The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma

Average customer rating:

A brilliant eye opener

A Comprehensive Look At Burma's Situation

Obligatory read for anyone interested in Burma politics

Must have for anyone interested in modern burma

Good read for beginners on Burma

The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma
Thant Myint-U
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0374163421
Release Date: 2006-12-12

Book Description

For nearly two decades Western governments and a growing activist community have been frustrated in their attempts to bring about a freer and more democratic Burma—through sanctions and tourist boycotts—only to see an apparent slide toward even harsher dictatorship. But what do we really know about Burma and its history? And what can Burma’s past tell us about the present and even its future?

In The River of Lost Footsteps, Thant Myint-U tells the story of modern Burma, in part through a telling of his own family’s history, in an interwoven narrative that is by turns lyrical, dramatic, and appalling. His maternal grandfather, U Thant, rose from being the schoolmaster of a small town in the Irrawaddy Delta to become the UN secretary-general in the 1960s. And on his father’s side, the author is descended from a long line of courtiers who served at Burma’s Court of Ava for nearly two centuries. Through their stories and others, he portrays Burma’s rise and decline in the modern world, from the time of Portuguese pirates and renegade Mughal princes through the decades of British colonialism, the devastation of World War II, and a sixty-year civil war that continues today and is the longest-running war anywhere in the world.

The River of Lost Footsteps is a work both personal and global, a distinctive contribution that makes Burma accessible and enthralling.

Customer Reviews:

A brilliant eye opener.......2007-07-25

The message of this book is that there is much more to Burma(Myanmar) than one reads in the newspapers, there is more than the military dictatorship and the cause of 'human rights'. The message is that there is much we can learn about Burma from her history and that the present state of siege is one that ignores her illustrious and rich past.

The past is indeed illustrious. It is made up of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam. Of a number of terrifying wars against England and colonialism. It is made up of powerful kings and rebels and Mughals and Portuguese pirates and Armenian businessman. It is about an exotic kingdom long connected with the world but also partially cut off from it, one that became Buddhist early on and has fought many wars against China and Thailand.

The author is the son of a famous Burmese family whose fortunes included being head of the U.N. and he has an intimate knowledge of not only the history but also the culture, clothing, architecture, smells and whereabouts of the subject he discusses. He weaves himself into the story as well, describing visits to ruined cities and an experience as a young man going to Thailand to protest for Democracy in his homeland.

A very important account and one of the few modern histories of Burma written in the last twenty years, it adds a great deal to an understanding of current Burmese politics and why many have been wrong to judge her for her actions without learning anything about her.

Seth J. Frantzman

A Comprehensive Look At Burma's Situation.......2007-07-08

We Americans tend to forget or ignore the fact that there are deep seeded historical reasons why governments in other countries take certain positions that seem to be inappropriate. Such is the case with Burma, and the xenophobic, anti-democratic actions of its military government. Fortunately, Thant Myint-U has provided a basis for understanding the situation in Burma through his wonderful book, The River of Lost Footsteps.

Thant shows that Burma's current state is mostly the result of its very long history of negative interactions with other countries. He discusses how occupations by the Chinese, British, Japanese, and others have led to a mistrust of foreigners. This mistrust has morphed into a sense of nationalistic self-reliance, in part from several examples (augmented by nostalgia) where a strong Burmese leader has successfully led the country. Thant then discusses how the radical changes that have occurred in Burma over the last 150 years have left the country without a governing class capable of managing it. Given these factors, it's no surprise that the one governmental unit with strong structure, the military, is running the country.

Considering all the care that Thant took to show how Burma came to its current state of affairs, it was a little disappointing to see that he rushed through his conclusions. Beyond saying that the existing international response of economic sanctions won't work, he provides little in the way of possible answers as to how Burma can be integrated into the international community. That response comes across as a little too vague and diplomatic for someone who clearly understands the reasons behind Burma's present circumstances. Still, The River of Lost Footsteps is an important starting point for persons interested in comprehending Burma's situation and developing a policy for addressing its position.

Obligatory read for anyone interested in Burma politics.......2007-05-09

Thant Myint-U tells the story of how Burma became the "poisoned Shangri-la", possibly the second weirdest country after North Korea. At first sight, Burma is a battle between the evil dictature and Aung San Suu Kyi. But Thant Myint-U gives us an infinitely more complicated picture, from thousands of years ago until the present day, with a civil was that has lasted for 60 years. The state-building suffered severely both when the british conquered Burma in 1885, as well as they were thrown out in 1948. But the book is more than just a story lesson. He has a clear message: Boycott is perhaps an easy answer to what to do with the country. Too easy. The dictature is extremely xenophobic, and avoids any influence from outside the country. They would not mind any boycott. Instead one should delicately try to interact more with the country. Thant Myint-U gives no easy fix, but a very sober and well-written overview. I have one minor remark: The map provided in the book should be more informative, many places mentioned in the text are not included.

Must have for anyone interested in modern burma.......2007-03-04

Best writing on modern Burmese politics yet to appear, should be read by all the ostriches with their heads in the sand who believe that sanctions, boycotts, embargoes and the like will have any effect on the junta.

Sanctions that target an entire country, rather than its leaders, are at best ignorantly undertaken and ultimately unethical.

Good read for beginners on Burma.......2007-01-27

This is a great introduction to Burma and its history. It is well written, clear, and sometimes funny. Furthermore, it is not too detailed for novices.

The author's main point is a good one. Discussion of Burma tends to be largely ahistorical. Few consider Burma's history when deciding policy. I wouldn't exactly consider US senators to have this level of sophistication, but it seems that somebody should, especially lobbyists. Through history, the author shows Burma as having been often isolated and torn, with little institutional capacity to govern after the British took over.

I thought the last few pages were a bit glib and not well argued. I disagree with current US policy of isolation, but the author loses his depth of understanding and seems to label the Burma lobby in the same brush as the government of Burma. The truth is, sanctions probably have relatively little effect on Burma. If the author has shown anything, it is the extent to which Burma's government isolates itself from international norms and pressure. While perhaps more aid money and business would go into the country without sanctions, much of it would not go in anyway because of the government's pervasive mismanagement and corruption (Global Fund pulled out because of misuse of its funds; Red Cross was recently expelled).

Despite these last few pages, the book is overall a great read for novices and long-time Burma watchers.

Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost

Average customer rating:

Biography of a supreme martinet
The Men Who Would Be King: The Chairman and the Generalissimo
Important, Needed Addition to the Field of China Studies
Highly Readable, Good Scholarship
Just a clarification of one (or two?) of the reviewers

Chiang Kai Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost
Jonathan Fenby
Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0786714840

Book Description

With a narrative as briskly paced and vividly detailed as an international thriller, this definitive biography of Chiang Kai-shek masterfully maps the tumultuous political career of Nationalist China’s generalissimo as it reevaluates his brave but unfulfilled life. Chiang Kai-shek was one of the most influential world figures of the twentieth century. The leader of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist movement in China, by 1928 he had established himself as head of the government in Nanking. But while he managed to survive the political storms of the 1930s, Chiang’s power was continually being undermined by the Japanese on one side and the Chinese Communists on the other. Drawing extensively on original Chinese sources and accounts by contemporaneous journalists, acclaimed author Jonathan Fenby explores little-known international connections in Chiang’s story as he unfolds a story as fascinating in its conspiratorial intrigues as it is remarkable for its psychological insights. This is the definitive biography of the man who, despite his best intentions, helped create modern-day China.

Customer Reviews:

Biography of a supreme martinet.......2007-03-06

I started this book with minimal knowledge of China in the first half of the 20th century, beyond a knowledge of the key events. After reading Jonathan Fenby's magnus opus at 500 pages that gap in my knowledge has been very well filled. Using the life of Chiang Kai-Shek (CSK) up to his establishing of the National government in exile in Formosa (now Taiwanbthis book is an excellent coverage of the history of China to 1950, very well wrtitten and great command of many sources and consistent probing analysis of the issues and problems CSK and China faced.

The sub title of the book "And the China he lost" is the key - Fenby uses the life of CSK from humble beginnings to show that while he may have had a major impact in uniting post Manchu China, he consistently by personal failings and lack of realism to see himself as other than the divine national leader of China whose word was law and to delegate power, left it open to the eventual communist takeover under Mao, a man who operated a similar autocratic approach but was pragmatic enough to create the rural revolution needed.

The first half of Fenby's book is about CSK's success at overcoming the various regional warlords whose feudal approach to local power and unwillingness to accept central government reads like England in the Middle Ages. However while this may count as CSK's great success it
also showed many of the issues to come. CSK's military prowess was based on a mix of foreign military advisers (first Russian then German) and the use of bribery rather than personal military skills to often win victories. While making certain initial military reforms, CSK was unable to accept the wider need to invest in a high quality army relying on size and loyalty rather than skill and focus.

Having formed a loose regional federation, CSK then failed to seize the initiative to introduce much needed rural reform and instead aligned himself by marriage with corrupt urban wealthy families and launched a series of vicious attacks on the infant Communist party. His near success in eradicating the Communists was devastated by the Japanese invasion of China and the continual loss at great cost in lives of large and important areas of China to Japanese rule.

Even when presented with the golden opportunity of USA support post Pearl Harbour the opportunities were spurned due largely to CSK's nationalist attitude and lack of pragmatism and reality as to what was happening in China plus endless arguing with his US advisers who he saw threatening his authority. His endless meddling in military matters by issuing numerous orders when he was far from the front or executing a sound strategy plus the increasing corruption of his close followers meant that the Japanese were not pushed back and the Communists were able to survive and prosper.

With the end of WWII, CSK again took a gamble in the hope of playing off Russia and USA influences under the Cold War to survive but underestimated their lack of support based on his WWII performance - once his armies had to face down the communists his poor military skills became clear and the end was quick. Consistent to the end he ensured a retreat to exile in
Formosa with troops and gold leaving Chian to its fate but only after wreaking his final vengeance in murdering Chinese allies whohe felt had betrayed him.

One finishes the book clear that whill CSK may have had a major impact on China it came at a great cost and with little real chance of long term success given his inability to react correctly to changes in Chinese society and economy and foreign forces.

The Men Who Would Be King: The Chairman and the Generalissimo.......2007-01-31

Short, Philip (1999) Mao: A Life (Holt: New York)

Fenby, Jonathan (2003) Chiang Kai-Shek: China's Generalissimo and the Nation He Lost (Carroll & Graf: New York).

On October 1, 1949 Chairman Mao Zedong stood at the Gate of Heavenly Peace and declared the founding of the People's Republic of China. He told the assembled crowd, "We, the 475 million Chinese people have stood up and our future is infinitely bright." He further continued "The Chinese people have stood up." Two months the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) achieved later final victory. The leader of the Kuomintang (KMT), Generalissimo Chiang Kai-Shek, fled with his party to the Chinese provincial island of Taiwan. That day was the endgame of a battle that began twenty-two years earlier during the 1927 Autumn Harvest Uprising in Hunan.
Both Mao and Chiang are synonymous with the history of modern China. Both men came from similar backgrounds, had similar strategies and similar visions for China. Each man came from humble origins - Chiang the son of a salt merchant and Mao the son of a well off peasant. Mao and Chiang also sought to remake China as a modern nation within the world of nation-states. On more than one occasion each man was willing to use the other for their own struggle within their respective parties. To a degree, they were peas in a pod in modern China.
The capturing of these complicated men in their pod has been a complicated process for most writers. Many writers are trapped in their internal politics to capture the true person behind the images. Mao and Chiang both have had devoted followers and devote detractors who were more than willing to take a blind eye to things both good and bad done by these men.
Short and Fenby, however, do not. These two biographies are both extremely objective and sound. Mao is seen as the terrible dictator that he was. "His rule brought about the deaths of more of his own people than any other leader in history." Short admires Mao as being the man "who wrenched China from it medieval torpor and forced it into the contours of a modern nation."
Fenby, meanwhile, is equally objective in his assessment of the Generalissimo. Chiang's regime, both on the Mainland and on Taiwan, was not the thriving democracy it is even though of in the west. But in fact, it was a authoritarian one "organized on Leninist lines with a repressive internal security apparatus." Yet in the wake of three decades of horrid revolution, "Chiang and his era become less of the nightmare painted after the Communist victory."
Without Mao or Chiang China would probably still be the semi-colonial backwater it was when they were born in the late nineteenth century. Both men helped to unmake the old feudalist China ran for the betterment of Qing Dynasty and laid the groundwork for the extreme economic growth both on the Mainland and on Taiwan. Each Short and Fenby attempt to capture these two complicated men who will dominate the pages of history for centuries to come. Each is a fantastic read about the two men who would be king.

Important, Needed Addition to the Field of China Studies.......2005-11-11

This important book fills a glaring void that exists in the historical record of modern China. While historians have always provided ready attention to Mao Zedong and communist China, they never accorded the same serious examination to the role and legacy of Chiang Kai-shek. Before this book, most of the resources on Chiang dated from the 1970s and earlier, largely consisting of hagiographic accounts penned by pro-KMT Chinese living in Taiwan or abroad, or similar propaganda fluff pieces financed by the Henry Luce China Lobby. A well-reasoned, independent account of Chiang's life was thus long overdue, and Fenby comes through in a huge way.

He writes an engaging narrative of Chiang, a person of quite humble origins, who became one of the world's most famous and powerful figures. Fenby also provides detailed, careful background on the China of Chiang's time, particularly that of the 1911 Revolution and subsequent warlord period. This is important in understanding why Chiang allied with the types of people and strata of society that he did, and why this alliance alienated vast numbers of Chinese, providing moral fodder and legitimacy for the alternative offered by Mao. Much of Fenby's information regarding Chiang's early political career comes from an autobiography written by his largely-forgotten second wife, Chen Jieru (Jennie). While this relationship is common knowledge in Taiwan, she is practically unknown in the west. Her book is entitled Chiang Kai-shek's Secret Past, and what Fenby was able to glean from it has whetted my appetite to read the book myself.

Fenby is at his best when he examines the decades-long struggle for control of China between Chiang and Mao. Indeed, theirs was a clash of legendary, tragic proportions, and it is hard to find a more riveting story elsewhere in history, not just because of the mythic stature and personal auras these two men obtained during their own lifetimes, but also due to the enormous cruelty and unimaginable suffering both inflicted on the country they would rule and the populace they would win to their cause. Chapter 15, "The Long Chase" opens with a brilliant juxtaposition between the two, and proceeds to analyze the showdown during the Long March in which Mao gained primacy in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the CCP escaped certain extinction during Chiang's Fifth Extermination Campaign in Jiangxi. He attributes the CCP's success in escaping to Yan'an, not as the result of a secret deal Chiang brokered with Moscow to guarantee the return of his son Chiang Ching-kuo, as argued by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday in their biography of Mao, but to the superior strategy of Mao and Zhu De: they planned the route through areas of the country largely held by warlords who often actively assisted the Red Army in getting through their territories, or gave passive half-hearted chase, because the last thing they wanted was Chiang coming in with his huge armies and wresting political control away from them.

The book does have two important weaknesses, one minor and one major. First, Fenby provides little insight into what I think would be one of the most important and intriguing relationships of Chiang's life, that with his son Chiang Ching-kuo. Ching-kuo, after all, publicly denounced his father after the 1927 White Terror purges in Shanghai and Guangzhou, and attempted to join the Communist Party while living in the USSR. However, Fenby spends hardly any time at all with them. Considering the role that Ching-kuo played later in the democratization of Taiwan, this is unfortunate.

Fenby devotes three chapters and 65 pages to the stormy relationship between General Joseph Stilwell and Chiang Kai-shek. It is in his negative assessment of General Stilwell where his normally astute and deft powers of analysis fail him when he needs them most. It is not my desire here to delve too deeply into Stilwell's legacy or become embroiled in the Stilwell vs. Claire Chennault debate, but as Fenby comes perilously close to maligning Stilwell's military competence, I feel I must come to his defense, because for all his faults, General Stilwell was truly a great American and a first-rate military mind. He earned the trust and respect of the highest leadership in the US military and received promotion over those much senior to him, at the insistence of no less than Marshall and Eisenhower, two of the finest generals America has ever produced.

When describing Stilwell's march of his command out of Burma into India, an epic journey of over 150 miles taken under extreme conditions and threat of imminent discovery by the Japanese imperial army, Fenby terms it a `grave dereliction of duty', because he argues that Stilwell should have stayed behind to organize the retreat of other Chinese units in the theater. It is important to realize the true situation: the Japanese had put the Allies to rout. Commands and units had completely disintegrated by this point. Indeed, Fenby notes just a few pages earlier that before the main Japanese advance had even begun, Chinese commanders refused to obey Stilwell's orders (almost certainly under instructions from Chiang) and rather than send needed supplies and materiel to units on the front lines, Chinese commanders were hoarding these and trucking them back to China to sell on the black market. Once the Japanese began their assault, there was soon no `retreat' left for Stilwell to organize. In this case, he did what duty required of him: save his personal command. This he accomplished admirably: not one of the persons in his care perished or fell into Japanese hands.

Fenby seems to have bought into Chennault's air-intensive strategy as the way to defeat the Japanese in China, yet he never does manage to explain how air power can be the decisive factor when there is no means to defend air bases with no adequate ground support, and there would be insufficient supply lines for fuel and parts without ground troops defending the major supply routes from India. These were Stilwell's main arguments as to the necessity to win back Burma. Fenby overstates the effectiveness of Chennault's air battles, not surprising since his sources on this come only from autobiographies by Chennault himself and one of his men. This is a disappointing lapse of scrutiny by Fenby.

It is also important to note that on practically every point concerning Chiang, his military ineffectiveness and strategic incompetence, his regime, the venal corruption of the KMT and its likelihood of success in a civil war against the CCP, subsequent events proved General Stilwell correct, and Chennault, Henry Luce and countless others wrong. In fact, Fenby even quotes Chennault as absurdly saying that "I think the Generalissimo is one of the two or three greatest military and political leaders in the world today."

Notwithstanding these faults, Fenby gets the big picture right. His depiction of China's domestic situation and the political machinations of the KMT and CCP is compelling, absorbing history. He is fair-handed in his treatment to both sides, and is horribly effective in revealing the brutality of the Japanese occupation. Fenby manages to present a sympathetic portrait of Chiang, at his heart a true nationalist and personally incorruptible, but a man too bound by his steeply conservative Confucian tradition, enamored with fascism, and blind to the corruption of his family and associates, to ever have a hope of realizing his ultimate ambition.

Highly Readable, Good Scholarship.......2005-11-11

Just a clarification of one (or two?) of the reviewers.......2005-10-07

I am confused by one of the reviewers, Niels De Groot (supposedly real name). The review of Niels De Groot from Switzerland gave this paperback book a 5 star. The review (dated January 24, 2005) of Niels De Groot from Key Biscayne FL for the hardcover book, (his review titled "Mainly an Assembly of Newspaper Clippings) gave the book 2 stars. Are you two different persons?

By the way, I read the hardcover book. The history of modern China, especially those written by Chinese, are somehow tainted with lack of credibility, as they tend to serve the bias of either the Communist or the Nationalist side. So one cannot know what is really the truth. Mr. Fenby's book comes out with depth and evenhandedness in detail with the attempt to get to the truth as much as possible and avoiding to serve a particular political point of view. It is refreshing to read a biography of a contemporary Chinese figure without either the hate mongering or the idolization so prevalent even until now.

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Some very vivid writing.
Disappointment
Searing, yet Wonderfully Written
Woman Is Man's Downfall.
A path of escape leads to oneself.

Lost Nation
Jeffrey Lent
Manufacturer: Picador
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0330493809

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In his second novel, Lost Nation, Jeffrey Lent follows Blood, a mysterious rogue attempting to make a new life for himself in Indian Stream, an ungoverned territory in 19th-century northern New Hampshire. Intending to start a trading business, Blood brings with him rum, supplies, and Sally, a 16-year-old girl he won in a card game from the madam of a brothel. A rugged "man of contradictions," Blood is learned and occasionally kind, yet capable of considerable cruelty and violence. Rumors quickly circulate in Indian Stream regarding his troubled past, and Blood is made a scapegoat when conflicts escalate in the area following his arrival. As Blood's history is gradually revealed, it becomes clear that his only chance at redemption is through confrontation.

Demonstrating his gift for narration, Lent has created a rich and entertaining novel from this somewhat familiar outline, filled with well-developed characters and stark, evocative descriptions. In its epic, unflinching style and omniscient voice, Lent's prose is reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy and Faulkner, to whom he is often compared. Wolves, scoundrels, and barbaric natives abound, and Lent never shies away from the gritty, realistic detail appropriate for the novel's harsh setting. Though light on profundities, Lost Nation should offer readers many engaging reasons to return. --Ross Doll

Book Description

Lost Nation delves beneath the bright, promising veneer of early-nineteenth-century New England to unveil a startling parable of individualism and nationhood. The novel opens with a man known as Blood, guiding an oxcart of rum toward the wild country of New Hampshire, an ungoverned territory called the Indian Stream -- a land where the luckless or outlawed have made a fresh start. Blood is a man of contradictions, of learning and wisdom, but also a man with a secret past that has scorched his soul. He sets forth to establish himself as a trader, hauling with him Sally, a sixteen-year-old girl won from the madam of a brothel over a game of cards. Their arrival in the Indian Stream triggers an escalating series of clashes that serves to sever the master/servant bond between them, and offers both a second chance with life. But as the conflicts within the community spill over and attract the attention of outside authorities, Blood becomes a target to those seeking easy blame for their troubles. As plots unravel and violence escalates, two young men of uncertain identity appear, and Blood is forced to confront dreaded apparitions of his past, while Sally is offered a final escape.

Customer Reviews:

Some very vivid writing........2007-05-14

The writing in this book really comes alive. The first page smacked me across the face, and it made me want to read more. There is one section that was so sad, strange, and so wonderfully done that I had to read it again and again. I didn't feel that it completly achieved all that it wanted to, or at least what I think it wanted to, but some parts of it were so good, that it totally makes reading it worthwhile.

Disappointment.......2006-11-29

I enjoy historical fiction. However this book was very disappointing. Under the guise of being "mysterious" the characters are poorly developed. The story line has potential but never goes anywhere. Most of the action seems very contrived and pointless. None of the characters is in any way sympathetic. By the end of the book I just wanted them all to die.

Finally the writing is just plain bad. This book contains so many gramatical errors and poorly structured sentences that sometimes I had to read a section multiple times to figure out what the writer meant to say.

I had to force myself to finish this novel.

Searing, yet Wonderfully Written.......2006-08-08

The title Lost Nation refers to the idea that the northern border of New Hampshire along Quebec was evidently in question in 1836. This area of New Hampshire was every bit as much a frontier as the Appalachians during the same period. I found it extremely well written and difficult to put down. Be warned that many of the characters are not admirable and the ending is not happy in any conventional sense. I still consider this one of the best books I have read in a very long time. The weakest part of the book is the postlude which continues for several pages before making a connection with the story that has gone before.

Woman Is Man's Downfall........2005-09-16

This fictional story took place in 1838 in the wild country of New Hampshire. It is called a parable of "indivicualism and nationhood," it's a tale of strength, misconceptions, and yearning for a civil society. We still need one in Knoxville, TN where young stud policemen are allowed to be abusive and intiminating to old and retarded women at the county fair.

Colum McCann called it "part love story, part parable, and part 'eastern' New England western; it reads like a western novel. This 'ungoverned territory' was called the Indian Stream, "a land where the unlucky outlaws come to make a fresh start."

This undeveloped landscape is raw with little pity for human strivings. Blood (an unfornate name) is a wise man of contradictions, but has a secret past. He thinks that by moving to a different place it will be okay to have a young 16-yr-old companion he used as Cortes used his harem. He won Sally in a game of cards; their arrival triggers a series of clashes which eventually led to a second chance at life. They endured a hardscrabble life and had a mangy dog named Luther.

We read about the desolation and harsips as Blood becomes the target for hoodlums to place blame for the troubles in the place. When the two young males, Fletcher and Russell Barrett, cause a confrontation, he's forced to face "apparitions" of his past and act on them.

Sally has an opening (which she used) for escape, as the reader learns a relentless beat of hope and redeeming capacity for love. "She wondered if he realized he was only a coward...the coward who ran." Sometimes, retreat saves lives, and that is not cowardly. It's about the "age old dream of becoming a better man by moving to another place" and getting a brand-new start, as the homeless now do. That wasn't so easy in the early 19th century America.

His secret background included coming from New Bedford to New York, then moved on th Connecticut and Boston, Massachusetts. "So began seventeen years of cycles and half circles, all radiant from New Bedford as the hub of unseen spokes, the opposing mangetic pole he could neither approach nor leave altogether. He'd set out for Savannah, which he'd heard was "a city of refinement and comfort." or perhaps New Orleans (he could learn the dialect of French spoken there. He would 'rejuvenate,' which wasn't to be. He was cornered in the loft of a barn like John Wilkes Booth in 1963, trapped in flames.

In 1896, Sally is still alive at age 74 years but dependent on ogthers -- not helpless. Her daughter, Estell Warren, married to a doctor who had been a veteran of the Civil War. Sometimes, there is no justice.

A path of escape leads to oneself........2005-06-21

How a writer takes a character through through pain, conflicts, wits and instinct to develop a story with flesh-and-bone realism should be on every Contemporary American Literature syllabus with "Lost Nation" on the top of its reading list. Jeffrey Lent's story as words on pages comes at the reader as sensory experience, sopped with the sweaty, bloody thoughts of the main character as he runs from the emotional pains of his past. In a land and time of loneliness and ambiguities, "Blood" forges a physical and mental life beyond mere existence and survival. In his attempts to be left alone, he is compelled to imbue those around him with understanding of their surroundings and themselves, and discovers that what he gives does indeed come back to him. In the remoteness of a New England border forest he becomes his own best student in a rendez-vous with his past. Lots here for readers who like the action and setting of adventure novels AND expect real character development without giving it up in one paragraph. "Lost Nation" is gritty and gruesome, without happy barn-raising or justice-shall-previal passages. Appropriately "Blood" is no smarmy swashbuckler and the neighbors are no model citizens. Besides celebrating the anti-hero of colonial America settlement, Lent compels us posit "if it were me, what would I do?" in a setting bereft of institutions, technology, affable climate, and even morality. A book that has to be read more than once.

Anglo-Israel and the Jewish problem: The ten lost tribes of Israel found and identified in the Anglo-Saxon race. The Jewish problem solved in the reunion ... and restoration of the Israelitish nation

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Anglo-Israel and the Jewish problem: The ten lost tribes of Israel found and identified in the Anglo-Saxon race. The Jewish problem solved in the reunion ... and restoration of the Israelitish nation
Thomas Rosling Howlett
Manufacturer: Spangler & Davis
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Judah's Sceptre and joseph's Birthright - An Analysis of the Prophecies of the Scriptures in Regard to the Royal Family of Judah and the Many Nations of Israel, the Lost Ten Tribes

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Judah's Sceptre and joseph's Birthright - An Analysis of the Prophecies of the Scriptures in Regard to the Royal Family of Judah and the Many Nations of Israel, the Lost Ten Tribes

Manufacturer: Destiny Pub.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GQ1L2Y

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Newfoundland: JOUNEY INTO A LOST NATION
Rex; Crummey, Michael; Locke, Greg Murphy
Manufacturer: McClelland & Stewart Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Iambics of Newfoundland: Notes from an Unknown Shore

ASIN: 0771061420

Book Description

Greg Locke had been away from Newfoundland for years, working as a photojournalist in Canada, the United States, and in many of the world’s most troubled regions, when he decided to go home – and stay. The photographs in Newfoundland were taken over a period of more than a decade. They chronicle the passage of Canada’s easternmost province from a time when cod were still plentiful and the fishery shaped the lives of most of the island’s inhabitants, to the present, when a vibrant economy, propelled by oil and mineral development, is recasting the island’s identity in a new mould.

What Locke’s photographs reveal is at once forward-looking and nostalgic, beautiful and harsh. Above all, his Newfoundland ispopulated by survivors: a people who are resourceful, funny, resilient, and strong.

Poet and novelist Michael Crummey draws upon deep-seated memories of his own and of his father’s experience to evoke passing traditions and a disappearing way of life. But, just as Locke’s photographs reveal the emergence of a new, more urban and cosmopolitan Newfoundland, so does Crummey’s writing emphasize the continuing sense of belonging and the determination to persevere that are characteristic of his compatriots. He writes admiringly of a “culture deep enough to accommodate a world of influences without surrendering what makes it unmistakably of this place. Something alive and leaning towards the future.” This book embodies both a vision and a voice of rare power.

A Nation Lost And Found: 1936 America Remembered by Ordinary and Extraordinary People

Average customer rating:

Nice Supplemental History Text
A True-life Time Machine
a remarkable document
Great way to learn history
An Evocative Book

A Nation Lost And Found: 1936 America Remembered by Ordinary and Extraordinary People

Manufacturer: Tallfellow Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1931290040

Book Description

A Nation Lost and Found provides an extraordinary look at the moving personal stories of people who lived through the turbulent mid-1930's - a period in which the spirit of the individual, and the collective spirit of a nation, were awakened. The voices, experiences and remembrances in this unique compliation echo the patriotic fervor, the expressions of hope, the forecasts of doom, the crows of triumph and the cries of despair that have also resonated since 9/11 and send a message that we have passed this way beofre. What emerges is a kaleidoscopic picture of both the pain and joy of an era that also holds a powerful message for today's uncertain world. Among the widely varied contributors are: Norman Corwin; Tom Wicker; Glenn Seaborg; Gregory Peck; Shirley Temple Black; Studs Terkel; Stanley Marcus; Dr. Ruth Westheimer; Ring Lardner, Jr.; Elmore Leonard; Oleg Cassini; Dave Brubeck; Art Linkletter; Henry Luce III; Senator Howard Metzenbaum.

Customer Reviews:

Nice Supplemental History Text.......2005-03-04

I feel like this book, with its collection of oral histories, would make great supplementary reading for high school A.P. U.S. History classes or for American Studies curricula at the undergraduate and graduate level.

It's got a nice blend of academic approach and non-academic narrative style.

A True-life Time Machine.......2004-03-29

This stimulating collection is a veritable trip to a past American era, an inclusive picture of our nation at a time of crisis and rediscovery. The essays range from the sentimental to the dramatic to the humorous, but above all they are informative. It's a book to keep on your night table to browse at will. (Disclosure: A piece of mine is included.)

a remarkable document.......2002-10-17

every so often a book appears that epitomizes an era and manages to encapsulate shared experience from many unique points of view. "a nation lost and found" belongs in that rarified pantheon of memoirs. if only history were taught routinely this way. at approaching age 72 i can clearly remember listening to norman corwin's broadcast after v.e. day "on a note of triumph" and the chills of recognition, hope, and caution his words produced. an american giant of his time, still. all the essays are memorable. required reading for anyone in the least interested in the events of the 20th century and what they tell us of human folly and hope. norman d. levine, md

Great way to learn history.......2002-10-12

According to the LA Times Book Review (9/22/02) this book is, "a delightful, cinematic, even musical way to understand the daily lives of Americans at a particularly vulnerable, tottering moment in our history." I couldn't agree more. It chronicles what may be the seminal year in our nation's history when we pulled together with a strong sense of national identity. The LA Times goes on to say, "If more history were written this way, we'd have eager students, driven to the subject with a greater sense of diversity and possibility. We all might have a finer understanding of what freedom means." The reviewer did us all a service by bringing this book to our attention.

An Evocative Book.......2002-09-12

Consisting of vignettes contributed by people both famous and unknown, A Nation Lost and Found describes life in America in 1936. Some contributions are taken from WPA interviews (from the 30s) and reflect the speakers' then current lives and concerns; most are remembrances produced for this book. The vignettes are loosely organized in sections such as, "Politics," " The Holocaust," "Daily Life," and "The Olympics." In their Introduction the authors place the book in the context of 9/11, saying the terrorist attack was not the first time there has been a major catastrophe in this country,
Most of us were not alive in 1936. This book, then, is about a time our parents and/or grandparents experienced. Thus, the book is of interest not only from a disinterested historical perspective, but also from a more personal, familial perspective, because it speaks of the experiences and attitudes of some of our family members and members of their communities.
The vignettes reflect many viewpoints. Some of the contributors seem to have been unaware of the suffering and turmoil in the world. In the words of one man, "Depression is a state of mind. There was no depression in 1936." Others were well aware of the difficult circumstances many experienced. To quote another, "It was a great year if you didn't care about eating."
Those who were poor had various strategies for coping. Some went to Canada for work. Others scrimped, wearing second-hand clothes and skipping trips to the doctor or dentist. A number rented rooms. A few women became prostitutes.
The authors do not attempt to draw lessons from what they present or to analyze the material. They present it as a book to be "browsed at random." In this they have succeeded admirably. All of the vignettes are interesting. Many are gems.

The Ineffective Soldier, Lessons for Management and the Nation - The Lost Divisions

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The Ineffective Soldier, Lessons for Management and the Nation - The Lost Divisions
Eli Ginzberg
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press, New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JFXM3S

Average customer rating:

'78: How a Nation Lost the World Cup
Graham Mccoll
Manufacturer: Headline Book Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Scotland | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | Football (American) | Sports | Subjects | Books

General | Soccer | Sports | Subjects | Books

General | Sports | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0755314093

Book Description

Against the backdrop of nationalism, devolution, and North Sea oil, Scotland was the only British team to qualify for the 1978 World Cup, and set off with genuine hopes of returning champions. But it all went horribly wrong. Beaten by Peru, a country few could point to on a map, and drawing with Iran, Scotland faced Holland, needing to win by three goals. Incredibly, the Scots conjured up one of the greatest goals in World Cup history to give themselves a chance, but it wasn't to be. Throughout this entertaining account, the cast of characters stands out—manager Ally McLeod, more a friendly uncle than world-class strategist; the monstrously permed, part-time goalkeeper, Alan Rough; and wide-boy, Willie Johnstone, sent home after failing a drugs test. Yet, despite the resounding failure and humiliation, Argentina '78 is still viewed with great affection.

Alien Nation - The Spartans #1 : Lost and Found (Malibu Comics)

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Alien Nation - The Spartans #1 : Lost and Found (Malibu Comics)
Bill Spangler
Manufacturer: Malibu Graphics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VWKETO

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