5 comments about Woody Guthrie: A Life.

1. Woodrow Wilson Guthrie wasn't the most talented of musicians, but few people have had more influence on the landscape of American music. He was an incredibly prolific writer and the grandfather of the 1960s folk music revival, hero to the Dylan, Baez and the like.
   
   Woody was to music what Steinbeck was to literature, capturing the California story of the thousands of "Okies" who emigrated to California looking for employment when dust storms devastated their farms during the Depression. But unlike Steinbeck, Guthrie was one of the people he sang about, leaving his poor Texas panhandle home and hitch-hiking, riding the rails, and singing his way across the country. Along the way, he listened to stories and felt the disenchantment of the other wayward wanderers. He captured those stories and sentiments, then put them to music. Woody quickly found an audience in his fellow immigrants, first around campfires, then on the radio. His character was more authentic than the slick corn-pone caricatures Hollywood had created. The large new audience could relate to Woody. And more importantly, he was voicing frustrations they could relate to.
   Woody Guthrie's life was situated at the nexus of American music and American politics. He spent much of his life as a Communist (most people forget that, though not a threat to take office, the Communist Party had a sizable membership in America pre-WWII), and was one of the first people to use music to encourage political rebellion. He played the picket lines, helped organize rallies and played at Communist party meetings.
   
   While his songs sound happy and simple to us today, the lyrics are often packed with anger and irony, expressing frustration at an America not living up to its promises. There was talk, for a while, of making Guthrie's "This Land is My Land" the national anthem. But in truth, the original "This Land is My Land" is far from the patriotic ditty schoolchildren learn today. It was actually a response to Irving Berlin's "God Bless America," a song Woody found to be full of false hope. Along with the fourth verse, the final verse of Woody's version is typically exorcized:
   
   "One bright sunny morning, in the shadow of the steeple
   By the Relief Office, I saw my people -
   As they stood hungry, I stood there wondering if
   This land was made for you and me."
   
   Personally, Woody was a complex guy, full of good intentions, but falling short on many counts. For all his success as a musician, he was a terrible husband to several women and an absentee father, often leaving his families for months at a time on wandering cross-country trips. He drank too much, was unpredictable and often a pain in the side of some of his closest friends. Only later in his life, when he was diagnosed with Huntington's disease, the genetic nervous disorder that killed his mother, did it seem like there may have been an explanation beyond selfishness for Woody's unpredictable behavior.
   
   Joe Klein tells Woody's story with the kind of craft and poetry that such a story deserves. He paints a vivid portrait of Woody that jumps off the page with life, all quirky and charming and lovable and maddening and irresponsible and admirable and stupefying and brilliant. But WOODY GUTHRIE: A LIFE is more than the story of one man's life-it is the story of America in the last century, of its changing social climate, of its musical maturation, of its dreams and realities. All of these themes can be found in the songs of Woody Guthrie, and the only thing he ever sang about was what he saw in his lifetime.



2. ....and I'd recommend this book even to those not especially interested in Woody Guthrie. The writing is superb, and Klein's reporting skills are without peer. The book also stands as a fine social history of Depression Era America.



3. Klein has written a definitive bio of Woody Guthrie. He portrays Guthrie in his full humanity with flaws and all. As a result, this is a rich real portrait in which Guthrie is illuminated as a human that was able to achieve in-human feats during his life time. This book is a must for anyone interested in understanding this seminal figure of American history and culture.



4. Every Christmas, I buy multiple copies of this book and give it away to friends and family. Every spring/summer, I receive multiple messages of enthusiastic thanks and gratitude. No one who reads it comes away unaffected.
   
   Basically, I will just say this is the most riveting biography I've ever read, and I've read it many times (am rereading it now actually).
   
   There are two primary reasons why this book is so far above all other biographies:
   
   1.) Joe Klein's writing is fantastic. His research is thorough, but his ability to communicate to an audience complex historical, socio-political, medical, and psychological concepts is virtually without peer.
   
   2.) Woody Guthrie's life simply is one of the most fascinating lives I've ever read about. From his birth (even before his birth) straight through to his death, his life never gets boring. There is no plateau, where a great artist achieves his best work and then self destructs or mellows, etc etc.....every single period of Woody's life is equally fascinating. He was an incredible human being, a very complex artist and man-and he happened to straddle many periods of history. You will be constantly surprised. Sometimes you want to strangle him and then he turns around and does something so unbelievabely heroic, that you can hardly believe it actually happened. There is NO ONE like Woody Guthrie today....nor was there ever another in any other time period, the guy was truly a one and only.
   
   I couldn't recommend this book enough. It's so good that not until 2004 was another biography attempted on Woody, and I can't imagine it could be any better than this.



5. This biography is stunningly and painfully intimate. Joe Klein did a fantastic job. This is a great read.

   Guthrie is a tremendous American icon who not enough of us actually know about or perhaps have even heard of. He was a thousand contradictions. In his art and in his life, in his outrageous, childlike, precocious, brooding, energetic, and endlessly subversive behavior... he was just utterly himself, he embodied a particular American brand of freedom in life, outlook, and sense of possibility.

   Even if you haven't got time to read this book, make sure the kids around you know all the verses to "This Land Is Your Land". You may not agree with the politics but it's worth knowing what the man actually said, it makes you think.

5 comments about Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait.

1. As a Holliday cousin, I bought Karen's book for family information to pass on to my children and grandchildren. This book is a very detailed and historical account of "Doc," and gave me another perspective of the man I knew little about save the movies and a few tales inside the family. I have been in touch with Karen, and passed on to her information regarding his famous, and infamous, bloodline which will surprise many in Karen's upcoming book on Doc. I hope it is forthcoming soon. A MUST HAVE for every history enthsiast or researcher.



2. This book was a good read and quite informative. The author (related to the Hollidays) did an excellent job on researching Doc Holliday. There was much to be learned about the real Doc Holliday.



3. I really enjoyed this book. The author did a wonderful job on researching the family tree.



4. I was very disappointed in this book. It is not well written nor does it have much, if any, depth. Tanner uses the word "probably" way too often. "Doc 'probably' shot Old Man Clanton" or "Wyatt 'probably' killed John Ringo." Doc "probably" did quite a few things, but Tanner does not quote any source information for much of this, although she does have several pages of notes.
   
   Tanner races through many moments in Holliday's life, skipping over important details. A lot happened between the infamous gunfight in Tombstone, the attack on Virgil Earp and the murder of Morgan Earp; but Tanner tells of all three incidents within a matter of a couple of paragraphs. Tanner barely mentions Curly Bill Brocious and does not mention Fred White at all.
   
   Tanner goes into great detail about how Holliday was born with a cleft palate, but many doubt he ever had such physical challenge. Also Kate Elder is a source for much of the latter part of the book, but Elder is not a very reliable source of information, having claimed to have married Holliday in the 1870's. (No record of Holliday ever getting married exists.)
   
   Tanner is related to Holliday and that seems to have softened her view. Gary L. Roberts' biography is much better, much more detailed.



5. Doc Holliday: A Family Portrait is well researched and written. Karen Holliday Tanner draws on family history, papers, albums and oral stories to augment hard research.Through her exhaustive efforts, Ms. Tanner puts to rest some of the wild exaggerations of killings, life of a con man, and criminal schemes supposedly perpetrated by Doc during his life.
   Young John Henry Holliday's early days were spent in Griffin, Georgia with his father Henry Holliday and mother Alice.
   Henry Holliday was a prominent Griffin citizen, first clerk of the court of Spalding County, and was involved in real estate and land speculation. The elder Holliday had a military background and had fought in the Mexican War. Early in the Civil War he served in the Confederate Army in Virginia. However, camp life and cold weather conspired to damage his health and he was discharged and sent home. After Henry Holliday regained his health he purchased a large parcel of land in South Georgia near Valdosta and moved his family there in 1864.
   Alice Holliday contracted tuberculosis and died in September of 1866. John Henry mourned the loss of his mother and felt that his father had betrayed her name when he married Rachel Martin less than three months after the death of mother Holliday. The marriage caused a schism between father and son that never quite healed.
   John Henry was a bright student and eventually chose dentistry as a profession. He graduated from The Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in 1872 and returned to Atlanta where he practiced dentistry until he contracted tuberculosis and traveled west in search of a dryer climate.
   While in Dallas John Henry stayed with the dental profession, but added another to augment his income. He spent time at the gaming tables and eventually became a skilled Frontier Gambler. After several years in Dallas he joined the gambling circuit and traveled to Denison, Denver, Deadwood and points in between.
   He became known as Doc Holliday and using his charm, wit and gambling skills Doc made a name for himself and collected an array of friends Kate Elder, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Luke Short and Eddie Foy just to name a few.
   While in Dodge City Doc saved Wyatt Earp from an angry mob of drunken cowboys and Wyatt never forgot it. Doc and Wyatt were both well known in gambling circles, but the incident that turned them into legends was the shootout at the OK Corral.
   Doc stood with Wyatt and his brothers on the side of law and order against Cochise County's political ring muscle known as cowboys. The Earps and Holliday won the gunfight, but ring outlaws caused a bloodbath that eventually, in order to get out of the line of fire, Doc and Wyatt moved to Colorado.
   Wyatt dug for silver in the Gunnison and Doc played the tables at Leadville. But due to failing health Doc eventually quit the games and retired to Glenwood Springs, Colorado where he died of tuberculosis on November 8, 1887.
   A must read to get the full Holliday picture.
   
   Tom Barnes author of "Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone."
   "The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle."
   "The Goring Collection."
   
   The Hurricane Hunters And Lost in the Bermuda Triangle
   Doc Holliday's Road to Tombstone: The Life and Times of John Henry Holliday
   The Goring Collection

5 comments about Black Boy (The Restored Text Established by The Library of America) (Perennial Classics).

1. The best autobiography EVER, in fact I am not even sure it should be called autobiography because it is much more than that for many reasons. Autobiographies are often flat and either self pitying or glorifying, but this one is completely at another level. I was so impressed by the brilliant mind that shines through all obsacles, and his writing is just so natural, logical and insightful, not just about his personal life experiences, but about human suffering, senseless oppression, and unyiedling human spirit. Wow!



2. I ordered this book because it was on my nephews book-report list. It's a good book. But it is full of bad language. I think it's an adult book--with a very compelling story. But completely not for kids. I know kids hear bad language all the time. But to have it presented to them by a 'trusted' adult--gives it a kind of condoning that it doesn't need.



3. Every time I read a book about the plight of blacks in the South in the early part of the 20th century as Jim Crow society solidified I have to shutter in disgust. I have just finished reading communist Harry Haywood's autobiography Black Bolshevik. I have read Malcolm X's words on the fate of his forebears in the post-bellum South and now I have read Richard Wright's autobiographical sketch Black Boy. I will make no defense of the unequal treatment of blacks in the North. There is none. However, Wright's descriptions of the physical and psychological damage, as presented by his own experiences of Jim Crow, done to blacks by Southern whites are positively feudal. There was no room for illusions about the goodness of humankind in that world. To believe so was to face personal humiliation, or worst-the lynching tree.
   
   Wright, after great personal struggle within himself, is able to reflect on his experiences and to articulate the effect that Jim Crow had on him as a black, as a man, as a human being. It was not pretty. One can only image the fate of those less articulate than brother Wright as they try to comprehend a world not of their making but which they early on must learn to navigate. The description of this grinding struggle is heart of the first part of the book.
   
   Wright goes back to the mist of time in his early youth to dissect the hunger, psychological as well as physical, than never was far from his door; the effects on him of a sick and helpless mother; of an absent ne'er-do-well father; and, an overbearing and religiously-driven grandmother on his early development. And those are just the problems in the house. Once Wright steps outside those comparably comfortable confines he faces the outside world of Mississippi reality that he must put on a mask in order to survive in a world that will literarily cut him down if he does not learn the code. Although Wright gives many examples of how this system robbed blacks of their personality the most graphic descriptions, by far, are those that deal with the need to have to put on the mask when whites are around. And the consequences if one did not.
   
   And what of the great escape to the North (via Memphis) to Chicago-the Promised Land that forms the basis for the second part of the book? We have seen that urban story portrayed in other locales as well, for example, in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Claude Brown's Man-Child in The Promised Land. That is where my statement about the treatment, or rather mistreatment, of blacks in the North comes into play. In effect, Wright articulates the contours of a psychological feudalism in the North where the special oppressions of blacks as a race are met with indifference by whites. What makes Wright's case special is that through self-education and willpower he breaks out of the endless and destructive turning in on oneself to articulate his experiences and those of other blacks like him displaced from the rural life of the South to the uncertainties of urban life.
   
   On the face of it seems incongruous that Wright would find a solution to his angst in the American Communist Party during the heyday of the `third period' in the early 1930's. I have mentioned elsewhere, most recently in my review of Harry Haywood's Black Bolshevik (part of which also deals with this period in the American party), that on reading memoirs and autobiographies of the older generations of radicals and revolutionaries I am looking for the spark that broke them from the norms of bourgeois society. I have found that there is a great range of reasons from racial and class hatreds to intellectual curiosity. I find that in the end that Wright's relationship to communism, not without some bumps and bruises along the way, came from intellectual curiosity as much as any sense of racial or class injustice.
   
   In Chicago, in many ways the embryonic black proletarian core of the country in this period, Wright continued his struggle for physical daily survival and for intellectual understanding. His fortuitous linking up with the local John Reed Club helped, at least initially, stabilize his intellectual life. His description of the inner workings of the Communist Party and its role in its own front group creations, like the Reed Club, jibes with other accounts that I have read. The tremendous pressures to conform to party life and the party line are chilling for what, in the final analysis, was a voluntary political organization and not a cult. Moreover, one of the characters portrayed in this section bears a striking resemblance to the above-mentioned very real Harry Haywood. Wright's take on Haywood is very, very different from how old Harry portrayed himself in his autobiography. Surprise.
   
   One of the charges brought against Wright by fellow black party members was that he was an intellectual. Self-taught, yes, but an intellectual nevertheless. One would think that recruiting such a fairly rare person, black or white, would have had the comrades spinning cartwheels. No so in Wright's case. Tremendous pressure was placed on him to conform to party dictates. Or else. This seems counter-intuitive. The relationship between communism and intellectuals and artists has always been a somewhat rocky one. But know this-then and today we need as many intellectuals as we can get our hands on to write, think and lead the struggles of humankind. Ignorance never did anyone any good. Enough said on that. If you want to get a real feel for what that old expression Mississippi God Damn from Nina Simone's song really meant read this well written and thoughtful book.



4. Not only did I reaceive the book on the promised delivery date, but I found it to be in perfect condition. It was purchaed for my grandson who is really enjoying it.



5. This is my all time favourite book ever. I'm sure there are literary drawbacks to it somewhere; but overall I think its an amazingly well written book. Poignant, stark, and unfathomable. Reading it made me so hungry, you wouldn't believe.

5 comments about George Washington (The American Presidents).

1. George Washington has a deservedly iconic, larger than life, stature among Americans; and yet his own reserve and aloofness, combined with the 18th Century world in which he lived, make him difficult for most Americans today to understand. With President's Day approaching and our country in the midst of a presidential election, I wanted to revisit Washington. This biography by James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn, part of the "American Presidents" series, tells a great deal in short compass about Washington and why he remains important. The study avoids the tendency to place Washington upon a pedestal, and it also avoids the more modern, and much more regrettable, tendency to deflate.
   
   Washington (1732 --1799) was born to the landed aristocracy of Virginia. He served in the French and Indian Wars (1754 -- 1758), as a delegate to the first Continental Congress, as the Commander in Chief during the American Revolution (1775- -- 1781) and as the president of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia (1787), among other accomplishments, before becoming the first President of the United States (1789 --1796). In the early chapters of this book, Burns and Dunn trace the character traits of Washington that fitted him for leadership, together with some of his flaws. They paint a portrait of a Washington driven by ambition and concern for his reputation, but also a person of character, intelligence, and sound judgment. More than once in his life, Washington professed himself reluctant, notwithstanding his ambition, to assume or to expand upon powers he readily could have assumed. Washington did indeed temper his ambition and drive with restraint.
   
   The central theme of this book is how Washington proceeded to set the tone of the American Presidency. The authors draw a number of valuable distinctions. The first is between the ceremonial function of the American President -- as representative of the American people and above the political fray -- and the President's political function. As a result of the respect in which he was held, Washington unified the United States under his leadership and, as the authors state, enhanced the position of the Presidency by his occupation of it rather than, as with his successors, having his own reputation enhanced by virtue of becoming the President. This was an invaluable accomplishment to perform for the new nation.
   
   The authors further distinguish between Washington as a transactional and as a transformational leader. As a transactional leader, Washington acted as an administrator in supervising the complex business of government, including the relationship of the Executive Branch with Congress and with foreign countries. As a transformational leader, Washington acted to create a strong presidency, within the limits established by the constitution, "as well as inspiring and cementing citizens' commitment to the federal government." (p. 64)
   
   The authors also two main commitments underlying Washington's presidency: a commitment to reason, compromise, and judgment, as developed in the philosophy of the Enlightement, and a commitment to happiness as the end of government. Washington did not view happiness as synonymous with pleasure but rather as involving a well-ordered republic with laws that applied fairly and equally to everyone and which allowed everyone the opportunity to improve themselves and to flourish.
   
   The book examines Washington's relationships with his brilliant colleagues, Hamilton, Jefferson, and James Madison and how, at his best, he listened to their frequently divergent views before deciding himself on a wise course of action. Washington's toleration and slowness to judgment receive deserved praise in this study. The authors also examine some of the less fortunate aspects of the Washington presidency, including its elitism, lack of understanding of those other than the rich and powerful, and its obsession with order and discipline. These factors, among others, would lead even in Washington's lifetime to the development of the party system that Washington had hoped to avoid. The authors also are critical of Washington's failure to publically address the issue of slavery and to his all to frequently demonstrated acquisitiveness and tendency to drive sharp bargains in his private life.
   
   In our complicated, difficult political world, this book will remind the reader of the origins of our system of government. It will encourage reflection on the nature of leadership, both when brilliantly executed and when it fails, as exemplified in the Presidency of George Washington.
   
   Robin Friedman



2. This book is part of the American Presidents series. As with all of these books, they are well wriiten and very informative about every stage of their lives not just the political. They also inlcude detail that I rarely see in other biographical books concerning the political machinations of their time.



3. This book is cowritten by one of my favorite authors from my college days, decades ago. James MacGregor Burns wrote a classic about presidential and congressional politics entitled "The Deadlock of Democracy." That book was about the interaction between presidential and congressional parties and how they act as checks on one another. In this book, we see the formation of our political system. Beyond what the Constitution set forth, the nature of our federal system is, in great part, defined by what Washington made of the presidency. As the first chief executive and a highly popular figure, he was in position to define the presidency for the future administrations. He could have asserted much greater power than he did and he would have been (at least initially) largely unopposed. He was in position to sieze almost monarchal power but in significant ways, he did not. For example, he set the two term custom which held until FDR was elected to a third term. Also, he often deferred to Congress.
   
   On the other hand, in both foreign affairs and financial affairs Washington utilized power when it was unclear from the Constitution, whether such power was intended. The authors point out such example as the taking of an official position of neutralitry in the conflict between Great Britain and France. The Constitution makes it clear that congress issues a declaratrion of war. However, does this also mean that a position neutrality must be declared by congress? Washington's actions made this a presidential power. Also, Washington appointed a cabinet of very able men and they, paticularly Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, consolidated significant power in the executive branch. Indeed, there is nothing in the Constitution regarding a cabinet so, Washington's creation this institution set a significant precedent.
   
   In Washington's second term, an opposition party was taking form and this greatly disappointed him since he believed in consensus and felt that parties were harmful. The formation of parties was probably inevitable but Washington almost took it personally, as he hoped his leadership would lead to consensus and he saw the formation of parties as sort of a rejection. In fact, he was a great success since the actions that Washngton took set the precedents for future presidents. As the authors point out so well, "[w]hile future presidents would be respected because of the office they held, in Washington's case, the office would become respected because of the man." For that reason, Washington was a great president.



4. This book, along with the others in the series, is a short biography of George Washington. There are plenty of other book about him that deal much more in depth, but this book makes for a good beginning.
   
   He was a man of tremendous ambition that was concerned with climbing the social ladder. Indeed, he was one of the richest men in Virginia at the time. But the fact remains that after the end of the Revolutionary War he resigned his commison and went back to his Mount Vernon farm. Instead of taking advantage of his tremendous popularity at a time when he could have easily grabbed a lot of power from the young nation, he wished nothing more than to become a country farmer. That fact tells volumes about his character. How many men would have not taken advantage of the situation?
   
   Not to put him on a pedestal, or portray him as a saint, this book tells of his ambition, his concern with climbing further into the social strata, and also tells of his love for the new-founded country. He was a great man, and totally human.
   
   A good short introduction to George Washgington, and another great volume in the series!



5. I found the George Washington book by Burns and Dunn to be tedious and repetitive. The first part of the book was interesting and covered the subject in an interesting and readable way; I'm surprised that the last few chapters made it into a book in this series. It was a struggle to finish it (I typically read more than 150 books a year without this problem).
   
   I feel that the writers were writing more for their own edification than to inform their readers. I you happen to pick up a copy read page 143 as a "readability" test. I am very surprised that the editors allowed this book to be published with the problems that I perceive.
   
   I've enjoyed other books that I've read in the "The American Presidents Series"; don't let this review influence you on the whole series

4 comments about The Dry Divide.

1. When Ralph Moody, 20 years old, is put off the train at McCook, Nebraska, on July 4, 1919, he has exactly one dime to his name. He's using half of it for two doughnuts and a glass of water when a man comes into the cafe looking for wheat-harvest hands, at $5 a day for drivers, $7 for pitchers, and as high as $8-$9 for stackers. Ralph has never stacked wheat, but he's pitched plenty of hay, so he bluffs his way into the stacking job. He soon learns that he and the rest of his employer's new crew--a stranded medicine-show "doctor," a dried-up little old man, two great hulking Swedish blacksmith brothers, two Denver U. college boys, a Mexican teenager and a chunky little Irishman--have signed up with the boss from hell. Myron Hudson is a hard-driving, hard-swearing man who's rough with his stock and rougher with his wife and five small children; only his young sister-in-law Judy seems willing to stand up to him. He has such a terrible reputation in his own neighborhood that he has to cross the state line to hunt hired hands. After years of successive crop failures as a tenant farmer he has finally moved about as high up on the dry divide as he can get and still be on the planet, and he's mortgaged to his neck. Ralph resolves to help Mrs. Hudson and her children and makes a plan to do it, but after only one full day on the job Hudson is killed by one of his own horses. Now Ralph no longer has to sneak around behind his back to put his plan in motion, and he steps in and takes hold like a born CEO. Working out a deal with the banker who holds Hudson's paper, he not only contrives to bring in all of Hudson's wheat, but sets up a regular business hauling that of other farmers to the elevator, a task requiring split-second scheduling and perfect teamwork. The respect he shows his fellow team-members makes them his loyal followers, and three months later he owns eight teams of horses, the rigs to go with them, and over $1300 in profits stashed in the bank, and has his eye on some cattle-land to set himself up in ranching.
   
   Perhaps only in the early 20th century could a scheme like Ralph's work out so well, but without his own native gifts, the skills of his team, and the vision of a shrewd (if not always completely trustworthy) small-town banker even he couldn't bring it to fruition. Here we see how the lessons he learned from his parents, his grandfather, and his past employers stand him in good stead. This is the conclusion toward which he has been moving ever since his family first settled in Colorado a dozen years before, and in true American-dream style he has made it from hardscrabble farm boy to about-to-be landowner before he's even old enough to vote. An inspiring American story.



2. After having read all the books leading up to this one I can only say that Ralph Moody's parents had reason to be proud of their son. What an illustration of how faithful and honest parenting will build the character of a man.



3. This continues the thread of Little Britches - a good read for children and adults alike. A reminder of times past.



4. I first read Mr. Moody's books as a child and then re-read them as an adult. They had lost none of their attraction. He is like the person we all know that can tell a story that captivates and entertains.... This review extends to all of Mr. Moody's autobiographical books; they all fit together in a series.

4 comments about Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself (The Bedford Series in History and Culture).

1. In the classic slave narrative genre, Frederick Douglass' narrative of his life brings to life, in all its horrors, American slave society, and one slave's life-long protest against it.
   
   When we read Frederick Douglass in his own words, he is less the radical and more the reformer than we've been led to believe. He is also more the Christian statesmen and less the Christianity critic than we might imagine. Douglass' oft quoted comments about Christianity had much more to do with a righteous critique of distorted Christian living practiced by white masters than with any critique of Christianity or of Christ. In reality, Douglass, like so many enslaved African Americans before and after him, saw in Jesus a Savior they could identify with--a suffering Savior.
   
   Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction , Soul Physicians, and Spiritual Friends.



2. Frederick Douglass is the complete ressurection of the saying, "Knowledge is Power." With the more information he aquired as a slave the more he lusted for freedom. He also provides an excellent example of what black people in this country could do for themselves, interms of their economical status. Looking further, Douglass loved to think and imagine the endless possiblities, while he was still in bondage physically. When he began to read and understand the "Hypocrasy" that this country was based on, using christianity as it main tool, and what every human should be allowed by right, this released his psychological enslavement. If blacks throughout this country could read and understand there were blacks that went through worse situatians and overcame them, and the current situation that destroy the black communities were created for them to fail, just like slavery, many would wake up and take on the mask of Douglass. The mask that says, "regardless of class, race, or creed, this world was created for everyone to enjoy including me."



3. I read this book as part of a summer assignment entering into the 11th grade in addition to "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl" by Harriet Jacobs. Both are great pieces of African-American historical literature and well worth the read. I couldn't read this book all in one sitting, due to the need to fight the urge to throw up. He detailed descriptions of physical, psycological, and emotional abuse are enough to sicken any one and make you disgusted with the human race.



4. The honesty with which this is written is amazing. I was glued to it from page one. I felt disgusted by the human race, saddened by his traumas and guilty just for being white. I think this needs to be read more. Especially in schools. Why isn't it???

5 comments about America's Queen: The Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

1. Jackie Kennedy was the closest thing that America ever got to home-grown royalty. Her birth and upbringing in New York City, refinement, etiquette, and Olympian cool ... Jackie radiated a deep mystery that remains. She was iconic in her need for privacy and protectiveness of it. A woman of another era who remains enigmatic and unique in her persona ... an American icon who seems both American yet not typical of the United States. A sophisticate, debutant of the year, equestrienne, well-manner, posh Park Avenue social doyenne who intrigued the world until she died in 1994. Fluent in several language, a writer of poetry, political wife, patron of the arts, native New Yorker, and poised like any Queen in Europe. She wasn't perfect but she was Jackie. America may never see another quite like her.



2. My comments concern the narrator of the audio cd who felt that she had to change her voice inflection when she read quotes of various people. She talked in a soft wispery tone when quoting Jackie, however, she continued to use that same voice for any of the females quoted. She then attempted a deeper tone for the male voices. Due to all the voice shifting it was disruptive and the reading did not flow. Since it was a narrative and not a play it would have been more pleasing to the ear if the narrator did the entire reading in her natural voice.



3. It was fantastic to be able to grasp a better understanding of the stoic, graceful beauty that was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. It was great to see the different facets of her personality from political darling to yacht hopping party girl. Her desire to control and veneer everything that happened in her life was inspiring. Couldn't put it down, was consistantly interesting throughout.



4. such a great discripture on ms Bouvier. Definetly read it if your into grace an poise and want to learn about America's Queen. Sarah gave great description well known facts. The book is just lovely to have around. I being a big fan of jackie O and the Kennedys find this book to be hugely in-sightful.
   
   Loved it loved it. loved it again.



5. This is my first time reading a book on Jackie so I did not come in with certain expectations. I felt it was interesting to get a background on the woman, but I feel that there has to be better out there. My first complaint would have to be the constant name dropping. I didn't need to know who was on every cruise and vacation. Early on there are hints of problems between Jackie and her mother Janet yet the depth of the problems are not reached. The book was also disappoining in the sense that because it spent more than 3/4 of the content discussing her famous marriages, one would think there would be more than the superficial detail. For example, we are told that there are these various love letters but the content is kept under wraps. In the case of her second husband, Onassis is described as being insulting and cold towards her after a certain point in the marriage but any idea as to why is left up to the reader's imagination. Most importantly, her children are mentioned scarcely beyond their births when this is a woman who took great pride in being a mother. The picture just looked incomplete from many sides. Yes, Jackie was a private person but no one is an island. I do appreciate the care in which the author took to structure the book so that even the slow beginning was readable.

5 comments about American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond.

1. This book is well written and contains a good narrative account of Watergate break in. Aside from that Mr. Hunt seemed torn at the time he wrote this book (near the end of his life), He critizices the leaking of the events a Abu Graihb (not the actual events), yet at the same time he is critical of the decision to go to war in Iraq and seems uncomfortable with certain aspects of GWB's expansion of FISA.
   Maybe these contradictions are due to his long career in CIA and other post that required deceitful and duplicitus words and actions. Whatever the reason this is still a book worth reading.



2. 
   "American Spy," confirms we are living in one of the most exciting eras of history.
   
   Per example, Hunt includes an intriguing insight in his final summation.
   
   "I have rewritten this chapter twice as events keep catching up to me," he begins. {Page 328, para. 2, line 19.} He continues on to note that suggestions he made in the previous versions actually were fulfilled before the publication of the book, causing him to rewrite those passages.
   
   Hunt's delving and the reviews available here on Amazon, make one immediately aware that this field of study is ripe for examination.
   
   One fascinating abscence from Hunt's chronicle is the chapter of various societal affiliations of the leading players, beginning with the past CIA directors, few, if any, of whom qualified for the position 'intelligence chief.' The question begged, that none in authority thought to ask, "Why?" A related list to be made as cross-reference with the names of these scions of snooping? Suggested entries would have to include the Council on Foreign Relations and, naturally, good ol' Skull & Crossbones. Any illumination as to where these configurations might lead?
   
   Just those two would have answered many of the questions Hunt posed throughout his familial confession. But, then, that perhaps reveals Mr. Hunt's true position : American Spy. And few spies tell all, American or otherwise.
   
   Good reading. So close to his own demise, Hunt could have entitled the work, "Racing Through Paradise." Had not, of course, his good friend and compatriot, {how telling that phrase becomes in context}, W.F. already absconded with the plume for one of his own tumblings.
   
   To those who cry 'surfeit' one need only close with Hunt's observation leading into his 'rewrite' remark. Just two paragraphs prior, Hunt waxes on the flood of information being created by the exponentially increasing technologies, casting all intelligence agencies adrift on this Sea of Portent.
   
   One revels in the closing scene from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" as Hunt opines, "...finally content {the CIA} to stamp them TOP SECRET and file them in massive storerooms, with only about 5 (sic.) percent of the information ever undergoing analysis."
   
   Oh, the tangled webs !
   
   TL Farley,
   author,
   When Now Becomes Too Late,
   Distant Reaches
   
   When Now Becomes Too Late
   { Prophecy : The Rapture In Brief : Inside the Twinkle ! }
   
   
   Distant Reaches
   { True Life Adventure In Ireland, Boston and On The North Atlantic }



3. This book reads just like a mystery novel. It's easy to read and full of suspense, so I couldn't wait to turn the page to find out what happens. The pages on Watergate were especially suspenseful. This book was good from beginning to end. It's interesting to get the inside information on CIA training and activities from someone who was really there. Also, it was good to read about Watergate from someone who was really there and knows what happened. He also fills this book with stories about his personal life, his parents, wife and children. At the end, he offers his views on how to fix the agency today. This is a very good and easy to read book! I enjoyed every page of it.



4. This man, even as he looked at death, could not even come close to the truth. If you buy this book call me i got a bridge for you...
   
   mmmm just to be straight i bought this book...so don't be a sucker like.....me



5. I really looked forward to reading this book having been in college when Watergate grasped the nation I wanted to see how well I remembered some events. But after reading half the book I knew that much of what I was absorbing was the result of a memory even more flawed than my own. The topper came when he has President Eisenhower in office in 1950 when even a junior high schooler could tell you Eisenhower was elected in 1952 - after the Korean War. After that how reliable could the rest of the book be. Was it just a case of poor editing, or did Hunt really believe what was written? It left me questioning how much of the book was meant as an attempt to absolve himself of his crimes or justify the mistakes he made of his own free will. Is he trying to rewrite history? I just don't know, and after finishing the entire book I still am not sure if this is non-fiction or fiction.

5 comments about Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents Series).

1. I could't wait to read this book. After seeing all the reviews with most being positive and some being highly negative I was intrigued about this book causing so much debate in its reviews here on Amazon. I must say the book did not disappoint me at all! It is a excellent must read book! It made Harding a human being, not some ogre, dummy or crook who never did a good thing as some would have you believe. It showed him in his best moments, in his bad moments, showed his shining achievements and his terrible failures. Harding comes through as a big hearted well-meaning man who learned much from being President and was growing into the job as he went along. The book also shows his shortcomings and his own coming to realize his own limitations and how he tried to compensate for these. While the book leaned more to the positive, it also did not diminish or apologise for his mistakes, shortcomings or bad decisions. However, it was nice to see his achievements, advancements, victories and strengths applauded and explored. What a refreshing breath of fresh air to read about Warren G. Harding in this light and this alone makes this book a must read! If you want to see Warren G. Harding in a more balanced way do read this book!
   
   Unlike many books this one is well-researched. It has tons of footnotes so you can check out the statements, quotes and if they are taken in context by John Dean. Check them I did, and I found no misquotes, misstatements or anything taken out of context. Excellent job by John Dean in this area! I like well-researched books that can back up their claims with documentation. I also like the fact that this author uses the papers of the Warren G. Harding administration in drawing his insights and conclusions. Excellent job in documentation makes this book much more powerful in its presentation.
   
   It was refreshing to read about Warren G. Harding in a positive light. Some would have you believe that nothing good happened under the Harding Administration. This book describes very well the accomplishments that most overlook when Harding is considered. Every President has their failures and accomplishments and this book touches upon both bringing a much more balanced account of Harding and his Presidency than most books in the past have. However, John Dean does play up the the positive side slightly more, but with good reason. So much negative press has been given in the past with regards to this President and his Administration that to dwell upon this would not justify a new book on this topic. By reading this book in combination with others, which are more negative, one gets a much more balanced account of President Harding and his Presidency.
   
   I liked how John Dean also explored the negative claims and clarified them, putting blame where blame is due and through documentation and use of other's first hand knowledge he refuted some of the more outragious claims. His use of Colonel Starling's quotes is one example of documentation that is helpful. I've read Colonel Edmund Starling's book and his being a Secret Service Agent from Woodrow Wilson thru FDR's years is interesting, informative and eye opening in regards to the Presidents he served and protected. John Dean perhaps plays a bit too lighty upon the negative, but in the introduction Dean does state he was concerned at how to best portray the truth of who Harding was, how he was elected and how he operated and performed as President. I feel he accomplished his goal very well with this book.
   
   The flow of the book was done very well also. It was a pleasure to read and I never found myself bored, distracted or the reading tedious. It is a very well written, very well organized, very well researched and a very impressive book. You will come away from this book with a very different view of Warren G. Harding and his Presidency. For me I see him now in a much more balanced light. He made good and bad decisions. He had some of the best and some of the worst Cabinet members. He saved the government lots of money only to have some in his adminstration steal quite a bit. He had his moments of brilliance and his moments of either extreme ignorance or extreme naivete. Warren G. Harding was a very human President who did some very good things and made his share of mistakes. Was he the worst President ever? I don't think so, but I sure do not believe he was anywhere near being a great one either. If you want a much more balanced look at this man who I believe did the best he could do and achieved more than we are led to believe read this book! Five Stars.



2. I've read every known book about Harding and own most of them. He certainly was an interesting man; bad presidents are often more fun to read about than good ones. I've been through Harding's house in Marion, Ohio, several times, listened to docents there try to beatify him outrageously and visited his and the Duchess's magnificent tomb in Marion. I've even tried to listen to Harding's speeches on the record put out by the Ohio Historical Society, but that was too painful. As H.L. Mencken said, Harding strung words together like wet sponges. If Harding was trying to say something, it was all lost in droning and alliteration.
   
   John Dean, whose other books I admire, just tried too hard, I think, to redeem Mr. Harding with a coat of whitewash. He never should have been president--by experience, by education, by leadership qualities, by common sense. He prefered to play poker and dandle Nan Britton on his knee, perhaps even at the White House. He liked to golf and write mushy letters to another lady friend--letters on U.S. Senate sationery while sitting in the senate, in session. He paid lip service to prohibition and drank alcohol, but only one glass per day, Dean explains. It seems doubtful that Harding ever really understood the real issues. In short, he was a bungler and a hypocrite. Oddly enough, that makes him fascinating, in a way that, say, Jimmy Carter is not.
   
   Fortunately Harding was president at a time when he could do no great immediate harm, although his opposition to the League of Nations may have contributed to the disasters that followed. His biggest fault was probably naivete. He was simply done in by some really bad friends, such as Fall. Forbes, Smith, Daugherty, Means, Denby et al. As Truman is quoted in the introduction to this book: "The buck stops here." Harding, like Nixon, is responsible for the sort of people he attracted and put into government.
   
   Mrs. Harding comes across in Dean's encomium as an attractive and rather self effacing woman in the Dean book. She was older than her husband by several years, and there was nothing attractive about her, physically or intellectually. No wonder Harding slipped out of the house at night to drink with the boys, play poker and whatever. One observer at the time said Mrs. Harding had a voice that would etch glass and called her husband "Warrrn."
   
   The biography by Mr. Dean tries to polish off all the rough spots on Harding's CV, but it just doesn't work. Harding wasn't the worst president we've had, but he wasn't a good one either. The Dean book doesn't change that.



3. There is nothing wrong with giving a broader perspective on Harding, but the documented facts are never going to go away. Anyone who says Harding wasn't responsible for Teapot Dome and all the other corruption scandals that went on during his administration (such as the Veteran's Administration) simply doesn't understand the concept of Chief Executive accountability. While no one has ever said that Harding himself was corrupt, the fact that so much of his inner circle was corrupt says all we need to say about the man. Harding was a simple man who gave a great speech and had an authority about him. He had a cold wife but he was a man of privilege who preoccupied himself with the pleasures always afforded such men: good cigars, women on the side, golf and other activities with his male peers of the day. He left the day to day running of the country to a set of cronies who ultimately proved to be thoroughly rotten. Apologetic Republicans would like to re-write this little stretch of history because it is a cautionary tale of cronyism masquerading as conservatism. The fact that John Dean penned this book makes it all the more interesting, but Harding was no Nixon by any stretch of the imagination. Nixon may have left office in disgrace but I think that he was still one of the most intelligent and innovative presidents of the 20th century, and he was running his own show, not somebody else. Harding was more like George W. Bush, a mouthpiece for a staff full of robber barons.



4. John Dean's volume on President Harding succeeds due to the following:
   
   1. It takes Harding's accomplishments seriously without subjugating them to his failures as do other biographies (i.e. He had good cabinet members, but chose poorly as well; He was elected by a huge margin but woman voters found him attractive, etc). Harding for too long, as Dean's work observes, has been the victim of bias and not scholarly study. Harding deserves to be taken seriously as president, and Dean faithfully does this.
   2. Although Harding was to some extent a philanderer, the author does not give this undue focus, rather he focuses more on what Harding tried to accomplish, even highlighting his acts of courage.
   3. As have other solid biographies, Dean shows how the Harding story was written not by historians, but by anti-Harding writers, and how his private papers, long hidden and not catalogued, allowed anyone to write basically anything. Of interest were the comments by Randolph Downes, who, after juxtaposing the discovered Harding papers to popular opinion about Harding, wrote in his article "The Harding Muckfest" in the Northwest Ohio Quarterly:
   "It is high time for a painstakingly honest and scholarly appraisal of the life of Warren G. Harding."
   It is of interest that a recent book on the Teapot Dome scandal was titled "Slick and the Duchess", again sensationalizing the Harding years (Was Harding called "Slick" when he lived?, was the "Duchess", Mrs. Harding, even involved in the Teapot Dome scandal?)
   
   Building upon Murray's "The Harding Era", Ferrell's The Strange Death's of President Harding, and Trani and Wilson's "The Presidency of Warren Harding" Dean's book continues a fair historical and academic renovation of the Harding years.
   However, that being said, one still gets the picture of an historian rummaging through a pile of Harding papers, holding one up and proclaiming "See, the real Harding years were better than what many think!" True enough, but even when the real Harding has stood up, there just isn't enough in the pile to really take Harding beyond this. While Dean's book restores Harding to where he should be, it cannot save him from his lackluster place in American History.



5. John W. Dean is a native of Marion Ohio and lived a few blocks from Harding's home. Since his teenage years Dean has read almost every book about Harding. This book attempts to get the right facts about a President who was given a bad reputation after his untimely death at age 58. Warren Gamaliel Harding was a precocious child, the oldest of the children. His father studied medicine and farmed, his mother was a midwife. Warren worked as a farm boy and was sympathetic to the problems of farmers. He started working in the printing business at age 11. At 14 he started college, and bought a newspaper at age 19. Harding made this newspaper a success. The story how Warren met his wife tells about small town life (Chapter 2). [What really happened in those days?]
   
   Harding was elected to the Ohio Senate from a Democratic district. His 1910 defeat as a gubernatorial candidate led to a withdrawal from politics. After the adoption of the 17th Amendment Harding was elected as US Senator (Chapter 3). Harding was a master of rhetoric, high-sounding speech that didn't say much (p.36); a "bloviator". Harding was as skilled in politics as he was in poker (p.43). He prepared for running for President (p.45). Harding became the first US Senator to go directly to the White House (p.52). Read Harding's rhetoric on page 57. Harding positioned himself as a compromise candidate (pp.58-59). It worked (p.66). Woodrow Wilson's desire for a third term shows how he was out of touch with reality (p.68). Harding's campaign set a new precedent in using advertising techniques to sell the President (p.70). Harding won the largest victory in Republican history (p.77).
   
   After the war's end the economy suffered from deflation, tight credit, large inventories, and a drop in foreign trade. Harding picked men with good credentials, and political friends, for his Cabinet. The friends were to create scandals. His choices were considered good (p.93). The "booming economy of the roaring twenties" (p.111)? Agricultural areas were in economic decline. Employee wages were falling (p.114), unemployment rising (p.115). The Wilkerson injunction against railroad workers marked Harding as "antilabor" (p.121). The Washington Naval Conference was to limit battleships (p.133). Other treaties followed. America was back to normalcy. Harding could take care of his enemies, but his friends gave him trouble (p.141).
   
   Harding had health problems before his trip west (p.150. Pneumonia was deadly in those days. But Harding seemed to be getting better until he died of a stroke (p.152). Later that year the Teapot Dome scandal erupted. Oil lands reserved for military use were being leased to private oil companies (pp.156-157). President Harding had approved this. Secretary of the Interior Fall had prospered. President Coolidge started an investigation (p.159). The result was to damage Harding's reputation forever (p.160). Harding's wife burned his papers, so writers were free to create scandalous details. In the 1940s they found Harding's papers were not destroyed, they were turned over to the Ohio Historical Society in 1963. These documents portray a different Harding from the legend (p.168).
   
   Author John W. Dean tries to correct the legend of Harding (pp.161-165) with a sympathetic portrait of the 29the President, the last President from Ohio. Does it seem too good to be true? Why didn't his former Cabinet officers or personal friends ever defend Harding? Nixon was defended by his friends. [I wonder if the facts about Harding's youth would tell us something?]

5 comments about Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant (The American Civil War).

1. Written by the dying hand of one of the chosen men of his time. For any scholar of Grant, Civil War or Military History, these readings are a must. Grant's military genius was without equal. Had his superiors, early on, had his keen foresight, the Civil War could have ended a year or two earlier. Another great read is "Grant" by Jean Smith.



2. It is surprising that the most balanced and impartial view of U.S. Grant should be written by Grant himself. His style of writing is clear and sparse, recounting fact as fact and without lengthy editorializing. A must read for any civil war buff or serious historian.



3. I think this is the only real account you can get of the civil war. It's...Great!



4. This book really provides incredible insight into Grant and what made him a great general. In a plainspoken & straightforward manner he gives a recount of his role in the war and his military philosophy (attack). Unlike a modern autobiography we get nothing personal or confessional (not necessarily a bad thing). Any mention of drinking, or his dismal presidency are omitted and his family gets only a paragraph or two; which is fine because no one is interested in Grant's parenting or presidenting tips.



5. Although Grant doesn't blow his own horn, a close reading of his campaign accounts supports the "revisionist" view that far from being a butcher of men and Lee's inferior, Grant's victories (other than Shiloh) were tactical in nature, not brute force charges. (OK, there was Cold Harbor, but that was one mistake in a year-long campaign to destroy the South before the North lost its will to fight. Time was not on Grant's side.) Furthermore, Lee, Jackson, Johnson, et. al. always had the easier side of the equation, playing defense and disrupting the North's long lines of supply and communication.
   
   This is also an interesting study on how an apparently unremarkable person find greatness within himself when he is in his element, and how a great general can fail as a president because the leadership roles are quite different.
   
   There is a dry wit in much of Grant's writing which makes it a fun read even if you don't care for the details of his capture of Vicksburg and his eventual destruction of the South's Eastern armies. Grant does not shy away from describing the slogging nature of the war or his mastery of maneuver warfare.