Lindsay was an OSS military advisor who fought with Tito's partisans in Slovenia against the Nazis in World War II. His account is a highly-readable thrilling adventure story - climbing snowy mountains with the Germans in pursuit, crossing streams in the night, directing parachute drops, organizing Allied supplies to the Partisans. Lindsay's matter-of-fact prose is effective and adds credibility. He disdains the frequent Allied advisors who are overly pro-Partisan, never losing his distrust of communism. But he clearly has a lot of respect for the Partisans' organizational skills, intelligence, courier lines, and tactics.

Some of the most interesting material discusses the inability of the US, UK, or Soviets to either create or find or support any indigenous resistance groups in Austria. Why? Several reasons, including the inescapable fact that Austrians were not so dissatisfied with the Nazi government, were less courageous than their counterparts in Yugoslavia, and were far more willing to lay low and wait for liberation rather than risk anything at all to hasten it.

The strongest chapters are the early ones, with Lindsay in the mountains of Slovenia, where he participates in the events he discusses. The book becomes noticeably weaker as the war winds down and Lindsay moves to Belgrade and is kept isolated by Tito and is unable to witness much of what he reports on. He does a game job of reconstructing events from other sources, but much of the immediacy and some of the credibility of the early material is lost.

The postwar political struggle for the (now-Italian) city of Trieste is fascinating. Tito coveted the city and its Adriatic access. The Yugoslavs were dogged, single-minded, and happily willing to engage in deceit to seize the city in the postwar settlements. Finally, Lindsay is entirely plausible in presenting the view that only the U.S.'s 1950 intervention in Korea prevented Stalin from attacking and subjugating Yugoslavia in the wake of Tito's break with the Soviet Union.

This is a strong book, not without flaws, but certainly enlightening and useful to scholars of the Balkans and World War II as well as to those who just enjoy a fascinating war adventure.

One of those books that demonstrates how reality is usually more interesting than fiction. Lindsay's account of his activities as an OSS operative in the former Yugoslavia during World War II is a much better read than most Cold War spy fiction. The text is very readable and hightly informative - not only about wartime events in Yugosalvia but also about the policies of the Allied governments and military in dealing with them. The book also provides a good deal of information on a topic that is covered very little in the English language: the struggle of the Slovenian Partisans against the Nazis. Lindsay points out that some of the first territories liberated within the Third Reich itself were in fact in the Slovenian provinces. Linday's observations of Tito and his senior staff just after the end of the war are also quite revealing. The text is, however, weaker where Lindsay does not speak about events he did not directly witness or take part in. Thus, he often cites rather uncritically a number of secondary sources on specific events in wartime Yugoslavia. Even so, the book as a whole is an excellent read and a valuable source of information on the subject and period that it covers.

I read this book specifically because I wanted to see what I could learn about partisan warfare from the military liaison point of view. I specifically wanted to see how many lessons might be applied to the situation in Afghanistan.

While I realize that one can not simply substitute the name "Afghanistan" for "Yugoslavia," I wanted to know if one could draw some more general lessons from our past experience - and who better to write about our past experience in such warfare than Franklin Lindsay!

Certainly the American news media is at a loss to explain not only the current dynamics but more significantly what tasks must yet be completed before we can hope for a stable, prosperous and free Afghanistan. By in large, the American media has not been able to get over the significant cultural differences. They simply aren't equipped.

And so I read Lindsay's book looking for far more than a ripping good adventure - and found it! While I can't claim to "understand" what to expect next from Afghanistan next, that is due more to the lack of good information. What I have now is a list of questions I believe critical to the overall success American foreign policy. I have a starting point. I have a framework, and I credit "Beacons in the Night" with helping identify for me the various key dynamics associated with fighting a numerically superior enemy and securing effective control over a large and diverse population.

America look out! The ground we trod has been crossed before. Listen and learn - the pitfalls are huge, but we can indeed succeed. Yugoslavia stands to serve as a beacon toward success - and a stark warning against failure.

What research! What an education! What a great introduction to the topic! What solid and enjoyable writing! This book was everything I'd hoped it would be - and more.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants a glimpse at the light at the end of the current terrorist-tunnel. This book isn't just history - it's an unflinching preview of 21st century warfare. ~Robert

Personally I found this book tiresome, repetitious, self-righteous, incoherent, and boring. What worked well for me in Ice Shirt didn't work at all for me here.

I recommend this book for people who are interested in experimental literature for its own sake, who find their entertainment value in reading as an abstract intellectual exercise.

If you like the inchoate disconnect of cyberpunk you'll like this, and it's very good for what it is. Just don't expect to be engaged, entertained, informed, or enlightened.

Unlike so many historical fictions that flood the marketplace, Vollmann's *The Rifles* strives for something unique, combining first person narrative, historical reflection and a fictional combination of the two which delves into the meaning of history and the attempt to render it to the present day reader. I found this book rich in poetic imagery and personal philosophy, at times dense, at others, whimsical. Overall, however, I enjoyed Vollmann's view on the desire of John Franklin to find a Northwest passage paralelled with Vollmann's own 'fictional' desire for a woman of the Inuit group. The two begin to merge as history merges with the present and we find ourselves lost in Vollmann's frantic mind searching for truth and perhaps a way out of his own obsessive drives. There is much more to say about this book, in fact I wrote a master's thesis on it, but I leave it for others to decide. I just wait to see where he goes from here.

Although though it may be hard to begin Vollmann's "7 Dreams" series because each book in the series is so massive, it is certainly worth the time. Not only is Vollman attempting to create, with some fiction, the entire history of North America, each volume he writes is a totally new undertaking. New people, names,histories, and unique grammar reflective to the period. A truly talented author who has thoroughly researched his subjects and makes you feel that you are right in the middle of the action in the snow and ice, Vollman is writing the series out of the time seqences in which the history appears, but since each is complete in itself, that does not matter. I look forward to his next "dream."

The point of Franklin Roosevelt's brilliant fireside chats and other seminal speeches was that the listener could hear his voice and experience his charisma. This is impossible with this book which is merely lifeless words on the printed page. Of course some of FDR's speeches make interesting reading, but the entire thrust of his message is lost without the resonant voice and the indefinable "something" he brought to the microphone.

Just yesterday I was listening on CD to FDR's incomparable Pearl Harbor speech from December 8, 1941. Even though this was long before I was born, I always get goosebumps listening to his intonations, the cheering from the Representatives and Senators and the feeling that you are actually witnessing history. There is none of this in this book, where reading speeches is a paltry substitute (at best) for listening to FDR, who was perhaps the most effective Presidential orator of the 20th century. Those who extol Reagan as an effective and charismatic communicator need to listen to Roosevelt.

My advice is to buy a CD with the collected speeches of FDR and ignore this book. The idea is good but the premise flawed. You need to hear Roosevelt's voice, not merely read his words.

First - I hate political books that make it seem that you have to have an MBA to read it. But this book is intelligent, a reference guide, and a great book to which you will read great works of speeches. FDR, is a great idealist and essentially a great man. This is a great book, in which to read his thoughts.

The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt is by far the most comprehensive collection of that President's major works. Each and every piece presented in this book is historically relevant. Formatted in chronological order, Hunt takes his reader on a journey from Roosevelt's First Gubernatorial Inaugural Address to remarks Roosevelt gave to congress on the Yalta Conference days before his death. The Essential FDR is the perfect book for anyone from a Roosevelt scholar or research-paper-writing high school student. Almost 350 pages of anything quotable by one of history's greatest men. As an aside, John Gabriel Hunt's introduction is also quite informative and gives great background information. If you want FDR, you want this book!

This book deals with an aspect of junior high that everyone experiences: bullying. We can all think back to our grade school days and remember that one person who, for one reason or another, was picked on and could do no right in the eyes of the other class members. In this book, the main character, Ludwig von Beethoven Carter (poor guy), is that guy from grade school who was a normal, accepted kid who got good grades. However, he becomes the guy in the class who is picked on when his mother becomes the star of a silly, educational science show for kids. In order to regain his popularity, Wiggy Carter keeps trying to change his image in order to be accepted by the "cool," trouble-making kids.

While one looks at the title and cover of the book, he thinks that this is going to be a book written just for the amusment of the young reader. However, I was happily surprised to see that this book deals with a lot of peer pressure issues and social issues that junior high students struggle with every day. I highly recommend it to help put things in perspective for students. They have to go through "drama" in the classroom every day and this book can really help them to look at the "queen bee" as well as the "nerd" in a new light.

Nerd No More

Wiggle V. Cater is a regular kid that is smart and nice. He is like every kid in the sixth grade. A problem comes when his mom becomes the host of Jump Into Science. But a real problem occurs when the other kids lead him to trouble.
I liked this book because, it was funny. The main character was wiggle V. Carter who is sort of a nerd. He is a nice kid who just wants to fit in. This book was easy to read and understand. The book was used with simple words. That is why I liked this book.

It is a great book about a boy who is a pure nerd! It is also how he copes with it!

This is the story of the Columbia, Tennessee "race riot" of 1946, in which a racial incident in an appliance repair shop ended with mob violence in which scores of African American veterans of World War II defended their community with arms. A couple were killed in jail, but most escaped with their lives and their freedom. It is, as the author notes, an extremely telling moment in the history of American race relations. And it is an exciting story. Sadly, the author appears to have fallen in with sociologists and perhaps other bad company. The analytical apparatus at the front of the book will definitely prevent anyone except academics from getting to the riveting story inside, and the important historical truths it would have revealed. I am afraid that it is a good enough book to keep someone else from telling the story any time soon, but it could have been a great book, if O'Brien had just told the story and intepreted its meaning without resorting to jargon and obscure language. It is still a good book, but she needed better intellectual advice than she got--when she is writing in her own storytelling voice, it's really quite good. It could have been an enormous public service and helped generations of people understand an important turn in American racial politics. Instead, it is an academic exercise, alas.

This was a great book telling how the laws prejudeces i reccomend it to anybody interested in the truth.

It is a wonderful idea to make available recordings of great speeches. I hope we have more of this in the future.
In the case of older speeches, the selection is very good, considering the restraints of time, and the readers are uniformly excellent.
As for the modern speeches, it is a marvel of technology that we can hear these speeches as delivered. It is incredible that we can hear the voice of William Jennings Bryan. I can listen to Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" a thousand times and never tire of it! How I wish I could listen to the voice of Patrick Henry! But this selection is too heavily weighted to the modern, and many of those do not deserve billing as the GREATEST speeches of ALL TIME. Also, some of the modern speeches which are included are abridged, e.g. Reagan is cut off in the middle of a sentence, while lengthy and undeserving speeches are played out in their entirety.
Also, with only a few exceptions, the selection is almost entirely American. It is hard to understand why Jimmy Carter's lengthy speech on energy policy is included, while Pericles' funeral oration is not; or why only a small portion of a single Winston Churchill speech is included; why while Bill Clinton's complete 1993 pulpit address, in excess of 20 minutes, is included.
It would be helpful if the complete list of speeches were available to online buyers, as it would be to shoppers in a brick and mortar store.

I have listened to this collection twice now, both times with pleasure. Hearing the acutal voices of Amelia Earhart, Rev. Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill and Neil Armstrong made a deeper connection than simply reading their words. The collection showcases different subjects and many times contrasts opposing viewpoints of the ideas. This volume is a fantastic introduction to the moving ideals and sometimes sad truths that have influenced Western Civilization.

I did read with great interest John Wilson's novel. It beautifully summarises the findings of John Franklin historians among which the most recent and complete is probably David Woodman's "unravelling the Franklin Mystery".

Why only three stars? maybe because I had already read Woodman's books and Wilson adds little to that. Fiction it is, but sticks very closely to the conclusions to which previous authors arrive. The story puts together all the known clues but, at the end adds not much else.

My greed to learn more was frustrated for instance at how little is described of Peel-Lady Jane strait; this, after all, was the main discovery of the Franklin expedition. It seems difficult to believe that they would not be more excited about it!

Wilson desserves great credit for assembling into a consistent fiction the conclusions of others. I would have wished more colorful and dramatic extrapolations, as one can find for instance in Jules Vernes "les anglais au pole nord" from last century. I would have liked to live the north with Fitzjames.

The Franklin Expedition has fascinated me for years, especially since some of my students created an interactive computer game, "The Mystery of Franklin's Fate," for Science World in Vancouver. I've even thought about writing a novel about it, but now John Wilson has saved me the work--and done a far better job than I could have!

North With Franklin is the journal of James Fitzjames, one of Franklin's captains (some of the early passages are from his real letters). Wilson has the style and attitude just right, and blends his research very effectively into the story. We can see the ships, the men, the terrain. We see the first optimism fade as the ships are trapped in the ice and make no progress in the short summers. The first deaths, from TB, are painfully vivid to Fitzjames; by the end, each death gets only a cursory note, while the captain battles his own mysterious ailments and tries to keep the survivors alive. His journal is a series of letters to his sister-in-law, for whom he clearly feels more than he can admit.

As the years pass and the expedition dwindles to a handful of desperately sick men, Captain Fitzjames comes at least to a clearer understanding of what has gone wrong--not just lead poisoning and scurvy, but a complacently arrogant belief in superior technology.

John Wilson brings the expedition members to life again, each a distinct character (though of course the "people"--ordinary seamen--are seen through the eyes of an officer in a class-ridden society).

The narrative seems so plausible that I half-expected to find the expedition's place-names on the endpaper maps--but whatever names they gave the bays and points vanished with them and their records.

Still, North With Franklin is as close an account of the expedition's fate as we are likely to have, at least until Captain Fitzjames's real journals are found under some Arctic cairn.

David Woodman's research for this book is exciting to think about -- carefully turning the thousands of pages from journals written over a hundred years ago -- could he see the fear of frozen fingers (and more) in the marks of thick ink? Woodman's retelling of Sir Franklin's fascinating story is built upon an amazing act of pinning down the oral histories from another culture to the pages of ours. Above all, this book pays tribute to this wonderous art of the Inuit. And speaking of 'our' pages, my paper back edition has come unglued from its spine in just one month! Serious readers my wish to ante up for the hardcover.

Testimony from a number of contradictory sources over what happened to the ships and men; what they were told by ancestors of their beliefs of what may have happened to the men. Much debate over the names of men who were along on the trek. I found the degree of confusion and contradiction interesting in light of what is factually known of Franklin's travels to be very valuable in discounting what is "known" about his journey. While it resolves nothing for sure, it helps to explain why the degree of confusion among early searchers upon trying to get information from Inuits. For the true Franklin researcher, it is highly recommended.

The layout of this "First Biographies" series is suitable for children in first to third grade, or for people just learning to read. The information presented on Franklin (and the other famous historical Americans) is fairly slim, but that's to be expected in book for first-timers. The information is simple and accurate, and easy to understand for those new students.

My mother gave this book to me when I was ten, which was a very long time ago. Those images of the mummies, so well-preserved that they don't look like mummies but like still-living human beings in some eternal pain we can't imagine -- they gave me nightmares then and they can still chill me to the stomach.

My mother gave this book to me when I was ten, which was a very long time ago. Those images of the mummies, so well-preserved that they don't look like mummies but like still-living human beings in some eternal pain we can't imagine -- they gave me nightmares then and they can still chill me to the stomach.

After seeing a clip on the Franklin Expedition in a documentary on mummies, I rushed to the library to see if there was a book on the subject. The only one available was this book in the juvenile section. At first I was disappointed, but, noticing a photo of the preserved body of one of the sailors, I checked it out. For a kids' book, this one is pretty cool. The first part of the book is a fictionalized (and very sanitized) story of life for the average seaman on the doomed expedition. This story leaves the reader with questions that the author will answer in the second section describing the disinterring of three buried crew members and the information their well-preserved remains revealed. The photos are amazing and make this book fascinating for all ages (I don't remember juvenile books being this cool when I was a kid). The reading level and, at times, disturbing content is probably appropriate for kids 5th grade and up.