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• Sales Rank: #2057138 in Books
• Published on: 1989-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.30" h x 1.24" w x 6.32" l,
• Binding: Hardcover
• 350 pages

Review
 "A solid sampling of Malamud's short-story art."-- Kirkus Reviews "In short, among the many engaging things that it is, 'The Stories of Bernard Malamud' is the autobiography of an artist."--The New York Times

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Stories of Bernard Malamud
Take PityDAVIDOV, the census-taker, opened the door without knocking, limped into the room, and sat wearily down. Out came his notebook and he was on the job. Rosen, the ex-coffee salesman, wasted, eyes despairing, sat motionless, cross-legged, on his cot. The square, clean but cold room, lit by a dim globe, was sparsely furnished: the cot, a folding chair, small table, old unpainted chests--no closets but who needed them?--and a small sink with a rough piece of green, institutional soap on its holder --you could smell it across the room. The worn black shade over the single narrow window was drawn to the ledge, surprising Davidov."What's the matter you don't pull the shade up?" he remarked.Rosen ultimately sighed. "Let it stay.""Why? Outside is light.""Who needs light?""What then you need?""Light I don't need," replied Rosen.Davidov, sour-faced, flipped through the closely scrawled pages of his notebook until he found a clean one. He attemptedto scratch in a word with his fountain pen but it had run dry, so he fished a pencil stub out of his vest pocket and sharpened it with a cracked razor blade. Rosen paid no attention to the feathery shavings falling to the floor. He looked restless, seemed to be listening to or for something, although Davidov was convinced there was absolutely nothing to listen to. It was only when the census-taker somewhat irritably and with increasing loudness repeated a question that Rosen stirred and identified himself. He was about to furnish an address but caught himself and shrugged.Davidov did not comment on the salesman's gesture. "So begin," he nodded."Who knows where to begin?" Rosen stared at the drawn shade. "Do they know here where to begin?""Philosophy we are not interested," said Davidov. "Start in how you met her.""Who?" pretended Rosen."Her," he snapped."So if I got to begin, how you know about her already?" Rosen asked triumphantly.Davidov spoke wearily, "You mentioned before."Rosen remembered. They had questioned him upon his arrival and he now recalled blurting out her name. It was perhaps something in the air. It did not permit you to retain what you remembered. That was part of the cure, if you wanted a cure."Where I met her--?" Rosen murmured. "I met her where she always was--in the back room there in that hole in the wall that it was a waste of time for me I went there. Maybe I sold them a half a bag of coffee a month. This is not business.""In business we are not interested.""What then you are interested?" Rosen mimicked Davidov's tone.Davidov clammed up coldly.Rosen knew they had him where it hurt, so he went on: "Thehusband was maybe forty, Axel Kalish, a Polish refugee. He worked like a blind horse when he got to America, and saved maybe two, three thousand dollars that he bought with the money this pisher grocery in a dead neighborhood where he didn't have a chance. He called my company up for credit and they sent me I should see. I recommended okay because I felt sorry. He had a wife, Eva, you know already about her, and two darling girls, one five and one three, little dolls, Fega and Surale, that I didn't want them to suffer. So right away I told him, without tricks, 'Kiddo, this is a mistake. This place is a grave. Here they will bury you if you don't get out quick!'"Rosen sighed deeply."So?" Davidov had thus far written nothing, irking the ex-salesman."So?--Nothing. He didn't get out. After a couple months he tried to sell but nobody bought, so he stayed and starved. They never made expenses. Every day they got poorer you couldn't look in their faces. 'Don't be a damn fool,' I told him, 'go in bankruptcy.' But he couldn't stand to lose all his capital, and he was also afraid it would be hard to find a job. 'My God,' I said, 'do anything. Be a painter, a janitor, a junk man, but get out of here before everybody is a skeleton.'"This he finally agreed with me, but before he could go in auction he dropped dead."Davidov made a note. "How did he die?""On this I am not an expert," Rosen replied. "You know better than me.""How did he die?" Davidov spoke impatiently. "Say in one word.""From what he died?--he died, that's all.""Answer, please, this question.""Broke in him something. That's how.""Broke what?""Broke what breaks. He was talking to me how bitter was his life, and he touched me on my sleeve to say something else, but the next minute his face got small and he fell down dead, the wife screaming, the little girls crying that it made in my heart pain. I am myself a sick man and when I saw him laying on the floor, I said to myself, 'Rosen, say goodbye, this guy is finished.' So I said it. »Rosen got up from the cot and strayed despondently around the room, avoiding the window. Davidov was occupying the only chair, so the ex-salesman was finally forced to sit on the edge of the bed again. This irritated him. He badly wanted a cigarette but disliked asking for one.Davidov permitted him a short interval of silence, then leafed impatiently through his notebook. Rosen, to needle the census-taker, said nothing."So what happened?" Davidov finally demanded.Rosen spoke with ashes in his mouth. "After the funeral--" He paused, tried to wet his lips, then went on, "He belonged to a society that they buried him, and he also left a thousand dollars insurance, but after the funeral I said to her, 'Eva, listen to me. Take the money and your children and run away from here. Let the creditors take the store. What will they get?--Nothing.'"But she answered me, 'Where will I go, where, with my two orphans that their father left them to starve?'"'Go anywhere,' I said. 'Go to your relatives.'"She laughed like laughs somebody who hasn't got no joy. 'My relatives Hitler took away from me.'"'What about Axel--surely an uncle somewheres?'"'Nobody,' she said. 'I will stay here like my Axel wanted. With the insurance I will buy new stock and fix up the store. Every week I will decorate the window, and in this way gradually will come in new customers--'"'Eva, my darling girl--'"'A millionaire I don't expect to be. All I want is I should make a little living and take care on my girls. We will live in the back here like before, and in this way I can work and watch them, too.'"'Eva,' I said, 'you are a nice-looking young woman, only thirty-eight years. Don't throw away your life here. Don't flush in the toilet--you should excuse me--the thousand poor dollars from your dead husband. Believe me, I know from such stores. After thirty-five years' experience I know a graveyard when I smell it. Go better someplace and find a job. You're young yet. Sometime you will meet somebody and get married.'"'No, Rosen, not me,' she said. 'With marriage I am finished. Nobody wants a poor widow with two children.'"'This I don't believe it.'"'I know,' she said."Never in my life I saw so bitter a woman's face."'No,' I said. 'No.'"'Yes, Rosen, yes. In my whole life I never had anything. In my whole life I always suffered. I don't expect better. This is my life.'"I said no and she said yes. What could I do? I am a man with only one kidney, and worse than that, that I won't mention it. When I talked she didn't listen, so I stopped to talk. Who can argue with a widow?"The ex-salesman glanced up at Davidov but the census-taker did not reply. "What happened then?" he asked."What happened?" mocked Rosen. "Happened what happens."Davidov's face grew red."What happened, happened," Rosen said hastily. "She ordered from the wholesalers all kinds goods that she paid for them cash. All week she opened boxes and packed on the shelves cans, jars, packages. Also she cleaned, and she washed, and she moppedwith oil the floor. With tissue paper she made new decorations in the window, everything should look nice--but who came in? Nobody except a few poor customers from the tenement around the corner. And when they came? When was closed the supermarkets and they needed some little item that they forgot to buy, like a quart milk, fifteen cents' cheese, a small can sardines for lunch. In a few months was again dusty the cans on the shelves, and her money was gone. Credit she couldn't get except from me, and from me she got because I paid out of my pocket the company. This she didn't know. She worked, she dressed clean, she waited that the store should get better. Little by little the shelves got empty, but where was the profit? They ate it up. When I looked on the little girls I knew what she didn't tell me. Their faces were white, they were thin, they were hungry. She kept the little food that was left, on the shelves. One night I brought in a nice piece of sirloin, but I could see from her eyes that she didn't like that I did it. So what else could I do? I have a heart and I am human."Here the ex-salesman wept.Davidov pretended not to see though once he peeked.Rosen blew his nose, then went on more calmly, "When the children were sleeping we sat in the dark there, in the back, and not once in four hours opened the door should come in a customer. 'Eva, for Godsakes, run away,' I said.'"I have no place to go,' she said."'I will give you where you can go, and please don't say to me no. I am a bachelor, this you know. I got whatever I need and more besides. Let me help you and the children. Money don't interest me. Interests me good health, but I can't buy it. I'll tell you what I will do. Let this place go to the creditors and move into a two-family house that I own, which the top floor is now empty. Rent will cost you nothing. In the meantime you can go and find a job. I will also pay the downstairs lady to take care ofthe girls--God bless them--until you will come home. With your wages you will buy the food, if you need clothes, and also save a little. This you can use when you get married someday. What do you say?'"She didn't answer me. She only looked on me in such a way, with such burning eyes, like I was small and ugly. For the first time I thought to myself, 'Rosen, this woman don't like you.'"'Thank you very kindly, my friend Mr. Rosen,' she answered me, 'but charity we are not needing. I got yet a paying business, and it will get better when times are better. Now is bad times. When comes again good times will get better the business.'"'Who charity?' I cried to her. 'What charity? Speaks to you your husband's a friend.'"'Mr. Rosen, my husband didn't have no friends.'"'Can't you see that I want to help the children?'"'The children have their mother.'"'Eva, what's the matter with you?' I said. 'Why do you make sound bad something that I mean it should be good?'"This she didn't answer. I felt sick in my stomach, and was coming also a headache so I left."All night I didn't sleep, and then all of a sudden I figured out a reason why she was worried. She was worried I would ask for some kind of payment except cash. She got the wrong man. Anyway, this made me think of something that I didn't think about before. I thought now to ask her to marry me. What did she have to lose? I could take care of myself without any trouble to them. Fega and Surale would have a father he could give them for the movies, or sometime to buy a little doll to play with, and when I died, would go to them my investments and insurance policies."The next day I spoke to her."'For myself, Eva, I don't want a thing. Absolutely not a thing. For you and your girls--everything. I am not a strongman, Eva. In fact, I am sick. I tell you this you should understand I don't expect to live long. But even for a few years would be nice to have a little family.'"She was with her back to me and didn't speak."When she turned around again her face was white but the mouth was like iron."'No, Mr. Rosen.'"'Why not, tell me?'"'I had enough with sick men.' She began to cry. 'Please, Mr. Rosen. Go home.'"I didn't have strength I should argue with her, so I went home. I went home but hurt me in my mind. All day long and all night I felt bad. My back pained me where was missing my kidney. Also too much smoking. I tried to understand this woman but I couldn't. Why should somebody that her two children were starving always say no to a man that he wanted to help her? What did I do to her bad? Am I maybe a murderer she should hate me so much? All that I felt in my heart was pity for her and the children, but I couldn't convince her. Then I went back and begged her she should let me help them, and once more she told me no."'Eva,' I said, 'I don't blame you that you don't want a sick man. So come with me to a marriage broker and we will find you a strong, healthy husband that he will support you and your girls. I will give the dowry.'"She screamed, 'On this I don't need your help, Rosen!'"I didn't say no more. What more could I say? All day long, from early in the morning till late in the night she worked like an animal. All day she mopped, she washed with soap and a brush the shelves, the few cans she polished, but the store was still rotten. The little girls I was afraid to look at. I could see in their faces their bones. They were tired, they were weak. Little Surale held with her hand all the time the dress of Fega. Once when Isaw them in the street I gave them some cakes, but when I tried the next day to give them something else, the mother shouldn't know, Fega answered me, 'We can't take, Momma says today is a fast day.'"I went inside. I made my voice soft. 'Eva, on my bended knees, I am a man with nothing in this world. Allow me that I should have a little pleasure before I die. Allow me that I should help you to stock up once more the store.'"So what did she do? She cried, it was terrible to see. And after she cried, what did she say? She told me to go away and I shouldn't come back. I felt like to pick up a chair and break her head."In my house I was too weak to eat. For two days I took in my mouth nothing except maybe a spoon of chicken noodle soup, or maybe a glass tea without sugar. This wasn't good for me. My health felt bad."Then I made up a scheme that I was a friend of Axel's who lived in Jersey. I said I owed Axel seven hundred dollars that he lent me this money fifteen years ago, before he got married. I said I did not have the whole money now, but I would send her every week twenty dollars till it was paid up the debt. I put inside the letter two tens and gave it to a friend of mine, also a salesman, he should mail it in Newark so she wouldn't be suspicious who wrote the letters."To Rosen's surprise Davidov had stopped writing. The book was full, so he tossed it onto the table, yawned, yet listened amiably. His curiosity had died.Rosen got up and fingered the notebook. He tried to read the small distorted handwriting but could not make out a single word."It's not English and it's not Yiddish," he said. "Could it be in Hebrew?""No," answered Davidov. "It's an old-fashioned language they don't use it nowadays.""Oh?" Rosen returned to the cot. He saw no purpose in going on now that it was not required, but he felt he had to."Came back all the letters," he said dully. "The first she opened it, then pasted back again the envelope, but the rest she didn't even open.""'Here,' I said to myself, 'is a very strange thing--a person that you can never give her anything. --But I will give.'"I went then to my lawyer and we made out a will that everything I had--all my investments, my two houses that I owned, also furniture, my car, the checking account--every cent would go to her, and when she died, the rest would be left for the two girls. The same with my insurance. They would be my beneficiaries. Then I signed and went home. In the kitchen I turned on the gas and put my head in the stove."Let her say now no."Davidov, scratching his stubbled cheek, nodded. This was the part he already knew. He got up and, before Rosen could cry no, idly raised the window shade.It was twilight in space but a woman stood before the window.Rosen with a bound was off his cot to see.It was Eva, staring at him with haunted, beseeching eyes. She raised her arms to him.Infuriated, the ex-salesman shook his fist."Whore, bastard, bitch," he shouted at her. "Go 'way from here. Go home to your children."Davidov made no move to hinder him as Rosen rammed down the window shade.Copyright © 1950, 1951, 1952, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961, 1963, 1968, 1972, 1973, 1983 by Bernard Malamud Renewal copyright © 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983 by Bernard Malamud All rights reserved

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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Five Stars
By Qais Akbar Omar
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~ Download Ebook Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora, by Ronald Segal

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Islam's Black Slaves: The Other Black Diaspora, by Ronald Segal

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A pioneering history of the Eastern slave trade

In this groundbreaking work intended as a companion volume to The Black Diaspora, Ronald Segal tells the fascinating and horrifying story of the Islamic slave trade. Documenting a centuries-old institution that still survives today, Islam's Black Slaves outlines the differences between the trades in the East and West. Slaves in Islam, for example, were kept mainly in the service sector as cooks, porters, soldiers, and concubines, and while the Atlantic trade valued men over women, the Eastern trade preferred women, in numbers as high as two to one. Tracing slavery through history, from Islam's inception in the seventh century, across China, India, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Libya, Spain, and the Sudan and Morocco, which still have active markets, Segal reveals for the first time the extent of the trade and the sheer number of slaves-as many as twelve million-bought and sold in the course of the subsequent centuries. In an illuminating conclusion, Segal addresses the popularity of Islam in African American communities. Islam's Black Slaves is a pioneering account of this often unacknowledged tradition and a riveting cross-cultural commentary.

• Sales Rank: #184249 in Books
• Published on: 2001-03-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 1.03" h x 6.30" w x 9.31" l,
• Binding: Hardcover
• 480 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Designed as a companion volume to Segal's The Black Diaspora, which traced the movements of blacks in the Western Hemisphere from the Atlantic slave trade to the present, this book undertakes the formidable task of recounting the dispersion of black Africans in Asia and the Middle East, most of which was forced by the Islamic slave trade. "In Islam, slavery was never the moral, political, and economic issue that it was in the West, so there are fewer sources about its history," notes Segal, the founding editor of the Penguin African Library and the author of 14 other books. Still, he pieces together a compelling drama of conquests and conversions, beginning with an illuminating chapter about the differences between the Atlantic and Islamic trades: the Islamic trade began some eight centuries before the Atlantic one, and preferred women slaves over men. His account then moves from early Islam, when laws did not subject slaves to any special racial discrimination, into the 19th century, when the process of enslaving blacks came to involve violence and brutality on a gigantic scale. Segal also discusses the extension of the Islamic trade into China, India and Spain, the role of the Ottoman Empire, slavery in Iran and Libya, and the effect of European colonization, which he argues "preserved the force if not the face of old subjugations." A preliminary dig in a little-explored area, this book has a rough-hewn quality about it; scholars may find it too general, even if it provides seeds for further study. General readers, however, will find much that is new, particularly in the early chapters, where Segal trains his eye on the part slaves played in the development of the high civilization attained by imperial Islam.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Segal (The Black Diaspora: Five Centureis of the Black Experience Outside Africa), founding editor of the Penguin African Library, has written an overview of black slavery in the Islamic world from its beginnings to modern Sudan and Morocco. Relying primarily on secondary sources, the author explores Islamic slavery in China, India, the Middle East, and Africa and focuses on the differences between Islamic and Western slavery. He notes that while most slaves in the Americas were male and worked as agricultural laborers, in Islam female black slaves outnumbered males, and most slaves worked as servants. Segal concludes his study with an interesting epilog on the Black Muslim faith in the United States. Though it breaks little new ground, this book is an essential survey that serves as a helpful introduction to the topic. Recommended for public and academic libraries.DA.O. Edmonds, Ball State Univ., Muncie, IN
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Segal, founding editor of the Penguin African Library, has written a companion volume to his acclaimed history, The Black Diaspora (1995). Here he tells the less familiar story of the Islamic slave trade in Africa, which involved an estimated 12 million captives over more than 1,000 years. Drawing on eyewitness accounts and scholarly sources, he shows that there were marked differences between the Atlantic slave trade and that of Islam. In general, the Islamic one was less racist and brutal; the trade was more in women and boys than in men; some slaves could buy their freedom and even hold powerful positions. The horror is more in the accounts of capture and the journeys across the Sahara and to the coast: in some cases, the estimate is that for every slave sold at auction, 10 died on the way. And slavery continues today in the Sudan and Mauritania. The strength of this account is the meticulous documentation of what is fact and what is surmise. The dramatic narrative is sure to spark discussion and further research. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Most helpful customer reviews

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Scandalous Hypocrisy
By fastidious one
No one can defend or debate Arab or Islamic "black" slavery. The fact is: slavery of Africans, Indo-Asians, Slavic and Russians still continues today throughout the world (including Israel).

There are also very disturbing and hidden realities regarding Jewish history and slavery - which is appalling and hypocritically reprehensible - of which, Ronald Segal obviously circumvents. In fact, Jewish scholarly arrogance and self-incrimination revealed and exposed Jewish involvement and DOMINANCE within the Transatlantic Slave trade... So much so, there have been a few blundering attempts to refute it.

Monotheistic religion (Islam, Christianity, Judaism) are indeed examples of self-serving religions at the epicenter of the most atrocious human rights violations and destructive wars ever perpetrated. Religion and politics are often inseparable, so the two work as a centrifuge feeding, controlling and pacifying the people in a *tug of war* display of competition greatness.

Hypocritical accounts and criticisms of another's slavery is terrifying and hardly credible (including that belonging among Africans).
Europeans certainly enslaved and sold other Europeans, Asians did likewise, and American indigenous peoples were also entangled within the illicit proliferation of human trafficking and slavery. Slavery, although outlawed globally - sex, labor, and organ donors - remains alive and well in the 21st century.

29 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
Not the best account
By Sebastian Lopez
I did not enjoy the book as much as i perceived i would. Ronald Segal seems to adopt a completley diffrent line of thinking when tackling slavery in the islamic world as he does for the West.

There is an endless stream of sources to reflect the evil nature of this trade that orginated in the East thousands of years ago, to be legitimised under islam in the seventh century and continued to this very day. Ronald is constantly looking for ways to basically say,' the christian west was much more cruel than the Islamic East'. I cant help but feel that Ronald has been swept along by the wave of apologetic, liberal, modern historians.

It must be remmberd that America went to war over the slave trade, something that has never happened in an Islamic country. Colonisation forced the abolition of the slave trade in the islamic world.

If you want to see a fair reflection of the nature of Islamic African slave trading, you can look at Sudan where it is there for all to see.

Slave trading is a despiciable business at any time, by anyone.

Lastly, Ronald Segal points out early on in the book, how spain was conquered by the Muslims in 711. He states that the Vandals occupied Spain at that time. The vandals, however where in North Africa, not Spain. Spain was a Visigoth Kingdom at the time of the Muslim invasion.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful.
Important But Ultimately Unsatisfying
By A Customer
Segal has done an impressive job of marshalling important and relatively unknown facts about the eastern slave trade. Unfortunately, he never seems to go anywhere with these facts, or suggest what we are to make of them.
The facts are that Islamic Arabs and Africans ran a significant slave trade for many centuries throughout the Mediterranean, North and East Africa, Arabia, the Middle East, and Northern India. Muslim masters possibly treated their slaves "better" on average than American or other Western colonial masters did, although this seems to have had less to do with religion than with the purposes for which slaves were employed -- as domestics, soldiers and business assistants in the Islamic world, as opposed to agricultural laborers in the West. The process of enslavement was just as cruel, however, whether the destination was the Eastern slave markets or the Atlantic trade. Islam accepted slavery as a fact of life for conquered non-believers (ignoring the fact that many of those enslaved were in fact Muslims) and therefore perhaps had less need than the Christian West to invent a demeaning racist mythology to justify continuing slavery. (As the title indicates, Segal is interested in *black* slaves, and therefore largely ignores the substantial number of Eastern European and Middle Asiatic slaves who were "employed" in the Ottoman and some other Muslim states.) Neverthless, racism did eventually enter the Islamic world, with effects (and slavery) that can still be seen today in places like Sudan and Mauritania.
What should we learn from these facts? The book's title suggests that it is in some way a commentary on Islam, but that point is never really developed in the text. In early chapters, Segal suggests that slavery in the Islamic world was less racially charged than in the West -- but a great deal of his book, particularly the later chapters addressing the contemporary situation in Sudan and Mauritania, contradicts that view. The history of Islamic African and Arab slavery undoubtedly explains a great deal about contemporary issues in Africa and the Middle East, yet the book is too short to really draw out these connections. As others have noted, the final chapter on America's black Muslim movement seems to have little connection with the rest of the book, other than to point out that the Nation of Islam's racist attitude toward whites is incompatible with the Koran (as, of course, is Arab racism toward blacks, and just as white racism is incompatible with Christian doctrine). In sum, lots of information, but little meaningful analysis.

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@ Download The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds, and the World, by Stefan Kanfer

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Chronicles the history of the De Beers diamond mines, from Johannes De Beer's humble South African ranch to the Oppenheimers' vast empire. By the author of A Journal of the Plague Years.

• Sales Rank: #1120549 in Books
• Published on: 1993-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.50" h x 6.50" w x 1.25" l,
• Binding: Hardcover
• 409 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Kanfer ( A Summer World ), a writer and editor at Time , focuses more clearly on history than on analysis in this chronicle of the South African-based De Beers diamond empire. He stylishly recounts tales of 19th-century South Africa, where such arresting characters as Barney Barnato and Cecil Rhodes made fortunes on the frontier. He describes the founding of De Beers's sibling, the Anglo-American Corp., and the quirky, powerful Oppenheimer family at its helm. Kanfer offers an adequate, but not probing, analysis of De Beers's alliances with South Africa's enemies, and the cartel's currently diminishing prospects due to the political situations in Angola and Russia. Conspicuously missing are both a description of the important role De Beers and Anglo have played over the past two years during South Africa's protracted negotiations toward democracy, and a consideration of how they might fare under a new government. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
The next time you hear that a "diamond is forever," you may wish to read this history of the De Beers diamond empire and its later absorption under the Oppenheimers by the Anglo-American Corporation. From its opening depiction of the grim diamond fields, this is the story of cutthroat capitalists, the economic and racial development of South Africa, and a multinational corporation that controls virtually the world's entire diamond and gold trade. Kanfer is a Time magazine journalist with a flair for spinning a very good tale that should appeal to general readers, especially history buffs. Not a dry, scholarly tome, this book provides more compelling reading than most fiction.
- Paul H. Thomas, Hoover Institution Lib. , Stanford, Cal.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
From veteran Time editor Kanfer (A Summer World, 1989, etc.): an enjoyable history of De Beers, the great business empire that founded a country, helped start a war, and funded the legendary Rhodes scholarships. Kanfer begins with the discovery, in 1867, of the first diamond in South Africa, found by a farm boy who noticed ``in the glare of the sun a glittering pebble.'' That pebble was the first of a great mother lode of diamonds to be found in this arid area of South Africa along the Orange River and, later--to the great relief of investors--buried deep in the ground in pipes of ancient rock. The Kimberley diamond fields attracted adventurers, failures, and a slew of ambitious men: young Jews from the London slums, like Solly Joel and the great Barney Barnato; Albert Beit, from Germany; and, of course, Cecil Rhodes, the clergyman's son who dreamed of making the continent British from the Cape to Cairo. Kanfer describes how these men formed the holdings that--named after the owners of a farm on which a rich lode was discovered--became De Beers. In time, the old guard was taken over by Ernest Oppenheimer, an ambitious young Englishman who survived anti-Semitism, the obstructions of rivals, even a shipwreck, to found--with the help of American capital--the Anglo American Corporation, which he used to buy De Beers, turning it into a powerful cartel that today controls the worldwide sale of diamonds. Kanfer not only details the Oppenheimers' rise to fame and fortune, their often brilliant tactics to safeguard their empire (not the least being the slogan ``a diamond is forever''), and the relevant historical background, but he also speculates on a future threatened by turmoil in South Africa, smuggling in Angola, disruption in Russia, and a global recession. Timely corporate history--as exciting and poignant as any good tale of derring-do against great odds by all-too-flawed giants. (Forty photographs) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Most helpful customer reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
*A Big Thanks to Mr. Stefan Kanfer*
By A Customer
Thank you Mr. Stefan Kanfer for tackling the project on the diamond empire. The subject matter is not easy to write, but Mr. Kanfer managed to tell a story in a way that portrays a business biography in an academic yet exciting tone. "The Last Empire" is a very thoroughly researched and extremely well written book. I've learnt so much about the history of the most powerful diamond organization in the world (The DeBeers), its operation, structures, system, human interaction and the people behind the industry. Lots of great pictures and the stories of old Africa is filled with romantic images it makes reading a pleasure. Truly inspiring!

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent History - Captivating Story
By John C. Borgquist
I thought this book was very informative and one of the easiest reading non-fiction books out there. I was surprised to find out just how many different people were involved with the diamond trade in South Africa: Cecil Rhodes (the only person to have a country named directly after him), Queen Victoria, Winston Churchill...the list goes on. This book is one I had to add to my own shelf.

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
Does not live up to its title
By Louie2
This book's title describes it as one about "De Beers, Diamonds, and the World." Instead, a more accurate title would have described the book as telling of "Political Inequality Between the Races in South Africa." True, the book discusses De Beers quite a bit, but the discussions seem incidental to the author's focus on the plight of South African blacks throughout history. The description of De Beers's diversification is less than cursory; the book often omits major business decisions completely but then later assumes knowledge of them by the reader. For instance, the book leaves out any mention of *how* De Beers came to own an interest in copper mining, but still mentions such mining interest a couple of times toward the end. Further, complex business relationships, such as that between Anglo-American, Consolidated, and De Beers, need much more explanation than they get. The author spends considerably more time discussing how "Anglo-American" was chosen as the company's name than what its exact corporate form is and how it its relationship to De Beers works out in practice. Last, I take issue with the writing style itself. The prose is heavy and dry; even interesting characters' stories are flaccid and dull. Overall, this book is a good complement to other South African history books, but as a book about diamonds and the workings of De Beers (the book it puts itself out to be), "Last Empire" falls utterly flat.

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# Download PDF Avedon: Photographs,1947-1977From Farrar, Straus, & Giroux

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Over-size hardback book with clear dust jacket titled AVEDON: Photographs 1947-1977. With an Essay by Harold Brodkey. Published in 1978 - stated first edition. Bookseller since 1995 (LL-Base2-D-1-top) rareviewbooks

• Sales Rank: #1336890 in Books
• Published on: 1978
• Ingredients: Example Ingredients
• Binding: Hardcover
• 250 pages

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By RLC @RGV
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Beautiful book
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! Ebook Down the Rabbit Hole: A Novel, by Juan Pablo Villalobos

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"A brief and majestic debut." ―Matías Néspolo, El Mundo

Tochtli lives in a palace. He loves hats, samurai, guillotines, and dictionaries, and what he wants more than anything right now is a new pet for his private zoo: a pygmy hippopotamus from Liberia. But Tochtli is a child whose father is a drug baron on the verge of taking over a powerful cartel, and Tochtli is growing up in a luxury hideout that he shares with hit men, prostitutes, dealers, servants, and the odd corrupt politician or two. Long-listed for The Guardian First Book Award, Down the Rabbit Hole, a masterful and darkly comic first novel, is the chronicle of a delirious journey to grant a child's wish.

• Sales Rank: #77227 in Books
• Brand: FSG Originals
• Published on: 2012-10-02
• Released on: 2012-10-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 7.53" h x .26" w x 4.98" l, .17 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Features

• Great product!

Review

“Perfectly formed . . . Although easily devoured in one sitting, this clever little book is to be contemplated at length afterwards.” ―The Guardian

“Showing how a child absorbs violence without awareness that something is wrong is a tricky endeavor. Mr. Villalobos nails it.” ―Susannah Meadows, The New York Times

“Down the Rabbit Hole is a miniature high-speed experiment with perspective . . . A deliberate, wild attack on the conventions of literature.” ―Adam Thirlwell

“Juan Pablo Villalobos brilliantly encapsulates the chaos of a lawless existence in which, under the sway of drug lords, anything might happen and everything goes . . . Down the Rabbit Hole is an astonishing debut.” ―Lucy Popescu, The Independent

“If you're going to have an imprisoned child narrate a novel, then not so much as a word should be out of place. There are no such slips in Juan Pablo Villalobos's debut novella. We have here a control over the material which is so tight it is almost claustrophobic . . . This is a novel about failing to understand the bigger picture, and in its absence we can see it more clearly.” ―Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian, Choice of the Week

“Villalobos creates Tochtli's half-corrupt, half-innocent world . . . with a brilliant, tragi-comic light touch.” ―Jane Shilling, Daily Mail

“Juan Pablo Villalobos has done a masterful job creating a child narrator . . . Down the Rabbit Hole is, on the surface, innocent, clever and lovable, but its implications are deeply disturbing . . . [it] is a remarkable reflection on the uncontrollable narco violence that defines contemporary Mexico. And it's an absolute must read.” ―The Coffin Factory

“The riveting voice of Tochtli grasps our hearts as we realize that this is a world where even fate can be governed by power. In this miasma of pathos and politics, Down the Rabbit Hole brilliantly incorporates dreams, loyalty and the loss of innocence.” ―Alice Tao, The Houston Chronicle

“With this book we have discovered Juan Pablo Villalobos, a linguistic virtuoso able to penetrate the elusive world of literature, shedding light on many of its mysteries.” ―José Antonio Aguado, Diari de Terrassa

“With Down the Rabbit Hole, Juan Pablo Villalobos has made a dramatic entrance into the literary world. It is a book that must be read for its great aesthetic value and darkly humorous tone. A book that throws a clear light on a dark subject.” ―Teresa García Díaz, Amerika

About the Author

Juan Pablo Villalobos was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1973. He studied marketing and Spanish literature. He has researched such diverse topics as the influence of the avant-garde on the work of César Aira and the flexibility of pipelines for electrical installations. He lives in Barcelona, Spain.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
ONE
 

Some people say I’m precocious. They say it mainly because they think I know difficult words for a little boy. Some of the difficult words I know are: sordid, disastrous, immaculate, pathetic, and devastating. There aren’t really that many people who say I’m precocious. The problem is I don’t know that many people. I know maybe thirteen or fourteen people, and four of them say I’m precocious. They say I look older. Or the other way around: that I’m too little to know words like that. Or back-to-front and the other way around, sometimes people think I’m a dwarf. But I don’t think I’m precocious. What happens is I have a trick, like magicians who pull rabbits out of hats, except I pull words out of the dictionary. Every night before I go to sleep I read the dictionary. My memory, which is really good, practically devastating, does the rest. Yolcaut doesn’t think I’m precocious either. He says I’m a genius, he tells me:
“Tochtli, you’re a genius, you little bastard.”
And he strokes my head with his fingers covered in gold-and-diamond rings.
Anyway, more people say I’m odd: seven. And just because I really like hats and always wear one. Wearing a hat is a good habit immaculate people have. In the sky there are pigeons doing their business. If you don’t wear a hat you end up with a dirty head. Pigeons have no shame. They do their dirty business in front of everyone, while they’re flying. They could easily do it hidden in the branches of a tree. Then we wouldn’t have to spend the whole time looking at the sky and worrying about our heads. But hats, if they’re good hats, can also be used to make you look distinguished. That is, hats are like the crowns of kings. If you’re not a king you can wear a hat to be distinguished. And if you’re not a king and you don’t wear a hat you end up being a nobody.
I don’t think I’m odd for wearing a hat. And oddness is related to ugliness, like Cinteotl says. What I definitely am is macho. For example: I don’t cry all the time because I don’t have a mum. If you don’t have a mum you’re supposed to cry a lot, gallons of tears, two or three gallons a day. But I don’t cry, because people who cry are faggots. When I’m sad Yolcaut tells me not to cry, he says:
“Chin up, Tochtli, take it like a man.”
Yolcaut is my daddy, but he doesn’t like it when I call him Daddy. He says we’re the best and most macho gang for at least eight kilometers. Yolcaut is a realist and that’s why he doesn’t say we’re the best gang in the universe or the best gang for 8,000 kilometers. Realists are people who think reality isn’t how you think it is. Yolcaut told me that. Reality is like this and that’s it. Tough luck. The realist’s favorite saying is you have to be realistic.
I think we really are a very good gang. I have proof. Gangs are all about solidarity. So solidarity means that, because I like hats, Yolcaut buys me hats, lots of hats, so many that I have a collection of hats from all over the world and from all the different periods of the world. Although now more than new hats what I want is a Liberian pygmy hippopotamus. I’ve already written it down on the list of things I want and given it to Miztli. That’s how we always do it, because I don’t go out much, so Miztli buys me all the things I want on orders from Yolcaut. And since Miztli has a really bad memory I have to write lists for him. But you can’t buy a Liberian pygmy hippopotamus that easily, in a pet shop. The biggest thing they sell in a pet shop is a dog. But who wants a dog? No one wants a dog. It’s so hard to get a Liberian pygmy hippopotamus that it might be the only way to do it is by going to catch one in Liberia. That’s why my tummy is hurting so much. Actually my tummy always hurts, but recently I’ve been getting cramps more often.
I think at the moment my life is a little bit sordid. Or pathetic.
*   *   *
I nearly always get on well with Mazatzin. He only annoys me when he’s strict and makes me stick to our study plan rigidly. Mazatzin, by the way, doesn’t call me Tochtli. He calls me Usagi, which is my name in Japanese, because he loves everything from the empire of Japan. What I really like about the empire of Japan are the samurai films. I’ve seen some of them so many times I know them off by heart. When I watch them I go on ahead and say the samurai’s conversations out loud before they do. And I never get it wrong. That’s because of my memory, which really is almost devastating. One of the films is called Twilight of the Samurai and it’s about an old samurai who teaches the way of the samurai to a little boy. There’s one bit where he makes the boy stay still and mute for days and days. He says to him: “The guardian is stealthy and knows how to wait. Patience is his best weapon, like the crane who does not know despair. The weak are known by their movement. The strong by their stillness. Look at the devastating sword that knows not fear. Look at the wind. Look at your eyelashes. Close your eyes and look at your eyelashes.” It’s not just this film I know off by heart, I know lots more, four.
One day, instead of teaching a lesson, Mazatzin told me his life story and it’s really sordid and pathetic. What happened is that he used to do really good business in TV advertising. He earned millions of pesos by making up adverts for shampoo and fizzy drinks. But Mazatzin was always sad, because he’d actually studied to be a writer. This is where it gets sordid: someone earning millions of pesos being sad because they’re not a writer. That’s sordid. And so in the end, because he was so sad Mazatzin went to live very far away, in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, on top of a mountain I think. He wanted to sit down and think and write a book about life. He even took a computer with him. That’s not sordid, but it is pathetic. The problem was that Mazatzin didn’t feel inspired and meanwhile his business partner, who was also his best friend, scammed him out of his millions of pesos. He wasn’t a best friend at all but a traitor.
That’s when Mazatzin came to work for us, because Mazatzin is educated. Yolcaut says that educated people are the ones who think they’re great because they know lots of things. They know things about science, like the fact that pigeons transmit disgusting diseases. They also know things about history, such as how the French love cutting the heads off kings. That’s why educated people like being teachers. Sometimes the things they know are wrong, like if you want to write a book you have to go and live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere on top of a mountain. That’s what Yolcaut says, that educated people know lots of things about books, but nothing at all about life. We live in the middle of nowhere too, but we don’t do it for inspiration. We do it for protection.
Anyway, since I can’t go to school, Mazatzin teaches me things from books. At the moment we’re studying the conquest of Mexico. It’s a fun topic, with war and blood and dead people. The story goes like this: On one side there were the kings and queens of the Spanish empire and on the other side there were the Indians who lived in Mexico. Then the kings and queens of Spain wanted to be the kings and queens of Mexico, too. So they came and they started killing all the Indians, but only to scare them and make them accept their new kings. Well, the truth is they didn’t even kill some of the Indians, they just burned their feet. This whole story makes Mazatzin furious, because he wears calico shirts and leather sandals as if he was an Indian. And he starts with one of his lectures. He says:
“They stole our money, Usagi, they plundered our country!”
It’s almost as if the dead Indians were his cousins or his uncles. Pathetic. By the way, the Spanish don’t like cutting the heads off kings. They still have living kings and queens with their heads stuck on their shoulders. Mazatzin showed me a photo in a magazine. That’s really pathetic, too.
*   *   *
One of the things I’ve learned from Yolcaut is that sometimes people don’t turn into corpses with just one bullet. Sometimes they need three or even fourteen bullets. It all depends where you aim them. If you put two bullets in their brain they’ll die for sure. But you can put up to 1,000 bullets in their hair and nothing will happen, although it must be fun to watch. I know all this from a game Yolcaut and I play. It’s a question-and-answer game. One person says a number of bullets in a part of the body and the other one answers: alive, corpse, or too early to tell.
“One bullet in the heart.”
“Corpse.”
“Thirty bullets in the little toenail of the left foot.”
“Alive.”
“Three bullets in the pancreas.”
“Too early to tell.”
And we carry on like that. When we run out of body parts we look up new ones in a book that has pictures of all of them, even the prostate and the medulla oblongata. Speaking of the brain, it’s important to take off your hat before you put bullets into somebody’s brain, so it doesn’t get stained. Blood is really hard to get out. This is what Itzpapalotl, the maid who does the cleaning in our palace, always says.
Yes, our palace: Yolcaut and I are the owners of a palace and we’re not even kings. The thing is we have a lot of money. A huge amount. We have pesos, which is the money of Mexico. We also have dollars, which is the money of the United States. And we also have euros, which is the money of the countries and kingdoms of Europe. I think we have thousands of millions of all three kinds...

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Winning praise and awards
By Thad McIlroy
In the New Statesman magazine in the U.K. Sarah Churchwell made it her book of the year, writing that Down the Rabbit Hole "is that rarest of animals, a book that is, to all intents and purposes, perfect." The Guardian newspaper has it shortlisted for Guardian First Book Award. In the U.K. it's published by a new small subscription publisher, And Other Stories Publishing. There's no word if there will be a U.S. publisher: I may have to order it from overseas.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
A wonderful story
By M. G. Azevedo
This a story of Tochtli, a seven year old who all wants in life is to have a Liberian pygmy hippopotamus. He is the son of a very rich man and anything is possible...

His father is a drog lord and Tochtli describes the strange circunstances, somewhere in Mexico, they live their lifes, sometimes horrific, sometimes funny, even when the things he discusses are horrendous.

Tochtli lives in a bizarre heavily-guarded world of obscene luxury, and brutal amorality,and he is both childishly innocent and also horribly knowledgeable about things like bullets, corpses, and their disposal.

This is a sharp story and a very much enjoyable novella and to give too much detail would be to spoil what is a wonderful read.

`

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
A good read!
By D. henderson
Tochtli (his name translates as 'Rabbit') is the young son of a Mexican drug lord. All he wants in life is the proper hat for the task at hand. All he wants for his birthday is a pygmy hippopotamus. Is that too much to ask? It's funny; it's sad in a way I wasn't expecting. It's an all around good read. And at only 70 pages, you have no excuse for dodging this one.

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~ Download Queen Bee of Tuscany: The Redoubtable Janet Ross, by Ben Downing

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"Quite simply one of the best books of the year." ―Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

Ben Downing's Queen Bee of Tuscany brings an extraordinary Victorian back to life. Born into a distinguished intellectual family and raised among luminaries such as Dickens and Thackeray, Janet Ross married at eighteen and went to live in Egypt. There, for the next six years, she wrote for the London Times, hobnobbed with the developer of the Suez Canal, and humiliated pashas in horse races. In 1867 she moved to Florence, Italy where she spent the remaining sixty years of her life writing a series of books and hosting a colorful miscellany of friends and neighbors, from Mark Twain to Bernard Berenson, at Poggio Gherardo, her house in the hills above the city. Eventually she became the acknowledged doyenne of the Anglo-Florentine colony, as it was known. Yet she was also immersed in the rural life of Tuscany: An avid agriculturalist, she closely supervised the farms on her estate and the sharecroppers who worked them, often pitching in on grape and olive harvests.
Spirited, erudite, and supremely well-connected, Ross was one of the most dynamic women of her day. Her life offers a fascinating window on fascinating times, from the Risorgimento to the rise of fascism.
Encompassing all this rich history, Queen Bee of Tuscany is a panoramic portrait of an age, a family, and our evolving love affair with Tuscany.

A Washington Post Notable Nonfiction Book of 2013

• Sales Rank: #808539 in Books
• Brand: Brand: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Published on: 2013-06-18
• Released on: 2013-06-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.21" h x 1.19" w x 6.41" l, 1.26 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 352 pages

Features

• Used Book in Good Condition

From Booklist
Janet Ross was the type of woman we’re trained not to expect in history: someone who, in an earlier era, conducted her life with a freedom and breadth of experience we associate with women in the late twentieth century. Born in 1842 into an eccentric and well-traveled family, she married young, lived in Egypt and Italy, and eventually settled in Florence. Along the way, she rubbed shoulders with many of the luminaries of her day, wrote, painted, raced horses, managed estates, and made her home the hub of the Anglo-Florence community. The small anecdotes that make up most of this history—attendance at a ball, renovating a new house, a visit from Mark Twain, the comings and goings of minor figures and their feuds—should be of interest to cultural historians of the time period. It will be of less interest for general readers looking for a rousing yarn. --Lynn Weber

Review

“Queen Bee of Tuscany is so amusing, in so many ways, it's hard to know where to begin the praise . . . This is a perfect book for the bedside, poolside or, if you're really lucky, that long long plane ride to Italy . . . Let me stress that none of what I've said quite conveys the pleasure of reading Queen Bee of Tuscany. This isn't merely a history of Janet Ross and her family or of the long-standing Anglo-Florentine colony. It's a compendium of literary and historical vignettes, a showcase for it author's excellent prose, and quite simply one of the best books of the year.” ―Michael Dirda, The Washington Post

“Downing has assembled an immense amount of information, not only about this remarkable family of literate, artistic, and well-connected women writers . . . but about the vast cast of foreigners who, from the end of the Napoleonic wars, made Tuscany their home . . . Queen Bee of Tuscany provides a rich historical survey of a lost and charmed age.” ―Caroline Moorehead, The Wall Street Journal

“Now and then, there appear certain lives that serve as lenses onto an entire generation--those lucky few who happen to live at a place and time of particular foment and historical import, and whose personal destinies intersect with the great movements of art, literature, and politics that define an age . . . Janet Ross--whose story is detailed in rollicking fashion in Ben Downing's new book, The Queen Bee of Tuscany--is just one such character . . . She'd been born amid the optimistic expansion and bustle of Victorian empire; she passed away in the brief pause between Europe's most deadly and debilitating wars. In between, she led, in Downing's words, ‘one of the fullest lives imaginable,' and her ‘forceful personality made, for better or worse, a strong impression on all those who met her.' We may not remember the name Janet Ross these days, but Downing's book stands a fair chance of changing that--and if he succeeds, the history of women . . . will be all the richer.” ―Katie Baker, The Daily Beast

“Through his loving portrait of Janet Ross and her complex connections to the native and expatriate communities of Tuscany, Downing has created an engrossing and wonderfully readable narrative of this captivating woman, her coterie, and the era in which she lived.” ―Amanda Foreman, author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire

“I knew nothing of Janet Ross before I opened this exhilarating book and began to relish her crowded, convivial life and appetite for thrills. Ben Downing is a skilful and enthusiastic writer who knows how to tell a good story. He works like an accomplished artist, painting a vivid cultural and historical background and then placing his subject in a memorable Florentine landscape. Reading this blend of biography and social history is like taking a first-class time-traveling journey into mid-nineteenth and early-twentieth- century Europe. I greatly enjoyed keeping company with such a forceful and surprising character--and so will many readers.” ―Michael Holroyd, author of A Book of Secrets

“Ben Downing's life of the extraordinary Janet Ross reads like deep, delicious gossip from a bygone era. Combining a wonderfully incisive account of Anglo-Florentine society with some marvelous portraits of its eccentric members and their febrile entanglements, Queen Bee of Tuscany is both instructive to read and great, great fun.” ―Miranda Seymour, author of Thrumpton Hall and Mary Shelley

“The Anglo-Florentine colony was a remarkable and singularly long-lived phenomenon. Dominating it for sixty years was that extraordinary grande dame Janet Ross: bluff, outspoken, multilingual, at once a canny estate manager and a social queen bee nonpareil. Ben Downing's study of this unique tranche of social history, built around Ross's reign, is a tour de force. Based on formidable research, it always wears its learning lightly, and with style. Elegantly written, packed with anecdotes, it's a real page-turner, and also slyly witty throughout. This is the best, the most informative, the most entertaining bedtime reading that's come my way in a very long time. ” ―Peter Green, Emeritus professor of classics and the former fiction critic of the London Daily Telegraph

“Those enamored with the history, society, and culture of Victorian England and the expatriate community will relish this engrossing biography.” ―Publishers Weekly

About the Author
In addition to The Calligraphy Shop, a book of poems, Ben Downing has published essays, articles, and reviews in The Paris Review, The New Criterion, and elsewhere. He is the coeditor of Parnassus.

Most helpful customer reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
Queen Bee of Tuscany is a delight
By Barbara Blouin
I just finished Ben Downing's Queen Bee of Tuscany: The Redoubtable Janet Ross. The book is a delight. Downing is a very good writer--fluid, colorful style and often very witty. I had a lot of laughs. Janet Ross is one of a kind: tough, creative, fearless, and always looking for adventure. She started riding to the hounds when in her early teens in rural England, and when in Egypt with her foreign-service husband Henry, she raced across the desert with Egyptian notables. For a time she was a correspondent for the London Times. When Janet and Henry left Egypt in 1868 they went to Tuscany. They had little money, but they managed to buy a rundown mini-castle and convert is to a delightful place. The property came with grapes and olive trees, which were cultivated by the tenant farmers. Never one to be daunted by challenges, Janet pitched in with the contadini (tenant farmers) and stomped on the grapes at harvest time, picked olives, and was always willing to get her hands dirty. Gobs of people -- famous and otherwise -- visited her property, Poggio Gherardo, on Sunday. They included many mostly English notables, like Dickens, as well as an American, Mark Twain. Janet found a house next to hers for Twain and his wife, and they became good friends. In many ways Janet was more man than woman: dauntless, highly energetic, type A. Also creative, sociable. People called her "Aunt Janet." She survived the First World War and died (I don't remember the exact date) not long after WWI. Times were hard, and there was not nearly enough food, but even very late in her life she roused herself to help others, who were close to starvation. Another important feature of this book is a social history of Italy during those years at a time when it was becoming a republic.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Well Written But Not Much New
By Nemoman
Janet Ross was a remarkable person who dominated the English colony centered on Florence in the latter half of the nineteenth cenury. She was born into a family of successful authors including her mother Lady Lucie Duff Gordon Letters From Egypt, and maternal grandmother Sarah Austin. From her early childhood in london she was surrounded by England's literary and social elite, including Kinglake, Dickens, and, Thackery. She was an autodidact with a keen and inquisitive mind. At an early age she married an older banker (Henry Ross) and moved with him to Alexandria. While there she continued to meet and correspond with prominent literary and cultural figures including De Lessups who took her on a tour of Suez Canal during its construction. While in Egypt she developed as a competent, albeit not gifted, writer, become the defacto if not actual Eypt correspondent for the London Times.

When the Egyptian banking crisis ended Henry's banking career in 1862, they moved to Florence. Initially they leased space in a Villa outside of Florence, where she became a competent manager of the Villa's poderes or farms. Later, they purchased Poggio Gherardo, a thirteenth century fortified villa in Settignano. There, she also managed her estate's farms while continuing to write historical books and articles for periodicals. She also wrote a cookbook (cited as an important influence by Elizabeth David LEAVES FROM OUR TUSCAN KITCHEN. She developed a passion for Tuscan folksongs and would sing them while accompanying herself on guitar.

On Sundays she conducted a salon of sorts with visits from noted writers, artists and cultural leaders. She located nearby villas for Bernard Berenson and Mark Twain.

I wrote the bulk of the Wikipedia article on Ross and was hoping this book would help me flesh it out more. Unfortunately, although well written, the book does not add much to the previous biography by Sarah Benjamin - A Castle in Tuscany: The Fascinating Life of Janet Ross - A Woman Ahead of Her Time. It does, however, contain much prefatory matter on the time period preceding Ross, placing in context her life in Florence. Some of that material gets tedious as being pretty much a listing of names.

If you are interested in Janet Ross, I highly recommend books by her niece Lina Waterfield (Castle In Italy An Autobiography) and Kinta Beevor (A Tuscan Childhood) both of whom lived with Janet at various times.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Poorly written book about a potentially fascinating subject
By Book Reader
This light-weight book is written in an irritatingly vernacular style bordering on slang, in fact crossing the border frequently. Worse than that, it is an unparalleled compendium of hackneyed phrases, often ten or twelve per page. This is a pity, because the lives and times of the expatriates of Egypt and Florence at their peaks provide limitless material for an amusing and informative story. The main facts of Janet Ross's life are here but she doesn't really come to life. Some reviewers have complained about an excess of background to the times, but I found this aspect of the book to be its best feature, despite it being ill-informed in places. For example, "In a Tuscan Garden" was written by Georgina S. Grahame, not John Lane - he was the publisher. A great many names are dropped in the Florentine section but that's probably inevitable considering that, aside from her books, entertaining the residents of and visitors to Florence was Janet Ross's main claim to fame over the course of 50 years. In fact, this book is more a history of the Anglo-Florentines hung on the frame of Janet Ross's life - and none the worse for that. There is a huge literature on the Anglo-Florentines including several spectacularly entertaining memoirs. Perhaps the main value of this book is that its bibliography will give readers an entry into that literature.

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AN INCISIVE “WHITE PAPER” ON THE UNITED STATES’S STRUGGLE TO FRAME A COHERENT MIDDLE EAST POLICY

In this book, the Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen traces U.S. policy in the region back to the breakup of the Ottoman Empire, when the Great Powers failed to take crucial steps to secure peace there. He sees in that early diplomatic failure a pattern shaping the conflicts since then—and America’s role in them.

A century ago, there emerged two dominant views regarding the uses of America’s newfound power. Woodrow Wilson urged America to promote national freedom and self-determination through the League of Nations—in stark contrast to his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt, who had advocated a vigorous foreign policy based on national self-interest.

Cohen argues that this running conflict has hobbled American dealings in the Middle East ever since. In concise, pointed chapters, he shows how different Middle East countries have struggled to define themselves in the face of America’s stated idealism and its actual realpolitik. This conflict came to a head in the confused, clumsy Middle East policy of George W. Bush—but Cohen suggests the ways a greater awareness of our history in the region might enable our present leaders to act more sensibly.

• Sales Rank: #856044 in Books
• Published on: 2009-10-27
• Released on: 2009-10-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.25" h x 1.00" w x 6.38" l, 1.16 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. In what should become required reading for those interested in the Middle East, Cohen, director of the Institute of Middle East Peace and Development, provides a richly detailed history of diplomacy in the region and its implications for current relations. The book begins with Woodrow Wilson's idealistic initiatives, which germinated into a confused legacy [that] continues to be at the heart of the problem between the United States and the Middle East. Cohen takes a tour of major players and key events, including Egypt and its nationalist movement, Iran under British imperialism, the roots of a Saudi-U.S. alliance and the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Cohen provides broad suggestions for contemporary diplomacy, generally emphasizing the importance of avoiding a one-size-fits-all policy. He discusses policies in the region of both Bush administrations, and remains timely in presaging the new administration's diplomatic message. When Cohen concludes, To overcome despair over these relationships, which is now so common, requires the elaboration in our imagination of a best-case scenario, he sounds prescient, and the rigorously researched history he provides make his words ring true. (Nov.)
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Review
"In what should become required reading for those interested in the Middle East, Cohen, director of the Institute of Middle East Peace and Development, provides a richly detailed history of diplomacy in the region and its implications for current relations. The book begins with Woodrow Wilson’s idealistic initiatives, which germinated into a 'confused legacy [that] continues to be at the heart of the problem between the United States and the Middle East.' Cohen takes a tour of major players and key events, including Egypt and its nationalist movement, Iran under British imperialism, the roots of a Saudi-U.S. alliance and the evolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Cohen provides broad suggestions for contemporary diplomacy, generally emphasizing the importance of avoiding a 'one-size-fits-all' policy. He discusses policies in the region of both Bush administrations, and remains timely in presaging the new administration’s diplomatic message. When Cohen concludes, 'To overcome despair over these relationships, which is now so common, requires the elaboration in our imagination of a best-case scenario,' he sounds prescient, and the rigorously researched history he provides make his words ring true." --Publishers Weekly, Starred Review “A big-picture overview of the long-teetering relationship between America and the Arab nations . . . Cohen makes a magnificent case for the ‘emotional impact’ of Arab defeat in the face of Israeli force, while at the same time scolding those nations for persistence in ‘self-definition by negation of the other.’ Both hectoring and wise, this historical blueprint makes a powerful argument for building mutual respect in the region.” —Kirkus Reviews "A brilliant social psychologist and political analyst who has devoted his entire life to counseling Middle Eastern leaders on how to promote peace, Cohen's Beyond America's Grasp is a model of alternative thinking, a gift of rare wisdom, the fruit of four decades of welding knowledge and experience."--Yaron Ezrahi, author of RUBBER BULLETS: Power and Conscience in Modern Israel

About the Author
STEPHEN P. COHEN, the president of the Institute for Middle East Peace and Development, has lectured at Yale and elsewhere. For over forty years, he has made 150 trips to the region, and attended the Madrid peace conference and other high-stakes meetings. He lives in New Jersey.

Most helpful customer reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
very accessible - a valuable, intriguing perspective
By Naturale
This is a refreshing and very readable book which gives a unique perspective on the Middle East. It clearly explains the impact on the region by the Western Powers and the impact of European colonialism and U.S. naivete. Also, Cohen takes each Arab country individually to show its own needs and influences, and we can begin to stop seeing the Middle East as simply one anti-American Islamist bloc. Is peace possible, not only between Israel and its neighbors but between the Arab countries and the U.S.? You need not reach the same conclusions as Cohen but his lucid details give an understanding that we in the West are in great need of. This is a valuable book and very pertinent.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
Vanguar for US and ME relations education/understanding
By Luis
This is a great book to help those who limit their knowledge of the ME within US news sources. Everyone that wants to work in any way with people from some of these countries it will be very beneficial for your interaction. This book was excellent except from my limited perspective in the complex reality of the Israel/ Palestinian relationship it seemed a fraction favoring Israel. Conclusion is that books like this should be part of the education of this society.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Go behind the headlines
By Thomas Mitchell
With over 40 years of experience in the Middle East, Prof. Stephen Cohen is well equipped to give us the basic relevant history and culture in the Middle Eastern countries most relevant to American policy: Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran. Occasionally he brings in personal anecdotes but most of the information comes from the extensive bibliography found in the back of the book. Cohen offers no magic formulas or solutions for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, for rebuilding Iraq or for anything else for that matter. But for those without a background in Middle Eastern studies this is a good place to go for relevant information to flush out the headlines from World War I forward.

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