Average customer rating:
- As Above...
- For those who don't want to pay $200
- finally the truth has been published
- The History Book of the 20th Century
- Accessibility?
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Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?
Viktor Suvorov
Manufacturer: Viking Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0241126223 |
Customer Reviews:
As Above..........2006-12-25
Not much to say. Please see the review by Tunde Santa and specifically read and read again (if needed) sentence #1.
For those who don't want to pay $200.......2006-10-01
A new Suvarov book in English covering the same general topic is coming out soon at a paltry $30 or less - "The Chief Culprit: Stalin's Grand Design to Start World War II".
Here is the publisher's blurb:
Using new documents and reevaluating existing material, The Chief Culprit analyzes Joseph Stalin's strategic design to conquer Europe and his support for Germany, which helped bring Hitler to power and sustained him. Stalin's strategy leading up to World War II grew from Vladimir Lenin's belief that if World War I did not ignite the worldwide Communist revolution, then a second world war would be needed to achieve it. Stalin saw Germany as the power that would fight and weaken capitalist countries so Soviet armies could sweep across the European continent to the Atlantic.
Viktor Suvorov reveals how Stalin conspired with German leaders to bypass the Versailles Treaty, which forbade German rearmament. Secretly, the Soviet Union trained German engineers and officers as well as provided bases and factories for war. In 1939, the nonaggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany allowed Hitler to proceed with his plans to invade Poland, fomenting war in Europe. Stalin emerges as a diabolical genius consumed by visions of a worldwide Communist revolution at any cost, the leader who wooed Hitler and Germany in his own effort to conquer the world.
The author debunks the myth that the Soviet Union was a victim of Germany's aggression. Instead, he insists that Stalin neither feared Hitler nor mistakenly trusted him. Suvorov argues that after Germany occupied Poland, defeated France, and started to prepare for an invasion of Great Britain, Hitler's intelligence services detected the Soviet Union's preparations for a major war against Germany. In 1940, Germany drafted a preemptive war plan, which it launched in June 1941, the invasion of the USSR.
Enjoy!
finally the truth has been published.......2006-02-27
The facts in this book are NO surprise for us in East Europe - we always knew about it - only the stupid left wing influenced useful idiots in the west, believed that " uncle Joe " is a wonderful person,and communism is " progress " and to this very day the very same " useful idiots " in the west
still hold their beliefs that communism is great, and only
the nazis are evil....good old double standard, hipocracy.
When comparing the number of people killed by these two systems
even an idiot should note - the communists have murdered over
240 million men,women,children, young and old alike - merely to steal ALL their properties * ( in Hungary for example the communist party members have murdered people for their houses, and as soon as the owners were removed - shot,hanged,beaten to death - these " left " wing communists have moved into the houses of their murdered victims... The so called nazis are innocent
little lambs in comparison to the crimes of the communists.
If we in east Europe would rate the two systems,on how terrible
they are - on a rate of 1 to 10, we would rate the communists
a 100 ! off the scale of evil, while the nazis might get
a mere 1 on this scale. ( after all - 240 million butchered and murdered victims compared against a documented loss of prisoners of 36,000 people in Auscwitz for example seems like a joke )
If evil could be measured in height - the communist party should
tower 200 miles high in the sky,the nazis should have a one floor
apartment building. It is worth to note, Pres.Tony Blair two weeks ago came to Hungary to participate in the reelection campaign of the local communist party....for this the communists paid him 40,000 euros....Now in East Europe we know Tony Blair
is a cheap man and a cheap politician...selling himself to the communists for a mere 40,000 euro cash payment...We are deeply
dissappointed in the west, and we are happy that a RUSSIAN author
finally published the facts about the EVILS of communism.
To hell with the double standard and hypocrasy of the lying westerners. I wish the communists should " get " them all
at the end...then they can experience the " progressive "
system of communism in person of all these " useful " idiots in
the west. Hurrah for the author for publishing the truth -
The History Book of the 20th Century.......2005-11-20
It is safe to assume that if you have not read Viktor Suvorov's Icebreaker (or, at least, are not familiar with his ideas), you don't understand the last 85 years of the world history.
Viktor Suvorov was trained as a military intelligence officer at the time when soviet military intelligence was the best in the world (probably still is). In the late seventies Suvorov defected to England, where he wrote several books about soviet army and intelligence. By all accounts (friends and enemies alike), Viktor Suvorov possesses encyclopedic knowledge about military theory and history, particularly the history of World War II. His knowledge and analytical ability are astounding.
Published first in the eighties, Icebreaker was the first in Suvorov's series of historical books. By the year 2000, it was translated into 27 languages and published more than 100 times. Icebreaker is a book about communist preparation and execution (however poorly, but not for the lack of trying) of the biggest crime in the history of mankind, World War II. Because of that, in addition to its historical value of showing communist conspiracy as a true cause of WWII, Icebreaker is probably the best, most convincing anti-communist book ever written. Suvorov neither uncovers any secrets, nor does he simply catalogue the crimes. He analyzes communists' own words and innumerable well-known facts to show communism as the darkest, most evil episode in the human history.
Before you start reading this book, however, keep in mind several important things.
First, this relatively small book is an overview of many very complex political, historical, and military events. The most important of the ideas had been expanded by the author in his later books (see below). The sheer number of dogmas and controversies Suvorov takes head on is mind-boggling, and this is why the author must occasionally abbreviate his arguments. As a result, the book may seem cursory to unprepared readers.
Second, Icebreaker was written in Russian and intended for Eastern European readership. In order to be immediately understood, the book does assume certain cultural background, i.e., familiarity with the history and cannibalistic rituals of communist regimes. I am not implying that western readers will not understand the book, to the contrary, I think that an interested western reader will benefit enormously from reading this book.
Third, Icebreaker, when it became available, was an instant tremendous success in the former USSR and all Eastern Block countries. In Eastern Europe Icebreaker became de facto 20th century European history textbook and the basis of common popular understanding of the events leading to WWII and its immediate aftermath. It would be foolish to disregard the opinion of people who actually lived through the events.
Some reviewers accuse Victor Suvorov of being a "Hitler apologist." This preposterous statement was fabricated by the soviet special services for western use. In Russia KGB mostly emphasized Suvorov's disloyalty to the regime and, therefore, his general untrustworthiness and never mentioned "his love of Nazis" as a critical argument. They knew it would never fly in Russia because Russian readers never sensed even a whiff of sympathy toward Nazis in the book. (Majority of people, by the way, doesn't realize how much perception of German fascists in the United States and England differs from that in Europe and Russia). I personally don't see how Suvorov's argument that Stalin killed more people than Hitler (and intended to kill a lot more) makes Hitler a hero. Generations of western intellectuals made careers out of spreading KGB lies, but, unless, of course, you hope to secure a tenured position, there is no need for you to repeat this nonsense. It is shameful. Please, don't do it.
Some reviewers seem to be hung up on BT controversy and such. Icebreaker is full of technical information, and some details may be proven inaccurate by further research. This "bait and switch" trick is used to make people judge the whole book by comparing width of tank treads. Please remember that this book is not about military technology, although it is described in great detail and used often to prove author's position.
There are at least five other successful history books written by Viktor Suvorov where he greatly expands and clarifies some of the main themes of Icebreaker:
1. Day "M": When did WWII begin? (a detailed account of Soviet preparations for the war),
2. The Cleansing (a very convincing explanation for the events known as "senseless decimation of Red Army officer corps before the war"),
3. The Suicide (an interesting exploration of Hitler as military leader and the myth of German readiness for the war in the East),
4. The Last Republic (in depth analysis of the geopolitical plans and intentions of the Soviets between the World Wars),
5. The Shadow of Victory (documents Marshall Zhukov as a monstrous war criminal that he really was).
As of now, I have not been able to find any indication of these books published in English.
Currently there is only one used copy of Icebreaker available for $450, and none of Suvorov's other history books are available in English translation. The content of Icebreaker alone is not sufficient to explain this virtual prohibition of the book, which is a very unusual and extraordinary measure for a modern western society. There is no question that Icebreaker is a controversial book: the whole libraries of western historical analysis of WWII are shown as garbage. Still, this is not enough. The explanation may be that the book gives detailed description of the process used by the professionals to analyze political and historical events using widely available, open-source information: Icebreaker is written as an intelligence report and presents a clear application of the intelligence analytical process. This book may teach you how to think. Now, that is dangerous. Combine it with the powerful anti-communist thrust of this book, and... Oh, well, some things cannot be permitted.
Accessibility?.......2005-11-17
I am giving this book 5 stars not because I read it but because those whose opinions I value and trust have read it and are praising it. However, my biggest gripe is that if this is the important book of the 20th Century, why the hefty pricetag? A book that is being touted as the most important book of the 20th Century should be accessible to all - rich and poor and everyone in between. Otherwise, how does the publisher and author expect this book to educate the masses? I know I don't have $450 to spend on a book, I only have the means to pay for such things as dental work, medical expenses, food and rent, you know, the luxuries of life in America. The very fact that this book is so expensive only serves to discredit it, but I still won't lessen the stars I am giving it because what's in it might be worth learning, if only I were rich!
Book Description
In A. J. Langguth's classic Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution, he brought to life leaders from the generation of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in all of their complexity, with their great strengths and human frailties. In Union 1812, those men appear again, tempered now by age and new responsibilities.
James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, must decide whether to go to war again only thirty years after the American Revolution.
Washington, Adams, and Jefferson had all made major concessions to avoid entangling their young and divided nation in new battles with Europe. But the War Hawks, aggressive congressmen from the South and West, are demanding that Madison take action to uphold America's honor against Great Britain.
In this gripping narrative of the second and final war of independence, Madison leads an unprepared nation into a struggle that will establish the United States as a major world power and stake its claim to the entire continent.
As the war begins, the U.S. Navy consists of seventeen oceangoing ships; the British fleet numbers seven hundred. Nor is the country united in its will to win. Governors in New England are refusing to call out their militia, while mobs attack antiwar newspaper editors in Baltimore in a violent repetition of the Boston Massacre.
Dramatic scenes range across the world, from vicious fighting on the frontier -- one British officer compares the hand-to-hand combat with the savagery of bulldogs -- to Dolley Madison's elegant receptions at the executive mansion and the wrangling among America's peace delegates in Belgium at Ghent.
Before the outcome is decided, the war will have engulfed land and sea, with a disastrous U.S. defeat at Detroit and epic naval campaigns on the Great Lakes. After the Americans sack Toronto, the British retaliate by burning the White House and the Capitol and laying siege with their rockets to Fort McHenry.
Finally, two and a half years of bloodshed and botched strategies culminate in the spectacular battle of New Orleans.
The heroes of Patriots are joined here by dozens of the most colorful and enduring characters from America's past: not only the diminutive and brilliant Madison and the statuesque Dolley, but also Sam Houston and Davy Crockett, Oliver Perry and Stephen Decatur, the great Shawnee chieftain Tecumseh, and four legendary men who will follow Madison into the White House -- James Monroe, William Henry Harrison, John Quincy Adams, and the triumphant hero Andrew Jackson.
For too long, the War of 1812 has been ignored or misunderstood. Union 1812 thrillingly illustrates why it must take its place as one of the defining moments in American history.
Customer Reviews:
Good Anecdotes but Too Many Editing Errors, OK 3.5.......2007-10-09
One of the major problems with this book (give it a C+) is that it doesn't seem that the editor had a strong grasp of the subject. As an aside, the book is dedicated to the editor by the author (maybe they both need help). Other reviewers have mentioned mistakes, here is another: in the text a general in 1813 is referred to as "Military Governor of Ohio Territory" ; Ohio was admitted to the Union in 1803.
This is not the only time that the states and territories are mixed up or that placement is wrong. During the description of the Battle of New Orleans, he mentions a ship sailing 'down' the Mississippi (south) and then firing at the British on the east bank with their starboard guns. Any sailor will tell you that you have to be facing north to fire your starboard guns in an easterly direction. Of course the boat could have been turned around, but why? Sure it's a little picky, but that's what history is about.
He does do a good job of entertaining us with anecdotes that add to our knowledge of many of the 'Founding Fathers', but it doesn't make up for the mistakes on so many of the other stories. That's another point that I would like to make. The book reads like a compendium of the works of many writers, and not the seamless work of one author. Could it be possible that some of his helpers and researchers did a 'little' of the writing? See for yourself.
A Different Point of View.......2007-07-21
"To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World" by Arthur Herman.
Read this for a more balanced view of this cowardly war Mr. Madison declared on Great Britain when she was fighting for survival against the French (and Spain at times) under Napoleon.
Madison's objective, aided and abetted by "it will be a walk over" Jefferson was an opportunistic war of aggression to occupy Canada (and Florida) -but his forces were decisively repulsed and routed by Loyalist forces.
Sound familiar?
Canada remained a free country as it wished to be and did not become a colony of the USA as Madison wished.
All the rest of his reasons (impressment etc.) were propaganda to get popular US support for this illegal act and actually disappeared as issues when Napoleon was first defeated.
Pointedly most New England States sensibly did not participate as they were anxious to preserve their lucrative trade with Great Britain in supplies needed (lumber etc.) to fight Napoleon.
This shameful episode in American history, siding with the megalomaniac Napoleon, was eventually settled by the Treaty of Ghent, not in battle, after Napoleon's exile to Elba and before his escape and subsequent defeat by Wellington at Waterloo.
The battle of New Orleans took place after the peace treaty had been signed and played absolutely no role in the outcome.
Also Perry wasn't fighting a British 'fleet' but a detached squadron of small vessels. His grandiose account of the action lends itself well for a Hollywood movie.
The US did not achieve any of its objectives - so who won? Certainly not the United States!
A second war of independence? - I don't think so!
But I guess the title will sell books - more bad history in print!
A Worthy Addition to Any War of 1812 Library.......2007-07-01
I just finished A. J. Langguth's Union 1812: The Americans Who Fought the Second War of Independence. This is the sequel to Langguth's excellent 1991 Patriots: The Men Who Started the American Revolution, and is written in the same style. Instead of being a solid historical narrative, it instead focuses on individuals and their contributions to the subject. In this instance, it addresses the American politicians and soldiers who brought about and fought the War of 1812. While this is an interesting and novel approach, it means that there are large gaps in the coverage of the conflict. As just one example, there is no coverage of some of the important land battles such as Lundy's Lane. Langguth focuses on the great Indian leader Tecumseh, who played a critical role in the War of 1812, and was killed in battle while fighting alongside the British. Tecumseh was a born and charismatic leader who earned the respect of friend and foe, including his arch enemy, William Henry Harrison. While I've read a few books on the War of 1812 over the years, I've never seen one that addresses it from the perspective of the political and military leaders of the United States. The focus on Tecumseh, who was definitely an American legend, is particularly interesting because it focuses on the role that the Indians played, and the fact that they entered into a marriage of convenience with the British in the hope of regaining the lands that they lost to the white settlers.
Langguth is a journalist by training, and he's a terrific writer. The book is very well written, with an easy, flowing style. At the same time, I did find the fact that the book jumps aroudn quite a bit to be a bit frustrating and disconcerting, as it emphasizes the gaps in the coverage of the book. The book suffers from a paucity of maps, and, as pointed out above, there are some significant gaps in the coverage of the war itself. Having said that, it's a novel and unique approach to a forgotten conflict, and Langguth does a good job of building his case that the War of 1812 was really just an extension of the American Revolution. He also makes an interesting and persuasive argument that the Civil War was a direct result of the conflicts that emerged from the War of 1812, including the tension between north and south.
This was an enjoyable and worthwhile read, and one I recommend undertaking. It's a worthy addition to any War of 1812 library.
Great book.......2007-05-16
Although I am only about a third of the way this is a great book. I finished the book 1776 by David McCullough and then started Union 1812. I highly recommend this book because it is an excellent read.
War of 1812 - Victim of Poor Scholarship?.......2007-04-09
The history of 1812 research is filled with amateur and mundane attempts at scholarship. This important period in the young Republic's history has seemly become the hobby-horse of retired military persons, presidents and those looking to make a name with their pen. Because of the lack of serious scholarship, this period of American history has suffered and largely been overlooked. A.J. Langguth's, UNION-1812 asserts itself prominently in a long line of disappointments.
Much of the book is dedicated to the events leading up to the war. The political atmosphere in the nascent US is extensively covered. This highly readable account of the sometimes very confusing world of early American politics, is one of the books few redeeming qualities.
After the exhausting coverage of the political climate in pre war America,the book becomes somewhat convoluted, and at times grossly inaccurate. Mr. Langguth's scholarship is called into question on more than a one occasion. As other reviewers have pointed out, he mistakenly labels Clark, President Jefferson's personal secretary.In fact it was M. Lewis, a family friend. While this factual error could be taken as a proofing mistake, other such errors cannot be. In a chapter about Oliver H. Perry, the author describes Perry's return to shipbuilding at Erie with "the British Brig Caledonia, three schooners, and a sloop that had been seized the previous year but penned up in the harbor by the guns of Ft. George." (p245). Anyone familiar with the Niagara area will be amused at the authors' lack of attachment with the material he is presenting. Between Ft. George and Erie, PA (where Perry Built the Lake Erie Fleet) lies Niagara Falls. It must have been a truly Herculean task to get a Brig up the falls.
UNION-1812 leaves the reader wanting and wishing for a well researched, accurate portrayal of this important period in American History
Book Description
The fascinating first-person account of the cross-dressing prince who poisoned Rasputin with rose cream cakes laced with cyanide and spiked Madeira is now back in print. Originally published in France in 1952, during the years of Prince Youssoupoff's exile from Russia, Lost Splendor has all the excitement of a thriller. Born to great riches, lord of vast feudal estates and many palaces, Felix Youssoupoff led the life of a grand seigneur in the days before the Russian Revolution. Married to the niece of Czar Nicholas II, he could observe at close range the rampant corruption and intrigues of the imperial court, which culminated in the rise to power of the sinister monk Rasputin. Finally, impelled by patriotism and his love for the Romanoff dynasty, which he felt was in danger of destroying itself and Russia, he killed Rasputin in 1916 with the help of the Grand Duke Dimitri and others. More than any other single event, this deed helped to bring about the cataclysmic upheaval that ended in the advent of the Soviet regime.~The author describes the luxury and glamour of his upbringing, fantastic episodes at nightclubs and with the gypsies in St. Petersburg, grand tours of Europe, dabbling in spiritualism and occultism, and an occasional conscience-stricken attempt to alleviate the lot of the poor.~Prince Youssoupoff was an aristocrat of character. When the moment for action came, when the monk's evil influence over the czar and czarina became unbearable, he and his friends decided that they must get rid of the monster. He tells how Rasputin courted him and tried to hypnotize him, and how finally they decoyed him to the basement of the prince's palace. Prince Youssoupoff...is perfectly objective, remarkably modern and as accurate as human fallibility allows. His book is therefore readable, of historical value and intimately tragic. It is as if Count Fersen had written a detailed account of the last years of Marie Antoinette. --Harold Nicholson, on the first English edition, 1955 By Prince Felix Youssoupoff. Hardcover, 5.25 x 8.25 in./300 pgs / 0 color 14 BW0 duotone 0 ~ Item D20143
Customer Reviews:
A time gone with the wind.......2007-08-07
I read this book, here in Brazil.The author(a gay) was a noble and rich man, in tzarist Russia.This memories are about the time when he was in Russia.Don't wait to read about the life of the author, in exile.
Chapter after chapter, you can read, about the life of a noble, rich (and gay) man in Russia before the communism.There's even an entire chapter, about the death of Rasputin.In fact, the author killed Rasputin.
Last chapters are about the life, in after-revolution Russia.Including about the author's scape.Don't wait nothing gay-rights, even being the author a gay.The author blames the jews of Russia, for many bad things.
This book is about a time gone with the wind.
Lost Splendor.......2007-04-11
Lost Splendor is a wonderful firsthand account of Russia during the Romanoff dynasty. Prince Felix Youssoupoff was a member of one of Russia's richest families and tells a compelling story of what imperial Russia was like before the revolution. He goes into detail about the killing of Rasputin which he had a hand in. A wonderful book that is a page turner from start to finish.
An interesting glance into pre-revolutionary Russia.......2006-06-27
Like another reviewer I had visited the Youssoupoff palace and was amazed by the richness and beauty these people possessed. Unlike some others who might have sided with the revolutionaries for whatever reason Felix of course doesn't, as far as I could tell. I also think he misses the point of why exactly the revolution occurred although presents his side of events which I found fascinating when it came to Rasputin, the nobility, and even the royal family whom he was pretty intimate with.
It was his belief that by getting rid of Rasputin he could start Russia on a highway to reform and reorganization, this in my opinion he was very gullible in believing, but understandable as he was very distant from the population at large.
The reader is taken through Felix's childhood and we get a glimpse of how spoiled he was and how terribly difficult it was to keep him in line and make him understand what responsibility and civility mean, etc. And at the same time we see him sneaking off to find out what the poor live like which in the end changes how he views the world and those around him.
These are just some episodes from his memoirs, there are many others and many of them will make you laugh out loud, children will be children and their experiences of a century ago are very much alike to what goes on in our world today. A worthwhile read, very easy to get into and at times a real page turner, highly recommended for a side of things from the rich/nobility point of view.
"The trials you are going through will teach you that life is not just a pastime.".......2006-04-06
"I'll have you appointed minister, if you like," Rasputin tells Felix Yusupov as they began to get chummy with one another. But Yusupov, our author herein, had a far different motive for getting close to this "mystic." After all, he was the last remaining son of one of the wealthiest families in Russia (his family's palatial estates, pictured in this book, were downright royal). To boot, he was newly married to Tsar Nicholas II's niece Irina. The tsar was godfather to his first child as well. He didn't want for anything and certainly could have had a position in government had he been interested in one. But what he was interested in was getting close to the ever guarded Rasputin; ever watched over by the secret police, thanks to the tsarina. Rasputin, in Yusupov's words was "an uncultured, cynical, avid and unscrupulous peasant who had reached the pinnacle of power owing to a chain of circumstances." The sole son of the tsar had hemophilia & Rasputin was soon judged (by the Tsarina Alexandra) to be some comfort in alleviating the effects of the tsarevich's condition. Soon, however, Rasputin began to play on his influence with the tsarina (& through Alexandra's infuence with her husband) to engineer the likes of just what he had offered Yusupov---ie., effecting the political appointments of government personel. Then in 1914 war broke out with Germany. About a year after which Rasputin seems to have had an effect, as well, on persuading Alexandra to badger the tsar to take direct control over the war effort. Thus when the tsar did take command of the army (at field headquarters, which was far removed from the capital of St. Petersburg) Rasputin's hand in affairs of the state---including the army, through Alexandra, began to become quite pronounced. "Not a single important measure was taken at the front without his being consulted," Yusupov writes. But this wasn't just his impression. Russian society was awfully suspicious of German-born Alexandra's apparent closeness with an unwashed degenerate who had a reputation for engaging in orgies. It was an open scandal, costing the tsar much in the respect felt for the royal family; respect badly needed during wartime as the fighting continued to drag on, under conditions of societal hardship relating to food rationing and the like. Grand Duchess Elizabeth (whose husband had been assassinated), in particular, begged her sister Alexandra to acknowledge what damage her "blind confidence" in Rasputin was costing the country, but to no avail. The above is addressed through the first 229 (large type) pages in this autobiography as Yusupov paints a vanishing era of aristocratic splendor. Then he elaborately describes how he (supported by 4 other dignitaries) killed Rasputin in Yusupov's St. Petersburg mansion. The tsar's 1905 war with Japan, in Yusupov's words, was "one of the most terrible blunders made during the reign of Nicholas II." Another one was doing nothing in the wake of Rasputin's removal from the scene. "Rasputin's death made a new policy possible." Russians applauded Rasputin's removal, hoping that the tsar would now be emboldened to heed the cacophony of concerned advice & take needed measures before it was too late. But Nicholas seemed to be a "confirmed fatalist" who wasn't going to do much until he was forced to. A little more than 2 months later he was forced to abdicte. Perennial inaction by Nicholas, one of the most ineffective Romanov tsars, had finally cost him his crown. (PS: Yusupov-owned paintings can be seen in Russian museums now; his family's wealth/palaces having been confiscated by Lenin & Co not long after the Bolsheviks murdered Nicholas, Alexandra, their children, and as many relatives they could; after having usurped power from the Provisional Russian Government. Yusupov, in the company of Tsar Alexander III's widow---the Dowager Empress/mother of Nicholas---sailed out of the Crimea on a Royal (British) Navy ship 4-13-1919. Thanks for reading my review. Cheers!
A Glimpse Into A Vanished World.......2003-12-19
Prince Felix Yousssoupoff is best known as one of the murderers of Gregory Rasputin just before the Russian Revolution. He was a member of one of Russia's most aristocratic families, and in this memoir, originally published in the 1950s, he gives us a glimpse of life for a nobleman in pre-Revolutionary Russia.
Life was certainly rich, if not always good, for Prince Felix. As a younger son, he was given very little education and basically allowed to do as he pleased during his formative years. Most of the time what he was pleased to do was to get into trouble. I lost count of the number of servants, governesses, and other retainers who quit with nervous breakdowns after trying to look after Felix. Under the influence of his elder brother, whom he adored, Felix had an early initiation into sexual and other kinds of debauchery. He enjoyed dressing as a woman and living the high life in St. Petersburg, London, and Paris. Felix was reticent about his sexuality, claiming several affairs with women but speaking more warmly about his men friends, including Grand Duke Dmitri, who helped him murder Rasputin. When Felix's brother was killed in a duel Felix became the heir to a vast fortune. He married Tsar Nicholas' niece Irina, whom he claimed to adore but otherwise said little about.
The most interesting parts of this book deal with Rasputin, whom Felix met several times. Typically, Felix hints that there was a sexual nature to these encounters, but divulges few details. Felix describes the murder and his subsequent exile, which saved him from being in St. Petersburg during the February Revolution in 1917, and his internment in the Crimea with other members of the Imperial Family from 1917 through 1919, when he escaped on a British warship.
This book is interesting but highly reticent. Felix never loses a chance to glamorize himself and his activities, with the result that some undeniably brave actions, like his several trips to St. Petersburg to rescue treasures while the Bolshevik terror was at its height, tend to get less attention than they deserve. A more open and informative biography of Prince Felix, The Man Who Killed Rasputin, by Greg King, was published several years ago and will help fill in the gaps left by Felix's own work.
Amazon.com
In accordance with his belief that "it is often easier to become acquainted with the history of a period if it is seen through the lives of individuals," Dmitri Volkogonov's last book before his 1995 death addresses the lives of the seven men who ruled the Soviet Union during its seven decades of existence. Making full use of the access granted to him as a high-ranking officer of the Soviet Army (and later as military advisor to Boris Yeltsin) to the secret archives of the Communist Party, he amplifys and expands upon the themes of his full length biographies of Lenin and Stalin, then proceeds to take on their successors up to Mikhail Gorbachev. With painstaking details drawn from a true insider's perspective, he recreates both the stagnation of the Soviet bureaucracy and the collapse set in motion by perestroika. "Perhaps the only thing I achieved in this life," Volkogonov wrote, "was to break with the faith I had held for so long." That is untrue; he also brilliantly chronicled how that faith came to impose itself upon an entire society.
Autopsy of an Empire is a fitting conclusion to that legacy.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Overview of the Rise and Fall of the USSR.......2005-02-21
In 1937, when Dmitri Volkogonov was 9 years old his father Anton was swept up in Stalin's purges, branded a traitor, and never seen again. Despite, or perhaps because of, his father's alleged criminal activities, Volkogonov enlisted in the Soviet army in 1945. Rising to the rank of Colonel-General, he was appointed the director of the USSR's Institute for Military History, a position he held from 1985 through 1991. From 1991 through 1993 he served as the head of the commission responsible for declassifying Soviet state papers located in their numerous archives. As a result of these appointments Volkogonov had access to the archives of the Ministry of Defense, the Central Party, the General Staff of the Armed Forces and virtually every other Soviet institution where party ad military records were stored. In addition, he had access to Western documentary material not generally available in the USSR. Relying heavily on those resources, Volkogonov penned well received biographies of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. Autopsy for an Empire, The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime, was written while Volkogonov fought a last, losing battle against cancer. He died shortly after the completion of this manuscript.
Autopsy for an Empire contains seven sections, each section analyzing the reign of one of the seven Soviet leaders: Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and, finally, Gorbachev. Although Volkogonov's writing is down-to-earth and covers a lot of ground in an efficient manner, he was not a historian by training nor was he a writer. There are portions of the book that do not read as fluently as one would hope. I think, however, that Volkogonov's use of previously unknown source material more than makes up for any deficiencies in his prose style.
Volkogonov's Autopsy tracks the arc-like trajectory of the Soviet Union. He shows Lenin achieving and consolidating power both in the USSR and within his party while establishing the police state that reached its apogee under Stalin. Subsequent to Lenin's death we are exposed to Stalin's rise to power, the consolidation of total power, his great purges and the fear and horror of the first days after the Nazi invasion. It is clear, however, that Soviet power reached its peak during Stalin's years. The segment on Khrushchev takes a critical and relatively sympathetic look at a man who sat at Stalin's right hand during the last years of his regime but who managed to denounce the cult of Stalin and institute same slight reforms that came to represent what became known as "the thaw". By the time we get to Brezhnev the ossification of the Soviet state seems to proceed at a pace similar to the increasingly visible ossification of Brezhnev himself. The short-lived reigns of the already aged and decrepit Andropov and Chernenko are disposed of in short order. Finally, we get to Gorbachev, the onset of Perestroika, and the ultimate dissolution of the Soviet empire.
No single section of the book contains a fully formed biography of any individual Soviet leader and as such the book may be disappointing to some. Certainly there is a vast body of literature available about the lives of Lenin, Stalin, and to a lesser extent Khrushchev. Yet, because the leader loomed so large in Soviet life, a nation effectively run from the top down, Autopsy for an Empire represents an excellent starting point for anyone looking for a good general overview of Soviet history.
Forgive the translation.......2003-04-01
A wonderful read. Volkogonov has written other biographies of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky which I also highly recommend. THis book is a waltz through the lives of the leaders of the soviet union. VOlkogonov takes for granted that you have some background. He takes you on a jurney into the private lives of the dictators.
For those that say he rambbles the reality is that he is Russian, he is not a writer by trade and yet he overcame geat obstacles to write the books he did before he died. They should be viewed as treasrers and not condemned for their lack of clarity which stems more from the russian mind then from the authors inability to contrust a coheren argument.
Factual and Informative Political History.......2001-08-01
This is one of the most informative books ever written about the people who ruled the Soviet Union. Being a highly centralized, totalitarian state, the Soviet Union acquired and lost much of its character as its rulers came and went. And the rulers were General Secrertaries of the communist party. Stalin brought crush indurstrialization, famine, and purges--millions of innocent people died, inclduing some of the most devoted communist revolutionaries. Khruschev tried reform, with some success in political liberalization, but his agricultural policy failed miserably. Brezhnev was compromise incarnate and, in his later years, aloof and passive. Andropov had a vision of reform based on social discipline and strict control, and economic accountability. Chernenko, who was a tireless bureaucrat in his youth, was simply a cripple almost the moment he assumed power. Then came Gorbachev and changed the course of history.
The book makes for a fascinating read. The leaders of the Soviet state were all too human, with this exception, that perhaps they craved power more than ordinary people do and could play politics like Paganini could play the violin. However, Stalin's lust for power, combined with his paranoia, may put him in a qualitatively different category--that of the world's most cruel dictators.
The book can be challenging at times, because it presents so many facts. Its highly archival nature does disrupt the smooth flow of the narrative. But for the fact starved Russians at least this may be a welcome change. The Soviet Union, outside the most elite circles, was almost devoid of any meaningful information about politics and political history. Ideology and propaganda ruled. Rhetorical arguments and logical exercises always came before fact, and before feelings of real living Soviet people. Thus in a way, even Volkogonov's factual excess is a welcome change.
interesting history for those who care to read it........1999-05-06
Volkogonov has not produced his best work here, but a work which is wholly approachable, entertaining and interesting...the way a good history should be written. Reading an historical text need not be like washing down a bowl of cornflakes with sand rather then milk. Volkogonov has become the "Suetonius" of Soviet Russia....and his text with its humor and occasional intimate details and also personal experiences is as interesting a read as the former's "Lives of the Twelve Caesars."
A big disappointment........1999-02-18
Unfortunately Volkogonov's book fails to live up to its publisher's and other reviewers' claims. First of all its structure is incoherent and the writing is rambling; that makes it look like a hurried undergraduate essay not a well researched book. It also lacks good biographical data on the leaders it purports to preview.
My other issue with the book that it really does not provide any new information. It is but a repetition of well-known facts, self-evident truth (eg. Stalin was evil... Communism is bad). On a professional level there are major deficiencies as well:
1. There is nothing (really) on the power struggle that followed Stalin's death.
2. Volkogonov does not mention the reassessed view on Beria - this must have been known to him since the research went on in the archives that he supervised.
3. Presents a shallow and wrong picture of Khrushchev as a reformer.
4. Contrary to his claims (misinformation?) Imre Nagy was NOT an NKVD agent and material that used to back up this claim is well known to be fabricated by the KGB
5. What about the role of the VPK (The military industrial complex of the Soviet Union)? After all Volkogonov was a member of it. Nevertheless he tries to purvey the impression that it was the Party or a dictator like Stalin who controlled everything.
To sum it up: Not worth reading it. Those who know the subject will gain nothing just be presented with a barrage of outdated and false information. Those who are not well acquainted with the Soviet Union will be deceived and because of the book's poor structure it does not lend itself as a good introduction even to the basic facts.
Ultimately it seems that Volkogonov's role was that of the gatekeeper at archives. He was there not to monopolize them for himself but to keep real sensitive information from other (real) researchers.
Amazon.com
British journalist and historian Brian Moynahan does not spare details of the lechery and drunkenness that Rasputin brought with him on his journey from the squalor of rural Siberia to St. Petersburg, where he captivated the tsar and tsarina with his mysterious ability to ease their hemophiliac son's hemorrhages. Yet Moynahan also credits "the mad monk" with intelligence, generosity, even a weird spirituality. In elegant prose, he retells with panache the saga of an illiterate peasant's rise to a position of fearsome power in the waning days of the Russian monarchy.
Book Description
First time in paperback: The acclaimed life of the "mad monk" who wielded immeasurable influence over the last Czar and his family
Grigory Efimovich Rasputin-drinker, thief, womanizer-arrived in St. Petersburg in 1903 as if from the medieval past...tattered, black-clad, muttering. By the time of his sensational murder thirteen years later, the peasant was the "beloved Friend" of Czar Nicholas and Empress Alexandra, with a seemingly supernatural power to stop the bleeding attacks of their hemophiliac son, Alexis.
Drawing on confidential police reports, cabinet meeting memos, and many documents only now available, Moynahan sheds new light on Rasputin's life and disputes some of the widely held details of his death. The Detroit Free Press hailed the book as "truly mesmerizing....The text is based on carefully documented historical research, but the story rolls along like a good novel with rising suspense and an array of colorful action as vast as Russia itself."
Customer Reviews:
Excellent!.......2006-07-30
Instead of a book that is only re-telling really what we know or have heard of Rasputin, this is remarkable in its history and life of a very interesting person.
Kitty Kelly Lives!.......2005-10-03
The reason Massie's Nicholas and Alexandra became a modern classic was because it presented its story through the dispassionate historian's eye. The sensational tone of this book makes one think that 70 years of Soviet disinformation on the Romanovs all found a home in this volume. One would do better to stay with Massie (no lover of the Romanovs) and read books like A Gathered Radiance to get a more nuanced picture.
fun read.......2004-07-08
Although it has its errors, this is an engrossing biography about Rasputin. Full of new information and little-known facts, it's not afraid to shy away from the nitty-gritty, it's not afraid to give us the dirt on this guy, without all the false romanticism about Rasputin being so saintly and such. But this is an honest portrait of Rasputin, giving him credit where credit is due. I like this gritty lurid style of writing, which doesn't downplay or leave out the salacious sensationalistic stuff. There is no doubt that you will be convinced of Rasputin's iron hold on the Russian royal family due to his supposed supernatural powers, which included healing the Tzar's hemophiliac son and heir to the throne, Alexei. But, alas, there would never be a new Tzar, as through his scandalous public and priavte life Rasputin unwittingly contributed to the Romanov dynasty's fall. I recommend this book especially to people who enjoy reading a good bio about unusual personalities from the past.
David Rehak
author of "Love and Madness"
Titilating Tale..........2003-12-22
...but worthless as a historical biography. This book is a collection of the most salacious gossip from the latter days of the Romanov Empire. It is both entertaining and gives some insight to the "mood" of St. Petersburg at that time, but is filled with "inaccuracies", from references to Rasputin's youth as a time of living in primitive poverty to refering to him as a monk to descriptions of a life style of unrestrained, wild debauchery. In fact, his father was a land owner, Rasputin grew up in a nice home in a town that benefited from being located by rivers (making commerce an important part of the town), was never a monk, remained married to the same woman, brought his two daughters to live with him in St. Petersburg so they could have an education, and for a complex set of reasons, allowed himself to be a scapegoat. While he admitted to "falling into sin", those incidents were a very small part of a very complex and interesting person/life.
Biased, foul-mouthed trashy biography.......2002-07-02
There used to be (or still is if you are a conspiracist) a lot of mystery surrounding Rasputin and the collapse of the Russian Empire during WWI. I became intrigied after seeing the HBO version of Rasputin and swept away by the magic of Rasputin in Edvard Radzinsky's account (be it true or false...). I felt compelled to find out more and this book came highly recmmended at Amazon so...
Moynahan starts off with the clear, descriptive and simple writing style of the brilliant book on the last Romanov's by Robert K. Massie. Then somewhere in the middle of the book, he descends abruptly into a vitrilic foul-mouthed tirade at Rasputin - which is in shocking contrast to the start of the book. As the chapters kept on unfurling with this pure vitriol, my respect for the biographer and patience with the book deteriorated. Then suddenly, towards the end, Moynahan suddenly finds compassion for Rasputin in his (sensationalised) theory for Rasputin's death. However, Moynahan had lost my respect by then and the book was thrown into the bin - I couldn't bring myself to even subject it to the people at my local library where I usually donate books.
... If you want to read a masterpiece on a good biographer turned bad - this is the book for you. If you want to learn about Rasputin, there are other books on the market which are infinetely more informative!
Book Description
Stalin did not act alone. The mass executions, the mock trials, the betrayals and purges, the jailings and secret torture that ravaged the Soviet Union during the three decades of Stalin’s dictatorship, were the result of a tight network of trusted henchmen (and women), spies, psychopaths, and thugs. At the top of this pyramid of terror sat five indispensable hangmen who presided over the various incarnations of Stalin’s secret police. Now, in his harrowing new book, Donald Rayfield probes the lives, the minds, the twisted careers, and the unpunished crimes of Stalin’s loyal assassins.
Founded by Feliks Dzierzynski, the Cheka–the Extraordinary Commission–came to life in the first years of the Russian Revolution. Spreading fear in a time of chaos, the Cheka proved a perfect instrument for Stalin’s ruthless consolidation of power. But brutal as it was, the Cheka under Dzierzynski was amateurish compared to the well-oiled killing machines that succeeded it. Genrikh Iagoda’s OGPU specialized in political assassination, propaganda, and the manipulation of foreign intellectuals. Later, the NKVD recruited a new generation of torturers. Starting in 1938, terror mastermind Lavrenti Beria brought violent repression to a new height of ingenuity and sadism.
As Rayfield shows, Stalin and his henchmen worked relentlessly to coerce and suborn leading Soviet intellectuals, artists, writers, lawyers, and scientists. Maxim Gorky, Aleksandr Fadeev, Alexei Tolstoi, Isaak Babel, and Osip Mandelstam were all caught in Stalin’s web–courted, toyed with, betrayed, and then ruthlessly destroyed. In bringing to light the careers, personalities, relationships, and “accomplishments” of Stalin’s key henchmen and their most prominent victims, Rayfield creates a chilling drama of the intersection of political fanaticism, personal vulnerability, and blind lust for power spanning half a century.
Though Beria lost his power–and his life–after Stalin’s death in 1953, the fundamental methods of the hangmen maintained their grip into the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, Rayfield argues, the tradition of terror, far from disappearing, has emerged with renewed vitality under Vladimir Putin. Written with grace, passion, and a dazzling command of the intricacies of Soviet politics and society, Stalin and the Hangmen is a devastating indictment of the individuals and ideology that kept Stalin in power.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
A book not afraid to call evil by that name..........2007-09-19
This simply a very well written book.
The author doesn't write in a dry and detached way. He allows his righteous hate for these killers to shine through.
Too often, Hitler's equal has been given relative scant attention for the tens of millions of lives ruined and for the millions actually murdered.
The left, AKA academia has had a difficult time coming to grips with what the Soviets were. It truly was an evil empire and Stalin ruled it at its zeneth.
Also well covered all many of the people who helped Stalin achieve what he did. If there is anything to be enjoyed, it's the justice that most ended up being victims themselves, often tortured and killed by the very underlings they trained and it done so in locations they established.
Again, this book is written with the outrage and hate towards these people that is long overdue. If Hitler and his camp deserve their own hell, and they do, the author of this book makes the case for Stalin and his Hangmen.
Stalin: The Red Satan and his unspeakably evil minions are indicted before the Bar of Human Justice and condemned to infamy.......2007-05-02
Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) was Ivan the Terrible with a copy of Karl Marx in his hand. In fact, Stalin (Russian for "steel") was much worse than Ivan. Under Stalin's dictatorship the Soviet Union underwent years of murders; shootings; forced removal of millions of ethnic and other groups; persecution of a wide array of groups:
(Jews; physicians, professors, religious leaders, non-ethnic Russian citizens, artists; writers; actors; lawyers-you name it!)
Stalin seized power by ruthlessly murdering his opponents. As he emerged with total power in 1927 "Koba" (to use a nickname) ruled the Soviet Union with cruelty, stupidity and crimes so immense it takes Rayfield 500 small printed pages to describe them in searing detail!!
Lenin had established Soviet rule but it was Stalin with such loathsome cronies as Iagoda; Estov and the repulsive Lavria Beria who launched a reign of terror on the very people they governed! Millions were slaughtered by bullet, ax or starvation. In the Great Purge of 1937-1938 millions were relocated to distant lands; sent into slavery in the GULAG in the far east or murdered after a short kangaroo court proceeding.
Justice was absent from the Soviet lexicon under the evil Stalin.
Stalin trusted no person. He executed those who had worked hard to establish him in power. Most of the powerful men who were vassals of Stalin's whims died betrayed by him.
On the eve of World War II Stalin purged the Red Army of gifted generals. When Nazi Germany launched its attack against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 the Soviets were woefully unprepared. Generals were murdered: Pows returning from German captivity were executed as spies. In all over 20 million Soviet citizens would die in the war. Many of these victims died at the hands of the evil sorcerer of the Kremlin.
Donald Rayfield teaches Russian and Georgian at the University of London. His book on playwright Anton Chekhov was well received. In this book he shows us the Soviet hell on earth world of sudden death; betrayal; cruelty beyond belief; hatred; racial and ethnic hatred that boggles the mind of anyone with a claim to be a member of the human race!
Stalin and his hangmen were thugs; bullies and merciless killers of all that is decent and good in the human soul. Rayfield suggests at the end of his book that he fears democracy in the new Russia under Putin is very fragile.The ghosts of Stalin may again materialize in the Russia of the 21st century.
Anyone who lives in a Western democracy should thank God that they did not first see daylight in the Soviet Union in the black days of Stalin and his cruel cronies.
Rayfield's book is well written. Though he is a scholar the book can be
read by one who has little familiarity with the history of this sad chapter of human history (the chapter on the Katyn Forest of Polish officers is just one case among countless tales told in the book which will break your heart). Stalin killed women, children, the old and the poor, the wealthy and the smart. He was an indiscriminate murderer of all he feared in his paranoic isolatiion inside tall Kremlin walls. He also was adept at turning people against one another. Several cases are related where a husband would volunteer to murder his own wife if this was the ukase ultimatum from Stalin which would prove the man's loyalty!
As one who has read several books on Stalin I would give this book five stars. Every page has something to shock the reader. We should know what Stalin did as we honor his millions of helpless victims.
A sorry line of miserable degenerates .......2007-01-08
Brilliantly researched and written this is a vital and substantial contribution to the sorry and depressing history of life in the former Soviet Union under the rule of the psychotic, evil Stalin and his miserable bunch of hyena type acolytes. After out scheming and removing the old Bolsheviks, Stalin was able to put himself up as the top hyena at the top of the pack and corrupt his close associates and eventually the Cheka to inflict his paranoiac ideas and schemes on the Communist Party and Soviet Union.
The book commences with the long road to power for Stalin and deals with his early life, the experience of his religious education in the Tbilisi seminary and the ideas he probably gained from it and his Bolshevik revolutionary life. Chapters are then devoted to the history of each of the leaders of the Cheka with details of their pre-Cheka life and how they performed in the top job.
Dzierzynski with the agreement of Lenin and his men formed the Cheka within 6 weeks of the October revolution and was immediately up to his armpits in blood; the period 1918-1921 saw the Cheka involved in widespread arrests, brutal interrogations and mass shootings of some real and many thousands of imagined enemies. Dzierzynski was similar to Stalin with a religious background that was savagely shattered at age 19 in a conversion to atheism and revolution and these two got on well together. In 1922 Dzierzynski swung a half million paramilitaries from Trotsky to support Stalin and was a crucial influence in Stalin's rise to power. He died in 1926 but directed his efforts to combat counter revolution, espionage etc outside of the party not inside, l got the impression he would have opposed many of Stalin's later crazy schemes as party unity was vital to him and he personally disliked fabricating evidence (of all things!) and was not willing to suppress party members.
Dzierzynski was followed by the very able Menzhinsky who during the period 1928 to 1934 ably assisted Stalin to neutralize his opponents inside and outside the party and of course controlled the Cheka as it moved against the rural inhabitants and actioned the grain requisition of 1928 and the brutal forced farm collectivization which lead to the subsequent famine. Menzhinsky also worked with Stalin on the first show trials.
This sorry trend of brutal suppression and misery continues and gets worst as the book continues. Besides the main hangmen this books also presents the history of the other Cheka operatives i.e. the strategists, crackdown and arresting officers, interrogators, executioners, guards etc.
Many sadists, psychotics and cruel operatives performed the dirty work of Stalin and his hangmen.
New Perspectives On An Old Evil.......2006-05-24
This painstakingly thorough compendium of knowledge on Stalin, the Communist movement, Bolshevik leaders and the enslaved masses is one of the best books available on its subject. Rayfield tells you all the news you already know about the Red Terror, and some you didn't- he began his research shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when many secret documents and personal possessions of Stalin's became publicly accessible. These resources allowed him to paint a more complete picture of the Stalinist government than was previously possible, untangling endless webs of intrigue.
Rayfield occasionally writes too long on insignificant subjects, but his generally focused and thorough style works. It's a bit reminiscent of "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by Shirer, and almost as masterful. Rayfield restrains himself from sensationalism throughout, then concludes with a brief and needed social critique on Russia's failure to acknowledge the criminal nature of the Cheka, the NKVD and the other deadly machinery of Russian Communism.
This is one of the best places to start reading about Stalin, and may have just enough new information to satisfy seasoned readers. I especially recommend it to those who have read books focused on Stalin himself, but haven't yet examined the hangmen who made his slaughter possible.
We Must Not Forget.......2006-02-12
There are many books detailing Stalin's horrendous crimes, but this one does a very good job telling us about the lackies and cronies who actually did his dirty work, and how--time and time again--they did not hesitate to shoot dozens or hundreds of people they deemed disloyal. But perhaps the most haunting part is the book's last two pages--I just finished it--where the author reminds us that Russia has still neither fully acknowledged nor atoned for the crimes of the Cheka and its successor organizations.
We can see much the same thing here, I'm sorry to say. Nazi crimes are justly condemned, but few risk being called a "McCarthyist" by saying that the KGB murderers still alive should be called to account. Thousands of former Russians now live in New York City alone. But no effort has even been made, as far as I know, to try to even gather information from them about these crimes. I'm no lawyer, but couldn't a KGB goon living on our soil be prosecuted here for such crimes against humanity? On TV's LAW & ORDER, "Hang 'em High Jack McCoy" has prosecuted a Chilean fascist (no, I'm not kidding), two different serving U.S. Naval officers in two different episodes, plenty of ex-Nazis and neo-Nazis, and (in a two-parter) a special prosecutor who was supposed to be a parody of Kenneth Starr (hint, hint). I never saw an episode of him wondering about how many ex-KGB men are living in his jurisdiction, with the blood of thousands on their hands. Instead I see them being interviewed on the HISTORY CHANNEL (that's right, INTERVIEWED)--and not a little finger is lifted to bring these murderers to justice.
Rayfield should have spent more time making the point that it was not only the Bertolt Brechts and the Walter Durantys and the George Bernard Shaws of the world who were morally culpable for fawning over Stalin, but also all those living today who are willing to forget about the USSR doing things that Nazi Germany could not be--and was not--forgiven for. Some double standards may have to be tolerated in this world, but the kind that apologize for mass murder cannot be.
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- Who was who for the Union
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Who Was Who in the Union
Stewart Sifakis
Manufacturer: Facts on File
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Customer Reviews:
Who was who for the Union.......2000-07-04
This incredible book lists all the principle players for the Union in the Civil War. From government members to generals to spies to soldiers. All of the people I could think of have a several paragraph capsule of their lives and contributions to the Union cause. If you ever wanted to know an extended history of some one you read about, this is the place to look. over 1500 biographical sketches are presented.I find myself referencing this information frequently.
Book Description
A moving, utterly captivating love story: Romeo and Juliet as if told by Chekhov or Dostoevsky. In the remote Russian village of Mirnoje a woman waits, as she has waited for almost three decades, for the man she loves to return. Near the end of World War II, 19-year-old Boris Koptek leaves the village to join the Russian army, swearing to the 16-year-old love of his life, Vera, that as soon as he returns they will marry. Young Boris, who with his engineering battalion fights his way almost to Berlin, is reported killed in action crossing the Spree River. But Vera refuses to believe he is dead, and each day, all these years later, faithfully awaits his return. Then one day the narrator arrives in the village, a 26-year-old native of Leningrad who is fascinated by both the still-beautiful woman and her exemplary story, and little by little falls madly in love with her. But how can he compete with a ghost that will not die? Beautifully, delicately, but always powerfully told, Andre Makine delineates in masterly prose the movements and madness that constitute the dance of pure love.
Customer Reviews:
might have been better in French..........2007-02-10
On first glance, this book is about a women, who waits 30 years for the return of her fiancee at war. She lives among the dying widows, the old, faithful ones in a life punctuated by startling moments of beauty and tenderness. The use of language is exceptionally beautiful in this book. The story takes on a dream like quality; colorful, vivid yet almost surreal at times. On a deeper level, The antagonist symbolizes the silent death of Russia, "the winner of the War"- caught in between the empty lure of Communist regime and the propagation of western filth.
Emotions or Logic...You Decide .......2006-04-02
Makine has given us quite a thought-provoking novel...touching on life choices...the emotional aspect of our choices...and the logical aspect of our choices, and the borders that are crossed with both choices. Some of us choose with our hearts, while others choose the logical (or what seems to be logical) path to live our lives.
The 26-year old narrator in this novel is given an opportunity to travel to a remote area of Russia near the White Sea, in order to write about the culture and traditions of the women in the town of Mirnoe, a town that is a dot on the geographical map, and also a dot on the map of time. He arrives with preconceived notions, and a sense that the small town, borders on the edge of limbo, and is inhabited by those with simple minds.
It is a town that has stood still, has not moved forward...one with barely enough children to fill a one-room schoolhouse...and a town whose residents are mainly women...who have lost the men in their lives, to war. These women all have one common ground...they wait for their loved ones to return. The wait outlasts their lives. The women are aging...and dying quickly...and one woman...Vera...is committed to overseeing their burials...out of respect for their determination, and out of a deep-rooted sense of obligation.
Vera, herself, is in the same situation...waiting for her sweetheart to return from war...waiting for 30-years...from the time she was 16-years old. She made a verbal committment to him that she would wait for him, and wait for him, she does. She has built her entire life upon his return..including the placement of the chair to her dining table...which faces the window that overlooks the path he would have to walk upon his return...she wants to be able to see him immediately. She has become a creature of habit, within her world, a world that the narrator sees as simple, ridiculous, illogical, and a world full of surprises that opens his eyes, and awakens him, eventually. She has chosen to emotionally survive, in the best way she can. She is not the sum of her exterior, not the sum of her desire and need to wait for a man who has not yet returned...she is much more complex, than this 26-year old narrator ever imagined.
Deep within her is a vibrant soul, and a woman of great substance, dignity, intelligence, intensity, confidence and fear.
She is literally, a woman of beauty, from the inside out. Her choices have been thought out, concise and clear, and she has knowingly made them, realizing that they might not be logical to others, and even at times to herself. She has chosen to live where she does for reasons in addition to the waiting for her sweetheart. I will not divulge the contents of the book, in order to explain those reasons.
The narrator makes many assumptions about Vera, unfounded assumptions not based on fact. The narrator, himself is waiting, in a sense, waiting for the woman he loves to acknowledge him. But, he does not see that he is basically in the same situation as Vera, due to his shallow emotional shell. His life is based upon superficial behavior, as an artistic person, his lifestyle borders on the theory of passion, lust and the bizarre. The narrator eventually begins to see Vera for the complete person she is...and he falls in love with her.
The end has a surprise or two...and the novel is completely realized. Emotions or logic, you decide which is the better path, or if life is a blend of both.
Her honour is an essence that's not seen.......2006-03-21
William Shakespeare, Othello.
Andrei Makine's newest offering is "The Woman Who Waited". It is the story of a man pining for a woman he can never have, a woman living a life of "grievous beauty" waiting senselessly for a man who will never return. As with much of Makine's other works it is an elegiac prose-poem on loss and yearning. Although "The Woman Who Waited" did not have quite the same impact on me as some of Makine's earlier works ("Music of a Life" and "Dreams of My Russian Summers" come to mind) it is, nevertheless, a wonderfully realized piece of writing.
Makine, for those not familiar with his work, was born in the Soviet Union in 1958. He emigrated to France as a young man. He writes in French. (The Woman Who Waited was superbly translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan, Makine's translator of choice). Makine's work for me combines the grace and elegance of the best French writers and the sad dark soul of the best Russian writers.
The unnamed narrator of Woman Who Waited is a cynical 26-year old resident of Leningrad. It is 1975, the midst of the Brezhnev era, and the narrator is part of a circle of artists and writers who chafe under the leaden weight of the regime. They smoke, drink, and scoff at notions of Soviet (and petit bourgeois) morality by adhering to notions of "free love". Random, emotion free couplings are the order of the day.
The narrator takes an opportunity to leave St. Petersburg to research customs and folk lore in the sub-Artic town of Mirnoe. Located close to the White Sea, near Murmansk and Archangelsk, Mirnoe is as close to a ghost town as you are likely to find. It is populated mostly by old ladies, a few old men, and just enough children in the area to support a one-room school house. Upon arrival in Mirnoe the narrator sees Vera. She is 46, self-composed and for the narrator a vision of some ideal version of grace and beauty. The narrator quickly hears that Vera, the local school teacher, said goodbye to her husband in 1945 at the town railway station. Sixteen at the time, Vera last words to her 18-year old husband promised to wait for him to return. Within weeks, during the successful battle for Berlin the husband is reported missing and presumed dead. Despite the virtual certainty of his death Vera has spent the next 30-years waiting chastely for the husband who will never return. As one cynical character, Otar, says to the narrator, Vera may be the only woman in Russia worth loving. The novel moves on from there in the form of the narrator's growing obsession with Vera. The life of Vera is revealed slowly to the reader as the narrator seeks to learn everything he can about her life. Along the way we see that many of his assumptions (and a few of my own) about Vera stand on shaky ground. As the novel nears its end we are treated to a fine example of being careful what we wish for.
Makine's writing is sparse and to the point. He has said repeatedly that he does not write to tell the reader what to think. He writes to tell a story as sparsely and concisely as he can and leave the thinking to the reader. That is one of the great challenges of reading Makine and one of the continuing great pleasures. You have to be actively engaged in the inner life of his characters, Makine does not do that work for you.
As I read The Woman Who Waited it reminded me of Jean Jacque Rousseau's wonderful epistolary novel "Julie or the New Heloise". In that novel the two main characters exchange a series of letters in which feelings conflict with intellect and where passion confronts purity and noble sentiment. The writing is dramatically different but some of the themes of each seem to bear more than a passing resemblance.
Early in the book Makine notes of Vera, as she walked along the shoreline only to stop at the same mailbox she had stopped at every day for thirty years that "what remained was the essence of things". Ultimately, the essence is the dish served by Andrei Makine, one without frills or adornments. I think it clear after reading "The Woman Who Waited" that Makine has provided us with a character in Vera whose honour is an essence that is seen.
This is yet another book by Andre Makine that deserves a wide audience.
Amazon.com
Long before he entered politics, when he was just in his early 20s, South Dakotan George McGovern flew 35 bomber missions over Nazi-occupied Europe, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery under fire. Stephen Ambrose, the industrious historian, focuses on McGovern and the young crew of his B-24 bomber, volunteers all, in this vivid study of the air war in Europe.
Manufactured by a consortium of companies that included Ford Motor and Douglas Aircraft, the B-24 bomber, dubbed the Liberator, was designed to drop high explosives on enemy positions well behind the front lines--and especially on the German capital, Berlin. Unheated, drafty, and only lightly armored, the planes were dangerous places to be, and indeed, only 50 percent of their crews survived to the war's end. Dangerous or not, they did their job, delivering thousand- pound bombs to targets deep within Germany and Austria.
In his fast-paced narrative, Ambrose follows many other flyers (including the Tuskegee Airmen, the African American pilots who gave the B-24s essential fighter support on some of their most dangerous missions) as they brave the long odds against them, facing moments of glory and terror alike. "It would be an exaggeration to say that the B-24 won the war for the Allies," Ambrose writes. "But don't ask how they could have won the war without it." --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
The very young men who flew the B24s over Germany in World War II against terrible odds were an exemplary band of brothers. In The Wild Blue, Stephen Ambrose recounts their extraordinary brand of heroism, skill, daring, and comradeship.
Stephen Ambrose describes how the Army Air Forces recruited, trained, and chose those few who would undertake the most demanding and dangerous jobs in the war. These are the boys -- turned pilots, bombardiers, navigators, and gunners of the B24s -- who suffered over 50 percent casualties.
Ambrose carries us along in the crowded, uncomfortable, and dangerous B24s as their crews fought to the death through thick, black, deadly flak to reach their targets and destroy the German war machine or else went down in flames. Twenty-two-year-old George McGovern who was to become a United States senator and a presidential candidate, flew thirty-five combat missions (all the Army would allow) and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. We meet him and his mates, his co-pilot killed in action, and crews of other planes -- many of whom did not come back.
As Band of Brothers and Citizen Soldiers portrayed the bravery and ultimate victory of the American soldier from Normandy on to Germany, The Wild Blue makes clear the contribution these young men of the Army Air Forces stationed in Italy made to the Allied victory.
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Stephen Ambrose is the acknowledged dean of the historians of World War II in Europe. In three highly acclaimed, bestselling volumes, he has told the story of the bravery, steadfastness, and ingenuity of the ordinary young men, the citizen soldiers, who fought the enemy to a standstill -- the band of brothers who endured together. The very young men who flew the B-24s over Germany in World War II against terrible odds were yet another exceptional band of brothers, and, in The Wild Blue, Ambrose recounts their extraordinary brand of heroism, skill, daring, and comradeship with the same vivid detail and affection. Ambrose describes how the Army Air Forces recruited, trained, and then chose those few who would undertake the most demanding and dangerous jobs in the war. These are the boys -- turned pilots, bombardiers, navigators, and gunners of the B-24s -- who suffered over 50 percent casualties. With his remarkable gift for bringing alive the action and tension of combat, Ambrose carries us along in the crowded, uncomfortable, and dangerous B-24s as their crews fought to the death through thick black smoke and deadly flak to reach their targets and destroy the German war machine. Twenty-two-year-old George McGovern, who was to become a United States senator and a presidential candidate, flew thirty-five combat missions (all the Army would allow) and won the Distinguished Flying Cross. We meet him and his mates, his co-pilot killed in action, and crews of other planes. Many went down in flames. As Band of Brothers and Citizen Soldiers portrayed the bravery and ultimate victory of the American soldiers from Normandy on to Germany, The Wild Blue makes clear the contribution these young men of the Army Air Forces stationed in Italy made to the Allied victory.
Customer Reviews:
Save your money unless you love Mc Govern.......2007-07-20
This book is not about the men and boys who flew the B 24 it is a book about Mc Govern. Reading the book sort of makes you feel like he was the only man in the war. I purchased the book to read about all the men. The author could have even shown some about other men that did basicaly the same that became famous: Kennedy, Jimmy Stewert and others. He focused only on McGovern and I certinaly wonder how much he paid to get Stephen to write this book or is Stephen that much in love with Mc Govern. I can not stand the man now and will not ever knowingly buy another book of his.
Mary Jo PottsThe Wild Blue : The Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s Over Germany 1944-45
The Wild Blue .......2007-04-21
The Wild Blue is about the young men who flew the B-24 over Germany in World War 2 against all odds. Mr. Ambrose describes the heroism, courage, and skill with a lot of detail. He successfully makes you feel like you are in the great lumbering bomber in the hostile skies over Germany. He also describes how the Army Air Force (only after the war were the army and air force separate) recruited, trained and then chose those few that would undertake the most dangerous job in the war. The pilots, bombardiers, navigators and, the gunners of the B-24s suffered a 50 percent casualty rate.
This book follows the lives of ten men from different towns and different backgrounds and watches them come together and form a team. The trust was important because up in the skies of Germany it was good to know that someone had your back. I believe that Mr. Ambrose captures that perfectly. He takes the reader along in the crowded, uncomfortable planes as the men aboard fought to the death through smoke and terrifying flack to reach their industrial targets in the Rhineland. Their goal was to destroy the German war machine.
The Heroic Tales.......2007-03-30
Stephen Ambrose's The Wild Blue: the Men and Boys Who Flew the B-24s over Germany tells the heroic tales of the B-24 Liberators and their crews from the 15th Army Air Force in Italy flying over Nazi Germany in World War II. The Wild Blue begins with the stories behind each crewman who will eventually fly aboard the "Dakota Queen" and a few crewmen who will fly aboard other B-24s. The stories behind the crewmen are a very nice addition to the book as it is the crewmen who make the majestic B-24s fly and fight. The reader actually gets to meet George McGovern who eventually flies the "Dakota Queen". McGovern was born on July 19, 1922, and was attending his second year at Dakota Wesleyan when he heard that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. The combat stories are complete to the detail of what it is like to fly over Nazi Germany against flak and the occasional fighter, what it is like to be shot down, and what it is like to watch a fellow B-24 get shot down. Ambrose was able to give this amount of detail because of his interviews with approximately fifty B-24 crewmen and their families. Without those interviews, this book would be bland and very unreal. But it is enjoyable and very real. The Wild Blue is a book that I would re-read and recommend to those who are interested in history, World War II, aircraft, or to those who just want to know the feeling of being taken up into a B-24 and flown over Nazi Germany.
More Bio than Battle .......2007-01-08
Mr. Ambrose wrote a unabashed tribute to George McGovern, too bad he tried to pass it off as a story about something else.
A SOLID READ - IF NOT THE AUTHOR'S BEST.......2006-07-16
While I enjoyed this one, it certainly was not the author's best work. It did draw attention to a group of very brave men, the B-24 crew members in the European Theater, which was good as this group and this plane is often overlooked. It did seem to me though that the author, on one side was trying to write a biography of George McGovern, or if he was trying to cover the air war during the last part of WWII. I did enjoy his trade mark technique of telling the stories of different men who participated, but he would always go back to McGovern. Perhaps if he had stuck to one or the other the book would have had more of an impact. Parts of this work did drag and were rather repetative. On the other hand, the author did not try to over dramatize McGovern's part in the war. The work was well crafted and you certainy would not waste your time in reading it. I suppose it is not quite fare to compare this work with other works by this author. After all, no one bats a thousand all the time. Overall, recommend this one with reservations. It is about very brave young men and we do need to know as much about them as possible.
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