Review: The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler

The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler by William Schirer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I've read the huge work of history that this Scholastic Book Services edition abridges ostensibly for YA readers: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. After that hefty tome's success, William Shirer was commissioned to write this for a young adult audience. However, this account loses none of the immediacy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany due to the inclusion of captured source documents, stenographer notes, and other first-person accounts including those of Shirer. The story of Hitler's rise from obscurity, the horror of Nazi Germany's mass killings, the peak of military success before turning on Russia, and the paranoia and insanity that marked Hitler's downfall in a claustrophobic bunker all read well with nothing apparently held back of simplified unnecessarily. This book is by no means simplified-and is sure to appeal to adults as well and compact at less than two hundred pages tells the Hitler arc with a brisk pace making for possibly a more engaging read than larger works.

View all my reviews

Review: West Cork

West Cork by Sam Bungey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Really a podcast combined into a book, I think this really points to the type of success an audiobook is capable of as the format develops into something like an audio documentary/radio play/performance beyond mere narration. This work has background music, field recordings, interviews, etc. to tell of the remote and mysterious Sophie Toscan du Plantier murder along with evolving relationship of the crime to outspoken and mildly eccentric poet journalist Ian Bailey. I hope Audible will continue to pioneer content like this and further remove it from its podcast roots (remove recaps, repeated introductions, etc.)

View all my reviews

Review: With Rommel In The Desert

With Rommel In The Desert by Heinz Werner Schmidt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this just as riveting and enjoyable as when I read it decades ago, so maybe I should give this 5 stars. What holds me back is the plentiful unit and commander detail that, I think, introduces an unnecessary granularity more distracting than helpful; to wit frequent footnotes and long lists of proper nouns.

Surviving supporting Italian allies in Eritrea, the author walked into a position as Rommel's aide and transitioned from there to commanding a combat unit during the Axis North African Campaign.
Thus, he was a first-hand witness to the hard struggle to brief supremacy over the British-led Allies with the 1942 defeating of the Allies at Gazala in June and the capture of Tobruk. From here there was a long, bitter decline for the Axis. Ever under-manned and under-supplied (Rommel responded with fake tanks and urgent attacks), the added weight caused the Axis powers to succumb. Although Rommel was back in Europe by then and out of the picture on the ground, the author was still there and recollects here. Fortunately, there is a wedding at the end...

View all my reviews

Review: Black Market Billions: How Organized Retail Crime Funds Global Terrorists

Black Market Billions: How Organized Retail Crime Funds Global Terrorists by Hitha Prabhakar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I have never been the victim of serious identify theft or online crime. I have had credit and debit cards used by thieves, but I have never suffered financial loss, only inconvenience. I have had people tell me about similar crimes they have had perpetrated on them. My general reaction was to say, "Well, I'd rather have this sterile interaction with thieves rather than, say, be mugged at knifepoint." After reading Gomorrah: A Personal Journey Into the Violent International Empire of Naples' Organized Crime System I came to understand even something seemingly innocuous as imitation goods can have organized crime connections. This book goes further to connect organized retail crime (ORC) around shoplifting, fraud, and counterfeiting to MS13 and militant Arab as well as Islamist terrorist organizations. It casts a very dark hue on "purse parties", sticky fingered mall rats, and more. This is a sobering and concerning work of investigative journalism where MS13, etc. American agents steal and counterfeit to send money back to Mexico and Central America to fund bribes and fake identity mills that are purchased by passport-wanting Al Qaeda agents, etc.

View all my reviews

Review: Star Wormwood

Star Wormwood by Curtis Bok
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow, I am surprised this is not a true crime classic revered like The Boston Strangler. I was unable to fund anything on it online outside of period newspaper/newsletter reviews of the first publication. In it, a judge review the horrid Depression-era crime of starved and friendless Roger Haike (not his real name) and the aftermath and execution. He uses this post-Leopold and Loeb case as an indictment of capital punishment in general. It reads in a very modern, unrestrained voice. I would love to read a modern investigation of the facts, context, and aftermath of this case. (Bok did not preside at the case he reviews.)

View all my reviews

Review: Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website

Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange at the World's Most Dangerous Website by Daniel Domscheit-Berg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't know Julian Assange, but what I have seen of him talking in the media and his actions made me think he was an; at least no one I would want for a roommate. This insider view from would-be OpenLeaks founder Domscheit-Berg further supports that. Aside from that character study of a selfish, egoistic, and manipulative Assange, this is the story of how some obvious issues with the supposed WikiLeaks philosophy became problematic: wanting info to be free but trying to keep operational details and leakers secret; Assange and his organization appearing hypocritical in their actions; leaking information more harmful than helpful such as identifiers of vulnerable people, etc. Aside from the philosophical issues, most interesting to me was the insider's view of several key WikiLeaks episodes, including:

* the 2008–2012 Icelandic financial crisis providing a peculiar and unsteady fertile ground for Assange et al in the island nation including working w/Iceland MP Birgitta Jónsdóttir toward a free-media zone there

* The Iraq War documents leak allegedly provided to them by United States Army Private Chelsea Manning (then known as Bradley). (The author goes to pains to avoid naming the leaker) and two Reuters employees being fired at as well as the "Collateral Murder" video, with its implications of crafting news rather than leaking facts

* 92,000 documents related to the war in Afghanistan between 2004 and the end of 2009 and a growing relationship with Der Spiegel. The avalanche documents overwhelmed efforts in reviewing the documents, including some of the sources of the information. WikiLeaks began to error in some releases, hold back material it could not edit, and begun thus choosing what to release and back away from its purist approach of releasing in order without preference.

* The United States diplomatic cables leak which seemed to mark a point where the leak itself and WikiLeaks became more of a focus than the content of the leak.

Also interesting was the leaks of Scientology works (I didn't know they did that), and various fraternity ceremonies with the resultant heat from those.

View all my reviews

Review: Culture, Language and Personality: Selected Essays

Culture, Language and Personality: Selected Essays by Edward Sapir
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I gave this three stars for how it struck me, but it probably deserves four or more. While Sapir never puts forward a conclusion or deep insight that wows me, he assays into deep and meaningful topics like Montaigne. Probably the nine essays here would bear up on repeated readings; maybe even years later. They are very well organized and build from one to the other, starting with a long essay on language, his principal field of study. Not really an illuminating exploration, he does telegraph an awe and wonder of this hard to define and categorized subject that is universal in the human experience. Mixing in with the wonder is some linguistic science, such as a classification of languages:

Four stages of synthesis may be conveniently recognized; the isolating type, the weakly synthetic type, the fully synthetic type and the polysynthetic type.

This helps to explain why Chinese can be seen as so old (along with its many exports to other languages) and how we can see a taxon in Algonquin and other Native American languages that fit so much into a single word. This flows nicely into "The Function of an International Auxiliary Language", but comes to now conclusion. Sapir puts forward English as the example of promoting an existing language, and Esperanto for a manufactured one without opting for either or neither. But, no discussion of which previously identified type would be best.

Similarly, "The Meaning of Religion" is a courageous undertaking, but the cleverest observation was not even his own:

Tylor believed that the series: soul, ghost, spirit, god, was a necessary genetic chain. "God" would be no more than the individualized totality of all spirits, ...

Maybe this floundering in essays like "Cultural Anthropology and Psychiatry," and "The Statue of Linguistics as a Science" is from the great mind admitting ideas as disparate as the "human spirit" and the taxonomy of languages and ending up not knowing whether he wants to philosophize or analyze.

View all my reviews