Central America Books

So much information - perfect for any age. Great directions and descriptions. Don't leave home without it!

This book summarizes natural places in Wisconsin - I have found it most helpful with campsites. I am a beginning camper and it was great to see - at a glance - what resources and activities were available at the different campgrounds. I especially like that its chapters are based on sections of the state, making it easy to find a close location for a quick day trip or a destination farther away to take a longer vacation. It even includes contact information for the places listed, so you can call ahead to find out about special activities. Great book!!

This guide is a necessity if you travel in Wisconsin. Our family has rediscovered old childhood haunts and discovered some of Wisconsin's natural treasures that were otherwise unknown to us. This book shares in-depth information vital to state park campers, such as electric sites, beach, nature programs, etc. You can really plan a tailor-made state park vacation based on the information in this book!

In Wisconsin's Outdoor Treasures, Tim Brewer showcases practical and informative field guide information for 150 of Wisconsin's most interesting and unique natural destinations ranging from the Mississippi River bluffs and backwaters to the forests of the great Northwoods, to the glacial hills and valleys hallmarking Wisconsin geology and topography. Wisconsin Outdoor Treasures offers the Wisconsin visitor, tourist, as well as born and bred native resident a wealth of places to hike, canoe, kayak, bike, backpack, camp out, enjoy the wildlife, and more. Here are scenic drives, cross-country ski and snowshoe suggestions, as well as the resource information for enjoy the simple solitude of waterfalls, lakes, scenic bluffs, and deep forests. From National and State parks and forests, to county parks, private natural preserves, wild and scenic rivers, and Wisconsin wildlife refuges, Wisconsin's Outdoor Treasures is a comprehensive, authoritative, occasionally inspiring compendium of places to go and things to do in the Badger State, spring, summer, fall or winter.

The Jesuit priest, scholar, social psychologist and philosopher Ignacio Martin Baro wrote in the text "Religion as an instrument of psychological warfare which is a part of this book, about how religion can damage an individuals autonomy and self esteem. He wrote about how the evangelical protestant church grew at a great rate in El Salvador during the civil war that raged there during the 1980s. Some people argued the evangelical churches could quench the thirst of the people in a way that the catholic church couldnt. Baro researched what the political consequences of this where. He meant that the shift in aliegence of peoples faith was a political instrument used by those in power and that is was in fact a kind of political /psychological warfare. With this he meant that the government sought to change the mental climate of the people(the enemy). The American sponsored army in El Salvador, on the side of their regular military operations also waged a so called LIC (low intensity conflict) which was aimed at winning the people over to their side. The people often took the guerillas side and therefore it wasnt enough with a pure military victory, they where also forced to win an ideological one as well. Therefore it developed into a sociopolitical war instead of merley a military one. Propaganda and the spreading of lies and rumors where common place in this type of warfare which main purpose was to make the population insecure. Therefore it was important to tap into the religion since many people in the country looked to it for guidance in the hard times.

The liberation theology that Ignacio Martin Baro represented , which was the theology that spoke for the poor and oppressed, gave the people a tool to use in the struggle against the army. It stated that it was not gods divine will that they should be oppressed but instead it prompted them to get organized both politically and religiously to fight back against the oppression.Therefore the more progressive catholic churches that taught liberation theology became a threat to those in power in El Salvador. Trying the tactics that the military usually used with a "dirty war" proved futile against these movements since it usually only ended up creating martys.Instead the military changed their strategy to psychological warfare that focused on trying to get as many people as possible to convert from these progressive churches and their theology of liberation to these evangelical churches. The government in El Salvador tried to channel the people into fundemental evangelical protestant churches that preached "the true faith", that was grounded in "the individuals salvation", and left it to god to transorm "the sinful world" not man. These evangelical churches had sermons that contained strong anti communist sentiments. These evangelical churches had a theology that left it up to the holy spirit to intervene in the world and make changes, not man himself. Many North American evangelical churches who had close ties to some of the most conservative american political movements where invited by the governmnet in El Salvador to conduct missionary activities within the country.So what it came down to was a war for the definiion of the god image. The government wanted to take away the immanent god image from the peasant. They wanted to take away the god who acted in the world and through people. This is usually described as a horisontal religiosity which leads to critical thinking and social liberation. Instead the government wanted to implement a god image that said that god was remote, far from earth and acted on the people. This can be described as a vertical religiosity which leads to alienation and social submissiveness. This was ultimatley done to marginalize people and drive them away from any type of social protest. In these fundamentalist evangelical protestant churches people where encouraged to cut the ties to their past political activities and instead engage in intense individualistic religioús activities. When the government in El Salvador was confronted by liberation theology and the horizontal religious perspective their response was to try to get the people to convert to a form of religion that made them more passive.



Tragically Ignacio Martin Baro, the Jesuit priest who made these findings public was assassinated by the El Salvadorian army. He was murdered together with five other Jesuit priests and their housekeeper and her 16 year old daughter in 1989. Living under a constant threat because of his subversive writing he foresaw his own death. He wrote about his possible assassination: "above all, the authorities try to create an official version of facts, an "official history", which ignores, distorts, falsifies and invents crucial aspects of reality. This official history is imposed to the public through an intense and aggressive propagandistic effort, which is supported through the weight of the highest official ranks... When facts that contradict the official history filter to public opinion, authorities raise a sanitary chord around them; these facts are then relegated to oblivion. The public expression of reality, and above all, the exposure of the official history... are considered subversive activities. But they are not. They only subvert the established order of falsehood. We come then to the paradox that those that dare to talk about reality or to denounce abuse, become at least culprits of justice". Noam Chomsky wrote of him the following: ...a mind that was probing and humane, wide-ranging in interests and passionate in concerns, and dedicated with a rare combination of intelligence and heroism to the challenge his work sets forth to construct a new person in a new society"

Ignacio Martin-Baro is probably better known in the U.S. as one of the slain Jesuit priests of El Salvador than as the ingenious psychologist that he was. Aron and Corne do U.S. psychologists, who are more often than not barred by their lack of facility with the Spanish language from a large body of important psychological literature, a huge favor by editing this carefully chosen and lovingly prepared volume of his translated works. Because the writings they have selected span the period from 1974, shortly before Martin-Baro initiated graduate work at the University of Chicago, to 1989, when he was murdered, we as readers are able to observe the maturation of his perspective as well as the many ways he applied his psychological knowledge and training in what can only be described as a "limit situation"-- namely, El Salvador in the late l970s through the mid 1980s. In these works, Martin-Baro addressed several themes of increasing global significance, including the effects political repression on the human psyche, the effects of war on children, the relation between religious ideology and political activity, and the nature of industrial psychology from the perspective of the under- and unemployed. Of greatest significance to psychologists, however, were his overarching themes, namely, the collusive role of mainstream psychology in human oppression and the necessary role of the psychologist in human liberation. Borrowing from Freire's famed concept of conscientizacao, Martin-Baro demonstrated how psychologists can act as agents of the development of critical consciousness, both through their nurturance of individuals in the process of psychological healing and development and through their interventions, as privileged and powerful members of society, upon the diseased socio-economic/political system itself. Through their insightful, passionate, and well-researched commentary, Aron and Corne demonstrate that Martin-Baro indeed lived and died by his praxis, proving that psychology's current state of critical inertia is not a necessary condition. In my opinion, Martin-Baro is destined to become the patron saint of psychology--and, boy, does it need one.

This unique work opened my eyes to a topic that most of us have no idea about. A must read for every politcal science major, and for everyone who cares about our world.

Yes. Canonize him. Martin-Baro gave his life to prove that psychology had more business than as an on-the-shelf academic discipline. Using its methods to highlight the misery of his El Salvadoran people, he demonstrated how powerful a psychology relevant to the needs of the oppressed can be. Very inspiring.

I was pretty familiar with the history of this subject, but was more interested in the archeological finds. For instance, in the world of shooting today the 50-70 is all but forgotten yet there were more 50-70 cases and cartridges found than any other caliber. The thing about some of the long shots the hunters made during the siege is that the authors point out that the hunters had no doubt tested their prowess at different targets at different distances, so had probably already "marked" many of the shots and distances. Good reference for anyone studying the battle, I am going to the site this summer, and read this as a preface...Ivery

Best book on the Adobe Walls battle available. Covers every aspect from the structures, to the archaeology, people (both anglos and native american), the battle, the occupations, etc. Great info on the archaeology, including ammunition, guns, dinnerware (plates etc), blacksmithing,etc. I learned much about the battle, the times, the people, the construction of the trading post, who, why, when, how.
Highest recommendation!

This is one of the best books on Adobe Walls, ( the other being the life of Billy Dixon). It takes you all the way through, from start to finish. The last half of the book is about the archeology that was done in the 70's. It gives a real insite into the hide hunters and store keepers lives during the six month's at the Walls.

This is an interesting, compact, eminently readable book, loaded with (unfortunately) ugly information about immigration laws, social attitudes about race, and our even uglier obsession with black and white. Although the book is full of depressing facts and figures, Fernandez finds energy and enthusiasm in our diversity, and makes this almost a "how-to" book, by challenging the reader to stop defining our country and its inhabitants in black and white terms. Once we understand how we got into such dichotomous thinking about race, we can stop doing it. Sure it's hard to avoid categorizing people by skin color but each of us can contribute our part by paying attention to what we say and how we think. This book has shown me how to make a positive difference in the world every single day. It probably helps that I am acquainted with the author--I work at the university where he teaches. Fernandez is as open minded, curious, tolerant and sharp as they come. No matter though since I'd give five stars to whoever wrote it.

This fascinating book, moving beyond classic sociology's approaches to immigrant acculturation and on the basis of ethnographic fieldwork; propose a great reflection upon us to bridge -or erase- the gaps between newcomers and the U.S. society. Fernández examines the extraordinary contributions of the immigrants to this country. Moreover, he invites us to think and redefine our culture and reduce the obsession over who we are as a human being, about how we fit into a nation that continues to treat us as outsiders after all this time. Remarkably timely book when the politicians are campaigning for the presidency of the U.S. The book also includes data from the US presidential libraries but real facts based on experiences with diverse people who don't necessarily see themselves as political activists at all. With unique style and punctual ideas, Fernández demystifies ethnic markers and skepticisms of our presence. After reading this book, I feel that I am belonging to this society.

In reading Dr. Fernandez' work, I marvel as his ability to capture the significance and relevance of immigrants in the fabric of American society. Amazing research, brilliant analisis and real contribution to the much polarized discourse on America's immigration. Dr. Fernandez has aptly captured how the current migratory trends have challenged racial definitions to the point that they will hopefully unite the racial divide that has plagued the United States since Reconstruction and have been responsible for the fracturing of American society. I am gay, I am Puerto Rican, I am American. Fernandez has helped me to realize that I am none and all of the above.

Dr. Ullman's book, America's Promise Restored, is the kind of book that gives you the honest truth of America's political dilemma while providing clear and concise recommendations.

As someone from generation X, I believe that Dr. Ullman's book gives the younger generations in America something to consider. The book clearly provides a historical context on how America arrived at this point but unlike many other books, it supplies the reader with viable solutions to prevent the issues of "culture, crusade, and partisanship from wrecking our nation".

I have found this book to be highly readable and well thought out. As an educator, this book has been very useful as a resource inside and out of the classroom.

Wade R. Sanders, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy: In Dr. Ullman's view government is broken and, unless it is fixed, we face a dismal future. While addressing the damage being rendered to our country by extremist partisan politics, Dr. Ullman once again demonstrates his willingness to enter arenas rife with highly complex and emotional issues and his ability to effectively address same. While defending the necessity and value of vigorous debate and differing points of view, he adroitly examines the damage being done to our society when personal agendas trump common sense in matters of profound importance to the survival of our democracy. He correctly characterizes this steady deterioration of effective governance as a major national security threat: perhaps the greatest we have faced in our nation's history. While our elected officials bicker and carp, critical domestic and global issues impacting our daily lives remain unresolved. In essence, Ullman is calling for an energizing of the electorate through mandatory voting, and for the politicians they elect to put the common good above re-election. No pollyanna, he understands that a total reconciliation of the political and personal agendas of our elected and appointed officials is beyond reality. However, he does provide a path to better government, a government where substance holds sway over venomous rhetoric.

"I have been a devoted student of Harlan Ullman for thirty years. In his new book he continues to nudge, teach and motivate. Ullman portrays an America that he believes is adrift in a destructive sea of culture, crusade and and partisanship that has crippled our government and is sapping our national strength. After analyzing these poblems in a very incisive way, he proposes six big ideas, quite different and provacative than the usual nostrums offered offered up. You may not agree with them all, but they will certainly callenge you and get you thinking. This book is an important contribution to a needed national debate."
-Colin Powell

"Harlan Ullman's service to our country extends from command of a Swift Boat in Vietnam to command of a destroyer in the Persian Gulf and continues today in his tough love love and provacative words for a debate in need of a shakeup. Harlan speaks from his gut about the country he loves, and Washington listens."
-U.S. Senator John Kerry

"America's Promise Restored is a brave and bold challenge...this book should stimulate further debate on the critical issues of our time."
-Frank C. Carlucci, former Secretary of Defense, National Security Advisor, and Chairman Emeritus of the Carlyle Group

This book concisely details the impact of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan on 20th Century Colombian politics. This work begins with an account of Gaitan's days as a student and his early professional life as a lawyer. Gaitan came from a middle-middle class background and rose through the ranks of the Liberal party to eventually become its Presidential candidate in the late 1940s. Gaitan's political outlook was left-of-center and he was a champion of the lower and middle classes. Because Gaitan was the people's candidate, he was not especially liked by the Colombian oligarchy. Gaitan was assasinated in 1948 and to this day it is not officially known who the intellectual authors of that crime were. However, the people felt their candidate had been murdered by the oligarchy and this led to a brutal 10-year civil war that claimed over 200,000 lives. This is a must-read book to understand the root causes of Colombian political violence.

Professor Herbert Braun has authored a monumental book. The author leaves few stones unturned...as a result the research is absolutely profound. "Jorge Eliécer Gaitán" is a legendary Colombian populist who unfortunately is assasinated before he can fulfill his political ambitions. To this end, Braun carefully documents the fact that had he not been killed, Gaitán would have certainly won the 1950 presidential elections in Colombia.

Braun tells the complete story of Gaitán...the politician who boasted that he was not a man...he was a village. The author painstakingly demonstrates the enormous importance Gaitán played among the poor. Moreover, Braun also does an excellent job of showing how Gaitán filled a gigantic void in Colombian politics. Unfortunately, the assasination of Gaitán triggered the conflict that haunts Colombia to this day. In my professional opinion, this is an spectacular book and must be read by everyone with a special competence in Colombian - American affairs.

Bert Ruiz

This book provides the reader with a precise insight on the evolution of Colombia's restrictive political system. In other words, the author shows the way in which this country's ruling elite have been successful in excluding the masses from major political decisions. This situation has been an influential cause for the fall of such popular figures as Jorge Eliecer Gaitan.

My class really liked the format of this book, and it encouraged them to find out what this culture was about.

Excellent bite sized tidbits of history presented in an interesting format. Inside you will find a map of the Aztec empire, articles detailing every day life of the Aztec from agriculture, the Spanish invasion, war, the ball game, a guide to the ancient city of Tenochtitlan, a girl talk section, food and classifieds that provide an insight to the culture. What a great series! I purchased a copy as a gift for my 9 year old niece and was so impressed that I am purchasing the whole series for her! What a find! A clever and delightful way to introduce history to youngsters.

I am in the process of doing a school project on the Aztec and this book has all the info I need! I would recomend this book to anyone! It has everything enterusting in it, there is not one boring word!

The discovery of the New World has always been a topic that both fascinated and horrified me. As an American, I recognized that it as the foundation for much of who I am. But as a sensative, caring person, I could not help feeling ashamed of the greed, racism, and cruelty exhibited first by the Spanish conquistadors towards the Aztecs, then by Europeans in general towards all the first nations that were here before us.

By providing a history written by the conquered as well as the conquerors, "Aztec, Death of a Nation" has helped me understand some of the complexity behind the history I learned in school. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys" in this story. Rather, this is really a history of individual human beings.

Some of the people I read about struck me as cruel and barabaric, but because the accounts also provided insight into the social, relgious, and politcial climates and into the personal struggles endured by these people, I came to realize that I couldn't lay blame on any of them. Some of the people I read about struck me as good and kind - more of what I think as as truly civilized - but because I could see that the goodness and kindness came out of individual strength and conviction, I also couldn't judge any of groups of people as being better or worse than any other.

"Aztec, Death of a Nation" is the first book I have found that has been able to help me come to terms with my heritage as a member of the conquering race. Rarely are we given an opportunity like this to see through the eyes of past civilization.

Kenneth Pearce's collection of eyewitness acounts of the rise and fall of the Aztec Empire is a book most fantasy fiction readers won't want to miss. This book weaves many short personal stories together to provide an epic tale of power, glory, and the ultimate clash between two races.

It paints a picture of a culture, religion, and history so different from our own that it feels more alien than many stories set on other planets or in other realities, and it is true.

Those of us who love roller coasters do so partly because they are more than just a thrill; They are real, with a hint of real danger. Reading this book provides that same added edge for the fantasy reader. As this book took me on journeys into the underworld, showed me prophecies from the past, ritual cannibalism and invasion from abroad, a spine tingling whisper in the back of mind kept reminding me that it was all true

I had the pleasure of reading an early draft of this book. The detailed and scholarly endnotes were the only reminder that I was not reading a work of pure fiction, but rather the actual words of soldiers, priests, chiefs, even pesants who were present at the downfall of the Aztec empire. "Aztec, Death of a Nation" is a fractured ancient vase carefully restored by a knowledgable archaeologist.

This was one of Safire's first books after leaving the government and setting up shop at the New York Times. It's a massive but highly readable memoir of his service as speechwriter at the Nixon White House. His view of the president is highly nuanced but ultimately sympathetic. He unloads on Henry Kissinger for having Safire's phone tapped; writes a revealing portrait of Pat Moynihan and how that administration became more "progressive" than either liberal critics or conservative allies could admit; writes admiringly about Julie Eisenhower as "a glimpse of what her father could have been if he hadn't listened so often to the dark side of his personality." He touches on Haldeman, Ehrlichman, and the dirty tricksters and puts them in context of the domestic civil war that was produced by Vietnam--Safire was ahead of his time in giving Nixon more mercy and judging his adversaries as hypocritical (and disasterously wrong about the consequences of a Communist takeover in Southeast Asia.) Highly entertaining and informative--also see his novel of about the same time, "Full Disclosure", for a "roman a' clef" about his Nixon experience.

Content aside, whether or not you are interested in the Nixon administration, this is a wondeful memoir written in a very readable yet elegant style. I suspect that Safire had the Earl of Clarendon leaning over his shoulder when he wrote this.

It's full of wonderful character studies of the major and minor players in the administration. Safire is not enitirely candid in what he writes and he does pull his punches, but if you are good at reading between the lines, it's all there.

A very enjoyable read. Each chapter focuses on a person or key event during the years. Watergate is covered but only tangentally.

The Watergate break-in was terrible for President Richard Nixon and great for William Safire's Nixon memoir. Because the worst of what went on was already out in public view, it allowed Safire's 1975 account of his time as a speechwriter in the Nixon administration to be brutally frank, a luxury he puts to good use.

Safire had more reason to be disappointed than most of Nixon's former aides: he had had his home phone tapped by his boss, apparently because he had friends in the press. Safire's sharp narrative eye picks out weeds in the Rose Garden, like top Nixon aide Jeb Magruder, "a man of mirrors" Safire writes, for whom "buck-passing and back-stabbing was standard procedure."

But the overall sense of "Before The Fall" is of a man who likes Nixon, warts and all, determined to record the good as well as the bad. This was an unfashionable take in 1975: The book's original publisher-to-be, William Morrow & Co., rejected it on the grounds, Safire claims in his introduction, that it "did not join in the general revulsion."

Because of that, "Before The Fall" may have never gotten the due it deserves as one of the best books ever written by a White House observer. Nixon was one of his nation's most flawed and most interesting leaders, and Safire's book, in nearly 900 pages, keeps a running account of his unique complexities.

"Nixon's Dr. Jeckyl worried about Nixon's Mr. Hyde, and usually tried to suppress him, but mostly only tried to conceal him," he writes of his boss's duality.

Safire, who became best known in his subsequent job as the right-leaning columnist for the New York Times, displays a seeming photographic ability to take it all in. Because he writes about so many aspects of Nixon's presidency in focused chapters (such as his relations with Catholics, his friendship with Bebe Rebozo, his trip to China), you feel a fuller sense of what goes on in a presidency, its many facets and challenges.

Safire augments his eyewitness account with a fondness for historic lore and frequent wit (a footnote notes Cambodian leader Lon Nol's place in the pantheon of famous palindromic names.) The engaged nature of Safire's commentary, its lack of pretense and moralizing, its understanding treatment of human frailty, makes this very long book a very easy read.

Give Safire credit also for not slamming the usual suspects. Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman get much of the blame for Watergate and did go to prison for it, but the two top Nixon aides are seen by Safire in a kinder light. Chief of staff Haldeman is an office ramrod, but stands by Safire when a televised Nixon speech goes awry and encourages open discussion around the President. Ehrlichman, receiving an apology from a magazine for misspelling his name, writes back to say he likes it better the way they had it.

Liberals may howl at his supportive depiction of the Christmas bombing of Cambodia, while conservatives may find themselves fuming at his happy recounting of Nixon's domestic policy, which matched LBJ's Great Society for largesse. Too bad for them. Safire's account is middle-of-the-road, but never lukewarm.

As political commentators go, Safire is one of the best. He enjoys ideas and has a way of relating them elegantly but plainly. One gets the feeling that Nixon's hall of mirrors served him well, a training ground that taught him the intricacies of politics and the dangers of excess, and provided material for a very fine book with which to begin his path to Pulitzer-prizewinning punditry.

This was an excellent book! It is a vivid, comprehensive and sweeping biography of a most important and influential man of the early American West. At the age of twenty four, Thomas Fitzpatrick started out with Ashley's expedition of 1823 as a fur trapper going up the Missouri River. The following year he discovered South Pass, then was part owner of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. After the fur trade declined, he guided the first wagon train west over the Oregon Trail, then acted as guide to Fremont, Kearny and Abert on their expeditions. Later,he was appointed as an Indian Agent for the government and in this position he was most significant in facilitating relations with the Plains Indians. Leroy Hafen's writing is to be commended. He was an excellent author/historian. This is an easy book to read, and there is so much history to this remarkable man, Thomas Fitzpatrick.

This book is the result of a historian's dissertation on this little known now, but once well-known figure in the expansion of the west. Fitzpatrick discovered the Southern Pass, mentored Kit Carson, and is buried in the Congressional Cemetary in Washington DC. I'm not a fan of historical novels, or much of a student of history. But, this book described the way of life of the great western explorers of the 19th century in fascinating detail. Chock full of facts that I never learned in school history, this book sheds light on a poorly represented but important part of US history by tracing Fitzpatrick's life as reconstructed from historical documents and interviews with surviving ancestors. I highly recommend this book.

Most historians of the fur trade period of the old West regard Thomas Fitzpatrick as perhaps the greatest of all the Mountain Men, certainly among the top three or four along with Jedediah Smith and Jim Bridger, or perhaps Joseph Walker or Kit Carson. Hafen thinks of him as almost a god and writes glowingly of his exploits and character.

Fitzpatrick was born in Ireland (quite a few Mountain Men came from Irish or Scots-Irish descent) in 1799. He came to America by the age of 17 and was a member of Ashley's first venture up the Missouri in 1823. As a trapper he led parties into every region of the Rocky Mountain west, returning frequently at the end of the trapping season to St. Louis with that year's catch, only to return again a short time later with the supply trains for the designated rendezvous. He was owner for a while of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, which he later sold to the American Fur Company. When the fur trade fell victim to a change in hat styles, Fitzpatrick became a guide for emigrant wagon trains and in the trade that existed along the Santa Fe Trail. He injured his hand (so the story goes, Fitzpatrick never gave a full account himself) in an encounter with the Blackfeet in 1836, and it was by the name Broken Hand that the Indians ever after called him. In 1843 he was guide with Fremont on his second expedition to Oregon and California, and guided Kearny to Socorro, NM, at the beginning of the Mexican War the following year. He became Indian Agent for the Central Plains tribes and organized many councils with them (including the famous Ft. Laramie council of 1851). He died in Washington, DC, there on Indian affairs business, in 1854.

Leroy Hafen was one of the greatest of the "old school" historical writers of the old West. He was an "on sight" researcher, tramping the same ground his subjects did, seeing what they saw. His footnotes, which often identify locations of vague references found in trapper journals or clarify and correct old diary entries, are often as fascinating as the text itself. He is a thorough and careful historian; nothing gets by him without the greatest of scrutiny. His admiration for Fitzpatrick comes through loud and clear: he calls him "an epic figure - unique and incomparable." Hafen is out of the old school of narrative historians (Parkman and Lossing come to mind), and he is a joy to read. History is never so enjoyable as in the hands of these writers. It's an excellent book, informative and entertaining. Highly recommended.