Reviews for Mount Athos - An Illustrated Guide to the Monasteries and Their History (Travel Guides)

The average rating for Mount Athos - An Illustrated Guide to the Monasteries and Their History (Travel Guides) based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-02-15 00:00:00 Michael Kubasek A great tip for political aspirants towards the end. The 3+ hours speech Castro gave in court defending himself and revolution. Castro didn't make this speech in public so it can't be the loud body language that dictators (think Hitler) are famous for making in their speeches which moved people. The speech was made public by pages that his wife help him smuggle out of prision. A lot of it is listing cruelties of then ruling tyrant. And the then tyrant, Batista, was in fact cruel. Moreover he had turned Cube into an economic colony of US, all major industrial holdings belonged to Americans as Castro pointed out. Cubans despite having one of most gifted lands were none the better for it. Castro, when he will later became tyrant, though cruel to anyone opposing him did far more for the underdogs. Then there are all the great things he claims the revolutionary government would have done if they had come to power. These didn't came out to be mere empty rules either,some of thm were.implemented. A large section, though, of his speech was as to how the tyranny of Batista was anti-constitutional. But he himself will become a dictator once the revolution becomes successful. This whole Animal Farm theme has been repeated a lot of times in Latin America, there is also a Twilight Zone episode on subject which features a tyrant who looks a lot like Castro: As if physical resemblance wasn't enough, they mentioned country was centeral America and the illusion made in beginning of protagonist being beardless not so long ago, sets the source of inspiration beyond doubt. What is really impressive is Castro's photogenic memory as he quotes everything from constitution to Rousseau, lists all those incidences. Unlike politicians, his reasoning is not so screwed and he could be funny too. Like Hitler, his speeches asked people to make sacrifice for 'the greater cause'- the phrase always make me laugh. He was definitely better than last tyrant and popular in his own country. Most of negative publicity he got doesn't have to do so much with never ending executions that he held (those too were popular among Cubans, 'To the wall'was the famous cry - Castro's arguement was that the persecuted had long been oppressing people, in this very speech he compared Batista's reign to Nazis) but that he chose to nationalise monopolies owned by US businessmen. And those buisnessmen had the US president and CIA on their payroll. So US did what it always does put lives of its own soldiers and those of people of other countries to save guard it's material interests. Castro turned to Russia for aid, and having a nuclear enemy in their neighbor added incentive of paranoia to financial incentive for US government and hence the history. I don't think you can blame Cuban missile inspirations for bringing world so close to world war 3, they were only defending themselves. Rather it is about US paranoia. The rest of review is for political aspirants, no one else will be benifitted from reading it. So please ignore. The speech has nothing unusual about it. It is like speeches made by most of those who have rose to power in recent times - all you need is people who are unhappy and frustrated at their present lives, any such people are basically mobs and mobs are easily manipulated by the oldest trick in the book. The trick also works if you are already a ruler and want to stay popular. The trick is first introduced by the great Machiavelli in his 'Thesis on prevalent methods and principles in Politics and Polarization, useful for princes' as 'Punching bag Principle of Politics'. It says if a Prince (or a wanna be) finds such people (mobs), he must give them scapegoats, some punching bag to vent their anger on - the scapegoat may or may not deserve the blame, the accusing person might or might not be honest; it doesn't matter. What matters is you tell them they will be serving a higher cause by hating these scrapegoats, call the hatred highest form of nationalism (read the speech to find example, Castro was a natural) And they will take care of rest. As long as you keep giving people something to punch about, they will love you. So, some freedom fighters were successful, justly, to rebel against colonial governments who deserved the anger. Except for colonial governments and corrupt or draconian home governments, all other scrpaegoats are unjust. Guys like Hitler used minorities. Another popular option is enemy country - American presidents are experts at this one, attacking and thus creating a new enemy to protect their presidentship. I am seeing both these cases happening in my country ... in fact, this trick doesn't only benifit people, last US elections have proved, that it is just as effective when used by cartoons. Read it here:

Review # 2 was written on 2021-04-04 00:00:00 Sarah Roesler Though many consider him a despot, tyrant, criminal, and objector of western ideals, this powerful speech clearly defines Fidel Castro as one of the greatest orators of the last century. In this 3 plus hour speech to the court, Castro clearly defines his movements goals, while not only presenting to the court an almost impeccable speech but also charging the same prosectors and government officials whom accused him of rebellious activity as the true criminals. He then goes on to describe his plan of agrarian reform and to uplift his fellow country men and women from the depths of poverty which Batista has irrevocably tried to keep them under. In the speech he lists his five revolutionary laws to be achieved: 1)A return of power to amend the Constitution to the masses 2) Transfer over non-mortgageable land to peasants and farmers 3) To give a 30 percent share of large industrial company's profits to workers and employees (because of the rampant usurpation of sugar mills for the last century) 4) To allow the sugar planters to share in 55 percent of their toil, 5) And the forfeiture of all illegal seizures from corporations be it land or finance (in the speech he goes over the laws much better and clearer than i do) Sadly this beautifully choreographed speech is not very known to main stream America, and neither is Castro's eloquent speaking ability. Maybe its the language barrier? Or maybe main stream America's lethargic view of the rest of the world? That aside, to understand Cuban-American relations post 1959 and even more so American relations to a country that does not accord with its ideals, one should def read this speech.