Classic Interior Design: Using Period Features in Today's Home

Book Description

This beautifully illustrated guide from top interior designer Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill reveals the best of architectural and furnishing detail from England and America's most enduring decorating styles of the last 400 years.

A companion volume to her 2001 Classic Design Styles, this book focuses on architectural details from seven distinct historical eras and identifies the vital details of each period. Carved stone fireplaces, marble columns, tapestry wall hangings, eighteenth-century windows, and plain and painted plaster wall finishes, as well as cushions, tassels, and curtains are all detailed with an eye to applying them to our homes today.

With in-depth historical surveys of each period, illustrated feature by feature, the book is filled with beautiful photographs and hundreds of creative ideas accompanied by insider tips, practical advice, and inspiration from one of the world's top interior designers.

Customer Reviews:

Beware: Only Fit for a Palace.......2007-07-27

First, I'd like to agree with another review that I read that this book is definitely not for decorating the average home. And if you're thinking that this book applies to you because you live in a million dollar neighborhood or an estate home, still wrong. This book is a classic example of you write about what you know about. Written by "Lady Henrietta Spencer-Churchill, the daughter of the 11th Duke of Marlborough, whose family home is Blenheim Palace," the book is meant for decorating a palace, resembling homes you'd find in "Unique Homes Magazines."

Second, The taxonomy in the book was disappointing. You'd think that a good writer would be able to to gather thoughts well and organize them before putting them on paper. Instead of categorizing by interior/architectural structure (fireplace, lighting, furniture, etc.)and then by period (Georgian, Victorian, etc.), the author did the reverse and by doing so wasn't consistent with interior/architectural structures by period; lighting was left out of some periods and fireplaces was left out of others, among other things.

Mislead by Its Sub Tittle & Cover.......2006-03-21

I guess, I'm a bit dissapointed w/ the book as I got mislead by its cover and sub tittle "Using Period Finishes in Today's Home". I thought I would find samples of classic interior design which applied in "today's home = non stately home", but the fact was - most of the pictures shown models of classic interior in the grand estate houses. I was hoping to get samples on how we can decorate our "non manor" home w/ classic interior objects. Also, lots of pictures are repetition from her other books and some are dated.

Unless you have that kind of mansion, then this book might please you. Otherwise it might only perfect as a coffee table book - not for someone who is looking for inspiration for their "regular/non stately" home. Perhaps, it would be great for someone who wants to learn on interior details in some periods of era.

For my next time purchase - maybe I should buy a book with some reviews on it?.

Customer Reviews:

excellent resource..........2000-01-02

...merely a tool, which definitley involves work on behalf of the reader. There are no pictures or test tiles to rely on; you have to try them yourself... a refreshing change from the results usually included in glaze books because you have to experiment and come up with your own results. I used the 1970's edition of this book as an undergraduate, which included the original recipes - not revised to exclude toxins - and while the revised edition is informative, it lacks the conversions for the "toxic" ingredients which many of us still use for the stunning results they provide. As a result some of the best recipes have been excluded from the new edition, and unfortunatley, the replacements and substitutions produce nowhere near the results gained from earlier editions. Still a good tool for the potter who enjoys glaze experimentation, but if you can score a copy of an unrevised edition(there are two- and they are out of print), you are sure to be pleased!

very promising , but delivers little ........1999-03-27

Many of these glazes are from other sources , same for clay bodies , but have been altered slightly to be presented anew. No real emphasis on glaze toxicity . Fritting Barium and Lead does not guarantee safety in the finished glazes . It's a case of user be aware . No guidelines for glaze usuage on functional wares or decorative . Is the glaze able stand table use - who knows ? Another in the long line of Artistic Glaze books , Ho Humm.

Lots of details but very few illustrations........1999-01-04

I was disappointed by this book due to the lack of illustrations even if only of test tiles. If the author has tested these formulae I cannot understand why these illustrations were not included, but without them the reader is left having to conduct his own test to determine the effects achievable. If the author has not tested, then the book is little better than the lists of glazes available free on the internet. Either way the reader is left with a lot of work to do.

Everything you could ever want from a glaze book........1998-08-22

This book has everything you could ever want in a glaze book. Includeing every chemical you need for glazes and charts on how much colorants to add in percentages. Every kind of glaze for every cone. I didnt' pay too much attention to the clay makeing part but thats not hard to do.

An excellent compendium of formulas for glazes and clays.......1998-01-17

Chappel provides a complete compendium of formulas for various types of clays from low fire to porcelain. He provides extensive formulas for various types of glazes from low fire to cone 14. The formulas are arranged by type, color and includes speciality glazes such as crystaline glazes. He provides complete instructions for firing. In addition there is a good discussion of materials, substitutions and toxicity.

Book Description

Detailing the photographic equipment and astronomical instruments needed to capture celestial images, this guide shows how astrophotography can be accessible to all photographers. Included is a detailed introduction to basic astronomy with information on mapping the sky, locating celestial bodies, and planning an expedition to photograph astronomical phenomena. Photographers learn how to determine the color sensitivity of various films and achieve the best possible exposure, how to ensure a captivating composition, and how commercially processed prints can support their artistic vision. Whether photographers wish to capture deep sky or solar system subjects, the dual focus on photography and astronomy and the helpful sidebars and charts will ensure great images, enhanced creativity, and a greater appreciation of the night sky.

Customer Reviews:

Not for any Astrophotographer - Artists maybe !!!.......2004-06-24

If you are looking for a book that will teach you the essentials of astrophotography, or a book that will help you get those elusive images using a 35mm SLR, THEN THIS IS NOT IT.

Its amazing how misleading titles can be - this book talks about astrophotography but i have yet to be convinced, other than a lot of artistically composed fancy landscapes and mountains with some random astronomical object in the background you will find very few examples of real long exposure deep sky objects, nebulae or galaxies, or anything astronomically important.

This book is more about FANCY photography meeting astrophotography - a good example is page 12 where the image is supposed to be an example of a large angle view - well its large angle alright - a beautiful image of a ferris wheel set in a carnival park the moon is somewhere in the distant background doing god knows what. The image on page 77 goes even better - a beautifully composed garbage dump with an overcast sky hiding the sun passes for "incorporating the sun into an image without a flare" - how ridiculous can you get.

CCD - forget it, it gets a bare mention, so does most of the current equipment, lenses adaptors etc - anything you would consider important like filters for polluted city sky's, or solar / lunar filters are perhaps "not artistically important" to mention.

A lot of the examples are astronomical rubbish and are just intended to look good - not reveal any astonomical phenomena or detail or techniques.

IF YOU WANT A BOOK ON ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY LOOK ELSEWHERE - if you are looking at artistic compositions for your nightly escapades you may consider this - one the whole A WASTE OF MONEY FOR THE SERIOUS ASTROPHOTOGRAPHER.

Heavenly Bodies is Great!.......2004-03-31

This is an awesome book for anyone interested in learning about astrophotography. The book is easy to read and well laid out. The great thing about this book is it shows that anyone can do astrophotography without spending a lot of money on gear. It is full of information on how to get started, what you can use, how to plan for potential shots, etc. The author even included some well timed wit here and there. The photos in the book are very good and inspiring, especially the cover shot! This is a great book for any outdoor photographer whether you have ever considered doing this type of photography or not.

HEAVENLY BODIES : THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S GUIDE TO ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY

Average customer rating:

HEAVENLY BODIES : THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S GUIDE TO ASTROPHOTOGRAPHY
BERT P. KRAGES
Manufacturer: AMHERST MEDIA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KVHQH4

Book Description

The Magnate has come to Earth for one thing... power. The Earth's mightiest heroes unite to try and defeat this intergalactic menace and stop him before he takes over the planet. There's one more problem... all of Earth's villains have joined the Magnate and his minions in the quest for global power. Can Earth's heroes survive the ultimate super hero Alamo?

Book Description

An American couple's adventurous 125 days and 24,876 miles of exploration while driving a Mercury coupe from Anchorage, Alaska, to Brazil's Rio de Janeiro.

A highlight was transiting the Panama Canal and three days of cruising the Caribbean Sea because there was no other way to travel from Panama to South America.

Overnights ranged from tiny hostels welcoming every traveler with old-world courtesy to magnificent chain edifices that routinely failed to know of verified room reservations. With chocolate covered ants the delicacy of one hotel's menu.

Multi-lane pavement soon became a desired treat, cobblestones a rustic backbreaker, landslides in Costa Rica dangerous hurdles, then road rocks in Ecuador ripped a hole in the gas tank. Between Chile and Argentina their route involved following rails and bouncing over ties through a railroad's "Tunel Internacional" deep under the Andes.

Most difficult was entering Brasil where a senion Customs Inspector thought the Mercury's documents were forged and restrained the travelers in his border town for days.

All this and more, trip of a lifetime.

Amazon.com

In 1997, eight prominent scientist writers, experts on thought and the brain, met to give public lectures on the state of the art of the mind. Their talks emphasized the practical aspects, especially how emotions and stress affect the brain. States of Mind gathers their presentations in one place. The question they all ask is, "What can science tell us about ourselves?"

Steven Hyman, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, says, "There is no more compelling reason to attempt to understand the causes of mental illness than that these various afflictions exact an enormous human cost." He describes "the breathtaking complexity of the genes/environment dance," in which we now understand only a very few steps. Jerome Kagan, author of Three Seductive Ideas, talks about one such step: shyness. Kay Redfield Jamison, author of An Unquiet Mind, talks about another step: manic-depression.

This is not a book about the mind-brain problem or the nature of consciousness in a general or philosophical way; it's about what it means to have a specific human brain. What factors shape our personality, our temperament, our dreams, our sense of self? What does it mean to be "me" in particular? --Mary Ellen Curtin

Book Description

An all-star lineup of scientists takes you to the front lines of brain research…

Are we born to be shy? Why do we remember some events so clearly and others not at all? Are creativity and depression somehow linked? Do our dreams really have deeper meanings?

Now in paperback, here is a wonderfully accessible introduction to the most important recent findings about how our health, behavior, feelings, and identities are influenced by what goes on inside our brains. In this timely book, eight pioneering researchers offer lively and stimulating discussions on the most exciting discoveries as well as a new way of understanding our emotions, moods, memories, and dreams. Inside, you'll find:

J. ALLAN HOBSON, author of the groundbreaking The Dreaming Brain, leading a tour of dream states and explaining why we dream and what dream studies reveal about our minds
ERIC KANDEL, winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Medicine, taking us along the chain of biological events that create long-term memories, revealing how we stand at the brink of helping those who suffer from grave mental and memory disorders
STEVEN HYMAN, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, tracing the links between nature and nurture, particularly in addiction and mental illness, to explain the relationship between inherited tendencies and the impact of life experience
KAY REDFIELD JAMISON, bestselling author of An Unquiet Mind, explaining manic depression, its prevalence among gifted artists, writers, and musicians, and the societal questions raised by trying to eradicate the "depression gene"

. . . and much, much more. Whether discussing the brain-body connection, the sources of emotion, or the ethereal world of dreams, States of Mind enables you to share in the very latest explorations into the nature and function of the human mind.

Customer Reviews:

Rather poor.......2005-01-26

While the authors of the series of lectures which make up this book have wonderful credentials as scientists, they are not very good writers. It isn't that they are unclear, so much as that they are dull and awkward. Mindful of their own research, some of the material is not very interesting either, although nuggets do shine through. I do recommend that anyone who can get hold of this book read pl. 24-27 on the neuroscience of cocaine addiction, because that section is a gem. Its explanation transcends cocaine addiction and clarifies a whole bunch of more general ideas: molecular substitutes, dynamics of receptor formation and reversibility, learning.

great book!!!.......2003-02-21

I am a graduate student studying neurobiology, and I always try to expand my knowledge of everything from molecule to behavior. This book has been a great starting point to me. All authors are well-known neuroscientists and I even found more articles of those authors and those topics covered in it and enjoyed reading them. It's easy to read and I hope to read more books like this quality book. Highly recommend!! One last thing is that "mind" concept is not easy to catch for me yet, I think I have something in my mind to be figured out;)

"Everything is organic"!.......2002-05-31

This fine collection of essays provides an overview of the state of research on the mind/brain. Avoiding deeply technical or metaphysical issues [although not ignoring either] these essays describe some of the structural elements of the brain, how those elements guide our behaviour and what implications may be derived from this understanding. Roberta Conlan has chosen her authors well. Each selection clearly conveys its topic with supportive information and useful graphics to aid our grasp of the subject. This book is a fine starting point for any study of how the brain works, both physically and cognitively.

The underlying theme throughout the essays is the evolutionary process. How has adaptation led the human brain to today's conditions? In any study of the brain, it is the abnormalities that provide focus. These essayists accept that both genetics and environment work together to create the dispositions humans now possess. No single element can be isolated in understanding how the brain functions. Beginning with the physical, especially the neuron's structure and operation, they move on to demonstrate how changes in brain chemistry can lead to addictions, mood swings and even creativity. The authors don't shun the many ethical questions about brain research or therapies. However, they insist that a new framework for psychological studies is required, one based on evolutionary, hence, biological foundations. In essayist Eric Kandel's words, "Everything is organic."

If any of the essays must be selected as the outstanding one, it is J.Allan Hobsan's study of sleep and dreaming. He describes the neurochemistry of dreaming before relating studies of both human and animal dream indicators. Hobsan postulates five distinct sleep periods, REM [Rapid Eye Movement] sleep with Recognizing that relating dream content is fraught with imponderables, he nevertheless builds a case for a biological basis for dreams.

With the rapid advances being made in human cognitive studies, many works are quickly outdated. This book provides a foundation for analysing and assessing updating publications. It's a worthwhile investment and will retain a useful place on anyone's shelves for some time to come. Read it to find out how it will help understand yourself and those around you. You won't be disappointed.

An informative read to unravel our personality and mind.......2002-05-18

This is a concise set of eight papers; which present to us with a mental and biological bases for our mannerisms. Although we generally manage to carry out without worrying too much about such philosophical conundrums, most of us at some point in our lives have been drawn with a desire for the need to understand our identity its formation and how our thinking process is set in place. Far from academic sciences, these questions and the answers we seek not only bear on the quality of our relationships with friends, family and associate but also has implications to our interactions with society. Our perception and analysis of events lie within this structure we call mind. To what extent is a bad temper or a joyous moment, a function of will and to what extent are they complex interactions between our genes and our environment. Ever wonder how some people react to situations with fear and hesitations while others react to the same situation without hesitation and care.

With advances in research over time, now it is known with certainty that a number of mental problems, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia are associated with structural abnormalities in the brain and can be cared for with proper medication. The interconnections of the 100 billion nerve cells define our personality. If these nerves in their respective regions get damaged, we can loose our ability to speak, make memories, and feel emotions and recognition. The balance or imbalance of these nerves disposes us to act or react differently from others with the life's ups and downs.

I highly recommend everyone to take the time to read this; it is highly informative and does not need any knowledge of biology or chemistry; just a curious mind

I raise my glass to science.......2001-03-31

I was most impressed with this book. Firstly, there is the correct attitude to approach the subject, with humility, and open discussion. There are no bones to pick, no doctrines to sell. Just a gathering together to try and understand something enormously relevant and complicated-the brain. Secondly, it is at the forefront of academic research. Thirdly, it is eminently readable.

The brain is an important subject to study. A proper understanding of its functioning and 'malfunctioning' can only help humanity. Brain scientists are gathering together from various sub-disciplines of the greater field of biology, including evolution and genetics, immunology, biochemistry, and cellular biology, to understand the brain. Those beetle watchers have upstarted the academic community again! Not surpising, since we happen to be animals, part of the biosphere. (Incidentally, this includes our brains).

There are up to date discussions on such things as susceptibility, 'second hits' (environmental influence), addiction, learning, shyness, introvert/extravert behavioural dispositions, mood disorders, creativity, manic depression, and schizophrenia, with some interesting analyses of famous poets, writers and artists included. Stress, what it means, the relationship to the immune system, and advances in therapy are discussed. Emotions, fear, and reason is discussed in the light of recent ideas and discoveries. Finally dreams, what they are, and what they do and don't mean.

There is a lot of good stuff here. Most importantly was the bringing together of ideas and research from various disciplines-we might like to compartmentalise our various learning streams in society-but that isn't necasarily how the brain operates. The links between stress, the immune system and the brain is a good example. There are real discoveries here, and real solutions. Facilitated by cross-fertilisation of ideas, and co-operation amongst disciplines. It is great stuff.

I look forward to what may be the coming 'century of the brain'. This book, in both its attitudes, and its discoveries, I found inspirational.

Book Description

Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material and observations gathered from his visit to Yugoslavia in 1999, Michael Parenti challenges mainstream media coverage of the war, uncovering hidden agendas behind the Western talk of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and democracy.

For seventy-eight days, in 1999, US and NATO forces launched round-the-clock aerial attacks against Yugoslavia, dropping 20,000 tons of bombs and killing upwards of three thousand people in the name of humanitarianism. Among those who could not help noticing the gap between action and words was Michael Parenti. Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material and observations gathered from his visit to Yugoslavia in 1999, he challenges mainstream media coverage of the war and uncovers hidden agendas behind the Western talk of "genocide", "ethnic cleansing", and "democracy" To Kill a Nation reveals a decade-long disinformation campaign waged by Western leaders and NATO officials in their pursuit of free-market reforms. This continues, Parenti shows, as industrial and ecological destruction wrought by the war last year helps the West to destabilize Montenegro and Vojvodina today.

Customer Reviews:

A cry in the emptyness.......2007-08-08

This is a splendid book, it attracts attention on clear truths concealed deliberately by the western means and reports authentic crimes committed by NATO and USA. All those who know a civil war know that atrocities are committed on all the parts, do not exist good and clearly definite villains, since he claims the western press blaming to them the Serbian ones of everything.
If we observe with detail the history and the events observe that the Serbian ones are heroes and victims more than villains. And the Albanians emerge as the villains of the movie, which does not surprise us those that we know to the Muslims.
But unfortunately the public relations are more important that the true, as happens in every day life, and the Serbs did it very bad.
The guilt of Germany also is clear. What would happen if the state of New Mexico was declaring itself independent and Mexico was recognizing it as independent country? If the army of the United States was invading it to support the unit of the homeland, would it be an invasion of a country on other? This exactly is what happened with Eslovania and Yugoeslavia and Germany as accomplice of Slovenia.
Certainly there are some aspects that I do not share, for example the life in the communist Yugoeslavia previous to the war does not believe that it was so idyllic as mister Parenti says. The life in any communist country has never been enviable, can be more or less poor, but always poorly, but so many yugoeslavos would not emigrate abroad.
The hysteric rección of some readership demonstrates that mister Parenti is right. There is a phrase of Don Quijote who says " the dogs bark then we ride ".
I think that this book have to be completed with " Fool's crusade" that give a lot of more dates and confirm the principal lines of Mr Parenti, may be a few more boring to read but I think that " Fool's crusade" is a solid book.
After read both books my opinion about the politics and the performance of NATO and USA , is considerably worst that before and the serbs have all my simpathy in their suffering.
But the story isn't finished.

To Kill A Nation is EXCEPTIONAL!.......2007-05-30

This work uses wetern sources to expose the gross misconseptions about the Serbs so widespread in the West.

The book outlines why the Serbs were not responsible for the break up of Yugoslavia nor for the conflict in Kosovo, and demonstrates that the Serbs were the real victims of these wars.

A breath of fresh air in an otherwise biased western literary community.

Excellent.......2006-02-19

Michael Parenti is one of my favorite authors, and he continues his trend of excellent and informative work in this book. The NATO "humanitarian" bombing was widely accepted at the time. There were few who challenged it. The Serbs were simply "the new Nazis" and thats all there was to it. That is why it is so refreshing to see someone make a challenge to those assertions. Whether you agree with it or not, this is an essential book to read if you are studying the NATO intervention and the conflict in general. Some other books and articles I reccomend on the topic are: NATO in the Balkans: Voices of Opposition (Available on Amazon), Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions by Diana Johnstone (also available here),Parenti's article "The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic", but most importantlythe Republika Srpska Bureau for Cooperation with the ICTY's report on Srebanica, based on UN and Red Cross documents, which exposes the whole thing as a fraud, but not suprisingly was suppressed.

Trash.......2005-11-29

Another shameful revisionist account from the left about the atrocities in the former Yugoslavia in which the author prefers to believe that NATO was acting in response to a desire to expand globalization instead of preventing an ethnic cleansing. Parenti's scholarship, as it is in several of his books, is very amateurish. He continually cites from totally ludicrous electronic sources such as the "World Socialist Website" to prove his claims, and rarely provides any serious evidence from the UN, or any reputable human rights organization.
For example, Parenti continually includes text boxes to reveal scatterings of totally subjective writing without providing any evidence. On page 22 he includes a box that is titled "Not Cleansed Enough," in which he goes on to write that the U.S. simply had an urge to attack the region because of all the Communist and Soviet symbols displayed on the streets of Belgrade. He provides a very cute footnote for this bit of non-sense which says "10. Notes from my trip to Yugoslavia, August 1999. See also the article on my Yugoslavia sojourn on my Web site, www.Michaelparenti.org." (pg. 218). So are we supposed to believe what Parenti says because of the notes he took during a [...] vacation in Belgrade? Give me a break. Perhaps some more tangible evidence would be a help.
Parenti makes so many ludicrous claims without providing any real evidence throughout the course of this book I was left totally breathless. For example, on page 52 he writes, "The Serbs issued warnings that Izetbegovic intended to turn Bosnia into an Islamic state, a charge that was dismissed as sheer fabrication by U.S. leaders and pundits." Literally zero evidence is provided to support this claim. Another instance of overtly specious citation occurs in Chapter 20, page 208 in which Parenti writes that, "[...] thousands of Serbian farming families in the Krajina region four years earlier-visited Montenegro to chide opposition politicians for their reluctance to plunge Yugoslavia into more civil war. Such a war would be brief, he assured them, and would `solve all your problems.'" His footnote for this one is impressive, which reads "Email correspondence to me, September 19, 1999" (pg. 237). Excellent research Parenti, email correspondence with whom, may I ask?
Parenti barely manages to cite reputable sources or serious scholarly works about the conflict in Yugoslavia. The majority of his sources are either from (1) himself, (2) Socialist Websites, (3) his vacation, or (4) Diana Johnstone, pseudo-journalist and fraud (see my review of her book Fool's Paradise for details). Not very impressive or reliable. I suggest you look elsewhere if you're looking for answers about the situation in Bosnia.

good counter balance to anti serb hysteria.......2005-10-01

To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia. Michael Parenti. Verso Books. 246 pages. Yen 3,960.

Review by Declan Hayes

Operation Punishment was the most devastatingly swift of all Hitler's Blitzkriegs. Within ten days of its launch on 6 April 1941, and for the loss of only 166 men, the Germans overran Yugoslavia and moved on into Greece. Given its strategic irrelevance, they garrisoned it with a relatively small number of generally second-rate troops. The Nazi conquest of Yugoslavia was, therefore, by the times that prevailed, relatively bloodless. Not so the occupation, where Yugoslavia was primarily engulfed in a civil war. Of the 900,000 Yugoslavs who died in the War, the Axis forces probably killed less than ten per cent of them; the Germans and Italians were, in general, horrified by-standers.

The Ustashi, Croatian fascists, probably murdered up to 350,000 Serbs, including 60,000 at Jasenovac, their most notorious camp. Mihailovic's Serbian Chetniks probably dispensed with an equal number of Croats. Tito's Communist partisans ran up a more modest but similarly impressive body-bag count. They instigated atrocities solely designed to reap the added recruits that the inevitable Axis retaliation would bring them. Having secured power, Tito ensured that the war's immediate aftermath was even bloodier than the German Occupation had been. After the Red Army raped their way into Belgrade and Berlin, a grateful Britain handed back almost a million Slovenes, Croats and White Russians, who had literally fled for their lives into British-occupied Austria, to Tito and Stalin. Some were shot, more were tossed into pits and dynamited. The rest were either returned to Stalin for slave work in Siberia or sent on death marches across liberated Yugoslavia.

Today is merely a part of this historical continuum. Today is just the latest round in the ongoing mosaic of hatred we call the Balkans. Neither the terrain nor the cast of villains has substantially changed. Parenti's book is useful in that it points out how the Western powers, the United States and Germany in particular, colluded in the carve-up of Yugoslavia, that beautiful but blighted land of the Southern Slavs. The NATO forces are, of course, protecting their vital interests by removing Russia's buffer states from the political chessboard. That is nothing new or novel. Now that Mother Russia is laid low, the West wants to ensure that she and her key Serbian allies will never rise again.

That is the general picture. The detail is, of course, as complex as only the Balkans can be. Parenti, just like the Western media he lambastes, glosses over that complexity or indeed the consequences that vital detail leads to in the foreign policy choices of the world's major powers.

His analysis is a straightforward quasi-Marxist one. The brave and valiant Serbian socialists are being ethnically cleansed by the Croatian fascists and the Islamic warriors of Bosnia and Kosovo, all of whom are being bankrolled by the monopoly capitalists of the United States and the European Union, who are obsessed with destroying the Yugoslavian socialist utopia. Sure!

Parenti is right to point to the complicity of outside powers. Germany's peremptory recognition of Slovenia and Croatia on 15 January 1992 which, till then, had been integral parts of sovereign Yugoslavia, though an astute act in realpolitik, made war imminent and inevitable. Recognition dissected a sovereign nation, it pitted Serbia against Croatia and turned Bosnia into a killing ground. However, even though the Germans and Austrians helped to light it, it was Josef Tito and the historical forces he inherited that built that huge pyre. That fire has not yet been extinguished and the embers will most likely be rekindled in the near future as Macedonia, Greece and Albania go on a collision course.

What is to be done? Lenin spoke of exploiting the contradiction. Because politicians of all hues have done just that through the ages, the Balkans remain the byword in sectarian and racial violence that they are. The challenge has to be to resolve, rather than to exploit the contradiction, so that people could hope one day to live in peace, free from free and free from the shackles of history. For people to be free, the truth must be proclaimed. And Parenti has done just that.

Although any Croatian, any Muslim or any Pentagon official could find holes galore in his thesis, Parenti's book is useful for a variety of important reasons. Despite its black-and-white quasi-Marxist approach, it is an attempt to show that the Serbs were among the prime victims of this latest round in the cycle of hatred we call the Balkans. So, of course, are the women being trafficked in today's liberated Bosnia and the victims of the endemic corruption that now reigns there. But, as history and this book both show us, peace in the Balkans is often no prettier than war.

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To kill a nation: the attack on Yugoslavia.
Michael Parenti
Manufacturer: London, Verso, [
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OUQ57S

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