Zed
I have no abilty to discuss the rights or wrongs of Cutlers birds eyes views of the events in this book such as Altamont but then who has?
Cutler writes, in fact enjoys writing, about the sheer quantity of drugs used by all there, so that must make for some hazy days that could be hard to recall. Be that as it may, it is a breezy and easy to read book that held my attention from beginning to end.
As to Cutler, he has made it clear he holds no regrets about his rock and roll ride and that attitude is hard to be a critic of.
Recommended to anyone that has a passing interest in The Stones and the Dead and those heady times.
90 pages in and I have had enough. It is highly unusual for me to not finish a book but this one is leaving me bored. It attempts to write a popular history but fails. It is written in a way that in my opinion I may have enjoyed in high school but is now dull and uninteresting. Constant ancdotes and parables are not my style and I think I will move on.
I have found this book a bit difficult to write about. It is interesting in that it has gone into areas that I have never really considered. Would I have given thought that the ability to domesticate plants and animals was a consideration when thinking of the continental differences between the east west axis of Eurasia compared to the north-south divide in both the Americas and Africa? Probably not.
I suppose this is a book that is more based on the environment of peoples over the last 13,000 years and with that their opportunities to use that environment that they just happened to be born into. Interestingly the book gives little consideration to capitalism as a factor in some parts of human kinds march to modern prosperity. I suggest that each reader will make of that what they will in terms of how they view their history. In the end a touch long but a minor quibble. I will read more by the author eventually.
For those that like oral history this is essential. Well presented in chronological order with everyone from the school children, the house wife, the front-line soldier and even Kamikaze failures, all are represented. For a peoples who are generally reticent to speak this is a must for those that have a thirst for Japanese wartime knowledge.
Superb read. Placing this book into historical context, written and published in 1940/41 this must have been seen to close for comfort for those that gave total support to Stalinism. Pre-dating Orwell's 1984 there is a constant sense of the world weary in the character of Rubashov as he comes to grips with his imminent demise. Easily standing the test of time this novel is a must read for those that have an interest in the show trials that racked the USSR in the 1930's.
It has been interesting to read this book 20 years after publication. A very readable mix of history and travel and with that some very interesting events that would pass the reader by generally. There are a couple of very strong chapters, “Tristan”, “St Helena” and the “Falklands” for example. “Pitcairn and other territories” just seems an ill fit. The final chapter “Some Reflections” seems dated. The Further reading seems perfunctory.
In the end an easy read so it was never that hard to read past the dated history. I found that Winchester wrote a mix of love and despair and at times a fair bit of sarcasm about the remnants of the now (almost) gone Empire and with that I suggest that this would have been a fine read on release.
I would have thought that the “A Brief History” series would be aimed at the reader who has a passing interest in the specific subject and just wants to be educated with out delving into the more academic tomes that may be available. I would have thought that the “A Brief History” series would also require good footnotes, a chronology and a bibliography as to where to go next if ones interest is piqued. Most of all it should cover its subject with an easy to read and accessible text. This book covers all that is required of a brief history. Sources covered and explained. Made the subject matter a breeze to read and best of all left one hankering for more.
I have now read a few of these A Brief History's and they are in general very good with the odd one being superb in doing what they should set out to do. This one by Jonathan Clements is as good as it gets. Highly recommended to the lay reader.
My knowledge of China is limited to a primer I read recently and the appetite was certainly whetted. This “a Brief History” has no less whetted the interest and China is now a subject I will read with anticipation. There is, obviously, 3 millennia of history to cover and if I have a little bit of criticism of the book it tends to struggle to cover the dynasties themselves. Be that as it may what could the book have been called??? The coverage is therefore limited and so discusses specific historical events more known to the westerner. Confucianism and the Boxer rebellion for example. But for those such as me who knew little as to why the Chinese have writen characters through to the repulsive binding of women's feet this brief history imparted knowledge is ideal to whet the appetite. Another good read in the “A Brief History” serious.
Tedious hardly describes this book. It took all of my will power to finish. Why 2 stars then some may ask. Because at a bare minimum parts were interesting and the reformation is a very interesting time in European history that even an overblown tome such as this can hardly ruin.
Elton writes in a style that to be blunt neither excites, enthrals, let alone holds the attention. To make matters worse there is almost a sense of proselytising that is annoying to the point that I came close to stopping and just putting the book away forever. But on I went and with that reached the most inane sentence I have read in a history book of some note for a very long time.
“In the face of the long and ramifying controversy, sadness is the only proper feeling: sadness at the willingness of historians to worship the graven image set up by the sociologist” WHAT? Yes I am taking a specific sentence and not giving context. Be that as it may it came at the end of a chapter Elton spent an entirety on ranting about Marxist theory towards the Reformation and protestant capitalism. I suppose that this was first released in 1963 at the height of the cold war and Elton being of German extraction was writing for the conservative west hence his view. No issue with that but one surely has to see the mote in one own eye when accusing others of being sociologist when what`should have been a riveting chapter on Calvin became a theological treatise. For the sadness of a historian being a sociologist I give you the sadness of an historian being a theologist.
This is not for the laymen delving into the newly found world of the reformation. It is not popular history y any stretch and must surely be aimed at the individual who is well read on the subject and looking to delve into past thoughts when the world was full of east west tensions and just maybe the historian thought that this mattered when telling history.
I have no idea if Fontana originally released the History of Europe series as popular history but if this is indicative popular history they did not.
Very good. My knowledge of Chinese history was, and still is to tell the truth, very limited. But this nice primer is the perfect introduction. Gordon Kerr has written a fast paced short history that has me salivating for more.
As good on the 2nd read. I have delved deeper into a couple of the subjects in this book, The Great Leap Forward comes to mind. The author has done the subject justice in only 4 pages.
The thing about rating a book under such a limited system such as a star rating is that on a personal level one can rate a classic as much as an obscure history tome. This is because in the end it is what one gets out of the book be it entertainment for the sheer enjoyment of a ripping yarn or for the information that is learnt. There have been plenty of fine books that I have learnt a lot from that I have rated highly but others have not. Fine. That is life.
But it has been an interesting read so far on goodreads as to how this book has been viewed. For what it is worth I do not particularly agree with any of the criticism. For a start I read that it was critical of the allies who were in fact the good guys. Well yes and in my opinion not once did the author question the integrity of The Allies. Several times he mentioned the good intentions of the allies be that the way they fought the Nazi's or how they liberated the camps such as Belsen. In fact on page 423 of my copy William I. Hitchcock writes with profound wisdom and sadness about the inability of the Allies to understand Jewish thinking as to their liberation and how it affected the future to this day with the issues that are the middle east. As he wrote “There is to be no “new life “ but a conscious carrying of the recent past into the future” The victims had had enough and with that were not going to be what the Allies wanted them be, be it nice and friendly and clean and thankful for the US nor was it going to accept the British trials at Belsen as “justice being seen to be done” in a civilised manner. Who needed civilised after what they had been through? I for one do not understand that but then I have not had to live in my own excrement for months on end while being tormented by a most vicious regime.
Parts of the first hand accounts in this book bought me close to tears. In some cases just for the naivety of the survivors. The French Jewess returns to Paris to be met by her brother who asks where her luggage was. Examples like this appear periodically and have made me realise that I too was as naive to the trials and tribulations of the displaced and I consider my self fairly well read on wartime history. As to the civilians caught up in the cross fire! could I have understood what it was like to see my neighbours dead? Understood even being wounded in crossfire? Understood undernourishment to the point of malnutrition? Understood any part of these horrors?
This book deserves high ratings just because of it's humanitarian attempt to expose the destitution of those that deserved better. Yes “us” allies did our best but be that as it may to be annoyed that we had criticism of our best is in my opinion disappointing in the least. The author of this book is to be congratulated at his attempt to make a wider audience think about war as more than a goodies and baddies* situation.
*This is a reference to a less than mature comment by the then leader of the opposition and now Prime Minister of Australia made in relation to the civil war in Syria.
Under normal circumstances this would have received 5 stars as it is as good as Liddell Harts one volume tome I read in my youth. The final chapter has covered various opinion of the author, not that I have an issue with that per se, but to mention the present state of Russia under Putin lets the chapter down somewhat as histories such as this should be of the ages and not this age. A minor quibble in the end maybe?
Ultimately though this was a very good read indeed. The mixture of military and oral history gave this a readability that the average reader would have enjoyed. No dry reading at all and Hastings is to be admired for being able to appeal to a vast audience with a fast paced volume that I would recommend to those that would like an overview of what is already a very dense and highly covered subject.
I found this hard going. There is no doubt that as someone who has never really thought about Neurology prior to reading this book it could be an interesting subject if some of the the language was not so dense. On the very first page alone we get aphonia, aphemia, alexia with the only other ia mentioned that I knew being amnesia. I have to admit I was under the impression that this was a book for the layman but in truth is was not. Oliver Sacks talked to those that understood. A bit of a missed opportunity in my opinion.
“The best work of modern history I have ever read” says A N Wilson on the cover. The cover praise is gushing as we get “masterpiece” from Oliver Kamm and “at last the story can be told” by Orlando Figes. I have to say that I have come out of this book extremely disappointed and for many reasons.
The best work of modern history is as ridiculous a comment and as to Masterpiece? Evans Reich trilogy just kills this book for the sheer brilliance of the telling of the subject as opposed to a limited focus on 3 nations and a constant dose of wide eyed polemic mixed in. As to the story being finaly being told the story has been told countless times and if it was all new why the extensive bibliography?
There is no denying the appalling struggles with totalitarian communist regimes that the masses were forced to endure in the eastern parts of Europe after the fall of Nazi Germany. The vast humanity that had endured Nazi suffering deserved better but that does not make this book with its wide eyed and bushy tailed presentation any better.
Lets take the chapter on Ethnic Cleansing as an example. Russian soldiers treated the German civilians appallingly no doubt but the author seems shocked at times. Why? Had not the Germans just committed atrocity after atrocity on Russian civilians, not only with the gun but by starvation and many other means? Did the author expect some charity? How naive!
The many examples of badly written prose is for me rather astonishing. Lets take this statement about travel. “According to the Interior Ministry statistics, only 9360 crossed the border for any reason in 1951, of whom only 1980 were travelling to capitalist countries” Well yes. We are reading about a country ravished by WW2 that not too far forward is a poverty stricken totalitarian regime with controls over the populace. But what we get a couple of aghast “only”s as if the then Polish government was going to conform to modern western freedom of travel.
The final chapter, Revolutions, finishes with a polemic on everyone being wrong. This is not a writing on history at all and is out of place as to what the chapter should have been about. And as to the Epilogue I just wonder the point. I want history, not another polemic aimed at a modern reader who still seems to think that there is a red menace out there. I mean do others who have praised this book really in their heart feel that the eastern European countries were particularly liberal prior to Nazi and Communist takeovers after 1939 as implied by the author? Free trade does not by itself make Poland, to use as an example, a liberal nation prior to 1939.
This book is as big a failure as I have read in a long time. The gushing praise just had me salivating but I am left very wanting. There must be better books on this subject than this, a book that to me is just a journalistic pursuit aimed at making a western audience reading the Murdoch Press and watching Fox News somehow think that their very way of life is till under attack.
There is a good book in here somewhere. The first 3 chapters were very frustrating. Almost an exercise in name-dropping and naming the names dropped and what they ate. Maybe an exaggeration but at times I thought I was reading a series of newspaper items. The last three chapters picked up somewhat as it got a bit more meaty but in the end I am not sure the awards nor the positive reviews were earned. So very very light weight.
A fine read indeed. The third and final of Jones soldier trilogy. I was not expecting this to reach the heights of From Here to Eternity, few novels can, but this was certainly up there with The Thin Red Line.
Anyone that writes a suicide that makes the hairs stand on end knows how to write. This is not a book for the faint hearted and as one gets through the story of the 4 protagonists one senses that their life of, by some standards, depraved sexual needs, booze culture, their endless nightmares of things that they as young men (and old) should not see is sending them over the edge.
The death of the author prior to finishing the final three chapters is obviously disappointing but I for one am not a critic of the publisher for the overview that was written from the Jones descriptions of what he intended prior to his passing. Why should anyone attempt to write in his style anyway. This would have made the book a false record of what he had to say about post traumatic stress disorder anyway.
A very enjoyable popular history and hard to be too critical. As the cover blub says “action packed...” Be that as it may there are a couple of spelling mistakes, hardly the authors fault, and the lack of footnotes make me find this style of history less enjoyable than it might have been.
A pity really as there is a magnificent Further Reading chapter at the end and the Conclusion was also a good read. In the end though I just find it hard to go past a chapter starting with a sentence that starts with “Coventry buzzed with excitement” Really? Who said? How do you know?
I rather enjoyed this book. One of those that could be delved into as the mood took. Each chapter more an essay on the specific subject and no doubt some would not be happy with that. But for a bit of less than dry reading it more than hits the spot as entertainment. Some would not be happy with the book title. Hardly kingdoms at times that should not detract from the book. Some may not like the songs and poems interspersed but again it is more a book aimed at entertaining history. I like the style that Davies writes in as well. As much as I enjoy the dry academic tomes there is nothing wrong with writing for the layman. A nice read and I will delve further into the authors work one day.
