David Boyle (1)Critiques

A delightful little book that should be rated at six stars out of five if content were the only criteria. It is a complete history of impressionism, beginning with it's immediate predecessors after the French Revolution and continuing into the post-Impressionists in the 1920's. Comprehensive, it draws all the cultural history into focus and relates it to political and economic conditions. It even takes side jaunts into literature, music and the world of the art dealer and auction house. But ...
This was one of the hardest books to read, physically, that I've ever made it through. It's only 7 x 5 inches, and 146 pages and is crammed with information and beautiful artworks. It's also filled with 4 point type - I've seen larger texts at the bottom of loan contracts. Some pages are set in one column, some in two, with no apparent reason. Some side info boxes are printed in Italic, which with the colored background really strained my bifocals.
This book needs to be bigger, physically.
Nevertheless, it is well worth the struggle: if you want to know the complete history of Impressionism as an art movement, this is required reading.½

The story of African Americans differs from that of other nationalities,
since it is one of both forced expatriation and enslavement, and of the
continuing struggle for equality. In Coming to America: African Americans,
David Boyle explores their harrowing history, from the arrival of the first
20 captive Black Africans in 1619, through the abolition of the slave trade
and the Civil War, to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and increasing
pride in African-American heritage. In this book, you'll also find the
story of African-American culture: spirituals, blues, jazz, and rap; the Harlem
Renaissance of the 1920s and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s; and
of African-American greats such as Martin Luther King, Louis Armstrong,
Sidney Poitier, Mohammad Ali, and Jesse Owens.

This short book covers all three of the summit meetings that British PM Neville Chamberlain held with Adolf Hitler in September 1938 in a largely sincere, but naive and of course ultimately disastrously unsuccessful attempt to stave off the threat of war. It is a deeply unedifying account of missed opportunities to stand up to Hitler, naivety and even crass unpreparedness, e.g. Britain and France not jointly deciding tactics beforehand, Chamberlain at one of the summits not having an interpreter with him and having to rely on Hitler's interpreter Paul Schmidt. No doubt from the point of view of many Britons, Czechoslovakia was a faraway country of which they knew nothing; but the treatment meted out to that country by Britain and France (the latter of whom had a defence treaty with them that was ignored) was truly shameful. Even worse than the handing over of the Sudetenland with its German speaking majority was the fact that these border areas contained the great majority of Czech border fortifications, heavy industry and armaments factories; as a result the rest of the country was ripe for the plucking when Hitler invaded and occupied the whole country the following March. A wider tragic missed opportunity was the fact that senior German army officers were prepared to overthrow the regime, if only Britain and France had shown more resolve. The author has a family connection with these events. His great-aunt, journalist Shiela Grant Duff, was a strong supporter of the Czechs and her book Europe and the Czechs was published just as the crisis was resolved in Hitler's favour; despite this it was read widely and played a major role in shifting public opinion away from appeasement. A very useful short and succinct account.

Turing has become a symbol for the modern world, as a prophet of information technology and scientific rationality, a martyr for gay rights, and also a genius cramped by convention and intolerance.

David Boyle's mini biography on Alan Turing shows just the surface of the man known for helping break the Nazi's enigma machine. Turing was ahead of his time in mathematics and had an eye for the future, but was ostracized for his quirks and sentenced to chemical castration for being openly homosexual.

But how much do we really know about Turing? Boyle provides a brief glimpse into his life and untimely death while referencing other biographies written on Turing.

Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma: A Review

This short book looks at the famous Christmas truce of 1914, when soldiers of both sides in the First World War trenches temporarily stopped fighting and greeted each other with gifts and handshakes, and even played football. It's probably the single most well known incident from the early part of the First World War, and has been much celebrated and mythologised in the century since. Boyle's book looks out the facts from contemporary accounts and emphasises the important point that how it was seen at the time is crucial, not just how it has been interpreted in later years. In sum, the truce (including the football) happened in many places up and down the line, but was not universal. There were similar incidents leading up to Christmas and in some places going through until the new year. But there was still fighting and death in places throughout this period - the first air raid in British history, a German bomb dropped on Dover, took place on Christmas Eve, and on the same day nearly 100 British soldiers were killed, many by sniper fire. Even on Christmas day itself, German gunners shelled the headquarters of the Belgian army in Furnes, British seaplanes attacked Cuxhaven, the German supply port for U-boats, and a Norwegian steamer was mined and sunk in the North Sea. There was also some opposition to the truce on both sides where it did happen, and not just from the high command. Some saw fraternisation as disloyalty to their fallen comrades, as destructive of the fighting spirit needed to win victory, or as a potential cover for intelligence-gathering operations. At the same time, local officers often supported the truce as a valuable breathing space to bury the dead and take stock of the situation at a time of stalemate when it was becoming increasingly clear, at least on the ground, that the tactics of 1914 were not working. But it must be said there is no evidence of the truce being motivated by a political or pacifist upswelling, as has sometimes been implied since. The author concludes that: "The Christmas truce was not political. It wasn’t a demonstration or a planned event. But it derived from a fear about what the war had become, and about the competence of the men who led it, and – as such, and paradoxically – it provided a source of inspiration for those who took part". A good and useful short book.

This is an excellent bpok if you have a child that is interested in science or engineering. The illustrations are beautiful. It's probably middle school up reading level.

science, mathematics, computing, biography

The only thing that I knew about Alan Turing before this book was a few things about his role in cracking the Enigma Code in WW2. This limited biography explores his role in advancing the computer sciences and development of A I. There is also detailing of his being persecuted by his own government because of his homosexuality.
Barnaby Edwards is very good as narrator.

COMPELLING PHOTOS: Presents nine hundred black-and-white photographs that record events in every major theater of World War II, from 1939 through 1945, and includes explanatory captions and commentary.

With historical accuracy, Dunkirk: A Miracle of Deliverance describes the evacuation of the British forces from the beaches of Dunkirk. I have always enjoyed reading about historical events, especially when they are brought back into the spotlight by pop culture; I like knowing the facts from the fiction. This was a concise overview of the events leading up to the evacuation and the evacuation itself. I learned about Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsey along with the difficult decisions and unique calls that he had to make. I was very interested in the planning and decisions made on Ramsey's end and Hitler's end and the eventual outcome, since this book provided a general overview, I'm sure there is much more to learn and discover when delving into those specifics. I was also amazed at how many people were willing to use their boats to deliver the soldiers from Dunkirk and I would definitely like to delve more into their stories. Overall, I was amazed simply by the facts of how many people were able to escape. I would have loved to have seen pictures, maps and any other historical artifacts included in the book; however, this was a wonderful primer of the overall event.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

William Rufus, son of the Conqueror, is killed in a hunting accident - but is it an accident? Hilary the Englishman has just lost his position as a tutor when his ward dies, he falls in with a traveller, John of Muchelney, who entrusts him with a task and is promptly murdered. Hilary engages his old teacher Peter Abelard to help him and their quest to find the true Saxon heir to the English throne takes them as far as Jerusalem, enemies on their tail.
There is much to like about this book. The setting is interesting and the plot could have been great but there is just too much trying to cram into a readable and entertaining novel. Why Peter Abelard? A man with an infamous history but as a learned scholar, not an 11th century man of action! Yet the scholarly debates about religion are really interesting, even though they are not intrinsic to the plot. The 'hunting accident' that killed William Rufus has long been thought to be an assassination, and the tension between Saxons and Normans went on for well over a century after the conquest. The significance of the Alfred Jewel is played up here and I like its use as a device. Stripped away there is a nice little historical fiction here but Boyle has layered on too many subplots and too many twists and turns.

Curious little book of lists...and no sources. One fun twist was the trivium attached to each page number at the bottom of the pages.

Book received from NetGalley.

Very short book on code breaking at Bletchley Park starting with its beginnings in World War I and the more famous code breakers of World War II. This is the first book I have read about codebreakers though I know a little about them from their service during the Second World War. I especially liked hearing about how it started, I had no idea there were people working on the same thing back in World War I. Some of the things about the subject during World War II may be a bit of a rehash on the subject for those who have already read books on it, I don't really think there is much new material on that era out there to find. It was a quick little book and I liked finding out more about the history of this subject.

This short book came out of the author's frustration shared with the cancellations of train services in Sussex in June 2016, the situation resembling a chaos where nobody seemed to know exactly what was going on and despite the evident widespread commuter frustrations, the crisis wasn't covered in the media except as a small industrial relations dispute. Boyle wrote a blog post that got an enormous number of responses, and started digging deeper, with the summary of what he learned in the process distilled into this readable and informative book.

Lost at Sea: The story of the USS Indianapolis by David Boyle is a very highly recommended concise account of what happened the the Indianapolis.

Many people were first introduced to the story of the USS Indianapolis by the movie Jaws when Quint talks about being on the Indianapolis: "So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29th 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb." In reality it was July 30, 1945, when the Indianapolis went down. It is true that the feeding frenzy on the survivors of the Indianapolis may have been the biggest shark attack of its kind in modern history.

"What makes the story of this American warship so compelling is that it was important in so many ways: it was the flagship of the fighting admiral Raymond Spruance, in 1943-44, during the crucial battles to control the central Pacific; it delivered the key components of the first atomic bomb dropped in anger, in this case on Hiroshima; it was the greatest single loss of life at sea in an American naval disaster at war; it goes down in history as the biggest attack by sharks on human beings ever recorded; and it also became a huge scandal as naval authorities tried to cover-up what had gone wrong, and why the crew had been inadvertently left to die."
Boyle does an excellent job presenting all the information in this precise, informative guide. It is easy to read and provides the basic information and background needed to understand what happened. Boyle chooses to follow two very different men to tell the history: Captain of the USS Indianapolis Charles McVay and the man who sank the ship, Mochitsura Hashimoto. There is a bibliography if you want to read more, but Boyle's account is a good place to start for those who want the basic information.

Survivor Harlan Twible is quoted as saying: "We returned to our loved ones, but we were never the same again. Most were markedly changed. Young boys had become mature older men, aged beyond their years. All because of those days in the sea." It is important to remember history and honor those who have fought and suffered for our country.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Endeavor Press for review purposes.

This is a biography of the English mathematician Alan Turing, who was instrumental in decoding the German Enigma coding machines during World War 2. He was also pre-eminent in the development of the electronic computer as part of this effort. This book relates the story of a tortured genius who was gay when it was illegal to be so. He was viewed with suspicion by the authorities because of his homosexuality and his disdain for following social norms at the height of the Cold War. He imagined a world where it would be difficult for people to determine whether they were talking to a person or a computer, which is the basis of the Turing Test.

This is a short biography in the Kindle Singles range covering the short life and genius that was Alan Turing. The word "genius" is often overused, but Turing is one of the few 20th century figures to whom I think it can genuinely be applied, not only or even mainly because of his brilliant contribution to the war effort in breaking Nazi codes, but because of his views in advance of his time about the nature of electronic machines and the future of artificial intelligence. His hounding by the authorities due to his sexuality and his early death, very likely suicide, are deeply tragic and his formal pardoning in recent years a long overdue recognition of both the injustice he suffered and his brilliant contribution to modern science.

Novelette about Alan Turing, a brilliant mathematician given credit for cracking the enigma code in WWII. (Novel is the basis for,the movie, "The Imitation Game." He is also known for conceptualizing the "Thinking Machine," or the first computer.½

How to start a letter like a boss: "Eleanor, by the wrath of God, Queen of England, Duchess of Normandy and Count of Anjou". This letter was written to the pope asking him to enforce his edict protecting returning crusaders from harassment after her son (Richard the Lionhearted) was imprisoned while returning from the crusades to England. (See page 194).

This books talks about the troubadour that allegedly helped find where King Richard the Lionhearted was hidden away in a castle after being captured returning from the crusades. The author acknowledges that this story was probably not true. It discusses the history of the Royal family, troubadours, the court of love and grace that affected Richard, and the crusades. A bit of discussion on how troubadours operated as public opinion makers with their creation and publication of songs, and possibly as spies. There is quite a bit of discussion about the ransom and politics over the arrest and ransom of Richard the Lionhearted.

A bit slow in the middle and feels like a history book most of the time rather than a re-telling of an exciting time in history. However, it filled in some of the gaps about Richard and his family that I had not read about since most of what I have read has focused more on the Crusader conflict rather than Richard. And it filled in the gaps about England raising the ransom and all the politics about that and getting it to the people with Richard in their power.

The first time I heard about the 1914 World War I Christmas Truce I was struck with wonder and disbelief. Could it really have happened? "Peace on Earth: The Christmas Truce of 1914" describes in some detail how it came about, the details of the various truces up and down the line, how it originated with the Germans, the exchange of souvenirs in the midst of No Man's Land and, of course the football games and singing.

It also views the truce from the different levels of command and why it was acceptable to some and not to others. From the point of view of officers on the ground it gave them an opportunity to bury their dead, clean up their trenches and take as much of a look as possible at the other sides’ trenches. Just a little spying!

For those in the higher levels of command they were horrified and wanted it stopped. As the English Infantry talked to Germans, who had been waiters in London or taxi drivers in Birmingham just months ago, it brought the war down to a level too close to home. You don’t shoot your neighbours. Two people opposed for similar reasons were Winston Churchill and Adolf Hitler, a German infantryman, familiarity does not always breed contempt.

The sources in many cases are letters written home to family and friends describing this unusual and unexpected Christmas of 1914.

A decent little book. Sort of a school level geography/history book about the European explorers from da Gama to Cook. As is the style these days the author attempts to see events from both the perspective of the Europeans and those that they met. But the marvel was their achievments as mariners, navigators and cartographers given the nature of knowledge and equipment of the time. Curiosity was and thankfully continues to be a core human trait.

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Alan Mathison Turing.

Mathematician, philosopher, codebreaker, a founder of computer science, and the father of Artificial Intelligence, Turing was one of the most original thinkers of the last century - and the man whose work helped create the computer-driven world we now inhabit.

But he was also an enigmatic figure, deeply reticent yet also strikingly naïve. Turing’s openness about his homosexuality at a time when it was an imprisonable offense ultimately led to his untimely death at the age of only forty-one.

In Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma, David Boyle reveals the mysteries behind the man and his remarkable career. Aged just 22, Turing was elected a fellow at King's College, Cambridge on the strength of a dissertation in which he proved the central limit theorem. By the age of 33, he had been awarded the OBE by King George VI for his wartime services: Turing was instrumental in cracking the Nazi Enigma machines at the top secret code breaking establishment at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.

But his achievements were to be tragically overshadowed by the paranoia of the post-War years. Hounded for his supposedly subversive views and for his sexuality, Turing was prosecuted in 1952, and forced to accept the humiliation of hormone treatment to avoid a prison sentence. Just two years later, at the age of 41 he was dead. The verdict: cyanide poisoning.

Was Turing’s death accidental as his mother always claimed? Or did persistent persecution drive him to take him own life?

Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma seeks to find the man behind the science, illuminating the life of a person who is still a shadowy presence behind his brilliant achievements.

My Review: As a stated goal, "seeks to find the man behind the science, illuminating the life of a person who is still a shadowy presence behind his brilliant achievements" is one that goes largely unmet. Well, almost entirely unmet. In approximately 65pp, there's no room for that.

So why say it? Because the author wanted to write ABOUT Turing, not OF Turing. What he accomplished in 41 years is amazing. A normal biography is going to stress the parts of his life that biographers can reach, the achievements and the facts behind his spectacular fall.

Writing about Turing is exploring, with whatever factual fig-leafs one can find and apply, his life and his feelings, to the extent one can ever do this with another person. So we get very little of anything new. There are no unplumbed sources newly revealed. There are no as-yet-uninterviewed colleagues or old loves still living. So the book is a competent rehash of the man's life and work, a good fast overview of a fascinating human being, and all done in time for the announced posthumous pardon granted to Turing.

The cold fact is that no one wanted to grant a posthumous pardon to him for the "crime" of being queer. It would open up so many old cases of people convicted under the same revolting law, over 50,000 of them, and think of the bureaucratic horrors of that. What made the Tory government change its mind? A Liberal Democrat peer introduced legislation to force the gummint to issue pardons and void the conviction of all the men now dead who were convicted. It was going to pass, and ye gawds what a kettle of fish that would be.

One Royal Pardon comin' up. Strictly limited to one person, worded carefully, and ever so pusillanimously vilely bureacratically sound. Nauseating.

Lord Quirk, of whom I have never heard before this good moment, said it best:

I end by noting something surely perverse, if constitutionally sound enough, about this bill...It would grant Alan a pardon, when surely all of us would far prefer to receive a pardon from him.

Well said, sir.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.½

In a clear prose, Boyle describes the indicators of the waning of postmodernism and advocates the 'new realism' that he sees as its successor. The mixture of strong research, firm opinions and a journalist's brio is accessible and engaging.

Really just an interesting oddity, a book that just details numbers of relevance...and sometimes trivial...in our everyday life. Fun and quick, but not very substantive.

In his acknowledgments, the author reveals that this is a book he has always wanted to write. That worked out well for me, because it's a book I've always wanted to read. My interest in Richard the Lion-heart goes back to my early twenties, when I visited a friend in Austria and spent a couple of hours in Dürnstein wandering its streets and climbing around the ruins of the castle where legend says Richard was imprisoned. I also read Ivanhoe around the same time, in which Walter Scott imagines Richard's return to England after the 3rd Crusade.

The author starts with the legend of Blondel's discovery of Richard in his prison in Dürnstein Castle as he sang beside its walls and heard Richard's echoing voice. Boyle presents evidence substantiating that Blondel was a historical person and not merely legendary, and he meshes legend and historical account into probable locations and a time line for Richard's flight through Europe, his capture, and his imprisonment. However, he doesn't present any convincing evidence that Richard and Blondel knew each other, let alone had any sort of friendship. All he offers is speculation about when and where they might have met. Blondel pretty much drops out of the story just over halfway through, when Richard is discovered in prison. The rest of the book describes the political negotiations for Richard's release, the raising of his ransom, Richard's return to England, and the last few years of his life. Blondel wasn't involved in any of that.

The narrative is chronological for the most part; the author only occasionally got ahead of himself in telling Richard's story. The list of characters at the front of the book is nice, but I still had trouble distinguishing among all of the different Henrys mentioned in the book. The maps, genealogical charts, and illustrations added to the text, and I didn't feel like anything was lacking in the helps provided. The author relies heavily on secondary sources, which is appropriate for a popular history for a general audience.

The main title of this book is a bit misleading as the role of Blondel is fairly marginal and I am not sure I am convinced by the author's theory that the story is essentially true. But as an account of the main events of the reign of Richard the Lionheart this is well written and in the process gives us a vivid picture of cities and travel by sea and land during this period.