Posted on 03/28/2008 6:52:40 AM PDT by MplsSteve
The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz
Not bad but a little on the dry side.
Currently reading “The Rockefellers” by Collier and Horowitz, and “Liberal Fascism” by Jonah Goldberg. John Adams awaits me.
Currently reading “The Rockefellers” by Collier and Horowitz, and “Liberal Fascism” by Jonah Goldberg. John Adams awaits me.
The books in the front have been placed there because the publisher pays for it. Barnes & Noble does the same thing, and they are the ones seeking to buy Borders.
Puts a better perspective on the numerous sightings we read and hear about today.
That's the movie's take - but he was a spy for almost 15 years before the FBI even realized that they had a mole.
Also he was not a Christian so much as a fanatical "traditional" Catholic, going to a church where the congregation remains kneeling for the entire service, for instance.
Alas, I am one of those "fanatical traditional Catholics" who kneels for most of the Mass. Yet, oddly, I still consider myself a Christian.
In Breach Hanssen is portrayed as a frequenter of the old Latin Mass, but in real life he was affiliated with Opus Dei, a group that prefers the vernacular Mass and only celebrates the new (not the old) Latin Mass when the congregation is a very multilingual one.
They are probably better Christians than I, since they spend more time at Mass sitting down and standing up than I do.
That is interesting what you say about the real Robert Hanssen. I never bothered to find out, and that is why I said "If the movie is accurate."
It was probably too complex to try to portray Opus Dei. Easier to go for the dramatic in a movie.
Thanks for your input.
Did you just start the series, or are you current? I loved the heck out of the Anita Blake series, but the author seriously went over the deep end after Obsidian Butterfly. The following books just kept getting...ickier- I eventually gave up. If you’re in it for the supernatural mystery, I can highly recommend Jim Butcher’s Dresden mysteries. There are lot’s of good suggestions here, too:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/R31Y16SI3ZLFCQ/ref=cm_srch_tsr_rpsy_alt
The neglect of the Opus Dei angle was an odd choice, since in many ways Opus Dei is the Catholic equivalent of the US intelligence community.
They keep to themselves. They operate in a very low-key, undramatic fashion. They have internal discipline and rules which are stricter than those the larger community lives by. Their goal is to further their ideals through subtle interpersonal contact. They are both demonized by liberal outsiders as sinister and suspect.
BTW, I would have perceived the tone of the movie as anti-Catholic if it hadn't been so accurate.
Hanssen really was like that: preachy in public, perverse in private.
Another angle that was missed: his wife knew of his secret life in espionage, but knew nothing of his secret sexual life while his lifelong best friend knew all about his secret sexual life but absolutely nothing of his espionage.
He went home to his wife every night. He spoke on the phone or went to lunch with his best friend Jack Hoschouer every day, depending on where they were.
Hoschouer is almost entirely absent from the movie.
He betrayed his wife with the help of Hoschouer - Hoschouer had dinner at the Hanssens' house on the same day that he had watched tapes of the Hanssens in bed, tapes filmed by closed circuit camera systems that Hoschouer had helped install.
Meanwhile, completely without Hoschouer's knowledge, Hanssen urged the KGB to try to recruit Hoschouer as a mole within the US military (Hoschouer was a Army Lt. Col. in West Germany).
Some observers believe that he was developing Hoschouer to be the fall guy if the mole hunt traced back to Hanssen: that Hanssen would set it up so that it appeared that Hoschouer had borrowed work product that Hanssen took home or passed on indiscreet things Hanssen had said when they were out for a drink. Hoschouer was never approached by the KGB.
Hanssen not only betrayed his country, the FBI and his Church (by helping the KGB maintain control over Poland and the Eastern bloc), but he also betrayed his wife and he was preparing to sell his best friend if need be.
Wow,I just finished The Slave Ship,A Human History myself and found it very objective except during the last chapter when the author made the reparations pitch.
One of the most touching stories he reveals are the tales of Jamaican blacks who took in and fed the diseased and disabled white sailors who were no longer able to work and were rotting along the docks.
Like what Felix Bloch does for a living nowadays.
by
John Poindexter and the
Joint FBI/NSA Wolverine Taskforce
For some subjects even half that is too long, and you could say that all the books only scratch the surface of the topic they cover, but I need something to read on the treadmill, and these books are as good as any. Getting me through an hour of exercise is the main thing. If I learn anything it's a bonus.
Many of the books reflect the liberal or radical views one would expect from British or Australian academics (Germaine Greer, A.C. Grayling, Peter Singer), but the series also includes conservatives Kenneth Minogue on politics and Roger Scruton on Spinoza and on Kant. The Routledge Great Philosophers series is the same sort of thing with a much smaller scope.
Apart from that, if you're interested in something interesting about American history, America's Three Regimes: A New Political History by Morton Keller may do. Keller examines three long periods of our history: the deferential-republican regime, which lasted from colonial times to the 1830s, the party-democratic regime which went from the 1830s to the 1930s, and the current populist-bureaucratic regime which began with FDR. His theory of the three regimes answers a lot of questions and questions a lot of the assumptions that people bring to American history.
For European history, Michael Burleigh's two volumes on religion and politics are of interest: Earthly Powers: The Clash of Religion and Politics in Europe, from the French Revolution to the Great War and Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror. Burleigh takes a conservative British Catholic view of history (but there have been complaints about how he treats the Irish in his writing).
Geert Mak's In Europe was also interesting. Mak traveled across Europe looking for witnesses to twentieth century history and finds people still alive who remember the beginning of the First World War, the Russian Revolution, the rise of Hitler, and other events. Mak's view is the standard Eurosocialist interpretation, but his book's value is in the personal side of things, and the memories and details he recovers from the past.
“I am still reading the Annals of the world.”
How do you like it?
It is one of the most factual books I ever have read. It is written in a fast paced style. It is most interesting and puts down a lot of what I learned about history.
One of my all time favorites. I gave it to my dad to read. Mom later told me that he would read a while, slam it down, stomp off, come back, pick it up and start again. Once he flung the book across the room. LOL
And I'm about to re-read John Wooden's They Call Me Coach.
I got my copy in the mail a couple of days ago. I'm reading War Crimes (by LTC "Buzz" Patterson) first. Hope to have both read by end of next week if nothing happens around here.
Orchid Beach, by Stuart Woods
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