Comments on: The price of puritanism

By: Alisa

Alisa — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 20:24:59 +0000

So I take it it wasn’t a real page turner?

By: Laird

Laird — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:40:12 +0000

bloke in spain, I'll admit to having read some of Mein Kampf, but I never finished it. It's still sitting on my shelf, patiently waiting for me to get back to it. Someday.

By: Christopher Snowdon

Christopher Snowdon — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 00:27:03 +0000

It is a list, albeit one with room for confusion. My own confusion in placing the Berghof in Austria is one I have to own up to. It’s on the Austrian border but in Bavaria. My slip. No excuses but this isn’t a book about WWII, Hitler isn’t a major figure in it and I don’t think Godwin’s Law applies to history books.

By: bloke in spain

bloke in spain — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:57:04 +0000

As we seem to be ignoring Godwin for the moment, it would be interesting to learn how many readers have ever actually read Mein Kampf. For years I’ve been hearing Hitler thought this, Hitler believed that, Hitler said the other but I’ve rarely come across anyone who’s read the man in the original.
Any confessions?

By: Johnathan Pearce

Johnathan Pearce — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 10:32:16 +0000

Spinx, I was being slightly rude because a commenter seemed to damn an entire book based on a single error. It royally pissed me off. What is this, a nit-picker’s convention?

By: spinx

spinx — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:05:23 +0000

spinx, well, whatever. No doubt some of you guys have AH’s postcode and mortgage reference number.

Charming! Though I suppose expecting gratitude for correcting an error was probably too much to expect.

By: Alisa

Alisa — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:10:07 +0000

Schrodinger’s Dog: it’s his lack of subtlety.

By: Johnathan Pearce

Johnathan Pearce — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 13:17:47 +0000

spinx, well, whatever. No doubt some of you guys have AH’s postcode and mortgage reference number.

By: spinx

spinx — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:41:56 +0000

It’s this:

He banned smoking at his Austrian base, the Wolf’s Lair, and in the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin.

Fine, except that Hitler didn’t have an Austrian base.

By: Schrodinger's Dog

Schrodinger's Dog — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 04:20:40 +0000

I really am puzzled why liberals have such a problem with Hitler.

Not only was he an anti-smoking fanatic, he was a vegetarian and a nature-lover. He was also an advocate of a pan-European customs union and a single European currency. Finally, one of his first acts upon taking power in Germany was to pass what was, for the time, a strict law against animal cruelty.

By: West

West — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 02:55:02 +0000

It’s a list, consisting of 3 items, not a clarification of one item and mention of another.

It’s this:

He banned smoking at his Austrian base, the Wolf’s Lair, and in the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin.

Not this:

He banned smoking at his Austrian base; the Wolf’s Lair, and in the Fuhrerbunker in Berlin.

By: Johnathan Pearce

Johnathan Pearce — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 23:56:12 +0000

Buzz Buzz, the book examines the wide array of groups that have for various reasons hated smoking, ranging from pressure groups that wanted to tax tobacco to totalitarian regimes of the sort described. As I said, one minor error does not detract from what is a book that you would do well to read instead of criticising in nitpicking, pompous fashion.