1 comments about An Honest Calling: The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln.

1. In An Honest Calling attorney Mark E. Steiner makes good use of his professional training and years spent in helping to compile Lincoln's legal papers.
   
   Study of Lincoln's law career has long been hampered by the scattered nature of Lincoln's court documents throughout Illinois and the Midwest. Now they are gathered together, and Steiner has made a fine presentation of what they reveal about Lincoln's "day job," which may have consumed as much of his time as politics did. Steiner deals with Lincoln's law practice in general and with some individual cases revealing Lincoln's handling of particular issues (including slavery and railroad corporations). Civil and criminal practices are covered.
   
   This is an excellent introduction to Lincoln's law practice, and will also interest persons seeking information about the influence of attorneys on the Western frontier.

3 comments about Around the World with LBJ: My Wild Ride as Air Force One Pilot, White House Aide, and Personal Confidant.

1. There are those who disliked LBJ. They probably would have felt differently if they had known the personal man. This book gives highly personal insights into a man often called "bigger than life." And, reading this well written and well-researched book (the author lived it), many would change those negative views.
   
   The writing is interesting, well done, and highly engaging. The author, retired Air Force General, Air Force One Plane Commander, and Presidential Military Aide James Cross said he wanted to show the unknown and deep humanity of President Johnson. He succeeds without pandering, but rather just by stating plain-spoken truths from an impressive man himself, General Cross.
   
   General Cross started as an Alabama country boy and became a close confidante of the President of the United States. He was not political; he was a highly respected and respectable officer in the U. S. Air Force who did his job and did it well. General Cross is the unsung hero here. The incidental glimpses we get of him in this book - definitely not given to build himself up - show a very decent man serving his president and his country well and with good, old-fashioned patriotism and honor.
   
   I would personally estimate that almost anyone who reads this book will enjoy it, be impressed by it, and come away from it with a much more positive image of President Johnson...plus meeting a genuinely nice guy who our country is fortunate to have had that close to the top: General James U. Cross
   Review by:
   Dick Stanford
   The Azusa Gazette
   Book Reviews
   May 2008



2. Very well written and tells a lot about the inner being of LBJ. You won't want to put it down.



3. Fantastic insight to behind the scenes situations at the highest level; apart from politics, the book describes how great and caring some people can be, particularly those who are, or may be, bludgeoned, ruthlessly and ignorantly by the media.

1 comments about Why Presidents Fail: White House Decision Making from Eisenhower to Bush II.

1. This is a very well written, researched, and constructed book. I've always found politics such an ugly thing that I have never wanted to look further than the front page or nightly news about the goings-ons of the currant administrations. Plus who are you going to believe? They're all liars imo. And everything is so complicated and convoluted, I'm sure intentionally, that it discourages detailed thorough inspection. Mr. Pious tho sifts out the facts and presents them in a clean, clear manner. Easily digestible. I would say all currant and future presidential candidates should read this book so as to learn from others mistakes. But I'm afraid they'd use it as a how-to guide - how NOT to get caught.
   
   I'm left, as I was before reading this book, with the feeling that running the United States of America has become nothing but a game between the dems and gop. A money making game for the insiders, a losing game for all the rest. It's amazing how obsessed the presidents and the people around them can be and what they are willing to do to acheive a goal (usually a wrong one) even in the face of daming evidence that to continue is wrong wrong wrong. They mine the law books in order to skirt the laws, coverup the presidents involment...... throw billions of tax dollars down black holes then have the nerve to ask for more.
   
   From the cover:
   
   Presidents are surrounded by political strategists and White House counsel who presumably know enough to avoid making the same mistakes as their predecessors. Why, then, do the same kinds of presidential failures occur over and over again? Why Presidents Fail answers this question by examining presidential fiascos, quagmires, and risky business - the kind of failure that led President Kennedy to groan after the Bay of Pigs invasion, "How could I have been so stupid?"
   
   In this book, Richard M. Pious looks at nine cases that have become defining events in presidencies from Dwight D. Eisenhower and the U-2 fights to George W. Bush and Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. He uses these cases to draw generalizations about presidential power, authority, rationality, and legitimacy, and he raises questions about the limits of presidential decision making, many of which fly in the face of the conventional wisdom about the modern presidency.
   
   Contents page:
   Introduction Presidential Fiascoes
   1 Reputation: Eisenhower and the U-2 Flights
   2 Power Stakes: Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs
   3 Compellence: Johnson and the Vietnam Escalation
   4 Command and Control: Ford and the Mayaguez
   5 Rhetoric: Carter and the Malaise Speech
   6 Prerogative Power: Reagan and the Iran-Contra Affair
   7 Gamesmanship: Bush 41 and the Budget Summit
   8 Program Innovation: Clinton and Health Care
   9 Parallel Governance: Bush and Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction
   10 Presidents Unbound: Crises of Authority and Legitimacy
   11 Risk and Resilience: Toward a White House Learning Curve
   
   Another book by Mr. Pious I might read is The War on Terrorism and the Rule of Law.

5 comments about An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah: A Memoir.

1. This book touches human soul, Empress Farah Pahlavi stated how Her Husband King Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was working for betterment of Iran, and Iran moved from dark ages to modern ages. And now Iran has been destroyed by looters, Iranian ladies are selling their bodies to buy food for their families.
   
   It is must read book.



2. The Iranian revolution has overshadowed much of the Shah's "other" unofficial life. Most people studying Iran try to make sense of why the events had to unfold with the inevitability that they did. Ofcourse, the obvious reasons of totalitarianism and socio-economic inequity always rise to the forefront. Empress Farah's memoir provides a glimpse into the gentler side of the monarchy. The anecdotes involving the Shah as a suitor, a husband and father are far more interesting than Her Majesty's insights into the actual day to day workings of the government. Ofcourse, no one expects the Empress to stand up and provide a critical analysis of the late Shah's reign, and the reader wonders at times if Her Majesty was glossing over some of the unpleasantries of royal rule. Despite this imbalance, or perhaps because of it, the book is worthwhile in the sense that it brings back our focus to the man demonized by many scholars and historians for the decisions he made and which paved the way to the rise of political Islam. The Shah's human qualities are what endure in this memoir.



3. Although like any other autobiography ,former Queen Farah's memoirs are presenting a single sided view on a regime, country and people, I have enjoyed reading this book .It gives insights on an era of conflicts and reminds of us of all the personalities who have ruled the world.



4. Very informative insight for Iranians living in the US and abroad. Info on the downfall of the Shah and how the Carter adminstration turned their backs on the Shah and the Iranian people. Carter is a disgrace for what he did to Iran. The Shah was not the purest of governments but far better than the Khomeni revolution and the present day government.



5. This is a really good book. Not only does it talk about Empress Farah's childhool, education, and marriage it also discusses about the Shah on how he tried to reform Iran and it goes into depth about the issues affecting Iran. It is also touching how she stood by the Shah during his illness and her youngest daughters suicide. It is a well written book discussing about the family's life in the states. This is a must read for a biography as well as a history lover. The book is not lenghty or boring at all. I couldn't put this book down.

2 comments about Mr. Jefferson's Hammer: William Henry Harrison and the Origins of American Indian Policy.

1. The three best things about this book are the extensive primary research, the author's clarity, and his unrelenting fairness to all his subjects. Every time Owens describes any peculiar behavior--whether by William Henry Harrison, other American politicians or by Native Americans leaders--he explains it in its context and then goes on to point out if it fits with the circumstances or if the actors are being inconsistent or hypocritical. While most historians work to understand the nuances and characters of their subjects, Owens is unique in explicitly laying these out along with the logic of his assertions. This helps the reader to really understand the motivations of these frontier people instead of just having to accept an author's implicit assumptions. To paraphrase a line from The Razor's Edge, Owens gives the reason and the intent--most historians just give the reason.
   
   Besides the historical quality and the impressive research, Mr. Jefferson's Hammer is just a highly enjoyable read. Owens writes very vividly and uses lots of colorful language. The last two chapters, which describe Harrison wheeling and dealing for land and build up to the death of the Shawnee leader Tecumseh, have the pacing of a novel or at least a popular history. The author also has a snappy way of characterizing people and actions that make the book a lot of fun to read.
   
   One somewhat noteworthy omission is that the section entitled "Everyday Life in Early Indiana" hardly mentions farming (except a couple of lines in passing), which one would suspect would be the most sizeable component of everyday life. He discusses ideological and cultural issues that are more related to the narrative, but it just seems that he could have included more about farming in that part or renamed the section.
   
   That, however, is a small complaint about an issue that does nothing to detract from the author's intent to explore the rationale behind and the unfolding of U.S. and Indian relations on the frontier. I really love this book and think anyone interested in U.S. history would do much to clarify and add depth to their understanding of this period by reading it.



2. Robert Owens gives a fair and comprehensive biography of Harrison's career and value system. Harrison experiments in anti-slavery idealism during his college years. like many scions of Virginia, he finds himself not inheriting as much wealth and property as his parents. he squanders what land he did inherit selling it to his brother and some others for Bonds that don't get paid. Fortunately there is a frontier of Northwest Territory larger than the 13 colonies. It is full of indians and British rabblerousers. Harrison uses the influence of his family to petition for a commission in the U.S. army. He does his job well, his early failures are only the failures of the entire army.
   
   The Northwest Territory is slow to develop. Part of the reason it is slow to develop is that settlers can claim so much land at once. There isn't a population density high enough to require greater efficiency in agriculture, or enough industry to float a population with greater demand agricultural products. The answer seems to have been acquiring land from the Indians in bigger swoops, which were generally unscrupulous. the semi-aristocracy of the territories favored importing slaves to develop the land. the smaller landholders and workers didn't want slavery to diminish the value of their own production, or big manor slave owners lording it over them.
   
   Once in the private sector, big land holders tried to make money producing vast amounts of alcohol. This abundance of alcohol ultimately produced the slow talking yokel dialect later encountered in the rural midwest and south.
   
   In the end Harrison is a relatively decent person, occasionally taking opportunities that obscured this decency.

No comments about The Founding Fathers (The American Presidents).

2 comments about Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay.

1. A book for the person with an existing fair understanding of the White House years of Abraham Lincoln.
   
   Professor Burlingame provides a great service to those of us who are keenly interested in this great president, but who do not have the time to read the imposing and very dated ten-volume history produced by his two close aides, Nicolay and Hay. This book fills a specific void; it certainly should not be confused with a full biography.
   
   While it is surprising that so little was directly said by Nicolay and Hay about their chief in their history, I am happy that Professor Burlingame did the hard work of mining its ten volumes for the benefit of lazy readers like me.



2. The book was very short and only covered areas of limited interest on Lincoln's Presidency. Beside other titles on Lincoln that I have bought this was a major disappointement. There was no flow of quality prose to create interest in specific story lines which were too sketchy. The book's objectives were too limited from the outset and it's main merits are that it may serve as a useful reference book for later purchases. It will do little to add or detract to the legacy of Lincoln.
   Lorenzo
   Ireland

No comments about Beyond the Fence Line: The Eyewitness Account of Ed Hoffman and the Murder of President John F. Kennedy.

5 comments about Mr. Jefferson's Women (Vintage).

1. Why does even the prospect that Jefferson was with Sally Hemings bother you so much ?



2. Just when you thought you had read everything...Jon Kukla presents a very readable portrait of Jefferson's "relationships" with women--which leads to new insights about this great man--and, more interestingly, his attitudes towards women in general. The final chapters about his broader view of women as a threat to republican government place Jefferson in the context of his time. There is a remarkable discussion of Jefferson and Abigail Adams' letters. The book is eminently fair about Sally Hemings and gives a new meaning to the notion that "all men are created equal". Thank you, Jon Kukla, for beginning a lively conversation that is well worth your engagement.



3. I really enjoyed reading this book. The author wrote it in a way that both educates and compells you to read more. I found it hard to put down. My favorite parts were very personal, real-life events that made Mr. Jefferson even more real to me. My favorite is, during his presidency, an account of his chosen attire while welcoming a Rep. of the British King. He was wearing well worn slippers that he tossed around on his toes (priceless!). I also found the additional quotes and excerpts of letters from people such as Abigail Adams and others a welcome addition. Kudos to the author for such an insighful, wonderful, well thought out book about Jefferson and the various forms of relationships with women during his life.



4. Thomas Jefferson is one of the most troubling characters among America's founding fathers. He penned the immortal ideals of freedom and equality in the Declaration of Independence. We, from our modern perspective, also like the fact that he was an intellectual and that he brought refreshing informality to the White House. In recent years, his reputation has been tarnished by re-examination of his disturbing political tendencies. (See for example, John Adams and Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power). This book provides additional insights into Jefferson's character by examining his relation to the women in his life, and the insights add more tarnish to Jefferson's reputation that go beyond the understandably archaic attitudes that might belong to a man of his time. As clearly documented here, "all men created equal" applied no more to women than to blacks in Jefferson's mind. Each woman discussed here provides additional perspective. As to the Sally Hemings controversy, Kukla carefully lays out enough circumstantial details to undermine the most strident doubter.
   
   A fine book, worthy of a wider audience.



5. We all know the accomplishments of Thomas Jefferson. He helped form our country and set us down the path of becoming a great nation. However, most of us don't know what helped form the foundation of his personality and how the stops along his personal path affected who he was and the decisions he made. Mr. Jefferson's Women takes a look at how several women crossed his path and how these women affected Thomas Jefferson is profound and life-altering ways.
   
   Thomas Jefferson's interactions with the women in his family, his first love, wives of fellow politicians, and his slaves, all combined to form his opinion of women and their roles in society. This book dissects several of these relationships to expose how they impacted Jefferson's opinions and actions. While the book does expose Jefferson as anything but friendly to women's rights, it does it in a fair way, giving time and place context to the statements and actions of Jefferson.
   
   The book spends most of the time in five chapters, each dedicated to a detailed look at a specific relationship, all of which were some form of love interest. The last two chapters give an overview of other women who were not love interests, but had an impact on Jefferson. The book concludes with a trove of letters and detailed information that give great reference points and further research paths.
   
   For those of us who have a storybook take on the lives of the founding fathers, this book is eye opening and somewhat shocking but highly interesting. It is a quick and easy read that is entertaining and informative. Anyone who has an even cursory interest in Thomas Jefferson will find this book a welcome addition to their collection.
   
   Armchair Interviews says: We see the other side of one of the great names of our nation's history.

5 comments about Stalin: Breaker of Nations.

1. Conquest has written eminent studies(the only in thier class) on the Great Famine(harvest of Sorrow) and the Great Terror. THese scholarly works have now been followed by a much lesser work. Clearly Conquest was responding from calls by his supporters to publish a book on the life of the monster, Stalin. But unfortunatly, instead of publishing a scholarly, in-depth 700 page study he has publish a rather paltry tale. Full of information it nevertheless lacks in several areas. It lacks mostly in the details of the post Great Terror. It lacks when describing the war. It lacks in describing the 'doctors plot'. it also lacks in the fact that it does not do justice to its title. Stalin: 'Breaker of Nations'. Conquest does not detail these nations. He tells nothing of the Jews, Tatars, Udmirts, Greeks, Germans, Armenians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Fins, and Estonians who were victimized by Stalin. Stalin was a breaker of nations but we dont hear about these nations.
   Read this book, but then go and read Volkogonovs 'Stalin: Triumph and Tradgedy'.



2. Stalin was a perfect dictator: he was above it all. He was above dogma, as seen in his rebellious activity in the theological seminary and his "creative socialism". Ever since his bank robbing escapades he did not mind being above the law. In the Tsaritsyn affair, he showed the penchant for being above authority. He was above any respect for science and arts, having arrested most of the members of the Writers' Union and interfered in a spectrum of scientific fields. He was above any Party allegiance: a half of the party members were arrested and a million of them died in his camps. He did not have any use for familial ties, having imprisoned and shot his own and others' relatives. Of course, he was above any morality.

   As much as I.V. Dzhugashvili was a notable character, Stalin also was made by the people around him. Lenin, a militant opportunist himself, found in Stalin a kindred spirit of his own extremism. Kamenev and Zinoviev saved Stalin from the fall (after the disclosure of Lenin's Testament) because they needed him in their struggle against Trotsky. Roosevelt and Churchill needed him to fight Hitler and turned a blind eye on what they did not want to see, such as Katyn massacre.

   Stalin was the most evil ruler in the history of mankind, he killed over 40 million of his own people (to put it in perspective, Hitler killed 20 million and Saddam less than half a million), and yet Stalin's specter is very much alive today. During the Ribbentrop-Molotov negotiations, Stalin raised a toast to Hitler. In 2000, Putin was drinking to Stalin. After meeting Stalin in Teheran, Roosevelt commented on the "sympathetic quality in his nature". And G.W.Bush, having looked Putin in the eye, liked what he saw. It is interesting how history repeats itself: Russian leaders keep toasting the humankind's worst tyrants and the leaders of the free world keep seeing good souls.

   As Conquest himself states, this book is not a "dissection" of Stalin's character, but a sketch. Written just after many Soviet materials on Stalin became newly available, the book feels like a period piece. Not having any source references and the frequent mention of "recent Soviet publications" only strengthen the impression. Unfortunately, Conquest's Stalin still remains fairly impenetrable. What was driving him: megalomania, paranoia, inferiority complex, dogma, self-righteousness, all of the above? Until the late 1920's (and the ripe age of 50) Stalin's persona in the book remains fairly obscure. The narrative does not really elucidate what led him, a good and pious student of theological seminary, become a professional revolutionary. Or how exactly he ingratiated himself with Lenin to the point of becoming one of the top Party functionaries. Or how in the crucial years after Lenin's death he was able to come unscathed from the many factional fights. The linguistic constructions are a bit heavy-handed which, along with the macabre subject of the book, makes for a somewhat strained reading. Rather than painting a portrait, the book reads like the author's struggle to piece it all together and understand its subject. On the other hand, it takes one to know one. So if we do not understand Stalin all that well - maybe, so much for the better.




3. There have been many biographies written about Josef Stalin. Many recent biographies of Stalin such as "Stalin: The Court of the Red Czar" by Montefiore and "Stalin and his Hangmen: The Tyrant and those who killed for him" by Rayfield focus only on the sexual depravity and crimes of Stalin's followers respectively. A person should only read those biographies only after they have read an introductory biography of Stalin and have therefore come away with an understanding of Stalin as whole. Robert Conquest's "Stalin: Breaker of Nations" provides such a biography with the vital information for one to build a basic stable foundation of the life of this twentieth century tyrant. In the introduction Conquest modestly says, "This book is not a dissection of Stalin's character, but a sketch". It is important to keep this quote in mind as one reads Conquest's book. Many reviewers unfortunately are hasty in criticizing "Stalin: Breaker of Nations" for its lack of length (a mere 330 pages or so). Nonetheless, Conquest's "sketch" proves to be more thorough than many of the "dissections" of Stalin available. Indeed Robert Conquest's work on Stalin has been so extensive that he was chosen to be the main history consultant for the 1992 movie "Stalin", starring Robert Duvall.
   
   Robert Conquest writes his book for the common reader who only has a minimal knowledge of Stalin and Stalinism. The book is nonetheless engaging enough for the serious Russian history buff. Anyone who reads "Stalin: Breaker of Nations" will at least come away with the conclusion that Stalin was the most prolific mass murderer in history (yes even more than Hitler). The purpose of the book is ultimately to stimulate enough interest for the reader to do some further research and reading. If one wants further information on Stalin's crimes, one can pick up Robert Conquest's book entitled "The Great Terror: A Reassessment".
   
   I strongly recommend "Stalin: Breaker of Nations" to anyone who wishes to have a firm grasp on the essentials of the early Soviet era. I especially wish to highlight Chapter 12 (entitled " War") of the book, which points how the Allies (Roosevelt in particular) were incompetent when it came to standing up to Stalin.
   
   If you want some further readings on Russian History, just remember that the best Russian historians start with the letter "R" (Robert Conquest, Richard Pipes, Robert Service, Richard Overy, Robert Leckie, and Robert Payne).



4. This is one of the most historically inaccurate books published on the Cold War, and in specific Stalin. Robert Conquest is the head of the "cold warriors" who simply re-wrote history to fit their propaganda purposes. Conquest actually worked for a division of British Intelligence in the 50's and 60's which created anti-communist propaganda, based on sheer fabrication and lies. This work is no different. It stinks of right wing anti-communist propaganda and fabrication. The original anti-Stalin propaganda first came into the US in the 30's via Hearst, who relied on sources from his good friend Adolf Hitler. For a more objective and less politically motivated look at Stalin I would reccomend "The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered" by J. Arch Getty, "Life & Terror In Stalin's Russia" Thurston, "Stalin: Man Of History" by Ian Grey, among many others. Please do not take this book seriously!



5. Having read this as an assignment coming into high school, it has been over six years since I've finished Robert Conquest's book on Stalin and the changes he wrought. You may wonder why I review the book now and not 6 years ago. The answer is that I didn't do reviews on amazon then, and have only recently re-encountered Conquest and been reminded of how good I thought his book was. Therefore, while my memory of this book's specifics are hazy, at best, I shall strive to give as good a review as I can.
   
   I remember the prose itself being refreshingly good; the diction and syntax were certainly for no simpleton, yet nor were they turgid.
   
   Given that this book encompasses Stalin's entire life and his nearly three decades of absolute rule in the Soviet Union in under 400 pages, it is obvious that Conquest cannot mention everything that ever transpired in Stalin's life or under his reign. Therefore, his method of giving a relatively brief, but incisive, account of Stalin's early life is quite useful and appropriate for this sort of book of this sort of length.
   
   Furthermore, Conquest gives various personal vignettes of Stalin, and these are judiciously chosen and not randomly inserted, because they all serve to explain a larger, base character trait of Stalin than can be applied more broadly.
   
   Although I said that I don't remember many of the specific elements of the book, the one thing that I remember most is the very end of the book, in which Stalin is lying on his deathbed in 1953. The way Conquest described the scene -- from Stalin's deteriorating condition to the chilling look his daughter remembers him giving to his closest Politburo subordinates (that sharp, piercing gaze that seemed to impugn all those around him as complicit in his sudden and suspicious death) -- was pretty masterful, and didn't come off as too sensationalist.
   
   In retrospect, of course, I would have liked to have learned a great deal more about the terrible, overwhelmingly artificial famine, induced by Stalin's policies, that killed so many millions of Ukrainians and others, or of the very interesting international relations Stalin engaged in with Churchill and Roosevelt. But an extensive account of either of those would have burdened the book and have taken the focus off of Stalin and his policies; after all, the book is titled "Stalin: Breaker of Nations". I also have recourse to read his other books dedicated to detailed accounts of certain of Stalin's policies, such as that of the Great Purges or of the one about the famine.
   
   (Note: I would have liked to have given this book somewhere in between 4 and 5 stars, but amazon does not have a more nuanced grading system.)