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A tragedy told by a prejudice fool.

Revisado: 04-13-25

The confusingly written book Alexandria: The City That Changed the World by British Historian Islam Issa, is riddled with historic inaccuracies, bias leanings, personal stories, and ocasional critical analysis that tended to be skewed in the direction of how he wanted to portray Alexandria’s history. The most tragic and ironic part for me is that he indicated that much of Alexandria’s greatness (or at least uniqueness) lay in its diversity and cosmopolitanism, which created a robust climate for trade and free thinking. However Issa seemed hardly bothered by the end of much of the diversity in the mid 20th century, especially the ethnic cleansing of Alexandria’s Jews by Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s. In fact, he victim-blamed the Jews for their ethnic cleansing from the city whose role they played in since its founding over 2000 years earlier. He seemed to briefly wrestle with this massive contradiction in the epilogue, but went for the easy exit of waxing poetically about how cities change with time. He was also dismissive about the loss of other minority groups in the city including Greeks and Italians, who had generations who had lived there before being forced out. I was very excited for this book, and I still hope to find an objective history of the fascinating city, but this book is not that.

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A mess

Revisado: 01-17-25

The chapters seem to be more like a collection essays and articles. I did learn some things but overall it was basic and completely disorganized. He could have made his subject based approach work, but he did not since the subjects were not clear and instead based on whatever he wanted to talk about. I learned more about the history of names and anecdotes on infrastructure than a concrete history of infrastructure in the US.

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Deep but tedious.

Revisado: 02-19-24

A deeply introspective and nuanced novel which seems to wander on way too long. 3.5 Stars.

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Great modern history of Vietnam

Revisado: 02-19-24

Christopher Goscha creates an impressive modern history of Vietnam, albeit one with a very sloppy structure. It should be noted that he focuses primarily on the twentieth century with only two chapters on the nineteenth century and one on Vietnams history before that. One of the greatest strengths of his book is acknowledging Vietnam’s diverse ethnic make up and the history which it reflects. The problem of the structure is shown here however, since his chapter on it is the last before the epilogue. With that said, it is still an excellent and eye opening book which challenges old stereotypes and notions about Vietnam’s past while remaining objective and respectful. 4.5 Stars.

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Really interesting and well written.

Revisado: 02-04-24

A surprisingly enjoyable memoir with genuine lessons from working in the funeral industry. Caitlin Doughy describes in rich and amusing detail her experiences, and accompanies them with historical research into various burial practices. Even when I did not agree with her philosophical conclusions or worldview, I learned a lot and felt this book opened up important topics of discussion for the general public.

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An enjoyable and easy to listen to Travelogue

Revisado: 01-30-24

The Alps is a travelagoue created Stephen O’Shea filled with history tidbits and personal interactions. These sort of books are often not my favorite, even the classics like The Innocents Abroad and Roughing It by Mark Twain took some effort for me to get through. However, O’Shea does a really good job at keeping it engaging and exploring many aspects of Alpine culture and the people you meet there. While his historical blurbs are sometimes light on details they were often fascinating. If this is your kind of book, I would not hesitate recommending it.

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Excellent History of the Habsburg Empire

Revisado: 01-25-24

I am not always a fan of revisionist histories, but this was fascinating and well done. Pieter Judson challenges old myths of the empire, and puts the history of the Habsburg empire into many nuanced perspectives that better reflect attitudes of the time and revelations from historical data. I also felt he did a good job spreading out the focus on different nations within the empire and analyzing the interactions and attitudes between them. It is quite dense, but if you are interested in Central European or Habsburg history, I would definitely recommend reading this.

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Classic Detective Fiction

Revisado: 01-23-24

A fantastic dive into the “Golden Age of Detective Fiction”! This is the first Ellery Queen book I have read and although I admit it can be dry at times and is a product of its era (1929) in more ways than one, it was a real enjoyment and classic “who done it”. The tale starring bookworm Ellery Queen and his father inspector Richard Queen, feels more down to earth, and realistic than the often super human detective abilities of other heroes of the genre at the time such as the Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot. It could be slow at times, possibly too slow and dry for some contemporary readers, but really picks up towards the second half of the book. It really has a feel of a different era and I often imagined the scene like a well directed noir film of the forties.

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An impressive narrative of Jewish History for its time.

Revisado: 01-15-24

Considering it was published in 1962, Jews, God, and History is an admirable achievement by historian Max Dimont to create a popular history reflecting the Jewish Narrative across 4000 years of history. Wide in his scope, Dimont explores many theories, ideas, and tribulations of Jewish history. It is not without its flaws and weaknesses, in the context of today, but even for his time. I caught a number of inaccuracies, many with the knowledge of hindsight and new resources. He often makes broad generalizations, relies on myths, and focuses only on specific groups in certain periods. In his defense, a lot of that is due to the limited resources on such groups of his time, and the difficulty of fitting in more history into such an extensive book. Overall, I still think this is a strong narrative of Jewish history. 3.5 Stars.

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Masterpiece.

Revisado: 05-26-23

This was a beautiful masterpiece, with deep allegories of Jewish History. I should warn that I felt much could be missed without a fair understanding of Jewish history, post second temple. That is my opinion. An excellent and well performed audiobook.

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