Russian Amerika
Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • Entertaining novel, interesting premise
  • Entertaining, but ...
  • Russian Amerika rings changes
  • Fool's Gold
  • excellent alternate historical saga
Russian Amerika
Stoney Compton
Manufacturer: Baen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 141652116X

Book Description

Alaska, 1989. In a world where Alaska is still a Russian possession, charter captain Grigorivich Plesnett has a stained past ¿ as a major in the Czar¿s Troika Guard he was cashiered for disobeying a direct order. Now, ten years later, Grig charters out to a cossack and discovers his past has not only caught up with him but is about to violently change his future, and the future of all nine of the nations of North America as well. Spanning Alaska from the Southeastern Inside Passage to the frozen Yukon, this is an epic tale of one man¿s journey of redemption and courage to face old challenges and help birth a new nation.

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Entertaining novel, interesting premise.......2007-06-22

I liked this novel quite a bit. I am a huge fan of Alternate History, and some of my favorites are ones that veer off the old World War II/ Civil War topics. Waht if Russia never sold Alaska? What if America became fragmented and more European in politics and outlook? I loved the pleasant feeling of weirdness to the politics and culture. I also admired Mr. Compton's ability to bring you into Alaska with his descriptions.
I think that the characters were a little stock, but I believe a good story can smooth over that, and for the most part this does. About the only part I really had a problem was was the war crimes trial in San Francisco, it did seem a bit forced for the story arc. Otherwise a rollicking good read, and one that I'd reccommend

3 out of 5 stars Entertaining, but ... .......2007-05-14

Stoney Compton provides an entertaining story that is very easy to read. So, regardless of anything else that is said, I absolutely recommend the book.

The reason this doesn't get higher than three stars (it's really a 3 1/2) is that the characters are pretty predictable, as are the plot twists. A few are just flat out reaches, like bringing Grisha to San Francisco for a war crimes investigation in the middle of a war. While the "good guy" characters are pleasant enough, and the "bad guys" are easy to dislike, there really isn't much depth to either, and no nuance. Since there is at least one more book to come (and probably two to make the ever-popular trilogy), there might be better character development in future installments. I hope so, because this really was an entertaining story. The book is also poorly edited; there are numerous typos that should have picked up and corrected. I assume that Mr. Compton is a good liberal, because there are some rather transparent homages to many liberal icons in this alternate universe.

That said, there are a number of very good things to say about the book. Compton uses a number of fascinating details to bring this alternate world to life. The P-51 Mustang has been recast as the P-61 Eureka of the California Republic Air Force. The American star is replaced by the California bear on the fuselage. An officer of the First People's Nation army, the country created for Native Americans, wears the silver buffalo head on his collar. Yet, with the detail Compton also offers only vague references to how the world arrived where it is, which is also very effective. We know there have been wars, and one World War in the mid-to-late 1940s, but we don't know who was allied with whom. We don't know if Hitler or the Nazis ever controlled Germany. Rather than detracting from the story the absence of these details adds to the realism. The one thing that is somewhat troublesome is any explanation for why technology has not progressed beyond real-world 1930s or 40s. Presumably this is due to the amount of fragmenting that has gone on, but that doesn't explain why things have seemingly been frozen. Perhaps that will be explained in a future installment.

I am looking forward to the next book in this story, because although there are some flaws, this is still a hugely entertaining story.

5 out of 5 stars Russian Amerika rings changes.......2007-04-23

What if the Louisiana Purchase never happened? What would happen if Seward never bought Alaska from the Russians? What if the Russian Revolution failed? What if there were an independent Republic of California?

Stoney Compton, winner of the prestigeous Writers of the Future contest, has produced a thinking person's alternate history...that is, if you can take a breath and pause for a minute from the headlong action and think about the implications of what his story is about.

You like alternate history, right? You're bored to tears with more changes on the Civil War, right? Well, here's a civil war that will bring tears to your eyes at the heroism, allow you to hiss the villains, cheer the heroes, and when it is over, leaves you wishing it was longer, and didn't stop in medias res...dammit Stoney, get that sequel finished!!!

Go buy this book. Trust me. You won't regret it.

Walt Boyes
Associate Editor/Marketing Director
Jim Baen's Universe magazine

2 out of 5 stars Fool's Gold.......2007-04-15

A huge cast of cardboard, stock characters with predictable motivations; an "evil" incompetent enemy; a thinly plausible historical starting point - put it all together with weak plotting and you get the tale of Russian Amerika.

I had trouble following the timeline. It reminded me of amatuer combat photography with a cheap camcorder. The author killed characters off with such abandon I began to wonder who the protaganist was. Plenty of throw-away chapters about inconsequential events. I loved the premise, and I could see the outlines of a GREAT alternate history, but it did not hold together. How is it that Russia with it's huge population can only muster a few thousand troops to put down a rebellion?

I wish the author had started with paperbacks. Then I wouldn't be feeling like I got burned buying a hardback.

5 out of 5 stars excellent alternate historical saga.......2007-04-05

In 1989 in Czarist Russian controlled Alaska, Naval Captain Grisha Grigorievich detests the de jure and de facto prejudice that he suffers from just because he is a half breed. Less competent with less success officers have been promoted before him. However, even worse in his mind is the true-blood theory of law in which a Cossack purebred can invoke Czarist control on half breeds or Native Alaskans; it galls Grisha when a lightweight uses his heritage to order him about like a slave.

Grisha learns how far his lack of status goes when he is accused and convicted of murdering a government agent. Without any chance of repudiating the accusation, he is taken to a prison labor camp with no hope of exoneration or for that matter freedom; no one escapes the internment camps. However, not long afterward, Native American Alaskan separatists attack the confinement complex freeing Grisha. The freedom lovers plead with Grisha to join their cause, but he has plans to kill those whose lies led to his incarceration.

Alternate history fans will relish this superb thriller whose basis is that Russia never sold Seward's Folly. The concept and the subsequent dominoes that occur from that opening historical alteration seem reasonable. However, what makes for a delightful thriller is the "current" time scenario as Stoney Compton interweaves the key events from the past in the present. Perhaps the best scene in the novel and one of the best of the year is the revolutionaries (insurgents?) and the Czarists battle in the cold regions where climate is a deadly weapon. This is an excellent alternate historical saga.

Harriet Klausner

Amerika
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Lost in Amerika
  • Interesting
  • They've all come to look for America....
  • Amerika
  • A few impressions
Amerika
Franz Kafka , Willa Muir , Edwin Muir , and E. L. Doctorow
Manufacturer: Schocken
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0805210644
Release Date: 1996-07-02

Customer Reviews:

4 out of 5 stars Lost in Amerika.......2007-03-27

By the author's own admission, "Amerika" is a much more optimistic piece than Kafka's other works. Since Kafka was never able to finish this work, the reader is unable to read the final "happy ending" that the plot is leading toward fulfilling. Even without the afterword which alleges the eventual ending, the lack of angst and thinning sense of confusion point toward resolution.

After fathering a child in his teenage years, Karl Rossman is shipped to America to begin his life free of stigma. But getting off of the ship that brings him to America becomes a challenge that leads him to a wealthy family member in America. However, Karl's life of luxury is short-lived. After offending his uncle, he is cast out on his own. Falling in allegiance with a pair of out of work tramps, Karl hopes to start anew. Delamarche and Robinson continually take advantage of Karl's resources until work finds Karl. These two men cost Karl his job of stature and try to force him into the servitude of the obese singer that employs Robinson and Delamarche. We never learn how Karl escaped this predicament, but find Karl in the last chapter finding an apparently great opportunity in Oklahoma.

Since this is an unfinished work, there are some gaps in the story as pointed out in my review. Many have dismissed this work of Kafka as it does not fit the typical mold of his work. While the gaps in the story make it difficult for me to give this book five stars, I would recommend this book to fans of Kafka.

3 out of 5 stars Interesting.......2006-01-30

Kafka's "Amerika" was the first of his novels that I read following a survey of his short stories. It's a witty and charming book, even if the America Kafka presents is completely unlike any America I've ever heard of. Still, I didn't find it that engaging. I felt as if Karl, the main character, was something of a pinball, bouncing from one place and situation to another as a consequence of the seeminly random decisions of those around him. He spends an awful lot of time thinking and thinking and thinking, but in the end all his thoughts don't amount to much and he's kicked to the next event.

Also, please remember this is an unfinished novel! Unlike many of Kafka's unfinished stories, it doesn't cut off at any particular final point, it just sort of stops, and now I'm frustrated! ;-)

2 out of 5 stars They've all come to look for America...........2005-11-08

Franz Kafka's 'Amerika' started off, to me, with a great premise, but in the end I found the tale less than entertaining.

Karl Rossman, a teenage boy shipped off to America by his parents following an 'indiscretion' with a servant girl, finds himself in the company of an American uncle, who quickly shuns him for accepting the hospitality of one of the uncle's friends.

Rossman then 'disappears' into the poor working class landscape of America, where he encounters many less than scrupulous characters.

Much of this novel is devoted to the this 'disappearance', though the action, to me, never quite moved along...and made the story quite stale to me...

While I have not read any other works by Franz Kafka, I hope that other novels were better paced and executed. His prose is enjoyable, just not very 'lively' in this offering.

4 out of 5 stars Amerika.......2005-08-31

Without ever having visited America, the German-speaking Czech author, Franz Kafka, wrote a novel based on research which included an autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, travel brochures, and the stories of Europeans who had traveled to America and returned to Europe. The result was the novel, Amerika, his unique and often very unrealistic interpretation of life in America. Amerika follows an almost sixteen-year-old boy through a series of experiences and adventures. Due to misbehavior at home, Karl Rossmann is sent by his parents to New York to live with his uncle in America . Kafka's skewed view of America is immediately demonstrated as Karl is greeted by the statue of liberty holding a raised sword. Karl meets many people and discovers a life quite different than any he has ever known in Europe. Karl meets his uncle and finds himself in the midst of people who are well-off in society. Later, on his own, he discovers a different side of American life. From houses the size of castles, to unfair treatment by his employer, to an out-of-control political rally, Karl is constantly surprised by America as he experiences many bizarre occurrences. Because Kafka did not finish Amerika, the reader is left disappointed in not knowing what happens to Karl, but also hopeful for Karl's future. This book is an interesting portrayal of America from the point of view of an early twentieth-century European who had never visited America. This makes the book intriguing.

5 out of 5 stars A few impressions .......2005-07-12

There is an excellent review of this book on 'The Amazon site' by AJ Feinsinger that captures the story of this work, and much of its strangeness.
I am only adding a few impressions of my own.
First I concur with the observation that this is a book written by a person who has never been in America. I remember reading it years ago, and how it seemed to me the very opposite of everything America stands for.
America in my mind then, was brightness and optimism , a new hope and a new dream. It was moving Westward, and pioneering. It was clear and simple and beautiful
Kafka's 'Amerika' is complicated and mind- ridden. It is filled with paradoxes and absurdities, with strange cruel meetings .The atmosphere of nightmare and difficulty that pervades Kafka's work was felt by me then as in absolute contradiction to the American spirit.
Of the novels , 'The Castle ' 'The Trial' and this one I find this one the least satisfying, the most incoherent. It is very much a super- incomplete work. 'Incompleteness' is of course part of Kafka's legacy and gift .But here it seems often as if there simply has not been enough time given to the text.
I am in any case a reader of Kafka's diaries, parables, stories, shorter works more than I am of his novels which I find somehow tiresome.
This is to my mind the least satisfactory of all of Kafka's work.
And yet as Kafka reveals to us our own contradictions, paradoxes and fears in a way no one else can- this work too has its meaning and instruction.
George Grosz in Amerika 1932-1959 (European university studies. Series XXVIII, History of art)
Average customer rating: Not rated
    George Grosz in Amerika 1932-1959 (European university studies. Series XXVIII, History of art)
    Birgit Mockel
    Manufacturer: P. Lang
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Unknown Binding

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    ASIN: 3631323077
    Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States (Russian Literature Series)
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      Amerika: Russian Writers View the United States (Russian Literature Series)

      Manufacturer: Dalkey Archive Press
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

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      ASIN: 1564783561
      Amerika: The Man Who Disappeared
      Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
      • ignore the haters--this book is great!
      • Basically, It Is Not a Great Kafka Novel, It is Terrible.
      • Good for the Initiated, but Read Kafka's Other Works First
      • Disappointed
      • What could have been America
      Amerika: The Man Who Disappeared
      Franz Kafka
      Manufacturer: New Directions Publishing Corporation
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

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      ASIN: 0811215695

      Book Description

      Michael Hofmann's superb new translation of Franz Kafka's epic work. Franz Kafka's Amerika (The Man Who Disappeared) at last has the translator it deserves. Michael Hofmann's startlingly visceral and immediate translation revives Kafka's great comedy, and captures a new Kafka, free from Prague and loose in the new world, a Kafka shot through with light in this highly charged and enormously nuanced translation.

      Kafka began the first of his three novels in 1911, but like the others, Amerika remained unfinished, and perhaps, as Klaus Mann suggested, "necessarily endless." Karl Rossman, the youthful hero of the novel, "a poor boy of seventeen," has been banished by his parents to America, following a scandal. There, with unquenchable optimism, he throws himself into adventure after misadventure, and experiences multiply as he makes his way into the heart of the country, to The Great Nature Theater of Oklahoma.

      In creating this new translation, Hofmann, as he explains in his introduction, returned to the manuscript version of the book, restoring matters of substance and detail. Fragments which have never before been presented in English are now reinstated - including the book's original "ending."

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars ignore the haters--this book is great! .......2006-08-11

      this book is a delight from beginning to end. it's unfinished, but so are all of kafka's novels (and many of his stories). He was a divinely inspired dilettante, not a professional writer; his stuff should be read the way one reads chaotic, fragmented ancient texts like gilgamesh or the book of genesis, as opposed to polished, narratively coherent modern fiction.
      Amerika is by far kafka's most cheerful book. it has his usual themes of elusive acceptance alternating with alienation, but it's quite silly and charming. it's full of absurd situations and odd details, such as perpetual strikers picketing in the streets, an impossibly complicated mechanical desk and a pair of straight-out-of-central-casting crooks. it's a wild european projection of what america was about at the dawn of the modern age.

      4 out of 5 stars Basically, It Is Not a Great Kafka Novel, It is Terrible........2006-07-14

      This is a new translation by Michael Hofmann along with an introduction by the same person plus extra unpublished fragments of text. Kafka did not like the book and was still doing re-writes when he died. Max Brode edited the final version, and Edwin Muir did the first translation in 1928. Hoffman refers to the books as Kafka's "Cinderella." I think it is the opposite: Kafka's dog, his worst work. One must feel slightly sorry for Hofmann. He does a good job but there is not much of a story here and it ends abruptly with no conclusion - seemingly in the middle of a paragraph.

      Much better books are: The Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, and Other Stories: The Great Short Works of Franz Kafka" and "The Castle." His other longish novel "The Trial" is a bit disjointed and not as good as "The Castle." None of his novels are long.

      Where and how does one start to discuss this incomplete and unsatisfactory novel edited after Kafka's death? It must be his worst - if we can even call it a Kafka novel. By the way, I am not a professor of literature, just a Kafka fan and I have read all of his works, or at least all those available on the market. I have read his short stories including - of course - the brilliant novella "Metamorphosis" and his two other novels: "The Trial" and "The Castle" and I read his collected short stories including "The Stoker."

      One is a bit shocked to find that the first and best chapter in "Amerika" is in fact that short story "The Stoker." This chapter is by far the most interesting part of the book. That is a good story that stands on its own. After that we follow a very weak saga in which "K" has a girl friend - a maid - similar to his other two novels and has a series of not very interesting sub-stories. Unlike the other novels "K" has a name: Karl Rossman. Karl spirals down socially and mentally as in "The Castle" and in "The Trial" but more so. He never really gets out on his own and is left in some sort of intermediate zone among some very odd fellow travelers. In fairness to Kafka, perhaps it would have been more interesting and accurate technically if Kafka had finished the work.

      There is little here to get excited about. The plot is weak, and it seems to take place in Austria not America. It is neither an American story nor a Kafka story. The police, for example, stop people and ask for their "papers" in the style of a European socialist country, while Kafka places Boston is across the bridge from Manhattan, and the characters use English money, not dollars. The hotel where "K" works seems very European. Obviously, he did very little background research work about America for the novel. There are no references to life in America or to any geographical locations that the reader might relate to. It is about three or four people, not a trip to America. Finally, the story seems to run out of steam after chapter 1.

      In summary, the plot is weak, the story is weak, it is full of technical errors, and it is a couple of steps below his other works. It is far from the greatness and brilliance of "Metamorphosis," and it is far below "The Castle" as a novel.

      4 stars is a generous rating. If you have read "The Stoker" you can skip this purchase.

      4 out of 5 stars Good for the Initiated, but Read Kafka's Other Works First.......2006-06-12

      Kafka never finished this novel--his first--and proceeded to write two of the best novels ever written in any language (The Castle and The Trial). Amerika seems, therefore, not to warrant much attention from the casual reader. Kafka's style, which is unrefined even in Kafka's greatest works, will seem downright coarse, almost as if Kafka never intended for anyone to read the novel. He didn't.

      Long narrations, tortuous and confusing descriptive passages, and a dearth of action and plot characterize the novel, and may put off all but the most determined readers. Kafka offsets the novel's flaws, however, by constructing a captivating world for his protagonist, Karl Rossman, to inhabit.

      The plot is easy to summarize: Karl Rossman is banished to America, and tries to secure a stable position for himself in his new homeland. Kafka's novel is a meditation on the ironies of liberty, autonomy, and status. He takes us inside Karl's mind to reveal the countless deliberations and reflections that lead to independent decisions, but the decisions never generate the desired outcomes in his new homeland.

      Unaccustomed to freedom, Karl makes good, bad, and worse decisions, which direct him to experience the highest and lowest echelons of American society. He lives in a high-rise apartment, stands on a balcony amid skyscrapers, and reflects on the unfathomable network of commerce and traffic teeming below him. Conversely, Karl finds himself relegated to sleep on another high-rise balcony, as the servant of Karl's vagabond acquaintance and his fat mistress.

      Somewhere in between, Karl works as an Elevator Attendant in a massive hotel, and continuously moves up and down between floors. Much as in the real present-day America, status is precarious in Kafka's novel. Karl's position rises and falls as quickly as the hotel elevators that he attends to, and he has little or no control over which direction he goes. Karl's destination is determined largely by the whims and preferences of others.

      Kafka's brilliant meditations on the ironies of modern life are forward thinking and profound. Readers looking for an introduction to Kafka would be well served to start with the short stories or meditations, and to move along to the novels afterwards. I recommend this novel to anyone seeking a greater understanding of Kafka's works, but only if you've already read and liked his other work.

      1 out of 5 stars Disappointed.......2004-01-10

      This book is not very good, it is fantastical and epic in scope, but not in prose. The writing is very passive, and all the dialogue is inserted within discription, and it is very frustrating to get used to.
      The story is also frustrating, I kept wanting to the main character to use his common sense and not get tricked by the evil characters, but he is too naive to do this.
      Since Kafka never actually visited America, this book has an air of myth about it, the way people overseas may talked about America at the time. A place with riches and oppurutunites around every corner, but with just as many unjust people waiting to take advantage of you.

      3 out of 5 stars What could have been America.......2003-11-10

      The story is a dreamy voyage into a land that could have been America, that would have liked to be America, but (as one realizes from reading this work) turned out to be totally different. It isn't a "a brilliant piece of imagination" as an earlier post said, and it isn't earth-shattering. But it is memorable and unique among novels, in that it is a journey into a world that would be our own world, isn't our own world, and yet has something mysteriously in common with it.

      It is also unique among Kafka's work in that it isn't as dreary as the rest. In the course of the disappointments Karl encounters, there is always an air of optimism and cheer, as a breath of fresh air - the story contains adventure and hope within its melanchoy realities. To those looking for an escape from the dreariness that prevails around them - something Kafka definitely needed and must have found in writing Amerika - this story will be a wonderful gift.
      Gebrauchsanweisung für Amerika.
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        Gebrauchsanweisung für Amerika.
        Paul Watzlawick
        Manufacturer: Piper
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Paperback

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        ASIN: 3492275168
        Erich Mendelsohn's "Amerika": 82 Photographs
        Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
        • Inspiration for classic movie Metropolis
        Erich Mendelsohn's "Amerika": 82 Photographs
        Erich Mendelsohn
        Manufacturer: Dover Publications
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Paperback

        GeneralGeneral | Architecture | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
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        ASIN: 0486275914

        Book Description

        Noted German architect photographed American cityscapes in the 20s. New York's Times Square, Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn Bridge, Trinity Church, many other sites. Chicago's Michigan Avenue, Tribune Building, Federal Reserve Bank. Also buildings and locales in Buffalo and Detroit. Striking, dramatic views by trained observer. Newly translated introduction and captions. Reprinted from rare original edition.

        Customer Reviews:

        5 out of 5 stars Inspiration for classic movie Metropolis.......2007-02-02

        This book inspired Fritz Lang in his production of one of the all-time classic movies, Metropolis (1927). The book is a great deal for anyone interested in photographs of New York at its height of world architectural domination, and it's evident how they led to the fabulous, haunting set designs in the movie.
        Elins Amerika
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          Elins Amerika
          De Angeli
          Manufacturer: Doubleday & Company
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Hardcover
          ASIN: B000JDSBZ4
          Amerika Psycho: Behind Uncle Sam's Mask of Sanity
          Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
          • The cruelty behind the mask
          • A prophetic, witty indictment
          • A vitriolic entertainment
          Amerika Psycho: Behind Uncle Sam's Mask of Sanity
          Richard Neville
          Manufacturer: Ocean Press (AU)
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Paperback

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          ASIN: 1876175621

          Book Description

          Richard Neville, political satirist jailed after the Oz magazine censorship trials in the 1960s, mocks a culture that sees the world as either "a target market or a target"-a culture that reveals a "disturbing identification with Imperial Rome."

          Neville provoked outrage for his -essay describing the United States as a nation out of control and "bent on serving its interests at any cost." Now, following September 11, Neville warns the "wounded Goliath is on the rampage," stuck in a "perilous psychic gridlock of us/them, good/evil."

          Customer Reviews:

          5 out of 5 stars The cruelty behind the mask.......2003-04-11

          He writes about love, cruelty and the culture of greed, a kind of Noam Chomsky on ectasy. While warm towards American citizens and their radical roots, he despairs of their ignorance of the crimes perpetrated in their name. This is a passionate, minority view, one which looks like it could become mainstream as events unfold in the Middle East. I was charmed by its exuberance, moved by its passion, intrigued by its holistic view of the world ans surprised by its humour. Apparently Neville was something of an underground press celebrity in the sixties and this cheeky spirit shines through each page. Very relevant in times of random cluster bombing described as ýliberationý, and the division of the world into good and evil. Strangely philosophical, highly recommended.

          5 out of 5 stars A prophetic, witty indictment.......2003-04-11

          The first chapter in this amazing multi layered polemic is based on an essay the author published in Australia several months before 9/11. A seasoned visitor to America, Richard Neville let loose his scathing cascade soon after President George W Bush dumped the Kyoto greenhouse agreement. This was announced around the time Gladiator won the Oscars, and Neville weaves together the impact of these two events on the consciousness of the wider world, a world that would increasingly resist and resent US political & cultural domination.

          When this piece was first published it caused a storm - Neville includes the hate emails - while now it seems prophetic. He suggests America is "the wildest rogue nation of all" and shreds our obessive materialism, the "triviliasation of desire", porno violence and the wars against the developing world.

          All this with humor & gusto.

          Having once written a book about a famous serial killer, The Life & crimes of Charles Sobhraj, Neville argues that the personality of a psychopath equates pretty closely to that of Uncle Sam. There are Chapters on Who Killed the Counter Culture, the enviro rape of Texas (guess who by?) and even the politics of romantic partnerships ("to love, honor & throw away").

          The last Chapter, from the cave to K-Mart, brings together all the themes and projects into the realm of alternative possible futures - "the journey to whole Earth healing inches ahead...". This is a fast, easy read and I have since enjoyed following Neville's controversial futurist raves on his website . While I don't agree with all his judgements, he has inspired me to think about the world in a new way. Amerika Psycho is already a cult classic in my neck of the woods.

          3 out of 5 stars A vitriolic entertainment.......2003-03-22

          Best known for his ground-breaking work in "Oz" magazine half a lifetime ago and his amusing memoir of the era ("Hippie Hippie Shake"), self-declared futurist Richard Neville has collected his more vitriolic contributions to Sydney's "Good Weekend" magazine and republished them here. His consistent target is America's global selfishness. This is a nation whose starting point in any conversation about the environment is, in the words of Bush the Elder to the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, "The American way of life is not negotiable." The American way of life - the global pursuit of more of everything - is precisely THE PROBLEM we need to solve. And a nation which sacrifices its own and everyone else's long term future to protect the short term interests of the megacorporations that fund the Presidency is not morally equipped to be running the planet, Neville argues. He attacks America's self-congratulatory assertion of global dominance, and its pigheaded ignorance of the moral responsibilities that go with it. And no, playing "global policeman" in the Middle East is not one of them: masking a geo-political power/oil grab as "liberating the people of Iraq" is precisely the kind of transparent, hypocritical double-speak Neville abhors. He occasionally reminds us that his hatred is not for the American people, lovely as they are, but for two things: the American administration which (barely) represents them, and the seemingly disembodied forces of economic and cultural imperialism devouring in their name. But Americans could be forgiven for feeling more than a little insulted by these tirades: and many were, if the e-mail correspondence accompanying some of the essays is any indication. (But kudos to Neville for including them.) In no sense is this a well-researched academic volume. These essays are clearly no more than reworked magazine pieces, and the content and tone are precisely what that implies: they're long on ridicule and short on viable alternatives. The book has the kind of entertainingly preachy passages you'll enjoy reading down the phone to your friends, but which won't convince them unless they already happen to be post-materialist lefties like you. Neville's strident whining wears thin before the final page, and he clearly enjoys the sound of his own voice. But not without reason. He still has a talent for the economical phrase: "The American way of life is not negotiable. Worse - the American way of life is inescapable."
          People's theatre in Amerika
          Average customer rating: Not rated
            People's theatre in Amerika
            Karen Malpede Taylor
            Manufacturer: Drama Book Specialists
            ProductGroup: Book
            Binding: Unknown Binding

            GeneralGeneral | Theater | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
            GeneralGeneral | Foreign Languages | Reference | Subjects | Books
            ASIN: 0910482330

            Books:

            1. Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together
            2. Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology
            3. Shawls and Scarves: The Best of Knitter's Magazine (Best of Knitter's Magazine series, The)
            4. Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps
            5. Ship of Fools
            6. Slick
            7. Something Happened
            8. Spider's Web: The Secret History of How the White House Illegally Armed Iraq
            9. Straight from the Horse's Mouth: How to Talk to Animals and Get Answers
            10. Strangers in the Night

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