history

Mary's World is a well-written, wonderfully researched narrative of a wealthy and prominent family in nineteenth century South Carolina. The backdrop is the family's generational home, Charleston's Miles Brewton House, built in 1765, where family members wrote many of the letters used by Mr. Côté to reconstruct their lives. A chapter devoted to this historic site, now restored, plus frequent references, literally bring the reader into the Pringle home to observe the many lives that began and ended there. Mary Motte Alston Pringle (1803-1884) is the focal point of the story and the vehicle the author uses to familiarize the reader with the extended family and their various adventures. Mr. Côté draws on a rich mixture of personal letters, journals, and business and family records, plus a variety of secondary sources to piece together the lives of multiple generations and branches of this aristocratic planter family. His informed insight and objective analysis of Mary's fascinating world allows family members to speak for themselves and the reader to become virtually acquainted with them across the years. Their personal accounts reveal their lives in the antebellum South and how the Civil War affected them during and after the conflict. Interspersed throughout the book is information about their relationships with and attitudes toward their slaves before the war and the Freedmen after the war. Through this woven tapestry of emotions, beliefs, activities, customs, and culture people long dead speak again, explaining what it was like to live in their world, now long past.

_Mary's World_ traces the life story of Mary Motte Alston Pringle, a prominent South Carolinian woman, from her youth in the early 1800s to her passing at an advanced age. Much of the story is drawn from her own writings, which are voluminous and articulate, though Côté steers clear of the trap of overquoting and invests the effort to interpret and present--just as an historian should.

Most authors would be delighted to succeed in one significant way with a book--Côté succeeds in many with _Mary's_. It is dispassionate history, navigating the shoals of one of the most partisan events in US history (the Civil War) without demonizing or deifying either side. It is 'herstory', if you will, giving us a view of times past from the standpoint of a courageous woman who went from genteel wealth to genteel poverty. It is also African American history: the blacks who played integral roles in Mary's world have names, faces and attitudes, which naturally changed with society. It asks and answers deeper questions about the protagonists' motivations, ideas, beliefs and viewpoints. It makes abundantly clear that Reconstruction was an equal opportunity failure, destroying rather than redistributing wealth. Côté's style is uncluttered, perceptive and engaging. It plays no favourites and panders to no one. The notes often explain contemporary slang and add value to the main text; the index is very helpful; the bibliography is impressive.

Strongly recommended as 19th-century US history, Southern history, Civil War history, women's history and/or black history. It would be of particular value for the high school or college student of US history writing an essay or looking for inspiration for one, and I look forward to more work of this calibre from the author.

What an unbelievable picture Mr. Cote' paints for readers in "Mary's World". It was one of those books that grabbed my attention and never let go. I was sorry to reach the end, as I was so enthralled with this account of Mrs. Pringles life. Details derived from personal letters, give you an account of her life from a naive & idealistic bride to an older woman, who has endured many changes and hardships. This spring I'll be visiting Charleston South Carolina and I will be anxious to see the home, and visit Gibbes Art gallery to see some of the portraits mentioned in the book. Agreeing with a previous reviewer, I believe this is the best book I've read this year and would highly recommend it to anyone.

Cutting right to the chase, Subway Art is the official guide to subway graffiti (or "bombing") in New York. Photographer's Henry Chalfant and Martha Cooper are on point like snipers with their visual masterpiece on early subway graff. Packed with unforgettable "pieces" that once graced New York's "iron horses", the book also captures New York graffiti legends at work and provides informative text on the culture as well. Subway Art takes the reader on a colorful train ride through New York's subterranean art world and explores a youth based culture which has transcended the very dark and dangerous underworld in which it was conceived. It's to no surprise why Subway Art was reportedly the most stolen art book in the U.S. and abroad. Although subway graffiti in New York was sadly abolished under the Koch administration, it's legacy lives on through Subway Art and the worldwide graffiti culture. Subway Art is a definite for all "graff-heads" as well as those seeking the skinny on subway graffiti in New York. --James "Koe" Rodriguez

Although a bit superficial textually 'Subway Art' could be considered a good introduction into graffiti culture. This book is visually quite impressive and just the extensive amount of photos make this book a good buy. 'Subway Art' is and has been a true inspiration for many graffiti writers all over the world (be it good or bad!) and therefore it is a true 'bible' of the graffiti culture. However, better books about graf-culture have been written but not too many photographed.

This is a CLASSIC,features KING's seen,dondi,cap,kel,iz,..
This book shows how writers got up back in tha day..
Whole car flix, crew interveiws,HUNDREDS OF FLIX..
The real deal..
Brooklyn 2004

I liked this treatise on the life of Churchill. His wilderness years when those who treated him with disdain thought of him as a wash up.

This was his time to bide his time, in order to gain his composure for his future use.

Anyone in the oxbow of life can gain insights on how to use time rightly until the attainment of a goal.

Churchill did not just bide his time, he used it to his advantage.

One day I hope Manchester finishes volume III.....

William Manchester's first Churchill volume covers the first fifty eight years of Winston's life. His second, "Alone," covers just eight. Assuming that there will be a third, it will cover the final quarter century, including most of World War II and Churchill's two spells as Prime Minister. To the elementary observer, these divisions seem somewhat out of sorts.

It's only by reading that middle volume that we understand just how critical those eight years were. Above all, "Alone" is a morality play -- the best one I know -- about what happens when democracies fail to confront aggression. At no other time in the 20th Century were so many people so wrong about a matter as grave as the Nazi buildup in the 1930s. Only Winston Churchill and a few of his cohorts disagreed at the time.

Early in the book, Manchester briefly lays out a powerful case for Britain's aversion to confronting Germany. Britain sensed the unfairness of the Versailles "diktat," and reacted strongly against it. To a great degree, London was fed up with France's insolence after the war, both in its lust for revenge against Germany, and in the flaccid disillusionment of Paris intellectuals. At the same time, Great Britain was a nation cornered by two bloodthirsty wolves -- Nazism and Bolshevism. In order to defeat the other, one would have to be appeased. Being a country dominated by aristocrats, Britain chose to enlist Hitler as a bulwark against Communism. In doing so, they ignored the basic fact of geopolitical proximity: only Germany, abutting France and a few hundred miles away from Britain's shores, had the capacity to strike at the West. Britain's aristocrats bet wrong, and Churchill, ever the "traitor to his class" immediately recognized it.

Churchill's story also holds valuable lessons for us today. By nature, Churchill was naturally aggressive, and as such, Manchester writes that he saw exactly what Hitler was up to. Pacifists often distrust such assertiveness, even in a democracy. In fact, assertiveness in defense of democratic values is almost always the right foreign policy. One can have assertiveness for good, or assertiveness for evil, and one must choose it for good. In this way, Churchill's "black and white" Manichean worldview has truly stood the test of time.

This, the second volume of Manchester's Churchill biography, continues the extraordinary story of the British prime minister up to 1940. And as with the first volume, it is incredible reading, perhaps the best biography written about anyone. Manchester's gift as a writer is absolutely astounding. One feels there is nothing he does not know about his subject or the subject's time. Particularly interesting are the quotes he includes, which when I first read them I had to resist framing for my library wall. And almost as interesting as Churchill are the myriad individuals who surrounded him, exhumed here by Manchester for a final and proper setting of the record. Ultimately, we come to Churchill's greatest contemporaries, Chamberlain, Roosevelt, Stalin, and Hitler, and are drawn with such expertise into the relationships that we are left wondering how it will all turn out. But of course we do know, and it is with growing dismay and sadness that we let Manchester take us to the end of the book, with the detailed recounting of the terrible stumbling of the West's leaders toward WWII and the end of an era. Of course, this is the beginning of Churchll's greatest challenge, to be continued in the as yet unpublished third volume, but we still feel regret for having lost to time such an able and important man. With the last page, our respect for him has us near tears with the knowledge that the world, more than ever, needs more Churchills and will not have them.

Saburo Sakai was a national hero in Japan as its greatest surviving air ace of world war two. This book is his story. It is a fascinating and honest look at the air war in the Pacific from the Japanese perspective. Sakai is shown to have been a patriotic and heroic fighter, who, like most soldiers, gave little thought to the politics of the war. Like young men in many lands in many times, when his country called, he answered.

Sakai gives us an honest assessment of both sides as regards the Pacific air war. There is little or no jingoism here. He highlights some of the critical mistakes that the Japanese navy made in the war--one of which was that before the war the Navy only turned out about 100 pilots a year--not remotely enough for the total war Japan was about to wage against the world's greatest industrial power. The standards for entering and graduating from the Naval air training course in Japan were unreasonably high, and simply prevented the country from producing the number of pilots it would come to need. When the Americans eliminated over 300 Japanese pilots in 3 days at the Battle of Midway, Japan never recovered the loss of these trained men. On the other hand, Sakai reminds the American reader that in the Japanese America faced a motivated, intelligent, and very brave foe deriving from a violent military tradition.

The book also includes some very interesting glimpses at the Japanese home front during the war. Life in prewar Japan was hard for the lower classes--sufficiently hard that even the savage discipline (which Sakai describes at length) of the Japanese Navy appeared to be a reasonable alternative to the grinding poverty he otherwise faced.

Overall, a wonderful look at "the other side of the hill" and into the mind of one of World War Two's greatest air combat pilots.

This book is a must for any history buff or anyone interested in seeing WWII through enemy eyes. This work chronicles the career of Saburo Sakai and his many air battles through World War II. His words debunk many myths about Japanese pilots (he admits of even turning back from a suicide mission) and gives one a personal feel to the historical events that unfolded around him. One can also plot the technological climb of aircraft as Sakai describes how his adversaries' aircraft steadily got better and better. This book is also a must read for those who think the development of new aircraft and weapons are a waste of money. They will see through Sakai's words how one superior aircraft (the Zero) was able to command the skies in the war in the Pacific for quite some time until better aircraft finally were developed by the US. In the future the US may not have the luxury of time and should plan ahead.

This is a superior book and one of the best written about World War II.

This book did a wonderful job of portrying the war from the Japanese perspective, and really gave me an insight into the mind of the "enemy". Sakai proves that he is indeed human, but not in a way that many westerners readily understand. It was an eye opener for me for sure.
Have to say that Sakai has to be one of the toughest SOBs in the world, flying back to base with wounds that would have killed most people, and landing safely!!!

"The Sopranos" is a landmark in the history of television. Themes and motifs previously avoided on the small screen are common fare on this exquisitely written series. In writing this book, Mr. Rucker has performed an act of extraordinary generosity appreciated by all fans of this weekly drama. My only criticism, however slight, is to echo the complaint of a fellow reviewer and neighbor of ex-President Clinton, Mr. James P. Finnegan from happy Chappaqua, NY. Like Mr. Finnegan, I felt that the ever-lucid writing of Jeffrey Wernick would have been better served in a longer introduction. This a paltry criticism based on a personal admiration for Mr. Wernick's eloquence. Nevertheless, this tome has my unqualified 5-star recommendation.

A stellar examination of the past, present, and portents of "The Sopranos"! Wow! From the die-hard Soprano fans to all those interested schlumps, this book is the must-read needed on their bookself. An entertaining, voyeuristic, and compassionate look at the Sopranos' lives that mix reality and myth into a remarkable anthology of today's most famous mobster family. The show earned its Emmys and then some; the book compliments the show with its photos and commentary on what will become the most talked about series for years to come. In my opinion, there are only a handful of shows that truly deserve such an in-depth perspective as this one does- and this one hits the mark! Two enthusiastic thumbs up and a congratulations going toward the talented and witty writer, Allen Rucker, the only one who made this fantastic book possible for all Soprano aficionados to thoroughly enjoy. Rucker brings an unique standpoint to the Sopranos' family and lifestyle that I never knew existed. I hope he writes the next updated version! If not, "I have friends, you know!"

I loved this book. I poured over it so many times that I have just about worn it out. It has been like a Bible of sorts to me. Very interesting. Anyone who is a true Sopranoholic like I am will love this book. I just wish they would make an updated version of it. I am going to be so sorry to see the season end and just thinking about the series ending is too much for me to comprehend.

Think of this book as one big Soprano History/Dictionary/Vocabulary book and that is what you can expect. Worth every cent.

As one who has flown as a passenger on many military and commercial flights, I never thought much about what happened "behind" the Airline counter. This book was a deeply interesting and sometimes amusing view of that phase of the Airline industry and I found myself wanting to read ahead to see what was coming next. The author is a very good storyteller who obviously writes of his own varied experiences. I'm looking forward to his sequel.

I greatly enjoyed the amusing and eye-opening stories of what can go on inside a large airline. You may want to wait until after your vacation to enjoy this book!

Ed's book was a delight to read. His knowledge of the airline industry, combined with his own unique personal experiences, have all the right ingredients to make this book hard to put down once you've started reading it. I particularly appreciated Ed's wonderful sense of humor and was literally howling while reading of his exploits at the cargo building in New York, as well as his overseas temporary assignments.
Ed was able to illustrate just how difficult it was to have worked in a sometimes hostile environment. However, he managed to successfully accomplish his many managerial responsibilities and goals, as he proceeded from one hilarious situation to another.
This book brought back so many fond memories of my own airline experiences as I read page after page with great delight. It also served as a reminder to me that humor, hard work and patience, can all help to overcome the many difficult situations we encounter in our respective careers.
Ed's book is a winner. I certainly hope he writes another one soon.

Olivia and Jai is an emotionally draining novel about love and betrayal in colonial India. This is not a romance novel in the traditional sense because it is a complicated story about two complicated individuals. If you want an intelligent love story then this is the one for you.

I first stumbled across this book when I was in high school. Back in those days, I used to go to the library, walking up and down the aisles waiting for something to jump out at me. One of those days, it was Olivia and Jai. I have read this book at least five times since and thoroughly enjoyed it every time. This past fall I was able to get an out of print copy through Amazon.

Ryman is an incredibly gifted author (something that you do not discover until about 30 pages into the book) who has a unique power to draw the reader into the story and identify with the characters so that the character's emotions deeply effect your own. To this day I am moved to tears when I read this book. Not only that, the plot is so complicated that I am always surprised at what I forgot as well as anxiously trying to remember how the story comes to its conclusion.

Not quite the romantic but an avid reader of anything historical I picked up this book just two days ago and has not set it down until I read the last page aching for more. Rebecca Ryman has written the novel in such a way that you cannot but imagine yourself in that era. With characters so believable and detailed you get to know them, grow with them and find it hard to leave them. You cannot but try to compare youself to Olivia and to want a Jai(Jeye - is the Indian pronounciation)in your life.
This love story will be hard to top.

Olivia and Jai opened a new world for me. I found the book while I was working at a library, while in high school. Someone had misshelved the book on the children's level where I worked. Curious, I picked it up and did not put it down until I finished it. I was suddenly in love with India. After checking it out from the library several times, I decided I had to have my own copy. But it was the hardest book to find. The used bookstore where I finally found it actually burned down a few months after I bought the book. I guess time was on my side. So to sum it all up-Olivia and Jai is my favorite book and it's the one I most often recommend. It also sparked an interest in the history and culture of India that will always be a favorite subject of mine.

Sing Me a Bawdy Song supplies a wealth of American history.The story begins in Wisconsin in 1917 during The Great War and the beginning of prohibition. The story continues through the Roaring 20's. Next, we find ourselves in the middle of the Great Depression when Casey and Emma Bretten are moving to Los Angeles with their four children. Casey Bretten is the Western District Service Manager for Nash Motors. He travels 11 out of every 12 weeks. During that time Emma is home with their children. Day by day she struggles with death, sickness,the 1938 flood and a fear that Casey may be unfaithful to her. This is a wonderful heart-warming story about a real family with photographs of a real family. When you finish you will know more about the first half of the twentieth century and you will understand why Tom Brokaw called these people 'The Greatest Generation.'

The book Sing Me A Bawdy Song tells the story of a strong willed mother who devoted her life to rearing four children in a loving family relationship despite difficult conditions imposed by the poverty of the Great Depression and the sacrifices of World War II. Compounding her many problems was an absentee husband whose job required him to be away from home for months at a time. Long periods of separation fostered her doubts as to his fidelity especially when his first lover re-enters his life. A well written, easy to read novel which will capture your heart and possibly water your eyes. Those who lived during these times will find much to trigger their memories.

I was reading reviews of other books and came upon a comment on this book, and bought it on a whim. It really is a great historical piece, it is very real researched. If you like relationship pieces buy this.

I'm one of those schleps who had the misfortune of investing the CDN $70.00+ dollars on this book when it first came out, only to learn that many of the (in particular non-NHL) statistics were inaccurate or missing completely. This is understandable for the very early players, but still, it seems as though more effort should have been put into this initially. I am interested in the old Hamilton Tigers franchise, and prior to getting the book had already done some research into the early careers of some of the players. Right off, I noticed that there were problems with the Leo Reise and Goldie Prodgers listings. These--and no doubt innumerable others--were rectified in the later edition, but that is little consolation for me. I made my investment, and unless I can find the revised edition cheap, I have no intention on blowing more money just to finally get what I should have gotten in the first place. Still, it has been a useful book at times, so it's not a complete loss, I guess.

If you're a hockey nut, this book is for you. It lists all the players who ever played an NHL game and also explains the origins of the game itself. The stats alone are worth the price. Now you can see who all Newsy Lalonde (the Wayne Gretzky of the early 1900's) played for, and his stats, as well as Gretzky's stats.

The parts on the origins of the game are extremely interesting and shows how the best sport on earth has become global. There are also good biographies of important hockey people, male and female, as well as NHL team histories, league stats, and minor pro and European league stats.

All in all, an excellent comprehensive hockey encyclopedia.

Since 1983, the copyright of The Hockey Encyclopedia by Stan and Shirley Ficshler, I have eagerly awaited an updated version of this incredible reference book. Finally-the masterpiece of them all. Comprehensive section on the History of the game and the NHL and tons of stats. The greatest thing that sets this book apart from others is the trades and tracking of each player. Who went to what team for what player or what player was selected for a traded draft choice. The ultimate trivia at the tip of your fingers!!

Long heralded as a monumental portrait of American society in the early decades of the 20th century, John Dos Passos' U.S.A. trilogy is, if nothing else, an amazing display of intellectual endurance. Few novels that I have come across are more ambitious or broader in scope. In 1240 pages, Dos Passos attempts to characterize a vast, growing nation in one of its most dynamic periods in history. While he gloriously succeeds as a sociological study, it is unfortunately at the expense of producing a mediocre work of literature.

It is important to point out that while the three installments of this trilogy were written several years apart from each other, this is most definitely one book, not three. The first and second books, The 42nd Parallel and 1919, have no proper conclusion, and The Big Money, the trilogy's final installment, is a logical progression in terms of style and chronology, if not plot. So reading any of these books on their own, or reading them all out of sequence, would be a thoroughly unsatisfying experience.

It is clear from early on that Dos Passos has bitten off more than he can chew, at least from a literary perspective. His goal is to capture the essence of an America caught in the throws of industrialization and fervent capitalism, and the inevitable wealth gap and social class struggle that result from this economic expansion. He also tackles the difficult task of explaining this country's painful ambivolence towards the war in Europe and the sense of euphoria in the years following it's conclusion. But these themes are vast and unwieldy, far bigger than any one character in the novel, and as a result, the characters themselves become forgettable and quickly get lost. In a sense, there is only one main character in this novel, and it is America herself.

But America is not a person, it is a country and society, and as such the U.S.A. trilogy at times takes on the feel of a social inquiry more than a work of fiction. The other characters, through whose experiences we study the social landscape and fabric of early 20th century America, lack depth and dimension. They are mere stereotypes chosen by Dos Passos to represent various segments of society. There is the down-and-out vagabond, wandering the country and living hand-to-mouth, bitterly condemning the economic wealth all around him from which he is excluded. You have the quintessential rags-to-riches success story, the boy who started with little more than a dollar in his pocket and a whole lot of ambition, and amassed an economic fortune, but at the expense of his humanity and health. We also find the New York socialites, the Communist activists, the labor union organizers, the proud and rowdy GI soldier. But there are no real people, as such characters would not serve the greater purpose of defining American society in the way that Dos Passos sees it. And as a result, the experiences and interactions among these characters are also stereotypical.

Despite its shortcomings, the U.S.A. trilogy is worth reading, as it constitutes an important contribution to the understanding of our nation and its history. And in many ways, the great ambition of this novel encouraged other writers to strive to create works of fiction that were not just of literary merit, but also of important social significance. However, for a far more satisfying literary experience, Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy accomplishes on a micro-level what Dos Passos attempted to achieve on a broader scale. But unlike the U.S.A. trilogy, Dreiser's work is a true pleasure to read.

Dos Passos' trilogy is important reading for anyone intersted in American History. In particular, Dos Passos chronicles the history of the labor movement in the US and the revolt of working class worldwide.

It is intersting to note that at the time that this book was written, Dos Passos was a frevent socialist/communist. By the time of his death, he had renounced the communist idealogies for a more conservatine viewpoint.

Although, the fictional prose is simplistic and the dialogue somewhat cliched, a powerful story is told. The world is seen through the eyes of several ordinary citizens, all with different backgrounds and from different classes. The characters lives interwave through important world events such as labor unrest, Mexican revolution, World War 1, and the Russian Revolution.

Interwoven throughout the fiction are snippets that attempt to educate the reader. The 'Camera Eye' passages are newspaper headlines and attempt to capture the mood of the day. There are sections of Dos Passos's own thoughts of the day, some of them written as Dos Passos as a child might have seen them. My favorite sections were the short autobiographies of important citizens- among them Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Eugene Debs, Woodrow Wilsoon, and Emma Goldberg.

If you are lookiong for a passionate or suspenseful fictional story, this is not the book for you. But if you are intersted in history, especially American History, this book is excellent in capturing the mood of first third of the 20th century.

John Dos Passos wrote three novels that are encapsulated by the title: "USA."

These novels are beautiful and sublime in their composition. While reading of some sad stories as well as some humorous ones, the readers is taken on a journey through the 1920's in America. We get a sense of what it was like then. His chapters begin and often end in a "NEWSREEL" imitation. In an age where we as readers have so much "bit" information flashed before our eyes, this mode works well at getting the snapshot ideas he is alluding to in the novels.

Dos Passos is a genius of words-- I recommend taking this one to the beach, especially if you are an American city history buff.