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The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale

Art Spiegelman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 192 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

At last! Here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). It now appears as it was originally envisioned by the author: The Complete Maus.

It is the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

Tom Standage

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 49 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

World History Through a Few Beverages 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

If you have never enjoyed reading history, this book may change that. But be forewarned, as you read this book, you may develop a thirst for the beverages that are being discussed.

Contents:
Introduction
Chapter 1: A Stone-Age Brew
Chapter 2: Civilized Beer
Chapter 3: The Delight of Wine
Chapter 4: The Imperial Vine
Chapter 5: High Spirits, High Seas
Chapter 6: The Drinks That Built America
Chapter 7: The Great Soberer
Chapter 8: The Coffeehouse Internet
Chapter 9: Empires of Tea
Chapter 10: Tea Power
Chapter 11: From Soda to Cola
Chapter 12: Globalization in a Bottle
Epilogue: Back to the Source
Acknowledgements
Appendix

In A History of the World in Six Glasses, Tom Standage traces world history using six beverages; beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and cola. The Epilogue adds one more to the list: Water. With each drink, Standage explains why and how it came to be, what was happening regionally or globally, and how the drink influenced civilization. Wine is a good example. Early in its development, it was only available in very specific regions. As such, key wine making areas were favorites of kings and sometimes the focus of wars or territory disputes. Finally, to see the vine make its way around the known world is a fascinating trip. Another fact shared by most of the beverages; in the days of cholera and other water born illnesses, drinking beer, wine, coffee, or tea were a good way to remain alive.

You have to commend Standage for this book: it is one of the most unique views of world history. Whether your favorite drink is beer, wine, rum, or water, you are presented with the history of the drink and an excellent tour of the past. In addition, you should go away with an appreciation for all of the beverages as well as an excellent understanding of how these drinks influenced world politics (some of which are still with us). Because Standage uses familiar beverages, you can't help but be drawn into the history of the world. Some chapters are more interesting than others, primarily because your favorite drink isn't central to the chapter. But regardless, you learn something about a particular time in history, using a cup of coffee, a pint of beer, or shot of whiskey. Another benefit of this book - you will have plenty of anecdotes to tell your friends over a beer, a cup of coffee, or a Coke. As an example, look at whiskey. The original phrase for distilled spirits was aqua vitae, or "water of life." The Gaelic for aqua vitae is uisge beatha, which is the origin of the word whiskey. You may think that you are simply having a drink, but you are really consuming history.

This is a fun, informative book and highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

Whatever your favourite tipple, when you pour yourself a drink, you have the past in a glass.

You can likely find them all in your own kitchen — beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, cola. Line them up on the counter, and there you have it: thousands of years of human history in six drinks.

Tom Standage opens a window onto the past in this tour of six beverages that remain essentials today. En route he makes fascinating forays into the byways of western culture: Why were ancient Egyptians buried with beer? Why was wine considered a “classier” drink than beer by the Romans? How did rum grog help the British navy defeat Napoleon? What is the relationship between coffee and revolution? And how did Coca-Cola become the number one poster-product for globalization decades before the term was even coined?

Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America

Brigitte Gabriel

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Total reviews: 348 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Brigitte Gabriel lost her childhood to militant Islam. In 1975 she was ten years old and living in Southern Lebanon when militant Muslims from throughout the Middle East poured into her country and declared jihad against the Lebanese Christians. Lebanon was the only Christian influenced country in the Middle East, and the Lebanese Civil War was the first front in what has become the worldwide jihad of fundamentalist Islam against non-Muslim peoples. For seven years, Brigitte and her parents lived in an underground bomb shelter. They had no running water or electricity and very little food; at times they were reduced to boiling grass to survive.
 
Because They Hate is a political wake-up call told through a very personal memoir frame. Brigitte warns that the US is threatened by fundamentalist Islamic theology in the same way Lebanon was— radical Islam will stop at nothing short of domination of all non-Muslim countries. Gabriel saw this mission start in Lebanon, and she refuses to stand silently by while it happens here. Gabriel sees in the West a lack of understanding and a blatant ignorance of the ways and thinking of the Middle East. She also points out mistakes the West has made in consistently underestimating the single-mindedness with which fundamentalist Islam has pursued its goals over the past thirty years. Fiercely articulate and passionately committed, Gabriel tells her own story as well as outlines the history, social movements, and religious divisions that have led to this critical historical conflict.

Banker To The Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty

Muhammad Yunus

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Total reviews: 77 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Muhammad Yunus is that rare thing: a bona fide visionary. His dream is the total eradication of poverty from the world. In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh. Ninety-four percent of Yunus's clients are women, and repayment rates are near 100 percent. Around the world, micro-lending programs inspired by Grameen are blossoming, with more than three hundred programs established in the United States alone.

Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in "putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long." The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business.

Muhammad Yunus was born in Bangladesh and earned his Ph.D. in economics in the United States at Vanderbilt University, where he was deeply influenced by the civil rights movement. He still lives in Bangladesh, and travels widely around the world on behalf of Grameen Bank and the concept of micro-credit.

Escape from the Deep: A Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew

Alex Kershaw

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The adrenaline-soaked story of nine men who fought the Japanese from America's deadliest submarine, survived its sinkage, and endured months of brutal torture in captivity.

By October, 1944, the U.S. Navy submarine Tang was legendary--she had sunk more enemy ships, rescued more downed airmen, and pulled off more daring surface attacks than any other Allied submarine in the Pacific. And then, on her fifth patrol, tragedy struck--the Tang was hit by one of her own faulty torpedoes. The survivors of the explosion struggled to stay alive in their submerged "iron coffin" one hundred-eighty feet beneath the surface. While the Japanese dropped deadly depth charges, just nine of the original eighty-man crew survived a harrowing ascent through the escape hatch.

But a far greater ordeal was coming. After being picked up by a Japanese patrol vessel, they were sent to a secret Japanese interrogation camp known as the "Torture Farm." They were close to death when finally liberated in August, 1945, but they had revealed nothing to the Japanese--not even the greatest secret of World War II.

A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World's Greatest Market

Jim Rogers

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Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

If the twentieth century was the American century, then the twenty-first century belongs to China. According to the one and only Jim Rogers, who’s been tracking the Chinese economy since he first went to China in 1984, any investor can get in on the ground floor of “the greatest economic boom since England’s Industrial Revolution.” But the time to act is now.

In A Bull in China, you’ll learn which industries offer the newest and best opportunities, from power, energy, and agriculture to tourism, water, and infrastructure. Rogers demystifies the state policies that are driving earnings and innovation, takes the intimidation factor out of the A-shares, B-shares, and ADRs of Chinese offerings, and profiles “Red Chip” companies, such as Yantai Changyu, China’s largest winemaker, which sells a “Healthy Liquor” line mixed with herbal medicines. Plus, if you want to export something to China yourself–or even buy land there–Rogers tells you the steps you need to take.

No other book–and no other author–can better help you benefit from the new Chinese revolution. Jim Rogers shows you how to make the “amazing energy, potential, and entrepreneurial spirit of a billion people” work for you.

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom

Slavomir Rawicz

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Total reviews: 297 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"I hope The Long Walk will remain as a memorial to all those who live and die for freedom, and for all those who for many reasons could not speak for themselves."--Slavomir Rawicz

In 1941, the author and six other fellow prisoners escaped a Soviet labor camp in Yakutsk--a camp where enduring hunger, cold, untended wounds, untreated illnesses, and avoiding daily executions were everyday feats. Their march--over thousands of miles by foot--out of Siberia, through China, the Gobi Desert, Tibet, and over the Himalayas to British India is a remarkable statement about man's desire to be free.

While the original book sold hundreds of thousands of copies, this updated paperback version includes a new Afterword by the author, as well as the author's Foreword to the Polish book. Written in a hauntingly detailed, no holds barred way, the new edition of The Long Walk is destined to outrank its classic status and guaranteed to forever stay in the reader's mind.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

Jack Weatherford

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Total reviews: 127 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Genghis Khan: benevolent despot? 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This is one of the most engaging books on a historical figure that I've ever read. I like the fact that Jack Weatherford boldly states a radical theory --that Genghis Khan and the Mongols literally gave birth to the modern world. When I first saw the title, I was a little taken aback. How could such a dramatic fact be so little known? I was already aware that the Mongols had created the largest empire in history, but not about their many innovations and contributions to the world as we know it.

Appreciating this book and Weatherford's very lively style does not mean I agree with everything in it. I would not presume to argue historical facts, but it seems that Weatherford is highly biased in favor of the Mongols and goes out of his way to compare them favorably to others, especially the Europeans of the time. I prefer an openly biased history to a dull, pseudo-objective one (as pure objectivity probably does not exist), but it's still good to be aware of the biases.

As Weatherford explains it, Genghis Khan was the first true universalist. His empire had the distinct feature of allowing conquered peoples the right to keep their native religions and, at times, even their political systems, so long as they submitted to Mongol rule. Most likely this was done out of a shrewd understanding of politics and power rather than any commitment to a liberal world culture in the modern sense. Still, the result was that trade routes opened up, cultures communicated to an unprecedented degree and disciplines from medicine to warfare advanced as different ethnic groups pooled their knowledge. The Mongols even used paper money, which certainly made trade more efficient and helped to create the modern world economy.

Weatherford presents Genghis Khan as a noble, heroic figure -a kind of benevolent despot. I could not help but wonder how much of Genghis' character and the events of his life are conjectural. Much of the information in this book, as Weatherford tells us, is based on documents only recently translated into modern languages. Scholars have had a hard time over the centuries piecing together Mongol history, as a lot of what we know about them was written by their enemies. I am no historian, but this book did not make clear to me how much we should believe concerning the details of Genghis Khan's life. Historical figures tend to be mythologized. I am talking mainly about details here, such as stories about his childhood; the larger issues are more clear-cut, such as the results of battles and the many innovations that came about during the Mongol empire.

This book can be seen as the flip side of earlier, more conventional perspectives that dismiss the Mongols as mere barbarians. The fact is, Weatherford does describe Mongol behavior that is rather barbaric; he has a tendency to present it in a way that almost makes it seem acceptable --as in (to paraphrase, not quote), "The Mongols only slaughtered a few thousand soldiers and aristocrats, but let the rest of the people who surrendered live." It's true that Europeans, Muslims and Chinese of that time (or ours, for that matter) were ruthless and bloodthirsty in many ways, but the Mongols were not exactly humanitarians either.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in history and the way culture has evolved over the centuries. As I said, I like Weatherford's style and the fact that he states his case strongly, even if I sometimes have reservations about his conclusions. This is actually an exciting and entertaining book to read, which is not typical of subjects like this.

Editorial Review:

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in twenty-?ve years than the Romans did in four hundred. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization. Vastly more progressive than his European or Asian counterparts, Genghis Khan abolished torture, granted universal religious freedom, and smashed feudal systems of aristocratic privilege. From the story of his rise through the tribal culture to the explosion of civilization that the Mongol Empire unleashed, this brilliant work of revisionist history is nothing less than the epic story of how the modern world was made.

Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45

Max Hastings

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Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Hailed in Britain as “Spectacular . . . Searingly powerful” (Andrew Roberts, The Sunday Telegraph), a riveting, impeccably informed chronicle of the final year of the Pacific war. In his critically acclaimed Armageddon, Hastings detailed the last twelve months of the struggle for Germany. Here, in what can be considered a companion volume, he covers the horrific story of the war against Japan.

By the summer of 1944 it was clear that Japan’s defeat was inevitable, but how the drive to victory would be achieved remained to be seen. The ensuing drama—that ended in Japan’s utter devastation—was acted out across the vast stage of Asia, with massive clashes of naval and air forces, fighting through jungles, and barbarities by an apparently incomprehensible foe. In recounting the saga of this time and place, Max Hastings gives us incisive portraits of the theater’s key figures—MacArthur, Nimitz, Mountbatten, Chiang Kai-shek, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. But he is equally adept in his portrayals of the ordinary soldiers and sailors—American, British, Russian, Chinese, and Japanese—caught in some of the war’s bloodiest campaigns.

With unprecedented insight, Hastings discusses Japan’s war against China, now all but forgotten in the West, MacArthur’s follies in the Philippines, the Marines at Iwo Jima and Okinawa, and the Soviet blitzkrieg in Manchuria. He analyzes the decision-making process that led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—which, he convincingly argues, ultimately saved lives. Finally, he delves into the Japanese wartime mind-set, which caused an otherwise civilized society to carry out atrocities that haunt the nation to this day.

Retribution is a brilliant telling of an epic conflict from a master military historian at the height of his powers.

The Places In Between

Rory Stewart

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Total reviews: 157 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Meh 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

What Mr. Stewart did was brave, and interesting in theory, but the narrative that emerges is unavoidably monotonous, as the areas he walked through are pretty much the armpit of the world. Blah blah snow blah grudgingly given sleep space in the mosque blah left the next day blah Kalashnikovs blah they threw rocks at my dog again. I was hoping for a much more eventful story as I love travel writing and have been wanting to know more about that part of the world... and it turns out, not surprisingly, that it's primitive and poor and cold and isolated and just not real interesting. And this is not to denigrate Mr. Stewart: on the contrary he should be admired for telling it like it is.

Editorial Review:

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following.

Through these encounters-by turns touching, con-founding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.