This book is actually three previous books by this author combined into a single volume... Mr. Newark has studied his subject well and presents the history of each era in a coherent and interesting fashion... Most of the names in the book, with a few exceptions, wil not be familiar to the average reader, for this is not about the kings and emperors of those days, but about those who truly ruled in those turbulent times. The book is profusely illustrated by drawings dating from roughly Victorian England back to the periods under discussion, along with photos of archological finds, plus color section done by an excellent historical artist, Angus McBride. For the person interested in these periods of history, this book is well worth the money....

This book is a wonderfully engaging history of the more colourful characters through history. He touches on the real reasons that Rome conquered the Celtic realms, and why they were
beaten by the germanic tribes eventually. He has chapters on pretty much every proto-civilisation around europe and the middle east that had a battle-oriented society.

He also tells a more complete and truthful story of specific warlords (like Arthur of Wales, and William Wallis) that are quite different to the Hollywood versions!

There are some wonderful illustrations throughout the book, done by Angus Mc Bride, that are some of the most accurate and realistic interpretations of our knowledge of clothing, weapons and armour of the time.

One of my favourite history books.

In "Easier to Kill," Mrs. Wilson-Wesley seems to have her character slowing down for some reason. She us not that vibrant go-getter as she once was. I am starting to believe that Tamara Hayle is getting to be too old for the private detective business. The book had some eye stretching points, but for the most part, the ending was very disappointing. In the first two series, I couldn't put the books down! In fact, I read them both in a matter of days. But this, by far, has got to be Valerie's most uninspiring work to date. Either retire Tamara and let her raise her son or bring back the excitement that she had once before.

I just want to say... Go get this book! Mrs. Wesley has done it again! I really enjoyed reading "Easier To Kill." I feel like I know Tamara, Jamal and Jake on a personal level. And Just thinking about Jan's Beauty Bisquit reminds me of a shop that I get my hair done at. Mrs. Wesley definitely keeps it real. I have read all of her novels and loved each and every one of them. The ending was a pure shock to me. I'm sure it was to many others also.

"Movin On Up" LoL

Who did it, how come, what for? I don't know, but Private Investigator Tamara Hayle can definitely find out for you. Tamara Hayle is a P.I. in the novel, Easier to Kill , by Valerie Wilson Wesley, who comes across a childhood neighbor that's in a murderous situation. Tamara is assigned to find who killed New Jersey's radio superstar DJ Magic Mandy's cousin, and who sent a threatening letter a week later after her cousin was murdered. Tamara knows someone is really up to no good, and knows how to get the very best of Mandy, so it probably wasn't a obsessed fan. Things go for a turn of the worst when Many is found dead! Who did it, how come? Well like I said Ms. Hayle can find out for you.

This book as so many twist and turns its bound to leave you on the edge of your seat. You'll read the most scandalous and terrifying escapades, that will have you wondering what will happened next. I thought the book was good, because of all the suspense and mystery thr novel had. This novel wasn't your average mystery that you could tell who did it by the time you get to the middle of the book, but it will leave you with a big surprise of who this cold-hearted killer was. So , if your the one who enjoys a good mystery book you should pick this book up, I'm sure you won't want to put it down!

Brassey's series of books on uniforms and equipment are among the better sources. Covering the U.S. Regulars, Militia, Texas Rangers as well as the Mexican forces, this book is well worth having. True, it focuses on the U.S. troops, but this is because there is quite a bit of information, photographs, and exhisting clothing and equipment. The Mexican troops are a bit harder to research. Most historians have come to rely on Joseph Hefter, who pioneered the effort of documenting Mexico's military history. The color plates by Richard Hook are quite good and give good detail. The photos of reenactors also add to the quality of this book. The only negative comments ? The price is high, but if you want a valuable resource, it comes with a cost.
A section devoted to the weapons of both armies and their effectiveness would have been handy. If you are a student of this conflict, go for it.

This book gives a good one-stop-shop for the uniforms and organisation of the US-Mexican War. It is an easy read, providing what I have found to be the most accurate text on this subject readily available. If the book has any fault it is that it concentrates heavily on the US rather than Mexican forces, but frankly this is because of the huge variety within the US forces due to the system of volunteer units designing and providing their own uniforms, and the simple fact that information on Mexican forces is very hard to find anywhere. Nevertheless, the coverage of the Mexican forces represents a comprehensive overview of what information there is available, and is accurate throughout, avoiding many of the mistakes so often regurgitated by authors on this subject.

Well illustrated, with period "photographs" mixed with modern photographs of re-enactors, and colour and line illustrations especially commissioned for this book. Certainly well worth buying if you have an interest in the period.

This book is written by a noted authority on the subject (Ron Field) and is lavishly illustrated with over 150 colour and black and white photographs as well as artwork commissioned from leading military artists. This books is an essential reference source for everyone with an interest in military history, as well as collectors, re-enactors, wargamers and military modellers. This is an essential book for all with an interest in the Confederate Army of 1861-1865. It is a thorough analysis of the rebel Army at this time of the national crisis with chapters detailing the uniforms and equipment of the regular army, including infantry, cavalry and artillery,There are also chapters on the many colourful militia regiments raised to swell the Southern Army, including Zouaves.

In these volume of Brassey's History of Uniforms, Confederate uniforms are examined in terms of style, quality and color. What emerges is a fascinating glimpse at both governments' "make do" efforts, ranging from the exotic to the hilarious.

The description of the Confederate uniforms is arranged by state, detailing uniform variations and how each state met the challenge of clothing its soldiers,uniforms issuance from initial local supply through to state quarter master manufacture for South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina, Missouri, Kentucky and Maryland.

EX;Mississippi, for instance, was virtually destitute of cloth supplies by February 1861. But the state took over the textile industry and had its prisoners work making uniforms.

I would like to recomend American Civil War: Union Army by the same author Robin Smith and also a great book by another authority William C. Davis his book Fighting Men of the Civil War (Rebels & Yankees)

For those of us who grew up in NJ's Jewish community, particularly in Newark, this book reawakens some wonderful memories. It captures the feeling of a place now vanished, though it "endures" in the minds of those who lived there.

Helmreich has a gift for searching out names of people and places that defined this unique community, with many anecdotes and quotes. I enjoyed every page of it.

In 1967, Newark, New Jersey, once the third largest industrial city in the United States, became an exemplar of urban disorder and decay, a status that it has still not completely abandoned. The riots in July of that year and later revelations of widespread corruption in the highest levels of the city's government made the name Newark synonymous with the worst conditions of urban life. From Riot to Recovery by Stanley B. Winters focuses on the ten years following the riots rather than the riots themselves, which form the baseline for comparisons and contrasts.

The book is one of the first to offer carefully framed, factual, and comprehensive views of how one city coped with the trauma of the post-riot era in the United States. It contains 42 essays by persons closely connected with Newark as well as several experts from outside, including urbanologists Robert. C. Wood, Charles V. Hamilton and Frances Fox Piven. The opening essay by Stanley B. Winters, professor of history at New Jersey Institute of Technology, details political and economic developments in the city since the riots. Those following are placed under the rubrics of Unrest in the City, Dynamics of a Changing City; Housing, Transportation, and Public Services; Medicine, Health, and Community; Reflections on the City, and Information About the City. Their authors include the directors of Newark's Fire and Police Departments, the president of the College (now University) of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark, members of the Criminal Justice Faculty of Rutgers University, city planners and engineers, sociologists, and librarians.

The essays are readable and documented. There are maps and photographs, a bibliography of publications about Newark, and an index of names and subjects. The book acknowledges the enormous tasks the city faces, but looks with hope toward the future of the third oldest large city in the United States as it recovers from its past woes.

Although this book is not a side splitter it does create a warm sense of total insanity. The Fusco Brothers are unique and not formed from cookie cutter thinking. It will give you a laugh and remind you of someone you know immediately. The wolverine alone is worth the price...

This is the second Tamara Hayle mystery that Ive read and I can't wait for the third. However, I must admit that this one was a bit more difficult to follow than her first novel. I agree with the other reader who said that Tamara seemed to stumble upon the answer to this mystery, rather than relying on her detective skills to solve it. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and cannot wait to see what becomes of Tamara's relationship with Basil!

WHERE EVIL SLEEPS wasn't as fast-paced as the last two Tamara Hayle mysteries, but it still had a good storyline that was filled with interesting characters and enough action and mystery to keep me reading. It had it's moments of filler space, still, keep reading. A good third novel in this series. Mrs. Wilson-Weseley, keep the ball rolling!

I think this book is EXCELLENT! At the end of each chapter I couldn't stop reading. The characters were well described and the emotions were well thought out. This is the second Tamara Hayle mystery I read and I can't wait to read the others. I would also like to compliment the illustrator because the cover is what caught my attention to buy the book. I can easily say that this book is Something Special.

Coleman Silk, the central character of The Human Stain, is a classics professor at Athena College who is forced into retirement as a result of a comment in the classroom which is misinterpreted as a racial slur (readers will be reminded of the real-life Washington D.C. bureaucrat who in 1999 was briefly forced from his job for saying the word "niggardly"). Silk in some respects brings to mind David Lurie, the protagonist of J.M. Coetzee's Booker Prize winning novel Disgrace. Both men hurl themselves into a sort of self-imposed exile from academia by stubbornly abandoning pragmatism and refusing to bend to the politically correct forces that confront them.

There is a lot going on in The Human Stain. Roth takes on academia, political correctness, race, identity, the Vietnam War, and family, all against the backdrop of Clinton's impeachment proceedings and our country's headlong rush into a culture of puritanical condemnation. In the end Roth asks some big questions. What is an individual's responsibility to community? What is the community's responsibility to the individual? When these links fail, Roth asks the reader to challenge his or her beliefs about where the blame lies.

The non-linear style of Roth's storytelling is captivating, but I found the change of viewpoint to be at times distracting. Sometimes the reader is inside the head of the characters, tracing his or her thoughts and motivations. Other times we're an outsider looking purely through the eyes of the narrator (Roth's alter-ego Nathan Zuckerman). It's not until the end of the novel that we understand why this is.

In my opinion some of the big questions are convincingly addressed, and most of the elements tie together. Some don't. The novel is set in 1998, which makes one wonder why Roth decided to incorporate post-traumatic stress of Vietnam veterans as a competing plotline, given that Saigon fell some 23 years earlier.

In the end Roth leaves some strings dangling, and I suppose it's a testimony to the richness and depth of the characters that we read the last page wanting to know a bit more.

I am unfortunately not as familiar with Roth's earlier works and previous reviewers, though I have read him, knew of him, and respected him as one of America's great writers. I was nonetheless excited to discover this motherlode of observation, perception and wisdom that deigns touch upon such complicated and socially sensitive matters as race, academic culture, contemporary social pyrotechnics, vietnam, and simply surviving the murk of daily living. As an African American, it was a very pleasant surprise to discover the implicit wisdom of Roth's dissection of what it must be like, or entail, to cross the color line. Roth explores the subject matter with a wisdom and sensitivity and, more importantly, and insigtfulness that is rather staggering. Should I add, for an outsider? But perhaps that is the implicit lesson of the book; that though we may be positioned as outsiders in viewing arcane matters dealing with other races, cultures and societal segments, we may not be at all--that the human stain that brushes against all of us, gives us insight into the plight, the problems, and the possiblilities of the rest of us. Roth's novel is excellent, entertaining and rewarding reading.

"The Human Stain" is a fictional work that includes a detective story, a cultural commentary, several personality portraits, and a darn good yarn too. It's about a college professor who is forced from his position as dean because he is accused of using racial epithets during a class lecture. Isn't that a familiar story at Brown and other school?

You can't say a lot about the characters in this story because that would give away the plot. But Roth's novel is an attack on the militancy of college-campus political correctness and the feminists whose Roth character believes are hypocritcal. Further the book is a discussion of the roles that race plays in America and what is means to be raised as a Jew. There's lots of other themes too including man's preoccupation with sex which is, of course, what Roth writes about frequently.

The character Faunia refers to the novel's title, the "Humain Stain", when she says "That's what comes of hanging around all his life with people like us. The human stain." The "he" she is referring to is a crow in the pet show. Faunia likes to talk to crows. She's supposed to be the village idiot in this novel, but she's more comples than that. In the same paragraph Roth mentions another bird, a swan. Writing of the Greek gods, Roth says they are like humans in their cruelty--leaving stains of excrement and semen wherever they go--and their desire for erotic love. He writes "...[Zeus] to enter her bizarrely as a flailing white Swan." This is a direct reference to the poem by William Butler Years "Leda and the Swan" which Roth quotes at length in his novel "Portnoy's Complaint"--whose very title is a psychological term for to the desire for erotica and the angst that causes because of cultural mores. The poem reads in part "How can those terrified vague fingers [Leda] push the feathered glory [the Swan] from her loosening things?".

This book is a riveting read, long passages held me for page after page. I could not put it down as Roth takes us inside the mind of Delphine Roux, the French teacher at Athena college who has created so much trouble for Coleman Silk, the main character in the novel. Roth reveals her thoughts as she reflects on her status as a beautiful expatriate intellectual utterly alone in the word. She is miserable because she is despised by the female faculty members who hate her for her good looks and who, consequently, refuse to read her published writings. She hates Coleman because her isn't intimidated by her beauty like so many of the men are. She feels lost as a expatriate: caught between two oceans and not certain to which shore to seek refuge. She's a woman who desperately wants erotic love. But she can't abide the many suitors she has at the school. She goes to the New York Public library--anyone who lives in New York will tell you that the adjacent Bryant Park is a great pick up place--and looks wistfully at her intellectual peers: handsome men reading difficult books in those hallowed halls. If only she could find someone like that at the far flung, mountain-enclosed school where she's surrounded by shallow thinking Philistines masquerading as intellectuals.

One fascinating feature of this novel is that it's all written in one voice. There's no effort to reproduce accents like, say, William Faulkner would do. And there's no effort to change the substance of the language from one character to the next. Whether it's the uneducated Faunia speaking or the highly educated Coleman Silks, they all speak with the erudite voice of Philip Roth. I find this technique a good one: why sully the great language in a novel just to sound like one of the locals? That's my complaint with Irvine Welsh who writes in Scottish patois.

This novel spoke to me directly in two particular ways. First Roth writes of the death of two children. My own children are alive and O.K. but I felt compelled to rush to them as I read Roth's harrowing account of the two children dying a ghastly death. It was such a page turning horror tale, as good as the only Stephen King I read, and had me so upset by the end that I almost flung the book across the room. I haven't been moved by a book like that in a long time. There should be a preface at that chapter: "not for the faint of heart".

Secondly, Roth wrote was speaking to me again, on the subject of living alone in the woods--since that is what I do--with Henry David Thoreau like authority. The narrator of the novel is a writer who has fled the city for the quiet of the woods. (Doesn't Philip Roth live like this too?) Roth says, "The secret to living in the rush of the world with a minimum of pain is to get as many people as possible to string along with your delusions; the trick to living alone up here, away from all agitating entanglements...is to organize the silence, to think of its mountaintop plenitude as capital, silence and wealth exponentially increasing....The trick is to find sustenance in [He quotes Nathaniel Hawthorne] 'the communication of a solitary mind with itself''. These words give hope too any person attempting to go it alone away from the noise of the city.

Long after I've forgotten mysteries based on ornate plots, I still remember the ones based on interesting characters -- and this one by Valerie Wilson Wesley is a pip! In addition to Tamara Haynes' hard-working private investigator, we have a wealthy and philandering street boy made good (Lincoln Storey) and a whole fascinating crew of people who stood to gain from his death under suspicious circumstances: his smooth but untrustworthy wife Daphne; her daughter Alexa from another marriage; Alexa's friend Tasha (who is arrested for murdering him); the restaurateur Tate -- an old family friend of Tamara's; aspiring politician and attorney Stella Pharr; and Brandon Pike, who is squiring Daphne and Alexa around a couple of years after having broken up with Tamara.

Incidentally, the murder weapon is -- peanut butter. Someone laced Storey's bean dip; and Storey was notorious for his allergy to peanuts.

So kick off your shoes, relax, and let Tamara show you what happened.

This is the first mystery that I've read by Valerie Wilson Wesley. I really enjoyed the story very much. The novel seem to pick up toward the end. I was at the edge of my seat trying to figure out the mysteries. I look forward to reading more from this author. Be Blessed.

DEVIL'S GONNA GET HIM is the 2nd book in the Tamara Hayle series that has confirmed it's place in my favorite detective series (first is Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlings). She is still as smart and capable as she was in her first book, WHEN DEATH COMES STEALING. A obnoxious society patron who pays a visit to Ms. Hayle's office to check on his daughter's new boyfriend starts the ball rolling, and the patron's murder kicks it into high gear. I have all of the mysteries, and, if lucky, will have any future novels involving the new Christy Love of the millenium.