5 comments about Winning Back America.

1. This book is awesome! I love Howard Dean and I really do wish that he would have ran against Bush instead of John Kerry. I think that Dean would have had a better chance of beating Bush.
   
   This book is a great intro to Howard Dean and its a fun quick read.



2. This is actually a great book if someone is interested in the man and how he came to be and why he holds the beliefs he holds and I was pleasantly surprised by the depth of Howard Dean after reading the book.
   
   Ironically my husband had looked forward to voting for him in California's primary but died a few days before. I considered for a moment sending in his ballot marked as he would have voted, but I'm bad at forging his signature and not being a registered Democrat I couldn't vote for Dean myself.
   
   In reading the book I wondered what the outcome would have been had more Americans had access to the book, because the man is so middle America and not the nut case the right suggested and the media projected. So in that respect I am saddened.
   
   Loved reading of his upbringing, wife, kids, community and his hands on concern for all of his state when he was Governor, and not simply for the 'haves'.
   
   The later part of the book should have been longer, since he barely touched on issues that I consider important. Hopefully he will write another book. Am proud that he was so anti-Iraq war from the get go and that he had the gutts to question Bush when so many others were to trusting.



3. Howard Dean is a man that actually makes sense. His politics are based on simple proven principles that would really make a difference in this Country. Too bad regular americans didn't take the time to really listen to what he has to say. Get the book and learn something. It is worth it!



4. Dean makes a lot of good logical arguments on how to turn the country around. He is not the loose cannon that the conservative press makes him out to be. We need more free thinkers like Howard Dean. Sure, he is not perfect, but he adds a great deal to the national debate on important issues like health care, education and national security.

   Jeffrey McAndrew
   author of "Our Brown-Eyed Boy"




5. This is an EXCELLENT book, I was actually quite surprised to discover. I didn't expect the Governor to come across well in written words ... I thought the book would be just a ghost-written, watered-down version of the campaign speeches ... sort of like a book you might expect from G.W.B. I should've known better. Instead, I found the book to be very inspiring; quite easy to read ... and in complete harmony with the truth I know.

   You'll read it more than once.

2 comments about The Faith of America's First Ladies.

1. The way Jane, the author, brought the woman of Proverbs 31 to life through the lives of the first ladies was unexpected and fascinating. I loved how Jane weaved each story into the next story. I was so impressed with this book I bought a copy for each of my three nieces. Not only will this book give them more insight into our country's history, but more importantly, it will also teach them what it means to be a woman of noble character.



2. Having been interviewed for this book by Mrs. Cook, I was intrigued by her topic of combining the Prov. 31 woman with stories of America's First Ladies. I was thrilled upon reading the book to find it a tremendous source of information and inspiration. Mrs. Cook's stories of the First Ladies were a delight to read, and I looked forward to the start of each new chapter, waiting to see what scene she would paint for me to be able to envision some touching moments in the lives of these women. Each chapter then develops into a wonderfully readable and enjoyable collection of Scripture applications, interviews and fascinating personal stories. An excellent book!

5 comments about I Didn't Do It for You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation.

1. Even in a continent full of doomed revolutions and post-colonial misery, the story of the plucky Eritreans is a fascinating and tragic one. As an experienced world news correspondent on Africa, Michela Wrong has the chops to give us an informative history of this tough and self-sufficient people who endured centuries of colonial exploitation and a 30-year struggle against their Ethiopian overlords, before finally becoming independent in 1993. The author does just that throughout most of the book, starting with a strong examination of the national character and unique cultural traits of the Eritreans, then later ending the book on a melancholy but instructive note as their inspiring struggle for self-determination went sour.
   
   The problem here though is with the middle sections of the book, which devolve into disconnected snippets and vignettes that highlight persons and events of interest but detract from the historical and political narrative. (This is the same problem that afflicts Wrong's other major book, the nearly-masterful Congo study "In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz.") The worst example is a useless tangent in Chapter 10 into stories of debauchery by American servicemen in Eritrea in the 1960s. Also, Wrong has a hard time effectively separating the histories of Eritrea and Ethiopia, and while that's surely difficult with so much historical interaction between the peoples, the Eritreans are missing from large parts of this book that is supposed to be about them.
   
   Fortunately, Michela Wrong finishes strongly with useful examinations of the historical lessons to be learned from the long and still-ongoing struggle of the Eritreans. Based on the book's title, I'm not convinced that the world betrayed Eritrea, but the world certainly ignored that small nation's unique struggle through centuries of historical ignorance and political myopia. The hard-working Eritreans deserve the tribute delivered by Wrong in this book. [~doomsdayer520~]



2. What a book! Shall I call it a novel? For me it read like a suspensful novel rather than an ordinary narrative about an obscure Afrcan nation.I commend the young writer for her lucid style and insightful observation The narrative for the story takes place mainly in the Sahle Mountains and the main characters are the Eritrean fighters and the other charcters- the villains are the Ethiopian Army, the Italains, the British, the Russians, The Americans, last but not least the UN.Like in a good novel, at the end the protagonists- the heroes or the winners are the Eritreans



3. I am from Ogaden, the Somali region still occupied by Ethiopia, and Eritrea's tortured history is pretty similar to ours.
   
   When I bought the book, I Didn't Do It For You, and read John Le carre's powerful commendation on the cover, I took his comments with a grain of salt, thinking he was putting a good word for a colleague. However as I delved into the book, I was surprised to find every laudatory remark made by Le Carre got instant affirmation from my own mind!
   
   This book is very informative and intensely honest. The author's tone is restrained and her style is modest. She avoids polemics because she obviously knows indulging in any propaganda variety tends to undermine one's credibility.
   
   Michela is sympathetic to the Eritreans. However she makes it clear, in her own austere way, that, Issayas, the Eritrean leader and his dictatorial tendencies, has squandered the fruit of the Eritrean struggle, the dream of its people, and the goodwill of Eritrea's friends throughout the world, and thereby rendered the once promising young republic into just another African heartbreak!
   
   Unlike many western authors and scholars who, when writing about the developing countries, tend to sanitize facts to protect the image of their own mother countries, Michela Wrong simply exposes the unpleasant facts for everyone to see. Of the three European countries(The French, Italians, and the British) that colonized the Horn of Africa, the British had been the worst. As a Somali, I know the British were pitifully stingy and penny pinching: for the 75 years they colonized Somaliland, for instance, they built or invested in it practically next to nothing, whereas the Italians built and invested in Eritrea all the machines, factories, and infrastructure, including state of the art railway system, and all the building blocks necessary for a modern state in the first part of the 20th century.
   
   However one of the explosive segments in this book is the part that exposes and gives British colonialist a real black eye, not because of their stinginess and selfishness, but because of their unabashed shamelessness of looting and stealing all the factories and machines and the modern equipment, including rail way wagons and wires that the Italians invested in Eritrea! Not only that, but the British also looted almost all the factories and machines that the Italians built in Ethiopia during its brief occupation of Ethiopia. That is, Ethiopia, the very country the British were supposed to be liberating!
   
   In light of these shocking facts about British proclivity for looting, stealing and pillaging, I was left wondering how many factories and machines and modern equipment the British forces looted from Southern Somalia when they defeated the Italians and occupied Southern Somalia in 1941?
   
   It is the exposure of these raw, unsanitized facts about the nature, greed and the attitudes of European colonialists that sets Michela Wrong apart from many western authors and scholars!
   
   My only wish is that she would, one day, be interested in the plight of the Somalis of Ogaden, who have been occupied, betrayed, and subjugated by none other than the very authors of Eritrea's horrendous history: the Italians, the British and the Abyssinians. Since she already extensively researched about history of both Eritrea and Ethiopia, writing about Ogaden which is still occupied by Ethiopia would be relatively easy.
   
   Alternatively, if I may digress, she could write about the cause of the Somali people in the horn of Africa. The Somalis have the misfortune of being the only people divided and dismembered into five limbs and each limb grabbed and swallowed by a different colonial master. And the tragic consequences of that dismemberment has been the complete collapse of the Somali Republic. Contrary to the popular notion, the principal factor responsible for the collapse of the Somali Republic in 1991 was the Ogaden war of 1977 and its consequences. The dictatorial rule of former President Siyad Barre, the epidemic of Qaat, and the curse of clanism were merely contribuiting factors. Theoratically, If Somalia stayed out of Ogaden, it could have remained peaceful, relatively prosperous, and strong. But Somalia could never have stayed out of Ogaden for very long. And if it didn't invade Ogaden in 1977, it could have invaded in 1987, or 1997, or 2027! And the reason is that the limbs of the same body tend to gravitate into the same direction! And every time Somalia mastered enough strength it will do everything in her power to regain its dismembered limbs, be it NFD or Ogaden. That is why the Horn of Africa will never see peace or stability so long the dismembered limbs of the Somali nation continue crying for one another.
   
   Certain peoples with numeric superiority such as Arabs, for instance, may withstand or whither division and dismemberment. However Somalia with a small country and smaller people cannot. As Farah Omaar, the well known Somali patriot said long ago, "My country is smaller than to be divided; my people are frailer than to be enslaved!"
   
   Now Somalia hit rock bottom. And because of its occupation of Ogaden and invasion of Somalia, Ethiopia is going to sink into a black hole! And Kenya will be next! And the vicious cycle for peoples of the Horn of Africa will continue unabated. Therefore for those who care about world peace, the most productive and cost-effective endeavor to restoring peace into this troubled region is to work for the reunification of the dismembered limbs of the Somali nation. But so long that objective is either neglected, ignored, or overlooked, the key to peace and stability in the Horn will be very difficult to locate.
   
   With her talent, courage, and honesty, Michela Wrong can take up this challenging issue, uncover the sad facts that the British and other western scholars have been sanitizing and glossing over for decades, and produce a groundbreaking must-read book for anyone interested in the Horn of Africa, and thereby not only make a significant contribution to enlightening people around the world, but also perhaps help finding a lasting solution for the never ending tragedy of the peoples of the Horn of Africa.
   
   To come back to this book, I Didn't Do It For You is impressive. And it is worth every penny and every minute of one's time.
   
   Mohamed Heebaan



4. This is in some ways a good and necessary book. It spotlights a nation and a set of problems that most of the world doesn't pay much attention to. But there is a problem. Michela Wrong is too close to the subject and her emotional attachment at times results in the book not being as objective or as good as it might have been. In particular, she seems to have been far too close to Eritrean rebel groups and their leaders.
   
   Eritrea's history isn't about "betrayal". Its about the same problems that most African nations have faced. Rather than face the fact that the problems of Eritrea today are largely self-inflicted wounds, she falls back into blaming colonialism and cold-war politics in really unconvincing ways.
   
   In her coverage of Italian colonial rule, she confuses events in Eritrea with those in Ethiopia. She is also willing to judge Italy to a far higher standard than she applies to the pre or post-independence governments of both countries. She is also more than a little unwilling to understand the role that Italy played in creating Eritrea.
   
   The lowest point in the book is her coverage of Britain's wartime rule of Eritrea. She advances a theory that the british were racist than the italians because their rule produced fewer multiracial children. Somehow she sees superior morality in men who promoted widespread prostitution and produced children which they abandoned. It makes no sense to me. Her logic is also full of wrong assumptions about the number of British in the country and the nature of the occupation.
   
   She also isn't very good about the details of the war. The war in East Africa and in particular the victory at Keren was not a British victory, but a victory of the British Indian Army. Somehow she misses the basic fact that much of the army that conquered and occupied East Africa was Inidian.
   
   The British wanted out of Eritrea and got out of it seven years after the war ended (1952). As they got out, the issue of Ethiopia's historic and economic claims to Eritrea came to the surface. Wrong wishes to blame the united nations for betraying the people of Eritrea. But its not that simple. Eritrea's national identity has no particular good historical basis and arises mostly from the period of Italian rule and the money Italy spent on their colony. Furthermore, its independence results in two weak states in East Africa rather than one. Eritrea and Ethiopia need each other. Economically, independence is a disaster for both.
   
   The war for Eritrea's independence was a pointless waste of lives for everyone involved. Wrong wishes to see it as a justified noble struggle for "freedom", but as events since independence have proved, it was anything but that.
   
   After the overthrow of the Ethiopian government in 1976, horrible things were done in Eritrea and the author gets that part of the story right. Then she goes on to show the bright future Eritrea had before it in 1993 at independence and how everything went so terribly wrong.
   
   But she can't bring herself to hold the right people accountable. She can't bring herself to admit that the rebels she had admired so much once in power turned to be little better than a criminal gang. A gang that destroyed the economy of the country, introduced a dictatorship and then threw the country into a disasterous war with Ethiopia. The world didn't do these things. The world's "betrayal" didn't make these decisions. It was the rebel "freedom fighters" who are responsible.
   
   And thats the fatal flaw in the book. The author wants to give critiques of colonialism and the UN from on high. But the truth is that the country's problems are not a matter of "I didn't do it for you", they are "we did it to ourselves".
   
   The end result of the great "struggle" for Eritrean independence has been an economic disaster for both Ethiopia and Eritrea. The political result is a government running Eritrea that is as bad (or worse) than what the author claims were the "repressive" Ethiopian governments of the 1950s and 1960s. Eritrea's government budget is wasted in preparations for more war with Ethiopia. The country is trapped in a situation where things will never get better. Its not a situation that outsiders should be credited or blamed for.
   
   When the author says things like: "the national character traits forged during a century of colonial and superpower exploitation were about to blow up in Eritrea's face.", she in engaging in massive political self-deception. Her (dated) anti-colonial/anti-imperialism rhetoric leads her to excuse every bad decision made by an African as someone elses fault.
   
   She also goes out of her way to make the American soldiers stationed in Ethiopia in the past look like they were exceptionally bad. Having worked and travelled in Africa, she must know how soldiers behave in most countries. Go to the area around any military base (including those on American soil) and you will find all sorts of unpleasent things going on. I'm not trying to excuse the behavior of anyone, but the selective moral outrage in the book is of little value to anyone.
   
   I wanted to like this book and I want to see the author write more books about Africa. But she needs to put her political ideology to the side and report on Africa as it is. She did a far better job in "In the footsteps of Mr. Kurtz" than she did in this book.



5. If you are an Eritrean and you are often at loss for words ( like me) to explain where, why, who, where and what of this small nation,
   say no more! Buy and give each of your audiences a copy of this book.
   
   Michela Wrong plainly expounds the intricacies of one of the longest wars in Africa, making this book to be exceptionally one of the best books ever written that comprehensibly states the Truth, The Whole Truth, Nothing but the Truth about the smallest nation in the world.

5 comments about All Too Human the Love Story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy.

1. I enjoyed listening to ALL TOO HUMAN: THE LOVE STORY
   OF JACK AND JACKIE KENNENDY--written and read
   by Edward Klein.
   
   Yes, it's gossipy, but that's a large part of the fun . . . also,
   I do believe that Klein had his facts straight (or at least most
   of them), in that he had once worked for Jackie . . . and she
   became, thereafter, a lifelong friend.
   
   You'll find out more about such interesting tidbits as the
   following:
   
   * Jack had one of the worst attendance records when he was
   in the House of Representatives;
   
   * His back problems were not the result of war and/or sports
   injuries;
   
   * Their respective families had too much control over their
   adult lives (in fact, Joe Sr. even picked out the engagement
   ring that Jackie got);
   
   * While Jack was indeed a womanizer, Jackie also had
   her share of male admirers; and
   
   * Jackie had perhaps as big an impact on modern culture as
   did Jack.
   
   If you're new to the lore of the Kennedys, then you'll find ALL TOO
   HUMAN a very readable introduction . . . others will appreciate
   being given the opportunity to revisit what seems to have been
   mythical times in the White House.



2. The Kennedys may have lived in the White House but in many respects were just like the neighbors who seemed like the perfect White Picket Fence family. Both the myth and fascination with the Kennedys is shattered here. It's an intimate take on the family politics of one of the most intriguing American political dynasties.



3. I am wildly into Jack and Jackie Kennedy and their mythical 1000 days of "magic" in the White House. After hearing all excellent things about this book, I gave it a shot. It was rather disappointing, not in the effort but in the actual biography/story it tries to tell. Looking through the author's notes, it is obvious that Edward Klein put his all into researching this colossal and intimidating subject. Klein's awe and admiration for the Camelot couple is felt, and parts of his narrative brings tears to your eyes, but you still feel as if there are tremendous holes that, I suppose, can't be helped when writing about such an elusive subject as Jack and Jackie.
   
   Klein basically took all relevant parts out of available books already written about the couple and stringed them into a narrative along with inputs from interviews that he mostly conducted himself. What you get is a rough, distorted gem that is beautiful in its own way but not what we were really looking for...basically meaning that while it does shed light on some touching, intimate moments in their lives we were not aware of/did not understand before, it is still just a composite of information gathered from interviews and other books TRYING to be "the love story of Jack and Jackie Kennedy." Maybe I am being too harsh (and this is not to say I did not enjoy the book--I did), but a good love story shows clearly and distinctly who and what the main players are--gets inside their heads so that afterwards, you feel as if you have personally met them and experienced the tribulations and joys in their life too. This does not quite accomplish that. It simply left me wanting for the more, more of the truth.



4. Jackie was Edward Klein's editor at Doubleday. The book opens with chapters that present a detailed biographical sketch of Jackie's pre-JFK life and then proceeds into how Jack and Jackie came to be. Joe Kennedy needed to find a suitable wife for John if he was to advance in politics. He turned to his good friend Arthur Krock of The New York Times who suggested Jackie Bouvier. Joe approved so Arthur contacted newspaperman Charlie Bartlett, Jackie's friend, to arrange an introduction.

   John was the [fun loving person] of Washington with one of the worst attendance records in the House of Representatives. He found girling and parties much more interesting. Jack liked the challenge of conquest but once conquered he soon lost interest and was incapable of sustaining a prolonged relationship. He stated that he wanted to have children but he wanted to marry a woman who was chaste because he was worried about being compared to other men.

   Both Jack and Jackie's families had way too much control over their adult children's lives! Joe Sr. even picked out Jackie's engagement ring. At the luncheon where the mother's were to discuss their wedding, Jack acted like a scolded child. It was pretty clear that he didn't want to kiss bachelorhood goodbye and that he wasn't in love with Jackie.

   Janet Bouvier Achincloss, Jackie's mother, felt her daughter was marrying beneath her and was putting up a fight with Rose about how the wedding should go. Joe Kennedy intervened. He sneered at the Archinclosses because they were old money but were unable to maintain it and keep living in style. In the end, Joe got his very public very politic wedding.

   Jack treated Jackie as the means to an end: the White House and children. Jack even had a brief fling with Jackie's sister Lee while Jackie was in the hospital. Friends implied that the Cuban Missile Crisis caused Jack to take a renewed emotional interest in his immediate family and that he and Jackie very close. Yet he still had a mistress? Please!

   This book has it all scandal, [physical attraction], drugs and lies! It takes an intimate look inside the world of old money WASPs and of the newly moneyed and their views of each other. Klein used primary sources including interviews with many of the people in Jack and Jackie's life. One thing Klein never discussed was what Jackie's feelings and beliefs were surrounding the conspiracy theories that have grown up around JFK's murder. A great companion book to this is The Day John Died by Christopher Andersen, which focuses on really both JFK's children's lives before and after the assassination. I simply could not put either book down!




5. ALL TOO HUMAN is a touching history of the marriage of John Fitzgerald Kennedy to Jacqueline Bouvier.

   In hindsight, Jacqueline had as big an impact on modern culture as did her first husband, perhaps simply because her life lasted longer. Yet this is not to belittle her actual influence; an entire generation of women modeled themselves on her style. Her dignity, her educational standards, her appreciation of the arts, all proved to be an inspiration to the world.

   Author Edward Klein has turned writing about the Kennedys into a cottage industry. This particular biography is a nice balance to many other harsher reports, focusing here as he does on the good points of the marriage of this President and his First Lady.

5 comments about The Earl of Louisiana (Southern Biography Series).

1. As a life long resident of Louisiana and student of history,I can say this is one of the finest (and funniest!) books written about any of our politicians-So much has been written about the Long family, especially Uncle Earl, but Mr. Liebling really "gets" it-He captured the weird, wacky flavor of our #1 spectator sport, politics-Although this book was written over 50 years ago, so much remains the same-And that's not always a bad thing! Read ANY book A.J.Liebling wrote-He was a treasure!



2. Every man a king and every lady a queen...no not Huey..we're singing and reading the original ballad to earl k. long...no he wasn't crazy like Paul Newman in Blaze...no he wasn't a fascist...long before Bill Clinton and Jmmy C he stood up for Civil Rights even when the rest of the world thought he was crazy. Joe Liebling's book about LOng's banner years of 1959-1961 brings the last of the red hot poppas back to life along with a bygone age of Southern politics in a state where the two parties were Long and anti-Long. The book flows with poetic prose and political wisdom and is a perfect antidote from today's dull political characters seeking nomination. Sing, Louisiana, sing!!



3. I was a kid in Louisiana when Uncle Earl was governor. When Earl started having some of his troubles (how's THAT for a euphemism?), several Northern journalists came down to write about (and laugh at) the Rube In Charge.
   
   Liebling did so for the New Yorker, but he caught something most other journalists missed. Earl Long was remarkably progressive for the times, and was accomplishing some things no other Southern governor could. He had to balance many different factions to govern effectively, and he did so with a flair and flamboyance that's sorely missing in today's blow-dried politicos.
   
   Liebling's prose is, as always, stellar. He's one of the few writers whose works I buy sight unseen. By now I have most of his stuff that's ever been printed. This book is Liebling at his best, which is head and shoulders above most writers.
   
   A couple of the scenes in the movie 'Blaze' seem to be lifted from this book.
   
   If this book whets your appetite for more Liebling, I heartily recommend 'Between Meals'. Written toward the end of his life, it's a beautiful reminiscence of a year he spent in Paris as a young man. Unforgettable.



4. but, it did. liebling knew the subtle power of understanding a human using nothing but his actions as guidepost -- with his words being secondary, or even a useless distraction. this story is closer to a love song than it is a biography. but much like a good love song, earl's wrinkles and fatal flaws are on display along with his magnetism and eccentricities. plus, it's goddamn hilarious.



5. A. J. Liebling is one of my favorite authors; I first encountered his writing in his classic "low life" portrait, "The Telephone Booth Indian," and followed up with "The Sweet Science" (boxing), "Chicago: The Second City," and excerpts from his pieces on Paris' gourmet delights and the non-society horse racing crowd. Liebling specializes in the foibles and small triumphs of those on the fringes, regular working class men and women (mostly men), and even the lumpen-proletariot (somewhere lower than the worker). He does it with an engaging mix of reportorial detail and bemused, ironic observation. However, Liebling's not entirely dispassionate or cloaked behind his dazzling narrative ability. He has opinons and uses his words with precision and potency.
   
   Given these talents and interests, the flamboyant, controversial Earl Long is a natural subject for Liebling. As a Northerner, Liebling tries to retain a certain acceptance, or at least empathy, towards the backroom deals, prejudices, personal attacks, and dishonesty in local politics. However, his overall tone is a grudging respect for Earl Long, even though his tactics and personality can be off=putting. Earl Long's melodramatics, his machinations and those of his opponents, are humorous and gut-level real, but at the same time we recognize the demagogery, and his divide and conquer fear-mongering and double-talk. He's clearly a master of being all things to most of the people, playing, for example, blacks against white and vice versa. At the conclusion, Liebling comes away with sympathy for Earl Long, trying to look at the results rather than his rhetoric.
   
   All of this sounds rather heady, but that's probably just a result of Liebling's thought-provoking presentation. The book reads easily, is enlightening as well as entertaining, and captures an immensely interesting place and time in politics and society. At times, Liebling's metaphors (Louisiana is the Levantine of American culture) seemed (to me, anyway) labored and a bit obscure, and sometimes his writing lacked his usual pith and punch. Still, Liebling is one of the great 2-initialed masters of 20th century literature, along with S. J. Perelman, H. L. Mencken, and P. G. Wodehouse. Although 'Telephone Booth Indian' remains my favorite Liebling book, those with a political bent and who enjoy cultural clashes (the veteran urbanite Liebling's encouter with Louisiana has the anachronistic flavor of "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court") will enjoy this perceptive, humorous, and sometimes bittersweet story of Long and the political arena.

3 comments about Maria W. Stewart: America's First Black Woman Political Writer : Essays and Speeches (Blacks in the Diaspora).

1. The life and writings of Maria W. Stewart are a testament to the power of faith. Against all odds and against all cultural probability, Maria Stewart arose to become the first women, Black or White, to address a mixed gendered crowd on a political topic.
   
   The essays and sketches, introduced and edited by Marilyn Richardson, provide firsthand accounts of Stewart's wisdom and courage. Given the era in which Stewart spoke and wrote, it is remarkable that a young (age 28), black woman could so lucidly and bravely address both Whites and Blacks.
   
   Though addressed to people living under very different conditions, her words still speak courage and confrontation to all readers today. Thus this book is well worth reading both for its historical insights as well as for its modern implications.
   
   Reviewer: Dr. Robert W. Kellemen is the author of "Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction." He has also authored "Soul Physicians" and "Spiritual Friends."



2. Maria Stewart was not as well-remembered as Harriet Tubman or Frederick Douglass, but she is an important person nonetheless. Fortunately, she left behind a lot of written materials of her own life and there also exist other accounts form her contemporaries. There are all well edited by Marilyn Richardson into a concise volume that tells a pretty good story of Maria Stewart and what she was all about. Great job and an inspiring read.



3. This is the first and only study that gives a solid account of the life and work of this important early 19th century African-American writer. Stewart was a radical abolitionist, a feminist activist and a powerful public speaker. She was the first American-born woman of any race to lecture in public on political themes and leave extant copies of her texts. She preceded the better known Grimke sisters by five years. Before Frederick Douglass, before Sojourner Truth, Stewart, who lived in Boston in the 1830s, was arguing for black rights, North, and South. Her collected lectures are published here for the first time in this century, along with fascinating research on the life and career of this extraordinary woman.

5 comments about A Conspiracy So Immense: The World of Joe McCarthy.

1. One thing needs to be cleared up right away: Joe McCarthy "never uncovered a Communist."
   
   Because McCarthyism was so devastating to rightwing anticommunism, giving a sour taste among decent people for half a century, there has been a deliberate (and often successful) attempt to rewrite history. In this version, McCarthy may have been crude and abrasive but he accomplished good work for the cause of freedom.
   
   As David Oshinsky lays out in endless detail in "A Conspiracy So Immense," there was nothing good about McCarthyism and little good about McCarthy except perhaps his charm. This was lost on many but reported powerfully by some who were strong political enemies.
   
   Oshinsky asserts, I think correctly, that his is not an ax-grinding history, and he certainly finds fault often enough with McCarthy's enemies, both political, journalistic and academic. He gives McCarthy credit where he can, which is not often.
   
   He portrays McCarthy as a man outside society, a natural: "He was so primitive, so cynical, so devoid of commitment to any goal but personal success, that few opponents had the will or stomach to fight him on his own terms." Or perhaps few Americans were as indecent as Joe McCarthy.
   
   That quotation comes from the introduction. Later, much later Oshinsky decides that McCarthy's anticommunism was genuine and not just, as so many charged, a cynical manipulation of an issue to get power, attention and money.
   
   This judgment must be heavily qualified. It's doubtful McCarthy knew anything about communism, and he definitely knew nothing about Americanism. That he was convinced that communism was evil means little; plenty, maybe almost all, of his opponents got that, too.
   
   Catholicism is key to McCarthy. Oshinsky says he was a ritual, not a moralistic Catholic. As long as he attended Mass and made his Easter duty, he had fulfilled the requirements of faith. Even priests who supported him are quoted as saying that McCarthy paid no attention to doctrine.
   
   This is an extremely important point and one where Oshinsky, in my opinion, errs. It has long been asserted that McCarthy was led to anticommunism by the Catholic clergy, and a dinner meeting is even said to have been the occasion that he was informed how he could use the issue to shore up his sagging political base after almost four years of undistinguished residence in the Senate.
   
   Oshinsky is skeptical about this meeting, for which there is no reliable testimony. However, a host of circumstantial evidence supports the idea that the American Catholic church recruited McCarthy.
   
   First, as anybody who attended Mass in the early `50s (as I did) knows, the church was desperate to launch a counterattack in eastern Europe and for that it needed some standard bearer in the U.S. government. McCarthy was it.
   
   Second, McCarthy's preferred companions of an evening were floozies and grifters. He did not regularly, or even irregularly, socialize with priests. To imagine that a singular long meeting with two priests and a fanatical Catholic layman was devoted to chatting about Notre Dame football is beyond belief.
   
   Third, Catholics stuck to McCarthy long past the time that he was becoming a political liability in most other sectors of American life. (That his loudest and longest cheerleaders -- still cheering in 2008, in fact -- were the bigoted Catholic William F. Buckley Jr. and his brother-in-law Brent Bozell tells us much.)
   
   Oshinsky does a good job of recreating how crazy the McCarthy era was, even though he hardly mentions the concurrent Red scares that went along with it -- Robert Oppenheimer's security investigations get a single footnote, for example. I well remember how fearful people became when McCarthy's name came up.
   
   Oshinsky gives Dwight Eisenhower a lot of credit for bringing McCarthy down, second only to McCarthy's own flaws. But the fact that a president as popular as Ike had to do so sneakily, and that it took almost the first half of his first term to get it done, shows just how powerful the fear was.
   
   Oshinsky's admiration for Ike's skill in maneuvering McCarthy out of power is tempered by his disdain for Ike's refusal to confront him early and in the open.
   
   McCarthy lived at a burnout pace, and "A Conspiracy So Immense" overwhelms with detail. There were so many scandals. Nevertheless, the last 200 pages rush past as all the threads are spun together into a rope that finally hangs the evildoer.
   
   Only an opera librettist would have countenanced the coincidences that really happened around McCarthy. He had so many attacks going on simultaneously, and they all blew up on a single day, March 9, 1954. The Washington Post required no fewer than 12 stories, plus editorials and cartoons to keep up with Joe that day.
   
   He was elemental, a force of nature. But, Oshinsky says, he was never a threat to subvert the government. Unlike a Hitler (whom he resembled), he had no larger goal. He did not even have an antisubversive plan to throttle the commies with. He seemed to care only to expose them, presumably thus causing righteousness to prevail.
   
   This silly idea he probably came to instinctively, but it is also another hint that Catholic puppeteers were pulling his strings. It was firmly believed by the church that Russian communism was barely sustaining itself and even a slight push would knock it down. That is why the prospect of war in eastern Europe did not appall the Sheens and Spellmans (or, at a humbler level, my parish priest, Father Shea).
   
   Three incidents, out of hundreds, stand out in this life.
   
   One is McCarthy's bewilderment after the famous dressing down he got from Joe Welch on national television, when Welch stared him down and asked whether he had "at last no decency." After it was over, McCarthy is pictured asking in bewilderment, "What did I do? What did I do?"
   
   Even worse, but less famous because there is no film of it, was his treatment of a poor (and by the time McCarthy was through with her, jobless) black woman named Annie Lee Moss. Oshinsky reports that the steely Sen. John McClellan "seemed almost in tears" as he watched McCarthy's humiliation of this innocent woman. It made me cry.
   
   The last image is of McCarthy, out of power, weeping on the sidewalk after being thrown out of a Republican dinner. McCarthy, Oshinsky believes, wanted to be liked, but would rather have been hated than ignored. During the last three years of his short life, he was ignored and, with any other subject, the picture of him sobbing in loneliness might raise a sympathetic tremor.
   
   Not this man. His was no Greek tragedy. McCarthy's story was black and then blacker.
   
   In the end, Oshinsky says, McCarthy's strength and weakness was his "outrageous independence." If so many people had not been injured so badly, it would almost be funny: A man claiming to be fighting for all he was worth (nothing, as it turned out) to save society who was never part of that society himself.
   
   



2. I think the evidence is pretty clear at this point that McCarthy was right on target with his accusations. Its amazing to me that liberals still cling to this "McCarthyism" myth. It just didn't exist. There was no repression of ordinary Americans in the 50s. Didn't happen. Sure, some people in government lost their jobs. But they were communists who then got other jobs selling insureance or whatever. Its not like they were sent to the gulag or anything.



3. Oshinsky gives the most complete review of McCarthy's life of any historian. He tries to appraise McCarthy's controveries and does not take part in the vicious name calling of a Ricahrd Rovere. However he comes from a liberal perspective and to get a fair appraisal from a conservative historian - read Hermann's McCarthy.
   
   Since Venona has been released Oshinshy should have rewritten this book and not reissued the book he wrote in 1982.The events of 9/11 can give us an analogy.
   
   Imagine if a professor advised the state department that the Taliban was the best hope for Afghanistan and that bin Ladin was just an agrarian reformer. Imagine if military secrets as the H bomb was given to Iran and that key government officials belonged to Islamist groups. Imagine if a senator would look at the aspects of that ? Would he be called intolerate of other religions ?
   
   Owen lattimore urged that Mao was an Agrarian reformer. Mao killed millions. Larrimore made millions of bucks on his 'brilliant" observations. Oshinsky shouldn't defend this man. Klaus Fuchs, Rosenbergs, Hall etc gave the bomb to Russia. Hiss helped shape our foreign policy and even gave Russia three votes in the General Assembly.
   
   So balance is really needed. McCarthy was a patriotic man who used bad means to an end. But his enemies sometimes used worse methods as Oshinsky demonstrates in the Joseph Rauh case and Eisenhower's minions forging letters.
   
   McCarthy was brought down by Roy Cohn wanting favorable treatment for a possible lover- David Schine but curiously Oshinsky does not update the book with Cohn's sexuality and this would be an important insight.
   
   In short this was a brilliant book for 1982 but the newer revelations as Venona , Cohn etc demands an update for this book



4. A book of politics, and the craving for power that drives some people to do almost anything to get that power. The broad outlines of the story are well known. Joe McCarthy grandstanding in front of the microphones accusing all kinds of people of being communists. Never presenting any evidence he was able to ruin the lives of many Americans just to gain his own satisfaction.
   
   Now reviled, these times really need to be viewed in the light of the times, and again now that we have learned more about those times. His accusations appear to have been unfounded. But this was the time of the Rosenberg executions. This was the time of the House UnAmerican Activities Commission (HUAC).
   
   As we have learned since with the release of the Venona documents, the Rosenbergs were guilty (well there's some question about Ethel). The activities of HUAC harmed a lot of people, especially in Hollywood, but did it really make us safer? It also appears that there were a lot of communists in our Government. But there is no indication that McCarthy really knew that.
   
   This is an accurate story of McCarthy's rapid rise, and his rapid fall.



5. Oshinsky lays out the McCarthy record in straight-forward, unbiased terms.
   
   Joe McCarthy was a deeply disturbed individual, who, having stumbled into a Senate Seat, went asking his friends for a good campaign "hook" to get reelected. They suggested communism.
   
   Over the next five years, McCarthy accused, literally, thousands of Americans of being Soviet agents. Not once did he produce evidence that any of those accused were, in fact, working on behalf of communism. He accused the leadership of the U.S. Army of communism because it insisted on drafting G. David Schine, "friend" of McCarthy's associate Roy Cohn. Anyone who publicly criticized what McCarthy was doing was accused as well. Anyone who so much as supported progressive causes was labled as unpatriotic. In 2005, does that sound familiar?
   
   It was inevitable that the Republican noise machine would eventually try to rehabilitate the record of one of the most disgraceful persons in American history. For the real facts on this living nightmare of a man, read this book.

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 Sons and Brothers: The Days of Jack and Bobby Kennedy.

1. First of all, let's get it out of the way. I really love the Kennedys. I enjoy most of the books about them and always learn something of each (yes, even the crazy conspiracy books). This book was a little different. I learned a lot. I enjoyed how it was put together. It starts with the 1950's and then takes 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963 and then Bobby Alone as separate topics. It has stories from their growing years in each as if looking back to show why they were doing what they were doing at that time in their life. I really got in the Bobby Alone section from 1964 to 1968. It showed how Bobby totally changed his views and what he went through in order to come to the conclusion that he needed to run for President. Mr. Mahoney does drag out the New Orleans, Cuban, and Mafia stuff but it's ok. Most nowadays do. I would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a well rounded book on the Kennedy boys.



2. Richard Mahoney is to be commended for putting together a highly readable and cogent account of the life and times of JFK and RFK, as well as their dealings with the Mafia (that led to the death of JFK). Well done.
   [...]



3. ive read other books on JFK and none of the other books can quite compair to the realism in this book. the things i didnt understand in the first few books where explained more in depth than before and i came to realize that half of the things that kennedy was blammed for after his death were not acctually his fault. for example, vietnam.



4. I was raised in a conservative household and consider myself conservative in many ways (though I'm a registered independent). That said, I am 29 years old and both these men were dead before I was even born. However I have had a fascination with JFK & RFK since I first started studying history and the impact that the changes in the 1960's would have on future America. The picture on the cover is very telling about how different these brothers were -- black and white. What this book is really about is how co-dependent these two men were, with Jack more so upon Bobby. Many disturbing facts have come out about the Kennedy brothers in the last twenty years. Much of it does bother me as a moral and religious person. But that doesn't erase the fact that Jack and Bobby were very intelligent and gifted men and when it is all said and done, their idealism and determination positively impacted our nation's history.



5. this is not a biography,it's a fiction and it's stupid, boring.
   the author was surely drunk when he wrote it.
   this book is a shame to the legacy of the kennedys.
   there are a few photos.
   buy abetter book like: rfk and his times....

5 comments about Killer Angel: A Short Biography of Planned Parenthood's Founder, Margaret Sanger.

1. It's easy to understand the motives, purpose, and actions of Planned Parenthood in light of its founder. Short, easy to read, and helpful for pro-lifers who are fighting PP at any level.



2. The only thing worse than this book, is someone actually believing it to be based on facts. It is a wicked defamation of Ms Sanger's character for the author to express a pro-life platform.
   
   "No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her own body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose conscientiously whether she will or will not be a mother." --Margaret Sanger



3. This is an excellent primer and succinct summary of the truth about the origins of "Planned Parenthood." Anyone who wants to know the truth about America's disgraceful abortion mills, should begin with this book. You can trust Grant to tell you the truth, in contrast to the communist propaganda we usually get fed! Thank you George!



4. There's no original research here; as is clear from the footnotes, the author has just taken material from standard biographies of Sanger and used it to present her in the most negative light possible. Sanger did favor eugenics (as did most people in her era), and she was a socialist, and she had a rather unorthodox family life. There isn't much argument about the facts. But to use these facts to portray her as a monster of iniquity (and a worse murderer than Stalin or Hitler) is just silly. Actually, Sanger's work has almost certainly reduced the incidence of abortion by making birth control more accessible and reliable.



5. Her views were just as monstrous as Hitler's, because they came from the same philosophical genetic line of thinking. Her own words condemn her. She indeed targeted the poor and down-trodden of society with the same views as the Third Reich. She saw the black community as hitler saw the disabled of Germany "useless eaters." Read this book to find out what she really believed. Don't just listen to the emotional-laden lies of Planned Parenthood and their misinformed rabble,[..]
   
   I've never seen pro abortionists deal with the real facts concerning Margaret Sanger. The facts are presented in books like "Killer Angel," but they can't "handle" the facts. All they can do is appeal to the emotions-- "Oh the starving children..." etc. So... their solution is that the children are better off dead, than starving! Good argument!? No. Stupid argument -- just an appeal to the emotions. "Starving Children?" "Abused Children?" Why change the argument? No one said that anti-abortionists were pro starvation or pro abuse. What greater abuse can you have than the killing of innocent children? What you actually have is a promoting and philosophical acceptance of, and practice of genocide for convenience-sake. Shame on anyone who would try to defend what Margaret Sanger said and lived for. You may as well try to defend Hitler himself!