1 comments about The French Worker: Autobiographies from the Early Industrial Era.

1. In his book The French Worker, Mark Traugott draws on translated autobiographies to paint the reader a picture of the realities of life for workers in France during the 1800s. Their writings tell not only of hardships, but also of the joys experienced in their personal and public lives. It is Traugott's intention that such accounts, when set against the turbulent backdrop of nineteenth century France, will provide the reader with a fascinating insight into how people lived during the French Revolution.

   Traugott, who obtained his Ph.D. from Berkeley University currently teaches at the University of California, Santa Cruz, specializing in social and economic history, historical sociology and revolutionary and labor history. Traugott does not restrict his research and writing to French history alone. His book Repertoires and Cycles of Collective Action, published in 1995, explores social protest in Great Britain. In Armies of the Poor, Traugott returns to France and investigates the Parisian insurrection of 1848. Whilst Traugott may not be described as a prolific author, it is clear that he is a man who knows and loves history.

   It is this in-depth knowledge that enables Traugott to provide us with a glimpse into everyday life in France through the eyes of people engaged in a variety of industries and trades: furniture, textiles, construction, metalwork and clothing. He also provides accounts from the point of view of unskilled laborers and from the world of the domestic servant. Whilst reading these varied accounts, one's eyes are truly opened to both the pleasures and pitfalls of having to earn one's wage during these chaotic times. Though life appeared to be harsh, workers seem to have had a much more concrete sense of camaraderie with their co-workers and with their profession as a whole. Agricol Perdiguier, a joiner, describes these brotherly feelings, "I was pleased to see young men from every part of France living as brothers, helping one another, and offering mutual support" (128). This sense of community within an industry continues throughout his account. Indeed, he appears to receive and give more support to his brothers within the Campagnons than he ever does with respect to his blood family. Where family is concerned, many of the narrators describe a difficult childhood. Jacques Etienne Bédé had a mother who patently did not love him, Suzanne Voilquin lost her mother at an early age, and Norbert Truquin's father abandons him to a life of misery as an assistant to a wool comber. Family relationships appear much less important than the world of word. This skew on allegiances may have been due to the mobile nature of the France's workforce. Leaving home at an early age to embark on a Tour of France would have meant that one spent more time with one's co-workers than with family. Short term employment choices, essential when partaking the Tour, would have also made one dependant on the protection of like minded, but unknown workers upon the way, both to provide employment opportunities and a safe place to stay. Traugott's book amply describes this movement away from filial respect and affection towards attachment to those sharing one's profession.

   Whilst The French Worker provides the reader with a rich insight into the lives of those featured, it does have its problems. From a research point of view, the accounts included may well not be representative of the average worker in nineteenth century France since illiteracy and long hours would have made the act of writing a rare pleasure. Therefore, for Traugott's seven to have battled these particular odds and produced autobiographies indicates that they were not of an ilk with, or representative of their kind. In addition, the seven accounts are personal accounts, either written in the form of a journal or completed many years after the events took place. The journal risks portrayal of a knee-jerk reaction to the day or week's events, and the personal account may be self-serving in that it exemplifies the life and loves of the writer. Traugott then had to decide which accounts to include and which to abandon, thus adding the risk of editorial bias. If these problems were not enough, translation then opens the door for possible subjectivity. In Traugott's defense, he does discuss such editorial predicaments in both his Preface and Introductory chapters. Acknowledgement of the dangers by the author shows he is aware of the thin line he walks when producing a book of this type.

   The book heaves with footnotes, all essential when digesting a translation of a lifestyle account far removed from one's own. In the Preface and Introduction, Traugott cites other scholars, their works and government documents within these footnotes. However, when one tackles the remainder of The French Worker, the majority of footnote explanations are solely Traugott's. They serve purely as an opportunity to further explain a phrase or action. The book credence would be improved by a wider variety of sources supporting the workers' accounts. The book is logically organized with each account taking the reader a step further through French history. However, for the reader not in possession of an in-depth understanding of this period, this chronological layout could have been enhanced if each account were preceded with a timeline outlining the pertinent historical landmarks.

   Traugott manages to provide the reader with a wealth of information, both incidental and core. As a social document, the book is both interesting and informative, but one may have problems in deciding if the lives depicted were actually representative of nineteenth century France. However, given the general lack of documented case histories of the French working classes, perhaps this is the best that one can achieve. Traugott is known for his love of the subject and one can only hope that he is true to that love.

No comments about John Hawkwood: An English Mercenary in Fourteenth-Century Italy.

5 comments about Beria.

1. My only reservation that this book is almost as much about Georgia as about Beria. It portrays the monster of the Soviet police state who loyally did Stalin's bidding and acquired such ferocious reputation that, when Stalin died, the new leader Khruscheve thought it necessary to kill Beria to protect his own power. Well-research, this book is a valuable addition any library on Soviet politics or history.



2. Having just read this, the only book-length biography of Lavrentii Beria, Stalin's most powerful henchman, I wondered if I would have survived in Beria's world. Office politics in the Stalinist USSR was not just about bitching by the water cooler and trying to suck up to the boss (although such elements were also present, writ large). Even surviving in such an environment required degrees of political acumen and sheer nastiness that very few people need to demonstrate in our herbivorous times. Even as an apparatchik reached his goal of near-absolute power (say, Yagoda, Ezhov or Zhdanov) he would find himself subtly undermined. Even as someone was appointed to the Central Committee he would find that key associates carefully placed across the state and party apparatus were being removed to the coziness of the Lubianka or Kolyma.

   In this world, which was described quite well by Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, in a chapter titled "Why the Worst Get on Top", Beria was almost bound to rise (although, for political reasons, Hayek was describing Nazi Germany rather than the USSR). He was a Mingrelian, a minority ethnic group in Georgia, and, like Stalin, he was brought up by his mother after his father's early death. He rose rapidly through the ranks of the political police and eventually managed to become Georgian and then Transcaucasian party boss (he even killed a few competitors in the way). Ezhov's "Great Terror" of 1936-1937 paved the way for a takeover by Beria, who consolidated his position during the war and then by heading the nuclear weapons project. A brilliant manager, who was able to get on well with those he worked with (but who had no compunction about delivering them to their deaths if it served his purposes) he always delivered. Unlike Stalin, he was not interested in praises (although he organised his own personality cult for practical reasons) and was reasonable enough to tell the difference between real enemies and loyal followers. Women were his weakness. Ms Knight, a serious historian, does not indulge her readers with lurid stories about girls picked up in Moscow streets and then killed in the basement of Beria's town house, but she does mention that Beria was treated for siphilis during the War. As Stalin aged, be became more and more deranged and eventually wanted to be rid of Beria and his Mingrelians. Unlike other historians, such as Edvard Radzinsky, the author does not speculate about Beria's possible role in Stalin's demise in March 1953, although she concludes that only this saved Beria from the destiny of many of his predecessors. While Beria's energetic attempts at de-Stalinisation were already known (Beria's lieutenant Pavel Sudoplatov had already mentioned them in his book "Special Operations"), Ms Knight elaborates on how wide-ranging they would have been had Beria succeeded in consolidating his grip on power. Indeed, it is quite possible that glasnost might have come more than 30 years before Gorbachov came to power, and that it would have been implemented from a position of strength rather than one of weakness (in 1953 the Soviet Union was at the top of its power, having succeeded in launching a Hydrogen bomb and having established control over North Korea). German re-unification might have happened in the 1950s rather than the early 1990s, and would have been much less costly and disruptive. On the other hand, it's also possible that Beria might have backtracked after attaining his goal, which was only power for himself. As Ms Knight shows, Beria, like most Soviet politicians had only very slight concern about policies, reserving most of his time and effort for power politics. His downfall was swift, and to be frank, required significant courage from Kruschev and Malenkov. Kruschev comes out of this book (like he did in Volkogonov's Stalin) as a devious henchman who was no less guilty than Beria, but far less able.

   It is interesting to see that the downfall of Soviet leaders in the period 1948-1990 was associated with failures to control events in their zones of influence. Beria's downfall started with the breakup of Soviet-Yugoslav relations in 1948 and concluded in 1953, due to demonstrations in Eastern Germany. Kruschev's downfall came in 1964, after he badly miscalculated the risk in transporting nuclear warheads to Cuba. Gorbachov's fall was associated with failure over Germany in 1989. As it was, Kruschov's de-Stalinisation was probably much less comprehensive than Beria's would have been. A nice complement to Ms Knight's book is Sergo Beria's recently published "Beria My Father". One last comment: Ms Knight's book is not for the casual reader. Even for someone who has read Conquest, Pipes, Volkogonov, Radzinsky, Bullock and Ulan it is sometimes difficult to keep straight all the unfamiliar names and party organisations, especially in Transcaucasia. The book would have gained from a few charts illustrating who worked when and where with Ezhov, Beria, Kruschev, Zhdanov or Malenkov. A "power map", with Stalin on top and the various top leaders and their key protegees would also have been useful. If you haven't read much Soviet history you should probably stay clear of this book, as it probably is not the most suitable one for a novice.

   Stalin once famously introduced Beria to some Americans as "Our Himmler" (Ms Knight has ommitted this anecdote, and I wonder whether that was because she didn't believe it really happened). If one compares Ms Knight's Beria with, for example, Peter Padfield's Himmler (although his book is clearly much less scholarly than Ms Knight's) one can see that Beria was much more realistic and efficient than Himmler. The correct comparison is between Beria and Heydrich. Had the Third Reich truly been a totalitarian state, Himmler would have gone the way of Yagoda and Heydrich would have been Hitler's Beria. With Goering liquidated during the purges that would have followed, the entire foreign service culled for unreliable elements such as Ambassador Schulenburg and the Wermacht rid of likely conspirators such as Claus von Stauffenberg, it is possible that the War might have ended otherwise. But that's a different subject.




3. Laventrii Beria by far outshines Joseph Djugashvili Stalin by far. As Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels was to Adolf Hitler, Beria is to Stalin, perhaps he went one better than the Nazi Minister of Propaganda? The closest person to Beria's stature today is Richard Perle, the man in the White House who influences George Walker Bush ("Junior"), 43rd U.S. President (2000-2004), like he did former president George Walker Bush ("Senior'), 41st U.S. President. Like Stalin's and Hitler's regimes, the Bush regime bears a striking similiarity to the other two totalitarian regimes, perhaps Perle is more sinister than Beria and Goebbles?



4. I could not put this volume down. The most incredible discovery I made after reading this book was that it was the bloody monster Beria--of all the Stalin's henchmen in Kremlin-- who tried to De-Stalinize the Soviet system after Stalin's death. Khruschev's unforgetable reaction to that was an attempt to put brakes on this process. Eventually, he succeded in presenting himself as the man "who opened window to the West". Speaking about the truth in history...
   This book deserves a much more popularuty due to its many unique qualities. Kudos to the author with such a wonderful name.



5. Amy Knight's biography of Beria deserves a place in the pantheon of post-Soviet analysis of the Soviet Union. Knight is a serious scholar and doesn't suffer from the excesses seen in other works about the Soviet Union written in the last ten year. Unfortunately, this serious approach also has a limiting factor in discussing somebody so thoroughly reviled like Beria. Unlike Stalin, who even Knight admits still maintained his followers even after he was denounced in Khrushchev's 1956 speech, Beria became a complete non-person. As a result, one has the impression there is very little actual 'original' source information left by and regarding him. Knight says that Beria kept very few papers, but one has the impression that even if he had they would have disappeared in 1953 as quickly as their author did.
   Knight does a good job in showing Beria's rise from simple roots in Georgia to almost the top of Soviet politics. Beria is portrayed as the ultimate opportunist, ruthlessly undercutting everybody in his path to further his ambition. In the process, Beria built up his own 'personality cult' and network of cronies to do his bidding. Indeed, Beria is portrayed as being the ultimate Stalinist politician, a born survivor with an ambition to reach the top (unlike other people, such as Molotov, who were content just to survive). In the end, its Beria's ambition and his own arrogance that prove to be his undoing. According to Knight, Beria was taken down by an amateurish coup by Khrushchev, who Beria consistently underestimated.
   The greatest weakness of this book is its own serious nature. So little actually unbiased or original information is left that a lot of the early parts of the book are pure history with very little analysis or new information. Beria supposedly was a vicious pedophile, a serial rapist of young women, but very little mention is given of that or other sins. Knight does give some examples from witnesses of Beria's cruelty, but not enough to really give a feel for the man. Reading this book, I never felt like I had a real appreciation of who this man was. Beria was supposed to be a monster, as brutal as Ezhov and Yagoda but much more intelligent. With a few exceptions, Knight gives the reader very few glimpses of this brutality.
   The big irony of the book, and its greatest strength, is the coverage Knight gives to Beria's 100 days in power after Stalin's death. This man, so reviled for unrestrained brutality, shown to be a complete opportunist with Stalin, spent his last days in a quest to completely reform and overhaul the Soviet system. As with everything, Beria's personal arrogance and inability to restrain himself in his reforms proved to be his undoing. After some bungled liberalization in East Germany that resulted in riots and Soviet military intervention, Beria was 'removed' in a coup instigated by Khrushchev. The book's real impact is in these final chapters. Much detail is given to the wholesale reforms instigated by Beria; taken in context of a speech Beria gave the previous year criticizing Russian chauvinism (at the expense of minorities) one can really see the enigma of the situation: Beria, so reviled for his brutality, in the end is a reformer... a man, despite all his flaws, who is before his time. Knight does a good job of showing how Khrushchev, despite his recent rehabilitation, was as compromised as everybody else, and how Beria, has been reviled without a second thought by history. Knight's biography makes you wonder how accurate this view is.

1 comments about To Kill Rasputin: The Life & Death of Grigori Rasputin.

1. The scheming and charismatic Rasputin has tantalized historians for 90 years, and there are many books attempting to give all the answers about his influence on the last Russian Tsar and claiming to solve the mysteries of his assassination. This book is the latest, and though Andrew Cook doesn't find any real surprises, he does debunk many stereotypes and tall tales with a high degree of believability. For instance, legends have it that Rasputin was so evil that he was nearly impossible to kill, as he wouldn't drop after being poisoned and shot and stabbed and bludgeoned and kicked and beaten and impaled and cornholed before finally being entombed in an icy watery grave. Cook examines the forensic evidence (and supplies the reader with plenty of gruesome autopsy photos to boot) and finds that while Rasputin was a healthy tough guy, he wasn't really so indestructible. For instance, the prissy Russian noblemen who plotted the assassination purchased their poison several weeks in advance so it lost its potency, while as gunmen they couldn't hit the side of a barn.
   
   So Cook ably dismantles those stereotypes, and while his research doesn't really lead to any blockbusters that would surprise the knowledgeable reader, he does find some strong evidence that British agents were in on the plot - wishing to rub out Rasputin because he was giving the Tsar war advice that could damage England's prospects. The interested reader should be willing to believe Cook's conclusions here because he has looked at all the evidence objectively. Just note that the reading experience doesn't get too far beyond a dry investigative report, and anyone looking for robust historical background will probably be disappointed. The bizarre true history of the last Russian Tsar is better found elsewhere, as are insights into the intriguing treachery of Rasputin himself. Alas, in this book he's not much more than a rugged corpse. [~doomsdayer520~]

1 comments about Fifty Key Medieval Thinkers (Routledge Key Guides).

1. It can be very difficult to get a grasp on the roughly 1,000 years that make up the Medieval period, but this book is a great peek at some of the period's most influential thinkers. These 50 people have all in some way laid the intellectual foundation for the rest of Western Civilization and Evans gives a great primer into their world, their lives, and their minds.
   
   This book should is a reference book and should be read in conjunction with a solid history of the Middle Ages, especially those focusing on the intellectual history of the era.

4 comments about Royal Panoply: Brief Lives of the English Monarchs.

1. Starting with William the Conqueror and finishing with Elizabeth II and including every English monarch in between, Carolyn Erickson provides an intriguing overview of the royals and their spouses in a chronological fascinating sweep. Each ruler receives somewhere in the range of seven to twelve pages regardless of historical importance or length on the throne. By going chronological, the reference is easy to read and follow, but repetition also occurs as death marks the end of an era (chapter) and the beginning of the next reign (next chapter). The epigraph that starts each royal provides an interesting perspective on that personage and is especially fascinating with the more famous as the audience sees a somewhat differing view than the textbooks or romance novels. Still the lack of analysis of overarching trends takes somewhat away from a fine look that will elate those who prefer their look at the English monarchy based on facts not tabloids.
   
   Harriet Klausner



2. Dr. Carolly Erickson is a prolific author of historical fictin as well as excellent nonfiction works. Her area of expertise is in medieval and Renaissance literature. Nevertheless, she does a good job of survey all the English kings and queens from William the Conqeror in 1066 to the reign of Elizabeth II.
   Along the way the reader will read of countless murders, cabals, plagues, wars, adulteries and dynastic battles for power.
   There is nothing new here for the serious British historian;
   the book is written for a popular audience in need of getting
   the basics of British history in their heads. The book would be
   an excellent resource for courses in English history and literature. It is well illustrated and is a worthy addition to the library. It can be read from cover to cover or a particular
   monarch can be studied to coincide with the reader's interest.
   No matter how many biographies and history of England I have read this book is valuable because it:
   a. Refreshed my memory on key events that have become murky.
   b. Reminded me of how the fight for constitutional liberty in
   a democratic nation was a hard, bitter and complex struggle.
   Well done and worthy of your time and money!



3. "Royal Panoply" is an indispensible book for anyone wanting a good, well-written overview of the British monarchy. From William the Conquerer to Elizabeth II, author Carolly Erickson covers the good, the bad and the plain incompetent. It is all of English Royal history in one volume.
   
   Carolly Erickson began her career writing about the Tudors and the Stuarts, so it is not surprising that she is at her best when writing about those reigns. Her brief analysis of those characters who limned the golden age of the English renaissance are the best in the book. She is on less sure, and more gossipy, ground in the chapters on the more modern kings and queens of Great Britain.
   
   Erickson's later writing has suffered in comparison with her first efforts at historical biography, especially "The First Elizabeth" and "Great Harry." She has even condescended to write historical fiction, a "hidden" journal of Marie Antoinette.
   
   With this valuable volume in hand, the eager student of English history will find fascinating facts and tidbits on all of England's Majesties.



4. As a lay person, I found this book a fascinating glimpse into the lives of the British Monarchy. Most of my exposure to them has been through plays or movies, touching on a short vignette or period of time. Having recently seen "Henry V," I was interested in reading what happened to him after Agincourt. And "The Lion in the Winter" was a majestic play that left me wondering which of Elinor's sons would become king. This book is easy reading and a delicious look at the royalty.

No comments about The Love Story of W.B. Yeats & Maud Gonne.

5 comments about Wilde Album: Public and Private Images of Oscar Wilde.

1. Cutting to the chase, the real prize in this marvelous little book are the photographs. For once, we get something other than the usual lot that appear in books with a Wilde connection. Mr. Holland has achieved through his pictures (most seem to be from the family collection) something which most texts don't do..... a feel for the whole of Wilde the man. There is a human dimension to this slim volume that one does not find elsewhere. There are pictures of ancestors, parents, editorial cartoons, advertisements, all in relatively strict chronological order, from the child in a dress (as was customary for little boys in the period) to the student, the developing fop, the lampooned character, the ludicrous pairing with Bosie... who looks perpetually bored and thoroughly uninteresting... to the depressing denouement, death bed and funerary monuments.

   The text reveals nothing new but it is elegantly written. Both of Wilde's children were devoted to the memory of their father. It is evident that the grandson was raised in like manner.

   Of Wilde's two boys, Cyril died in WWI without issue. Mr. Holland is the grandson of the other, Vyvyan.

   If you are interested in the period, England and Ireland in late 19th century, Wilde, gay history, etc. buy this book. It is worth infinitely more than it costs.




2. This is a sparkling gem for all fans of Oscar Wilde. It is a brilliant retelling of Oscar's life through pictures. Filled with everything from photographs of Wilde the aesthete to hilarious caricatures of him from Punch magazine to some of Wilde's own drawings and notes, this fabulous little book has it all. Many of the items I have not seen in any other volume. It goes wonderfully well coupled with Richard Ellman's gorgeous biography or it stands tall on its own. All and all, a marvelous book that I cannot possibly recommend highly enough.



3. This volume is more touching and insightful than most
   works about Oscar Wilde tend to be. It is filled with
   the narrative commentary of Wilde's grandson,
   Merlin Holland, who gives honest opinions as well
   as factual detail about the various stages of
   Oscar Wilde's life.
   The treasures, however, are the multitudes of
   photographs, memorabilia, and paintings that are
   included -- as well as drawings, satirical cartoons
   (mostly lampooning Oscar, both at Oxford and later
   in life), and wonderful notations under the items.
   The most interesting photographs, for me, are
   the ones which were done by Napoleon Sarony. They
   seem to touch a more thoughtful, poetic, dreamy
   Oscar, rather than the posing bon vivant or the
   deliberately provocative aesthete/decadent.
   The volume does well to have one of those photos
   on the cover, as well as having a different photo
   beside the title page. The grotesque photos,
   that almost make one cringe, though, are of
   Oscar in a skirted Greek national costume
   (with boots!) from April 1877; Oscar in a
   checkered suit and bowler hat at Oxford in
   1878, and Oscar at age 2 in a blue velvet
   dress, a daguerreotype which has been color
   tinted. The weirdest photos are of the
   "blond tiger/panther" Lord Alfred Douglas,
   would-be "friend" and lover of Oscar. His
   eyes look vacant, haunted, cold in most of
   the photos , except for the one on page 147,
   in which he looks touchingly sensitive and
   lonely...the caption below the picture says
   it all: "Douglas aged 23. 'Your slim gilt
   soul walks between passion and poetry. I know
   Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved so madly, was you
   in Greek days,' Wilde wrote to him around that
   time."
   Truly a remarkable album of memories.



4. What a Gem! If you are a fan of Oscar Wilde then this book is indispensable.
   My only gripe is that it is too small. A larger format would have shown off the many Napoleon Sarony photos (the largest collection in one publication) If the publisher and Mr Holland ever read this....I'd gladly shell out for a large format edition. Other than that, I'm quite too utterly ecstatic about the book.......WELL DONE!



5. Mr. Oscar Wilde, the toast of all London for his successful plays revealing the immoral soft underbelly of the British aristocracy, received a slanderous calling card at his club from the Marquess of Queensberry, whose son Al was assisting Mr. Wilde in his investigations of the more corrupt and immoral and hypocritical aspects of those filthily wealthy imperialists.
   
   At Al's urgent request, Mr. Wilde filed suit for slander against Al's own father, serving as noted in this book in Mr. Wilde's own words, as the dice in a cruel and callous oedipal gamble between father and son. Mr. Wilde lost; the petit bourgeois father won and before the Crown brought charges against Mr. WIlde under a new immoral activities act, the father had Mr. Wilde's home ramsacked and auctioned, all of Mr. Wilde's treasured and expensive belongings, and those of his wife and two small sons, in order ostensibly to cover his own legal costs in defending himself against Mr. Wilde's charge of slander. The auction, staged as it was, brought only a very small percentage of its actual worth, yet destroyed all that the family owned.
   
   Mr. Wilde's grandson, in gathering this present album, mentions the fact of this destruction of his family heritage by alluding to the registry of six family albums which were sold and discarded beyond any recovery. Merlin mentions this fact cold, without further comment, but the skilled reader may read between the lines the deep and painful import of this action to Merlin personally. Thus this present effort grows immeasurably poignant and important.
   
   Though others praise the photographs here, it is the comprehensive and extensive and brilliant essay by Merlin here which makes this book as well. This book grows thereby essential for any reader of the English language, and for any reader of Irish resistance to English colonialist power, in particular that fatal power which was so coldly brought to bear against its most subtle and charming and astute and eloquent and Irish critic, greater even than GB Shaw, more subtle even than the great Mr. James Joyce.
   
   Never mind please my ramblings nor the effusiveness of other reviews which here appear upon this page. My one qualm regarding this book is that it is not BIG enough!
   
   Please see as well the excellent, if painfully abridged, production of An Ideal Husband in the BBC collection The Oscar Wilde Collection (The Importance of Being Earnest / The Picture of Dorian Gray / An Ideal Husband / Lady Windermere's Fan) if only to see younger and slimmer and in his prime he who would later play for them Sherlock Holmes. The Importance . . .in this collection is also tolerable if abridged and awkward; Lady Windermere's Fan begins slow with the mournful Lord, but grows inexorably to a heart wrenching finale without sentimentality.
   
   Read all of Mr. Wilde's published work (lacking of course the bulk his writings for Women's World, and lacking his original French text of Salome) in Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Collins Classics). The original French text of Salome you may find at Salome: Drame en un acte (Collected Works of Oscar Wilde) in order to perform your own translation into English which will undoubtedly replace Al's. It is also available in a Spanish translation at Salome - Bajo El Monte and a fine selection of his short stories at El Fantasma de Canterville y Otros Cuentos (Serie Roja Alfaguara) (Serie Roja Alfaguara).
   
   Please read this book and know the extent of the destructive power of an offended British aristocracy, a destiny, as Merlin here indicates, as inexorable as any ancient Greek drama. Merlin's assessments of his grandfather's oeuvre are also excellent and right on, although too brief! Find further critical work by himself as well as by his father Vyvyan Holland, whose photographs as a small boy are so telling here.

No comments about All Will Be Well.

3 comments about Five Empresses: Court Life in Eighteenth-Century Russia.

1. My knowledge of Russian history is zip - a collection of names (eg, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great, the doomed Nicholas and Alexandra). Mr Anisimov has given me a thoroughly delightful history lesson of five empresses of 18th century Russia. His clever comments and personal way of writing made me look forward to each page turning.



2. I enjoyed this book for the most part. It delves into the lives of these 5 empresses and how they came to power. I didn't expect the book to get into too much detail about each empress since that would involve volumes. However, since the author pretty much followed the chronological path, I did expect it to remain that way until the end. What I found was that characters and events sometimes showed up more than once in the same context and other times, characters and events were mentioned way out of chronological order. I found myself having to flip back/forth many times to keep everything straight. If you want an overview of these 5 women and their contribution to Russian history, this is a good read. If you are looking for something more "meaty" - then this isn't the book for you.



3. I had desire to read a book about strong women. I thought that choice of reading biography of five (5) tsarinas would be a good start.
   Book is well written with a chapter dedicated to each empress. I was disapointed to learn that most of them were petty women, more interested in gossip and trivial form of entertainment and that only Catherine the Great managed to add some intellectual component to her reign. But even that seems to fade compared to her sexual appetites for men in her court. I believe that I am still searching for a woman (tsarina or not) that I can find truly inspirational. None of these have done it for me yet.