Myself and Strangers: A Memoir of Apprenticeship

Myself and Strangers: A Memoir of Apprenticeship
Average customer rating:

Only occasionally dull

Hemingway...plus

An intimate delight from a master of detail

Myself and Strangers: A Memoir of Apprenticeship
John Graves
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Hard Scrabble: Observations on a Patch of Land

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Goodbye to a River: A Narrative

ASIN: 1400042224
Release Date: 2004-05-04

Book Description

In Myself and Strangers, the much admired author of Goodbye to a River and other nonfiction classics recounts his long, winding journey toward becoming a writer in the years after World
War II.

Drawing upon memory and his journals, Graves moves quickly through his early days in Texas and his brief dramatic stint in the Pacific with the marines. The story starts in earnest with the year after the war, when his quest to find himself takes him to Mexico, where he punches out his young man’s recollections on an old portable typewriter, beginning a lifelong habit of looking inward, of observation and note-taking. We follow him to Martha Foley’s famous short fiction class at Columbia University, and then to Europe, where he spends nearly three years in 1950s Spain, part of the expat communities of Mallorca, Madrid, and Tenerife, keeping the journals that form the basis of this memoir.

We meet dozens of fascinating people: the large and generous Park Benjamin, who put him up in Mexico City; the restless, self-involved expatriates of Mallorca; Pepe Mut and other Spanish friends Graves sails and fishes with, and who allow him to become acquainted with the real Spain; and many other artists and writers, both famous and unknown.

It is a time of serious work and serious play, but whether cheering at a bullfight, sipping a strong local wine at a Canary Island literary salon, or spearing crustaceans underwater, Graves never forgets his deep-seated literary ambition. “I would like so God-damned much to write something worth writing,” he says in an early journal entry. And we see him producing, despite many false starts, a stream of stories and articles and the beginning of a novel.

By the end of Myself and Strangers, Graves has returned to Texas, where he finds both his true voice and the world that has become the focus of much of his admired work. Here is a wonderfully revealing portrait of a young writer on his way—of the strivings, struggles, and self-scrutiny that marked the beginning of an extraordinary literary career.

Customer Reviews:

Only occasionally dull.......2005-03-15

It was Gertrude Stein who said that she wrote for "myself and strangers," a saying John Graves quotes with approval. His reading of Stein is both deep and wide, and in a way his book is a reply to her famous AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ALICE B. TOKLAS, for just as she became a legend only after leaving the USA to live in Paris, the same applies to John Graves and his status as living legend of American writers. After an uneventful childhood, Graves found himself at 21 in the grandest adventure of them all, he joined the Marines in time for World War II. A sniper took out one of his eyes, and he acknowledges this was probably all for the best because otherwise he would have led his squadron to Iwo Jima where casualties were out of hand. Afterwards he became part of a second "Lost Generation," trying to learn to write in Mexico, Mallorca, and Spain.

If you know Graves' writing, then you keep searching through the book trying to find out the books he read and the dilemmas he pondered while writing his first novel A SPECKLED HORSE. The lists are fascinating and his comments uncensored. He strikes the novice as being outspoken, irreverent, lusty and always in love with one beautiful woman after another. It is a book in the old style of restless young American wandering through the cheap capitals, dreaming of the great American novel. I kept wondering when he would meet Robert Graves, and if the two of them would acknowledge they shared the same surname, but I was disappointed. John Graves, he tells us, stayed away from famous people, even those who writing he admires. On the jacket copy it says that he hobnobbed, as an expatriate, with the famous as well as the obscure (like the 400 pound, cryptohomosexual Park Benjamin), but this is not so and after a hundred pages or so, we realize we're stuck with him meeting a bunch of nobody drunks and whores. But he's fascinating and his book is pretty good, dull only occasionally.

Hemingway...plus.......2004-06-09

Many times in the reading of Myself and Strangers I had the sense that this, finally, was the book Graves dreamed of writing as a young man, a book that was literate, exotic, sensual and profound. Not that Goodbye to a River isn't superior. But it is about a river in Texas, and the history of that remote place and its people. This concerns New York, and ex-pats, and ambition and self doubt, and romance, (and lust,) plowing the same European turf that Hemingway did, only (in my humble opinion) more compellingly. Myself and Strangers now resides on the list of the finest books, memoir or otherwise, that I've ever read.

An intimate delight from a master of detail.......2004-05-07

This memoir covers the time the then-nascent writer John Graves spent in Europe - mostly Spain - following the Second World War and a failed first marriage. The book traces, through narrative and through journal entries from that time, Graves's effort to become a literary writer. It also chronicles the times, the people, deep friendships and poignant romances. And it provides us a decidedly UN-romantic look at the wealthy, hard-drinking American expatriate community - some entertaining moments come when the youngish and strictly reared Graves lets his journal know just what he thinks of all the bad behavior he's seeing (the older Graves appears more amused).

"Myself and Strangers" is a highly personal look back at youth by an author whose work has *always* been marked by the beauty of its language and the vividness of its images and portraits. The effect is heightened in this book because the subject matter is so intimate, even for a writer known for the immediacy and the personal nature of his prose. Here Graves lets us in on his early years of serious writing - writing that did not always go well, and that often caused more pain than pleasure for its creator. The old journal entries show Graves struggling with the "anxiety of influence" as he reads work by others. They also show him struggling with a sense of necessity and destiny that drove him forward even as he doubted his abilities.

This is an aspect of literary life that many writers don't reveal - either writing comes easily, or they don't talk about their difficulties with it (except jokingly) - and it is sometimes almost heartbreaking to read. But the heartbreak doesn't last - because if you know Graves's other books (and you should, particularly, in this reader's opinion, "Goodbye to a River" and "Hard Scrabble"), you know that not too long after the apprentice times he chronicles here, he had become the real thing. (For his entire career he has been known to other writers - though not always to the reading public beyond Texas. It's time for the rest of us to catch on!)

Graves is superb at bringing the reader into the moment, economically yet thoroughly. If sounds matter to a scene, they are almost audible. The stones on the ground and the clouds in the sky are almost visible. Even the smell and taste can be found if you need them. Thanks to this quality, you can read a page of "Myself and Strangers" and find yourself in the midst of a moment that happened 50 years ago. And whether you're out on a sailboat off Mallorca, or trying to figure out how to leave a shrill drunken party, or sitting on a terrace with a glass of wine on some warm luminous night, you are always spending time with a writer who's the best of good company.

Myself and Strangers: A Memoir of Apprenticeship
Average customer rating:
Myself and Strangers: A Memoir of Apprenticeship
John Graves
Manufacturer: University of Texas Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000ORY8HA

Customer Reviews:

Inspirational!.......2000-01-10

This is a biography of Lenny Bernstein, in the genre of non-fiction. From when he was a little child, he loved music. The book tells you about him growing up as a music teacher, a piano player, a composer and a conductor of symphony orchestras.

I enjoyed reading about Lenny because there were a lot of things that were hard for him in his life and that he overcame. For example, school - he never had time to do his homework because he took music classes after school. His father hated music because the only music players he knew played at bar mitzvahs and birthday parties, and they only got paid with their meal. They were very, very poor, and he wanted better for his son. But Lenny played music and took classes against his father's wishes. He got through all the problems and grew up to be what he wanted to be.

Yes, I would recommend this book to a friend if you like music. Even if you don't like music, but you are really passionate about something and want to do it all the time, I recommend you read this because it shows that if you love something and you don't stop trying to get it right, you can do the thing that you love all your life.

I learned that a conductor leads an orchestra and a composer writes the music. I'd like to read the books that Leonard wrote and listen to some of his music. Reviewed by Stuart

Customer Reviews:

Lives up to the title.......2000-05-08

Definitely a voyeuristic pleasure, this book will appeal to any fan of 'list books', and anyone who wants to know which movie stars showed their naughty bits in which movies. It goes beyond that, of course, to reveal info on just about every 'dirty pleasure' to be offered by the movies: serial killers, masturbation scenes, and any number of other naughty kinks. My only quibble is the fact that the edition hasn't been updated since 1994.

THE VOYEUR'S GUIDE TO MEN/WOMEN IN THE MOVIES

Average customer rating:

THE VOYEUR'S GUIDE TO MEN/WOMEN IN THE MOVIES
Mart Martin
Manufacturer: Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1994
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000KNWUB4

Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey and the Last Great Show Biz Party
Average customer rating:

Quick read

Light fun and then the dark fall of the Rat Pack

Rat Pack Confidential

A Curiosity

Rat Pack Confidential Review

Rat Pack Confidential: Frank, Dean, Sammy, Peter, Joey and the Last Great Show Biz Party
Shawn Levy
Manufacturer: Main Street Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Amazon.com

If you're not inclined to read individual biographies of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr., Shawn Levy's Rat Pack Confidential is a perfect one-stop resource. Less a group biography than a series of impressionistic snapshots, the book is loaded with can't-miss material--the dirt on the making of Ocean's Eleven, information about Sinatra's wild stint as a casino owner, deep background on Peter Lawford's habit of introducing Jack Kennedy to glamorous starlets, wiretap transcripts of mobsters Sam Giancana and Johnny Formosa discussiong Dean Martin's lack of respect.

Levy, whose previous book, King of Comedy, is a serious consideration of Jerry Lewis's life and career, offers similarly well considered insights into the members of the Rat Pack. He covers Davis's lifelong struggle against racism and the complicated intertwinings of the Kennedy political machine and "the Clan," as the performers preferred to be called (they often denied anything like the Rat Pack even existed and resisted collective references).

The book's debts to its predecessors are often apparent; much of the material on Sinatra's friendship with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, for example, appears to have been gleaned from recent Bogart biographies. The writing style, which tries to capture the ring-a-ding-ding feel of the era, also owes serious debts to Nick Tosches by way of James Ellroy, while only intermittently reaching their level of mastery. But these are minor quibbles. As a synthesis of thirty years worth of journalism and celebrity biography, Rat Pack Confidential succeeds in portraying the supernova blowout of old-school showbiz in all its dazzling glory.

Book Description

For the first time, the full story of what happened when Frank brought his best pals to party in a land called Vegas

January 1960. Las Vegas is at its smooth, cool peak. The Strip is a jet-age theme park, and the greatest singer in the history of American popular music summons a group of friends there to make a movie. One is an insouciant singer of Italian songs, ex-partner to the most popular film comedian of the day. One is a short, black, Jewish, one-eyed, singing, dancing wonder. One is an upper-crust British pretty boy turned degenerate B-movie star actor, brother-in-law to an ascendant politician. And one is a stiff-shouldered comic with the quintessential Borscht Belt emcee’s knack for needling one-liners. The architectonically sleek marquee of the Sands Hotel announces their presence simply by listing their names: FRANK SINATRA. DEAN MARTIN. SAMMY DAVIS, JR. PETER LAWFORD. JOEY BISHOP. Around them an entire cast gathers: actors, comics, singers, songwriters, gangsters, politicians, and women, as well as thousands of starstruck everyday folks who fork over pocketfuls of money for the privilege of basking in their presence. They call themselves The Clan. But to an awed world, they are known as The Rat Pack.

They had it all. Fame. Gorgeous women. A fabulouse playground of a city and all the money in the world. The backing of fearsome crime lords and the blessing of the President of the United States. But the dark side–over the thin line between pleasure and debauchery, between swinging self-confidence and brutal arrogance–took its toll. In four years, their great ride was over, and showbiz was never the same.

Acclaimed Jerry Lewis biographer Shawn Levy has written a dazzling portrait of a time when neon brightness cast sordid shadows. It was Frank’s World, and we just lived in it.

Customer Reviews:

Quick read.......2007-07-24

Not a lot of new knowledge in this book. Most of it has been written about before but it was interesting to see how the author linked the lives of these men together to show how their relationships evolved over time. I enjoyed reading this book.

Light fun and then the dark fall of the Rat Pack.......2007-04-29

Rat Pack Confidential gives a 101 level course of the group, highlighting the fun they had together makes movies and showing off at the Vegas clubs. It then chronicles the toubles they had together (Why did Sammy alientate himself from Frank?) and then their downfalls as indvidiuals (Dean's descent into alcoholism). Longer books could (and have been) written about each of them indivdiually, but this succinctly captures their spirit in both the glamour and their squalor. It accomplishes what it sets out to do.

Rat Pack Confidential.......2007-03-31

I found this book to be enlightening and enjoyable, filling in some gaps in my knowledge of the Rat Pack. It did, however, suffer from something that happens fairly often in popular histories, and that is a shading of facts to fit the premise of the book. In this case, the premise is that "It's Frank Sinatra's world, we're just living in it". Author Shawn Levy makes that point over and over again at every turn, sometimes making bold statements about Frank's superior style or entertainment abilities, which really was unnecessary and took away from the book, in my opinion.

All-in-all, a good and informative read for Rat Pack fans.

A Curiosity.......2006-07-10

The author sets the scene well in the prologue. He paints the conductor of this orchestra of self-absorption, Frank Sinatra, as a revered singer and actor, who somehow decided to set up a situation where people he was curious about would be set up around him, so he could watch them, contrast them and influence them.

The stage thus set is almost like an extended form of performance art. "T am so unique and so invulnerable that I can make this happen, and make people like it." Many "American Idols" have done this, but few did what Frank did: set up a group like the Rat Pack to bounce along with.

Two figures of great significance emerge outside the perimeter in this story: John Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe. The former seems most similar to Sinatra himself: glad to have others feel that they are taking advantage of him, while constantly doing just the reverse. The latter is just awfully sad: a directionless icon who loses all sense of life purpose and whose end is almost a relief.

The part I liked the best was how Frank builds an extensive compound, including Secret Service and helicopter support, which Kennedy completely spurns. It was a comeuppance that Frank totally deserved.

You'll enjoy this book. And, as others have observed here, Nick Tosches' book, "Dino," is a natural companion.

Rat Pack Confidential Review.......2006-03-16

Several things to say about this book. It's a great anthology of the Rat Pack during their Vegas years. I'm a big fan of Sinatra et.al, and find this book to be very fascinating reading for anyone who is enamoured with these entertainers and their great era.

Book Description

Since the publication of The Complete French in 1992, the amount of theory has increased so that it now encompasses three entire volumes. This, the second installment of the series, discusses the consequences of 1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 Nc3 and the various Black replies one might expect. They include the Winawer variation 3...Bb4, leading to sharp play on both flanks; the Rubinstein/Burn lines, which result in active center play; or the Classical 3...Nf6. Featuring a wealth of example games, this volume is not to be missed by anyone seeking a thorough understanding of this classic defense.

Customer Reviews:

Actually titled "French Defense 3Nc4 Bb4".......2004-04-10

CAREFUL!!! This is a good book, but its content in NOT what is described in the publisher blurb above. When mine arrived, I was shocked to find that the cover had the additional graphic of "Bb4" on it. "huh?" I thought. "This can't be right." Only when opening it up to the table of contents did I realize it ONLY deals with the Winawer Variation of the French Defense (3.Nc3 Bb4).

While getting Psakhis' insight into the Winawer is well-worth the price of the book, if you were hoping to garner any knowledge he might have of say the Burn Variation or the Classical, you will be VERY upset to have purchased this book.

Again, this is a good book, and a must-have for Winawer-players, but NOT the all-encompassing tome any book MUST be to cover all of 3.Nc3 - there is going to be yet another book released in this series that will cover all the 3.Nc3 variations OTHER than the Winawer,...you might want to wait for that one if you're not interested in 3...Bb4. :)

Book Description

This new edition of Financial Management of Health Care Organizations offers an introduction to the most-used tools and techniques of health care financial management, including health care accounting and financial statements; managing cash, billings and collections; making major capital investments; determining cost and using cost information in decision-making; budgeting and performance measurement; and pricing.Avoiding complicated formulas and using numerous spreadsheet examples, its pedagogy includes: more advanced information in chapter appendices for those who want to go beyond the basics; a detailed outline beginning each chapter; a summary concluding each chapter; and 'perspectives', real-world situations and events which illustrate concepts discussed in the chapters. Now completely updated, this book provides students with the practical, up-to-date tools they need to succeed in this dynamic field.New to the Second Edition:Key terms and key equations listed at the end of each chapter; each set of key terms now becomes the first question for each chapterExpanded use of marginal definitions and key pointsAdditional questions and problems for the chapters; where possible, problems are provided in pairs so that the first can be used as an example, and the second can become part of an assignmentUpdated perspectives throughout the textInstructor's Manual available on CD-ROM including all exhibits in PowerPoint and Excel, answers to all problems in PowerPoint and Excel, and working spreadsheet models of exhibits and selected problems for classroom use

Customer Reviews:

Highly recommended.......2005-03-28

A very comprehensive and informative book, even though the examples are for the US it can be used and applied to other countries and systems. Gives a good grounding for financial understanding of healthcare entities. Highly recommend it to anyone looking interested in financial managment of health care organizations

Right to the point!.......2004-03-28

I found it very consice, and at the same time understandable with lots of examples, and practical. It is very well customized for health care organizations. It's worth your time and your money!

Financial Management of Healthcare Organizations.......2003-05-16

This text proved an invaluable guide to the subject of hospital finances. This was a subject I was not particularly interested in, and the book surprised me. It is readable and clear. The logic flows smoothly. There are plenty of examples, illustrating assorted principles. After reading several books on the topic of hospital finances, this one stands out for its clarity.

Passing for Normal: A Memoir of Compulsion
Average customer rating:

Great insite

a good book, serious, but humorous at the same time

Passing for Normal (by Amy S. Wilensky Reader Review)

I liked it. I have an autism spectrum disorder.

there are much better books on this topic

Passing for Normal: A Memoir of Compulsion
Amy S. Wilensky
Manufacturer: Broadway
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 076790186X
Release Date: 2000-07-05

Book Description

I am crazy. But maybe I am not. For most of her life, these thoughts plagued Amy Wilensky as her mind lurched and veered in ways she didn't understand and her body did things she couldn't control. While she excelled in school and led an otherwise "normal" life, she worried that beneath the surface she was a freak, that there was something irrevocably wrong with her. Passing for Normal is Wilensky's emotionally charged account of her lifelong struggle with the often misunderstood disorders Tourette's syndrome and obsessive-compulsive disorder. A powerful witness to her own dysfunction, Wilensky describes the strain it bore on her relationships with the people she thought she knew best: her family, her friends, and herself. Confronting the labels we apply to ourselves and others--compulsive, crazy, out of control--Amy describes her symptoms, diagnosis, and her treatment with courage and a healthy dose of humor, gradually coming to terms with the absurdities of a life beset by irrational behavior. This compelling narrative, by turns
tragic and comic, broadly extends our understanding of the won-drously complex human mind, and, with subtlety and grace, challenges our notion of what it is to be "normal."

Customer Reviews:

Great insite.......2006-06-12

Passing for normal gives the reader great insight on life with OCD and Tourette's. It talks about her very first tic to her treatment that she has today. Amy is very open about her problems in this outstanding memoir. I also have OCD and can relate to many of her stories. This book also gives hope to reader's.

a good book, serious, but humorous at the same time.......2005-12-05

This book was so incredibly interesting. I've read quite a few books on the subject of suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder and I have to say this was one of my favorites. Amy so honestly tells the stories of her childhood, the way she suffered from tourettes as well as OCD and went undiagnosed for years. Amy details such difficult subjects, her trials and tribulations, but often speaks humorously about her past. She takes dark subjects, and writes seriously, but keeps them from being too dark and weighty by keeping a humorous attitude about her whole situation.

Passing for Normal (by Amy S. Wilensky Reader Review).......2004-05-04

Passing for Normal (by Amy S. Wilesky) Reader Review
Reviewer: Kristina M. Emard from Lebanon, ME USA

Amy is an awesome writer, she tends to skip around a little but her detail and thoughts and opinions about everything are just so selective and different. Too bad there weren°Øt more writers like her. She talks about her life and the things she had to deal with. She did very well in school even with her disabilities.

Amy had a very rough up bringing dealing with her two disabilities (1) Tourette Syndrome which is a rare disease that is characterized by involuntary tics and by uncontrollable verbalization involving especially echolalia and the use of obscene language, (2) Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is an anxiety disorder characterized by obsessions or compulsions having one or both is sufficient for the diagnosis. An obsession is a recurrent and intrusive thought, feeling, idea, or sensation. A compulsion is a conscious, recurrent pattern of behavior a person feels driven to perform. Amy didn°Øt even know she had the disorders until she was older. She had to deal with her family and friends who thought she was crazy. She does finally end up getting the strength to go see a doctor because she knows that something is wrong with her. She was diagnosed with OCD and Tourette Syndrome, so her doctor put her on Prozac and other medications.

After, when she knew she had the disorders she had a hard time, and didn°Øt want people to say bad things or make fun of her because of her disabilities, so she kept them to herself. When Amy is at her group meeting she isolates herself, she says °?My main problem is this: I seriously questioned myself up to a group of people who wouldn°Øt or rather couldn°Øt accept my party line.°± When Amy says °? people who wouldn°Øt or couldn°Øt accept my party line°± she means, people wouldn°Øt accept her for her. She was afraid that people wouldn°Øt accept her.

In group she met a man named Bryant. They shared many similarities, which built their strong relationship. When Amy moved and was able to start at a new school, she loved it! She made many new friends, who again didn°Øt know she had these disabilities. Her friends thought that the twitching and the need to touch everything was cool. Amy eventually becomes obsessed with her obsessions and compulsions.

Amy goes to college at Vassar like her many other relatives, where her and her first boyfriend begin living together. She was afraid of relationships, afraid of getting hurt, and afraid of being touched, but most of all afraid of any sexual activity. She trusted Ben very much though.

In the last chapter she sends a very strong message that includes the title of the book. °?The older I get the more arsenals I acquire, the better I get at keeping my secrets, sometimes overriding them, sometimes Passing for Normal.°±

This book has an amazing twist in the end but I wont spoil it for you. It is a great book for any reader that can follow flash backs and such. She uses great detail and amazing thoughts and opinions. She is a great writer.

I liked it. I have an autism spectrum disorder........2003-10-13

I thought it was a really good book.

I think that overall my experience with Asperger's syndrome (AS)has been more traumatic than hers has been with Tourette's, still, I think it's an important book. "Passing for normal" is something I'm trying to do all the time when I am with people.

My only criticism is that she uses "like autistic" as a description of some of her behaviors and implies that it's a BAD thing to act autistic. It sort of feels like a put-down to me, but I don't think she intended autistic people to read her book and feel that way.

It's amazing at the overlapping issues that Tourette's has with AS (some people have both), but they don't have any intrisic problem with making friends or understand typical motivations, as she shows.

I thought her description of her relationship with her father was really interesting.

there are much better books on this topic.......2003-01-07

This memoir read like an article that was stretched out into an entire book. It was not a particularly interesting memoir or a good book on the topic of OCD or Tourette's. It was long-winded, obvious, and stale.

Crusades Through Arab Eyes
Average customer rating:

Unusual Historic Perspective, Written in Suspense

The Perspective Everybody Must Read

An oftentime misunderstood book

Through a mirror darkly...

Cultures Clash and Culture Deceives

Crusades Through Arab Eyes
Amin Maalouf
Manufacturer: Schocken
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Middle East | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0805208984
Release Date: 1989-04-29

Book Description

The author has combed the works of contemporary Arab chronicles of the Crusades, eyewitnesses and often participants. He retells their story and offers insights into the historical forces that shape Arab and Islamic consciousness today.

Customer Reviews:

Unusual Historic Perspective, Written in Suspense.......2007-08-21

The quality of this book speaks for itself, if it is written from the non-Western perspective of the crusades, but manages to score an average of 4,5 of 5 stars from 74 primarily US reviews prior to mine. Especially as the overall sentiment in these reviews stays virtually the same, pre 9-11, immediately post 9-11, during the Bush Crusades and after them.

The book has been written in 1983 in French, translated into English in 1984 and published in the US in 1985. As such, the book would need an update, not only concerning the Bush Crusades, but also about the information that the wannabe assasin of Pope John Paul II in 1981 wasn't the Muslim Turk Mehmet Ali Agca by himself, but a ploy: The puppet master was in the Soviet polit bureau, via Bulgarian and East German secret service ploys. The author Amin Maalouf was born in Lebanon and migrated to France in 1976, during the Lebanese (religious) civil war. He's an Arab Christian.

The book is not meant to inform on the European political, religious, financial and other motivations for the crusades, but starts with the troops arriving in Muslim territories. Hence, it is also not concerned with the prior Muslim conquest of the previously Christian territories. Which in turn had been European-invaded empires by the Romans and Greek, the Jews before that, then the Egyptians, prior to that the Akan and prior in turn the San (Bushmen). But even they were invading "Neanderthal" territory. So please, to anyone: Don't assume, "you" were there originally... (I left out some Asian invaders.) I hoped to find out anything at all about the Christian Nubian empires (either one or all of Nobadia, Makuria, Alwa), which were left alone till then, but got invaded by the Muslims as revenge for helping the Europeans in one of the crusades. Only Abyssinia (today's Ethiopia) remained exempted from the jihad. Not a word even of their existence. So, here's a message: There's a third perspective, one which is even more difficult to find any information of... (Please leave a comment on any known source.)

The title of the book makes the non-Western perspective clear, however, it isn't entirely correct either. But then again, book titles rarely are as the authors often do not have any control over the titles, changed for commercial reasons by the publishers. The author is Arab - not Muslim -, the main sources are historic Arab historians, yet the perspective is written from non-Arab leaders as well, such as Turks, Kurds, Persians, Egyptians. But also Armenians and other local Christians. In addition, it is not about "the crusades", as that would imply all of them. "Of course", it's only about those, which were directed against the Eastern Muslim territories. Not those against Muslim territories in Iberia, not those against Christian "heretics" such as the Waldensians within Europe, not those against European Jews (which were automatic part of any crusade), not those against European "pagans", such as the original Baltic Prussians, which for political reasons some Germans adopted the name from, and not those crusades, which didn't make it to the desired Muslim destinations, such as the Shepherds Crusades and also not the Children's Crusade, as the few surviving kids who really made it to the destination, were enslaved before they could leave the ships. By reading this book's view, you won't get a feeling of "crusades" either, but of one single 200-year-war, with several reinforcements - not numerically listed - of European troops. Who are called "Franj". Referring to all of them, such as the French, Italians, Germans, English etc. The same as all Muslims are headed under "Arabs" in the English title. Differentiations were made towards the "Rum" (pronounce similar to Roome), the Byzantine Christians and of course all the local minority Christians. The German title, translated into English, is more polemic, but more precise at the same time: "The Holy War of the Barbarians".

Most reviewers point out that the book is NOT polemicly subjective against Westerners in contrast to an adulation of the Muslims. I find it even intriguing that the author refrains from listing the civilizing effect on Europe, the crusades had (and earlier Muslim invasions of Iberia and later ones of Eastern and Central Europe). Before the crusades, Europeans didn't have essential items such as sugar and shoes (instead honey and rag/fur wrappings). Not to mention hygiene, which was lost after the Roman empire. The book does mention medicine and a reviewer criticizes that as arbitrary quoting by the author. However, it is historic fact that the Muslims re-introduced medicine into Europe. For one thing, it was considered heretic in Europe to dissect corpses, making it impossible for "doctors" to know, how humans look like inside. It is often said, the Muslims got sophisticated medicine originally from the Romans and Greeks. Part of it, however, all of them received medicine from ancient Black Egyptians. In fact, the latter were able to diagnose fine bone crackings/fractures, something TODAY'S Westernes (nor anybody else) haven't the faintest idea, how they did that without x-rays. Some reviewers think the mentioned cannibalism of some crusaders has to be reproduced historic Muslim propaganda. Not so. There are Western sources, by the crusaders themselves. As the leaders were not able to prevent the masses - not soldiers - travelling with them to engage in that, as they had no control over them anymore. For an elaboration read the 1957 Western book The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (Galaxy Books). I would like to note that it is amazing how little the author engages in what might be considered biased. For example, he is stating, referring to the last medievil Franj invasion of Egypt: "Never again would the Occidentals attempt to invade the land of the Nile." But in 1798, the Franj returned under Corsican Napoleon. In the 19th century, the UK occupied Egypt, in the 20th century warring resumed, with Israel. Yet, the author isn't using history for tempting more contemporary issues.

The Perspective Everybody Must Read.......2007-08-17

I ordered this book along with one on the Crusades from the Christian perspective (or the 'Western' perspective) hoping to get each side of the story, so to speak.

In picking up both books I was a bit apprehensive wondering whether or not they would be overly one-sided. For example, I was not looking for a piece of 'slam' journalism justifying the Middle East's current ills on the invasions of Crusaders 1000 years ago. This book is certainly not that. Mr. Maalouf painstakingly takes the stories of the Crusades, written by Arab chroniclers, court attendants of the Sultans, and other historical records written during the Crusades themselves, and gives you the story of the Crusades through Arab eyes.

What I found very refreshing about Mr. Maalouf's writing is that he simply didn't rely on the writings as the end all to tell the story, when it was clear that the contemporaneous writings aren't telling the whole story. At times when accounts don't seem credible, or when two accounts differ substantially (such as over the number of deaths at a battle), Mr. Maalouf looks past the hyperbole and rhetoric that can often accompany such tales and notifies the reader that the conflicts exist, or that agreement over such details has not been reached. He then generally takes the effort to research city populations, and army sizes, etc. to come to a satisfactory answer to the question posed. As you can imagine, there are accounts of "10,000" people slaughtered - when we know, now, that the town probably was not big enough to hold more than a couple thousand. Mr. Maalouf goes out of his way to bring you the truth, and not just the rhetoric of the day.

Another thing I truly enjoyed about this account was that the author went out of his way to put the words and writings of the chroniclers in their proper context, which, as you can imagine, makes a big difference, especially for Westerners who may be unfamiliar with Muslims/Arab tradition and the Middle Eastern makeup of the time. For example, before, during, and after the Crusades, the Middle East was wrought with fighting not just between Muslims and Christians, but also between other Muslims (Shia vs. Sunni, Kurd v. Arab v. Persian v. Turk, etc.), and from with other non-Muslim and non-Christan foes (Arabs v. Mongols). The sultans were battling each other. The different sects were battling each other. The Turks and the Persians were encroaching on Arab lands, as were the Byzantines and the Mongols. The Crusaders were attacking Jerusalem. During some points, some Muslim groups even allied themselves with the Crusaders to fight other Muslim groups. Thus, each chronicler (the Crusades lasted hundreds of years) wrote in a different time with a different attitude towards the peoples and places. Some wrote during relative peace, when Christian and Arab coexisted, while some wrote during all-out war. Some wrote when the tensions between Muslims themselves were high, some when there was relative accord. Some chroniclers wrote during periods of Muslim domination, and some wrote during times where it seemed inevitable the Christians would control the Middle East and Islam would die out. Mr. Maalouf ably ties all of the stories together, explaining the different attitudes among chroniclers.

All in all, an excellent book. It is eye-opening, not because it tells some one-sided story as interpreted by today's Muslims, but because it really gives you an understanding about how the people felt then. It truly does tell the story through their eyes - the Arabs of 1000 years ago.

Oh, and it is a "quick" read. That is, nothing in this book bogs down the reader or requires you to grab other books for explanation.

An oftentime misunderstood book.......2007-07-19

This is a good book and a great read. However, it is often read as a "real" history book, which it is not by a long shot, and probably was not intended as such either - Amin Malouf is a very political author, after all. Malouf has written an elegant text as well worth reading as many other introductory books to the crusades. It is telling, however, that the passage most often quoted from "The Crusades through Arab Eyes", Usama ibn Munquidhs 12th-century negative third-hand commentary on "frankish" medicine, has been cut and pasted by Malouf from its original context, omitting the autobiographer's original first-hand positive assessment of the newcomer's medical arts. That example is hardly the only one it the book that makes it readily apparent that Malouf is not a historian and lacks a lot of in-depth knowledge of the period he describes (or worse, has decided to omit details he does not find support his take on things). I read this book much as I read Malouf's other works of historical fiction, but I would not treat it as a real history book.

Through a mirror darkly..........2007-06-27

This is a good companion to a serious study of the Crusades. It gives a lot of interesting info on the state of the arab muslim world in the time period, and the effect the invasion of the Franks had on Islamic identity and political cohesion. The parallels to modern times are inescapable, especialy as regards the seemingly absolute inability of the arab muslim world to unite around a single leader for longer than that leaders lifespan, and sometimes not even that long. What it does accomplish is to humanize the inhabitants of the levant during the crusades, abolishing the "richard lionheart"/ chivalrous knights ideal westerners may still carry. Heat, dirt, disease, terror, death, these were the daily companions of the Crusades, and thier gifts to the people of the eastern mediterranean coast.

Cultures Clash and Culture Deceives.......2007-04-19

This book explains the crusades as primarily political invasions, without much true spirituality involved for many participants. He shows, interestingly, that many Christians were better treated under Muslim rulers than under the rule of Europeans. You will benefit from seeing how there were good people on all sides of the conflicts, as well as the bad.
An important part of this book, is the Epilogue. In this summary, a comparison is made of the "Franj-administered" and "Occidental-administered" territories, with emphasis on the rights and responsibilities of rulers and subjects. There is a lot of wisdom in this comparison, and should be studied well by those attempting to envision institution-building in the future. Especially when any act of violence against the western lands or westerners can be portrayed in Arab media simply as vengeance for expeditions in 1191AD. For reviews of similar books, see the resources pages at civilsociety at seedwiki. Thanks.

Las Cruzadas Vistas Por Los Arabes / Crusades Through Arab Eyes (Biblioteca De Autor / Author Library)

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Las Cruzadas Vistas Por Los Arabes / Crusades Through Arab Eyes (Biblioteca De Autor / Author Library)
Amin Maalouf
Manufacturer: Alianza
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Binding: Paperback

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The Crusades Through Arab Eyes
Amin Maalouf
Manufacturer: Schocken
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 080520833X
Release Date: 1985-01-13

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Oil Crusades: America Through Arab Eyes
Abdulhay Yahya Zalloum
Manufacturer: Pluto Press
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Interventions (City Lights Open Media)
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

ASIN: 0745325599

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Crusades Through Arab Eyes

Manufacturer: SAQI BOOKS
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ASIN: B000GVHJP2

Hitler's Cross: The Revealing Story of How the Cross of Christ Was Used As a Symbol of the Nazi Agenda
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A history lesson and a warning for the church today

A fascis-ating read

Intriguing

shallow, disappointment, too much author, too little history

Well Done!

Hitler's Cross: The Revealing Story of How the Cross of Christ Was Used As a Symbol of the Nazi Agenda
Erwin W. Lutzer
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Customer Reviews:

A history lesson and a warning for the church today.......2006-11-05

Erwin Lutzer's name is not likely to be the first to come to mind when people talk about prominent chroniclers of the history of Nazi Germany, but he has certainly done his homework here and presents - in a nutshell - how Adolf Hitler was able to take over the German church. There were resisters, of course, and Lutzer focuses in large part on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who went so far as to become involved in an assassination plot on Hitler. This book is an interesting read for those who are interested in the history of the Third Reich.

However, Lutzer uses all of this history to build up to his final chapter about the American church in our own day. The book is a wake-up call: the church needs to become involved in politics and lawmaking, or it will be swept aside. While it is true that the church needs to focus primarily on peoples' spiritual needs, inaction in law-making will lead the church inexorably toward irrelevance and ineffectiveness in all things. I'm sure that critics will immediately bring up the fact that our country has separation of church and state; however, this simply prohibits the setting up of a state religion (if you want to know the problems with the state and the church being under one umbrella, then examine medieval European history and the conditions in Islamic countries today).

In the U.S. the church is still subject to the laws of the state and, therefore, it should also be allowed to legally exert influence on the shaping of those laws. Lutzer uses the following quote from Rausas Rushdoony's book titled "Law and Liberty" to highlight the necessity of the church taking a role in the shaping of our country's laws: "Behind every system of law there is a god. To find the god in any system, locate the source of law in that system...When you choose your authority, you choose your god, and where you look for your law, there is your god."

The church has already been bulllied by the law, which has been shaped primarily by secular humanists, for the past three and a half decades; inactivity on the part of individual members, as well as the body as a whole, will not make conditions better in America. Unless we want to see the influence of Christ and His church diminish until, as in Nazi Germany, the church is under the goverment's thumb rather than separate from it, we had better heed Lutzer's call to action and get involved. This does not mean that every Christian has to become a politican/lawmaker - although we need Christian lawmakers, too - but that the church needs to make its voice heard, and that starts simply at the voting booth.

A fascis-ating read.......2006-08-26

The revealing story of how the cross of christ was used as a symbol of the nazi agenda.

The book begins with the rise of Hitler, where his beliefs stemmed from, the manipulation of the people and how he replaced the cross with the swastika. The book then gets into the church and the role it played. Quite a bit is dedicated to Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was executed at age 39. He gave his life for what he believed in. There are good books available on Bonhoeffers writings. The book ends discussing Americas own hidden cross.

Intriguing.......2006-05-23

Lutzer does a wonderful job illustrating and detailing the reasons Christians living during the Holocaust failed to rebel against the Thrid Reich. Not only does he help you understand just how it happened, but he warns us just how fickle the human heart can be in that it could very well happen again (even in the seemingly invincible United States).

The content of the book is more "entertaining" than the style of writing, though, whether or not you enjoy the style it is definitely a worthy read.

shallow, disappointment, too much author, too little history.......2006-01-20

i found the book as a result of a Sunday School class on D. Bonhoeffer. Someone in the class brought it in. I had glanced at it and thought it about how the German Church capitulated to Nazification, thus buying it on those few pages read. I was disappointed.
First in the mess the author makes with introducing dispensational premillennial prophecy at virtually every turn. It was ok and bearable for the first 100 pages or so, but the facts about German became thinner and thinner until all i saw was his opinions on end times and the rise of the anti-Christ. Second, was the hurrying through the facts, past the history to make parallels between the Nazi Germany era and our own, especially with the constant refrain that the Holocaust equals the deaths due to abortion. Once would have been plenty to get the point, but he continues to make this his big point throughout, without ever really looking at the issues the idea brings up. Third is the underlying idea that Hitler and his companions were in contact with demons and this is what gave them their "mesmerizing control" over Germans.

I would not have normally finished the book, but i was hoping for more at each turn of the page. rats.

thanks for reading this short review. if you have books to recommend on D. Bonhoeffer or how the church can overcome it's cultural captivity please contact me at rwilliam2@yahoo.com

Well Done!.......2005-11-05

Erwin Lutzer has written a great book here. This is only the second title I've read by Lutzer (the other one is One Minute After You Die) and neither one has disappointed. Lutzer is a very accurate and thorough teacher and author. He knows the Bible well and has done a good job of viewing the holocaust through the lens of Scripture. He asks and answers important questions about what happened and why. For example, where was the church? He also draws many parallels between Hitler and the antichrist. It is a very interesting and insightful read for anyone who wishes to better understand what transpired, how it came to be, and what the future holds in store according to the Bible. I highly recommend this book!

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