1 comments about The Irish Puritans: James Ussher and the Reformation of the Church.

1. Awesome book - especially if you belong to a Reformed church and are Irish! Received promptly and in great condition.

1 comments about Lenin Lives!: The Lenin Cult in Soviet Russia, Enlarged Edition.

1. This is a very good book about how Lenin was made into a god to Russia. There is a lot of detail about Lenin's life, but more about what happened to Lenin after he died. It was not to surprising his body was preserved and put on display. In this way he was treated as the Orthodox Church has always revered its saints by keeping relics and body parts. Lenin's wife was angry that Lenin was not properly buried, but Stalin's idea was to make him into a saint. For all the years following Lenin was practically worshipped. This book shows how the cult was created by the Communist Party and forced on Russian citizens. The book treats Russians and Lenin with respect, and it has very good history.

4 comments about Tuscan Countess: The Life and Extraordinary Times of Matilda of Canossa.

1. Victorious warrior, careful scholar, profound believer, linguist, devoted lover, ruthless ruler and gentle nurse of battlefield wounded, the Matilda Michele Spike presents to us is a complex person, whose internal contradictions are as it were writ large across the history of Italy. She and her man Hildebrand, the adulteress and the unchaste pope, enforced clerical celibacy. The reforms by a Jew's descendant brought about the persecution of that people. They who so ardently desired to enshrine the power and glory of Rome caused its devastation. Together Gregory VII and the Tuscan countess were a formidable team, yet undone. But in the end, one woman's love triumphed, and the world has never been the same since. No wonder that another, much later pope ordered her body stolen and enshrined in St. Peter's, Rome, in a gorgeous sarcophagus by Bernini surmounted by his vision of Matilda, Athena-like in her power and grace.
   
   The bishops of Rome certainly owe Matilda. It took her very formidable biographer to uncover just how much.



2. After reading this book, I had to ask myself, 'how is it that a woman who had such an impact on the church and western culture, has been unknown to me for all these years...and I consider myself a fairly bright and knowledgeable person. Where I've been?...Or more, WHERE HAS MATILDA BEEN???
   
   A great read... I'd recommend to anyone (who wants to be "in the know")!
   
   Jim Kauffman



3. I've just finished reading this compelling book about a woman who has shaped history. A history I had known very little about, and now understand what it means to us in today's world. I read the book as though I were reading an adventure story. Matlida's world stayed with me in my daily life as I walk and live in places she has been. I highly reccomend this book



4. Matilda of Canossa was one of medieval Europe's most iconoclastic characters. Her life and events are not widely known in America, but she was as much responsible as anyone for the political environment that engendered the Italian Renaisance. Matilda not only was involved in most of the great conflicts of her day, and was allied with or against men like Pope Gregory VII, Duke Robert of Normandy, and Henry IV of Germany; she also, by reason of these conflicts and alliances, came to influence the institutions these men represented. Certainly unusual for a woman, this was unheard of for a woman without a strong power base, a legitimate inheritance, or even significant military influence.
   
   Michele Spike's treatment of Matilda is scholarly, but not pedantic. An attorney on sabbatical, Ms. Spike brings a quite skillful sense of drama as well as verissimilitude in relating events from the various sources purporting to recount Matilda's struggles, and manages to retain the readers' interest without making amateurish attempts at historical reconstruction. Spike is especially skilled at conveying the events of Matilda's life within the larger tapestry of Northern Italian politics.

4 comments about Rasputin: A Life.

1. Furhmann's thoroughly - researched & enjoyable book debunks the legend of the sex-crazed peasant that toppled an empire. The author shows how the reaction by many to Rasputin contributed to the Empire's downfall. Rather than the sole cunning puppet-master, Rasputin was only one of several who controlled the strings that tangled & toppled the last Tsar. Although he is, at best, a secondary character throughout most of the narrative, Furhmann clearly shows how Nicholas II was simply not "born to rule.&quot



2. This book is a rather tedious narrative of a not so tedious "starets", or Russian holy man, G.E. Rasputin, who apparently was anything but holy. However,the book is useful in carefully depicting the enormous amount of influence this malevolent monk had upon the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and particularly on Alexandra, his wife. Rasputin's early life, climb to power and influence, exercise of power, and decline and assassination are covered in exquisite detail--almost too much. Not covered are details of his sexual conquests (although apparently there were many!)of Russian ladies of the nobility. The book also shows that Rasputin's celebrated "treatment" of the Tsarevich Alexis' hemophilia was most likely a combination of good timing and luck. If you like wading through a maze of Russian political and Orthodox church personalities, plots and counterplots, and some genuinely interesting tidbits about the "mad monk"--this book is for you.



3. Fuhrmann's book has given rise to many different reactions. It is true that there seems to be a lack of a central thesis. But in this excellent biography Rasputin's search for influence serves, in some ways, as a thesis. The problem is that this character was quite complex, and no one has better elucidated the problems and issues concerning Rasputin. Fuhrmann is also adept at extending these themes to this entire period of Russian history. The third section (focusing on government and religious officials) is a bit thick. But this was Rasputin's world as he lived it, and this book is a scholarly biography. If you want 400 pages that list Rasputin's debaucheries, go elsewhere. Yet the book is never dull, for nor was Rasputin. His sinful side and his holy side are both clearly and abundantly explained via fascinating examples. Fuhrmann deserves praise for making controversial judgments. For instance, he unequivocally declares that Rasputin possessed healing abilities that are unexplainable. This is an excellent book for expert or beginner. The author richly brings Rasputin and his dead world back to life. The reader will be pulled to this strange land, and thus will gain insight into the tragedy of Russia's 20th century history. Particularly compelling is the (often) sad end of the people who were important in Rasputin's life. With painful detail, Fuhrmann presents this material in the concudling section.



4. Fuhrman does an excellent job examining Rasputin's influence on Alexandra, her husband, and ultimately the decisions that lead to the fall of the dynasty. He provides many examples regarding governmental ministry appointments in which Rasputin's decision is the ultimate answer, although he includes background information about random persons which, until later, seems irrelevant--one must skim to find the actual connection with Rasputin, and even then it sometimes is tentitive. Overall, the book is a good factual recount of the influence of Rasputin,

2 comments about Beverley Nichols : A Life.

1. This was a great read, and gave true insight into one of the worlds most celebrated Garden essayists of the 20th century.

   Connors brings to life the Beverley many fans never got to see, as many of his readers only read his Gardening books. Nichols holds to his credit several autobiographies, no less than five mysteries, several political novels, and multiple weekly columns in various American and British newspapers and magazines. Beverley was also a noted composer, and even appeared in film. His good looks and charm allowed him a very versatile carreer.

   The novel unravlels fact from fiction, as many readers assumed his novels were all unadulterated fact. The truth is he mixed fiction with many of his books, lending a skewed vision of the author-and one that Connor does a brilliant job straightening out.

   Mr. Nichols worked with Connor on this book, and had help from Beverley's life long companion/friend Cyril Butcher. The book outlines his upbringing in a whirlwind society of notable people and places to his fascinating life filled with so many that sometimes the biography reads more like a "Who's Who" of the 20's through the 70's. Beverley was friends or friendly with some of the most noteworthy people of the day, including Beaton, Coward, and Maughm. It is not a scandal biography, rather a warm portrait of an amazingly entertaining man.

   The photographs in the book are wonderfully clear, and allow the reader a glimpse of his childhood, adolesence, and later years. Again, he is shown with many celebrities of his time.

   There are bits that reveal a sad, depressed Beverley who struggeled with finance-and chapters about the socialite Beverley who never gave up an opportunity to hob nob and make new social alliances. Other parts reveal the very full romantic life of Nichols. All together, a charming portrait of one of Britains most notable men. This book is a must for all Nichols fans!




2. One of the irritating things about what he is most remembered for-his gardening books-really quite distorts and sadly misrepresents the man, Beverley Nichols. This book goes some way to redressing the balance and this sharp witted, keen observer of the human condition has been fairly dealt with in this biography. The after effect, one hopes is that all three in the 'Allways/Glatton' trilogy will finally be available one day and thus the pinacle of his writing prowess will be there for all to see. Too long he was treated as a lightweight. Yes, he wrote for the lighter end of the market. But he was always coming up with surprises. 'A Village in a Valley' and 'A Thatched Roof', part of the Glatton era, are simply marvellous classics of English country life. The well perceived eccentricities, the sadness of spinsters' lonely lives and the wit of his characters are unequalled. There are times when he can really make you cry at a turn of phrase. His one-liners are smilingly memorable. This biography does go a long way to explaining this complex, talented man. We are left feeling sad that he is no longer amongst us, that no more gems of prose shall flow from him, yet happy that he lived and left behind a rich pallete of writing. My advice to anyone would be search around and get hold of these writings-many available on Amazon.com. The diversity, depth and pathos, not forgetting the humour, will impress you.

2 comments about An Only Child (Irish Studies).

1. O'Connor is rightly famous mostly for his short stories, but his criticism - both The Lonely Voice and A Mirror In the Roadway - along with this volume of his memoirs, well, they're all just really good. I found this book in a library many years ago and there are a hundred scenes that still spring instantly to life, and sentences that are always going to be part of how I look at the world. He betrays his greatest talent in the fact that the book reads like a collection of wonderful chapters rather than a coherent whole, but each is filled with the spirit of a generous, funny, humane man, one of those rare authors that you wish you could hang out with. The people that assure that books keep getting read seem to be forgetting about O'Connor a little, but the pages they keep alive rarely seem to stay in the blood and brain like his do.



2. Like Frank, I grew up Catholic, so I greatly enjoyed his account of his childhood and the deftness at which he relayed the characters and situations of his life in early 20th century Northern Ireland. The account of his father's alcoholism and mother's strength in her modesty evokes powerful sentiments that O'Connor is amazingly skilled at.
   
   He overly criticizes the adolescent ideations and development out of his youth (bildungsroman), but it gives insight to his development as a writer (kunstlerroman), of which he is a candid and lucid artist.
   
   I felt the novel creeping a bit in the middle (otherwise I would give it 4 or 5 stars), and the transition is a bit murky to his engaging recount of actions against the British occupation of Northern Ireland and surrounding religious strife. The ridiculous skirmishes and characters are painted with his masterful brush, however, and truly bring the era to life.
   
   It is a story worth the read to the end on many levels.

5 comments about Tito and the Rise and Fall of Yugoslavia.

1. Mr. West depicts the legendary marshall in a powerful and distinct manner, pointing out throughout most of his book that the unity and stability of Yugoslavia after WWII stemmed from Tito's forward-looking political philosophy, putting aside the wanton carnage of Ustasha and Cetnik militias and focusing in the rebuilding of a nation surrounded by suspicion and devastation.

   By overcoming Churchill's Machiavelian realpolitik and Stalin's carnivorous vacuum filler, Tito galvanized a Communist nation into unparalleled prosperity and experimented on a system without precedents. Truly, his death catapulted the land of Southern Slavs into the demise and bloodshed of the 1990s, Yugoslavia lacking leaders with character, vision and charisma to resume his political -if not economic - masterpiece. A book well-written and well-researched recommended for the historian and current affairs hound alike.




2. I've racked my brains and the only benevolent dictator I could come up with was Yugoslavia's Marshal Josip Broz Tito. Richard West writes a favourable, even-handed, and comprehensible account of Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1980. He even provides a background to the South Slavs before talking about Tito, because it is important to understand the dynamics going on under the Ottoman Empire and later the Balkan absorption by the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1878.

   Tito, a Croat, was indeed born during an interesting period, when tensions were growing in Europe between the two alliance blocs, the Entente and Central Powers. He had his brush with Pan-Slavism, as he went to help the Czechs and Slovaks during his military service.

   West also takes time to talk about the Independent State of Croatia, the fascist puppet state under Ante Pavelic, the mastermind of Yugoslavian King Alexander's assassination in 1934. That regime was brutal, as Serbs were butchered, bombed while in worship, and hurled off cliffs. Even the Franciscan priests participated in the killing.

   Tito's wartime exploits make interesting reading, as he was besieged from all sides, by Germans, Italians, the Ustasha (Croatian fascists), and monarchist Serbs under Draza Mihailovic. It didn't help matters that the Allies saw Mihailovic as the more viable threat against the Germans. Only when Churchill got information from the code-breaking Ultra did he realize that Tito was the greater danger against the Nazis and hence recognized that they had better give Tito higher priority.

   His own brand of Communism, Titoism, was freer than Soviet Russia, Maoist China, or Hoxha's Albania, but also tried to make the various nationalities live together in collective brotherhood. That hope would turn out to be unrealistic, but he did try to clamp down on nationalism. True, he did jail some opponents and nationalists, such as future Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, but he didn't carry out large scale massacres like Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. He was one of two "good Communists" in the eyes of the West, the other one being Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania.

   His role as one of the leaders of the non-aligned third bloc, along with India's Jawaharlal Nehru and Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser holds relevance today. 11 Sept has made non-alignment a non-option. Unfortunately I haven't seen any countries who have made a firm stance of neutrality.

   This book was written before the outbreak of the war in Bosnia despite its publication in 1994. In light of what happened in Bosnia and Kosovo, critics might tear into Tito for keeping the genie of nationalism firmly stoppered. It was a little after a decade when Yugoslavia disintegrated. Like leaders such as Charlemagne and Louis XIV, his death left a leadership vacuum that led to political fragmentation.




3. This book is very well researched and is one of the only books not to carry any ethnic bias. It is a history review rather than a documentation of Tito the man. It starts just after the Toman Empire collapsed and ends just weeks before the recent fighting of the 1990s.

   I have been living in Slovenia for the last 3 years and made some travels into Serbia and Croatia. I learned more from this book that the 3 years living here. It is long and somewhat academic but a reasonably easy recreational read.

   Do NOT get the other book about Tito (by Djlias)-- this was written for an audience who is interesting in debating Markist philosophy.




4. Richard West's book on Tito is more than anything, a study of the relationships among the inhabitants of eastern europe rather than a biography. Nevertheless, the book is well written, informative and at many times entertaining. It is crucial to understand the history of the area known to many as the powder keg of europe in order to learn about Tito. West does a good job of depicting the complicated relation between not only Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, etc. but even more importantly - the Muslims, Catholics, Christians, etc. I am glad that West was so staunch in his disapproval of the Ustasha - whose methods repulsed even the Nazis. However, he seems to be one-sided in the sense that Serb extremist atrocities are rarely mentioned and not as detailed. The struggles of Eastern Europes does not have good or bad guys. Both Serb and Croat extremists have performed horrendous acts on their own people and will have to look back on their history with deep sorrow and regret. To be fair, both sides have also had many strong character leaders attempt to end the violence. Many of which paid with their lives. Tito was the only person to unite the region. I wish West had even more access to Tito to provide a better picture but I guess there are other books that are more precise. In the end, the first 3/4 of the book are solid but the last section regarding the state of the Balkans after Tito seems rushed and is rather forgetable.



5. The reader from Zagreb already pointed out some of the many factual errors and erroneous conclusions which this book is rife with. The author seems especially error-prone when straying away from Tito himself to attempt making larger conclusions about the events in the region and their sources and consequences.

   Instead of picking on little details, I'll just make some helpful recommendations.

   If you want insight into Tito and the wartime Partisans, read Milovan Djilas's "Wartime" and Fitzroy McLean's "Eastern Approaches".

   For some further (less flattering) insight into Tito postwar, read Ion Mihai Pacepa's "Red Horizons", which is mostly about Rumania and Causescu, but mentions Tito several times, speaking in some detail about the relationship between the two dictators.

   If you want insight into the true Serbian role in WW2, read the excellent "Sebia's secret war" by Philip J. Cohen. The facts are readily available, they've just been obscured by the long-discredited postwar propaganda that the author chooses to repeat in this book, for reasons known only to him.

   If you want to know about the massive bloody payback that was extracted right after WW2 for the crimes the Ustasha commited during the war, against both them and anyone else implicated by proxy (and just for not being zealous enough politically), read "Operation Slaughterhouse" by Guldescu and Prcela. It's difficult to find, and is a large volume, but if you really want to know, try to find a copy.

   If you want to really know how the wars in the former Yugoslavia started, read Laura Silber and Allan Little's excellent "Yugoslavia: Death of a nation". And no, you won't find old-fashioned platitudes about religion and "all of them being savages, so what can we do?" in there.

   I can see from some of the other reviews here that this book has already done damage. But if you are really curious about the region and it's history, read the above volumes, and you'll certainly be far better informed than this sadly deficient volume can provide.

   Sadly, the author seems keen on repeating old and tired cliches about the region, dating from WW1 (and that weren't particularly true even then), and his thin attempts at excusing the role of the Serbs in the recent wars with moral relativism are almost upsetting (knowing less informed readers might believe such conclusions). After all, if everyone started extracting payback for historical wrongs, we'd be left with a planet of blind people. Such arguments are no excuse, even with the over-inflated claims the author makes about WW2 war crimes, while ignoring the true extent of the crimes of the Chetniks (and their habitual and consistent cooperation with Nazis and Italian Fascists).

   As for his claims about Bosnian "fundamentalism", well, he's clearly never actually met a Bosnian Muslim. Or at least, not before the wars, which understandably somewhat tipped people there in a unfortunate direction. Without a shadow of a doubt, no Bosnian would have tolerated Wahhabi vermin among their midst before the horrors of the recent war there. Trying to project minority postwar attitudes backwards is very ill-informed, and just plain wrong.

   The author also mentions postwar Ustasha terrorist acts, however, he absurdly seems to think that problem was not dealt with in-country. In fact, it's well known (among those of us with a clue, at any rate), that all Ustasha attempts at postwar infiltration were met with failure and shooting deaths of the participants. Also, agents of the infamous UDBA (Yugoslav secret police) were famous for hunting down both Ustashe and other dissidents worldwide and assasinating them. This is well known. It puzzles me how the author was unaware of the extent of such activities by Tito's secret police.

   All that said, I can agree with the conclusion that Tito was the most benevolent of the recent dictators, and he truly did make Yugoslavia a world player while he was in charge. No small achievement, there. Also, the standard of living and personal freedoms (while certainly not maching, say, those of the United States), were better than in all other communist countries. Then again, that was at the expense of massive debts, that had to be paid eventually. But, it was fun while it lasted.

   Either way, don't waste time with this volume. Read the others I mentioned if you want true insight.

5 comments about Frauen: German Women Recall the Third Reich.

1. This book is incredible, one I'll re-read several times through the years. I've been living in Germany for the past three years, and will soon return to America. The people here, while VERY friendly, are quite reserved, so it's amazing that Alison Owings was able to get so many women from that era to open up about this sensitive subject. Not only do I applaud Ms. Owings's effort, but I thank the women who shared their lives and thoughts with her. We should never be afraid to look at the past - even the horrors.



2. I agree with just about all the comments of all the other reviewers of this book, both positive and critical. The author interviewed a wide array of German women that lived through the Third Reich and were able to tell about it during the time she interviewed them (mostly the mid-to-late '80s). I am as upset about the treatment of Jews in the Holocaust as anyone, yet I agree with the reviewer who pointed out that the author focused all the passion of her interviews just about exclusively to this topic. I would have very much liked to have seen more about other aspects of lives and decisions made during the Third Reich, such as the people giving up their civil rights so quickly after the Nazis were in power and then so soon after that there was no such thing as free speech and I don't know what it was like in Germany before the Nazis, but there was definitely zero freedom of the press during the Third Reich. One thing I learned that I did not know before was that people would be arrested for even the barest comment that Germany might not win the war (not to mention any criticism of Jewish stores being boycotted). Shoot, a person could be arrested apparently just for showing any outward sign of compassion to Jews or prisoners and informers were everywhere. Anyhow, it is fascinating reading and I would recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about this era of history. I had not realized some things before I read this book, such as the role of women in Nazi Germany. Women were definitely repressed far beyond what I had realized before. The most frustrating thing for me in reading this book was the poor translations (or poor editing of translations). There were sentences that no matter how many times I read them, they simply did not make any sense to me at all. Also, often words or phrases were left untranslated, and knowing no German myself, this too was frustrating, nicht? I also would have liked to hear less of the personal slant of the author's perspective. All in all, though, I think I would have given this book 5 stars if it has been edited to reasonable readability. Yes, some of the German style of pigeon-English would have been lost, but then again, these women (or most of them) were not speaking English anyhow; they were speaking German, and what they said was translated into English. Why not translated into a more readable English? I believe a lot more people would read and benefit from reading this book had that been the case. I love the diversity of the women interviewed -- not only in social status and roles they played during the Third Reich but also their different ways of coping and different attitudes toward life. Some lived in great fear; others made little room in their hearts or minds for fear, because they were too busy doing what was clear they must do -- whether hiding a Jew or whatever. Very interesting stuff and terribly relevant even today in a world that still has not yet learned how to come to terms with its problems without war and the crimes endemic of war.



3. Frauen offers good insight into the lives of German women during the Third Reich. If some questions are left unanswered, it can be attributed to the women interviewed and not to the author, who had done her homework well and asked direct questions. Having lived in postwar Germany and received the same evasive answers, I was able to nod a hearty Ja to her frustrations. The only "fault" I found with the book, and it may not have been a grave one, was that most of the women came from eastern Germany. I longed to hear from more western Germans. All in all, however, this is an excellent book, one that should sound some warnings to present day readers.



4. This is the book I've been subconsciously looking for all these years when reading about World War II. What were the lives of German women like in Nazi Germany? There is no single answer, of course, as the answers are as varied as women themselves, despite Nazi-enforced conformity. Here are interviews with sympathizers, resisters, communists, apoliticals, rich, poor, middle class, East Germans and West. This book made it clear to me how idealistic youth could be sucked into the Nazi vortex. This is a dense book, and the interviewer does not succeed at being totally objective. However, for those interested in the topic, this is a great book.



5. This book may seem to take a similar tack to "We Survived," by Erich Boehm, in that it captures survivors' memories of life during WWII, however, it differs in a few critical ways. Where it differs is that (1) the memories were gathered four decades after the war , (2) the memories were all shared by women and from their unique perspective, and (3) The women interviewed were not all survivors. The interviewees included an interesting cross section of German society during WWII, including political resistors, Jewish survivors and a member of the Kreisau Circle, and swing to the other end of the spectrum to include politically apathetic housewives, members of the Nazi party and even a prison camp guard. My one complaint is that the author, a journalist, lost her objectivity repeatedly when presenting the interviews, but I certainly can't blame her for reacting strongly to women who still tout ingrained Nazi propaganda and are barely able to cloak their feelings of anti-Semitism. This book is a great read.

2 comments about Pierce Brosnan.

1. I've been a fan of Pierce Brosnan since I was eleven years old and watched him twice a day in Remmington Steele, on the USA network sindication. When I spotted this biography in the library, I picked it up and knew it would be interesting reading about one of my favorite actors. I was wrong. This book has got to be one of the most stone boring biographies I have ever read, about anyone. Most of the chapters are a few short pages and tend to snap off facts about Brosnan in a dossiere-type fashion. And the author tends to wander off into writing a full page or two, or three, about other people besides Brosnan (by other people, I mean just about everyone he's ever lived or worked with). These, too, are boring little summaries of fact. It seems unlikely that Brosnan cooperated with the book, as there are only a few short quotes from him, which seem to be taken from other interviews he's given. The author just fails to flesh out a person for his readers. Rather, the reader is offered a book-long resume that will tell them nothing they didn't already know if they are Brosnan fans. I suggest readers skip this book and hope for an autobiography, or at least one that the actor will be cooperating with.



2. The order was filled quickly. The book is perfect. Thank You!!!

No comments about She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of Medieval England.