Expansion Books

This is indeed a book full of history and tidbits that add to our current historical knowledge. I think that for the non-historian, it is difficult to read all of the notes at the end of each letter (usually longer notes than the letters themselves). I would love to see this book with many of the obscure notes removed and just the very important historical facts included to help explain what is being written about. I am loving learning about Lewis and Clark, but this book was more difficult than most.

James Holmberg has done an excellent job of providing new insight into the Clark family, in particular the relationship between William and his eldest brother by twenty years, Jonathan. ALthough the basis of the book is a set of letters that were uncovered just a few years ago, the information is a fresh look at the Clark we normally view as being part of the word "LewisandClark".
The Journals of Lewis and Clark can tell you a lot about how he acts when he is in a business or military setting, but these intimate letters that he wrote to his brother show that William was a much deeper man that just an explorer. He truly looked up to his brother, and because they lived 200 years ago, that relationship is often lost, especially in since published Clark or Expeditionemorbelia. This is a wonderful book, and if you are trying to get a better persepective of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, this book is a must read to better understand the man that became famous.

Mr. Holmberg's new forthcoming edition of letters discovered
in an old Louisville, Kentucky estate some two decades ago
will shed new light on many long unanswered questions regarding the life of William Clark, of Lewis and Clark Expedition fame.
Aside from being an archivist at Kentucky's prestigious Filson
Club which holds its own substantial William Clark collection,
Holmberg is himself an expert Lewis and Clark enthusiast who brings passion, intelligence, clarity and understanding to interpretation of these significant letters. I have been privileged to hear the lectures of Mr. Holmberg at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lewis and Clark Training Academies, and without a doubt this book and its letters give valuable
insight into the life of York, William Clark's slave and
fellow expedition member, the winter at Fort Mandan, William Clark's relationship with his wife, Julia, and his ongoing honest and open, although often grossly misspelled, literary discourse with his brother Jonathan. Readers of Ambrose's UNDAUNTED COURAGE will revel in this book as it gives further insight into the character of William Clark, who often gets
far less press coverage than the colorful figure of
Meriwether Lewis. Every Lewis and Clark enthusiast should
be sitting on the front porch swing awaiting the VERY MOMENT when the mailman delivers this upcoming Amazon offering. The fact that these unknown letters survived AT ALL is amazing. The added scholarship and editing added to the project by
one so respected in the field as Jim Holmberg makes the prospect of this literary work almost too grand to imagine.

Discovery of the letters of William Clark is as significant
as finding an undiscovered portrait of Lincoln. We knew the
man before the discovery, but now we will know him better!

This is the kind of book cherished by all lovers of frontier history--historical researchers and genealogists, as well as those who simply love to read about it. Not just a book of letters, but a lusciously annotated treasure chest of biographical information, and not just on the Clarks, but on the frame of frontier history which surrounded them.

The insights on William Clark and York are indeed interesting, but biographical sketches in the notes reveal arcane facts on Daniel Boone, General James Wilkinson, Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and many others less known but equally interesting. Mr. Holmberg sometimes indulges in speculation and tentative assertions, but the demarcation between fact and inference is always clear.

The work is handsomely constructed, the font easy to read, the notes easy to follow. A complete bibliography is provided along with a complete index. All and all, a pleasure to peruse, a delight to own.

The Upside:

You don't have to buy and paint dozens of minitures, which means more time for adventure planning (or, better yet...HALO). These minis are light, pretty resilant, and give you a wide spectrum of monsters/NPCs to challenge your PCs with. Personally, I've always hated painting minis (mostly because I have better things to do) ...so this makes combat tons easier.

The Downside:

You don't get to choose what you get when you buy a box. They come packaged randomly, so what you "don't see" is what you get. Also, some of the minis aren't painted nearly as nicely as seen on the posters or in the mini handbook. But, if you want 'finely painted minis', you wouldn't be buying plastic.

Overall:

For the money, they're an okay deal (hence, the four stars). Were they less expensive (about $5.00 a box), they would have gotten 5 stars.

This release comes only two months after the release of the base D&D Miniature set called Harbinger. The total figure count for Dragoneye is a bit lower at 60 (Harbinger has 80), so it's a bit easier to collect a whole set. Each box typically has 4 commons, 3 uncommons and 1 rare. I think the total numbers are 20 rares, 24 uncommons and 16 commons, but I'm not 100% positive.

This set introduces Dragons to the D&D Miniature line. You have 5 regular dragons (Red, Brass (might be Bronze), Black, White and Blue), several Half-Dragons (Gold Champion and Silver Sorcerer), Dragon Samurai (Samurai that pattern themselves after a Dragon, in this case Red and Copper) and a few Draconian from the Dragonlance series. The larger dragons and half-dragons are rare, the smaller white dragon, blue dragon, samurai and Kapak Draconian are uncommon, and the Baaz draconian is common.

While Harbinger had a lot of Orcs, this set has Goblinoids -- two goblins, a hobgoblin and a bugbear miniature are all common in this set. There are more Drow and Orcs to expand the group you can get in Harbinger. One surprise is that there are no undead figures in this set, which is probably a good thing considering the large number of undead in Harbinger.

The overall figures have improved from Harbinger. The Black Dragon is wonderful, the Red Dragon is very imposing for a Large figure, and many of the uncommons look better than the rares of the prior set. There are still some poor figures; the new kobold isn't nearly as detailed as the Harbinger set, the Goblin Skirmisher looks a bit like a pole-vaulting leprechaun, the white dragon sometimes looks like it was painted with a vial of white-out, and the Abyssal Maw has been described elsewhere as the Absymal Maw.

I still think it's a good buy. The D&D Statistic cards and prepainted nature can really save time for a busy DM. I've only played the Skirmish game a handful of times, but it seems to be a fast version of a D&D combat. The point costs seem mostly balanced, but I really don't have enough experience to fully judge it.

With nearly a full set of both Dragoneye and Harbinger, I've been forced to buy a tacklebox to carry around the figures -- it's a great way to transport them. (You don't have to worry about bending them out of shape like a metal miniature collection -- a nice bonus for the DM on the go! :) ) I don't think these figures replace metal miniatures, but I do think they augment them -- prepainted hordes fight against your well-painted PCs.

I'm already looking forward to the next set.

One thing I've always disliked about miniture games is the building process... fun in small quantities, but when you want to get a large quantity together, built, painted, etc....it becomes discouraging. These figured are not only pre-painted they are also plastic molded (much lighter and easier to store without damaging them) and designed for use in all D20 games. They also include a card with both the "official" mass-combat rules and a complete set of stats for use in Dungeons and Dragons (including spells, equipment, magical items...even a challenge rating).

Downside--$10 for 8 figures that you can't pick out before hand. Still cheaper than most figure sets, but it still works enough for me to buy several boxes (I've got two Red and three Brass dragons already).

I recommend it for D&D gamers. Wargamers only if you don't mind buying a ton of boxes to get what you want.

The Dragoneye Expansion is a great addition to the D&D world.
This set introduces Dragons to the D&D minaitures Game.

I found the sculpts and paint jobs to be superior to those in the earlier Harbinger release and this as sign of good thing to come.

I don't love random packaging, but it dose have it's advantages, and I've learned to live with it.
It allows retailers to carry the product with less fear of less popular models colecting dust and costing them money.
It allows for singluar packaging design, and random allotment on the maufacturing end.
It allows the Customer to get 8 FULLY PAINTED plastic miniatures for the price of 2-3 of their unpainted, unassembled, metal counterparts.
Also since plastic is cheaper than tin/pewter the figures tend to be larger and more robustly sculpted.

Personally the convenience of them being prepainted alone is incentive enough for me.

Painting miniatures is a hobby in itself and not one we all have the time to indulge in. It comes down to getting 7 attractive painted figures or 2-3 I'll never get around to painting myslef.

It's worth noting that the miniatures come with dual stat cards for each figure. D&D Miniatures skirmish rules and D$D 3.5 stats on the other side.

The cards are valuable enough that they could be a product by themselves and their value should not be understated.
(TSR actually sold a simlar product for AD&D 1st Ed)

I read this book for the first time about ten years ago. On re-reading it, I experienced the same general mood I remembered from the first time around: sadness.

When the men in the Corps of Discovery returned to St. Louis after their two-and-a-half year journey to the Pacific Northwest, they were amply rewarded, with money and land, by a gushing Congress. All of them but one, that is. York, William Clark's slave, had traveled with all the rest of the men. He's mentioned occasionally in the journals written by some of the expedition's members (not the least of whom are Lewis and Clark). He pulled his weight in the physical toil of the journey; he appears to have been a good hunter; his blackness, a fascinating novelty to a few of the Indian tribes the Corps encountered, seems to have been a cultural ice-breaker on at least one occasion; and he was accepted as a bona fide member by the other Corpsmen, given that there are no negative comments made of him by any of the journal writers and that he was given a vote equal to any other Corps member's on two separate occasions. Yet, on the Corps' return to civilization, York became invisible again: a man with no last name, a slave, a piece of property. Chattel.

So it is with the invisibles of history, the people who our cultural blindspots just won't allow us to see. For too many years, blacks and Indians have been the invisibles in US history. It's as if they never existed. They vanish without leaving a ripple on the pond, and this is incredibly sad.

That's why In Search of York is such an important book, because in it Robert Betts tried to overcome cultural blindness by painstakingly searching out and documenting as much information about York as he could. Needless to say, what emerges is more of a silhouette than a portrait. There simply isn't a lot of available information about York. But in the process, Betts (as well as James Holmberg, who ends the book with an historical essay on York) accomplishes two noteworthy things.

First, his research underscores the strangely schizophrenic relations between masters and slaves in antebellum America. York became Clark's servant when both were still boys. They grew up together, felt affection for one another, and served together on an adventure that could've only made them closer. But afterwards, back in proper society, Clark immediately reverted to the role of master, complained mightily that York had become surly and uppity, even daring to ask for his freedom, and didn't hesitate at all to hire York out to hard taskmasters as a form of punishment. Clark eventually did free York, but only a decade after the expedition. The strangeness of the relationship between York and Clark is not unrepresentative of the love/hate attitude many masters felt for their slaves. But it's still startling.

The second noteworthy feature of this book is Betts' exploration of how York (and, by implication, many other black Americans) was made invisible by caricature. In the novels and "history" texts about the Lewis and Clark expedition published during the first half of the 20th century, York is usually depicted in ways that conform to the racist stereotypes of the day. He comes across as thick-witted but jolly--your typical happy negro servant. He's portrayed as a randy stud who sired half-breed children with every Indian tribe the Corps encountered. Understandable but equally false are the latter revisionist attempts to transform York into a hero who was one of the expedition's most valuable members. There's absolutely no evidence for any of these portraits of York, negative or positive, and the real York drowns in them.

Robert Betts and James Holmberg have done more in this sad but enlightening book than shed some light on a specific historical invisible. They've also brought the cultural blindspots that creates invisibles to our attention, and in doing so have hopefully helped all of us to open our eyes just a bit wider.

I loved the way the author cleared the air on others who wrote about York in a negative way. The speculations about facts that are not known about York make a lot of sense. The footnotes alone were very informative. Great reading.

There's some good information about York on the web, but the best source is the biography In Search of York. This fascinating and well-illustrated book brings together all that is known of York. It is not only a great book about York, but one of the best books in the L&C literature.

This was the only book I could find about the slave who went to the Pacific with Lewis & Clark. It was published by Colorado Associated University Press in 1985. Exellent foundation for further research on York. very readable with good illustrations & footnotes.

La commemoration du bi-centenaire de la vente de la Louisane a pris fin, celle de l'expédition transcontinentale du Corps of Discovery (1804-1806) bat son plein, comme on peut facilement l'imaginer. Après la monumentale publication de la Nebraska University Press, édition « definitive » de l'intégralité des journaux de Meriwether Lewis et William Clark (sept volumes de la plume des deux capitaines, quatre volumes constitués des journaux parallèles de Gass, Floyd, Ordway, Whitehouse, plus l'herbarium et un atlas...treize volumes donc depuis 1983, le tout coordonné par Gary E. Moulton...), voici Lewis and Clark Trail Maps, A Cartographic Reconstruction. En trois tomes grand format, Martin Plamondon II met splendidement à profit ses doubles compétences de spécialiste de l'expédition et de cartographe chevronné. Ce qui nous vaut un travail exceptionnel, tant au niveau de son utilité scientifique et historique (et ce sur une multitude de plans...) qu'en ce qui concerne sa capacité à ré-alimenter le rêve. Les amateurs savent ce rêve là, qui semble devoir vous quitter un jour pour revenir un autre, parfois bien plus tard, toujours en un coin du vieux Missouri, quelque part entre la rivière Dubois (Wood River depuis longtemps) et les white cliffs au delà de la Roche Jaune, ou plus loin , dans les montagnes ou en vue du grand océan. En trois volumes donc, c'est l'intégralité du périple qui est cartographiée, jour après jour, à raison d'environ quatre centimètre pour un mile.Chaque campement, chaque particularité topologique référenciée dans les journaux, chaque rencontre...tout est là. Plamondon a effectué ici ce que Clark n'avait finalement pu réaliser : une véritable reconstruction géographique de l'expédition. Au delà de son rigoureux argument historico-géographique, l'ouvrage présente sur chaque page l'état actuel des lieux, en regard de ce que voyaient et expérimentaient les membres de l'expédition : le Missouri a bougé, son cours n'a cessé de changer ( déjà Lewis et Clark ne le reconnaissaient parfois plus entre le voyage aller et le voyage retours...), il est parfois noyé sous les retenues d'eau ( Fort Peck, pour n'en citer qu'une...). Bref, le pays a changé. On le savait, pour sûr. Là, on peut le voir maintenant, on peut le voir avant, surtout avant. Comme on l'imaginait, mais en fait comme on ne l'avait jamais vu. A suivre et resuivre, les Moulton d'un côté, ces trois atlas de l'autre. Bon rêve.

With this volume, Martin Plamondon has created a wonderful resource, fulfilling a dream of William Clark. Once you see this volume, you will wonder how you ever got along without it as a companion when reading the journals. The feature of showing dual footprints of riverbeds now and then is fascinating and the list of identified campsites is truly useful for following progress of the Corps of Discovery. Martin's love of, and dedication to this "little" project of his shows clearly throughout the volume. I can't wait for volumes 2 and 3 to complete the trail.

What an immense and high quality work! I never saw a comparable one. There are the maps, and in the maps quotations of the diaries of the explorers. You can exactly follow the route in word and maps. And underled the reconstructed maps you can see side for side a modern map, who allows to find your way today. The size of the maps is perfect, also the clear print. Everyone, who is interested in the Lewis and Clark expedition needs this books (vol I and II edited) and for a fruitful scientific work it is simply a must.
I can only say: Excellent and congratulations.

Everyone with any interest in Lewis and Clark shoul own this book, and the companion Volume 2.

I find it so much more interesting to read "The Journals of Lewis and Clark" (Moulton Edition) or Stephen Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage" with these books at my side. To be able to pore over them and see where the Corps of Discovery was is great fun.

Last year I taught a class on Explorers for 6th to 8th graders and we ended the year with five weeks of Lewis and Clark. They were fascinated by these maps and spent lots of time with them.

Absolutely fascinating book about the pioneers who went west, either for gold or a better life. Read most of it while camping in the Boundary Waters. Took author ten years of research. Was his doctoral dissertation. Pioneers were not as alone, nor Indians as bad, as history has made them. 1840 trip was much harder than 1860. Things really changed fast. One man drove 1500 turkeys west!

This is an excellent book for learning the intricate details of the Oregon Trail crossings. Mr. Unruh has obviously done his research.

The Plains Across is a remarkable book, a nearly unrevised dissertation that is nevertheless a thoroughly readable synthesis of the overland migration to the American West, 1840-1860. It's a pity that Unruh never had the chance to further rework this manuscript after so diligently honing his craft during the eight years of research and writing it took to complete his dissertation.

The least interesting chapters come first: long, pedestrian surveys of public opinion about the Trans-Mississippi West. More compelling is the chapter on emigrant-Indian interaction, which Unruh proves was considerably less violent and more mutually beneficial than the later myth of unremitting conflict suggests. Unruh's discussion of emigrant-Mormon relations is too apologetic for Mormon behavior, but the chapter nevertheless explains well why overlanders and Saints often came into conflict.

To my mind, the best chapters are the final ones that chronicle the significant assistance that overlanders received from the West Coast. Not only did earlier emigrants extend aid for its public relations value in the struggle to increase local populations, there was also a remarkable amount of pure humanitarian assistance, sometimes granted at considerable personal sacrifice. The last chapter, "The Overlanders in Historical Perspective," is a fine summary of the emigrant experience.

The Plains Across is now more than twenty-five years old, but it is still the standard history of the Trans-Mississippi migration. As one of Unruh's friends wrote, "It is sorrowful beyond expression that this book must stand as a posthumous memorial to [the author], rather than as the beginning of an outstanding professional career."

An exceptional in-depth study of the Oregon/California Emigrant Trail. Each chapter is thoroughly researched and written very well, with excerpts from the overlanders' journals and diaries, along with references from various newspapers throughout the country. The reader is first introduced to the political and social ramifications from the news media of the pros and cons of overland travel to Oregon and California. Next, Unruh unravels the "whys" as to the emigrants' desire to pursue such an endeavor, risking loss of everything, including possibly life itself. We also get a feel for how the overlanders got along with each other; their relations with Indians; the battles of overcoming hunger, thirst, cold, etc. There is also mention of private entrepreneurs along the trail who were trading and selling goods at exorbitant prices; the "white Indians" who were white men masqueraded as Indians taking advantage of the emigrants; the Mormon influence throughout the Salt Lake area, along with the "Winter Mormons" who were average non-Mormon emigrants wishing to overwinter in Salt Lake but subjected to cruel and unjust treatments. Then the federal goverment comes into the picture by improving roads, establishing forts along the way and implementing troops to guide and protect the overlanders to safety. We read detailed descriptions of how west coast assistance was a major factor in helping settlers make that final push into either Oregon or California. The book is totally amazing! A definite page turner. Even if one is not into Western U.S. history, this book will make one look at the hardships, perils and sacrifices these people overcame to establish a new life for themselves, families, friends and relatives.

This book is remarkable. It is very apparent that Mr. Morrison did his research well. A must read for any history buff.

It is apparent that Mr. Morrison spent many long hours slaving over this book. It is well written, interesting, and a must have for civil war buffs. I only wish Mr. Morrison would write more books. It's heartwarming to see that Mr. Morrison credits his parents Al & Joan Morrison, and his siblings - Chris, Nancy, Jim, and Tony with the fortitude, intellegence and support to get this book completed. Keep up the good work, Mr. Morrison. I want to read more of your books in the future!

An incredibly well researched, well written account of the causes of the American Civil War! It's actually worth the high price!!!

In his introduction the author tells us "this book examines the relationship between the territorial issue in the origins of the American Civil War. This story is familiar; this telling has not.... The debate between Democrats and Whigs over Texas in 1844 were based on economics and divided the parties along national lines. By 1860, the struggle over westward expansion and settlement issued in sectional arguments and a fragmented political system. This transformation is the story here and told.[p. 4]"

The expansionists quickly realized that the problem with moving the boundaries of this country westward was going to be slavery. And not so much slavery itself, but demagoguery, used by radicals on both sides to inadvertantly hinder the progress of the westward movement. The author quotes the extreme expansionist Thomas B. Stevenson, "it is not, I fear, either the actual status of the actual settlement of the slavery question that the antagonistic agitators really wish to effect. It is the use they can make of it as it exists."[p.1] The acquisition of Texas and the subsequent territory obtained through the Mexican War became the hobbyhorse of the extremists during the 1840s. The 1850s opened a decade of extreme agitation on both sides of the question of opening territory or closing it forever to the peculiarinstitution. "Republicans [the North] used slavery to define broadly remaining and limits of freedom not only within the North's free labor economy but, more important, within the nation's republican political state."[p. 167] In the South the European class system was extolled by some of the most radical proslavery elements. A major portion of the expansionist program was the example to be set by a union of the nation reaching from sea to sea. It is because the South felt so strongly toward the Union that states rights activists were compelled to remind their southern cohorts, "the Federal Union is not a god -- it is a human institution. So long as it answers the hands of its creation, it should be and will be carefully preserved. When it fails those ends, it should be discarded."[p. 184]

In 1856 James Buchanan, the second worst president this country has endured, entered the fray. Stephen A. Douglas, the famous Chicago politician of the Lincoln Douglas debates, decried the sectionalism of the Republicans. He maintained that the founding fathers, recognizing the diversity of economics and social institutions of the several states, and established a union of the fundamental right that every state could do as he pleased without his neighbors interfering. The Compromise of 1850, the Dred Scott decision by the Supreme Court, and the Kansas-Nebraska Act all reaffirmed the right of the state to settle its own local problems and decide what is best for its free existence. The Democratic Party attempted as far as possible to allow this operation. And Douglas, one of the major proponents of expansionism, defeated his own goal by not recognizing the importance of the slavery issue to the westward movement. Most people wanted a union as extended as possible, but half of them, not especially for humanitarian purposes but rather economic conditions, were dead set against the expansion of slavery into these areas, these new territories to be carved for the Empire.

The author goes on to state, "because secession had transformed the sectional conflict over the territories into an ominous controversy over the preservation of the Union, Republicans refuse to sustain the latter by conceding their principles on the former. It is a view that, the issue of 1860 -- 61 was 'not union or disunion; but new guarantees to slavery or disunion.'"[p. 274] this comment pretty much sums up what the author has said In the whole book. His promise in the introduction to connect expansionism and slavery can probably be written off as poetic enthusiasm. He writes a very good book combining the two subjects but offers nothing really new. Readers who are already acquainted with this period in our history won't find anything very new. Someone new to the field will find an excellent introduction to the general subject of slavery and its effect on the westward movement. It fails to separate the political, economic, social aspects of this time in American history.

I give this book 4 stars because it is well-written, well researched, and the author faces the same problem that we all do in writing on a time has been so well covered by so many for so long. The fifth star is withheld at the fault of the publisher. The format of the book and the text make it very difficult to read this book without strain I hope when a reissue the book is our hope that they will continuously something will be done to correct this fault.

Good introduction to digital audio, but not much help in trouble shooting.
A good reference for the price

For non-audiophiles this book answers a lot of questions and clears up a few mysteries about the Live!, multi-speaker setups, surround sound, Dolby Digital and DTS, and PC sound in general. Very will written, enjoyable to read. Even though we are now in the "Audigy era", Creative's retirement of their Live! 5.1 line in lieu of a slightly inferior budget Live! 5.1 card is rather premature and clearly business driven (ie, push the Audigy series), since I am convinced that a Live! 5.1 system meets and exceeds the needs of many (possibly most) PC users, gamers, and movie watchers, and will continue to do so for several years. Its a great card with a lot of power left in it and this book really does it justice. True Audigy-brandishing audiophiles will probably find nothing new here, although they might still find it interesting to read

The collaborative effort of website developer Lars Ahlzen and software engineer Clarence Song, The Sound Blaster Live! Book is a complete and through guide to the single most popular computer sound card on the current market. Individual chapters deftly address how to physically connect the Sound Blaster Live! hardware and peripherals, configuring the sound card to play games, creating a music library, connecting MIDI instruments, and much, much more. An accompanying CD-ROM contains music and audio files, sample sound clips, SoundFonts, and useful freeware ans shareware in this succinct and useful guide which is especially recommended for anyone with a keen interest in quality computer audio.

Although some information has become obsolete at the time of printing, much of the audio-engineering technology and concepts still applies.

The book is by as far I have seen, the best reading material for the uninitiated in exploiting the use of sound cards. It also serves as a good external reference for developers as well, as there seems to be a lack of them in this area.

Like Strict Evaluation pointed out, the book is "encyclopaedic". A topic such as EAX itself is worth writing the whole book about. The authors deserves credit for covering so much breadth and depth.

I look forward to coverage of these topics, if there's an upcoming Audigy version:
- Code samples for using EAX
- Prodikeys (that'll definitely be interesting)

When you read this book you can see a lot of research went into it. Makes all the difference. I really injoyed reading this book. Thanks Sus

The fact that Weldon Willis Rau is a geologist who has turned his talents to the writing of history lends a special flavor to his book, Surviving the Oregon Trail, 1852. Basing much of his work on the notes left by his great grandparents, Willis and Mary Ann Boatman, Rau gives us a gripping and factual story of the wagon trip west from Illinois to Oregon Territory in that pioneer time nearly a century and a half ago. The recounting begins with the sorrows of leaving home and parting from loved ones. The sad picture of an old grandfather, waving a tearful goodbye, knowing that he will never see his beloved young ones again, moves the reader to compassion. Children as well as adults are disturbed by the upheaval of unprecedented departure. The trek to the Missouri River was not easy, but was yet a rather civilized journey compared to what was to lie ahead. Crossing at about the site of present-day Omaha the Boatmans followed the Platte and the North Platte westward toward Wyoming. Sickness was the great affliction along the those river banks. Many of the westward travellers died, particularly of cholera. Along the way. Mary Ann Boatman's young brother was among those lost to disease. Wyoming and Idaho offered many hills to climb, streams to ford or ferry, steep slopes to descend, and scenic wonders new and remarkable to folks from Illinois. Water for all and grazing for the cows and draft oxen were often hard to find. Dust whirled up by the wheels of the wagons and the hooves of the animals choked all the travelers in various places. In Oregon the great gorge of the Columbia was a traverse not equalled elsewhere on earth. During the gorge trek Willis Boatman's brother, John, died, leaving Willis and a pregnant Mary Ann the only family members left in the trip. The two arrived in Portland exhausted and nearly broke. Weldon Rau tells this story with great feeling and understanding. His respect for his pioneeer ancestors is manifest. Clearly he has explored nearly the whole route his great grandparents travelled. And his explanations of the geology that formed these Oregon Trail lands adds greatly to the reader's undertanding. This book is a welcome addition to any library.

I have known the author for more than 30 years, so I have been aware of his 15-year effort to research, write, and publish this book as it unfolded. It is with pleasure, therefore, that I can attest to how well crafted it is. Rau tells the story of his great-grandparents' journey by employing extensive quotes from their written accounts and from the accounts of other 1852 Oregon Trail travelers. These quotes are woven together and amplified by Rau's observations of the physical, cultural, and social settings they experienced, including how the geology along the way influenced the development of the terrain. The book is also very well edited. I found but one typographical error and two place names missing from one map.

Besides being very well crafted, the book has left me with several strong impressions. The travelers, especially the men, approached the trip with a sense of romanticism. It was going to be a grand adventure with a pot of gold waiting at the end. A very different reality forced its way into their consciousness as the trip unfolded. The trip brought out all the best and worst traits of the travelers and those who sought to serve and usually profit from them along the way. They experienced disease, death, and discomfort. They and others suffered from cholera, scurvy, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Mary Ann and Willis' brothers both died on the trip, as did many others they met along the way. Mary Ann was pregnant for the whole trip and had to walk much of the way, in addition to performing the cooking and other housekeeping chores that fell to her. In addition there were extremes of weather, loneliness, homesickness, sorrow, grief, resignation, thievery, greed, and hardheadedness. These were balanced by bravery, resoluteness, kindness, compassion, neighborliness, concern, and assistance, sometimes from people they didn't even know. The journey had but three possible outcomes; they had to turn back and reach their former homes, get to the Willamette Valley, or die before winter hit. In some ways their journey can be compared with what the first interplanetary travelers will experience. Indeed, even after Willis and mary Ann reached the relative safety of the Willamette Valley and then the Puget Sound country, for years they felt as isolated and separated from their families as if they were on another planet.

If you have had no real appreciation for the magnitude of the feat that Oregon Trail travelers accomplished, you will have when you finish this book.

The amount of determination, courage and fortitude to travel the continent as an overlander in 1852 must have been unimaginable. This is a remarkable first hand account of the Boatman's journey from Illinois to the Oregon Territory, along with quotes from other overlanders' diaries during the same year. Suffering from the heat, thirst, food shortages for both emigrants and livestock, the cold, rain, mud, river crossings, cholera epidemics and other illnesses, exhaustion and death to many who attempted such an endeavor, this book has it all. The author, a decendent of the Boatmans, has put forth a most wonderful book depicting the hardships and misfortunes of the early day pioneers. A+

Now I know how we won the war.

You must read this to understand the way we won World War II.

Americans tend to suffer from a triumphalist sense of history: we won, so we did everything right. Davidson provides a needed corrective in showing how a bureaucratically savvy Admiral King outmaneuvered the passive General Marshall to build a navy far bigger than we needed and delayed the build-up of the army. Davidson's account is too objective and focused to take a stand on the implications of this Pentagon battle, but it seems very likely that World War II lasted longer than it might have done otherwise. Since the last year of the war saw huge territorial gains for Stalin and the deaths of a large proprtion of the victims of the holocaust, this book is a crucial reminder for all military staffers and budget planners that decisions made in the conference rooms translates into losses of blood and treasure whether one is victorious or not.

This is a tale of the bureaucratic battles surrounding the size and manning of the fleet leading into and during World War II -- battles the Navy won. It's dry in parts, filled with numbers and a repetitiveness from one "special study" to the next. One feels the bureaucracy. Still, it's an outstanding book.
It gives a sense of the difficulty of planning at the macro-level. How DOES one determine the right level of forces (the number and mix of warships, auxiliary ships, bases, and training and repair facilities, for example) for the Navy, and similar questions relative to the Army, Army Air Force, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps? How DOES one determine the manpower, industrial, and materiel capacity of the nation, intrinsic as well as import? How DOES one determine how to mobilize that capacity in a coherent way to optimize output? How DOES one then pull all of this together (diverse needs, capacity, and mobilization requirements), marry it up with coalition-based strategic war plans, and determine the right mix and schedule of force structure and production priorities to fight the largest war in history? What an awesome task!
Davidson shows that there was no small amount of confusion and groping in the dark as the services grappled with this, and that the process was heavily punctuated with inter-service rivalry, which was probably a necessary ingredient even at the Joint Staff level. The service chiefs did, after all, represent their services. He also shows how the nation's resources, while vast, were not unlimited; moreover, that we were tasking them to their limits. Even as late as 1943 we hadn't figured it out; that is, the JCS hadn't come to agreement. Competition between the services was the name of the game (a deliberate policy of General George C. Marshall). Competition also existed between the military and non-military sectors for manpower (for example, uniformed versus industrial manpower) and materiel (for example, the Navy versus the Merchant Marine). Congress had authorized higher military manpower levels than the nation could deliver (at least in some agencies' view), but it wouldn't substitute its judgment for that of the service chiefs.
I had not realized just how large our Navy was during the war. While they did trim their planned ship construction a bit, they always had the upper hand in the battle for resources. Their argument centered on the idea that the biggest, best equipped Army in the world was of little use if it couldn't deploy overseas. In fact, the Army itself realized it was limited in size, among other reasons, by the overseas deployment capacity of the Navy. For example, there were no new Army divisions activated after 1943, and Army recruitment in 1944 and 1945 was aimed at sustaining the force, not increasing it. On the other hand, the Navy, while it curtailed its shipbuilding some, still had a robust construction program through the end of the war and even into 1946. Another reason proffered by the Navy: rather than build to the minimum necessary to win the war, which could lead to longer duration and higher casualties and cost (a criticism advanced by some against the 90-division Army), the Navy focused on "rapid prosecution", which would lead to more and stronger offensives and thus to fewer casualties and less cost. These were the conclusions also of the Joint Strategic Survey Committee and the Joint Staff Planning Committee. Of course, because those committees had no staffs of their own, they had to rely on the service staffs for technical support.
There is a tremendous amount of detail in this book (albeit it could use a few organization charts to enable the reader to better follow the story). Much of our victory in World War II is attributable to our battles in foreign lands and seas. As Davidson shows, however, much of our victory is also attributable to the battles waged in the Pentagon and Congress. This is a most informative book and a "must read" for any student of World War II or of the US military in general.

This book is very diffeent if you like to think out of the box. It could be explaining a lot of things going on in our histry right now, or it could be a bunch of propaganda. The guy seems to know what he is talking about. There are 13 cases of mind control experimentation in the book and I feel sorry for a lot of these people. At the end there are some healing tactics and some other interesting things from his wife. The book is different and I guess thats what I like it. Stewart knows his stuff or he has one hell of an imagination.

I just finished this book and it's a fascinating read. I've read all of Stewart's books and they are all informative, but this one was completely amazing. If you don't know of Stewart Swerdlow's story and the work that he does, please start reading his books. America and the world need to wake up to the NWO plans....this is the only way we will survive.

I've read this book thirteen times already and I'm purely fascinated to read the thirteen different case scenarios written by the very person who is the subject of the case in their own words in a forward and honest manner. Stewart Swerdlow follows each with an analysis of the events and experiences of the person and explains the specific programming pertinent to the specific mind-controlled and programmed person. The 2nd-5th parts of the book further explains programming. I recommend this book for anyone who is looking for answers in understanding their strange experiences or that of someone they love.