2 comments about Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart: The Perils of Marriage.

1. This book held my interest well until about 75% of the way through it. Then it got dull, and read more like a history text book. Also, a lot of time was spent on her childhood, and adulthood, but once she reached old age, very little time is spent on her and more instead on the others in her life. One minute I was reading about her declining years, the next, she was already dead and the book was talking about anyone else but her. So so book, I'd recommend waiting for the cheaper paperback edition and buying that used. Also didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know - no new insights or information.



2. This would be a suitable book for a beginning student of Tudor-Stuart history, but is disappointing to one experienced in the area. It does not reach either Antonia Fraser's work Mary Queen of Scots or John Guy's True Life of Mary Stuart,both of which deal extensively with Elizabeth as well, and lacks the scholarship of Allison's Weirs Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley, or Jane Dunn's Elizabeth and Mary, Cousins, Rivals, Queens. As with every work written that involves the unhappy rivalry between the Queens, ( even Fraser's) it has a bias. No book that deals with the history of these two women should be read alone.

No comments about JAMES JOYCE: A LITERARY LIFE.

1 comments about Mosquito Victory (Bomber Crews).

1. Too short and hardly any part of it deals with the Mosquito. An interesting insight into the way the war was fought from a personal level though, where an experienced bomber pilot could be diverted from operations on the stupid idea of an armchair warrior. Other than that just a tale of a slow life towards the end of WWII in Europe.

No comments about The Story Of Wamba: Julian Of Toledo's Historia Wambae Regis.

3 comments about The Letters of Samuel Rutherford (Puritan Paperbacks).

1. Aside from Holy Scripture, there is no other writing I have found so close to my heart as the Letters of Samuel Rutherford. If you do not own it, buy it; that is, if you love the Lord Jesus and desire to love Him more, buy it and read it. There is no effort in reading it whatsoever. On the contrary, there is a deep longing for more and more, as it becomes nearly impossible to put it down. Rutherford's letters epitomize the hearts of the Scottish Covenanters, whom he would have surely joined in death by martyrdom if not for his fatal illness. The sweetness of being a child of God is made undisputably known to him who reads these beautiful words.



2. A very fine work indeed! These letters have a lot of insight and wisdom packed into them!! A few of the letters were not very interesting to me, but as a whole I found that reading this was a very profitable exercise for me!



3. Samuel Rutherford (1600-61) was one of the great Scottish puritan Presbyterians, most famous today for his Lex Rex. He was an ardent Calvinist, and was awaiting trial for treason when he died. His letters were collected in printed posthumously (1664). This nicely packaged Banner of Truth set are an abridged edition.
   
   "I find it most true, that the greatest temptation out of hell is to live without temptations. If my waters should stand, they would rot. Faith is the better of the free air, and of the sharp winter storm in its face. Grace withereth without adversity. The devil is but God's master fencer, to teach us to handle our weapons."
   -Samuel Rutherford

4 comments about Ana Pauker: The Rise and Fall of a Jewish Communist.

1. Sorry, no arguments will convince me to relativize the following fact: at the time of her political activity, Ana Pauker had to know the criminal (genocidal, to be accurate) nature of the political party she was a leader of. My mother still cringes when she remembers the slogan "Ana Pauker si cu Dej - baga spaima in burgeji" (Ana Pauker and [Gheorghiu] Dej scare the bourgeois) cried out at forced mass rallies. The "bourgeois" mentioned in this aggresive rhime had reasons to be scared of Pauker. Hundreds of thousands Romanians are estimated to have been emprisoned for political reasons, thousands of them tortured and killed, burried without a grave. Pauker believed she can "change things from inside?". Would _you_ join the Nazi party (for example) to improve its ethics???



2. This is a sound and wise biography of Ana Pauker. An exceptional volume. An examination of the Romanian communist system and its leaders was long due--beyond false anxieties. And Levy does it so superbly, blending history with years of archival and interview-based research. A lucid cut in the political life of a controversial Romanian communist leader, Ana Pauker.



3. "Ana Pauker" is an excellent and compelling biography that blows old notions about East European communists out of the water. While hardly glossing over Ana Pauker's serious delusions and often cynical compromises, Robert Levy meticulously and convincingly demonstrates that Pauker was remarkably resistant to Soviet dictates during the most perilous years of Stalin's reign. This is a fascinating, well-written account based on recently unearthed communist archives and personal interviews of participants and eye-witnesses. Anyone interested in communist history or contemporary East European Jewish history will find this book utterly informative.



4. "Ana Pauker" is an excellent and compelling account that blows old notions of East European communists out of the water. While not glossing over Ana Pauker's serious delusions and often cynical compromises, Robert Levy convincingly demonstrates that Pauker was remarkably resistant to Soviet dictates during the most perilous period of Stalin's reign. Meticulously documented with a massive amount of archival documents and interviews of participants and eye-witnesses, this wonderfully written book is a must-read for anyone interested in communist and East European Jewish history.

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

3 comments about Young Elizabeth: The First Twenty-Five Years.

1. I think this excellently written book gives a historically accurate insite of the early life of Elizabeth I. I would recomend this book to anyone who is interested in Elizabeth I and Tudor history. :)



2. Books should be judged on whether they achieve their purpose. Plowden's purpose in this book appears to be the creation of a scholarly, yet readable biography of Elizabeth I's pre-queen years. This she does with consummate skill. The writing is superb, and the scholarship seems excellent. Plowden selects details calculated to wet the reader's curiosity and to draw a thorough picture of her subject. She has definite opinions, but she does not do all her readers' thinking for them.

   I found this book and the rest in Plowden's Elizabeth quartet very appealing. Based on these books, I've been collecting biographies on all sorts of other tantalizing personalities that the writer mentions in passing.

   Note: I am an English masters student, not a historian. I am therefore better qualified to judge the quality of the writing than the quality of the research.

   One criticism: The book begins with a very swift overview of the complex circumstances leading to Elizabeth's birth. The part pertaining to Henry VIII is easily digestible, but the earlier section involving Henry VII, Katherine of Valois, Owen Tudor, and the War of the Roses proceeds at baffling speed. If you are not already familiar with this convoluted period of English history, the multitude of characters entering and exiting the stage may overwhelm you. My advice: hang in there; it gets better.




3. Elizabeth I is one the most famous woman in history, and yet history books concentrate on the accomplishments of her reign without paying much attention to the woman behind them. This book is a wonderful introduction to Elizabeth the woman- well researched and detailed, it is never-the-less an enjoyable read for the non-historian. By reviewing the early incidents which shaped Elizabeth and her view of the world, Plowden lays the groundwork for explaining her actions thoughout her long reign. I haven't read the rest of the series yet, but I am looking forward to doing so in the near future.

3 comments about Big Fellow, Long Fellow: A Joint Biography of Collins and De Valera.

1. Picking this up by cahnce I was surprised by the details T. Ryle Dwyer went into. Such intimate looks into the personality's and the main hops, skips and jumps that went along with these two great men's lives. Highly enjoyable and hard to leave at home! Easy to read and sometimes fairly amusing.



2. An informative and interesting account of the lives and times of the two most famous leaders of the Irish fight for independence from Britain. While not as detailed or as exhaustively researched as other books on the two men, it is of particular interest because it presents them together and explores the contrasts between them which ultimately led to their split and the devastating civil war in Ireland, which was more tragic by far than the war against Britain. The theory of the book is that the difference in the background and upbringing of the two accounts for the eventual animosity between them--DeValera, the cold, reserved, patriotic and manipulative product of a dislocated and not very secure childhood, and Collins, the much-loved youngest child in a large, cohesive family, whose volatile, intelligent, charismatic personality created both enemies and almost fanatically loyal adherents. The contrasts are engrossing and illuminating, and the book is well worth reading to understand the dynamics behind the Irish War of Independence.



3. T. Ryle Dwyer's joint biography on Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera is a striking comparison and contrast of the two most important figures in twentieth-century Irish history. Dwyer's examination of the influence of Collins and De Valera on the events leading to the recognition of the Irish Free State, and subsequently the Irish Republic, highlights the dramatically different leadership styles, personalities, and crisis strategies of the Big Fellow and Long Fellow.
   This book is well researched, well written, and well organized. Many joint biographies fail in their efforts to flawlessly intertwine the lives of two radically different individuals. Dwyer moves back and forth from Collins to De Valera with skill and grace, and in a manner that demarcates their differences clearly to the reader. Dwyer's work also gives ample background of Irish and global events that led to the treaty with Britain, providing a context for readers unfamiliar with Irish history.
   The chapters on the early childhood of both De Valera and Collins are particularly well researched and effectively presented. Dwyer draws lines between several influential childhood events and the leadership style and personality that both leaders assumed later in life. Additionally, Dwyer's examination of Collins' role in the partitioning of Northern Ireland is exceptional. Overall, this book serves as a definitive study of the two most prominent figures in modern Irish history.

No comments about We'll Meet Again.