This guidebook is great at what it does, but is otherwise limited.

It's a really excellent reference to the history, churches, and monuments of Istanbul, often going into exhaustive detail such as what day (On April 23, 1542 at 12 noon, etc.) something happened. (It must be said, however, that Freely gets a bit enthusiastic about some very minor monuments and mosques which do not seem to really deserve it.)

It has great information on all the major and minor mosques and other monuments around Istanbul, including maps and diagrams. In this sense, I found it very useful on my trip.

As a general guidebook, however, it falls short. This is not the author's interest, and lists of hotels, restaurants and bars are thrown in almost as an afterthought. There isn't any discussion of the character of different neighborhoods, nor is there much information on where to go, what to see, etc. after the museums and monuments are closed for the evening.

So I would recommend that people get this fine book as a reference to the history and architecture, museums, etc. and get another guidebook as well.

My wife and I just returned from our trip to Istanbul. The Blue Guide was like having our own guide. Often, when reading portions to her, some other English speaking folks wandered up to and asked "say that again." On our cruise up the Bosphorus, it made the villages, the castles, palaces some alive. This is my second Blue Guide (the first was on Vienna)purchase and they will become a part of our travelling "necessities."

Modern-day Istanbul -- crowded, dirty and noisy, but with a dazzling beauty all its own -- is the sum of twenty-seven centuries of history, and no guidebook captures the city in all its glory better than this one. It's almost a street-by-street history of the city, indispensable for the independent-minded traveler who really wants to know the place. Wandering around with this book in hand (or even getting lost, which I've done more than once) is pure joy. My own copy of the previous edition is showing the strains of four separate trips to Istanbul -- it's flecked with bits of pistachio shells, the cover is stained from having too many glasses of raki set on it, and several pages have buckled from splashes on the Bosphorus ferries -- but I'll never get rid of it.

John Freely's erudition is amazing, but never pretentious. His histories in this book of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires are the best short accounts of those civilizations I've encountered anywhere. He also emphasizes historical sites that other guidebooks seem to overlook, such as the Kariye Camii mosaics, the Yerebatan Saray (underground cistern) and SS. Sergius and Bacchus Church, all of which are absolute gems little visited by tourists. I can't imagine the amount of research that went into the writing of this book.

At last count I owned twenty-four of the Blue Guides. All are excellent, but this is my favorite. There is simply no better guide to Istanbul. I hope that Freely's "Istanbul: The Imperial City," which I have just purchased, is as good.

Over the past decade Lizabeth Cohen has been at the forefront of a new type of American history: consumer's history. In this fast growing field historians look at the development of consumption and consumers, both as an ideal and as a reality, and as a new source of identity. There were reasons to be wary of this trend. Were economic realities and questions of power going to be ignored in a celebration of growing affluence? Was the integrity of culture to be ignored in a vindication of mass consumption?

Now that Lizabeth Cohen's new book has been published we can see that those reasons were misguided. This is a thoroughly documented book that is unusually scrupulous in the attention that it pays to problems of class, gender and race. Cohen starts in the thirties, looking at consumer movements and boycotts, and at two differing ideas of the consumer. One is the "citizen consumer," who is the hero of the book, the consumer who protects his (and very often her) rights and does not placidly accept what businesses deign to give them. The other, more prominent, consumer is the Consumer as Purchaser, the Keynesian consumer who stimulates the economy by his purchases. We then go to the war, and see how the government sought to limit price increases with the help of citizen cooperation. We learn about the many female volunteers, while we also learn that African-Americans, who most needed it, got the least help and the least employment with the OPA. Then we go to the postwar world where, despite popular support, Congress abolishes the OPA. Meanwhile the new consensus, the GI Bill, and the boom of suburbia promise a brave new world of abundance for all, or almost all.

Although women unions and minorities have used consumption and consumer's rights movement to express their grievances, one of Cohen's major themes is how the consumer's republic failed to break down the hierarchies of society and indeed reinforced them. Race was the most obvious failure. Although it has been told before, it is still shocking to learn that black soldiers in the Second World War were excluded from stores and restaurants that German Prisoners of War could freely enter. Cohen also reminds us that shabby treatment of Afro-American soldiers was not merely confined to the South, but to the whole country, including in the West where they were previously non-existent. This takes us to New Jersey, Cohen's native state. Although it had public accommodation laws dating back to the 19th century, storeowners often excluded black customers. Indeed, during the Depression both the Salvation Army and the Red Cross would refuse to help African-Americans in some places. In what is the tour de force of the book Cohen, based on massive amounts of evidence, discusses the struggles in New Jersey for successful civil rights legislation, and the racial segregation and outright exclusionism of the suburbs (encouraged by consumer prejudice, business practice and federal guidelines). We learn about New Jersey's selfish politics of localism, how school funding is based on inequitable local taxation, and of the difficult fights to ensure adequate funding for all.

Especially helpful is Cohen's description of the limited effect of the GI Bill. Most of its students would have gone to university anyway. The poor found that its educational benefits wouldn't be of much help to those who hadn't graduated from high school or who were looking for vocational education. Women and African-Americans faced further hurdles in trying to invoke the GI Bill. They faced outright discrimination, blacks couldn't easily enter the traditional veteran's leagues, and one popular one they did enter was red-baited to death. Both groups had second-rate status in the army, and African-Americans were given much more dishonourable discharges for criticizing their mistreatment. Women, for their part, had trouble getting credit cards, and when working women applied with their husbands for a Veteran's Administration Loan, the wife would have to promise she was either infertile or would get an abortion if she became pregnant. Women also had to step aside for returning veterans so that their proportion in one city university fell from 20% in 1940 to 14% in 1947. Meanwhile, the working class did not vanish in a wash of affluence. They kept their identity, which was enforced by a certain class segregation in suburbia.

Cohen also looks at the growth of shopping malls. She discusses how they were isolated from minority populations (one inner-city youth was killed in 1995 crossing a seven-lane highway because the mall were she worked did not allow buses to stop there). She also points out how they work to limit free speech and distort resources. She then goes to look at the rise of market segmentation in the fifties and sixties and how advertisers and businessmen concentrated their efforts at specific groups. She then discusses the rise and fall of the consumer's movement, as Ralph Nader, Rachel Carson and others inspired a great rush of pro-consumer legislation and greater regulatory effort in the sixties. But the consumer's movement had weaknesses as a truly enthusiastic mass movement, while attempts to institutionalize a consumer's voice in government were defeated in the seventies. There are some weaknesses in this book. As a discussion of advertising, it is less stimulating than Jackson Lears' "Fables of Abundance." More could be said about the pernicious effects of advertising for children, including the insane Reagan administration decision to allow the replacement of educational programming with program-length advertisements for toys. And there is not much about the culture of consumption, a problem that has vexed intellectuals from Veblen to Adorno. But as an account of how consumerism moved decisively from working for the common good to what is good for me is best for all, Cohen's work has no rivals.

Lizabeth Cohen gavea speech in my school today regarding consumerism in America through her book. Her points were excellent and very interesting. Great read

From Simon Patten's reworking of the theory of supply and demand into his the theory of consumption at the beginning of the 20th century, Americans have been steadily moved away from citizenship to consumership. Lizabeth Cohen charts the stimulation of desire, describes the segmentation of the American public by marketers, real estate developers and political consultants, and traces the deleterious effects of this fragmentation upon the public sphere. She shows with detailed examples and masses of research how this discourse was created and supported by both the government and the corporation, as well as the public, and how in the process the rights of citizens were transformed into the pale substitute of consumer rights. Particularly thought-provoking is her thesis that the segmentation of the market happened in concert with the end of mass political movements, and how polictical movements are now indistinguishable from consumer movements. Well writen, with good illustrations.

After reading this book, you will have an entirely new appreciation for the republican system. Note that "republican" does not refer to the political party.

Everdell explains why a republic is the most just and fit governmental system for humanity. He also relates the traits of republicanism and signs of its demise. It's definitely worthwhile reading, but be aware that the language is very dense. You really need to be interested in the topic to get through it.

Masterful, excellent history and analysis of republican (with a small r!) government. Makes clear exactly why "democratic" gov't and "republican" gov't are not the same, a point even scholars are missing. Opens my eyes and mind to what this country is about and exactly what we have been, are, and should be fighting to maintain. Makes me realize that the biggest danger of our modern "pop" culture is precisely its profound ignorance of this point. Highly recommended for all who are now confused about the meaning and worth of America. Read it, wake up, and start reading more about republican government, and maybe even get involved. Otherwise, we'll soon be in deep trouble as a culture, as far as I can see.

Everdell is strongest on the scientific and philosophic ends, his discussions of visual arts weakest. But withal this is a great achievement, a balance between a discussion of ideas and the social settings and personalities behind them. For us sandlot intellectuals, a pleasure from beginning to end.

Unlike many survivor's accounts, Weil's novel (which I assume from the biographical material prefacing this work is probably quite autobiographical) does not deal with any aftermath to the Holocaust. The book breaks off just as the narrator chooses to hide and therefore conitnue his fight against the never-named but omnipresent "them."

The rapacity and cunning of "them" remind you of Art Speigelman's "Maus," and I wonder if he read this novel earlier. The picture of daily life outside the camps is told with details which constantly circle back to the narrator's lost (married) lover, and understandably, these obsessions only fade gradually, as the transports impinge more directly upon the Jews.

The metaphor of the circus, in which the only animals are people, is sustained admirably in this section of the novel, and the translation conveys well the bare irony of the minimalist style. Almost childlike in its observations, the tone of the novel may be off-putting to some readers wanting more elaborated insight. It took me about sixty or seventy pages to get used to the rhythm, and only in the halfway point did it fully compel me. But I read it in one sitting.

Why? By its steady momentum, you are carried into the horror even as it does not overwhelm you. Through the control of the protagonist, you too gain control over the situation, and resolve to resist the temptation to give in to complacency.

The characters remain in your memory: Roubitschek and his onion, the narrator's almost comic aunt and uncle who blame the whole Nazi invasion it seems on their nephew, Ruzema's memory, and most of all, Tomas the cat. Rarely has a pet assumed such an evocative place in such a story. The daily task of finding food when you can buy so little. The scene of the names being called for transport in the synagogue, the depictions of the grave digging detail, the narrator's shattered home, and the growing despair that battles against the realization that the slow advance of the Allies means that people "out there" are actually fighting to save the narrator: all these add up subtly to a powerful testimony.

The narrator must wear a star that shines only at day, that gives no warmth, that is pinned over one's own heart, but over the course of the novel, he realizes that his status as the "other" frees him (almost like a Camus character) to live.
Worthy of comparison to Imre Kertesz' "Fateless," and Primo Levi's memoirs, this overlooked novel deserves much wider attention. Read it and see why.

Weil takes his character Josef Rubicek through budding romance, poverty on the outskirts, danger, demeaning treatment, and the daily effort to survive, in Prague during the Holocaust. Rubicek is slow to understand what is happening around him, but eventually realizes the significance of the regulations that get announced daily, the restrictions that are put on his world, and the anguish of those he encounters. It's a very moving book throughout, even when Rubicek is lost in reveries over a romantic liaison which has been ended by the authorities.

I read 'Night' by Elie Wiesel, and although I sensed the horror of the Holocaust, I didn't actually feel it. Some time later I read 'Life with a Star', and finally felt it, deep inside. This book is an incredible description of a Jew's life outside the camps during the war. I highly recommend it.

Warren M. Bodie's book on the Seversky aircraft and the P-47 Thunderbolt is a very well researched work that contains a lot of surprising material and corrects errors present in older sources. The book is primarily a technical and development history, although it includes a summary of combat operations. It is rich both in text and in pictures, and makes an effort to put things in their historical context. The author has strong opinions and expresses them with a lot conviction. A weakness of the book is the meandering writing style, which imparts a certain repetitiveness and a lack of chronological order. It is also clear that while the author has all the facts about the P-38, P-47, Lockheed, Seversky and Republic, he makes some serious errors when stepping outside this field, including some that could easily have been prevented. Perhaps some corrections are in order in the next edition --- but this one is certainly worth buying.

This thoroughly researched book traces the industrial/developement history of the P-47 and its Seversky predecessors. The author gives very interesting insight on the decision making process within the Air Force and the industry. Of course such a detailled book about the development and technical aspects of the P-47 precludes the author from going in depth in the operationnal history of the type, but that's what most other books about the "Jug" are covering. Especially foreign service of the type is lacking, a trait typical of most american authors. To help prospective buyers, I would compare this excellent work about the P-47 with an 1980 book about the P-51 by former 8th AF ace Leonard "Kit" Carson, titled Pursue and Destroy. M. Bodie has also written a very good book about the P-38. Paper quality and photo reproduction are excellent. To sum up, if you're interested in the P-47, buy this book.

I have been studying the great fighter planes of the WWII European Theatre for over 15 years. Based on historical facts and pilot stories, I have come to admire the Thunderbolt. It is the forgotten fighter, in my opinion, for the more glamorous P-51. However, Warren Bodie shows how the "Jug" came into being as well as how its pilots used it. While his writing style may wonder a bit, his incredibly factual presentation of the greatest fighter-bomber of all time will answer every question you ever had about the Thunderbolt.

I bought this because my family tree has major roots in Cooperstown and I wanted to envision what it was like for my ancestors there. The book did that, but it also gave larger insight into some very human and interesting characters, and I was impressed by how, simultaneously, life then was as sophisticated in terms of relationships and politics but far more brutal and austere. The author writes well, perhaps a little too detailed and scholarly at times for some of us, but overall it's tough to put it down once started. It centers on the father of author James Fenimore Cooper and how a poor craftsman from the Philadelphia, PA area founds a town in the wilds of upstate NY and goes on to become a judge and Congressman, endure tragedies, and ultimately get brought down. William Cooper is treated a little critically at times by the author, while I came to see Cooper to be a passionate and vulnerable person who tried hard to be what he thought he should be but failed by letting the opinions of others drive his actions sometimes to excess. If you're into history at all or how life was in pioneer, post-Revolution times, this is an excellent book. The people come alive for us.

Fascinating, though too long. I recommend starting with Taylor's _Liberty Men and Great Proprietors_, which seems to have been less of a "labor of love."

The tale of James Fenimore Cooper's father on the New York frontier in the 1790s is an Horatio Alger story run amuck. Born to a poor Quaker farm family, William Cooper learned the craft of making and repairing wheels before reinventing himself as a land speculator, founder of Cooperstown, judge, congressman, patrician farmer and Federalist party powerhouse.

Alan Taylor's WILLIAM COOPER'S TOWN: POWER AND PERSUASION ON THE FRONTIER OF THE EARLY AMERICAN REPUBLIC is an outstanding biography of an archetypical American character, an extraordinary social history of life and politics on the late eighteenth-century frontier and a brilliant exercise in literary analysis.

This is a wonderful read. Taylor's lively prose, compelling narrative and original, fresh story sustained my interest from cover to cover. I never would have imagined such a dull title could cover such a marvelous book. WILLIAM COOPER'S TOWN certainly deserves the Pulitzer Prize it was awarded.

Taylor not only describes William Cooper's rise from rags to riches and even more meteoric fall but analyzes Cooper's political odyssey in America's frontier democratic workshop.

"As an ambitious man of great wealth but flawed gentility, Cooper became caught up in the great contest of postrevolutionary politics: whether power should belong to traditional gentlemen who styled themselves 'Fathers of the People' or to cruder democrats who acted out the new role of 'Friends of the People.'"

Taylor argues "Cooper faced a fundamental decision as he ventured into New York's contentious politics. Would he affiliate with the governor and the revolutionary politics of democratic assertion? Or would he endorse the traditional elitism championed by...Hamilton." "Brawny, ill educated, blunt spoken, and newly enriched," writes Taylor, "Cooper had more in common with George Clinton than with his aristocratic rivals." "For a rough-hewn, new man like Cooper, the democratic politics practiced by Clinton certainly offered an easier path to power. Yet, like Hamilton, Cooper wanted to escape his origins by winning acceptance into the genteel social circles where Clinton was anathema." Taylor concludes "Cooper's origins pulled him in one political direction, his longing in another."

James Fenimore Cooper's third novel, THE PIONEERS, is an ambivalent, fictionalized examination of his father's failure to measure up to the genteel stardards William Cooper set for himself and that his son James internalized. The father's longing became the son's demand.

Taylor analyzes the father-son relationship, strained by Williams decline before ever fully measuring up to the stardards he had set, and the son's fictionalized account of this relationship.

James Fenimore Cooper spent most of his adult life seeking the "natural aristocrat" his father wanted to be and compensating for his father's shortcomings. It is ironic that the person James Fenimore Cooper found to be the embodiment of the "natural aristocrat" his father had longed to be and that he had created in THE CRATER and his most famous character, Natty Bumppo, was the quintessential "Friend of the People"--Andrew Jackson.

I enjoyed this book immensely and give it my strongest recommendation!

William Rorabaugh, an associate professor of History at the University of Washington, provides a very interesting study of alcoholic consumption in the United States from the 18th century through the mid 1800s. He looks at the issue from the supply side (expense and technology in the production of distilled beverages and the import of rum) and the demand side. There is some eye-opening information in this work. The annual per capita consumption of alcohol between 1800-1830 exceeded 5 gallons; nearly triple today's consumption (p. 8). The demand for alcohol (particularly whiskey) stemmed from such things as alleged medical and dietary benefits, social camaraderie, a way to cope with a rapidly changing society, and such particle reasons as the lack of alternatives (water and milk was unhealthy and other substitutes were comparatively expensive) and strong beverages were needed to overcome the bland, monotonous American diet. Rorabaugh also devotes much of this study to the medical and moral critics of alcohol, including temperance societies. One doctor in the 1740s favored moderation: "not more than one bottle of wine each evening" (p. 32). I believe there is a lot of over-generalization in this study, especially when disillusionment over the voting system and the burden of living up to the ideals of the independent man are used as reasons for drinking (although drinking probably came before such feelings). Still, the book is extremely well-researched, with source notes at the end and several appendixes on estimating consumption of alcohol, cross-national comparisons of consumption, and cook books. The text, excluding the appendixes, is 222 pages and includes illustrations.

If you don't understand drinking, you don't understand American history. Colonial Americans drank like fish ‹ average whiskey consumption one pint daily. In the early 1800s they went on a bigger binge, mostly on hard liquor and drinking alone, rather than sociably like in the old days. Rorabaugh says this explains how the temperance movement came up just then, & it was the stress of industrialization & frontier loneliness & inflated dreams for the new nation. Readable & smart & has the good modern historical perspective on ³alcoholism² but¹s still skeptical of heavy intoxicant use.

If you enjoy reading history, pull up a chair and pour down the whisky because you are going to read 'The Alcoholic Republic.' It is on the drinking patterns in the United States and the reading is simply interesting as well fascinating. You thought drinking was terrible these days lets go back to the great alcoholic binge of the nineteenth century.

'It was the consensus, then, among a wide variety of observers that Americans drank great quantities of alcohol. The beverages they drank were for the most part distilled liquors, commonly known as spirits ' whiskey, rum, gin and brandy. On the average those liquors were 45 percent alcohol, or, in the language of distillers, 90 proof.' (Page 7)

It is simply a fun history book to read and recommend the drunkenness to anyone interested in the drinking habits of previous Americans. I give it five stars because it is one of the most interesting history books I have read in a long time.

Very clear and easy to understand, I recommend that any business traveler to Asia read this to avoid social faux pas. I also recommend that they read "New Asian Emperors" by George Haley to understand how their potential partners or competitors may think.

Scott D. Seligman brings his considerable experience working and living in China to this revised and updated edition of his classic guide. James McGregor, the former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, said the original classic, "should be a mandatory carry-on item for all business travelers to China." More than a how-to, this is an updated, candid, and thorough tour of protocol, manners, and culture. It delves deeply into the reasons for Chinese behaviors, and shows how you can deal effectively with any business or social situation. We at getAbstract recommend this book to anyone visiting or working in China, or dealing with the Chinese professionally or socially in any country.

If you're planning on doing some business in China and are unfamiliar with Chinese customs- do yourself a favor and read this book. Concise, well written and informative, Chinese Business Etiquette is a good introduction to getting by in the Middle Kingdom.

Besides helping you to do business in China, this book can also prevent you from looking like a complete moron in a Chinese social situation.

A pity that this book is out of print. A very intersting survey of the conquest of Siberia. Chilly and chilling even in its writing. No real glorious epic here although lots of gumption and bravery tales of the daring folks that settled Siberia. Just a tale of woe, but a woe that built a nation. Also a few questions about the mentality of a people still little known who forged itself in such hardship and near animalistic conditions. A must read to understand the influence of Siberia in today's Russia. One objection, many editing errors that cost it a star.

I found this book in the bargain section for $5 and now see it is out of print. What a shame. The book covers the hisotry of Siberia from pre-history to modern times. Perhaps the most interesting chapters cover the exploration of Siberia by Bering in the late 18th C. - this epic conquest pales the Lewis and Clark expedition in scope and time and is writen with such vivid description it would make a wonderfull movie. For these few chapters alone this book is worth seeking out. Overall a very intersting book covering a very broad topic

Siberia evokes a host of mental images for any Westerner, most of them negative. Bobrick goes completely beyond the superficial "Gulag" images to reveal a vast and romantic land. He masterfully tells the story of how Russian pioneers battled the Khan tribes to conquer this weird country, river by river, valley by valley. Disasters abounded - particularly the near-extermination of the sable - but Siberia also gave us epic stories of exploration, culminating in the journeys of the great Danish explorer, Bering. Bobrick is as adept at telling their story as he is the stories of the settlers, many of them exiles or convicts, and their new life. There are also chapters devoted to "Russian America," i.e. Alaska, and other Pacific escapades such as the San Francisco base. We learn of border clashes with the Chinese over the Amur, and, later, the Russo-Japanese War, in which the Trans-Siberian railway played a pivotal role. Finally, Bobrick reveals in unflinching detail the Gulag system. This book is pure adventure and is surely deserves to be reissued.