1 comments about Catherine Parr: Henry VIII's Last Love.

1. It was dangerous to be married to Henry VIII. His first wife was cast away and died prematurely; the second was beheaded; the third died in childbed. When Henry was casting about Europe for his next wife, Christina of Denmark is supposed to have quipped, "If I had two heads, one should be at the King of England's disposal." Fortunately for his fourth wife, she was merely divorced (and outlived Henry); but the fifth was beheaded; and the sixth too had a brush with the king's deadly wrath. Only by her wits did Catherine Parr survive.
   
   In the first biography of Catherine Parr (1512-1548) in a quarter century (since Anthony Martienssen's), Susan James approaches her subject as more than just the sixth queen of Henry VIII (which is the context of books like Antonia Fraser's, Alison Weir's, and David Starkey's). The present book is a new, slightly shortened edition of the 1999 biography Kateryn Parr: The Making of a Queen. The footnotes of the earlier book have been relegated to the end, and gone is the last section on Catherine's brother William Parr after her death, as are the appendices, including the love letters of Catherine and Thomas Seymour and a discussion of the painting previously thought to be of Lady Jane Grey. What remains is a lively (if abruptly ended) account of Catherine Parr's life, rich in detail about her before, during, and after her reign as queen.
   
   It is a Victorian misconception that Henry married Catherine for her nursing abilities--but she was well-versed in the medical arts of that period. She also had a humanist education normally given to noble boys at the time, since she was tutored in the same group as her brother, her sister, and their cousins, all under the keen eye of their mother Maud Parr. (Maud had been widowed young and took advantage of the independence this allowed; she was also a lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon, who, ironically, was probably Catherine's godmother.)
   
   Rather, Henry became genuinely attracted to Catherine when she was still married to Lord Latimer (her dying second husband) and in the service of the princess Mary. No doubt it helped Henry with his competitive spirit that Sir Thomas Seymour was also courting the soon-to-be widowed Catherine. And it was perhaps key that Catherine (unlike Anne of Cleves) didn't offend Henry's sensitive nose: "she carried with her small jewelled boxes of lozenges flavoured with liquorice or clove or cinnamon for sweet breath."
   
   The notion of Catherine as Henry's nurse gives the impression--wrongly--that she was secure in her position. She certainly found her niche in the royal family, making peace between its warring members and restoring her stepdaughters Mary and Elizabeth to the line of succession (she'd had practice with her Latimer stepchildren, and this part of the traditional view is correct). And she made a good and competent regent when Henry was making war in France--almost too good, though, because her conservative enemies (including Bishop Gardiner and Thomas Wriothesley) began to conspire against her. Ever since the break with Rome, Henry had been growing steadily more conservative in his religious views, although he tolerated Catherine's progressive beliefs and her choice of his younger children's tutors (enthusiastic reformers). She'd had to keep her beliefs secret during her previous marriage, especially when she was a hostage in the 1536 Pilgrimage of Grace protesting Henry's dissolution of the monasteries. But now as queen, she felt the freedom to read forbidden books and argue with the king--tendencies that the conservatives exploited in their efforts to overthrow the queen.
   
   When the conservatives contrived to have Catherine arrested, she had her forbidden books destroyed and then took to her bed, sick. She was probably more sick with fear than anything, but the ploy brought Henry to her, and she expressed her fear of his displeasure and eagerness to make amends. The next day when she was permitted to visit him, Henry baited her for another argument, but she demurred, saying that she had only argued with him to distract him from his health troubles and to learn from him. This savvy appeal to his self-concern and vanity had the intended effect, and Henry received her back into favor--and into his bed. Wriothesley and the guards were not informed, and when they came to arrest the queen, Henry publicly humiliated them. The conservatives thus fell from power, and into their place came the reformers, including Edward Seymour and John Dudley, who would wield power during Edward VI's reign.
   
   Catherine, too, had influence with the new king, until she alienated him by her ill-advised affair and hasty marriage with Sir Thomas Seymour. It was, finally, a marriage for love long frustrated--but it was fateful all around. Catherine herself died in childbirth (and the child appears to not have survived infancy); Thomas Seymour went to the block; and her stepdaughter Elizabeth suffered a blow to her reputation and nearly lost her life.
   
   Susan James has written an excellent scholarly biography of Catherine, illuminating her motives and passions and highlighting her influence on the future Elizabeth I (who shared with Catherine a particular "restraint in the face of religious excess"). Catherine Parr comes across as a formidable woman, a match for Henry VIII, and a role model for her stepdaughters.

5 comments about Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics.

1. If there is any justice in the world, Spotts' book will go a long way toward eradicating from popular consciousness the facile descriptions of Hitler as not much more than a cross between a risible, Chaplin-esque, comic book character and an insane, incarnate demon.
   
   Part of the first notion of Hitler includes the idea that he ought to be dismissed as a failed, lousy artist. As Spott points out, the truth is that Nazism, like all self-styled utopianisms, was something like a gigantic project in aesthetics using people rather than pigments or plastics, and control and murder rather than downstrokes and glazing - and Hitler was the artist behind that (very popular for some years in Germany) project; he therefore must be taken seriously as an artist in this sense (obviously a grotesque, genocidal one).
   
   As Spotts notes, even his hatred of Jews emerges from this context: the Jews are "ruining all art" by embracing atonalism, cubism, jazz, dadaism, etc., as well as ruining all life by embracing "Bolshevism". But in his mind, there doesn't seem to be much difference there: Picasso, Marx, Alban Berg - all the same. Since, in Hitler's view, art can't be separated from culture, and culture can't be separated from the state, and the state can't be separated from life itself, the eradication of the Jews becomes, in Hitler's mind, nothing less than a matter of national survival, or, strangely, to say the same thing, the artistically appropriate choice.
   
   Spotts does a good job of underscoring another aspect of all this by calling attention to the seeming homoeroticism in Hitler's taste, particularly as it expresses itself toward the human being: at bottom (pun intended), Hitler preferred, aesthetically, buff blond males with blue eyes, i.e., "Nordic" types. The Jews, in addition to being greedy, "Bolsheviks", destroyers of art/culture/life, etc., just...looked "wrong". And so in this sense, in Hitler's mind, ridding the proper-looking race of these improper-looking portions of it was as obviously a necessary decision as would be getting rid of a "wrong" piece of furniture cluttering up an otherwise beautiful living room. (Spotts even includes a contemporary German cartoon caricaturing the physical features of a "typical" Jew).
   
   But what I started out to say was this. Spotts surveys how Hitler very consciously used colour, shape, rhetoric, size, proportion, angle, material, sound, light, symbol, rhythm, story, pageantry, texture, surprise, music, fire, sculpture, formation, etc., to, quite literally, achieve a truly terrifying degree of control over the minds of his subjects, even as a conversion tool over those who had resisted him. (Spotts describes how awed even American visitors were by the Nuremberg rallies.)
   
   And page by page, one begins increasingly to get a sense of what it would have been like, to be a human being, subject to all the mental and emotional strengths and weaknesses we are, living in a country (our world, for all purposes) which only a year or two before had been totally chaotic and depressed...and then to be stirred, roused, when that world around us begins to change, prompted to feel different, pleasurable things, think different, exciting thoughts, and in the end, perform different - and ultimately - indescribably horrific actions. In every way, we are preyed upon by the mesmeric, sick genius of a man who was rejected by the art school in Vienna, and who sought his revenge for this affront by dominating human psychology through all those elements I mentioned above more totally than perhaps any other "artist" of the 20th century.
   
   I saw a BBC documentary a couple of weeks ago, in which several elderly Germans candidly recalled with fondness Hitler's early years. What they said they missed most were the euphoric feelings they had, going to the pageants and rallies, seeing the flags, hearing the speeches and the music, those feelings of belonging, meaning, "specialness". And for the first time, reading Spotts' book, in a really disturbing way, I could imagine what that might have been like, imagine that I might have been just as susceptible to the manipulator as millions of Germans had been. For the first time, how the whole thing could have happened seemed imaginable. Scary.
   
   Bravo to Spotts for his brilliant and disturbing book. I would love to see him now do a documentary on this, using real footage.
   
   Highly recommended.



2. There is an incomplete list of sources for photographs and sketches based on page numbers in the Acknowledgements section of this book. The photographs and sketches are not individually numbered. I also think the references are unsatisfactory. For example, the author makes a number of assertions about a boyhood friend of Hitler in the Introduction but there is no background material to support these 'facts'. The book is interesting for its shift in focus (aesthetics) but there is an impression of sloppiness that affects credibility in my opinion.



3. One of the hardest things as historians is to try and get into someone's head. The Book Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics do this but in away that other people have not tried. The book looks at Hitler from artist view point and sees Hitler from a different view which people has not looked at before. The person who decides to read this book will also learn how Aesthesis and be a powerful tool used by man. The book is now being sold at a very good price and I give it my personal seal of approval!



4. This is perhaps the best and most relevant book about aesthetics, and their potential to influence people and history.



5. In "Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics," Frederic Spotts takes the pop-culture theme of "Hitler-as-frustrated-artist" and turns it into a learned and compelling narrative that goes a long way towards illuminating the intellectual background of many recurring themes in Hitler's thinking and in the growth of Nazism as a movement in general. Given that most works on Hitler understandably focus on political and military history, the importance of Hitler's background as an artist is often forgotten. For instance, as Spotts points out, Hitler dedicated an entire chapter of "Mein Kampf" to excoriating modernist trends in the visual arts and music, tying them in with what he perceived as an international conspiracy of cosmopolitan Jewish leftists. Spotts expertly traces out the ramifications of these preoccupations for Hitler's years in power, not just narrating such well-known incidents as the exhibitions of "degenerate art" staged by Joseph Goebels, in which modernist pictures were held up to public ridicule, but also detailing the politico-aesthetic ideals that Hitler proposed in opposition to modernism - in particular, an ultra-nationalist, "Aryan" art, whose main themes were the glorification of Germany, Germanic culture, and the so-called Thousand Year Reich. Showing the importance of these ideas to phenomena as diverse as Albert Speer's architecture, Leni Riefenstahl's films, and the carefully choreographed Nuremburg rallies, as well as the work of specific Nazi artists, photographers, and sculptors, Spotts makes a forceful and intelligent case for seeing the rise of Nazi ideology through the lens of aesthetics. This is a useful, well-written, and compelling book that could be read with interest by scholars and laypeople alike.

5 comments about Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr.

1. Why did I dislike this book? Let me count the ways.
   
   1) In her attempt to rehabilitate Aaron Burr, whom she clearly sees as an early supporter of feminism and a visionary reformer, Ms. Isenberg violates her own rules, She states that we must judge histroic figures against the standards of their times, not ours. She then analyzes Burr's career through the prism of the rampant self promotion of our era instead of the reticent standards of the federalist period.
   
   2) Isenberg puts herself inside the mind of Burr with sentences such as if Burr had known X he would not have done Y. This type of speculation belongs in the realm of romantic fiction, not scholarship.
   
   3) Making a case for Burr, Isenberg paints him in the best possible light while placing all of Burr's contemporary critics in the worst possible light. According to her, George Washington was easily mislead by his aides. Alexander Hamilton was insanely jealous. As for John Adams, Isenberg knows that when Adams wrote about the favorable actions of anonymous members of Congress, plural, Adams had to be writing about that paragon of virtue, Aaron Burr. Why the articulate and forthright second president could not praise Burr by name, had such praise been warranted, is not explained.
   
   The last straw was Isenberg's narrative about Burr and William Eaton. If all one knows of Eaton is from this book, he or she will come away with the impression that the Barbary Coast War immortalized in the Marine Corps Hymn was a sordid private land grab conducted solely to enrich said Eaton. That's because Isenberg relates Eaton's life story without mentioning the reason for his expedition in North Africa was to stop the Barbary Coast rulers from sanctioning piracy against American ships and the taking of American hostages.
   
   4) Much of the book suffers from a near fatal lack of context. For example, Isenberg clearly thinks it is to Burr's favor that he and his wife were avid students of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She fails to note, however, that during Burr's political career many of his contemporaries associated French political philosophy with the excesses of the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon's empire. Thus she makes political opposition to Burr's ideas appear to be based entirely upon personal enmity instead of practical concerns that the new American Republic should not also fall into chaos and dictatorship.



2. A brief thought to add to the other many reviews.
   Isenberg has done a brilliant job of difficult research.
   Sadly, in the readability department, it is sorely lacking.
   And, as far as objectivity goes, it strives too hard to drive home the author's desired theme of lifting Burr's reputation - at the expense of the other players.
   One example: On page 93 when speaking of (Scty of Treasury) Hamilton's paying 6% interest on State Debt, the author neglects to mention that according to many other records, Hamilton himself did not gain personally, while other speculated on the expected results. Also lacking is any mention that Hamilton was driven by the need to get the States to support the Federal Government which was by no means solvent or on firm ground.



3. I enjoyed this book and the new information I learned about one of history's great characters. Burr knew all the founders and played a part in our early history. The epilogue to the book was correct: All these men were simply men and they were not doing historical things all of their lives. Another point: The politics of 2008 is not much different from 1800.



4. I finished this interesting take on Aaron Burr which seems to contradict other biographies. Ms Isenberg portrays our "would be 3rd President" as a victim of smears by most politicians of the day. The VP is just an innocent man that is not only disliked everywhere he goes, but also a Republican from a Federalist state.
   
   After the selection of Clinton as VP of Jefferson's 2nd term Burr seems to disappear. The book explains that he was exploring and traveling like any other normal retired person. In fact, most historians agree that he was plotting to overthrow Mexico and then the United States for revenge the way his Government and Jefferson treated him. This is where the book starts throwing factual history out the window and starts making a lot of assumptions to make Burr appear to be the victim once again.
   
   Either Aaron Burr was the unluckiest guy in the world or this book is making a lot of false assumptions. It is sad in that similar to maybe Barry Goldwater, this was a brilliant guy with potential and we'll always wonder . . . what if? Had he been selected as the 3rd President how different, if at all, would America be? No Louisiana purchase, no Lewis & Clark expedition, no War of 1812, no University of Virginia, no James Madison as President . . . . we can only wonder had this unlucky man; Aaron Burr, been selected (he was elected and tied Jefferson) President of the United States.



5. With the exception of those victims of the Parson Weems School of Hagiography it is instructive to read the uncharacteristically wide and evenly divided range of criticism of this book and, I gotta say, almost all are correct. Although Burr was certainly not a "Founder" (Title Hyperbole!!) in the strict sense, he was certainly a "player" and truly one of the more fascinating and complex characters of the early Republic.
   
   The book is obviously well-researched although I'm not sure if it adds anything substantially new. The style is curiously bland and many of the arguments self-serving. After I read Isenberg, I reread my old copy of Gore Vidal's, "Burr". Written in 1973 when Burr's reputation probably could use some rehabilitation, I suspect now, that it was based on substantially the same scholarship. That having been said, those with little knowledge of the subject and an open mind would be well-served to read Isenberg for background and Vidal for style. Her praise for her subject being no more than Chernow for "Alexander Hamilton", she is not as good a writer.

1 comments about My Autobiography: With "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism" (Dover Books on History, Political and Social Science).

1. This is the man who started all the fascism in Europe and around the world. Even Hitler was impressed by him and copied his system.. This book is necessary to read and understand one of the most influential leaders of the Fascist movement, people to not appreciate his sincere ideologies. Because of my ancestors' roots of Italian/Spanish origins, I feel that it's my obligation to express my point of view and be the first to review this book, by giving it a five and encouraging the public to understand the Fascist mentality. During the Fascist regimes the public was not exposed to the atrocities and delinquencies that terrorize the world to day, and that is because today we have a lot of Liberals who contribute to the lack of Law and order with weak leaders. If you are concern about the future of your children and the security of your family bringing them up in good moral environment, read this book and examine the difference between the Liberals and the Right wing philosophy.

No comments about Olga: Revolutionary and Martyr.

5 comments about American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush.

1. Good stuff here on the Bush Family and their many shady dealings going back to the 1800's. I mean it really is amazing how interwoven this bunch is with so many of the worst elements of the worlds power brokers for over a 150 years. If this book has a weakness its, although it brings up many of the the nefarious deeds and dealings of the Bush crime family, that it barely touches on or completely ignores the worst of the worst that the Bushs have been linked to over the years. It also tries a bit too hard to try to draw a parrellell between the Bush gangsters and European royalty by making them into Americans version of a royal family. Still recomended reading though.



2. A historically accurate review of the Bush multi generational quest for both national and international financial and political power with evidence that politics were a means and wealth the ends; as we continue to see in current events concerning that family today. A must read for anyone who wants at least a basic understanding of how insatiable thirst for absolute power and base, crass greed are at the heart of what and how the United States of America came to be and is currently run. When President Bush said to a group of the richest Americans during his re-election that:"...some refer to you as the 'have mores'; I refer to you as My Base." He wasn't joking; that is his brotherhood, his extended family, the real and only Americans in his world view.



3. I was a little disappointed after reading the title that it wasn't easy potshots at the world's most worthy target, but rather a fact-based, rather dry account of the last century's rise of dynasty, military-industrial complex, and of course 4 generations of Bushes' feeding frenzy on said trends. But call me lazy.



4. From the Preface of his book Kevin Philips says-"My original ambition was to identify and explain the Bush-related transformation of the U.S.presidency into an increasingly dynastic office,a change with profound consequences for the American Republic,given the factors of family bias,domestic special interests,and foreign grudges that the Bushes,father and son,brought into the White House."
   Mr.Philips fulfills that ambition in this book.
   
   He delves into the family history and alliances,from Yale to Skull and Bones and in some cases to the O.S.S. and eventually the C.I.A.
   
   He explains "Texanomics" quite well. A kind of low-tax,low-service,high economic stratification brand of Southern economic conservatism.
   
   G.W.Bush's allegiance to big business and the astronomical tax rebates to companies like G.E. and the ever famous Enron are detailed in the book. Also discussed in the book are G.W.Bush's ties to Ken Lay and his lobbying for energy deregulation. I didn't know that Enron had been a large supporter of the Republican team in the Florida recounts of the 2000 presidential election.
   
   "George W. Bush is in a class by himself when it comes to prevarication. It is no exaggeration to say that lying has become Bush's signature as president."- The American Prospect quoted in the book.
   
   Mr.Philips tells how the Bush-Cheney pairing in the White House is historical in that it brought two former energy company executives together.
   
   The author gives a clear description of what the military-industrial complex is and it's history.
   He details the major part petroleum has played in past as well as present wars. It's historical significance in the outcome of World War II can't be argued.
   
   This book explores the religious aspect of the junor president Bush and his relationship with evangelical voters in contrast with his father's relationship to the same group of voters.
   
   This is a very detailed book about the Bush and Walker families and the businesses they were involved in as well as the transformation of both president Bushes from business to their eventual presidencies.



5. I wish this book had been read widely before the 2004 election. And even more, that it had been published before the 2000 election. It puts a whole different perspective on the forces that have brought us to such unhappy consequenses in the USA. I found this book to be highly informative, knowlegeable and chilling. A good read even though it is too late to change history. And a valuable lesson as we march into the next decades. Dynasties are anti-democratic.

1 comments about Obama: The Essential Guide to the Democratic Nominee.

1. This book is on sale in supermarkets, and I spent time with both this book and its counterpart for John McCain.
   
   I recommend both books as coffee table books, lots of great photos and general information about the individuals, but this book is NOT a guide.
   
   There are no statistics, no tables, no comparisons, no meaningful GUIDE to who the candidate is and what they really stand for based on their actual behavior, votes, known acquaintances, etcetera.
   
   What would be extraordinarlily valuable, if the publishers want to do a fast make-over, is a SINGLE book that compares all four candidates On the Issues and on their Values and what it all means for the federal government's future, the budget's future, and the country's future.
   
   For an idea of what I am talking about, look online for "On the Isuses,"
   and see especially the way they plot on a map relative differences.
   
   See also the book below:
   
   The Political Junkie Handbook (The Definitive Reference Book on Politics)

5 comments about A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures.

1. As Executive Editor of The Washington Post from 1968 to 1991, Ben Bradlee not only printed history, he also made it. Momentous events were covered, careers fashioned, reputations ruined and social movements spotlighted. Bradlee was at the center of all this, directing his reporters, dictating policy and discharging journalistic shells whose recoils are still felt even today. Yet Bradlee was not above or beyond the common man. I remember, as a young bodybuilder uncertain of my future, applying for a position on the Post. Unfortunately, my qualifications were insufficient to meet the standards expected of journalists. However, I still have Mr Bradlee's courteous rejection letter which is worth citing:
   
   'Dear Schwarz
   
   My name is Ben and I'm an alcoholi... hang on... wrong place... let me start again.
   
   Dear Schwarz
   
   Having read your application, in which you admitted to an addiction to Teetotalism, I have no choice but to reject it. The tradition of Common Journalistic Insobriety has taken decanters... let's get that right... decades to establish and your flagrant? flagon?... no, I was right the first time... flagrant disregard for such tradition proves that you aren't fit for either a by-line at the Post or a bar stool in the Journalists' Club. In short, a pen and pad are not compatible with Perrier Water.
   
   I hope you will receive this letter in the spirit in which it is soaked.
   
   Yours sincerely
   
   Ernest Hemmingwa... no, that's not it... where did I put that bottle... Johnnie Walker... no... it's... Richard Nixo... hey Woodward, make mine a double!...'
   
   'A Good Life' is also a very entertaining read.



2. Ben Bradlee's book, "A Good Life: Newspapering and Other Adventures", is a warm, candid and entertaining look back over a remarkable career and personal life. His writing is honest, revealing and to the point. He indeed has had an interesting life. The Watergate and the Pentagon Papers experiences are covered in detail. I became interested in reading this book after reading the book "All the President's Men" and watching the movie of the same title. I would highly recommend this book! Ben comes across as an smart, honest and decent man who worked very hard to earn his achievements.



3. Here's the magic mathematical formula for writing your very own version of "A Good Life." Even better, you don't have to set foot in a newsroom:
   
   ("I banged famous chick")x 51 + ("I met famous person") x 2,453, divided by the number of times you tell your boss how things should be done ("0"), and - viola (an allusion to your time in France) - you've got your own self-serving autobiography! And it doesn't come larded with any of Bradlee's prose, something which should be apparent from the formula.
   
   Good luck with your work!



4. Ben Bradlee and wife Tony lived on the same side of the same Washington, D.C. block as Senator John Kennedy, which is how they became friends with him and Jackie. After JFK's election to the Presidency, their friendship continued. He invited the Bradlees to Camp David, the family compound at Hyannis and for private dinners. At one glamorous White House function, Kennedy sat between Tony Bradlee and her sister Mary, who was also his friend. How close the two were was revealed much later.
   
   Some time after Kennedy's death, Mary was walking along a D.C. canal when she was grabbed from behind. Her assailant stuck a gun under her chin and pulled the trigger; she died instantly. Shortly after the funeral, Mary's best friend phoned Tony Bradlee, inquiring after Mary's personal diary, which she said had been promised to her. When the Bradlees went to Mary's home to locate the book, they encountered inside it the friend's husband, a CIA operative known as "The Locksmith." He said his wife had sent him to retrieve the diary.
   
   When they eventually found it, Ben and Tony were appalled to discover details in the diary of sister Mary's affair with JFK, one that lasted from early 1962 until his Nov. '63 death. They innocently handed the book over to their CIA friend, who promised to destroy it, and never at the time considered the implications of the two violent deaths and an interested CIA.
   
   This is just one of many remarkable stories in Ben Bradlee's A GOOD LIFE. From his teenaged recovery from polio, Harvard graduation, service on a WWII destroyer in the hazardous South Seas off Guadalcanal, City Editorship of a New Hampshire paper, a brief stint at the Washington Post then as a Paris-based foreign correspondent who traveled all over Europe and the Middle East, to a job as assistant to the American ambassador in Paris, to Newsweek and again the Washington Post, Ben Bradlee's "good life" was a full and eventful one, as well. A most fascinating and well-written autobiography. Highest recommendation!
   
   
   ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN, by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, details their investigation as Washington Post reporters under Ben Bradlee of the biggest Presidential scandal in American history, that of Watergate, which led to the resignation in disgrace of Richard Nixon.



5. Mr. Bradlee's book is a crisply written and most entertaining look at his family life and his life in journalism, from the period leading up to World War Two on through the Watergate Era. This is autobiographical writing at its best; honest, informative, funny, sad, hopeful, and never boring. I learned a lot from reading this book. I hope high schools and colleges are using this fine work as part of any course on post-WW2 U.S. history.
   
   A great book by a great writer.

2 comments about Through the Eyes of Innocents: Children Witness World War II.

1. Dr. Emmy Werner's lastest book, in her ongoing research into the resilience of children who face adversity, probes the experiences and impressions of children who lived through the terrors of World War II. With even-handedness she quotes Japanese children who survived the world's first atomic bomb, English children who saw and felt London crumble from their air raid shelters in their gardens, German youngsters who watched Dresden burn. Besides showing the devastating effects of wartime violence, however, she also tells tales of English POWs who treat burned German children, or German POWs who are kind to the children of the families where they are housed. Her overriding message is that individuals must--and do--care for others, regardless of national politics, right or wrong. This work, while full of sadness, is a heartwarming affirmation of hope.



2. As a German child who experienced the horrors of World War II personally, Dr. Emmy Werner weaves together a lively collection of letters, narratives and interviews that makes for fascinating reading. Werner's book is far reaching in its scope, from British children sent into the country to avoid bombing to Japanese-American childen interred in U.S. camps to German refugee children. She leaves few stones unturned. Through it all, she remains amazingly unbiased and open as she connects these experiences into a cohesive work.

   Despite the horrors recounted, such as firebombing, starvation and poverty, there is an equal showing of hope, compassion and bravery. There are heartfelt glimmers of humor amid the painful recollections. It is a testament to Werner's own stamina to survive and become a giving adult herself that this book is as genuinely informative and captivatingly written as it is.

   One compelling collection Werner uncovers is a special correspondence between then General Dwight D. Eisenhower and a young girl from Dayton, Ohio. It opens a wonderful window into how an energetic yet hopeful young woman and and a beleaguered commander formed a unique friendship over thousands of miles.

   I highly recommend this book to anyone, especially to high school history teachers whose students are studying World War II.
   They will find the personal stories compelling reading.

No comments about The Vatican Pimpernel: The Wartime Exploits of Monsignor Hugh O'flaherty.