Kentucky Books

If you are interested in Smedley Butler, don't miss the book The Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer.

Author takes a fascinating story and dries it out into a less-than-stimulating biography. General Butler deserves better than this

If you like this book, you'll love The Plot to Seize the White House, which just came out from Skyhorse Publishing. General Smedley Butler is an amazing character.

anyone who questions the validity of going to war needs to read this book.

Smedley Butler was a great American, a two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, a General in the Marine Corps, and, in retirement, an articulate and famous pacifist, who could not be dismissed as effeminate or ignorant. His life is worth examining, particularly by anyone in the military.

Butler was also a skein of contradictions: a Marine from a Quaker family, a general who joined the Marines as a private, a critic of politics in the military whose congressman father just happened to oversee the department of the Navy, a soldier who spent most of his days maintaining order in America's colonies, official and otherwise, who then went to vehemently condemn the deployment of American troops overseas, and perhaps most importantly, a soldier who inspired fierce loyalty. This list could go on and on.

Unfortunately this biography reads like a police report and not like a measured and analytical examination of a truly fascinating American. Butler was a great man who deserves a much better biography. (Un)fortunately court historians who write popular political hagiographies seem to eschew the lives of quixotic Marines, however impressive, interesting, and instructive their lives may have been.

As there are not that many biographies of Butler extant, this one may well be worth reading for the facts, but do not expect greatness from this book.

Karen Harper agains gets your attention and keeps it until the last page.

I greatly enjoyed this book by Harper. I have read several books by Harper and this was right up there with the best. It had the right amount of suspense and realism concerning the black market for babies to make for a great read. It will definitely be a reread on my shelves.

This book has a great plot and some wonderful twists. Having the heroine be a midwife and the hero be a doctor was a wonderful idea.

I would have rated it higher if there weren't so many plot coincidences. Also, a couple of scenes, though exciting, didn't ring true because they seemed a bit contrived.

Also, I would like to know why the front cover blurb gives away a major secret!

I gave this one a B- a All About Romance.

The story in this book was interesting, but I found the style of telling it to be choppy and hard to follow. The description of a difficult childbirth was mesmerizing and really well-done, but the romance was too sparse. Mostly I objected to ends not being tied up....we never found out what happened to several of the secondary characters, people we had either come to like or wanted to be sure they got what they deserved!

I have read almost all of Karen Harper's books. I think she is a great writer. She really pulls you into the story. Like all of her other stories, she has a gift for making you feel like you are the heroine/hero. You feel like you are actually living in Apalachia (sp?).

I liked the character of Emma - the midwife/heroine of the book. Griff was interesting too. I wish Karen Harper would include more romance in her books. I always feel like she is holding back in the romance dept. There were so many opportunities in this book. I do highly recommend this book. Romance or not the story was suspenseful and the secondary characters were first rate!

Although I've only seen two of her movies "Les Girls" and "The Reluctant Debutante" I've known about Kay Kendall mainly because of reading about her love and marriage with the actor Rex Harrison who's a favorite actor of mine for several years. I remember reading about her death back in the late fifies and then I read about her marriage with Rex Harrison and how he'd kept her terminal cancer a secret from her. Well it was just so tragic and yet romantic at the same time. I've always heard about her but knew very little about her and thank God for this precious little book. Now I'm going to try my best to find more of her early movies. This girl was a wonderful comedienne just from seeing her in the two movies I've mentioned above. She was bright, quick minded and very funny, kind of like the young Katherine Hepburn in my favorite movie of hers that I like called "Bring Up Baby" I mean this girl had a bubbly sense of humour that to me was very endearing and so much fun. It's too bad such fun screw ball type comediennes are long gone.

After waiting years for a bio about the magnificent Kay Kendall, Eve Golden's effort is little more than tin. The book is a laundry list of Kendall's personality quirks and defects (film stars documented as self-centered is a revelation?) and completely misses the mark. Kendall was so extraordinary and special as an actress, and this book, tragically, misses that which clearly made her so memorable. Several of Kendall's films are watchable only due to her presence and there is no mention of that here. Golden has chosen to focus on the personal details at the expense of Kendall's charm and uniqueness as a performer. It seems that cooperation of Kendall's sister, Kim, was necessary to provide documentation about their childhood and early careers, however, this doesn't seem to have helped the book much. Previous bios on Rex Harrison have better captured the essence of Kendall's star quality (i.e. Alexander Walker's). Noel Coward's diary entry for Kendall's London stage performance in THE BRIGHT ONE does more to illuminate this great actress than this book: "Went to see a dreadful play in which Kay Kendall was enchanting..." THAT was Kendall's gift. This book does nothing to endorse that consensus.

This is Eve Golden's best book yet, and that's saying a lot. While many Americans are unaware of Kay Kendall's short, but significant, career, Ms. Kendall's popularity over the pond remains unwavering. Her life story is told in a style true to Kendall's off-screen persona: funny, witty, sharp, and always interesting. As the subject matter could have ended up a cliched tearjerker with Kendall's death, Golden instead takes the high road. Highly recommended for any fan or Kendall's, Golden's, or movies in general.

This was a book I eagerly anticipated and I was not let down. Entertaining show biz author Eve Golden weaves a fun story around show business's most glamorous comedienne. From day one, Kay Kendall lived a fast-paced, fun-filled life, mixed with a semi-successful career filled with interesting and witty friends.
As the world knows, Kay Kendall's life was cut short following a losing battle with leukemia, a disease everyone swears she never knew she had. Her marriage to Rex Harrison is honestly told and the author manages to bring Kay's story to print in a slender volume that is filled with reminiscences from family and friends.
A fun read, a delightful tribute to the Divine Kay.

Eve Golden is one of the best writers about Hollywood and about screen acting that we have. If I had my way, she would be declared a national treasure. I think of her as an American writer, but she has been able to get the gist of Anna Held's mysterious European origins and now she turns her gaze onto Kay Kendall, the epitome of postwar UK chic, and she comes up with another winner.

Kay Kendall's life, and especially her death, made her a legend in the late 1950s, and if she is pretty much forgotten nowadays it is not due to a lack of ardent fans who love her, like I do. Once more of her films are released on DVD perhaps we will have a revaluation of her work as an actress, sort of the way people started to appreciate Norma Shearer only within the last 20 years, based on the policy of going back to the films and seeing what worked, what didn't in them. Who among us for example has more than the vaguest of memories of ONCE MORE WITH FEELING, the Stanley Donen comedy which was Kendall's last picture. Poor thing she had to co-star with the film world's biggesr ham, Yul Brynner, while at home she was getting locked out of her hotel room by Rex Harrison, her husband, who was pretending to enjoy his tempestuous relationship with her while trying to keep the secret from her that she was dying of leukemia. Eve Golden and Kim Kendall try to give thhe devil his due, but by the end of the book you're thinking that meeting Rex Harrison was the worst mistake poor Kay ever made in her tragically abbreviated life.

Dirk Bogarde was a close friend to Kay, and Eve Golden apparently was able to interview him at great length in the years before his death. His contributions give the book a lot of depth, while the recollections of Princess Lilian are also important, historically. I also liked the memories of Kay's younger half-brother Cavan Kendall, who must have been around 20 when his sister died but who retains a lot of the crystal sharp memories of youth.

Yes, Kay Kendall had her faults, and chief among them was her inability to see that she was doing wrong when she wanted something (such as someone else's boyfriend or husband). In context, Golden lets us realize that some young women who grew up in London during the blitz had an amoral attitude towards grasping the brass ring. Because at any moment death might rain down from the sky, the feeling was, live for today, and damn the consequences.

Yes, Kendall had her faults but I do not see that it was the job of the biographer to gloss them over. She wouldn't have been hman if she was just the madcap clotheshorse she played in a handful of sophisticated flicks. She did sterling work for Muriel Box, Vincente Minnelli, George Cukor. For that I would forgive her many sins. And her death is still very sad. Hopefully Kay's sister, Kim, will live to see a day when the disease that carried Kay off will be eliminated from the face of the earth. "And there will be no more dying then . . . " as it says in Holy Writ.

Good storyline, and you'll enjoy the characters. I always like her books. I enjoy fun and sexy romance ...

I rate this book one star because norah hess seems to love to picture the male characters in her books as nothing but whoremongers.the male charachter in this book did not like nothing but ugly whores because of uncle's cheating wife who was beautiful.devlin the male character did nothing but sleep with prostitutes in this and treated d'lise like trash. The story line was interested expect the fact that devlin slept with a whore when he met d'lise and after she move in with him...he continued to sleep with indian whore...norah hess needs to stop making her male characters nothing but whoremongers..Trust I read 5 books of hers and all the male characters are nothing but whoremongers...the book ended with the delvin and d'lise getting back together after she moved out but the book was not that great

To the disenters - Have you ever been in Kentucky in 1781? grin!
One complaint - cover editor - hey, 1781, women didn't dress like that. Dumb!

Our big burly trapper, Kane Devlin is returning home from the wars [George Washington, remember?] He seemed to have survived with a fair decent attitude, despite the hardships he would have had to suffer. Along the way he picked up the mistreated dog "Hound", that should speak well of him. Now to stumble upon D'lise Alexander being attacked by her beastly uncle brought him to another rescue.

Now for a man's man being used to surviving in the wilderness and through a war, taking on a young girl was bound to bring complications. Being in a world where there were more men than good women his protective instincts were being kicked into high gear.

I found it hard to accept that they would be leaving 15 year old David and 10 year old Johnny behind to the mercy of that brute, Rufus. Picking up the woe-begotten Scrag brought about humorous results.

Yup! you're right, Raven was one nasty piece of work, but then she was jealous, afraid of losing an easy life of support and out for revenge.

Got a big kick out of Big Beaver and the way he wove in and out of Kane's life and proved to be a great friend of both Kane and D'lise. Was surprised as Kane when I found out he had remarried.

Loved the way the settlement ladies rallied around D'lise and chuckled at Kane's jealousy of Samual. Samuel was an educated man and ran the emporiam of ladies ware and had two small daughters.

Ah, but then David and Johnny showed up and Raven continued to cause mischief, claiming to be carrying Kane's child and then D'lise finds out that she is in the family way and walks out on Kane even though he has been wounded.

Ah, the vagaries of life. You must also meet the old gentleman, Tom who figures quite helpfully in D'lise's life.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED -- try it you will like it. Such a change from all the amoral heroines running around in the contemporary stories. [although too many b-witches thoughout the story but they probably did talk like that.]

You might enjoy this book if you've never read any of Hess's other books, but I have read several, in fact, I had just finished reading one of hers when I picked up this one. This book is exactly like several others of hers. It seems Ms. Hess simply changes the names and the storyline a bit but it is essentially the same book. The characters, the hero and heroine, the villains, they never change, they have no real depth to distinguish them as unique. They are exactly the same in every book. This is okay if you've only read one or two of her books, but it gets annoying after a while. They are all exactly the same in almost all her books. Another thing that bothered me is that one of the villains in this book is a woman named Raven, in another of Hess's books, her heroine is named Raven. It is not the same woman, but this still bothered me. Also, must she always name the horse Beauty? Can she not come up with something slightly more original? Also, in the book, she keeps emphasizing how the main villain, the heroine's uncle is fat. She keeps mentioning it and emphasizing it over and over again and I found it to be a bit excessive. Yeah, I heard you mention it the first time okay? I couldn't really like the hero or the heroine. The hero seemed to be selfish and have a tendency to jump to stupid conclusions as did the heroine. I enjoyed her other books better, I don't know if it is because I read them first or they were actually better, but I thought Raven and Wildfire were much better than this one.

Kane seemed to be a great guy-until he decided his crotch had more brains than him. Okay get this straight. He married her because he loved her-but didn't know if she loved him. It's not like they had don't anything to produce a baby-before the marriage. So why would this hardcore bachelor marry a woman who might never love him? And does this cause him to jump to stupid conclusions? I think it does. D'lise had a better reason. She had been beaten severly by her uncle and wary of all men-but didn't Kane prove himself time and again to be on her side. And the whole reason that things went to hell pretty fast-Kane made D'lise afraid of him after month's of marriage, went out got drunk, and went to their old house. Raven-ugly Indian woman-sneakes into his bed-she had been his "lady" and proceeded to make it look like he had been with her. D'lise gets made, doesn't ask for an explaination and leaves. Just dumb really really dumb. Jackass the lot of them. But there is a very good adventure to it read it. HEHEHE

Like so many other ships, the USS Portland was one of the unsung heroes of the War. Author William Thomas Generous Jr. did extensive research yet correctly focused on the men, both swabbies and officers, as the real story within the facts. Personal experiences are interwoven with the larger story of battles and the War and sometimes with more personal analysis and opinion than many may think warranted, especially given the forcefulness at times. However, the reader will undoubtedly become attached to ship and crew alike as they progress further and further into the book. By the end, you want more, always the mark of a good book.
Steven Bustin, Author: Humble Heroes, How The USS Nashville CL43 Fought WWII Humble Heroes: How the USS Nashville CL43 Fought WWII

My grandfather TK Erickson served as a five inch gun "talker" on the USS Portland in world war two. He died in New Mexico about 15 years ago, and I've missed hearing his stories. In remembrance of him, I built a working radio controlled model of the USS Portland, but was never able to find any books about the ship.

When I ran across this book, I immediately had to purchase it. The book is a high quality, and it provides a true account of each battle star earned by the crew of the Sweet Pea. From the pre-war years when Portland escorted FDR on the USS Houston, to the final battles in the Pacific War, and finally the big Navy day celebration in Portland, Maine, this book lays it all out. My grandfather gave me a newspaper clipping from Navy day in Maine, and it was so cool to read more about that event, which obviously meant so much to the crew.

Like any other book about historical events, this one is not perfect, but regardless this book is a treasure as one of the few books about one of the most significant ships of the US Pacific Fleet in world war two.

A great book I cant say enough about it. When I came to the last page I was sorry the book ended.I wish there were more books like this.

"Sweet Pea at War" is seriously flawed. The author, William Generous, really knows very little about naval warfare of the period, with the result that his interpretations of events are misleadingly wrong. I'll give two examples:
1) Generous obviously has looked into the Portland's battle reports, but he does not have the knowledge level to interprete them correctly. In one, the commanding officer included a number of technical commentaries and complaints and suggestions from various crew members. Generous goes into a psychological rant about how this shows that the commanding officer was insecure, and how this reflected on his poor leadership style and why he was disliked by the crew, and on and on and on. Obviously he has not read other battle reports; if he had, he would have found that it was standard procedure for crew comments to be included in the reports, ver batim, when they were available. There are reports of AA actions that include the comments down to the seaman second firing 20mm guns. COs were instructed to sit their troops down and get written after-action reports from anyone with something to contribute - often not done because of circumstances, but still a required process. Thus Generous ends up trashing the reputation of an officer because he did not understand the procedures for naval after-action reports.
2) In one action Portland was off-axis from the line of approach of a Japanese air attack on a carrier. The Portland gunnery officer decided to put up a fixed barrage over the CV to deter / interfere with Japanese dive bombers. In the after-action report he claims that the barrage worked very well, and recommends that all CV escort ships follow the procedure. Generous then spends some ink telling the readers how this shows that the particular gunnery officer was so innovative and forward thinking and contributing to the advance of the art of AAA. This was, in fact, not the case. Barrage AA fire was an early technique borne of the lack of a good director. With the advent of the US mk 37, and good fuse setters, tracked fire was possible and more effective than barrage. The gunnery officer's "innovative thinking" was actually regressive. Generous does not know this; in addition, later in the history, when the Portland's gunnery officer again uses the barrage technique, and it fails, he is silent about this, ignoring the event, likely because it would undermine his previously-made case. Either we have a case where Generous picks out and highlights facts that support his positions and ignores those that do not, or Generous simply did not recognize that the later incident shattered his previously-made argument. In either case, we have a situation where the author really does not understand what he is commenting upon, something like reading a high-school paper on quantum theory.
There is lots of dross like that scattered throughout: Generous' analysis of Midway is sophomoric, and he continually makes editorial comments on things that just are not so, such as his statement that the .50 cal AA guns on the ship were replaced because they were "flimsy."
Given all that, you have to recognize what is available in this book. You are not buying Generous' expertice, obviously; you are buying the story of the ship, and the tales related by the crewmembers, **their** views and anecdotes and histories, along with the occasional direct quote from action reports, if one can assume that Generous quoted accurately, such as ammunition expenditure or AA aircraft kill claims.
From that approach, "Sweet Pea at War" is a worthwhile acquisition if you are savvy enough in naval warfare to separate the good from the bad, or if you are just looking for an interesting read on WW II in a cruiser mostly from the enlisted point of view. This book would be a worthwhile read for someone expert in naval warfare and the Pacific campaigns, but I would not recommend quoting the author on anything else, and I would not
recommend it as a casual read for anyone not an expert in the field.
Dr. Alan D. Zimm CDR USN (ret).

I am grateful for Generous' contribution of the details of the USS Portland and all the officers and men who served onboard her from launching to decommissioning. He is deserves praise for the efforts made to insure that those stories would not be lost to history. If he had just concentrated on this great task, I would have had no problem with his work. But he was not content with this. He seems to have taken this opportunity to project himself as a great naval tactician and analyst. It was bad enough that he proved himself nothing more than an amateur, but he did this at the expense of some great naval figures of the war. I, personally, cannot tolerate those who attempt to promote themselves at the expense of others, especially when facts are not properly researched or left out to accomplish this goal. His treatment of Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan, the Officer in Tactical Command (OTC) of the task force that met the Japanese at the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal ("Night Cruiser Action") is the most blatant example of this. Generous seems to have had a grudge against this fine officer, who lived and died in the best of United States Navy tradition. He states that Callaghan "never had a major sea command before" taking on this task. It just so happens that he commanded the heavy cruiser USS San Francisco (a more prestigious command than that of the Portland) for a year before being promoted to admiral and being taken by the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief South Pacific Area. Admiral Ghormley had his choice of many who were senior to Callaghan, but chose him because of his competence. I would choose an admiral's evaluation for ability and competence over any academic historian of the following century. If, as Generous maintains, Ghormley was also as much a failure as he was, he would have sought out as his chief of staff one who he felt made up for what he lacked. Generous proved completely ignorant of the tactical situation that enveloped the days before this battle. He praised Rear Admiral Scott (well deserved) for his ability to train the ships in his force prior to his victory at the Battle of Cape Esperance. Generous leaves out the fact that Scott had weeks to accomplish this. He neglects to inform his readers that Callaghan only knew of his task and the ships that would be at his disposal the day of the battle. Escorting the supply ships and providing protection for them left him with no time to train or even meet with the commanders of all of his ships to discuss the strategy that would be employed. This was typical of the situations that confronted our forces at that time. While Generous again comes down on Callaghan for the placement of his ships, real naval analysis has never been able to come to such a conclusive conclusion. Generous, is so intent on destroying Callaghan's reputation that he also leaves out that he was killed in that action as a result of his not staying in the battle-hardened command and control station. He, as many other brave officers felt that they could not maintain proper perspective of the battle within an area that so restricted their observation. He died because he put his supreme duty before his personal safety. Generous exhibits such contempt for Callaghan that he even uses his receiving the Medal of Honor as a means of getting in a final stab. This is hardly what makes a competent writer of military history. Only his treatment of the crew of the Portland keeps it out of my trash can.
At the very introduction of the book I became concerned for what might follow when Generous admits that he had never even heard of the USS Portland until two years before he wrote the introduction. I knew then that the writer would not be of the caliber that normally writes on naval history subjects. Anyone who had not heard of the Portland could not have known much of the war in the Pacific. The rest of the book only supported my fears. I began to feel that I was not reading well researched material but what had been gleaned from interviews from crewmembers. This really comes out when the ship did not get a battle star for its one-ship raid on Tarawa in October 1942. He makes a major point of this at the event and then ends the book with a reminder of this neglect on the part of the Navy. Add this to his repeated effort to convince his readers that the turning point of the war was when the Portland played its most important role (where he blasts Admiral Callaghan) instead of the Battle of Midway. Both of those seem to be supported mainly from the tactical viewpoint of most sailors. There is nothing wrong with a crew seeing things as they do and judging events and their treatment from the perspective of themselves. But when a historian takes the same view, he misleads his readers if they are looking for the facts. He seems to think that a war's turning point is a tactical rather than a strategic event. This extends to the incident at Tarawa where Admiral Tisdale forces a cease fire before the captain wanted to. It is right for a captain to want to continue an engagement. But an admiral has a bigger picture of what the goals of whole operation encompasses. For Generous to imply cowardliness on the part of Admiral Tisdale is, once again, irresponsible.
After reading the first hundred pages, I reverted to just reading sections that talked about the ship and crew. By that time Generous had lost all credibility with me. By doing so, I enjoyed much of the remainder. As I said at the beginning, Generous is to be commended for his treatment of the ship and crew.

William Donati's book, Ida Lupino, a biography, was very interesting and well written. Some of the data is in line with the A and E biography, but some is not. I have to agree with just one of the other reviewers in the fact that very little is said about Ms. Lupino's daughter, Bridget Duff as a grown woman. It came out very strongly that Ms.Lupino had a never ending concern about what her father thought. Ms. Lupino's roles on the screen were that of woman who, while flawed, were very interesting. One could not help to think about what would have happened if she was given better roles. Her constant feuds with Warner Bros. and many suspensions for not accepting lousy parts were outlined in the book. Another thing that the book does not go into is, why after 60 plus movies as an actress, 6 as a directors and 100+ as a TV director, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and sciences and the Emmy Awards has completely overlooked Lupino. Overall, I liked the book very much.

William Donati's book, Ida Lupino, a biography, was very interesting and well written. Some of the data is in line with the A and E biography, but some is not. I have to agree with just one of the other reviewers in the fact that very little is said about Ms. Lupino's daughter, Bridget Duff as a grown woman. It came out very strongly that Ms.Lupino had a never ending concern about what her father thought. Ms. Lupino's roles on the screen were that of woman who, while flawed, were very interesting. One could not help to think about what would have happened if she was given better roles. Her constant feuds with Warner Bros. and many suspensions for not accepting lousy parts were outlined in the book. Another thing that the book does not go into is, why after 60 plus movies as an actress, 6 as a directors and 100+ as a TV director, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and sciences and the Emmy Awards has completely overlooked Lupino. Overall, I liked the book very much.

This book provides a concise and in-depth investigation on what drove Ida Lupino, not only as an actress but to become Hollywood's first female director. Starting off with a background look at the Lupino family the author, William Donati, gives us at the foundation upon which Ida was driven to carry on in the family business, and would eventually lead her to Hollywood. Here we are given a real life look at what actors had to endure during the studios contract days, in which they controlled not only the lives of their stars, but their careers as well. We learn of the battles Ida had to put up with, both artistically and physically, and how the glamorous life of a star could be anything but. This treatment would eventually lead her to split from the studios and strike out on her own, as an independent. Here we learn of her first foray into directing, and the constant struggle to finance and put out quality films. This is paralleled with the conflict between her career and personal life, as we are given a clear glimpse at her failed marriages, and her battle with herself. The author gives us a real fans eye look at this great actress come director. Truly a must book for any fan of Hollywood's golden age.

Donati has written a respectful and seemingly accurate portrait of Ida Lupino as star, director and woman. A reader looking for basic biographical data on a deeper-than-encylopedia level will find what they are looking for with this book.

Donati, unfortunately, writes with a noticeable lack of flair and manages to nearly make Lupino boring. This is no mean feat, given how colorful and important she was. He does not place her films into a critical or historical context. Nor does he really explore her character on anything more than a surface psychological level. Furthermore, in his focus on her romantic life, he overlooks or skips over other important relationships that she had with other women. The most obvious omission is her adult relationship with her daughter.

Useful for class assignments, but other readers may want to wait for a better treatment.

The author is good at setting out the basic facts of Lupino's life. He writes clearly and is basically engaging. However, after having read the book, I don't feel I know Lupino well--personnally or as an artist.

As an artist--how did she view her acting roles? How was her personality expressed in the films she directed? Why did she make The Hitch Hiker, for example? Or, what was her sense of her contribution to film? In short--there is just about zero description of her work and no integration of film anaylsis and commentary into the biography.

About her personal life, we are told about her turbulanet relationships with no explantion as to why a powerful woman would put up with the seemingly abusive Howard Duff as a husband. There is one paragraph in the last chapter where the author speculates that Lupino had a borderline personality disorder. This perspective came through dimly as he worte, but I would have appreciated a more consistant and deeper exploration of her personality.

Unfortunately, I ended up having less respect for Lupino after reading the book than before, in large part, I believe, because the author refuses to place Lupino in an artisitc or psychological context.

Kaufman's book sets out to defend the "indefensible" and does a pretty good job of it. He answers some of the more common criticisms of the Bush Doctrine, all the while reminding us (as we are apt to forget) that the situation looked very different in 2002-2003 than it does now. He explores some of the alternatives to it, such as multilateralism, and reminds us with recourse to history (without any egregious examples of anecdotal cherry-picking) that most of them have serious drawbacks as well. Some of the book's strong points were also incident to its flaws; for instance in reminding us how the world looked in 2002-2003 he becomes wedded to an international and diplomatic snapshot that has since changed, namely our relationship with Germany and France after the succession of Merkel and Sarkozy, respectively. On the whole a solid and important book.

enough facts and analysis to give the reader a platform for understanding current events, and more important, an insight into the intillectual requirements for developing policy

I am most of the way through this book and have been impressed by its clear, readily understood prose and its straight-to-the-point sentences explaining the various foreign policies that the U.S. has embraced and the proofs of their failure or success with the reasons why. Naming and explaining one by one the foreign policy schools of thought and their proponents, as the author does in the first part of the book, was helpful in placing the current Bush doctrine in an historic context. The author then describes the Bush policy as, on the one hand, vigorous encouragement of the growth of stable, liberal democracies -- because stable, liberal democracies historically do not fight each other -- and, on the other hand, vigorous opposition to totalitarian regimes that deny freedom to their oppressed populations -- because oppressive regimes historically have defiantly ignored negotiated agreements of peace. Ironic that this book is available just as the tide of our miltary success in Iraq and public opinion at home and abroad is seen to be turning. Short and important, this book should be on everyone's coffee table.

I found the book helpful, though not without its short-comings. It offered better military and foreign policy explanations and historical context for its position than I have ever heard, and it offered plenty of pro-Bush rhetoric, too. About the comments on this site from those who didn't like it, I am still not entirely sure where I stand on the issue, so I am very interested in thoughtful arguments either way. However, simple disparagement and mindless nay saying do not qualify as "thoughtful" or "argument." It is simply a display inane bias and is helpful to no one who is wondering whether to purchase a certain work. So, try this: When writing a comment about a book, please, at least attempt to make an intelligent, cogent argument for your position, or shut the #%& up!!

The easiest way to review this is via ideology. People favorably inclined toward Bush will like it; those who oppose him will hate it. But since the author elected to publish it with a university press, I'm going to assess it as a work of scholarship and analysis. On that count, it comes up woefully short. It is well-written but panglossian defense of the Bush strategy. I am amazed that the University Press of Kentucky, which is an up and coming academic publisher, produced it. It is most certainly not an academic work but a ideological polemic masquerading as scholarship as per Noam Chomsky or Chalmers Johnson. There is no critical analysis of the Bush strategy, but simply a legal brief asserting that is it the best of all possible approaches. The author develops caricatures or strawmen of alternative strategies and then demolishes them. For instance, on p. 129 he write, "As the lessons of history attest, critics are wrong to object to the Bush Doctrine because it does not defer categorically to the UN Security Council or to multilateralism as any guise as an end in itself." This is Rush Limbaugh discourse--invent a position that no serious person actually holds (who, exactly, advocates categorical deference to the UN Security Council?) then ridicule it.

Let me give just a couple of examples of Kaufman's selective use of history and double standards to sustain his partisan argument (there are many dozens more). On p. 120 he writes, "By the end of his administration, Ronald Reagan has shifted away from his initial inclinations to back America's right-wing allies unconditionally, as it became apparent in El Salvador, the Philippines, Korea, and Chile that liberal democracy was a plausible alternative to either authoritarianism or communism." In reality, it was the Democratically controlled Congress that forced Reagan to push for democracy in these places, not some personal epiphany.

Second, Kaufman excoriates Clinton for not preventing the genocide in Rwanda (although failing to mention that in 2000 candidate Bush explicitly said he would not have used the U.S. military in Rwanda had he been president). Alan Kuperman has demonstrated that even had Clinton moved immediately once he was aware genocide was underway, it would only have had a limited effect, so I have to assume that Kaufman's criticism is because Clinton did not act in advance to prevent the killing. But in anything other than a hagiography, if Clinton deserve blame for not being prescient in Rwanda--a place with very limited American attention or involvement--then Bush deserves even greater criticism for for not anticipating the emergence of armed resistance in Iraq and taking steps to limit or prevent it (such as an infusion of a large number of troops and implementation of an effective reconstruction program in 2003). Kaufman does suggest "we [sic] should have anticipated better" in Iraq when, in fact, those who did anticipate better were attacked by the administration. Even after this mousy criticism, Kaufman goes to great lengths to make the ridiculous argument that even though "we" didn't anticipate better, it wasn't a big deal anyway since more Americans died in the world wars and the Civil War than in Iraq! At that point, I could no longer take the book seriously. It was, from the start, a blend of propaganda and scholarship. Since I assume the author does actually understand that the criterion for judging strategy is not the aggregate lives lost, but whether the benefits justified the costs, I have to believe that along the way he elected to jettison the veneer of scholarship and shift purely into propaganda.

Perhaps the most pressing conceptual flaw in the work is its disregard for the role of culture. The author uses the spread of liberal democracy to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific rim as evidence of its universality and hence as support for the idea that it should be the cornerstone of American strategy. What that overlooks is the idea that liberal democracy can only develop stable roots in Western, Western-influenced, or Confucian cultures. Kaufman reiterates the Bush idea that Islamic violence is caused by the "insidious interaction of poverty, brutality, and oppression" rather than deep flaws in a culture which create unstable, uncompetitive states and then seeks external scapegoats for the ensuing failure. Unless the United States is willing to alter this culture--and nothing in the Bush strategy is designed to do that--the violence will persist.

Since Kaufman's book is a defense of the Bush strategy rather than an analysis of it, the author does not address the real criticisms of that strategy. For instance, rather than dealing with the question of whether liberal democracy is feasible in Islamic cultures, Kaufman simply demonstrates that it would be a good idea. To counter the criticism that Islamic culture is not fertile ground for liberal democracy, Kaufman, like Bush administration spokesmen, simply points to post World War II Germany and Japan. But, like the administration, he does not address the valid criticism that the Bush approach to Iraq and Afghanistan has not, in fact, followed the Germany-Japan model. Rather than a massive and protracted occupation while the foundation for democracy was built, the administration has sought democratization on the cheap. Kaufman cannot have it both ways--arguing that the post-war occupation of Germany and Japan validate the feasibility of a method while defending the Bush approach which did not replicate that method.

In most places, Kaufman simply re-asserts Bush administration talking points, taking them at face value. There are dozens of examples. In justifying the intervention in Iraq, he writes (p. 140)that "victory" there will "keep terrorists on the run by depriving them of the sanctuary of a rogue regime." While ideas like that are the standard stock of talk radio, Kaufman ignores the fact that Hussein was a very minor provider of sanctuary to transnational terrorists and whatever system emerges in Iraq--be it a fragile democracy, a fragmented state, a militia-dominated quasi-state, or some new authoritarian system--is much more likely to provide sanctuary to terrorists, either deliberately or by virture of its inability or unwillingness to fully control its own territory. Kaufman also lauds Libya's decision to abandon its nuclear program as validation of Bush's strategy of regime change and democratization without noting that Qaddafi's decision was a result of decades of sanctions, not anything Bush did. He attributes democratic reforms in Lebanon to Bush even though, in reality, democracy in that country is decades old (and floundered during the Reagan administration). He accepts without question the flawed assumption of the Bush strategy that democratization in the Islamic world will limit anti-American militancy. And, like the Bush administration itself, he does not grapple with the fact that Islamic violence in Spain and the U.K. refutes the connection between democracy and terrorism.

Ultimately readers looking for a balanced and rigorous analysis of the Bush strategy will be disappointed by the book. Bush supporters looking for intellectual ammunition to defend the administration will find it useful.

As both an admirer of history and a person who traces his family ancestry back to Kentucky for well over 200 years, A New History of Kentucky provided hours upon hours of enjoyable reading. The book's easy-to-follow style means that it does not "read like a history text", and the modular design permits either a complete cover to cover read (as I did), or a more focused study of particular areas in history.

And without doubt, the book's focus on underlying, consistent themes throughout Kentucky's historical developments provides a higher level of utility and modern-day relevance than other texts on the state that I have studied, whether it be frontier-oriented nature of the people, the (unfortunate) lack of emphasis on education, power struggles between eastern and western regions, the interplay of Southern and Midwestern cultural elements, the effects of tobacco, the perennial dominance of Louisville, or many others. The sections covering modern political developments were particularly well-developed, and the last section - providing an integration of Kentucky's past with its needs for the future - was both highly uplifting and of critical urgency.

This book was shipped exactally as stated in the description. I would do business with seller again if needed.

Spohie a thirteen-year-old girl goes on a sailing trip all summer. Her adoption-mother is worried sick about her while she is gone. She goes with her two adoptive cousins and her three adoptive uncles. They are sailing from America to Ireland to get to her grandpa Bompie's house. They make it to Bompie's house and Bompie tells them his stories from when he was a child.

On a scale from 1-10 I would give this book a 7 because it is about her life. It is a very good book. It has good details and strong words. This book has intresting characters and good settings that a lot of books don't have. I would recommend this book for kids the ages 8-12 years of age.

I took a class at Morehead State University entitled "History of Kentucky", and this book was chosen as one of the textbooks. We weren't required to read the entire text, using it as more of a reference than anything else, but I opted to slog through the entire book nonetheless. There's an incredible amount of information about Kentucky, starting with pre-history and continuing to the present day. As one review already stated, the book is a bit dry. I guess you'd have to expect that from a comprehensive academic text such as this. You must have more than a passing interest in the state to get enjoyment from it, but I heartily recommend this purchase to all Kentuckians interested in the development of their state.

I was excited to read a new history of Kentucky, but I was VERY disappointed with the efforts of Harrison/Klotter. While the two historians are well-known and well-respected, they did an unfortunate job in telling the history of Kentucky. They have done what any good historian will not do, judged the past by the present, in assuming that Kentucky, in the past, was comparable to Kentucky today. It saddens me to think that the children of Kentucky will grow up reading this book, and one that I fear robs them of their history and heritage. The book does nothing for Kentucky!

This book pulled me into its portrait of pain, regret and loneliness -- painted in palpable and heart-splitting strokes. To say it's hypnotic and melodious seems scant praise for such a powerful work. I didn't simply read this book. I lived it and felt it; lived Cap's unraveling and felt immobilized as well. The raw emotion hits like a runaway 18-wheeler, knocking the reader into a dimension of anguish that surrounds like moassess, thick and heavy and jading ... and yet I look forward to reading it again, to savor the music and the emotion of this book, a hymn of worship to life and loss.

Come and Go, Molly Snow, by Mary Ann Taylor-Hall, is a novel about bluegrass music, the loss of a child, and the question of whether the "circle will be unbroken, by and by, [is there] a better home awaiting, in the sky, Lord, in the sky?" Carrie is a gifted bluegrass fiddler and single mother. She has everything going for her, fiddle player in an outstanding band, Hawktown Road with the handsome Cap, when she daydreams for a moment and her five-year-old daughter, Molly, rides her tricycle into traffic and is killed. As Carrie reminisces: "The woman stood at the clothesline, dreaming, as the child wheeled her trike into the street. Nothing will change that." While a sad subject, this book is far from maudlin; Taylor-Hall fills both the characters and the music they love with light and life. Much of the book is Carrie's coming to peace with herself, that bad things happen, and that her daughter's tragic death is not her fault. She also must come to grips with the question posed by the old-timey song of whether, with Molly and with her, the circle will be unbroken. Carrie is a strong and sympathetic character, and the choices and actions she takes to regain measure in her own life are truly gratifying.

My women's book group read this over year ago, this story about a woman very unlike any of us, and yet we still refer to it in many discussions. Why? Because Carrie is, after all, very much like us in her motherhood and in her loss that most of us can only talk about if we preface it with "God forbid it should happen to any of us". The absolute sincerity of both her passions and her numbness are irresistible and her ultimate incremental steps toward recovery feel like a triumph for the reader as well.

This book is so hypnotic that, for the first time in my life, I missed my subway stop on my way home while reading it!

I would love to know what part of this book is true, if any. She writes it so realistically that it reads like a heart-breaking autobiography.

Mary Ann Taylor-Hall lives down the road from my aunt's farm in Kentucky. I have never met her, but I feel like I know her already. This novel, her first, is one of the best works of literature that I have ever read. Ever since I received my first copy of the book, one autographed to my grandmother, I have never let it slip out of my mind.

The reader cannot help but journey into the very core of Carrie. When she holds her fiddle, it is as if the wooden masterpiece is also extending from your hands. The drones omitted from the pages go directly to the reader's ears, never ceasing to convey the sorrow and utter hopelessness that she feels.

This book is amazing, and I recommend it to anyone who has a heart beating inside of their chest. You will read it and beg for more -- at least I did.

I found this book to be very interesting. I am a greek advisor for several chapters and although I do not think the "problems" and issues brought up in this book are really specific to Greeks - it helped me understand, I feel more what the "younger" generation of college students is going through - more specifically my younger sister that is a freshman in college at a large school with a large Greek community - and trying to figure out where she belongs on campus. She is 11 years younger than myself and I always struggled to figure out where she was coming from and why she does things and acts the way she does. I think this book does a great job to help bridge more of a generation gap and I feel would be good - as some other reviewers said, for College advisors, parents etc. to get a better idea of what it is like not just in the Greek community - but on a college campus in general these days. There were many areas in this book, specifically the body image of men and women and sexual degredation, where I found myself understaning what and where my little sister comes from when she's at the gym for 3 hours a day, acting in my mind inappropriately provacative etc. Great read - but I think better fits for the entire college population than just the Greeks. I also appreciate the fact that the author does not reveal secrets of the organizations - outright :) - something that I feel being a Greek - should be reserved for those of us that are Greek :)

Having joined a fraternity in the 1980s and still living in the town where i graduated from college, I thought this book was going to be an interesting read.

Although Desantis did his homework and cites a great deal of supporting research, his final product does nothing more than underscore all the negative public perceptions about the greek system ... that it IS as shallow as the majority of the "outsider" population perceives with very, very few exceptions.

Am I surprised with the findings? yes and no. Yes, I am surprised that the greek system I embraced twenty years ago has become so superficial and by todays standards, unnecessary. But, no, i am not surprised that today's students exhibit such simple and selfish behavior combined with a total lack of awareness to the world around them (regardless of the globabl reach of the internet) ... it is symbolic of the me-first attitude todays youth culture. There is little shock value in Desantis' work, but maybe it's because living in a college town has de-sensitized me to college students' in general or more likely, i've outgrown the idiotic behavior i exhibited myself so long ago.

I think the book would have been a better read had he used actual fraternities and schools (maybe a liability?) but the "Greek U" "John from Alpha fraternity" "Susie from Theta sorority" was too generic an approach to the subject matter ... it was actually a turn-off for me. The comments/responses/behaviors weren't exclusively greek ... any group of students could have provided the same material..

This book had potential, but i found it disappointing in that it echoes all the same lame greek stereotypes. It might have been better to look at how greek organizations have grown/changed throughout the years to let the reader know that today's generation of greeks are not symbolic of all greeks, but more or less a snapshot of today's youth culture. Desantis' work appears to be no more that a conglomeration of Newsweek/Time/Rolling Stone articles on binge-drinking, eating disorders and date rape ... I really expected a lot more.

Alan DeSantis takes us into a world few outside the College Greek system get to visit. Reads somewhat like a brother recounting their loved but embarrassing younger sybling's misconduct. Extremely well-researched and written with wit, brutal honesty and keen insight. DeSantis examines, warts and all, the Greek System, takes it to task on it's many shortcomings, examines it's often overlooked virtues and offers a glimmmer of hope of what it could, and should, aspire to be. I enjoyed being the fly on the wall for every page of this interesting journey.

Dr. Desantis paints an eloquent and well-researched picture of the current Greek culture at a large American university. His methodology produces rich description and illustrates all sides of Greek life--from the positive to the negative to the intriguing. The book does a great job of contrasting the ways in which fraternities and sororities differ, and Dr. Desantis--as a Greek himself--has a unique perspective on Greek culture.

No doubt that any parent of a student who is currently Greek or considering pledging would find this an interesting read, as would any academic or administrator looking to better understand his or her student body. Current Greek students may find the bluntness of the descriptions to be unarming, as much of what is described often goes unspoken, especially to those who are not Greek. However, Dr. Desantis' book is cutting edge and honest--and all readers would find it worth the buy. "Inside Greek U" reads well and quickly and leaves all readers with a broader understanding of how gender and youth interact in the unique environment that is Greek life. (and PS: I loved it!)

DeSantis has done an outstanding job of carefully researching many aspects of Greek culture and presenting the short- and long-term consequences of Greek socialization on young men and women. This book is extremely accessible to lay readers while still providing an extraordinarily insightful set of analyses that are of tremendous use to academic researchers in many disciplines. I would highly recommend this book to parents of university students (especially entering freshmen), young people considering pledging fraternties and sororities, university educators, administrators, and campus health professionals, as well as anyone curious about the phenomenon of Greek culture on college campuses. Because many academic researchers have not been a part of the Greek system and have no first-hand experience, this book can provide valuable insight into a population of considerable interest and provide a jumping-off point for further research. Frankly, it's such an interesting book that I was lending out my copy so often that I ended up buying a second copy.