It's a biography about Hitler's mistress - only she wasn't. Leni Riefenstahl was an astonishingly talented person, well-known across Germany and other parts of the world as a famous athlete, dancer, and actress when Hitler asked her to document the Olympics. She invented a form of documentary that has been emulated ever since. Blacklisted and harassed for decades because of this work, she lived and worked in the US until she was 91. (You can even see online a short film she made at 90! )
The book is written in a style that consciously pays homage to Riefenstahl’s signature attention to tone, color, and small details that bring her subjects to life. Stubbornness is a recurrent theme in the book. Even in that dark and difficult time, Riefenstahl knew who she was, and refused to allow anyone else to sideline or define her, not even Hitler.
Leni Riefenstahl will always be remembered for her brilliant film of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin - still rated as one of the best documentaries ever made. Before that she was acclaimed for her roles in silent feature films, when German cinema was in its artistic heyday in the 1920s. She pioneered the box office success of such classic mountaineering dramas as The White Hell of Piz Palu and then began to direct her own films. The Blue Light was admired by Hitler and led to her filming the Wagnerian Nuremberg Rally of 1934. After the war she was…
For the past year, I’ve been finishing up a three-year restoration of an historic villa with a non-English speaking crew, so slapstick humor fills my days. Though I write funny books, I often read serious stuff, like about wars, history, politics, and economics.
Former senior investigative reporter Whitney Webb of Mint Press News unflinchingly covers a web of depravity among government leaders, for whom Jeffrey Epstein was only the tip of an iceberg. Webb writes in a highly organized, precise, clinical way, building meticulously fact upon fact that makes it possible to read about such creepy stuff, and never veers into sensationalism or speculation. I think it’s important to know what we are up against, that these creatures are not at all like us. On the upside, we’re great! No matter how big our cars, what kind of food we eat, the fact that we forget others’ birthdays, and put off exercising, after reading this book, we know we are perfect human beings!
One Nation Under Blackmail is a damning indictment of the consequences resulting from the nearly century old relationship between both US and Israeli intelligence and the organized criminal network known as the National Crime Syndicate. This book specifically explores how that nexus between intelligence and organized crime directly developed the sexual blackmail tactics and networks that would later enable the sexual blackmail operation and other crimes of deceased pedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Other books on Jeffrey Epstein focus on the depraved nature of his crimes, his wealth, and his most famous/politically-connected friends and acquaintances. This book, in contrast,…
Robert Fisk was an English war correspondent from the 1970s in Beirut to the 1990s throughout the world’s conflict zones. A real frontline journalist, he interviewed Osama Bin Laden in remote, dangerous locations three times. This book serves several purposes. One is to bear witness to the gritty realities behind US foreign policy headlines. The next is memoir, and one feels as if only by writing it all down can Fisk himself believe what an amazing life he has had (like a real-life Forest Gump.)
The book also is a dedication in love to his father and grandfather, both front-line soldiers who he was not as close to as he would have liked to be. War as an abstract or philosophical construct is explored, interspersing Western, Arabic, and Islamic literature. Finally, Fisk concludes how NATO and the West have made lifeless and pointless hells of many lives. He earned the right to.
A sweeping and dramatic history of the last half century of conflict in the Middle East from an award-winning journalist who has covered the region for over forty years, The Great War for Civilisation unflinchingly chronicles the tragedy of the region from the Algerian Civil War to the Iranian Revolution; from the American hostage crisis in Beirut to the Iran-Iraq War; from the 1991 Gulf War to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. A book of searing drama as well as lucid, incisive analysis, The Great War for Civilisation is a work of major importance for today's world.
