The Disappointed Idealist

Royal Monastic: Princess Ileana of Romania by Bev Cooke My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is a book about a princess turned nun, written by someone who (from what I understand in the last pages of the book) lived in the monastery she started. Just through that perspective, I suppose it is not unnatural to see the prescient godly touch throughout the book, the somewhat fairytale-like atmosphere created, the continuous emphasis on Ileana's goodness and her fight against the evil forces of this world. A lot of the people in this book are split in good and bad and, while general perception of her brother Carol (for example) is that he was, indeed, one of "the bad ones", opinions on her mother (in this book an angel-like figure) are less universal (depending mostly on people's stance on whether it's more important for a ruler to be moral or efficient). ----SPOILERS AHEAD---- Some points that were "glossed over" in the book: "the good man" of Ileana

Carthage Must Be Destroyed: The Rise and Fall of an Ancient Civilization by Richard Miles My rating: 4 of 5 stars It is very difficult to find true objective information on Carthage, as the author himself recognizes at the beginning of the book. The writers that wrote about it were usually heavily biased against it, so it's hard to discern fact from propaganda. Archaeological information can only do so much. Mr Miles does a good job of juggling between biased sources and the way archaeology confirms their information. He also uses mythology to show how the Carthaginian culture developed over time. In the end, though, the picture he paints is still quite vague. It is obviously not his fault, but before you start this book maybe you should set your expectations straight: there is not much known about Carthage before Rome. Most of it is supposition. The Punic wars take up about half the book, despite being only the end of the Carthage story. It's only natural - since that's