Non-Fiction Readers Message Board

(I do realize that the description ends in a preposition... but I couldn't figure out a better way to get the meaning across. Suggestions welcome!)

(Yes, I do realize that the description ends in a preposition... but I couldn't figure out a better way to get across the meaning. Suggestions welcome!)

Yeah... I did it again.

I liked it - it made me join ;-)

It also made me think of the following:

Rules for writers ( http://www.pldi.net/~murrows/writing.html )

...
Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
...

;-) sunny

Marvelous!

Hello

I love non-fiction and always try to have at least one title on the go at all times in addition to whatever fiction I am reading. I particularly interested in history (American, European, political, some military) and biographies. Right now I am reading Unknown Soldiers: The Story of the Missing of the First World War by Neil Hanson.

I do the same thing! Although, it often ends up being more than one when I'm in school.

Due to personal interest, not to mention current events, I'm currently reading the updated and revised Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in Promised Land, a Pulitzer Prize Winner by David K. Shipler.

If anyone has other book recommendations on the Arab-Israeli Conflict, I would love to hear them.

It's only in the last year that I've tried to read non-fiction again; yet I really enjoy it. Like Ex_Libris, I try to keep fiction and non-fiction going simultaneously. Glad of the Neil Hanson recommendation, as I'm planning to add books on World War I in a few months, and enjoyed his Great Fire of London: in that apocalyptic year, 1666.

Eurydice, I have fiction and non-fiction books that relate to World War I. Feel free to take a look at my library if you wish. There may be some titles there that would be of interest. And thank you for the Great Fire of London recommend.

PhoenixTerran, I'm afraid I don't have any recommendations for the Arab-Israeli conflict, but you could probably find some at the website for CSpan2's BookTV which is www.booktv.org. BookTV airs on CSpan2 on weekends and features non-fiction books/authors only. They feature a lot of books and authors on all aspects of conflict in the Middle East.

Thanks, Ex_Libris. I'll definitely have a look!

There are more books on the Great Fire of London which I've not read, but Hanson's had a wonderful section on the behavior of fires - generally, chemically, interacting with the materials involved - and on the large scale. It's also quite good on the architecture predating the fire, and group psychology during and after. A fine book. - Though I'm more than happy to hear of others. :)

I don't think some people realize that nonfiction is just as interesting, sometimes more so because it's true!, as fiction. I read a lot of biographies and memoirs, but am trying to make more time for that fascinating genre(?) of historical nonfiction - where the author takes an invention/item/whatever and traces its development and impact on humans throughout time. Cod, Salt, Longitude are a few that come immediately to mind.

I'm currently reading Cicero: the life and times of Rome's Greatest Politician.

I recommend Curse of The Narrows : The Halifax Disaster of 1917 by Laura M. Mac Donald, a great story. It provoked a trip to Halifax.

That sounds interesting. Anita Shreve's A Wedding In December includes the Halifax disaster as a sub-plot, but over here in the UK I'd barely heard of it so was thinking about finding a book on it... Curse of the Narrows duly added to my Amazon wishlist. :-)

I read a great deal of non-fiction. Two of my current reads are Edmund White's Genet, and Edge, a collection of autobiographical essays by Jeff Mann.

I am disturbed, though, by what I see as a growing tendency among non-fiction writers to jettison accuracy and scholarship in favor of "telling a story". When I see a reviewer say of a non-fiction work that "it reads like a novel", I cringe, because that phrase often signals the author presents speculation as fact, puts thoughts into peoples' heads without evidence, etc.

When coupled, as it so often is, with an absence of footnotes or endnotes, and sometimes even of a bibliography, this drives me right up a wall.

Lilithcat:

So true. I've just finished reading Tom Holland's Rubicon, expecting a clearly written overview of the last century of the Roman Republic. What I got is a bunch of musings, thoughts, claims and a bit of facts around which to weave these musings.

I guess I shouldnt have expected anything better from a book that says "reads like a novel" on the backcover...

I simply wish we had a book in the shared list up on top of this page that actually was a work of NON-fiction! ;)

Reading "Guns, Germs, and Steel" right now, very good but a long read. Loved "1453: the Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West" and "How the Irish Saved Civilization". Check out my list for more.

I also have been reading "Past Tense: A History Blog", which is interesting. I'd like to see more history-oriented blogs out there.

With all due respect, JPB, it's my impression that Jacobs' The Know-It-All, The Professor and the Madman, and Guns, Germs and Steel are all ostensibly non-fiction the last time I checked, and pretty good ones too.

I love non-fiction works but I am sooo tired of reading doctoral theses. Every non-fiction book does not have to be exhaustive and/or academic. I realize authors are trying to make a name for themselves or might be really passionate about a topic but sheesh! I can't count the number of times that my eyes have glazed over half way through a book on an interesting topic b/c the author has mined the minutia.
Books like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil are non-fiction that read like a novel. I don't think a book like that needs footnotes. If I was curious about a fact, I'd just do some research.

LouisBranning: as the list changes with each addition of a library, his comment may well have been written when (as I recall) it really was all fiction.

Two recent nonfiction books I loved are Rumspringa: To Be Or Not To Be Amish by Tom Shachtman and Kabul in Winter: Life Without Peace in Afghanistan by Ann Jones.

I'm currently reading Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game. Much to my surprise, it's essentially book one of a trilogy (if you believe the publisher) about the machinations of the Brits and the Russians in Central Asia. The other two books are Like Hidden Fire and Setting the East Ablaze. Had I known, I might not have been so interested in Vol. I, because now I'm gonna feel compelled to read/acquire the other two as well!

jonesy - i haven't read it but i was intrigued by the title of a book i recently saw in my public library, which having read your post, imagine may interest you. Sugar : the grass that changed the world / by Sanjida O'Connell

everyone - recommended by a gorgeous friend was Stiff : the curious lives of human cadavers / by Mary Roach I must pass on the recommendation to anyone that will listen. It's the book that got me into non-fiction; now I have that familar ring to me of trying to read one a month.

While I'm here I'll also sneakily mention that you can speed through The number devil / by Hans Magnus Enzensberger on a few commutes which is meant for kids but a heap of fun anyway.

If anyone has other book recommendations on the Arab-Israeli Conflict, I would love to hear them.

*NOT* a NF, but highly recommended are two books I read by Sayed Kashua. They are (1) Dancing Arabs, and (2) Let it be Morning. The author is an Israeli Arab who works as a journalist for the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. He gives voice to the feelings of conflict in an Arab who lives in Israel. Although both books are novels, I strongly feel that the sentiments of the main character in each books are those of the author. They're both excellent! They are fiction which read like non-fiction (in much the same way that The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini does).

jumping on the Israel thread -- several friends have asked me to recommend books which outline how Israel came to be a nation. while I know a fair amount about the post-WWII formation of a Jewish state and could give a brief outline to my friends, I was stumped to name a single book on the history of Israel. any suggestions? thanks!

Exodus by Leon Uris is a fictional treatment of the founding of modern Israel, and still a pretty exciting book too.

My daughter recently took an Israeli history course in college and two of the books (I can't remember which ones) were by Tom Segev. Check out this Wikepedia link and see if any of the books mentioned appeal to you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Segev

I am currently on a kick where I am reading a lot of Essays. Right now I am in the middle of Walden and I have planned to read The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond next

Ah, Exodus, the book that made me want to stalk Paul Newman back in 1960! Actually, although it is fiction, it's an excellent depiction of Israel coming into statehood in 1947 and the fighting isn't much different today, sadly. Anyone who is curious about the brginnings will be educated and entertained by this book, one of Uris' best. He was a great storyteller but not the best writer.

Rumspringa is waiting to be read. There are several Amish communities in Ohio and the concept of rumspringa is one that should be emulated by more people -- perhaps, a year off between high school and college so the binge drinking won't be happening on Mom and Dad's dime.

I am so glad to see non-fiction fans here; I was beginning to suspect everyone reads sci-fi and fantasy -- two genres I wouldn't read even if stranded on that damn island.

Ooh that looks interesting. I have read a couple of novels set in Amish communities but would be interested in this - will look out for it.

And I rarely read sci-fi (just a couple OH has pressed on to me) and have not read fantasy since I had a brief Tanith Lee phase as a teenager!

Okay. I'll admit that I *do* read nonfiction. :-)

The last NF book I enjoyed was Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman about his experiences in China during the years he taught English there.

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/3968124

I'm starting to read (in fits and starts) Palm Sunday by Kurt Vonnegut.

That was exactly my thought. I've just signed up to this site and naively thought there'd be a lot more non-fiction listed for the group. I then thought I'd best think about my own book collection and realised that as I've catalogued everything I've acquired & kept since the of 18 and am now 60+ it was bound to be heavily weighted to all the Penguin (and other) paperback novels etc bought in the 60s and 70s.

Should have made it clear that I was picking up on JPB's message.(message 17)

Re Arab-Israeli . . . if you can find it in a used book store, "Cast a Giant Shadow" is excellent. A biography of a Jewish American army officer who helped create the Israeli military in the post-war period. Was also made into a pretty good movie around 1964 with Kirk Douglas.

Hanno: I agree with what you wrote about Rubicon. I was disappointed by the approach too as I was with Pompeii for the same reason. However, Tom Holland's later book Persian fire was non-fiction as I expect it to be and not at all novelettish.

I like non-fiction too. I love histories (prefer ancient), and science books about topics I am interested in: anthropology, archeology, sociology, paleontology, disease, evolution....

I have recently read The Great Mortality by John Kelly about the Black Plague, The Great Influenza by John Barry about the flu pandemic in 1918. My last NF book was The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang.

Can't say I thought much of Guns, Germs, and Steel. The major premise of the book was false - none of the ancient powers have translated into modern power. The only that have come close are India and China and they are only powers because of their size, and that they have finally abandoned their own native ideas and embraced western attitudes and economic theory. His analysis and comparisons are off (horses to zebras, one has 7,000 years of domestication and the other does not).

From the beginning of the book it struck me that the whole purpose of it was to refute the idea that his friends, natives in PNG, were savages.

If you are looking for computer books, it's worth checking if one of The Missing Manuals by David Pogue and others covers the topic - they are a pleasure to read.
(Published in cooperation with O'Reilly).

Edit: Adding some of David Pogue's titles so the conversation can be found from his author page. Mac OS X Tiger, iPhoto 5

I keep trying to make everyone read Stiff. It was one of the first nonfiction I got into, also. Roach wrote another one recently called Spook. It wasn't nearly as interesting, but still pretty good.

On advertising and a lot more: The Book of Gossage. Marvellous :-)

Yes, I read Spook too, and it did suffer a little by comparison... sadly. Love the red-eye reduction bit!!

outstanding YA title is Dear Miss Breed by Joanne Oppenheim about the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII.

The Seven-Day Weekend by Ricardo Semler about Semco, the company where employees can decide themselves what kind of work they want to do at what hours and what their salary should be. 8-)

Playing by heart by O. Fred Donaldson. Wonderful book about authentic play (as opposed to cultural play) he shared with wolves and with small children. Yet another one to read again :-)

Introduction with link to interview.

Hello all!! I'm currently reading "Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes" BY: Andrzej M. Lobaczewski .....interesting so far...He finds the genesis of totalitarian systems, and societies in the psychopathology of its leaders, its a bit difficult to read, but I'm gonna stick with it. I got this book from www.qfgpublishing.com

I prefer non-fiction to fiction. Lately, anyway. I think fiction is wonderful too, but there is so much to learn about our universe, I always tend to feel guilty when I'm not learning something! Silly, I know, as we all need the escape valve which ficttion provides.

I have been reading non-fiction since my boss in college handed me And the Band Played On. I never knew non-fiction could be so entertaining and enlightening. I would highly recommend Devil in the White City. I also enjoyed Spook and Stiff.
I actually get the joy of running a non-fiction book club at my library so we read a diverse set of books.

I love reading about history and how people ,especially women, lived in the past. Have a book (from the library) about the life of Anne Boleyn and it's quite interesting all the facts we're never taught at school. Am also interested in how the schools developed over the years. Always feel it's good to learn about our past.

It is now acceptable to end sentences in prepositions! It's something to write to Mom about!

(I multi-posted. Oops.)

You may find of interest a new book, "To Beirut and Back" - an American in the Middle East. A true story.
ISBN #1-4241-3853-1

Montano, I fully agree. It is possible to write a nonfiction book that is factual and objective without being academic, I have read many such. I suspect a lot of authors should just stick to writing scholarly papers and textbooks, and stay out of the mass market entirely!

I also agree about footnotes, etc, I usually don't bother reading them. If the author can't convince me of his points through reasoned arguments, I don't bother finishing the book!

Erica,
ejkline@socal.rr.com
http://home.socal.rr.com/ejkline/blog/new.htm

PhoenixTerran, I can't recommend strongly enough Drinking the Sea at Gaza. One of the things that make this book so powerful is that the journalist who wrote it, Amira Hass, is Israeli. It is a remarkable book.

I would also recommend pretty much anything by Edward Said, but his preeminent work is Orientalism. He was a great man, a great thinker, and his death is our loss.

I'm a big fan of Mezzaterra, a book of essays by Ahdaf Soueif, but they are more about specific cultural issues/incidents, where the Hass book gives you a powerful overview and is compulsively readable. Start with that.

Some very readable and imminently interesting nonfiction authors I feel suddenly compelled to proclaim:

Oliver Sacks
Richard Sennett
Mark Kurlansky
Freeman Dyson
Stephen Jay Gould
Witold Rybczynski

For the reader interested in the formation of the modern state of Israel (if they still are..), Watchmen on the Walls, by Hannah Hurnard was an interesting story. She was in the midst of the battle for Jerusalem as a missionary. Although on the Jewish side of the city, she had many Arab friends and gives a more personal account rather than political. The touchstones turned up another book about child rearing. Sigh.

I'm new to the group, I too like to read a non-fiction, a fiction and sometimes a big fat classic at the same time. I tend to prefer memoirs, though you must remember they are just one person's point of view. Winston Churchill is one of my favorite authors so far. Love WWII, ocean sagas such as Thor Heyerdahl, pioneers and, oh, lots of stuff.

My latest non-fiction reads are; The Man Who Created Narnia and From the Known to the Unknown Memoirs of Baroness de La Grange. The first is a very simple biography of C. S. Lewis, lots of photos. The second is a great read. An adventurous, witty and intelligent woman, ahead of her times.

I am just beginning, The Edwardian Lady the Story of Edith Holden.

Also started Gesundheit, by Patch Adams. When I get a passel of new books at a used book store, it's so hard not to read in them all.

Perhaps you would like, "To Beirut and Back" ISBN: 1-4241-3853-1. It is a true story of an American in the Middle East. The subject of the Arab/Israeli conflict is discussed.

I read a lot of non-fiction, particularly history. My favourites include The Fatal Shore, The Victorian Underworld and Hooligan: A History of Respectable Fears. I first read the last two when I was 18, leading to a lifetime's fascination with social history. In the last few years I've become curious about military history: the best book I've read so far about a campaign is Monte Cassino by Matthew Parker. An amazing book that I recommend to everyone, whether they're interested in conflict or not.

I'm not always in the mood for novels but I'm always interested in a well-written informative book.

I couldn't put Gesundheit! down until I finished it! It was inspiring and motivating. A whole new way of looking at health care issues. I wish every person in the health care industry could read it. Pure JOY.

I just finished The Edwardian Lady The Story of Edith Holden. I can't really recommend it unless you are a fiend for the Edwardian times or The Diary of an Edwardian Lady. Though filled with nice reproductions of some of her works, and photos. It still came across as dull somehow, and I don't think it was Miss Holden's life which was dull, just the way this book was written. Too much skipping about in time, places and people. Perhaps it was difficult to gather much information on Edith Holden's personal life. Anyway, worth a read if you stumble across it, but I'm not keeping my copy. The Diary is sufficient for me.

I just joined because I read far more non-fiction books nowadays than I do fictions =) I still love novels & short stories, but reading something informative & illuminating provides its own distinct pleasure. I'm currently reading "Crossing Over" by Ruben Martinez.

I'm now reading Peter Mansfield's "A History of the Middle East, which covers the region's tumultuous history over the last 200 years.

I'm also reading Howard Zinn's "Passionate Declarations: Essays on War and Justice", which is turning out to be a really heartening and inspirational read.

As much as I love literature, I somehow always find myself gravitating towards the non-fiction shelves of bookshops..

Peter Mansfield's book on the Middle East is good. Of course there are many written on this subject. I could suggest some of course. You may be interested in my book, "To Beirut and Back" ISBN 1-4241-3853-1. It is a true account of experience in the Middle East and covers the period of Lebanon's Civil War in 1976.

Finished Robert Graves The Assault Heroic 1895-1926 today. Not very happy. I found out at the end (it isn't written anywhere on the cover) that it is a three volume biography of which I only had the first volume. I'm not seeking out the rest. It was well written, but I simply wasn't that interested in this man's life aside from his service in WWI and how he dealt with the shell shock he suffered. He wrote some magnificent poetry about that, otherwise his stuff wasn't my style. I haven't read his books, but I get the idea that our morals and beliefs are too divergent for me to enjoy them.

Good grief! I've just discovered this group, and already you've made me order one book and add a bunch more to my Wish List!

If I have fiction and non-fiction (especially history or true crime/trials) in my TBR pile, the NF will win every time I go to select a book. Truth is stranger, and if the writing is good, more exciting.

I'm a bit disappointed in the book I've just started, The Last Knight. The introduction was so repetitive that I wondered if Cantor was being paid by the word. The first 2 chapters are an improvement, but still rather meandering. I hope it gets better.

Keep those recommendations coming! I thank you, even if my credit card doesn't. :-)

I began Dear Miss Weaver today. A biography about Harriet Shaw Weaver. She was a great help to James Joyce and many other beginning authors of her day. She was also a very liberated woman for her times. Should be interesting.

Update to #68:

Re: Cantor's The Last Knight: The book is so bad that I'm not sure if I'll waste the time to finish it. The writing continues to be childish and repetitive. Far worse, I started spotting factual errors, including one laugh-out-loud howler. Not much sense in reading a poorly-written history book when you can't rely upon the facts stated. :((

Started The Tribes of Britain this week by David Miles and am finding it absorbing.

Started The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee last night. So far, it seems like an interesting story of his life in the book biz, with lots of historical background.

Read half (the first half) of A History of Europe by J. M. Roberts during the Christmas break. It is a good book, just took me forever to read to the halfway point. Will check it back out from the library to finish it later.

Finished last week, The Satanic Gases by Patrick J. Michaels. Having a discussion of it over at the Political Conservative group.

Started reading The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough this past week. I am really enjoying it.

Hera - RE: The Fatal Shore

Great book! I to liked it alot. The Victorian Underworld sounds good. I just checked the local library catalog and they don't have it. Will have to put that on the "look-for-it" list

modelcitizen - RE: A History of the Middle East

How is that? Did you finish it. I have it on my TBR shelf. Would appreciate a word about how it is.

Dick Stodghill's book: Normandy 1944 will be a subject on the History Channel today, January 19th. It is an honest report of the realities of War through the eyes of a soldier.

Maybe some of you would also like to have a look at Books on Wisdom and Enlightenment - at least some of them are non-fiction.

Seajack, The yellow-lighted bookshop sounds interesting, thank you. :-)

Sunny: It's a good book - I can highly recommend it.

Current non-fiction read is Michael Isikoff's Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. Just finished a section on Valerie Plame Wilson and the uranium from Niger - timely mention given the ongoing Scooter Libby trial. Now we're onto the role of the Neocon disciples of Laurie Mylroie (what a crackpot!) in starting the Iraq War. The audio narration is very well done.

The best non-fiction I've read is "An Unexpected Light" by Jason Elliott. It's about a 19 year old who goes to Afghanistan during the Russian invasion, and then returns 10 years later just as the Taliban is taking hold of the country.

Finished How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa. It took about 2 years because I had set it aside and forgotten it.

Just started The Book that Changed My Life. It's short, so I've also almost finished it, too. It is spectacular! The interviews are short and easy to digest, with a list of the subject's published works as well as the works that influenced him/her. This is one of the few books I've underlines (lightly, in pencil) because there is so much that strikes true. It's about writing, but also about the general creative mind. Read it, I say!

Finished The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough today. You can read the review here;
http://www.librarything.com/rsshtml/reviews/Bill_Masom

Starting Flyboys by James Bradley tonight.

Bill

As Churchill famously said (or is suppposed to have said: it has a distinctly apocryphal feel to it) when an editor tried to correct a sentence of his that ended with a preposition: "This is the sort of nonsense up with which I will not put."

Finished Flyboys by James Bradley tonight.

See my profile for a review.

Going to the Friends of the Library sale tomorrow morning. Hope to bag a bunch of books. Though mostly that is where I find the classics I am reading, but I do pull some non-fiction out of there as well.

Bill

I'm working on Fiasco by Thomas Ricks; The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins; and The Story of Civilization Part XI: The Age of Napoleon by Will Durant.

The last nonfiction book I read was Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet. Anyone who wants to be a teacher or parent should read this. It gives you a great understanding of what autistic people must deal with. Tammet calls himself a "high-functioning" autistic. BBC has done a documentary on him.

My next one is Abraham : A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths. I am terribly uneducated in the history of religions, including my own.

Two non-fictions at the moment:

Hillinger's California : stories from all 58 counties

Hunting pirate heaven : in search of the lost pirate utopias of the Indian Ocean

Currently reading London in the Nineteenth Century by Jerry White. Very well researched and not tediously academic.

Re Jonesy’s Message 12, I agree that books “where the author takes an invention/item/whatever and traces its development and impact on humans throughout time” tend to be interesting. There is a thousand-page long book on the trepang trade in the Pacific called the Eye of the sea cucumber (namako no manako) I referenced for my book on holothurian haiku and i wish i could translate it for you. One must become a hunter in space and time to put together such a book and that makes for interesting reading. I think we can be even more aggressive about why nonfiction can and should be more interesting than fiction but will save a discussion for another forum.

Re: FicusFan’s Message 38, and Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. I do not think the major premise of the book was false, for those with power while not identical are related, but I too was dissappointed in it for being wrong (and rude) about the Japanese language and because I thought he added little to Umehara Takeshi’s theories of the rise of civilization that he never cited.

Re: Janey47’s Message 56, I must beg to differ on Said. I feel he was over-rated and that a totally unsong book published within a year of Orientalism called The Myth of Asia (by Steadman) showed a far better understanding of how the Occident/s have treated the Orients (there is not one Orient, but many, contradictory ones) and how stereotypes are created. If you cannot find that book, please get my book, Orientalism & Occidentalism – Is the Mistranslation of Culture Inevitable? -- and let me know how it rubs you.

Re: Dystopos’ Message 57, “very readable and imminently interesting nonfiction authors” dare I add Gonzales-Crucci, Annie Dillard’s A Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Primo Levi (his not so well known short essays), Chadwick Hansen’s Witchcraft in Salem . ..

> 84

Adding the touchstone for Born on a blue day so this thread doesn't only get counted but also linked to from Daniel Tammet's author page.

I am currently reading Battle for God by Karen Armstrong. I got interested in reading it after reading What Went Wrong by Bernard Lewis and the Bruce Feiler book Abraham: A Journey to the Heart of Three Faiths. Battle for God has so much in it that I am taking notes. I feel as though I am taking a class. However, the ideas are presented clearly and she explains so many things clearly and concisely. The short histories of many conservative movements in the three big monotheistic faiths is very well done.

I read Path Between the Seas many years ago and really liked it. There is a new book about the building of the Panama Canal that has just come out but it is going to have to be really good to top McCullough's book.

As Churchill said, " This is the type of English up with which I will not put."

PhoenixTerran - A couple of suggestions for Arab-Israel conflict.
Six Days of War and Suez. I found both to be interesting.
Operation Cyanide. It's about the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty. I'm still a bit skeptical about some of the things stated in the book, but interesting.

92>Thanks for the recommendation, LamSon.

I am now reading King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild. A very gripping read about the creation of the colony: Belgian Congo in Africa.

I am about halfway through. I saw the book listed here on LT. I thought I would give it a try since I have a book coming that is about events in that part of the world, and I had never read any history of the exploitation there.

Truly horrific behavior, with some haunting echoes that are still felt today. They talk about hacking off arms and hands in the conflict to show how many they killed (African troops who were working for the colony to destroy resistance). The same result of violence (maiming) is going on today in Sierra Leon, over diamonds.

The Europeans couched the colonization in terms of bringing civilization, christianity and protecting the weaker tribes against the evil baddies.

It makes me think of the black and white B movies I watched as a kid. They were set in Africa, with a White Hero with just this ethos: protecting the weak. When all along it was the destruction of the strong so they could make slaves of everyone, that was the real goal. The whole thing was fictionalized, glitzed up by Hollywood, and perpetuated into the modern day.