2 comments about The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke : 1552-1634.

1. I loved this book, both for its history of the period and its history of English Common Law, with Sir Edward's role in the formation of that Law. Couldn't put it down.



2. One of the best books ever written about lawyers, judges and prosecutors. Anyone familier with the legal system will find that little has changed in 400 years. Catherine Bowen was a fine writer and an excellent "popular" historian. Her biography of Lord Coke not only describes a critical period in English history, but also illuminates the origins of the concepts of ordered liberty that eventually found their way into the US Constitution. Anyone interested in either law or Anglo/American history would enjoy this book.

No comments about Elizabeth Bowen.

5 comments about Alleluia America!: An Irish Journalist in Bush Country.

1. As an amateur historian/sociologist, I really enjoyed reading this book and seeing my country through an outsider's eyes. Coleman shows Americans to be both quirky and serious in their attitudes toward politics and religion.
   
   After an semi-disastrous interview with George Bush for Irish TV, Carol Coleman traveled America's red states to see how religion, or at least religious language has overtaken politics and how politicians have learned to take advantage of the natural religious inclinations of Americans. Coleman's book put me in mind of Alexis de Toqueville, a Frenchman who traveled America in the 1800s to see how democracy worked.
   
   Like another Brit, Englishwoman Frances Trollope who wrote a scathing book about America's manners in the 1800s, Coleman keeps her distance as she sheds light on an American phenomenon that non-religious Europeans probably find fascinating and perplexing. Coleman's observations on American's regional and religious attitudes are funny and insightful and "Alleluia America" could go on to become a required read for future American historians.



2. The idea behind this review is two-fold, one to review the book itself and secondly to comment on the K.Larson review below.
   
   Firstly, the book, in my opinion starts off at a startling pace as she interviews George Bush in a ten minute window and rather than peddle The White House line, she asks the questions that the majority of Irish people wished her to ask. It did her no favours as we are told that not to play ball with the White Houses' questioning is possibly a bad career move, no matter how brave.
   
   The rest of the book shows Coleman meandering through the country attempting to uncover the `real' America, rather than that which the majority of the rest of the world would see - skyscrapers, home of the great American dream etc.. America is shown for what I now believe it to be - a world within a country - with varying opinions, beliefs and thoughts all rolled under the one flag. Some of the writings of Coleman are genuinely funny, some bewildering, but overall I found the whole book extremely engaging and educational as it showed as I said, a different side to this vast country.
   
   Secondly, in relation to K Larson's review I would just like to point out two things. I want to stress that I do not intend to be either pedantic or offensive but two things must be explained. When Larson refers in the second half of his review to "Like another Brit...", I've got to explain that Coleman is IRISH and is not British. Britain comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Republic of Ireland is a completely different and independent country. This is something that Irish people hear the odd time but it would be like if we lumped all Canadians and Americans as one and the same! It can be frustrating to hear it.
   
   Secondly, when Larson refers to the interview as `near disastrous', I would like to explain that in Ireland, and a number of other areas where the interview with President Bush was shown, the interview was considered far from `disastrous' and in fact she was lauded for standing up for her beliefs in journalism.
   
   Overall, I do not want, as I stressed, to appear nit picking but if one person learns something from this, then that'll make this review justified. Oh and read the book - its a good one!



3. I read this book back in December on the plane. It was an excellent commentary on conservative America. As an American living abroad, it is interesting to see how Americans are perceived and I often wondered how Bush got elected the second time. Now I understand that better.
   
   I didn't see the original interview but would agree that it was far from a disaster. America needs more journalists that ask real questions instead of the preapproved ones.



4. "Alleluia America!: An Irish Journalist in Bush Country" is an enjoyable, if not groundbreaking, collection of scattered tales from across these United States. Coleman, an Irish citizen, recounts her experiences travelling across the country on field trips brought about by her desire to learn more about the quirkier side of conservative American life. She writes in the typical Irish style -- be prepared for erratic punctuation and lengthy, rambling sentences -- and adds a bit of humor to each story in order to help move things along.
   
   Although the book opens with Bush and the Iraq War, it quickly moves on to religious fundamentalism in its various forms. She deals primarily with conservative Protestant denominations, but also describes her visits to a mosque, a synogogue, Lancaster County (or "Amish Country"), and other places of interest. For some reason, she throws in a side trip to Mexico, and though she does valiantly attempt to show the connection between American and Mexican life and politics, her efforts fall flat. However, her writing style makes the reading enjoyable enough for you to follow through.
   
   It's important to note that, if you are an American or have lived here for any decent amount of time, there is almost nothing in this book that will be of news to you. "Alleluia America!" was clearly written to introduce certain aspects of American life to readers abroad. Most of the topics Coleman covers are elementary to Americans, and as a result, her lengthy descriptions can periodically become tiresome. (Feel free to skim the remedial definitions of the evangelical movement and the "War on Terrorism," as two examples.) Rather than the facts, what is interesting to the American reader is the viewpoint of a foreigner amongst us, which is what makes the book one that can give you some new knowledge, even if most of the topics are subjects you're quite familiar with already.
   
   What I had a trouble figuring out about "Alleluia America!" is the overall theme Coleman was trying to follow. It tries to be a book about Bush's policies, evangelical Christians, and American culture all at once -- which should be easy enough to accomplish -- but Coleman doesn't have the control to pull it off. You move from one chapter to the next trying to determine what the connection between the topics was in the author's eyes. As I discovered about halfway through, it works best if approached as a collection of essays, not a traditional cover-to-cover non-fiction work.
   
   Additionally, Coleman or her editor repeatedly commit one of the worst sins of writing, that being some very sloppy editing. George W. Bush's wife becomes Laura Welsh, not Welch; cities in Utah and Texas are renamed Hilldale (from Hildale) and El Dorado (from Eldorado); the Weather Channel loses its proper noun status; some driver named Kasey "Khane" joins the NASCAR circuit; and on it goes. (Coleman seems to have it out for last names in particular.) There are enough mistakes that it begins to make it seem that our author should not be trusted for her facts, because she clearly isn't totally up to speed with them. If she can't get the town names on the "Welcome to..." signs she's describing correct, what else is off?
   
   In all, "Alleluia America!" is a good book to read in one sitting on a weekend, particularly if you want a primer on how Europeans view American culture. All criticisms aside, Coleman did a decent job, and the book is worth a shot for most readers. If you are looking for political commentary, in-depth information, consistency, or pretty much anything the back cover suggests you'll find inside, however, try somewhere else first.



5. I came across this book on a recent vacation in Ireland and, remembering the brouhaha over the interview, picked it up to read. As I was an American over in Ireland trying to get a sense of that country, it seemed somehow appropriate to read about an Irish citizen set to a similar task in the US.
   
   Overall, I enjoyed the book very much. Coming from the 'Blue America' she describes, her explorations of 'Red America' offered me useful insights to my own country. She gamely tries to go there with an open, objective approach though the occasional sarcastic remark does reveal her filter. She rather courageously goes places where her outsider status posed some risk to herself, if not in actuality than in her perception, which amounts to the same thing. For example, going to 'redneck' country (the NASCAR chapter) and to visit fundamentalist Mormon country I thought was particularly brave of her and were the best parts of the book. What strongly comes across from her personal conversations with individuals who were so different from her was their sincerity, something that seemed to surprise her. But there was the one question that begged to be explored more deeply with the people she visited was, the answer to which is what truly separates people into Blue and Red columns. That question was: how does a country made up of a great many diverse religious, cultural, and ethnic groups, make itself one nation? For many of the groups she visited, particularly the evangelical groups, the answer was that the other groups should be made to be like us or else. And while 'or else' runs a broad spectrum, it does not include acceptance of differences. To her defense, she was already taking no small amount of risk just by the questions she did ask and that one may have been too much.

2 comments about Mister, Are You a Priest?: Jottings by Bishop Edward Daly.

1. "Jottings' he says and he does not lie. The superficiality of this book was a great disappointment. Here's what I got from this book: childhood was nice. School was hard. Italy was pretty. Parish life was fine; but the Troubles were hard. There are a few moments when he's writing about the Troubles when he seems to connect with his heart--and a few where his sense of humor finds him. On the whole, though, this was utterly flat.



2. I thought this bok was very interesting and well written. Being from Co. TYrone myself,it was nice to see familiar towns and places in a book.Its bound to be difficul growing up in those difficult times especially being a Catholic Priest, Dr.Daly lived an interesting life an is very well respected.. Fair Play to him.You should defintley check it out. His recording of events on Bloody Sunday are interesting and truthful of the murder that happened on that day.Give him the credit he deserves.

3 comments about The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency.

1. 
   James Naughtie, the Today presenter, has written a useful account of Blair's links with the USA, particularly with Bush and his colleagues. Naughtie recalls that when he asked Pentagon insider Richard Perle what came next after Afghanistan, Perle replied, "The really important thing is that there is a next."
   
   So, in January 2002, Bush set the timetable for invading Iraq and told Blair. Blair then promised to join Bush's war, secretly changing government policy from peace to war, without telling anybody.
   
   Naughtie writes that the `bloodstream' of the US-British special relationship is the intelligence linkage. Indeed, the USA's intelligence services are the world's biggest and most expensive. Yet all the US intelligence claims about Iraq's WMD - the uranium oxide bought from Niger, the mobile chemical laboratories - have been proven false. US intelligence was so bad that the CIA's head resigned, and his deputy left too.
   
   The Labour government had all these intelligence resources behind them. Yet their notorious government dossier on WMD was largely pilfered from a ten-year-old PhD thesis! So what, exactly, did Britain gain from this so-special relationship and its precious `bloodstream'?
   
   As a result of the illegal invasion of Iraq, there is now an illegal occupation of Iraq. Naughtie quotes a senior Foreign Office man who described the US's occupation policy as `a catastrophe from beginning to end'.
   
   When Naughtie asked Blair if he agreed with the White House lawyer who said that the Geneva Conventions were `quaint', Blair replied, "Of course not. Neither do the Americans." Typically, Blair was denying the evidence just put in front of him.
   
   Labour's war (for the Labour Party could have stopped it, but didn't even try) has weakened all that it holds dear. The link with the USA is in danger, the EU split, NATO divided, the Labour Party eviscerated, and Parliament, the Foreign Office and the intelligence services all discredited. But worse, Labour's war has made Israel increase its killings, thrown the Middle East into chaos, worsened the risks of terrorism to Britain and elsewhere, and added the danger of endless wars in a `clash of civilisations'.



2. The political behavior of British Prime Minister Tony Blair is something of an enigma - why does he support the American president, so despised in the UK, at great harm to his popularity? Why did he back Bush into the war in Iraq, ostensibly in quest of weapons of mass destructions, even though the UN inspectors urged for more time?
   
   As Blair followed George W. Bush, his popularity in the UK plummeted, his party is in something close to an open revolt, and his standing in Europe has deteriorated. And for all his trouble, it appears that Blair got precious little in return from the American administration. As French President Jacques Chirac recently put it "I am not sure that it is in the nature of our American friends at the moment to return favors systematically."
   
   British journalist James Naughtie, author of another acclaimed book about Tony Blair (the Rivals, about the relationship between Blair and Gordon Brown), tries to answer these questions precisely. His answer is that Blair is a true believer; he believes that the 9/11 has been a wake up call for the world. "I could see this Islamic Extremism... bring about a very dangerous conjunction of terrorism and states that are utterly unstable and repressive" (quoted on p. 203). These views of Blair's antedated 9/11. They were the impetus for his promotion of the Kosovo war. Already in the late 1990s, Blair saw a new international order rising, one based on the struggle against evil. The terrorist threat required a whole new political philosophy:
   
   "Before September 11th the world's view of the justification of military action had been changing. The only clear case in international relations for armed intervention had been self-defence, response to aggression. But the notion of intervening on humanitarian grounds had been gaining currency" But after 9/11, "What had seemed inchoate came together." The need for security required preemptive action. Countries which suppressed freedom, harbored terrorists or had weapons of mass destruction had to be dealt with. In effect, Blair agreed with Condoleezza Rice's claim that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud".
   
   So is the Labour PM really in accord with Bush, Cheyney and Rumsfeld? In Naughtie's thorough discussion, it is not so simple. There is a great difference between Bush and Blair. Naughtie quotes Blair as saying "I never quite understand what people mean by that neocon thing" (p.71)
   
   That may be the key to explain the great divide between Blair and the Bush administration. Blair may not be aware of the gap, or of its enormity. The Prime Minster believes in the importance of democracy. For him, the military action against Iraq or El Qaeda is only a part of a greater attempt to create international security and peace. "You cannot deal with terrorism security as simply a security issue. You also have to deal with the more compassionate side of the issue... the poverty, the lack of interfaith understanding. All these things need to be part of the agenda." Although Bush and his administration may pay lip service to these ideals, for them internationalism and real international cooperation are anathema. They cannot possibly support them.
   
   In my view, Blair's partnership with Bush committed him to the Bush administration's incompetent, corrupt and extremist policies. Naughtie seems to think that Blair's support was essential or at least important, to Bush (see for example p. 203). But I disagree - in the Bush administration, the moderates, as Paul O'Neal observed, act as cover only. Bush would use Blair for all he is worth - but he would concede nothing in return.
   
   I have much sympathy for the ideology Blair advocates, but Bush is no partner for promoting it. Blair's collaboration with the Bush administration not only diminishes his popularity - it also discredits his cause.



3. This book represents a great achievement in explaining what drove the seemingly strange pairing of a UK Labour prime minister and a US Republican President on a venture that hardly any other major political leader in the world supported, being the war on terror post 9/11 which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq and its ongoing occupation at great cost to the occupiers and the Iraqi people.
   
   The writer is a UK political correspondent with great experience of the Labour Party (he has written the best account to date on the Blair relationship with Gordon Brown, whose unwillingness to remain Number Two features to the end of this book) and the US and while he covers the US aspects very well his real story is on the road that led Blair to a policy that few in his party really supported and has since cost him dear in public perceptions of his leadership.
   
   After a rather unfocussed start (where the story seems to be continually jumping around in time) it settles down into an incisive chronological analysis of how Blair having reached his agreement with Brown to be leader then became prime minister without any prior government office experience and with an unassailable parliamentary majority started to develop links with Clinton which then had to be replaced with Bush after his slim victory over Gore.
   
   That both have developed such a strong personal bond despite very different backgrounds and world views is skilfully explained in the context of Bush badly needing Blair to have international credibility for his very US neo-conservative driven strategy and Blair having taken a very personal decision with little input from his Cabinet in seeking a great international issue to grasp. The book gives a very good feel for the inner workings of Blair's "presidential" style of government especially in Cabinet that led to this being so easily done and which Naughtie demonstrates led to Bush underestimating how far Blair had gone out on a limb and was then exposed to UK parliamentary revolt against that decision.
   
   Naughtie includes lots of personal off record comments that flesh out how the end result was Bush and his Executive conceding little to their end gameplan (the book should kill any remaining views of the UK ever being likely to benefit from the much touted "special relationship" unless US and UK interests are aligned on an issue) and Blair having made a personal commitment based on his early views of Islamic revolutionaries then being moulded post 9/11 into a intransigent loner who trusted his instincts and not the counsel of his colleagues and advisers plus other political leaders. The book is worth buying just for the chapter on the failings of the various Intelligence Services and how in the UK their role was to try and provide evidence and justification for a decision which Blair had already made and in which they failed him plus fooled themselves into not providing the clarity that may have stalled (if not stopped) him.
   
   A very unique book with one of the best book covers I have seen in years!

1 comments about A Private War: Surviving in Poland on False Papers, 1941-1945.

1. In his preface, Oscar E. Swan describes prewar Polish Jewry without the usual anti-Polish bias: "In the United States, with its tradition of rapid cultural assimilation, it may be difficult for the reader to imagine the tremendous gulf separating Polish and Jewish society in Poland in the 1920s and 1930s...there were the `Litvak" Jews, recently arrived from the east and speaking little or no Polish, and the Orthodox Jews, who had kept their own dress, language, customs, religion, and schools, resisting even a modicum of accommodation to the prevailing culture. Despite the inevitable sharp social tensions created by such a situation in this fiercely Catholic country during the economic hard times of the 1930s, and despite anti-Jewish sentiment, demonstrations, and clashes at the universities, in labor unions, and in other areas of public life--often enough fomented by the Nationalist element among Polish politicians--most urban Jews in Poland before the war lived in peace and relative prosperity." (pp. xxi-xxii).
   
   In the Foreword, British historian Norman Davies adds: "In the era of Nationalism, there were Poles of the National Democratic persuasion who treated all Poland's ethnic minorities, including the Jews, with undisguised hostility, just as there were growing numbers of Jews of the Zionist persuasion who treated Poland as a country fit only to turn their backs on...it would also be inaccurate to suggest that Poland ever experienced the same level of pathological racism which has reigned at various times in neighboring Germany or Russia." (p. viii).
   
   Shatyn describes the prewar Litvaks, some of whom had migrated westward to his native Krakow (Cracow), as follows: "...for the most part they were wholesalers, supplying goods either to local stores or to shops in the many small towns in the countryside. They engaged trained bookkeepers to keep their books for tax purposes, but in addition they all carried in their pockets little notebooks in which their actual accounts were kept, accounts different from those found in the bookkeepers' neat ledgers. The information in those little books was entered in a Hebrew script, legible only to them. They were excellent tradesmen, and, universal opinion to the contrary notwithstanding, they never cheated or swindled, though they drove a hard bargain." (pp. 101-102). The reader can understand how the Poles, even if not openly exploited, naturally resented being the generation-after-generation recipients of these hard bargains. BTW, isn't tax evasion a form of swindle, and isn't defrauding the Polish government also a defrauding of the Polish nation?
   
   Bruno Shatyn (Szatyn, Schatten) was an atypical Polish Jew who, speaking fluent Polish and lacking Semitic features, survived the Nazi occupation in the open. His entire work is remarkably free of Polonophobia, and at no time does he become so Judeocentric as to ignore Polish martyrdom. For instance, he gives an eyewitness account of the slaughter of defenseless Polish civilian refugees by strafing German planes in 1939 (p. 116).
   
   Shatyn points out that most Polish Jews scoffed at the notion that the conquering Germans would exterminate them (p. 133, 163). This further undermines the fear-of-Nazi-extermination justification for the extensive 1939 Jewish-Soviet collaboration. Furthermore, the Jewish pro-German mental inertia persisted well after the beginning of the mass extermination of Jews: "Who could believe that these proper, upright, hard-working people would commit mass murder? Even now, when we know that it is true, we still can't get used to the idea." (p. 194).
   
   For security reasons, Shatyn tried to avoid those who knew him. Realizing that his Polish friends wouldn't betray him, he feared that they may divulge his Jewishness through some indiscretion or under Gestapo torture (p. 186). As for the szmalcowniki (blackmailers), he recognized the fact that these extortionists were marginal members of Polish society and that their acts were criminal rather than anti-Semitic in nature: "...the scum of society, the sort of person who, discovering that someone was a Jew, blackmailed the victim to his last penny and then, when he was penniless, denounced the unfortunate to the police, in full confidence that he would be eliminated and, with him, all evidence of the informer's crime." (p. 186). Shatyn also feared the Gestapo-serving Jewish informers, who made the rounds looking for fugitive Jews (pp. 186-187, 195).
   
   On two different occasions, when the Germans were parading and/or humiliating the Jews before killing them, Shatyn wrote: "The Poles lined the sidewalks, looking on in absolute silence, as though frozen in place." (p. 42). Also: "Poles gathered on the sidewalks, incredulous, some crossing themselves at this monstrous sight." (p. 121). These accounts further contradict the selectively-chosen ones, by Jan Tomasz Gross, of Poles rejoicing at Jewish suffering. And, unlike Gross, Shatyn recognized the efficacy of the German-imposed death penalty in the deterrence of Polish aid to Jews (p. 48, 178, 186).
   
   Shatyn provides intriguing details about his monitoring of German trains and skillfully deductions of their cargo and its implications (p. 223). Some rather imaginative Polonophobes have maliciously asserted that the Nazis built their extermination camps on Polish soil because the Poles would tolerate, if not welcome, them. That the German herrenvolk would consult the defeated Polish untermenschen is preposterous on its face! As a further irony, the Germans attempted to keep the camps secret from Poles. Shatyn reports that Polish conductors were removed from the death trains as they neared the camps, to be replaced by the SS and their Ukrainian and Baltic collaborators (p. 21). During their journeys, the train windows were barred, and no one was permitted near them (p. 224), though the weak moans of the victims could be heard in the fields.
   
   Finally, Jews weren't the only scapegoats. The Germans also adopted a blame-the-victim mentality against Poles for Germany's misfortunes, notably after Stalingrad: "They claimed that everything was the fault of the verfluchte Polen--had it not been for their resistance to the German invasion in September 1939, this war which was now threatening to destroy the Reich would never have started." (p. 227).

No comments about Scholarship Boy: A Personal History of the mid-Twentieth Century.

No comments about An Irish Childhood.

No comments about Maggi Pierce: Live--A Collection of Irish Jokes, Folktales, and Childhood Stories from Belfast, Ireland.

No comments about William the Lion, 1143-1214: Kingship and Culture.