Reviews for Blood Ties

The average rating for Blood Ties based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-11-24 00:00:00 Gerald Walter Great book about the insect pest that almost led to the downfall of wine. It is well written and researched and though the politics behind all the decisions and mistakes made can become repetitive it is still relevant to the book. Though the book is mainly about the Phylloxera Blight in the mid to late 19th century in France, it is filled with other great information that adds weight to the story-line and makes one better understand what lead to the crisis. As a farmer, I could relate to the plight of the farmers, though we in the apple industry have never suffered on the same scale as the wine farmers of those times, but still you are plagued by pests and try to manage it as best you can. What is even more eye opening is that mankind have not yet gotten any method to eradicate the phylloxera pest and only by the guide of natural selection have scientists and farmers been able to save great wine for the world by using native American root stock that is resistant to the plague. And always in the background of the book was the politics between the "chemists" and the "Americanists" as how best to fight the plague. Interesting read and a must for lovers of good wine.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-07-02 00:00:00 Gabriel Goss This book is wonderful because it takes Thucydides classic text--itself a wonder--and fills in the gaps, or corrects the ancient text where necessary. Thucydides is cited throughout in a manner reminiscent of the notation used to cite Biblical chapter and verse. In addition, Kagan refers to the writings of Plutarch, Xenophon, Diodorus, Socrates, Aristophanes, and others, especially for the last seven years of the war, a period Thucydides does not cover. Like any scholar worth his salt, Kagan is conversant with the scholarly consensus, with which he is for the most part in step, though he occasionally offers alternative scenarios. Much of the book is simply riveting. Like when the Spartan general Brasidas retakes Amphipolis, or the naval battle fought late in the war for control of the Hellespont. Woven throughout is the longer story of the Athenian turncoat, Alcibiades. Professor Kagan preceded this one-volume history with a four-volume history of the war that took him around 20 years to write. That 4-volume series is a much more detailed consideration of political motives and military strategy. But with this single volume, Kagan was able to produce a fast-moving tale, full of incident and colorful description. I am not a great reader of military histories; most, in my experience, are a boring slog. But because of Kagan's previous in-depth consideration of the same events, and the need to get the story told in a mere 485 pages, the result is a taut, compressed narrative that moves briskly and bears the reader delightedly along.