Excellent

As I'm dyslexic I'm a slow reader so hopefully this review will be of use to anyone in a similar position.

I found this book to be an utterly compelling read. The title really does not prepare you for Janusz adventures in both Poland and Russia.

The harrowing description of the Gulags really is only half of the story. Details of the author's life before and during the Nazi occupation of Poland, and his incredible journey including time spent in the Russian army makes fascinating reading.

This book is an excellent insight into how some people can adapt to deal with the most intolerable circumstances. Janusz paces the action very well, although this may be more down to the fact, his story really is so incredibly interesting and he has so much fascinating material.

If I absolutely had to find a negative I was a little disappointed with how the book fizzles out. It's a true story, so the authors can't be blamed. This only very (and I mean very) slightly diminish my reading experience.

An excellent story. You will NOT be disappointed!!!

A brilliant bio

This biography is absolutely brilliant! The author's style keeps the reader engaged throughout, and you get a true balanced picture of RFK, who was a great hero to many. Thomas doesn't judge and allows the reader to draw their own conclusions. I've read many biographies in my time, and this is certainly one of the best.

Interesting, but overwhelming

Admittedly, having not lived at the period when the Khmer Rouges were in power, I knew nothing of the regime. All I had was a kind of hazy image of some blood thirsty dictator in Cambodia who was rather nasty.<br />So it was that I came across this book quite by accident, and thought, why not? I've always had a thing for history. <br />Initially, and I'll be honest, I found the book a daunting prospect. It was not so much the length as the cramped writing packed into each page, the myriad personalities, not helped by the fact that they change their names every five minutes, the number of organisations and the political situation at the time. And that is my main fault with the book. You are treated to a wealth of information. It comes so fast, and so detailed, that often you are only left with a vague impression, as you have to kind of filter the relevant information. But then, surely that is a fault of mine. As a serious historian it is the duty of Short to provide all the information, and this he does. <br />I also found that Short kind of brushed over certain subjects. For instance, when exactly did Sar become the Central commitee secretary? When did he make the step from a mediocre student in the Cercle Marxiste to his extreme vision of Communism? Why did Vorn vet end up in S 21?. Some quite major incidents are mentioned almost carelessly, while Short goes into depth about such irrelevant things as Sihanouks tour of the Khmer Rouge sites.<br />What I do like is the portrait it paints of the CPK, not so much as a totalitarian regime, but as an ideaoligist state, driven by international subterfuge both in the form of a U.S, bombing Cambodia to a pulp to cover it's own withdrawl from Vietnam, and China, eager to stop Vietnamese expansion.<br />I was impressed with how it portrayed the culture of lies and secrecy that would prove the regimes undoing, while also concentrating on the lives of ordinary Khmers, forced out of Phnom Penh to join collectives. It left me with a good notion of where Pot failed, why 1.5 million people died, at all levels, from top officials detained in Tuol Sleng and massive starvation on the ground level.<br />One thing I am glad, that I was not born in 'democratic' Kampuchea. I seriously advise this book if you seek a good understanding of Cambodia at this time.

Wonderful Christine

The story of Christine Granville is pure adventure from start to finish. The pages take you from her birth, and adventurous upbringing including terrible pranks played on her teachers, through the war years all over Europe, Africa etc to after the war and finally her murder. If you want to be there with Christine this book gives you it. If you want the understanding what it was like to be a undercover spy and SOE agent then this book gives you it. Theres romance, betrayal, laughter, and tears. This books should be on the corriculum for every women to read. I like this book so much I contacted the publisher. I cant recommend it more. Madeleine Masson did Christine Granville proud as if she was the women herself. You will never regret reading this book.

I won't be parted from this book !!!!

This is an amazing book.<br />I expected to be upset as I am an emotional person but Bobby sands' strength made me stronger.<br />You should buy this book if only to see the depth of pain and suffering endured by Bobby Sands.The prison warders(screws)were unbelievably cruel and inhumane.<br />It is clear that he loved his sister and family and could not bear to be apart from them.<br />

The Downing Street Years: One View

Thatcher intermingles in-depth policy discussions with informative accounts of her relationships with other MP's and associates in this interesting account of her years as Prime Minister. With Thatcher leading a revived Tory party conservative policies are given an authority that they did not always have with Heath or Major (though to be fair, their periods in office were somewhat different.) Persuasiveness matched with occasional flashes of keen insight characterize this book's better moments. What she truly did well is here - a crusader against the Soviet Bloc, moderating union power, and privitizing nationalized industry. Explanations of these and other issues are intertwined among a broad spectrum of historical narrative. <br /><br />Margaret whipped some unnecessarily bureaucratic mindsets into line, and more streamlined governing was the result - one interesting proof of that shift can be seen after Blair came to power; he moved the labour party right, abandoning several of His parties far left ideas which Thatcher's successes discredited. <br /><br />Margaret generally made good headway during her tour as PM, but she never really had absolutely clear sailing - we are given several glimpses of what seems to be a rotating set of her own MP's displeased with some aspect of her leadership. Its a sad and fast paced accounting that Mrs. Thatcher gives of her final period days in Number 10. We would all hurry through our embarrassing moments, but to her credit she lingers long enough to give the story - of her Downing Street Years - a proper and not-so-happy ending. Her words just before the final vote -"I fight on, I fight to win," - I remember well. <br /><br />Some will perhaps underestimate Thatchers ultimate influence. This work is a good, though not perfect, reminder of that influence and history. It is interesting to read of her late night debates with Gorbachev at Number 10, Husband Dennis' advice, her relationship with Mr. Reagan, speech preparation and policy"white papers", and her rotating inner-circle. As I have mentioned in another review ("Path to Power") it is a bit sad to read of several of her Tory MP confidants falling out of her favor. One is given view's of a variety of policy battles in"Path," while there tends to be more expression given to policy formulation and refinement in"Downing Street". All the narrative on her travels and relations with foreign leaders has its place, but it never seems to overshadow her most effective role as policy maker and communicator. In"The Downing Street Years," Mrs. Thatcher extends that role in a thought provoking and memorable way.<br />

Interesting and well-written

This is a well-written and well-researched book that is both even-handed and insightful. What you should get from reading this is both a clear view of Lady Thatcher as a person and as a politician, and some interesting insights into how her life has influenced her political views.

The book also demolishes some of the mythology surrounding Lady Thatcher, and shows that she was more of a political opportunist than a great thinker. Equally it does highlight her determination and political skills.

I await the 2nd volume with interest!

Excellent

This is Chris's personnel journey throughout the trials and tribulations of making the series. It tells us in detail the hardships endured by any Marine recruit, and especially those endured by Terrill.<br />This is an excellent accompaniment to the TV Series.<br />

The biography of the RNVR's most decorated officer from WW2.

Mention any of history's greatest conflicts and certain names spring readily to mind either because they were great commanders or great heroes. Generally speaking, Robert Hichens is not one of those names - though it should be!<br /><br />The Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) is the RN equivalent of the Territorial Army and provides a platform for those who are not fully employed by HM Forces to undertake their military training and weekends and other convenient times. During WW2, of course, these reservists were called up for full time duty. Robert Hichens was just one such person.<br /><br />Commencing his wartime career in minesweepers, he earned his first DSC by twice going ashore at Dunkirk to help organise the evacuation. In October 1940 he transferred to Coastal Forces and was given command of a fast motor gunboat. Such were his skills of seamanship and leadership that he was quickly given command of a flotilla of these craft and was soon operating against the larger and more heavily armed German equivalent. In April 1943, however, Robert Hichens was killed in Action. By this time he had earned two DSOs, another two DSCs and was also Mentioned in Despatches. He had also been recommended for the Victoria Cross.<br /><br />Despite there being another two years of warfare to endure, Robert Hichens remains the most decorated member of the RNVR from WW2 and this is his story. It is a story about the man from his roots to his final action. It is a complete story recounted by his son Antony. It is a story which should be read by all those with an interest in the wide-ranging subject of World War Two - if only to bring the name of this highly decorated officer more readily to mind.<br /><br />NM<br /><br />

A period piece

This book is a kind of time machine that puts you straight into the Eighteenth Century. Benjamin Franklin comes over as a fearless and open character, although he is at pains to present himself as a solid and successful businessman in the printing industry. He is very much a man of his time. He concerns himself with God and self-improvement, then after he marries he says how glad he is that he did not catch VD from 'certain low women' beforehand. This, certainly consciously, echoes St Paul's advice on why people should marry. <br /><br />Within the text are probably whole layers of meaning and allusions to contemporary events and news culture that are lost on twenty-first century readers. He is certainly working within religious and classical traditions of what an autobiography should be: a conversation with God, carried on in public? or moral examples and advice to the young. <br /><br />Sometimes he is having a laugh at the autobiographical and literary form itself. For example, it is a commmonplace of Eighteenth Century Literature that you-the writer-had no intention of publishing your book until you were prevailed upon by your friends or the public. Franklin opens the second section of his autobiography with a letter purportedly from a Quaker who says that a life of Franklin would be worth even more than 'all Plutarch's Lives put together.'This must have raised a laugh in his local club, his 'junto' as he calls it. <br /><br />However, within the same pages, Franklin describes, clearly with pride, how he swims from Chelsea to Blackfriars in London-which is quite a physical feat, it being two or three miles. He is also at some pains to place much of his financial success on hard work, simplicity and the avoidance of alcohol. These aspects of his life would bequite important for his Low Church readers. <br /><br />Interestingly-as negative examples- he reports that his London workmates routinely down six pints of strong ale a day, both at home and in the printing office. For his contemporaries, this was unusual from the point of view of the English printers being not just drunkards, but -for his audience- very old fashioned. English people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuroes -including babies hence the phrases 'tiny tots' 'small beer' etc.- drank beer and ale as drinking street pump water was correctly suspected to cause disease. <br /><br />Here, through the implication that beer drinking is old fashioned and unhealthy, especially when compared to American coffee drinking, Franklin is presenting his American readers with the idea that-once again- the Colonies, rather than being a backwater, are more modern that their British counterparts in the Imperial Capital of London. <br /><br />At the heart of his political thinking seems to be the moral rather than political idea that with moral virtue-and thus God- on your side, you are unstoppable, and sees the United States' future greatness to lie in this. <br />He takes pains to connect political greatness with the moral quality and education of individual citizens, laying particular emphasis on literacy, and reports with pride how he helped to establish the first lending library in the United States, in Philadelphia. <br /><br />As a moralist rather than a politician, his republican beliefs do not seem as universal as, say, those of revolutionaries like Robespierre or Tom Paine. For him, the American Republic seems to be uniquely American. At one point he is pleased to report, and say that it is an aspect of his success in life that he has dined with a king, and names him as the King of Denmark. Tom Paine would never have dined with a king, unless it were to poison him! <br /><br />Now the non-PC bit as bang go his green credentials. The 1726 Journal has Franklin helping to kill and eat dolphins while travelling by sea. He says they are good to eat, and regards them as fish rather than mammals. <br /><br />

A story worth to be told -glittering world of Tudor high society

Lady Penelope Devereux was a court beauty, said to be the most famous adulteress of her day. Her relationship with Sir Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy and later Earl of Devonshire, was all but public knowledge by 1595.<br /><br />The Lady Rich --a s she was mostly known during her lifetime, the Stella of Sir Philip Sidney's"Astrophel and Stella" and properly Shakespeare's"Dark Lady", was the elder daughter of Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex and his wife Lettice Knollys, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys and Catherine Carey and married as her second husband to the Earl of Leicester, the love of the life of Queen Elisabeth. Catherine Knolleys herself was daughter of Lady Mary Boleyn, sister of Queen Anne Boleyn, by either her husband Sir William Carey, Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, or her lover Henry VIII of England. So she was either cousin or half-sister to the Queen. She was the favorite sister of the 2^nd Earl of Essex, the last and ill-fated favorite of Queen Elisabeth.<br /><br />In 1581 she married Robert Rich, 3rd Baron Rich. Penelope is said to have protested in vain against the alliance with Rich, who is represented as a rough and overbearing husband. Lady Rich was the mother of six children by her husband when she contracted in 1595 a more or less open liaison with Charles Blount, 8th Lord Mountjoy, a brilliant courtier and one of the favorites of Elizabeth, to whom she had long been attached. Lord Rich took no steps against his wife during her brother's lifetime, and she nursed him through an illness in 1600, but they obtained a legal separation in 1601, and Mountjoy acknowledged her five children born after 1595. Mountjoy was created Earl of Devonshire on the accession of James I, and Lady Rich was in high favor at court. In 1605, however, they legitimized their connection by a marriage celebrated by William Laud, the Earl's chaplain and later the ill-fated Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I. This proceeding, carried out in defiance of canon law, was followed by the disgrace of both parties, who were banished from court. Devonshire died on the 3rd of April 1606, and his wife within a year of that date.<br /><br />Sally Varlow has re-discovered this magnificent woman, who - typically for Tudor times - was an educated and inspiring woman. The author describes in great detail how this glittering world of Tudor high society worked, how especially woman survived in this world. It is indeed a fascinating inside into the dynastic policies of the great and mighty of the day: The Dudelys, the Devereuxs, the Knolleys and all the other families linked to them. Power, greet, policies and personalities clashes and wonderful described.<br /><br />But I feel that the author is a bit too one sided and sees all through the eyes of her subject. She hardly ever puts things into perspective. The Cecils are cats in the role of the arch-villain and the downfall of the Devereuxs, especially of Penelope's brother to just largely due to them. Well, the 2nd Earl of Essex was hardly the wonderful statesman the author seems to want us to believe he was. Furthermore, Mrs. Varlow makes too much of the royal connection of the Devereuxs. As old nobility they were linked to the Plantagenet, but so were many other great families. Being court favourites did not bring them into the exclusive orbit of possible successors to the crown. If Essex believed so, he simply overreached. Whether Catherine Carey really was a natural daughter of Henry VIII is not really proven. Henry VII was not shy to recognize his natural children as the duke of Richmond proves. So why not the Careys, especially the later Lord Hunsdon? I wish Sally Varlow had digged a bit deeper into the role Penelope played in Essex's failed coup. Here she remains just on the surface. Furthermore, it seems that Penelope was always depending on the males: her role first defined as the daughter of an Earl, than married off by her guardian, the Earl of Nottingham, than her role as Lord Rich's wife and later the mistress and"wife" of Lord Montjoy. They were the main forced. She defied through her involvement with Montjoy morality of her day, but was protected through her roles as sister, wife and mistress of powerful men who the Queen could not ignore. When they could not longer protect her, she was fair game. <br /><br />In spite of these points I regard this as a wonderful book about a remarkable woman. It is a story worth to be told. I enjoyed it and recommended it.<br /><br />

Worth a read....

A very interesting biography of Cameron, the first impartial study of him and his rise to the head of the Tory Party. There are some revealing accounts from his Eton, Oxford, Smith Square and Carlton days which shed light on Cameron's life and career. A balanced book - which reveals postive and negative aspects of his life and personality - that will be of use to anyone interested in British Politics.

MORE THAN THEY COULD CHEW

President Ford uttered the sentence that sums up Sir Hilary Synnott's absorbing narrative here - `You can't just go around liberating people'. The tale of what happens if you do that with insufficient forethought, planning, resources, afterthought and sense of reality is told to us by a Foreign Office mandarin who brought to his impossible task dedication, loyalty, mental candour and honesty, and top-level experience as High Commissioner in Pakistan when that nation and India, both now with nuclear arms, faced each other in a tense standoff. <br /><br />This book is hot off the press, published only this year. It complements Rory Stewart's Prince of the Marshes, but it approaches the story of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in southern Iraq from a different angle and tells it in a different manner. Sir Hilary's responsibilities were wider, and his account is not a chronicle. It deals with the issues under subject-headings, and broadly I think it's fair to say that each successive chapter takes a higher-level overview than the last, culminating in the final Summary, the kind of overall assessment that British ambassadors were once expected to provide of their tours of duty. Synnott assesses his own mission as a failure, but by no means as a comprehensive failure. There was no way of being successful under the circumstances. The British army receives considerable commendation from him, but on the civilian side such partial achievements as there were he attributes to specific individuals. As for his own part, he tells us what he did and why with Thucydidean reserve and leaves it to us to judge. <br /><br />If you are in a hurry, I suppose you could go straight to the Summary, but this book deserves to be read all the way through in the author's sequence, because to a lay reader like me Synnott seems to convey the feel and sense of the posting vividly. His style of writing changes as the material gathers weight, but it is without pretentiousness, indeed I found the volume a page-turner in its clarity and focus. In the early chapters he is not even a particular stickler for the final refinements of syntax or even now and then grammar, and he has some engaging locutions of his own -- `stood no hope' `revealing an American accent' `the light became darker'. What he has in spades is readability throughout, and considering the authority he commands that is a blessing. His final conclusions could not be expected by now to be unique, but they are best read in the light of some of his perceptions along the way, which are illuminating in the extreme. Some of his encounters must have been shattering to him at the time and they are still startling now, but in the bigger picture they are almost anecdotal. He had a standup barney with an Australian whose mantra was `no subsidies' and who met the point that, after certain farmers had used up what should have been the seed-corn there was liable to be unrest threatening security if they were not given a fresh supply, with the insight that security was not his concern. He cites as his lowest point in the assignment a meeting of the regional heads at which they had been invited by Bremer to submit their reactions to a certain plan. Having so submitted they were then told unceremoniously by Bremer that the plan had been presented in Washington, so that was that. This kind of thing sounds like more than passing detail, except that the Australian turned out to have interests that were financial more than ideological, and that Bremer's plan had been not just presented but rubbished in Washington, so that discussion of it was to that extent academic albeit that Bremer was not coming clean why. <br /><br />At the next level up are the strategic issues. Blair talked about a `war' (indeed we all did), but he made no provisions customary for anything known by that term, so what was his concept of the matter really? Gen Sanchez motivated his troops with the devastating insight that the American effort must not fail or the fighting was going to be in High Street USA, and Sir Hilary's palpable contempt for anyone treating his listeners like idiots in this way came over to me all the more loudly for the way he spotlights the statement and leaves it without further comment. Crucial, of course, were the disastrous MBA-style misjudgments of Bremer that produced de-Baathification and disbandment of the army, not to mention the introduction of a market economy to get them standing on their own two feet and all the rest of it. Synnott is fairly laconic about the mentality that could fail to see the likely effect of creating a whole new class of dispossessed, unemployed and armed citizenry who had all the experience there was going of law-enforcement and civic administration. Indeed I should say at some stage that one of the most attractive aspects of his narration is his patrician reluctance to overemphasise the obvious. <br /><br />Synnott pinpoints lack of resources as his ultimate reason for the failure, and at the time of his assignment I can see his reasons and also understand his statement that armed violence was not the issue in Basra that it was in Baghdad. He does not update these perceptions, and I don't know why not. The well-intentioned strategy of arming the populace against the crooks, gangsters, smugglers and forgers seems in retrospect to have backfired, although it also seems to be what Gen Petraeus is now doing further north, and getting plaudits for in positive-thinking quarters. It could all have doubtless been done better, but what about the overall objective of spreadin' democracy an' freedom in the middle east? Don Quixote rides again, it seems to me, out of Crawford TX. I wanted to hear more about that. <br /><br />Having opposed this `war' from day one I actually support Synnott's view that `liberal interventionism', as in Bosnia, Kosovo and even Afghanistan is here to stay and has to be. However we need to be able to distinguish one case from another and to recognise our own limitations. A complete reassessment of policy is glaringly needed. Jerry, you should be with us at this hour, and I don't mean Jerry Bremer.

Worthy historical study of Michael Foot's life and works

This is, on the whole, an interesting book by an established political historian and biographer (and Labour peer in the House of Lords). While many people are familiar with the scornful newspaper stereotypes of Foot from the early 1980s when he led the Labour Party, this biogaphy provides a detailed assessment of both his party political activities and his 'hinterland', especially his early years as a journalist and author (either writing columns for or editing, the Evening Standard and Tribune, amongst other publications, and his co-authored book, Guilty Men, written at the outbreak of World War Two) <br />It is, on the whole, sympathetic in tone, but is honest about Foot's noticeable illiteracy on matters of economic policy (which his political opponents gleefully exploited as a result of the commitments contained in the 1983 Labour General Election manifesto). While some readers may find the internal politics, personality clashes and left-right tribalism of the Labour Party tedious, this forms an essential backdrop to any serious assessment of a major post-war Labour politician. There is also a wealth of detail on the other members of the Foot clan, and their individual life and works.<br />A dry, but rewarding read.

yes, humbling

the further you get into this book the more unputdownable it becomes. Whilst it is not a classic of literature, it is very well written, and John McCarthy writes very well about his time in captivity. What came through to me as I read it was the horror of the LENGTH of time he remained there, year after year, so it is good to read at the same time of what Jill Morrell was doing, or trying to do, to help him. In many ways the most eye-opening part of the book is the section describing the difficulties they both found coping with life, and their relationship, after John's return. How do two ordinary people, who've become so well-known they are considered public property, manage to have a life of their own whilst coming to terms with the preceding five and a third years?

Borowski's book is an essential read

Anyone who has more than a passing interest in Holocaust history should read this slender volume of stories; described as some of the finest ever written about Auschwitz. Seen through the eyes of Kapo Tadek, a Polish functionary prisoner, the tales engage the reader and challenge them to understand the concentration camp world on its terms. The stories are often cinematic in their scope and depiction and Borowski uses irony, pastoral descriptions and powerful characterisations suchs as Abbie and Moise (who finds family pictures after he sends his father to the gas chamber) to evoke the realities of Auschwitz. The narrative Borowski creates never allows the reader to sit in judgement on his characters and he reveals the inversion of morality and ethics necessary to survive. He also makes explicit the connection between Auschwitz and the world that fostered and allowed. it. A book that will change the way you think about the world and will challenge everything you think you know about the Holocaust.

Original

Oliver Poole, who rode into the Iraq war with a US armoured brigade and subsequently returned to live there for a few years, is possibly the only person to have witnessed both sides of the equation in such depth and detail. Red Zone gives us a passionate yet unbiased insight into one of the those rare moments in history that everyone at the time recognises as having altered its course fundamentally. This an eyewitness account of life in Baghdad in recent years, of the daily grind of surviving in a world of fear by a journalist who pulls few punches, least of all about himself, his fears and his fallibility. This is a great read - took me a weekend.

Lincoln as a political animal

Of all the American Presidents, I admire Abraham Lincoln the most because he stalwartly endured so much: rebellious states, incompetent Federal generals, a fractious Republican Party, near-treasonous Democrats, a financially irresponsible and mentally unstable wife, and the death of a son. Finishing this thick work, my esteem for him is in no way diminished.<br /><br />TEAM OF RIVALS by Doris Kearns Goodwin is, above all, a political biography of Lincoln as he rose through the ranks from country lawyer to Illinois state legislator to U.S. Congressman to presidential candidate to Chief Executive. As the Republican nominee for President in 1860, he beat out several formidable rivals for the nomination, including Salmon Chase, William Seward, and Edward Bates. Once elected, Lincoln was wily enough to keep his former (and potentially future) adversaries within immediate sight by cajoling them into his Cabinet - Chase at Treasury, Seward at State, and Bates as Attorney General. Thus, TEAM OF RIVALS is necessarily a political biography of each of these three men and, to a lesser degree, also one for each of the other prominent members of the Cabinet - Montgomery Blair as Postmaster General, Edwin Stanton as War Secretary (succeeding Simon Cameron), and Gideon Wells as Navy Secretary. The remarkable teamwork the Cabinet displayed to steer the Union through the darkest days of the Civil War is its, and Lincoln's, great achievement.<br /><br />In her memoir of growing up, WAIT TILL NEXT YEAR, Goodwin is charmingly engaging. At 754 pages with two extensive photographic sections, TEAM OF RIVALS is hardly that but erudite, detailed, and lucid. The author's treatment of her subject is obviously admiring. At no point does Goodwin's narrative slime Abe's reputation with any perception which one normally ascribes to the currently incumbent band of dubious, self-serving, vacillating, and morally compromised public parasites whatever their party affiliation. Perhaps Lincoln was truly a wise and steadfastly principled man, or Goodwin just chose not to notice any blemishes. Or perhaps time itself serves as an airbrush.<br /><br />It took me almost four months to gnaw my way through this lengthy volume; it's not a book I couldn't put down. For that reason, I'm knocking off a star, though I freely admit that this is more a deficiency related to my attention span than anything else. Others, not wearied by too much of a good thing, will justifiably award 5 stars.