No comments about Faith and Works: The Politics, Business, and Philanthrophy of Alabama's Jimmy Faulkner.

5 comments about Barry Goldwater.

1. It has been said that Barry Goldwater ran for President in 1964 but was elected in 1980. This refers to the fact that he set the stage for the movement, back in the 1960's, that set the stage for the Reagan revolution in 1980. Goldwater energized a base of largely young conservatives and brought a whole new great of people into the process.
   
   The book also tells us a lot of details of Goldwater's early life. Most people probably don't realize the he is of Jewish heritage. He worked hard his entire life to get where he was. This is a strong contrast with the Kennedy family and many others (including George W. Bush) who were children of wealth.
   
   The book gives an excellent account of Goldwater's entire career including his retirement in 1987....such that he ever really completely retired.
   
   It is a faily well balanced book.....at least compared to most others. It is clear, as others have said, that Goldberg approaches the subject from the left. But it doesn't spoil the contents of the book and he doesn't revise history or distort Goldwater's record. It is a fairly good account of a great man's life!



2. Few people have had the impact on the American political scene that Barry Goldwater made in his career. Born into one of the wealthiest families in Arizona, his embrace of the Western myth and his opposition to increased role the government played in economic management after the Great Depression (one influenced by his experience managing the family's chain of local department stores) combined to shape his political philosophy. After service in the Army Air Force in World War II, he entered politics and became a leader of the effort to "clean up" the Phoenix city government - though Goldberg writes that, as most of the members of the effort themselves acknowledged, the charges of civic corruption that led to their victory were largely overstated.
   
   Upon winning election to the United States Senate in 1952, Goldwater quickly emerged as one of its most prominent conservatives, becoming chair of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee just three years later. The role played to Goldwater's gift for marketing, and he quickly developed a national following among thousands of Americans. He benefited as well from the emergence of a new radical right, fueled by growing concerns over race and embodied in organizations like the John Birch Society. With the publication of his 1960 book Conscience of a Conservative, Goldwater cemented his position as the leading figure of the movement, their natural candidate for the presidency.
   
   Goldwater got his chance in 1964. With the front-runner for the Republican nomination, Nelson Rockefeller, politically damaged by his divorce and remarriage, Goldwater was the front-runner. He accepted the nomination at a convention that Goldberg terms "the Woodstock of American conservatism," with a speech that galvanized his supporters. Goldwater's nomination became a pivotal moment in the history of the Republican Party. While Goldwater himself was defeated in the subsequent campaign by Lyndon Johnson (who succeeded in depicting Goldwater as an unstable reactionary ideologue), his candidacy signaled the party's ideological, social, and political shift away from its traditional base in the Northeast towards its new home in the South and West.
   
   Yet Goldberg sees Goldwater's candidacy as the high-water mark of his role as a conservative leader, as he began moving away from the ideas of the radical right and towards a more libertarian style of conservatism. Though he returned to the Senate in 1968, his support for Nixon's opening of relations with China and his backing of Gerald Ford over Ronald Reagan in their race for the Republican nomination in 1976 led many former Goldwater supporters to turn on their former champion. By the 1980s, Goldwater had become a leading opponent of the growing role of the religious right in the Republican Party, and he remained an uncomfortable gadfly after his retirement from the Senate in 1987 by speaking out against many of the actions of the party he did so much to change.
   
   Goldberg's biography offers a balanced examination of the senator's life and career that is welcome. He avoids the hagiography of earlier works, which distorted or excluded some of the details of Goldwater's life so as to better fit their image of a conservative paradigm. Though such information as Goldwater's financial donations to Planned Parenthood and his personal efforts to support civil rights (which he disguised so as not to alienate voters in the South) may call his reputation for honesty and bluntness into question, the result is a better understanding of the man and his role in the rise of American conservatism after the Second World War.



3. This biography is well written and researched. Unfortunately, it becomes painfully clear at times that the author, Robert Alan Goldberg, is writing from the Left. The book's strengths lie in his discussion of Goldwater's family history and upbringing. On the other hand, Goldberg's rants on Goldwater's racial complacency get old after a couple chapters, and do not relent. Goldberg essentially accuses Goldwater of turning a blind eye to racism, but then defends him by saying he himself was not racist.

   Of course Goldwater was not racist. He did not "accomodate" racism, either...Goldwater just wasn't a "Civil Rights" activist like Goldberg, but then again, who is Goldberg to judge a man such as Barry Goldwater? When he sticks to the facts, this book is good. When he strays, it is awkward. Overall, though, its at least worth borrowing from the local library.




4. Barry Goldwater,as someone once pointed out, last name speaks of the 2 most important things in the American west. this biography,meticulous in its balance,shows Goldwater from his lonely days as a western conservative ina republican party dominated with eastern power and money{how wird does that sound now?],to his latter days a conscience of the conservaties,who found little to cheer about from the new right who claimed its parnetage to him.From his biting prescience on LBJ and Vietnam, to his condemnation of modern politcs,Goldwater was an original.truly .Would his vision and sheer balls be available on this convuluted and viscious landscape of politics today.Very,very well written,balanced,nuanced biography of a seminal figure of modern america.



5. Goldberg's biography is the definitive work on Mr. Conservative, Barry Goldwater. Essential reading for anyone interested in Goldwater and an excellent reminder that Goldwater's brand of conservatism is a far cry from the conservatism of the religious right. The book is a balanced view of the man from Arizona written by a scholar with an engaging and highly readable writing style.

No comments about El Dictador/ The Dictator: La Historia Secreta Y Publica De Jorge Rafael Videla / The Secret and Public Story of Jorge Rafael Videla (Best Seller).

2 comments about Harry Byrd of Virginia.

1. Dr. Ronald L. Heinemann's extensive volume of Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virignia is a must have for anybody trying to understand southern politics. On his own, Harry Byrd is a rather tacid, boring politician who built a political machine by keeping as many people ineligible to vote as possible through poll taxing and through the support of the "courthouse ring." Byrd is more a representative of a bygone era trying hard to keep pace with a newer and more complex world. In fact, Heinemann's approach to Byrd shows us a political animal who lived, slept, and breathed for a campaign and for power. He was a gentle southern apple farmer and newspaper editor who could hold the federal government in his hand from his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee. Through Byrd, Heinemann shows the South's last, desperate grasp at retaining the society that they knew was wrong. This is an important read for anyone who wants to understand what southern's were thinking, not simply write them off in a few curt sentences.



2. Professor Heinemann has brought to the table a tremendous amount of research--a vast array of day to day details. But the work is seriously marred by a lack of understanding for what the great debates of the Senator's lifetime were really all about. He shows who loved Byrd and hated him; some of the words that they used; and what the immediate effect may have been. He paints a very detailed picture of an able, largely self-made and self-educated man, who had an unusually skilled grasp of the nuances of partisan politics from the Court Houses of Virginia to the Halls of Congress; a man who was very widely respected by his contemporaries for his rock ribbed integrity, as well as his ability. But then he trivializes his subject with his own ex cathedra pronouncements, which show more of the author's limitations than they do of Senator Byrd's. The tragedy is that, while this book still has great value to those who want to learn more about the greatest Virginian since Robert E. Lee, it misses its full potential, because its author does not have a clue as to what the real issues involved;no perspective on the Constitutional questions, only a very limited perspective on the economic; and practically none as to why certain values, which made very great sense two thousand years before Jefferson, will still make sense a thousand years after Harry Byrd and Ronald Heinemann. It is a pity, because he obviously would not have gone to so great an effort, had he not realized a little of Byrd's significance. What a shame that he failed to see the forest for the trees.

No comments about The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, Vol. 35: Volume 35: May 1 through October 31, 1781 (The Papers of Benjamin Franklin Series).

5 comments about DAUGHTER OF THE EAST.

1. Out of print, never received. Hard to rate if I have not read it.



2. Benazir Bhutto, is not only the first woman to have led a post-colonial Muslim state, she has also achieved that status of "political royalty" something like that of the Kennedy family in the US or the Gandhi family of India. Hers is a life that has been full of theatrics... the hanging of her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, education at Harvard and Oxford, becoming Prime Minister, her life in self-imposed exile, her "deal" with President Musharraf as well as the recent attempts on her life. This particular autobiography is "dated" and needs substantial material to make it relevant to the present day context of Pakistan but is an interesting read nonetheless. Benazir's book shows that she's a tough lady and a fighter!



3. In his book "Prisoner without a name and cell without a number" Jacobo Timerman says that oppressed population go through three stages during the course of oppression: anger, fear and apathy. For "anger and fear" Pakistan did not have to look beyond General Zia-ul-Haq. For apathy they did not have to look beyond Benazir Bhutto.
   
   Benazir, in 1988, was Mannah coming down from heaven for Pakistan.
   
   She was the first born of the elite aristocratic Bhutto family. (Charles Napier, famous for his "Peccavi - I have Sinned" pun writes that Bhutto landholding was so extensive that he would travel for hours in Sind and yet be in Bhutto land). She went to Radcliffe and later to Oxford. She was the first woman president of the Oxford Union.
   
   Young Benazir, 23 when her father was murdered by Zia, was kept in prison by Zia for several years. Undaunted by all this, she provided leadership to PPP, her political party. When allowed to go out of Pakistan in 1984 she continued to run the party from her Barbican apartment in London.
   
   In 1986 she decided to return courageously to Pakistan when Zia was in rule. Despite military rule and "big brothers" watching, people gave her a welcome that no political leader could ever rival. She continued to whip up her agenda for bringing democracy back to Pakistan for the next two years.
   
   1988 proved to be a turning point for Pakistan and Bhutto. Zia's role for Pakistan to be a frontline state in the war against communism proved to be temporary. Zia's role for Pakistan to be a frontline state in evangelizing Wahabi Islam proved to be permanent. Zia died in an air accident. Benazir Bhutto became the first woman PM of Pakistan when she was just 35 yrs.
   
   Until this time her life is a story that inspires. After becoming PM hers is a story of lost opportunities.
   
   She did not use her power base to enshrine democracy and was comfortable securing a position of power in existing autocratic frameworks. This allowed Ghulam Ishaq Khan (a civil servant who succeeded to become President) to dismiss her once and Farooq Laghari (an underling who got elected to be President due to Benazir's support) to dismiss her again.
   
   She did not ensure her husband was above suspicion. Pakistan government had detained her husband in prison for more than 6 years on 90 charges of corruption though it has not secured conviction in even one case . However, it is not easy to ignore the fact that Zardari, not rich at the time of marriage to Benazir, owns a 355 acre property south of London according to Wikipedia.
   
   Benazir is a good writer though. Some interesting snippets:
   
   The feelings of an educated young Muslim girl wearing a barkah for the first time are vividly described. The world was not the same through gauze. The build up of humidity inside the cloak was uncomfortable. Her relief when her father tells that she does not need to wear a barkah is immense. However, it was her father's decision; not hers. Who is the liberal?
   
   Benazir Bhutto rightly feels that the West does not care for freedom in frontier states as much as freedom at home:
   
   (a) In 1958 US trained Pakistan Army in "immobilizing" a government through strikes. The operation was titled "Operation Wheeljam". Why would US want to do that? Why would Pakistan army want to get trained in that?
   
   (b) Margaret Thatcher, in a trip to Pakistan, praised Zia and declared Pakistan to be the "last bastion of freedom". An example where a leader's wisdom has not kept pace with knowledge.
   
   (c) Undersecretary of State James Buckley testified before US Congress that "elections were not in the best interest of the security of Pakistan". Another example of paucity of wisdom.
   
   Pakistan had a long term price to pay. After the Afghan war, Kalashnikovs were available, according to Benazir, for $ 40 in Karachi. One can rent by the hour too. Landowners and Industrialists began to employ private armies to protect themselves. By 1983, Pakistan had become the major supplier of heroin to the World with some support from the State. (Abdullah Bhatti, one of the two drug bosses, was arrested and sentenced by a military court. But Zia intervened and gave him a Presidential pardon, a power he never used for anyone else!). Narco terrorism was born.
   
   The second major impact was on women. Zia introduced the Hudood ordinances whereby a woman charging a rape should prove it with four male witnesses; otherwise she would face adultery charges herself. Safia Bibi, a blind servant girl was raped by her employer and his son; and could not prove it - rape rarely being conducted in public. The two men went free and Safia was charged with adultery. Campaigns by outraged women saved Safia Bibi; but not other less fortunate women.
   
   However, Benazir is not as eloquent about her times as PM as about her times as a prisoner. There is very little about her challenges as a PM: her failure to get a good constitution written, her failure in dealing with Presidents who never had public mandate, her failure in dealing with traditional power brokers in the army, in the ISI, her failure to rein in her husband; her initiatives for development of social and economic aspects of Pakistan and her failure in engaging with India. In the end, she got consumed by the very forces she tolerated as a prisoner and as a PM. Pakistan did not revolt when she moved out to Dubai.
   
   The book is interesting when it deals with the anger and fear till 1988; and gets boring when it reaches the stage of Jacob Timerman's "apathy" after 1988. Benazir too does not think the period is important and devotes 90% of the book for her first 35 years till she becomes PM and just 10% for the next 19 years as PM, Opposition leader and Leader-in-exile.
   
   When it was first published in 1989, I liked the book. Today, am just bored.



4. Benazir Bhutto's tale of her youth and political career in Pakistan is eloquent and engaging as a narrative, surprisingly readable, with an almost fictional quality. However, it is precisely these dream-like allusions that make a reader who is more knowledgeable about politics and social hierarchies in Pakistan wonder about the reliability and motives behind her portrayal of Pakistani leaders.

   Recounting the personal tragedies and difficulties experienced by the Bhutto family, Benazir is stirring and emotive, inspiring empathy in her readers. But she paints a disturbingly naive and idealised picture of her own family. The Bhuttos appear as eternal victims of cruel and unrelenting dictators, who stifle the voice of the people, unwaveringly embodied in the form of a Bhutto (first her father, followed by her mother, and then Benazir herself). References to the fuedal landowning family's power, status, nobility and wealth are scattered throughout Benazir's text, and make one wonder if she wouldn't be better off using the argument of divine right, rather than popular mandate, to justify her family's claims to leadership of Pakistan.

   On the whole, the book is worth reading but I recommend it be done with a pinch of salt. It is evident that Benazir Bhutto belongs to an elite amongst the various Pakistani elites. I find it more than a little paradoxical and hypocritical that she is able to combine her membership in one of South Asia's "ruling families" with so ardent a conviction that hers was the true and democratically determined voice of the Pakistani people.

   With the benefit of hindsight, and the knowledge that Benazir did not live up to her political ambitions to serve the "masses" in either of her two terms as Prime Minister, the rhetoric of "Daughter of the East" seems a rather bitter pill to swallow.




5. BeNazir Bhutto is a former Prime Minister of Pakistan. Her father Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was elected Prime Minister in early 1970's. The military dictator Gen. Zia, who ruled Pakistan until 1987 when his plane crashed, hanged him. Miss Bhutto coherently elucidates the events surrounding her father's unjust death and the struggle for reclaiming the government. I would suggest this book for the readers who want to have first hand accounts of Martial law on the country as whole and a family, which has lost most of its members in the unmerited war of politics.

2 comments about Fadlallah: The Making of a Radical Shi'ite Leader.

1. Very well written! This book is highly recommended for those who are interested in Lebanese politics and indeed Islamic politics.



2. This biography is very informative. The tone is calm and scholarly, the author does not get into any of the extremist debates about Islam.
   
   As a whole, the biography is sympathetic to Fadlallah, and reading it gives a good picture of his view of the world. This book will be appreciated by those who want to know more about the politics of the Middle East in the era leading up to the current war. But it is very much a work of political history - there is little information on private life and culture - I did think that the author could have written more about that.

2 comments about Mike Mansfield, Majority Leader: A Different Kind of Senate, 1961-1976.

1. In short, the book describes the most honorable man ever to hold political office.....either at the State or National level. I am proud not only to know Mike Mansfield, but to be a Montanan as well. Jeanette Rankin, C.M. Russell, and Mike Mansfield......what a trio! God Bless a GREAT American and his lovely wife, Maureen!



2. The book traces the contributions of Micheal Mansfield as Senate Majority leader, emerging from the shadow of LBJ thru the Watergate years.

   His work as an instructor at the University of Montana prior to election to Congress, and his longstanding love of good pipes and tobacco proved that inside the Beltway, "A pipe gives a wise man time to think, and a fool something to put in his mouth"

5 comments about Diana.

1. I have read several Diana biographies and too much of the time it's a simple rehash of stories and moments already told. Sarah Bradford's bio is a breath of much needed fresh air. I think it's the definitive biography on Princess Diana's life. At times you feel for her and at others you are left in total disbelief at how petty and irrational she could be. The book is a success because the author doesn't try or attempt to side with Diana or any other member of the royal family. There's no line crossing here, Bradford keeps her subject at arms length but at the same time manages to weave a touching and warm biography. Towards the later part of the book that deals with her life from the time she agreed to do the Morton book, reading about how manipulative and out of control she could be I was left wondering why I respected this woman. But because of the author's talent in presenting both sides of a person, I ended up not hating Diana but respecting that she was a complex person, as are all human beings. She was not a saint but a woman trying to find peace, succeeding at times and due to outside circumstances and her own misjudgment failing to find the peace she sought. By the end of the book I found myself tearing up. This is truly a wonderful and well paced biography.



2. This is probably the closest we will get to an "official" biography of the late Princess of Wales for many years to come. Sarah Bradford (who is also Viscountess Bangor) was able to interview countless friends and servants and other acquaintances of Princess Diana, including apparently several unnamed members of the Royal Family. The result is a book which, while overall sympathetic to the Princess, also acknowledges her darker side.
   
   Lady Diana Spencer broke into the world's consciousness as a shy, smiling young girl in 1981. After her magnificent wedding most people thought the fairy tale would go on forever. There were warning signs from the beginning as Bradford points out: Diana's troubled childhood, her tendencies to overdramatize and manipulate her way out of difficulties, and her sadly neglected education. The Prince of Wales, Bradford also demonstrates, also had more than his share of problems. With hindsight, we can only wonder why any one thought this marriage ever had a chance.
   
   Bradford does a good job of dissecting the numerous contradictions in the life of the Princess, exposing the differences between reality and the facade erected by both the Prince and the Princess. At the end, the reader is left still feeling sympathy for this tragic couple but very aware that they themselves did much to sabotage their lives.



3. If you're like me and just want to know Princess Diana's whole story, this is the book you need to read. It tells her life story in such an intertaining way that i just couldn't stop reading it until the very end. Sarah Bradford's work is remarkable. I highly recommend it.



4. I wasn't sure about "Diana" by Sarha Bradford when I picked it. I thought that it would be a Diana hate fest or love fest. But this book was either. I was a balance book about Princess of Wales. Ms. Bradford should that Diana was just everyone else in the world. She had her up and downs with family and friends and all that she was looking for was her place in world, but unlike the rest of us the whole world was watching her do it.
   If you are a fan of the late Princess of Wales this may be the book for you.



5. Bradford sounds like a fan of the Princess. She gives Diana the benefit of the doubt at every juncture. In a way, this makes for a pleasant and poignant read. Diana is portrayed as misunderstood and misused by "the establishment," the press, her family and most of her lovers. The only ones who didn't let her down were us (her public) and Hasnat Khan, the Pakistani surgeon who loved her dearly but couldn't/wouldn't marry her. Diana's more destructive impulses are portrayed as being the flip side of her strength. The thing of it is, though, very little of this information is new and much of it is hard to believe. Diana did bring much of her heartache onto herself. As Tina Brown's superior book exhibits, Diana's real story -- objectively told -- is just as compelling and heartbreaking as this more rose-colored version.

No comments about Journey Not The Arrival Matters: An Autobiography Of The Years 1939 To 1969.