I've loved the past since I was a kid. I dug up ancient artifacts in Greece, followed paths to abandoned sites, and read a lot. By the time I went to university I knew I would do history. How did I know? When I wrote, the rest of the world disappeared, and so did time. At dawn, as a university student in Montreal, I would stub out my last cigarette and visit the nearby diner, where the owner gave me extra portions of Salisbury steak. And then, I just went on to three more universities on two continents and became a Russian specialist. Now Iām also a Greek specialist. Itās been hard to visit Russia and I needed a change.
I wrote
The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism
I love historical fiction, and this one is just great. It brings to life a past and a place, and I was engrossed by the revolutionary personalities, shocked by the callousness of the colonial masters, and bewildered by the scale and intensity of the violence.
They were all messy, and only the largest stakes could let me make a judgment about good and evil. It was, in the end, a fight for freedom. Toussaint Louverture was always one of my heroes, and here he is humanized, with all justice done to his leadership and foresight.
"A serious historical novel that reads like a dream." --The Washington Post Book World
"One of the most spohisticated fictional treatments of the enduring themes of class, color, and freedom." --San Francisco Chronicle
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FINALISTĀ
This first installment of the epic Haitian trilogyĀ brings to life a decisive moment in the history of race, class, and colonialism. The slave uprising in Haiti was a momentous contribution to the tide of revolution that swept over the Western world at the end of the 1700s. A brutal rebellion that strove to overturn a vicious system of slavery,ā¦
I was impressed by how the American-style gumshoe was brought to Berlin before and during Nazi rule. I love noir, and this is a great example. I was taken with how Kerrās irony speaks through his Bernie Gunther and gives a nuanced message about the choices we make when evil is around us.
Gunther has a moral compass in a regime that lacks one, and he struggles to do his duty as a cop under a regime that is not only corrupt but a low point in human morality. I watched as Nazi leaders appeared as flawed and little, cynical and also driven by a base ideology. It gave texture and believability.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to runā¦
I dove into this book because I wanted to know about the Napoleonic Wars and was surprised that a historian could write so well. The points are clear, and the anecdotes are appropriate, not just gimmicks. I liked how the small fact was connected to the big point about how mass mobilization changed the nature of war and made it more penetrating and inescapable.
World War I has been called 'the war to end all wars', the first time combatants were mobilized on a massive scale to ruthlessly destroy an enemy. But as David A. Bell argues in this tour de force of interpretive history, the Great War was not, in fact, the first total war. For this, we need to travel back to the era of muskets and sailing ships, the age of Napoleon. According to Bell, it was then that warfare was transformed into the hideous spectacle that seems ever present today. Indeed, nearly every modern aspect of war took root inā¦
I was impressed by how she used one life to tell the story of a whole Empire. I learned and I also relaxed as she took me through the Ottoman Empire and showed me how people could be cosmopolitan and tolerant.
I had grown up with stories of violent Turks, and here I had people doing what they could to keep the peace and keep the empire together. It was a different world. We know that they failed, and we should wonder why.
This vividly detailed revisionist history opens a new vista on the great Ottoman Empire in the early nineteenth century, a key period often seen as the eve of Tanzimat westernizing reforms and the beginning of three distinct histories - ethnic nationalism in the Balkans, imperial modernization from Istanbul, and European colonialism in the Middle East. Christine Philliou brilliantly shines a new light on imperial crisis and change in the 1820s and 1830s by unearthing the life of one man. Stephanos Vogorides (1780-1859) was part of a network of Christian elites known phanariots, institutionally excluded from power yet intimately bound upā¦
Twelve-year-old identical twins Ellie and Kat accidentally trigger their physicist momās unfinished time machine, launching themselves into a high-stakes adventure in 1970 Chicago. If they learn how to join forces and keep time travel out of the wrong hands, they might be able find a way home. Ellieās gymnastics andā¦
Iām interested in empires, Crusades, and Greeks and I found it all in this book. I admire the research and the way this past comes alive with detail. I was drawn to the detectiveās sense of duty to his autocrat and yet duty to himself to find the truth. I also find it a novel way to look at religiosity because all the characters are Christians, mostly Orthodox.
Most of the Catholics are crusaders, and Iām tired of the usual heroic depiction, and after reading, Iām more satisfied with this gang of fortune-seekers who were capable of great destruction. It was believable.
Perfect for fans of Conn Iggulden, Lindsey Davis, Steven Pressfield, this breathtaking and captivating novel brings the Crusades to life in all their triumphant and tragic glory.
'Gripping from the first page, the reader is swept up in this colourful and convincing portrayal of an Emperor and his realm under siege.' - Ink 'Superb read. Thoroughly enjoyed it' -- ***** Reader review 'Highly enjoyable read' -- ***** Reader review 'Brilliant.' -- ***** Reader review 'Holds your interest from [the first] to the last page' -- ***** Reader review
******************************************************************** AN ASSASSIN IS ON THE LOOSE...AND AN EMPIRE STANDS IN PERILā¦
The story of the worldās first nationalist revolution. It was shockingly violent and unexpected. A small corner of the Ottoman Empire included Christians, Muslims, and Jews living uneasily together in a regime of insecurity and arbitrariness, but the Greek Revolution of 1821 was a surprise. Neighbor turned on neighbor, village on village, and the death was visited on men, women, and children.
Their world was reorganized into total nations ā the Greeks and the Turks ā practicing total violence. When it was over about 10 years later, a quarter of the population was gone, including all the Muslims. The total violence of the nation would now be transformed into the total unity of the modern nation-state.
This is the fourth book in the Joplin/Halloran forensic mystery series, which features Hollis Joplin, a death investigator, and Tom Halloran, an Atlanta attorney.
It's August of 2018, shortly after the Republican National Convention has nominated Donald Trump as its presidential candidate. Racial and political tensions are rising, and soā¦
āRowdyā Randy Cox, a woman staring down the barrel of retirement, is a curmudgeonly blue-collar butch lesbian who has been single for twenty years and is trying to date again.
At the end of a long, exhausting shift, Randy finds her supervisor, Bryant, pinned and near death at the warehouseā¦
