1990 Books

"Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980 - 1995," by Editor Steve J. Stern is a collection of essays that vividly documents a revolution that only brought suffering and death. This five-part book traces the roots of the Shining Path from its heady beginning to the conquest that failed.

Part One is dry. However, Part Two & Three generate much more interest. I found Ponciano del Pino, Nelson Manrique, Orin Starr, Jo-Marie Burt and Patricia Oliart the best of the bunch. They crystallized the subject...bringing it to life and provided stimulating insights.

Shining Path started in rural Ayacucho in the late 1970's and eventually made its way into the urban centers, particularly Villa El Salvador outside of Lima nearly ten years later. Initially Shining Path was ethical and moral. The Founding Father of the movement Professor Abimael Guzman instructed his Indian followers to punish adultery, alcoholism, vagrancy, robbery and cattle rustling. Moreover, the young flocked to the revolutionary rhetoric of a "people's war."

Early on the Shining Path maintained good ties with the peasants in the countryside. However, this did not last for long because in 1983 - 1984 the armed forces implemented a brutal "dirty war" that forced the guerrillas away from traditional regions of support and into new territory where they too used fear and intimidation tactics against the local peasant population.

Eventually, the Shining Path went out of control...conducting terrible massacres against unarmed civilians and forcing children into its ranks. The tide turned against the Shining Path with the 1990 election of President Alberto Fujimori. The new president accelerated the organization of self-defense groups among the unprotected peasant population with the distribution of shotguns, rifles and handguns.

The unfortunate part of the Shining Path revolution was that the poor were trapped in violence from both sides. However, the true downfall of the Shining Path is that at the end they were nothing but ruthless terrorists who preyed on the poor.

Bert Ruiz

I have read many books on Sendero Luminoso. This is one of the best. Some of the contributers are genious. If you have any interest in the war in Peru from 1980 to 1995, you simply must read this book.

stern does a great job in collecting essays that tell the story of the rise and fall of the shining path... I had mcuh fun reading this book.

This book collects the thoughts of Peruvians and Peruvianists on the terrible decade of the 1980s - the most thorough and nuanced account of Sendero Luminoso I have read, with attention to many events in a variety of regions of the country. The reader really walks away with a sense of what this period was like for the people who lived through it.

This book is well written and really tells the story of berlusconis rise, but it is biased against Berlusconi.

Ginsborg is truly a master of italian history, society, and politics. I am not at all surprised with the overwhelming expertise displayed is this book, seeing as all Ginsborg's works display the extent of his knowledge and literary skill. A great "riassunto" of Berlusconi from youth to today, and fairly non-partisan.

Italian politics since 1945 has often seemed too unstable and esoteric for most Americans. Paul Ginsborg's short polemic about Silvio Berlusconi shows why people should pay attention. The Berlusconi phenomenon is an amazing, and quite appalling, one. From 1992 to 1994, it was revealed that the conservative Christian Democratic party, which had held uninterrupted power since the war, was deeply, deeply corrupt. So corrupt in fact, that the revelation caused its disintergration. But instead of the Right losing the next elections, a wealthy businessman came along and simply bought a new political party. Silvio Berlusconi's "Forza Italia" was not a party devoted to political debate and discussion. It was staffed by his cronies and devoted to his political cult. With it he won the elections of 1994, even though he was himself deeply compromised by the old regime. Serious allegations of corruption soon led to his loss of power and his electoral defeated in 1996. But he returned to power in 2001. Now in point of fact, the charges against him are more than just "allegations", as that infamous left-wing rag, The Economist, has pointed out. Berlusconi has perjured himself about his membership in a conspiratorial, anti-democratic, quasi-fascist masonic lodge. (He benefited from an amnesty). In the seventies his keeper of one his (one-horse) stables was a notorious mafioso. His personal lawyer, Cesare Preveti, has been convicted of 11 year and 5 year sentences for corrupting judges, though he remains free on appeal. Berlusconi delays his trials to run up against the limitations laws. He amends the limitations laws to render himself immune. He changes the rules of evidence so that trials will be further delayed. And when all that fails, he passes laws giving himself immunity, while seeking to undermine the independence of the magistrates.

This is bad. And it gets worse. For as Ginsborg notes Berlusconi is still backed by more than 40% of Italians. His defeat in 2006 is by no means a sure thing. Indeed he plans to become a powerful President of the Republic. This despite his judical troubles, an anaemic economy, and support for a massively unpopular war. This despite his failure to simplify administrative procedures, or start promised infrastructure projects, though he has reduced the penalties for accounting fraud. Ginsborg himself is one of the leading historians of modern Italy, and he points out Berlusconi's origins in the Milan building trade. He points out how Berlusconi benefited from the intervention of the infamously corrupt Bettino Craxi, who in 1984 ignored the courts and constitutional mandates for a proper broadcasting law to pass a decree without which Berlusconi could not maintain his broadcasting monopoly. (He also points out how Craxi was the godfather of Berlusconi's child out of wedlock, and how Berlusconi comically elides his adultery in discussing the end of his first marriage.) Although Ginsborg tries to be fair, there is not much to be said about about Berlusconi's media: the absence of proper news coverage and documentaries, rampant bias in Berlusconi's favor, more advertisements than the rest of Europe combined, two-hour documentaries about stigmatic priests, a sexism that sometimes seems to have come out of Lolita.

Berlusconi is not a fascist, but he is a threat to democracy. To be exact, he wishes to make democracy safe for the Right and for wealthy people like himself. One should be wary of a man who claims "Better fascism than the bureaucratic tyranny of the judiciary." The party euphemizes the fascist past, with public places and spaces named after "acceptable" fascists and with Berlusconi claiming that Mussolini didn't murder anyone. Whether it is the Bank of Italy, the civil service, public broadcasting, magistrates or the public health system, all have their independence and integrity threatened by Berlusconi. Meanwhile he deals with Murdoch and his own media empire as if conflict of interest laws don't exist, which in Italy they don't. His model polity is a world in which mass apathy is punctuated by his biased media and his political image, where people consent, but do not choose. Ginsborg points out how this project is encouraged by the weaknesses of a centre-left which, purged of its Marxist past, cannot seek to mobilize support, which seeks to compromise and which cannot inspire with its technocratic biases, and which, for one reason or another, cannot attack Berlusconi's venality. Ginsborg's book is not perfect (a law undermining magisterial independence is not made clear, while Ginsborg overestimates the influence of the late Canadian media lord Izzy Aspser). But in an era with declining voter turnout and declining independent media, where media monopoly advances with partisan and unscrupulous conservative politics, and where the left, the centre, and the right-centre are too nervous and exhausted to resist, there are good reasons to fear that Berlusconi's Italy could soon be our world.

The author of this book knows how to dramatizize politics. "...something important is happening in Italy, potentially quite sinister, and the seeming normality of life serves to mask it very well." If only it were just a fiction. "Silvio Berlsconi" is a great book on the current state of democracy in Italy, the kind of "modern democracy" heralded by Berlusconi's media empire. If the dictators of the early 20th century have been characterizes as "charismatic leaders" pied pipering away their cults of personality, then today's dictator can be thought of as the sort of highly tailored, well edited "iconic leader," the guy who just LOOKS RIGHT for the job. (Paul Ginsbourg includes a hilarious anecdote in the post-script about Berlusconi who, at a recent press conference, showed up with a face lift he had gotten over Christmas and then proceeds to make the most unfortunate analogy: "The communists...tried to have a face lift in order to hide their real identity, but theirs failed.")
As relentlessly critical as Ginsbourg is to Berlusconi, it is hard to ignore the facts of his presidency, both rise to and the policies to follow. It is also hard to ignore the remarkable similarity between the current state of Italian politics and those of the U.S. As Ginsbourg writes, "All this will have a familiar ring in Anglo-Saxon ears."
Democracy is becoming increasingly about television and leadership about being televised. What happens to "freedom" in a community connected only by cable? Ginsbourg makes a couple claims of his own, but the exciting aspect of the book is the fact that it raises such questions at all.

Mr. Pierce has lived in Africa a long time among the people. I have lived in Africa a long time among the people "Speak Rwanda" is brutally honest in its approach. It is fictionalized truth, written in a manner which explores the souls of men and the inanity of tribalism.

Pierce draws the reader into the barbarous depths of the human heart on its lustful quest for power. Bravo! I could not put it down.

Bonita Evans

Mr. Pierce has spent a long time in Africa among the people. I have spent a long time in Africa among the people also. His book is brutally honest in its approach. it is fictionalized truth, written in a manner which explores the souls of men and the inanity of tribalism. Pierce draws the reader into the barbarous depths of the human heart in its abysmal quest for power. More books about AFRICANS in Africa should be written. Bravo! I could not put it down.

When the rest of the world finally realized what had happened in Rwanda we reacted as if they, both Hutus and Tutsis, were sub-human, a form of life that we could not relate to. We did not bother to try to understand the conflicts that existed between the tribes for centuries. Pierce introduces characters who do not rationalize the tragedy, rather they take us on their journey and we begin to learn from them.

A well written novel that propels you directly into Rwanda's slaughter. Mr. Pierce uses his impressive knowledge of the people, land and issues to take the reader into a world of brutality, horror and death.

Using a well balanced approach, both killers and victims speak their thoughts as the rampage continues. A provocative and fascinating account of a time of hatred one hopes will never recur.

These were Ronald Reagan's best speeches. He selected them himself, not those a revisionist would impose. They are his most important speeches: his first inaugural when he warned that "Government isn't the solution...government is the problem!" His CPAC speeches including the landmark, March 1981 address. The Evil Empire address and his farewell address from the Oval Office. This is vintage Ronald Reagan.

This book is a selection of speeches that Ronald W. Reagan did since the fifties until he finished leadering the United States of America in 1989.
Here you can see how America was in the eighties and the challenges that americans had to face.
I think Ronald Reagan is one of the most importart people in the 20th century.

Es una pena que no se dinponga de ninguna biografía ni de ninguna selección de discursos de Ronald Reagan en español.

Out of all of the Reaganalia in print, this one is the Reagan Bible. If you are curious about what he thought, where he stood, or why every Republican candidate since 2004 has claimed his mantle, then get this book.

All of the beloved speeches--which sometimes feel like motivational sermons, celebrations of the American Spirit--are here:

* "The Speech" aka "A Time For Choosing" This is the speech for Barry Goldwater that launched Reagan's political career.
* Selected radio addresses.
* Both inaugural addresses, plus his farewell address.
* "The Evil Empire" speech.
* The D-Day/Rangers Monument Speeches.
* The Challenger Speech.
* The rededication of the Statue of Liberty.
* The Q and A session at Moscow State University.
* A selection of witty and wise quotes.

This book's strength is that it was selected by the Gipper himself, so this is essentially "Reagan on Reagan," or what he thought was important. In this aspect, "Speaking My Mind" outstrips its only rival Reagan, In His Own Hand: The Writings of Ronald Reagan That Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America. To be sure, I recommend both books, but the former has an edge over the latter.

In addition to providing the key intellectual cornerstones of his though, I found this book helpful for establishing a Reagan chronology. Lou Cannon's quasi-official biographies Ronald Reagan: A Life in Politics has chapters that revolves around (and therefore emphasizes) Reagan's shortcomings. This book, on the other hand, highlights the high points of his life. Between the two, you get a depth perception that each one lacks. "By proving contraries, the truth is made manifest."

Take this book, then, as the main standard work on both Reagan and Reaganism. In Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan, Edmund Morris passes Reagan off as an enigma. Not so!--he was an open book. Open this book, and see what I mean.

This is the first book dedicated specifically to Ronald Reagan I've read, and I'm glad it was one Mr. Reagan himself put together. I freely admit I admire Mr. Reagan very much for not only his political principles, but also his wit and his way with words.

Here in "Speaking My Mind" we get to see how Mr. Reagan wants us to remember him. He is truly "The Great Communicator". The speeches he includes shows his sense of self-deprecating humor, his ability to good-naturedly rip his opponents to shreds, his compassion, and his unwavering dedication to conservative economic principles, not to mention democracy and individual liberty.

Naturally such an autobiographical work may tend to be one-sided, but Mr. Reagan doesn't shy away from the politically devastating Iran-Contra scandal; He included his address to the American people taking responsibility for the wrongdoings of his administration.

I recommend "Speaking My Mind" to those interested in learning about Ronald Reagan as only the man himself can teach.

Bought this for my husband and it will keep him busy for hours reading it. He loves any book that has Cars or Truck in it.

THIS CATALOG IS INVALUABLE TO US, BUYING CARS FOR EXPORT. WE CAN CHECK ENGINE SIZES, OPTIONS, VIN NUMBERS ETC. BEING OUTSIDE THE U.S. ITS A COMPLETE WINDOW ON ALL CARS THAT ARE LIKELY TO BE ADVERTISED FOR SALE FROM 1976 ONWARD. I WOULD NOT BE WITHOUT IT.

This book is not for everyone. Flammang and Kowalke have given us not merely a reference book, but a sort of "living history" of the American automobile industry's most challenging era. It's great fun to track the changes in American cars from the North American Vinyl-Backed Road Pigs of the mid-70s through the confusing transitional years of the 80s, on into the rebirth of the American auto industry in the 90s. Reading this book not only shows you how the way cars are built has changed; you also get a sense of how the way cars are sold has changed.

The reason this book is not for everyone is that this is essentially an encyclopedia. There's a section for every American automaker, and within those sections, a section for every model year. Thus you can learn what makes, say, a 1978 Chevy Impala different from the 1979 models. Or you can read about the travails of the Ford Motor Company in the late 70s and see how they dug themselves out of a rut with their products. Flammang and Kowalke have done a good job researching this book and finding telling little factoids to help illustrate where each company was at in a given year.

This book is also a boon to collectors, as it gives fairly complete production numbers. You can learn about ultra-rare body styles, option packages, and the like.

I've only got one quibble: the authors exclude any discussion of "captive imports" (cars produced by foreign manufacturers but sold with American names, like the Dodge Colt and Ford Fiesta). I can understand their rationale, but there are future collectibles among these cars, and it's been a *long* time since the Standard Guide to Imported Cars has been updated. On the whole, though, this is a good book for any hard-core auto enthusiast, and one of the best rainy-day reads I've got.

The Standard Catalog of American Cars really sets the
standard to an automotive history book. The information is
overwhelming, and you will find yourself glued to the book
any chance you get.It's also a great book for anyone looking
for a used domestic automobile. It lets you find the right
car, and gives you options that you can look for while
shopping for your car. This is not a book for page flippers.
But it will fill your head with a wealth of information.
Best book ever!!!!!

Anna Funder gives a sharply cut and moving (in)human face to the now defunct German Democratic Republic by interviewing former Stasi members (the top, foreign spies, informants, organizers) and their direct or indirect victims.
In `a world where there was nothing to buy, nowhere to go, and where anyone who wanted to do anything other than serve the Party, risked persecution or worse', the Stasi's aim was to know everything about everybody with all means, even radiation. As the author poetically states: everybody had `a mirror Nemesis' in a Stasi department. The result was that everyone suspected everyone else and turned into an `internal emigration' for the sheltering of their secret inner lives.
In fact, the Stasi was a formidable organization (one informant for every 6,5 citizens) created in order to defend the government against its own people.
Anna Funder exposes the real Stasi mentality: `The most important thing you have is power" (Chief E. Mielke). Its colossal archives were partly shredded after the fall of the Berlin Wall (15000 sacks) and are being puzzled together. A truly Herculean task.
The author paints a society built on ideological fiction (human nature was a work-in-progress which could be improved by Communism) and on blatant lies (a multi-party democracy, no former Nazis, not responsible for the Holocaust).
But what is left after the collapse? A `Wall in the Head'. The victims are still heavily marked (psychological damage by the terrifying effect of total surveillance) and some Stasi men still hope that the Wall will be built again.

Anna Funder wrote a formidable evocation of life in a communist one party state protected by a wall.
A must read.

Stasiland is the former East Germany, a country where the Stasi, the secret police, spied on every inhabitant, kept files on everybody, and seemed all-powerful. Anna Funder has written about the Stasi in a way that sometimes seems like fiction, other times like memoir, and ultimately like an exceptionally readable history.

The Berlin of Funder's book is post-Wall Berlin, but it is as gray and paranoid as the Berlin of John le Carre's spy novels. Funder seems depressed throughout, and it is no wonder. She spends all her time interviewing former "Ossis," East Germans who were victims of the Stasi or who were former Stasi themselves. Even her irrepresible rock musician friend reveals that his band was declared "non-existent" by the Stasi. The secret police were so thorough that he cannot find any evidence that his group, which recorded several albums and was quite popular in the East, ever existed.

Through Funder, we hear from Miriam, who nearly made it over the Wall at age sixteen, but was caught, jailed, and blacklisted. Shortly after she married, her husband was arrested, then the Stasi showed up at Miriam's door to tell her that her husband had killed himself. She refused to believe the obvious lie and the subsequent funeral was a bizarre farce. Decades later, Miriam is still trying to make sense of it all, still searching for clues to explain what really happened.

Frau Paul tells of her newborn son whose East German doctors risked their careers by smuggling the infant to the West because it was his only chance to survive a life-threatening condition. Frau Paul was denied permission to visit her baby unless she agreed to help the Stasi trap an acquaintance of hers. She desperately wanted to see her son, whose condition kept him in hospital for years, but knew that if she agreed to help the Stasi just once, she would be theirs for life. The child was well-cared for, but was growing up with only the hospital staff as his family. When he left the hospital at age six and returned to his family in the East, he was polite but distant with the parents who were strangers to him. Forty years later, Frau Paul still considers herself the traitor to her country and failure as a parent that the Stasi told her she was.

Not all of the stories are tragic. Funder learns of a woman the Stasi tried to recruit to spy on her co-workers. The woman agreed, then went to work and cheerfully told everyone that the Stasi had recruited her to be a spy. Since her cover had been blown, she was no longer useful to the Stasi. They never bothered her again.

Funder visits the office of the "puzzle people," workers who put shredded documents from Stasi files back together. The papers reveal who the Stasi was watching, what they discovered, and who the informers were. Ossis may now request to see their files, but many of the files have yet to be put back together. The director tells Funder that at the rate of an average of ten reconstructed documents a day per employee, it will take forty puzzle people 375 years to reconstruct all the shredded documents. And, he explains, "as you see, we have only thirty-one employees."

Little by little, Funder allows us to realize that the Stasi does not exist as a curious and irrelevant moment in history. The torture devices in the Stasi museum and the thousands of bags of shredded documents that recall the abuses of power are evidence of a government that still haunts the lives of millions of former Ossis. It had seemed so powerful, but when the end came for the Stasi, it was without violence in a peaceful revolution of people who were just fed up.

When author George Orwell wrote Animal Farm and 1984 he wrote of the contemporary and future 'proletarian' dictatorships. The German Democratic Republic, more than any other state before or since, came the nearest to a state of perfected and complete absolute control over its citizens' lives. The author of Stasiland, Anna Funder, has done a suberb job of revivifying this state in her readers' minds through the personal stories of the GDR's inhabitants. I got this book for Christmas and had it read in three days, so good I never wanted to put it down.

The book's chapters trace the lives of various GDR citizens, both those being oppressed and the Stasi personnel charged with terrifying the GDR's people into abject submission. In Soviet Russia there was one KGB agent for every 5830 people, in Nazi Germany one Gestapo agent for every 2000 people, but in the GDR there was one Stasi - or full-time informer - FOR EVERY 63 PERSONS (see p. 57)!

Funder hears shocking tales of personal tragedy, bizarre - but true - stories of GDR logic, and personal justifications from ex-Stasi men themselves. One 15-year-old girl singlehandedly, without any prior planning(!), almost manages to escape over the Berlin Wall, getting within a couple meters of freedom. Another family is permanently separated from their seriously ill son for his first five years of life. And one woman's personal and career life is ruined when she refuses to submit to ideological control.

The author also interviews some famous GDR personalities, such as musician Klaus Renft, the evil-spirited Karl Von Schnitzler, and Hagen Koch (who literally wrote the plan for the wall). She also interviews the puzzle people trying to piece back together the shredded Stasi files. And she also meets with Stasi agents, who for one reason or another, decided to join the 'dark side'.

As I was reading the book, I couldn't help but become absolutely convinced that, despite the very publicized efforts of the German gov't to piece back together the Stasi files, in fact, German (and all other Eastern European) CURRENT LEADERS WANT TO COMPLETELY OBLITERATE EVIDENCE OF THEIR OWN CRIMES DURING THE COMMUNIST REGIMES. The fact of the matter is that many of the former communist elite are still in power now and are using all their gov't influence to ensure they are never, EVER going to be outed! So, in reality, many of them have gotten away with murder and look set to lead comfortable lives into retirement. Many times throughout the book I sensed a continuing cover-up and obfuscation by former Stasi men.

The German government's extremely feeble, half-hearted attempt to reassemble the Stasi files with a staff of 30 or so persons is an absolute farce! Funder calculates it will take them over 300 years to reassemble the files at this rate. With a budget in the billions of euros, it becomes patently obvious the German government's objective is to NOT reassemble the incriminating files. A person might even believe that the Stasi File Authority is headed by a person, Herr Raillard, who is secretly charged by gov't leaders with eliminating any damning evidence that is actually found. This isn't a surprise, as it is the same across the entire former Communist bloc.

This is a great book with a wonderfully direct, realistic writing style. I hope Ms. Funder writes a sequel to the book. I would have liked to have seen some photos too, though. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in life in Eastern Europe.

Anna Funder is an Australian writter who found herself in Berlin several years after the Berlin wall and Communism in former GDR (German Democratic Republic; or DDR in the German language) collapsed.

Through personal stories of former East Germans, Anna tries to put together a mental pictures of what life in former GDR was like. And this mental picture is a stark, dark, oppressive, and paranoid collage of people's lives' stories.

One will learn that East Germany was 'the most perfected surveillance state of all time,' where there was one Stasi officer or informant for every 63 people. The book covers the national formation of the GDR regime and also discuss the cultural background of why Germans were willingly subjecting themselves to authority. The best torture method devised by the Stasi was sleep deprivation. With all this and more, the author makes the point that the regime would not have survived without the Soviet military muscle and presence.

The book also presents some light and funny trivia: the quasi-scientific method of 'smell sampling' used by the 'Firm' (Stasi), the East German silly dance style called 'Lipsi' and the corny or mind-numbing propaganda TV shows.

Interviewing people who lost loved ones in the evil regime's prisons, persons who taught counterintelligence classes for the Stasi, who worked as informants or undercover policeman, students who tried to escape across the Berlin Wall, and persons who are still believers in the 'proletarian' revolution and are nostalgic about the values of the former Socialist republic.

By reading this ecclectic biography collage you will learn about German cultural values, GDR political and idiological history, the Stasi (one of the most feared secret police organizations). Stasiland also shows how much the Stasi archives ruined many lives in former East Germany.

A recommended counter-balance to the gloomy and depressing theme of this non-fiction is the romance/drama/comedy movie "Good Bye Lenin (2003)."

With the currently renewed interest in Cuba after President Carter's visit in May 2002, this title becomes even more essential. The author covers in brilliant detail how the Cuba of today came to be. In this book, the reader will learn how Castro transformed the free and prosperous Cuba of 1958 into the poverty-stricken dictatorship of today. Overnight, this book has been transformed from a historical text to a guidebook for future US relations with Cuba.

Truthful, objective, insightful, sensitive. An amazingly accurate picture of Cuba 1959-1961 and South Florida 1961-1963. Not just historical fiction, but an excellent historical and sociological description of the period. A must read if you have any interest in this period of history.

As a Florida native, so much of the history of my area is tied up with that of Cuba. Part of it is a reaction to the nation itself, and what it does; and part of it is informed by the people who - like Ms. Laje's heroine - settled here after fleeing the island, and the culture and interests they brought with them. Even though I have a number of friends and acquaintances in the community (including the author herself), my education on the subject had always been sorely lacking. How and why that nation could be engulfed the way it happened was a mystery to me.

After reading The Sugar Cane Curtain, I was finally able to understand a great deal of the whys and wherefores of the events and many of the people who endured them.

The book paints a marvelous picture of the history of the Cuban Revolution and its aftermath, from the eyewitness perspective at ground zero. It is by no means polished prose or flowery language; but it is earthy and REAL, and rings of truth at every turning of the page. It displays with an almost heart-rending clarity the dichotomies of a situation which tore that island apart - but did it slowly, incrementally, day after day until a nation was enslaved. Even though I knew what was coming, I couldn't stop myself from rooting the characters on in stepping forward to oppose the destruction of their way of life.

Of course, it never happens; and then we get to watch the effect of a proud people having to start over again entirely from scratch. And that story, even though I know it a little better, was still a revelation.

Purely as a piece of historically based fiction, The Sugar Cane Curtain is gripping and worthy reading. For those who want to know about this period in history, especially from the perspective of someone who was there, it is utterly invaluable and a must-have for your library.

This is a love story, not just about romantic love between man and woman, but also of love for freedom and liberty of thought. A tale of patriotism and passion for ideals set in a tropical paradise.
The author paints an accurate portrait of the life, people and places of Cuba and Miami during the late 1950's and early 60's as a background for a stream of consciousness accounting of a proud people's loss of freedom, and of a young girl's love and her transformation into a mature woman.
This writer experienced and remembers much of what Ms Laje describes, and knows many who have similar stories to tell, but she tells it well.
This book is entertaining, intriguing, educational, thought provoking...A must read for any student of latin american relations, political or any of the social sciences, A good read for anyone who loves freedom and the freedom to love.

In 1945, 19 year-old Robert Hilliard and 25 year-old Edward Herman, two GIs stationed on an army base in Germany after WW II, were so distressed by the conditions they observed at the nearby St. Ottilien DP Camp they started a massive letter writing campaign to the American people. Ultimately, the contents of the letter came to the attention of President Truman and played a key role in reversing US policy towards the Jews. An excerpt from their lengthy letter reads:

At the hospital of St. Ottilien there are today 750 people including a staff of doctors...attempting to preserve the life they find it hard to believe they still have. Four months ago this same hospital was being used to care for German soldiers. At the same time there were thousands of Jews roaming Germany, sick, tortured, wounded, without food, clothing or help of any kind. One particular group was led by Dr. Zalman Grinberg. For months he has tried to obtain aid for these people. The Germans refused him. The local governments refused him...For these people the Red Cross, UNRRA, the various Hebrew organizations were, although present, nonexistent. If they are to survive the coming winter they need shoes...they need sheets and blankets...medical supplies...the necessities of life and they are depending on you to get it for them. The intolerable situation of the Jews having to beg the Germans for food exists...We are writing to you for you are the only ones that can help...These surviving Jews of Europe want to live. The fact that five children have already been born at St. Ottilien is proof enough."

Like a pebble thrown into the water that creates ripples far beyond what the eye can see, these two young GIs poured out their hearts in a letter to the American people that continues to make waves decades later. Surviving The Americans: The Continued Struggle of the Jews After Liberation is the miraculous story of the role Bob and Ed played in saving the lives of the Jews of St. Ottilien and changing and improving U.S. policy toward all the DP camps.

I admit this book truly astounded me. If what you know about the end of the war is the Marshall Plan, that the U.S. rebuilt Europe, you have much to learn!

After V-E Day, the end of the war in Europe, the American "Zone" became a destination for many who hoped that from the Americans, help and kinder treatment would be found. Could that be far from the truth?

Dr. Hilliard, now Professor of Communications at Emerson College in Boston, was there. What we don't know, and now must face, is that very little was done for many months after the war for D.P.s (Displaced Persons), Jews, survivors of the Concentration Camps (Jews, political prisoners, intellectuals). In fact, there was no "official" hospital to take care of those who required such medical assistance, and it took some ingenuity and subterfuge to create one. And, in September, after an article appeared in the New York Times (then a true paper of record), President Truman had to order Dwight Eisenhower to provide more assistance in the U.S. Military Zone to the survivors of the Holocaust and the Third Reich, officially....Eisenhower comfortably situated in Paris.

After V-E Day, during what GIs called "National Lorelei Month", many American soldiers were killed by unrepentant Nazis and Germans if they dared venture (armed or unarmed) from the safety of U.S. installations. Meanwhile, Germans played the black market with crafty soldiers interested in making money, bartering for sex with women (many of whom undoubtedly had lost their husbands and boyfriends to the Reich), and occasionally, supplying an unauthorized hospital which is the focus of this book.

Some 7,000 U.S. personnel lost their lives after V-E Day to the "Werewolves" recruited by Himmler and his disciples in the S.S. (Schutzstaffel), but THIS story is even more obscure and less known. It should be read by anyone interested in peace and the problems of the aftermath of war, as we find almost perpetually somewhere across the globe at any time--not only in the Middle East.

It is a sad story, but a hopeful one, because there are always some who will risk all to help others, and THESE are the meritorious whom we should really honor. These men (some of whom, unfortunately, Dr. Hilliard could not name) also belong in Yad Vashem, for they are the righteous.

"Surviving the Americans" is a shocking and powerful book that recounts the mistreatment of Holocaust survivors by American occupying forces in Europe after World War II. The author, Robert L. Hilliard, was an American soldier stationed in Germany in 1945. This book is Hilliard's account of what he saw and the steps that he and others took to improve the conditions in the DP camps.

After World War II ended, the survivors had no place to go. They could not return to Poland, Germany, or wherever they came from, to resume the lives that they had before the war. Very few survivors were allowed to emigrate to America. Some wanted to enter Palestine, but that was not a realistic hope, since the British had set up a blockade to keep the Jews out.

In Germany, the United States Military Government (USMG) organized DP camps for the survivors. Life in these camps differed from concentration camp life in one key way. The inmates were not sent to gas chambers. However, they were deprived of basic necessities, such as food, medical supplies, and clothing. The Americans surrounded the camps with barbed wire, and some people who tried to leave the camps were shot. Ironically, many survivors of the concentration camps died from malnutrition and disease in the DP camps because of the neglect that they suffered at the hands of their American "saviors." Ironically, known Nazis received plenty of food, decent housing, and jobs, while displaced persons lived in subhuman conditions.

Hilliard focuses on a hospital, St. Ottilien, located in northern Bavaria, in which hundreds of survivors struggled to live from day to day with little food and inadequate medical treatment. Hilliard was conscience-stricken by the conditions in St. Ottilien. Soon, he and his buddies were doing everything that they could to smuggle food to the residents of this hospital. Eventually, Hilliard and a fellow G. I. named Edward Herman sent a famous letter, describing the conditions in the DP camps, that found its way to President Harry Truman. Truman was outraged; he ordered Eisenhower to end the American soldiers' abuse of the Jews in Europe.

"Surviving the Americans" is an informative, provocative, and very unsettling history lesson. It is the compelling and unforgettable story of a few men of conscience who were willing to break U. S. military laws to do what they believed was morally right. As Hilliard says, the world must never forget what happened here, and we must do whatever we can to protect our fellow human beings from those who would destroy them.

This is an extremely important work, one that should be read by everyone who has any interest whatsoever in World War II in general, in the Holocaust and its aftermath, or in how the liberating American forces dealt with the 'problem' of what to do with the Jewish survivors of Hitler's death camps. It will make the reader reassess the accepted historical view of Americans as the saviors of Europe after World War II. Author Robert Hilliard was a young enlisted man stationed in Germany at the end of the war. Hilliard takes up the cause of helping the freed concentration camp survivors after attending a 'liberation concert' staged by Jews and hearing the speech of a Jewish doctor who has set up a hospital to care for the freed Jews. He learns that though the Jews are free, in most cases they have nowhere to go, no food, no medical care,and no clothing. Many are still wearing their concentration camp clothes months after the war ends, and some are even wearing the clothes of the hated SS guards because they have nothing else. In addition, Jews are dying with startling regularity at the hospital due to lack of food and medical supplies. To make matters worse, they must watch the 'former' Nazis who ran the country under Hitler resume their old lives, despite the evils they have perpetrated. Hilliard finds that American policy in Germany is little better than that of the Germans. Many Jews are kept in barbed wire installations, under MP guard, and have to try to live on 700 calories a day. They watch the former Nazis ingratiate themselves with the US brass through bribery, lies, and sexual favors. Hilliard and his friend Ed Herman decide to do what they can for the hospital, and this book chronicles their efforts. By the end of the book, they take their plea all the way to the top, and are instrumental in changing US occupation policy towards the freed Jews in Germany. Because of the actions of these two enlisted men, President Truman in effect reprimanded Gen. Eisenhower for his laissez-faire attitude in dealing with former Nazis and treatment of freed concentration camp survivors. The book is well-written, and could easily have run hundreds of pages. Hilliard has crafted a lean and powerful book. I hope that it will be read by many students of history, and I recommend it to any person who is not content to accept the sanitized, for-the-masses packaging of complicated historical periods.

Well, 1990 has come and gone, and Dr. Ravi Batra is not that good of a prognosticator. However, he is a radical dude, and you have to like him for that, unless, of course, you are not radical.

I am (a radical, I mean).

You have to get to the end of this book to really understand what Batra's agenda is. The last few chapters are still relevant to today's American economy and society. It is a picture of pure and unadulterated classicism. Whoops, did I say that? Hey, I'm in the middle class. Isn't everybody?

Batra blames all economic problems, today and yesterday, on wealth concentration. I believe this is what might be called a "populist" viewpoint, because it paints "the people" against the rich elites.

Yet, it is only a viewpoint. Batra does not actually prove his point; he only shows some possible correlations between economic dips and wealth concentration.

You have to appreciate him, though. Batra has a tough gig, drawing conclusions about an entire national economy. The years since 1990 prove that Batra did not and probably could not factor in all the possible variables, for example, the emergence of conflict between the U.S. and radical Islam.

This excerpt shows you how radical Batra was when he wrote this book: "Time and again throughout history, enormous concentration of wealth among the few has drive the poverty-ridden masses to rise up and dethrone the affluent...in a massive revolution."

Is anybody out there so poverty-stricken that he or she is ready to revolt?

Revolution was more likely in the 1960s than today, and you see how those poor fools (e.g., the so-called Symbionese Liberation Army or the Weather Underground), were squashed by the almighty "powers that be."

You go, Ravi! Ravi Batra for President! Did you like Reagan as a President? You will not after reading this book. I never did, anyway.

Batra is a person of heart, and that's what distinguishes him from all the so-called fool Keynesians, neo-Keynesians, "tricklists" like Reagan and all their greedy, money-worshipping brethren.

Batra tells it truthfully: the U.S. is now and always has been based on a culture of acquisitiveness, which boils down to greed, which boils down to "me first." This brings back memories of good old Ayn Rand ("The Virtue of Selfishness") and other such.

This book is worth its weight in all the economic policies of all those trickle downers, namely, Reagan, Bush, Bush, and so forth. These big people support the ethic of greed, just as Batra so adeptly shows in this book. So did the Democrats. They cannot help it. We cannot either, I guess. We're like fish that don't know the water their swimming in.

Yet, some advice for the author may be in order:

Watch your back, dude, because Big Brother is definitely back there looking at you!

I purchased this book sometime in 1989 and recently reread it after reading Conquer the Crash by Robert Prechter. Although Batra misses his prediction by 13 years, in many ways he just predicted the upcoming event too early. In some ways, his theory of social cyles reminds me of Prechter's Elliot Waves in the sense the both suggest a sort of determinism that revolves around the affairs of men. That's one reason that I wanted to reread Batra.

Much of what Batra offers is quite sober and gives some food for thought. I find the discussion of speculative bubbles particularly appropriate given recent events which he could not have known about 13 years ago. Back in 1989, several things were occurring (i.e. S & L debacle, recession, real estate crash) that could have resulted in a very significant downturn. According to Batra, he didn't anticipate the influx of Japanese investment in US assets in response to the Japanese central bank forcing interest rates to zero. He suggests that this increase in foreign investment averted the financial collaspe he predicted. He is correct on this point as our current account deficit up to recently has been reinvested by foreigners in US financial assets. Now with the dollar faltering against major currencies combined with near zero interest rates here, these flows have now begun to reverse. A severe economic contraction is now within the realm of possibility.

Whether you agree with Ravi Batra's theories or not, his advice on preparing for and dealing with severe economic downturns is golden. Having read this book in the 1980's, and kept the possibility of a second great depression in mind, we successfully (emotionally and financially) dealt with a stretch of my professional husband's unemployment lasting a year and a half. I would recommend this book, and especially the worst-case worksheets, for anyone at risk for layoffs.

Is this merely a post-ponement? Perhaps the year 2010 should be inserted into the title?

Put 3 economists in a room and you'll get six answers, if your lucky. A good idea is to read books put forth by economists 10 years and longer in the past. You'll see how often most of them are not only misguided and incorrect, but also out on planet Mars. However, some offer good insights into cyclical trends and patterns juxtaposed with current political, technological, and societal evolution. Now, you can keep this in mind when you are reading the current books, newsletters, and magazines from economists, investment gurus, analysts, etc.

Dr. Batra covers many facts of the 1980s such as the Tax Reform Act of 1986, banking conditions, and the exportation of American labor and manufacturing jobs to LDCs among other conditions.
Covering dozens of areas in investing, here is one example of advice. He specifically advised people to liquidate tax-deferred savings such as KEOGHS and IRAs. page 178 states: "Premature withdrawal of funds in Keoghs and IRA plans may then be the safest bet in spite of various penalties, especially if they are entrusted to non-banking institutions. The next question is: what should you do with the money? Can you trust the banks at all?" ---end quote. Batra then promotes the danger of putting money in banks. Real estate is also getting ready to crumble. He did state several times, that he hoped his forecasting would turn out to be incorrect, and he (as all economists seem to do), provide the solutions via tax restructuring, monetary policy, and budget allocation.

Interesting, is that these forecasts were obviously made before the exponential growth and explosion of the Internet, which greatly transformed the economy, and markets. So....what would the economy have been like had it not been for the dot.com explosion? And, now in 2003, after that bubble has burst, will there be wage growth and middle-class job creation in the years to come....?

His "Law of Cycles" has eruditic roots. Batra, an avid reader and self-studied student of world history, international trade, politics, and humanities, noted several areas of the world and the-then present conditions that brought him to his conclusions. He did have the courage to write his beliefs (which he profited from tremendously), and write them in a very easy-to-read way for the masses, or laymen population. (Marketing?) In sum, reading economic books of the past, whether theory, or in historical factual disciplines, helps us make better decisions today, in our attempt to gauge the future.

We were happy to find this book because, face it, a repair manual for a 13 year old Geo Tracker is not in the top ten best-seller list. We bought this book because we just bought that very Tracker for running around town in our second home in Mexico, where this little puddle jumper and its clone the Suzuki Sidekick are verrrry popular. We have not yet needed to use it for repair but the pictures and descriptions seem to be helpful and quite adequate for any problems we are likely to deal with ourselves.

chec

Mostly oriented for the Suzuki Samurai, this book covers almost everything about the Samurai Machenics, and explains it on simply and easy way to follow.

The manual goes into the motor well. It is easy to follow. The photos are pretty poor though. It really lacks information on tranfer cases and differentials. if you are only going to remove the components and replace them it is fine, but thats is far as it goes.