Chechnya Diary: A War Correspondent's Story of Surviving the War in Chechnya

Book Description

homas Goltz is one of the founders of the exclusive journalistic cadre of compulsive, danger-addicted voyeurs who court death to get the story. In a first-person narrative that reads like an adventure, he explores the war in Chechnya, and focuses on the Samashki Massacre, the symbol of Russian brutality employed to crush Chechen resistance. Goltz relates the saga of this small town (sort of a Grover's Corners of the Caucasus), as it is drawn into war, and the fate of Hussein, the leader of local resistance. Chechnya Diary is a crossover work that will satisfy both armchair travelers as well as political scientists, historians, and policy makers.

Customer Reviews:

For the Layman.......2006-02-01

This is the true story about the struggle the people of Chechnya are going through - a region I know little about. It is written through the eyes of a war correspondent - an occupation I know little about. Goltz brings some understanding to the layman with a direct, no-nonsense writing style that will capture your attention and send your senses reeling through sorrow, joy, dispair, hope and more. A must read for anyone who wants to gain some knowledge of the on-going struggle of Chechnya without wading through a dull textbook.

How we really feel.......2004-10-29

I'll state straight away that I count myself a an old and loyal friend of Thomas Goltz, and I'm a journalist too, so my five stars should perhaps seen in that context. But I believe they are well deserved, not least for the personal bravery the author displayed in getting the story. For me, this book's particular value is that for once it strips away the shield that we reporters feel necessary to arm ourselves with to protect ourselves from emotional involvement with the subjects of our reportage. This is the first time I read the account of someone who has faced up to naked realities of this situation. The result is a rare and compelling tale of the relationship between the interviewer and the interviewed, and set against a backdrop that shows how both sides behave and above all feel when trapped in forces outside their control.

An improvement .......2004-09-06

This book is a sign Goltz has matured since writing "Requiem" and "AZ Diary", and has found his niche. This is to say, maybe he's realized he isn't much for political synthesis or history. He has obviously done a lot of good and original thinking about journalistic ethics in wartime and the "Hawthorne effect"--these are the reasons you want to read this book.

There are a lot of books, historical and journalistic, in several languages, on Chechnya and this is the least exciting and informative of the ten or so of those I've read.

"Allah's Mountains", "Chechnya--Tombstone of Russian Power" and "Chechnya--A Short, Victorious War" are more interesting and written by less self-obsessed authors.

Excellent portal into a hellish conflict--and more.......2004-02-18

Chechnya Diary isn't your typical book about war. For one thing, it reads more like an adventure or a novel than straight history. It's also much more philosophical than I would have expected. The book begins with the quote, "The observer affects the observed," and boy is that statement ever borne out as the story unfolds.

Author Thomas Goltz sneaks into the country to cover the war, and ends up in a small town called Samashki, where he depends on the hospitality of a man named Hussein. Ostensibly there to record the fighting, Goltz soon becomes intimately involved, raising many tough questions about journalistic ethics and the effects of media war coverage.

The book really picks up steam in the second half, as Goltz returns to Chechnya to discover the damage his participation has caused, and tries to rectify it.

It's a thought-provoking book that provides background on the Chechnyan war but also goes far beyond that to dwell on how our shallow media culture affects our understanding of world events (and beyond that, how media coverage actually determines the course of those events as they play out). Goltz is a likable narrator who doesn't shy away from implicating himself when it comes to the sticky moral questions. He brings to life real Chechnyans in such vivid fashion that you'll remember them every time you hear about Chechnya in the news.

I had tears in my eyes as I finished the book. Highly recommended.

An eye-opening experience.......2004-01-23

Until I read 'Chechnya Diary' I was willing to accept what seemed to be conventional wisdom about the conflict in Chechnya--i.e., just another incidence of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Mr. Goltz provides another view: i.e., an effort (at least initally) to restore to a displaced people the homeland of which they were deprived by the Stalinst regime. I also found it refreshing to read something by a journalist who is willing to acknowledge that his presence may have an impact on the turn of events. All in all, I think this is a most enlightening book and, like Mr. Goltz's 'Azerbaijan Diary', a terrific adventure story.

Shadows of Blue & Gray: The Civil War Writings of Ambrose Bierce

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short stories
Chilling to the bone!
LEST WE FORGET, OR BE SWAYED BY THE HISTORY BOOKSý

Shadows of Blue & Gray: The Civil War Writings of Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Manufacturer: Forge Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0765302446

Book Description

Ambrose Bierce didn't just write about the Civil War, he lived through it--on the battlefields and over the graves--and in doing so gave birth to a literary chronicle of men at war previously unseen in the American literary canon. The fact that some of these stories verged on the supernatural, others on factual reporting, and others on the fine line between humor and morbidity in no way detracts from their resonance to both the history of the war between the states and the imaginative historical literature in the tradition of Washington Irving.

Shadows of Blue & Gray collects all of Bierce's Civil War stories (twenty-seven in total) with six of his memoir pieces on his own experiences on the front lines.

This collection includes such classics as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "A Horseman in the Sky," "Parker Addison, Philosopher", and "A Bivouac of the Dead"; as well as lesser known stories and sketches such as "The Mockingbird" and "Two Military Executions" and memoirs of his experiences at Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Franklin.

Customer Reviews:

short stories.......2007-03-28

A very good way to get a look at the civil war through short stories. Should be mandatory reading in every high school in the nation.

Chilling to the bone!.......2006-05-14

Ambrose Bierce participated in many of the great Civil War battles. While I realise this book is written as fiction I would submit to the reader that it is fact. Ambrose has this gifted way of speach that brings to life the horrors he witness. You will shiver with goose bumps! You won't sleep with the lights out after reading his stories. No way!
I could not put this chilling book down. It was as if it was possess! Ambrose disappeared in 1914 a old man who walked into Mexico. Maybe he is still walking and telling these stories. I would like to think so.

LEST WE FORGET, OR BE SWAYED BY THE HISTORY BOOKSý.......2003-05-06

It's easy to look back and view wars as things of glory - the history books tend to lead us in that direction by viewing the action from lofty heights, speaking in terms of armies and strategies and generals. The reality - as those who have `been there' know too well (and no, I'm not claiming to be a veteran) - is that the old adage is all too true: war is definitely hell, and we should never, ever forget that fact.

Ambrose Bierce is known today mainly through his fiction - many fine examples of which appear in this collection - and through THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY. He `might or might not' be the subject and/or inspiration for Carlos Fuentes' novel THE OLD GRINGO, also made into a film. His stories have a decidedly `creepy' feel to them - he was no Edgar Allan Poe, perhaps, but he was a talented writer nonetheless...and as not only the short stories, but also the non-fiction pieces collected here demonstrate, he was a careful and articulate observer. We are truly blessed that he chose to recount what he had seen, both in the form of short stories and memoirs. His disappearance in 1914 in Mexico has added to his mystique over the ensuing years.

The most famous of the short stories contained in this volume is undoubtedly `An occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'. I remember reading it in high school (NO, I won't say how long ago that was...) - and it was filmed to great effect by director Roberto Enrico in 1962, and was subsequently aired in the US as an episode in the last season of THE TWILGHT ZONE on CBS. It won an Oscar in 1964 as Best Foreign Short Film. The story is a masterpiece of suspense - it's a great literary epitaph for Bierce.

Bierce served in the Civil War - he enlisted at its outset and saw quite a bit of action. He rose through the ranks to lieutenant and served on the staff of various high-ranking officers. It is his observations and experiences - and his empathy with the troops, the enlisted men, the common man - that lend such a value to his writings. Too much `Hollywood-izing' has been forced upon the truth - about the Civil War and almost everything the film industry touches. It's a treasure to have the pieces here to vividly remind us of what the experience was really like.

There is humor here as well - Bierce's wit was an acerbic sword, and he unsheathed it on the high and low alike, without sparing himself in the process. His characterizations of the generals under whom he served, as well as the enlisted soldiers, the post-war opportunists, and the intellectual crowd with whom he mingled both in the US and abroad, are rich indeed.

Book Description

George G. Benedict was one of thousands of young men who enlisted for the Union cause in the late summer of 1862 when the outcome of the Civil War was yet to be decided. But in addition to his duties as a soldier, Benedict also worked as a correspondent for his hometown newspaper, the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press. Benedict's thirty-one letters gave the folks back home a firsthand account of army life in the Civil War. Now, by supplementing these letters with official documents, newspaper accounts, and comrade's letters, editor Eric Ward expands on this account, providing a fuller and more accurate picture of army life in Virginia.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent all around!.......2002-03-23

One of the most useful and interesting publishing phenomena of the past decade has been the appearance of a number of collections of Civil War diaries and letters written not by famous names but by the line officers and common soldiers who actually fought the war--and who suffered the diseases, quibbles and boredom of camp life in the often-long intervals between battles. I found this particular book especially insightful on both the details of military life and the ambience of the war years. The letters themselves are marvelous--even in their mundane concerns. This truly is a slice of "real life" that a standard history text can't offer (the book reminds me of the wonderful collections of courts-martial, reports and papers assembled by Dr. Thomas Lowry, who is consistently one of our most interesting Civil War historians). Credited as the book's "editor," Eric Ward has actually done far more than simply getting the narrative into shape for publication (a tough enough job by itself). Ward has set the book off superbly, and his interlocutions to place Benedict's jottings in context are masterful in their accuracy, succinctness and insight. For those seriously interested in Civil War studies, or simply for a reader anxious to enter that bygone world for the first time, this book is an excellent choice. Very well done!

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A Different Sin
A window on the past and present
An unforgettable and compelling story
Unusual novel about a gay man set during the Civil War

A Different Sin
Rochelle Hollander Schwab
Manufacturer: Hombres Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 187960308X

Book Description

As the country hurtles toward Civil War, David Carter finds employment as an artist for a New York illustrated paper - and becomes the lover of a fellow newsman. Stricken with guilt for the "sin" of loving another man, David volunteers as a war correspondent covering Grant's 1864 drive toward Richmond. Faced with the horrors of bloody Civil War battles, David is forced into a final confrontation with his own nature.

Customer Reviews:

A Different Sin.......2007-05-15

About 1/2 of this book is spent with our protagonists separated. In the second half, the author grinds on, page after page in an exhausting dialog about the civil war and a heterosexual affair. FINALLY IN THE NEXT TO THE LAST PARAGRAPH ON THE LAST PAGE, our protagonists meet. If one is interested in a novel about two gay men, don't buy this. I'll check with Bruce Catton on the details of the civil war.

A window on the past and present.......2001-06-03

This book took me back in time and helped me walk a mile in the shoes of someone completely different. The main character lived at a different time, in a different place, and has a different sexual orientation than I have. But in every other way, he's not very different from most people. That plus all the great historical research and realistic characters and situations helped me put myself in his place and understand what it was like to be gay 150 years ago, to be reviled for who you are. And yet this book is not didactic or preachy. It's just a really good story, and a good civil war story at that. If you or someone you know enjoys history and could benefit from seeing the world through the eyes of someone different from himself or herself, this is the book to read.

An unforgettable and compelling story.......2001-06-02

A Different Sin, which features characters and settings from Rochelle Schwab's earlier novel, As Far As Blood Goes, is a powerful exploration of sexual orientation and of prejudice against those who are "different." Through the story of David Carter, Schwab shows the pain and isolation that went along with being gay in the 1860s, a time when the language didn't even include a word for non-heterosexual love. Born into a Virginia slave-owning family, Carter moves to New York and falls in love with a man. His own "sinful" feelings frighten him, and he tries to escape their intensity by immersing himself in the violence of the Civil War, as a newspaper correspondent. With honesty and sensitivity, Schwab offers a complex, powerful portrait of a man confronting his own nature, against a vivid and well-researched background that doesn't flinch from the horrors of war. A Different Sin is an unforgettable and compelling story of forbidden love, set in a specific time but with themes that are, ultimately, timeless.

Unusual novel about a gay man set during the Civil War.......2001-06-02

This Civil War era novel by Rochelle Hollander Schwab has an unusual twist -- the protaganist, David, a young artist from Virginia, is gay. Of course, David doesn't realize that he is, or that his sexuality is a large part of what makes him feel so ill at ease with other people. Schwab has written a moving and believable account of David's struggle to understand and accept this aspect of himself during a time when sex and love between two men was termed an "abomination." As an artist for a prominent newsweekly, David is exposed to the horrors of a bloody and terrible war, and these war-time experiences help him resolve his questions concerning his responsibility to himself and to the people he loves.

China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s

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China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s
Stephen R. MacKinnon , and Oris Friesen
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Japan | Asia | History | Subjects | Books

Thunder Out of China

ASIN: 0520069676

Book Description

China Reporting documents the gathering of American journalists, diplomats and China scholars, "old China hands" all, who met in 1982 to discuss their experience in China.

Eyewitness to Gettysburg: The Story of Gettysburg As Told by the Leading Correspondent of His Day

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Eyewitness to Gettysburg: The Story of Gettysburg As Told by the Leading Correspondent of His Day
Charles Carleton Coffin
Manufacturer: Burd Street Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The USS Arizona

ASIN: 1572490659

Three Years With Grant: As Recalled by War Correspondent Sylvanus Cadwallader

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good reading
good book
good book
Intimate portrait of General Grant

Three Years With Grant: As Recalled by War Correspondent Sylvanus Cadwallader
Sylvanus Cadwallader
Manufacturer: Bison Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0803263694

Book Description

Sylvanus Cadwallader, a war correspondent for the Chicago Times and later for the New York Herald, was attached to General Grant’s headquarters from 1862 to 1865. He enjoyed rare access to personalities (Lincoln, Sheridan, and Lee) and events (Vicksburg, Chattanooga, City Point, and Potomac), and he makes them come alive here. Cadwallader also includes information about his own role in constraining and concealing Grant’s drinking. Through his pages the real Grant emerges. The manuscript of Three Years with Grant was edited and annotated by Lincoln biographer Benjamin P. Thomas and first published nearly a century after the Civil War.

Customer Reviews:

good reading.......2000-08-06

If you are familiar with Grant`s campaigns then youll like this book . It gives us an insiders view of the battles of Vicksburg, Chattanoga,the Wilderness,and Appomattox.Because of his unique situation at Grant`s Headquarters where he was accepted as one of the staff,we get the inside take on Grant`s drunkedness on Warren`s removal from command and any number of things that happened during Grant`s campaigns.

good book.......2000-07-27

If you are familiar with the campaigns of General Grant then you will find this book worthwile.Cadwallader has a front row seat at Vicksburg, Chattanoga,the Wilderness,and Appomattox. He is a reporter therefore a professional writer which helps. His book is filled with inside information on all the principle figureheads of the time. Also it is the only book I ever read that gives us the reader the inside true story on the rumours of General Grants drinking problem.

good book.......2000-07-27

Intimate portrait of General Grant.......1998-06-12

This is a controversial book because of one reason: the author maintains he witnessed Grant getting drunk during the Vicksburg campaign in 1863. Why this is particularly contentious with Grant supporters is a trifle mystifying, but Grant fans still vociferously contend the author "embellished" or "lied" about the drinking binge. Never mind that two other people who were also with Grant corroborate the drinking story. Never mind that his chief of staff specifically wrote about the binging in a private letter.

Aside from this drinking anecdote, the book is a warm, rich portrayal of General Grant from a man with a discerning eye. Cadwallader relates many small incidents of Grant's everyday life as a man and as a general that are fascinating and not to be found in other first-person narratives.

Cadwallader truly loved Grant and his book shows his regard and his profound attachment to him. It's a pity that so many people denigrate such a fine book simply because they feel the author's memory was fallible or because they refuse to see Grant as a multi-facted man. A man with his share of human frailties and weaknesses, but still a towering individual: a great general and a man of uncommon moral fiber and decency. If you know little about Grant, this is a good place to begin a journey in seeking to know him as a man and as a great soldier who saved the union.

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And they ain't changed much, huh!

An intriguing look at a the Civil War from a different angle

Bohemian Brigade

Bohemian Brigade

A Bohemian Brigade: The Civil War Correspondents--Mostly Rough, Sometimes Ready
James M. Perry
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Most Fearful Ordeal: Original Coverage of the Civil War by Writers and Reporters of The New York Times

Blue & Gray in Black & White: Newspapers in the Civil War

ASIN: 0471416983

Amazon.com

A familiar figure on the modern battlefield is the combat correspondent, that hard-bitten, cynical journalist who chews on cigars and bullets and brings the smoke and gore back home. So the stereotype goes--and with basis in fact, as historian James Perry shows in this vigorous history of reporters on the front lines of the American Civil War.

Perry begins his narrative with the Crimean War, when the remarkable William Howard Russell sent dispatches of bungling and destruction to eager readers in London. When Russell, a larger-than-life character, strapped on his pistols and set sail from England to cover the outbreak of the American Civil War, he found that his fame had preceded him--and that he'd spawned many imitators. Newspapers North and South raced to scoop each other for the big stories of the day, fielding reporters who sought to outdo Russell at his own game.

Perry centers his narrative on a comparative handful of these homegrown journalists, whose work entailed constant danger on both sides of the line--bullets from the front, suspicious generals ever ready to charge the reporters with espionage on the rear. Most of the journalists acquitted themselves well in their work, although some were inclined to florid prose and not particularly troubled with questions of accuracy. Quoting extensively from the dispatches of those battlefield writers, good and bad, Perry examines their role in shaping American journalism--after the Civil War, the reading public demanded eyewitness accounts instead of canned official releases--and public opinion throughout an era of cataclysm. With A Bohemian Brigade, Perry adds a useful, and highly readable, footnote to our understanding of the era. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

"LIKE THE WAR ITSELF, THIS IS A STORY OF REMARKABLE PERSONAL DRAMA."-New York Times Book Review

More Praise for A Bohemian Brigade

"Highly engaging . . . Perry has a special feel for his topics and a keen eye for detail."-Wall Street Journal

"James Perry has written a compelling and detailed account of the men who did their best to cover-and, at times, fight-the first instant-news war. This book tells the story of the sometimes painful birth of the modern war correspondent."-Dan Rather, CBS News

"Civil War reporters were a colorful breed: rough, rowdy, courageous, competitive-occasionally even accurate. Jim Perry, a great reporter himself, recognizes these bohemian adventurers and brings them vividly to life in this entertaining and eye-opening look at the men who crafted the rough draft of our history."-Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

"A Bohemian Brigade is a joyous account of a time when reporters did not take themselves seriously-nor did anyone else-written by one of the great reporters of his generation."-Sander Vanocur, The History Channel

Customer Reviews:

And they ain't changed much, huh!.......2002-07-27

Perry offers a look at the War Between the States through the exploits of key and minor journalist personalities of the era. More of a "fun" account -not too heavy on military history or the politics of the times - just a "you are there" approach as the reader goes along on the oft-times zany adventures of these reporters of sometimes questionable merit. The author is very up-front in his criticisms of their craftsmanship, yet balances his barbs accordingly.

Keep in mind this is NOT a "day in the life" of a correspondent.
Each chapter usually dwells on a different writer/journalist or highlights a key battle.

An intriguing look at a the Civil War from a different angle.......2000-09-05

"I am en route to Washington with details of a great battle. We have carried the day." Thus, the headline of the New York Herald stated about the perceived Union success in that seminal foray the day after the first Civil War battle at Bull Run. General William Sherman vilified them as "the buzzards of the press." George G. Meade "strapped one of them backward on a mule and rode him out of camp" complete with a sign embellishing him as "Libeler of the Press." In fact, Army commanders on both sides distrusted a free press they could not control. The "scoundrels" in this event are the reporters who roamed the battlefields chasing a story. The self-proclaimed Bohemian Brigade was a "group of men who tried to make sense of the most dramatic event in American history" and they did it by writing columns in various newspapers for the Union, Confederacy, and at point's abroad. Author James M. Perry writes that the civil war reporters, to many, were a preposterous, controversial, infuriating, and disarming band of rogues and heroes. Perry, himself a journalist and author of Arrogant Armies and recipient of the prestigious Fourth Estate Award, is a modern day version of those that packed the Civil War battlefields and then scurried to send their messages and stories either in person or by telegraph. This is what makes A Bohemian Brigade: The Civil War Correspondents unique; it is written by a son of their own, someone who is profoundly qualified to develop this wonderfully constructed chronicle of those reported on the war between the states. From the battlefield of the first encounter at Bull Run came the scouring assembly of news-seekers like Charles Charleton Coffin, Henry Villard, and Uriah Painter of the North, Peter Alexander and Felix Gregory de Fontaine who worked for Southern papers, and William Howard Russell of the Times of London. It was the first deployment of the Bohemian Brigade and the results were mixed at best. As described on the inside cover of the dusk-jacket, which by the way, is part of one the most aesthetically appealing book covers on the market, "much of our understanding of the American Civil War is based upon newspaper dispatches written under horrible battlefield conditions, and journalists' memoirs penned under more reflective moments after the war's end. As a result, modern American journalism emerged from the Civil War and Perry makes it clear that, thanks to the telegraph and the importance placed on breaking news and scoops, the conflict was the first instant-news event. It was a time of sending message using "the lightning" or the telegraph. Perry draws upon his experience as a newspaperman to show for better or worse that for the most part, these reporters put their lives at risk on the battlefield and he brings each reporter, "rogues and heroes alike," to life in this wonderfully crafted book. There is no doubt they were pompous and arrogant, highly inventive, they lied and cheated, they got the story wrong more often than they should have, and they drank too much. By his own admission, Perry claims that, ``They did a lot of things reporters are still doing today.'' But they were also, Perry admits, that for all their faults, these correspondents who endured Civil War prisons, battlefield skirmishes, and intense colleague competition to get the story to print. In short, it is wonderfully readable narrative worthy revealing the historical significance of the battlefield reporter.

Bohemian Brigade.......2000-05-21

A very readable book. Sometimes humorous, always informative and flows like Perry's articles in the WSJ. What more can you ask of a book? It's fun to read.

Bohemian Brigade.......2000-05-21

A very readable book. Sometimes humorous, always informative and flows like Perry's articles in the WSJ. What more can you ask of a book? It's fun to read.

Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent: His Dispatches from the Virginia Front (Da Capo Paperback)

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Thomas Morris Chester, Black Civil War Correspondent: His Dispatches from the Virginia Front (Da Capo Paperback)
R. J. M. Blackett , and Thomas M. Chester
Manufacturer: Da Capo
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Letters to Vermont: From Her Civil War Soldier Correspondents to the Home Press, Vol. 2

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Letters to Vermont: From Her Civil War Soldier Correspondents to the Home Press, Vol. 2

Manufacturer: Images from the Past
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1884592171

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