History Books

Along with Charles Faudree's new Interiors, I have been anxiously awaiting Betty Lou Phillips' The French Room. I wasn't disappointed. Although not every lifestyle allows for the abundance of objets d'art or the high-end luxury fabrics on every upholstered piece, I can still appreciate the beauty and design of the rooms presented. I like the somewhat cleaner line of Ms. Phillips' interiors and those of the designers also featured. It's a shame that this is a decorating style that does not transition itself down well to the mass market, but maybe that's why it's so appealing. Lovely photographs and a wealth of anecdotal information on accomplishing the French style...whatever your budget.

A stunning story of a man who survived the horrors of concentration camps. He is a psychiatrist and developed his own theories and method of therapy called logotherapy. The book covers his experience in a concentration camp and the second half of the book explains his philosophy of logotherapy. Frankl says that the meaning of life is found in every moment of living; life never ceases to have meaning, even in suffering and death. He encourages his patients and readers to live a full life by looking to the future rather than reliving the past.

Quotation: "Self-transcendence of human existence: Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself - be it a meaning to fulfil or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself..."

Excellent read. Highly Recommended.

Just in case, if one wants to ascertain the level of endurance human beings possess, he needs to go no further than read through the experiences at concentration camps as recalled by a survivor - Viktor Frankl - in this book.

And considering that a will to survive does not manifest only in situations where life is at stake, physically, but at various stages in life, where even smallest of problems can seem mammoth and wreck havoc in making life miserable at psychological level, the lessons contained in this book have vast practical applications, when it comes to understanding our survival instinct.

The basic principle which differentiates a survivor from a loser is well highlighted by the following quote, which is often cited by the author in the book - 'The one who has a why to live can bear almost any how.'

I would highly recommend this book and would suggest re-reading it a few times because it would better enable on to grasp and internalize the importance of the subject addressed in this book and appreciate the viewpoint of the author.

I first read this book in college many years ago as I was working on my degree in psychology. An excerpt from it is in John McCain's autobiographical book, Faith of My Fathers: A Family Memoir. I was glad to be reminded of this book which I had not read in years. I found my old copy on the shelf but I am also glad to learn it is still available.

The comparison between Frankl and McCain as prisoners is striking. Both of them emphasize the basic human need for meaning and purpose. Both share incredible horrors of prison camp as well as the human ability to look beyond present circumstances, to keep the horrid memories from continuing as sources of torture years after the actual experiences.
We can apply this ability to many of the unfortunate experiences in our lives. It is not only an attitude of forgive and forget, it is the need to keep the horrors or smaller angers from continuing to torment us.

It is more than a little frightening that there are people who deny that the Holocaust even happened. I hope you read Frankl's book. Fully grasp the reality of his day and apply it to today's needs and problems.

This is a wonderful book to read merely because of it's main message. Read it and find out the meaning of the title.

I bought this book because I was searching for yet another book on workplace bullying and another book came up in my search based on Frankl's book. I read the customer reviews on that book and one reviewer said something to the effect of, "If you want to read a book based on Viktor Frankl's opinion of how to get along at a bad work environment (like a Nazi death camp), why don't you just read Frankl's book?" So, that's where I started. I read it. Twice. Then I got out my computer and typed in passages that had meaning to me so I could re-read them during difficult times. I compressed the entire book down to about 10 pages, single spaced. I must admit that I consider myself a negative, often depressed sort of person, mostly because my work situation is so demoralizing. I was amazed by Frankl's coping mechanisms on how to get along in a difficult situation; every day meant multiple incidents of having to choose the correct path to avoid death or worse, making the choice to give up on your own life (suicide). He went through 5 years of that and lived to tell about it. It is a must read for everyone, particularly when you are having the hardest time of your life. I could tell that if I had read it as a college student, it wouldn't have the same meaning as now, when I am 50 and have had many ups and downs. I see everything at such a deeper level and appreciated this book so much more than I would have if I were younger. Briefly, the lessons in the book written 50 years ago still apply today. Here they are: Let luck be your guide. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Network with the equivalent of a one-step-up lateral (not your own) middle manager and they will help you when they can. Schmooze. Be kind to others. Don't complain, it doesn't help. You can't fix, deal with or appeal to a sadist, so don't try. Avoid sadists at all costs. Keep your mouth shut unless asked for your opinion and then be short and to the point. Praise, even when praise isn't deserved. Keep criticisms to yourself. Be inconspicuous. Work hard for the sake of doing a good job. Fantasize for escape. Everything can be taken away from you except for your past, so relish in it. When something good happens to you, write it down (keep a gratitude journal). Don't do anything that compromises your own values so you won't have regrets. Be careful who you abuse today because tomorrow they may be your master. You are not your job, your title or your position. You are a unique person loved by others. The only thing in life that really matters is the people you love and the people who love and need you. Love shared is eternal. Treat everyone with respect. The meaning of life is not what life can do for you, but what life expects of you; how you make the world a better place with your presence. The purpose of life is not happiness. The purpose of life is discovering what you can contribute to it. Save a slice of bread (or whatever is the only material thing that matters to you when there is nothing left) for later when you are really depressed and it's the only thing left that can get you through that difficult moment. (For me it's chocolate and a dark beer at the same time.) Apathy is the signaling of the beginning of the end of one's life. Everyone that you respect and look up to has human failings. Even tough guys cry. Suffering without purpose is meaningless. The larger the suffering, the bigger the lesson. There's lots more in the book for you to discover and it's an easy read.

Much of the book is quite interesting, in that it fills out the character of Rhett Butler. In GWTW, the book and movie, he appears and disappears without our knowing from whence and to where. With this book, we learn about the events that shaped his character--from the beatings by his cruel father to his association and partnership with Belle Watling. We also learned the Margaret Mitchell estate approved version of what happened after the last page of the novel GWTW.

Also good is the depiction of the ante-bellum South, especially Charleston, where secession was born. There is a myth about that era, propagated by post-bellum, 2nd generation Southerners. Only a small percentage of the whites lived on comfortable plantations, worked by happy slaves. A London newspaperman traveled through the South just before the war and was amazed to find that so many white illiterates, so much chewing tobacco on the sidewalks. Still, there were the Taras so GWTW was not entirely inaccurate. The present book continues that myth but fleshes out the other reality a bit.

However, when this book attempts to describe military actions, it is woefully inaccurate. One example: Morgan's Ohio raid of July 1863 is a mess in this book. Gen. John Hunt Morgan is replaced by a fictional colonel, who looks at "Pommery, Ohio," rather than Pomeroy, Ohio, in Meigs County, on the Ohio River. Morgan's raiders tried to cross the river near there, and some made it into West Virginia, which was scarcely safe Confederate territory at the time. The rest of Morgan's men were forced eastward and were captured near East Liverpool. The prisoners did not go to prison in Illinois, as is suggested in this book, but were sent to Camp Chase, Johnson's Island and the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. Morgan escaped from the latter site. I can't imagine why the author decided to change history so drastically, when the real story could have served his purpose just as well. The author's postscript explanation does not adequately explain or justify the rearrangements in his novel.

There is also confusion with respect to the sequence of when military events took place. The Ohio raid followed closely upon Gettysburg, in July, and yet the southerners shivered in the cold. In another place, southerners cross the Potomac River into Pennsylvania. What happened to Maryland? In another case a train leaves Georgia, enters Mississippi, then proceeds into Alabama. Another case: Maj. Ashley Wilkes was all over the place in the war, in the Army of Northern Virginia, in the Army of Tennessee, and in raids into Kentucky. In the Mitchell book he is with Gen. Gordon, strictly in Lee's army.

It is hard to overlook these alterations of history or errors and maintain a sense of reality in reading this. Margaret Mitchell was far more careful in mentioned battles and in adhering to accurate timelines.

It is unfortunate that the author of Rhett Butler's People let his book be marred by errors that any student of the Civil War will see--amd regret.

I recently purchased and read this book. Based on the reviews that I had read, I thought I wasn't going to enjoy the book. I am so glad that I was wrong. Are there flaws with the book? Absolutely, the main one being the way Melly is protrayed. However, with all of the flaws, it is still an amzing read! If you didn't like the way Alexandra Ripley continued the story, you should really get satisfaction from this book. Congratulations Mr. McCaig on a job well done!!

As someone who works with creative teams and has seen the results when creation by committee goes horribly awry, I wondered as I read through the first part of this book if the Margaret Mitchell estate had meddled in the writing. The story was so incoherent and the characters so empty, it was if the author wasn't really inhabiting his work. I read online this is apparently true, with estate lawyers providing guidance of all things! My sympathy to the author! In most of this book we have very little insight into the inner world of Rhett Butler, to me the most intriguing character of the original -- we see what he goes through as a young man but we have little idea of the person developing inside as a result. The plot comes from the war instead of characters. There were some clever interpretations of back stories hinted at in the original book (did Rhett and Belle have a son together?). The new characters were not terribly interesting but mostly in reaction to something around them -- in the original the characters are iconic and colorful, standing for key values and Southern viewpoints. The last few chapters hone in finally on the original characters (with Rhett's sister added) to retell the post-war story, thankfully departing from the terrible 'Scarlett Goes To Ireland' sequel by Ripley. The last chapters were more interesting and satisfying. But would Scarlett really allow herself to go down into poverty and be satisfied with field hand status waiting for Rhett? Not from everything said about her before. She would have been searching for the next opportunity to care for her family beyond poverty. I think it was a man's fantasy that even Scarlett O'Hara would keep herself in poverty so Rhett would come save her at the end.

Hmmm....What can I say about this read? Though I have read and love GWTW, I don't feel that I am a purest about the original. I have also read the first sequel, Scarlett, and enjoyed it for the most part. Rhett Butler's People just lacked depth. The characters that I have learned to love where shallow, and unbelievable. The premise of the book could have been great, describing Rhett Butler's past and views on the whole GWTW saga. However, I felt that the writing was simply NOT good. Don't buy this one, go to the library.

McCaig is a virtuoso of the written word. I have no idea how any true fan of the original GWTW can give it less than 5 stars. McCaig has taken our favorite scoundrel, lover and hero and made him BETTER! He's still all that he ever was, but you are allowed to see the thoughts behind the action. And what glorious thoughts!

Each page screams loving dedication and hours of research. I have studied the Civil War extensively, have a library of over 100 books on the subject, have sojourned in its many battlefields contemplating the destruction, waste and tragedy of mankind. But somehow McCaig has made it easier to understand.

Do not hesitate to buy this one. I just can't believe I waited this long to read it.

My unit read this book for professional development. I found it slow a firs, because it is a long read, but the chapters were interesting. I'm just a slow reader. The book offers countless lessons learned from the past that apply directly and indirectly to current US foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan. Anyone interested in learning from past events of the Great Game and large wars should read this book. One will learn a tremendous amount of background information about the Middle East: why it is the way it is today, why the region is geographically divided as it is, and other useful information. Whether the interested reader plans to visit the region for business or personal reasons or he plans to study for various reasons, this book will be valuable. I also recommend for group reading and discussion.

I am an enthusiastic amateur family historian and I have puzzled a while over an important (to my wife and I) family question: how come my wife's great uncle, Captain Thomas John Catchpole (1888 - 1917), of Lidgate, Suffolk, and of the 5th Battalion, the Suffolk Regiment, was killed by the Turks at Gaza?

Subsidiary questions have also been in my mind: why were the Turks/Ottomans our enemies in the so-called 'Great War'?; what determined the demise of the Turkish/Ottoman Empire, under which many races, including Jews, Arabs and Turks, had lived relatively peaceably?; and how did the present-day 'Middle East' become such a problem area?

I am also a member of the 'what if' school of history: this book is one of those that inspire endless speculation. If decisions had been made differently and events had taken a different course, maybe my wife's great uncle's descendants could still be living at Lidgate.

For example, what if the British Cabinet had acted on Winston Churchill's urging in 1911 to make an alliance with the Turks/Ottomans?

And if the 'Great War' had gone on for two years only (the German General Ludendorff believed the entry of the Turks/Ottomans into the war allowed the outnumbered Central powers to fight on for two years longer than they would have been able on their own), my wife's great uncle would not have been killed at Gaza in 1917.

And if Winston Churchill's Dardanelles plans had prevailed over those of Lord Kitchener in March, 1915, Constantinople would have fallen, and my wife's great uncle would not have been killed at Gaza in 1917.

As it was, it appears that numerous attempts were made to subvert, to attack, and to conquer the Turks/Ottomans, the defeat of whom could - and, maybe, should - have been accomplished in 1915, and my wife's great uncle would not have been killed at Gaza in 1917.

This brilliant book - an historical thriller through and through - has provided me with much information and most of the answers and I am so grateful to David Fromkin for researching and writing it and to Amazon for selling it to me.

It is quite clear to me now that the alliance between Germany and the Turks/Ottomans was at best an unintended mistake and at worst the secret design of a very few of the Turkish leaders. It could have been done very differently, with Turkey and the Ottoman Empire continuing to maintain their neutrality, to the benefit of the British and of the world.

And it also appears from Fromkin's account that the successive collapses of the British, French and Russian Governments were directly attributable to the Dardanelles disaster. In the case of Russia, of course, this meant a fatal finale for the Czar and his family and the rise of Lenin and Bolshevism.

There came on the scene in 1917 one Woodrow Wilson, as ignorant regarding Britain, France, Russia and the Turkish/Ottoman Empire as many Americans, but as determined, nevertheless, to do down the British as his later successor, Franklin Roosevelt. Despite having some high-flown thoughts, Mr Wilson helped little.

All in all, it is once again amazing to me that two great British statesmen, Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George, should have been so full of foresight and wisdom. It's all too obvious that the others, including Wilson, were political pygmies.

I suppose now and with hindsight that I would probably have preferred for the Ottoman Empire to have been maintained, as Churchill often wanted, or, failing that, for the British Empire to have been vastly extended - for good!

I spotted one error (on page 299, in a section on the role of Louis D. Brandeis, later the first Jewish member of the United States Supreme Court): 'Only one Jew [Oscar Strauss] had ever been a member of the president's cabinet.' Not true: Judah Philip Benjamin played prominent roles in the cabinet of President Jefferson Davis.

(An extremely interesting piece of information gleaned from the book is that Baghdad and Jerusalem, before the War, were home to the largest populations of Jews in the Middle East. 'Jews in large numbers had lived in the Mesopotamian provinces since the time of the Babylonian captivity - about 600 BC - and thus were settled in the country a thousand years before the coming of the Arabs in AD 634.').

There has been some criticism that this book is too much about Great Britain and its leaders and people. To answer the criticism I quote the following (from page 385): 'The Prime Minister (Lloyd George) claimed that Britain was entitled to play the dominant role in the Middle East, recalling that at one time or another two and a half million British troops had been sent there, and that a quarter of a million had been killed or wounded; while the French, Gallipoli apart, had suffered practically no casualties in the Middle East, and the Americans had not been there at all.'

Thoroughly recommended: I couldn't put it down!

A personal post-script:

In the Autumn of 1917, following two earlier failed attempts by General Murray in the first half of that year, General Allenby invaded (from Egypt, which was under British protection) Palestine, and my wife's great uncle, Captain Thomas John Catchpole, was killed, during the third battle of Gaza, on the 3rd of November (reportedly fatally injured by a Turk soldier and then shot by a fellow British officer, in the presence of his own younger brother, to put him out of his misery, there being no chance that he would live), and lies buried at the Deir El Belah War Cemetery. And the Middle East is still a problem.

Well-researched and it reads like a novel. 565 pages flew by before I noticed I was making progress. And timely as all get-out. What more could you posssibly want for the price of five gallons of Middle Eastern gas?

World War One brought about the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the modern Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine (including a somewhat conditional Jewish Homeland), and the Transjordan were carved out mainly by the British. Turkey established itself as a separate entity including both European (East Thrace) and Asian parts. David Fromkin leads the reader through the changes that occurred between 1914 and 1922 in meticulous detail. Indeed, this reader found the book's main shortcoming to be the welter of specific facts that sometimes obscured the larger picture.

Fromkin's book was published in 1989 so that it has an interesting historical perspective. The Iranians had thrown out the Americans and the so-called Afghan Arabs had played their (exaggerated) role in pushing the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, but 9-11 remained over a decade in the future. Nonetheless, Fromkin detected the strength of Islam as the most important force in the region.

Fromkin notes that the Middle East was the final area of the world to fall to Western (mostly British) imperialism. He also observes that this extension of Western power had long been anticipated with the main question being which country would get how much. In the end the British obtained more paper power than they could reasonable have hoped for, but then they found that by 1922 they had neither the will nor the wherewithal to exert that power. The Great War drained them of both. The British, and to a lesser degree the French and Americans, created weak countries and left major issues such as the fate of Kurds, Jews, and Palestinian Arabs unresolved.

An even more fundamental challenge remained and remains. In every other area of the globe subjected to Western dominance, Western forms and principles prevailed, but Fromkin notes that "at least one of those assumptions, the modern belief in secular civil government, is an alien creed in a region most of whose inhabitants...have avowed faith in a Holy Law that governs all life, including government and politics." Fromkin puts his finger right on the problem that the West has in understanding much of the region.

Even more daunting, Fromkin argues that the Middle East still has not sorted itself out after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. He notes discouragingly that it took Western Europe about more than a millennium to "resolve its post-Roman crisis of social and political identity". The region's politics lack any "sense of legitimacy" or "agreement on the rules of the game - and no belief, universally shared in the region...that the entities that call themselves countries or the men who claim to be rulers are entitled to recognition as such." The last such rulers were the Ottoman sultans.

With regard to the current troubles in Iraq, one fervently wishes that someone in Washington had appreciated the penetrating analysis by the British civil commissioner Arnold Wilson in 1920 about the area just then being called Iraq. While he was called upon to administer the provinces of Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul, he did not believe they "formed a coherent entity". As he saw it the Kurds of Mosul would never accept an Arab leader, while the Shi'ite Moslems would never accept domination by the minority Sunnis, but, to directly quote Wilson, "no form of Government has yet been envisaged, which does not involve Sunni domination." And on and on it goes.

The book features a number of familiar figures, Winston Churchill most prominent among them. Fromkin's favorable treatment of Churchill strongly suggests that Winston was repeatedly ill-served by subordinates, bad luck, and bad press. By 1922, Churchill was finished as a British politician (or so it seemed). Other major figures include Lord Kitchener, David Lloyd George, T.E. Lawrence (about whom many questions are raised). A plethora of lesser known British and French military and civil leaders abound in the pages of Fromkin's lengthy tome, not to mention the odd Russia and German. Turkish leaders, such as Enver Pasha and Mustapha Kemal often bewilder their Western counterparts.

Perhaps the oddest historical artifact reproduced by Fromkin was the belief, generally accepted among British intelligence and high-ranking civil and military leaders, in a conspiracy between Prussian generals and Jewish financiers manipulating Russian Bolsheviks and Turkish nationalists to the detriment of British interests! Moreover, in this conspiratorial view, Islam was controlled by Jewry. At this point, the reader is tempted to quietly murmur that the British should go home where they might understand something of what they are about. (The dangers of drawing too direct lessons from history are great and while the US leadership did not harbor any notions quite this crackpot, it bears notice that the US seem not to have understand Iraq, its history, or its people before sending in troops.)

Fromkin produced a fine book, not an easy read, with a wealth of information and an excellent closing summary. It suffered, at times from the size of the subject - the transformation of an entire region during a worldwide war - and the maze of characters and details. A book that bears a second reading and a subject (subjects, really) for further study. Highly recommended.

Fromkin's seminal work is now almost 20 years old, and it is still the essential history book on the bungled making of the modern Middle East. Like another reviewer, I would gladly have given this a 6-star rating if it were possible. So much today remains the very same, save for the change from one imperial power to another. Consider from the Introduction: "The European powers at that time believed they could change Moslem Asia in the very fundamentals of its political existence, and in their attempt to do so introduced an artificial state system into the Middle East that has made it into a region of countries that have not become nations even today." On page 451 Fromkin quotes the caution of an American missionary to the woman who, by in large, created Iraq, Gertrude Bell: "You are flying in the face of four millenniums of history if you try to draw a line around Iraq and call it a political entity..... they have no conception of nationhood yet."

From the perspective of a century, in some ways it is difficult to believe that all this was a sideshow, to use William Shawcross's phrase for Cambodia. The "real drama" was the Western Front, a subsidiary drama the Eastern Front, and the rise of Communism, and this very distant front was much like Burma during the Second War World, few players with meager resources.

Fromkin lays much of the blame for the misunderstandings between the West and the Middle East on Kitchener. In a description true of individuals today, he said of Kitchener: "The peculiarities of his character, the deficiencies of his understanding of the Moslem world, the misinformation regularly supplied to him by his lieutenants...... and his choice of Arab politicians...."

His chapter on the Balfour Declaration is strong; balancing the forces and players at work, and making the oft-forgotten point that the vast majority of the world's Jew's were not Zionists. The book is replete with other ironies, such as a footnoted exchange:"... on the Arab question, shows Lord Kitchener asking, "Wahabism, does that still exist?" and Sykes answering, "I think it is a dying fire." So much of the West's impression of Saudi Arabia was initially formed by TE Lawrence, in his half-fictional work "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" so Fromkin's confirmation that Lawrence himself cautioned his biographer, Graves, that his work is "...full of half-truth here." is a valuable reminder to examine the prism and motives of individuals who write about the Middle East.

On page 468, again with an easy substitution, plus ca change.... "In fact there was an outside force linked to every one of the outbreaks of violence in the Middle East, but it was the one force whose presence remained invisible to British officialdom. It was Britain herself. In a region of the globe whose inhabitants were known especially to dislike foreigners, and in a predominantly Moslem world which could abide being ruled by almost anybody except non-Moslems, a foreign Christian country ought to have expected to encounter hostility when it attempted to impose its own rule."

I agree with some of the criticism of this book: that it is a "big man's" version of history, and neglects describing broader social forces that motivate the "little man" and that it is weak on describing the thinking and motivation of the non-European regional players.

We can only hope that additional parallels with the present situation will occur, from page 561: "By the time that the war came to an end (WW I), British society was generally inclined to reject the idealistic case for imperialism (that it would extend the benefits of advanced civilization to a backward region) as quixotic, and the practical case for it (that it would be a benefit to Britain to expand her empire) as untrue. Viewing imperialism as a costly drain on a society that needed to invest all of its remaining resources in rebuilding itself...."

This book should be mandatory reading for the next American administration.

Samantha Power has produced a history of genocide through the 20th century. She presents an impressive accounts of genocide against Armenians in Turkey, Jews in Holocaust, Tutsi in Rwanda, Kurds in Iraq, and Bosnian Muslims in the Balkan war; the stories are extremely well-written, and the images are vivid. Apart from stories about the conflicts themselves, she gives credit to the individuals who contributed to political understanding of genocide and recognition of the term in international law. She puts heavy emphasis on the role of the United States in dealing with genocide, mostly taking the critical stance.

The book is remarkably unbiased, as a great piece of journalist prose. Samantha Power spent several years in Bosnia as a reporter for the Western magazines, and her writing style evolved to reflect vivid images while passing information and truth to her reader. She is not judging the culprits of genocide, including a chapter about the war tribunals instead. That leaves the reader with an option of making one's own choices in thinking about genocide.

The book is a great source of information on genocide, foreign policy of the United States, and the role of individuals in dealing with the "problems from hell." Simply brilliant reading and definitely worth your time!

While I have some issues with this work, it is, overall, a good piece of journalism and a major call to arms against the legacy of inertia when genocide is involved. Power delineates the history of the Genocide Convention and its applications. She also does great case studies of genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Cambodia showing the failures of US policy at the times of genocides.

She is also unwilling to excuse inertia at the time of genocide for such excuses as national security and protection of American interest. The repulsion of protecting the Khmer Rouge for the sake of hurting Viet Nam is well acknowledged. The inaction in Rwanda because of the problems found in Somalia is equally well documented.

My issues with this book stem neither from the facts nor from the general sentiment. They really arise in her oversimplification over several international issues. She uses the phrase "Turkey" as if such a nation existed at the time of the Armenian Genocide. She is constantly changing the words for ethnic groups that people use. And, she oversimplifies the American response specifically to the Cambodian Genocide. While I understand that it is warranted to a degree to keep the reader on the issue of specific genocides, in reality it seems that she may be trying to hide something for those who know the international situations at the times.

All and all it is a good book. Her critique of the Clinton Administration, and its refusal to lead world opinion, is something that could be taken from the works of Zbigniew Brzezinski. Her call to arms against genocide is one that must be made so that we can say "Never again," again. Yet, her continuous over simplification of global situations seems to avoid the need for counterargument in the work. I would read it, but it is not a must read.

I found this book incredibly insightful. The book is a thoughtful narration on why genocide is difficult to confront. From the United States perspective, the author explains why time after time, among different administrations, liberal or conservative, leaders and common folk choose to ignore genocide. What does anyone personally have to gain from stopping genocide? Very little and requires tremendous sacrifice. The subject matter is not easy to read but the author skillfully tells personal stories to make this a compelling and dramatic read. I highly recommend this book.

The phrase, "A Problem From Hell" is a gripping metaphor of our troubled times. And this is a meticulously research and well-written (although a bit dense for my taste) book adequately covering the tip of the iceberg of that subject.

However, and meaning no disrespect to this brilliant author, it must be said that we have seen these sensitivities and sensibilities come and go before in the form of eagle scout exuberance, and mostly liberal-leaning "do-gooder" NGOs, and neophyte overly excitable roving reporters. And while we could throw up a whole of wall of clichés that would better make my larger point, it must be said that "trading in" self-righteous indignation" very much after the fact is a "detail" but hardly a policy prescription, and certainly not a useful way to solve complex international problems.

Yes, it is true that rather than enter World War I, which would surely have been the result had the U.S. intervened on behalf of the Armenians against the Turks in 1915-1916 does leave a lasting bitter taste in the mouth. Or, the same can be said for the rationalizations against bombing the railroads leading to the Nazi concentration camps, or not allowing more Jews fleeing those horrors to enter the U.S., or moving too slowly and too late in Yugoslavia, or not at all to stop the genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda - and even today, of making sweet sounding noises but doing nothing in Darfur.

And although, as the last standing superpower we may have had (and may still have) a "special responsibility" to use our power to intervene in many of these instances, we are not the only members of the international community that must live with the moral guilt of our own international cowardliness and "chosen ability" not to act to save hundreds of thousands of innocent lives.

Despite this, since every U.S. President who has had to face an ongoing questions of genocide, has also found convenient ways to either ignore or rationalize them away, we must ask the question at the subtext of this research: Are these then all just matters of cold-blooded raw calculations of rational decision making? Or simply just cases of weighing national means and costs against rational ends and returns to the national interests? Rather than questions of pure morality? Or is there something deeper going on here?

Far be it for me to rain on the author's award winning parade.

However it must be said, if only in passing, that it is curious indeed how a book on genocide can take the U.S to task and at the same time simply leap frog right over the most sordid aspects of the U.S. own genocidal history and find a neat landing in an island clearing that is as morally pristine as it is naive:

Neither the genocide against Native Americans nor against African Americans during slavery merited even so much as a footnote in the book, apparently neither was relevant enough to be mentioned, even once. Like a cat, somehow the author manages to land on both feet in a clearing on the other side of this historical messiness with her humanity, morality, innocence and self-righteous indignation, all still unperturbed and perfectly intact. How can this be done?

If genocide at home has no more moral meaning or consequence than that, then maybe doing nothing is the prefect answer to all genocide, whether home or abroad, and whether in the past, present or the future. If we use past U.S. sensitivity to genocide as a guide, one would be led to ask: Where is the problem? Maybe the author is doing exactly what one raised in the U.S. should do: pretend that that there is no connection between the past and the future, and just keep leaping over to the next moral clearing. After all we did not fail to sign the International Treaty Against Genocide without a good reason?

This moral prestidigitation of course has its own precedents and raises its own separate questions: Can a nation that fails to confront honestly the genocide in its own closeted past really be expected to intervene when it occurs in the international arena? Yes, it is sad that in every instance that we had the chance to, except Yugoslavia, we failed to muster the moral strength and courage to intervene. But it is infinitely sadder not to realize that this cowardliness stems in part, directly from our own domestic home-grown genocidal experiences. As a final note, perhaps it is a little known fact that it was the U.S. Eugenics program that served as the model for Hitler's "Final Solution. What is the cliché about charity begins at home?

Four Stars

According to this author the 20th century was "the age of genocide". Incredibly, in this massive narrative of over 600 pages she feels no need to address the phrase from the title. Having announced that the purpose of her book, in part, is to survey "the major genocides of the twentieth century" (p. xv) she celebrates "those who have refused to remain silent in the age of genocide" (p. xviii). This may be the only time the phrase occurs in this voluminous book. Hence, the idea that the twentieth century was the age of genocide is simply taken for granted. Power is not alone in so characterizing the past century; it is quite a trendy claim, in fact. Thus, according to R.J. Rummel's calculations the genocides of the twentieth century have killed more than four times as many people as all the wars and revolutions of the same time period combined. This way of counting causes of death is more than likely dubious, it fits with the fashionable nonsense du jour that we live in an age of genocide.

This attitude of simply screaming "genocide" whenever one feels like it leads to the social phenomenon I call "genocidalism of commission" (see Aleksandar Jokic, "Genocidalism" The Journal of Ethics Vol. 8, No. 2, 2004, pp.251-250) defined thusly: the energetic attributions of "genocide" in less than clear cases without considering available and convincing opposing evidence and argumentation. Power's book is an example of genocidalist literature par excellence:

The main theoretical "contribution" of the book is deeply flawed. Power chastises the U.S. and its policymakers for failing to respond to specific genocides in the twentieth century. Implausibly, the U.S. is presented as an ideal observer (as if angelic intelligence from heaven) that has no possible (let alone real) contributory causal role in mass-killings around the globe. For her the only question is why the U.S. regularly does nothing or too little, despite its unquestioned might, to ensure that genocide does not repeatedly occur. Her puzzle is this: Why the U.S. does not eradicate genocide once and for all? Ignoring the fact of genocides completed against a series of Native American nations in the century that just preceded the alleged "age of genocide" Power unconvincingly simply pretends that the U.S. is not capable of deploying the favorite trick of all empires, divide et impera, and engage in mass killings (or have it done by a proxy).

Consequently, "genocidalism of commission," or genocidal use of "genocide," amounts to giving alleged "genocides" an inappropriate kind of attention: camouflaged as genuine concern for the evil contained in genocide the real interest is of another sort, e.g., the outcomes may have clear propagandistic connotation. This is morally inappropriate even when well grounded in the politically correct phraseology of the day, and applied to the geopolitically targeted groups selected for "treatment" by the super-power. It may be that the genocidalism of commission has as its ultimate aim or at least its consequences inevitably lead to the silence and cover up of real genocides. And the ultimate outcome of this practice is the trivialization of the Holocaust.

This book is a must read for Christians who are not satisfied with their spiritual life and a MUST READ for those in churches considering major capital expenditures that will serve only the members. It will change the way you think about how you and your church can best serve Jesus.

For many years I have felt disenfrancised from the church, even though I have spent my entire life in it and even raised my family in it. Now that I am nearing fifty, I have found myself seeking ways to spread my faith that are real and substantive. This Present Future has given verbal affirmation to what I've felt all along, and to what I've always known to be true. But in Churchian circles, the only truth is the one they tell you, and to think outside the box is frowned upon. But now I understand why, and I understand what I must do to change and effect my world for Christ.

Thank you Reggie McNeal.
Lonnie Friesen
The Homeless Heart

Reggie McNeal writes a thought provoking book that will either excite and challenge you or anger you. Not everyone is ready for the truth that is laid out in his book. But it is the truth none the less. The American Church has lost the right to be heard and this book gives us some tough questions we need to ask ourselves in doing a self-evlaution and earning the right to share the important message of Jesus Christ and be heard by those who need to hear it. This book was a great confirmation for our church in who we are and why we don't seem to fit in with the other churches in our community. God is doing a new thing and this book has shown our church we are part of it. I am now taking our entire church leadershipo through the book. I highly recommend every Christian who is tired of "doing church" and maintaining the status qou read this book.

Fantastic book. Really makes you reflect on your ministry and the questions the book asks gives a structure for evaluating the overall focus of your church. I would highly recommened this book for someone seeking to bring about revitalization within their congregation and personal ministry.

Excellent book which speaks to the problems the modern church faces. Gives specific information and direction to deal with current issues. I have found this work tremendously useful in advocating change for the church I serve as pastor.

Those high school and college history classes that cast the USA in a glowing llight are called to question by Kinzer. Here we find the extent to which commercial interests have dominated foreign policy. To this domination we add a huge dose of stupidity and a ton of arrogance. This will give the recipe for USA regime change operations in foreign lands. Details are included along with excellent documentation.

A revealing and very well-written book on America's history of meddling in world affairs, full of historical revelation and insight. Avoid the audiobook version of this; I don't know the name of the person chosen to read the book but his absurdly strident intonation turns it into a joke.

So there are these men, were there isn't a lot written about them in history (There is a airport named after one of them) and anyway they kind set the pace for American foreign policy. Later on OGA's kind of get over zealous with the help of the "First to fight people" and then congress cuts their balls off, presto 9/11. That's a Karma Theory.

If you believe Bush's pithy statement above, then you really need to buy & read this book. I remember growing up in the 70's, when the Iranian Islamic revolution happened, and hearing all the "Death to America, the Great Satan" chanting, and like most Americans wondering what they were so mad about.

Never in the so-called "mainstream media" did I ever hear about our overthrow of Mossedegh in Iran and (re)installation of the brutul Shah. Err, that's why they hate us! Recommended reading for all US history classes...

This is a very well written book that provides us with critically important history that all Americans need to know. These are sad chapters that document the attempt to establish an American Empire and make it clear that the concept of a "war on terror" leaves out all history prior to 9/11/01. The chapter on the overthrow by the CIA of the democratically elected President of Iran in 1953 is especially important. This illegal intervention was undertaken on behalf of the oil companies who were infuriated at President Mossadegh's attempt to nationalize the Iranian oil industry. This is essential information which puts a whole new perspective on our very troubled relationship with Iran. (It also further reinforces the idea that our illegal war and occupation of Iraq was undertaken to secure the vast prize of Iraq's oil reserves.) This book makes it crystal clear that all too often our foreign policy decisions have been made in the service of big business. This is an old recipe for continuing disaster- America can do better than blindly follow in the footsteps of the French and British Empires. This, tragically, has been our course of action in Vietnam and now in Iraq- the book has two excellent chapters that deal with these disastrous interventions.

In this readable, carefully-researched book, author Steven Zaloga carefully picks apart the conventional view that the Panther was superior to the Sherman. To begin with, the primary role of tanks was not tank-to-tank combat. When tank duels occurred they were decided more by who got the first shot than by gun power or armor protection. By late 1944, American crews generally had an edge in experience and training. The Sherman had a better secondary armament than the Panther. The Sherman typically had a faster engagement cycle than the Panther because the Sherman's turrret traversed faster, and the Sherman's gunner had his own periscopic sight; the Panther's gunner, whose head barely fit in the turret, sat blind until he had orders to begin looking for the target. In combat, tank engagements were usually small, quick and decisive; victory went to the side that saw the enemy first, and fired first.

By late 1944, the majority of Panther crews were relatively green and inadequately trained. Fuel scarcity aggravated the problem of deficient crew training, and imposed limitations in combat, too. The Panther's armor was often brittle because the vital alloy molybdenum was increasingly scarce in Germany's war-ravaged, bombed-out manufacturing economy. Foreign workers may have sabotaged fuel and lubrication systems in Panthers. For these reasons and more, the Panther's brilliant design was more a matter of theory than reality.

If, like me, you are something of a tankaholic, you will savor this vintage bottle as a rare break from the cheap stuff. And if someone you love is a tankaholic, there could be no better gift than this fascinating glimpse of late World War II armored warfare.

First, I'll admit a prejudice towards Steve Zaloga's works. He is one of my favorite authors on military history and technology. In this volume Zaloga has added another excellent volume to his works on WW2 US armored forces. Other Osprey volumes include Battle Orders series books on US tank battalions, US armored divisions, and tank destroyer battalions, a Warrior series book on US tank crewman, Vanguard books on the M4 (76mm), and other vehicles. Each book adds more material to the overall story of American armored troops in World War Two. Taken together Zaloga's volumes add up to a massive history of the US military forces in Europe that faced the German army. This "Duel" series volume deals specifically with the use of the later editions of Sherman tanks against the massive German attack know as the Battle of the Bulge. Both vehicles are examined from the technical standpoint as well as their use in the tactical situation on the battlefield. Mr. Zaloga defrocks the myths that only superior US numbers won the war or that it always took five Shermans to kill a German Panther tank. This book looks at the various factors that allowed the Germans to win the statistics (bigger, heavier, etc.) but allowed the US Army to win the war. This book is well written and very readable. The pictures are clear and in many cases uncommon. The color illustration add appropriate content to the text. More than worth the money, highly recommended.

I really like Zaloga's objective approach to his subjects and this one is just as non-biased. Nice graphics, few typos, great research overall. One of the better "Duel" books.

The book does make me wonder why the U.S. didn't use the superb British Firefly during the Ardennes Battles after it proved its worth during the Normandy conflicts. If Zaloga reads this, maybe he would know?

Even as the author of the previous volume in the Duel series, Panther vs. T-34: Ukraine 1943, I still learned a great deal in Steven J Zaloga's first addition to the Duel series, entitled Panther vs. Sherman: Battle of the Bulge 1944. As usual, the author manages to impart new data and fresh insight even into familiar subjects, such as tank battles in the Ardennes. This volume focuses on actions involving the German Panther Ausf G model tank versus the M4A3 (76mm) Sherman during the period 16-31 December 1944. Although there is plenty of technical detail in this volume, this is far more than a simple comparison between two tanks and readers looking for a glib assessment of which tank was `better' than the other will not find it here. Overall, this is another great volume in the Duel series.

The volume begins with sections on the design and development of both tanks, which does not significantly overlap material in earlier Osprey volumes. As the author explains, the design of the Panther Ausf G was seriously compromised by poor quality materials and lack of spare parts, all caused by Allied bombing. In regard to the Sherman, he states that, "the Panther threat began to be realized too late to have an impact on US Army decisions for its 1944 tank program" and there was no strong demand from American armor officers for tanks with improved anti-tank capability until after D-Day. The section on technical specifications in sub-divided into protection, firepower and mobility, with direct comparisons between the two tanks embedded in each of these areas. Herein, the author notes that, "the Panther had significantly better armor protection than the Sherman" and that "the Panther had superior firepower to the M4A3 (76mm) in tank-versus-tank combat." However, the Sherman had significant advantages in terms of mobility and mechanical reliability that had a major impact on their contribution in Ardennes campaign.

The section on the combatants is also quite good in describing the functions of the Panther and Sherman crews. In this section, it is clear that the Sherman enjoyed some subtle advantages that greatly increased its chances against the Panther, such as a commander's turret over-ride, better gunner's sights and better machineguns. German tank crew training was also seriously undermined by late 1944, with new crews getting only minimal driving and live fire experience due to fuel and ammo shortages. The author factors all these variables into the assessment of the combat capabilities of both tanks, which gives a far more dynamic comparison than mere statistical tables. There are also sidebars on German and American `tank aces.' Perhaps the only disappointing section is the one on the Strategic Situation, which outlines the German Wacht Am Rein offensive and provides a map depicting corps/army dispositions. This section didn't really integrate well with the other sections and the map would have been more relevant if it depicted the locations of the battalions that had Panthers (8) and those that had Sherman M4A1/3 tanks.

The section on Combat comprises 14 pages of text and covers actions at Krinkelt-Rocherath and Freyneux, but the heart of this narrative is the detailed account of the Panther vs. Sherman duel at Freyneux on 24 December 1944. Readers may be surprised to see that the Shermans performed creditably against the Panther, particularly in the opening stages of the action. The end result was 5 Panthers and 5 Shermans lost, which was a poor trade for the Germans. This section has a nice 2-D diagram of the action (with notes), a battle scene by Howard Gerrard and views through the gunsights of the Panther and Sherman. The author concludes, "nearly all of the tanks knocked out in the fighting were hit before they were even aware of the presence of enemy tanks, reaffirming the rule of `spot first, engage first, hit first.' One item that probably should have been mentioned in the section on the action near Celles is that Meinrad von Lauchert was in charge of the Panthers in the spearhead (the man who led them into action at Kursk) and that had the Panther been equipped with a diesel engine as Hitler originally insisted, the Panthers would not have run out of fuel 7 miles short of their objective.

The real lessons of this book are delivered in the concluding sections on statistics and analysis. Contrary to what readers conditioned to war movies or computer games might expect, the author notes that actual statistical data indicates that most tank vs. tank battles were small, involving only 4-9 tanks on each side. The data also indicates that the defender had a distinct advantage, since they usually got to fire first. Despite its vaunted post-war reputation, the author uses data from 29 engagements involving Shermans and Panthers to conclude that, "the popular myths that Panthers enjoyed a 5-to-1 kill ratio against Shermans or that it took five Shermans to knock out a Panther have no basis at all in the historical records." Further, he states that, "in a head-to-head duel, the Panther Ausf G was clearly superior to the M4A3 (76mm)...[but] tactical considerations were often paramount." Also, "the Sherman offered a better balance of mass and quality than did the Panther." The statistics that the author provides indicate that the Germans committed about 416 Panthers to the Ardennes offensive and lost 180, while the Americans committed about 600 M4A3 tanks and lost about 90. However, these statistics do not break down how many tanks were destroyed by other tanks as opposed to lost to mines, A/T guns or mechanical breakdown. Thus, the Shermans likely inflicted more damage on their opponents, but the actual results of the duel are left a bit murky.

Carol de Giere delivers an Amazing analysis of Stephen Schwartz. No one has done this, and de Giere's analysis is fascinating.

She talks about "Godspell,", and "Pippin," and "The Magic Show," and "The Baker's Wife", and "Working," and "Rags", and finally, and most importantly, de Giere spills the whole story of "Wicked." And she tells amazing backstage stuff. She was actually there.

Buy the book. It's amazing.

If you are a fan of the music and genius of Stephen Schwartz, then you will not be disappointed in Carel de Giere's account of his journey as songwriter and lyricist from Godspell to Wicked in Defying Gravity. I have been a fan of Stepehn Schwartz's music for over thirty years and found Ms. de Giere's detail, via a chronological narrative, with personal notes, reflections, interviews and photos to be a marvelous insight into Stephen's musical career. It's as though you've been given a free ticket to the window of his musical life and can sit back and enjoy the show as you turn every page. The stories about the development of various songs and the singers/actors who performed them were so engaging that I found myself searching the internet to hear them perform. This is a book that will be read more than once. Bravo!