Paul Walker Books

I ordered a book through another online book provider and received three different delivery dates which were well beyond the date originally quoted. I needed the book fast for an online class so I ordered through AMAZON whcih delivered the book through the postal system arriving in 4 or 5 days much to my surprise. Excellent service.

After reading `Making Enterprise Risk Management Pay Off', I must say that I can recommend it. Buy it if you want to know how large companies have been dealing with risk management in the past years. This book will not really help you understand the fundamentals of risk management, and that isn't the primary focus of this book.

I would recommend that you do not read `Making Enterprise Risk Management Pay Off' just by itself. I highly recommend `Controlling the controllable: the management of safety' by Dr. Jop Groeneweg. This is a must-read if you are interested in risk management and it will give you an good basis for reading `Making Enterprise Risk Management Pay Off'.

`Making Enterprise Risk Management Pay Off', unlike what may be suggested, isn't about companies on the cutting edge of risk management. In my opinion that's only partly true. These companies are dealing with highly visible risks, but in risk management that is the easy part of the job. Dealing with the invisible risks, most often those risks lurking in a company's own organization, is much harder. It is unfortunate that the Tripod risk management methodology isn't discussed in this book because it is THE methodology for integrated risk management.

I would recommend that those interested also read up on a risk management tool called BowTie XP, which really represents the leading edge of risk management research today. I believe the majority of companies in this book will be using BowTie XP for risk management in the coming years.

`Making Enterprise Risk Management Pay Off' is quite readable and I enjoyed reading it. When you read it, realize that risk management is evolving quickly. Don't try to copy the companies in this book with respect to risk management, unless you only want to deal with highly visible risks.

After the Enron meltdown, risk management is as hot as fire. You can?t pick up the newspaper without stories about all the risks facing businesses and investors.

I run a medium size business in a big city. If you want to ?de-risk? a company, you need to learn from managers who are already doing it and doing it well. This book has very detailed cases about the risk management programs at companies like Microsoft and DuPont with managers telling their own stories. The book is short on fancy theories and long on practical ideas.

I admit I was surprised to see Chase bank among these elite companies. Chase wrote off $500 million because of Enron. But you have to wonder how much more they would have written off without a good risk management program. No one ever said these systems are perfect. The Chase chapter even describes two big problems the bank had with their bookkeeping and how they were fixing them.

This book has everything you need to get started in a good risk management program. Lord knows businesses had better manage their risks or they?re history.

If you are interested to see what other companies are doing, who have no relevance to yours, this book is for you. If you are looking for practical guidance that you can use in your own situation, buy something else.

Since the opening day of the United States, baseball has been an interest of many of the presidents. Soldiers with George Washington at Valley Forge played a game called "base", which was a precursor to baseball as we now know it. John Adams wrote about playing a game called "bat and ball" in his youth, although Thomas Jefferson expressed disdain for the game. While Andrew Jackson is known to have played a similar game, Abraham Lincoln is the first president to be strongly linked to baseball. On page 5 there is a cartoon showing Lincoln with the other candidates for president in the 1860 election, and all have bats in their hands.
From that point on, there was a deeper involvement of the American presidents with baseball, although William Howard Taft was the first president to make the ceremonial first pitch. From that point on, every president, including the taciturn Calvin Coolidge, made it a point to demonstrate his interest in the game. The worst photo in the book shows Coolidge in an Indian headdress at a baseball game. Coolidge looks angry enough to act like a ballplayer and spit at the photographer.
There are many colorful historical anecdotes in this book and while it is clear that the presidents used their appearances at baseball games to their political advantage, most of them took a genuine interest in the game. In what may have been a rare point of political honesty, Richard Nixon said that he would have liked to be a sportswriter. There were several points of trivia that I was totally unaware of. In 1965, Nixon was recruited to be the director of the Major League Players Association. When Nixon declined, they hired Marvin Miller, who led them to the overthrow of the hated reserve clause. Furthermore, at one point Nixon was seriously put forward as a candidate to be the commissioner of baseball. As a youth, Dwight Eisenhower played semipro baseball under the assumed name of Wilson, both before and while he was at West Point. Since this violated his pledge of honor at West Point, had this knowledge been revealed, he could have been expelled.
If you are interested in how the political lives of the presidents have been intertwined with baseball, then this is the book for you. Unlike many other books about the inside story of baseball or politics, it is a joy to read and there is very little in the way of negative material.

For those who have wondered about the tradition of our nation's leader throwing out the first pitch of the season, here is your answer.

Authors Mead and Dickson have compiled this entertaining look at how each president, beginning with one of the most UNathletic chief executives, William Howard Taft, has related to the national pastime. For example, while rough- and-ready Teddy Roosevelt was not much of a fan, Franklin Roosevelt was instrumental in keeping baseball going during the dark years of World War II.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was a pretty fair ballhand, a minor leaguer who found greener pastures in military and political pursuits. And Richard Nixon was considered by some to be an astute student of the game.

The President's Game is well-illustrated with seldom-seen photos and would be a welcome addition to both the baseball and the political science fan's libary.

Covers all types of careers, plus includes detailed job forecast information, salary data and each section includes a summary of how to obtain addional career information as well as the education required. The book also includes extensive reference material such as professional organizations for each job.

This book should be called "College majors in the environment". I am a college graduate with a social sciences degree, and the book was not of any help to me. It does not cover the job search, and gives only a few, obvious contacts (such as the EPA). Each chapter is written for a specific degree, and what can be done with that degree, all of which are life or physical sciences. Im sure the book is very helpful if you have a degree in biology, forestry, chemistry, meteorology, etc. But for those of us with less scientifically specific degrees, this book is not too helpful unless you are willing to go back to school for four more years after reading it.

Paul Begala was a counselor to Clinton, and this book was written in 2002. As a result, much of the information is dated.
I remember reading "It's Still The Economy, Stupid" several years ago, and I thought it was pretty decent, but in retrospect I found that this book was nothing more than an egregious propaganda hit piece that distracts the reader/activist from the real problem, and that problem is the Federal Reserve and our debt based system.
Now, I'm no fan of Bush and his entourage, but let's get real. It really doesn't matter if Bush, Clinton, or Obama is in office, because they are nothing more than mere instruments who are being controlled by the billionaire elite, and the lobbyist who work for them.
So, with that said, it's overwhelmingly obvious why Begala adroitly circumvents the Fed issue. And the fact remains unambiguous that we'll still be in debt because the Federal Reserve is a private bank that we pay interest to for printing our currency, and its one of the many institutions, which loans the U.S. government its funds for incursions, and exhibitions around the globe.
The bottom line is we borrow from the Fed and "the borrower is servant to the lender." Which means our whole economic system is based on debt.
However, what I will state is that if you're researching facts and figures and you're an objective individual who can get past Begala's so-called far-left diatribe then I suggest reading this book, because it is chalked full of facts and figures about how our tax money is being spent/wasted.
But, if you're looking for on comprehensive view then find a book that discusses fractional reserve banking and the Federal Reserve System, or I highly recommend watching "The Money Masters" documentary, which explains the Fed System in detail.

Taken as a whole, this book is and indictment of the Bush/Cheney administration.
Now I'm not going to rehash the alleged moral turpitude of this administration because that would be superfluous. Besides, Begala does enough of that in this book, which makes this an entertaining read.
Just don't get suckered into embracing his Democratic hyperbole. It's an obvious fact that politicians use the Left/Right paradigm to distract, mislead, and reshape public opinion, which falls in line with the Hegelian Dialectic (Problem, Reaction, Solution). So, ascertaining this principal is essential insofar as weaving through the unnecessary wisecracks in this book, which detracts from the message, and makes the messenger seem immature at times.
So, I'm giving "It's Still The Economy Stupid." 2 stars.

One has to wonder where Democrats like Begala get their moxy. When they ran against Bush I it was the "worst economy since the Great Depression" and now running against Bush II it is "the worst record on jobs since the Great Depression." Boy I bet Herbert Hoover can't wait until they don't have HIM to kick around any more. I skimmed this little farce in the bookstore, and while I read at least one sentence from every paragraph in the book, I can't even claim to have found any NEW distortions from the liberals. Guess they are as adamant about recycling as they claim.

Let's start with a few immutable facts before wiping the gum off our shoe with this book and tossing it in its proper place. Bill Clinton inherited an economy growing at a roaring pace of over 4% when he entered office, and he left it with negative growth. The most recent recession started either in Clinton's last quarter in office, or the one right after. My friends, this is etched in stone. No Democrat, no matter how many talking points faxed directly to the Washington Post and NY Times editorial board, can make this untidy point go away.

More facts - Clinton benefitted from a peace dividend from a Cold War we were no longer fighting, and from the reduced deficit spending of the S&L bailout which ended in the early 90s. He had his eye on spending this windfall and then some, but a Republican Congress put up an electric fence. In the end it didn't matter, as an economic boom driven by the internet industry filled government coffers so EVERYONE (republican and democrat alike) could overspend, and still have enough left over. Was this the doing of a brilliant economic vision of Billy from Arkansas or dumb luck? The cornerstone of his economic agenda was a massive tax & spending hike he himslf referred to as a "turkey" in an honest moment. If turkeys can't fly, they certainly can't instigate massive growth in a private sector economy.

Returning to today, the paltry economic growth inherited by Bush II is showing historic signs of strength, this despite the fact our economic activity was devastated by an attack on our shores and a war overseas. That is hardly a record to condemn our President and his economic policies. More Americans are working now than at any other time in history, and unemployment is at the statistical equivalent of 1996, when Bill Clinton was re-elected in large part due to the economy's performance. Interest rates and inflation are exceptionally low, and the markets have rebounded. Finally, this recovery is nascent; more is yet to come. I suppose this will be most germane in November when voters decide, but as a conservative I am not the least worried about the performance of the economy under Mr. Bush, and nothing in this book approaches a persuasive argument otherwise.

Let's look at some of the specific accusations of Begala's book: Deficits are up, (always a concern), but this is unrelated to the economy; interest rates have yet to budge, nor has inflation ticked up. The effect on actual people is nugatory. What interests me is how Democrats that NEVER cared about deficits are suddenly such guardians of the public purse, when it took a GOP Congress to balance the budget in the 90s. If one cares to look at the record, Robert Reich, among just one of Clinton's economic gurus, publicly stated many times that balancing budgets was not a goal of the administration, but investing in America's infrastructure was. This is public record folks.

Which brings us to his point that Bush is not investing in America. Now that Bush and the Congress are happily spending on infrastructure like highways, education and assorted other projects (most of which I can assure you is excessive) Democrats decry deficits. Well welcome to the party. All of the things Begala says Bush is neglecting, like job training and education have seen 30% increase in actual dollars in Bush's tenure.

Begala of course makes the obligatory Democrat argument that Bush offered a huge giveaway to the rich in the form of taxcuts, not mentioning that now as opposed to Clinton's last year, the top 1%, the top 10% and the top 50% of taxpayers are paying more of the tax burden then under Clinton. The top 1% now pay 35% of all taxes in this country, a fact that Al Sharpton, a man who thinks enough of himself to seek the job of President, didn't himself know. I suspect many other liberals don't know it either, as it certainly isn't in Begala's book. Either way, the terrible tax cuts have spurred economic growth which will create an overall increase in revenue to the government. Since Mr. Begala is so fond of spening money, you would think having more money to spend would be a good thing. It is, but crediting a Republican for anythingis a bad thing, so let's call him stupid and make a few coins off a book.

I am sure Paul Begala will happily trumpet the candidacy of Mr. Kerry, who by his own public declarations is offering hundreds of billions of dollars more in spending proposals than Bush. To Mr. Begala and his kind, deficits won't be important, but "investing in Americans" with such proposals will be. As the economy slows under the weight of Mr. Kerry's tax & spend proposals, all those goverment pork projects will be good for people. It will be the most active "make-work" Administration since the Great Depression. Rest in peace, Mr. Hoover.

If you have ever watched CNN's "Crossfire", then you know about Paul Begala. He is the wildly fanatic liberal opposing the wildly fanatic conservative Tucker Carlson. As I see it, there is no point in reading this book. It falls under the category of unobjective political drivel. There are so many far right and far left books out there it is a wonder those who follow politics aren't going crazy trying to decipher who is telling the truth. I have a better idea, let's all stop reading ideologically driven junk like this and maybe they will stop writing this nonsense.

Paul Begala's book, It's STILL the Economy Stupid, is more relevant than ever as we approach the 2004 election. It is clear from his editorializing that Begala is no fan of George Bush, but that shouldn't stop any thinking person who wants to understand who "the only President we have" is and what he stands for from reading this book - Democrat or Republican. The book is well written and well documented. Begala does not make unsupported accusations. He carefully lays out the evidence that makes his case.

In this book, Begala goes through Bush's speeches and his record and uncovers a number of disturbing patterns, including George's habit of making promises and then disregarding then days or weeks later and his systematic efforts to cut taxes for ONLY the rich, with the super-rich receiving the vast majority of the benefits.

Begala also carefully explains how the Republicans in Congress blocked Clinton's efforts to put reforms in place that would have curbed big business and avoided both the Enron and accounting scandals among others. This was especially interesting to me, as the Republicans have laid the blame for these things at Clinton's feet.

Don't take my word for what Begala says. If you want to make an educated choice between Bush and Kerry in November; if you want to understand who you're voting for; if you want to understand the record of the incumbent President, read this book.

After six+ years of total Republican control we have seen the national debt skyrocket: and who benefited from that money spent? This book does a thurough job at explaining how these neo-so-called-"conservatives" have put future generations in debt for short term-gains, all while spouting political rhetoric of 'fairness'. If you follow the news closely enough to know that this country has serious problems ahead; problems that Bush has not addressed -or has even made worse- then this book gives you some fine details that you can't just pick up anywhere else. It's a thurough job into how the righty's rhetoric about 'flat-tax' and 'tax fairness' is just another way of saying they're going to give money 'back' to the most comfortable of us (including some real 'Entrepeneurs of the American Dream', like Ken Lay, y'know- the business criminals), leaving the rest of us to pay the ever looming bill. As of writing this the National Debt is over $8 trillion dollars, $25,000 per citizen if you average it out. There is interest on that number, and the money is owed to people who don't even like us (China for example). You will never hear these basic facst from the political-righties, because a good deal of it is there doing, and Bush is continuing the madness with full-force like a junkie that just won't quit. We will have to forever endure from eight years of immoral, foolish, sometimes diguised and sometimes in-your-face disgusting economic stupidity and corporate sleaziness. Buy this book and find out if you don't believe it.

When Mr. Bush came to Washington seven years ago, he came with great optimism to do great things. Then, destiny took a hand and turned the world upside down. And, in the middle of it all was this man who had been placed there for such a time as that. Difficult times required difficult decisions and he made them. Some hated him for it, most supported him but in time, many grew weary of him. He was the prominent symbol of one of the most trying times in America's history. While the page will enevitably be turned, I pray the America I love does not regress to the politics of unsubstantative, mindless, flowery rhetoric of most of the 1990's. I like to think that this nation - most of it - has finally grown up and left behind all hippie narcissm. I am one of the 30%(if the polls are correct) who still support the President. It's easy to criticize in hind sight. But, he has done what he's believed to be right as best as he has been able to given the support and resources around him. I recommend this book. Buy it, read it and say a prayer for this great man.

The title itself is unintentionally funny. Waging a war of aggression, benefiting the rich instead of the poor---please. If Bush is spiritual,
then God help us all.

It's only fair to read both sides of the story. Therefore after a couple of books critical of George W. Bush and the Religious/Christian Right/Conservatives I figured it's only fair to read one in support of the former, most likely it being in support of the latter too.

So after "With God On Their Side", after "Roads To Dominion", after "Close Encounters With The Religious Right", after "What's Wrong With Kansas?" and after "The Faith Of George W. Bush" by Stephen Mansfield I read this one. And going for full disclosure, I also read "Fortunate Son" by James Hatfield.

And the last one 'enjoys' an infamous reputation of being a full fledged dismantling of GWB. However, Hatfield's book still stroke me as being more fair, more balanced and all in all more neutral in tone, than this cheerleading effort by Paul Kengor.

My tolerance ended on page 210 when there was a paragraph implying that Saddam Hussein was involved in the events of September 11. Before you jump at me and talk about the 'atmosphere' of support that was in Iraq for the terrorists and for Al Qaida, that's not even what Kengor is writing about. He's basically saying that Saddam was about as much involved as you can get, shy from flying one of the planes himself. And that is just false.

This shows Kengor's agenda. And that's why it does not come as a surprise that he leaves out the US support for Saddam during the Iran vs Iraq war (a war he also writes about, plus he mentions "He tried to kill my dad.") Just like "Faith & George W. Bush" he also leaves out 'those missing years', the controversy about his guard service, how he failed as a business man, etc. etc. etc. instead doing his best effort to characterize and portray Bush as messianic and infallible as possible, without being blasphemous about it.

Therefore the conclution is: it's a biased effort by a supporter, who sugarcoats everything the man does, putting him on a pedestal, glorifying him unquestionably.

And I don't like that. I believe that there's always two sides to a story. That's why I read this book after all. A good book to me shows both sides, albeit it may put the emphasis on one. However, this one doesn't. Oh, not even remotely.

I don't believe that God would have anything to do with this man. It's time to get un-programmed, America. Start thinking outside of your cage and see this man for what he is - a patron of evil. Mr. Bush has successfully passed the so-called "Patriot Act" that can and eventually will take away your God-given unalienable rights. How many rights will you loose before you draw your line in the sand? He has no regard for the Constitutional Republic that this country was founded on, instead he insists on a Democracy. Spying on Americans is OK with Mr. Bush. Our borders are left unguarded while our children die in a war for oil. Mr. Bush has said that "it would be easier if this were a dictatorship, as long as I'm the dictator". That statement when heard is chilling to say the least. Would God inspire a man to say something like that? I strongly doubt it. Wake up America! We're being led down the road to tyranny by this man! Don't support him by buying this book. Buy a bible instead.

are not part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That so many think that Bush is a man of god shows how little the gospels are actually read. Jesus had only disdain for the rich and endless compassion for the poor and marginalized. Yet Bush's tax cuts are mostly for the rich and his drug program for seniors greatly aids big pharma. And Bush lied us into the war in Iraq and continues to lie every time he says the war there makes this country safer, when our own national intelligence estimates show that it does not.
Shame, Mr Bush.

That this book was chosen to be sold at the recent exhibit of Ghiberti's doors at the Metropolitan Museum in New York (and not some dry Art History account on slick paper) is another example of the genuine taste shown in the arrangement of the exhibit, in which several panels from the doors were displayed in such a way that the rough backs could be viewed as well as the incredibly beautiful bas reliefs on the front. It's no surprise that works like these took so long to complete. Nor is it a surprise, having seen them, that, as Walker surmises, it was Ghiberti's expertise (on an earlier set of doors) that turned Brunelleschi towards an arena in which his rivals could not compete: architecture. As compared with the various cold, lifeless accounts of the making of the dome and other facets of this story, that someone has moved away from the didactic to bring it to life as one of the great moments in human history is a real blessing. Of most value to me personally is the way it puts the entire panoply of Renaissance Italian artists into perspective. That Brunelleschi was the first to establish not just perspective but the essential style of Florentine architechture for the next century (and I would add, creating what we now attribute to Andrea Palladio, just as we attribute some of Brunelleschi's inventions to da Vinci) is so important as to outweigh any trifling imperfections in Walker's style. This book certainly deserves a hardback edition, full color plates, and some solid promotion, particularly to university bookstores and art museums.

I cannot recommend this book for several reasons:
1. The premise of the book is specious. There is no true evidence that Brunelleschi and Ghiberti engaged in a "feud". While they certainly competed with each other for the same commissions on occasion, this was completely expected during that period, and ultimately each distinguished himself well as a master artist and craftsman. There is very little evidence that either character attempted to discredit or destroy the other.
2. Because there is little evidence of this feud, the author spends a lot of time using conjecture to argue an ultimately baseless point. Those pages are largely wasted reading.
3. The author's focus detracts from the incredible contribution each of these men made to the Renaissance. Sadly, it's hard to get a sense of that from this book. Brunelleschi may have been the greatest architect in the history of Western civilization. One gets no sense of that from this book. The brilliance of his achievements are largely glossed over. Much of the same can be said for the author's treatment of Ghiberti. It does a disservice to both.

If you have an interest in the dome at Santa Maria della Fiore and/or Ghiberti's doors at the Baptistry on the same site, please read 'Brunelleschi's Dome', by Ross King. It's a very well-researched book and gives the reader a far better view into these two great artists. That book is highly recommended. Sadly, I cannot recommend "The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance".

An engaging treatment of the rivalry between two creative giants. This book takes you into the time period and opens the world of the early Renaissance to the modern reader. The author's thorough scholarship makes Brunelleschi & Ghiberti more real than do the work of some others and yields a true feel for both the time period and the individuals involved. If you love history, art or architecture you will enjoy this book!

The Renaissance is a subject of great interest and curiousity to me. The author provided for me a depth of information, with supporting detail, I found very engaging. I am a docent at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco where we are blessed with an exact copy of the Ghiberti Paradise Doors.. one of just three in the world stuck from molds of the original panels. I learned of this book from a visitor who told me she could not believe her surprise and good fortune to see the doors here after her enjoyment of the book. She was correct. I believe the author provides a very good mix of history, supporting documentation and story telling to move this beyond a flat text book and into a favorite reference for me.

I love reading about this time period, so I thought I'd really love this book. But I didn't. It was poorly written on three major ways.

1. He was wishy-washy. He couldn't take a stand on the facts he researched. He would say, it isn't clearly documented, or some research said this, some said that, etc. And he annoyingly kept interupting himself to state this! Made me feel that he did some research, but couldn't figure it out. I've read other authors who write about history that can take the facts and distill them into a clear viewpoint. So what if others refute it, take a stand, have an opionion!

2. He kept flip-flopping by referring to the characters by their first name then their last. Pick one and be consistent!

3. It was very disjointedly written. Another reviewer mentioned that he'd start talking about something, then in the next paragraph talk about something else totally unrelated. I kept looking for some kind of organization to the whole thing, but never found it.

If you want to read some good books about this time period - written by a better author, but historical FICTION, read Dorothy Dunnet's House of Niccolo Series. Now THAT's how the Renaissance should be written!

This book is instructive by way of example. It has not a lot of text but many interesting photographs in categories. The categories reflect the photographic or artistic value of the chapter.

Once it's not a deep study about B&W pictures - only an abridge of a few very known photos - it is very smart to have in your photography' shelf(ves), but not A MUST to have it.
Definely it's a very good work material for professionals/teachers because there is no explanations why the picture became famous, so, beginners just will fall in love about them by intuition, leaving the technical aspects to be explained/understood later.
Could be 4 stars if it'd more pictures.

I like collections of photos by many different artists, and this book has a good number of diverse pre-1970 photos to browse. There is a minimum of text and that is fine with me. The book's main contribution is that it suggests a means of systematizing photography, by frame, subject, time, details and other aspects, and as such provides a compelling jumping off point from which the aspiring photographer can learn the art of photography. Good value for the money as well.

I was expecting a book of photographs with accompanying essays on their artistic merit. According to the write up and the first review. I received the book only to find its a collection of mainly classic photographs but mainly well-known photographers, with virtaually no notes, this was quite disappointing. I might also add there are better compilation type photography books on the market.

This book is a collection of photographs from the MOMA collection, nothing more. For those (like me) who were expecting insights, comments, knowledge, this is not the book. It's dissapointing.

I consider myself a serious ameteur photographer specializing in cats. I volunteer at a cat shelter/sanctuary (strictly no kill) plus I have 5 cats of my own (soon to be 6) plus numerous foster kittens. People love my photos and they are always popular at our annual auction. I am looking for a book to improve my technique with cats (and dogs). However every book I find is aimed at professional photographers taking pictures of OTHER people's pets. Much of the book is how to get the pets to relax, pose them, etc. There is very little about how to photograph animals you know. I will say that this book has some very nice pictures and there was a little on exposure that I was able to use.

This is a great resource for pro's, and anyone wanting to learn how to make pet images. Paul was on Pro Photo Show #51 where he talks a bit about his technique and his book.

More than just dogs, and more than just plain poses this book is full of creativity and tips for nearly every situation and is up to date with rodays digital technology.

Walker writes a wonderful book that easy to read and gives a strong argument for why we dropped the atomic bomb. He covers most of the relevant issues and gives a good picture of why certain avenues for resolving the war just would not have been feasible.

My only major problem is the lack of references for the points he makes. While I realise this is not an academic book, it would still be nice to have references to back up what is presented. There are a few, but they are just that, few and far between.

Still, if you are looking for an easy to read, concise explanation of the dropping of the bomb, I would most certainly recommend this book.

Although the book suffers from poor editing, and somewhat unorganized writing, Walker still delivers a cogent argument for using the most powerful and terrifying development of 20th Century technology.

This book is a collection of war stories that, for the best part, have absolutely nothing to do with the title of the book. Never the author analyses really the so-called "Truman's dilemma". His book (that has clearly not been proof-read, since it's full of typos and repetitions) develops a theory which is to me close to revisionism. According to Paul D.Walker, the dilemma did not exist : Truman did a good thing when he ordered to drop the 2 atomic bombs to obtain Japan's surrender, since he spared not only the lives of many young GI's, but also (paradoxally) the lives of (cruel and barbaric) japanese civilians, who all would have died in vain if the war had continued for too long. The two-thirds of the book are there to prove that the casualty rate of a Japan invasion would have been so high among the US army troops that it was better to nuke two cities without prior warning and shock the Japanese High Commandment (the fact that this Bigh Commandment refused to surrender after the bombings and had to be forced by the Emperor to do so is one of the numerous paradoxes of Walker's theory). The author does not hesitate to say that, all in all, the 150,000 nuked japanese civilians are nothing compared to the 350,000 chinese people killed during the infamous "Rape of Nankin" by the japanese army. Never does Walker balance really the different options that Truman had (well, he did not only have invasion or the bomb, you know, he also has blockade, intensive traditional bombings, etc.). Never does he reflect about the fact that the Allies wanted "total and absolute surrender" from Japan, and nothing else, when all the intelligence gathered about the Japanese people proved that this could not be an option, because Japanese hate to lose their face - which is a basics to anyone who studied just a little bit the japanese culture - and that this stubborness from the Allies led to a "cul de sac" in terms of negociation to end the war...
To summarize, this book is not about the dilemma. If you want to be reassured that these bombings were the right thing to do, go ahead and read the book. If you have doubts, spare your money, because you will not learn anything new, and will not be exposed to a real historian work.

Nick doesn't really try to find trouble; it just seems that he does things and trouble follows him, like when he sneaks into an abandoned house where his aunt used to live and he accidentally sets part of the place on fire. It wasn't really his fault, but it's difficult to get others to see it that way. In the end of his junior year in high school, Nick managed to find his way into enough trouble that a judge intervened and told his parents they would have to do something. Their decision to enroll Nick in military school for his senior year doesn't thrill their son.

Nick's parents have been pretty distant for a long time, anyway, and so he doesn't think they will really mind when they take off for a week's vacation and he takes off walking--the main way he clears his mind and finds peace. He walks for days, across the state to where his favorite aunt, Wanda, is now living in a little hippie community. She always seems to understand him.

Life in Wanda's world is strange. Her neighbors are all free spirits, mostly going by pseudonyms and very fond of wild impromptu parties. Their lifestyle is offensive to the teenaged sons and daughters of the very rich people who live in an exclusive neighborhood next door, though, so the hippie parties are often broken up by trash being thrown by the rich kids. One of those kids is Diana, whom Nick feels an instant connection to.

Diana is strange in her own way, though, seeming to hate her father for reasons she won't talk about, and acting very moody most of the time. As the summer goes on and Nick tries to decide what he is going to do next, he finds that everyone's life is more complex than he thought.

I liked Wanda's community of hippies. I liked the way they all lived so happily with each other and did their best to help each other out. I also liked the ending of the book and the way the story resolved itself.

I didn't like Nick as a narrator for this story. He didn't seem invested enough in his own life, and I never got a really good picture of him in my mind because he didn't seem to care a whole lot about his story. I thought Diana was a completely unsympathetic character, mostly because of the way she reacted to Nick the first few times she met him. I didn't trust her at all and was surprised when she was telling the truth.

"Walk Away Home" is not such a good book. I personally didn't enjoy it much at all. I think maybe one of the reasons I didn't like the book is because it is probably for kids in high school, and I'm in junior high. The book is basically about a boy in high school, Nick, who leaves his home one day and walks to his aunt's house. At his aunt's house, he meets a girl, Diana, who is having some very bad problems with her family. Throughout the book Nick, who tells the story, is trying to help this girl with her problems. Overall, even if you are a kid in high school, I still don't think you would like this book much. It is rather boring because it seems like it takes too long for Nick and Diana to find a solution to Diana's family problems.

I liked the weird people who lived with Nick's aunt and have names like Rode Kool and OK Sunbeam and the place where all of them live which is called "Happiness Far" (It was a farm and the m fell off the sign.) Also how Nick and his girlfriend find a way to get into houses where nobody lives that are up for sale and hang out there. There was also interesting things that Nick wrote about his habit of walking like at one time everything in the world was in walking distance, since it had to be, since people only walked. This was fun to read but made you think, too.