Monday, November 30, 2009

Broken Promises Broken Dreams or George Washingtons Expense Account

Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: The Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience

Author: Alice Rothchild


The tragedies of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians are never far from the pages of the mainstream press. Yet it is rare to hear about the reality of life on the ground, and it is rarer still when these voices belong to women. This book records the intimate journey of a Jewish-American physician travelling and working within Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Alice Rothchild grew up in a family grounded by the traumas of the Holocaust and passionately devoted to Israel. This book recounts her experiences as she grapples with the reality of life in Israel, the complexity of Jewish Israeli attitudes, and the hardships of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.

Through her work with a medical and human rights project, Rothchild is able to offer a unique personal insight into the conflict. Based on interviews with a number of different women, she examines their diverse perspectives and the complexities of Jewish Israeli identity. Rothchild's memorable account brings to life the voices of people mutually entwined in trauma, and explores individual examples of resilience and resistance.

Ultimately, the book raises troubling questions regarding U.S. policy and the insistence of the mainstream Jewish community on giving unquestioning support to all Israeli policy.

Alice Rothchild, M.D., serves on the steering committee of Jewish Voice for Peace, Boston. She has worked with medical delegations to Israel and the Occupied Territories with the JVP Health and Human Rights Project. A Boston-based physician, she has sought to build alliances between Israelis and Palestinians in opposition to Israeli policies of occupation and to promote a morehonest dialogue within the Jewish community in the United States.

Visit the author's website at brokenpromisesbrokendreams.com



See also: Food in Missouri or The BLT Cookbook

George Washington's Expense Account: General George Washington and Marvin Kitman, PFC (Ret.)

Author: Marvin Kitman

In George Washington's Expense Account — the best-selling expense account in history — Kitman shows how Washington brilliantly turned his noble gesture of refusing payment for his services as commander in chief of the Continental Army into an opportunity to indulge his insatiable lust for fine food and drink, extravagant clothing, and lavish accommodations. In a close analysis of the document that financed our Revolution, Kitman uncovers more scandals than you can shake a Nixon Cabinet member at — and serves each up with verve and wit.



Sunday, November 29, 2009

Please Dont Remain Calm or Free Lunch

Please Don't Remain Calm: Provocations and Commentaries

Author: Michael Kinsley

A lucid deconstruction of the politics and public figures shaping the social, financial, and military disasters of our times.

This selection of Michael Kinsley's trenchant editorial writing in Slate (and elsewhere) since 1995 covers the end of the Clinton era (Monica, impeachment, etc.) and two terms of George W. Bush (9/11, the War on Terror, Iraq, etc.).

During this time Kinsley left Washington for Seattle and founded Slate, was opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times, underwent brain surgery for Parkinson's disease, and had other adventures that are reflected here. Although mostly about politics, there are articles and essays about other things, such as the future of newspapers, the existence of God, and why power women love Law and Order.

This is the work of a writer at the top of his form. Kinsley's wit is a weapon that any talk-show host or elected blowhard should envy and fear, and the reader will cherish his sense of humor, which enlivens even the toughest subject matter.

The New York Times - Jonathan Freedland

Most columnists would be sufficiently self-aware to admit that collections like this shouldn't really work: an op-ed article is written for that week rather than posterity. Yet Kinsley pulls it off, thanks chiefly to a personality that you want to spend more, not less, time with. He is honest, admitting that he didn't read all the books when judging the National Book Award; generous, giving the credit for Slate's achievements to his successor; and self-deprecating, even when fessing up to his years in denial about his own Parkinson's disease, about which he is plain-spoken and never mawkish. So you find yourself like a couch potato with a bar of chocolate, polishing off a piece only to indulge yourself with just one more. You're left with a strong sense of what a turbulent, even gloomy decade this has been since Kinsley headed west—yet somehow you've enjoyed reliving it.

Publishers Weekly

Partisan political writing generally enjoys the life expectancy of a weather report, but this collection of Kinsley's trenchant commentary is worth preserving. Kingsley has assembled 127 essays on the American political scene from the Clinton administration to the present. He eschews deep analysis in favor of poking fun at the foibles, evasions, contradictions and hypocrisies of American public figures and the media that feed off them, with occasional detours into his personal life. Inevitably, some pieces show their age, but readers will relish his skewering of the 2000 and 2004 elections. Kinsley is irresistible when he steps back from reporting to pose his trademark provocative-often humorous-questions: Why is it admirable for scientists to love science and businessmen to love business, but political candidates must proclaim how much they hate politics? Is Pat Robertson anti-Semitic or simply nuts? Does President Bush really believe his claim that all Muslims and Jews are going to hell because they don't accept Jesus? While essays from recent years naturally feel more relevant, every essay in this collection sparkles with Kinsley's trademark brand of wit. (Apr.)

Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.



Table of Contents:

Introduction     xiii
1995-1999
Long Sentence     3
Confessions of a Buckraker     6
EDITORIAL: A Dangerous Medium     11
Slate: A Policy Statement     13
Bill Clinton's Browser     14
In Defense of Matt Drudge     15
Lies, Damned Lies, and Impeachment     17
The Trouble with Scoops     21
Easy Answers     23
Internet Envy     28
Go to Hell     32
2000
Six Degrees of America Online     36
McCain's High Horse     38
Republicans for Hillary     41
The Secret Shame of the Professional Politician     43
McCain for Veep: It's Not Too Late!     45
It's an Outrage (Never Mind What)     48
Frankly, My Dear     51
Voters to Decide Election     53
My Plan's Better than Your Plan     56
The Emperor's New Brain     58
Fun with Numbers     61
Democracy Is Approximate: Live with It     62
No Contest     65
W and Justice     67
Equal Protection of Whom? From What?     70
Reasonable People Can Differ?     72
2001
God Bless YouAnd...     75
Reagan's Record     77
Reagan's Record II     80
O'Reilly among the Snobs     82
The Mystery of the Departing Guests     84
Confessions of a McCain-Feingold Criminal     87
It's Not Just the Internet     89
Triumph of the Right-Wing Dorks     92
Trent Lott's Stages of Grief     94
Pandora's Cable Box     96
Shining C     99
Equality at the Airport, I     101
What Is Terrorism?     104
New York Becomes Seattle     106
An Agenda for Victory     109
Is Disappearing     111
Osama Done Told Me     113
The Genius of Ari Fleischer     116
Forgetting Afghanistan     118
In Defense of Denial     121
2002
Listening to Our Inner Ashcroft     125
The Goldberg Variations     127
Are Conservatives Brainier?     132
Davos for Beginners     134
What Is Terrorism, Continued     137
Social Hypochondria     139
Equality at the Airport, II     141
The Justice's Wife's Tale     144
An Ode to Managers      146
Lying in Style     149
Some Kind Words for Cardinal Law     151
This Throne of Kings     153
The Hindsight Saga     155
Blame the Accountant     158
King George     160
Disabilities and Inabilities     163
It's Good Enough     165
Who Wants This War?     167
Government by Osmosis     169
What Time Is It?     172
Ours Not to Reason Why     174
The Secret Vice of Power Women     178
Curse You, Robert Caro!     180
Computers Go Too Far     183
Why Innocent People Confess     185
How Reaganomics Became Rubinomics     188
Lott's Adventures in Gaffeland     190
2003
Pious Pair     193
Morally Unserious     195
Desert Shields     198
J'Accuse, Sort Of     200
Unauthorized Entry     203
Unsettled     205
Bush's War     208
Bill Bennett's Bad Bet     210
The Fabulist     213
Sympathy for the New York Times     215
Supreme Court Fudge     218
Abolish Marriage     220
Who Is Buried in Bush's Speech?     223
At Least Say You're Sorry     225
Just Supposin'     228
Filter Tips     230
Taking Bush Personally     232
The Religious Superiority Complex     235
Attack Geography     237
When Good News Is Bad News     240
2004
Novak Agonistes     243
Blind, Deaf, and Lame     246
"I'm Not a Quitter!"     248
Take This Column, Please     251
Paradise Lost     253
The Trouble with Optimism     259
A Good Editorial     262
The Case against George W. Bush     267
Social Security Privatization Won't Work     270
2005
The Century's Greatest Love Story     272
No Smoking Gun     274
Niger-Scooter-Plame-Gate     277
How Conservative Is "Too Conservative"?     280
Guess Who's Not Coming to Dinner?     282
Cheney Weighs In     285
The New Corruption     287
2006
Wendy     290
The Future of Newspapers     292
Give Me Liberty or Let Me Think about It     295
Why Lawyers Are Liars     297
The Ayatollah Joke Book     300
What's Your Theory?     303
M1 and Me     305
The Twilight of Objectivity     308
Win a Date with E. J. Dionne     311
Above the Law     314
Please Don't Remain Calm     317
How I Spent My Summer Vacation     320
Yrotciv in Iraq     323
War and Embryos     325
2007
In God, Distrust     328
We Try Harder (but What's the Point?)     332
How Many Divisions Has the Congress?     334
Index     337

Read also Among Warriors in Iraq or Contrary Notions

Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill)

Author: David Cay Johnston

The bestselling author of Perfectly Legal returns with a powerful new exposé.

Kirkus Reviews

An exhaustive litany of federal, state and even local giveaways to the very wealthy, described in agonizing and depressing detail. Beginning in the Reagan years, the U.S. government has placed a growing economic burden onto those least able to bear it, declares Johnston (Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich-and Cheat Everybody Else, 2003, etc.). It subsidizes the prosperous through tax breaks and other giveaways while stripping away protections for consumers, retirees, workers and investors. Starting with the sordid story of an exclusive Oregon golf course whose wealthy patrons enjoy recreation indirectly paid for by taxpayers, Johnston details dozens of giveaways, demonstrating beyond doubt that while government policies have made life much easier for those at the very top of the income pyramid, the great majority have it much worse than ever before. Examples range from the infamous-electricity deregulation, the collapse of Enron and the resulting astronomical spikes in the cost of power-to the obscure. In the latter category is Cabela's, a sporting-goods behemoth that convinced the citizens of tiny Hamburg, Pa., to grant it an exemption from property and sales taxes in exchange for locating a new megastore in their community. The total subsidy: some $8,000 for each man, woman and child in the community. Stories like these are no longer shocking, and Johnston fails to reach beyond sensationalism to solutions. In a final chapter, he suggests that citizens embrace democratic principles, but is disappointingly vague on how that might manifest itself in policies that would right the sinking ship he so vividly describes. Without solutions, thisremains little more than a list of grievances.

What People Are Saying


"If you're concerned about congressional earmarks, stock options (especially backdated options), hedge fund tax breaks, abuse of eminent domain, subsidies to sports teams, K Street lobbyists, the state of our health-care system, to say nothing of the cavernous gap between rich and poor, you'll read this fine book—as I did—with a growing sense of outrage. Free Lunch makes it clear that it's high time for 'We the People' to stand up and be counted."
—John C. Bogle, founder and former chairman, The Vanguard Group

"With clarity, conciseness, and cool, fact-saturated analysis, Mr. Johnston, the premier investigative reporter on how industry and commerce shift risks and costs to taxpayers, sends the ultimate message to all Americans—either we demand to have a say or we will continue to pay, pay, and pay."
—Ralph Nader




Friday, November 27, 2009

One Nation Underground or American Made

One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture

Author: Kenneth Ros

"Kenneth Rose's One Nation Underground explores U.S. nuclear history from the bottom up—literally. . . . Rose deserves credit for not trivializing this period of our history, as so many retrospectives of the Cold War era have tended to do."
Journal of Cold War Studies

"Important . . . One Nation Underground is an elegant account of the issues involved in the nuclear age."
Pacific Northwest Quarterly

"This is a fine compilation of a massive amount of research, well founded in the existing literature, and presented in a readable narrative."
Journal of Illinois History

"A readable short history of the fallout shelters and the broader political debate over civil defense. . . . Mr. Rose is a good storyteller, and One Nation Underground is engagingly writen, with an array of evocative photgraphs."
The Wall Street Journal

"Rose writes well, with a good eye for the telling phrase and revealing example."—Journal of Social History

For the half-century duration of the Cold War, the fallout shelter was a curiously American preoccupation. Triggered in 1961 by a hawkish speech by John F. Kennedy, the fallout shelter controversy—"to dig or not to dig," as Business Week put it at the time—forced many Americans to grapple with deeply disturbing dilemmas that went to the very heart of their self-image about what it meant to be an American, an upstanding citizen, and a moral human being.

Given the much-touted nuclear threat throughout the 1960s and the fact that 4 out of 5 Americans expressed a preference for nuclear war over living under communism,what's perhaps most striking is how few American actually built backyard shelters. Tracing the ways in which the fallout shelter became an icon of popular culture, Kenneth D. Rose also investigates the troubling issues the shelters raised: Would a post-war world even be worth living in? Would shelter construction send the Soviets a message of national resolve, or rather encourage political and military leaders to think in terms of a "winnable" war?

Investigating the role of schools, television, government bureaucracies, civil defense, and literature, and rich in fascinating detail—including a detailed tour of the vast fallout shelter in Greenbriar, Virginia, built to harbor the entire United States Congress in the event of nuclear armageddon—One Nation, Underground goes to the very heart of America's Cold War experience.

Wall Street Journal, Nov 13, 2001 - Melanie Kirkpatrick

Mr. Rose is a good storyteller, and "One Nation Underground" is engagingly written, with an array of evocative photographs.

Washington Monthly

"A broad-ranging narrative that covers the politics, culture, religion, and even engineering of the Cold War era."

Christian Science Monitor

An interesting and amply illustrate dcommentary on cold war concerns.

Library Journal

Although Rose (history, California State Univ., Chico; American Women and the Repeal of Prohibition) might have wished his popular history of the Cold War to work from below ground on up, his excavation of the great fear of the Fifties reveals a discourse overwhelmingly top-down. Government and civic elites propagandized for shelters built from theoretical funds that mostly were never appropriated; average citizens fretted that their neighbors were building bunkers to exclude them come Armageddon, yet apparently very few private spaces were ever erected. Rose demonstrates that the shelter was the leading if least visible icon of a civil defense debate that questioned whether nuclear wars were confinable, hence survivable, but also whether shelter was more practical or at least not incompatible with mass evacuation. Rose reconstructs Herman Kahn, the pro-limited nuclear war physicist/Dr. Strangelove model, as the most intriguing if possibly insane personage in his account but leaves much possibly fertile soil unturned. (What did history's most famous shelterists, the World War II British, think of their Yankee cousins' official mania only a few years later?) This book fails to live up to the originality promised by the subject but as a first-of-area undertaking should be acquired by academic libraries. Scott H. Silverman, Bryn Mawr Coll. Lib., PA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

Treating the fallout shelter as an American icon, this history discusses its significance in the context of the Cold War. It considers the implications of the fallout shelter<-->and the fact that so few Americans actually built them<-->for the national self-image, the ideals of citizenship, and moral thinking. The book examines the role schools, film, government bureaucracies, civil defense efforts, and literature each played in forming the fallout shelter culture. Rose teaches history at California State University, Chico. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)



New interesting book: Microsoft Office System Step by Step 2003 or Start Your Own Business On eBay

American-Made: The Enduring Legacy of the WPA: When FDR Put the Nation to Work

Author: Nick Taylor

Seventy-five years after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, here for the first time is the remarkable story of one of its enduring cornerstones, the Works Progress Administration (WPA): its passionate believers, its furious critics, and its amazing accomplishments.

The WPA is American history that could not be more current, from providing economic stimulus to renewing a broken infrastructure. Introduced in 1935 at the height of the Great Depression, when unemployment and desperation ruled the land, this controversial nationwide jobs program would forever change the physical landscape and social policies of the United States. The WPA lasted eight years, spent $11 billion, employed 8½ million men and women, and gave the country not only a renewed spirit but a fresh face. Now this fascinating and informative book chronicles the WPA from its tumultuous beginnings to its lasting presence, and gives us cues for future action.

The Washington Post - H. W. Brands

Taylor's American-Made is bigger than its title suggests; he provides a succinct survey of the Great Depression and particularly its consequences for workers…he interweaves personal stories with explanations of policy. His manner is brisk; chapters of four and five pages fly by. He treats Roosevelt sympathetically, but his hero is Harry Hopkins, the WPA's founding director.

Publishers Weekly

Launched in 1935, at the bottom of the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) served as a linchpin of FDR's "New Deal." Through the WPA, Roosevelt put millions of unemployed Americans to work on public construction projects, from dams and courthouses to parks and roads. The WPA's Federal Writers Project employed a host of artists and writers (among them Jackson Pollock, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston and Studs Terkel); theater and musical artists also received funding. Taylor (Ordinary Miracles: Life in a Small Church) vividly and painstakingly paints the full story of the WPA from its inception to its shutdown by Congress in 1943, at which point the war boom in manufacturing had made it unnecessary. In an eloquent and balanced appraisal, Taylor not only chronicles the WPA's numerous triumphs (including New York's LaGuardia Airport) but also its failures, most notably graft and other chicanery at the local level. Taylor details as well the dicey intramural politics in Congress over which states and districts would get the largest slice of the WPA pie. All told, Taylor's volume makes for a splendid appreciation of the WPA with which to celebrate the upcoming 75th anniversary of the New Deal's beginnings in 1933. (Mar. 4)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Frederick J. Augustyn Jr. - Library Journal

Taylor (coauthor, John Glenn: A Memoir) acknowledges 2008's 75th anniversary of the New Deal (dated to FDR's first inaugural), followed in 2010 by that of the Works Progress Administration (1935-42)-later called the Work Projects Administration (WPA). His is a balanced summary of one of FDR's most prolific agencies. Although introductive for general readers and younger scholars on the subject of what a government can accomplish in a time of need, it is also informative for professional historians. The WPA's famous first commissioner, Harry Hopkins, was reassigned from the Civil Works Administration, later to move to the Commerce Department and then to become a presidential adviser. Taylor shows that the WPA also evolved from diverse programs to those focused on construction. The post office murals; the Federal Writers, Theater, and Music programs; what is now known as Camp David; and numerous parks, zoos, recreational areas, and airports are iconic products of the WPA. It also did work in the library field and offered a pavilion at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair. Its follies and triumphs are praised and critiqued here in a readable, often investigative, and apparently first full retrospective. Lavishly illustrated, the book also has a list of New Deal organizations, a partial list of construction projects, a New Deal chronology, and endnotes. It will be a boon to all 20th-century history collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ11/1/07.]

Kirkus Reviews

Breezy but well-considered account of the Works Progress Administration, the New Deal's signature jobs program. Taylor (Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War, 2000, etc.) writes popular history, which means that academics may find his fast-paced narrative lacking in complex ideas. He peppers descriptions of major policy clashes with profiles of destitute people whose lives were literally saved by going on the workforce program. The book is filled with plucky, fast-talking characters who by dint of charm and grit pulled themselves up by their bootstraps to participate in the nationwide effort to put the jobless to work. Taylor's principal hero is Harry Hopkins, the tireless, charismatic FDR aide who steamrolled bureaucratic opposition to get the WPA up and running, then saw it through to the end, at the expense of his health and personal political ambitions, until it was ultimately derailed by the onset of World War II. The author paints a colorful, compelling picture of how miserable life was for most Americans after the stock market crash of 1929; his portrait of government competence and visionary goals contrasts pointedly with the radically restricted ambitions of today's politicians. He gives airtime to critics who found the WPA anti-business and anti-American, who invented the term "boondoggle" to describe the government's sometimes wasteful methods for getting people back to work. He also shows those voices drowned out by the concerns of starving citizens and reminds us that the WPA built some of the nation's most beloved pieces of infrastructure, from San Francisco's Cow Palace to New York's LaGuardia Airport. Readable and vividly rendered-anear-definitive account of one of the most massive government interventions into domestic affairs in American history. Agent: Lynn Nesbit/Janklow & Nesbit Associates



Thursday, November 26, 2009

Irans Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities or Land Mosaics

Iran's Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities: The Threat in the Northern Gulf

Author: Anthony H Cordesman

Nations around the world are uncertain and anxious about Iran's intentions in the Middle East and the wider global arena. Its current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has made no secret of his opposition to Western society, particularly Israel, and his desire to acquire nuclear weapons. However, as Anthony Cordesman and Martin Kleiber point out, Ahmadinejad does not necessarily speak for the Iranian clerical regime, who operate in a cloud of secrecy and also directly control Iran's military. Given the ambiguous nature of Iran's global objectives, this new study focuses on the tangible aspects of Iran's military forces and takes an objective look at the realistic threats that Iran poses the region and the world. The authors systematically assess each aspect of Iranian military forces from their conventional armies to their asymmetric threat via proxy wars in the region.



New interesting book: Cannibal Island or Inclusion

Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions

Author: Richard T T Forman

Animals, water, wind, and people flow at different rates according to spatial patterns common to almost all landscapes and regions. This up-to-date synthesis explores the ecology of heterogeneous land areas, where natural processes and human activities interact to produce an ever changing mosaic. The subject has great relevance to contemporary society and this book reflects the breadth of this importance: there are many ideas and applications for planning, conservation, design, management, sustainability and policy. Spatial solutions are provided for society's land-use objectives. Students and professionals alike will be drawn by the attractive and informative illustrations, the conceptual synthesis, the wide international perspective, and the range of topics and research covered.

Booknews

A state-of-the-art synthesis that explores the ecology of heterogeneous land areas, where natural processes and human activities spatially interact to produce a continually changing mosaic. The foundations of landscape and regional ecology are first introduced. Early chapters then explore the array of patch, corridor, and matrix types, plus movements and flows between adjacent elements, as the essential building blocks of land mosaics. Middle chapters fit these spatial elements together, and explore movements and flows through the resulting mosaics. Later chapters then explore the mosaics changing over time, including alternative pattern sequences in planning or managing landscapes or regions. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)



Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Confronting Iran or Personal Memoirs of U S Grant

Confronting Iran: The Failure of American Foreign Policy and the Next Great Crisis in the Middle East

Author: Ali M Ansari

Iran refuses to relent in developing nuclear technology, despite U.N. sanctions. Rumors persist that Israel is drawing up plans for military strikes. Neither the emboldened Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nor the embattled President Bush has relented in his war of words. How did we get here? Iran expert Ali Ansari sets the current crisis in the context of a long history of mutual antagonism. From the overthrow of Mosaddeq in 1953 to the hostage crisis in 1979 and, more recently, the Gulf War and the War in Iraq, both Iranian and American politicians have forged conflicting narratives about an "evil empire" lying half a world away-resulting in a mutual mistrust that may ultimately lead to war. An authoritative account of failed foreign policy, this book will be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand this explosive region.



Table of Contents:
Chronology     ix
Introduction     1
Imperial Hubris     7
1953     19
1979     55
The United States and the Islamic Republic     93
Khatami and the Reform Movement     147
Iran-US Relations in the Shadow of 9/11     165
Nuclear Politics     197
Conclusion     233
Afterword     243
Acknowledgments     257
Notes     259
Glossary     275
Sources and Guide to Further Reading     278
Index     281

New interesting textbook: El Chocolate or Best Ever Comfort Food Recipes

Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant

Author: Ulysses S Grant

After three deadly years of fighting, President Abraham Lincoln had seen a little progress in the West against the Confederacy, but in the main theater of operations, Virginia, the lines were almost exactly where they had been when the American Civil War started. The war was at a stalemate with northern public support rapidly fading. Then, Lincoln summoned General Ulysses S. Grant, victor of the Vicksburg campaign, to come East. In little over a year, America's most catastrophic armed conflict ended, the Union was preserved, and slavery was abolished. This book details how these triumphs were achieved and in the telling earned international acclaim as a superb example of an English-language personal chronicle.

About the Author
Ulysses S. Grant remains one of the giants in American history, revered and respected by his contemporaries, but viewed ever after as one of the country's most controversial figures. He graduated from West Point in 1843 and went on to have a successful military career before becoming the 18th President of the United States for two terms. These grand accomplishments stand in stark contrast with his failures. He became an alcoholic, a failed businessman, and the administration during his presidency is regarded as one of the most corrupt in U.S. history. While other prominent Americans look to publishing their recollections as a crowning event undertaken in the leisure of retirement, Grant had to write his 1885 memoir as a means to pay his debts and support his family.

Booknews

**** Reprint of the 1885-86 edition (cited in BCL3) with a selection of Matthew Brady photos. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)