Government Books

Calling Arizona Home is an interesting collection of verbal snapshots of the cities and towns that make up Arizona. Done in the style of Chicago writer Studs Turkle, this book makes us feel as though we spent a day in front of the county courthouse in each of these places, swapping tales and smelling the ambiance. It is a perfect way to visit places you haven't yet visited and to understand the fullness that is Arizona.

This fine book is one part history, one part story-telling and one part desert poetry. If you like the Arizona history texts of Marshall Trimbel, the story-telling of Studs Turkel or the desert poetry of Wallace Stegner, you will love this book. It joins the growing body of literature that deals with mans relationship to "place", and how we inhabit and live in concert with the places we live. In this regard, it will remind readers of the works by Dan Kemmis. Arizona has a brighter future if its residents take heed of the message this book provides.

Lisa Schnebly is one of my favorite writers. In her three prior books she has demonstrated her knowledge and love for Arizona. Her writing is distinctive and very inviting. It must be Fred DuVal's voice here that gives the book something else - a template for how to live more gently on the land. It is a blend of styles and flavors that go well together. And it makes for a lively and enjoyable read.

Calling Arizona Home provides a concise, and very readable history of who came to Arizona, when and why, and explores why we each live where we do within the state - and what compels us to stay. It invites the question of what makes and unites us as Arizonans, which for a state that is so individualistically oriented, is a tough task. The authors do identify some answers and challenge us to appreciate the interdependency between self and the land rather than the rugged individualism that has elsewhere so utter branded the West. The book includes individual chapters (and photos) about different Arizona cities and towns and paints a verbal picture of life in each through the voices of those who live there. It concludes with a thoughtful ode to those of us that live, or have lived, in this fragile desert in harmony with our place. If you are an Arizonan or one who simply loves this delicate piece of the world, this book will resonate with you.

As much as the interesting essays about Arizona towns, I enjoyed this book because of its call to those of us who live here to celebrate the history that is here, and to celebrate - and honor - the desert and wonderful landscape we consume too fast and take too much for granted. This is a book as much about how we live as where we live. It is a prosciption as well as a description.

Camelot At Dawn: Jacqueline & John Kennedy In Georgetown, May 1954 is the collaborative work of photographer Orlando Suero and author Anne Garside. As his first major photography assignment, Suero spent five days with the Kennedys in May of 1954. He enjoyed their full cooperation and the intimate access that produced more than twenty photo sessions as Suero documented a typical week in the young couple's life including Jack at his Senate office, Jackie attending classes at Georgetown, and the couple playing touch football in the park. Camelot At Dawn is a "must" for all of those whose lives and imaginations where touched by one of America's most idealized couples before tragedy would shattered both their personal lives and those all too brief days of an American "Camelot" for the rest of us.

It is hard to believe that there was a time when you could have passed Jack or Jackie on the street and not known them. This book has made them into "real people". I really enjoyed reading it.

To borrow from the movie HELP!, "Here's how they was before they was." Unguarded and completely charming photos of newlyweds, before international fame overtook them and they perfected their public faces. As one who has read extensively about the Kennedys, I am always happy to find books that can still show me something I haven't seen before. This book does that, and I enjoyed it and recommend it.

Can the Kennedys ever have a bad photograph taken of them? It is appears not, as this book illustrates. CAMELOT AT DAWN is kind of an artsy photojournalism feast for the eyes, and although at first glance the text will seem to have general information that we all know about, it too is a treat.

Orlando Suero had his first big assignment taking pictures of Jacqueline Kennedy for McCall's magazine for an article. It would turn out that most of his shots would not be used because the press felt that the Kennedys had been overexposed in the media due to their wedding--so it is only now in this book that most of the pictures taken for that assignment have been published.
Suero says that JFK manages to sneek himself into most pictures, and so the final result became as much as about him as Jackie...but we also see the Bobby Kennedys as well as the former President Trumans.

Some of these pictures have been published in other books, so not all of them are seen here for the first time, but seeing them within the context that they were shot makes the photos that have been seen before all the more interesting. However, it is only a few--most of these are just being seen for the first time.

As for the text, some of it is "well duh" text because it is known by everybody:"Jackie was a silver-and-Sevres kind of girl, whereas Jack was a milkshake-and-hamburger kind of guy." (I am not cutting on Anne Garside's writing--because the book is actually quite good, I am just trying to point out that some of the information that she writes everyone knows in their sleep...as that is how famous Jack and Jackie have become.) Now don't take this sentence of Garside's alone--you have to read the whole book before you dare judge her writing, and in my estimation she has succeded in the overall scheme in making two well known sujects seem like new again. How does she do this?
For example, there is information about the renting of Dent Place--where these photographs are taken as well the Kennedys first home--which is interesting because we get to see excerpts from Jackie's letters to the Childs (the people who the Kennedys were renting the house from.)
Also information about Evelyn Lincoln's calender is given as to what the Kennedy's were doing the week the photos were taken, as well as little details spread out throughout the text that make the book an interesting read.

I believe that this is a standout book published on the Kennedys. It is informative and orginal in text, and the pictures easily give Lowe, Avedon, and Shaw a run for their money. You can and will enjoy this book if you give it a chance--don't get stuck on the information about the JFKs that we all know or the pictures that we have all seen--read the entire book and appreciate the entire book!

As someone who grew up in the Kennedy era, these images had a profound effect on me. They are images that shortly after they were made, could never have been made again. Can you imagine seeing Jack and Jackie Kennedy strolling alone down the streets of Georgetown (in DC), her wearing shorts and him wearing sneakers and a plain t-shirt? Or playing football in a public park with absolutely NO gawkers hanging around? The great impact of these pictures comes from their innocence and irony, because of what came after and what we now know. If you remember the Kennedy era, you might stare at some of the images in this book for many minutes in wonder, about the people in the picture, about yourself, and about how we were then and are now. I gave this book to my brother-in-law--a recognized expert on the Kennedy assination--and he said he almost cried. It's that good.

The "Capital Homesteading" term builds upon the successful experience under the United States Homestead Act of 1862. Signed into law by Abraham Lincoln, it transferred sustainable plots of government land on the country's frontier to families who devoted at least five years to developing a farm. The book includes a quote from Ronald Reagan, who called for an "Industrial Homestead Act" in 1974, before he was president, saying "it is time to accelerate economic growth and broaden the ownership of productive capital. The American dream has always been to have a piece of the action."

The book's 17 separate "Policy Objectives of Capital Homesteading" include many legislative goals that are not directly related to broadening the ownership of capital. For instance, balanced federal budgets, zero inflation rate, new global monetary system, tax simplification and "teaching at all levels of education of universal principles of personal morality and social morality, that are based on the inherent dignity and sovereignty of every human person under the higher sovereignty of the Creator."

The objective that relates specifically to the book's title and subtitle is the creation of "Capital Homestead Accounts (CHAs)" for each U.S. citizen. These accounts would borrow from banks to pay for "full voting, full dividend-payout shares issued by `qualified' private sector enterprises in need of capital for expansion, modernization or for purchasing outstanding shares from present shareowners." The bank loans would be insured by a Federal Capital Credit Corporation and then discounted at the Federal Reserve Banks. Dividends from the shares purchased by the CHA would pay interest and principal on the loans and then provide income to the citizen.

The book deals with most of the questions that come to mind from the basic proposal, including the major change in the function of the Federal Reserve System and Social Security. A citizen could rollover other retirement plans, and even inheritances and gifts, into the CHA and have it accumulate income tax free, up to a maximum that would be set by law, based upon current living costs and other factors.

Reading Capital Homesteading was a bit like my reading, 50 years ago, Looking Backward by Edward Bellamy. Published in 1888, its fictional narrator had slept until 2000 and is comparing the socialist utopia of his awakening with the inequities when he fell asleep. With Bellamy, I couldn't believe that the socialist society would work, or that it would even be a very desirable way of life. With Kurland, I just can't believe that the program is politically possible. If one made a list of who stands to lose from his legislative proposals, and then compared that to the list of who spends the most on political contributions and lobbyists, the two lists would be a match.

Changing expectations and attitudes may be the best work we can do today toward making the legal system more compatible with broadening the ownership of business.

My sincerest congratulations to Norman Kurland, Dawn Brohawn and Michael Greaney for authoring such an impressive book on Capital Homesteading and how it can avoid bankrupting the Social Security and radically improve the competitiveness of basic industries in America. I am very impressed at the comprehensivenes of this book in addressing through a more just free market system a whole host of economic problems that up to now, seemed to be hopeless. The book is also very timely in that I and other seaman of Oglebay Norton Marine Services recently formed an association called the Oglebay Norton Employee Economic Empowerment Association (ONEEEA) to initiate an employee buyout of the Great Lakes vessels owned by our financially ailing company. The Capital Homesteading book helped me tremendously to understand why many corporations are experiencing financial difficulties and why our economy is so unstable. It gives very clear reasons, scenarios and end results of why these problems exist, offers solutions to these problems and describes in great detail, the benefits of implementing the suggested solutions. I could not recommend a book more highly for educating all American workers and our leaders to the mess we are in. It really brought on a whole new understanding for me, why our present economic systems and corporations are failing and what kind of reforms are needed before it's too late. All of the suggested reforms for simplifying and restructuring the tax systems, governments, social security, credit availability, corporations, etc., seem to have a logic that makes it easy to understand. Many of the problems and failures in our economy that are described in this book in graphic detail, have come to roost in the corporation that I work for. The book makes it easy to see why we, as a group of employees, are so drammatically affected by flaws in our current economic policies. I believe that reading this book very carefully would help everyone to gain a better understanding of our economic problems of today. It is well worth the purchase price.

I am not an economist but that has not prevented me from seeing the solid and compelling arguments laid out in this book to truly turn the United States into an "ownership" society. Many may feel we already have that. I would agree that we have it to a point. But, there are too many structural impediments to real democracy in the capital markets resulting in greater and greater polarization of wealth in our society. If unchecked, I fear that this trend will lead to more and more disengagement on the part of my fellow citizens.

The United States has always been a beacon to the entire world as a result of our economic and political freedom. This book offers a new economic paradigm that will not only continue that but, more over, significantly elevate the US even more as a source of new and exciting ideas that help EVERYONE build a better life.

The proposals in this book are bold. But they are so compelling and, at least in my view, so intuitively correct that they must be heard."

Our political leaders need to take a long, hard look at Capital Homesteading if they're truly serious about the future of our democracy. As it is currently structured, Social Security reminds me of a federally guaranteed Ponzi scheme. At what point are future generations going demand that they be allowed to opt out of a system that is becoming increasingly unfair?

Capital Homesteading offers a comprensive solution for restructuring Social Security around a new frontier, not one based on land, but based on a different kind of property. In the tradition of George Mason, Capital Homesteading offers a mechanism for ensuring that every individual would have the means of aquiring and possessing property in America's new frontier. Today, America's new frontier is limited only by the creative capacity of Americans to come up with better ideas, inventions, technology, and thrive in the global marketplace. Our political leaders need to adopt a national strategy for rebuilding our country as a nation of owners, because we are quickly becoming a nation of wage serfs. Such a strategy is sitting on the shelf, available at Amazon.com, waiting for a leader to adopt it as his own, and win the undecided voter.

This is a great book. The book offers solutions on how to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, encouraging employees to become owners of their company, overhauling the current taxation system, and reforming the Federal Reserve's monetary policy.

I would recommend this book to everyone. You don't need whole lot of background in economic to read this book.

Prof.Mueller tries to correct several misconceptions about capitalism and democracy.
a) Quite contrary to popular beliefs and the propaganda from a deafening chorus of anticapitalist voices Prof.Mueller posits, that capitalism tends to reward positive ethical behavior. "Nice guys come out first" .
b) For a variety of reasons this simple truth became obscured and capitalism tends to be maligned and is believed to be governed by the opposite priciples of theft, deception and moral depravity.
Reading Prof.Mueller`s book I remembered the opening line of a letter, Karl Marx wrote 1872 in reply to an article in a German business paper ("Concordia"). Summarily Marx adressed producers ("Fabrikanten") as experts in counterfeiting their merchandise.
This contrasts eerily with research findings, Prof.Mueller cites, which attest English and German producers a marked shift towards ethical behaviour during the 19.th century!
c) Following Prof.Mueller, democracy may be described to be the rule of a minority with acquiescence of the majority. And this minority rule with majority asquiescence happens to be not a defect but a
strongpoint. There may even be democracy without elections, because not the ballot box is to be considered the heart of a democratic government but the responsiveness towards special interests from society, which must be given the guarantee of peaceful pursuit against those in power.
Following the author`s very sensible train of thoughts I started wondering, wether we could call the period of Kaiserreich" in German history 1870 to 1914 a democratic period and there may be room for a democratic development in China - even without challenging the one-party rule.
I can gladly label Prof.Mueller`s book the most important title about capitalism and democracy I ever read. This is a seminal book for many years to come. I am very fortunate, to have come across it! Thank you indeed, John Mueller!

If a friend told me that he was flying to a deserted island in the South Pacific and starting a new country, first I would tell him he was crazy. Next, I would give him this book, insist that he read it, and use it as a blueprint for a successful society. Mr. Mueller's book is an excellent defense of both capitalism and democracy, the twin pillars of our American society. The author points out that while neither system is perfect, both are superior to any other economic method or political institution. His book is filled with interesting facts and fascinating insights. For example, Mr. Mueller insists that capitalism, far from extinguishing virtue, actually encourages it. This is because businessmen who treat their customers and co-workers with fairness and compassion have an economic advantage over their brooding colleagues. This seems counterintuitive but is born out by evidence. Service was especially poor and rude in former communist countries. Today, American companies from McDonald's to K-Mart, much maligned by the press, are teaching benevolent business practices to Third World nations from Africa to the Orient. Mr. Mueller also makes the interesting point that economics is approaching a level of sophistication similar to medicine at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, for the first time ever, economists can offer truly effective remedies for policy makers. Such a development, if true, promises an era of truly spectacular growth. The author also makes the sobering point that capitalism is a poor tonic for increasing personal happiness. Money has never substituted for family, faith, and meaningful work. Nor will it in the future. When it comes to democracy, Mr. Mueller believes that we expect too much from our political process. The 1994 health care debate, to some commentators, is an example of our failed democracy. In contrast, Mr. Mueller suggests that this episode proves the resiliency of our institutions. Legislation was proposed and debated, constituencies were mobilized and addressed, and the outcome was largely favorable. Democracy can be messy but it is incredibly responsive and self-correcting. It is the only political system that provides the average citizen with the instruments of political power. As more and more nations embrace the virtue of capitalism and democracy, colossal progress can be made in alleviating poverty, ensuring human rights, and achieving self-actualization. There is no realistic alternative to democracy or capitalism on the horizon. Nor should we want one.

Although capitalism and democracy are regarded by many as the twin engines propelling the United States into its present position of world leadership, discussions of what these institutions mean for Amercians in practical, everyday terms are exceedingly rare. John Mueller, a professor of political science at the University of Rochester, has taken a giant step toward examining the reality of capitalism and democracy...As he puts it, capitalism and democracy consistently fall short of the images and ideas conveyed by theorists and pundits.

Mueller is convinced that the free-market economy has proven its value. Government intervention cannot instill the values essential to successful enterprise, and over the long run it undercuts them...In any event, economic inequality is inevitable, whatever the economic system in place, and capitalism has the advantage over other systems of providing greater prosperity and rewarding moral behavior...

Whereas Mueller focuses on the negative images frequently associated with capitalism, his discussion of democracy concentrates on the unattainable ideal by which it is often judged...Especially important from Mueller's perspective is recognition of the fact that special interests and inequality are inherent in democratic systems...

Democracy may be grubby, chaotic, and constantly compromising, but it soundly beats any of the alternatives. Mueller concedes that authoritarian forms of government may occasionally produce great leaders, but he argues that in no nation have such leaders existed for any length of time. Democracy constantly reevaluates its leaders and provides the means for replacing them, and it has consistently demonstrated a capacity to thrive even with large amounts of citizen apathy, cynicism, and even ignorance...

Obviously, Mueller's bare-bones approach to democracy drives a stake into the core assumptions of many texts and courses on the history of political thought. Traditionally, the rise of democratic institutions in the West has been traced to religious, economic, and ideological forces that not only forced change but also provided a basis for the survival of democratic institutions...Mueller rejects all such appeals to specific preconditions-primarily, it appears, because he fears that reliance on such historical developments will inhibit the promotion of democracy in today's world...In Mueller's view, democracy now is in "fashion" (p. 204), and the only serious threat to it is the appearance of groups of armed "thugs" (p. 203)...

As the United States moves into the twenty-first century, it has established itself as the dominant political, economic, and military power in the world. Yet its leaders and intellectuals lack the sort of architectonic theoretical paradigms that have emerged on the continent and to which many American scholars continue to feel obliged to genuflect as models to be emulated. Mueller seems singularly unimpressed by the need to formulate overarching theoretical explanations...Mueller's position is that individual liberty propelled by self-interest has made a better, if imperfect and untidy world that can be justified on its own terms.

If a friend told me that he was flying to a deserted island in the South Pacific to start a new country, first I would tell him he was crazy. Next, I would give him this book, insist that he read it, and use it as a blueprint for a successful society. Mr. Mueller's book is an excellent defense of both capitalism and democracy, the twin pillars of our American society. The author points out that while neither system is perfect, both are superior to any other economic method or political institution. His book is filled with interesting facts and fascinating insights. For example, Mr. Mueller insists that capitalism, far from extinguishing virtue, actually encourages it. This is because businessmen who treat their customers and co-workers with fairness and compassion have an economic advantage over their brooding colleagues. This seems counterintuitive but is born out by evidence. Service was especially poor and rude in former communist countries. Today, American companies from McDonald's to K-Mart, much maligned by the press, are teaching benevolent business practices to Third World nations from Africa to the Orient. Mr. Mueller also makes the interesting point that economics is approaching a level of sophistication similar to medicine at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, for the first time ever, economists can offer truly effective remedies for policy makers. Such a development, if true, promises an era of truly spectacular growth. The author also makes the sobering point that capitalism is a poor tonic for increasing personal happiness. Money has never substituted for family, faith, and meaningful work. Nor will it in the future. When it comes to democracy, Mr. Mueller believes that we expect too much from our political process. The 1994 health care debate, to some commentators, is an example of our failed democracy. In contrast, Mr. Mueller suggests that this episode proves the resiliency of our institutions. Legislation was proposed and debated, constituencies were mobilized and addressed, and the outcome was largely favorable. Democracy can be messy but it is incredibly responsive and self-correcting. It is the only political system that provides the average citizen with the instruments of political power. As more and more nations embrace the virtue of capitalism and democracy, colossal progress can be made in alleviating poverty, ensuring human rights, and achieving self-actualization. There is no realistic alternative to democracy or capitalism on the horizon. Nor should we want one.

This is a fine book and should receive much more attention. It's well researched, but accessible and entertaining. If you, like me, believe it's near paradise to live in a society where you can be left alone to live in relative comfort so long as you don't mind working for it, you'll love this book. If, on the other hand, you think that there was some prehistoric Shangrila, or that the constitution gurantees everyone a color TV and self esteem, don't bother unless you're prepared to learn something.

Meet Ollie Ewin, the young Irish carpenter who narrates this book. Ollie is a troubled lad, who has hallucinations during the day and cannot sleep because of his nightmares. We first meet him as a lowly clerk in a supermarket and are made part of the terrifying past that haunts him. But the details are never spelled out and one can only guess at the outlines. Then Ollie goes to London and the whole story congeals and unfolds. Ollie blames himself for some of the terrible things that happened that time in London while he is unable to understand the others. He is caught in a swamp of vicious crime and it slowly drowns him. The story escalates until it ends in a nasty persiflage of justice.

First of all, the author shows courage in starting a book with events that make little sense, trusting that the reader will not give up on him. Secondly, he shows incredible imagination in placing us into the tortured soul of this young man and succeeding in making us feel it. And, in addition, the language is superb.

This is a must-read!

The voice of Ollie Ewing in Sudden Times is haunting, terrifying. With morbid curiosity and creeping anxiety,the reader follows Ollie's dark journey and witnesses his psychological disintegration.

This is not a novel that I would recommend because I "liked" it; it is a novel that is uniquely constructed and well deserving of recognition. Take a risk. Lock your door. Read Sudden Times....

Stunning in its raw power, this novel, unlike many other Irish novels, draws its power from its simplicity, rather than from lush description or the accumulation of details. Stripping language to the bare bones here, Dermot Healy draws the reader, without embellishment, directly into the confused mind of the main character, a carpenter named Ollie Ewing.

Ollie has just returned to Sligo, almost mute with shock from unspoken, terrible events which have befallen him while in London, where he has been working as a day laborer on construction sites. The narrative shifts back and forth in time and location, revealing Ollie's paranoia through flashbacks, brief scenes, and dialogue, which sometimes seem to have no context other than their revelation of his suffering. He is clearly trying to hang on to his sanity--and is only marginally successful--as he talks to the reader in quiet, almost confessional tones. Using unadorned, simple language, he describes things he sees that are not there and voices that no one else can hear. Never wasting a word, his earnest narrative forces the reader to share his thoughts while interpreting his state of mind.

Gradually, the reader learns of Ollie's almost paralyzing experiences in London, where he lived with a friend, Marty Kilgallon, in a trailer at an old construction site. Through Marty, Ollie learns firsthand about the protection rackets and extortion on construction sites, the common use of murder as a weapon of enforcement, and the unsympathetic judicial system. When his friend disappears and does not return for six weeks, Ollie gets caught in a whirlwind of violence and learns the true meaning of hell.

By the time he returns to Sligo, he has come to believe that there is a "glass sprinkler" machine, operating at night, which sprinkles glass over the streets of London, that the flecks in people's eyes are aliens, and that his own image in a mirror is someone imitating him. Though Healy's style is often difficult to follow, as the reader tries to piece together the events that are responsible for Ollie's current state of mind, Healy's use of detail is stunning. Casually inserted, bizarre observations about common aspects of life help create Ollie's inner life and illustrate his existential helplessness. The essential unfairness life, the power of chance, and Ollie's victimization catch the reader in a whirlwind of emotions, and his plaintive voice, crying out from all this, is unforgettable. Mary Whipple

Dermot Healy is amazingly talented. I have now read three books by him - 'The Bend for Home', 'Sudden Times' and 'A Goats Song' (still my favorite of the three). Each time I read him, I am stunned by how, well - perfect - his writing is. His characters tend to have lost thier minds (madness, drink, drugs,or some combination), and the line between what's 'real' in the novel and what the character is hallucinating is never clear. Why do they go about things the way they do? Well, because people do... Like many of Angela Carter's creations, Healy's characters are appealing and attractive, yet at the same time annoying and almost repulsive... In the end, the reader is offered no explanation of what went on - if the character himself doesn't know, how can he explain it to US? He told it to us the best he knew how, anyway. The books have some very undefineable beauty to them. I don't understand why Dermot Healy is not more widely recognised than he is.

One of the best books I have read this year is Jeffrey Lent's "In the Fall". So when I read the appraisal of this Author's work not only by Mr. Jeffrey Lent, but Roddy Doyle, and others, I thought the chance I was taking on an Author new to me was minimal. The man who wrote this book, Mr. Dermot Healy, has produced a work that will be on any short list of favorites from 2000 I will have. This book is unique and unconventional it is extraordinary. Some of the commercial commentators felt the need to go beyond what the jacket provides, and into events in the book. That decision was unnecessary, but thankfully it in no way detracts from the book. There are no simple explanations for this work, and were the story line known to you, because of the way Mr. Healy delivers his tale, little would be lost. This is a book that can be read and read again.

The book is written in the first person and that is about the only conventional aspect of it. The book is laid out in an eclectic manner. Actually it is presented in a bewildering pattern less structure that initially left me lost. Going back and reading a passage again does not help, because the subject of the book is lost, and the Author puts to paper the thoughts of what a person in the various frames of mind this individual goes through, would look like were thoughts visible. Once you get in step with the Author and his character everything makes sense, what seemed random is not, what was seemingly fragmented becomes perfectly assembled. This book does not say what it is like to feel a certain emotion; it causes the reader to feel as though he or she was experiencing the events themselves. The feeling when the book is read goes beyond the vicarious to something more akin to immersion.

The Author then demonstrates how masterfully and with what range he can craft language, how versatile he is, when, toward the end he lays down courtroom conflict between defense counsel and witnesses that is as well done as any such exchanges I have read. The dialogue is sharp, terse, and delivered in a hyperactive exchange. The Author demonstrates with ease what so many crime story pretenders struggle to produce and generally fail.

The book is brilliant, the Author a writer of incredible range, and he offers a reading experience you will not forget, and one that you will be hard pressed to repeat.

I first borrowed this book at my university library as a student, but I found it so enjoyable and informative that I later bought a copy for myself.

If you are an economist or academic, this is one your best choices for knowledge of the Chinese economy.
The mathematical and econometric requirements are minimal, so undergraduates could also read this book.
Some prior knowledge of micro and macro economics would however be ideal, say a first-year course or a 'basics'-book.

If you are a practical business person looking for knowledge on how to do business in China, this is not the right book for you.
It is too academic for those purposes, and is mainly targeting economists.

Basically, Chow gives the reader a walk-though of the Chinese economy, from its earlier development to its modern situation, and describes various industries etc.

Along the way, Chow uses macroeconomic theory and econometrics to illustrate the data, but it never gets too complicated or confusing...this is not a mathematical book or economic theory book.
The mathematical models or formulae are mainly of general nature.
I would refer to this book as 'applied-economic-theory with a focus on China'.

What makes this book highly accessible even for undergraduates is Professor Chows skilled and clear writing style.
I highly recommend this book.

For the next edition - if there is one - I would like to see Professor Chow discuss at greater length two related issues: trade and currency.

Since the middle of 2003, China has become America's third largest trade partner (America is China's second largest partner), replacing Japan, according to the US Dept of Commerce.

The issue of the renminbi (yuan) is a hot potato in this election year, as many American politicians are clamoring for a "free-floating" of China's currency (as a solution to America's jobless problem, trade deficit, etc.).

Professor Chow needs to deal with this issue. I've heard counter-arguments from some real heavyweights: David Eldon, the Chairman of the global banking giant HSBC, and 2 Nobel Laureates in Economics - Robert Mundell, the world's #1 expert on international currency, and Joseph Stiglitz, the former Chief Economist of the World Bank and Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. All three point out that fooling around with the renminbi now would destroy the world economy without doing anything to solve America's problems. The editors of Fortune, Forbes, and Business Week agree: Be careful what you wish for, because you may get more than expected.

My guess is, Professor Chow will take these issues apart with the same analytical and keen intelligence he addresses other issues related to China's economic transformation.

Chow's prediction (p. 102-3 & 384) that around 2020 China's GDP will be equal to that of the US in PPP terms is based on statistics from a World Bank study. I undertook a study of my own based on figures from the UN Human Development Report.

Here I assume that China's growth rate will be an average of 7% per year until 2020, and America's to be 3.5% per year until 2020. The 7% rate is achievable for China, which managed to maintain more than that in the past two decades (about 8.2% per year from 1975-2001). 3.5% for the USA may be on the high side though (America's annual growth rate: 2.0%, 1975-2001).

Starting from $5.112 trillion in 2001, China will have ballooned to $19.0012 trillion in 2020 (almost 4 times).

In the same period America will have grown steadily from $9.9289 trillion in 2001 to $18.9778 trillion in 2020.

(In 2019, the year before 2020, America will still be some $410 billion larger than China. For those who are curious, by 2025 China's economy will be some $3 trillion larger than that of the US: $25 trillion versus $22 trillion. $3 trillion is a lot of money today - almost the size of Japan's economy - but this is likely to be worth much less in 2025.)

Chow's projection is thus about right. In 2020, China and the US are worth $19 trillion each.

Interestingly, my calculations show that China's economy, valued at $5 trillion in 2000, will be about $10 trillion in 2010, $14 trillion in 2015, then again almost $20 trillion by 2020, and over $25 trillion in 2025 - essentially quintupling over 25 years. (If growing at 10% annually China - or any other country - could expand its economy by a factor of 8 in just 21 years! I think that's what happened to America after 1865.)

The per capita income of an average Chinese should at least quadruple from 2000 to 2025, provided the population growth rate is kept tightly under control. That brings a standard of living on a par with South Korea or Bahamas today. Already China's population growth is among the slowest in the developing world, lower even than America's.

All these figures are in PPP, in constant 2001 dollars. In nominal GDP America will likely remain larger than China long after 2025 unless there are changes in the exchange rates for the dollar and for the Chinese yuan in the meantime, which is possible.

Chow's calculations are thus correct. I've crunched the numbers from a different source and both projections match.

Of course, nothing ever happens exactly as predicted, especially in economics. Linear projections can look foolish in retrospect. Even with the best statistics, every projection can be delayed - or accelerated - by man-made and natural disasters. But this book does give us an idea of China's economic future.

Whether or not China or the US will be the world's largest economy after 2025 will depend on many factors, one of which will be the size and integration of the European Union.

This book provides a good deal of moderately valuable information about the Chinese economy. It also has large sections of what seem like pieces of an ordinary introductory econ textbook, which will be tedious to anyone who has taken an econ course without being terribly valuable to those who haven't. The book appears fairly thorough and objective, but not very imaginative or insightful.
One point he makes that I found worth remembering is to point out the similarities between Chinese state ownership of enterprises with U.S. University ownership of companies created to commercialize their research. In both cases the owning institution has a mission very different from commerce, but often allows the enterprise to function as a business. Alas, he doesn't explore the incentive structures that make this often work in China but create monopoly-style inefficiencies when most other governments own businesses.

Professor Chow is a distinguished economist who is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the former chief of econometrics at Princeton University. His statements carry some weight. The key point of this book may be summarized in this sentence: "Hence the Chinese economy can be expected to generate about the same real GDP as the US economy in 1998 PPP terms in 2020." (p.103)

In other words, China will be an economic superpower rivalling America in 20 years' time.

Barring an unforeseen disaster - like an asteroid from outer space or World War III - Chow's prognostication may turn out right. What does that mean? Well, China will be resuming its former position as an economic superpower which it has occupied throughout history.

The most surprising and controversial part is Chow's contention that China's population is too small (chapter 11). He considers a number of factors in making this odd point, including arguments by Malthus and counter-arguments by Mao, as well as a number of intangibles (like the higher number of intellectual elites available from a larger population base). I think he goes wrong here, because he doesn't seem to have considered one serious fact: most of China is neither arable nor habitable - virtually useless - large though the country may be. What's more, the amount of usable land is getting less by the day, due to desertification from the north. China is bone dry.

Customers who are wondering whether this book is worth the price to invest in would do well to reflect on China's importance on the world stage. China is one-fifth of humanity and is exactly equal to America in territorial size. China has the world's third largest stockpile of nuclear warheads. (The Pentagon believes China's stockpile will quadruple in the next decades fully in line with its economic expansion.) China has a highly developed rocket and ballistic missile technology, and has publicly announced its intention to be the world's third nation to launch astronauts into space (to be realized in late 2003). China is one of the top ten oil producing countries, with larger proven crude oil reserves than America's (the largest in the Fast East - much larger than Indonesia's). China's relations with Muslim countries are excellent, and is probably the only major power to be popular among people of that faith. China has the veto on the Security Council. The WTO recently reported that China overtook Britain in 2002 as the world's fifth largest trader in goods and services, after the US, Japan, Germany and France. If the EU is counted as one unit, China is now the fourth largest trader. And according to the CIA World Factbook, China's economy is already the second largest in Purchasing Power Parity (the fifth largest in nominal GDP), and at $6 trillion it is 13% of the world's total.

Now Chow is telling us that China's rapid growth rate is an average of 7% per year for the next two decades, which is by far the fastest among the major powers (about twice India's, three times America's, and more than four-five times Europe's and Japan's).

In short, China is already a giant today (hardly the "modest" country as described by Bill Emmott of the Economist). People like Margaret Thatcher, Jack Welch and Paul Wolfowitz are already predicting China's rise to superpower status. And the economic transformation taking place there, fully and professionally detailed by Chow, will make it much bigger still. On top of all these, China today is also interesting because it is the oldest civilization among the major powers (America, China, Britain, Russia, Germany, Japan) and by far the biggest of the surviving ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia (Iraq), Egypt, Palestine, Persia (Iran), China, India.

Of course, China's per capita income will remain relatively low for the foreseeable future, but given the size of its population China will be a superpower long before it achieves American levels of income and standards of living - a prospect that is beyond the timeframe of this book.

Overall this book is excellent - serious and credible, without being excessively technical. It fills a big niche, and meets the needs of students, journalists, businessmen, Western observers and analysts alike. All of us should pay attention to the most significant event of the late 20th century and early 21st - the transformation of China's economy - and this book is an authoritative guide. It deserves 6 stars out of 5.

For an academic book, "China's Leaders" is very readable; this non-academic enjoyed it on a long plane ride and left the jet feeling like some long-standing questions about China had been answered. It's one of those super-well-organized books so it's easy to skip around and find the stuff you dig: broad-based surveys, focused case studies, whatever.

AND at this point the book is recent enough to be relevant but old enough for Cheng Li to have made some predictions (note: very guarded academic predictions, of course) that have actually been borne out in the several years since publication. That, and his tone and scope, give the whole book a cagey credibility that's refreshing, especially with so many other authors running around making! crazy! predictions! about the next superpower.

Cheng Li does an outstanding job of uncovering the relationships that propel many of China's leaders. Excellent piece of scholarship and the best book I have run across dealing with elite Chinese politics. This is a must read for any person interested in China.

I just finished reading this book, and it is truly a first rate piece of China scholarship. It is a must read book for anyone trying to understand the leadership transition currently underway in Beijing. The book is very well written, and very readable. It also is clearly based upon first rate research and analysis. The entire new generation of leadership is discussed, plus more in depth discussions of Hu Jintao, Zeng Qinghong, and Wen Jiabao. Any journalist wanting to understand Chinese politics needs to read this book.

Taking the old "kremlinology" approach to figuring out Chinese politics, this book organizes each leader's factional affiliation by education, geographic location (the "Shanghai clique", etc.) and others. This approach has always been usable only as a general guide to leadership behavior, but it's all we've got. This book does it as well as any other, but a reader should know that it's not written in a narrative style, but rather in a reference format. Highly useful.

Cheng Li has written a first-rate book on the next generation of Chinese leaders: what backgrounds they are likely to have, where they went to school, what types of qualifications they are likely to have, etc. etc. While much of the first half of the book is a rather dry academic look at educational backgrounds and statistical analysis thereof, the real meat of the book is the chapter on the key roles of mishu or secretary (chief-of-staff is a better translation) and taizi or cadre kids. It is here that Li is able to really shed some light on the nature of the Chinese style of leadership grooming and promition. Drawing on CHinese language sources increasingly available from publishing houses such as mirrorbooks.com in Hong Kong, Li does a superb job of looking closesly at the careers of Zeng Qinghong and Wen Jiabao, two leaders likely to advance at the next Party Congress in 2002. Extensive use of data tables on so-called 4th generation leaders makes the book very data rich...a must read for those wanting to analyze China's leadership in the run up to the major changes likely at the next Party Congres....

Very good analysis on how/why American Confronts the M.E issues of the last 5 Presidents, give you a whole pictures of how they are related and dragged on to present time...

thoughtfull marvelously readable and timely written withut the angst and i saw it all tone of most of the current crop of personal reflections that masquarade as learned analyses provides important backgroumd context and history that helps to make some sense of the current state of affairs recommended to anyone who really wants to learn more

This book is a history of how the U.S. formulated and executed Middle Eastern Policy over a thirty year period from the Presidency of Jimmy Carter (1978-1982) through that of George W Bush (2000-2008). It also provides a useful, but concise summary of U.S - Middle East relations from the end of WWII to 1978. Essentially it provides an analysis not only of each presidential administration's Middle East Policy, but provides a description of how the policy formation process of each administration actually worked. Not surprisingly it was different for each president.

As the book makes clear, the U.S. has held two remarkably consistent strategic goals for this entire period: the security of the State of Israel; and the security of Middle Eastern oil production. Yet in a volatile region like the Middle East events well beyond U.S. control often erupt to disrupt the most carefully planned policy implementations. Freedman recounts for example how President Carter's tenure was defined by the Iranian Revolution and its subsequent hostage crises, even though Carter really wanted to be remembered for establishing peaceful and enduring relationship between the Israelis and Palestinians. Often the success or failure of U.S. policy in the region was a function of being able to cope with unexpected events or unintended consequences that suddenly threatened one or both of the strategic goals. Reading this book one is struck by how dicey even the best formulated policies are for this region.

Of course Freedman devotes a good deal of attention to the current administration and its involvement in Afghanistan (and Pakistan) and Iraq/Iran. He attempts to trace the thought processes that gradually coalesced into what was known as Operation Iraqi Freedom and its aftermath. In doing so he identifies the emergence of the doctrine of preventive war and concept of a Global War on Terror. He then tries to provide a balanced summary of U.S. operations in Iraq up to the current partially successful surge that has brought a measure of stability to that unhappy country.

In the end he suggests that the U.S. might be well advised to adopt a Middle East Policy similar to that suggested by Ken Pollock in his latest book, "A Path Out of the Desert", which the book reviewer of the UK Magazine, "The Economist" suggested should be read together with the Freedman book. Both by most standards are pretty good books.

Here is the Economist's Review of A Choice of Enemies. Although it spends more space on Kenneth Pollack's A Path Out of the Desert, it also does treat Freedman's book.


The Economist
Books and Arts
America and the Middle East
How they got in, how to get out
Jul 24th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Foresight and hindsight in the world's bad places
A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East
By Kenneth M. Pollack
Random House; 539 pages; $30

A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East
By Lawrence Freedman
PublicAffairs; 624 pages; $29.95. Weidenfeld & Nicolson; £20

HOW did America get into its current mess in the Middle East? And how can it get out again? Kenneth Pollack's book is all about the second question but he starts by making a confession relevant to the first. He was a champion of the invasion of Iraq. In 2002, in an influential book entitled "The Threatening Storm", he argued the strategic and moral case for removing Saddam Hussein. Mr Pollack admits now that the intervention a year later was a fiasco, and that after such a disaster the inclination of most Americans is to turn away from the region completely and focus on problems at home. But that is not his view. His latest book is a powerful argument for continued, and perhaps even greater, American involvement in the Middle East.

As befits a former CIA analyst and member of the National Security Council, Mr Pollack builds his case on a hard-headed examination of America's interests in the region. Of these, the most important is oil. If a big percentage of it were suddenly to be removed from the market, the shock of higher prices could on some estimates spark a global recession akin to the Great Depression. American policy, he concludes, should therefore be designed principally to prevent "catastrophic oil disruptions". This means guarding against possibilities such as a revolution in Saudi Arabia or a massive terrorist attack on the oil-supply network.

You might expect a book that starts this way to dwell mainly on how America can maintain military forces in the region. Mr Pollack, however, wants nothing less than "an integrated grand strategy" to secure American interests for the long run. Such a strategy, he admits, may take "many decades", just as it took nearly half a century for America to help Europe and East Asia repair themselves after the second world war. For this grand strategy to work, he says, America will first have to harmonise its separate policies towards Iraq, Iran and Israel. It must also transform the region's politics and economics. That is to say--let no one accuse the chastened Mr Pollack of imperial hubris--America must help along the efforts of the locals, since outsiders "cannot possibly know how to change the society of another people".

But do the people of the Middle East want what America wants for them? Given the growth of political Islam, and the fact that Mr Pollack deems many Arab countries to be on the point of revolution, perhaps not. Nonetheless, a policy of continuing to prop up repressive regimes is like "playing Russian roulette" with foreign policy, as America discovered when the shah's fall turned Iran from staunch friend to implacable foe. Far better, he says, to encourage the region's governments to address popular grievances by embracing political freedom and social equality.

This will not be easy, not least because of the hated Bush administration's insincere or at least incompetent pursuit of this very policy. But Arabs tell pollsters that they want both democracy and Islam, and Mr Pollack reckons these two are compatible. Quoting an Egyptian activist who says that what her countrymen need is a job and a voice, he thinks America must find its path out of the desert by helping all Arabs get both.

A simple summary of Mr Pollack's main ideas does scant justice to this thoughtful and informative book. None of its prescriptions is especially novel. The patient promotion of reform, careful containment of the spillover from Iraq, a policy of carrots and sticks (but no military pre-emption) for Iran, building the sinews of a Palestinian state: to all except isolationists and the few surviving neocons, this has become a fairly conventional prospectus for America's post-Iraq policy in the Middle East. But Mr Pollack binds the strands together deftly and imparts a good deal of learning and wisdom along the way.

Sir Lawrence Freedman is less interested in how America should proceed after Iraq and more in working out how it tied itself in such knots in the first place. As an historian, he is more tolerant than Mr Pollack of George Bush, noting that after September 11th this president faced a challenge more complex in some ways than the one Franklin Roosevelt had to deal with after Pearl Harbour in 1941. Whereas Roosevelt knew who the enemy was and what America would have to do, Mr Bush had to choose and name an enemy in a new sort of war without obvious rules, aims or front-lines. He did so, moreover, in a region where no power had exercised a consistently sure touch, and where America had long been torn between an underlying dissatisfaction with the state of affairs and the traditional instinct of a great power to protect the status quo from aggressive states or radical movements.

It is instructive to read these books together. Sir Lawrence's aim is not to lay out a policy. He has no grand unifying theory of the Middle East. His aim is only to render the "most credible" account possible of momentous events such as the fall of the shah, the three wars in the Persian Gulf, invasion and jihad in Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter's half-success at peacemaking at Camp David in 1978 and Bill Clinton's failure there two decades later. All these and more formed the treacherous backdrop of American interests and alliances against which Mr Bush had to formulate his response to the attacks on the twin towers. Sir Lawrence's subtle narrative is a marvel of concision, even over more than 500 pages. By the end it cannot but make the reader wonder how realistic it is to advocate, as Mr Pollack does, an "integrated grand strategy" capable of being sustained for decades in such a violent and unpredictable part of the world.

To that Mr Pollack has a simple answer, in the form of a question. What is the alternative? Thanks to its energy needs, America is locked into the region for the foreseeable future, even though the future is so hard to foresee in the unhappy Middle East. Since there are no quick fixes, it had better reconcile itself to the long slog. And although unexpected events will continue to knock it off course, it is more likely to succeed if it can cling to at least some general sense of where it is trying to go.

The black and white battle between good and evil is a common element of fantasy. But that's all it is - fantasy. "A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East" is an examination of America's involvement in the growing conflicts with the middle east, conflicts which are almost as far from black and white as something can possibly be. Many of America's alleged 'enemies' are not in fact working together, and are just as antagonistic towards each other as they are America. An intriguing look at America, its enemies, and their countless interrelations with one another, "A Choice of Enemies: America Confronts the Middle East" is a top pick for community library current events collections.

I got this book while visiting the Hearst castle which I felt to be so beyond ostentatious as to be offensive. And, truth be told, I read it over months. Not that it was bad. In fact the book was delightful. But there is so much to read about and Hearst is so, well, unimportant!

I have felt for many years--ever more so after visiting the castle--that William Randolph Hearst was the US equivalent of Joseph Stalin. He had more power than he knew what to do with, more control than was reasonable, and less integrity than most. The book didn't surprise me much. If a reader is well informed on, say the Spanish American war, s/he wouldn't be surprised at the quote from Hearst that, you provide me with the photos and I'll provide you with the war. (To that effect).

He was a mass of contradictions. He paid his staff well, better than the other newspapers, but he was also ruthless with critics and opponents. The author stresses that frequently, especially in the last chapter (where, for a second, I thought I was reading a treatise on Hearst's integrity. On the contrary, Swanberg denies that integrity.) But that "compassion" that Hearst seemed to express was to those who played the game according to Heart's rules. And that's the key trait of a hard-core narcissist!

There was perhaps a little less stress on the sensationalist nature of the Hearst press in the text. (And, unfortunately, its low-brow nature I think has affected the nature of American media to this day!) But I don't want to downgrade the text any points as I may have gotten caught up in other details and lost track of that which almost goes without saying.

While I tend to be cynical of the American electorate, the book suggests some items that redeem us: Hearst had run for office (I think he was elected to the House for one term) but he had his eye on the presidency. Not only was he not nominated or elected, but, as the author points out toward the end of the book, to be endorsed by Hearst was almost the political kiss of death. Candidates whom Hearst endorsed were almost sure to lose!

And his self-service also affected his politics: He was ostensibly the candidate of "the little guy" earlier on, but once he reached wealth beyond belief, he was adamantly opposed to things like income tax--while he had supported the concept earlier!

If I have a negative comment on the book, it may be, I confess, due to my preconceptions of Hearst: the author refers periodically (not obsessively) to Hearst as a "genius" because of his business expertise, etc. Well, I contend that if many people had the resources Hearst had, they could "make it" and be proclaimed genius too. Indeed, I'm amazed at Hearst's spending habits. Even deep into the Great Depression, if Hearst saw something he wanted, whether worth $50,000 or $14 million, he got it. And he got it again, for himself, for Miss Davies, his mistress, for his friends (those, again, who played his game). He finally, when things started looking pretty bad, had to sell a few castles and assorted other ostentations.

When the economy came around, he took off again. Big deal. He still had virtually unlimited resources at his disposal so referring to Hearst as a "genius" gives him more credit than he deserves.

The book was full of detail, and there were footnotes on nearly every page lending credibility to the detail.

If you're into Hearst--either love or hate him--I recommend the book. But keep a few things in mind, e.g., Heart's incredible narcissism, and how he virtually destroyed Orson Welles after the release of "Citizen Kane," quite obviously a critique of Hearst. Of course, I can understand why Hearst may have been offended by it, but he had an inordinate amount of power by nature of his wealth and his ability to INFLUENCE through his senstationalist, low brow media. And that's unforgiveable.

William Randolph Hearst, an only child, was born at the time of the Civil War to a successful gold and silver prospector and a former school teacher. His mother had thwarted cultural ambitions and poured all her energy into raising her son. He was a victim of a drastic amount of spoiling, creating an emotionally unsatisfactory human being. All three Hearsts possessed physical vitality.

His father bought the San Francisco Examiner to settle a debt. William's interest in newspapering began with his service on the Harvard Lampoon. He persuaded his father to let him take over the Examiner. The newspaper embraced the gee-whiz emotion. Hearst wooed the masses, not the rich. He surrounded himself with eccentrics including Ambrose Bierce and Joaquin Miller. The newspaper attacked Huntington and the Southern Pacific Railroad.

To staff his New York paper, the Journal, Hearst raided the Pulitzer paper. Hearst had the capacity to offer enormous salaries since his mother had sold her interest in the Anaconda Mine and given him the proceeds. In the presidential election Hearst opted to fight for William Jennings Bryan whom the Wall Street interests hated.

Richard Harding Davis and Samuel Remington, an artist, were sent to Cuba. Remington complained of boredom. Hearst told him to send the pictures and Hearst would furnish the war. Stephen Crane and others covered the Greco-Turkish War.

Newspaper jingoism is evidenced in the Hearst coverage of the Maine disaster. The public was deceived, misled, tricked. Hearst had a fixation about circulation, believing that advertising dollars would follow.

The man was a mass of contradictions. His colossal egocentricity put him at one remove from others. Lincoln Steffens interviewed him five times to penetrate the mystery of his character. He was incurably romantic. Hearst was hobbled by his journalistic recklessness, political unintelligibility, and personal eccentricities in his path through life.

The book, a life and times treatment, is filled with colorful personalities and events.

It isn't often that one reads a well-respected, full-length biography of a prominent American personality, only to put the book down with a newfound, passionate and complete disgust for the central character. That is how W.A. Swanberg's 1961 classic "Citizen Hearst" made me feel about William Randolph Hearst. I can say that about no other biography I've ever read.

Indeed, the derogatory adjectives that apply directly to William Randolph Hearst are virtually inexhaustible: irresponsible, pampered, egotistical, hypocritical, lascivious, presumptuous, adulterous, rapacious, etc. One searches in vain for admirable or redeeming qualities in Hearst. Even supposed acts of benevolence and charity - which usually centered on the one thing that meant nothing to him, money - always seem to smack of insincerity and self-interest. None of this, of course, is meant to detract from Swanberg's phenomenal account of the publisher's life, which is truly engrossing and highly recommended by this reader.

Hearst was born in the lap of luxury and never knew the value of a dollar earned by a day's work, yet for over half-a-century he fashioned himself the defender of the common man and was a leading voice in Progressive politics. Far from creating a profitable media empire, Hearst's newspapers lost money at a staggering rate for well over a decade (Swanberg's account is frustrating in that he never clarifies exactly when Hearst's efforts turned profitable). The simple secret of Heart's success was that his deceased father's mines could churn out precious metal at a faster pace than he could squander the profits on his newspapers and chasing the chimera of the presidency. He took a mistress half his age when he was in his fifties and married with five children, and devoted all his immense energy and resources into making her the biggest film star in the world, despite her rather limited talent. An early hero to the radical left, in old age he reversed course and emerged as one of the earliest and most virulent anti-communists and opponents of the progressive income tax - a measure he once championed.

Swanberg delivers this amazing life in an extremely fluid and engaging - indeed, exciting - narrative. He notes that people have never been able to adequately explain William Randolph Hearst. The instinct was - and still is - to use the world "great" when describing him, but great in what way? Swanberg offers up his own conclusion: Hearst was the greatest loser of his generation. Not exactly a flattering assessment, but nonetheless a very accurate one. In the end, Hearst failed in business, in politics, in marriage, and in the movie business. For better or worse, he left an indelible stamp on the American experience, and for that he should be remembered, if not exactly revered.