Poor Deluca. The only topic he knows about is cold war. And now its over.

Rarely have I read such a horrible book. The author's knowlegde of the Baltic States is mediocre at best and therefore the book is filled with errors, inaccuracies, biases and blantant displays of ignorance. In addition, even as the book came out a few years ago, it was already dated and its data did not reflect the economic, political or social reality of the Baltic States. The author's analysis of the three countries is quite unbalanced, dedicating too much coverage to Estonia, just enough to Lithuania and almost forgetting Latvia in the process. I do not recommend this book to anyone.

Whereas Plato wrote in a very clear style, Benardete does not. I'm reading the Republic for the first time and this commentary is obviously meant for specialists who have read all the dialogues of Plato and all of Greek philosophy, and can then make subtle analyses of it all through a cryptic reading of the Republic. Some great scholars have written clear commentaries on the Republic though: Annas, White, Bloom (as an appendix to his translation).

Like many academic historians, Garver has difficulty in writing a coherent and graceful sentence. His style is incredibly verbose, so much so that reading this work was truly an ordeal. Some of the information is useful, but the book is overly long and badly needed careful editing, both to invigorate Garver's stilted prose and to reduce the book to a manageable length.