North America Books

This is a fun book and all Scouts should own one. We see how some things change, but we also see how some things don't. Truths remain true and common sense and good remain so as well. Pick one up!

This is a great book showing the scout perspective. The other half is the Handbook For Scout Masters 1914 recently reprinted. The two show both sides of the picture and are both funny from their angle.

Lot of info is out of date here, such as their dietary and first aid, but that is what makes it fun.

Superb book. In the world we live in there is constant change, this book demonstrates that somethings are timeless.

I was a Cub Scout, Weblo, and Boy Scout for years. Some of my fondest memories are of times spent with my fellow scouts around the campfire, telling stories, jokes, and just being BOYS. This edition reminds me of the pre-PC and pre-secular Boy Scouts, when scouting was almost a calling for teenage boys, and certainly contributed to their moral and ethical upbringings. In this day of anti-God, anti-anything-as-long-as-it's-secular-humanism, it's refreshing to read a handbook with advice on serving one's God, and that it should be a regular part of one's life. Kudos to the publisher for re-introducing a classic.

"The Bridge in the Jungle" is one of those strange books you don't know how to respond to at first. On one hand it's absolutely tragic and, on the other, it's filled with some of the funniest passages imaginable. More or less condensed into a twenty-four hour period, Traven describes how an Indian community bands together, sometimes with folly but often with strength, when a young boy disappears into the bush.

Throughout the story Traven gives an intimate account of peasant life in southern Mexico, nevering missing a detail of how the campesinos live, think and act. In fact the narrative is filled with so many astute observations that you feel, at times, Traven works better as an anthropologist than as a novelist.

But, unfortunately, some of these observations sound a little sentimental. It's the only work by Traven that seems to run in circles, at times even becoming boring. He praises the spiritualism of Indians one too many times and focusses on their diet rather than moving on with the plot.

He does, however, redeem himself with the character of Sleigh, an expat who's made the jungle his home. He's like a good-natured version of Kurtz -- wise, crazy, but harmless.

On top of all this, Traven makes his usual attacks against the oil industry and organized religion.

If you enjoyed any of his "jungle books," then gives this one a read.

I confess that I am a major afficionado of B. Traven. My politics have mellowed over the years but I enjoy Traven's political perspective. I believe B. Traven was an ararchist at heart. He attacked big government and big business as evil but saw the uncorrupted individual as nobel and good. In the rural Mexican Indian community he found, for himself, the most ideal form of government he had ever encountered. His Jungle Books were a tale of conflict between good and evil; peasant and capitalism. His book, The Bridge in the Jungle, is his ode to the Indian peasant community. He brings us into their midst throught his vagabond American who stumbles upon a small village at the time a tragedy is unfolding. A young boy has drowned and we witness their suffering and their coming together. We see the corruption of their society by misunderstood influences from the outside world. The example I remember best is the musician who, when asked to play something during the funeral march, comes up with "Yes We have no Bananas". Neither the musician nor anyone else except our American narrator comprehends the total inappropriateness of the song. All in all, a beautiful story of a disappearing society.

By chance I came upon Traven at the library when I noted that he had authored "Treasure of Sierra Madre," a film classic that I automatically associate with Hollywood's old Bogey.

Not knowing anything more than that I picked-up "The Bridge in the Jungle," and what I found most fascinating was finding a story that so honestly stripped away cultural biases and opened a window to another universe. It revealed the dignity of a community dealing with death of a young boy in an obscure jungle town in early nineteenth century Mexico, and it also provided a vivid account of a proud Aztec culture on the threshold of extinction.

I wish I could see more modern American writers, who, like Traven, would more readily examine how cultural biases skew our understanding and appreciation of the quiltwork of cultures that inhabit our amazing World.

This book was dedicated by Traven to the mothers of the world. It is a cold, crude and, at the same time, compasionate and tender view on a child's death and the terrible, extreme pain it produces on his mother. It also describes the quite particular, "uncontaminated" and honest reaction the event creates among a small Indian community in Chiapas. All this is told by Gales, the main character, an American adventurer that hardly tries to undertand what is actually going on and how he feels about it.

Although the plot is very simple, this novel has some passages of an extraordinary literary intensity. It is also full of irony and sometimes sarcasm too.

Well, it can be said The Bridge in the Jungle is a sad, tragic novel but it is beautifully written and that is what matters.

This is an outstanding book! It is extremely readable, and gives the reader a fantastic overview of the history of Christian worship. This should be required reading for every worship leader and student of worship.

This book really does fill a void in the market. Most books on the history of Christian worship are excessively simple or excessively complex. Occasionally an educated lay person will ask me for a book that they can understand (without a divinity degree) but that goes beyond the simple "altar guild" books one might use as an absolute introduction. I am very pleased that Professor White is able to maintain the middle ground.

White does an excellent job tracking several spiritual themes through the various Christian epochs. He compares things as what was the process of becomming a Christian and other themes that most consider timeless, but instead shows the changing in what was considered normative from the early church, patristic period, medieval ages, enlightenment period and modern Christianity. I have read many many books on worship, and this one is definately worth reading and White's analysis is honest, reasonable and very informative.

This history book breaks the molds of stereotype. The format is simple: 1) worship of the New Testament Era 2) worship of the early Christian centuries 3) worship of the middle ages 4) worship of the reformation period 5) worship of modern times, and 6) worship of the future.

What causes me to give this book a 5-star rating is its honesty. Most books of this nature try to plug a certain perspective at the risk of almost becoming dishonest. This book simply lays it out. If you become uncomfortable learning that your style of worship is not as universal as you would like, or that your theology hasn't always been central to Christian practice, so be it.

I found myself challenged by the questions I began asking. This is the kind of book I like.

Chocolate. what is better than that? Oh yea, brownies! Excellent cookbook with tons of variety!

I am in chocolate heaven everytime I open this book. The recipes are simply the best, chocolatiest, fudgiest, gooeiest I have ever tried. Even her recipe for cocoa brownies are moist and fudgy whereas usually cocoa brownies turn out dry and chewy.

I am working my way through this book and so far everything I made have been winners. This book has everything from classic fudge brownies to touches of unconventional flavors like balsamic vinegar, lemongrass and ginger. Having said that, I'm not an adventurous baker so I would probably give such recipes a miss. Still this is a book I use all the time and it hasn't disappointed me yet. And probably never will.

This book covers the best of the most decadent brownie recipes.....
It also has some alternatives for those with sensitivities to wheat, etc.
Overall a well written, well researched cookbook! Definitely worth owning.

This book is fabulous! I have tried a number of the recipes and they are all wonderful. The author has fun notes with each recipe as well suggestions to make the brownie treat fancy enough for a dinner party dessert. Every time I make one of these brownies, everyone wants the recipe. Great book to give as a hostess gift.

Bridger, decendent of the reknown Mountain man, Jim Bridger, has written an outstanding book on two of history's most colorful and enduring icons of the American west and the dynamic process that each dealt with during the late 19th century America. Bridger is one the best entertainers in American today and this book only shows a small example of his profound abilities. Years of research and documentation of historical events pays tribute to truth, justice, and injustices, of the American West. This book should be a standard fare for all collegiate history classes and for the general public at large. History is always multi-sided and Bridger illustrates that to perfection. This is a must read. It will impress both scholars and the general public. BRAVO MR. BRIDGER! We look forward to the next! Sing on Great Spirit!

For years, Bobby Bridger has been presenting the story of Buffalo Bill in a musical act called Pahaska, a one-hour series of enthralling songs that tell the story of Bill Cody. Now, Bridger puts down the guitar and period garb from his act to show the history behind his art. In this historical tome, Bridger shows the serious academic side of his art. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the history of the West. Bridger's look at how the modern romantic vision of the American West was created is intriguing and as captivating as his music.

For years, Bobby Bridger has been presenting the story of Buffalo Bill in a one-hour musical act that tells the story of Bill Cody in a series of enthralling songs. Now, with this historical tome, Bridger has completed the circle. This is the history behind Bobby Bridger's art. Bridger puts down the guitar and period garb used in his musical drama to show readers the serious academic side of his personality. If you want some intriguing inquiry and suggestion about how the modern vision of the romantic west was created, this book is a must read.

For years, Bobby Bridger has been entertaining audiences musically with his Ballad of the West. One of the hour sets, Pahaska, tells the story of Buffalo Bill in what Bridger describes as Homeric ballads. Now, Bridger puts aside the guitar and period garb to show his serious academic side. "Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull: Inventing the Wild West" is the history behind his music. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the old west and is an intriguing look into how the popular vision of it was created.

Originally published in 1917, reissued in 1987, now released again with a new introduction by Jeffrey R. Hansen, Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden presents an agricultural calendar year's activities as remembered by Buffalo Bird Woman, an accomplished Hidatsa gardener born around 1839. Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden was a doctoral dissertation by a man who believed "It is of no importance that an Indian's war costume struck the Puritan as the Devil's scheme to frighten the heart out of the Lord's annointed. What we want to know is why the Indian donned the costume, and his reasons for doing it (p.xix)." Wilson also went on to write Goodbird the Indian His Story and Waheenee: An Indian Girl's Story (biography of Buffalo Bird Woman, 1839-1921). Using biography to study a culture was effective because it highlighted the variety of traumatic cultural shifts, changes, and transmutations painfully experienced by Buffalo Bird Woman and her family. The use of empathy informs the dated, 'superior' dominant culture outlook. Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden has been called a classic anthropological document. It certainly is that and more. As a model of respectful viewing and learning, as a mirror of the complex lifeway of ;the agricultural Plains Indians, as a chronicle of human adaptation, survival and ingenuity in the face of cultural disenfranchisement, Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden sets the bar for the standard. In addition, it gives eloquent testimony to one of the enduring gifts of the Hidatsa - their varieties of corn, squash, beans, and sunflowers. Even more enduring, perhaps, is the contribution highlighted by Jeffrey Hanson: "buffalo Bird Woman's Garden is not the end, but the beginning. It is a foundation, a viewpoint, and it presents a cultural relationship with nature that we can all appreciate and from which we can all derive benefit. (p.xxiii). Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden describes planting, preparation, cultivating, harvesting and storing practices, as well as traditional songs and prayers sung to honor and encourage the garden's yield. Beautifully detailed drawings by her son Edward Goodbird illustrate Buffalo Bird Woman's descriptions of gardening and storing produce and other activities. It is easy to see that modern ethnologists and authors such as W. Michael and Kathleen O'Neal Gear drew fairly heavily from the information presented in Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden. This is an enduring testament to a lifeway revalued today perhaps more as it should be.

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

This is a Minnesota Historical Society reprint of the anthropological study done by Gilbert Wilson in 1917, originally published as "Agriculture of the Hidatsa Indians: An Indian Interpretation." Wilson was among the first of a new school of American anthropologists that felt Indian cultures should speak for themselves, and not be spoken for by "white man's" interpretations. Consequently, the book really is, as the subtitle says, "an Indian interpretation." Most of the text is translated directly from Buffalo Bird Woman's own words, complete with stories, jokes, and personal anecdotes about village life. By the time you are done reading it, you will feel as if you met her personally.

I bought it because I am a Minnesota gardener, so I wanted to see what tips I might pick up from the ways of the indigenous people. The book is rich with useful gardening lore, including diagrams of various tools and structures, along with detailed descriptions of the different kinds of beans, corn, and squash that the Indians grew. Plus, there are native recipes you can try.

I was surprised to learn that, when the Indians dried squash, they didn't use mature fruits with hard skins like we do today, but preferred to cut them when they were 4 days old -- at about 3 1/2 inches diameter. They were more tender that way, easier to slice, and they dried better. The best squashes were marked in the field and allowed to mature for seed.

I also found it interesting that the Indians kept the different colors of corn separate, not like the multi-colored "Indian corn" we buy today for fall decorations. Although Buffalo Bird Woman did not understand the science behind genetics, she and her fellow Hidatsa gardeners did notice that corn varieties will "travel" (her word) from one patch to another if different colors are planted too closely together. So, women with adjoining fields would agree to plant the same varieties side-by-side, to help prevent this "traveling."

The Hidatsa women also understood the principles of good seed-saving techniques, and carefully chose seed from the very best squashes and corn ears in the crop, thereby improving their strains from year to year. Composting, however, was apparently unknown. Leaves and brush were burned, not composted, and they regarded manure as a dirty substance to be removed from the garden. But the Hidatsa did know the value of fallowing, and would allow a less-productive field rest a minimum of two years to renew itself.

Some of the techniques in this book are still quite useful today. I have begun pre-spouting my squash seeds, and planting them in the SIDES of the hills instead of on top, to help prevent the heavy rains from damaging the seedlings. Some of the fencing designs have found their way into my rustic Minnesota garden, too.

This book is also a priceless resource for "living history" re-enactors or "back to the land" homesteaders who might want to know how to build a traditional corn-drying platform, a food-storage cache, a homemade rake, or any of the other tools used successfully for many centuries before the Europeans came here. Simply a delightful book!

This is a unique and irreplaceable book. In the early 20th century, the author interviewed Buffalo Bird, an old Hidasta Indian woman about Indian farming methods in the mid 19th century. The result is a primer on how the Indians grew corn and other crops on the Great Plains. Interspaced with the explanation of agricultural techniques are charming stories, songs, recipes, and ancedotes told by Buffalo Bird. She also describes how the Indians preserved their crop.

The Hidasta lived in North Dakota and this book is a primer on how to garden in the State without recourse to chemical fertilizers, pesticides, or motor powered equipment. The Hidasta grew five crops: corn, beans, squash, sunflower seeds, and tobacco. Their methods of cultivation, storage, and usage of each crop is described, usually with enough detail to be copied by the modern low-impact sustainable agriculturalist. A large number of illustrations and photographs supplement the text and show how the Indians built fences, dug storage pits, dried squash, and laid out their fields.

A good introductory essay introduces the Hidasta, Bird Woman, and the author to the reader. The whole book is only about 150 pages, but there's a wealth of cultural and agricultural information here presented in a charming and easy-to-digest format.

Smallchief

A "must have" for anyone who is interested in doing a garden using authentic Native American practices, as used in the tribes in the Missouri Valley area. Details on laying out the garden, maintaining it, food storage, construction of tools, etc. are all included with sufficient clarity for reproduction.

This book is great for parents, children, and teachers. It covers butterfly gardening, understanding butterflies, identifying butterflies, and provides a wonderful variety in pictures and information. It is presented in a format that is of interest to all ages. This book needs to go to print again and be widely available. If it doesn't, grab one while you can.

This book is great for parents, children, and teachers. It covers butterfly gardening, understanding butterflies, identifying butterflies, and provides a wonderful variety in pictures and information. It is presented in a format that is of interest to all ages. This book needs to go to print again and be widely available. If it doesn't, grab one while you can.

This is a wonderful book, packed with an amazing amount of information, engagingly presented, in its 144 colorfully illustrated pages. The author's fascination with, and immersion in, his subject is apparent, and generates a responding enthusiasm in the reader. Learning that, for instance, high altitude plants tend to be pollinated by birds, not insects, because of the lower temperature and humidity, and because they are less fragrant, may not be needed to make a butterfly garden, but it is a fun snippet of knowledge.

The book can be divided into three major segments: The first two chapters tell us about butterflies (and moths) in literature and lore, as well as nature. The second section (chapter 3) provides brief discussions of over two dozen butterfly species, with an emphasis on food sources for both the caterpillars and adults. The third section is about the plants one can place in one's garden to make it attractive to wild butterflies; not only food sources, but as roosting places. Over 100 plant species are discussed, organized by type (shrubs, trees, annuals) and season. This is followed by a chapter on the general principles of designing a garden for butterflies, with two example garden plans.

A fascinating read for the armchair gardener, no coffee table book yet profusely illustrated, "TheButterfly Garden" is also full of good and specific advice for attracting these beautiful creatures.

This book is great for parents, children, and teachers. It covers butterfly gardening, understanding butterflies, identifying butterflies, and provides a wonderful variety in pictures and information. It is presented in a format that is of interest to all ages. This book needs to go to print again and be widely available. If it doesn't, grab one while you can.

Since I grew up in an area near an Indian reservation in central MN, and now live in an area that was formerly a reservation in central OR, I had to read this book by Rick Steber about his viewpoint. It brings us great sadness to realize how difficult it's been for the American Indian population to assimilate and succeed in our current culture, and why alcohol plays such a great role in their attempts. I did enjoy reading 1491 which documents their predecessors' success in living a better life as the early natives to this continent. I'm glad to hear we're beginning to see the necessity for restoring the prairie grasses and conservation practices of burning, etc. that were successful for the early forestation and conservation of our country.

As I lived close to this area during the time of this book, it was thrilling to read Rick Steber's view of the happenings at that time.

It supposedly is not based on facts. I remember too well the incidents and the stories of the law enforcement officers relating to the "trouble with the natives". Humourous as it was at the time, it is truly a sad tale of loss of another one of our native American tribes and the plight the white man has brought to them.

The characters in this book are drawn deeply and realistically. I could not put this book down.

Buy the Chief a Cadillac is indeed a wonderful historical novel, although fairly recent history, as the time period of the book is in the early 1960's.
The Klamath Indian tribe, living on a million acre reservation in southern Oregon, is about to be terminated. The government passed a plan where they would pay each Indian $43,000 and in return, the reservation would be no longer. This novel is set in the days just before and immediately after the Termination Act took place.
Full of well fleshed out characters, mean drunks, crazy cowboys, whisky swilling loggers, lawmen both good and bad, this book is a darn fine read. It is historically correct and explores clearly one of the last really big rip-offs of the Indians by the US Government.
Buy the Chief a Cadillac is fueled by 60's rock and roll, a river of potent booze, hopped up hotrods, guns, chaos, greed, murder and abundant mayhem. We meet and journey with each of the many and varied interesting characters from their own point of view, something that works very well.
The book is tight, keeps the reader turning the pages; the writing is crisp, clean, and clear, and has a definite ring of authenticity about it. This is the first of Rick Steber's books I've read and I plan to read more of them. I'd recommend it for anyone who enjoys reading about the West, for those interested in American history, and think it would make an excellent book for professors to have their students read in classes that deal with the American Indian, the reservations, the 1960's. A terrific book by a talented writer.

Canada's First Nations is a solid piece of scholarship detailed enough to satisfy advanced historians and well written in order to please a greater audience.

Make no mistake, this is a vast topic covering 15.000 years in history and pre-history that had to be shrunk to 560 pages only. Of course there are a few omissions, of course there needed to be some sort of selection of incidents and sources. Most of the author's choice regarding her focus can be understood easily and makes the book a good read.

The only grave criticism of which the author cannot be spared is that at some places Dickason does not sufficiently question her ancient written sources, but rather takes for granted what has been said about amerindian behavioural patterns in the 16th and 17th century.

While this can be attributed to the vast undertaking itsself, it nonetheless may be one wrong approach to sources leading to a perhaps distorted picture of amerindian ancient culture.

One example: "All Iroquoians practised torture and cannibalism"...[56].
While the first can be regarded as proven, sources related to the alledged latter behaviour are definetely not to be taken at face value, as Heidi Peter-Röcher (Kannibalismus in der Prähistorischen Forschung, Studien zu einer paradigmatischen Deutung und ihren Grundlagen.) in her doctoral thesis of 1994 (University FU Berlin) quite convincingly points out.

In fact, as Peter-Röcher succeeded to show, remarks related to cannibalism have to be taken with utmost care. Peter-Röcher goes as far as questioning the existence of such a practise in history at all and relates that there is not one single case in history when such a practise has been positively witnessed, that is neurotic missionaries - themselves living under a constant threat of getting slain - made up these stories of "Gog and Magog" in order to illustrate their braveness among the barbarians, to put it short.

Despite these flaws Canada's First Nations is a solid piece of work well worth the time it takes to read it.

This book is a wonderful synthesis of Canadian aboriginal history. I was impressed by the author's detailed and well-balanced approach. It is neither a moral fable nor a panegyric of conquerors' exploits, but rather history as it should be told. The only downside is the book's episodic style but that is necessitated by its ambitious goal. Olive Dickason did an especially good job highlighting the different histories of Canada's natives both pre- and post-contact.

This is an excellent book, which can be used as an encyclopedia for the history, traditional names, and geographical location of the Canadian Native peoples. The author has used numerous primary sources and maps and her style is very readable. Dickason gave also the aboriginal perspective of many events but in a very balanced account. The book can grasp the attention not only to professional historians dealing with Native history but also to all readers who have some general interest in the past of Canada's Amerindians.

Oliva Dickason, the Canadian doyenne of academic Amerindian history, delivers an excellent university introduction textbook to the history of the First Nations of North America, concentrating on those of Canada.

She deals with four periods: the pre-colonial era, the colonial, the 19th & mid-20th century, and the end of 20th century.

Her pre-colonial history is often speculative, since there are no written records, but much can be determined from oral tradition and archeological finds. For instance, the Iroquois confederacy was established shortly before the French landed in the mid-16th century; North America housed a diversity of distinct nations; many Amerindians cultures lived in permanent settlements; west coast nations had developed explicit property rights and had a system of land entitlement.

The colonial era was one of co-operation and alliances between the Ameridians and the Europeans settlers and soldiers. The Europeans brought their wars and diseases with them, while the First Nations brought their wars too. The partnership was equal and the First Nations on the winning side benefitted, at least until the 19th century.

From the 19th century onwards however, White rule has much to answer for. The diseases of the colonial era were brought inadvertently, but not so the 19th century land grab, or the disastrous assimilation attempts of the 20th century.

The end of the 20th century has seen a revival of Amerindian self-government. The First Nations have begun using Western institutions to their advantage. In the 1980's Elijah Harper, then member of Manitoba's provincial parliament, single-handedly, and rather heroically, derailed a Canadian constitutional accord (Lake Meech) which failed to address First Nations concerns. Earlier in the 1970s, the First Nations successfully negotiated with Hydro Quebec and created the precedent that their agreement was needed for development on their lands.

Overall, an excellent reference.

The 20th century was cursed with two murderous ideologies: communism and Nazism. Nazism slaughtered 6 million Jews, while communism killed at least 100 million people, and managed to enslave vast swaths of the globe. Besancon wonders why Nazism has become the prototype for evil while communism's evils are largely ignored.



In this important essay, Besancon points out the many similarities between communism and Nazism. "Ideological language is charged with the magical role of forcing reality to conform to a particular vision of the world" (p 14). Who can forget "scientific Marxism" or the false journalists of communism? Or replacing truth with invented histories of an Aryan civilization? And both persecuted religion while trying to substitute their ideologies for religion. "These two doctrines ...have in common the idea of a collective salvation coming in history" (p 60), a biblical idea wholly unknown in the eastern world.



Besancon actually dares to point out that "a Nazi or communist presents a clinical case for psychiatric examination" (p 16). Furthermore, "These artificial mental illnesses were...epidemic and contagious" (p 16). Germany and the USSR woke up years later like patients recovering from comas.



What is most striking is that the atrocious actions of both ideologies, the monstrous death camps, the gulag, the mass starvations, the horrors of Pol Pot and Mao, were all committed by people sure they were doing these things in the name of good.



Why did madness strike the 20th century? What does it say about human nature and what does it say about our future?

This book is amazing! It completely and descriptively compares the two most evil Ideologies of the 20th Century. It describes how the crimes associated with Nazism unfortunately overshadow the crimes associated with communism, which claimed the lives of over 12 times that of Nazism; because Nazism promoted the reign of one race and was dedicated to the complete obliteration of another. But people often forget that communism was as genocidal at times as Nazim, not to mention the murder and "reeducation" of anyone who did not conform to their ideas of equality. We condemn Nazism because of the over 6 million dead. But most people condemn communism because of its opposition to capitalism, not because of the hundred million or so murdered, plus all those who were tortured just for thinking a different way.
Alain Besancon opens our eyes to this and tells us not to forget the crimes of Nazism, but to remember the injustice and the still alive evil of the communist idea. An amazing read.

This text in the French essay tradition is a reflection on the 20th century's twin totalitarian evils. Besancon muses on their nature, why the one is considered evil incarnate whilst the other gets off lightly, and why the Shoah/Holocaust is unique in last century's atrocity exhibition. Although Communism - including Maoism - caused far more deaths than Nazism it is not stigmatized equally. To better define this disparity, Besancon refers to a collective "amnesia" and "amnesty" where Communism is concerned versus "hypernesia" regarding Nazism.

This is due to our culture's dominant moral relativism, a PoMo morality that asserts universal relativism whilst clinging to temporary absolutes dictated by intellectual trends. The collapse of the Soviet Empire and the fall of the Berlin Wall have driven most of the Leftist Faithful into Marxism's latest mutations environmentalism, feminism and multiculturalism. Chantal Delsol unmasked a type of European piety prevalent in academic and media circles as an empty morality of despair and withdrawal. She calls it the clandestine or black market ideology of our time; sickly sentimental, arbitrary and intolerant despite claims to the contrary.

It inspires nausea to see a hip fashion brand like Soviet Jeans using Soviet imagery in their advertising. Trade in Nazi paraphernalia is restricted to the murkier media and overt Nazi styles are associated with violent skinheads, for now. The visual imagery, lyrics and manner of delivery of the most popular German rock group Rammstein reveal an aesthetic of blood- and power lust, death-worship, ferocity and sadism, concludes Claire Berlinski after thorough investigation including several interviews with band members. In a series of absorbing arguments in the entertaining Menace in Europe she shows how the black-market German nationalism of Rammstein resembles the Third Reich's dramaturgy, mythology, propaganda and vocabulary.

Like all sects of Sinisterism, Communism and Nazism were collectivist and justified mass murder but they surpassed all the others in scale of massacre. They caused similar physical, moral and psychological destruction and would have killed consciousness itself if it were possible. As competing strains of the power-worshiping sinisterist religion they regarded as rivals Christianity and Judaism. A perceptive thinker, perhaps William Nicholls or Robert Wistrich, referred to Western utopian movements as the "secular salvationist offspring of Christianity."

They fit neatly into Eric Hoffer's descriptions of the mass movement driven by disaffected true believers hell-bent on mutilating reality through sociopathic behavior in their search for "meaning." For Besancon, ideology offers a type of temporal salvation that claims to correspond to a cosmic pattern which must be enforced on earth in order to recreate paradise.

The total destruction of existing values is the immediate goal; a drastic departure from history in pursuit of the ideology which is believed will lead to utopia. The "salvationist" label is thus applicable and appropriate. Analyzing and comparing the structure of their thought-forms and taking into consideration their host cultures Germany and Russia (and less frequently China), he explores their promise/s in relation to the beliefs they attempted to eradicate.

This led Besancon to question whether there was something fundamentally unusual about the murder of the 6 million as compared to all the other victims of the Nazis and Communists. He does not seek the answer in the method of murder or in the depths of suffering that are after all impossible to measure, but in the impulse or intent. He also addresses differences in the perception of the horror as determined by religious beliefs. For Christians, the word "holocaust" with its sacrificial connotation made sense. Some Jews objected precisely because of the implication of human sacrifice which is abhorrent to Judaism, choosing the word "shoah" which means disaster or catastrophe.

Besancon's expression "twin evils" reminds me of today's prominent evil twins that predated, thrived in and survived Communism and Nazism: Anti-Americanism and Anti-Zionism. More than mere remnants of Besancon's twins they are mind parasites with remarkable powers of mutation and survival.

Anti-Zionism is one expression of the hydra-headed New Antisemitism which is a blend of several 20th century strains that evolved out of the post-Enlightenment variety which in turn emerged from Anti-Judaism that goes back all the way to the origins of Christianity. The roots of Anti-Americanism - which also sprouted several variants - are embedded in European elitism.

This New Anti-Semitism with its many faces provides clues to the Shoah's uniqueness when viewed as a toxic tree:

(a) With its roots in the New Testament, the Shoah was the culmination of 1900 years of deligitimization and dehumanization. Its trunk is composed of the writings of the "church fathers", discriminatory laws that became especially harsh after the victory of Constantine Christianity, psychological repression and projection amongst a religiously brutalized populace that reached fever pitch in the late Middle Ages and Augustine's replacement theology that migrated to Protestantism through Luther. The branches bearing poisoned fruit are the "salvationist" ideologies like Communism, Fascism, Nationalism and Nazism, the one in which the virus finally took genocidal form.

(b) A hatred honed for maximum contagious capacity was unleashed in the Nazi branch in an effort to annihilate a people and a religion. Consuming massive resources, the effort was fueled by such frenzied insanity that it became the Nazi priority even to the extent of hindering the war effort.

In other words, the factors that make the Shoah unique are (a) the long centuries of preparation (b) the contagious and epidemic hatred that inspired and guided it.

During the Anti-War demonstrations of 2003, Christopher Hitchens and Julie Burchill both commented on a peculiar behavioral pattern observed in some of the marchers: a type of frenzy with erotic undertones. It has since become more commonplace, particularly at anti-Israel and anti-American demonstrations on college campuses. The eroticism is often expressed by gestures that incorporate serpentine writhing. I now suspect that this erotic quality has always been present in outbreaks of Judeopathy.

Andre Glucksmann has warned that the concept of a contagion of hatred must be taken literally as a mental disorder that invades minds, bodies and society. Immune to reason, such an outbreak inoculates itself against opposing opinions and emotions. But at least we have identified a particular manner of its expression that may well point to Judeo-Christian myth. Now it is up to the irreverent, to South Park and stand-up comedians to ridicule, mimic and mock it. What is immune to reason is vulnerable to humor.

The work is profound, commensurate to the regimes of terror it seeks to understand. Working through the experiences of the most thoughtful who suffered these two regimes and those who led them, all militant atheists, Besancon reaches an astonishing theological conclusion. A mark of its profundity is that as you first read it, you soon know you will have to reread it soon.