![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0819565415.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
Used price: $31.68
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/9995904055.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1574091034.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
List price: $14.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $10.42
Collectible price: $15.88
Buy one from zShops for: $10.05
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1560253975.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
List price: $17.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $4.00
Buy one from zShops for: $8.00
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0966891929.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
Used price: $10.00
Collectible price: $12.71
Buy one from zShops for: $10.39
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
"Siege" is also an anthropological analysis of the interactions within this de facto community, an examination of how people come together and cooperate in the face of external threat. The physical discomforts they endured were manifold: heat, insects, montonous diet, finite supplies. But the worst danger was the psychological toll that their uncertain situation COULD have exacted, had the Embassy staff's leadership faltered.
The Ambassador is modest in his self-appraisal & generous in that of his fellows (both Embassy staff and civilian); he certainly did not ask to be besieged, but when the situation was thrust upon him he accepted on-site responsibility for all. The story, as he recounts it, makes me hope that were I ever to find myself in similar straits, that my companions and my leadership would be cut from the same cloth. Besides learning what actually happened in the Embassy compound during Desert Shield (the media afforded only short glimpses & that story was soon eclipsed by Desert Storm), I was left with a new appreciation of human versatility & spirit.
My only complaint about the book is the small number of pictures; then again, they were under SIEGE, for crying out loud!
![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0226440737.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0744594162.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
Used price: $12.21
Buy one from zShops for: $9.98
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1879045346.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
List price: $18.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $8.25
Buy one from zShops for: $11.95
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
The examples are from a wide range of people in various times - immigrants to America, Holocaust victims, novelists, rabbis, ordinary men and women. They are poems, letters, legal-sounding documents, rambling notes often amended - some examples eloquent, some prosaic.
Some parents give them as children are growing up, at marriage, or some other milestone in the life of the parents or the children, and then again at the parent's death. Some were written on a battlefield or in a concentration camp, with death imminent and little likelihood that the writing would get to the person addressed. The value of writing this kind of will is probably as much in the thought that goes into it and the changes that makes to one's life as in the benefit to those who read later.
The Bible study group to which I talked about this idea were struck by the rabbi's saying that some people are reluctant to put these things on paper because thinking about the values they want to "bequeath" makes people aware of how far they have fallen short of what they wanted to be. How distressing it would be to have the children say, "I didn't realize that was important to him..." instead of "That's what I would have expected, since he said it all his life and we saw him live it." It's worthwhile, if painful, to think about this while there is time to do something about it.
Many of the examples quoted scriptural reasons for the writing, such as David's charge to Solomon: "I go the way of all the earth; be thou strong therefore, and show thyself a man; and keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to keep His statutes...." Then the writer gives his own charge to his children.
Their suggestions for topics are useful: formative events, background, important lessons I've learned, people who influenced me, stories behind possessions I value, Scriptural passages, causes that mean most to me, my definition of success, what I regret, how much I love you.
Although the book would be most meaningful to someone with a Jewish background, it has value for anyone who is serious about passing one's values to the next generation, and is probably most useful for people to consider before a time of crisis arises.
Another good book with similar intent is "Put Your Heart on Paper; Staying Connected in a Loose-Ends World" by Henriette Anne Klauser.
![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/156858203X.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
List price: $24.95 (that's 30% off!)
Used price: $12.47
Collectible price: $21.18
Buy one from zShops for: $15.00
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0755100557.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg)
Used price: $4.21
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
![](http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/detail/stars-5-0.gif)
ST&N is no different.
Many stories are connected (in many of his short-story books, not just this one), and create very colorfull and thought-provoking future-histories.
This collection was his first publication and created a mini-havoc in the british sci-fi society, and rightly so.
Excellent.