5 comments about Albert Einstein: A Biography.

1. way to much information. it was good and all but it had too much info and was a slow read. i didn't liek it too much. too much info!



2. I felt that this was a first rate reference guide, but as a novel it was lacking in readability. The science and history aspect was outstanding but because of the way it was written and the layout it was difficult to follow at times despite its accuracy. Another problem was that there was too much detail and some chapters seemed to perpetually drag on. Even though it got monotonus at times I learned much about Einstein as a person and his accomplishments other than the famous ones such as relativity and light quanta principiles. All in all despite some problems it was an informative and facinating book and I enjoyed reading it.



3. This is the BEST biography of Einstein that I have read. The writing style is 'European' in that all dimensions of Einstein are explored and referenced. A strong point of this biography is the extensive research and documentation that backs up the text. Einstein's life in science AND out of it are explored thoroughly. My only quibble is that the quality of pictures in the text is shoddy. I have the Penguin edition. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. If you want a quick superficial biography try Banesh Hoffman's Einstein (still in print?). If you want a fairly good biography I recommend Denis Brian's Einstein. If you want a very precise and detail biography get this one and enjoy!



4. Albert Einstein led an interesting life, from his beginnings as a mathematical prodigy, to his heyday when he popularized physics, to his old age where his status as a living legend afforded him many opportunities. Folsing does a great job detailing Einstein the man in each of these sections. Generally he uses Einstein's own writings, either in letters or in papers, a technique that some find off-putting but I found useful and relevant.

   Two things about this book, though, did trouble me. First, it was overlong. There were some sections that felt either redundant or padded, and did little to provide further insight into Einstein the man. Second, the physics explanations went over my head. As a layman, I wasn't expecting a dumbed-down approach meant to pander to the dimmest of readers. I do have some math background, and usually take to the subject easily. But Folsing never gave me a chance. I went in hoping for some comprehensible explanations regarding the special and general theories of relativity, but got nothing more than page after page of jargon that assumed plenty of prior knowledge. Even an explanation of why they (along with the equation "E=mc2") received critical and popular acclaim was missing.

   Now, I'm willing to concede that something got lost in the translation, for the book was originally written in German. Folsing is by trade a physicist, and later a science journalist, so should know his stuff and have the skills needed for concise explanation. I suppose it was enough to ask that he attempt to share some of his knowledge of Einstein's science, while making Einstein's life a gripping and interesting tale.




5. At the height of Einstein's career it was joked that only about a dozen people in the entire world actually understood the master's theory of relativity, which leads to the question of whether we mere mortals should even attempt this 882-page tome. The answer is a resounding yes. Albrecht Holsing never forgets that he is writing a biography, not a physics text. The result is a colorful biography of a learning disabled civil servant with perhaps the most fertile imagination in the history of science. Holsing's Einstein is a man without a country, an unabashed lover, an avowed pacifist, a born-again Zionist, bon vivant and alleged subversive. And yes, smart and eccentric as hell.

   Between 1905 and 1920 Einstein, a patent claims inspector, produced a series of papers on the subject of physics so outlandish that the world collectively gasped. Put simply, Einstein postulated connections between dimensions that had been considered unbridgeable until his day. He was not a scientist in the way we traditionally think of the discipline. He was in reality a science fiction writer who challenged the white coats to prove he was wrong. Most of the time they could not, to their own amazement. And when they did, he seemed to delight even more. God, he remarked, may be mysterious, but never malevolent. For Einstein the universe was a playground.

   Einstein enjoyed wonderful timing. By 1900 the telescope and the microscope had been perfected to the point that the bigness and the smallness of the natural world began crashing into the complacency of Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry. Einstein, whose own spacial-temporal development was delayed until early adulthood, began to play with possibilities. Is the universe so big that the traditional absolute theorems of geometry might be disproved? Consider the classic geometric postulate that two parallel lines will stretch into infinity without ever touching. Einstein dared to question such a basic law in several ways: if the universe itself is not linear but perhaps curved, the lines would eventually meet. And second, what influence would gravitation play upon these two lines? It was these daring interplays of factors that set Einstein apart and led to his famous speculations about relationships between mass, time, and energy.

   It is a credit to Holsing that he is able to describe Einstein's mental journeys as lucidly as he does. This is not to say there is no hard work required. Einstein had a hand in nearly all branches of physics, including optics, electricity, and radiation, and he was in constant dialogue with other noted thinkers of his age, including Niels Bohr and Max Planck. For an older reader unfamiliar with quantum physics, the scientific debates over the nature of light may as well be written in Vulcan. Be that as it may, the faithful reader will probably take away enough science to be dazzled and deeply impressed when Einstein's most audacious speculation-that light is bent by gravitational pull-is dramatically proven during a total eclipse of the sun in 1918.

   For all practical purposes, Einstein's creative career ended around 1920, the same time he began to attract respectable university and lecture fees. The years between 1920 and 1955 are remarkable in their own way: Einstein became one of the world's most recognized celebrities in an era of renewed interest in popular science. Like many celebrities he grumbled about the distractions but rarely missed a good dinner. Universities that hired the grand thinker after 1920 did so at their own risk: Einstein traveled widely and allowed his life to be governed by the Muse of creativity. He spent three decades working unsuccessfully to eliminate mathematical kinks from his general theory of relativity. [Ironically, since 1995 astronomical discoveries of the magnitude of dust and gas in the universe have tended to smooth out the rough edges of the relativity theory.]

   Although he lived and worked in Germany for many years, Einstein carried a deep-seated suspicion of German militarism. He was disillusioned with the conduct of most of his scientific colleagues during World War I, and he was early to see the direction of Nazi policy. Relocating to Princeton, New Jersey, he lived the final two decades of his life in the United States. As Folsing tells it, the United States government kept Einstein at arm's length, perhaps due to a 1930 speech in which he remarked that if as few as 2% of a nation's draftees refused to serve, its military force would crumble. The speech made Einstein an icon among pacifists, and "2%" buttons became popular leftist items throughout the 1930's. Given Einstein's political leanings, it is one of history's better fortunes that Franklin Roosevelt took seriously Einstein's warnings about German development of a fission bomb. However, Einstein was considered too much of a security risk to be considered for the Manhattan Project and was systematically excluded from any information about the project.

   Folsing chronicles the struggles of Einstein's two marriages and the somewhat flagrant adulteries of his middle years. Contrary to popular belief, Einstein was in fact a handsome and captivating younger man. It was only in later years that hygiene and fashion tended to deteriorate, perhaps as a statement of sorts to his prim Princeton neighbors. Folsing captures Einstein's wit: once, when the mayor of his town apologized for sewerage fumes from a treatment plant wafting toward the Einstein residence, the good scientist confessed that on occasion he had "returned the compliment."

5 comments about Martin Heidegger: Between Good and Evil.

1. The epigram at the front of this brisk and efficient biography of Heidegger opens with an epigram from Arendt, 'The gale that blows through Heidegger...is not of our century...'. This is true, and evocative of the mysteries of philosophic history and origins, and yet the observation poignantly reveals the mystique that swept through the culture of the times and brought too many to a fool's ruin, among them students of Heidegger. One reviews the question ad infinitum reluctant to pass judgement on a philosophic genius, and yet the facts of the history show just this, a long grace period, viz. the postwar French devotion to this philosophy, now followed by a renewed offensive at the harsh reality of the facts of the case, and the difficulty of separating any longer the philosopher in politics from his philosophy. Hellishness beckons.
   This biography is very dry, neat, but includes the assessement of the case in the light of the work of Ott and Farias. Much was clear even before the rectorship speech, the influence of Junger, Spengler, then one gets unlucky, if one is mesmerized.
   How can one judge? Is there a choice? One looks at the wreckage in a hurricane and moves on.



2. There are a lot of reasons why I was interested in picking this book up: my mentor at Georgetown, Wilfrid Desan, stressed how important it was to know the life of a philosopher, even the likes of Quine, because philosophy is ever and always about one's life. In the case of Heidegger, the mysteries of this man, the profound impact of his work on the course of 20th century thinking, the controversies of his politics all left me wondering how to get a grip on this man.
   This book is not for beginners. I've spent my undergraduate and graduate years studying Heidegger. Like a moth to the flame, and it consumed me in every regard. His books have totally spun me inside out, shook me to my soul, sent me off into Asian thought. If ever there was a Dasein thrown, yers trewly is it. How to begin to come to terms with this writer?
   Safranski does an absolutely brilliant job at delineating the strands of thinking leading up to the advent of phenomenology. But, as I say, this isn't for the novice or the casual reader. This is disciplined, committed writing in service of Thinking itself. There are no two ways about it, Heidegger erupted into the Twentieth Century. There seemed to be a sense among his teachers that this was an extraordinary thinker. As he gains the acceptance and posts of influence in German university life, he gains his confidence and from the point of BEING AND TIME onward, nothing, absolutely nothing will ever be the same.
   This book documents the transitions remarkably and with great clarity.
   Of course, one of the things that troubled me the most in my undergraduate days was the prospect of Heidegger's anti-Semitism and his political allegance to the Nazis in the early days of their rise to power, all the while entering into a passionate romance with Hannah Arendt. The book does not hide or apologize for Heidegger. But it seems clear that it is not real clear just how anti-Semitic he was. He quite directly states to Arendt that he finds his Jewish students annoying, and he somewhat buys into the supremecy of the German state espoused by the 1920's and early 30's Nazis. And he very definitely benefits from their appointments. Yet, he witholds. His wife does not. She is clearly and vehemently disgusted by Jewish people. I'm sure that her husband's affair with Arendt only added fuel to that fire. Yet Heidegger does not seem to buy the whole program. On the other hand, he does little or nothing to help Arendt get out of Germany, and nothing at all to save Edith Stein, his colleague from their days with Husserl, who had become a Catholic nun, was murdered at Auchwitz and has since been canonized. Nor is he willing to give a full and clear account of himself in the trials after the war. I am as puzzled now as I have always been. Was this incredible thinker also so filled with narrow mindedness that he could watch a people get exterminated because some of his students were annoying him?
   And as his thought began to walk more Buddhist paths, how did he resolve this great beginning of thinkng with the conflicts in his life? Those questions are not answered. Still in all, this book is a remarkable achievement. I could go on about so many other aspects, but I'll leave it at this: this is a book about a man's beginning, about being thrown fully consciously into the ground of thinking, and it uncovers what he found in the clearing with great insight.



3. I have read four chapters of this book, the ones on Anti-Semitism, Heidegger and Hannah Arendt, and the concluding chapter. The book is clearly written and the philosophical exposition outstanding.
   I was interested more in the whole question of Heidegger's Anti- Semitism, and his relationship with Hannah Arendt- in part because I just finished Elisabeth Young- Bruehl's excellent biography of Arendt.
   My sense of it all is that Heidegger was not at all a Socrates willing to take the hemlock for a higher ideal. His relations to his great mentor , the Jewish Husserl are shabby to say the least. He did not stand for him in any way, removed the original dedication to Husserl of 'Time and Being' from later editions of the work. He did not go out of his way to save Jewish friends.
   And in fact he became a Nazi ideologue at a certain point.
   His 'rehabilitation' in the eyes of the world owes a lot to Jaspers and Arendt. She especially showed a lifelong devotion to him. His failure to recognize the quality of her own work, the power of her mind in anything but understanding him shows a certain obtuseness, and inhumaneness.
   It is always disturbing to deal with a creator who may well have done great work when that creator's personal life is not commendable. It is all the more so when the creator is one like Wagner , truly evil.
   Heidegger obviously does not fit 'the evil category'. He may not be exactly midway between good and evil, but he was not the worst of the worst.
   I myself cannot read his Philosophy simply because I would feel very guilty in doing so. The thought of all the innocent dead murdered by the Nazis by a regime he served, cannot let me do this.



4. Rüdiger Safranskis biography on Heidegger combines a profound understanding of Heidegger's philosophy with a wealth of anecdotes and perceptive analysis of Heidegger the man and his relationships. In particular, Heidegger's affiliation with National Socialism is well covered.
   
   Overall, the book is very impressive and well worth time and effort. As I am quite familiar with the young Heidegger via Theodor Kisiel's "The Genesis of heidegger's Being & Time" and the work of Scandinavian philosophers on the subject, my only regret is that Safranski didn't write more about the "thinking" of the late Heidegger.



5. Writing about philosophers is a rather difficult task in most cases. The author has to be able to separate the philosophy from the man without making too many conjectures as to how the man shaped the philosophy or how the philosophy shaped the man. It's rather understandable the different opinions on him. He was a rabid National Socialist, hough he saw the errors of this ideology with time, he alienated many of his close friends for petty reasons, and showed blatant infidelity towards his wife.
   
   His writing had a tendency to be obtuse, but this book is anytihng but. His philosophy is well covered, and there are some instances of a tongue -in-cheek amusement at his play on words. Like every philosopher, the philosophy changed with him, and there were times he was writing almost incoherently. It seemed he was in love with his own words as opposed to being at certain points, or perhaps couldn't come up with a logical structure to explain what he felt. Regardless, his influence is without question, and with time he always recomposed himself to the core of his teaching, to be-in-the-world, and to be open to one's own Dasein.
   
   An excellent biography that is a good introduction to his core teachings.

5 comments about Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of an Average Woman (Grove Great Lives).

1. Dating from 1933 in its first edition, this book is part biography and part psychological analysis of the great Austrian Empress Maria Theresa's daughter who died a hated Queen of France. While both its writing style and its ideas - particularly its author's assumptions about the fundamental nature of womanhood - may seem quaint to the 21st Century reader, it's still very well worth reading. Zweig refuses to rely upon a number of commonly used sources that he has reason to consider suspect, and he approaches his subject with genuine interest that's refreshingly uncontaminated by awe. The Archduchess Antoinette, the Dauphiness of France, the giddy young Queen to Louis XVI, the maturing mother of the Dauphin who would have become Louis XVII - Zweig captures them all, and then takes us with him through this woman's terrible final transformation into the prematurely white-haired "Widow Capet" who mounts the scaffold. He writes her life with frankness that's remarkable, truly, considering the era in which his work was originally published.



2. I think the title should read, "The Portrait of an Average Woman's Behavior". I think one would find it hard to accept that Ms. Antointte was anything but an average woman of her time. Yes, it is true that her behavior was typical of an average woman, but she was raised to become a queen, not your average woman. Finding true love with a warm, romantic, and compassionate man in comparison to her husband Louis XVI and the manner in which she handled the affair are truly average. Her thoughts and behavior as the momentum of the French Revolution accelerated are those of an average woman. Aside from the misnomer, I truly enjoyed the information and the manner in which Mr. Zweig presented it to the reader. Mr. Zweig exposed Ms. Antoniette to the reader as if he had known her personally. After reading this biography I now feel that beneath all the hair pieces and hats, she behaved as any woman would have done in her situation.



3. As a disciple of Freud, Zweig was fascinated with the new psychoanalysis and applying it to historical characters. I think he overdoes it in his biography of Marie Antoinette, attributing her love of clothes, gambling, and partying to supressed desires rather than youthful vivacity, since she was a teenager, married at fourteen. This is a book that has outlived its time. Unfortunately, Zweig's Freudian interpretation has been imitated by other biographers and gives a false view of Marie Antoinette even to this day.



4. I love all the works of Stefan Zweig; even in translation, you can tell what a brilliant storyteller that Stefan is. In Marie Antoinette, you could almost feel pity for the unfortunate woman that fate so harshly dealt with the responsibility of a queen. The book is excellent in detailing the emotional stages of her life as a young child into womanhood, & all that she had to endure amid all the royal duties, gossips, struggles & fights behind the palace doors. All in all, an execellent book that I enjoy over & over again.



5. fantatstic book
   not one sided at all
   story told from letters written
   you get to decide how you look upon Marie Antoinette which is refreshing since she is so controversial

5 comments about Will Rogers: A Biography.

1. this is a great book, it has so much information on life in turn of the century America and vaudville. Also interesting stories of cowboys and indians in will rogers life.it drags alittle in places but for the most part is very enjoyable.



2. This is probably the best biography of Will Rogers currently available. It is comprehensive, insightful, well researched, and balanced. My only complaint with it is that it ends somewhat abruptly. Yagoda touches briefly on the legacy of Will Rogers after his death, but he could have said a great deal more. Rogers's death evoked profound mourning across the US and the rest of the world, and it would have been nice if he had focused a bit more on that. His analysis, however, of why Rogers gradually ceased to be what he was in his own time--arguably the most popular American who ever lived--is very helpful. I had always found his comparative demise to be quite perplexing, and Yagoda does a superb job of explaining this phenomenon.

   One of the greatest virtues of the book is that it does not, like many books on Rogers, engage in hagiography. Will Rogers was a very good, compassionate, honest man. Any book on his will show that. He had his faults, but as presented by Yagoda, they do not diminish the man, whatever it may do to the myth. For instance, Yagoda insightfully points out that while Rogers was rightfully lauded for his wisdom and insight, his thought was marred by an inability to comprehend genuine evil. One is left wondering what Rogers's response to Hitler's behavior in the years just after Rogers's death, and what he would have been able to say about the moral complexities of the Second World War. On the other hand, I would very much have welcomed Rogers as a voice of reason during the days of the Communist Witch Hunts.

   Anyone interested in Rogers is strongly encouraged to read this book. I would also like to recommend the first chapter in Lary May's THE BIG TOMORROW. This book is a study of the social dimensions of American cinema from the thirties through the fifties. The first and best chapter is about Will Rogers, and remains the best thing that I have read about Will Rogers. I strongly recommend both books.




3. I heartily recommend this book not only to those interested in Will Rogers but also anyone interested in the evolution of American popular culture. Yagoda does an excellent job of writing about the people and events shaping Will's life and work. He does not succumb to sentimentality (perhaps going overboard in trying to prove that Will was not perfect). My only regret is he could have researched Cherokee culture and history more thoroughly, which would have explained a great deal more about Will and his family. Otherwise, very compelling reading.



4. I searched for what I thought would be the best biography out on Will Rogers and decided on this one, even though it seemed to lack information following his death. I read it, it's good and pretty complete----until Rogers dies. Then it just stops. There is no information given about the funeral--which I understand was absolutely enormous--35000 people in attendance. I like biographies to follow through with funeral and burial information, and Yagoda just drops it here. With all the researching these writers do on books, to go the extra step and give us this information wouldn't hurt. Very disappointed on this point. Yagoda lets us down here.



5. Will Rogers seemed like a really interesting person, but like many people today I knew almost nothing about him.
   
   Will Rogers was the first king of all media and he seems like he was a really decent guy. Ben Yagoda does a great job of bringing Will Rogers to life. His prose is extremely readable and Will Rogers gave him a lot of material to work with.

5 comments about Home Before Dark (Contemporary Classics (Washington Square Press)).

1. As a memoir of a daughter's relationship with her father, this is very touching, but there is little here that sheds much light on John Cheever, the writer. Given the various levels of family dysfunction and unhappiness in Cheever's stories and novels, it is gratifying that his daughter found so much to love in her father. For a more abrasive, but still admiring view of the man, you might also enjoy reading Benjamin Cheever's novel, The Plagiarist.



2. Home Before Dark is a beautifully written, moving book that stays with you long after you have finished reading it. It helps that Susan Cheever's subject, her father, was (and remains long after his death) one of the finest fiction writers in the history of American literature. What distinguishes John Cheever's stories, outside of his magical touch with words, is the passion and love he brings to illuminating his small corner of the world -- life in the New York suburbs of the 1950s and 1960s. Most writers who explore the suburbs do so with an arm's length superiority -- taking pains to distance themselves politically, emotionally, and intellectually from their characters. What makes Cheever's stories such a joy it that he loves the world he writes about -- even as he recognizes its banalities and limitations. In Cheever's hand, the commuter life becomes a sad, beautiful symphony of lost hopes and desires. The 5:45 train, the clinking of cocktail glasses, the smell of meat cooking on an outdoor grill are not just dull routines of modern life, but thrilling and exotic elements of that peculiarly American optimism and quest for success that flowered after World War II -- all the more alluring because the quest is so often doomed.
   In the same way, Susan Cheever brings passion and honesty to the telling of her father's life. In her hands, John Cheever's own outwardly unremarkable search for the suburban dream life of wife, kids, dog and station wagon in Ossining, New York becomes a dark romantic quest of longing, passion, success and disappointment. She is thoroughly honest (sometimes brutally so) in detailing Cheever's alcoholism, philandering, phobias and parental shortcomings -- so it is all the more remarkable that the final portrait of Cheever that emerges is so rich and full of love.
   This book is the perfect companion piece for Cheever's indispensible Collected Stories (with that famous red cover). Think of Home Before Dark as a sort of lexicon to John Cheever's world. I keep both books on a special bookshelf -- easily accessible -- containing the books I come back to again and again, like old friends.



3. This is a very interesting look at the demons of the father, from alcoholism to a confused sexuality that wreaked havoc on his family. John Cheever forged a career writing about his own issues, tales of disillusion and disintegration in suburbia, all to alcoholic excess and in search of meaning. Susan, his daughter, is an absolutely excellent writer and explains what he was like as she grew up, so it is not a straight biography but mixed with memoire. Some of it is shocking, such as the way John periodically left to be with men, only to come back to a wife he clearly loved enduringly. But there is also a lot of redemption, of striving to be better though the pain is ever present. Oddly, I have never liked his writing much, finding his personal problems more of a spectacle and indeed more absorbing to learn about. Susan, I think, is the true writing talent in the family - her style is clear and unflinchingly honest, almost exhibitionistic. Few expose themselves so evenhandedly. Indeed, her moments are unforgettably vivid: such as her sitting in the lap of a drunken guest writer, in a tweed jacket reeking of cigarette smoke, saying to herself that she would marry that kind of man; or watching her father, after a few hours of writing and overcoming a hangover, pruning his lawn with ritual energy.
   
   Truly a beautiful, often tormented, book. Warmly recommended.



4. This memoir tells a great deal about the extended family of John Cheever. His is the less reputable wing of of a family which goes back to the early foundations of America. Susan Cheever writes with understanding and consideration of her father's troubled life. The shocking bankruptcy and abandonment of his father remained a basis for his great insecurity throughout his life. Susan Cheever reveals her father to be a man of great charm, and excellent ability to befriend and be helped by wealthy patrons, including those at Yaddo the Saratoga writing colony which for him was a second home. Susan Cheever also describes somewhat fitfully the mixed- up - marriage Cheever never let go of, one in which there seemed to have been infidelity on both sides- and which seemed to go downhill in the later years.
   Susan Cheever writes with descriptive elegance about her father 's life. She does not however explain or even hint at the great mystery of how he managed to create his best work. And she does not really tell us what the work consists in, or how it best expressed what her father was.
   I also felt the work lacking in another way. It does not really get inside Cheever and reveal to us the world the way he might have seen it. Nor does it trace the effect of his celebrity and alcoholism , of his wit and capacity for friendship on his children. Susan Cheever is silent about her father's effect upon her.
   I found that is with all the basic admiration and sympathy that she expresses for her father, a certain coldness in the work- a coldness which was perhaps her father's also.
   But again perhaps I found Cheever's story much less 'moving 'than I might have because I too am not a great fan of his stories.



5. I bought this after reading The Journals of John Cheever (which is an incredible book.) What I was most struck by after reading Ms. Cheever's book, was that her father was a true writer, and she is not. Her book was boring, predictable, and shed no real new light on her father's personality. His journals are raw, real, and intimate. Her recollections are alienated and just plain boring. Sorry, but I was hoping for an interesting read, and this wasn't it.

3 comments about Charlotte's Story: A Florida Keys Diary 1934 & 1935.

1. Charlotte's Story, written by Charlotte Arpis Niedhauk, edited by Mary-Alice Herbert, and published by Laurel and Herbert, is a fascinating page turner as well as an important historical document of how a young couple managed to exist alone on an isolated Florida Key in 1934-5. Their survival reminds one of the manner in which people lived before the advent of electricity, supermarkets, running water, or any of the modern conveniences. Their "store" was the beach, where they would look for and find what they needed from raw materials cast forth by the ocean. Charlotte's resourceful husband Russ would make such objects as a dipper from a coconut shell with a handle carved from a madiera limb, a windproof ashtray from the bottom of a shell, fish and lobster traps, kitchen cabinets, and even a jewelry box from a coconut for Charlotte from their "lumber store," the beach. City-bred Charlotte learned to cope with mosquitoes, sandflies, and scorpians, and even how to scull a boat. Their island home was visited by a potpouri of strange, often frightening characters, who threatened theri lives and made off with their property. No one who reads the book will ever forget the couple's experience in the terrible hurricane of Sept. 3, 1935. According to a newspaper report, the barometric pressure was the lowest ever recorded in thehistory of world weather. Excerpts are given from Russ's diary, i.e."Violent wind squalls lasting from 20 to 25 minutes. Sometimes with wind bursts to 70 or 80 miles per hour....Charlotte is sitting on the floor in the open doorway. She saw the tide receed 50 feet before each squall, and then return with a rush. Each time a little higher. No waves visible. The wind has blown the tops off. Afraid for our boat at high tide...The roof of the old house is blowing off in chunks. I can't stop it." After the hurricane was over, the couple decided that being alone on an island had lost its attraction for them, and decided it was time to return to the homeland. At the beginning of their sojourn on Elliott Key, Charlotte seems a naive, somewhat helpless young female. It was a delight to see her grow into a resourceful, independent woman who was an equal partner to her husband. She wrote her story from notes and memorabilia almost a quarter of a century after they left Elliott Key. The first edition of Charlotte's Story was published in different form by Exposition Press in 1973. When the book went out fo print, the clamor for it was so great that Laurel and Herbert republished and reedited it in 1998. This is a book for everyone, Florida Keys residents, tourists, feminists and macho men alike; in other words for simply everyone who loves a good read.



2. While seeking some new Keys Fiction I had the good fortune to have this gem of personal prose proposed by a good bookseller. Normally I like fiction, but I was desperate for a book to read beside the Gulf, and what a read it was. This is the Florida of legend, the roots of Hall, White and Corcoran can be found here. The difference is this is real. Islands with one owner, bootleggers, rum running, customs men, body dumping, good old boys and gals, boat "lighteners," conch lassoing, lime tree tending, chowder cooking and endless beach combing for demi-johns, mahogany, cedar, planks and boxes. All told in simple, straight-forward prose. What I am trying to put into words is that this is an enjoyable adventure in reality for those of us who like the fictional adventure of the contemporary Keys writers. Oh. and the wicked developers are not there yet, but the sense of their impending arrival is clearly here in the devil may care attitude many express who live in this wonderful piece of history.



3. Simply a joy. I loved this book. The setting, the charactors, and the pace. The view of the lifestyle, history, and geography. It was a fun easy read that just couldnt be put down.

5 comments about Diana Mosley: Mitford Beauty, British Fascist, Hitler's Angel.

1. "Diana Mosley"-the person and the book-will rivet you and shock you. Not shock in a titilliating, revolving bedrooms way. Though Mosley does leave her devoted husband in her early 20's for a serial womanizer who cheats on her until his death nearly fifty years later, sex plays a minor role in this book. Mosley, after her youthful adultery, remained a one-man woman for the rest of her years. No, the shocking part lies in the lifelong devotion, actually obsession bordering on psychotic, for her lover and then husband, Oswald Mosley and his cause (British fascism). And this obsession led her to embrace both Nazism and a friendship with Adolf Hitler, both of which she defended until her death.
   Diana Mosley was one of the fabled Mitford sisters, born to a minor, eccentric aristocrat and his equally well-born wife. Blessed with a perfect "face" and considered the beauty of her generation, she married early and well at the age of 18 to an heir to the Guinness fortune. She had two boys almost immediately and became a popular London society hostess of the early 1930's. At some point her path crossed Oswald Mosley's, the heir to a British baronetcy and the founder and leader of the British Fascist Movement, and that was that. Even though Mosley was married (happily too despite the infidelities) and had said he would never leave his wife, Diana left Guinness, his fortune and the good opinion of many including her family.

   Soon after, Mosley's wife died and her family hated Diana for the rest of their mutually long lives (Diana died in august '03, Mosley's last sister-in-law in '95.)
   Mosley then launched an affair with one of his sisters-in-law while simultaneously romancing Diana. Diana, perhaps to impress Mosley in the beginning, traveled to Germany on many occassions, attended Nuremberg rallies, and befriended Hitler. Her sister Unity Mitford, usually considered the "Mitford" sister most associated with Hitler, was obsessed with the fuhrer in a stalking, almost pathetic way. Diana, cooler, better looking, and far saner, enjoyed talking politics with him (eventually she did negotiate on behalf of the British fascists for a radio wave). Hitler reciprocated the friendship by arranging for her to marry Mosley in secret in Goebbels living room. He attended.
   Well, she paid dearly for this friendship and her love for Mosley-she and MOsley were imprisoned during most of WWII, they were snubbed by many for years, they eventually lived out of the country-yet she never recanted her love for one and friendship for the other. Not after the reveleations of the Holocaust, not after her husband's numerous infidelities.
   De Courcy does an excellent job of describing all aspects of Diana Mosley's life: not just her politics but her lifestyle, her intelligence, her reading, her friendships, her family. De Courcy admits in the beginning that she loved MOsley but saw her flaws...and she is critical, though at times could have been harder.

   Perhaps the most damning section of the book: de Courcy inserts Diana Mosley's exchange with a Prison Advisory committee during her imprisonment. In it, she cooly responds to questions about her friendship with HItler, her dislike of Jews, her criticisms of her cousin Winston Churchill, her belief in fascism. The book ends with this chilling transcript--a fitting endnote to her life.




2. Diana Mosley is one of the most controversial women of the 20th century: this outstanding biography is written with her full cooperation and also includes hundreds of hours of taped interviews, access to her private diaries and letters, and unparalleled ability to achieve intimate revelations. The story of the society darling's notorious departure from an established marriage in favor of the leader of the British Union of Fascists and a notorious womanizer makes for an account which explains much about not only her actions, but the history and politics of the times.



3. Diana was of the fabled Mitford sisters, and with the exception of her suicidal sister, Unity, the most bizarre. Both were completely infatuated with the Fuhrer, and his Germany. Now, in 2004, anyone can state the obvious about Nazi Germany. In the 1930's, this was definitely not as clear as now. Many forget the incredible attraction of the 1930's Germany to many at the time, not all Germans. And there was a deperate need not to have another terrible war between Germany & Birtain. Through her husband, the British Fascist Oswald Mosley, Diana, and Unity, met and befriended many top Nazi leaders. In sum, a really fine book in every way, not least for its insights into the times. A minor complaint is that the author could have written more about Diana's two author sisters, Jessica and Nancy, the 2 real brains in the family, both definitely more "normal" than Diana and Unity.



4. Diana Mosley is one of the most fascinating women of the 20th century - or she is for me, she and her 5 sisters, the Mitfords were among the most beautiful and talented women in Britain in the early years of last century. Nancy, the eldest became a novellist, Diana was an accredited beauty and good friends with many of the artists and literati of the time. Jessica was a communist, Unity a friend of Hitler, and Jessica, later became a duchess. Born into an eccentric family (later immortalised in fictional accounts by Nancy as Love in a Cold Climate and the Pursuit of Love) Diana and her sisters definitely trod their own paths, and her mother said something to the effect that whenever she opened the paper and saw "peer's Daughter" in the headline she knew it must be one of her daughters - and I think generally it was!
   
   This was the time of the Bright Young Things, of Evelyn Waugh, and the glittering inter-war years, and of a talented, beautiful woman, and yet I have to say I was not really terribly convinced by the fundamental issue in this - which is Diana's relationship with Hitler and her understanding of his role in the World War II.
   
   After all Diana was an anti-semite herself, her second marriage to Mosely (founder and leader of the British Fascist movement) cemented this. She visited him several times, her sister Unity was one of Hitler's confidants and certainly there is evidence that Unity was aware of and had been present at some hideous humiliations of Jews (although admittedly not deaths). It seems conveniently naive that Diana should not be aware of the extent the Nazi's were going to.
   
   Luckily Diana was more than the sum of her Fascist beliefs, she spent 3 and a half years in jail for that during the second world war - a time in which she was also removed from her new born baby and other children. She was charming, and fascinating, and her life in the prior to this and in the 60 years after these events is wonderfullly readable
   
   De Courcy has written another very readable biography on the Curzon sisters, one of whom (Cimmie) was Mosley's first wife. I preferred that book to this, but this is still very readable and a must for Mitfordites who want to know more of the family. De Courcy was given almost unrestricted access to Diana's diarys and papers, and made hundreds of hours of taped interviews, I just can't help thinking at times Diana did have a convenient memory - and no apology.



5. "It remains extraordinary that a woman of such high intelligence could talk such heartless nonsense" These are the words of author Anne de Courcy upon hearing the 90+year-old Diana Mosley expound on her anti-semitic views.
   
   It is not that de Courcy did not try to discover what lay behind Diana Mosley's repellant beliefs. On the contrary, I believe that de Courcy did perhaps as well as anyone could have done to lay bare Diana Mitford-Guiness-Mosley's psyche. Many writers, when given unfettered access to a subject end up writing hagiographies. Anne de Courcy, on the other hand, has written an objective, clear-eyed account of Diana Mosley and her milieu.
   
   The author did an admirable job of describing the early Mitford household; the parents, sisters and other people who touched their lives are described in more than sufficient detail to lay the historical and psychological ground work for an understanding of the Mitfords' ensuing years. It was apparent that Diana was destined to lead an interesting life owing to her singular beauty and vivacious personality. She attracted the intellectual and wealthy elite like a magnet. The path that she chose for herself was indeed interesting, but often very uncomfortable. One small example of her interesting life is the fact that she was the last person alive to have personally known both Hitler and Winston Churchill. Most uncomfortable would have been her imprisonment and fractured family and personal relationships owing to her political and personal beliefs.
   
   De Courcy spends a fair amount of time describing the life and times of Diana's second husband, Oswald Mosley, and the British Fascist movement. Many early Fascists during the time of Mussolini's rise in Italy began their political lives as Labour supporters. When the Depression came and Fascism promised a better life for the average worker, many working class people joined Fascist organizations, such as the British Union. It seems incredible from a modern perspective that Leftists could suddenly do a flip to become Rightists, but that is indeed what happened to many political activists, including Mosely and to Diana Guinness, who was already under Mosley's control at the time.
   
   It was both fascinating and appalling to read about Diana Guinness falling under the influence of the charismatic Oswald Mosley, and her life-long dedication to Mosley and Fascist ideals. Both were charismatic people whose talents could have been put to far better use. Diana Mosley could have been the predecessor to another Diana, Diana Spencer, had she followed a different path. Instead, she is probably regarded as an unfortunate historical curiosity, much like her friends, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
   
   As someone who is frankly more interested in the history of Fascism than in biographies of British wealthy elite, I found this book fascinating. I especially recommend this book to Americans who may not have heard of the Mitfords or the Mosleys before. The photographs alone are worth the price of admission.

1 comments about The Hanging of Angélique: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery and the Burning of Old Montréal (Race in the Atlantic World, 1700-1900) (Race in the ... (Race in the Atlantic World, 1700-1900).

1. A case had been built against Marie-Joseph Angelique based on innuendo, insinuation, hearsay and Angelique's bad reputation.Under severe torture, the 29-year-old woman, who previously proclaimed her innocence admitted to setting fire to the home of her owner. This fire consumed 46 buildings in Old Montreal. After the grisly execution Angelique's corpse was left hanging for two hours for all to see, then was burnt. That should have been the end of Angelique but 270 years later she has arisen. Thanks to Afua Cooper.
   In fact through her thorough research Ms Cooper delves into much of the historical occurences of the time. She puts to rest that myth that there was no slavery in Canada. She opens wide the doors of an unjust justice system.
   This is not just Black history but Canadian - even world history. It should be required reading for all students of history.

3 comments about The Soong Sisters.

1. Emily Hahn was an American expatriate in China during the 1930s. She came to know the Soong sisters, who in their day were among the world's most famous and powerful women. This book, written in 1939-40 is an entertaining, informative introduction to the Soongs. At the time it was published, The Soong Sisters created a storm of controversy and provoked powerful emotions. It was one of the first biographies of the Soongs, and it continues to be one of the best. Critics charged Hahn had "gone easy" on the Soongs; Soong supporters said the book was a "hatchet job." The real truth lies somewhere in between. Hahn is a witty, engaging and perceptive writer. For that reason, The Soong Sisters is still good read, and it provides a contemporary perspective on three of the personalities who shaped post-war China.



2. WIDE RANGING, ACCURATE, AND REVEALING AS AN HISTORICAL DOCUMENT, IT BRINGS THE MYRIAD OF REAL, LARGE THAN LIFE CHARACTERS TO VIBRANT LIFE AND FOR THE FIRST TIME - IN ONE PLACE AT ONE TIME - MAKES SENSE OUT OF THE NEEDLESSLY BUNGLED, AND CONTINUING UNEASY RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AMERICA AND CHINA CREATED BY THE FALSE, GOD-LIKE IMAGE OF THE WARLORD CHIANG KAI SHEK AS THE ONE, TRUE, DEMOCRATIC, CHRISTIAN, POPULAR LEADER OF ALL CHINA - AN IMAGE BURNISHED BY HOLLYWOOD IMAGE MAKERS SEDUCED BY HENRY LUCE AND MADAME CHIANG KAI SHEK. A MOMUMENTAL ACCOMPLISHMENT.



3. It gave me a glimpse to that period/time in China history. The Soong sisters had something a lot of women in their time didn't have and that set them apart from the others, college education in the west.

No comments about AP U.S. History For Dummies (For Dummies (History, Biography & Politics)).