W Books

I am one of the many fortunate people to have visited the Texas Museum of Natural History. Doubly fortunate in that "Lucy" was on exhibit.
I am not one to just observe and not have many questions, i knew i would find a book about her in the gift shop. What better than to read the account actually written by the one who found her!!
This story takes one through the in's and out's of anthropology,geology,personalities,and intricacies of the search for our past.It was easy to understand and became a book i could not put down.
I had to keep reminding myself this story was in 1974 and written in 1981.
I am now interested in books that have filled in the time period from 1981-I hope they are written by Johanson, or in this style.

This book is great. It outlines the dicoveries in Africa of the earliest hominids, our ancestors. It is very interesting and written in a manner that makes it want to be read, like a good fiction story, except it's science. Science that can be read by anyone and enjoyed because it is written in a style that makes it easy to understand.

How did we (humans) come about is a mystery that is intelligently discussed, and the story of how Lucy was found and how she fits into our evolutionary past is a story that should be read by any seeking answers to who we are.

Johanson's work definitely changed dogma. His story is very interesting. I recommend books by others (e.g. Leakey) to prevent being biased by Johnason's hypotheses alone.

If you are only going to buy one book on paleoanthropology, don't make it this one. If, however, you are interested in seeing the progression of paleoanthropological thought and getting a first-hand account of the process of excavating and surveying millions-of-years-old sites, it would be hard to find a more satisfying read.

Much of Johanson's work is quite thorough. He goes to great lengths to lean on the specialized knowledge of experts in many different areas of science, and does a beautiful job of weaving them together for a plausible view of our "ancestor", as he refers to the title skeleton find, a 40% complete skeleton of australopithecus afarensis. Of course, no respectable modern paleoanthropologist would consider Lucy to be our ancestor today, but Johanson's analysis is interesting nonetheless.

Another of Johanson's follies is his dependence upon "the Lovejoy hypothesis" of bipedal locomotion being a biological response to a need to carry food and tools. While this is interesting in and of itself, I would recommend reading Richard Leakey/Roger Lewin's rebuttal to Lovejoy in their "Origins Reconsidered..."

Overall, this book is best described as a historical document. Much of its scientific value is reduced to an example of how controversial the major finds of human ancestors will always be.

As a reader who has a sparse knowledge of anthropology, I can say this book was a pleasurable and informative read.

Dr. Johanson divided the book into a prologue and five parts. The prologue describes the events of November 30, 1974, the day Lucy was discovered. The first part covers a brief background to the earliest fossil finds and is invaluable to any reader who is interested in who's who among some of the earliest scientists working on human origins. Part two covers his actual field expeditions to East Africa. During his first field season, Johanson became concerned about financing when his original grant of $43,000 was dwindling away. It is interesting to note, as Johanson describes about anthropology, that science is more than just field work and analysis. There is political, financial, and human relation issues that need to be mastered for the mission to succeed.

I found part three, the analysis of Lucy, to be the most compelling. Johanson includes Le Gros Clark's paper and accompanying illustrations to highlight eight differences between chimpanzee jaws and human jaws. Knowledge of these differences were of immeasurable value in the analysis of an australopithecine jaw. Part four delivers a brief account of how our ancestors began to walk upright. I found this to be interesting but highly speculative. The final section includes drawings of how australopithecus afarensis may have appeared.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone with a desire to know more about human ancestors and how a paleoanthropologist proceeds in uncovering our past.

If there is ever a book that humbles a proud knucklehead, it is this one. The character Richard Hamilton is so high on himself, your begging for him to get killed. What is so amazing is by the end of this great novel, you hardly believe it is the same person. I hope this novel becomes a movie or miniseries. It is right up there with the Wilderness series, M.Wayne Zillman's Crow Killer and Win Blevins' Rendevous.

After reading this book, I really dreaded it coming to an end. The follow-up book, "Coyote Summer" also comes highly recommended. You really feel like you're part of the mission/excursion. It seems like everybody who reads this book either knows someone like Richard Hamilton or can relate to him in some way. These two books showed how two different worlds could learn from each other and change their lives and the world around them.

LIVING HISTORY, BEAUTIFULLY AND ACCURATELY PRESENTED IN A STORY OF A MAN,S INNER AND OUTER SEARCH FOR HIMSELF, HIS OWN MANHOOD IN THE TIMES HE LIVED, AND HIS SEARCH FOR FOR THE TRUTH OF HIS SOUL(S).

THE AUTHOR REVEALS HIS OWN SEARCH AND HIS OWN INNER BEAUTY TO US AS HE UNWINDS A TALE OF A WILD RIVER AND THE MULTI-FACETED CIVILIZATIONS THAT LIVED, FLOURISHED, STRUGGLED, AND DIED ALONG ITS COURSE. SO MUCH LIKE THE RIVER OF LIFE ITSELF. WE ARE ALSO REMINDED OF THE DANGERS OF MAN'S ARROGANCE AND PREJUDICE, WHICH CARRY FORWARD TO THE WORLD WE ALL LIVE IN TODAY.

DON'T FAIL TO READ THE SEQUEL "COYOTE SUMMER" (AS IF ONE COULD RESIST!) AND EVERY ONE OF THE VAST TREASURE OF BOOKS BY MICHAEL AND/OR KATHLEEN GEAR. AND NO, I DON'T KNOW THEM, BUT WOULD BE HONORED TO

I do not like to read, and was forced to read this book by my professor. Thank God he did, because it is the most amazing thing that I have ever read or will!!!
This book took over my life! Do yourself a favor, read this book!!!
Great, especially for guys!

I absolutely LOVED this book. I was transfixed, spellbound, couldnt put it down and felt like I was living the story as I read it. The characters are incredible and the story was wonderful. I bought the sequal "Coyote Summer" the instant it was available and have since been in correspondence with Mr Gear begging him to write a 3rd sequel. I cant stand not knowing where life took his characters. If you even slightly enjoy historical type novels set in the early American frontier this is MUST reading.

This book is a must-read. It has changed my life. After reading about the human rights abuses concerning fertility and reproduction that have taken place, I have come to realize that we take for granted our right to bear children. Please read this book, it is a real eye-opener.

I never knew about the famine in China in the late 50s, early 60s, but reading the incredibly extreme measures the government was/ is? willing to go through wasn't in some way influenced by those horrible events.

Yes, the method of enforcing the one child only policy are brutal and heart-wrenching, but I cannot help thinking this decision was not taken lightly just as another means to oppress people.

The very horror and brutality makes me wonder what horrible forecasting, what dire conditions were predicted to make those in power feel the need to create the policy and then to enforce it so strongly. If up to 40 million died in the first famine, what numbers were foreseen for the next one? I have to think it must have been apocalytic in suffering predicted that forced abortions and even infanticide were deemed the lesser evil.

I've read "A Mother's Ordeal" twice now and it's one of the most compelling books I've ever read. I was born just weeks apart from Chi An, the main character in this true story, but our lives have been lived worlds apart.

As she vividly describes her childhood in Communist China, her poverty and famine and cruel government policies, I couldn't help but trace my own life events and be painfully aware of the blessings I've received in comparison to her life lived under vise-grip pressures of a government not concerned for its own people. As I read about her eating pancakes made of tree leaves and sleeping through school in the afternoons because of her weakness from hunger, I pictured myself going door-to-door to collect money in milk cartons for the "starving children in China" and now I've been introduced to the first-person story of one of those children.

This book helped me to put a very human face on the stories I've read in the newspaper and studied in history classes. I am a deeply pro-life woman, and yet I can fully empathize with women in China who are forced to submit to abortion because of the relentless, crushing pressure experienced on a daily basis by the women of that country by a government committed to a one-child policy at any cost, which is so graphically explained in this book. Reading it makes me ask myself how strong I could be under the same circumstances.

You will not be able to forget her descriptions of her C-section done without anesthesia because of her desire to avoid the dangers the anesthesia posed to her unborn son, and to admire her courage and the deep mother-love that drove her to do so. And even when she becomes a birth control worker who imprisons and berates and forcibly aborts other women (even her best friend, in labor at full term), you cannot see this woman as a monster herself, but as part of a monstrous system that must be exposed and changed.

This book may change your understanding of abortion forever and make you more committed than ever to ending its destructive power in a very pro-woman way. It will most surely challenge excuses for UNFPA funding of these policies in China. Thank you Chi An, for telling your story!

This account of a woman in China, including the events of her life from her birth in 1948 to the time she became a permanent resident of a free country in the 1980s, is full of high interest for any one who wants to know what it is like to live in China in her time, and I presume today. It is indeed a chilling account of the way things are in a country which accords to abortion a higher position than life, and the accounts of the way abortions are performed I don't suppose would be what pro-abotionists would like to read about. But I found the book educational and eye-opening.

This book is truly an eye opener. It is well written and I found it hard to put it down. The story of Chi An, a chinese woman and her life, in particular how the 'one child' policy affected her, is fascinating. It made me realise how lucky we are in the Western World, and how much we take our freedom for granted.

Being a Civil War buff, I greatly appreciated the angle Davison and Foxx took to capture the lost story of Nathan Bedford Forrest. Forrest was a pivotal character in the war, yet so much of his story has been swept aside in light of General Lee and other figures who were more recognized or perhaps more publicized. This is a must read for Civil War aficionado's and those just diving into the pages of history because it is so well written and ties Forrest into so many important historical happenings. Bravo! Write another one!

I am a highly biased reviewer due to the fact that I drew the maps for this book. I deeply thank everyone who has purchased this book and/or given it a positive review. It warms my heart that there are still real Americans that can appreciate a real American hero, and not cave in to the forces of Political Cowardice.

I picked this book up and almost returned it after looking at the campaign maps. They were well made but gave me the impression this was a bland recounting of every little military move by Forrest. Luckily I kept the book and found a gripping story of his life, personality and campaigns. I felt like I really had an idea of what kind of person or leader he was after reading the book. This is an excellent story. It was one of those books you hope never ends.

For anyone with an interest in the Civil War's most interesting character , General Nathan Bedford Forrest , this new book is a MUST ; "Nathan Bedford Forrest , In Search of the Enegma" , by Eddy W. Davison & Daniel Foxx (and forward by Ed Bearss) !!

I own many books , old & new , on General Forrest's life and activities . This is the very best that I have ever read on this topic . There are plenty on good ones and some are on very specific topics , such as the new books "Forrest's Escort & Staff" , by Michael R. Bradley and "Men of Fire" , Grant & Forrest at the Battle of Fort Dolelson , by Jack Hurst ! These 2 new books concerning General Forrest are excellent & are must reads for "Forrest entheusists" , but are basically on very specific topics concerning Forrest . "In Search of the Enegma" covers Forrests life , with emphasis on the civil War , of course , but is in search of The Man , behind the legend !

It is extremely well written , in every way , but I must comment on the way that "battles & engagements & troop activity" of General Forrest's are described ! Everyone with an interest in General Forrest has read about his part in battles at Shiloh or Brice's Crossroads or the Tupelo & Memphis Raid ,for example . I have from several good books ! I have never had such normally "complex battle situations" ; with moving men & horses & confussion & indecisions & mistakes & foul weather & poor communications & heroism & bravery & inactions & retreats----so clearly described & made more understandable than ever before ! Davison & Foxx turn a battle into a "moving picture in your mind" ! You are "there" & you "feel" the situation . You understand more about the "Why's" of how these battles & engagement , concerning Forrest , turned out as they did & its very interesting reading & not "dead facts" !

These two authors , Davison & Foxx , give first hand accounts , often from "non-famous" soldiers & civilians , recorded long after the war , that add "something new or a different prespective" on General Forrest ! The indepth research is fantastic ! You find out from Union reports , just what was being discussed concerning Forrest & his command , as certain actions were about to take place or were happening ! You see how unique Forrest was in almost always "creating the illusion" of haveing a much , much larger force than was reality , to his enemy . Also , you see how confussing Forrests actions & objectives were to the opposite side in a conflict !

Just a splendid work on Nathan Bedford Forrest , by two excellent researchers & story-tellers !

A MUST Read , for anyone interested in Forrest !

Just the over-all best book on this topic of Nathan Bedford Forrest , that I have ever read ! Highly recommended to all who want to know & understand more on "Forrest The Enegma" and Forrest The Man !

The authors did a great job of trying to put the pieces of a very interesting warrior. Bedford was that a warrior. This is now my favorite book on Forrest. I have read many. They have come close to telling it as accurate as I have read. They had respect for him as a leader for battle but also recognized he had failings in temperament. He was a more agressive Patton in battle. He did slap soldiers for being out of line and maybe even as a coward. This is a more total history of the man and if you want to read a book that a movie could be made this is it. It is nearly unbelieveable that he was able to do what he did with no military background just common sense and will to fight and win. It is a shame that his history could not be told exactly as it was without some unknowns in the background. It is good for the North that the leaders of the Souith did not recognize his ablility until it was to late. A very readable and interesting book about the Civil War in the west.

Who would believe that a book on the Theory of Relativity could be written for the masses? Well it was, and this is it. The concepts that the book conveys are mind boggling, yet quite understandable at the same time. You'll never view space, time and the world around you the same again. It's a quick read, but as you'll learn, time is relative.

Suppose all matter in the universe is expanding at a uniform rate and that "gravity" doesn't exist. Also imagine standing atop the Leaning Tower of Pisa and releasing two cannon balls. One weighs one ounce and the other ten pounds. Because the earth is rushing up to meet the balls, both seem to fall to the ground at the same rate. A cannon ball fired into the air seems to follow a curved trajectory back to the earth as the ground rushes up to meet it. A comet passing close to the earth seems to be "attracted" to the earth as we are pushed upwards towards it. Einstein says "gravity" is the effect on the path of a moving object caused by distortions in the geometric structure of the space-time continuum caused by mass. But space is "nothing," so how can "nothing" be distorted? Could the earth and all matter be expanding uniformly and unnoticed by us? Could this expansion be the real cause of what we call "gravity" and not the distortion of "nothing"?

This problem, somewhat simplified here, has been bothering me since I first read this book some forty years ago; if anybody can help enlighten me on this, I'd be glad to hear from you!

Mr. Barnett, a journalist, crossed over into the arena of science, a subject that he had not studied in college. And to the world's amazement, he captured on paper a clear and easy to read explanation of the genius and elegance of Dr. Einstein's theories concerning the very small (quanta) and the very large (space and time).

I feel that this book is a must for any home library. If you are experienced in physics, this book is extremely interesting because it delves deaply into the philosophy that brought Dr. Einstein to his great accomplishments. For those that have little knowledge of relativity, the universe, and quantum matters it offers a great introduction with a minimum of complex math. A simple way to understand how Dr. Einstein changed the entire universe. I have studied Albert for years. This is the first time I have read anything that gave me such an insight to his personality and thought processes. HONESTLY, the best book I have ever read.

This is absolutely the best book on any scientific topic intended for the general reader that I have ever read. It is one of very few books about science I have ever read that I could seriously call a "page turner". Einstein's theories are presented in such a manner that anyone reading the book can understand the concepts without trying. I have read other books that discussed Einstein's theories, but none of them presented the ideas with such lucidity and simplicity, while at the same time not losing the depth and profundity of the concepts.

This is a great book, especially if you are Irish-American. I couldn't put it down. After this, read All Souls, Easter Rising, Castle of the Fynns... Slices of life about growing up Irish in American in the 1960's and 1970's....

Anyone who reads Dan Barry's regular columns in the NYTimes will welcome his memoir first as if from a friend and buddy. Barry has given us, however, an extraordinary and, yes, radiant account of a man who would tell stories. He grew up in a haze of cigarette smoke, beer, and his father's howls of agony from migraine, but also with his mother's stories, his father's songs, and his siblings' affections. He traces his own journey to high school (casual boy torture on the school bus); St Bonaventure University (where he discovered you could make a job of tellling stories) to his early career in Rhode Island and then at the Times. He loves baseball, his mother dies, he and his beloved struggle first to conceive and then to adopt a child. He is diagnosed, and survives, a gaspingly terrible bout of cancer. Memoirs come by the handful, but Barry's is so vividly sketched, all the protagonists so fully present on the page, the prose so wickedly sure and sweet, that his sings close and real as a heartbeat. Wonderful.

As with all fine Irish writers, there's a poet's heart in Dan Barry.

Pull Me Up, A Memoir is Barry's masterful landscape of his life and family, wondrously painted with words poignant with pain and breathtaking in beauty. Never mind that the setting is the same Long Island I grew up in, nor the fact that this Irish-American love song calls to my own heritage, nor even the fact that there are personal connections I can trace to many of the people and places he writes about. The soul of Barry's story is its firm grip on universal human fears and foibles, how he captures the heart-piercing trials of childhood, youth, illness, addiction, and family.

Any reader who ever felt alone or insecure as a teenager, grew up with a sick parent, or whose family struggled with monthly bills will cherish the emotional depths to which Barry dives to harvest the treasures of his past. A truly rewarding read.

Kathy Carroll
http://www.oneclearcall.blogspot.com/

When I finished reading Dan Barry's book, I was hungry for more, but not so much on the same topic. Instead I wanted to find another book with narrative so well-written it would inspire me to fill my leisure time with nothing but reading. Sadly, there aren't many books that do that.

This one did. Perhaps it's my own connection to growing up in the same era, though I'm a bit younger. Maybe it's because we're both journalists, though books by journalists don't always merit reading sprints.

For me I think what astounded me was Barry's ability to be honest, allowing us to see the weaknesses of the people in the book and see those people as human, rather than evil (with a couple exceptions). As a reporter Barry has seen some amazing things, but that's not the focus of his book. Those things are sidelights in a story about family and about growing up. That takes amazing skill. I'm glad Barry lived long enough to tell us about it. In another 40 years or so, I'll be excited to read the sequel.

This is the best memoir I have ever read, beautifully written. While my Irish family is very different, I loved reading about his. I'm recommending the book to everyone.

While I enjoyed the book, it wasn't very original. I was hoping to find out additional information that wasn't already contained in Passions Child: The Extraordinary Life of Jane Digby by Margaret F. Schmidt, published in 1976, Charles River Books. This book didn't provide any additional information, despite the author's claims.

I adore biography - especially those of the great characters of the second half of the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. I knew of Jane Digby el Mezrab from Irving Wallace's Nymphos and Other Maniacs which I read many years ago and also via several biographies of Sir Richard Burton. This is a well written, carefully and extensively researched book which benefited enormously from the author's good luck in uncovering much new, previously unseen and unpublished family material in Dorset and New Zealand. This, the author says in her acknowledgements, is more satisfying than the publication of the book itself. I agree, for this sort of discovery is palpably thrilling and the author's excitement shines through her narrative.

This biography reads like fiction and Jane Digby, firstly Lady Ellenborough, was one of those larger than life people who followed their own path, irrespective of the mores of their own time. Following Jane's life is a tour through the drawing rooms of Regency England, several European and Balkan courts to the deserts of Syria and Arabia. It is the story of a woman (thrice divorced) who eventually found happiness and fulfilment with a man of great nobility from an entirely different race, culture and religion. Jane's interest in the minutiae of life in Damascus in the mid 19th century makes fascinating reading and her wit and fondness for her adopted "tribe" in the desert is moving.

Highly recommended!

Jane Digby led a life of glamorous scandal - mostly played out during the reign of that most prudish of rulers, Queen Victoria. Biographies of her in the past have not been too successful as her story is obscured beneath layers of misinformation generated from the tabloid press of the time, and from well-meaning interference by such people as Richard Burton's wife.

Lovell has done a stunning job in digging through all the sources and turning up a great deal of new information on Digby which finally exposes her life in all its strengths and weaknesses. It is interesting how much you can dislike a subject and still like a story and that is what happened for me with Jane Digby. I found her as a person to be rather flirtatious and passionate and not very sensible. She did so much for 'love' and was so disappointed by in it. She married four times and had an equal number of well-known lovers as well. There is a litte on her childhood but the story really begins from her first fatally flawed marriage to Lord Ellenborough. As Digby's life progressed I felt Lovell managed to capture her increasing commonsense and growth as a person. The story of Digby is so amazing - she travelled all round Europe creating scandal as she went until finally settling in Palmyra with her last husband, an Sheikh.

Her life is part a travel-logue of Europe in the mid Nineteenth century part brilliantly readable scandal. A truly flawed subject, she makes great reading and Lovell has done a great job in presenting her.

When the then Pamela Digby Churchill (later to be Pamela Churchill Harriman) shocked British and European society with her string of marriages and romantic alliances, she was actually following more in the footsteps of an ancestor than blazing new ground. Over a hundred years before Pamela romped her way through Europe and America, the Honorable Jane Digby, Lady Ellenborough was embarkening on a series of affairs that drove her from England and eventually to the desert where she spent her final years.

Mary S. Lovell could have potrayed Jane Digby as a heartless tramp or made her a cartoon maneater that wouldn't be out of place in a Jackie Collins novel. At times, Jane Digby's life does seem larger than life and more like a daytime soap opera. Her lovers included crowned heads of states and even her own beloved cousin. Her final years were spent as the wife of a Beduoin chief, performing the traditional female duties while the tribe was traveling. Luckily, Mary S. Lovell is a carefully biographer who sorted through masses of documents to find the truth behind the rumors and legends.

Along with the legacy of her scandals, Jane become a mother several times. Her children, mostly seen as more annoyance than objects of affection, where left with their fathers when Jane moved onto her next adventure. Tragically, one of her daughters succumbed to madness and two of her sons died in childhood.

If you adore biographies or have come across the name Jane Digby in your reading, "Rebel Heart: The Scandalous Life of Jane Digby" is must read.

An excellent and accurate account of Jane Digby - A woman ahead of her time. Several surprises and facts are in store and would be great interest to students of the Middle Eastern culture, in particular the Bedouin tribes, the Arabian horse, falconing, Salukis and the social customs and manners of this golden era of history. Couldn't put it down. Very highly recommended!

Having read a lot of WWI books and books on sniping this one takes the cake. It's written in the autobiographical tradition of Teddy Roosevelt and will impress the old and young alike with its vivid imagery and colorful prose. Great read.

Mr. McBride has written a book that nearly perfectly talks about what can be expected from a modern infantry man. He talks about sniping, putting in a properly sighted machine gun, raids, and patrols. Honestly, this book is so good that most Army ROTC and Marine Infantry instruction may want to have their future officers and NCO candidates read this book.

I will give you a story that really stuck me as being ahead of its time. Now, this book was written in the mid-1930s. However, Mr. McBride knows the problems of lugging ammunition. A soldier with .303 British (about equal to modern NATO 7.62 ammo) could only carry about 200 to 300 rounds. So, Mr. McBride thinks the armies should carry ammunition of about .27 caliber. That is almost exactly 6.8 mm. This is exactly the same solution the US Army discovered after 5 years in Iraq.

I liked this book. Mr. McBride thinks both the British and Canadian Armies did much better with their training time than the US military. Indeed, he thinks the US Army and military is overly tied up with paperwork. And that observation was made in 1918.

This is a five star book by a soldier who knows his field craft. Pay attention to his anti-sniper traps. They are still useful today. Also, the book is great for telling about how the Germans would leave abandoned grenades after an attack. Some were rigged to go off if picked up.

As written before, this book is five star. Mr. McBride writes a book about the birth of the modern infantry man. Indeed, their is little difference between a Tommy of WWI with a Lewis gun and a Grunt in Vietnam carrying an M-60 machinegun. In 50 years little had changed.

The modern professional soldier can learn a lot from this book. Some university military history departments may want this book for an individual study of a hard infantry man.

A thoughroughly enjoyable, mesmerizing, collection of a soldier's WWI remembrances. Somehow manages to be more than the sum of its plainly told, shy, politically incorrect, wars is hell but you get used to it parts. It ends up assembling and describing bit by bit the remarkable character of the author.

Also notable to me for how it reaches across 70 years to contrast how we've changed as a people. For example, I don't think this book would be published as written today. The editor would have probably added more polish, removed some of the namecalling and stereotyping and would have thus diminished the book.

As a rifle shooter with a historical interest i bought this book. If your looking for an overly dramatic or gruesome account of life in the first world war trenches dont by this book. From what i can tell it is a written collection of memories by the author. These memories are written in a matter of fact, straight talking way which does not hide the authors zealous approach to his task of being a soldier.

Although at times slightly rambling i found this an interesting read and at times amuzing. A good reference if you are interested in rifle shooting or battle history.

It might not be written in perfect English, and it's not always politically correct, but it's definitely always enjoyable.

You get the whole WWI experience from the author's point of view, including enough "war stories" to satisfy any reader.

McBride includes technical details, anecdotes, and just good old story telling, in this tale of a machine gunner / rifleman in the Great War.

Book was very easy reading and well organized. One of the best history books I have read.

if you want to no about the early to last romanov's and russia history this book is for you.this writer leave nothing out.

Mr. Lincolm, unlike Robert Massie who wrote "Peter the Great," left me with the clear impression that he understood the source material he had at hand, and was able to verify through corroboration every thing he said. Some of the more incredible stories, or speculative rumors are left out. This does not make his work any less enjoyable, but it does lend Mr. Lincoln's work a feeling of solid thoroughness in its research--something that is lacking in Massie's book. If a story was left out, I felt quite confident that Mr. Lincoln knew of the story, but could not corroborate it to his satisfaction.

This book is very thorough and incredible in its vast sweep. But it is broken apart into major periods. Each period is further broken down into topics, such as political history, economic history, social history, and so on. This format makes the book quite useful as a reference as well as enjoyable to read. This is the best book on the story of the Romanov family in the English language to date. And I can see this book firmly establishing itself as a timeless classic, alongside Shelby Foote's "Civil War," or Gibbons, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

W. Bruce Lincoln's history of the 300 years of Romanov rule in Russia (1613-1917) is easily his most readable account of Russian history. While Professor Lincoln's research is meticulous as ever, in this volume he has to cover far more ground than in his other more focused histories and thus he avoids some of the digressions that he normally might allow himself. The result is a superb one-volume history of the Tsars and Tsarinas who determined Russia's development from a minor principality into the largest empire on earth.

The Romanovs consists of four parts: Muscovite beginnings (1613-1689), the Rise of an Empire (1689-1796), Empire Triumphant (1796-1894) and the Last Emperor (1894-1917). The first three parts each consist of several chapters, with the first covering biographical details of the Tsars and Tsarinas in that period, followed by chapters on political and cultural changes in that period. There are only two significant problems with what is otherwise a superb presentation: a non-chronological methodology and a lack of a single supporting map of Romanov domains (there are two maps of St Petersburg's layout). In the first case, Lincoln tends to keep coming back to Tsars in subsequent chapters on culture, politics, etc which is very confusing. Indeed, he seems in a rush to plow through the biographies of the Tsars, then revisit their cultural accomplishments, then come back again and discuss their political accomplishments, and then maybe discuss a few scandals or wars. As for the lack of maps, it makes it extremely difficult for the reader to evaluate the territorial expansions of the various Romanov rulers or Russia's growth over three centuries.

Despite these two flaws, the Romanovs is a delightful read for anyone with a scholarly interest in Russian imperial history. Perhaps the three most significant rulers that Lincoln assesses are Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Nicholas II. Most histories tend to elevate Peter to hero status, but Lincoln's evaluation is more mixed. While Peter gets great credit for pushing Russia to modernize, the costs he incurred may have been too great. In particular, Lincoln questions Peter's obsession with building his capital on totally unsuitable terrain; the fact that the Russians were able to eventually succeed in constructing Peter's dream capital often disguises the fact that the human and financial losses were exorbitantly wasteful. The reader will be left to ponder the question that if Peter had built his capital elsewhere, Russia's development might have been much less painful. As for Catherine, Lincoln prefers to minimize the scandal and corruption associated with her court and view this as the golden age of Russian cultural development. Finally, Nicholas II appears as even more of a fatalistic dolt bent on self-destruction than he did in Lincoln's previous books. In sum, The Romanovs provides a solid and very readable account of Russia's development under the Tsars and Tsarinas.

A genuinely great book. Lincoln certainly could write, and make
all those old Russians seem really interesting. As Lincoln's
former students (including me) know, his lectures were tediously
boring, so that makes the books all the more remarkable.

This is not close to the first review of this book. Read the other listings for much more detail.

I gave the book 5 stars, but it isn't at that level as a piece of literature. However, it is well beyond that level as an artifact of history. As I write this in late 2003, the Denver Post has almost daily obituaries for the WWII generation. Soon they will all be gone. In another 30 years the Vietnam vets, in another 50 the Gulf kids. Each will leave some worthwhile fragments of their experience, this is one of the better ones I've found from the WWII group.

As a Denver kid that had problems with Denver Pub Schools, sat on the bench for high school football, went off to war in Vietnam, flew in the Navy, I found Stiles' book to be a godsend, to understand MY life, and my relationship with my father's generation. Read it because it is a ROUGH manuscript, obviously not well edited, and it is honest, and for any number of reasons, it seems that honesty comes at a premium and probably always has.

The current President, who had the opportunity to really be a combat pilot and did everything he could to avoid it, now poses on flight decks. The current Governor of Colorado, who never did a day in the military, passed out pictures of himself in a flight-suit climbing down from a aircraft wing to associate himself with a strong defense. What a miserable collection of mutts compared to their father's generation.

The remarkable thing about these kids wasn't that they were courageous heroes, but because they weren't and they still got the job done. One bloody, gut-wrenching day at a time. Spin that.

Not much I can add to what others have written about the Big Bird. I first read the book while in college in the late 1960s. Some years later I lent the paperback to a friend and it went up in smoke during a fire. I was stunned and mad because I liked to go back on occasion and read a chapter or two when I felt I needed to read something from Bert. Now, to make a short story long, after years of trying to find another copy, the internet came along and I started to find out about Bert. I began pulling things up and contacting various folks. I came across one fellow and damned if they weren't having a get-together honoring Bert at Colorado College. I was there. It lasted two days and no more than a handful of old folks were in attendence (at the time I was in my mid 50s and I was the second yougest person there). As I was leaving at the end of the remberance a fellow took hold of my arm and asked if I would like to have a stack of books. They were compiled by friends of Bert's some time long after he had died! Of course I accepted them! There were writings ranging back to his high school days in Denver. Some of the stuff is pretty good, some not so good. But, the short stories (sorry, there is no lost novel) I found had a appeal for the time and demonstrated Bert's growth as a writer.

Yes, I too think Bert was on the brink of becoming a well known writer. He did, by the way, write for a magazine in New York. I have the books and I still return to then when I need a good laugh (Bert was quite a wit) or just want to step back into the late 30s or early 40s. There must be 5-6 of these books (private publisher, sorry). The fellow who organized the 'event' is no longer with us as, I would guess, many of the others aren't. My God, most were in their very late 70s or early-mid 80s. Alas the group is leaving us at an astounding rate.

Okay, I'm done now. The book gets 5 stars and I have been able to give you a very brief look at Bert and some of his pals - though not many. Yes, there are other "books" by Bert and you might just get lucky and find some of them.

I first read this book in 1960 and discovered that Bert Stiles was my uncle-Robert Langford's roommate in "Copilot House". I sent my copy to my uncle who subsequently got a copy (long out of print) from the publisher. He said the story was pretty much like things were. He said Bert Stiles always said he was writing a book but then everybody was writing a book. I have my uncle's copy filled with photos of the "Big Bird" full of holes afer Leipzig. The aircraft never flew again. It was repaired and blew up with the sqadron commander and chaplain aboard on it's test flight.

In 1969 I had the pleasure to visit with Richard White a co-pilot in a B-17 during World War II. His plane was shot down over Berlin in 1944 and he spent some months in a German Stalag. He told me that if I really would like to know how it was that I should read this book. I have read it. It is awesome! It is written in a style that had me totally engrossed from start to finish.

When Bert Stiles wrote this book, the war was still raging across the world. It was 1944, he had just completed a horrific tour of duty as a B17 co-pilot, and the memories were fresh in his mind. Even though Bert seemed to be a somewhat sensitive man, some of his words have a callous feel to them. He talks about the officers and enlisted men forming a baseball team, and "..after the Schweinfurt raid, we had to replace the whole infield"-Simply put, so many men had been killed on that mission, no one was left to play on the team. Bert was an intelligent man, a good writer, but he lacked the experience to know when to back out of the war. Passive, intelligent, creative people do not make good fighter pilots. Bert was killed in action shortly after writing his memoirs.