This book chronicles the 1964 Broadway production of Hamlet starring Richard Burton and directed by Sir John Gielgud. The author played Guildenstern in the production.

Frank Rich (for 10 years the Drama Critic at the New York Times) called this his favorite book on an actor's perspective on mounting a play.

I agree with Mr. Rich on this one. The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 stars was to avoid overdoing my enthusiasm. (I'm worried people will notice that I am the author's son. Shush, don't tell anyone.)

It got rave reviews at the time it came out and has pleased readers for over 30 years. It is both instructive and hilariously funny.

Please request it at book stores, on line and write to Proscenium Publishing requesting another release.

Thank you

Adam Redfield

I can do nothing more than echo the praise of the other reviewers. This very personal account of the rehearsal process and out-of-town tryout of the 1964 Broadway production of "Hamlet" that starred Richard Burton and was directed by John Gielgud is truly fascinating. William Redfield was a superb actor who could also write well, even though there are a handful of passages that perhaps should have been edited out.

I don't know of any book that gives you a better feeling of what it's like to be in rehearsal and trying to piece together a performance as everyone around you is trying to do the same. Redfield's account of a group of major actors--apart from Redfield and Burton, the cast included Alfred Drake, Hume Cronyn, Eileen Herlie, John Cullum, George Rose, George Voskovec, and Barnard Hughes--working under a director of undoubted genius who is somehow not really helping anyone much definitely makes you feel what it must have been like to be part of that.

If you're an actor, a director, or just love theatre, you will probably find this book fascinating.

I read this book in the La Salle College library in 1965 or 1966, when I was supposed to be in class. I made the right choice. The memory of the description of Richard Burton being booed still brings a smile to my face. Mr. Redfield's witt is a source of constant pleasure throughout. I fondly remember William Redfield as a superbly entertaining guest on many talk shows, during that golden era of talk shows that was the 1960's.

I had always loved Ralegh's poetry, I fell enamored of the fictional account of his life entitled "Death of a Fox" by George Garrett some 30 odd years ago, but had never really comprehended the sweep of Ralegh's life. In his own way, according to Lacey, Ralegh's household became almost the equivalent of our Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Draper Labs, or even NASA. The story about the cloak and Elizabeth is true, but the depth of his love for his wife was new to me.

Fascinating, well-written book. Truly fascinating man.

Like his later compatriate Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Walter Ralegh is one of those historical figures about whom virtually everyone knows something. From the old yarn about cloaks and puddles (though this actually happened), to his sponsorship of the tobacco industry (this happened too), to his tragic expedition to the Orinoco, Ralegh lore is a recurring theme in school history classes on both sides of the Atlantic. Lacey's great achievement is to blend these facets of his life seamlessly with the other, less familiar, episodes. One of the most interesting revelations is that for all the early and mid-life glories of his Elizabethan years - the poetry, the daring exploits and bon mots - his "finest hour" was in adversity, when (under sentence of death in the Tower) he wrote his brilliant multi-volume "History of the World." This is one of those rare biographies (Carlo D'Este's "Patton" comes to mind as another) where the reader is completely absorbed into the subject's mind and world.

To write a biography of a man with as much vitality and variety as Ralegh would seem at first sight a daunting task for any author: however well the tale is told, it will pale beside the real life exploits of this, the most remarkable of Englishmen.

The success of Robert Lacey's account is largely due to the way he reflects the multifaceted nature of his subject in the book's structure. There are some 50 chapters, divided into seven sections, each charting the ups and downs of Ralegh's uniquely chequered career. From country upstart to royal favourite, from privateer to traitor in the Tower, his life was never still - a continuum of change within a world that was constantly reassessing itself.

It is above all an account of a man who was almost uniquely human: capable of immense bravery and ingenuity, creativity and arrogance, one moment acquitting himself with a rare brilliance, the next with sublime recklessness. Ralegh was the epitome of man, warts and all, and a man who struggled daily to achieve ends that were destined to lie forever beyond him, whether they were glories of the gold of El Dorado or the love of his virgin Queen.

Far from being a trip down the honeysuckled lane of nostalgia, this is a book that is uniquely relevant to the present day. Many readers will be aware of the legends of Ralegh's bejewelled cloak, or acquainted with verses of his gilded poetry; many more will be surprised to learn that he was the founding father of the British colony, and that his experiments in Munster, Virginia and Guyana led directly to the vast empire that was only a couple of centuries later to cover one third of the globe. Yet he was in his explorations and expeditions a great philanthropist, and his treatment of the local inhabitants in the Americas was to earn him a respect that lasted many generations, as opposed to the legacy of mistrust and hatred that the Spanish pioneers engendered.

Ralegh was a man whose talents and faults, when fuelled by his rare energy, shone like beacons. He lived the kind of life that most of us only dream of, and few can live up to. Lacey's greatest achievement is never to lapse into the kind of starry-eyed hero-worshipping that often accompanies biographies of remarkable men. It is a profoundly moving book, particularly in its final chapters, when the voice of Ralegh in his final speech before his execution is allowed to resonate down the years with few embellishments and, as such, is all the more powerful. The book is a testament to the unique powers of one man: the man, to the powers that lie within us all.

Robert Ruby's Unknown Shore is a little misleading in its subtitle (The Lost History of England's Arctic Colony) in as much as the history was not quite lost nor was there actually a colony, only the briefest of attempts at a colony in a farcical plan to mine the soil for gold. That said, the book is quite entertaining as it pieces together the story of Martin Frobisher and his ill-fated Elizabethean Arctic adventures and the always fascinating Charles Francis Hall's discovery of the location of Frobisher's Meta Incognita in the nineteenth century. (For a wonderful and full account of Hall, see the very fine Weird and Tragic Shores by C. Chauncey Loomis). The two stories blend fairly well and the author keeps the narrative sparkling along at an entertaining clip. This was a good Arctic read for those addicted to these books and a good place to begin for someone who wants to learn what the addiction to these Arctic books is all about from a book that shows men whose addiction to that cold world ran so much deeper than merely reading about it.

An unfortunately rare example of an eminently readable work of history. Ruby does an outstanding job of setting his story in the context of the times with a modern historian's insight into social and cultural history. This is far more than just another in a series of the latest vogue in Arctic exploration narratives. Through skillful use of his sources, the author brings both his European and Inuit protagonists to life. The reader is left with the haunting image of fragments of a remote Arctic island studding the landscape of a prosaic London suburb as testimony to both the folly and awe-inspiring tenacity of the sixteenth-century explorers. This is fascinating complementary reading for students of the colonization of other areas of the world.

This is a tale about an English pirate-turned-explorer who few people have ever heard of, and the establishment of British colony on an Arctic island that is perhaps even less known...but that's short-changing this elaborate true adventure. Bought this one because I liked the author's last book, "Jericho," which was a history of a place, but also of archaeology itself and of wave after wave of quirky scientists who came to study the ruins of the famous city. This new book has an even broader sweep, from pre-naval power London where morality always took a back seat to fortune-seeking, to the coast of West Africa where a ship's crew was worth less to investors than a few tons of pepper, to the Czar's palace in Moscow, the roiling North Atlantic and the confusing, ice-packed passages above North America. This is a tale festooned with accurately-drawn characters. The scholarship is so clearly reliable that you know that you're not getting the pop-magazine caricatures of, say, Sebastian Junger's "The Perfect Storm." Also, with Ruby's style of examining a place through the eyes of multiple adventurers from several eras, you're getting a deeply-textured tale that makes Krakauer's "Into Thin Air" seem one-dimensional. And you also get a fun - and often funny - yarn featuring modern reporters in polar bear pants, privateers who seize all shipping - even that of their countrymen - a pompous alchemist, mutual puzzlement as white man meets Inuit, horrific storms at sea, and discussions of the how Queen Elizabeth's sex life affected exploration. By the end, I had not only enjoyed myself but absorbed an extraordinary amount of the FEEL of an era - or two - and a place. In this sense it's also comparable to Patrick O'Brien's seafaring Maturin and Aubrey series.

I used this book through out medical school. It helped me with developing and then fine tuning my skills in history taking and physical examination. It is a must buy for every medical student.

This book has been for many decades the bedrock of clinical skill education for many medical students and residents alike particularly with British oriented education. It is next only to the stethoscope in the must-have category. I find the layout in the recent editions particularly refreshing. The book maintains it's unique ability of providing useful and in depth background for clinical examinations as well as their various interpretation, while not overburdened you with unnecessary details. It played a significant role in my medical education and continues to provide useful and practical tips even in my practice.

The soft-cover Wordsworth Classics edition of The Return of Sherlock Holmes reproduces The Hound of the Baskervilles and the short stories that make up The Return of Sherlock Holmes as they originally appeared in the Strand. It also contains the interesting, though poorly reproduced, illustrations that accompanied the stories. Because a page of the magazine is reduced to the size of a trade paperback page, typeface is very small.

As an Englishman. resident in the United States, what do I miss most? The BBC. As a little boy I looked forward to all the broadcast plays every week. The BBC cast performed about 6 hours of radio plays every week. They still do, haven't you also noticed the number of TV plays broadcast by A and E? Most of them originate in the United Kingdom, Hornblower, ETC.. Now we can enjoy the performances by means of these Bantam Double Day releases. Very well done, by a very experienced cast, you can let your imagination run riot as you picture the various scenes in your mind. These are the classic stories by Sir Arther Conan Doyle. They have been around for 100 years or so, and time has not diminished their appeal. On this Audio Book you have 4 stories, each about 45 minutes long. If you haven't heard these before, then I don't wish to spoil the story line. If you know the stories then you will not be disappointed. Each story is presented in the time period of around the 1900's, you can almost smell the gas lighting, not to mention the foggy november weather, the horses, and so on. Order these from Amazon, and search for more of the BBC plays, they are great.

A relatively lifeless rendering of an exciting and little known part of American history, this tale recounts the activities of one William Johnson, of Irish stock, who made his way to the English colonies in North America and settled in New York during the 18th century. There he became a friend and confidante of the Mohawk Iroquois, among the most fearsome native American tribes, noted for the bloody tortures they administered to their captives (and their more humane policy of adopting some captives into their ranks), as well as their cannibalistic tendencies. By the time this tale occurs, these Indians are clearly on the defensive. Though remaining a fierce presence in the woodlands of upper New York, their numbers are shrinking (due to "white" diseases like smallpox and the creeping impact of European settlement). While Johnson establishes himself as a "friend" of this tribe and other Indians, he never seems to rise above dancing and shmoozing with them while getting their braves good and drunk. At the same time he proves himself an utter cad in the cold and high-handed way he treats the escaped indentured servant who early on seems to have been the love of his life but is ultimately reduced to little more than housekeeper and mother of his acknowledged children. As a counterpoint to all this, we follow the tale of a Mohawk shaman woman and her offspring as they commune with their sisters, guide the tribe through the travails of dealing with the whites, and have various outer body experiences which never quite mesh with the larger tale of colonial intrigue (which seems quite pale itself) during the French and Indian wars. Overall, Johnson is a relatively unlikable character and what he does, besides the epic womanizing and hondling with the Indians, seems decidedly unimpressive: a single stand with superior forces in the wilderness against a more professional but over-extended French force which results in the "surprising" defeat of the French and the turning of the tide of the colonial war. Not much action here, little characterization, lots of speculation about the dream reality of the native Americans -- and little else. They bill this as Volume I. As far as I'm concerned, we'd all be better off if Mr. Moss called it a book here, and went on to something else. -- Stuart W. Mirsky

A wonderful book by a singularly marvellous author! The best two books (along with FIRE ALONG THE SKY) I've read in years. As rich as any historical novel ever written. Travel to a vanished world in upstate New York for a few hours. And discover that Colonial America was a vibrant and violent time. America's first frontier--Too bad it's overshadowed by our preoccupation with the 19th-century Western mythology. The 18th century was far more fascinating!

In the dry, often dull, pages of thousands of eighteenth century documents, the researcher and student of history meets--in his or her studies of upstate New York--the names of characters who shaped the cultural and geographic boundaries of the lands bordering and expanding beyond the Mohawk River into the thick forests of the eighteenth century western frontier. Principal among those names is that of Sir William Johnson and his intricately woven web of clients, agents, military personnel, merchants, commissaries, politicians, tenants, and tradesmen, all backdropped against the powerful confederacy of the Six Nations. In THE FIREKEEPER, Robert Moss plunges beneath the carefully penned words of conferences, negotiations, land deals, and the giving and receiving of thousands of belts and strings of wampum and chests of gifts to find the phrase, the inuendo, the pause, the missing sentence that allows one to grasp the beauty and power of the raw courage, stamina, and charisma of the men and women who were the real heroes of the New York frontier. William Johnson held the legal responsibility for the negotiation of Indian affairs for the Six Nations and proved the extraordinary confidence and credit in which he was held by the Six Nations in his care and use of the magnificent symbols of Indian power and authority--the belts, the sacred calumets, and the dreams. In the dreaming culture of the Six Nations, William Johnson was caught up in a delicate balance between the magical world of spirit and soul in which he donned the antlers of the forest stag and the competitive white world where wills and cultures clashed in battle and on paper.

Woven in and among the threads of the fascinating story of THE FIREKEEPER is the even more powerful story of the women in William Johnson's world--the young Palatine girl who pursued her dreams across the sea from bondage to the purchased freedom of a frontier pulsing with the clash of desire and spirit, of the fusing of the sacred and profane in a forest peopled with refugees from her own country and with the magical dreaming women of power of the Six Nations, of the Mohawks, women with names like Island Woman and Sparrow, all of whom would share in the romance and spirit of William Johnson's world, molded from the dreams of many cultures, a magical journey of spirit and soul brought to life by Robert Moss through the pages of THE FIREKEEPER.

If you are the type of person whose spirit gravitates to the simple (not simplistic, but simple)answers to some of the most complex and seemingly unrelated questions, and those answers desired consist of the type philosphers, poets and artists/scientists have been looking for (with varied success) for millenia, then you just might enjoy this book. Camile Paglia's SEXUAL PERSONAE, heavily indebted to this and the major works of Freud by her own proud admission, is what led me to this pretty staggering work for its time. It is relatively easy to make someone's brain hurt with a lot of scholar talk, where one is saying nothing; this book is great because it is *sensational*, in the truest sense of the word. This is one of the first of the many books about religion and the history of man that put my stomach up in knots, as it simultaneously gave me the power to look beyond the fabrication of ancient Greek philosophical society and Judeo-Christian heritage as the summit of man's knowledge. (Not that that was ever a problem for me consciously, but unconsciously I doubt anyone without reading a book like this has moved beyond it.) This is one of the books that made a new approach to the understanding of man and a paradigm shift as to how we have mentally, emotionally and spiritually developed not only possible, but inevitable.

What could keep this monument from receiving five stars will be fairly obvious to any reader: the prejudices of his time. It is actually hard to look at what he says objectively in that context; before him I doubt anyone put two and two together to come up with what he did during a time when his racism and trivialization of non-Euopean peoples, and for more than the past fifty plus years after him, anyone who has read his work has had that tempered by the embarrasing revalations of Nietsche and Freud. That, along with the egocentrism of Victorian Europe that he projects onto ancient and prehistoric man, serves to keep the book from being perfect (and are sometimes annoying), but do not serve to really take away its importance and incredible effect.

If you are a Joseph Cambell fan, you will be powerfully challenged by this book. Frazer was not attempting to come up with the same conclusions for myth and ritual that Campbell, though influenced by him, was. But you will love it, and respect it highly because of it. In a way, where Campbell seems to say "this is what it all means," Frazer says "this is what it all IS," letting the wonder of unexpected knowledge allow you to come to your own conclusions. This book will start you on a great spiritual journey if you never read anything of its kind before, and this edition is a very good one to have.

Frazer's classic "The Golden Bough" may justifiably be called the foundation that modern anthropology is based on. While it has been discredited in some areas since it's 1st publication, it has stood the test of time remarkably well. It's still the best book I know of to explain the origins of magical & religious thought to a new student of comparative religions. I would especially suggest it to anyone interested in mythology, supernatural magic or religion, especially any of the modern neo-pagan religions. More than one critic has said that it should be required reading for everyone.

Originally, Frazer sought to explain the strange custom at an Italian sacred grove near the city of Aricia. He wanted to know why it was custom there for a priest of Diana to continually guard a sacred tree with his life. Why was it required that this pagan priest murder anyone who dares to break a branch from the tree & why were so many willing to risk their lives to do so? What power did this broken branch have that made it a symbol of the priests own coming death? Why could the priest only be relieved of his position by being ritually murdered & who in their right mind would strive to take his place?

What Frazer discovered in his search for answers went well beyond what he expected to find. He very quickly found himself surrounded by ancient pagan beliefs & magic rituals that were as old as mankind & just as widespread. He slowly reveals to us, by way of hundreds of examples, that ancient or primitive man was bound up in a never ending web of taboos & restrictions that regulated his existence here on earth. Every move, spoken word or even thought could swing the powers of the divine for or against pagan man. Every action was bound by religious code & any mistake could invoke supernatural retribution. The entire world, it seemed, was a reflection of the mystic other world that pagan man worshipped & everything here was symbolic of something there.

While studying this idea Frazer covers many other perplexing questions about culture & belief that have affected our lives. For example, he explains the origins of many of our holidays. He reveals the original symbolism & meaning of the Christmas tree & mistletoe & tells us what they represent. He explains the pagan origins of Halloween & why it's necessary to placate the spirits who visit your home that night. He solves the question of why Easter isn't a fixed holiday but is instead linked to the Spring Equinox & just what colored eggs have to do with anything. In short he covers just about every known superstition or tradition & relates it back to it's pagan beliefs.

What emerges from this collection of superstition & folktales isn't a chaotic mess of mumbo-jumbo but is instead a fully expounded religious system. Frazer shows again & again that these traditional customs & continuations of ancient rites are the basis for a religious system pre-dating any of our own. We find that in this system man can not stand apart from nature or the world. Nor can he commit any action without it's usual equal but opposite reaction. Eventually, we learn of the powerful but frightening association between a king's fertility & his lands well-being. Lastly, we learn that it's not always "good to be king" & just what sort of horrible price one must pay to be "king for a day".

But more than all of this Frazer is commenting on our own times & our own beliefs. "The Golden Bough" isn't simply about ancient pagan religious ideas for their own sake. The book provides & explains these ideas so we can see how they are still in operation even today. Primitive pagan beliefs & symbolism are with us daily, besides the obvious Christmas tree & Easter eggs. Behind his exhaustive examples & explanations of mystic or secret magic rituals Frazer is actually commenting on our own Judeo-Christian religions. A careful reading between the lines reveals what Frazer was afraid to state bluntly in 1890. That idea is that all religions, even our own, are based on the same basic pagan ideas of "sympathetic" & "contagious" magic. Despite advancements in science & knowledge & even despite spiritual advancements in religion & philosophy, we're still trying to comprehend the divine with the same tools our ancestors used thousands of years ago.

The Golden Bough is a classic in the truest sense of the word. Well-written, compendious in its scholarship, profound in its influence, shocking in its implications, Frazer has penned one of mankind's great unread books. With the works of Darwin and Hubble, Frazer's hefty tome quietly demolishes traditional notions of the world and our place within it. His introductory study of magic in primitive societies, many sadly vanished in the intervening century, is fascinating reading for anyone interested in Wicca, the New Age, or the Occult. Frazer's scope then expands voluminously, to include such topics as totemism, divine kingship, tree worship, and, most significantly, dying and reviving gods. Without ever mentioning Jesus specifically, Frazer places him squarely in the midst of a long procession of resurrected Middle Eastern gods that include Osiris, Tammuz, Dionysus, and Attis, demonstrating amply that the Christ myth is a fairly typical example of the primitive religio! us beliefs characteristic of that locale and period. While hardly a quick read (Frazer's dignified style does require some self-acclimatization after the passage of nine undignified decades), The Golden Bough rewards both the careful sequential reading and the occasional random foray. Frazer's many thousands of examples of odd and provocative customs remain fascinating even as scholarly interpretation of their significance evolves. All in all, a book of which no genuine intellectual, and certainly no born-again Christian, can afford to be ignorant.

I am currently reading A Man For All Seasons as a school project, and I am enjoying it more than any other book that I have read in school. This play is an incredible work of art that thoroughly and accurately depicts the personality and moral values of Saint Thomas More, the man who was "the King's good servant, but God's first". Sir Thomas More became King Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor under one condition: that he be left out of "The King's Great Matter", which, if you didn't know, was the King's conflict with the Pope over his desired anullment from Catherine of Aragon. However, Henry is not satisfied with this, and he is determined to have a blessing of his marriage to Anne Boleyn from Sir Thomas. More, however, is a devout Catholic, and he believes that Henry's anullment from Catherine was not valid, and his morals will not allow him to bless the King's marriage. In hopes of forcing More to agree with him, the King administers an Oath claiming that he is the supreme head of the Church in England, and that Anne Boleyn's children would be the heirs to the throne. Sir Thomas refuses to sign the Oath, and, after spending almost 2 years in the Tower of London, is beheaded. A Man For All Seasons is a great play, for it really shows the reader the kind of man that Sir Thomas was. The other characters are also well written (particularly Sir Thomas's daughter, Margaret). If you are a drama fan, history buff, or someone who likes to read books with great moral substance, A Man For All Seasons is the book for you.

The exceptionally talented Robert Bolt, who wrote the very literate and memorable screenplay for Lawrence of Arabia, turns his attention in "A Man for All Seasons" to the conflict between Sir Thomas More and King Henry VIII over the question of Henry's marriage to Anne Boleyn and the subsequent creation of the Church of England in order to jusify it. More believes that the marriage is not legal and that attacks on the church are not justified, and cannot make himself swear the mandated oath recognizing Henry as the head of the church in England. Since More is Chancellor and one of Henry's chief advisors, this sets the stage for that well known conflict that ends with More being beheaded.

The miracle that Bolt achieves with this play is to bring alive the conflict of ideas and principle that the mundane question of Henry's irregular marriage occasioned. This is a wordy play, but Bolt is a master of words, and there are enough pithy and memorable exchanges here to fill a book of quotations. The real historical characters were fascinating, and if Bolt has streamlined the story and simplified some of the rough spots that just serves to heighten the dramatic intensity of the inevitable tragic end. As a man of consience, More cannot renounce his faith. He is torn between serving a King to whom he owes allegiance and saving his soul, and the King gives him no out. Even after renouncing his office and refusing to make any public statement about the marriage he is hounded by the King's menions and finally imprisoned in the Tower of London.

The cast of characters that seal his fate are not - with the possible exception of Cromwell - evil men. The King is selfish but willing to forgive if More will take the oath. Richard Rich, More's former student whose perjured testimony finally condemns him, is merely venal and willing to sell his self-respect for advancement. More's best friend, who goes along just to be left alone, simply doesn't want to risk his life and title and can't understand More's stance. Even his family has trouble coming to terms with why he will not bend. Knowing from the beginning how this will all end adds a layer of complexity to the actions of those characters who try to influence More and/or benefit themselves.

Finally, to return to the language of the play, this is really great writing of a particular kind. Bolt has the ability to sum up complex arguments in a few telling phrases and to find memorable turns of speech that make actors want to say the words and audience members want to hear them. This is simply one of the best plays of its kind ever written and I can't imagine it ceasing to be performed.

Please don't make students read this book! Being part of an assignment is enough to ruin any literary work for the reader, no matter how great. I first read this play while in Grade 10 (two years ago), without being forced, and I relished every word from beginning to end. It was so engaging and enjoyable that I couldn't put it down, and I actually laughed aloud and cried several times while reading it after classes and on the bus. This play got me interested in Renaissance English history, and I have learned a lot since then which I can relate to characters and events in A Man for All Seasons.

There is the criticism that Bolt made Sir Thomas unrealistically good and considerably more tolerant than he actually was, but Bolt admits this himself in the introduction included with the edition I read. In this play, historic events and of Sir Thomas More's personality are taken and molded slightly to provide a demonstration of one's man dedication to his faith and his conscience. The dialogue is brilliant, the characters are well realized (within the heroic structure for which Bolt was aiming), and--despite what some may consider a boring premise, certainly not me--the plot and issues are fascinating. It really made me think, and I've come back and read it several times when I feel like I need an idea to ponder. A marvellous play to see performed as well, especially when there is a very capable actor in the title role.

I think this book is good but it lacks being able to keep my attention and I have read huge books. If it kept my attention for a little bit longer than the first page I would keep reading it.

As a mystery author with my first book in initial release, I have found that reading a wide variety of works helps my writing. Locke's TWO TREASTISES is one of my favorite books of all time. Here is the book that subverted absolutism following a glorious revolution. I read it first as an undergraduate at Claremont McKenna College, and I teach it annually. Great book.

Those of us living in liberal democracies owe tremendous intellectual debt to John Locke. His "Second Treatise" in particular helped lay the foundation for a political system that emphasized "life, liberty, and property." The First Treatise is interesting to skim through, though it is in the second where the Locke is most substantive. His Theory of Private Property, which could also be construed as a theory of value, is an unmistakable revolution in political thought. It is, as Locke contends, when man applies his labor to nature that he is entitled to it. Questions about environmental ethics or indegenous rights aside, this observation, made in a still heavily ecclesiastical society, is a brilliant one. Furthermore, Locke's understanding of the formation of government is based on a hypothetical "state of nature" account. Locke's arguments are intellectually pleasing, and his social-scientific models make intuitive sense. Given that, perhaps the only weakness of the work is its failure to adequately analyze such concepts as the social contract or his theory of labor-property relations. For example, Locke fails to seriously consider what we should do with states that are clearly formed by mere force. Indeed, he doesn't adequately address the possibility that such a state could justify its existence on the grounds that "better tyranny than nothing." While Locke believes that a state that doesn't respect private property cannot last for very long, history says otherwise. Of course, in retrospect it is easier to criticize Locke in these regards, but with Machiavelli before him it was not as though these ideas were not known. There are admittedly other inconsistencies, such as his view on taxation later in the book and on who "owns" the grass his serf cuts. Interestingly enough, Locke is unwilling to expound on the distinction between property garnered for the sake of personal enjoyment (possessions) and property garnered for the sake of profit. Nevertheless, the work is a passionate defense of a liberal government, and the points are persuasively argued. As long as the reader, as Locke himself urges, keeps a skeptical attitude, this work has much to offer.

Before reading Irving, you would be wise to read his critics --- or read the opinion of the conservative British judge who ruled against Irving in his libel action against Penguin Books. He was found by the court to be a Nazi apologist who repeatedly misrepresented source documents to validate his revisionist history of Hitler and the Third Reich. (In speeches to hate groups in Germany and the US, he used to joke that "more people died in the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquidick than died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz.") In an early edition of the Dresden book, he claimed that 202,040 people were killed in the Allied firebombing. The number, it turns out, was derived by simply adding a zero to the official German count of 20,204. Before you buy this book, consider whether you want to pay royalties to such a man.

This book by sometimes controversial, but always worthwhile, English historian David Irving is a credible attempt on his part to balance a bit of the history of World War II. My research of this author has proven him to be as generally reliable as any other noted historian. His only sin is to try to present a more balanced view of both sides of a tragic war. Although I do not agree with everything that he writes, it certainly does not make him anti-semitic. That epithet should be saved for the true hatemongers who deserve it. To throw the term about loosely only diminishes its gravity.

Hugely dificult to research, this in depth account of the planned systematic destruction of a large city of no military consequence raises horendous questions which will simmer for decades.Irving provides a slightly clouded mirror, but not so clouded as to startle us as to what we see.