Kateryn Parr: The Making of A Queen.(Review): An article from: Renaissance Quarterly

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Renaissance Quarterly, published by Renaissance Society of America on December 22, 2000. The length of the article is 777 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: Kateryn Parr: The Making of A Queen.(Review)
Author: Sheryl A. Kujawa
Publication: Renaissance Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: December 22, 2000
Publisher: Renaissance Society of America
Volume: 53 Issue: 4 Page: 1236

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Kateryn Parr: The Making of a Queen (Women and Gender in Early Modern England, 1500-1750)

Average customer rating:

A Great Book
The Making of a Queen

Kateryn Parr: The Making of a Queen (Women and Gender in Early Modern England, 1500-1750)
Susan E. James
Manufacturer: Ashgate Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Irish | Ethnic & National | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | World | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1840146834

Customer Reviews:

A Great Book.......2000-12-20

This is a great book. It should be a model of how historians approach the period. It is full of insightful detail such a quotes, vignettes and illustrations that illustrate Parr's life and her impact on society. The book is wonderful in striking a balance between the author's reflections on Parr's life, framing the historical times to give context and historical detail to support her conclusions.

So many books on the women of the English Renaissance seem to be written by little old ladies in Tropesshire, who rattle on about Virgin Queens, duty and stiff upper lips, that sort of tripe. The "see no evil, hear no evil, write no evil" school of history. Susan James's book is a refreshing departure from all that. I can only hope she takes on Elizabeth I as a subject after this book. A really modern, complete book on Elizabeth that has some semblance to historical reality has yet to be printed.

One, small detail, Susan James believe that Parr's daughter, Mary Seymour died before the age of two. She did not. She was placed in the home of another noble family. If she emails me, pfstreitz@aol.com, I'll tell her where Mary went.

The Making of a Queen.......2000-10-17

This book has everything in it, from pillage and mayhem, royal murders, romance, sex and violence. And besides that, you're learning information never before published about the Tudor royal family. I thought Kateryn Parr was just a weepy widow who married a king and instead she turns out to be Scarlett O'Hara. What a surprise! A strong and well-presented book. Totally fascinating!

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Backseat quarterback
Perian Conerly
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B00005X86K

Book Description

Before cable television and mega-contracts, professional jocks' lives were little different from those of the fans in the stands. Back then, the game they played was much simpler but far rougher than anything seen today.

Ever cheering from the sidelines, Perian Conerly, wife of the New York Giants'star quarterback Charlie Conerly, wrote this light-hearted account of pro football during its heyday (1948-1961). Her husband led the Giants for fourteen seasons. As she describes the glory games, the players, and life on the road, she delivers from the inside the kind of personal reportage that fans adore.

Her story begins with the hilarious misadventures of her wedding day in Clarksdale, Mississippi, "the Golden Buckle on the Cotton Belt." It ends thirteen years later with Charlie's retirement at the age of forty. In between, there are vignettes of the closely-knit cadre of Giants wives, most of whom resided in the same Bronx hotel near Yankee Stadium.

She also reports locker-room gossip and recounts amusing pro-ball anecdotes of a time before TV made athletes' images familiar in all households. Although their deeds on the gridiron were notable, their faces were not. Back then, players were so anonymous in public that many times they fell prey to imitators who stole their identities to mooch drinks and dinners from unsuspecting fans only for the thrill of passing as "somebody."

Along with her scoop reports on winning games, Mrs. Conerly paints an endearing portrait of her famous husband, an Ole Miss legend who, after retirement, was hired as the first Marlboro Man. Though her style is casual, she moves the reader painlessly through some of the finer points of the game. The Washington Post touted her for "having written the best book on pro football in a long time." The New York Times, for which Mrs. Conerly wrote occasional sports columns, said that Backseat Quarterback "is exactly the kind of book that one would expect Perian Conerly to write. Its pages shine with her charm, gaiety, wit, intelligence, and sparkle." Newsweek praised its "comic insight."

This reissue of a favorite book of 1963 has a foreword by the Conerlys' friend and teammate Frank Gifford.

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'Backseat Quarterback' will score with readers, again.(One Writer's Perspective)(Book Review): An article from: Mississippi Business Journal
Wally Northway
Manufacturer: Venture Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: B0008E2E9I
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Mississippi Business Journal, published by Venture Publications on October 6, 2003. The length of the article is 851 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: 'Backseat Quarterback' will score with readers, again.(One Writer's Perspective)(Book Review)
Author: Wally Northway
Publication: Mississippi Business Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 6, 2003
Publisher: Venture Publications
Volume: 25 Issue: 40 Page: 6(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Lovers of Cinema: The First American Film Avant-Garde, 19191945 is indeed a book that the conscientious film scholar cannot afford to be without. . . . This volume signals the beginning of a new era in the discussion of the early American avant-garde.Wheeler Winston Dixon, Film Quarterly Marshaling his broad cinematic and cultural knowledge, editor Jan-Christopher Horak has compiled in Lovers of Cinema a ground-breaking group of articles on this neglected film period. With one exception, all are original to this volume, and many are the first to treat comprehensively such early filmmakers as Mary Ellen Bute, Theodore Huff, and Douglass Crockwell. Also included in the book is a listing of all American avant-garde films produced in the years before World War II as well as a bibliography of the most relevant criticism, literature, and news accounts.

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Lovers of Cinema The First American Film Avant-Garde 1919-1945
Jan-Christopher (EDT) Horak
Manufacturer: University of Wisconsin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OS056W

Lovers of Cinema: The First American Film Avant-Garde, 1919-1945 (Wisconsin Studies in Film Series)

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Lovers of Cinema: The First American Film Avant-Garde, 1919-1945 (Wisconsin Studies in Film Series)
Jan-Christopher (editor); Bordwell, David (editor); Crafton, Donald (editor); Kepley, Vance, Jr. (editor); Thompson, Kristin (editor) Horak
Manufacturer: University of Wisconsin Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LYBG1W

Book Description

The 1990s witnessed the emergence of a spectacular and widespread body modification culture that celebrates such practices as pierc-ing, tattooing, scarification, subdermal implants, and flesh hanging per--form-ances. Based on years of interviews with body modifiers through-out the U.S., In the Flesh provides the most comprehensive and objective look at this widespread phenomenon. From punk rock to 'modern primitives,' from queer SM to cyberpunks, sociologist Victoria Pitts provides insight into the vast diversity of body modifi-ca-tion subcultures and explores the way these groups alter their bodies in response to the social and psychological restrictions of the modern world.

Customer Reviews:

save your money.......2007-06-28

poor quality printing with very few photo's and what they were was not up to today's standards

Body modification-let the truth be told!.......2004-06-11

The book deals with a myriad of social issues pertaning to the body and its modification to show both resistance and conformaty to mainstreem and subculture respectively. And indeed the book was interesting to read once and maybe twice if one is writing their masters thesis or doctoral dissertaion. However, I felt that the book would someteimes just drag on and on. What was however interesting was the course that included the book in its uses. The work is very academic, professional and worth the time to read.

Superbly intelligent rendering of postmodern culture.......2004-05-11

Victoria Pitts's book "In the Flesh" is the most brilliant analysis of postmodern culture I have ever read. Through the lens of recent phenomena in body modification--from the beautifying to the erotic and grotesque--she shows how issues of subjectivity are complexly intertwined with body strategies--performances in which the actors at once gain and lose themselves. With exquisite analysis of fascinating subjects and clear-minded use of postmodern theory, her book is the epitome of rigorous scholarship, both theoretical and empirical. It is, in a word, a theory of flesh and its agencies; but beyond the body, it offers us a scaffolding from which to view the painfully complex issues of contemporary culture at large.

bodies and culture.......2004-04-07

This is a fascinating book that is theoretically sophisticated and guides us through the body in modern and postmodern theory. Her insight into the range of body modification practices and how they are linked to broader cultural shifts in late modernity is sharp and convincing.

Modifying the Medical Line.......2004-01-10

In the Flesh is an insightful examination of the more extreme body modification subculture, one that invites the reader to re-examine his or her expectations about bodies, body politics, and medical technologies. A generous writer, Pitts presents her research to the reader and offers a framework for investigating how some bodily alterations are medicalized or accepted because they enforce normative expectations about health and beauty, and how others are pathologized. In lively and lucid prose, the author provides us with a useful look at an important issue, and does so (much to her credit) without confining her research participants or her readers to a specific political camp. There may be bright political lines between circumcision, botox injections, Michael Jackson, and flesh hangings -- or then again, maybe there are not. In the Flesh gives us new tools with which to draw those lines for ourselves.

In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification

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In the Flesh: The Cultural Politics of Body Modification
Victoria Pitts
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTACI2

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Games and songs of American children, collected and compared (Dover books)
William Wells Newell
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006AYBQ8

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Games and songs of American children, collected and compared. With a new..
William Wells Newell
Manufacturer: Dover Publications, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LZBEZ4

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Hassle - Free

A Quality Carol

A man with conviction

The best summary of achieving manufacturing quality.

Quality Without Tears: The Art of Hassle-Free Management
Philip B. Crosby
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0070145113

Book Description

The author's objective is to show managers how to build quality into all aspects of a company's operations thereby lowering costs, increasing sales, and boosting profits and do all this without the typical bureaucratic controls and procedures that merely hassle people without producing the desired results. Real situation and amusing fictional case histories are used to demonstrate that problems of quality and hassle are caused by management action.

Customer Reviews:

Hassle - Free.......2005-07-27

A solid understanding and committment with the concepts presented on this book: the absolutes of quality, the fourteen steps process and the individuals role, will cause quality to happen if the company decides to be involved in the life long process of quality improvement.'Hassle free offers better working relationships, a smooth system and happy employees'

A Quality Carol.......2002-01-08

In Quality Without Tears, Crosby adds new layers to his original "zero defects" philosophy. He offers fourteen steps for quality improvement in teams.

Let's look at one of them, Step 6, "corrective action." The common problem with "corrective action," says Crosby, is that people don't understand what the term means.

Suppose, says Crosby, that you suddenly found a grizzly bear in your back yard: "The answer would not be to set up an armed camp to protect yourself from the bear. This is the sort of action that takes place when parts of an organization are given a shoot-to-kill license. All that results is a lot of yard that can't be used and several dead bears."

Corrective actions have to begin by identifying the source of the bears.

Another step is Zero Defects Day: "Many people rarely have exciting days at work . . . A well-planned, dignified, Zero Defects Day on which management understands what it is talking about is a delight that will be remembered forever."

Recognition also plays a role. An organization recognizes people who can serve as "beacons." These are the people who shine so brightly that they help keep everyone heading in the right direction:

"Many managers feel, somewhat cynically, that people are being paid to do their jobs and that's that. This attitude reflects an insensitivity to people that is a trademark of many hockey-style managers."

To drive his philosophy home, Crosby cites an unusual case study:

In "A Quality Carol," Emory Spellman falls asleep on a bus. A spirit appears and takes him to see his deceased partner. The partner is repairing thousands of defective items that their company has made.

This is punishment ...

"... For being the cause of the hassle other people had to live with. For not preventing these things by being interested in quality."

The apparition warns:

"All these years, you have treated quality like something you could take in or take out. Well, unless you change your ways, you are going to wind up right next to me, forever and ever, twenty-four hours a day. No time off, no visitors, no meetings ---- just all the problems you ever caused."

Predictably, three more visitors appear.

Quality Past is a former college professor who wants to retract something he had taught Emory. The misinformed lesson was to cut corners on quality.

Quality Present appears as a woman who tries to sell him on the quality vaccine. Failing in that, she brings Emory's customers to him through a television screen. One after another comes into view with a litany of complaints about the company's products and services.

When Quality Future enters, Emory finally sees the light. The final and most portentous visitor is a "severe looking person carrying a briefcase and dressed in a black three-piece suit." He has just bought the company from a bankruptcy court.

Emory returns later in the book and applies Crosby's methods to avert that fate.

A man with conviction.......2002-01-03

Philip Crosby is widely recognized as a quality pioneer for the concepts he drove homw with Quality is Free and Quality Without Tears. After reading, Quality Without Tears, I was struck by how deep a conviction he held that his concepts were valid. It's easy to say that now that they have become widely accepted, but it takes a visionary to act that way when they're a somewehat new approach.

The concepts which Crosby developed were a extension of the work of Dr. Edwards Deming (who also has published a bunch of books) and Crosby's work seems to be the basis of the later Six Sigma approach that proved to work so well.

The best summary of achieving manufacturing quality........1998-11-15

Phil Crosby has the most coherent view of achieving quality of anyone I've read in 25 years of management. I continue to come back to him when I hit a quality problem in our company or those from whom we buy. This book is the best summary of his philosophy, in my opinion.

Quality Without Tears, the Art of Hassle-Free Management.

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Quality Without Tears, the Art of Hassle-Free Management.
Philip B. Crosby
Manufacturer: Mcgraw-Hill Book Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000S6CAD6

QUALITY WITHOUT TEARS: THE ART OF HASSLE-FREE MANAGEMENT; Find out why quality can be achieved without the bureaucratic controls and procedures that merely hassle employees without producing results.

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QUALITY WITHOUT TEARS: THE ART OF HASSLE-FREE MANAGEMENT; Find out why quality can be achieved without the bureaucratic controls and procedures that merely hassle employees without producing results.

Manufacturer: McGRAW-HILL, INC.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HNHEGS

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Quality Without Tears, the Art of Hassle-Free Management.
Philip B. Crosby
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Book Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NXLY7W

Book Description

Damon L. Gause, the son of Rocky Gause, was invited by the Philippine Ambassador to the United States to speak at the dedication of the American-Philippine War memorial. By publishing this book, Damon L. Gause is determined not to only honor his father but also his fathers entire generation. He is also a frequent speaker before veterans groups.

Customer Reviews:

Great book!.......2005-08-17

I read this book about 4 or 5 years ago when I was stationed in Germany. It is one of the best books about WW2 I have ever read. And what makes it so fascinating, is its a true story! I wrote the author after reading it to tell him how much I enjoyed it, and he wrote me back! Great guy. Highly recommend this book to everyone with an interest in the subject.

Yes, maybe..........2005-03-26

I dont doubt any of the details of Major Gauses escape story,its no doubt a great and authentic ocean survival story: but being written during the war, which Mr Gause did not survive, its perhaps fancifully fallacious in its account of the US defence during the Japanese invasion of the Philipines itself, in the tradition of wartime flag-flapping movies like 'Bataan', which attempt to make a glorious rallying cry of something pretty ignominious.

If the campaigns of Singapore/Malaya and Philipines were Allied victories instead of complete, total, and lets face it, easy Japanese victories, we'd be deifying them as brilliant miraculous Allied offensives against a numerically superior enemy defence.

As it is, and as I see here in some of these reviews, and as we understandably did at the time, we cop out and falsify the truth talking about 'overwhelming Japanese forces' in places like Corrigidor, Bataan and Malaya/Singapore, or similiarly excuse German walkover victories in 1940-42.

the truth is, as all serious military historians certainly know now, and those in the know knew then, is that the Japanese forces that took half the Pacific and Asia as far as the Burma/India border in 1941-42 were not 'overwhelming' numerically, were in fact typically outnumbered overall by the US and British Commonwealth defending forces-add to that, the defenders typically were in possession of lavish supplies compared to the spartan Japanese.

In context here, what Im saying in relation to the Gause account of Corregidor and Bataan, is I perhaps doubt the complete accuracy of his claims of Japanese killed in some incidents, as an ex-WW2 German said once of our war-movies,
'if you had killed as many of us as easily and cheaply as in all these movies, we would have been already losing in 1939 and completely wiped out by 1940, instead of mostly kicking your arses for at least half the war and lasting 6 years against half the world.'

its true. Some historians , Allied, have soberly admitted that Allied victory was in fact rare except where the ALLIES showed up in overwhelming numbers, where the Allies were either defending or attacking. And there probably were no Allied offensives from numerical inferiority, whereas, even with the Japanese, less than 50000 rampaging Japanese SOMEHOW took the Kra peninsula from at least 100000 British Commonwealth troops, and in the Philipines, it was about the same ratio Japanese to US.

More honesty and credibility in some areas, please.

ONE OF THE BETTER ACCOUNTS OF THE WAR.......2005-02-18

Written in the first person, this is one of the better personal accounts of WWII that I have read. Despite the the author not being a professional writer, Gause has the ability to tell a story. If some of the stories have perhaps become blurred with the passing of time, it does not distract one bit from the overall deeds of the author and him comrades. I have had the wonderful opportunity over the years of talking with and listening to many veterans of this war and others, and having spent over twenty years in the service myself, I can pretty well spot crap when I see or hear it. This is honest stuff. Recommend you read this one and also add it to your collection.

A Fascinating First-Person Account of War.......2004-07-13

Beautifully written and unpretentious, this book amazes and inspires! A classic World War II account!

Great first-person WWII narrative.......2004-01-17

"The War Journal of Major Damon 'Rocky' Gause" is a well-told, exciting survival and escape story of World War II. Lieutenant (at the time of the events related in this book) Gause was a pilot stationed in the Phillipines when General MacArthur was ordered to retreat. His plane being destroyed, he fought with the American troops to the bitter end of the defeat of Corregidor, and through the kindness of the Filipinos and natives of the South Pacific, escaped via a 3,200 mile route to Australia.

This story may perhaps be the greatest survival and escape tale from World War II. It's full of close calls (a Japanese submarine surfacing next to their craft), thrills (a disguised Nazi officer trying to murder Gause and his companion, Lt. Osbourne, in their sleep), quirks (getting much-needed help from a leper colony) and hardships (their small wooden craft being thrown about in a storm). The book also has some truly touching moments--the kindness and loyalty of the Filipinos who were willing to aid Gause despite the risk, and the picture of Gause with his son, whom he saw for a mere few hours before his deployment and subsequent death in Europe in a training exercise.

The book is written simply (but is not a simple book), and not too politically correct (which I don't think Maj. Gause would care for being, anyway). The story flows well, and the foreward and afterword by Maj. Gause's son are well-done. The book would be improved by the inclusion of more maps showing their route and a timeline, and perhaps the reproduction of some of the original ship's log pages.

The book also has a prologue by Stephen Ambrose (whose imprimatur should promptly silence those questioning the credibility of the story).

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WAR JOURNAL OF MAJOR DAMON "ROCKY" GAUSE
Damon Gause
Manufacturer: Hyperion
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000IOW2FE

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War Journal of Major Damon "Rocky" Gause
Damon Gause
Manufacturer: Hyperion
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O5Y3H2

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Douglas Macarthur: An American Hero (Book Report Biographies Series)
Barbara Silberdick Feinberg
Manufacturer: Franklin Watts
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Military & Wars | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
Historical | Biographies | People & Places | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0531159507

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Inchon myth

MacArthur, And War

Should be on your Korean War Reading List

Continued MacArthur incompetence

Ignominious exit of an outstanding soldier

MacArthur's War : Korea and the Undoing of an American Hero
Stanley Weintraub
Manufacturer: Free Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
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General | Korean War | Military | History | Subjects | Books
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Amazon.com

Douglas MacArthur, in William Manchester's memorable phrase, was an American Caesar, a general accustomed to having his own way on or off the battlefield. He surrounded himself with fawning aides, commanded imperiously and sometimes impetuously, and did not kindly accept criticism.

Stanley Weintraub, who served as an Army lieutenant during the Korean War, makes the persuasive case that MacArthur's character and methods as commander of the Allied forces in Korea led him to commit disastrous errors of judgment--among them his failure to anticipate the Chinese entry into the war when MacArthur's troops approached the Yalu River, and his odd plan to seed South Korea's defensive perimeter with nuclear explosions and thus make the border impassable for generations.

Weintraub praises MacArthur's brilliance as a tactician and student of military history, pointing out that MacArthur's audacious landing at Inchon was straight out of Xenophon. He also notes that MacArthur correctly predicted that the Allied conduct of the Korean conflict would lead to stalemate. Still, Weintraub quietly insists that President Harry Truman was right in removing MacArthur from command on the grounds of insubordination, an act with enormous political repercussions at the time. An outstanding contribution to the literature of the Korean War--a conflict that is again in the news--Weintraub's book spares no detail in examining the end of Douglas MacArthur's checkered career. --Gregory McNamee

Book Description

Douglas MacArthur towers over twentieth-century American history. His fame is based chiefly on his World War II service in the Philippines. Yet Korea, America's forgotten war, was far more "MacArthur's War" -- and it remains one of our most brutal and frightening. In just three years thirty-five thousand Americans lost their lives -- more than three times the rate of losses in Vietnam. Korea, like Vietnam, was a breeding ground for the crimes of war. To this day, six thousand Americans remain MIA. It was Korea where American troops faced a Communist foe for the first time, as both China and the Soviet Union contributed troops to the North Korean cause. The war that nearly triggered the use of nuclear weapons reveals MacArthur at his most flamboyant, flawed, yet still, at times, brilliant.

Acclaimed historian Stanley Weintraub offers a thrilling blow-by-blow account of the key actions of the Korean War during the months of MacArthur's command. Our lack of preparedness for the invasion, our disastrous retreat to a corner of Korea, the daring landing at Inchon, the miscalculations in pursuing the enemy north, the headlong retreats from the Yalu River and Chosin Reservoir, and the clawing back to the 38th parallel, all can be blamed or credited to MacArthur. He was imperious, vain, blind to criticism, and so insubordinate that Truman was forced to fire him. Yet years later, the war would end where MacArthur had left it, at the border that still stands as one of history's last frontiers between communism and freedom.

MacArthur's War draws on extensive archival research, memoirs, and the latest findings from archives in the formerly communist world, to weave a rich tale in the voices of its participants. From MacArthur and his upper cadre, to feisty combat correspondent Maggie Higgins and her fellow journalists, to the grunts who bore the brunt of MacArthur's decisions, for good and ill, this is a harrowing account of modern warfare at its bloodiest. MacArthur's War is the gripping story of the Korean War and its soldiers -- and of the one soldier who dominated the rest.

Customer Reviews:

Inchon myth.......2007-06-30

Of the many MacArthur myths, none seems more pervasive than the myth that Inchon was a stellar military achievement. In point of fact, Inchon was folly in and folly out. Folly in? Virtually all MacArthur's contemporaries above the grade of corporal saw an amphibious assault on Inchon as a dangerous operation the execution of which foreclosed a very real opportunity decisively (by landing further south on less dangerous beaches) to trap the North Koreans between Almond's 10th Corp and Walton Walker's Eighth Army, end the conflict in compliance with the UN mandate, pack up and go home. Not only was Inchon an invasion that required far more luck than MacArthur deserved, merely to get the landing force up Flying Fish channel, over a high sea wall and landed in the face of potentially devastating flanking fire from Wolmi-do Island, but also it violated a stern article of amphibious warfare wisdom that argued against sending a landing force immediately to fight in a built-up area. Thanks to the US Marines, MacArthur got away with it, but one can only observe that even if one or two men in history have survived jumping out of airplanes without parachutes, such is not a wise act. MacArthur's maniacal ego had as end in view his parading pompously into the Korean government house to "restore" Korea to Syngman Rhee. The folly out was that 10th Corp has no mission after the unnecessary recapture of Seoul and once it crossed the peninsula, what next? History records the answer. And yes, I am not a MacArthur fan. His incompetence destroyed the 31st Infantry Regiment (with which I served in Korea as a rifleman) twice in a decade (Bataan and the Reservoir in Korea). Beyond 1918 MacArthur stayed too long at the ball and many good men paid for it.

MacArthur, And War.......2006-05-30

"MacArthur's War" provides the reader with an up close view of the initial portions of the Korean War with particular emphasis on the role of Gen. Douglas MacArthur. It is not, however, a one-dimensional view. Much of it focuses on the role of the on the ground American soldiers and their commanders, all of whom served and suffered under MacArthur.

I found the many facets of this book to be interesting. Although I had read a little of the Korean War, Stanley Weintraub presents events in a different light than I have seen in other works. He depicts MacArthur's indecisiveness at the start of the war in contrast to his later decisiveness in the absence of in in opposition to authorization. Weintraub is generally favorable to MacArthur, contrasting his decisive action with, what he portrays, as uncertainty and indecision among his superiors in Washington. Weintraub suggests that some of MacArthur's insubordinate actions were not necessarily manifestations of uninformed or undisciplined arrogance, but may have been a reasoned strategy to maneuver his superiors into the position that he would have to be relieved.

Looking in the other direction, Weintraub introduces his readers to the resentment which MacArthur's actions generated in his subordiantes. His practice of accepting credit for their successes while washing his hands of their failures was the culmination of a life long practice which infuriated his subordinates throughout his military career.

This book is not all MacArthur, it is also about war. The readier is introduced to the experiences of the ordinary soldier and their officers at all levels. This book makes the flow of battle see more comprehensible than other books which I have read and places terms, such as "Frozen Chosen" into context. I feel that I understand the Korean War and Douglas MacArthur better than I did before reading this book. "MacArthur's War" is an unrivaled asset for anyone with an interest in either.

Should be on your Korean War Reading List.......2004-05-25

There is no question that Douglas MacArthur had a long and distinguished career. And that he showed great Barvery in World War I. That he planned some great island hopping strategy during World War II. And did much to help Japan reform and rebuild. But Korea is not an area where his career shines.

When conflict broke out in Korea in 1950, MacArthur assumed command of American, South Korean and U.N. forces and drove back the North Korean army to the Yalu river, which is the border between Korea and China. And at center stage was his very risky yet stunning achievement, his amphibious attack behind enemy lines at Inchon. But his total lack of failure to anticipate Chinese entry into the war and his delusion that Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Chinese forces in Formosa could be brought into the war to fight the Communists as a viable force had him lose all credability.

Only by General Matthew Ridgway taking command of the Allied ground forces were the Allies able to reverse the trend. General Ridgway took the demoralized Allied troops and transformed them back into a strong fighting force. Which under his command was able to recapture some of the lands lost to the Communist. During this time MacArthur actual came up with a plan to sow a defensive field of radioactive waste on the southern bank of the Yalu. This plan helped Truman to make the to make the decission to dismiss MacArthur at the begining of April 1951.

This work is well written and well worth reading.

Continued MacArthur incompetence.......2004-02-21

This book just reinforced my opinion of MacArthur, after reading about how he botched the defense of the Phillipines in WWII. He had an 8 hour warning from the Pearl Harbor attack, and yet let his planes be caught on the ground and destroyed. He had a 2 year supply of guns, ammo, food, and fuel in Manila for a defense at Bataan, and failed to move it there, so his men starved. He had months to train the Filipinos, and they ran at the first sight of Japs.
In Japan, for 5 years, he never once visited his troops. They were out of shape, and the men's equipment did not work.
When North Korea attacked, his men got killed because of their poor physical condition. They also got killed as the equipment did not work. Trucks, tanks, weapons, radios, batteries. Pusan harbor became a junkyard as they shipped over all this equipment that did not work, and that was all they had.
He refused to believe that the Chinese would attack in such numbers.
Gen Almond even continued the attack after the 8th army had been routed by the Koreans, and were in headlong retreat.
Mac was trying to run for President and his remarks and letters to Congressman became public.
The difference here vs what happened in the Phillipines was that in the Phillipines he got the Medal of Honor for his incopetence. This time, he got fired, as he should have at the Phillipines.
Inchon was a stroke of brilliance, in that it worked, in spite of all the natural obstacles. It worked because it was a Marine operation. MacArthur was not responsible for Marine training or equipment, so the men were trained, and the Marine equipment worked. Therefore, the Inchon invasion worked.

Ignominious exit of an outstanding soldier.......2003-11-05

Nobody will contest Douglas MacArthur's manifold achievements. Serving as a general in three wars, he arguably is famous for his bravery in battles during World War I, his spectacular Leyte landing to reclaim the Philippines in 1944 as well as for his eminently able direction of the occupation of Japan from 1945 to 1950, instituting such reforms as ownership of land for peasants, freedom of the press, and female suffrage. MacArthur is a giant of U.S. military history, even though his role in the Korean War during 1950-1951, when he was once again called to field duty, seriously dented his standing. This book by Stanley Weintraub covers MacArthur's involvement in Korea from June 1950 to April 1951. It is highly worth reading.

When conflict broke out in Korea in 1950, MacArthur assumed command of American, South Korean and U.N. forces to swiftly drive back the North Korean army over the 38th parallel, all the way up to the Yalu, the border river between Korea and China. At the centre of this stunning achievement was MacArthur's amphibious attack behind enemy lines at Inchon - an extremely risky undertaking that is generally acknowledged as a masterpiece of tactical warfare. However, military success ended with U.S. soldiers urinating into the frozen Yalu in November 1950. As tens of thousands of Chinese "volunteers" entered the stage - giving testimony to MacArthur's failure to anticipate Chinese entry into the war - U.N. forces hastily retreated southward, fleeing in disarray. It took a man like General Matthew Ridgway to gradually transform the demoralized Allied troops into a strong fighting body (thus keeping the Americans from leaving Korea altogether) and ultimately winning back some of the territory lost after China's intervention. Yet even after Ridgway had taken over as field commander, MacArthur continued to taunt the Truman administration, going so far as to suggest in a letter to a congressman - which became public - that Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Chinese forces in Formosa (today's Taiwan) could be brought into the war to fight the Communists. More and more out of touch with reality, MacArthur's peculiar reasoning culminated in his plan to "sowing a defensive field of radioactive waste on the southern bank of the Yalu", eventually resulting in President Truman dismissing him at the beginning of April 1951.

Stanley Weintraub's book is the product of a gifted mind at work. His judgment of MacArthur clearly is critical, blaming the general both for escalating the war and for seriously jeopardizing the war effort by his on-going insubordination towards the Truman administration. This is an outspoken but always fair account - in short: highly worth reading!

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Radical Left Urinates on America and Calls it Rain.......2004-09-29

Within America's museums, advertising agencies, art galleries, foundations, school faculties, and other visible centers of American popular culture are RADICAL, ATOMISTIC individuals.

John Leo puts the laser beam on their various AGITPROP. This political theater that Leo is very skilled at dissecting has a goal: TO POLICE YOUR THOUGHTS.

Whether it is radical feminists, radical homosexuals, or other self-exalted victim group - they DEMAND YOUR APPROVAL, NOT JUST YOUR TOLERANCE.

How do they do this? As Leo shows in essay after brilliant essay, BY CALLING YOU THE OPPRESSOR.

The Adversary Culture, through their imaging and re-framing of reality, create A SORT OF STALINESQUE SHOW TRIAL IN YOUR HEAD IN WHICH YOU CONFESS TO THOUGHT CRIMES RATHER THAN BE DISLOYAL TO THE ALL-ENCOMPASSING, PERMANENT VICTIM CLASS.

"Oh, you're not an oppressor, are you?" sneer the politically correct radical chic.

Leo's observations of urban/super-bohemianized America detail the extent of the SELF-DESTRUCTION of popular culture through political correctness made by the mid-1990s.

Truth at last.......2003-07-26

... This guy has kept an eye on the media and educational thought police for years and knows as much about its abuses as anyone. In a sense, John is the most politically incorrect writer in America, not because he uses vulgarity or slanders people, but because he holds PC lunacy up to the light of reason where it is exposed for the empty, racist, sexist grab for power that it is. He is probably the best social commentator in America. He should be on television.

Disinformation From big Brother.......2002-07-18

Why is it that conservatives imagine that their politically correct ramblings are somehow `controversial'? Needless to say, Leo is a reprehensible Republican robot, right in the dead center pf the political mainstream. He espouses knee jerk homophobia, unregenerate misogyny and a weepy scorn for the cult of the victim, not exactly the views of a radical. All the while, he himself claims victim status based on being a `middle aged white male', again the hypocrisy is not exactly daring. One after another, he addresses every favorite topic of the dopey right, from anti-abortion to anti-intellectualism, always sure to keep his objections within the limits proscribed by conservative orthodoxy. A fan of the backward looking Anton Scalia, Leo's screeds are as brief as they are simplistic. He does not really try to address the issues that he writes about, he simply mouths Republican clichés and moves on. Worse than the tedious familiarity of his ideas is the unimaginative nature of his prose. The writing is so poor that it's hard to finish the book, in spite of the fact that most of the tiresome `screeds' are so short. No new Buckley here. There is a reason Leo hasn't burst out on the National scene; he is far to pedestrian a writer and a thinker to have any impact. Indeed, how can one make an impact by following the trends?
PS Be advised, if you buy this book, you may be stuck with it, I have yet to find a used bookstore that will take my copy!

Social & political commentary delivered sans screed & bile........2002-03-08

Two Steps Ahead of the Thought Police is a compilation of 5 years of John Leo's US News & World Report columns.

While it would be fair to describe Mr. Leo as a curmudgeonly columnist it must be pointed out he is one with a sense of perspective almost as developed as his sense of humor. Basically conservative in outlook, he nonetheless is quite capable of skewering conservative viewpoints and policy right along with liberal viewpoints and policy. And so Mr. Leo can criticize the left's propensity to foster "the victimization of America" propensity while also criticize the rights propensity to want to censor everything under the sun.

While this is in a way a wide ranging collection in terms of presentation and writing style, it is fairly narrowly focus in terms of subject matter, allowing for a fairly thorough look at the topics at hand from a variety of aspects. This also gives the work more coherence and a better, more novelistic pacing than is usual for works of this sort.

I don't always agree with Leo, but he seldom fails to raise good, thoughtful points in his commentary and he never fails to entertain. Who says you can't have it all?

This book represents a really refreshing breath of very fresh air in a genre that seems to have devolved into a morass of invective, hostility and bile as substitutes for commentary and debate.

A great read!

Shouldn't words have precise meanings?.......2002-02-03

While many things irk John Leo, the academic left's tendency to radically expand the meaning of words like "racism", "rape" and "rights" inspires columns of outrage and humor. Racism, not so long ago, meant denying people the right to vote, eat in a restaurant, or even a trial prior to lynching. Now the word, observes Leo, has morphed into anything that makes people feel uncomfortable. Leo, being a traditionalist, wants words to mean to have precise meaning. Who can blame him?

This wide-ranging collection of his favorite essays captures Leo's brilliant wit, brual logic, and safely narrow range of subjects. Attacking the 1990's as the "golden age of censorship," Leo rebukes the right for wanting to censor everything: "pornography, rap, rock singers, military news, J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, photors of Robert Mapplethorpe's idea of a good time, and the burning of the American flag." Yet the left, Leo's primary target, "wants to censor tobacco ads, girlie calendars and sex jokes in the workplace, Saturday morning TV, overly Eurocentric schoolbooks, Andy Rooney, many college newspapers, all sorts of speech, and the waving of the American flag."

Leo, it seems to me, reflects the views of his mostly moderate, upper-income readers. He dissects the loonier edges of leftist political activists far more than vapid euphemisms that fill commercials and deflect attention from the misdeeds of the Enrons of our society.

Perhaps Leo will find a way, in his sequel, to make all professional liars equally uncomfortable.

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Two Steps Ahead of the Thought Police. Second Edition.
John Leo
Manufacturer: see notes for publisher info
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000M44EMO

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