General Books - Page 3

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War

Crocker, H.W., III

Amazon Price: $40.11 List Price: $54.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Blackstone Audiobooks, Inc.

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> Civil War -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

How a present day legatee of the Confederacy views its history 3 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

In 1972, I was a freshman at Michigan State University. One night, sitting in a student lounge, I struck up a conversation with a fellow student who hailed from the South. As I asked him questions about his life we drifted into a discussion of history. When I said the words "The Civil War", he ignited. There was no Civil War, it was a war of aggression by the North. The South had a clear right to self-determination and the right to leave the Union. The war was NOT over because it had not been legally concluded. He went on like this for quite awhile and I was bewildered because I had never heard thoughts like these before. While I did not agree with him them and do not agree with him or H. W. Croker III now, I think it is healthy for everyone to learn that these ideas remain alive in our nation and in parts of our culture.

The folks who hold these ideas see many things very differently and hold that certain issues that the Civil War seemed to settle are still unsettled. While parts of their arguments may seem attractive, when I view them as a whole, I think we have to give up too much to adopt them. If the United States were to fragment and refragment into smaller "nations", it would weaken us and invite predatory behavior from other and stronger nations. Plus, their history of certain issues in the Civil War, particularly around slavery and race seem strained, contrived, and often wrong to the point of being disturbed.

However, if you have not heard the flip side of the Civil War history before, this is a good and easy place to get that through the looking glass experience I had back in 1972. As you read through it, be sure to check the facts for yourself. It isn't that Crocker is lying, but rather that his priorities in telling his history of the war require him to view things differently. Seeing things from other perspectives, especially if you don't agree with them, is usually quite healthy. So it is here.

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI

Editorial Review:

Get ready for a rousing rebel yell as best-selling author H. W. Crocker, III, charges through bunkers and battlefields, busting myths, shattering stereotypes, and revealing little-known truths.

Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam Is Subverting America Without Guns or Bombs

Robert Spencer

Amazon Price: $19.79 List Price: $29.99 Not yet published By: Tantor Media

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> 21st Century
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Nail on the Head 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 13 people found this review helpful.

I am blazing through 'Stealth Jihad', witten by Robert Spencer. That guy hits the nail on the head. He puts in perfect words about the naiveté and futility of the now seemingly bi-partisan belief that we can negotiate ourselves into a state of coexistance with the imperialistic Islamic agenda. As he writes, there is absolutely nothing we can do or not do that will change the radical Islamic view of our society or bring a peaceful state of coexistance.

This is a world war we are in and it is a war of ideals and religion (the most grave sort). As referenced in the book, the first rule of war is to know your enemy and to understand the nature of the battle you are in and that is where our policies have failed. You can't win the hearts and minds of the Islamist, no more successfully than the bomb-wielding child murderer can win you or I over to accept and share his reasoning.

The book also points out the success of the non-violent plan to assimilate the non-Muslim population. As a metaphor, I am reminded of the fictional Star Trek characters, the Borg. The difference is that with the Borg, the purpose of assimilation through both violent and non-violent means was to expand its ever-growing "hive" of like-minded, efficient, dedicated and submissive community for the betterment of the whole. The assimilation agenda of Islam has no wants or expectations of a truce or acceptance of its ideals... there is no live and let live thought toward non-believers, it is about conquer, domination, religious biggotry, slavery and brutal iron fist rule.

Not only am I afraid that our President Elect lacks the knowledge, experience and guts to understand and deal with our enemy, I am afraid that we will not soon see a leader who can do the job that needs to be done. We have been P.C. browbeaten and brainwashed so successfully by the leftists in our own society, that the agents of this "stealth Jihad" agenda can see the clear-cut path for success... and they are working all the angles. As it stands, any elected official that calls an Islamic terrorist and Islamic terrorist is committing political suicide and setting himself up for a civil lawsuit. Any policy maker or elected official who points out hateful language spewed in mosques and these "moderate Islamic social justice group" meetings and the correlation between it and the very writings that Muslims hold most sacred is committing political suicide and setting himself up for a civil lawsuit. The attacks not only come from the Islamic "justice and civil rights" lawyers but our leftist P.C. stormtroopers in the US media are more than happy to lead the charge to "right the wrong".

Again, the words of Ariel Durant come to mind: "A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."

Daniel Webster warned, "There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing."

Webster's warning rings hauntingly clear when you witness first-hand our own policy makers roll in their own filth of ignorance and unwillingness/inability to muster the courage to call this huge, feathery, quacking thing for what it is.

Great book!

Editorial Review:

New York Times bestselling author Robert Spencer argues that the United States is being subjugated under Islamic law through initiatives designed to advance the jihadist agenda.

Boom!: Talking About the Sixties: What Happened, How It Shaped Today, Lessons for Tomorrow

Tom Brokaw

Amazon Price: $12.24 List Price: $18.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Trade Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 55 new & used starting at $9.89

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> 20th Century -> 1945 - Present
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> 20th Century -> 1960s
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> 20th Century -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 93 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In Boom!, Tom Brokaw, one of America’s premier journalists and the acclaimed author of The Greatest Generation, gives us an epic portrait of another defining era in America: the tumultuous Sixties. The voices and stories of both famous people and ordinary citizens come together in this “virtual reunion” as Brokaw takes us on a memorable journey through a remarkable time, exploring how individuals and the national mood were affected by a controversial era and showing how the aftershocks of the Sixties continue to resound in our lives today. In the reflections of a generation, Brokaw also discovers lessons that might guide us in the years ahead. Race, politics, war, feminism, popular culture, and music are all delved into here. Brokaw explores how members of this generation have gone on to bring activism and a Sixties mindset into individual entrepreneurship , as we hear stories of how this formative decade has shaped our perspectives on business, the environment, politics, family, and our national existence. Remarkable in its insights, wonderfully written and reported, this revealing book lets us join in these frank conversations about America then, now, and tomorrow.

Bonus DVD: Excerpt From 1968 with Tom Brokaw, A History Channel special


Praise for Boom!

“Tom Brokaw does an excellent job of capturing an exciting, controversial period in American history and Boom! is a worthy addition to his growing canon.”–New York Post

“[Tom Brokaw] approaches this magnum opus with warmth, curiosity and conviction, the same attributes that worked so well for his Greatest Generation.”
–The New York Times

“[A] verbal scrapbook of the Sixties . . . [Boom! shows] that the era’s core issues–racism, women’s rights, a nation-dividing war–remain central today, and that the values boomers championed haven’t yet gone bust.”
–People (four stars)

“Packed with memorable people, places, events . . . A ‘virtual reunion’ of 1960s folks telling what they did back then, where they’ve been since and how they assess that tumultuous decade.”
–Chicago Tribune

“Genuinely fascinating recollections . . . plenty of memorable anecdotes.”
–The Wall Street Journal

Listening Is an Act of Love: A Celebration of American Life from the StoryCorps Project

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks By: Penguin Audio Amazon Marketplace: 6 new & used starting at $9.08

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

great stories 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

If you love the real life stories you hear on NPR this is for you. Touching and poignant, listening to these give you hope and understanding for people in many different walks of life.

Profound 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I first heard about the StoryCorps Project a few years ago and was immediately charmed by the idea of it. Two people important to one another enter a soundproof booth and spend 40 minutes as interviewer and interviewee. The interview is recorded. They are provided with suggested questions, but more often than not it seems that once the conversation gets rolling, it becomes just that - a conversation, and not so much an interview after all. Their stories unfold, and what happens is almost magical. At the end of the session, a high-quality copy of the recording is given to the participants, and another copy is sent to the Library of Congress. The whole point is to give a voice to everyone willing to sound it. A collection of some of these recordings has been compiled by Dave Isay in the amazing book Listening Is an Act of Love.

The stories shared here are conversations between husbands and wives, aunts and nephews, coworkers, friends. The stories are funny, shocking, heartwarming, and heartbreaking. I am haunted by the stories of those closely impacted by 9/11. I cried when I read a story about a daughter asking her father to remember his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. Some of the "how we met and fell in love" stories made me chuckle. The stories included in this book are from such different people in such different walks of life, yet so many common themes arise. Everyone wants to love and be loved, everyone makes mistakes, everyone hurts.

I borrowed this book from the library and read it in one sitting. It was so moving, so profound, that I want my own copy to keep. I want to hear these voices again and again, to remind myself that we all - all of us - have a story to tell.

Editorial Review:

Drawn from the work of StoryCorps, the largest and most ambitious private oral history project in American history, comes this tapestry of the stories Americans have been sharing from their lives to leave behind to their loved ones.

An Inconvenient Book: Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems

Glenn Beck

Amazon Price: $19.77 List Price: $29.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Audio Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $10.06

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Essays
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Political
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Satire

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 444 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

FUNNY. OUTRAGEOUS. TRUE.

Have you ever wondered why some of the biggest problems we face, from illegal immigration to global warming to poverty never seem to get fixed? The reason is simple: the solutions just aren't very convenient. Fortunately, radio and television host Glenn Beck doesn't care much about convenience, he cares about common sense.

Take the issue of poverty, for example. Over the last forty years, America's ten poorest cities all had one simple thing in common, but self-serving politicians will never tell you what that is (or explain how easy it would be to change): Glenn Beck will. Global warming is another issue that's ripe with lies and distortion. How many times have you heard that carbon dioxide is responsible for huge natural disasters that have killed millions of people? The truth is, it's actually the other way around: as CO2 has increased, deaths from extreme weather have decreased. Bet you'll never see that in an Al Gore slideshow. An Inconvenient Book contains hundreds of these same "why have I never heard that before?" type of facts that will leave you wondering how political correctness, special interests, and outright stupidity have gotten us so far away from the common sense solutions this country was built on.

As the host of a nationally syndicated radio program and a prime-time television show on CNN, Headline News, Glenn Beck combines a refreshing level of honesty with a biting sense of humor and a lot of research to find solutions that will open your eyes while entertaining you along the way.

America's Hidden History: Untold Tales of the First Pilgrims, Fighting Women, and Forgotten Founders Who Shaped a Nation

Kenneth C. Davis

Amazon Price: $17.79 List Price: $26.95 Usually ships in 7 to 12 days By: Collins Amazon Marketplace: 30 new & used starting at $15.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> Women
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 24 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Kenneth C. Davis, author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller Don't Know Much About History, presents a collection of extraordinary stories, each detailing an overlooked episode that shaped the nation's destiny and character. Davis's dramatic narratives set the record straight, busting myths and bringing to light little-known but fascinating facts from a time when the nation's fate hung in the balance.

Spanning a period from the Spanish arrival in America to George Washington's inauguration in 1789, America's Hidden History details these episodes, among others:

• The story of the first real Pilgrims in America, who were wine-making French Huguenots, not dour English Separatists
• The coming-of-age story of Queen Isabella, who suggested that Columbus pack the moving mess hall of pigs that may have spread disease to many Native Americans
• The long, bloody relationship between the Pilgrims and Indians that runs counter to the idyllic scene of the Thanksgiving feast
• The little-known story of George Washington as a headstrong young soldier who committed a war crime, signed a confession, and started a war!

Full of color, intrigue, and human interest, America's Hidden History is an iconoclastic look at America's past, connecting some of the dots between history and today's headlines, proving why Davis is truly America's Teacher.

The Conscience of a Liberal

Paul Krugman

Amazon Price: $10.85 List Price: $15.95 Not yet published By: W.W. Norton & Co.

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> Nonfiction -> Politics -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 87 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

"The most consistent and courageous—and unapologetic—liberal partisan in American journalism." —Michael Tomasky, New York Review of Books

In this "clear, provocative" (Boston Globe) New York Times bestseller, Paul Krugman, today's most widely read economist, examines the past eighty years of American history, from the reforms that tamed the harsh inequality of the Gilded Age and the 1920s to the unraveling of that achievement and the reemergence of immense economic and political inequality since the 1970s. Seeking to understand both what happened to middle-class America and what it will take to achieve a "new New Deal," Krugman has created his finest book to date, a "stimulating manifesto" offering "a compelling historical defense of liberalism and a clarion call for Americans to retake control of their economic destiny" (Publishers Weekly).

"As Democrats seek a rationale not merely for returning to power, but for fundamentally changing—or changing back—the relationship between America's government and its citizens, Mr. Krugman's arguments will prove vital in the months and years ahead." —Peter Beinart, New York Times

1776

David McCullough

Amazon Price: $12.24 List Price: $18.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Simon & Schuster Amazon Marketplace: 138 new & used starting at $3.59

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> Revolution & Founding -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 656 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this masterful book, David McCullough tells the intensely human story of those who marched with General George Washington in the year of the Declaration of Independence -- when the whole American cause was riding on their success, without which all hope for independence would have been dashed and the noble ideals of the Declaration would have amounted to little more than words on paper.

Based on extensive research in both American and British archives, 1776 is a powerful drama written with extraordinary narrative vitality. It is the story of Americans in the ranks, men of every shape, size, and color, farmers, schoolteachers, shoemakers, no-accounts, and mere boys turned soldiers. And it is the story of the King's men, the British commander, William Howe, and his highly disciplined redcoats who looked on their rebel foes with contempt and fought with a valor too little known.

At the center of the drama, with Washington, are two young American patriots, who, at first, knew no more of war than what they had read in books -- Nathanael Greene, a Quaker who was made a general at thirty-three, and Henry Knox, a twenty-five-year-old bookseller who had the preposterous idea of hauling the guns of Fort Ticonderoga overland to Boston in the dead of winter.

But it is the American commander-in-chief who stands foremost -- Washington, who had never before led an army in battle. Written as a companion work to his celebrated biography of John Adams, David McCullough's 1776 is another landmark in the literature of American history.

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (Edition 001)

Timothy Egan

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Mariner Books Amazon Marketplace: 127 new & used starting at $4.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> 20th Century -> Depression
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> 20th Century -> General
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 190 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years
of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since.
Timothy Egan's critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter
of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical
reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through
the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to
carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the
death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe,
Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become
his heroes, "the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he
opens up with urgency and respect" (New York Times).

In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst
Hard Time is "arguably the best nonfiction book yet" (Austin Statesman
Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited
upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of
trifling with nature.

Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln

John Stauffer

Amazon Price: $19.80 List Price: $30.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Twelve Amazon Marketplace: 44 new & used starting at $15.02

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Ethnic & National -> African-American & Black
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> United States -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Historical -> United States -> General AAS

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

Editorial Review:

Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln were the preeminent self-made men of their time. In this masterful dual biography, award-winning HarvardUniversity scholar John Stauffer describes the transformations in the lives of these two giants during a major shift in cultural history, when men rejected the status quo and embraced new ideals of personal liberty. As Douglass and Lincoln reinvented themselves and ultimately became friends, they transformed America.


Lincoln was born dirt poor, had less than one year of formal schooling, and became the nation's greatest president. Douglass spent the first twenty years of his life as a slave, had no formal schooling-in fact, his masters forbade him to read or write-and became one of the nation's greatest writers and activists, as well as a spellbinding orator and messenger of audacious hope, the pioneer who blazed the path traveled by future African-American leaders.


At a time when most whites would not let a black man cross their threshold, Lincoln invited Douglass into the White House. Lincoln recognized that he needed Douglass to help him destroy the Confederacy and preserve the Union; Douglass realized that Lincoln's shrewd sense of public opinion would serve his own goal of freeing the nation's blacks. Their relationship shifted in response to the country's debate over slavery, abolition, and emancipation.


Both were ambitious men. They had great faith in the moral and technological progress of their nation. And they were not always consistent in their views. John Stauffer describes their personal and political struggles with a keen understanding of the dilemmas Douglass and Lincoln confronted and the social context in which they occurred. What emerges is a brilliant portrait of how two of America's greatest leaders lived.