This book is a very poor example of scholarship. Bradford attempts to impose his hackneyed ideological theory on the men of the revolutionary and founding generation. He attacks such brilliant scholars as Bernard Bailyn for having the audacity to base his work on reality. In the place of past interpretations, Bradford invents an almost laughable concept of "Old Whig" thought, which in all truthfulness seems to have been made up out of thin air. I could go on and on about the horrible failings of this work, but that is not necessary. Instead, I will only point the potential reader of this work to true works of ideological scholarship, those of Bailyn, Gordon Wood, Caroline Robbins, H. Trevour Colbourn, Pauline Maier et al. While these works are not perfect, they are far superior to Bradford's brand of puerile revisionism.

_Pace_ the reviewer below, this is probably the single best book extant on Revolutionary America. (BTW: both Prof. Maier and Prof. Colbourn have personally told me of their admiration for the work of the late author of this tome. The reviewer below can list names, but that doesn't mean he knows whereof he speaks.) Start here, then proceed to others' accounts; better yet, start here, then proceed to the great papers collections -- of the writings of George Mason, Richard Henry Lee, Patrick Henry (in the biography written by his grandson), Thomas Jefferson, James Madison (do you see a theme here?), _et al._

The previous review was written by a sorry excuse for a reviewer

This book seems like it was written by an 8th grader. Disorganized, it often presents an incongruous or dislocated sentence at the end of a paragraph leaves me wondering "what?" Inconsistent and often juvenile. He skips around and uses words that are not defined, unless maybe you are already a Latin American history buff. I am taking this for a college course and wish I wasn't taking the course just because of this text!

The late E. Bradford Burns was one of the most versatile historians of Latin America, and this book contains the fruits of his 30+ years of research and teaching. All textbook surveys require choices of content and emphasis, but here Burns's have resulted in a superior volume. His is an interpretive and thematic perspective, permitting an integrated approach to the entire continent. This works better than having discrete chapters on specific countries, which may or may not be the focus of a particular course or single reader. Burns stresses the importance of the region's institutions in shaping its history, and gives due attention to the 19th century, often a "forgotten century" compared with the 16th or 20th. A central organizing theme is the struggle between elites and folk communities, a continuous factor in the continent's history. As a Brazilianist, Burns gives better coverage of that major country than does any other text, without slighting Spanish America. The author's prose, while not exactly scintillating, is clear and readable, and his quietly humanistic values further heighten our interest. Drawbacks: reduced coverage of pre-19th century period; little citation of primary sources; and a perfunctory stab at incorporating work on women's history. Nevertheless, this is a superb text for any university course on Modern Latin America or Latin America Since Independence, and I found that it works very well in my own classes. Having canvassed all the major texts (which have many merits of their own), I recommend this as the finest within the inevitable limits of any one-volume work.

Used this book as textbook in advanced (IB) History of the Americas; very authoritative and complete, must say one of the clearest books I've seen on this subject; a definitive narrative of Latin American history.

I was anxious to read this book after noting the good reviews it had recieved, but was very disappointed. The entire book dealt more with the details of remodeling Inns than it did with the characters. Too much time wasted telling a story that was mediocre at best. The ending was also tedious. dead end after dead end leaving no time for a proper conclusion.

This is a love story with a mysterious twist. It slips back and forth from present to the past, and the heroine discovers that the sad childhood she had has more to it than she actually remembers. She was a part of history. This story has a historical basis for her sad childhood. I was intrigued and went on-line to check out the news of the subject and discovered that my memory was correctly tweaked and found articles about English children in orphanages. A great listen!

Barbara Taylor Bradford really touched me with this book. I normally read mysteries, thriller, and suspense. This book held my attention through out the book. I really felt Merediths' pain and struggle. I recently saw the movie on channel 8, the producers did the novel no justice. For those who saw the movie and did not read the novel, please read the novel. This is must read.

This book is full of Contradictions! What a hypocrite!!! I would not recommend this is anyone unless they want a good nights sleep!

As a past student of Dr. Bradford's, I can honestly say I don't know why anyone would choose to use this book either in their own course or in casual reading. Yes, it does provide some introductory grounding in Philosophy, but it is more a compendium of Dr. Bradford's philosophic views than a truly introductory text.

I am also a former student of Dr. Bradford and a Philosophy major. This book gives a good introduction to ideas and issues that thinkers have grappled with throught the ages. I highly recommend this to any first year Philosophy students. The book, however, is written in such a straight forward, jargon free style that it can be enjoyed by anyone curious about Philosophy.

Mr. Burns advances a excellent critique regarding the attempt of South American elites to ape western style capitalism. He suggests that attempts to cram western economic/political ideas into the dynamics of Latin America did considerably more harm than good.

What Mr. Burns does not address is that the remedy advocated by many of the critics of those regimes was in very much the same vein. Marxist philosophy, theorized in the traditon of western thought- with western nations in mind, proved to be as ill a fit for Latin America as was western style capitalism.

Mr. Burns failure to realize this is the books ultimate dowfall.

The end product is a study of Latin American hierarchical elites who sought to remake Latin America in 19th century Western Europe's image and a implication the results would have been different if they had modelled it after 20th century Eastern Europe. A good book soured by moldy Marxism.

E. Bradford Burns' The Poverty of Progress is a complex analysis of the degree of beneficence that modernization had upon nineteenth-century Latin America. Burns attempts to provide a novel perspective that will spark a reassessment of the common view that Latin America flourished with the implementation of the European ideals of progress, urbanization, and industrialization. With his claim that not all parts of Latin American society were in favor of the changes induced by modernization, Burns asserts his view that because progress benefited the elite minority while crippling the folk majority, modernization was ultimately a pitfall for Latin America. Due to the intricacy of Burns' argument and the informative information he provides, his Poverty of Progress successfully justifies a mandate for a reinterpretation and questioning of the traditional association of modernization with better living standards. Burns presents his argument in an organized fashion that builds the scenario of the cultural conflict. One should note that early in the first chapter, Burns shows his belief that the problems associated with modernization were due to a cultural conflict rather than a class struggle. With this in mind, Burns begins by discussing the rift between the modernizing elites, who associated progress with capitalism, and the folk, who felt threatened by the capitalist system as it opposed their old, entrenched traditions of harmony and cooperation. The capitalist ideals of individuality and competition clashed with the folk ideals causing the cultural conflict that Burns so articulately explains. He covers the goals of the elite minority which were routed in Spencerian and Darwinian evolution, Positivism, and the Enlightenment, and with these ideologies, the elites pushed for aspects of modernization such as industrialization which came at the expense of the folk majority. With his explanation of the cultural conflict and the aims of the elites, Burns then explores the majority's opposition to modernization with a discussion of the intellectuals, patriarchs, and folk. Here, one begins to understand why modernization was not entirely a beneficial development for Latin America. Burns mentions that intellectual elites began to notice the problems of modernization such as the growing dependence upon foreign investors who took control of Latin America's infrastructure. Intellectuals also pointed to the burdens of agrarian mismanagement that plagued economic conditions for the masses. Large land plots were increasingly controlled by a limited number of landlords who used the land inefficiently to produce export commodities, and economic conditions worsened for the masses as Indian, peasant, and church lands were confiscated. The masses also suffered since food was produced for export rather than for the nourishment of the country. Patriarchs hesitated to modernize as well because the new capitalist incentives for expanded agrarian production threatened their traditional norms of stability and simplicity. Burns suggests that the folks and patriarchs, having common ties in rural society, worked together in defiance against elitist modernization. Finally, he presents an important part of his argument in the last chapter when he explains that the terms "economic growth" and "development" are often misconstrued in their application to nineteenth- century Latin American history, and he offers his own definitions for these terms as well as alternatives to modernization that could have saved Latin America from its downfall. Ultimately, Burns' argument is effective in sparking debate over the degree of beneficence of modernization. One can find several strengths in Burns' The Poverty of Progress that make his belief in the detrimental consequences of modernization convincing. To begin with, the format and style he uses to present his position are effective as he first presents the elite desire for modernization, then the misgivings of the intellectuals toward the implementation of progress, and finally the opposition of the patriarchs and folk to modernization. This overview helps to illuminate the fact that Latin American society was not entirely united behind the trend for progress, and while one might criticize Burns for making broad generalities about Latin America, he dispels this judgment by explaining that his broad analysis is justified by aspects that all eighteen nations had in common: the presence of folk societies which resisted Europeanization, unbalanced power in the hands of the elite minority, and the role of the latifundio as it eventually expanded under the control of few landlords at the majority's expense. Burns also shows a great deal of wisdom in admitting the fact that his broad approach "across vast geographical and temporal spaces" is "at best suggestive," and such a statement allows his work to achieve its polemical purpose since it diffuses critics who might attempt to undermine the legitimacy of the book for its novel approach toward nineteenth-century Latin America (p. 2). This is perhaps the strongest point of the book since it works toward Burns' goal of inciting controversy and a reassessment of the true impact of modernization. Thus, in his The Poverty of Progress, Burns successfully argues that modernization in nineteenth-century Latin America was not completely beneficial as it only advanced the welfare of a select few while decimating the majority.

By and large, the author has succeeding in drawing together a lot of information. However, it appears to me that she has drawn most of her understanding of the history from a limited list of participants in that history. Because she is not a meteorologist herself, this lack of thorough research leads to her characterizations being rather flat. This is not a bad book for those interested in the history of our science, but it is not a definitive work on the subject.

In Scanning The Skies: A History of Tornado Forecasting, Marlene Bradford highlights the development of the US tornado forecast and warning systems from the earliest inception to the modern, multi-component, highly technical system in place today.

Ms Bradford begins the book with the historical background into the theories of tornado formation and the early attempts to predict tornadoes in the United States. The major focus of the story, however, begins a little more than a century ago when the first scientific inquiries and debates as to the nature and causes of tornadoes began. Much of the limited early debate appears to have focussed on the negative aspects of a tornado forecasts, even speculating that more would die from panic or illnesses contracted while huddled in damp storm cellars than from the storms themselves! The US Weather Bureau, recognizing the difficulties in forecasting tornadoes and fearing public panic from any such forecasts, actually forbade use of the word "tornado" in any forecast until 1938.

When the author reaches the state of tornado knowledge during and just after the World War II years, she reaches the true heart of the story. Bradford gives us a well-documented account of the friction between military and civilian storm forecasters in the post-war years that was sparked by the first storm warnings produced within the US military weather service. She takes us from the events leading up to the first "official" tornado warning forecast of Major Ernest Fawbush and Captain Robert Miller issued on March 25, 1948 to the modern forecast and warning system used today by the US Storm Prediction Center.

Having brought the warning system development to the new century, Bradford concludes the book with a chapter an the evaluation of the effectiveness of the integrated tornado warning system over the past several decades. Her analysis shows a difficulty in proving the question as to whether such a system has saved enough lives for the cost of development, implementation and function.

I have no real criticism of Scanning The Skies. Readers looking for more technical material on the scientific aspects of the history of tornado forecasting may be disappointed in this book as it only briefly and superficially discusses scientific advances that lead to improvements of the tornado warning system (such as the development of Doppler radar). Recognizing that the book is intended to present the history of the process of developing a tornado warning system and not about the science behind it, I feel a little more attention could have been given to some of the more relevant scientific aspects with a few diagrams for clarification as to what forecasters look for when developing a tornado watch or warning forecast.

If you are interested in tornadoes or in disaster prevention and warning programs, I think you will find Scanning The Skies an enjoyable and informative read. Scanning The Skies is a well- written historical account of the rise of the modern tornado forecasting and warning system as well as a peek at the workings within government as agencies vie for control and funding while simultaneously trying to avoid criticism.

awfully thin "book" - more of a pamphlet really.

This is an extremely valuable book. The web is a critical sales channel for me, and the nuggets of hands-on wisdom I have found in this book have already paid off handsomely for my company and me. I am a long-time reader of Inc. magazine, and it is clear that Brad Ketchum has a gift for distilling the most pertinent content from the magazine in a very user-friendly format.

I have the original title, In Worthy Company, and while I agree with the author that the Founders were indeed worthy and gave us a Republic that has endured, the book's premise, that the Founders were Christians and that, by default, what they wrought is based on Christianity and the Bible, is flawed

The Founders were men of all faiths, Deists, Freemasons, and free thinkers. They were children of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason, well-versed in the classics, and fully aware that English Common Law was descended from Roman Law, Saxon Law, and the Danelaw, none of which were Bible or Christian based.

There is a growing revisionist movement that is trying to prove that the Constitution is Bible based, which is false, and this revisionism is flawed history, a type of 'make it up as you go' and this volume is, unfortunately, in that category. It is badly researched, not documented at all well, and some of it is blatantly inaccurate. The author's treatment of the War of the Revolution in the section on George Washington is semi-fiction.

For an accurate, well-researched account of the origins of American political thought, Bernard Bailyn is a much better and reliable historian.

The Founding Fathers, by the late Melvin Bradford, provides the reader with a most stunning and historically rich analysis on the otherwise unknown lives of the framers of the constitution. Men whose knowledge of history,philosophy, and law prepared a document for 13 colonies that was to have greater repercussions for the republic. A scholarly treatise of the first order, from one of the greats of American political thought.

The late M.E. Bradford devoted the latter part of his life to publicizing the truth about the American political tradition, no matter what it cost him. It cost him quite a lot, usually at the hands of people who didn't know quite why they were hostile to him; the culture didn't have a spot for a forthrightly reactionary scholar. (One finds an illustration of this last fact in the title of the current volume. Bradford's first edition, published during his lifetime, was called _A Worthy Company_. This one, which came out about a year after he died, has a title that is contrary to the core of his teaching, which was that America is not an experiment, but a place with a culture dating back to the early 17th century. The men of the 1780s, then, were not "founders." Ah, well.) Such is life.

I found this book extremely boring. Worse than a Mills and Boons novel. Your money would be better spent on anything else.

Fate sometimes takes away the one you think you loved most, but it is really making space for the true companion. In Remember, Nicki Wells is devastated by the "suicide" of her fiance for many years until she discovers love right under her nose- Clee Donovan. After an affair in Provence (and an obvious change in just a business-only relationship), Nicki Wells discovers that Charles, her fiance is not necessarily dead.

Remember was a GREAT book! It is one of those books that you can read over and over again Filled with excitement, suspense (and a litttle romance) Remember narrates the story of Nicky Wells, a war correspondent and reporter. Three years before, her fiance, Charles Devereaux, "commited suicide" and she is still very emotionally scarred. However, after a friendship with Cleeland Dovonan, a fellow war photagrapher, develops into more than just a friendship, Nicky wonders if she might be able to love someone again. Suddenly, she is forced to remember Charles when she develops disturbing suspciions about his double life. There are some things that you just can't forget, as hinted at in a poem at the beginning of the book by Christina Rossetti: "Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land, When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you planned: Only remember me; you understand It will be too late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve; For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad."

Overall i think the book is a good read. Hempstone does a good job of telling the times as the they were during his term in office in Kenya. Some of the things maybe slightly exaggerated but i think the important thing is that it tells what was in our minds during this time but we as kenyans were unable to say. He also does an excellent job of describing Moi; dictator, vicious, illiterate, corrupt etc. (probably would explain why Moi is suing him)
There were several things that i didn't like about the book. Everytime Hempstone mentions a person he has to tell us what tribe that person belongs to...urrrgh....if there could be a reason for banning this book in kenya..this would be it! The other thing i noticed was that Hempstone does an amazing job of making himself look good in the book. The book is filled with notes of important people or not praising him for this or that....it struck me as very self promoting. Some of the stuff about locals was absolutely untrue. For example...at one pt he says the Samburu are know to diet on meat, milk and urine like the maasai. The urine part is an outright lie, i say this a maasai born + bred deep in maasai land...maasai do not drink urine...yaaak....blood we drink urine is a no-no!
The last and minor thing is the endless repeatations in the book. Several statements are repeated over + over again through the book...i got the impression that maybe a pt was being drum into my head.
Nevertheless, this book gives an interesting insite into the political issues in kenya as well as most likely alot of the other african countries. I was kind of disappointed that the book didn't go more into depth on the sudan crisis --- that region of africa needs serious help!

Whilst the book is certainly a useful and informative perspective, and covers a fascinating and deeply perturbing subject, it's difficult to overlook the author's pomposity and self-righteousness; so much so, that, given his rose-tinted and deeply erroneous belief in wondrous US foreign policy, one begins to wonder whether his views upon events in Kenya at the time are equally skewed.

Having only lived in Kenya a very short while, and not during the time he describes, I cannot have my own understanding of events to corroborate what he says, and Hempstone certainly makes little attempt to back up any of the stories about the nefarious Biwott and megalomaniac Moi, beyond saying that he got them from reliable sources... Which is a real pity, because it would be so nice to see him truly skewer the indubitably corrupt and malignant politicians.

As a memoir it's certainly entertaining enough, as long as you learn to flip through Hempstone's self-promoting blather, which at times begins to sound like a curriculum vitae. It gives you plenty of fascinating historical background, and a decent understanding of the beautiful country Kenya is, but as reliable reference material, however... Who could say?

I was in Kenya when Amb. Hempstone was there and all included in the book is highly accurate. It is a very good read about life in Kenya during those years.