Amis, Martin. Koba the dread; laughter and the twenty million.Random House, Vintage. 306p. index. c2002. 1-4000-3220-2. $14.00. A In some ways noted British novelist Amis has produced a wonderfully accessible and moving account of Stalin's crimes and their place in history, but this is also a personal, idiosyncratic id·i·o·syn·cra·sy n. pl. id·i·o·syn·cra·sies 1. A structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. 2. A physiological or temperamental peculiarity. 3. history that might be hard for students to follow. Those of us who remember Amis' father or know who Robert Conquest Dr. George Robert Ackworth Conquest (born July 15 1917), British historian, became one of the best-known writers on the Soviet Union with the publication, in 1968, of his account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s, The Great Terror. is can easily relate to Amis' opening recollections of how he first got interested in the subject at hand; but students might find it an odd way to approach it. That said, the book has some key strengths: it is easy to peruse pe·ruse tr.v. pe·rused, pe·rus·ing, pe·rus·es To read or examine, typically with great care. [Middle English perusen, to use up : Latin per-, per- , includes a useful index, and it comes in at under 300 pages, too. While each section features some Amis reflections and side thoughts, each is also riveting riv·et·ing adj. Wholly absorbing or engrossing one's attention; fascinating: The last chapter was so riveting that I was reading past midnight. because Amis is a brilliant writer and he uses a wealth of horrifying statistics and stories to make his points. My own high school students find it easy to understand what Hitler did. Stalin's story is more complicated. In fact, that very point is a key theme that Amis pursues. Daniel Levinson Daniel J. Levinson was one of the founders of the field of Positive Adult Development. He was born in New York City on May 28, 1920. He completed his dissertation at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1947, on the measurement of ethnocentrism. , Teacher, Thayer Acad., Braintree, MA |
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