5 comments about The Man on Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill.

1. This is a fascinating book. Worthen was still an undergraduate at Yale when she began it, and she brings both the idealism of youth and a mature writing style to the page. Besides being a fly on the wall at some of the most important foreign policy events of the 20th century, the reader also gets an inside view of one of Yale University's most elite communities -- the Grand Strategy program, which trains future leaders in the art of statecraft. Followers of contemporary political events will be particularly interested, since two of the Grand Strategy professors -- John Lewis Gaddis and Charles Hill -- have close contacts with, and regularly advise the Bush Administration. This is no tawdry expose of secret societies (a la Secrets of the Tomb), but an insightful look into how an experienced diplomat mentors some of the most accomplished students in our country. It also is a moving coming of age story, as Worthen learns that her mentor is as flawed and human as the famous leaders he counseled.



2. I'm sorry but I've read this book twice now and I don't know when I've had a more amateur read. I'm with Publishers Weekly on this one, this author is smart and clever and in love with her own voice but she's not a natural writer, and her apparent infatuation with Professor Hill gets tiresome after only twenty-five pages. I can imagine that students who went to Yale and took courses with Hill might enjoy reading about him. Will anyone else? His family, perhaps. To the rest of us, even after Worthen's comprehensive look at his career, he seems like a nobody who somehow wound up at the top echelons of a corrupt government and now runs pretentious power courses from a cushy academic post. Worthen gives us a charming picture of campus life at New Haven, and how a lottery system insures everyone an equal shot at studying with Professor Hill.
   
   I got the impression also that Hill was flirting with Worthen continuously, but that his passion for Norma was making him "walk the line" as Johnny Cash used to say. Hill certainly seems unabashed by Worthen's curiosity about his romantic and sex life, even urging her on to ask him some unseemly questions even Bill Clinton might have balked at, though I didn't catch if he wears boxers or briefs.
   
   The revelations about Iran/Contra are minor ones, and debatable. I hate to break it to you, Molly Worthen, but your emperor has no clothes.
   
   The Grand Strategy course he teaches, she notes breathlessly, culminates in a "Crisis Simulation" day in which students are thrown into an imaginary crisis like an outbreak of Ebola or Muslim terrorists occupying the Senate chambers. It's like a Universal Studios tour ride putting you, the tourist, into Jack Bauer's shoes on "24." And out of such theme parks our foreign policy is born.



3. This biography is the first I've read of a man I've had the privilege to know. It's also the first review on Amazon I've felt compelled to write. I applaud Worthen's ability to peg Charlie Hill. Her characterizations are 100% in my experience of man who has lived a compelling life. I recommend this book to all students of foreign policy.
   
   Yes, you can marvel at the fact that a professor buys coffee at Starbucks. I feel sorry for those who've forgotten that.



4. Charles Hill is the consumate man behind the curtain - Worthen writes a bio worthy of close examination - her writing is just lovely and shows her wisdom. - Great job.



5. For a wonderful read about a man I know, but thank you even more for articulating the hugh problem at the heart of academia today -- political correctness that has left a whole generation of students with a disfunctional inner compass. Thank God Charlie Hill decided to teach at Yale after he left the Foreign Service!
   Francie Bremer

5 comments about A Boy I Once Knew: What a Teacher Learned from her Student.

1. A Boy I Once Knew is a bit of a miss-titled novel. Although the book is an interesting read, I was expecting a book about the title character and his life journey from the time he was a student to the time he died. Instead, the book focuses primarily on the author who draws parallels between what is happening in the Journals to what is happening in her own life. While sometimes interesting. In that sense it was disappointing, leaving me to wonder about the diaries and what I didn't learn. A more apt title for this book might have been, The Diaries I Received From A Student And How They Made Me Reflect On My Own Life.



2. A large brown box appears on the doorstep of teacher, Elizabeth Stone's front door. Inside she would find the journals and inner workings of former student, former human being, former AIDS patient; Vincent.
   This book was extremely slow going. I felt that it asked too may questions and sort of implied the story rather than to tell it. Yes I am aware that Miss. Stone only had the journals as a reference yet I still believe this work could have been executed in a way as to end up with a much more impressive piece of writing.
   In reading "A Boy I Once Knew," I also came across a variety of typos and errors thus proving the type of effort that went into the book.
   Stone also seemed to focus much more on her life than Vincent's, the one she meant to be preserved.
   When I look at this book as a whole I can't help but wonder if Vincent was made into the person he wanted the world to know. But, at the same time, I don't know if we were properly "introduced".



3. Upon completing this book (and before reading the reviews of others on this site), I came out with many of the same feelings that they had: this book was NOT so much about the "Boy" but about the author. I'm glad to see that I wasn't the only one disappointed and misled by the book and its summary. I wanted to know more about the supposed title character...not about the author. The author left his diaries and notes to a total stranger so she could tell the world about him...about his battle with life...and death. And yet all she was concerned about was her own life. What a disappointment. I'm sure she gained something from reading his diaries, but we certainly didn't. And when she did mention him, she used quotes from his diaries that were quick notes like, "Went shopping. Met with friend." Nothing in detail. A true author who wanted to share Vincent with the world would have cut beyond his quick notes and written something with more depth, using his notes as a guide. Ms. Stone didn't seem to even "get" Vincent...or the gay lifestyle. So, after reading the book, I quickly resold it online. It wasn't a keeper for me. Sorry, Vincent...I hope someone else preserves memories of you...



4. What a tremendous letdown! I picked this up because I loved the thought of the ex-teacher revealing the life of a former student through his memoirs and her memories. Too bad that isn't really the book. Elizabeth Stone uses Vincent as an excuse to write her own autobiography- and believe me, her story makes you long to hear Vincent's all the more. Perhaps his diaries were very vague or his family reticent of having his life detailed - both understandable. But, given that, there isnlt really a worthwhile project here. I got so bored that I kept skipping pages looking to find Vincent's story and all I really kept finding was hers. Ugh! A vanity project all around.



5. Stone was given a task that was impossible to do: being asked to reconstruct a life and a story in a way that would both please Vincent and be worth writing. Granted, Vincent's life was tragic, but is not a story worth repeating. It is not new tale: a troubled gay youth struggling to fit in, finding refuge in a gay metropolis, and ultimately dieing of AIDS.
   What is much more interesting is Stone's story. What a remarkable situation to be in: Having to write the story of a former student who has since grown estranged; to see her very human reaction to Victor's sad story. Untimely it is much more compelling and thought provoking that the story given her.
   Stone is an expert of narratives (as per her other book and work.) I think she could see the limits of Victor's tale; which would make for a very unremarkable and unoriginal work. Instead we see how she reacted, and we in turn can react likewise. Tragedy for Stone is not in the grand narrative, but in all the subsequent and supporting narratives.
   In the tired genera of AIDS-memoir Stone has breathed new life into it. Vincent is surly pleased.

No comments about Frank Boyden of Deerfield: The Vision and Politics of an Educational Idealist.

No comments about Edward Bouchet: The First African-American Doctorate.

3 comments about Portraits in Leadership: Six Extraordinary University Presidents (ACE/Praeger Series on Higher Education).

1. Even though this is essentially a research book it is very well
   written and contains a solid presentation of the leadership process. The chapter summarizing leadership research is the best I've seen and provides an original framework around which to read the case studies. There has been a lot of academic research on leadership over the last twenty years and much of it is incomprehensible and so specific as to be relatively useless but the author's original synthesis of this work
   is excellent. The cases studies are not only very entertaining but they follow this basic leadership framework developed in the theory chapter. The chapter on the University as a complex organization is also very good and highly readable. I recommend the book both as an essay on leadership and as an analysis of university presidency.



2. I'm the head of a small, non-profit organization so I was not sure whether this book would actually be of much interest. But as one of the reviewers on the book-jacket writes, this book should be very useful to people outside universities as well. It is well-written and very engaging. What makes it especially appealing is the author's ability to take "academese" and convert it into understandable English. His chapter on leadership is one of the most original I have seen and the discussion of "resiliency" is fascinating. He also presents six detailed case studies and each is written essentially to stand alone. The first three chapters lay out a conceptual blueprint and this makes each case easier to interpret. His use of compelling anecdotes and well-researched historical passages really bring the cases to life. Highly recommended.



3. Professor Padilla has written a book on the characters and operating principles of a collection of exemplary academic leaders. While this volume is well researched, it exceeds the usual academic exercises in that it is eminently readable, insightful and human. The instructive lessons are clear and generally applicable to students of business management.

No comments about Builders Of Camphill: Lives And Destinies Of The Founders.

1 comments about When Men Were the Only Models We Had: My Teachers Fadiman, Barzun, Trilling (Personal Takes).

1. Since I took a graduate seminar course in women's memoirs in American literature, I have read several books by Heilbrun. As I was not going to specialize in autobiography/memoirs or in feminist theory, I read her more as a writer than a scholar or theorist, focusing more on how she says things than on what. In this regard, I enjoyed every book I read because her language was something unique. It is clear and concise, without being simple, authoratitive without being pedantic, seemingly aloof yet strangely persuasive. If passion is another name for talent, she is very, very passionate, but that passion is moderated with a unique kind of resignation (or perhaps, wisdom).
   
   This book is not my favorite, and compared to other titles such as Writing Women's Lives, it does indeed gets slow and heavy here and there. There are parts where even those in the same line of work as Heilbrun's would go, "Who cares?" or "Why bother?" Yet, largely, it is accessible and *fun*. Read as an intellectual memoir, it is a story about how Heilbrun was gratefully influenced by three men, how she resisted and embraced their influence, and how she finally grew out of it. There are many interesting anecdotes coming from her encounters with these men (Barzun, Fadiman, and Trilling) and her life as a graduate student in the 50s at one of the most highly regarded universities in the US. Students of today would gasp at the nightmarish inconvinience of having only two copies of their papers, and painfully taking turns in reading other student's papers due to the lack of copies.
   
   Heilbrun devoted a chapter to Diana Trilling, which wasn't her plan when he planned on the book. She was fascinated and gained admiration for her in the process of research for the book, and readers would clearly see why in the chapter on her. In sum, according to Heilbrun, Diana Trilling is a woman whose insights on her life come largely from feminism ("the most successful revolution of our century," Trilling herself called it), yet who was not herself a feminist. She accepted a life of belittlements from others, while having penetrating understanding of those belittlements.
   
   Early in the book, Heilbrun notes that perhaps one of the most palpable influences she got from Lionel Trilling would be the notion that "tragedy is what most marks us if we are thinkers." This is what Trilling shares with Freud, and this is what Heilbrun shares with Trilling, despite her distrust of Freud, and to some extent, of Trilling as well. This comment comes after an anecdote about Trilling's inspiring lecture on Henry James, from which young Heilbrun took the idea that "the essence of literature was in the tensions of the thinking life." This part of the book is strangely moving, and makes me think hard about the interplay among "tension," "thinking life," "tragedy," and "literature." A small and not really an ambitious book, but contains much fun and insights.

2 comments about My Life in Search of Africa.

1. well i realy hate thebook, why are you asking me that question about the book. leave me alone!



2. After hearing a speech of Clarke's on the radio, I was looking forward to this book. Unfortunately, it let me down.

   Clarke's writing lacks style - I frequently was wondering if I was reading a high school composition rather than a book by the great orator.

   There is a complete lack of continuity and cohesion throughout the book. Topics change from paragraph to paragraph. One gets confused if he is writing about himself, his life, the people he has known or his unpublished books. Any given paragraph may include some or all of these in a rather haphazard manner.

   In reading this, I especially hoped to sink my teeth into understanding more about Clarke, more about the Africana movement, more about the history of the African people. Instead, I got some anectdotal stories and superficial glimpses. There was no significant depth to the content of this book.

   In spite of my disappointment with "My Life in Search of Africa," it is an important book to read. History has typically been approached from a European (white) perspective, and it is essential that we get beyond that approach, that we learn more of the rest of the world, and that we learn from and about the people enabling that knowledge.

No comments about Trouble in Academe: A Memoir.

5 comments about Paul A. Samuelson: On Being an Economist.

1. Paul Samuelson has personified mainstream economics and is undeniably a great economist. In the book Paul A. Samuelson: On Being an Economist, I find very relevant parallels between his theories in microeconomics and the financial industry today. For someone like me who holds an advanced degree in Economics and then having branched out to a MBA in Finance and now working in the hedge fund industry, Samuelson's works have been a constant factor all through my educational and professional life. This book is a magnificent tribute to his contribution in the field. To have a book dedicated to the guru of Economics and authored by Joseph Stiglitz another leading authority in Economics, is a very rare and dynamic combination. I would recommend this book to all professionals in Wall Street today who deal with finance & economics as well as to individuals who have an interest in the field to expand their horizons. Once again... A MUST READ!



2. Paul A. Samuelson: "On Being an Economist" offers the ability for a reader to embark on the life chronicles of PAS with bifocals; a broad view is offered of the influences contributing to Samuelson's master of prose, wit and thrilling ability to connect with an audience while powerfully maintaining focus on the extraordinaire responsible for the revitalization of economics as a discipline. The work projects a well supported analytical approach to the achievements of PAS while successfully encrypted with celebratory views of a legendary career. Furthermore, the narrative's current personifies a conversation with a broad audience of sophisticated, yet non-economist spectators fruitfully ignited by the importance of economic deliberation throughout the 20th Century. Without doubt, this work is a tribute to Samuelson; Praise is offered through an anthological retelling of education, achievement and tribulations ultimately filtering through to the doctrinaire contributing immensely to the study of economics. However, without avail, the style holds constant the ability to flicker economic theory and undoubted utile function in a comprehensible fashion avoiding the typical stray to technical and mathematical models for evidentiary purposes. The meat of the storyline is functionally outlined through Chapters 2 through 4 carrying the reader from Samuelson's philosophy, extrapolating the "mathematical language" of his methodology, and through to the kaleidoscope of Samuelson's celebrity (presenting both praise and criticism). A well captured account of the history behind the history made by Paul A. Samuelson.



3. This is an engaging and readable encomium to Samuelson, a selective history of economic theory and an introduction to economics. Quite an accomplishment in 160 pages!
   I particularly enjoyed its informal conversational style and use of personal anecdotes. These really brought the reader to feel privy to important people and events. The text also successfully conveyed the Stiglitz' love of Samuelson - his excellence as a human being, over and above his accomplishments as a theoretician.
   Chapters 2 and 3 were quite informative to me, successful introductions to key aspects of the science of economics. In just a couple of pages Stiglitz succeeds in conveying the changes from feudalism to mercantilism to free market in a way which showed why a new understanding of economics was needed. He then goes on to show shortcomings in classical theory which called for Samuelson's contributions. The author's presentation of Samuelson's incorporation of mathematical modeling in economics and the revolution that brought was also clear and interesting.
   The sections at the end of each chapter "Additional Notes and Sources" are
   very helpful to this reader who is not a professional in economics.



4. I recommend that this book be purchased.It gives an above average to very good overview of the life and times of Paul Samuelson,starting from his days as an undergraduate majoring in economics at the University of Chicago.It does an admirable job in covering the importance of Samuelson's unmatched textbook,Economics,as well as the surrounding historical and political conditions and controversies that occurred during the writing of the book.However,Samuelson's consistent core position concerning the interface between macroeconomics,microeconomics and the economics of Keynes, as expressed by Keynes in the General Theory(1936),in general and,specifically, in section III of chapter 24,is not covered at all.The reader,who finishs this book,will come away without grasping exactly what it was that Samuelson took away from his reading of the GT.It certainly was not Keynes's mathematical model of chapters 19,20, and 21.Samuelson had been convinced by the misleading claims of Richard Kahn,Joan Robinson and Austin Robinson that,while Keynes's new ideas and approach were fundamentally correct,he had made a technical mess of the formal,mathematical expression and exposition of his theory.Nevertheless,Samuelson did have a very deep understanding and appreciation for Keynes's approach,if not his technique. Samuelson viewed the study of economics and macroeconomics as the study of an economy as a whole.An economy is made up of a private sector and a public sector.There are micro-theoretical underpinnings to the decision making calculus in both sectors.Both sectors are vital to realizing the goal of economic growth and prosperity at full employment,non inflationary levels of gross domestic product.Both public goods and private goods are absolutely necessary.The concept of a completely private economy,operating under conditions of laissez faire,is a myth that was completely rejected by the founding fathers of the United States of America in 1787.The standard reference is The Federalist Papers ,written by Hamilton,Madison,and Jay.The economic system,AS A WHOLE,can be made to function as if it were an ergodic system IF,AND ONLY IF, the following policies are followed.These policies will create a stable,full employment level of output.First,an activist and interventionist monetary and fiscal policy is implemented.Second,a progressive taxation system is implemented.Third, continuous government spending on investment on infrastructure projects,public goods,and public works is implemented.These three policies will counterbalance and negate the highly variable,unstable,volatile,insufficient,unpredictable private sector spending on investment in fixed ,durable capital goods(plants,factories,machinery,computer hardware and software,etc.)that occurs due to the uncertainty(D. Ellsberg's ambiguity)of the future in all capitalist economies.Fourth,money wages and prices are sticky.Sticky does not mean rigid or inflexible.Fifth,introduction of more interest,wage,and price flexibility,combined with policies 1,2 and 3,will result in attaining the goal of full employment.The expansion of government to include activist,interventionist monetary and fiscal policy,and increased public sector spending on public goods and infrastructure,necessary to counter the shortfalls in required private sector spending on investment ,will mean that"...if our central controls succeed in establishing an aggregate volume of output corresponding to full employment as nearly as is practicable,the classical theory comes into its own again from this point onwards."(Keynes,1936,p.378).Samuelson has digested this point.His detractors have not.The authors of this book only discuss the strange and incomprehensible objections made by the authors of a two volume book called the Anti-Samuelson(1977)and libertarian anarchists believers in Laissez Faire,like Murray Rothbard and Mark Skousen ,who assume that there is no difference between consumption goods and investment goods or between fixed capital and circulating capital(inventories).Supposedly,investment is a completely stable,predictable function of the long run real rate of interest only.All of the empirical evidence shows that long run investment is not a stable,predictable or nonvolatile function of the real rate of interest.Another strange critic of Samuelson,not mentioned in this book, is Paul Davidson,one of the founders of the Post Keynesian School of economics.Davidson makes the unsupportable charge that Samuelson is not a Keynesian of any type.The reader of this review will discover that Davidson never cites or mentions Keynes's analysis in section III of chapter 24 of the GT whenever he criticizes Samuelson for not being a "true" Keynesian.In fact ,nowhere in the corpus of Davidson's published work ,going back to 1960 ,has Davidson ever dealt with this section of the GT except in dismissive one liners.Finally,none of the other schools of economic thought,such as rational expectations,monetarist,austrian,supply side,or real business cycles,have a clue to the fundamental problem of capitalism.Samuelson,following Keynes,realized that it is the shortfall in investment spending that is the crucial problem in introducing involuntary unemployment into a capitalist economy.Samuelson said it best:"When it comes to investment,the laissez faire system has no good thermostat".No good thermostat means that such an economic system is not self regulating or correcting.The Laissez Faire approach does not lead to full employment unless "we're lucky" .No economist has ever demonstrated theoretically or empirically that the laissez faire system has a good thermostat.



5. 
   The forward by Stiglitz is not very astounding. It doesn't help us to recognize Samuelson as a person beyond what we know him through his numerous contributions. I have started reading the subsequent chapters and hope to have a better idea of the man..particulalry his thought process - conception, clarity of thinking though a problem and taking it to a solution...