Raúl Castro, the 70-year-old, younger brother of dictator Fidel Castro, has been publicly anointed successor to the Maximum Leader, and there is no reason to believe that leadership and the spoils of Cuban infamy will pass to anyone else in the Cuban hierarchy, unless Raúl’s demise precedes that of his ailing 75-year-old, but still charismatic, […]
Who is Raúl Castro? (Part I) Read More »
One has to look at the vicissitudes of life in the great tragic figures of history, Cortes, Columbus, Napoleon, etc., to find precedents in the relatively obscure life of Charles Edward Stuart, “The Great Young Pretender,” Bonnie Prince Charlie. Although towards the latter part of his life he came to stoop very low, he had,
Bonnie Prince Charlie by Carolly Erickson Read More »
The reader could say that this compelling tome about the breathtaking events of the French Revolution during the Reign of Terror really comprises three books in one — three human conflict stories carefully webbed into the sinister tapestry of the French Revolution, particularly during the Reign of Terror (June 1793 to July 1794). This sanguinary
Paris in the Terror by Stanley Loomis Read More »
This book, in compelling narrative, makes is clear that the French Revolution actually began not with the clamor of the common people but with the blue-blooded aristocracy and the high clergy of the ancien régime who had been enamored with the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the views of the enlightenment (i.e., convincingly demonstrated in
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama Read More »
This would have been one among the books Maximilien Robespierre would have chosen as an acceptable biography of himself, according him his rightful place in history. It is disturbing that so many readers of this book expressing their views in Amazon.com praise this idealized biography, once again reinterpreting the career of the authoritarian despot, who
The Revolutionary Career of Maximilien Robespierre by David P. Jordan Read More »
This biography of Robespierre, The Incorruptible, reads like a spellbinding novel, only that this book recounts more than the life of Robespierre. It graphically describes the horrors of the French Revolution and gives us vivid descriptions of all of the main participants in that orgy of blood, horror and death. It begins with the notorious
Robespierre: The Fool as Revolutionary by Otto Scott Read More »
