Cambridge obviously chose the right man for the job (and they've done so more often than not in their wonderful new series of philosophy biographies). Pinkard's biography is a masterpiece. Almost every corner of Hegel's life is dealt with in an interesting way, but I would single out two aspects of this book as being the finest: 1. His strictly philosophical discussion of the period between Kant and Hegel is wonderful. Numerous book-length studies of this period are available, but Pinkard covers the same ground more concisely and far more lucidly. 2. Some reviewers compliment Pinkard's treatment of the early Hegel, which is certainly quite fine. However, there has already been scholarly discussion of the Tuebingen period; ironically, it is always the concluding _Berlin_ period that has received too little attention in biographical sketches of this philosopher. Sure, by then he was world famous and collecting honors and prizes, but I had never received any taste of his Berlin life at all from any biographical summary: nothing but lists of his lecture courses and throwaway accounts of his death. Pinkard takes care of this problem, bringing the late Hegel to life. My only regret is that we can't hire Pinkard to write biographies on another 15 or 20 major figures.

Hey, Cambridge-- when are you going to do Leibniz?

It would be difficult to justify a biography of a philosophy as being essential: if you want to understand a philosopher you should read their works instead. But Pinkard manages to wage an astonishingly battle on two fronts: first, elaborating on his philosophical development with a view towards prominent influences and second, foisting off common misconceptions about Hegel.

So, for part one. Hegel is difficult. It was, as I learned, his distinguishing mark in early years: "more obscure than Fichte!" was something like a slogan. Pinkard does a marvellous job of showing the diversity and complexity of Hegel's experience (the chapters on his university friendship with Schelling and Hoderlin are especially absorbing) and pulling out some of the more unexpected sources of his thought. (Adam Smith and Gibbon and the New Testament, for example.) Ever since Dilthey more attention has been payed to Hegel's early work and for good reason. Moving from this account Pinkard gives excellent insights into the genesis and exposition of Hegel's notoriously difficult "system." Having been absoloutely dumbfounded by Hegel in the past I think this book is the best possible introduction to what Hegel is up to in his Philosophical work. Pinkard in addition to being keen has some serious philosophical chops so he brings out some aspects of Hegel that get overlooked.

As for the second front Pinkard does a great job of countering some of the more cartoonish and absurd pictures of Hegel: the pioneer of German nationalism, the doddering obscurantist, the proto-fascist conservative. Pinkard does a good job showing how the most common images of hegel are thorough characters whose longevity has more to do with the fact that few people actually read or know much about Hegel. I particularly liked the way Hegel's complex political commitments were mapped out and how the more intimate aspects of Hegel the person (his addiction to whist, his love of coffee) were brought out.

I am given to understand that Hegel scholarship is experiencing something of a revival these days, and by my account Pinkard's biography should be at the forefront of any movement. He deserves a great deal of credit for producing a skillfull, well-written and insightful work on an extremely difficult thinker.

Hegel's philosophical perspective digs deeply into the rhythms of the real, expressing an omnivorous quality that is remarkable for both its sheer beauty and its conceptual power. Whether or not he solved the knotty issues bequeathed to him by Kant concerning the structure and limits of consciousness (I go back and forth on this issue), he certainly probed into the ways in which self-consciousness shapes itself as entwined with history and the self-alienated realms of nature. For me, he is the model of what philosophical query should be. Such ramified query must be couragous, unrelenting, bound by what gives itself over to self-consciousness to live-through, and sensitive to the generic powers of language. In Terry Pinkard's biography we find such a Hegel. He is presented within the context of an unrelenting series of negations that push against his inner philosophical drive. We learn a great deal about how he sharpened his political awareness, both in terms of the French Revolution and its aftermath, and in terms of the always shifting realm of academic politics (as embedded in German State politics). What I especially appreciate is Pinkard's presentation of how Hegel came to know of his Stuttgart provincialism and how he overcame much of it--in particular, his Lutheran distaste for Catholicism. Pinkard pushes us past the normal left-wing vs. right-wing readings of the late Hegel by showing that both aspects were fully operative, perhaps for different reasons, and that his views on Christianity were not career enhancing expressions of Prussian sanctioned Lutheran conservativism. For example, Hegel rejected any hint of biblical literalism, an immortal personal soul, a literal reading of creation, and the notion of a personal god "begetting a son"(p. 589). It is clear from Pinkard's reading that Hegel had a strong, if feared and abjected by him, impulse toward creating a world religion (much like his despised colleague Schleiermacher). In short, Hegel's pro-Napoleonic and emancipatory tendencies remained strong until the end. A psychoanalyst would ask: what drove Hegel toward his pan-logicism? My sense is that he deeply feared madness (consider the dementias of Holderlin and Hegel's sister) and that he sensed the possibility of disintegration within himself (as argued by Alan Olson in his "Hegel and the Spirit," Princeton 1992). His materialized and thickened Wissenschaft of logic provided him with a bulwark against the unconscious (as it was presented by his friend/enemy Schelling in 1808 with his concept of das Regellose--the unruly ground). He likewise rejected Egyptian art because it merely evoked the "measureless," unlike the art of the classical Greeks that found measure (and hence, safety). Yet his desire to devour the world, perhaps motivated by his flight from the unruly unconscious, was the root source for his unsurpassed series of philosophical productions. Pinkard has a muted sense of this divide in Hegel and shows it operating, I think, in Hegel's ambivalence about the Romantic flights of some of his friends. Pinkard has done something quite impressive with this work and many of us now have a much more compelling picture of the fragmented wholeness of Hegel. We see a man on the margins who produced great works which were initially surrounded by silence. We see a justly ambitiuous thinker who had to push against the wall of mediocrity around him to gain contact with the powers who could free him from lowly high school teaching and newspaper work so that he could enter the world of the university. And we see a man who, unlike Kant, reveled in the delights of physical embodiment and the material conditions of the world. Above all, Hegel's work shines through as his profound whole-making answer to his and the world's fragmentary features. Unlike most, his flight from the unruly ground bore positive fruits, even if he left much of the unconscious of nature and the self to be explored by others.

This book is a must read for those who are fasinated by the shadowy world of espionage. A magnificant account of the capture of the nazi war criminal Adolf Eichman, by the Mossad. Written by the chief Israeli spy master, Isser Harel, it is an in depth discription of how Eichman was found, tracked, captured, smuggled out of Argentina, and brought to trial. Get your hands on this book, it is truely amazing.

Frederick Forsyth, Ken Follett and Robert Ludlum all together couldn't think up a story as amazing as this one. THE HOUSE ON GARIBALDI STREET is called a "Classic of Espionage" and it is. Isser Harel, the Chief of the Israeli Secret Services recounts in detail the amazing capture of Adolf Eichmann, "The Man In The Glass Booth" who was Hitler's senior functionary in creating and carrying out the "Final Solution" and one of the prime creators of the Holocaust.

Eichmann, whose policies and personal behavior condemned six million human beings to death, was captured by Israeli agents, tried in a Court of law, and executed---the only person ever put to death by Judicial process in Israel. Hiding in Argentina under an assumed name, he was eventually caught through a combination of complacency (his family began to use their real name), bizarre coincidence (a neighborhood blind man acted as the informant after his daughter dated Eichmann's son), luck (Eichmann never caught on that he had been discovered), and incredibly hard work (the Israelis painstakingly traced him and tracked him down).

This is true espionage, so real it reads like a novel. Far and away the most taut tale ever written---because it's true.

Isser Harel, the former head of Israel's secret service, recounts in detail the tracking down and capture of the infamous war criminal Adolph Eichmann. A highly readable, fascinating account of the tracking down and capture of this high level Nazi.

Starting with an improbable lead from a blind man in Buenos Aires, the investigation is recounted in vivid detail. More thrilling than an Agatha Christie novel. A wonderful sketch of the ingenuity, resourcefulness, and bravery of the task force than succeeded in capturing him and spiriting him out of Argentina covertly on a special El Al flight for trial in Jerusalem.

This account corresponds in detail to Peter Z. Malkin's 1990 book "Eichmann in My Hands," which attests to the accuracy of the details of "Operation Eichmann." Mr. Malkin was the agent who actually made first physical contact during Eichmann's capture. Both books are highly readable and entertaining.

True war stories are not a genre I especially seek out. I read this account of the complex web of intrigue and decisions behind Nazi Heydrich's assassination because a relative of mine was actually involved in the plot. I can't say it was spellbinding since it's hard to build much suspense about a case with so well known an outcome. But this book is not just about or even, I would say, primarily about, the halting, fascinating and nearly abortive ground operation that ended the life of one of Nazi Germany's most determined mass murderers. The opening several chapters are about Heydrich's rise to power after a checkered sometimes-disgraced early career in the military. Callum MacDonald clearly has a penchant for dissecting the meticulous planning and thirst for raw power that lay behind this ascent, and the frigidly cold-blooded maneuvers rising stars of the Nazi regime used, including against each other.

MacDonald then maps in detail the even more complicated political terrain navigated by Czech president in absentia Eduard Benes. Ever since the May 1942 killing of Heydrich and the predictable gory aftermath of reprisals -- including the systematic and total destruction of the Czech village of Lidice -- the wisdom a plot to kill such a high ranking Nazi and bring on excessive retaliation, has been doubted. The author depicts the rationale in terms of tragic choices Benes faced in trying to shore up the very limited and shaky international support for his government-in-exile. In a nutshell, the very existence of Czechoslovakia seemed, at that time, to be in question, as German military success against Russia led the latter to call for uprisings behind Nazi lines. From Benes' point of view, had his exiled government accomplished nothing dramatic in the war effort, Russia would have turned to the Czech communist party and thereby ensured their eventual rule in post-war Czechoslovakia. Thus sprang Operation Anthropoid, and the parachuting of assassins into occupied Eastern Europe.

MacDonald has been painstaking in his research into and use of primary once top-secret files. He has then brilliantly boiled it down to just the right amount of detail to both educate and tell a good story. At the end he devotes what seems to be a bit of an afterthought to the question of whether, in sum, the assassination was worth it. I hungered for MacDonald's last word and opinion on something he spent such obvious care researching. But in the end his balanced answers and the way he weighs the complexities may have real bearing on the difficult questions the free world now faces today confronting the new century's brutes and monsters.

The above caption means "Iron heart and a grenade." It captures the essence of this book. SS General Reinhard Heydrich (1904-1942) had been called the reflection of National Socialism because he epitomized every ideological ideal that the Nazis considered revered - he was blond-haired and blue-eyed, tall, calculating, organizational and ruthless. In his lifetime, he was head of the Nazi SD (Sicherheitsdienst, the intelligence branch of the elite SS), the creator of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and the Security Police (SIPO - a branch of the RSHA), the de facto governor of Nazi-annexed Bohemia-Moravia and the chairman of the Wannsee Conference, where the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Question' was intimately planned. In each of these positions that he held, the outlined qualities and ideals resurfaced and certainly were put into practice. Consequently, Heydrich became one of the most hated and reviled Nazis in occupied Europe. Even within the Nazi hierarchy, he used espionage and blackmail to secure his hard-won position: many believed that he would be Adolf Hitler's eventual successor. On the morning of May 27, 1942, he was being chauffeured in an open-roofed Mercedes in a suburb of Prague, intending to reach the airport where he would fly to Berlin and meet with Hitler to discuss Nazi foreign policy. But then, at a bend in the road, he was assassinated. Hitler would call him "the man with a heart of iron," but he expired from his wounds nine days after the incident, on June 9, because shrapnel and pieces of his car got lodged in his spleen and gangrene set in. So much for iron...

Callum MacDonald first wrote this book in 1989 under the title "The Killing of SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich" (New York: Free Press, 1989), and it is this edition that was consulted by the reviewer. His work is the first in several years to address the full story of Heydrich's assassination, significant in itself because it was the only successful assassination of a high-ranking Nazi during the Second World War. Using the existing literature on the topic (MacDonald has cited works in English, German and Czech) as well as several primary archival sources, he vividly re-creates a full account of the whole phenomenon of Heydrich. His life is discussed in some detail, as are the details of his assassination, from its implementation, planning, involved personnel and a valuation of it, in the context of its aftermath. It is a very well written book; readers are lucky that the book has now been reissued.

Stunning are MacDonald's revelations and assessment of the exiled Czech president, Eduard Benes, who remained in England during the war and sponsored the assassination. His motives certainly bear question, as he wanted the assassination of Heydrich to prove that Czechs would not blindly accept their fate at the hands of the Germans and had "contributed" to the war, even though he had inklings and knowledge of how the Nazis would wreak their revenge on Czechs and Jews in Heydrich's name. It was these two groups that suffered most after the assassination: the towns of Lidice and Lezaky were razed to the ground and its inhabitants were massacred (except for a few children deemed worthy of "Aryanization"). Several convoys of Jewish deportees were sent to extermination camps under the words "Aktion Reinhard." From that point, occupied Bohemia-Moravia was ruled even more so by checkpoints, security police and the Gestapo than when Heydrich was still living. Benes never sighed a word of the assassination (code-named OPERATION ANTHROPOID) after the war in light of the consequences.

The three assassins, Jan Kubis, Josef Gabcik and Josef Valcik are described and given a face: heroes they were indeed, as they made the ultimate sacrifice in assassinating Heydrich. It was Kubis' grenade that blew up Heydrich's Mercedes and sent bits into his insides, while Gabcik would have mowed him down with a Sten gun, but it jammed at the crucial moment. Valcik was their lookout man, poised at the top of a hill where Heydrich would come down; he signaled with a pocket mirror to his accomplices down below that their target was on the way. MacDonald describes what happened to these three heroes: they fled the scene and hid in the cellar of an Orthodox cathedral in Prague, only to be betrayed by a comrade named Karel Curda, allegedly fearing the arrest of his mother and sister (he was rewarded with one million marks, but was hanged after the war for treason). Fighting the SS for six hours, they all used their last bullets to shoot themselves rather than be taken alive.

Callum MacDonald has written a superb and original book. It is a tale of military intelligence and espionage, heroism and grand sacrifice, banality of evil and the man that reflected Nazism more so than any other in his age, except for Hitler himself.

I have always been facinated by Reinhard Heydrich...what made this cold-blooded, calculating Nazi leader tick? MacDonald's book was able to answer those questions and more...For anyone interested in Reinhard's background and the events in his life which made him hate not only Jews but himself, you will enjoy this book and get to really despise this man...It makes you really ask yourself how a person like this could exhist and hope you never come across...The book equally delves deep into the assisantion plot and one appreciates the sacrifice and heroism made by the Czech assassins...I read this book in two days...very engrossing, tense and educational...

I would heartily recommend this to anyone with an interest in 20th century history. Superb history, the way it should be written.

The author sought books on the German Revolution of 1918-1919; finding none, he wrote this one. The failure of the German military to win the war by 1918 produced mutinies, revolution, and the end of their Second Empire by October 1918. A new republic was proclaimed, and the Armistice led to the treaty of Versailles. While the Kaiser fled to Holland, his military remained as a wanted burden to the new republic: it alone could suppress the revolutions breaking out all over Germany. This left them as the striking force fro a republic that they despised; eventually they came to support the Nazis (p.527) and a new European War. This seems like the inevitable result from the Allied failure to overthrow and purge the German ruling class, or divide the German Reich into separate nations, as was correctly done after World War II. Denazification and partition, plus grouping the small nations into large blocks, kept the peace for 50 years. But nothing lasts forever.

Woodrow Wilson gave many speeches on "Democracy", but he was appointed President of Princeton, Governor of NJ, then President of the US through his personal ambition. Pages 15-20 tell of the contradictions and complexities in his personality. His dictatorial rule at Princeton led to his firing. A personal friendship allowed him to be nominated as the Democratic candidate for Governor of NJ. He promised to work with the "organization", then reneged on his promises! He drafted a torrent of liberal legislation (as did Bismarck in the 1880s). He met Edward House, and insider and power broker in the national party. House's technique" get a clean candidate and let the party organization do its job; it still works today! Jim Marr's "Rule By Secrecy" tells how and why the 1912 election was fixed to create the private banking cartel that controls our economy. Running a third party candidate helped in 1980 and 1992.

Wilson's dictatorial personality abraded many in Congress; he lectured them, he didn't talk to them. His cabinet had few men of first caliber; it was as if he could only work with subordinates. But Edward House knew how to manipulate him (p.22).

Wilson declared war as a fight to make the world safe for democracy, an idealistic crusade that overlooks the fact that wars are waged for loot: markets, provinces, colonies, etc.

Perhaps Wilson's greatest fault was that everything was handed to him; he didn't have to claw his way to the top by competitive elections (p.27). Page 36 tallies the triumphs of Woodrow Wilson. Perhaps the "errors in judgment" were due to his pride and his refusal to take expert advice (p.37), complicated by his arteriosclerosis or some other disease ("megalomania"?). Wilson gained fame and recognition through his speeches; a rhetorician, not a manager.

Thirty years ago, whilst I was a student, I first read this wonderful book. Since then I have not been able to get it out of my mind, except.... I had forgotten the author's name and the title! After many years of searching I finally discovered the reviews on these pages and recognised that the reviewers were describing the book which had so intrigued me so many years ago. The excitement of the narrative brought the events to life most wonderfully, especially as this is a little-known chapter of world history. An excellent read! Warmly recommended.

This is a very well written book with prooving statistics - a very unbiased and credible book on the reasons behind America's irresponsibility and negligence for auto safety - and why we have failed in lowering death rates due to high-speed related accidents. This book explains in great detail the German philosophy of road safety and accident prevention that has gone to provide the world's safest automobiles and high speed auto networks. I'd recommend this book for a teenager beginning to drive so that he/she breaks the typical American-attitude towards auto safety.

This book tracks the history of our interstate and the autobahn highways and presents compelling statistics that prove that our system of draconian speed enforcement plus artificially low speed limits is not working. There are numerous charts and graphs that show that Germany's fatality rate on the Autobahn has been consistently below ours for a number of years, while speeds have been rising on both systems. The author points out how and why we should be trying to generate support for upgrades to our highway system while conducting an experiment to increase and/or remove speed limits on our less crowded interstates.

This book should be required reading for all current and future interstate drivers. Rask provides a compelling argument as to why our interstate system is failing us, and what we can do to change it. If I could afford it, I would send a copy to each of my Congressmen.

I first discovered this book whilst searching for novels to serial-read to my class (I am a primary school teacher.) Having seen the original 'Parent Trap' and read 'Emil' as a boy, I felt Lottie and Lisa would be good to try. With one exception (a class containing mostly angry, macho boys), all my classes have enjoyed it, even loved it. Most children have seen the Parent Trap (sadly, most never saw the Hayley Mills version), and they are intrigued by the comparison in plots and characterisation. The reference to Shirley Temple and the double standards of American censorship at the time leave them puzzled, as does the excitement at the prospect that, when the busload of new girls arrives at the holiday home, 'one of them might have a ball (to play with'). Explaining to them that this book was written shortly after WW2 when toys were in short supply in Germany, helps them understand.

WARNING: Any teacher reading this to a class of 8-12 year olds, be ready - Chapter 9 is an emotional minefield: I've noticed my voice getting shaky towards the end of it. Just letting you know.

I read this book as a ten-year old and it stuck with me for what has been the next seventeen years. Warm, wonderful, very charming. The ORIGINAL, BEST and should have been the ONLY version of the Parent Trap. I wish I had known that this book would be largely forgotten, I would have held on to my copy to share with my own kids.

I've read this book in Elementary School. I used to have a copy of it. It somehow got misplaced. Since of the moving I have done. I've also tried looking at libraries to find it. I haven't found it at a library. I believe this book belongs on the Children's Classice Literature. It really deserves that recognition. Disney made three sequel to the orginal one. Also the remake. Since, the Original Film is a classic so should the book!

I went to Berlin for the first time this year. This book was in my backpack daily. It made Berlin really come alive for me and make sense of this large city - you really get a sense of the different neighborhoods and sights. The lists and practical information at the back of the book also were really helpful.

.
Summary:

Every Dorling Kindersley Guide has been a great and interesting book... and delightful to have and use, even if you are not traveling to that location, but are only interested in learning more!

The Guides are well organized in a logical and easy to follow manner. They are beautifully illustrated, well developed with accurate information (it is unusual for hotel and restaurant information to be that accurate), have enough history to help the reader understand the people and cultural background, and have a lot of useful travel information and useable maps in the appendixes.

The really great attraction to this book is several fold; it is:
............Very complete
............Easy to read
............Beautifully and artistically completed
............Good shopping, safety and other tips
............Gorgeous photographs too numerous to list.

Thoughts on Berlin

Berlin is a particularly interesting, if not haunting city to visit, with its many contrasts: Old East Berlin, with some buildings unrepaired since WWII, New East Berlin, with its lavish, and expensive hotels, and apartments, and post WWII East Berlin with the old Soviet Style (stolid) buildings; West Berlin, with its restored buildings and architecture, memorial buildings like the 'Church of the Purple Glass' (destroyed in WWII and left as a reminder of the costs of war), and the fun restaurants, and nightlife. Also, the outline of the Berlin Wall, and the memorial to those killed trying to flee to freedom outside the Richtstadt (Parliament Building).

I highly recommend a trip to Berlin to enjoy all the greatness and tragedy this century and its leaders has brought to the world.

Specifics:

The guides are organized as follows:

How to use this guide
Introduction to Historical and Geographical information
Geographical Regions
............Introduction Berlin
........................Map
........................History
........................At a Glance

........................Through the Year
............Berlin Area by Area, each including:
........................Introduction to street by street area
........................Detailed pictorials of area buildings
........................Architectural drawings, pictures, cut-aways of buildings
........................Specific stops, historical monuments, churches, buildings, etc.

Greater Berlin
............Pottsdam
............Three Guided Walks

Travelers Needs - includes full list with rankings and notes
............Hotels
............Restaurants
............Shops / Markets
............Entertainment
............Berlin for children

Survival Information
............Practical
........................Tourist info., Etiquete, Personal Security and Health
........................Currencies, Telephones, misc info.
............Getting to Berlin
........................Planes, trains and automobiles, signs
........................General map, sectional maps with index
............Getting to / around Berlin
........................Maps, tours, currency, etc.
............General Index
............Phrase Book

Discussion:

The book begins with 'Introducing Berlin', including a complete map, a review, the city's history, and Berlin thought the Year - including events, etc.

Areas with an 'At a glance' overview, then has subsections of specific blocks, or forums, then specific locations, churches, historical monuments, bridges, galleries, etc.

Architectural reviews include various views, and cutaways; given greater understanding and better perspective. They are all attractive, if not works of art - honestly.

The travelers' Info. offers good and valid info. on prices, currencies, customs, important words, etc. I used the reviews on hotel's restaurants and nightclubs, etc. and found they were useful and accurate, and helpful with my touring and site decisions

The books are so well thought-out that it has multiple maps, with various lookup tables, and the book's flaps are designed to be used as bookmarks for map pages.

Conclusion:

Each book in this series is a great help, and beautiful collectible resource. As the President, CEO of an International Meeting Planning Corporation we have many resources and techniques to learn about places we have meetings / groups at as well as the cities and sights. But, as a traveler, this book really is top notch and I would recommend it to anyone going on a personal trip, or wanting to learn about a city, or location. We have used some of these books to augment our research to investigate cities for our groups.

Adding to other reviews, I just returned from a visit to Berlin with this wonderful book as my travel companion. The pictures are great, the descriptions wonderful, and there is a lot of good, practical information to help one get around in the city. There are a series of maps in the back which covers the whole city in sections which is also in grids. Sites refer to page number and grid on the map, so one can easily find where it is in the city. The city is divided into sections and color coded, with information about each section, since the city is characterized by the different areas in it. I found this particularly helpful in knowing where I was and where I wanted to go.

The only drawback, if one were to find one for this great book, is its weight. Because it is on heavier stock paper, the pictures are better, but the weight is increased. Overall, though, the extra weight is worth carrying around. I found this to be a great souvenir of my trip upon my return. In fact, I stayed with friends who are now living in Berlin. They found the book so useful, they begged to be able to keep it. I am ordering another copy for myself.

The book would better be titled "The First world squeeze", because if we go by the parameters of this book, what we find is a purely First world crisis.This crisis infact looks like a boon for the labour-cheap thirdworld or developing countries. But, combined with the on going hi-tech revolution, it could mean a elite class in the third world also. This is the sort of reality we find, as we observe the yawninig gap in the developing countries also, between its rich and poor. So, it looks like that the world's poor are being pitted agianst the rich and privileged few of the world more and more as the Globalization advances. Going by the present trend in polarisation of the classess world wide it looks-the day is not far off when the working class of the world would rise in unison, to deliver a death blow to the global capitalist system- as predicted by Karl Marx 150 years back.

I read Global Squeeze when it first came out. It's much more realistic than any others I've read since. (Future Perfect, Maestro, Independently Wealthy) I can see no hope for our middle class due to the job exports in all occupational categories. For the latest real world view read Business Week, Feb. 3, 2003, "The Global Job Shift."

We are in real trouble.

This is a very effective piece of economic reporting and must be one of the most acute pictures of 'capital in the raw' that I have read, a desmerizing tonic to the endless litany of neoliberal triumphalism. Neither Marxist, nor doctrinaire, it unwittingly scores a bullseye of indirect marxist analysis of the one-and-the-same process that is the invariant of the capitalist system. This isn't even a radical statement. Slogans one way or the other are stopped in their tracks by facts here, and facts that induce momentary helpless shock, quite short of firebrand indignation. We don't live in a global democratic system. Therefore we don't live in a democratic system. Capital has beaten the pants off sentimentalism here. Democracy so-called is a good front, but otherwise an inconvenience to the predators described herein. The author produces one horrendous
statistic about forty thousand people controlling 81 trillion in assets. Capital.
Not much more needs to be said.
Your move, unless you are powerless, a democratic nobody. Checkmate?

This is an unusually (sorry, Father) cleverly written book. Lots of
narrative, sentiment and good lines. One of my favorites is on
p. 300. Greeley has this warmly naive fraulein say to the story's
hero, whose car is running out of gas, "May I ask you a question,
Karl?" Answer: "I have to concentrate on driving the car,
Trudi. Please don't bother me." And Trudi says, "But does
the E on that gauge mean empty?" Dry wit at its best!

Greeley's
history is wonderfully accurate. I wish he would have mentioned one of
my wartime favorites, the eponymous H.V. Kaltenborn. I would have
liked a little less sarcasm (mild tho' it was) and less G.I. obscenity
(tolerable tho' it was).

This book deserves a movie contract- with
Father Andrew directing!

Father Greeley introduces us to new and captivating fictional (but don't we know real-life folks similiar?) Irish-Catholic families in Chicago and deftly interweaves them with suspense in Post World War II Germany. But, here's a *WARNING* I wish I would have known when I started this book: this is "Part One" of the saga. Unlike the Blackie Ryan or Nuala Ann books, it is NOT self-contained. One must read the 2d of this series, _Younger Than Springtime_, to have even a glimmer of how it all ends. Order both now, so you won't have to pester your Postperson to keep reading ;-) I hope, to complete the saga (still not wholly resolved at the end of _Springtime_,)that there will be a _Summer_ and _Autumn_?

I enjoyed this book, spending the better part of a Sunday afternoon to finish it. It is the beginning of a series focused on bright and personable young Chuck O'Malley. The young man has the gift for detective work that is a common trait of Greeley's protagonists. While the setting and character types are familiar from other Greeley novels, the story is a pleasant exploration of familiar territory. This story provided a nice balance of action, suspense, and good characters. It's frustration is that it is the first installment in a series and just when you want more the book ends. Of course, the next installment is available as I write this belated review. Chuck O'Malley may just end up on my favorite character list along with Blackie Ryan and the Coynes (Dermot and Naula Ann).

"Voluptuous Panic" is colorful, interesting, and amusing. Its a fast and enjoyable read.

The only negative quality of this book ,in my opinion, is that I always find it difficult to believe in rigid catagories describing people. The lists of different types of prostitutes, transvestites, homosexuals and lesbians are a little suspicious. The terminology is a lot of fun but, I wonder if the actual people of the Weimar era truly used these terms and definitions.

In glorious black-and-white pictures and color plates, Mel Gordon illustrates the splendour that was Weimar Berlin. This book is necessary for any uppity later generations who thought they came up with nightlife, sex and provocation.

Mel Gordon has recreated the powerful erotic imagery of a time and place now gone, and perhaps residing in only a few memories.

The black and white pictures, posters and settings recreate the longed-for but never achieved phantom-like dreams of a little boy in the thirties, who barely remembers the sloe-eyed slinky long legged sometimes stern faces about to enter the eros of barely hidden, furtive and mysterious explorations and invitations to shadowy eroticareal. A real "Noire". All delighfully expressed in this volume.

A must for any serious reader of social-cultural history of the times, but more so for lovers of quality erotica. mooseman01@aol.com