DWD's Reviews

  Published in 2014 by Lyons Press. This is my 142nd Civil War-related review. When I found out about this book, I found myself wondering how these 5 living former Presidents reacted to the Civil War. I also found myself wondering how no one else thought to write this book before. Former presidents have their own political power and impact current events. Nowadays, you can see this with Jimmy Carter's modeling of volunteerism and his attempts to be a peace mediator in the 1980s and 1990s, Bill Clinton's maneuvering to remain relevant, George W. Bush's refusal to endorse or approve of anything done by Donald Trump, the calls that the Biden Administration is really just the third Obama Administration and, obviously, the 45th President's refusal to admit he lost the 2020 election. DeRose starts with a rundown of the political careers of each politician involved: John Tyler, Martin Van Buren, James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce and Abraham Lincoln.  Then, he d...

Published by Blackstone Audio in June of 2019. Read by Traber Burns. Duration: 8 hours, 36 minutes. Unabridged. In February of 1859, Daniel Sickles, a sitting U.S. Congressman, shot and killed a man in Washington, D.C. across the street from the White House. Why is this not just a weird moment in American history? Five reasons. #1) Daniel Sickles went on to become the highest-ranking Union officer in the Civil War that did not graduate from West Point. He performed very well at the disastrous Battle of Chancellorsville and performed bravely, but with great controversy at Gettysburg, where he lost a leg. #2) The victim was Phillip Barton Key, the son of Francis Scott Key, the author of the Star Spangled Banner. Phillip Barton Key was also the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. #3) Key and Sickles' wife had been carrying on a long-term adulterous affair and Sickles had just discovered this fact. #4) The new technology of the telegraph spread this story to newspapers across the countr...

A refreshing perspective on the Founding Fathers Published 2011 by Regnery History I am an avid reader of American history and one of my favorite areas to study is the American Revolution and the Founding Fathers. There is no shortage of books about the build up to the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War and Washington, Jefferson and Adams (as of late) but there is a real scarcity of books about the difficulties experienced by the Articles of Confederation government and the debates that led to the creation of the Constitution. Of course, there are the famed Federalist Papers and the lesser-known Anti-Federalist Papers but not much written as a study. James Madison (1751-1836) In Founding Rivals , DeRose tells the story as a parallel biography of Madison and Monroe - two Founding Fathers, two future presidents, both close friends of Thomas Jefferson. This is more than a bare bones biography but there were times that I found myself wanting more such as when...