5 comments about The Real George Washington (American Classic Series).

1. Having read all 3 books in this series, the Real George Washington is the longest and most comprehensive. This book, naturally, focuses more on the revolutionary war than the politics of independence. The great thing about these books is that they let you read our founders actual words instead of the twisted version of history presented by academia & popular culture. These men had more courage, humility and wisdom than pretty much anyone I can think of. We own them a debt of gratitude for what they sacrificed for us. Highly recommend reading all 3.



2. A must read for every American! I loved this book. It gave me the whole story behind the founding of the USA, and cleared up a lot of the questionable items found in abridged history books. Every HS/College student should read this book.



3. After reading just the first part of this book, to the point where young George gets his first military command, I cannot read further as it is an obvious revision of history in order to distort the fact that Gorge Washington was a Christian. Despite the fact, proven through numerous documents, and thru Mr. Washington's own writings, that he was a Christian, this book purposely voids all traces of this from this story. Shame on the author for this as the very fact that Mr. Washington was a practicing Christian is a very powerful part of his story. Shame on the author for promoting distorted truths as facts. Shame on the author for declaring his book as "The Real George Washington" as it is NOT! I do not recommend this book to anyone.
   
   I would have liked to have been warned, before I purchased this book, that it was written by a history revisionist in order to fit current secular humanist religius philosophy.



4. This book should be required reading for all high school students and all American citizens, for that matter. It reveals what a true and brave hero George Washington was as a General, but also what an incredibly good man he was as a person. This book gave me a real appreciation for the tremendous cost of our free country. When you read the book you will come to understand that there are so many times when things could have happened just a little differently and the USA would never have been born! It's a very thick book, but the last third of it or so is references and extra stuff. Please read this and then give it to someone else to read!



5. This is book was a pleasant surprise. I recently finished reading His Excellency by Joseph J. Ellis and was let down, I don't recommend it. Ellis' work is sterile and cynical. It accentuates Washington's flaws, and makes a point of deconstructing one of our nations heroes. I wanted a book with all the information but without the agenda. I didn't want the author to stand out more than the subject. I found what I wanted in The real George Washington.
   It's a large volume, over 900 pgs. (The last 300pgs or so are texts and excerpts written by Washington himself) but the book isn't unwieldy. It's thick, but not the dictionary-size I thought it would be, it's about 8 x5 inches, a perfect size for easy reading. The text is on the large side and there are paintings, maps and letters scattered throughout. It ended up being a very quick read.

5 comments about New Deal or Raw Deal?: How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America.

1. Some good information, but written from such an obvious point of view that it detracts overall. I much prefer Amity Schlaes' "The Forgotten Man" or Joshus Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism"



2. A great book for everyone interested in history or economics. This should be required reading for everyone in Congress!



3. Our whole lives we've lived thinking black is black and white is white. as we get older most of us hope that people start seeing the grays and the blends... but now, in this age, a growing portion of the population are becoming quite, quite disturbed... claiming black to be white and white to be black. And there is no room for discussion. You must now understand that all attempts by anyone from the past to make humanity a little more humane, or to wrest some control away from power and put it in the hands of labor, or just to have say in our own destiny... well, turns out that is pure evil. we have begun a time where good is evil, and evil is good.
   We are doomed, and if we can do no better... than good riddance to us.



4. I am convinced that most of those leaving one-star reviews have not read this book, but were grinding their own ideological axe. Note that I used the word "balanced" in the review title. Folsom presents all sides of the issue and does not hesitate to give FDR credit for those programs that actually worked; reducing tariffs and the bank holiday among them. He also lets FDR off the hook where he (Folsom) is admittedly benefiting from 20/20 hindsight. I think what irks the FDR worshipers is that this book lifts the veil most historians place around FDR and his presidency.
   
   Folsom's work is thoroughly researched. And he benefits enormously (as does the reader!) from personal accounts of those closest to FDR. Those very people kept their allegiance to the President while he was alive, but who also recognized their duty to history once he was gone. The accounts from their personal recollections, journals and other writings give a true insider's look into FDR's administration.
   
   I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in American history, regardless of personal politics. For those under 30 it should be mandatory reading, as I doubt you were taught much about the depression of the 1930s ... other than the myth that FDR alone saved the nation. It should also be mandatory reading for all elected officials and government employees. The only thing scarier than some of the policies detailed in this book, is that we seem to be ready to repeat history.



5. This Book is an eye opener. It explains a lot of things that go on in government today. FDR was not as much trying to be president he as he was trying to be a dictator!

5 comments about The Real Thomas Jefferson (American Classic Series) (American Classics Ser.).

1. Wow what a wonderful book on T. Jefferson!! This book should be required reading in all of our schools. It is hard to believe that one man could accomplish all this man did! It is mind blowing! A must read for anyone going to the Lincoln Memorial to meet Glenn Beck and Company August 28, 2010. Restores your faith in what this country could be again.



2. Thomas Jefferson book was basic interview reading. The outling and meaning section was helpful to review. I would recommend this to start research and go to other more detailed material on the subject matter you choose.



3. Haven't been able to read this yet, but I've heard great things about it. It was easy to find and order and was shipped fast. I love the free shipping!



4. Anything carrying the National Center for Constitutional Studies (NCCS) label is bound to be excellent. The Real Thomas Jefferson is no exception. It so well presented that you actually feel his presence as you read. Along with The Real Benjamin Franklin, The Real George Washington, The 5000 Year Leap, *** this is a wonderful way learn U.S.History as well as to get to know the man, Thomas Jefferson, as he was.



5. This should be required reading for all, starting as young as possible. Read it and educate your children and other family members. This series presents the subjects in an honest way that isn't twisted by time. Look for all their books including the ones on Ben Franklin and George Washington and see what god-gifted and god-fearing men our founding fathers truly were.

5 comments about Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.

1. Received item in a very timely manner...would certainly recommend this seller to others...keep up the good work! God's blessings and prosperity to you!



2. Doris Kearns Goodwin has shown again why she is one of the greatest historians of this generation. I understand the scandals that have arisen about possible plagiarism, but Kearns Goodwin writes great history. In this book, she not only gives detailed stories of the lives of these great men and their families. She also probes the motivation of the men who are the characters in the book and the issues that controlled the political climate of the period from 1840 to 1860.
   But Kearns Goodwin gives us much more even than this. She takes you to the era about which she writes. She tells you what clothes were being worn, what was for sale in the stores, how influential newspapers of the time were and how dirty train rides were.
   Pick up this book and take yourself back to the 1850s and live the lives these great men lived.



3. 
   After Reading Gore Vidal's Lincoln, for the second time, I yearned to read more. I wanted to read more on Lincoln's Presidency including some of the people around him especially, Salmon Chase, William Seward,Edwin Stanton and lessor known characters as Kate Chase,John Hay and John Nicolay.
   
   I found Team of Rivals a brilliant read on the Presidency and had no trouble in devouring the whole book.
   
   The characteristic that impressed me the most, was Lincoln's refusal to carry grudges against those who opposed him and in many cases won them over to his side to help him achieve his goals in carrying him all the way to the Presidency.
   
   Lincoln had a very strong belief in himself that allowed him to pick the very best men for his cabinet, to withstand the pressures of a divided political party and to carry on a war that for a very long time contained one reversal after another, and not least of all a wife that didnot know when to stop spending, and with all of this a death of a beloved son.
   
   I found the details in the book were very informative and enteresting and were not a hinderance as some have suggested. Highly reccomended



4. A pantheon such as Abraham Lincoln and his presidential term(s) have been scrutinized and considered in uncountable written and spoken works. The trick then for any author wishing to undertake a new study is to find a fresh angle or (at best) unearth previously undiscovered and revelatory documents. Doris Kearns Goodwin chooses the former as she expertly exposes the Lincoln presidency as one which had a politically savvy, but initially overly antagonistic cabinet, which Lincoln must then manage while exhorting his administration to follow his leadership. In fact, the overriding point with this superb narrative is Goodwin extoling the seemingly limitless political acumen of Lincoln while he oversees a time in American history as crucial as any before or since.
   
   Crucial members of his administration are profiled here, providing the reader with a unique, sort of "back-door" look at the Lincoln presidency. We see how the personalities of Edward Bates (Attorney General), Simon Cameron (Secretary of War), William Seward (Secretary of State), Gideon Wells (Secretary of the Navy) and Salmon Chase (Secretary of the Treasury) are generally elitist in nature and condescending to Lincoln in particular while initially being astounded that such a seemingly torpid character could become president. Asked to then participate in the administration in cabinet level positions, they almost collectively see their role as administering and reigning over the government while Lincoln serves largely as a figurehead. Goodwin's mastery here is showing the slow evolvement of Lincoln's ability to form a cohesive advisory body while applying his heretofore unseen political prowess in managing the government in an ever broadening crisis that threatens separation of the Union.
   
   He takes office and is immediately faced with increasing southern secessionism and forced to take action to maintain the Union. The start of and subsequent prosecution of the Civil War absorbs his administration...Goodwin provides a dissecting view of the war from the government's perspective and shows again and again how Lincoln is adept at taking and managing one crisis after another. Topics such as his inserting himself into the war strategic effort where he recognizes the ineffectiveness of George McClellan, the dismissal of Cameron as Secretary of War with the brilliant decision to insert Edwin Stanton in his place and his administering of domestic policy to meet the war effort are given a fascinating review by Goodwin that goes far in further amplifying Lincoln's stature as a great executive. He finds an obscure general in Ulysses Grant and inserts him as commander of the war effort... another prescient decision that accelerates the conclusion of the war. All this while continuing to build strong and ever growing loyalties among his partisans forcing them (with the exception of Chase who continues to vehemently disagree and disparage Lincoln) to reconsider their initial perceptions of him and his leadership capabilities. Goodwin is overwhelmingly illustrative of the forming of these ties and the deep personal affection that each cabinet member thus renders.
   
   The denouement of the war and Lincoln's assassination with the subsequent actions of the government, particularly Stanton, are the highlights of the book. We see the heart wrenching outpouring of affection and respect from the American public and the administration as all recognize that a great leader is no longer among us. The disarray that follows Lincoln's death is certified when Andrew Johnson takes office and we see how his southern leaning tendencies is the arbiter of a long and unnecessarily drawn out reconstruction effort...Goodwin compares this with how Lincoln may have handled reconstruction and determines that a much more compassionate and reasoned effort would have most assuredly ensued.
   
   There are a surprising number of authors of historical biographies that are criticized for deification of their subject...and true, some of these paint their character study in an unreasonable light, but not so with this magnificent investigation of the Lincoln presidency by Doris Goodwin. An estimable scrutiny of his political faculty integrated with a marvelous historical narrative, Goodwin makes Lincoln "hero worship" chic while dispassionate at the same time, a tough combination. Highest recommendation. .



5. Team of Rivals is a sparkling history by anecdote. Kearns is a masterful writer, and the book puts the breath of life into her subjects.
   
   Her theme is best summed up by the remarks of Lincoln's contemporaries, quoted on page 572 of the hardback edition:
   
   "Herein, Swett concluded, lay the secret to Lincoln's gifted leadership. 'It was by ignoring men, and ignoring all small causes, but by closely calculating the tendencies of events and the great forces which were producing logical results.' John Forney of the Washington Daily Chronical observed the same intuitive judgment and timing, arguing that Lincoln was 'the most progressive man of the age, not waiting to be dragged by the force of events or wasting strength in premature struggles with them.'"
   
   As far as the story of a man always guided by principle--in Lincoln's last battle, to ramrod the Thirteenth Amendment through Congress--Kearns shows Lincoln twisting arms, dangling emollients and largess before its opponents, and dissembling if not outright lying--to successfully obtain its passage. Clearly Lincoln could be savagely expedient, despite being guided by an unswerving moral compass.
   
   But although she is always eager to burnish Honest Abe's reputation when it is clearly earned--Kearns is strangely silent on this account. This is not to dismiss the book as hagiography, but simply to point out that it is not entirely even in its judgments.

5 comments about The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America.

1. The Harvard Psychedelic Club tells how three brilliance scholars and one freshman crossed paths in the early sixties at a Harvard psychedelic-drug research project - and changed American lives and culture. The four explored expanded consciousness and their actions set the stage for the 1960s social and spiritual revolution, with Timothy Leary as the proponent of LSD, Richard Alpert the spiritual seeker, Huston Smith the teacher of world religions, and Andrew Weil the proponent of alternative healing. Any collection strong in American social history and issues needs this.



2. Self-Promotion Pays! Or 'How the Self Promoters Write History'. That might be the title of a book I'll never have time to write.
   
   The four central personages of "The Harvard Psychedelic Club" were and still are among the most ardent self-promoters of modern times, as author Don Lattin sporadically discloses. Huston Smith, whom Lattin calls "the teacher"; Richard Alpert, "the seeker'; Timothy Leary, "the trickster"; and Andrew Weil, "the healer" are all portrayed by Lattin as deeply flawed individuals -- and that's accurate enough -- as highly influential personages -- and that's certainly true, as far as it goes -- and as Shiva-like meldings of destruction and creation. The extent of their megalomania is obvious, but when the original Narcissus stared at his reflection in the still pool, perhaps the face he beheld was truly as handsome as he thought. Lattin himself is of an age, of the `baby boomer' generation, to have been impacted by the activities of all four. In researching this book, he interviewed three of them (Leary is dead), as well as many of their families and associates. He plainly reveres three of them, and keeps a window open for reverence along with disapprobation for the fourth. He doesn't beatify them, however. Given the record of their personal lives, beatification would be utter fantasy.
   
   But there was no "Harvard Psychedelic Club" in an explicit organizational sense. Lattin's use of this disingenuous title for his book is purely an opportunistic publisher's ploy to sensationalize the subject and to cash in on the iconic status of Harvard University in American culture. Really, this is a `group biography' of the four persons mentioned. All of them were active at Harvard in the early 1960s -- I was there also and knew three of them fairly well, especially my classmate Andy Weil -- but les than a third of the book examines their `conjunction' at Harvard. The bulk of the text pursues their much longer later careers, through the decades of the `70s and `80s right up to the present.
   
   In the `Afterword' of the book, Lattin declares: "This book was not about me..." That may be the most inaccurate statement in the whole text. In fact, the whole book is implicitly about Lattin, about his perception of the affect these four men and the `movement' associated with their names had on his life. Lattin is narcissist enough to consider his own life as emblematic of his generation, of the flower children baby boomers now approaching the stage of lif when `memoirs' seem suitable. Like most baby boomers, Lattin sees himself as a `majority' phenomenon, a perspective that limits the authenticity of his research and the perspicacity of his book. He's a journalist; you won't be able to ignore that fact as you read his jaunty pop prose. At his worst, he's glib. His special niche as a journalist is important; he's the `religion' writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. "Spirituality is his bag," as one of his boomer peers might express it. He freely admits as much. He also admits, in his Afterword, his own extensive use of psychedelics and his neverending `search' for spiritual enlightenment, for some kind of vision of a Power controlling human life and afterlife.
   
   It's the "spiritual quests" of his four subjects than intertwines their lives, in Lattin's account of them. A Freudian biographer might have found their diverse sexual quests central, but Lattin treats their misbehaviors as peripheral to the Big Quest. With these four guys, he may be right. Where he goes amiss or amok, in my opinion, is when he defines his entire generation in the same terms, as spiritually restless and needy. Undoubtably, a portion of the generation - a cadre of hippydom - were `seekers' ready to tread in the footprints of Alpert or Smith, but they were not even a plurality. Remember the film "Forrest Gump"? The `retarded' Gump represented his generation's obsessions in his serial adventures. Civil rights, anti-war, sexual freedom, non-conformity, `healthy' living, and environmentalism were all formidable obsessions of the generation, but they are scarcely mentioned amid Lattin's account of the religious hunger that he considers the initiation rite into his Psychedelic Club.
   
   I'm not a baby boomer. I'm a few years too old, born before Pearl Harbor. Really, Mr. Lattin, all of us who entered Harvard in 1960 were too old to be boomers or hippies. If we arrived at Harvard Yard with any counter-culture predilections, they were based on the Beats and the Beach Boys, on Jack Kerouac in particular, and on the hedonistic rebelliousness of California. Kerouac isn't mentioned in "The Harvard Psychedelic Club." Neither are the Beach Boys or, for that matter, any of `rock `n roll'. By Lattin's account, everything began with The Jefferson Airplane. The California cohort at Harvard in the years 1960-1964 came with more experience of mescaline and peyote than Tim Leary at the time. Many of "us' had already discarded drug-fueld mysticism for the more earnest struggle to `fix' our society. Harvard in the early `60s was afire with social protest, with demonstrations against HUAC and lingering McCarthyism, with freedom-riding and lunch-counter sit-ins, with resistance to thecolonialist boycott of Cuba and the limitation of passport freeodms, above all with opposition to the shameful Cold War `business' in Vietnam and the Draft. I was part of all those movements during my Harvard years, and I still consider them the defining experiences of my class ('64). Leary and Alpert? We all knew about them, and considered them a minor diversion. Andy Weil? One of those self-important Crimson editors. Weil's reportage in the Crimson did indeed contribute to the expulsion of Leary and Alpert from their faculty positions in 1963, but believe me, that was `on the docket' anyway. Weil's lifelong `guilt' about his role in the downfall of the (non-existant) Harvard Psychedelic Club is a bit ludicrous; as usual, Weil exaggerates his own importance.
   
   There were most certainly drugs available at Harvard in the 1960s - marijuana, hashish, peyote, laboratory mescaline - though they were used by only a small percentage of the undergraduates. Alcohol was the mind-blower of choice for most. Those drugs were all available at the high school in California from which I happened to graduate (I attended that school very briefly, one of seven high schools I passed through, in four different states). It was the California cohort of my class that brought the Beat Generation to Harvard, and the mind-altering drugs along with it. Allen Ginsburg was there, hanging out with Tim Leary at times, but I'm the guy who brought Kerouac to Harvard. Literally. In the flesh. I staged his two public readings at Memorial Hall. I sat with him at Lowell House High Table, the snooty bastion of Boston Brahminism, and interpreted his chaotic comments to Headmaster Elliot Perkins.
   
   I mention all this in reference to the principal shortcoming of Dan Lattin's literary effort: its partiality to a `post hoc ergo propter hoc' assessment of the milieu, and its dishonesty by omissions. Notice please the subtitle of Lattin's book: "How Timoth Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America." Sorry, Dan. That's not the whole story after all.



3. Very easy and enjoyable book. Gives reader an idea of what went on behind the scenes during the drug revolution.



4. Lattin's view of the events surrounding the birth of the psychedelic adventure in contemporary america is pretty parochial. Better to go to the source and read Leary's autobiography Flashbacks. It's funny and extremely engaged in the story...on the ground as it were.



5. When I first saw The Harvard Psychedelic Club by Don Lattin., I thought, "OH, NO! Not another reshash of old hash. Give us a break!" The "club" or course, was not an actual social organization, but Lattin's metaphor for how his four main characters interwove their lives.
   
   
   
   However, I was greatly surprised, informed, and entertained by Club. Lattin is a lively, skilled story-teller and adds details, especially interpersonal ones, that have been missing so far as I know. His four members of the club are Ram Dass, Leary, Andrew Weil, and Huston Smith. While Smith was not so active in the club as the other three, thanks to his international renown, his Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals may turn out to be the most influential psychedelic book in religion. Including Smith may show Lattin's interest as a former religion writer too.
   
   
   
   This quartet, according to Lattin, "did nothing less than inspire a generation of Americans to redefine the nature of reality" (p. 214) and their historical importance "is not so much any particular vision, but the very process of envisioning: (p. 215).
   
   
   
   Lattin is clear that he "recreates" his numerous dialogues, and in the front matter says when possible he checked his reconstructions with at least one person who took part in the various conversations.
   
   
   
   I do strongly recommend The Harvard Psychedelic Club as a window into personality sketches of four significant people of the times, their interactions, and their continuing influence into this century.
   
   
   
   Tom Roberts
   (Ed)Psychedelic Medicine Psychedelic Medicine [Two Volumes]: New Evidence for Hallucinogenic Substances as Treatments
   Psychedelic Horizons Psychedelic Horizons (Societas)
   Psychoactive Sacramentals: Essays on Entheogens and Religion (The Csp Entheogen Project Series, 3)

5 comments about Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer (P.S.).

1. The book MANHUNT, the 12 Days of Chasing Lincoln's Killers was fasinating. This book opened my eyes as to how the manhunt for John Wilkes Booth took place and how it was ended. This is a must for any Lincoln reader.



2. Bought this book for my father and he really enjoyed it- he's a big big history buff, generally the only books he prefers so, his outlook on any book is a very high review.



3. Saw this book at the Newsmuseum in DC. This is an excellent reading to any historian and Lincoln buff. Easy reading and hard to put down until the end. Reading this book fits in as a good supplement to Team of Rivals and also stirs interest to those who know the haunts of DC. I've learned a lot of historical facts tha I never heard of before. The price was right from Amazon.com.



4. For everything historians know about Lincoln and that history teachers teach us about the President, seldom is said in the classroom about Booth. This book is amazing and really details the chase of Booth. I really enjoyed it and recommend it highly for anyone who is interested in Lincoln.



5. Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer was published in 2006 by James L. Swanson, and became a bestseller. Not only did it capture the imagination of Abraham Lincoln fans, but that of the general public as well.
   
   Manhunt has been a phenomenal success for its author, James L. Swanson, a practicing attorney in Washington DC and a long time collector of Lincoln memorabilia. In Manhunt he traces the path of John Wilkes Booth, then a well known actor and now the notorious assassin of Abraham Lincoln. The book takes us on a fascinating journey from the final preparations and carrying out of the assassination, through the escape from Washington DC, the travails of moving and hiding on a leg broken in the leap to the stage, and Booth's eventual cornering and killing 12 days later. Swanson writes brilliantly and the book reads like a novel as we see and hear the characters that assisted Booth and his accomplish Herold, from the famous Dr. Mudd to the lesser know Thomas Jones. Excerpts from Booths diary fill in the thoughts of the assassin himself.
   
   I highly recommend it. Watch for the movie to be released in 2011, and a follow up book on the chase for Jefferson Davis coming up April of this year.

5 comments about Pulitzer: A Life in Politics, Print, and Power.

1. This book is fascinating on so many levels. It's a great chronicle of an important part of American history -- the birth of mass media. It's a compelling portrait of a media giant who rivaled Hearst and Howard Hughes in his eccentricities. And it's a classic American Dream tale. I highly recommend this biography!



2. "I don't care a damn how ugly he makes me, but he shouldn't misrepresent me," Joseph Pulitzer once told a sculptor working on his likeness. "There are elements of romance and tragedy." And so there are, aplenty, in this wonderful, compulsively readable biography. James McGrath Morris captures the romance and tragedy of Pulitzer's life, his era, and his profession. This is truly an American rags-to-riches story: A Hungarian immigrant, Pulitzer made his way to this country as a mercenary. After a short stint at soldiering, he ended up sleeping in doorways, shoveling coal, and tending mules. He taught himself English in the St. Louis Mercantile Library, got a toehold at a German-language newspaper, and never looked back. At times, I felt like I was reading a novel by Edith Wharton or Henry James, from the description of the glittering "Patriarch's Ball" at Delmonico's on 5th Avenue (and ostentatious parties where hosts wrap gold bracelets in their guests' dinner napkins) to darker passages dealing with the open antisemitism directed at Pulitzer and his newspapers.
   
   But this is not only an outstanding portrait of the time. The author has uncovered extraordinary new materials, and he offers a nuanced and complex account of Pulitzer's bruising battles with Teddy Roosevelt and what the publisher himself called "that so-called militarism." As this country picks up the pieces after yet another foreign war championed by the media--newspapers included--an understanding of this episode is not only fascinating; it is essential.



3. In the style of Ron Chernow and Jeane Strouse, James McGrath Morris has provided a robust and sterling account of one of the most important, yet very complicated giants in American history. In the hands of this sublime biographer the tale of Hungarian-born Joseph Pulitzer leaps in grand fashion from each page as we follow Pulitzer across the Atlantic in 1864 and then are whisked through a life that saw its fair share of triumphs and tragedies. While most people know of the award that bears his name, readers will find on these pages that Pulitzer was more than a newspaperman turned mogul, a man driven with ambition to whatever endeavor or cause he pursued. Utilizing sources never before mined Morris literally fleshes out the life of Pulitzer not only within the context of his times but with a nuanced and balanced portrait of Pulitzer the mortal, a man who could easily turn on the charm, win your trust, but could also be a nefarious liar. Chronicling his ascent to power and fame in the arena of nascent modern journalism readers will no doubt have mixed emotions as Puiltzer descends into severe neurosis and lonliness, making his life all the more tragic. A must read, PULITZER: A LIFE IN POLITICS, PRINT, AND POWER, belongs alongside the recent monumental biographies that have been penned about the pantheon of greats including J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Cornelius Vanderbilt.



4. After the gripping ROSE MAN OF SING SING, James McGrath Morris's previous book, I wondered who he would tackle next. What subject could be more fascinating than Charles Chapin (the titular "rose man") for professional accomplishment, personal psychodrama, and narrative scope?
   
   The answer: Joseph Pulitzer.
   
   The result: defintive.
   
   Simply put, this is everything a biography should be: scrupulously researched, consistently readable, with a subject fully deserving of such sustained attention.
   
   My only question now, Mr. Morris: who's next?



5. If you enjoy biography and history, this book will provide you with days of pure pleasure. Morris not only makes the reader feel as if he is a bystander at the events described, but also gives real insight into the political and social environment of the times. And what a time it was. Wild machinations in politics and society and the evolution of Pulitzer into a certifiable neurotic madman, fantastically wealthy, controlling his family and newspaper employees from his increasingly cloistered life on yachts and rented European mansions. A fantastic read.

5 comments about To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West.

1. Until I read this book I had only read mythological accounts of Billy the Kid, which usually contain nothing of Pat Garrett's life. Books and movies have mythologized Bill they Kid as a Robin Hood type, happy go lucky outlaw and Pat Garrett is demonized as a cowardly man who shot him down in the dark.
   
   This book dispels those myths and gives a fuller account of the lives of both these men in a well written and documented dual biography.
   
   The book walks through the early life of both men, with William Bonney's (Billy the Kid) being much more mysterious and unclear. He documents the Kid's rambling nature and his involvement in the Lincoln's County wars in New Mexico, where he comes off looking not quite as narcissistic and craven as one would think. It is clear that Bonney had little few skills except with his gun, which is the only way he could really make a living. His unbelievable, daring, and bloody escapes are even more dramatic than the movies that portray them. The author does an outstanding job at using what little documentary evidence exists to bring to life, real life, Billy the Kid.
   
   But the book also has done a great service to the ill fated Pat Garrett. I knew absolutely nothing about Garrett before reading this book and the author provides a very vivid, full biography of this misunderstood Western lawman. Far from the cowardly person often portrayed in the movies, he was a man of honor, kept his word (mostly), and was equally the epitome of the fearless, tough lawman as the more famous and renowned Wyatt Earp. He did fall on hard times and was a rather bad business man, which ultimately lead to his downfall and possibly murder. The author does a splendid job of exploring his life and the mysterious events surrounding his death.
   
   I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in the history of the American West that is not based on myth.



2. An excellent and very readable narrative of the lives of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett. Author Mark Gardner manages to capture the essence of both men in one book any reader can handle. I won't repeat the details of other reviewers, but even devotees of the saga can sink their teeth into the book. For those wanting to read more about this moment of wild west history, I highly recommend "The West of Billy the Kid" (or any of Frederick Nolan's books), "Such Men as Billy the Kid" by Joel Jacobsen, and "Billy the Kid" by Jon Tuska. Read and enjoy!



3. Mark Lee Gardner deserves high praise for "To Hell on a Fast Horse." He combines rich scholarship with a gifted storyteller's understanding of how to keep the audience's attention. What is amazing is the extent to which both Garrett and Billy the Kid emerge on the pages as human beings, rather than as one-dimensional heroes or villains. Indeed, the book appropriately ends with a fitting quotation from Walter Noble Burns (as recorded by Sallie Chisum in 1924): "I knew both these men intimately... and each made history in his own way. There was good mixed with the bad in Billy the Kid and bad mixed with the good in Pat Garrett. Both were distinctly human, both remarkable personalities." After reading this compelling book, you will feel as if you gain genuine insight into both men and their times, both the good and evil in it. The account of these violent businessmen and gunmen in multicultural New Mexico is
   
   Gardner's account of Garrett's post-Billy the Kid career also makes for fascinating, if also very sad, reading. For example, the rise and fall of his relationship with Theodore Roosevelt underscored Garrett's difficulty in dealing with his violent past and his personal vices. The book also highlights the role of the aggressively venal lawyer and politician Albert B. Fall as an opponent of Garrett. One wonders whether some of the evil lawyers portrayed in old western movies were based on Fall.
   
   All is all, this is a great book.



4. "To Hell on a Fast Horse" is a great read. While it doesn't offer up much new information it presents the already known in a very gripping, concise way. This is easily the best book since Utley's "Billy the Kid", maybe even surpassing it. Heresy? Maybe, but "To Hell on a Fast Horse" is a vast improvement on Utley's "Just the facts" writing style. The book is extremely fasted paced, sometimes too much so in that he flies through some events so fast that when they are referenced later you have already forgotten that they happened but that is but a quibble Gardner has a great story to tell and he tells it well. In terms of Billy and Pat Garrett, Gardner is very even-handed and if there is a central thesis of the book it is summed up nicely in a quote on the final page describing Billy being a bad man but containing some good and Garrett being a good man but containing some bad and that both men were worth knowing. Billy the Kid is, as always, something of an enigma but it is Pat Garrett who really comes into focus particularly in the final section describing Garrett's life after Billy's death and the near constant disappointments that the old law man had to endure. Billy the Kid is the legend but Pat Garrett is the tragedy- one image in particular is very moving- years after both men died Billy got a brand new monument to mark his much visited grave while Garrett's grave become over-grown with weeds. "To Hell on a Fast Horse" is a great, great read and is a new classic in the field of "Billy the Kid-olgy"(I made up that word but feel free to use it).
   
   Kevin



5. Though not a thoroughgoing newcomer to Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett (who is, thanks to Hollywood and popular culture?), this is the first nonfiction book on them that I've delved into, and I must say it's an engaging introduction to the topic. Gardner is a natural storyteller. Of course, he has some great material to work with, but he presents it ably and vividly. I was mildly disappointed that he chose not to use traditional numbered footnotes, which can make his notes -- which are rich and detailed -- difficult to navigate, especially if you're trying to pin down a specific quotation. I also wish there had been a greater effort to place this story in the big-picture context of the American West in general. But these are minor quibbles in a work that doesn't really aim for that kind of academic treatment. As popular history, this is solid reading.

5 comments about The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins, Social Security, Unemployment Insurance,.

1. This book was a fascinating "alternative view" of the FDR presidency and the programs we came to know as the New Deal. I say alternative view because so much more has been written regarding New Dealers Harry Hopkins, Raymond Moley, Henry Wallace, Louis Howe and even Lewis Douglas. It's ironic that Frances Perkins was the force behind Social Security, child labor laws, worker safety, minimum wage, unemployment compensation, the 40 hour work week and more but has been largely ignored by posterity. Some of this may have been her own fault. To be effective as a woman during that period, Frances Perkins often chose to research and understand a problem, then propose solutions that FDR and others could put forth as their own.
   
   Frances Perkins was born in 1880; a Mount Holyoke graduate, she was an anomoly based on her education. Not content to be an idle blue-stocking, she became involved in Hull House in Chicago and the settlement house movement. Her employment as an early social worker drove a wedge between her and her conservative New England family.
   
   She was a cabinet member for the entirety of FDR's presidency. She supported organized labor when labor didn't support her, understanding when few did, how organized labor helps a democratic society. She did these things and many more while staying in the background as much as possible. Hence the value of this book.
   
   Kirsten Downey did a good job in researching and writing this book. Biographies pose unique challenges to a writer and I found myself wondering if publication of this book was pushed forward to take advantage of the obvious analogies between FDR and Obama and the economic challenges that faced their administrations. There were multiple places where the writing seemed less than elegant and frankly, I attributed that to editing (or lack thereof).
   
   The book includes the challenges of her personal life which included a husband who suffered from bipolar disorder and a daughter who may also have suffered from mental illness and the economic necessity of working to support both. The book and several review alude to several possible lesbian relationships that Ms. Perkins may or may not have had. Given her deeply held religious beliefs and personal ethics, I'm dubious about her having a sexual relationship outside her marriage, regardless of the gender of the partner.
   
   I highly recommend this book. Perkins was a fascinating person. Amid all the other New Dealers jockeying for access to the President and posterity, Frances Perkins quietly instituted lasting programs that touch us today.



2. I like books that help me understand a time in history and this book tells about FDR's time in office from an interesting angle.
   
   I had never heard of Frances Perkins. She had a strong influence on FDR and much of what is now known as the "New Deal". I would strongly recommend this book as a most personal insight into FDR and his administration.



3. I received this book last night. Thought I would read just one or two chapters. Then, "well, just one more because the chapters are short." I have just finished the book. The author's style and the subject's presentation are spellbinding. If nothing else, easy-to-read history, but importantly, the author has captured the soul of a Spirit-filled American human being fulfilling a true "voca"/calling in the best sense. Thank you, Kirstin Downey.



4. Excellent book. You are left with a much better understanding of not only Ms Perkins but also the times and the people around her.



5. As an American History teacher high school teacher, all my texts include a sidebar, or mention of sorts, about Frances Perkins. This book exceeded all my expectations, and I found myself breathless (?) as I raced to read more! In fact, I almost had a sick feeling of what would have happened if I hadn't read this book, a kind of "near miss," for it is that good. For a history teacher of 20+ years, I count it in my top 5 books or educating me about a person's impact on history. Even after reading it, I went back and learned about how Downey sleuthed to find all the details about Perkins--a feat that allows us to understand an appreciate her subject's life.
   
   The pivotal role of Perkins' accomplishments begins with her ties to the suffrage movement and crusade for better labor laws--as she herself said--"I'd rather have laws than a union." It highlights her close relationship with Florence Kelley, but also the New York of Tamany Hall, and the ins and outs of Albany politics. She even witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist fire herself...then, later, she continues to press for changes in labor laws (a man's world) for women, and her particular crusade against child labor. Downey discusses Perkins' deep religiousness--how she prayed and pondered over the draftmanship of the Social Security proposal while in isolation at a priory. Do not blame Perkins for the state of Social Security today--for, as this book makes clear, it was an immediate lifesaver for millions of elderly Americans. She wanted to oversee it after she retired from the cabinet, but was not able to obtain the post. The background information of the causes of the Great Depression read very similar to what is occurring today, and Perkin's disappointment over the failure to produce some sort of national health care foreshadows our own current dialogue.
   Equally amazing is Francis Perkins teaching at Cornell into her eighties! And living in a sort of "frat house," as the only woman among young male students! I am glad that the book makes clear how Frances Perkins has been almost forgotten...and Downey has done a wonderful work here in assessing her importance. I, for one, am going to use a great deal of this information in my classroom next year and the years to come.

5 comments about The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt.

1. Wow! Small wonder why T. J. Stiles recently won the prestigious National Book Award for non-fiction for this epic saga-
   
   Vanderbilt, his life and times, embody America's coming of age after the Revolution and during the explosive birth of modern industry. Amazingly, Vanderbilt lived to 80+ and had all of his immensely-considerable faculties intact up to the very end. No other person had as much to do with the progress of our industrial revolution--Stiles also vividly shows how this one person, more than any other, was responsible for the birth and development of the modern corporate model, and stock/equity and bond financing, securities trading (from "shorting" to "cornering" markets and beyond)...
   
   Imagine: if Vanderbilt had been able to liquidate his fortune, he would have taken out of circulation one of every nine dollars in the US economy! (Stiles points out by way of comparison that if Bill Gates were to liquidate, he'd take out one of every $140 or so)-
   
   Here's Vanderbilt working his way up from very humble origins, by his own strength and wiles; gradually building the steamboat industry, which allowed movement of goods and people from one coast to another in a few weeks (the CA Gold Rush account and efforts to steam through Nicaragua or Panama are riveting)-
   
   Here's Vanderbilt begging to give the US govt for free his best ship to be adapted to take on the Confederacy's Merrimack...look, there's Vanderbilt getting interested in railroads, initially as a tie-in to steamship travel, ultimately as the new way of moving things and people from East to West in a day or two...over there, Vanderbilt's locking horns again and again with the likes of Jay Gould and Jim Fisk-
   
   Stiles shows us that Vanderbilt was not what we have come to call a visionary. He was hands-on, shrewd, fiercely competitive, determined to gain respectability, opportunistic. He had failures. At times he nearly lost everything. But he understood how to combine power and perseverance and never forgot his roots...
   
   There's Vanderbilt with very conflicted but also loving times with his two wives, many children and their children; getting interested in mediums/spiritualists; deciding to build and endow Vanderbilt University as a way to help meld the still-divided union into one-
   
   My one quibble is that stated by Joan F. in her review: someone didn't do enough editing. To finish the book, I consciously decided one-third of the way through to skim the overwhelming data/ship/train/population etc stats. Stiles writes so beautifully and masterly that it was easy for me to cut down. While it was a long read for me, I savored every bit of it.
   
   I envy anyone who hasn't read "The First Tycoon" yet. In my opinion, this extraordinary biography places Stiles in the highest pantheon of great living US history biographers, with Caro on Johnson; Morris on Theodore Roosevelt. Enjoy!



2. An epic work; brilliantly written and meticulously researched. It touches on so many aspects of this scion's life and times that makes it fascinating to a wide variety of readers interested in even tangential subjects.
   Perhaps one proviso, though, is that one should have some familiarity with the New York area or at least an interest in it, to appreciate some of the astounding transformations accomplished by this man and his era.
   My particular interests are geography and environment, and the breadth of this book kept me fascinated.



3. I recently read Titan, Ron Chernow's biography of Rockefeller, and it inspired me to read a little more business history. I'm sure glad I selected The First Tycoon. Another incredible book, and I thought Vanderbilt's life and times were amazing. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone interested in business and U.S. history.



4. T. J. Stiles thinks Cornelius Vanderbilt has gotten a bad rap.
   Born during George Washington's presidency, Vanderbilt built a massive business empire starting with steamships and then railroads. His life spanned an epic period of the growth of the United States. During his life he saw New York grow from a population of 40,000 to over 1 million, the introduction of the railroad and steamships, building the Erie canal, the gold rush, the telegraph, and the American civil war.
   Vanderbilt comes across as tenaciously driven in business, opportunistic, and personally aloof. During the development of the country during the 18th century, Vanderbilt was always there -capitalizing upon and in turn, providing the infrastructure that enabled the country's growth.
   Vanderbilt's response to the California gold rush of 1849 is illustrative. He built a steamship line that transported passengers to the east coast of Nicaragua, transferred them to a small riverboat for the trip up the San Juan river. Shipped and reassembled a larger ferry boat for the trip across Lake Nicaragua, and then used pack animals to make the 12 miles trip to the Pacific. Finally, another steamship took them to San Francisco. Doing so required political deftness, engineering expertise, financial backing, and a keen business acumen.
   Vanderbilt then began shifting his business from steamships to railroads. Shortly after the civil war he had essentially shifted his entire business focus away from steamships to railroads.
   I wondered how he made these decisions. Did he ponder long and hard the future of the country and decide where he needed to be? How did he see these changes coming? Another strength of Vanderbilt's business practices was his ruthless efficiency enabling him to cut costs and operate profitably when others couldn't. How did he achieve these efficiencies? Was he an early version of Sam Walton? Unfortunately, the author can't help us much here.
   Vanderbilt, with his embracing of unfettered competition, crushing of workers (at one point he fired all his enginehands on his personal yacht and hired an entire new set on the eve of the underway), and manipulation of markets to gain control and wealth seems an unlikely hero for the current environment. You would think he'd be reviled even more. He had an aversion to government handouts because many of his competitors benefitted unfairly from special treatment. That has made the success of the book more remarkable in my mind.
   In the end, Vanderbilt saw the Panic of 1873, the most severe financial meltdown of his career, as caused by an asset bubble in Railroad stocks. It would be interesting to know what he would think of today's situation.



5. Stiles's rendering of Cornelius Vanderbilt starts off strong. For over 100 pages the writing is riveting. What follows is a lot of detail on water and rail routes and deals. While the original research and its presentation are certainly worthy of the National Book Award, for me, and perhaps many other general readers, more than half the book was a slog.
   
   What makes the opening strong is the discussion of the patrician attitudes of the founders, how this manifested itself in not only politics but the economy. Stiles has the best description I've read yet of the Jacksonian view and how that view took hold. He shows how the Supreme Court decision Gibbons vs. Ogden was part of the Jacksonian legacy and how it paved the way for the "little guy" as an entrepreneur.
   
   In what follows there are fascinating parts such as Vanderbilt and the Nicaragua enterprise, the Civil War and almost anything about the family. Stiles gives the best explanations I've read of the greenback dollar and stock watering. What bogged it down for me were the long descriptions of sea and land routes and the many financial maneuvers.
   
   I think the problem for the historians such as Stiles who are doing serious research is the conflict of documenting long and complex findings and writing them for the general reader. The Bibliographical Essay at the end (it would be great if more books had one) shows the limitations of the Vanderbilt biographies to date. It also shows how Stiles found things that if not printed here could be forever buried. The challenge is how to accommodate all them and still have a book for the general, and not academic, reading market. For figures, like Vanderbilt, perhaps the conflict cannot be resolved.