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Book Review Service Book Reviews by John Tightrope
Book Review Service Book Reviews by John Tightrope
Book Review Service Book Reviews by John Tightrope
| John Manhold's Award Winning Books | ||||||||
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| Tightrope |
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| Written by John Manhold | |
| Wednesday, 08 July 2009 | |
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Tightrope, ISBN 978-0-470-17373-2 by Michael Karpin, Hardcover, 355 pages with 44 additional pages of notes, John Wiley & Sons, $35.00.
Michael Karpin has written a scholarly work that is quite unusual. It stems from a purported chance meeting with a member of a prominent Jewish family some twenty years previously. It is usual for a number of reasons.
First, it exhibits the result of hours of research of historical and geographical fact about regions of the world seldom employed as areas for a main theme.
Second, it provides evidence of hours of perusal of personal papers and documents, as well as hours involved in personal interviews.
Third, it presents a number of little known facts about the Holocaust.
The book is unusual in the realm of scholarly works in that:
First, it provides a plethora of historical and geographic material in a very readable fashion.
Second, it is replete with interesting vignettes from the lives of many members of the family ─ the devious methods employed by Naftali Bachenroth against the Gestapo to keep family members, and other Jews, from annihilation; the wartime decisions of Ullo Kahne and their results for other family members; the path taken by Leopold-Muhammad Weiss-Asad, who became a highly-placed Muslim; and many more.
Third, all of this material is set forth in a manner most resembling a far-ranging epic novel with many characters and unusual happenings.
So, in summary, Michael Karpin has produced a scholarly review of more than three centuries of history of one prominent Jewish family with the portrayal done in a most enjoyably readable fashion. If you are Jewish, you will love it. If not, but enjoy unusual historical tales, you still are going to find a most interesting read.
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