Lukas never makes an attempt to minimize the Jewish experience in this book; he only brings attention to the fact that five million non-Jews were also exterminated, and for Hitler, as soon as Europe was free of Jews, the Slavs were next. I found it a very valuable, scholarly read.

The second new chapter is a discussion of Zegota: A clandestine Polish underground organization for assisting Jews. At its height, it consisted of tens of thousands of Polish gentiles in German-occupied Warsaw alone--all working under the threat of death if caught.

Lukas also discusses Polish collaboration with the Nazis, but shows that, contrary to much popular Holocaust material, this level of collaboration was much smaller than those of most other German-occupied European nations, and was also dwarfed by the number of Poles who assisted the Jews.

Earlier, Lukas documents how 3 million Polish gentiles were murdered by the Germans during World War II. This is very rarely mentioned in most Holocaust materials. Also included is discussion of the cultural genocide of Poland: the systematic, barbaric German practice of systematically destroying visible traces of Polish culture (monuments, libraries, museums, etc.). If you are one raised on the belief that only Jews suffered in the hands of the Nazis, you are in for a shock when you read this excellent book.

I went, if you didn't, buy this. Lots of love, Liz Delag xxx (young, British and an artist...shouldn't I be famous by now?)

Contributions for this outstanding 375+ page work were supplied by individuals such as the late Norman Vincent Peale, Corrie ten Boom, Dick Van Patten, Charles W. Colsen, Gary Smalley, Joan Wester Anderson, and Dick Van Dyke.

All stories are presented in a very readable level in which the reader can relate to the themes discussed and are short enough that single stories can be read in a session and then pondered. Your life will be more spiritually fulfilling and be more positive upon completion of reading this book if you take these stories to heart.

Do yourself a favor... A MUST read!

As a horn player who became a conductor, Norman Del Mar wrote a three-volume study of Richard Strauss that appears to be, essentially, the notes of a conductor preparing to confront Strauss's music on the podium. It is thus excellent in understanding musical structure, the roles of motifs, the orchestration, and the literary background of the works.

At the same time, Del Mar did not in the end achieve a biography of Richard Strauss the man, as the author himself admits. I personally am still looking for a biography that would take seriously Strauss's conducting career, his career as a performer along with his wife, his income and investments, his professional associations, the fates of his wife and son, his card playing, and all the rest of the personal side.

Regarding the music itself, while Del Mar of course admires Richard Strauss greatly, he does not shy away from making judgments. When he doesn't especially admire something, he says so, says why, and lets the reader know what others have said about it as well.

Del Mar fairly consistently praises Strauss's "classical" or light-handed works. For example, the praise he gives to the music for "Le bourgeois gentilhomme" is perhaps somewhat out of proportion to that work's place in Strauss's opus.

This is not to say that Del Mar does not appreciate the romance and even the sexuality that Strauss frequently projected. On the contrary, the author plunges you into the mood of some of these moments, without ever losing perspective.

I'm afraid that he does give short shrift to one extremely important moment in Strauss's music -- the Presentation of the Rose at the beginning of Act 2 of "Der Rosenkavalier." Somehow the thunderstruck feeling of first love that Strauss's music communicates at this moment does not penetrate Del Mar. Thus, he faults Strauss (and Hofmannsthal) for not explaining how, in the second half of Act 2, Octavian and Sofie can so easily fall into complicity over dissolving the engagement with Ochs, and for not explaining why Octavian turns away from the Marschallin at the end of Act 3.

I wonder whether Del Mar may have gone out for popcorn at the start of Act 2, because when you hear the music of the two young people together at the moment of the Presentation of the Rose, you know that the Marschallin is history.

In any case, Del Mar's book is a tremendous achievement of musicianship, scholarship, and understanding. It is indispensable for studying the work of one of the greatest artists of our culture.

Be warned that non-musicians may find these three volumes tough reading!

Del Mar's approach to this challenge helped create the great three volume work we have here, but also created a text that impairs the readers to truly put Strauss' accomplishments into perspective. Del Mar was clearly a Strauss fan, who felt Strauss was under appreciated. To best hide his impartiality, much like a father coaching a son in little-league baseball, he gave Strauss no special treatment, and at times even goes overboard to try and prove to the readers that he is a fair judge.

This approach has allowed this work to become a valued base line for studying Strauss the Composer, but also furthered the lack of credit given to Strauss in the Academic world. One gets the feeling that Strauss never entered the ranks of the other master composers such as Wagner, Beethoven, and Mahler.

Most importantly these books serve as an invaluable resource for any serious Strauss listening - all tone poems and major works are covered in great detail, with plenty of musical examples and figures. Del Mar did a very, very thorough job. The reading is fun, passionate and never dry.

The organization at a chapter level is clear enough, but within chapters the exposition is ad-hoc. This is probably a side effect of the authors' commitment to eliminating explanations and proofs--there's no need to organize since they are just enumerating formulae and opinions.