History Books > a History Books

Advantages: Tackles difficult issues often ignored by conventional text books. An incredibly absorbing, moving, horrific account of conflict
Disadvantages: Chilling and makes me angry.

A friend passed this book on to me saying it was something I really should read. She knows how impassioned I can become about the morality of war, just or unjust. While this book makes no claim to being a historical chronicle it is by its very nature a testament of the innocent casualties of warfare and the moral ambiguities during times of conflict. I am no literary critic but would like to share my thoughts on this read. The book was (and still ...
...by her own admission a journalist who had travelled to Russia before the war and spoke some of the language. Marta Hiller's literary executor refuses to comment but in academic circles it is widely believed the author is Marta. This book was first published in England and America in translation in 1954. The German publication a few years later caused much outrage and was accused of 'besmirching the honour of German woman'. The author was so distressed ... Read review

Advantages: Fascinating reading
Disadvantages: -

...been late in coming, and a little less forceful in affect and event. Perhaps history is to blame here -- the Welsh have been only marginally protected by geography; the mountainous area was difficult terrain to conquer, but the supply lines to those mountains were relatively easy to maintain and sustain, unlike the trek to the northern reaches of Scotland or crossing the sea into Ireland, areas that (however much English history might want to contradict ...
...so fortunate. Indeed, it is a miracle that the Welsh survive. The Scots lost land, language and independence, but retained administrative and legal systems separations that preserved many aspects of nationhood. The Irish never completely lost independence. The Welsh, however, lost practically everything of nationhood, and barely sustained an independent culture. Thus, when the 'nations' of the British Isles began to re-exert their independent interpretations ... Read review