Before the current resurgence in the love of history, I searched in vain for this book in countless new and old book stores. Every new city we went to, I would look for it. I had heard the American viewpoint on Montgomery, I had read Patton's version, but I wanted to hear Montgomery's version. As a Christmas present, there it was under my tree one year, and I devoured it in several days, even though it is incredibly detailed.
After reading the book, I felt I understood the man, the forces, the secret drives that made the General who he was.
He had a rather cold, lonely childhood, and was an aloof, intelligent loner.
The Battle of Dunkirk was the point at which he could no longer tolerate those he felt inferior to him, regardless of his rank. The absurdities of the waste of manpower of machinery, the inefficiencies of command by family name became clear to him. Here Montgomery rose to his highest success, a man who's destiny and abilities were matched by fortune to the time. He succeeded in defying the befuddled outranking superiors, took control, and performed brilliantly at El-Almein, a battle won almost exclusively by his strategic flanking movements.
El-Almein; however, became the soothsayer to his Achilles heel....his extreme egotism.
After El-Almein, he felt himself invincible and always correct regardless of the consequences for his men or the battle. His main focus after El-Almein was to preserve his legacy and reputation and to take credit for any favorable action by anyone, anywhere.
He was personally responsible for one of the two largest largest European debacles of the war: the Bridge Too Far. (The other being the inexperienced Eisenhower's debacle at the Kasserine Pass.) By sheer force of will, against the advise and counsel of many others, Montgomery forced an ill-conceived plan of the largest paratrooper drop in history with poor supplies, lack of artillary support, and a sheer waste of some of the finest men available. Even when it was evident that his plans were horribly inadequate, he refused to allow a strategic withdrawal, abandoning troops to their fate.
Whether politically correct to say or not, it seemed quite evident from the book that there was a strong presence of homosexuality in Montgomery's inner circle. Whether Montgomery was gay, bi, or neuter is impossible to say, and the fact that he procreated is irrelevant.
What is sad is that with his sycophantic inner circle, he could not be dissuaded from ill-conceived plans. He became the McClellan of World War II, sitting with troops that could have been used elsewhere, squandering supplies that could have been put to use for Patton.
Any other General would have been replaced after the fiasco of Operation Market-Garden. MONTGOMERY would have replaced any general of his that had carried out such an ill-conceived plan, then refused to halt when it was evident it was an abject failure.
Read the accounts of the Paratroopers who had to fight the actual battle, the SNAFU's they encountered, the hostility they received when they reasonably requested to withdraw and you have visions of Montgomery in the far distant rear echelons in his bunker, oblivious to the world. Montgomery went so far as to REFUSE to allow his sleep to be interrupted for important phone calls, reasoning that all he had to do was to plan a battle, but battles are vacillating beasts that require the presence of their commanders. Patton's brilliance in Sicily was his front-line presence, and therefore knowledge of the strategic changes that needed to be made.
With Montgomery's star tarnished by Market-Garden, Patton and Eisenhower were able to forge forward and accomplish what they were able to do at their best.
Argument has been made that Montgomery's bogging down after D-Day, and his Operation Market-Garden fiasco allowed the more Sourthern Patton to consolidate his positions, but then one wonders where was Monty when Bastogne was besieged and when Omaha beach was overwhelmed.
When I finally was able to read his version, instead of the American-written versions, I was dismayed that he was even pettier and self-centered than even the Americans realized.
Post-War, Monty was awarded the position of Chief of Staff, and felt it was due him as a royal coronation. He WAS the hero of El Alamein, but he was a one-note, one-battle, egomaniac hero who cost many lives needlessly.

Most vivid and accurate account of world war II war through the eyes and mminds of a brillliant strategist and a great humanitarian.

Amy's discription of her charictors really brings to life the story! Her animal charicators almost seem as deep as the human emotions Kayla shows. In all points this is an excelent choice to share with your children. My three daughters, and my son as well, theroly enjoy the intire series! Kodo's to Ms. Laundrie one of the few truly talinted artists of her day.

In this books Kayla discovers the neglected horses on her neighbors property. She decides that she must help them. When Vern retaliates on Sundance he goes after Kayla too!! Mean while, Kayla's boyfriend has left her for a more sophisticated girl and Kayla feels like her heart is breaking can she regain her self in time to help?

William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion

Though billed as a companion to "The Norton Shakespeare, Based on the Oxford Edition," "William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion" is a superb reference for any reader of Shakespeare's plays. The book gives the editorial principles and the explanations of editorial decisions made by the editors of the Oxford Shakespeare. The Textual Companion deals with the plays and poems is a systematic basis. This book will deepen anyone's appricaition for the Oxford editors' solutions to textual problems. The real value of this book goes is that it goes beyond just being an explanation of one edition. This book offers a comprehensive overview of the textual problem that any reader of Shakespeare should be aware of.

An example good editing comes from "The Merry Wives of Windsor" 1.4.88-9. The line appears "Ile doe yoe your/ Master what good I can:" in the 1623 folio. John Jowett who edited the play says that the "yoe" is suspicious and goes on the give his reasons. He belives it is a miscorrection. "Yoe" was intended for correction, but instead the compositor inserted "your" and left the "yoe" as is. The line printed in the Oxford edition is "I'll do your master what good/I can". I agree with Jowett's reasons and his correction.

Even though this book goes a long way in presenting textual problems and editorial solutions there are some editorial problems which have not been resolved. For example in "The Tempest" 4.1.123 we read this "So rare a wondered father and a wise". Tthe Oxford edition has "wise" but in the note to this line on page 616 they follow Jeanne Addison Roberts' 1978 article and say the word was "wife" in the first folio. Whether the word was "wife" or "wise" is not yet a settled question. Blayney in his introduction to the Norton Facsimile 2nd Edition (p. xxxi) takes issue with Roberts's conclusions, and for now this does remain an open question.

This book is one of the great books of Shakespearian scholarship. Though I do not agree in every detail, I can say that my appriciation and admiration for the Oxford edition of Shakespeare has increased because of this book. No critical reader of Shakespeare should go without this book.

This book accompanies the ground-breaking Oxford Complete Works of Shakespeare (1986) and explains the choices made by the editors in their selection of early printed texts and in their correction of errors in the earliest editions. Additionally, this provides the most recent thorough examination of the problems of editing Shakespeare, of establishing which plays he wrote and the order in which he wrote them, and the relation between the solitary reading experience and the social theatrical experience. If you need answers to questions like "how many quartos of Hamlet were published in Shakespeare's lifetime?" and "which one best represents the play as performed?", this book is the place to look for a thorough scholarly exploration of these topics. If you want criticism about Shakespeare's plays and their meaning, this book is not for you.

I must confess that I had never even heard of Montgomery Clift before Amazon recommended that I should read something about him. It seems that he has been lost with time and is not as remembered as other actors of the same time period, i.e., Brando, Heston to name a few. It certianly did not help him that he was sexually deviant and this was at the time career suicide if Hollywood or the public had found out. The book, i.e., Montgomery Clift : Beautiful Loser by Barney Hoskyns , is clearly and well written with well done photographs. Highly Recommended.

Montgomery Clift was called, by Spencer Tracy, "the finest actor" of his generation. This is a truthful, candid, but respectful record of his life and times, from the constraints of his overprotected childhood, through his early theatrical and movie fame to his untimely death of heart failure at 45. It is illustrated with both movie stills and rare, previously unpublished candids, which show Monty's strengths and weaknesses as an actor and as a man. Barney Hoskyns has written an engaging, often amusing text. He does not try to provide any glib answers to Monty's decline and fall, but does share some wry insights. The book is beautifully presented. While it is obviously for the fans, it is no vacuous, "pop-star" style work, but a solid tribute to a great star.

Anne of the Island is an exciting book to read. it keeps you on the edge of your seat, trying to figure out what will happen next to Anne. it is an excellent choice for reading

This is the story of family, conflict, community, compassion, and drought. It is true that in hard times, we sometime forget our humanity and christian teachings. It is also true that it is important to take a stand, no matter the consequences. These themes and lessons are demonstrated in this wonderfully engaging story. It is an ageless story set in the hill country of Texas at the turn of the century. This historical fiction is based on the life of the author with very little deviation from the true occurences. The literary and language arts value of the story could be used in kindergarten through fourth grade curricula.

I read a friend's copy and decided to buy several copies for my nieces and nephews. I am giving a copy to my neighborhood elementary school too because I think kids today need to understand why it's important to show respect for ALL people, even when the person isn't popular. It's a sweet story and I really believe in the message. The pictures are beautiful and make the story come to life. I recommend it for anyone with kids.

The story reminds me of how hard it is to do the right thing, but also how great you feel when you do. It is based on a true story at the turn of the century and is so true today!

David Miller deserves a great deal of credit for bringing
General Montgomery Meigs to life. Through his incredibly detailed work, the life and times of this gifted builder,
architect and general become chrystallized in the reader's mind.
The number of personal letters included in this volume are nothing short of remarkable. The inclusion of so many portions of personal letters from the mid-1800s allows the reader to share directly the thought processes of Meigs, his supporters and his detractors. The copious footnotes are outstanding as well. Not to mention the great photos.
In a sense, this is a textbook as well as a biographical work.
I am very impressed. Thank you,!!!
Signed, A distant relative of the Quartermaster General

This is an excellent biography of one of the most important -- although most overlooked and underrated -- members of the Union high command in the Civil War. Montgomery Meigs was, quite literally, second only to U. S. Grant in importance, in that he was the genius who kept the supplies moving up front. He also had outstanding pre- and post-war careers as engineer-architect. A most amazing (though not particularly attractive) man, whose life and works are splendidly described in a well-written, fascinating book. Civil War buffs owe Miller many thanks.

How can it be that there are only two other reviews of this fine book since 1995?

M.R. Montgomery does the thinking, the exploration, the examination and the analysis; all we have to do is read his book. His descriptions of cutthroat trout and their environs, First Nations peoples (Native Americans / Indian), the steady changing of history "ripping pages out of the history book" as he calls it, and the incredible pace of destruction are both fascinating and chilling.

Kathie Durbin's fine work on The Tongass, "Tongass: Pulp Politics and the Fight for the Alaska Rain Forest", is a work of journalism, and it describes, with a very sharp focus, the same practices at work that Montgomery reveals in, "Many Rivers to Cross", in the U.S. Nation's very first park. Montgomery had it right from the start.

Law and public policy may be on the side of preservation and conservation, but as M.R. Montgomery and his colleagues make clear, "wise use" is anything but "wise" and once used, its gone.

Edward Abbey's, "The Monkey Wrench Gang", is, apparently, the only answer that makes for popular reading. This is a shame where Montgomery's prose and observational style are just as accessible as Abbey's.

Read this fine book, check out Ms. Durbin's excellent piece of journalism and consider whether Mr. Abbey was writing a novel or a policy proposal.

In a day and age where greenhouse gasses are increasing, the US will not participate in the Kyoto accord and the lumber industry is nothing but a byproduct of the pulp industry - only books like these (ironically printed on pulped wood fibers) can educate us about the last of the wilderness.

Teddy Roosevelt created the parks. . .M.R. Montgomery shows that it is impossible to argue that wilderness conservation is limited to people with only one political view or to just one special interest group.

The valuable insights, gentle humor and wistful beauties it contains should not be reserved just for the fishing fraternity. M R Montgomery describes, with wit and sensitivity, his search for the last remaining bastions of the native trout of the mountain west, the cutthroat. He describes the people who help him on his quest with humor and with empathy. In those remote places, his interest and his eyes wander to show us paticularities of landscape and peculiarities of the flora and fauna that cohabit there with the trout. Beneath the surface Montgomery is addressing concepts like "wilderness", "preservation" and "stewardship" without referring to them directly. He begins his story near the Little Big Horn Battlefield, but the last stand that he wants us to contemplate is not Custer's.

Montgomery's gentle quest for the last haunts of native cutthroats is worth reading twice. A more gifted writer than most of his more celebrated contemporaries.

Another great book by Sy Montgomery, a gifted natural history and travel writer. In this work she focuses on her search for a new animal, officially unknown to science, the golden moon bear. Is it a color phase of a known bear, the normally black moon bear? Or perhaps a subspecies of it? Or even a new species altogether, the first new bear species to be described in almost a century? Accompanied by the gifted American biologist Dr. Gary J. Galbreath and Sun Hean, a young and promising Cambodian conservationist, they search throughout Southeast Asia for evidence and accounts of the elusive golden moon bear. Traveling all through Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand, from illegal back alley markets selling endangered species parts to remote forest reserves threatened by encroaching refugees, illegal logging, and poachers to charity-run wildlife rehabiliation centers to dwindling primitive hill tribes vanishing in the face of approaching civilization, their time-honored wisdom of the ways of the forest dying with them, their quest is a long, wild, and sometimes dangerous one. Montgomery and her companions must face all manner of possible threats, from unexploded ordinance from the Vietnam War (Laos being one of the most bombed nations in world history) to concealed land mines deep in the jungle (a legacy of the Khmer Rouge, having left thousands of mines in Cambodia which frequently claim lives and limbs to this day) to warring hill tribes, opium growers, poachers, huge leeches, jungle illnesses; it would seem only their passion and thirst for knowledge kept them going.

This book has been described as a mystery, and rightly so. As they proceed down tangled jungle trails and even more tangled urban ones, the mystery deepens. Is there only one possible new species of bear haunting the rain forests and mountains of Southeast Asia or are there more? Locals in various areas speak of other new bear species, not matching descriptions of the golden moon bear, telling Montgomery and the others of "horse bears," "dog bears," "pig bears," and "man bears." Others speak of "honey bears" or huge compleletly black mountain bears, lacking the distinct markings of moon bears. Are these local variants of the two species of bears known to live in Southeast Asia, the sun bear and the moon bear? Perhaps they are new populations of more distant bear species, such as the brown bear and the sloth bear? Or do they represent altogether new species?
Not daunted by this but becoming even more enthusiastic they do their best to expand the frontiers of zoology and answer these questions.

The book focuses mainly on bears but other wildife is given some attention. Learn about the dholes, wild rare, red Asian dogs once venerated and protected by Laotian hill tribes. The Asian elephant, still revered by many in the region, particularly in Thailand; in Thai newspapers an elephant's age is always mentioned with his name, and honorific titles are bestowed, Pang for lady elephant, Pai for tuskers, and Sidor for tuskless males. The khting vor, an enigmatic animal first described in 1993, originally said to be a new type of wild ox, later a type of wild sheep or goat, an animal about which Montgomery makes some surprising revelations about.

However, more than the natural history of these animals Montgomery brings to readers their plight, that they are in danger of extinction. A rampant black market for animal parts, largely for medicinal purposes, threatens the very existence of some of Southeast Asia's more spectacular wildlife. Bears are captured and savagely and cruely harvested for their paws, made into soups which are more "powerful" if the animal is still alive when the paw is removed. Montgomery describes in heart-rending detail how animals are inhumanely abused and tortured in the region for the supposed exlirs and potions that they can produce, even when substitute are cheaply and easily avaiable through man-made sources.

Perhaps even worse than the market for animal parts is the simple extermination of animals for food. Montgomery describes nearly empty forests in Laos, where virtually every wild animal, from insect to civet to song bird to bat to bear and tiger are collected for the dinner table. Barrels full of smoked bats and empty caves, skewered songbirds and silent sunrises - and worse -are the result in a virtual wildlife holocaust.

As in other books by Sy Montgomery the book is a much a travelogue as a work of natural history. Particularly fascintating were her travels in remote, poorly known Laos, one of the most enigmatic nations in the world. A poor nation but rich in diversity - Laos posseses 240 ethnic groups and four ethnolinguistic families, ethnic minorities making up 70 percent of the population, and over 13,000 genetic varieties of rice are cultivated in the country, with only India, one hundred times the land area, having more - to me the book was worthwhile alone for educating me about this country. The book provides similiar interesting details on Cambodia and Thailand as well.

In closing I recommend this book highly. Does Montgomery get her bear(s)? Find out by reading the book. As often in science, the answers often lead to still more questions, and the book admitedly does not have a final, definitive answer on all the qestions raised. However, I think you will be greatly satisfied upon reading this great book.

Sy Montgomery has written another of her enchanting books about animals. Who would ever believe that trying to chase down the geneology of a bear could lead to such excitement? It's trite to say,"It's a thrill a minute!" but that is the feeling as Sy tears across Cambodia where nobody goes because the whole damn place is covered with land mines. One good thing comes from this in that people have stopped denuding the forest in order to keep both legs on their bodies. Sy tells us that one in 236 Cambodians is an amputee from the land mines. If you were fortunate enough to hear Sy review her book at various venues around the country, you got to see fascinating and sometimes gruesome slides as she takes us on her magic carpet. Sy is magical when she starts writing about her beloved natural world, as thousands know from reading her columns in the Boston Globe.

If you didn't make it to Sy's book review, you will be delighted to know that the slides are included in the beautifully illustrated book.

Here is a writer who is meticulous in the accuracy of her writing but still thrills us with her enthusiasm for the subject. If you only read one book this year, it has to be SEARCH FOR THE GOLDEN MOON BEAR. It's a shame that I can't give it more than Five Stars. What the heck, I give it Six Stars. So shoot me Amazon.com!

As a fellow "naturalist-author," I've long been an admirer of Sy Montgomery's work - no matter which jungle this diminutive, intrepid, high-spirited lady is leading a reader through. She's introduced me to great apes in Africa, man-eating tigers in India, pink dolphins in the Amazon. Her latest "Search for the Golden Moon Bear" is, I think, her most ambitious and perilous quest yet.
It's also Sy's most heart-wrenching. For these marvelous, previously-unknown creatures of Southeast Asia are visible, for the most part, only in cages where they've been penned. Sy's pursuit of the golden moon bear is in the company of scientist Gary Galbreath. I don't want to give away her many adventures, but suffice that Cambodia and Laos today remain places not to be visited by the faint of heart.
Which is one thing Sy Montgomery can never be accused of being. Her descriptive prose of animals and landscapes is right up there with the best of contemporary nature writers. Her latest book is also an eloquent plea for conservation of the endangered species whose various organs and body parts are tragically finding their way into dozens of "traditional medicine" marketplaces. As she writes of the golden moon bear, "You look into her eyes as you would look at the stars, their light crossing eons, alien, eternal and mute."
If you read only one wildlife adventure book this season, make it this one!

I found the book informative. Nice commentary - wonderful photos. - done with a broad spectrum of readers in mind.

This is a great recollection of the muscle car era with exceptional, detailed photographs. Would look good on any coffee table.

This book is perefect if you're looking for great color photos and interesting facts about all makes and models of american muscle cars. It covers Chevy, Ford, Mercury, Dodge, Plymouth, Oldsmobile, Buick, Pontiac, and AMC. Covers everything from the early sixties up till the early seventies. There's even a little info on later muscle like the Buick Grand Nationals of the 80's. The one thing this book lacks is technical data. It won't help you with restoration info, but it's perfect for armchair musclecar enthusiasts.