5 comments about Napoleon: A Political Life.

1. Many of us in the U.S., Canada & Mexico, trace our genealogy, culture and religion to Europe. Yet, many Gen-Xers and younger cannot name more than 2 or 3 European capitols. We frustrate the Europeans as much as they frustrate us. To know European history is to understand current trans-Atlantic relations. How can we bridge this gap to our cousins across the pond? Steve Englund's "Napoleon" is a great place to start. No period has had a greater impact on European thought than the 1770's through 1815. Englund brings the reader into the eye of the hurricane.
   
   The author assumes that the reader has completed "Intro to European History 101" at the college level. Englund quickly moves the reader from the banal "Who and What" of history to the intriguing "Why?". Englund's facts and research are impeccable, yet he writes in the humanistic style of a novelist. The book portrays Napoleon not as the brooding figure on horseback, but as the driven immigrant-reformer, speaking accented French, who rises to become Emperor. Napoleon is seen as a tyrannical son of Mars, yet also enlightened governmental innovator. Start your own enlightment with Englund's book.



2. The key to understanding this book is its subtitle: A Political Life. Don't make this your first book on Napoleon. The author is standing on the shoulders of giants, and using the volumes of information that came before him as a starting point in the conversation. He doesn't attempt to provide details on Napoleon's military career, his personal life, The French Revolution, or the state of Europe before or after Napoleon. This is a decent book, as long as you understand it is not intended to be "Napoleon: The Compete Story".



3. I came to this book thinking that it would focus entirely on the political dimension of Napoleon's life. This is not the case. Napoleon: A Political Life might exclude the word 'political' from its title and be just as fitting, for Englund spends a great deal of time on Napoleon's relations with Josephine, his brothers, the exiles, etc.. In fact, in the introduction (at the end of the book), Englund states that he almost subtitled the book "Empire of Circumstance."
   
   The great strength of the book is its writing style. Englund really captures the drama of the Little Corsican's life, and he sweeps the reader up in it. All of the politics of Napoleon's life is, as you would expect, well covered, but so is his personal and military life. Never did I feel overburdened with detail, and never was the text wanting for humour.
   
   There is, however, some merit in the argument posted by some of the other reviewers that the book assumes too much in the way of background knowledge. This is not an introduction to Napoleon for the novice. While I would not go so far as to say that you need have already read another book on Napoleon to enjoy Englund's work, you should certainly have a reasonable idea of the political zeitgeist he worked in, particularly the French revolution and the foreign (especially British) reaction to it. Ideally, you should also have taken a course in French at some point in your life (and not completely forgotten it). Englund has a somewhat irritating habit of dropping les mots francais at random, and often without translation (although most of the more important French phrases are translated, most of the minor ones are not). C'est la vie.
   
   One of my favourite parts of the book was the analysis of Napoleon's legacy: his admirers and detractors, whence he is glorified, and whence he is ignored. Englund is the most balanced Napoleonic author I have yet encountered, seeming to genuinely sympathize with (and synthesize from) those who love and those who hate the l'Empereur.
   
   Perhaps the highest compliment for a book, I plan to reread this one.



4. Simply put, an excellent read in content, wisdom and prose.



5. Steven Englund's Napoleon: A Political Life (available in paperback from Harvard) is a book that should satisfy both the interested lay reader and the professional historian.
   
   It will satisfy the lay person because it tells a fascinating story about one of history's most interesting and influential human beings, and it tells it exceptionally well. In the process, the reader will gain insights into how a topflight scholar advances his or her field of knowledge.
   
   It will please academics because Englund presents a nuanced revision of the current myths about Napoleon, who, after two hundred years, still stirs passions among his admirers and detractors as though he were living today. The author focuses on Napoleon's evolving political thought and strategy and how his contemporaries actually responded to him, not how we wished they had responded to him. A virtue is that Englund avoids smoothing out Napoleon's past choices and actions through hindsight: Englund emphasizes that actual history is messy; it doesn't come in tidy packages.
   
   The greatest of men, the very few like Napoleon, leave behind an altered world. Englund draws on Christian Meier's masterful biography of Caesar. He frequently compares Napoleon to Caesar, but Napoleon left behind many more permanent structures in France and across Europe thna Caesar did Rome: law code, a system to govern the localities from the center, the Legion of Honor, and in Paris, monuments and buildings and sewer system and roads.
   
   People who won't like the book will most likely object to two things.
   
   (1) It's not a history primer. Englund assumes the reader is conversant with eighteenth-century history history though not at the level of the professional historian.
   
   (2) Englund devotes almost as much time to wars and battles as he does to other issues, both domestic and international. But, especially when discussing Napoleon and his times, Clausewitz was right: war is an extension ofpolitics.
   
   Another objection may be that Englund doesn't condemn Napoleon roundly enough. He admires him but sees what disaster his overweening ambition led him to in the
   end.
   
   Highly recommended.

3 comments about The President's House: A History.

1. William Seale has put together an excellent historical perspective of the history of the White House, including it's construction, reconstruction, and many renovations. The book also recounts the evolution of Washington, D.C. relative to it's relationship with the White House and it's occupants.

   Along with describing the physical structure and it's many evolutions, Seale has managed to include a significant amount of history relative to the occupants of the White House, including their personal and political lives. This provides the reader with a good feel for life in the White House. Additionally, most will learn a significant amount about presidents who we simply know by name but not much else.

   Overall, I would highly recommend this book to those most interested in american history. Although it includes two volumes, the book is such an interesting read that it is hard to put it down.




2. Often, history is written in broad sweep narratives that can be static and boring to the reader. Although William Seale wrote more than 1,000 pages on the history of the White House, you can be assured that there is nothing static or boring about these volumes. He displays an understanding of the fact that history is about the human drama of real people facing real predicaments, and it's poignance is found in how they react to those predicaments.

   Whereas a history book will tell you that the British burned the White House in 1814, Seale tells us what was happening on the DAY the British marched into town. The hundred sentry guards who were supposed to defend the White House were gone, and they could easily have taken on the battalion of 150 British soldiers who marched in the mud down Pennsylvania Avenue, walked around the White House like tourists, ate Dolley Madison's dinner, and then torched the White House with precision. Then there is the even more dramatic moment when Lincoln looked out across the Potomac into Virginia to see the flags of the Confederacy flying, knowing that soon the capital would be surrounded if Maryland seceded from the Union.

   The book is a perfect match of comedy and drama with stories ranging from the infestation of rats in the basement to a presidential love story that rivals "The American President," and in places describes a house that you would never imagine to be destined as the symbol of the most powerful nation on earth.




3. It has been a while since I read it, so this will be short, but I can tell you that I loved this work. In fact, I read it twice.
   
   Seale takes you through the origins and changes in the house and the property, which is interesting enough to me. But he also takes you, with great detail, through the families and events that occupied and occurred in the President's House. You get a real sense of what life was like there, and how history was made. It is a very interesting story both from a historical house perspective, and a human perspective. I only wish I had bought the leather bound edition.

1 comments about Kevin Rudd: An Unauthorised Political Biography.

1. How much is there to say about Kevin Rudd? Stuart does a decent job, and seems to have comprehensively recapped Rudd's career. Describing Rudd's involvement in various controversies, both with Labor and vis-a-vis the Coalition. Rudd comes off as a very centrist person, not unlike Tony Blair. No doubt Rudd hopes this comparison continues to hold true till and past this month's election.
   
   Like Latham, Rudd has tried to move Labor towards the centre, in economic policies. Likewise for international relations. Rudd seems instinctively pro-American. But with some scepticism towards the current US administration's forays into the Middle East. Rudd also is well aware that China's growth has been one of the major reasons for Australia's record expansion.
   
   Stuart's book is worth reading for uncommitted voters.

4 comments about The Making of a Radical: A Political Autobiography (Good Life Series).

1. Many people try to live keeping their conviction. However it is difficult to keep it and it is even not easy to have a right conviction. Scott Nearing was the sociologist who practiced the right things that he believed and lived all his life as a naturalist. He lived for true convictions. After reading this book, I reflected my past. At least I think, it could be fortunate to have a opportunity to think of our spiritual slackening in the midst of material prosperity. I recommend this autobiography.



2. Each human being's life is itself of great value and meaning.
   And so, life should be lived just as life itself, not as a means for other doctrines or propaganda. No one is expendable.
   The author also gives a sharp insight into monetary economy in which we live in. Day after day we are getting subject to the Lord of Money, and money becomes our Lord.
   So parodoxically, the more money one make, the more subject to money we get.That's absurd.
   This book shares much in common with 'To have or To Be' by Erich Fromm.
   The author is a real humanist, who wanted every living being live the life as it deserves. Not being deceived by the illusions that we meet in our daily lives.
   I really want to recommend this book to all those who looks upon all living beings as a united One, each not a separate pieces of life against life.



3. This book gives a person an idea about how the controlling forces in America will supress someone that tries to help the lower classes.
   
   In Nearing's early career he spoke out about child labor, and was hated on by the controlling forces at that time. Only time would tell how right he was. Yet he spent his entire career being shunned away from the universities which he wished to teach at, just because he would not shut up when he cared about something.
   
   The greatest part of this book, to me, was that Nearing talks about "avoiding wealth" and "narrowly avoiding getting rich"... as if it is a disease or something. He never aspired to become rich, in fact he purposely stopped anything of the sort from happening.
   
   Nearing sets an excellent example of someone that tries to help out, never gives up, and cannot be silenced. When he turned 100 he stopped eating and CHOSE to die, believing that he had lived a full life and did not deserve any more of the earth's resources.
   
   Now, if that doesn't make you think, what does.



4. Scott and Helen Nearing are familiar to many of my post-WWII peers because of their figurehead status in the back-to-the-land movement in the 60s. Their homestead experience as reported in LIVING THE GOOD LIFE provided a blueprint for many city folk who wanted to follow Joni Mitchell's Woodstock admonition to "get back to the land and set my soul free." Scott Nearing's earlier life was far from invisible, however, and in this work he explains his journey from a childhood of conservative privilege to the forefront of pacifist, socialist economic theorizing and activism. Along the way you will relive his public and popular debates with the likes of William Jennings Bryan and H.L. Mencken, his expulsion from teaching at the prestigious Wharton School of Business. (which became and remains a landmark in the struggle for academic freedom), and his federal trial for publication of anti-American opinion (not-guilty). Though Nearing is sometimes disappointingly uncritical of the Soviet and Chinese experiments with socialism, that does not diminish his clear-eyed critique of our own system. In his view, capitalism replaced feudalism over a period of three hundred years, and the system which replaces our current one of "monopoly-capitalism" will be a similarly gradual process. Communism's failures are to be expected, he believes, because they are an early attempt at a reorganization of human endeavor -- and he reminds us of the horrors of early capitalism (slavery, child labor, sweatshops, violent suppression of unions, etc.), as well as the wars fought to make the world safe for capitalism. This is the story of an intentional life, lived by a profound thinker. You will bid goodbye to Nearing either furious, or inspired, but definitely not unmoved. Whither humanity?

5 comments about The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln.

1. ...because that's all this erroneous piece of trash is. I'm not homophobic. I am against people trying to cash in on the name of a legendary historic figure simply to cause controversy, and thereby gain some extra dollars.
   
   Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston, Tom Cruise and others can sue the tabloids when they twist stories. Lincoln's dead. He can't.
   
   Just remember that.



2. What is it that propels peopel to reinterpret history? This book is so chock full of speculative flim flam. It is written by a person who is applying 21st century culture to 19th century culture. It was not uncommon for men to share quarters 200 years ago and ...GUESS WHAT? Not be gay.
   
   The irrational claim this author makes is based on this one single premise:
   
   "OOOH two men shared a room...they MUST have had gay sex!"
   In the military I slept in very close quarters to other men, and NOT ONCE did I have any inclination of homosexual conduct. What is wrong with leftists? Why must everything be centered around sex? Is there anything else to life for them, than fleshly gratification? Good grief.
   Lincoln had a close friend and shared a bedroom with him. AND? Does that AUTOMATICALLY mean he was gay? Cmon people!
   Can you not see the obvious fallacy? It is a false conclusion. It is a desperate attempt by the left to twist history into something that suits them. Its taking a *REPUBLICAN* president and trying to make him into a liberal!
   
   Hows this for the left? Lincoln advocated PRAYER in school. Next thing you know, the left will be trying to twist that around.



3. Most art, literature and history is studied from the straight, white, male perspective. If a famous man professed his undying devotion to a woman and slept with her for years, SWM academic theory would presume the couple was sexually involved and use that as proof of heterosexuality. C.A. Tripp simply looks at the facts of Lincoln's intimate life from the position of a queer theory scholar. Interpreting findings from a queer point of view takes this book beyond the genre of biography and helps us understand how all historical theory about any minority has been skewed to fit a mainstream mold, disregarding history as it most probably was.



4. The world of Lincoln scholarship can be highly contentious, but controversy about this book relates to Tripp's use of evidence, not the topic he examines. My own specialty is Lincoln's pre-presidential life. Determining what happened in those years can involve surmise and supposition. I don't fault Tripp for lacking unobtainable proof. Even outright speculation can freshen thought.
   
   I am concerned, however, by Tripp seizing a kernel of evidence, extrapolating from it, and pronouncing the resultant structure to be proof of his contention. For example, he finds a unique statement from Bill Greene noting that Lincoln had well-developed thighs. Tripp then turns to the Duncan and Nichols biography of Mentor Graham, a source I consider so unreliable that I have never dared cite it as authority for anything. Relying on an undependable source and a single comment from Greene, Tripp claims to prove a homosexual relationship between Greene and Lincoln.
   
   Tripp extrapolates further and argues that because Greene became embarrassed when Lincoln introduced him to Secretary of State Seward as Lincoln's grammar teacher, that meant Greene was uneasy about his old homosexual relationship with Lincoln. Tripp considers and rejects the possibility that Greene said little during the meeting because he didn't want to reveal his poor grasp of grammar to Seward, thereby belying Lincoln's praise and humiliating himself. I find the possibility that Tripp rejects to be more plausible than the one he embraces.
   
   Another type of reasoning is illustrated by Tripp arguing for a homosexual relationship between Lincoln and Joshua Speed because (in part) when Lincoln moved into their sleeping quarters, Speed failed to say anything about his admiration of a Lincoln speech. Tripp here assumes that because Speed failed to mention this in his account of his conversation with Lincoln, that absence means no conversation about the speech occurred. Lincoln and Speed may have talked about many things that Speed didn't mention (weather, crops, politics). Tripp seems to think that if an account doesn't say something happened, then it didn't happen. That's invalid reasoning.
   
   Regarding Lincoln and Speed being bed mates, neither man was secretive about the arrangement, and some men Lincoln slept with had definite heterosexual orientation. Public comment about a politician's sex life was rare in that era, but I have seen examples in Illinois newspapers. If anyone had thought the Lincoln-Speed sleeping arrangement could be portrayed as homosexual, I think political opponents would have raised the issue regardless of whether they believed it.
   
   We can speculate all day about Lincoln's place on the sexual continuum between heterosexual and homosexual, and speculate reasonably, but speculation isn't proof. Still, the topic is worthy. For me, the big disappointment in Tripp's book was in finding him wrong again and again about things I know about. If it had been the other way around I would probably have found the book exciting rather than frustrating.



5. Let me state the obvious. Each of us is a product of our time - of all the people and events we encounter, and the values of the societies we live in. So was Lincoln. So was Tripp. Current Gay and Queer identities are 20th cent constructs and could not have been embraced by Lincoln, nor does Tripp claim this to have been the case. Nor does Tripp present a view that all Gay people will see as politically acceptable - his work helped build the current identity but he was, himself, a product of another era. However, as Robert Aldrich and others have demonstrated, homosexuality is as ancient as humanity and exists in many forms across societies. Tripp gives a good portrait of a remarkable man coping with homosexual urges in an emerging nation. Tenuous though some of his arguments may be, his critics are, in many cases subject to the academic biases of reliance on surviving documentation (often ignoring context and the nature of covert behaviour), lack understanding of the experience of being in a hidden minority and even, in a few cases, rely on arguments that make Tripp's weakest sound strong. The truth is that here is meticulously well researched book that presents a convincing arguement but shows evidence of the author not having survived to do the last few re-writes that would have bought it up to his usual high standard.

4 comments about No Case to Answer.

1. Ian Griggs brings a bit of the detective's perspective to this topic. Like a police procedural, former Inspector Griggs adds to the "file" with short papers on aspects of the case are decidely unsensational, but quite useful to serious armchair detectives who enjoy immersing themselves in the puzzles, contradictions, and red herrings of the assassination. For years, I have wondered why no one had explored and documented for the record the operational structure of the Dallas Police Department in 1963. It seems a simple enough subject, and without this background information, it is impossible to begin to ask questions about the DPD's efforts to track and combat leftist radicals in Dallas; a topic that obviously relates to Oswald and his highly public activities. Griggs does this with a policemen's attention to roles played by various police officials and contrasts this with the standard procedures of the department. Not a thriilling read for those looking for sensational disclosures, but an interesting compilation of short chapters on very specific topics that clarify some of the murky questions for those already familiar with the big picture and interested in some fascinating questions about those pesky details. Reccomended for those who know the story, and enjoy some brief forays into the case that can be read in a half hour or so. Also interesting to crime buffs who enjoy police procedurals withoiut any knowledge of the case. I love being able to pick up a book and open to any chapter and enjoy a bit of a read without commiting myself to 500 pages.



2. Ian Griggs does a nice job here on this compendium of JFK facts and tales. The book is a good read and is put together nicely. I thank Ian for including me on one page.



3. Perhaps the most entertaining book in the entire cannon, Ian Griggs goes where few Dallas writers have gone before, and he does so in a very charming and honest way. In addition to exposing the Posner Punks, he also takes down some of the myths on the "other side". Griggs covers areas not often dealt with, so I found myself going "Hmmm, I didn't know that" all throughout. (And I've read more JFK assassination books than George W. Bush has brain cells.) Griggs is particularly wonderful in the areas of Jack Ruby, the Carousel Club, Ruby's girls, the world press coverage of Jack Kennedy's execution, the rifle, and the infamous paper bag. Part of this book also contains some marvelous JFK arcana: the history of the memorial stamp from 1964, rare witnesses, the Brit connection to the murder, the Oswald line-ups, the 1959 Oswald trip to Finland. Highly recommended.



4. The Author of this book probes the kennedy assassination like a detective.he delves in important issues like The Manlicher carcano the Alleged"murder weapon".the whole episode in how Oswald was treated by the police during his arrest and interrogations!!I Have always beleive in Oswald's innocence but after reading this book I am 100% beyond a shadow of a doubt he had nothing to do with the Assassination!!!

5 comments about Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her.

1. This is a great portrait of an inspiring woman, Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker movement. Riegle interviewed dozens of people and paints a very human picture with their short stories. The book can be read in long sittings or in short snippets. Our world needs more people like Dorothy Day and Riegle shows us why.



2. Dorothy Day, saint of the unwashed and unwanted, pacifist/anarchist,who actually lived the verses in MATTHEW 25 about the least among us,was an astonishing gift to Catholicism of the 20th century. Her influence is as great as any prelate[read any bishops letter on poverty,nuclear war,justice and you can see her gentle,firm hand there],yet it is/was as the co -founder of the Catholic Worker movement that she is best known for. these essays highlight Dorthy Day in her graciousness and deep prayer,her temper and moemnts of depression,her undying faith in the church,and unfailing criticism of the state. Dorothy day is not for the faint of heart or spirit.She disturbs,by her constancy and beauty. I am in constant awe...Hugely Recommended



3. Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker, radical pacifist, friend of the poor, has been called the conscience of the American Catholic Church. Lately she has also been called a saint. But who was she, really? In this moving and entertaining portrait, drawn from the memories of those who knew her best, Dorothy Day emerges as a woman of courage, humor, and love, who left an unforgettable mark on the lives of all she touched. Included are 134 voices of those who knew Day as a friend, a writer, a mother, a champion of the oppressed, and a spiritual guide. They tell what it was like to march with her on picket lines, to go to jail, to pray the rosary, and to discuss her favorites novels or the news of the day. This collective portrait best captures her many sides as a woman who was both ordinary and unique and includes an insert of rarely seen photos.



4. As I was thinking about writing this review of Rosalie Riegle's book Dorothy Day: Portraits by Those Who Knew Her, I started reading Mary Pipher's newest book, Writing to Change the World. She quotes James Baldwin:
   
   "You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't....The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way...people look at reality, then you can change it."
   
   Pipher says, "Good writing enlarges readers' knowledge of the world, or empowers readers to act for the common good, or even inspires other good writing." Just as Dorothy Day wrote her newspaper for these reasons, Rosalie Riegle writes about Day to remember her and her work for the common good, as well as to empower and inspire her readers in the same direction. This is a book of interviews going back to 1988 and Riegle's second book on Day's work, following Voices from the Catholic Worker.
   
   Dorothy Day was the co-founder, with Peter Maurin, of the Catholic Worker in 1933. It is both a newspaper and a community movement. The ideology inspiring it has been described as "Christian Anarchist."
   
   Although I am neither a Christian nor an anarchist, through the years my life has crossed paths with those involved in the Catholic Worker movement. The first one I remember was Michael Harrington, who spent time at the Catholic Worker House in New York in the fifties. He was one of the many people interviewed by Riegle for her book. In the early sixties, he stayed with my husband and me when he came to Bloomington, Indiana to speak for the Young Peoples Socialist League at a public meeting at Indiana University. We stayed up into the night talking about the problems of the world and their possible solutions, and we were fascinated by his stories of his time there. In the sixties, he was a leading socialist and gained national fame with his book The Other America, which is credited with inspiring Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.
   
   Another interview was with Karl Meyer, who was householder of a Catholic Worker House in Chicago during the time I was there, and known as a peace activist. While they lived in Chicago, Glenn and Anne, a couple who were among my best friends, visited the Catholic Worker house often. After I moved to New Mexico, I met an artist who had spent time living in a rural Catholic Worker community in New York state when she was a single mother with a young child. Then, in 1996, I met and became friends with Rosalie Riegle at the International Interdisciplinary Congress on Women in Adelaide, Australia. At that time she was already working on this book. Her book has makes me understand her better as well as being inspired by Day and her followers.
   



5. The life of Dorothy Day has captivated people both during her lifetime and after her death. We have many of her own writings as well as a number of biographies, so her story still speaks to people and inspires many. Of the many biographies available, few are repetitive. Biographers seem to gain new insights into her life, work and spirituality and it's my guess that this will continue in the upcoming years since her life touches so many people in different ways. This work contains familiar information but it also has a new and fresh approach.
   
   Rosalie Riegle is familiar with Dorothy Day's life from her research for her work VIOCES FROM THE CATHOLIC WORKER. In this work she gives us a biography that contains the story of Dorothy Day but isn't just the standard story. Riegle has collected stories, vignettes, and remembrances from the people who knew and worked with Day. Readers familiar with Dorothy Day's life and her work with the Catholic Worker will recognize many writers of many of the remembrances included: Jim Forrest, Robert Coles, Tom and Monica Cornell, Eileen Egan, Robert Ellsberg, and Fr. Richard McSorely. Some of the writings included are published for the first time in this work. She also includes remembrances from people who died before the book's publication but are an indispensable part of any Dorothy day biography: Peter Maurin, Thomas Merton, Sr. Peter Claver. While the stories associated with the familiar people associated with day are wonderful, there are many stories and vignettes from people not so well known but help compose the intriguing portrait found in this book.
   
   Readers who are familiar with Dorothy Day's life will enjoy this book not because of the new light it sheds on Day's work and accomplishments but on the many stories and anecdotes that have been included that cannot be found elsewhere. We see day with all her gifts and all her quirks told by people who loved her because of who she was, and perhaps at times in spite of who she was. The Dorothy day we meet in this book may be a saint, though she was not always saintly. We see a woman of conviction, a woman of talent, and a woman open to God's direction in her life. While this is an excellent stand alone biography, it is an even better as a companion for the classic biographies of William Miller's DOROTHY DAY: A BIOGRAPHY (now out of print) and Jim Forrest's LOVE IS THE MEASURE.

No comments about The Cecils: Privilege and Power Behind the Throne.

No comments about Kennedy in Berlin (Publications of the German Historical Institute).

2 comments about Fadlallah: The Making of a Radical Shi'ite Leader.

1. This biography is very informative. The tone is calm and scholarly, the author does not get into any of the extremist debates about Islam.
   
   As a whole, the biography is sympathetic to Fadlallah, and reading it gives a good picture of his view of the world. This book will be appreciated by those who want to know more about the politics of the Middle East in the era leading up to the current war. But it is very much a work of political history - there is little information on private life and culture - I did think that the author could have written more about that.



2. Very well written! This book is highly recommended for those who are interested in Lebanese politics and indeed Islamic politics.