If you're into investing, sooner or later an investment columnist will mention Extraordinary Delusions as required reading. It's that and more...

Charles Mackay first details France's Mississippi Scheme & England's South Sea Bubble (from the early 1700's). Then he covers the famous Dutch "tulipomania" of the 1600's. These are all enjoyable reports of financial manias and their aftermaths (though the South Sea Bubble chapter dragged on a bit). But the financial reader will be surprised when she realizes she's still only 100 pages into a 700 page book! Mackay proceeds to cover:

Alchemy - 150 pages of exhaustive (& exhausting) detail of hobbyists & serious investors who were convinced they could turn base metals into gold, if only they could find the right ancient recipe & stoke their workshop cauldrons just a little bit hotter.

The Crusades - 100 pages that prove that modern Islamic fundamentalists did not invent the idea of a "holy war". I had no idea the Crusades came out of official harassment of Y1K religious pilgrims! Remember this: If your country is being inundated with religious pilgrims, just try to think of them as a tourist opportunity. You don't want to get them angry!

The Witch Mania - 100pp. This section was unexpectedly chilling. As I read about European witch trials of the 1400s-1600s, I kept thinking of our recent satanic child abuse trials. It's all been done before: The wild unprovable accusations, including eating dead babies; trusting unreliable witnesses specifically BECAUSE of the severity of the charges; False Memory Syndrome. At least the rack & Trial by Ordeal are no longer recognized as valid forensic techniques.

The Slow Poisoners - Murder isn't really murder if you poison the victim slowly enough, is it?

Also covered: Animal Magnetism, Prophecies, Fortune-Telling, Hair & beard fashions in men, catch phrases & slang, Relics, Duels & Ordeals, Haunted Houses, & Popular Admiration of Great Thieves.

At times the book dragged, especially in the chapters I wasn't interested in. (But hey, that's what skimming is for.) So with that caveat, go ahead & get the book. It'll be a great investment of 12 bucks!

This is it. If you want to know how many times the world has been gripped by madness then look no farther than the reprinted edition of MacKay's classic. Written in that wonderful Olde English style of the early 19th century, MacKay takes us on a tour of the world's most horrifying manias - up to about 1840 anyway.

I particularly liked the chapter on witchcraft and witch hunts since it told me everything I'll ever need to know on why seemingly intelligent groups of people band together to banish or murder innocent members of society - just because they are different. Another engaging chapter deals with millennialism - the fear and dread that grips society at the end of each millennium. If you thought the end of the last one brought turbulence, you should read what happened a thousand years ago.

This book is often quoted by stock market pundits and talking heads as if it were a treatise on irrational behaviour in the financial markets. In fact, it is much more than that. It deals with irrational behaviour and mass stupidity in all walks of life. Five Stars.

Most people know this book is a classic -- but it's unfortunate that it's thought of as a book about investments, when investments are really only a small part of the phenomena Mackay covers. We have all heard about Dutch tulips a million times over -- it is therefore much more interesting to read Mackay's chapters about popular slang expressions, or about superstitions, or about quack medicine. There are great micro-histories here about the comings and goings of fads, both those contemporary to Mackay and those that preceded him.

While Mackay's points about the irrationality of crowds are useful for the investor, these "lessons" about Dutch tulips and other financial manias are cliches today. You need not read this book to find out about them. This book's true value lies in its comprehensive history and analyses of other fads, hoaxes, and "manias," most of which have, fittingly enough, been forgotten today.

After tackling the subject of greed and selfishness in "Martin Chuzzlewit",Charles Dickens turned his critical eye on pride and selfishness to achieve another masterwork in "Dombey and Son"."Dombey and Son" presents a vivid "criticism of life" teeming with unforgettable characters and scenes,written with an almost surreal intensity.The novel,like most of Dickens' others,is hauntingly lyrical and is embued with a quiet melancholy."Dombey and Son" tells the story of the destructiveness of a rich merchant's deadening pride on those around him.It details his own "comeuppance",when after ruining much of the lives of those who love him,Dombey is nearly destoyed by the villains and fools surrounding him,who have used his wife-a tragic and desperate golddigger more proud than he-to strike at him."Dombey and Son" illustrates the old message that nothing but love and kindness matter,that we and everything we have will ultimately perish and pride and selfishness are the frailest goods to be bought in this vanity fair.Yet the book's many original characters gives the conception fresh life and its comedy both genial and satiric lightens the sad gloom of such a moral tale.There are(as typical of Dickens)many grotesques in the novel-some good(the affectionate and good-natured Captain Cuttle,the saucy and defensive Susan Nipper),some bad(the sour martinet Mrs. Pipchin,the apoplectic and sycophantic Major) and some just plain evil(that emblem of consummate hypocrisy-Mr. Carker)."Dombey and Son" is like a grand feast where there is so much being served,that you don't know where to begin-and this for some readers may not be a good thing.The book is very long and Dickens' long sentences dwell lovingly on every detail(you will probably never see so many semicolons on one page);they who prefer something that gets to the point quicker or someting lighter may not have the patience for Dickens.However for me this was not a problem-Dickens' use of sentimentality,though, was.It is unfortunate that he chose as with Little Nell,to "angelize" Florence Dombey.She is fatally marred by being made to not only meekly love a father who neglects and despises her but to wander forlornly around their house,kissing the furniture he has touched and spending half the book in tears.This is a shame since Florence is at times charming and some of the book's more powerful scenes make effective use of her.The character of the precocious and doomed Paul Dombey,however is of a different achievement.The chapter entitled(I think)"What the waves were always saying" details with hallucinatory intensity the world to the eyes of a dying child and was one of the most famous scenes with the Victorians;it remains one of the most powerful in all of literature."Dombey and Son" despite its length and flaws will always remain for the true lover of literature-immortal.

this novel, sitting as it does between dickens' early and late novels, captures the best of both dickens. it has the humor, grotesque characters, and melodrama that characterized the early novels, but it isn't without the unified structure, mature style, and psychological depth that were the hallmarks of his later books. it's one of my favorite dickens books (i've read 11 of them), and if it weren't for the length i'd recommend dombey as the place to start for someone looking to read chas. if 900 pages doesn't faze you then by all means dive in. if it does, then start with 'great expecations' instead. but be sure to come back to dombey. you won't be disappointed.

The inexplicably neglected 'Dombey and Son' is a stunning masterpiece of 19th century fiction. The invention and bravura of Dickens' use of language is astounding. Coupled with that is a wonderful insight into the introduction of the railways in Victorian England and the often oppressive, alienating powers of a rampant Capitalist system that forces itself above the values of family and personal relationships. In 'Dombey and Son', the dangers of equating business partnerships with social ones are vividly revealed. Coupled with all of this is the presentation of one of Dickens' most compellingly vile villans: Carker. You could call this book, and the ones that come after it, "Dickens' with Teeth" and it is 'Dombey and Son' that inaugurates this development in Dickens' writing. Read it. It's wonderful.

John Charles Frémont is history's version of an unscrupulous, morally inverted Forrest Gump. In the 1994 film Forrest Gump, Forrest was the affable idiot-savant who constantly became intermingled and unwittingly influential in larger than life world events. John Charles Frémont's life runs a somewhat darker parallel. Highly intelligent and ambitious, Frémont crashed head long into the historical events of his day but was consistently overwhelmed by them precisely because of his own self-serving inscrutable morality. Andrew Rolle's choice of Frémont as a subject for psychobiography is akin to taking pot-shots at the broad side of a barn. However, it is the subject's vulnerability in this vein that makes Rolle's work a tremendously interesting, dishy read.
Actually, Rolle's psychological observations are more muted than one might expect. He saves most of his thoughts in this regard for the final chapter, which psychologically deconstructs the subject using the case heretofore constructed. Rolle's two primary psychological analyses of Frémont reside in the loss of his father. As a result of this loss, Rolle examines his ongoing hostility in his relationships with older male authority figures and his narcissistic streak. The older male hostility thesis, while well argued, doesn't quite hit the mark. It seems more likely, through Rolle's own presentation of the facts, that Frémont's precocious early successes meant that those he would inevitably clash with were naturally older in age. Therefore, it is merely circumstantial that those who held sway over Frémont's life happened to be older. On the other hand, Rolle provides a highly compelling case for Frémont-as-narcissist by delving into Frémont's mounting odd behavior during the Civil War.
Frémont's narcissistically driven ambition led him to make rash and often self-destructive decisions, according to Rolle. Frémont's third and fourth expeditions are damning evidence of this aspect of his character. Try as he might, even Rolle is unable to penetrate Frémont's thinking deeply enough to untangle some of the unconscionable decisions made by Frémont regarding these expeditions. Rolle again and again uses the lack of male authority figure as a bromide for Frémont's actions. Although compelling to a certain extent, it simply cannot explain the entire mountain of poor decisions made by the man. Frémont simply placed himself in situations in which he was out of his element and insolated himself so successfully from potentially helpful guidance that he was doomed to remain out of his element while in the eye of many storms. Lack of a male authority figure cannot wholly account for this inability to perceive the difference between right and wrong. In addition, having allowed so many others to defend him in the court of popular opinion, Frémont only singled himself out as a man who, in reality, required much defending. Rolle notes a conversation between Abraham Lincoln's secretary John Hay and Lincoln:
"Frémont would be dangerous if he had more ability and energy," grimaced Hay.
Abraham Lincoln responded with one of his typical anecdotes, "Yes. He is like Jim Jett's brother. Jim used to say that his brother was the d---dest scoundrel that ever lived, but in the infinite mercy of Providence he was also the d---dest fool."
As Virginia J. Lass notes in her review of Character as Destiny in The Journal of Southern History, Rolle posits, perhaps, a more illuminating aspect of Frémont's character and personality. Lass gleans from Rolle that "Frémont suffered from arrested emotional development that influenced his actions and decisions as an adult." In other words, Frémont was born on third base and went through his life honestly believing he had hit a triple. Well, to be fair, allotting due for overcoming the financial and societal obstacles of his early years, perhaps he hit a bloop single to center field.
To his credit, Rolle makes every attempt to outline Frémont's contributions to the exploration of the American West. He attempts, to a certain extent, to justify the American public's adoration for Frémont, much of which seems to originate in the propaganda from Jessie's pen. Despite this noble attempt, Frémont remains a lemon and not lemonade.
How does Rolle's psychological analytic approach differ from other contemporary biographies of similar historical figures? Not much. It seems as if Rolle is aware of the desire of his reading audience not to get lost in psychobabble. He treads carefully in this area and, as mentioned before, reserves most of his psychological analysis for closing. However, it is clear that Rolle is necessarily far more interested in Frémont's decision-making process in relationship to the events that formed his life than the events themselves, as previous Frémont historians have done. And, while not especially groundbreaking, it appears to be the most appropriate approach to take with a subject such as Frémont, as opposed to John Wesley Powell, for instance, whose actual achievements in geology and exploration of the America West far outweigh any overriding aspects of personality.
Character as Destiny is a very well written and a highly enjoyable read despite its rather despicable subject. Rolle says of Frémont halfway through the book "Once more nothing had gone his way." On the contrary, everything came easily to this unsavory character, John Charles Frémont, on a silver platter. He simply had a grand knack for consistently knocking the darned thing over.

There were few Americans of the nineteenth century with greater name recognition than John C. Fremont. His five controversial treks across the uncharted Rockies aroused interest and controversy. His military exploits in Mexican California brought him a court-martial. He struck gold in California, became an outspoken abolitionist, and ran as the first Republican candidate for the Presidency of the United States. Married into one of America's most powerful political families, he won and then lost a major command in the Union Army. He habitually cheated investors on several continents out of millions of dollars, only to be bankrupted himself by bigger sharks. There is a great story here.

Unfortunately, Andrew Rolle's biography of Fremont is a bit flat, perhaps because of the author's announced intention of probing the psychological motivations behind this life of stupefying behaviors. Rolle states in his preface that he studied psychiatry and psychoanalysis to prepare himself for this work. Most readers will find themselves wishing he had spent more time with cartographers. In a work whose hero is called "The Pathfinder," there is not a single map! It is no exaggeration to say that for literally half the book the reader is never certain exactly where the Pathfinder is.

It is equally fair to say that despite the author's best efforts, we don't get an unprecedented roadmap of Fremont's inner psychological journeys, either. It is clear from the simple factual narrative that Fremont, like Hamilton, was ashamed of his humble origins, that he was blessed or plagued with wanderlust, that he instinctively rebelled against authority figures, that he was addicted to risk taking and suffered significant deficiencies of empathy and moral character. This personality profile would have emerged easily enough from a straightforward telling of the tale, without the baggage of psychoanalytic spin. Curiously, the psychodynamics of Fremont's marriage to his lover/promoter Jessie Benton, are not addressed. The story of the remarkable Jessie, however, is one of the redeeming features of this work.

Since very few readers are likely to be millionaires, there are probably many like me who would like to know how one loses a million dollars. Fremont accomplished this several times, with different commodities, different economies, different schemes, and even different countries. He was a master of losing money imaginatively. Rolle is spotty in his accounts of Fremont's financial empire. The reader is left to surmise that investors were attracted to The Pathfinder's name recognition and that the Fremonts lived beyond their means, but obviously there is much more to this ongoing financial soap opera that can only be guessed at.

The good news for the reader is that warts and all, this is still a reasonably captivating biography. Rolle's style is professional and his character compelling. If at times the reader feels as lost as the disastrous Fourth Expedition, the views from the top and the bottom of Fremont's career are still quite spectacular.

This book combines the devotional writings of Andrew Murray with sermon excerpts from Charles Haddon Spurgeon. It offers guidelines on how to lift others up to God for his blessings. "God calls us into a wonderful partnership with himself," to intercede on behalf of others, those in need, those around us and throughout the world. This book shows us Jesus' example of prayer and reminds us what an honor and privilege it is to pray for others. "Pray for one another," James 5:16.

Charles Chestnutt's A Conjure Woman is a collection of short stories told by a former slave named Julius to a White couple who have recently moved to the South. Written at the turn of the century, Chestnutt was addressing a primarily White audience who were recovering from Reconstruction and were fond of plantation-style literature which looked upon slavery with nostalgia. On the surface, the author seems to be catering to the nostalgic pre-Civil War idea, but in actuality, Julius' stories have a much deeper moral which reveal a harsh and terrible way of life for Blacks of the time. Mixed with elements of magic and conjuring, Julius' seems to be telling fanciful fairy tales, but with a closer look, one realizes that Chestnutt has no fondness or nostalgia for the times of slavery. This is a well-written and thought-provoking book and it is an important novel of America's history.

CF ("Charlie") Andrews was given the short shrift in the movie based on Gandhi's life. He was the only one to call Gandhi by the nickname, "Mohan," and was considered by Gandhi himself to be the highest representative of Christianity. Andrews himself had already moved from a high Christology to a Christianity based on such things as the Epistle of James and many of the Kingdom of God statements before meeting Gandhi. In this wonderfully short but insightful book, one is taken from their earliest correspondence up to the death of Andrews. A very powerful image that remains in my mind is the picture of Andrews in the hospital with Gandhi standing next to him holding Andrew's hand in both of his. For anyone interested in history, there's much inside information from the two men but of primary importance is the value they expressed in religion and how it shaped their lives. In a day when we take multiple religious crossings for granted, Gandhi and Charlie were forerunners, pioneers in a day of strife and conflict.

This book is very helpful for ecologist, forest managers, and policy makers with little knowledge of riparian systems. Riparian experts would not find this book helpful. The book reviews riparian ecology and effects of forest management on riparian systems through a series of chapters on water quality, riparian habitat, and different species groups. Each chapter ends with a bulleted summary including management suggestions which makes the text an value primer. This also makes it possible for a practioneer to identify the ecological values of concern and develop ones own apporach to maintaining any subset of ecological values. The organization makes it easy to locate relevant information. Summary chapters synthesize the results into suggestiond for BMPs to maintain water quality, riparian habitat, and riparian species. The organization makes it fairly easy to work backwards from these suggestions and evaluate the reasoning of each BMP. The completeness of the literature review was above average. As a research ecologist, I only wished that the reviews were more complete though many relevant studies are cited.

Roy Chapman Andrews in the 1950s was one of my boyhood heros. I avidly read his books about exploration in the Gobi and China. But Andrews faded away into obscurity over the years. This book revives his memory.

For a reader unfamiliar with Andrews this book might be rated outstanding. For me, familiar with the outlines of his life, it was only good, not imparting enough new information. For example, a fascinating fact about Andrews is the animosity his colleagues at the American Museum of Natural History had for him. The best example of this animosity is that when Andrews died in 1960, the Museum did not even acknowledge the death of its most famous employee and former Director in any Museum publication. This snub to Andrews is somewhat akin to the TV networks failing to report the death of Walter Cronkite, when and if he passes into the hereafter. Why such hatred and spite toward Andrews, a personable, outgoing, charismatic leader? Who were those in the Museum who held a grudge against him and why? The author doesn't cover this topic adequately, leaving unanswered questions in my mind.

Thus, while this book is well worth reading, there remain facets of Andrew's life still closed and mysterious. But this book does a fine job of reviving recognition of Andrews who was famous in his day. He deserves the acclaim.

This is a great rollercoaster ride of a book. As the saying goes, a novelist couldn't dream up the real adventures that Roy Chapman Andrews lived through. Right from the get-go, Andrews had incredible energy and before he was 30 he had accomplished more than most people do in a lifetime!

As a teenager, Andrews, using a book on taxidermy as a guide, taught himself to mount animals and birds. As the author explains, "He soon became so skilled that he acquired a license from the Wisconsin Conservation Department and started a part-time business mounting trophies for hunters, the proceeds from which paid for most of his college tuition." Andrews always knew what he wanted to do for a living and he went right after it... To quote Andrews, "Actually, I never had a choice of profession. I wanted to be an explorer and naturalist so passionately that anything else as a life work just never entered my mind."

After college, even though he had received a letter from the director of the American Museum of Natural History in New York stating that they had no job openings, Andrews went to New York anyway and showed up at the museum. With his combination of charm and determination he convinced the director to hire him. Andrews started off as an "assistant", basically doing janitorial services, but quickly worked his way up. Still only 23 years old, he was sent by the museum to salvage the remains of a North American right whale that had washed ashore in February 1907, at Amagansett on Long Island. The museum wanted the whale for its cetacean collection. In 20 below zero farenheit weather, Andrews and another museum employee, along with local fishermen, started to "excavate" the whale from the sand. After a couple of days of backbreaking work a severe winter storm struck the area and reburied the whale. Andrews and his co-worker had to start all over again, and it took them a further 10 days to accomplish their goal.

After that, Andrews was off to the races. The museum sent him out to shore-whaling stations in British Columbia and Alaska to gather anatomical data on whales. Andrews started to write papers on various topics. When he got back to New York he began attending Columbia University so that he could pursue a doctorate in zoology. In his anatomy studies he became quite adept at dissections. His instructor, a prominent surgeon, was so impressed with Andrews' skills that the instructor thought Andrews should pursue a career as a surgeon! Andrews also gave a lecture and slideshow and did so well that he got a standing ovation. He was invited to participate in a lecture program sponsored by the city's Department of Education. At this point, we are only up to 1908-1909 and Andrews was only 24-25 years old.

I hope this gives you some idea of how interesting and exciting Andrews' life story is. All the Central Asiatic Expeditions, with howling sandstorms, civil wars and vicious bandits are still to come!

This was easily one of the best books I've read in the past year. In what is always a great tribute to a wonderful story, I wish I could wipe my memory clean and start it all over again!

Before the Jurassic Park boom, little boys all had an enthusiasm for dinosaurs, and much of that enthusiasm was fueled by an explorer who only now has his first full biography, _Dragon Hunter: Roy Chapman Andrews and the Central Asiatic Expeditions_ (Viking) by Charles Gallenkamp. It is a great monument to a forgotten explorer and collector.

Andrews began an autobiographical volume with a foreword that included the words, "I was born to be an explorer. There was never any decision to make. I couldn't do anything else and be happy." He had humble beginnings in Benoit, Wisconsin, but dreamed of exploring for the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He literally told the director there that if it were just a matter of mopping the museum floors, that was what he wanted to do. And he did it, eventually becoming the director of the museum. From floors he went to taxidermy, and then to field expeditions about whales, and then to his five huge famous expeditions into Mongolia from 1922 to 1930. Andrews had superb skills at planning and organizing his expeditions, but was he was a brilliant salesman, enlisting the financial aid of members of New York society. The descriptions of his expeditions make exciting reading, as sandstorms, snowstorms, and brigands all battered the cars, camels, and explorers. But he brought back dinosaur eggs, which caused a sensation, _Velociraptor_, and much more.

_Dragon Hunter_ is a well researched and at times exciting telling of the adventures of an American original. Gallenkamp has usefully summarized the Mongolian regional politics as well as New York society of the time, and has made it clear just how the publicity-happy Andrews became a sensation in his day. His record had been sadly neglected by the museum, which is now making amends. The book ends with an epilogue to show how the finds that Andrews fought to get back to the museum have proved a foundation of much of modern paleontology. We have explorers of other types now, but we will not see explorations of this grandeur, size, and style again.

As a younger person in the nineties, I dipped into the plays of Shakespeare, and this book let me get into the classic stuff. It was interesting, put into kids' stories so as not to intimidate the younger enthusiast, and altogether, it was a good book. I suppose you have to be in to Shakespeare to enjoy it wholly though....

A gentle, relaxing dip into Shakespeare. I'll give two stars.

Charles and Mary Lamb's classic book on Shakespeare retains too much of the archaic language of the actual works to interest grade school children. While the work might appeal to upper grades and high school students anxious to find an alternative to reading the actual plays, as an introduction to Shakespeare for young children, the book is a failure. It compares unfavorably with Ian Serralier's out-of-print classic THE TEMPEST AND OTHER TALES: STORIES FROM SHAKESPEARE, which uses modern language and glowing imagery to effectively communicate the universal appeal of Shakespeare to the very young. I can testify to this since it was Serralier's book, read in the third grade, that first interested me in the Bard. I stumbled upon Lamb's book later. If I had found Lamb's book first, I would have concluded that Shakespeare was something dry and dull for grownups, and it would have been forced down my throat in the upper grades. As things turned out, I have a lifelong love of the Bard thanks to Serralier's book. A publisher with any sense would reprint it

I read this book as a child; my mother gave it to me and my brother before we went to see the plays. It was an excellent introduction to the plays and to the world of Shakespeare, and helped me understand what I was watching. I also enjoyed reading the stories themselves, and familiarized myself with Shakespeare this way. It made a huge difference, as became quite clear to me when we read Henry IV in ninth grade in school, a play for which I had no Lamb version. I didn't understand that play and took no pleasure in it, whereas I did enjoy much harder plays (e.g., Othello, A Winter's Tale, etc.) that I had the Lambs' help with. Depending on reading level, the Lambs' book would be appropriate for anyone from seven or eight to 13 or 14 years old.

Having read the "Sword and the Shield" thoroughly, I feel that it begs as many questions as it seeks to answer. The book is a worthy undertaking at the outset, but it's poorly edited and far too long to hold the interest of anyone other than the avid student of Kremlinology or espionage fanatics looking for an encyclopedic chronology series of events in Soviet history.

There are many problems and oversights within the book's content. Nowhere does Mitrokhin even explain what the acronym "KGB" actually stands for! The same phrase "one of the most successful (il)legals ... X" keeps cropping up repeatedly. There is no analysis of why, immediately after the war, defections suddenly (if Mitrokhin is right) started on a grand scale. Why were there no defections up to this point given that the NKVD (forerunner to the MGB/KGB) knew the reality of Stalinist USSR long before the war?

The credibility of some of the information is clearly suspect. Mitrokhin constantly refers to Soviet conspiracy theory and paranoia about Western countries' (especially the UK's) intentions towards the USSR coloring the judgment of the Centre and Politburo's decisions. If this is the case, and it was as widespread as he claims, then surely it is reasonable to suggest that his own views and interpretations, drawn from official archives, must be colored by this ideological "fog" too. There is no corroboration of a lot of his claims, made even more worrying by snide remarks about the failings of "communism", Soviet ideology and their frequently "absurd" claims. Frankly, Mitrokhin can hardly be taken as completely subjective in this regard and does not come to the argument with clean hands. He is, after all, a traitor in some people's eyes, with a political and personal ax to grind, and some of his arguments do not follow through. For example, on the Soviet dissident's trials, he dismisses the Centre's paranoia of a Zionist plot and Western agitprop being behind much of the refusniks motives - yet fails to note that key refusnik, Sharanksy, once emigrated to Israel, subsequently became of the leading Zionist propagandists with very harsh views on the Palestinians.

In all, it's an interesting read, but buy the paperback and read it within the context of a possibly embittered man making claims than cannot be verified completely. Given the developments in post-Perestroika CIS/Russia, whether a lot of what he claimed is now really nothing more than speculation hardly matters.

This is a large body of work containing an enormous amount of information. The reason for the 4 stars is that I just don't feel that all the information from the KGB files can be taken without any skepticism at all. This is not really harsh criticism just an acknowledgement that with the flood of documents coming from the former Soviet Union and it's Republics, some prudent skepticism is called for. It also is not a comment on Mr. Mitrokhin, truth versus deception, disinformation, and lies, was part of the daily life in the Soviet Union. It is possible all his information is uncorrupted, but a bit of a jaundiced view is reasonably called for.

The book is interesting and loaded with information. I don't suggest this as a first book about the KGB because it reads more like a textbook; it is very meticulous to the point tedious in detail at times. If the subject is one you have some familiarity with, this volume could serve as an excellent reference work. If this were the first book you were to read on the topic, reaching the end would be challenging.

Vasily Nikitich Mitrokhin oversaw 300,000 files on an exhaustive list of prominent names in American History. If there was a person who had access to a library of information, Mr. Mitrokhin certainly qualifies. His willingness to remove information on a daily basis for years on end is both a testament to his courage, and an amazing period of luck.

The work is excellent in depth and breadth of material covered. It is not light reading as the subjects that are covered, or sometimes mentioned briefly, have been the topic of entire books. If you are willing to make the effort and devote the time, your knowledge of this particular man's cache of information will greatly expand your knowledge of what some of the KGB's activities were. With the passing of time a more complete picture will emerge of this opponent of The Cold War. It certainly is not the final word on the matter, but an excellent piece of the story.

Well worth reading if given the time.

Those of us interesting in a more complete telling of the history of Soviet intelligence operations -- and, for that matter, the history of the USSR -- can do no wrong than to read this account of secret information secretly noted by archivist Vasili Mitrokhin and spirited with Mitrokhin to Britain. While some of the passages require some previous knowledge of Soviet and KGB history, overall this book makes for fascinating reading. I could not put this book down. Thanks for Christopher Andrew for another strong effort, such as his earlier history of the KGB written with Oleg Gordievsky.