History Book reviews and recommendations

"As a young journalist trying to establish his bona fides Schmidle chose to live in Pakistan for two years. He learned the native language and immersed himself in its culture. He describes the people, places, and events that he experienced in lyrical, almost poetical language. Despite the difficulty in following the unfamiliar Pakistani names of people, organizations, and cities, Schmidle takes the reader into the dynamics of life in this amazing country. Schmidle spent time visiting the hinterlands of Pakistan where factional groups are fighting each other, where tribal structure pits regions against each other and against the central government of the country, where antiAmerican sentiments dominate, and where Islamic extremism is persuasive to the people. He visited madrassas where young boys and girls are instructed and indoctrinatedin the Islamic faith; he became a confident of some we might consider terrorists; he talked with and witnessed the activities of Talabon fighters. While Schmidle makes great effort to be impartial in his reporting, he paints a picture of the Muscharef government, an ally of the United States, as a repressive regime that terrorized the people of Pakistan to hold onto power. Schmidle shows how ordinary Pakistanis view the Talibon as heroes who bring order and stability into ungoverned and lawless regions, but how their extremist religious views and cruel punishment of those who oppose them often turn the populace against them. TO LIVE OR TO PERISH will give you a different insight Pakistan and Afghanistan that will help you to make more informed judgment about American intervention in Afghanistan, how the people of the region perceive the world and particularly the West, and what we can expect from our efforts to bring democracy to those countries. It is a must-read for those who don't want to take for granted the standard media picture of American intervention in the Middle East, but rather want to make their own decisions about how we can best protect ourselves against the threat of global terrorism. "

" Dear Senator is well written and engaging. I have no doubt that Essie Mae did mpre to sensitize Strom Thurmond to the plight of African Americans than all of the congressional debates could've ever done! This book humanizes the complexities of being a southern segregationist whose political views and values were confronted due to the very real, intelligent and personal faces who were the brunt of the usual segregationists vitriole, ie, his only child for 66 years of his life and her mother, who he seemed to truly love. "

"Thanks to William McKinley in one year -- 1898 -- the USA came into possession of Hawaii, the Philippines and Guam in the Pacific and Cuba and Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Cuba it soon gave up. The rest it kept. McKinley played a hostile Senate faction of anti-imperialists like a violin and pushed through early 1899 ratification of the Paris Treaty of Peace with Spain with one vote to spare. He greatly enlarged the powers of the Presidency. His successes in 1898 also allowed him to send troops to Peking without Congressional authority to fight the Boxers. It also paved the way to later building the Panama Canal under U.S. sole ownership. Until Professor Gould's revisionist looks at McKinley, the former Governor of Ohio had sunk to the status of a fourth-magnitude President, accused by some of genocide in the Philippines. -OOO-"

"Very readable scientific info. for the layman, enjoyable, eye-opening, even sometimes funny. Quite storylike. A huge amount of info."

"this is a well written book for my history class, thank you"

"Benjamin Carter Hett's 2008 excellent biography of Nazi political victim and eminent young German Lawyer Hans Litten (1903 - 1938) is obscurely named CROSSING HITLER: THE MAN WHO PUT THE NAZIS ON THE WITNESS STAND. Other than its uninformative title, the only other major defect in this well documented historical study is the book's lack of a single map of Germany. The location of key cities in Hans Litten's life, e. g. Halle, Koenigsberg, Berlin should be presented there in one or more maps, as well as the various concentration camps where the young man was held for five years, ending with Dachau, where he died, ostensibly a suicide. *** Litten's fame rises steadily in Germany and Europe. But he does not yet have the popular appeal of the young Dutch Nazi victim Anne Frank. Therefore, specialists in German legal history are the most likely readers of CROSSING HITLER. Nonetheless, the man was talented, brave and multi-faceted. Some contemporaries compared him with Francis of Assisi, others with another lawyer, Saint Thomas More. *** Author Hett lays out three main stereotypes that have emerged of the man as martyr for one or other cause: Hans Litten, (1) religious, (2) political, (3) lawyers' lawyer. To his Lutheran mother Litten died for Jesus, yet Hans himself emphasized his father-derived Judaism, while venerating the Blessed Virgin Mary. Politically, he described himself as far to the left of the Communists he defended, while revealing a strong authoritarian streak. As a lawyer, he was accused in the Berlin of the Weimar Republic of badgering witnesses, yet became a hero to law associations of both East and West Germany. He also had a photographic memory and was widely and deeply read in literature and history, in spite of his busy legal career. *** CROSSING HITLER showcases 28 year old Hans Litten's 1931 examination of criminal trial witness Adolph Hitler about Nazi dedication to violence. At the time Hitler was wooing the German middle class by asserting his complete dedication to purely legal opposition to the Weimar democracy. The book gives a good feeling for the interaction in the years just before Hitler's supreme power between political street gangs, police, courts, lawyers and politicians. The book is well researched, clearly written and has a well laid-out and evaluated bibliography. -OOO-"