Books - What Are You Reading / What Do You Recommend?

[KevDen2005]

In the last several months:

The Crusades by Ambridge (I wanted to know more after watching Kingdom of Heaven). Very interesting stuff.

Gulag Archipelago (Should be required reading in this country)

Ordinary Men (Also should be required reading)

Alone and Unafraid (A lot of basic info. I disagree with a few of the items in it but still great info)

Warning Signs (Peter Langman)

[Joe_K]

In the last several months:

The Crusades by Ambridge (I wanted to know more after watching Kingdom of Heaven). Very interesting stuff.

Gulag Archipelago (Should be required reading in this country)

Ordinary Men (Also should be required reading)

Alone and Unafraid (A lot of basic info. I disagree with a few of the items in it but still great info)

Warning Signs (Peter Langman)

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more ? we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.

[KevDen2005]

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more ? we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.

I thought the entire time how could have it gotten so bad. How did they get there. I just can't even fathom. I don't know why but I found it annoying when called them organs. I get why, but it just would catch me off guard every time.