Book Description
Based on diaries and e-mail correspondence that architect Suad Amiry kept from 1981 to 2004, Sharon and My Mother-in-Law evokes the frustrations, cabin fever, and downright misery of daily life in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Amiry writes elegance and humor about the enormous difficulty of moving from one place to another, the torture of falling in love with someone from another town, the absurdity of her dog receiving a Jerusalem identity card when thousands of Palestinians could not, and the trials of having her ninety-two-year-old mother-in-law living in her house during a forty-two-day curfew. With a wickedly sharp ear for dialogue and a keen eye for detail, Amiry gives us an original, ironic, and firsthand glimpse into the absurdity — and agony — of life in the Occupied Territories.
Customer Reviews:
Superb book - you can't put it down........2007-07-04
I read this book within a day, I just couldn't put it down, it was so beautifully written, and so easy to read.
Suad Amiry has a remarkable ability to say in one sentence what other writers take three pages over. A single sentence can be so thought-provoking, you consider all the many implications that follow from just one statement.
Despite the misery of her situation, Suad's defiance of her occupiers is hilarious - what a courageous and spunky woman! Her frankness and honesty of her own feelings, including her failings, are also very impressive.
Well done to Suad Amiry, I eagerly look forward to her next book - I hope she will write one!
arafat and my hot flashes.......2006-12-26
Arafat and my hot flashes - an Israeli response to Suad Amiry's Sharon and my Mother-in-Law.
After reading Suad Amiry's novel Sharon and my mother in law I was extremely moved ... as an Israeli, living in Tel-Aviv at ta time when all around me people were "bursting at the Seams" or merely committing suicide at their leisure while taking other people's lives, limbs, children and women with them, I could identify myself with her agony at not being able to move freely...
It was Saturday eve; I always felt weird on Saturday eve, uneasy. On a verge of a panic attack. Maybe it was to do with the gloom I experienced at home, as a child on Sat. eve (My mother was a BA -graduate of Auschwitz). It was exactly 2 years ago, me and my not-such-a-great-hero, husband, who was an extremely gifted and intelligent man but the biggest coward if there's ever was one, were having a row, after a long week ... I wanted to venture out. Out of doors...out of our building; living in Tel Aviv had become a Russian roulette ... the streets were very quiet and empty ... not a dog in sight, the stray cats had totally disappeared, everyone was waiting for the next one, and we didn't know where it would come from. I wanted to go to the movies.
"Are you out of your mind?!!!" Gideon screamed. I couldn't sit at home anymore I had to go out. To a coffee place, "A coffee place?!!! Now?!!" Only yesterday one of the most popular coffee places in Tel Aviv blew up.
"Ok then, the bar around the corner is always empty! Why would a suicide bomber come there, to kill us and the barman?". I thought that was reasonable enough.
"I don't know why?" argued Gideon back "he might just get fed up half way to the Hilton, did you think about that?".
I tried the movies, again.
"Crowded places?!!! Hello? Anybody home?", pointing at my head.
"but we never had a suicider at the cinema!!", I tried to reason.
"Exactly!!!", exclaimed Gideon with a big smile, winning the argument.
I felt a hot flash coming on. It was August and I just had to have some air. "I don't care!!!", I screamed, "I am going out!!! Now!"
All of a sudden a siren was heard, and another one and another one, a string of sirens always meant a suicide bomber, and the ambulances were rushing to the scene. We looked at each other with terror and turned on the TV. There was a suicide bomber at Michael's Pub, a few minutes away from us. It was my son's favorite hang out; thank God he had been living in Holland for the last few years. He didn't even come home for a visit; I wouldn't let him, my only son...
Gideon, quickly rushed to the phone to ring his three children (from his 2 ex wives) they were all in their twenties ... that was his usual routine, every time a bomber hit the town. Then he would take his clooney (Cloonex - a tranquilizer) I was always angry when he took it, being a practitioner of Chinese medicine, it was totally against my principals. But he couldn't care less. He was slowly becoming addicted to clooney.
We stayed at home glued to the TV watching the horrible scenes of children, women, blood, screaming, etc etc. Gideon began his usual snores beside me, the clooney had knocked him out!
The next day we heard on the news that Palestinians were under curfew ....
There are always three sides to every divorce: the wife, the husband and the truth...
We are having a terrible, endless bloody row: it's time to stop talking about the past. I would expect an educated person like Suad not to live in the past, but to accept our existence in Israel and to start talking from that point. We have no where else to go, and the experience of living as a Jew outside Israel has not been very successful ... I could attach a picture of my mother's green number tattooed on her arm, she is only 74, she was 12 when they took her to the camps, one of the last survivors in the world ... Tell me Suad, the truth: this is not about the occupied territories. Barak begged Arafat to take it back. This is about Jaffa...according to your book. Do you expect my mother to go back to Czechoslovakia? And look for her confiscated home? And what about me? I was born here, am I to take a dive in the sea?
Yours sincerely,
Yael Stern O'Dwyer
Worth reading with some caveats for the uninformed reader.......2006-09-16
I enjoyed reading this book but was chilled at the author's inclusion of "1929" as a year of Palestinian "pride" without mention of the atrocities of the Hebron pogroms. "Text without context is pretext" as the PLO's old friend Jesse Jackson used to remind us. Tom Segev's One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate (which alot of Amazon reviewers think has an anti-Zionist bias) would be a good corrective for the reader new to these issues.
Amiry is not a fanatic or a fundamentalist and this is her P.O.V. and her life. Can she address the moral failures of the Palestinian leadership, beginning with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and ending in Hamas? Maybe, but this is not that book.
Our hope for peace? We're in trouble.......2006-09-03
I picked up this book at Ben-Gurion airport at a time when I could have used an uncommonly witty look at life under the Occupation, but alas, I found nothing witty or uncommon about Suad Amiry's wonderfully named but lazily written screed -- and if you are a thinking person, you'll find nothing funny about her bigotry.
Some parts rattled me, but it wasn't her so-called reportage, which anyone familiar with the region will recognize as the usual embroidering. I am not saying that life under occupation is not difficult and sometimes brutal. However, my editor's antenna went up more than once. Naturally, Amiry's stories are impossible to verify.
No, it was her attitude throughout the book that unnerved me. For instance, Amiry dismisses out-of-hand the very public military inquiry into reports of looting by Israeli soldiers. And yet she cheerleads without shame for Palestinian thievery, and even opines that Palestinians aren't stealing enough from Jews.
And the child-free Amiry treats us to a charming vignette, her tacit approval ringing loud and clear, of Arab mothers warning their mischievous children: "Behave or the Israeli soldiers will shoot you."
Interestingly, on my flight to Israel, just in time for the Israel-Hizbollah war, I read Amos Oz's new book, an essay, really, called "How to Cure a Fanatic." And one of his cures is humor. If you can laugh at yourself, you are in no danger of becoming a fanatic. Sadly, Amiry can make fun of her neighbors and relatives, and she can indulge in the most racist of rants against Jews, knowing someone will find them funny. But she cannot laugh at herself. I suppose we should be grateful that she left out the hilarious phenomenon of suicide bombers.
In the end, I pitied Amiry -- an obviously unstable middle-aged woman who I suspect would have been unstable even if she had stayed in her native Jordan. If the Israeli occupation hadn't driven her to distraction, something else most assuredly would have. But if you can blame the Occupation for your woes, so much the better. How good and pleasant it is to be a victim. How little responsibility you bear.
Life OVER the Occupation.......2006-07-09
Suad Amiry's book is very witty and easy to read. The book is based on a compilation of emails, letters and Amiry's recollection of the various events. Amiry offers a portrayal of life of a relatively well off Palestinian family under Israeli occupation. The Israeli occupation and the siege of their city feature prominently in the book but almost as natural disasters or "Act of God" ..so they are there thrown into the mix making ordinary complex life even more complicated. The politics of the occupation are touched upon but clearly what is central is just the day to day life.
The title of the book is very much a reflection of the light hearted style of the book but also of the very menacing undertones. In the United States Sharon largely has(d) the reputation of being a tough minded and determined leader and with the Gaza withdrawal in 2005 as a peacemaker; whereas in most of the world outside of the US Sharon is seen as a ruthless cruel man responsible for the death and destruction of many who was sanctioned by his own country and was even wanted for trial on war crime charges in Europe. For the Palestinians I imagine Sharon had simply been a brutal merciless monster; the title Sharon & My Mother in Law with that background is therefore very ironic! A daughter - mother in law relationship in a middle eastern environment is never straight forward ..the very words mother in law carry a whole world of conations. The very title of the book comes across funny to any Middle Eastern; equating or even putting Sharon & mother in law in the same sentence carries with the wit and the determination that comes across in Amiry's words.
Many reviewers of this book talked about the book illustrating the humanity of the Palestinians, I doubt if that has been on Amiry's mind; for those who doubt the humanity of the Palestinians better read John Grisham or watch Pirates of the Caribbean; this book celebrates the humanity of the Palestinians and the triumph of their spirit.
Book Description
Many people have heard of the Hunley, the experimental Confederate submarine that sank the USS Housatonic in a daring nighttime operation. Less well known, however, is that the Hunley was not alone under the waters of America during the Civil War. Both the Union and Confederacy built a wide and incredible array of vessels that could maneuver underwater, and many were put to use patrolling enemy waters. In Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, Mark Ragan, who spent years mining factory records and log books, brings this little-known history to the surface. The hardcover edition, Union and Confederate Submarine Warfare in the Civil War, was published to wide acclaim in 1999. For this new paperback edition, Ragan has revised and updated the text to include the full story of the Hunley's recovery and restoration
Customer Reviews:
Great book!.......2006-05-25
I'm only about halfway through this book, but so far I love it! I've been reading it in preparation for writing a paper about Civil War submarines, and it's an incredibly interesting and fact-filled book. I first heard about the Hunley a couple months ago, and in reading this book, I've learned that many other submarines existed during the Civil War--on both sides! If you are interested in Naval history, Civil War history, or just history in general, I highly recommend this book!
A Glaring Factual Error.......2004-03-18
While this is THE BIBLE for Civil War submarine fans, Regan makes a huge error regarding the history of the Intelligent Whale.
He says crew members were killed in testing the boat (not true- not one person died on the Whale.) He also says it is at the Washington Navy Yard (it is not - it is at the Army National Guard Militia Museum at Sea Girt, New Jersey and has been since April of 1999. See
http://www.nj.gov/military/museum/militia.pdf
Well covered subject.......2004-01-16
This is an excellent look at all of the evidence available
of all attempts by both North and South to create the first
viable submarines.It's well written and carefully notes when the
writer's words are hypotheses rather than fact. Unfortunately for the overall story, many documents were lost when the Union
burned Richmond to the ground. Many were also destroyed because submarines fell under the cloak of secrecy and many records
were lost in the attempt to avoid postwar guilt, should such machines be considered "unfair" war devices. A very fine coverage of a little known area of the War Between the States..
The Infernal Machines of the Civil War.......2003-06-10
As other reviewers have already noted, this is a fantastic book.
The author has fully researched the subject and presents details of many little known facts from the first Confederate submarines which attempted unsuccessful underwater attacks to the first Union submarine that had been intended to sink the ironclad Merrimac (Virginia). The book goes far beyond the history of the Hunley and certainly is a must for anyone interested in the Civil War or the history of the development of submarines. Highly recommended.
Book Description
This second book in the series lists the ships of the U.S. Navy and the Confederate Navy during the war between the North and South and the years immediately following--a significant period in the evolution of warships, the use of steam propulsion, and the development of ordnance. Other books on the subject simply do not provide the wealth or variety of information brought together here by Paul Silverstone. Each ship's size and time and place of construction are given along with particulars of naval service. Historical details include actions fought, damage sustained, prizes taken and ships sunk, dates in and out of commission, as well as when the ship left the navy, names used in other services, and the ultimate fate of each ship. Close to 150 photographs, including one of the Confederate cruiser Alabama recently uncovered by the author, bring the ships to life. Accurate and up-to-date, the coverage provided in this single volume saves readers time and the inconvenience of trying to track down information located in numerous books.
Customer Reviews:
Definitive reference, the "Jane's" of Civil War ships.......2007-04-02
As others have noted, Paul Silverstone's book is not a study of the U.S. and Confederate navies themselves, but rather of the many vessels that constituted the navies. Every known vessel is listed and organized by type and class. The format is both pictorial and tabular. The encyclopedic nature of the work makes it an excellent reference companion when studying any American Civil War naval action.
Silverstone begins with a brief introduction, then a section explaining the presentation format of the data, provides a list of abbreviations, and then includes a section on naval ordnance by W.J. Jurens before proceeding to the bulk of the work. Civil War Navies is divided into two parts. Part I covers U.S. Navy warships and is divided into the following chapters: Armored Vessels, Unarmored Steam Vessels, Acquired Combatant Vessels, Service Vessels, Sailing Ships, The Mississippi River Fleet, The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, and the United States Coast Survey. Part II presents the Confederate States Navy warships and includes the following chapters: Introduction, Armored Vessels, Unarmored Steam Vessels, Area Defense Forces, Privateers, Blockade Runners, and Tenders. The book concludes with an appendix list of shipbuilders, a bibliography, and index of ship names.
Typical entries are arranged by class with a short table of names, builders, lay down date, launch date, and commissioning. Photographs of the actual vessels are included where available. Below the vessel name list for the class are tonnage, dimensions, machinery (propulsion), ship's complement, and armament. Differences between vessels of the same class are noted here, and rearmament is also listed where known. Further notes are then provided, then the service records, (sometimes with mention of casualties), and known captures of enemy vessels.
I highly recommend Mr. Silverstone's work as an indispensable reference to those studying American Civil War naval warfare
Finally - a "Jane's" for the Civil War!.......2004-12-20
This book has practically everything you need to know about Civil War naval ships in an easy to read "Jane's" type format - sorted into categories such as armored vessals, unarmored steam vessals, sailing ships, etc. and listing tonnage, armaments, complement, and a brief service record for each ship. As far as I can tell, the research is impeccable - quite a few photos never seen before. A real labor of live. The book is a little overpriced at $50, especially since it does not include other country's navies, have any maps, or include any other "goodies", but is really the only resouce of its kind for Civil War naval buffs.
Excellent supplementary book.......2001-04-22
This book is an ideal companion to other histories of the Civil War. Its title, however, is a bit misleading. It is a book about ships, not about navies. It gives the vital statistics and brief service records for all the Union and Confederate ships but contains little else. Its real value is that it "puts a face" to the ship names in most civil war histories.
Book Description
In Confederate Shipbuilding, William N. Still Jr. cogently demonstrates the real grounds for the Confederacy's failure to build a successful navy. The South's major problems with shipbuilding concerned facilities, materials, and labor. To each of these subjects the author devotes a chapter, and then concludes by joining these problems to the larger issues of the Civil War.
Still argues that the Confederate navy's difficulties in construction were mainly caused by military, geographic, and political factors--not by lack of resources or the inefficiency of Southern naval officers. Problems caused by internal dissension--states' rights quarrels and interservice rivalries--were characteristic of other theaters of the war; yet, Still shows, the navy was particularly affected, being the stepchild of a war department that was land-minded. This careful study therefore contributes not only to our understanding of the failure of the Southern shipbuilding program, but also to our knowledge of the reasons for the downfall of the Confederate States of America.
Customer Reviews:
A brief study of Confederate shipbuilding.......2007-08-12
William N. Still, Jr.'s "Confederate Shipbuilding" is a short, older (1969 for the 1st edition, 1987 2nd edition) study of the Confederacy's wartime shipbuilding program. Brevity can be a virtue, but in such a narrow subject appealing to fewer readers, it fails to satiate the reader's appetite. This quick read is divided into just five chapters: The Program, Facilities, Materials, Labor, and Conclusions.
The author uses a simple narrative format for his 81 pages of text. Eleven pages of notes, nine pages of bibliography, and an index follow. There are a few lined drawings of ships and ordnance as well as some sketches. Notably absent are any tables to provide the reader with a better statistical understanding or summary. There are no maps to illustrate the various centers of shipbuilding, ordnance, etc.
Still's discussion and conclusions appear well supported and I find little fault with them. He points to problems such as the government's laissez-faire approach to war industry and Davis' reluctance to intercede using central authority even in squabbles between departments. He downplays the lack of production facilities for the most part and instead focuses on the more critical lack of transport, raw materials, and labor.
The South lacked sufficient rail transport to move raw materials and fuel to production facilities as well as moving the armor plate to the shipyards to be fitted. The resultant delays were catastrophic to the CS Navy's efforts. By necessity, the naval building program had to be distributed, but that also meant it required prompt transportation--something the South's lagging infrastructure could not accommodate.
Material like iron and coal were also not available in sufficient quantities at the foundries to keep them fully operational. Some of this was due to transport limitations, some to the misfortunes of losing territory, and some to insufficient available labor.
The labor shortage is one that appears to have been mostly due to the Davis' administration's mismanagement. Skilled artisans and mechanics were too often retained by the army or conscripted. Davis and the Secretaries of War failed to appreciate the negative impact this had on war effort of key industries. For want of a few men, the whole war effort suffered. Slaves were increasingly used for skilled positions to attempt to fill the void.
The building program itself perhaps suffered most from trying to build too many vessels at once. Many vessels were never completed or were burned to prevent capture--a waste of effort the South could ill afford.
This is more of a summary work than a definitive analysis. The reader can find most of the same information in larger works about the Confederate Navy and supply.
Product Description
The result of more than fifteen years of research, Ironclad Down is a treasure trove of detailed information about one of history s most famous vessels. Describing the fascinating people--Stephen Russell Mallory, John Mercer Brooke, John Luke Porter, et al.--who conceived, designed and built one of the world's first ironclads as well as describing the ship itself, Carl Park offers both the most thoroughly detailed, in-depth analysis to date of the actual architecture of the Virginia and a fascinating, colorful chapter of Civil War history.
Average customer rating:
- Errors mar an otherwise useful work
- Great reference
- General descriptions of Civil War Ironclads
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Warships of the Civil War Navies
Paul H. Silverstone
Manufacturer: Naval Inst Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 General
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Military Science
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General
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Naval Operations
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History of Technology
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ASIN: 0870217836 |
Customer Reviews:
Errors mar an otherwise useful work.......2003-04-16
Warships of the Civil War Navies consists of data tables listing and describing Union and Confederate naval vessels. These tables are taken directly from post-war government publications. There is very little original material in the book. Its value, however, is in bringing this information into a single volume.
It would also be of value for the numerous photographs illustrating the major ship classes, but this is where the problem lies. Some of the photos are incorrectly identified. The photo on p. 159 that is labeled as the USS Conestoga is actually the Tyler. On the following page the photo identified as the Lexington is in reality the Conestoga. Below it is a correctly labeled second photo of the Tyler. I'm not familiar enough with the other ship classes to say if there are additional mistakes, but on the basis of these rather blatant errors I would not want to trust or recommend the book as a pictorial reference.
Great reference.......2001-10-03
It is a general description on nearly all vessels of the ACW. Format entry for all vessels including small tugs. I found it to be a great reference for tabletop wargaming the ACW navy period. Many authors of game rules should read this. It lists all the guns and modifications to the number and type of guns during the war. However, early sailing vessels used in the war are lightly covered and can be found in detail in another book for that period.
General descriptions of Civil War Ironclads.......1997-12-08
Mr. Silverstone gives a general description of Civil War ironclads with a few pictures included in the book. The descriptions are the same layout for each ship describing the same characteristics, but if a basic general reference of almost all ironclads used during the civil war is what you are looking for, this is the book.
Average customer rating:
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The Confederate States Navy at Mobile, 1861 to August 1864
William N Still
Manufacturer: Alabama State Dept. of Archives and History
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Boat Building
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Confederacy
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ASIN: B0007FYTU0 |
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