Tag: Reviews

The City That Does Not Age The History of Sofia: Book Review

By Bistra Johnson

CentralMarketHall-Sofia-C Attribution

The Central Market Hall, in Sofia, Bulgaria. Photo by  © Plamen Agov • studiolemontree.com, is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.  The dome of the Sofia Synagogue may be seen in the background. 

In the early twentieth century travelers could take a train, the Orient Express, from the heart of Europe to the very threshold of the Middle East. The train stopped at strategic cities along the way. One of these was Sofia, Bulgaria. It is the history of this city that Bistra Johnson describes in her delightful book, The City the Does Not Age: A History of Sofia.

Since antiquity, Sofia has been at the crossroads of East and West, North and South. Its significance was recognized over the centuries by ambitious leaders, who invaded and conquered the city. Dramatic stories about these leaders fill the pages of The City that Does Not Age. The book takes us on a journey through time.

Sofia was an administrative center during the reign of Trajan (Roman Empire). It was ravaged by Attila the Hun and rebuilt by the Emperor Justinian (Byzantine Empire). The city accommodated Germans in WWII and the Soviet Union after the war. Today, Sofia’s population reflects its variegated past. Three of the largest minorities are Turks, Russians and Roma. Though most of Bulgaria’s Jewish population emigrated after WWII, the city of Sofia is home to the largest synagogue in Southeastern Europe.

Over the centuries, Sofia has suffered floods, plagues and earthquakes. Each of these is described by Ms. Johnson with scrupulous attention to the historic record. The author quotes liberally from sources. These will serve, for any student of history, as a trove for future reference. Ms. Johnson’s presentation of the material is enlivened by asides about personalities that helped to shape the destiny of Sofia. The book is extremely well-organized and this organization enhances its readability.

For me, one welcome addition would have been maps. That’s a personal preference. I find it easier to visualize events when I study a map.

People who are interested in history will love this book. This is especially true for those who want to learn about the history of Eastern Europe.

I highly recommend Bistra Johnson’s The City the Does not Age: A History of Sofia.

A. G. Moore 3/2017

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SnowPoems: Book Review

By   Ron Paul Speakes

snow-brockensnowedtrees

Rime ice on trees on the Brocken, in Harz, Germany.  By Andreas Tille.  Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 License

 

There is poetry that warms and seduces. That is not the sort of charm you will find in Ron Paul Speakes’ SnowPoems. These poems do not coddle. They cut through consciousness with cool logic. The absence of romanticized embellishment might lead a reader to miss the depth of feeling behind the thought.  Beware.   Feeling will surprise the unsuspecting, with the searing intensity of burning snow, as in

…………………………………..blossom by

Blossom, the alba-like world will flutter

To earth to be gathered in history’s

Urns for the rites that can cut the ties

To Jack’s scattered memory

To Ronnie’s abandoned memory

Speakes explains in his preface that SnowPoems is about the post-WWII era and that the events described are intertwined with snow imagery.  But this poetry is about more than snow, and a specific period in history.  It is about time and human destiny.

The collection is bracketed by a poem at the beginning that references the dawning of the human race, with

Visas to the Levant, to India, China and the

Icy North, to the latent Americas

and another poem at the end that hints of a journey, which continues

…on the slit streets of the Internet…..

Googling, as memory looks at us from the screen

With organs swollen with the longing of antiquity

As they wander through time and space, love and loss, wanderers ponder and ask an oracle

What will become of us? What will become of us?

Snow binds the separate pieces of this collection.   And the pieces are harmonized by another overriding element: sympathy.  It may be a perplexing, even indifferent universe that hosts the human race, but our guide in SnowPoems leads us gently.  His mission is not to describe a destination for our journey.  His goal is to open our eyes and help us see more clearly the path we travel.   In that purpose, Ron Paul Speakes succeeds brilliantly.

I highly recommend Ron Paul Speakes’ SnowPoems.

A. G. Moore     3/5/2017

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Bellevue Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital: Book Review


By David Oshinsky

In 2016, a Johns Hopkins safety review panel reported that every year, 250,000 deaths in the United States are attributable to medical error. That’s a whopping 9.5% of all deaths in the country. As eye-opening as this statistic may be, it pales in comparison to deaths attributable to medical misadventure in previous centuries. According to David Oshinsky, author of Bellevue, eighteenth and nineteenth century medical treatment was as likely to be the cause of death as it was to save life. The evolution of medical care from that dark age occurred in fits and starts. Dr. Oshinsky offers a gripping description of the journey from darkness to the relative enlightenment of today.

This author skillfully blends medical and social history. He demonstrates the knack of a skilled teacher as he weaves anecdotes into a narrative of hard facts. Dr. Oshinsky has so much information at hand, that he doesn’t need to resort to conjecture to enliven his story. Truth, he proves, is indeed stronger than fiction.

Examples of Dr. Oshinsky’s dynamic writing are on display throughout the book, most memorably in his descriptions of surgery without anesthesia and treatment without antiseptics. In the first case, a boy’s leg is amputated. The father is present and aids in restraining his son. The sound of a saw fills the surgical theater as the child, without benefit of anesthesia, loses his leg. Shrieks fill the room. The father faints. We, the readers, are left with an indelible impression.

In another instance, President James Garfield suffers the consequences of medical obstinacy. The President is shot. An assassin’s bullet must be removed. The esteemed Dr. Frank Hamilton of Bellevue is called in. He, confident in his skills, declines to follow new guidelines in medicine that prescribe sterilization before contact with a patient. Garfield dies, month later, of massive infection. It is the medical consensus that this death was due not to an assassin’s bullet but to medical misadventure.

Dr. Oshinsky comes to the task of writing his book with excellent credentials. He is a professor of history at New York University and the director of Medical Humanities at NYU Langone Medical Center. In addition, he has won a Pulitzer Prize for an earlier book, Polio: An American Story.

The current book, Bellevue, is about the history of a public institution, and it is more. It traces the history of health care in New York City. It introduces readers to some giants of modern medicine, including Robert Koch, Joseph Lister and Florence Nightingale. The author’s broad perspective offers insight into the immigrant experience and its intersection with New York City politics. Dr. Oshinsky’s wide lens creates a richly textured tableau in which Bellevue Hospital is the focal point.

Bellevue is an easy read. I recommend it to anyone interested in history, and to those readers who would like to gain insight into the culture of the medical profession.

By A. G. Moore 2/10/17

The picture of Bellevue Hospital (above) is used under a Creative Commons
 4.0 International License
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