Michele Fitoussi presents Malika Oufkir's story faithfully enough. As it is told by Malika Oufkir, it is memoir, not history, and it would be unfair to expect Fitoussi or Oufkir to attempt to be objective about General Oufkir's role in Moroccan history. Those seeking historical background should have known better. The most interesting part about the book is what is revealed about Malika Oufkir between the lines. In the details she chooses to provide, in the events she chooses to analyze, in everything she chooses to omit, she provides insight into her character. She is eager to present herself as the young hellion turned mother-figure, bravely carrying her family through years of hell. She may well have, but we have here only her word for it. I eagerly await Maria's or Soukhaina's tome. Am I sympathetic to Malika? She refers blithely to the lot of slaves and servants during her palace years, conveying the impression that to this day she doesn't regard their lot as particularly horrifying. Her brief references to politics and her comments on the inactivity of her friends while she was in captivity are either delightfully naive or dreadfully cynical; after all, during her description of her life in the palace, she herself refers to those sent to internal exile - and I don't recall a single instance of her trying to free them, smuggle them food, or otherwise reach them with messages of support. In the end, she comes across as half world-weary survivor, and half petulant, spoiled ex-princess. That's an interesting combination and this slowly emerging picture is alone worth the price of admission. In the end, it's hard to sympathize with Malika. Her family did suffer. The plight of Abdellatif in particular is heart-rending. But I never got the impression that Malika felt particularly bad about anything that happened outside of her family. I am left with a sense of her relative indifference to the two friends who chose to accompany the family into confinement. She didn't seem particularly concerned about those who preceded her into internal exile, and she is unabashedly and callously unconcerned about the danger into which she brought her friends during the brief escape. This would be merely interesting, except that the entire book is a clear call for sympathy - and on on that account, it left me feeling a tad...indifferent.

Taylor's book is a satisfactory survey of Lee's life. Unfortunately, that is not how the book is billed. Taylor purports to answer Lee's critics. I'm squarely in his camp; I find much of the criticism of Lee to be scholarly opportunism: an attempt to make a name through iconoclasm. Taylor is right when he notes that the attempt to puncture the Lee myth went too far, but he fails to convincingly demonstrate why. He brings up specific criticisms infrequently, inadequately lays out the critic's argument, and often dismisses the criticism without having made a convincing case of his own. His arguments concerning Lee's attitudes toward slavery are never fully convincing, for example. This is particularly distressing when one can see that, in most cases, the convincing counterargument is there, waiting to be made. By constructing his book in the format of a chronological narrative, Taylor lost the opportunity to level a blast at academic graverobbers. A book aimed at answering Lee's critics needs to spend a great deal more time and effort on the critics and their arguments. To Taylor's credit, he never attempts to whitewash information damaging to one of his points. He tries to be complete in his portrayal, and that alone makes this a worthwhile read.

The best effort I've ever seen at putting the reader in Arab shoes. It's not objective - read the title, it's not INTENDED to be objective. It's the Arab viewpoint, and it's grand. Perhaps the subtler lesson is that the Arab viewpoint is not a simplistic view of Arab victims and Western criminal aggression. It's far more nuanced; the Arabs of the day and of today were and are perfectly aware of the effects of internecine politics on their ability to stand up to the Afranj. What one might mistake for objectivity is the surprising discovery that the subjective viewpoint of the Arabs is complex and does not absolve them of all responsibility for their travails. What Maalouf succeeds best at is planting the reader squarely in a world centered around Baghdad, Damascus, and Cairo. Much as the Western depictions of the Mongols and Huns gain resolution as the events draw nearer to Europe's heart, the Afranj begin as a nebulous barbaric horde passing Constantinople, and become real people with real personalities as they approach Jerusalem, establish roots, and become part of the Middle Eastern political reality. One of the most successful attempts I've seen at portraying a familiar historical event from an unfamiliar perspective.

The literary criticism you can get from the Oxford edition (check your local library); the commentary is thorough (which parts did Twain write? which parts Warner?) and informative. My reasons for recommending this book have nothing to do with its literary value (spotty) and everything to do with its subtitle. Every now and then an old book teaches us that much of what we take to be modern and sophisticated is truly old hat. One of the best descriptions of the Cold War was written by Thucydides, and one of the best depictions of the go go dot.com economy was written by Twain. Substitute web sites for depots and bandwidth for rails and the conversations in this book could have been overhead on cel phones in San Jose. IPO's and bubbles are not twenty-first century innovations: as Twain shows us,it may be possible to get rich from hard work, but it's more tempting to get rich by looting the pockets of the uninformed. Senator Dilworthy's dedication to pork evokes Byrd, and we learn lecherous behavior in Congress didn't start with Condit. An entertaining validation of Ecclesiates: there truly is nothing new under the sun.