Book Description
The colorful handmade costumes of beads and feathers swirl frenetically, as the Mardi Gras Indians dance through the streets of New Orleans in remembrance of a widely disputed cultural heritage. Iroquois Indians visit London in the early part of the eighteenth century and give birth to the "feathered people" in the British popular imagination.
What do these seemingly disparate strands of culture share over three hundred years and several thousand miles of ocean? Artfully interweaving theatrical, musical, and ritual performance from the eighteenth century to the present in London and New Orleans, Cities of the Dead takes a look at a rich continuum of intercultural exchange that reinvents, recreates, and restores history.
Complemented with fifty-five illustrations, including spectacular photos of the famed Mardi Gras Indians, this fascinating work employs an entirely unique approach to the study of culture. Rather than focusing on one region, Cities of the Dead explores broad cultural connections over place and time, showing through myriad examples how performance can revise the unwritten past.
Customer Reviews:
Social memory.......2002-08-08
Roach's use of Paul Connerton's "incorporating practice of memory" (from "How Societies Remember": buy this!) allows him to develop a theory of the genealogy of performance-which seems to me to be a sort of re-construction or re-tracing of origins. This approach allows him to do some extremely interesting analysis of legal ramifications of race, racial categories (the octaroon, for example), public performance of capitalism in the form of the slave markets, and "body ownership." It also reifies race and racial designations and works in many ways against his arguments. For instance, the multiple ethnicities of Native Americans merge together into one self-contained "Other" within the imagination of both African and Anglo Americans. How Africans appropriated these images in their performances of race seem more complex in reality than Roach makes them out to be-related to the idea of "first," land distribution, and the fact that the issue of legal ownership and status was ambivalent at best ("The slave-holding propensities of the Five Civilized Tribes (so-called by whites in part because they held slaves) emphasize the double, inverted nature of the Indian as a symbol for African Americans: the non-white sign of both power and disinheritance" p. 205).
Critique of black/white as a dualism in early American cultural hegemony is something to which Roach also (unwittingly?) succumbs. Although he claims that "the issue of race in America is hard to reimagine without considering Native Americans" (p. 189), Native American identity is seen not as the amalgam of various multi-ethnic groups but as a "buffer" between white and black, thereby reinforcing the stereotypes of white power structures. I guess I am asking if the complexities of racial identity in the United States may be much more complex than we have already seen-African Americans dressing as "big chiefs" could be as multi-layered and problematic in terms of race and identity as high schools using "Redskins" as football mascots, couldn't it?
Not only race, but class, plays an important part in Roach's analysis. In one of the most convincing arguments based on Connerton in the book, Roach discusses the "cities of the dead"-the invention of separation between the living and the dead (ancestors). The tie-in with suburbanization as a model of this physical separation and performance of whiteness seems right on. The section about Congo Square, and the Bataille theories about the economy of excess in violence were excellent. Here I could begin to see the application of the author's theory, however awkward.
Book Description
The sacred wisdom of the priests of ancient Egypt and the experiences of the soul after death: one of the most important books in Egyptian history. Includes full hieroglyphic text along with a transliteration of sounds, word-for-word translation, and a separate smooth translation.
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Also known as the Papyrus of Ani.
Customer Reviews:
NOT SATISFIED!.......2006-11-15
It was very disappointing to know that this book has only one chapter with lots of blank spaces for notes. It's cheating to sell a chapter book at the rate of $10.85. This is irritating! Please watch out for this book buyers.
Awesome Book!.......2004-02-10
Awesome book!! Lots of info regarding gods that are involved in the burrial/afterlife procedures. Really cool, definetly worth a read if you are interested in Egyptian history.
Ian Myles Slater on A Grand Antique.......2003-09-17
I hate to say a hard word about a volume so many (including myself) have found so intriguing. The Egyptian "Book of the Dead" - a collection of spells, prayers, hymns, and instructions for success in the afterlife - is a famous, and widely misunderstood document, well worth a first-hand examination. However, potential purchasers should be aware that this is a reproduction of a Victorian edition and translation, and that Budge, the editor and translator, was industrious, sincere, talented, and from time to time brilliant, but already a bit out of date in his approach to ancient Egyptian, even when the book appeared in 1895. This Dover reprint is a monument to obsolete scholarship.
The volume was intended as a companion to, or substitute for, an extremely beautiful facsimile edition of a papyrus copy, which Budge had obtained in Egypt, published in color by the British Museum. The passage of decades has only compounded the problems. Budge's transliteration is obsolete, and his polished translations run roughshod over Egyptian grammar (the interlinear versions being erroneous only over the meanings of specific words). His history of scholarship covers the early decades of Egyptology in more detail than most will find necessary, but of course misses that latter nineteenth century (as well as everything since).
Still, before the appearance of a recent, computer-assisted, facsimile edition, based on the British Museum facsimile, with modern translations (The University of Texas Press, as "The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead"), this was as close as most people would get to one of the major manuscripts of the New Kingdom's "guide to the next world". My first copy is filled with several decades of corrections and annotations, and I bought a second just to enjoy the beautiful hieroglyphic font in which the text is presented. I am not telling anyone not to buy it; just don't take it as the last word on anything.
Better then you would expect.......2003-03-28
This book is loaded with knowledge. It has information on the different versions, and types of the book. This version, is quite unique, as even though it is translated, the orignial language, and hiro-glypics was left intact.I would highly recommend this book for anyone that is interested in egyptian ages, but I would not expect just anyone to understand the true nature and power of the book. The book is extremly deep, and a few people might have troubles understanding it, But if you have an open heart and mind, then the nature and power of this book, is limitless. Enjoy it guys! :)
After 100+ years -- still the most complete.......2001-09-05
There a few modern Egyptologists (and a few outright hacks) that are quick to point out Budge's many errors in translation without looking at the publication date on the book. Budge more than makes up for this, however, by including his transliterations along with the original hieroglyphic text -- so that any wannabe Egyptologist can try his hand at doing better. It is the complete Papyrus of Ani, which is the most complete text yet found. It would have rated 5 stars save for two things: Budge's organization of the book, which is difficult to understand at first without considerable effort, and the fact that it does not include ALL of the chapters. The latter could have been solved by supplementing the book with parts of the Pyramid or Coffin Texts, which Budge discusses extensively in his introduction. Nonetheless, this is the first book the serious scholar should pick up on the subject, especially if he is a student of ancient Egyptian language.
Book Description
Forget Bela Lugosi's Count Dracula. In nineteenth-century New England another sort of vampire was relentlessly ravishing the populace, or so it was believed by many rural communities suffering the plague of tuberculosis. Indeed, as this fascinating book shows, the vampire of folk superstition figures significantly in the attempt of early Americans to reasonably explain and vanquish the dreaded affliction then known as consumption. In gripping narrative detail, folklorist Michael E. Bell reconstructs a distant world, where on March 17, 1892, three corpses were exhumed from a Rhode Island cemetery. One of them, Mercy Brown, who had succumbed to consumption, appeared to have turned over in her grave. Mercy's family cut out her heart, which still held clots of blood, burned it on a nearby rock, and fed the ashes to her ailing brother. To Mercy's community she had become a vampire living a spectral existence and consuming the vitality of her siblings. From documents written as early as 1790 to a recent conversation with a descendant of Mercy Brown, Bell investigates twenty cases in which the vampiric dead were exhumed to save the ailing living. He also explores a widespread folk tradition that has survived generations, as ordinary people today strive to battle extraordinary diseases like Ebola or AIDS with a deeply rooted belief in their power to heal themselves. "Bell's absorbing account is ... a major contribution to the study of New England folk beliefs."—Boston Globe "Filled with ghostly tales, glowing corpses, rearranged bones, visits to hidden graveyards.... This is a marvelous book."—Providence Journal
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Close your eyes and imagine a vampire: Your mind's eye may conjure up Count Dracula with bared teeth and a shiny tuxedo. But another kind of vampire was believed to live in rural New England long ago. Author and folklorist Michael E. Bell has spent twenty years pursuing this other vampire tradition, and the discoveries he reveals in this volume will surprise and enthrall skeptics and believers, and all readers of his beguiling book.
Customer Reviews:
Never received this item. .......2007-07-07
I received all of the other books that I ordered at Christmas except this one. I would still like to receive this. At first they said it would be shipped in March, but it never was sent to us. Please advise. Thanks.
food for the folklorist.......2004-09-06
A series of case studies involving the (still-common) belief that the dead can be jealous of the living and return to capture them, Food for the Dead is meticulously researched. It should be noted that documentary evidence concerning digging up the dead in New England is sparse. I attended a lecture given by Bell last autumn, and he certainly seems to know everything there is to know about the topic. The book is somewhat repetitive, however, which makes it difficult to sustain interest.
Correction to previous review.......2004-01-05
A note about the reviewer who stated Michael Bell explores graveyards with a camera and tape recorder, like an aspiring Art Bell wanna be.
If you read this book, which I strongly recommed for anyone who is looking for a fresh perspective on the tapestry of folklore and legends, you will discover Michael Bell is neither superstitous nor prone to fantasy. He playfully mocks those who lurk in churchyards, hoping to record a whisper from the grave and give themselves a thrill at the same time. "Food for the Dead" seeks to explore how concepts like "modern" vampirism and other legends develop and exist, using genealogical research and good sense. If you're looking for a good scare and juicy ghost stories, keep shopping. In search of a fascinating read? You found it, enjoy!
Excellent New England Folklore.......2003-08-29
Believe it or not -- and after reading "Food for the Dead" you will indeed believe it -- Vampires are not a literary invention of the nineteenth century, but are rooted in the folklore of many cultures -- including, of all places, rural Rhode Island.
Of course, they did not call them vampires, but the folklore is so similar to vampirism that it is immediately recognizable as the same mythic type.
Briefly: Michael Bell explores a practice that occurred in at least three documented accounts (his research into the archives and newspapers of the time is superb) of the families of tuberculosis victims ("consumption") digging up a recently deceased family member to ensure that the dead family member was indeed dead, and was not preying on the living. Part of the New England folklore concerning consumption was that when family members started dying of the disease in succession, it meant that the first victim was feeding on the living -- and the proof of this was to dig up the deceased person's heart to ensure that it did not contain "fresh" blood -- sure evidence that the dead person was not entirely dead.
Bell finds the practice was not limited just to Rhode Island, but indeed had passed into the folklore of Connecticut and Vermont as well, and the belief persisted among rural folk as late as the 1890s.
Bell discusses many issues in the book, including the origins of the folklore, the prejudice of city people towards rural people (newspaper accounts of the period are pretty harsh in their condemnation of the practice), the history of tuberculosis, the need to protect small cemeteries from vandals and curiosity seekers, and even how some of the source material of the myth found its way into the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.
The book is a very thorough and well researched, and handled sympathetically. Well worth reading.
Vampires? Who needs vampires?.......2003-06-19
Wow! Next to "Vampires, Burial and Death," probably the best non-speculative look at "real" vampires I've read.
They didn't use the word "vampire" back in the day. The ritual (described in detail by Michael Bell) for the treatment of consumption involved a little bit of exhumation, perhaps some dismemberment, maybe some cannibalism, stuff like that. Today, it would be tough to imagine your entire family dying one by one, and a local elder saying, "Hey, if you dig up Betsy, the first one who died, you may be able to save the rest of your family. Here's how ..."
The most interesting aspect of this book is that it gives an indirect sampling of what folklorists actually do. All the research, detective work, footwork and interviewing seems a lot more substantial than just collecting urban legends or whatever. Buy it!
Customer Reviews:
Great way to learn about Mary Q. O. S........2006-04-24
Even though this book is chaneled to a younger audience it is still very entertaining and educational for older children. The comics were great, and I really enjoyed reading this book.
Terrific read........2003-09-25
This has intersting facts about Mary, Queen of Scots. Like the other Dead Famous books, this includes cartoons too adding to the fun of reading. Children would love this book and likely become interested in Mary and her world.
Mary did not have a very good end though. For nineteen years (!) she was imprisoned in various castles before meeting a very gory end. I recommend this in addition to Elizabeth I and her conquests.
Book Description
Embark on a 3,000-year journey to trace the epic story of Ancient Egypt-from its mysterious origins to its conquest by Alexander the Great.
Customer Reviews:
The dark side.......2002-12-31
This novel is a masterpiece! Mrs. Harris touches on the darker side of things in her writing, but manages to stay with her over all theme. She has a magnificent writing style and captures your attention and holds on to it. I look forward to a captivating ending.
THE BEST.......2000-06-14
I would have to say, this is THE BEST of Geraldine Harris! You just have to read more! and yes, beautiful Sendaaka...
Calling all Fantasy readers!.......2000-06-14
This is a must-read Fantasy/Adventure book for anyone of all ages, filled with twists and a unexpected end!
Product Description
On the demand side, exporters and strategic planners focusing on fused magnesia, dead-burned (sintered) magnesia, and magnesium oxide in United Kingdom face a number of questions. Which countries are supplying fused magnesia, dead-burned (sintered) magnesia, and magnesium oxide to United Kingdom? How important is United Kingdom compared to others in terms of the entire global and regional market? How much do the imports of fused magnesia, dead-burned (sintered) magnesia, and magnesium oxide vary from one country of origin to another in United Kingdom? On the supply side, United Kingdom also exports fused magnesia, dead-burned (sintered) magnesia, and magnesium oxide. Which countries receive the most exports from United Kingdom? How are these exports concentrated across buyers? What is the value of these exports and which countries are the largest buyers? This report was created for strategic planners, international marketing executives and import/export managers who are concerned with the market for fused magnesia, dead-burned (sintered) magnesia, and magnesium oxide in United Kingdom. With the globalization of this market, managers can no longer be contented with a local view. Nor can managers be contented with out-of-date statistics which appear several years after the fact. I have developed a methodology, based on macroeconomic and trade models, to estimate the market for fused magnesia, dead-burned (sintered) magnesia, and magnesium oxide for those countries serving United Kingdom via exports, or supplying from United Kingdom via imports. It does so for the current year based on a variety of key historical indicators and econometric models. In what follows, Chapter 2 begins by summarizing where United Kingdom fits into the world market for imported and exported fused magnesia, dead-burned (sintered) magnesia, and magnesium oxide. The total level of imports and exports on a worldwide basis, and those for United Kingdom in particular, is estimated using a model which aggregates across over 150 key country markets and projects these to the current year. From there, each country represents a percent of the world market. This market is served from a number of competitive countries of origin. Based on both demand- and supply-side dynamics, market shares by country of origin are then calculated across each country market destination. These shares lead to a volume of import and export values for each country and are aggregated to regional and world totals. In doing so, we are able to obtain maximum likelihood estimates of both the value of each market and the share that United Kingdom is likely to receive this year. From these figures, rankings are calculated to allow managers to prioritize United Kingdom compared to other major country markets. In this way, all the figures provided in this report are forecasts that can be combined with internal information sources for strategic planning purposes.
Customer Reviews:
A good summary, but just one part of a larger crime.......2007-09-20
For years, I have been reading about bombing and air power in the Second World War, an interest that stems from my parents meeting each other as they came to factories to create these bombers, and my own shock and horror at the devastation they created. This book is a useful place to start, even if the concentration is not on telling the story, which he does accurately, with lots of clear examples, and extremely clearly, not always a virtue of writers on this subject.
The bombing of civilians in Germany and later in Japan was one of the many criminal acts that US and British big business government carried out in the Second World War. Its aims were to demoralize the working people in the "enemy" population who would then force their government to cease the war. While at times Britain's Bomber Chief Arthur Harris and even more so American bombing commanders sugar coated the pill by claiming they were aiming at military targets, Harris was always clear talking to colleagues: he was trying to murder Germans and he considered not only other bombing efforts, but everything else in the war other than flying over Germany trying to burn down its cities to be a waste of time.
About one million people were killed in the European campaign, including nearly 100 thousand allied Bomber crew. Studies of the impact of the bombing by the US government and the testimony of Nazi leaders was that the raids had minimal impact on the German war effort. Other books on the subject show that such bombings encouraged people to believe they had a stake in the war and that it even angered dedicated enemies of Hitler.
An even more exaggerated justification has been given for the terror bombing of Japan. As many Japanese were killed in five or six months as Germans were killed in five years! The first great raid on Tokyo killed more people than either of the atomic bomb attacks. Contrary to the picture painted in Washington, this too had little impact on the war. In fact, the US Navy had to launch its own carrier-based bombing and battle ship shelling of Japanese military facilities, especially aircraft plants and air bases, because so little of the Japanese war machine was touched or limited by these bombings.
This book points out something that Japanese historians and others outside the usual US propoganda machine never tell us: that by time the Atom Bombs were dropped, Japan was trying to surrender especially through the USSR and that Stalin was slowing it down, so the USSR could invade Manchuria and Northern China. Moreover, the Soviet invasion of Manchuria which smashed the last remaining Japanese effective military force was what caused the Japanese to surrender. The fifteen years of war for Japan, after all, was an extension of the invasion of Manchuria in 1931.
It should be noted that neither Germany nor the USSR ever built a massive bomber fleet because they believed it was useless for their war efforts, although Hitler's missile attacks were of the same ilk.
For the point of view of winning the war, the terror bombing was of little use compared to the massive resources devoted to it, the murder of nearly two million people, and the massive destruction of the cultural and historic heritage of Japan, Germany, and other countries.
The author's moral judgment--against bombing as a war crime--may be justified given the abstract morality he preaches. Yet, this single condemnation masks the entire immorality of imperialist governments in imperialist wars.
Washington and London did not fight Hitler to stop the genocide of the Jews. An abundant literature exists on how these two governments were antiSemetic and indifferent to both attempts of Jews and others to escape Hitler and refused to take any military measures that would have stopped or impeded the murders.
Washington and London fought to preserve Britain's colonies, and to expand American control and dominance over great areas of Asia and Europe too. In the course of this millions of people in Britain's colonies in Africa and India died of starvation due to the monetary and food restrictions the UK imposed to finance its war with Germany.
American, Canadian, and British troops generally killed Japanese soldiers who fell into their hands, and a trade in Japanese skulls and gold teeth sent back from the Pacific grew in the US during the war. This was only limited somewhat at the end of the war when some US generals complained that the practice stiffened Japanese resistance and was the real cause of Japanese troops fighting to the death.
The whole policy of warfare in wars like World War I and World War II, Korea, and Vietnam (a small country on which more bombs were dropped than all of the sides dropped in the second world war!!) have nothing to do with morality and everything to do with crime. They reflect the utter distain that the big business rulers have for anything except their own profits, their own control over the world.
Rather than an individual crime, terror bombing is just one facet of the crime and immorality of a system humanity needs to get rid of.
Problems with Books about War.......2007-03-18
First of all, I agree with the sentiments expressed by the reviewers who found this book frustrating. The author stated that he was only going to study area bombing of Germany by the RAF and the area bombing of Japan by the US. That he wasn't doing all civilian bombing of the war. But he never even got to the Japanese portion of the discussion he'd promised to discuss, which is what I wanted to read about. And it occurs to me now that he would have made a much stronger case if he had just told the story of the killing of civilians during WWII generally, regardless of who the agent was, though that would have made a much bigger project. In a certain way, once your head's blow off, it doesn't really matter what the ideological predisposition of the nation who blew it off was.
Not the work hoped for..........2006-12-31
If you travel to London, a `must' for any tourist is Westminster Cathedral. In the apse of that famous edifice you will find a window devoted to the saviors of Britain in WW2, the men of the RAF. Most unfortunately, you find among those named one that surely needs to be effaced, Sir Arthur "Bomber" Harris.
Long appalled by the muted - nay, virtually non-existent - criticism of the murderous policy of our air warfare in WW2, the `area', or `saturation', or `strategic' bombings, whatever one wishes to call that atrocious, indiscriminate attempt to annihilate whole sections of cities, I approached this work with great hope that this would, at last, be definitively addressed. Indeed, in the hands of a clearly informed and prolific philosopher (see his other works), it seemed an almost ideal combination. And, his work, in the opening chapters, in elucidating the origins of this policy is exemplary, namely: the accidents triggering retaliations that ultimately spiraled out of control; the inability to hit a target with any accuracy*; the unacceptable loss rate from daylight raids (the only ones with any chance to reliably find a tactical target); the psychological need to take the fight to the enemy when all other avenues with any public impact were inaccessible; and finally, the peculiar psyche of Arthur Harris (and, possibly, Curtis LeMay, although this is somewhat less certain), who sincerely believed, due largely to his experience in WW1 and his consequent desire to avoid its repetition at any cost, that air power alone would bring surrender without the necessity of a ground assault.
Grayling continues with an exhaustive summary of the legal framework of the rules of war. His outline of the various Geneva conventions and protocols is quite helpful, if sometimes anachronistic and tedious. Still, for a work of this sort, it cannot be avoided, and Grayling accepts this wearisome duty, offering it to us digested and distilled in one place, for which we must be grateful. In addition, he offers, as a substantial bonus, a unique 45 page appendix of "RAF bombing attacks on Germany, with civilian casualties... and RAF losses...". Unfortunately, he fails to note his source, or sources, for this monumental, and crucial, enumeration.
It is in the actual history, though, that the book fails (proving perhaps, if proof were still needed, that this profession does indeed require training, and that it is not, despite appearances, open and vouchsafed for all). The author, in particular, apparently does not understand the distinction between a war that is lost, and surrender. While it is doubtless true that, by the beginning of 1945, at the very latest, there was no possibility of either Germany or Japan prevailing, or even emerging from the war without defeat, there still remained the question of surrender and how the countries were to be governed after the war. Due to the horrific nature of both regimes in power during the war, there was absolutely no question by the Allies of retaining any elements whatever of those structures and personnel after the war - to do so would have rendered the enormous sacrifices of the war years as essentially meaningless. And, neither of those regimes, as they were constituted during the war, was ready at any point, however hopeless, to surrender - both were, in fact, geared to fight to the last man. That happened, in essence, in Germany. In Japan, it was avoided, but only by the - very belated - intervention of the Emperor (and then, only after an attempted coup against his holy personage was repulsed!). In fact, a good argument can be made, despite the very good, recent book by Professor Hasegawa, "Racing the Enemy", that the Bomb was critical in his intervention. (Professor Hasegawa's book, by the way, was subjected to serious criticism by Michael Kort, and D.M. Giangreco, among others.) You have to know what the Japanese were willing to accept for surrender, namely, the military left essentially untouched, the retention of a number of colonies, the home islands unoccupied, to understand how `unconditional' in `unconditional surrender' was not really excessive. You have to have intimate knowledge of the war, by living through it or reading extensively in it, to know from Iwo Jima and Okinawa just what would be expected from invading the homeland, and why, therefore, use of the Atomic Bomb was not necessarily contemptible (tho one can, certainly, argue with how it was initially used). Most egregious is his statement (undocumented), on page 154 (repeated, if abbreviated, on p. 260) that Byrnes was urging, on June 1, 1945, use of the bomb as primarily a tool against Russia, which does not fit with the man or the times. (I am assured by Professor Hasegawa, who has examined the minutes of the Interim Committee in the archives, that no such statement of that date from Byrnes exists - nor could it, as it was certainly far too early for such talk, and, I would add, impossible, even from belligerent Byrnes.) I can only assume that Grayling has consulted too much of the notoriously unreliable Gar Alperovitz - and, of that author, even one book is too much - and not enough, not nearly enough, of the best sources on the war.
Lastly, I cannot refrain from commenting on the author's equivalence of 9/11 and Aug 6, 1945 (p. 279). Can it really be that a man of this profound philosophical training does not see the difference between a pointless act of terror with no defined objective on 9/11, with Aug 6, which had a very specific and achievable - I would even say achieved - one?
In sum: A work of importance, but seriously flawed - the definitive treatment awaits.
* I have learned, from other sources, that the accuracy of bombing in WW2 was pathetic, despite the storied Norden bombsite, with over 50% of all bombs falling outside of a radius of 1000 feet from the putative aiming point! (Still looking for one reason we did not bomb the rails leading to the concentration camps?)
A moral conviction against strategic bombing of civilians........2006-11-15
If you are looking for a book that glorifies the civilian bombing campaigns over Europe ,dont waste your money. If you are looking for another book that is essentially "History written by the victors" dont waste your time. If are expecting a book that will say "Hell yah...we bombed the hell out of them and they deserved it.",you will be sorely disappointed.
And that is apparently what the negative reviwers of this book were looking for. After viewing some of their other reviews it seems they were essentially seeking another book that agreed with their point of view or opinion that we never, ever did anything wrong.
Admittedly, there are some chronological,and technical errors,minor in context, but this was not meant to be a reference book.
As the proud son of a American WW2 veteran ,whos job it was to difuse mines ,shells,and bombs ,i certainly am no bleeding heart anti-american liberal looking to condemn our courageous veterans.
But as in all wars, i find that atrociites start at the top, in the command structure,and there was no difference here. "Bomber Harris" gets the credit/blame for getting this ball rolling.And he is unaploigetic about it.
If you are looking for a book that presents a "relatively" unbiased view ,in courtroom case manner, then you will find it a very interesting read.
The view from both sides of the arguement is looked at, and analyzed, and judged ,aginst the statistical outcome that was achieved.
If instead we had surrounded civilian poulation centers and told the commanders to send in their troops ,and go to every 6th building and drag the inhabitants out into the streets and kill them, then blow up or burn the structure to the ground,the results would have been the same statistically. But that would have been considered a war crime. Yet somehow ,the impersonal act of strategic bombing non combatant population centers gets a pass in the eyes of many history books.
And that is the wrong that this book strives to right. Will this book change the past..no...But it can change the way this event is viewed in historical reference ,and hopfully prevent it from happening again.
Omits the Deadest City of All--Warsaw.......2006-08-26
Grayling combines factual information with dubious assertions and a very incomplete picture of the killings of civilians during the WWII air war. The only strength of his book is the existence of detailed maps, as well as a table of all bombing raids. One of the maps shows the bombed German cities as pie charts, with the diameter of the pie representing the size of the city and the blackened portion of the pie depicting the fraction of the housing destroyed by Allied bombing. Another map shows concentric circles depicting the distances to bomber bases in the British Isles. However, this ignores the fact that many bombing raids were also carried out from Allied-captured Italy in the latter stages of the war.
Among the many dubious assertions of Grayling is the one regarding German bombers. Grayling rejects the contention that massive Allied bombing at least forced the Germans to build a large fleet of fighter planes at the expense of their own bombers. He argues that the Germans' use of V-1 and V-2 rockets eliminated the need for a large bomber fleet. This seems ridiculous. The total damage done by the German rocket weapons is dwarfed by the damage that would have been caused by a large and long-range would-be German bomber force. Besides, these never-built German bombers could have been used alongside, and not instead of, the V-1 and V-2 rockets.
The current Judeocentric approach to WWII depicts Jews as the only victims of the Nazis worthy of repeated discussion. Not surprisingly, Grayling follows this trend. He exclusively compares what he considers the lesser immorality of Allied carpet bombing with the greater immorality of the Germans' murder of the Jews. He not only ignores the millions of non-Jews murdered by the Germans, but pointedly ignores the MAIN civilian victims of German bombing. In fact, another reviewer has already commented on the fact that Grayling completely ignores the Luftwaffe activities on the eastern front. What an understatement! Grayling's criticisms, on both tactical and moral grounds, of Allied bombing raids that killed considerable numbers of civilians should start with the very beginning of World War II. Already in the predawn hours of September 1, 1939, the Luftwaffe was slaughtering tens of thousands of Polish civilians in indiscriminate attacks on non-military targets. Grayling mentions Warsaw only twice, and then in a very cursory fashion. He justifies the ignoring of Warsaw compared with Rotterdam on the basis of the fact that Warsaw was far away from the west, and thus its experiences were not well known. That may have been true during the early stages of the war but it is certainly not true now--least of all for Grayling.
In Warsaw alone tens of thousands of Polish civilians perished in three weeks of furious German bombardment. Not until some 3 years into the war did a single Allied air raid cost the lives of 10,000 or more German or Japanese civilians! Grayling ignores the fact that German attacks on such places as Guernica, Rotterdam, and London were primarily tactical in nature. In contrast, German attacks against the Poles, and later other Slavs, were motivated by genocide. Hitler himself stated at the start of the war that Germans should "Kill without mercy every man, woman, and child of Polish extraction." Three million Polish gentiles were murdered by the Germans during the German occupation. In time, Warsaw became the deadest city of all, nearly 100% destroyed as a deliberate act of cultural genocide directed against the Poles. No other European capital came close to this level of devastation. The Germans did not blow up the militarily-innocent cultural cities of Krakow and Czestochowa only because they failed to complete the laying of the explosive charges before the unexpectedly-early arrival of the Red Army.
Personally, and again after having read Grayling's book, I find it difficult to feel sorry for the Germans for at least two reasons. The first is their long history of aggression against the Slavic peoples. The second is the fact that 89% of the Germans voted for the Nazis in free elections, all the while fully knowing who Hitler was and what he stood for (after all, Hitler had written his infamous Mein Kampf a decade earlier).
Books:
- Contemporary Readings in Biomedical Ethics
- Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (PSI Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era)
- Cross
- Dry Manhattan: Prohibition in New York City
- Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan's Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas, and the Catastrophe That Ended the Outlaws' Bloody Reign
- Exploring Mesoamerica (Places in Time)
- Feng Shui Your Life
- Hana's Suitcase
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Plowing the Sea: Nurturing the Hidden Sources of Growth in the Developing World
- King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry
- Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit
- Getting Lucky: The Education of a Mad Poker Player
- Labor Economics
- History: Fiction or Science
- John F. Kennedy Jr. Tribute - Eternal Love
- Process Plant Construction Estimating Standards, 1994, Set
- Human Resource Development: Strategy and tactics
- Masterpieces from Gripsholm Castle: The Swedish National Portrait Collection
General
| Literature & Fiction
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| Literary
The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas (A John Hope Franklin Center Book)
Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America (Race and American Culture)
Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910
Performance Theory (Routledgeclassics)
Tango and the Political Economy of Passion: From Exoticism to Decolonization (Institutional Structures of Feeling)
