4 comments about When I Was a German, 1934-1945: An Englishwoman in Nazi Germany.

1. Victor Klemperer's "I Will Bear Witness". Christabel informs and entertains us, her writing is engaging and a world beyond the simple "diary entry" accounts. She is very perceptive, and her impressions from inside Nazi Germany, as a non-German, help us to better understand the people who brought Nazism to the world. Her writing style puts you right there in the minds and hearts of simple villagers, Nazi officials and those opposed to them. It also brings us a fresh perspective, one perhaps not encountered in other books on the subject. I have read numerous books, diaries and accounts of life in Nazi Germany (and Europe in general) and can highly recommend this one.



2. Until I read this book I never realized there were British (and American) women who had married Germans prior to the outbreak of WWII and actually lived in that "enemy" country while we were at war with them. The author suffered along with the German cicil population as the allies methodically bombarded Nazi Germany into submission. The constant fear of daily aerial bombings,hunger, and the fear of the Gestapo make this an epic story of survival.Better than fiction!



3. Fascinating account of life in Nazi Germany as told by an Englishwoman who had married a German aristocrat in 1934. Not as profound as Victor Klemperer's "I Will Bear Witness" but still one of the best of its genre. I liked it even more than Iris Origo's "War in Val D'Orcia" which I also highly recommend.
   
   Bielenberg writes beautifully, and although the narrative can be a little confusing at times, certain passages of "When I was a German" read to me like bits of "found poetry." Unfortunately a few typographical errors mar this edition; an historical document this important deserves better.
   
   There was a British television series produced in 1988 based on this book, called "Christabel" and shown in the United States on Masterpiece Theater. Bielenberg also testifies in various episodes of the "World at War" television series, which I am now looking forward to seeing again.



4. This was a good deal at the time, and by shipping it with more priority, was able to obtain it in the amount of time I needed.

5 comments about Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement.

1. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the Civil Rights Movement. Lewis' broad range of experiences gives the reader a glimpse into nearly every facet of the 1960's part of the movement. However, it is also useful for the specific study of the Nashville student movement and the study of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee).



2. Ever since I came to the U.S. I learned about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his philosophy of non-violence, I always wanted to learn more about the civil rights movement because of the way African American citizens overcame their obstacles in a non-violent way.
   
   
   Walking with the wind is a memoir of the author John Lewis, the book begins at his home town where he was raised and learned the meaning of discrimination at an early age. The book describes his whole life how he was discriminated and how became involved with the movement, and how he later on became chair man of the SNCC.
   The book also has a part where it only describes the life of John Lewis after the movement, what he does and what happens to all of his close friends, this is at the end of the book, but also talks about how he tries to become something important in U.S. politics.
   
   
   My favorite part of the whole book is when John Lewis is watching the presidential elections of 1976, when he sees that Jimmy Carter was elected he begins to cry because like he says, he finally sees the hands that picked cotton, picking a president, he cries because he sees that all his hard work pays off, by the government counting the black vote.
   
   
   The knowledge that John Lewis wants to pass down to readers is the struggle of all African American people to gain freedom and rights, he wants the new generation of people of color to know how much the old generation had to go through to gain all the freedom kids posses these days.
   
   
   This book is boring, there is almost no action, it is mostly talking about politics, so do not read this book if you are not hooked by memoirs. It takes time to get into the good stuff, like for example, there are parts where the author describes the way police responded in a violent way to a non-violent protest, there are many occasions like this through out the whole book.



3. John Lewis's powerful and moving retelling of his journey through the
   Civil Rights years, much of it in leadership positions, is a walk through
   important American history. His clarity of purpose, values, honed by the
   beatings and jailings of those years shine through it all. This personal
   insight into events we read about in history makes it real, and makes us
   admire the courage and persistence of people like John Lewis. In our present
   times of struggle over issues of war, environment and economic fairness,
   we need both a reminder of this historical struggle and a next generation
   to press us to make changes, to make a difference. A must read for anyone
   concerned about our present times.



4. The junior standard-bearer for civil rights during the era of segregation recounts his rise through those times toward his own national recognition. It's an intimate and introspective offering. It's a unique perspective.
   After his Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, crashes, he self-imposes exile as an "invisible man" in New York working as a grant officer for a private charity:
   (p398) "New York was just too big for me. I didn't feel as if I could get my hands around it. In the South, communities seemed comprehensible, manageable, workable. You could see where things started and ended. You could get a grasp of the place and the people, as well as their problems. And you could respond to those problems with solutions that might work...."
   He always has the South on his mind where there remains "a spirit instilled by the civil rights movement that is still felt and remembered today, a spirit that was not and is not felt in the same way in the North. That, I believe, is the huge difference between the legacy of the civil rights movement in the North and the South. All the great battlegrounds of the civil rights movement were in the South. That fact is cherished and remembered by the people there." (p 208).
   There is confusion in "Feel Angry with Me". The chapter describes the fall of Schwerner, Goodman, and Chaney. Their violent deaths in defense of the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law during Freedom Summer (1964) fixed the nation's eyes on racist brutality in Mississippi. The confusion is in character casting and mixing the ridiculous partying with his friend, actress, Shirley MacLaine and his virginity in the same chapter with the sublime. Here, especially, the book sacrifices continuity to rigid chronology.
   In and out of church - and on both sides of the pulpit - his cast of characters is most colorful, including a prominent one (not MacLaine) today facing bizarre criminal charges. So many stories within the author's story could make for a better book than a strict chronology.
   The author alludes to his motivation to influence the masses, (p 400) "I felt the spirit, the hand of the Lord, the power of the Bible -- all of those things -- but only when they flowed through the church and out into the streets. As long as God and His teachings were kept inside the wall of a sanctuary, as they were when I was young, the church meant next to nothing to me." Like a good, "whooping" preacher, he is, at times, poetic. It's some of his best stuff.
   Congressman Lewis is no great hero, though he has a measure of both -- greatness of association to the movement he led until the times turned violent -- and heroism for holding to his sometimes politically incorrect beliefs, though not sufficiently incorrect for this reviewer. And his book is not great literature. It is his gift to us with an interest in non-violent social change.



5. John Lewis' memoir tells of his pivotal role in the civil rights movement as , literally, its most prominent "fall guy." John Lewis was physically at the forefront of the major civil rights events-getting beaten, arrested, and ultimately, prevailing in the struggle to desegregate the south. He was one of the original Freedom Riders as well as the first person across the Pettis Bridge in Selma. He explains all of his actions and ethics through a mirror of highly disciplined non-violence that leaves the reader in awe of his amazing achievements. In sum, this book is a "must-read" for anyone interested in the civil rights movement.

4 comments about Amazing Women of the Civil War: Fascinating True Stories of Women Who Made a Difference.

1. This book did an excellent job on describing the roles in which women took part in during the Civil War. Webb Garrison did an excellent job choosing women to write about. Both Southern and Northern women were talked about, showing readers that these women were not as different as they had thought they were.



2. This was really good. It's about various women that helped shape the Civil War, whether by being Spies, Soldiers, Journalists, Angels of Mercy, or whatever. You'll be surprised how far some of these women went for their cause, and how much they accomplished in that time frame that provided them with so little independent resources. This book is a good introduction into these women, that may trigger your interest to learn more about them. I wish it provided even more information on these people, but basically it seemed to be a book to introduce you to these women and tell of their actions, then go locate more information about them.



3. I am a graduate student in American History with a focus on women and their roles in the Civil War. As such I was pleased to find Garrison's Amazing Women. However, once I started reading the book I was extremely disappointed. One of the first things I noticed was the lack of citations and a bibliography. Garrison neglects to credit anyone with the information he gathered for this particular work except to say that you can find alot of information on the internet. And while I understand Garrison's intended audience to be the general public where footnotes are found to be annoying, a bibliography would surely be helpful to anyone interested in learning more about these women. Furthermore, Garrison displays an attitude throughout the work that some of the acts and actions credited to women must surely be exaggerated. What I found to be particularly annoying with the work was the attention given to the men that were spouses to the women chosen for the work. If the book is about women, write about the women. To make matters worse, Garrison also includes among his Amazing Women a man that cross-dresses. This information is irrelevant to the subject. The only positive thing I can say about Amazing Women is that Garrison provides a nice list of women who played important and diverse roles during the war. So, if you are looking for research, this book is a huge disappointment. But if you are looking for a quick read where all the information is assumed to be correct, without providing any proof then this is your book. However, if you are truly interested in learning about women's roles in the Civil War I would suggest Mary Elizabeth Massey's Women in the Civil War (University of Nebraska Press, 1966) or Elizabeth D. Leonard's All the Daring of the Soldier (Penguin Books, 1999).



4. This book gave too many unwanted details and needed to cover the women in general. I do like interesting facts every once in while, but these facts weren't even interesting. It was also poorly written. I would not recommend this book to anyone!

No comments about Daughter of Heaven: The True Story of The Only Woman to Become Emperor of China.

4 comments about The Making of a Chicano Militant: Lessons from Cristal (Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography).

1. It's a book that tells generations born after el Movimiento that it took brave Chicanas(os) to make changes in politics, and education systems. This was done by Americans with coraje (anger) and who took this anger and put it into positive aciton. Having been part of the Movimiento Chicano this book brought back many memories. If you read "Rain of Gold" you'll like this book--it's the other story about those of us who the river crossed us, we did not cross the river. This book should be a must for every Chicano(a) in political science or Chicano studies.



2. The events that took place in this book happened in my home town. The events started out as a good thing that was ment to help the hispanic comunity , in the end with poor planing it brought forth the slow death of a growing texas town.

   i will be the first to admit that some thing had to change in order to help the hispanics, but after all was said done , the only major change that happened was the residence of the man that killed the town. if i sound harsh in my review , well i still live in the after shocks of the movment.




3. We must fight all racism, including the racists like Gutierrez.



4. The Crystal City student walkout was sparked by the Crystal City's school board refusal to allow Chicano students to run for homecoming queen or cheerleader. No matter how you want to slice it, how would you feel if someone told you that your daughter wasn't good enough or pretty enough to run for homecoming queen or try out for cheerleader?
   What the school board did was wrong, pure and simple. Gutierrez details how he channeled this anger to bring about monunmental changes in Texas, a state that used to regularly kill Hispanics for "getting out of line." There may be disagreement with his rhetoric, or his methods, but denying a large part of the student body from participating in high school traditions is just plain wrong.
   Read it and decide for yourself.
   It angered me, and I'm an old white guy with a teen-aged daughter.

4 comments about Etty: The Letters and Diaries of Etty Hillesum 1941-1943.

1. Etty began life with the same silly angst and shallow aspirations that we endure each day. Then came the war and her experience as a Jew in Holland. The transformation of this young intellectual to a woman of great depth takes the reader on a soul journey of such transcendence that one's paradigms are forever changed.

   Add to the story a great and musical quality of writing and a brilliant mind . You have Etty, my heroine, my mentor.




2. A young woman who is running out of time writes about her experiences as a prisoner of the Nazis in a concentration camp in World War II in 1940s Europe. She responds to the demands of society and of life as she finds it in both its pedestrian and hopeful forms, while also musing about what a distracted God might be doing up in heaven as so many innocent people perish at the hands of so many cowardly and sadistic oppressors. Ultimately she converts to Catholism and she dies in a concentration camp at the age of 29. Even with the crushing and depressing burden of a predatory society of captors constantly hovering over her, captors to whom she would soon sucuumb by her physical death, she wrote about life, social roles, her relationships with others and God prodigiously before her life was stolen from her in a dark place and a dark time by the human forces of evil. The strength she must have called upon to do this work while living in day to day oppresssion and unrelenting misery is stunning to imagine.



3. I read this book over twenty years ago and it remains one of the most inspirational books I've ever read. I leant it to a client who lost it so I must buy another. Thankfully it's still available.



4. This book is one of the most touching and inspiring books I ever read. This book will touch the heart of anyone - whether Jew, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, etc. and even an atheist!
   
   The battle of a soul in those dark days (the German Occupation in the Second War World) trying to keep sane, asking herself how not to loose hope and remain human, avoiding hate, in spite of all what is going around her. This is a journey of a Soul from focusing in herself changing to focus in the world around her.
   
   I bought the book also for 3 friends of mine as a New Year present!
   
   P.S.: Since my English is NOT my mother tong (I'm an Israeli), I'm apologizing in advance for spelling (and other mistakes). Thank you for understanding.

5 comments about Diana: Her True Story in Her Own Words.

1. If you need to read just ONE book rehardsing Princess Diana... This is THE one you must pick!
   
   You will be delighted with all the details and will admire even more this wonderful person.
   
   A book you MUST have on your shelves!



2. Andrew Morton's book, written in collusion with the late Diana, is a well-written, cleverly confected polemic designed to undo the very people who made her what she was (or, as some in the UK were wont to say, "After all, she's just a royal by injection"). Purportedly the daughter of a famous alcoholic (Lord Spencer), she exhibited all the classic symptoms of an adult child of an alcoholic; low self-esteem, poor boundaries, poor impulse control, chronic depression, a pattern of blaming others for her problems, etc. Of course, one can add on bulemia (from which she suffered before she married her poor husband), and other deep-seated psychiatric disorders. All this is clearly shown in the book to any critical reader. My daughter's godmother, the late Ouida Huxley, used to regale us with stories told her by one of the Queen's closest confidants, who herself witnessed how during the height of her omnipotence Diana would disparage her husband to his face, in front of the family, on his lack of charisma compared to her. She pulled cute pranks like screaming and rolling about on the floor when she didn't get what she wanted (in this particular case, to go to Majorca instead of Balmoral) in a fine impression of a grand mal epileptic seizure, in front of the Queen at a family meeting. For some reason (and it wasn't Camilla, who re-entered the scene only after all efforts at marital repair were exhausted), Diana felt as if the ungrateful royals needed to be paid back for her psychic pain, not realizing that the source of her suffering was in her own head. Andrew Morton's book is the result. It's as one-sided as an autobiography by a narcissist. Morton was either duped, or a willing collaborator in the tearing down of Britain's primary civic institution, the Monarchy. This work (if such it may be called) is about as accurate as Soviet propaganda. It is a fantasy woven from scraps of truth. If Diana had lived, and married the dreadful Dodie Fayed, she would have lost her titular "Princess" title, and reverted to merely the (alleged) daughter of an earl, and would have once again been "Lady Di". Dodie's dad was planning to lugubriously install the two love-birds in the Windsors' old place in the Bois de Boulogne. Eventually, no doubt, she would have tried out one of her famous emotionally wracking "turns" on Dodie (an Egyptian man, mind you) and would have infallibly been kicked out on her coutured posterior. During that time anyone who knew her, even from a distance, could see that Diana's life was on an inexorable and endless downward cycle (remember, even her brother, who so "courageously" dissed his own godmother, the Queen, on international television, refused to have Christmas dinner with D the last year of her life). Andrew Morton's book is a classic celebrity bio. Poor Diana. She was never happy, she would never be happy, and she was going to sow chaos and destruction wherever she went. Death, however, mercifully came for Diana before her life got even worse.



3. I first read this book when it came out in 1992. Like everyone else, I was shocked and blamed Prince Charles for the marriage falling apart.
   
   Since she died, there's been a number of credible stories come out that shows Diana to be manipulative, emotionally immature, stubborn and just plain bizarre. While her devotion to her children is unquestionable, and her charity work obviously came right from her heart, there were too many other aspects of her character that were not so glossy.
   
   I mean come on, if your wife was pregnant and threw herself down the stairs to get your attention, would you not seriously question her mental stability? Anyone who can cut themselves with a lemon peeler or smash themselves against a glass cabinet is obviously a few bricks short of a load and in serious need of help. When she did the Panorama interview in 1995, she declared that she felt "betrayed" when her former lover James Hewitt did a tell-all book.............uh, well didn't she do the exact same thing to her husband when she told Andrew Morton all the dirty details of their marriage?
   
   While I despised Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles for their affair, I understand now (a decade later) why he would turn to her: for some NORMALCY in his life.
   
   Be that as it may, the one fasinating thing about Diana is her uncanny ability to predict things. In this book, it tells of her conversations when she was young that she was going to marry someone "in the public eye". She also apparently predicted her father's stroke in 1975. But what was fasinating to read in 1992 was Diana's belief that "while she knows that William will one day be King, she is firm in her belief that she will never become Queen" and "I am performing my duty as Princess of Wales, but I can't see it for much longer than 15 years." As we all know, she was Princess of Wales for 16 years. She made these statements 6 years before she died.....



4. Saint Therese of Lisieux, The Little Flower wrote that she had prayed to discover her true vocation - and that she had found it: "to be love in the heart of the Church"! A novel by Carson McCullers wears the title: "The Heart is A Lonely Hunter". "The heart" is the location of the reality of our life . . .it is where we really dwell . . . and where God dwells with us.
   
   Princess Diana Spencer was indeed a "lonely hunter" searching for herself and for meaning "in her heart" . . . and she found that meaning in the hearts of countless millions throughout the world -- many who encountered her personally and countless millions who never physically met her but DID meet her soul.
   
   Diana's external beauty simply was a radiation outward and visibly of her real true inner beauty - Melanie (Safka) the folk singer wrote a song titled, "Beautiful People", and while Melanie hadn't envisioned "Diana" who probably had just been born about the time she recorded that song, Diana WAS a "beatiful person".
   
   This book by Andrew Morton comes about as close as we might ever come to hearing the voice of Diana speaking for herself. She presents herself to us as she was: frailties included - but "the flaws" are what mark individuals as unique and as the amazing persons that they are - and the faults simply lend contrast to their perfections and more noble character.
   
   The world cried when Diana died . . . and she left us wondrous memories of a "Camelot" that did exist if but for a fleeting moment . . . and she left us an example of how "love" can exist in the heart of the worldfor any other person in need, whatever their need or hurt and wherever they may live. She was a friend of Mother Terese and Mother Terese was a friend to Diana (Diana was buried with rosaries Mother Teresa gave her) - they lived in two different atmospheres but shared that sense of "human pain".
   
   This volume lets Diana linger with us a while longer . . . and the photographs bring her back once again and remind us of why we all fell under her spell.
   
   And beneath the surface of her image . . . between the lines of her words, we can also find hints as to how we can live a more compassionate and understanding and caring life of "love" ourselves.
   
   Diana is missed . . . and she should be . . . but the world was blessed that she walked among us even for so brief a time. Her smile is now eternal.



5. I sort of liked this book more than some of the other biographies I've read before. To be honest before I read this book I have NEVER heard of Princess Diana. While I read this book I felt sympathetic toward her because she had a real hard life after she became involved with the Prince Charles. Most of the sympathy went into the fact that she received pretty much no help from any one except her mother and father but no help whatsoever from the royal family and was expected to know everything she was supposed to. She had bulimia and no experience at all at being royalty and the somewhat rude expectations from the royal position and the responsibilities that came with it. Not only that but the prince that proposed to Diana (the prince that became her husband) was cheating on her with another woman and everyone was trying to hide the fact that he was seeing the other woman. Along with that problem came the fact that her husband cared more about the other woman than Diane even though she was his wife. An example was that when Diana was still engaged to the prince and the paparazzi were following her and the other woman the prince was seeing, Diana was being followed by like 36 paparazzi the other woman was only being followed by 4 people the prince was sympathetic towards the other woman and didn't even care about the hardships Diana was going through.
   So overall I would give the book a good rating since it had a personal interview with Diana and used her own words rather than some facts that could very well be just rumors that were spread.
   S.Brock

No comments about Abraham Lincoln: A Biography.

5 comments about Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons.

1. While everyone knows that the early days of rocket science were full of good CHRISTIAN PATRIOTIC MEN like Werner Von Braun, this book lays out the very scary case that one of the pioneers of rocket science, indeed, one of the VERY FOUNDERS of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was NOT a CHRISTIAN at all, and was, in fact, a WORSHIPPER OF SATAN, and, a fanatical follower of one of the wickedest men of the entire 20th century! According to this book, Jack Parsons even tried to create his OWN SCARLET WOMAN (Rotting Goddess: The Origins of the Witch in Classical Antiquity), with whome to conceive a "magical childe" (a supreme BLASPHEME if I ever heard one). He is alledged to have commited SEX ACTS which would shock even the most hardened LIBERAL HOMOSEXUAAL, and then proceded to try to sell AMERICAN GOVERNMENT SECRETS to the ISRAEL Government when the jews were trying to get a leg-up! His sickness was finaly put an end to when he (OR GOD) blew Himself up inside his own home, in a laboratory in his garden shed while handeling rocket fuel. (Talk about the SPARK OF DIVINE JUSTICE.) Altogether a disquieting, disturbing tale of one of the lesser known, but more improtant (if the aurther is to be believed) pioneers of what would become NASA. CHILLING.



2. By day, Jack Parsons was one of the founders of Jet Propulsion Laboratories and basically single-handedly invented the rocket. By night, he was Frater 210, the self-proclaimed Antichrist, a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis, and a follower of Aleister Crowley (rhymes with 'holy'.) Oddly enough, he was a very meticulous, if reckless scientist, but a very sloppy and reckless magician. (Though his death might suggest otherwise. He was killed in an explosion in his home when he was 37.)
   
   The information in the book was great and I drank it up, but Carter's writing is simply bad and uninteresting. His speculations are often spotty and he blindly repeats some untrue myths about Crowley as fact. Otherwise, it was a nice view into the early years of the OTO and Thelema in America. My favorite parts, I think, were the excerpts from Crowley's correspondence. He was intelligent and witty till the very end. (Jack Parsons sent large amount of money to Crowley on a regular basis, supporting Crowley in his last years.) Much of this time period was not covered in Crowley's autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.
   
   L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, also appears in quite a large chunk of this book as a magical scribe and con man. Parsons and Hubbard performed some powerful rituals that were well beyond their skill levels and there is a whole branch of conspiracies that say they opened a sort of magical portal and that's where UFOs came from. Considering that Aleister Crowley once contacted an entity named LAM who looked much like a modern grey alien, it's an interesting story to delve into, which this book only touches upon. Parsons and Hubbard also had strange connections with John Dee & Edward Kelley. (Hubbard stole a very large sum of money and ran off with Parsons' wife. Kelley did the same to Dee way back in the ye olde 1500s.)
   
   Hopefully further books will be better written. I can see why this is the only book John carter has written.



3. Sex and Rockets is an illuminating and inspiring book that provides a detailed account of the rich and bizarre world of Parsons. The reader takes a mind-bending mystical journey through a dynamic realm of magic and science that reads more like great fiction than reality. Parsons was as interesting as any character in a science fiction novel of the time.
   
   He was a visionary in the world of the occult and an accomplished iconoclastic rocket scientist. The author confidently conveys the humanity behind Parsons and the extent of his influence upon many diverse realms of thought. Additionally, the author uncovers miraculous details.
   
   This penetrating work offers a straightforward portrayal of events and includes a thoroughly entertaining foreword by RAW and extensive photographs. I preferred the elegantly written "Strange Angel," for the language and the insights into the relationships, but this well-researched and enjoyable book was certainly worth the time. The author and his publisher deserve much credit for their accomplishment.
   
   Strongly recommended to science, occult and literary enthusiasts.



4. Fascinating man, boring biography--author John Carter's turgid prose style--the man apparently has no sense of humor--and the lengthy quotations from Thelemic rites, etc.--make this read One Big Snooze. Indeed, the sections about Parsons-as-rocket-scientist are much more lively, and they're not why I picked up a copy of the book at all. Carter apparently didn't gain access to a host of source documents, and that may not be a bad thing--he'd have quoted them lengthily.
   
   In the end, one gets little sense of the man nor of what drove him into the metaphorical arms of Aleister Crowley and Black Magic. Carter's sense of proportion is best-represented by his statement toward the end of the book, that Parsons had achieved more in five years as a rocket scientist than Robert Goddard did in a lifetime. Well, of course he did; he stood upon the shoulders of a giant--Goddard.
   
   Few footnotes, no endnotes, flawed index: a hugely important character appearing on many of the book's pages--Wilfred T. Smith--is missing in action. Not that many will want to re-thumb their way through this. If magick is indeed this boring, few will follow The Path.



5. An absolutely fascinating story about the world of Jack Parsons, both his rocket expertise and his journey into the occult. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard puts in a brief appearance as a shadowy occultist and con man. The book suffers, unfortunately, from being poorly written and presented. The scientific sections have all the charm of a Unix manual, and the occult sections are tedious - too heavy on the fine points of arcana and not enough on the human foibles and interactions.

5 comments about Lost Victories: The Military Genius of Stonewall Jackson.

1. To hear Bevin Alexander tell it, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was the only general in the Army of Northern Virginia who knew which end was up. All the others were incompetent.

   Further, not only was 'Stonewall' better than any of them, he had the infallible secret of Southern victory in his head. If only Lee and Davis had _listened_, he would have ended the war in 1862 or '63, with the Confederacy triumphant.

   These are strong claims. Does Alexander establish them? No.

   Alexander goes over Jackson's career in the Civil War Between the States, recounting what happened at various times and giving some of Jackson's ideas on how to fight and what targets to attack. He also claims that many of the ideas that are commonly asserted about Jackson are just wrong: e.g., that Jackson failed to perform during the Seven Days Battles. (Bevin gives evidence that it was A. P. Hill's impatience, and Lee's mistaken estimate of Union intentions that kept the Army of the Potomac from disaster).

   This is very interesting stuff, and earns the book three stars. I recommend it to all students of the War for Northern Independence of Southern Aggression. But he provides no arguments for his larger points.

   Alexander confuses his own visions with evidence. He'll present one of Jackson's ideas (invade Maryland, manuver north of Washington, cut the rail lines from the capital to Baltimore). Then he'll speculate about what would happen (Washington DC starves, loses the will to fight the war, and surrenders). Then he treats the speculation as a certainty. Repeat endlessly, and you have the substance of the book's claims.

   So this book is worth reading, but can't be taken too seriously.




2. To hear Bevin Alexander tell it, Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson was the only general in the Army of Northern Virginia who knew which end was up. All the others were incompetent.

   Further, not only was 'Stonewall' better than any of them, he had the infallible secret of Southern victory in his head. If only Lee and Davis had _listened_, he would have ended the war in 1862 or '63, with the Confederacy triumphant.

   These are strong claims. Does Alexander establish them? No.

   Alexander goes over Jackson's career in the Civil War Between the States, recounting what happened at various times and giving some of Jackson's ideas on how to fight and what targets to attack. He also claims that many of the ideas that are commonly asserted about Jackson are just wrong: e.g., that Jackson failed to perform during the Seven Days Battles. (Bevin gives evidence that it was A. P. Hill's impatience, and Lee's mistaken estimate of Union intentions that kept the Army of the Potomac from disaster).

   This is very interesting stuff, and earns the book three stars. I recommend it to all students of the War for Northern Independence of Southern Aggression. But he provides no arguments for his larger points.

   Alexander confuses his own visions with evidence. He'll present one of Jackson's ideas (invade Maryland, manuver north of Washington, cut the rail lines from the capital to Baltimore). Then he'll speculate about what would happen (Washington DC starves, loses the will to fight the war, and surrenders). Then he treats the speculation as a certainty. Repeat endlessly, and you have the substance of the book's claims.

   So this book is worth reading, but can't be taken too seriously.




3. This book clearly and accurately details the genius of Stonewall Jackson. Alexander's conclusions are not really all that mind-bending, and quite resonable when further examination is done. He is hard on Lee, but only as pertaining to Jackson. All-in-all, a book that is anything but conventional, but remarkable in it's logic.



4. In "Lost Victories" author Bevin Alexander advances the proposition that Stonewall Jackson was the only military genius who could have brought victory to the Confederacy, had his initiatives not been thwarted by the limited visions of Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. The main idea is that Jackson saw that the only way the South could win was through a bold invasion of the North. He begins his story with descriptions as to how advances in arms, primarily in rifles and cannon, switched the advantage from the attack to the defense. The narrative then leads the reader through many of the major battles of Virginia and Maryland as it explains the troop movements for which the various generals were responsible. During the descriptions of the battles, Alexander points out the many mistakes made by leaders on both sides. Toward the end he argues that, had Jackson been at Gettysburg, it is likely that he would have prevented that battle from being fought and would have guided the fighting to land favorable more to the Southern cause.
   
   This book makes a good effort in establishing its point. It is well written, although, at times, it drifts into minutiae over which units were where it the line, etc. The reader is left with an appreciation for Jackson's admirable talents in the military arts. I tend to be suspicious of second guessers who tell us how much better things could have been done. Lee's actions are open to critical analysis while Jackson's dreams have not undergone the test of battle. Maybe Lee and Davis did blow it by not following Jackson's advice, but I remain unconvinced. I am glad, however, that I read Alexander's brief.



5. I find it downright amusing reading those who say this book unfairly criticizes the sacred Robert E. Lee. While Lee could inspire men, time after time he used the wrong strategy for what he had to work with.
   
   As it is brought out in the book, the Union had more than three times (4.6 million) possible soldiers than the South (just over a million). The best strategy would have been to avoid losses and offensive operations except when carefully chosen and destroy the union army as soon as possible. As shown in the book, time after time Lee wasted his soldiers in frontal assaults.
   
   Let's look a few of General Lee's disasters:
   Malvern Hill
   D.H. Hill wrote afterwards, "It wasn't war; it was murder." Lee's army suffered 5,355 casualties with a frontal assault versus 3,214 Union and nothing was accomplished.
   
   Gettysburg - Lee attacked a well-fortified and larger Union army again. He let Stewart leave him blind in enemy territory. Confederate Losses about 23,000 out of 72,000; Federal 23,000 out of 94,000. This includes the disastrous Pickett's Charge. From Wikipedia: Approximately 12,500 men in nine infantry brigades advanced over open fields for three quarters of a mile... with over 50% casualties.