5 comments about Why I Turned Right: Leading Baby Boom Conservatives Chronicle Their Political Journeys.

1. Mary Eberstadt has done a fine job with this. It's breezy reading, for the most part, but the collection is consistently diverting, sometimes funny, and occasionally moving. As a group, the essayists demonstrate the ideological range of the brand of conservative thinking found in "National Review," "The Weekly Standard," and, to a lesser extent, "The American Spectator." Some of the most interesting writers in here could be described as moderates or old-fashioned liberals (pre-counterculture, pre-Great Society, pre-McGovern debacle) driven into the conservative camp by the excesses of the academic and activist left. What the contributors share is a belief in personal responsibility, a rejection of moral relativism, and an understanding that all free societies depend on strong institutions and some sort of respect for some sort of tradition.
   
   Tod Lindberg provides a nice description of a young John Podhoretz, with whom he shared a college dorm, while Richard Starr writes charmingly about Emmett Tyrrell and scathingly about Jimmy Carter. Rich Lowry's selection is notable for its description of his high school years--"I would be watching a videotaped episode of 'Firing Line' and trying to follow the niceties of a discussion between Bill Buckley and . . . Malcolm Muggeridge, when my friends would pick me up at home for a bout of drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon behind the local strip mall"--and for the end of the piece, when he discusses how reading Whittaker Chambers' "Witness" influenced his religious faith. Dinesh D'Souza, of whom I generally am not a fan, serves up some tasty anecdotes about "Dartmouth Review" antics and about the hilarious (and irreplaceable) Jeffrey Hart: "When I first heard of the French Revolution . . . my reaction was that I was against it."
   
   P. J. O'Rourke is funny as usual, but underlying his humor (basically, "I was a college lefty for the girls and the scene") are telling truths about how much people's politics depend upon the images they would like to project. Danielle Crittenden explains how feminism was hijacked by radicals, who now seem to be as enthusiastic about surrendering to the imams as they once were to the Soviets, despite the extreme, umm, inconspicuousness of women in the Politburo. Sally Satel, who would be considered a social liberal if the left still had most of its marbles, describes how she became a pariah among psychiatrists for daring to believe in individualism, personal responsibility, and the institutionalization of the stark-raving mad.
   
   Speaking of insanity, Stanley Kurtz recounts his years in the academy, and includes many useful observations about intellectual freedom and severed pig heads. Heather Mac Donald, who just might be the best reporter/thinker in America (see "The Burden of Bad Ideas"), also delivers a well-justified drubbing of the academy, with the not very Reverend Sharpton thrown in for fun. David Brooks's essay, which is excellent, explores the tensions between American conservatism, eyes cast forward, and the rear-view vision of Burke and Kirk and most European conservatives. Peter Berkowitz is a liberal, but a kind of Straussian liberal who recognizes liberalism's debt to a source of value (or virtue, as Berkowitz would have it) that cannot be derived from liberalism itself; his essay led me to his "Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism," a book I also recommend. Joseph Bottum is a good bit more socially conservative than I am, but his piece is the literary highlight of the collection, powerfully and vividly written.
   
   If you're looking for a collection of vomitous Ann Coulter-style screeds, this is not the book for you. If, however, you're a truly open-minded (dare I say liberal-minded?) person interested in finding out why a number of bright people don't mind rejecting the prevailing intellectual orthodoxy, "Why I Turned Right" is well worth reading.



2. I almost gave it a five, but when you read a series of personal pastiches, some are always better than others. I liked them all and was amazed at the "thread" that connected all of the personal experiences. No extreme kooks here, just people who "when they grew up" as some never do, were not afraid to examine their earlier predjudices and misgivings. I would enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone, and especially to extremists, except most extremists probably never read anything except what they write themselves anyway.



3. I am far from a bleeding-heart liberal, and generally find David Brooks in the New York Times reasonable and his ruminations well-tempered and well-meaning. His autobiographical essay made interesting reading -- he often disagreed with the editorials he was paid to write at the Wall Street Journal. Sally Satel is likewise clear in her compassion -- as a practicing psychiatrist, she seems on a quest to seek different methods to end the drug addiction of her patients, and is far from didactic in her reflections, rather genuinely frustrated with her efforts to work within the Veterans Administration.
   
   But so many of the other writers just come off as rich, ignorant and mean-spirited. DeSouza just sounds like an idiot -- gleefully relaying his worship of the Dartmouth Review faculty advisor who kept a set of wooden pinchers in his office so he wouldn't have to touch ugly women, who stooped to attack his political enemies on the basis of their looks, rather than their thinking.
   
   Perhaps because the author of this essay grew up in India, he embraced the backward-thinking "satire" publication for commenting "the question isn't whether or not women should be educated at Dartmouth, but if they should be educated at all." I didn't realize he was this bad.
   
   Heather McDonald claims that homeless people are on the streets of New York because they genuinely want to be there -- under her watch as think-tank advocate, she noted they didn't flock to the many housing alternatives offered them by the city. She doesn't tell us whether or not she visited the accomodations then provided, if they had running water, electricity, rats, etc. The fact is, since she was involved, scores of buildings have been successfully renovated into clean, well-functioning Single Room Occupancy dwellings, and most of the single men who populated the streets in the early 90s when I volunteered with the Coalition for the Homeless are now housed. Most of the men were not drug addicted, but mentally ill Viet Nam vets, very grateful and well-behaved.
   
   She also claims that "the welfare queen mentality is alive and well." That she "met one" -- One!! My goodness! A person she describes as tall, wearing an animal print outfit and high heels, living off of SSI. I wonder -- does the fact that she was born tall mean that she can't possibly be ill with a kidney disorder, MS, hepatitis, etc. or some other illness, physical or mental that prevents her from working? Are the heels the issue? Does the flamboyant outfit the essayist objects to not in itself indicate a lapse of mental acuity?
   
   Or, on the other hand, is this possibly ill personage condemned for expressing herself through creative clothing? Should she be walking around in sack cloth and ashes? So far removed from the realities of life is this author, she didn't figure out that homeless people, and those collecting disability, are usually clothed in donated wear -- you see them in designer goods, gaudy impulse purchases, and brand new clothing, purchased and donated at Christmas drives. I left with the sense that the author doesn't think anyone on social services is legitimately ill or in need. Her suspicion of veterans is especially disheartening.
   
   I was actually surprised at the mean-spiritedness of these essays. I do recommend this book to anyone interested in the great divide between right and left.



4. A terrific collection of inspirations, insights and road-to-Damascus-style epiphanies, this book shows how the logomachists on the right side of the American political spectrum got where they are today. For some it was the amorality and vapid pangamy of college life. For others it was later on, as the dissonance between professional/intellectual honesty and cherished liberal shibboleths ultimately midwifed a transformative reevaluation of their weltanschauung.
   WITR is an entertaining and illuminating read. Even if you disagree with a PJ O'Rourke or a Sally Satel, their reflective stories will give you pause and provide fodder for lengthy and lively discussion.



5. Although I am neither a conservative nor a postliberal, I read some of these stories with interest, particularly the stories of Heather Mac Donald and Sally Satel of their intellectual revulsion at the cognitive insanity of many parts of academia.
   
   The people in this volume are not the only ones who have changed, however. In the 1970s, liberal ideology began to metamorphose until it had changed into something quite different, even antithetical: an illiberal ideology that should be called "postliberalism."
   
   Stanley Kurtz in his essay gives a play-by-play of this transition. The first break with liberalism came in the 1970s with the policy position that not all groups are to be treated as equals. Some are to be treated as "more equal" than others. As a result, groups given unmerited advancement did poorly. Since some liberals objected to abandoning equality as a goal, this policy was coupled with the position that it was okay to impose the group's will on dissenters through mass action. The failure of the "more equal" strategy led to the postliberals accusing America of hidden, widespread racism. In the 1980s came the break with freedom of speech with dissenting speakers being shouted down. This necessitated the position that "democratic principles are a cover for white male oppression." By 1995, what used to be called "liberal" was being excoriated as "conservative." (p. 150)
   
   The academics and media people continued to call themselves "liberals." As a result, almost all former liberals accepted these changes and believe that this illiberal ideology is "liberalism". And most conservatives don't know the difference.
   
   These three saw that it wasn't. Why don't other liberals figure out that they've been had? Maybe because these three liberals were in graduate school in the 1970s, which means that they had more-or-less conventional schooling for their K12 and college years. Today's college students have been drilled in mind-numbing exercises like what color is math and if you feel a statement is true, then it is true. How could college students with that background think their way out of anything?
   
   What we really need is a book like this one that tells the stories of today's college students who have shifted from postliberal to conservative--if indeed there are any such students!
   
   I was, however, saddened by certain similarities between the thinking of some of these conservatives and the conceits of postliberals, namely, the perception that the majority in this nation are leaning THEIR way, together with elaborate explanations for why this shift is occuring.
   
   This is particularly curious at the present time (2008). The Democrat Party's Presidential race has sifted down to only two candidates--both avid postliberals. The Republican race has sifted down to only one candidate--a combination of centrist social policy and military foreign policy. This is hardly evidence of a massive shift to the right.
   
   (P.S. If you want the details of the shift from liberalism to Dhimmism, they can be found in the second half of While America Sleeps: How Islam, Immigration and Indoctrination Are Destroying America From Within ).

No comments about The Forgotten Prime Minister: The 14th Earl of Derby Volume I: Ascent, 1799-1851.

4 comments about Escape With Honor: My Last Hours in Vietnam (Memories of War).

1. In a time of uncertainty, danger and demoralization, this is a story that shows that even in the midst of the end of the Vietnam war our few remaining Americans cared deeply about the people that they had supported. A story of heroism generally not recognized and long overdue in the telling.



2. During every great event there occurs little-known tales of heroism and sacrifice; Ambasador McNamara's book tells the story on one of them. The evacuation of the handful of American civilians and Marines of the U.S. Consulate General in Can Tho, along with their South Vietnamese employees and families,reads like a movie, and is all the more exciting for being true. Their story of sacrifice, heroism, betrayal, and tragedy was lost in the greater story of the simultaneous evacuation of Saigon, but one with a historical bent will see in McNamara's tale a reflection of Xenephon's Persian expedition. Don't start reading this one before bedtime, or you'll be up all night to finish it!



3. This is a detailed account of the U.S. consul's last months in Can Tho, South Vietnam and his risky escape by boat on the Mekong River in April 1975. As the collapse of Saigon was nearing and as the airlift of Americans and third country nationals from Can Tho never materialized, McNamara himself took charge of guiding more than 300 people to safety on military barges along the Mekong River. He was recognized for his bravery and given a medal in 1977.

   The book was also a tribute to General Nguyen Khoa Nam, the IV Corps South Vietnamese commander who refused to be evacuated and remained at his post until the last minute. McNamara had known him for over a year as a brave and dedicated officer and a man of honor. General Nam and his deputy General Hung killed themselves instead of surrendering to the enemy a few days later.

   This is an interesting perspective of an American's last weeks in South Vietnam, his dealings with the Americans, the Vietnamese, and the CIA.




4. This book peaked my curiosity because my brother was one of the marines stationed at this particular embassy in Vietnam. he's only mentioned in it twice by name but it was great learning about what the had to do to get out. Now my brother had never talked about it but recently mentioned it (briefly) at a family dinner and I did my own research. He did end up with a 22 year career and retired as a sgt major. some of the ook is really technical because its told by the ambassador but its a decent read.

No comments about Filibusters and Expansionists: Jeffersonian Manifest Destiny, 1800-1821 (Library of Alabama Classics).

2 comments about Total Cold War: Eisenhower's Secret Propaganda Battle at Home And Abroad.

1. Many of today's baby boomers grew up in the 1950's and recall President Eisenhower as an avuncular man typified by such snappy slogans as "I like Ike." What many of them did not know was that Ike was an active propagandist trying to win the hearts and minds of citizens not only behind the Iron Curtain, but also at home, in friendly nations, and everywhere else on the planet, taking advantage of new and ever more expansive and rapid communications technologies.
   
   Prof. Osgood has written a penetrating history of Ike's propaganda campaigns, documenting how in a war of ideology, communications was often a more potent weapon than guns and bombs. With campaigns lauding not only the American good life, but also the American space and arms races, Eisenhower and his new Cold Warriors fought in an international arena of public opinion which they used to leverage negotiations to their advantage at home and abroad.
   
   That governments and the powerful have always sought to shape public opinion is no surprise, and it should also be no surprise that Eisenhower, believing that the future of the free world was in the balance, fully utilized the tools of communications and propaganda to his own ends. Prof. Osgood's book reminds us that propaganda comes in many form and guises, and even when we try to justify the means of propaganda by the ends of freedom, truly free people must never accept any speech, especially by governments, at face value.



2. In the early 1980s, with the publication of Fred I. Greenstein's book, "The Hidden-Hand Presidency: Eisenhower as Leader," a reappraisal of Ike's presidency began. This new work by Kenneth Osgood makes a critically important contribution to the brutal historiography of Eisenhower revisionism. It suggests that Eisenhower was much more than a smiling, golf playing figurehead, and instead understood well the stakes and the possibilities of cold war with the Soviet Union. Most important, he waged an aggressive psychological battle for hearts and minds worldwide; one that overall proved quite successful. Based on extensive documentary materials only recently declassified, this work marks a new path in Eisenhower studies. It is a major contribution to the field.

No comments about Fidel Castro, la historia me absolverá (Best Seller (Debolsillo)).

5 comments about Founding Fathers: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution.

1. I have the original title, In Worthy Company, and while I agree with the author that the Founders were indeed worthy and gave us a Republic that has endured, the book's premise, that the Founders were Christians and that, by default, what they wrought is based on Christianity and the Bible, is flawed

   The Founders were men of all faiths, Deists, Freemasons, and free thinkers. They were children of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, well-versed in the classics, and fully aware that English Common Law was descended from Roman Law, Saxon Law, and the Danelaw, none of which were Bible or Christian based.

   There is a growing revisionist movement that is trying to prove that the Constitution is Bible based, which is false, and this revisionism is flawed history, a type of 'make it up as you go' and this volume is, unfortunately, in that category. It is badly researched, not documented at all well, and some of it is blatantly inaccurate. The author's treatment of the War of the Revolution in the section on George Washington is semi-fiction.

   For an accurate, well-researched account of the origins of American political thought, Bernard Bailyn is a much better and reliable historian.




2. ~Founding Fathers: Brief Lives of the Framers of the United States Constitution~ is a perennial classic and an excellent introduction to understanding the history of the early Republic and the men who framed the Constitution. The founding fathers featured herein, that is the framers of the 1787 Constitution, came from all walks of life. "One was a shoemaker, surveyor, lawyer, jurist, lay theologian, and statesmen. Two became president, one vice-president. Over half were experienced in the legal profession. The majority were well off and, for their time, well educated." They came together in Philadelphia and produced the most profound document in the history of the United States.
   
   M.E. Bradford amplifies the length and scope of content of each mini-biography based in proportion to the respective founding father's contribution and influence. Some biographies are obviously limited in scope due to lack of available materials. The brevity of this book does not hamper its quality, as it is an excellent starting point for researching the founding fathers and the ones who are lesser known today, but monumental in their influence during the time such as Deleware statesmen John Dickinson, New Hampshires' John Langdon, New York's Gouverneur Morris and Virginia's George Wythe. The objectivity is to be commended, and Bradford gives the reader a good feel for the positions of each of the men and usually explains whether they were centralizing nationalists, moderate Federalists, or decentralizing Anti-Federalists. Each biography is annotated with a bibliographical list of source materials, which may be useful for probing deeper into each founding father's background. This book is well-written and offers great capsule biographies of the most influential men who helped frame the Constitution and shape it in the course of debates.
   
   As for the other reviewer grumbling about Mel Bradford's making the American founding to be based on Christianity, I do not know where he gets that from. I think his criticism is unwarranted and I would point out that there is a flip side to the erroneousness of portraying ALL the founding fathers as devout Christians, which is his erroneous statement that "most were deists and freemasons." It is not however erroneous to say most were Christians, however popular the token deists among them were. Bradford did little more than sketch backgrounds on the founders; it just happens that Madison studied at seminary, Hamilton founded the short-lived Christian Constitutional Society, William Few was a devout Methodist, etc. That a few founders were deists, Jefferson foremost, possibly Franklin does not make the founders all secularists. Consider that the vitality of the Christian religion to the founding father's times compelled even the deist politicians to generally speak in Christian platitudes, and embrace public prayer. They typically speak in the rhetoric of Christian moralism, hence Jefferson's insistence on his being a "true Christian" and his extol of the morality of Christ. Franklin was no different. In the end, I am not a discerner of hearts, but I do know a great many of the founders made bold affirmations of their Christian faith.



3. The brief and deceptively simple nature of this book makes you wonder why so few collected biographies of the Framers exist. But a closer look answers the question. Mel Bradford actually undertook for himself a pretty mammoth task: not only to tell who the Framers were, where they came from and what they did, but more importantly to analyze what they individually believed and what they were trying to achieve in Philadelphia that fateful summer.
   
   Discussions of the origins and drafting of the Constitution are all too frequently simplified to the point where we assume that everyone agreed on the basic issues involved, and gathered only to work out the details. In fact, as Bradford shows, that was hardly the case at all. The author did a magnificent job, in my opinion, sorting out the degrees and shades of political opinion across a much wider spectrum than, I think, is generally thought to have existed. From extreme nationalists like Hamilton, who would have abolished the separate states entirely if he could have, to the most ardent anti-federalists, Bradford has dug into the original sources, the journals, memoirs, and letters, and brought forward the evidence to support the portraits he has created.
   
   To respond to the reviewer who suggested the point of Bradford's work was to prove the Framers were all Christians bent on establishing a Christian government: I have to wonder how closely that reviewer really read this book. Bradford of course discusses many of the Framers' religious beliefs. In some cases, this is a necessary part of understanding their philosophical roots. It's also an inescapable part of biography, since many of the men were in fact active supporters of one or another branch of the Christian faith. But the very core of Bradford's argument is that the Constitution is nomocratic, not teleocratic. In other words (and in marked contrast, again, to most modern understandings), most of the Framers were not trying to shape or create a *novus ordo seclorum* at all, but rather (and simply) to lay out the rules by which a federal government would operate. Society would be left free to shape itself. Whether that shape was Christian or otherwise was a matter for people, families, and communities, not the government. Some of the men at the Convention may have had other plans, but they were kept from realizing them by the moderate majority of delegates.
   
   "Founding Fathers" is a short book, but there is an awful lot crammed into it. As a basic reference, I think it's an essential part of any shelf of books dedicated to America's founding. As an introduction to the larger philosophical issues with which the Founders were dealing, and the ways in which they tried to address them, it's a summary, and an invitation to further study, that's pretty hard to beat.



4. This is a great book that offers a summary of The Founding Fathers of the United States. The book does not waste too much time with detail but provides a wonderful overview of their lives and offers a jumping off point to other books for in depth reading. I feel I have a much better understanding of what our fathers wanted for us and how far we have deviated from the path.



5. "Founding Fathers" is well written and well researched. Many thought provoking biographica sketches of the "Founding Fathers" from each of the 13 states. Not an easy rad due to the impact of the bios of each man, but well worth reading. Of interest was the lead roles played by the men who signed attended the Second Continental Congress, debated the Declaration of Independence, and now saw the need for a new form of government. Noteworthy also were those delegates who opposed the Constitution in its origin, yet returned home to help ratify the documment. Most surprising was the role played by James Wilson of Pennsylvania. Of course, James Madison, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Ben Franklin were important conference impact folk as you would expect.

3 comments about The Autobiography Of Calvin Coolidge.

1. President Calvin Coolidge was a good man and great President who deserves to remembered for more than his reticence. Read here the life story of the President who grew up learning that hard work and a thoughtful outlook are the keys to success. He cut taxes four times and vetoed agricultural subsidies twice. He was unusually tolerant of minorities for his time. The story of President Coolidge is one that deserves to be read. Conservatives and libertarians will find his story especially appropriate for their children.



2. "The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge" is a fabulous autobiography. Calvin Coolidge was a good man and a good writer, and in his autobiography, Cooidge talks about growing up, his career in law and politics, his family, and everything anybody would want to learn about President Coolidge. People who are interested in becoming President should read Calvin Coolidge's autobiography: Coolidge shared with his readers some duties of the President and what seeking a third term can do to you. How a President is elected has changed since Coolidge's time, but Coolidge became President because of the death of his sucessor, Warren G. Harding. Even though Coolidge shared his opinion, anybody in the White House because of the death of their sucessor should take Coolidge's opinion. Calvin Coolidge was a good man, and there are lessons everyone could benefit from by reading his autobiography.



3. To the extent that most Americans remember Calvin Coolidge, it is for a series of amusing anecdotes concerning his economy with words. That characterization is only partly true. Few people know that Coolidge was one of the last presidents who wrote his own speeches and that he held regular press conferences without a press secretary running interference for him. Coolidge, the son of a general store owner in rural Vermont, was immensely popular and could have easily been renominated had he chosen to run in 1928. There was even a movement to draft Coolidge to accept the nomination in 1932. He declined and his successor, Herbert Hoover, was renominated and defeated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
   
   Coolidge had a syndicated newspaper column following his retirement from party politics and he produced a highly readable autobiography that is candid and simple in its approach. Coolidge possessed a sense of humor and he did not take himself too seriously. This brief book should not be dismissed by anyone interested in America during the Twenties. Coolidge's reputation suffered, somewhat unfairly, at the hands of the New Deal historians who sought to promote Roosevelt by denigrating his predecessors. Coolidge was neglected as a historical figure until Ronald Reagan sought to rehabilitate his boyhood hero.
   
   Coolidge is buried in Plymouth Notch, close to the same country cross roads store in which he was born and sworn into office by his own father following the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding.

No comments about J.D. Bernal: A Life in Science and Politics.

4 comments about Tony Blair: Prime Minister.

1. With the advent of what may become the second Gulf War, Tony Blair-Prime Minister is a comprehensive biography of the leader of America's closest ally. Prime Minister Tony Blair is an unlikely choice to be the foreign leader closest to President George W. Bush. British Journalist, John Rentoul has written about the rise and times of Tony Blair from his roots in a middle class British family to that of a rising socialist politician who became leader of the "New" Labor Party and Prime Minister of Great Britian.

   Rentoul traces Blair's family and their political leanings. Blair's father Leo Blair was born to a pair of actors and given to a James and Mary Blair in Glasgow. Leo Blair as a teenager was a member of the Scottish Young Communist League and had ambitions to become a Communist Member of Parliment. However, after service in World War II as a member of the Royal Signal Corps, Leo Blair underwent a political conversion. Upon leaving the military he became a member of the Conservative Party. Leo Blair married Blair's mother Hazel from a strongly Protestant family from County Donegal while working at the Ministry of National Insurance in Glasgow. Leo Blair studied law eventually becoming a lecturer in Administrative Law at the University of Adelaide in Australia and eventually the University of Durham in Durham. Leo Blair eventually became a practicing barrister and active in the local Conservative Party.
   Tony Blair was the second of three children. He is described as being the child most like his father Leo.

   In the opening chapter of the book it states "Tony Blair's political ambition began at age of eleven, when his father Leo's ended, on 4 July 1964. At the age of forty, at the height of his political powers and looking for a Conservative parlimentary seat, Leo Blair had a stroke."

   However, the book indicates that many of Blair's acquaintances during his school and law school years were suprised when he decided to become active in politics. Blair was not a member of any political clubs while in school or in-between. Blair had been a singer and manager of a rock n roll band "The Ugly Rumors", had long hair and a van. Unlike his American political counter parts, he never experimented with drugs, smoked marijuana or was seen drunk. In response to the question of whether he ever smoked marijuana, he said no, but if he had "he would have inhaled" in a jab at his friend President Bill Clinton.
   One of the suprising discoveries found in the book about Tony Blair is his Christian Socialism. Unlike many American politicians not much mention has been made of the fact he has been a confirmed Christian since his Oxford days. Moreover, he is the only British Prime Minister since Gladstone known to regularly read the Bible.
   Tony Blair and his wife Cherie Blair are as political a couple as the Clintons. Both have worked in local politics and both have run for seats in Parliment. When Blair ran his first successful race for his current seat from the Sedgefield Riding, Cherie was seeking a seat in a "marginal" Labor district or riding. However, after Blair won his first election, Cherie decided to forego elective office as one politician was enough in the family. Since Blair's election in Parliment in 1983, the Blairs have had three children and Cherie has continued her career as a successful barrister.
   Over half the book covers Blair's career as leader of the Labor Party and Prime Minister. When he became Prime Minister at age 42, only tweleve years in Parliment, he became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool who became Prime Minister in 1812.
   The book is well documented with footnotes after every chapter. Because of its "scholarliness" it may tend to drag at times in the chapters which deal with his years as Prime Minister from May 2, 1997 through the time the book was written in January 2001. As such it chronicles in detail Tony Blair's first term.
   In it, the achievements of the first term include the Balkans, Northern Ireland,as well as helping provide a better standard of living for all of Britian.
   Blair is described as a "hands-on" Prime Minister, informal but energized and possibly hyper-working on the phone from planes, on vacation and on the weekend.
   With as much detail provided of all aspects of Blair's life, TONY BLAIR-Prime Minister gives the reader and the world great insight into Blair's actions now in his second term as Prime Minister.




2. On 4-th of july 1964,Tony was woken by his mother in the morning and as soon as he heard the first words coming out from his mother - he knew that something wasn't right and he was right
   about that.
   Tony's father had a stroke and it wasn't sure whether he's gonna make it or not.
   This day was the day when Tony's childhood ended,a day when his political ambition began, a life which taught him the value of the family and real friends who walked with his family in the worst moments of their lives.

   Tony,a child of strict parents about manners :
   Was always polite,kind,helpful towards other people and he enjoyed the attention so much so when he is only 16 years old he formed a group named The Pseuds - to act.

   Soon, as a 'gifted guitarist' he starts meeting people of the same interest and talked about getting into the music world.
   He loved The Rolling Stones and they were going to be the next Led Zeppelin or Free (Tony's most favorite bands).
   So...the band "Ugly Rumours" is formed and THE LEAD SINGER-with
   a fantastic voice is someone such as : the future prime minister of Great Britain - TONY BLAIR.

   ...John Rentoul's biography of Tony Blair-(was made to read easy as novel, even though it was Tony's life to make that possible). It is a well-researched book and tells just about everything you'd want to know about Tony Blair.




3. John Rentoul's biography of Tony Blair is a must read for those who want to understand him. The book is scholarly enough to use as a text in comparative politics. It also gives enough character development to understand who Blair is, how he was developed as a man and what Britain's youngest Prime Minister in the 20th century is like.
   
   The text certainly gives a clear view of "The Third Way" philosophy of Blair's tenure which eschews unfettered capitalism and old labor socialism. Rentoul also illuminates Blair's Christian moral beliefs without ignoring the character of a young rock musician.
   
   It is the best biography yet of Britain's most dynamic leader.



4. Well five years after publication we find the subject of this book in serious political trouble with members of his own party asking for a date for his resignation. Nobody in the UK believes what he says any longer and his chancellor is waiting in the wings to take over. One star and forget it.