2 comments about John Tyler : A President of Many Firsts.

1. This expensive booklet of less than 70 pages (including many illustrations) is intended as a souvenir of Tyler's restored plantation house. (Incredibly, although Tyler was born in 1790, the restorer is a grandson, still alive at the time of publication in 2001.) The pamphlet, based completely on secondary sources, is deliberately uncritical and minimizes the more unsavory features of Tyler's presidency. The three-page sketch in American National Biography provides a far more accurate understanding of the tenth president and his administration.



2. I was hoping for more family history with this book. I've been looking for years for Pres. Tyler's parents, his father's siblings and forward ancestry, in hopes to open a snag I have in my mom's Tyler line, as her ggrandfather was a first cousin to Pres. Tyler, as my grandfather and siblings often stated. Maybe this John and mom's ggranfathers were brothers or their fathers were connected. I just need a better lineage.
   Thanks,
   Bonnie

No comments about Band of Brothers: Company C, 9th Tennessee Infantry.

No comments about Too Close to the Sun: Growing Up in the Shadow of my Grandparents, Franklin and Eleanor.

3 comments about John F. Kennedy, Jr.: A Life in Pictures (Kennedy Family).

1. For those of us lucky enough to remember President Kennedy and his family, this retrospective about his son John, couldn't come at a better time. With all the rage of war in Iraq it's nice to think about a time when life was more at ease. This book helps.
   
   John Kennedy was not a hero or a saint. He was a son of a president who tried to make a life on his own against tremendous odds. Yes, he had things going in his favor, but he also had talent, courage and died far too young. Study the photos of this man. We are not a country of kings, queens or princes. But we did have John Kennedy for a few, brief years, and I think we were all the better for it.



2. Focused and experienced editors Yann-Brice Dherbier and Pierre-Henri Verlhac have created the third volume of photographic tributes to the Kennedy Family, the closest this country ever came to royalty - in the most positive sense possible. Having successfully enshrined JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy for the still mourning public in their previous volumes, this sizeable portfolio likewise confines editorial comments to a few pages then lavishes the viewer with photographs, not all professionally created, but justifiably saved for posterity.
   
   The life of John-John was never easy - from our first memories of his birth as a White House baby, to the indelible impression left by his captured farewell salute during his father's funeral march, to his struggle for privacy in the clangor of paparazzi, to his schooling, creative adventure with George Magazine, to his throne as the world's most eligible bachelor and his subsequent marriage to Carolyn Bessette and tragedy of their deaths in a plane crash - and the ideal young man was beset with undercurrents of sadness. Yet he remains a heroic figure in the minds of the people who adored him from his birth to his untimely death.
   
   The book is rich in memories as captured by both professional and non-professional photographers and is one of those volumes that remind the reader of a saner, kinder time. It is worthy of everyone's library. Grady Harp, December 05



3. This book contains wonderful pictures from John's early days to his last ones. If you are interested in the Kennedy family, this book is definitely a must have. Unfortunately the quality of the text doesn't equal the picture's ones. There is only few information delivered with this book and very often you would wish for more.

5 comments about Three Dog Nightmare: The Chuck Negron Story.

1. A most read for all fans and any one in a band. I met Chuck a year after reading the book and had him sign it. What a nice guy.



2. This book should be required reading for everyone. Whether your are an addict, recovering addict, family member or friend of an addict, or even none of the above you should read this. If not an addict this book will help you understand what these people go though, that most are really desperate to get out of this life style and just how hard it is to get out. If you are an addict it will let you know that no matter how far down you fall, if you want it bad enough there is always a way up, there is always hope, don't give up.



3. Three Dog Nightmare The Continuing Chuck Negron Story is the most powerful and incredible story you will ever read. If you think living the life of a famous Rock and Roll Star is all glamorous you are so wrong. If you or someone you know is a drug addict or alcoholic and you think all hope is lost. Then you definitely need to read this book. The fact that Chuck Negron lives today to tell his story is a true miracle. The courage and strength that it had to take to open up his life in this book makes him the most respected person I have ever had the pleasure of knowing and meeting.
   I get so upset with people that make comments like oh look how they wasted their lives on drugs and alcohol. Why do they do that, Why don't they just quit, how could they do that in the first place. Because it isn't a choice. It's an addiction and it only takes some people one time to try it before they are hooked. Most people don't know that it can also be genetic and handed down from a family member like a father or grandparent. It's part of your chemestry make up from the day you are born. Even if your own Mother and Father never drank a day in their life. How much do you really know about your family history?
   
   Chuck does a great job in this book explaining what it really means to be a junkie. He also explaines the difference between some people that can be social drinkers and the difference between those that have additive personalitys. Those are the ones that get hooked and get hooked fast! Again that can all be caused as a part of your genetic make up by being born with and addictive personality or born an alcoholic.
   
   If you don't think so, ask someone you know that smokes ciggerettes and has cancer or lung disease and ask them why they don't quit or why did they do that, or how could they mess their lives up like that. I'll tell you why, Cause Nictoine is a drug and it is an addiction. The addictivness of it is no different then the addiction of any other drugs or alcohol. I know cause Im addicted nicotine in ciggerettes and I have lung disease. It's not a choice once your addicted. It's pathetic that I still smoke to this day and I can't quit. I've tried hypnosis and everything. It's not just a physical addiction it's a physcological addiction.
   
   It's always easy for people to judge when they have never walked in another person's shoes. What our country really needs is alot more awareness and education on drugs and alcohol addiction. Most people don't even know that you can be born an alcoholic and never drink a day in your life. Your born with it. They can even do brain wave test on children to see if they are born alcoholics and most people don't know that either. That's why we need more education and awareness about it. Chuck more then anyone has really made that very clear in this book. He shows just how little people know about it and how little they understand it. Because no one in their right mind that had everything to gain and had everything they could want like he did would ever throw it away for a life like he lived as an addict and a junkie.
   
   I know that God is the only reason that Chuck is alive. He has a purpose in life. If you think it didn't take a lot of courage and strength for him to open his life up to the whole world. Then take a good moral inventory of your own life and see how much you would be willing to tell someone in order to save a life. Would you ever open up your life about something your not proud of that you did wrong to save someone's life? Not to many people would. Chuck has opened a very dark side of his life to the world in hopes of saving others from one of the worst things in life and that's drug addiction. God Bless you chuck!
   
   Just remember that the life that he save's, might be your own or someone you love. So I hope that everyone will read this book so you will know the signs and know what and what not to do to save a loved one. I hope that it will find you wanting to research alot more on it so you will have more awareness and educate yourself on it.
   
   chuck, Thank you so much for opening up some of the most painful part's of your life in this book in effort to help others. You are truly a gift from God and a True Inspiration.
   
   Martina Campbell - 04/06/2008



4. Three Dog Night was one of my all-time favorite groups so I decided to read Chuck's story. I had no idea that his life turned out to be so chaotic, to put it mildly. Chuck talks about his story from a teenager, to doing drugs sometimes, to becoming a full-blown heroin addict, to the point where he was using just to keep from being sick. He has an amazing memory for detail, for about 70% of the book details his drug-using days. He is truly a success story, encouraging others to get clean and speaking to groups for free. Getting clean helped him realize how much he loved to sing and performs currently with a band of his own. I'm sorry to see that all members of Three Dog Night are currently not on good terms, for they were truly a fantastic group! I liked the book because he confronted the reasons why he did what he did - using drugs, and as a result, alienated his friends and family; he didn't make excuses for his behavior - he took full responsiblity for it and didn't blame anyone for his actions. He was an addict who succumbed to drugs and was lost for many many years till he entered a 9-month rehab program that finally brought him back to life. The book was very well written and is truly a success story.



5. The book takes us from Chuck's beginnings as an insecure kid who played hookie from school to spend the day at home alone rather than face class, through his basketball years, to his life as the guy we all knew (or thought we knew). Everything from an exploding penis from too much groupie poking, to the nightmarish world of total heroin addiction (which lasted a full 20 years), I found his story quite readable, and rarely boring. I don't think I skipped over a word in the book. As has been said before, it is an absolute wonder that the man still breathes.

5 comments about Black Cadet in a White Bastion: Charles Young at West Point.

1. I've just finished reading this skillfully researched book about Charles Young's life. From his birth to parents with roots in Southern slavery to his graduation from West Point, it's a story that reflects a strength of character and purpose against the many odds of the time in which he lived. His struggle against the racism of the time is a story that begs to be told.



2. What an inspiring story! Luck, pluck and a narrow window of opportunity all lined up for Charles Young, a young African American teacher from Ohio, who knocked on West Point's doors in 1884 and found them open to him. I'm amazed that West Point enrolled Blacks in that period. But as historian and author, Brian Shellum, tells us in BLACK CADET IN A WHITE BASTION, for a short period after 1884, a few African Americans were accepted at West Point. Soon after Young graduated, the military school barred African Americans for fifty years!
   
   Shellum explains that Young struggled at West Point because of intolerance as well because of its challenging curriculum. But Young was a man who never gave up, depending on hard work, tutors, mentors, friends and family to carry him to graduation.
   
   The author outlines the challenges of writing about an individual whose color relegated him to a shadowy existence at West Point. Yet with some diligent and creative research, Shellum pieces together a biography of a hero who clearly became the Colin Powell of his time.
   
   I look forward to Shellum's next installment of Charles Young's extraordinary journey.



3. My book club recently read this insightful biography of Charles Young's birth through graduation from West Point with unanimous praise for Shellum's writing style and solid research. While many military bio's are dense and slow, this book reads with ease and quick pace. As two of our club members are alumni of The Academy, I was not surprised to learn from them that the descriptions of campus life and traditions were accurate and much the same for Young as those from late this century.



4. Most biographies are about extraordinary people who accomplish extraordinary things. But the story of an ordinary person who makes the most of everything he has can be even more compelling. This is why Black Cadet in a White Bastion is well worth reading. It is a tale of accomplishment through simple perseverance, not complex genius. Brain Shellum details the slave community of Young's birth, the freeman's community of his youth, and the West Point environment where Young struggled for social and academic survival.
   
   Charles Young lived a century before there were television ads selling the Army as the place where you can "Be all you can be." He was ahead of his time, and his story is an inspiration to anyone who seeks to follow in his footsteps, to overcome the odds against them. Author Brian Shellum performs a great service by portraying Young's faults along with his strengths so that we can fully appreciate how hard he had to work to earn his stripes.



5. There was a great deal to learn from a story that is over 100 years old. I was unfamiliar with the story of racism at the military academy and this thoroughly researched book provides a great deal of context and thought provoking observations that are useful today.
   
   The author is challenged with finding authoritative resources long after the trail has gone cold but does a great deal of first-hand reporting unearthing historic letters and photos.
   
   I understand there will be followups to this edition which should be a welcome addition to what appears to be a rather small bibliography on the subject.

1 comments about General Ulysses S. Grant: The Soldier and the Man.

1. A very good overview of Grant's early life thru to the end of the Civil War. Well balanced, points out both the strengths and weaknesses of the man. Dispells the myth of indifference attributed to Grant concerning casualties. Edward Longacre show's Grant's mistakes and how he learned from them. While other generals caved to political pressure, Grant worked to end the war inspite of criticizism and bad press. A soldier worthy of the stars he wore. At the same time it shows Grant's weakness for liquior that could have destroyed him and led to a longer war with a different outcome and continued losses. Not an indepth study, but deep enough to encourage the reader to find more information about the subject. A great starting point for the student of the Civil War interested in Grant.

5 comments about Streets: A Memoir of the Lower East Side (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's Series).

1. This book was written by a very eloquent author in 1922. At 23years of age, she carefully details her struggles of growing up inpoverty on the lower east side of Manhattan. This is one of a few books that deals with the difficulties faced by immigrants of to New York around the turn of the century. Her battles are those of a poor, Jewish girl growing up without a father in tenement housing. I thouroughly recommend this book to Jews, feminists and historians.



2. This is a coming of age story depicting the harrowing early life of an extraordinary talent. Told with an amazing eye for detail and a highly developed sense of humor, this is one of the most moving autobiographies I have read. Bella Spewack writes of her thirst for knowledge and determination. In later life Bella invented the Girl Scout cookie, became a noted journalist and wrote successful plays and movies. Streets tells of the difficult circumstances of her childhood.



3. Streets: Memoir Of The Lower East Side was written in 1922 and published for the first time in 1955. This remarkable memoir of a young Jewish girl's coming of age in the tenement slums of New York's Lower East Side is gritty, candid, vivid, engaging, sensitive, and streetsmart. Bella Spewack overcame obstacles of gender, background, and religious discriminations to succeed as a celebrated journalist, playwright, and screenwriter. Streets is highly recommended, articulate reading and will prove of special interest to students of American Jewish history, Women's Studies, and biographies reflecting the triumph of the human spirit over social and cultural barriers.



4. this is my favorite book. if anyone has similar taste to me then i highly recommend them to read it. i was getting so into reading it that i never wanted it to end. to last forever. so i tried to do so by reading a limit of pages each day. i live in NYC and by reading the book i had grown a stronger love for the city and thats another reason i loved the book. the down fall of the book? well, it was and made me sad. it was kinda a depressing book. you now. like a heart-acher.

   it was indeed a pleasure to read and in the future, if you do read it, i hope you injoy.

   thats my review! i hope i helped!




5. this is my favorite book. if anyone has similar taste to me then i highly recommend them to read it.

   i'm going to describe it as a story of a girl growing into a women on the streets of the lower east side of manhattan. she tells of different jobs and the boarders that her and her mother board to help pay the rent. its very hard for me to describe becuase of 2 reasons 1) you can't describe it you have to read it 2)i read it a year ago.

   i was getting so into reading it that i never wanted it to end. to last forever. so i tried to do so by reading a limit of pages each day. i live in NYC and by reading the book i had grown a stronger love for the city and thats another reason i loved the book. i also loved the stories she has of her childhood. the down fall of the book? well, it was and made me sad. it was kinda a depressing book. you now. like a heart-acher.

   it was indeed a pleasure to read and in the future, if you do read it, i hope you enjoy.

   thats my review! i hope i helped!

1 comments about Lincoln: The Presidential Archives.

1. Lincoln: The Presidential Archives, Chuck Wills, Dorling Kindersley Publications, 160 pp, b/w photographs, watercolor maps, bibliography, ephemera, September 2007.
   
   If you wish to hold reproductions of Lincoln's elementary mathematics notebook, the Lincoln-Todd marriage license, Lincoln's letter to Sheilds outlining the terms of their forthcoming duel, Lincoln's patent application, the first piece of mail delivered by the Pony Express from St. Joseph, Missouri to Julesburg, Rocky Mountains, Mary Todd Lincoln's letter from NYC to her husband in which she asks for more cash, the telegram from Tammany Hall to Lincoln informing him of the Draft Riots and many more documents, then this splendid book is for you.
   
   Not just a collection of paper documents, but also a fine biography with period photographs, maps, and illustrations on every other page, Lincoln: The Presidential Archives, is a wonderful book. In particular, rare photographs of Denton Offut's store where Lincoln clerked, the Lincoln and Berry store, and the Edwards' house in which the Abraham and Mary were wed are published.
   
   The book's heavy and glossy paper and a strong binding allows the book to stay open at every page. Lincoln: The Presidential Archives is both an attractive coffee table book and a 'hands-on' biography. The narrative contents are well organized and the eight sturdy, opaque, full-page envelopes that hold the reproductions have a paper flap that allows for easy removal and return of the reproduction documents.
   
   Lincoln: The Presidential Archives is worth every penny and will be a welcomed gift for any Lincoln enthusiast, Civil War buff, American history reader or social science teacher.

5 comments about Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History.

1. Dr. Diggins seems to be an erudite, intelligent man who put some serious time into researching his book. The other reviewers have rightly praised his efforts to look at Reagan through the lense of history and not idealogy, and for his ranking of Reagan with Roosevelt and Lincoln among our greatest presidents.
   
   At the same time, I must confess that having recently read the Reagan Diaries as well as other books dealing with the Reagan legacy like Victory, Bill Bennett's recent second history volume, Reagan "In His Own Hand" etc., I must find that some of the conclusions drawn in this book diverge from the facts and tread familiar academic paths of thought about our great President.
   
   The final negotiations that ended the Cold War occured PRECISELY because Reagan worked on every front to thwart the Soviets. This included Bill Casey flying all over the world covertly, actions to stop Soviet technology acquisition, efforts to make them spend money they didn't have on defense, and a lot more. Reagan mentions anti-communist efforts on a daily basis in the diaries. Also, the preposterous comment that Reagan did nothing to support Solidarity is false on its face - not making speeches about something (even though he did) does not mean inaction. Again, his diaries reveal many efforts on behalf of Solidarity, and Walesa himself gives Reagan great credit for his support. The fact remains that Reagan didn't alter or change his demands on the Soviets when Gorbachev came to power - the final agreement reached was the US STARTING POSITION on disarmement years earlier. His strong stance in negotiations and the arms build up (laughably described as starting under the Carter administration in the book - are you kidding?) drove the Soviets to the table because they literally could not afford to fight anymore. Fighting them on every front was intended from the beginning to realize this result. It is as Reagan described before he became President - his view of the cold war was "we win and they lose".
   
   On a philosophical point, Diggins rightly remarks that Reagan often acted against the conservatives of his time's wishes. This does not make him somehow "less" conservative - just proven right in the argument. All idealogies are constantly in these debates, and Reagan comments on his reviews on the right constantly in his diaries as well, since he was such an avid reader of their writings. Just because the greatest conservative of the last fifty years didn't agree with every midget wonk at National Review or in congress is a comment on the midgets, not him. The line between "classical" and contemporary liberalism also seems to blur in his discussions. Yes, many current conservative thoughts on freedom and liberty are classicly liberal views (as many liberal statist views are classicly conservative), the modern distinctions are all that really matter in current discussion.
   
   I started to read this book with great enthusiasm, as its take on Reagan seemed fresh and interesting, but as I saw conclusion after conclusion follow other tired academic views on Reagan and contradict what I had read him say in his own hand were his views and thoughts, I found it ultimately unhelpful.



2. The dust jacket of this biography claims that John Patrick Diggins is one of America's "most interesting intellectual historians". This description gets two things right - Mr. Diggins is interesting, and Mr. Diggins is undoubtedly a historian. Whether he is much of an intellectual is another matter.
   
   Mr. Diggins' thesis is a peculiar and engaging one - that Reagan is one of the greatest Presidents of our nation, and also one of the most Emersonian, classically liberal Presidents of our time. Diggins, however, does not quite manage to provide definitive proof for either claim, though he does a better job of proving Reagan's intellectual roots than of proving his greatness. The reason for this failure, unfortunately, is not a problem with Diggins' scholarship, but rather an unfortunate case of self-sabotage which begins to show in the latter half of the book. During this section, one wonders if Diggins himself doubts his own thesis. In fact, one wonders if Diggins actually wanted to write a book with said thesis, or if the original argument he wanted to make was as follows: "Ronald Reagan is not a conservative, but even if he was, conservatives can't beat communism in the long run, anyway. Ha ha ha. Neener neener neener."
   
   To this end, many passages within the book are unabashedly, obnoxiously didactic. In fact, one often feels as though one is reading a philosophical essay meant to impugn the purity of American conservatism, rather than a biography of a conservative figure. One of the more absurd of these moments comes near the very end, when Diggins tries to impugn Reagan's conservatism by contrasting his vision with that of Edmund Burke. There are two problems with this analysis - firstly, Diggins misinterprets Burke's quote about the necessity of restraint for rights as implying that a paternalistic government is required to stop people from being greedy. What Burke was actually talking about, of course, was the tendency of people to believe they have a right to everything they want - a dangerous tendency, which often leads to things like the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which contradicts itself numerous times). The second problem with this analysis, however, is that Mr. Diggins is assuming that conservatism's nature has not changed at all since Edmund Burke. It is not as though Burke sat down and wrote out a "Constitution of Conservatism". Many conservative thinkers, in fact, believe that deriving a contemporary position from Edmund Burke's writings is impossible. It doesn't help, of course, that Burke was from England, and the conservative tradition in England is almost completely non-applicable to America.
   
   Furthermore, Diggins seems determined to convince his audience that Reagan was not really all that religious, as though there is something shameful in one of our greatest presidents being religious. Diggins also seems fixated on Reagan's fiscal policy, which he often links with the words "greed" and "selfishness." Finally, though Diggins initially credits Reagan with ending the cold war, he later throws in backhanded implications that it had more to do with Gorbachev than Reagan. It is as though Diggins wrote his thesis that Reagan was one of our greatest Presidents and then choked on it and had to go back and assure his readers that while Reagan was one of our greatest Presidents, he was still the selfish, shortsighted clod that Academics envision him to be.
   
   The existence of these flaws is unfortunate, because the book is historically excellent and so readable that it almost rivals a Harry Potter novel. Ultimately, I must recommend the book, with reservation. I give Mr. Diggins three stars for interesting history, and no stars for his intellectual pretensions. It is a pity. If Mr. Diggins had the courage to stick to his original thesis rather than frantically reassure his audience that he was not one of those awful Reagan-loving freaks, we might be reading the best Reagan biography yet.



3. There is already a vast amount of literature on the life of Ronald Reagan, and it shows no sign of abating. The 40th President of the United States is a continuing subject of fascination as the man who reasserted his country's superpower dominance, engineering the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War.
   
   His domestic policies, dominated by his passionate belief in small government and the ability of individuals to shape their own destinies, earned him the enmity of liberals, yet even on his own side of politics he is not the unquestioned hero as for example his contemporary, Margaret Thatcher, is among British conservatives.
   
   I recall a conversation with a retired American diplomat who preferred the unsuccessful 1964 Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater as the true founder of the modern conservative movement in the US, dismissing Reagan as an opportunist, a former Democrat who could see the way the wind was blowing, jumping on the bandwagon in the right place at the right time.
   
   John Patrick Diggins seeks to dismiss this argument. For him Reagan deserves to be rated alongside George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt as one of the greatest presidents of all time. He believes history will vindicate Reagan in the same way it did Lincoln, whose reputation was besmirched for many decades after his death, but more about that relationship later.
   
   The problem that Diggins and any other biographer of Reagan face is proximity. As the author states with some exasperation in the bibliographical notes, more than 80 per cent of the material in the presidential library remains classified and can be obtained only through the laborious and often unsuccessful method of applying under the Freedom of Information Act.
   
   Undeterred, he turns to other sources, notably the evidence emerging from Soviet archives of the relationship with the Soviet Union's last President, Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as the burgeoning amount of literature discussing the origins behind the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union two years after Reagan left office.
   
   The result is a scholarly, meticulously-researched book that seeks to understand not just the president of the 1980s, but the film actor of the 30s, 40s and 50s, the California Governor of the 60s and 70s and the man who passionately believed in a new beginning for his country - a rebirth that came to be called "Morning in America".
   
   For Diggins, the man who took office in January 1981 had three dragons to slay: the nuclear arms race that threatened the world with extinction; the expanding welfare state that increased dependency and lowered self-esteem and the third, most controversially "a joyless religious inheritance that told people their kingdom was not of this world and they needed to be careful about pursuing happiness in case they enjoyed it".
   
   This was hardly the language that the increasingly influential religious right would have wanted to hear but Reagan could see no conflict in embracing the rewards of this world - after all, it was what trade unions had been advocating for their members for half a century. He may have been ushering in the decade of Wall Street and `Greed is Good', but it is the author's insistence that the president wanted Americans to enjoy the pursuit of wealth and not be ashamed of the bounty they accumulated. It was, Diggins asserts, a necessary step in order to restore Americans' confidence in themselves after the debacle of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Iran hostages humiliation and a decade of economic malaise.
   
   Diggins does not hold back on the obvious black marks of the Reagan presidency, most notably the Iran Contra scandal, occurring deep into Reagan's second term and at least partially resorting from the arrogance that comes from years of unbroken power.
   
   As with the Nixon presidency 15 years previously, there had been the subtle growth of a macho `can do' culture with little regard for moral or ethical objections. The difference being that Reagan quickly shouldered the blame in a televised mea culpa address in which the Great Communicator was at his best: "A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not...what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated in its implementation into trading arms for hostages."
   
   I take issue with the final chapter in which the author seeks to link Reagan even closer to Lincoln by likening Reagan's battle against communism to Lincoln's struggle to free the slaves. It is for readers to follow Diggin's closely argued reasoning and come to their conclusions, but the fact is Lincoln went to war not to free slaves but to save the Union and that the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was a ploy to turn foreign opinion against the Confederacy and disrupt it internally at a time when the conflict was going badly for the North.
   
   However, it is certainly worth noting that the Cold War was won bloodlessly while the Civil War resulted in the deaths of more Americans than have been killed in all conflicts combined in the century-and-a-half since.
   
   There are times when this book stumbles into academic denseness, and I am unconvinced that Diggins has made his case for Reagan to be elevated to the heights of the presidential pantheon, but for those seeking an insight into the mind of the man who radically altered the face of American politics, it is to be recommended.



4. For the most part, the biographies that have been written about Ronald Reagan in the years since he left office have suffered from one of two defects. Either they have been overly critical and dismissive and failed to grasp the truly revolutionary aspects of the Reagan Presidency, or they have been overly worshipful, something more akin to adulation than real scholarship. In both cases, the differing interpretations of Reagan have likely been based on ideological differences and political resentments of the 1980s and beyond.In Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History, John Patrick Diggins takes a worthy first step toward moving beyond either the worshipful or the hate-filled evaluations of the Reagan Presidency and gives America's 40th President the respectful, if not always positive, evaluation that he deserves.
   
   Reagan's singular achievement, Diggins argues, was the role he played in bringing a peaceful end to the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Though he came into the White House with a promise to rebuild the American military and confronted what his advisers contended were Soviet-sponsored regimes in nations ranging from Nicaragua to Angola, it's clear that, very early in his Administration, if not before then, Reagan became committed to the idea of drastically reducing, if not eliminating, nuclear weapons.
   
   Much to the consternation of his neo-conservative foreign policy team, Reagan made overtures to the Soviets as early as April 1981, when he wrote a letter to Leonid Brezhnev while recovering from an assassination attempt. The Brezhnev dialog never went anywhere, largely because Brezhnev was apparently too stubborn and too ill to actually pursue serious negotiations. Similarly, the short-lived reigns of his two immediate successors made pursuing peace impossible. As Reagan himself once quipped, "They keep dying on me."
   
   It was only with the rise to power of Mikhail Gorbachev, who required reduced tensions with the U.S. to pursue his ultimately doomed strategy of reforming Communism, that Reagan was able to pursue his desire to bring both countries out of the horrifying doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction.
   
   One interesting thing that Diggins' book brings out is the extent to which many of Reagan's conservative supporters became convinced in the late 1980s that their leader had sold America down the river. Many of the same people who, on the occasion of his funeral in 2004, lionized him as the man who had "won" the Cold War. Among the critics were William F. Buckley, Jr., George Will, and Henry Kissinger, all of whom seemed convinced at the time that the Cold War and the tensions with the USSR were a permanent and irreversible fact (Jeane Kirkpatrick had in fact said as much in her writings prior to being named U.N. Ambassador).
   
   Reagan, Diggins, argued, never accepted the neo-conservative view of history and rejected the idea that the Cold War was a permanent fact of life that could only end with an exchange of nuclear missiles that would destroy both nations, if not most of the civilized world. In fact, rather than being a true conservative, Diggins persuasively argues that Reagan was really more of a traditional old-style liberal, what we would today call a libertarian, and that his ideas were influenced more by the libertarianism of Thomas Paine and the romanticism of Ralph Waldo Emerson than conservative hero Edmund Burke. While Reagan courted social conservatives and neo-cons, he did not share their views on the inherent sinfulness and fallibility of man.
   
   Diggins goes criticize some aspects of Reagan's record, most notably, in the domestic sphere, and he rightly criticizes him for the mis-handling of the Iran Contra affair. But, like I said, this is a biography not a hagiography. On the whole, though, Diggins does an excellent job of rescuing our 40th President from his detractors and his worshipers. Hopefully, other historians will follow suit.



5. "Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom and the Making of History" is a philosophical study of Ronald Reagan and his place in history. It is not a true biography but employs biographical details to support its points.
   
   Through much of this book I was unsure whether its purpose was to praise Reagan or to debunk his myth. Author John Patrick Diggins cites facts about Reagan to dispute many of the conventional wisdoms about him. He claims that Reagan was not as conservative or as hawkish as is widely believed. He delves into Reagan's days with General Electric, his confrontations with campus radicals in Sacramento, negotiations with Gorbachev, his flirtations with Nicaraguan Contras and Jonas Savimbi of Angola. He presents Reagan as an Emersonian idealist whose distrust of big government guided his political career. At times it is not clear whether Diggins is concluding that Reagan is a hero or a failure. Ultimately he finds Lincolnesque qualities in his subject.
   
   This is not a first book for one searching for the Reagan lore. For biographies, look elsewhere. After you have absorbed those, look here for a deeper dip into the philosophical underpinnings of the Reagan Revolution.