Book Description

In 1872, Isabella Bird, daughter of a clergyman, set off alone to the Antipodes 'in search of health' and found she had embarked on a life of adventurous travel. In 1873, wearing Hawaiian riding dress, she rode her horse through the American Wild West, a terrain only newly opened to pioneer settlement. The letters that make up this volume were first published in 1879. They tell of magnificent, unspoiled landscapes and abundant wildlife, of encounters with rattlesnakes, wolves, pumas and grizzly bears, and her reactions to the volatile passions of the miners and pioneer settlers. A classic account of a truly astounding journey. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

A Woman's Adventure in the Wild West
A must for the reader who is searching for a first hand description of life in the Rocky's in the 1800's. It includes wonderful sketches by the author and great descriptions of characters and adventures in the untamed West. A great book for bedtime and rainy day reading.

LITERATE FIRST HAND ACCOUNT
This is a wonderful book to bring on your vacation to the Rockies. Miss Bird travels to what are now popular tourist destinations, only she does it before the convenience of a SUVs, Motels, or even plumbing. She meets overworked settlers, fascinating (and surprisingly polite) desperados, and English dandies. She revels in the mountain vistas, sunrises, sunsets and orange moonlight. Her many mile treks on horseback over frozen landscapes, alone in the wild west are an inspiration.

An absorbing story about a courageous woman
Isabella Bird was an astounding woman. Adventurous, courageous and full of good humor, she traveled by horse through the Rocky Mountains when it was still virgin territory. Although she lived under difficult circumstances, especially during the winter months, and met a number of rough customers along the way, she never lost her nerve or her good nature. This is an excellent book to get a feel for Colorado in the late 19th Century and to admire a woman way ahead of her time.

great reading of wonderful book
If you like recorded books, this is a great one! Flo Gibson does a super job performing Bird's story. If you ever make a trip to the Rocky Mountain Front Range and Rocky Mountain National Park, this is a wonderful companion

Entertaining and educating
Evelyn Kaye gives a delightfully entertaining glimpse of what travelling was like in the 1800's. I found the book inspirational in that the subject, Isabella Bird, was determined to find adventure at every turn - and it really came out in Kaye's book. Well worth space on your home library shelf. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

It's a must have for any Colt SAA fans...................
My wife bought this book for me, wow what a great book. If you are a lover of Colt SAA's or any of the Colt products for that matter, it's covered in here. This book includes dates of production and numbers produced. It also has beautiful pictures to illistrate some of their finest work. ... Read more

Book Description

Reviews (7)

The Good Brief Book on Roosevelt
This is a very good brief introduction to Roosevelt, and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting a brief understanding of Roosevelt. Being written by a man from Britain, it also shows how the world views him - as one of the most important leaders in world history. You will not acquire a thorough understanding of FDR by reading this book. For that I would suggest "Champion of Freedom" by Conrad Black or the two-volume biography by James MacGregor Burns "The Lion and the Fox" and "Soldier of Freedom."

In response to Mister Syzek, my understanding is that Stalin broke his promises and controlled Poland despite the agreements made. Stalin was determined to control Poland no matter what, so Poland was never really on the table.

Franklin Roosevelt was a geopolitical realist, and the reality is that the Soviet armies controlled Eastern Europe and Poland. Stalin de facto controlled Poland. The American people had no enthusiasm for yet another world war againt Russia. They wanted their soldiers home. Maybe you should ask the American people why they were not willing to suffer 5 million killed for Poland.

You see, in America you must deal with these pesky things called voters and democracy.

So Roosevelt extracted what he could from Stalin: firm promises of elections and a free Poland. Roosevelt got everything he wanted from Yalta and was very sneaky to be able to get Stalin to promise even that.

To complicate the matter, the Soviet Union took the brunt of the war (17 million dead), and Stalin was rigidly determined to secure a buffer between Mother Russia and Western Europe. Stalin would not have budged on his goal.

So what Roosevelt obtained from Stalin was the best he could obtain - firm promises from Stalin to hold elections. It was Stalin who broke his promises. That made the Soviet Union look like the bad guy.

Truman then waged the Cold War (without the millions of dead from a hot war) leading to an eventual liberation of Eastern Europe. It's no surprise that Reagan was a huge fan of Roosevelt, voted for him four times, and attended his third inauguration (a moving event for Reagan). Reagan then brought an end to the Cold War without firing a shot.

You may be able to criticize Truman for not liberating Eastern Europe while American had a monopoly on the atomic bomb... or Eisenhower. Then again, maybe the path Truman took was wise. Maybe Roosevelt would have done things differently. We will never know because he died.

What we do know is that he extracted promises from Stalin, which he later broke.

I just want to stress that Stalin was determined to have Poland, no matter what. Please look at Stalin's goals and determination. The Russian armies took Poland on the way to Germany, and there was nothing Roosevelt could do about that. Here FDR was a realist.

At the same time, Roosevelt was an idealist in the Wilsonian tradition when realistic. He believed in the free determination of free people, but he was also realistic. For example, he essentially pushed for an end to world colonialism in his design for the post-war world. Churchill opposed this but he could do nothing about it. The British empire was too weak.

By the way, Poland was not even a country at the start of World War One and was viewed by some in a similar way to the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Should American have gone to war over the Baltic States?

This fine little book is a fine introduction to Roosevelt. It is the best brief book on Roosevelt.

If you want a more detailed study of Roosevelt's foreign policy then read Robert Dallek's Bancroft Prize-winning "Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy." My opinion pales in comparison.

FDR
Two points: Where was FDR when Poland, then Britain were on their knees and being devastated? The second point, Poland and her fate were minimized in what was an altogether too short a book to deal with such a significant figure, and the impact that he had upon our world. The United States and Britain betrayed Poland to Russian Communist control. The victim of Nazi Germany became again the victim of Soviet Communist domination, through the appeasement of Stalin by Churchill & FDR at Yalta and the "sphere of influence" power politics of the time. The U.S. and Britain sacrificed an expendable Poland to gain time and space for their own retaliation against Germany. They failed to recognize Russia's sinister motives in overplaying the "Lend-Lease" card, without consideration of the consequences.
FDR was a great domestic President, with little knowledge of, or appreciation for, foreign policy in other countries like Poland, whose contribution to Nazi defeat was enormous. Try reading the point of view of Poland, in "A Question of Honor". I would rate that book "six stars"!

An Elegant Little Life
Roy Jenkins, the prolific biographer of British Prime Ministers Gladstone and Churchill (as well as American President Harry Truman), died early last year, before this slim biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was completed. But even in its flawed state (it was completed by Richard E. Neustadt), this is an impressive book by an author of great knowledge and erudition that illuminates in intriguingly quirky ways the epochal life of its subject.

Jenkins was an Englishman active in Labour politics for half a century, and his is a very British take on Roosevelt's life, which both works and doesn't work to Jenkins' advantage. It is always problematic when an author is not of the same nationality as the person he's writing about (William Manchester's still-to-be-completed biography of Churchill, for example, was much criticized by the British). Where Jenkins gains in giving us a new perspective on a oft-told tale, he sometimes loses in dragging in references to the subjects of his previous books (an occupational hazard of the prolific biographer) or comparing some American political situation to its British equivalent when the comparison is tenuous at best.

Some of his more British asides are lost on the average American reader (as when he opines that the style and appearance of Groton, the prep school that Roosevelt attended, supposedly an imitation of Eton, "were much more like Cheltenham's or Marlborough's"). Also, because the author died before he had the chance to read proof, the text is not as precise as it might have been had the author lived longer (there is at least one sentence that defeats my attempt to make sense of it grammatically - it starts on the 19th line of page 73 and begins with the words "In consequence...").

These reservations aside, I am impressed with Jenkins' ability to take a long and complicated life and condense it into the brief span of this American Presidents series, while still making it comprehensible. The shelves of libraries groan under the weight of the F.D.R. biographies out there, but if you're looking for a concise life that tells the story of the 32nd President from a unique point of view, you might want to try this book before tackling one of the heftier volumes.

An excellent final book for a quality biographer.
The author, in this his final book, is British with an illustrious career as a biographer of such figures as Gladstone, Churchill, and Truman. He also served in his country's ministry. At first glance, it may seem controversial to assign to a foreigner the task of writing about one of America's greatest presidents. However, Lord Jenkins gives a perspective of Roosevelt without the tint of American politics.

It is amazing and disturbing to me the amount of enmity that some in this country express towards Roosevelt, bordering on delusional. What Roosevelt did for this country cannot be adequately expressed in a short biography, or in any book. Much of his pre-war accomplishments translated into an emotion of hope and optimism that moved to a sense of security during the war years.

The author addresses and logically dismisses the paranoid charges that either Roosevelt and/or Churchill allowed Pearl Harbor to occur. As one who lived in Britain during the war, he demonstrates Roosevelt's importance to freeing the world of fascism, and unsettling Churchill's colonialist interests. Fanatical right wingers condemn Roosevelt for the Yalta agreement's failure to rid Poland of the Soviets. The author (actually the co-author who wrote the last few pages after the main author's death) notes that neither Roosevelt or Churchill are at fault since Stalin was already in full control of Poland with no intention of peacefully moving.

My only criticism is the abruptness in which Eleanor Roosevelt is left out of the story. Of course, Mrs. Roosevelt is deserving of her own book that is not the point of this presidential series.

It is a shame that more people will not read this book. I recently wrote a review of the NY Times plagiarist Jayson Blair's book and that received a few dozen responses. This is perhaps my fourth or fifth review of an American President series book and the total responses number only a handful. I reason that much more can be gotten out of reading quality biographies of worthy individuals than concerning ourselves with an immature nobody.

Nice Compact Biography
* Roy Jenkins' FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT (FDR) provides a short biography of
Franklin Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States. Jenkins traces
through FDR's upbringing as the only child of the domineering Sara Roosevelt;
his ambiguous relationship with his wife Eleanor, who was actually a niece
several times removed; and his rise in politics.

Jenkins paints FDR as the perfect politician, charismatic and charming,
something of an opportunist and a fence-straddler. Roosevelt was never a
very healthy man, possibly an effect of a sheltered upbringing, and he was
crippled by polio in 1921. However, he had a certain energy that made him
seem much more vital than he really was, the public impression of him summed
up in popular cartoons of him with a raised jaw, a self-assured smile, and a
cigarette in a holder clenched in his teeth.

That energy got him the governorship of New York State twice, confounding
those who thought he was a lightweight or could be manipulated, and then four
terms as President of the United States. There is little doubt that he was
one of the great American presidents, but true to his nature as a perfect
politician there was often less than met the eye in his actions. He was
certainly devious, but he was so good at it that it sometimes seemed like an
outright virtue. He generally wanted to do the right things, but sometimes
his methods for getting from here to there didn't bear too much close
inspection.

He was also certainly hated, particularly by the upper crust, who regarded
him as a traitor to his class. His efforts to help the common people gave
him the popularity to defy this hatred. He was also quick to denounce the
rise of authoritarian regimes abroad, but until war actually came denouncing
was almost all he did. He promised to keep the US out of war, but in 1940
began Lend-Lease, the name itself being a cover for what amounted to a pure
military assistance program to Britain, and then ordered the US Navy to
escort cargo vessels to mid-Atlantic to protect them from Hitler's U-boats,
characterizing this exercise with characteristic clever doubletalk as
"neutrality patrols".

There are those who believe that FDR actually knew about Pearl Harbor ahead
of time and let it happen to ensure that America would get into the fighting,
but Jenkins makes the case (not too hard to do) that this is nonsense. Pearl
Harbor was still convenient in that respect, and it was even more convenient
when Hitler, angry over Lend-Lease and the "neutrality patrols", declared war
on the US a few days later. In any case, FDR spent the war giving his people
free reign to conduct a mighty war effort and presiding over an uneasy Allied
alliance. Jenkins argues that only FDR had the stature to take such a
leadership position.

When FDR died in April 1945, the nation mourned, though he still remains to
an extent a controversial figure. Certainly his considerable expansion of
government involvement in American society has proven over the long run a
mixed blessing. In fact, the argument over the proper role of government in
society is one of the most important issues in American politics today.

Jenkin's FDR is a very tidy little biography, only about 175 pages long, and
mostly focused on FDR's political life. Those after dirt about his marriage
and his affairs will not get much out of this book. The fact that Jenkins
was a Britisher (he died of a heart attack just before completing this book)
and a member of parliament gives a bit of an interesting flavor to the work,
for example with Jenkins describing politicals dealing from the point of view
of someone who was clearly familiar with such things personally.

I will often say, if not exactly complain, that most biographies and
historical works give me more information than I need, but in the case of
Jenkin's FDR I would have liked to have seen maybe about 25 to 50 more pages
of anecdotal material, FDR's life having plenty of good stories to mine for
such things. However, that said, I have to recommend this little book as a
fine introduction to the fascinating, inspiring, complicated, and somewhat
shifty FDR. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

The research is showing
In the preface of his book, author Oates states it is not his intention to determine the mental capabilities of his subject, abolitionist John Brown. But, he certainly paints a vivid enough picture so the reader can determine for himself if Brown is a crazy old coot, a cold blooded murderer, or a man on a might mission or a combination of all three. I had just read Cloudspliiter by Russell Banks (a fictionalized version of Brown's life-see my review) and it made me want to read a real biography of Brown. If anything, this book made me appreciate Banks' immagination even more. To Purge This Land with Blood is a very detailed account of Brown's life, maybe too detailed. Every character, no matter how inconsequential, is named. And this sea of names and places can be mindboggling. I found much of the book slow going and already knowing the outcome of Brown's life didn't compel me to move on quickly. But, after reading the book, I now believe I now know Brown. And isn't that the purpose of biography?

You don't know John Brown
If you were, like I was, taught that John Brown was not much more than a well-meaning madman then you don't know the John Brown of history. Oates does a great job of dispelling that myth as well as presenting for the first time the full picture, thoroughly footnoted, of the man who may have sparked the Civil War. I have small gripes with some of the text, but none worth mentioning here. Read it and be impressed. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Useful book
This book has details on just about every subject of Abraham Lincoln's life.It is well written and full of interesting photographs.I own several books on Lincoln, and consider this one to be one of the most useful.

An excellent reference on a variety of Lincoln subjects
This encyclopedia is an wonderful, and essential, reference for all students of Lincoln.Neely has compiled information on a wide variety of subjects related to Abraham Lincoln.Included are major issues such as slavery and temperance, organizations such as the political parties, andpeople important throughout Lincoln's life and career. ... Read more

Book Description

"The first book to belong permanently to literature. It created a man."
-- From the Introduction

Few men could compare to Benjamin Franklin. Virtually self-taught, he excelled as an athlete, a man of letters, a printer, a scientist, a wit, an inventor, an editor, and a writer, and he was probably the most successful diplomat in American history. David Hume hailed him as the first great philosopher and great man of letters in the New World.

Written initially to guide his son, Franklin's autobiography is a lively, spellbinding account of his unique and eventful life. Stylistically his best work, it has become a classic in world literature, one to inspire and delight readers everywhere. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

Great Perspective of the South during a Tumultous Time
I decided to read this book for purely personal motives. Having been raised in California by a father who grew up in Birmingham in the early twenties and thirties, I had a desire to understand this man, my father, who seemed at times to have such radical world views. Reading Paul Hemphill's story, specifically the retelling of details of growing up in a working class family, including the bigoted views his father held, helped me to understand the world that molded many whites prior to the civil rights movement. When chosing this book, I wasn't looking for a dry detailed history but rather an insiders view of what this world of "Birmingham, Alabama" must have been like growing up. Why it created such biogtry? And How can we continue to change? Paul Hemphill, through this book, helped me to understand, what kind of a world Birmingham was, and how it shaped and molded the people who grew up there.

A Student's Perspective
This book was required reading for my Civil Rights class. Although at times a bit too detailed and tangent prone, Hemphill's style is very gripping and kept my attention. The way in which the formation and development of Birmingham is disussed, enterpreted, and explained is superb. Hemphill does an excellent job of juxtaposing the racial, economic, and social climate that evolved and gripped the city of Birmingham throughout the years. I would consider this autobiography of sorts a must read for any person interested in issues pertaining to the Civil Rights Movement. Just get through the few dry parts, the rest is well worth the read!

Probes the ethnic relationships in Birmingham
In 1963 Alabama was the site of racial violence: native Hemphill decides here to return to his hometown, to come to terms with his family and life. Leaving Birmingham probes the ethnic relationships in Birmingham past and present, providing an intriguing analysis of the tensions and present-day life.

Not Just For Southerners
The reader should note that this book is not a history, but an honest reminiscence by the author. Paul Hemphill was born and raised in a Birmingham that no longer exists, and his story is a sentimental, though often melancholy, remembrance of his journey from childhood to an adulthood marked by his departure from his native city. Unlike other native sons, such as Roy Blount and Howell Raines, who long ago moved to New York and have spent the majority of their adult lives apologizing for having been born in the South, Hemphill offers the reader a painfully honest autobiography that parallels the mutually exclusive forces of change and retrenchment within Birmingham before and after World War II. He presents an insightful glimpse of a city unique in the South, a city created atop one of the richest iron ore deposits in the country, with no antebellum, gentrified past, a tough, muscular city. It is a Birmingham as it truly was, a city divided not in two parts, but three: the Birmingham of poor, legally segregated blacks, the Birmingham of working-class whites who manned the steel, iron and coke factories during their height, and the Birmingham of the Mountain Brook overseers, the representatives of the absentee landlords who owned these factories, the men of a separate community entirely, who publicly stayed above the fray of civil rights strife, all the while stoking and manipulating the blue collar whites to whom civil rights appeared a supreme threat. It was into such a working-class family that Hemphill was born. His descriptions of his hard-working, traditionalist father, his mother and the neighborhood in which he grew up, are perhaps the finest elements of the book. It is evident that this was no easy book for Hemphill to write. He must counter-balance the admiration he holds for his parents and the joys of his childhood, with the ultimate revulsion he felt in adulthood toward a civilization predisposed all along toward heightened brutality. It is not only his personal journey, but the journey of Birmingham from "the Magic City" to "Bad Birmingham"; the journey of Bull Connor from "voice of the Barons" to the "voice of legalized segregation". Hemphill witnessed all of this and it is sadness, not cold judgement, that pervades this book and sets it apart from the many other books written about that city and that time. This reviewer highly recommends this book to anyone who has an interest in gaining a personal perspective of the Birmingham of mid-20th Century America. ... Read more

Book Description

What transformed a frontier bully into the seventh president of the United States? A southerner obsessed with personal honor who threatened his enemies with duels to the death, a passionate man who fled to Spanish Mississippi with the love of his life before she was divorced, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee left a vast personal correspondence detailing his stormy relationship with the world of early America. He helped shape the American personality, yet he remains largely unknown to most modern readers. Now historian Andrew Burstein (The Inner Jefferson, America’s Jubilee) brings back Jackson with all his audacity and hot-tempered rhetoric.

Most people vaguely imagine Andrew Jackson as a jaunty warrior and man of the people, when he was much more: a power monger whom voters thought they could not do without—a man just as complex
and controversial as Jefferson or Lincoln. Declared a national hero upon his stunning victory over the British at the 1815 Battle of New Orleans, this uncompromising soldier capitalized on his fame and found the presidency within his grasp.

Yet Burstein shows that Jackson had conceived no political direction for the country. He was virtually uneducated, having grown up in a backwoods settlement in the Carolinas. His ambition to acquire wealth and achieve prominence was matched only by his confidence that he alone could restore virtue to American politics. As the “people’s choice,” this model of masculine bravado—tall, gaunt, and sickly through-out his career—persevered. He lost the election of 1824 on a technicality, owing to the manipulations of
Henry Clay. Jackson partisans ran him again, with a vengeance, so that he became, from 1829 to 1837, a president bent on shaping the country to his will. Over two terms, he secured a reputation for opposing the class of moneyed men. To his outspoken critics, he was an elected tyrant.

Burstein gives us our first major reevaluation of Jackson’s life in a generation. Unlike the extant biographies, Burstein’s examines Jackson’s close relationships, discovering how the candidate advanced his political chances through a network of army friends—some famous, like Sam Houston, who became a hero himself; others, equally important, who have been lost to history until now. Yet due to his famous temper, Jackson ultimately lost his closest confidants to the opposition party.

The Passions of Andrew Jackson includes a fresh interpretation of Jackson’s role in the Aaron Burr conspiracy and offers a more intimate view of the backcountry conditions and political setting that shaped the Tennessean’s controversial understanding of democracy. This is the dynamic story of a larger-than-life American brought down to his authentic earthiness and thoughtfully demythologized. In a provocative conclusion, Burstein relates Jackson to the presidents with whom he was and still is often compared, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

A Lazy Treatise
Burstein seems to have been in a hurry to write this uninvolved book about a complex historical figure. His style is entertaining but he never delves into what Jackson DOES! I rather accept some of the assessments about Jackson's character as so totally self-centered that he couldn't keep a friend, take advice, or even adhere to the constitution, but I'd have liked to see more actual evidence put forth. Jackson's actual participation in the events he directed, caused, or undermined are completely skipped and replaced with a single opinionated point of view (which may well be accurate, but I'd rather form those conclusions myself).

I particularly dislike his arrangement of notes and the lack of a structured list of references. This (lately popular) method of substantiating the facts (or even opinions) in non-fiction books is an insidious attempt to thwart verification. I spent more time recording by hand the references I wished to check than I did actually reading the book. Why not list them in the conventional manner? It makes me suspect, especially when Remini is so cavaliarly dismissed.

Andrew Burstein is an entertaining writer, but this work is just too sloppy to be taken as a serious study of a complicated topic.

A dispassionate "Passions."
While reading this book, I didn't feel the author was particularly motivated to create a negative protrait of Jackson. By utilizing Jackson's own writing Burstein examines Jackson as he presented himself to others. This Jackson seems to be a man motivated by his belief that he was right in all things that mattered and if you disagreed you were disloyal. These are probably not uncommon traits for a president who was exceptionally popular, but played fast and loose with the U.S. Constitution and the will of the other branches of government.
That being said by focussing on Jackson's relationships with various individulas in his life, I felt I was not getting a complete portrait. Why was this man so revered by the people and what motivated his his various decisions? I feel this book gave me a starting point in understanding Jackson, a president who I feel abused his position like few others, but there seems to be more of a story here and THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON seems to raise as many questions as it answers.

Enjoyable but disappointing
First and foremost, THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON is compelling. This short book moves along at a quick pace. While the early life stories of some historic figures are dull necessities in larger biographies, Jackson's early life is the action-packed focus of this biography. The story of Andrew Jackson is a story of violence, sex scandal and adventure. Author Andrew Burstein does a good job of maximizing the drama of the story, and I enjoyed reading it very much.

Yet, while on the whole, THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON is an enjoyable book, it also contains a major disappointment: Burstein's treatment of Jackson's presidency. Burstein set out to write a book about Jackson's character with an emphasis on exploring his friendships. He explicitly did not intend to chronicle Jackson's presidency, so his brief treatment of that part of Jackson's life was not especially surprising. It was, however, disappointing for a number of reasons.

To begin with, Burstein hurls the gauntlet in his introduction at other Jackson biographers, especially "the reigning Jackson authority," Robert Remini. His basic criticism of Remini, who wrote a three-volume biography of Jackson, is that Remini bought into Jacksonian mythology a bit too much. By contrast, Burstein sets as his goal writing about Jackson as he really was. I found the assault on Remini to be odd and out of place. Remini's last volume was published in 1984, so I'm not sure why Burstein felt the need to justify writing a new book. More importantly, by contrasting his own book with Remini's, Burstein suggests a parallelism that doesn't really exist. THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON is much more limited in scope than Remini's work. Its focus is almost exclusively on who Jackson was rather than what he did.

Burstein falls short in not explaining enough what Jackson did. He assumes the reader's familiarity with the Jackson record and policy-making style. He alludes to important events associated with Jackson, such as the tragic "trail of tears," without fully explaining Jackson's role. Burstein probably could have done the job with an additional 20 pages, but it almost seems that the author lost interest in his own work at the point Jackson became president. The overall quality of the story degenerates after that. Burstein made his point already, the rest of Jackson's life is glossed over. The final several pages of reflective, explanatory writing seems almost redundant, which is a problem in a short book.

What is Burstein's point? It seems to be that Jackson was an impulsive, violent, unreflective man whose popularity was out of sync with his aptitudes for governing. His success at arousing emotional public support for short-sighted policies was the dark side of democracy. Beyond that, Burstein seems to very subtly be drawing a comparison between Jacksonian era politics and the politics of today, but this point is not developed probably because Burstein wanted his book to last. But by including this implied, under-developed comparison at all he fails to develop other implications, such as the idea that the early founders' elitist republicanism may have been a superior form of governance (another of Burstein's implications). In the end Burstein's only conclusions that stick are about Jackson's character, and not how any of this means anything larger.

The most disappointing aspect of THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON is that there hasn't been a well-known popular Jackson biography published for several years. Jackson was too important a figure for "the reigning authority" to keep his crown for 20 years without a new contribution. As enjoyable as THE PASSIONS OF ANDREW JACKSON is, if Remini holds the title, Burstein does not quite pose a threat to win it.

One-sided and unconvincing
I found this book to be unabashedly one-sided and unconvincing. Instead of being more objective about the life and character of our seventh president than other historians, as Burstein claims, it is obvious to even a casual reader that he is determined to emphasize Jackson's flaws at the expense of his accomplishments. He will go on for paragraph after paragraph and page after page about anything detrimental to Old Hickory, but when he absolutely cannot avoid making a positive statement, he manages to do so as briefly as possible. For example, he covers many pages describing the murky details of the young Andy's relationship with his future wife Rachel Donelson Robards, some of them cogent and convincing. There is no way, however, that he can avoid mentioning that their love was true and endured for all the years of their marriage, but he manages to do so in one or two sentences, omitting the many examples he might have given that prove Jackson's devotion to his wife. I suspect that the author believes that a controversial and revisionist biography, loaded with unsubstantiated psychological interpretations, will sell books.

Fails in its stated mission, suceeds in its unstated
The conclusions reached (repeatedly) by Burstein seem to rely more upon his "instincts" than his analytical skills. Cultural historians are too often criticized for "teasing out" meaning from texts and the cause of that is in a book like this. Interpreting or "reading" texts from the 19th century is often eschewed for what seems to be "mind reading" and conclusion jumping on the slightest of pretexts. Burstein *assumes* influences (as another reviewer provided an excellent example, I will not) and often motives where there is no clear evidence that any such things were important to Jackson himself!
What appeared to be a corrective to the plentiful hagiographies is instead a book that looks to be more aimed at creating attention for Mr. Burstein. Too bad, Andrew Jackson has had a long career as an American icon and a good critical evaluation of the man and the phenomenon is overdue. This book seems to be hostile for hostility's sake which provides no new insights at all. ... Read more

Book Description

In December of 1862, having read his brother's name in a casualty list, Walt Whitman rushed from Brooklyn to the war front, where he found his brother wounded but recovering. But Whitman also found there a "new world," a world dense with horror and revelation.Memoranda During the War is Whitman's testament to the anguish, heroism, and terror of the Civil War. The book consists of journal entries extending from Whitman's arrival on the front in 1862 through to the war's conclusion in 1865. Whitman details his encounters with soldiers and doctors, meditates on particular battles and on the meanings of the war for the nation, and recounts his wordless though peculiarly intimate public exchanges with President Lincoln, a man Whitman saw often on the streets of Washington and by whom he was deeply fascinated. The book offers an astounding amalgam of death portraits, anecdotes of battle, last words, messages to distant loved ones, and remarkably restrained and muted descriptions of pain, dismemberment, and dying--all of it, however grim, suffused with Whitman's undiminished enthusiasm and affection for these young soldiers. And throughout, we find Whitman laboring with heroic determination to sustain and nourish his once-ardent faith in America and American life, even as the nation unleashed unprecedented violence upon itself. The book also includes Whitman's famous speech "The Death of Abraham Lincoln," selected poems, and a letter to the parents of a deceased soldier.Edited and introduced by Peter Coviello, Memoranda During the War is a powerful portrait of a nation at war written by one of our greatest poets. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Superb additional material for Civil War Introduction
I read this book while also reading "Don't Know Much About the Civil War" and Lincoln's letters and speeches. What a wonderful view into the century that gave rise to this great one. If you are planning to cover the civil war, or even the nineteenth century in America, this would be a central piece to help modern readers understand that time. Whitman's prose style is very modern.

Like a camera into civil war hospitals and camps.
This collection of notes by Walt Whitman written during a period of time when Whitman was visiting war hospitals and camps is superb.

Whitman gives one a glimpse of the war that is photographic and poetic. Its attention to detail, and sympathetic approach must raise a lump in the throat of even the most hardend reader.

He shows you the places, the times and the players. He lets them speak their stories through his lines. Through sadness he exalts them.

This book should be a required reading for all highschool or college American History classes. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Meticulously researched and enormously entertaining!
Anyone interested in Robert E. Lee the man, will be delighted with the insights into his family provided by author Coulling.Lee was an exceptional leader, but his role as a father was even more revealing of his loving nature and the nuances of his personality.In my opinion, this book does a lot to demystify Lee.I do not see him as such a complex and mysterious individual as some historians have labeled him.His consistency is especially evident in this chronicle of family life.

Apart from Lee, the book focuses extensively on the lives of the daughters.Each daughter is portrayed as a complete person, and their individuality is celebrated.One can learn quite a bit about Mary Lee the mother, too, and even the grandparents who were so deeply loved by the girls.The sons are not ignored, either.

There is an overcast of sadness about the story, at least I felt a little sad, because they did have a difficult life.It's true that the Lee family was prominent in society and certainly they can be seen as privileged, but these privileges carry their own burden.

I highly recommend The Lee Girls to all those who want to escape to the past for awhile and enter into the Lee household.

A truly excellent and well balanced chronicle
The Lee Girls by biographer Mary P. Coulling is the informed and informative story of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's four daughters: Mary Custis Lee; Eleanor Agnes Lee; Mildred Childe Lee; and Anne Carter Lee. Diaries, letters, paintings, and other contemporary records were utilized as primary source materials upon which to base an bibliographically historically accurate narrative of these women's lives through girlhood, the horror of war, and the era of reconciliation and rebuilding. A truly excellent and well balanced chronicle, The Lee Girls is a welcome and highly recommended addition to American Regional History, Civil War Studies, and Reconstruction Era Studies collections and supplemental reading lists.

well writtern and researched
Enjoyed the time frame of the book. It was not just the girls during the civil war period but also gave attention to the sons as well. The black and white photos were a plus but I wish the author had featured photos of thetwo surviving daughters in later life. This is an excellent well researchedbook into the lives of four charming girls of American history.

Beautifully poignant
Robert E. Lee's daughters are the subject of this beautiful and poignant book.So touching is the correspondence between the General, his wife and daughters that you feel like an interloper.The lost art of letter writingas praticed by the Lee family gives a vivid picture of Antebellum, CivilWar, and Recontruction-era social history.

Wonderful book for those of us from southwest Virginia!
This book gives a glimpse of the correspondence between Robert E. Lee and his wife and daughters. As a Virginian, it was even more personal to read about the areas of the state where his family travelled to escape theravages of the war and to know that these are still beautiful sites, worthvisiting even today.It was a poignant look at this great general's lovefor his family. ... Read more

Reviews (12)

Loved Meade's Subject, Hated the Book
Maybe Marion Meade watches Lifetime TV a little too often, as her volume on Dorothy Parker has about as much punch as an anemic anorexic. Am I really expected to absorb page after page of Meade's re-telling of Parker's rise to literary fame and personal defeat, without ever encountering a four-letter word? (OK, once or twice, but c'mon!) I couldn't tell if Meade was intimidated by her subject, or felt it best to take a kindler, gentler approach to the forked-tongued legend. She hits all the obligatory marks: Parker's friendship with Robert Benchley, her drinking problem, the failed marriages, etc. If you are looking for a serious volume that speaks of Parker's stormy life, yet doesn't brush over the literary highlights, then please, I beg you, skip this one. Meade's chronological, plodding glimpes into Parker's world often include gaping holes, though if you can follow the basic plot lines of any given daytime soap, you shouldn't bother yourself with too much head-scratching. Meade has Parker writing a ditty, inspired by Benchley, published in The New Yorker on page 112, so of course, by page 114 it's time for us, the captive reader, to learn how the great magazine was founded--spoon fed, style. If you are familiar with Parker as that witty flapper lady who wrote "Big Blonde", then Meade's work will be gratifying. However, Parker herself also wrote "I Hate Women--They Get On My Nerves." Her sentiment can certainly be applied to Marion Meade's diluted biography. She undoubtedly tried her best, and probably sleuthed out some uncovered tidbits, but Meade's grasp on her subject is about as tight as Parker's was over her own life. Maybe that's the point, but Parker managed to have substance AND style, which are not words that can apply to "What Fresh Hell is This"? The title says it all.

Reads and Reveals like an Autobiography
The reader must approach this amazing biography with an open mind in order to truly comprehend the life of Dorothy Parker. Ms. Parker was a rebel of her time: she scoffed at the traditional housewife, laughed and exceeded men's expectations of women, and turned society on its ear with her personality. She questioned the preconditioned male society around her to create a world only she could ultimately live in (true to the subtitle of this book). Meade provides Dorothy's story with a writing style that compliments Dorothy in many ways. Meade captures Dorothy's sense of humor, self-destructiveness, and self-hatred beautifully. In a sense, this biography parallels Dorothy's short stories and poems . . . Meade remembers Dorothy for who she was and the struggles she endured.

Wonderful biography
I was amazed to learn what I didn't know about Dorothy Parker - despite the fact I thought I knew a _lot_ about her. I was wrong and you might be, too. Did she really marry a homosexual man twice? What really was the relationship between Dorthy and Robert Benchley? Was she a Communist? And is Lillian Hellman as wonderful as M's Hellman makes herself out to be? These questions (and of course much more) are answered by this book.
You may think you know Dorthy Parker, with her "Men don't make passes.." and other witticisms that seemed to spring effortlessly from her mouth, but she was a lot more than a "flapper" or perhaps an "early feminist" - she was a true bundle of contradictions.
It's not the "feel good" story of the year, after all, if you've been interested in Dorothy Parker enough to read this far, you already know how the story will end. But it still is a wonderful read.
I suggest reading this with "The Portable Parker" as it definitely gives you an insight into the way her mind worked.
I intend to find out the exact address of her ashes and pay a visit to that esteemed place, since I now know where her ashes are located. And you will, too, if you take my advice and read this book.

Only Decent Parker Biography
I don't think there is another decent review of Dorothy Parker's life in print.

I could go on and on about the individual bits of interesting data the book highlights: her relationship with Benchley, the Algonquin Round Table, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, plus her socio-political views, her misguided love life, her bitterness/love toward men. I suppose I could tell you a lot about what this book says in these regards.

I could lament how I think she is still an underrated fiction writer, as most people get stuck on her quips and witticisms, but her better skill was in unpeeling the subtleties of the everyday moment. I could, couldn't I?

There is plenty I could say about her insecurities, her foolish business mistakes and something bizarre about her dog. Oh yes, that would be interesting, that whole dog thing.

Instead, I'll just tell you this book is what is says, a thorough examination of the life of Dorothy Parker. You will be happy you bought it. It says everything I didn't say and more.

I fully recommend this book.

Anthony Trendl

Well done.
This is an excellent biography and a great introduction to the life of Parker. And what a character she was--could ANYONE be bored reading this? ... Read more

Book Description

Born to affluence and opportunity in the South's Golden Age, Mary Motte Alston Pringle (1803-1884) represented the epitome of Southern white womanhood. Her husband, William, was a wealthy rice planter who owned four plantations and 337 slaves. Her thirteen children included two Harvard scholars, seven world travelers, three socialite daughters, a U.S. Navy war hero, six Confederate soldiers, one possible Union collaborator, a Confederate firebrand trapped in the North, an expatriate bon vivant in France, and two adventuresome California pioneers.

Mary’s World illuminates in lavish detail the world and psyche of this wealthy, well-educated, highly-principled nineteenth-century Southern planter's wife.This biography was drawn directly from over 2,500 pages of Mary’s unpublished letters, journals and diaries, none of which, she could have imagined, would ever be read by strangers.Therein lies their power.

In her own words, Mary tells us about the joys, sorrows, frustrations, and terrors she and her family faced before, during, and after the Civil War.We also learn about the vastly different lifestyles, food, clothing, and experiences of their 337 slaves.Mary’s World also pays special attention to Lucretia “Cretia” Stewart, Mary’s favorite servant, Cretia’s husband, Scipio, and their free descendants, some of whom worked for Mary’s grandchildren well into the twentieth century.

Between 1861 and the Union occupation of Charleston in 1865, Mary and her husband, William, stood helpless as two sons were killed, another was driven insane, their slaves were freed, their entire social class was destroyed.Mary felt that God had forsaken her and the the Confederacy. Unable to adapt to the realities of post-war life, she and William died forlorn relics of The Lost Cause.How they, their children, and slaves lived before the Civil War, clung desperately to life in the eye of the maelstrom, and coped – or failed to cope -- with its bewildering aftermath is the story of this book. The letters and images they left behind offer priceless insights into the roots of Southern social history. ... Read more

Reviews (22)

Step back in time and make some new friends!
Mary's World is a well-written, wonderfully researched narrative of a wealthy and prominent family in nineteenth century South Carolina. The backdrop is the family's generational home, Charleston's Miles Brewton House, built in 1765, where family members wrote many of the letters used by Mr. Côté to reconstruct their lives. A chapter devoted to this historic site, now restored, plus frequent references, literally bring the reader into the Pringle home to observe the many lives that began and ended there. Mary Motte Alston Pringle (1803-1884) is the focal point of the story and the vehicle the author uses to familiarize the reader with the extended family and their various adventures. Mr. Côté draws on a rich mixture of personal letters, journals, and business and family records, plus a variety of secondary sources to piece together the lives of multiple generations and branches of this aristocratic planter family. His informed insight and objective analysis of Mary's fascinating world allows family members to speak for themselves and the reader to become virtually acquainted with them across the years. Their personal accounts reveal their lives in the antebellum South and how the Civil War affected them during and after the conflict. Interspersed throughout the book is information about their relationships with and attitudes toward their slaves before the war and the Freedmen after the war. Through this woven tapestry of emotions, beliefs, activities, customs, and culture people long dead speak again, explaining what it was like to live in their world, now long past.

The Best and Most Personal Account of Life in the Old South
I just finished reading Mary's World last night at 2:00 A.M. I couldn't put it down. I had long searched for a book that told about the actual lives of an Antebellum family. I had bought it while in Charleston, and it was my best book buy of the year!

Many other books I have read about the same topic have been good, yet they are explained as mere facts. Mary's World was indeed portrayed as if it were fiction, yet it was a true and researched account of Mary's World, an amazing glimpse into a bygone era. It was well written and very enjoyable. If I could get my hands on more books of this type, I would certainly do so. There are many books about the Old South, but none that I know of that allow such a close and personal look and feel into the real lives of those persons having lived in the years leading to, during, and after the Civil War.

There is an amazing national interest in Antebellum life told through the "voices" of those having lived during these actual times - and Cote has done a great job of sharing the true stories and lives of the Alston, Pringle, Frost, Middleton, and many other families/persons in this wonderful book.

I have studied old southern families for years, and I know a great deal about several families from Charleston, Savannah, and New Orleans. The real life stories about which Cote writes in Mary's World are so fascinating that anyone reading the book will fall in love with Mary Pringle and Old Charleston.

Mr. Cote, thanks again for a most wonderful book, and please keep similar books coming.

By the way, for those of you whom read and loved Mary's World, Cote's next book about Mary Pringle's sister-in-law, Theodosia Burr Alston will be out soon.

Mary's World
What an unbelievable picture Mr. Cote' paints for readers in "Mary's World". It was one of those books that grabbed my attention and never let go. I was sorry to reach the end, as I was so enthralled with this account of Mrs. Pringles life. Details derived from personal letters, give you an account of her life from a naive & idealistic bride to an older woman, who has endured many changes and hardships. This spring I'll be visiting Charleston South Carolina and I will be anxious to see the home, and visit Gibbes Art gallery to see some of the portraits mentioned in the book. Agreeing with a previous reviewer, I believe this is the best book I've read this year and would highly recommend it to anyone.

Delightful starter on civil war history for foreigners
Apart from the reading plaesure "Mary's World" provides, I immensly enjoyed this book for the following reasons: foreign history, in this case the American Civil War history, can be daunting for outsiders. Mary's World eases the foreigner not only into the life of the Pringle family but also into history of southern plantation life years prior to the war. This circumstance greatly facilitates the amateur's understanding of the time leading up to the war and the war itself. What I particularly appreciated was the southern view of that history. Even in Switzerland we are familiar with the northern issues of industrialism vs. agriculture (prominent geographically in Europe at that time also), the slavery issue etc. Rarely do we hear about the life and thoughts of Southerners other than the great military men. The history of Mary Pringle written by Richard Cote transports you into a Charleston household in two seconds flat. It is all so lively and easy to imagine that it is hard to put down the book. I felt I knew Mary Pringle and her children! And I felt I had never learned more about the South.

Mary's World
I live on the grounds of two of the former rice plantations mentioned throughout Richard Conte's wonderful book and am in the process of writing my own book about the history of these plantations. Needless to say, I was already very familiar with the subject matter and the great Allston/Alston family when I purchased "Mary's World." But Conte's easy to read, moving style made the individuals within that family come alive for me. Even though I often visit a number of the graves of those mentioned in the book, Conte's insight has enabled me to feel even more connected to the family than I did before. I couldn't recommend "Mary's World''more highly. ... Read more

Book Description

In his youth Mark Twain drifted through the West. He worked as a civil servant, gold prospector, reporter, lecturer. ROUGHING IT is Twain's record--fact and impression--of those early years.

Twain tried his luck at everything. He disputed with vigilantes; crossed Slade the Terrible, whose equally terrible wife shot not from the hip but from the petticoat; met people famous and obscure, from Brigham Young, the ambitious Mormon leader, to Hank Erickson, a farmer who sought advice on turnips from Horace Greeley and fulminated against him because he could not decipher the answer. ... Read more

Reviews (18)

Roughing IT
I became acquainted with ROUGHING IT as a high school sophomore, when an otherwise fatally boring "World Geography" textbook introduced a chapter on America's Rocky Mountain West, with an italicized excerpt from Chapter 43 of ROUGHING IT. That excerpt was Mark Twain's description of Virginia City and the Comstock Lode during the "Flush Times". At that time, "Bonanza" was a popular TV western, and the Virginia City of Twain's experience, made "Bonanza's" Virginia City seem dull! I was hooked. I found a tattered old copy of ROUGHING IT at the public library and read it. And I have re-read ROUGHING IT many times since, finding it one of those rare books revealing fresh nuggets with every prospecting trip.

ROUGHING IT is captivating in so many ways, and on many levels. It's a journey into the real "Old West" on the Overland Stage, a journey on the road from youth to maturity, a journey to an era of wild, crazy times and colorful characters to match, a journey from young Sam Clemens to Mark Twain, and all written with the young , enthusiastic Twain's incomparable style and eye for detail and humor.

Although Twain's peerless storytelling is reason enough to read ROUGHING IT , the book is also a gem of priceless historic value, revealing much about the Western Frontier's early mining era. The first 20 chapters are probably the best first-hand account of travel on the Overland Stage in existence, and the description of early 1860's Virginia City ,as well as the descriptions of prospecting, mining , miners, and other details of that time are of equally priceless historic value. For those with a morbid dread of history, rest assured that with Professor Twain instructing , the subject emerges with a fresh, new perspective that is irresistible.

I can never read ROUGHING IT without wondering why Hollywood is so hung up on the Western Frontier's "cowboy era" , when the early mining era of the frontier seems so much more colorful and interesting . Hopefully, someone will drop ROUGHING IT on a studio executive's head , before he commits "Legally Blond 15", or "Terminator 25".

This classic book has often been overlooked for reasons I can't understand. It reads as freshly as if it had been written yesterday, and it is well worth the effort. This is history the way it should be taught, and while ROUGHING IT belongs at the top of any list of classic books, it would also belong at the top of a list of books which are fun to read. "Fun to read", and "Classic", rarely describe the same book, but ROUGHING IT is the exception.

Frontier life through the eyes of Americas greatest satirist
There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of travel logs, journals, reports, diaries, etc. that tell about the American West in the mid-nineteenth century. This book by Mark Twain, however, is both unique and one of the best. This is travel writing as it should be. Twain, traveling across the plains from Missouri to Nevada in the early 1860's, and spending seven years loafing about Nevada, California, and Hawaii, collected and compiled his experiences into this extraordinary book. One of the best things about Twain, of course, is his unique view on things. This tale is told in Twain's wry, humorous style, and is very enjoyable.

This book is not quite as pessimistic as Twain's other great travel writing, 'The Innocents Abroad,' but it does include some interesting and unorthodox views which often prove hilarious. Twain spends time as a gold and silver seeker, a speculator, a journalist, and a vagabond (as he himself puts it), and puts a unique spin on each of these occupations. As far as travel writing goes, this book is indispensable, and it also proves quite valuable (odd as it may seem) in any thorough study of frontier life in the American West.

Hilarious jounrye across America
Mark Twain achieves a remarkable feat in this book, he manages to write a travel book even funnier than 'Innocents Abroad', which I wouldn't have thought possible. His riveting account of his travels west across the country is packed with fascinating and amusing incidents and anecdotes. I was almost in hysterics when I read about Twain and a group of friends beimng held at bay by a boxful of escaped Tarantulas, and again reading about his bizarre encounters with the preposterous Mormons in Utah. As in Innocents Abroad, humour is woven in with serious observations on the places he visits and their inhabitants. His account of his visit to Hawaii is particularly fascinating, but the whole book is unforgettable.

Thank Goodness!
Twain is a storyteller in the old-fashioned sense of the word. He spins his tales, weaves his lies, and draws us in with the skill of a magician. Dividing fact from fiction is not always easy in a work such as this. "Roughing It" has moments of obvious hyperbole, grounded by stories of true difficulty. Yet throughout, Twain finds a way to make us smile, even laugh out loud. We are amused by the eccentric characters and turns of events which he describe, and find that we are not so far different as we might like to think.

The story follows Twain's journey as he travels west by stagecoach, train, wagon, horse, and ship. He meets surly frontiersmen, murderers, thieves, fortune-hunters, and men of ill-repute. Even here, he finds the good beneath the dirt. I especially enjoyed his anecdote of Scotty Briggs, a man trying to hire a minister to attend over his friend's funeral. Hilarious stuff! And so true to human nature.

Throughout his account, Twain makes a habit of degrading his own work ethic, nudging us in the ribs as he highlights his aversion to labor. With this in mind, the title seems to be a tongue-in-cheek affair. In fact, I found his accounts much less rustic and more modern than expected. Sure, we can travel across the U.S. quicker these days, but the politics and economics of Twain's age parallel our own. Will we never learn? Isn't this the point of history, to avoid repeating our errors?

Although criticized in his day for using coarse language and a working-class, Twain held to his guns and gave us some magnificent humor with which to swallow his pointed barbs. He was a master satirist, and even in a travelogue such as this, his views shine through. And thank goodness! A century and a half later, I'm thankful for his insights.

Must Read
A gem that I am glad I finally got around to reading. Any serious reader with an open mind about religion, politics, and living will immensely enjoy this book; others won't. So to paraphrase the old adage, if you enjoyed the book, review it and give it the deserved five stars; if you didn't enjoy it, please keep it to yourself and not tarnish this gem. It deserves to be read by future readers for many years to come. ... Read more

Reviews (85)

Wonderful (gulp) revelations about the Left
This is a book I wanted to get when I heard it was coming out several years ago. However, it wasn't until last year I finally picked it up. I just finished it, and boy am I glad I got it! "Radical Son" is a fascinating, hard-to-put-down autobiography which basically sticks to Horowitz's life experiences in a chronological fashion. However, he also diverges into speculation and insight about why things were so and self-psychoanalysis about why he did what he did. I only feel that perhaps Horowitz should have saved most of his insight and back-analyzing for a final chapter or section. Sometimes it's nice to just read the facts of what happened and then, as we come to the present day, perform the analysis. This is true for both analysis of the author himself and the movement in general. I'd like to see the insight and analysis all summarized in 1 section. I really don't have complaint about the book and would rather give it a 4.5 star, but Amazon doesn't allow that. His story by itself is great insight into the leftist movement; what it really was like w/o all the self-congratulatory ballyhoo typical of his generation, and how pervasive the leftist movement became through and after the '60s. It really only confirmed most of my suspicions about the left, including about the radical '60s in general, but also provided new (to me) revelations about the pervasiveness of Communists and their allegiances in the US, even before then.

Okay, he's a "traitor"--but is he right?
It is no surprise that David Horowitz is viciously despised on the left. He now attacks the left with the same persistence and self-righteousness that he once employed in service of radical causes. I can't help but notice, however, that many of his leftist critics choose to explain him in personal, psychological terms rather than discussing the truth of his claims about the left. Perhaps Horowitz leaves himself open to such an interpretation by including so much non-political material--his estrangement from his parents, his broken marriages--in his story. I believe the more important issues of contention are his various claims about the intentions and integrity of the leaders of the New Left, such as Tom Hayden, or their complicity in despicable acts of violence. His charges about the death of Betty Van Patter at the hands of the Black Panthers have brought a bitter exchange with some of his former comrades at salon.com. Say what you will about Horowitz, he is at least no coward and does not shrink from the most difficult issues. This book is important, because it is a necessary antidote to all the romanticized and hagiographic presentations of the sixties and its leaders stuffed down our throats by some of the Baby Boomers--too many people my age seem to swallow the myth that the sixties were about a bunch of idealistic, naive young people fighting against an oppressive system.

A genuinely profound autobiography
Of a rare odyssey: Someone who rethinks their political beliefs from the ground up. For Horowitz, it was seeing friends murdered by 'brothers in arms' in the political Left (ie Black Panthers), that woke him up and turned him away from radical leftism.

This is the most interesting political odyssey stories since Whittaker Chambers' "Witness", and there are echoes of that era in today's era, and in the two man's lives. Chambers and Horowitz both are now toasted on the right and vilified by the left, even though neither were/are cookie cutter conservatives. Their main threat to the left is they are on to the game of the Leftists. Hence the venom against Horowitz.

The previous review is nonsense. Horowitz calls people Communists and Socialists because that is what they called *themselves*. Including Horowitz, who was raised as a 'red diaper' baby. "Neo-McCarthyite" hmmm. Well, KGB files now reveal that many of the 'innocents' protected by the Left were in fact certainly Soviet spies: Rosenbergs, Hiss. And that 100s of Communist spies were in the US Government. McCarthy was right more than wrong!

Whatever your political leanings, this books is highly recommended. It will make you think!

Truely hilarious
What is more unbelievable, that Horowitz wrote this atrocity or that so many winners right such self righteous "I told you so" reviews for this piece of crap. Horowitz attacks anyone who doesn't agree with him as a communist and a Stalinist etc...

We are not treated to any sources where we could check out Dave's "facts", Gore Vidal published a anti-jewish article in the Nation says Davey, when was that Dave, can we check for ourselves or should we take your ranting's as fact?

That Dave has tapped the vein of neo-McCarthyites is obvious by the reviews he gets here, anyone who thinks that Dave has any truth other than "I was an idiot and associated with idiots" is brain damaged. Dave turned from ranting left wing stooge to right wing stooge, the right probably pays better.

Enlightening, revealing and utterly important.
This is one of the most important books I have ever read. Coming from a country where 'socialism' is honored and desired; this book opened my eyes to flaws of socialism and the people who champion it.
This book is inspiring. It is an adventure in David Horowitz's soul.
A must read. ... Read more