As fresh in 1991 as when it first published a half-century ago; Boston's Immigrants illuminates the history of a particular city and an important phase of the American experience. Focusing on the life of people from the perspective of the social historian; the book explores a wide range of subjects: peasants society and the cause of European migration; population growth and industrial development; the ideology of progress and Catholic thought; and urban politics and the dynamic of prejudice. A generation of students and scholars has profited from its insights; and general readers have enjoyed its lively style. A new preface by the author reflects upon the book's intellectual origins.
#467371 in Books 2011-11-30 2011-10-17Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.30 x 1.70 x 6.30l; 1.26 #File Name: 0674062078512 pages
Review
20 of 20 people found the following review helpful. Byzantine in Every WayBy Retired ReaderEdward Luttwak has devoted much of his career to the analysis of the concepts of strategy especially what is called `grand strategy'. In this book he has attempted to distill the basics of the grand strategy used by the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire to out last the Western Roman Empire by almost 1000 years. Since grand strategy is a modern concept; Luttwak had to analyze the history of the Byzantine Empire and infer the strategic designs that it followed from relevant historical evidence; including events; fragmentary comments; and official writings. All in all; he has done a pretty good job of it.Constantinople (Istanbul) was at the center of Byzantine strategy since for much of its history it was the most prosperous and populous city in Western Christendom. Its unique location made it highly defendable and indeed until it was successfully captured in the Fourth Crusade (1204) it was the anchor of the Empire. The Byzantines used the magnificence and wealth of the city as well as the carefully staged extreme opulence and ritual of the imperial court to overawe enemies and allies alike. Operating from this nearly impregnable bastion; successive Emperors and their bureaucracies were able to employ a complex mixture of intelligence information; bribery; diplomatic maneuvering including duplicity; and military force to thwart all imperial enemies even in the face of much stronger military forces. Perhaps their greatest enemy was the high cost of their strategy for in spite of a very effective system of taxes Byzantium was very near to bankruptcy several times in its history.Since the very survival of the Empire was at stake; the Byzantines studied and analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of their potential enemies in a very modern and effective manner. Their military forces evolved over the years; but until the last 200 years before the destruction of the empire; always included a strong navy and an army consisting of a core of well trained native troops supplemented by large contingents of mercenaries. After the Emperor Justinian (ce 6th Century) the empire was largely on the defensive. As Luttwak explains in considerable detail the Byzantines developed a strategy that enabled them to defend and maintain the empire against a variety enemies bent on its destruction. This is an interesting and well researched book3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Entertaining; Readable; but read with careBy Calvin LiuMuch of the kudos and complaints from previous reviews; I agree with.I just wanted to add that the writer clearly was coming from a US military mindset; and his writing contained a number of obvious examples of this. For example: what place does a leader of the Russian Orthodox church being in the KGB have in a book about Byzantine military strategy? Especially as this book was written well after the fall of the Soviet Union? For that matter; where is the equal mention of the Catholic Church and its making so many CIA members Knights of Malta? Malta is at least the same geographical area as the Byzantines once held sway over.I'd also like to add some clarity on the previous comments on the relative scholarship and intended audience of this book. When dealing with ancient documents (and thus ancient languages); the outcome of translations is subject to large degrees of interpretation. As such it is normally common practice to refer to the original text so that either common ground or sources of disparity can be easily seen. In nearly every case in this book; the translations are assumed to be unitary and consistent when even in the book there are notes that this is not a safe presumption.I also agree that this book is a thinly veiled means to criticize extant US national security policy.I do note a number of positives: there is a much more nuanced overview of Islam as well as early Christian history (Monophysites/Council of Chalcedon) than is commonly seen; though the former is diluted by what appears to be a blurring at times between modern and proto-Islam.The book also does a fair job of distinguishing the actual makeup of historical "Huns" and what not vs. what the likely actual composition was.A last note is that there is the merest beginnings of a look at the economic underpinning behind military strategy - unfortunately this is largely ignored outside of where a couple of points are intended to be made (i.e. heavy taxation + religious oppression = Egypt and Syria going Muslim rapidly). What numbers are presented are not very useful due to a complete lack of context - what use is knowing how much tax in gold was owed if there is no idea on the average income in gold?All in all; the book was clearly written for armchair military strategists and intelligence operatives with a side bar of US military fans; despite its many criticisms of ancient works by armchair military strategists.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Byzantine History from a Miloitary PerspectiveBy Jack M. Lloyd; Jr.A much-delayed follow-on to this author's "Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire"; this material is much more difficult; not only because of the relative paucity of records; but also because the underlying subject is much more subtle than for the Roman Empire. The author is a world-noted expert in the subject of strategy; and brings his expertise fully to bear on this singularly obscure subject. Since very few academic historians have any background in strategy; it deserves a much wider audience than it is likely to receive. This clarifies much of the "Why" and "How" of Byzantine history which is either misunderstood or misrepresented in most Byzantine histories. Highly recommended; even though the author's text is sometimes very dense.
