David Decides: No More Thumbsucking

Book Description

While prior books on the battle to capture Wilmington, North Carolina, have focused solely on the epic struggles for Fort Fisher, in many respects this was just the beginning of the campaign. In addition to complete coverage (with significant new information) of both battles for Fort Fisher, The Wilmington Campaign includes the first detailed examination of the attack and defense of Fort Anderson. It also features blow-by-blow accounts of the defense of the Sugar Loaf Line and of the operations of Federal warships on the Cape Fear River. This masterpiece of military history proves yet again that there is still much to be learned about the American Civil War.

Customer Reviews:

Superb, expansive and detailed coverage of the entire campaign........2006-11-17

Chris Fonvielle has provided the definitive work on the Wilmington Campaign from beginning to end. "Last Rays of Departing Hope" is a model for how to properly cover such an extensive campaign. Every action of the campaign is covered. The maps are excellent and plentiful, and orders of battle are provided for all of the major actions. Gun emplacements are detailed. The naval vessels, commanders and gun counts are also provided. The writing is fluid and weaves in participant accounts. The author has maintained an objective tone throughout.

The major phases of combat covered are: 1st Fort Fisher, 2nd Fort Fisher, attempts at Sugar Loaf, Fort Anderson, Town Creek, and Forks Road. The powder boat experiment/fiasco is discussed in detail.

Wilmington was the premiere blockade running port of the Confederacy and was Lee's final source of supply. It was protected by a large and powerful earthen fort, Fort Fisher. The assaults on Fort Fisher provide fascinating examples of both how combined operations can succeed and how they can fail. In the first attack numerous problems plagued the Union assault: poor cooperation and lack of coordination by Butler and Porter, slow transport and bad weather that allowed the defenders to prepare for the onslaught, poor intelligence about the two sided nature of the structure, inexcusable inefficacy of the massive naval bombardment (shooting at flags instead of dismounting guns), as well as timid army commanders who failed to exploit Curtis' recognition of the fort's vulnerability. While Butler received most of the blame (deservedly in many instances), Porter's failures were as severe or even more detrimental to the enterprise.

CSA district commander Bragg had done little to aid the defense of the fort, and left it largely on its own. Fortunately for him, the attackers defeated themselves. Porter would learn from his mistakes, Bragg would not. For the next assault Porter cooperated fully with General Terry who replaced the disgraced Butler. The navy bombardment focused on the land face of the fort, disabling nearly every piece mounted along the parapet. Porter coordinated the end of the land face bombardment with the army assault and shifted his fire to the sea face. Even so the assault was a close run thing. Had Bragg provided prompt reinforcement, or attacked with Hoke's force to the north, then the initial assault would most likely have been repelled, resulting in difficult siege operations to reduce the fort.

Fortunately for the Federals, Bragg and Hoke did nothing of consequence to support the fort's defenders, instead remaining passive as the defenders were overrun. Union general Adelbert Ames' sulking timidity nearly snatched defeat from victory by failing to aggressively follow up the advantage that Col. Curtis had obtained. Commanding General Terry appreciated Curtis' correct judgement and supported Ames' subordinate at critical junctures. The heavily outnumbered defenders were defeated.

The narrative does not end here as the town was not yet taken. Schofield was assigned command of the new Federal district and brought his corps to bear on both sides of the river. Hoke was able to entrench on the east of the river and prevent assault from that direction. The Federals made a push on the west bank of the river. CSA Gen. Hagood at Fort Anderson failed to properly counter a flanking move and was forced to withdraw to save his command. U.S. Brig. Gen. Cox aggressively followed up and after yet another flanking maneuver at Town Creek drove Hagood back into Wilmington. The rebels were forced to abandon the defense of the city and withdraw.

Whiting, Lamb, Curtis, Terry, and Cox emerge as heroes for their respective causes; Bragg, Ames, Butler, Hoke (and perhaps Hagood) as goats. Porter spends time in both camps but ends his tour with resounding success.

An Excellent Summary of the Wilmington Campaign!.......2005-07-12

Why can't more Civil War titles be written like this: an interesting and smooth flowing narrative, sufficient number of high quality maps, ample photographs, and anecdotes of officer and enlisted participants?

In my humble opinion, Fonvielle has written what I believe to be one of the best Civil War campaign studies, period! His narrative is simple without being simplistic, maps of outstanding quality and plenty of them, and ample illustrations and photos of the fort, participants, and the area around Wilmington NC.

Except for a few years living in Virginia while serving in the Air Force, I have spent my life in North Carolina and have often visited the Wilmington and Fort Fisher area. Fonvielle's title will serve as an excellent resource on my next visit and is invaluable to those who want to know more about what happened in the Wilmington area after the fall of Fort Fisher.

While reading both Fonvielle's and Gragg's accounts of Fort Fisher, I often pondered: what would have happened if General Bragg was more aggressive in his defense of Fort Fisher by ordering a larger portion of Hoke's division to defend the fort instead of staying put at Sugar Loaf? Indeed, this is often the true mark of an outstanding Civil War book: pondering the "what ifs" of the war and how a change in a decision could have affected the war's length or outcome.

Fonvielle's book has hit the mark and is highly recommended. Read and enjoy!

Excellent history of an obscure Civil War Campaign.......2002-09-20

The Civil War had many campaigns, and numerous battles. Most of them have been chronicled at one time or another. The battle of Fort Fisher, in North Carolina near Wilmington, was wonderfully written about a decade ago in Confederate Goliath by noted historian Rod Gragg. Gragg's book however, finishes with the end of the battle, and has nothing or next to it to say about the ensuing campaign to capture the city of Wilmington itself. The campaign as a whole is the subject of Chris Fonvielle's book, which has a larger scope than Gragg's excellent work, and is equally skilled.

Fonvielle is a southerner, and was a resident of Wilmington at the time the book was written. Since I had just finished another book that was originally published by Savas publishing (Last Chance for Victory) and I had hacked it to pieces here as unreasonably pro-Confederate, I was somewhat apprehensive when I started this book. No worries, Fonvielle is balanced, forthright, and very careful with the issues and participants on both sides. The result is a wonderful depiction of the campaign and battle as they occurred, with a number of wonderful anecdotes. The author also does a masterful job of depicting the strategic context of the campaign and battle, and their impact on the war's last phase.

I've read a number of books on the Civil War. This one has excellent maps and illustrations, is well-thought-out and concise, without being either cursory or overly brief, and is well-documented. I would recommend this book to any Civil War buff.

The Civil War History of Wilmington finally written.......2001-03-10

This is history written right. From the details of the major battles for Fort Fisher, the defense of Fort Anderson, right down to the smaller actions around this important port city, the author covers all. Being a student of Maj. General W.H.C. Whiting, I was amazed to see the only known, full length photo of him, published for the first time. The maps are wonderful, especially the fold outs. Written portraits of all the players are included in the text, without bias. The author is a native of Wilmington, and his love for the area shows with this work. 130+ years after the final battles of the war were fought, Wilmington's story is told.

The Definitive History of the Wilmington Campaign.......1999-03-16

Too many books about Wilmington end with the fall of Fort Fisher. Chris Fonvielle, while dealing fully with those actions, takes that as a beginning, and highlights the entire campaign up the Cape Fear to the fall of Wilmington. (Braxton Bragg fans, if any, take note! Your hero looks very bad here!) Well done, well illustrated, great reading!

Customer Reviews:

Highly recommended.......2002-05-29

This book is out of print, unfortunately, but is well worth taking the time and trouble to find on the used market. The accolade of 'genius' is tossed out rather easily nowadays, but I agree with the first reviewer: on the evidence of this book, at least, Gurevich is a genius.

His pedagogical method is built upon an extended discussion of what he call 'categories'. He explains his approach in the book's introduction:

"Evidently, in order to understand the life, the behaviour and the culture of medieval people, it is important to try to reconstruct their ways of thinking and their system of values. We have to try to discern their 'habits of mind', the ways in which they evaluated the world that surrounded them... In my opinion, it is best to try first of all to identify the basic universal categories of a culture, those without which it cannot exist and by which it is permeated in all its manifestations. These categories are then, at the same time, the defining categories of human consciousness in that culture. By this I mean such concepts and perceptual forms as time, space, change, cause, fate, number, the relationship of the perceptible to the supersensible, the relationship of the part to the whole. This list could be extended, developed and refined. But that is not the point. The point is that in any culture these universal concepts are mutually interrelated to form a 'world model' sui generis, a 'network of coordinates' through which the bearers of this culture perceive reality and construct their mental image of the world."

In my view (and I, unlike the first reviewer, am not a medievalist), Gurevich succeeds spectacularly with this approach -- he really does allow a modern reader to imagine apprehending the world in a way that approximates how a person in the Middle Ages must have done so. I would submit that this is no small feat. As the book makes clear, the culture of the Middle Ages, and ours, are in many ways alien to each other. Perhaps nowhere is the contrast between the cultures more evident than when Gurevich discusses the categories of time and space. His writing in these sections, although occasionally repetitive, is a dazzling display of originality and virtuosity. It defies a capsule summary, but the following brief excerpt may impart some of the flavor of what the author has to offer:

"Having acquired the means of measuring time accurately and, consequently, of reckoning it in equal intervals, the Europeans were bound sooner or later to grasp and apply the radical possibilities inherent therein -- changes prepared by the whole development of society, especially of the towns. Time was at last 'stretched out' in a straight line, proceeding from the past to the future through a point called the present. In preceding epochs the distinctions between past, present and future time had been relative, with no fixed boundaries separating them. (In religious ritual, at the supreme moment of consummation, past and future coalesced in the present to become the non-ephemeral, fulfilling the higher meaning of that moment.) With the triumph of linear time the boundaries became completely clear, and present time 'shrank' to a point continually moving vectorially from the past towards the future, thereby turning the future into the past. Present time became transient, irreversible and elusive. For the first time in his history man came up against the realisation that time, whose course he had been aware of only when something remarkable was happening, did not cease to flow when nothing was happening. So time had to be saved, used prudently, filled with activities useful to man. The regular chimes from the turret of the town hall were a constant reminder that time waits for no man, and a summons to use it profitably, to give it positive content."

categories of medieval culture.......2001-11-11

I am a medievalist and I firmly believe that this is the best introduction to medieval studies. It is very comprehensive, imaginative, creative and absolutely original. It is a fantastic book, the work of genius I consult over and over again. It has nothing in common with boring, dry scholarly books that we are taught to write in graduate school. It has an advantage to present a total view, synthetic rather than analytical. Gurevich is a different type of scholar, not a Western one, so one should be patient with him because his methods of thinking are so different from linear thinking of European academic writing. Open your mind, read Gurevich!

Christine De Pizan and the Categories of Difference (Medieval Cultures Series , Vol 14)

Average customer rating:

Christine De Pizan and the Categories of Difference (Medieval Cultures Series , Vol 14)

Manufacturer: University of Minnesota Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 081663081X

Book Description

Algebraists have studied noncommutative fields (also called skew fields or division rings) less thoroughly than their commutative counterparts. Most existing accounts have been confined to division algebras, i.e. skew fields that are finite dimensional over their center. This work offers the first comprehensive account of skew fields. It is based on the author's LMS Lecture Note Volume "Skew Field Constructions". The axiomatic foundation and a precise description of the embedding problem precedes an account of algebraic and topological construction methods. The author presents his general embedding theory with full proofs, leading to the construction of skew fields. The author has simplified his treatment of equations over skew fields and has extended it by the use of matrix methods. A separate chapter describes valuations and orderings on skew fields, with a construction applicable to free fields. Numerous exercises test the reader's understanding, presenting further aspects and open problems in concise form. Notes and comments at the end of chapters provide historical background. The book will appeal to researchers in algebra, logic, and algebraic geometry, as well as graduate students in these fields.

Product Description

This superb collection of 42 great Denver songs made easy for guitar includes: Annie's Song Leaving on a Jet Plane Take Me Home, Country Roads plus performance notes, a biography, and Denver's thoughts on the songs. Annie's SongAutographBack Home AgainBallad Of The St. Anne's ReelCalypsoDreamland ExpressEagles And Horses (I'm Flying Again)Farewell Andromeda (Welcome To My Morning)Fly AwayFollow MeFor Baby (For Bobbie)For YouGarden SongGoodbye AgainGrandma's Feather BedHow Can I Leave You AgainI Guess He'd Rather Be In ColoradoI Want To LiveI'd Rather Be A Cowboy (Lady's Chains)I'm SorryJoseph & JoeLeaving On A Jet PlaneLet Us Begin (What We Are Making Weapons For?)Like A Sad SongLooking For SpaceMatthewMy Sweet LadyNever A DoubtPerhaps LovePoems, Prayers And PromisesRhymes And ReasonsRocky Mountain HighSeasons Of The HeartShanghai BreezesSunshine On My ShouldersTake Me Home, Country RoadsThank God I'm A Country BoyThe Eagle And The HawkThe Flower That Shattered The StoneTo The Wild CountryWhispering JesseWild Montana Skies

Customer Reviews:

Amateur guitar player and JD fan.......2007-01-11

Great Anthology of most Denver fans favorites, easy chords, simple arrangements are very easy to play for beginner to intermediate guitar players, probably way too easy for accomplished players. Even able to use the book for keyboard fake book. All in all a worthwhile addition to my collection of guitar song books.

From John about John.......2007-01-05

Although not new to playing guitar, I am no expert either. As a keen John Denver fan this anthology certainly works for me and has given me a lot of pleasure. Some of the numbers (about half) will need to be transposed (or Capo'd) to be able to play along with the man himself - but then again some of us can't sing along in the same key anyway; so maybe the key supplied is better in some cases. The clear and fairly simple presentation is well worth the money.

All This Joy.......2005-07-06

This book is great for me at my level. I have loads of fun singing these songs and performing for my wife and kids. This book has brought me a lot of joy.

Great Song Book.......2003-04-23

I just started playing the guitar a few months ago, and thought `if I could just learn a few John Denver songs I would be successful.' I got this book and now, in just a few weeks, I know even more then a few. I do wish the book would lay flat, or that the songs that had three pages would fold out, it's hard to flip pages in the middle of songs, but that's the way it goes.

Great...but..........2002-01-16

This book has been so much fun. I am a huge John Denver fan, and just learning how to play the guitar. The problem with this book is that it didnt have a spiral binding. Thankfully I have a thoughtful husband who took it to Kinkos to have a spiral binding put in it before giving it to me for Christmas! It should be able to lay flat so you can read it and play the guitar at the same time.

Average customer rating:
Thunderbolt : A Documentary History of the Republic P-47
Roger Freeman
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0684175738

Average customer rating:
Thunderbolt, A Documentary History of the Republic P-47
Roger Freeman
Manufacturer: Charles Scribner's Sons
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000UCKQIY

Book Description

Scholars of the U.S. House disagree over the importance of political parties in organizing the legislative process. On the one hand, non-partisan theories stress how congressional organization serves members' non-partisan goals. On the other hand, partisan theories argue that the House is organized to serve the collective interests of the majority party. This book advances a partisan theory and presents a series of empirical tests of that theory's predictions (pitted against others). The evidence demonstrates that the majority party seizes agenda control at nearly every stage of the legislative process in order to prevent bills that the party dislikes from reaching the floor.

Book Description

Pulse is not about dance music, not about heart rates—and not about electromagnetic fields. What it does describe is a sea change in human affairs, a vast and fundamental shift that is about to transform every aspect of our lives. Written in lively prose for lay readers, Pulse shows how ideas that have shaped Western science, industry, and culture for centuries are being displaced by the rapid and dramatic rise of a “new biology”—by human systems and machines that work like living things.

In Pulse, Robert Frenay details the coming world of
• emotional computers
• ships that swim like fish
• hard, soft, and wet artificial life
• money that mimics the energy flows in nature
• evolution at warp speed

And these are not blue-sky dreams. By using hundreds of vivid and concrete examples of cutting-edge work, Frenay showcases the brilliant innovations and often colorful personalities now giving birth to a radical new future. Along the way, he also offers thoughtful conclusions on the promises—and dangers—of our transformation to the next great phase of “human cultural evolution.”

Customer Reviews:

Futurist speculation based on the metaphors of ecosystems and the human brain.......2007-07-06

This sprawling and fascinating book explores biology, technology, agriculture, neurology and economics, among other disciplines. It contends that systems and ways of thinking based on the machine age must and will change in light of new discoveries in biology. Robert Frenay provides prodigious research and some impressive reporting. One caveat: His discussion of economics and the monetary system seems to be based on somewhat arguable information about the workings of the Federal Reserve and the Eurodollar market. The author's passion for the subject of biology is clear, and we find that much of what he says is interesting. The book is not so much a narrative as a catalogue of facts, experiments and initiatives in various fields, with an accompanying argument against today's corporations and monetary systems that will challenge executives and economists.

a good tech reviewer with a zealot's politics.......2007-05-08

Frenay is an excellent writer when it comes to his coverage of technology and his linking of the philosophy behind complexity to other fields, but he takes a polemic view of politics devoting nearly 300 pages to far leftist rhetoric that isn't popular even in Europe. This book would have been better marketed as a treatise on politics and also Frenay would have been better recommending the anti-wto, anti-corporate, media which he heavily qoutes from than trying to summarize and paraphrase it. The first 150 pages are nice and some of the better tech reporting I can think of, the rest is interspersed with good ideas, but depicted in skewed arguements with few accurate summaries of the opposition and often a looping repetitive prose that seems more like an attempt of the author to convince himself of the validity of his views than a proper arguement. Frenay quite rightly notes the WTO's rules are universal and including human and environmental rights would mean everyone would be on the same playing field and the world shouldering environmental and moral costs they'd probably be more than happy to pay also seems like a good idea along with many of Frenay's numerous political points, however he then goes on to espouse Europe as a norm to emulate and while Europe has high GDPs and Denmark is very environmental, it's important to remember many of the problems Frenay is rallying against affect European business and society too, while most American businesses obey UN human rights charters for instance, Ikea has refuysed all human rights inspections, etc. It's not a balanced arguement, but it catches many of the world's major problems quite easily.

Doesn't know what he's talking about.......2007-03-27

Although this book does explain some things well in basic terms there is a serious problem in that the author doesn't know what he's talking about. I found his basic wrap-up of AI worthwhile because it's a subject that no one seems to be able to explain, but when he tries to do details he's plain wrong. He spends a lot of time on parallel computers which he calls pdp and he bunches in with AI and neural nets. Most parallel computing is simply dividing up large problems into identical smaller problems which is not AI. He gives all sorts of examples of systems that use parallel computers but most of them are not AI either. Neural nets in terms of computing are math rather than biology.

inspiring & thorough, so far.......2007-01-10

more exhaustive and more exciting read than any book on the subject of biology and complexity. esp, it can play a role of a guide for those who are seriously interested in those subjects. also, it shed an insight on what'll be the next new tool for advancing the knowledge in a variety of academic disciplines.

A type of 'new biology' in which human systems and machines meld to form new possibilities.......2006-06-17

Can genes challenge machines? Author Robert Frenay is a former contributing editor of Audubon magazine and in PULSE: THE COMING OF AGE OF SYSTEMS AND MACHINES INSPIRED BY LIVING THINGS, he charts the shift from machines to biology bolstered by computers: a type of 'new biology' in which human systems and machines meld to form new possibilities. From robotics to materials science he considers industrial ecosystems in which waste products from manufacturing become the new materials for another endeavor, considering the changing relationships between mechanism and biology in the process. Supporting these observations and contentions is a history of such relationships and their changes, areas in which biology can be seen at work, interviews with scientists and researchers, and observations of mechanisms actually produced which support his positive visions of future industrial endeavors. His single idea comes from a researcher's perspective and reflects on the cultural philosophy and pressures shaping technological change.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

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