Abel's short life will leave an indellible mark in all mathematicians ( professional and amateur )'s heart.
This superb biography will remind us again and pay an respect
to this genius. One will be hard to resist sadness about
reading this book, but fact is fact, history cannot be changed.
Let us pay a tribute to this superb genius again by reading
this biography.

This is an excellent book about the norwegian mathematical genius Niels Henrik Abel. This book is also very painfull to read, since it is about a man who dies at only 26 years of age, just before he is to reach to glory. It's a tragedy. But none the less what he accomplish in his life is just tremendous. This is a real book. And it will not leave you unaffected.

Richard Abel has done a massive reasearch job, and impressively documented French silent films from their first showing until the outbreak of World War I. French films were the most popular in the world until the War wiped out the film-making industry for a few years. By then, the American film industry was the world leader.

Abel viewed hundreds of still-existing early films in writing this book. The appendix includes a very useful filmography that lists existing French silent films, the archive that holds them, and lists contemporary magazine reviews of the films. This book has very detailed endnotes of his sources. There are quite a few photos from the films that Abel describes.

The book is broken up into five parts. The first part documents a history of the French film industry up to 1914, and the audiencies of the time. The next section documents "The Cinema of Attractions (1896-1904), when George Melies was the most popular filmmaker with his "trick" films. Also, the Lumiere Brothers specialized in "actuality" films, and the Pathe company was growing. The next section covers "The Transition to a Narrative Cinema (1904-1907)", where short story films were king. Pathe and Gaumont were the dominant film companies, and Melies was not popular much longer. Next, "The Pre-Feature Single-Reel Story Film" documents the rise of comedies, historical films and even cartoons. Finally, "The Rise of the Feature Film (1911-1914) covers historical epics that were much longer, crime and detective films, and comedies featuring comedians like Max Linder and Andre Deed. The book also explains how both serious films and comedies both affirmed and satirized contemporary French society.

If you are new to the study of film history, this book will be way over your head. On the other hand, if you are interested in the development of film narrative and editing, you will be fascinated by this book. My only complaint is that Abel describes so many different examples of films, that it is tough to read a large chunk of this book at one sitting. After an hour or so, all of the plot-lines and camera-work and editing that he describes starts to blur together in your mind. I think that the book might have benefited from more section breaks. Still, this is a fascinating book for the serious silent film fan.

The book is all but unreadable, choosing to toss names and names and names at the reader instead of addressing any of the issues behind the names. The author lists conflicts without taking sides or even bothering to explain the deeper issues behind the conflicts, leaving the names and quotes empty and meaningless. This may sound like an exaggeration, but it was physically painful for me to read this book. If you are looking for a book on the topic of free speech, I would recommend that you look elsewhere.