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Evan Shively (Perseus271)

In The Nine, acclaimed journalist Jeffrey Toobin takes us into the chambers of the most important—and secret—legal body in our country, the Supreme Court, revealing the complex dynamic among the nine people who decide the law of the land. An institution at a moment of transition, the Court now stands at a crucial point, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, and church-state relations. Based on exclusive interviews with the justices and with a keen sense of the Court’s history and the trajectory of its future, Jeffrey Toobin creates in The Nine a riveting story of one of the most important forces in American life today.

Nothing Like It in the World gives the account of an unprecedented feat of engineering, vision, and courage. It is the story of the men who built the transcontinental railroad—the investors who risked their businesses and money; the enlightened politicians who understood its importance; the engineers and surveyors who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives; and the Irish and Chinese immigrants, the defeated Confederate soldiers, and the other laborers who did the backbreaking and dangerous work on the tracks.The U.S. government pitted two companies—the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads—against each other in a race for funding, encouraging speed over caution. Locomotives, rails, and spikes were shipped from the East through Panama or around South America to the West or lugged across the country to the Plains. In Ambrose's hands, this enterprise, with its huge expenditure of brainpower, muscle, and sweat, comes vibrantly to life.

John D. Rockefeller, Sr.--history's first billionaire and the patriarch of America's most famous dynasty--is an icon whose true nature has eluded three generations of historians. Now Ron Chernow, the National Book Award-winning biographer of the Morgan and Warburg banking families, gives us a history of the mogul "etched with uncommon objectivity and literary grace . . . as detailed, balanced, and psychologically insightful a portrait of the tycoon as we may ever have" (Kirkus Reviews). Titan is the first full-length biography based on unrestricted access to Rockefeller's exceptionally rich trove of papers. A landmark publication full of startling revelations, the book will indelibly alter our image of this most enigmatic capitalist.        Born the son of a flamboyant, bigamous snake-oil salesman and a pious, straitlaced mother, Rockefeller rose from rustic origins to become the world's richest man by creating America's most powerful and feared monopoly, Standard Oil. Branded "the Octopus" by legions of muckrakers, the trust refined and marketed nearly 90 percent of the oil produced in America.        Rockefeller was likely the most controversial businessman in our nation's history. Critics charged that his empire was built on unscrupulous tactics: grand-scale collusion with the railroads, predatory pricing, industrial espionage, and wholesale bribery of political officials. The titan spent more than thirty years dodging investigations until Teddy Roosevelt and his trustbusters embarked on a marathon crusade to bring Standard Oil to bay.        While providing abundant new evidence of Rockefeller's misdeeds, Chernow discards the stereotype of the cold-blooded monster to sketch an unforgettably human portrait of a quirky, eccentric original. A devout Baptist and temperance advocate, Rockefeller gave money more generously--his chosen philanthropies included the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Chicago, and what is today Rockefeller University--than anyone before him. Titan presents a finely nuanced portrait of a fascinating, complex man, synthesizing his public and private lives and disclosing numerous family scandals, tragedies, and misfortunes that have never before come to light.        John D. Rockefeller's story captures a pivotal moment in American history, documenting the dramatic post-Civil War shift from small business to the rise of giant corporations that irrevocably transformed the nation. With cameos by Joseph Pulitzer, William Randolph Hearst, Jay Gould, William Vanderbilt, Ida Tarbell, Andrew Carnegie, Carl Jung, J. Pierpont Morgan, William James, Henry Clay Frick, Mark Twain, and Will Rogers, Titan turns Rockefeller's life into a vivid tapestry of American society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is Ron Chernow's signal triumph that he narrates this monumental saga with all the sweep, drama, and insight that this giant subject deserves.From the Hardcover edition.

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? What kind of impact did Roe v. Wade have on violent crime? Freakonomics will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much heralded scholar who studies the stuff and riddles of everyday life -- from cheating and crime to sports and child rearing -- and whose conclusions regularly turn the conventional wisdom on its head. He usually begins with a mountain of data and a simple, unasked question. Some of these questions concern life-and-death issues; others have an admittedly freakish quality. Thus the new field of study contained in this book: freakonomics.Through forceful storytelling and wry insight, Levitt and co-author Stephen J. Dubner show that economics is, at root, the study of incentives -- how people get what they want, or need, especially when other people want or need the same thing. In Freakonomics, they set out to explore the hidden side of ... well, everything. The inner workings of a crack gang. The truth about real-estate agents. The myths of campaign finance. The telltale marks of a cheating schoolteacher. The secrets of the Ku Klux Klan.What unites all these stories is a belief that the modern world, despite a surfeit of obfuscation, complication, and downright deceit, is not impenetrable, is not unknowable, and -- if the right questions are asked -- is even more intriguing than we think. All it takes is a new way of looking. Steven Levitt, through devilishly clever and clear-eyed thinking, shows how to see through all the clutter.Freakonomics establishes this unconventional premise: If morality represents how we would like the world to work, then economics represents how it actually does work. It is true that readers of this book will be armed with enough riddles and stories to last a thousand cocktail parties. But Freakonomics can provide more than that. It will literally redefine the way we view the modern world.(front flap)

The most riveting political biography of our time, Robert A. Caro’s life of Lyndon B. Johnson, continues. Master of the Senate takes Johnson’s story through one of its most remarkable periods: his twelve years, from 1949 through 1960, in the United States Senate. Once the most august and revered body in politics, by the time Johnson arrived the Senate had become a parody of itself and an obstacle that for decades had blocked desperately needed liberal legislation. Caro shows how Johnson’s brilliance, charm, and ruthlessness enabled him to become the youngest and most powerful Majority Leader in history and how he used his incomparable legislative genius--seducing both Northern liberals and Southern conservatives--to pass the first Civil Rights legislation since Reconstruction. Brilliantly weaving rich detail into a gripping narrative, Caro gives us both a galvanizing portrait of Johnson himself and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings of legislative power.

Šiuose įtraukiančiuose atsiminimuose juodaodžio afrikiečio ir baltosios amerikietės sūnus ieško gyvenimo prasmės. Dvidešimt vienų metų Barackas, studijuodamas Niujorke, netikėtai sužino, kad autoavarijoje žuvo tėvas, jam vis dar mitinė asmenybė. Ši mirtis jį pastūmėja leistis į jausmingus ir kartu intelektualius prisiminimus: iš pradžių mamos šeimos klajonių po Kanzaso miestelius pėdsakais, kurie atveda į Havajus; tada pažintis su Indonezija jo, dar vaiko, akimis. Jau suaugęs Barackas keliauja į Keniją ir susitinka su afrikietiškąja tėvo šeima, čia perpranta karčią tėvo gyvenimo tiesą ir pagaliau pajunta pusiausvyrą suderinęs tokį skirtingą dviejų rasių paveldą.

It started when I was reading Ambrose’s Undaunted Courage, this niggling feeling of discomfort I get when reading a book when the author seems to be taking opportunities to lionize his/her subjects – or at the very least, portraying them in a simplistic, single facet. I’ve had this issue with Ambrose before (and I know enough about his writing to stay away from his excoriated Eisenhower bio), and while I enjoyed his bio of Meriwether Lewis, it was his portrayal of Thomas Jefferson that had me scratching my head. Was he the late 18th / early 19th century version of our 21st century John Muir? What was really behind the mask – I wanted to learn more.Before taking up a direct source on Jefferson I turned to his greatest enemy, Alexander Hamilton, an historical figure I knew vaguely. Several friends had recommended Chernow’s bio; I wasn’t disappointed. It is a masterful work of research, writing and – most importantly – proper distance from the biographer’s subject. I’ll reserve more about that work for a review to be written later under that book’s entry – the importance here is that it painted Jefferson in such a terrible light that I couldn’t imagine that Chernow would be so even-handed with Hamilton but turn the blade on Jefferson. Was he being unfair to our third President, or was he showing the man for who he really was, just as he was doing with Alexander Hamilton? It was time to turn to a book specifically on Jefferson.Rather than take-up one of the many volumes of biography on Jefferson I was most interested in understanding the man, his character, in light of his times. I try very hard not to bring any historical figure into my current day’s morality and civic sensibilities (Joseph Ellis calls this presentism, the perfect word for that notion) – I try to see the man or woman for all that they were given their particular environment. American Sphinx was exactly the book I was looking for, a brilliantly researched and beautifully written book about the thing I am most interested in: the character of Thomas Jefferson.If you are a huge Jefferson fan I’ll save you my polemics and tell you to read no further because I really can’t stand the man. He was well written, extremely smart, and to some, a very good friend. In his time on the national scene I can find two instances of where he contributed greatly to the founding of a fledgling new republic: the writing of the Declaration of Independence and the Louisiana Purchase. OK, I’ll throw in him green-lighting the Lewis and Clarke expedition as a third. Almost everything else about the man screams a two-faced, punctilious, pig-headed didact that was a venomous back-biting man to every and anyone that crossed his very misguided utopian world view – with the exception of John Adams, with whom he worked extra-hard when out of office to bury the hatchet and re-work their friendship. Yes, yes, there are exceptions to this, but make no mistake, Jefferson’s anti-Federalist stance and his willingness to stoop to the lowest mudslinging (perpetrated by his underlings, Madison being his chief agent) makes the Trump / Clinton election look tame. I’ve got a whole lot to say about this guy, so here goes:\
  1. Jefferson’s Agrarian Myth\
Throughout his life and career Jefferson believed that the USA should be an agrarian society; light industry if you please, but certainly no manufacturing. The Louisiana Purchase was an attempt to continue the growth of the country to the Pacific Ocean to provide a seemingly endless swath of land for the once-and-future farmers of America to till the land. The Hamiltonian vision of commerce, banking and the pillars of the current day global economy were an anathema to Jefferson. He held so strongly to this unrealistic idyll that he would stop at nearly nothing to fight for his beliefs, including a nearly treasonous episode or two with the French while serving as SOS under Washington.\
  2. French Revolution\
Even with blood in the streets and everyone in America with common sense horrified at The Terror in France, Jefferson could not bring himself to see the truth behind the Jacoban menace. He believed, late in life, that the Revolution could have been a peaceful transition, if not for “cowardice and indecision” – mostly attributable to the king’s failure to side with the future than the past, which he blamed on the king’s wife. In is own words, years later: “I have ever believed that had there been no queen, there would have been no revolution.” He thought that the pressure of the forces that caused the revolution became unmanageable because of the meddling of a single woman….\
  3. Politics as unusual\
In a world of bombast and testosterone Jefferson’s reticence might have been a breath of fresh air. Hamilton, Adams, etc were men that could give fist-pounding oratories for hours – Jefferson, never. He preferred to work behind the scenes and mostly with the pen. So far so good.But Jefferson played a game of consistent deception and denial. Hypocrisy never bothered Jefferson; however, he never owned being a hypocrite. This is the worst kind of politician, never mind human being, and over a long enough period of time, you will be found out. This is exactly what happened between Jefferson and Hamilton (when TJ was Secretary of State and AH was Secretary of Treasury under Washington). Jefferson did everything he could to undermine Hamilton behind the scenes – once Hamilton was onto his game, he outmaneuvered him to finally force his resignation in frustration. Jefferson never abandoned his belief that Federalists were nothing short of traitors who had betrayed what he believed to be self-evident principles of “pure republicanism” (i.e. freedom from the meddling of government) in favor of a coercive federal government that put into place the very things that the Revolution was fought to remove. This wasn’t a matter of differing political theories – Jefferson found the Federalists full-on monarchical (not true) traitors - it was a gauntlet that could never be picked back up; but because Jefferson hated direct confrontation (e.g. he was the only major Founding Father other than Franklin that did not see battle – in fact, he fled the oncoming British army in VA as governor rather than organize the militia in defense) he spilled his venom in the press and in back room dealings to subvert his enemy, however he could. Jefferson claimed to hate political parties. He was the one that started them.\
  4. Black and White politics, figuratively\
For all of Jefferson’s brilliance and ability to balance two completely opposite beliefs as true -and not believe this to be hypocrisy – Jefferson had a life-long response to all complex political conflicts: transform the miasma of opinions and forces into a simplified and exaggerated two-sided contest between good and evil. This might be why FDR, Reagan and Bill Clinton all have turned to Jefferson for proof-text source material in their political battle cries against the evil du jour; but any human that has lived with their eyes wide open for 20+ years on this planet understands that human interactions are rarely ever black and white – and politics, never. A politician that plays this game is very, very dangerous – history has proved this point time and again.\
  5. Black and White politics, literally\
I’m not going to try and grab the slave-owning Jefferson and pull him into the 21st century and take him to task on the biggest blight on America – but I absolutely can judge him by what he wrote about slaves, African-Americans in general and also by the measuring stick of other Virginia contemporaries.Jefferson hated slavery but not enough to ever really do anything much about it, other than write letters and thoughts that were all over the map and like many things Jeffersonian, conflicting. His way of dealing with the slavery issue was to sweep it under the map for another generation to deal with and hope that it would disappear of its own accord. This from the guy who wrote the Declaration of Independence. Hey Tom, why didn’t you use that logic when it came to the British problems and King George’s heavy hand? He was at his worst when the Missouri Question reared its head. Jefferson’s take? Let slavery spread itself across the USA, it would upend itself from spreading itself so thin. Say what??? Even Adams, who at this point in his correspondence with TJ was light handed had to take him to task. One of the worst, morally bankrupt and wrong-headed idyllic notions from a man full of them.Jefferson believed that Indians could be integrated into American society but that blacks had no chance. The final measurement on Jefferson about the slave issue is his legacy of his own slaves. Washington, another Founding Father that abhorred the institution and wished it gone, also realized the impossibility of creating a republic out of the 13 colonies if the abolition of slavery were to be put on the table, put his money where his heart was and freed all of his slaves in his 1799 will. True, he was the only FF to free his slaves upon death, but as a fellow Virginian that could have taken a page from the Godfather of the USofA, Jefferson refused to follow in-step and only freed a handful of slaves upon his death. Not included in that list was Sally Hemings, which is the cause for my biggest issue with Jefferson.\
  6. Sally Hemings\
Whether or not Jefferson had a liaison with his slave Sally Hemings has been the longest running Presidential soap opera in American history. Did he or didn’t he? In November of 1998, a DNA comparison between Jefferson’s Y chromosome and the Y chromosome of Hemings descendants proved a match between the white Jefferson and the Hemings family line. During the 1950s an authoritative six-volume bio of Jefferson by Dumas Malone’s research revealed that Jefferson was at Monticello nine months prior to the birth of Sally’s children, several of which favored him strongly in facial features. These facts put the burden of proof that there was no liaison back on the nay-sayers.Sally was a slave – property - and by that definition she had no rights and no way to give her denial to sexual congress with her owner. Without consent a sexual act is considered rape, by any definition. Not every “Southern Gentleman” slept with their slaves, but this President did.But let’s say that it was consensual, or even that there was love between Thomas and Sally. What kind of monster, that father’s children by a woman that he “loves”, would not mention her in his will - to free her from the horrors of the industry that he claimed to loathe? Viewed in either lens that is scumbaggery, pure and simple.I kept wanting to find something to deeply admire about Jefferson, I really did. I give him props for the Declaration – but I also like Knut Hamsun's writing, in spite of him being a Nazi sympathizer - just because someone can write beautifully isn’t enough for me to want to build a monument for them. Americans love their heroes, and once they achieve membership in the pantheon we find it difficult to separate the man from the myth. I’m sure there are many other great things that Jefferson did as a leader, and if I were to ever turn to another bio of him I might find other things that he did to benefit the world; but for now I’ve had enough of TJ and am putting him back on the shelf where he belongs and not retaining him in my personal collection of historical figures that made the planet a better place.

Theodore Roosevelt and his two-term presidency (1901-9) deserve a king-size, seize-the-man biography - and Edmund Morris has provided one. "TR" typifies the "can do" American; his famous maxim, of course, was "Speak softly but carry a big stick." Morris presents eyewitness history through the voices of the makers and shakers. His exhilarating narrative will captivate readers, providing welcome confirmation that this nation can produce presidents who bring leadership to great issues, hold to their purpose, and shape the destinies of nations. President McKinley's assassination brought the 43-year-old TR a challenging presidency, one to which Morris is a clearsighted guide. At home, TR had to persuade Congress to curb competition-stifling corporate trusts, monopolistic transcontinental railroads, and unhygienic food industries that saw consumers as sheep. He also faced labor and racial strife. Abroad, the American presence in Cuba and the Philippines brought criticism, the Russo-Japanese conflict threatened major power shifts in the Far East and Europe, and a politically and financially fraught decision on the Central American canal route - Panama or Nicaragua? - had to be made. TR rose to every challenge. Despite the demands of family and social life, he read, wrote, and traveled extensively. Not least, TR put national parks and conservation of natural resources on the legislative agenda.All TR's notable contemporaries - including historian Henry Adams, naturalists John Burroughs and John Muir, robber barons E. H. Harriman and James J. Hill, poet Oliver Wendell Holmes, financier J. P. Morgan, fellow politician William Howard Taft, civil rights leader Booker T. Washington, and novelist Owen Wister - appear onstage, their clear voices projecting the excitement of the day.Morris is blessed with the imagination and skills to write gripping popular history. He doesn't dilute but illuminates events in presenting an account that immediately sparks interest and captures the mind. Readers will note that American interventionism abroad (today's major issue) was much debated during TR's presidency, when major interventional imperatives challenged the new superpower's tradition of relative restraint in foreign affairs.Theodore Rex is the long-awaited second volume of the TR saga. Morris delivered the first volume, \
  The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt\
, in 1979. It won a Pulitzer Prize; Theodore Rex is a solid bet for another. (Peter Skinner)

In this magnificent biography, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of American Lion and Franklin and Winston brings vividly to life an extraordinary man and his remarkable times. Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power gives us Jefferson the politician and president, a great and complex human being forever engaged in the wars of his era. Philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.   Thomas Jefferson hated confrontation, and yet his understanding of power and of human nature enabled him to move men and to marshal ideas, to learn from his mistakes, and to prevail. Passionate about many things—women, his family, books, science, architecture, gardens, friends, Monticello, and Paris—Jefferson loved America most, and he strove over and over again, despite fierce opposition, to realize his vision: the creation, survival, and success of popular government in America. Jon Meacham lets us see Jefferson’s world as Jefferson himself saw it, and to appreciate how Jefferson found the means to endure and win in the face of rife partisan division, economic uncertainty, and external threat. Drawing on archives in the United States, England, and France, as well as unpublished Jefferson presidential papers, Meacham presents Jefferson as the most successful political leader of the early republic, and perhaps in all of American history.   The father of the ideal of individual liberty, of the Louisiana Purchase, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, and of the settling of the West, Jefferson recognized that the genius of humanity—and the genius of the new nation—lay in the possibility of progress, of discovering the undiscovered and seeking the unknown. From the writing of the Declaration of Independence to elegant dinners in Paris and in the President’s House; from political maneuverings in the boardinghouses and legislative halls of Philadelphia and New York to the infant capital on the Potomac; from his complicated life at Monticello, his breathtaking house and plantation in Virginia, to the creation of the University of Virginia, Jefferson was central to the age. Here too is the personal Jefferson, a man of appetite, sensuality, and passion.   The Jefferson story resonates today not least because he led his nation through ferocious partisanship and cultural warfare amid economic change and external threats, and also because he embodies an eternal drama, the struggle of the leadership of a nation to achieve greatness in a difficult and confounding world.Advance praise for Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power  “Jon Meacham resolves the bundle of contradictions that was Thomas Jefferson by probing his love of progress and thirst for power. This is a thrilling and affecting portrait of our first philosopher-politician.”—Stacy Schiff  “This terrific book allows us to see the political genius of Thomas Jefferson better than we have ever seen it before. In these endlessly fascinating pages, Jefferson emerges with such vitality that it seems as if he might still be alive today.”—Doris Kearns GoodwinFrom the Hardcover edition.NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY\
  The New York Times Book Review • The Washington Post • Entertainment Weekly • The Seattle Times • St. Louis Post-Dispatch\


Informs our understanding of American politics--then and now--and gives us a new perspective on the unpredictable forces that shape history.An illuminating study of the intertwined lives of the founders of the American republic--John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and George Washington.During the 1790s, which Ellis calls the most decisive decade in our nation's history, the greatest statesmen of their generation--and perhaps any--came together to define the new republic and direct its course for the coming centuries. Ellis focuses on six discrete moments that exemplify the most crucial issues facing the fragile new nation: Burr and Hamilton's deadly duel, and what may have really happened; Hamilton, Jefferson, and Madison's secret dinner, during which the seat of the permanent capital was determined in exchange for passage of Hamilton's financial plan; Franklin's petition to end the "peculiar institution" of slavery--his last public act--and Madison's efforts to quash it; Washington's precedent-setting Farewell Address, announcing his retirement from public office and offering his country some final advice; Adams's difficult term as Washington's successor and his alleged scheme to pass the presidency on to his son; and finally, Adams and Jefferson's renewed correspondence at the end of their lives, in which they compared their different views of the Revolution and its legacy.In a lively and engaging narrative, Ellis recounts the sometimes collaborative, sometimes archly antagonistic interactions between these men, and shows us the private characters behind the public personas: Adams, the ever-combative iconoclast, whose closest political collaborator was his wife, Abigail; Burr, crafty, smooth, and one of the most despised public figures of his time; Hamilton, whose audacious manner and deep economic savvy masked his humble origins; Jefferson, renowned for his eloquence, but so reclusive and taciturn that he rarely spoke more than a few sentences in public; Madison, small, sickly, and paralyzingly shy, yet one of the most effective debaters of his generation; and the stiffly formal Washington, the ultimate realist, larger-than-life, and America's only truly indispensable figure.Ellis argues that the checks and balances that permitted the infant American republic to endure were not primarily legal, constitutional, or institutional, but intensely personal, rooted in the dynamic interaction of leaders with quite different visions and values. Revisiting the old-fashioned idea that character matters, Founding Brothers informs our understanding of American politics--then and now--and gives us a new perspective on the unpredictable forces that shape history.

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers"--the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different?His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: that is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing. Along the way he explains the secrets of software billionaires, what it takes to be a great soccer player, why Asians are good at math, and what made the Beatles the greatest rock band.

From the author of the bestselling biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein, this is the exclusive, New York Times bestselling biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs.Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

I decided to read this book primarily because of my fiance's interest in Einstein's life and theories. I thought it might help me to actually have a somewhat intelligent reply on the rare occasion he starts talking physics (don't tell him I said so, but he is much smarter than I am). :)I felt a bit daunted by the length of it at first (700 pages, or 22 hours on 18 CDs), but the book is engrossing from the start. The periodic and quite detailed descriptions of Einstein's theories and research were a bit (okay, maybe way) over my head at times, but that didn't in any way damper my enjoyment of the book. When I did understand the physics, I found it all rather fascinating. I especially enjoyed learning the details of Einstein's life, relationships, struggles and philosophies. In fact, much to my surprise, there were times I had trouble putting this book down. Isaacson creates a vivid and engaging portrait of who Einstein was as a whole -- both the brilliant and the quirky -- and gives us a wonderful glimpse into how this man's amazing mind led to some of the most incredible scientific discoveries in history. Very well-written and meticulously researched.

This book was truly unbelievable. The entire time I was reading it, I kept reminding myself that this was real history and it all happened. There was so much drama in all the proceedings, and to realize that it’s the select few (in great positions) of the government beneath it all. I completely admire the reporting of these two individuals and their endless dedication to get the facts and the information correct and to the public, as well as keep their sources anonymous - I was in awe and amazement throughout every page.

James A. Garfield was one of the most extraordinary men ever elected president. Born into abject poverty, he rose to become a wunderkind scholar, a Civil War hero, and a renowned and admired reformist congressman. Nominated for president against his will, he engaged in a fierce battle with the corrupt political establishment. But four months after his inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked Garfield down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn’t kill Garfield. The drama of what hap­pened subsequently is a powerful story of a nation in tur­moil. The unhinged assassin’s half-delivered strike shattered the fragile national mood of a country so recently fractured by civil war, and left the wounded president as the object of a bitter behind-the-scenes struggle for power—over his administration, over the nation’s future, and, hauntingly, over his medical care. A team of physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. As his con­dition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet. Meticulously researched, epic in scope, and pulsating with an intimate human focus and high-velocity narrative drive, The Destiny of the Republic will stand alongside The Devil in the White City and The Professor and the Madman as a classic of narrative history.

The celebrated Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of America. With a breadth and depth matched by no other one-volume life, he carries the reader through Washington's troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French and Indian Wars, his creation of Mount Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention and his magnificent performance as America's first president.Despite the reverence his name inspires Washington remains a waxwork to many readers, worthy but dull, a laconic man of remarkable self-control. But in this groundbreaking work Chernow revises forever the uninspiring stereotype. He portrays Washington as a strapping, celebrated horseman, elegant dancer and tireless hunter, who guarded his emotional life with intriguing ferocity. Not only did Washington gather around himself the foremost figures of the age, including James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, he orchestrated their actions to help realise his vision for the new federal government, define the separation of powers, and establish the office of the presidency.Ron Chernow takes us on a page-turning journey through all the formative events of America's founding. This is a magisterial work from one of America's foremost writers and historians.In Washington: A Life biographer Ron Chernow provides a richly nuanced portrait of the father of our nation. With a breadth &amp; depth matched by no other one-volume life, this crisply paced narrative carries readers thru his troubled boyhood, his precocious feats in the French &amp; Indian War, his creation of Mt Vernon, his heroic exploits with the Continental Army, his presiding over the Constitutional Convention &amp; his performance as the 1st president. Despite the reverence his name inspires, Washington remains a lifeless waxwork for many, worthy but dull. A laconic man of granite self-control, he often arouses more respect than affection. This work, based on massive research, dashes the stereotype of a stolid, unemotional man. A strapping 6', Washington was a celebrated horseman, elegant dancer &amp; tireless hunter, with a fiercely guarded emotional life. Chernow brings to vivid life a dashing, passionate man of fiery opinions &amp; many moods. Probing his private life, he explores his fraught relationship with his crusty mother, his youthful infatuation with the married Sally Fairfax &amp; his often conflicted feelings toward his adopted children &amp; grandchildren. He also provides a portrait of his marriage to Martha &amp; his complex behavior as a slave master. At the same time this is an astute portrait of a canny politician who knew how to inspire people. Not only did Washington gather around himself the foremost figures of the age, including Madison, Hamilton, Adams &amp; Jefferson, but he also orchestrated their actions to shape the new federal government, define the separation of powers &amp; establish the office of the presidency. This biography takes us on a page-turning journey thru the formative events of America's founding. With a dramatic sweep worthy of its subject, this is a magisterial work from an elegant storyteller.

The definitive biography of a larger-than-life president who defied norms, divided a nation, and changed Washington foreverAndrew Jackson, his intimate circle of friends, and his tumultuous times are at the heart of this remarkable book about the man who rose from nothing to create the modern presidency. Beloved and hated, venerated and reviled, Andrew Jackson was an orphan who fought his way to the pinnacle of power, bending the nation to his will in the cause of democracy. Jackson's election in 1828 ushered in a new and lasting era in which the people, not distant elites, were the guiding force in American politics. Democracy made its stand in the Jackson years, and he gave voice to the hopes and the fears of a restless, changing nation facing challenging times at home and threats abroad. To tell the saga of Jackson's presidency, acclaimed author Jon Meacham goes inside the Jackson White House. Drawing on newly discovered family letters and papers, he details the human drama-the family, the women, and the inner circle of advisers- that shaped Jackson's private world through years of storm and victory.One of our most significant yet dimly recalled presidents, Jackson was a battle-hardened warrior, the founder of the Democratic Party, and the architect of the presidency as we know it. His story is one of violence, sex, courage, and tragedy. With his powerful persona, his evident bravery, and his mystical connection to the people, Jackson moved the White House from the periphery of government to the center of national action, articulating a vision of change that challenged entrenched interests to heed the popular will- or face his formidable wrath. The greatest of the presidents who have followed Jackson in the White House-from Lincoln to Theodore Roosevelt to FDR to Truman-have found inspiration in his example, and virtue in his vision.Jackson was the most contradictory of men. The architect of the removal of Indians from their native lands, he was warmly sentimental and risked everything to give more power to ordinary citizens. He was, in short, a lot like his country: alternately kind and vicious, brilliant and blind; and a man who fought a lifelong war to keep the republic safe-no matter what it took.

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Timothy Egan’s critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect” (New York Times).In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet” (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful cautionary tale about the dangers of trifling with nature.

Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it also won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography. Now with a new introduction by the author, Mornings on Horseback is reprinted as a Simon &amp; Schuster Classic Edition.  Mornings on Horseback is about the world of the young Theodore Roosevelt. It is the story of a remarkable little boy, seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma, and his struggle to manhood: an amazing metamorphosis seen in the context of the very uncommon household (and rarefied social world) in which he was raised.  His father is the first Theodore Roosevelt, "Greatheart," a figure of unbounded energy, enormously attractive and selfless, a god in the eyes of his small, frail namesake. His mother, Mittie Bulloch Roosevelt, is a Southerner and celebrated beauty, but also considerably more, which the book makes clear as never before. There are sisters Anna and Corinne, brother Elliott (who becomes the father of Eleanor Roosevelt), and the lovely, tragic Alice Lee, Teddy Roosevelt's first love. And while such disparate figures as Abraham Lincoln, Mrs. John Jacob Astor, and Senator Roscoe Conkling play a part, it is this diverse and intensely human assemblage of Roosevelts, all brought to vivid life, which gives the book its remarkable power.  The book spans seventeen years � from 1869 when little "Teedie" is ten, to 1886 when, as a hardened "real life cowboy," he returns from the West to pick up the pieces of a shattered life and begin anew, a grown man, whole in body and spirit. The story does for Teddy Roosevelt what Sunrise at Campobello did for FDR � reveals the inner man through his battle against dreadful odds.  Like David McCullough's The Great Bridge, also set in New York, this is at once an enthralling story, with all the elements of a great novel, and a penetrating character study. It is brilliant social history and a work of important scholarship, which does away with several old myths and breaks entirely new ground. For the first time, for example, Roosevelt's asthma is examined closely, drawing on information gleaned from private Roosevelt family papers and in light of present-day knowledge of the disease and its psychosomatic aspects.  At heart it is a book about life intensely lived...about family love and family loyalty...about courtship and childbirth and death, fathers and sons...about winter on the Nile in the grand manner and Harvard College...about gutter politics in washrooms and the tumultuous Republican Convention of 1884...about grizzly bears, grief and courage, and "blessed" mornings on horseback at Oyster Bay or beneath the limitless skies of the Badlands. "Black care rarely sits behind a rider whose pace is fast enough," Roosevelt once wrote. It is the key to his life and to much that is so memorable in this magnificent book.

To this landmark biography of our first president, Joseph J. Ellis brings the exacting scholarship, shrewd analysis, and lyric prose that have made him one of the premier historians of the Revolutionary era. Training his lens on a figure who sometimes seems as remote as his effigy on Mount Rushmore, Ellis assesses George Washington as a military and political leader and a man whose “statue-like solidity” concealed volcanic energies and emotions.Here is the impetuous young officer whose miraculous survival in combat half-convinced him that he could not be killed. Here is the free-spending landowner whose debts to English merchants instilled him with a prickly resentment of imperial power. We see the general who lost more battles than he won and the reluctant president who tried to float above the partisan feuding of his cabinet. His Excellency is a magnificent work, indispensable to an understanding not only of its subject but also of the nation he brought into being.

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