There was a seried called “Wolf Hall” on PBS which painted a vavorable impression of this man who has been painted as the arch-enemy of a saintly Thomas More.  I have read two bios of Thomas More and have come to see him as an early totalitarian; he dogmatic, given to wearing horse hair shirts, and given to burning heretics while enjoying the company and debates with Erasmus. In “A Man for All Seasons”, Cromwell was painted as the money grubbing, sneaky servant of the King, so I looked forward to this book. If the movies favorable to More could be so slanted, what is the truth about Cromwell?

      Borman paints Cromwell as a complex, self-made man in an age where such talents and drive, coming from a “common man” were seen as a danger to the established order, represented by the old noble families in Europe.  Yes, he was corrupt but not outside the accepted bounds of his time.  Yet he was generous to the poor and helped even the families who fell from favor (often with his help) of an egotistical, paranoid and shallow king.

      A fighter who succeed despite the prejudices of his day, he was a faithful servant of the king as the king only realized after Cromwell’s fall from power. 

      A well written book, the hardest part reading some of the passages written in Old English (if you read quickly Old English is not that difficult, it is merely that the words are often spelled according to the writer; it is before standardized English was adopted).  One comes away with a respect for the man who survived in a harsh political atmosphere; his faults were exaggerated by history and his enemies.  A worthwhile read.

Born in the late 18^th century, Francois Eugene Vidocq began life poor and uneducated and spent many years in various types of petty crime.  He shunned violence and spent years as a pickpocket, army deserter, grifter and convict.  His numerous escapes from all sorts of prisons, attempted to lead a “straight” life but was always sucked back into the criminal life, sometimes by his own weakness, sometimes by circumstance. His fame among the underworld was turned to his advantage as he become first a police informer, responsible for the capture of dozens of his former associates, then as head of detectives.  Forming his own person group, he worked both sides of the street, moving against the worse criminals while hiring himself out to the growing middle class and upper classes as local businessmen and others attempted to gain advantage over rivals.

Balzac, Dumas and Victor Hugo freely borrowed from his memoirs to create many of their most famous characters, including Valjean in Les Miserables’ while Conan Doyle used Vidocq’s techniques to create the enemies of Holmes.  Other authors who used his exploits included Melville, Poe and Dickens.

An interesting look at the underworld of France at the time; a time of anarchy, corruption, brutality and a society in which class and circumstance cemented one into a life cycle that had little opportunity for self-improvement.

Several years ago, I read Luigi Albertini’s massive, three volumes, 1800-page work, The Origins of the War of 1914. It was a heartbreaking work as it laid out a chain of events beginning about thirty years prior to the outbreak of the war which seen from today, clearly pointed to the start of that terrible war.  Misunderstood actions, political snubs and fumbles, conflicting personalities, etc., seem to drive the Western powers toward a cliff from which none could turn.

In a sense, this book gives one the same feeling, only you reach the conclusion by about page 80; you want to put the book down and wonder how so many poor decisions could be made by so many policy makers and leaders. Anybody with even a rudimentary knowledge of asymmetrical warfare, can see the fundamental errors which turned a solid opportunity into a fiasco.

It has been said that Henry Ford was a genius who expanded the horizons of the average American.  In “Slaughterhouse”, Dr. Pacyga tells the story of the Chicago stock yard and the world that it made.  In fact, the stock yards of Chicago did much more than industrialize the slaughter of cattle, sheep and hogs, they were responsible for increasing the diet of Americans and Europeans by providing meat products in a timely, cost effective manner.  They also were instrumental in the invention and improvements in rail transportation including refrigerated cars, smoother rides, etc. 

Richard Rhodes is a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and has written both fiction and non-fiction, on topics as diverse as the Donner Party, the invention of the Atom Bomb and the Audubon Society.  In this work, he traces how the Einsatzgruppen were organized, their scope of activity, their relationship with the Wehrmacht and the impact of mass killings on the individuals within the units.

Originally deployed in Poland at the start of the war, their primary directive was the murder of the leaders of Polish society; lawyers, doctors, educators, political leaders, etc. as the conqueror Poles were destined to be a source of ignorant slave laborers who did not need to count much above 100 in their future live.  The “special action groups” also targeted any Poles who offered any resistance either real or imagined.  At the same time, they went after suspected communists and finally, the Jews of Poland.  As the original plan was to move the Jews out of Europe, the concept of committing mass murder of the Jews was not in their primary list of objectives.  Yet once the killing began, and they were under the protection of SS-Reichsfuehrer Himmler, their murderous campaign quickly expanded.

In 1848, much of Europe was swept by revolution; in France, Hungary, Poland, Italy and elsewhere, people rebelled against the system set up by the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon.  Institutions seems to be moribund; police surveillance was everywhere, and the governments were insistent on maintaining the status quo. This excellent novel, often regarded as the finest to come out of Hungary, tells the story of that time and centers on twin aristocratic brothers from the wealthy Dukay family.

After conquering most of North America, the United States was filled with success and energy.  The expansion of the economic power of the United States was viewed with awe by the Europeans and dynamic politicians, such as Theodore Roosevelt, while Henry Cabot Lodge believed that it was the destiny of the United States to carry on into what is now called the “third world” to bring Christianity, modernity and progress to the inhabitants of those regions.  Our soul was pure (unlike the Europeans who only sought to exploit those foreign lands) and we were sure that we would be welcomed with open arms as saviors. At least that was the theory.

This book provides case studies of some of the major minds which shaped the modern world. These individuals were driving forces in literature, politics, economics and morals, not by the force of their expertise, but rather by their self belief that they had found secrets about mankind that no one else had found in thousands of years. Their egos were sufficient that they never bothered to ask, like Nietzsche, “if no God, then what?” for their answer was that they had become god, capable of constructing laws and rules for others. Each of them created their own universe at which they were the steady light, and despite their lack of morals, ability to lie outrageously, often lie around in their own filth and not pay back borrowed money, they found followers who hung on their every utterance.

In World War One, the Italian and Hapsburg forces fought a grueling war in the Southern Alps of Northern Italy.  Fighting was year-round, with the troops having to charge and fight in deep snow and across raging rivers with few chances for leave or rest.  The battles continued for nearly three years and cost both sides about 500,000 killed and many more maimed for life.  In the end, the battles were in vain for the Italians, as at the Paris peace talks in 1919, the French and British reneged on their pledges which enticed the Italians to enter the war.  The American President, Wilson stood aside and felt that to honor the pledges would be to disgrace his 14 Point Program.

This excellent little book (which was the basis for the Italian film, Many Wars Ago), at points seems to be an Italian version of Catch-22; was the author concocting examples of military idiocy or was the Italian army really that poorly led and equipped?  Unfortunately, those parts which seem to be the most absurd are likely completely accurate.  The idea that one would create suits of armor for infantrymen and then have them walk toward the enemy lines in full daylight and expect the bullets to bounce off the armor is simply crazy to anyone who has any experience with firearms.  Yet, that is exactly what one general did to his men, not once, but twice. But, as the General said, they died for Italy.

The author served in the Sassari Brigade during the war and was decorated for valor several times.  The Brigade was drawn from the peasants of Sardinia and was noted for its bravery.  After the war, Lussu was involved in anti-Fascist politics and was briefly held in the prison on the island of Lipari for shooting a Blackshirt.  In 1929, he escaped and lived in Paris, Switzerland, fought against Franco in Spain and returned to Italy in 1943 to join the partisans. He served as a cabinet minister from 1945-47 and in 1945 this book was published in Italy, where it has never gone out of print.

This is a fine read, written by an intelligent observer of mankind who was respected by his troops. It shows the futility of the war and the honest feelings of the men who had little to gain from the war.  An excellent read.