embraced slavery as a viable economic system and that they, like their white counterparts,exploited the labor of slaves on their farms and in their businesses. “Who wants to read ‘stuff’like that?”, query even the most sensitive, empathetic buffs of my coral of readers. Answer: thesame genuine Americans who force themselves, literally, engage themselves in the horrors ofthe Holocaust. It HAPPENED, and as the best historians insist, KNOW IT, lest, God forbid, it everhappens again to the generation we’re raising now. Drawing on the federal census, wills,mortgage bills of sale, tax returns, and newspaper advertisements, Larry, a historian who livesin Largo, Maryland, reveals, as some historians of the past knew about but refused toacknowledge publicly, the nature of those black slave masters who had earned their freedomand what they did with it. But how many others, primarily mulattos born of free parents, wereunfamiliar with slavery’s dehumanization? Such is the making of a great book whose primaryjob is not to please with enjoyable, entertaining chapters, but to serve as a catalyst for one’sown personal research, lest biography of his or her family, hence the self, is forgotten.And, on a topic NO ONE ever immerses the self in other than guys, and a few gals, likehistorian-writer-illustrator, Jean-Denis G.G. Lepage, we have “British Fortifications Through theReign of Richard III”? This reviewer can hear his endearing WWII buffs all the way out toCarmel-Pebble Beach, Pacific Grove, California, “Who in the h – – – on God’s Good Green EarthGives a Flying D – – -?” Answer: “TRY READING THE FIRST CHAPTER and see if you can put thebook down!”, that’s who!” If true, buff, to, first, your emotional heart for ancient militaryhistory, then intellectual mind, second, you’ll love this journey into how superba Britishfortifications were established and created, from prehistoric times through the end od RichardIII’s reign in 1485, providing the history and its miniatous details of structures, walls, andramparts guarded by Richard’s reliable trust worthies, to say nothing of information onweapons and siege warfare. More than 250 illustrations vividly detail each edifice’sconstruction and configuration. How dare you endow yourself with the moniker, “a truemilitary buff”, if you can put this mini classic down once begun.Simply put, friends, I’m sick of Herr Hitler and his boot-licking cronies who enjoyedcommitting so much illimitable, unfathomable, excruciating anguish, suffering pain, and sorrow.But, today, for a bit, we rested and encountered three new kinds of reads: tomorrow, back to
the grate and grit.
