Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

Book Description

This widely acclaimed biography provides a vivid and riveting account of Stalin and his courtiers—killers, fanatics, women, and children—during the terrifying decades of his supreme power. In a seamless meshing of exhaustive research and narrative ?lan, Simon Sebag Montefiore gives us the everyday details of a monstrous life.

We see Stalin playing his deadly game of power and paranoia at debauched dinners at Black Sea villas and in the apartments of the Kremlin. We witness first-hand how the dictator and his magnates carried out the Great Terror and the war against the Nazis, and how their families lived in this secret world of fear, betrayal, murder, and sexual degeneracy. Montefiore gives an unprecedented understanding of Stalin’s dictatorship, and a Stalin as human and complicated as he is brutal.

Customer Reviews:

Deep Inside Stalinism.......2007-10-14

Montefiore's creativity in writing this epic-like non-fiction novel is astonishing. Not only does he enlighten us about how Stalin's life looked from the inside (away from all the public idolization - or later on damnation), but he does it in a way that makes it look like a novel. Even though the events are tragic since they are a true story, it's written as a thriller, displaying a giant phase in the twentieth century in a way never shown before. Unlike many historians, Montefiore's book actually has the distinction of giving all the views available objectively and letting the reader judge accordingly.
This book, however, is exactly what it was written for: showing Stalin's court. You'll not find here any historical analysis outside Stalin's court, nor will you find a lot of information about WW II (even though it's covered in great detail).

Bringing Stalin's Russia To Life.......2007-08-23

Montefiore brings to light an astounding amount of new information from various archives and recent interviews and combines this with a very humorous readable style. Highly recommend his "Young Stalin" as well!

Makes Stalin as human as an inhuman can Be.......2007-07-25

This is a fascinating look at Stalin from the perpective of those around him. Giving a diffrent view than any other book so far. Remember this is the man who said "One death is a tradgedy, a million dealths is a statistic."

Stalin the Book Editor.......2007-06-30

What an utterly fascinating portrait the author draws of this monster. I used to think Hitler was interesting, but this blood-thirsty maniac is the one. Talk about fascinating fascism. Stalin, we are told by our communist friends, was the illiterate boob who stole the revolution from the bright and interesting Trotsky and Lenin. Here he is shown to have been every bit as bright as any other mass killers, but in this biography we are shown stages of rage, as it were, whereby Stalin developed finally into the yellow-eyed, paranoid fanatic left-wing academics love to defend. What is so interesting is his intellectual pretensions. His close involvement with authors and composers is fascinating, especially when one considers that his displeasure meant certain death for the discredited. Now there's an editorial policy! At the same time one has to take seriously the author's persuasive claim that it was Stalin's wife's suicide that finally brought an end to any restraint to the Kremlin's killing machine. One is even touched by the descriptions of the informality of the pre-suicide Kremlin, with an old-fashioned style of communal living. They had all lived like wolves in a pack for a while, and then like jackels.

Absolute power. Absolute paranoia. Absolute corruption........2007-03-30

Montefiore's impressing book presents the story about Joseph Stalin and all his subordinates in the circles of Soviet power between 1932 and Stalin's death in 1953. It is a story of power, red, ruthless, total power.

Montefiore has gone to a wide range of new sources. He has searched far in the newly opened KGB-archives in Russia, and interviewed some of the men in power, and a lot of their descendants, first class observers during two decades of terror and tyrrany.

Stalin managed to stay in the top position for so long by distributing the power between his cronies. He frequently moved them around, both positionally and geographically. Stalin constantly collected "evidence" of contra-revolutionary activity by every member of the Politburo, of the Central Committee, in the Army Command and in the secret police. After a few years in power, most of the magnates ended up accused of sabotage against bolshevism, found guilty (pleading guilty after torture, often by their earlier comrades), and killed. This hindered a build-up of an oppositional coalition.

The role of chief killer was initially held by Yagoda, who was killed by his successor Nikolai Yezhov, killed by his successor Berija. Berija outlived Stalin, but was on the verge of being killed himself. Instead, Berija was executed at the orders of Khrushchev shortly after Stalin's own, natural, death.

According to Montefiore, Stalin started to believe all the accusations that was made up. When he died, he was busy planning a purge against doctors and jews.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. May Stalinism rest, but not in peace. Thank capitalism and liberalism for this excellent book.

Average customer rating:

Six hundred pages of Solitude.

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
Sebag Montefiore
Manufacturer: George Weidenfeld & Nicholson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

Russia | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1842127268

Book Description

There have been many biographies of Stalin, but the court that surrounded him is untravelled ground. Simon Sebag-Montefiore, acclaimed biographer of Catherine the Great's lover, prime minister and general, Potemkin, has unearthed the vast underpinning that sustained Stalin. Not only ministers such as Molotov or secret service chiefs such as Beria, but men and women whose loyalty he trusted only until the next purge. Here is the Stalin story from the inside, full of revelations. How the death of Stalin's wife was hushed up - was it suicide? How the Soviet leaders and their families lived and partied inside the Kremlin walls. What happened on the first day of war with Germany in 1941. The fullest account of the meeting between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill that settled the fate of the axis powers. And how the Great Terror in which 10 million died actually happened. Robert Service (St Antony's, Oxford), former head of Russian history at the School of Slavonic Studies, U. of London: 'Simon Sebag Montefiore has pulled it off. His book succeeds in giving us an intimate picture of daily life in the Kremlin under Stalin. The arrests and killings are not ignored; indeed Montefiore supplies extra chapters and verses on the process by which the Soviet dictator moved against his enemies real and potential. An abundance of the sources are wholly new. The result is a gripping account. Stalin was a vengeful conspirator and a murderous leader. But he was also 'normal' in many ways. He was convivial, solicitous and even flirtatious. When he wanted, he could be quite a charmer. This duality has long been under-appreciated, but it helps to explain why Stalin was admired as well as feared by his associates - and indeed why his power endured. This is a fundamental theme and it is one of Montefiore's that he handles it with excitement and cogency.'

Customer Reviews:

Six hundred pages of Solitude........2006-01-22

On March,9 1953 Stalin's funerals announced the closing of an era.
Molotov, Krushev and Beria pronounced the official speeches praising the virtues of the father of Nationalities.
It was a great show of unity and official harmony from the workers' paradise, but reality was different from the official show.
Stalin had died a lonely man and his heirs had been in the past months a miserable lot of frightened men.
*
Polina, Molotov's wife, was still in the Lubianka, under interrogation, while her husband had been on the verge to be purged under Stalin's malevolent and dangerous suspicions.
Beria had been in disgrace as well and extremely worried for his fate, and life (there is still a lingering suspect he had poisoned Stalin to prevent being outmanoeuvred). Still - relieved as he could be by Stalin's death, he did not know that in a few months he would have been nonetheless eliminated, being too compromised with the past.
Krushev had been at times protégé and outcast, but his ability to shade his real feelings and his apparent candidness had saved him more than once from Stalin's congenital distrust.
*
Molotov, Krushev and Beria represented the last "court of the Red Tsar".
They were survivors in an entourage repeatedly decimated by bloody purges that followed - one after the other - since 1937.
And they were collectively responsible for atrocities unparalleled but for those of Nazi Germany, and eager - each one separately - to shove off the burden of responsibility on the dead despot.
There was no Nuremberg trial for the "murderous magnates".
*
This essay is both a biography of the red tsar and the story of his courtiers.
History of Soviet Russia - unlike that of Nazi Germany - is still too open to disputes to present a common ground of evaluation.
Many disagreements rise from lack of first hand reliable sources and the persistence both of Soviet mythology and visceral anti-communist hatred.
This is one of the reasons we must be obliged to Simon Sebag Montefiore: he has done an excellent work of research, having had the opportunity to scrutinize declassified official documents of the era and to interview survivors and descendants of the family elites of Stalin's inner circle, an enormous amount of work that inevitably cost the author a good deal of time.
*
"Stalin. The Court of the Red Tsar" is a well written and interesting work.
Sebag Montefiore casts new light on Stalin portrait, sometimes in unexpected directions.
He is one of the few historians to document the dictator refined intellectual curiosity, spanning from politics to poetry and literature (he even attempted translation of Georgian epics).
Stalin was not the brute we've been accustomed from the "revisionist" studies produced by historians like Helene Carrere d'Encausse (in her "Lénine" he is liquidated as little more than a loutish bank robber) and neither the dim-witted monster imagined by most writers (last a popular writer as Robert Harris in his - rather deluding - "Archangel").
He was an avid reader, did show exceptional abilities to express complex ideas in clear and concise language, and revealed above average managerial skills.
These features help to explain both his rise to power and the ability to maintain it.
*
Stalin was also a ruthless, paranoid and resentful dictator.
He was a committed politician and a fanatic Bolshevik, persuaded that ends are always superior to mean, no matter personal and collective sacrifices.
These qualities were to become his blessings and damnation: the curse of tyrants, who after killing all the dissenters, end up lonely prisoners in the golden cage of sycophantic courtiers.
*
The pervading biographical dimension of this essay represents the main limit of this work, that cannot attain a higher level of historiography.
Montefiore produced an extremely informed work, but critical evaluation of the historical events is reduced to the bone.
Moreover psychology is most of the times massively used to explain historical events, to detriment to other reasons.
*
These features are especially visible in the description of Stalin's rise to power: from revolutionary agitator, to leader of a Bolshevik oligarchy, ending as sole ruler of an immense empire.
There are but confusing explanations on how he was able to attain such place: nothing is said about the role of the new burocracy in normalizing the revolution and supporting stronger and less idealistic leaders, the role of terror and propaganda in cementing the new Soviet State.
*
Some parts of Stalin's biography are completely neglected: the formative years as a pre-revolutionary leader (not just his intellectual milieu, but his travels and his contacts with the European intelligentsia) and the first years of the revolution.
Few words are spent for the "foreign" court of the red tsar: all those intellectuals and political leaders who at different times made part of his entourage and from time to time represented the revolution abroad.
The list could be longer...
*
Unsatisfactory is also the cursory censure of Stalinism, mostly based on an honest and void indignation for all the suffering it caused.
The mission of history is to understand AND remember.
To paraphrase George Santayana, those who cannot understand the past are liable to repeat former errors.
The recurrent famines and the frightening purges can be described but most important is to understand why they came to happen and their inner reasons outside insanity.
And yet this was the best place to debate heated arguments as the essence of totalitarian power, the reasons of emergency and survival of the revolution, the claim of humanity in an age of extremes.
Did Stalin and his elite chose the lesser evil, as Bolsheviks still claim to day?
Was the emergency a sufficient reason for the pains caused?
Did they really believe in the final outcome of the communist Struggle?
Or they were just a new oligarchy interested in self preservation?
*
The mention of Stalin's intellectual curiosity could also give room for further analysis.
Stalin's fascination for the French Terror and Robespierre confronts two different totalitarian experiences and their final different outcome: if the French terror ended cannibalizing itself, the Russian terror ended up in strengthening the Bolshevik grip to power.
Stalin's compulsive passion for biographies of Eastern rulers offers an insight into the idea of autocratic power he tried to found: Eastern despotism - hardly camouflaged in a new Marxist fashion - as opposed to Western liberalism, but also deeply ingrained in the millennial autocratic culture coming down from Byzantium.
*
Finally a wider historical perspective could made the readers understand that Stalin was not unique in the panorama of the 1930s: Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, Hitler in Germany, but also smaller dictators all over Europe (Austria, Turkey, Romania,...).
History should try to explain if all these despotic regimes were an isolate and peculiar feature of the era - and if so, the causes and affinities between the many different totalitarian regimes - or if Stalin was different - and given the right humus, a Stalinist regime could be resuscitated today (the only reference I found is a rather dull remark of the resemblance between Stalin and Saddam Hussein at page 21).
*
My field of interest is more oriented to ancient and modern history. I'm not a great fan of contemporary history but for restricted specific periods: one of these is the 1930s in Europe and America.
If you kept reading to these last lines, there is a chance you may be interested in other works I had the chance to read about the same topic:
- "The Dark Valley. A Panorama of the 1930s" by Piers Brendon. Monumental history of the 1930s written with gusto and insight. It is a work of easy readability, with journalistic spirit but great accuracy.
- "Age of Extremes - The Short XXth Century" by E.J. Hobsbawn (1994). Hugely interesting, with a deliberate Marxist perspective. I loved this book, because it is a great fresco of the period from 1914 to 1991 and a passionate attempt not to justify, but to understand the inner mechanism of history.
- "Lenine" by Helene Carrere d'Encausse. No biography of Lenin cannot but deal with Stalin as well. The writer is supposed to be an expert of Russian history, but the disgust she shows, is inevitably disqualifying for her work.
- "The Banality of Evil. Heichmann in Jerusalem" by Hannah Harendt. Hannah Harendt has been one of the sharpest political and philosophical minds of the XX century: this is the report of Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, but her reflection on duty and responsibility are well fit to be used in judging Stalinism.
*
You are most welcome if you can suggest other books about the same theme or just share ideas and comments!
Thanks for reading.

Average customer rating:

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Manufacturer: audible.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Audio Download
ASIN: B000FG5NYC

Book Description

This classic reference work is now being reprinted. This volume covers the history and development of camouflage. Modern camouflage appears in everything from soft pastel gray-greens to wildly exotic fluorescents. The book is also a recognition guide to 450 camouflage patterns from around the world. Subjects covered include the pioneering and now highly collectible camouflage equipment of the German Army in World War II, the famous Tigerstripe worn by American soldiers in Vietnam, plus the classic patterns worn by today's armies, including patterns in current use in South East Asia and the former Soviet Union, the US Military "woodlands" pattern and the British DPM (Disruptive Pattern Material). Tim Newark is the author of "The Barbarians and Celtic Warriors".

Customer Reviews:

Just a collection of abstract works.......2001-10-12

This book is really for the birds. Given the fact that there are now very good specialist books on camouflage schemes and their development, why did the authors of this even bothered to come up with this book?
I can't see this as being of use to serious military historians nor to laypersons as this is a fringe topic.

Stop trippin'........2001-06-02

If your a sadistic freak, who collects nazi artifacts on ebay in his spare time, and reinacts famous battles in your backyard, my guess is you will be disappointed with this book, as it is not a "compehensive refrence" of every piece of camoflage ever worn...ever. To me this book is laid out nice, with photos of camo that are aesthetically pleasing, but not of any historical importance. Don't try to make this book something it's not. I don't even think there is any others like it.

My overall summary:

Good refrence for graphic designers. Bad refrence for armed forces enthusiasts.

Good reference with vague scope..........2000-10-22

If you buy this book as an overview of the history and evolution of camouflage with full examples, you're going to be exceptionally disappointed. If, however, you want a reasonably good survey of current and historical infantry camouflage uniforms, this is a good reference. I've found it to be a useful tool for wargamers...

This book could have been ALOT better.......2000-05-31

I had high hopes that this would be a comprehensive reference of the world's camouflage uniforms. Although there are several nice pictures throughout the book there are no captions to describe what you are looking at, for example the heading will list a country name and between 1-4 small thumbnail pictures of different uniforms but doesn't list the name of the pattern or the time frame it was used. I find this to be a terrible oversight as it's inclusion would have made this book a good reference as it stands now, the book's layout is too cumbersome to be much use as a reference.

The so-called "close-up" plates are nothing special as they were photographed too close to be of any real use. Also, several of the subjects were old and faded thusly giving an incorrect impression of the actual colors.

All in all, I can't really recommend this book. It is an interesting piece of work but the author and publisher seem to have released this work in an unfinished state. With just a small amount of time and effort, this could have been a solid reference but as it stands is nothing more than an intersting picture book.

A general, noncomprehensive reference book........1998-08-04

I had expected a more comprehensive look at camouflage patterns from around the world. The pictures tend to be high-quality, but small and poorly identified (especially in the most important section, the "catalog"). It also has inconsistent data. For example, it states that the six-color US desert pattern was tested in the 1980s, but later in the book it has the same pattern with the caption "US 1970s". The book contains pictures of rare and trial patterns, which is a plus. It also offers pictures of swatches, which allows close-up looks at the actual patterns. This book can be a useful reference book for scale modelers and camouflage connoisseurs. I haven't read any other Brassey's books, so I don't know how it compares to others in its series.

Average customer rating:

EXCELLENT Text

Not worth it.

Book in good condition

Upper level text with a wide array of countries

Dragging your feet

Comparative Politics Today: A World View, Eighth Edition
Gabriel A. Almond , G. Bingham Powell , Kaare Strøm , Russell J. Dalton , and Kaare Strom
Manufacturer: Longman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Relations | International | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Political Science | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

Government in America: People, Politics, and Policy, Brief Edition (9th Edition)

Catholic Social Teaching & Movements

Annual Editions: Comparative Politics 06/07 (Annual Editions : Comparative Politics)

International Organizations: Principles and Issues (7th Edition)

History of Political Philosophy

ASIN: 0321158962

Customer Reviews:

EXCELLENT Text.......2005-09-04

I took the class with 2 of the authors, and the text provided me an in-depth learning experience with the comparative government field.

Not worth it........2005-06-10

I found this book's literal weight significantly greater than its intellectual weight. No where in the book does it ever give ANY definitions for the vocabulary words, most of which are unique to politics; one cannot even glean a hint of a definition from context. The book was written by different authors, some of whom were worth reading, but mostly not. The chapter on England had such horrendous grammatical and spelling errors, I couldn't keep reading it (I have no idea how it is in its eighth edition). Most of the book used casual phrases for the lay person but never gets into the specifics of what I need to learn about the functioning of international politics. The book was awful. Had I not wanted to recoup some of my wasted money, I would have covered every page in red ink and sent it back to the publishers for proof reading. It was extensive, but never really got to the core of the topic.

Book in good condition.......2002-10-10

Received the book right away and book was in good condition.

Upper level text with a wide array of countries.......2002-02-14

This book stands apart from the other comparative pol. books because of its lengthy introductory unit (almost 150 pages in 7 chapters). Some of it is very deep analytical material which is appropriate for very advanced students, but most high school readers will die of confusion if boredom doesn't finish them off first.

For the country chapters, they are very thorough, and each is 40-50 chapters, quite a lot of material. It's pretty dense, too. One good thing is that the book includes the usual "big" ones (G.B., France, Russia, China) as well as Germany and Mexico, but also India, Nigeria, Brazil, and Egypt, giving much material for the often overlooked less-developed countries.

Dragging your feet.......2001-04-27

Although this book has wonderful facts and figures, and should be used as a reference material, it is awfull for reading. The only way you will finish reading this book is if you have to for school or you are very motivated. It is slow and does not keep your attention.

Book Description

In this tribute to the Texas coast, conservationist and lawyer Jim Blackburn has teamed with photographer Jim Olive to give us the most intimate portrait yet of Texas bays and of those who work for their wise use and preservation.

While giving life and sustenance to plants, animals, and people, the bays and estuaries of Texas have other stories to tell--about freshwater inflows, deep port construction, disappearing oyster beds, beach resorts, industrial pollution, and more. Each story brings opposing forces into the courtroom for vigorous debates on the future of some of our most valuable and irreplaceable resources.

The Book of Texas Bays is a personal account of legal battles won and lost, but it is also a work of natural history by someone with a deep spiritual connection to the Texas coast and all it has to offer. Jim Olive's photographs present us with a dramatic perspective of our relationship with the Gulf and remind us of both the grandness and the fragility of our coastal treasures.

Customer Reviews:

Stunning environmental volume.......2004-12-09

This book provides a stunning description of the practical, legal and spiritual side of environmental issues. Mr. Blackburn vividly describes the Texas coast, his legal battles and his love for the environment. The pictures alone are worth the cost but the spiritual contents caps it all off. A wonderful book for those interested in the environment and the spiritual underpinnings of environmental concern.

Nobody Particular: One Woman's Fight to Save the Bays

Average customer rating:

Richie's Picks: NOBODY PARTICULAR
Inspiring but fact-dense story

Nobody Particular: One Woman's Fight to Save the Bays
Molly Bang
Manufacturer: Chelsea Green Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Memoirs | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1931498946

Amazon.com

Think of her as Erin Brockovich on a shrimp boat. This unassuming, working-class mom, a fourth-generation East Texas shrimper--"no education, no money, no clout," she says--turned her life upside down to fight the good fight against chemical plants that were destroying her livelihood and the bays she held dear. This comic-book-style biography of unlikely activist Diane Wilson follows her radical transformation, from the first days of pulling up nothing in her nets to her hunger strike, law suits, and run-ins with the EPA.

The format might lead you to believe this is strictly kids' stuff, but Wilson and author and Caldecott Honor artist Molly Bang manage to pack a lot of information into the book's mostly black-and-white panels (maybe a little too much for some younger folks). But readers of all ages will find inspiration in this political, feminist tale of how one person--"nobody particular," says Wilson--can fight big business and win. (Ages 9 to 12) --Paul Hughes

Book Description

Diane Wilson lived a fairly ordinary life as a commercial shrimper and mother until she learned that she lived in one of the most polluted counties in the United States. As a result of that discovery, Diane launched a campaign against Formosa Plastics, an international chemical company. She was determined to protect the Texas bays on which she, her father, and her grandfather had made their living. Nobody Particular is the true story of DianeÂ's fight. It is the story of how one woman--who was, as she says, "nobody particular"--succeeded in forcing a huge corporation to change its plans, adopt more environmental safeguards, and agree to protect her precious bays. DianeÂ's tools were her dedication and her fearlessness. Through them she was able to overcome the resistance of the corporations, the foot-dragging of the government, and the anger of her whole community. This is a story of hope and possibilities for all of us who, like Diane, may seem to be nobody particular.

Customer Reviews:

Richie's Picks: NOBODY PARTICULAR.......2006-07-02

Diane Wilson:
"This much I know: Within 25 miles of my house are five giant chemical plants--one each for Alcoa, British Petroleum, DuPont, Formosa Plastics, and Union Carbide. By night they look like magic lit-up fairy castles. In daylight they turn into gray and twisted surrealistic pipe dreams. We grew up high on their strange perfumes, knowing workers whose bathwater turned yellow every night until they died early, knowing we weren't supposed to fish the waters where Alcoa dumped tons of mercury...
"Now, I'm nobody particular--just a shrimper and momma--no education, no money, no clout. How can a nobody make these corporations quit dumping their poisons on us. If I stop to think on it, I'll know I'm a fool and go patch a shrimp net, quiet my mind in moving twine and fingers."

Molly Bang's picture book, NOBODY PARTICULAR: ONE WOMAN'S FIGHT TO SAVE THE BAYS is an astounding dual story--a powerful introduction to the complex competing demands upon the world's scarce fresh water supplies coupled with the jaw-dropping true story of Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation Texas shrimper who successfully took on multinational corporations and the EPA in order to protect the Texas bays from significantly increased toxic industrial discharges.

In the background of each two page spread, Molly Bang illustrates and discusses the prehistoric and historical development of, importance of, and mounting pressure upon the world's estuaries and fresh water supplies. As with her other environmentally related picture books, Molly Bang has a knack for portraying the interconnectedness of ecosystems and how they drastically affect and are affected by human beings. In the midst of each spread, in an overlying black and white graphic novel format, Bang simultaneously recounts how Diane Wilson discovered the bay pollution affecting her livelihood, learned of the plans by corporate polluters to expand their operations, and educated herself in order to fight the corporations and governmental bureaucrats.

Inspiring but fact-dense story .......2005-11-09

Teenagers looking for nonviolent heroes like Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, need only read this book to find one. Diane Wilson, a shrimp fisher in Texas, learns that chemical factories which provide many jobs are also poisoning the water, reducing her livelihood and affecting the community's health. She rapidly becomes a hero to environmentalists and an enemy to the companies and local government, and has to undertake a hunger strike to get the federal government to enforce its own laws. Black and white comic-style illustrations flesh out the story, with a background of full color paintings depicting the natural systems affected. Like a graphic novel or Larry Gonick's Cartoon History of the World, the illustrations brim over with facts, which may overwhelm many readers. But those who persist will understand just how much willpower it takes to overcome environmental injustice.

Mel Bay Texas Fiddle Favourites for Mandolin (Book/CD Set)

Average customer rating:

Mel Bay Texas Fiddle Favourites for Mandolin (Book/CD Set)
Joe Carr
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0786648570

Book Description

Joe Carr presents his advanced mandolin arrangements of 12 well-known Texas-style tunes. The arrangements are inspired by the popular Texas contest fiddle style. The included CD features of the tunes with the bluegrass band accompaniment.

Fishing the bays of Texas (A Fisherman book)

Average customer rating:

Fishing the bays of Texas (A Fisherman book)
Anton Husak
Manufacturer: Cordovan Corp
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Mel Bay Texas Fiddle Favorites for Banjo (Book/CD Set)

Average customer rating:

neat exploration of some uncommon fiddle tunes

Mel Bay Texas Fiddle Favorites for Banjo (Book/CD Set)
Alan Munde
Manufacturer: Mel Bay Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Music | Entertainment | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0786653167

Book Description

5-string banjo stylist Alan Munde presents advanced arrangements of eleven well-known Texas-style fiddle tunes. The companion CD features all of the tunes with a full bluegrass band accompaniment. Written in tablature only.

Customer Reviews:

neat exploration of some uncommon fiddle tunes.......2006-12-19

This is fairly challenging melodic banjo playing but not totally unplayable for intermediate players. The fingerings Alan Munde chooses tend to flow as efficiently as possible. The songs have an excellent groove. The CD is a bonus and a genuine listening pleasure because it has both Alan Munde and Joe Carr playing each tune at performance tempo. A number of these tunes don't show up much in bluegrass jam sessions, but they are very fun to play and will give you some neat licks to expand your approach to arranging banjo tunes melodically.

Average customer rating:

Rangers At Bay
Bradford Scott
Manufacturer: Thorndike Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Literature & Fiction | Large Print | Formats | Books
ASIN: 0786265442

Book Description

Shocked and enraged, Walt Slade read the venomous editorial. His honor as a Texas Ranger was tarnished by the vicious, lying attack, but - as an undercover agent - he could not protest. He knew the slander was just another weapon in the brewing range war. But the attack turned personal when hot lead whined at Slade from ambush.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books