Night is one of the masterpieces of Holocaust literature. First published in 1960; it is the autobiographical account of an adolescent boy and his father in Auschwitz. Wiesel writes of their battle for survival; and of his battle with God for a way to understand the wanton cruelty he witnesses each day. In the short novel Dawn (1961); a young man who has survived the Second World War and settled in Palestine is apprenticed to a Jewish terrorist gang. Command to execute a British officer who has been taken hostage; the former victim becomes an executioner.In The Accident; (1962); Wiesel again turns to fiction to question the limits of the spirit and the self: Can Holocaust survivors forge a new life without the memories of the old? As the author writes in his introduction; "In Night it is the 'I' who speaks; in the other two [narratives]; it is the 'I' who listens and questions." Wiesel's trilogy offers meditations on mankind's attraction to violence and on temptation of self-destruction.A Hill Wang Teacher's Guide is available for this title.
#3788124 in Books Farrar; Straus and Giroux 2007-02-06 2007-02-06Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x 1.47 x 6.00l; #File Name: 0374102171448 pagesGreat product!
Review
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Glad My Kindle Has A DictionaryBy anonymousWhile I admit I am no genius; I feel I read enough to have some grasp of words. I had to keep pausing and looking up words in the dictionary so I could follow what was going on. A few examples: sedulously; fictive; limned; febrile; mendacious; apothegm; ratiocination; hagride; frisson; threnody; abasing; suppurating; semiotics; anodyne; empyrean; ineluctably; lachrymose; parlous; wastrel; serried. These are only the few I started to keep track of after about 1/2 of the book. Other than this being tedious to read I found it very interesting. Also learned quite a few interesting facts and backstory about each subject that I wasn't aware of.10 of 13 people found the following review helpful. Red Hot Anger Harms Strength of MessageBy T. McCormickI've just about finished a very uneven diatribe against American presidential power called "Commander-in-Chief;" by Geoffrey Perret; an historian who wrote a good bio of U. S. Grant about 10 years ago. The basic premise of the new book is that Truman; Johnson; and Bush Two extended presidential power in unconstitutional ways to pursue wrongheaded wars; and they had help from Nixon; Reagan; Clinton and Bush One. JFK; Ford; and Carter get somewhat of a pass; but not JFK's advisors; and certainly not his generals. Much of Perret's prose is so vitrolic and sarcastic that it takes away from the strength of the arguments he's trying to put forward. His footnoting of his research is also uneven; a claim that a Kuwaiti diplomat's daughter gave perjured testimony to the U.S. Congress about butchered babies in the Iraqi attack on Kuwait; and that this testimony helped persuade Congress to vote for war powers to attack Iraq in Gulf One; is unsupported by any footnotes. The hell of it is that he's basically on the money in his assessments. I'm too old and fixed in habit to stop reading and listening to historical and political pundits; but I would solemnly advise you not to bother to do so; and just simply vote against any politician (such as Rudi Giuliani) who suggests that going to war is going to solve our problems. As Perret points out; the U.S. must reassess the limits of its power; find alernative energy sources other than in the Mideast; and stop parading around as the toughest guy on the block. Otherwise; the chaos and anarchy created by our unwise actions will ultimately combine to make us defeat ourselves.1 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Essential reading.By Midwest Book ReviewCOMMANDER IN CHIEF: HOW TRUMAN; JOHNSON; AND BUSH TURNED A PRESIDENTIAL POWER INTO A THREAT TO AMERICA'S FUTURE is a powerful history linking expanding presidential powers to unwinnable wars. The three selected presidents profiled here each share the attribute of confronting wars that no American force could win. How they reacted would change the shape of politics; executive powers and freedoms in America; making COMMANDER IN CHIEF a top recommendation above the usual military library. Public libraries also will find the blend of military history and biography; with its focus on civil liberties; to be essential reading.
