Amazon.com
"Until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans--in fact, few Kansans--had ever heard of Holcomb. Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there." If all Truman Capote did was invent a new genre--journalism written with the language and structure of literature--this "nonfiction novel" about the brutal slaying of the Clutter family by two would-be robbers would be remembered as a trail-blazing experiment that has influenced countless writers. But Capote achieved more than that. He wrote a true masterpiece of creative nonfiction. The images of this tale continue to resonate in our minds: 16-year-old Nancy Clutter teaching a friend how to bake a cherry pie, Dick Hickock's black '49 Chevrolet sedan, Perry Smith's Gibson guitar and his dreams of gold in a tropical paradise--the blood on the walls and the final "thud-snap" of the rope-broken necks.
Book Description
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy.
In Cold Blood is a work that transcends its moment, yielding poignant insights into the nature of American violence.
Download Description
With the publication of this book, Capote permanently ripped through the barrier separating crime reportage from serious literature. As he reconstructs the 1959 murder of a Kansas farm family and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, Capote generates suspense and empathy.
Customer Reviews:
Read the book before the movie!.......2007-10-05
This was a wonderful book, but I made the mistake of seeing the movie and then I had a biased. I enjoyed this.
Capote's Masterpiece Is Full Of Thrills, Suspense, And Incredible Prose.......2007-09-24
When Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood" was published in 1966, it became an international bestseller and was lauded by the critics. Now, over forty years later, "In Cold Blood" remains the crowning achievemt of Capote's career as a writer. Capote's skill as a journalist and natural talent as a writer combine to create the definitive American true crime book. Whether you prefer nonfiction or fiction, Capote's true account of mass murder and it's consequences is sure to please!
As Good as it Gets.......2007-09-19
In Cold Blood is incredibly well written. Unlike many of his short stories, the prose is clean and not overly adorned. Without moralizing, he simply tells the story of one of the most random and nonsensical murders of his time. In my opinion, Capote wrote one great book, and this is it.
A compelling read.......2007-08-23
Because I practice criminal law, I walk around in a world with stories like this one everyday. So I didn't really see the big deal until I finished reading Capote's In Cold Blood. Capote makes a nonfiction account read like fiction. That may not sound like much, but it impressed the hell out of me. Usually nonfiction has a dull feel to it. It just doesn't pop like fiction does. But Capote is able to cut right through that and make this story every bit as compelling as fiction without giving it a corny, Court-TV "true-crime" feel.
I don't get it.......2007-08-21
I'm disappointed- period. I truly feel as though the middle 200 pages could've been removed from this book and I would not have missed out on any importance, nor would I have noticed. I personally did not get much value out of this book. I wish I could have had a different experience.
I feel I have been forced to seek out reviews that explain some deep-seeded theme that was completely fabricated by some "scholarly" reviewer, which the author never initially intended. Maybe that would satisfy me.
Amazon.com
When he was but 10 years old, Tim Tyson heard one of his boyhood friends in Oxford, N.C. excitedly blurt the words that were to forever change his life: "Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger!" The cold-blooded street murder of young Henry Marrow by an ambitious, hot-tempered local businessman and his kin in the Spring of 1970 would quickly fan the long-flickering flames of racial discord in the proud, insular tobacco town into explosions of rage and street violence. It would also turn the white Tyson down a long, troubled reconciliation with his Southern roots that eventually led to a professorship in African-American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison--and this profoundly moving, if deeply troubling personal meditation on the true costs of America's historical racial divide. Taking its title from a traditional African-American spiritual, Tyson skillfully interweaves insightful autobiography (his father was the town's anti-segregationist Methodist minister, and a man whose conscience and human decency greatly informs the son) with a painstakingly nuanced historical analysis that underscores how little really changed in the years and decades after the Civil Rights Act of 1965 supposedly ended racial segregation. The details are often chilling: Oxford simply closed its public recreation facilities rather than integrate them; Marrow's accused murderers were publicly condemned, yet acquitted; the very town's newspaper records of the events--and indeed the author's later account for his graduate thesis--mysteriously removed from local public records. But Tyson's own impassioned personal history lessons here won't be denied; they're painful, yet necessary reminders of a poisonous American racial legacy that's so often been casually rewritten--and too easily carried forward into yet another century by politicians eagerly employing the cynical, so-called "Southern Strategy." --Jerry McCulley
Book Description
“Daddy and Roger and ’em shot ’em a nigger.” Those words, whispered to ten-year-old Tim Tyson by a playmate, heralded a ?restorm that would forever transform the tobacco market town of Oxford, North Carolina.
On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a twenty-three-year-old black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased and beat Marrow, then killed him in public as he pleaded for his life.
Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets. While lawyers battled in the courthouse, the Klan raged in the shadows and black Vietnam veterans torched the town’s tobacco warehouses. Tyson’s father, the pastor of Oxford’s all-white Methodist church, urged the town to come to terms with its bloody racial history. In the end, however, the Tyson family was forced to move away.
Tim Tyson’s riveting narrative of that fiery summer brings gritty blues truth, soaring gospel vision, and down-home humor to a shocking episode of our history. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, Blood Done Sign My Name is a classic portrait of an unforgettable time and place.
Customer Reviews:
Grippingly Written, Moving, and Historically Powerful.......2007-08-16
I finally got around to reading this memoir this summer and was in awe of the author's narrative gifts. This story reads like a novel and is full of plain human wisdom, an emotional openness combining humility and pride, wry humor, sharp political analysis, and a can't-put-it-down story line that comes to terms with America's number one cultural problem: racism. This is a book of local history that gets at the human condition, and a work of history that reads like great literature. I'm telling everyone I can to read it, and that includes whoever reads this. Don't pay attention to any of the so-called "corrections" made by some other reviewers here. This is a must-read historical work that shows an astute and perceptive ability to understand its widely varying participants' points of view and experiences, while not shrinking from the moral and historical obligation to draw judgments. There is only one word to use: *brilliant.* (I'm not one to use that lightly when talking about either autobiography or
history.)
Disclaimer: The writer of this review is a professional historian with a Ph.D., but one who has never met Timothy Tyson.
Evangelical Pastor - 63 years old.......2007-07-29
Few books are as challenging for me as this one. I lived through the years of this story and consistently refused to believe that our racism was as extensive or deeply rooted as it was. Take away: the challenge to see it in our present day and to do something about it.
A mixture of polemic, interesting recollections, and accounts of questionable credibility.......2007-07-18
I was born and grew up in Oxford, North Carolina as a white boy, and graduated from the
University of North Carolina in 1949. I have lived in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland for many
years.
Tyson deserves credit for deploring the murder and acquittal of the murderer in the book.
However, he tends to be polemic: all black people in it are noble; all but a few white people are
some combination of racist, ignorant, or narrow-minded. (It is similar in that respect to Leon
Uris's novel "Exodus", in which all Jews are noble and bigger than life, while all others are hateful
or, at best, not very bright.)
He often uses a down-home style of writing, calling his parents "Daddy" and "Mama" and being
addressed as "Little Buck" by his father, which he apparently feels makes him and his family seem
to be folksy, good plain people.
However, the book is not without its shortcomings.
Accounts of questionable credibility:
¶¶He states that tear gas was used by Oxford police in 1944 to dispel a crowd of black people
who were protesting the arrest of two men. I witnessed the event and remember no tear gas--had
there been, I think I would never have forgotten it.
¶¶An account of the torching of buildings in Oxford on May 25, 1970 by angry black people
following the killing of Marrow describes two tobacco warehouses which were among
them:"Inside these warehouses were eight hundred thousand pounds of golden cured tobacco, a
known flammable substance, with a total value of more than a million dollars." I find it hard to
believe that any tobacco would have been in those warehouses in May.
Tobacco was brought by the farmers to Oxford warehouses from mid-September through
mid-November, where it was sold at auction and immediately taken by the buyers to their Oxford
processing plants, and then shipped off to the cigarette manufacturers. By some time in late
November, all of the warehouses became empty.
Although the whole procedure I describe above could have changed somewhat by 1970, I still
find it hard to believe that there would have been tobacco in the warehouses in May, by which
time it would have probably become dry and crumbly.
¶¶The following exchange supposedly took place during the 1930's between Major T.G. stem (a
prominent white man in Oxford) and a man described in the book as "a local white bootlegger."
Having occurred long before Tyson was born, it was recounted to him by Thad Stem, the Major's
son and a close friend of the Tyson family.
"Major Stem was leaving Hall's drugstore with his son (Thad) and they passed Mrs. G. C. Shaw,
the wife of the principal at Mary Potter High, the local Negro high school.
'Good afternoon, Mrs. Shaw,' the Major said, tipping his hat.
A local white bootlegger, idling under the store awning, accosted Major Stem. 'Why'd you call
that [...] woman Mrs. Shaw'?" he demanded.
'Well, Mrs. Shaw's older than I am,' he began softly. 'She's better educated than I am,and she has
more money.' Then, thrusting the bootlegger away from him, the major exploded: 'But more to
the point, what I call Mrs. Shaw is none of your goddamned business, you low-life taxidermist,
you two-for-a-nickel jackal, you knee-crawling [...], net.' These were the days when
people really knew how to cuss. Back then, the appendage 'net' meant a real [...]...on the
way home (Thad) asked his father why on earth he had called the bootlegger a 'taxidermist.' The
major said quietly that a taxidermist is a man who mounts animals."
If not a total fabrication, the story seems to me to have been mostly made up.
In those earlier times, I never heard any white person in Oxford address or refer to a black person
as Mr./Mrs./Ms. (However, by some strange logic, a black doctor was referred to as Dr. X by
white people. Dr. Ellis Toney was a black practitioner there for many years and was so referred
to. The same was the case for some black ministers, who were referred to as Pastor or Reverend
such-and-such.)
¶¶In writing about the slave trade, Tyson speaks of "the dark Atlantic, where the bones of
somewhere around ten million Africans settled into the sand, thrown overboard by the slave ships
that plied those waters in the early days of the republic (the USA)."
Where did this 10 million figure come from? Tyson provides no source. One reference, "Slavery:
A World History", by Milton Meltzer, says that about 2.2 million died that way.
Degrading most of Oxford's black people by stereotyping them as uncultured:
The most puzzling aspect of the book is: On the one hand, Tyson makes the legitimate point that
black residents of Oxford and Granville County, after long having been subjected to a segregated,
inferior status in society, deserved to be recognized as having equal rights with white citizens.
Yet, at the same time, he consistently shows these same black people as being crude and unable to
say anything without massacring English grammar.
"I knowed him right good, and I liked him all right. He didn't hurt nobody." "Yeah, we was
listening to TV, that's how we got involved in the first sit-ins in Oxford, because we saw on TV
they was doing it up in Greensboro." "Me and a guy named Ronald Jordan, me and him climbed
up on the Confederate soldier..." And there are many more.
I know from personal experience that many black people in Oxford, then and now, are much more
cultured than Tyson portrays them. I also know from my volunteer work at the Helping Up
Mission in Baltimore, where I tutor men who are recovering from drug and alcohol addiction in
the 3R's (all of whom to date have been black), that most black people, like anyone anywhere, will
grasp an opportunity to become more cultured.
Heartbreaking and Revelatory.......2007-05-18
An essential history and memoir of a time whose facts are often forgotten and even actively repressed. The present doesn't make sense without honestly examining the past, and this book does that with humility and emotional power. Even if you think you know this history (as I did) you very well may not.
essential.......2007-03-15
For those of us who think we understand by reading about racial prejudice and thinking about what it must be like, should read this book. We still won't really understand, but we will be a much closer than we were before.
Average customer rating:
- Calculations are only as good as your numbers
- Pants on fire?
- Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed.
- Very Interesting
- History as Science Fiction
|
History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Anatoly Fomenko
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ASIN: 2913621058 |
Book Description
Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.
Customer Reviews:
Calculations are only as good as your numbers.......2007-08-03
Yes, we can all agree that mainstream history is nearly 100% BS due to politics, economics, ego, problems with dating techniques, and various conspiracies. Agreed. But, I've been researching the distinct possibility that human history (in terms of civilizations) are much more ancient than we've been told, so coming across this book was very interesting to me. I wondered how Fomenko could be wrong (if at all) because he is very persuasive in his presentations. Then it dawned on me. If at previous times in prehistory, due to the various catastrophies that are well documented (comets, asteroids, planetary disruptions, plasma discharge, pole reversals, etc) the Earth was in a different position in relation to the sun, different tilt on its axis, different orbit, different rotation (in terms of velocity and DIRECTION), and the continents were in different positions, then would this not cause the ancients to see the sky (constellations) differently? In other words, is Fomenko making erronious assumptions about the physics of the Earth in pre-history, which then corrupt his data with regards to dating the relevant astrology? The last event to seriously disrupt our planet occured roughly 3500 years ago, according to other good researchers, so is it possible Fomenko has been confused by this? The vastly different physics of our planet in the not so distant past may explain this confusion, which is not to say the "mainstream" version of history is correct; on the contrary. I am not an expert in these fields, but wanted to see if this idea could spark discussion.
Pants on fire?.......2007-07-19
Will people ever read before spamming? Yes, Jesuits could not rewrite world history alone, they had help. Anyway, Dr Prof Acad A.Fomenko does not point to jesuits as the driving force of world wide history manipulation in published volumes 1,2,3;, actually he barely mentions the poor devils. Check it with 'Search inside' feature, please. China is rarely mentioned either, in fact, Dr Fomenko is completely eurocentric. Right, his theory contradicts all mainstream schools of history, because in their actual state they are all built on blatantly erroneus chronology. You don't need a mysterious cabal (conspiracy) to falsify history, the falsification is its modus operandi. It is inherent to history(ians) to falsify (distort) events, as it is inherent to humans to boast as it is inherent to power (authority) to legimize itself by referrring to glorious past made to its own order. Dr Prof Fomenko and team have identified scores of instances of such manipulation in Russian, European, etc.. history, and delivered valid statistical proof thereof. His own 'reconstruction' is completely another story. Forget c14 as a valid method of dating. W.Libby has initially discovered a brilliant method of INDEPENDENT dating. Too bad, c14 method has become a joke after a forced marrige with dendrochronology with consensual chronological scale inbuilt. Radiocarbon method can't stand blind tests, but is so very productive as a rubberstamp.
Accepted History & Chronology Must Be Changed. .......2007-04-09
There is no doubt that history as most know it is a sham, & institution's version of History both University & Church is fradulent & inaccurate. Everything was established with an agenda, The real "Dark Ages" are now when we have access to incredible amounts of information past authorities & more important 'common folk' didn't have but our institutions & educators are slow to evolve because of what has ignorantly & arrogantly been taught for too long. This is on many subjects not just Chronology.
For anyone to question "Why would a Mathematician have anything credible to say of History?" The answer is from Dr. Fomenko's preface in the book: "It would be worthwhile to remind the reader that in the XVI-XVII century Chronology was considered to be a subdivision of Mathematics." These volumes could possibly be some of the most important works to date & should be read by everyone with an interest in History, especially professors & educators who have a duty to the public. I have read both books & must say that 'Chronology 1' has some very eye opening & revolutionary information. Even if these volumes are part true the implications are profound & opens the doors to further investigations & questions which must be done. I speak several different lanquages & must say the logic Dr. Fomenko uses with "inflection" of words & words being read from left to right in one region & right to left in another then written backwards, the removal of vowels & get down to basics of words, or different cities & locations having the same name etc. is correct. Vowel usage has always been optional & varied, actually complicating linquistics & study. The first thing one has to understand is that words never had a fixed spelling in history like we do now, the spelling of words was mutable & regional, as well as names & titles of people were vast, varied & changed, NOTHING WAS FIXED or understood linear. Matters of Life & Death as well as financial profiteering yesterday & today were & are made with ignorant, illogical & conspiratorial views of history & reality, it's time people get closer to the Truth & society collectively grow up.
Very Interesting.......2007-03-07
It is a good proposal and I believe it will mature into something even better in the future. I think it deserves to be read.
History as Science Fiction.......2007-01-10
Anatoly Fomenko has written a very intriguing book, full of pictures, charts, and computer 'proof' of his thesis: backwards of AD900 we don't really know what happened or when. Between AD900 and AD1600 there is more certainty, but there is still a lot of fuzzy ground, and things don't get reliable until we get past the 1600's where the printing press made it very difficult for the perpetrators of this timeline manipulation to change anything that had been committed to print. The Dark Ages did not happen. Books were burned for a reason. One organization has doubled the actual length of its existence by expanding the real chronology. Read why.
I had always wondered why Christ died about AD33 and yet men waited until the 11th century to form the Knights Templar, the Cathars, etc and go after the Holy Land by force. Why the 1000 year gap? Turns out there wasn't more than a 10-12 year gap and he proves it using astronomy. This also implies that the planet is not as old as we have been told, and current Christian and other creationist scientists are already championing that idea without being aware of Fomenko's book. The two groups, creationist scientists and the Russian mathematical analysts corroborate each other. Fascinating.
Of course, all this flies in the face of what we have been told traditionally is the 'proper' chronology of western civilization, and most readers will experience 'cognitive dissonance' in reading this book. It means that our history going backwards from AD1600 becomes progressively more incorrect and unreliable until it cannot be trusted at all... in the space of 700-800 years.
Naturally, the curious, open-minded reader will want to know WHO did this, WHY, and did any of the events we think of as really ancient ever happen?
Dr. Fomenko is a respected scientist/mathematician at Moscow State University who has already answered these questions to the satisfaction of his initially skeptical colleagues. Most of them are now believers, a few still refuse to believe (the usual diehards), and of course the western press has ignored Fomenko's work -- for obvious reasons when you read the book. The ones who perpetrated this chronology ruse have a lot to answer for. They are still with us. That's why this book is a well-kept secret.
I gave the book a 4-star rating because I was unable to check out some of his claims; those I checked were as he said. But if even 1/3 of his claims are true, this punches a big hole in what we think is our history, the meaning of western civilization, our educational process (for repeating the ruse as gospel), and the trustworthiness of the organization that perpetrated this ruse, well-intentioned or not.
This book relates to current research into a Young Earth paradigm, to John Keel's discoveries about our planet, and Fr Malachi Martin's insights (in his now out-of-print books). We are indeed sheep who are manipulated and kept ignorant -- for a reason. While knowing what these men have to say may be the "booby prize" (as in: 'what can you do with this knowledge?'), it will provide interesting reading. Didn't someone say: "...and the Truth will set you free."?? For you to judge if this book contains the truth.
Customer Reviews:
Trying to understand.......2007-08-09
I just finished reading this book. I already had read several books from Sylvia Browne about some of the same similar events. So it was fascinating to learn there is more than one person who has the same theories. Since this is so, it helped me to believe even more. I am new to this "demension". I have lived under this happy vail of a cartoon world. Now things are starting to make sense. I also do wish Stewart would elaborated more and was a better writer but he got the point across even if it was crass. I am still not sure if that afair was due to the "drugs and programming" or an excuse to fool around. Hahaa!! Doesn't matter, I loved the book. I am excited to read more.
Mind Blowing.......2007-07-16
If this book is really authentically true, it has the potential to revolutionize our human social belief systems! I'm still shaking my head over it and will need to study it at greater length to truly understand the concepts presented. One thing is certain--I will DEFINITELY read more from this author. He has really sparked my interest!
You will never see the world the same way again.......2007-06-21
As early as high school I became preoccupied with what seemed to me to be three very divergent intellectual pursuits: (1) finding the true path to spiritual enlightenment, (2) answering the questions of what, who and why concerning UFOs, and (3) uncovering the truth behind the ruling elites of the Illuminati and how they had come to hold all the reigns of power in so few hands, whether financial, political, commercial or religious. Every book I read seemed to hold some piece of one of these puzzles, but it was only after many years of research that I began to realize that all three topics were really interrelated and actually just different facets of one much larger subject.
By the time David Icke's "The Biggest Secret" came into my hands I was already intimately familiar with much of what he had documented in that consummate work; all except for his central premise that the Illuminati were some kind of shape-shifting extra-terrestrial reptilian-human half-breeds. Not that I had any trouble accepting the notion that these folks were somehow different from the rest of us. That was clear just by the fact of how they were able to sustain a concerted course toward world domination over countless centuries. But shape-shifting reptiles? Too sci-fi even for me. And unfortunately, Mr. Icke's presentation, while long on eye witness testimony, was short on the kind of historical and how-come evidence necessary to convince me that his premise was even plausible.
Fortunately for all of us, Stewart Swerdlow's masterpiece, "Blue Blood, True Blood," suffers from no such short comings. It was not only the most detailed, plausible and credible history of planet Earth for the last one million years it has ever been my pleasure to study, lifting all the veils of our suppressed history, genetic, political and religious, it also made the convincing case against the reptilian-ET-Illuminati that Mr. Icke had failed to do. Whatever your personal interests or beliefs, if you read only one book this year, I strongly recommend that you make it this book. You will never see the world the same way again.
Maxwell Austin van Lack, author of The Vortex: A True Story of Passion and Karma
Believe what you want, but..........2006-08-23
The things in your life that have been presented as "fact" are nothing more than that: presentations. Ultimately the mind must decide what is true and what is not. Is there physical evidence for the claims made in this book? Very few. Does that therefore make the unsupported statements untrue? No.
It's not surprising to see negative opinions on a book with information that, if true, would paint an entirely new picture of human history, present, and future. For those claiming Stewart is ripping you off or taking you for a ride, then prove it. If your world is built on physical and external proof, then where is your proof he is lying?
It's a book. In it is information. Take it or leave it. Stewart makes no attempt to convince his reader. It is up to you to learn the truth. He doesn't come off as some back alley watch peddler hustling for a penny. He says "Here's what time it is. Believe it or don't".
If you've got that gnawing feeling in the back of your mind that things just aren't what they seem in this world, then do yourself a favor and read this book. Use your intuition and figure it out. It's up to you.
Blue Blood, True Blood; Conflict & Creation.......2006-07-25
First hundred and twenty five pages were great. The rest of the book was just filler.
Book Description
In the 1980s, a multi-million dollar drug distribution and contract murder syndicate led by murderous gangsters Johnny Attais rose to prominence in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan. Calling themselves the Israeli Mafia, the group Attias, along with pals Ran Efraim and Ron Gonen, richer than they had ever dreamed, but brought on troubles they never expected. In Blood & Volume: Inside New York's Israeli Mafia, author Dave Copeland gives an exclusive and never-before revealed look into one of the most successful Israeli gangs ever to operate on American soil. While the book gives readers an intimate portrait of Gonen, Efraim, and Attias, the book focuses most deeply on the life and crimes of Ron Gonen. A charismatic rogue, Gonen lived life in the fast lane and eventually spiraled out of control. Blood & Volume is filled with paranoid mobsters, clever scams, deep betrayals, and the struggles Gonen faced as he tried to find redemption and do the right thing by his young daughter and his family. Readers will see firsthand the crimes that could have propelled Gonen and his gang to the top of the New York underworld--if he hadn't agreed to cooperate with federal law enforcement officials.
Customer Reviews:
Thrilling Page Turner!.......2007-05-30
This was one of the few books that I have read in one sitting. The story and the characters come together to create one of the most exciting, intense, and provocative books that I have ever read. I cant wait till the movie comes out.
Interesting.......2007-05-18
This is an exciting story of great success and great failure. The stories are fun and should be adopted into a movie!
Not as much blood as one would think but the heists they pulled: pretty interesting. Overall a decent read for a weekend. Enjoy
A great Read.......2007-05-13
Very interesting topic and very interesting characters. I can't get over the fact that they are real characters.
excellent nonfiction.......2007-04-26
I grew up in NY and had never heard of the Israeli mafia so I picked up this book out of curiosity.
Copeland does a fine job of relating the facts in the case of this violent organization that helped usher in the cocaine craze of the 1980s.
With the pen of a veteran reporter Copeland delivers a clear and fast paced narrative.
FAB.......2007-04-13
Thrilling and mesmerizing. Copeland tells the story of a fasinating character with remarkable attachment. Great Read!!!!
Book Description
Here is the critically acclaimed inside story, now in an expanded edition, about the rise and fall of Philadelphia's notorious Scarfo organization. Blunt and unsparing, it is a first-hand account of murder, money, and corruption told by wiseguy-turned-witness Nick Caramandi, whose testimony put Nicky Scarfo and many of his associates behind bars for the rest of their lives. A prime target for hit men to this day, Caramandi continues to survive only through the government's Witness Protection Program. In this updated edition of Blood and Honor, author George Anastasia picks up the story where he left off, filling us in on the fates of all the characters--major and minor--in recent years.
Customer Reviews:
T.Feret.......2007-05-09
A very informative book and interesting. Since i am locale it sure is mind boggling to know about the mob and how they operated in the Phila. and N.J. areas. Read a lot of books on the mob and this one beats them all on the Scarfo family. Best book I read for a very long time.
best mob book ever!!.......2006-05-09
once you pick this book up, you won't be able to put it down.
I aftoo admit I have a little more interest than your average
reader ,since i was raised in south philly , and I was friends
and enemies with a few of the people. The philadelphia crime family is the most interesting . Starting with Don Angelo Bruno
one of the most powerfull an smartest godfather with illegitimate and legitimate businesses in philly new york,florida, and even London. He was the only godfather outside of ny to sit on the commision in NY .
Once he was murdered ,It was the beginning of the end for philly.
Blood and No Honor.......2006-02-07
"Blood and Honor" is a well-researched account of the Philadelphia/Atlantic City Mafia family headed by Nicky Scarfo. The primary source of the author's information is Nick Caramandi who turned to the witness protection program once he became one of the many people on Nicky Scarfo's hit list. Caramandi is a low-life crook and murderer who claims of duping and robbing only the greedy, not the innocent. However, it is evident that anyone from whom he could make a dollar was fair game. For example, the young pharmacist he scammed didn't know that Caramdi was connected and eventually committed suicide once he knew he was in over his head. Nicky Scarfo was the volatile and paranoid Family boss who killed his most loyal people one-by-one at the slightest bit of perceived threat. The story of this family and Caramdi's account of the events are interesting and gripping at times. This Mafia Family could be described as backstabbing, violent, disorganized, and greedy, but not the "most violent". Anyone interested in the most violent family of organized crime, should read the "Murder Machine" which describes in great detail the brutal murders committed by Roy Demeo's gang - a faction of the Gambino crime family. Finally, there are so many names mentioned in "Blood and Honor" that the who-and-what of the story is sometimes hard to follow. Had the author not included a special section for the names of the people involved, the story would've been even harder to follow.
All in all, "Blood and Honor" is an interesting book for those interested in factual accounts of Organized Crime.
Quick Read.......2005-09-06
the book makes you feel like you are there.Awesome book and a quick read!I went through it in 2 days on the beach.
One of the best books I've read........2003-02-01
This is the book which got me started reading mob books. If ever there was a book written from the street level perspective of organized crime this is it. Caramandi and Anastasia have it down, scam to scam, hustle to hustle, score to score that a mobster makes just to stay afloat when he's starting out. Then as the Crow starts to move up in the criminal ladder he launches into long stories about mafia politics and the power struggles and the jealousy and the double cross that was his every day life for 10 years.. It's absolutely fascinating stuff. It's worth every penny one pays for it. I've read it four times.
Customer Reviews:
The best crime book I have ever read.......2007-07-23
I would put "Bitter Blood" right up there with Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood." "Bitter Blood" and the murders it describes are an immensely more complicated scenario than the murders of the Clutters. Jerry Bledsoe managed to tidy up hundreds of loose ends, weave them together and create a coherent story so mind-boggling you will not put down the book until you've plowed through it. You'll be left gasping. A horrible miasma of madness permeates the book and you keep saying to yourself "this can't be happening" but it does. And Mr. Bledsoe proves it and carries you with him on a roller coaster ride.
My name is Sharp, which gave me an added interest in the book. But I am not related to the North Carolina Sharps.
The murders by Fritz and Susie are not the work of two serial killers. There is no sex fantasy here and serial killers don't kill people they know. These are revenge-killings, and Susie egged Fritz on to do them, although she killed Delores and her two boys herself. Delores she detested,and her boys were dispatched by cyanide pills and bullets so that her ex husband, Tom, couldn't have them. Fritz mutilated Susie's mother with a knife after shooting her because she had the audacity to disagree with her daughter and her almost incestual affair with her cousin Fritz. If you cross Susie you pay for it. You pay with your life.
Fritz was undoubtedly insane but Susie also went off the deep end. Her behavior became more and more bizarre as she and Fritz moved into a horrid paranoid world of their own. The killing of the little boys John and Jim by cyanide reminds me of Frau Goebbels in the Hitler bunker when she killed all six of her children with cyanide pellets. The mind-set between her and Susie is remarkably similar, and Fritz was, as was his father, an ardent Nazi.
The book goes into great detail about the actions and thoughts of the various detectives involved in the case of the Lynch and Newsom murders and again, Mr. Bledsoe seamlessly integrates the investigations of the police with the various goings on of the murderers, their families, friends and the victims and wraps it all up to make coherent sense of nine senseless crimes.
The havoc and grief that Fritz and Susie created will never go away as long as any of the involved parties are alive. Judge Susie has passed on and perhaps she finally realized the truth that her beloved niece and namesake, Susie, was a cold-blooded killer. The brutal murders happened almost twenty five years ago but the sordid story will never die and decent people will ponder the unbelievable truth and wonder how human beings could stoop so low.
Southern Gothic Like You've Never Seen It.......2007-06-25
I've been rereading a few classic true crime books this year. Some hold up well and deserve the "classic" term, others are too much a product of their times to resonate today. Bitter Blood is, thankfully, a true classic. Arguably Jerry Bledsoe's best book it is the result of newspaper articles he wrote at the time of the murders. His personal desire to explain the tragedy is evident on nearly every page as is his ultimate frustration at his inability to find finite answers to all that took place.
The story of Susie Sharp Newsome Lynch and Fred "Fritz" Klenner is troubling on many levels. Intelligent, privileged products of the new South, Susie and Fritz both go horribly off-track and yet their families fail to comprehend just how far off track. What is perceived as an embarrassment to the family strikes the reader as clear evidence of mental illness. Fritz is the son of a respected if unorthodox doctor; he fakes attending Duke medical school for years, talking about classes and lab experiments while wearing a white coat and stethoscope. And while constantly spinning fantasies about covert CIA operations, impending nuclear war and assorted conspiracies. When his family discovers he hasn't even graduated college let alone been accepted to medical school their first instinct is to cover it up, allowing Klenner to continue to pass himself off as a physician.
The Newsomes were equally resistant to seeing serious problems in their daughter Susie. Long after her behavior had veered from willful to downright bizarre they remained most deeply concerned about appearances. Susie's relationship with her first cousin Fritz scandalized them deeply yet they were afraid to confront her about the specifics.
As others have noted, this is a long book. Bledsoe starts the story from the perspective of the crimes, almost in whodunit fashion. The problem is that while the main suspects don't enter the stage until 200 pages into the book their names are evident to anyone who reads the back cover. Susie and Fritz's names aren't even mentioned in the first 200 pages yet you know that they are the murderers. For some readers that may be hard to take.
If, however, you're willing to let the story unfold as its leisurely pace you'll be rewarded with a tale of Southern Gothic like you've never seen it - with family ties that form a stranglehold.
Excellent read.......2007-04-04
This is definitely one of those "truth is stranger than fiction" stories. If you like to read lengthly background information on the pertinent characters and locations (like I do), this book is for you. Even though the book is long, I found it to be very interesting and so felt it moved at a good pace as it moved from different characters and locations. It was hard to put down. I found the family tree at the beginning of the book helpful to refer to, to keep track of all the family members. The book offers an interesting view of this family's dynamics.
I felt Mr. Bledsoe was very objective in the way he presented his information; he let the characters' observations of each other and the events tell the story. I think as an objective reader you understand that not all characters had the opportunity to tell their own stories (occasionally due to the fact they were not alive at the time the book was writte - sometimes due to they were murdered). As a huge fan of Ann Rule, I didn't think I could find another true crime writer I would like so well, but now I know I will seek out Mr. Bledsoe's other books. If you enjoy Ann Rule's books, I think you will really enjoy this one as well.
I still can't believe these really happend... but it did........2006-07-05
WHAT MAKES A COLD BLOODED SICKO DO THIS KIND OF ACT? WHAT KIND OF MOTHER THAT WOULD DELIBERATELY PUT HER KIDS IN OBVIOUS DANGER. WHY WOULDN'T THE POLICE REALLY DO NOTHING ABOUT IT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE. THIS IS THE REALM OF... BITTER BLOOD. AND THIS SICKO PSYCHOTIC MOTHER HAD THAT. THIS BLOOD SUCKING WORTHLESS TRASH ALONG WITH HER INCEST COUSIN/BOYFRIEND BLEW A HAND GRANADE IN THAT NASTY JEEP CAUSING THE DEATH OF NOT ONLY THEM SELVES, BUT ALSO HER 2 BOYS. I SAW THE 4-HOUR MINI-SERIES, AND IT IS VERY DISTURBING AND SHOCKING. ON BEHALF OF THE FATHER AND HIS GIRLFRIEND AND HIS AND HER FAMILY. MAY THIS DECEASED WIFE AND HER DECEASED KILLER/INCEST/LOVER ROTT IN HELL FOREVER.
Family Madness and Murder.......2006-06-06
This is a true crime story that you can't believe is real but it did happen. It's a book you can't put down. I will say no more to avoid spoilers just read it!!
Amazon.com
In 1995, two years after his grandfather whispered the name of his great-great-grandfather's killer to him, Frank Viviano visited Sicily to learn the events that shaped his namesake's life and strongly influenced his own. Nicknamed "The Monk" for the garments he wore while robbing the rich and bureaucratic, Viviano's ancestor left little for the experienced foreign correspondent to follow. Plus, the slow-jolt journey of Sicilian lifestyles often ended in polite reticence or remarkable disorganization; even rudimentary information, such as his predecessor's gravesite, was lost. In a "morbid tidying up," Mussolini's local officials removed the remains of all pre-Fascists: "In their zeal to launch the new millennium, the fascisti hadn't bothered to keep lists of the disinterred. The old tombstones were dumped into the sea, next to the limestone blocks that the fishermen referred to as 'Atlantis.'"
In between assignments in Bosnia and the West Bank, Viviano learned to take a less direct approach. Guided by stories told to him in his childhood by his grandmother, he demystifies the region's bandit-rebel history, its current life under the sistema, and its creation of the modern Italian mafia. Viviano was already aware of his family's supposed connections to the mafia, causing him to look more carefully at the times that produced these men. In the process, he began to take a closer look at his own personal life:
The dramatic narrative of ancestry is not erased by immigration. It is driven into a clandestine realm where setting and characters are only dimly recalled, or transformed into fairy-tale heroes and villains in the landscape of fable. The Monk, in this sense, had withdrawn into my grandparents' tales and the isolated recesses of my imagination, into hidden canyons where I could not directly confront him.
Suspenseful and well balanced, Blood Washes Blood is an exciting and thoughtful page-turner, a remarkable story of family, mystery, and friendship. Viviano's writing is at its best when he follows the complicated trail of his family's past, and falters only slightly when he attempts to imagine his ancestor's life. --Karin Rosman
Book Description
Against the sweeping backdrop of western Sicily, in a riveting seven-year quest, Frank Viviano pieces together his own harrowing ancestral history of betrayal and redemption. His take is haunted, from its violent opening to its stunning climax, by an ancient Sicilian proverb, Lu sangu lava lu sangu, "Blood washes blood": the torrent of unforgiving vengeance that flows from an unforgivable offense.
Viviano's great-great grandfather was a legendary bandit who traveled the countryside of Sicily by night in the robes of a friar and was known as "the Monk." His brutal murder has remained shrouded in mystery for four generations. Until now.
Populated by an extraordinary cast of nineteenth-century Robin Hood brigands and twentieth-century underworld bosses, here is a true-life Godfather, in which past and present finally merge into a single story with a shattering climax that ultimately changes the way the author views his immigrant family's complex legacy -- and himself.
Customer Reviews:
One of the best so far to capture what life in Sicily is like!.......2007-07-23
My own maternal Grandparents emigrated from Terrasini, Sicily as children in the early 1900's, and we Grandchildren heard some of the stories related in BLOOD WASHES BLOOD when growing up in St. Louis, Missouri. Terrasini in the 19th Century was only a town of a little over 2,000 people (Today it has about 10,000), and 19 families make up ~ 90% of the population. My Mother's relatives had lived there for over two centuries. Some of our family have been fortunate enough to return there on vacations, and my husband and I have visited twice in the last 3 years (Sicily is very much like Southern California where we live). The Viviano Family (St. Louis branch) are related to the DiMercurio's in St. Louis - my Mother's relatives.
Having taken a course in Sicilian Studies under the auspices of the University of California, I was already familiar with the feudal and absolute structure of Sicily's ruling class up to the late 19th Century. Frank Viviano does a terrific job of bringing that life to light, as well as the confining and demeaning influence of the Mafia and Sicily's current economic woes. Unemployment in Palermo Province still sits around 20% even in these most prosperous times. I did not realize that Sicily was under martial law, at least, twice after the reunification of Italy because of the widespread political unrest, resulting in many emigrants - including my Great-Grandparents and Grandparents - literally escaping from the island under false pretenses to reach an Italians or other port where they could get a ship to the USA without a valid exit visa. I think Frank Viviano does a great job describing the impact of the reunification effort on Sicilians and even mentions the atrocity of Partinico, although he merely alludes to the torture and cannibalism that occured there so near to lovely Terrasini. A people can only withstand oppression for so long, then...
By the end of the book, I felt that Frank Viviano had not only solved a family mystery but came to grips with some aspects of his own life that became clearer. It is no surprise that he is an award-winning journalist. If you are a reader and have not visited Sicily, Danilo Dolci's SICILIAN LIVES brings 20th Century Sicilian culture/norms to life, even if it does stop at the early 1980's. So much has changed in Sicily for the better as we noted when we were there in 2005, but the inherent Sicilian nature is certainly portrayed accurately in this gem.
Gorgeous Writing, This Book Will Help You Understand Sicily.......2007-04-12
I read this book when in first came out five years ago. For work and pleasure, I have probably read over 100 books about Italy in the intervening years and this book is still one of the best. I just re-read the first page and got chills. The writing is eloquent, the story incredible (and all the more so because it is true) and the sense of place Viviano evokes is so compelling. If you want to understand Sicily, the history of rural Italy, the confusing legacy of the Old World for many Italian-Americans, read this book. If you just want to read a great piece of narrative non-fiction, read this book. I'm planning on re-reading it.
Now I understand my father........2005-09-11
My sister gave all of us a copy of this book and she said we needed to read it to understand who were are. She was right. My father was born in Palermo and came to the United States at the age of 14. He was a wonderful family man who loved his wife of 58yrs and his 4 daughters. But, he was a complicated man and at times, very secretive. Now I understand. He told us of his transition into the American life and I thought he was embellishing because he was a great story teller, but now I understand the hardships, the backbreaking work, and the joys of providing for his family. After reading this book, I am even prouder to say when asked, "No, I'm not Italian-American, I am Sicilian-American."
Fantastic!.......2004-08-08
I highly recommend Blood Washes Blood. While it may be a bit dark and heavy for a summer read, it is definitely worth any time or money spent in the endeavor.
Mr. Viviano has a gift with non-fiction unlike any other writer of this genre I have ever read. His story unfolds like a novel, fascinating in its characters and settings and yet all the more immediate because it is true.
Mr. Viviano traces his family's history and his own journey of self-discovery through the winding streets of Sicily, uncovering a few secrets and finding even more along the way.
At times his prose is almost too real, too painful and private, but it creates an intense bond with the reader.
In short, don't pick up this book expecting a quick read. Yes, it is riveting, but at times a little overwhelming as well. The highest praise I can give Blood Washes Blood was that it left me with plenty to think about once it was finished, and a lingering interest in Sicily and its history.
Mr. Vivano has had articles recently in publications such as National Geographic, and I highly recommend readers to search out more of his work. You won't be disappointed.
Fascinating.......2003-07-19
Having come of age in St. Louis, and marrying into a Sicilian American family, all the "old stories" and legends were the makings for any family get together. Blood Washes Blood brought so many of the old stories to life and was even more compelling to read than The Godfather because it was a family with a familiar name.
On his deathbed, Frank Viviano's grandfather whispers an old family secret to him. The secret leads Mr. Vivano, back to Sicily and to a search for answers that seem to elude him. His curiosity as a foreign correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle well prepares him to do the research and fuel his interest in exploring what happened to the great grandfather known as The Monk.
My husband and his brothers recently traveled to Sicily and spent several days in Terrasini and Cinisi looking into old records of their ancestors. Unfortunately their trip took place before we discovered Blood Washes Blood. Mr. Viviano turns the old stories into living history. Thanks for the book, our family all enjoyed reading it.
Amazon.com
"There is a method to presenting the reality of war in [New York] Times style," writes Chuck Sudetic, "a restrictive method but a perfectly valid one just the same. It focuses mainly on institutions and political leaders and their duties and decisions, while leaving the common folk to exemplify trends, to serve as types: a fallen soldier, a screaming mother, a dead baby.... The method is described by various terms: detachment, disinterestedness, dispassion, distancing, and others with negative prefixes engineered to obliterate any relationship between observer and observed."
Although Sudetic was able to maintain his detachment for the numerous stories he filed from the frontlines of the Bosnian war for the Times, it could not ultimately last. Blood and Vengeance examines the events leading up to the July 1995 genocidal massacre that took place in and around the town of Srebenica from the perspective of the Celik family (to whom the author is related by marriage). Sudetic ably blends the intimate chaos and terror of the Celiks' lives with broader historical and contemporary accounts that provide a fuller context for what happened. The people here are not types, but vividly portrayed individuals in whose lives the reader gradually becomes absorbed. This book ranks with Peter Maass's Love Thy Neighbor as one of the closest--and most chilling--looks at the tumultuous events that shattered post-cold war Eastern Europe. --Ron Hogan
Book Description
A riveting account of the events that led to the slaughter of Muslims at Srebenica--the Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee of the Bosnian conflict. In July 1995 approximately 7,000 Muslim men, women, and children died at Serbian hands in and around the old Bosnian mining town of Srebenica. It was the largest mass execution in Europe since the Nazi era; a stunning failure for the United Nations and the Western powers; and the grim watershed that led, finally, to massive NATO air strikes and the current fragile peace. How and why this shocking act of genocide was allowed to take place is still imperfectly understood. Blood and Vengeance puts a human face on the grim statistics and tangled politics of this event. Through the odyssey of one Muslim family, the Celiks of the remote mountain town of Kupusovici, journalist Chuck Sudetic tells the epic and tragic story of a people and a nation. His narrative reaches as far back as the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, where the Turks conquered the Serbs, and unfolds with sweeping and inexorable power toward the Celiks' rendezvous with history in the so-called "safe area" of Srebenica. Not since The Killing Fields has as powerful a nonfiction tale of spinelessness, savagery, and heroic survival been told. Here is a book as sweeping and powerful as a panoramic, historical painting, yet with the heartbreaking intimacy of a family snapshot. Even readers who may once have felt that the Bosnian War was beyond comprehension will find themselves in its masterful grip.
Customer Reviews:
Biased.......2007-06-16
Good writing and a good story. However, this is blatantly anti-Serb. Chuck seems to want to portray the Serbs as bloodthirsty animals and the Muslims as weak innocents. I was rooting for the Serbs by the end of the book because they had so much going against them yet they still pushed on with their goals.
Skillful and vivid portrayals.......2007-02-26
A very personalized account of the many forces that were in motion. Masterful storytelling, making the transitions for the major national participants to one peasant family's struggles is technically very difficult, the fact that the author was able to do so shows his skill as a writer.
No agreement .......2006-08-11
The book is confusing because the wars were confusing. The names present difficulties in the manner of a Russian novel. There is a chart of the main characters. It is extensive. By 1993 the author was in his fifth year in Bosnia reporting on the conflict for THE NEW YORK TIMES. Traveling through Bosnia's mountains as a student had been an adventure. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims were uprooted in Bosnia by Serb forces. In 1995 the author learned through television reports of Serbian army attacks on Srebrenica. He decided to seek a month's leave to return to Bosnia to see family members, the Celiks.
Huso Celik had raised his family in eastern Bosnia. Latin had been the language of the Drina valley at the time of the Roman Empire. Later the Roman roads fell into disrepair and the Slavic language replaced the Latin. Ottoman Turks invaded in the fourteenth century. The Serbs threw off Ottoman domination in 1804. By 1875 the Ottoman Empire was bankrupt. Hasan Celik, born 1908, never learned to read. Huso Celik was born in 1941. During World War II there were two resistance groups in Yugoslavia, one headed by Tito. In the fall of 1947 Serb teachers taught the peasants on Mt. Zvijezda, the ancestral home of the Celiks. Half the people killed in Yugoslavia in World War II had been killed by each other. This was passed over in the Titoist revisionist history of the war. Social prosperity was introduced. A restored minaret was opened in 1959. In Tito's army national service duty took place outside of a soldier's home area. Huso went to central Serbia and served with Croats, Muslims, Slovenians, ethnic Albanians. Subsistence farmers of Mt. Zvijezda became wage earners. Serbs went to Belgrade, Muslims to Sarajevo. Huso worked for a construction company. In his spare time he played his clarinet. In 1974 Yugoslavia recognized Slavic Muslims as a constitutional nation. By the late 1980's the young men had left the mountain to find jobs. Having televisions, the people watched the Cold War ending. That Yugoslavia was coming apart had been in evidence for years. Workers pilfered, Serbs were hot-tempered, Slovenians demanded free elections. Economic breakdown, (there was massive embezzlement), became clear to everyone.
Milosevic rose in the Communist bureaucracy and took control. The Croats, Albanians, Slovenes, Muslims saw the emerging Serb hegemony. Nationalist euphoria swept over Serbia. The author and his wife Ljiljuana moved to Yugoslavia to report for THE NEW YORK TIMES. Belgrade was dusty. Ljiljana's sister Gordana Celik and her husband Hamed Celik, (Huso's son), lived nearby. Slovenia and Croatia elected non-Communist governments. Milosevic sought to expand Serbia. There were Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia. Tudjman in Croatia antagonized the Serb minority. Nationalism spread to Bosnia. It was forty percent Muslim. Karadzic headed the Serbian party in Bosnia. Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in 1991. In 1991 Milosevic overran Vukovar.
A month before the Bosnian War began in 1992 the author and Hamed saw Huso. A month later Huso had a second heart attack and there was talk of war everywhere. After the Vance-Owen Plan was conceived, the Commander of the UN in Bosnia was General Philippe Morillon. He was no match for General Ratko Mladic, Commander of the Bosnia-Serb Army.
Celik family members are pictured in July 1995 at a tent city at the Tuzla Airport following the fall of Srebrenica. Hiba Celik is shown near the ruins of her house in 1997. By 1993 Srebrenica had become a diplomatic nightmare to officials working on the Bosnian problem. Srebrenica was swelled with refugees in addition to inhabitants and everyone depended upon humanitarian aid. It was both a Muslim enclave and a UN safe area when Mladic sought to close down entry points and choke-off supplies. NATO bombs fell, Serb forces shelled safe areas. There was hostage-taking. After the fall of Srebrenica Muslim men were called out and transported out of the area. Some were killed, and others were held, it was said, for the purposes of a prisoner exchange. Action from Croatia caused some abatement of Serbian aggressive action. Some of the Celik family members were able to move to Canada and begin a new life.
The author has engaged in a tremendous undertaking to trace the fortunes of war through the experiences of family members. He certainly makes the reader feel the pain of the conflict.
biased book about a personal story.......2005-08-19
If we were to take off away the virulent bias of this book and just leave the details of the families struggle we might have a wonderful book. The wiritng is superb, the characters are deep and portrayed well, the history however is deeply flawed. The central theme of this book is that Milosevic conspired to steal land and in doing so launched a war that destroyed the Balkans. We are told the Tudjman, Croatias Catholic president was his 'ally'. THis is however not proven by the burden of history. Tudjmans army rampaged through Bosnia and slaughtered and ethnically cleansed serbs as well as muslims.
We are told here that the idea that the conflict was base don ehtnicity was a scam, which is interesting considering it was the west, like this author, who created the myth of ethnicity and 'ethnic cleansing' in the Balkans. However it is true the conflict is not based solely on land, but rather the diverse nature of the region, with Catholics, Orthodox and Muslims and in this war it was as common for the catholics to be brutal to the orthodox christians as for eithe rto brutalize the muslims.
This book presents a one sided story, a story where Serbs are portrayed not as people but animals and in this books attempt to dehumanize them we see the same ethnic hatred that the book claims doesnt exist. If it was about land then why must this book only tell one side and pretend that half the party to this conflict were wilde beasts and not humans, thinking and breathing like others.
As a tale and as a novella this ia masterful account. it is not history and the judgements on the history of the region either lack understanding or are based on myth.
Seth J. Frantzman
A powerful and disturbing account of the war in Bosnia!.......2005-08-18
Widely acknowledged as one of the best books on the war in Bosnia, Sudetic's book offers a unique insight into the horrors of the Bosnian war. What is it then that separates Sudetic's book from the other books on the war in Bosnia? First, it is extraordinarily well written and highly interesting from the very beginning to the end. It captured my attention from the very moment I started reading it. Even though this book contains almost 400 pages it never becomes boring.
The first section of the book contains a brief yet momentous introduction of the history of Bosnia. It helps explain the root causes of the war in Bosnia, an aspect that will prove invaluable to novice readers on the subject matter. Sudetic then allows the reader to follow one Bosnian family (the Celik family) throughout the entire Bosnian war. As a reader, one inadvertently becomes part of the Celik family; one empathizes with them and shares their deepest emotions and concerns. When the war in Bosnia began, the Celik family fled from their village of Kusupovici to Srebrenica. Srebrenica was by then already under siege and about 40,000 people from the neighbouring villages sought shelter in this little eastern town. Srebrenica was constantly shelled by Bosnian Serb army and only a few U.N. convoys were allowed to enter Srebrenica in order to deliver food and medical supplies to its approximately 40,000 refugees. For three long years Srebrenica's people were isolated from the rest of the world, they had little food, no clean water, electricity and virtually no medical supplies. Diseases and infections were commonplace. People were dying from hunger daily.
Sudetic brilliantly describes the experiences of the Celik's family throughout the war. Will all members of the Celik family manage to survive the war and how will this gruesome war affect their future? What will happen to Paja, Huso, Hiba and Sanela? As a reader, one gets to know their deepest fears, concerns and desires. It is virtually impossible to remain indifferent to their plights when reading the book. Sudetic's book thus stands out from the other literature on the war in Bosnia because it is personal. It is not simply another book about Bosnian people in general, not that there is anything wrong with that. However if you follow one particular family for an extensive period of time you become one with them. You experience their suffering as well as their joy.
As is well known, Srebrenica fell on July 12, 1995 after three years of Serb occupation. What followed in the ensuing days constituted one of the most severe human rights abuses in Europe since World War II. In only a matter of days, Bosnian Serb forces summarily executed approximately 8000 Muslims, one of whom was my grandfather. I remember that day perfectly well and it was one of the worst days of my life. In my opinion, Sudetic provides one of the most detailed accounts of the Srebrenica massacre. Days leading to the massacre are also described in detail. While 8000 Muslims were being slaughtered before the eyes of the entire international community, the U.N. did nothing to stop the bloodshed despite the fact that Srebrenica had been designated a "safe area". In point of fact, the U.N. was completely indifferent to the plight of these people. Sudetic explains this well and also provides numerous documents that corroborate this fact. The U.N. was in fact authorized to order air strikes against Bosnian Serb army but deliberately chose not to do that because they did not want to "exacerbate" the conflict. Instead, they gave Serbs the green light to kill 8000 Muslims and to expel all women and children. The Muslims who were trying to escape from Srebrenica to Tuzla were frequently ambushed by Bosnian Serb army; many of them never made it to Tuzla.
Sudetic further provides a comprehensive account of the atrocities that took place in Srebrenica after the town was overrun by Bosnian Serb army. Muslim men were taken to different locations to be shot. Those who survived have been able to testify about these heinous atrocities. Hurem Suljic had been taken to a meadow along with other Muslim men. Bosnian Serb army then opened fire and one man fell on Suljic. Suljic remained there motionless until the executioners left the site. Another man had also survived the massacre and together the two men managed to escape. Hurem Suljic later testified that the Muslim prisoners were tortured; some had their throats slashed while others were hit on their heads by an axe or a hammer.
Sudetic's book thus gives us a comprehensive and well researched account of the Bosnian war. I have one problem with this book though and that is a flawed and sometimes biased analysis of Bosnian Muslims. When describing Bosnian Muslims, Sudetic frequently relies on the life of the Muslims who lived in the countryside. Sudetic sometimes wrongly assumes that this way of life is characteristic of the entire Islamic community throughout Bosnia. For example, the Muslims who lived in the countryside frequently dressed in "dimije" (traditional clothing for Muslim women of the countryside) and they sometimes covered their heads. One gets the impression that Bosnian Muslims are a primitive people. However, for the overwhelming majority of the urban Muslims this way of life was obsolete and atavistic. Most Muslim women who lived in urban societies dressed and behaved as any contemporary woman of the West. Furthermore, according to one of the foremost experts on the history of Bosnia Noel Malcolm, Bosnian Muslims were among the most secularized Muslims in the world. Therefore, one must conclude that Sudetic's description of Bosnian Muslims is misleading and inadequate.
Aside from this minor shortcoming, this is irrefutably the best book about the war in Bosnia. It is an extraordinarily well written account of the Srebrenica massacre. There are many brilliant books about the war in Bosnia but Sudetic's book stands out from the rest for the following reason: it involves the reader in the story in a way you never thought possible. It makes you angry, happy, sad, agitated and devoid of hope at the same time.
A masterpiece!
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