narrow escapes...all exciting and great fun. Jacqui/Jacky still dreams about her true love Jaimy Fletcher back in London, but is also interested in a handsome young French officer named Jean-Paul de Valdon. One reviewer here was disappointed that Jacky was being unfaithful to Jaimy. Au contraire...Jacky was just being herself, a young lady who happens to like the company of handsome young men who are attracted to her. She was and always will be a fun-loving flirt. But, as always, she retains her virtue and deep love for Jaimy.

I've already given away some of the story and will leave it up to the reader of this excellent novel to enjoy the whole book for himself. This is a wonderful novel in a marvelous series and I recommend it highly. Vive Jacky! Vive L. A. Meyer!

Heleta's story is a great book for anyone trying to understand the war in in Bosnia or anyone who would like to have a better understanding of human experience in times of war. I recommend this book to anyone! This young man is such an inspiration!

This is possibly the best book there is,about Bosnian war, it is completely unbiased and sincere. I looked for ways to explain my feelings about the whole situation and Savo couln't have done a better job, he's given me words for unexplained feelings.
I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys a good read, not just to people that experienced the same thing. It is just amazing, and humbling.

If anyone can "enjoy" a book about suffering and war, Savo's book is a must read. His experience is haunting and his message about rising above revenge and moving on shows a maturity beyond his years. He is a brilliant young man, who was able to rise above a horrible situation that most of us will never truly understand. He has influenced so many lives with this work and is becoming one of our future leaders of peace.

NOT MY TURN TO DIE: MEMOIRS OF A BROKEN CHILDHOOD IN BOSNIA tells of the author's struggle for life in 1996, just after the end of the Bosnia-Herzegovina war, when the then-17-year-old faced the man who had tried to kill his grandfather and terrorized his family during the war - a man who had been a former family friend. From his childhood pre-war to his internment, freedom, and eventual healing, NOT MY TURN TO DIE will find its place in any general-interest library.

The book was short, straight forward and profound. Almost like a long NYT or LA Times article, which reports and steers away from editorializing. Knowing what little I know of the Serbian/Bosnia Muslim war, I think one could have easily switched the nationalities as both groups foisted misery and atrocity on one another. Just like the American and Vietnam war...like any war. The main message I get from Savo was that in the context of war and armed conflict there are 1) very bad sadistic people, 2) very good, kind and brave people and 3) apathetic cowardly people. It is obvious that if there were many times more good people and less of the other two there would be less atrocity and murder. Let us hope the message of the book isn't muffled too much by the lingering hatred and distrust on both sides. Bravo Savo! You have restored the faith in your generation that you, collectively, have much to offer the world. From his book I get the message that we must counter hatred, revenge and murder with reconciliation and the brave heartedness that goes into doing so. More reasoning and forgiveness and fewer guns and killing will be the only pathway to more peace in the world.

David Downie's recent memoire on Paris is a diminutive delight, a series of "thought prose" on different and unusual aspects of La Ville Lumière. There are countless books following a similar approach, but Downie's stands out due to the unusual information and presentation of somewhat obscure and arcane information that he has collected over the decades in which he has lived near the Place des Vosges in the Marais district of Paris. The result is an insider's point of view of the city that is quite unlike other tourist books, and perhaps implies that those who might most greatly enjoy the book are those who have actually visited and explored the city to some extent. Without having experienced the city itself first hand, the information presented here is a bit decontextualized and a little abstract.

For those who have visited the city and even perhaps stayed or lived there for any length of time, Downie's book opens up a world of insights that is often hidden from common view. This makes it now possible to explain why Downie has selected the name, "Paris, Paris" for the text, where the second "Paris" is written in italics. Downie explains that the meaning of this structure indicates that there are two simultaneous, yet nevertheless distinct, "Parises," the first being the "Paris" that the typical English-speaking, non-French national sees and experiences, and the second (the "Paris" in italics) is the one that native Parisians and Frenchmen know, a reality removed from the more cursory visitors of the city.

Downie chooses an interesting example drawn from the Paris metro system to illustrate the title's metaphor. For anyone who has used metro line 14, the fully automated and state-of-the-art Parisian metro line, the sound of the automatic station announcement will come to mind. As we approach Chatelet Station, for example, the system announces "Chatelet" in a springy, almost stylish manner. As the train begins braking and stops at the station, the automatic system again states "Chatelet," but in a much more terse, low-key manner. This interesting announcement technique that all riders of metro line 14 have doubtless noticed (whether consciously or unconsciously), serves as a gentle reminder that there are two Parises, and few people ever get to know them both.

The book is composed of a series of short, targeted essays on a wide variety of locations, personages, and historical events related to the city. Each section runs only six to eight pages, which is a perfect length not only to convey the topic, but also for targeted reading day after day. The writing style is clear and engaging, and as mentioned before, filled with tidbits of information about the city that anyone interested in Paris would enjoy learning. We get to read about such famous "Parisians" as Coco Chanel, the engineer who is in charge of nighttime lighting for all of Paris, and a host of others in addition to interesting historical aspects of the city itself.

An enjoyable book with a memorable set of stories, anecdotes, and "mysteries" of the city, "Paris, Paris" is a welcome addition to any Parisphile's library.

Thank you, David and Alison, for sharing your Paris with me. Soon I will have the pleasure of spending a month in Paris, and the joy of being able to introduce my 16-year-old grandson to the greatest-of-all-cities. Your book deepened my knowledge of Paris, and will allow me to share more of its history with my grandson. I will be taking your book along, reading it in Paris, and looking for all those pieces of the city that you so beautifully described. Again, merci!

Downie's essays offers a quirky sense of humor and a wonderful eye for the details behind the details that at once demystify Paris and add to her mystery. Although the book is not a guide per se, the essays make me want to follow Downie's trails. As such, the book would have been better served with an index and some neighborhood maps. After all, give us a few more clues.

This just couldn't get any better. It is full of interesting tidbits and numerous places to visit accompanied by stories of people and places you normally don't hear told. I couldn't put it down, and I have recommended it to several people.

A wonderfully ill-tempered, sentimental, and informed account of nooks and crannies in the most interesting of cities. If I could arrange it, I would introduce Downie to the venerable Guy Grangeret, a visite-conference guide to Paris who is nothing less than Downie's spiritual twin. Neither man's dicta are suitable for beginners: all that irony and allusion would be wasted. Both provide insights and make connections that enrich the experience as well as thinking of the seasoned visitor.

I had wanted to read something about Jewish assimilation in Europe after snippets and references from Goethe's biography by Nicholas Boyle, a musical essay on Mendelssohn that touched briefly on his grandfather, Moses, and the liner notes on several classical music CDs of composers who lived in the 19th century. When I saw this book at my neighborhood bookstore, I grabbed it and stayed up all night reading it. Since I want information when I read a history, I don't require great writing, and prose that's merely adequate can be forgiven if the research is thorough (and the author doesn't have an axe to grind). Elon is a good enough writer that I will seek out his other works. This book shed light on the ambivalence that must have been unbearable for so many. And as another reviewer mentioned, its nice to have a chapter of German/Jewish history that doesn't begin with Weimar. As one of the best histories I've read, I can't recommend it highly enough. Hopefully high-school and college courses on Europe in the World War years will use this book as a prelude.

"The Pity of It All" is a masterful accomplishment of scholarship, insight and tone. It describes the world and history of German Jews before the Holocaust in ways that illuminate the catastrophe that follwed, but with a wise restraint that holds back from glib or pat theories. For instance, Elon is careful to insist that the outcome for Germany's Jews was not inevitable, and that although virulent, persistent anti-semitism was widespread in German culture, Hitler's and Nazism's rise also benefitted from the blunders and complacency of competing politics, and from other random hazards. In focusing on and describing the preceding two centuries of rapid development of a German Jewish community of prosperity and accomplishment, Elon gives these people back their identity and dignity as something other than doomed or pathetic foreshadows of predestination. While the book provides valuable food for thought about the Holocaust, it also, and predominantly, honors and rewardingly brings to our awareness the rich and fascinating parade of Jewish life and individuals in Germany from the mid-18th century forward.

There are many strengths to this book- one of the main strengths is the variety of uses that it has. It's obvious purpose is to relate the history of German Jews from the rise of the Enlightenment to the rise to power of the Nazi party. But it serves other purposes as well. I came to it for an understanding of the intellectual background of both Leo Strauss and Hannah Arendt. It could serve as background reading for anyone interested in Einstein, Benjamin, Adorno, Horkheimer, Freud, Adler, Fromm, Marcuse, Mannheim, Popper, Bernstein, Cassirer, Schoenberg, Husserl, Weill, among other German-Jewish intellectuals to numerous to mention. Which brings me to my third purpose. I have never read anything that made me realize just how badly Germany damaged itself intellectually during the rise of the Nazis. It serves as the primary example of politically ripping your heart out because your brain commands it. Who knows what the country could have become if it had embraced it Jewish citizens? Finally, for me, this book makes me understand why Zionism became such a political force. At some point, when you are treated like the Jewish citizens of Germany were, what else can you do? Elon makes it clear that their suffering began long before the twentieth century.
I want to talk about Elon's methodology. His book is basically a series of well chosen capsule biographies of prominent German Jews whose lives and struggles for emancipation and assimilation serve as to tell the stories of all German Jews. His focuses on people like Moses Mendelssohn, Rahel Varnhagen, Heinrich Heine, Ludwig Borne, Ludwig Bamberger, Gershon Bleichroder and Walter Rathenau. Along with this main biographies are several dozens of shorter ones. Elon then surrounds these stories with a certain amount of sociological history (two of his favorite statistics are to look at the rate of conversions from Judaism to Christianity and the rate of intermarriage). He tries to relate those stats to larger historical events. Finally, he also uses a bit of cultural history,e.g., he sees Goethe's idea of Bildung as having an even larger impact on German Jews than on the rest of the German population.
This methodological approach to his story has some drawbacks. Non-intellectual and/or lower class German Jews remain in the background in Elon's book. I am not sure how this could be avoided. There may be some sort of historical record that would tell us more about this part of the population but it is hard to imagine what that record would be. It is also easy to imagine that life for the poorer and less literate parts of the German Jewish population would have been even worse. Most careers were closed to them, all civil and political rights were denied to them and many times, entire cities or districts were closed to them. In most cities they lived in ghettos and were not allowed to go out into the rest of the city on Sundays or Christian holidays.
Elon also makes it clear that in many ways, Germany was one of the most liberal countries toward its Jewish citizens. I found myself sometimes reading this book wondering when the revolution was going to start. As I said earlier, reading this book makes the appeal of Zionism easy to understand.
I have a few other minor laments about Elon's book. I would have appreciated much more of a history of both Zionism and reform Judaism within the context of his history. I would also have learned from a history of how the understanding of the galut changed over time. But this is a minor quibble. Elon's books fulfills its own purpose and many other purposes magnificantly. There are other books that can tell the story of the missing pieces.
I came to this book from my reading of Strauss. It makes me appreciate Strauss's ideas about the theological-political problem so much more. Strauss basically used the place of the Jewish citizen within a liberal polity as his basic metaphor for the challenge of the other to a community/state. He also saw it as a metaphor for the role of the philosopher in the community/state. In both cases, it stands for an outsider who can never be other than an outsider. Strauss felt that this issue tears at the core of the liberal state. It is one that we can never run from and must always face with all our wisdom and humanity. Reading Elon argues strongly that Strauss may have been right. But mostly, reading Elon leave you with a sense of how much all of us have lost from what happened to the Jewish population of Europe during the thirties and forties. The Pity of It All is right.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time. It combines history with interesting narrative. It tells of the heartbreaking saga of the relationship between Jews and Germans for the 200 years preceding WW II. It spoke of histories of people and how devoted they were to the Fatherland....especially sad were the thousands of conversions, forced and voluntary, which in the end did the Jews no good. It is an enlightening read and not very flattering about the Germans and their anti semetic history of thought.

The author describes the history of German Jewry in such an eloquent, informed and story-telling way that is just fascinating. Easy to read too. Excellent buy.

The progress of Jews toward full acceptance in the society of Germany and Austria--or at least Vienna--is traced thoroughly and at length. Writers, politicians, artists and industrialists, all are met here. Of some figures--those of peculiar importance or eccentricity--a whole biography is written. Others are mentioned almost in passing, never to be heard of again. The unique role of the **HofJude** (court Jew) and the **KaiserJude** (Emperor's Jew), these being close to power without actually wielding it, is well explained for readers in democratic America.

The one weakness in the book lies in its failure adequately to explain how things went from sugar to s--t so quickly. It's an account of steady gains, almost a mutual love affair between the Jews who contributed so much and the society that valued them like none other, then suddenly, in the final chapter, it's all taken away and the Jews must flee for their lives as Hitler and the Nazis come to power.

There is a bit more to the story but you will read little of it here. Even the most sympathetic chronicler has acknowledged that along with the flowering of art, literature and theater during the Weimar Republic came a fair amount of decadence and depravity. Many sectors of German society, those from the rural areas especially, were deeply offended by what went on in smart-set Berlin in the twenties, and by the alienated political commentary of some Jewish writers of the time which was intended to wound and did so.

Perhaps little of this was perceived at the time. Elon seems hardly to perceive it in retrospect, devoting all of two sentences on the second to last page to the excesses of the Weimar period.

This is one of the finest books I have read in a long time. Believe it or not, I heard about it from a Q and A with the actress Natalie Portman who recommended the book. The writer tells the history of the relationship between the Jewish population and their neighbors and German governnment. It ends in 1933, and points out ways in which the Jews tried to assimilate but were never able to please their government enough. It opened my eyes to 200 years of life before Hitler and how he was a cog in the machinery of the sickness of anti semitism. There are many personal examples of characters, their brilliance and fortitude to always try to "make things work" between them and their government. It is a heartbreaking book but one which should be read for Jews and Christians alike.

Amos Elon opens this book describing Moses Mendelsohn, a German philosopher's entry as an impoverished and uneducated teen into Berlin through a gate reserved for "swine, oxen and Jews," and ends it by describing how a famous Jewish writer left Berlin by train just hours ahead of the Gestapo.

Between these bookends you'll find the history of the German Enlightenment, the general acceptance and tolerance that Jews came to enjoy in Germany, of the significant role that Jews played in Germany's cultural, scientific, political and business worlds, and of the assimilation process that led to the specific identity of being a German Jew, and of most tragic suffering. What a pity!

It is the privilige of the victor to write history; most English-language histories of Germany's Jews to a greater or lesser degree approach their story through the prism of Anglo-American history, and adopt some of the prejudices and justifications of Anglo-American historians sometimes becoming but recitations of trusims. Not so this book, which is far more sophisticated. Without excusing that which ought never have happened, Elon clearly symapathisizes with the German people, and does not, for example, only describe the depths of the racial hatred to which they sunk, but also describes how barely 30 years before, they were far and away the most tolerant and least racist nation in history. Would that this were better known.

Not only is it a (brief) history of German Jewry, but also a brief history of German culture, politics and science. Elon believes that the Social-Democrats were far too weak, disorganized, and confused to have been able to maintain law and order during the Weimar Republic, and that the more conservative parties, which largely were extensions of churches, were too tied down by their religious affiliations to have been able to provide effective government. This, he believes, meant that the only form of government that could have saved Germany from the horrors that came to be would have been a military dictatorship. Expecting the Germans to smoothly transition from centuries of monarchic rule to a democracy during the depths of the Great Depression was not realistic. Democracies cannot exist without citizens who think for themselves, monarchies often raise people to follow orders without question. This is an interesting idea, and not what one hears from the sort of historians who write that the horrors arose because people weren't nice enough.

This is a hugely informative and highly moving book that is history sine ira et studio, history at its very best. I heartily recommend this book.

This book is truly one of a kind. It's detail and clarity is unprecedented and its topic very engaging as Elon does an amazing job in taking his readers through the 200-year journey and labyrinth of a mostly unexplored period of Jewish history. Awesome! Truly the best thing since sliced bread. Besides being a fabulous historical treatise, it answers many questions.......many many questions and problems and does it so wholesomely and so didactically and flawlessly.

My hat is off to you, Mr. Elon. I am silenced by the great amount of awe and respect I now harbor toward you. Thank You!

One of the best history books I read (and I read quite a few):
Well written, the past comes to life and what's more important you start to live it as if you don't know the future. One of the biggest problems in reading history is the fact you know "the answers" a privilege people don't have when they actually live and take decisions. This book gives you the feeling as if you almost are there with out knowing how things will eventually turn out.
Side bonus: a look in to the best of European culture of the 19th century.
A key for understanding lots of current issues, it will also help to understand the desires and nightmares of Jews in Israel today.

This beautiful book is one that you will want to return to again and again. The photographs - particularly those of Queen Victoria's children, and those of her with her grandchildren - are exquisite. The captions, too, provide all kinds of anecdotes and interesting snippets of information. Through the pages of the book you go through the sad stories and the joyful ones of these beautiful people and each page brings a new delight. Like "The Camera and the Tsars" - this is a book I would take with me if I were stranded on a desert island!

Most Beautiful Princess

excellent photographs of collection of royal family of england ,from1840-1940.some of the pictures i've seen before ,but there are alot of new one's not seen before.

This is an excellent resource as well as enjoyable reading and viewing. Queen Victoria had a large, illustrious family. This book not only humanizes and personalizes the many family members, it also helps to make sense of the extended family connections - particularly with the included family trees in the back of the book.

I have perused through this book many times, and have recently given one to a friend, who absolutely loved it. This is not a history book that will just sit on a shelf. It is a required addition to anyone interested in the history of Queen Victoria and the Eurpoean monarchies.

Absolutely remarkable. Charlotte Zeepvat takes the reader into the lives of Queen Victoria and her family with the amazing photographs, both candid and formal. The pictures are rare. They are well organized and have excellent captions. Zeepvat is a great writer/historian and I recommend her books to all.

There are certain photos that I simply expect to see when perusing volumes about European royalty. However, upon receiving Zeepvat's book, I was thrilled to find so many rarely seen photos of some of the more obscure descendants of the "Grandmother of Europe." If you're a royalty buff like I am, you can spend hours immersed in this marvelous book and its detailed family trees.

The Red Balloon is a wonderful story with an adorable little boy as the star character. I bought both the book and the DVD to give as a present to younger children (4 yrs old). I think they will enjoy if only for the visuals. The film is produced in French language but there is so little dialogue that not understanding the script doesn't affect the enjoyment of watching the film. Overall, it is a fun story with a good feel to it. There were only a couple of situations in the story that I thought might be a little sensitive or a bit scary to younger kids .. one being a group of boys chasing the little boy trying to take the balloon away from him. The other a very quick scene where a school headmaster is upset with the chaos going on and he puts the little boy in a room and locks the door. These are minor to the overall upbeat feel of the story but parents may want to review first to consider their own fast forward editing or explanations. In my case, the quality of the DVD was not great. It's an old film so perhaps the age is showing a bit in the reproductions.

Great story....grew up watching the short film and checking this same book out from our local library. Now that I'm a mom, I have introduced this video and book to my kids, and they're infatuated with everything about it. Great, well-made books with lively photos and storyline that holds little ones' attentions.

this book was written some decades ago but the excellence of the writing and the very skilful, thoughtful & sensitive photography which integrates very successfully with the story, are such that I believe this book will be deservedly popular with very many generations of children in the future. I believe that it is a masterpiece of children's literature and I strongly recommend it as a gift to be given by any parent - or grandparent.

I must have checked this book out a hundred times when I was in Elementary school as it was such a favorite. What a joy it was to find it still in print and telling it's charming story to future generations. This is a classic, and a book that I would recommend to all children and adults that want to hold a piece of their treasured childhood memories. This story was told in film on the International Children's Film Festival, hosted by Kookla, Fran and Olie, and further helps to bring this story to life.
Treat yourself and your children to the story of a boy and his friend, the red balloon.

The photographs, the text and presentation are remarkable. A piece that makes a good complement of the movie.

This Oxford archaeological guide to Rome is a replacement book for an older volume of the same that I had used so much that the pages were falling out! If you are primarily interested in the archaeological history of Rome from her beginnings through the late imperial period, then this is the book to have.

This guide is not a standard tour summary that just hits the highlights.
It is comprehensive and a bit academic, but if you really want to dig a little deeper into ancient Rome's structural past whether you are reading excerpts from it in your living room, or contemplating the forum from the Capitoline hill, this is the volume to have!

I took this book, along with a plethora of touristy guidebooks, and this one got read the most! We spent hours and hours in the Forum and the Palatine, and really delighted in uncovering the mysteries of so many building foundations. I left Rome wishing I had an archaeologist as a personal tour guide, but this book was an excellent substitution! It can be read at home, but I found infinitely more meaning when I sat at the site and read about where I was. Take this to Rome if you are interested in the ancients!

I had the fortune or misfortune of buying this book prior to my first visit to Rome. It is such a well-organized, well-written, and concise guide to ancient Rome that you could make the mistake that I made upon completing it and my first visits there. You might search a long, long time and spend a lot of money trying to find something better. Based upon my experience, a university-level seminar or a three semester hour course is the only thing that could surpass this guide.

Don't be put off by simplified plans shown in the pages. You need clear, simple ideas of what the stuff once was to understand what you're looking at. When you're in the ruins, you will be surrounded by other tourists, any changing weather conditions, and you will be viewing the architectural remains of a previous civilization from many different standpoints. You can't do that successfully without a clear, simple concept already in your mind.

Fodor's Holy Rome, 1st Edition: A Millennium Guide to Christian Sights (Fodor's Holy Rome)

You can't really understand Rome without this companion. It looks deeply into the very heart of the city, into its foundations and the stories they tell. This is practical archaelology at its best, presenting us with the lessons that history can teach us.

I used this book for my second trip to Rome and it was absolutely invaluable. I wish that I had it for my first trip. I am a person who only cares about the Ancient Roman artifacts and this book literally has ever one listed by region that you have access to. If you decide to use this book bring along a highlighter and check off the sections that you complete, by the end of the day you will be amazed at how much you have seen. I cannot recommend this book enough.