Amazon.com
Daniel Yergin's first prize-winning book, Shattered Peace, was a history of the Cold War. Afterwards the young academic star joined the energy project of the Harvard Business School and wrote the best-seller Energy Future. Following on from there,
The Prize, winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, is a comprehensive history of one of the commodities that powers the world--oil. Founded in the 19th century, the oil industry began producing kerosene for lamps and progressed to gasoline. Huge personal fortunes arose from it, and whole nations sprung out of the power politics of the oil wells. Yergin's fascinating account sweeps from early robber barons like John D. Rockefeller, to the oil crisis of the 1970s, through to the Gulf War.
Book Description
Pulitzer Prize Winner -- and Now an Epic PBS Series
The Prize recounts the panoramic history of oil -- and the struggle for wealth power that has always surrounded oil. This struggle has shaken the world economy, dictated the outcome of wars, and transformed the destiny of men and nations. The Prize is as much a history of the twentieth century as of the oil industry itself. The canvas of this history is enormous -- from the drilling of the first well in Pennsylvania through two great world wars to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and Operation Desert Storm.
The cast extends from wildcatters and rogues to oil tycoons, and from Winston Churchill and Ibn Saud to George Bush and Saddam Hussein. The definitive work on the subject of oil and a major contribution to understanding our century, The Prize is a book of extraordinary breadth, riveting excitement -- and great importance.
Customer Reviews:
First to cover the topic, but still a facile book.......2007-09-17
Yergen gets kudos for being the first to cover this topic, but his account (perhaps because it's now outdated) is facile and pro-oil company. Every time the oil companies are thwarted he seems to blame straw men for it: tree huggers, the people that hounded poor misunderstood Tricky Dick Nixon, the Saudi sheiks (best friends of Bush, Cheney, et al). He never turns his gaze on the corruption of the oil companies themselves. We hit peak oil in the U.S. in the 1960s. The oil companies suppressed any attempts since then to find alternative fuels. Now we are up the creek, so to speak, with the Oil Men running the Show. Some "Prize". I'd say it's the booby prize. The best overview of our current fix is Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower.
The Age of Oil.......2007-07-04
We are living in the Age of oil.
World and human civilization have experienced different "ages" such as the Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Gilded Age, and so on. The 20th and 21st Centuries are indeed, the "Oil Age." We are living in it. This book is one of the most informative and relevant books published in recent years, In my opinion. This work by Daniel Yergin was and still is prescient today, in 2007. "The Prize" tells the story of where we are today, and how we got here. It also latently foresees where we're going in the future. The book doesn't tell us - we just know. We're human. This book is so comprehensive and has so much information only a small portion of it can be noted. Below relates to WWII, and former Iranian leader Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh.
"The Prize" proceeds chronologically. And within the chapters there are numerous mini-subtitles for sub-chapters that connect the big picture. The bibliography and index are excellent and can be used to tie in different figures and historical occurrences. The 'history of oil' is actually the history of the world: humankind, business, innovations, globalization, war, and geo-political power-plays. The very survival of a nation-state is based upon oil.
"The Prize" begins with tiny puddles of black, sticky, goo, in Pennsylvania in the mid 1800s. Locals collected this goo and realized its many uses. In 1859 oil was struck. Almost immediately, the wealth and power amassed from possession and control of oil was realized. The initial trust acts in the U.S. are related to the oil industry, in which Barons quickly gained gargantuan amounts of wealth and political power.
Enter WWII:
The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because of oil. Japanese conquests throughout South-East Asia and the Pacific were motivated not only by the quest for dominance but for securing oil and keeping their oil (fuel) supply lines open. Without supply lines of oil, the war machine would completely break down, as it later did (Chapter 8).
The Americans sacrificed a lot, but Japan in large part lost WWII because of its lack of fuel for planes, ships, and ground forces. Domestically, the Japanese economy collapsed because of its inability to import oil. The Kamikazes were brought into existence after the Battle of Leyte Gulf, Philippines, in 1944. Lack of oil meant lack of fighter plane fuel. Fuel supplies became so low they actually stopped training Japanese pilots at all. Pilots were ordered to "follow the leader" to the attack site because they didn't even have navigation training.
There was even an "Oil Czar" In the U.S. during World War II in PAW, the Petroleum Administration for War. The Oil Czar was Harold Ickes.
In the European Theater's Eastern Front Germany invaded Russia with Operation Barbarossa mostly to get the oil in the Caucuses (In addition to "lebensraum" and "untermensch" beliefs). In addition, a needed land-route to Iron Ore in Scandinavia via the Baltic SSR Republics was a factor. Hitler also began making synthetic oil because without enough of it Germany's war machine, domestic economy, and arms production were doomed. These synthetic oil factories were top targets in Allied bombing missions.
Oil and the Cold War World:
The Soviets dominated Eastern Europe and exerted its influence after WWII for 45 years because the Allies ran out of gasoline. When the British 3rd Army and U.S. 1st Army were advancing eastward toward Berlin chasing demoralized, retreating, and broken German troops in disarray. But because of the lack of gasoline for the Allied Armies, a million people ended up losing their lives and war was prolonged because the Germans were able to retreat and re-organize (page 388).
If someone says "it's not about the oil" today in 2007, tell them to read this book. Oil encompasses almost all things in our daily lives, whether we are are conscious of it, or not.
Oil, Military, and Economic Interests:
Democratically elected governments are overthrown by foreign governments because of oil. In 1953 Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh was democratically elected in Iran. He was an anti-communist. He didn't like the 93% to 7% profit sharing split with a British Oil company operating inside Iran. He changed it to 50-50. The CIA sponsored a coup to overthrow him. Americans were repeatedly told by the U.S. media that Mossadegh was a communist and communist sympathizer, although factually untrue. The American public believed this propaganda, according to poll results. Gullible? Mossadegh was ousted and the Shah was placed in power. Democracy has never been supported in the Middle East and it isn't now by the U.S. government. Also see the Carter Doctrine of 1980.
Most of us as individual consumers literally need oil to function. Dependence upon oil is for the continuation of the nation-state, its military machines, and domestic economy. More critical today, is that nation-states need a *sufficient* supply of it.
This is a positive book. It's a history book.
We're in the heart of the "Oil Age."
Amaze.......2007-06-19
This book is the better form to say what means the oil in the world. The history is well clear end real. There are many important information and who is curious or needs to know the subject this is a perfect one.
It's interesting to know the past to forecast the future..........2007-06-14
I really appreciated Daniel YERGIN's book.
The history of oil is crucial to try to solve the huge demand for future oil. History tells us that oil is limitless in virgin deserts...
The Prize : The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power.......2007-06-12
Excellent, well chronicled book showing the inside of the oil world history. Amazon shipment was a slick execution which makes the book more valuable..This book is a must-have for oil and gas pros.
Amazon.com
The Battle of Iwo Jima, fought in the winter of 1945 on a rocky island south of Japan, brought a ferocious slice of hell to earth: in a month's time, more than 22,000 Japanese soldiers would die defending a patch of ground a third the size of Manhattan, while nearly 26,000 Americans fell taking it from them. The battle was a turning point in the war in the Pacific, and it produced one of World War II's enduring images: a photograph of six soldiers raising an American flag on the flank of Mount Suribachi, the island's commanding high point.
One of those young Americans was John Bradley, a Navy corpsman who a few days before had braved enemy mortar and machine-gun fire to administer first aid to a wounded Marine and then drag him to safety. For this act of heroism Bradley would receive the Navy Cross, an award second only to the Medal of Honor.
Bradley, who died in 1994, never mentioned his feat to his family. Only after his death did Bradley's son James begin to piece together the facts of his father's heroism, which was but one of countless acts of sacrifice made by the young men who fought at Iwo Jima. Flags of Our Fathers recounts the sometimes tragic life stories of the six men who raised the flag that February day--one an Arizona Indian who would die following an alcohol-soaked brawl, another a Kentucky hillbilly, still another a Pennsylvania steel-mill worker--and who became reluctant heroes in the bargain. A strongly felt and well-written entry in a spate of recent books on World War II, Flags gives a you-are-there depiction of that conflict's horrible arenas--and a moving homage to the men whom fate brought there. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.
In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima—and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag.
Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful account of six very different young men who came together in a moment that will live forever.
To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered closed boxes of letters and photos. In
Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of Easy Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island—an island riddled with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight to the last man.
But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened after the victory. The men in the photo—three were killed during the battle—were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley's father truly survived, displaying no copy of the famous photograph in his home, telling his son only: "The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back."
Few books ever have captured the complexity and furor of war and its aftermath as well as
Flags of Our Fathers. A penetrating, epic look at a generation at war, this is history told with keen insight, enormous honesty, and the passion of a son paying homage to his father. It is the story of the difference between truth and myth, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human experience of war.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
The story of Mt. Suribachi.......2007-10-09
It is one of the most iconic photographs ever taken. It has become the symbol for the valor and the attitude of the Marine Corps. IT is the photograph of six Marines raising a flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. All of us have probably seen this photograph and I know that I was always struck by it - it is a classic pattern in art and it also captures a moment in wartime. There are six soldiers raising a flag. you see the taut bodies, the focus and concentration. And, you see the debris all around them. The detritus of war.
This book tells the story of that photograph but also - and more importantly - the story of the men who were captured in the image and the photographer both before, during, and after the war. The story is pieced together and told by a son of one of the men in the photograph - "Doc" Bradley, the only Navy guy in the tale. The book follows the lives of all six men who are pictured from their hardscrabble beginnings, their decision to join the Marine Corps, and then their role in the Iwo Jima battle and beyond. Three of the men died on Iwo Jima; three survived. Of the three that survived, only two had children. One of those is "Doc" Bradley, and his son tells the tale of them all.
This book is not really about how glorious war is and what kinds of heroes these six men were. No, it portrays war in the ugly, brutal, tormenting fashion that it has without skimping on the details of how many ways men can be killed. Nor does it skimp on descriptions of the atrocities that the Japanese committed both before, during, and after this campaign. There is a lot of apologia given by the author for the Japanese behavior during the war. He describes it as a non-typical Japanese time period repeatedly. Towards the end of the book we find out that he spent several years in Japan and at one point in his life believed that the Japanese were forced to start the war by what Roosevelt supposedly did.
By focusing almost exclusively on the life of these six men, the author manages to paint a picture of World War II America and how "the whole country was one" which is an interesting contrast to today's situation.
The yearlong preparations for the battle are described. The battle itself is described in detail with every one of the six men's participation chronicled in exhaustive detail including the way three of them died. Many other stories are interwoven but only briefly touched upon. One of them, that could have been better served by being described more fully was the story of Bradley's "special buddy" Iggy who is also killed on Iwo Jima. Only in the latter parts of the book do we discover how he died.
Doc Bradley himself wins the Navy Cross on Iwo Jima. However, he never displays it and his eight children are astonished to find out about it after his death in the early 1990's. This launches his son to research the group, the photograph, and the lives of all six men.
The story covers the way they were treated after the photograph was published; how they became the main draw in a bond raising tour; how they behaved during the tour; and how they handled the rest of their lives. There is a strong pathos there and a lot of tragic awareness of how these shell-shocked young men were basically told to grin and bear it and how some of them did, and some of them did not. The story of Ira Hayes and his rapid deterioration into drink is a sad one while the story of Rene Gagnon is no better. Only Bradley lives out a normal middle class life but the author is careful to portray even his own father as suffering from the horrors of what he experienced.
This is a good book to read to find out how war affected young Americans during WW2. It is a good introduction to the horrors, atrocities, and pain of war. It is a good book to help you in understanding how America handled and survived WW2. And, it is also a good book to understand why people called it "the good war" and why we can probably never have that kind of feeling again. When I closed the book, I wiped a tear from my eye, laid it down beside me, and thought like Doc Bradley: the only heroes on Iwo Jima were those who did not come back.
A Masterpiece of History!.......2007-09-28
My grandfather fought on Bougainville and Guadalcanal which are both mentioned often in this book. To this day grandpa does not speak of the war. After reading this book, I understand why. This book embodies the human spirit and the fight to uproot evil at its core. It is interesting that such a brutal fight took place on an island that had no real life... just a desolate island of ash and embers that emulated a place of death. Deep within the bowels of the island held a garrison of approximately 22,000 Japanese that were determined to fight to extinction and that is what they did.
Bradley and Powers do a wonderful job describing the Marines training as well as the actions on Iwo Jima. The fact that I came away from reading this book more knowledgeable about the self-sacrifices all Marines made on Iwo Jima, makes my own service in the Marines (1993-1997) a worth while endeavor that I hold near and dear to my heart.
Semper Fi to those that served and especially to Ron Powers and James Bradley for taking the time to research and write an unforgettable and accurate masterpiece of history!
6 people. 1 flag, 1 photo........2007-08-21
James Bradley writes an amazing tribute to his father in this book about the "photo."
The book follows the lives of 6 men from birth until death. Each one of them is unique and has their own story. They all have something in common, and that is that they were all in the photo.
This is NOT a war book, it is a biography of 6 men. A great book!
WOW!.......2007-08-01
This book was AMAZING!!! I knew next to nothing about the Battle of Iwo Jima before reading this book and I learned SO much about the fight for Japan and about what it was like to be a U.S. Marine during WWII.
It is an INCREDIBLE read and a great education, too.
Disappointed.......2007-07-29
I am not sure if it is the fact that the Audiobook is an abridged version but I just didn't find the story that compelling. Somewhat repetitive and too concerned about details which I found boring and uninteresting.
I was looking for a historical account (like the much better "1776" or "Team of Rivals") but this is more like an afterschool special.
Amazon.com
During the three years (1993-1996) Samantha Power spent covering the grisly events in Bosnia and Srebrenica, she became increasingly frustrated with how little the United States was willing to do to counteract the genocide occurring there. After much research, she discovered a pattern: "The United States had never in its history intervened to stop genocide and had in fact rarely even made a point of condemning it as it occurred," she writes in this impressive book. Debunking the notion that U.S. leaders were unaware of the horrors as they were occurring against Armenians, Jews, Cambodians, Iraqi Kurds, Rwandan Tutsis, and Bosnians during the past century, Power discusses how much was known and when, and argues that much human suffering could have been alleviated through a greater effort by the U.S. She does not claim that the U.S. alone could have prevented such horrors, but does make a convincing case that even a modest effort would have had significant impact. Based on declassified information, private papers, and interviews with more than 300 American policymakers, Power makes it clear that a lack of political will was the most significant factor for this failure to intervene. Some courageous U.S. leaders did work to combat and call attention to ethnic cleansing as it occurred, but the vast majority of politicians and diplomats ignored the issue, as did the American public, leading Power to note that "no U.S. president has ever suffered politically for his indifference to its occurrence. It is thus no coincidence that genocide rages on." This powerful book is a call to make such indifference a thing of the past. --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize For General Nonfiction National Book Critics Circle Award Winner
In her award-winning interrogation of the last century of American history, Samantha Power -- a former Balkan war correspondent and founding executive director of Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy -- asks the haunting question: Why do American leaders who vow "never again" repeatedly fail to stop genocide? Drawing upon exclusive interviews with Washington's top policy makers, access to newly declassified documents, and her own reporting from the modern killing fields, Power provides the answer in "A Problem from Hell" -- a groundbreaking work that tells the stories of the courageous Americans who risked their careers and lives in an effort to get the United States to act.
Customer Reviews:
The problem of International Liberalism.......2007-09-24
Samantha Power's 'A Problem from Hell' is a broad attempt to document the major acts of genocide/human rights violations of the 20th century paired with the international community's subsequent negligence in each case. She reports on the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and especially her major areas of research- Rwanda and Serbia.
However, Powers is content to simply recount major instances of crimes against humanity that the U.S. and other major Western powers simply ignored (a worthy historical task), rather than to document the major atrocities the U.S. supported/participated in (the far more morally serious and honest task). While she is scrupulous in her documentation of the horrors of Rwanda and Iraq, her sections on Indo-China fail miserably. She provides a lengthy and conventional chapter on the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, without mentioning to inform us about the U.S.'s massive contribution to such atrocities (only side references are provided). Additionally, she mentions in a rather depraved manner, that "In 1975, when its ally, the oil-producing, anti-Communist Indonesia, invaded Timor, killing between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians, the United States looked away" (147). In actuality, the U.S. did not look away: it funded the genocide, and President Carter deliberately escalated the intensity of the atrocities. This is the essence of Power's political backwardness. Pointing to the atrocities of official enemies is easy, it is far more difficult and necessary to point to the atrocities of the U.S. and its allies. Nowhere does Powers discuss Israel and the Palestinians, nowhere does she discuss the Pinochet, or the Contras, or Kissinger for that matter. So long as the the liberal intelligentsia refuses to stare in the mirror, the world will continue to be an arena of exploitation, injustice, and crimes against humanity.
Simply put: One of the books one must read in one's lifetime........2007-05-10
Simply put: One of the books one must read in one's lifetime.
Well researched, not so well argued.......2007-04-06
A 500+ page polemic against American non-interventionism in other people's wars. This book won the Pulitzer Prize, and it deserved to for the sheer amount of research that went into it. Unfortunately, the author's zealotry too frequently leads her to making sweeping, overly simplistic declarations, or even to contradicting her own arguments. For example, she stresses the importance of applying the term "genocide" to mass killings because of its emotional impact, yet she wants it applied so broadly that the inevitable result would be a diminution of that impact. She also applies a remarkable double standard to the Serbs: while (quite justifiably) condemning the (many) occasions in which they were the perpetrators of ethnic violence, she either excuses, tries to undermine the credibility of, or simply ignores the cases in which they were the victims. There are a number of examples of this, but the most staggering one is her depiction of their expulsion from the Croatian Krajina. The single largest episode of ethnic cleansing in the Serb-Croat-Bosnian wars, and what does she give to it? Less than one paragraph - and portrayed as a positive development! I almost threw the book across the room when I read that.
She makes it clear that in all the cases she describes, she thinks the US should have done whatever it took, up to and including sending ground troops, to stop the carnage. But she fails to really think through the logical consequences of her thesis. If genocide really is defined as broadly as she suggests, then there must have been dozens if not hundreds of episodes of it over the past century. Should the US have intervened in all of them, and how exactly - from a practical perspective if nothing else - could it have been expected to do so? Is it really advisable for a country with such a history of imperialism (and with its own record of genocide, certainly by her definition, against the native peoples of its own land) to become the world's cop? If General Dallaire was correct that he could have stopped the killings in Rwanda with just 5,000 more UN peacekeeping troops, then isn't the logical solution to reform the UN so that in future it can and will actually provide those troops? And why just America, what about all the other countries in the world that didn't intervene, either? None of these questions are really answered, at all.
Omission awarded?.......2007-04-03
Despite the Israeli policy towards the Palestinians fits the definition of genocide given in the book, Power ignores the Palestinian case. I wonder if this book was awarded for its contents or its omission. It could be a good book if complete! If you want to know about genocide, read Charny , Finkelstein and others, authors with a wider vision.
a must-read.......2007-03-12
flew through this book...its written with a great style and pace. power goes over quite a few crucial conflicts that still have aftershocks today. i read the section on rwanda in grad school, and it still makes my blood boil. also, power documents the efforts of republicans to block any actions or sanctions on iraq after hussein gassed the kurds and iranians in the 80's - of course now, they reference those crimes as reasons we were right to invade in 2003.
Book Description
Praise for The Court of the Last Tsar
"Any book by Greg King is a book to be kept and savored. He has not only given us a fresh, clear-eyed, and often startling new look at the life of the last Romanovs, but also lived up to the promise of his title. He has shown us how the whole enterprise worked, from Tsar Nicholas to his lowest cook and chambermaid. This book is a great work of scholarship—and a wonderful read."
—Peter Kurth, author of Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra and Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson
"A mammoth, monumental achievement. No other book captures the essence and the entire scope of life at the court of Nicholas II. It's a thoroughly enjoyable and encyclopedic masterpiece that will be a major source for historians and biographers for years to come."
—Marlene A. Eilers, author of Queen Victoria's Descendants and publisher of Royal Book News
"Greg King has truly written a tour de force. The book is extremely well researched, has over 100 illustrations and is, quite simply, marvelous."
—Coryne Hall, author of Little Mother of Russia, Once a Grand Duchess, and Imperial Dancer
"Greg King is emerging as one of the leading authorities in today's liveliest field of Russian studies, and this is a major contribution to the study of late Imperial Russia."
—Joseph T. Fuhrmann, author of Rasputin and the editor of The Complete Wartime Correspondence of Tsar Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra
Customer Reviews:
Review.......2007-08-27
I received item in a timely manner and in great condition. I would definitely recommend this seller.
very nice book.......2007-03-15
this book is detailed and very nice illustrated, wunderful book! a must have for everybody!
LOVED IT!.......2007-03-11
For Academics and fans alike, this book is an invaluable source of information on the Romanov Family of Russia. Greg King is an expert on this family and I trust what he writes. He also laid the book out in chapters centering on different areas of interest such as their source of income AND he is the first author on the subject to convert the Ruble of yesterdday into the Dollar of today. Truly astounding to see what these people were making AND spending as fast as they could while the country suffered in abject poverty as they partied the nights away.
Royal Russia Lives!.......2007-03-09
I thought the book was very informative about life at the Imperial Russian Court. It showed the majesty, wealth and power of the Romanov Dynasty and those who served under them for over 300 years. Reading this book I felt as if I wish I was a fly on the wall to see all things that had gone on. I recommend this book to anyone who loves Royalty and has a fasination with the Romanovs.
finding the real treasure.......2007-02-20
This is a fine book on many levels. Subjects are parsed in sections - Personages, Palaces, Possessions, Pageantry, Pleasures - and the narrative is fluid and distinct. Chapters on the extensive Romanov family are fashioned with critically vivid directness, and the author comes into his own discussing the Romanov palaces. King needn't take a back seat to anyone with respect to understanding architecture and its many-layered meanings. Detailed descriptions of the various Romanov houses gives this book great value both historical and artistic, with a completeness missing in other literature on the subject. Along the way there are some real tidbits - about the emperor's library at the Winter Palace, he reveals that the Imperial Bindery provided the collection of rare volumes with new leather bindings: brown for works in Russian, blue for French, red for those in English, green for German. King reveals that the Chesme room at Peterhof took its name from twelve large canvases by Jacob Philippe Hackaert, depicting the Russian naval victory over Turkey in the Mediterranean in the early 1770s. When Hackaert worked on his commission, the Russian navy actually had a sixty-gun frigate blown up as it lay at anchor, so that the painter might accurately reflect the horrors of battle! The book contains three large sections of beautiful color photos. Unfortunately, a number of interesting photos are in black and white; one especially, the homely Lower Palace at Alexandria, Peterhof, I wish was color, but the photos are pungent and important, with the large color shots reproduced again in b/w miniature on those pages of text germane to them. Especially valuable is a rare photo of mediaeval-inspired Feodorovsky Sobor in the Alexander Park at Tsarkoye Selo, its hipped roofs and vaulted arcades topped with a single onion dome above its chapel. It's a magnificent edifice! Nicholas II, who nursed a love of mediaeval architecture, loved this anachronistic fantasy and commissioned additional buildings in the same style. The book dazzles with details, architectural and otherwise, each chosen with purpose. That purpose, it turns out, is the revealing of Nicholas and Alexandra. Strange as it seems, this book about the material, as it were, of the court of Nicholas II, ends by revealing profoundly the fated couple. Perhaps no other book has opened more deeply the mystery of Nicholas and his Empress. THIS is the real treasure of 'Court of the Last Tsar'. It's not surprising King's reputation for essential scholarship noticably rises. If you've an interest in, or better, a love for Romanov history, this is the book to read. By shaping the discussion around palaces and ceremonies and privileges, the intense mystical humanity of Nicholas and Alexandra comes screaming through - vibrant with tenderness and grief, misunderstood, sacrificial. I'm tremendously moved by this book and you will be too. One of the great mysteries of human history nobly emerges almost, it would seem, by accident. It's transfixing from beginning to end. Greatly, generously, unreservedly recommended reading.
Book Description
About national and international power in the "modern" or Post Renaissance period. Explains how the various powers have risen and fallen over the 5 centuries since the formation of the "new monarchies" in W. Europe.
Customer Reviews:
American Decline - War Spending.......2007-08-31
An absolutely indispensible source book to understand the deline of America to a second rate ex empire. Well written, and loaded with facts of production and distributiion, this is a somewhat "heavy text". Although America's future is not discussed per se, you reach the unavoidable conclusion that our nation, like all failed states in the past, declines and falls when it wastes its production of wealth on war. So it has ever been.
Well argued thesis, although subject to question.......2007-07-03
As Kennedy puts it in his "Introduction," "This is a book about national and international power in the "modern"--that is, post-Renaissance--period. It seeks to trace and to explain how the various great powers have risen and fallen. . . ." And, on the same page:
"The `military conflict' referred to in the book's subtitle is therefore always examined in the context of `economic change.' The triumph of any one Great Power in this period, or the collapse of another, has usually been the consequence of lengthy fighting by its armed forces; but it has also been the consequence of the more or less efficient utilization of the state's productive resources in wartime, and, further in the background, of the way in which that state's economy has been rising or falling, relative to the other leading nations. . . ."
He examines a variety of historical instances in which empires or countries spend more on their empires or expansion than they can afford. Too much expenditure on defense and the military drains the national treasure and wealth and can lead to an erosion in the vitality and power of that society.
Earlier examples of imperial overreach or overstretch include the Hapsburg Empire (1519-1659). From 1660-1815, other examples are adduced. So, too, periods such as 1815-1885, 1885-1918, 1919-1942.
He goes on to examine the bipolar world after World War II (the United States versus the Soviet Union) and the time there following. He is pessimistic about the United States maintaining its dominance. Two decades after the book was written, that fear has not come about. On the other hand, the Soviet Union did suffer from its "overreach" and has not survived as a major power in a bipolar system. Today's Russia is simply not a superpower anymore. Thus, his fear for the American future has not yet come about. Will it? If he is right and the United States overreaches, then we would expect decline. If his view is correct, there is a challenge to American decision makers to make sure that this does not happen. Are they up to the task? As historians might note, we must wait until the future to know.
Thus, while some of his forecasts clearly have not yet come about, he does produce a rich historical analysis of the relationship between the internal characteristics of a society, the international context, and ultimate success or failure. This book is well worth grappling with. . . .
The right idea but..........2007-06-15
A good book for anyone interested in an overview of nation-state history spanning the past 500 years. While definitely taking a macro approach to world history (which any attempt at a world history must take), Kennedy does a very good job in examining two of the very prominent factors that lead to rise of some powers and the subsequent decline of others. These two factors are military, i.e. how various wars and military developments shaped the destines of certain nation-states, and economic, i.e. how trade, manufacturing, and finance all form a base for what a state can and cannot do militarily. The attention given to both these areas is comprehensive and thorough, while at the same the reader is not weighed down by endless statistics, dates, or other numbers. I personally found the economic analysis to be the most insightful part of the book, allowing the lay reader to become acquainted with the complex world of monies that is essential to a complete understanding of the time period and subject covered.
Unfortunately, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers does not provide enough information to cover the presumptuous title of the book. What is lacking is any kind of social analysis of the various situations that existed in the different nation-states examined. To ignore the underlying social forces in any one nation-state is to ignore the lives and experiences of the people who allowed the states to work, for without the cooperation of the people in fighting the wars, manufacturing the goods, and providing the labor, no state could rise to the status of world power. This is a particularly glaring omission because it is during this period that capitalism develops out of feudalism and becomes the driving force and engine of modern Europe. This economic development and the drastic changes it brought to all aspects of the different societies under examination seems to me to be a crucial factor. Without it we lack an understanding of how the inner mechanics of the societies were changed and used to the governments advantage in acquiring wealth and hence power.
To the authors' credit, he has no illusions about the scope of is book. Indeed his goal is to focus on the two aforementioned areas and leave the others factors for other authors to investigate. Even with this acknowledgement I still felt he book to come up short. The perspective was too telescoped at the apex of power in governments, financial, and trading industries. It must be taken in to account that power was and is acquired from the labor of the people, especially so in the years covered in this book.
All in all, this book provides a good starting point for anyone interested in the subject matter. Although it is a bit dated, published 1987, it has an interesting final chapter concerning the future and the role of the current powers, their decline, and the subsequent rise of new powers to take their place. Hint, hint, the USA is not one of the rising ones. Its always fun to see whether or not an authors forecasts for the future come true. The final chapter may indeed turn out to be the best section given a few decades.
Eye opening take on economic motivations behind the history.......2007-04-03
Guns or Butter is an age old un-attributed quote, but in "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" author Paul Kennedy seeks to explore that maxim on a massive scale from 1500 to 2000. Equally massive is the resulting tome which seeks to explore the connection between economic power and military power and the resultant effect upon the growth, maintenance, or decline of a nation's power. In Kennedy's hypothesis military and economic power go hand in hand, making or breaking a nation's ability to project power and in the few instances to become Great Powers. Kennedy analyses what it is that takes a nation to the status of Great Power and, ultimately, what is their undoing. Kennedy sees a direct correlation between Great Powers who overextend themselves, politically, militarily or economically and in some cases both, and the resultant decline in cases of over-reach or in the face of serious threats they may have underestimated. When it comes to Great Power status Kennedy is more concerned with dimensions of power than the spatial dimensions or status dimensions sometimes used to define Great Power status.
"The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" was a fascinating read, especially to help better understand some of the economic reasons for the failures of Great Powers in the 20th Century and to gain greater insight into what sometimes motivated leaders to make the choices they did. I found it difficult to put down at times as most histories on this era look strictly at the political considerations for particular courses of action rather than the economic concerns. Indeed often times it seems as though most histories are written by political scientists than by economists. Adding this book to the repertoire helps to balance that situation rather smartly, although it does beg the question of why histories incorporate so little economic information.
"The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" is indeed the tour de force that many of the reviews heralded it as being. Economics is frequently labeled the "dismal science" but when written as well as Kennedy does, it is a gripping and engaging read. In his effort to determine if states can have guns and butter or if it is an either-or proposition the answer is resoundingly clear.
Overtaken By Events.......2007-03-06
"The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy. Random House, New York, 1987.
It was 1987, twenty years ago, when this book was first published. I used this book when I was working on my MA in History. The central thesis of Kennedy's book is portrayed explicitly by the book's dust jacket. On that dust jacket, the United Kingdom, represented by John Bull, carrying a Union Jack, is stepping down from the "top of the world", and he is looking back at those who are following. Uncle Sam, carrying the Stars and Stripes, is just about to step down, following John Bull. Directly behind Uncle Sam is a thin, bespectacled fellow in a three piece suit. Since this fellow is carrying the Rising Sun, it is obvious that Mr. Kennedy is proposing the heir-apparent, Japan, for world-dominance.
World events have overtaken Kennedy's book, and these events include, just to mention a few: Einheit Day, the day of unification of Germany, October 3 1990, the demise of communism in Europe and the splintering of the Soviet Union. We have had not one, but two wars in Iraq, and NATO troops are controlling Afghanistan. Today, former members of the communistic empire are clamoring to join the European Union. It has been fifty years since the Treaty of Rome (1957) which is generally recognized as the inception of the European Union. Europe has become the crucible of political and economic change, and is therefore challenging the United States and the economically quiescent Japan for leadership of the world. It is time to revise the "Rise And Fall", and the author should be careful to consider the building of submarine fleets, not only by China, but also by Iran.
Book Description
Crucible of Power is an updated, revised version of Howard Jones's classic text Quest for Security: A History of U.S. Foreign Relations from 1897. This book, available again for use in the classroom, presents a straightforward, balanced, and c
Customer Reviews:
Crucible of Power.......2007-06-12
Jones' book is presented in a very straight forward fashion. The information is presented extremely well and is easy to understand. I took Dr. Jones' American foreign policy class at the University of Alabama in 2006 and this book was the primary text used in class, obviously. The book goes in depth in issues from the digging of the Panama Canal to the end of the Cold War. His research is well thought out and is a great book for those interested in U.S. diplomatic relations or foreign policy.
mead review.......2007-02-19
The book is great for those interested in history and its interpretation, as well as for the students who study the US foreign policy
Considers wartime and peacetime events and measures.......2001-11-09
Howard Jones' Crucible Of Power is an essential history of American foreign relations from 1897 to modern times, and should be considered a mainstay of any serious history and political science collection. It surveys America's growth from an emerging power in the 1890s to its dominance in modern global events, considering wartime and peacetime events and measures.
Amazon.com
The second work in a planned three-volume series (after 2004's Coming of the Third Reich) this book starts with the Nazis' complete assumption of power and creation of a one-party state in 1933, and goes to September 1939 and the beginning of World War II. In sharp detail, Evans shows how Hitler seized upon his political victory and immediately began his plan for the Nazi infiltration of every aspect of German society. The Nazi propaganda blitz covered everything from local councils to social clubs to all voluntary associations. And when propaganda didn't work, coercion and fear did. At the behest of Hitler, the brownshirts and SS (secret police) ruthlessly harassed, beat, and murdered the Jews and Communists first, but later targeted anyone who showed even the slightest criticism of Nazi activities. Those Germans who disapproved of the Nazis were mainly confined to acts of passive resistance to Hitler's totalitarian rule. Nationalism proved to be the one issue capable of galvanizing the nation, as the Nazis' growing power helped to erase the shame and humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles that closed World War I.
Over the course of the book, Evans shows how everything Hitler did in this period was designed to prepare the nation for a war--"a life and death struggle"--whose aim was less geographical conquest than racial purity. Hitler's main objective was "to remould the minds, spirits and bodies of the German people to make them capable and worthy of the role of the new master-race that awaited them." Though Hitler did not work alone, Evans makes it clear that he was the overwhelming driving force behind it all, including policies regarding education, eugenics, and foreign affairs. Well written and logically organized, The Third Reich in Power is an impressive work of meticulous, readable history. --Shawn Carkonen
Book Description
The definitive account of GermanyÂ's malign transformation under HitlerÂ's total rule and the implacable march to war
This magnificent second volume of Richard J. EvansÂ's three-volume history of Nazi Germany was hailed by Benjamin Schwartz of the Atlantic Monthly as “the definitive English-language account... gripping and precise.” It chronicles the incredible story of GermanyÂ's radical reshaping under Nazi rule. As those who were deemed unworthy to be counted among the German people were dealt with in increasingly brutal terms, HitlerÂ's drive to prepare Germany for the war that he saw as its destiny reached its fateful hour in September 1939. The Third Reich in Power is the fullest and most authoritative account yet written of how, in six years, Germany was brought to the edge of that terrible abyss.
Customer Reviews:
Think You Know Everything About Nazi Germany? This Book Will Surprise You........2007-10-16
Anyone who wants to know what it felt like to be a citizen of Hitler's **Reich** can find an answer in this excellent study. Covering both nationwide trends and homey details, this book covers virtually every aspect of life in a totalitarian state. Although slightly biased againt the Nazis--what Englishman could not be?--this volume is factual, superbly researched, sweeping in scope.
I, for illustration, was unaware that Hitler became a wealthy man solely through sales of "Mein Kampf", which every German family was required to buy although a lot fewer ever got through its turgid prose. I did not know of such figures as Dr. Robert Ritter, young physician who compiled a master catalogue of every one of Germany's 20,000 Gypsies, or of Gertrud Baumer, leading German feminist in the 1920's who retreated from public life in the face of relentless state pressure, to be replaced by the improbably-named Gertrud Scholtz-Klink, who dedicated herself to turning German women to baby-making machines.
You will come to know these and many, many others in this first-class study.
Gains and losses.......2007-09-04
I came to this a few weeks after reading William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich." When complete, Evans's three-volume history will be much longer, and it will benefit from an additional four decades of historical research that wasn't available to Shirer. Already it is being hailed as "the definitive English-language account." But there are losses as well, and they aren't petty. For example, Evans gives a clearer picture of what the average German thought and did in the 1930s, even though Shirer was actually there and Evans wasn't. Evans also has more to say on the "coordination" (i.e., Nazification) of everyday life. But for foreign policy -- Hitler's plans for war, his conversations with his generals, his negotiations with Mussolini and his son-in-law, the diplomacy leading up to Austria and Czechoslavakia's annexation, the pact with Russia, and the invasion of Poland -- Shirer is much more informative, despite being 40 years out of date.
Continues Excellence of the First Volume.......2007-06-27
This is the second of three volumes of what is shaping up to be the definitive history of the Third Reich. In the first volume, "The Coming of the Third Reich," (also reviewed on Amazon) the author, a distinguished Cambridge University historian, artfully explained how the Nazis rose from a humble position (to say the least) to grab control of Germany. This volume focuses upon the period between the acquisition of power and the launching of the Second World War, which is the subject of the concluding volume yet to come. The central theme of this volume is how the Nazis consolidated their power and exerted control throughout Germany from roughly 1933 until 1939 and the invasion of Poland. Topics include the creation of the "police state"; exerting domination over public discussion and publications, including the press; and the struggle with the Catholic church and exercising control over religious institutions. A most interesting chapter deals with "prosperity and plunder," which reflects some recent research arguing that the financial dimensions of Nazism (including confiscation of Jewish property) effectively induced mass support by providing financial goodies to the population. Whether the Nazis delivered on their promises to the middle and lower classes is the topic of another section of the book. The goal of attaining a "racial utopia" by means of sterilization, driving Jewish people out of the country, and the early beginnings of concentration camps is also discussed. The final section deals with the movement toward war, including recovery of the Sudetenland, the murder of Czechslovakia, and the development of German military power despite the ineffectual limitations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles.
As usual, the author is extremely thorough in his research and narrative. I know some critics believe he goes into too much depth, but one is free to skim the sections that do not interest the reader. At 800 pages, including extensive notes, this is a big book--but indeed so is the topic. One feature that appears in this volume is that Evans focuses upon some individuals in his narrative and shows the impact of Nazi power upon them and their reactions. These include one of the most important sources for understanding this period from the perspective of a single oppressed individual, the diaries of Victor Klemperer (also reviewed on Amazon). It is simply engrossing to see how the Nazis managed to exert control over virtually every institution and group in Germany through quite masterful manipulation. Simply the superior available source on this topic.
Excellent.......2007-06-25
A great continuation from Evans' earlier book, "The Coming of the Third Reich", and a much longer one. Evans' focus here, as in the previous book, is primarily on the social atmosphere within Germany. You won't find detailed studies of Nazi personalities, or intricate chronologies of events leading up to the war. Instead, the book offers a bounty of anecdotes and statistics on many aspects of life inside Germany from 1933 to 1939, focusing on how the Nazis tried to rebuild the human soul and mind through propaganda, music, architecture, art, education, and increasingly as the years went by, overt violence.
It's hard for me as a layman to give a book like this a rating. Is the book accurate in its portrayal of Nazi society? You'd need an awful lot of knowledge to answer that question, knowledge that I, as relatively widely-read on the subject as I am, don't have. But the book certainly is engaging and fascinating, and the author knows how to relate anecdotes in a memorable way. Considering its length, I retained a lot of detail when I was finished, instead of remembering mostly a large blur as I do with so many very-long tomes.
I'm really looking forward to the third volume, and I can only hope that Evans will then decide to write about the postwar Germanies.
Great look at the domestic situation in Germany.......2007-01-21
Evans does another masterful job in presenting the history of the Third Reich. This books tracks the ways in which the Nazi's shored up their power domestically and the mobilization towards war. The end of the book does cover some of the foreign policy considerations but as always it is the domestic scene where the research really shines. From looking at the anti-Semitism to the centralization of police there is a voluminous amount of information here. The book is very well written and if there is any fault it is that you get almost too bogged down in the information. If you are just starting to look at the Nazi regime a classical book such as William Shrier's might serve you better but for those who really want to understand how the Nazi's transformed Germany this cannot be beat.
Book Description
What forces were behind Japan's emergence as the first non-Western colonial power at the turn of the twentieth century? Peter Duus brings a new perspective to Meiji expansionism in this pathbreaking study of Japan's acquisition of Korea, the largest of its colonial possessions. He shows how Japan's drive for empire was part of a larger goal to become the economic, diplomatic, and strategic equal of the Western countries who had imposed a humiliating treaty settlement on the country in the 1850s.
Duus maintains that two separate but interlinked processes, one political/military and the other economic, propelled Japan's imperialism. Every attempt at increasing Japanese political influence licensed new opportunities for trade, and each new push for Japanese economic interests buttressed, and sometimes justified, further political advances. The sword was the servant of the abacus, the abacus the agent of the sword.
While suggesting that Meiji imperialism shared much with the Western colonial expansion that provided both model and context, Duus also argues that it was "backward imperialism" shaped by a sense of inferiority vis-à-vis the West. Along with his detailed diplomatic and economic history, Duus offers a unique social history that illuminates the motivations and lifestyles of the overseas Japanese of the time, as well as the views that contemporary Japanese had of themselves and their fellow Asians.
Customer Reviews:
An interesting examination from the Japanese point of view.......2007-06-01
I wrote a thesis in college about the Japanese seizure of Korea, and my main argument was that there was no nefarious plot to take over Korea; rather, the annexation was the result of conflicting elements within the Japanese government. (The annexation was, of course, a victory for the reactionary elements.)
This book illustrates that there WERE elements within the Japanese government who wanted to help Korea reform. They certainly had ulterior (read: self-centered) motives in doing so, namely economic/financial gain. But there was, at least according to this book, a noted absence of imperialistic/expansionist attitudes by Meiji Japan towards Yi Choson Korea, at least for a time.
It is a challenging examination of that time from the Japanese point of view, and it certainly merits a reading from the serious historian.
good one.......2006-07-19
Somebody says that it was biased because it was written by Japanese documents. But his remark is questionable because there should be books written by various sources, not only by Korean scholars. On the contrary to his opinion, books based only on Korean information sometimes look distorted because of the Korean governments' anti-Japan propaganda.
Viewed from both sides, truth can be seen.
important work but biased and boring.......2003-11-16
This is a scholarly work and not "popular history." I say the book is important because this is really not a covered subject. Aside from being a bit boring and confusing for people not an expert in Japanese political hisotry during Meiji, I found it disturbing that the author cited only Japanese and English sources. And the majority of English sources are old (1960s). In the intro, the author freely admits he neither speaks or reads Korean (!)
So, this is a one sided version of history (from the imperialist side). We will have to wait for some of the very good Korean accounts to be written or translated into English. In the meantime, try Bruce Cumming's work on Korean modern history.
Excellent Book.......2003-06-10
This is an excellent book. I appreciate the sharp research and insightful interpretation of this period of East Asian History. My only criticism would be that I wish the thesis of Archaic, medieval-millitaristic form of imperialism as practiced by Japan and Russia in their colonial expansion was elaborated upon. Otherwise, I do buy into Professor Duus apologetic of defensive mechanism turned into opportunism (and eventually tyranny and abuse). This is not an easy book to read however, and requires an ability to read history in a objective manner. It is written from a selective point of view, and as Professor Duus explains in the introduction, it is a book wiha an emphasis on the Japanese experience (ie. primarily Japanese documents, testimony, statistics, etc). In my opinion, it makes for interesting reading when a book is relative to an unpopular perspective (another book in that vein would be "Redcoats and Rebels: An English Perspective of The American Revolution")and there should be dissension in interpretation if one is to have a decent historical dialogue. One should remember as one reads the book that the period between the Meiji restoration and Korean annexation was a period in which Japan was in the process of becoming a wester-style imperialist power. What I find facinating is that Japan conscioussly decided to play the European colonial/economic game; but ancient Confucian reverberations unconscioussly dictated how the game was to be played by the Japanese. The "onne-san" idea regarding sibling relationships, (ie. older brother/youger brother), as a basis political and economic relationship that led a struggling-to-become-western Japan to intervene "on behalf" of a reticent-Yangban-entrenched Korea is credible and, if one is familiar with the hierachial nature of Japanese society, logical. Finally, as an asian-american who was brought up despise Japanese imperal expanision in East Asia, (and the cultural smothering, tyranny and brutallity that went with it), it was hard for me too to swallow the possibility that Japan inacted in its expansion as a defense mechanism, but the evidence as disscussed in this book is compelling.
A Demanding, but Honorable Account.......2001-03-17
One of the many aspects of East Asian relations insufficiently appreciated in Western nations is the troubled history of Japan and its neighbors, specifically Korea. Peter Duus' The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1893-1910 is a an economic analysis of the relationship between Japan and Choson Korea before the Japanese Occupation. A very demanding book by a reputable Japan scholar, Abacus and the Sword requires a beginner's acquaintance with Japanese and Korean history, and a knowledge of international relations in the nineteenth century is also helpful
For those living outside of Korea, the reasons for Meiji Japan's occupation of Korea may seem unimportant, but, in all the countries of Northeast Asia, Japanese responsibility for many actions committed in the 20th Century are highly controversial and relevant. Debates concerning North Korean policy, Japanese militarization, Japanese war guilt, comfort women, Japan's economic recession and endemic corruption are all subjects affected by the histories of Japan and Korea. But this book also contributes to the discussion concerning colonialism and imperialism.
Why did an isolationist victim of Western imperialism become a conqueror itself? Instead of championing the rights of weaker nations, Japan determined to imitate it's American transgressors and build an empire of it's own, to compete with the West. This is Duus' starting point, which he painstakingly traces in its political and economic history. Duus argues, that industrialization was the condition for Japanese imperialism, not the reason. Furthermore, British, French, and American government support for empire-building affected how the Japanese government policies worked.
Although he admits so himself, I would prefer if Duus had used more Korean sources, especially when discussing the Korean resistance armies (uibyong-gun), but he uncovers the Japanese players and popular Japanese attitudes without bias. The other side of the equation is important, though, namely how Korea fell so easily to foreign domination. Duus also discusses the other international players, Russia and China. And the last chapter on Japanese cultural domination invaluably narrates how Japan obliterated a nascent Korean identity. Still, the Japanese accounts of Korean conditions are insightful, since Korean accounts are sparse and suspect.
Given the politicized nature of the two countries' relationship, the reader must be skeptical of any history. Undisputed data is sparse and analysis, particularly on the Korean sides, has progressed little from conspiracy theories. Any amount of sober analysis is welcome, and Duus delivers.
Book Description
Who speaks? Who is silent? Who is seen? Who is absent? These questions focus on how cultures are constructed through pictures and words, how we are seduced into a world of appearances: into a pose of who we are and aren't. On both an emotional and an economic level, images and texts have the power to make us rich or poor. In these essays and reviews, written over the last decade, Barbara Kruger addresses that power with intelligence and wit, in the hope of engaging both our criticality and our dreams of affirmation.
Barbara Kruger is an artist whose pictures and words engage issues of power, sex, money, difference, and death. Her work has appeared throughout America, Europe, and Japan in galleries, newspapers, magazines, and museums and on billboards, matchbooks, TV programs, t-shirts, postcards, and shopping bags. She has written about television, film, and cultures for Artforum, Esquire, the New York Times, and the Village Voice.
Customer Reviews:
i really want to like it.......2005-10-20
i really do, but it's so academic at times i just can't get into it. it's not that i'm not an intelligent guy because i am, and it's not that i don't appreciate kruger's work because i do. it's simply that what i most love about kruger is the accessability of her work, and this book was very inaccessable at times. i'm glad i have it in my collection, but i wouldn't call it an "enjoyable" read. it's really more work than fun. i guess it depends on your feelings about kruger if the work is worth it. this is an important book for an art historian or cultural critic, but i would not recomend it as an introduction to kruger.
Remote Control by Barbara Kruger.......2000-09-26
Kruger's work is some of her best yet! She is, without a doubt, the most effective and AFFECTIVE artist of our time. Her art aggressively attacks the viewer, as do her written words. She takes control, and forces the reader to reflect on his or her position/experience/actions in life. Influential and powerful, radical, aggressive, and moving, the book is all put together with wit, dark humor, and poetic grace. An outstanding piece of work from an outstanding, talanted artist!
-Nathaniel Lacktman
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- The Silver Spoon
- The Story of the World Volume 2: History for the Classical Child (Story of the World: History for the Classical Child (Audio))
- The Struggle for Soviet Jewish Emigration, 19481967 (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies)
- The Virgin's Lover
- The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
- This Is War!: A Photo Narrative of the Korean War
- Thoughts of St. Ignatius Loyola for Every Day of the Year
- True Believer: Inside the Investigation and Capture of Ana Montes, Cuba's Master Spy
- Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs: Official Companion Book to the Exhibition sponsored by National Geographic
Books Index
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