States Books

In this book the author blames the initial assault on David Koresh's Mount Cramel property on the ATF. He neglects to mention that David Koresh had enough guns, hand grenades and illegal automatic weapons to outfit the Kosovo Army for it's next Revolution.The BLAME lies with David Koresh and his followers. When you amass such as stockpile of ILLEGAL weaapons then you should expect a visit from the authorities which is exactly what happend . And due to Koresh's arsenal he managed to "outgun" the ATF and four good Peace Officers were murdered. All of this occurred because that madman and psychopath Koresh thought he had a "Direct Hotline" to God. Those 86 people chose not to surrender. Perhaps they thought the seige would end with flowers and free bottles of French Champagne? It seems like nearly everybody wants to blame somebody else for the Waco Incident instead of laying the blame at Koresh and his followers.I give this book 5 stars because no doubt it will apeal to the Paranoid Conspiracy Theorists out there and the Survivalist who now think their Government is "The Enemy "ever since Russians turned out to be nice people after all.

Kopel and Blackman did more than just their homework on this book. It is perhaps the most factual yet interesting critique on the way in which federal law enforcement operates today. The attack on Mt. Carmel is a very important even in the history of this nation and only from our mistakes can we change the future. This review I believe is especially credible since I read but certainly don't always like David Kopel's writings. Highest recommendation and a great source for research papers.

A very impressive accomplishment. There is a tremendous amount of detail here -- right down to how the ATF's name evolved from BATF -- but presented in a compelling and readable way.

This book is unusual in that it does not slant everything in one direction; it refuses to classify those involved as unambiguous good guys or bad guys.

The scope of the book goes beyond what's implied by the title. There is plenty of fascinating history here, many references to other law enforcement debacles. A compelling case is made that law enforcement has become too militarized and too federalized. The discussion of how "groupthink" on both sides (the government and the Davidians) leads to this kind of tragedy is especially excellent.

I've long wondered why liberals and conservatives seem inverted on Waco. Liberals are thought to be strong on civil rights, including religious freedom, and anti-military. Conservatives are thought to favor strong law-and-order. The authors explain this puzzle: the Congressional hearings quickly degenerated into an attempt to embarrass political opponents rather than a dispassionate search for the truth. The American public and the media took their orientation from Congress to a large extent. If a Republican had been president at the time of Waco, it's very possible the sides would have been reversed.

The authors show very clearly that the real problems with law enforcement have been building regardless of which party controls the White House or the Congress. I hope some legislators read this book and take the excellent reform suggestions to heart.

Once again David Kopel (and Paul Blackman) gets to the bottom of things and shows what the Waco disaster was all about. If you only read one section of this book, read the part detailing the search warrant. It appears that all the death and destruction (on the part of both the Branch Davidians and the BATF agents who were killed) was brought on because of a failure to pay a several hundred dollar tax on a firearm.

This book focuses on Waco but also delves into the expansion of federal law enforcement and the effect it has on civil liberties in this country.

As per the United States Constitution, the federal government should have law enforcement jurisdiction over the following acts: piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, offences against the law of nations, and counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

Read this book. Then read anything else that David Kopel has written. It will be well worth your time, and you will be well educated about the erosion of our rights as citizens.

This work is not only an outstanding explanation of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents, but a critical review of modern federal law enforcement. The book goes beyond sorting out -- in meticulous detail -- what really happened in these debacles. Even more valuable is the objective analysis of the abuses and excesses of federal law enforcement, along with suggested remedies.

This book is a "must read" for anyone concerned with civil liberties or law enforcement.

I think that "With the Old Breed" by E.B. Sledge, is the best WWII book ever written. In my opinion, "One Square Mile of Hell" is second best. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in Military History.

This is a gripping account of the pure hell of war, the title says it all.
The author has taken you into the bloody slogging match that was Tarawa, you live through the expierence, imagine being a Marine on a landing craft heading for a beach that you can see, is probably going cause your death, and there isnt a thing you can do about it.
Very scary and realistic

Based upon the The Ratings and Reviews of this book, I figured I would broaden my knowledge of the WW2 battles most Americans dont often hear of. Battle of the Bulge, Normandy, Midway We all hear about and rightfully so.
Tho I am ashamed being an American I never heard of the Island of Tarawa and its contibution to victory against Japan in the Pacific.

I must say It was a great read, altho horrific in how Men lost and how they sacrificed there lives for their country.
The books details on the Marines approach to the island could make you break out in a sweat. It was so intense and brutal.

I am sad to say I dont think we will ever see this kind of courage and dedication in the USA again.
The Men of WW2 were one of a kind and to this I am grateful. For those who gave the ultimate sacrifice so others could appreciate freedom.
To all those who served as well, Thank You!!
Freedom isn't Free!
READ this BOOK America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really enjoyed this book. It was like the Marine move I never saw but that needed to be made. If your a person who likes to read about the Marines in the Pacific, this book is a must!

Peruse all the technical manuals, strategic narratives and overall battle histories you'd like. Then a book like "One Square Mile of Hell" comes along and takes you to the inner hearts and minds of those who participated in the fullest measure of devotion to their country and it's people, and the cause of Freedom. Measures of devotion that took them to places like Tarawa, where dreams of the future can be so quickly and terribly whisked away. To know the childhoods, lives and aspirations of the men who waded ashore applies an emotional attachment you cannot deny upon learning their fates or futures. Their story, so tenderly and eloquently put by John Wukovits, will move you to tears.

This book is a wonderful teaching tool . I will be using this in my Earth based spirituality church teachings. I teach the children here in Utah at The Church of the Sacred Circle. It has many great stories that I know the children will be able to relate to. Thank you for a great resource.

I ordered this book for our library's collection (for education students, to help them understand all faiths their students might be), and I still have the habit of reading everything I order-and I'm very glad I read it.

The artwork is wonderful, but the real magic of this book is it's handling of many aspects of being raised Pagan. Young Rabbit has been raised Wiccan by her parents and each of the major rituals and Sabbats are examined from her point of view, as are their understandings of the dieties, how to deal with teasing, and stewardship of the Earth and other people. Stories of everyday life and ritual life are mixed in with explanations of Sabbats and there are great real-life examples of how to bring a child into Circle worship with parents. It makes me wish there was a larger family-centered Pagan community in my area to share with my son.
This is definatly a book written for an American child (it mentions the US more than once), but it would probably be appropriate for a UK Pagan, as well. Excellent resource for Pagan children up to about 3rd grade, for Pagan parents, and for educators or neighbors who have discovered there is a Witch in their community.

Beautiful art work. Execellent story and lesson for the pagan child or any child for that matter.

I've read this story to my daughter dozens of times, and while she is only 2 she loves this book. I've had to memorize it because she pulls it into her lap and pretends to read as she turns the pages. Okay, enough of the cute stuff. Lyon has captured essential pagan themes and practices in an absolutely terrific story about Rabbit and how she has learned pagan customs and festivals. If you have been searching for that book to help your child understand your beliefs, stop now, get this book. P.S. SHE ILLISTRATES IT TOO. This is one seriously talented author.

First of all I need to say that I personally know Lyon. But don't let that make you think I'm biased.

All of Lyon's books are fun and down to earth so they can be enjoyed by both children and adults alike.

Not only does she write children's books, but lives the spiritual lifestyle as well.

If you have young children in your life and follow the pagan lifestyle, I'm confident you will not be disappointed in this or any of Lyon's books.

Highly recommended!!

These are the people who founded our great country. These are people who we have all heard about, but don't really know who they were. This book is a great introduction to our founders and what made them do what they did.

As always, Bennett tosses us a great story about our founding fathers. His writing is coordinated and he points out the best of the dramatic tales (real) that they endured--as individuals, as well as family heads. If only, when future historians look back on our current days, they would be able to say..."Those were great days." Alas, I doubt it. Although the founders were what might be called "normal mortals", to challenge each other to create our great nation makes one proud to be able to say "we belong!" They were clearly heroes.

I was tasked to find an appropriate book to give to outstanding high schoolers for our local Rotary Club. I felt this book well represented the ideal of the club. This book should serve as a valuable resource in future years as these young men and women matriculate to higher learning, and careers.

Bennett chose his material well. Historians may argue with some of the details in his commentary (e.g., that Burr shot to kill Hamilton, aiming directly at his chest). Others may take issue with some of the "nuclear family" biases inherent in his commentary. That isn't the meat of the book. The importance of the book rests in the quotes of the founding generation, and Bennett went beyond some of the most famous quotes and speeches, although these are represented as well, to give us a true feeling of a generation that approached life with a genuine goal of self-improvement. Most interesting were some passages from Abigail Adams, from her "tough love" to John Quincy through her disdain for french dancers. Anything regarding Bennett's personal life is irrelevant for assessing the value of this work.

The United States of America was blessed with a generation of founding fathers who were at the same time people of action, and people of thought. They were an incredibly brilliant group of political and moral thinkers. Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison had a profound understanding of both human nature and the unique circumstances bound up with the founding of the United States. Their dream was of creating a nation like no other before, one based on principles of freedom, and dignity of the individual The ideal formulation is of course in one of the documents central to this collection, ' The Declaration of Independence' , life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In this anthology of the founding fathers' writings in story, letter song, speech and hymn we feel the spirit of a new and great nation and vision for mankind.
God Bless America.

My son very good at sports BMX,Soccer,Football He started playing Football 5 yrs ago pop warner He follows NCCA,NFL I told him about Walter Payton & how his stile of running was simular to yours. I bought the BOOK/DVD if he would watch it at the begging of the football this year. He didnt take his eyes off the T.V . He ended the year leading scorer & played in the div. champ. game & All- Stars. My opinion on Walter Payton Great Book, Great DVD, The Best Running Back.

Payton
EXCELLENT, a must have for all Walter fans. The book is very well written and I just loved it. He was an awesome man and a devoted father and husband. Well done Connie and family!

Great book and DVD. Highly recommended for Bears fans across the nation but most importantly, to any sports fanatic period! Walter Payton was and is the greatest sports player who ever lived! You will be inspired to do your best and never give up at whatever you do in life! A great unselfish man who did so much for others; inspiration for the world!
Walter Payton: A True and Genuine Role Model (34)

This book/dvd is a must own for any Walter Payton fan. The 1 hour dvd brings back alot of memories watching Walter bust through defenses. The book is well written and gives some insight into his background as well as his character. I paid $15 less at Amazon than what this package was going for on E-Bay. The best part is that my son got to watch the dvd and see what hard work is all about and where it can get you. He could'nt believe the way Payton could "fly" in to the end zone.

I actually knew Walter Payton. He was my neighbor. This book is a great tribute to him, without any doubt!! He WAS as classy as you may think, too. Still hard to believe he's gone.

If you are a true fan, then this book is a MUST own for your home.

I just finished reading Pea Ridge (called Elkhorn Tavern by Southerners), and was impressed with the treatment of the common soldiers' struggles both in and out of battle. The authors do a good job there. The maps are ok, but could be better (more).

What I find unfavorable (yet again) is the treatment of the South in general. The book is written from the 'all conquering, righteous Union' point-of-view. Take for instance the fact that Missourians fought on both sides. In the book the ones who fought for the North are labeled as "loyal". Are the ones fighting for the South disloyal? No! they were loyal to their state and the Confederacy...
While this book seems to be the 'best' coverage of this neglected battle, it still radiates with the current political correctness we all have to endure. Just tell things like they are (or were in 1862).
A good book, but could be better.

This book is a model for clarity in histories of the Civil War. The author describes troop movements and strategic decisions in an accessible manner. The meaning of the Pea Ridge campaign is made clear. In this book, you can follow the battlefield and get a sense of where people were at any given moment.

The South lost the West in this battle; the battle pre-saged many of the tactical innovations of the Civil War. This "sideline" battle is revealed as more important than most realize, an early indication that western battles would yield Union victories.

Even among Civil War buffs, Pea Ridge is pretty much a forgotten battle. Shea's book remedies that with clear, readable and moving narrative and keen analysis of the largest Civil War battle fought in Arkansas (and depending on which numbers you believe, the largest fought west of the Mississippi). Even more importantly, the book provides compelling reasons why Pea Ridge should NOT be a forgotten battle. He also spotlights the brilliant performance of Samuel Curtis, perhaps the Union's most underrated general, as well as the less-than-brilliant work of Confederate General Earl Van Dorn, who had all of Jeb Stuart's style but not of his skills.

Many Civil War buffs, and most casual readers of Civil War history, have more than a parochial understanding of this pivotal battle. When Curtis's northern troops entered NW Arkanasas, during the winter of 1862, they knew they were facing a strong enemy.

Earl Van Dorn, recently promoted to commander of the Army of The West, had assembled a strong army and was anxious for success against Curtis's troops. He believed that he could defeat him and launch an overland campaign, against Union held St. Louis, ensuring his lasting fame. He was unprepared for what he would find with Curtis.

Curtis had entrenched his army, along Little Sugar Creek, which rests south of Pea Ridge Tavern along the Telegraph Rd. As the Rebels were wintering in the Boston Mountains, south of his position, Curtis had little worry about Rebels hitting him from the North. Fortunately, Brig General, Franz Sigel, detached from Curtis's army, and at Bentonville, was defeated, and pushed back to Curtis's position and alerted him of trouble in his rear.

Van Dorn's ingenious plan revolved around splitting his army, to traverse Elk Horn mountain, with troops under Ben McCullough taking the Ford Rd, to the mountain's south side, and his troops, commanded by Sterling Price around the north side. They would meet on the Telegraph Rd, north of Curtis's army and push them into Little Sugar Creek - blocking their means of retreat to Missouri. While conceptually, this plan was sound, in reality, the timing proved difficult and Union troops under Osterhaus and Jefferson C Davis, caught McCollough's rebels in the open. Battle followed in, and around Leetown. While the rebels were able to open the battle, their organization fell apart after brigadier generals Ben McCullough and McIntosh were killed on the field. Command of this sector fell to the next general in line, Albert Pike. Pike was leading the Civil War's first brigade of Indians, and was not up to the task. The union forces pushed them NE towards Elkhorn tavern.

Meanwhile, east of Leetown, Van Dorn's main body, unleashed a spectacular attack against Curtis's Union forces at Elkhorn Tavern. The rebels pushed Curtis's troops 1/2 mile south, along the Telegraph Rd. Even with the routing of the portion of his army, now being led by Pike, Van Dorn slept that night, confident that his troops would push Curtis's army into the Little Sugar Creek. This was the mistake that lost him the battle.

The next morning, after assembling his new battle line, Curtis's opened the day with the largest artillery barrage of the Civil War (up to that point). This artillery barrage caught Van Dorn's confederates unprepared. In the excitement of the previous day's victory, Van Dorn had not called up his supply train. Essentially, caught up against the east edge of Elkhorn Mountain, and in the open south of Elkhorn Tavern, Van Dorn's troops had almost no artillery ammunition, and very little ammunition for his infantry. Van Dorn was forced to retreat, east along Huntsville Rd.

Over the coming months, Curtis would pursue Van Dorn's army across north, and north central Arkansas. His victory would assure the Union, that Missouri would stay in the Union.

This book was extremely well written and easy to read. Shea did a remarkable job putting his text into easily visualized format. I was even more impressed with this book after visiting the battlefield, and using his maps, and pictures, to explore the battlefield (if you are interested in viewing my pictures of the Pea Ridge battle field, please email me at michael.noirot@gmail.com).

I highly recommend this book to all Civil War buffs. It will put the battles, west of the Mississippi, into proper perspective.

Michael Noirot
Saint Louis, Missouri

Authors William Shea and Earl Hess tell the story of the campaign and battle of Pea Ridge, which is sometimes grandly called the Gettysburg of the West. The Union Army of the Southwest, commanded by Brig. Gen. Samuel Curtis numbered fewer than 11,000 soldiers, the same size as a single division in the Army of the Potomac at that time. Yet, while the vast legions of Army of the Potomac hovered uncertainly near Washington DC in February 1862, Curtis launched a winter campaign that took his small army clear across the Ozark Plateau and into northwestern Arkansas.

There, Union soldiers from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Iowa and loyal Missouri met an equally tough set of Confederates from Texas, Arkansas and Missouri. It was one of the few times in the Civil War that the Northern soldiers were outnumbered. But in the subsequent battle of Pea Ridge in early March 1862, the 16,000-man Confederate Army of the West went down to defeat.

According to the authors, bad luck, uninspired leadership and Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn's many outrageous blunders negated the Southern army's numerical advantage. On the Northern side, Curtis and three of his four division commanders maneuvered their soldiers with skill. Even Curtis' erratic second-in-command, Brig. Gen. Franz Sigel supervised a decisive artillery bombardment on the second day of the battle. Three Yankee brigade commanders showed courage and initiative, but at least one unit commander had a yellow streak.

The book devotes a chapter and a map to the preliminary operation in which the Confederates missed capturing a Union detachment that Sigel had carelessly exposed. The March 7 fights at Leetown and Elkhorn, and the March 8 battle at Elkhorn are explained in detail with maps. The Army of the Southwest's later march to Helena, Arkansas is sketched out more briefly. A concluding chapter ably critiques the strategy and tactics of both sides. There is an Order of Battle and extensive footnotes.

Compare this book with Shelby Foote's short account of Pea Ridge in his splendid "The Civil War -- A Narrative." Foote was a great historian, but it sounds like a different battle. To take only one example, Foote says Van Dorn's two pronged attack was planned. Yet Shea and Hess note that the attack was improvised after the Confederate flank march fell badly behind schedule. This is typical of the kind of detail that the authors add to the history of this battle.

My only criticism is a lack of information on weaponry. Except for one Illinois unit, it is not clear whether Union infantry and cavalry units carried rifled muskets, smoothbores, carbines or Colt revolving rifles. The Order of Battle contains detailed data about the type of cannons in each artillery battery, but in one case the text contradicts the OB. For the Pea Ridge battle and campaign, this book is a keeper, despite my quibbling about weapons.

This books grabs you from the first page and takes the reader on a globe-trotting adventure into the world of counter-terrorism. The exploits of ex-CIA agent Jordan Sandor will leave you breathless as he races against time to prevent a world-wide terrorist plot.

Can't wait for the next one...this would make a terrific movie.

Jeffrey Stephens takes the reader on a ride with adventure and never lets you go. Great character development makes you want to know more about Jordan Sandor. I promise you'll love this one!

I LOVED this book! I bought it for an easy-read, thinking I would take my time going through it - well, guess what? I got so caught up in the plot I couldn't put it down. It had all the suspense and thrills of The Bourne Identity yet with even more twists and turns. Kudos to Mr. Stephens - I cannot believe this is his first book. This man obviously has a long career as an author ahead of him. Keep the intriguing plots coming Mr. Stephens - you've got me hooked!

Kudos to Jeffrey Stephens for his first published espionage novel! I was given the impression that this novel would be intriguing and similar to works of Follett and Clancy. After completing this book, I found myself wanting more similar to the way I feel after completing a Follett or Clancy story!
The characters were made real. I'm disappointed that Andrioli will no longer be part of Jordan Sandor's crew but was content when Traiman was finished! I found myself putting a face to each of the carefully crafted characters. Jordan wants what is best for his country and is content to be a quiet hero.
I'm looking forward to future Sandor selections. Please hurry up!

Anyone who enjoyed the fast-paced excitement of "The Da Vinci Code" will certainly love "The Portofino Deception" as well. Stephens does an excellent job of partnering the reader with protagonist Jordan Sandor in an adventure that spans the United States and Europe in a heroic effort to stop a terrorist plot that will wreak havoc on the global community. Jordan Sandor is the Jack Bauer of literature - for all "24" fans, this is a must read.

Joseph Schumpeter was brilliant, magnetic, cultured, urbane, witty and engaging. He was superbly educated and he taught at the best universities. He was an accomplished scholar and prolific writer, a snappy dresser and bon vivant, elegant, charismatic and handsome. Colleagues revered him, students loved him and women adored him. His ambition: to become the best economist, horseman and lover in the world. He confessed that, sadly, he failed to meet his goal with horses. Schumpeter was one of the world's leading economists while he lived, and has become an iconic figure since his death. John Maynard Keynes is widely considered the doyen of economists. However, Schumpeter's ideas have more impact in our postmillennial era, which some economists have termed the "century of Schumpeter." Scholar Thomas K. McCraw paints a vivid portrait of this remarkable man, his economic theories and his far-reaching influence. getAbstract suggests that being familiar with Schumpeter is pivotal to understanding today's entrepreneurial economy. McCraw's book is a good place to get to know him.

I thoroughly enjoyed Prophet of Innovation as biography. I think it is the best biography I've read in twenty years.

I am not an economist, but I was first exposed to the ideas of Schumpeter in my one year general ed Economics course. This course was taught by one of only two conservative instructors in my whole college education and he was influenced by Schumpeter. (I did take economics in high school which was taught from the Keynesian model.)

That was in 1968, the year the New Deal-Cold War Liberal Democratic Party coalition was itself undergoing creative destruction. Of course, that year, the Vietnam War and the protests were the central focus. But, the Schumpeter seed had been planted in my mind and I began to see the relationships.

My Father, foolishly, as he admitted to me much later, had gotten his old job back after he left the army post World War II. He was entitled to it under the Selective Service Act of 1940. He thought he would be secure as rural passenger train depot agent. But, the railroad passenger service was about to get a creative destruction death blow. In 1954, the Boeing 707 made its maiden flight. In 1958, the Boeing 707 made its first flight for Pan Am. In 1959, he was out of a job. He was a member in good standing of the Order of Railroad Telegraphers, AFL-CIO, but that didn't matter. If you had no customers, then no business, no jobs, and no union. When the business traveler ditched the trains for the planes, that was the end of the railroad passenger service along with 110 jobs per train. (He floundered around for awhile and took a few community college classes and got a better job afterwards.)

Later, I encountered Schumpeter again in political sociology, one of my areas of study in graduate school. As the author notes, Schumpeter attacks Marx on the static nature of his theories of class structure.

For me, McCraw makes two very impressive points about Schumpeter the teacher and scholar. As Teacher, McCraw quotes his student, Paul Sweezy writing that Schumpeter never judged students and colleagues on their agreement with his views. Sweezy called it "the rarest of all qualities in a teacher." I would say its even rarer today.

As a scholar, he mostly stayed out of policy advocacy. He did not seek to found a Schumpeterian school. Many of his best students were Keynesians. It takes a great deal of courage, character, and humility to forego such ego feeding ventures. Perhaps his experience as Finance Minister in the rump Austrian socialist government post World War I cured him.

On a more somber note, it is really staggering the amount of personal tragedy this man suffered in his life. He lost his father at age four. World War I destroyed his country. He lost his mother, wife, and son all within one month. He lost one of his best graduate students at the University of Bonn, Clare Tisch, to the holocaust. He also lost his companion, driver, and caretaker, Mia Stockel to the holocaust along with her husband and sister. His third wife Elizabeth, who had rescued him from deep depression, got breast cancer in the last year of his life.

McCraw does a fine job of weaving Schumpeter's life and writings together into a great biography of Joseph Schumpeter and history of the first half of the Twentieth Century

I thought this to be a very dynamic book that is loaded with ideas that spring from an intellect that is honest. This is a quality that is all too rare in our times. His thought process as described by McCraw seems to me to be the envy of anyone that strives to get to the bottom or truth of something. Schumpeter is brutally honest with himself and that also is a very rare thing indeed! I'm not sure just what "truth" is but think he has come as close to it as any man can.


Brad Angell

This is a solid biography of the brilliant economist Joseph Schumpeter. A first rate biography should present the life, times, and significance of its subject clearly. McCraw is excellent on the life, but only good on the times and significance. Schumpeter is a very interesting figure. He had a varied and sometimes turbulent personal life. He is clearly one of the most important figures in 20th century economics. His great theme, the functioning of capitalist economies, is a central issue. With the return of a high degree of globalization over the 3 decades and the great dynamism of the business world, Schumpeter's emphasis on entrepeunership and business innovation is increasingly salient. McCraw draws on an extensive repository of Schumpeter's personal papers to produce an excellent reconstruction of Schumpeter's personal life and career. His discussions of Schumpeter's major works are very good. This book is generally written well. Schumpeter emerges as a complex but impressive and largely sympathetic figure. McCraw shows Schumpeter to be an interesting combination of brilliant intellectual and public showman. This had considerable benefits. Schumpeter was distinguished not only by his considerable scholarly contributions but also by his impressive teaching. He was apparently a brilliant lecturer and superb mentor. A remarkable fraction of the leading figures of post-WWI American economics were his former students. McCraw also does a nice job of portraying the important role of Schumpeter's third wife, the impressive Elizabeth Boody, who was a substantial economic scholar in her own right and who completed Schumpeter's last great, and posthumously published, book.

McGraw's account has, however, some limitations. Schumpeter was esssentially a career academic who lived a very intellectual life. While McCraw does well in discussing Schumpeter's work, he is not nearly as good on the intellectual background and other trends in economic thought. By the end of WWII, Schumpeter's work was being eclipsed by Keynesian economics. McCraw discusses this but not in enough detail to get a really good idea of the major issues. I get the sense that this was not just a question of Schumpeter versus Keynes but also that the direction of economics towards what is now macroeconomics was something that left Schumpeter somewhat isolated. Schumpeter himself may have inadvertantly encouraged this tendency. He was an advocate of the mathematization of economics, despite his own relatively non-mathematical work. But since the type of discontinuous phenomena in which he was most interested resisted mathematization, mathematical analysis developed to analyze more continuous phenomena in what I think became macroeconomics.

I'm not sure that McCraw does well on other dimensions of Schumpeter's historical background. McGraw describes Schumpeter's work in terms that suggest clearly an analogy with evolutionary processes (analogies which McGraw uses at times). The pre-WWI central Europe of Schumpeter's youth was the great period of social Darwinism. Did this have an influence? Similarly, Schumpeter's rather romantic, almost Nietzschean view of entrepeuners also seems to fit in with the intellectual life of the Fin de Siecle Europe of his youth. I'm surprised also that McGraw doesn't make much of the connection between the Austrian Empire's relative backwardness and the drift towards protectionism in the pre-WWI years. Surely these had some influence, especially given Schumpeter's interest in the dynamism of capitalism.

While McGraw is generally sympathetic to Schumpeter, he is hardly uncritical. He makes the good point that Schumpeter never really understood American democracy. At times, however, McGraw may be a bit too generous. Schumpeter's criticism of the German Social Democrats as preparing the way for an authoritarian society was unfair to the only consistently pro-democratic force in Germany. McGraw is also periodically inaccurate about general background. The signers of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, for example, would have been surprised to learn that the combat of WWI had little effect of national borders.

Moravian-born, Vienna-educated Professor Joseph Alois Schumpeter, who liked to say of his aspirations to be the world's greatest economist, horseman, and lover that only the second had given him problems, was a study in contrasts. He relished his fame as one of the interwar years' premier economic theorists yet modestly declined to mention his work in his Harvard classes or in his exhaustive book on the history of economic thought. (Citations to his work were inserted into that book by his wife after his death). An obsessively hard working, morose (indeed often depressed) writer in private, he affected a public image of carefree, cheerful ebullience. A notoriously easy grader to his students, he often gave himself low marks in his diary. A one-time banker, he relied upon the women in his life to balance his checkbook. He chronicled the evolution of the auto industry but never learned to drive. He admired mathematics but failed to employ them in his work. A harsh critic of the static, steady-state equilibrium thinking of the neoclassical marginal utility/marginal productivity school, he nevertheless declared one of its founders, the French neoclassical equilibrium theorist Leon Walras, the greatest economist of all time.

All his life Schumpeter championed capitalism yet was an expert on Marx, Marxist economics, and the entire socialist literature. A Marxist economist, Paul Sweezy, was among his closest Harvard friends. Schumpeter was a political conservative and anti-socialist who,notwithstanding, served as Finance Minister for a socialist government in post-World War I Austria. He lauded capitalism's superior performance while predicting the system's death from too much success. He preached creative destruction -- the incessant tearing down of old ways of doing things by the new -- as capitalism's inescapable iron law, yet was unprepared when his own work fell prey to it.

The 1990s saw the publication of at least three biographies of this complex, paradoxical figure. Now comes Thomas McCraw's definitive and elegantly written study to top them all. Drawing upon Schumpeter's diary, correspondence, early drafts, and published works, McCraw, a Pulitzer Prize winning emeritus professor of Business History at Harvard, paints a vivid picture of Schumpeter's life and times, his loves and achievements. Readers will choose their favorite parts of the book. Most enlightening to this reviewer is McCraw's survey of Schumpeter's scholarly contributions. Ironically, McCraw writes that he is "not concerned with Schumpeter's economic thinking, narrowly construed," but with his "life and his compulsive drive to understand capitalism." But that is a false dichotomy because Schumpeter's theories cannot be divorced from his attempts to come to grips with capitalism: each guided and shaped the other. In any case, McCraw provides a perceptive and accurate account of Schumpeter's academic greatest hits and misses.

Greatest Hits
Hits include first and foremost the path breaking and seminal Theory of Economic Development, published in 1911 when Schumpeter, then 28, was in what he called his scholar's "sacred third decade" of peak creativity. Other hits followed including the subtle and provocative Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, and the mighty History of Economic Analysis, which Schumpeter worked on throughout the whole decade of the 1940s, and which was edited and published by his third wife, Elizabeth, four years after his death in 1950.

Schumpeter pushed one idea all his life: that capitalism means growth and growth requires innovation. The book that put him on the map, The Theory of Economic Development, states for the first time his vision of capitalism as the economic system that delivers faster growth and higher living standards (especially of the middle and lower income classes) than any other system, albeit in a disruptive, jerky, anxiety-inducing fashion. Like a perpetual motion machine, capitalism generates its own momentum internally without the need of outside force. Even technological change, seen by some as an exogenous propellant, is treated by Schumpeter as a purely endogenous matter, the product of economically motivated human ingenuity.

Breaking from received wisdom, Schumpeter replaces the static equilibrium analysis of his neoclassical marginalist predecessors and contemporaries with a dynamic disequilibrium theory of cyclical growth. His key building blocks are profits, entrepreneurs, bank credit creation, and innovation. Profits (supplemented perhaps with a desire to create a business dynasty) motivate entrepreneurs, who, financed by bank credit, innovate new goods, new technologies, and new methods of management and organization. These innovations fuel growth and generate cycles.

Why cycles? Cycles arise with a backlog of pent-up potential innovations seeking to override the barriers of habit, custom, tradition, and entrenched positions blocking their realization. When the first successful entrepreneur overcomes the stubborn resistance of incumbent interests and eases the path for other entrepreneurs, the resulting bunching of innovations (not to be confused with mere inventions, which Schumpeter saw as occurring more or less continuously) boosts investment spending, which bids prices above costs and raises profit margins thereby triggering the upswing or prosperity phase of the cycle. The high profit margins then attract swarms of imitators and would-be competitors into the innovating industries. Output overexpands relative to the demand for it, prices fall to or below costs thus eliminating profit margins, and the downswing or recession phase begins. The recession continues, weeding out inefficient firms as it goes, until the economy absorbs the innovations and consolidates the attendant gains thus clearing the ground for a fresh burst of innovation.

If the upswing has been accompanied with speculative excesses nonessential to innovation, the downswing may overshoot the new post-innovation equilibrium. Then the cycle enters its depression phase where the excesses are expunged and the economy returns via a recovery phase to equilibrium. Schumpeter stressed that the latter two phases and the phenomena that generate them are unnecessary for cyclical growth and could be prevented by properly designed policy. It's not speculative bubbles but rather the discontinuous clustering of innovations in time plus their diffusion across and assimilation into the economy that produces real cycles of prosperity and recession.

Profits, entrepreneurs, bank credit, innovation - all are essential to the growth of per capita real income in Schumpeter's model. Remove any one and the growth process stops. Innovation, for instance, is abortive in the absence of bank credit creation necessary to effectuate it. Cash-strapped entrepreneurs cannot build their better mouse traps from thin air. They require real resource inputs and loans of newly created bank money to hire them away from alternative employments. In highlighting this observation, Schumpeter effectively abandoned the classical dichotomy notion that loan-created money is a mere sideshow, a neutral veil that together with metallic money determines the nominal, or absolute, price level while leaving real economic variables unaffected. Not so, said Schumpeter.For him, money and credit are integral to the process of real economic growth and so have real effects.

Schumpeter's most popular hit was his 1942 book Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. In it he coins the term "creative destruction" to denote capitalism's incessant killing off of the old by the new. The book contains his famous end-of-history prediction that capitalism's very successes, not its failures and contradictions as prophesied by Karl Marx, will produce social forces -- the routinization and depersonalization of innovation, the destruction of the image of the entrepreneur as romantic hero, the creation of a class of intellectuals hostile to capitalism -- which undermine the system and lead to its demise.

If capitalism cannot survive, can one rely upon its successor, socialism, to deliver the goods and amenities of life efficiently and fairly? Yes, said Schumpeter, who proceeded to provide the supporting argument. Many readers took him at his word, but not McCraw. He sees Schumpeter's "defense" of socialism as a devastating satire that mocks the system instead of bolstering it. Schumpeter, in other words, comes not to praise socialism, but to bury it. In the end, Schumpeter's case for socialism rests on extremely abstract theoretical conditions unlikely to be realized in practice. All of which creates a problem: if Schumpeter sought to show that socialism was a practical impossibility, then why did he predict its ultimate triumph over capitalism? One wishes that the real Schumpeter would please stand up.

As for democracy, Schumpeter viewed it as a political market in which politicians compete for the votes of the electorate just as producers compete for consumers' dollars in markets for goods and services. But Schumpeter, always skeptical of consumer rationality, believed that market power resides more with vote seekers than with the electorate, whose apathy, ignorance, and lack of foresight enable politicians to set the policy agenda and to manipulate voter preferences. Even so, he felt that capitalism, as long as it operates within a proper legal framework, is largely self-regulating and so requires little intervention. It thus constrains politicians' market power more than does socialism. McCraw fails to note that these ideas mark Schumpeter as a forerunner of the modern public choice school.

The last hit in the Schumpeter canon is his History of Economic Analysis, whose title expresses his contention that the rise of analytic techniques in economics is part of the economic growth process and must be studied as such. The History, in terms of its scholarship, breadth of coverage, richness of content, originality of interpretation, and wealth of resurrected valuable ideas, ranks with Jacob Viner's 1937 book Studies in the Theory of International Trade as the finest history of thought ever written. Scholars still mine it for ideas today. Among other things, it provides sparkling accounts of the quantity theory, the gold standard, Say's Law, the development of production and utility functions, and much more.

Greatest Misses
Apart from an unfinished book on money, Schumpeter's misses include his massive, two volume Business Cycles (1939), which he wrote entirely by himself with no research assistance. Seven years in the making, it emerged stillborn from the press. McCraw, however, values the book for its historical narrative of the vicissitudes of firms in five industries and three countries. But Schumpeter's contemporaries saw only the book's prolixity, discursiveness, and lack of focus. Most of all, they rejected its contrived, mechanistic analytical schema composed of three superimposed cycles -- the 50-year Kondratieffs, 9-year Juglars, and 4-year Kitchins, all named for their discoverers -- into which Schumpeter forced his data. As if these flaws weren't enough to sink Business Cycles, it had the bad luck, and bad timing, to appear when J. M. Keynes' celebrated General Theory was sweeping the field. Everybody talked about Keynes' book, few about Schumpeter's.

Schumpeter and Keynes
Schumpeter fumed when Keynes and Keynesian economics upstaged him in the 1930s and 1940s. Economists preferred Keynes's theory to Schumpeter's because it seemed to offer a better explanation of and remedy for the Great Depression, because it possessed greater policy relevance, and because it was more amenable to the mathematical modeling, econometric testing, and national income accounting techniques just beginning to come into vogue in the 30s.

Schumpeter should have foreseen this state of affairs. It was consistent with his doctrine of creative destruction in which new theories, like new goods and new technologies, displace the old in a never ending sequence. Here Keynes was the innovator whose analysis of capitalism rested on such novel concepts as the multiplier, marginal propensity to consume, marginal efficiency of capital, and liquidity preference function. Taken together, these Keynesian innovations were bound, according to the creative destruction doctrine, to have supplanted Schumpeter's old-fashioned theory.

Instead of accepting this outcome, Schumpeter reacted exactly as he had described entrenched interests doing when threatened by an innovation that disrupts their accustomed status quo: he put up stubborn resistance. His resistance, however, was motivated not so much by simple self interest, or desire to protect his own theory, as by his scientific judgment that Keynesian economics was fundamentally unsound.

Schumpeter accused Keynes of assessing capitalism on the basis of a short-run, depression-oriented model when only a long-run growth-oriented one would do. He scorned Keynes's claim that capitalistic economies tend to be perpetually underemployed and in need of massive government deficit spending to shore them up. He attacked the "secular stagnation" notion that capitalists face vanishing investment opportunities and slowing rates of technological progress when the opposite is true. He rejected the contention that income must be redistributed from the rich (who save too much) to the poor (who cannot afford to save) in order to boost consumption spending and aggregate demand. Nonsense, said Schumpeter. The insatiability of human wants ensures that income, regardless of who receives it, will be spent in one way or another.

McCraw does a fine job discussing Schumpeter's criticisms, all of which were valid, penetrating, and correct. He fails, however, to note that Schumpeter essentially attacked the wrong target. For it was not so much Keynes as his British and American disciples -- people like Joan Robinson; R. F. Kahn; Abba Lerner; Schumpeter's Harvard colleague Alvin Hansen; and others -- who were largely responsible for the doctrines, especially their extreme versions, that Schumpeter countered. But McCraw rightly points out that Schumpeter slipped when he opined that the Keynesian-style permanently mixed economy, or public sector-private sector partnership, was unsustainable and could not last. The private sector, Schumpeter reasoned, would become addicted to government expenditure stimulus and demand ever-increasing amounts. In this way, the public sector would expand relative to the private one and the economy would gravitate to socialism. Time has proved Schumpeter wrong. Private and public sectors have coexisted in a fairly stable ratio in most developed countries for the past sixty years.

Controversial Issues
Schumpeter held politically unpopular opinions in the 1930s when New Deal activism and populist anti-business sentiments were on the rise. He opposed President Roosevelt's New Deal reforms on the grounds that they hampered entrepreneurship and growth. For the same reason, he opposed Keynesian macro demand-management policies designed to tame the trade cycle. In his view, because growth is inherently cyclical, one flattens the cycle at the cost of eliminating growth. Other controversial opinions, all corollaries of his work on innovation and creative destruction, flowed from his pen.

Of income inequality he wrote that the gap between rich and poor is a prerequisite to and a relatively harmless byproduct of growth in a capitalistic system. The rich are necessary since it is they and not the poor who save and invest in the innovation-embodied capital formation that lifts the living standards of all. Moreover, high incomes provide both incentive and reward for the entrepreneurs who propel growth. No one need fear that an unequal distribution will condemn them to poverty. The Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto's notion of the "circulation of the elites" assures that. The ceaseless rise and fall of entrepreneurs into and out of the top income bracket means that it will be occupied over time by different people, many of them drawn from the ranks of the poor. The poor replace the rich and the rich the poor in never ending sequence.

In assuming a high degree of mobility across income groups, Schumpeter may have overlooked an education barrier. He failed to acknowledge that a superior education, increasingly a prerequisite to entrepreneurship and wealth in today's high tech world, is more affordable by the rich, enabling them and their offspring to stay on top.

Monopolistic firms and monopolistic profits hardly worried Schumpeter. He thought that monopolies, unless protected by government, are short lived, inherently self-destroying, and require no anti-trust legislation. Their high profits attract the very rivals and producers of substitute products that undercut them. For the same reason, he regarded anti-trust laws aimed at breaking up large, non-monopolistic firms as ill-advised. Not only are big firms often more efficient than small ones, but their research and development departments house teams of specialists functioning collectively -- and routinely -- as an entrepreneur who creates innovations that drive growth. Indeed, the very existence of R&D departments indicates that big firms realize they must continually innovate to stay alive.

Schumpeter's politically unpopular opinions continued into the wartime years of the 1940s. He distrusted Roosevelt, suspecting him of trying to establish a dictatorship. And he had mixed emotions about the Axis nations, Germany and Japan. He despised their military establishments, leaders, and advisors. But he admired the people and cultures of the two countries and feared that the United States would impose punitive reprisals at war's end. Most of all, he saw the United States' wartime ally, the Soviet Union, as its chief long-term foe, and thought that it would need Germany and Japan to serve as buffers against the communist nation. These views found little sympathy among Schumpeter's friends and associates in the ultra-patriotic environment of the early 1940s, a circumstance that caused him much unhappiness.

Schumpeter Today
The new improves upon and kills off the old. True enough. But what's new and what's old may lie in the eye of the beholder. Today's cutting-edge theorist and mathematical modeler may regard Schumpeter's analysis as older than old, a pre-Keynesian, pre-monetarist, pre-new classical/rational expectations relic. Accordingly, Schumpeter's name is stricken from required reading lists in many top graduate economic programs where theory is king. To businessmen, journalists, and historians seeking not abstract theory but rather practical understanding of global capitalism, however, his work is as fresh and insightful as the day he penned it. Journalists speak of a renaissance of Schumpeterian economics and of a reversal of his relative ranking with Keynes. Although McCraw does not say so, Schumpeter undoubtedly would be pleased, but hardly surprised, by the revival of his work. It fits his description of the zigzag path of doctrinal history in which sound economic ideas get lost or forgotten only to be rediscovered and restored to their proper place.

A Complaint
A great book deserves a great index, or at the very least an adequate one. McCraw's book has neither. Lacking comprehensiveness and precision, the index creates problems for readers searching for particular items in the text. It is inexcusable that the index fails to cover the 188 pages of endnotes containing valuable scholarly information and constituting a fourth of the book. One can fault the publisher, not the author, for this oversight. Luckily, it does little to mar McCraw's outstanding text. Elizabeth Schumpeter wrote that her husband "loved to read biographies." It's a sure bet that he would have enjoyed this one.

---Thomas M. Humphrey, reviewed for the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond's Region Focus magazine, Fall 2007.

Etta James has lived a wild life, and she lays it out unvarnished in Rage to Survive. Plenty of detail about what the music scene was like during her formative years, and she pulls no punches when discussing her bad habits and mistakes. Refreshingly straight forward and entertaining. I highly recommend reading this.

I, Tina; Don't Block the Blessings by Patti LaBelle, Bobby Womack, Pryor Convictions (Richard Pryor), Super Freak (Rick James) and The Etta James Story have been some of the most TELLING books that I have EVER had the pleasure of reading.

I personally prefer when an artist joins with their OWN writer and composes their OWN story, instead of waiting for someone else to do it, only to wind up in court desperately trying to refute the ill-refuted claims gathered by 2nd, 3rd and 4th-hand witnesses to something they heard told to their 3rd cousin twice removed.

I agree with Etta, your only TRUE judge in this ball of confusion is God, so why should you apologize to anyone else? Why not put it out there for everyone to finally snicker, whisper and gossip about, and then ultimately get over?

This book is only a grave reminder to everyone who has always looked to "Holly-WEIRD'S" version of a "hero", that perhaps it would be best to look a little closer to home.

Celebrities are only humans, too. Try looking up to the everyday, ordinary people that you see delivering your mail daily, pulling over drunk drivers, extinguishing fires, teaching your children, preaching to your families and saving your loved ones~~instead of people who can never vote (because they're felons), don't own property or their own vehicles, and are barely able to do a better job than YOU at child-rearing!

the book is great to read it came in very good condition not dirty or torn or bent.

With odds stacked against her in every direction - including personal resistance to success - Etta manages to not only survive, but thrive & inspire!
Stories of the early days of motown, touring, & musician swapping is exciting and nearly incestuous (so many huge names in music ran the same circuits, competing for musicians, songs, gigs & label attention).

The title of this book, Rage to Survive, is very well chosen, hinting is at does to the French phrase "rage de vivre," rage to live.

I grew up with Motown, Aretha, and Otis Redding, but never heard of Etta James until I was over 50! The singer I know only thanks to YouTube, but what I heard there was so talented it's almost scary: soul and blues, sure, but also country and jazz. I suspect that her drug addiction in the late 50s and early 60s led the publicity industry to shun her. (It was only starting in 1968 that one could do drugs and not get the silent treatment.) I know that this is an "as told to" book, but how many soul musicians have bothered to write any kind of memoir? This book deserves to become a classic of its kind.

Amy Weinhaus sounds fresh and interesting only because Etta James is so little known. Weinhaus's career may be over, and she probably won't live to see 30. James is 71. If I am right, Weinhaus will never have a child. James performs with her sons. Etta, you are one tough momma...

I was standing in a college bookstore and saw this title as the text for a class on Asian history. I typically have no interest in this genre but this book was riveting. The detail and genuine quality of the author's words are unique. One expects a POW who was tortured to seek out the torturer for revenge not forgiveness. This story has a beautiful, eternal message to the rest of us who hold grudges over much smaller offenses.

When I read this book 10 years ago, I couldn't understand what Lomax was talking about when he described how he was held down by Japanese soldiers, a cloth placed over his face, and water poured over him.

It's now very topical.

It's a very honest and informative personal story, as well

What an incredible book I was not able to put down. I am a big military history buff and found the early pacific theater defeats very disturbing especially the battles in and around Malaya.

The treatment of Mr. Lomax was not surprising as the Japanese were ruthless. Putting this experience into such a personal and riveting ordeal makes this book a must read. Eric Lomax puts personal vivid perspective on the years after his ordeal that is often left out of most military history accounts of battle, defeat and capture.

This book is very cathartic and brought tears to my eyes. Forgiveness is a more powerful emotion and triumphs over anger and revenge.

I read this book when it was first published about ten years ago and the moving experience has remained with me since I finished the final sentence. It is an incredibly vivid book that you will not be able to put down.
What Eric Lomax went through as a POW, and his eventual reconciliation with one of his torturers 50 years later displays a depth of humanity that is deeply moving.

i also read this when it first appeared, was deeply moved and presented it to my wife's father, a ww2 veteran. i write this review today because a man george bush proposed for attorney general is about to be approved while refusing to admit that waterboarding is torture.

as every reader of this book knows, this is precisely the torture that was used on the author eric lomax, which terrified and impacted him for his entire life, and made it so hard for him to forgive even the interrogator present during it.

several reviewers have said this book documents how brutal was the japanese treatment of prisoners, and i agree.. how can we allow ourselves to become the same as those wartime enemies we have characterized as monsters? god help us if we do not object..