A patron came into Peninsula Library looking for information on two topics:
1. Jewish soldiers in the Finnish Army who participated in the siege of Leningrad
2. Ukranian soldiers who served in the German Army.
He knew about both, yet wanted printed information so that he could prove the points to someone. He said he served in the US Army and was at D-Day; when US soldiers captured Nazi soldiers at Normandy, it turned out that they were not speaking German, and that they were Ukranian. He also knew about Jewish Finnish soldiers, and related to me a story of Finnish Army Marshal Mannerheim: requested by a German officer to not have Jews serving alongside Germans, he told the German that said soldiers were Finnish, and that he would not be told who could serve in his Army.
I did find material on the web, including a link to an article in the Jewish Quarterly, and information at Yad Vashem.
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was a soldier and a politician, became president of Finland.
14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Ukrainian)
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Germany. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Follow the hyperlink
A fascinating article in the current issue of the New York Review of Books on three books about the Dreyfus Affair, by Robert Gildea. In the Contributors page, he is identified as Professor of Modern History at Oxford University. Indeed.
Four of his books are in the OPAC:
Barricades and borders : Europe 1800-1914. Oxford [Oxfordshire] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1987.
Children of the Revolution : the French, 1799-1914. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2008.
France since 1945. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2002.
Marianne in chains : everyday life in the French heartland under the German occupation. New York: Henry Holt, 2003.
HW owns the 2nd and 4th; I'm going to take a look.
Four of his books are in the OPAC:
Barricades and borders : Europe 1800-1914. Oxford [Oxfordshire] ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1987.
Children of the Revolution : the French, 1799-1914. Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 2008.
France since 1945. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2002.
Marianne in chains : everyday life in the French heartland under the German occupation. New York: Henry Holt, 2003.
HW owns the 2nd and 4th; I'm going to take a look.
Kissinger dissertation
Came back from lunch to a question of finding Henry Kissinger's doctoral dissertation. Googling the term Kissinger Elena Kagan (I recalled some news item to that effect – which turned out to be a Daily Beast quiz Is Elena Kagan a Socialist and was about their senior theses) eventually led me to Henry Kissinger - Conservapedia. Therein I saw reference to his dissertation: "A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812-22," a study praising how the conservative diplomats of the era built a stable and peaceful international system after the Napoleonic wars.
The dissertation was published in 1957 by Houghton Mifflin [940.57 K].As the father, who had asked the question, said his son attends Yale, I went to Yale.edu, found a link to the library, entered the title, and got a record back:
The first link in searching on Google scholar was Kissinger: A Biography, by Walter Isaacson.
Wrote the kid an email, and closed the case (sorta).
The dissertation was published in 1957 by Houghton Mifflin [940.57 K].As the father, who had asked the question, said his son attends Yale, I went to Yale.edu, found a link to the library, entered the title, and got a record back:
A world restored; Metternich, Castlereagh and the problems of peace, 1812-22.
| Author: | Kissinger, Henry, 1923- |
|---|---|
| Title: | A world restored; Metternich, Castlereagh and the problems of peace, 1812-22. |
| Published: | Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1957. |
| Description: | 354 p. illus. 23 cm. |
| Location: | SML, Stacks, Yale Classification |
| Call Number: | Bi43 957K |
| Status: | Not Checked Out |
| Subjects (Library of Congress): | Metternich, Clemens Wenzel Lothar, Fürst von, 1773-1859. |
| Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, Viscount, 1769-1822. | |
| Europe --Politics and government --1815-1848. | |
| Database: | Yale University Library |
The first link in searching on Google scholar was Kissinger: A Biography, by Walter Isaacson.
Wrote the kid an email, and closed the case (sorta).
Friday, October 30, 2009
Amid price war, rationing
Boulder Book Store had hoped to buy discounted bestsellers from Walmart, Target and Amazon.
Two weeks after an online book price war broke out among giant retailers, the three stores involved—Walmart, Amazon and Target—are limiting the number of copies their customers can buy.
The limits will stop other booksellers from scooping up cheap copies in large quantities and reselling them.
Arsen Kashkashian, head buyer at the Boulder Book Store, in Boulder, Colo., said he had intended to buy as many as 70 copies of Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna" from Walmart.com, Target.com or Amazon, because their prices are "more than $5 cheaper than what we can get it for from the publisher, Harper.
Mr. Kashkashian said he was surprised to see that the three retailers were limiting the quantities sold. "We're a big store, and if a customer wanted to order 100 copies of anything, we'd sell it to them," he said.
Well, nice argument, but that would have the big three subsidizing the smaller stores; whatever the merits or demerits, those three are not likely to provide such subsidies.
Raul Vazquez, CEO of Walmart.com, said in an interview this week that the company's book promotion had resulted in brisk sales of the coming titles, and had also boosted sales of other products. He declined to reveal any figures.
Joel Bines of consultancy AlixPartners LLP said retailers commonly ration loss-leader promotions to stop competitors from buying up the merchandise. In the book promotion, Mr. Bines noted, some independent booksellers surely would purchase Wal-Mart's books in bulk if possible at their below-wholesale price. He said some of the books would also probably end up on eBay, offered by speculators.
"It's to prevent a run on the bank, so to speak," Mr. Bines said of the limits. "They are losing money on every item they sell at this price, so they want to make sure the items actually go to customers, who might then buy something else."
Consider the alternative: in Europe, book price discounting is not allowed, by law.
In Europe, the price war raging among America's biggest book retailers has offered new validation to an age-old approach to the business: price fixing.
In much of Europe, the discount-pricing battle that has erupted among Wal-Mart Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Target Corp. could never happen because most major publishing markets, with the exception of the U.K., are bolstered by laws requiring all bookstores, online retailers included, to sell books at prices set in stone by their publishers.
Nowhere is the fixed-price tradition as deeply rooted as in Germany, a nation with a book-rich culture that stretches back to Gutenberg in the 15th century.
Many in German attribute the country's thriving literary and publishing scene to a system that outlaws the discounting of virtually all new books for 18 months. The system protects independent booksellers and smaller publishers from giant rivals that could discount their way to more market share. Along with some 7,000 bookshops, nearly 14,000 German publishers remain in business. Many are of modest size, like Munich-based Carl Hanser Verlag, which publishes the work of this year's Nobel laureate, German-Romanian writer Herta Mueller.
Two weeks after an online book price war broke out among giant retailers, the three stores involved—Walmart, Amazon and Target—are limiting the number of copies their customers can buy.
The limits will stop other booksellers from scooping up cheap copies in large quantities and reselling them.
Arsen Kashkashian, head buyer at the Boulder Book Store, in Boulder, Colo., said he had intended to buy as many as 70 copies of Barbara Kingsolver's "The Lacuna" from Walmart.com, Target.com or Amazon, because their prices are "more than $5 cheaper than what we can get it for from the publisher, Harper.
Mr. Kashkashian said he was surprised to see that the three retailers were limiting the quantities sold. "We're a big store, and if a customer wanted to order 100 copies of anything, we'd sell it to them," he said.
Well, nice argument, but that would have the big three subsidizing the smaller stores; whatever the merits or demerits, those three are not likely to provide such subsidies.
Raul Vazquez, CEO of Walmart.com, said in an interview this week that the company's book promotion had resulted in brisk sales of the coming titles, and had also boosted sales of other products. He declined to reveal any figures.
Joel Bines of consultancy AlixPartners LLP said retailers commonly ration loss-leader promotions to stop competitors from buying up the merchandise. In the book promotion, Mr. Bines noted, some independent booksellers surely would purchase Wal-Mart's books in bulk if possible at their below-wholesale price. He said some of the books would also probably end up on eBay, offered by speculators.
"It's to prevent a run on the bank, so to speak," Mr. Bines said of the limits. "They are losing money on every item they sell at this price, so they want to make sure the items actually go to customers, who might then buy something else."
Consider the alternative: in Europe, book price discounting is not allowed, by law.
In Europe, the price war raging among America's biggest book retailers has offered new validation to an age-old approach to the business: price fixing.
In much of Europe, the discount-pricing battle that has erupted among Wal-Mart Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Target Corp. could never happen because most major publishing markets, with the exception of the U.K., are bolstered by laws requiring all bookstores, online retailers included, to sell books at prices set in stone by their publishers.
Nowhere is the fixed-price tradition as deeply rooted as in Germany, a nation with a book-rich culture that stretches back to Gutenberg in the 15th century.
Many in German attribute the country's thriving literary and publishing scene to a system that outlaws the discounting of virtually all new books for 18 months. The system protects independent booksellers and smaller publishers from giant rivals that could discount their way to more market share. Along with some 7,000 bookshops, nearly 14,000 German publishers remain in business. Many are of modest size, like Munich-based Carl Hanser Verlag, which publishes the work of this year's Nobel laureate, German-Romanian writer Herta Mueller.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Book Fair's dissident guests roil China
A dispute between China and organizers of the famed Frankfurt Book Fair threatens to overshadow the world's premier publishing event and become a diplomatic headache for German Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of elections later this month.
The rift broke open last weekend at a symposium to herald next month's Frankfurt Book Fair, whose guest country of honor this year is China. Just as the 2008 Olympics ushered China's economic and sporting accomplishments onto the world stage, the fair is intended to do the same for its literary achievements. Some 2,000 Chinese publishers, artists and writers are expected to attend, and the first of hundreds of exhibits, readings and author tours already began this spring.
The fair's official Chinese organizing committee, though, took issue with the invitations of two dissidents to the symposium, titled "China and the world -- perception and reality."
After the Chinese delegation threatened to boycott the event, book fair organizers withdrew invitations to journalist and environmental activist Dai Qing and poet Bei Ling -- only to have them come as the guests of the German PEN club of independent writers.
Perception and reality is quite an apt title, it seems.
The German government could face a tricky balancing act if it wades in to the dispute. China is a critical trading partner and helped jump-start Germany's export-heavy economy's climb out of its recession in recent months.
But Ms. Merkel has made defending human rights a cornerstone of her foreign policy. Two years ago, she defied Chinese pressure and criticism by becoming the first German chancellor to receive the Dalai Lama.
The rift broke open last weekend at a symposium to herald next month's Frankfurt Book Fair, whose guest country of honor this year is China. Just as the 2008 Olympics ushered China's economic and sporting accomplishments onto the world stage, the fair is intended to do the same for its literary achievements. Some 2,000 Chinese publishers, artists and writers are expected to attend, and the first of hundreds of exhibits, readings and author tours already began this spring.
The fair's official Chinese organizing committee, though, took issue with the invitations of two dissidents to the symposium, titled "China and the world -- perception and reality."
After the Chinese delegation threatened to boycott the event, book fair organizers withdrew invitations to journalist and environmental activist Dai Qing and poet Bei Ling -- only to have them come as the guests of the German PEN club of independent writers.
Perception and reality is quite an apt title, it seems.
The German government could face a tricky balancing act if it wades in to the dispute. China is a critical trading partner and helped jump-start Germany's export-heavy economy's climb out of its recession in recent months.
But Ms. Merkel has made defending human rights a cornerstone of her foreign policy. Two years ago, she defied Chinese pressure and criticism by becoming the first German chancellor to receive the Dalai Lama.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
