|
 I've finished 'The Arms of Krupp' by William Manchester. Great book, highly readable, and a must-read for anyone who is eager to flesh out their knowledge of early modern Germany. And Krupp too of course. I want to mention how I really enjoyed the frequent inclusions of German-phrases and words by the author, I've actually come out of reading this book with a boosted German vocabulary. It's really quite wunderbar. Manchester obviously attempted to pull the reader into the era the book deals with, and it works well. Knowledge also granted to me was the personality traits of the head Krupp men. Simply put, nearly every head Kruppanier of die firma was an extremely narcissistic & selfish human-being. These men would go to extreme lengths to achieve a high-profit margin and maximum efficiency. Even to the point of one day employing "untermensch" to work in Krupp foundries. Nearly all of these guys were neglected emotionally by their parents, with most of their childhoods being spent participating in rigorous tutoring for the eventual running of the firm in their adulthood. A sort of vicious cycle if you ask me, one emotionally-damaged Krupp poisoning the next. Frankly though, this did create one extremely well-run business. But nonetheless, one really bad Krupp would end up damaging the reputation of the entire firm by going much too far. Highly readable and informative, definitely worth a look.
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2012 09:55
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 4, 2024 19:51 |
|
|
Oh yeah, that cover is terrible. The new one is good, I just didn't think the image was large enough.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 7, 2012 14:32
|
|
|
TwoStepBoog posted:First post on this subforum, but I just finished this recently and wanted to share it. A very good book, although I disagree with the authors general assessment of Eric's psychological condition. I believe he was most likely a sociopath rather than a psychopath. From the knowledge gathered of Eric's home life his mental condition would seem to have been brought on by environmental origins, not biological like a psychopath. Although technically secondary psychopathy is thought to be environmental, it wasn't explicitly mentioned in this book. Nonetheless, it is no doubt true that by the time of Columbine Eric was beyond saving. And in the general scheme of things this is all irrelevant, but I want to note that typically serial killers and mass-murderers are known to be sociopaths and not psychopaths. And thus Eric wasn't completely to blame for his condition, and because of this we should note that factors we could control end up leading to a person potentially committing a terrible act.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 25, 2012 21:24
|
|
|
Ambulocetus posted:So, how about the War of 1812? I'm looking for some kind of an overview. "The War of 1812" by Donald R. Hickey is good. It isn't terribly engrossing in the way its written, but it is definitely suitable as an overview.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 10, 2013 08:38
|
|