Professor Joseph Ellis tells the story of the founding of the US through the deaths of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. He details the political struggles and backstories of the events, explaining the turmoil and disagreements on many of the issues, including the issue of slavery.
This is a should-hear series of lectures for all adults in the US. It provides a good basis for understanding our constitution and the founding fathers.
This book tells the story of a West Virginia mining town being transported into the year 1632. The story is about the clash of cultures, mostly in how the locals react to the American philosophy and technology.
The Americans immediately decide to impose democratic and egalitarian philosophies on the locals, who take to it rapidly.
This should make for a great story. But there are many shortcomings.
First, the writing is fairly weak. The author has no idea how to tell a backstory. I almost gave up on the book within the first 20 pages. For example, when he introduced one of the characters early in the book, he provides a decent description, then provides the backstory in a short paragraph:
"So, Doc. Did the judge give you a choice? Between the Army and the Marines, I mean."
Most of that was never explained in the book.
Often, when describing an action, he’ll switch between describing events in process and describing them after the fact. It is somewhat unsettling, and would be more interesting if he stuck with the present.
His segues often consist of a comment by one of the characters that is extremely out of place. A lot of the dialog feels awkward or forced.
The locals are far too accepting of the Americans and the Americans are far too ready to come to consensus in their decisions. There is almost no internal conflict. Their skill set is far too broad for a mining town and they seem to figure things out too quickly. Some of the characters are a bit over the top.
Generally, all conflicts in the book are resolved within a few pages, except for military conflicts which can carry out for a while. He misses numerous opportunities to have issues build tension and develop characters. He introduces major characters in the book who take on backstage roles. Some could have been major characters providing a lot of tension and interest.
The pacing of the book is fairly fast. It is more of an action book than science fiction. But the pacing doesn’t vary enough. Almost the entire book runs at this same pace.
On the positive side, the pacing is good, not too fast, and the story is interesting.
The history is good. This is an interesting and pivotal time in history, one we should know more about. With the inquisitions going across Europe and the thirty-years war, there is a lot to be involved in. These are some of the events that led people to cross the Atlantic for the Americas, now the Americas have come to Europe.
I did enjoy the book, but was sorely disappointed because it could easily have been so much more. If you enjoy alternate history and can put up with the weak writing style, you will probably enjoy this book.
This is a lecture series on three wars that shaped the world’s history. We are familiar with them, but few know much about them. These are the Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War, and the Punic Wars.
Professor Shutt goes into the events leading to each war, motivations and politics, then discusses details of a few select battles. He covers the ongoing politics during the wars to give you a feeling of what was going on off the battlefields.
I can’t say that Prof. Shutt is the best of lectors, but the information is very interesting and I enjoyed the series.
This is one of the Great Courses CD sets covering the history of Jazz. It is a good history starting from Cakewalks, an early black form of music combining some African and some European elements. This grew to Ragtime, and ultimately to a variety of forms of Jazz.
One CD is devoted to each style. The discussion covers how it evolved, what elements are unique and what characterizes the style, and how it came to be replaced. There are many music samples and the speaker includes comments on music theory.
The series is full of information and very enjoyable. And it goes fast.
A lot of CEOs are writing books these days. They usually proclaim their brilliance at seizing opportunity, but don’t convey much useful information in their books. This one is different.
From the beginning, we can see Ed Catmull as a different person. With a Ph.D. in computer science, he has been a pioneer in computer graphics. Having a personal goal of creating a full-length animated movie, he founded Pixar. Although the book details the events of Pixar, Disney, and Ed’s interactions with Jobs, the book is really about how the successes occurred.
The authors focus on how the maintained a creative environment and even enhanced it. This is repeated throughout the book. When they arrived at Disney, they managed to enhance a team that had lost its creative abilities, this without throwing the group in turmoil and while maintaining morale.
The book includes a short synopsis of Steve Jobs and known by the workers in Pixar, then concludes with an afterword that includes ideas on managing creative teams.
Symmetry has two points of focus. One is the symmetry in nature and its relationship to mathematics. Second is the history of mathematical symmetry and the people behind the exploration.
The mathematics is expressed in simple terms, the only equations are simple that anyone can recognize, a few diagrams, and the digits of large numbers. Much is in the descriptions of bizarre objects in muti-, as in more than 20, dimensional space. The author describes them in terms of their numbers of symmetry, no imagery is required.
The main issues with the book are it can be redundant and slow. I felt some of the historical stories on people should have been left out or shortened.
On the positive side, it flows well and is easy to read. It does a good job of tying different areas of math together, and it does mention by name a few more complex topics as he covers them. I think the book would have done better by providing more math, since that was the focus of the book, it feels like an important part was omitted.
If you have an interest in math, you will probably find the book of interest. Otherwise I’d pass it up.
This is a collection of after-action reports more than a treatise on military tactics or a history of WWI or of Rommel. As such, it is interesting and insightful. It characterizes the conditions of WWI and gives a good taste of what the war may have been like, differing from the visions we have as provided by Hollywood.
Although sometimes billed as a bio of Rommel, it does nothing to portray his life. It does show is genius and daring on the battlefield. It does portray him as a leader, demonstrating how he can act in adversity, how he can make successful command decisions on impulse. How he managed to develop units that outperform all others.
I wish it went into more personal detail. It isn’t clear whether he developed good men, found them, or got them by chance. The book is an accurate military portrayal of events, but doesn’t discuss the interpersonal relationships developed, how he inspired his men, or gained the respect of his superiors.
I can recommend this for people interested in military history, or in Rommel himself. There are better works on World War I.
This book tells the history of the Republic of Texas as seen through the backdrop of the Mier Expedition. There is much to this story that we aren’t taught and never learn. It was a time full of turmoil with a lot of politics that molded the Republic’s history.
The book starts just prior to the Somervell expedition to explain why the Mier expedition happened. The story continues to the return of all but one of the Mier prisoners, at a time when the Republic’s joining the US was all but certain.
Sam Houston played a dominant roll in the book, and is portrayed as a level-headed, although very political player. He was restrained, and tried to avoid conflict with Mexico, a fight he felt Texas could not afford nor could win. Texas was in debt, and did not have a standing in the world that enabled her to borrow. Fortunately, Mexico was not in better shape, trying to keep many rebellious states in line and having its own monetary shortfall, and a Congress that did not support the military as Santa Anna desired.
Untold events that played major roles in the history include Thomas Jefferson Green, who captured Santa Anna for his own prestige and violated the peace treaty won at San Jacinto. This lead to Santa Anna’s authorized raids on San Antonio, trying to provoke Texas.
Sam Houston tried to keep Texas out of the war in spite of a vast majority of Texans wanting to invade Mexico. He assigned an inexperienced politician to lead the army, then tied it up sitting, or moving in unproductive manners to encourage defections.
Texas was full of individuals and adventurers. These people could not train effectively, they could not follow orders, and were prone to acting on impulse. Sam Houston was fighting an uphill battle to keep Texas out of a war, and treated the Mier soldiers as independent, he would not work to have the prisoners released. This provided fodder to his political enemies.
Sam Houston played England, the US, and Mexico against each other, each wanted Texas as part of its territory. He skillfully manipulated each to achieve his goal of Texas becoming part of the US.
In the end, the prisoners were released, with help from an English ambassador. Although forgotten by most Texans, they were eventually rewarded with back pay as soldiers of Texas, thus being officially recognized.
This is a great book for anyone even slightly interested in Texas history or politics. The turmoil and politics of the time are portrayed well.
Ultimately, this is the story of Operation Mincemeat, an effort to misdirect the Germans about the D-Day invasion. More-so, it is the story of the evolution and development of the English spy network from the first spy’s involvement through the operation and beyond the end of the war. The book includes information from interrogations after the war and follows up on the lives of the spies when the war ended and they returned to somewhat normal lives.
Information for the book includes data that was declassified not too long prior to the book’s writing, although it was implied that some related information was not declassified. This information was supplemented from written accounts by the spies and from what their relatives could supply. In some cases, information taken from the spies personal diaries was included, the author was good to note when this occurred allowing the reader to judge its value. The sources make some of the stories likely subject to embellishments, the author acknowledges this is a few points. Overall, I didn’t feel the way the stories were told gave much opportunity for embellishment or other deviations from the facts, although many of these facts are weak, themselves. The book did seem to make the German intelligence seem inadequate at best and largely incompetent.
The book maintains a very fast pace. Characters are introduced and events happen too quickly, I have difficulty keeping everything straight. The author could easily have added a lot of extra material, but it may have become several volumes rather than a single book.
If you have any interest in this portion of WWII history, this book is a good read.
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