A Witness to Barbarism, 21 Oct 2008
I have meant to read this for a long time, and the wait was worth it. Levi - certainly in translation - writes the most beautiful, spare prose. Despite the grisly and appalling subject matter, what shines through is the humanity of not only the author but some of the other characters. 'If This Is A Man' was written within a couple of years of the author's return home to Italy, and this surely accounts for the clarity of recall and description. It is no surprise that Levi achieved 'legendary' status before his tragic death.

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

A Witness to Barbarism, 21 Oct 2008
I have meant to read this for a long time, and the wait was worth it. Levi - certainly in translation - writes the most beautiful, spare prose. Despite the grisly and appalling subject matter, what shines through is the humanity of not only the author but some of the other characters. 'If This Is A Man' was written within a couple of years of the author's return home to Italy, and this surely accounts for the clarity of recall and description. It is no surprise that Levi achieved 'legendary' status before his tragic death.

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

An exquisite love letter to Venice, 13 Nov 2006
I decided to read "Venice" in preparation for a week-long stay in the Italian city.

Broken into three sections -- The People, The City, The Lagoon -- "Venice" is not a chronological history of the city but a meandering look at its past, present and future. Nor is it a guidebook, although it does contain a mine of information about what to see and where to go.

I think "The Times" probably described it best when they said it was "a classic love letter to Italy's most iconic city", because it is, indeed, a beautiful missive dripping with exquisite descriptions. I found it an enormously engaging and evocative read by an accomplished writer who really knows how to string a simile or two together.For example: "Venice is a cheek-by-jowl, back-of-the-hand, under-the-counter, higgledy-piggledy, anecdotal city, and she is rich in piquant wrinkled things, like an assortment of bric-a-brac in the house of a wayward connoisseur, or parasites on an oyster-shell (page 201)".

And: "There are palaces to see everywhere, and precious churches, and bridges, and pictures by the thousand, and all the criss-cross pattern of antiquity that is picturesque Venice, mocked by the materialists, sentimentalised by the Romantics, but still by any standards an astonishing phenomenon, as fruity as plum pudding, as tart as the brand that flames about its holly (page 219)".

In fact the writing throughout this superb book is sublime (much like Venice itself) and I would quote entire chapters here, except it's probably better if you just took my word for it and got hold of a copy of "Venice" for yourself. It's a beautifully written and researched book, jam-packed with anecdotes and all kinds of historical fact. Whether you have been to Venice or not, I'm sure once you have read Jan Morris's delightful memoir you will be clammering to book your flights!

the real Venice - a personal view, but very evocative, 20 Dec 2005
This is a wonderful book which catches the flavour of Venice and is beautifully written. Jan Morris is one of the most individual and memorable of all travel writers, and this city is one she knows well and loves greatly ; that is evident on every page. The visual descriptions are precise and quirky, the little stories from Venetian myth and legend add character to the book and her knowledge of the history and culture of the place, worn lightly and always enlightening, never intrusive, make this a fine book. Above all she is a marvellous writer.

Brilliant, passionate prose intertwining past and present, 31 May 2005
The most evocative and well balanced description of a place and people. Morris writes beautiful prose with passion, knitting together the present and past in a seamless fashion which is nothing short of genius. The only criticism is that lists of things found in Venice can be a little tedious e.g. the description of the different Venetian Lions

Am I a Philistine?, 03 Mar 2005
I purchased this book after carefully reading the reviews, the majority of which were ecstatic! On receiving it, I found it to be (dare I say?) rather "high brow" and not really a guidebook at all but a literary tribute to a glorious past of Venice. Please don't think that I am a McDonald's hunting moron, but as a first time visitor to Venice, I don't think I can use it to find my way around the city too clearly

If you havenýt been to Venice..., 15 Nov 2003
... and maybe aren't even going, but wonder why all the fuss about Venice, here's your answer. Reading this book is like inhaling the soul of the place without ever going there - armchair travelling of the highest order.
Nowhere that Morris visits feels like 'just another place' if you carry her writing in your mind - as you will - when you arrive there. This is effortless writing in both senses: for her (seemingly) and for you. Perfect word-painting just flows from her pen: images... stories... legends... history... atmosphere and small curiosities. It's like listening to the perfect dinner-guest who could not patronise you if she tried, unaffectedly recalling in direct, easy language, her own experience of this unparallelled, unique old city.
For someone who has already visited and loves Venice, here is the Ah! factor, in spades. If you have yet to go there, take Morris with you in your head AND the book in your luggage for re-reading.

A Witness to Barbarism, 21 Oct 2008
I have meant to read this for a long time, and the wait was worth it. Levi - certainly in translation - writes the most beautiful, spare prose. Despite the grisly and appalling subject matter, what shines through is the humanity of not only the author but some of the other characters. 'If This Is A Man' was written within a couple of years of the author's return home to Italy, and this surely accounts for the clarity of recall and description. It is no surprise that Levi achieved 'legendary' status before his tragic death.

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

An exquisite love letter to Venice, 13 Nov 2006
I decided to read "Venice" in preparation for a week-long stay in the Italian city.

Broken into three sections -- The People, The City, The Lagoon -- "Venice" is not a chronological history of the city but a meandering look at its past, present and future. Nor is it a guidebook, although it does contain a mine of information about what to see and where to go.

I think "The Times" probably described it best when they said it was "a classic love letter to Italy's most iconic city", because it is, indeed, a beautiful missive dripping with exquisite descriptions. I found it an enormously engaging and evocative read by an accomplished writer who really knows how to string a simile or two together.For example: "Venice is a cheek-by-jowl, back-of-the-hand, under-the-counter, higgledy-piggledy, anecdotal city, and she is rich in piquant wrinkled things, like an assortment of bric-a-brac in the house of a wayward connoisseur, or parasites on an oyster-shell (page 201)".

And: "There are palaces to see everywhere, and precious churches, and bridges, and pictures by the thousand, and all the criss-cross pattern of antiquity that is picturesque Venice, mocked by the materialists, sentimentalised by the Romantics, but still by any standards an astonishing phenomenon, as fruity as plum pudding, as tart as the brand that flames about its holly (page 219)".

In fact the writing throughout this superb book is sublime (much like Venice itself) and I would quote entire chapters here, except it's probably better if you just took my word for it and got hold of a copy of "Venice" for yourself. It's a beautifully written and researched book, jam-packed with anecdotes and all kinds of historical fact. Whether you have been to Venice or not, I'm sure once you have read Jan Morris's delightful memoir you will be clammering to book your flights!

the real Venice - a personal view, but very evocative, 20 Dec 2005
This is a wonderful book which catches the flavour of Venice and is beautifully written. Jan Morris is one of the most individual and memorable of all travel writers, and this city is one she knows well and loves greatly ; that is evident on every page. The visual descriptions are precise and quirky, the little stories from Venetian myth and legend add character to the book and her knowledge of the history and culture of the place, worn lightly and always enlightening, never intrusive, make this a fine book. Above all she is a marvellous writer.

Brilliant, passionate prose intertwining past and present, 31 May 2005
The most evocative and well balanced description of a place and people. Morris writes beautiful prose with passion, knitting together the present and past in a seamless fashion which is nothing short of genius. The only criticism is that lists of things found in Venice can be a little tedious e.g. the description of the different Venetian Lions

Am I a Philistine?, 03 Mar 2005
I purchased this book after carefully reading the reviews, the majority of which were ecstatic! On receiving it, I found it to be (dare I say?) rather "high brow" and not really a guidebook at all but a literary tribute to a glorious past of Venice. Please don't think that I am a McDonald's hunting moron, but as a first time visitor to Venice, I don't think I can use it to find my way around the city too clearly

If you havenýt been to Venice..., 15 Nov 2003
... and maybe aren't even going, but wonder why all the fuss about Venice, here's your answer. Reading this book is like inhaling the soul of the place without ever going there - armchair travelling of the highest order.
Nowhere that Morris visits feels like 'just another place' if you carry her writing in your mind - as you will - when you arrive there. This is effortless writing in both senses: for her (seemingly) and for you. Perfect word-painting just flows from her pen: images... stories... legends... history... atmosphere and small curiosities. It's like listening to the perfect dinner-guest who could not patronise you if she tried, unaffectedly recalling in direct, easy language, her own experience of this unparallelled, unique old city.
For someone who has already visited and loves Venice, here is the Ah! factor, in spades. If you have yet to go there, take Morris with you in your head AND the book in your luggage for re-reading.

Excellent, 12 Oct 2008
Superb for a newcomer to this period of history - as detailed as necessary, as concise as possible.

A superb historical account, 01 Oct 2008
A superb account of one of the most famous and influential dynasties in European history.
Beginning with an overview of Medieval Florece, Christopher Hibbert takes us back to a sumptuous world of arts, merchants and an advanced democratic civilization. It begins with the story of Cosimo, the brilliant banker, who through his connections to the Papacy, becomes a major powerbroker in Italian affairs, much to the annoyance of Florences ruling Signoria, who unable to decide on his fate, place his life or death to a plebescite, which results in temporary banishment, only to return and establish a wealthy and cultured dynasty.
Lorenzo il Manifico is the definite star, the patro of the arts who oversaw Florence's golden age. However, the most interesting part of the account is the rise of the Dominican Monk Savaronola and Florence's descent into a deranged theocracy.
By the time the book speaks of the passing of Anna Maria, one has a sense of sadness that such a great dynasty has reached its end, and such a sadness was felt in Florence at the time.
On the whole a superb book, one of the best historical accounts I have read this year.

Polaroid View of History, 07 Jul 2007
This book focuses on a fascinating period, but the camera (i.e. Historian Christopher Hibbert) is a polaroid camera, so the image is not particularly sharp and enchanting.
As I read this book I realised that it could have been written by almost anyone in a university history department. It didn't have a disntinctive style or anything particular to say. It just ran through the gamut of the subject in an entirely predicatable way -- the rise of the city state, trade more important than before, new ways of thinking but respect for the ways of the Church, the rise of the 'new man' and the threat this posed to the putative democracy of the city state, the fate of the Medici tied to the varying abilities of different members, an interest in the arts, the gradual co-opting of the Medici to the old nobility, etc. etc.

The phrase 'scissors and paste attempt' kept running through my mind as I turned the pages, a thought further emphasised by the poor quality of the paper on which the book was printed and the cover, which soon curled up even though I had read it quickly and only once.


Not a very intellectual book, 01 Oct 2000
As an A-level history student I waited for this book to arrive. After beginning to read it I was deeply disappointed. The language is completely descriptive, not very good for a text book; and has no kind of counter argument to it. Lorenzo de Medici is praised, but his bad points are not shown. The descriptive language is overtly, almost offensively flowery and there is very little actual evidence to back up Mr. Hibbert's views. Mr Hibbert relies on hearsay and public events, none of which was properly established and offends the intellect with his set piece scenarios. I also get the feeling he makes things up for his sensationalist ideas. All in all this book is a waste of time if you are looking for anything with historical value at all.

Brilliant! One of the best books I've ever read., 06 Jun 2000
Why has it taken me over 20 years to discover this book? Erudite, factual, witty, entertaining, this is a must for anyone with the slightest interest in Florence, the Renaissance, art, history. Better than any guidebook, Chapter 10 should be read by every tourist who wants to understand the very convoluted history of Florence.

A Witness to Barbarism, 21 Oct 2008
I have meant to read this for a long time, and the wait was worth it. Levi - certainly in translation - writes the most beautiful, spare prose. Despite the grisly and appalling subject matter, what shines through is the humanity of not only the author but some of the other characters. 'If This Is A Man' was written within a couple of years of the author's return home to Italy, and this surely accounts for the clarity of recall and description. It is no surprise that Levi achieved 'legendary' status before his tragic death.

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

An exquisite love letter to Venice, 13 Nov 2006
I decided to read "Venice" in preparation for a week-long stay in the Italian city.

Broken into three sections -- The People, The City, The Lagoon -- "Venice" is not a chronological history of the city but a meandering look at its past, present and future. Nor is it a guidebook, although it does contain a mine of information about what to see and where to go.

I think "The Times" probably described it best when they said it was "a classic love letter to Italy's most iconic city", because it is, indeed, a beautiful missive dripping with exquisite descriptions. I found it an enormously engaging and evocative read by an accomplished writer who really knows how to string a simile or two together.For example: "Venice is a cheek-by-jowl, back-of-the-hand, under-the-counter, higgledy-piggledy, anecdotal city, and she is rich in piquant wrinkled things, like an assortment of bric-a-brac in the house of a wayward connoisseur, or parasites on an oyster-shell (page 201)".

And: "There are palaces to see everywhere, and precious churches, and bridges, and pictures by the thousand, and all the criss-cross pattern of antiquity that is picturesque Venice, mocked by the materialists, sentimentalised by the Romantics, but still by any standards an astonishing phenomenon, as fruity as plum pudding, as tart as the brand that flames about its holly (page 219)".

In fact the writing throughout this superb book is sublime (much like Venice itself) and I would quote entire chapters here, except it's probably better if you just took my word for it and got hold of a copy of "Venice" for yourself. It's a beautifully written and researched book, jam-packed with anecdotes and all kinds of historical fact. Whether you have been to Venice or not, I'm sure once you have read Jan Morris's delightful memoir you will be clammering to book your flights!

the real Venice - a personal view, but very evocative, 20 Dec 2005
This is a wonderful book which catches the flavour of Venice and is beautifully written. Jan Morris is one of the most individual and memorable of all travel writers, and this city is one she knows well and loves greatly ; that is evident on every page. The visual descriptions are precise and quirky, the little stories from Venetian myth and legend add character to the book and her knowledge of the history and culture of the place, worn lightly and always enlightening, never intrusive, make this a fine book. Above all she is a marvellous writer.

Brilliant, passionate prose intertwining past and present, 31 May 2005
The most evocative and well balanced description of a place and people. Morris writes beautiful prose with passion, knitting together the present and past in a seamless fashion which is nothing short of genius. The only criticism is that lists of things found in Venice can be a little tedious e.g. the description of the different Venetian Lions

Am I a Philistine?, 03 Mar 2005
I purchased this book after carefully reading the reviews, the majority of which were ecstatic! On receiving it, I found it to be (dare I say?) rather "high brow" and not really a guidebook at all but a literary tribute to a glorious past of Venice. Please don't think that I am a McDonald's hunting moron, but as a first time visitor to Venice, I don't think I can use it to find my way around the city too clearly

If you havenýt been to Venice..., 15 Nov 2003
... and maybe aren't even going, but wonder why all the fuss about Venice, here's your answer. Reading this book is like inhaling the soul of the place without ever going there - armchair travelling of the highest order.
Nowhere that Morris visits feels like 'just another place' if you carry her writing in your mind - as you will - when you arrive there. This is effortless writing in both senses: for her (seemingly) and for you. Perfect word-painting just flows from her pen: images... stories... legends... history... atmosphere and small curiosities. It's like listening to the perfect dinner-guest who could not patronise you if she tried, unaffectedly recalling in direct, easy language, her own experience of this unparallelled, unique old city.
For someone who has already visited and loves Venice, here is the Ah! factor, in spades. If you have yet to go there, take Morris with you in your head AND the book in your luggage for re-reading.

Excellent, 12 Oct 2008
Superb for a newcomer to this period of history - as detailed as necessary, as concise as possible.

A superb historical account, 01 Oct 2008
A superb account of one of the most famous and influential dynasties in European history.
Beginning with an overview of Medieval Florece, Christopher Hibbert takes us back to a sumptuous world of arts, merchants and an advanced democratic civilization. It begins with the story of Cosimo, the brilliant banker, who through his connections to the Papacy, becomes a major powerbroker in Italian affairs, much to the annoyance of Florences ruling Signoria, who unable to decide on his fate, place his life or death to a plebescite, which results in temporary banishment, only to return and establish a wealthy and cultured dynasty.
Lorenzo il Manifico is the definite star, the patro of the arts who oversaw Florence's golden age. However, the most interesting part of the account is the rise of the Dominican Monk Savaronola and Florence's descent into a deranged theocracy.
By the time the book speaks of the passing of Anna Maria, one has a sense of sadness that such a great dynasty has reached its end, and such a sadness was felt in Florence at the time.
On the whole a superb book, one of the best historical accounts I have read this year.

Polaroid View of History, 07 Jul 2007
This book focuses on a fascinating period, but the camera (i.e. Historian Christopher Hibbert) is a polaroid camera, so the image is not particularly sharp and enchanting.
As I read this book I realised that it could have been written by almost anyone in a university history department. It didn't have a disntinctive style or anything particular to say. It just ran through the gamut of the subject in an entirely predicatable way -- the rise of the city state, trade more important than before, new ways of thinking but respect for the ways of the Church, the rise of the 'new man' and the threat this posed to the putative democracy of the city state, the fate of the Medici tied to the varying abilities of different members, an interest in the arts, the gradual co-opting of the Medici to the old nobility, etc. etc.

The phrase 'scissors and paste attempt' kept running through my mind as I turned the pages, a thought further emphasised by the poor quality of the paper on which the book was printed and the cover, which soon curled up even though I had read it quickly and only once.


Not a very intellectual book, 01 Oct 2000
As an A-level history student I waited for this book to arrive. After beginning to read it I was deeply disappointed. The language is completely descriptive, not very good for a text book; and has no kind of counter argument to it. Lorenzo de Medici is praised, but his bad points are not shown. The descriptive language is overtly, almost offensively flowery and there is very little actual evidence to back up Mr. Hibbert's views. Mr Hibbert relies on hearsay and public events, none of which was properly established and offends the intellect with his set piece scenarios. I also get the feeling he makes things up for his sensationalist ideas. All in all this book is a waste of time if you are looking for anything with historical value at all.

Brilliant! One of the best books I've ever read., 06 Jun 2000
Why has it taken me over 20 years to discover this book? Erudite, factual, witty, entertaining, this is a must for anyone with the slightest interest in Florence, the Renaissance, art, history. Better than any guidebook, Chapter 10 should be read by every tourist who wants to understand the very convoluted history of Florence.

Splitting Attractive Hairs, 07 Jul 2007
This is the kind of book that History of Art departments throw at you early on in their courses to instil the right respect and awe for the whole academic ritual.

When I first saw this book at Birkbeck College (2003 History of Art MA) I was duly impressed and intimidated into thinking this was somehow a classic. In this work Baxandall is the exemplary academic, slowly building up a case from painstaking research and cleverly interpreted trivia.

This approach is fine and dandy until you reflect that at the end of it the conclusions Baxandall has laboured so hard to arrive at are perhaps a little banal -- i.e. Renaissance painting was influenced by such contemporary phenomenon as religious practices, dancing, and the ability to judge quantities by eye.

The only reason this book works as a book is that the Renaissance is such an attractive period that Baxandall's painstakingly dull technique receives a charming counterpoint in the endearing trivia of the period. Unfortunately this effect is not replicated in other works by Baxandall that I have looked at. To college students getting a dose of this, I would say, 'Enjoy the period, but think about how relevant this kind of hairsplitting really is.'


Lapis at 4 ducats the ounce..., 28 Jul 2004
As well as being a splendid introduction to the paintings and the philosophy behind them, this book is particularly good on the relationship between the artists and their rich patrons, and between the artists and their materials. It's full of intriguing details. Why, for example, pure blue is so rare as well as so rich -- at this period, all the lapis lazuli that European painters could use was mined from one mine (somewhere in Afghanistan) and imported solely through Venice... So it's no surprise to see patrons putting clauses in their contracts with their artists: "use the best blue at 4 ducats the ounce; don't try palming me off with any 2-ducat rubbish!"

If this is the sort of thing that makes you go "yippee!" and grin, as the past comes alive for you, then this is definitely the book for you.

A wonderful read, 04 Mar 2004
This is one of those books you can read (after believing you have a good grip on the subject) to discover how much you have missed! Excellent for those starting to study Italian fifteenth century art and very readable.

Almost uniquely among fine art books this one fits in a jacket pocket as it is a standard sized paperback. I disagree with the other reviewer who complained that it was lacking in illustrations (it isn't) but its small size does make the provision of sensible illustrations impossible and if you have other books on the period (or can use the Internet or a public library) you should have no trouble finding illustrations of any of the works mentioned.

Highly recommended, 24 Nov 2003
This tiny book is immensely helpful and interesting. It focuses on the ways in which critics in the fifteenth century judged paintings, and provides tools which can be used in analysing paintings from pretty much any period. So many art books are pretentious or difficult: this one is really informative and enlightening. It is educational in the best sense of the word.

An interesting perspective, 25 Aug 2003
I very much like this book. Although obviously an academic text, it's written in an easy-to-read style that's not overwhelming. I've studied this period of art history at some length, but the information provided in this brief work provides a fresh perspective, and I've seen some of my favourite paintings in a fresh light. I especially like the chapter on the 'language' of body posture - the idea that every posture had a specific meaning which viewers of that period would have immediately understood. It's made me go back and look at lots of works from the period and 'translate' their gestures! Great fun for lovers of art history! Recommended.

A Witness to Barbarism, 21 Oct 2008
I have meant to read this for a long time, and the wait was worth it. Levi - certainly in translation - writes the most beautiful, spare prose. Despite the grisly and appalling subject matter, what shines through is the humanity of not only the author but some of the other characters. 'If This Is A Man' was written within a couple of years of the author's return home to Italy, and this surely accounts for the clarity of recall and description. It is no surprise that Levi achieved 'legendary' status before his tragic death.

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

An exquisite love letter to Venice, 13 Nov 2006
I decided to read "Venice" in preparation for a week-long stay in the Italian city.

Broken into three sections -- The People, The City, The Lagoon -- "Venice" is not a chronological history of the city but a meandering look at its past, present and future. Nor is it a guidebook, although it does contain a mine of information about what to see and where to go.

I think "The Times" probably described it best when they said it was "a classic love letter to Italy's most iconic city", because it is, indeed, a beautiful missive dripping with exquisite descriptions. I found it an enormously engaging and evocative read by an accomplished writer who really knows how to string a simile or two together.For example: "Venice is a cheek-by-jowl, back-of-the-hand, under-the-counter, higgledy-piggledy, anecdotal city, and she is rich in piquant wrinkled things, like an assortment of bric-a-brac in the house of a wayward connoisseur, or parasites on an oyster-shell (page 201)".

And: "There are palaces to see everywhere, and precious churches, and bridges, and pictures by the thousand, and all the criss-cross pattern of antiquity that is picturesque Venice, mocked by the materialists, sentimentalised by the Romantics, but still by any standards an astonishing phenomenon, as fruity as plum pudding, as tart as the brand that flames about its holly (page 219)".

In fact the writing throughout this superb book is sublime (much like Venice itself) and I would quote entire chapters here, except it's probably better if you just took my word for it and got hold of a copy of "Venice" for yourself. It's a beautifully written and researched book, jam-packed with anecdotes and all kinds of historical fact. Whether you have been to Venice or not, I'm sure once you have read Jan Morris's delightful memoir you will be clammering to book your flights!

the real Venice - a personal view, but very evocative, 20 Dec 2005
This is a wonderful book which catches the flavour of Venice and is beautifully written. Jan Morris is one of the most individual and memorable of all travel writers, and this city is one she knows well and loves greatly ; that is evident on every page. The visual descriptions are precise and quirky, the little stories from Venetian myth and legend add character to the book and her knowledge of the history and culture of the place, worn lightly and always enlightening, never intrusive, make this a fine book. Above all she is a marvellous writer.

Brilliant, passionate prose intertwining past and present, 31 May 2005
The most evocative and well balanced description of a place and people. Morris writes beautiful prose with passion, knitting together the present and past in a seamless fashion which is nothing short of genius. The only criticism is that lists of things found in Venice can be a little tedious e.g. the description of the different Venetian Lions

Am I a Philistine?, 03 Mar 2005
I purchased this book after carefully reading the reviews, the majority of which were ecstatic! On receiving it, I found it to be (dare I say?) rather "high brow" and not really a guidebook at all but a literary tribute to a glorious past of Venice. Please don't think that I am a McDonald's hunting moron, but as a first time visitor to Venice, I don't think I can use it to find my way around the city too clearly

If you havenýt been to Venice..., 15 Nov 2003
... and maybe aren't even going, but wonder why all the fuss about Venice, here's your answer. Reading this book is like inhaling the soul of the place without ever going there - armchair travelling of the highest order.
Nowhere that Morris visits feels like 'just another place' if you carry her writing in your mind - as you will - when you arrive there. This is effortless writing in both senses: for her (seemingly) and for you. Perfect word-painting just flows from her pen: images... stories... legends... history... atmosphere and small curiosities. It's like listening to the perfect dinner-guest who could not patronise you if she tried, unaffectedly recalling in direct, easy language, her own experience of this unparallelled, unique old city.
For someone who has already visited and loves Venice, here is the Ah! factor, in spades. If you have yet to go there, take Morris with you in your head AND the book in your luggage for re-reading.

Excellent, 12 Oct 2008
Superb for a newcomer to this period of history - as detailed as necessary, as concise as possible.

A superb historical account, 01 Oct 2008
A superb account of one of the most famous and influential dynasties in European history.
Beginning with an overview of Medieval Florece, Christopher Hibbert takes us back to a sumptuous world of arts, merchants and an advanced democratic civilization. It begins with the story of Cosimo, the brilliant banker, who through his connections to the Papacy, becomes a major powerbroker in Italian affairs, much to the annoyance of Florences ruling Signoria, who unable to decide on his fate, place his life or death to a plebescite, which results in temporary banishment, only to return and establish a wealthy and cultured dynasty.
Lorenzo il Manifico is the definite star, the patro of the arts who oversaw Florence's golden age. However, the most interesting part of the account is the rise of the Dominican Monk Savaronola and Florence's descent into a deranged theocracy.
By the time the book speaks of the passing of Anna Maria, one has a sense of sadness that such a great dynasty has reached its end, and such a sadness was felt in Florence at the time.
On the whole a superb book, one of the best historical accounts I have read this year.

Polaroid View of History, 07 Jul 2007
This book focuses on a fascinating period, but the camera (i.e. Historian Christopher Hibbert) is a polaroid camera, so the image is not particularly sharp and enchanting.
As I read this book I realised that it could have been written by almost anyone in a university history department. It didn't have a disntinctive style or anything particular to say. It just ran through the gamut of the subject in an entirely predicatable way -- the rise of the city state, trade more important than before, new ways of thinking but respect for the ways of the Church, the rise of the 'new man' and the threat this posed to the putative democracy of the city state, the fate of the Medici tied to the varying abilities of different members, an interest in the arts, the gradual co-opting of the Medici to the old nobility, etc. etc.

The phrase 'scissors and paste attempt' kept running through my mind as I turned the pages, a thought further emphasised by the poor quality of the paper on which the book was printed and the cover, which soon curled up even though I had read it quickly and only once.


Not a very intellectual book, 01 Oct 2000
As an A-level history student I waited for this book to arrive. After beginning to read it I was deeply disappointed. The language is completely descriptive, not very good for a text book; and has no kind of counter argument to it. Lorenzo de Medici is praised, but his bad points are not shown. The descriptive language is overtly, almost offensively flowery and there is very little actual evidence to back up Mr. Hibbert's views. Mr Hibbert relies on hearsay and public events, none of which was properly established and offends the intellect with his set piece scenarios. I also get the feeling he makes things up for his sensationalist ideas. All in all this book is a waste of time if you are looking for anything with historical value at all.

Brilliant! One of the best books I've ever read., 06 Jun 2000
Why has it taken me over 20 years to discover this book? Erudite, factual, witty, entertaining, this is a must for anyone with the slightest interest in Florence, the Renaissance, art, history. Better than any guidebook, Chapter 10 should be read by every tourist who wants to understand the very convoluted history of Florence.

Splitting Attractive Hairs, 07 Jul 2007
This is the kind of book that History of Art departments throw at you early on in their courses to instil the right respect and awe for the whole academic ritual.

When I first saw this book at Birkbeck College (2003 History of Art MA) I was duly impressed and intimidated into thinking this was somehow a classic. In this work Baxandall is the exemplary academic, slowly building up a case from painstaking research and cleverly interpreted trivia.

This approach is fine and dandy until you reflect that at the end of it the conclusions Baxandall has laboured so hard to arrive at are perhaps a little banal -- i.e. Renaissance painting was influenced by such contemporary phenomenon as religious practices, dancing, and the ability to judge quantities by eye.

The only reason this book works as a book is that the Renaissance is such an attractive period that Baxandall's painstakingly dull technique receives a charming counterpoint in the endearing trivia of the period. Unfortunately this effect is not replicated in other works by Baxandall that I have looked at. To college students getting a dose of this, I would say, 'Enjoy the period, but think about how relevant this kind of hairsplitting really is.'


Lapis at 4 ducats the ounce..., 28 Jul 2004
As well as being a splendid introduction to the paintings and the philosophy behind them, this book is particularly good on the relationship between the artists and their rich patrons, and between the artists and their materials. It's full of intriguing details. Why, for example, pure blue is so rare as well as so rich -- at this period, all the lapis lazuli that European painters could use was mined from one mine (somewhere in Afghanistan) and imported solely through Venice... So it's no surprise to see patrons putting clauses in their contracts with their artists: "use the best blue at 4 ducats the ounce; don't try palming me off with any 2-ducat rubbish!"

If this is the sort of thing that makes you go "yippee!" and grin, as the past comes alive for you, then this is definitely the book for you.

A wonderful read, 04 Mar 2004
This is one of those books you can read (after believing you have a good grip on the subject) to discover how much you have missed! Excellent for those starting to study Italian fifteenth century art and very readable.

Almost uniquely among fine art books this one fits in a jacket pocket as it is a standard sized paperback. I disagree with the other reviewer who complained that it was lacking in illustrations (it isn't) but its small size does make the provision of sensible illustrations impossible and if you have other books on the period (or can use the Internet or a public library) you should have no trouble finding illustrations of any of the works mentioned.

Highly recommended, 24 Nov 2003
This tiny book is immensely helpful and interesting. It focuses on the ways in which critics in the fifteenth century judged paintings, and provides tools which can be used in analysing paintings from pretty much any period. So many art books are pretentious or difficult: this one is really informative and enlightening. It is educational in the best sense of the word.

An interesting perspective, 25 Aug 2003
I very much like this book. Although obviously an academic text, it's written in an easy-to-read style that's not overwhelming. I've studied this period of art history at some length, but the information provided in this brief work provides a fresh perspective, and I've seen some of my favourite paintings in a fresh light. I especially like the chapter on the 'language' of body posture - the idea that every posture had a specific meaning which viewers of that period would have immediately understood. It's made me go back and look at lots of works from the period and 'translate' their gestures! Great fun for lovers of art history! Recommended.

Excellent, 16 Jan 2007
A splendid general account of the history of Florence aimed at the general reader, with particular emphasis on the crucial Renaissance 14th-15th centuries. Well illustrated also. A must for anyone with a non-specialist interest in the city and/or its art and culture.


Eminently readable account of the history behind the art, 15 Jan 2000
Only Hibbert could write 'the biography of a city'. He brings Florence alive with his lively narrative while not skimping on the historical detail. The most "unstuffy" history book I have ever read, it only serves to make me want to jump on a plane immediately and re-explore this fascinating city. Whether a traveller or historian this is an indispensable book.

A Witness to Barbarism, 21 Oct 2008
I have meant to read this for a long time, and the wait was worth it. Levi - certainly in translation - writes the most beautiful, spare prose. Despite the grisly and appalling subject matter, what shines through is the humanity of not only the author but some of the other characters. 'If This Is A Man' was written within a couple of years of the author's return home to Italy, and this surely accounts for the clarity of recall and description. It is no surprise that Levi achieved 'legendary' status before his tragic death.

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

An exquisite love letter to Venice, 13 Nov 2006
I decided to read "Venice" in preparation for a week-long stay in the Italian city.

Broken into three sections -- The People, The City, The Lagoon -- "Venice" is not a chronological history of the city but a meandering look at its past, present and future. Nor is it a guidebook, although it does contain a mine of information about what to see and where to go.

I think "The Times" probably described it best when they said it was "a classic love letter to Italy's most iconic city", because it is, indeed, a beautiful missive dripping with exquisite descriptions. I found it an enormously engaging and evocative read by an accomplished writer who really knows how to string a simile or two together.For example: "Venice is a cheek-by-jowl, back-of-the-hand, under-the-counter, higgledy-piggledy, anecdotal city, and she is rich in piquant wrinkled things, like an assortment of bric-a-brac in the house of a wayward connoisseur, or parasites on an oyster-shell (page 201)".

And: "There are palaces to see everywhere, and precious churches, and bridges, and pictures by the thousand, and all the criss-cross pattern of antiquity that is picturesque Venice, mocked by the materialists, sentimentalised by the Romantics, but still by any standards an astonishing phenomenon, as fruity as plum pudding, as tart as the brand that flames about its holly (page 219)".

In fact the writing throughout this superb book is sublime (much like Venice itself) and I would quote entire chapters here, except it's probably better if you just took my word for it and got hold of a copy of "Venice" for yourself. It's a beautifully written and researched book, jam-packed with anecdotes and all kinds of historical fact. Whether you have been to Venice or not, I'm sure once you have read Jan Morris's delightful memoir you will be clammering to book your flights!

the real Venice - a personal view, but very evocative, 20 Dec 2005
This is a wonderful book which catches the flavour of Venice and is beautifully written. Jan Morris is one of the most individual and memorable of all travel writers, and this city is one she knows well and loves greatly ; that is evident on every page. The visual descriptions are precise and quirky, the little stories from Venetian myth and legend add character to the book and her knowledge of the history and culture of the place, worn lightly and always enlightening, never intrusive, make this a fine book. Above all she is a marvellous writer.

Brilliant, passionate prose intertwining past and present, 31 May 2005
The most evocative and well balanced description of a place and people. Morris writes beautiful prose with passion, knitting together the present and past in a seamless fashion which is nothing short of genius. The only criticism is that lists of things found in Venice can be a little tedious e.g. the description of the different Venetian Lions

Am I a Philistine?, 03 Mar 2005
I purchased this book after carefully reading the reviews, the majority of which were ecstatic! On receiving it, I found it to be (dare I say?) rather "high brow" and not really a guidebook at all but a literary tribute to a glorious past of Venice. Please don't think that I am a McDonald's hunting moron, but as a first time visitor to Venice, I don't think I can use it to find my way around the city too clearly

If you havenýt been to Venice..., 15 Nov 2003
... and maybe aren't even going, but wonder why all the fuss about Venice, here's your answer. Reading this book is like inhaling the soul of the place without ever going there - armchair travelling of the highest order.
Nowhere that Morris visits feels like 'just another place' if you carry her writing in your mind - as you will - when you arrive there. This is effortless writing in both senses: for her (seemingly) and for you. Perfect word-painting just flows from her pen: images... stories... legends... history... atmosphere and small curiosities. It's like listening to the perfect dinner-guest who could not patronise you if she tried, unaffectedly recalling in direct, easy language, her own experience of this unparallelled, unique old city.
For someone who has already visited and loves Venice, here is the Ah! factor, in spades. If you have yet to go there, take Morris with you in your head AND the book in your luggage for re-reading.

Excellent, 12 Oct 2008
Superb for a newcomer to this period of history - as detailed as necessary, as concise as possible.

A superb historical account, 01 Oct 2008
A superb account of one of the most famous and influential dynasties in European history.
Beginning with an overview of Medieval Florece, Christopher Hibbert takes us back to a sumptuous world of arts, merchants and an advanced democratic civilization. It begins with the story of Cosimo, the brilliant banker, who through his connections to the Papacy, becomes a major powerbroker in Italian affairs, much to the annoyance of Florences ruling Signoria, who unable to decide on his fate, place his life or death to a plebescite, which results in temporary banishment, only to return and establish a wealthy and cultured dynasty.
Lorenzo il Manifico is the definite star, the patro of the arts who oversaw Florence's golden age. However, the most interesting part of the account is the rise of the Dominican Monk Savaronola and Florence's descent into a deranged theocracy.
By the time the book speaks of the passing of Anna Maria, one has a sense of sadness that such a great dynasty has reached its end, and such a sadness was felt in Florence at the time.
On the whole a superb book, one of the best historical accounts I have read this year.

Polaroid View of History, 07 Jul 2007
This book focuses on a fascinating period, but the camera (i.e. Historian Christopher Hibbert) is a polaroid camera, so the image is not particularly sharp and enchanting.
As I read this book I realised that it could have been written by almost anyone in a university history department. It didn't have a disntinctive style or anything particular to say. It just ran through the gamut of the subject in an entirely predicatable way -- the rise of the city state, trade more important than before, new ways of thinking but respect for the ways of the Church, the rise of the 'new man' and the threat this posed to the putative democracy of the city state, the fate of the Medici tied to the varying abilities of different members, an interest in the arts, the gradual co-opting of the Medici to the old nobility, etc. etc.

The phrase 'scissors and paste attempt' kept running through my mind as I turned the pages, a thought further emphasised by the poor quality of the paper on which the book was printed and the cover, which soon curled up even though I had read it quickly and only once.


Not a very intellectual book, 01 Oct 2000
As an A-level history student I waited for this book to arrive. After beginning to read it I was deeply disappointed. The language is completely descriptive, not very good for a text book; and has no kind of counter argument to it. Lorenzo de Medici is praised, but his bad points are not shown. The descriptive language is overtly, almost offensively flowery and there is very little actual evidence to back up Mr. Hibbert's views. Mr Hibbert relies on hearsay and public events, none of which was properly established and offends the intellect with his set piece scenarios. I also get the feeling he makes things up for his sensationalist ideas. All in all this book is a waste of time if you are looking for anything with historical value at all.

Brilliant! One of the best books I've ever read., 06 Jun 2000
Why has it taken me over 20 years to discover this book? Erudite, factual, witty, entertaining, this is a must for anyone with the slightest interest in Florence, the Renaissance, art, history. Better than any guidebook, Chapter 10 should be read by every tourist who wants to understand the very convoluted history of Florence.

Splitting Attractive Hairs, 07 Jul 2007
This is the kind of book that History of Art departments throw at you early on in their courses to instil the right respect and awe for the whole academic ritual.

When I first saw this book at Birkbeck College (2003 History of Art MA) I was duly impressed and intimidated into thinking this was somehow a classic. In this work Baxandall is the exemplary academic, slowly building up a case from painstaking research and cleverly interpreted trivia.

This approach is fine and dandy until you reflect that at the end of it the conclusions Baxandall has laboured so hard to arrive at are perhaps a little banal -- i.e. Renaissance painting was influenced by such contemporary phenomenon as religious practices, dancing, and the ability to judge quantities by eye.

The only reason this book works as a book is that the Renaissance is such an attractive period that Baxandall's painstakingly dull technique receives a charming counterpoint in the endearing trivia of the period. Unfortunately this effect is not replicated in other works by Baxandall that I have looked at. To college students getting a dose of this, I would say, 'Enjoy the period, but think about how relevant this kind of hairsplitting really is.'


Lapis at 4 ducats the ounce..., 28 Jul 2004
As well as being a splendid introduction to the paintings and the philosophy behind them, this book is particularly good on the relationship between the artists and their rich patrons, and between the artists and their materials. It's full of intriguing details. Why, for example, pure blue is so rare as well as so rich -- at this period, all the lapis lazuli that European painters could use was mined from one mine (somewhere in Afghanistan) and imported solely through Venice... So it's no surprise to see patrons putting clauses in their contracts with their artists: "use the best blue at 4 ducats the ounce; don't try palming me off with any 2-ducat rubbish!"

If this is the sort of thing that makes you go "yippee!" and grin, as the past comes alive for you, then this is definitely the book for you.

A wonderful read, 04 Mar 2004
This is one of those books you can read (after believing you have a good grip on the subject) to discover how much you have missed! Excellent for those starting to study Italian fifteenth century art and very readable.

Almost uniquely among fine art books this one fits in a jacket pocket as it is a standard sized paperback. I disagree with the other reviewer who complained that it was lacking in illustrations (it isn't) but its small size does make the provision of sensible illustrations impossible and if you have other books on the period (or can use the Internet or a public library) you should have no trouble finding illustrations of any of the works mentioned.

Highly recommended, 24 Nov 2003
This tiny book is immensely helpful and interesting. It focuses on the ways in which critics in the fifteenth century judged paintings, and provides tools which can be used in analysing paintings from pretty much any period. So many art books are pretentious or difficult: this one is really informative and enlightening. It is educational in the best sense of the word.

An interesting perspective, 25 Aug 2003
I very much like this book. Although obviously an academic text, it's written in an easy-to-read style that's not overwhelming. I've studied this period of art history at some length, but the information provided in this brief work provides a fresh perspective, and I've seen some of my favourite paintings in a fresh light. I especially like the chapter on the 'language' of body posture - the idea that every posture had a specific meaning which viewers of that period would have immediately understood. It's made me go back and look at lots of works from the period and 'translate' their gestures! Great fun for lovers of art history! Recommended.

Excellent, 16 Jan 2007
A splendid general account of the history of Florence aimed at the general reader, with particular emphasis on the crucial Renaissance 14th-15th centuries. Well illustrated also. A must for anyone with a non-specialist interest in the city and/or its art and culture.


Eminently readable account of the history behind the art, 15 Jan 2000
Only Hibbert could write 'the biography of a city'. He brings Florence alive with his lively narrative while not skimping on the historical detail. The most "unstuffy" history book I have ever read, it only serves to make me want to jump on a plane immediately and re-explore this fascinating city. Whether a traveller or historian this is an indispensable book.

Burckhardt the Prescient Historian, 27 Jul 1999
For much of the last 139 years, Jacob Burckhardt's work has been dismissed as too "Nineteenth Century" for serious study: more literature than serious history. So much the pity. What Burckhardt left us in The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy is a magisterial, thematic, understanding of the Italian Renaissance that is far more 1990's in its observations and human understandings than its original 1860's. It is a shame that Burckhardt's famous pupil, Nietzsche, didn't learn a little more balance and discretion at his elder's feet. This book is a joy to read. Like Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, this work shows us how history can engage the spirit, and how far off the mark some modern historians have gone with their more "scholarly" work.

A Witness to Barbarism, 21 Oct 2008
I have meant to read this for a long time, and the wait was worth it. Levi - certainly in translation - writes the most beautiful, spare prose. Despite the grisly and appalling subject matter, what shines through is the humanity of not only the author but some of the other characters. 'If This Is A Man' was written within a couple of years of the author's return home to Italy, and this surely accounts for the clarity of recall and description. It is no surprise that Levi achieved 'legendary' status before his tragic death.

Indispensible - a necessary read, 27 Jun 2008
If you want to understand the holocaust, how and why it happened, then you need to read If This Is A Man. Levi dispenses with his emotional responses and describes what happened with a frightening detachment. Through his eyes, Levi shows us how the Nazi machine sought to rob their victims of all vestiges of their humanity and thereby justify their treatment of the camp victims. This in turn led to the horrible events that we all know so well. Levi, however, does not just aim to show us the horror of the events, but understand them. Thus, amongst the debasement of life in the camps, we see how necessary it becomes to bathe with dirty water - not to clean yourself, but to regain fragments of your own humanity. This book is essential if we are to understand why the holocaust happened so easily and through it we can piece together how to prevent it happening again. Or at least understand the processes through which a society allows itself to sleepwalk into such nightmares. The reader walks away with nothing but sheer admiration for Levi and his abililty to continue to analyse his experiences despite the brutality of what he had to endure. It is an admiration that will be tinged with sadness when you learn of his eventual fate.

A truly necessary book, 21 Apr 2008
Philip Roth has described this as "one of the century's truly necessary books", and the adjective feels exactly right. It's not enjoyable, or uplifting, or brilliant, or sentimental, or entertaining, but you feel compelled to read it, and to tell everyone else about it. Previously, I thought I knew a little about the prison camps and the Nazi program for the extermination of the Jews, but Levi's dispassionate account of his world brings out a level of everyday detail that - incredibly - is almost mundane in its completeness.

In his introduction to the book, Levi signs off almost regretfully, saying "It seems to me unecessary to add that none of the facts are invented". At first, you wonder why he should - however gently - remind his reader of this, but then you're plunged into a world of such unbelievable horror that your only hope of relief would be that it wasn't all true. There are all kinds of ways in which he illustrates what it's like to live in a place that's so unrelentingly dedicated to your humiliation and destruction but, for me, one of the most memorable moments came when he was to be interviewed by one of the chemists in the rubber factory attached to the camp (in a withering aside that highlights yet another aspect of the total waste of human life, he also points out that - in spite of all the slave labour, all the prisoners who were worked to death by the Germans in the factory - it never actually produced anything).

He describes how the man looked at him "as if across the glass window of an aquarium between two beings who live in different worlds". It's almost impossible to understand the depths of inhumanity that the Nazis plumbed, but Levi does that here, and reaches across the page to remind us of the perils and joys of the human condition.

Hard to recommend, hard to avoid recommending, 29 Jan 2008
Where do you start with a book like this? It's brilliantly written, and compelling reading - for the quality of the narrative as much (more?) than the subject matter. But, of course, the subject matter makes it virtually unreadable. How much do you really want to know about the experience of drawing breath in one of the Auschwitz camps? How little imagination do you need to have, to need the monstrosity spelt out in all its tiny, obsessive detail? It appalled me to find myself turning the pages, unable to put it down without the expedient of falling asleep. It was like some twisted snuff porn on one level, as Levi led me through the minutiae of violence and death, like I was rubber-necking into the mangled driver's seat of a road fatality, and running my fingers through the spilled brains. Too much; all too much. Yet the book is an utterly compelling discussion of what defines 'man'; where the boundaries lie; what morality is; what language is; what judgement is. Like a single, extended essay on the big questions. Levi does not judge, he observes, with withering clarity, and leaves the reader to pick up the pieces. Along with All Quiet on the Western Front and one or two others, it's one of those books I felt immediately that I should go on to study in depth, while knowing that I will struggle ever to read so much as a line of it again. Levi observes that the experience of Auschwitz was like taking part in some social and psychological experiment of the most monstrous and preposterous scale, that only the most insane combination of events and people could have facilitated. Reading this book felt a lot like being allowed to peep into a world of unique atrocity; to share the thoughts of someone who had not only touched the depths, but had spent months grovelling around on the bottom. It felt both a privilege and a kind of outrage; shaming, emptying, and stupidly enlightening, in a way I didn't want to be enlightened. Am I in any way improved for having read it? Or scarred by the experience, in my own tiny way? I have no idea yet. Read it at your peril, but it is a stunning piece of writing and a terrible witness.

A must read, 27 Dec 2006
Beautifully written on subjects only personally witnessed in a personal way with the clinical reporting of a professional chemist. If you read often or infrequently this is a must read. Read in conjunction with Auschwitz report.

An exquisite love letter to Venice, 13 Nov 2006
I decided to read "Venice" in preparation for a week-long stay in the Italian city.

Broken into three sections -- The People, The City, The Lagoon -- "Venice" is not a chronological history of the city but a meandering look at its past, present and future. Nor is it a guidebook, although it does contain a mine of information about what to see and where to go.

I think "The Times" probably described it best when they said it was "a classic love letter to Italy's most iconic city", because it is, indeed, a beautiful missive dripping with exquisite descriptions. I found it an enormously engaging and evocative read by an accomplished writer who really knows how to string a simile or two together.For example: "Venice is a cheek-by-jowl, back-of-the-hand, under-the-counter, higgledy-piggledy, anecdotal city, and she is rich in piquant wrinkled things, like an assortment of bric-a-brac in the house of a wayward connoisseur, or parasites on an oyster-shell (page 201)".

And: "There are palaces to see everywhere, and precious churches, and bridges, and pictures by the thousand, and all the criss-cross pattern of antiquity that is picturesque Venice, mocked by the materialists, sentimentalised by the Romantics, but still by any standards an astonishing phenomenon, as fruity as plum pudding, as tart as the brand that flames about its holly (page 219)".

In fact the writing throughout this superb book is sublime (much like Venice itself) and I would quote entire chapters here, except it's probably better if you just took my word for it and got hold of a copy of "Venice" for yourself. It's a beautifully written and researched book, jam-packed with anecdotes and all kinds of historical fact. Whether you have been to Venice or not, I'm sure once you have read Jan Morris's delightful memoir you will be clammering to book your flights!

the real Venice - a personal view, but very evocative, 20 Dec 2005
This is a wonderful book which catches the flavour of Venice and is beautifully written. Jan Morris is one of the most individual and memorable of all travel writers, and this city is one she knows well and loves greatly ; that is evident on every page. The visual descriptions are precise and quirky, the little stories from Venetian myth and legend add character to the book and her knowledge of the history and culture of the place, worn lightly and always enlightening, never intrusive, make this a fine book. Above all she is a marvellous writer.