This is a memoir of a soldier captured in Italy in WWII. He escaped and was helped by Italian peasants in the mountains at very great risk to themselves. It's also a romance.
A great story, never before told. He makes it interesting while not sparing us the miserable details of survival.
This is a wonderful book about pottery styles and uses. I am most interested in all the different pots and kitchen utensils that were and are made and used in France and Italy. Everything from dishpans, to milk separators, to frying pans, coffee pots. The best thing is that each kind has typical shapes such as lips and handles designed for specific reasons.
I did find some pottery of this kind in Italy, both high end and hardware store type. The only direct experience I had was the bowls they serve the ribboleta in, and I am told they actually make the soup in these basins.
See Dun in the Kitchen, under Sponza Frise for talk about a special type of pottery used today.
http://duninthekitchen.blogspot.com/
This is a unique portrait of the nature of the Italian people, written by a powerful writer. He is both amusing and deep, opening every fibre of muscle and blood vessel to reveal all that is necessary to understand Italy. It is a masterful thesis, still in print after 46 years. It was written in 1964 and is interesting seeing Italy through the eyes of that year compared with 2010.
The development of every emotion and motivation of business, family, crime, corruption is described in stark detail with numerous detailed examples from current times and history.
I learned much not only about the Italian people (males mostly) but also the history of Italy. For example, the popes would always enrich their relatives, in particular nephews, to carry on the family estates intact. The reasons for this helped me later understand some of the great paintings and frescos in the Vatican Museums, as well as the little farm I stayed in in Locorotondo which had been first established by a priest as a church in 1728, and then built up to leave to a nephew.
In his chapter on understanding Mussolini and his hold on Italy, I found out that he was originally a Communist, and then started the Fasci II which folded together the extreme left and extreme right. This is never mentioned in other books.
Barzini's use of the English language is jolting and I had to stop to admire and analyze it in almost every sentence.
A must read for anyone intensely interested in Italy and history.
This book provides a real soldier's account of the Canadian's Italian Campaign in WW II. It tells the human story to complement Dan Dancock's The D-Day Dodgers.
Again, I was often speechless in wonder at how these men and women not only endured war but threw themselves into bloody battle over and over.
The book is often short on details, and it seems to have been edited by cutting chunks out of it. Nonetheless, I strongly recommend it.
This is a fabulous book describing the experiences of the Canadian in the WWII in the Italian Campaign. I read it in preparation for a study tour of Italy, and the battlefields, and cemeteries, so my focus was on geography.
Dancocks covers the movements of divisions and regiments, and many stories of individual experiences, not leaving out any names of military units, individuals, and the houses and hamlets and riverbeds they fought through. He outlines the promotions, demotions, and medals won and why. Inspite of or because of this much detail, each paragraph is riveting and highly visual --- I could see the movements of the men ande how they won each inch of ground.
Dancocks includes some analysis of the reasons the Allies beat the Germans, and a little more political commentary --- I wished for more. He mentions the writings and opinions of other historians and the diaries of those present, and so presents all sides. I would have like more perspective, such as the relative manpower, and more background about the Italians, and better and more maps.
Despite the horrible tactical mistakes and very poor leadership at times, the Canadians eventually won every battle target they were assigned. It is hard to conceive of how brave these men and women were as there were many casualties and conditions were harsh.
Fans of history and war, read this one. I am giving it 4 stars due to originality, great research, and good story telling.
