Like most students of Iran, Abrahamian brings the academic's bias against religion having much importance. He prefers to see Khomeini's ideas "as a flexible political movement." But discount this bias and you'll find Abrahamian makes a strong and original case that "the behavior of Khomeini and the Islamic Republic has been determined less by scriptural principles than by immediate political, social, and economic needs." He makes this case the old-fashioned way, through a close reading of texts and study of events. Abrahamian's intimate knowledge of Iran imbues his short study with the sort of insight all too rare in the study of Iran; and it's certainly one of the most important books on Iran to appear in English in some years. The author catalogues the profound changes in Khomeini's thinking that took place in the era 1965-70, when he replaced many of his traditional Shi'ite beliefs with the trendy notions of European Marxism (as mediated by Leftist Iranian intellectuals). Abrahamian demonstrates the evolution of the mullahs' relations with the Left through a close analysis of May Day celebrations. Over and over again, he shows how Khomeini changed his views to fit current needs, contradicting not only himself but some of Islam's most basic tenets (such as the priority of Sacred Law over raison d'état). Indeed, the sainted ayatollah apparently stuck with just one tenet through his entire career: the inviolability of private property.

Middle East Quarterly, June 1994

144 pages. Introduction by Madame Chaing Kai-Shek. Wonderful photographs...it is somewhat of a coffee table book.

Small pamphlet sort of book. Very good for perspective peace corp volunteers

This life of General Albert Sidney Johnston was written by his son about twenty years after the War Between The States. It covers his entire career, while concentrating upon the events surrounding the fall of Fort Donelson and the battle of Shiloh. It is obviously designed to prove that Gen. Johnston was not to blame for the fall of Fort Donelson, and that he deserves credit for a great strategic success at Shiloh, which was spoiled by his untimely death. Despite the propaganda, I quite enjoyed the book. Gen. Johnston was highly regarded by President Davis. Many thought him to be the equal (or superior) to Lee and that his death was a great tragedy to the Confederacy. The book is somewhat dense reading, containing numerous letters to support the author's case. Many were solicited from the surviving participants after the war.

Holy claims to be writing about the 'Czech nation' and thus very irresponsibly lumps Moravians into that grouping. This is my main complaint. As an anthropologist who has done fieldwork in the area, it seems elementary to make this distinction. Holy is Czech and this may be the best explanation for his neglect

In preparing for a trip to Hungary, I examined thoroughly the choices for Budapest.

My favorite guidebook series has been Lonely Planet, and the Budapest Lonely Planet is fairly helpful. Although it doesn't give as thorough a treatment on accomodations, the book gives a lot of travel hints and secret. I found its facts for the visitors to be the most helpful, and the maps (placed at the very back of the book) to be the easiest to use. The frommer book, on the other hand, put the maps close to the section of the book referring to it. The organization of LP makes it easiest to use in the field; they tend to have the best background, history and cultural information. LP was particularly good about including rules, regulations and things like closing times. ON the other hand, there are not many photos, and they don't plan as many walking tours as the frommer book does. I didn't find the written descriptions that engaging, although the cultural background seemed well done.

The Frommer's Budapest book (3rd edition) gave the best information about finding and choosing accomodations, but the book has no pictures and aside from a nice subway cover on the inside cover, the maps are hard to find and not very easy to use. Frommer's gives excellent information about prices and shops and restaurants; it's almost a guide to buying things rather than a tour book. I didn't find it particularly thorough about travel information, customs, or those sorts of details. That is not entirely fair. They have a nice section in the front a kind of "best of" list for things in budapest. The nice thing about the book is that it recommends things to do if you have only one day, three days or a week. They also suggested some itineraries for walking tours.

The Fodor's Budapest pocket reference is drab and not full of much information. Don't get it.

The Eyewitness Travel Guide on Budapest by Tadeusz Olszanski is the most eye-catching and the least helpful. It contains lots of graphics and diagrams and maps, and not too much information. The multitude of pictures are helpful in describing architecture, geography and art. On the other hand, its information on accomodations is very limited. Don't get me wrong; it's a beautiful and interesting book; it just is not as helpful as the other three. And it is two years old. I'm not necessarily saying that this book is bad, merely that it may not help you very much on the excursion.

The Budapest: A Critical Guide by Andras Torok, 4th edition is a less complete and more personal account of things to do in Budapest. The other books were like encyclopedias, but this book was just a few personal recommendations about things to do and places to stay. Also, the writing for this book seems to be better than the other books. If you already are a little familiar with Budapest, but just want to learn about new and undiscovered places, this might be an excellent book. It certainly covers most of the bases, but it just doesn't try to list a huge number of accomodations or restaurants.

I ended up buying the Frommer's and a used copy of the Eyewitness travel guide.

Rogers Brubaker, Professor of Sociology at UCLA and part-time teacher at the Central European University in Budapest, has written six decent essays on nationalism here which don't really comprise a full book. Originally published in such journals as 'Daedalus' and 'Ethnic and Racial Studies', the essays present some interesting new concepts for the study of nationalism like 'nationalizing states' (a process which Benedict Anderson might call 'official nationalism') and 'homeland nationalism' (where a nation-state has significant numbers of its cultural community located outside its borders, i.e. Germany between the world wars and Russia today).

Yet Brubaker sometimes dips a bit much into jargon-filled sociological theory: for example, drawing from Pierre Bourdieu (who has a blurb on the back of the book), Brubaker defines a national minority as 'a dynamic political stance, or, more precisely, a family of related yet mutually competing stances.' Furthermore, he credits institutionalization too much for nationalism in the former USSR (i.e. Central Asia), calling nationalism a political phenomenon and thus not drawing enough attention to culture, language, religion, etc.

Nonetheless the essays are worth a quick read, especially the one comparing Weimar Germany and contemporary Russia.

Classifying azerbaycan as a heterocultural area and talking about armenian sacrifice without giving proof is not in accordance with your academic titles. In history armenian people also killed Turkish people but today is the day to live together in peace. This is more vital for Armenia than Azerbaycan or Turkey.

A decent book with good information, but be warned: It should have been entitled, "How to Get a Job Teaching English in Eastern Europe." No other areas are explored.

I bought this book while researching Czech and Slovak politics, and got quite a bit less than I was expecting from it. Perhaps the title misled me: I was expecting an overview of politics in the region, but what I got instead was a handbook that, to a large extent, summarised the constitutions of the four countries.

What I found disappointing was the author's sometimes uncritical quotations from constitutions and party programmes. Rather than repeating what is supposed to be, he could have done a better job of informing the reader about what is by bringing in observations and opinions from other political scientists.

In certain areas, Fitzmaurice's urge to summarise leaves the book thin on the ground. For example, the author uses a single paragraph to describe "constitution building" in Slovakia.

The book also shows signs of a poor editing job. The author is quite patchy in his use of diacritics in Central European names; he uses them in some names, while ommitting them in others. He also manages to misspell the names of two leading Slovak politicians. Further, the book is not free of factual errors: Fitzmaurice writes about Poland's Marshal Pilsudski fighting "against the Soviet Union in 1920", when more careful research would have shown him that the USSR was, in fact, not founded until 1922, after Communist Russia's war with Poland was over. Such errors and ommissions reflect badly on the author's knowledge of the region.

Finally, given the title of the book, I expected more attention to be placed on regional issues and on relations between the four countries. While the author does maintain a comparative framework throughout the book, he devotes a handful of pages explicitly to relations between the four countries.

Thus, in short, while the book does provide useful background information on the four countries' politics, the reader would be well advised to look elsewhere for more in-depth information and analysis.