This book was an interesting look at the organization over the past ten years. I think we all have a view of the KGB which was formed during the years of the cold war, a large, well run organization that main times was one step ahead of the U.S. This book details what happened to the KGB after the USSR turned back into Russia and the coup was put down. It details the house cleaning of the top, long time KGB officials that took place after the coup and how that is changing the focus of the organization. It also goes on to detail the new focus of the KGB from 100% focus on the U.S. and NATO to one that also takes into its portfolio internal issue as organized crime and terrorist threats. The author also does remind the reader that even though the relationship between the U.S. and Russia has increasingly become warmer; there is still a high level of focus on the U.S. by the KGB.

Overall this is an interesting book that keeps the espionage junky up to date with what is going on inside the KGB. The book will probably become dated in a few years, but it should be up to date for now. The book is well written and keeps the readers interest through out.

I purchased this book, because I love the work of Victor Hugo and was interested in this aspect of his spirituality. But the writing is terrible. Most of it seems to be a drug addled commentary on Hugo's later life by an unsympathetic critic. The writing is so bad as to frustrate the most patient of readers. If you love the work of Hugo or the philosophy of romance in literature, avoid this waste of ink and paper.

I had heard of this book for sometime before actually reading it and when I finally ordered it and began my reading; I was off on the most amazing adventure of metaphysical ideas I've ever encountered. As a student of Spiritualism as well as the Alan Kardec inspired spiritualist philosophy known as Spiritism from a historical and sociological perspective, this book brings to life the intensity of those 19th century psychonauts who in living with human mortality in a much more immediate way than we do now, documents their explorations of one of the fundamental questions of existence- do we survive death.
And the answers to those pointed questions that were revealed to the Hugo circle during his period of exile from France are simply breathtaking. First is their sheer poetic verbal majesty, secondly in the intimations of a universal mind that is both the embodiment of that "love which steers the stars" of Dante's "Divine Comedy" to the impersonal karmic justice that minimizes the inflated human ego in the scheme of things.
I cannot recomend this book highly enough, it will remain with you for thought & contemplation long after you've finished the final page.

I am telling you, what a trip! Well if you can believe it, the table did rock! Victor Hugo (1802-1885) is in excile on a lonely island and to pass time, he and his retinue conduct seances. Animals, of course, are the incarnations of criminals. (How good to know, that Stalin is now a dung beatle.) The Dove of the Ark had been guided by God to the landing place for Noahs gigantic boat. Not only animals, but also plants and stones knew what crime they had committed. Why was such knowledge not granted to man? Animals are prisons of the soul. The animal sees man and glimpses the angels. Forgiveness is Noah's Ark. Well, I think this is worth reading, even though it comes down from another century. Be curious! Gerborg

This book is valuable because it was written in an objective manner very soon after the death of Che. It gives both good and bad points about Che's character, along with some observations on the possible contributing factors to his failure in Bolivia. It admires but does not diefy the man. It notes but does not condemn his failures.

If you're interested in reading about the Bermuda Triangle, then this is the place to start. Overall it's one of the better books on the subject.