DWD's Reviews

While it does not feature any factual errors, you start to wonder... ...is this a book that really had to be written? Published in 1992 by Squire Boone Village I know that the top-rated, best-selling history authors depend a lot on writers like W. Fred Conway in order to get the more popular, wider-audience histories written. Why? Because Conway is a fan of Indiana history and he has done a lot of research that people like James McPherson would never have time to do simply out of a love for his local area. This is one of the many books he has written about Indiana, Kentucky and/or Ohio and life along the Ohio River. Conway knows his stuff but... Boyhood of Lincoln by Eastman Johnson, 1868 Well, I am also a proud son of the Hoosier state and I found Young Abe Lincoln: His Teenage Years in Indiana to be more than a little pointless. The important facts could have been written in about 10 pages, maybe less. A little more than 5% of the book is the hopeful reminiscings...

Reviewed by a history teacher seeking reading material for his classes Originally published in 1970. Winner of the Charles W. Follet Award. I picked up No Promises in the Wind without much in the way of expectations since I am not that big of fan of Irene Hunt's most famous novel for the younger set, Across Five Aprils . However, I am pleased to say that this is a much better book. No Promises In The Wind is about two brothers who leave home during the Great Depression simply because there is not enough money at home to buy enough food to feed everyone. They head off from Chicago with no plan except to try to survive as best as they can. A soup line during the Great Depression As a teacher, what I like best about this book is its portrayal of the complete and utter economic collapse that the Great Depression entailed. Most students have no conception as to the breadth and depth of the Great Depression. By looking at this small family, readers gain an inklin...

A different look at our most written-about  president Duration: 42 minutes Produced by Teaberry Tapes Everyone knows the facts about Lincoln - the 16th president, the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Gettysburg Address, his assassination. But, do you really know Lincoln?  This CD offers a completely different look at the myth that the man has become by offering a look at his humorous side. Lincoln was a master storyteller and he often told his stories to prove a larger point. There are plenty of those types of stories on this CD.  Sometimes he just told stories to disarm an audience - the editor of this collection notes that Stephen Douglas feared the ability of Lincoln's homespun humor to win a crowd more than his arguments. Lincoln's stories were known to persuade juries and sometimes they were just for fun. His wife noted that Lincoln's sense of humor - his quick smile and laughing eyes were never present in his photographs - he always looked so sol...

\ An excellent book of vignettes about World War II's Pacific Theater Published in 2003 by Putnam Adult The Pilots consists of a series of short stories, mostly about American pilots of B-24s in the Pacific Theater in World War II. The stories are all related to one another but any one of them is also a stand-alone story on its own (in fact, the author notes in the back note that 5 of the stories were previously published independent of one another in magazines). The dust jacket liner notes call it a novel-in-stories. Spencer's book consists of 15 vignettes about the lives of two pilots. The first one is about their childhood. It is by far the weakest of the stories. It has the least to do with the war, but it is a decent little story about the Great Depression. The rest of them give us a little taste of the action in the air over the Pacific but also a sense of life back on base and on the atmosphere of the pilots on leave in Australia. The book is a breeze to...

Bias holds the score down for this book Third edition published in 2004. The Struggle for the American Curriculum, 1893-1958 by Kliebard is a classic in the world of college textbooks about American educational history and curriculum. However, if I might be so bold to say so, it is not a classic due to its own strength but rather to the paucity of books that cover this topic. I have no problem with Kliebard's choice of years to write about (1893-1958) since they are the years when debate over what should be the proper curriculum in America's schools was at its most fierce, beginning with the Committee of Ten report in the 1890s, he documents several movements and ends with the federal government assuming more control over education right after the Sputnik incident caused the American government to doubt the quality of teaching science and math students were receiving. Kliebard is a professor of education. This shows when he tells this story to his readers. Alth...

Surprisingly well-balanced approach to a controversial theory  Zheng He (1371-1433) I fully expected this DVD to be a whole-hearted film adaptation of the book without any criticism of the central thesis. If you are not aware of the thesis, British naval officer Gavin Menzies proposes that the gigantic Chinese "Star Fleet" not only explored the Indian Ocean and the coasts of Africa, India and Arabia, but also went around South Africa, into the Atlantic and eventually landed in the Caribbean, North America and South America. Menzies asserts that they went around Tierra Del Fuego, entered the Pacific and eventually returned to China, thus being the first the circumnavigate the globe. The DVD is very sketchy about the latter half of this trip (The Pacific Ocean leg). The first hour does a strong job of explaining why you may have never heard of Zheng He or his fleet. It also tells about the voyages that historians are confident that Zheng He complet...

A Must for any Civil War buff Published by HighBridge Audio Read by George Hearn Lasts about 6 hours Abridged This book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1975. Way back in 1989 I had to read The Killer Angels as part of a American Military History class while I was attending Indiana University. Since then I've read it 3 or 4 more times and I've recommended it to countless friends and students. Surprisingly, hearing it as an audiobook was an entirely new experience for me - it was much more powerful than I remembered. The Killer Angels is the story of the Battle of Gettysburg told from a variety of points of view, but mostly from the points of view of Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet on the Confederate side. The Union side is largely represented by John Buford and Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (1828-1914) Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain of Maine who won the Medal of Honor for his actions on the second day of the battle. The Killer Angels won the Pulitizer Pri...

Looks at both sides of the Atomic Bombing debate Hiroshima: Fifty Years of Debate is intended for middle and high school students. It is designed to give them both sides of the debate over whether or not the United States should have dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. It offers a short re-cap over the issues involved, including a short synposis of the war. It includes fairly comprehensive arguments from both sides and shows pictures of the results of the bombings. I would have only added one thing to the arguments: the United States was unwilling to trust its intelligence estimates of Japan's ability to continue the war since it had bungled on the German front the year before and nearly lost everything in the Battle of the Bulge (there were 75,000 American casualties) - a battle that was considered impossible by Allied intelligence since the German's were supposed to be close to surrender by that point. I will ...

A fun read. Not real deep, but fun. Good vacation read for history buffs. Richard Brookhiser got the idea for What Would the Founders Do?: Our Questions, Their Answers from the questions from his audiences when he would give a public lecture on the founders. "Richard, what would the founding fathers have said about...(illegal immigration, marijuana, the war in Iraq, etc.)? So, he collected a number of those questions, did a little research and wrote this fun little book. Richard Brookhiser is the writer of the best overall biography of George Washington that I have read, Founding Father: Rediscovering George Washington . This one is not the same quality, although I am giving them both the same score: 4 stars. Gouverneur Morris Why? A book of this sort is just different creature than a biography. By its very nature it is a series of starts and stops (the question and answer format). This inhibits the flow of the book in many ways, but does make it good for t...

An important piece of the story of the American Revolution Thomas Paine (1737-1809) Published in 2003 by Running Press Sad to say, this history teacher had never read Thomas Paine's famed pamphlet Common Sense until three days ago. I came across a stand-alone printing of the book and was prepared to buy it when I found 46 Pages . The entire text of Common Sense (originally just 46 pages long, thus the title) is added as an appendix at the end of the book. I read the original text first and then proceeded to the first part of the book which consists of a short and pleasant combination of a biography of Paine, a history of Common Sense and little snippets of what several founders thought of the pamphlet at its author. This is a solid addition to any American history buff's collection.  I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 46 Pages . Reviewed on August 5, 2008.

Good introduction to the life of a true American heroine Originally published in 1997. Sojourner Truth has always been one of my personal heroes. She was willing to stand up for what was right in a time when being a woman and being black and being an illiterate former slave were three strikes that took most people out of the public arena. Sojourner did more than stand up for herself - she thrived confronting slavery, advocating women's rights and proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. Sojourner Truth: American Abolitionist does a pretty good job of telling her story, but it is not a particularly lively rendition. The facts of her life add punch on their own, but that is despite the writing. My favorite Sojourner Truth quote comes from the year 1851, which is in response to a man who doubted women had the "strength" to deal with the responsibility of voting and being an active citizen: Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) "That man over there says that women ne...

A look at the Revolutionary War generation Originally published in 1983. Theron Nelsen and co-author Doug Wead's What Price Freedom: The Adventures of Early American Heroes is a series of short biographies of 9 men and 1 woman of the Revolutionary War generation. None of the biographies is too detailed (vary from 7-17 pages) and none focus on the more controversial parts of their lives (like Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, for example). Nevertheless, the book is pretty well done and chock full of good quotes. The biographies included are: John Paul Jones (1747-1792) Benjamin Franklin, Nathaniel Greene Alexander Hamilton, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, John Paul Jones, Francis Marion, Deborah Sampson, George Washington. John Adams is left out, but then again, when this book was written, Adams was not as popular as he is today. If you are an Adams fan, he is quoted extensively in the book, which is one of the reasons I was surprised he was le...

Entertaining but too many errors. Published in 1996 by Presidio Press Mike Wright is a television writer. In fact, he writes a pretty entertaining book as well. But, his lack of training as a historian shows in What They Didn't Teach You About the Civil War .    Some of the facts things he writes about were not taught to you because they just are not facts. In other cases, they are factual, but not truthful. For example, the fact about Robert E. Lee not owning any slaves at the time of the Civil War (p. 23) is technically true - but ignores the fact that his wife owned the slaves and they freed them in 1862 (not "long before the Civil War" as the book asserts) because of a requirement of her father's will). Wright makes the comment that the Confederacy only had one good general (Lee) on page 40. Perhaps Wright meant to clarify his point and say that Lee was the Confederacy's only good commanding general because one cannot say that Stonewall Jackson was a bad...

A Fine Bit of Historical Fiction Originally published in 2006 by William Morrow No Greater Courage: A Novel of the Battle of Fredericksburg  is Richard Croker's novelization of the events leading up to and including the Battle of Fredericksburg in December of 1862 and it is just about as good as it gets in the "cast of thousands" (lots and lots of characters) type of historical fiction. Due to the nature of this sort of book, it is just about impossible to get too deeply involved in many of these characters. But, Croker does an admirable job of giving us something to know about each of them, reminding the reader who each character is when they re-join the narrative and then we get to watch them in what is arguably one of the Union Army of the Potomac's worst moments. Most of the characters are real and not all of them are big generals. Not only do we get to see the action in the battle itself, but there is plenty of focus on the behind-the-scenes pol...

Well-written, I learned quite a bit and I've been to the battlefield George A. Custer (1839-1876) You just cannot talk about George Armstrong Custer without stirring controversy. Depending on the writer, Custer was a true American hero who was betrayed by his superiors and failed by his subordinates or he was a self-absorbed crazy racist imperialist that finally found someone that could fight back and taught him a lesson. Our movies have shown this as well. Errol Flynn's They Died With Their Boots On (1941) made a hero of Custer while Little Big Man (1970) makes a fool out of him. Sample of how Little Big Man depicts Custer: In The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of The Little Bighorn , Philbrick notes these views and takes more of a middle road. Custer comes off as a more nuanced man. Ambitious, impetuous and overly confident, but not a fool. Plus, he had reasons for that confidence - the audacious, unexpected move had always worked for hi...

Does a brilliant job of looking at the meaning of the battle of Antietam Published in 2002 by Recorded Books. Read by Nelson Runger. Duration: 5 hours, 48 minutes. Unabridged I have nearly 90 books that cover the Civil War on my bookshelf. Most books that cover the Civil War compartmentalize the battles into little chapters with titles like "Chancellorsville", "Antietam" and "Shiloh". The battles are thoroughly covered but the feel for the larger flow of the war is sacrificed. In Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam 1862 , McPherson dramatically sweeps the reader along and I was left with a renewed sense of amazement and respect for the fact that Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was able to fight, let alone go on the offensive against two separate armies and fight multiple, large battles from June through September of 1862. McPherson does an extraordinary job of tying in many of the political and military threads of this war to demonstrate that Anti...

An excellent beginning to a promising career. Howard Bahr First off - The Black Flower is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It follows a group of Confederate soldiers during and after the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee (November of 1864), especially an educated Private named Bushrod Carter. I will not go into great detail, for fear of ruining the plot for others. For a first book, this is a remarkable work. The characters are well-written and "feel" like real people. They have weight and depth, a feature that many readers and writers on this forum have decried as missing in most of modern literature. They speak in dialect that is easy to read and does not take much decoding (as opposed to some of Twain's). I am a Civil War buff, and I can testify that the historical aspects of the story ring true. Confederate Soldiers This book reminded me very much of The Red Badge of Courage , but not in its theme or its plot. It reminded m...

General history of the American frontier during the Revolution. Published in 1976 by Burnham Inc Pub Synopsis:  The American Revolution in the West is designed to be a general review or introduction to the American Revolution in what is now Kentucky, Western Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. At that point in time, that was the American West. It features George Rogers Clark prominently. George Rogers Clark (1752-1818)  accepts the surrender of Vincennes My review: This is a decent history. Nothing great, nothing terrible. I would recommend along with it the historical fiction book Long Knife by James Alexander Thom and a good biography of Daniel Boone to get a better understanding of the warfare along the frontier. I would also recommend a book I also reviewed entitled The Red Heart by Thom for an impression of the war from the American Indian's point of view. I give this book 3 stars for being neither great nor awful. It wa...

Majestic and Poetic - an Outstanding Experience Published in 2007 by Picador Howard Bahr If you pick up The Judas Field give it about 30 pages. Up to that point I was fairly confused and lost. Then, it suddenly comes together and this book became one of the most powerful books I've read all year. The book features two story lines - one set approximately 20 years after the Civil War and one that consists of flashbacks about the Battle of Franklin. Both are interesting. Bahr's descriptions of the battle contain some of the most poetic descriptions of the most awful things that men can do to one another that I've ever read. Truly beautifully written. On top of that there is an ongoing discussion about the role of God in war. Does he take sides? Has he forsaken both sides? This discussion is not done lightly. These are not post-modernist characters - they believe in God but they must reconcile that belief with the awful experience of war - what they did,...