5 comments about Eisenhower: Soldier and President (The Renowned One-Volume Life).

1. This is a great biography on an underrated president, and a very easy read. Ambrose is wonderful in being able to pick out the key incidents and describe the Ike's policies without delving into the everyday details that bog down Robert Caro's biographies. Also, while Ambrose doesn't hide his admiration for Ike, he does reflect critically upon his subject, particularly his slow reaction to civil rights and McCarthy, and his inability to stem the arms race.
   
   Part of Ike's genius was projecting a reassuring calm, while acting to keep all of his options open. For example, he never ruled out using atomic weapons against China in the Korean War or Quemoy Island dispute, but because he kept this option open the Chinese backed down. He was tough, but always left a way out for opponents to back down and save face. Some have wondered whether he truly ranks as a great president because he had no major crisis to face, but I believe Ambrose is right when he says preventing war and managing crises well is perhaps an even greater achievement. I have read many presidential biographies, but have rarely felt that any other president matches the maturity and self-confidence of Ike (George H.W. Bush is another president I think had Ike's maturity in managing the presidency). The difference between Ike in Ambrose's book and the childish pronouncements and discussions of the current Bush administration is startling.
   
   Having said that, I would have been interested in a bit of a longer biography, particularly more details on Ike's use of the CIA in Iran (very relevant today). This has been a very controversial aspect of his presidency and seems somewhat out of character for someone who opposed Israel and Britain during the Suez Canal crisis. Also, we get very little of the cabinet, perhaps because Ike relied on them less than other presidents did - even John Foster Dulles is discussed only where necessary. Ike seems to largely have used his cabinet to give him information, not make decisions. (can you imagine a book about Johnson without a central role for McNamara or Nixon without Kissinger?)
   
   Overall, this is a great book, and will hopeful get more Americans to ponder the presidency and whom we want to sit in the Oval Office.



2. This is a very good biography of one of our greatest generals and our 34th president. It begins with Dwight Eisenhower's upbringing in turn-of-the-century Kansas. Ike attended West Point, but did not see combat in World War I. His commanding officers in the Army during the interwar years saw that he had great talent, and Eisenhower was ultimately given command of the Allied forces in World War II. The sense of confidence and optimism that Ike was able to engender in those he commanded helped make D-Day a success.
   
   After the war, he became president of Columbia University. He was elected president in 1952, and gained an armistice in the Korean War six months after he took office. While he was in the White House, Ike presided over many years of peace and prosperity, maintaining a growing economy while avoiding budget deficits and inflation. He instituted the Interstate Highway System, but did not act as strongly as he could have on civil rights. Ambrose believed that Eisenhower's caution was an asset in foreign policy but was problematic for his domestic policy.
   
   The book relates that after he left the presidency, Eisenhower was hawkish on Vietnam and advised LBJ to be more aggressive in his attempts to win the war.
   
   Ambrose made no secret of the fact that he was an Eisenhower admirer, but managed to cover pretty fairly both the strengths and weaknesses of Ike's service as general and president. Americans should be grateful for Eisenhower's hand in ending the sinister Nazi regime and for keeping America safe and prosperous during a decade, the Fifties, that was far more dangerous than most members of Generations X and Y realize.



3. Unless John McCain wins in November, it will be too long before we have our next military hero turned president. They used to all be this way, especially following the Civil War---Democrat and Republican.
   
   Not sure about those reviewers who deemed this a hagiogrpahy or the writing "pedestrian"; the book is thorough, balanced and erudite. I commend the late Mr. Ambrose for such a wonderful portrait of one of America's great leaders in the two most important places: the battlefields and the Oval Office. They surely don't make 'em like Ike anymore (Barack H. Obama?).
   
   The book is long but not exhaustingly long, goes through his humble heartland childhood, early military life, wartime commands, presidency and beyond. Ambrose looks deep into Ike with letters and meetings never read or seen before. What more can one ask for, especially for me as a military historian? Even the descriptions of battles in WW2 are dead on.
   
   I also admire Ambrose for dedicating this book "TO THE MEN OF D-DAY." Again, if even a professor alive today could scribe so eloquently, these losers would be more likely to dedicate a book to Malcolm X or some Hollywood leftist who fought for "the rights of the oppressed." No respect for America or the military, but I digress...
   
   Read the book. It's objective, analytical and important. I will pass it on to my friends and family, so they can better understand our world and thus make the correct judgments and decisions down the road.
   
   Some Americans like to forget history. Shame on them. As Peggy Noonan said of Sen. Obama recently:
   
   America is Mr. Obama's problem. He has been tagged as a snooty lefty, as the glamorous, ambivalent candidate from Men's Vogue, the candidate who loves America because of the great progress it has made in terms of racial fairness. Fine, good. But has he ever gotten misty-eyed over . . . the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter's Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills? There's gold in that history.



4. Informative and easy to read.
   He looks at the subject from many angles and delivers a complete picture of the realities in IKE's world. I personally learned a lot not only about Eisenhower but about WWII, about the times at which he served and about the Cold War. A great book.



5. Stephen Ambrose is certainly among the finest contemporary historians in print. And while he has authored several very good biographies, in my opinion, his best work has been chronicling historic events as opposed to the lives of the participants. His works on the Lewis and Clark expedition and the construction of the transcontinental railroad far surpass any of his biographies. Perhaps this is merely coincidence, though there is certainly a difference in each endeavor.
   
   This particular work is a condensation of an earlier two volume effort. In that respect, it is perfectly adequate and probably more enjoyable than the longer and more detailed work. I can't imagine anything that was not included that I would need to know.
   
   Ambrose is certainly an Eisenhower fan, however this does not prevent him from clearly pointing out many of his mistakes and errors, both in the context of his life as Army general and as President. But, while he points out these instances, and many are quite glaring, he nevertheless, unhesitantly, seems to give him an over all pass.
   
   Leadership is a word used quite often by Ambrose in describing Eisenhower. However, in many instances, it is not leadership, but effective administration that proved to be his strongest suit. His ability to serve effectively as Supreme Allied Commander in Europe was more a reflection of his ability to compromise and placate the many different factions involved than it was an indication of leadership, though leadership was certainly involved.
   
   This differentiation became more stark when Eisenhower became President. Leadership becomes more difficult when the followers aren't required by law and army regulations to comply. As President, Eisenhower many times not only failed to display leadership, he quite clearly abrogated responsibility entirely.
   
   In my opinion, Eisenhower's most lasting legacy was steering the country through some of the most turbulent periods of the Cold War without ever having to resort to military power. This at a time when many, if not most, of his advisors were counseling nuclear attack!
   
   It was in the area of civil rights, however, that Ike was most suspect. I try to be very careful in judging historical personages by current standards. To do so is usually unfair. In this case, however, at a time when very many political and social contemporaries were taking stands, Eisenhower disappeared. A case can be made for finessing the issue during the 1956 Presidential campaign, but his failure to "lead" thereafter can only be a tacit endorsement of segregation. Instead of "leading", Eisenhower tried to compromise and bring the parties together, using the same methods that had worked for him in Europe. This was not "leadership", it was abrogation of responsibility.
   
   Perhaps the most distasteful areas of he book are those that attempt to whitewash Eisenhower's relationship with his Army secretary Kay Sommersby. No intelligent human being can doubt that Eisenhower had a sexual relationship with Sommersby, however Ambrose goes through great pains and historical gymnastics to argue that though Ike was infatuated with Sommersby, had multiple opportunities to pursue her sexually, that she was undoubtedly willing and that all the officers around him were conducting extra marital affairs, Ike was innocent of adultery. One of his most laughable assertions was that he simply didn't have time or opportunity to have sex with Sommersby. Shortly thereafter, he documents a train trip to a Mediterranian resort on which Sommersby and several other "army girlfriends" accompanied the staff. At one point, he cites as proof, the fact that he attempted intercourse, but was "flaccid". Please. Simply acknowledge the fact and move on. I don't think any less of Ike's achievements because he had a girlfriend while at war. Ambrose seems to believe that doing so would somehow diminish him in the eyes of many, when instead it would more likely paint him as more human and subject to the same desires and faults as everyone else. I suspect very few will swallow Ambrose's assertions in this area.
   
   Nevertheless, if you're interested in a comprehensive biography on Eisenhower, this is a very good place to go for it.

1 comments about Around the World with LBJ: My Wild Ride as Air Force One Pilot, White House Aide, and Personal Confidant.

1. There are those who disliked LBJ. They probably would have felt differently if they had known the personal man. This book gives highly personal insights into a man often called "bigger than life." And, reading this well written and well-researched book (the author lived it), many would change those negative views.
   
   The writing is interesting, well done, and highly engaging. The author, retired Air Force General, Air Force One Plane Commander, and Presidential Military Aide James Cross said he wanted to show the unknown and deep humanity of President Johnson. He succeeds without pandering, but rather just by stating plain-spoken truths from an impressive man himself, General Cross.
   
   General Cross started as an Alabama country boy and became a close confidante of the President of the United States. He was not political; he was a highly respected and respectable officer in the U. S. Air Force who did his job and did it well. General Cross is the unsung hero here. The incidental glimpses we get of him in this book - definitely not given to build himself up - show a very decent man serving his president and his country well and with good, old-fashioned patriotism and honor.
   
   I would personally estimate that almost anyone who reads this book will enjoy it, be impressed by it, and come away from it with a much more positive image of President Johnson...plus meeting a genuinely nice guy who our country is fortunate to have had that close to the top: General James U. Cross
   Review by:
   Dick Stanford
   The Azusa Gazette
   Book Reviews
   May 2008

2 comments about The Jefferson Bible, The Life and Morals of Jesus.

1. THE JEFFERSON BIBLE is an interesting historical source by one of America's brilliant "Founding Fathers." Many know Jefferson as the author (co-author) of The Declaration of Independence, third US President, architect, etc. What many readers may not know is that Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)was an accomplished violinist, a brilliant mathematician (he knew calculus which was know as "fluctions"),and someathing of an expert on the Bible. Jefferson was obviously not a "mainline" Christian, but he knew the Bible much better than many self proclaimed Christians.
   
   As readers may know Jefferson titled his "bible" THE LIFE AND MORALS OF JESUS OF NAZARETH. As mentioned in other reviews, Jefferson accepted much of Christ's social teachings, but he did not believe in the miracle stories which he thought were exploited to enhance supersition at the expense of moral conduct.
   
   Another interesting feature of Jefferson's "Bible" is that he wrote this source in parallel columes in English, Greek, Latin, and French. This arrangement was designed to help his children to learn these languages. Such work also demonstrates Jefferson's knowledge of fogeign languages.Some editions of THE JEFFERSON BIBLE have photoplates of these translations which would appeal to those who know these languages.
   
   Some editions of THE JEFFERSON BIBLE has essays and comments by Jefferson who passionately believed in freedom of religion. Recent "critics" have attempted to distort Jefferson's passionate defense of religious freedom by claiming he did not claim such freedom. Essays and anecdotes refute such distortions. For example, some have denied that Jefferson used the phrase Separation of Church and State. It was Jefferson who used the phrase that there was a wall of separation between Church and State. Jefferson argued that only error needed defense of the government and that different views should be brought to the bar reason. Truth would stand on her own. One must reaalize Jefferson's time. Terrible religious persecutions in Europe and colonial America were recent history during Jefferson's lifetime. One must remember that the Salem Witchcraft trials occured between 1692-1693.
   
   Jefferson accepted reason as an adequet guide to find truth as mentioned above. Some editions of JEFFERSON'S BIBLE have a well written, well reasoned essay of Jefferson's scathing denounciation of John Calvin. This essay is not only penetrating criticism of Calvin, but Jefferson effectively denounces religious persecution in this particular essay.
   
   Thomas Jefferson was brilliantly talented indivudual. His intelligence is reflected in his constitutional thought, mathematics (mentioned above), etc. Supposedly the late US President John F. Kennedy reflected that when there was never so much intellect who sat at the White House dinner table as when Jefferson sat there alone. The above titled book is a good example to justify this high praise.



2. As a "semi" Christian, this "bible" is quite a read. It includes all of the teachings of Jesus without all of the "miracles". My pastor and I disagree on the whole resurrection thing, but I think this book shows that Jesus would have followers even without that fantasy.

5 comments about Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power.

1. I like this book
   Anyway to show that Nixon was A GREAT PRESIDENT is in my opinion OK



2. This book is a great history of the Nixon-Kissinger foreign policy. However, even more than that, it also shows how our government makes (or fails to make) foreign policy. It shows the day to day infighting, trivialities, and ego-stroking involved at the highest levels of government. In particular, Dallek details how Nixon and Kissinger sought to wrest foreign policy control from the bureaucracy for themselves, essentially personalizing foreign policy. They also had a tendency to ignore experts and keep others in the administration in the dark over major decisions. This book would have been useful before the Iraq War to understand how Cheney and Rumsfeld undertook a similar effort to seize control of national security policy and ignore intelligence experts.
   
   My only criticism of the book is that sometimes Dallek seems inject his own political views into the analysis. While I am sure Nixon and Kissinger often played politics improperly, and Dallek provides much evidence for this, there are times when I think he goes too far. For example, he blames their insistence on continuing the Vietnam War largely to their personal insecurities, but I think they had legitimate (if ultimately wrong) arguments about the world's perception of U.S. power. I think applaud Dallek for criticizing the administration's tilt toward Pakistan, but thought his argument could have benefitted from more discussion of US-India relations before and during Nixon. The final chapter of the book I think frames the author's overall arguments more coherently, but throughout the book they sometimes seem disjointed.
   
   If you are a die-hard Nixon/Kissinger fan, you might resent such asides. For most readers though, I think the book is overall balanced and well-reasoned.



3. The relationship of these two incredibly insecure men is interesting to explore. Both were looking for constant reassurance from one another. Nixon seemed incredibly unsure of himself in Robert Dallek's book.
   
   Dallek explores other good biographies of Nixon and previously unreleased material to go in more depth.
   
   The problems faced by Nixon and Kissinger were varied, and handled with varied success. The failure in Vietnam sticks out like a sore thumb and is a major theme of the book. Smaller problems that they dealt with including Chile where the U.S. intervened to take a democratically elected leader out of power shed light on the deception and secretive measures used by the administration. The Nixon administration did more than stretch the rules...they broke many of them.
   
   Henry Kissinger appears as the hero of this book. Domestic issues are in the background of this book with Foreign policy as the star.



4. Robert Dallek, biographer of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, has now written an account of the Nixon presidency, but it is not as good as Seymour Hersh's magnificent The Price of Power.
   
   In July 1968 Nixon and Kissinger told President Thieu of South Vietnam to reject US calls to begin participating in peace talks. In doing so, they broke the US law against private citizens conducting diplomatic negotiations.
   
   Nixon campaigned on a platform of ending the war, yet sabotaged Johnson's final efforts to negotiate, and then escalated the war. Nixon and Kissinger always opposed unilateral withdrawal. They aimed to continue the US aggression against Vietnam until victory could be achieved. When they talked of an `honourable settlement', they meant one that achieved all the USA's war aims. More US soldiers would have to die so that the earlier deaths would not have been in vain, which, absurdly, equates to saving the dead.
   
   Nixon and Kissinger cruelly indulged in sunshine talk about the war, promising the American people that one last push, one more invasion, would bring victory. But the truth was that the USA had lost. There was no alternative to withdrawal: their only choice was whether to end the war swiftly, or end it a bit later after killing yet more Vietnamese and having even more American soldiers killed pointlessly (20,000 were killed under Nixon).
   
   Nixon and Kissinger never grasped that a quick exit from Vietnam would have helped, not undermined, US credibility. They never asked other governments what they thought about a speedy exit. Détente was just a cynical device to try to divide Vietnam from its allies, and it failed.
   
   Dallek concludes that Nixon and Kissinger's policy towards Vietnam "was a disaster. Administration actions destabilized Cambodia, expended thousands of American, Vietnamese and Cambodian lives, gained no real advantage and divided the country." Actually, Nixon virtually united the country against him and against the war: by 1969, 71% of the American people wanted Nixon to withdraw 100,000 troops from Vietnam by the end of the year.
   
   Nixon and Kissinger claimed that their policies were realistic and intelligent, but neither could see that the Vietnamese people were justly fighting for their national liberation. Nixon and Kissinger were not the tragic, flawed heroes that Dallek portrays but despicable war criminals.



5. Dallek frames Nixon and Kissinger as a "cautionary tale that the country forgets at its peril." He sees both men as arrogant and self-serving. Additionally, it is Dallek's feeling that both men used each other for political purposes. The great foreign policy victories of the Nixon administration - opening of China, détente and the peace in the Vietnam War - are all merely political moves by both men to win elections and prove that they are the smartest people in the country. Yet, the worst comes during the Watergate crisis, where actual foreign policy decisions have to be made including the Yom Kippur War. Nixon is merely seen as a second hand player in these dramas, thwarting when not ignoring Kissinger. It was a dangerous time with little oversight from outside the White House that we should all remember least it not be repeated.
   
   This good analysis drives the book. However, Dallek has the annoying habit of calling Kissinger "Henry." Its not like I'm gonna get him confused with the other major characters called Kissinger. Secondly, the most important foreign policy event between VJ Day and the fall of the Berlin Wall is the end of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates - where the United States basically used a steady dollar to keep the world economy on an even keel. On August 15, 1971 Nixon ended the convertibility of dollars to gold by closing the gold window. Yet, if you only read this book you would never have known. I am aghast at such an omission.
   
   Despite these problems, the book is still a good read. It attempts to conquer the myth that while Nixon was a bad domestic executive he was still great in foreign policy. Read it together with All the President's Men and you'll never like Nixon again.

5 comments about Grant.

1. Jean Edward Smith has written an outstanding biography of Ulysses S. Grant, one of the more complex heroes of American history. Grant's complexity does not stem from his own actions, but from the fact that his career as a general is considered such a success while his presidency has always been looked at as an abject failure. Henry Adams had even written that denunciation of Grant, saying, "The Progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant was enough to upset Darwin." Mr. Smith had the good sense to compare what Adams wrote to the earlier thoughts of his brother Charles Francis Adams Jr. who admired the general and called him "an extraordinary man."
   Sometimes history needs to unfold over a longer period of time before a figure can be properly judged. With Grant the fact was that for over 100-years he came out on the losing end of history because he was for Reconstruction and the civil rights of the freed blacks. When Rutherford B. Hayes came into power in 1877 the freedoms of blacks had become a dead issue and Grant was destined to appear a failure in the eyes of history. It has only been with the success of the Civil Rights movement throughout the 1960s that Grant was in a large way vindicated. Finally southern biographers were unable to point to him as a man who picked the losing side of history, and a man who sympathized with blacks and therefore was wrong.
   It is always difficult to attempt to judge anyone or any act of the past by the standards of today. That is why it is hard to condemn George Washington and Thomas Jefferson for owning slaves because it was common-place at the time. They don't deserve any positive press for owning slaves, BUT if they had turned over their slaves while they lived and fought for the freedom of all then they would have been so far ahead of their time to almost not have been real. There was no-such-thing as Virginia planters of the 18th and 19th centuries who refused to embrace the benefits of free slave labor. At least, I do not recall anything of such people.
   Grant is different because while he was President he WAS popular and DID protect the freedoms of people (which is correct even though it was judged as wrong in the south from 1877 to the 1960s). Mr. Smith is actually righting a historic wrong by trying to view Grant as the people of his time viewed him rather than those who came after and detested him for taking what was for 100-years the losing side of history. For instance, if George W. Bush has many biographies written by his supporters (now less than 28% of the population) that help to shape how he is looked at in the future, it would require a writer like Mr. Smith to come in and show that DURING the vast majority of his term, he was not exactly what one would call "popular."
   Re-writing history is a dangerous game and it takes writers like Mr. Smith to set the story straight after it has gone too far astray. In the south for instance, it was around a century or more before there started to be seen positive views of Abraham Lincoln. It is said that history is written by the winner, but really history is written by whoever happens to be holding the pen, and it isn't always the winner. How else could one explain the "Lost Cause" mythology that turned Lincoln, Grant, and Sherman into villains? It is only after carefully dissecting what actually took place that the story can be set straight.
   In "Grant" Mr. Smith has written a biography of the 18th President and first four-star general in the nation's history that is more accurate than a great majority of those that have come before. His biography is free from the anti-Grant bias that flooded the view for so long. However he also does not gloss over faults of Grant. Grant was a man who sometimes drank too much, and Mr. Smith doesn't hide it. But neither does he extrapolate and assume (as many anti-Grant biographers have done) that Grant was a hopeless drunk who stumbled around at all-times and was hardly ever sober. That such views have been accepted by many historians as fact is absolutely ridiculous, and Mr. Smith finally sets things to right.
   In closing, what we get from Mr. Smith is not a biography that overlooks all Grant's faults and pretends that he was a man heaven-sent who never made a wrong turn in his life. Instead we are given the portrait of a man who sometimes trusted the wrong kinds of people too much and who would other times have been better off as President had he sounded his views out amongst the public (especially the Cabinet and Congress). We see a man who as general came close to defeat more than a few times, but who had the nerves and calm to stand his ground. We get an accurate view of a man whose best traits as a general (indeed the fact that he was not easily perturbed in the most trying moments) are what got him into such trouble with historians for over a century. Not only did Grant wind up on the losing side by supporting the rights of black Americans, he showed no remorse for having done so (nor should he have, though it hurt his legacy).
   Time has vindicated Grant in the end and given Mr. Smith the clarity to write a definitive biography of the man from Galena, IL. Finally Grant can be reassessed and while he may never crack the top ten or even top twenty on the list of the greatest presidents of all-time, he at least can leave the likes of Buchanan, Harding, Pierce, and (something tells me) George W. Bush behind at the bottom forever.



2. I really loved this book. What a great General he was. Very underrated President. Should be ranked right up there. His battlefield skills saved the country.



3. After reading Professor Smith's Grant biography, two apparent things come to mind: the same cult of ignorance that has removed George Washington and Eisenhower from the lips of children and TV ditto-heads was responsible for the "overlooking" of this great leader; and, they, the racist, largely-white Establishment is on the march as we wage unnecessary war today with clue-less leaders in charge. This southern biography in one volume does great justice to that 19th Century and our 21st Century that stands on a precipice,serving as a trumpet call-to-arms. From the middle of Grant's memoirs at Vicksburg, I went headlong into this thrilling read, moved many times by its revelations,riveting insertions of quotes that dramatize the action with tremendous clarity. Insightful, balanced and engrossing from beginning to end. Clearly, U.S. Grant was forgotten by those whose sensibilities were offended that one man could be charged with being a Negro-lover, Indian-lover and a unifier. And for once, Jean Edward Smith got it right: the man who masters the battlefield challenges can deftly handle the administrative ones as well, without the meddling of professional politicians and slicksters. Until reading this biography, I was led to believe that the Confederacy was more noble defending the genteel plantation ways and pleasantries against the crudities of Northern pride. Like, how dare they attack Miss Scarlett! The Civil War was much larger than Margaret Mitchell, and Jean Smith builds this biography to a deeper understanding about the war and its cost. Not only does Grant rise in dimension, but he levels off and enjoys a special relationship with Lincoln that is unique and illuminating, before moving into his White House years and retirement.If one needs to know why leadership is empty in the Executive Branch since Eisenhower, you need not look beyond the enemies of Grant's legacy. The standards of conduct,on and off the battlefield, by all participants, their levels of understanding of the cause, especially their civility was so moving and numerous that one is shocked to return to 21st century conduct. There is much to admire about those times and the great man, U.S. Grant. Read this, keep it and learn plenty.



4. This is an excellent and highly readable biography of Grant. However if you are considering the Kindle edition, note that there are some transcription problems:
   
   * Footnotes have been transcribed as inline paragraphs within the main text flow. They are normally included closely after the relevant paragraph, but they sometimes lag by a screen (or even two) and in one place surfaced in a prior screen.
   
   * The maps have been omitted.
   
   * The full original index is included. But since it includes neither hyperlinks to the text, nor Kindle locations, nor even paper page numbers, it is essentially useless.
   
   * The paper version uses indented paragraphs to indicate extended quotes. Unfortunately these show up as normal undistinguished paragraphs in the Kindle version, so I was sometimes surprised to discover I was in a quote, or that I had left one.
   
   * There are also occasional minor transcription glitches such as words being erroneously joined together or erroneously split apart; or sentences erroneously broken into separate paragraphs. But these are relatively minor.
   
   Note that most of these issues aren't due to the Kindle itself: for example it handle footnotes and textual links just fine. The issues are mostly with how this particular book has been converted.
   
   I don't want to overstate the issues: the book is still quite readable in the Kindle edition, and suitable for (say) travel reading. However the various glitches are sufficiently annoying (and the book sufficiently good!) that I have ended up also buying a hardcover version, for browsing and reference.
   
   For the biography itself 5 stars. For the Kindle transcription, only two.



5. This is one of the most fascinating books i've read in a while. Smith has a clear grasp of Grant's life. Both his virtues and flaws are given equal attention. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in either the Civil War or the Presidency.

No comments about Mandela : Struggle and Triumph.

5 comments about The Path to Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 1).

1. I picked up this book because I had to read a book on a president for a history class. Am I glad I got assigned LBJ as it has made me cross path with quite possibility one of the best biography ever written.
   
   Although I have more then a passing interest in American politics, I would highly recommend this to anyone who is just mildly interested in a book such as this. The reason I say this is because the book is extremely detailed and covers all sorts of angles that bring to light a lot of areas which you normally don't on a typical biography book. The amount of information contained in this first book is staggering and you can tell where all the years Mr. Caro has spent has gone into.
   
   The style of writing is also extremely smooth and pleasing. You will not be bored from reading this book as it almost read like a well written novel. I am surprised and amazed at how well the information is conveyed to the reader in such a pleasing manner.
   
   One of the things I love about this book is the portrayal of some of the powerful men Johnson encounters. Caro explain the characters in a way that relates to Johnson and in the process gives you a deep angle into the motivation of both the character and Johnson.
   
   Politics is a complex subject is is hard to understand. Most of us are on the surface and have little access and understanding of all the nooks and crannies of politics. This first book does a great job of understanding local politics and how it relates to the bigger picture. All this is done just by studying such a complex character that is Johnson during a complex period of history.
   
   I will be reading the next two books which I'm sure will be as good as the first. Looking forward to learning more.



2. Robert Caro combines the skills of muckracker, tabloid journalist, and serious scholar to produce this magnificent volume. I read Means of Ascent 10 years ago and loved it, and Path to Power is even better.



3. Robert Caro's biography is one of the great series ever written. This first book looks at the things that shaped LBJ's early life. The first part is focused on the parents and grandparents of LBJ. The times growing up in Texas were very interesting to read about and while I was afraid this book would not be interesting I was proven wrong quickly. The hill country is a fascinating place and you can see the poverty that Texas experienced even before the depression. Most striking is Lyndon Johnson's childhood where he was an almost constant terror to his parents who loved him anyway. He would runaway constantly. After running away to California he came back and was involved in a series of local gangs and street races. His parents were finally able to talk some sense into him and he went to college
   Lyndon Johnson continued his pompous attitude at college and was notable for creating the political scene at Southwest Texas teachers college. He was constantly in debt during his college years but played the political game well becoming friends with the president of the university and other top students. Although leaving college several times hew as able to thrive there. He was able to gain a job in Washington DC as a congressman's aide afterwards and built his power base.
   Lyndon Johnson was an expert at the political game and he played it well in DC. This book categorizes his rise from congressman's aide to congressman in the 10th district. It shows how he built his network, worked with and against Sam Rayburn, FDR and his wife Lady Bird. Through it all he truly is shown as a manipulator and an expert political operator. He is morally reprehensible as a person throughout the entire book which was not something I expected to find. For a book about LBJ's early years this is absolutely amazing. It is so well written and you cannot wait to read what is in store next. I cannot wait to read the next three books in the series!



4. This is the second book by Robert Caro I've read, the other being Master of the Senate. Caro's work I'm sure is probably considered the most thorough and all-encompassing study on the life and career of Lyndon Johnson. Path to Power starts with the Bunton and Johnson families who moved to the Texas Hill Country. Caro's description of this region is impressive and very effective. Establishing this setting and its nature and its isolation, we get to learn about the early years of Lyndon Johnson. This book takes us up through 1941 when Johnson first ran (and lost) a race for the U.S. Senate.
   
   It's the Hill Country that receives a lot of attention in the first part of the book, what the land was like, how people's hopes and fortunes could be broken by it, and so forth. The nature of the Bunton and Johnson family lines, i.e. their habits, their ambitions and how they lived off the land. Anyway, these early years of Lyndon Johnson and his family, with special focus on his father who was a well-respected public servant in the Texas Legislature, are all detailed.
   
   The Lyndon Johnson that emerges from this book is nothing short of an attention seeking, power grabbing individual who would stop at nothing to achieve his goal. His way of courting and winning favor with older people, his political savvy that came into being at the Teachers' College at San Marcos, and so forth served as indicators of the sort of man that was developing. If his father was respected and known for his principles, the son would be known for his do and say anything approach to achieve power at a higher level. This is Caro's Johnson, maybe it's a bit rough and maybe too critical at times (though his interpretation could be head-on), but that's what you'll see in this book.
   
   To mention some of the periods in Johnson's journey to position and power, we read of his years as a teacher and debate coach, his years as a Congressional secretary, Johnson's role in the New Deal years as state coordinator of the National Youth Administration, his run for and election to Congress, his money ties to influential businessmen and lobbyists and others who would provide huge sums of money (at that time) for Johnson's political ambitions and on and on. His political skills in cultivating relations with people in power was certainly notable and his knowledge and use of political tactics and maneuvering are amazing to read about.
   
   The book culminates with his first run for a Texas U.S. Senate seat in 1941 upon the death of one of that state's sitting senators. This section of the book is utterly captivating in terms of the unfolding nature of the primary campaign, the characters involved, the voting fraud and its aftermath. Caro's work on the career and character study of Lyndon Johnson is an impressive body of work. His assessment of Johnson in this book is not flattering, though we do see the immense political skills possessed by this remarkably ambitious man who would indeed one day achieve the highest office.



5. It's no accident that the first two books by Robert A. Caro have the word "Power" in the title. Power is what interests him, and in Lyndon Johnson, Caro has the perfect figure for analyzing how power is amassed and used within a democracy.
   
   The first in a published trilogy extending to Johnson's election as Vice President in 1960, "Path To Power" presents Johnson as a skilled amasser and user of power for its own sake. No ideology bound him, no loyalty for God or man. He courted women based on their wealth and social standing, picked his associates by virtue of their acquiescence, and focused all his energy on personal glory.
   
   There was something inside him, Caro explains, that made him hard, beyond his simple and needy upbringing in the Texas Hill Country. It had something to do with a family on his father's side named the Buntons, people so cold that when Lyndon was born, his grandmother, a Bunton, tried to dissuade her husband from visiting their grandchild, believing, as Caro puts it, that "charity begins at home."
   
   Perhaps there was more to Johnson than such self-interest. If so, Caro doesn't say. Perhaps it comes out in later volumes, but it's clear here that Caro, for all his stellar, admiring prose of Johnson's rise, doesn't like the man. Fortunately, this wasn't so clear before the publication of "Path Of Power" in 1982, meaning that many of Johnson's closest friends and associates (including his widow Lady Bird) were willing to share honest insights about LBJ, who would have still been in his 60s at the time Caro began his research, just a year after the resignation of Johnson's successor as president.
   
   Caro does write pointedly about Johnson, but not without a sense of dramatic purpose. In fact, there's a kind of grudging admiration in Caro's narrative for a man who toughed out every day of his life in such an uncompromising manner. Like many readers here, I was struck by how like Shakespeare's Richard III LBJ is portrayed, not only that he's so amoral but presented so that we half-root for him to get away with such tricks as masking himself as a New Deal liberal to get Franklin Roosevelt's ear and playing up to the paternal instincts of House Speaker Sam Rayburn, whom he then knifes.
   
   Writing about his days at San Marcos Teachers College, where he transformed himself into a shadow leader with the help of a secret society, Caro writes: "He had won believing in nothing - without a reform he wanted to make, without a principle or issue about which he truly cared." Caro makes clear this didn't change at all when Johnson became a U.S. congressman, preferring to exercise his slick tongue in the cloakrooms and hallways rather than the House chamber itself, where entire years went by without him addressing his fellow Members from the floor.
   
   Caro's take on Johnson makes "Path Of Power" entertaining, but it's his broader view of the times LBJ lived that makes the book so compelling beyond the bounds of traditional biography. There are so many layers in Caro's narrative, such as the hard lives women led in central Texas during the Depression, various colorful Texas politicians LBJ aligned himself with or against, and the often underhanded way business and politics came together in the early 20th century.
   
   Is it unfair? Caro does dwell on the negative, and ignores at least in this volume the possibility Johnson had some redeeming qualities beyond his professional abilities. But that may have been a function of Johnson's growing as life went on; it's clear that he was a sneaky, ruthless, miserable character in his early days chronicled here. A couple of his underlings, though still devoted, have to excuse themselves to regain their composure as they recount their boss's hard ways.
   
   There are bios that connect the dots but bore you silly, others that use lives as platforms for wowing you with the author's eloquence. Caro writes masterfully but keeps your focus securely on the story and the real-life history behind it, making you feel like a passenger on Johnson's amazing journey. Even the footnotes are captivating. You will be surprised how quick a read 800 pages can be.

5 comments about Alexander Hamilton.

1. From what I learned of American history as a schoolboy, Hamilton was certainly considered as one of the founding fathers, but he was relegated to the periphery among the founders; and he and the Federalists, according to this teaching, needed to be constantly restrained by the wisdom of Thomas Jefferson or else they would have reverted the country back to a monarchy. After reading this book, I still think there is truth to the need for Jefferson's restraint, but overall, I think that my education was prejudiced and myopic. As the author notes, because Jefferson, Madison and Adams all became President (along with another Virginian James Monroe) and they had many more years to write about events, their legacy gained the upper hand and history has probably skewed their importance relative to Hamilton.
   
   This really outstanding book tips the balance of viewpoint in the other direction. Some have criticized the book because they maintain that it habitually depicts Jefferson, Madison, and Adams in the worst of ways, such as only showing the worst of what they wrote. They may have a point, but the author is showing what Hamilton was up against - sometimes unreasoning opposition; and he makes a very strong case that Hamilton more than any of the founders was responsible for setting up the American government as we know it today. Hamilton recognized, with a force that no one else could exert, that a strong union was the best hope to avoid all the evils and conflicts of Balkanization. No doubt that Jefferson and Madison provided a much needed counterbalance, especially since Hamilton did not recognize the importance of the Bill of Rights; and Washington also provided a needed check to his military proclivities. But Jefferson and Madison in their Virginian politics that favored a sectionalized state-empowered confederacy molded from a slave-based agrarian economy held views that have fallen by the wayside, whereas Hamilton set in motion the means whereby the United States could get a grip on itself and move into the modern age.
   
   It is a fascinating story of a life that leads to a well-known tragic conclusion. It starts in one of most beautiful of places but also one of the worst scenes of human degradation - the sugar trade in the West Indies. The fact that Hamilton's relatives could never succeed in such a place was probably a credit to them, for it must have taken an extraordinary brutality to keep a majority population of slave labor at bay. Hamilton left the place at the first available opportunity, and took advantage of the time and his abilities to make a continuing success of himself during the Revolution and its aftermath. Beside being blessed with a brilliant mind (John Marshall said that beside him he felt like a candle to the midday sun) and being a relentless worker, he showed that he was a man of principle, and all through his life he hardly deviated from that sense of principle. His enemies did not want to separate his personal life from his private life, but there is every indication that he hardly ever wavered in that regard, despite the folly of the Maria Reynolds scandal. Despite all the investigations, no one was able to find a shred of evidence that showed that while he was Secretary of Treasury and setting up the banking system - or any other time for that matter - that he did anything untoward or for his own benefit. In fact, he had to quit his post because he became too deeply in debt to support his family. Yet, the slander followed him everywhere, and a lack of restraint on his part encouraged the attacks. In the end, the need to clear his name and a strong sense of honor - so important to his politics - had set him on an irrevocable course.



2. It was my ambition in college to someday write a biography of the most neglected of the Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton. I talked about it, read a few of the biographies out there. Forrest McDonald's was the best, I thought.
   
   Then last spring I borrowed from the Meredith, NH, public library this book by the incomparable Ron Chernow. I read it on the our family trip to Virginia. Visiting Redoubt 10 at Yorktown, horribly neglected by Americans, was an intense emotional experience for me.
   
   I've learned from Dennis Prager that the best way to learn history is through biographies. None are better, I've found, than this. In fact, after reading it, I had to purchase my own copy.
   
   That's how much I value Ron Chernow's absolutely magnificent biography. Embracing Christianity at the end of Hamilton's life shows me what side he'd take in the cultural war. How we could use his exemplary industry and brilliance now! Only he could overshadow Mr. Jefferson, whom I've always adored.
   
   But Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Chernow, you are the best.



3. The other reviewers of this book are right on -- Hamilton's influence in American political history is truly significant -- he is probably the most influential Founding Father never to have served as president. His vision for a unified country recorded in the Federalist Papers are truly remarkable and his influence on the economy of this country with his position as the first Treasury Secretary and his vision for a federal bank last to this day.
   
   I actually listened to the 10 set CD series of this book and the time just flew by -- the book is fascinating and Chernow does a great job of giving significant historical details on everyone who comes into contact with Hamilton -- from Washington to Jefferson to Jay and Burr. The portion of Hamilton's life which resulted in his affair are a great life lesson for every man, especially those in positions of leadership!
   
   Every student of history should buy this book (or listen to the CDs) -- Hamilton was a man history can not ignore.



4. Ron Chernow has written an informative, detailed, wholly engaging biography of one of the most interesting and controversial founding fathers. This book is a delightful read through the history of the forging of the United States of America.



5. Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton was a great read that included a remarkable amount of information on the man, as well as all the important characters who shared the stage with Hamilton during his 49 years. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, which felt nothing like its length.
   
   It was an enlightening experience to read the book because much of my knowledge of Hamilton came from biographies on his many rivals or books on the period. Hamilton was an opinionated, controversial and insecure man, but he was quite ethical in his professional life. I was worried that a Hamilton book would be bogged down with too much economics, but Chernow did a great job of presenting that important information is an understandable manner.
   
   The reason I can't quite give this book a 5-star rating was its overly sympathetic nature. Yes, most bios are partial to the subject, but this one took that to the extreme. Chernow gave ample coverage to the controversial events in Hamilton's life, though he tended to make excuses for them. Every sentence written about Jefferson, Adams and post-1789 Madison were very negative, as Chernow selected the unflattering quotes from those men in a way that would elevate Hamilton. If you were to read the second and third volumes of Dumas Malone's series on Jefferson, and follow it up by reading Chernow's book, you'd think they were writing about completely different eras, or that they were family members of their respective subjects.
   
   But since this book is eye-opening and filled with so much information, in a beautifully written account, I highly recommend it. It made me see Hamilton in a different light and understand more fully why he was such a powerful figure in the early American republic.

5 comments about Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America: A Biography.

1. Bill Gienapp was a brilliant historian, and his work "The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856" is a pillar of American political history. Unfortunately, his final work, "Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America," is a tremendous let-down. It is perhaps one of the worst examinations of Lincoln's life, and has almost nothing to do with "Civil War America." Essentially, it is an unqualified love poem to Lincoln, and strives only to prove his greatness -- there is no critical analysis at all. Lincoln is given credit for every political and military success 1861-1865 and is absolved from blame for all his mistakes. In reality, Lincoln was a complex personality and his public career was much more tumultuous than Gienapp proposes. It is disappointing that Gienapp, a man who dedicated his life to exhaustive, nearly flawless historical research would resort to such frivolous, uncritical "pop history" at the end of his tragically short life. Skip Gienapp's Lincoln and, instead, read Stephen Oates's "With Malice Toward None" or Don Fehrenbacher's "Prelude to Greatness: Lincoln in the 1850s."



2. A short, but very well biography of Lincoln. It counts only 250 pages, but it gives an excellent overwiew and superb analyse of the life of AL. The bibliography is also very interesting. One of the best books about the 16th president. A must for a Lincolnhistorian.



3. A good short, solid political biography. While Lincoln and the Civil War is its focus, by no means is this a battle history: Gettysburg is described in one paragraph.
   
   Professor Gienapp has written a book that will introduce one to, or remind one of, the long and trying path traveled by Abraham Lincoln toward ultimate greatness.



4. William Gienapp's Abraham Lincoln and Civil War America answers a longstanding need for a biography of Lincoln manageable in size, accessible in style, and wise and balanced in content. Lincoln appers on every page of the book and is never lost sight of in the welter of events. He emerges from the text a real believable person, an individual and persuasive assessment of Lincoln's leadership abilities, the finest such appraisal avilable anywhere.



5. This book is a welcome addition ot the already crowded Lincolnia bookself. The author is the presumed successor to the retired David Herbert Donald at Harvard University. Gienapp has produced a highly readable and concise version of a Lincoln biography that can be completed on a moderately long airplane trip(and it's quite portable unlike most hardcover books). While relatively short,this book is a sufficiently thorough treatment of the Civil War Lincoln. I especially enjoyed the author's analysis of the politician Lincoln who mastered his rivals, both Republican and Democrat. This a good book for either a new Lincoln /Civil War "buff" or a good refresher for a scholar of the times.

5 comments about Mr. Adams's Last Crusade: John Quincy Adams's Extraordinary Post-Presidential Life in Congress.

1. John Quincy Adams was the son of John Adams, the second President of the United States, and a critical Founding Father. The younger John went to Europe with his father as a youth, hobnobbing in the courts of King George III, Empress Catherine II (the Great), and King Louis XVI. As an adult, he served as American ambassador to the Netherlands, Prussia, Russia, and the United Kingdom, negotiating the end of the War of 1812, was sent to the US Senate from Massachusetts for one term, and spent eight years as Secretary of State to President James Monroe. Then, in the controversial election of 1824, he was elected the sixth President by the House of Representatives. His tenure was highly flawed, and, after one term, he lost reelection. Thereafter, he spent his remaining years in the House, never having lived up to his potential.
   
   This is Adams' traditional biographical narrative, as Joseph Wheelan sees it, with the emphasis placed on his failed presidency, and his 17 years in the House of Representatives largely an afterthought (albeit one wherein he acquitted himself adequately). Wheelan devotes about sixty pages to his career up until his election to the House of Representatives in 1830, and then spends the remainder of the book on his 17 years ther, ending with his death in 1847 (in the Speaker's office, no less). Wheelan here proposes a different narrative: in Hollywood terms, the failed presidency is the big setback the catalyzes the hero's final triumph. And "hero" is the key word, because Wheelan explicitly states in the introduction that he believes we can take from Adams' example in the 21st century when looking for leaders. Herbert Butterfield would undoubtedly have clucked his tongue at this, but as I've always thought Butterfield was being far too severe in discouraging people from trying to find lessons and heroes in history. I find Wheelan's thesis very attractive. The result is a profile of Adams that focusses on his many positive qualities; it is not a hagiography, as it makes allowance for personality flaws, but these will not have much impact on how the reader sees Adams. Most relate to his presidency, and a lot of that, through this presentation at least, results from Andrew Jackson's bitterness and Adams' own overly-developed sense of fair play in the face of political reality (which most people would think as much a virtue as a flaw).
   
   Wheelan's John Quincy Adams is a tremendously appealing figure: dedicated to being a man "of the whole country" (though he, by the point Wheelan focusses on, has really become a man of "the abolitionist North", because he revels in antagonizing the slaveholding Southern states, not that they didn't deserve it), with a very old-fashioned (in the early 19th century!) view of public service, and a strong devotion to the ideals of the Constitution's framers (he knew most of them, after all). Wheelan singles out his various causes championed during his time in Congress:
   
   1) The First Amendment - through his nearly decade-long campaign to repeal the Southern-backed gag rule in the House that quashed the right to petition the House against slavery.
   2) Womens' rights - through his defence of women involving themselves in politics (though he was not so far ahead of his time as to argue for giving them the vote).
   3) Science - Adams was a lifelong proponent of the sciences, and of government sponsorship of them, and Wheelan spends some time detailing his role in the creation of the Smithsonian Institute, whcih I was not aware of.
   4) The big one, his campaign against slavery. Indeed, he was perhaps the first great political opponent of the Slave Power, a friend and inspiration to future player William Seward (Lincoln's Secretary of State), and astonishingly foresighted in predicting the Civil War decades in advance (and, ultimately, welcoming it as a necessary bloodletting to purge ill from the land).
   
   Adams is remembered today mainly as the son of another president who squeaked into office via a "corrupt bargain" (a fiction of his opponents that Wheelan spends some time arguing against) - Wheelan makes a very persuasive case for his worth as a principled politician. Certainly it makes one wish for eight years of John Quincy Adams over another son of a one-term president we are all too familiar with.



2. This is avery enjoyable read. I took the challenge after seeing the mini-series John Adams. The son is as key to a great American as his father. This book should raise Mr. JQ Adams on the list of great Americans.



3. John Quincy Adams is traditionally remembered for two things, that he was the son of the 2nd President of the U.S. and that he was a failure as a President. However, this book takes that into account, the tremendous amount of pressure he felt living up to the "Adams" name, and that he found himself as a politician in the House of Representatives. This wonderful portrait of man who has lived in the long shadow of his famous father, never disappoints. His fight against slavery and his defense against censure are insightful, giving the reader a clearer picture of a man who was governed by the principles created by the Founding Fathers. I enjoyed it very much!



4. The product was sent in satisfactory time. It will be a gift and has not been read.



5. John Quincy Adams is never on any list of great presidents. But he should be near the top of any list of great Americans, right up there with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Joseph Wheelan's excellent new book explains why. Adams had an extraordinary political career, both before and after his single term as president. Wheelan's book focuses on Adams's seventeen-year Congressional career, which began in 1831, two years after Adams left the White House. During this period, Adams fought for women's rights and against President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Bill, which forced Native Americans to give up their traditional lands. Adams was also an unrelenting enemy of slavery, and did all in his power to fight it (see the movie Amistad). His many speeches against the "peculiar institution" caused northerners to refer to him affectionately as "Old Man Eloquent". Southerners sent him hate mail and death threats, and called him by a different name: The Madman From Massachusetts. Adams became the conscience of Congress and of the very nation itself.
   Joseph Wheelan has written an important, very well written book that rescues one of America's greatest men from near obscurity. Adams is far more deserving of immortality than his arch-rival, Andrew Jackson. Read Joseph Wheelan's outstanding book and you will understand why.