Reviews for Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples A Wonderful Journey Through History and Art of the Four Pearl...

The average rating for Rome, Florence, Venice, Naples A Wonderful Journey Through History and Art of the Four Pearl... based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2011-07-24 00:00:00 Jason Du preez During the years Harry Hopkins was a guest in the White House, he was generally considered a sinister figure, a backstairs intriguer, a “Iowan combination of Rasputin, Machiavelli and Svengali”. The one who hated him weren’t always Roosevelt’s enemies. Many of FDR’s closest friends and associates passionately disliked Hopkins and resented the extraordinary position of influence and authority he held. He was undeniably a political liability to Roosevelt, a handy target for any kind of attacks directed at the President; many people wondered why Roosevelt even kept him around. However, the Presidential aide who developed in the war years and who “rendered a service to his country which will never even vaguely be appreciated” was Roosevelt’s own creation. FDR purposefully educated Hopkins in politics and gave him immense powers of decision for no other reason but that he trusted and needed him. A welfare worker and tactless reformer, Hopkins was very different from Roosevelt in all aspects, but he possessed some qualities, which the President enjoyed. Hopkins knew instinctively when to ask, when to be quiet, when to press, and when to hold back. For Roosevelt, Harry Hopkins was the perfect ambassador. He didn’t even know the meaning of the word “protocol”. When he saw a red tape, he just pulled out the old garden shears and snipped it. And when he was talking to some foreign dignitary, he knew how to slump back in his chair and put his feet on the conference table and say, “Oh yeah?”. In the final years, a special bond had developed between Roosevelt and Hopkins, probably due to the fact that both men had fought with death at close range. FDR didn’t talk much about the loneliness of high office, but as a naturally sociable person, he wanted to get away from his job now and then, so when he could choose his own company, he preferred to be with old friends and family, which had nothing to do with government. Hopkins, however, achieved his favored position before his encounter with death, and indeed he was not reluctant to use his friendship with the President to pursue his own line of action. Interestingly, the author of this amazing book was a personal acquaintance of Hopkins and knew that he was planning to write a memoir about FDR. When Harry Hopkins passed away, his son asked Robert E. Sherwood to finish the book. But Sherwood decided to create his own one instead of faking Harry Hopkins, and he did it very, very well. “Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History” has the elements of a biography, a memoir, a history, and a novel at once. Humorous, detailed, and with brilliant sketches of all characters, it is a masterfully written story of those two imminent men’s friendship, and it exceeded my expectations immensely. Five stars.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-05-22 00:00:00 Jon Caruana This is a magnificent biography of Harry Hopkins and Franklin Roosevelt. Most of the book is on the war years, starting in 1939 – and this means over eight hundred pages. And it is much more about Harry Hopkins than Franklin Roosevelt. Harry Hopkins was the New Deal person for President Roosevelt during the Depression. He was chief of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) of the New Deal era – and this is only one of the many relief programs he was involved in. But during the war years he didn’t have a job title! He served as the personal adviser to the President; in fact he lived in the White House for over three years. Hopkins was a dynamo – an action oriented person who would ruthlessly cut through red tape and bypass bureaucratic boundaries. With Hopkins things got done, whether it was making jobs during the Depression or sending Lend-Lease materials over to the embattled Allies. And this was regardless of the cost; which lead to much criticism of Harry Hopkins. Through much of these years Hopkins was ill, but he still travelled relentlessly, with his load of medications, as a personal emissary of the President. He died in January, 1946. This is an essential book that gives a deeper understanding of key political events of World War II. Hopkins was at most of them – from being the first U.S. representative to visit Churchill in England in January, 1941 and going to Moscow to meet with Stalin in July of 1941. By “representative” he was directly mandated by Roosevelt to speak on behalf of the President. Hopkins was also at the conferences at Casablanca, Teheran, and Yalta – plus the many that were in the U.S. during Churchill’s many visits. Many of the excursions to these far-flung areas during war-time read like adventure yarns. For example when Hopkins and Roosevelt set-off for Casablanca they journeyed for two nights from Washington DC to Miami by train. Then took a plane that stopped at Trinidad, then flew onto Belem in Brazil, from there to Banjul in Gambia (at the time called Bathurst) off the coast of Africa (where they took a tour in a whale-motor boat) – and finally boarded another plane for the last trek to Casablanca. The Hopkins journey from London to Moscow in 1941 was even more fraught with danger! This book was written in 1948 and is very eloquent. The author met many of the key players, besides the two in the title – George Marshall, Dwight Eisenhower, Eleanor Roosevelt... He had access to all the notes of Harry Hopkins that were made during his travels and conferences. We get many keen observations – for example of the similarities – and differences - in the personalities of Roosevelt and Churchill. The author was part of a team of speech-writers for Roosevelt – and we gain insights of that process. The author is somewhat in awe of the Roosevelt era, which is something I don’t mind. One can see clearly, in retrospect, how the democratic allies (Churchill and Roosevelt) did not realize that Stalin was a dictator – and not interested in upholding democratic values (human rights, elections...). This may be excused or understood from the point of view that Stalin’s Soviet Union was needed to defeat Nazi Germany. All-and-all a wonderful book with a personal view of this tumultuous time. Page 730 (my book) With the exception of Eisenhower and Nimitz, there was no theater commander in the war who did not feel that he was the most neglected, most abused and most basely cheated of them all, and that if it hadn’t been for Certain Sinister Influences in High Places his theater would have been recognized as the decisive battleground – and he would have been given top priority in the allocation of men and materiel.