No comments about Three Days With Joyce.

No comments about Bombay to Bloomsbury: A Biography of the Strachey Family.

No comments about The Long Watch: History of the Irish Mercantile Marine in Ww II.

No comments about George Best: A Celebration.

1 comments about Informer 001: The Myth of Pavlik Morozov.

1. How did a malevolent miserable tale-telling brat who often came to school stinking of urine become a model for millions of young Communists across the Soviet Union? In the 1980s Yuri Druzhnikov decided to find out the truth behind Pavlik Morozov -- allegedly killed by relatives in the 1930s for informing the authorities that his father was hoarding grain -- and produced this stunning book. By talking to Morozov's mother, neighbours and some of the police investigators on the case he builds up a very different picture from the public myth. To say too much more would betray his conclusions, but it's safe to say that here is another of those books which no self-respecting historian of Stalinism can afford to ignore.

1 comments about Joe Cahill : A Life in the IRA.

1. This book plays out as if a sports broadcast, with journalist Brendan Anderson as the anchorman and Joe Cahill the "color commentary"--for those readers familiar with 20c Irish republicanism, necessarily there's a lot already familiar. Anderson efficiently tells the story of the IRA's campaign during the 1940s through Cahill's own involvement in the shooting of Frank Murphy, a policeman in their native Belfast, and for which Joe Williams, 17, was executed. Much of this narrative, in fact, takes place from prison, where Cahill spent considerable time over the next few decades, as he was also instumental as a senior leader trusted by the generation of Provos who would revive the old IRA that had nearly become extinguished to fight again as the "Troubles" flared again at the end of the 60s.
   
   Cahill here reveals that very early on, he insisted upon a politically adept as well as blunt "physical-force" strategy. This did not mean, however, that he would cast his lot with the "Official IRA" Marxist faction; he dismissed their ideology and in this book you sense the disdain that Cahill had for his colleagues who, in his opinion, were misled under Cathal Goulding into espousing communism as Ireland's savior. Cahill offers that Goulding, in prison, may have been influenced by Klaus Fuchs, who had been jailed for Soviet espionage by the British.
   
   Prison life here is explored; you learn how "comms" were transmitted, how early tricks of evasion and communication that had been learned in the 40s at Crumlin Road jail or in the 50s or 60s or 70s--all of these decades saw him incarcerated for long stints prepared the tactics that would inspire those later IRA men at Long Kesh to resist and plot with similar dexterity.
   
   The later part of the book suffers by comparison. The halfway point of the story comes precisely at the 1969/70 split in the IRA between the leftists and the more traditional supporters, and the pages that follow tell of more previously and thoroughly documented events that lack the freshness of the previous scenes. Still, Cahill offers new insights from his legal and then illegal visits to the US as fundraiser and liaison for IRA support during the 70s and 80s. You learn too that in his later 70s Portlaoise term, he inspired Martin McGuinness as did veteran Frank Steele his protege Gerry Adams in another prison, and how the gradual evolution of the two-pronged approach to the ballot box and the armalite took hold among the Northern Command.
   
   Cahill was emphatic that the squandered campaigns of the 1950s that failed, as well as what he regards as the futility of the radical Officials attempt to paint Ireland red would be avoided by the newer republicans. He adds that if Sinn Fein had been in place on a wide scale during the Bobby Sands strike and the ensuing island-wide nationalist revulsion against the British rule under Thatcher that followed his death, that SF could have taken power in the 26 counties and brought a quick end to the partition of Ireland.
   
   I concluded this book sadly. Many of its revelations are necessarily cloaked in parts in anonymity and sources that will never be revealed, such is the nature of any account of republicanism today. But this tangential quality is not the book's only distinction from many other biographies. The absence of a counterbalance to so much planning and plotting leaves a void. You end this efficiently written study having learned a lot about Cahill, but nothing about his wife Annie and their seven children, who do not even receive names here. You do see a picture of six daughters lined up--as if one was born each year for a period of, say seven or eight years!--around the happy parents, and you only wonder what life was like for them while Cahill was jailed, on the run, in hiding, or in far off America for so much of his long life. The personal costs of his devotion to the Cause, as McGuinness alludes to them also in a brief afterword, are barely addressed by Cahill or Anderson. While this may be for privacy or security reasons, it does leave one saddened.

5 comments about The Last Empress: The Life and Times of Alexandra Feodorovna, Tsarina of Russia.

1. In this wonderfully nuanced book, Greg King explores one of the most complex and contraversial figures in Russian history. Alexandra Romanov was universally reviled by the Russian people and scorned by the Russian aristocracy. King does an excellent job of exposing the woman beneath the legend. One the one hand you see the exceptionally devoted wife and mother who desperately fights to preserve her family and their heritage. On the other hand, you see an unyielding and essentially stupid autocrat who is unable and unwilling to accept wise counsel or clearly see the dangers all around her. The story of Rasputin is the perfect example. She remains desperately devoted to the Russian holy man because of her belief that he can save her hemophiliac son despite the overwhelming evidence that he is a serious threat to the empire.

   Alexandra is a fascinating subject, and King's balanced analysis of her character and her impact on the history of Russia is excellent. King combines excellent research with complelling story-telling. This book leaves you with a sense of sympathy for such a misunderstood woman and a simultaneous frstration that she was so stubbornly misguided in her attempts to influence political events.




2. This book is a good retelling of the facts, with some new theories added (King's ideas about the influence of the Empress's childhood, for one) and some academic theses give the popular treatment for the first time. On the latter score, this biography, for example, is the first Romanov book which does not repeat the old stereotype that Rasputin was exploiting the trust of the Imperial family for political ends, but rather adopts the more credible line that he simply agreed with their own views. The political context is presented a little superficially, with no attention being given to the Empress's real reasons for selecting particular ministers, and the assumption made (all too easy with hindsight) that she was pursuing an illogical and doomed course. Dominic Lieven's "Nicholas II" is a good alternative picture, locating her strategies firmly in the populist tradition of the later nineteenth century. In some ways the book does not fulfill the promise of its introduction, which hints at a totally new picture. However, it is a good read and a good introduction for newcomers, and the character it presents, if less attractive, is a more lively and interesting one than that in the celebrated 'Nicholas and Alexandra'. It redresses the balance of the latter by actually discussing the Empress's work beyond the political sphere, in particular her interest in girls' education. For a fuller picture of her political role, see Joseph Fuhrmann's footnotes to her edited correspondence with her husband.



3. This book is better than Erickson's in many ways. I did wish
   King could have told us more about Alix's childhood and family.
   Read Mager's bio of Grand Duchess Elizabeth for a better narrative on this point. Some of King's phrasing is awkward (he
   repeats the word "pair" too often when referring to 2 people.
   Overall, this is a pretty good book, as long as you consult
   other books to flesh it out.



4. This book is the BEST biography on Alexandra Feodorovna. Very detailed information. I've been a Romanov fan for a long time and when I got this book, it had information I had never heard of before, from her childhood to her bloody end. This is a MUST-HAVE book if you're interested in Alexandra Feodorovna OR the Romanovs. Well done, Greg King!!!



5. I just could not put down this book. It is exceptional. THis should be required reading for any history course on Alexandra and Nicholas. What I liked about it was how the author made history interesting and gave life to the people he wrote about. He brings compassion to the subjects and really explains the complexities of WW1. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the last tsar and tsarina of Russia. It is a very intriguing read.

No comments about W & R Jacob.

No comments about By Tank: D to VE Days.

No comments about Major: A Political Life.