Netherlands Books

I am a student at a Christian school. During my studies I had a lot of courses of philosophy. And I should acknowledge that philosophy of Baruch Spinoza was one (may be the only) obscure theme at the classes. His worldview is very hard to understand. I suppose that is the main reason of a variety of opinions concerning his philosophical system. The authors of The Giants of Philosophy have done a nice and successful attempt to present his worldview and life story in a brief and clear manner. I have found many interesting facts about his personality despite taking courses and reading Spinoza's treaties previously. If you want to get a good overview of well known philosophers' lives and their systems I suggest you to get this audiobook set. It's worth and very good in helping you to save your time while travelling or doing household work. Try yourself!

My wife and I found this book to be quite useful when we visited Belgium. It really enhanced our visit, including us finding the little-known Jeruselem Church at the edge of town.

Perfect pocket size guide. Great selection of Top 10 attractions. Included walking tours that covered key points of interest.

Diane Wolf conducted interviews with 70 Jewish people who survived World War Two by being hidden by Gentiles. I found the stories of the hidden children that are included in the book fascinating. The chapters where Ms. Wolf presents her findings I found generally less fascinating. Ms. Wolf does find that anti-semitism was pervasive in Holland, before, during and after the war. She holds this responsible for the deaths of what she estimates is the one third of hidden children who were betrayed. (Anne Frank and her family were betrayed by a Dutch neighbor.) The former hidden children report that the postwar period was more difficult than what they endured during the war. After the war the Dutch government established a body to decide the fate of these children. Some returned to their parents, some were kept by the people who had hid them, others were given to relatives or placed in orphanages. Many of the former hidden children report how wrenching it was to discover postwar that the people they thought were their parents were not, and found themselves entrusted to biological parents who were complete strangers to them. In many of the case histories Ms. Wolf reports that restoring the children to their biologic parents or relatives did not turn out well. Ms. Wolf's research has implications in the court cases of recent years where children who were placed at birth have been restored to biologic parents after years of court battles. Ms. Hunter's study shows that severing the bond between a young child and their maternal figure has devastating lifelong effects. Something courts have not considered when deciding what is in the best interest of a child.

This book gave an excellent overview of the history of Belgium and Bruges, and a nice overview of the main sites of the city. Furthermore, it's nice for someone only visiting Bruges that it only deals with that city. The small size makes it easy to shove in a pocket while touring.

I have a couple of nitpicks. First of all, the statement that "In the summer Belgium is seven hours ahead of US Eastern Standard time" is technically true, but misleading. It's six hours ahead of EDT. Also, "the maps in this book will provide all the detail you need" isn't true; it's very easy to get lost, since the side-streets aren't labeled.

Two brothers from Sir Francis Vere's land in England follow him to honor and glory in the Netherlands, with many adventures along the way. When they leave the Netherlands to fight the Spanish Armada from England, one of the boys is knocked overboard. He ends up going to Spain, being captured by Algerian pirates, and eventually marrying and becoming a merchant in Spain. The other brother uses his keen observation and intelligence to become a great officer, and the brothers eventually meet in Spain at the end of the Netherlands' war for independence, and go home together to their parents. They are strong and valiant, and almost always honorable, except in the case of hiring ruffians to carry off a friend's young lady. The reader is educated on the many sides of the war, meeting all the important characters of the time, witnessing the battles, and understanding the reasoning and logic employed during the wartime. This is another terrific history book with entertaining adventure thrown in!

This paperback edition of T.K. Derry's "Campaign in Noway" is the official history of the British intervention in Norway between April and June, 1940. It is written at the operational level of war and from the perspective of the British theater commander. The actions of Norwegian, French, Polish, and German forces are addressed at lesser levels of detail.

The Second World War began with the invasion of Poland in September 1939, but in April 1940, the Western Front was still quiet. Germany opened hostilities with a lightning thrust into Norway by air and sea. The British Fleet missed preempting the invasion by perhaps hours. British authorities immediately decided to send help to the beleagured Norwegians, who were being rapidly overrun.

As Derry narrates, the British intervention was clumsy, poorly planned, and ultimately unsuccessful. The deployed British forces were for the most part inadequately trained and unprepared for the harsh conditions in which they fought in Norway. More importantly, the Germans essentially negated the overwhelming naval superiority of the British by quickly gaining air superiority over most of Norway. Under constant air attack, British forces were compelled to withdraw from successive landing points in Central Norway.

Only around Narvik in the far North were the Allies nearly successful. Narvik was at the extreme reach of the German Air Force, and the British fleet quickly wiped out a German naval flotilla, trapping the German invasion force in the mountains adjacent to the Swedish border. This late success came just as the Germans began their invasion of France, and allied troops were withdrawn from Norway.

First published in 1952, "Campaign in Norway" is an excellent case study in force projection as it was practiced at the beginning of World War II. Derry is entirely fair in assigning both credit and blame in discussing the joint British military effort. His narrative is enhanced by a small selection of maps, diagrams, and photographs.

This book is highly recommended to students of the Second World War and of the Operational Art.

This book's title is somewhat misleading in that the patterns presented are not general of the era but specific to a geographical location. The patterns are quite detailed and the subject bags are varied. However there is no explanation of knitting/crocheting terms and some of the terms used are not universal. Reading is fairly easy. I would not recommend this book to the beginner knitter or crocheter.

This work aims to find similarities between the French, Dutch, and German Social Democratic Parties in the early Postwar years. Comparing ideologies, membership, and activities, this work sees strong similarities between the three parties, while also appreciating the differences between them and ascribing those differences to historical experiences. This work is aimed at the professional scholar but could be grasped by a lay person with some background (i.e., a knowledge of prevailing political trends in the countries during the time period covered). A sophisticated and thoughtful work, it suffers only for its lack of cohesion, something to be expected in this type of work.

Baruch Spinoza is one of the best known 17th century thinkers, as his philosophy of secularism was far ahead of his time. This book aims to create the world at the time through conversations with Baruch and through depiction of the meanders of his life.

His community was of Spanish/Portuguese Jews who fled to Holland. There we know that Baruch was excomungated from the Jewish community, but it is not clear why. Baruch's philophy empashized pure reason as a way to achieve salvation, and not the major religions of the time. His questioning of the existence of a deity were too much for his time, and the book presents such occurences by imagining such a situation.

This is an interesting book, but I am not sure this would be a good intro duction to Spinoza. There is too much that the book takes for granted that the reader knows; this book is recommended to those familiar with Spinoza's philosophy and wanting a better feel for what it must have been like at the time to hold such thoughts. Not for the beginner.