June 2014 archive

The Korean War by Max Hastings

This is the best book on the subject I have read so far. The author is British and therefore has no patriotic ax to grind about either the motives or the performance of the United States in this war. He acknowledges that Syngman Rhee was a brutal and corrupt dictator who committed numberless atrocities against …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/06/22/the-korean-war-by-max-hastings/

The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss

This book was so long and so frustrating that for a long time I have wanted to review it just so I could pan it. But I don’t feel that way now. This story has some unusual properties, like a mysterious magical potion made out of seemingly unimpressive ingredients. Kvothe is a character like no …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/06/12/the-wise-mans-fear-by-patrick-rothfuss/

Modern Italy by John Foot

The author takes a thematic rather than a chronological approach to Italian history; I was skeptical at first, but he makes it work. The chief problem he attacks is why Italy never developed as a nation-state the way other European nations did. Italians have supposedly always lacked any sense of nationalism, but the author points …

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Permanent link to this article: https://www.thefrumiousconsortium.net/2014/06/11/modern-italy-by-john-foot/