History Books

Though I had to read this for a college course, I still found this book fascinating. I really thought that Restall's arguements were sound and his conclusions were perfect. I especially found it intersting that he talks about black conquistadors. That is something that is not discussed in history books. The myth of just the white conquistador has definitely been debunked. He does a superb job with this book by using the conquistadors own words. I definitely recommend it.

While I love the stories of the Spanish conquerers, this book makes some great points that chip away at viewpoint of Cortes and his soldiers as brilliant strategists. Simple put, Restall analyzes the Spanish conquest through contextual history, not the Great Man theory of history. This was a very refreshing work and should be read by all students of Latin American history.

Interesting book. Had an interesting perspective, but it was not the grand and iconoclastic book most reviewers seem to presnt it.

Interesting book with seven excellent points of the Spanish Conquest. For those who have done any kind of research into this period of history, would for the most part, agree to Mr. Restall's points. I was curious to see his explanations to the myths and his justifications. I found it enjoyable reading as a whole and agreed to most of his myths. This book would be more meaningful and insightful to a reader who has done some previous reading in this area.

The old saying, "History is written by the Conquerers" is very true. This book present a differnt perspective and debunks some of the old myths that have been perpetuated for years.

Psychological Testing:History, Principles and Applications (5th Edition) has provided the graduate student with a simplified version of psychological testing. This text can be used with any reader that goes through the rigors of learning the rudiments of psychological testing. What is most valuable in this text is the categories of tests and their explanations with case exhibits. The summaries assist with memory and easy recall of facts while the key terms and concepts after each chapter provide the student with easy recall and a simple glossary.

The book is not difficult and it is not complex, but it is dense in the sense it is packed with so much insight and value. I started out putting post-its on the pages I thought I would want to refer to again later, but had to stop when it became clear I was "post-itting" (if that is not a word, it certainly should be) just about every other page.

This book is unsurpassed in analyzing China's impact on the world. Through real world examples, it captures just how different China is in its business conduct just how strange a trading partner China is, and how it resembles no other great power. Kynge beautifully weaves China's contradictions into a tapestry that allows us to understand it, as best as is possible.

Though this book is in many ways a "big-think" book, it is nonetheless absolutely relevant to those doing business in or with China. It provides the best macroeconomic analysis of China I have yet seen and, by doing so, it provides invaluable knowledge of how to adjust/position your business to compete.

Must-read if you want to learn more about China's recent economic growth. Kynge's anecdotal style really brings home the reality of China's economic boom that you only hear in the abstract in the US media.

Writing this in 2008, May, I have to say that I enjoyed the book, it left me with an idea of China's position in the world, but also on how few I know about such a great and big country. It states facts, and very little opinions, and some of the facts are individual stories from which you have to draw your own conclusions.

Anyway, as a big country, I finish the book feeling the need to read and know way more about China, geography, history, different peoples; but if books sizes relate to the country size and history, we may talk thousands of pages!

The book suffer the couple of years since the edition, and one misses more actual stories and references to recent news.

James Kynge, in his book China Shakes the World, states that a key question is whether or not the Western world will be able to "accommodate the manifestations of extreme strengths and profound weaknesses that are emanating from China." This 2006 Financial Times Business Book of the Year is an interesting and informative read. It provides snapshots of some of the effects that China's economic development has had around the world.

Throughout his book Kynge seeks to capture the impact of China's rise by examining its effect on a variety industries in places such as Dortmund, Germany; Prato, Italy; and Rockford, Illinois. He discusses the global evolution of Chinese companies from steel production to high fashion.

In addition to detailing the success stories of industries and rags-to-riches entrepreneurs, Kynge also examines a number of challenges that may impede China's future development. One of these challenges is the cutthroat domestic competition in manufacturing and the piracy associated with it. Kynge also highlights a number of the stark environmental problems facing China as a result of its rapid industrialization. On the whole, China Shakes the World provides a balanced account of many of China's strengths and weaknesses.

In preparation for a business trip to China, the first book I read was China Shakes the World by James Kynge. Mr. Kynge is a journalist with over twenty years of experience in Asia. The book is an easy read covering a number of current topics: Piracy, Environmental Concerns, Technology, Communism and the China/U.S. Relationship. The book offers a balanced look at China showing both the opportunity and challenges the country faces. No conclusions are drawn about the future, but the book is a good high-level look across the many facets of China.

Istanbul: Memories and the City


Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul, like Samuel Peyps' London, Proust's Paris, and Borges' Buenos Aires, is a collection of childhood memories informed by adult intellect. Born into a once prominent but lately downwardly- mobile family, Pamuk is preoccupied by the sense of lost glory that infuses Istanbul:
"The city into which I was born was poorer, shabbier, and more isolated than it had ever been before in its two-thousand year history. For me it has always been a city of ruins and of end-of-empire melancholy." It is this melancholy, or
`huzun' that infuses the city and his memories.
How to refer to the change in political control of the city from Greek to Ottoman is the subject of a fascinating chapter: "Conquest or Decline? The turkification of Istanbul." During the 500th anniversary ceremony in l953, the government downplayed the "Turkish' factor, partially because of Turkey's new membership in Nato. Out of fear of alienating the Greek population, the government chose to ignore the anniversary of the "Conquest of Constantinople."
But there were anti-Greek demonstrations and violence, leading Pamuk to conclude that "the government allowed mobs to rampage through the city, plundering the property of Greeks and other minorities. A number of churches were destroyed during the riots and a number of priests were murdered, so there are many echoes of the cruelties Western histories describe as the "fall" of Constantinople. In fact, both the Turkish and Greek states have been guilty of treating their respective minorities as hostages to geopolitics."
One of the attractive features of Pamuk's memoir is the generous use of archival, black and white photographs dating from the 1920's, thirties, and forties.
The original Turkish is ably translated Maureen Freely. I am now encouraged to read more of Pamuk's works available in English, "The Black Book," "My Name is Red," and "Snow," which he describes as his only political novel.

I have now read all of Orhan Pamuk books available. I have learned so much about another culture because of this brillian author.

The book is personal, moody, altogether a very lovely snapshot of an enigmatic city which hangs between East and West. Vintage photographs add their atmosphere to the text.

Orhan Pamuk is a master at his craft; for further reading after this, I suggest "My Name is Red."

I finished this on a flight from Izmir to Istanbul. It's a good thing I did: it provides an excellent preface to visiting that amazing city.

Pamuk has three guiding ideas in this book. First is that all Istanbullus share a sort of melancholy which Turks call huzun. The idea is that they all lament the decline of their city since it was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and that they lament their servitude to the Western world. Secondly, Pamuk wants to harness this huzun and create an artwork that is distinctively Turkish -- not Western, not Muslim, but a harmonious blend of the two. Thirdly, Pamuk believes that the city inhabits the man just as much as the man inhabits the city: Pamuk feels Istanbul's moods and it feels his. Huzun is thus a strictly collective emotion. One cannot feel this sort of melancholy on one's own; one can only experience it in a collective way along with one's fellow-Istanbullus. (Indeed, it's not clear to me that residents of any other city -- Vienna, maybe? Pittsburgh? -- can feel huzun; it may be a nostalgic melancholy that only Istanbullus are logically entitled to feel.)

I didn't feel the huzun in Istanbul, but then I was only there for a few days; Pamuk doesn't believe that anyone can understand his city without living there for ten years or more. It may also be impossible for a new generation of lifelong Istanbullus to feel the huzun: those born into today's Istanbul may not realize that there's anything other than the Western model to follow.

This is all his perspective as an insider to the culture. As an outsider to it, my perspective says something altogether different. When I visited Istanbul, there was at least one mosque, minaret, and muezzin per quarter square mile. One block off the main drag in Beyolu (Istiklal Caddesi), our cab had to stop to let a flock of sheep and their shepherd pass. One block off on the other side was a warren of little streets filled with conservative Muslims. I felt distinctly foreign there, both in nationality and in culture. If this is "the West," Istanbul-style, then Pamuk has nothing to worry about.

At times -- certainly over the last fifth of the book -- Pamuk's melodrama about huzun gets to be a bit much. He haunts the miserable streets of a lost empire, collar upturned against the snow, trying to shake off his own desperation at a lost love and make an art form that doesn't just ape the West. On and on he goes, trying to beat us over the head with the idea that the city inhabits the man and the man the city: we cut back and forth between his furious wanderings in the streets and his fight with his mother over what he'll do with his life. Pamuk thinks he is terribly clever. He wants us very much to know how clever it is; earlier in the book he drops hints about its "hidden symmetry." This symmetry, so far as I can tell, is just the symmetry between the man and the city. So now you know. If you were paying attention during the first half of the book, you already knew. I'd rather not be bludgeoned with the Cleverness Stick.

Still, it's a fun read. It's peppered with (deliberately) black-and-white photos of old Stamboul, from an era when people flocked to the shores of the Bosphorous to watch the Ottoman pashas' wooden "yals" (waterfront mansions) burn to the ground one by one. There's great romance in this book, great love for the Bosphorous, and delicious history. Worth reading, but not worth owning.

I remember the Boston of my childhood, though I remember Marblehead (a small town to the north) much better because I actually lived there. The two places had certain sights, sounds, smells, and "feelings" that, for the most part, have vanished like a morning fog off the Atlantic. But anchoring all those sensory aspects of the places was history, a giant kaleidescope of shifting people, institutions and events that created the then present, that created the new present, and will create the next present. I can't imagine Boston or Marblehead without that history.

Orhan Pamuk chose to write his great love for his city in a strange form. He weaves himself and his personal history into the picture, but completely avoids any historical details. I wonder whom he wrote for ? If for that "western audience" he refers to so often, there is not enough history to make sense of why Istanbul became such a melancholic, declined, fallen, poor, neglected place (at least he says it was). Fires and accidents, rain and snow, the hiss of tires slipping on old cobblestone alleys in a city that once ruled a big part of the world. If he wrote for a Turkish audience, his style of describing his family and his personal behavior would probably turn them off, along with his emphasis on Turkish cultural poverty. Maybe he wanted to "send a message" to those who insist too much on "Turkishness", by mentioning the now-mostly-disappeared non-Muslim minorities quite often. Maybe, but I conclude that he wrote it for himself---full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes to come. Pamuk writes of western painters and travellers and their views of the city in the 19th century and how they influenced him. He also writes of Turkish authors and how they viewed the city, though I have never seen any of their work in translation (meaning I have no idea how they would resonate with me). I liked this gambit, though I knew nothing about those Turkish writers. What I liked best is how he describes the city itself, how he walked around it as a child and a youth, how he steeped himself in the decay of the old Ottoman heritage before all the old mansions burned, before concrete apartment blocks sprang up like toadstools to sweep away the sad wooden houses that had seen better days. I loved the chapter on smoke from the funnels of steamships in the Bosphorus, and above all I liked the dozens of black and white photos of bygone days that fill the pages. It's a world class essay of nostalgia, but done in a very new way.

It's an interesting way to describe a city and write the first part of an autobiography. It's not a travelogue. There's not a single map---as if all the readers would know the geography of Istanbul. This is not Istanbul for visitors, this is Istanbul for those who loved it (who could AFFORD to love it) back in the Fifties and Sixties, when it had not been inundated in a huge tide of immigrants or refugees from the countryside and abroad, when Turkey was a poor, slow country. I saw it, once, briefly then, when Pamuk was an eleven year old kid. The dynamic, vital, amazing city of 2008 bears little resemblance to that other Istanbul. I understand why he wrote the book; I know a little of what is lost. To know that, you couldn't find a better book than this.

When I saw the interview where the writer of this book said that he had never really read comics, He came across as just another mainstream person who writes aboutr a subject but has little or no education background on the subject itself. Yeah, real nice.

What a wonderful book about a terrible waste and shameful time in American history. Hadju traces the rise of comics from the puckish newspaper funnies through the creation of the superhero pantheon, the diversity of comic book genres and the eventual painful demise under the censorship and revilement of the late 1950s society. I learned so many things from this book. What a tragedy that all those creative and talented writers and artists, most from minorities who were rejected from mainstream and "high" art were villified.

'Ten Cent Plague' shows an image of America at its best and worst; as a land that fostered the rise of an industry of great originality and intelligence and as a society of people so desperate for a scapegoat that adults and children both rounded up and burned thousands of comic books less than 10 years after the fall of the Nazis.

This was a fascinating, well-researched, immensley engrossing book and a vital reminder of the dangers of assigning blame to any one artist or medium.

Highly informative, slightly esoteric, and entirely relevant, Hajdu's case study on the hysteria surrounding crime comic-books at the dawn of the Cold War left me with far more questions than answers. While this generally is a sign that an author has breached the innermost walls of my cerebrum and forced me to question my previous held assumptions regarding a given topic, Hajdu's impeccable research and wealth of knowledge was simply too much to handle. When I first purchased the book, I was under the assumption that I would be getting a comprehensive look at the hysteria surrounding the comic-book industry as a whole. Not so. Hajdu's research is extraordinarily focused (essentially the decade following WWII), yet highly effective. Those looking for a bit of easy reading need not apply. But I digress...
As a twenty-three-year-old, it makes perfect sense that I would find Hajdu's book rather esoteric. Simply put, I never experienced any of the comic-book burnings or public hysteria cited by Hajdu. But, that does not leave me ignorant of the reactionary elements central to the hysteria surrounding potentially "damaging" aspects of youth culture. As I read this book, I couldn't help but be reminded of the "parental advisory" stickers gracing my generation's compact discs, or the on-going debate surrounding the influence of violent video games on the minds of our nation's "impressionable" youth. Let's not forget the censorship imposed by retail outlets like Target or Wal-Mart, who have effectively banned CD's containing "objectionable" lyrical content from their shelves. So what's the bottom line? I think there's fertile ground for a sequel...

At various times, Americans have chosen to believe that comic books create juvenile delinquency and encourage all kinds of immoral behavior by corrupting the young, as described in the book with a questionable basis, Seduction of the Innocent. The Ten-Cent Plague describes a free-wheeling industry that entertained youngsters and people in their twenties with anti-establishment themes and stories.

Despite little or no research to support these views and the Supreme Court upholding the First Amendment, legislators listened to a few psychiatrists and church and scout leaders who believed otherwise and put stiff penalties on those who put out the most popular comics (especially crime, horror, and romance). Distributors and newsstand dealers didn't want to go to jail over comic books, and they knuckled under to the pressure. Publishers quickly began to go broke. The industry tried to save itself with a rigid self-censorship code that made comics bland and did little to restore sales. Hundreds of comic titles died, and many talented people left the industry under a dark cloud.

Mad Magazine was one of the few survivals, and only because it converted from a comic book to a magazine (which wasn't subject to the same penalties).

It's a chapter in American history that few know about or understand. David Hadju does a solid job of describing it. I was a child during most of this and was aware of the protests against comic books, but didn't realize what the effects were.

This book could have been quite a bit shorter and punchier. I was disappointed that so many simple events (like a comic book burning) were treated in such detail. It was a little ho hum after awhile.

I found this book totally fascinating. Not only does it discuss the social history surrounding comics in the 40's and 50's but you can also see some parallels between the traditional culture's reaction to comics back then and the reaction of some to video games today. (There as some big differences though that will prevent the anti-gaming types (Jack Thompson, etc.) today from doing the damage Werthiemer (sp?) and his crew did back then.) I think anyone interested in social history, comics or video games will enjoy this book.

To use a term that many in the military are fond of, Nagl "gets it." His understanding of counterinsurgency operations is both broad and deep, and his writing is smooth enough for the lay reader to comprehend without any difficulty.

Nagl's departure from the US Army will be a loss for this country's armed forces. However, since he will be taking a position at the Center for a New American Security, hopefully we can look forward to fresh work from this great military mind.

Very cool book for operators (armed forces and civilian) and regular people. It shows us what we should be trying to do in the whole world. Make people safer, and they'll help you find the really bad guys (not the everyday ones). Really worth reading.

Good read. Great knowledge. I wish the authore had stayed in the army becasue he knows what he is talking about.

As the war in Iraq slides into it's fifth year I am sure most Americans are perplexed on why things remain so screwed up over there. Why can't American's just handle it and come home. This book sort of explains the why. This book is excellent. It really defines what an insurgency is. It isn't like the traditional war like WWII which we see on the history channel. Anyone who wants to get perspective on events needs to read this book.

The book has a second point too which anyone can apply. This book shows how the organizational culture can effect the ability to solve problems. The author does that in studying the British experience in Malay vs. the American experience in Vietnam. He shows how the British were adapt and could learn then apply as they go along. The LTC then shows how the American's were not flexible and paid the consequences. LTC Nagel shows how the American's were so preprogrammed in fighting a WWII type battle they couldn't grasp any other solution. The Generals were preprogrammed in Vietnam to such a degree they threw out any fact that upset the model in their mind. They may have changed the buzz words but the core way of doing business was the same throughout Vietnam for the Americans, search and destroy. While the British had a way to listen and apply the lessons learned from the bottom up. The result of such innovation was that they won their war and we didn't. Insurgencies tend to be as much of a political fight as anything else. LTC Nagel shows that in the book.

Any manager of any large organization needs to read this book because it shows how organizational culture can choke a team to death.

LTC Nagel does identify what an insurgency is but doesn't offer much remedy to fighting that war directly. He does talk about how the British did it and how some American's had theories in handling that type of war. It would be interesting to hear of his insight in the context of Iraq. However I feel that the planners in this surge probably read this book. It has a lot of similarities with the British Malay model.

Overall it is an easy read. He does get lost in the military terms a little. The material he talks about is the same concepts you read about in the newspapers. It will help the reader understand what is going on.

In his book The Two Vietnams, the late Bernard Fall warned that any comparisons between British victories in Malaya and the situation in Vietnam in 1960's was nothing but a dangerous self-delusion, or worse, an oversimplification of the whole problem. Mr. Nagl should have heeded that advice before he wrote this book.

These conflicts did not share much in common beyond the jungle setting and political ideology. The author's first error was not underscoring the fact that the British-led security forces did use overwhelming force to neutralize the insurgency in Malaya. By the mid-1950s the communist guerrillas were impossibly outnumbered (by more than 50 to 1) and they had no external support from foreign countries. Food control was easy for the British because Malaya imported 2/3 of its rice, and geography isolated the guerrillas from potential suppliers needed to maintain and expand the insurgency.

The most important dissimilarity is that the British did not have to fight a huge conventional field army like the PAVN, which ultimately numbered in millions of troops and thanks to China and Russia, it was armed with modern infantry weapons, tanks, heavy artillery, jet aircraft, SAMs, and radar controlled air defense. The last time the British fought pitched battles against conventional forces in Malaya, they were crushed by the Japanese Army in 1942.

The communist insurgency in Malaya amounted to little more than a few thousand guerrillas equipped with no sophisticated weapons. The small arms they did have were generally in poor condition, and ironically supplied to them by the British SOE during World War II. It was the British who raised and equipped these guerrillas to confront the Japanese occupation forces.

Geography also spared British Malaya from other communist threats. South Vietnam was bordered by three countries that were either communist or in various stages of revolt. Compared to Vietcong guerrillas and the North Vietnamese Army, the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge were little more than a nuisance to U.S troops, but they did receive foreign military aid, and they were far more dangerous than the guerrillas in Malaya.

Unlike the Vietcong, the communist guerrillas in Malaya had no protected supply bases outside the borders. The Vietnamese insurgents were natives, but in Malaya about 90% of the guerrillas were foreign immigrants (Chinese). The massive British resettlement program of Chinese squatters was an idea that did not work with Vietnamese families who did not wish to be moved from their long-established homesteads.

A self-promoter like Sir Robert Thompson would not admit it, but the political realities of Asian self-determination may have played a bigger role in the outcome than the British armed forces. Prompted by bitter memories from the Fall of Singapore and reminded by the Fall of Dienbienphu, British officials knew that the days of white colonialism were numbered. That is why they agreed, in the middle of their Emergency, to let go of their rule and leave Malaya in exchange for the cooperation and support of the people. This was a significant concession made by the British and it cannot be stressed enough.

Finally, it would have been nice if the British Army offered more than lip service because they triggered the Vietnam war in September 1945. Major General Douglas Gracey was ordered to accept the surrender of Japanese troops, and he disobeyed instructions when he chose to restore French rule. The day before Gracey arrived in Saigon, French agents armed the Legionnaires who were released from captivity. They stormed government buildings and looted private homes. They attacked the Vietminh and other activists competing for power, as well as innocent bystanders. French and Vietnamese civilians seized on the opportunity to settle old scores. British troops sided with the French and General Gracey asked the Japanese prisoners to help because his own Gurkha troops were unable to contain the riots and open warfare. He wrongly believed that this series of actions had no serious political implications, which caused great embarrassment for Lord Mountbatten. The Japanese troops were rearmed and told to disarm all the Vietnamese militants, and remove the provisional Vietnamese Executive Committee at the Governor General's palace. Public utilities were disabled by the fighting and Martial Law was declared, sparking the conflagration that lasted 30 years.

The British were not successful at countering insurgencies in Java, Palestine, Cyprus and Aden so their collective experience is not a good model for addressing current troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This book has remained one of my favorites since reading it in high school ~5 years ago. I have re-read it multiple times, seen it live & as a movie, and never seem to tire of Wilde's excellent knack for satire.

It is a quick & fun read full of irony and hilariously awkward situations. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys play-format comedies with strong irony.

I bought this script because I have so enjoyed the movie based on it. The English humor is brilliant and it is delightful to get to read it in probably less than an hour. This was pure enjoyment for me for no other reason than not missing a syllable of the dialogue (sometimes in the movie the actors speak a little too fast, so in order to savor the humor behind the lines having them in print allows you to enjoy them at your own pace)

I still smile when I think about this play. It was my first sampling of Oscar Wilde, and I found it pretty enjoyable. It's also been my only sampling of Oscar Wilde. I've been meaning to get into some more of his work, I really have. It's a tale of mistaken identity, of love, of three volume novels, of "Bunburyists" and of fashion. Everyone claims to be Earnest, but they're all rather trivial about it. It's pretty funny too, with a lot of wit and the like through it.

This particular edition is particularly cheap, and it seems like its worth a look.

I love this play. I love Oscar Wilde. The wit and humor of this play is astounding, and yet at the same time, it is so intelligent. I love it.

I have not listened to this audio CD version. I purchased it and returned it without listening to it. I opened the case and realized that this is an abridged radio play version on one CD. The play itself is delightful. I don't care for abridged versions of most material, certainly not a play that takes less than 90 minutes in its entirety. I urge Amazon to update the catalog entry to indicate that this is abridged. An unabridged version is available from other vendors. Thank-you.

I read this book a couple of years ago. I've heard it described more than once as the "definitive" Lincoln bio, but it's not the most readable. I don't insist that the history I read be easy and light, but this book was a bit too dense and detailed for me. Parts were interesting, but I got majorly bogged down in the middle. There have to be Lincoln bios out there that would be of more interest to the general reader.

This is a biography of Lincoln. The problem in writing a biography of Lincoln, of course, is that so many thousands of books on Lincoln have already been written. How do you say anything new and useful about the man, about whom more words have been written than anyone else in American history?

Donald deals with this problem by adopting an unusual biographic strategy. In most biographies, of course, the writer is writing both the life of the subject and at least to some degree larger history. To put the life into context, as a rule, the writer needs to explore the larger issues with which the person was concerned.

Donald very deliberately does not do this. He says in his introduction that is not a general history of 19th century America and it is not. He says that he will focus only on Lincoln himself, and he does. He does not, for example, give us a detailed description of any of the Civil War battles. Lincoln was not present at those battles, so they are not described. His focus is exclusively on Lincoln, the people around him and the events in which he was directly invovled.

The result is odd, but it works. You get very little about the overall strategy of the Civil War. You get next to nothing about Congressional politics in the Civil War. You get virtually nothing about the Confederacy. Instead, you get this kind of reality-TV approach, where you feel as if you were following Lincoln around.

In line with this approach, Donald offers a minimum of interpretation. He presents no arguments about Lincoln's signifigance or role in history. The thesis of the book, if you can call it that, is a very understated argument that LIncoln saw himself as the passive instrument of events, rather than the active shaper of them. It is more a theme, a literary device, than an argument.

The book, in short, takes a minimalist approach to the subject. It works, simply because there is so much written on LIncoln. Out of the vast oceans of material that one could cover, and out of the oceans of argument one could make, Donald sticks tight to the subject and lets events speak for themselves. The end result is that he is able to write a very full biography, on his own odd terms, and keep it just under 600 pages of text. I found the book kind of cold emotionally, but nonetheless very gripping and very informative. I would not call it a definitive biography of Lincoln -- it is too short and self-consciously limited for that -- but, as one volume biographies go, it is very, very good.

I have a read a lot of biographical works on Abraham Lincoln. I found this to be the best and most balanced view. If you read biographies or other works related to Abraham Lincoln, you must include this book. It is required reading and was written by one of the - if not the - preeminent scholar on Lincoln.

I would also recommend you to other books, in addition to this one, if you desire to learn about Abraham Lincoln. Reading a variety of biographies about Abraham Lincoln will give you an overall and better picture than one book can alone.

However, having said that, this is the best Lincoln biography. It is excellent.

David Donald's Lincoln is packed full of relevant (and irrelevent) facts. I was surprised that a biography of 600 pages on anybody, especially Abraham Lincoln, could contain so much information. It usually takes authors two or three volumes to say as much as Donald does in one.

Just like life on the western frontier, this biography begins slowly. This provides a good place for those interested in getting the author's take on Lincoln as a person. A portion of other people's lives that is usually covered in two to three pages is covered in great depth. In approximately 150+ pages, Donald gives us a look into Lincoln's early life, his time as a moderately successful Lawyer in Illinois, and his unsuccessful political career. For those looking to learn more about Lincoln's Administration, I would recommend skipping to Chapter Eight, where the book gets much more exciting.

Once begun, Donald sets an exciting (and still fact-filled) pace that does not let up until the end.

While this is a great biography, the subject will always be fiercely debated. Lincoln's Administration led during the greatest upheaval our nation has ever seen. Therefore the literature will vary immensely. For some (like Mr. Donald) Lincoln was mostly passive, and reacted to events as they came; for others he was a great leader with some less than great subordinates; and to still others he was a usurper who limited individual rights and constantly ignored the constitution.

Mr. Donald does an excellent job of providing a balanced review of Lincoln, both as a person and as President. Too many biographers prefer to keep out negative aspects of their subjects, hurting the overall integrity of their work, but Mr. Donald is willing to admit fault in his man.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the American Civil War era. I must again warn the reader that this is a hotly debated subject, and taking one opinion is not sufficient. I strongly suggest looking at other writers' take on the subject as well.

Well written book with great detail. The depth of research must have been great to give this reader a special feel for each progression of Lincoln's amazing journey though life. I'm really enjoying this book.

Reviews criticizing this book for its supposed conservative bias are off target. (For example, Lyndon Johnson, generally a conservative bete-noire, comes in for great praise for his role in civil rights.) Anyone who's read the book will know that its most original contribution is assigning credit and blame, where appropriate, to lesser-known presidents whose actions had an important impact on economic history, civil rights, etc. For example, the discussions of the civil rights accomplishments of oft-neglected presidents like Grant and Coolidge, or of the various failings of an oft-praised president like Madison, add much new to our generally facile understanding of these presidents.

Of course, many readers may disagree with the author's characterizations of Reagan, which are probably the most controversial element of the book, but the sections on Reagan are neither hagiography nor polemic; they present facts in a measured fashion, and readers are free to interpret them differently than the author does. That does not detract from the overall value of this excellent and thorougly-researched book for readers of all political stripes.

Finally, readers interested in US economic history will find this book a fascinating review of economic policy, especially the monetary system, from the early republic through the modern era of the Federal Reserve system.

This book is highly recommended for readers of all political backgrounds. Though they may disagree with a few of the conclusions, the author's scholarship is undeniable, and Democratic-leaning readers interested in civil rights will find the book's discussion of those issues especially interesting.

Admittedly biased by a personal friendship with the author, I still found this book to be not only Dr. Felzenberg's best work to date, but for a political historian, refreshingly balanced, insightful, and a easy to read.

This is book is ideal for the political junkie and amateur history who tires easily with heavy tomes more focused on often insignificant historical facts instead of interpretation and analysis. While I'm sure I do not agree with all of Dr. Felzenberg's rating (I thought he was a little harsh on Richard Nixon, and was too kind to Mr. Manifest Destiny, James K. Polk, the only President who really lied to start a war), he has successfully established a new benchmark for rating Presidents as objectively as humanly possible.

His greatest service, however, may be exposing the heavy biases of respected historians such as Dr. Arthur Slezinger, who clearly rated President by how they matched up against his liberal idealogy of bigger and more intrusive government. No liberal, Dr. Felzenberg nonetheless made an obvious attempt at fairness and balance in his ratings. I suspect such biased readers and historians will chafe at his high rating of Ronald Reagan and others, but I defy them to find flaws in his presentation.

I strongly recommend this book to: political junkies; anyone who is interested in the history of the Presidency; and high school and college teachers looking to orient their pupils on the presidency. I especially recommend it to journalists, who by and large are ignorant of history and can't handle book above an 8th grade level (much less digest it). It was a terrific and fascinating read.

The author, Alvin Felzenberg, ranks the presidents based on a Conservative agenda. The reader will not discover new or intriguing insights. For example, Felzenberg regards George W. Bush as an inspirational, big picture president and awards Bush high marks for his deft handling of the domestic economy. Felzenberg states that only when we are all dead and gone will America and the world come to appreciate the Bush administration (in light of the numerous domestic and foreign tragedies that continue to unfold, what other argument exists). Conversely, the vast majority of historians rank the Bush presidency as the worst or, at best, one of the five worst ever. Regarding the presidency of Jimmy Carter, Felzenberg refuses to credit Carter for being the only president to have negotiated a true and lasting Middle East Peace Agreement- The Camp David Peace Accord.
Do not waste the money unless you wish to read a thoroughly predictable and biased assessment.

I noticed that most of the negative reviews of this book seem to come from liberals. Well you have a right to your opinion -- and by God! I have a right to mine.

The presidential ratings game the Schlesingers started is so slanted toward the left as to be virtually worthless. It seems that the surest way of getting a high rating is to participate in yet another expansion of federal power.

After all, historians are biased in favor of presidents who did something they can write about. Advocates of federal restraint, like Cleveland and Coolidge, make dull copy.

Let's face it -- the presidential ratings game is just that. It's less factual than the sportswriters' votes for the college football championship.

Felzenberg introduces a measure of discipline by breaking the ratings into six classifications, weighted equally for the overall score.

Liberals should be able to take comfort from the high rankings awarded to Truman and FDR, the latter despite a fairly tough critique of the New Deal. The author is, if anything, even more tough on Hoover, noting that many policies we associate with the New Deal started with the Republicans.

The difference here is that at least some in the GOP, as embodied by Ronaldus Magnus, learned that the best thing the government can do in an economic downturn is let the market work itself out. The Democrats, on the other hand, evidently learned nothing, and still view the New Deal as a public policy triumph, when in fact it prolonged the Great Depression.

The only other long depression in American history followed Andrew Jackson's demolition of the national bank. Is there a pattern here?

As an unapologetic conservative, I'm a little disappointed that my all-time favorite Democrat, Grover Cleveland, didn't score higher.

Actually, Felzenberg is fairly open to big-government policies, as witnessed by his ranking of Theodore Roosevelt third behind Lincoln and Washington. I don't believe that anyone had coined the phrase "big government conservative" during TR's lifetime, but it fits like a glove.
Much as I admire TR for his undoubted patriotism and colorful personality, the really outstanding president of that era was the martyred William McKinley, who inherited the mantle of limited government from Grover Cleveland.

Of course, it's all a game, and this book was written to provoke debates. Felzenberg does a vastly better job defending his ratings than any other historian I've read who attempted the same task.

I don't have to agree -- just indulge me by arguing from facts and logic instead of slogans and fear, which is all the left has been offering for decades.

I'm recommending this book to all my conservative friends. In fact, on the phone the other day, my friend and I were wracking our brains for the absolute worst president in American history.

We both blurted out simulataneously: "Woodrow Wilson!"

Actually Felzenberg gives the booby prize to James Buchanan for having allowed the War Between the States to happen.

The way I figure it, Buchanan was a weakling, but slavery was such a poisonous issue that something had to break.

Wilson -- the beau ideal of the sanctimonious Puritan reformer -- dragged the nation into a European war we had no business in. After victory in 1918, Wilson ensured we would lose the peace by insisting on the breakup of the Hapsburg Empire. Supposedly, this was to be done along ethnic lines, but the reality is that the Hapsburg successor states were nearly as polyglot as the "ramshackle empire" itself. The resulting power vacuum left Central Europe and the Balkans ripe for devastation by fascism, Nazism, and communism.

Good going, Mr. President!

This book does seem well researched, and is lucidly written. But it claims to offer a fresh and new method for rating our Presidents, but does not, really. It is just as biased in its appraisals as any of the other stuides of this sort that have come before. If Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and his cohort lean somewhat to the left, then Felzenberg tacks just as steadily to the right. I mean: Reagan the FOURTH greatest President of all (just ahead of EISENHOWER)? Strict ahderence to conservative, supply-side monetary policy seems to guarantee a President's higher ranking than concern for human rights and social justice. And when he hints that the present Bush train wreck is an "important and transformational" presidency-- uh-oh-- We can imagine where "W" might score in subsequent volumes of Felzenberg's work.

Ok I love this text. I used this and its sister text on Romans for my ancient history classes. I find that the only down fall of this particular text is that Pomeroy tends to push her agenda in the beginning. However as far as texts on Greek History go, this is the best.