Customer Reviews:
Essential Reading for Infertile Couples.......2004-06-12
This book, along with "Adopting After Infertility" are two of the most helpful books my husband and I have read on infertility. We're undergoing our third and last IVF in the fall, so we're getting ready to close the door on the possibility of a child who is biologically ours. We credit both of these books for helping to keep us emotionally grounded during the process -- there IS life after infertility!
The Carters have written a warm, honest, personal, heartfelt and non-judgmental book. They acknowledge that Childfree is not for everyone, but openly share how it has worked for them and the decision process they employed to get there. The tone of the book is never pushy or self-righteous, which sadly cannot be said of all infertility books and forums.
We still have not decided whether or not adoption is for us, but we feel better equiped to make that decision thanks to both of these books.
A Positive Spin on Bad Luck.......2004-05-09
This is a comforting, positive book for those struggling with infertility. It is often Pollyanna-ish -- the authors suggest "helping" careers such as social work and teaching, pets, gardening and hobbies as substitutes for having children. These can be rewarding things, but having and raising children is another thing altogether, for which there are no substitutes.
They fail to address some of the really difficult, resentment inducing reasons why people couldn't try to have children until it was too late. While the authors seem to assume that all parents and in-laws want grandchildren, my husband and I were hesitant because we grew up in hellish families, and both of our families -- and especially his, who disapproved of our interfaith marriage -- discouraged us from having children. They don't address the common scenario of husbands wanting to put off and put off having children until the wives are too old, and so the infertility heartbreak begins.
They made their childfree decision in their early thirties -- which seems ludicrously early to give up hope. I don't buy their recommendation that it's bad to "drift" -- leave things up to fate. They started using birth control again, instead of leaving it to chance that they might be blessed with a late, surprise baby. I know one couple who did the fertility treatment route, resigned themselves fairly happily to childlessness, and then the wife got accidentally pregnant at 45, and they are the happiest parents in the world.
This book presents rules that worked for the authors, but may not work for everyone.
I thought I embraced "childfree" in my late thirties, after fertility treatments dramatically worsened a chronic illness, which brought additional money worries into the picture. For four years, a creative life served as a fulfilling substitute for the family I didn't have. But then, with improving health and different finances, I got the urge to try again. The "substitute" wasn't enough anymore. What was an acceptable solution for four years doesn't cover the next forty that I will probably live.
So the decision making they recommend doesn't always work -- the heart has its own logic. As they point out -- the fertility industry offers a lot more options that can prolong the agony, or offer hope.
The conclusion this book brought to me was that -- if I really want to be a parent, I should pursue adoption. If you are so caught up in only parenting your own genetic material, then it's more about your ego than wanting to raise a family.
These authors have a very close marriage, and happy, fulfilling careers. Not everyone is so lucky to have that fill the void of childlessness.
All through this book I kept reading their arguments and saying, But, but, but -- as they oversimplified a complex situation that is subject to each person's experience. However, by the end the good-heartedness of the authors won me over. I can't agree that all their recommendations will lead to resolution, however. Life is never fully resolved. I chose childlessness in the way they recommended, and lived to regret it. If you choose childlessness, it CAN come back to haunt you, there are no absolutes in life.
Some things you never get over.
A light at the end of the tunnel..........2003-08-01
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! An amazing book to help you survive infertility. After 7 IVF's, several miscarriages and a medical conclusion that what felt impossible, was impossible, this book changed my life. After reading it, I felt as though there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I took control of my life and realized that I could have a rewarding, happy life...I just needed to make the active choice to BE HAPPY! If you feel "stuck", read this book...it will change your perspective on life!
Very helpful, calming and a quick read.......2003-07-23
I found this book extremely helpful after our 4 failed IVF attempts along with 2 miscarriages. It helped me get out of the hole that I had dug for my husband and myself and get on with life!
I felt immeasurably relieved after reading it.
An excellent book on childlessness and infertility.......2002-07-22
This book is surprisingly helpful, supportive, optimistic and is written for both men and women. I am a 40-year-old woman who doesn't have children because of illness. This book is applicable to unwanted childlessness from all causes--not just infertility. An alternate title could be "Sweet Grapes: How to Stop Feeling Miserable About Not Having Children and Start Living Again." With some effort, the whole book can be generalized from the specific case of infertility to childlessness for other reasons.
The authors make the case that a person who is not fertile can actively choose either infertility or childfree living. Their unusual definitions of childfree versus infertile and childless actually made sense after I read their detailed explanations. They write, "It is choice that makes the difference between voluntary and involuntary childlessness. Childfree means turning involuntary childlessness into voluntary childlessness. And we would rather live our lives in the achievement of a major life goal than in the constant reminder of the frustration of one." Childfree does not mean disliking children.
This book does a good job of explaining exactly what childfree living is and how it has worked for them. Luckily, they are not pushing this option on readers.
Key points are:
1. Happiness after infertility is much more likely if one makes active choices about how to spend the rest of one's life than if one drifts.
2. Every loss such as infertility or childlessness also contains the potential for gain and personal growth.
3. Building effective communication skills between partners is important.
4. Decision-making processes and skills can be learned. Decisions addressed are how much infertility treatment to undergo, how to spend the rest of one's life if biological children are not possible and whether to live childfree.
Be sure to read the revised 1998 edition because it includes an Epilogue. Bibliography but no index included.
I highly recommend Linda Hunt Anton's 1992 "Never To Be A Mother: A Guide For All Women Who Didn't--Or Couldn't--Have Children." Written by an infertile, childless, social-worker-therapist, it is the best self-help book I've found on dealing with emotional aspects of childlessness. Readers benefit from her non-threatening writing style, professional training and years of experience in infertility and childlessness counseling.
Book Description
This unique, new book covers the whole field of electronic warfare modeling and simulation at a systems level, including chapters that describe basic electronic warfare (EW) concepts. Written by a well-known expert in the field with more than 24 years of experience, the book explores EW applications and techniques and the radio frequency spectrum, with primary emphasis on HF (high frequency) to microwave.
A detailed resource for entry-level engineering personnel in EW, military personnel with no radio or communications engineering background, technicians and software professionals, the work helps you understand the basic concepts required for modeling and simulation, as well as fidelity and other practical aspects of simulation design and application. You get clear explanations of important mathematical concepts, such as decibel notation and spherical trigonometry.
This informative reference explains how to facilitate the generation of realistic computer models of EW equipment. Moreover, it describes specific types of EW equipment, how they work and how each is mathematically modeled. The book concludes with a description of the various types of models and simulations and the ways they are applied to training and equipment testing tasks.
Book Description
In August 1944, Warsaw presented the last major obstacle to the Red ArmyÂ's triumphant march from Moscow to Berlin. When the Wehrmacht was pushed back to the Vistula River, the Polish Resistance poured forty thousand fighters into the streets to drive out the hated Germans. But Stalin halted the Russian offensive, allowing the Wehrmacht to regroup and destroy the city. For sixty-three days Soviet troops and other Allied forces watched from the sidelines as tens of thousands of Poles were slaughtered and Warsaw was reduced to rubble.
Like Antony BeevorÂ's bestselling The Fall of Berlin, Rising Â'44 is a brilliant narrative of one of the most dramatic episodes in twentieth-century history.
Customer Reviews:
Heroic people with criminal leaders.......2007-08-04
This is, theoretically, a book on the lift of Warsaw, nevertheless both the introductions and the last years (until 1956) they occupy more part of the book than the battle in strict sense. There are very interesting and appropriate the witnesses' comments that are inserted in the text occasionally.
Certainly the sympathies of the author for Poland and the Poles are clear and logical, but after reading this book, I remain with exhaustive information of, for example, the center of communications in London, number of operators, lines, even type of the devices and do not realize well who is the person, or persons in charge of giving the order of the raising and directly responsible for this tragedy. What yes I realize well the fact is that the persons in charge are slightly more that irresponsible they are criminals. It is not possible to give the order to get up against the Germans if no possibility of success, sacrificing the lives of hundreds of thousands of civil innocents, women and children, exhibiting them to the cruelty and clear barbarism of the Germans and especially with the precedent of events in the raising of the Jewish Guetto.
The author in Page 616 speaks " ...The damaged and discriminated could not be suitably compensated. The elderly could not be restored to their youth. The death could not be resurrected. The hope was for one thing alone: that the rising be properly remembered". And does this deserve hundreds of thousands of innocent victims? For the pride only? I think that not , strongly not. As usual he compares the communist discrimination of the postwar period with the brutal murdering made for the Germans.
He speaks about that the Risisng don't was mentioned in the Nuremberg Trial, yes, but I think that in that Trial had to be judged the polish dirigents that sent so many people to die without hope and without sense, that's also a crime against humanity.
The slaughter of more than 20.000 elders, women and children in entire quarters of Warsaw the first days of the raising for the German savages, occupy less attention and interest that the slaughter of the Polish officials in Katyn, how many Russian officials it killed Stalin? A lot of more. He was a killer especially with his own people.
After reading this book, I realize well the useless heroism of the Polish people directed by a few criminal leaders in London who led them to the suicide without any hope, only for a useless pride and also I realize well the attitude of the Russians. Independently of that his information of intelligence was very poor, what interest someone can feel in helping a person who says that tomorrow it will fight against them?
And in spite of it at the end of the raising, the Russians sent supply for air, helped with his artillery in the bank this one with the Vístiula and they even attacked, fruitlessly, the well prepared German defenses.
Certainly could they have done more, but if you were Russian, it would waste lives of Russian soldiers in rescuing someone who fought against you scantly 20 years ago in the same place, who beat the orthodox cathedral of Warsaw in (giving an example of intolerance) and that only thirty years earlier was a province of Russia and all this to rescue someone that his enemy demonstrates openly, not only of the communism, but of Russia as nation? Not, the Russians certainly are nor saints, nor idiots.
On the other hand to retain nuns, women and children with the excuse of which the Polish soldiers would fight better, or to consider the retreat for the sewers of a quarter of the combatants stopping behind to women, children and injured men so that the German savages were murdering them do not look like to me " heroic facts of war". After read this book my opinion about the polish insurgents it's considerably worst and the killing of a jew family for them it's horrible. Of course there was and there is a anti-jew sentiments in the polish people, even after the war was a pogrom in a little village and the polish killed 44 jews.
But there is a tone in the book too common unfortunately in English historians and is not only the comparison of the Nazis with the communists. but an extenuation of all the atrocities committed by the Germans and a worsening of the committed ones by the communists.
I understand, and share, with the author the friendliness for the Polish people, but the number of pages dedicated to the postwar period is very superior to dedicated to the German domain in the rest of Poland, about which almost not at all one speaks. I don't understand very well a capitle about the stalinstation till 1956 .Then I miss another capitle about the german rule in Poland that, I'm sure would be much more interesting that the period till 1956.
If we read carefully the period of the postwar period, we find facts that deny the argued for the author largely. By example, if the NKVD was so perfect , how is possible that theCol. Wolf was arrested three times, the conditions of prison in IRKA IV, half a litre of black coffe and a chunk of black bread and a bowl of soup twice a day, more a book to read every month , that conditions were bad but not worst that many common russian people at that time. A german prisoner said that although the children of the guards of the Russian prisons where he was were dying of famine never stopped giving meal to the prisoners, little meal, but it was small for all. And the prisoner who was reporting his sufferings was liberated in 1955. The Germans killed of famine in less than six months three million Russian prisoners and I do not meet anybody liberated of Auschiwtz or other german camps.
The prince Yanush R. Was consigned in a camp for Beria and so soon as 1947 he come back to Poland with Ludwik Bittner, one of the leaders of the rising. I don't see the NKVD so perfect.
Also in the postwar period a lot of Poles could emigrate, seem that the iron courtain had a lot of holes, also was allowed to foreign poles come to Poland in the 1960s.
In the 1950s many sentences in Poand were overruled and some even was granted with a sum for compensation.
When the author speaks about Lublin with the opening of Universities and a almost free live there don't said that Lublin was under soviet rule, seems a oasis without boss, but the russians were there and let that renaissance.
Of course the comunism is a horrible regime , but the live under it was by far much better that under the germans. In Dante's hell there is several circles, from better to worst.
We must not never forget that when the Canciller Willy Brandt in 1970 ( only 15 years after the end of the war ) and fell to his knees in front the Guetto Memorial the 49 % of german people judged the gesture "exaggerated" , if we do that test now, the amount of 49 % would be bigger , sure, so the germans dont'fell shame for their crimes and the one who forgets the history repeats it again.
This is a very interesting book but seems that the author hates more to the Russians that to the Germans.
Essential .......2007-03-10
This book is essential reading for anyone who is interested in The Second World War.
Not A Typical History, But Worth A Look.......2006-07-22
I picked this book up on a remainder rack because I have a long time interest in World War II and military history. It spotlights one of the tragic events of that period, when the citizens of Warsaw saw the Soviet army approaching their city, rose against their Nazi occupiers and were crushed while Stalin's army stood idle and let the Nazis crush the uprising. When they took the city, most potential resistance to Communist rule was already destroyed.
Poland was affected to a greater extent than almost any other nation. Invaded twice by the Russians and Germans, with its intellectual elite hunted down and murdered by both sides, it is amazing that the country exists at all today. One of the most haunting images of World War II was that of the Polish Lancers (elite units that were some of the best cavalry of the 19th century) charging German armored vehicles during the initial 1939 invasion and being wiped out by long distance machine gun fire.
The Soviets did a prequel of the Warsaw Uprising atrocity during the Spanish civil war, when they essentially sabotaged the loyalists and let Franco win so that the Spanish communists could never become a competitor for the title of leader of the communist world -- Read George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.
Many readers (contrary to the author's assertion) in WW II history are sketchily aware of this uprising and the results -- and do not confuse it with the Nazi destruction of the Warsaw ghetto that occurred somewhat earlier). However, too many academics and writers tend to somewhat romanticize the Soviet era and are either consciously or unconsciously reluctant to talk about the more horrific aspects of communist culture and control.
The author was previously unknown to me, but his biography in Wikipedia indicates that he is a Welshman who spent his formative academic years in Krakow studying at the Jagiellonian University The entry doesn't say exactly when, but since he was born in 1939, it must have been during the 1960s.
Thus, the author can safely be said to be fluent and well read in Polish literature, something that few European or US academics can claim. In addition, it seems likely that during his student days, he also became fluent in Polish culture, and during the height of the Cold War era. Thus his outlook on Polish events and history can be said to be very representative of how Polish culture views the incredibly complicated history of Poland in Europe. Just as there are multiple interpretations of everyday events, there are multiple views of historical events and an honest student of history ought to seek them out.
My guess is that this book accurately represents current Polish views on their history during the events of World War II.
However, the reader should be cautioned that Davies also shares the defensive Polish view of its history of its treatment of the Jewish population, who were a sizeable minorty of the population numbered in the millions and of whom more than 90% were wiped out during the war and its aftermath. Jewish and Polish perceptions of that history are very different. The Polish view seems to admit that there were some isolated persecution by Poles, but that it may have been justified in isolated cases, and was not typical of the Polish population or that it arose from the forces of compulsion, repression and terror inflicted by the Germans or Soviets. It is certainly true that in the chaos of Nazi and Communist invasion, that the Poles were nearly as endangered as the Jews (minus the extermination camps, of course). However, the Polish view, although strongly held, appears to have a greater element of self deception than most revisionist historical views. Polish/Jewish relationships were certainly complicated and there were some bright spots and acts of heroism, but Poles and Jews were not on equal terms throughout the hundreds of years that Jews lived in the region and were not so during the war.
The author's criticisms of US and British policy towards Poland are both loud and repetitious throughout the book, but certainly deserved. Both nations had an ingrained policy of persuing self interest, and both had foreign policy cadres that viewed the events in central and eastern Europe as if they were occuring on the moon. Both nations were students of Machiavelli, Metternich and cold blooded diplomacy, and both concentrated on keeping Stalin happy and pushing the eastern front against the Nazis.
The chief merit of this book is that it spotlights a poorly documented event in history and reflects the local views of that event in a way not otherwise easily accessible to the western reader. It also demonstrates (in case you aren't already aware of it) that war is never conducted in strict black and white -- there are always impossible choices, mistakes, atrocities and disasters. The book is quirky in its organization and naming conventions, but not unreadable.
Well Written History--Structurally Flawed.......2006-03-27
Norman Davies' Rising '44 is a peculiar history. Davies' qualifications and scholarship are beyond reproach. His literary style usually has the appropriate tone for a history book that holds a reader's interest. So, why three stars? Davies' copy editor and publisher failed to do their jobs adequately.
Davies is almost apologetic for his first four chapters in his foreword (p. xi). Dedicating a chapter apiece to the allies, Germans, Soviets, and resistance leading to the Rising makes very good sense.
The book's structure is flawed by the addition of numerous one or two page vignettes. These are first person accounts sprinkled throughout the book. They are interesting in their own right but detract from the flow of the main text. I can only imagine the problems that the copy editor had working with them but I have a good idea. On page 327, readers will find a reference to a vignette named "PAST." It is missing. In places, these vignettes contribute nothing to the main body of the history and in the worst cases contradict it. One amazing contradiction is entitled POW. On page 480, the body of the history reads: "[Mauthausen-Gusen] could not formally be classed like Treblinka or Sobibor as a death camp; its clients, who were put to work in the granite quarries, were subjected to the cruellest of treatments and enjoyed no such luxury as a rapid death.... Only a handful lived to tell the tale." The reader is refered to the POW vignette on page 484, "We had no idea of how POW life looked to a 'normal' officers' camp. It turned out that it was a rich life. In our honour, the local orchestra gave an excellent classical music concert." Some vignettes are disconnected from the main history. One can ask how the reference to the SISTERS vignette fits into the Soviets' denial of a rising. All the vignettes should have been relegated to an appendix. Each vignette is separately footnoted, actually endnoted. Why, in an age of outstanding programs for typesetting books, are readers subjected to endnotes? The endnote numbering for each vignette starts with 1. The corresponding endnotes are not found with the associated chapter but are relegated to the end of the endnotes. This makes using them difficult.
A spelling error occurs on page 596: "veterans" is spelled "veteras."
I recommend Davies' Rising '44 with few reservations. The heroism of the Varsovians is inspiring. The impotence of the British and Americans to aid is infuriating. The duplicity of the Soviets is hardly surprising.
Excellent Historical Account And Analysis.......2006-03-18
Norman Davies has written an excellent, enlightening account of one of the great untold (in the USA at least) episodes of WWII: the Polish Underground's Warsaw rising against the Nazis. The Uprising of 1944 is often forgotten and easily (in the West)confused with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943. Briefly, in the summer of 1944, with the Red Army closing on Warsaw, and the Germans barely holding a line running through the Polish Capital, the Polish Underground "Home Army" responded to a call from Stalin to rise up. For two months the Poles held the Nazis at bay in Warsaw. However, the Red Army after reaching the Vistula River and Eastern suburbs of Warsaw, decided not to support the Poles. Inevitably, Hitler's Generals eradicated the Poles and leveled Warsaw. Hundreds of thousands, mainly women and children were murdered. In addition to telling this story, Davies does a commendable job of explaining how this came about and why this catastrophe has been ignored. Davies' analysis of why we have forgotten the Rising is what I find outstanding about his work. The West did not just forget the ordeal of Poland and the Home Army, its heroic struggle, sacrifice and epic tragedy; a complex collection of factors has for a long time conspired to relegate this episode of WWII to obscurity. Davies methodically unravels this web of enormity. For one, the Rising was certainly subjected to a smear campaign by the communists. The memory of Polish Nationalism was anathema to Stalin, who sought revenge not only for the humiliation meted out to the Red Army by the Poles in 1920, but for the centuries of Polish resistance to Russian domination. The Polish postwar communist puppet state tried to discredit and obliterate the memory of the Home Army, persecuting its members. This effort was ceaseless until the fall of the Iron Curtain (Ironically, Stalin's legacy was hurried onto the trash heap of history by a Catholic Pope who was himself a witness to the Rising). Second, Davies shows persuasively that a certain amount of bad policy on the part of the Polish Government in Exile and the British and American Governments - and postwar guilt on the part of the latter two - also contributed to first the failure of the Rising, and then to its being ignored when the histories got written. No one likes to be reminded they betrayed a Friend. That is exactly what the Western Allies did to Poland. The British and Americans used Polish troops in North Africa, Italy, France and Holland. However, Western misreadings of Stalin's intentions and political ineptness on the part of the exiled Poles resulted in abandonment of what Davies calls the "first Ally" in their time of need. For instance, the Polish Parachute Brigade (attached to the British Airborne Forces) expected they would be flown in to Warsaw to fight beside the Home Army, instead they were thrown away at Arnhem. In hindsight it is very hard to believe that Roosevelt or Churchill or their advisors could have been so blind to Stalin's intentions in Europe. Norman Davies lays bare these long hidden blunders and betrayals to the light of day and shows how they doomed the heroes and the innocents of Warsaw in 1944. I recommend this book to anyone wishing to understand why history is never black and white, and how the ghosts of yesterday do come back to haunt our today.
Average customer rating:
- Political Events Up to and Including the Warsaw Uprising--With Dubious Contentions
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The Warsaw Rising of 1944 (Cambridge Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies)
Jan M. Ciechanowski
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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Binding: Paperback
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Book Description
Why did the Polish underground Home Army call for what proved to be a suicidal uprising? Why did they decide that their poorly armed troops should alone liberate Warsaw shortly before the Soviet entry into the capital? Why were the approaching Russians not informed? Why did the Red Army fail to take Warsaw in the first days of August 1944 as both Stalin and Bor-Kornorowski had anticipated? Dr Ciechanowski examines in detail the political, diplomatic, ideological and military background of the Rising and the events and decisions which immediately preceded it. He traces in turn: the main aspects of Polish politics, strategy and diplomacy during the whole of the Second World War. It is based primarily on unpublished Polish contemporary documents and on interviews with highly placed participants in, and witnesses of, the Warsaw Rising. It provides a definitive account of why the Rising took place and is an extremely important contribution to the history of the Second World War.
Customer Reviews:
Political Events Up to and Including the Warsaw Uprising--With Dubious Contentions.......2007-10-10
This book de-emphasizes military activity in favor of a focus on political activity. Emphasis is placed upon the behind-the-scenes dealings of the western powers, with the Soviet Union, over the future of Poland. Strengths of this book include its detailed documentation, including from seldom-cited sources, and its fine description of Operation Burza (Tempest) east of the so-called Curzon Line.
There was the usual Churchill-Stalin obsession with the need for Poland to have "ethnographic borders." Never mind the fact that the sun never set on the British Empire, most of which consisted of nations in which ethnic Britons were a decided minority, and the fact that the Soviet Union was itself a multi-ethnic state in which, ironically, ethnic Russians were a minority in most of the Soviet Republics!
Interestingly, Mikolajczyk had wanted British troops to be sent into Poland alongside the Red Army (p. 19). Mikolajczyk had been repeatedly pressured to give into Soviet demands to annex the eastern half of Poland. He steadfastly refused: "He feared that, if he accepted the Curzon Line or even smaller territorial changes in the east, the opposition abroad might brand him and his cabinet as traitors and stage a mutiny in the army." (p. 36)
Ciechanowski repeatedly faults Mikolajczyk for not accepting the Curzon Line. He suggests, without any evidence, that, had Mikolajczyk done so, the Soviets would have recognized the London Government (p. 68, 315, etc.)
Oddly, Ciechanowski seems to try to exonerate the Soviets. He discusses the Soviet reverses near Warsaw around August 1, 1944, and treats Stalin's refusal to follow Rokossovsky's suggestion to renew the drive to take Warsaw, after August 25, as something ambiguous (p. 251).
To be delayed up to three weeks is one thing; to be delayed by five and a half months is quite another. Does Ciechanowski seriously suppose that the Soviets, who had the Germans on the run over several hundred kilometers during the first half of 1944, now suddenly had become so weak that they needed until mid-January 1945 to re-establish their advance (in this case, merely across the Vistula)? And, considering such additional facts as the Soviets calling the Uprising a "criminal adventure", their disarming of AK units converging on Warsaw to assist the Uprising, and their refusal to allow western Allied planes to land on Soviet-held territory to refuel after their airdrops on Warsaw (except towards the very end, by which time the Uprising had been doomed)--how can there be any rational doubt that the Soviet failure to take Warsaw during the Uprising had been anything other than a cold, deliberate, perfidious act?
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- Heroic Attempts to Support a Betrayed and Foredoomed anti-Nazi Rising
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Airlift to Warsaw: The Rising of 1944
Neil D. Orpen
Manufacturer: Univ of Oklahoma Pr
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ASIN: 0806119136 |
Customer Reviews:
Heroic Attempts to Support a Betrayed and Foredoomed anti-Nazi Rising.......2007-10-01
This book discusses the Polish Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and the heroic attempts to supply it with arms and ammunition, by brave aircrews, from a long distance. The pilots making the drops were composed of different nationalities, including South Africans.
The challenges were formidable. Planes had to fly a round trip of over a thousand miles across enemy-held territory. Owing to the fires set by the Germans in Warsaw's districts, it was hard for the crews to make out the marker fires of the drop zones, and the smoke pall constantly overhanging Warsaw didn't make matters easier either. Dropping supplies from low altitudes exposed the planes to ground fire, while dropping them from high altitudes caused them to miss the drop zones.
But why was such long-distance aid necessary in the first place? Although author Neil Orpen doesn't dwell on it, this book is a testimony to Soviet perfidy. The Red Army was just a few miles away, stalling in order for the Germans to have ample time to suppress the Uprising and to destroy Warsaw at a leisurely pace. Not until the Uprising was doomed did the Soviets offer some token assistance. What's more, for most of the Uprising, the Soviets had refused to allow the Uprising-assisting Allied aircraft to land on Soviet-held territory to refuel. Not until towards the end of the Uprising did the Soviets allow it. By then, only a small fraction of Warsaw was still in Polish hands, and so the Poles only got about 1/5th (p. 159) of the large airdrop of September 17, 1944.
Customer Reviews:
A Generally Good Overview of the Warsaw Uprising for the American Reader.......2007-10-16
American popular and semi-popular history series of WWII seldom contain anything related to Polish sacrifices and achievements in WWII. This book, which is a part of the BALLANTINE ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THE VIOLENT CENTURY series, is a notable exception.
Gunther (Guenther) Deschner, the author, is a German who was too young to have meaningfully experienced WWII. His attempt at detail and objectivity is obvious, and he believes that both Poles and Germans made strategic blunders during the Uprising. Deschner approaches the Uprising chronologically. He includes significant detail about the Kaminski and Dirlewanger SS units, and their mass murders of tens of thousands of Polish civilians.
Deschner stresses the well-armed state of the Germans, and contrasts it with a German estimate of only the equivalent of 2,500 Polish fighters being armed (p. 45). In addition, Deschner provides good detail of the German weaponry which had no Polish counterpart (pp. 94-103). He includes a photograph of the Nebelwerfer ("bellowing cow") in action, a sketch of the giant German artillery "Karl" (previously used only on the Russian front--at Sevastopol), and a sketch of the Goliath unmanned explosive-laden tank. (When a Goliath pushed through the wall of the St. John Cathedral, one of its threads broke off. I saw the rebuilt Cathedral wall with a meter-long segment of thread deliberately built-in as a memorial to the Uprising).
The house-to-house fighting was ferocious. Deschner quotes General Reinefarth: "The Poles showed themselves to be especially skillful tacticians. They first let German troops advance as closely to them as possible, creeping along the line of houses on both sides of the streets, without resisting. Then one of our most dreaded enemies, the Polish sniper, would appear." (p. 105).
Deschner believes that the belated recognition of the AK as combatants, by the Germans, had resulted from Anthony Eden's threat to kill German POWs in reprisal for the killings of captured Polish soldiers (p. 124). Deschner also unmasks Soviet perfidy. Clearly, Soviet military reverses near Warsaw had been minor and temporary. The front had stabilized again on August 4 (p. 125). He credits western public opinion with having forced Stalin to give token aid to the Uprising towards its end (p. 131).
Then Cold War was present.......2007-09-04
I read this good book, here in Brazil.This book has a lot of photos and pictures; all of them black & white.This book is also short and concise.
Failures of this book are small.To example, on preface, there's a past reality of Cold War.In fact, when this book was writen, Poland was still under Soviet's chains.
Today Poland is free.
Even so, this book remains good,small and full of illustrations.As an introduction about Warsaw uprising, this book remains a good choice.
Average customer rating:
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63 days: The story of the Warsaw rising : speech
Jan Nowak
Manufacturer: British League for European Freedom
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Poland
| Europe
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| World War II
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
Personal Narratives
| World War II
| Military
| History
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: B0007K1X5O |
Average customer rating:
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Practical Techniques for Groundwater & Soil Remediation (Geraghty & Miller Science and Engineering Series)
Evan K. Nyer
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Environmental Science
| Earth Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
Soil Science
| Agricultural Sciences
| Science
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Environmental
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Groundwater
| Environmental
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Water Quality & Treatment
| Environmental
| Civil
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Engineering
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Environmental Science
| Earth Sciences
| Professional Science
| Professional & Technical
| Subjects
| Books
Reference
| Outdoors & Nature
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0873717317 |
Book Description
Practical Techniques for Groundwater and Soil Remediation is a compilation of articles by the author that were printed in the National Ground Water Association (NGWA) magazine Groundwater Monitoring Review. The book provides valuable data, emphasizes the practical aspects of remediation, presents results from actual remediation programs, and helps readers prepare remediation strategies. The book also includes detailed technical data on treatment equipment performance and the costs associated with their design and operation. A unique feature of the book is that it also contains data from treatment systems that did not work. Practical Techniques for Groundwater and Soil Remediation is a "must have" source of invaluable data and tips that will be useful for all groundwater and soil remediation professionals.
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Books Index
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