Martha Morse is a lively lass, too lively to be laird's daughter. Her Mother, Grisie, and herself wait for Father to come, with a enchanting secret they can't wait to find out! Her relatives are moving to Fairlie, and Martha is bursting with excitement. Cousin Mary and Rachel, the youngest of the cousins, comes to stay with Martha and Nannie and Mollie and Cook and Father, while their home in Fairlie is remodeled. If you are a Martha fan or you liked Little House in the Highlands, you will most definitely like the second book in the Martha Years, The Far Side of the loch.

Martha can't wait for her Father to come home. When her Father comes home, he has a big surprise for her. This is a great book. Martha lives in Scotland. It is the second Martha book in the Little House series.

This is a great story of a young Scottish lass in the hills of Scotland who has many adventures while growing up. Some the Scottish brogue is hard to understand at times but if you work with it you get the hang of it. I love this book, along with all the other books about Laura Ingalls Wilder, her ancestors, and descendents. I never want the books to end! Great job Ms. Wiley!

Margot Blewett writes with clarity and intimacy about her family in WW2 Germany under Hitler. More than a memoir of growing up amid war time deprivation and destruction, it's also about how determined parents can keep their family together with values that outlast the worst of politicians with dominion over them. Similar to accounts that have endured in our own country's records from the War Between the States and more recently the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s and 70s. Similar to family histories recounted to me by German friends while I lived in Germany for almost two years. Some families divided by philosophy or sense of duty, others united and unbreakable. One person, one family, one neigborhood can do the right thing, even if their lives are turned upside down in a world turned to rubble around them. Read Feet in the Fire, and appreciate her story. Imagine the truth about families all over the world today under similar conditions of official oppression by ruthless dictators who will stop at nothing for their own greed for power. Buy, read, and tell your friends about Feet in the Fire. You'll be glad you did. Voted best nonfiction of 2002 in a poll of my well read friends.

The author paints a picture of a time in history that many have forgotten and others never knew. Her personal and painfully honest emotions capture the reader. I did not want to do anything but read and get to the end of her story. What a treasure to have Mrs. Blewett's memories and life experiences in print! I believe this book should be taught in our schools.

I could not put it down!!! Margot writes beautifully. She tells about her experience as a child in war-torn Germany. I don't want to give any of it away. BUY THIS BOOK!

I have read sections of this book over and over again; Pieper provides the reader with a sensible and precise way to understand virtues which have heretofore been described in vague and sentimental terms.

I believe this work to be, perhaps, one of the most important that I have read to date. Ideas can be a very powerful thing. I believe this book delivers and packages ideas that are truly life-changing. Be prepared to stretch your vocabulary, your mind, and your heart.

This collection of works on the four cardinal virtues brings out the classical meanings of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. It also clearly explains the vices surrounding the virtues. It is a clear summary of classical thought on the virtues from Aristolte, Plato, Augustine and Aquinas. Very interesting digrestions on prudence and fortitude.

The author is a relly good writer. I read this book a couple of years ago and it really awoke my interest in the classics. This book should be required reading for college students.

I was truly enlightened while reading this book. Not only did it give me new information, but it also got me interested in reading other books about the Greeks.

How could one not love the civilization that has contributed the foundations of the West and so much to the world we live in? Bruce Thornton analyses the achievements of the glorious Greeks, from their earliest history to their attitudes toward homoerotic love. This book is a must for all classics, history, anthropology, art history, philosophy, and political science students......or for anyone who wants to be enlightened. There is something Greek in all of us!

I have the 2nd Edition of this 1935 book. Having read and re-read this and Gibbon and Mommsen, it suddenly struck me that Cary offers a more succinct and incisive interpretation of the MEANING of each epoch in Roman history. He also disagrees markedly from others on the value/meaning of 'controversial' emperors (Nero, Domitian, Diocletian) which is very refreshing and well-stated. Frankly, if you want to get a good sense of the meaning of the History of Rome, read Cary first; then Mommsen, then Gibbon. Then, back to Cary. I wish this book were still in print. Don't let it go unread, if you are a Romanophile...

This extremely dense text is still head and shoulders above other contenders as the standard history of the rise and history of the roman empire. The authors thesis, that Rome never truly fell but evolved into the catholic church/feudal state is well defended with ample evidence.

What makes this book so extraordinary is the depth and breath of the subject matter covered. Military history, politics, technology, art, science, social development, trade, are all given ample coverage. While it can be quite dry, the reader is free to skip around reading only the subjects of interest. For the scholar or the curious, this is a must own text that will serve as a crucial guide and reference.

This is the best Roman History book out there. Its great for JCL -- it took me to a tie for 1st on the Histroy test at NJCL! The index in the book truly stands out - it lists everything. A good companion to it is the OCD. If you're interested in Roman History get this book.

...I got the two books Holy Terror's and American Gargolyes... it was a great deal. The book is loaded with pictures of gargoyles from across america and desrcibes what type of gargoyle and where it is located in america. The photographs are beautiful and descriptive through out the book. If you gargoyles get the two books for the price of one. Highly Recommended!!!!

This book is one of the best books I got from [amazon.com]. I got the two books Holy Terror's and American Gargolyes... it was a great deal. The book is loaded with pictures of gargoyles from across america and desrcibes what type of gargoyle and where it is located in america. The photographs are beautiful and descriptive through out the book. If you gargoyles get the two books for the price of one. Highly Recommended!!!!

It's got everything... the history, the pictures, the lore, the awe-inspiring Notre Dame Cathedral! An excellent comprehensive work by Janetta Benton. If you only ever buy one book on the subject, this is the one.

I absolutely love the format of this book. If you're planning a trip to Europe and want a background study before you go (without going back to college) then this book is for you! It's also cheap and the perfect length and I already know three people I intend to buy it for as a gift. WHAT I LIKED BEST: the boxes of information at beginning of each of the four sections with bullets of important events and a summary paragraph outlining highlights; the "who's who" boxes sprinkled throughout; the photos/pictures; the sidebar boxes of additional information; and the summary highlights at the end of each section. It is all very easy to read and highlights what you really need to know. WHAT I LIKED LEAST: the silly jokes throughout got very irritating by the time I was half-way through. It could be confusing for older readers who won't "get" or recognize some of the jokes/comments related to current events. However, besides that, the book is so good that I still give it a 5.

Mr. Libbon is a genius! He has managed to teach me more about European history with one book than I learned in all those years languishing in boring public school history classes. Easy to read and comprehend, extremely well researched and loaded with fun facts, this book should be integrated into the school system immediately. Let's give our kids the chance to learn true European History not just the watered down, colorless version currently taught in schools. Buy a copy for yourself and enjoy. While you're at it buy a copy for your local library or the local history teacher, share the knowledge and the fun.

This book is exactly what I hoped it would be when I ordered it. A cheap, easy to read refresher of all the things I am embarrassed to admit I don't know or had forgotten. Each chapter starts w.a few important dates and there are a few pages within each section devoted to lists of important names and dates (great for skipping back when you can't quite remember what no-longer-existant country was run by the guy you're reading about in another chapter).

This book isn't made to make people suddenly experts on Europe. It is, however, a great way to quickly catch up on what you think you should have known. Personally, since I've only studied Chinese history for the past six years, I used it as a way to get the basics of this period back into my head before trying to read a book that would have been too in-depth after not studying Europe since high school. I read it in two one-hour blocks before bed, got the names down, and can look at it if I need a map, the one-paragraph version of the Prussian war or the end of World War I or to remember why exactly France kept replacing its governments. One of the best buys I've found.

Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds of the Baroness de Pontalba, by Christina Vella, is one of the best books that I have ever read. I took Professor Vella's class at Tulane University in the Spring of 2000. This book was the basis of the class. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in thorough documentation of facts about a dynamic woman and her family, as well as two great cities, New Orleans and Paris.

This book has been recommended to me by a tour guide while I was paying New Orleans a short visit. I bought it together with Gwendolyn Midlo Hall's excellent "Africans in Louisiana", and, read one after another, starting with Hall, the books give a pretty cool picture of what New Orleans (and Louisiana, for the matter) were about during the 18th century. Although Gwendolyn Hall is by no means a bad writer (on the contrary), Christina Vella definitely is the more compelling read.

Her first few chapters rock, especially the ones about the old Almonester and his fights with the Cabildo, followed by the biography of the old Pontalba. Those are the best chapters of the entire book. Vella did a fantastic job with placing those characters in a broader historical setting. Beautifully written, she doesn't hesitate to give psychological explanations to those men's actions, and does so convincingly. Vella even allows herself to comment ironically on certain developments, or (dis)approve of the actions of her characters, which is pretty rare in modern historical scolarship. (Why?)

The scene then shifts from New Orleans to France, and the story becomes one of a superweird triangle relationship between Micael, Celestin, and Celestin's father, with a pretty dramatic ending. The broader historical perspective shifts accordingly, from the organization of a colonial society to a gender study of early 18th century France. What were the (im)possibilities of a unhappily married woman in this society? Micael, by her extraordinary personality, pushes the boundaries of the possible to the extreme.

The last few chapters of "Intimate enemies", where Christina Vella retraces the building activities of Micael in Paris and New Orleans, are the weakest. The organization of those chapters is sometimes sloppy and unfocused, and although much space is devoted to details regarding the architecture and construction of the Hotel Pontalba and the New Orleans buildings, one senses that Vella doesn't master these themes enough to present them to the reader in a comprehensive fashion. Also, the emphasis on the architecture unfortunately took away some of the focus from the biographical stuff, that in the later years doesn't get less interesting. After having given Micael's father a chapter, her sons would have deserved one as well, especially Celestin Jr. since he became quite an important public figure, but also the other two (How exactly did Micael's sons get in touch with their spouses? How did they relate to Micael after marriage? Why did Gaston remain single his whole life? Was he gay? etc.).

Notwithstanding, this book was a pleasant and thoughtprovoking journey. I'm recommending it to all my friends.

Growing up in New Orleans, I was always familiar with the name Pontalba and the row apartments flanking Jackson Square that bore the name. Pontalba, Almanester, de la Ronde, Miro, Pere Antoine: these were names that every student in New Orleans schools learn. Yet, now I feel as if I know each of them on a personal basis, as if I have actually met them. In the process, I have come to know the city of New Orleans in th 19th century, the same city which I have always known and loved in the 20th. Christina Vella brings to life people who have been dead and gone for over a hundred years. Only through the meticulous research that she has done can these ghosts be brought back to life. Vella has done a superb job in this endeavor. With her vivid descriptions of the city in mind, you can walk through the French Quarter today and literally see the muddy, murky streets of the previous century. You can see the ships on the river carrying the young bride and bridegroom to France. You can see the beloved cathedral as it looked back then. Read Intimate Enemies to learn about the people Vella is describing, but read it also to learn about the city which was their home, about the country that became their nation. Vella has done exactly what every historian strives to do: to bring the past to life in such a way that it is understood and therefore clearly explains why things are the way they are today.

I knew Jan in New York City in the 60's and he was a great story teller, indeed. This is a great book to take turns reading out loud on a car trip with children say 10 and over.

The account of Jan Yoors' travels with the romani captures the spirit of gypsy life better than the more academic anthropological reviews I have read. I would recomment this book for anyone wanting to learn more about their heritage or about the beautiful and oft misunderstood culture of the Rom.

I came across this book without much intention, and it proved to be a revealing, first-hand account of the traveling Rom peoples of Europe in the early 20th century. Yoors lived with the Rom on and off through their genocidal persecution under Hitler's regime. A lyrical writer, Yoors captures a detailed essence of these people whose seemingly mysterious ways, he points out, were often perpetuated by the Rom themselves as defense mechanisms against civilized culture (or Gadje, the outsiders). His account demonstrates personal and cultural revelations about how the Rom have been persecuted through time in the form of outright racism, genocide, and overt hostility which continues through today. The US only recently -- 1998 -- decided to stop officially discriminating against US-based Rom, and the word 'gyp' is still commonly used as a slur even among seemingly enlightened people. More importantly, Yoors' account reveals how, despite the racist, mysterious, mainstream view of the Rom, they instead lived a relatively harmless, carefree, dependable and sustainable lifestyle in which each tribal member was (is) cared for. Dysfunction among the nomadic Rom pales in comparison to that of so-called civilized people. Perhaps tracts such as this one will be impetus for a certain new tribal evolution in the face of a clearly threatened collapse of civilization.

This is a nice little volume. A small book with a lot of information. I consider myself well read on this subject and ended up learning a lot from this book. It was so easy to read I finished it in a little over a week. Wistrich has some great endnotes too. He has documented everything and I got some great suggestions for further reading from the notes. The cover and the type font make this a very attractive volume as well. As stated in previous reviews this is a very good volume for the learned person. Wistrich will bring you up to date and refresh your memory of past details. However, I disagree with it being for the absolute beginner. You still need to be familiar with the non-fiction format and have some subject knowledge in order to get the most out of this book. It also looks great on a bookshelf.

This interesting book by Robert Wistrich is an attempt to concentrate on the question as to why the Nazis placed so much emphasis on the extermination of the European Jews, often when doing so meant endangering the other goals they were surging toward during the conduct of the war. The author, of course, understands that the whole of the national Socialist movement sprang from the discontent and absurd racism of the Volkist history of the Reich, much of it dating back centuries. From the time Germany was forged out of the crucible of Prussia and its environs, the collection of Germanic peoples looked for those unifying themes that would untie them as distinct people and extend to them the greatness that had so eluded them and their culture. Given their history of cultural insecurity, it seems as no surprise that an entity like the Jews had to found and scapegoated to justify their grandiloquent dreams.

As the author points out (and as others such as Lucy Dawidowicz so famously in "The War Against The Jews'), this scapegoating effort was no only an expediency arising from the discontent and chaos of the Weimar years after World War One, but also a deep-seated cultural tradition extending back hundreds if not thousands of years. Indeed, questions regarding Jewish claims to citizenship had been hotly debated both officially and unofficially every place from the many legislative forums to the floors of the local pubs as long as anyone could recall. There was nothing new or novel about German prejudice against and antipathy for the Jews. And as he adds so succinctly, this was (and indeed is) a problem extending far beyond German borders. After all, we do well to remember that most European countries turned their backs on the problems of the Jewish émigrés attempting by the thousands to flee the coming horror in Nazi Germany. Indeed, many such as the Swiss and the French cooperated in handing over indigenous Jews to the German authorities during the war.

Moreover, the climate of blind indifference extended to the pulpits of the clergy, as well, and persistent rumors claim that the Pope himself was cognizant of the plight of the German and other European Jews and did little if anything to intercede. In fat, this book provides a yeoman's service by articulating and discussing a number of salient and competing interpretations, ranging from Daniel Goldhagen's controversial thesis enunciated in "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust" to Christopher Browning's thesis as expounded in several recent books (see my reviews of both authors' works). Wistrich also recapitulates the differences between the so-called "intentionalist' and "functionalist' theories of the Holocaust, and as I have written elsewhere, I believe that while the evidence indicates a functional approach, I also believe that the same evidence is consistent with the idea that Hitler and the Nazis always intended to exterminate the Jews (along with all of the indigenous populations of the conquered territories to the east). All the functional argument really proves, as far as I can see, is that existential circumstances played into the execution of a standing policy which was a virtual cornerstone of Nazi social policy.

As someone professionally educated as a sociologist, I was fascinated by the author's discussion of the meaning of the Holocaust in terms of history, and the question as to whether or not it represented the "antithesis of Western Civilization" or its realization. This treads very close to a searing indictment made by sociologist Max Weber of the eventual drift of rationalism as practiced in western societies toward a kind of non-thinking and non-substantive form of the rational impulse, a shadow which contented itself with the forms and practices of rationalism but none of its intent and rigor. To the extent he was correct that such a society would become an "iron cage" imprisoning man and endangering everything good that he stood for, perhaps Mr. Wistrich is onto something here. Enjoy!

Wistrich does a wonderful job of condensing information about a huge topic into a very useful small volume. It doesn't go into a huge amount of detail about every aspect of the Holocaust or the anti-semitism leading up to it, but it is a great book for beginners, particularly high school or college undergraduates looking for an introduction to this horrible subject.
As the previous reviewer said, Wistrich does do a wonderful job of documenting his sources and I too got a lot of further reading and research ideas from this book.