this book is funny to me you will love this book you will give it five stars because he play games on his sister.

Though virtually unknown today, Lincoln Colcord was a very popular writer of seafaring tales in the early part of this century. Having actually grown up on board clipper ships that his father skippered, his knowledge of the sea and the clipper era is first-hand. The stories in this book are, in the opinion of this reviewer, are as colorful and gripping as any Conrad ever wrote. As a Merchant Marine officer with over thirty-three years at sea, I can attest to their authenticity.Colcord's description of a storm at sea is one of the most realistic scenes I've ever read. A wonderful book for anyone who loves the sea or a rip-roaring adventure.

This book chronicles not only texts of key speeches showing the evolution of Lincoln's view of slavery, but also insightful letters revealing some private thoughts of this shrewd railroad lawyer whose ambition propelled him to heights that made him the best President our Republic has ever seen. The 1838 Lyceum speech of Lincoln's youth gives stunning insight into that ambition. This book supports the notion that Lincoln was also the greatest writer to ever occupy the White House, revealing an impressive variety of literary styles, from meticulous legal argumentation to a dry, concise wit. In light of Lincoln's literary legacy, it is no wonder that each President since Woodrow Wilson has deemed the aid of professional speechwriters vital to their strategies. And even with the professional help the modern chief executives have gotten, Lincoln's rhetoric remains the most sublime of all our Presidents.

The "Selected Writings and Speeches of Abraham Lincoln" is an anthology of speeches, letters and telegrams that he wrote from his reputed first political speech in March of 1832 to his last public address on April 11, 1865 just four days before his death. Over the thirty-three years of writing, we are able to see the Great Emancipator's writings change.

Lincoln had one of the toughest presidencies to date. He ran for office when the Union was at odds, and would soon see his country divided just before he became president. His stands on slavery took a back seat to reuniting the Union. As time went on, you can see in his writings how his job of bringing a country back together, and peace to the land, wore on him. Lincoln was obviously physically and mentally tired by the close of the war.

Editor T. Harry Williams provides a great introduction that covers the course of Lincoln's career and the special issues he had to face during that time. He also begins each of the seventy-six pieces of Lincoln's work with a short note that gives enough information as to the context and history of the writing. Of the writings, I found the response to Senator Douglas (1854) very interesting and intriguing as well as his communiqués with his generals during the war. Of course, this anthology also contains the Gettysburg Address and his inaugural addresses.

Lincoln was a powerful writer that focused on the issues that the public was concerned about. His writings were almost poetical, and, at times, full of passion. There is no doubt from reading his speeches and letters that Lincoln loved his country. This man could say more in a ten-minute speech than today's politicians can say during a whole term. The speechwriters of today should revisit the speeches of this great writer.

Who would have thought that you could make such wonderful home decor projects from a simple square of fabric. Kathy Peterson's wonderful design ideas for pillows, curtains, chairs, blankets and more has made sewing fun again! This is a must have for beginner sewers and even those of us who need to dust off our sewing machines!

This book is a must for any Billy The Kid, or Lincoln Co. War buff. Mr. Lavish gets to the point, and backs up what he says. It is very different than your average run of the mill book on the Lincoln County War, and gives a very different view. If this subject is where your interest is, then this is a MUST READ BOOK.

In their series, "The Drama of American History," Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier are explicitly trying something different. Their focus is on what they consider to be the "central core" of American History, drawn with broad strokes at the expense of facts and figures. The goal is "for students to grasp the underlying concepts and ideas that emerge from the movement of history," and therefore to understand "how those facts fit together and why they are significant and relevant to the world today." In other words, we are talking depth rather than breadth, not to mention understanding rather than memorization. Consequently, this series does not even try to compartmentalize American History into discrete chronological segments. "Slavery and the Coming of the Civil War" covers the period of 1831-1861, which overlaps to some extent with both "Andrew Jackson's America" (1824-1850) and "Hispanic America, Texas, and the Mexican War" (1835-1850). But each volume is focusing on a different aspect of American History. In "Slavery and the Coming of the Civil War" the emphasis is on how the practice of slavery in the United States inevitably led to a bloody Civil War.


This eleventh volume in The Drama of American History series has only four chapters: First, The Slave Trade, which actually goes well beyond the chronological scope of this book, to the beginnings of the practice during the 15th century. Collier and Collier detail the extent of the practice and explain the Triangle Trade of molasses-to-rum-to-slaves. Second, The Slave South specifically tries to separate the facts of how slavery was practiced in the South from the fiction of works like "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and "Gone With the Wind." This chapter also looks at the origins and growth of the abolitionist movement in the North, so it goes well beyond the parameters of its chapter title as well. Third, The Missouri Compromise Comes Apart provides the reason the timeframe of this particular volume begins in 1831, this being the year after the Missouri Compromise went into effect (the book ends in 1861, ostensibly with Lincoln's inauguration, the succession of the Southern States, and the situation with Ft. Sumter). This is the chapter that most focuses on the political issue of slavery, considering both the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Compromise of 1850 along with the pivotal Supreme Court decision in the Dredd Scott case. Fourth, An Important Man Enters the Scene, introduces young readers to Abraham Lincoln, who was, in my estimation, the only living American who could have preserved the Union in the face of the Civil War. The authors sketch out Lincoln's political philosophy and cover how his 1868 Senate campaign against Stephen Douglas positioned him for the Presidency. After looking at how John Brown's raid once again polarized the nation along regional lines North and South, they show detail the final chain of events leading to the outbreak of the Civil War. The chapter ends with an enumeration of reasons why historians believe the war could not have been avoided, even though the war talk was driven by the small but volatile radicals on both sides of the issue, the emphasis being on the industrial and social conditions that were making the North more powerful both economically and politically than the South.

As I have explained before, while I am greatly enamored with this "central core" approach to American History, I have grave practical concerns about teachers being able to have classroom sets of "The Drama of American History" series for use by their students. I would hate to think that something as fundamentally sound as this approach to teaching American History is limited to only affluent school districts around the country. I would think that at some point these volumes would be collected into two larger works that follow whatever the current line of demarcation is between American History, Part I and American History, Part II. These volumes are illustrated with historic photographs, paintings, etchings, and a few choice political cartoons (you can never have too many of those in a history textbook), all of which are reproduced in color (albeit usually just in terms of tinting). Finally, I have to admit I am curious to see how Collier and Collier deal with the Civil War itself given their approach.

As we hear more and more about "smart growth," it's great to have a book like this, which takes a broad and intelligent look at the topic. The essays in this balanced collection provide a useful history of suburbia and sprawl, analyze how smart growth is defined and used today by various parties, and discuss the future of not only suburban growth but also core city development. It's fascinating--I would recommend it not only to planners and professionals, but to anyone concerned with how our communities grow.

in Spanish linguistics. This book gives concise but valuable information about the different linguistic variants in Spanish America and Spain. It also contains useful maps. Recommended for experts and beginner linguists!

First of all, this book is NOT by Edwin M. Stanton, who died in 1869. The authors are Benjamin P. Thomas, the distinguished historian who was also the author of Abraham Lincoln: A Biography, which I read with great appreciation on 22 Jan 1993 and which was published in 1952 and which is generally considered the best one-volume biography of Lincoln at least until David Donald's superlative biography of Lincoln (read by me Feb 4, 1996) came along in 1995 and Harold M. Hyman, the co-author of Equal Justice Under Law: Constitutional Development 1835-1875 (read by me with much approval on 10 July 1982). I found Stanton a good book, tho some of the parts, where the Civil War and the problems with finding a general are reviewed, did not happen to excite me. But there can be little doubt that Stanton did yeoman service during the War and that he played a big role in the North's successful effort. The dramatic events during the dispute between Andrew Johnson and the Radical Republicans in 1866-1868 are detailed well in this book, though very laudatory to Stanton. While I agree with much of the viewpoint of the Radical Republicans I have never felt that the impeachment effort should have succeeded, and I thought the biography of Andrew Johnson by Hans L. Trefousse (which I greatly enjoyed when I read it 31 July 1999)reinforced that feeling for me--and Trefousse is certainly no apologist for the forces against the Radical Republicans. In fact, the course Stanton pursued during the impeachment fight, when he refused to obey the orders of the president of the United States, his commander-in-chief, grate on one accustomed to the current view of presidential power. The book is well-footnoted, with the footnotes where they belong (at the bottom of each page, so one can see whether they need to be read or whether they are merely source notes), but there is, sadly, no bibliography. But as far as I know this is the best biography of Stanton, a man of great interest to any student of the 1860s.