An excellent guide. I was familiar with Copenhagen as a student 10 years ago and this book helped me right back into step. The general feel is spot-on and it's written for a more adventurous traveler than one just off the cruise ship. The book is irrepressibly positive, and perhaps overstates the charm and style of some sites - just like a guide book usually does. I thought the maps to be good, and they thoroughly cross-reference the entries. The addresses and hours seem to be correct. Copenhagen is an underrated European city; virtually untouched by the past ravages of war and living very much in the present day. If you're destination shopping, the city rates an 8+, and so does the guide. Bring, rent or buy a bicycle if you really want to go local.

Before going to Copenhagen, I purchased several guides...this is the one I used. Covers the usual castle, museum stuff but excels in the less usual stuff like club-life, small restaurants (try Ban-Gaw for Thai food and watch the human traffic on in the tacky old sex district of Istedgade),....prices are up-to-date, good info on train travel, good section on nearby Malmo.Lots of opinions...mostly right on. Could use a better map.

The authors do an excellent job of showing how the Allies were able to use their material superiority to best advantage and defeat the Luftwaffe. Counterintuitively, the main advantage gained by the strategic bombing program was the defeat of the Luftwaffe. It was only when the bombers started hitting important targets in Germany accompanied by escort fighters that the German fighters had to fight at unequal terms.

Great description of how the air war was won.

If one wishes to learn about the contributions of the US ArmyAir Forces in Europe during World War II, the literature is repletewith books and articles about strategic precision daylight bombing. However, in To Command the Sky, the authors have broken from the strategic bombing mold to inform us of how air superiority was achieved, and how important that victory was to allow the Allied forces to not only carry out their strategic bombing mission, but also to prepare the battlefield for D-Day. Indeed, without air superiority over the landing areas, the D-Day invasion of the continent would have certainly been more costly, if not impossible to achieve. This excellent book recounts how the Luftwaffe was defeated through a combination of strategic bombing and, more importantly, attrition of the Luftwaffe planes and pilots. Although the book begins with a brief history of military aviation and doctrine, the highlight for this reviewer was the chapter dedicated to training, especially since the authors look at both the American and German programs. Flaws in the German training programs directly contributed to their aerial defeat in 1942 - 1944. Due to the prohibition to maintain a German air force by the Treaty of Versailles after WW I, the Luftwaffe started training its pilots in Russia and Italy during the 1920s and 1930s. By the time Hitler announced to the world the existence of the Luftwaffe in 1935, he had established a formidable force. For myriad reasons though, problems consistently nagged the Luftwaffe and ultimately led to its defeat. These included a lack of training planes, a lack of qualified instructor pilots, little instrument flying time, and shortages of aviation fuel. The authors develop these shortfalls throughout the book and keep coming back to the conclusion that inadequate training was a major factor in the Luftwaffe's demise. Two other aspects of the battle for air superiority that the authors examine are the realizations that fighter escort would be needed to defend the bombers on their strategic strikes, and attrition warfare would be needed to defeat the Luftwaffe. Despite the fact losses from attrition warfare were high, the Allied commanders were willing to accept them knowing that replacement aircraft and qualified pilots were readily available. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading To Command the Sky as I felt it gave a truly balanced account of how fighters and bombers were both needed to achieve air superiority and bring about the defeat of the Luftwaffe. Lastly, the authors' insight into some of the key commanders (Eaker, Doolittle, Spaatz, Arnold) thinking was especially enlightening and appreciated. It put the struggles they faced in commanding such a large force in perspective, especially with regard to the D-Day timeline under which they operated. I believe To Command the Sky is a must read for anyone wishing to study the air campaign against Germany during World War II.

A towering achievement. The first fifth of the book passes through a dream-like state while sweeping and surreptitious changes take place in the police forces, the national government, the propaganda movements, the press, the ministries, the military. This book presents things about Germany that are normally not considered. Most Americans probably think that Germany was an idealistic war machine in the 1940s: with one mind, one head, one purpose. Not so. The author begins in 1933 as a new attache in the newly-formed Gestapo. Immediately things begin to go awry. New changes come down, rumors abound, mistrust fosters mistrust. In his own building and everyday workplace, his own boss tells him to take the staircase at the wall-side rather than near the railing, as this would expose him to sniper fire from a vantage point higher in the stairwell. No one walks across the hall to clean his face without phoning a colleague on such a "dangerous enterprise." After these initial scenes, the author travels "outside" of government circles but remains in close contact with the major players plotting to overthrow the Fuehrer. He recounts across the years how the church was subdued, how the German people were "assisted" in imagining that things were working out, that propaganda helped to pave the way for even greater excesses, even how the generals were quailed (these last were long thought to be the last hope). The book is terrific in that it follows an agent in actual work, sifting through facts, talking clandestinely with associates, plotting an important life-or-death struggle to overthrow the Monster. Never knowing who to trust, never knowing what is coming next, never knowing when the bullet will come -- these are momentous and continuing features with which we have to deal. That the author survived as early as 1934 is remarkable. That he lived through the failed assassination attempt and the subsequent purges is incredible. A must read for WWII buffs, this highly readable text is a testament to those Germans working for sound government, healthy industry and a stable German society. An excellent book!

To get top of the heap, and to start a war, and to institute Death Camps for Jews and other undesirables, Hitler had to leave many corpses. Among this carnage are the dead bodies of some of Germany's Finest People. If there was any GOOD person more knowledgeable about where the corpses were buried, it was SS Agent H.B. Gisivius, who was also an insider in the tragically unsucessful attempts to get rid of Hitler. Agent Gisivius also distinguished himself as a witness at Nuremberg with his testimony that enraged Herman Goering, the same Goering that was able to frustrate Supreme Court Justice Jackson's prosecution efforts. Gisivius goes though several adventures, from the Nazi Regime's bloody beginnings, to his transfer to the Abwehr [German Military Intelligence] under Canaris, to the frustrating attempts to get rid of Hitler, often interrupted by the major events of the war, and the lawless antics of Nazi Functionaries (including the embarrassing trials that took place for the Reichstagg Fire). Gisivius was a Witness, and like Historian Procopius, who tried to do GOOD in the Midst of EVIL, and He lived to tell about it!

Firstly, Hitler was a constitutional scholar, not in the sense that Thomas Jefferson was, but in the same sense that Houdini was a Locksmith. Hitler reasoned that the Law of the Land was what the Police enforced. His partners, Goering, Frick, Bormann, Hess, Rohm, and later Himmler, proceeded to build the Gestapo, which they eventually integrated into the Police. The SA acted independantly, starting their own private concentration camps. A power struggle broke out for control of the Police which Gisivius describes in detail with black humor. The result was the Night of the Long Knives, where SA Chief Rohm perished and Himmler gets control of the Gestapo. Meanwhile,Goering uses his special units to end the SA private concentration camps with his own special purge (Goering wanted no competition). In its first months, the Nazi Regime has already shot a Mountain of Corpses.

It was frustrating work to bring about the end of the Nazi Regime. Hitler, when he was in the deepest of doodoo (as in the Reichstagg Fire Trial) was able to pull off some magic trick to put himself back into a favorable light, be it the Annexation of Austria, the Occupation of the Rhineland (where he narrowly missed being declared insane), the annexation of Czechoslocakia, Poland, and the Russian Front. Hitler, had he passed from the scene during his pinicle after the Annexation of Czechoslavakia, would have been known as the Greatest german Statesman of All Time, and would have been the Supreme Proof that "Character DOES NOT Matter". Instead, Hitler stayed on and things turned sour by degrees, and it took till 1944 before things got bad enough for Assassination Atempts to become sufficiently daring to recieve notice. (Granted, the March 1943 attempt happened, but those in the know did not talk about it. It was so secret, even Hitler did not know!). Hitler was certainly protected by his own Guardian Devil!

The Big Day approaches! We must get rid of Hitler. The German Resistance meets for one last time before it happens. (The German Resistance were certainly a cut above the average Resistance Movement. In the French Resistance, you only had to worry about an interrogation [you did your duty if you lasted 24 hours] and a speedy execution, with some hope of release. The German Resistance, on the other hand, had secrets that had to be kept for months! No quick execution by pistol either! These guys died by long messy execution by piano wire at the end of a Meat Hook! Look up Fritz Nova's book for the biographys of the July 20th Martyrs to get into the details.) They argue and dissent! Stauffenberg delays and delays, with the hope of getting Hitler, Himmler, and Goering in one fell swoop. Leber has been arrested and is about to be shot, whom Stauffenberg wishes to save as a consequence of his tyrannicide. Staufenberg can delay no longer and the bomb goes off!

The Abwehr acts with Operation Valkyrie, or does it? When Gisivius sees that the dawdling that ensues will come to naught, he looks up his friend, Police President von Heldorf and attempts to abscound. Tragicommically, his attempts to leave the country are frustrated. The Good News is that Gisivius'es hous has been bombed, making it an excellent hiding place for the duration of the war. Finally, the Allies escort him out of Germany as Germany perishes in flames.

This is not a book for the weak of stomach! It is a study of Tyranny. Fritz von Hayek's Road to Serfdom had already been published in 1944, but doubtless, had Gisivius and Hayek had ever met, the von Hayek chapters on German and Austrian History would have been thicker. This book deserves to be a contender for the top 100 Great Books of All Times, and is Certainly worth the trouble to read.

Great art treasures, real, imagined, or based on myth and legends have been the topic for countless novels. The genre is still healthy today with some great Authors continuing the tradition. Iain Pears and his Jonathan Argyll series is a great example. This book adds an interesting change, there is no fiction, as outrageous as the story is, it actually happened.

"The Quedlinburg Hoard" is the subject of the book, and several specific pieces that were stolen by an American Soldier at the end of WWII, provide the tale. The circumstances that allowed for the theft were unique, and had they been any different the objects in question and their theft would have been unthinkable.

These were not objects like a Rembrandt, Picasso, or perhaps a Caravaggio, these objects included the 9th Century Samuhel Gospel and the 1513 Evangelistar. These had been given to the Cathedral in Quedlinburg by the earliest German Kings Heinreich I and his Son Otto.

They were stored in a cave by none other than Heinrich Himmler who had hidden them; a US soldier who was guarding the cave then borrowed them for 40 years, and their places of residence during this time is incredible.

However that is a very small part of the story. Once the objects are found by the Author and a German Investigator, who has been chasing them for decades, the conduct of those involved is beyond belief. These items were instantly recognizable by any Art Dealer for what they were, and that they were stolen and priceless. In any other industry this might have posed a problem, but with the Art/Book World shown in this work, who got what, who they got it from, and where, is of no interest. The only topic is price.

This is a tremendous work that garnered Mr. Honan a Pulitzer Nomination. The book is a great read, and it will make many books of fiction on the subject of stolen art seem tame when compared to this true story.

Exceptional.

This book had all the componants of interest to me; art, history, religion, and a factual story. I have never read a book so quickly, and recommended it to so many people. My husband read it after me and liked it just as much. I would be interested to know if there is any update from where the book left off. I saw the author on TV and was interested in the subject and got the book. I would like to thank Mr. Honan for a great history lesson!

Bergen's well researched and tightly written account of one German sect, the _The German Christians_ , offers a sobering account of the political consequences of a Christianity turned anti-doctrinal, anti-hierarchical, anti-Roman, people-centered, and focused on "feelings" rather than objective reality. This movement, self-designated as "The People's Church," celebrated its uniquely German form of Christianity in emotion-charged liturgies cleansed of traditional rituals and language. Stripped of long-established ritual, rules, tradition,theology, and foreign co-religionists, this wholly-German sect pressed its reconfigured notions of Christianity into the service of Nazism.

Trend spotters will note ominous parallels to developments in contemporary (increasingly horizontal forms of) American Christianity. Bergen offers evidence that tinkering with religious language, liturgy, rules and doctrine can have profound socio- political consequences.

Must read for all German history buffs as well as readers interested in Christian liturgy and theology. A complete copy of my review of _Twisted Cross_ appears in the September 1998 issue of Adoremus Bulletin.

Adherents of the German Christian movement of the 1930's and 1940's saw Nazism and Christianity as movements with shared values and a common agenda. They were given official support by the Nazi party for a time and the first and only Protestant Reich Bishop, Ludwig Mueller, was nominated from among their ranks. While traditional church historians have sought to minimize this movement as an aberration, Bergen provides evidence to support the thesis that it remained a popular mass movement throughout the years of Nazi rule. The evidence she presents further demonstrates that this Protestant sect blended together Nazi and Christian doctrine not out of expediency but out of faith. She analyzes the views not only of the leaders of the movement but also of its rank and file in order to capture a sense of their religious as well as psychological and political motivations. For most of the book, her focus is on understanding how the at once nationalist and anti-doctrinal theology of the church evolved under the pressures of the Nazi regime. In this regard, her account of their escalating struggle to purge Christianity of its Jewish roots is of particular interest. The last chapter, Postwar Echoes, gives and interesting account of the way in which German Christians tried to reconcile their old allegiances in the post war period and the way in which other Protestant sects used the high-visibility collaboration of the German Christians to avoid thorough de-Nazification at the end of the war. Hard to find documentary photographs showing the widespread blending of Christian and Nazi symbolism in church life enhance the overall value of the work.

Henry King was actually there. As a young man, he volunteered to be a prosecutor at the most important trial ever held. While in Nuremberg, he became fascinated with the one defendant who provoked reluctant admiration due to his aristocratic bearing and obvious intelligence. This fascination has continued throughout King's life. Now nearing 80, King is one of the few prosecutors still living and coherent. His memories and impressions offer an in-depth, close-up view of one of history's most important events.

SPEER REVIEW

by

T.S. Peric'

"I knew Albert Speer better than any American," said Henry King during an interview, at 26-years-old, the youngest prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials and the author of "The Two Worlds of Albert Speer: Reflections of a Nuremberg Prosecutor" (University Press of America). It was not a comment filled with braggadocio. In 1946, fallow and a few years out of Yale Law School, King dreamt the dreams of many young men: accomplish a great deed or participate in a grand undertaking. Hearing about a friend's appointment to the American "team" at Nuremberg, King immediately applied for a position. Within a few months, he arrived at Nuremberg in the middle of a rainstorm and soon found himself collecting evidence against Erhard Milch, deputy chief of the Luftwaffe (German Air Force), who was charged with participating in Nazi slave labor and human experiment programs. King also interviewed Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe chief, Hermann Goering and Wilhelm Keitel, the chief of staff of Germany's military high command. But frozen in King's memory were the interviews with Speer in a bleak interrogation room. "Speer was remarkably composed and unshaken; he seemed to possess an inner security and objectivity that many of the others lacked," King recalls. His composure was all the more remarkable because of the unique and key role he played in the Third Reich. "From 1942 to 1945 not only was he one of the men closest to Hitler, but he was also one who influenced Hitler's decisions. At one time in late 1943, Speer was reputed to be Hitler's heir apparent." Speer was unemotional, analytical, almost regal in his deportment. And unlike the other 20 defendants, he accepted full responsibility for his actions. "The question that haunted me then and still does today was why Speer, who appeared so decent and honest, was a close collaborator of Hitler," King writes. "Why had he served such a monster." Nearly half a century would intervene before King could offer any answers. Speer spent the next 20 years locked away in Spandau prison (kept incommunicado except to his attorney and family). After his release, he became a best-selling author with "Inside the Third Reich" (1970) a personal look into the sanctum sanctorum of the Nazi leadership and "Spandau: The Secret Diaries" (1976) which described his imprisonment. King continued practicing law, including a stint as general counsel to the U.S. Foreign Economic Aid Program, moving to the private sector and eventually settling in as a professor of international law at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In 1966, King reestablished contact with Speer, but was unable to pursue his goal of a book until his retirement from TRW where he served as general counsel of Automotive Operations. King interviewed Speer repeatedly (including Speer's last interview, one month before his death in 1981). He consulted the Nuremberg records, his own notes and the literature on Speer and the Nazis. He also interviewed Speer's daughter and Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary, who observed the interaction between Hitler and Speer. King's book carefully plots the conditions and events in Speer's life that drew the architect toward the summit of Nazi power. Speer was politically naïve, despite his aristocratic background, growing up in a cold, emotionless family, where intellectual prowess was demanded and ambition expected. Introduced to the Nazis at Berlin's Institute of Technology, Speer fell victim - as did millions of Germans -- to the zeitgeist of Nazi Germany before the war, a time when the promise of a new Reich seemed to represent an unfettered, glorious future. Speer's ability to organize was quickly recognized, reaching new heights at the Nuremberg rallies. His Pantheon-like "Cathedral of Lights," established Speer's chilling brilliance for displaying raw power. The final, crowning jewel, that firmly enthroned Speer to the Nazis fold was his artistic talent which brought him within handshaking distance of Adolph Hitler. Now, Hitler, the failed Viennese artist, would live vicariously through Speer's artistic triumphs. The Nazis' world was Albert Speer's first world, according to King. It was among the Nazis that Speer performed with remarkable thoroughness and unquestioned devotion, rising to the position of the Third Reich's Architect and Minister of Armament Production. Indeed, if Speer's artistic triumphs contributed to the physical manifestation of how the Nazi's viewed themselves, his star as Armament Minister shone even brighter. Experts estimate that Speer's contribution to industrial production lengthened the war by at least two years. Despite Speer's success, he began to enter his "second world," according to King, even before Germany's surrender. Speer was the only top Nazi to act in defiance of Hitler-and did so openly. He refused to carry out Hitler's "scorched earth policy" that would destroy the remains of German industry. Speer's second world is "where his horizon broadened and his values changed," writes King. "The second and succeeding world of Albert Speer was the horizontal world of the questioning spirit. This was a world of ethical and cultural values, a humanistic world . . . " In "The Two Worlds of Albert Speer," King deftly presents how naiveté, seduction and ambition drove Speer to the pinnacle of Nazi power. He concludes that Speer was clearly unique among the top Nazis that survived the war. Speer accepted responsibility for his actions and offered mea culpas for his sins. During and after his imprisonment, Speer pondered his actions and began to search for some degree of redemption until the end of his life. While supporting the prison sentence Speer received, King ably demonstrates that Speer was not some cardboard character from the Nazi past. Rather, he was a complex and brilliant individual who confronted issues of good and evil on a scale that most of us cannot imagine. King succeeded in his search for a great undertaking with his successful role in the prosecution of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg. More than one half century later, he succeeds with another marvelous undertaking: the writing of "The Two Worlds of Albert Speer."

This book is worth the money!
It dispells any myths and stories about u-boats, and tells the full story of consturtion and building problems more so in WWII.
A very good read for sub modellers!

I purchased the book "The U-Boat: The Evolution and Technical History of German Submarines" used [...]several months ago. The book was translated and published by the Naval Institute Press in 1981 (Hard Cover, 384 pages). The Original book by Eberhard Rossler has been published several times in Germany. The last publication was in 1996 by Bernhard & Graefe Verlang and the title is "Geschichte Des Deutchen Ubootbaus," Band 1 (Volume 1) and Band 2 (Volume 2) Hard Cover, 550 total pages, plus an additional 19 folded blue print sheets in the back of the books.

This Naval Institute Press book is difficult to read because of the size of the print type. This was done because of the volumes of information contained within the constraints of a single volume format. Throughout the book, the quality of the photographs don't meet the standards of books printed in modern print shops today. However, I believe Eberhard Rossler is the definitive expert when it comes to the German U-boat. This book covers the U-boat origins, W.W.I and W.W.II developments (and much more), and some information on NATO U-boats up until the mid 70's (1974). It wound be a fantastic book on U-boats, if a modern publisher would use the contents of the original German books and include all the separate blue prints.

I purchased my copy of the Naval Institute Press book in near mint condition for my personal library. In my opinion, this was a good investment.

Update:

The Cassell & Co re-printed edition 2002 is exactly the same as the Naval Press edition printed in 1989 (format and size). The new dust cover is excellent and the print is much sharper and darker. This book is an excellent buy for the U-Boat enthusiast.

Printer's Error:

The U-Boat drawing on page 118 is labeled as a "Type VII C". This is not correct! In fact, this error was also in the Naval Press edition printed in 1989. The German text edition printed in 1996 identifies it correctly as a "Type IX C" on page 169. The Type VII C never had two stern torpedo tubes side-by-site.

Don_

It is a great book for those who is WWI aviation fun. It gives you description of all victories of Voss, Immelmann, Goring and Red Baron's young brother. It also gives short biographies of their unlucky adversaries and if they managed to survive the war their consequent life achievements. WWI aviafuns, you MUST read it.
On the otehr hand it is NOT the book you want to introduce yourself with to the subject

It is a well written book describing all documented vitories of four German Aces. The book gives the dates and details (if available) of fights and biographies of their opponents. Its structure resembles the structure of "Under the guns of the Red Baron".
Those who are not accustomed to this type of literature will consider it dry and should read something more general about WWI aviation before buying this particular book. For WWI aviation fans its MUST TO READ.

This is a remarkable study in the practical morality of collaboration and of resistance. Rab Bennett shows clearly how these terms have been over-simplified in many previous studies of the second world war. The reader is invited to put herself or himself into the position of partisans who had to weigh up the economic value of sabotage against the certainty that reprisals would be enormous. Or the mother in a concentration camp who had the choice of either hiding her own newly born baby and inviting the murder of the other inmates in the hut, or herself killing it in order to save lives. Given the nazi policy of effectively holding whole populations as hostages for the good behaviour of individuals, the choices on offer were well nigh morally impossible. The author has succeeded in illustrating for the general reader the issues which faced ordinary women and men on the ground. He also makes plain that murder and atrocity were also used by resisters against Germans especially as the Reich empire crumbled from 1943. This is an excellent account of the moral dilemmas which formed the basis of German rule of subject populations.

Among the many books about World War II and the Holocaust, veryfew come close to explaining how the Nazis were able to successfullysubjugate and exterminate entire populations and ethnic groups. Why did so many peoples (not just the Jews) seem to have cooperated in their own self-destruction? I believe Rab Bennett's "Under the Shadow of the Swastika" has the answer. At the core of Nazi policy in dealing with conquered nations and population groups was one main central principle: the doctrine of Collective Responsibility.

"On the 26 December 1939 two German soldiers were killed in a bar by criminals in Wawer, a suburb of Warsaw. The Germans rounded up all the men in the area, and in houses where there were several men in the family, the women were forced to choose who should be taken in reprisal. In one house a mother had to choose between her two sons, and another woman had to decide between the life of her husband, brother or father. Every tenth man was shot, including 34 youths under the age of 18-a total of 106 hostages..."

This was the beginning of the practice of Collective responsibility. From then on, the Nazis refined this doctrine until they made fear and terror into "an exact science." Why didn't more people fight back? Why didn't more people help the Jews?

"..In Poland, a family of eight people were shot because they had hidden one Jewish child. In a similar incident, five Poles in a family, which included a 13-year-old and a one-year-old baby, were killed after it was discovered that they had hidden four Jews...In February 1944 the Germans were informed by Ukrainian collaborators in the ethnically mixed area of Galicia in eastern Poland, that about 100 Jews were being hidden in the Polish villages of Huta Pienacka and Huta Werchobuska. With the help of Ukrainian policemen, the Germans surrounded both villages and burned them to the ground. The soldiers assembled all the farmers together with their families and locked them in the barns..[They] stood guard to make sure that no living thing, human or animal, would escape from the burning buildings. The village burned all day."

Could the Resistance have done more to stop the Nazis? They were constantly facing dilemmas forced on them by the Collective Responsibility doctrine, which Rab Bennett explores in detail. For each act of sabotage or assassination against the Germans, members of the Resistance faced reprisals on a ratio of 10-1, 50-1, 100-1, and in many cases, 1000-1.

"On 20 October 1941, after an ambush upon a German convoy had left 30 dead and numerous others wounded, an estimated 4000 inhabitants of the village of Kraljevo [Serbia] were killed. The following day, in reprisal for the death of 10 German soldiers and 26 wounded, the town nearest the raid, Kragujevac, was subject to the most bloody reprisal of the German occupation. According to the official German hostage quota, 2300 people were executed: 1000 for the ten dead soldiers, and 1300 for the 26 wounded men."

Elie Wiesel once said, "When the Jews were being murdered, the world was indifferent. Now it asks why the Jews did not fight." The Horrifying answer to both questions may be in this book.

A selection of reproductions with commentary, this volume includes some of the most delightful, animated, and downright bizarre medieval drawings to be found anywhere. I first encountered the Housebook Master's drawings by way of a monograph on the hurdy gurdy by Thomas Ives. One of the illustrations was a detail from "Venus and Her Children." I immediately made my own study drawings. Then to find that the source for this drawing was now available for sale as an exhibit catalog, along with allegorical drawings of the other planets and their influences and many other scenes of medieval daily life... well, it's just too much fun to pass up.

The commentary by Christoph Graf zu Waldburg Wolfegg, a scion of the family in possion of the original Housebook through most of its life, is lively and informative, giving many insights to modes of medieval thought, ambition, and fantasy depicted through the Housebook's exploration of venereal, martial, and generally wayward sub-lunar themes. Such frolics! A body can't help but want to enter the scenes.

For the vast bulk of us who will never afford the full facsimile at a princely $1980.00, this beautifully produced volume is a great treat and a bargain, too.

An excellent explanation of this manuscript! A must for anyone interested in the late 15th century and it's lifestyle. Dispells many of the rumours and misinformation surrounding the late Middle Ages. Especially good background on the manuscript and it's content which has only been available in German...until now!