This is a very interesting history of the Rosenberg case from the point of view of David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg's brother... I would recommend it to all Rosenberg case buffs for its portrait of Ethel's family relationships and background... Greenglass comes off as one strange and unlikeable guy...

I do have a couple of criticisms of the book. For a NY Times editor, Sam Roberts, the author doesn't write all that well. Some of his sentences are confusing with pronouns that refer back to previous sentences, only the reader doesn't know to which person previously mentioned. There are a also number of passages which seem to me to contain confusing non-sequitors... reading The Brother is a bit like coming in in the middle of a movie.

This is one of the most brilliant works of non-fiction I have ever read. The trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg has always been a sensitive and controversial subject for Americans. Although many authors have written books on the subject, only one has been able to talk to the chief witness who testified against the Rosenbergs and sent them to the electric chair for espionage, Ethel's brother, David Greenglass. Sam Roberts did some excellent research and has found a bounty of never before told information about the case and the family. Every chapter is more exciting than the one before it. Excellent job Sam

In 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for passing information about the atomic bomb to the Russians. They remain the only Americans to get the death penalty for spying in peacetime, which indicates the extraordinary nature of their case. Current spies might expect prison at worst, and possibly a country club prison at that. The Cold War is over, and we have new fears, but an examination of the fifty-year-old case is welcome. _The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric Chair_ (Random House) by Sam Roberts gives a surprising, fresh view of the case. Roberts can rightly claim that this is an "untold story" because after years of persistence, he was able to find Greenglass, living under a different identity, and conduct interviews. True to the nature of a disreputable stoolpigeon, Greenglass started singing for a fee.

Greenglass, a member of the Communist Party, somehow got assigned to work on the Manhattan Project after being drafted in 1943. His brother-in-law Julius Rosenberg persuaded Greenglass's wife Ruth to talk to him about supplying atomic secrets, and David agreed. He got paid for the information. When the FBI nailed him, he was ready to implicate Julius. When Ruth implicated Ethel, days before the trial, David changed his testimony to corroborate his wife's, always cooperating in order to keep Ruth from getting charged. Playing the wife card again, the feds attempted to get information on Julius's contacts by charging Ethel and then holding the death penalty over her. The idea was that Julius would sing in order to keep Ethel alive for their two young sons. This seems immoral today, and indeed, it is now illegal to use the death penalty as coercion towards cooperation. The eagerness that the feds had to execute the Rosenbergs proved to be a gigantic misjudgment. Communist sympathizers the world over took advantage of the Rosenbergs' plight, especially of the electrocution looming over Ethel. The Rosenbergs were more valuable as martyrs than any information about bombs which Greenglass had stolen.

It is certainly controversial that Greenglass is getting paid for his participation in interviews, but the new information seems worth it. Greenglass had no say in what was going to be written in the book, and could not tell what was to be in it until it was printed; the picture Roberts paints is far from flattering. Remarkably, his wife did not know of his participation in the interviews before the book was published. Roberts has gone to other previously unavailable sources as well, and the story is fascinating. There were serious mistakes made in the trial, well detailed here, and as a result the controversy about the outcome will never be settled. Roberts often gives details that aptly summarize the era; for instance, an FBI account of Ethel's arrest says that she "made a typical Communist remonstrance, demanding a warrant and the right to call an attorney." There are other candidates for the nomination of "Trial of the Century," but it is hard to top this one. If it does not measure up to a laudable presentation of gathering of evidence, prosecution, and execution, and was eventually more comfort to our enemies than to ourselves, we might, living under the threat of terrorist attacks fifty years later, learn useful lessons here about excessive government zeal.

Scared Stiff is an excellent story. It is very realistic and the events that take place in the amusement park are very pleasurable to read. This is the kind of story you read and you want to be a part of the action. An abandoned amusement park is any kid's dream of the ultimate playground, and it is neat to read about it in this story.

In this book, Rick, the main characters are an eleven year old boy and his younger brother Kenny who is seven. Teh boys'father is a truck driver who's load gets stolen one night. The mother asks the father if he had anything to do with it. The two dults get into a fight and the father leaves. The parents were not "divorced" the dad just left. Neighter parent filed for a divorce, and at the end the boy hopes that the father will come back home. The mother discovers much information about the case and is kidnapped so she will not tell. The kid-nappers try to capture her two sons so she will tell them what she knows. THe boys' friends, Connie and Julie, help them solve the mystery and escape from the kid-nappers. I am thirteen and I enjoyed this book thoroughly. It was very exciting and suspensful. I have read one other of Willo Davis Robert's books and found it equally exciting. She is a very creative writer and her books deserve 5 stars for mystery,adventure,and action in my opinion.

I read scared stiff when I was in the third grade in 1992, after my library teacher read it. It is such a good book that now in 1999, I remember the title after not reading it for seven years and I will be purchasing it for a much younger friend of mine. Even though it is at times unrealistic, it provokes the imagination of those who read it and imprints itself in a person's memory.

The book Cowbow Ghost is about a kid his name is Titus our Tim. He grows up with a wonderful mother and a bashful father. Him and his older brother Micah dont get along very good in the begining so Tim tries to earn his brothers respect when the go on there first cattle drive. I woul recommend this book to the younger era of children that need to learn to respect there elders. I think that the author Robert Newton Peck is trying to get to the reader that when someone ignores you are doesnt like you try to give them there space and earn there respect.

This book was a pretty good one. It had everything a great book should have in it like a father that pays no attention to the young one and the older one gets all of the attention. The young Titus reminds me of... well...me. I'm not trying to be personal,but this book interested me for just that simple fact. Thumbs up all the way.

I thought this book was very good and had a lot of exciting part.It never seem to get boring because Titus and his brother always had something to do so if you like adventures, cowboys, and and horses i totaly recemend this book to you

In this book the arthur I think did very well in describing the baseball game. He really brought entertainment into the book. In the book a rookie baseball player became the general manager of a MLB team. That is very weird. One thing I really like is that the arthur put alot of problems in the team like the playeres were prejudice of a Jewish rookie.

Despite starting more slowly than the other Tunis novels I've read, the book quickly makes up for lost time Spike and Bob Russell are slick-feilding brothers who come to a Dodger team whose manager fails to inspire. Spike is apointed manager and success increases. But when Babe Stansworth, the Brooklyn catcher is injured, it falls to Jocko Klein, a young Jew, to fill in. In a world of religous bigotry Jocko cracks, making his teamates and opponents alike belive all the more that "Jews are yellow"-that he can't take it. It falls on Spike to stop this horrible stream of verbal (and physical-pitchers throw beanballs to him) attacks and make the team WORK as a team.

It's hard to believe this book was written before Jackie Robinson made his debut with the real Dodgers in 1947, because "Keystone Kids" touches on many things that were dealt with when Robinson became the first black player in the majors. Bobby and Spike Russell are a pair of middle infielders brought up from the minors to the Dodgers during the WWII era. Both encounter the usual difficulties that rookies face in the Tunis series. The difference here is another rookie, Jewish catcher Jocko Klein, who has to endure prejudice from opponents and even his own teammates. While the title of the book suggests the Russell brothers as the main characters, Jocko is the real story here. To me, this book and "The Kid Comes Back" are the two most socially relevant of the Tunis series. Any parent wishing to instill a sense of conscience in their kids could do a whole lot worse than getting them "Keystone Kids."

I read this book when I was 11 years old. BIG mistake. I had nightmares from it and I couldn't stop crying. So part of me wants to give it 1 star. But it is actually a very good book. It really brings home to you the consequences of nuclear war, especially long-term effects like radiation sickness. I recommend it to people who don't mind a depressing read or who are interested in dystopian novels, but don't read it if you're soft-hearted, or if you're already frightened about the topic. It will just make you worse.

"One minute everything was normal, and then it was gone." This is a first person account of life after a nuclear holocaust. The narrator is an English boy called Danny. He recounts all the things that have happened to him since the holocaust and the grim struggle that life has become. This is a good book because it is written by someone who actually experienced what happened. The narrator makes each day feel tense and uncertain. Danny's life is grim, insecure and torturous.

One of the interesting things about this book are the invented names used to describe the various species of survivor: "Goths", "Spacers", "Terminals", "Badgers" and "Purples". It's the beginning of a new language.

Grief and despair pervade this book. Nuclear weapons have utterly destroyed civilization, England has been turned into a poisonous, desolate wasteland. The narrator has written this account to warn future generations (if any) not to do it again.

When you finish reading "Brother in the Land" read "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban. That book is also a first person account by a boy in post-holocaust England. Set thousands of years in the future, the people live a primitive life with dim legends of the world as we know it.

OUR WHOLE CLASS READ THE BOOK AND RAISED ALL OF OUR AWARENESSES ABOUT THE NUCLEAR WORLD THAT WE LIVE IN . WE GOT INTO GROUPS IN OUR CLASS AND DISCUSSED THE PERSONALITY OF THE MAIN CHARACTER "DANNY" . WE ALSO DISCUSSED THAT SWINDELLS , THE AUTHOR , SENT ACROSS MANY MESSAGES ABOUT THE WORLD TODAY . THE WHOLE CLASS AGREED THAT THE BOOK "BROTHER IN THE LAND IS VERY POWERFUL AND WELL WRITTEN.

It is impossible to write about Robert Kennedy in adult life without writing about his brother, John Kennedy. Hilty does a very thorough job of portraying Robert Kennedy, the dedicated, hard working, determined brother, warts in all in a fair and impartial way. Throughout this book, one sees the "metamorphosis" of Robert Kennedy. He is the man who works behind the scenes, protecting his brother's interests to his maximum extent. He is the man who pushes his brother forward while sublimating his own interests, needs and identity. It is only in the tragic aftermath of the President's death does Robert Kennedy, in full adult form emerge -- the man who immersed himself in classical literature, the man who became a personal crusader for civil rights related issues, the man who made it his business to know minorities and persons living in poverty. It is during the last nearly half-decade of his life that the full face of Robert Kennedy is shown to his constituents -- the man who doggedly pursued Teamsters and Mafiosi in the 1950s takes that same dogged persistence to the political arena where he runs on his own right. He is a voice for the disenfranchised, a voice for those who share his vision. He was a man who provided hope during a very turbulent period in history marked by war and national violence. It is the opinion of this reviewer that Robert Kennedy is certainly the more interesting of the brothers. His personal, political and personality development is very interesting to watch and track. He was certainly a man who came across as very sincere in his efforts and one cannot help wondering what the outcome today would be had this man lived.

This is a book well worth reading.

James Hilty brings to life the force behind the Kennedy Presidency -- Robert Kennedy. Hilty states "That we speak at all of a Kennedy Legacy...is because of Robert Kennedy...That we connect the Kennedy name to issues of social justice and equity is also the result of RFK's work after the death of (JFK)." Dispelling the American Myth of Kennedy "deity," while focusing on the Kennedys as human beings and, above all, politicians, Hilty eloquently takes the reader back into the Kennedy era, conveying the story as it occured...with RFK functioning in many circumstances as a "co-president." RFK served as a "brother protector" to JFK, as the older brother's campaign manager as well as guardian of JFK's presidency. Called "number one and half" by some presidential insiders, Robert Kennedy was consulted by the president on virtually every issue of monumental importance. Access to the president often had to first pass the younger brother. Hilty further portrays RFK as a good person who had become "champion of the outcasts, the Jeremiah of the sixties." It was the younger Kennedy who pushed and advanced civil rights. *Brother Protector* takes the readers to RFK's life just past his brother's assasination, leaving them anxious for the second volume of this innovative, capturing historical account of one of the most intriguing statesmen in US History.

Robert F. Kennedy was an extraordinary man: former investigator, campaign manager for his brother, Attorney General, United States Senator. His speech to the 1964 Democratic Convention was one the most eloquent speeches ever given. His campaign for the Presidency in 1968 ended with one of the most heartbreaking tragedies in American history when an assassin killed him after winning the California primary.

For myself, RFK represents the better part of politics- the noble spirit and the sense of purpose than the American way of life seems to have lost since his death. People can and should be better to one another, Bobby argued. Government should help the people, he said, but only if those people could help themselves. As a Democrat, I admire Bobby's argument for help, partnership and responsibility between the people and their government.

Professor Hilty has done an excellent job. There are things about Bobby that are difficult to reconcile- why he worked for McCarthy is a good question -and Professor Hilty does a wonderful job writing about them and explaining them. He should be congradulated. I, for one, cannot wait for his next volume about RFK's life.

The Gemini Contenders by Robert Ludlum was a great novel that kept the pages turning. It was a story about a man by the name of Vittorio Fontini-Christi who is part of an influential Italian family. He is involved in concealing a religious artifact that could tear the Christian world apart at its seams,but he doesn't know it. He is smuggled out of Italy by a British spy agency, and is sent throughout Europe to disrupt business interactions. All the while he is trying to figure out how he was involved in an event that he had never heard of. Meanwhile the British spy agency is in touch with him trying desperately to find where the artifact was hidden. They know that in the wrong hands, namely those of the Nazi's, it could be used as a weapon against the allied forces. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is looking for a novel that is going to challenge their minds and think through this maze of spy tactics and seemingly unrelated events. Being a teenager that typically does not enjoy reading, I could not put this book down. The detail in the book was so amazing that I felt that I was with the characters sneaking around the shores of Italy, and sitting with a group of high commanders in a secret room in London. I highly recommend this book. People from their teenage years to those who want a good book to latch onto their imagination and let it run wild, all will enjoy it.

I thought I had read everything Ludlum had ever written, but came across this in a backpacker hostel. What a find! This book made me remember what it was I loved about Ludlum's writing, and reminded me that his older writings are better than all this stuff they're finding now that he's gone.
Vittorio Fontini-Cristi is the eldest son of a wealthy Italian industrialist. His father's involvement in the hiding of a vault containing powerful religious documents leads to Vittorio's becoming enmeshed in events he doesn't fully understand. With World War II as a backdrop, he is hunted by many who want the vault's contents and protected by some who believe he will lead them to the vault as his life is transformed. He is never to escape this legacy, and before he dies, must pass it on to his twin sons--the Geminis who have both become involved in wars of their own. One son is career army with a Vietnam background, the other a peace loving war protester. They must cast aside their mutual dislike to once and for all solve the mystery that has always been part of their heritage.
The book leads you through twists and turns, and the plot is classic Ludlum. He doesn't keep the story moving with useless dialogue and the characters are believable. The power contained within the hidden vault motivates many to devote their lives to it's discovery. You've got to wonder what it could possibly contain to drive people this way.
This book is Ludlum at his best, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves a good thriller.

This has to be one of the top Robert Ludlum books that I have ever read. This book tells about an order of monks transporting a vault to a secret hiding place out of the reach of the Nazis. The head of the Fontini-Christi family,Savarone is actually the one who hides the vault with it's secrets. Ludlum's book tells of Savarone's son's trials and tribulations that he has to face as a result of the hidden vault.This book also shows the vault's influences on the lives of Savarone's grandsons. This book is an interesting fiction history of the secret vault. The ending of this book is also exceptional. Read this book. It is easily one of Ludlum's finest writings ever.

Gulf, by Robert Westall, is an amazing, amazing book. I read it recently during the war against Iraq. It was the seventh time I have read the book.
Gulf is about Figgis, a strange child who does abnormal things. In the book, they are called his Things. He will see something, hear something, read something, or discover a piece of information and immediately connect with it.
He will obsess over the Thing for days until it is simply over. Then he'll find a new Thing.
One of his most peculiar things happened when he saw an article in the newspaper. On the front page was a picture of a man. There was no caption underneath the picture with his name. Figgis suddenly wanted to write to the man. His parents managed to find out where the man lived, but they didn't know his name. Figgis wrote the man a letter. He began it, "Dear Charlie." When Figgis received a letter from the man, it was signed Charlie. It was addressed "Dear Andy", Figgis' real name. But the odd thing was that Figgis had signed the letter to Charlie "Figgis."
Then one night, Figgis' brother finds Andy muttering in a strange language. When Figgis awakes, he doesn't remember ever doing it and he can't speak the language. After that, it happens more and more. Every night, Figgis becomes someone else. He doesn't know Tom, his own brother. He climbs to the rooftop one night and sits there, speaking in the strange, harsh language, muttering to himself.
After a while, you find out what has happened to Figgis. He is speaking Arabic. He is experiencing what a soldier in the Gulf War is.
Figgis is taken to a mental hospital. There he speaks the language to himself, wears Army clothing, builds bunkers around himself, and uses a gun that the hospital staff found him. The Arabic soldier has taken Figgis over. Figgis not only experiences the soldier's life at night, now he IS the soldier the entire day.
Everything is made worse by everything else. Figgis no longer exists. It is like some terrible disease has taken him away from his family and friends. His dad, a true patriot, is always screaming at the television and watching in glee as more enemy soldiers are killed. Now his son is one.
This book is a somber, scientific read. It's definitely not for everyone. Also, true patriots who think that their country is always in the right shouldn't read this book. Some of it has to do with whether war is ever right. It points out that the soldiers on the other side are just as real as we are. They think that their view is more right than ours and they are also willing to die for it.
Later on in the hospital, when Figgis returns to himself for a few brief moments, he says to Tom that maybe his position is to make up for all the people out there who don't give a damn about who's going to die, and who is going to be wounded. Maybe Figgis' terrible state is because no one in his family except Tom really cares about the other side of the war. His father just wants to see as many dead men from the other side as he can. Tom's mother is sympathetic, but perhaps not enough. Maybe Figgis must suffer because NO ONE except those actually fighting wars seems to care about them. I have to admit that I didn't even know what the Gulf War was until I read this book.
Gulf is an amazing title because it's not only about the Gulf War, it's about the Gulf between us and everyone dying out there, it's about the Gulf between happy if not normal kids and kids who are soldiers. It's also about the Gulf between the real Figgis and the soldier he becomes.
This book might change your life. But if you're stuck in your own point of view and you can't handle all the horrible, maybe even possible things that happen to Figgis, don't read this book. Everyone else, give this amazing, thought-provoking, life-changing, better-than-any-book-I've-ever-read-and-that's-saying-something-because-I-read-EVERYTHING book a chance.

The book starts out with Andy's (Figgis) brother, Tom, talking about Figgis's strange dreams he has. He says about Figgis knowing almost the entire life story of both a medicine man and an Ethiopian woman. Then one day, Tom finds his brother trapped inside of an Iraqi soliders body, and no way of getting out. This book is really good for someone who likes war novels with a little mystery in it. Two thumbs up!!

This book is cool. It starts out in England talking about a kid named Andy whose nickname is Figgis. His older brother tells the story. Figgis is a little different. He seems to feel things more than other kids and always asks questions no one else seems to. He also feels differently than other kids. When he sees something on tv about kids starving he stops eating too.
The Gulf War begins. Everyone in his class is excited and hoping that the allies win. All except Figgis who begins to speak in Arabic and starts talking about the Gulf War as though he can really see what it is like. Soon his parents have to take him to the hospital because he goes into trances.
I don't want to give away the ending. I really reccomend this book. It was Coooooooooooooool!!!

Thomas D

During Robert Kennedy's campaign for the American presidency in 1968 he would sometimes disappear from the wild crowds and sit alone for hours on end. When aides would ask what he was thinking about, he would reply, "Just thinking about Jack."

The relationship between the two brothers, and the dynamic political partnership it generated, was one of the most important in American politics.

This is the subject of Richard Mahoney's Sons and Brothers. But the book also documents their father Joe's relationship with the corrupt worlds of the mafia, the labour unions and J. Edgar Hoover's FBI.

Although the research is copious, there are no revelations. The author draws on the work and ideas of conspiracy kings Anthony Summers (The Arrogance of Power) and Seymour Hersh (The Dark Side of Camelot), while the controversial movie director Oliver Stone gets a thank you in the acknowledgments.

While they were growing up, John and Robert were not particularly close. After the death of their older brother, Joe jnr, during World War II (and sister Kathleen a few years later) the family's political prospects rested with John. The brothers' relationship became close: Robert managed John's 1952 Senate campaign, his ill-fated bid for the Democratic vice-presidential nomination in 1956 and his run for the presidency in 1960.

Following the Kennedy win, the new president - and his father - wanted Robert as attorney-general. Robert protested but in the end John's desire for someone he could trust won out. Anticipating criticism over the appointment, John explained to the press: "I can't see that it's wrong to give him a little legal experience before he goes out to practise law."

Robert was an activist attorney-general, tackling problems like the civil rights movement, the mafia underworld and the corruption endemic in many of the labour unions. He was also included in all the administration's important decisions; his access to and influence over his brother was unmatched.

After hearing for the first time that the Soviet Union was building nuclear missile sites in Cuba, it was his brother that the president immediately summoned to the White House. In the ensuing days of the crisis, Robert played an integral role in securing a peaceful outcome.

But the darker side of the brothers' lives is also examined. Mahoney uses FBI reports to describe John's and his father's numerous sexual escapades, and claims that Robert strayed only once with Marilyn Monroe.

The Kennedy connection to the mob is not a new allegation, but Mahoney emphasises its depth: in the 1960 presidential election, for example, he explains how the Kennedys used the Mob already a major financial contributor to falsify ballots and buy votes.

In addition, he claims that Democratic Party bosses in Chicago and New York "periodically received briefcases full of campaign money" from Joe in return for political favours. A portrait emerges of a father and his two sons negotiating their way through American politics to power, using their connections with Hollywood, the mafia, the unions and party bosses to achieve their ambition.

Conscious of Machiavelli's dictum that men "seldom or never advance themselves from a small beginning to any great height except by fraud or force", Joe Kennedy knew that the price for power was a moral one. John went along with the dictum while Robert resisted it.

Mahoney's overarching theme builds to a climax through the nexus he develops between the Kennedys, the mafia and the CIA. Essentially, his thesis is that the mafia grew resentful of Robert's pursuit of it; that anti-Castro Cubans were frustrated with the administration's apparent detente with Cuba in the wake of the missile crisis; and that the CIA had a contract with the mafia to assassinate Castro.

He suggests that the CIA hired mafia figure and Kennedy acquaintance Johnny Rosselli to assassinate the Cuban leader, and that both John and Robert approved of the arrangement.

Mahoney writes that it was the Kennedys' pursuit of Castro that led Cuba to seek protection from the Soviet Union, which eventually led to the crisis and the showdown between Kennedy and the Soviet leader Khrushchev.

Robert was deeply traumatised by John's death. Mahoney describes him as "like a widowed spouse" who was paralysed by grief. He was haunted by the idea that he himself had contributed to the murder of his brother, given his pursuit of Castro, the mafia and his bad relations with Hoover.

Robert's rising political star had been hitched to his brother's; but under Lyndon Johnson's presidency, he became an outsider.

Tortured by his brother's death and their unfulfilled legacy, Robert ran successfully for the Senate in 1964 and later for the presidency in 1968. He became a fierce critic of the Johnson administration's policies on Vietnam, civil rights and poverty.

Sons and Brothers is well written and documented but the author does not discuss in depth the nature of the brothers' personal relationship beyond the politics. John and Robert's iconic status was enhanced by their sudden and violent deaths. Their lives are now frozen in time remembered for the dream of what they might have been.

As Robert exited through the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel after claiming victory in the 1968 California Democratic presidential primary, he was gunned down. Lying on the floor losing consciousness, his last words to an aide were, "Jack, Jack."

* This review was published in The Sydney Morning Herald

I thought I knew everything there is to know about the Kennedys but this book took me to a new place. Other versions tell one of two stories: the Kennedy brothers were great or they were terrible. This tells a different story, a clasic tragedy. Because they did terrible things to achieve wealth and power, the Kennedys had to pay the price just when they (particularly Bobby) were on the brink of doing good things for the country and the world. The anguish of Bobby is right out of literature. He (and old man Joe) were the Kennedys most guilty of making deals with the devil -- and JFK may have paid for his dad's and Bobby's sins with his life -- and he was also the one determined to do good after 11/22/63. Tortured by guilt, he reached out to heal those hurting, rather than inflict hurt as he had in the past. But the past caught up with him and killed him.Terribly sad.An incredibly good book: the best on the Kennedys.

It is interesting to go through those turbulent years of the 1960's and get a clearer understanding of what took place. The author shows how vulnerable a country can be when people in high places such as President Kennedy and F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover place themselves in compromising positions subject to possible blackmail from others. President Kennedy wouldn't get away with his extramarital relations now as he did in the '60's. I was especially impressed with Robert Kennedy in this book. This man was a doer who showed a genuine concern for the improvished in this country (the blacks, Indians, Mexicans, and poor whites) when he could have chosen not to get involved. His attacks on the mafia may have led to his brother's death, but he had the courage to face up to the problem rather than pretend it didn't exist. Leaders always have someone who don't like them, and the Kennedy's, along with Dr. Martin Luther King, paid the ultimate price for this. It's too bad that there was such friction between the Kennedy's, King, Johnson, and Hoover. Working together, they could have accomplished more for the country. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and it was interesting to revisit this turbulent period in history.

this is a comedy only in the sense that the play ends well - ie, noone dies, most everyone is happy. else, there's little humor in this comedy, save for the knave, lucio. like others here have pointed out, this is actually a pretty serious play that takes a pretty hard look at human weakness, particularly lust. there are some fine, impassioned speeches by claudio and his sister, who pleads for his life. worth a read. but don't expect any laughs.

One of Shakespeare's lesser read and lesser performed plays, Measure for Measure profoundly explores the themes of justice and mercy. This exploration compensates for the defects of the play: the unbelievable resolution, the Duke's refusal to interfere early on (which causes pain to the characters), the inconsistency in the application of morality (Isabella considers it wrong for the betrothed Claudio and Juliet to have sex but justifies--and even helps to arrange--it between Angelo and Mariana), and the unexpected suddenness of the Duke's proposal to Isabella. The play seriously weighs the concerns of justice and mercy, and although it ultimately favors mercy, it recognizes the complexity of the issue. How can one practice mercy and yet restrain vice? How can one "hate the sin" yet "love the sinner?" Mercy seems to be the necessary choice over justice because man is too fallen to bear the brunt of justice. "Judge not lest ye be judged. For with what measure you mete," said Christ, "it shall be measured unto you." If you hold a high standard for others (as does Angelo for Claudio) and yet fall short of it yourself, you will be judged by the same standard. Since we seem destined to fall short of righteousness, it is best to practice forgiveness, so that we too may be judged lightly. And yet there is a concern that such practice of forgiveness will lead to a laxity that permits vice to flourish (which is the reason the Duke leaves Angelo in charge in the first place). Though mercy and forgiveness are favored, the arguments in favor of justice are not simply dismissed.

Quote: "Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it?
Why, every fault's condemned ere it be done.
Mine were the very cipher of a function,
To fine the faults whose fine stands in record,
And let go by the actor." (II.ii.38-42)

Measure for Measure is seldom read, and not often performed in the United States. Why? Although many of Shakespeare's plays deal bluntly with sexual issues, Measure for Measure does so in an unusually ugly and disgusting way for Shakespeare. This play is probably best suited for adults, as a result.

I see Measure for Measure as closest to The Merchant of Venice in its themes. Of the two plays, I prefer Measure for Measure for its unremitting look at the arbitrariness of laws, public hypocrisy and private venality, support for virtue, and encouragement of tempering public justice with common sense and mercy.

The play opens with Duke Vincentio turning over his authority to his deputy, Angelo. But while the duke says he is leaving for Poland, he in fact remains in Vienna posing as a friar. Angelo begins meting out justice according to the letter of the law. His first act is to condemn Claudio to death for impregnating Juliet. The two are willing to marry, but Angelo is not interested in finding a solution. In despair, Claudio gets word to his sister, the beautiful Isabella, that he is to be executed and prays that she will beg for mercy. Despite knowing that Isabella is a virgin novice who is about to take her vows, Angelo cruelly offers to release Claudio of Isabella will make herself sexually available to Angelo. The Duke works his influence behind the scenes to help create justice.

Although this play is a "comedy" in Shakespearean terms, the tension throughout is much more like a tragedy. In fact, there are powerful scenes where Shakespeare draws on foolish servants of the law to make his points clear. These serve a similar role of lessening the darkness to that of the gravediggers in Hamlet.

One of the things I like best about Measure for Measure is that the resolution is kept hidden better than in most of the comedies. As a result, the heavy and rising tension is only relieved right at the end. The relief you will feel at the end of act five will be very great, if you are like me.

After you read this play, I suggest that you compare Isabella and Portia. Why did Shakespeare choose two such strong women to be placed at the center of establishing justice? Could it have anything to do with wanting to establish the rightness of the heart? If you think so, reflect that both Isabella and Portia are tough in demanding that what is right be done. After you finish thinking about those two characters, you may also enjoy comparing King Lear and Claudio. What was their fault? What was their salvation? Why? What point is Shakespeare making? Finally, think about Angelo. Is he the norm or the exception in society? What makes someone act like Angelo does here? What is a person naturally going to do in his situation?

Look for fairness in all that you say and do!