Bloods: An Oral History of the Vietnam War by Black Veterans
Ken Burns’ PBS series, The Vietnam War has been much in the news, and on many minds, this fall, 52 years …
Category Archives: Books
Iceland — Volcanoes and New Fiction
Friends and I spent a most memorable two weeks in Iceland at the beginning of September, 2017. Not only was …
Tides: The Science and Spirit of the Ocean
A surprise gift from a brother on a recent birthday was Jonathan White’s 2017 Tides: The Science and Spirit of …
Croatia — The Sorrows of Separation
The news from Spain and Catalonia this week has made my blood run cold. Plebiscites, exuberance, declarations of independence. The …
Language Does Not Lie — Victor Klemperer
Victor Klemperer was a philologist, a German and a Jew in Dresden during the Nazi regime and the world war. As …
On Tyranny – Timothy Snyder
Do Not Obey in Advance This is the sentence which starts Timothy Snyder’s sadly necessary book, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons …
Iceland: So Young, So Fair
The government of Iceland fell the week we were in the country. It wasn’t apparent in the shops, streets or …
The War at Home 1918-1923
I’ve been away and tramping the back roads of Iceland for two weeks and am so far behind I can’t …
The Long March – William Styron
Long before William Styron became famous for The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) and Sophie’s Choice (1979) he wrote a slim …
Tadeusz Borowski — The Camps are Us
Massacre and genocide have been on the scroll of human history since cracked skulls left their sure signs, then in …
A History of Warfare – John Keegan
A History of Warfare, (1993) by John Keegan is a substantial and interesting book, not for those who want to …
Baboons and You: A Natural History of Peace
Robert Sapolsky is a highly celebrated neuroendocrinologist, who has also spent years in the wild observing baboon troops, putting him in a …