American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

Title: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House

Author: Jon Meacham

Pages: 512

Release Date: April 30, 2009 –  Random House Trade Paperbacks

ISBN:  978-0812973464

Jon Meacham’s American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House is a biography of Andrew Jackson that concentrates on his time in the White House while giving some coverage to the time before and after.  Meacham concentrates on the personal relationships between Jackson, his advisors, and his cabinet.  These relationships played a surprising role in determining public policy.

Many of the features of the presidency that we take for granted had their start with Jackson.  He believed the power of the Presidency should be expanded at the expense of the legislative branch. While the details have changed this seems to be an ongoing effort that continues today. The more I read about America’s early days, the more I find they were very similar to today.

I did have one issue with the book, the footnotes.  I am a big believer in footnotes and have a hard time reading non-fiction without them.  I did not like the way Meacham’s notes were done.  The actual notes were at the end of the book and were used primarily for direct quotation.  The reader is forced to determine which of several quotations they are looking for, as the only reference is the page number, with several notes for each page.  There was nothing in the text to indicate there was a note for it.

Overall, I enjoyed reading American Lion and would recommend it to anyone interested in American history between the Revolution and the Civil War.  It may not be for those with more intimate knowledge of the period, but for the rest of us it serves as a good introduction to both Andrew Jackson and the people around him.

I received a review copy of this book from the Library Thing Early Reviewer program.

 

The Ascent of George Washington – No Cherry Trees Here

The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon

ByJohn Ferling

464 Pages

Release date: May 26, 2009 – Bloomsbury Press

ISBN: 978-1596914650

Every American knows who George Washington was and even though few still believe Parson Weems’ story of his life (does anyone still believe he chopped down a cherry tree?) most Americans have an idealized portrait of Washington in their minds.  In The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon, John Ferling portrays a different and much more human version of Washington.

Ferling, who has written extensively about the American Revolutionary period, discovered a Washington who was, “Madly ambitious and obsessed with recognition and renown,” he emerged a hero from two wars, in which he achieved only insignificant individual success and committed dreadful blunders.   He was a genius at shifting the blame for defeat on to others and engaging in self-promotion.

In spite of these failings, Ferling maintains Washington was a great American icon and the country was extraordinarily fortunate to have had him as its first president.  For while much of the aura that surrounded Washington in life and death was mythological, legendary heroes and mythical tales are essential for the creation and maintenance of a new nation.

Political leaders of the past have often been made into mythological figures that can never be imitated.  The reader can never achieve the same greatness nor does he expect it from his current leaders.  The fact that these past leaders were great but human, with human flaws is lost.  This diminishes their accomplishments by making it appear they were something more then normal men.

The Ascent of George Washington serves as a reminder that we are all human, even George Washington.

I received this book from the Library Thing Early Reviewer Program.

 

The Rough Guide to Evolution by Mark Pallen

The Rough Guide to Evolution by Mark Pallen

352 pages

Release date: January 1, 2009 – Rough Guides

ISBN: 978-1858289465

A 2007 Gallup poll indicated approximately one-half of all Americans and two-thirds of Republicans do not believe in the theory of evolution.  In a perfect world, Mark Pallen’s The Rough Guide to Evolution would change some minds.

The book is divided into three sections.  The first, “Ideas and evidence” discusses pre-Darwin theories of evolution, as well as Charles Darwin’s theory.  It also gives a brief biography of Darwin, and as the title implies evidence to support his theory.  The second section, “The greatest story ever told” presents the history of life on earth, including the most recent discoveries.  Mr. Pallen also discusses some of the current controversies between scientists.  The final section, “Impact” unsurprisingly explains the impact Darwin’s theory has had on an array of related and unrelated sciences.  The chapters on politics and religion discuss the recent court battles with proponents of Intelligent Design, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and evolution in pop culture, amongst other things.

This book is definitely not for anyone who majored in biology in college.  Mr. Pallen, a Professor of Microbial Genomics at the University of Birmingham, offers evolution for the non-specialist and manages to explain everything in a manner that is easy to understand.  If you have a hazy grasp on Mr. Darwin’s theory or if you have spent your life believing the world was created in seven days give this book a read.

I received this book from the Libray Thing Early Reviewer program.

 

The Lost Throne by Chris Kuzneski

The Lost Throne by Chris Kuzneski.

512 pages

ISBN 978-0-399-15582-6

Release date: July 23, 2009

Jonathan Payne and D.J. Jones are former members of a top secret American military unit.  A request for help sends them to Russia to save Allison Taylor whose employer has been murdered.  Payne, Jones, and Taylor then pick up her murdered boss’ pursuit of an ancient treasure.  Meanwhile, Nick Dial, Chief of the Interpol Homicide Division, is investigating the brutal murders of seven monks in Greece.  No routine murders these, it is soon revealed they were committed by men dressed and armed as ancient Spartans.  Payne, Jones, and Taylor follow the clues that eventually lead them to Greece, where Dial and his assistant Marcus Andropoulos follow their own clues in an attempt to solve the murders of the monks.

I have been trying to find a book like The Da Vinci Code, except one that’s good.  I like the idea of searching for lost treasures but I haven’t had much luck so far.  I had high hopes for The Lost Throne even though I dislike the use of “top secret” military units and the idea of anyone form Interpol actually heading a murder investigation makes me laugh.  I was also willing to overlook 21^st Century Greeks, who had maintained ancient Spartan customs and traditions, so perhaps my high hopes were misplaced.  Mystery writer James O. Born provided a blurb for the back cover which reads, in part, “Part Tom Clancy, part Dan Brown”, considering my opinion of The Teeth of the Tiger and The Da Vinci Code maybe I should have known better.

In spite of these concerns I enjoyed the book right up until Chapter 70, at which point I lost all hope and considered throwing the book across the room.  I don’t wish to give away what happened since some readers may enjoy the book and I don’t wish to spoil it.  It’s enough to say that there was a most unbelievable coincidence.

If you enjoyed The Teeth of the Tiger and The Da Vinci Code this is probably a book for you.  If you didn’t like them, look elsewhere and if you find a good thriller with a hunt for ancient treasure thrown in, let me know.

I received a review copy of this book from G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

 

Death Piled Hard: A Tale of the Confederate Secret Services by W. Patrick Lang

Death Piled Hard: A Tale of the Confederate Secret Services by W. Patrick Lang is the sequel to The Butcher’s Cleaver and begins shortly after the Battle of Gettysburg, presumably where the previous book left off. The reader follows Claude Devereux as he brings the body of his brother home from the war. Devereux is an officer in the Federal army, assigned to Secretary of War Stanton, and a confident of President Lincoln. Unbeknownst to the Federal high command, Devereux is actually a member of the Confederate Secret Service and is gathering information on Federal war plans.

Devereux’s cousin, Major John Balthazar of the French Army soon comes to Washington and with Devereux’s assistance secretly crosses the line into the Confederacy as an official observer of the French government.

After the Battle of Rappahannock Station, Balthazar is given command of a Confederate battalion. The story continues through the Overland Campaign, following Balthazar and Devereux, who has made his way to Grant’s Headquarters.

In spite of the book’s subtitle, this is mostly a story about Balthazar’s battalion and its combat actions. Unfortunately, I did not find the combat descriptions as gripping as I might have. This was especially true of the description of the fighting at the Mule Shoe, during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House where some of the most savage fighting of the war occurred. I do not think the author was able to properly portray the intensity of the fighting there. This was better portrayed in Donald McCaig’s Jacob’s Ladder.

For the most part, I liked the characterizations and the dialogue, however it did not seem like the story was going anywhere. The reader followed Balthazar and Devereux through the Overland Campaign and things happened but there did not seem to be any focus, perhaps this is due to the book being the middle book of three. It should be noted that I have not read The Butcher’s Cleaver. However, I thought Mr. Lang did a good job of summarizing the previous book throughout so that this book could be read on its own.

Even with the minimal plot, I was still enjoying the book until about the last 50 pages. At that point, the author shifted the focus of the story to a new location and introduced a slew of new characters that were at most tangentially related to the other characters in the book. Balthazar and Devereux disappeared until the final four pages where a presumed third book was set up.

I do not believe I will be making any effort to find the next book in this series.

I received a review copy of this book from Rosemont books.

 

The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist’s Memoir of Death and Redemption

Kamal Saleem was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1958. At the age of seven, he was recruited by the Muslim Brotherhood and soon after joined Fatah, the largest faction of the PLO. His book The Blood of Lambs: A Former Terrorist’s Memoir of Death and Redemption alternates between the story of his youth as a member of Fatah and his present day actions.

At seven, he began smuggling weapons into Israel and soon moved on to combat missions. He participated in extortions, kidnappings, bombings, murders, and the usual terrorist activities as he moved up in the Fatah ranks. At the age of 16, he went to Libya for advanced terror training in one of Muammar Gaddafi’s training camps. He returned home just prior to the start of the Lebanese civil war and spent several years fighting along the Beirut’s Green Line. He was eventually sent to Saudi Arabia to raise money for the PLO, which he was apparently very successful at, collecting large donations from wealthy oil Sheikhs. He returned to Lebanon and was involved in a mission to steal SA-7 SAMs from Syria; once they were stolen, he helped transport them into Afghanistan for use against the Soviets. While in Afghanistan Mr. Saleem shot down a Soviet bomber with one of the SA-7s. In 1981, he came to the United States in an effort to radicalize American Muslims, which he continued to do until 1985. In 1985, he was involved in a serious auto accident and broke two vertebrae in his neck. After spending a week in the hospital, his doctor asked him if he would like to continue his recovery at the doctor’s home. Mr. Saleem agreed and moved in with the doctor’s family while he continued to heal. By 1990, he had converted to Christianity and married an American woman. He never told her or anyone about his terrorist past. In 2004, he decided he needed to speak out about the dangers of radical Islam and its ties to terrorism.

Intermixed with the above story are incidents that occurred during his speaking tour in 2007-2008. Most of the incidents involve threats of some sort made against him or his family.

In the first chapter, Mr. Saleem describes an incident that occurred in Chino, California in 2007. I have been in law enforcement for almost 20 years, so I know a little about security and I have a hard time believing the event he described actually happened or at least happened as he described. This caused me to question the truthfulness of everything that came after. All of the events Mr. Saleem describes could have happened and they all could have happened to him but his first chapter makes me wonder. With this in mind, I question how Mr. Saleem could have risen so high in Fatah at such a young age and how he managed to be involved in so many different actions in such a short time.

While I questioned Mr. Saleem’s trustworthiness, I thought the story was well told and it kept me interested. Right up to the point where he moved in with the doctor’s family. While, I found it unlikely that such an event would occur, what really got me was the doctor’s explanation for the offer, “We just want to show you the love of God”. I read that and said; “You have got to be kidding” however it got worse. The scene describing the doctor’s children meeting Mr. Saleem sounded like a scene with Rod and Todd Flanders from The Simpsons. Moreover, to finish it off, god spoke to him.

Mr. Saleem mentions in his book that critics have accused him of fabricating his story, alleging he was never a terrorist, nor a Muslim. The supposed purpose of this is to discredit his warnings about radical Islam. I think his warnings are valid, but I don’t know if his story is.

This book was received from the Library Thing Early Reviewer program.

 

The Best Friend I Ever Had

At least a billion words have been written by or about Ernest Hemingway, there are books about pretty much everywhere he ever lived or visited.  While it would seem that there is no more to be written about the man or his work, new books continue to be written; among them is The Best Friend I Ever Had: Revelations about Ernest Hemingway from those who knew him.

by David Nuffer.  Mr. Nuffer has a fascination with Mr. Hemingway; of the billion words he owns about 24 million of them and he has visited most, if not all of Mr. Hemingway’s former homes.  In his book, Mr. Nuffer documents discussions, interviews, meetings, and letters from and with ten people who knew Mr. Hemingway at one point or another during his life.  They include family and friends, including his last wife, Mary Hemingway, and one of his sons, Patrick Hemingway.  The book is divided into eight chapters, each one devoted to one of the ten people, with two being married couples who share a chapter.  Most of the people had a seemingly limited amount of contact with Mr. Hemingway and could only shed light on the small part of his life they were involved in.

I have read a few of Mr. Hemingway’s novels and short stories but I know very little about him.  I know the basic things that I assume everyone knows about him.  He committed suicide in Idaho, and he lived in Cuba and Key West (I’ve been to the Key West house), he hunted big game in Africa, and he had some involvement in the Spanish Civil War; other that that I don’t know much about him.   While that does not present a problem in my day to day life, it did when reading this book.  Most of what’s in it could probably best be defined as minutiae, of possible interest to those with great interest in Mr. Hemingway’s life but not to the common reading.

The Best Friend I Ever Had was really the story of Mr. Nuffer’s fascination with Mr. Hemingway rather then a story about the man himself.  Mr. Nuffer has an obvious passion for the subject, but to quote Mr. Hemingway, “[I] did not have enough background knowledge to appreciate the book.”

I received this book as an ARC and would like to thank Mr. Nuffer for it.

 

An American Family in World War II by Ralph Minker, Sandra O’Connell, and Harry Butowsky

Captain Ralph Minker was a bomber pilot in Europe during WW II. He and his family kept all of the letters they wrote from the time he left for training until he came home from the war, about 800. An American Family in World War II contains about 200 of them from and to his parents and two younger sisters. The letters are in chronological order with editorial notes in between commenting on world affairs or clarifying some point in the letter. I find it amazing that all of these letters have survived. I hoped there would be some interesting information here.

Unfortunately there was not. Most of the letters contain mundane information about his sister’s math test or the performance of the high school football team. While I’m sure the letters were important to the senders and recipients I can’t say the same for me. Minker does discuss some of his training, but even that is not overly interesting. I held out hopes that when he went overseas the letters would become more interesting. About three quarters through he gets sent to England but due to war time censorship his letters actually became less interesting. The editors did include a paragraph description of each mission though.

I did note one interesting thing, one of Minker’s sisters wrote that she was concerned about being able to get into college. Apparently many more women were going to college since they were now able to afford it. They had gotten jobs that would not have been open to them without the war and now had more money. Something I’d never thought of.

I can only recommend this book to anyone that has a serious interest in the WW II home front or enjoys reading other people’s mail.

 

Joker One

Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhood
by Donovan Campbell
March 10, 2009
Random House
336 pages

In March 2004, 2nd Lieutenant Donovan Campbell and the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment (2/4) were shipped to Ramadi, Iraq for a six-month deployment. Lieutenant Campbell commanded the 1st Platoon of G (Golf) Company also known as Joker One. Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and Brotherhoodis the title of the first book by Donovan Campbell. Mr. Campbell describes his first days with Golf Company and the training he and his Marines went through prior to their deployment.

The bulk of the book details life in Ramadi for Joker One. Six months of constant patrolling, guarding and searching, with an almost daily dose of combat. In the beginning Lt. Campbell believed in the mission, as time went on and the casualties mounted his primary concern became protecting his Marines. By the end, he had come to accept that his Marines were going to be hurt every time they left their compound.

Reading this book brings several questions to mind. The most important of which is why have American soldiers and Marines been sent to die in Iraq. A quote by Mr. Campbell seems to sum up the American experience in Iraq, “…every decision that we made in this crazy country always seemed a difficult choice between bad and worse and that nothing ever turned out quite the way we hoped.” (201)

Lt. Campbell and his Marines volunteered to go to war and they suffered physical and psychological trauma because of it. They performed heroic deeds while attempting to stabilize a country that did not want them there. We sound not allow our young men to suffer such injuries for trivial causes. It should only be in cases of true national emergency or actual national defense that we ask this of them rather then to make some small point foreign policy point.

Before America’s leaders decide to send American troops to impose their particular vision of how the world should be, they should read the story of Joker One. American soldiers and Marines are not pawns on a chessboard and should not be treated as such. Donovan Campbell and his Marines are probably better then we, as Americans, deserve.

If you have any interest in the American military or small unit actions in the war in Iraq I would recommend this book. This review is based on an advance copy.

 

The Great American Crime Decline

During the 1990’s the United States saw an unprecedented decrease in crime.  Nationwide there was an approximately 40% decrease in all seven of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) categories.  Police departments across the nation have taken credit for the decreasing crime in their jurisdictions and scholars of various disciplines have tried to find their own answers for the decline.  In The Great American Crime Decline, Professor Franklin E. Zimring, of the University of California, Berkley, School of Law, has summarized the most popular explanations in an attempt to determine what really happened and why.

Professor Zimring looked at six widely held explanations for the crime decline.  These were divided into two categories.  The first contains factors that have long been used to explain crime increases and decreases – incarceration, demography, and economic conditions.  The second are those explanations which were created in a specific attempt to explain the events of the 1990s.

The first category was ideally situated to explain the crime decreases of the 1990s.  Incarceration rates were at an all time high, the percentage of population made up of high-crime aged youths had dropped, and the economy continually expanded during the ‘90s.  Even though common sense might tell you that these were good explanations of the crime decrease, Professor Zimring does not entirely agree.

Professor Zimring found possible causes for some of the ‘90s crime decline amongst the above explanations.  However, it only amounted to between 15% and 50% of the decline, depending on which studies you agree with.  I would tend to agree with the low number just to be on the safe side, but for the sake of argument I will split it down the middle and go with 32%.  That still leaves a major portion of the decline to be explained by the second category, explanations that were created after the decline because they fit the results.  The three theorized causes in the second category were police, the decline of crack cocaine, and the increased access to abortion.

Professor Zimring has shown that none of the explanations offered served to explain the over 40% crime decline during the 1990s.  This has not stopped government, police departments in particular from claiming their actions were responsible. A large portion of the decrease was probably the consequence of cyclical forces beyond the existing ability of social science to explain.

If you have an interest in policing or crime this is an interesting work.  If not you might find it a bit dull. It was a little heavy on the statistics but if you know what a regression is you’ll be OK, if you don’t you’ll probably be OK you just need to gloss over a few parts.  I found one of the most interesting parts to be the refutation of Steven Levitt’s theory, which he put forth in Freakonomics, that Roe v Wade was responsible for the ’90’s crime decrease.