Reviews for East London for Mosley

The average rating for East London for Mosley based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-05-06 00:00:00 Syvongsay Saokham This is an interesting book that gives an overview of how Italy fit into the make up of World War II. There are many books like this one that chart how World War II broke out and this brings an interesting perspective by looking at Italy instead of Germany. The book tracks Mussolini's progress from around 1933-41 and shows how the country was set on a course for war. The factors of what caused Italy to head to Germany from Britain could have been flushed out further and while this was well researched it suffered from a lack of detail. The bibliography is one of the most valuable pieces of this book. I would recommend this book to those wanting a brief overview of diplomacy during the world war II era.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-01-01 00:00:00 Bernard Goodno Dark Age is a story-telling of the Bokassa era in the Central African Republic, which reads almost like a novel as Titley paints a picture of the more gruesome facts and rumors of the day. Even more than I expected, the book sets the scene and explains many elements that underlie the current conflict/crisis -- especially in terms of post-colonial relationship with France, natural resource extraction, and particularly impunity. The whole history is all the more interesting because I found that many Central Africans today speak of Bokassa's era as the good old days. My issue with the author came in the book's conclusion, where Titley attempts to put Bokassa's crimes in context. Essentially, he writes that Bokassa's crimes weren't as bad as, say, Idi Amin's. While this may to some extent be true, this section felt a bit icky read in the middle of today's mass crimes which, at their core, have their roots in cycles of impunity. Bangui's prisons were opened in September 2015 just as they were habitually opened in Bokassa's day. Crimes are crimes, and Titley concluding chapter seemed to teeter on downplaying this. Nonetheless, I found Dark Age compelling and a relatively easy read about the history of a country which simply doesn't have a lot of resources published in English. I highly recommend this book especially for those living and/or working in CAR and trying to gain greater understanding of the country's past and present.