Gray Ghost: The Life of Col. John Singleton Mosby by James A. Ramage

This must be THE definitive book on John Singleton Mosby

Published in 1999 by University Press of Kentucky

James A. Ramage has written what must be THE definitive book on the life of John Singleton Mosby, Gray Ghost: The Life of Col. John Singleton Mosby. I cannot imagine a more thoroughly written book on the topic. Ramage discusses his family history, his childhood and more.

Of course, the largest amount is written about his service in the Civil War as a partisan ranger that terrorized the Union troops arrayed against Robert E. Lee. Ramage is definitely a fan of Mosby, but he refuses to get involved in the hype that Mosby and his contemporaries sometimes engaged in concerning how effective Mosby's men were. Ramage agrees that Mosby was cost-effective, meaning that his small groups of men - usually around 120 or so - would tie down thousands of Union soldiers, but disagrees with Mosby himself that he tied down tens of thousands.

John Singleton Mosby (1833-1916)

The real strength of this biography is that Ramage covers Mosby's post-Civil War career thoroughly, including his controversial forays into politics and his government posting in Hong Kong. Ramage even includes a chapter on how Mosby has been represented in film and television, including a movie in which Mosby played himself in 1910.

This is not a book for the casual Civil War reader - there is too much specific detail and an assumption that the reader knows and understands the basics of the war. However, this book will continue to serve as the reference for all things Mosby.

I rate this biography 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Gray Ghost: The Life of Col. John Singleton Mosby by James A. Ramage.

Reviewed on June 2, 2008.

The Alienist by Caleb Carr

Caleb Carr's plodding plot mars mystery

Published in 1994.

Winner of the 1995 Anthony Award.

This is the second Caleb Carr book I've read and it will be the last. Carr follows Charles Dickens in the time period of the book and in the tradition of using 100 words to say what 15 could have said.

The plot of The Alienist is painfully slow to develop. Carr sacrifices reader interest for the sake of creating mood. He succeeds in doing both - mood is created and I nearly lost interest. I forced my self to move on, suck it up and finish and I was rewarded with a decent last 100 pages or so. But, the payoff was not early enough for all the build-up.

I cannot, in good conscience, recommend this book to anyone except for the most hardcore fans of mystery, New York City, and/or Teddy Roosevelt who puts in an appearance as the Superintendent of the Board of Police Commissioners of New York City. That job title was soon after changed to Chief of Police. He held that position from 1895-1897.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
as an NYC Police Commissioner

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Alienist by Caleb Carr.

Reviewed on June 8, 2008.

Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World by Daniel J. Kindlon, PhD

Rings true to this classroom teacher

Published in 2006 by Rodale Books.

As a classroom teacher that first came into the profession at the height of the Reviving Ophelia type of research done by Mary Pipher. I have participated in classes, seminars and training sessions about how girls are being short-changed in the classroom and in our culture. It was not until I ran across some research I was doing in my Master's Degree program some 15 years later that my eyes were opened to a new possibility: the girls are, on the whole, doing just fine. The boys, on the other hand, are falling by the wayside in heart-cringing numbers. Go to any public school and you can just about guarantee that 7 or more of the top ten will be girls. Look at the special education numbers and 7 out of 10 will be boys.

Dan Kindlon's Alpha Girls: Understanding the New American Girl and How She Is Changing the World does not address what is going on with boys, but it does look at a relatively new phenomenon - the hyper-achieving academically gifted, socially skilled, generally athletic, well-connected Alpha Girls.

What makes an Alpha Girl?

-GPA of 3.8 or higher
-Leadership role in an extracurricular activity
-Participation in that activity at least 10 or more hours per week.
-High motivation to go to college, own a home, make a lot of money, have a good reputation, study and save money for the future.
-High self-esteem based on personal dependability.

While clearly not trying to be openly critical of feminist researchers Carol Gilligan and Mary Pipher, Kindlon's findings blow giant holes in the universal applicability of their theories, although he does admit that changes in American culture may well be what accounts for the differences. He also notes that the differences between previous research and his research may well be due to the fact that men and women talk about themselves differently - men often do not recognize to their own shortcomings as well as do women, especially young men. So a perceived drop of self-esteem on the part of women could very well be an unrealistic level of self-esteem among their male counterparts (pp. 96-7).

So, what is an Alpha Girl like? Well, I had a surplus of them in my classes this last year (I was teaching a lot of college track classes) and I can tell you that Kindlon hits them right on the head when he describes them as "hybrids" and girls that speak the language of boys. They understand boys well and boys understand them. They are stll, however, all girl. They compete, they prepare, they write poetry and they are generally the highest achievers in any classroom. Generally, Alpha Girls have had an involved father (but not always). Kindlon notes that, on average, fathers spend a lot more time with their kids than in decades past, and he theorizes that this interaction has helped socialize their girls a little differently.

Kindlon's book occasionally wanders of-course, with a foray into suppositions about chemical imbalances in the environment creating more macho girls and less macho boys being responsible for some of our cultural changes (he mentions the "metrosexuals" [p. 175] as a new phenomenon. This history teacher will tell you that we've had "metrosexuals" many times in history - I suggest that they are more a product of leisure and disposable income than chemicals. Think of Ancient Rome and the court of Louis XVI as prime examples of metrosexuality in the past). The discussions of lesbian experimentation (pp. 228-32) doesn't really keep with the main theme of the book since it is not limited to the Alpha Girl phenomenon.

On the whole, the book is interesting, seems well-researched and fits with my own classroom experiences.

Other books I recommend on boys and girls in school are:

-Boys and Girls Learn Differently!: A Guide for Teachers and Parents and The Minds of Boys: Saving Our Sons From Falling Behind in School and Life by Michael Gurian.

-The WAR AGAINST BOYS: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men by Christina Hoff Sommers

-Keeping Black Boys Out of Special Education by Jawanza Kunjufu

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

Reviewed on June 9, 2008.

Vexille (anime) DVD

Pretty good sci-fi movie

Released in 2007.

I am not much of an anime fan, but I do like a good sci-fi show and Vexille was pretty good.

The animation of everything that was non-human was fantastic (in my newbie-to-anime eyes). The metallic structures were perfect. The sunsets, explosions, splatters, etc. were wonderfully done. The human faces (and to some extent, the body movements) were not as good - but that is understandable. We humans spend so much time actively looking at faces and body language as compared to cars, sunsets and explosions, that the art cannot stand up to that type of detail.

The story is pretty strong, although you need to pay attention. Japan has sealed itself off from the world because the rest of the world has decided that cyborg technology is a danger to the human race. Japan has embraced this technology, however. The story is interesting, but sometimes they over-narrate and sometimes there's not enough narration. I got a bit confused when due to the two main female characters' (Vexille and Maria) similarity to one another.

Nonetheless, I liked it. Recommended for sci-fi fans.

I rate this DVD 4 stars out of 5.

This movie can be found on Amazon.com here: Vexille.

Reviewed on June 10, 2008.

One Man's Law by John Clarkson

Over-testosteronized and just bad.

Published in 1994 by Berkley

First things first. I am a fan of good action stories. David Morrell - great. Robert Parker - Very good. This book. Ugh.

It's as though John Clarkson sat down after watching an A-Team marathon and decided what he needed in order to write this book was a little more cartoonish violence, a lot more sex, long descriptions of S&M sessions and a James Bond girl.

One Man's Law was too much for me. I can't tell you how many cars exploded from being shot in the gas tanks. The lead female character is aloof and built like a fashion model. Don't worry - Devlin will get in her pants over and over again! The bad guys have hundreds of guns an unlimited supply of money and some are even trained killers. Don't worry - Devlin and his Samoan-stereotype sidekick will just run fast, kick and punch harder and shoot accurately on the run while hundreds of bullets zing harmlessly by (if Devlin does get hit, it will only be a flesh wound and he'll heal quickly thanks to a quick rubdown and some more sex).

The ending wraps itself up too quickly and too neatly - we found out about another conspirator after he's been taken out. The dialogue is stiff. The big final confrontation scene is hoaky. Can I go on? Sure, but I won't.

If you have nothing else to read except for this book, watch TV.

I rate this book 1 star out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: One Man's Law.

Reviewed on June 14, 2008.

Hiroshima: Fifty Years of Debate by Robert Young

Looks at both sides of the Atomic Bombing debate

Published in 1995 by Dillon Press

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 keep this book in my classroom library and it is recommended for students of World War II. If you are a serious reader of World War II literature, this book will offer nothing new but it is a very strong introduction to the topic. It Includes a glossary, a timeline, plenty of big pictures a lot of informative "sidebars".

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Hiroshima: Fifty Years of Debate

Reviewed on June 14, 2008.

The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas by Robert H. Frank

Entertaining but of questionable value

Published in 2007 by Basic Books.

I have read Freakonomics and Naked Economics in the past 6 months and thoroughly enjoyed them. I was hoping to get more of the same with The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas. It caught my eye because it is nearly the exact same color as Naked Economics (Hmmm, I wonder if the economic naturalists would care to speculate on products that intentionally look similar to better-known products...) and I was hoping to get some more economic enlightenment.

Sadly, the book reads a lot more like an extended session with Yahoo! Answers than anything else. It's interesting, but there are times when you have to wonder why anyone would be wondering these things and there are times when you have to wonder if he actually ran these answers by anyone else in another department at Cornell to see if the economic answer was right or if another answer was correct.

For example, he talks about Germany having a high unemployment rate as compared to the U.S. He mentions the fact that Germany has better unemployment benefits as the only factor for Germany's higher unemployment rate.

Historically, there are two reasons for the higher unemployment:

#1) Germany is still in the midst of absorbing East Germany which has a higher unemployment rate than the former West Germany.

Worthless Weimar Republic currency
just left on the streets

#2) Macroeconomics teaches that, in the short run, you can avoid a higher rate of inflation by holding back GDP growth in a variety of ways that tend to cause more unemployment (sorry economists of the world, but that's the easiest way I can explain it without causing eyes to glaze over for non-econ-minded folks). Germany is deathly afraid of high rates of inflation since runaway inflation occurred during the Weimar Republic in the Post-World War I Germany and that is seen as having been one of the things that brought Hitler to power.

I'm sure great unemployment benefits help, but that is not the only cause for the problem.

**********

It's a quick read, often light and breezy. But, there are better reads out there that do it better.

To learn more about offbeat topics and how economics applies to them, I suggest Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science (Fully Revised and Updated)  by Charles Wheelan.

To learn more about basic economics, I suggest Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner.

I rate this book 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: 
The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas


Reviewed on June 15, 2008.