No comments about Diaries.

No comments about Nathan Bedford Forrest.

No comments about An American Story: The Odyssey of Solomon Northup (Kente Classic).

2 comments about John Quincy Adams: Library Edition.

1. His father was disliked, disagreeable & opinionated. According to Paul Nagel, JQA was all this & more. He was deeply neurotic. Yet he is the most eminent man of his time. He could never live up to to the expectations he had set for himself. It is doubtful he knew himself what they were. Mr. Nagel chronicles his life as a student, scholar, legislator, ambassador, Secretary of State & President. Listing President of the United States last is apt since it is by far the least of his accomplishments. Actually it was an abject failure. His youth was spent in Europe as a scholar, student & interpreter for the Russian royal court. This made him highly unsuited to do anything respectable once he returned to America. He became an attorney & hated it. He turned to politics & found he was good at it. Although it would be political suicide to admit it then or even to day, the happiest days of his life appeared to be spent in Europe, speaking French. First, as a teenager in Holland and later as Ambassador to Britain with his English wife, Louisa.
   Nagle version of Abigail Adams is quite different from McCollough's version in his book. Whereas she was a loving, selfless, indespensible wife to John Adams, she appears to be a meddling, insensitive, cruel & guilt inducing mother & mother-in-law. We know so much about JQA because, just like his father, he kept a 50 year diary of his life, leaving more information on his life & times than the next eight presidents combined. Highly recommended reading or listening.



2. Paul Nagel lists as his subtitle "A Public Life, A Private Life." He has done a masterful job of giving us a picture of our sixth president of the US. So why only four stars? - it was depressing. And maybe that is not the fault of the author if John Quincy Adams' personal life was as neurotic as Nagel portrays. It is hard to believe that someone with such a poor self image could rise so high. When I finished the book I was relieved to be done with it - not because of the author's superb research and writing - but because of the portrayal of a waste of a man's life who could have done so much.

No comments about Playboy On the Move, v2 (Playboy on the Move, Vol 2).

1 comments about RFK: In His Own Words.

1. This collection of speeches provides a good picture of the man who would be president in 1968. It is an interesting progression of his thoughts on the issues of the day, issues which remain relevant today. In mulling over his words, one is struck by the man's sincerity -- I remember when I was a child, I would say, "Senator Kennedy is for real! He really does care about people!" The man's unusually high level of committment is readily apparent in his words. He was obviously somebody who set and met personal goals throughout his life -- in 1965 he climbed Mt. Kennedy, although he was an acrophobe; in adult life he educated himself in classical literature, thus increasing his knowlege base; he became personally involved with minorities and persons living in poverty and made these issues his own personal quest. He made himself accessible to his constituents and his works today serve as a model of a very committed man. This is something worth having.

No comments about Ludwig Von Mises.

No comments about Charlie Chaplin and His Times: Library Edition.

5 comments about Eva Peron: A Biography.

1. EVA PERON by Alicia Dujovne Ortiz is not a good book. It is not helped by the fact that, as others have noted, it was originally written in another language. As is often the case, something was lost in the translation. In addition to being overly dramatic, at times tabloid-ishly so, it is plagued with historical inaccuracies: it uses the terms "dictator" and "fascist" to refer to Peron. Such accusations are by now passe to the serious biographer of Peron and Evita. As Robert D. Crassweller points out in PERON AND THE ENIGMAS OF ARGENTINA, "Peronism was not fascism ... (it was) an authoritarian populist movement, strongly colored by Catholic social thought (and) by nationalism [pp. 220-223]."

   After reading EVA PERON by Alicia Dujovne Ortiz, I was left wondering what the point of it was. Why was this book published? It really has nothing of substance to offer. Obviously, it was published to coincide with the release of Madonna's movie EVITA and to capitalize on the renewed interest in the historical Eva Peron.

   For a serious biography of Evita, I recommend EVITA: THE REAL LIFE OF EVA PERON. For an interesting anthropological study of Evita's importance to Argentine society, I would recommend EVA PERON: THE MYTHS OF A WOMAN.




2. I have yet to find an entirely satisfactory biography of Argentina's controversial first lady once widely revered as a saintly Madonna. This book is written chronologically, from the subject's birth in an unremarkable Argentinean provincial town, to her death and the return of her body to Argentina in 1974. It strives to be balanced and to summarize the evidence around various controversial points regarding the life of Eva Peron.

   Unfortunately, this book, written by a Paris-based Argentinean-born journalist, while thoroughly entertaining, can hardly qualify as a serious historical or political analysis of Eva Peron and her times. Having only read the English version, it is hard to judge whether the translation is awkward is some places, or whether the original prose also lapses into a saccharine style of romantic best sellers. Even as a journalistic book on this subject, you might find a better, more articulate, and shorter account (which does draw from this book by Ortiz) in Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America, by Alma Guillermoprieto (which I have also reviewed of this website).

   There are some interesting photos in this book, but if it is photos of Evita and her times which interest you, I would recommend Evita: An Intimate Portrait of Eva Peron, by Tomas De Elia, which I have also reviewed on this site.




3. The dark myth of the white Santa Evita whose legacy as the patron saint of Argentina's poor. Ortiz paints a raw, compelling, and ruthless drive of one woman whose innate desire to rise above her shameful beginnings is riveting and profoundly sorrowful despite Eva's scliptic rise to power.



4. Alicia Dujovne Ortiz's major biography of Eva Peron is an interesting book chronicling the rise and fall of Argentina's most famous First-Lady.
   
   Out of the many biographies written about Eva Peron, this is one of the better-researched interpretations so I definitely recommend it over the many other more sensationalized accounts. However, this is far from being the best of the lot. In my opinion, Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro's book "Evita: The Real Life of Eva Peron" is the best written in the English language even though it's over 20 years old. Julie M Taylor's "Eva Peron: The Myths of a Woman" is also excellent and insightful, especially in getting a better understanding of the many myths this legendary woman inspired. Robert Crassweller's "Peron and the Enigmas of Argentina" also deserves mention because it is an excellent book, not just about Eva but of Peron and Peronism in general.
   
   Ortiz's book is well researched but sometimes her personal opinion of Eva gets in the way. I guess it's to be expected when you have a woman analyze another woman who is renowned for her glamour and personal style. Ortiz does a good job laying out Eva's life from her humble beginnings to her amazing transformation into "Evita", the imposing and elegant blonde crusader of the less-fortunate. Ortiz uses a lot of witness testimony and she goes into detail when covering Eva's charitable work and Social Aid Foundation however it's nowhere near as detailed or as enlightening as the Spanish edition of her book which is disappointing and I will get into it a little later. Like Fraser/Navarro, Taylor, Crassweller and the several other historians/scholars who have researched Eva Peron and have written well-documented accounts, Ortiz also tries to separate myth from fact. Although at times, she is a bit rough towards the legend she is writing about, the author treats her sympathetically and portrays the mysterious Eva as a flawed but exceptional woman.
   
   Eva's detractor's, on the other hand, have portrayed her as a one-dimensional caricature devoid of any human emotion and morals. Evita, in the eyes of Anti-Peronist biographers such as Mary Main, WA Harbinson, Paul L Montgomery etc, was a beautiful, murderous monster who was smarter than every single person alive in Argentina at the time and anyone who crossed her path fell victim to her dark, sinister charms. These writers dissect and bring to light every single negative character flaw, real or imagined, this woman may have possessed. They choose to ignore the 1000+ schools, 100+ hospitals and the thousands of other establishments such as homes, hostels and orphanages that Eva through her foundation built between 1948-1952. They hardly pay any attention to the food, medicine and money Eva personally handed out from her desk at the Evita Foundation or when she traveled to shanty-towns or remote, country villages. They may mention that through Eva's foundation several malnourished children finally received health care and food; they may hint at the fact that because of her several thousand impoverished country folk finally received running water and electricity; they may mention as a footnote that Eva sent First-Aid and food to countries outside of Argentina's borders such as Colombia, Ecuador, Turkey, Israel and the US but they will cite exploitation and self-aggrandizement as Eva's principal motive. But no matter how much they try to condemn her, the result is always the same, unintentional glorification. They loathe this bejeweled beauty but can't help love her all the same. The musical "Evita" is a perfect example of this. No matter how much it tries to discredit her, Eva's poetic image is what hovers in most people's mind long after the curtain descends. Most will remember an impeccably dressed blonde clutching a microphone and the famous taglines such as "She Seduced a Nation" or "EVITA IS IMMORTAL" or "EVITA will stir you to your very soul". These are hardly ways to represent such an amoral, corrupt megalomaniac who slept her way to fame.
   
   This major biography of Eva Duarte de Peron was released around the same time as the film in 1996 (at least the English version was). It was originally written in French and later translated into several languages. It is very detailed and it held my interest throughout but having read the Spanish translation, this English version is a poor imitation. I'm not sure how close to the original the Spanish translation is but in comparing it to this, I noticed that the English edition is heavily edited and in some instances, very poorly translated. For those of you who can read Spanish, I recommend that version instead as it is far more complete. Having said that, Alicia Dujovne Ortiz treats Eva Duarte Peron as a flawed but extraordinary human being. After all that's exactly what Evita was, flawed but extraordinary? I guess that's how she should be remembered.



5. In English, this book often reads more like a romance novel than like a serious biography; I do not know whether it reads that way in the original language. It seems more like a work of poetry than a work of prose- not as many cold hard facts as I would have expected from a biography, but some vivid character portraits. Eva Peron comes across as a kind of overgrown child, alternatively desperate to be somebody, do good, and fulfill her whimsical desires for elegance and ego gratification. Her husband comes across as a cold fish, someone who would never have risen to the top in a bigger country with a larger talent pool.

No comments about Marco Polo and the Wonders of the East.