General Books - Page 12

A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

Tony Horwitz

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 41 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The bestselling author of Blue Latitudes takes us on a thrilling and eye-opening voyage to pre-Mayflower America

On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he’s mislaid more than a century of American history, from Columbus’s sail in 1492 to Jamestown’s founding in 16-oh-something. Did nothing happen in between? Determined to find out, he embarks on a journey of rediscovery, following in the footsteps of the many Europeans who preceded the Pilgrims to America.

An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs—these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers.

Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek—from Florida’s Fountain of Youth to Plymouth’s sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic sweat lodges—Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative, and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.

Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States)

David M. Kennedy

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 66 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Between 1929 and 1945, two great travails were visited upon the American people: the Great Depression and World War II. This book tells the story of how Americans endured, and eventually prevailed, in the face of those unprecedented calamities.
The Depression was both a disaster and an opportunity. As David Kennedy vividly demonstrates, the economic crisis of the 1930s was far more than a simple reaction to the alleged excesses of the 1920s. For more than a century before 1929, America's unbridled industrial revolution had gyrated through repeated boom and bust cycles, wastefully consuming capital and inflicting untold misery on city and countryside alike.
Freedom From Fear explores how the nation agonized over its role in World War II, how it fought the war, why the United States won, and why the consequences of victory were sometimes sweet, sometimes ironic. In a compelling narrative, Kennedy analyzes the determinants of American strategy, the painful choices faced by commanders and statesmen, and the agonies inflicted on the millions of ordinary Americans who were compelled to swallow their fears and face battle as best they could.
Both comprehensive and colorful, this account of the most convulsive period in American history, excepting only the Civil War, reveals a period that formed the crucible in which modern America was formed.

The Oxford History of the United States

The Atlantic Monthly has praised The Oxford History of the United States as "the most distinguished series in American historical scholarship," a series that "synthesizes a generation's worth of historical inquiry and knowledge into one literally state-of-the-art book. Who touches these books touches a profession."
Conceived under the general editorship of one of the leading American historians of our time, C. Vann Woodward, The Oxford History of the United States blends social, political, economic, cultural, diplomatic, and military history into coherent and vividly written narrative. Previous volumes are Robert Middlekauff's The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution; James M. McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (which won a Pulitzer Prize and was a New York Times Best Seller); and James T. Patterson's Grand Expectations: The United States 1945-1974 (which won a Bancroft Prize).

Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA's Spytechs from Communism to Al-Qaeda

Robert Wallace, H Keith Melton, Henry Robert Schlesinger

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A great look inside the world of covert operations, but oddly understated. 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Having read and enjoyed Spycraft, I expected it to garner solid reviews. However, I am quite surprised to see that until now, it's received 100% five-star reviews. I've almost never seen a book reviewed this favorably and I've certainly read better books with more mixed reviews.

Don't get me wrong, Spycraft is a good book. It allows its reader behind a curtain into a world that is typically strictly off-limits. You get to experience the real-world existence of spies living and working secretly behind enemy lines. The book reveals a lot of the technology used by spies, focusing in on listening devices, cameras and communication devices. What stands out is the ingenuity and craftsmanship that goes into the creation of the devices upon which people stake their lives.

While the book is written about spy technology, what I found to be the most surprising from the book was the the amount of time and effort invested in some of the CIA's covert operations. Often times, years are spent establishing credible cover or doing piecemeal research about a target to avoid drawing attention. 100% of some peoples' living patterns are built around an operational necessity that takes up only the smallest percentage their time. It's truly amazing to read about the sacrifices made to achieve an intelligence payoff.

There is a problem, however, the book reads unexpectedly dull. I'm sure this is an outgrowth of the fact that real CIA operatives have to be consummate professionals and not suave, womanizing James Bond-types, but it takes away from the book. I am not implying in any way that anything should be fabricated or embellished to add to the excitement, but instead that the story is inherently exciting and that the writing should have reflected that more even if the author's demeanor is necessarily even-keeled.

A great book, but exciting stories get told in a seemingly Prozac-tamed manner. I recommend this one highly, but it could have been better still.

Editorial Review:

An unprecedented history of the CIA's most secretive operations and the gadgets that made them possible.

Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of the American West

Hampton Sides

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 136 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Blood a lot of Thunder 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have enjoyed this book as much as John Adams. Preconcieved ideas of history are put to rest. For the most part this is a part of history that has not been well documented for me. There was Lewis and Clark and then a big gap. This fills in the gap and is a must read.

Editorial Review:

In the summer of 1846, the Army of the West marched through Santa Fe, en route to invade and occupy the Western territories claimed by Mexico. Fueled by the new ideology of “Manifest Destiny,” this land grab would lead to a decades-long battle between the United States and the Navajos, the fiercely resistant rulers of a huge swath of mountainous desert wilderness.

In Blood and Thunder, Hampton Sides gives us a magnificent history of the American conquest of the West. At the center of this sweeping tale is Kit Carson, the trapper, scout, and soldier whose adventures made him a legend. Sides shows us how this illiterate mountain man understood and respected the Western tribes better than any other American, yet willingly followed orders that would ultimately devastate the Navajo nation. Rich in detail and spanning more than three decades, this is an essential addition to our understanding of how the West was really won.

The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism

Ron Suskind

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Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Current Events -> Terrorism

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Suskind comes a startling look at how America lost its way and at the nation s struggle, day by day, to reclaim the moral authority upon which its survival depends. From the White House to Downing Street, from the fault-line countries of South Asia to the sands of Guantánamo, Suskind offers an astonishing story that connects world leaders to the forces waging today s shadow wars and to the next generation of global citizens. Tracking down truth and hope within the Beltway and far beyond it, Suskind delivers historic disclosures with this emotionally stirring and strikingly original portrait of the post-9/11 world.

In a sweeping, propulsive, and multilayered narrative, The Way of the World investigates how America relinquished the moral leadership it now desperately needs to fight the real threat of our era: a nuclear weapon in the hands of terrorists. Truth, justice, and accountability become more than mere words in this story. Suskind shows where the most neglected dangers lie in the story of The Armageddon Test a desperate gamble to send undercover teams into the world s nuclear black market to frustrate the efforts of terrorists trying to procure weapons-grade uranium. In the end, he finally reveals for the first time the explosive falsehood underlying the Iraq War and the entire Bush presidency.

While the public and political realms struggle, The Way of the World simultaneously follows an ensemble of characters in America and abroad who are turning fear and frustration into a desperate and often daring brand of human salvation. They include a striving, twenty-four-year-old Pakistani émigré, a fearless UN refugee commissioner, an Afghan teenager, a Holocaust survivor s son, and Benazir Bhutto, who discovers, days before her death, how she s been abandoned by the United States at her moment of greatest need. They are all testing American values at a time of peril, and discovering solutions human solutions to so much that has gone wrong.

For anyone hoping to exercise truly informed consent and begin the process of restoring the values and hope along with the moral clarity and earned optimism at the heart of the American tradition, The Way of the World is a must-read.

Brothers in Battle, Best of Friends: Two WWII Paratroopers from the Original Band of Brothers Tell Their Story

William Guarnere, Edward Heffron

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 65 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOUSY SERVICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The book was great. I ordered it for my Dad's 87th Birthday, he's a WWII vet that was at the Battle of Bastonge With General Patton, so I wanted him to read about some of the 101st airborne he met there...well I ordered it with 2nd day air shipping, I got it almost 3 weeks later!!!!! So much for my Dad's birthday present...Thanks for making an old soldier feel wanted!!!!!! It took 4 contacts for these morons to realize it never left their shipping warehouse 40 MILES FROM MY HOUSE~~!!??!!! They eventually relented and credited the extra shipping...whooppeee!! by that time 2nd day shipping was being offered for free!!!! They wouldn't even gift wrap it....Very Cheap...
Again the book was great, but AMAZON SUCKED. I have been ordering from them since they were a really young and crappy website...no more, now they are a big and crappy website with their fingers in everything...

So long and thanks for screwing up an important event.

Editorial Review:

Tom Hanks introduces the rousing story of two inseparable friends and soldiers portrayed in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers. William "Wild Bill" Guarnere and Edward "Babe" Heffron were among the first paratroopers of the U.S. Army, and their story is a tribute to the lasting bond forged between comrades in arms---and to all those who fought for freedom.

Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer (P.S.)

James L. Swanson

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 230 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

this book deserves more than five stars! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

This bestselling nonfiction book came with outstanding professional reviews. There was no laying it aside for later, as I was unable to put it down. The author completely changed my opinion of John Wilkes Booth, a successful actor who had everything to lose and risked it all. If there were flaws in the writing I certainly never noticed any. This is an achievement I cannot criticize. In fact I almost wished I had a seatbelt. It is a rollicking good read.

Editorial Review:

The murder of Abraham Lincoln set off the greatest manhunt in American history. From April 14 to April 26, 1865, the assassin, John Wilkes Booth, led Union cavalry and detectives on a wild twelve-day chase through the streets of Washington, D.C., across the swamps of Maryland, and into the forests of Virginia, while the nation, still reeling from the just-ended Civil War, watched in horror and sadness.

James L. Swanson's Manhunt is a fascinating tale of murder, intrigue, and betrayal. A gripping hour-by-hour account told through the eyes of the hunted and the hunters, this is history as you've never read it before.

The Irish Americans: A History

Jay P. Dolan

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Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

A history of the Irish in America from the eighteenth century to the present, by one of the nation's most eminent scholars of the immigrant experience.

Jay Dolan of the University of Notre Dame is one of America's most acclaimed scholars of immigration and ethnic history. In The Irish Americans, he caps his decades of writing and teaching with a magisterial history of the Irish experience in the United States—the first general-reader’s account to be published since the 1960s.

Dolan draws on his own original research and much other recent other scholarship to weave a fresh and vivid narrative. He follows the Irish from their first arrival in the American colonies through the bleak days of the potato famine that brought millions of poor immigrants; the years of ethnic prejudice and "No Irish Need Apply;" the rise of Irish political power and the heyday of Tammany politics; to the historic moment when John F. Kennedy was elected to the highest office in the land.

Dolan evokes the ghastly ships crowded with men and women fleeing the potato blight; the vibrant life of Catholic parishes in cities like New York and Chicago; and the world of machine politics, where ward bosses often held court in the local saloon. Rich in colorful detail, balanced in judgment, and the most comprehensive work of its kind yet published, The Irish Americans will become a must-have volume for any reader with an interest in the Irish-American heritage.

American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation

Jon Meacham

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 88 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The American Gospel–literally, the good news about America–is that religion shapes our public life without controlling it. In this vivid book, New York Times bestselling author Jon Meacham tells the human story of how the Founding Fathers viewed faith, and how they ultimately created a nation in which belief in God is a matter of choice.

At a time when our country seems divided by extremism, American Gospel draws on the past to offer a new perspective. Meacham re-creates the fascinating history of a nation grappling with religion and politics–from John Winthrop’s “city on a hill” sermon to Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence; from the Revolution to the Civil War; from a proposed nineteenth-century Christian Amendment to the Constitution to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s call for civil rights; from George Washington to Ronald Reagan.

Debates about religion and politics are often more divisive than illuminating. Secularists point to a “wall of separation between church and state,” while many conservatives act as though the Founding Fathers were apostles in knee britches. As Meacham shows in this brisk narrative, neither extreme has it right. At the heart of the American experiment lies the God of what Benjamin Franklin called “public religion,” a God who invests all human beings with inalienable rights while protecting private religion from government interference. It is a great American balancing act, and it has served us well.

Meacham has written and spoken extensively about religion and politics, and he brings historical authority and a sense of hope to the issue. American Gospel makes it compellingly clear that the nation’s best chance of summoning what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature” lies in recovering the spirit and sense of the Founding. In looking back, we may find the light to lead us forward.

“In his American Gospel, Jon Meacham provides a refreshingly clear, balanced, and wise historical portrait of religion and American politics at exactly the moment when such fairness and understanding are much needed. Anyone who doubts the relevance of history to our own time has only to read this exceptional book.”–David McCullough, author of 1776

“Jon Meacham has given us an insightful and eloquent account of the spiritual foundation of the early days of the American republic. It is especially instructive reading at a time when the nation is at once engaged in and deeply divided on the question of religion and its place in public life.”–Tom Brokaw, author of The Greatest Generation

“An absorbing narrative full of vivid characters and fresh thinking, American Gospel tells how the Founding Fathers–and their successors–struggled with their own religious and political convictions to work out the basic structure for freedom of religion. For me this book was nonstop reading.”–Elaine Pagels, professor of religion, Princeton University, author of Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas

“Jon Meacham is one of our country’s most brilliant thinkers about religion’s impact on American society. In this scintillating and provocative book, Meacham reveals the often-hidden influence of religious belief on the Founding Fathers and on later generations of American citizens and leaders up to our own. Today, as we argue more strenuously than ever about the proper place of religion in our politics and the rest of American life, Meacham’s important book should serve as the touchstone of the debate.”
–Michael Beschloss, author of The Conquerors

“At a time when faith and freedom seem increasingly polarized, American Gospel recovers our vital center–the middle ground where, historically, religion and public life strike a delicate balance. Well researched, well written, inspiring, and persuasive, this is a welcome addition to the literature.”–Jonathan D. Sarna, Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University, author of American Judaism: A History


From the Hardcover edition.

Barbarians at the Gate Low Price CD

Bryan Burrough

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Management & Leadership -> Consolidation & Merger

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 88 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Over rated 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Many people I know have read this book and rave about how good it is. However it is really just a factual account of the events with no real insight. The writing is ok but you are not transformed into the action. You get no since of the pressure or the egos. The characters are the real deal and the writes don't all you to understand them or even get you to like or hate them. The book left me a bit flat but if you have no idea how companies are bought and offers are made it is still worth the read. If you know how companies are bought it is worth the read just to be scared to death.

Editorial Review:

Barbarians at the Gate has been called one of the most influential business books of all time–the definitive account of the largest takeover in Wall Street history. Bryan Burrough and John Helyar's gripping account of the frenzy that overtook Wall Street in October and November of 1988 is the story of deal makers and publicity flaks, of strategy meetings and society dinners, of boardrooms and bedrooms–giving us not only a detailed look at how financial operations at the highest levels are conducted but also a richly textured social history of wealth at the twilight of the Reagan era.