Winston Churchill wrote this book when he was still in his twenties ; this intrigued me enough to read the book. It is a novel that focuses on the life of Richard Carvel ; a wealthy young man from a prominent Maryland family just before and during the Revoloutionary War. Although sweeter and more sentimental than the modern approach itis still a captivating and exciting story.

Book was written by Winston Churchill, an American from St Louis. He also wrote The Crossing, The Crisis, and a nukmber of others. Richard Carvel may be his best. Highly recommended.

I read this book just after I got out of college in 1976. My father read it when he was in prep school in the '30's and had been pestering me for years to read it. After I finished it, I scoured every antique shop and used-book store to find other titles by this American author. Three of his books: Richard Carvel, followed by The Crisis and then The Crossing, team up to form what could be one of the first trilogies in American fiction.
This is the story about a young Marylander in pre-Revolutionary America and his journey to independence. Anyone who likes historical novels will love reading this author. I will advise you, however, to have a good dictionary nearby as some of the words are archaic and need looking up - but that's half the fun of it.

This biography lets you on the inside of not only a great writer but on the inside of a close friendship between two writers and friends. It's written in a rather relaxed way, the way only good friends can be with one another. I read a biography on Kafka many years ago and it left me a bit indifferent about Kafka. This biography lets you feel the warmth and exuberance of the man, the everyday of this extraordinary writer. You can almost imagine yourself in his childhood home, meeting the family, understanding how Kafka became Kafka, how the seeds for his stories were planted and evolved. This biography had all the intimacy of an autobiography. Anyone who would like to know the tender underside of the beast, this is the biography you're looking for.

When one considers Kafka has had so much influence on literature that the word "Kafkaesque" was invented to describe his thoughts and effects on us (how many writers can claim their "own word"!),it is surprising that only three notable biographies on him exist. This one is by a man who knew Kafka closely for the last half of his life.When they met Kafka was 19, he died one month short of his 41st birthday.The author's reverence makes the reader become passionately attached to the subjects of Kafka's inner feelings; his reserved,taciturn approach to people, his obsession with pure thoughts, his sensitivity to noise, his devotion to the the earth,its humans,animals and plants. Even now, three quarters of a century later, the reader feels the exasperation, the frustration, the torment Kafka suffered under his materialistic, social climbing father who dominated and eventually ruined his son. The book cannot be called lively,Kafka's lifestyle was not frolicsome. However, it is never dull. His clandestine trysts with the sleazier side of Prague nightlife takes the reader by surprise.Then comes Brod's stunner of a revelation only unearthed in 1948, twenty-four years after Kafka's death.??? The last quarter of the book is the best.Intense and sorrowful, just as Kafka would have wanted it. For those looking for the intellectual side of Kafka the book offers insights into his appreciation of Goethe (his idol),Thomas Mann, Flaubert and Dickens, among many others. Brod's ace is his ability to quote the sensitive Kafka; viewing the fish at a Berlin aquarium after Kafka became an ardent vegetarian he is quoted, "Now I can at last look at you in peace,I don't eat you anymore". Also his reverence for all life as when a nurse placed flowers near his deathbed," One must take care that the lowest flowers over there, where they have been crushed into the vases, don't suffer. How can one do that? Perhaps bowls are really the best." And then the "humorous" Kafka on hearing that he had TB," My head has made an appointment with my lungs behind my back." When Kafka died tragically young he joined the likes of the Romantics Byron (36),Shelley (29) and Keats (25) as a group who had dedicated their lives to the betterment of mankind and had all died when life should have just been beginning. As with the Romantics,one is left wondering what Kafka would have achieved given another forty years. One will never know, but for an interesting observation of his 40 years,"Franz Kafka-A Biography" is the book.

It is a wonderful idea to make available recordings of great speeches. I hope we have more of this in the future.
In the case of older speeches, the selection is very good, considering the restraints of time, and the readers are uniformly excellent.
As for the modern speeches, it is a marvel of technology that we can hear these speeches as delivered. It is incredible that we can hear the voice of William Jennings Bryan. I can listen to Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" a thousand times and never tire of it! How I wish I could listen to the voice of Patrick Henry! But this selection is too heavily weighted to the modern, and many of those do not deserve billing as the GREATEST speeches of ALL TIME. Also, some of the modern speeches which are included are abridged, e.g. Reagan is cut off in the middle of a sentence, while lengthy and undeserving speeches are played out in their entirety.
Also, with only a few exceptions, the selection is almost entirely American. It is hard to understand why Jimmy Carter's lengthy speech on energy policy is included, while Pericles' funeral oration is not; or why only a small portion of a single Winston Churchill speech is included; why while Bill Clinton's complete 1993 pulpit address, in excess of 20 minutes, is included.
It would be helpful if the complete list of speeches were available to online buyers, as it would be to shoppers in a brick and mortar store.

I have listened to this collection twice now, both times with pleasure. Hearing the acutal voices of Amelia Earhart, Rev. Martin Luther King, Winston Churchill and Neil Armstrong made a deeper connection than simply reading their words. The collection showcases different subjects and many times contrasts opposing viewpoints of the ideas. This volume is a fantastic introduction to the moving ideals and sometimes sad truths that have influenced Western Civilization.

Intertwining Identities

Hannah Arendt's Rachel Varnhagen: The Life of a Jewess is the biography of Varnhagen that simultaneously attempts to define Rahel Varnhagen's gender and national identity as a resident in early 19th century Germany in Varnhagen's own terms, while Arendt refines her political theory. Rachel Varnhagen is portrayed throughout the book as a complex character; a Jewish woman in a German society at the dawn and immediate following years of the Napoleonic Revolution. Arendt is an accomplished political-philosopher who despised being called a philosopher. Arendt's rise to academic prominence came when she wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem; Eichmann was where she coined the phrase "banality of evil" in reference to the famous trial of the Nazi Adolph Eichmann. Arendt was on assignment in Jerusalem for the Eichmann trial as a reporter for Harper's because she could not attain a university teaching position. Arendt had not successfully completed the monograph that was to be her Ph.D. dissertation. During the National Socialist ascension to power in 1933 Arendt was forced into exile, therefore hindering the completion of the biography of Varnhagen and her doctoral dissertation.

Arendt studied under Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger the later of which she had an affair. She is most known in political philosophy circles for her study of totalitarian regimes in Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt collected the published and unpublished letters of the famous salon, bourgeoisie-oriented Varnhagen to map Varnhagen's identity through the inner voice she reveals in her letters. Through reading the letters it is evident that Varnhagen is practically apolitical, but she struggles with her German-Jewish identity and her life as a woman. Arendt explores the complexities of this dynamic through attempting to slip into Varnhagen and convey to the reader Varnhagen's existence. While in the process of amalgamating the various stories of Varnhagen, Arendt also devises her political theory.

Varhagen was at the center of an aristocratic salon where literature and culture were often discussed and she was viewed as a Jewish exception to anti-Semitism. It was believed at the beginning of the nineteenth century that all anti-Semites had their exceptional Jew, and for the many attendees of Varnhagen's salon it was Rahel. In adding her political theory into the construction of Varnhagen's biography Arendt spares Varnhagen no sympathy, often thinking that these very exceptions furthered the anti-Semitic cause.

In essence what Arendt has done is constructed a philosophical-psychological biography delving into the subject's mind, breaking the barrier between subject and observer by using the letters as a background to reconstruct the thoughts of Varnhagen. Varnhagen wrote her letters as a narrative, waiting and watching for life to unfold, unwilling to participate in introspection. Fearing that contemplation of the past might lead to her rejecting her identity and denial of her self-asserted uniqueness.

Varnhagen befriended many of the most prominent novelists and poets; her salon suggested a milieu of sophistication. However, Varnhagen's letters allowed Arendt intense introspection on the feeling of being a Jew in a largely anti-Semitic culture and being a woman in a misogynist culture. Arendt's political theory is never more evident then when she wears the skin of Varnhagen and talks about the Jewish question. Arendt believes that the common Jew attempted to escape their Jewishness (Varnhagen was baptized) only to allow other Jews to flounder in their Jewishness; each individual sought to break from the community at the cost of leaving the others to be victims of virulent anti-Semitism. Arendt is at her sharpest when she philosophizes on the impact of the Napoleonic Revolution on Jews, "it would be incomparably more difficult to escape from a reformed Judaism than from orthodox Judaism; that association for the assimilation of the Jews could lead ultimately to nothing but the preservation of Judaism in a form more suited to the times (179)."

In the preface to the book Arendt says, "It was never my intention to write a book about Rahel; about her personality, which might lend itself to various interpretations according to the psychological standards and categories that the author introduces from outside; nor about her position in Romanticism and the effect of the Goethe culture in Berlin, of which she was actually the originator; nor about the significance of her salon for the social history of the period; nor about her ideas and her "weltanschauung," in so far as these can be constructed from her letters. What interests me solely was to narrate the story of Rahel's life as she herself might have told it. (81)

Rahel believed she let life happen to her and simply observed and recorded her situations. She was, "letting life rain upon her." She was an prophetic individual that simply aspired to convey what happened to her as destiny. But in this role as intermediary recorder of the past she observed and her unknown, but unconscionable future destiny she thought she was an exception; one that must succumb to destiny, but not attempt to influence it. An individual that was so shortsighted that she failed to consider the fact that the destiny that awaited her, the history that was being revealed and shaped her life was less important than her own life. She was romanticized by contemplation of the past and its unraveling into the future of which she only thought she was a part. Varnhagen was a paradox; waiting like everyone else for history and life to happen but yet she continued to assert her uniqueness. Varnhagen attempts to solve the paradox by waiting for history to unveil, but not discover who she was-only what she could be. In the physical world Varnhagen could not deny her Jewishness, but she aspired to be malleable, devoid of shape and identity, traveling on the waves of history as they splashed on the shores of her continuously unfolding destiny. Arendt best summarizes Varnhagen by saying, "she wished to stand outside reality, to merely take pleasure in the real, to provide the soil for the history and the destinies of many people without having any ground of her own to stand on (145)."

Very readable book on this interesting subject. The author beautifully illuminates both personalities and those around them. He does not hesitate to throw in a little sly humor such as when he refers to the king's "sidekicks" which he then translates into latin in parenthesis: (stipatores lateres). Scholarly and entertaining.

This is an interesting book. It appears that Pieper is a German Thomist who has written a general interest book on Scholasticism. He identifies 529 as the turning point from Hellenism to Scholasticism, or the Middle Ages. That is nearly the date that Augustine died, 525, and the date that Cassiodorus headed for the hills. It is also the epoch of Boethius, who had one foot is both eras. The primary access to Aristotle during this time was the Peri Hermenia and Categories, thus entailing a focus on language and logic. Only with the introduction of Aristotle around 1215 do we get the revival of Averroism and Aquinas. More treatment of logical issues and ontological questions would be welcomed, as Pieper concentrates primarily on theological questions. Evenso, this is a once over very lightly treatment of medieval philosophy that is well written and intelligently conceived.

Written prior to the recent interest in medieval studies, this book still gives a fine introduction to the era, and explains the significance not only of the great Scholastics, but also of lesser known figures like Cassiodorus, Pseudo-Dionysius, John of Salisbury, and Siger of Brabant. Both the fundamental problematic of the Scholastic--to unite the deliverances of faith and reason, in accordance with the motto "Credo ut intelligam"--and the attempts of different philosophers to carry out this project are detailed and explained clearly and in simple language. This book does not, however, discuss philosophical problems in any detail, and can only serve as a general introduction. Still, its brevity, clarity, and self-contained approach make it a good starting place for the philosopher interested in this topic.

This book by Winstonm doesn't as much state opinions as facts, he uses only good sources and the writings of Charlemagne's biogapher Reinhard to bring the realty of this great man to life.

Some works of literature wear well with time, and some do not.

Understandably, The Deputy was quite a red-hot item 40 years ago, when there was a certain frisson in criticizing a recently-deceased Pope, and not a great deal of historical work had been done to analyze the opposition of the Catholic Church against Hitlerism.

But now, at the beginning of the 21st Century, a wealth of actual documentary evidence can take the place of the fictitious imaginings, sceptical conjectures, and whole-cloth fabrications which make up the basis of this play.

At the time of its writing, it must havce seemed daring and challenging in a disturbing but healthy sense. Now it looks more like, at best, sophomoric propaganda, and at worst, like a new and deeply unattractive variation on Blood Libel.

I was tempted to write a long review, pointing out how this play is merely a tissue of lies, using quotes from both Catholic and Jewish sources that prove that Pius XII saved millions of lives in the Second World War, both Jewish and Gentile. However, I think this quote will be more effective. It is from the book _Hitler's Pope_ by John Cornwell, obviously not a friend or supporter of Pius XII:

"[The Deputy is] historical fiction based on scant documentation...[T]he characterization of Pacelli (Pius XII) as a money-grubbing hypocrite is so wide of the mark as to be ludicrous. Importantly, however, Hochhuth's play offends the most basic criteria of documentary: that such stories and portrayals are valid only if they are demonstrably true."

If one of Pius XII's loudest critics dismisses this work as rubbish, can anyone really believe that it portrays the truth of the matter?

"The Deputy" is stunning and still relevant, despite the acidic reviews you might find here contesting the pertinence of this play. It's more than probable the negative ratings in regards to this piece belong to the pious who, instead of looking at the objective facts, hide behind their own grandiose illusions regarding the dogmas into which they have been indoctrinated.

Afterall, is there any historical doubt that Pope Pius XII did not publicly condemn the wholesale slaughter of Jews by the Nazi regime? I haven't seen any document stating otherwise. Sure, he made blanket condemnations pronounced in the garb of generalities, but that's not what Hochhuth's play addresses. It's a simple question we must ask: should, as some consider, the highest moral authority on the planet straddle the fence in an attempt not to offend anyone, or should we expect a public condemnation of evil on such a grand scale? This, in my view, and in sum, is the dilemma the play poses to each reader.