3 comments about Delano's Voyages of Commerce and Discovery: Amasa Delano in China, the Pacific Islands, Australia, and South America, 1789-1807 (American Classics).

1. Berkshire House Publishers and Eleanor Seagraves have performed a service of great value in resurrecting this account of sea voyages that played a critical role in establishing America's place in the field of maritime commerce and exploration. Truth can be stranger than fiction. Delano's extradordinary exploits are every bit as fascinating as the tales told by Patrick O'Brian and will appeal to the same readership. Handsomely illustrated.



2. Fans of Patrick O'Brian will love Amasa Delano's Voyages. Delano's travels took him through the same uncharted waters and touched the same exotic lands as O'Brian's intrepid Captain Jack Aubrey and his ever-curious companion Stephen Maturin, but with a difference: O'Brian's heroes live in fiction; Delano was for real.

   Seldom have I read a seafarer's account with so many varied and interesting observations about the world through which he traveled. Joseph Banks, Charles Darwin and other professional naturalists wrote a good deal about the flora and fauna they studied, of course, but Delano's curiosity takes him everywhere and informs the reader about an amazing range of contemporary details of life and human behavior.




3. The only reason I gave this review four stars instead of five is that this volume is abridged. It is missing a great deal of material about actual shiphandling and navigation in the period, including detailed descriptions of harbors. It is worth seeking out a used volume of the original.

5 comments about Political Pilgrims: Travels of Western Intellectuals to the Soviet Union, China and Cuba.

1. Political Pilgrims is the amazing story of how Western intellectuals embraced Marxist tyrants at the very moment their colleagues were rotting in prison cells, and the common people everyone claimed to be concerned for, were starving. The book relates how cultural and religious leaders from the West, including familiar names, visited the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and other communist countries, and told the most appalling lies to flatter their hosts and express their contempt for Western society. It is quite an education, as another reviewer put it. Marx's revolutionary myth dominated history for the better part of the 20th Century, and if we are serious about not repeating the errors of that period, this book should be a part of our education. The short story Buddha's Smile in Solzhenitsyn's masterpiece, The First Circle, brilliantly tells the same story, from the point of view of Soviet prisoners. Lewis Feuer's Marx and the Intellectuals compares Marx and Engels themselves with the kind of people Hollander is describing. I also recommend the writings of the Rumanian philosopher, pastor, and former prisoner, Richard Wurmbrand.

   Hollander retells George Keenan's story of a Norwegian radical who, when asked what country he most admired, said, "Albania." Keenan noted that the student obviously knew nothing of Albania, but chose that country "simply because it seems to be a club with a particularly sharp nail at the end of it with which to beat one's own society."

   The same reactionary psychology has, it seems to me, been transferred in our day to an uncritical and naive attraction towards what is (simplistically) called "eastern religion." One could write an even longer book about how Westerners project their fantasies on monist ideologies: people like Joseph Campbell and Karen Armstrong "explaining" human sacrifice, the Theosophical Society standing up for caste, Arthur C. Clarke (Did he know much more of Asian history than the Albanian radical knew of Albania?) describing Buddhism as "the only faith that never became stained with blood." Even Hollander allowed that, "While the suspension of disbelief has its place in human life, it belongs more to the religious (or asthetic) than the political realm." But his book should be read, in my opinion, as a warning against all forms of ideological naivite. A love of truth, and a determination to tell it no matter how out of fashion it may seem, is essential to integrity in all walks of life. Political Pilgrims vividly illustrates, in the political realm, the evil that can be done when honesty plays second fiddle to fashion.....




2. Hollander puts the selective moral outrage and selective acceptance of evidence of the Left on parade as he follows these blinkered one's through the various Potemkin Villages of the Totalitarians, from the October revolution forward into most of the 20th century. Smug arrogance knows no political party or religious faith, no gender, race or sexual preference, it seems to be evenly spread among us. In this instance the highly developed capacity for self-deception of the Left is on trial and an amusing trial at that. Their tortured explanations of the intellectually unexplainable are a fictive of mankind's marvelous ability "to transform things to the liking of his desires".

   Like all those who are "blowin' in the wind", these intellectual hard heads do not seek truth, but instead to validate their worldview. This book is a study of intellectuals, estrangement and its consequences.




3. 25 years ago, "Political Pilgrims" documented beyond any doubt the willing self-deception of intellectuals in love with the totalitarian regimes in Cuba, China, the Soviet Union and East Germany. The debate no longer rages over whether these countries were "freer" than their counterparts in the West. They aren't. What hasn't changed, however, is the continued willingness of intellectuals to find paradise anywhere but in the US.
   
   Paul Hollander brings his trademark meticulousness to the study of Intellectuals who travel to what used to be referred to as Worker's Paradises. Using mountains of evidence, one cannot help but be persuaded that Western Intellectuals experience such a depth of alienation from their cultural birthplace, that they become morally blind to the abuses of its antagonists.
   
   What's truly remarkable, is that none of this has changed. One merely needs to point to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 and it's grotesque representation of Hussein's Iraq as an innocently peaceful place of playful children and mothers. At no point in that execrable movie does he mention the mass graves or torture chambers.
   
   Michael, post your wish list on Amazon and I'll send you this book. Promise.



4. This is an awesome book which helps the reader understand why intellectuals always seem to be on the wrong side of history. They loved Communism even when it was obvious that Lenin & Stalin were exterminating hoards of people! They are defective in their thinking and they stick to it. The author has a quote at the beginning of the book. "A GREAT DEAL OF INTELLEGENCE CAN BE INVESTED IN IGNORANCE WHEN THE NEED FOR ILLUSION IS DEEP." (Saul Bellows) . This book walks you through the 'needs' that these intellectuals seem to have which continually seems to cause them to deny the stark realities around them & cling to their 'ideologies'. I am so glad I read this book as I just laugh now when I hear so much of what is on the news. I GET IT!



5. Hollander hits an important nail on its head. Many members of the intellectual left have a horrible track record of either excusing or turning a blind eye to the brutality of socialist dictators. As such, many twentieth century leftists served as apologists for evil socialist dictators. Of course, these same people have no difficulty finding fault with the US and UK. No problem in the West is too small to warrant condemnation in their eyes.
   
   The sad truth is that the vision of an egalitarian society has been romanticized and popularized. Even today there are some who defend and even promote the USSR. Hollander counters this nonsense with evidence. Unfortunately, there are still some ideologues to whom evidence means nothing. We need more scholars like Hollander.

No comments about Lands of the Thunderbolt: Sikhim Chumbi and Bhutan.

No comments about City of Light: The Hidden Journal of the Man Who Entered China Four Years Before Marco Polo.

No comments about Discover Beijing: The City's History & Culture Redefined.

No comments about China (Travel Through).

1 comments about Champion Writers' Travel Guide to Beijing 2008.

1. This is probably the best book of compiled information to vistit China. I am thinking about starting a travel agency for my wife and we will be using this guide to assist our customers with the best vacation to China they will ever have. The information is well organized the pictures are great. Oveall awsome book. Champion Writers' Travel Guide to Beijing 2008

1 comments about Easy Guide to Beijing: essential travel companion.

1. This is one of the best pocket guides that I have ever viewed.
   It is full of great advice on your travels to Beijing China.
   It's easy to understand & includes useful 2008 Olympic information.
   In my opinion everyone going to this part of the world would gain good information from purchasing this book "Easy Guide to Beijing". I have enjoyed this book & hope to see more by the author, Virginia Thurston.
   I give this book 5 stars.
   Thanks again for such an useful 44 page guide on Beijing China.

No comments about China: travels and investigations in the "Middle Kingdom.": A study of its civilization and possibilities. With a glance at Japan.

No comments about Ten of the Most Important Words in China.