Readings: “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe” / “Le village de l’allemand”

I am currently reading two books dealing with related subjects – the progressing takeover of Europe by Muslim immigrants and their radicalization, both here, and in their countries of origin. The first one is here:

Christopher Caldwell, “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. Immigration, Islam, and the West”..

There are at the moment no translations available into French or German – and I have to ask myself: why is that ?

The second one is here – it was mentioned in the first book and I have decided to give it a try – also with the not so political aim of improving my French:

Boualem Sansal, “Le village de l’allemand, ou le Journal des Frères Schiller”..

There is an English translation, “The German Mujahid”, and a German one, “Das Dorf des Deutschen”.

 

Readings: “Tokyo Year Zero”

David Peace: “Tokyo Year Zero”. There are translations available in French and in German.I have discovered David Peace maybe last year, in 2008, by reading a newspaper article on this book – Tokyo Year Zero -, but started reading first his tetralogy “Red Riding” – Nineteen Seventy Four, Nineteen Seventy Seven, Nineteen Eighty, and Nineteen Eighty Three – one of the most haunting and forceful crime story(ies) I have ever read.   This book is also recommended. Maybe you should start here, and then go back to those other books – you will discover a very unconventional author.

© Barão de Grão-Mogól, “Potawatomia”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “The Potawatomian” and “Potawatomia” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Going live…

Please read here to know what this could be about.

 

Readings: “The Discovery of France”

Graham Robb: “The Discovery of France” I couldn´t locate a translation in French, German, or Portuguese. An incredible book, a mixture of historical facts with travel accounts from former centuries, an eye-opener about many unknown facts about French history and society.

© The Potawatominan, “Potawatomia”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “The Potawatomian” and “Potawatomia” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Readings: “Nacht”

Edgar Hilsenrath: “Nacht” (in German; for an English translation, try also here) If there is a book that describes the horrors of the Shoah and the loss of humanity it carried along for the ones that went through it, then THIS is the book. There is not much else to say: reading it may make you speechless, breathless.

An English translation was published, for the last time to my knowledge, in 1974 by Manor Books, and should be obtainable through used-book websites like Abebooks, till a new edition appears – which in my opinion is a must. I couldn´t locate any French or Portuguese translation, unfortunately.

© The Potawatomian, “Potawatomia”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “The Potawatomian” and “Potawatomia” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Readings: “The Clash of Civilizations”

There are German, French and Portuguese editions of this work.

I have decided now to read Samuel P. Huntington´s famous book . So much has been written about that book, that I just had to read it. I plan to share my thoughts about it once I´m done.

 

Readings: “American Colonies”

History is one of the subjects that interests me most. World history is long, and there are dozens of countries whose individual history I feel attracted to. And since life is short, and the available time that I have for such studies is limited (as there are other subjects that need my attention), I had to take some decisions. In the next months, I will concentrate my readings on the history of the United States of America, on the history of France, where I live, and on the history of Brazil.

Starting with US history, I found the chronological way to be the best suited for my endeavor: from the colonial era to our days. It is not that I had never read something about the history of that grand nation, a nation that I deeply admire: I had, but not much, and never systematically, except for several books dealing with the Vietnam War.

At present, I am reading:

“American Colonies” de Alan Taylor.

Having already advanced through the introduction and the first chapter, which is dedicated to the Indians (or native americans, in a politically correct usage), my first impression is that the author positions himself a little further to the right than the revisionist school represented, among others, by Howard Zinn in his work A People’s History of the United States (1). Not searching for works that follow this perspective, as I consider her as simplistic as the more traditional approach, I have started feeling a like uncomfortable while reading these first pages. But as my interest is large, and as I see myself as someone with a reasonable level of tolerance, including with a good and healthy one towards certain typical, leftist exaggerations, I will continue reading the book with an open mind – look for an update.

(1) There is a French and a German edition

© The Potawatomian, “Potawatomia”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “The Potawatomian” and “Potawatomia” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Potawatomia

Potawatomia is a fantasy word.

I came up upon this word – I made it up – while “meditating” upon a book I am currently reading. It does involve the early history around the Potomac river. It also involves a history I had started to write a long, long time ago – what I called at that time “political fiction”, and which impressed some of my schoolmates so much that one of them constantly asked me about it. No, Toninho P., this is not the political fiction work I told you I would write, back in 1975 (and which I really was, about a made-up European country called Lorania).

Only after a while I remembered where I had first heard a related word – the American Indian people of the Algonquian language family, the Potawatomi. I must have read it decades ago – read and stored up authomatically very deep inside my brain. Stored, but not lost. The word was brought up to surface without a doubt by reading the book “American Colonies” which deals, as the title says, with the early history of the North American continent up to approximately 1769 (and partially also, but superficially, with the Caribbean islands then under English or British sovereignty).

This blog will not be about fantasy, however. What it is, or what it will become, time will tell.

It is certainly not about them – the Potawatomi, although I think that at least one longer posting about them should be written. It will probably more a blog about “world affairs” – subjects that interest me and that do not fit very well in one of my other blogs.  Again – we will see.