2 comments about Calvin Coolidge: A Biography (Signature Series).

1. On my journey to read at least one biography on each president, I was not impressed by this effort. It could be that the Coolidge wasn't that dynamic, but the writing style required more concentration that I've found with other presidential biographies. Was our country better off from having Coolidge in the White House? I don't think so because he was so averse to controversy that he was inaffective. Was my study of the presidents enhanced by reading this book? I guess so, but does it have to be so painful?



2. Believe it or not I frequently as I read this book laughed aloud--sometimes with Coolidge, sometimes at him. While three presidents (Jefferson, John Adams, and Monroe) have died on the 4th of July, Coolidge is the only president to have been born on the 4th of July. His rise to the presidency is actually a story of amazing luck, and McCoy tells the story very well. While in hindsight it is easy to see that Coolidge was not a great president, at the time he did everything seemingly right, and was very successful in making people think he was a good president. I found this book held my interest throughout and was a very satisfying read. I will admit that there were a few chapters on his presidency which were on topics not of interest (can one be intrigued today by, e.g., the Kellogg-Briand pact?) but since one wants to cover the entire life they have to be there. For those of you reading a biography of every president, this does very adequately for Coolidge. (Actually, I read William Allen White's A Puritan in Babylon: The Story of Calvin Coolidge, but that was back on May 5, 1947, and my memory of that was not too fresh, so I thought I should read this more recent bio, and am glad I did.)

1 comments about Tiberius (Blackwell Ancient Lives).

1. When I first discovered Robin Seager, it was through his book, "Pompey the Great". This was a book I just couldn't read finding it utterly long-winded and excruciatingly detailed (read: boring!). I did eventually read it, when I was ready, and discovered Seager to be an impressive historian whose fondness for detail I greatly enjoyed. Thus, I picked up Tiberius hoping for more of the same. And I wasn't disappointed. Tiberius was the second Principate of Rome having been adopted by Augustus to take over after his death. He was certainly not the first choice but in the end, Tiberius outlived all the other potential heirs Augustus had chosen. Tiberius was an honoured and respected general who had Republican sensibilities. As Principate, he clashed numerous times with the Senate over its inabilities to make decisions for itself and deferring many issues back to him (after he initially passed onto them). Seager takes us through Tiberius' life from his childhood roots (and the eventual familial-bond that he and Augustus would share) to his selection as Principate. He looks at the different occurrences in Tiberius' early life that set him down his eventual path (but not without some resistance first) and his role as Principate (from determining attacks to his relationship with the people). Seager provides a very comprehensive view of the second Principate's reign and his accomplishments and failures. Many have criticized Tiberius and claimed him a tyrant due to his misuse of maiestas (a sort of treason law), allowing Piso (Tiberius' friend) to bring down Germanicus (the much loved successor to-be of Tiberius if he had survived), his war and subsequent unfair treatment of Agrippina (mother of Gauis, wife of Germanicus) and his allowing of Sejanus to manipulate him for his own ambitions (which were obviously detrimental to Rome and many persons within). Although not excusing his behaviour, especially the later half as his mental reason began to crumble; Seager portrays a man who never had the ambitions to be Principate. Unlike many others, Tiberius wanted to end his days in peace and be left alone. What he got instead was the greatest responsibility, which with his virtues, he couldn't easily let go of. Although a very capable leader, Tiberius' greatest weaknesses were his poor attitude to the Principate position and his arrogance and stubbornness towards others. This is what caused the conflicts with the Senate and allowed people such as Sejanus to rise in power and cause so many problems. Tiberius showed himself initially as a fair and reasonable leader but as time went on, he detached himself from his position and its responsibilities and allowed others to take advantage of it. Seager shows that Tiberius was not a tyrant but rather a man who became too disillusioned and too stubborn to let go.

4 comments about Martin Van Buren and the Emergence of American Popular Politics (American Profiles (Rowman & Littlefield Paperback)).

1. I could not agree more with Yanni's feelings on this book. Silbey, a Professor of History at Cornell, would greatly benefit from taking the freshman English courses there. His jilted writing style is nearly unreadable. I enjoy reading about the U.S. Presidents quite a bit and have found some biographies to be masterful works. Silbey's book, while informative, is such a tiring read. I feel like I'm battling just to get through a page. I know that there are not many books written about Van Buren in general, but seriously, do not buy this book. It is rubbish. Sorry sellers - this product is 100% bunk.



2. To be fair, if all you care to rate a history book by is the extent to which it is well-researched and informative, I suppose I would have to grant this book four stars; my only real complaints on that score are, first, that it pays too little attention to the private life of Van Buren; his marriage is hardly mentioned at all, and his relationships with his sons are almost always relegated to his professional relationships with them as grown men; and, second, the fact that it's a touch more complimentary than I feel he deserves. But the latter problem is simply a matter of opinion, and the author is entitled to have a better opinion of the founder of the political machine than I do, and the former is simply a matter of my preference; I prefer full-life biographies to professional biographies.
   
   But as someone who identifies with the Roman guard in "Monty Python's Life Of Brian", (the one who forces Brian to correct the grammar of his anti-Roman graffiti), more than I do with Brian himself, I am appalled that someone who is as poor a writer as this author can get a scholarly book published. Reading portions of this book, I am reminded of the "Peanuts" cartoon in which Charlie Brown is writing his pen pal and writes, "Today, we, learned, how, to use, commas." Granted, Silbey is never THAT bad, but he's bad enough. If it were just the frequent insertion of unnecessary commas that I would prefer to see excised, it wouldn't be so bad; I'd notice it, wince, and mostly ignore it. But he goes beyond that to frequent use of commas where they are simply WRONG ("Nevertheless, Van Buren supported his fellow New Yorker as a mark of his solidarity with his state's Republicans and, undoubtedly, because, to do otherwise, would seriously affect his standing (and future prospects) among New York's Republican leaders."; "But Clinton's promarket, economic expansionary, ideas clashed with Van Buren's quite different vision of Republicanism, which stressed commitment to those who were less commercially minded: small landholders, village artisans, and urban workers, who did not need, nor benefit from, the expansionary goverment projects that an aggressive market orientation demanded.": These two quotes come from a single page, and there are many more like them throughout the book, as well as far too many other typos and sloppy mistakes in language and punctuation for me to consider the book professional) and this isn't simply a matter of stylistic differences between me and the author; this is a matter of the author being a poor enough writer that he has no business earning money by writing. If his grasp of his subject matter and his ability to convey it were not as solid as they are, I'd have felt no qualms about rating this as a one-star effort on the basis of the writing. Competence in his field earned him a second star; I won't grant higher than that to something that was frequently painful to read.



3. This book focuses on Van Buren's role in the development of modern political parties in America, but Silbey also ably narrates the life of Van Buren. This is a broad brush biography--Silbey does paint the whole canvas, and he paints it well, but you won't find the exquisite (and sometimes excruciating) detail that most biographers give.
   
   Silbey is very good at relating Van Buren's life to the times he lived in. By far the strong point of the book is the cogent analysis of Van Buren's life, why he took certain actions, and fitting it all into his life purpose of party formation.
   
   One question I had about the biography was whether Van Buren really did do nothing as president (which would have fit his political philosophy) or whether Silbey just narrated the events that had to do with party formation during his administration and that there just weren't many of them. I suspect the former.
   
   The book is well-written, although there aren't many of those memorable turns of phrases; but it certainly won't put you to sleep either. A bit pricey, especially for the length. Overall, a good book.



4. Martin van Buren invented the American Democratic Party.

   More broadly, he was responsible as much as any other single man for the overall political party structure which exists in the United States to this day.

   Yet, to most of his latter-day countrymen, he is merely one of those forgettable nobodies who inhabited the White House between Andy Jackson and Honest Abe.

   Joel Silbey's readable and engaging book tries to correct that historical neglect.

   Silbey ably tells the story of van Buren's rise from modest beginnings to dominance of the New York political scene, van Buren's movement to the national stage and his restructuring of the national political party system, his ascendance to the Presidency, and his ultimate failure to attain his long-term political goals.

   As fascinating as is the story of van Buren's successes, it is his failures which hold the greatest lessons for posterity.

   As a young, loyal Jeffersonain, van Buren early in his career supported "Mr. Madison's War" (the War of 1812). But the increase in federal power and enhancement of federal legitimacy which came from that war led the country in the direction of expanded federal activity and authority relative to the states.

   This offended van Buren's laissez-faire/states-rights Jeffersonian sensibilities. To combat what he denounced as resurgent Federalism, van Buren created a new political structure around a new political party based on states rights, limited government, and laissez-faire economic policy.

   That party was the Jacksonian Democratic Party and, until the end of the nineteenth century, the Democratic Party largely adhered to the principles which van Buren imprinted upon it at its birth.

   (It may seem strange to hear that the Democratic Party was, through most of its history, the limited-government/states-rights party in the United States. Yet, as late as 1928, Frank Kent, in his lengthy "The Democratic Party: A History" defined states rights as the central unifying principle of the Democratic Party. It was only in the depression of the 1930s that party positions were reversed and the Democrats abandoned the founding principles upon which van Buren had built the party.)

   Although the Democrats did generally adhere to van Burenite principles through the nineteenth century, in the course of the nineteenth century the Democratic Party slowly lost its ability to control the nation's destiny. By the middle of the twentieth century, the party had abandoned all of its founding principles: van Buren would have been appalled by the militarism, welfare-statism, corporate favoritism, and outright imperialism which now characterize the Republic he so loved.

   What went wrong?

   Van Buren himself was brought low by two intractable problems of nineteenth-century America: imperial expansion and slavery. As Silbey narrates in detail, van Buren lost the Democratic nomination in 1844 due to his refusal to countenance imperial expansion (the annexation of Texas, which led, ultimately, to the U.S. seizure of half of Mexico). Van Buren vacillated wildly in his attitudes toward the slave states: as President he was an outspoken enemy of the abolitionists and ally of the slave power, but in 1848 he became the Presidential candidate of the anti-slavery Free Soil Party.

   In his final years, van Buren endorsed Abraham Lincoln's military crusade against the slave states, a crusade that decisively destroyed the states-rights position which had been the guiding star of van Buren's political life.

   But perhaps the ultimate problem, which van Buren failed to perceive, was the inner logic of the Constitutional structure established in 1787. The Constitution, unlike the preceding Articles of Confederation, created a strong federal Executive and granted the power of taxation to the central government: the Constitutional system was, in its intrinsic logic, despite the Founders' intentions, not a confederation of sovereign states but a centralized, national government.

   Of course, neither the actual text of the Constitution nor the intentions of its authors mandated the huge, interventionist, imperialist federal government which we possess today. But to believe, as the Framers and van Buren did believe, that the Constitutional government could be prevented from turning into an all-encompassing leviathan was politically naive.

   So great was van Buren's political genius (he was known in his time as the "Little Magician") that he almost succeeded in his grand historical aims. For over three decades, until the catastrophe of the War Between the States, the poltical structures created by van Buren succeeded in defying the logic of history and keeping America as a decentralized federation rather than a centralized nation-state.

   But van Buren's grand design for a strictly limited federal government was ultimately wrecked by the War Between the States and by the economic and geopolitical disasters of the twentieth century.

   In our own day, both American citizens and all the nations of the world must confront the results of van Buren's historically tragic failure. Can the federal government of the United States of America somehow be restrained in either its domestic powers or its international adventurism? Silbey's brief but fascinating book is a cautionary warning to all who now grapple with this central problem facing the human race.

5 comments about Ronald Reagan: His Life In Pictures.

1. James Spada has done extraordinary photo research for this book, uncovering many photographs among the nearly 300 in the book that will be new to even the most die-hard Reagan followers. The text is elegantly written, lively, and informative. If you want to have one photo album to remember Ronald Reagan by, this one hsould be it!



2. This book is the perfect illustration of Ronald Reagan. Give the people lots of pretty pictures to look at and keep them distracted from the deficiency of intelligent thought. Heavy on style yet skimpy on substance. If you want to celebrate the shallowness that was Ronald Reagan, then this is a good book for you.



3. I got this book on my birthday, which is on February 7, one day later that of Ronald Reagan himself. I am amazed how James Spada got all those pictures in this one volume book. I am amazed at his comments. You got the feeling that he was next to him. President's assassination attempt and his Golden State retirements pictures are also here. BUT BE ADVISED: Unlike other books, this are BLACK AND WHITE pictures. If you are looking for the color pictures, go and buy 'REMEMBERING REAGAN' and 'UNGUARDED MOMENTS.'You will be able to compensate the color phenomenon. I would like to see another book like this one but only in color pictures. All in all, the book is great and the author should be recognized for his efforts. I hope he will start another project and we shall see the color one. You won't be upset as you will see wonderful pictures of President and Mrs. Ronald Reagan.



4. What a refreshing look at our country's most admired President. After enduring the past 8 years of efforts by the former administration to demoralize family values, I am rejuvenated to see the wonderful photos and read the narratives. There is once again optimism that the Bush family will be the ones who will bring honor and pride to our White House and First Family. The book is a perfect collection of photos showing the geniuine love and respect for families and marriage, as exists with the Reagans. We have been fortunate enough to see Pres. Reagan during campaigns and in Washington, and want our grandchildren to learn more about this wonderful man. I purchased a copy for our grandson, and after receiving it-looked through it, and quickly ordered another copy for our own home.



5. James Spada is brilliant! I have always admired Ronald Reagan, the greatest president of our times! This book offers fantastic pictures, most of which I had never seen before, with many pictures coming fairly recently (within the last few years). I only hope that President Bush will live up to the great conservative standards of former-President Reagan. May God bless Ronald Reagan in the final years of his unbelievably effective life!!

5 comments about Inside the Oval Office: The White House Tapes from FDR to Clinton.

1. We can nitpick and split hairs 'til the cows come home about the sub title, etc., but the simple fact is this: this is a great, great book. Very well written and researched and lots of good information on the (management/ administrative) styles of Presidents from FDR to Clinton. Quite a page turner and hard to put down; good photo section, too. This book will make you appreciate the job of the presidency even more, as well as certain specific presidents, in particular (i.e. JFK). Get this one asap!



2. It's a little mindblowing to realize such a historical resource exists: Recordings of presidents in the Oval Office discussing matters of state, negotiating with world leaders, and offering often-candidly caustic opinions of their contemporaries.

   While William Doyle's "Inside The Oval Office" is subtitled "The White House Tapes From FDR To Clinton," this is a misnomer. As others here point out, there's really only a trio of presidents that taped themselves at work with any regularity, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and four more (Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Ford) that did so even at all. Reagan and Clinton both had video crews film some of their formal meetings, but Bush 41 and Carter avoided anything more involved than private diary tapings in recording the doings of their administrations.

   Despite the uneven nature of this record, Doyle tries his best to analyze each president's administration from a purely executive-managerial level, sometimes using the tapes as a guide but just as often relying on contemporaneous accounts and even interviews with people who were in the room with the various chief executives. The result is some fascinating portraits in miniature of the vastly different leadership styles America have elected to its helm.

   Doyle manages effective profiles of each man, but delivers the goods best on the ones, not surprisingly, who did the most taping. LBJ verbally bludgeons cowering senators to pass aggressive civil rights legislation and tells a pants manufacturer to give him some slacks with more room for his testicles, employing some decidedly earthy terminology in both instances. Kennedy and his Best and Brightest advisor team listen in on reports from Ole Miss while James Meredith is enrolled as a student there and the campus erupts into a combat zone. Nixon makes bizarre and angry pronouncements, half-commands and half-rantings, urging aides to spy on Kissinger when he suspects his chief diplomat is talking to the press.

   "Even with all their limitations, the Oval Office tapes do offer something no other source can: A real-time record of the presidents as executives in action as they manage the business of American history," Doyle writes.

   I heard my first Oval Office tape a couple of months ago at whitehousetapes.org, the first one ever made which features FDR holding a press conference in August 1940 and then, after the room is cleared, slyly slipping an aide some dirt on his Republican opponent, Wendell Willkie, apparently having forgotten he was wired for sound. That whole tape, just under an hour, is fascinating listening, even during that sometimes dry press conference where Roosevelt talks about American military preparedness and then apologizes to the lone female reporter before using the term "BVD," a brand of men's underwear the troops were being outfitted with.

   It would have been nice to read about filigree like that in this book, if it had been written as a tour guide of the mounds of tapes out there and all the strange secrets and bits of trivia they contain. You can't listen to all the tapes; Nixon alone made more than 3,000 hours of them. But something attempting to give shape to the vast treasure trove of Presidential tapings would have been more worthy of the title of this book.

   Please don't read that as a knock: Doyle does write a solid historical overview, complete with voluminous footnotes that should please the scholar as well as the casual reader. He manages the feat of presenting a very political setting in a way that is non-partisan yet zesty. He offers some interesting tidbits about each president you won't find in any other book, particularly Johnson, who agonized about Vietnam long before most anyone else did and was in many ways the Oval Office's most complicated man.

   "He was King Lear, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, Captain Ahab, Moses, and Grendel, all stuffed into a scratching, belching, blustering, six-foot two-inch 220-plus pound explosive package," as Doyle memorably puts it, yet Johnson was also a passionate humanitarian and patriot who, as caught on tape, once exclaimed the one thing he ever wanted in the world was "a little love."

   A good book, at times very very good, but one with a poorly-chosen subtitle.




3. The "saskatoonguy" description of the book dated 24 April 01 pretty much nailed it on the head. The book is more about the personal and management styles of Presidents Roosevelt through Clinton. The reference to tape recordings is more of a come-on to attract readers. The recordings are more of a sidelight in this description of the administrative styles of the referenced presidents.

   In fairness, though, recordings were used minimally by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, and Eisenhower and the post-Nixon administrations shied away from recordings as well (although video recordings of certain events started under President Reagan). Only Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon made extensive use tape recordings and the first two still exercised control over what was recorded -- a practice that Nixon did not adopt and later regretted. The most memorable examples used were a couple of Johnson's recordings. A somewhat humorous recording, in spite of the tragic circumstances, was President Johnson's arm twisting his mentor, Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, into serving on the Warren Commission. Senator Russell despised Earl Warren. The second was a meeting to determine whether the Administration would commit 200,000 more troops to Vietnam where President Johnson finally decided to reverse his policy and start pulling back from that unpleasant and costly adventure.

   As for the descriptions of the administrations themselves, the book, in my opinion, is a testimonial to how too much emphasis is put on "qualifications" to be President. Each individual who has served in the Oval Office, including the current occupant and his successors, will have certain strengths and weaknesses that may prepare them well for the challenges that confront them, or not prepare them well at all. I always felt that in terms of "qualifications", Herbert Hoover was one of the most qualified men to serve as President. Under normal circumstances, his qualifications may have been adequate. But an economy plunging into a depression is not "normal". As much as I disliked President Carter, there is no disputing his intelligence. But he was so bogged down in learning what to do that he scarcely did anything at all (I do not agree with Mr. Doyle's revisionist attempt to portray the Carter Administration as being more than what it was, a failure). As Hoover was replaced by a visionary, so too was Carter. In terms of intellect, President Reagan does not rank very high. But he was successful in ways that his more "qualified" successor, George Bush Sr., could never understand. I also do not attribute the Clinton's Administration lack of cooperation with investigators to poor management practices that resulted in evidence being lost and unavailable until, conveniently, the investigation was over. I think deliberate obstruction of justice was a bigger factor.

   Although I supported George W. Bush in 2000 and would never, ever even consider voting for his opponent, I am not one of those who now claim how fortunate we are that he was president on 11 September 2001 and not Al Gore. I doubt anybody knows how a Gore Administration would have responded -- even Al Gore himself. No knock intended as it even took some time for the Bush Administration to recover and respond. If Al Gore was president, people would find certain aspects about his background and style that would be right for that crisis -- just as they did for George W. Although his response may have been different, the public would have supported his response if it was a strong response -- something considerably stronger than lobbing a few cruise missiles at an aspirin factory in a third world country.

   Bottom line: A good summary of the administrative and personal styles of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt through Clinton. However, if you are looking for more substance in terms of recordings, you will be disappointed.




4. After reading and listening to "Taking Charge," which was about LBJ's secret tapes, I was expecting the audio version of "Inside the Oval Office" to use many more actual recordings. Instead, the reader reads transcripts of conversations. The tapes contain a few actual recordings but very few, about one per president. Inexplicably, it presents no actual recordings of Reagan, Bush or Clinton. This was a disappointment since I knew from listening to "Taking Charge" that actual recordings contain great insights into the men who inhabited the White House. A reader cannot possibly capture the nuances of language used by our 20th century presidents. There is a great difference between hearing a president's actual words and having them read from transcripts. However, the content of the book and audiotapes provide a facinating glimpse inside the oval office.



5. This is a terrific book and rewards the reader with insight into the modern presidency. It talks about each President's strengths and how each of them got themselves into trouble and it illustrates its points using each President's own words. Because it is less than 400 pages long it is hard for Doyle to support all the claims he makes, but it is still worth reading. More than that, it is worth owning and re-reading. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is that I think the book could have gone a bit deeper into each presidency without adding too much length. It was just a bit too much this side of a tourist's guide to each presidency.

   But there are so many wonderful and new insights that I feel guilty for not giving it five stars. So, if you want, just imagine that I did give it the full five with this little caveat.

5 comments about Castro, el desleal (Castro the Deceitful).

1. Un libro muy interesante donde se aprende mucho sobre la vida de Fidel Castro, todo el que le interese el caso de Cuba debe de leer este libro.



2. El autor ha hecho un excelente trabajo en destruir la trayectoria de Castro. No se escribe nada de toda la interrelación entre Castro y toda la historia actual. Nada de eso. Para mi que el autor no tíene ningun conocimiento al respecto. Tiene que pagar sus deudas, o la editorial. Solo expresa la historia de Castro y ciertas personas, Camilo, el Che, etcétera.
   
   Esta no es una biografía justa ni imparcial. No tiene valor lo que ha escrito el autor. No tiene absolutamente ningun valor.
   
   Las dos estrellas son por el capítulo de Oswald, ese solo vale lo que pague.



3. The book could say as much as the author wants about Fidel's invented private life,
   but does not reflect the interest of the people on the fact of the impact of the cuban revolution for the entire world. If you would like to waste your time thinking that just because you don't have your Coca-Cola life is miserable, and don't see beyond this subterfuge this could be a great book. For those that believe in the will of humanity to make this world better for the common well-being and believe that reality doesn't come in an Idiot Box (tv), there's better books out there, beginning with "Yo, Fidel Castro. Biografia a dos voces" by I. Ramonet.
   
   This book is a shame that only shows the immaturity and selfishness of the author.



4. This is the first book to nail down precisely Castro's early background and its enduring influences on the dictator's tendencies and insecurities. This carefully researched work provides photocopies of baptism, name change, and marriage documents. Since publication of the book in 2003, these records have disappeared in Cuba and several "official" versions of Castro's background were commissioned out of Cuba attempting to confuse the facts and spin Castro's versions of his childhood and his parents.
   
   Raffy's book describes the elder (Angel) Castro's extramarital relations with a 14-year-old house servant, Lina Ruz, Fidel's mother. Lina Ruz was nearly 40 years younger than Angel Castro at the time she became pregnant with the first of six illegitimate children. The book explores in detail Castro's illegitimacy, his baptism as a 6-year-old as Fidel Ruz (children in Catholic nations typically are baptized shortly after birth, using their father's surname), his subsequent name change at age 17 (when he also added "Alejandro" as a middle name, after reading about Alexander the Great in school, and listing Castro as his surname) and subsequent recognition by his father. Amazingly, all previous biographers missed all of these facts, unquestioningly reporting what Castro had fed them about his childhood.
   
   Just for the childhood sections, this book is worth it.



5. TO all readers all across the world go ahead and buy your self the book of Ignacio Ramonet Cien Horas con Fidel.....That's a biography!

2 comments about Some of Us: Chinese Women Growing Up in the Mao Era.

1. I picked up this book from my local public library solely on the basis of its title, but I was very pleasantly surprised once I started reading it. This book is a collection of autobiographical essays written by Chinese-American women who are now teaching at universities in the United States. All of the essays examine the authors' experiences growing up in China during the Cultural Revolution from a feminist perspective. The introduction makes it clear that the authors were motivated by a desire to go beyond the standard (at least in the U.S. and Europe) version of the Cultural Revolution as a period of complete chaos, despair, and oppression. Instead, the authors write about the many ways they felt, often including senses of empowerment, freedom, and creativity.
   
   This book is quite straight-forward and does not require anything more than a general knowledge of modern Chinese history and maybe a tiny bit of familiarity with feminist theory (for the introduction).



2. The American market has been flooded with memoirs from the Mao era that present this time, especially the Cultural Revolution years, as a purely dark, depraved, and tragic age with nothing but victims and victimizers, inhumanity, cruelty, and sexual repression. The editors of this volume, in their probing introductory essay, have no quarrel with these individuals representing their tragic experiences through memoirs, but do take issue with the assumption that many Westerners (and in some cases the authors of these other memoirs) take for granted, that is, that these victim/victimizer memoirs speak for all Chinese women who grew up in this era. The authors of these nine chapter length memoirs grew up in big cities in China during the Mao era, and all have gone on to PhDs and American professorships. While they note that this makes themselves unrepresentative in a sense, they are representative in that the vast majority of urban women were never victims or victimizers during the Cultural Revolution. These authors have both good and bad memories, were both harmed and empowered by the state's official ideology, and experienced personal growth.

   One of the authors mentions that American friends act almost disappointed when she tells them she has no personal horror story to share. The editors mention a revealing anecdote from an American academic conference in 1999 titled "Memory and Cultural Revolution". During the Q&A session, someone said that their memory of the period did not coincide with the panel's wholly gloomy and tragic view, rather they recalled a high and youthful spirit, and that they were neither victim nor victimizer. The chair of the panel condescendingly dismissed this by saying that some Holocaust survivors are nostalgic for their camp days too. Thus, no more time needed to be wasted on such invalid memories, and the panel moved on with their discussion of politically correct memory. These authors simply want to add their experiences, and their astute and balanced analysis into the mix.

   All nine memoirs are high quality and raise our understanding of what it was like for an average girl/young woman in urban China in the 1960s-70s, and they raise important philosophical and sociological questions about gender. Many are moving while always avoiding pretentiousness. Moments of humor are common. Horror story memoirs are sadly true, but the other reality is people laughed, children played, parents and children argued and bonded, adults gossiped, youth aspired, friendships formed, people worked, students studied (usually), performers performed, farmers farmed, and ordinary people lived their lives. These memoirs, being full of rich, colorful details of family and neighborhood life, increase our knowledge of Chinese culture as well as the Cultural Revolution.

   Here is a brief description of each memoir. This by no means does them justice.

   Naihua Zhang -- "In a World Together Yet Apart: Urban and Rural Women Coming of Age in the Seventies" -- tells a moving story of life long bonds formed with 2 rural young women after being sent to the countryside.

   Wang Zheng -- "Call Me 'Qingnian' But Not 'Funu': A Maoist Youth in Retrospect" -- shares rich details of her happy childhood during the CR, then applies her scholarly expertise (women's studies) to her own life coming of age as a young woman in a time of empowering feminist ideology, yet continuing influence of older cultural assumptions about gender. Insights abound.

   Xiaomei Chen -- "From 'Lighthouse' to the Northeast Wilderness: Growing Up Among the Ordinary Stars" -- was the daughter of two elite theatre stars who were persecuted during the CR. She nevertheless had a "happy, even exhilarating childhood, though I was not spared growing pains", including a sent-down experience where she got to understand ordinary people in the countryside via work as a reporter.

   Bai Di -- "My Wandering Years in the Cultural Revolution: The Interplay of Political Discourse and Personal Articulation" -- Bai, who is from Harbin in northern China, discusses, among other things, how the CR impacted the parent-child dynamics of households in her neighborhood.

   Jiang Jin -- "Times Have Changed, Men and Women are the Same" -- was the daughter of Shanghai intellectuals, a red guard, a sent down youth, a university student, and now a historian in the US. Inspired by her parents, especially her liberated mother, and using their private library of classics, she aimed to "read 10,000 books, travel 10,000 miles [for true knowledge]", a Chinese expression.

   Lihua Wang -- "Gender Consciousness in My Teen Years" -- discusses her evolving perceptions and consciousness as a female worker (and later college) who ultimately realizes her aspiration of being an educated independent person who contributes to society while finding self-fulfillment.

   Xueping Zhong -- "Between 'Lixiang' and Childhood Dreams: Back from the Future to the Nearly Forgotten Yesteryears" -- from Shanghai, whose parents instilled in her a love of learning early on; her mother pushing her to model herself after great intellectuals in history, like the author of _Dream of the Red Mansion_, Cao Xueqin. She did in fact follow the CR trend of rebellion, studying hard for college while others were not. Throughout, the conflict and harmony between lixiang [ideals] and personal aspirations are discussed thoughtfully.

   Zhang Zhen -- "Production of Senses in and out of the 'Everlasting Auspicious Lane': Shanghai 1966-1976" -- a Cinema Studies scholar at NYU today, discusses her unique neighborhood, her childhood love of films and literature, her amateur performance experiences, and intellectual maturation.

   Yanmei Wei -- "'Congratulations, It's a Girl!' Gender and Identity in Mao's China" -- the only one of these memoirs of someone who grew up mostly in the post-Mao era, which makes for an interesting point of comparison with the others. Expectations of female behavior evolved, but with some continuities too.

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5 comments about John Fitzgerald Kennedy: A Life In Pictures.

1. This is a great picture book. I have almost every Kennedy family picture book available. I just happen to come across it in a bookstore near my home. I paid $19.99 for it, pretty good price. You can get here for about $16-17 but remember you have to pay shipping. So it comes out to more but it is soo worth it. When you are going through these pics its like being taken back in time. I'm pretty young my mom was born in 1957 so she was about Caroline's age when these pics were taken.



2. I highly recommend this book, primarily for the great picutures of JFK. This 40th anniversary volume succeeds in presenting many rare and never-before-seen photos. I especially like the ones depicting Secret Service agent Gerald Blaine on the rear of the limousine in Italy 7/63. Get this!
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3. "John Fitzgerald Kennedy:A Life in Pictures"is a great way to remember President Kennedy.I'm a young,strong admirer of President Kennedy,and not only are there great pictures of Kennedy,there is a biography of Kennedy with speeches he made,including the speech he was going to make on November 22,1963.The best pictures are of Kennedy with Herbert Hoover and a picture of Jack Kennedy with his daughter Caroline and his niece Maria Shriver.I have seen a bunch of great Kennedy photos,and if you ever want the best Kennedy photo,buy Robert Stack's autobiography "Straight Shooting"and see the picture of Stack and Kennedy. "John Fitzgerald Kennedy:A Life In Pictures"is a must read for all Kennedy fans and even all non-Kennedy fans.



4. This collection of over 300 pages of the usual suspected photographs, as well as many unseen or rare ones, was published to commemorate the passing of 40 years since our 35th President was vicously cut down in his prime.

   The layout of the photographs is great. You see JFK throughout his life, from childhood, to Presidencey and every passing moment between. The photos are powerful, moving, show glamour and fun, you see a politician throughout his political career, you see a loving father, son, brother and husband. I have had quite a few photo books on JFk, but this is by far the best and most desirable one I have seen.

   This photograph book would make a wonderful and truly appriciated gift for anyone who has any respect, love or interest in JFK. My sister is a huge JFK fan, she had a bust of him on our dresser growing up.

   The price on Amazon, is as always, unbeatable. I saw this at a bookstore tonight for the full price.




5. It is a great book !
   Although I am not a "Kennedy fan", I have to admit these pictures are awsome. Over 300 pages of dream, glamour, fashion, history & photography.
   It is not a political testimony, just a tribute to one of the most famous icons ever.
   My advice ? THE perfect Xmast gift!!

No comments about Theodore Roosevelt and World Order: Police Power in International Relations.