5 comments about 1001 Nights in Iraq: The Shocking Story of an American Forced to Fight for Saddam Against the Country He Loves.

1. Let's be clear here about one thing. It is not possible to give a book 6 stars otherwise i would have done so. It is also not possible to rate something according to its peers quality. When I think five stars i think the classics. This book will perhaps be a classic one day. I really was captivated by his story the entire way through, really something else. To put it in perspective I understood the whole bioluminescent thing when i saw it first hand. After seeing it myself i can see what he must have went through mentally, wow!!



2. This is by far one of the most inspiring books I have read in a while. I am amazed by Mr. Kenderian's strength of character despite all the opportunities and justifications there was to have been less than honorable. It made me realize how much I take living in this country for granted. Yes, we have our flaws but how many other countries to people make such an effort to get to? Please continue to write Mr Kenderian!



3. I just finished reading Mr. Kenderian's book, and for me as an Iraqi (and Christian), it sheds light on many facts of Iraqis life under Saddam's rule. It is an interesting, must to read, story of a struggle of a man to reach his goals. What impressed me more is the strength of his faith that made him come through all these difficulties (the least his circumstances could be described with).
   However, Mr. Kenderian gave an impression that Armenian Iraqis were treated differently (less favorably) from other Iraqis. I see this as unfair description. Christians in Iraq were always been seen as harmless Iraqis, and I never witnessed or heard that there was any discrimination against them because of their religion or of being Armenians in particular.
   I enjoyed reading this book very much. Thank you Mr. Kenderian



4. There's a popular saying that "truth is stranger than fiction." In the case of Shant Kenderian, the saying certainly applies. In his nonfiction book (once the most popular selling book on BookSurge before being picked up by publisher Atria Books, a division of Simon & Schuster), Kenderian recounts his own tale of being drafted to fight a war against his own country.
   
   Born in Iraq as an Armenian Christian (already an outsider in a country populated with Muslims), when his parents divorced, Kenderian went to live with his mother and siblings in Chicago. Like many children of divorce, he felt torn between his parents, and after two years of living in the United States, he decided to go to Iraq for a brief visit in 1980. His goal was to see his father and reconcile their acrimonious relationship (because of his parents' divorce) before returning to the US to complete his schooling. Days before he was due to return to the US, Saddam Hussein closed all the Iraqi borders, ordering all men of draft age (between 17-55) into service to fight for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. Under the threat of execution for refusing to serve, Kenderian did his time in the Iraqi Navy and returned to Baghdad, where he continued his studies in engineering while awaiting the issuance of his green card from the US Embassy.
   
   Two days before he was scheduled to depart Iraq, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, thus pulling Kenderian into yet another war (Desert Storm) before he could leave. Thus begins the saga that is recounted in "1001 Nights in Iraq." As an Iraqi-born US resident, Shant Kenderian was put in the unenviable position of being forced to fight against the country he loved and considered his own--the United States.
   
   Kenderian recounts with depressing detail his time as an engineer aboard a ship in the Iraqi Navy just off the coast of Kuwait. Forced to service the ship with only a wrench and screwdriver, Kenderian tells of the depravity faced by most soldiers on the Iraqi side of the conflict. Of his crew, only 2 Iraqis of 15 had guns of any sort; Kenderian himself had none. Food was scarce, as were any other sort of supplies. Every day was a nightmare in which the Iraqi soldiers expected death at any moment by the Americans.
   
   Clearly, Kenderian had to do something to change his fate, and so he devised a plan--to surrender to the Americans at the earliest opportunity. Kenderian thus hoped to plead his case as a US resident forced to participate in a war not of his own choosing on a side he would not have selected. Kenderian eventually did get captured by the Americans, but not before his ship struck a mine, killing several of his Iraqi crewmates. However, even his capture by US forces meant extreme hardship. As a prisoner of war (POW), again and again, he was interrogated, forced to live in difficult conditions, and plead his desperate case, to return to his family in the United States.
   
   Despite this unbelievable story, Kenderian never lost his sense of humor, his humanity for others (Iraqi or otherwise), or his faith in God that he would eventually be returned to the country he considered home. Only a man of real courage and compassion could have survived this ordeal to tell this story of resilience and hope. Through his book, Kenderian has opened the door into a world few Americans understand or have experienced. His story been featured on public radio's "This American Life," and truly it is a unique one.



5. I met Shant Kenderian in the Gulf War. He braved many dangers, and many hardships. I met him and his family again last July in LA, Calif. when I was coming home from a 27 day trip to Viet Nam and Thailand. He still is a wonderful man. God had blessed him. His faith in God pulled him through many hardships. It was a wonderful reunion after 15 years. He remembered things in his book that I had forgot.His book is an easy read. First hand stories of his trials and experiences. Again God has blessed him and also God blessed me for knowing him.

5 comments about Leo Strauss and the American Right.

1. Since I haven't read the book yet I can't submit a review of it (since the average rating is 3 stars that is what I've assigned it so as to upset the balance as little as possible). However I feel compelled to respond to the review by "Advanced Atheist" (the phrase itself an oxymoron). He cites the "increasingly Atheistic populations of Western Europe" as evidence that "advanced societies can function well without religion". I don't know where he gets his information but he is not even remotely aware of what is occuring across the Atlantic in the 21st century. Western Europe my friend is a dying civilization experiencing a birth dearth. The increasingly aging population is not producing enough children to support its society and therefore is relying more and more on immigration (from primarily Muslim lands) to run the country when the the workers retire. As the Muslims vote in ever increasing numbers it is only a matter of time before government favors their ideas on how a society should function. The reason the "advanced societies" of Europe are not having any children can be boiled down to the wide use of contraception, abortion, and radical individualism. The Muslims on the other hand are not decadent and are very familty oriented, having many children. Experts give Europe roughly another 50 - 100 years before its civilization is changed beyond recognition. In short my "advanced" friend Europe, as we know it, is doomed. In America the situation is better but not by much. Only time will tell whether we join Europe in the dustbin of history.
   "The fool says in his heart there is no God". Proverbs.



2. A readable and scary review of Strauss' philosophy and how it influences neo-conservative thoughts and actions. I could not put it down.
   It is hard to believe this was written in 1999. It is consistent with everything we have seen and suspected since the 2000 election. What we see today in the missing John Roberts documents. Yesterday in the Downing Street memos. And tomorrow in ...
   Do you wonder why Jewish and Catholic neo-cons support a born-again President? Why born-again evangelicals support Israel? Because the philosopy of Strauss is for only a few chosen individuals to be educated and know what is going on, to lie to the rest of us, and to use religion (any religion will do) as a vehicle to rally the masses.



3. The tendentious nature of this book, the fact that it is a politically charged polemic as opposed to a philosophic critique of a thinker, relegates this book to the myriad of yearly right and left wing fodder that we see on the book shelves. Strauss's thought, is first extremely learned, and secondly complex and subtle. If only this author had approached Strauss's texts with the humility and dedication that Strauss himself had brought to the likes of Plato, Machiavelli, and Locke, we might begin to tease out a very different portrait of the man that is found in this book. While Struass's thought my have been possible to interpret as synonymous with the agend of the likes of Newt Gingrich, it does not stand to reason that Strauss would have accented to their interpretation of his teaching. To claim that Strauss had, " no use for liberalism and little use for democracy" appears to be nothing short of academic dishonesty. Strauss if he is to be read for what he said very well understood the historical and natural implications of liberal democracy as the most just regime of mankind. And after leaving what was Hitler's Germany, a Jew and intellectual, Strauss knew very precisely the oppostunities afforded to him in the American landscape.



4. I have a somewhat different take on this book than the other reviewers. I am struck by the idea that the Straussians neoconservatives, who have seized strategic positions in the U.S. Government and the Republican Party, fundamentally agree with the Secular Humanists about the nature of religion (i.e., that there's no god out there to rapture us away, much less lecture us about right and wrong). They just disagree with the Humanists about the advisability of telling ordinary people the truth, pretending instead that increasingly absurd and delusional christian beliefs like the ones promoted by the Left Behind novels are worthy of respect, as long as christians who hold such fantasies vote Republican. (By contrast, UFO cultists who promote similar scenarios about mass alien abductions are ridiculed.) In other words, Neocons view religion as a useful tool for keeping the rabble in line, including the unsophisticated religious politicians who support their agenda.
   
   I find this crypto-Atheism contemptible, though also complimentary in a back-handed way. Intelligent people in many times and places have arrived at Atheism by following their own inquiries into the nature of reality. Strauss and his followers just add further support to the legitimacy of the Atheist discovery, though their systematic dishonesty about it has led to harmful consequences in the real world. The increasingly Atheistic populations of Western Europe, where even American christians readily visit for vacation, show that advanced societies can function well without religion, empirically falsifying the Straussian prejudice that the sheep need superstitions while their shepherds can handle Atheism.



5. The chief insight offered by Shadia Drury in LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT is that Leo Strauss's political philosophy is a radical variant of conservatism whose assumptions and strategies are at odds with traditional conservatism. While both Straussian and Burkean philosophy appear similar in that they both make the assumption that the only choice is between a beneficent plutocracy and anarchy, the Straussians are unsentimental about the past, rejecting the older conservative view that naturalizes pre-modern hierarchy and the inequalities preserved therein as intrinsic to and representative of mankind. Straussians are instead post-modern activists, who use the past as repository from which to cull whatever elements are necessary to build whatever institutional machine is necessary to regulate lesser mortals. They imagine themselves as an intellectual pastorate who must defend society against the depredations of liberalism -- that socially disruptive idea which insists on equality of opportunity and justice.

   According to Drury, Strauss's philosophy accepts the death of God, (unlike traditional conservatism) and then moves positivistically (unlike traditional conservatism) to fill the vacuum with elite group of self-elected philosopher kings. This elite, alive to the nihilism of the liberal ethos and its potentially anarchic consequences, believes it must act forcefully to paper over the hole left by His demise. Their esoteric/exoteric readings of philosophy tell them they must forge from the ashes a seamless, monocultural machine to encourage obedience and staunch chaos. This nationalistic machine must be equipped with a religion (any religion) and a mythic culture based on flag-reverence and knee-jerk patriotism. This is necessary because pluralistic, liberal societies cannot meet the challenge posed by well-organized, culturally cohesive states. Because the mass of men are primitive, credulous, prone to error and evil, the state with the best machine necessarily will win. Straussians, unlike traditional conservatives who see the state as malevolent, justify their activism by insisting that as philosophers they are immune to temptations of power.

   According to Drury, a particularly striking strategy of Straussian conservatives is their struggle to identify and mythologize American traditions. She points out that while Burke had the last remnants of feudalism to extol as a naturally just system, American conservatives have been forced to create a ?traditional? America out of whole cloth. To do so, according the Drury, Strauss's followers have invaded history departments across the US where they have been working hard to uncover "tradition" in the beginnings of America ? a difficult task given that America was the first truly modernist state. Nevertheless, these historians, depending upon which ax they are grinding, rewrite American history either to prove that colonial America was feudal, or to prove the Founding Fathers were not Deists and creatures of the (Liberal) Enlightenment, but rather Platonists. Drury notes that like postmodernists on the left, Straussians believe there is no ultimate truth, but that instead there are only discourses of power and that whoever controls the discourse wins. She notes that this is what makes American politics so narrow and so tedious -- the right and the left both operate from the same morally bankrupt premise.

   This goes a long way toward explaining the bizarre combination of libertarianism and fundamentalism in neo-conservative thought. Like other dogmas which have been used to support those in power -- Social Darwinism and eugenics come to mind -- neoconservatism is just the latest apologia for the up-to-date reactionary. Notably, its adherents are generally unaware of the contradiction. This does not deter them from defending this instrumental hodgepodge of Ayn Rand "objectivism" and millenarian "revivalism" however. Such a philosophy is, of course, its own best self-satirization.

   Well-written, its conclusions careful and amply defended, LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT, is not the ravings of conspiracy theorist. It does not imagine that Straussians have come to run the United States, nor that they form a secret cult which pulls the strings behind the scene. It exposes rather the infiltration of post-modern intellectual cynicism into the once decent, and even honorable, Republican Party.

No comments about Alva Myrdal: A Daughter's Memoir (Radcliffe Biography Series).

1 comments about The Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and Global Justice.

1. On a scale from 1 to 5 Roger Burbach's, The Pinochet Affair rates a six. It is the dramatic story of the downfall of the detested former dictator of Chile, of the many unsung heroes who brought it about, and of the significance of the entire affair to the global human rights movement. Augusto Pinochet, who seized power in a bloody 1973 coup d'état, dissolved Congress, outlawed political parties and the largest labor union in the country, censored the press, banned the movie "Fiddler on the Roof" as Marxist propaganda, publicly burned books ("on a scale seldom seen since the heyday of Hitler," according to the New York Times), expelled students and professors from universities, designated military officers as university rectors and arrested, tortured and killed thousands who opposed his regime. Then in a remarkable series of twists and turns the ex tyrant went from feared strongman to decrepit prisoner. Nowhere has this tale been told so well as in Burbach's book with its rich anecdotal material, compelling characterizations, and meaningful historical insights. Indeed, his book should be put on the must read list of everyone interested in the human rights movement, globalization, Latin America, Chile, or the Pinochet Affair itself.

5 comments about King David : A Biography.

1. As I was logging on to review this book, I saw a review referring to this book as a "fun and popularized account," "reads a bit like a tabloid," "breezy in style," and "easy to read." Surely the reviewer has confused his books.
   
   Prof. McKenzie documents almost every biblical reference in the narrative, provides summaries at the end of most chapters, obviously knows Hebrew, and attaches 20 pages of footnotes and a 17-page bibligraphy. This is not a read for the beach.
   
   I was personally blown away by his conclusions about David. Since his interpretation was quite a reversal from what I believed, I resisted his teaching for several chapters. I checked his every quote to my own Bible. I questioned if I was reading heresy. I questioned my belief in the Bible.
   
   Then, I thought, "Wow! This man might be right!" It would certainly illustrate God's capacity for forgiveness.



2. McKenzie offers a fun and popularized account of the life of David. However, the text he produces, far from being scholarly, often reads a bit like a tabloid account of King David. Deconstructing the book of Samuel, a Herculean and important task, has been accomplished elsewhere by serious scholars who offer very deep reconstructions of this most fascinating and contradictory character. Readers looking to explore the subject would do well to look for Professor B. Halpern's seminal work, "David's Secret Demons." While not as breezy in style, the book goes far deeper in uncovering its subject and will offer the reader far more food for thought. Therefore, if looking for an easy read, pick up McKenzie, but those with a serious interest in King David should put the time and effort into a more serious work. Please, take a look at Halpern; you won't regret it.



3. I read many books but there is only one book I can read again and again its the bible. So I have read the story of David many times. This book takes it from an different angle. What really was the historical David we will never know! What we have is the greatest piece of writings in the world but when, where and who wrote them we are not sure. In the bible its very hard to determine where fiction and history merge.

   The story of David in this book is in a sense quite negative in that David is portrayed as a power hungry person. However to me it made him more real. I certainly have not my sense of grandeur in David. Some of his explanations somehow appear to be pretty weak. But he does present his evidence but that is not the writers fault as much as the lack of historical information.

   He does leave us with a bad taste to the writer of the bible who he states "is trying to promote or excuse David". This may be true because we really do not know very much about who the writers were or there motives.

   It well written and I would recommend this book to you.




4. Steven McKenzie's biography of David is based on the theory that the account in Samuel is an "apologia"--a brief for the defense, and that if you look hard at what the text seems to be defending David against, you can figure out what David actually did.

   This is a smart assumption but the suspicious reading it generates results in a biography of David that would make Ken Starr's portrait of Bill Clinton look like a panegyric. The only virtue McKenzie can allow David is that of being an effective guerrilla warrior because, if he hadn't been, he couldn't have reached the throne in the first place. The rest of the story is viewed as pro-David propaganda. If the story tells us that David spared the life of the worthless Nabal and that Nabal subsequently died of natural causes, it means that this is the cover story and that David must have killed him or had him killed.

   The problem for the reader comes when you ask if there is any way David could have had any attractive qualities. Given the way McKenzie reads Samuel, the nice things that are said about David must be spin, and the nasty facts reported about David (and there are plenty of them, including his adultery with Bathsheba, his inability to control his sensual and ambitious children, his vindictiveness against political enemies) are facts too well known to be denied. Given McKenzie's method, David simply cannot have done anything right.

   The fact is that, like almost every figure in the Bible, David's life exists in the text and only there. There aren't any alternative witnesses to who he was and what he did. The story in the book of Samuel contains all we are ever likely to know about David, and any method that insists on reading past the story to the REAL David is going to come up either with a panegyric or a lampoon, depending on how suspicious a method of reading it adopts.

   But the book of Samuel itself is far more complex than any of these simplifying readings. It presents a warrior and a king who was decidedly human--sometimes all too human--and depicts his world with a richness of texture that lawyer's briefs, like McKenzie's, are necessarily going to flatten out. McKenzie's book will be useful if it makes readers turn back to Samuel and read it closely and attentively, but the story it tells is a prosecutorial brief that, seen against its source, seems thin and unconvincing.




5. McKenzie has done a remarkable job of writing a biography of a man for whom the only substantial source, the Bible, was written long after the fact with a specific agenda. Through a careful, critical reading of the Biblical accounts of David's life, McKenzie is able to recover a surprising amount of historical information, and his arguments are generally quite sound. Although as he admits himself he is only able to create a "plausible tale," the tale is plausible indeed, and as a very pleasant bonus, the style of the book is very accessible and readable. I'm not familiar with Davidic scholarship, but McKenzie's biography seems to be squarely in the mainstream. It stands both as a splendid book in its own right, and also as an excellent exercise in historical method, when dealing with extremely difficult sources.

5 comments about Nixon: A Life.

1. In searching for a positive, or, at least, evenhanded account of America's most controversial 20th century President, (no easy task) I stumbled across this biography written by a British politician, Jonathan Aitkin. I found Nixon: A Life to be the most favorable biography of anyone I have ever read and it indeed pushes the boundaries of scholarship in its near-hagiography.
   
   As a record of facts, I would give this book five stars. No biography can cover every little thing but Aitkin does an excellent job of covering just about everything the reader needs to know about the life and times of America's 37th President. Aitkin quotes extensively from the subject both in personal interview and archival documents. Aitkin also quotes family, friends, employees and a veritable who's who of famous historical figures large and small from the second have of the last century.
   
   As an objective analysis of Nixon's character and behavior, I would have to give this biography only three stars. Aitkin clearly worships his subject and rarely passes up an opportunity for blankfaced praise. Though Aitkin occassionally acknowledges Nixon's deep personal and moral flaws, he is quick to qualify his remarks by downplaying the severity of the flaws that contributed greatly to Nixon being the only President to be oblidged to remove himself from office. Aitkin bends over backward to portray a well-meaning and honorable Nixon as beset on all sides by "liberal" media and historians, witch-hunting partisan Democrats in Congress, and ignorant and meanspirited Vietnam War demonstrators. Aitkin effectively tips his hand when he defends Nixon's extremely controversial decision to bomb Cambodia, "Although no liberal historian has been able to accept it, the Cambodian incursion brought about many of its intended tactical and strategic results." Here, he is clearly drawing a line in the sand between "us" and "them" with himself and Nixon on one side of the line and "liberal historians" who disagree with the President's decision on the other.
   
   That Nixon accomplished many admirable feats in his first term is undeniable. He opened up relations with Communist China, he (and Kissinger) finally ended the Vietnam Conflict horrorshow, he started the EPA, he did a fine job hastening the desegregation of The South's public schools and bringing the South closer to mainstream America, he ended the draft, he supported the arts and expanded the national parks. In fact, domestically, Nixon was at least centrist, if not positively leftist in his policies that benefited the poor, the arts and the environment. His opening of China was a brilliant foreign policy masterstroke. Because of his accomplishments, I honestly believe Richard Nixon loved America, was capable of deep sympathy toward those less fortunate, was an inherently decent man, and revered the office of The Presidency.
   
   Nixon was a strange and deeply intellectual man. Deeply flawed but extraordinarily gifted. Extremely intelligent and perhaps even brilliant. Physically and socially awkward and a natural recluse, he was insatiably intellectually curious & read incessantly and deeply. He loved to talk for hours and hours about political and social topics, particularly his area of expertise, foreign policy. He seemed to be most relaxed amoung a very few close confidants or abroad impressing foreign leaders with his intelligence, insight, foresight and expertise in foreign policy. The more I read about him, the more I couldn't help but think he would have made a tremendous Ivy League college professor in History or Political Science.
   
   He was, by no means, the devil incarnate many have portrayed him as but he was no cupcake either. A ruthless and occassionally dirty politician; even as early as his first election, he was accused of violating the spirit, if not the rules, of political fairplay. The phrase "dirty tricks" was invented in the political sphere to describe Nixon's unsavory political tactics. He came to prominence as the Republican party's attack dog, willing to do and say anything, no matter how mean or unethical. He was chosen as Eisenhower's running for precisely this reason. The Republican Party shrewdly figured Eisenhower could be perceived by the public as the benign, smiling world savior in grandfatherly retirement while Nixon did the political dirty work. Even other Republicans noted Nixon's somewhat distasteful enthusiasm for such work.
   
   Nixon, like many powerful people, was pathologically adverse to admitting or accepting fault. For instance, Both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush have demonstrated this characteristic. Powerful people are often incapable of acknowledging themselves as accountable to the same rules and laws less powerful people are. Nixon exacerbated this common trait with his own meanness, paranoia, pugnaciousness, vindictiveness, pettiness, secrecy and willingness to step outside the lines. Judging by many of his cabinet postings, it is fair to posit the possibility that his social ineptness led him to be a poor judge of character. His decision to engage in the Watergate coverup was immoral and just plain stupid. Even brilliant people do dumb things. That Nixon was able to convince himself or be convinced that a coverup would bring anything but disastrous political and, thus, professional ruination is mindboggling to the point of bizarre.
   
   Richard Nixon was a complicated and conflicted man. A good man and real patriot though deeply flawed, he was a compelling portrait of a man who may have been better suited to a different, more cerebral profession that would have allowed his natural gifts to flourish while limiting the impact of his personal awkwardness & flaws on himself and the outside world. A brilliant statesman but an ultimately failed President.



2. Nixon was hardly an angel, but he was never the evil man that many so-called biographers have portrayed him to be. This book is an excellent read for people that are interested in Nixon the President and Man as opposed to Nixon the Beast. He WAS human by the way.He had failings and personal demons to be sure, but this book doesn't harp on these failings as being the WHOLE story of Dick Nixons life. Nixon's admirable qualities do come through in this book instead of being buried or ignored. Nixon's rise to power was the product of his intellect and just plain hard work. There was never a silver spoon in Dick Nixon's mouth for sure, and he never forgot it. This was his strength and in the end his weakness. He always seemed to resent the "silver spoon" crowd and they returned the favor in spades. That crowd still finds it necessary to trample on his grave every chance they get. The negative books are still coming. The hatred is still there. It's sad that they still find the need to attack him all of these years after his death. Dick Nixon would find it gratifying that he still has that effect on them. Read the book, it's great.



3. Love him or hate him, the 37th President of the United States occupied the office at a critical time in our nations history.
   
   British Member of Parlament Jonathan Aitken gives us a nuanced portrait of a highly complex man. Aitken, initially no admirer of RN's, paints a sympathetic portrait of a deeply flawed man who, in the end, was his own worst enemy.
   
   While reading this book I could not help but recall the words of Henry A. Kissinger; "What would he have been like if some would have loved him?" I could not help but think of opportunities lost, such as a resounding victory in Vietnam, true detante' with the USSR, a China policy with lasting power, as well as true health care and welfare reform.
   
   Instead we get a picture of a White House under seige almost from the moment of inaugeration. Although, it could be argued, RN sought for his moment since a child, once he reached the pinnacle he was unable to enjoy that which he strove so long for. We see an idiosyncratic Nixon who thought that sleep was a waste of time, talking to the press was a waste of time, and being friends with your enemies was a waste of time. The result? Caracatures of "Tricky Dick," a stiff, wooded figure who exuded no warmth or strength (unlike FDR and Reagan).
   
   The criticisms of this book as being "too favorable" are not warranted. Throughout Aitken's book he strives not to paint a uni-dimensional portrait of Nixon; to do so requires a great deal of journalistic jujitsu at times because RN is so quirky. Notwithstanding, we have a volume that properly gives RN credit where he is due, and one that takes him to task when need be. The fact that ANYONE says something positive about Nixon is a bit much for some because of the fact that we have been conditioned to only see RN in his darkest moments.



4. Recently, I've began reading a series of Presidential biographies. First I read "Master of the Senate" which is about LBJ. Next, I decided to read this book about Nixon.
   
   I found it to be a good read, although the author seems to make it his mission to rehabilitate Nixon a little too much. He makes guys like John Dean, H.R. Haldeman, and Bob Ehrlicman look like the main villians in Watergate, and gives too much credit to G. Gordon Liddy. It does a good job of following the major events in Nixon's life, and it does lack the anti-Nixon bias that many Americans, myself included, have towards the 37th President.
   
   I recommend the book, but I do warn you that it may be a little to pro-Nixon for some people.



5. Aitken clearly writes a sympathetic biography of Nixon. Sometimes he goes too far toward apology for Nixon, whitewashing his obstruction of justice during Watergate and other crimes as being unimportant because they were unsuccessful. He portrays Nixon as almost always sinned-against, instead of the sinner.
   
   Nonetheless, this is one of the better things that I have read about Nixon because it portrays him as a person instead of the personification of evil. You learn about his character, his motivations, his family, and his many important achievements in foreign policy (such as triangular diplomacy).
   
   The strength of the book is Aitken's access to Nixon through several interviews, as well as interviews with many other key Nixon associates--a hostile biographer was never going to have this kind of access. The author does an excellent job explaining how Nixon transformed US foreign policy from the bipolar, anti-Soviet approach of Eisenhower, JFK, and LBJ into a sophisticated and much more effective triangular diplomacy. He provides much interesting material about Nixon's Quaker background and his spiritual ups and downs through out his life. Finally, he provides a good analysis of Nixon's well-planned and deliberate comeback after his resignation.
   
   The weaknesses should also be mentioned--Aitken often portrays Nixon's views of his opponents as objective fact, and he too often assumes that conspiracies against Nixon explain away his misdeeds. He excuses Nixon's rough political campaigns as either a reaction to his opponents or as a result of the atmosphere of the times.
   
   Overall, the writing is interesting, although it does not rise to the level of gripping. The book reveals several key facets of Nixon that are usually overlooked, and an intelligent and thoughtful reader can see through the apologetic elements. Although not perfect, it's still the best book or article that I have read on Nixon.

5 comments about A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl.

1. Even after seeing Michael Winterbottom's compelling 2007 film adaptation starring Angelina Jolie, I cannot imagine the unrelenting nightmare Mariane Pearl, five months pregnant, must have felt for those endless weeks back in early 2002 when her husband, Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, was being held hostage by radical Islamic terrorists in Karachi. It is a tribute to her as both investigative reporter and grieving widow that she has written such a moving and cogent book about her husband's kidnapping and expands the picture to include an unblinking portrait of the man responsible, Omar Shiekh. His conversion into a jihadi is treated just as comprehensively as Pearl's more personal account of her relationship and eventual marriage to her husband. I was particularly moved by her story about how they went to Cuba to return her mother's ashes to her birthplace. As a former reporter herself, she is never overly sentimental, but you cannot help but be touched by the loving portrait of her husband, a tough-minded reporter who was also a charming dilettante and avid mandolin player. Her lucid narrative paints a marriage of great passion and mutual trust, and she successfully articulates his mission of building understanding between Islam, Christianity, and his own Judaism.
   
   I have to admit some part of me felt Daniel Pearl sealed his fate when he chose such a dangerous assignment, risky not just for an American and all the more so for a Jewish-American. But his widow gives me a much greater understanding of his mission and the passion he had to carry his mission through the most horrifying circumstances. It has since been reported that he was fully aware of his inevitable execution and refused to be sedated during his final moments of life. This added knowledge makes her book an even greater abject lesson in courage, which she delineates in the most poignant yet clear-eyed way. This could have been easily sensationalized into a clarion call for anti-Islamic hatred stateside, but her book is remarkably controlled and free of self-pity. Mariane Pearl goes well beyond my expectations in documenting not just a personal tragedy and ultimate triumph in survival but a true lesson in reconciling one's immediate circumstances with the greater purpose of building tolerance. Beyond remarkable books like Bob Graham's Intelligence Matters or Michael Scheuer's Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, it is her book that captures the power of the human spirit against terrorism and will continue to resonate well beyond the upcoming election.



2. This book is absolutely amazing! It's very well written and the movie doesn't do it justice.



3. "I signal to Danny to take the first (cab) since he is in the greater hurry. After he tosses his bag in, he cups my neck with his free hand, pulls me to him, and kisses my cheek."
   
   "In a matter of seconds, Danny is gone."
   
   Wall Street Journal reporter Danny Pearl was kidnapped then murdered by terrorists in Karachi, Pakistan, in February 2002. The person he kissed was his wife Mariane Pearl, co-author (with Sarah Crichton)of A MIGHTY HEART. I call this writing pure poetry.
   
   "There might be dozens of reasons for Danny to turn off his cell phone, but he doesn't usually. 'Your correspondent cannot be reached at this moment. Please try again later,' says the cheerily robotic, feminine voice... I will come to detest that voice."
   
   This is Mariane-as-narrator's first intimation something's wrong. As a reader, I know Danny's been kidnapped and soon will be beheaded, but her words "I will come to detest that voice" grabs my gut and shakes away that knowing. Maybe he'll be okay? Maybe the news was wrong?
   
   Marianne relates this beautifully poetic truth: "I call and call Danny's phone; it is never answered," and still I find myself turning the page, hoping Danny picks up. How does she get me to do this? By leading with her heart. My heart has to follow hers.
   
   Some writers lead with thier heart, excitement, fear, pain, joy. Read A MIGHT HEART for a glimpse of how it's done.
   
   Note: I read the book when its title was A MIGHTY HEART:The Brave Life And Death Of My Husband Danny Pearl. I don't like the new title. It doesn't say the book is a memoir. Perhaps this is a way to appeal to a broader audience.



4. A very sad story. It also makes the anger towards these terrible people come out. I wish that Bush would stop being a sissy and go after these people. I also lost my husband but to an auto accident. Nevertheless, the pain is the same. I would hope that her story will stop people from going to these countrys for any reason. The US also needs to be more militant in going after the hostage takers.



5. This is a touching memoir. The epilogue letters are probably the most emotional part of the book. However, there are other touching moments throughout centering around the relationships she forms with the people who helped her through the tragedy of her husband's kidnapping and murder. It's clear she learned who her friends were and made many.
   It didn't seem to me that she lacked emotion, as the previous reviewer criticized. However, if there are times when she does, she makes it clear that she never wanted to give terrorists the satisfaction of her tears. People deal with emotions and adversity differently. She is clearly an exceptionally strong individual.
   The writing gave the feeling of a suspensful page turner despite knowing what the tragic outcome would be. An extremely sad narrative.

5 comments about Citizen Coors: A Grand Family Saga of Business, Politics, and Beer.

1. An eye opener to how a bunch of wealthy disfunctional sad people shaped and strengthened the conservative right. Well written, comprehensive, engaging.



2. The saga of the Coors family has all the makings of a great movie. It tells a great story that involves: politics (Reagan), labor tensions, sex scandals, suicides and ecology. Ultimately it shows both the triumphs and pitfalls of stubbornly committing to only doing things the way you see fit.
   
   I grew up in Colorado and knew a lot about the company, but still found this informative. Believe it or not, we used to go to the Coors Brewery for school field trips and I had some frends whose father's worked there in the late 70s. The labor discussions brought back memories.
   
   This book is objectively written and reads more like a novel. I find the labor issues very interesting with both the ugly side of both management and union tactics presented. However, it paints a more negative view of organized labor and the lengths they will go when a comapany does not want to 'play ball'.



3. I loved this book. Very neat in learning the family history of the Coors, their role in politics and how all this was reflected in their family brewery business. I would recommend this book to my family and friends.



4. That you can walk into just about any convenience store in America today and find Coors Light on the shelf should be considered one of the great miracles of modern business.

   Founded in 1876 by Prussian immigrant Adolph Coors, the Coors Brewing Company prospered in its early years by focusing its full attention on making consistently great beer. A century later, Coors' business practices made it look as if were hopelessly stuck in the nineteenth century. Led then by the two staunchly conservative grandsons of Adolph (Bill and Joe), Coors did it's best to pretty much piss off everyone who had ever had anything to do with the company. The brothers were determined, at all costs, to run Coors the way they saw fit. This meant getting rid of the unions (through strong-armed
   and often illegal tactics); shunning the concept of marketing (believing that Coors, because of it's strict adherence to quality, sold itself); completely ignoring modern business practices (no accountants, no legal department, no debt); alienating their network of distributors and retailers with idiosyncratic rules for handling Coors products; aggravating customers with nearly impossible-to-open beer cans; and, in the case of Joe Coors, spreading extremely conservative ideological venom wherever he went.

   Joe Coors used profits from the brewery to establish the Heritage Foundation (the right-wing's answer to the Brookings Institution), and through this jackboot organization, pretty much got Ronald Regan elected President in 1980. Joe's politics, along with Coors treatment of its employees, minorities, women, gays, and the unions, led to one of the most successful, and still on going, consumer product boycotts in American history.

   Citizen Coors tells the whole story from the beginning. It reads like a novel. That I have any sympathy for the Coors family, at all, is a testament to the careful writing of the author, Dan Baum. Coors, at times, is presented to the reader as the misunderstood protagonist; with the media, unions, and leftist groups out to destroy Coors for no good reason. And hindsight about the reality of modern marketing almost makes your heart pull for Coors as you read about every marketing misstep they took throughout the 1960's and 70's. By the early 80's, it would have been hard to find a company the size of Coors that was more poorly managed. Coors would more than likely have capitulated had Joe Coors' son, Peter, not learned to stand up to his father and to accept the reality in which Coors found itself in. Peter, though, was plagued with self-doubt about his own abilities as a leader, but to his credit, was smart enough to look outside the Coors cocoon for answers. In the end, the family had to acquiesce it's near-totalitarian control of the company to the slick marketers it had always loathed.

   This is a remarkable book about family, the evolution of American business, and the failures of the labor movement coupled with the rise of conservatism in this country. Dan Baum has done his research. I question how he would be privy to a century's worth of private conversations between Coors' family members (as they did not cooperate very much with the author). But, I'm willing to suspend disbelief in favor of the overall story. If you're into history, politics, and enjoy a good beer now and again, you'll love Citizen Coors.




5. Even tho' this is a business book, I found it hard to put down. The author writes in such a way as told hold you spellbound to see what the next gaff the Coors family will make. I found that while Coors made a superb beer, they were clueless to the realities of contemperary marketing, and image building. They were lucky to survive. The book made me want to get an update on the brewers current status! Very enjoyable!!

4 comments about It Usually Begins With Ayn Rand.

1. When I was a young man, I devoured all of Ayn Rand's works, and they helped shape the libertarian perspective I have today. When I got my hands on Tuccille's book in hardback years ago, I read it through in one sitting, lauging all the way. I was surprised and delighted to see the book back in print again; it was like running into an old friend one hasn't seen in a long time.



2. If you care about the history of the libertarian movement - and already know the names Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Murray Rothbard, and Karl Hess - then you're apt to find Tuccille's book an absolutely hilarious romp, as I did.
   
   Unless, of course, you're an Objectivist fundamentalist of the sort who wears $-sign cufflinks, drinking Kool-Aid at the Fountainhead in Galt's Gulch while chanting the mantra "A is A." In that case, you just might fail to see the humor as Tuccille skewers your sacred cows.
   
   If none of the foregoing means much to you, then chances are good that Tuccille's book won't either. Tuccille spins a fantastically funny yarn for those who already are intimately familiar with American libertarianism. Those who are not, I'm sorry to say, probably will find little of interest in the book.
   
   Eric Alan Isaacson



3. In my opinion Tuccille tags along behind Rand, mimicking her, but appears to have no original ideas of his own. Sorry is this seems harsh, but I cannot say the book is anything but a collection of ramblings by an average, run-of-the-mill Ayn Rand fan. Let's put it this way; if Ayn Rand was Baron Frankenstein, then Jerome Tuccille would be his faithful servant, Egor. The problem is that Egor is no Doctor Frankenstein, and Jerome is no Rand.



4. Jerome Tuccille documents his journey from Ayn Rand to Goldwater to Rothbard -- and back, beyond, and in between. This is a hilarious book if one knows the names and ideas being discussed; a newcomer may want to familiarize himself with names like Murray Rothbard, Karl Hess, Nathaniel & Barbara Branden, Leonard Liggio, Henry Paolucci, and the like before reading this book. Tuccille combines fiction and fact -- with much exaggeration -- to document the young libertarian movement from the mid-fifties to 1971. If the sequel is ever finished, I hope it can match this great book!

1 comments about The Subject of Care: Feminist Perspectives on Dependency (Feminist Constructions).

1. With anlytic precision and moral vision, a roster of excellent authors explore the moral, political, and policy dimensions of the relation of care: of parents for children, children for aging parents, for the sick, the disabled, the infirm.
   Essential reading for philosophers, political theorists and lawmakers. Enlightening reading for anyone who wants to think deeply about the human condition.