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Recent Reviews
Stephanie McCurry
Mixed New York Journal of Books ... so much...seems lost as the reader tries to figure out just what the author tries to achieve by bringing these three thought provoking essays together in one volume. Even within each essay, major points seem just to drift away.
Matthew Stanley
Positive New York Journal of Books ...concise despite its size and inclusion of the background of the war. The prose is fast moving and engaging.
Dan Pederson
Positive New York Journal of Books The lively prose is gripping in a subtle way and while some writers struggle to keep interest from chapter to chapter, in Topgun Pedersen has the reader even looking forward to the next paragraph. No technical knowledge needed, the author writes for a general audience. Often the author repeats phrases but that gives the narrative intimacy. The book also jumps around in its organization although the reader becomes too engrossed to care.
Robert Morrison
Positive The New York Journal of Books ... reads like a romance novel of its period without the novel but makes an entertaining nonfiction read with superior prose and dialogue ... follows the same themes of upheaval by change, government oppression, public resistance, economics, Dickens/Hugo type real life characters, etc. Reality proved no less entertaining than the fiction of the time ... includes appropriate annotation and an extensive bibliography.
Kate Hubbard
Positive The New York Journal of Books Kate Hubbard tells the story of Bess of Hardwick in clear and engrossing writing while carefully navigating the complexities of building, entitlement, estate, marriage, and politics in Tudor England. The author does this without losing the subject in the history and personalities of the times.
Tom Clavin
Mixed The New York Journal of Books Throughout the book, the author often has little to write about Hickok and fills most of the text with background on the people who passed through the gunman\'s life \'and deserve a detour here.\' The copy editor did not let formal grammar interfere with the author\'s colorful and entertaining prose. Wild Bill has no annotation, but it does have a bibliography.
Patrick Spero
Positive New York Journal of Books Frontier Rebels makes for a good read, a lost bit of American history in a greater colonial epic in need of telling. It would work better sticking to its story as an example of a lost history of the Revolutionary War frontier. The book has well prepared maps and a useful glossary of \'Cast of Characters and Important Places.\'
Kara Cooney
Mixed New York Journal of Books Kara Cooney writes a great deal about feminine power in ancient Egypt in When Women Ruled the World, but a lack of surviving source material and the rareness of female rulers made that research difficult.
H.W. Brands
Rave New York Review of Books \"This book inspires thoughts of America\'s present political situation at every turn ... The author\'s easy prose and superior, simple organization makes this work an engrossing, entertaining, and educating read on issues important then that echo today in the modern debate on the limits of federal government power.\
Andrew Delbanco
Positive New York Journal of Books \"Delblanco offers a too rare discussion of the important literature of the fugitive slave \'weapons in a war just begun\' and \'truncated stories of impossibly virtuous behavior\' ... Delblanco stays concise to his subject. The War Before the War is not an encyclopedia but a deep, scholarly, engrossing introduction to its subject that impacts us even today and in many ways.\
Geoffrey Wawro
Mixed New York Review of Books \"This very thick book makes a fast entertaining read that illuminates facts about the times on almost every page. It serves an appropriate tribute to the Americans of the First War on the centennial of their service and sacrifice ... a solid contribution to scholarship on the general history of the United States military in the First World War...For such a work of scholarship, however, the prose is too informal at times, using phrases like \'lipstick on a pig,\' \'by hook or by crook,\' and contractions. Such important scholarship deserves more sophisticated wordage.
Joseph Kelly
Mixed New York Journal of Books \"Despite the volume of this book and the controversial interpretations, it makes a fast easy adventure in reading. It includes the familiar such as John Smith but so much else. Solid scholarship, Marooned has an extensive bibliography, documentation, and illustration.\
David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler
Positive New York Journal of Books The Rise of Andrew Jackson makes a great introduction to the legend, the man, and his political network that created not just a president but also an epoch in American history ... The Heidlers tell an engrossing story that covers a remarkably complex history in relatively few pages. It is a true page-turner.
James Horn
Positive The New York Journal of Books This simple entertaining text in 1619 makes for a short fast entertaining read. Too often, writers dismiss the story of Jamestown in a few sentences, but here the author tells the forgotten causes of its achievements and failures but also the too often overlooked consequences. Horn includes useful maps and some illustrations.
Srinath Raghavan
Positive New York Journal of Books Fierce Enigmas offers an outline of \'the long and varied history of American involvement in South Asia\' beyond just the Cold War ... Srinath Raghavan engagingly writes an epic narrative that gives the reader much to ponder about what might have been, and the United States\' role in the world. It is the old story of the blind men describing an elephant by touch, but here either side could be the elephant or the blind men depending upon the circumstances. The book is well illustrated.
Hampton Sides
Positive New York Journal of Books \"Noted Military Historian Hampton Sides gives the background of the conflict but within the story of the clash of personalities, not in a formal introduction. Desperate Ground covers much more than the legendary story of the breakout at Chosin Reservoir, including Inchon, Seoul, Sudong, and Wonsan. The author writes a compelling account of battles, leaders, and men sadly forgotten, and told in a lively personal prose.\
Steven R. Weisman
Positive New York Journal of Books Author Steven R. Weisman begins The Chosen Wars with the first ordination of rabbis on American soil, on July 11, 1883. Persons from across the country believed that Judaism \'was marking another significant step in the arrival of American Jews as equal to Christians in the Gilded Age.\' It actually \'marked another step toward the unraveling of Jewish unity in the United States.\' ... Weisman here gives a solid outline of the history of Jewish divisiveness that anyone can follow, an important beginning to understanding the truth over myth about Judaism in American history.
Karl Sigmund
Positive The New York Journal of Books If one place shines for how Europe has changed the world in art, commerce, medicine, music, politics, science, and so much more, it would be Vienna. Exact Thinking author Karl Sigmund reminds us of that forgotten past in a history of the Vienna Circle ... Sigmund tells his story in a way that engages and educates but never bores the reader. His easy prose explains why philosophy is important and how dialogue even on the highest level seldom makes any difference ... Each chapter begins with a dramatic teaser to draw in the reader. The book has extensive annotation. Characters have pictures ... The author does not engage in name dropping. All significant characters including the famous such as Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell make more than just appearances in this story. They merit and receive the attention they deserve.