“Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times”, by Morris Rossabi

322 pages, University of California Press, ISBN-13: 978-0520059139

Morris Rossabi is an American historian and Senior Scholar and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and Distinguished Professor of History at Queens College; he was also given an honorary doctorate from the National University of Mongolia for his work on the history of Mongolia, China and East Asia, of which this book, Khubilai Khan: His Life and Times, forms a part (and don’t be like Spell-Check; it is spelled “Khubilai” and not “Kublai” throughout). Rossabi and all other historians seeking to review the history of the Khans face a difficult task as the Mongols had no written language, and, so, there are no histories of the Mongols written by the Mongols. The sources available to the historians are Confucian Chinese and Muslim Persian (principally) as well as Shinto Japanese and Nestorian Christian (secondary). As will be readily noted, these sources were recorded with points of view held by peoples subjugated by the Mongols, hardly an ideal situation for an historian seeking disinterested facts. As will also be readily noted, this is not a history intended for the general public. Oh, it’s straightforward enough – Rossabi organizes his topics into chapters, opens each by telling you what he’s going to tell you, tells you what he intended to tell you, and then closes each by telling you what he told you – but in seeking to present a broad sweep of Khubilai’s times we get a series of not-always well-connected stories: military stories, Khubilai’s governance stories, tax-collecting stories, stories describing the theater, stories describing Khubilai’s efforts to create a written language for the Mongols, and so on. Rossabi struggles with his diverse sources and their conflicting points of view, frequently warning the reader that his descriptions are guesses and that he weighed the differing points of view of his sources in order report what Rossabi regarded as the likely truth. This is no bad thing; after all, history is always a set of events sifted by the values of the historian and the richness and perspectives of the sources, and Rossabi’s history of Khubilai Khan has the marks of careful workmanship, given the sources available to him.

“The Grey Knights Omnibus”, by Ben Counter

768 pages, The Black Library, ISBN-13: 978-1844166961

Okay, full disclosure: I did not read The Grey Knights Omnibus by Ben Counter, but rather each of the individual novels – I just thought it would save time to review all the works at once in this fashion. I’m sure you approve. Set during the events of Abaddon the Despoiler’s Thirteenth Black Crusade, the Grey Knights trilogy records the various righteous exploits of the Grey Knights chapter and its counter-daemon operations under the supervision of the Ordo Malleus. While its primary protagonist is Justicar Alaric, many of its characters are drawn from the ranks of the Daemonhunters and the Inquisition (and if you have no idea what I’m talking about, just move right along to the next review). Grey Knights is the first novel in the Grey Knights series, published in 2004. Confronted by a Daemonic infestation of extraordinary magnitude led by the powerful daemon Ghargatuloth, the Inquisitors of the Ordo Malleus are forced to call in the Justicar Alaric and his Grey Knights, with their psychically charged force weapons, storm bolters and fierce loyalty to the Emperor of Mankind, to help deal with the situation. Dark Adeptus is the second novel in the Grey Knights series, published in 2006. The book once again features Justicar Alaric, the Grey Knight who banished Ghargatuloth back into the warp last time; THIS time the story goes to Chaeronia, a forge world that has disappeared for a century, only to come out of the warp in the middle of a new system disrupting the planetary alignments. The Grey Knights are called upon to investigate. What they find there is something…Chaotic. Hammer of Daemons is the third novel in the Grey Knights series, published in 2008. In this novel Justicar Alaric is captured by the forces of chaos and taken to the Daemon world of Draakasi where he is forced to fight in gladiatorial games dedicated to Khorne. His only hope is to find the legendary Hammer of Daemons. Along the way he must combat mutants, xenos, Warriors of Chaos and the terrible Duke Venalitor, he will also be forced to team up with some unlikely allies in his quest to return to the Imperium and his Battle Brothers. Whether you are an avid Warhammer 40K fan or not, these books will leave you satiated; the action is relentless, the characters are complex, and the stories are extremely developed.

“The Fall of Berlin”, by Anthony Read and David Fisher

540 pages, W. W. Norton & Company, ISBN-13: 978-0393332414

The Fall of Berlin by Anthony Read and David Fisher is a magnificent account of the last days of the Second World War and the German surrender to the Soviet Union (let’s be real; it was the Soviets who smashed Berlin flat and took control of it, even if technically they surrendered to all of the Allies). I actually read this book years ago, way before Faust’s Metropolis: A History of Berlin by Alexandra Richie (reviewed par moi December 5^th, 2017…but then you knew that), and found that this much more concise history of the city was able to focus on a relatively brief era and thus bring more depth and knowledge to the same. Starting with the Olympic Games of 1936, authors Read and Fisher chronicle the history of Berlin during the years prior to World War II and ending with the Battle of Berlin. Focusing not only on the known historical players such as Hitler and Goebbels, but including excerpts from diaries of every day Berliners, the book reads almost like a novel with a cast of thousands. At first, Berliners are stunned that Hitler is able to conquer most of continental Europe through sheer bravado alone, the general consensus being that eventually the world would see Hitler and the Nazis for what they really were and sanity would once again prevail. But of course, we can now look back in hindsight and realize that the complacency of the general population and the other world leaders is precisely what led to Hitler wreaking havoc on the world.

Most of the chapters are very short – no more than 3 to 4 pages – which helps to keep the pace of the book from bogging down into too much detail. Much information is given on the daily life of Berliners – how ration cards worked, what they did during air raids, etc. – especially different groups of Berliners: Jews (yes, Jews, at least for a time), immigrants, forced laborers, Hitler Youth, and so on, and how they reacted to the changing world as, eventually, Berlin spiraled into chaos. The innumerable bombings, which nightly rocked the city, are described in detail and how the city reacted, as first stunned and then eventually immune to the terror. The first 200 pages of the book cover the years from 1936 until March 1945, while the remaining 250 pages detail the Battle of Berlin. Through complicated political considerations, the Soviets are allowed to conquer the city while the British and American troops held back. Because the Soviet Union suffered so much during the war, especially the siege of Stalingrad, it was deemed only fitting that they make the first attempt on the city. The first wave of soldiers were professionals while the second wave of soldiers-former prisoners of the Germans, took out their hatred in raping, looting and pillaging. In the first 8 weeks after the fall of Berlin, over 90,000 German women had seen doctors due being raped by the Soviet soldiers. How many never reported this crime cannot even be estimated.

The Fall of Berlin is not a comprehensive tale of the Russian 1945 spring campaign, but it certainly provides readers with a dense, richly textured portrait of one of the world’s most famous cities and its obliteration from bombing and invasion. What I think what I appreciate most about this book was that it didn’t focus only on the battles of World War II or the major personalities, but on the lives of everyday Berliners and those who lived through the city’s triumphs and tragedies, who experienced it first hand, but whose voices have been muted in the presence of the big names in history. This certainly isn’t an earth shattering revelation, but the book is a nice addition to anyone’s historical knowledge of the 20^th Century’s most important city.