5 comments about The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin (1757-1790).

1. I gave this as a gift to my mother. My father read it cover to cover and enjoyed it and my mother is in the process of doing so. It is written in an older style and can be a bit dry, but history buffs (my parents) are really enjoying it.



2. Book received timely and in excellent condition. Am still in the process of reading it.



3. Let's just say I am a Franklin buff. If you really like Franklin or history this is a worth while read. If you want to learn more about Franklin you should start with the Autobiography and then move to one of the many Bios, the most recent of which is Walter Isaacson's "Benjamin Franklin." If you get through those, you may be well ready for this read. To be honest, in my opinion, the author stands in the way of this work a little but it is not bad.



4. This is a review of the audio version of this work.
   
   I found this to be a great disappointment, bordering on annoying. The author was attempting to complete Franklin's autobiography which doesn't cover the second half of his life. I found two very difficult problems with the work.
   
   First, the opening of the audio book presents the author's background including why he wanted to do this. This introduction was distractingly self-serving and provided quite a bit more about the author than any reader would probably expect. He is a descendant of Franklin, which may spurn his motivation....but failed to make the experience any more enlightening.
   
   Second, the book is written "using Franklin's own words"...or so says the notes from the publisher. What it does is try to use the language of Franklin's day including quickly worn out expressions and lines. I tired very quickly of the authors attempt to turn every phrase like a Poor Richard quip. What he may have gained in accuracy, made the audio experience painful.
   
   I do not recommend the audio edition for those two reasons, nor would I recommend the book. One would be better served with Isaacson's (BF: An American Life) book for a look at the second half of Franklin's life....it's simply written better and it offers more insight.
   
   The idea of getting inside Franklin's head and finishing the autobiography is compelling....but this attempt failed in it's lofty goal.
   
   --Cudo



5. I had never read Volume 1 of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, so I didn't know what to expect when I bought Volume 2, which was compiled from Dr. Franklin's diaries by one of his descendants, Dr. Mark Skousen. I really thought that because 200 years had gone by, it would be rather dry with way too many historical details and that I would never finish it. A good book to help me fall asleep at night. But I was wrong. I simply loved it.
   
   Dr. Franklin was quite a character and this book shows in his own words what he thought of his fellow 'founding fathers,' (especially his opinion of John Adams!!) how he managed to keep some of his English friends in the midst of the Revolutionary War, and the woman who got away (quite possibly the only one).
   
   This is not a book just for a history class. It is most, most entertaining and I finished it in record time. I wish Ben had lived to 100 instead of just 84.
   
   Highly recommended if you like history and even if you don't.
   
   Heidi Walter
   [...]

5 comments about Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska.

1. "Among Grizzlies" is a very inspiring and spiritual book.
   I strongly disagree with those who think that the author is just a psycho trying to get killed by bears.
   He sure lived his life to the fullest, but who could blame him for doing what he loved for a living?
   I'd kill to be in his shoes!
   Turning your passion into your job!
   Treadwell had a dream, and he fulfilled it. It's not everybody's luck.
   
   In the book there are many statements that expose the author's inner personality. He was an addict, blessed by the gift of bears.
   Inspired by them, he eventually found his way out of the addiction of alcohol.
   
   It is my believe that Treadwell was a wild soul adrift in the ocean of today's society.
   Living among bears helped him get in touch with his soul, that's for sure.
   
   I highly recommend this book to all those who like Treadwell feel as if they don't belong but in the wild.



2. He really didn't have a death wish like some reviewers have postulated. He took lots of precautions; if he'd truly had a death wish he could've gotten killed a lot easier, a lot quicker. Until seeing Herzog's documentary, Grizzly Man, I hadn't realized what a flake Tim was. But I've always loved flakes; they're usually endearing to me. I've known plenty of flakes before; they're "characters" really.
   
   Tim pushed the envelope; he took risks; no doubt about it. But I admire him for the risks he took. I wouldn't take them, but he lived a more intense, exciting, deeply meaningful life than I do, I think, which is okay, for me, and for him.
   
   Tim was not a scientist; never claimed to be. But his close contact and extensive observation gave him some knowledge and insights that other more academically trained professionals didn't have.
   
   I have to admire anyone who pulls himself out of the gutter, out of addiction and depression and meaninglessness, like Tim did, and finds a purpose and a passion and a joy to life. He wasn't perfect. He was still vain (talking in the documentary about how good a lover he was! there was something so revealing about human nature in that: no matter how far away from civilization and convention one gets, it's hard to give up the ego, the vanity, the self-consciousness), he was angry (his rants against the forest service were a little uncomfortable, a little scarey, a little obsessive), and he probably lead Amie Huegenard on (he wasn't into her as much as she was into him). I wouldn't want to be Tim. But again, I usually am impressed by people who break out of the regular 9-5 world I'm trapped in and do something different, difficult, anachronistic, unconventional.
   
   The ironic thing, that no one seems to mention, is that Tim shouldn't even have been there when they were killed. If you'll remember they had left for the season, but missed a conecting flight, and since the next flight wouldn't leave for about a week, went back to the Maze, and then they were killed the night before the pilot was supposed to come back for them.
   
   Another thing I respected about Tim was his vegetarianism. He didn't want animals to suffer at the hands of man! His beliefs were consistent in this regard. He definitley anthropomorphized all animals, especially Timmy the Fox and the grizzez but that's consistent with a reverence for all animal life, the crux of an ethical vegetarian's beliefs. I wouldn't have needed to anthropomorphize the animals like Tim did (I'm a vegetarian too) but that was Tim's personality. He was in touch with his feminine side, that's for sure. I was a little surprised how at times he was so effeminate. It didn't bother me. It wasn't that extreme. It was still in very healthy bounds.
   
   Was Tim a real problem? Did his presence habituate the bears to humans? Did his activities make it more likely that a bear would end up being a problem bear and consequently killed by humans? I think we have to admit that he did put the bears in a more dangerous situation than if they had never seen a human. Sure, we all know the best thing any of us could ever do for these bears is to never have any contact with them, get off the planet even. But, was one person, Tim, way up where he was, really going to make that much of a difference? I don't think so. Sure we couldn't have many more people like Tim up there doing what he did, that's for sure. So Tim was selfish; he did it, probably knowing that he shouldn't really being doing it, that the bears couldn't afford to have other humans doing what Tim did. But he couldn't help himself. It's like a lot of things. We all know we shouldn't drive cars so much, it's bad for the environment, for example, but we do it anyway, because our individual effect is small, but when all of us are put together, driving, we're polluting at a terrible rate.
   
   And the question about whether there were poachers there, and was Tim protecting the bears from the poachers? I believe Tim greatly exaggerated the poaching, probably to justify what he knew he really shouldn't have been doing, as a way to rationalize his intimate presence amongst the bears. Was he delusional? Did he really think there was a big poaching problem? Any poaching problem? My bet is he didn't really believe poaching was a big problem, but he probably thought it might become a problem if he wasn't there. Something like that.
   
   Those are some of the issues I found in the book, which I read over a year ago, and haven't thought of for a long time. But it's such a great subject, Tim, the bears.



3. I loved this book! I was completely captivated by the author's experiences. Mr. Treadwell seemed, at first, to be very experienced and knowledgeable. Later on, though, I had a feeling of suspicion regarding his methods. His experiences seem like something everyone would want to have, but then reality sets in and you realize that what he was doing was really not very safe for the bears at all. Photographing and watching from a distance made sense, but sleeping in the midst of a feeding area? I don't think so. The book began with hopeful optimism, but ended with a feeling of doom. I would recommend this book to others, though.



4. I know that Timothy had his problems but I just admire the way he escaped alcoholism and a miserable life and most likely death in the concrete jungles we call cities and found his own personal paradise and happiness living in nature. He integrated himself succesfully in a community of bears and he did this for 13 years, no one gets lucky for 13 years straight, the man was obviously onto something.
   He knew all the risks very well and he assumed them, he had no delusions there, he knew that what he was doing was a high risk activity and that the bears could kill him.
   We shouldn't berate him more than we should berate a surfer who drowned or who was eaten by a shark, a climber who fell or froze to death etc.
   Timothy was a lot like Steve the Crocodile Hunter who died killed by a stingray fish while doing what he loved most.
   We should all understand that these are high risk activities and people die sometimes. RIP Timothy and God Bless.



5. This review is for the hardcover, which I found in my local library. I had seen the movie "Grizzly Man," so I was curious about this book. I agree with other reviewers that this is more about Treadwell than the bears. If the reader wants a lot of information about bears, you won't really find much here. The writing style is more like a diary than anything else. The photos are good (not numerous), but would have been much better printed in color. The movie shows that Treadwell was a pretty good still photographer as well as a videographer; a coffee-table book with his bear photos would be an interesting idea.
   
   One thing I noticed immediately when I opened the book was that Treadwell apparently lied to his publisher about his age. The year of birth in the book (in the catalog info area) is wrong. It's kind of odd for a man to lie about his age, trying to seem younger than he is. That alone gives you some insight into his character. By his own admission he had been a drug user and alcoholic; according to people who knew him, he was bi-polar. Not the kind of person who should be dealing with large, wild animals. The key reason he survived as long as he did is that most of the bears had ample food readily available to them. His death was at the paws of an old, underweight bear which was trying to fatten itself for hibernation. Treadwell knew exactly what he was doing when he went back to the "grizzly maze" that late in the year. After seeing the movie twice, and his last video (a soliloquy in the grizzly maze) a third time, I now think he was consciously or subconsciously choosing suicide by bear. It is unfortunate that his girlfriend stayed with him - I suspect she cared more about hurting his feelings by leaving than about protecting herself, and may have had an unwarranted belief in Tim's ability to protect her, even without so much as bear spray. The fact that he refused to carry bear spray shows he wasn't really rational. Also, I agree with other reviewers who said that he didn't protect the bears; he actually made their lives more dangerous by habituating them to human beings.
   
   I wouldn't recommend buying this book, but if you've seen the movie, you might want to check this out of your local library to get a little more verification of the kind of person Timothy Treadwell was.

5 comments about Degrees Kelvin: A Tale of Genius, Invention, and Tragedy.

1. Degrees Kelvin, written by David Lindley, is a book about a very influential figure in the world of physics who is sometimes forgotten.
   
   The book chronicles the life of William Thomson (eventually Lord Kelvin) from the time that he was an inquisitive student in his father's mathematics lectures at Glasgow University in England, through the great and eventually turbulent events in Thomson's scientific career. Very early on in his life Thomson became the Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University, a position that he was to hold for much of his lifetime. Most notable, in his career that spanned many different fields, was his work with electricity for the telegraph industry. His work in this field allowed for the construction of the first transatlantic telegraph and improved upon the design of wires to transmit electricity over long distances. One of Thomson's lesser known, but still important accomplishments was the creation of the first modern physics textbook. There are many other interesting things that were important in Thomson's life and Lindley goes into great detail.
   
   One of the most endearing aspects of this book is the way that it can embrace science yet still read like a novel. One of the book's flaws is that at times it gives to much background information about other 19th century scientists that eventually slow down the reading and detracts from the author's main message. In writing this biography Lindley was trying to create something to represent a very important scientist whose name is lost in history. This biography is extremely interesting to read because Thomson has helped to shape many scientific principles of the modern age. This book would be recommendable to anyone who enjoys science, in particular physics, and who would like to read about a man who helped physics come to be. Overall, it is decently presented and anyone who likes science would probably enjoy most of the book.



2. I was surprised to learn of his many commercial inventions where he applied the physics he had discovered. His early work in product testing of the cable for the transatlantic telegraph cable was years ahead of its time. I found this book an easy read, Kelvin (Thomson) was a real down to earth scientist and the author has captured his essence.



3. This was a good book. The author does a nice job documenting the life and times of Lord Kelvin. It may not have been a goal of the author, but I think this book clearly illustrates that advances in science are not the work of one person, but collaboration between many different thinkers. Enjoy the read!



4. Another remarkable British physicist of the 19th century. The genius of William Thomson was formidable, capable of tackling every challenge in science quite fast, though not always totally right, but helping to narrow possible solutions and enriching scientific debate of the time. The book took you to a great epoch of scientific knowledge and progress, from the theory of heat and the beginnings of Thermodynamics, the marvellous story of the trasatlantic cable and even the perfection of ships compasses to compensate the magnetic effect of the new Iron ships that were built by the British Navy. Although I think John Clerk Maxwell is definitely the 19th century physics genius, Thomson place his name near to Faraday and several others that contributed to the dynamic and flourish scientific knowledge of the second half of the 1800.
   
   William Thomson was a genius, but seems that to accept new ideas was not an easy process for him. After reading the book my opinion is the same as Maxwell -- he was so busy on diverse interest that he was incapable of focusing on only one subject.



5. David Lindley's biography of Lord Kelvin is one of the most enjoyable books that I have ever read. The author provides a fair assessment of the man within his historical and scientific milieu and one is left with a sense of having obtained a deeper understanding of 19th century scientific thinking. The complexities of the foundation of thermodynamics are dealt with capably as is the scientific outlook of Kelvin as an advocate of a purely mechanical universe, in particular against the changing views towards the end of the 19th century. Overall a balanced approach between science and personal detail for a book of this type.

No comments about Charles Darwin: The Beagle Letters.

5 comments about Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons.

1. While everyone knows that the early days of rocket science were full of good CHRISTIAN PATRIOTIC MEN like Werner Von Braun, this book lays out the very scary case that one of the pioneers of rocket science, indeed, one of the VERY FOUNDERS of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) was NOT a CHRISTIAN at all, and was, in fact, a WORSHIPPER OF SATAN, and, a fanatical follower of one of the wickedest men of the entire 20th century! According to this book, Jack Parsons even tried to create his OWN SCARLET WOMAN (Rotting Goddess: The Origins of the Witch in Classical Antiquity), with whome to conceive a "magical childe" (a supreme BLASPHEME if I ever heard one). He is alledged to have commited SEX ACTS which would shock even the most hardened LIBERAL HOMOSEXUAAL, and then proceded to try to sell AMERICAN GOVERNMENT SECRETS to the ISRAEL Government when the jews were trying to get a leg-up! His sickness was finaly put an end to when he (OR GOD) blew Himself up inside his own home, in a laboratory in his garden shed while handeling rocket fuel. (Talk about the SPARK OF DIVINE JUSTICE.) Altogether a disquieting, disturbing tale of one of the lesser known, but more improtant (if the aurther is to be believed) pioneers of what would become NASA. CHILLING.



2. By day, Jack Parsons was one of the founders of Jet Propulsion Laboratories and basically single-handedly invented the rocket. By night, he was Frater 210, the self-proclaimed Antichrist, a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis, and a follower of Aleister Crowley (rhymes with 'holy'.) Oddly enough, he was a very meticulous, if reckless scientist, but a very sloppy and reckless magician. (Though his death might suggest otherwise. He was killed in an explosion in his home when he was 37.)
   
   The information in the book was great and I drank it up, but Carter's writing is simply bad and uninteresting. His speculations are often spotty and he blindly repeats some untrue myths about Crowley as fact. Otherwise, it was a nice view into the early years of the OTO and Thelema in America. My favorite parts, I think, were the excerpts from Crowley's correspondence. He was intelligent and witty till the very end. (Jack Parsons sent large amount of money to Crowley on a regular basis, supporting Crowley in his last years.) Much of this time period was not covered in Crowley's autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.
   
   L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, also appears in quite a large chunk of this book as a magical scribe and con man. Parsons and Hubbard performed some powerful rituals that were well beyond their skill levels and there is a whole branch of conspiracies that say they opened a sort of magical portal and that's where UFOs came from. Considering that Aleister Crowley once contacted an entity named LAM who looked much like a modern grey alien, it's an interesting story to delve into, which this book only touches upon. Parsons and Hubbard also had strange connections with John Dee & Edward Kelley. (Hubbard stole a very large sum of money and ran off with Parsons' wife. Kelley did the same to Dee way back in the ye olde 1500s.)
   
   Hopefully further books will be better written. I can see why this is the only book John carter has written.



3. Sex and Rockets is an illuminating and inspiring book that provides a detailed account of the rich and bizarre world of Parsons. The reader takes a mind-bending mystical journey through a dynamic realm of magic and science that reads more like great fiction than reality. Parsons was as interesting as any character in a science fiction novel of the time.
   
   He was a visionary in the world of the occult and an accomplished iconoclastic rocket scientist. The author confidently conveys the humanity behind Parsons and the extent of his influence upon many diverse realms of thought. Additionally, the author uncovers miraculous details.
   
   This penetrating work offers a straightforward portrayal of events and includes a thoroughly entertaining foreword by RAW and extensive photographs. I preferred the elegantly written "Strange Angel," for the language and the insights into the relationships, but this well-researched and enjoyable book was certainly worth the time. The author and his publisher deserve much credit for their accomplishment.
   
   Strongly recommended to science, occult and literary enthusiasts.



4. Fascinating man, boring biography--author John Carter's turgid prose style--the man apparently has no sense of humor--and the lengthy quotations from Thelemic rites, etc.--make this read One Big Snooze. Indeed, the sections about Parsons-as-rocket-scientist are much more lively, and they're not why I picked up a copy of the book at all. Carter apparently didn't gain access to a host of source documents, and that may not be a bad thing--he'd have quoted them lengthily.
   
   In the end, one gets little sense of the man nor of what drove him into the metaphorical arms of Aleister Crowley and Black Magic. Carter's sense of proportion is best-represented by his statement toward the end of the book, that Parsons had achieved more in five years as a rocket scientist than Robert Goddard did in a lifetime. Well, of course he did; he stood upon the shoulders of a giant--Goddard.
   
   Few footnotes, no endnotes, flawed index: a hugely important character appearing on many of the book's pages--Wilfred T. Smith--is missing in action. Not that many will want to re-thumb their way through this. If magick is indeed this boring, few will follow The Path.



5. An absolutely fascinating story about the world of Jack Parsons, both his rocket expertise and his journey into the occult. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard puts in a brief appearance as a shadowy occultist and con man. The book suffers, unfortunately, from being poorly written and presented. The scientific sections have all the charm of a Unix manual, and the occult sections are tedious - too heavy on the fine points of arcana and not enough on the human foibles and interactions.

5 comments about THE MAN WHO LOVED ONLY NUMBERS: THE STORY OF PAUL ERDOS AND THE SEARCH FOR MATHEMATICAL TRUTH.

1. Paul Erdös ("Air-dish") really did love numbers, and lived for mathematics. He was well known in maths circles, a legend, but known little outside. The book by Paul Hoffman introduces the work of this prolific numbers man to a new audience. It is at the same time a full of glimpses of the man, and tributes from those working mathematicians that he worked with. For there is no doubt that Erdös was an eccentric of the first magnitude, but Hoffman gives a picture of a well-loved man, who moved and inspired individual and groups of his colleagues worldwide.
   
   Erdös made an enormous contribution in basic number theory, and Hoffman introduces readers to many of the ancient and modern problems of mathematics. Is it possible, for example, to predict the distribution of prime numbers? The relationship of prime numbers with each other is a well-known area of investigation in number theory, and ideas such as perfect numbers (where the sum of the factors equals the number itself - for example the number 6) and friendly numbers are well explored. Friendly numbers are where the sum of the factors of one number equals a second number, and the sum of the factors of that number equal the first number; the lowest friendly numbers are 220 and 284.
   
   What has made Erdös so special is his relationship with so many of the world mathematics community; he co-authored papers with 485 individuals, and in some cases was a joint author with the same individual of 15 or more papers. His output was immense, even though he was working in basic number theory, an area where much work is done by young men. Yet he continued to make significant contributions almost right up until his death in 1996.
   
   Erdös's brain was "always open" for mathematics. He even made group maths possible, or even `invented' it,, often with several different groups in the same room, with the aged Hungarian as the lynch pin, flitting between groups engaged on different subjects. The affectionate guide by Hoffman to his life and achievements is infectious, for those with an interest in mathematics. And so was Erdös, who wanted to prove theorems, and to prove them elegantly, but was very actively engaged in encouraging and nurturing others in his obsession. Erdös had no passions in life, maths was his life.
   
   Individuals who had written a paper with the Hungarian are said to have an Erdös numbers of 1, and to have achieved this distinction is a great accolade. Even Einstein only achieved an Erdös number of 2, having written a paper with a person who had written a paper with Erdös.
   
   Hoffman gives a good view of the man, a glimpse of how he worked, but comparatively little about his achievements, probably because non-mathematicians would not understand it. What he does show is that without Erdös, the world is a poorer place, both mathematically, and because of his unique ways.
   
   Peter Morgan, Bath, UK [...].



2. I'm bad in math. Horrible to be correct. But this book is so easy to understand and even entertainning to read. Like some other reviewer said that it has all the things going on besides Erdos's life. This book may not have lots of detail about his accomplishment, which even for some that it has, not really offer a complete or clear explaination about them, but somehow it makes me want to know more and looking for anything deeper and more thorouoghly. Therefore, despite some flaws that it has, I love it. Such an entertaining when you consider it's something about math.



3. I absolutely loved this book. A coworker of mine found this book depressing, but I thought it was a very uplifting story about a truly unique human being. I don't know where the title came from, as it is inappropriate, but everything else about the book was wonderful. Given the petty squabbles between scientists in many disciplines, it was very nice to read a story about collaboration such as that promoted by Erdos.



4. Paul Erdos is presented as a sweet math genius. He loved children & Math, but never had life of his own. He lifed only to futher study of Math.



5. This is a very interesting and enjoyable book about Paul Erdos, an eccentric math genius.
   
   Speaking as a former college "Mathlete" (Kappa Mu Epsilon), I used to (and still do) have an abiding love for mathematical 'truths', and this book gives readers a brief introduction to some of the many ways that a sense of wonder & curiosity, focused on the universe through the prism of mathematics, can fire one's soul on many levels, both intellectual and spiritual.
   
   As for myself - after a promising start, I peaked early back in undergrad school, and eventually left the field after finishing a minor degree, and moved on to other studies. However, my sense of wonder has remained ... and it was this book that helped me to recall some of my old joys, and to relive some of the might-have beens, had I been able to stay with it.
   
   In any case, the book is a fine read. However, I have some nits that I've ranked them from most to least annoying:
   
   1) MISSING PROOFS: The author, during his tale, mentions in passing many interesting mathematical problems and theorems that both Paul Erdos, and other mathematicians, helped to solve ... but in the vast majority of instances, the author anti-climactically fails to include the details of those proofs for the benefit of interested & proficient readers. IMHO, proofs of less than, say, 5 pages, could and should have been included in an appendix, and the author could have referred readers to appropriate AMS publications for those proofs that are longer and more involved. Instead, the author leaves the reader with nadda in all but a few trivial instances. It always irks me off when an author (or editor) dumbs down a book because they think readers can't keep up. Very annoying, and very anti-climactic. I mean come on - what's the point of spending pages and pages telling about the quest for a solution, only to finish lamely that yes, they solved it ... but omit all the details. Feh.
   
   2) FOCUS: The author did a commendable job assembling and integrating a large array of verbal and historical accounts into a fairly coherent whole ... but he also has a mildly irritating tendency to meander around, in his focus, somewhat like a runaway horse cart. First forwards in time, then backwards, then sideways across various topics, then in the middle of nowhere we're talking about Fibonacci, Gödel, Gauss, then back to the present, and then to his childhood again, etc. In other words, the flow of the book is a bit uneven and fractured in places, and IMHO it could have benefited from some additional polishing and a bit of re-organization. I kept wanting to grab the reins and drag the book back on course. It's a fine ride, but it's a bit more rickety and bouncy then it could have been with some better editing.
   
   3) ENDMATTER: The author/editor neglected to tie the "Acknowledgements and Source Notes" section in the rear of the book (p. 269- p.278) into the main text with some helpful endnotes or annotations ... thus rendering the section mostly useless to first time readers. Without notations to clue a reader in that that information is present in the back, then readers are left to finish the book unaware of it's existence until they reach the end ... by which time the information is of little or no value.
   
   Highly enjoyable. Subtract a star if you're a math geek who prefers to see actual proofs, rather than simply taking solutions for granted, sans details.

2 comments about Schweitzer: A Biography.

1. A brilliant bravo to a task well done. G. Marshall & D. Poling have captured succinctly the life of the last of the 'Enlightenment' minds. Albert Schweitzer was true to the principles of reason, naturalism and thought. He took these principles and undauntedly applied them to his religion and his culture. Albert Schweitzer was a critic of Christianity and modern civilization and this book captures Albert Schweitzer, "the critic".

   In the world and church around him he saw conformity and the lack of individual reflection. This is a book about a nonconformism, a brilliant theologian/philosopher and a humanitarian genius.

   Unlike other biographies of Schweitzer I have read, these authors write with a fluid, engaging style, pulling you closer to the man that they knew and profiled. Albert Schweitzer lived 90 years and the length of his life is a challenge that biographers must face. They must capture the individualistic spirit of Albert Schweitzer youth, the brilliance of his middle years and the tenacity of his old age.

   Albert Schweitzer's Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 spoke of his sacrificial work in Africa, his vital practical philosophy of life, his call to clear comprehension of the historic Jesus that Christianity needs to embrace, his musical brilliance, his compassion for the animal kingdom and his love of healing. Yet, to brush stroke with ink a portrait of this unbelievable figure is a demanding undertaking and Marshall and Poling have done it right, and they did right to one of the greatest personalities of the twentieth century. Strongly recommended. 4.5 Stars.




2. This is a fine biography of one of the greatest humanitarians of the twentieth century. During his lifetime, (ninety years) Schweitzer the great man transformed into Schweitzer the great myth; the great white hope, saving the bodies and souls of the primitive black man of Africa. In our post colonial age, with its post modern, abstract cultural theories of the `other', Schweitzer became an easy target for cultural critics, using the man and his work as representative of everything evil about the self-perceived superiority of Western man over `primitive cultures'. It is without question, that, for the most part, European imperialism justified their greedy exploitation of developing countries as efforts to `civilize' them. Our culture, knowledge and religion were superior to these `savages', and while we stole their natural resources, we gave them enlightenment. Further to this, however, as we stole and enlightened, we also gave them our diseases, which, in some cases, virtually wiped out entire peoples. From the very beginning, Albert Schweitzer was aware of the European's injustices to these people, and deeply felt some kind of atonement or restitution had to be made. Schweitzer's intention was to essentially help; his inspiring example paved the way for present humanitarian organizations to make a difference or at least become more effective in their aid. This biography successfully dismantles the `great white hope' myth, and presents the man as an insightful critic of Western values and traditional theology, a man who lived his philosophy - or as Schweitzer said, "Live his argument". One can never truly understand or judge someone based on what they say or what they write; only through the results of a person's actions can we really know them. Marshall and Poling's biography of Schweitzer includes his writing and many quotes from conversations and interviews, but argue his greatness from the stand point of his actions. In other words, his fifty years of service and the establishment of the Lambarene hospital, speaks for itself.

   Schweitzer became aware of his mission to serve his fellow travellers on this planet somewhat late in life. An established philosopher and theologian at age thirty, a principal of a respected seminary, he awoke one morning to realize everything life had given him, and it was time to give back. After reading an article calling for trained medical staff to work in West Africa, he knew what he needed to do. Against heavy opposition from family and friends, he returned to university as a mature-aged student to study medicine, attaining his degree. The public know much about his early life but as his daughter, Rhena Schweitzer, writes in the Forward, "It is the first biography that gives an account of the last years of my fathers live. It helps explain and dissipates some of the false ideas about his relationship to the Africans." This book dispels these falsehoods and myths, and is also a sensitive and objective appraisal of a man and his life.

   An inspiring read.

5 comments about 747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation.

1. As a project manager/engineer and aviation enthusiast, I knew I had to read this book. It did not disappoint. Joe Sutter seemed at first like a typical engineer thrust (no pun intended) into a dream job--designing and building a new aircraft that most couldn't even imagine. By the end of this book, however, he'd discussed not only the technical challenges he faced, but the political roadblocks he encountered along the way. The story is compelling and interesting and taught me a few lessons on dealing with angry higher-ups and demanding customers.
   
   I especially liked how Joe weaved in a few details about his personal life and his background, without detracting from the story of designing the 747.
   
   This was a fascinating read and one that I may have to revisit. Thank you, Mr. Sutter, for sharing this story with the newest generation of engineers.



2. History was made in Everett, WA 40 years ago when the "Queen of the Skies" was developed and built. It was Boeing's Jumbo Jet, a double-deck airplane. Everyone has interviewed Joe Sutter, the "father of the 747",Chief Engineer on the project, and now he's written his own account.
   It's his personal story as well as the making of history in aviation. Juan Trippe of Pan Am was a driver behind the development of this airplane.
   The book gives one insight to the struggles of developing a new airplane.
   You can take guided tours of the assembly plant in Everett, where they assemble the twin-aisle airplanes, including 747 and 787.



3. Joe Sutter helped accomplish what was probably the most challenging engineering feat in history prior to 1970 by designing the largest jet aircraft in the world. His book touches briefly on the life journey leading up to his employment at Boeing and taking on some major assignments there, including running the 747 program. Joe's book shows he was an engineer first, and a manager second. While downplaying his own ability to understand company politics and business dealings, you see that Joe really felt a strong sense of importance about each and every engineering assignment he had at Boeing. From the 707 to the 727 to the 747, Joe talks about each Jet as if they were his.
   
   He shows how Boeing bet the whole farm on 747, and how that is typical of Boeing and a key factor to understanding the character of the Boeing Company. He discusses how he played a pivotal role both in the design and risk management process of 747. He shares some of the backroom strategy meetings where he convinced Boeing's top leadership to build a single deck airplane versus the customer proposed double-decker, and offers insights as to why a double-decker is so much more expensive to build than a single deck aircraft. Insisting on a single deck configuration for 747, according to Joe was probably the most valuable contribution he made at Boeing, though he risked loosing his job and Boeing almost lost the support of their biggest Customer, Pan-Am by going with his approach.
   
   Joe shared some other specific job experiences that helped groom him to run the 747 program, the lessons he learned, and the lessons he wish he had learned.
   
   Joe wanted this book to inspire the younger generation of engineers, and he definitely does. Joe is a story teller at heart and his book is easy reading like some of the emails you might get from an 85 year old war veteran with inspiring and straight talk. I couldn't put it down till it was done and recommend all my engineer buddy's to pick up a copy.



4. 747 is simply a must for anyone in the aerospace design industry, or for people who are just interested in how the 747 was built. Joe Sutter, the airplane's director of engineering and the one most responsible for its actual design, has written a trim, quick, and enjoyable to read history of the 747 program encased in a semi-autobiography.
   
   After a few chapters exploring the author's early life, including his college time and Navy life, the book spends its bulk on a 50,000 foot overview of what was going on with the 747 development program from its inception until its most recent incarnation to fly in the form of the 747-400 family of derivatives. The final chapters sweep the remainder of the author's professional career including his service on the Challenger Disaster commission. Joe (and after reading the book you definitely get the feeling he would prefer to be called that then Mr. Sutter) has certainly led a very interesting life, and has had the privilege of experiencing a truly gilded age of aviation from the peaks of its ambitions and the lows of its difficulties and uncertainty. But the star of the book is truly the magnificent 747 aircraft and even his more autobiographical chapters tie into the aircraft and its design.
   
   Much of the author's life exerted an inexorable influence on the design philosophy he brought to the plane. As an early child he grew up in Seattle and watched, literally from his neighborhood, as Boeing would roll out new aircraft through the twenties and thirties and try to push aviaiton forward and make the world a smaller place. Caught up in the majesty of flight Joe wanted very badly to design airplanes, but as WWII dawned when he was in college that would have to wait for more important world events to be sorted out. Joining the Navy he became a deck officer on a destroyer escort in the Atlantic, where he had a formative experience. Returning to Boston Harbor his ship started to become glazed with rapidly growing layers of thick ice in the midst of a storm, making the ship dangerously top heavy. With no anti-icing system and no ability to get people out on deck to hack off the ice the crew had to just ride out the storm praying they wouldn't die. From this moment on the author decided safety would be a primary criteria of anything he designed.
   
   The legacy of the 747 is one of carrying on Boeing's legacy of leading the pack in aviation with an unparalleled record of safety, thanks to smart design and brute force quadruple redundancy. (Brute force is by no means meant perjoratively here!) The 747 came about during an amazing time in aviation history. It was the first wide body airliner (against the initial full double decker narrow body wishes of its launch customer), the first turbofan (or fanjet as they are sometimes called) powered airliner, and it was designed by a slimmed down workforce in the shadow of the ill fated 2707 SST, while the 727 and 737 were also absorbing significant company resources, and while Lockheed's L-1011 and Douglas' DC-10 provided competition. The story of how this giant came about and triumphed in spite of the decidely low expectations Boeing clearly had for it at the begining is a truly fascinating one, filled with such aviation luminaries as Juan Trippe, Bill Allen and Charles Lindbergh. Joe's life on the program is also filled with equally amazing events including state department sponsored dinners with the Soviets in Paris at the height of the Cold War (in the spirit of "Detente"), and trips all over the world ranging from the expected places like Japan and New York, to Baghdad.
   
   In addition to being a great story well told, there are real gems here for aviation program managers and aircraft designers about how to make a successful airplane. Absolutely worth reading, and would be something I would like to see as a textbook for aeronautical engineers, perhaps in an aerospace history course, to give them some real world perspective that is so often lacking in modern engineering degrees.
   
   An outstanding book, highly recommended!



5. Joe Sutter rose to lead the 747 program through hard work, preparation, and a little bit of luck. As an aspiring Boeing worker, I hope to do the same one day. All of the lessons learned from decades ago are still relevant today. Joe tells his story from all angles: professionally and personally. This is a highly engaging book, and if you are interested in the aerospace industry it is highly recommended.

5 comments about Edison: A Life of Invention.

1. I was given this book for a writing project and dutifully plowed through it over the Christmas holidays. Overall, I must say that it was an absolutely excellent holiday book as well as chock full of useful ideas for my scholarly purposes. This is an extremely difficult balance to strike and Israel has done it better than I thought possible - I was prepared for a long dry slog and instead found a great and exciting story.

   Edison, Israel argues, was not just a lone little-educated tinkerer of genius as he is often portrayed, but the creator of the prototype for the modern corporate research lab - he knew how to find talent, how to organize it to get the most out of people, and how to beat the competition by both speed and in the creation of entire new systems of technology. He also knew how to manipulate the media and build on his fame, creating a myth to which he had to live up. That being said, he had a pitch-perfect intuitive sense not only of potential new markets, but of how to create technical solutions to exploit them. He learned from his failures and strove to apply his less-successful inventions elsewhere, often to great effect. Taken together, this was true business genius and Israel explains it all succinctly, including the exposure of Edison's many weaknesses in management and his financial affairs and his many flops (such as the mining experiments that nearly bankrupted him). Furthermore, the basics of his major inventions - improvements to the telegraph and telephone, the light bulb, commerical electricity generation systems, to mention a few - are covered with competence, always with an eye to the management of it all and what it took, all of which are of great use. This adds up to a masterpiece of scholarship and popular writing in my view, crossing a plethora of disciplines in very readable prose and at a good pace of storytelling.

   However, there are many things that make this a challenging read and in some ways disappointing. Even though I know a lot about science and engineering from my own writing, I found the many passages explaining the nuts and bolts of his inventions hard to follow and ultimately rather dry. If the reader is not interested in these highly technical details, he can skim them without losing the narrative thread. Moreover, Edison as a person does not always come thru, though really he was his work and not much else. You also do not learn much about the fate of his enterprises or even his personal financial fortune after his death, which is also a part of his legacy that should be explored. Finally, Israel addresses somewhat rarified questions in the concluding chapter regarding whether Edison was a "scientist" and how industrial research was changing (developing specialties that required far more education than inventors of Edison's "heroic invention" epoch) to make the emergence of generalist, self-taught inventors like him far more difficult and with limited horizons; while I enjoyed this a great deal, it is of limited interest to those who were never steeped in "science policy."

   All in all, highest recommendation. It is a great achievement and will stand as one of the definitive biographies of this great and difficult man.




2. Reading this book has been an experience for me. I wanted to find out more about the life of one of America's most famous inventors, and this book has helped me along the way, so I give it credit for that. However, I have felt like I am trudging into a mighty windstorm, reaching deep into my soul to plunge each forward step as I slowly turn the pages in this book. There are pockets of enlightenment throughout the book, but it really is a relaying of facts about Edison's life, which is technically what a biography should do, but this book does not come alive in my hands like others have.
   
   To be fair, I did accomplish my goal of learning more about this great man. I learned that a lot his inventions were a result of not just great intellect, but of great work ethic and stick-to-it-iveness. Also, one of his greatest contributions was a corporate model for delegating work among his subordinates. The speed of the development of his inventions was the key, as several other inventors were working on similar ideas at the same time.
   
   Anyway, I recommend the book as a good introduction to the life of Tom, but I am sure that there is a book out there that will give you the same enlightenment without making you feel as though you've crawled on your hands and knees through the Sahara, with a canteen full of lukewarm water that leaks at a very slow rate.



3. I've always been interested in reading the biographies of famous inventors. Edison was one I knew little about, so I purchased this book. It is very interesting and takes you through his entire life. You see how Edison begins as a skilled telegraph operator. But he is not content with the status quo, he is always improving what he is working with. But he is also a businessman and gets his ideas patented, and forms partnerships and businesses to profit from them.
   
   The book also includes many pictures form different periods in his life. If you are interested in Edison, this is a great book.



4. This book is very authoritive and well researched, and even more important is that it provides end notes for the reader to verify the author's assertions. If you want a quick overview of Edison's life or just the highlights, this is not the book for you; but if you need to know the man, this is the best book I've read. Paul Israel presents Edison's achievments and failures, in inventions, human relationships and finances in a dispassionate manner.



5. I liked this book a great deal. You should consider that this is not a fictional story, and is the very essence of a research work.
   
   Great insights about his life, religious views, and his business of invention. Well treated subject and a great read.

No comments about Time For Kids: Henry Ford (Time For Kids).