William: The People's Prince: His Life in Pictures (Nunn Syndication Books)

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Beautiful Photos!

William: The People's Prince: His Life in Pictures (Nunn Syndication Books)
Robin Nunn
Manufacturer: Hayden Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1903635195

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful Photos!.......2005-01-03

I have been following the life of Prince William since his birth (though not fanatically) and thought this book looked like it might bring some new light to the boy who became a man the moment he walked behind his mother's coffin that sad day in 1997. The information in the book covers all of William's formative years all the way up to present day, but the main reason to purchase the book is for the photgraphs. Several are never-before seen (at least by me) and the up-close shots are bright, crisp and clear. You get a feel for this young man who must learn step-by-step on how to handle the press without turning them against you (surely no easy task and one neither of his parents ever fully accomplished, though there may be hope for Charles). I read the book in one day since the early information was not new to me and savored the pictures. I came away with a new appreciation for the unique position Prince William has and a hope that he finds the happiness in life that has eluded Charles and that Diana seemed on just the verge of finding.

Book Description

Written by CSU graduate Bob Schaller, the book details Sonny Lubick's childhood in Butte, Mont., his long tenure as a college coach and his nine seasons at CSU. The paperback, includes a forward and introduction by Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops.

After surviving Hurricane Andrew while an assistant coach at the University of Miami, Sonny Lubick had to make a decision—stay at Miami or set out on his own path and return to a program where he had been an assistant coach.

Though he savored his time at Miami, he chose Colorado State and built the cellar-dwelling Rams into a conference champion and nationally ranked program. But Lubick has never chosen the easiest route, instead weighing in such factors as family, friends and happiness.

Growing up in Butte, Montana, Lubick suffered two serious injuries—one while working in a mine and the second while playing baseball. Yet he came back, and finished his education before later becoming head coach at Montana State University.

Read about Sonny Lubick's "family" approach to coaching at Colorado State University and how values like character, honesty, perseverance and hard work led to one of the most recognized jobs of coaching in college football.

There are times to travel to places like Miami where one can reach for the top. And there are other times when one has to decide to bring the top back home. It's all about chasing dreams while keeping the proper perspective to Lubick.

Though offers of jobs from Miami to Southern California came Lubick's way while his building of Colorado State was underway, he never wavered in his commitment to finish what he started.

Customer Reviews:

Amazing Book.......2003-07-07

I grew up being a UW Cowboy and therefore hating the Rams of CSU, but after reading this book I would have to say that Sonny Lubick is one of hereos! This book was amazing and I just could not put it down. This is a must read for any football fan, or anyone who is a fan of overcoming life and the triumph of the human soul! GREAT BOOK!!!

Ram Pride.......2002-09-18

A must read for any CSU fan or aspiring coach. I didn't want the book to end.

Book Description

Critiques films about prehistoric animals, ranging in quality from classics like The Lost World (1925), King Kong (1933), and One Million B.C. (1940), to duds like Reptilicus (1962).

Customer Reviews:

Invaluable Resource!.......2001-07-16

Roy Kinnard's _Beasts and Behemoths_ is an honestly and earnestly written reference of the great and not-so-great dino films and more. I have found myself consulting and relying on Roy's book frequently since its purchase. _Beasts and Behemoths_ is an invaluable resource that succeeds in sparking (or re-sparking) one's desire to view the titular subjects with the wonder and enthusiasm they deserve. Who woulda thought "GORGO" was so cool!? From lesser known gems (like Paul Blaisdell's "She Creature") to the classics (Willis O'brien's "King Kong") it's all here dino fans! Certainly worth every penny!

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Two Strange Beasts

Manufacturer: Eisenbrauns
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Product Description

Cloth-Bound The ancient myth of a battle between a Divine Warrior and a primordial monster undergoes significant development in postbiblical and rabbinic literatures. This development is the focus of the present study. In particular, it examines the monsters Leviathan and Behemoth, showing that the postbiblical and rabbinic traditions about them are derived from ancient sources that are not all preserved in the biblical texts. In the Apocalypse of Abraham and the Ladder of Jacob, the monster Leviathan is placed at the juncture of heaven and the underworld. This cosmological focus appears in rabbinic literature in traditions concerning Behemoth, Leviathan, and the world rivers, and concerning Leviathan as the foundation of the axis mundi. These originate in the Divine Warrior's enthronement upon the vanquished chaos dragon. A second role in which Leviathan and Behemoth appear in postbiblical literature is as food for the eschatological banquet. Whitney studies this in a variety of sources, among them 4 Ezra 6:47-52, 2 Apocalypse of Baruch 29:4, and 1 Enoch 60:7-9, 24, and a number of rabbinic texts. In one tradition, the battle between God and monster becomes an angelic hunt, described by the Greek word kynegesia. This sometimes referred to battles between beasts in the arena, and in a variant tradition Leviathan battles Behemoth in a fight to the death before the banquet. The "food for the righteous" motif possibly stems from the introduction of hunting imagery into the combat myth: the prevalence of hunting banquets gave rise to the expectation that these monsters, the prey in a divine hunt, would feed the righteous at the end of time.

Customer Reviews:

Not much of a guide...but a decent introduction.......2004-12-13

In staying faithful to the title of his new collection of essays on musical semiotics, Eero Tarasti attempts to provide for the reader not a comprehensive and critical examination of the science of musical signs but rather, a useful guide to its history, vocabulary, and various applications. Taken, then, as a sort of introductory text, the book begins practically with a brief history of the discipline, spotlighting the field's major actors and ideas before elaborating upon them in subsequent chapters through the lens of such germane topics as gender, musical organicism, and the social. Through these topical approaches, Tarasti is able to draw from impressive body of interdisciplinary literature, including literary theory, literature, semiotics, cultural studies, musicology, ethnomusicology, and music theory, to illuminate for the reader music's non-exemption from serving in the same communicative capacity as other cultural texts. Ultimately, however, while impressive in its scope, the book fails to achieve the goals set up by its very title.

In the foreword of the book, Tarasti states that his volume is intended to be a "practical guide" to the subject, one that might "encourage readers-be they students of music, musicology or semiotics-to learn more about musical semiotics" (v). If, by "practical guide, Tarasti means a useful tool which can be consulted repeatedly for the easy access to its ideas and terms, then Tarasti has not met his own goals. This mainly stems from the unfortunate lack of an index of terms, a device so crucial to studies within this discipline and its blitzkrieg of idiosyncratic vocabulary that such an exclusion is unthinkable. If semiotics has contributed anything to the discourse of meaning and communication, it is a way of speaking about it- a useful terminology that can be used to pointpoint what could previously only be expressed through the use of nebulous metaphor. Without an index, Tarasti's study is a frustrating read, demanding an excess of digging to find the singular pages on which words are defined. When they are defined-and often, they never are- they are done so largely through the use of example and not by way of concise definition (see "deduction", "induction" and "abduction": 194). Were Tarasti's prose generous enough to reemphasize these meanings upon consecutive utterances, this might not be the problem that it certainly is.

Another problematic element of the study perhaps lies in reasons beyond its immediate control. The nature of semiotics as an independent discipline, one focused exclusively on a "science of the sign," has been obscured and diluted by the many linguistics-based disciplines which have borrowed and been based upon its devices. We might even say that semiotics is so tied to its companion disciplines (the "new" musicology, literary theory, cultural studies, etc.) that to speak of one is impossible without speaking of the other. Thus, as a study focused exclusively on semiotics, Tarasti's essays have the effect of estranging the familiar by removing common themes from their most common scholarly contexts and isolating them within those of semiotics. The reader is thus placed in a kind of hazy scholarly netherworld, oriented by the use of familiar ideas yet disoriented by their new clothing. For example, while most scholars will accept that gender in music is a socially constructed phenomenon-and most studies begin from this point of departure-Tarasti takes a substantial number of pages to demonstrate why these connections are, in fact, arbitrary, why there can be nothing inherently "feminine" or "masculine" in a musical gesture. What seems at first to be Tarasti's refutation of a widely accepted idea-the presence of gender in music-turns out to be a clarification of its subtle implications. While awkward upon the first read, these recontextualizations are perhaps refreshingly helpful. In his section summarizing the history of the discipline, for example, it is enlightening to see scholars such as Ernst Kurth or Heinrich Schenker framed not simply as music theorists-an understandably common label-but, rather, as different types of proto-semioticians (52).

If much of Tarasti's study is somewhat alienating simply by nature of its situatedness between and not necessarily within music scholarship's many disciplines, the effect is only heightened by more specific devices within Tarasti's writing. Non-musical concepts are often referenced in passing without sufficient explanation, such as those of Marshall McLuhan in this passage on musical modernism:
...narrative elements based on tonality have maintained their importance in many musical areas, particularly in popular and media music (cinema, TV, video, multi-media)...In addition, a transition from what Marshall McLuhan called a "cold to a "hot" society took place, and the changes that occurred in all areas of communications with growing rapidity also took place in the language and style of music (43).

Also, there is perhaps an overabundance of references to Finnish composers and scholars-Sibelius alone is referenced in over thirty pages-at the expense of a broader survey of scholarships and genres. Popular music, for example, is almost entirely left out of Tarasti's discussion; and through a somewhat tangential discussion of the Bororo Indians in the books concluding chapter, world musics receive only a cursory nod.

Tarasti is perhaps at his best in his chapter six, entitled "Body and Transcendence in Chopin" where he provides close readings of the composer's piano music using the semiotic tools developed in previous chapters. Analyzing different moments in Chopin as specific types of musical "utterances", or "meeting places of corporeal and stylistic meanings", Tarasti proceeds to locate thirty-two different types of musical signs and what they might specifically communicate to the listener (143). Interestingly, Tarasti's names for specific "utterances" in Chopin are strangely reminiscent of the litany of terms forvever employed by music teachers as a means of coaxing specific sounds out of their students' playing. While our musical discourse has always been laden with such "semiotic" intuition, Tarasti's methods seem to justify these symbolic connections- those which would otherwise be purely metaphorical and thus, baseless-by grounding them in the different ways in which they are encoded-socially, corporeally, or otherwise.

Signs of Music provides a much-needed survey of the way semiotics manifests itself in strictly musical terms. It is unfortunate, then, that the book's clumsy handling of the most practical features keeps it from becoming the useful tool it sets out to be.

Customer Reviews:

The Best You'll Find.......2004-09-17

If you want to know about ancient and medieval weapons, armor, and castles, you need this book. The information and illustrations cover all geographic areas and time periods. The statistics can be converted to any game system, if you so desire. The only reason I gon't give it five stars is that the structure of the book should have been further revised, and some of the illustrations are less than top-notch. I challenge you to find a single better source, however.

The best armor, weapons and castles Compendium.......2001-04-23

This book is great for anyone who wants better information about midle-age weapons armors and castles. A lot of pictures gives you details of each exotic armor or weapons. Just great.

Average customer rating:

No where near technical enough

Global supply chains explained

Interesting Look at the Building Blocks of Globalization

Superb for non-specialists

A fascinating read about "boring" containers

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
Marc Levinson
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Box Boats: How Container Ships Changed the World

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Super Cargo Ships (Enthusiast Color Series)

ASIN: 0691123241

Book Description

In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about.

Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. It recounts how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur, Malcom McLean, turned containerization from an impractical idea into a massive industry that slashed the cost of transporting goods around the world.

But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a new technology. It required years of high-stakes bargaining with two of the titans of organized labor, Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason, as well as delicate negotiations on standards that made it possible for almost any container to travel on any truck or train or ship. Ultimately, it took McLean's success in supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam to persuade the world of the container's potential.

Drawing on previously neglected sources, economist Marc Levinson shows how the container transformed economic geography, devastating traditional ports such as New York and London and fueling the growth of previously obscure ones, such as Oakland. By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world's workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the globe.

Customer Reviews:

No where near technical enough.......2007-10-03

Like many jounalists' stories this is set around a particular factor. In this case an entrepeneur who no doubt had a big role to play.

But there were lots of other factors which are not given much play and others bearly alluded to. Also, not even one drawing of a container or its fittings!

So OK as an intro but by no means a comprehensive history.

Global supply chains explained.......2007-08-13

It's hard to dispute that containerization has dramatically altered the rules of the game: global supply chains, logistics, and outsourcing are all direct consequences of the massive trade flows enabled by modern containerships. Marc Levinson's account of this industry is an interesting mix of politics and history. A good section of the book is dedicated to labor disputes, and the general resistance of the dock workers and US unions to mechanization. In retrospect, they were worried for the right reasons, modern ports require very little human involvement and the days of breakbulk shipping are long gone. In all, 'The Box' offers a good mix of the politics, strategy, and historical research.

Interesting Look at the Building Blocks of Globalization.......2007-08-08

Although THE BOX may be somewhat too American centered, economist and business journalist Marc Levinson has written an eminently readable history of the advent of the modern logistics industry that goes a long way toward bringing the attention of a nonspecialist audience to the topic. Despite his belief that his subject has "all the romance of a tin can" (p. 1), his account is anything but dull because he builds much of his narrative around a cast of colorful entrepreneurs, engineers, and union leaders. The most significant character is Malcom P. McLean, who launched modern containerization in April 1956 by having fifty-eight truck trailers loaded onboard a refitted oil tanker that sailed from Newark, New Jersey, to Houston. The main background to Levinson's account, however, consists of the various roadblocks to containerization put in place and enforced by government regulators in agencies such as the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), the United States Maritime Administration, and the Federal Maritime Board. In the author's opinion, the bureaucrats, far from having the consumer's best interest in mind, usually undertook to protect established commercial interests by limiting competition in the transportation industry....

Levinson's treatment of the revolutionary days of container shipping, which lasted until the early 1980s, is very thorough, but his account of the more recent past is much less so. Indeed, people familiar with the industry may get the impression that a final (non-American) chapter is missing from the book. For example, although Levinson describes the rise of container ports in western Europe and East Asia, he devotes only two paragraphs to the fact that European and Asian firms that were late entrants in the game now dominate the industry. No U.S. firm is currently listed in the world's top eighteen container ship companies. Five of these top firms (including the three largest) are headquartered in Europe, three in China (two in mainland China and one in Hong Kong), three in Japan, two in Taiwan, two in South Korea, and the remaining three in Singapore, Chile, and Israel. (See Ted Smith-Peterson, "Railroading's New Economy: The Spigot," TRAINS 66, no. 9 [2006]: 34-41.) In Levinson's opinion, these late entrants achieved success because they "arrived with financial and managerial skills foreign to many of the carriers they replaced, skills appropriate to an industry in which raising capital and managing information systems were far more important than maritime knowledge" and because they were not burdened with "the legacy of government subsidies and directives that had crippled many of their predecessors by forcing them to buy ships built in their home countries or to sail routes determined by regulators" (p. 275). No doubt many readers would like to know more about these developments and about which skills Levinson means.

Levinson also barely alludes to more recent technological advances and to the amazing fact that the rest of the world now handles only one-third as many containers as the Chinese do (for both domestic and international trade). Furthermore, in the words of one industry analyst, China has now become the "U.S. railroads' growth engine" and has been the cause of an American "rail renaissance" (Tom Murray, "Railroading's New Economy: The China Factor," TRAINS 66, no. 8 [2006], p. 28).

Despite such shortcomings, however, THE BOX is highly recommended for anyone with an interest in understanding the emergence of our contemporary "globalized" world economy.

Superb for non-specialists.......2007-05-08

I read this book a few months ago for my nonfiction "foreign policy" book club and we loved it. I continue to rave about it and recommend it to others in diverse fields from national security to development to leadership studies. As generalists unfamiliar with shipping, this book was incredibly readable and engaging. Chapters treated a diverse range of topics, which we found well covered and incisive, such as the discussion of the role of labor unions, business entrepreneurship, and interplay between containerization and globalization. Kudos to Mr. Levinson for a superb effort.

A fascinating read about "boring" containers.......2007-04-25

Ever looked at a modern city's ports and wondered about those gigantic cranes or the logistics chain that they were a part of? Or wondered how we went from a world of stevedores/longshoremen and manual unloading to the gigantic container ships and nearly automated loading and unloading? Or better yet, how goods get so cheaply from the world's manufacturing facilities in China to the US, Europe and other places?

These are the questions the book addresses. It does so by focusing on the humble containers at the root of all this process and retelling their history over the last 50 years or so. If we didn't have a global standard for shipping container sizes, none of the infrastructure built around them like container ships, cranes, ports, rail cars, truck trailers and others would be possible.

The book shapes the story of the shipping container around one man Malcolm McLean who is widely regarded as the person who first used containers and built a shipping business around them. The book does a good job of detailing the history of the container including the initial struggles, the opposition of the longshoremen's labor unions and the rise and fall of ports as they bet (or did not bet) on the economies of scale that were brought about by the container. One does get a sense by reading the book of how much of our global economy we owe to the changes brought about by containers.

So why only 4stars? For one, I think the subject matter is interesting only to a narrow cross section of the population. Second, the book does drag quite a bit in places. The author does a great job of making the matter accessible, but he could have gone further. A certain pedantic nature does creep into the book and I felt some of the material could have been edited out of the book to trade off readability at the cost of scholarly completeness.

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.(Book review): An article from: Independent Review

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The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.(Book review): An article from: Independent Review
Pierre Desrochers
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Independent Review, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2007. The length of the article is 1585 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.(Book review)
Author: Pierre Desrochers
Publication: Independent Review (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 12 Issue: 1 Page: 146(4)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger

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The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
Marc Levinson
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000J3076K

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Well-written and enjoyable, but very biased

The President without a Party

John Tyler, the uncertain president.

john tyler and the No Deal

Informative, well-written...but a little too biased...

John Tyler: Champion of the Old South (Signature Series)
Oliver P. Chitwood
Manufacturer: American Political Biography Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Reviews:

Well-written and enjoyable, but very biased.......2006-09-22

This book turned out to be much more interesting than I expected. It certainly portrayed Tyler in a sympathetic light. Despite the age of this book, it was not written in the somewhat stilted manner of Freeman Cleave's biography of William Henry Harrison, which was written around the same time.

Pros: Well-written, entertaining, fascinating subject, little competition (I am anxious to read Edward Crapol's new biography of Tyler which just came out!)

Cons: Author tried too hard to defend Tyler--going to extremes at times (it's one thing to say history has given Tyler a raw deal--I can buy that--it's another to say that all of Tyler's problems were solely a function of his strict adherence to his Jeffersonian principles even when politically inexpedient. I don't buy that); precious little is told about Tyler's private life, including his marriages and children; author engages in much speculation and frequently puts words (and ideas) in Tyler's head without substantiation (I understand that was common to biographies of that era).

Summary: Really good read on an all but forgotten and probably somewhat unjustly-maligned President, but there is definitely still an opportunity for someone to write THE definitive biography of John Tyler (unless Dr. Crapol has pulled it off already).

The President without a Party.......2006-04-03

This was one very enjoyable biography and one I would highly recommend to anyone interested in the history of the US or with an interest in the biographies of the presidents. It turned out to be a surprising gem.

Tyler has been slandered and mispresented throughout history, much of which has come down from the tremendous animosity felt towards him during his presidency from both parties. Much of the negative spoken about him today, is merely reiteration of the same spoken about him during the 1840s. The author does an excellent job allowing us to see the true Tyler, and to examine the man who was our 10th president.

No study of the presidents or collection of presidential biographies would be complete without this volume.

John Tyler, the uncertain president........2006-03-09

This book does a nice job of explaining the complexities associated with John Tyler becoming president and then his challenges once he gets to the White House. Tyler's misfortunes appear to be as much an extension of circumstances as his own fault, but the author helps us understand all the influences. The struggle between the Whigs and the Democrats (with Tyler caught in the middle - left out in the cold) is well documented here and I recommend this book for anyone interested in 19th century politics and particularly our presidents.

john tyler and the No Deal.......2005-03-13

John Tyler's presidency was a failure in almost every way possible. Tyler was a patrician from one of Virginia's oldest families. Well educated and polished, he also had a strong sense of superiority, and had a great deal of trouble accepting the idea that the common man should participate in democracy. He owned many slaves and was an unyielding supporter of slavery. He had a great sense of honor and almost no ability to compromise. Tyler left the Democratic Party because he would not yield to party policies, but his stubborness led him to join the Whigs which was an even poorer match. Then, as the Whigs followed a policy of winning the White House any way possible (like not having a party platform), they nominated Tyler for Vice President The rest is the history.

Chitwood's biography was written during the New Deal. It is the primary Tyler biography, and I would rate it in the average / below average category. Its strengths are the fascinating events of the Tyler administration and Chitwood's engaging style of writing. The portion of Tyler's life before he becomes president is particularly well written.

There are two problems with this book. First, Chitwood tries hard to be an apologist for Tyler. His effort to improve Tyler's standing as a president from one of the worst up to mediocre is transparent and a bit tiresome. Second, the last two years of Tyler's administration are presented more along the lines of the issues than in a chronological fashion. This part of the narrative choppy and occasionally frustrating. Chitwood mentions the Princeton explosion and tragedy and Tyler's second marriage several times before actually presenting these events. Still, with these qualifications I would recommend this book.

Informative, well-written...but a little too biased..........2000-10-02

This is part of my personal project of reading a biography on each of our presidents. The book got high marks from me because it taught me a lot about a president---and man---about whom little is known. One also learns by association a lot about Clay, Calhoun and Webster. Even considering that it was written in the 30's, it still reads very well and it also benefits from having at least one of the president's surviving children as one of the main sources of information and interpretation.

Where the book falls short for me is in its bias toward the subject. Most of the other biographies I have read have some kind of bias toward their subject; that may be inevitable. But I thought this one had a little more than I thought was adequate. Clearly, Tyler was a likable and principled man and politics then were possibly uglier than they are now, but I think that he had more to do with his own political misfortunes than the author claims.

Still, despite my three-star rating, I thought this is a must-read for aficionados interested in this particular president. If you're interested in the period leading to the Civil War, I can think of many other books and biographies that may provide a better account.

Book Description

In the lead-up to the bicentenary of Trafalgar a number of important new studies have been published about the life of Nelson and his defeat of the Combined Fleet in 1805. Despite the significant role played by the health and fitness of the British crews in securing the victory, little has been written hitherto about the naval surgeon in the era of the long war against France. This book is intended to fill the gap. Sir William Beatty (1773-1842) was surgeon of the Victory at Trafalgar. An Ulsterman from Londonderry, he had joined the navy in 1791. Before being warranted to Nelson's flagship, Beatty had served upon ten other warships, and survived a yellow fever epidemic, court martial, and shipwreck to share in the capture of a Spanish treasure ship. After Trafalgar, he became Physician of the Channel Fleet, based at Plymouth, and eventually Physician to Greenwich Hospital, where he served until his retirement in 1838. As the book makes clear in drawing upon an extensive prosopographical database, Beatty's career until 1805 was representative of the experience of the approximately 2,000 naval surgeons who joined the navy in the course of the war. The first part of the biography provides a detailed and scholarly introduction to the professional education, training, and work of the naval surgeon. But after 1805 Beatty became a member of the service elite, and his career becomes interesting for other reasons. In the final decades of his life, Beatty was far more than a senior naval physician. As a Fellow of the Royal Society, director of the Clerical and Medical Insurance Company, and director of the London to Greenwich Railway, he was a prominent figure in London's business and scientific community, who used his growing wealth to build a large collection of books and manuscripts. His later life is testimony to the much wider contribution that some naval and army medical officers made to the development of the new Britain of the nineteenth century. In Beatty's case, too, the contribution was original. By publishing in 1807 his carefully crafted Authentic Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson, he was instrumental in forging the myth of the hero's last hours, which has become a part of the national consciousness and has helped to define for generations the concept of Britishness.

Customer Reviews:

Who cares?.......2006-05-26

Why do we need another history book about ignorant cowards hiding behind bed sheets? Perhaps include details on the bed sheets thread count!

Good Resource...... but leaves a pro-klan aftertaste.......2002-01-03

The book goes in length into the klan's expansion into many states and documents their success/failure and the general social reception of the community the klan was entering. The author though seems to have a pro-klan bias, and this is felt just by the title and the reading of the inside jacket. He rarely points out the evils of the klan ideology (through his use of words, especially omissions of such words as "racist" and "bigot", which many klan members seem to embody), and glamorizes the klans views on white supremacy as a normal, modern view of white christians (something very far from the truth). It glamorizes klan violence and threats of violence, and in more then a few places it accuses those against the klan as unpatriotic Americans, or ungrateful immigrants or minorities. Mr Chalmers also highlights community violence against klan activity as the real wrong and evil, something I think is a normal reaction to these "pseudo-chrisitan extremist police" who want time (and America) to stand still and unchanging for them. Some areas also hint towards the authors support for the klan's ideals. Seems like klan propaganda to me.... but a good reference none the less if you seek to journey into these dark waters. As a reference: 5 stars. I subtracted two for the author's pro-klan bias and (sometimes) unfair picture he paints....

Excellent history of the KKK........1999-05-12

In "Hooded Americanism," David M. Chalmers chronicles the history of the Ku Klu Klan in all of its incarnations, from immediately after the Civil War to the late 1970s. Mr. Chalmers also discusses the Klan's development and success (or lack of) in all of the states during its strongest period in the 1920s to 1930s. Mr. Chalmers also discusses in great detail the turbulent 1960s and how the Klan helped inadvertently brought about the Civil Rights legislation it fought so hard against. Exhaustively researched and well written, "Hooded Americanism" is a factual glimpse into the life of a controverisal organization and into the lives of the men and women who made it possible. Mr. Chalmers makes excellent use of contemporary newspaper accounts and editorials to paint the Klan and its standing in a given community. What I found especially intriguing was the Klan's demographics. Mr. Chalmers presents research that refutes long-held convictions that the Klan was always strongest in the South; in fact the Klan, at times, ruled the legal governments of the Midwest. Mr. Chalmers also discusses how various state legislatures and governors fought the Klan or sided with them. Again, I was surprised at how many governments actually tried to curb the growth of the Klan in their states through anti-mask laws and other legislation. This exploded notions I had that the Klan was unchallenged everywhere it went, especially in the 1920s. Mr. Chalmers has written an excellent history that encompasses in great detail the 100 years following the Civil War. I hope that he is at work on updating this important work. Highly recommended.

Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan

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Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan

Manufacturer: New Viewpoints
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GSIDEG

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Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan
David M. Chalmers
Manufacturer: Quadrangle Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NPHYJW

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Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan
David M. Chalmers
Manufacturer: Quadrangle Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GLZYMW

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Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan
David M. Chalmers
Manufacturer: New Viewpoints
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000VK788Q

Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan - With a new epilogue by the author

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Hooded Americanism: The History of the Ku Klux Klan - With a new epilogue by the author
David M. Chalmers
Manufacturer: New Viewpoints
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0531064441

Book Description

Several miles off the Mississippi Coast, Horn Island rises out of the sea. A wilderness of slash pine, sea oats, and osprey, the barrier island stirs the imagination, nourishes the spirit, and challenges the soul. It is as unforgiving as it is lovely, with a story that unfolds as a natural pageant of sand, water, and wind.

Walter Anderson, artist and naturalist, fell under Horn Island's spell and painted myriad watercolors of its crabs, fish, birds, and butterflies in some of his most vivid and memorable work. Anderson's retreat and April Newlin's refuge weave together in a rich and intimate portrait of this seductive and mythic landscape. In a series of encounters over seasons and years, Newlin captures the island's intricate details from the terror of raging wind to the tickle of a snail's foot. She camps on the edges, hikes the interior, and wades the lagoons, immersed entirely in fourteen rugged miles of woods, ponds, and marsh. In her prose, the island begins to coalesce as an intense and transformative place, a wilderness beyond the grip of mainland sprawl.

Over the years, Horn Island has been ignored and abused as well as studied and enjoyed. Today, it is protected as a result of a devoted few who fought development and won. Donald Bradburn, naturalist, physician, and award-winning photographer, was one of those on the front lines. His photographs of Horn Island were instrumental in securing the public's understanding and commitment.

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