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Titanic's Last Secrets: The Further Adventures of Shadow Divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler (Thorndike Press Large Print Nonfiction Series)

Brad Matsen

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Subjects -> History -> World -> Transportation -> Ships -> Titanic

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

After rewriting history with their discovery of a Nazi U-boat off the coast of New Jersey, legendary divers John Chatterton and Richie Kohler decided to investigate the great enduring mystery of history's most notorious shipwreck: Why did Titanic sink as quickly as it did?

To answer the question, Chatterton and Kohler assemble a team of experts to explore Titanic, study its engineering, and dive to the wreck of its sister ship, Brittanic, where Titanic's last secrets may be revealed.

Titanic's Last Secrets is a rollercoaster ride through the shipbuilding history, the transatlantic luxury liner business, and shipwreck forensics. Chatterton and Kohler weave their way through a labyrinth of clues to discover that Titanic was not the strong, heroic ship the world thought she was and that the men who built her covered up her flaws when disaster struck. If Titanic had remained afloat for just two hours longer than she did, more than two thousand people would have lived instead of died, and the myth of the great ship would be one of rescue instead of tragedy.

Titanic's Last Secrets is the never-before-told story of the Ship of Dreams, a contemporary adventure that solves a historical mystery.

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Psychotherapy, TA & NLP

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 289 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

With more than 4 million copies in print in the English language alone, Man's Search for Meaning, the chilling yet inspirational story of Viktor Frankl's struggle to hold on to hope during his three years as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, is a true classic. Beacon Press is now pleased to present a special gift edition of a work that was hailed in 1959 by Carl Rogers as "one of the outstanding contributions to psychological thought in the last fifty years." Frankl's training as a psychiatrist informed every waking moment of his ordeal and allowed him a remarkable perspective on the psychology of survival. His assertion that "the will to meaning" is the basic motivation for human life has forever changed the way we understand our humanity in the face of suffering.


"If you read but one book this year, Dr. Frankl's book should be that one." —Los Angeles Times
"A compelling introduction to the most significant psychological movement of our day." —Gordon W. Allport, from the Preface

"An enduring work of survival literature." —The New York Times

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

Slavomir Rawicz

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 297 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A real page turner 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

The long walk is one hell of an adventure. It is well written and is difficult to put down once you start to read it. I am sceptical whether it is true. Walking across the Kobi desert with no food or water is a bit difficult to believe. I think a bit more research needs to be done to vouch for the veracity of this story. Whether the book is fact or fiction it is still a very interesting story to read.

A Mythic Tale 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The Long Walk is one of the greatest books I have ever read. The decades long battle over its authenticity is, I think, a testament to its power. Only a work of literature that brings such palpable reality to the reader could have withstood the firestorm of controversy surrounding it from so many corners.

Concerning its authenticity, I think there should be some humility shown on all sides. There are those who would desire to believe it simply because it is a great tale. Others would seek to "burst the bubble" of all involved out of a cynical doubt in the human capacity for greatness.

Several considerations should be made when considering the recently revealed documents disproving Rawicz's claims: 1. Rawicz' story is too detailed to have been entirely fabricated. Whether or not he himself participated in the events he describes is doubtful, but that the events themselves or something like them occurred is, in my mind, undeniable; 2. Placing a great deal of trust in Soviet documents from the Stalin era has never been a wise course to take. The fact that Rawicz, according to these documents, rejoined the Polish Army the day after he was released from the Gulag (remarkable considering the debilitating conditions he obviously suffered from in later life due to his imprisonment), make it seem a little too clean.

The most likely occurrence, in my own mind, is that Rawicz appropriated the story from a group of survivors who underwent a journey similar to the one he describes. The BBC article makes this clear:

"A clue may come from the story of Rupert Mayne, a British intelligence officer in wartime India. In Calcutta in 1942, he interviewed three emaciated men, who claimed to have escaped from Siberia.

Mayne always believed their story was the same as that of The Long Walk - but telling the story years later, he could not remember their names. So the possibility remains that someone - if not Rawicz - achieved this extraordinary feat."

Whatever the case, the story Rawicz communicates possesses a majesty and power that can only belong to the annals of Truth.

Editorial Review:

First published in 1956, an account of a young Polish cavalry officer who was arrested by the Russians, tortured and sentenced to 25 years forced labour. Describes his 3 month journey from Moscow to the prison camp in Siberia, his escape with 6 companions and their journey across the Gobi desert to Tibet and freedom.

The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times

S. Wise Bauer, Susan Wise Bauer

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Total reviews: 116 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This read-aloud series is designed for parents to share with elementary-school children. Enjoy it together and introduce your child to the marvelous story of the world's civilizations.

Now more than ever, other cultures are affecting our everyday lives—and our children need to learn about the other countries of the world and their history. Susan Wise Bauer has provided a captivating guide to the history of other lands. Written in an engaging, straightforward manner, The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child, Volume 1: Ancient Times weaves world history into a story book format. What terrible secret was buried in Shi Huangdi's tomb? Did nomads like lizard stew? What happened to Anansi the Spider in the Village of the Plantains? And how did a six-year-old become the last emperor of Rome?

The Story of the World covers the sweep of human history from ancient times until the present. Africa, China, Europe, the Americas—find our what happened all around the world in long-ago times. Designed as a read-aloud project for parents and children to share together, The Story of the World includes each continent and major people group. Volume 1: Ancient Times is the first of a four-volume series and covers the major historical events in the years BCE 500 to 400 CE, as well as including maps, illustrations, and tales from each culture.

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

Nathaniel Philbrick

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 284 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent and Enthralling Book from a most Perspicacious Author 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This harrowing, hair-raising adventure story and testament to American ingenuity and resourcefulness is a thrill to read. Philbrick recounts the disaster of the Whaleship Essex largely relying on a careful selection of accounts from the memoirs of First Mate Owen Chase and Boatsteerer Thomas Nickerson that are peppered with interesting and informative annotations from a wealth of other sources.

Clearly the author has an advantage in writing about such an exciting and well documented story, but Philbrick sets himself apart in that he lacks the pretension and glibness of many contemporary historians. For example, nautical terms are used throughout, but not in way that is mired in the nitty-gritty (although the notes provide additional depth) and a clearly labeled illustration is quite enabling for the "coof" (off-islander) or layman reader. Furthermore, the numerous asides do not disrupt the story, but enhance it due to the thoughtfulness and subtly of the author.

This is an excellent and enthralling book from a most perspicacious author. Like the piece of twine weaved together and preserved by Essex survivor Benjamin Lawrence to remind Lawrence of his experience, Philbrick creates quite a yarn that will ensure the survival of the story of the Whaleship Essex for generations to come.

Editorial Review:

The ordeal of the whaleship Essex was an event as mythic in the nineteenth century as the sinking of the Titanic was in the twentieth. In 1819, the Essex left Nantucket for the South Pacific with twenty crew members aboard. In the middle of the South Pacific the ship was rammed and sunk by an angry sperm whale. The crew drifted for more than ninety days in three tiny whaleboats, succumbing to weather, hunger, disease, and ultimately turning to drastic measures in the fight for survival. Nathaniel Philbrick uses little-known documents-including a long-lost account written by the ship's cabin boy-and penetrating details about whaling and the Nantucket community to reveal the chilling events surrounding this epic maritime disaster. An intense and mesmerizing read, In the Heart of the Sea is a monumental work of history forever placing the Essex tragedy in the American historical canon.

The Greatest Generation

Tom Brokaw

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Total reviews: 477 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"In the spring of 1984, I went to the northwest of France, to Normandy, to prepare an NBC documentary on the fortieth anniversary of D-Day, the massive and daring Allied invasion of Europe that marked the beginning of the end of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. There, I underwent a life-changing experience. As I walked the beaches with the American veterans who had returned for this anniversary, men in their sixties and seventies, and listened to their stories, I was deeply moved and profoundly grateful for all they had done. Ten years later, I returned to Normandy for the fiftieth anniversary of the invasion, and by then I had come to understand what this generation of Americans meant to history. It is, I believe, the greatest generation any society has ever produced."
        
In this superb book, Tom Brokaw goes out into America, to tell through the stories of individual men and women the story of a generation, America's citizen heroes and heroines who came of age during the Great Depression and the Second World War and went on to build modern America. This generation was united not only by a common purpose, but also by common values--duty, honor, economy, courage, service, love of family and country, and, above all, responsibility for oneself. In this book, you will meet people whose everyday lives reveal how a generation persevered through war, and were trained by it, and then went on to create interesting and useful lives and the America we have today.

"At a time in their lives when their days and nights should have been filled with innocent adventure, love, and the lessons of the workaday world, they were fighting in the most primitive conditions possible across the bloodied landscape of France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, and the coral islands of the Pacific. They answered the call to save the world from the two most powerful and ruthless military machines ever assembled, instruments of conquest in the hands of fascist maniacs. They faced great odds and a late start, but they did not protest. They succeeded on every front. They won the war; they saved the world. They came home to joyous and short-lived celebrations and immediately began the task of rebuilding their lives and the world they wanted. They married in record numbers and gave birth to another distinctive generation, the Baby Boomers. A grateful nation made it possible for more of them to attend college than any society had ever educated, anywhere. They gave the world new science, literature, art, industry, and economic strength unparalleled in the long curve of history. As they now reach the twilight of their adventurous and productive lives, they remain, for the most part, exceptionally modest. They have so many stories to tell, stories that in many cases they have never told before, because in a deep sense they didn't think that what they were doing was that special, because everyone else was doing it too.

"This book, I hope, will in some small way pay tribute to those men and women who have given us the lives we have today--an American family portrait album of the greatest generation."
                
In this book you'll meet people like Charles Van Gorder, who set up during D-Day a MASH-like medical facility in the middle of the fighting, and then came home to create a clinic and hospital in his hometown. You'll hear George Bush talk about how, as a Navy Air Corps combat pilot, one of his assignments was to read the mail of the enlisted men under him, to be sure no sensitive military information would be compromised. And so, Bush says, "I learned about life." You'll meet Trudy Elion, winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine, one of the many women in this book who found fulfilling careers in the changed society as a result of the war. You'll meet Martha Putney, one of the first black women to serve in the newly formed WACs. And you'll meet the members of the Romeo Club (Retired Old Men Eating Out), friends for life.
        
Through these and other stories in The Greatest Generation, you'll relive with ordinary men and women, military heroes, famous people of great achievement, and community leaders how these extraordinary times forged the values and provided the training that made a people and a nation great.


From the Hardcover edition.

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.

Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil

Deborah Rodriguez, Kristin Ohlson

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Total reviews: 101 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills–as doctors, nurses, and therapists–seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought out by Westerners desperate for a good haircut and by Afghan women, who have a long and proud tradition of running their own beauty salons. Thus an idea was born.

With the help of corporate and international sponsors, the Kabul Beauty School welcomed its first class in 2003. Well meaning but sometimes brazen, Rodriguez stumbled through language barriers, overstepped cultural customs, and constantly juggled the challenges of a postwar nation even as she learned how to empower her students to become their families’ breadwinners by learning the fundamentals of coloring techniques, haircutting, and makeup.

Yet within the small haven of the beauty school, the line between teacher and student quickly blurred as these vibrant women shared with Rodriguez their stories and their hearts: the newlywed who faked her virginity on her wedding night, the twelve-year-old bride sold into marriage to pay her family’s debts, the Taliban member’s wife who pursued her training despite her husband’s constant beatings. Through these and other stories, Rodriguez found the strength to leave her own unhealthy marriage and allow herself to love again, Afghan style.

With warmth and humor, Rodriguez details the lushness of a seemingly desolate region and reveals the magnificence behind the burqa. Kabul Beauty School is a remarkable tale of an extraordinary community of women who come together and learn the arts of perms, friendship, and freedom.


From the Hardcover edition.

My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq

Ariel Sabar

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Total reviews: 45 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In a remote and dusty corner of the world, forgotten for nearly three thousand years, lived an ancient community of Kurdish Jews so isolated that they still spoke Aramaic—the language of Jesus. Mostly illiterate, they were self-made mystics and gifted storytellers, humble peddlers and rugged loggers who dwelt in harmony with their Muslim and Christian neighbors in the mountains of northern Iraq. To these descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, Yona Sabar was born.

In the 1950s, after the founding of the state of Israel, Yona and his family emigrated there with the mass exodus of 120,000 Jews from Iraq—one of the world's largest and least-known diasporas. Almost overnight, the Kurdish Jews' exotic culture and language were doomed to extinction. Yona, who became an esteemed professor at UCLA, dedicated his career to preserving his people's traditions. But to his first-generation American son Ariel, Yona was a reminder of a strange immigrant heritage on which he had turned his back—until he had a son of his own.

My Father's Paradise is Ariel Sabar's quest to reconcile present and past. As father and son travel together to today's postwar Iraq to find what's left of Yona's birthplace, Ariel brings to life the ancient town of Zakho, telling his family's story and discovering his own role in this sweeping saga. What he finds in the Sephardic Jews' millennia-long survival in Islamic lands is an improbable story of tolerance and hope.

Populated by Kurdish chieftains, trailblazing linguists, Arab nomads, devout believers—marvelous characters all— this intimate yet powerful book uncovers the vanished history of a place that is now at the very center of the world's attention.

Mein Kampf

Adolf Hitler

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( H ) -> Hitler, Adolf

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 153 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Low Quality Paper / Print 1 out of 5 stars.
1 of 7 people found this review helpful.

[...]

What I read so far is fascinating so I guess I'll have to order another version of this book so I can finish reading it.

Updated 8/30/08
----------------
The [...] symbol above indicates where the editors removed part of my original review. They apparently didn't like exactly the way I said something (about the real source of the paper).

My point was that this book is printed on very thin paper and with low quality ink. Also the type is small. All of these factors combined made it basically impossible to read in all but ideal lighting conditions which is no good for me since I bring my books into restaurants and other places to read them.

At least the copy I purchased was. Maybe I got a bad copy I don't know.

I'm still reading Mein Kampf but from a different publisher where the print quality is better. I'm finding it fascinating for just the historical information alone.

Plus when it was written Hitler had not yet become the famous megalomaniac we all know about today. At the time of writing he was in prison with his buddy Hess after their failed attempt to overthrow the German government.

Jeff Marzano

The Mind of Adolf Hitler the Secret Wartime Report

The Gulag Archipelago: 1918-1956

First Circle

Clint Eastwood Collection: Where Eagles Dare

Editorial Review:

Hitler's infamous prison writings, a manifesto of hatred and a plan for a program of bloodshed and terror.