Iraq – A History

Title: Iraq – A History

Author: John Robertson

Publisher: One World, 2016 (First published 2015)

ISBN: 9781780749495

Pages: 386

The decade after the end of Cold War in 1990 was dominated by events unfolding in the oil rich Kuwait and Iraq region of the Middle East. Saddam Hussein, who was Iraq’s dictator-president invaded and annexed Kuwait. The rest of the world indignantly rose up in unity against Saddam and his forces were routed in a war that lasted only a few weeks. However, he clung on to power while being a thorn in the flesh of the US. Finally in 2003, America moved in decisively with concocted evidence of the presence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. Saddam was dethroned quickly, but the effort to hoist a stable alternate administration on Iraq has still not borne fruit. The occupation forces were at the receiving end of deadly terrorist attacks that was staged as part of local resistance. In the end, most of the ordinary people lost sight of Iraq as the cradle of civilization itself, instead viewing it as a lawless country mired in sectarian clashes and religious bigotry. This book is an attempt to dress up Iraq as a major contributor to the development of Western Civilization. One must stop and show respect to the legacy of many an ancient civilization that flowered and later withered in the rolling landscape of Mesopotamia, by which name Iraq was known in the ancient world. John Robertson is Professor of Ancient and Middle Eastern Studies at Central Michigan University and his research interests centre on the social and economic history of the Middle East, with a particular focus on ancient Mesopotamian systems of social and economic organization.

A noteworthy fact of Iraq’s legacy is that it’s pioneering spirit and greatness lies only in the ancient past. The fertile floodplains of Tigris and Euphrates rivers attracted sedentary societies even from the dawn of history. The state’s name itself was derived from the Persian word ‘eragh’, meaning low land which characterizes the flood plain and marshes of the lower Tigris-Euphrates basin. Evolution of the first cities of the world came about in southern Iraq around 4000 BCE. For a time, people belonging to all four steps in the civilizational ladder – hunter-gatherers, farmers, pastoral nomads and city dwellers made Iraq their home. The country was ripe for the development of monarchy with its great agricultural and commercial potential, constrained by the lack or uneven distribution of resources like minerals, wood, and precipitation. Magnificent civilizations of the ancient era took root on Mesopotamian soil – The Sumerian, Akkadian, Assyrian, and Chaldean are only a few among them. Even now, the Iraqi landscape is replete with thousands of tells (ruined mounds of ancient settlement). The artefacts lay buried undisturbed till 1840 when the English adventurer and diplomat Austen Henry Layard and French diplomat Paul-Emile Botta discovered the ancient cities of Calah and Nineveh. It is unfortunate that the local people didn’t take much interest in investigating the remains before the Europeans swooped down and took them overseas to private collections and museums in London and Paris. Robertson makes a guess that the local populace viewed the pre-Islamic past as the era of jahiliyya, or ignorance of the true religion of Islam, and therefore not worthy of a believer’s serious attention.

Iraq is considered the cradle of religions as well. Judaism assimilated many features and concepts of Babylonian religions when its adherents remained under the captivity of the Chaldean king Nebuchadnezzar. Garden of Eden was set somewhere in southern Mesopotamia, as ‘Edin’ was the Sumerian word for ‘grasslands’. The Jewish patriarch Abraham came from ‘Ur of the Chaldeans’. Noah and the Biblical flood story owe its origin to the character of Utnapishtim in the Sumerian epic ‘Gilgamesh’. Moral laws listed out in the Old Testament derive its source from the Code of Hammurabi. No wonder then that the New Testament is so contrasting in empathy and kindness from the Old! The author makes a neat comparison of the borrowings which can be extended to prophets and prophecy in general, concepts of heaven and hell, genres of psalms and lamentations, the Day of Atonement and rituals involving a scapegoat. Notions of one Supreme God, messiah, of spirituality and morally directed way of life, a code of behavior that entailed strict laws and framing unbelievers as presenting a threat of pollution came from Zoroastrianism of the Achaemenids who released the Jews from bondage in Babylon. Robertson makes a stinging analysis of Iraqi religious life in modern times. Islam is the dominant religion in Iraq since the seventh century CE, but the Sunni minority politically dominated the Shi’ite majority most of the time since then. They could forget the internal dissensions and fight as one unit in times of war, but sectarian strife is ever so rampant. Iraq once hosted the largest communities of Nestorian Christians and Jews in the Middle East. Ever since the foundation of Israel, Jews were being discriminated against and oppressed in the Arab world – a fate shared by Christians after Saddam’s downfall and American occupation in 2003. Obviously, religious tolerance is in short supply in the Middle East and Iraq is no exception.

The last glorious phase of Iraqi grandeur came about during the Abbasid caliphate after the arrival of Islam. Abu Jaffar ‘al Mansur’ founded the city of Baghdad in 762 CE. The city was the pride of its inhabitants, but the bitterest envy of their rivals. In the 1250 years after its establishment, Baghdad was conquered no fewer than fifteen times! The Abbasid era stands apart from typical Islamic empires. One gruesome event that readily comes to mind which differentiates it from peers is that of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria in 642 CE by the Muslim army of Amr bin al Aas by the order of Caliph Omar, the second in the series of four ‘rightly guided caliphs’. When confronted with the question of what to do with the books stored in the conquered library – the largest of its kind in the ancient world – al Aas was said to have remarked that ‘if those books are in agreement with the Koran, they are superfluous and we don’t need them. And if they are inconsistent with the Holy Writ, they are heretical’. This meant that in both instances, they were to be destroyed and his army duly burnt all the books along with its precious knowledge that spanned several millennia of human endeavour. But the Abbasid caliphs were entirely different. They collected manuscripts from all corners of the known world and had them translated into Arabic. The works of Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy and of others dealing with mathematics, natural philosophy, science and medicine were thus preserved. However, books of historians like Herodotus and Thucydides or playwrights such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes were ignored on the basis that such information is ‘not useful’ for society. Europe owed its renaissance to the preserving work of the Abbasids. The Canon of Medicine of ibn Sina (Avicenna) and ibn Rushd’s (Averroes) commentaries on Aristotle was much popular in the intellectual circles of medieval Europe. The knowledge provided by these two helped European culture begin its slow turn to secular rationalism as the foundation of knowledge. Later rulers of the Abbasid lineage were mere puppets in the hands of local strongmen, but the charade of the supremacy of the caliph was played on till 1258 when the Mongol Hulegu Khan sacked Baghdad and extinguished the royal line. In order to honor a Mongol taboo not to spill royal blood on the floor, Caliph al Mustasim was wrapped in a carpet and kicked to death!

The book’s depiction of the modern era of Iraq is noted for the wealth of information on the happenings in the political front. With the discovery of abundant yet easily recoverable oil beneath its surface, Iraq turned out to be a battleground of imperial powers during the period between the two Great Wars. Eventually, US’ strategic interests shaped and reshaped the policies of the Middle Eastern states. Saddam Hussein is still the most widely known Iraqi in the world, but his reign offered nothing but unmitigated disaster to its people. Saddam’s war with Iran (1980-88) brought Iraq to the brink of catastrophe, while his foolishly adventurous occupation of Kuwait (1990) pushed it over the precipice. Mercilessly pounded by American jets and under the crippling economic sanctions, Iraq quickly degenerated into a third-world country. Saddam’s ouster in 2003 and American occupation has still not put the country back on rails on account of the devastating civil war between all three major factions – Sunni, Shi’ite and Kurd. Arab nationalism and a perceived Iraqi identity are still not strong enough to hold the country together and Robertson ends the book with the fervent hope that a solution may finally evolve in the near future.

The presentation of ideas in the book are quite matter of fact. No witty comments or asides to pull the reader close are seen and this very fact makes it a bit tiring. It is an excellent primer for Westerners to get familiar with the country ruined by decades of warfare and siege in the form of sanctions by Western powers. Robertson assigns the credit of inventing the place value notation of counting to Babylonians, whereas the consensus among scholars is that the honour should rightfully be given to India. The author makes a mollifying comment that it was adopted by Indians and spread from there (p.109). This is not a plausible argument and should be categorized as an inaccuracy. A few monochrome plates are attached with the main text, which don’t do justice to the primacy or majesty of the subjects they represent.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Physics of Everyday Things

Title: The Physics of Everyday Things – The Extraordinary Science behind an Ordinary Day

Author: James Kakalios

Publisher: Crown New York, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9780770437732

Pages: 245

Mankind extricated itself from the clutches of superstition and false beliefs over the ages, but has fallen slaves to technology. Our day – and night too – is made all the more easier and productive by numerous devices, some of whom are quite conspicuous like an air conditioner while others toil in the background like a pacemaker, yet are always there serving us. Over the years, our dependence on technology has become all the more indissoluble. In that sense, we have become slaves to our machines whose service has become essential to us. The Spielberg movie ‘Jurassic Park’ demonstrates man’s vulnerability to hazards in the absence of technology even for a short while (I am sure that there are more recent films exhibiting this theme, but my familiarity with movies in general is woefully inadequate!). A group of visitors ride through a park that houses dinosaurs recreated from ancient fossils and held under a tight leash by clever technical devices. The computerized security system of the park is taken down by a blackguard employee and the human masters suddenly find themselves at the mercy of the beasts that were safely behind cages till a few moments before. There are scenes in the movie in which the very life of people in the park is reliant on the proper functioning of machines and instruments. In the quarter century or so elapsed between the movie and the present day, we have become much more dependent on science and technology. This book is an attempt to explain the fundamental science that lies at the heart of everyday gadgets that we often take for granted. Narrating the life of a fictitious person from awaking in the morning to falling asleep at night, the author presents a lot of useful ideas and information to the readers. James Kakalios is the Taylor Distinguished Professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota and the author of the much popular book, ‘The Physics of Superheroes’. He is a condensed matter experimentalist whose research concerns semiconductor materials and fluctuation phenomena in neurological systems.

The greatest boon of technology is that it allows its fruits to be enjoyed by users who don’t have any notion at all about how it works. The only constraint it imposes on consumers is to know how to make it work. Technology is only the application of science, but shields the users from its intricacies. So, you can enjoy the benefits of electricity without learning how electromagnetic effect works, or subject to an MRI scan without the least idea of the innards of nuclear structures and phenomena. This hands-free approach is followed in the narration in which the protagonist goes on performing the tasks in his routine daily life and the author stops to take note of the device and explain the principles of its working in a simple way. In the end, readers get acquainted with the science behind alarm clocks, toasters, automobile engines, X-ray and other medical equipments, flying machines, phones, display technologies and a whole host of similar instruments.

Many of the appliances being used and explained are still only a dream for the inhabitants of third-world countries. Electric toothbrushes, EZ-pass systems and proximity cards are still many years ahead, but this restriction is not imposed by the underlying technology and solely limited by the amount of dispensable income in one’s pocket. Kakalios has tried his best to give an easy-to-read narrative, but there are quite a few places at which the lay reader would find the going tough. The book is written for an American audience, which explains the profusion of the ‘Fahrenheit’ temperature scale. It assumes a high school-level familiarity with basics of science including an understanding of the atomic structure.

As can be expected, almost all of the devices and phenomena detailed in the book relates to electricity and electronics. All inventions in twentieth century physics fall under these heads, but computer is however, not included. It is curious to note that MRI scanner manufacturers purposefully omit the term ‘nuclear’ as part of marketing strategy because the public is overly concerned and troubled with things that has anything to do with ‘nuclear’. Kakalios also makes it a point to explain the principles of radiation and that all kinds of radiation are not harmful.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

The Water Kingdom

Title: The Water Kingdom – A Secret History of China

Author: Philip Ball

Publisher: Vintage, 2017 (First published 2016)

ISBN: 9781784701543

Pages: 341

China is a huge nation with the geographical features of a continent. It houses the largest homogeneous community of people within its borders, but is also compensated by nature with mighty rivers and abundant natural resources. The country’s social, political, literary, artistic and economic milieus were closely aligned historically with proper management of its rivers and lakes. Water thus quite literally forms a significant undercurrent in every aspect of Chinese life. Negligence or incompetence of water control produced a punishing outcome in the form of floods that breached man-made dykes and dams. In the old times, bungling with water management was a sure recipe for a ruler to lose his kingdom as it was construed by his subjects as an indicator of the loss of heaven’s mandate. As China modernized in the last century, widespread application of scientific techniques has somewhat put the rivers under check. There has been no flooding on the Yellow River since 1949. But the other side of excessive control of hydraulic resources is now becoming painfully apparent. The Three Gorges and other gargantuan projects are wreaking havoc with the ecosystem. Added to this is the issue of pollution caused by lax rules and the state’s thrust to produce more and more whatever be the cost. All major rivers in China are afflicted with the scourge of contamination with industrial waste products. Philip Ball examines water as a major factor that influences Chinese society and culture over the ages. Ball’s obsession with water is amply showcased by his other work ‘H₂O – A Biography of Water’, reviewed earlier in this blog. The author writes regularly in scientific and popular media and had worked for many years as an editor for physical sciences in the magazine ‘Nature’. This history of China from a watery perspective is a labour of love the author feels for the country, but it is not very obvious how the word ‘Secret’ in the subtitle is relevant.

This book claims to be a grand journey through China past and present and opens a window through which one can begin to grasp the potentially overwhelming complexity and teeming energy of the country and its people (p.5). The worst nightmare for a ruler of China – from the dawn of history to its current administrator in the person of Xi Jinping – is about losing control of the people and a descent into chaos and eventual dissolution. Water was always seen as a potent symbol that demarcates a ruler’s merit. The administrators were greatly helped in this venture by philosophical works which professed a practical concern with the business of daily life and the structure of society. Unlike their Greek counterparts, Chinese philosophers didn’t dwell on abstract metaphysical questions. China has a long history and an equally long list of dynasties which make it troublesome for readers to keep track of which is which. The Qin dynasty, from which the appellation ‘China’ evolved, was surprisingly short-lived, but its first emperor Shi Huangdi is well known to us as the man who built the Great Wall. It is the Han dynasty which followed the Qin that appeals more to Chinese national sentiment, as its society is often called the ‘People of Han’. In all these dynasties such as Song, Tang, Yuan, Ming and Qing, water shaped the political organization of the state. Management of water was also the key to maintaining social order. Large hydraulic engineering projects such as the Grand Canal were conceived and implemented without deference to cost in terms of material and labour. This serves as the backdrop to the origin of the disparaging epithet ‘oriental despotism’. Property rights were secondary to communal interests and a mercantile class was slow to evolve.

Mastery over water was not confined to the control of inland river dykes, but to the vast blue ocean as well. Ball takes great care to describe the series of Chinese naval expeditions in the Ming period under its able admiral Zheng He. Chinese ships dwarfed Vasco da Gama’s vessels which appeared in the Indian Ocean nearly a century later. Some of the larger trading vessels of Chinese merchants weighed 1500 tons against Sao Gabriel’s meager 300 tons! They overstepped the European ships in technique too. Sails of Chinese boats were usually made not of cloth, but of woven bamboo matting. A slew of technological innovations put Chinese navigation in the forefront. Magnetic Compass was invented in China and the Mercator projection for map-making was used almost five centuries before it was developed in Europe in 1569. Zheng He made a total of seven voyages starting in 1405 CE. There are claims that he reached the Americas, but a vigorous naval activity up to Africa is historically attested to. These voyages were not interspersed with imperialist overtones, but when the need arose, Zheng He didn’t hesitate to fight. Vira Alakeswara, the ruler of Sri Lanka, refused to pay tribute. The Chinese fleet fought with him in 1405 and the Lankan king was captured and taken to the Ming capital in chains. Isn’t this a prescient pointer to Xi Jinping’s vision of a maritime silk road in the twenty-first century, especially in view of the debt trap in which Sri Lanka finds itself in related to the Chinese development of Hambantota port? Only time can tell. The Ming adventures suddenly ended with the eighth visit in 1434. This created a power vacuum in the Indian Ocean, which was filled by the Portuguese seven decades later. Many reasons are attributed to the sudden demise of maritime ambition, but power struggles and intrigues between the court eunuchs and Confucian officials in the Ming court are the most plausible.

A large portion of the book is dedicated to an analysis of the large-scale hydraulic programs initiated by the Communist regime which took over in 1949. Between 1950 and 1990, about 80,000 dams and reservoirs were built on China’s rivers. The Three Gorges dam is the largest of its kind in the world with a reservoir that is 600 km long which can be seen even from outer space. The electricity generated from the site is enough to cater to 10 per cent of China’s total power demand. Another grandiose scheme of North-South Water Transport that envisages carrying water of the Yangtze to Beijing is on the drawing board. However, environmental concerns don’t bother the Chinese policymakers much. Silting, pollution, damming, overuse, land reclamation and climate change issues go unnoticed. Ball makes it a point to present the problem of polluting factories on riverbanks. Ancient temples in the reservoir of Three Gorges were relocated brick by brick to higher elevations, but this was mostly done with commercial interests in mind in the form of tourist revenue.

China had the good fortune not to fall under the imperial yoke of a foreign power like what happened in India. It had suffered crippling defeat in the Opium Wars against the British, but sovereignty over the territory was not lost. It was only for a brief time that the Japanese could impose their rule on China around World War II. However, barbarian neighbours had overrun China many times in the past. The Yuan dynasty of the Mongol hordes and the Qing dynasty of Manchurians reigned for centuries in the mainland. The Qing Empire, which was the last in the long line of ruling houses and was dislodged only in 1911, was especially humiliating for the people. They insisted that all male citizens adopt the Manchurian shaven head and long pigtail as a sign of allegiance to the Qing state. This was considered unmanly, but refusal to comply carried the death penalty. Seldom do oppressive regimes intervene in personal attire, especially of men. The Taliban’s insistence on men mandatorily growing beards is a case in point.

The book is somewhat difficult to read and the small typeface has not at all helped matters. Readers who are not familiar with Chinese names of persons and places find it difficult to follow the author in the long narrative. A lot of sketches and pictures are included which helps to lessen monotony. Ball is an expert in depicting art and explaining it smoothly. A chapter is reserved for the influence of water on China’s painting style. The author’s predilection to art is understandable as was eminently noticed in his other book titled ‘Bright Earth – Art and the Invention of Colour’, which was also reviewed earlier in this blog. So, it is not surprising that he gives a decent summary of Chinese art as well. In the earlier part of the book, Bell quotes other scholars and offers oblique criticism of authors like Jared Diamond and Karl Wittfogel.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

The Nazis

Title: The Nazis – A Warning from History

Author: Laurence Rees

Publisher: BBC Books, 2005 (First published 1997)

ISBN: 9780563493334

Pages: 399

There are some aspects of human nature which we find it difficult to concede exist in us. At the slightest opportunity they well up from the depths and overflow, making us hugely embarrassed. In the next instant, we are ashamed of it all, and wonder at the very fact that such a thing had happened at all. This analogy on the personal level can be extended to international politics in the case of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party that ruled Germany for twelve dreadful years in which the most heinous atrocities were committed by the German regime against fellow human beings. Hitler was instrumental in goading Europe into a global war which ended up killing about fifty million people. In areas controlled by the Nazis, six million Jews were exterminated in gas chambers and torture rooms – for absolutely no fault of theirs! Even with hindsight, it is extremely troublesome to imagine that such a grave crime could’ve been committed in such a civilized country as Germany. Of course, there are apologists who suggest that the Nazis constituted less than five per cent of the population and that it was unfair to put the blame for the deeds of such a small minority on the entire populace. At first glance, this argument is plausible, since the coercive measures of the Nazi autocratic administration brooked no discontent or disobedience from its subjects and forced them to toe the party line. This was the general consensus which possessed a corollary – it saved the analysts from explaining why such a devilish project went uncontested for so long. Laurence Rees approaches the issue from a different perspective. This book examines the culpability of the German public from first-hand accounts obtained from memoirs, notes and diaries surviving from that era. The analysis is not at all rosy for Germany as it clearly established that all the horrendous acts the Nazis had committed were performed with active connivance of the public, if not outright encouragement. The author is a writer, as well as a film producer who had made many films on World War 2 for the BBC. This book is a byproduct of his television series on the War. A large number of survivors of the Nazi rule in Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine and Russia have been interviewed for the research related to this book.

As noted by the author, the book aims to penetrate as deeply as possible on the essential nature of Nazism. The Nazis had no ideology other than misconceived notions of racial superiority and the belief that the Jews were to blame for all troubles Germany was facing as a result of losing World War 1. Lack of a coherent plan of action was compensated by chaos in Nazi administration. Officials played within the broad policy guidelines dictated by Hitler, coming up with ingenious ways of achieving the targets. This initiative was called ‘Working towards the Fuehrer’ and demonstrates the complicity of ordinary people. Much freedom of action and overlap of jurisdiction was guaranteed in this way, often ending up with turf war between officials when the fuehrer himself intervened as the arbiter. It was simply not sufficient to follow orders, they had to be anticipated. When it came to repressive measures, subordinate officials competed among themselves to invent inhuman measures to be forced on the hapless Jews and other conquered people.

Rees is immensely successful in bringing out the shocking details of how the Nazis mowed down their enemies. We know that they treated Jews as sub-human, but it is revealing to learn that they extended this policy to all Slav people in the countries they conquered in the east. Even though they were not exterminated in large numbers in concentration camps, Hitler wanted them to remain as slaves to the German people. The intelligentsia among them were isolated and killed off in a bid to control the rudderless society. University professors were brutally murdered. The war against Soviet Union was especially bloody since Hitler wanted it to be a ‘racial war of annihilation’ against a ‘sub-human people’. Out of 5.7 million Soviet soldiers taken prisoners, 3.3 million died of disease and starvation. Rees mentions that the treatment meted out to British and American POWs captured on the western front was radically different, as they belonged to the ‘superior’ race to which the Germans themselves belonged. The British POWs were housed in relative comfort while the Soviets were corralled in open fields and enclosed with barbed wire. Recently, we saw Iranian hardliners appreciating Hitler for killing Jews apparently to express their anger against Israel’s supposedly ruthless putting down of Palestinian uprisings. These ignorant zealots are woefully unaware of the Nazi racial policy that placed the Asians even lower than the Jews or Slavs! The book also notes the meeting between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler in which the former expressed his approval for the racial program of the Reich.

Being closely associated with visual media, Rees’ verbatim accounts of the killing fields send a chill down the readers’ spines. The description of the Treblinka camp in occupied Poland is very instructive. People were directly herded to gas chambers. Women’s heads were shaved before they were killed and the hair was used to stuff mattresses! Nazis designed mechanized extermination plants to wipe out racially inferior people. German engineers carried out the leadership’s plans with characteristic efficiency. Carbon monoxide was used as the killer vapour in gas chambers, which was derived from the exhaust smoke of the combustion engine of a battle tank. But if the engine was just allowed to run idle, the quantity of smoke produced would be very low and unable to kill many people. So, to fully load the engine to produce more smoke, they coupled a power generator whose output was used to provide electricity to the camp. While the innocent were suffocating in closed chambers with no ventilation, the German soldiers enjoyed the comforts provided by the same machine! This plainly illustrates the sad fact that sophistication and culture is no bar to atrocity. Rees ruefully remarks that ‘indeed they can be an aid, for once the intelligent mind devises a justification, and there is no limit to the consequent brutality’ (p.161). The conquered people sometimes sided with the Nazis to persecute Jews as seen in the streets of Kaunos in Lithuania. The local public was persuaded to lynch their Jewish neighbours with wooden clubs. Before killing them, the tormentors extracted a written letter from their victims asking their surviving family members to send them money and clothes as if they were still alive. These letters were then used by the killers to steal from their victims’ families.

The book is an eye opener to the modern world who settles for accommodation with extremist elements in the political and religious domains. When a person claims that only his political ideology is viable, or that his religious belief is the only true faith, we must stop and take note of a potentially disastrous train of events germinating. The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria came close to replicating the Nazi pogrom in terms of intolerance and cruelty. We saw them killing followers of other religions indiscriminately, often by devising clever technical innovations. We also spotted them selling chained women as sex slaves in the open market, bargaining with potential buyers. It is by sheer luck that their rule could be brought down with military power before its tentacles could spread far and wide. Even then, they appear in the news again and again by shooting down unarmed shoppers or by ploughing a heavily laden fast moving truck into the midst of a crowd of people enjoying their vacation. So, what does the example of Nazis really teach us? Precious little, if what is on display is fully accounted for. The author does not offer his insights in this regard and stops content with explaining what had happened. It is left to the reader to learn the lesson and not repeat the mistakes.

The book is amenable to easy reading, though macabre portraits of torture, death and suffering are painted with words. Many monochrome plates are included that reflect the horror of Nazi domination. This book is a very fine example of good journalism, with the facts reproduced in as faithful a fashion to the original, but the author’s analysis is sorely missing.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star