5 comments about Hazel Wolf: Fighting the Establishment.

1. I have just completed reading Hazel Wolf's biography by Susan Starbuck, which was published by the University of Washington Press. Ms. Starbuck has skillfully knit together the words of Ms. Wolf, based on years of interviews with her, with her own author's narrative. Because Ms. Wolf's life was so dramatic and has been so vividly presented by the author, the book is interesting and preserves an important part of Northwest political history.



2. Hazel Wolf could have been your grandmother. A real tomboy, she grew up with her toes in the sand of Pacific Northwest beaches and her fingers around a basketball. The working class kids of Victoria B.C. were her "gang," and the comradeship and fun they cooked up animated her whole life.

   Later, working as a secretary in Depression-era Seattle, Wolf organized fledgling unions wherever the bosses assigned her. They'd fire her for organizing, re-assign her to a new job, and she would begin organizing again. Like she always did, Hazel was just making friends and having fun.

   In one of the "Hazel Stories" that fill the book, sheriff's deputies tried to evict a down-and-out family from their home by carrying the furniture out onto the sidewalk. Hazel and her friends, who sometimes cared to call themselves socialists or communists, simply carried the chairs and tables back into the house through the back door. The sheriff eventually gave up.

   The U.S. government tried to deport Hazel Wolf during the McCarthy period because she was a) a communist, and b)Canadian. Just like the sheriff, the feds failed, too. Hazel had thousands of friends, and she wasn't afraid of political pressure. As she said, "I was just there, powerless and strong, someone who wouldn't chicken out. Somebody always stops the nonsense all through history."

   Author Susan Starbuck says Hazel Wolf knew her life would make an important story; that it might evoke the next generation of social and environmental activists. At bookstore readings, Starbuck tells prospective readers, "Hey folks, here's an owner's manual about what to do when your government runs amok." The message of "Hazel Wolf: Fighting the Establishment" is theat we, too could have fun being activists...and also change the world.




3. A powerful woman! If you think you have energy, read what this woman did right up to the end of her 101 years.



4. Hazel Wolf was a friend of mine and fellow board member on the Seattle Audubon Society for nearly 25 years. Susan Starbuck's book about Hazel is both highly entertaining and a very personal view of this unique woman. Susan has done a masterful job of weaving together a myriad of stories from and about Hazel into a coherent guide to Hazel's life as a dedicated organizer of social movements from her early life through her death at 101. Hazel never saw a wrong that she felt could not be righted. She dedicated her life to achieving justice, whether it was for working men and women, for jail inmates, for racial justice, for the environment or against war, often at the expense of her own personal and family life. Hazel led the way for women's independence and liberation through hard work and example without ever thinking about the meaning of those terms. At a recent celebration of Hazel's 105th birthday, Congressman Jim McDermitt and Governor Mike Lowry both said that in these times of Bush's war, we need Hazel's example of leadership more than ever.



5. Hazel Wolf really understood how to organize and shares her knowledge with the reader. But don't be fooled by the practical nature of that remark: Hazel Wolf was also a great character and funny. This is a thoroughly enjoyable read about a woman with an amazing (and very long)life who knew how to get things done, how to grow and move with the times, and never lacked the self confidence to go for what she wanted.

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.

2 comments about John Charles Fremont: Character As Destiny.

1. There were few Americans of the nineteenth century with greater name recognition than John C. Fremont. His five controversial treks across the uncharted Rockies aroused interest and controversy. His military exploits in Mexican California brought him a court-martial. He struck gold in California, became an outspoken abolitionist, and ran as the first Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States. Married into one of America's most powerful political families, he won and then lost a major command in the Union Army. He habitually cheated investors on several continents out of millions of dollars, only to be bankrupted himself by bigger sharks. There is a great story here.

   Unfortunately, Andrew Rolle's biography of Fremont is a bit flat, perhaps because of the author's announced intention of probing the psychological motivations behind this life of stupefying behaviors. Rolle states in his preface that he studied psychiatry and psychoanalysis to prepare himself for this work. Most readers will find themselves wishing he had spent more time with cartographers. In a work whose hero is called "The Pathfinder," there is not a single map! It is no exaggeration to say that for literally half the book the reader is never certain exactly where the Pathfinder is.

   It is equally fair to say that despite the author's best efforts, we don't get an unprecedented roadmap of Fremont's inner psychological journeys, either. It is clear from the simple factual narrative that Fremont, like Hamilton, was ashamed of his humble origins, that he was blessed or plagued with wanderlust, that he instinctively rebelled against authority figures, that he was addicted to risk taking and suffered significant deficiencies of empathy and moral character. This personality profile would have emerged easily enough from a straightforward telling of the tale, without the baggage of psychoanalytic spin. Curiously, the psychodynamics of Fremont's marriage to his lover/promoter Jessie Benton, are not addressed. The story of the remarkable Jessie, however, is one of the redeeming features of this work.

   Since very few readers are likely to be millionaires, there are probably many like me who would like to know how one loses a million dollars. Fremont accomplished this several times, with different commodities, different economies, different schemes, and even different countries. He was a master of losing money imaginatively. Rolle is spotty in his accounts of Fremont's financial empire. The reader is left to surmise that investors were attracted to The Pathfinder's name recognition and that the Fremonts lived beyond their means, but obviously there is much more to this ongoing financial soap opera that can only be guessed at.

   The good news for the reader is that warts and all, this is still a reasonably captivating biography. Rolle's style is professional and his character compelling. If at times the reader feels as lost as the disastrous Fourth Expedition, the views from the top and the bottom of Fremont's career are still quite spectacular.




2. John Charles Frémont is history's version of an unscrupulous, morally inverted Forrest Gump. In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, Forrest was the affable idiot-savant who constantly became intermingled and unwittingly influential in larger than life world events. John Charles Frémont's life runs a somewhat darker parallel. Highly intelligent and ambitious, Frémont crashed head long into the historical events of his day but was consistently overwhelmed by them precisely because of his own self-serving inscrutable morality. Andrew Rolle's choice of Frémont as a subject for psychobiography is akin to taking pot-shots at the broad side of a barn. However, it is the subject's vulnerability in this vein that makes Rolle's work a tremendously interesting, dishy read.
   Actually, Rolle's psychological observations are more muted than one might expect. He saves most of his thoughts in this regard for the final chapter, which psychologically deconstructs the subject using the case heretofore constructed. Rolle's two primary psychological analyses of Frémont reside in the loss of his father. As a result of this loss, Rolle examines his ongoing hostility in his relationships with older male authority figures and his narcissistic streak. The older male hostility thesis, while well argued, doesn't quite hit the mark. It seems more likely, through Rolle's own presentation of the facts, that Frémont's precocious early successes meant that those he would inevitably clash with were naturally older in age. Therefore, it is merely circumstantial that those who held sway over Frémont's life happened to be older. On the other hand, Rolle provides a highly compelling case for Frémont-as-narcissist by delving into Frémont's mounting odd behavior during the Civil War.
   Frémont's narcissistically driven ambition led him to make rash and often self-destructive decisions, according to Rolle. Frémont's third and fourth expeditions are damning evidence of this aspect of his character. Try as he might, even Rolle is unable to penetrate Frémont's thinking deeply enough to untangle some of the unconscionable decisions made by Frémont regarding these expeditions. Rolle again and again uses the lack of male authority figure as a bromide for Frémont's actions. Although compelling to a certain extent, it simply cannot explain the entire mountain of poor decisions made by the man. Frémont simply placed himself in situations in which he was out of his element and insolated himself so successfully from potentially helpful guidance that he was doomed to remain out of his element while in the eye of many storms. Lack of a male authority figure cannot wholly account for this inability to perceive the difference between right and wrong. In addition, having allowed so many others to defend him in the court of popular opinion, Frémont only singled himself out as a man who, in reality, required much defending. Rolle notes a conversation between Abraham Lincoln's secretary John Hay and Lincoln:
   "Frémont would be dangerous if he had more ability and energy," grimaced Hay.
   Abraham Lincoln responded with one of his typical anecdotes, "Yes. He is like Jim Jett's brother. Jim used to say that his brother was the d---dest scoundrel that ever lived, but in the infinite mercy of Providence he was also the d---dest fool."
   As Virginia J. Lass notes in her review of Character as Destiny in The Journal of Southern History, Rolle posits, perhaps, a more illuminating aspect of Frémont's character and personality. Lass gleans from Rolle that "Frémont suffered from arrested emotional development that influenced his actions and decisions as an adult." In other words, Frémont was born on third base and went through his life honestly believing he had hit a triple. Well, to be fair, allotting due for overcoming the financial and societal obstacles of his early years, perhaps he hit a bloop single to center field.
   To his credit, Rolle makes every attempt to outline Frémont's contributions to the exploration of the American West. He attempts, to a certain extent, to justify the American public's adoration for Frémont, much of which seems to originate in the propaganda from Jessie's pen. Despite this noble attempt, Frémont remains a lemon and not lemonade.
   How does Rolle's psychological analytic approach differ from other contemporary biographies of similar historical figures? Not much. It seems as if Rolle is aware of the desire of his reading audience not to get lost in psychobabble. He treads carefully in this area and, as mentioned before, reserves most of his psychological analysis for closing. However, it is clear that Rolle is necessarily far more interested in Frémont's decision-making process in relationship to the events that formed his life than the events themselves, as previous Frémont historians have done. And, while not especially groundbreaking, it appears to be the most appropriate approach to take with a subject such as Frémont, as opposed to John Wesley Powell, for instance, whose actual achievements in geology and exploration of the America West far outweigh any overriding aspects of personality.
   Character as Destiny is a very well written and a highly enjoyable read despite its rather despicable subject. Rolle says of Frémont halfway through the book "Once more nothing had gone his way." On the contrary, everything came easily to this unsavory character, John Charles Frémont, on a silver platter. He simply had a grand knack for consistently knocking the darned thing over.

No comments about Jackson Vs Biddle's Bank: The Struggle over the Second Bank of the United States (The Problems in American Civilization).

5 comments about Simone Weil (Penguin Lives).

1. I had read a few of Simone Weil's essays and admired them greatly, but didn't know much about the woman herself. This book is a good source of basic biographical facts, but the author leaves a lot to be desired in discussing Weil's philosophy. Yes, this is a biography, not a philosophy text. This being a biography of a philosopher, however, one might expect *some* sort of argument to be presented when the subject's philosophy is being dismissed.
   The anti-semitic opinions Weil held are obviously distasteful to most intelligent people and no explanations are needed as to why these views of hers were wrongheaded. But when the author is dealing with Weil's specific criticisms of the Old Testament, she calls her readings of it "skewed" and "distorted by the bizarre conception of God" she had developed through studying various world religions, yet she gives no reasons why Weil's readings were skewed or why her conception of God is so bizarre. From what I've gathered in this book, Weil's conceptions of God were quite reasonable.
   I'm glad this book presents the faults along with the virtues of this great thinker, but such swift and unreasoned dismissals of certain parts of her philosophies are off-putting, and this book is rife with them.
   A little nit-picking: the author goes back and forth between calling her "Weil" and "Simone" with no ostensible rationale for doing so. Also, at one point in the book, for no apparent reason, she describes events in Weil's life in the present tense for a few pages.
   All that being said, the book has mostly satisfied my curiosity about Weil's life. I wouldn't say it's not worth reading.



2. It is hard for me to understand why someone would choose to write a book about a person they obviously dislike and then do a bad job of researching their lives. There are some wonderful biographies of Simone Weil out there, including one by her friend Simone Petrement. This books has gotten most of the facts wrong and turned a young woman searching in her own way for truth into a weird, comical figure which she certainly wasn't. Most of the stories quoted by the author are anecdotal at best. Reading this book is a waste of time. If you want to know Simone Weil, read her books.



3. Francine Du Plessix Gray has done a phenomenal job in distilling the life and and thoughts of Simone Weil. Most importantly, while illuminating the experiences, insights, and influences of the noted French philosopher, Du Plessix Gray has not shied away from Weil's darker sides, including her virulent Jewish self-hatred. It is sad that such a deep thinker could be so blind to the suffering of her fellow Jews when they faced the greatest catastrophe in their history. This is a book to be read not only for those who wish to understand modern French thought, but also for those who need to understand the limits of the intellect as well.



4. The most memorable and the most compelling thread in Gray's narrative for me is the new focus on Weil's relationship with her parents: they made great sacrifices to ensure that Simone was safe, living well, or at living decently, throughout her many willfull and ruinous physcial and spiritual experiences. Weil's mother followed her from town to town as she took on different teaching posts or factory jobs, making sure her living quarters were at least semi-satisfactory and slipping money to local food merchants so they would give her more than she would normally buy for herself. These accounts are gut wrenching in their way. Gray suggests the intensity of the relationship between parents and child through these kinds of accounts, their strenuous attempts to simply keep their child alive, but the deeper psychological attachments and tussels remain a mystery. Gray says that it was Simone who safely saw her parents to New York in the early 1940s, in escape of the war, but perhaps it was the other way around. I wonder if, when Simone then swiftly decided to return to Europe to plunge herself head first into the annilation of war her parents realized she was essentially committing suicide? How could they have let her go? And yet, how could they have made her stay? Gray doesn't say. All biographers bring something of themselves to their subjects and it was only after Gray's biography of her own parents, entitled Them, recently came out that I understood why her focus on Weil's parents was so loaded with poignancy and meaning.



5. Simone Weil and her brother Andre were prodigies. Andre had learned advanced math, Sanskrit, Greek, and how to play the violin by age 12. In the first decades of the twentieth cenury there was developed a myth of the happy Weil family. Selma Weil, a forceful woman, made the decisions about the children's education. Simone had severe eating problems as an adolescent. (Selma was nearly phobic about contagion.)
   
   World War I disrupted the Weils' cocooned existence. Simone was fascinated by world events. She was younger and slightly less precocious than her brother Andre. Jews in France received full citizenship in 1789. The Weils were assimilated. Simone had an almost dangerous ability to be receptive to the suffering of others. She felt like an 'old soul'.
   
   Alain, the pen name of Emile Chartier, a philosopher, based his method on skepticism. His favorite philosopher was Descartes. He taught Simone in her cagne class, preparation for admission to the Ecole Normale. She was one of two female students. He encouraged his students to write prolifically. Learning to write well was learning to think well.
   
   At the Ecole Normale Simone's thesis advisor was France's leading authority on Pascal. At her first teaching post in LePay her students found her inspiring. She gave away most of her salary to a fund for the unemployed. She preferred Revolutionary Syndicalism. Support of the unemployed made her controversial. The following year she was assigned to a school at Auxerre, an ordinary place. With Boris Souvarine as her guide, she turned against the regime in Russia. She became an anathema to mainstream leftists. At school she told her students that the bachot was a mere convention. She taught a restricted curriculum, Plato, Descartes and Kant. Inspectors found her mind brilliant, her lectures confusing, diffuse.
   
   Following another year of teaching in another city, Simone sought work in a factory under much the same sort of impulse that drove George Orwell and Dorothy Day to participate in the lives of the dispossessed. She encountered the degrading aspect of piecemeal work, and discovered the psychological impact of factory work exceeded the physical pain of such work. Simone was appalled at the humiliation. In 1940 she moved with her parents to the South of France. Two essays on the Albigensians were published in CAHIERS DU SUD.
   
   During the war Simone Weil identified her body with mutilated France, an intense patriotism. In female mystics eating disorders are the rule, not the exception. An onlooker felt that Simone had a self-centered vocation for self-effacement. In London with the Free French she was refused a post as a nurse and as an undercover agent. She died of tuberculosis, or perhaps she died of a pathological need to share the sufferings of others.

No comments about Michelle.

No comments about Francois Mitterrand: A Political Biography (Polity Political Profiles Series).

5 comments about Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge.

1. Aburish has written a good book on Saddam Hussein. One has to remember that it is part of the writing process to understand your readers' perspective. So, in this case it means that Saddam has to be judged by western standards. I have lived ten years in Iraq and liked especially Aburish Said's critical thinking towards horror stories that come from Iraq. I noticed while living in Saddam's Iraq (1980-1990) that iraqis tell all kinds of stories that are not to be taken literally. For example iraqis said that one European ambassador had slapped on the face of his European subordinate. The ambassador in question became very angry at such story. Of course it was true that this ambassador was angry, but to resort to physical violence is very serious matter in Europe. Iraqis just added this minor thing about hitting to illustrate how angry he was. I feel that in many cases stories that are coming out of Iraq are not exactly true in western sense. Aburish analyses well for example the case when Saddam killed his health minister. Iraqis hoped for peace, so they mixed their hope of peace with Iran to the fact that Saddam killed a minister. So story changed in the minds of iraqis, who thought that this minister had told something bad to Saddam in order to make peace with Iran. Aburish corrects many similar stories with his rational thinking. Of course it is true that Aburish has written his book mostly from his memory. So there are few mistakes. For example Saleh Ammash didn't die in 1975 (perhaps 1985 is correct). But these are minor things, because Aburish is so well informed about the Middle Eastern politics. It is always pleasure to read Aburishes books. His book about House of Saud is written with great wit.



2. Breezy but informative bio that attempts to explain Hussein's stature as the most popular dictator in recent memory. Nice photos, too!



3. Aburish's biography of Saddam Hussein is a refreshing retelling of a story that's been muddled by a decade or more of half-truths and lies. The strengths are that he himself took part to a large extent in dealings with the Iraqi regime during the decade of the Iraq/Iran war. Aburish's insights and commentary are invaluable. The weaknesses in the book become readily apparent. Said has some duplicity in the regimes attempted acquisition of a nuclear [device] and other weapons of mass destruction. Said is also anti American and anti British. When he addresses US involvement in the Gulf War his arguments become tirades against Saddam , the US and Britain. It's his very ant-US and British attitude that make Aburish's recommendation for dealing with the Iraqi regime nothing but a mechanism for the continuation of oppression by Saddam and the so called Ba'athists.

   Aburish's own involvement in the regime and view of the US aside, I highly recommend this biography of Saddam Hussein. He sets right many misconceptions about the Iraqi dictator. His mother was not a prostitute and Saddam didn't commit [destruction] at the age of 15. These myths and other myths are dispelled. What Aburish does is to emphasize the tribalness of Saddam by setting it in the context of Arab culture. Saddam becomes less a madman than a ruthless tribal leader for whom you are either with the tribe or against it. Opposition to the regime is treated like a blood feud. Even Saddam's affinity for Stalin makes sense. Both were the sons of poor peasants widowers in semi-tribal societies (Stalin was ethnically Georgian not Russian) and both used control of the bureaucracy to help in gaining control of power.

   In spite of its weaknesses The Politics of Revenge is a highly readable and informative.




4. Now, perhaps more than when Saddam was in power, this book is required reading in understanding the current situation in Iraq.

   As Aburish so clearly illustrates, for decades the US supported Baath Party and Saddam Hussein. In the process they back stabbed on more than one occasion the Kurds, the Shia and other groups who opposed Saddam. This betrayal has certainly been a contributing factor to the situation as it exists now (2004) with various insurgent groups attacking US forces. While it's true that some of these groups are coming from external influences (e.g. Syria and Iran), it's also true that some are just people who view the US as a hostile occupying force. Part of the distrust came from the history Aburish describes here.

   The notion that Aburish is somehow "anti-US" misses the point entirely. The US policy toward Saddam post Gulf War I was one of of "positive containment." As explained by a member of the National Security Council in 1991: "Our goal [was] to remove Saddam Hussein, not his regime." This meant that we actively prevented other groups from overthrowing the regime. Indeed, as reported by the major media, Kurdish and Shia rebel leaders were told during a coup attempt orchestrated by the CIA that they should "not get in the way of our operation."

   How could we have dealt with Saddam? This is perhaps a weakness of Aburish's book, but it's one created in part by a totally warped US policy. At one point can we go back in time and stop supporting his brutal regime? Since we can't go back in time, how can we change our actions so that they represent true American ideals? In this manner of thinking, Aburish's analysis actually wasn't that far off. In the long haul we might have gotten rid of Saddam by a policy that supported the Iraqi people instead of one that resigned them to victims of both their own government and the US dominiated UN policy of genocidal sanctions - a policy that ultimately strengthened Saddam domestically.

   With Saddam now gone from power this book is perhaps a little dated. However, it is necessary reading if you want a better understanding of the current quagmire created by the US invasion.




5. Most people living in the United States have been subjected to an enormous amount of hate propaganda concering Saddam Hussein. In the pre-Gulf War period and even to this day, most Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that Hussein was the closest thing to the anti-Christ. Although Hussein deserves this reputation up to a point, most people don't realize the complexity of ethnic groups in that country and of U.S.-Iraq relations. This complex but excellent book provides a fantastic introduction into who Saddam was and his relationship with the United States. What makes this book especially special is that it was written by an Iraqi. Although outside biographers can also write good biographies, there is somthing unique when the book is written by a native. This man is writing about his country and his leader, something which is a part of his blood and soul. Just by being an Iraqi, he probably knows more about his country than even outside experts.
   
   This book is highly detailed, and it discusses Hussein from birth to about the late 1990s. It talks about how to pronounce his name properly. It discusses the involvement of Husseing in two coup attempts. The author acknowledges that Hussein was a thug, a butcher, and villian. There is no doubt about that, but he also exposed the hypocrisy of the United States. This hypocrisy is becoming more and more prevalent as this second Iraq war continues to drag. There was a time when the United States supported Hussein, even though it was known he was a ruthless dictator. They provided Iraq with weapons and aid throughout the 1980s. There is no doubt about that. It was only when Hussein began to reject the policies of the United States that he became an enemy. The U.S. government never cared for the freedom and well-being of the Iraqi people. Sadly, Iraq stands a important geo-political strategic point for the United States.
   
   In many ways, Hussein was like a puppet on the world stage. He was under the strings of the U.S. and USSR. The author makes no apologies for Hussein, but he exposes the reality of the situation. Although Saddam was a harsh leader, he was able to calm the differences between the Sunnis, the Shiites, and Kurds. The United States is not doing that. That is why Iraq has turned into the meatgrinder that it has become.

1 comments about Juan and Eva Peron (Sutton Pocket Biographies).

1. Since the opening of the rock opera "Evita" back in 1978 and the release of the movie in 1996, there have been several books written about the enigmatic and beautiful title character and her husband. But who were the real Peron's? Were they as ruthless as the movie and other biographies suggest? Who knows for sure because depending on which book you read, they were either good or bad, saints or sinners, compassionate or cruel. Clive Foss's Book, "Juan and Eva Peron" is a well researched and balanced biography of this charismatic couple. It does not paint a "black" or "white" portrait of the two and for that I give him credit. It does seperate fact from fiction and his treatment of Eva Peron is balanced and respectable. However, the book is far from perfect. The books main flaw is that it's much too short. The author does state that his book is not the complete biography of the Peron's and he does list and recommend other more in-depth biographies in his bibliography. That said, the book is easy to read and easy to understand and is highly recommended for anyone who finds politics and history boring or who just want a shortened and less complicated biography of Peron and Evita.

No comments about DANGEROUS FRONTIERS: Campaigning in Somaliland and Oman.