5 comments about I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation.

1. This is in some ways a good and necessary book. It spotlights a nation and a set of problems that most of the world doesn't pay much attention to. But there is a problem. Michela Wrong is too close to the subject and her emotional attachment at times results in the book not being as objective or as good as it might have been. In particular, she seems to have been far too close to Eritrean rebel groups and their leaders.
   
   Eritrea's history isn't about "betrayal". Its about the same problems that most African nations have faced. Rather than face the fact that the problems of Eritrea today are largely self-inflicted wounds, she falls back into blaming colonialism and cold-war politics in really unconvincing ways.
   
   In her coverage of Italian colonial rule, she confuses events in Eritrea with those in Ethiopia. She is also willing to judge Italy to a far higher standard than she applies to the pre or post-independence governments of both countries. She is also more than a little unwilling to understand the role that Italy played in creating Eritrea.
   
   The lowest point in the book is her coverage of Britain's wartime rule of Eritrea. She advances a theory that the british were racist than the italians because their rule produced fewer multiracial children. Somehow she sees superior morality in men who promoted widespread prostitution and produced children which they abandoned. It makes no sense to me. Her logic is also full of wrong assumptions about the number of British in the country and the nature of the occupation.
   
   She also isn't very good about the details of the war. The war in East Africa and in particular the victory at Keren was not a British victory, but a victory of the British Indian Army. Somehow she misses the basic fact that much of the army that conquered and occupied East Africa was Inidian.
   
   The British wanted out of Eritrea and got out of it seven years after the war ended (1952). As they got out, the issue of Ethiopia's historic and economic claims to Eritrea came to the surface. Wrong wishes to blame the united nations for betraying the people of Eritrea. But its not that simple. Eritrea's national identity has no particular good historical basis and arises mostly from the period of Italian rule and the money Italy spent on their colony. Furthermore, its independence results in two weak states in East Africa rather than one. Eritrea and Ethiopia need each other. Economically, independence is a disaster for both.
   
   The war for Eritrea's independence was a pointless waste of lives for everyone involved. Wrong wishes to see it as a justified noble struggle for "freedom", but as events since independence have proved, it was anything but that.
   
   After the overthrow of the Ethiopian government in 1976, horrible things were done in Eritrea and the author gets that part of the story right. Then she goes on to show the bright future Eritrea had before it in 1993 at independence and how everything went so terribly wrong.
   
   But she can't bring herself to hold the right people accountable. She can't bring herself to admit that the rebels she had admired so much once in power turned to be little better than a criminal gang. A gang that destroyed the economy of the country, introduced a dictatorship and then threw the country into a disasterous war with Ethiopia. The world didn't do these things. The world's "betrayal" didn't make these decisions. It was the rebel "freedom fighters" who are responsible.
   
   And thats the fatal flaw in the book. The author wants to give critiques of colonialism and the UN from on high. But the truth is that the country's problems are not a matter of "I didn't do it for you", they are "we did it to ourselves".
   
   The end result of the great "struggle" for Eritrean independence has been an economic disaster for both Ethiopia and Eritrea. The political result is a government running Eritrea that is as bad (or worse) than what the author claims were the "repressive" Ethiopian governments of the 1950s and 1960s. Eritrea's government budget is wasted in preparations for more war with Ethiopia. The country is trapped in a situation where things will never get better. Its not a situation that outsiders should be credited or blamed for.
   
   When the author says things like: "the national character traits forged during a century of colonial and superpower exploitation were about to blow up in Eritrea's face.", she in engaging in massive political self-deception. Her (dated) anti-colonial/anti-imperialism rhetoric leads her to excuse every bad decision made by an African as someone elses fault.
   
   She also goes out of her way to make the American soldiers stationed in Ethiopia in the past look like they were exceptionally bad. Having worked and travelled in Africa, she must know how soldiers behave in most countries. Go to the area around any military base (including those on American soil) and you will find all sorts of unpleasent things going on. I'm not trying to excuse the behavior of anyone, but the selective moral outrage in the book is of little value to anyone.
   
   I wanted to like this book and I want to see the author write more books about Africa. But she needs to put her political ideology to the side and report on Africa as it is. She did a far better job in "In the footsteps of Mr. Kurtz" than she did in this book.



2. I am from Ogaden, the Somali region still occupied by Ethiopia, and Eritrea's tortured history is pretty similar to ours.
   
   When I bought the book, I Didn't Do It For You, and read John Le carre's powerful commendation on the cover, I took his comments with a grain of salt, thinking he was putting a good word for a colleague. However as I delved into the book, I was surprised to find every laudatory remark made by Le Carre got instant affirmation from my own mind!
   
   This book is very informative and intensely honest. The author's tone is restrained and her style is modest. She avoids polemics because she obviously knows indulging in any propaganda variety tends to undermine one's credibility.
   
   Michela is sympathetic to the Eritreans. However she makes it clear, in her own austere way, that, Issayas, the Eritrean leader and his dictatorial tendencies, has squandered the fruit of the Eritrean struggle, the dream of its people, and the goodwill of Eritrea's friends throughout the world, and thereby rendered the once promising young republic into just another African heartbreak!
   
   Unlike many western authors and scholars who, when writing about the developing countries, tend to sanitize facts to protect the image of their own mother countries, Michela Wrong simply exposes the unpleasant facts for everyone to see. Of the three European countries(The French, Italians, and the British) that colonized the Horn of Africa, the British had been the worst. As a Somali, I know the British were pitifully stingy and penny pinching: for the 75 years they colonized Somaliland, for instance, they built or invested in it practically next to nothing, whereas the Italians built and invested in Eritrea all the machines, factories, and infrastructure, including state of the art railway system, and all the building blocks necessary for a modern state in the first part of the 20th century.
   
   However one of the explosive segments in this book is the part that exposes and gives British colonialist a real black eye, not because of their stinginess and selfishness, but because of their unabashed shamelessness of looting and stealing all the factories and machines and the modern equipment, including rail way wagons and wires that the Italians invested in Eritrea! Not only that, but the British also looted almost all the factories and machines that the Italians built in Ethiopia during its brief occupation of Ethiopia. That is, Ethiopia, the very country the British were supposed to be liberating!
   
   In light of these shocking facts about British proclivity for looting, stealing and pillaging, I was left wondering how many factories and machines and modern equipment the British forces looted from Southern Somalia when they defeated the Italians and occupied Southern Somalia in 1941?
   
   It is the exposure of these raw, unsanitized facts about the nature, greed and the attitudes of European colonialists that sets Michela Wrong apart from many western authors and scholars!
   
   My only wish is that she would, one day, be interested in the plight of the Somalis of Ogaden, who have been occupied, betrayed, and subjugated by none other than the very authors of Eritrea's horrendous history: the Italians, the British and the Abyssinians. Since she already extensively researched about history of both Eritrea and Ethiopia, writing about Ogaden which is still occupied by Ethiopia would be relatively easy.
   
   Alternatively, if I may digress, she could write about the cause of the Somali people in the horn of Africa. The Somalis have the misfortune of being the only people divided and dismembered into five limbs and each limb grabbed and swallowed by a different colonial master. And the tragic consequences of that dismemberment has been the complete collapse of the Somali Republic. Contrary to the popular notion, the principal factor responsible for the collapse of the Somali Republic in 1991 was the Ogaden war of 1977 and its consequences. The dictatorial rule of former President Siyad Barre, the epidemic of Qaat, and the curse of clanism were merely contribuiting factors. Theoratically, If Somalia stayed out of Ogaden, it could have remained peaceful, relatively prosperous, and strong. But Somalia could never have stayed out of Ogaden for very long. And if it didn't invade Ogaden in 1977, it could have invaded in 1987, or 1997, or 2027! And the reason is that the limbs of the same body tend to gravitate into the same direction! And every time Somalia mastered enough strength it will do everything in her power to regain its dismembered limbs, be it NFD or Ogaden. That is why the Horn of Africa will never see peace or stability so long the dismembered limbs of the Somali nation continue crying for one another.
   
   Certain peoples with numeric superiority such as Arabs, for instance, may withstand or whither division and dismemberment. However Somalia with a small country and smaller people cannot. As Farah Omaar, the well known Somali patriot said long ago, "My country is smaller than to be divided; my people are frailer than to be enslaved!"
   
   Now Somalia hit rock bottom. And because of its occupation of Ogaden and invasion of Somalia, Ethiopia is going to sink into a black hole! And Kenya will be next! And the vicious cycle for peoples of the Horn of Africa will continue unabated. Therefore for those who care about world peace, the most productive and cost-effective endeavor to restoring peace into this troubled region is to work for the reunification of the dismembered limbs of the Somali nation. But so long that objective is either neglected, ignored, or overlooked, the key to peace and stability in the Horn will be very difficult to locate.
   
   With her talent, courage, and honesty, Michela Wrong can take up this challenging issue, uncover the sad facts that the British and other western scholars have been sanitizing and glossing over for decades, and produce a groundbreaking must-read book for anyone interested in the Horn of Africa, and thereby not only make a significant contribution to enlightening people around the world, but also perhaps help finding a lasting solution for the never ending tragedy of the peoples of the Horn of Africa.
   
   To come back to this book, I Didn't Do It For You is impressive. And it is worth every penny and every minute of one's time.
   
   Mohamed Heebaan



3. What a book! Shall I call it a novel? For me it read like a suspensful novel rather than an ordinary narrative about an obscure Afrcan nation.I commend the young writer for her lucid style and insightful observation The narrative for the story takes place mainly in the Sahle Mountains and the main characters are the Eritrean fighters and the other charcters- the villains are the Ethiopian Army, the Italains, the British, the Russians, The Americans, last but not least the UN.Like in a good novel, at the end the protagonists- the heroes or the winners are the Eritreans



4. This book is as well-written and well-researched as Ms. Wrong's earlier book on the Congo ("In the footsteps of Mr. Kurtz") if not better. It offers a rare glimpse into Italian colonialism. But this real-life story on the long fight for independence of a small developing nation and how it has coped with neo-colonialism, imperialism, multilateralism, dogmatism and superpower cynicism is painful to read, if only because the heroes of the book -the remarkably resourceful and resilient Eritrean people- are denied their happy end. Highly recommended.



5. Even in a continent full of doomed revolutions and post-colonial misery, the story of the plucky Eritreans is a fascinating and tragic one. As an experienced world news correspondent on Africa, Michela Wrong has the chops to give us an informative history of this tough and self-sufficient people who endured centuries of colonial exploitation and a 30-year struggle against their Ethiopian overlords, before finally becoming independent in 1993. The author does just that throughout most of the book, starting with a strong examination of the national character and unique cultural traits of the Eritreans, then later ending the book on a melancholy but instructive note as their inspiring struggle for self-determination went sour.
   
   The problem here though is with the middle sections of the book, which devolve into disconnected snippets and vignettes that highlight persons and events of interest but detract from the historical and political narrative. (This is the same problem that afflicts Wrong's other major book, the nearly-masterful Congo study "In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz.") The worst example is a useless tangent in Chapter 10 into stories of debauchery by American servicemen in Eritrea in the 1960s. Also, Wrong has a hard time effectively separating the histories of Eritrea and Ethiopia, and while that's surely difficult with so much historical interaction between the peoples, the Eritreans are missing from large parts of this book that is supposed to be about them.
   
   Fortunately, Michela Wrong finishes strongly with useful examinations of the historical lessons to be learned from the long and still-ongoing struggle of the Eritreans. Based on the book's title, I'm not convinced that the world betrayed Eritrea, but the world certainly ignored that small nation's unique struggle through centuries of historical ignorance and political myopia. The hard-working Eritreans deserve the tribute delivered by Wrong in this book. [~doomsdayer520~]

No comments about Abraham Lincoln: Great American Historians on Our Sixteenth President.

2 comments about Man of the People: The Life of John McCain.

1. Fans of John McCain who want to know about the senator's life history will not be too disappointed. It's all there, from his childhood through his military service through his ascendancy to the national spotlight.
   Unfortunately, the book is sloppily written and edited. Alexander repeats himself quite often, and he relies too much on long-winded quotes from other sources. Further, the editing leaves a lot to be desired. Phrases like "centered around," as opposed to the correct "centered on" are commonplace and distracting. Alexander's magazine pieces are much better, which leads me to believe this work suffers from poor editing more than the pedestrian prose.



2. I bought this book a few years ago and just recently read it. John McCain hasn't had an easy life and his imprisonment in Vietnam really marked his life. I found the book written quite well.
   
   The author has done his research well and if you are American and thinking about voting this book will help you find out more about what makes John McCain tick. It was interesting to find out that when McCain got back from Vietnam he found his wife had been disfigured in a car accident & couldn't have any more kids, so he started seeing other women, this lead into a divorce. Shortly after McCain met his current wife and started another family. Things to think about I guess when electing a President...

2 comments about Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World.

1. I'm always amazed at how revisionist historians, like children who can't wait to tattle, manage to expose the foibles of our founding fathers. One by one, each has had his name or reputation besmirched. A few, John Adams, and George Washington seem to survive the exposure and remain adored by millions. Benjamin Franklin is another founding father who has weathered modern day examination and is still beloved by his countrymen.
   
   Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World will not disappoint the reader and it will not take a cheap shot at a man who lived more than 200 years ago. Organized with chapters like The Life of Benjamin Franklin; Benjamin Franklin, Printer; Benjamin Franklin, Civic Improver; Benjamin Franklin, Pragmatic Visionary: Politician, Diplomat, Statesman, etc, the book will shed new light on to a life that was well lived and well enjoyed.
   
   Well reseached with lavish illustrations and photographs, Benjamin Franklin will be a terrific addition to your personal library.



2. The Ben Franklin Exhibit is at our Museum at the moment and this is its companion book. It is a book with various authors/experts presenting their expertise on Ben through various stages in his life. I found it accurate and interesting as well as an "easy read" - without being simplistic. If you are interested in Ben Franklin and don't want to read a long biography, this is a worth while purchase. For those who know more about Ben, it has good biography as well as photos of artifacts associated with his life.
   
   The artifacts in the exhibit (presented in the book) have been gathered from many sources and probably will never be collected together again - so it is a historical reference as well.

5 comments about RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon.

1. Nixon became president the month I was born and had left the scene before I became politically aware. Nobody spoke of him during the 70's, or of Johnson for that matter - they belonged to a past era which nobody much wanted to revisit, and so I knew very little about either of them as a kid or teen.
   
   By resigning Nixon had admitted at least some guilt in the vast number of things he was accused of and his abdication was a political cataclysm. Through my childhood years he lived out his old age as a pariah off in San Clemente, California, the personification of the period of enormous turbulence during the height of the Vietnam war. He was the living embodiment of the dark heart and excess of the GOP, and everyone, especially in Democratic Massachusetts, considered him a cancer on the body politic and was happy he was gone.
   
   But his resignation was sincere and he was mostly contrite. In retirement he was a sad old giant in exile and after a while the Press which had hounded him out of office allowed him some dignity as an elder statesman and left him alone.
   
   He's nothing like the caricature I expected. I have to say - I really like him. He's very thoughtful, well spoken, modest, with good intentions towards the country and had a warm, respectful dialogue with the major statesmen and characters of the day.
   
   It's a beautifully written book. It was easy to see how he had become a leader. He had the air of solid, calm composure and reasonableness which I admire. As for doublespeak tendencies, the clues are missing for someone who didn't live through that time period.
   
   The contrast with Bush could not be more clear. Maybe the candor came from Nixon's retirement, but I can't imagine Bush being this straight and honest with his audience. POTUS 43 isn't smart or eloquent enough to write this kind of book, and he's too secretive to make that leap of trust with the little people to allow them into his mind.
   
   Of course Nixon was at least as bad as Bush - he was famous for having a blind-spot as big as a barn, which one can see in his writing. Despite the resignation, he wasn't entirely remorseful - he saw himself as the victim of many media conspiracies and other antagonists, both real and imagined. But Nixon has the breadth of worldview and honesty with himself, and by extension the reader, to allow us into his world.
   
   His dark tendencies had other origins. In an era when 30 soldiers were being killed in Vietnam every single day - over ten times the volume of Iraq - and the world convulsing in protest and chaos around them, Nixon's lieutenants and were just brutalized by their environment and lost their sense of direction and fought back with every realpolotik' weapon and dirty trick they could imagine.
   
   Nixon himself is much too close to the action to see how complicit he was - and as the leader he was de-facto fully culpable. But he did take responsibility resign over it - so if it is noble to forgive, then he deserves some rest.
   
   My folks on the other hand strongly disliked Nixon because they thought the GOP machine had sabotaged all the moderate Democratic primary candidates, leaving only Muskie and worse, McGovern, who were far too weak and radical. So he had effectively dismantled the American democratic process - even aside from the Watergate bugging and coverup. Nixon's Southern Strategy of making the GOP a safe place for whites upset by the Civil Rights movement, is still the dominant fault-line in American politics.
   
   Now, after the cancer has been lanced and we have survived him, Nixon's transgressions feel like water long past under the bridge. I'm only sad and sorry that he passed away. He was a wise, complex man and this book shows that his shadow is still very large.



2. I read it twenty-five years ago and just read it again. Fast paced until he gets bogged down in justifying his actions in Watergate. Nixon was an excellent writer, but his self-justification requires you to read other bios of the 37th President. From Jerry Vorhis to Alger Hiss to John Dean, a great take on postwar American history by someone who was there.



3. what this man did was wrong in terms of his involvement and his support of bullying in the whitehouse. This man was seen as one of the most liberal presidents and founded the Environmental Protection agengy as well as food stamps and strove to implement far reaching welfare reforms. He did many things we equivocate with democratic setbacks, and we have to wonder how much the nation suffered. He tried to protect himself under the presidency: Was he attacked? The FBI tried to sheild us from this man, and we have to wonder where the balance lies. Surely this man did great things perhaps as no president has done after him for social reform. Much to ponder. In later years, he confessed to wrongdoing and advised several presidents without want of attention or credit.I tend to like Mr. Nixon, but tend also to grieve his past actions against the war demonstrators in terms of actions he could not implement as he did not have the support of the FBI. The problem was the wire tapping of journalists, and the breaking into a psychiatrists office to try to get info on one of the journalists who oppose Nixon. Yes,much to think about. Am I bothered by racial remarks he's made on tape when he tried to institute the largest welfare program since FDR saved us from the depression? Save for perhaps Kennedy..No. I think his actions counterbalance the remarks he's made. The wiretapping and the break in are his shame, more so the wiretapping as I'm not sure about the extent of the involvement he had in that. I enjoy Mr. Nixon's attempt to guide the nation via advice of succeeding presidents and look forward to reading thE progressive social policy that's in his seven books.



4. It was risky business for Nixon to write an autobiography for at least a couple of reasons. First, his many detractors would clearly be quick to jump on any discrepancies in the work. Second, as more and more classified information is released by the government, Nixon stood to become a well-documented liar, assuming that there were a few stretchers herein -- and Nixon would have known that such information would be forthcoming someday. Still, he had the brass to write it, and it's a darn fine book.
   
   This autobiography is somewhat unusual in that, not only did Nixon write the book, he also wrote IN to the book, even though he, himself, may not have realized this. In other words, we can tell a LOT about Nixon just by reading between the lines of this one. We can detect when he felt adversarial about someone (the media, for example), and we get a clear feel for some of his well-known (and often well-deserved) paranoia.
   
   Some will bluntly say that Nixon was a crook. Perhaps this is correct but he was an incredibly intelligent and complex man and many positive initiatives were achieved during his long tenure as U.S. President. Of course, he covers all these events in the book and we get a feeling of having the inside scoop for having read about them in this work. So, really, this volume is an excellent "history book" for the era that it covers (essentially, the period from Nixon's birth up through the Watergate affair).
   
   Probably the most profound facet of "R.N." that I picked up on was that Nixon was a huge patriot. He fostered incredibly strong beliefs in manifesting his visions for a great America -- of course, his facilitation of some of those ideas is what got him into trouble.
   
   Nixon remained necessarily vague in certain details of the Watergate scandal and a few cracks in his story have already emerged as a direct result of Privacy Act releases. No doubt, a few more will be forthcoming. But honestly, many of these "events" are simply a matter of perspective, Nixon's paradign versus that of his enemies. In these cases, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
   
   I most enjoyed reading about Nixon and his family as he grew up which is a large portion of the book. Nixon was a hard worker and, frankly, I admire his achievement of becoming President, since he was one of the few who made this life-leap, absent a silver spoon.
   
   I read MANY books (3 a week for years) and "R.N." is one of the top 20 books I've ever read and it's in the top 5 of my non-fiction list. Don't be put off by politics in this instance -- this tome of an autobiography is a real page-turner and well-done.



5. I must first warn the reader that this book is 1000 page plus. Second, the 1000 plus pages are a great read. I won't write a very long review- 1) because I read this book over 2 years ago, and 2) I'll just go right to the main reasons why this book is great, 3) previous reviewers have good insight into the book for people who are considering reading this book and I've found their reviews well written.
   
   This book, unlike a few of the other presidential memoirs, begin with Nixon's birth to the end of his presidency. It spans his entire life before the Presidency, and his entire political career, not just his life in the White House. (Nixon begins the first chapter by saying "I was born in the house that my father built" or something to that effect). While Nixon wrote his first autobiography, Six Crisis, after losing his first bid for the White House to John F Kennedy- he repeats much of his explanations on the 6 crisis in this book as well.
   
   It is pretty fun following Nixon's career from Congress to the Vice Presidency to his bid for the White House, losing it, losing the California Gubnatorial (spelling?) race, his thoughts on the 1964 election and his life in the wilderness and then finally to the Presidency. I don't know if a ghost writer was used, but the book is very fluent and flows really well. It is not a tough read and reading it makes time pass well.
   
   Nixon doesnt spend too much time in great detail on unimportant aspects or policies, unlike some other presidential memoirs. His writing on the foreign policies that he took is great: the China trip is the highlight of this book. His discussions on the Vietnam War and the actions he took is extremely interesting. I am sure historians had great fun reading this book.
   
   Nixon goes on to describe very well why he started taping his own conversations on the phone and in the Oval Room. He begins by explaning how Lyndon Johnson showed him all the recording devices he kept.
   
   The book takes a downturn when Nixon begins to describe how he was completely innocent during and after the Watergate break-in. He goes onto extremely minute details to describe how he had absolutely no idea about the break-in and how he was in the dark for a long time after the fiasco. While Bill Clinton takes the blame full on to himself for the Monica Lewinsky scandal and admits guilt in his book, MY LIFE, Nixon uses various tactics and scenarios to indicate how he knew nothing. The descriptions go on and on, confusing the reader as to what the hell is happenning. But even when he goes on to begin describing the incident(s), it becomes obviously clear that he knew and was involved in the cover-up and the illegal actions that he took. He quickly skips over the part where the 23 minute (was it 23?I cant remember) is deleted and blames it on his secretary. Reading this book proved to me that Nixon was guilty.
   
   After I read the book, I was very fascinated by President Nixon. I watched Oliver Stone's movie 4 times in over 5 years. Nixon was definitely a complex character. He indeed was a man who could easily have been a great man. I do feel sorry for him; and am happy that by the time he passed away, he regained much of his stature - although as Nixon himself admitted, he will always be remembered for Watergate. As I mentioned above, after reading this book, I've become very interested in all things Nixon, like his movie, his other books, articles about him, his relationship to other Presidents, other world leaders and Henry Kissinger- and also on what they thought about him (Gerald Ford - "Sometimes I don't know why I pardoned the bastard"). For the political geek- this book is definitely a must read.

5 comments about Barbara Jordan: American Hero.

1. IT IS THE BEST BOOK EVER!



2. Too often the reviews of biographies and history books end up reviewing the actual person or subject rather than the book. Barbara Jordan was a great, great woman. There's no doubt about that. Of all history's politicans, religious leaders, civil rights advocates, political figures and intellectuals, she is the one person who truly shows us all how we should handle the issue of race in this country.

   This book honored her. It was truly a great read. Descriptive, informative and thought provoking. Whenever I ask someone about Barbara Jordan, they always respond with something like, "Wow, have you ever heard her speak?" I was born too late to hear her more popular speeches. But, the author's effective use of excerpts from Jordan's speeches makes me feel like I was right there watching her. This well researched book gave me a deeper understanding of the events of the Nixon impeachment process, the Carter Administration, politics in itself and the plight of both African Americans and women in government. I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend it.




3. This is a well written and effective biography of one of America's most amazing personalities. Mary Beth Rodgers tells Jordan's story with the advantage of being an insider; her access to those who knew Jordan well shows in her insightful and complete telling of Jordan's life.

   Jordan is widely remembered by her public persona, the booming orator from Texas - the intellectual constitutional scholar who presided over Nixon's impeachment. But element that makes this biography compelling is Rodgers' depiction of the wheeling and dealing that allowed Jordan to cross barriers and operate effectively in the good-old-boy white male backrooms of the Texas Senate. We get to see Jordan the idealist armed with the constitution in our nation's capital, but we also get to see Jordan the pragmatist cutting deals over a scotch in Austin Texas.

   An effective biography of an amazing American figure.




4. This was a very inspirational book. Barbara Jordan's life was really incredible and the reason she accomplished as much as she did had to do with her innate abilities as well as her willingness to deal with the enemy. She kept her overriding goal utmost - the welfare of the people of East Texas.

   Lots of what she experienced and spoke out against we see today. We could really use her moral voice of authority. She is missed.




5. I'm glad that Jordan is not hear to see how the gov't of the people, for the people, by the people has been so completely perverted by special interests and neo patriots, such as George W. Bush and John Ashcroft. I was only a boy, when like many, I was captivated by this incredible person. She gave me hope that govt could actually serve the people. This book does a great job to capture her spirit and remind us that govt was once a tool and not force for opression.

4 comments about Wellington: The Iron Duke.

1. The book aims to be realistic - the fog of
   war is foggy indeed, and Wellington sometimes makes mistakes. The
   casualties at Waterloo are appalling, and the battle almost lost.
   Lt.-Col. Trant of "Sharpe's Rangers" fame actually appears, an excellent soldier but "the most drunken dog there ever was" in Wellington's words.

   Unusual is the emphasis on Wellington's Indian campaign and on the
   Peninsular War - the period of Sharpe's Rangers is the most important in
   the book. The Battle of Waterloo is treated as somewhat of an
   afterthought, as I suppose it was (if Nap had won it would have been a
   very different matter, of course). There are a number of good plates,
   including a daguerrotype of the Iron Duke himself in his mid-70s, looking
   buth shrewd and oddly sympathetic.




2. This is one of those books that once you take it up, you can't put it down!

   Its balanced treatment of Wellington the man, the military man and the politican, has meant that this is not just a book about Waterloo.

   One is left with the impression that Wellington was a great man, with equal weight given to his 'greatness' and his 'humanness'.

   Very readable and highly recommended.




3. Richard Holmes's "Wellington - The Iron Duke" is a well-written survey of the active life of the First Duke of Wellington. In just 300 pages, Holmes presents a balanced, even nuanced view of a man who was both the quintessential military professional and a complex human being. Through Holmes' efficient prose, we see Wellington as an extradinarily dedicated soldier who mastered his profession in ways few of his contemporaries did, yet who sometimes paid a price on campaign for his insistence on micromanaging his armies. Wellington comes across as a remarkably honest and duty-bound public servant; as a young man, he was also relentlessly ambitious, and as an older man, sensitive about his military reputation.
   
   Holmes provides some useful insights. He suggests that exhaustion and strain were responsible for Wellington's uncharacteristically poor performance at the Siege of Burgos in 1812. Holmes examines the academic dispute over Wellington's relationship with the Prussians during the Waterloo Campaign; he tellingly notes Wellington's responsibilities to his alliance partners and to the British Government and finds that he served both. Holmes acknowledges Wellington's extramaritial activities but resists the urge to obsess over them or to indulge in psycological speculation.
   
   Serious students of the Duke and of the Napoleonic Wars will find no new scholarship here; indeed, Holmes readily acknowledges his debt to earlier works such as Elizabeth Longford's exceptional biography and Jac Weller's battlefield narrative trilogy. Holmes has provided an accessible biography for the general reader, supported by well-chosen quotes from the Duke' contemporaries and by a nice selection of illustrations.
   
   This book is highly recommended to the general reader with an interest in the man and the era.



4. Richard Holmes is an eminent historian and a splendid TV presenter but, though I found his study of the great Duke of Wellington an enjoyable biography that I couldn't put down until it was finished, I also found myself being irritated on too many of the 303 pages (hardback edition) by mis-spellings and stylistic and punctuation inconsistencies. An example of the latter was the mixed and varying use of inverted commas (quote marks). My own preference is for the end of a phrase or a sentence to appear thus: '................... end,' or '..................... end.' Too often the style was thus '........................ end', or '........................... end'. Mr Holmes ought to have made up his mind which way his work was to appear or his editor ought to have been sacked!
   
   Another niggle was that the Duke's Hampshire home was named only once as 'Strathfieldsaye,' with '[sic]' to follow. Mr Holmes should have been aware that that was the original spelling and that 'Stratfield Saye' is the more modern name of the house and estate.
   
   I mustn't criticise too much, however, because I learned a lot from a very good book and I recommend it to other lovers of our British history and other admirers of one of the greatest and most courageous Britons ever to have been born.

No comments about 274 Things You Should Know About Churchill.

5 comments about A Concise Biography of Adolf Hitler.

1. This book was a poorly compiled regurgitation of Allied World War II propaganda. The author had an incredible bias against Adolf Hitler and it gushes out in every chapter. According to this book, anything that Hitler did was the most evil, demented or terrible thing in all of history. When Hitler did ordinary things, or showed kindness, the author criticizes these as well.

   Unless you want to read a book that is dedicated to Hitler bashing, I would stay away from this one. You will learn absolutely nothing, except disproven lies, from it. I am not quite sure how people can get away with publishing such discredited information and call it history.




2. Any book with the name of Adolph Hitler in the title is bound to catch the eye of all Germanophiles - serious and semi-serious - and those people will grab this book off the shelf, automatically. It is only 195 pages, and so, is not really a serious biography of Hitler - but it is, nevertheless, a very readable book , especially for those who are already somewhat familiar with Hitler and German history - which means, I guess, sadly, mainly for just those people over 60.
   Nevertheless, there are many people with a sense of history who will remember that Hitler was an Austrian-born megalomaniac with mesmerizing oratorical skills, who after fighting in the trenches in World War I gravitated to politics and eventually - in 1933 - rose to become the leader (eventually the dictator) - the "Fuehrer" - of Germany. Hitler was determined to right all the wrongs he thought Germany had been subjected to following the Treaty of Versailles, to restore the German economy, to establish Germany as the leading country of the world, to establish the German Third Reich (Empire)which was to endure one thousand years (it lasted 12) and to purify the German Aryan race - which, for various reasons, required the elimination of the Jewish population - wherever and whenever the opportunity permitted. While this book contains bits and pieces of that unbelievable saga, it deals with none of those issues in any great detail.
   What author Fuchs does focus upon in his little book is certain trivia, personal ideosyncracies and eccentricities of Hitler that he judges will be of interest to fans of Hitler
   and German history. Fuchs divides his book into 35 short chapters (5-10 pages per), which makes for easy reading. A sample of some of the chapter headings will illustrate the variety of subjects that Fuchs deals with: Hitler's mustache, his dog, his book ("Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle"), Nazi party stuff ( songs, flags, uniforms, greetings, titles, etc.), the "People's Car" (Volkswagen), Hitler, the orator, Hitler's women friends, Hitler, the hypochondriac, Hitler's diet, his dentist, his wardrobe, his reading habits, his tastes in movies, his artistic passions, his money, his anti-Semitism, his relationships with Goering, Goebbles, and Himmler - and more.
   The book also contains some 38 pages of notes (but no foot notes), 8 pages of bibliography (containing titles of some more serious biographies of Hitler) and a 26-page chronology of the major events that transpired during Hitler's life - private and
   political. The book is in its way entertaining - and reading this book might prompt the reader to move on to other, more serious, more comprehensive books on these matters.



3. I don't think you could come up with any question about Hitler -- no matter how silly, serious or obscure -- which isn't answered in this book. You can try, but you probably won't succeed. My young nephew was assigned this book in a college level history course. When I was in college, none of the history books we were forced to read were anywhere near as entertaining (if I can use that word about Hitler) and down-right fascinating as this one. It is carefully researched and documented, scholarly, without ever being the least pedantic. Even if you think you already know enough about Hitler, I highly recommend you read this book.



4. I like reading biographies but oftentimes when they are about a historical figure I get bored before the author gets to the interesting stuff. This biography is organized by subject -- i.e. Hitler's favorite foods, wardrobe, etc. It is nice because, to be honest, it's that kind of thing I'm interested in anyway. I don't particularly care to go through every aspect about him.
   
   I enjoyed being able to read about one aspect of his character at a time. I gained a lot of insight into how he lived and what might have influenced his views and decisions without getting bored in the process.



5. Besides the Bible this is my favorite book. Though I wish there was a little more about his childhood,it still focused on main categories of his life.It not only focused on Hitler but his main associates.This Biography shows how truly vile,distgusting,and sickly funny,or entertaining the subject on Hitler really is.I mean he led people to commit suicide,video taped his victims getting murdered(watched it repeatedly),refrained from having sex,and supposedly liked women to use him as a toilet. I honestly find the story of Hitler fascinating,although I think they could have had illustrations throughout the book.
   
   This did exactly what a books job is,wich is to transport you to another time and place.
   I honestly think Adolf Hitler was the AntiChrist,because he fits the description better than anyone in History.It is said that the antichrist would refrain from having sex,or be a homosexual,would be a malicious dictater(a slaughterer),and would be more of a political man,rather than do it out of religeous purposes ( like Osama bin Laden).
   
   I think the first AntiChrist was Napolean,the second Hitler,and the third Saddam Hussein.
   It is even said that Hitler was the only other person in history besides Frederick the Great that had the exact same head shape,and size as Napolean.
   And just look at the three i mentioned as the antichrist's,there all short,stubby and evil dictators.
   
   I wonder who he will be next.The reason Osama's not the Antichrist is because he is very religeous,believes in God,is not a homosexual,and hasn't refrained from having sex,I know this because he has many children.And isn't doing this out of political reason's but religeous.So as u see he doesn't fit the description very well.
   
   Anybody who says the things in these books are false,need to prove it,or else your just defending Hitler's rep,and therefore a Nazi.Don't take what i said to seriously,and try not to be offended as a result of me typing this in my review.
   
   Anyway's,anyone who reads this needs to read my review on 23 Minutes In Hell(wich i would not recommend reading because it's the worst book i've ever read,and anyone who believes Bill Wiese's account on his supposed trip to Hell is much too gullible,and needs to come to terms with the real world).
   
   Just remmember,in order to defeat your enemy u have to know your enemy.

5 comments about Daughter of the River: An Autobiography.

1. Rarely have I been unable to finish a book, even when it's quite terrible. However, this book was unreadable to me.

   There is no rhyme or reason to this book. There's no linear progression. It's more of a "This happened when I was 5. This happened when I was 15. This happened when I was 12. This happened when I was 5." The book goes nowhere and there is no plot to follow.

   After reading the glowing reviews here on Amazon, I was very much looking forward to reading this book. However, after reading half of it, it's in a box in the closet...




2. I just had a hard time reading/understanding/finishing this book. I did finally finish it because I wanted to know the mystery behind the author's father, but in the end the whole book was disappointing. I guess it's a matter of the book's structure. The author jumps from one time setting to another so often, it gets totally confusing! Also she intertwines different stories of different family members and other people in her life, that it's easy to confuse the characters. Some of the language sounds awkward, the curse words seem...forced. Also after a while, the author's unceasing bitterness towards life tended to grate on my nerves.



3. I read this book to see if I could use it in a college class I teach on young women and coming of age. After reading the split reviews on amazon.com, I decided to read the book for myself.
   
   In short: I loved this book! It has a variety of issues that pertain to coming of age including the intersections between and among gender, race, culture, class, family, education, and politics.
   
   The book is categorized as "Autobiography" but it could easily be categorized as "Autobiography/Women's Studies" for the range of women's issues it covers.
   
   I will teach this book in the future. I would just advise my students, or any reader really, to pay attention to the dates as the book jumps around a lot and it helps to have a frame of reference (e.g. Hong Ying was born in 1962 so if she's talking about 1968 she is obviously 6 years old, but usually doesn't mention that fact) in which to view each segment of the story.
   
   Highly recommended. The end of the book made my heart soar.



4. I found this book to be somewhat interesting for its time and place; the slums of Chongqing at the end of the Cultural Revoloution. The authors family situation is also somewhat interesting, but a bit too predictable. I also read one of the author's novels, that I picked up off the sale table in Hong Kong and found it also just okay.



5. Hong Ying's autobiographical novel gives an in depth picture of `normal' life in China after World War II with its `hypocrite socialism' and its terrible famines.
   It is a story of a harsh struggle for survival: unabated hunger, nerve-racking promiscuity, lack of privacy, bitter loneliness, lies and denunciations.
   It is also a tale about growing up in a `strange' family, becoming an adult, discovering sexuality and about the search for one's own roots.
   
   This book shows poignantly the real and direct impact of governmental political and social decisions on people's daily life. It is not less than a `personal' historical sketch with a genuine human touch.
   
   This magisterial novel is bathed in a magical subdued atmosphere. It is written like most `Schubertian' music in a minor key-note.
   A must read, not only for Chinese scholars.