http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/ en-us 2010-03-09T13:14:52-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/03/one_minute_to_m.html Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War Michael Dobbs - ISBN - 9781400078912 Dobbs does his usual masterful job with the subject at hand. It's wonderfully informative and well worth the read. It is a compelling assessment of both Kennedy and Khrushchev, and makes clear just how close we came to a nuclear conflict. As a result of the Bay of Pigs disaster Khrushchev determined that Kennedy was a man of mush... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-03-09T13:14:52-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/03/longitude.html Dava Sobel - ISBN - 978080271529X The search for a means of determining longitude is a millennial quest which reached its culmination in 1759. This is a tour-de-force account of that quest and its solution. She suggests it is arguable that the British Empire owes its existence to the find. Without longitude, "dead reckoning" was the only possibility, and disastrous results awaited most miscalculations. Travel was done within pre-determined latitudes. "Aim here, stay on course... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-03-06T12:41:09-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/03/soul_of_battle_1.html From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny Victor Davis Hanson - ISBN - 9780385720595 "Democracies, I think--if the cause, if the commanding general, if the conditions of time and space take on their proper meaning--for a season can produce the most murderous armies from the most unlikely of men, and do so in the pursuit of something spiritual rather than the mere material. This book, devoted to infantry, not... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-03-02T10:35:28-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/02/making_toast.html A Family Story Roger Rosenblatt - ISBN - 9780061825934 The author is an historic favorite of many of my generation, having regularly appeared on the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour, with beautiful, thoughtful essays on varietal subjects. He was also an essayist and editor of Time Magazine, as well having published several books, amongst them Rules for Aging, an interesting little book. This is a memoir of incredible sensitivity and poignancy. His 38 year old daughter died... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-02-27T13:33:41-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/02/the_empire_of_l.html The Truth about China in the 21st Century Guy Sorman - ISBN - 9781594032165 Sorman is a prominent French intellectual and a champion of democracy and free markets who has written some 20 books on various contemporary issues, many of them economic. In this lengthy essay he looks under the hood of the current Chinese bustle, glamour and shining achievements to expose the one billion who live in abject poverty, well beneath the world's radar.... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-02-23T12:49:05-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/02/red_coat.html Bernard Cornwell - ISBN - 9780060512774 Deftly and elegantly Cornwell draws superb word pictures to explain attitudes of the British officers, the aristocratic architecture of command, and entertainment of and by the privileged at the time of the Revolutionary War. Equally evocatively he describes the signs, sounds and smells of battle; the tactics, turmoil, wounds, destruction, destitution, and death. He is clearly the master of the historic novel, especially so for the history of battle.... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-02-19T11:30:42-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/02/isaacs_storm.html A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History Erik Larson - ISBN - 9780375708275 Rapt attentiveness will envelope you within a short period of exposure to this riveting tome on the 1900 Galveston hurricane--the worst natural disaster in American history. Isaac Monroe Cline was the bureau chief on station for the newly created U.S. Weather Bureau at the time, and Larson builds the story around this man. Smart, well informed, thoughtful, careful and... Curmudgeon 2010-02-16T15:32:54-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/02/the_white_tiger.html Aravind Adiga - ISBN 9781416562603 This unique novel is a sleeper of sorts. A "first book," and the winner of the Man Booker Prize (a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English) and a wonderful explication of life in modern India. It was written by a native, educated at Columbia University, who has returned to India to live and work. Charming is not a word one would... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-02-14T09:52:51-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/02/the_forsaken.html An American Tragedy in Stalin's Russia Tim Tzouliadis - ISBN - 978-0143115427 This riveting tome is in the vein of Dancing Under the Red Star, reviewed here about a year ago. It is a well documented, heavily referenced book, whereas "Dancing" was a memoir in the third person, written by the son of the woman who endured the gulag and lived. "Forsaken" is about the revolution and early days of Stalin, presented in considerable detail.... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-02-13T12:20:35-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/02/putins_labyrint.html Spies, Murder and the Dark Heart of the New Russia Steve LeVine - ISBN - 9780812978414 This is a gripping though bone-chilling little book which exposes "New Russia" as more corrupt than we might have hoped or expected. The author is a journalist who has lived in, and reported on Russia for more than a decade, and is thus clearly "in the know." It is a very readable account of his subject. Were it not... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-02-05T13:15:53-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/02/the_little_ice.html How Climate Made History: 1300-1850 Brian Fagan - 9780465022724 A very interesting book, and since its subject is timeless, it can't be said to be dated; yet his agenda--and there is one--shows through. Throughout, he kept making the case for global warming, now called climate change, since it appears that we skeptics have been correct all along. He opines that the reconstruction of earlier climatic records "requires meticulous detective work, considerable ingenuity, and increasingly, the... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-02-01T14:08:15-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/01/finn.html Jon Clinch - ISBN - 9780812977141 Clinch undertakes the development of Huckleberry Finn's father, sketched only briefly by Twain in his 1884 classic. The book is fascinating, and could well stand alone, but is more interesting as a long awaited sequel. The language is elaborate and colorful, almost poetic. He paints "Finn" with infinite grace. I've never read a novel so well constructed and linguistically sophisticated, yet nothing is sacrificed by the erudition. Scarlett, it... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-01-29T14:22:04-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/01/menace_in_europ.html Why the Continent's Crisis is America's, too Claire Berlinski - 9781400097708 So impressive was the Thatcher bio by this writer that I had to try her older book (2006). It skims the war on terror, but explores in depth the reasons for Europe's refusal to engage, as its civilization declines. Berlinski is an American who has spent most of her adult life studying Europe and its history; living and reacting within its cultures from England,... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-01-26T10:27:40-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/01/churchills_hour.html A Novel of Defiance Michael Dobbs - ISBN - 978-1402213922 Dobbs is nothing if not a fantastic writer. This is a novel, but only just. It is historic fiction at its best, and covers one of the darkest periods in 20th century history. Another reviewer described it as "Churchill as nature intended: Dobbs captures his famous subject with artistry. With every stroke of his brush, he etches the character deeper into the memory. It is... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-01-25T13:38:58-05:00 http://www.curmudgeonalia.com/blog/archives/2010/01/the_french_betr.html Kenneth Timmerman - ISBN - 1400053676 This is a somewhat older book (2004) but one worth a peak. Timmerman reviews the French-American relationship from the Revolutionary War to the present, observing that in times past we were best of friends, sort of; well, periodically at least. Throughout, and up to the Cold War there wasn't much bad blood; at least none which couldn't be explained by a variance of individual national interests. Europe remained key... Book Reviews Curmudgeon 2010-01-19T13:02:43-05:00