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In The Winter's Tale, a play of 1610, William Shakespeare gave a coastline to Bohemia, a landlocked country. Three hundred and twenty-eight years later, his compatriot Neville Chamberlain would call a brewing war in Czechoslovakia, as the country was called, "a quarrel in a far away country between people of whom we know nothing." As Canadian scholar Sayer writes, knowingly, Bohemia eventually got its coastline, one "guarded by minefields, barbed-wire fences, and tall watchtowers with machine guns," while the West took little notice. The general ignorance of all things Czech would cost Europe dearly, for conflagrations from the Thirty Years War to World War II (and even sparks that might have ignited World War III) have begun in the tiny country known by many names---Czechoslovakia, Bohemia, Moravia. Canadian scholar Sayer writes of the Czechs' struggle over centuries to define themselves as a people and nation, and he does so in a vivid, detailed narrative that will enlighten readers who are unfamiliar with the critically important center of Eastern Europe. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
In The Winter's Tale, Shakespeare gave the landlocked country of Bohemia a coastline--a famous and, to Czechs, typical example of foreigners' ignorance of the Czech homeland. Although the lands that were once the Kingdom of Bohemia lie at the heart of Europe, Czechs are usually encountered only in the margins of other people's stories. In The Coasts of Bohemia, Derek Sayer reverses this perspective. He presents a comprehensive and long-needed history of the Czech people that is also a remarkably original history of modern Europe, told from its uneasy center.
Sayer shows that Bohemia has long been a theater of European conflict. It has been a cradle of Protestantism and a bulwark of the Counter-Reformation; an Austrian imperial province and a proudly Slavic national state; the most easterly democracy in Europe; and a westerly outlier of the Soviet bloc. The complexities of its location have given rise to profound (and often profoundly comic) reflections on the modern condition. Franz Kafka, Jaroslav Hasek, Karel Capek and Milan Kundera are all products of its spirit of place. Sayer describes how Bohemia's ambiguities and contradictions are those of Europe itself, and he considers the ironies of viewing Europe, the West, and modernity from the vantage point of a country that has been too often ignored.
The Coasts of Bohemia draws on an enormous array of literary, musical, visual, and documentary sources ranging from banknotes to statues, museum displays to school textbooks, funeral orations to operatic stage-sets, murals in subway stations to censors' indexes of banned books. It brings us into intimate contact with the ever changing details of daily life--the street names and facades of buildings, the heroes figured on postage stamps--that have created and recreated a sense of what it is to be Czech. Sayer's sustained concern with questions of identity, memory, and power place the book at the heart of contemporary intellectual debate. It is an extraordinary story, beautifully told.
Customer Reviews:
Poetic scholarship!.......2005-12-19
Anybody wanting to gain a deeper knowledge of the Czech people, Czech culture, and Czech spirit should read Derek Sayer's 'The Coasts of Bohemia.' Anybody wanting to dive into the sticky mess of Central European history would also do well to read this book. And those unbelievers who think that a scholarly work must be by its very nature dry and dense, MUST read this book.
Sayer's work stands alone in the veritable dearth of good works dealing with Czechdom. A towering mountain, 'Coasts' is far and away the best door to a culture and nation little understood in the 'West.' In this monumental work, Sayer continues in the grand tradition of Czech historiography started by the grand master of Czech history, Palácky. And like Palácky before him, Sayer attempts to give an answer to that elusive question: Who are the Czechs?
Starting his work with the formulators of written Czech, Josef Jungmann and Josef Dobrovsky, Sayer makes a wise decision. During the Hapsburg rule from 1620 to 1918, the only real home of Czechdom was Cestina, the Czech language. From there, Sayer takes the reader on a serpintine journey through the heart of Czech cultural consciousness. We meet up with poets of the national awakening like Karel Hynek Macha, whose epic poem, 'Máj,' could easily be considered the Czech people's Aeneid, a work that defines who they are as a voice in the cacophony of Europe. Critics of culture like F.X. Salda and voices of modernism in Czech culture like Kundera or the Noble Prize-winning poet, Jaroslav Seifert, also make appearances as Sayer makes a case for the Czech artistic voice being paramount in the creation of national identity. Sayer shows how even supposedly 'international' art trends like surrealism and social-realism all served a very selective end: the search for national identity.
In the realm of politics and ideology, Sayer argues that the Czechs have pursued an uniquely singular course throughout their history. The first people in Europe to rebel against catholic uniformity (hence the term 'bohemian'), Czech preacher, Jan Hus, laid the groundwork for Luther's more cathartic 'reformation.' The followers of Hus, the 'Hussites' not only preached a more Gospel-centered Christian creed stripped of the Roman church's ceremony and tradition, but promoted a lifestyle of radical egaliterianism. This conception of a rank-less society more than anything irked the Catholic Hapsburgs who waged a long and savage war with the Hussites until 1620 when the Austrian Hapsburgs put their unruly neighbors under the boot of Catholic rule until the demise of Austro-Hungary in 1918. Sayer argues that the coals of Hussiterian democracy never cooled down completely but instead smoldered on until the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918. This grand social experiment led by the teacher-ideologue, Tomas Masaryk, proved to be Central Europe's only real democracy during the years between both world wars. Yet, Sayer makes a strong claim that Hussitism only gained full resurrection (albeit in a radically perverse form) with the ascension to power of the Czech Communist Party in 1948. The Hussite dream of a radical levelling of all economic and social class was made real with the party's drastic restructuring of Czech society which included the violent expulsion of the Sudeten Germans from the Czech lands, the shameful odsun of 1946-47. Czech communists soon took their ideology of 'people's democracy' to such radical extremes that they stamped out all forms of dissent in their quest to create uniform Czech society. Kundera's novels paint a grim picture of a society which sought to regulate, control and oppress its citizens in even the most intimate of spheres.
By the time the reader finishes 'Coasts,' he/she will not only be wiser by far, but quite exhausted as well. The sheer detail and volume of Sayer's information threatens at times to overwhelm the reader. That one quarter of the book is devoted to 'notes' is not by chance. Yet, even these notes are fascinating cultural and historical tidbits. If Sayer's work has a flaw, it lies in the author's selection of material. Selection is the most crucial (and most difficult) element of historiography. What to include, what to exclude, not only makes or breaks a work, but also carries echoes for generations to come. Who and what is left out of the history books is often doomed to oblivion in day to day life as well. Thus said, Sayer's work attempts to define Czechness around a deliberately tiny base. That of one province, Bohemia. While Bohemia did suffer the lion's share of conflict with the neighboring Germans as well as play a central role in the national awakening, two other Czech lands, Moravia and Czech Silesia have also played crucial roles in the formation of Czech identity. Some of the most internationally-known Czech artists originate from these parts i.e. Kundera, Janácek, Lysohorsky and even Mucha. Unfortunately, Sayer glosses over the cultural and historical connections with these lesser-known Bohemias. Moreover, his treatment of Slovakia's role in the making of the Czech nation and Czechoslovak 'idea' is cursory at best. A grievious absence considering the prominent role many Slovaks have played in Czech political life from Masaryk to Dubcek.
All in all though, there is little room to complain. Sayer's work has filled a gapping hole in Central European studies. A profound act of scholarship and one written in a style approaching the lyric, 'The Coasts of Bohemia' is a giant indeed. Read it!
The Coasts of Bohemia -- a truly beautiful voyage of discovery.......2005-08-07
Derek Sayer's book is exceptional well written and informative, indeed the text is positively lyrical at times. The aim is to provide an understanding of a "people of whom we know nothing" in Central Europe, and Sayer does a masterful task in shaping and clarifying Czech national identity and national culture.
The book is not simply a historical text. While the history is there, and while there is copious scholarly detail and referencing of historical events, the main strength of the text is in illustrating a deep national awareness in literature and the arts. One can almost imagine walking with Sayer on his return visit to Prague, walking through the magical streets of this beautiful city and commenting on buildings, street names, and monuments. He has a delicate but assured ability for capturing detail, coincidence, and irony. The book reads very well and it is amazing to remember that the original text was written in Czech and translated into English by the author's wife.
This is an excellent way of understanding more about Czech lands and the Czech spirit and identity. It is a very beautiful literary work that rejoices in the artistic and literary richness of the Czechs, particularly over the last century. I, for one, am very grateful that Derek Sayer made it back to his homeland to reflect on complex issues of history, national identity, and national culture and to write this masterful book: a must for those of us who love the Czech lands and their peoples.
Where is My Home?.......2005-07-22
Sayer takes an original, creative approach in writing the history of Czech culture. Sayer's book is predicated on the notion that the nation is an imagined community, constantly being re-invented and examines what Czechs have long remembered and forgotten about themselves and their little nation.
The book is unique because Sayer does not employ the typical linear approach to writing history, rather, he casts a wide net over the entire spectrum of Czech intellectual activity from 1618-1960, focusing on the cultural borders of language, symbols, and identity vis-vis the Germans just to name a few. Sayer brings the seemingly obscure to life in a lucid, pleasurable read.
The book highlights the Czech feeling of "smallness" or "malostnosti" within Europe. The Czechs have long been at the center of political, cultural, and philsophical developments over the course of history but tragically were often passive observers to events in their own land due to being subjects of other nations' empires. As a consequence, Czechs felt a powerful need to define their cultural coastlines. Their national anthem, "Gde Domov Muj" or "Where is My Home" is indicative of the Czech historical quest for identity and national destiny.
Sayer takes leave of his story circa 1960 when socialism was at its appogee. This tremendous book is the difinitive source of Czech historical culture. To understand the challenges of integrating the "East" into the EU and the senstivities of small nations, read this book.
A Czech "Cultural" History.......2004-03-24
A previous reviewer is right--this is not a Czech history. But it is the history of how Czech culture has been formed. For that, it is fascinating--For a straight history, look elsewhere. If you are travelling to Prague, it will make many sites much richer--Vysehrad cemetery, the National Theatre, Old Town Square.
Misleadingly titled.......2003-12-22
The book's subtitle is "A Czech History," but people looking for a general history of the Czech lands will be disappointed. Sayer focuses not on battlefields and parliaments but on art, literature and historiography. He either completely ignores or barely mentions such topics as the world wars, the Munich Pact and the Communist coup while devoting dozens of pages to poets, artists and critics. Thus, despite the rather esoteric nature of Czech history, Sayer assumes readers already know the basics. I guess a title like "The Humanities and Czech Identity, 1620-1960" wouldn't sell as well.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Writing and Excellent History.......2005-07-19
Asprey is one of my favorite historians for his writing style alone. The book moves along, yet leaves nothing out. The descriptions of the battles are written in such a fluid, lucid style that few have achieved. If you want to know every move some particular regiment made in the battle, you won't find that here. This is a general bio of Frederick and not concerned solely with his battles. But Asprey does manage to convey the ebb and flow of the battles through a very direct, almost telegraphic at times, way of writing.
A great introduction to all aspects of Fredericks life.
A Magnificent Biography of Frederick the Great.......2004-03-10
This book may be out of print, but it certainly is not out of style. Mr. Asprey does try to maintian a degree of objectivity throughout the book, but he doesn't always succeed. Nevertheless, this book shines with in depth research of nearly every aspect of the life, politics, loves, and military considerations of Frederick the Great throughout his reign. There is a near 100 page bibliography in the back, replete with sources for further reading. The way the author wove the story of Frederick of Prussia was masterful in holding my attention as well as making me more interested in period politics of the era. What a fascinating era in European development. What a fascinating human being Frederick the Great was. A true humanist philospher king forced to embark upon a war of expansion to ensure his country would be able to dictate it's own course in the near future of Europe (through Germany as he envisioned it) and beyond. A truly cruel and engimatic circumstance to be trapped in as an enlightened human being during the mid 18th century. I cannot say enough good things about this book. I emphatically recommend it to anyone interested in this period of European history. Good coverage of historically significant battles with terrain maps and battle line progression provided as well.
History As A Thriller.......1999-08-02
Robert Asprey's life of Frederick The Great was a fascinating read. The author's understanding of his subject makes Frederick come to life. One can understand the forces that created the man, his strengths and weaknesses.
Asprey also provides a clear view of Europe in Frederick's times. The constant conflicts between its nations is difficult to understand from the perspective of the modern reader. In our times Europe has been at peace for more than 50 years (despite the conflagration in the Balkans) yet in Frederick's time the great nations could not stop warring with each other.
Most fascinating in this book, however, is the suspense filled descriptions of Frederick's major battles and the masterful way the king manuevered through the 7 year war. This was very exciting reading. It also provided insights as to how an inferior force can prevail against what appeared to be overwhelming odds.
Brian Wells, Esquire, reviews "Frederick the Great".......1997-12-16
This is a sparkling book which reveals much about the life and times of a man about which too little is known in our age. Frederick the Great (King of Prussian 1740-1786) militarily united much of the Protestant northern Germany under one crown--the Prussian crown. He did so while supporting the enlightenment idea of toleration of religious differences, at least in theory, and with the goal of making Prussia a major power in central Europe.
Frederick anticipated Napoleon by re-introducing the strategy of the attack to military theory. He laid much of the groundwork for the diplomacy of Bismarck which a hundred years later sould see Frederick's great grand-nephew, William I (reigned 1861-1888) crowned German Emperor in 1871.
Frederick was certainly an genius in some areas of his life. However, as this book points out, he inherited a lot of the tools that he would need for success during his reign from his father, King Frederick William I (reigned 1713-1740). For instance, the army that Frederck the Great used so devastatingly in the War of Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and the Seven Years War (1756-1763), had been painstakingly built by his father.
Additionally, he inherited a close diplomatic reationship with the British crown from his mother, Sophie Dorothea of Hanover. Sophia Dorothea was the daughter of George I and brother of George II of England. Assured of English neutrality Frederick could have a free hand to deal with Austria during the Seven Years War of 1756-1763.
Asprey writes in a way that is entertaining and still relates a good deal on information to the reader. Because of this, his work on Frederick the Great is a welcome addition to anyone's library.
Book Description
This historical survey of Central Europe covers a region that encompasses contemporary Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Croatia. Now in its second edition, Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends contains a new epilogue-updated to cover events since 1995-and several redesigned or updated maps. Each chapter is thematically organized around issues or events that are important in helping students develop an understanding of the region's internal dynamics. Johnson illuminates the competing religious, cultural, economic, national, and ideological interests that have driven the history of Central Europe. Thorough, objective, and focused, Johnson's work stands out as both a useful core text covering an area of growing interest and a brilliant account of a region that is only just beginning to receive the attention it deserves.
Customer Reviews:
Well Written, Well Research, Well Presented.......2006-04-16
This is not your easy read pseudo-historiography. This is a very well research (and notated) academic presentation of a singularly dismissed subject. (Not in the sense of being written off as more of just being ignored.) Beginning with the earliest available evidence of how different tribes moved into the area and then created kingdoms that were dedicated to a family dynasty, up to the demise of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the democracy movement, Johnson presents us with the facts and his own theories, but never mistakes one for the other.
He does an especially good job of explaining the background facts to the "nationalist" myths of many of these nations and then goes on to explain how they have been used and exploited (for good and ill).
He does a workmanlike job of taking us from the Empires of the fin de siecle (in 1899), through their demolision at the end of WWI, the disasterous interwar years of democracy fading into tyranny, WWII, the sublimation to Soviet power, and then the miraculous year of 1989 and the fall of the "Iron Curtain" (which in his opinion, just rusted away, and fell over from a stiff wind of the people's will).
A most scholarly written and presented work.
The best history of Central Europe for the general reader.......2006-02-26
This is easily the best history of Central Europe available for the general reader (or the student). Johnson always keeps the big picture in mind, while moving the reader though events and people that are unfamiliar to most Americans.
Johnson has organized the material to do what you probably want it to do. Chapters on the last 150 years or so cover only a couple of decades each, while the earlier chapters cover centuries. He keeps his eyes on each of the modern countries in the region, while discussing the larger empires that have buffeted them this way and that.
While it would make a good text for an undergraduate course, I think the book's real value is for the traveler. Read the first half of the book before you go to Central Europe, and then read about more recent events while you are there. You'll gain an added appreciation for the sights and for the historical context that produced them.
Superb Background Study for understanding Central Europe.......2003-12-27
~Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, and Friends~ is an amazing background history on Central and Eastern Europe. Lonnie Johnson chronicles central European historical developments, whether cultural, political and socio-economic, after the fall of Rome and the rise of the Christian West. Central Europe ("Mitteleurope") is a vibrant region where the interplay of cultures (i.e. Slavic, Germanic, Magyar, Turkish, et al.) and faith (i.e. Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and Islam) interact. Johnson gives a great cursory background to the nineteenth century nationalist movements throughout Central Europe and the so called Springtime Revolutions of 1848. Moreover, his elaboration on feudal developments helps gives clarity to understanding the sometimes enigmatic region. Anyway, Johnson explains why it is integral to understand the medieval meaning of natio (nation) in order to gain proper cognizance of history. The medieval kingdoms were "relatively loose confederations ruled by kings who claimed a limited amount of jurisdiction for specific subordinate political and territorial units, each of which, in turn, was ruled by nobles who exercised a high degree of autonomy in their domains." Thus, the nobles and not the people were the constituent members of the nation. Approaching Central European history, without the clouded lens of modern democratic theory, which eschews feudalism as primitive, has clouded proper understanding of the developments so integral to Central Europe and its history. While romantic nationalism has swept Central Europe, the metamorphosis of romantic nationalism with hundreds of years of tradition, requires understanding medieval developments to frame everything in the proper perspective.
There are history lessons to be learned from this book. To me, the breakup of Austria-Hungary was an impetus for the violent ultra-nationalism, which has plagued the region in the twentieth century and those areas peripheral to central Europe like the Balkans. Austria-Hungary, a traditional monarchy, acted as a stabilizer and peacekeeper in the Balkans. Prussia's self-assertion in the 19th century, and their being the torchbearer of Pan-German nationalism, played no small part in the gradual downfall of traditional monarchies like that of the Austrian Hapsburgs though. The Great War sealed the fate of the Hapsburg Empire. This book also cast light on the Slavic and Germanic tension, which was forever part of the region. It also proves the absurdity of Nazi race theories of "racial purity," since the various peoples of Mitteleurope, the Germans in particular, are among the most mixed stocks in Europe... In the middle ages, the Teutonic Knights essentially Germanized many of the Slavs in their desire to push the creed of Western Christendom. The Teutons gave the conquered Slavs the German language and the Roman Catholic Faith. The unvanquished Slavs further to the east countered the Germanic push as well. Though, in Poland the Slavs never displaced Roman Catholicism, only the German language, though not in its entirity. Ironically, the wellspring from which Pan-Germanism and German nationalism was born was amongst amalgamated German-speaking "Germano-Slavs" in Prussia. (Granted, they were thoroughly Germanized culturally, and had no problem with future dehumanization of their Slavic neighbors to the east.) The ideology of Pan-Germanism was wrapped in a mythology about German supremacy and blood purity, which history proves to be false. Anyway, Johnson wraps up the book with a fascinating probe into 20th century history as two world wars changed the political landscape. Central European history under the Nazis and the Soviets is covered with amazing clarity. With regards to the Balkans and that multi-ethnic state of Yugoslavia created after the Great War, much can be learned from this book in understanding and diagnosing the problems of Western (i.e. EU/NATO/US) foreign policy towards the Balkans.
Lonnie Johnson has assembled a fascinating window into the history and interplay of cultures over the past millenium in Central Europe. A background on medieval and modern history of the region should give the reader great deal of perspective on the European conflicts of the twentieth century.
A must for the serious student of Central European politics.......2000-02-24
Before coming and working in the Balkans, I taught European political-military affairs and history, and this has got to be one of the best books on the subject for an American audience. Lonnie Johnson is an American academic who has lived many years in Austria and has an Austrian wife, so his perspective is personal as well as academic. He writes in such a manner that he will be understood by the average American who hasn't done a masters in European international relations, yet goes into sufficient detail to for his book to qualify as a serious treatment of the subject. The conclusions and points that he draws apply to all of Europe, including the West. For us, to whom 1776 is a long time ago, to be able to understand why the Europeans are the way they are, this book goes a long way to explain it. We debate about whether the Confederate flag should fly over the South Carolina capital. Imagine centuries of such symbolic and real gestures that make such trivial issues matters of national importance. Centuries of antipathies and changing alliances are brought into clear perspective in this book. If you only have time to read one book on the history of Central Europe, its shifting borders and repressed emotions, make this it.
Why didn't I give it 5 stars? I like to save those for the Winston Churchills and the Vaclav Havels who not only can write well, but were an important part of the story.
An excellent synthesis of a misunderstood region........1997-10-24
This book is being used as a supplemental reading in a seminar class in Eastern Europe. Johnson, as the third generation of Slavic historians, has written an easy to read, well documented, and scholarly work. His theses are easy to comprehend, and he makes the region, politics, and ethnic struggles of the region accessible to all readers.
Book Description
Beautiful, vivacious, and fearless, Agnes Leclerc was twenty-one years old when she met Prince Felix Salm, a Prussian officer in the Union Army at the outbreak of the U.S. Civil War. Their marriage took Agnes from smalltown America to battlegrounds around the world and finally to the royal palaces of Europe. The Prince and the Yankee is a Cinderella story that goes beyond happily ever after to show how strong Cinderella actually became.
Customer Reviews:
A larger than life tale from the young American Republic.......2004-06-29
This gem of a book deserves to be read by more people. Ostensibly this book is the story of a woman born in New England who goes on to become a princess in Germany and along the way play an important role in both the US Civil War and Mexican Civil War.
But this book is more than just a simple biography of a remarkable woman. It gives the reader a very good sense of the US as a young Republic and the type of society it was then.
It is interesting to read, for example, that on the eve of Civil War, the US, a Republic which was suspicious of a large standing army, had an army of only 50,000 men and had to depend partly on imported professional soldiers from Europe to sustain its war effort.
Or that The White House was not an imperial place in those days and had open house parties for its citizens, some of whom were in the habit of snipping off bits of curtains as souvenirs.
Robert White has done his research well, telling the story of a girl who from humble beginnings makes it to the top by sheer force of personality and a bit of luck, and doing it all in a racy, page turning, style. The story is well anchored in the social and political currents of the times, which were very much in turmoil.
The book describes in detail a cast of colorful characters ranging from a pretender to the throne of Mexico to an assortment noble and evil people from the military and the aristocracy of both Europe and the US.
The author, who hails from New England himself and who has travelled to the far corners of the world, writes with a keen eye for details of the locations and characters. One can discern in the book a sense of regret at the passing of an age, which for whatever its faults, was a more gracious era than the one we live and where people took their duties and responsibilities seriously, instead looking for reasons to evade them.
The maxim for a good story teller has always been that he should "show and not tell". This book, by weaving the story of a real woman, educates us in conditions of nineteenth century Europe, America, and Mexico more than any history book that I have read.
Readers who are interested in the formative years of the American republic, as well as those who are looking for a good story are well advised to go out and buy this book.
N. Balakrishan - Hong Kong.
Average customer rating:
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Germany, Civilian Power and the New Europe: Enlarging NATO and the European Union (New Perspectives in German Studies)
Henning Tewes
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
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Book Description
In 1990, the future of Europe's international politics hinged on two questions. How would unification affect the conduct of German foreign policy? Would those institutions that had given security and prosperity to Western Europe during the Cold War now do the same for the entire continent, and if so, how? The intersection of these questions is the topic of this book which lucidly explores what made Germany's policies toward its immediate Eastern neighbors tick.
Book Description
Audacious. Wildly ambitious. Prolific. All describe William T. Vollmann, author of the seven- volume nonfiction work Rising Up and Rising Down and the “Seven Dreams” sequence of novels, which the Chicago Tribune hailed as “likely to become one of the masterpieces of the century.”
In Europe Central, Vollmann presents a mesmerizing series of intertwined paired stories that compare and contrast the moral decisions made by various figures—some famous, some infamous, some unknown—associated with the warring authoritarian cultures of Germany and the USSR in the twentieth century. He conjures up two generals, one Russian and one German, who collaborate with the enemy for different reasons and with different results. Another pairing tells of two heroes—a female Russian partisan martyred at the beginning of World War II and a young German man who joins the SS in order to reveal its secrets and halt its crimes. Several stories concern the complex and elusive Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich and the Stalinist assaults against his work and life; also explored are the fates of artists and poets such as Käthe Kollwitz, Anna Akhmatova, and the documentary filmmaker Roman Karmen. Europe Central is another high-wire act of fiction by a writer of prodigious talent.
Customer Reviews:
Boring, boring...........2007-09-24
Very slow paced book with (IMHO) way too much effort to describe each little shade of emotion. A few of the chapters were a bit interesting but that's about it. Not something you would read twice...ever! Yes, it is that boring!
Dense metafiction, but maybe Vollman's most readable.......2007-08-12
Finally, I've finished it. My addiction to Vollman is perhaps my most masochistic behavior and I continue to admire Penguin for publishing him. Very few authors of this consistent difficulty and quality continue to get into print, and I keep praying they'll publish the entire Seven Dreams. Nonetheless, for Vollman, this is a very readable book, as well as a masterpiece. For me the discussions of the morality and futility through the characters of Gerstein, Shostakovitch, Paulus and others were both moving and thought provoking. I only wish I could get friends to read it, so that I could discuss this all with others. Other characters, such as the telephone, seem more part of what I think of as Vollman's antics(I have, nonetheless, a deep affection for his endless inventiveness). As others have mentioned, one may perhaps, sometimes, learn a great deal of history reading Vollman, but in this book particularly, I gained new insight into the experience of living under totalitarianism, and some new perspectives on personal responsibility by comparison with the evolution of our own government structures.
Good and Boring.......2007-04-01
An epic "memoir" of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia, with Shostakovich as the largest character, including a lot of great music writing. The book is incredibly dense, approaching Joyce and Conrad in terms of the frequency of multi-page paragraphs and a love of detail and clarity. Vollmann is a great author but needs a stronger editor to shape the book into something that is gripping enough to deserve constant reading attention. Vollmann's book fails by trying to do too much - the Shostakovich parts need some serious editing and could easily be completely eschewed.
I can see why it won the National Book Award.......2007-02-21
When I first began this book, about 100 pages into it, I was wondering if the National Book Award committee had lost their collective senses. It is very much jarring vignettes and jarring experimental writing albeit done on a very high level. I wanted a story, a book, not clever literary techniques. For Gosh sakes, the darn tomb is almost 800 pages. If I had to put up with "technique" for that long I would hurl the book across the room. Then the vignettes became longer and more complex and the literary techniques became less self conscious and I was hooked.
The comparison of Nazi Germany and Stalin's totalitarianism is wonderfully juxtaposed. One of the previous reviewers complained that when the voice of some vignettes seemed to be unnamed German SS officers or Soviet Political Officers who both sounded the same. Yes, that is exactly right, but isn't that the point? Totalitarism is pretty much the same no matter the underlying political platform. And it breeds the same horrors.
This book, certainly points out the horrors. Yet it manages to make us horrified and feel sympathy at the same time. There is no morally pure character, they are all various shades of grey and mesmerizing for their complexity.
There is no one whose actions you approve of 100% and there is no vignette, where you do not say to yourself "But would I have chosen any differently"
I am a WWII buff. I've been reading voracious on the subject for the past 5 years, somehow I believe the current fascination (I did my thesis on propaganda during WWII way back when) is somehow linked to the aftermath and reaction to 9/11. It comforts me to read about a remote war that was less morally troubling, where there were clear cut lines and where we moblized, preformed (for the most part) efficiently and won.
In some ways I think this is percolating in the collective subconscious as well. Think about it, has there been a great literary novel of WWII since Norman Mailer's "The Naked and the Dead"? Now we have "Eurpoe Central" and Normal Mailer's recent release "The Castle in the Forest". The 50 year anniversary has been and gone for over a decade. There is something else inspiring recent literary work of such high caliber on the same subject. A subject that was a historical event that defined the last 60 or more years. A subject of sweeping historical context, yet the literary world has not mined it for gold but merely panned the shallows for runoff nuggets. (Come on that was a very nice metaphor!)
I highly recomend "Europe Central". It is worth your time to complete this book.
Son of Dos Passos?.......2006-11-05
My first experience of William T. I found the novel too reminiscent in technique of EL Doctorow's RAGTIME - the constant kaleidoscopic cutting between different sensibilities, interspersed with undisguised authorial commentary and narrative. It works, but not as well - but then nor does Doctorow - as it did in their common parent, John Dos Passos. Read his shorter (than his great trilogy, USA) novel, MANHATTAN TRANSFER to see the technique exploited to give a very real sense of an entire society at a moment in time.
The writing itself in EUROPE CENTRAL, dealing with a 'foreign' culture and age, is often too literal to really enthuse and affect and the background research seems 'dragged in', while the sense of the novel's overall design makes itself felt too evidently.
I will try more, but this is not the novel with which to begin the study of William T. Vollman.
Book Description
A hero to many, Polish writer Adam Michnik ranks among today's most fearless and persuasive public figures. His imprisonment by Poland's military regime in the 1980s did nothing to quench his outpouring of writings, many of which were published in English as Letters from Prison. Beginning where that volume ended, Letters from Freedom finds Michnik briefly in prison at the height of the "cold civil war" between authorities and citizens in Poland, then released. Through his continuing essays, articles, and interviews, the reader can follow all the momentous changes of the last decade in Poland and East-Central Europe. Some of the writings have appeared in English in various publications; most are translated here for the first time.
Michnik is never detached. His belief that people can get what they want without hatred and violence has always translated into action, and his actions, particularly the activity of writing, have required his contemporaries to think seriously about what it is they want. His commitment to freedom is absolute, but neither wild-eyed nor humorless; with a characteristic combination of idealism and pragmatism, Michnik says, "In the end, politics is the art of foreseeing and implementing the possible."
Michnik's blend of conviction and political acumen is perhaps most vividly revealed in the interviews transcribed in the book, whether he is the subject of the interview or is conducting a conversation with Czeslaw Milosz, Vacláv Havel, or Wojciech Jaruzelski. These face-to-face exchanges tell more about the forces at work in contemporary Eastern Europe than could any textbook. Sharing Michnik's intellectual journey through a tumultuous era, we touch on all the subjects important to him in this wide-ranging collection and find they have importance for everyone who values conscience and responsibility. In the words of Jonathan Schell, "Michnik is one of those who bring honor to the last two decades of the twentieth century."
Customer Reviews:
Required reading for "early modern" history.......2001-07-27
Curiously, many historians have tried to esplain the decline and expiration of the Habsburgs, but the family's rise to power seems not to have been similarly examined. Evans bases his work solidly on primary sources in the period of the Central European Counter-Reformation. He also presents a balanced view of 16th century monarchy, since the consolidation of the Habsburg state was essentially the result of a skillful series of bilateral agreements between greater and lesser rulers. This highly regarded work received several major awards and has established itself as mandatory reading for any serious student of early modern history.
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- Watching History Repeat Itself
- An Indispensable History of Failed British Diplomacy
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The Appeasers
Martin Gilbert , and
Richard Gott
Manufacturer: Phoenix Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction (Making History)
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The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War
ASIN: 1842120506 |
Book Description
Gilbert and Gott, as two young Oxford historians in 1963, wrote this compelling account of how a whole important branch of foreign policy was developed, how it was carried out, and why it was misconceived. The pre-war administration of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain ignored its advisors and pursued a policy of appeasement in the mistaken belief that it would cause an end to Hitler's plans.
Customer Reviews:
Watching History Repeat Itself.......2006-08-28
Gilbert -- in one of his earliest books -- gives a detailed analysis of how the world appeased the great dictators, the missed opportunities and the willingness to abandon allies in the face of adversity. What is particularly relevant is the extent to which history seems to be repeating itself today with the way in which Europe (and others) handle Iran. The tactics are the same -- on both sides.
An Indispensable History of Failed British Diplomacy.......2006-08-15
Many students of World War II and the interval between World War I and World War II have wondered how British diplomatic policy could have been so disastrously wrong about Hitler and Nazi Germany, and how that policy could have been maintained and pursued in the face of so much evidence that Hitler was an evil, dishonest and unprincipled negotiating partner, and bent on war, despite his protestations to the contary.
Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott set out to answer that question in 1963, at a time when the immediate passions of World War II had cooled, but when the question, then unanswered, was fresh and vital, and they succeeded brilliantly. What they show is Neville Chamberlain and his ministers in close detail, what they thought and why they thought it. This book achieves what it sets out to accomplish: it explains in careful detail the origins and practice of British appeasement in the run-up to World War II.
The authors make two primary points, one obvious and one more subtle. The obvious point is that Chamberlain's government (and the Conservative Party more generally) was so eager to avoid another war that it simply ignored the abundant evidence that Nazi Germany was pursuing policies that were abhorrent to any constitutional democracy and that were bound to lead to another major European war. And in their ultimately unsuccessful effort to stave off war in Europe, there was virtually no step that Chamberlain's government would not take to attempt to mollify and curry favor with Nazi Germany.
The more subtle point is that, as the decade of the 1930s progressed, and particularly after Munich, the Chamberlain government either removed from government or ignored dissenting voices, and it also began to conduct its diplomacy almost in secret, bypassing the House of Commons and public opinion to the fullest extent feasible. And the more the Chamberlain government and its ministers pursued a go-it-alone, hothouse mentality, the more it became isolated from public opinion. No wonder that Chamberlain was unseated in 1940; the surprise is that it didn't happen sooner.
This sad story is all laid out it in great depth, literally on an hour-by-hour basis in the case of some of the major crises, such as Munich, and the Danzig negotiations of 1939. Beyond merely providing a chronology of these events, however, the authors provide the social and political context for the various events as they occurred, plus biographical sketches for some of the major actors within the Chamberlain Government.
For any student interested in the origins of World War II, this is, quite simply, an invaluable book.
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Paying for the Past: The Struggle over Reparations for Surviving Victims of the Nazi Terror
Christian Pross
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0801858240 |
Book Description
"In countries just emerging from dictatorships, societies have been looking to history for models of reparations and justice for the victims. German reparations for the victims of Nazism represents both a model and a warning." -- from the Preface
In the aftermath of World War II, a defeated Nazi Germany hoped to ignore concentration camp survivors. But the Western Allies, the newly established Israeli government, and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany defended the rights of Jews who had survived the Holocaust and of the relatives of those who had been murdered. International treaties enacted by these groups forced the Federal Republic of Germany to financially compensate the victims for stolen property as well as for damage to physical and mental health and livelihood.
In Paying for the Past, physician and historian Christian Pross untangles the complicated history of reparations in West Germany, from the American military government's 1947 Law Number 59 (Restitution of Property Stolen in the Course of the "Aryanization of the Economy") to West Germany's Federal Restitution Law of 1957 and into the 1970s. When first published in German in 1988, Pross's landmark research caused a furor because it exposed the hostility of the West German people and the bitter political opposition within the government toward reparations legislation and the Holocaust victims seeking restitution. One of Pross's most disturbing discoveries was that victims were frequently retraumatized by the reparations process itself. Some were forced to undergo medical and psychological examination by dozens of physicians in order to substantiate their claims of abuse. Many more had claims still pending after twenty years of waiting.
Paying for the Past uncovers the inconsistencies, distortions, superficialities, and veiled anti-Semitic attitudes of West Germany's official version of its reparations history. Pross brings to light the government's continuous resistance to reparations and allows those who challenged this official reluctance to finally speak. Through victims' statements and numerous eyewitness accounts, the book also unblinkingly documents the crimes for which victims demanded restitution. Finally available in English, this edition of Paying for the Past contains a new preface by the author and an afterword by medical ethicist Erich Loewy which places the ethical issues raised by the West German experiences with reparations into an international context.
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