Expansion Books

Robert A. Athearn spins an amazingly good yarn quite out of step with both the Hollywood version of Native American / Military relationships during the settlement of the American West as well as today's apologetic view of Native American / white relationships during that time. Sourced almost entirely from Sherman's and others official correspondence, Athearn drives home the important points that the settlement of the West revolved around four key issues: the railroads, continued Congressional reduction of Army personnel, the complete failure of the Interior Department in developing effective Indian policies and the polar opposite attitudes of frontier whites and their more civilized (safer) East and West coast fellow citizens.

This is a very well done review of one of the key participants who directly set a good portion of the Military policy that was pursued in dealing with Native Americans during this era. From Sherman's own writings we see an Army commander who was pragmatic, yet very evenhanded.

Very well written, this is an easy read that accurately reports Military policy in the West from 1865 - 1885. You will not be disappointed.

There are literally dozens of biographies on General William T. Sherman. But this is the only one, at least of which I am aware, that deals with the eighteen years of Sherman's military career AFTER the Civil War in any amount of detail. It is sad that such an important work as Sherman's in the West should be overlooked, but Robert G. Athearn attempts to correct this oversight with this work. Athearn's treatment of Sherman commences right after the Civil War, when Sherman became commander of the Division of the Missouri, and ends with Sherman's retirement. The book deals with Sherman's relations with the railroad, with his dealings with the press, and with how he treated the Indian question.

As stated, this book is not a biography of Sherman's whole life. Instead, it is a concise and detailed study of what Athearn considers the most important years of Sherman's professional life. It is Athearn's contention that, though he had been the hero of Atlanta and the march to the sea, Sherman's most important military contributions took place East of the Mississippi River. His argument, while perhaps not totally convincing, is nevertheless worthy of consideration. Sherman saw the importance of the intercontinental railroad and, as Athearn points out at some length, did all he could to help push that project along. He also devotes considerable space to Sherman's relations with the Indians.

This is a very good book. Sherman's part in the Indian Wars is often overlooked, but Athearn narrates the problems with the Native Americans through Sherman's eyes, and looks, in a sense, at a larger view of the problem. Throughout the book Athearn maintains objectivity, though it does seem his sympathies lie with the general. The only problem I have with this book is when Athearn tries to get inside his subject's head. Though it happens fairly often, this does not really detract from the book. Still, such statements as "Sherman must have felt that..." or "Sherman longed to be..." are annoying, and detract from the overall quality of the book.

This book is unique, and as such is a very valuable resource. I consider this book to be essential to any study of the life of Sherman, as well as essential to any student of the postwar Army or the Plains Indian Wars.

Probably most of what is here can be found on the internet.
Seems very dated.

I bought this book and "Hacking the Tivo, Second Edition". The two books cover a similar range of hacks and include Linux boot CDs. However there are key Series 2 hacks that are not covered in this book. For example, video extraction is a very valued hack. I want to transfer videos between my Series 2 Tivo and my PC.

"Hacking Tivo" backs away from this hack on Series Two claiming "legal reasons". Bah! "Hacking the Tivo, Second Edition" shows you how to do this and shows the likely reason why "Hacking Tivo" avoided it. It's harder! "Hacking the Tivo, Second Edition" is written by someone who loves every aspect of hacking the machine and it shows. Get this one instead.

First: the majority of the content is not compatible with the current TIVO system, series 2 *** I got SKUNKED!
Second: This book is really for someone with very strong technical skills, particularly a Unix background.

I am fairly technical with a Computer Science degree and would not attempt to do anything with this book and passed it to another fairly tech savvy friend and he gave it right back to me. There is a page or two that has cute shortcuts for the remote but you can get that info off a TIVO user group site. I regard this purchase as a total ripoff. I'll be happy to send you this book to you for $5 + shipping. email: funbeach6@yahoo.com

This really is not a book on Hacking Tivo, rather a book on "Hacking First Generation Tivo's." I have a series 2 DVR and expected to see some hacks that would prove worthwhile for my DVR, however there is little for owners of Tivos manufactured in the last two years. Very simple recommendation-if you have a first generation Tivo buy the book, otherwise pass.

The Tivo has spawned a dedicated fan base that speaks to both the power of the TV [including cable] and of TiVo's time shifting usefulness. Naturally, many fans quickly reached the limitations of a normal TiVo and have chafed at these. Now comes Keegan with this book on how to lift many constraints.

He explains several neat tricks. But perhaps the most useful is simply to increase the storage capacity. A default TiVo holds 14 hours at a basic quality of resolution. But a TiVo is really a special purpose computer. So just like you can add more disk space to a generic PC, so too can this be done to a TiVo. But there are many fine details that are specific to TiVo, and indeed to specific models. He gives you all the necessary help to build out your TiVo.

Why? In his experience, when you expand from 14 hours to 110 hour by adding an 80 Gb disk, there is a qualitative improvement in your usage. And this is for an 80 Gb disk. Keep in mind that as 200 Gb+ disks come on the market, you could potentially use his guidelines here to try installing those!

Some of you should appreciate this book.

The basic story is intriguing and very gripping, but is it the truth? The book could have been wonderful, but is seriously flawed. Snippets of tales appear haphazardly, making the reading of it less flowing - and on two instances the facts were contrary to basic knowledge of any 6th grade student in history:

1.) Andrew Jackson was not destined to be President in 1820. (He took office in 1829, I recall without looking it up.)

2.) Thomas Jefferson was not the 2nd President. (What ever happened to John Adams?)

When these obvious errors appeared, I thought perhaps the rest of the book was junk too, so why bother reading this.

I claim no special knowldge of Jefferson or General Wilkinson but I do when it comes to Zebulon Montgomery Pike. This book bristles with factual errors concerning this great American. The author apparently never visited Colorado or he would not claim that Pike never even saw the massif that was named for him. Pikes Peak can be seen for a hundred miles or more from the eastern prarie which was Pike's route along the Arkansas River. Pike wrote from South Park that he had continually seen what he called Grand Peak every day (except when he was in the valleys) for the past two months. The author claims that Pike only ascended some foothill when he attempted to climb what would become Pikes Peak, when the truth is he climbned Mt. Rosa, 11,499' which was the first recorded ascent of any mountain in the American West. Moreover, he was the first American, in the United States, to reach the Alpine Zone (11,400' in Colorado). Some foothill.
Pike was made a captain in November of 1806 while the author claims it happened in 1808.
Pike died a hero's death for his country in the Battle of York. The author all but calls him a traitor. He apparently thinks that this young man came to Colorado to start a war with Spain. He asks us to believe that he and his men knew the location of Sante Fe and ignores the fact that Pike did not turn south at Canon City Colorado which would take them there in a few weeks. Instead Pike led his men into the Rocky Mountain Winter to the north-west, away from Sante Fe.
The author insults such noted historians Steven Harding Hart and Archer B. Hulbert, Harvey Carter,Eugene Hollon, and Donald D. Jackson by claiming Pike has 'slipped beneath the notice of professional histonians.' He implies nothing but juvenile historians should deal with him further.
Zebulon Pike is the Viet-Nam Vet of our early explorers. He starved, and froze, and became exhaused for our country as a matter of course. He led his men in the field of battle and won the first victory in the War of 1812. He made a marine type landing in the face of well armed and alerted Brittish Regulars, malitia and pro-Brit Indians. The author says he had an easy victory over a few 'Canadians' who difended Fort York. Authors like Montgomery have given Pike scant credit for his many acompolishments. He even claims Pike was never within 100 miles of the Sante Fe Trail. Pike followed the Arkansas River from Great Bend Kansas to Canon City. The Sante Fe Trail follows the Arkansas River from Great Bend, Kansas all the way to Bent's Fort, near Las Animas, Colorado where it turns south to Raton Pass. Why not give him his due?
Pike's greatest accompolishment was not even mentioned in the book. Pike opened the eyes of America to what was going on in New Spain. Pike told America how the people were slaves to either Cross or Crown. He said their lives were regulated by the peal of the church bell or the rattle of the drum. He told how anxious the people of Mexico (northern New Spain) yearned for freedom and trade with America. Pike predicted the revolution of 1810 and said not one officer in a hundred was loyal to Madrid. Pike was the revealer who lived and died for his country and none of this is even mentioned. So many errors of fact and such a broad conclusion. As far as Pike is concerned much of this book should be in a novel, as it is not non-fiction.

The prinicple narrative thread in Montgomery's "Jefferson and the Gun-Men" is an irreverant account of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Do not expect "Heroic Explorers Contend Against the Wilderness"; rather, it is more like "Laurel and Hardy Go West". Although I would hesitate to take everything Montgomery states at face value -- I cannot but help think he was looking for drama, treachery, and sheer idiocy instead of straight history -- I do find his account useful in one primary regard: he interweaves in a chronologically straightforward manner the activities of not only Lewis and Clark but also of Zebulon Pike (if Lewis and Clark were Laurel and Hardy, then Pike in his view was something of a singlehanded Keystone Kop), Tom Jeffeson, Aaron Burr, and James Wilkinson (commanding general of the US Army and secretly a paid agent of Spain and a conspirator with Aaron Burr to invade Mexico or to set up the western US territories as a separate country or something -- in the end, Wilkinson betrayed Burr and became the chief witness against him in Burr's treason trial). Lewis and Clark's explorations, Pike's wanderings up the Mississippi and in the Southwest, Burr's schemes ... they are all intertwined. So, at a minimum Montgomery's book establishes a common timescale for events usually treated in isolation. But I would urge the reader to go beyond Montgomery's book to read other viewpoints about these men and their activities.

The first thing that grabs you about Montgomery's tome is his style -- his passages are witty, bordering on glib, and he is not burdened by a reverence for his subject matter that makes so many other histories rather dull. He has an obvious affection for some of his characters (such as Clark and Sacagawea), to be sure, but he also sees them as real people rather than demigods. Montgomery's savaging of other characters is a particular delight. This style is a plus, and makes for fun reading.

But the book is fraught with errors, as other reviewers have observed. I'll content myself with only one, which should have also been caught by Montgomery's editor -- on more than one occasion, Montgomery refers to the duel between Burr and Madison, incorrectly substituting Madison for Hamilton. While this mistake is so obvious that nobody is mis-led by it, it says little for the care that went into the writing and editing of the book and undermines its credibility.

Is the book entertaining? Sure. But it's got the same historical value as "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," and that's sad, because it could have been so much more.

Quite frankly I wish I had read the many other reviews before I invested in this book. The author makes much of correcting Clark's spelling errors, but his own errors reveal he did not go much beyond the spelling. Especially egregious is the one where he tells us that we cannot know from the jouurnals how many canoes were made by Lewis and Clark at the top of Great Falls. The number is given explicitly in the journal entries for three days: July 9, 10, and 14. Because of this I will try to find other books about Burr, wilkinson and Pike.

The truth comes out sooner or later, we hope. Here the record speaks for itself, deflating the strains of Yankee Doodle with some 'historical materialist' analysis of the facts of the case re the schizophrenia of our revered founder, Tom Jefferson, a man of fine words and a spastic record on the issue of slavery. 'What might have been' competes with the indictment of the lost opportunity to prevent the spread of the plantation system into the new territories of the emerging American system, especially in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase.
Between the Declaration and the Gettysberg Address we find too much American history sawdust.
Excellent piece of research behind the myth machines operating on a July Fourth schedule, 'whole cloth', like the commodity of empire in the British cotton kingdom that rapidly survived the blunder of losing its fiefdom in the soon reconquered South.
Yeoman farmers? Come on. My leg is pulled out of joint.

Roger G. Kennedy examines the steps that were taken by Thomas Jefferson to secure the Louisiana Territory from Spanish acquisition. MR. JEFFERSON'S LOST CAUSE: LAND, FARMERS, SLAVERY, AND THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE covers the pivotal years of 1802 and 1820 and other years connected to Kennedy's study. His main premise is to prove that if constrictions did not exist for Yeomen and slaves, if Jefferson's personal character, arrogance and pessimism, did not interfere with the decisions he made, concessions could have been made before and after the execution of the Louisiana Purchase that may have prevented the US Civil War and the issue of slavery.

MR. JEFFERSON'S LOST CAUSE is a unique examination that Kennedy narrates with extreme detail. But one of the unfortunate aspects of his narration is that some of the passages are so intense with historical data that one loses his point, or forget what the book is about. As Director Emeritus of the National Museum of American History and the National Park Service, Kennedy attempts to creatively intertwine his knowledge and fondness for biological, geological, ecological history, Early American and Roman history as it relates to the activities that occurred with the land. However, they appear out of place and somewhat disconnected to the main subject at hand - Jefferson, the land, slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase. For example, readers may become lost if they do not know about geology, and the different periods that existed, the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, which he uses as analogies to explain John Marshall's Dartmouth College decision of 1819 and how it ties in with the phases of capitalism and corporate growth as well as the introduction to chapter 13 where he begins his discussion with a short biology lesson about organisms. In addition, this is yet another book where the main character disappears amongst the immense amount of information. Kennedy dedicates a chapter or two on several key contributors to the Louisiana Purchase, Alexander McGillvray and Fulwar Skipwith.

So in essence, what can be learned from reading MR. JEFFERSON'S LOST CAUSE? Kennedy emphasizes that Jefferson was the "father of the land," but did use his experience of Plantation management to the best of his ability to provide balanced relations with the Yeomen. The story and analysis of this historical event was told from a different angle, but may have been enriching if the narrative moved laterally. While reading the book, memories of the past come to mind when I used to have to write and revise papers for my history classes, and had to constantly remind myself what my thesis was. Otherwise, the bibliography is a helpful source to understand the foundation of Kennedy's research.

If you want a good book regarding the Founders and slavery, look to Paul Finkelman's Slavery and the Founders, not this disappointing mess. The organization is poor, there's not a logical flow to the information provided, and the author has a tendency to ramble. We know the Founders failed to implement the Declaration and Jefferson was a hypocrite on many subjects. Don't waste your time hearing it over and over again in this book.

Roger G.Kennedy is a man on a mission: to embellish, lie and slander Thomas Jefferson. Kennedy is the typical modern biographer,always ready to destroy another one of America's heroes. In the sad and cynical fashion of today, Kennedy does his best to paint Thomas Jefferson as a lousy President, slaveholder and racist. The book is deplorable, just as most modern American history has become. I am sure the modern left, postmodernist, deconstructionist crowd loves this piece. It has all of the nihlism, lies, and propaganda one would expect from a "profession" laden with Marxists and Leninsts who would like nothing better than to see another American icon destroyed. A real piece of garbage.

I found this book fascinating on many counts.

First, the description of how the plantations east of the Allegheny Mountains were viewed as disposable by the men who ran them, since it was cheaper to buy new land on the frontier than properly maintain the land they currently possessed. Also, how these same men for various reasons and led by Jefferson resisted the industrialization that would diversified the economy of the south.

Second, how Jefferson and his allies catered to the land gluttony displayed by those early planters as new land was acquired for the United States. This was largely accomplished by dispossessing the people inconveniently already settling the land, and handing large swathes of land over to slave-holding planters emigrating from the lands they had exhausted.

Kennedy in fact dwells for much of the book on the territory of Florida (expanding beyond the current borders of that state across much of the South) possessed by Spain and settled prior to US acquisition by a mixture of Indians, whites and blacks who out of neccessity practiced sustainable agriculture on a small scale. I found the picture of Florida in that period to be one of the particularly interesting parts of the book. The relationship between the US and the people already settled on lands it wished to acquire (especially Indians), using Florida as a case study, was enlightening.

Kennedy provides some critical information for evaluating Jefferson's political leadership on the most compelling moral issue facing the young republic-the endurance and expansion of slavery within its boundaries. First, although the debate in Congress during his presidency over the expansion of slavery into new territories was very close, Jefferson refrained from using his influence to lead in this controversy. Thus, his anti-slavery rhetoric was saved for moments in his life (early and late in his career) when it was unlikely to influence policy, and perhaps as no coincidence his self-interest and the interest of his landed friends. Indeed, once Jefferson's agriculturally impoverished land would no longer yield a profit, rather than join other planters heading west, he decided he could support himself most easily by breeding slaves to be sold to those emigrants. In this way, the man who despised the merchant and industrial classes for their supposed lack of moral character, supported his own extravagent lifestyle. In this, as on many other issues, Jefferson was an impressively self-indulgent hypocrite. Sadly, this supposedly great president was striking for his lack of will and vision on how best to establish a republic in which the AVERAGE citizen would have a reasonable opportunity to pursue happiness.

I would have liked to have given this book 4 1/2 stars, because there was a certain lack of organization, and some parts were confusing, so I can't say it was perfectly written. But I found the subject matter truly eye-opening and heartily recommend it to anyone interested in the subject matter.

This book is billed as a research book, covering the entire book of Acts. But apparently, someone forgot to tell Craig Martindale what the term "research" means.

If you're going to make outrages claims, rewrite translated words and even entire verses, one would think you would provide documentation to back up your theory. Yet there is not one footnote in the entire book. No references to any other source.

It is all Craig's opinion/theory and apparently doesn't hold much water since he was booted from his position of President of The Way International just 7 years after the release of this book.

If you want someone to believe what you think the Bible says, document and prove it, or at least show it works in your life first. Apparently it hasn't for Craig, who seems to have dropped off the face of the earth.

This is an excellent, well-documented, and systematic analysis of how the early Christian churuch functioned, moving out from its base in Jerusalem to reaching into the entire Mediterranean world in two years and three months.

There is an inherent logical structure to the book of Acts and key summary statements,which the author expounds. Since the book, Acts of the Apostles is really a transition book between the Old Testament and the fulfillment of many of its promises in the New Testament, this book is worth reading by Jews as well as Christians to understand the natural connections between the two.

For those who want a scriptural and non-denominational understanding of Christianity, this is the book for you. It is not difficult to read for any literate adult. This is work of research, so you are not going to read it like a novel, but if you are interested in the early Christian church and can read the Bible, you will have no problem.

First, the two 5-star reviews were written by devoted follower(s) of The Way International (TWI). The fact that the jargon used is identical only indicates they habitually use the accepted terminology of TWI, not that they are the same person.

Second, this was one of the most boring books I've ever read. It's just badly written. Martindale's ego required him to do a great work as a testament to his intellect, but the book is only intelligible to the degree it is because he had an entire department of writers, researchers and editors who wrote the book under his direction. This book is less about historical fact than it is about Martindale's intellectual legacy.

Martindale should try his ideas on his own cult before writing a book.

His own cult "The Way International" is a shell (numerically) of its former self due to his authoritarian style of leadership and his personal conduct.

So is the book wrong? Or is Martindale not applying the principles that he espouses in his own book?

The Way International has dropped numerically from 100,000 people to 5,000 in only 14 years - that's RISE AND EXPANSION????P.S. - In order to buy this book, you must be a member of his cult. Amazon will be unsuccessful in obtaining this book.

If you are a SERIOUS biblical student then you will enjoy reading this book. It is an in depth study on how the first century Christians were able to overcome adversity and really live for God. The framework that is revealed in Acts on how the church can operate with power is further detailed in this book with true scriptural backing. With the understanding of how the first century Christians made their impact on the world we can apply the same principles and expect the same results. There isn't a better book on the subject out there.

Western 'Orientalists' have a rather poor grasp of certain aspects of Asian history and culture. These mainly pertain to the descriptions of the nature of Asiatic religions and their role in history. This is particularly true of the scholars from reputed institutions such as the Harvard University. This book also suffers from the same problem. The ARYAN invasion is of critical importance to the origin of the principle Asiatic cultures and Indo-European linguistics in general. It has been very poorly treated. The later parts on the Achaemenid and Islamic periods have been better dealt with. The kushans while poorly understood have not been particularly well described in this text.

My review of this book follows five others, which divide between praising or severely criticizing it. Such a dramatic split of opinion is a bit unusual on Amazon.com, but having read--and then re-read--the book, I understand it. And I take a middle (three-star rating) position: the book is best for a beginning student of in-depth academic study of the region, or for the general reader (most likely an upcoming tourist traveller to Central Asia, as I am) who is highly motivated to do background reading and get below the surface. But if you do not fall into either of those categories, i.e. are not considerably motivated, then this book is not for you.

Its strengths:

-- There are very few general surveys--as vs. narrow academic monographs---written about Central Asia prior to the Islamic conquest. So this book doesn't have much competition in its category.

-- We should be grateful that such a survey has been written by a leading scholar in the field, which requires knowledge of various modern and ancient languages as well as diverse functional areas (numismatics, art, etc.) which few individuals combine. Dr. Frye is a rare treasure in this area and was generous in taking time out of his scholarly work to produce a book oriented (sort of) to the layman.

-- Dr. Frye is rigorously honest in indicating what we do or do not know, and it turns out that we know very little of this region prior to the era of the Persian Empire, and our knowledge afterwards continues to be thin until the Islamic conquest...which concludes his book. So, if nothing else, his book acts as a useful "truth meter" against which to measure other authors, perhaps less rigorous (honest) than he, tempted to declare as settled truths what is actually shaky on the evidence. If this book says anything, it is that there are few settled truths about the region during the pre-Islamic period.

-- The book summarizes what little we DO know of that earlier period.

The weaknesses of the book:

-- Dr. Frye may be a great scholar, but he is a poor writer when it comes to the general public. The book is written in academically tedious style.

-- The worst problem: Dr. Frye's rigorous honesty in telling what we do know and what we don't or just guess backfires. Nearly half the book is spent weighing the evidence for various assertions and concluding that, in the end, we don't know this, that, or the other thing. These excursions--essentially academic--could provide a new and devoted student of the subject with a good general guidemap to future specialization and research to resolve the uncertainties. But to the lay reader they are irrelevant detours. The book--already modest at about 240 pages--could have been cut to half that size without loss for the general reader. It would have been sufficient for the author to note at the outset that many facts remain uncertain, to skip telling us what we don't know or the arguments he thinks incorrect leading to certain conclusions, and to simply give a narrative of the current accepted consensus of historians of what DID happen in the area. Such a clean and thus abbreviated narrative would have been especially useful given the numerous waves of nomads and resulting kingdoms which have swept over the area, because for a non-specialist, keeping them all straight on one reading requires a fast-paced, economical narrative without excursions into scholarly byways of the sort in which this book often engages.

A last complaint. The book, like most other general surveys of Central Asia I have read, engages in detailed written geographic descriptions of Central Asia and its ancient kingdoms while providing only 20th or 21st century reprint maps which do not begin to correspond to the text. It's no doubt a matter of money: hiring a cartographer to produce maps specific to a book of ancient history is likely expensive. But the lack of adequate maps in the book, while not crippling, is inconvenient and annoying. If reading it, keep close at hand a good National Geographic Atlas or something comparable.

So I am glad for this book, because we have few others like it, but it is dry and for the general reader it is frankly a "slog" requiring considerable motivation. If travelling to the region, I suggest the following: read it once, highlight the useful passages (about half the book), then read those passages again. Then you will get out of it what you need--a good and coherent narrative of what little we know, without a lot of academic detours regarding what we don't know.

"One of the best academic books of the year."
-Choice



"In this handy book, Richard Frye surveys the true history of this much-contested crossroad, touching on the supreme importance of water and oases, analyzing the influence of Zoroastrianism and Islam, and describing in detail a harshly beautiful landscape's various peoples, places, and cultures."
-Washington Post

BOOK REVIEW

The Heritage of Central Asia: From Antiquity to the Turkish Expansion

Professor Frye has made countless contributions, during the past half-century, to the study of the early history of Iran and Central Asia. Much of this--especially though not exclusively on the pre-Islamic period--has been the result of highly specialized research. But, to his great credit, he has not shrunk from writing, from time to time, works of synthesis which have made the results of his own research and that of others accessible to a wider readership. Usually these books have been very successful--a conspicuous example is his celebrated The Heritage of Persia (1962). It is true that its sequel, the oddly named The Golden Age of Persia: The Arabs in the East (1975) was not quite on a level with its predecessor. But in The Heritage of Central Asia Frye has, quite overtly, attempted to write for Central Asia a book which would cover a similar period, and serve a similar purpose for students and other interested readers, as The Heritage of Persia did for the lands to the west.

The books begins with scene-setting chapters, on 'Geographic realities,' 'Peoples, Languages, Customs and Beliefs,' and pre-history. History proper then begins with a discussion of the cult of Zoroaster leading into an account of Achaemenid Persian rule in Central Asia, and on through Alexander and Hellenism via the Kushans, Buddhism, the Sogdians and so forth (not neglecting various important nomad groupings) to arrival of Islam and 'the Iranian-Islamic Oecumene'. The final chapter, 'The Present is Born,' brings the Turks on to the scene. There are six valuable appendices. Each chapter has a limited number of endnotes which provide introductory guidance to further reading.

I have found this a most useful book for undergraduate teaching purposes. It tackles a period and an area unfamiliar to most students in a way that makes its subject both comprehensible and interesting. The book is a worthy companion volume to The Heritage of Persia.

--Journal of Islamic Studies 11, no. 3 (2000)

Opening with consideration on geography, peoples, languages, customs and beliefs, the author indicates the impact that the Zoroastrian cult and the Achaemenid centralization had on the region, where Alexander brought Hellenization, especially to the Bactrians, after discussing the Kushans, he investigates the silk route and the spread of Buddhism to the East, as well as the trading of the Sogdians; the rest of the book deals with Islamic situations, there are several appendices on such topics as literary sources, geographical names, deities in Codlin, languages of Central Asia, etc.; the volume is sparsely illustrated and also contains an index; bibliography is supplied in the notes after each chapter; it is based on the author's intimate knowledge of Central Asia and his familiarity with its archeology, ethnography, folklore, art history and languages, though he is obviously not a true linguist! Through its deep insights, its careful evaluation of the analyzed situations and its abundance of information, this book is incontestably one of the best studies on the history of Central Asia now extant.

--The Journal of Indo-European Studies 25, nos. 3 & 4 ( Fall/Winter 1997)

As my first exposure to Central Asia, this book was a soul-crushing experience; much of my inital enthusiasm quickly evaporated in the face of dry lists of succession, poor writing, and general lack of organization. The maps were worthless- I had to print and label my own in order to follow the obscure smatterings of geographic references. I can not comment on the accuracy of this piece; Frye throws enough arcane material at readers to appear informed, but nevertheless fails to bring the subject to life.

Basically a small, expensive and dull text book printed on cheap paper for a specialist university course. There are too many sweeping statements and little detail provided. The book is poorly illustrated and the maps very basic. I had expected so much more.

I was disapointed by this book. I was looking for new info on sociology and politics but found only a few general ideas and not much anything else... The planes' description introduce more detail as to the physical aspects but the writing style is mostly narative and "unpersonal-like". They try to make use of the same writing format as in Faces of Evil but fail.... The art is good but scarce. All in all, I find this book seems empty :( Probably the worst PS product to date. Unless you can't figure out anything about the Inner Planes, I suggest you let this one pass by.

I was greatly disappointed in this installment of PLANESCAPE's setting expansions. While having more "personality" than the original Manual of the Planes, The Inner Planes fell back on the formulaic style of presentation found in MoT. The book struggled to express the uniqueness of each inner plane, but presented each in the same format. The "guest presenters" were a good idea, but lacked any depth. In some chapters, these "speakers" began in character, but ended sounding like the editor.The consistency of language was disturbing. PLANESCAPE is (in)famous for its Cant. I accept the fact, as explained in the book, that the Cant is not spoken everywhere. The problem was too many characters, characters from different planes and backgrounds, sounded exactly alike. That's not likely. The illustrations were weak compared to other products. They, as a whole, did not lend to the overall "feel" of the Inner Planes.I love PLANESCAPE because it has been able to convey the uniqueness of each location. I felt cheated with the Inner Planes. I have no greater concept nor appreciation of these planes having read the book. It is merely another Manual of the Planes without as much of the "technical feel".

Monte Cook's "The Inner Planes" is all that it claims to be, that is, it contains detailed survival tips and descriptions of the planar environments, rules for getting about, and info. on interesting beings and sites. However, it seems that at least half the material is recycled from "Manual of the Planes," with the faction sites (i.e. Doomguard citadels) being a notable exception. All in all, I didn't care for many of the artists' (King and Rex) works within, found the book lacking the planar edge found in earlier books, but very complete in describing the environs of the Inner Planes. If you are imaginative enough to come up with some quick rules on your own, I do not reccommend this book. If you want a complete planar library or are a strict by-the-booker, then I highly reccommend "The Inner Planes."

Five years after the original boxed set was released, at last the Inner Planes are now given the Planescape treatment. Of course, with 18 planes to cover, and only 128 pages (you do the maths!) some planes (usually the deadliest ones you'd be barmy to visit anyway :-) get short shrift, but the standard of locations is, as usual, excellent, and the chant first rate. If you're considering a jaunt to the Inner Planes, this book should be your first stop.

The Inner Planes is a good general guide for DMs looking for information on the Inner Planes, but it isn't very thorough. They should have made it more of a rule-book for DMs (such as the books in the box sets for the outer planes), but instead tried to write a 'creative' guide similar to the book 'The Fiends: Faces of Evil.' This technique doesn't work as well here. The so-called guest writers are not able to keep in character well because they have to keep mentioning game rules, and the game rules suffer because you have to read too much text to fish them out. On the other hand, if you don't have the old (and out-of-print) Manual of the Planes, this book is a valuable reference because it is the only to find specifics on the inner planes. It mentions a couple of sites for each plane, but doesn't go into much detail. Overall, the book could be better but is still a good Planescape reference.

This enjoyable book contains the compelling stories of eight pioneer women who travelled the overland trails. It brings to light not only their day-to-day struggles, but the joys, sorrows, and hardships they encountered as they travelled west. The author outlines their remarkable stories in a clear, descriptive style and includes excerpts from their own writings. An enlightening book!

Good book for an over view of women's lives on the journey West. I would have liked more details.

Nothing is more interesting to me than first hand historical accounts. The book description certainly leads one to believe that this is what this book has to offer. It is, however, 82 pages of grandiose fluff with only occassional quotes from actual diaries. The book is classified as "Women's Studies"; it is, at best, only for children young enough to know nothing of American History.

This book was a big disappointment for me personally. I am a country person accustomed to hardship and was searching for details of how the women handled delicate personal problems on the trail and the survival methods they employed to make do. Diapers: How did they deal with them? Did they soak the beans, etc? Detail is sorely lacking in this presentation. Were excerpts from these women's diaries and accounts selected for content purported to be of interest to the reader? If, so my curiosity was not satisfied. I was also wanting more detailed information and accounts regarding the care and transport of domestic animals and pets, plants, seeds, (How did they keep their seeds dry, care for the chickens, trail-born lambs, pigs, etc?) If a reader wants detailed information, probably the best route is to obtain complete diaries and after-the-fact accounts of the eight women in this publication. In defense of the author, the book does spark one's curiosity for more information.

Oh boy, this is the worst book I've ever read. I consider myself to be well read and an intelligent human being. And this is just about the most boring book I've ever had to read. Well, I also am not much of a fan of American history, so that may influence my opinion a bit, but the fact remains, I really didn't like this book. At all. Seriously. If your looking for a very long winded book that while the language is understandable, it radiates boredom, then this is for you...or something.

Oh boy, this is the worst book I've ever read. I consider myself to be well read and an intelligent human being. And this is just about the most boring book I've ever had to read. Well, I also am not much of a fan of American history, so that may influence my opinion a bit, but the fact remains, I really didn't like this book. At all. Seriously. If your looking for a very long winded book that while the language is understandable, it radiates boredom, then this is for you...or something.

I love this book. I first read it as an undergraduate who thought history was boring. This book and my diplomatic history professor completely changed my mind about history almost 20 years ago. The book is very readable and the focus, which tries to look at whether average americans really believed in Manifest Destiny before, during, and after the Mexican-American War, gives the book a social history flavor that one certainly did not see in Diplomatic History back in the early 80's when I first read this book. I highly recommend the book!

The words "Manifest destiny" are associated, in the popular mind, with the whole conquering outburst that, in less than a century, managed to expand the area of white English-speaking settlement in what are now the United States of America from a group of thinly settled communities on the East Coast to a continent-wide nation numbering in the hundreds of millions. It associates this conquering outburst with the taint of nationalistic and bellicose arrogance, of chauvinism and brutality; and may therefore be said to taint even further the already inevitably bloody business of conquest and settlement.
At the height of American self-confidence and belief, at the beginning of the sixties, Frederick Merk set out to disprove this popular image; and showed, with a wealth of documentary evidence, that the actual jingoistic "Manifest Destiny" episode was nothing more than a short-lived craze, such as the US are seized with from time to time, peaking, but also falling apart, with the notorious 1848 war against Mexico. Merk observes that, while in the light of events the superiority of the USA over Mexico seems obvious, it was by no means so clear to contemporaries: the military establishment of Mexico was considerably larger than the peacetime US army, and the Mexicans would be fighting on their own soil. Yet the American army, thanks largely to a stiffening of the officer corps with civilians trained in the numerous American military academies and recalled to arms, proved the more efficient and effectively conquered Mexico. At that point, the vociferous "Manifest destiny" lobby, which had supported President Polk's cold and deliberate move towards war, was faced, not with the opportunity to spout about unifying (in some remote future visible only to rhetoricians and fools) a whole continent, but with the real choice: was an American Union of twenty million largely Protestant English speakers to absorb the indigestible morsel of a Mexico of eight million Spanish-speaking Catholics, spread over an enormous territory, naturally tumultuous, and separated from the main areas of Anglo settlement by prairies, mountains and deserts? Faced with this choice, the Manifest Destiny lobby fell silent; and that, argues Merk, was by and at large the end of it. He can trace no direct influence of any sort from the copious pamphleteering of the early forties on later American debate and politics; the Manifest Destiny craze, as crazes do, had died out.
The objection to this picture is fairly obvious. There is one absolutely silent partner at Merk's party - one of which, indeed, he never makes mention, who does not even appear in the Index: the Indians. At all times, before, during, and after the Manifest Destiny craze, the Western frontier was rolling inexorably forwards, plowing under its farmsteads and its cattle all the earlier inhabitants of the land. Does this not fall under the tag of brutality and arrogance of Manifest Destiny? Well, no. Manifest Destiny, as such, was a movement aimed more at the Western element in North America - not only the successor states of the old Spanish empire, but also Britain's remaining colonies in Canada and the Caribbean - than at any Indian. The destruction of the Indian tribes was the background to it, rather than its core: its argument was that BECAUSE the inexorable Anglo wave was rolling over every Indian tribe in North America, THEREFORE it was its "destiny" to sweep over Mexico and Canada as well. As for the destruction of the Indians, it was not the product of any craze - even of any intellectual or political theory at all - but of desperately objective conditions. Most Indian tribes did not farm, living typical hunter-gatherer tribes; therefore, to the citizens of a Republic of farmers - industrialization was only beginning in America at the time - their land appeared empty. (It is significant that the Indian tribe that has most successfully survived American conquest, the Navajo, is a farming one, famous for their orchards.) To a farmer, to bring a tract of grassland under the plough is the natural business of life; it does not impinge on his consciousness, let alone on his conscience, that there is someone else who claims the land, making what he regards as an idle and wasteful use of it. Given the contact between any population of farmers, American or not, and a population of hunter-gatherers settled on potential farming land, the result is inevitable; and while it may SHAPE a mentality of conquest, it does not ARISE from one.
Merk insists that Manifest Destiny is no fundamental component of the American mentality; that the really fundamental component of American attitudes to world politics can be summed up in the word "Mission". To some extent this may be seen as too optimistic, not so much in the matter of Manifest Destiny as in the more general one of crazes - McCarthyism will be the one that springs to everyone's mind, though in actual fact Senator McCarthy was a kitten compared to the really cruel and savage "Red scare" of 1919. Crazes and witch-hunts are frequent and apparently inevitable features of the American mind. But having said all that, I still find Merk's argument, within certain limits, quite convincing; for crazes come and go, but the American itch for Mission seems permanent.

This is a great campaign expansion for the collector or completist. I purchased this once in the late 90's and wasn't overly impressed by it, and recently purchased it again and found it to be slightly useful. Although it contains information about the Abyss, it does not provide a lot of detail for running a blood war related campaign.

One of the better things about this box were the possible adventures for each plane- with one for low level and one for higher level characters (if I remember).

The artwork and quality of design are great- I enjoyed simply looking through it.

There our 3 lower plane box sets in Plane Scape. This one the Planes of Chaos is by far the worse of the 3 they do get better. It suffers form a poor format choice which is fixed in the later products. Planes of Law was much better done and Planes of Conflict is the best of the 3. If your going to run a blood war Campain Get Hell Bound The Blood War and Faces of Evil the Fiends.

The Planes of Chaos set seems to suffer from the same qualities & drawbacks as most of the planescape serie. What you get for your monney in the box is four booklet, the first one for the DM, the second one for the players,a very short monster supplement (probably the most interesting part of this set)and the last book is an adventure book filled with different scenarios for your players. This book,like so many dungeons & dragons book since the 2nd edition came out, follow the principle why make a book short and concise when you can make it longer and sell it for a higher price.To be more precise most of the information you will find in this book were already written in Jeff Grubb's excellent manual of the plane, and the remainder could have easily been condensed in a single 60 page book. However there are sufficient interesting elements to justify this purchase for the gamers who have a specific interest in the planes chaos and who aren't on a budget. Some of these features are : an excellent altough short monster supplement with great color illustrations by DiTerlizzi (introducing two new Tanari!), Some great maps, and interesting new descriptions of abyssal planes and the Pandemonium. Overall this is an okay book, but one I would only recommand it to fans of the topic and experienced players who will be able to use it to it's full extent.

The Planescape team isn't perfect. Not everything that they have done is brilliant. But even their relative failures are better than most of the stuff out on the market today.

'Planes of Chaos' isn't the best boxed set that the folks at TSR have ever done for Planescape. For that, you need to look at 'Hellbound: The Bloodwar', which is so good that it could stand alone as a campaign.

But 'Planes of Chaos' isn't terrible, either. Some of the sections on the nature of Limbo and the politics of the Tannar'ri are really, really good. Experienced planeswalkers will be looking for more, most likely, but as an expansion to a game like Planescape, where it's all in the mind's eye anyway, this box is good enough for jazz.

If you're dying to know a little bit more about travel conditions on Pandemonium, looking for a few new beasties to spring on berks who wander through the Chaos planes unprotected, or just want to get a bit more info on how the Githzerai and Sladdi really interact, buy this box. If not, save your money - and DON'T buy it for the art.

If you're really looking for a good investment, purchase the Planewalker's Handbook. No matter what you want to add to your game, it's got it. If you already own one, buy one for a friend. It'll make their day