Expansion Books

This is an excellent and much needed book on the history of railroad building in the Interior Northwest. Some of the chapters include the various Palouse lines, Stampede Tunnel, Coeur d'Alene area, NP's Central Washington Branch, and more. Well written and researched. A few photos, mostly text. Lengthy appendix. Highly recommended. I hope somebody writes another book on this area continuing on from 1893.

compre este libro y otro de alejandro magno mas caro, pero este libro apesar de tener un precio inferior me sorprendio su cabado con doble forro (portada y contraportada) el material de todas sus hojas se sienten mejor que el libro caro que compree. muy bueno.

Having now read 40+ books about Alexander, I didn't expect this title to offer anything new or insightful, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the scholarship and thoughtful prose contained in this book. I was initially a little disappointed browsing through the book as I was hoping for some new graphics, maps and illustrations that I had not seen before, but I suppose that was wishful thinking. Once I sat down and actually started reading the text, I began to enjoy the contents and writing of Sheppard. She has done a great job of assimilating tons of academia about Alexander's amazingly eventful history and condensing it in a way that is easy to absorb and understand.

The book provides a very thorough background of Alexander's era - both in Greece/Macedonia as well as Persia and western Asia. An understanding of this historical background goes a long way in understanding why Alexander embarked on his unprecedented campaign to conquer the known world and reach the end of the world in the east. The strength of this book is the wealth of detail divulged by Sheppard while remaining clear and lucid and not getting dragged down by high-browed academia. In short, the book is fun to read and you'll learn a lot at the same time.

This book mainly focuses on the military aspects of Alexander's career and that's a good thing: that's what he was best at. He was a good statesman, diplomat, logistician, etc. and he was good and not so good at many other things, but if there is one thing that both pro-Alexander and anti-Alexander schools of thought can agree on, it's his military genius. Alexander's genius is comparable to that of creative and scientific geniuses ranging from Leonardo DaVinci to Isaac Newton and Ludwig van Beethoven to Albert Einstein. Alexander's battles ("masterpieces") are studied in military academies all around the world in the same way Beethoven's symphonies are studied in music conservatories. It's this aspect of Alexander that the book explores and it delivers.

Alexander the Great in His World by Carol G. Thomas is a lucid narrative of Alexander's times, about which a reconstruction of Alexander is attempted, and it could be said that it has been achieved. Points of divergence are always present, but this is a worthwhile book on Alexander whose focus is on the then forces which molded him accordingly.

In _America's Forgotten Wars_, Sarkesian draws some basic conclusions that are not entirely original. But his approach was scholarly and well organized in making those conclusions.

1. American culture breeds a belief in "just" wars where we do not fight unless provoked. At times, such as in Vietnam where the
provocation was questionable, the American people and the citizen
soldiers found it difficult to fully support the fight.

2. In many of America's low-intensity conflicts (Seminole wars, the Phillipine uprising, the Punitive expedition into Mexico, Vietnam),other political concerns took center stage. This has been one factorin the tendency of US forces to not learn from those experiences - seeing them as side-wars that were not "real" wars in the conventionally-focused organization of the US military.

3. The US military (primarily the author focuses on the Army) has a culture fed by the American culture of Euro-centrist thinking that fails to take into account the rest of the world with much
significance. This feeds the tendency toward conventional warfare
thinking in political leadership as well as military organization. The conventional mindset is further strengthened by a growing dependence on technology in waging wars since technology most readily supports conventional conflict but is often less effective in counter-insurgency.

Sarkesian organized this book into 3 or 4 views of the subject:
1. State of the Nation (the political and cultural background of the US military)

2. Military Posture (the military organization at the time of the
conflict and how it is postured whether peacetime or wartime footing at the hostilities begin)

3. Nature of the Conflict (the political-military effectiveness of the enemy and how it is perceived by our military and political leadership)

He appears to have followed that same organization in a subsequent book, _Unconventional Conflicts in a New Security Era_.

Aside from the fact that I am an admiring former student of Dr. Joy, I write to state the significance of this study as the "missing link" in American history. All too often, and perhaps in the interest of saving time, several texts, professors, and students of American history skip the period from the American Revolution to the Civil War a/k/a War Between the States a/k/a War of Northern Aggression. The seventy-some year period in between, however, is vital to the understanding of how the United States developed as we see it today. Dr. Joy's work delves into the settling of the Northwest Territory, as it was understood to be in the late 1700s; the significance of the Louisiana purchase, which may be the greatest real estate deal of all time; and the too often forgotten Mexican War that helped secure Texas as part of the United States. Although no one can dispute that the Revolutionary War and the Civil War were pivotal eras in American history, the era of American Expansionism, or manifest destiny, defines the American spirit and vision that made it what it is today. An essential read for any student of American history.

I can't believe I'm the first to review this book because I found it so important in understanding the current American invasion and occupation of Iraq and the attitudes here at home about that series of events. I also found the most coherent exposition of the concept of Manifest Destiny that I've read... ever. Whether he's taking a close look at Fr. Berrigan's words or at films released after the Vietnam war, the author is spot on about what ails the U.S.A. He offers no easy solutions, but defining the problem well and accurately is generally a huge step towards solving it. William Cobb defined the problem.

This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of American military affairs. Robert L. Nichols' American Frontier and Western Issues: An Historiographical Review. Describes economic and urban development, the governing of western territories, and the experiences of women and ethnic groups on the American frontier. The major difference between this work and Malone's collection is that American Frontier and Western Issues proposes the notion that there is no clear definition for the term frontier. Furthermore, Nichols' collection seems to challenge historians to consider what the frontier actually is, opening the dialogue for such an analysis. As a whole, Nichols' studies in relation to this topic seem to question many of the claims made by the existing body of literature in this field. For instance, Nichols' article "The Army and the Indians, 1800-1830-A Reappraisal" questions recent claims that "the military was `an orderly purveyor of civilization,'" an idea which Prucha and Tate would argue is an accurate assumption. Despite the fact that Nichols questions some of the major assumptions in this field, his research is a legitimate contribution to the dialogue on the role of the army on the American frontier.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in military history, and American history.

Compiled and edited by Emily Foster, American Grit: A Woman's Letters From The Ohio Frontier is an inherently fascinating collection of correspondence from the first half of the nineteenth century, written by Anna Briggs Bentley, a devout Quaker wife determined not to lose contact with her mother and sister. Filled with emotion, a willingness to work, love for her family and her many children, and a great deal more, American Grit provides contemporary readers with a compelling and enjoyable look through a kind of "window of time" at daily life in rugged terrain. A fine work enhanced with brief annotations for clarity, American Grit is very highly recommended for Women's Studies and American History Studies collections and reading lists.

A comprehensive anthology of anti-imperialist writings of the period covered. Although its coverage of the turn-of-the-century anti-imperialist movement ends with the 1900 election, leaving much of the Anti-Imperialist League's (1898-1921) activities out of the story, the long sections on the opposition to the Spanish-American and Philippine-American wars includes labor, socialist, and African-American texts that are not available elsewhere.