5 comments about Standing Next to History: An Agent's Life Inside the Secret Service.

1. This is another book I read cover to cover in one sitting. I'm sad that it's over. The thoughtfulness and ethics and, well, honor of the writer touched me. Lots of cool insider info without compromising security. No bitchy backstabbing. No gratuitous back-slapping either. A very easy read that I couldn't tear myself away from. A couple months back, the current president was in my city for a couple of hours and the amount of disruption to traffic was startling. I now have far more appreciation for how difficult these visits are and how much orchestration they involve.



2. I wanted to get a little more background on the life of a Secret Service Agent. I found this book filled with interesting tidbits of information. It was an easy read that I found entertaining, as well. His recounts of what it was like working around the Reagan administration, the Pope's US visit, etc. kept me interested for several hours worth of reading. It personalized some of the details that the public often may not realize.



3. This book is well written with just enough detail to keep you in every scene. It hooked me from page 1 and kept me interested all along.



4. If you have any interest in the presidency of Ronald Reagan or the Secret Service, I highly recommend this book. The tone is very matter-of-fact, but what comes through is what an honorable person Joseph Petro is. He lost out on a possible N.F.L career when he was drafted for the Viet Nam War, but our country, and especially its elected officials during the time of his service, gained a great deal.
   
   A very engaging book.



5. I found this book extremely enlightening as to what life as an Agent in the USSS will be like. Petro does a wonderful job at writing about what he is allowed to disclose yet still keeping the reader engaged. If you are interested in the USSS, you should read this book during your application process since little is know about the Service.

5 comments about Silent Partner: A Memoir of My Marriage.

1. I wanted to know how could a woman be married to a man without knowing he's gay. Or rather, I wanted to know how could a gay man be married to a woman without letting her know he's gay. In this book Dina Matos comes across as a very intelligent and kind person. If she could be fooled, anyone could be fooled. I think anyone who's ever been betrayed by a loved one can relate to the feeling of trying to keep up the hope when there's a nagging feeling of something not being right. I want to read the ex-husband's side of the story but there is no way getting around the fact that Dina was deceived.



2. This book was personal for me because I had this experience. There is a large percentage of men who fall into the category - so ladies beware.



3. I loved reading this book, about the true events in the life of a governor and his wife. She is very elegant in the way she tells of the lies and truths she find out about the life she led with her husband. It tells of the difference in what was going on and what she had missed. She tells about seeing signs after the fact and how she stepped out of the public eye after being pushed into a public scene with her cheating husband.



4. I was also deceived by a gay man disguising as straight. I met him online where he presented himself as a "marriage minded man seeking a woman." I began to get suspicious after a few weeks of dating and asked him if he was "bi" and he tearfully told me of his past. He also professed undying love and the desire to be with a woman permanently so I stuck with him for a few more months. Those months can only be described as a roller coaster ride; one I wish I never got on. I was not equipped mentally or emotionally to cope with this man's sexual confusion. Probably 1 week after we parted, he found himself an "amazing gentleman" and raved about how he had finally found love. (it sounded pathetically familiar; he used to rave about me.
   I walked away and had to deal with my anger and resentment for what he put me through. Yes, you can go through relationship problems with anyone, but these were particularly painful and confusing for me. No matter what anyone says, it's not the same. I felt used and exploited by him to test out the heterosexual waters.
   Prior to meeting him, I had a old friend who was gay. She fell in love with me when I was 17 and used to harass me to be with her. Physically and emotionally. That, too, was an awful experience.
   I used to be a tolerant person; probably too tolerant and it got me in some situations that were not good for me.
   Unfortunately this has caused me some trepidation in being with gay people. It's sad but I just have not had any positive experiences with them. I do try to keep an open mind though and hopefully healing will prevail.
   Thanks for listening.



5. I bought the book because I was interested to hear Dina's story. How could she be totally blindsided by Jim McGreevy's coming out? The book never really cleared that up for me. No real new relevations. However, it was an interesting look inside politics. A very quick read.

5 comments about Benjamin Franklin (Yale Nota Bene).

1. While this biography of Franklin may not be for everyone I found it highly readable (except for a few sections on Pennsylvania politics), authoritative, and very interesting in the path in takes as the historian seeks to understand this remarkable man. It couldn't have been easy being a genius living in a time of superstiution, ignorance and enormous intolerance. Franklin not only navigated successfully but was able to quietly effect great change be it starting militias, hospitals, fire departments,and libraries or gently guiding his fellow colonists toward independence. He said he wanted to be remembered as a man who 'lived usefully' a suitable goal for us all I think.



2. I purchased this book because the author was a professor from the respectable Yale Univ and it was not too thick of a volume. I find the content is excellent and engaging. Morgan does not dwell too much on trivial details but seems to cover the important aspects of Franklin's life.
   
   One thing I am not happy about is the difficulty in reading this book. I can understand it overall, but there are sentenses here and there that are confusing to me. A good editor should have made some corrections to confusing sentenses. The Yale professor might be a good historian and scholar, but not necessarily well versed in composition.
   
   Am I the only one complaining about the rhetoric? Strangly, I don't read such comments/reviews from others here...



3. Edmund Morgan presents a very different approach to analyzing Ben Franklin's life. He does not go day by day or even year by year but instead looks at the overall legacy. While I think this is an interesting way to look at Franklin's life it is not as useful as Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson. It is still possible to learn a lot about his cultural legacy and intellectual legacy. I did learn things about Ben Franklin that I had not from other biographies because this does stick to the large picture. This book does cover the essentials as others have noted but I think it also sets a new and exciting trend for biographies. To get the place of a person in history it is worth looking at how they fit in to larger events as opposed to just their life. Morgan's writing is very engaging and this is a valuable addition to the literature on Benjamin Franklin.



4. I was sorely disappointed by Edmund Morgan's biography of Benjamin Franklin. Despite having America's most creative, funny, and interesting Founding Father, perhaps second only to George Washington in importance, Ben comes across boring and leaden in Morgan's account. I found little of Ben's humor and warmth in this book. While it covered Franklin's scientific and diplomatic efforts in great detail, it spoke little of how Ben helped make America...indeed, I found little to prove him a Founding Father. I persisted through the interminable treatment of pre-Revolutionary Franklin, hoping for a solid treatment of the Revolutionary War and the Constitutional Convention, only to be completely disappointed. In sum, I feel that I know only marginally more about Ben after reading this book; I hope Issacson's account illuminates Ben better.



5. I am interested in comparing the 5 best biographies of Benjamin Franklin that have been written (thus far) in the new millennia, emphasizing Morgan's account.
   
   THE BEST 5 BIOGRAPHIES ARE (in order of publication date)
   Edmund S. Morgan's Benjamin Franklin (Yale Nota Bene S.)
   H. W. Brands's The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin
   Walter Isaacson's Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
   Gordon S. Wood's The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin
   Jerry Weinberger's Benjamin Franklin Unmasked: On the Unity of His Moral, Religious, and Political Thought (American Political Thought)
   
   
   The first 4 of these biographies are presented as in the typical historically (and chronologically) biographical approach. Morgan's biography was the first written and all the later biographers mention his work and try to build (and critique) Morgan's interpretation of Franklin.
   
   There are 24 pictures in Morgan's book, no pictures in Brands's book, 32 pictures in Isaacson's book, 25 pictures in Wood's book, and no pictures in Weinberger's book.
   I am not going to write about how great Franklin was or what he did (he was great and he did so much). I want to write primarily about how each of these authors portrays Franklin's character differently by highlighting different aspects of his life.
   
   In London (1725) Franklin wrote "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," which seemed to show that Franklin was a young radical Deist. Later, when the pamphlet was reprinted in Boston, Franklin became a social outcast of sorts and he wrote that he was "inclined to leave Boston" because people were calling him "an infidel or atheist." When Franklin fled Boston he was 17 years old. He later wrote about that pamphlet that Ï began to suspect that this doctrine, though it might be true, was not very useful."
   Later, after becoming rich from his printing presses, writings, and scientific discoveries, Franklin became a statesman, diplomat, Founding Father, and icon.
   At the end of his life he wrote his "Autobiography," where Franklin said that he "never doubted, for instance, the existence of the Deity, that he made the world, and governed it by his Providence; that the most acceptable service to God was the doing of good to man; that our souls are immortal; and that all crime will be punished and virtue rewarded either here or hereafter; these I esteemed the essentials of every religion".
   
   Morgan affirms what is in Franklin's "Autobiography" by writing, "Franklin seems never to have doubted...etc" (pg. 16). All the other biographers affirm Morgan's interpretation except Weinberger. Weinberger thinks that Franklin is purposely contradicting himself to play with his readers...to reveal a Franklin that would have possibly be called again an "infidel or atheist" if he had not cloaked his message. Morgan, however, highlights the phrase in the "Autobiography" where Franklin says "that the most acceptable service to God was the doing of good to man." After describing the 13 virtues listed Franklin's "Autobiography" Morgan notes, "What is totally missing from the list is charity, love of one's fellow man. And charity, it will become evident, was actually the guiding principle of Franklin's life" (pg. 24). Morgan says that charity brought Franklin to be a public servant; Brands agrees but says that Franklin was a skeptic and a pragmatist; Isaacson focuses on the Franklin who, it's argued, helped found American pragmatism, Wood focuses on the political Franklin who had to be "Americanized" because Franklin too often wanted to be part of the old gentry class and this was evident in some of his politicking, Weinberger calls Franklin a "radical skeptic" and says he was a political "Baconian."
   
   Morgan's work on Franklin is most like Brands's biography. Brands's work is much longer and often recounts extraneous things in accomplishing the most contextually based Franklin written so far.

5 comments about The Perfect Wife: The Life and Choices of Laura Bush.

1. At the end of this book, despite having interviewed plenty of people for it, this reader still doesn't really know who Laura Bush is. She comes off as very private, and seems to be doing a noteworthy job of her quasi-job - "First Lady", which we learns is a term she does not care for in the least.
   
   The author takes a few pot shots at President Bush ~ such as saying that the President has a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and Mrs. Bush has one with reading. She paints them as polar opposites, and I got the sense that the author was constantly shaking her head at what possessed Mrs. Bush to marry Mr. Bush. She also tries to suggest that Mrs. Bush is farther to the left than she would like to let on, but I don't necessarily buy that.
   
   Ms. Gerhart takes a chapter and dedicates it to the Bush daughters, and to their parents' parenting style, which suggests that the girls were brought up spoiled. She seems to nitpick every comment Mrs. Bush has ever publicly made about the girls, and this reader got the feeling that the author was shaking her head over the Bush girls' antics.
   
   Overall I didn't come away learning anything important about Laura Bush. Maybe someday she'll write her own story, in her own words. It would be fitting considering her fervor for the literary arts, and quite probably it would be without the sniping that the author sneaks in every few pages.



2. I'll admit up front that I am not a George W. Bush fan (does an American exist who does not have a strong opinion of him one way or the other?). But I thought there must be a deeper, more complex Laura Bush.
   
   Ann Gerhart's book is well written and I could not stop reading it once I started. There are lots of interesting tidbits (Laura Bush smokes cigarettes, but never in public) and revealing anecdotes and interviews. The chapter on the twins is ruthless. In another chapter, Gerhart describes in detail the tragic car accident that Laura Bush caused when she was seventeen, and what a traumatic experience it was for all concerned.
   
   So how does a woman who voted for Eugene McCarthy, who hangs out with liberal friends, and who loves her work, meet a guy who is running for congress on a Republican ticket and marry him six weeks later, giving up forever a career she has wanted since she was in second grade? I was certain that there was more to Laura Bush than meets the eye. After reading The Perfect Wife, I am convinced that there is less.
   
   Maybe she couldn't bear the thought of staying single into her thirties. I don't doubt that she loves George and that he loves her. It is obvious what George gets out of the deal. Less obvious is what Laura gets. One (male) interviewee suggested to Gerhart that George was irresistibly handsome and sexy. Please.
   
   There is little evidence that Laura Bush is an introspective person. She reads a lot, but seems to be as shallow as her husband. If she ever does evaluate her life and her decisions, I wonder how she will come to grips with having left the desperately important job of teaching at-risk children to raise a pair of self-centered and inconsiderate daughters. And with having supported a man who is dismantling the most important social programs this nation has. Will she ever speak out?
   
   Gerhart leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but by the time you finish The Perfect Wife, you will have enough information to form your own opinion about Laura Bush.



3. I read this book in October 2004 - an interesting time to be reading such a book, during the latter weeks of the US presidential campaign with Bush seeking a second term as president. The book dragged in places, the earlier and latter chapters being the more interesting. The writer seems sympathetic to Laura Bush - hence it is almost a shock to read the chapter on their twin daughters which is not at all sympathetic to them, and critical of the parenting they have received, such a contrast to the tone of the rest of the book (and perhaps also something of a relief?). A woman who says (and seems to believe) that supporting her husband is the most important part of her job, "whether my husband is president or not", and who gave up her own career as soon as she married him (after knowing him for just 12 weeks), a woman who has been able to refrain from voicing any of her own views and opinions - maybe that sort of woman is indeed the perfect wife for a President of the United States. I may have my own thoughts about what that tells us, but it is interesting to read about a woman with such a different outlook from your own and to try to see the world through her eyes for a time. I have considerable respect for anyone who has been through what she went through as a 17 year old (when she drove her car through a STOP sign at 50 miles an hour, crashing into and killing a very popular 17 year old male friend) and has managed to come to terms with it and go forward. And there is no denying the wisdom of this woman - whether it has come from her life experience or from her extensive reading - we can probably all take something from the lessons she teaches. Having read the book, I am no more enthusiastic about Bush and his policies than I was before, and have not been converted to a die-hard Laura Bush fan either, but I feel considerable respect for the choices she has made and for her commitment.



4. Laura Bush and her mother in law, Barbara, both reflect the enigma society has long created that women who have little or no income lack status or deserve no status, and therefore, have little or no value to society. The misconception arises from the hierarchy which values income level over social contribution and one that fails to recognize the value of marital support, childbearing and raising activities and housewivery. Women and men have been led to believe that unless they have substantial income, they have little value to society. Yet, First Ladies are always valued for their voluntary contributions, expected or not, but anticipated with enormous respect and anticipation with each new administration. Defying the logic that, by default, falls upon every female in this nation, or any nation, the income-based hierarchy of capitalism that fails to acknowledge the contributions of women to their families, to the community, and even to themselves, presents the most schizophrenic of economic philosophies to women, and the most difficult to digest over their lives. Due to the trend to adopt more women into the economic hierarchy of income earnings, Mrs. Bush represents the remnants of our civil society that once respected women for their presence, rather than the barbaric feudal world to which America continues to gravitate which defines women only by their level of income, as it does for males, and ignores their status as wives and mothers, deferring to the singular world where the benchmark of status is conferred by the status of the warrior, as measured by his conquest alone. That women allow this to happen is even more striking, and shows they lack the wisdom of the ages to allow themselves to be placed in so narrow a social box!



5. The woman KILLED a boy - she was driving her car down the street and of all people in town for her to accidently kill - she runs over her boyfriend!!! Talk about coincidence! There's a lot of bloodshed in that family. They're the new Kennedy's!! Let's open a dialogue about what a murderer Laura Bush is! Why didn't her husband send her to the deathchair???

5 comments about The World's Banker: A Story of Failed States, Financial Crises, and the Wealth and Poverty of Nations (Council on Foreign Relations Books (Penguin Press)).

1. I have read some books about Africa lately and I was interested in knowing the work made by the World Bank in this continent. Althought the book is focused in James Wolfensohn Presidency, this was a revealing reading that shows all the difficulties the Bank must face in order to provide the best aid to the target country and to keep the bank shareholders satisfied. Adding to that, the book describes the problems in the management of the Bank, its organization and inertia, the always problematics NGOs, and more importantly, the way to help countries in their "economic development", which is by far a very difficult thing to do. There is no recipe for that, you can establish a framework but there are other factors to consider in a case by case basis -- certainly reading Wolfensohn experience ultimately provide that, experience and knowledge. This is a well researched book, readable in its whole extension.



2. A lot of us get into the development business starry-eyed and hoping to change the world in a positive way, small as it may be. Unfortunately many of us are unprepared for the stark political reality which dominates the development business and really discourages us bleeding heart liberals. And guess what, it's not always about the poor. Mallaby writes very well, and you really start to empathize with the tempermental and difficult Wolfenson. Although one of the more dedicated World Bank presidents (he changed his nationality hoping to increase his chances) with a committment to development, he constantly had to battle his way through a number of vested political interests (including his own) and still got nowhere close to meeting the Bank's mission of a "world free of poverty." Mallaby shows that the development business is not for the faint-hearted: whether you're working for an NGO, bilateral or multilateral agency. Wolfensohn not only took a beating, but so did his staff who had to put up with his temper. In sum, this should be required reading for those contemplating a career in development.



3. A story of burning ambition. Make no mistake about it, James Wolfensohn wanted to be head of the World Bank. He desired it from the late 1970s until 1995 when he finally achieved his ambition, becoming an American citizen in a rushed ceremony to make himself more presentable to the political circles in Washington that always select the Bank's chief.
   
   Biographer Sebastian Mallaby, a British-born columnist for the Washington Post and previously the Economist magazine, describes Wolfensohn as "the most ambitious man I know". He reports this son of a Jewish migrant to Australia was "beside himself with excitement" on hearing President Jimmy Carter was considering him for the World Bank's presidency in 1980.
   
   Another 15 years would pass before Wolfensohn, who in a packed life had found time to be an Olympic fencer, Wall Street high flyer and accomplished musician, would get the job of his dreams. What followed was the most turbulent and controversial decade in the bank's history.
   
   Mallaby asserts the upheavals were not all of Wolfensohn's making. He took over from a series of grey, uninspiring functionaries at a time when the anti-globalisation movement was beginning to get up steam. The Bank's 50th anniversary meeting in Madrid in 1994 was disrupted by demonstrators chanting "50 years is enough", denouncing its failure to address world poverty and demanding it be closed for good.
   
   For the one-time Aussie, this was a challenge to be relished and Wolfensohn must have thought that at 60, he had accumulated all the worldly wisdom and experience needed to meet it. That he was to be proved wrong is not a total indictment of the man. There is nothing on Earth quite like the World Bank, a vast, rambling bureaucracy full of brilliant, often contending individuals, at the mercy of an overbearing board, each member with a special agenda, and besieged by non-government organisations full of passionate anger, demanding the impossible and denouncing every minor misstep.
   
   The new man believed he could counter this with his chief assets, sincerity and charm. He could be everyone's friend, uniting donor countries, Third World governments and the plethora of non-government organisations who were his sternest critics, in one noble crusade to ban poverty from the planet. They were glorious, yet doomed ideals well suited to the man described by a colleague as "full of grandiose ideas but not much of a manager".
   
   But was this such a bad thing? Mallaby believes that after a succession of uninspiring technocrats at its head, the Bank needed Wolfensohn's flamboyance and spontaneity, recapturing some of the pioneering spirit of one of its great presidents, Robert McNamara.
   
   McNamara had wanted the bank to have a human face, Wolfensohn wanted it to go over the heads of grasping and often corrupt Third World governments and deal directly with those who would benefit from its loans. In the world of realpolitik neither was wholly achievable, and for Wolfensohn it was a tough lesson to learn.
   
   He did not cope well with failure, and when a coalition of Tibetan activists, the environmental lobby and professional China haters in the US Congress scuppered the Qinghai irrigation scheme, he lashed out at his own staff. "Didn't they ever read the newspapers? Didn't they know that Tibet was supersensitive? - and he would summon people to his office and demand whose arse he should kick first. It was not an edifying spectacle..."
   
   The US presidential transition, at the beginning of his second term, did not help matters. The new Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, was openly contemptuous of the Bank and indeed the entire international aid structure, declaring the world had spent "trillions of dollars on development and there's damn little to show for it". O'Neill offered the startling argument that if South Korea had lifted itself from poverty to middle-class comfort in four decades, every Third World country should be able to do the same.
   
   And yet the Wolfensohn-led bank somehow weathered these storms. After a late start it showed leadership in facing the AIDS threat; the more hysterical NGOs were eventually cut loose and their criticisms ignored, while some of the "Volvo-style" loan conditions, so irritating to many recipient countries, were eased.
   
   Despite 10 years of obstructionism, bitter infighting and over-the-top criticism, the president never lost his enthusiasm for the job. At the end he was even testing the water for a third term - the Bush White House would have none of it - and he could count among his diverse friends and supporters United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.
   
   Mallaby does not come to any hard and fast conclusions about his client. He sees Wolfensohn as an indifferent manager, while giving him credit for broadening the Bank's agenda beyond macroeconomic policy to meet head on the problems of corruption and debt relief. He was able to bring the larger and more responsible NGOs on board but took a long time to realise that others "had no off switch".
   
   The book finishes on an inconclusive note. Was Wolfensohn's presidency valuable? Did he do more harm than good? Perhaps in an increasingly complex world, with so many voices clamouring to be heard, there can no longer be clear-cut answers to questions like these. Suffice to say the World Bank survives and there are no mass demonstrations demanding that "60 years is enough".



4. The World Bank has done nothing more than enslave the people of lesser-developed countries in sweatshop labor camps to help their countries claw their way out of debt traps, while the leaders of these countries steal the funds and export it to Swiss bank accounts. This account of failed World Bank president Paul Wolfenson's term demonstrates again how big money doesn't help LDCs to improve the livelihoods of their people. I really recommend this book, especially following the awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize to someone who understands the principles of microlending. Microlending will help many more people get on their feet than these huge disbursements of World Bank cash that prop up corrupt governments that oppress the poor.



5. it's strange that sby would think fit to write a review without reading the book, particularly when the rating is so extreme, though credit should be given for honesty (in admitting not having read the book)
   
   this book is indeed very readable and well researched, it's a rare book that provide insights into the world's most important institution that fights proverty, and correct many biased views that are fostered by the media and the ngos

5 comments about Life of the Party: The Biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman.

1. "Pam," as she was known by her friends, trading on her beauty, inquisitiveness and instincts, more than on her morals: again and again parlayed her feminine wiles into higher and higher orbits of class, wealth, international intrigue and a seat at the very table where high stakes policy was being shaped and made. Even one of her many lives would have been enough for an ordinary person to kill for, but being able to do it over and over again points to her very own special gift: being perfectly situated to marry older men of influence and then making them like it, as she "traded up " the ladder to better and better situations.
   
   Just her wartime activities alone, is worth the price of the book.
   
   Here, behind the scenes where the post-WWII world order was being shaped and fashioned, she played an important if unsung role as one of the king pin (or is it queen pin?) deal makers, that helped solidify the ties between the U.S. and UK, ties that eventually were responsible for bringing the U.S. into the war. She did this all the while being married to the notorious "bad boy" and son of Sir Winston Churchill, Randolph, and while "bedding down" one of her "husbands-to be," Averill Harriman. And she did this, all the while, if not with the full knowledge, certainly with the tacit knowledge of her father in law, the British Prime Minister.
   
   Just this part of the book alone is worth its price, but there is much more: all with the ring of truth, not with the ring of mere salacious gossip, which I admit, is all that I was really looking for. In the book "Nemesis," it had been reported as fact that Joseph P. Kennedy had raped Pam while she was an overnight guest of her friend the then Ambassador to the UK's daughter, Kathleen. I was unable to confirm this fact in this "unauthorized" version of her life. This omission, however, certainly does not mean that it did not happen, just that it could not be confirmed in this version of her life story. And even though I did not find what I was looking for, this is still easily five stars.



2. Reading this, more than decade after its publication when Pamela's primary skills were already passé, it was clear how much things have changed.
   
   Pamela came out of the 19th century British aristocracy where only the first born male was entitled to inherit the family's property and power and to call it what it is/was - human rights within a family. Pamela could not expect familial affection or support. Her family turned her over to nannies and decreed that education, no matter how great her ability or curiosity, would hinder her marriage options.
   
   Pamela made her own match (did not wait for family negotiations) and married what history made the ultimate commodity, a link through a male namesake, to Winston Churchill. She used this "child" and followed the cultural and psychological patterns of aristocratic women by supporting and living through her man with a modern twist--- he did not have to be her husband.
   
   WWII put a chink in the armor of the British class system and affirmed the American ideal of social equality. The super wealthy European men paid in cash and friendship for all she willingly gave. She wanted commitment, which due to European social codes, would not be forthcoming. No wonder Pamela was seduced (in the pure sense of the word) by America. In America she was able to achieve far beyond what her family or country c/would ever provide for her.
   
   She was Darwinistic about men/marriage. If a man's wife was not as fit as her, Pamela had no qualms about the wife, Pamela should have the "position". Her sympathy for her second husband's mother (over that of his children) who had abandoned her family may be testament to an understanding of her emotional situation.
   
   One can salute Pamela's achievements, but her treatment of others is too cold for sympathy. As presented here, her mothering of "The Child" and her stepchildren replicates that toward her in her own nuclear family. Her treatment of staff and other women is pure 1950's sexism and a workaholic's view of the world. She rose above the rigid role of her family and society had given her. Unfortunately, within her intimate family (birth and blended) she could not break the chain of creating emotional liabilities.



3. I had known one women who said: "Its better you ask for what you want,then to except what others offering to you."

   This can be related to biography of Pamela Harriman. SHe lived in extraordinary circumstances but what I find most compelling is the fact that she succeed to manage her life. Although, it was not always easy for her. She left and she was left. The biography is most interesting written and I read it very quickly.
   She maybe was in some way courtisan, but I think she wanted to enjoy in life nad she was led by it. SHe knew what she want and she was persistant. However, I did not manage to figure out was she open hearted as she was presented in some moments or little bit cold caculated as in the part regarding children of her husband Hayworth. But, for sure she was woman in complete sense of that word.




4. One can tell just from the photograph chosen for the cover of LIFE OF THE PARTY that author Christopher Ogden has constructed a fun read. Though his research is thorough and scholarly, LIFE OF THE PARTY flies by easily. (The title itself is a pun, alluding both to its literal meaning and to the fact that Harriman's generous donations gave new life to America's Democratic Party.)

   In crafting the biography of America's late Ambassador to France, Pamela Harriman, Ogden also provides a social history of the international "Jet Set" of the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's. Pamela's journey through the decades was complete with English aristocracy, French nobility, Italian racing car drivers, South American polo players, Arab sheiks, Greek shipping magnates and members of America's monied elite. The link among them is that Pamela Harriman slept with members of each of these groups!

   In her own, less liberated day, born to obscure English nobility c. 1920, there is no question but that then-Pamela Digby would have been considered a--ahem--loose woman (to use a mild phrase) by those who knew her. Not only did she sleep around, apparently with blatant calculation of how her liasons would benefit her financially and socially, but she also conspicuously went after married men. With the exception of her first husband, the single thread connecting the men she chose was that they were not merely rich, they were filthy rich. And her first husband was the son of Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of England at the time of their marriage. Thus, that match was socially advantageous to Pamela, and she would use the connection as her entry into highest levels of the world's interconnected rich. Nonetheless, despite her apparent rapacity, it is obvious that her men found her... appealing, to say the least.

   Some of the affairs that Ogden documents were with the fabulously wealthy Frenchman, Elie de Rothschild, with the fabulously wealthy oil sheik, Aly Khan, with the fabulously wealthy Italian auto manufacturer, Gianni Agnelli, with a fabulously wealthy American, Averell Harriman and another fabulously wealthy American, William Paley. Yet she married the merely wealthy theatrical producer, American Leland Hayward, whose daughter openly despises Pamela to this day. (It seems clear that Pamela settled on Leland due to an urgent need to wed quickly as a matter of financial salvation.)

   Of course, Pamela was a serial bride. Decades after she first began her affair with him, Averell Harriman finally tied the knot with Pamela. He had been middle-aged when they first had met, and she had been a very young woman. By the time she captured him, she was middle-aged and he was old. Conveniently, he died soon after their marriage and, even more conveniently, he left her his huge fortune.

   She immediately put that fortune to use in inserting herself as a valuable player in the United States Democratic Party and as an early and generous supporter of then-candidate Bill Clinton. After he became President, Clinton rewarded Pamela by making her his Ambassador to France.

   Truly, if this book were a romance novel, it would be dismissed out-of-hand as being too implausible. As it stands, it is an examination of an exploitative and greedy woman, yet a woman whose lifestory makes for entertaining reading. For the major events of the mid-20th century, when Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman was not present, she probably was waiting in the bedroom.




5. What an interesting woman. Okay so she may have slept her way to the top and made a few bad personal decisions. A saint she was not. For all that she was determined to enjoy life and make the best out of what talents she had. She used her friends as we all do to better her causes and even berated her children when she disagreed withj them. As if she was the first mother to do that. She gave her total devotion to the men she married, apart from Winston, and expected the same.The irony is that had Pamela harriman been a man all her negative aspects would have been overlooked and she would have been remembered more for her her political and social acumen rather than the men she had slept with. A very interesting read about one of the more interesting characters of the 20th century. It will be a while before her like is seen again. She will be missed.

1 comments about The Kingmakers: How the Media Threatens Our Security and Our Democracy.

1. For those who are interested in familiarizing themselves with how the media treats events and, especially, campaign issues, this book is useful. It balances out popular myths created by the media, in particular, by major news commentators ranging from Russert to Blitzer, et al. Through substantial exemplification, it exposes, quite correctly, bias, favoritism, neglect and the absence of objective and realistic analysis. As a major explanation for this, Gravel identifies, partially correctly, the concept of news commentators "following the story line" that habitually and temporarily excites the masses and is used for marketing and selling techniques.
   
   To be sure, this is a major weakness in America's media, and Gravel and Eisenbach expose it with rigor and convincability. And it does pose a threat to security and democracy.
   
   Unfortunately, this book has a narrow and limited focus. Its purpose is not to place the function and performance of the media into a larger comparative historical context. Had it done so, it could have offered the reader a profound and highly important insight into how overemphasizing and adulating democracy actually contributes in a major way to the very problem this book exposes. Overpoliticizing the masses and overadulating democracy erodes ethics and engenders what should be called "demofascism," i.e. people oppressing people.
   
   Edward Bernays, the founding father of the modern public relations industry who wrote his famous book "Crystallizing Public Opinion" in the early '20s, though Jewish, had his book elevated to be the pride of Goebbels' library of propaganda books. Bernays was obviously shocked when he became of aware of this in the early '30s. His actions span more than 60 years, and he had presidents and major corporations as his customers. Advocating that all corps. need their pr depts., his advice contributed to the current nasty habit of having nearly all major bureaucracies devote a shocking percentage of their resources for selling themselves, for sugarcoating and whitewashing their actions and, generally, fooling the public. A fascist element is part of the media, of marketing, public relations and selling something. This has to be pointed out and would support the book's message.
   
   Beyond this, Ernst Hanfstaengl, a well-connected Harvard political science graduate, who seems to have observed closely U.S. political party conventions, became Hitler's campaign advisor and introduced the Nazis to U.S. election techniques and pep rally hoopla as well as U.S. cheer leading and associated musical support to whip up the masses into hysterical frenzy which surfaces in both Nazi and U.S. political rallies par excellence. Hanfstaengl, in his autobiography, admits having introduced Hitler to America's electioneering method and associated media techniques and the custom of cheerleading the masses. He composed at least 12 storm trooper songs based upon the hyped up beat of American music, according to his own testimony. If Gravel and Eisenbach desire to point out how the media threatens security and democracy, including this could have cemented their case.
   
   All of this and more is missing in Gravel's book and needs to be understood. Nevertheless, Gravel's book is very important insofar as it does raise the issue of America's neglect of a realistic domestic analysis of its socio-economic conditions, but it is only a necessary start.

1 comments about Realities of Foreign Service Life, Volume 2.

1. Many have wondered if working for the State Department's Foreign Service is the job of their dreams. This book outlines the considerations that many have faced and how they have reacted - from real life. Anyone trying to understand that unique life will benefit from reading these accounts. I've been there-done that - and this is REAL! Check it out!

3 comments about For the Hell of It: The Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman.

1. I wonder if Raskin would ever be so hypercritical of just about every statement she has ever made, the way she is of Abbie. The book was interesting at first, but I feel she went way overboard in disecting everything Abbie said and how "factual" it really was. After a while it seemed like one big critique of everything Abbie said. Like she set out to prove he lied about everything. "Well, he said this and I went back and interviewed five different people who said it actually happened like this." To me a biography should be about how someone lived, not a dissection of everything they said. She really turned a fascinating story about a very creative and excitng person into almost a police report - "just the facts, mam."

   This book really bugged me!




2. Abbie survived under fake ID, after a drug bust,but succumbed to personality disorder,for which he took medications, He was America's foremost radical->Activist- of 60's, he fought for the enviroment in 70's.....watch for movie of his life.."Steal this Movie"...



3. Without question, the best of the recent spate of Abbie Hoffman bios. Lucid, well-researched, with more than 200 oral histories. What prevents it from receiving a "10" rating is that Raskin devotes only one short chapter to Hoffman's life in the late seventies and eighties. Despite the lack of attention paid to Hoffman's later life, the material leading up to the last chapter flows nicely, and tells the story of a complex, energetic, and ultimately great American.

5 comments about In an Uncertain World: Tough Choices from Wall Street to Washington.

1. This book is by former President Clinton's Secretary of the Treasury, Robert Rubin. Robert Rubin, was previous to his role at Treasury, co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, a position he rose to through the ranks over about twenty years. His specialty was risk arbitrage, involving multimillion decision making on placing bets or investments on whether or not a merger or acquisition would ultimately go through (or close) or not.
   
   No matter what you think of President Clinton or his administration. Robert Rubin was a key decision maker in the economic sphere. He participated and directed policmaking in the Asian financial crisis and financial crisis in Latin America, etc.
   
   The book is about his views on decisionmaking and the process of policymaking and is excellent. He discusses his view about "optionality" and the complexity of decisionmaking under uncertainty.
   
   The book is excellent and I highly recommend it if you are interested in decisionmaking, policmaking, economic policy, Wall Street, and leadership.



2. The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New WorldOn Money and Markets: A Wall Street Memoir
   
   Robert Rubin's book, "In an Uncertain World," is excellent reading for individuals managing their own pensions and other financial assets. This book, Alan Greenspan's book, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," and Henry Kaufman's book, "On Money and Markets," certainly rank among the best in the last few years regarding insight into how the global economies work and interact. This book also addresses insight into properly assessing global risk in general and assessing how to consider risk in marking to market for various fixed income securities.
   
   Rubin's experience and insight in finance at Goldman Sachs and as U. S. Secretary of the Treasury is difficult to match by most financial experts.
   
   All persons managing money would find their time well spent reading, marking, and frequently referring to this excellent and thought provoking book.



3. An excellent account of the behind the scenes finance world at the Clinton White house but the author who worked there. he reveals all the comings and goings of 'maing things work' from a fiduciary standpoint. Good book



4. Robert Rubin traces his climb up the ladder in Wall Street and Washington DC and explains his role in significant national crises. He describes how he makes tough decisions after pondering the probabilities in the face of bewildering uncertainties. On page 48 he remebers how his grandfather was wiped out by the Florida land bust in the 1920s. A memory like that you would think would be barrier against complacency creeping in. But maybe not, unless there is another expalanation for why Citigroup put so much money into subprimes, while he was there in a position of power, and thus make it possible for the government of Abu Dhabai to come to the rescue and gain influence in such an important American Bank (what about national security?). As a public service Robert Rubin should generated a second edition of this book to bring to light the Tough Choices involved in betting those massive amounts on subprimes.
   
   The author reveals that he leans in the direction of anti-anti-big-government (see page 160). He places more faith in government control than the power of the "invisible hand". Unlike Alan Greenspan's book "The Age of Turbulence" this book does not contain a satisfying broad vision of our capitalistic economic system.



5. Rubin is a very smart guy and a great thinker. This book describes his years at Goldman Sachs and the bulk of it is about his time with the Clinton Administration. He gives the reader a nice window into what happens in the White House and more specifically the Treasury. He is critical of himself and humble. Autobiographies can be self-promoting, but Rubin is fair.
   
   The middle of the book gets a bit tedious and repetitive. He describes various crises in different countries which I am sure were very important at the time but his point could have gotten across to the reader by just describing a subset of these crises. Nevertheless this is a very important book for anyone who wants to understand the workings of the Treasury better. It is interesting that Paul O'Neill, Rubin's successor, critized Rubin and the Clinton administration for being the "Chief of the Fire Department" (referring to how they bailed countries' currencies as opposed to letting the free market take care of things with little intervention). Today with crises in the housing sector and mortgages, we are seeing similar meddling by the government. It is hard to watch thousands of homeowners lose thier homes if the government can assist them somehow. Rubin predicted this behavior.