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Mr Shirer's encyclopedic work is very different from other established treatises on the subject of WWII in two notable aspects:

- Being a US journalist stationed in Germany and covering the political life, he was actually present at many historical moments up to the point when US citizens became personae non gratae. This gives a unique personal perspective to the events we largely know about from the archives and documents.

- There is hardly a factual statement in this massive (1,200 pages) volume that is not annotated with a reference to a source. This makes it a treasure trove for further research and also shows a considerable effort by the author to stick to the documented facts rather than to "established truths" offering them at face value.

Surely, the work is not new and more information has been uncovered in the decades since its publication but it is still wonderfully relevant and complete in its coverage of that fateful period of the European History. If you want to know more about it, you absolutely should read this book - it is a great complement to many other definitive works.

"For you, who are a human being, the question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question ’To think or not to think..‘"

It seems to be difficult to find another book that elicited such a wide range of emotions and opinions: from glowing praise to horrified condemnation. But of all labels attached to this work "mediocre" is not one of them.

Looking at this book as a literary work of art, there's a lot of issue to take: from characters verging on the point of being cartoonish (especially the antagonists), to sometimes unbearably long-winded dialogues (advice to Mr. Galt: a three-hour manifest could probably be reduced to a 45-minute one without loosing any detail and probably without having lost 80% of your radio audience). However, I forgive all of that for the motive and the message.

It is crucial to remember, that this book is not a recipe and not a political program. Playing a "reductio ad absurdum" trick and claiming that the Author glorifies leaving the widows and orphans, the old and the weak to their demise cannot be more wrong and Mrs. Rand professed it on numerous occasions. She knew full well how complex the real world was - and how it would be impossible to define a "simple" solution for its ailments, even on 1,300 pages. This book is not that. It is a thunderous anthem to the human ability to create - a blueprint for man's self-perception and a loud warning against the "looter mindset."

I cannot help seeing the irony of having read this book at this point of time with so many developments almost coming off the pages. That I'll leave to you, so you are free to draw your own conjectures.

I will finish with Ayn Rand's own words: "My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute."

Having readjusted my expectations after positively abysmal "Blue Moon" (which was beyond bad even by the genre standards), I approached the new Jack Reacher book cautiously. I obviously lied when I had proclaimed a year ago, that it was time for me to part ways with our beloved unkempt wandering protagonist - the habit is difficult to kick and who is not a sucker for some well deserved justice, where you know with confidence that evil will be punished and any kicks and punches missed by our Hero not only won't cause any harm but more likely will have a healing shiatsu effect on him...

Well, apologies for sounding too dramatic, but there are good news and there are bad news... The good news is that the book is positively better than the last year's one. There is a somewhat meaningful plot. The writing style is night and day (who knows, maybe it is due to the beneficial influence of Mr. Child's brother who co-authored the book). The books feels much less like a console shooter from the 80s...

On the flipside... Well, maybe there is no flipside after all - these are the rules of the genre and our expectations should be calibrated accordingly. The plot - as usual - sticks to the tried and true "Veni, Vidi, Vici" paradigm and has more holes than a bar wall in a Western movie. The writing style... Let's just say, if you've grown fond of repeated sentences, extremely detailed descriptions of the dynamics of fistfight and "somewhat limited familiarity" with how technology works - you won't be disappointed.

To summarize - if you are much like me (don't be like me!) and treat the never-ending Jack Reacher's saga as a once-a-year guilty pleasure, you'll enjoy it for what it is. Yes, Jack will stop for a moment only to be thrown into the plot by sheer accident. Yes, evil will be cast into Ye Lake of Fire. No, Jack will not stay - he has a bus to catch.

Verdict: recommended (with caveats).

Let's start with the elephant in the room - I mean the claims of bias.

Surely, the book is focused on one side of the story but it is very upfront about it and lays its cards on the table from the very beginning. Indeed, we all heard the story of Christianity converting multitudes of people by mere appeal of love and compassion but nothing about force, threats, and fear of death.

We know about monasteries lovingly preserving gems of classical thought but struggle to explain, how it happened that only one percent of Latin literature has been preserved (despite the proliferation of libraries and collections and systematic copying of written word). And when it comes to works that debated or criticized Christianity (which at that time had been a standard philosophical practice for almost thousand years), hardly any have been preserved (we know about them mostly from references in other sources). We adore classical statues collected by generations of Popes in the Vatican Collection but forget that for each preserved statue hundreds of others were purposefully and systematically destroyed.

And this is exactly the side Mrs. Nixey's book is trying to unveil in a more accessible way. Despite numerous historic research available by now, the topic of contribution (sic) of Christianity to the destruction of Classical World has not been widely covered (albeit Edward Gibbon's monumental treatise is a notable exception).

The book is rife with references and direct quotes. Surely, most quotes of Christian authorities not just condone but directly incite and praise violence toward anything "pagan." Is it biased? Is it not true? At the end of the day even apologists of the "Christian" point of view (for the lack a better term) do grudgingly agree that those words have been uttered (even though every religion is well versed in usual trickery of ascribing different meaning and shrugging specific statements when they contradict the doctrine). Those words have been uttered and they were directed at those who listened and turned into action. Laws were made stripping people of numerous freedoms granted to them by the Classical era, temples and statues were destroyed, books were burned or written over, violence was used systematically.

Does this make this book a revelation? Hardly - the Church has always advocated the principle that the surgeon inflicts pain on a patient for the latter's good and so it is justified to use painful ways and violence toward saving one's soul. It has been done for centuries (The Holy Inquisition is just the most popular, albeit greatly exaggerated example), so it is not at all surprising that this modus operandi was at play between 3rd and 6th Centuries.

So, I don't really worry that the Church or Christianity at large is irreparably damaged by this book. But it does try to dispel the glossy pastoral picture of people of Classical World embracing Christianity and spontaneously converting (with all attributes, scientific progress, advanced thought, architecture and arts of the Classical Era peacefully vanishing due to lack of interest and neglect). Nothing can be further from the truth. And this book helps to establish a more varied and honest (even though it is a very uncomfortable) picture of the events.

BOTTOM LINE: highly recommended.