A search for shipwrecked ancestors; forgotten histories; and a sense of home Fascinating and intimate ; The Girl from Foreign is one woman's search for ancient family secrets that leads to an adventure in far-off lands. Sadia Shepard; the daughter of a white Protestant from Colorado and a Muslim from Pakistan; was shocked to discover that her grandmother was a descendant of the Bene Israel; a tiny Jewish community shipwrecked in India two thousand years ago. After traveling to India to put the pieces of her family's past together; her quest for identity unlocks a myriad of profound religious and cultural revelations that Shepard gracefully weaves into this touching; eye-opening memoir.
#527646 in Books Penguin Books 2008-08-26 2008-08-26Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.30 x 1.10 x 5.60l; .95 #File Name: 0143114093592 pages
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Refreshing Eastern Theater-focused View of WWIIBy RobertNorman Davies has correctly proven that the Eastern Theater was the most decisivetheater of operations in WWII. His analysis of WWII from an eastern focus has presenteda new way of thinking about and understanding the most destructive war in human history. He also places thepopular works of Stephen Ambrose in a more proper and more accurate perspective. However; this bookwould have greatly benefited from a more thorough analysis of Operation Barbarossa; which is strangelylacking in the necessary detail and attention that is truly deserves.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Outstanding!By Madoc PopeDavies does an excellent job of demolishing the myth about WWII that too many in the West hold about where the war's center actually was. Yet he does this without any Soviet hero worship; thankfully.He also goes into excellent detail about all the other things going on over there in the other countries in Europe and its environs. It really wasn't just the US; the UK; the French; and the Soviets against just the Germans and the Italians. And nor was the fighting over there just between the various Allied powers against the various Axis powers. It's no surprise then when people could think the whole world was coming unglued when they realized all the different and various fighting going on over in Europe.Davies also goes into excellent detail on the civilian costs. The "ethnic cleansing" that regularly took place and did so long before the term was invented in Serbia.This is a great book to detail the stuff that they just don't bother with in school. It also well sets straight the overwhelmingly massive scale of the fighting on the Eastern Front when compared to anything else that took place on any other front in the world during WWII.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. No simple history...By HMS Warspite"No Simple Victory" is British historian Norman Davies' pungently written reset of the commonly understood context of the European theater of World War II. Davies; an expert on the Eastern front; drills home the point that the bulk of the fighting; whether measured by numbers or casualties; took place in the titanic struggle between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Davies further insists on recognizing the reality that the Soviets were essentially undifferentiated from the Nazis in their level of barbarity.Davies takes a broadbrush approach to the conflict; dealing with warfare; politics; soldiers; civilians and the portrayal of the war itself; and finishing with a superbly written "Incomclusions." The topical approacha and emphasis on the Nazi-Soviet conflict will be offputting to some readers invested in a chronological and/or Anglo-America-centric narrative. Perhaps inevitably; a few details get roughly treated along the way. However; Davies thoroughly documents his principal theme; with style.The general reader may lack the background to appreciate Davies' theme; but knowing students of the conflict shoud find "No Simple Victory" to be an entertaining; even enlightening read. To those discerning students; this book is highly recommended.
