4 comments about Dawn Dusk or Night: A Year with Nicolas Sarkozy.

1. You will either love or hate Yasmina Reza's style of writing. It is spare, thought-provoking, and at times, painfully accurate. This is not a ponderous journalistic campaign diary; it is more like snapshots. Dawn Dusk or Night captures the complicated Nicolas Sarkozy in far fewer words, and in far more memorable ways, than the dozens of other books that have been written about him. He comes off as both visionary and vain, as human and detached. Although Carla Bruni is not a character in this book, it is easy to see why Sarkozy would have experienced a coup de foudre when they met. The only drawback to the English version is a somewhat clunky translation; some points undoubtedly were made better in French. But for students of French politics and writing alike, it is a must read.



2. Well-known French author and playright Yasmina Reza pitched an unusual idea to presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy in the Spring of 2007: to be able to follow up around, unrestricted, for a year and write about it. Much to her surprise, Sarkozy immediately said yes. This book is what came of that.
   
   "Dawn Dusk or Night: A Year with Nicolas Sarlozy" (190 pages) is a deeply personal, subjective, and quite unusual (as one might expect from someone like that) account of the year Reza spent with Sarkozy. It is a mostly unflattering view of Sarkozy. "Often he says, How you doing' Yasmina? But that means, how is he doing?" Or this, when she's talking on a campaign stop with someone else: "Infuriated by his nonexistence, he butts into the conversation to immediately change its direction." On politicians: "Forgetting oneself is not what they are living. They are forgetting others; they are, inevitably, self-obsessed". After Sarkozy wins the election and invites Reza over the the Elysee, she tells Sarkozy "I wanted to ask you something. Yes? I wanted to grant me something what you never have. What? A real conversation."
   
   This book caused a huge stir when it came out in France last Fall, for obvious reasons. I'm not sure what Sarkozy was thinking when he agreed to the author's pitch, as it was pretty obvious what the outcome would be. I really enjoyed this book, even if it is, at times, a quirky read.



3. What a brilliant idea this was! Take Yasmina Reza (`Art'), the best-known playwright in France today, and have her shadow the country's rising political star, Nicolas Sarkozy, in his bid -ultimately successful--for the presidency. The result is not political reporting but a stunningly brilliant portrait of a type of man, homo politicus, as represented by one of its most appealing exemplars. Sarkozy is perpetually in motion, reinventing himself against the backdrop of hangers on and electorate. From their first meeting, she notes Sarkozy's impatience, his thirst for praise (`still waiting, like a child, for the umpteenth approval'). "I feel like I'm watching a little boy," she writes. He can't stand being alone, he sabotages conversations that don't involve him, shuns solitude. He comes alive around people, needs audiences to think and live. Reza's glittering prose show us glimpses of a man whose goal seems to be to outrun his own image in the mirror but who also happens to be one of the most important political figures of our age. Compulsively readable, this book deserves the widest audience. Sarkozy is charming, relentlessly ambitious, unable to sit still, and totally self-absorbed, a man in search of a mirror. But when he finds one, he finds there's still something missing.



4. This book was impossible to read. I think she wrote it as a play not a book. I couldn't finish it.

5 comments about The Lincoln Enigma: The Changing Faces of an American Icon.

1. What were Lincoln's views on death, afterlife and religion? Did he really have a loveless marriage? Would things have been different if he and Jeff Davis had swapped places?
   
   Speculative thought, and some answers, are to be found in this new volume, along with a wealth of perspective of Lincoln in artwork.
   
   The reason I only four-starred this book is that the body copy of text, before the artwork appendices, is only about 160 pages. This book could have used at least 50, if not 100, pages of additional meat on his bones.
   
   AND, this is LINCOLN! It's not like that would have been that hard to do.



2. Reread your history, hun. Or at least try thinking about it from a different angle.

   Great book, by the way.




3. The US is so protective of Formosa. Why should China not use the Lincoln example. The solution to an area wanting to secede is to reduce it to rubble cause the death of one million people, civilian and military, declare total war on both the military and civilian population. Once conquered, the cause of the war is to say that Formosa cannot be independent, is that Formosa is no longer a part of China. Install military dictators, take away the vote of most of the citizens and dictate that they must approve certain amendments to the constitution, even though they are not a part of China, before they can re-enter the union. During the conflict shred the constitution, lock up millions without benefit of trial, and close any news outlet that does not agree with the destruction of Formosa. Once the destruction of Formosa is over most certainly the victors write the history and within 100 years or less the current president of China will be considered one of the greatest presidents of China. So it takes Formosa 80 years to recover we will always know how evil they were for wanting to attain self determination.

   Most certainly the Founders of this Republic seceeded from the British Empire. What was the diference?




4. "Look at me and I'll tell you without blinkin' this southerner prefers Abraham Lincoln"

   goes a rap at the start of this book, and it is aimed at those of like mind, southerner or not.

   A warning - half the book consists of illustrations of Lincolniana so that this is one for the specialist. The Lincoln- seeker should read David Donald's excellent biography before opening this book.

   That said, does this book tell us anything new about Lincoln? The answer is yes, without being final or definitive. I liked particularly the article on Lincoln and the Constitution, showing that he was not the 'dictator' of Copperhead legend, nor the conscious revolutionary of Garry Wills' 'Lincoln at Gettysburg'. However, did his actions not have revolutionary results?

   The article on the Lincoln marriage I felt a bit limited, but also a good corrective to the image of Lincoln the hen-pecked husband trapped in a loveless union. 'Mary, Mary, we are elected!" he cried to his wife on arriving home that great day, showing the essential nature of the partnership between them. However, this essay does not use Mariah Vance's remininscences, though written very much later that the 1850s, which show Mary Todd Lincoln as addicted to paregoric (which contained opium) and subject to alternating fits of drugged lassitiude, and withdrawal-induced sickness. However, even the Vance memoirs (she was the Lincoln's servant) are not entirely negative on Mary Lincoln.

   Other essays cover the Lincoln youth, his fascination with death, his status as war leader and finally his image in American art. The enigma is somewhat clarified but somehow the enigma, and the continuing fascination, remains.




5. Attractively produced compilation with highest scholarship.... Boritt directs Lincoln studies at Center,(civil War) Gettysburg site. Has more than 60 pages illustrating portraiture of Lincoln, diverse forms. Mt.Rushmore,& tourist type statues- in NY, Abe greets girl who suggested he grow a beard. An 'abandoned' forlorn 62' statue stands at a closed campground,Charleston,IL. Best source for,trivia/folklore. More of same,short paperback,Gordon Leidner's collection,2001.

5 comments about Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam.

1. A proof of the bridge formed between old and new anti-Semitism in the person of Mohammed Amin Al-Husseini. Jew hatred has mutated from racist genocide to blinkered anti Israel prejudice. The authors depict the principal agent of this transformation the Grand Mufti of Palestine, President of the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine, and a chief instrument in the convening of the World Islamic Congress.
   
   Al-Husseini was a close associate of Himmler, Eichmann, and von Ribbetrop, held an audience with Hitler on 28th September 1941, acted as Nazi arabic radio propagandist for 3 years from Berlin, influenced Nazi policy, for example of Jewish escape from the slaughter, and the formation of the Bosnian Muslim Waffen-SS corps responsible for the murder of 12,600 Bosnian Jews. He was reported by Eichmann aide Dieter Wisliceny to have visited Auschwitz, and to have incited systematic extermination. On 21/9/44 he broadcast of '11 M Jews in Europe', he knew this represented a deficit of 6M.
   
   There is much more to shock and surprise in this short but potent volume, especially the Mufti's legacy to Arafat, Saddam Hussein's uncle and his links with Qutb father of the Brotherhood.
   
   One is lead to wonder repeatedly why such plain and profound evils are so little discussed or so little known, and the reasons are not hard to find in the text.
   
   Eye opening as it is, there are two flaws in its testimony. First there is too much speculation about the Mufti's thought life, conversations and attitudes - a more clinical, less ornamented account would have been wiser. Second the references are almost entirely from secondary sources, even quotes from Mein Kampf (hardly the most difficult book to reference) or the most seminal of events to the book the audience with the Fuhrer (though the translated text of the German minutes of the meeting and the Mufti's diary are in the appendices). This considerably weakens the polemical value of the work, nevertheless a vital and valuable resource for students of the Middle East.



2. Interesting/factual but the conclusions are repeated and repeated and repeated resulting in aboaring book that is three timeslonger than needed. I finally gave up and moved on to followon chapter rather than read the same thing over and over again.



3. What an eye opener! This book is of great importance for everyone . This is a must read! The authors give the history of the Islamic mufti's connection with Hitler, their desire to irradicate the Jews, and shows the connection to the terrorist of today. The comment that..."this brings to light a story not so much forgotten as deliberately concealed" couldn't be more true! I Urge everyone to educate yourself on this most important bit of history as it is directley affecting us today and will continue to in the future.



4. I agree with D. Hunsicker's review: This is an important book, but a poorly written one. The "what if" chapter imagining what al-Husseini might have done if Hitler won the war is inappropriate in a history book. Given al-Husseini's role in fomenting anti-Jewish hatred among Muslim populations, given his role in making pro-Nazi propaganda broadcasts into the Middle East from Berlin in WWII, and given his role in helping recruit Muslims into the Wehrmacht and SS, there was plenty of real, factual history to work with here. So why all the what-ifs and hyperbole? The attempts to tie al-Husseini to every anti-semitic Arab and Muslim leader on the contemporary scene are ridiculous, while his real-life crimes are glossed over. It would have been much better to have included more transcripts of his radio broadcasts, to have gone into more detail of his work on behalf of the Nazis, of his post-war work in whipping up anti-Jewish bigotry. Instead, too much of the book is superficial. Coming from professors at Stanford and USF, such a poorly organized, poorly written book is a huge disappointment. Hopefully, another book on this topic using the same source material can be written to provide a more rigorous critique of al-Husseini's crimes against humanity.



5. I give this two stars only because there are so few books available on al-Husseini and I was glad to find something on the subject. But unfortunately, this book is a ridiculous polemic that tries to paint al-Husseini as a major figure in the Holocaust and claims that secular Arab dictators like Saddam Hussein were radical Islamists who are part of a vast terrorist conspiracy...maybe Dick Cheney was a ghost writer for this piece of fiction. Oh and speaking of fiction, one whole chapter is a crazy "what if" scenario that has the Germans defeating the British in WWII and al-Husseini leading the Holocaust in "Londonistan" where prominent U.S. Jewish figures, like Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter, are unable to escape the onrushing German army and die in concentration camps. This is just way over the top.
   
   This is not to say that al-Husseini wasn't a horrible anti-Semite and that anti-Jewish sentiment doesn't permeate much of the discourse of the Arab-Israeli conflict on the Arab side. But this book does nothing productive in terms of really addressing these problems. Frankly, it probably hurts the authors cause more than it helps it because they've turned it into a laughable caricature.

No comments about Harry S. Truman (Thorndike Press Large Print Biography Series).

No comments about Bull Moose on the Stump: The 1912 Campaign Speeches of Theodore Roosevelt.

1 comments about Argentine Caudillo: Juan Manuel de Rosas (Latin American Silhouettes).

1. John Lynch is a master in whatever he presents and this book is no exception. Rosas was the strongman of Argentina and unified the country during his reign. Lynch not only assesses the idea of a Caudillo and the cult of personality that leads to their power. If you are starting out in Latin American history this is an excellent place to start. This book will take you through the unification of Argentina and lay the framework for one of the most important parts of Latin America. The book is very well written and like all of his stays on target.

5 comments about Edith and Woodrow: The Wilson White House.

1. At last, a book that tells the truth about Edith Wilson, the President's second wife. All the drama is here: the cover-up by the wife Edith Wilson, the personal physician Dr. Cary Travers Grayson, who was promoted over hundreds of other more qualified Naval officers to Admiral, and the faithful and loyal personal secretary, Joseph Tumulty who was, in the end, excluded by the petulant and protective Edith.
   
   Because of newly released medical records thought lost, the truth is out about the physically and emotionally impaired Woodrow Wilson. We can now dismiss claims to the contrary, made by the late Arthur S. Link's in his work as editor of "The Papers of Woodrow Wilson."
   
   Phyllis Levin gives us an accurate view of a man who not only had an affair with Mary Peck, but also of a second woman, the wife of a colleague at Princeton University, when he first taught there and was married to his first wife Ellen. New evidence, not covered in her book, is now available that Wilson was blackmailed by that colleague's wife, who divorced her Princeton professor husband, and was living in Washington, D.C., when Wilson was president.
   
   With accurate diagnosis by Dr. Bert E. Park, and other doctors of the medical records now available, we now know the true condition of Wilson's health long before he entered the White House. We also now know that several doctors were sent from the United States to France when he had a major stroke there while attending the Paris Peace Conference.
   
   The central thesis of the book centers on the cover-up by Dr. Grayson, Edith, and Tumulty (to a lesser extent). Little did the public, press, Congress, and Vice-President Marshall realize that Wilson was paralyzed and unable to discharge the duties of his office. Misleading and outright lies in the bulletins from Dr. Grayson and hand-written notes by Edith on White House stationary (which begin "The President says..."), which serve as Wilson's "supposed" answers to important questions sent from cabinet officials, are now exposed in this tome.
   
   New evidence, since this book was published, now confirms what is in this book as fact: Edith Wilson was behind the breakup of the friendship and relationship between Colonel House and Woodrow Wilson, as well as the friendship between Wilson and his private secretary Tumulty. She saw Secretary of State Lansing as a threat to her on-going cover-up of Wilson's medical condition, and engineered his dismissal. He was getting to close to the truth; Edith had a talent for fiction.
   
   Tumulty, who is typically always presented as "loyal to the end," was continually treated shabbily by Edith Wilson and finally barred from seeing the President whom he admired and served.
   
   Wilson was a vindictive man; he was a racist (another aspect that Arthur Link never covered; one of Wilson's statements appears in the silent film "The Clansman"); he felt personally betrayed by anyone who did not agree with his position(s); he was self-serving and ultimately, transparently disingenuous.
   
   As Commander-in-Chief, he is found wanting: when in France during the close of WWI, he refused to visit the soldiers in the field. It is now known that a survey conducted at the time revealed the extent of the president's unpopularity among the troops.
   
   To quote the author, "Edith Wilson was by no means the benign figure of her pretensions; the president far less than the hero of his aspirations." "The revelation of the physical and mental condition of the invalid Woodrow Wilson alters history's pious perception of him as a star-crossed victim of other people's frailties, rather than as a deeply flawed man." And I would add what Mark Twain said, "Denial is not a river in Egypt."



2. I admired the author's thorough research, which uncovers Woodrow Wilson's character flaws, and the health issues (especially those prior to the debilitating stroke of October 1919) which were concealed from the American public. Edith Bolling Wilson is not flattered but I don't think the author assumes undue harshness in recounting her less than stellar actions on Wilson's behalf, after his stroke in October, 1919. There can be no question that Wilson should have been removed from office at that time, and his vice-president given the authority due to him, but Edith Wilson circumvented this and usurped this authority, with the assistance of Wilson's physician and private secretary. In point of fact, the author shows that Edith was far from acting in a Presidential capacity; the extensive work required of the office ground to a halt for approximately five months, while Wilson struggled to make even a limited recovery.
   
   The author's style is not 'sparkling', in the sense that her writing makes you turn the pages with great eagerness and enjoyment, but it is solidly written, and well researched. I also found many interesting parallels in the description of Wilson's election(s); the personalities involved in the conduct of WWI and the Versailles peace conference, with the current situation in Iraq; the personalities of the current administration and this November's election (although this book was published in 2001). I almost couldn't help but compare Edith Wilson's unreflective, somewhat narrow-minded and stubborn character with G.W. Bush...they seem to have a great deal in common!
   
   I enjoyed this book and will look for more from this author.



3. I love biographies of historical figures but this one was a disappointment from the beginning...and a plodding read, to boot.
   
   All it really manages to confirm is that politics is a dirty business and that corruption & deception are part and parcel of it all. The more things change, unfortunately, the more they stay the same.
   
   As for Mrs. Wilson, she wouldn't be the only First Lady in history who was more of a WIFE than a politician!



4. There are several fundamental flaws in Ms. Levin's book. First and foremost, she sympathizes with Col. Edward House. Plain and simple House is not one to treat sympathetically. A critical biography of the Wilson family would point out that Col. House deliberately attempted to sabotage the President's great peace plans starting in late 1916 (a great friend and confidant). House (and Secretary of State Lansing) collaborated with the British assuring them that the President would eventually enter the war on the side of the allies. In reality, President Wilson had no desire to enter the war (even after the German's resumed unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917). Wilson waited two long months to finally make the decision. Edith Wilson perspicaciously distrusted House from the beginning. Maybe it was a hunch, perhaps she saw through his rather obsequious personality, but she destroyed Woodrow's relationship with House. In fact, after January 1917, House no longer held a high position in the President's mind. In short, Mrs. Levin is highly critical of the Wilson's because they abandoned Col. House.

   Second, Mrs. Levin's assertion that Edith Wilson was the first female president is highly overstated. While she did control, along with Dr. Grayson and Secretary Tumulty, who and what the President saw she never made an important governmental decision. While Wilson was unable to appear in public he was able to read and perform limited duties of his office. Any scholar who has combed even the surface of Wilson's papers understands this. For an unbiased and complete review of Wilson in the months before and after his infamous stroke an interested reader should look at John Milton Cooper's "Breaking the Heart of the World." Cooper is the foremost living authority on Wilson.

   My point here is not to completely excoriate Mrs. Levin's book but to caution readers of its flaws. There are much better books on both President Wilson and the first lady: the mentioned book by Cooper, Arthur Link's "Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era," and John Cooper's dual biography of Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt, "The Warrior and the Priest." As a student of Wilson I am most disappointed by Levin's failure to observe Wilson's high moral purpose and the energy which he devoted to it (this is what eventually brought on the stroke).




5. Being a fan of presidential biographies and after having read some books on both of the Wilsons, I was very excited to see what appeared to be a dual biography of the couple. Levin's book was dry and downright boring . It is a very interesting and debatable premise....whether Edith Wilson really "ran" the White House when Woodrow was incapacitated by stroke.
   My complaints are that the book was much more Woodrow than Edith and I am still not sure I feel like I buy Levin's theme that Edith was the first female president.
   I was surprised to learn just how incapacitated Wilson was and how little the country was aware of.
   This could have been a much better book.

5 comments about Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character.

1. Alyn Brodsky's relentlessly upbeat review of Grover Cleveland should draw a fair amount of critique and interesting argument from historians. The author's point is generally well presented and forcefully argued.
   
   However, as noted in other reviews, Mr. Brodsky makes utterly incorrect, incoherent and useless comparisons assuming the reader of his book on Grover Cleveland is aching to have Brodsky's subject compared (favorably, of course)to modern presidents. It detracts terribly from what, otherwise, is a compelling narrative.
   
   I have not read other reviewers make this point, but I was also perplexed by the vocabulary choices of Mr. Brodsky. I am a reasonably well-read (for goodness sake, I have now read biographies of presidents 1-22/24) person who on occaision will need to look up a word, or learn it in context.
   
   However, at a rate of approximately twice per short chapter, Mr. Brodsky uses words that I don't believe I have ever read before and am certain not a soul has uttered out loud in my presence. This was a 500-page SAT review lesson, but given that I took the SAT about 20 years ago, I could go without.
   
   The flaws in the book are a shame since they are so detracting from an informative, thorough and aggressively argued book.



2. There are few people who would find the Gilded Age a fascinating time to read about but if you are one of them this biography is perfect. If you are curious about the only honest politician during that era then this is the book for you. Although elected to two terms (non consecutively) see how this democrat filled in the shoes of a largely republican era. This is by far the best biography of Cleveland in print and while some may be turned off by his politicking at the time they fail to realize it was simply the way of things. Cleveland played the political game as honestly as he could and did an excellent job in doing so. Fascinating story about an interesting time in our political history.



3. There have been two recent biographies of Cleveland taking the same tack: he was a man and a president who shames the recent incombents of the White House. The other is An Honest President: Library Edition by H. P. Jeffers. I thought that this one focused a little more on the issues and Jeffers a little more on the person, although it may be simply that having read this second, the historical details made more of an impression. Despite this generalism, Frances Cleveland is more vividly portrayed in this book. Certainly I thought that Brodsky did a better job of explaining the issues, although Jeffers was a bit more readable.
   
   My history courses in school rarely made it past the Civil War in any detail. We once expended an entire WEEK on the 20th century. Consequently, the last half of the 19th is a particularly vague time for me of robber barons, dollar princesses and nonentity presidents in the East, taking a back seat to the Indian Wars in the West. Cleveland to me was the one who's terms weren't consecutive. I am very pleased to have made his acquaintance in these two books.
   
   Both Brodsky and Jeffers use Cleveland's life to bash recent presidents, a tactic which I don't really approve of, although I must admit to chortling in this case. Jeffers primarily goes after Clinton, which does get a bit repetitious. Brodsky is bipartisan in his complaints, although anything of the sort dates the book rapidly. In a few decades, a new edition would need footnotes explaining the peccadillos to which the authors allude. Of course, it could be argued that books become dated anyway. The readers should consider their own taste.
   
   Brodsky certainly thinks highly of Cleveland, but he is not uncritical, even characterizing him as foolish or self-defeating at times. Brodsky includes appendixes on Cleveland's views on Black Americans and Chinese immigrants and visitors. He concludes that by our standards, he doesn't look good in either case. Brodsky thinks that although he was no better than he should be on these subjects, he did at least have a lack of malice and a sense of fair play even towards people he regarded as inferior. I would have liked a bit more about the Native Americans.
   
   Brodsky's style is occasionally a bit quaint, as though he has picked up the speaking and writing patterns of the time. At other times it is informal, as he throws in various maxims. I mean neither to praise or blame here: it's just how he writes.
   
   Reading this has convinced me that the Republican and Democratic parties are more historically consistent than I thought, despite the swings between what is considered to be liberal and what conservative. This isn't necessarily the good news.
   
   The other current biographies that I am aware of are from series on all the presidents.
   
   I am very glad, and somewhat more optimistic for making Cleveland's acquaintance. Of course, now I suppose we need the debunking bio. Still, I find Cleveland well worth learning about, and I am glad to have more history about a period that I understand too little.



4. The author seems to have two primary purposes for the book: 1. To justify everything that Cleveland did throughout his political career (Cleveland could do no wrong); and 2. To use Cleveland as a vehicle to editoralize on how bad of persons and presidents that Nixon, Reagan, and Bush (first) were.
   
   It is a work that will prove to be disappointing to anyone seeking an objective account of an important president who had strengths and weaknesses as expected for any true leader.



5. Cleveland's story itself is very interesting, but unfortunately this author butchers the concept of biography so badly that it interferes with the story. This is an excellent example of several things to not do when writing a biography, and serves as a great reminder for why we should appreciate the great ones when they come along. The author excessively editorializes (and very simplistically so at that), inserts his own self into the book too frequently (why at all, I ask?), and often contradicts his own interjected opinions with evidence that a few pages later proves the exact opposite. It gets so muddled on occasion that it is hard to understand how the author came to hold such strong opinions (that for some reason he felt were necessary to include) in the first place. My advice: look elsewhere...I do NOT recommend this book.

No comments about The Last Lion Part A: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory, 1874-1932.

No comments about FDR: New York Years 1928-1933.