Just another rave review for this beautiful book. If you love Venice, you will love this book. If you know anyone who loves Venice, get them this book as a gift. Sally Spector knows Venice and obviously loves the city. Her drawings and history of details behind the food and recipes is a joy to read and to look at. If you have been to Venice, this book will take you back and get you looking forward to your next trip. In the meantime, you can savor the delicious recipes and the warmth of Venice and Food....

"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are" Brillat-Savarin declared. Judging by its cuisine, Venice must surely qualify as the ancient and modern day city of princes and artists. Sally Spector vividly brings to life the importance of Venice as the crucial stepping-stone for cuisine in Italy and Europe in "Venice and Food".

Little did I know that world famous dishes such as risotto, polenta, tiramisu and many other delights originate from Veneto and fair Venice - until I read Sally's superb description of their origins. She elegantly evokes the typical dishes of Venice with such accuracy that I could almost smell the aromas while reading her book - especially her enticing descriptions of the "Cuttlefish stewed in its ink" and "Bacala a la Vicentina". Such descriptions of typical Venetian dishes are beautifully interwoven with their historical origins. Even their essential ingredients are traced back to their roots. Who knew that eggplant, the basis for Melanzane al Funghetto, emanates from China?

An additional bonus and particularly attractive aspect of "Venice and Food" are the illustrations throughout the book. They are done by Sally herself who is a talented artist. Moreover, the whole book is written in her own elegant handwriting - a unique and superbly pleasing feature.

In sum, from the minute I picked up this book, I could not put it down until the next day - the first two days of my visit to Venice. It served as a magnificent introduction to Venice - not only the city of romance but also certainly of history and cuisine.

"Venice and Food" is a must read for any food enthusiast!

I think this is a most beautiful cookbook. The illustrations are so beautiful and capture the essence of Venice. It is a precious book to own and as a gift would be teasured.

The Very Rich Hours does not merely tell; it transports. And if this is not enough, it also entertains. Hiestand has an eye for the humor innate in most situations involving human beings, a sense communicated delicately and wryly rather than broadly. The tableau which features Hiestand and her travelling companion learning how to navigate a houseboat in the Everglades is as funny as choice parts of Douglas Adams' Last Chance to See. Like Adams, Hiestand does not allow her own discomfiture to eclipse the enjoyment her audience might obtain from her experience. Hiestand also knows that the real adventure in travelling lies in discoveries like the Stromness Natural History Museum, with its "hundred frozen-in-flight, frozen-on-a-branch, or frozen-in-defense-of-their-young stuffed birds," or the sudden appearance of an herbalist shop, populated by "crones," on a busy Athens street. She finds many marvelous surprises, and she invests the time and att! ention required to appreciate and understand them. The Very Rich Hours deserves the same attention.

What fun, what vision, what a great shipwreck story. I've read plenty of sea adventures, but never one that merged grit, adrenaline, and fear with a lyrical excursion worthy of Calvino or Marquez. And that's one part of one essay. Like a travelogue shot by a feature filmmaker, this beautifully wrought book offers sharp, compelling storytelling images set in luminous portraits of the natural world.

"If one must travel, one should do it with the eyes of a child, the mind of an ecologist, the heart of a pagan, and the words of a poet. Astonishingly, Emily Hiestand has all of that." --Kirkpatrick Sale, author,The Conquest of Paradise

"The prose quivers with grace and wit as it charges the large questions with luminous details." --Bonnie Costello, author, Marianne Moore:Imaginary Possessions

"In these fresh accounts of far-flung locations, Hiestand keeps returning us to the profound questions not of exploration, but of home. That is the book's great discovery: we're in this together, wherever we are." --Patricia Hampl, author,A Romantic Education

"The most exciting travel writing I have read in years.... These pieces are, in the best sense, world-views... The poetic eye is their greatest strength; or rather, a poetic sensibility and intuitive perceptiveness combined with a remarkably cultivated and civilized intellect... The style seems to be an expression of good manners, good intellectual manners. She confronts head on some of the basic issues of writing and thinking about nature." --Robert Finch, ed.,The Norton Book of Nature Writing

"Her range of references is wide and unexpected, and she is a wonderful observer... [W]hat holds the book together is a wry and elegant dexterity of intelligence, a sense of humor that engages both the solemn revelations and the undignified exasperations of travel with precision and elan." --Franklin Burroughs, author, Billy Watson's Croker Sack

Is it a book about travel? Is it a book about cooking? Yes, on both counts. James Haller's "Vie de France" tells of his experiences living in a rented house in a village in the Loire valley for a month with a group of friends. Like any good travel book, it leaves the reader with a strong impression of the countryside and the people, the culture and the atmosphere - with memories, as if you had spent that month there yourself. Better yet, the impression is of laughter, or at least smiles, and not tears. It also leaves you with memories of food prepared with care, even with love. Not classic French cooking, but Haller's personal style of cooking creatively yet simply. There is also the sense of adventure that comes from visiting a new place, with a foreign language, new towns and roads, restaurants that run on an offbeat schedule, and supermarkets that have a fascinating combination of the familiar and the strange. To emphasize the point that cooking is a major theme, the book has a table of menus, not a table of contents. Certainly a book about the joy of cooking, of travel, of friends, and of life.

This delightful book brings you to a place many of us want to be- in a lovely house nestled in a charming village, amongst good friends and family, sharing wonderful food and wine. In the US, food, wine and conversation are too often just brief pauses in the real business of life- work and getting ahead. James Haller's narrative reminds you the French have an alternative, a more balanced pace and focus where work is a necessary interlude between great meals and the cameraderie of friends. The experience in the Loire Valley rejuvenated a life-weary chef and the book reinvigorated me- it got me back in the kitchen to cook creatively for friends and reminded me that I had let work once again overshadow my real business of life.

In 1996 having celebrated his sixtieth birthday in Maine, renowned chef James Haller, wary of the kitchen, decides to R & R in the French Loire Valley. He and friends rent a seventeenth century home in Savonnieres. Six people including James would stay the entire month that they have leased the property for while other friends will come by for shorter duration.

The house combined the best of history with much of modern day convenience. The company was companionable both those staying in the house and the locals whose fresh foods at the markets provided James an invigorating regeneration and though he planned not to cook one meal the motivated chef was soon doing all the cooking.

Though the recipes are what readers might expect from the author-chef, the key to this uplifting biographical month is how important friendship is to the human condition. France furbishes the atmosphere that rejuvenated a tired James. VIE DE FRANCE: SHARING FOOD, FRIENDSHIP, AND A KITCHEN IN THE LOIRE VALLEY is an inspirational toast to the stimulation of camaraderie that is a human need in order to live precious life to the fullest.

Harriet Klausner

A very informative book, it covers nearly all aspects of Viking life, from government, literature, and warfare, through sculpture, gender roles, and burial practices. The book seems written for people who already have a working understanding of Viking life, as it makes a few assumptions about the knowledge you already have, but even if this is your first introduction to the Vikings you should be able to follow along with few problems.

324 pages on the Viking Age, dealing with weapons, ships, Kings, kingdoms, sexual roles, slaves, weapons, language, runes, jewellery, archaeological finds, art, religions, trade and the settlements. The book starts on the history in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, but also expands into Scotland, England, Ireland, Greenland, Russia and beyond. If you liked the movie 'The 13th Warrior' or liked 'Eaters of the Dead' you will love this book.
BEWARE, most ideas you may of had about Vikings are WRONG! WRONG!

I am not a scholar. I do love to learn about other cultures, however, and am fascinated by Norse and Viking life. Else Roesdahl gives everybody the chance to learn the truth about the Vikings. This is an excellent book for home study!

I'm a history professor who's teaching a course on Dracula next semester. I've already ordered Florescu's Prince of Many Faces and McNally's In Search of Dracula as required reading. I've attempted to read everything in English on Dracula.

I then found Treptow. From the very first page he avoids the tendency to sensionalize Vlad III. He avoids using documents that are suspicious, like other historians. He tells us how he came to the conclusion that they are not trustworthy. He attemps to set Vlad's action within their proper context. When I finished the book, I knew that I had read the best biography on Dracula now in existence.

Having acquired a passing interest with the "real" Dracula, it was nice to find a detailed historical account more in the vein of academics than popular culture. If you have a causal interest in Vlad then this book will be more than you want to handle. But if you are ready to deal with an in-depth consideration of the Impaler, you cannot do better than this volume.

Kurt Treptow's Vlad III Dracula: The Life And Times Of The Historical Dracula is a superbly presented, meticulously researched biography of the 15th century Romanian aristocrat known to history as "Vlad the Impaler". Treptow draws upon all extant Romanian, Turkish, Russian, and German sources to reconstruct the history of a prince who, in his own lifetime, was acclaimed a dedicated national hero and an implacable, bloody, merciless, diabolical tyrant. The informative, definitive, "reader friendly" text is enhanced with a series of appendices offering translations of principal documents concerns the history of Vlad III Dracula. Vlad III Dracula is "must" reading for anyone seeking an accurate, history-based biography of a man whose life and accomplishments have become interwoven and obscured by myth, legend, and popularized fiction.

The Work of Antony Sutton!

Most Americans have not heard of Dr. Antony Sutton...but he is well known to the quasi-underground readers of revisionist history and
conspiracy theory...

There are others that have written about the same subjects as Sutton...Carrol Quigley(Professor of History at Georgetown University)...Werner Keller...Dr. Emanual Josephson...Gary Allen...Charles Levinson...etc...but none covered the subject in as great a detail and as broad an area and with the documentation that Sutton did...in Wall Street And The Bolshevik Revolution(Arlington House Publishers) he documents that a small group of Wall Street bankers financed the Bolshevik Revolution...in the 3 volume,Western Technology And Soviet Economic Development(Hoover Institution Press)these same groups actually built the
Soviet economic structure from 1917 to the
present...and it is this work, i believe,(in part) and the work of others documenting this subject that helped bring down the Soviet Union...if they financed the Revolution and built the economic infrastructure...then they controlled it...which is what they are doing today with the billions of dollars they are investing in the Peoples Republic of China...! Control of the economic structure of a country is real power not political power...!

Sutton has written about many other subjects but it is the above mentioned that are amoung the more important works...i believe they are available at...

www.amazon.com... you won't look at International Politics in the same way...again...

woody voinche
marksville, louisiana

The contents of this book will both shock and disgust you. This book shows the costs and negative side of 'engagement' advocated by the American Establishment and their boot-licking cronies in academia and 'think tanks'. Sutton draws upon govenment files, books, newspaper clippings and biographies to support his claims.

He shows that the American government intervened on the behalf of Leon Trotsky, who was detained by Canadian authorities, so he could travel to Russia and agitate for the Reds. Apparently Trotsky might have been German instead of Russian, but in the end I guess we'll never know for sure. Both Trotsky and Lenin were sent into Russia with money and assistance from foreign governments to stir up trouble.

This book also goes into detail on the 1917 American Red Cross mission to Russia which had more bankers than doctors. William Thompson, then a Director of the New York Fed, gave $1 million to the Reds for propaganda purposes. He then brought enough of his Wall Street buddies on board that the Bolsheviks were their guys, to bring the White House over to their side. Wilson's influential advisor at that time was Edward Mandell House, who in Phillip Dru: Administrator stated that he believed in socialism as envisioned by Karl Marx, but with a spiritual leavening. With advisors as such, it was not so difficult.

House also used his influence to get Red agitator Minor, who drew a cartoon showing Wall Street types fawning over Marx in the introduction to the book, off the hook after being arrested by military authorities in France for distributing subversive Bolshevik propaganda. His daddy was a well-to-do person back in Texas, where House came from, who gave good old E.M. House a call to get junior off the hook.

Sutton also showed how many of the businesses that did business with the Reds originated from 120 Broadway. Since the robber barons already ran out all competition in the US, they needed captive foreign markets to satisfy their insatiable greed. They had a boot in all camps, and used their ability to feed, fund, and arm the winning party, in this case the Bolsheviks, to obtain trade concessions. This lot did the same by backing Sun Yat Sen in China, and various governments in Latin America.

Sutton also shows how many of these Wall Street supporters of the Bolsheviks started a group stating their opposition to the socialists. They then told New York Times reporters that they feared a Red revolution in America and that the Reds would sabotage and wreak havoc on our economy even as they were setting up the Ruskcom Bank and conducting business with them. Sutton appropriately described this behavior as totally amoral.

There was one quote from the book that will be forever etched into my mind. This quote was from a business figure working in the American consulate in Russia to a British colleague. It was along the lines as such:
You may have heard that I own 50% of the forests in Siberia and all of the Magnesium deposits in Georgia. Now, of course, this isn't true. But, let's say that it is true. I am an American wolf and you are a British wolf. But, both being intelligent wolves, knowing if we don't join forces this hour and together hunt the German wolf, we will come to naught.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the business mentality. It has always been that way, and with industrialization and our livelihoods increasingly put in the hands of these people, it explains very easily how the man in the street gets screwed. Read this book and take it to heart. These egotistical, greedy SOBs have been running our country into the ground for over a 100 years, and reading this book and sharing it with fellow patriots is the only way to stop these treasonous scumbags!

Author Anthony Sutton has done a remarkable job of documenting the insidious betrayal of the super wealthy American elite, who literally bankrolled the most brutal communist government of all time. If you have ever wondered why the very wealthy should seem to be sympathetic with communism, herein lies the answer. This is extraordinarily important information, which deserves a wide audience.

I was assigned Glick's book by my Medieval History professor Dr. Paul Halsall. I opened the book thinking I knew a lot about the experiences of Jews in France and Germany in Medieval Europe; and what I found was that I was wrong.

This book is an excellent book about the cultures of the Jews and the Christians, how these two cultures interacted with each other and how Medieval Jewish culture effects the culture of American Jews, who predominately come from these Ashkenazic Jews.

The book is divided chronologically and this division works. It shows the downward spiral pattern of Christian and Jewish interaction that finally hit rock bottom with the expulsion of Jews from France and in England.

I especially enjoyed reading about the devistating effects of the Crusades on the Jewish communitites of the Rhine river region. I was amazed to read that many of the higher Church officials tried to protect their neighbor Jews from the angry and violent mobs. Bishops tried hiding Jews, tried baptizing Jews, and showed real sorrow and guilt when Jews in their communities were harmed.

I also found the history of the evolution of Christian thought about the Jews very fascinating. The early Christians, who didn't even know they were Christians, clearly saw themselves as religiously Jewish. By the time of the writing of the Gospel of John, this has changed. The Gospel of John is somewhat anti-Jewish. When the Christians began using "rational thinking," especially with the creation of Universities, they became even more hostile toward the Jews.

This book is a definate "must-buy" for any graduate student of European history or any serious undergraduate.

I teach religious high school, and I thought I knew something about the history of Jews in medieval Europe. "Abraham's Heirs" has broadened my knowledge and understanding to a degree that is simply astonishing. Like all really good histories, this one combines compelling primary sources with a clear overall structure. A great read.

This is not the kind of book I normally would have read (regrettably), but it came to me highly recommended. Having grown up in a Jewish environment but feeling some loss of identity and lack of knowledge of my ancestral history, I took the initiative to try to learn more.

Abraham' Heirs unexpectedly had a profound influence upon how I view my cultural heritage in a way I never anticipated. In a chronological and clear -- yet fair -- manner, the text depicts life and cross-cultural relationships and attitudes between Jews and Christians as central Europe developed. Through the progression of events depicted, the book demonstrates marked patterns which evolved across both time and location, which is crucial towards understanding how and why history regrettably progressed as it did.

Many events are quite disturbing, sometimes difficult to grasp in magnitude, but can't be forgotten nor simply glossed over. Importantly, Glick tells it the way things were, which also made it hard to put the book down. His content is exceptionally well-written, easy to follow, and highly informative, making it appropriate and essential for all readers.

Kpomassie refreshingly reveals without a trace of romanticisme the widly different world of the Inuits. From espisodes of intense companionship to loneliness, exhalation and revultion, our African traveler describes a frigid landscape populated with a very colorful culture and personalities. Extreemly engaging Tbetbe-Michel Kpomassie's courageous personality charms us and the world he describes.

Excellent book about how a person can be self sufficient in achieving their wildest dreams. A word of caution, this book is not for the squeamish. Some of the scenes described in the book may offend a reader not familiar with the customs of the Far North. However, I thought that the book gave me an excellent fresh look at how people live around the world.

Modern times mean modern means. Our contemporary adventurers always tote an amazing array of technology with them, or they rely on the backup of millions of dollars worth of equipment. Heading off to the stars eventually will involve the work of thousands of people. We always knew where the first balloonists around the world were, even their altitude. The Vikings never had that advantage, nor did the explorers of the Amazon nor the Micronesians as they sailed across the vast Pacific. Here is a story of a real, one-man adventure that started in the 1960s. A teenager in Togo, West Africa, Kpomassie grew up in an African village family. After a close encounter with a python, he was destined to become a priest in the traditional religion. His destiny was changed, though, the day he found a book on Greenland in a Christian bookshop. Utterly fascinated, he determined to travel to the far north to live with the Eskimos himself. This volume is the wonderful story of how he did it. It took eight years of effort to work his way across Africa to France, then ultimately, to Denmark from where he embarked on a ship to Greenland. Most of the book tells of how he lived, worked, hunted, found romance, ate and drank with the denizens of the frozen north, all told with an African perspective. "...the way we were stuffing ourselves with food and swapping stories reminded me so much of Africa..." (p.118) If "white man looks at the natives and pities them" is not your bag, then this is the perfect antidote. Kpomassie blends in so well, he thinks of staying there for the rest of his life, even learns to eat raw whale meat that splintered like ice in his mouth. You will never find another book like this. Buy it !

By way of introduction, I would like to say that this is an extraordinarily well-written book that divulges the gruesome atrocities that took place in my hometown. Srebrenica, a so called UN "SAFE AREA", was under the constant attack of the Serbian army, during the Bosnian war. UN's primary task was to protect civilians from Serbian soldiers but they failed. Innocent Bosnian civilians were betrayed by the International community and left for dead. UN officials and others in charge appeared to be indifferent to the immense suffering of the Bosnian people. As is well-known, one of the worst massacres after the World War 2 took place in Srebrenica. In my view, the international community must be held accountable for these heinous deeds. UN's indifference and passivity cost at least 10.000 innocent lives! This is extremely unjust and it makes me enraged and bewildered! This is truly a splendid book that I highly recommend to all people who want to gain an insight into horrendous plights of Bosnian people!

I agree with the other reviewers that this is powerful and important book. I recently had a chance to hear Patrick McCarthy speak and found out that all of the proceeds from this book will go to the Oric family. A worthwhile purchase.

After The Fall: Srebrenica Survivors In St. Louis is an outstanding photodocumentary that combines the informative text of Patrick McCarthy with the impressive documentary photography of Tom Maday to present the genocidal tragedy of the Bosnia-Herzegovina city of Srebrenica and its effects on the lives of one extended family in St. Louis, Missouri. In July 1995, more than 7,500 Bosnians from the city of Srebrenica were massacred by troops of the Bosnian Serb Army. Another 30,000 women and children were forcibly removed from their homes in this United Nations-declared "safe area". The siege of Srebrenica represented the greatest atrocity witnessed in Europe since the days of the Nazi holocaust, yet it was only one episode in a larger war of extermination against the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina during the 1990s. Some 20,000 Bosnian refugees (approximately 500 of them survivors of Srebrenica) came to settle in St. Louis. After The Fall is a superbly presented, highly recommended memorial, testament, and account of this horrific tragedy that these St. Louis based refugees must come to grips with as represented in the lives, statements, and images of one such extended family.

For anyone who both loves to sail small yachts and also to visit historical spots, this is a wonderfully crafted book that satisfies both tastes. The skilfull interweaving of the legend of the Odyssey with the vivid story of following this route with a small but modern yacht is unique in my acquaitance with books of the sea. As a personal friend of Hal and Margaret Roth,I felt as if I were sitting in my living room and listening to both their adventures and getting an intimate appreciation of the scholarly interpretations of this myseries surrounding this legend.

We Followed Odysseus is the engaging story of sailing a small boat along the sea path of Odysseus' famous voyage. Crossing oceans and seas Hal Roth, with the help of his wife Margaret, re-traced the voyages of Odysseus along the Turkish coast and the isles of Greece. Roth sailed to a desert island in Tunisia, visited Sicily and Corsica, and traveled to Italy and Malta before returning to Greece. We Followed Odysseus blends two stories. One the ancient Hellenic account of the legendary voyage of Odysseus as recounted in "The Odyssey". The other is Roth's modern voyage to each of the nineteen legendary locations that Odysseus visited during his ten-year attempt to return to Ithaca after the end of the Trojan War. Of special fascination is Roth's candid discussion of what things may have been like in the days of Odysseus, and what they are like today. We Followed Odysseus is highly recommended reading for all armchair travelers, anyone who has thrilled to Homer's tale of the trials of Odysseus in his decade long struggle to return to his home and family, and an inspiration to set sail ourselves in search of our an adventure of our own!

During many years of sailing the oceans of the world, we sought in advance the history of the places we intended to visit. We knew that due to weather conditions or language barriers we would not always benefit from "local knowledge". Rarely would we find a writer who could combine the love of sailing with a love of history. We have just read WE FOLLOWED ODYSSEUS and found that combination in Hal Roth. The presentation of his newest book is most interesting and makes Homer's tale so easy to follow. Cruising along with WHISPER, visiting anchorages, going on hikes, getting history lessons ~ WE FOLLOWED ODYSSEUS is a good read for any armchair traveler but a "must read and keep aboard" for those traveling through the Mediterranean under sail.