I think that the book glorifies Alija Izetbegovic way too much....

Written by Izetbegovic while he was imprisoned for campaigning against the Communist dictatorship in Yugoslavia. Includes an analysis of the most powerful ideologies in 20th century Europe, Communism, Fascism, Capitalism, and their relationship to Islam.

Highly recommended. Worth every penny.

it is hardly worth the money. your better off getting the same info off a web site for free, I don't recommend theis book, i would only if it were bigger and had more info.

From, A die hard Jaromir fan

This book is the only one of it's kind I could find of this extremely talented hockey player. I am so happy I found it!

Few polar historians or academics are aware of the late Robert J. Morrison's 1987 exposure of Stalin's North Pole scam of the 1930's, in "Russia's Shortcut to Fame: 50-Year Hoax Exposed." Morrison researched from previously classified US Army documents and photographic evidence that the so-called record setting flights originated from remote islands of the Alaskan panhandle to Vancouver, WA and San Jacinto, CA, not from Moscow as Stalin wanted the world to believe. Also Levanevsky was not lost in the Arctic, but was a victim of Stalin's great paranoid 1937 purge

Since I'm the author of this book, please disregard the five-star review, which I've assigned pro forma. This is meant to be a note about Ted Heckathorn's customer review of _Red Arctic_.

Mr. Heckathorn criticizes my book mainly on the grounds that I fail to take into account Robert Harrison's "proof" that the USSR's three transpolar flights of 1937 (along with other Soviet air expeditions) were faked. I would argue in return that to ignore Harrison's "findings" is not a fault, but rather responsible scholarship.

Readers should be aware that Harrison's book (a vanity publication that was, for some time, unable to find a press at all, then was taken up by a publisher that specializes mostly in thriller fiction) is a classic example of conspiracy-theory fringe literature. At least on the Internet, its principal endorsement comes from a British neo-fascist group (www.heretical.co.uk), most of whose web space is taken up with paranoid ravings about "Hebrew millionaires" and "Jewish communists." This is not to say that Harrison (or Heckathorn) shares any of these views; it is simply to show that Harrison's writings hardly occupy a place in the scholarly mainstream.

Harrison's arguments are based on speculative readings of grainy, poor-quality Soviet photos, equally grainy, poor-quality photos taken by the U.S. Army, and theories and assessments contained in U.S. intelligence reports. Harrison fails to take into account that the Soviet media (much like Western news services, then and today) routinely printed stock photos of pilots and aircraft, so images in newspapers and books did not always match the times and places mentioned in captions or headlines. This creates inconsistences, out of which Harrison spins theories more elaborate than they need to be. Moreover, the U.S. Army was hardly the most objective observer of Soviet aviation, and, for that matter, it was not always the most accurate. Also, writing in the 1980s, Harrison had no access to government and Communist Party documents in Russian archives, a plethora of which shows that these flights did in fact take place (and since these documents were never intended for public consumption, Soviet or foreign, it is safe to assume that they were not faked).

Finally, Harrison's conclusions, especially when applied to the third polar flight of 1937--Levanevsky's fatal disappearance--flies in the face of all logic. If the Stalinist regime went to such great lengths to deceive the world about its polar triumphs, in order to impress the international community with its technological prowess and human bravery, why on earth would it follow two stunning successes with a hideously embarrassing failure? If Stalin had wanted to purge Levanevsky (as Harrison and Heckathorn assert), he could have done so easily without a needlessly intricate plan that necessitated tarnishing the USSR's earlier exploits in the Arctic (faked _or_ genuine).

Admittedly, no archival record ever reflects the past with absolute precision or completeness. And Stalin was certainly ethically and practically capable of any deception imaginable. But Stalin did not deceive without rational purpose. And the archival record is more trustworthy than dubious guesswork based on possible inconsistencies spotted in photographs of less than stellar quality. At most, Harrison has raised the rather truistic point that not everything about Soviet propaganda exploits was as it seemed. But, with respect to matters of substance, he has neither proven nor disproven anything, circumstantially or conclusively.

This book goes into great details on the politics of Iraq for the past several decades.

This is a very good book to read at the current time. Although it is a bit dated, Republic of Fear presents an extremely detailed and in depth look at Saddam Hussein's Ba'thist regime. The party's history and it's structure are explained very well. The details are extremely chilling. The parallels between the Iraqi regime and that of Josef Stalin are plentiful, from mass killings to child indoctrination. It is obvious early in the book that Iraq is a country ruled by fear and death, where a large percent of the population spies and informs on their neighbors.

Also interesting is the operational makeup of the Iraqi security apparatus. It is through this web of overlapping agencies that Hussein stays in absolute control. The man himself is portrayed as a fiendishly clever but thugish brute who will kill absolutely anyone to stay on top. The Iraqi people are identified as cowed sheep who are desperate to find a way to avoid contact with officials or any kind of Iraqi administration.

Just hope for a free Iraq, it could be a reality very soon.

Banning's book is a repetative, prolonged and far too lengthy an essay. He imaginatively and masterfully reinteprets Madison's ideas and actions as a member of several deliberative bodies that preceeded and followed the writing and ratification of the Constitution, finding him to be consistent throughout in his views on a central government and the powers of the states. The reading can be somewhat tedious for its redundancies, but worth the effort. Bannings scholarship is impecable, yet the book ought to be only an article in a scholarly journal.

Lance Bannings book is excellent, and long ovedue. History has left us a view of Madison that suggested he was Jefferson's lieutenant, an apostate to his nationilistic views in the 1790's, one view even diminished him to a 'trimmer' of ideas. The average person knows little of the Father of the Constituion, and as Jack Rakove stated at Princeton this February passed, we are learning what Madison always knew. Most views of Madison are not the result of individual study and research, many opinions of Madison arise from previous treatments. Banning began with the exchanges of Madison and found the consistency Madison always claimed. The actual history of Madison reveals an enormously capacious, hard working force behind the Constituion, Bill of Rights,The Federalist Papers, 41 years of public service, and the workings and definition of goverment. Viewed by friend and political foes as, brilliant and ' one adept at committee work and reasoned argument, one who could be depended on to speak and write with precision and force what others could express but vauely and in part.' Banning has surpassed those before him in Madisonian scholarship, by ardously discovering The Real Madison. The attention to detail is excellent, and the scholarship is not self defending just revealing. As Madison's true nature unfolds the consistency is revealed, from lieutenant to an independent thinker, and finally to the proper position of one the key thinkers behind American government. Being one dependent on scholars for my view of history, and granting then occaisonally the keepers of arcanum a merit they do not deserve, it is refreshing to have Lance Bannings contribution not only to Madisonian scholarship, but also to American History. The ongoing efforts by Dave Mattern and the Papers of James Madison have brought enormous information to light in the last few years, and it appears the work of Banning may be the beginning of Madison taking his deserved place in our history and common parlance, a parlance altered by the independent and ardous study this book represents.

It is difficult to rate Autobiography of My Mother fairly; Jamaica Kincaid has written excellent books - At the Bottom of the River, Lucy . . . - and this book is only well above average. Were my expectations not so high, the things that are right about the book would stand out more against the portions that don't work. She is at her best when portraying the inability to love and the bitterness at the colonialist religion. However, there are points in the story where the political portrayal of victor vs. vanquished becomes a polemic out of character of the protagonist. A good book that is well worth reading - but is probably more enjoyable if you have read Annie John, Lucy or One Small Place so that the political polemic fits the reader's growing knowledge of the author rather than simply being an element less adroitly handled in this particular book.

I have to speak up, because I feel that this book is being unfairly trashed. I stumbled across one of the chapters of this book in a collection, and I was so taken aback that I had to rush out and get the complete novel. I think that that Jamaica Kincaid's writing is so beautiful and poetic that she could be writing about anything and I would read it. But she also tells a very interesting and important story. Xuela is a mixed-race, motherless girl who does not receive love from anyone, and must survive by loving and celebrating her self. Perhaps for those people who have always felt secure in their place in life, and surrounded by love on all sides, Kincaid's book is too harsh and hard to relate to. But for those of us who have had times we when we felt so alone that we literally had to become our own mother and/or our own best friend, Kincaid's novel is a testimony to our experience. A great book.

Autobiography of My Mother is a powerful, mesmerizing, and other-worldy tale of Xuela, a woman of Dominica, West Indies, who is a worthy subject for Kincaid's musical cadences and rapturous prose. Boy, can this woman write - and she infuses all her prose with the lilting voices of her compatriots. There's no way to read her work aloud without finding yourself lapsing into the patois, sing-songy style of speech that comes thru so clearly in her writing. This book is a painful tale, the recounting of a difficult life without much love shown to the girl as she grows from motherless infant to strong and bitter young woman who aborts her pregnancy and remains defiant the rest of her life. Raised motherless herself, she determines never to mother others. Taken on a metaphorical level, the woman's story could be the story of Dominica, torn by suffering, racism, power, and the unbreakable bonds that bind them together.
Powerful writing on so, so many levels.

"The China Threat" is another in a series of books attempting to get Americans to look past their expectations for financial gain from trade with China -- to confront the reality of China's empty promises on missile proliferation, to understand their hostile intentions towards America, and to realize Beijing's utter lack of interest in democratic reform and human rights.

In the 1970s through the fall of the Berlin Wall, China and America enjoyed a marriage of convenience as they confronted the Soviet threat. Sadly, American foreign policy vis a vis China did not adjust to the end of the Cold War -- and Beijing naturally took advantage of this.

Gertz carefully chronicles how China has managed to buy or steal our most critical national security secrets. He documents how China views missile and nuclear proliferation as a way to threaten the United States (the enemy of my enemy is my friend). He sets out some sobering scenarios for Chinese aggression in Asia -- and even in our own backyard.

No one should doubt the seriousness of the China threat after reading this book. Clearly China will present as great a threat to our safety and freedom as did Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

In CHINA THREAT, Gertz warns fellow Americans:

*How the FBI pursued six Chinese intelligence agents and never found a senior Chinese mole inside the U.S. government code-named "Ma" who had access to top secret intelligence.

*"The Hug": How spy suspect Wen Ho Lee was embraced by China's top nuclear weapons scientist during a visit to the United States. The nuclear scientist, Hu Side, was overheard by an FBI informant at the time as saying Wen Ho Lee provided great assistance to China's nuclear weapons program.

*How a classified Chinese government document, known as Document 65, reveals that China is willing to attack the United States with nuclear weapons if U.S. forces intervene to defend Taiwan in a regional conflict.

Gertz unleashes a Chinese spying manual, translated into English, revealing a massive weapons technology collection effort involving the gathering of data and covert espionage.

The timing of the book's release -- just days before the election -- has raised eyebrows in official Washington.

Gertz reported in recent days: If Texas Gov. George W. Bush is elected president, Republican national security officials are planning a major house-cleaning for the CIA's China analysis division. The Clinton-Gore administration has favored a dangerous "benign view of China," claims Gertz.

In his new book, Gertz publishes a secret White House report by NSC staff aide Gary Samore offering missile technology to China if it agrees to join the Missile Technology Control Regime limiting missile exports.

For too long the liberally-biased media has ignored the true ramifications of a country like China in the world, and its relation to America's future. After all, their own left-wing interests are used to hide the truth -- that China is an incredible threat to America, and any other democratically-elected country. Why else did the communist-Chinese military give money to the Bill Clinton via the Democratic party? What was their real long-term agenda? Why was this issue never really talked about in the media?

Gertz stays away from the liberal rhetoric to expose the dark- side of China with relentless evidence from both de-classified government material to his own in-depth research and analysis. It is this intense research, and personal arguements based on FACTS, that gives Gertz the intellectual credibility that has so many liberals in the media crying foul. One just needs to look at the reviews on Amazon that find the truth being exposed as "unfair" and disliked greatly. It is exactly this reason why The China Threat will be a valuable read to anyone interested in protecting America from historical Chinese aggression, ethno-centric arrogance, and corruption of the human spirit.

Given that this book is a fairly easy read for most, and gets to the major points fast with a tremendous amount of supporting evidence, will make it a best seller...And a GREAT WEAPON in destroying all the left-wing, liberally-biased media propaganda that is displayed on our televisions and newspapers through the likes of CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

................................................................

Perhaps I began this book with too high a set of expectations; like, for example, it would actually focus on Bob Dylan's (and The Band's) Basement Tapes. The set piece that opens the book--a brilliant recapturing of the infamous 1966 Albert Hall concert--plays to Marcus' strength as an evoker of places and atmospheres, and includes some incredible quotes from the protagonists. And even though this chapter is too brief to be thorough, it's the best thing in the book, because in setting up the context for The Basement Tapes, it delivers something close to the advertised product.

But it's all down hill from there, because Dylan, The Band, the tapes all dissappear into the shadows. They end up becoming just another facet, rather than the focus of the book. There's a lengthy chapter on Harry Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music" and Marcus' woefully insubstantial literary analysis of a handful of "Tapes" songs that tell us more about the workings(?) of Marcus' mind than of the music. After all, how much can lyrics like "Ooh baby/ooh wee/it's that million dollar bash" really be explicated? The answer found in this book is: far too much.

If this had indeed been a book about Dylan, about the months he and The Band spent in Woodstock NY, about the process of making music--specificaly the music the book claims it will be about (and The Basement Tapes, as eventually distributed by Columbia are important enough to enough people to merit such consideration)--about the atmosphere and events surrounding the music, this would have been a much more enlightening read. I wanted to see Marcus do for the making of the tapes what he does so well for the Albert Hall concert--make me feel like I'm there. But Marcus' context overwhelms his alleged focus to the point that the title and the jacket are essentially false advertisements. Dylan fans: caveat emptor.

If for no other reason, this book is worth reading for Marcus's brilliant dissection of the '60s folk revival and Dylan's troubled tour of 1966 with the Hawks. No other writer has ever put his finger precisely on the reason for the hostility that greeted Dylan's decision to "go electric."

Although the discussion of the "Anthology of American Folk Music" is useful and provides a nice context for Dylan's work in The Basement Tapes, Marcus tends to stretch the analogy beyond any useful point. And the lengthy digression on the career of Dock Boggs seems to serve no purpose whatsoever and sheds no light on the subject at hand. Also, some of Marcus's pet phrases (such as "second mind") seem clever at first, but become tiresome after the umpteenth reprise (after a while, you can almost see them coming).

More discussion of the actual Basement Tapes songs would have made this book the definitive treatment of the subject. Nevertheless, what we have is excellent. Easily one of the best books ever written on a single aspect of Dylan's work.

Greil Marcus gets a lot of flack, which is understandable since truly good writing never gets greeted with apathy. I personally would rather be flayed alive however than spend time with the sort of people who whine about how supposedly prententious and wrong-headed he is. Marcus is a myth-maker, and to comprehend the book you simply can't just walk in unprepared and then complain afterward. It's assumed that you'll have heard at least the official Basement Tapes release, (And the full 5-cd set is easier to come by than most people think--I even got mine off of ebay.)and have knowledge of the lodestones of American roots music. As the title suggests, Marcus is discussing more than just Dylan. Those who complain that the basement tapes don't deserve Marcus' analysis and are too slight miss the point entirely. Popular music tells a huge amount from our culture--a song like "Blue Suede Shoes" and the background behind it may tell you more about 195o's America than a history book. Marcus analyzes the music Dylan made in 1967 by delving into what shaped it and how what shaped it shaped our culture. He follows the strand of thoughts that criss-crossed Dylan's mind when the Basement tapes were created--thoughts on the country's present state and its past, the remembered bits of old folk numbers belonging to a vanished America,etc. He shoots back and forth through time and across topics following these strands and by the end he has revealed that the basement tapes reflect and show us--in all their mystery, silliness(especially that), simplicity,and complexity--a rich picture of America, both past and present. Now if you can't handle the unconventionality or daring of Marcus' approach--how his way of writing about the music reflects the sprawling, limitless potential of teh music and its influences--then please stop your bitching and find something simpler. A 100 years from now, when historians wish to document and experience our culture, one of the most powerful tools they have will be the music of the day. You haven't understood all of the old, weird America if you haven't listened to singers like Dock Boggs, and those in the future studying our time will gain immeasurable insight from simply listening to the basement tapes. Greil Marcus' book is joined at the hip to those tapes --it both explains and adds to their mystery, and those wise enough to see how the tapes reflect the times will see the same about this book.

The graphic elements are nice enough, but the text keeps TELLING you how splendidly exotic the Republic of Dreams is, instead of SHOWING you, by portraying examples of Reverian exoticism in action. All the Reverians are "creative" and "mysterious" and "tender", we are told, but we don't catch them in the act of being these things. What passes for an "atmosphere" of exotic pleasure in this book is really fairly trite ... snifters of brandy, "fine wines", 1920s-style passenger trains ... nice, but nothing surprising here. Sadly, the author falls into the old Star Trek trick of faking exoticism by pairing a mundane noun with a made-up "exotic" proper adjective.... "We dined on Lunarian caviar while sipping Reverian champagne." Or words to that effect. Also, the author tells you that certain neighborhoods of the capital city of the island reminded one of Paris at its best and as Paris might have been .... it would have been better to tell me things about those neighborhoods that brought Paris to my mind, while leaving the word "Paris" unsaid.

Pretty tepid stuff. Ho hum.

The Republic has allot to offer, from the passport to the maps and postcards(which are great). As a nudist I enjoyed the clothing optional atmosphere and the story was a great deal of fun. This is not the psychological foreplay of Bantock's work (there's actualy a story going on here). Although there could have been more nude men and a more diverse population (such as in size and ethnicity)but as a poet and an artist I found the Republic of Dreams a wonderful adventure and escape(the DaDaist artwork is wonderful). I'm looking forword to the next installment of the Republic of Dreams. As an African-American woman I see more potental in Mr. Crimmins's work than in anything that Nick Bantock has written so far.

"The Republic of Dreams" is like "Griffin and Sabine" in that it uses its illustrations and toys to bring you closer into the narrative. "The Republic of Dreams" has everything you could hope for in this type of novel. The sensuous narrative, surreal, subtly erotic illustration, and pull-out items such as the Poetic Licence and Republic Passport all make you feel as if you have taken a journey into this Republic. Unlike many Bantock and neo-Bantock works, "The Republic of Dreams" explores its ideas in depth. A wonderful mind-clearing diversion, especially useful for the poet and artist. Go, Crimmins, go.

I admit to skimming the second half of this book. If there is a story here, I couldn't follow it because of all the blind alleys it went into while trying to pin all of Russia's current follies onto a single individual. This central thesis simply isn't credible. Russia is a large, complex, and easily misunderstood country, with a long history of unscrupulous characters vying for its assets, from its serfs to its natural gas monopoly. The "Oligarchs" are only the most recent incarnation of this tendancy, but at least they have had a positive effect: More democratisation, a burgoning open media infrastructure, and the rise of power center outside of Russia's bureaucracy. Had the author spent a little more time researching Russian history and the current economic situation, he would have had a better story to tell. Not that this book is entirely without merit. It has a couple of extreme anecdote about the Russian "mafia" that could have been taken right out of the New York Post. However, the author seemed more intent concentrating all of Russia's ills onto a single individual, which is simply not realisic.

In what will likely be the only English-language book about the central organized crime figure in Russia from the 1990s, Klebnikov voluminously overstates his case, but in an entertaining enough way. If you lived in Russia during this period, you can see the book's flaws and simply take the useful information (and there is a lot of it) for what it is. But if you didn't, and most people in America did not, then you will come away from this book believing that one man, Boris Berezovsky, was the sole incarnation of evil in Russia during this period, when in fact he was simply an ingenious opportunist who took advantage of a political and societal vacuum created by larger forces-- including the Western governments Klebnikov takes great pains to avoid criticizing in his book.

The cover looks like a still from a Third Reich "Know Your Jewish Enemy" pamphlet. It was also hard not to notice that Vladimir Potanin, the lone goy among the Russian oligarchs of the period Klebniokov describes, was the only Russian businessman to come across as a relatively ethical operator in the book. Other aspects of the book hint at a certain Other Agenda. You can judge for yourself. I do recommend that anyone interested in modern Russian history read this book-- Berezovsky is a crucial subject and Klebnikov was the only one to take the legimitae physical risk to write a high-profile book about him-- but readers should be aware of its flaws and limitations.

Paul Klebnikov brings to vigorous, swashbuckling life Russia from the death of Leonid Brezhnev (11/10/1982) up to and slightly beyond the resignation of Boris Yeltsin (12/31/99) in favor of Vladimir Putin. A principal literary technique the author uses is to contrast various players: politicians Gorbachev and Yeltsin or Generals Lebed and Grachev, for example. Klebnikov presents no more striking Russian "parallel lives" than those of oligarchs Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky.

Mikhail Gorbachev seems a passably decent, honorable man in the pages of GODFATHER OF THE KREMLIN. Paul Klebnikov's pageant locates, however, almost all his other players at various positions on a wide scale of sheer criminality, venality, murderousness and self-seeking. On that scale Gusinsky is comparatively (and only comparatively) a good guy, while Berezovsky wears a black hat.

Yet the parallels are striking, with the implication that for a time Godfather Berezovsky played "me, too" or "catch up" to Gusinsky. In 1989 Gusinsky partnered with an American, Berezovksy with an Italian. In 1991 Gusinsky established Most Bank, Berezovsky started one, too. Both went after an Aeroflot account. Both reached out for newspapers and TV networks.

But there was one big difference. "In contrast to Berezovsky, who liked to take over existing enterprises, Gusinsky created entirely new companies. He added value to the Russian economy. ... Unlike Berezovsky, Gusinsky could legitimately claim to have played a constructive role in the Russian economy" (p. 148f).

Absent good government and a moral business culture in Russia, Berezovsky and most if not all the other oligarchs found sheer piracy and looting of wealth created by others the easiest way to grow personally rich. Neither Berezovsky nor Gusinsky is remotely as benign or constructive as America's so-called "robber barons" such as Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie and Morgan (who were neither criminals nor looters). But in a brilliant tour d'horizon of Russian society sketched in the author's Epilogue at pp. 322--326, Boris Berezovksy comes across as both criminal and looter, while Vladimir Gusinsky seems merely criminal. Is it possible that the best that can be hoped for of private Russian business in the next decade is that the Berezevskys will decrease while the Gusinskys will increase? Will both dreadful types ultimately be replaced by hard driving but morally upright businessmen more like Steve Jobs, Ross Perot or Don Rumsfeld? -OOO-