Surprising, moving, magical. Brenner's photographs speak volumes. I was most moved by a picture that includes not a single Jew. It features instead a panoramic shot of the main street of Billings, Montana, the citizens of which had filled the streets, each holding a menorah aloft in protest against a violent attack on a Jewish resident's home. A book that claims to, and succeeds at, framing the diversity of American Jewish experience also succeeded in reaffirming my faith in the decency of humankind.

All stereotypes are broken with this unique view of a people and their eclectic influence on the American scene. The mostly black & white panoramic viewpoint maximizes the visual impact. The outstanding photo technique, large page size and strong composition make this a center piece of your home coffee table books to be enjoyed for years to come. I only wish several pages were devoted to the actual technical aspects of the shots

This oversize coffee table book caught my eye in the bookstore. With a price of $67.50, its gotta be great to sell -- and it is. The photographs are truly outstanding and many outlandish. Jews on Harleys in front of a synogoge in Florida, Holocaust survivors visiting LA's holocaust museum, and a family of persian, jewish immigrants seated on a flying carpet in their neighborhood. The best part of this book is not that the photographer manages to capture the diversity of jews in the states but that each of the pictures he presents is stunning in its own right. Brenner managed to gain access to an unbeliveable number of private, Jewish forums, from Jewish Civil War buffs who get together in costume to re-enact period battles to Lesbian Jewish families, the collection is fresh, provocative, and rich

Ever wonder why London is a great metropolis? Well, the development of Amsterdam as a trading hub had a lot to do with it. This book goes into the intertwining of Dutch, English (and thus American) history and gives more information than you ever thought possible about Dutch culture.

We usually think of tulips, windmills, cheese and wooden shoes when asked about the Netherlands. Most people don't know that during the late 1600's and during the 1700's, the Dutch were the powerhouse of Europe. They defined Trade with a capital "T" and spread goods, fads (tulip speculation--a bit like the dot-com pheonomenon of the 90's) and much, much more. The Dutch wealth explosion also created the true middle class, and the idea that wealth is created and not inherited.

To understand American culture and history, you'd be well advised to read Simon Schama's book. It's enjoyable and sheds a lot of light on our own heritage.

I was born in 1942, and my earliest memories are of troop transports and the soldiers guarding the TVA dam where my grandfather was superintendent. All my mother's brothers went to Europe to fight the war. I can still hear my mother leaning over and telling me how bad Hitler was because he crushed the Netherlands.

My mother was of Dutch descent. When they were small children, her grandparents had immigrated from Zeeland and Groningen in the 1870s. Their families settled in Holland Michigan. Mom and her family talked about the Netherlands and the Queen as if they had never left. Mother would point to our rosy cheeks and say "Look at that Dutch complexion." They cooked Dutch food, grew Dutch bulbs and attended the Dutch Reformed Church. Although some of them were still alive when I was a child, I can barely remember my great grandparents.

When I visited Amsterdam a few years ago, I bought Simon Schama's book THE EMBARRASMENT OF RICHES. It is THE KEY to understanding my roots and explains to me why I think the way I do (I am a Democrat).

Schama writes of a time when things were more or less wonderful in the Netherlands. Yes, there was war. The "super" powers could not keep their hands off the Dutch provinces. And plague was constantly lurking--even Rembrandt's family did not escape. But, for the first time in history, a real democracy began to bloom. The Netherlands IS the birthplace of Democracy. It was the first place in the world to actually practice religious tolerance. During it's golden age, it became a destination for thousands of refugees. The Dutch economy expanded and personal wealth increased and the Netherlands experienced the first "middle-class" with middle class values--those same values captured later in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

What struck me most forcefully about RICHES is that the U.S. today is so much like the Netherlands of 400 years ago. The economy has been expanding since WWII, employment is at all time highs, immigrants have come at unprecendented rates, and the middle class has grown. Never before have so many had so much.

Schama doesn't preach, but it's easy to see the similarities. And, it's easy to see that the U.S. could suffer the same fate as the Netherlands. No, there isn't a huge superpower like France or Spain waiting to destroy the country. Today, the enemy is different--AIDS, religious fundamentalism, intolerance.

Schama says the Dutch saw their country as the New Jerusalem. The Dutch were sure they were God's chosen people, just as the Jews had been in the Old Testament. Some Americans believe they are now God's chosen people--the first settlement in New England was named "Salem" for Jerusalem.

I started out to find my roots in EMBARRASSMENT, and I did. The book provided me with an enormous amount of information about the Dutch, their thinking and how it came to pervade the thinking in America today. The Census Bureau says Dutch is one of the top 10 ancestry groups in the country. The descendents of the 16th Century Dutch have built the New Jerusalem. The question is--will it endure or will it perish like it's predecessor?

I've lived in the Netherlands for four years, and found this book to be both delightful and illuminating. Particularly for expats living here in the Netherlands, it sets a good base for understanding Dutch life-- but I think it's the sort of book that anyone who loves history would enjoy.

Embarassment of Riches focuses on almost every element of Dutch life-- political sphere, standard of living, role of women, treatment of children, moral taboos, legal standards, attitudes towards money and so much more. The writing is direct, stylish, and witty and the illustrations are well-chosen and clearly add to the point of the author.

Nobody writes more evocatively or enthusiastically about 17th-century Holland as Simon Schama. His 1987 masterpiece of interpretive social history, The Embarrassment of Riches, brought that age throbbingly to life. Throughout this hefty tome Schama is, as the title suggests, desperately keen to see through Rembrandt's eyes. He achieves, with a verbal abundance and an appreciative delight of textures, the world Rembrandt's paintings so lucidly evoke. The chapter entitled Amsterdam Anatomised which describes the port-city, in probably the most eventful era in the entire history of art, the Dutch Golden Age, is itself worth the price of admission.Rembrandt himself steps on centre-stage only on page 202. Schama devotes the first 200 pages to Peter Paul Reubens the Flemish painter ( this could easily have been an entire book on its own! ) as Schama contends, convincingly, that it is impossible to understand Rembrandt unless we understand his desire to emulate Reubens. Why does Rembrandt matter? To Schama and to us? Because, as Schama affirms, Rembrandt is the greatest painter of the human experience ever to have lived - "Which is why he will always speak across the centuries to those for whom art might be something other than the quest for ideal forms; to the unnumbered legions of damaged humanity who recognise, instinctively and with gratitude, Rembrandt's vision of our fallen race, with all its flaws and infirmities squarely on view, as a proper subject for picturing, and, more important, as worthy of love, of saving grace." Eschewing the arid dogmas of academia that infect and stultify art biographies, Schama celebrates all his emotions and beliefs about Rembrandt in this overlong and memorable book. It should be essential reading for anyone who has ever set eyes upon a work by Rembrandt. Take a bow, Simon Schama.

Rembrandt left behind more self-portraits than any artist before or since. With his new book Rembrandt's Eyes, historian Simon Schama has added a new portrait of the artist, this one in meticulously and exhaustively researched, rhapsodically written prose.

Schama's heavy tome makes every attempt to be a definitive work on the painter, and it succeeds. First and foremost it is a narrative of the life and work of Rembrandt van Rijn, although calling it a "biography" somehow sounds reductive. It is equal parts analysis of Rembrandt's painting, documentation of his life, and history of seventeenth century Holland, so sections of the book can be read with profit by anyone studying the artist, his art, or the social history of the times.

The Rembrandt of Schama's book is a complex man, with hubris, greed and an enormous talent for portraiture. Early on he takes the monumentally cocky step of signing only his first name -- no "van Rijn" -- as if he knew his paintings would be studied for centuries to come. His understanding of humans and their personae was without parallel, Schama writes. "No painter would ever understand the theatricality of social life as well as Rembrandt. He saw the actors in men and the men in actors."

As his title suggests, Schama finds special messages in the eyes of Rembrandt's subjects. He notes that in art education painters were taught to put special care into their depiction of the whites of eyes, yet in many of Rembrandt's works -- Schama points to "The Artist in his Studio" (1629) -- the eyes are dull, dark pits. "When Rembrandt made eyes," Schama says, "he did so purposefully," and so in Rembrandt's Eyes he continually returns to the haunting eyes the painter painted.

Most of all, Schama's book is a meditative, entranced attempt to get behind the faces we see in Rembrandt's self-portraits. Schama reads Rembrandt's self-portraits in various costumes -- as a merchant, as a soldier, for example -- as indications of his elusiveness, as if each portrait were meant to conceal rather than reveal its subject. In analysis of one self-portrait, Schama writes that the painter "has disappeared inside his persona," inscrutable beyond the dead dark eyes of the painting. The artist's disguise hides his true self, and the critic is left to speculate. It seems that in this case Schama is grasping (as art historians must) at facts and attitudes that can never be certainly known, constructing and imputing elaborate guesses that fail precisely because the painter has succeeded.

Schama's reverence for Rembrandt and art in general winds up being both a virtue and a vice. The book begins with an epigraph from Paul Valery: "We should apologize for daring to speak about painting." It is difficult to imagine a guide through this world who is more well-versed and in love with his subject. But do we really want our biographers to be respectful to the point of silence? Nobody wants to learn about the masters from a guide who finds them too sublime to defile with comment. Granted, a hefty book like this is hardly "silence," but Schama's hushed tones do get distracting.

This book has the virtue of being as close to exhaustive about its subject as one could hope. There is little psychological interpretation that Schama leaves undone, and little consequential biographical detail that he leaves unmentioned. Rembrandt's Eyes, a mammoth book that takes on with grace the equally mammoth task of explaining what is behind the brooding eyes of Rembrandt's portraits, will be a definitive work on the painter and his work.

Simon Schama's REMBRANDT'S EYES is undoubtedly one of the authoritative works on Rembrandt's life and paintings. Schama vividly depicts the unparalled and tortured genius of Rembrandt, a man who was brilliant in success and even more so during tragedy. To understand Rembrandt's paintings is to understand the man behind each brushstroke: strong-willed, prideful, and uncompromising in his art. Schama conveys the essence of Rembrandt with such force and effectiveness that we cannot help but appreciate Rembrandt's tragic life and artistic genius.

REMBRANDT'S EYES contains beautiful illustrations of all of Rembrandt's major works; the analysis of each is detailed, clear, and interesting. Through the course of the book, you will be fascinated by Rembrandt's self-portraits and the level of understanding with which he painted himself. Perhaps no other artist has given us such a powerful autobiography without the use of a single written word. This deep understanding of the human soul is evident in all of his works. Schama explains Rembrandt's paintings and his techniques in a comprehensive and powerful manner. If you are interested at all in the truly unique and fascinating genius of Rembrandt, REMBRANDT'S EYES is a must.

I would highly recommend REMBRANDT'S EYES to any person interested in art history, Dutch painting, or just Rembrandt. This book also serves as a powerful autobiography of a man with a very interesting story. Be forewarned though: this book is very long, and putting it down may be hard.

This is an interesting book, which contains the hallmarks of the Schama style: lavish illustration, copious use of physical detail, an apparently novelistic style of sustained anecdotage. What this book is missing is a thesis, beyond the rather vague idea that nature is part of our culture and that this should leave one to be slightly more optimistic about our ecological problems. At the end Schama quotes Thoreau "It is in vain to dream of a wildness distant from ourselves." Consider the first section of the book, Wood. Schama tells us that as a child he loved Rudyard Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill. He wanders around rural Poland and remembers Isaac Deutscher's bitter comment "Trees have roots, Jews have legs." He enjoys the taste of Bison, discusses 18th century debates over forestry management in Poland and the exact species of Bison. We learn of Polish nationalists writing in the 19th century about the glories of wooded liberty (as well as a Polish plan to from a Polish-Jewish-Ottoman brigade to fight the Russians during the Crimean war). We learn that Goring liked to have a pot of diamonds near him at all times so he could enjoy the thrill of running his hands through them, and we also learn how the mad Russian Emperor Paul was killed with a malachite paperweight.

As you can see Schama has a tendency to wander, and while the reading can sometimes be interesting, trying to learn anything particularly useful or reading it straight through is not going to be very instructive. So we go on about Tacitus's presentation of the Ancient Germans and then on to how German nationalists exploited this myth to sinister purposes. In the meantime we have interesting accounts of the painters Albrecht Altdorfer, Caspar David Friedrich and the post-Nazi Anselm Kiefer. As the book goes on it appears to be an only vaguely connected series of essays, one on Robin Hood and the English myth of free forests, another on Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers. There is a not particularly relevant sub-section of Walter Raleigh and a more relevant one on the plumbing of Versailes. Then its on to Mountains, the making of Mount Rushmore and the development of the European love affair with climbing them. The final section, "Arcadia Redeisgned," deals with attempts to recreate a better designed Arcadia. And so the reader looks at the painting of Poussin, the plans of Rene de Giradin and Claude Francois Denecourt, the London Zoo and Central Park, and finally discusses Thoreau. But most readers I suspect will conclude that this book is less than the sum of its parts. The emphasis on art and the anecdotes around great individuals is not really a substitute for a more systematic ecological and historical anaylsis. One thinks as an alternative, of Peter McPhee's useful article in the most recent French Historical Studies about the French Revolutionary peasantry and how they dealt with deforestation. The sense of memory as somehow mitigating the aura of ecological crisis is rather vague, and what we have is nothing more than a nice coffee table book. One gets the sense of being a tourist around European history, being informed by an eloquent, articulate, amusing but ultimately superficial travel guide.

This is one book "to keep besides you" for ever. Each of the esays is so engaging that you are sorry to see it coming to a close. The essay on foutains "water paths" at Casserta and Versailles have changed my view for-ever. I only wish to visit or re-visit the paces mentioned with tis book in hand to really appreciate them with a more cultured view.

I certainly did myself a favour in buying this profound and lucidly written work. Some readers may find the contents bit dense in the overall scope, as I initially did, but eventually, I found myself quickly aligned with author's voice and reading on passionately. Even if you do not fully identify with all of the author's themes,theses and polemics, it would certainly impart you a better sense of reverence for the aspects of nature you witness everyday but somehow slips your true attention due to the pace of modern living. After all, as humans, this is where we come from, belong to and one day- return. Well, not withstanding outer-space funerals ...

First off, Simon Schama has a much broader vocabulary than most of us, so bring your thesaurus or dictionary when sitting down.

My goal when picking up "Citizens" was to learn more about the French Revolution, something I had never studied in any depth. This book does have depth and beyond just reciting facts and figures, analyzes the men and women of the Revolution, and provides a view point on the events, often contradicting or expanding previous research and publications. I got a hell of a lot more out of "Citizens" than I ever expected. I now have a context of French Revolution not only within French History but how it compares to the American Revolution, English revolutionary struggles, and its influence on Bonaparte, the Soviets, and Europe as a whole.

Sit down, bring your dictionary (and plenty of time - it took me over 10 years to pick it up and another year to read it!) and enjoy "Citizens".

It is fashionable in America to presume that the American Revolution marks the fault line between the dynastic regimes of old and modern governments. The backwoods colonists of the New World handily defeated the trained soldiers of the Old and so liberated the world, paving the way for modernity.

Thankfully, this is not so.

Thankfully, because the responsibility for the curse of absolutism and the rise of oppressive, autocratic states so endemic in the 19th and 20th centuries falls squarely on the revered sans-culottes of France.

Reactionary, you say? Perhaps. But as Simon Schama demonstrates ably in this account of the French Revolution, the cry "Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite" so beloved of the Birkenstock Left first erupted from bloodthirsty mobs calling for their fellow citizens' heads.

The schoolboy believes the French Revolution was an inevitable reaction to its American counterpart, and to the coldheartedness of the French nobility. The Terror which followed, while regrettable, was wholly necessary to purge France of its old oppression. Like so much of history being taught today, this is simplistic tripe.

Schama explains the origins of the Revolution as no other, weaving the strands of the narrative together into a mighty torrent. Far from being unavoidable, the French Revolution was eminently preventable--if only the King took swift, decisive, and brutal action to deal with the revolutionaries before the famous Tennis Court Oath, or if he had reined in his imperial ambitions, or his incompetent ministers who bankrupted the Empire.

Schama punctures other schoolboy myths. The Bastille, long a symbol of monarchial tyranny, actually housed only a couple of bewildered old men, quite surprised at the row made over them. Queen Marie-Antoinette, far from being the viper who told starving peasants to "eat cake" if they could not find bread, went to the guillotine with a nobility the tyrant Robespierre could not match when his turn came. And there are countless other surprises in store within these pages.

Schama has an eye for detail. Were you ever morbid enough to wonder whether the victims of the guillotine were conscious as their heads were raised to the cheering throngs? It's in the book. Interested in the role figures of the American Revolution played in the French? Then you'll follow Thomas Paine, the Marquis de Lafayette, and others through the tumult.

Most importantly, you'll understand exactly how the Pandora's Box opened during the French Revolution drove the rise of fascism and communism, and why contemporaries the world over viewed it as the signal event of their time.

If there's one book you read on this fascinating era, read this one.

The French Revolution is one of the decisive landmarks in human history. Though feudalism was long past much of it's vestiges (social, political and economic) remained in some form or other in Western Europe. By the end of Napolean's reign it had all been swept away. Even Metternich couldn't put Europe back together again.

For better or for worst the French Revolution set the tone for much of what would follow in Europe. At its worst the Terror was a glimpse into the horrors of the Nazi's and Stalin's great purges. At its best the ideals of the revolution set the tone for free elections, representative government and constitutional law. For revisionist historians it's the former that is the great legacy while for those of the old school it is the latter that is the primary message.

Schama's "Citizens" is above all a great narrative history well documented and thought out. Like most who lean toward the revisionist side he is somewhat sympathetic to the regime and the nobility. That information should certainly aid the reader while navigating this well written work.

You can't help but admire the combination of writing and research that marks this great book. One note, Schama's area of expertise was not originally the French Revolution but rather the Dutch trading empire and it's aftermath. The strengths of Citizens is non stop chronicle of the actions and interactions of the key members of the revolution's story, from Louis the XVI's incompetence to Robspierre's chilling demeaner.

This is an almost epic narrative of the age. It unfortunately, but because of its size, understandably ends far too soon for a complete grasp of the whole era and its aftermath. Definately recommended for students and casual readers of history.

If history bores you and you enjoy reading, I think Schama intends more to educate through entertainment than to simply educate. This is not the typical history book and is well-written. There are plenty of funny, interesting, and most often brief acounts given that help one understand and provide laughs at times. Schama is not a British historian and has lived in the US for maybe the last 25 years. But on account of being British, a Columbia professor, and--based on reading his three volumes on British history--an excellent writer, he has been encouraged and has writen about British history.
After reading this book I got a good feel of the life at the time, and I think that is largely due to the historical records Schama uses that show the emotions and logic of the times. The beautiful pictures also help in fostering a sense of what Britain is and was like. This book is a very easy and enjoyable to read, and I think this book is perfect for the reader unfamiliar with British history but does not take to history per se.

This is popular history for those who know little but those who know a great deal will also find it enjoyable. Sure, it is a coffee table book, but so what?

I loved it as I loved the two other volumes.

It would also make a nice gift for anyone interested in British history. So what if they know everything? They can look at the pictures.

This third and final volume is a winning culmination of Schama's wonderful "A History of Britain." Schama himself affirms that this is "a" History of Britain, not "the" History of Britain. Yes, it's impressionistic, but this also allows Schama to use his brilliant writing skills. Nobody narrates history like Schama. The previous reviewer's comments about Schama not considering the War oif 1812, etc., seems beside the point. This is not a textbook, and Thank God for that! If you're a Schama fan (as I am), you won't be disappointed by this book. I especially enjoyed Schama use of George Orwell (my favorite writer) as a locus for describing Britain in the early 20th Century. If you're at all interested in history, you should buy this wonderful book.

Simon Schama's "Dead Certainties (Unwarranted Speculations)" is an interesting foray into the murky realm of historiography. The book is comprised of two "tales:" that of General James Wolfe who (purportedly) meets his end at the Battle of Quebec in 1759 and that of George Parkman, a Harvard Professor who met a grisly end in 1849 - which Schama treats as an historical "murder mystery."

Critics of this work charge that Schama has engaged in historical chicanery by incorporating fiction into both accounts and has, thus, mucked up the waters of what is a proper "history." To this, Schama admits so much in his text and also admits to that being his point.

What is interesting is Schama's attempt to stake out a dividing line between what is "historical fact" and what is "historical fiction" and in so doing, obliterate that line. After all, historical fiction is based upon "historical fact" and many historians have written histories based upon "historical fact" that were modified or even overturned after those "historical facts" were proven to be inventions of fiction.

We have a certain reliance on a consistent historical past "reality" or else we run into an Orwellian 1984 reality of a constantly changing historical past. Yet, we can never be quite certain of the "facts" that make up our histories and as Schama puts it:

"... historians are left forever chasing shadows, painfully aware of their inability ever to reconstruct a dead world in its completeness, however thorough or revealing their documentation. Of course they make do with other work: the business of formulating problems, of supplying explanations about cause and effect. But the certainty of such answers always remains contingent on their unavoidable remoteness from their subjects. We are doomed to be forever hailing someone who has just gone around the corner and out of earshot." (p. 320)

"Dead Certainties" is an engaging and thoughtful piece of scholarship/literature that should be taken as such - and as such, it is not perfect.

A few years ago, I became a professional social scientist. As such, I became tangled in the beginning...what is truth? I never figured it out, but I had to go to work and earn a living so I took up the viewpoint that seemed most reasonable --material empiricism -- and began documenting my version of truth and getting it published.

In DEAD CERTAINTIES (UNWARRENTED SPECULATION), Simon Schama raises important questions about the truth of history. How do historians know what really happened? Well the truth is, they don't. At best, our reconstructions of the past are partial truths. They are partial truths because no one is free from prejudice. They are partial truths, because try as we might to be objective, we cannot help but place our own interpretation on "facts." They are partial truths because eye witnesses to history seldom know all the "facts." They are partial truths because language is alive and word meanings change over time. And, they are partial truths because eye witnesses often lie.

What really happened in the past times? In recent years, new historical practicioners have begun to revisit primary materials and attempt to piece together their version of what these documents tell them. This revisionist history has it's supporters, but in the end, who is to say their interpretations are free of bias and agenda?

In DEAD CERTAINTIES Schama revisits the story of Wolfe the British hero of the 1700's on the 'Heights of Abraham' in Canada. Probably every Canadian school child of my generation, plus a few Americans, remembers the words, "Wolfe the dauntless hero came and planted firm Britannia's flag on Canada's fair domain." I don't know if it's still politically correct to sing these words in Canada, but I believe at one time they were the words to the national anthem.

Everyone who's ever taken a course in art has probably seen a photograph of Benjamin West's monumental painting "The Death of General Wolfe." It is a magnificent painting of a beautiful young man in the last agony of life, looking toward a distant and dramatic horizon. The painting has inspired generations of Canadians to national patriotism. The painting supposedly depicts the last hour of General Wolfe. Schama says, "Not so fast." He then goes on to tell as best he can given the material at hand, what he believes happened on that fateful day when General Wolfe met his maker (maybe he did, maybe he didn't).

The book also contains a second "story" about a murder that took place in New England in the last century. This "story" reads like a detective fiction. Schama demonstrates though his own research who he thinks the real killer was. It is an excellent read even if you don't like history.

This book sheds a little light on historiography--how historians have framed history in the past and how they go about it today. The book should be required reading for anyone who wants to know more about history and how it is written.

This book explores the boundary between recounting the past and creating the past. The writing is beautiful, the ideas are well-delineated, and the examples are compelling. The book chews over common themes in historigraphy, but thus author makes them accessible to the general public. Wonderfully written and unforgettable, this book will certainly give you food for thought. And it will make a better reader of straight history.

The second volume of Schama's book tie-in to the BBC and History Channel TV series takes Britain from the death of Elizabeth I (and the ascendancy of James I) to the end of the American Revolution and the settling of a British regime in the Indian subcontinent.

It gives more space to the tumultuous middle of the 17th century (350 of the 524 pages) -- with its see-sawing Catholic and Protestant regimes, the civil wars, and Restoration -- than the 18th century.

Perhaps what strikes one most about the entire period is how bloody gruesome the English ruling classes and armies once treated their own people as well as the Scots and Irish -- as badly as any 21st century religious dictatorship in Africa or Asia. Thousands were massacred after battles as well as during them; several of the Guy Fawkes gunpowder plotters had their hearts cut out while still alive.

Two years after his death and embalming, Cromwell's body was exhumed and publicly hanged. And not just humans suffered: When yet another wave of the plague struck London in 1665, and dog and cats were believed to be the cause, 40,000 dogs and perhaps 200,000 cats were slaughtered. The slave trade and the brutal labor conditions on a West Indian sugar plantation are vividly depicted.

(Bracing though all of this may be, it's encouraging to realize that such atrocities have ceased to occur within the UK in the past century and a half, just as it seems unlikely the Germans and French will ever again be at each other's throats, so maybe the species is making slow but inexorable progress toward the light. And what great movies all this history would make, and in some cases HAS made!)

Though the life of common folk gets somewhat short shrift, Schama does note significant developments along the way: the arrival of condoms, the growth of print news media, English society as seen through the eyes of a slave named Olaudah Equiano.

It is helpful to be reminded that while we Yanks tend to think of the "French and Indian War" as a quaint prelude to our Revolution (whose launching is stirringly related by Schama, who though a born Brit, spent a few years in Boston and now teaches at Columbia), the Seven Years War was actually a sort of "world war" between England and France for future dominance of the globe: battles took place in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, even West Africa and India, while Major George Washington was dashing about New England under Braddock's command.

Volume 2 regrettably has fewer maps than Volume 1 -- I would have appreciated a little more topographical help with the mid 17th century civil wars and Scottish campaigns -- and it also shows a few signs of having been rushed to print (e.g., "perpeptuated" on p. 99).

But Schama's smooth and engaging narrative style makes a fine introduction to English history for the less knowledgeable general reader. (For example, he wishes Jane Austen had been around to chronicle the vicious personal politics of India's administrators, and drily notes the repeated automatic lies that filled British propaganda about its enemies, decade after decade: "impaled babies, eviscerated pregnant mothers, roughed-up grandpas -- the usual thing....")

I look forward with eagerness to the next volume in the series.

If history bores you and you enjoy reading, I think Schama intends more to educate through entertainment than to simply educate. This is not the typical history book and is well-written. There are plenty of funny, interesting, and most often brief acounts given that help one understand and provide laughs at times. Schama is not a British historian and has lived in the US for maybe the last 25 years. But on account of being British, a Columbia professor, and--based on reading his three volumes on British history--an excellent writer, he has been encouraged and has writen about British history.
After reading this book I got a good feel of the life at the time, and I think that is largely due to the historical records Schama uses that show the emotions and logic of the times. The beautiful pictures also help in fostering a sense of what Britain is and was like. This book is a very easy and enjoyable read read, and I think this book is perfect for the reader unfamiliar with British history but does not take to history per se.

If you have any interest in British history at all, you will love this book. Granted, it is huge, but the size won't bog you down. Actually, readers will probably grow to appreciate the size (unless they carry it with them, as I did) because it lends itself to a smooth flowing structure. And the paintings and illustrations look terrific as well.

If you have read some other works by Schama, such as Dead Certainties or Embarrassment of Riches, you'll probably be pleasantly surprised by the author's relative clarity in this book.

My one complaint, though, is that the 500 pages are only organized into chapters and not broken down any further. Sometimes the transitions can be a bit jarring. But this is a minor quibble in an otherwise impressive book. And to think that it is only one-third of a series makes it that much more impressive.

If you have any interest in how Great Britain was formed or how it acquired its early empire, then Wars of the British is a perfect fit.

A Tale of Two Cities is set in the two cities of London and Paris, in the fourth quarter of the eighteenth century. A Doctor Manette is brought from France, where he has been wrongfully imprisoned for 18 years, to England where his daughter has been raised. They testify in a trial against Charles Darnay, who is eventually aquitted and later marries Miss Manette. Darnay is really a French nobleman, the Marquis Evremonde, who has left his estate in France to work for a living in humble circumstances in England. During the French Revolution, his representative in the old country is arrested, and the idealistic Darnay goes home to defend this man only to get himself arrested. This occurs during the Terror, and Darnay must expect to be executed as a treacherous emigrant. The final chapters of the book revolve around the effort to save Darnay and his family from the guillotine. The book seems to have two distinct parts. In the beginning, Dickens mainly describes settings and characters, while the plot is mostly invisible. Then, as the end of the book approaches, focus moves to a chain of more or less surprising events, which bind together other seemingly disconnected events in the first chapters. Towards the end, the Tale is almost a Thriller. Dickens reveals himself as a master of the English language, a genius of style and a great wit early in the book. His descriptions rival those of Turgenev, although his descriptions of misery are in a moralizing tone that is never heard from the more subtle Russian. One problem I found with this book is that the characters seem a little too black and white, there is little of the psychological complexity found in, say, the writings of Dostoevski or Ibsen. Two interesting exceptions are Sydney Carton, a family friend with great ability and potential but a life-long lack of self-control, and Dr. Manette, who we find struggling to repress the memory of his imprisonment. A Tale of Two Cities is certainly great literature from a writer who even in the most gloomy circumstances finds something to amuse us. But I find it hard to suffer with his poor virtuous Ms. Manette/Mrs. Darnay with her blonde hair, blue eyes, unlimited loyalty, and talented interior design. She is simply too much, too perfect, too unreal. As for Dickens' description of the Great Revolution, vivid and engaging as it is, it is plagued by the same hyperbolic tendency. A Tale of Two Cities, then, is a highly enjoyable and fascinating read, but it doesn't have the complexity and insight characteristic of the very best novels (in my humble and subjective opinion).

This book is incredible. I read it last year (in eighth grade), and I love it. I love Charles Dickens' language and style. Whoever is reading this may have little or no respect for my opinions, thinking that I am to young to comprehend the greatness of the plot and language, and I admit that I probably do not completely appreciate this classic piece of literature. I do read above a 12th grade level, although that doesn't count for a whole lot. It took me a while to get into this book. In fact, I dreaded reading it for a long time. But nearer to the end, I was drawn in by the poignant figure of a jackal, Sydney Carton. In his story I became enthralled with this book, especially his pitiful life. After I read and cried at Carton's transformation from an ignoble jackal to the noblest of persons, I was able to look back over the parts of the book that I had not appreciated, and realize how truly awesome they are. I learned to appreciate all of the characters, from Lucy Manette to Madame Defarge. I also was affected by all of the symbolism involved with both the French Revolution, and the nature of sinful man, no matter what the time or place. My pitiful review could never do justice to this great book, please don't be discouraged by my inability.

Charles Dickens deserves two thumbs up for his magnificent creation, A Tale of Two Cities. This novel does an explicit job of foreshadowing and portraying the French Revolution in the eyes of many different people. Dickens' attention to details also helps the novel flow well and at the same time, create irony and suspense. For example, when Mrs. Defarge remained almost invisible, her stitching revealed a lot about who she was and what her plans were. This brought irony to the plot. I also enjoyed the symbolism throughout the story. It was thought provoking. When I read the story for the first time, I thought some situations were unnecessary and were dragged on, but as I furthered into the book, every detail that previously occurred started to make sense. It is amazing that an author could make all of these details have parallels and with so much precision. I also liked how he formed the characters. Many of the characters within the novel were clearly described for a good reason. Most of them had one other character that they paralleled with. It is not easy to develop characters that are similar to one another, yet also opposite. There were also many twists to the story that made me want to keep reading so I could find out what was really going to happen, but I do not want to reveal any twists as to spoil the story for those who have not read it. I would highly recommend reading A Tale of Two Cities to any person who enjoys reading a wonderful story. Just remember to pay attention to the details and the book will make sense in the end.

I have read most of Simon Schama's published works, and he is one of my favorite historians. His books range from the long to the short, from the survey text to the reseach tome. PATRIOTS AND LIBERATORS is a long research tome. The book contains 750 pages covering the years 1780s-1813 -- a period marked by the rise and fall of the Dutch Republic. A long bibliography and section of endnotes follows the text.

Readers of CITIZENS or AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES may not enjoy PATRIOTS quite as much as either of Schama's earlier books because it contains little joy. In CITIZENS, the French Revolution begins on a somewhat inspirational note, and though it is soon followed by a Reign of Terror, the rise of Napoleon restores some hope. In PATRIOTS, Schama continues the tale begun in CITIZENS, but the French Reign of Terror and Napoleon's exploits are viewed from the unhappy perspective of the Dutch.

While the French Revolution has sometimes been depicted as colorful, horrendous, and/or chilling, and Napoleons's exploits are often glorified with blue-white-red cockades as well as land and sea battles, the Netherlands knew only deprivation, destruction, and death at the hands of the French. And, although PATRIOTS begins at a time when the Dutch still enjoyed a bit of the prosperity depicted in RICHES, by the battle of Waterloo, economic conditions in the Netherlands were terrible.

Napoleon extracted every drop of wealth from every citizen of the Netherlands to finance his military exploits against other European powers. Although the Dutch originally established their own Republican government, it soon became a puppet of Napoleon. In the end, the Republic of the Netherlands was destroyed by the struggles of the European superpowers.

If you like history about the Napoleonic era, you will probably enjoy this book. If you are of Dutch descent, and want to gain a little insight into your ancestors experiences of ethnic cleansing and a holocaust during the early 1800s, this book will prove interesting and informative.