Steve Middendorf
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Steve Middendorf said:
"
The Nights are Quiet in Tehran is an excellent novel of exile, of the otherness of emigration, and of memory. Have you ever finished a book in bed just before you were ready to fall asleep? It happened to me with this book by Shida Bazyar on my Kobo. ...more "
progress:
(40%)
"This is a quite good story on two levels: the revolutionaries Islamic and secular fighting for a change under the Shaw of Iran. Secondly the life of the emigrants who left Iran for Germany." — May 30, 2026 03:52PM
"This is a quite good story on two levels: the revolutionaries Islamic and secular fighting for a change under the Shaw of Iran. Secondly the life of the emigrants who left Iran for Germany." — May 30, 2026 03:52PM
Steve Middendorf
is currently reading
progress:
(90%)
"It was getting late, time for me to put away the book for the night. I just couldn’t do it. Luckily the author gave me a spot with 10% to go where the heroines were safe both now and then. I could sleep." — Feb 20, 2026 03:11PM
"It was getting late, time for me to put away the book for the night. I just couldn’t do it. Luckily the author gave me a spot with 10% to go where the heroines were safe both now and then. I could sleep." — Feb 20, 2026 03:11PM
“China is the major Allied belligerent whose position on the meaning of the war has shifted most thoroughly during the postwar era.”
― China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism
― China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism
“Papa’s long gone, but I continue to love him. I don’t believe it when people say that men like him were stupid and blind—believing in Stalin. Fearing Stalin. Believing in Lenin’s ideas. Everyone thought the same way. Believe me, they were good and honest people, they believed not in Lenin or Stalin, but in the Communist idea. In socialism with a human face, as they would call it later. In happiness for everybody. For each one. Dreamers, idealists—yes; blind—no. I’ll never agree with that. Not for anything! In the middle of the war Russia began to produce excellent tanks and planes, good weapons, but even so, without faith we would never have overcome such a formidable enemy as Hitler’s army—powerful, disciplined, which subjugated the whole of Europe. We wouldn’t have broken its back. Our main weapon was faith, not fear. I give you my honest Party-member’s word (I joined the Party during the war and am a Communist to this day). I’m not ashamed of my Party card and have not renounced it. My faith has never changed since 1941…”
― The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II
― The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II
“The burden of getting older was borne alone, but also as if by someone else, because he often couldn’t recognise bits of himself he caught in the mirror. Whose newly scrawny legs were those? Why was his head sitting further forward on his neck? Was it really kind of the gods to do this to the skin of his face, as if a child had been let loose with a brown marker?”
― Old God's Time
― Old God's Time
“There was very heavy fighting. In that fighting we lost many people, and I was wounded. And after the battle came the funeral. Usually we gave short speeches over the grave. First came the commanders, then the friends. But here, among the dead, was a local fellow, and his mother had come to the funeral. She began to lament: “My little son! We prepared the house for you! You promised you would bring a young wife home! But you are marrying the earth…” The unit stood there, silent, no one touched her. Then she lifted her head and saw that not only her son had been killed, but many other young ones were lying there, and she began to cry over those other sons: “My sons, my dear ones! Your mothers don’t see you, they don’t know you’re being put in the ground! And the ground is so cold. The winter cold is cruel. I will weep instead of them, and pity all of you…My dear ones…Darlings…” She just said, “I will pity all of you” and “my dear ones”—all the men began weeping aloud. No one could help it, no one had strength enough. The unit wept. Then the commander shouted, “Fire the salute!” And the salute silenced everything. And I was so struck that I think of it even now, the greatness of a mother’s heart. In such great grief, as her son was buried, she had enough heart to mourn for the other sons…Mourn for them like her own…”
― The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II
― The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II
“This book argues that a very useful concept for understanding how collective memory flows across both time and space is that of circuits of memory. This idea is distinct from Henry Rousso’s conception of “vectors” of memory, which describes institutions and entities that help transmit memory across time; the circuit transmits memory geographically, across national borders, as well as chronologically. Collective memory of war, or of any historical event, is rarely truly global. During the long postwar, several different circuits have emerged in which certain experiences, understandings, and judgments of the Second World War are shared (such as a core purpose of the war being to fight fascism), but the memories within them are distinct and self-contained. One such circuit exists in northwestern Europe and North America, another in Russia and some of its neighbors, a third in Japan, and a fourth in China.”
― China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism
― China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism
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Steve’s 2025 Year in Books
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