Pennyworth Books

Recommended by a friend in my graduate program in Portland, Ryszard Kapuscinski’s Imperium stands apart as an amazing piece of journalistic history of the former Soviet Union. For those interested in the realities of the different republics of the Soviet Union from the late 1930s to the early 1990s, this is one of the best books I have had the pleasure of reading.

Imperium starts out with Kapuscinski’s childhood memories of traveling through the various republics, then his revisiting them in the 1960s and 1970s, and ends with him in the final days of the USSR while the major transitions in policy and people were taking place.

The book covers the height and decline of the Soviet Union, with keen observations and a feeling of haunting cold from years of executions, persecution, and bread lines. There is so much tragic history, yet so little evidence of it now remains, due to the burning…

The 1920s in America was a decade of rebellion, reform, and reaction as traditional Victorian values came under attack from all sides. When various groups of intellectuals, blacks, feminists, and dissatisfied economic and political groups assaulted on Victorianism.

Through a descriptive writing style, Stanley Coben goes through the reasons for the tremendous cultural changes during the 1920s and explains them historically. He begins with the concept of Victorian “character,” which is a familiar concept for Americans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A character that, as Coben himself defines, was dependably self-controlled, punctual, orderly, hardworking, conscientious, sober, respectful of other Victorians’ property rights, ready to postpone immediate gratifications for long-term goals, pious toward a usually friendly God, a believer in the truth of the Bible, oriented strongly toward home and family, honorable in relations with other Victorians, anxious for self-improvement in a fashion which might appear compulsive to modern…

A very close connection exists between history and chronology, since chronology explains the events that have taken place as the result of what happened earlier. We may know many well-documented accounts of history; however, if these accounts were not given to us in a chronological order, but in a scattered way, we would surely miss the reasons behind those events.

A failure to correlate the history of the United States with its chronology by us Americans or by the other nations has resulted in the misunderstanding of the principles that we hold dear as a nation. Our ability to defend the truth of the United States depends upon our knowledge of its existence.

Many attempts have been made at noting down the chronology of events here and there, especially in the yearly almanacs a few companies publish; however, they have come short of giving their readers a full historical perspective. Most of…

This book mainly covers three presidents of the United States in the 20th Century; starting with Roosevelt and ending with Wilson. What has happened during the first two decades of the century is narrated and presidents?policies and international conflicts are discussed. There are some elements which are common among US presidents that we will go through it later.

Theodore Roosevelt was the most important and most acceptable president of the century. Roosevelt was from an aristocratic family and loved killing especially Indians. His justification was to remove inferior race and people, and he extremely believed that use of force by civilized people will improve human character; the idea that seems emerging again in US policies by George Bush. He meant war with less industrialized nations mainly to maintain order in different region even if they were far from the US. He was growing in the age of post- 1875 depression. He…

This is simply one of the best books I have ever read. It will stay a treasured part of my home library. After I put this book down and reflected on it a bit, I headed to my computer to find out all I could about the Congo. I wanted, no desired, to learn all I could about the land and people. I wanted to help those who lived under such harsh conditions every day, and knew no easier way of life. It gave me a new admiration for the ministries who choose to do their work over there, as well as for all the others who volunteer to live in this harsh environment, helping those who reside there.

The novel takes place in the late fifties, and spans for a duration of over thirty years. A hard, harsh, unbending missionary brings his wife and four daughters to a remote village,…

Are you looking for a very good book, one which will help you learn about the history of Japan? If so, there is a very good book I would like to recommend to you, one which is in my personal library, and one that I believe will give you with the overview you need to understand modern Japan. If you don’t understand the history – you probably won’t understand the culture, people, or even how Japan came to be what it is today – the name of the book is;

“A History of Japan – From Stone Age to Superpower” by Kenneth G. Henshall, professor of Japanese studies at the University of Waikato, New Zealand; Published by St. Martin’s Press, New York, New York, 1999. ISBN: 0-312-21986-5.

This is a complete history book of Japan from ancient times, including all of their ancient myths to the present, or the year 2000. It takes…

“The Devil’s Queen: A Novel of Catherine de Medici” is the first book I have read by Jeanne Kalogridis. As a rule, I do not normally read historical fiction. My usual fare is science fiction, fantasy, paranormal, urban fantasy, thrillers and psychological suspense. I do read “The Count Saint-Germain” series by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Her books contain an abundance of historical detail that brings ancient eras to life. Of course, the hero is a four thousand year-old vampire. The heroine in “The Devil’s Queen” is a real person. But her story is so fascinating it had me totally engrossed.

Catherine was a pampered child who entered an arranged marriage with Henry, the heir to the French throne. They were both fourteen years old at the time. Although Catherine loved and supported her husband, who became King Henry II, he took a mistress, the beautiful Diane de Poitiers. Catherine turned to sorcery…