5 comments about Divine Invasions: A Life of Philip K. Dick.

1. Sutin's sometimes sarcastic style might surprise the reader at first, but this is a very insightful look at the life and work of Philip K. Dick - it's also the most substantial book of its kind we have yet. Sutin does a good job of inserting his comments about the works while sharing with us their genesis at the same time; the analysis aspect of `Divine Invasions' is fairly limited, but since it's not a scholarly book, it doesn't disappoint. It reads somewhat like PKD's own novels and short stories, with Dick himself as the central character. The extracts from the Exegesis show PKD at his speculative best and made me want to read more. One more note: in the last section, Sutin offers a `guide' in which he rates PKD's books on a 1-10 internal scale, also providing capsule reviews of the works he didn't write about in the main narrative; it's sure to provoke arguments, as he thought it would. Serious PKD readers should definitely read this.



2. Phil Dick was a difficult person. Sutin's book takes great pains to point out Dick's flaws as a human being but also his strong qualities as a person and writer. Dick was amazingly prolific because he had to be to survive. During his most prolific period he wrote novels that could be both unsatisfactory but with piercing, brilliant themes. At his best Dick tackled a number of questions that had profound personal meaning (the issue of identity, how we define human, the subjective nature of our sense of reality)but were universal enough to communicate to other artists. Dick like the best genre writers struggled to be accepted as a mainstream writer. The irony is that he is more influential than ever 25 years after his death having reached an entire generation of writers (including Jonathan Lethem, K.T. Jeter among others)and achieved financial success because of the films made from his short stories and novels (the best "Minority Report", "A Scanner Darkly", "Blade Runner" and a foreign film of "Confessions of a Crap Artist"--the worst "Paycheck", "Next" of which are at least moderately entertaining).
   
   Sutin documents Dick's personal life interweaving the themes from his novels and how the two were related throughout his life. Dick was a surviving twin. His sister Jane died in infancy and Dick's unstable family life and his own bouts of depression with mental instability. A mercurical writer and individual when he was at the top of his game, Dick later believed that he had been visited by some essence of God and struggled to fit this visitation into some sort of rational perspective. Sutin treats Dick's statements mattter of factly without passing judgement but does relate comments both from Dick's friends and doctors in discussing how this impacted his art and personal life.
   
   Well written, Sutin interviews family, friends, former friends (Dick and Harlan Ellison had a major falling out in the 70's as did Dick and Stanislaw Lem), Dick's therapists, former lovers, wives, enemies and uses Dick's journals to get at the heart of the author himself providing a well rounded, often disturbing picture of this talented artist. Evidently Dick was not an easy person to love but those that cared for him recognized his profound importance as a writer. Sutin also goes through Dick's novels and short story collections ranking them (from 1-10 in quality and importance)and providing fans an idea of his best and worst works.
   
   DIVINE INVASIONS does need to be updated since Dick continues to be critically reappraised and recognized for his importance as a writer outside of the science fiction/fantasy genre. It would also allow Sutin to examine the films made from Dick's novels comparing the themes in both. Still, this is a thoughtful, comprehensive and intelligent biography. Phil Dick deserved nothing less.
   
   A Scanner DarklyConfessions of a Crap ArtistValisFlow My Tears, the Policeman SaidThe Transmigration of Timothy ArcherBest of Philip K DickDr. BloodmoneyPhilip K. Dick: Four Novels of the 1960s: The Man in the High Castle / The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch / Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Ubik



3. Philip K Dick (PKD) was one of the most prolific and seminal science fiction writers of the sixties and seventies. Though like many writers, respect didn't come until just before and after his death (in 1982), those who spent a lot of those decades reading and writing SF, knew and respected his work. He is also the mentor of many of todays SF writers who take on SF from an internal point of view. But PKD was the first to explore the two questions of PsychSF-What is Reality? What is God?.
   
   Through four decades of writing he never gave up his quest to write the 'big' mainstream novel. Why? More for the recognition of his place in the pantheon of American writers, but for sure for the money and notoriery (which go hand in hand). Here was a many of great talent who wanted to be Nora Robb or James Patterson. PKD felt that mainstream acceptance would allow him the ability to write what he wanted, not just what he thought would sell. Dick began as a 'hack' pulp writer in the fifties and never lost that edge or need to prove his worth in the 'normal' world.
   
   He was immensely popular in both Japan and France (but then they also love Jerry Lewis and Woody Allen) where his novels were considered classics of man's struggle against "THE SYSTEM". They were also seen as strongly socialistic and anti-fascist in nature. His 'breakthought' book "The Man in the High Castle" is his most popular and moving of the genre.
   
   As his got older and his life evolved or devolved (depending on your per- spective) his novels became more and more his musing on 'Reality'. Anyone who has read "A Scanner Darkly" will see how he always tried to analyze a thought down to it's infinite reality. Any idea you could have could be the flip side of another, and even those would be the flip side of some other question. Think of two yin-yangs painted on mirrors facing each other, giving the feeling of an infinity of images and you have PKD's insight into life and reality.
   
   Was PKD crazy or schizophrenic? Well he was a man who had lots of demons not to mention gods but he saw life in his own reality (don't we all) and refused to have it pushed aside by others. His five marriages all ended in divorce and he had three children (two daughters and one son) by three of them. But his writings and musings have been left to us all to ponder as we wait for our next rebirth.



4. I have mixed feelings about this book. Sutin gives the impression that he interviewed me extensively, but he actually used quotes from other interviews and never met me, although I did briefly answer three of his questions by letter. Furthermore, I must disagree with most of his conclusions. Since I spent ten years with Phil, and those were the last ten years of his life, I believe that I know more about him than a biographer who never met him and simply read about him.



5. I happened upon the writing of Philip K. Dick many years before the Blade Runner fame. I was profoundly impressed by the raw paranoia, the questioning of what is real, and the real tension generated in the gut upon being drawn into the worlds of his characters. At the time I had no idea these characters were dramatizing philosophical and spiritual issues inspired by Gnosticism; and that the author who created these dramatizations was living out this investigation into the nature of reality in a radically intense way. Although I found this biography to be quite interesting, I'm glad it wasn't available in those days to "explain" the books. That was left to my imagination, and gave me much to ponder. However, for anyone who would like to know more about the background of Dick's unique writings, Sutin has written a remarkably detailed account of the life of an author who was so obscure during most of his career. The chaotic nature of Philip K. Dick's life is not much of a surprise; it could almost have been inferred from the kind of books he wrote. I found the most interesting parts of the biography to be the accounts of Dick's mystical experiences and the description of the "Exegesis", his lengthy record of his personal attempts to divine the nature of reality. Sutin did a believable job of showing how the novels and stories evolved out of Philip Dick's personal psychological condition. This biography will probably not impress those who have never been Philip K. Dick enthusiasts, but for those who have, it should be quite worthwhile.

5 comments about The Remarkable Millard Fillmore: The Unbelievable Life of a Forgotten President.

1. Wow. How describe this book, let me see. Imagine if Dave Barry suddenly became about thirty IQ points smarter and gleefully devoted himself to concocting a past for the most boring president to ever live, and did so with great affection but without the slightest regard for what are tradionally known as "facts". "The Remarkable Millard Filmore" weaves a surprising amount of actual history with an equal amount of decided lunacy. Millard riding a unicorn on the cover is a tip-off.
   
   We trace Millard's humble beginnings, his pirate ancestors (actually true), his unlikely rise in politics (some more truth) and his wild, previously unknown adventures (probably not true). Millard pops up in the strangest places (Florida, Africa, Japan!) hobbnobbng with the strangest people (The Pope! Queen Victoria! Edgar Allan Poe!) doing very odd things (Brace yourself: Millard Fillmore was really Zorro). Millard himself is not the rather nasty, weak character we read about in the school books, rather he is a beneign, bewildered character always the last to know what's going on (a riot, a massacre, the Civil War). I have to admit I kinda liked him.
   
   Author George Pendle is blessed with a delightful wit, a spectactular vocabulary, a wonderful grasp of real hisory, and deep, deep insanity. (Plus if his picture on the back does him any justice, he's also pretty cute.) He has a positive genuis for writing in period language; everyone sounds and writes exactly as 1800's Americans would have sounded and written, had they all been demented. I dropped one star from the review only because the novel loses steam toward the end; the book could have been cut by 50 pages or so. I'm actually surprised Pendle sustains the joke for as long as he does. This book made me laugh, out loud and often, and then made me run to my sister's room to read her passages so we could laugh together. "Why would George Pendle," I asked her, "write an entire made-up biography of a dour dead guy?"
   "Because he's like us," she replied.
   
   I don't know if "The Remarkable Millard Fillmore" will reach a large audience, but we loved it, Mr. Pendle, and I think I can safely say if Millard were alive, he'd be confused. Mission accomplished.
   
   GRADE: A-/B+



2. I consider myself an amateur historian, and was anxious to learn something about our thirteenth president, whom I knew little about. From this perspective reading this book was a failure. I felt like the last guy on the block to get the joke, as I didn't realize this was a spoof until I got about fifteen pages into the book.
   
   But the author doesn't stop at miligning only Fillmore. He chooses a large array of targets, and the early 1800's are one of the funniest. He describes life in that time in such a way, that I often was laughing out loud.
   
   The footnotes were often hilarious. In talking about the electoral college, he raposts "the fact that classes ...convene only once every four years has led to its reputation as a party school."
   
   Or a hamlet-"To qualify as a hamlet a community had to have at least one unique superstition founded on either sneezing animals, the consumption of meat before sleeping, or the flight of sparrows on a windy day."
   
   Or Fillmore himself-"It has largely been suggestedby presidential psychiatrists that Fillmore suffered from the verbal phenomenon known as 'cognitive ignorance'".
   
   The author brings Fillmore to life in much the same way as a creation between the historical soldier Flashman and Forest Gump.
   
   Opening Chapter 7, the author quotes Fillmore "Buffalo in the springtime, is as I imagine heaven to be, although with more precipitation and fewer cherubs."
   
   This hilarious and often inane depiction of our 13th president kept me laughing. He intersperses his imagination of what the anti-hero is really like with the historical events of his times.
   
   Interestingly enough, revisionist historians now take a much more moderate view of Fillmore. He is considered to be a temperate president who took a studied conciliation between the abolitionists and the pro-slavery factions, and averted an earlier civil war.
   
   This book is often cruel to Fillmore, even maligning his wife's death, the day after he left office. While the events that Fillmore encountered are for most part factual, the author makes some bizarre interpretations. If they are read in good fun, it is worth the read.
   
   It is worth a perusal, but read it when your mind is clear, so you can fully appreciate the bizarre humor of this author.



3. George Pendle has penned what is certainly the most entertaining book ever written about Millard Fillmore, one of history's forgotten leaders. The book actually is based on a shell of facts, but is embellished with a truly fevered imagination. It is generally fairly witty: some passages are simply sublime, while some are a bit trifling and fall a tad short of the mark.
   
   Most of the criticism of the book is that it isn't a completely factually correct biography. Well here's a news flash: it isn't supposed to be. Didn't the cover art showing Fillmore riding a unicorn give people a clue? For those who complain that they don't know what is fact from fiction, perhaps reading the rather detailed notes on the subject at the end of the book would be a good idea; better yet, if you want a straight biography of Fillmore, feel free to buy one.
   
   The book was written for an intelligent audience with a knowledge of history and the desire to read a satirized account of an obscure national leader forgotten by almost everyone other than academics. Fillmore is more interesting than is generally recognized, and this book, while clearly not unadulterated historical fact, will probably introduce far more readers to Fillmore than any conventional biography on the market.
   
   On balance, the book isn't perfect, but was an enjoyable read and made me interested in learning more about the last Whig President in American history.



4. This is a fun book to read and it is well written. Make sure you realize that this book is NOT historically accurate. It is satire. There is some history, but it mainly plays on the fact that Millard is not well known and that there are many myths and legends about him.



5. As noted by others, this is not a work of biography. Despite what others have said, I don't believe that it is a work of humor either.
   
   Unless you find it in the 99 cent remainder bin, save your money

No comments about American Presidential Families.

5 comments about The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin (Completed Autobiography).

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
   [...]

2 comments about James K. Polk: A Clear and Unquestionable Destiny (Biographies in American Foreign Policy).

1. Fabrication By Alien., February 28, 2007
   Reviewer: Betty Burks (Knoxville, TN) - See all my reviews
   
   This book was not written by a fan or supporter of this Tennessee president, but released by a Yankee group who hides behind "Oxford" so we might think Mississippi or England. Not so, William Dusinberre must be fuddies with the university professors who tore apart Nathan Bedford Forrest in the same way. Overlooked completely he status and the part these Tennesseans played in the history of this nation. It's best to consider character assassination with the conflicting thins these writers emphasize while leaving out the real story, the facts of the matter. James K. Polk had been Governor of Tehhessee and Speaker of the House of Representatives before becoming U. S. president. It was not a secret that he owned slaves to work on his cotton plantation in Mississippi. We didn't have such in Tennessee, but I have an old post card of the 11th President's bust which stands in the State Capitol in Nashville. We visited Polk's ancestral home in downtown Columbia, Tennessee. It was not out in the country, though a famous one is in that county owned by a female physician. She did not have slaves. Forrest's family were fine, upstanding natives of Chapel Hill, not so far east from Columbia. It infuriates me when I innocently find weird subverted stuff like thos on the public library shelves. I wish the reference librarians who ordered these fiction pretending to be non-fiction before putting them out for just anybody to read. Polk was duly elected and in the White House from 1845 to 1849, before the Civil War. He was not responsible for that war.
   
   This person from Cape Town used the false writings of professor Wayne Cutler when he came to this Republican town, and thought that what he was reading was truth. Polk was a Southern Democrat. What would he write about Huey B. Long, George Wallace, and other governors who stood tall for what the South stands for. The politics of slavery did not have any substance whatsoever in the war which divided this country. It was states' rights -- the Southern states, which Northerners would not understand. I learned more than I had planned that there is a conspiracy going on to deride Southern leaders and presidents. They were statesmen and war heroes and lived to be a part of the history of America. Modern history-writing is all wrong, when the author makes up "facts" as he is inclined, and not factually.



2. I am currently reading a bio of every President in order. I generally look for a fairly comprehensive one volume account but unfortunately for Polk there are none available (although the forthcoming 400+ page plus bio by Borneman will hopefully change this). I decided I would save my money to wait for Borneman's book and checked out Leonard's short bio (196 pages of text) from the Library.
   
   Thankfully, this is a great short bio of James K. Polk. His early life is covered in a suprising amount of detail for the short amount of text devoted to it, and his Presidency is covered quite thoroughly. This is accomplished by Leonard's great writing and superb organization and editing. This book was so satisfactory I am not sure I will even decide to read Borneman's forthcoming biography. Also, do not be swayed by Betty Burke's review, she is clearly reviewing the wrong book.

2 comments about William Randolph Hearst: The Later Years, 1911-1951.

1. WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST: THE LATER YEARS, 1911-1951 presents the second volume in a biography series which follows Hearst's life, and is a pick for college-level holdings which already have the first volume, as well as for college-level collections strong in media or journalism history. It surveys how Hearst built an empire of newspapers in nineteen of the largest cities in the U.S., and how his final forty years strengthened his hold. Previously unavailable letters and manuscripts, along with Hearst's own powerful political editorials, make for a powerful testimony not just to Hearst's life, but to the evolution of the newspaper as a whole, and its political impact on American lives.



2. He was bigger than life and one innovative person ...maybe the first gorilla marketer whether you agreed with him or not. Great read.

5 comments about Nixon's Shadow: The History of the Image.

1. First and foremost for anyone to examine this book as a Hitler-esk feed bag is as about as ridiculous as it gets.If not for the open sides of the Nixon mind we may be all speaking Chinese right now.What I got from this book is not only a replay of past pity, but also a new introduction into the narrowness of mind of all new generations. The man not only had the best interest in mind for the REAL American he also displayed a courage for those who followed. Shame on the media, the sapps they were, and always will be, shame on the colony of past begotten ilk. The measurements of a President whose only fault lied in the trenches of an uncompromising war. Whether he turned left or right made not a difference. Can history blame Richard Nixon for being, perhaps, a "crook"? Sure they may. But I refuse and defy anyone who would subject him to be UNAMERICAN. A man who goes to bat for this country should be outlined in all his glory. This book fails to find the dimension of his mind. In that frame of mind, I myself must dismiss this fish-wrap as a grandstanding of left warriors. Or I can otherwise move the masterpiece of our 37th Presidents' psyche.



2. Here we go again.... It's become a "right of passage"
   in the leftist community: if you want to be invited
   to the best wine and sleeze... I mean cheese parties,
   write a book smearing Nixon. Richard Nixon was
   a complex human being, with both good and bad
   sides to him, just like you and me. He had an
   indelable impact on the development of the nation,
   in both positive and negative ways. He is far too
   much damned for his flaws, and far too little praised
   for his successes. This book is just another stale
   hatchet job, written by a hack who will be forgotten
   as quickly as yesterday's toast; just another necrophiliac
   having his way with a dead man. It's easier to
   regurgitate leftist party hate speech than to actually
   research the man's life and be honest about it.
   Don't waste your money on this drek; it isn't
   even good for toilet paper.



3. Greenberg's work is the first I have read that expores the relationship between image and history in an interesting and inviting manner. I think one of the reasons that Nixon invites so much controversy was that he was a complex and contradictory man. He just does not seem to fit. Watergate destroyed him, but you have conservatives railing against him and liberals saying he did good work and vice versa. Greenberg attempts an overview of all these competing images and it is surprising how often the image being projected says more about the writer than Nixon himself. A very interesting book that deserve patient study.



4. Greenberg is a good chronicler of events and few occasions in Nixon's life, however incidental, is missed here. The book is long on details relating to the professional side of Nixon, but I was disappointed that there was a lack of personal anecdote within the covers of the book. Of course RN was an inscrutable, moody, paranoid and ultimately unknowable man, but I would have liked more material on Pat Nixon, as well as Tricia and Julie. Greenberg quotes copiously of Nixon's own self-serving memoirs but doesn't include much primary source material on Nixon as a human being.

   The strong points are the chapters on Watergate and the gradual demise and destruction of RN as President. The ancillary characters of Watergate all get their just due: Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Dean are described in sometimes sympathetic but occasionally, brutal detail. Reeves shows masterfully that Nixon dissembled and lied to the bitter end, not to the American people, but most disturbingly, to himself. It's well-written and full of detail, just don't expect much on Nixon the man. Otherwise, an enthusiastic thumbs up.




5. I was intrigued about this book when I heard it praised in a lecture by Walter Macdougall, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian. He published his lecture and what he said was, "What image will posterity nurture of Nixon? The best analysis is David Greenberg's Nixon's Shadow, published last year. Greenberg describes five Richard Nixons that beguile and perplex the American people."
   
   But after reading it, I agree. Greenberg is younger than other historians who have written about Nixon and so he is, arguably, more objective. This book gives each point of view its due - those who hate Nixon, those who think he's an elder statesman, those who think he is a nutcase. It is as much a book about American political and social life and all of its strife and controversy in the years 1946-1974 (and after) as it is about Nixon himself. It doesn't just praise or bash Nixon - it explains WHY people praised or bashed Nixon.
   
   Greenberg has really invented a new genre of history here. You might call it Rashomon Plus. He shows you Nixon from different perspective but then goes on to unpack these different images of Nixon and explain why they have all taken root in our political mindset.
   
   A couple of the other posts apparently don't like Greenberg because he is liberal. That may be true, but this is not a liberal attack on Nixon, in fact he is more critical in many places of Nixon's critics than he is of Nixon. The "liberals" who came up with Tricky Dick are faulted for sneering at the middle class. And the radical left that attacked Nixon on Vietnam are faulted for being in the grip of conspiracy theories at times. The book gives Nixon's supporters more than their due. (In fact Walter Macdougall is a Conservative.) This is a highly orginal work of history.

No comments about Walt Disney The American Dreamer.

5 comments about Travels of William Bartram.

1. visit the south back in time and really vizualize it. very indepth descriptions of the countryside and its inhabitants. be prepared to learn a good deal about this area that has been overlooked by many. a must read if you are enjoy the natural world.



2. William Bartram was a far better botanist than a writer. This book was a great achievement in that it was really the first work of American nature writing, and Bartram made a lot of great botanical discoveries during his journeys through the American Southeast. But his language is excruciatingly tedious. He uses ten pages to express what probably could be said in a single paragraph, and he often will offer two choices or options, when one would suffice: "We encamped on a high cliff or bluff..." And although he makes some interesting observations about the Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles, his views are often distressingly unenlightened or idealized. Although I love nature writing, and although I love the works of Thoreau, who came just a half-century later, I found Bartram's book painful to get through.



3. This book was really really borring



4. This is a wonderful book for anyone interested in the nature, landscapes, Indians, and early settlements of Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and Tennessee around the year 1775. I haven't read this book in about 10 years, but I do remember checking it out of the library about 3 times, and I'm going to buy it for my birthday. The landscapes the Bartram describes will by and large never be seen again. Bartram described seeing a 45 square mile forest made up of nothing but magnolia, and dogwood trees. He saw forests that were covered by grapevines for miles. The trees were sometimes 20 feet thick, and the grapevines were so old that the vines were more than a foot thick. He saw canebrakes that covered miles, and some of the bamboo cane was 40 feet high. Canebrakes are practically extinct as an environment. He saw virgin forsts, abandoned Indian fields, overgrown Indian villages, open pine savannah forests, and uninhabited swamps. He saw wildlife which today would be scare, or extinct. He reported seeing a bobcat stalk a turkey. He pleaded with a market hunter not to kill a mother bear, and lamented the reaction of the bear cub to it's mother being killed. Bartram also reported seeing wolves, and bison skulls from recently killed buffulo. Bison were just rendered extinct in eastern Georgia at that time. Bartram took literary licence with some events. He exaggerated his encounters with alligators in Florida. After enjoying a meal of fish, rice, and oranges from the Spanish missionary orchards, he battled "fire breathing dragons." Bartram had many encounters with the Creeks, and Cherokees, and most were friendly. He feasted with Indian cattle raisers. Bartram also gives a good account of early settlements. If you decide to get this book, also get a copy of a tree guide with the scientific names, because Bartram tells exactly what kind of trees he came across in each forest. What I wouldn't give to see what Bartram saw?



5. "...So it is the varied and mutable scenes of human events on the stream of life.The high powers and affection of the soul are so blended and connected with the inferior passions, that the most painful feelings are excited in the mind when the latter are crossed,thus in the moral system,which we have planned for our conduct,as a ladder whereby to mount to the summit of terrestrial glory and happiness,and from whence we perhaps mediated our flight to heaven itself at the very moment when we vainly imagine ourselves to have obtained it's point,some unforseen accident intervenes,and suprises us;the chain is violently shaken,we quit our hold and fall:the well contrived system at once becomes a chaos;every
   idea of happiness recedes;the splendor of glory darkens,and at length totally disappears;every pleasing object is defaced,all is deranged,and the flattering scene moves quietly away;,a gloomy cloud pervades the understanding,and when we see our progress retarded,and our best intentions frustrated,we are apt to deviate from the abmonitions and convictions of virtue,to shut our eyes upon our guide and protector,dought of his power,and despair of his assistance.But,let us wait and rely on our GOD,who in due time will shine forth in brightnes,dissipate the envious cloud,and reveal to us how finite and circumscribe in human power,when assuming to itself human wisdom..."
   
   Excert from Dover Publications -copyright 1928 (Part 1,Ch.5 pgs.66-670
   
   (born-April,9,1739,Kingsessing,Pa.-died July 22 1823,Kingsessing)
   
   The son of John Bartram,considered the 'father of American botany',self-educated,and a friend of Benjamin Franklin and the botanist for the American colonies to GEORGE 111.William Bartram describes the abundant river swamps of the southeastern US in their primeval condition.An engaging read throughout.The writing is so graceful and genuine with that 'home spun'fragrance that usually are the attributes of a simple and gentle man doggedly pursuing the convictions of his heart.Judging from his writing it would of been a pleasure,permission granted, to have been his companion throughout his entire excursion through Florida,Georgia,and the Carolinas.This is an adventure full of suprises and gives one a sense of exploring the primordial landscapes of the souteastern United States 200 yrs ago.

5 comments about Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero (Eminent Lives).

1. 
   This is one of two brief biographies of Grant (1822-1885) I recently read, the other written by Josiah Bunting III which is part of Times Books' "The American Presidents" series, with Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. serving as general editor. Although both Korda and Bunting cover much of the same material, there are significant differences between their respective approaches to the18th president of the United States.
   
   For example, Bunting clearly disagrees with, indeed resents the fact that Grant is generally remembered "as a general, not a president, [which] explains in part the condescension - there is no better word for it -- from which pundits and historians have tended to write of him." Bunting asserts that if judged by the consequences of Grant's common sense, judgment, and intuition, his presidency, "so far from being one of the nation's worst, may yet be seen as one of the best."
   
   Korda indicates no inclination to view Grant's presidency as "one of the best." He duly acknowledges the problems which awaited Grant after he was elected to his first term in 1869. "What did Grant's reputation as a president in, however, (and continues to do so today whenever journalists and historians are drawing up lists of the best presidents vs. the worst ones), was the depression of 1873, which ushered in a long period of unemployment and distress, made politically more damaging by accusations that the president's wealthy friends were making money out of it." Given that the United States was growing too fast, in too many different directions at once, and the inevitable consequence was corruption and an unstable economy, "it would have taken a more astute man than Grant to slow things down or clean them up."
   
   This last observation by Korda is consistent with a contemporary assessment of Grant by the Edinburgh Review, one which Brooks Simpson quotes in his own study (Let Us Have Peace: Ulysses S. Grant and the Politics of War and Reconstruction 1861-1868), and which Bunting also cites: "To bind up the wounds left by the war, to restore concord to the still distracted Union, to ensure real freedom to the Southern Negro, and full justice to the southern white; these are indeed tasks which might tax the powers of Washington himself or a greater than Washington, if such a man is to be found."
   
   In his Epilogue, Korda explains that he wrote this book because, from time to time, "it is necessary to remind Americans about Grant, first of all because his is a kind of real-life Horatio Alger story, exactly the one that foreigners have always wanted to believe about American life...and that Americans want to believe about themselves." Yes, his presidency was severely flawed but as a general, Grant "defined for all time the American way of winning a war": It must have an essentially moral base to earn and sustain the full support of the American people, it must take full advantage of its great industrial strength and depth of manpower, and it must apply aggressively - without hesitation -- all of its resources to achieve the ultimate military objective, total victory.
   
   However, Korda suggests that any politician contemplating the use of military force should first consider lessons which Grant learned from failed Reconstruction initiatives in the South: "armies of occupation are no substitute for political thought, and that generals are not be necessarily the right people to institute basic political reforms or to reconstruct society."
   
   It remains for others much better qualified than I am to comment on the relevance of that statement to America's current military involvement in various parts of the world. However, I greatly appreciate Korda's attempt to provide a balanced view of Grant in terms of his character, talents, and values...all of which served him so well on the battlefield but which proved insufficient to the political challenges which he encountered later as the 18th president of the United States.
   
   Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out Bunting's biography as well as Grant's Personal Memoirs.



2. 
   
   
   Military history is often a tragedy the first time around and a farce when it repeats, as this perceptive book makes abundantly clear in outlining and assessing the career of America's greatest general.
   
   Fans of Robert E. Lee may well argue about the "greatest", the blunt fact is that Grant understood Lee better than Lee understood Grant. Korda makes the point again and again that Grant, except on rare occasions, was able to correctly assess battlefield conditions and quickly exploit every indication of weakness.
   
   Grant was bitterly criticized as a butcher, similar to Gen. George "Blood and Guts" Patton in World War II. Veterans of Patton's armies have told me Patton's success was based on "his guts, our blood". But I've yet to meet anyone who regrets having served with Patton. The same is true of Grant; good soldiers always praise a general who wins, dead soldiers don't complain.
   
   Grant understood that victory meant killing enough soldiers to make the Confederate states quit. He understood the war was won at Gettysburg; just as Gen. Dwight Eisenhower knew World War II was won in Normandy. The tragic legacy of Grant is that too many generals since then have copied his "butcher" qualities without understanding his tactical brilliance; thus the appalling slaughter of World War I.
   
   Grant was the perfect American success story; literally a "barefoot" buy who rose to command the armies of the nation and then serve two terms in the White House. He was also the "perfect" American because of his absolute trust in the essential goodness, decency and honesty of others; politicians and business people took cynical and unlimited advantage of these qualities, which left his administration mired in the deep stink of scandal.
   
   In war, Gen. Grant faced one massive task -- victory. Everything was directed to one goal. In peace, President Grant as a politician faced a thousand simultaneous large and petty challenges, something he was never able to handle. His astounding successes were two great single-minded challenges; the war, and writing his autobiography as he was dying of cancer. Facing these two great challenges, he succeeded brilliantly.
   
   The contrast with today's politicians could not be more dramatic. Grant was instinctively drawn to the sound of the guns fired in anger; too many of today's politicians, who blithely send others to war which they cleverly avoid themselves, have never hear a shot fired in anger let alone a voice raised in anger in the White House.
   
   This book, and the story of Grant, is vividly relevant in today's politics. Everyone who reads it will understand at least some of the fundamentals of success, of America's greatest general and the current military incompetence that has led to another quagmire.



3. These amazon reviews have done their job, in convincing me not to bother reading this book. There are two excellent studies of Grant as a politician and president, both by Brooks Simpson: LET US HAVE PEACE and THE RECONSTRUCTION PRESIDENTS. I highly recommend them.



4. The only books I've previously read about the civil war are All For The Union and Company Aytch. I recommend both if you want to read the memoirs of soldiers. Mr. Grant is a fascinating person and Michael Korda tries to capture his complexity of character. I can't say that I learned much more than I already knew from various Discovery Channel shows or visiting the home of U.S. Grant in Galena. As noted in previous reviews, some of the historical data is questionable. For example, is Mr. Korda correct about the position of forces on a battlefield or the several maps and writings I found on the internet that say otherwise? One thing I could do without is Mr. Kordas need to bring in his obvious dislike of president George Bush and anything whatsoever that has any connection to him. Mr. Korda, if you feel a need to vent your Bush-hatred get a job with the New York Times or Washington Post. I don't know about other folks but when I sit down with a book about U.S. Grant I don't expect to be hammered with the non-too-subtle neo-liberal desire to tie everything to George Bush.



5. Factually deficient. Some errors have been cited in earlier reviews here on Amazon. I will only point out that Korda repeatedly referred to Gen. McClellan as Gen. Mckennen. It gives one no confidence if the author cannot even remember the correct name of such a prominent person. Oddly, Korda seems to remember that Grant once remarked that he often wore a private soldier's jacket with stars on the shoulders so that the army might know who their general is. But then Korda triumphantly points to photos of Grant wearing a full general's frock coat in his meetings with Lincoln. Is this supposed to prove Grant was dishonest? Doesn't it occur to Korda that even Grant might think it appropriate to dress up a bit for a meeting with the President of the United States or for a photo? Some analysis! Korda's commentary on Grant's military decisions is on a par with his remarks on Grant's uniform: not worthy of a high school paper. Finally, it was annoying to see the author dip into academic hippy analysis of major events. Somehow, in a biography of Grant, we are to be dragged into Korda's hatred of President Bush. Aren't we sick of this yet? I couldn't--wouldn't--finish this pathetic book. It's in the garbage can. If the rest of the biographies in this series are this deficient, the publisher would do well to abandon the project.