FREE/BARGAIN — Non-Fiction

[Dngrsone]

I have that book and I really liked it.

FWIW

[Fluribus]

I saw an interview with the author, a professor of history and law, a while back. As I recall, he was a left-leaning academic who was disappointed by Barack Obama. The book has a fairly even split between 1* and 5* reviews.

David Garrow Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama for $3.99 at Amazon.com.

[sufue]

Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum, by Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, caught my eye because it's about allegedly looted antiquities at the Getty in Los Angeles, and we're planning on going to the Getty next weekend. It looks pretty interesting, and has dropped to $1.99 as part of today's US Kindle Daily Deal.

link: https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Aphro...dp/B004X7TLOC/

Spoiler:

A “thrilling, well-researched” account of years of scandal at the prestigious Getty Museum (Ulrich Boser, author of The Gardner Heist).

In recent years, several of America’s leading art museums have voluntarily given up their finest pieces of classical art to the governments of Italy and Greece. Why would they be moved to such unheard-of generosity? The answer lies at the Getty, one of the world’s richest and most troubled museums, and scandalous revelations that it had been buying looted antiquities for decades. Drawing on a trove of confidential museum records and candid interviews, these two journalists give us a fly-on-the-wall account of the inner workings of a world-class museum, and tell a story of outlandish characters and bad behavior that could come straight from the pages of a thriller.

“In an authoritative account, two reporters who led a Los Angeles Times investigation reveal the details of the Getty Museum’s illicit purchases, from smugglers and fences, of looted Greek and Roman antiquities. . . . The authors offer an excellent recap of the museum’s misdeeds, brimming with tasty details of the scandal that motivated several of America’s leading art museums to voluntarily return to Italy and Greece some 100 classical antiquities worth more than half a billion dollars.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“An astonishing and penetrating look into a veiled world where beauty and art are in constant competition with greed and hypocrisy. This engaging book will cast a fresh light on many of those gleaming objects you see in art museums.” —Jonathan Harr, author of The Lost Painting

[Dngrsone]

Shattered City is currently $2.99 at Amazon.com... this is a book about the Great Halifax Explosion from 1917, though not the one we read for New Leaf, it is the major reference used in the the book we covered in our discussion.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by sufue

Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World's Richest Museum, by Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, caught my eye because it's about allegedly looted antiquities at the Getty in Los Angeles, and we're planning on going to the Getty next weekend. It looks pretty interesting, and has dropped to $1.99 as part of today's US Kindle Daily Deal.

link: https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Aphro...dp/B004X7TLOC/

It looks like the Getty would have little problem with looting, what with a stable political situation outside, probably tight internal safeguards, and likely a bevy of alarms. Add, too, the problem that thieves would have getting someone to buy "hot" antiquities, which potential buyers would recognize as being stolen. However, there are some "private collectors" who don't really care--they are interested in the items simply for their own personal enjoyment, and they put them in places in, for example, their houses, where no one else would have access.

What little that I know about the subject comes almost entirely from reading that I do in _Biblical Archeology [sic] Review (BAR).

Speaking of BAR, the most recent issue tells about the new antiquities museum in Baghdad, Iraq. Well, it's sort of a museum. I was pretty much skimming over information in the magazine issue at this point, but, if I understood correctly, it mainly has only audio-visual displays, because the original museum was (just about?) picked clean during the fighting and other turmoil, outside of the building a decade or two ago. This I do remember: only 3% of the looted stuff has ever been recovered. What a tragic loss.

Thankfully, photos, reproductions, and such like, exist of the former holdings of "The Getty." I'm sure that that is true of the museum in Iraq, also. Almost certainly they would have less of that kind of thing, though, because, for one thing, as you mentioned, The Getty is "the world's richest museum." And as one who has visited museums in Turkey. Israel, Greece, and Egypt (I've not had the opportunity to visit great ones like the British Museum and the Louvre, yet, however. ), nothing is like seeing the real things.

[Fluribus]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

It looks like the Getty would have little problem with looting, what with a stable political situation outside, probably tight internal safeguards, and likely a bevy of alarms. Add, too, the problem that thieves would have getting someone to buy "hot" antiquities, which potential buyers would recognize as being stolen. However, there are some "private collectors" who don't really care--they are interested in the items simply for their own personal enjoyment, and they put them in places in, for example, their houses, where no one else would have access.

It's not about items looted from the Getty Museum. It's about items looted from elsewhere and sold to the Getty.

[issybird]

Antony Beevor's The Second World War is 99p at Amazon UK today.

[Fluribus]

Mr. Crowley, won't you ride my white horse
Mr. Crowley, it's symbolic of course
Approaching a time that is classic

Ride into the past, though not into classical antiquity, and watch Portugal build an empire.

Roger Crowley Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire for $1.99 at Amazon.com.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by Fluribus

It's not about items looted from the Getty Museum. It's about items looted from elsewhere and sold to the Getty.

Genuine thanks for the correction.

So that I might salvage something from the post, the same issue of BAR addressed a very similar issue. People _and institutions_ are guilty of buying looted items. In fact, in the same issue of BAR, the editor announced a new policy of not accepting ads or articles, in which the "provenace" of an antiquity for sale in ads, or pictured in an article, is unknown.

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8

Genuine thanks for the correction.

So that I might salvage something from the post, the same issue of BAR addressed a very similar issue. People _and institutions_ are guilty of buying looted items. In fact, in the same issue of BAR, the editor announced a new policy of not accepting ads or articles, in which the "provenace" of an antiquity for sale in ads, or pictured in an article, is unknown.

I think that "provenace" is actually spelled "provenance."

Pages 6 and 76 also have a lot of great thoughts and information on this subject. An issue of BAR is expensive, in my opinion, if you buy it at a newsstand (sp?). If it's _too_ expensive for you, you can find it at the larger libraries (don't forget college libraries, where you can read them in those places, but not check them out (unless you are a student or whatever)).

[gunbad]

Now for something different

Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution
by Brian Kenny is on sale for 0.99 cents at Amazon US

Here you go fans of analytical baseball. An enjoyable entertainment of stories and info on the long road of revolution in baseball.

I have had the book on my wishlist since the kindle version came out in 2016. But the $16.99 to $14.99 price over the years was just too much for my budget. In November of 2017 Audible put the audiobook on sale for $4.95, so I finally had the satisfaction of reading this book at a reasonable price. I really enjoy listening to him talk analytics.

[MickeyC]

Originally Posted by gunbad

Now for something different

Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution
by Brian Kenny is on sale for 0.99 cents at Amazon US.
www.amazon.com/Ahead-Curve-Inside-Baseball-Revolution-ebook/dp/B0176M3V28/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1536508344&sr=1-2&keywords=ahead+of+the+curve

Here you go fans of analytical baseball. An enjoyable entertainment of stories and info on the long road of revolution in baseball.

I have had the book on my wishlist since the kindle version came out in 2016. But the $16.99 to $14.99 price over the years was just too much for my budget. In November of 2017 Audible put the audiobook on sale for $4.95, so I finally had the satisfaction of reading this book at a reasonable price. I really enjoy listening to him talk analytics.

Also available on Kobo for .99.

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/ahead-of-the-curve-6

[Dngrsone]

The Children of Henry the VIII by Alison Weir is currently on sale for $2.99 at Amazon.com

I have her book The Six Wives of Henry the VIII and enjoyed it enough that I am purchasing this one at such a decent price.

[sufue]

Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin's Dream of an Empire in Asia is another one of Peter Hopkirk's excellent (IMO, and also at Goodreads, where it gets 4.2 stars) histories of central Asia. It has dropped to $3.99 at Kindle and Kobo US. Hopkirk's titles rarely go on sale, so grab it if you are interested.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GVFNN1Q
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/set...-east-ablaze-1

Spoiler:

'Let us turn our faces towards Asia', exhorted Lenin when the long-awaited revolution in Europe failed to materialize. 'The East will help us conquer the West.'

Peter Hopkirk's book tells for the first time the story of the Bolshevik attempt to set the East ablaze with the heady new gospel of Marxism. Lenin's dream was to liberate the whole of Asia, but his starting point was British India. A shadowy undeclared war followed.

Among the players in this new Great Game were British spies, Communist revolutionaries, Muslim visionaries and Chinese warlords - as well as a White Russian baron who roasted his Bolshevik captives alive.

Here is an extraordinary tale of intrigue and treachery, barbarism and civil war, whose violent repercussions continue to be felt in Central Asia today.

[GtrsRGr8]

I ordered this Charles Oman ebook from Amazon, about 20 minutes ago. His specialty is (or was--I don't know if he is still living) the Middle Ages, particularly the wars of that age. Here's the URL:
https://amazon.com/Dark-Ages-476-918...dp/B077PG7Q4B/.

I should have said "three books," because it is a 3-volume set. The price for the entire set: 99 cents!

Furthermore, after I purchased the set, there was a little note from Amazon saying that I would receive " a promotional credit," after my "order had been processed." I wish that I could tell you what that credit is, but unfortunately my order had not finished processing as of about 10 minutes ago, and I've got other things to do after I finish this post. Also keep in mind that I may be getting this credit because Amazon likes me more than anyone else.