A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East

Book Description

Wonderful....No book published in recent years has more lasting relevance to our understanding of the Middle East. Los Angeles Times

Customer Reviews:

A Major Source of Historical Perspective.......2007-10-01

I wish to second Robert Steele's 5-star review of "A Peace to End All Peace", which was posted yesterday. I had ample time to read the book thoroughly, not in the stands at my son's Little League game, some years ago. It's worth a careful and thoughtful reading; no other book I know of sets the stage for understanding the Middle East in the 20th C as conprehensively. And after you finish it, I'd recommend "All the Shah's Men" as the key text for understanding America's embroglio with Iran.

Supporting Links and Passing Praise.......2007-09-25

I am forty books behind in actual reading, but I had the pleasure of scanning this book while on the sidelines of my son's football practice, and it is, as so aptly described by the best of the reviews, breathtaking.

The sentence that grabbed me is in the final paragraph, where the author sums up the roots of the Middle Eastern troubles as being directly on the heads of the English in particular, who lied, cheated, and stole without mercy. He says of Loyd George: "His political deviousness and his moral and financial laxness were never forgotten." Would that this were so, for Dick Cheney and George Bush are our Lloyd George.

I have written a full summative review of a book that complement's this author's sensible account, and reading that review before reading this book could be helpful. The other books also support the view that we are our own worst enemy, that there is plenty of money with which to make the world heaven on earth, but rule by secrecy, predatory capitalism, and fascism disguised as democracy has looted the planet and picked the pocket of the individual taxpayer while destroying the middle class. We are repeating history, in part because we have one of the most poorly educated populations with respect to history and global cultures, than ever before. The Director of the Central Intelligence Agency has taken to complaining recently that he cannot find enough qualified recruits in our shallow pool of "worldly" talent.

The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State

The key point of the above book is that the Treaty of Westphalia and the creation of nation-states as soverign entities with unrestricted powers within their own borders--borders created by the English and other invasive colonizing powers with the US the most active in the last 200 years--were huge mistakes. We should instead have at least made Indigenous Peoples co-equal, and understood, and respected, tribal boundaries established over centuries. Ignorance and hubris/arrogance combine with greed at the corporate and dictator levels (see Ambassador Palmer's book on "Breaking the Real Axis of Evil" to understand why our White House loves 42 of the 44 dictators on the planet, and Tim Weiner's "Legacy of Ashies" for why CIA went straight into the business of supporting dictators as proxy bullies). Paul Bremer had it right: the root cause of terrorism is us. See my comment for a note on Chinese Irregular Warfare that just took force off the table as a US option.

See also
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency
The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy
Breach of Trust: How Washington Turns Outsiders Into Insiders

On the positive side, but Amazon only allows ten active links, see
Yochai Benkler, Wealth of Networks
Barry Carter, Infinite Wealth
C.K. Prahalad, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid
J. F. Rischard, HIGH NOON: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
Robert Steele, The New Craft of Intelligence
Robert Steele, The Smart Nation Act: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
Thomas Stewart, Wealth of Knowledge
Alvin Toffler, Revolutionary Wealth
E. O. Wilson, The Future of Life
Medaard Gabel, Seven Billion Billionaires (forthcoming)

I hope this contextual connecting of some dots is viewed as helpful. This is not a "pretend" review!

Not 5 star good........2007-09-08

I have bought this book after looking at all the 5 star reviews on this site and was aghast when I read it through. The book is not terrrible. It provides an extremely elitist interpretation of history which still teaches many things. The author, aside from several exception, illustrates individuals as caricatures. Does not analyze the cultural social and economical structures any more than skin deep and appears to have very limited access to any knowlegde about the Ottoman empire. Many contentious issues are glossed over. I would not have written this review cause as I said the book is not terrible but it certainly does not deserve all the 5 stars that it got. If you have read real history books, just read the first chapter and you will understand exactly what I mean. If you just want to have some hazy idea about the "Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East" than this book is good for you. Note however that you have only that, a hazy idea.

A Little Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing..........2007-09-02

I agree with all the rave reviews--this book is a "must-read" in order to understand what is going on in the world today. The title refers ironically to the justification that World War I was a war to end all war. The peace that followed the First World War, including the carve-up of the former Ottoman Empire by the Allied powers and encouragement of nationalism by Woodrow Wilson, led to disaster. A good companion for Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly".

Extraordinary! A monumental book........2007-08-25

This is a well researched, comprehensive narrative on how the middle east was formed, centered on the British side of events, where the most important decisions were taken. Reading these pages, I can only think of the mess that the middle east was in those days, mostly because the major constituents of this region, that is to say Mesopotamia, Arabia and Palestine, had more than one internal player interested in holding part of the dismembered Ottoman Empire, and with the major external players at war trying also to get a piece of the cake and install or retain its influence on this important region, strategically important for its oil resources and geographic location. Added to this scenario was the zionist question, Turkey and its confilcts in central Asia and the internal problems faced by Britain, politically and economically.

Those were very complex times indeed, where the best of British diplomacy was deployed in order to forge peace and stabilize the region according to the situation in those years. Sadly, the settlement of 1922 didn't consider the Kurdish people and the Palestinian Arabs. In spite of all these problems, the book also allowed me to know more about the Arab people and part of its history and religion, its tribes and sects. I cannot say this book is the best in this subject, but certainly a must reading.

History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

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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
Manufacturer: Mithec
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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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.

Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation

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Is faith in revelation reasonable? Yes!

Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation
Leora Batnitzky
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 052186156X

Book Description

Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas, two twentieth-century Jewish philosophers and two extremely provocative thinkers whose reputations have grown considerably, are rarely studied together. This is due to the disparate interests of many of their intellectual heirs. Strauss has influenced political theorists and policy makers on the right while Levinas has been championed in the humanities by different cadres associated with postmodernist thought. In Leo Strauss and Emmanuel Levinas: Philosophy and the Politics of Revelation, Leora Batnitzky brings together these two seemingly incongruous contemporaries, demonstrating that they often had the same philosophical sources and their projects had many formal parallels. While such a comparison is valuable in itself for better understanding each figure, it also raises profound questions in the debate on the definitions of â€~religionâ€™, suggesting ways that religion makes claims on both philosophy and politics.

Customer Reviews:

Is faith in revelation reasonable? Yes!.......2007-08-11

This is a masterful work! The author not only enables us to understand the depths of the many works of Strauss and Levinas covering many decades, she also places us in touch with others who for more than two millennia have concerned themselves with the volatile relationships between the "truths" of philosophy and revelation, also doing the same with subsequent scholarship on the contributions and limitations of the thought of Strauss and Levinas.

Although the subtitle implies that philosophy plays a crucial role in our understanding of the dynamics of the relationship between religion and politics, from this text the reader will readily realize that history plays an even more dynamic role in this relationship. Having in mind the centrality of reason in philosophical discourse, this reader has an appreciation of a similarity between this reason and history, that while both are vitally necessary to our thought, neither is sufficient. Thus a role for a revelation that is at once historic and transcendent, a revelation that is reasonable, not susceptible to a reductive rationality.

While the author writes very clearly about the limits of historicism and for truth that is transhistorical, it seems to this reader that the notion of reason being discussed is that of an outdated faculty psychology. If we note that in the human species, evolution has become conscious of itself, and that we cultivate this consciousness, it seems reason is limited by the scant number of the varibles that impinge upon our daily lives for which we have the capacity to bring into conscious awareness, reason also limited by its temptation to rationalize our thoughts. These limitations provides space and time for revelation to play a role in our lives, leaving us with a faith that is reasonable.

The revelation that is at the center of this study is a Judaic notion of "law." Given my interest, as well as that of the author, in the larger context in which law is a text, I will utilize an often repeated phrase of her, to simply note that more is beyond the scope of this review.

I began to read this study because of my interest in Levinas and his appreciation of the otherness of others, sharing with the author an acute awareness that, while our receptivity to this otherness is a much needed corrective to a corrosive notion of rational autonomy, this receptivity is insufficiently political. Of Polish ancestry who twenty years ago led a study abroad semester contingent to Krakow, I became more acutely aware of how in 1945 the moment of liberation from Nazism became the moment of enslavement to Communism. In dealing with the aftermath of the Holocaust and the emergence of Israel as a nation state, I share with the author some apprehension at the difficulty of our seeing in the Palestinian, the otherness of the other.

It is at this point that I also share with the author her appreciation of the awesome contribution of Leo Strauss to philosophy and the politics of revelation (pages 209-10): "On the one hand, Strauss did view the human predicament as tragic in that there will never be, according to him, the 'full reconciliation among fellow citizens.' Yet Strauss was not an advocate of tragic resignation but rather of dispelling what he took to be human fantasy ... that we fool ourselves, to our own detriment, by blindly believing our own pieties..."

A Murder in Lemberg: Politics, Religion, and Violence in Modern Jewish History

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A great book

A Murder in Lemberg: Politics, Religion, and Violence in Modern Jewish History
Michael Stanislawski
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 069112843X

Book Description

How could a Jew kill a Jew for religious and political reasons? Many people asked this question after an Orthodox Jew assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Itshak Rabin in 1995. But historian Michael Stanislawski couldn't forget it, and he decided to find out everything he could about an obscure and much earlier event that was uncannily similar to Rabin's murder: the 1848 killing--by an Orthodox Jew--of the Reform rabbi of Lemberg (now L'viv, Ukraine). Eventually, Stanislawski concluded that this was the first murder of a Jewish leader by a Jew since antiquity, a prelude to twentieth-century assassinations of Jews by Jews, and a turning point in Jewish history. Based on records unavailable for decades, A Murder in Lemberg is the first book about this fascinating case.

On September 6, 1848, Abraham Ber Pilpel entered the kitchen of Rabbi Abraham Kohn and his family and poured arsenic in the soup that was being prepared for their dinner. Within hours, the rabbi and his infant daughter were dead. Was Kohn's murder part of a conservative Jewish backlash to Jewish reform and liberalization in a year of European revolution? Or was he killed simply because he threatened taxes that enriched Lemberg's Orthodox leaders?

Vividly recreating the dramatic story of the murder, the trial that followed, and the political and religious fallout of both, Stanislawski tries to answer these questions and others. In the process, he reveals the surprising diversity of Jewish life in mid-nineteenth-century eastern Europe. Far from being uniformly Orthodox, as is often assumed, there was a struggle between Orthodox and Reform Jews that was so intense that it might have led to murder.

Customer Reviews:

A great book.......2007-02-28

I really enjoyed this book -- especially the author's description of him travelling to Lviv recently. The author should write more from first hand experience. The story would make a great movie.

Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy, Judaism

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A sadly deficient book
Reading Strauss closely and sympathetically

Reading Leo Strauss: Politics, Philosophy, Judaism
Steven B. Smith
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
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Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0226764028

Book Description

Interest in Leo Strauss is greater now than at any time since his death, mostly because of the purported link between his thought and the political movement known as neoconservatism. Steven B. Smith, though, surprisingly depicts Strauss not as the high priest of neoconservatism but as a friend of liberal democracy—perhaps the best defender democracy has ever had. Moreover, in Reading Leo Strauss, Smith shows that Strauss’s defense of liberal democracy was closely connected to his skepticism of both the extreme Left and extreme Right.

Smith asserts that this philosophical skepticism defined Strauss’s thought. It was as a skeptic, Smith argues, that Strauss considered the seemingly irreconcilable conflict between reason and revelation—a conflict Strauss dubbed the “theologico-political problem.” Calling this problem “the theme of my investigations,” Strauss asked the same fundamental question throughout his life: what is the relation of the political order to revelation in general and Judaism in particular? Smith organizes his book with this question, first addressing Strauss’s views on religion and then examining his thought on philosophical and political issues.

In his investigation of these philosophical and political issues, Smith assesses Strauss’s attempt to direct the teaching of political science away from the examination of mass behavior and interest group politics and toward the study of the philosophical principles on which politics are based. With his provocative, lucid essays, Smith goes a long way toward establishing a distinctive form of Straussian liberalism.

Customer Reviews:

A sadly deficient book .......2006-08-15

Tendentious, elitist and finally, tedious. This book does not reflect a serious, far-reaching engagement with the problems presented by Strauss's thought.

Reading Strauss closely and sympathetically.......2006-05-22

Leo Strauss has been widely villified as the 'father of the neo- cons', as the evil genius behind the 'cabal' that allegedly pushed the U.S. into Iraq. In a highly positive review of this present book written by Adam Kirsch in the New York Sun he argues that Steven B. Smith has done a public service by presenting the true picture of Strauss' character and thought. This picture shows him to be above all a defender of liberal democracy, and a strong opponent of totalitarian regimes.
Strauss is defined by Smith as first and above all a reader of classical texts, interested thinkers of the past in order to illuminate the political present. He wished to help his readers understand more of what liberal democracy needed, and how above all to avoid totalitarian threats.
Kirsch writes.
"In a century when the Western political tradition seemed sick unto death, he went back to its origins, trying to trace its mistakes and expose its unexamined assumptions. In this sense, his approach to political philosophy is similar to that of Arendt, who also turned to the Greeks for guidance, and of Isaiah Berlin, who focused on the Enlightenment and its foes.

At the core of Strauss's work is not a prescription but a diagnosis. Classical political philosophy, of the kind practiced by Plato and Aristotle, approached the problem of the best government by asking questions about human nature and virtue. That is why Plato's "Republic" is built around a comparison of the city with the individual soul: He believed that we can only decide how society should be organized if we know what human beings need in order to flourish. Indeed, Strauss wrote, "each regime" - a favorite Strauss word, suggesting not just government but culture and society as well - "raises a claim, explicitly or implicitly," about what kind of human life is best."

In seeking by his reading to understand the best political thought of the past, and present a picture of how we can preserve human freedom Leo Strauss inspired a whole generation of distinguished pupils, among whom clearly , Steven Smith is one of the finest readers of all.

__________

Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico

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Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico

Manufacturer: Duke University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0822338998

Book Description

Sex in Revolution challenges the prevailing narratives of the Mexican Revolution and postrevolutionary state formation by placing women at center stage. Bringing to bear decades of feminist scholarship and cultural approaches to Mexican history, the essays in this book demonstrate how women seized opportunities created by modernization efforts and revolutionary upheaval to challenge conventions of sexuality, work, family life, religious practices, and civil rights.

Concentrating on episodes and phenomena that occurred between 1915 and 1950, the contributors deftly render experiences ranging from those of a transgendered Zapatista soldier to upright damas católicas and Mexico City’s chicas modernas pilloried by the press and male students. Women refashioned their lives by seeking relief from bad marriages through divorce courts and preparing for new employment opportunities through vocational education. Activists ranging from Catholics to Communists mobilized for political and social rights. Although forced to compromise in the face of fierce opposition, these women made an indelible imprint on postrevolutionary society.

These essays illuminate emerging practices of femininity and masculinity, stressing the formation of subjectivity through civil-society mobilizations, spectatorship and entertainment, and locales such as workplaces, schools, churches, and homes. The volume’s epilogue examines how second-wave feminism catalyzed this revolutionary legacy, sparking widespread, more radically egalitarian rural women’s organizing in the wake of late-twentieth-century democratization campaigns. The conclusion considers the Mexican experience alongside those of other postrevolutionary societies, offering a critical comparative perspective.

Contributors. Ann S. Blum, Kristina A. Boylan, Gabriela Cano, María Teresa Fernández Aceves, Heather Fowler-Salamini, Susan Gauss, Temma Kaplan, Carlos Monsiváis, Jocelyn Olcott, Anne Rubenstein, Patience Schell, Stephanie Smith, Lynn Stephen, Julia Tuñón, Mary Kay Vaughan

Landscape with Smokestacks: The Case of the Allegedly Plundered Degas

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It's all about interpretation.
Disappointing
Superb insider account of ownership of a Degas artwork

Landscape with Smokestacks: The Case of the Allegedly Plundered Degas
Howard J. Trienens , and Scott J. Stone
Manufacturer: Northwestern University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0810118203

Customer Reviews:

It's all about interpretation........2002-03-19

Truth is found in the details. By logically organizing the paper trail scattered through several countries, written in at least four different languages, and held by a variety of individuals, Trienens establishes the facts of the case. Whether or not readers agree with his interpretation of these facts is another issue. I don't believe anyone withholds their sympathy from the Gutmann family or anyone who suffered from the events of World War II. However, sympathy should not blind readers to the facts of the case, including the 1967 signed statement that upon payment from the German government, the Gutmanns would not pursue any further compensation. While the attention to detail can at times interfere with the narrative, in the end the author sheds light on the complicated process of Nazi-era provenance research and reparation -- and the role of the press in shaping America's ideas about this sensitive issue.

Disappointing.......2001-03-07

When I picked this book up, I thought it was a great find. I read a great deal of non-fiction of this type, and the opening pages were very promising. But I ultimately found it disappointing, even offensive. Trienens sinks the book in legalistic detail, focusing so much on the civil suit that he loses sight of the fascinating larger story. Worse, he seems to regard the Goodmans -- descendants of the owner who died in the Holocaust -- as little more than opportunists, and displays little sympathy or respect for their family's tragedy. And while he claims to be taking an objective view, over and over he interprets facts in a light most favorable to the defendant in the suit -- his client. This book is a badly missed opportunity. I would love to see someone else do it again.

Superb insider account of ownership of a Degas artwork.......2000-11-21

"Landscape with Smokestacks" is a beautiful "monotype" created by Edgar Degas around 1890 and currently on view at the Art Institute of Chicago. Degas smeared oil colors on a metal plate in large diagonal strokes with a rag, then placed a paper on the plate and used a press to transfer the image to the paper. As Degas described it, "The result is a picture on paper more luminous than if the artist had worked directly on the paper." He used fingerprints for texture at the horizon of the scene, and then dabbed on pastel colors in little dots of yellow or pink. Green striations of monotype ink were matched with green pastel. Prussian blue pastel was smeared into the sky to suggest smoke coming from the nearly eradicated monotype chimney.

The family that owned the work of art perished in the holocaust. They had sent the art to a dealer in Paris, either for safekeeping or on consignment to be sold. If it was sent for safekeeping, it may have been stolen by the Nazis (especially Goering) who were looting art throughout the occupied countries of Europe during the Second World War. If it was sold on consignment, however, then the heirs of the family (who brought suit in the United States to recover the painting) would be out of luck. Their only recourse would be to find the Parisian art dealer and sue him for the proceeds. But maybe the painting was stolen, in which case the heirs might have a claim to get it back. After the painting left the art dealer in Paris, it wound up in Switzerland, and went through the hands of various purchasers, finally winding up in a private art collection in Chicago. The owner donated it to the Art Institute, and the real legal battle began -- between the heirs who claimed the painting had been stolen, and the Art Institute, which of course wanted to keep it (though the Institute would have returned it to the heirs if the Institute had been convinced that the painting indeed had been stolen).

Customer Reviews:

Jabotinsky the Brilliant.......2000-11-29

Wow. What a book. Jabotinsky expressed perhaps the clearest and most logical formulation of Zionism I have yet to read. He is truly one of the most brilliant men of out times. He speaks with a foresight so keen and accurate it borders on prophecy. A must read for anyone who wishes to grasp the meaning of Revisionist Zionism

Jabotinsky is brilliant.......2000-11-29

Wow. What a book. Jabotinsky expressed perhaps the clearest and most logical formulation of Zionism I have yet to read. He is truly one of the most brilliant men of our times. He speaks with a foresight so keen and accurate it borders on prophecy. A must read for anyone who wishes to grasp the meaning of Revisionist Zionism

The "Bergson Boys" And the Origins of Contemporary Zionist Militancy (Modern Jewish History)

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The "Bergson Boys" And the Origins of Contemporary Zionist Militancy (Modern Jewish History)
Judith Tydor Baumel
Manufacturer: Syracuse University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Jewish | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

Israel | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0815630638

Book Description

Tells the remarkable story of six young men and the organizations they founded between 1939 and 1948 that would set the stage for the militant Zionist activism of today.

During and shortly after the Second World War, six young men-emissaries of the revisionist-Zionist "Irgun" military movement in Palestine - revolutionized the American - Jewish and Zionist scene. Judith Tydor Baumel provides the complete story of the role the Bergson group played in raising American public consciousness of Jewish and Zionist concerns. After founding a series of pro-Zionist and rescue organizations, they initiated a new form of fundraising that used the media to turn the spotlight on their activities, gaining adherents and supporters from both ends of the political and social spectrum. Long before the protest movements of the 1950s and 1960s, members of this group learned the art of courting the media in order to bring word of their existence to every part of the United States.

Customer Reviews:

Arendt neither a 'feminist' nor a 'zionist'.......2004-04-13

Those looking to Hannah Arendt for a Zionist or Feminist philosophy will be disappointed. She is one of the great philosophic minds of the twentieth century, and to assign labels to her and use the lens concordant to such labels in reading her is to miss much of what she has to say. She is certainly not trying to provide clever arguments to win debates with. Her relevance to the world today is up to the reader to determine, but I would encourage you to make the attempt.

Arendt is overrated.......1998-10-26

This is a collection of essays from Arendt, a feminist and Zionist from the middle of the century. I am sure most political theorists love this kind of book, but for normal people the text is far too "scholarly". I could find nothing of a feminist nature in this book and little convicing of a Zionist nature. There are far more convincing books on both sets of thought than this.

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