In this lively and instructive memoir of his experience with the anti-Nazi underground in Italy and Yugoslavia during World War II, Basil Davidson has thrown needed light on a much-neglected part of European history. Sent to the area as a representative of the British Special Operations Executive (SOE), he is able to recount at first hand the intense determination of the revolutionary partisans, who hoped that their sacrifices would lead to a new society, and the equally determined policy of the Allies to suppress them. As the London Review of Books stated, “The true purpose of this marvelously original book is to remind us that [for the underground] the Second World War was above all a political, even a revolutionary, experience, in which liberation was not simply a matter of driving out the Germans but also involved a radical restructuring of whole societies… which had permitted the growth of appeasement, defeatism, and indigenous fascism. | more…
“… arresting from the moment its pulsating lines begin to unfold. Fawaz Turki paints a powerful, moving picture of the tormented, alienated Palestinian living in exile… brilliant and remarkable in articulating the human dimension of the Palestinian grievance. He manages, like no other writer before him, to weave the Palestinian consciousness with skill… masterful contribution and abundant, overpowering humanity…” — Journal of Palestine Studies | more…
Chu Teh, one of the legendary figures of the Chinese Revolution, was born in 1886. He was commander in chief of the People’s Revolutionary Army, and this is the story of the first sixty years of his life. As a supreme commanding general, he was probably unique; surely there has never been another commander in chief who, during his years of service, spun, wove, set type, grew and cooked his own food, wrote poetry and lectured not only to his troops on military strategy and tactics but to women’s classes on how to preserve vegetables. Evans Carlson wrote that “Chu Teh has the kindness of a Robert E. Lee, the tenacity of a Grant, and the humility of a Lincoln.” | more…
