why we do what we do, why we feel the way we feel are the topics of many good books today but this excellent book takes the questions at hand and approaches them from a unique perspective. Edmund Morris, a zoologist, uses his years of study with animals in an unnatural environment, the zoo and compares their actions to those of their ancestors, humans who are living in an unnatural environment as well. This book is extremely relative to the times, and gives wonderful insights as to why we live in a world with escalating tensions among countries, races etc.. If the reader allows her/his mind to be as creative as the author who wrote this book the possibilities to make improvements in ones life and in the world at large are endless. (The author sites Jane jacobs and her excellent work The death and life of Great American Cities which I would also highly recommend)

Like Desmond Morris's _The Naked Ape_, this book is an old friend of mine. The second volume in his well-known trilogy (the third is _Intimate Behavior_), this one makes a compelling case that modern cities are less like "jungles" and more like zoos.

Other animals, Morris says, don't behave in the wild the way humans do in cities. But the sort of erratic violence and heightened self-stimulation in which we find modern humans engaging _does_ have a counterpart in the rest of the animal world: animals do act that way . . . in zoos.

Essentially, Morris's claim is that many millions of years of evolution have equipped us for life in small communities in which everybody knows everybody else and there's enough room for us to move around without klonking into each other all the time. We are not, in short, adapted to the modern metropolis, and that's why "city folk" are so danged weird. And our misattribution of our maladaptive behavior actually gives the jungle an undeserved bad name.

So what's a naked ape to do? I don't know that the intervening years since this book was first published have generated a whole lot of solutions. I guess that's, um, life in the big city.

But as with so many problems, just being aware of the problem is at least half the solution. As with Morris's other books (especially _The Naked Ape_), it's profoundly helpful to step back and see ourselves as one biological species among others (whether or not that's _all_ we are).

Okay, maybe that's not all we are; maybe the fact that we _can_ thus step back from ourselves is the single most important fact about our species. If so, that makes this book more valuable, not less.

So think of this book (and Morris's others) as a way to give your "I" a little distance on your "me," if you know what I mean. And yes, that does mean that I'm recommending a couple of books on evolutionary anthropology as helpful to your spirituality.

Beautifully written...an elegant work about relationship between nature and human kind. Strongly recommended...

Being a Canadian not at all versed in the minutea of US History I decided on a solitary visit to the US one summer and, at the Smithsonian, purchased this book. Although my US history is certainly spotty compared to Canadian or British Imperial History I am well used to the "Cook's Tour" narrative style of this type of book; whether it applies to the US, Australia or India, it is impossible to encapsulate all relevant history in one text. How and what one does incorporate is important.

To see the text as politically motivated badly misses the point. People with extreme political blinders of the so-called "right" or "left" will always look for, and find, whatever they want to find. When reading history one finds out as much about the American people who consider this to be their history as one learns about the actual events themselves. The FDR Truman New Deal lives on and for people like me who only know FDR as the reformer he apparently was, this book only reinforces that view. The vagaries of the Robber Barons and Teddy Roosevelt's attempts to riegn them in are also wonderfully free of ideology --- old fashioned excesses of greed and lack of any positive government role being explanation enough.

On the other side of the coin there is also what an outsider would refer to as the typical "pablum" which every American was raised upon: Americans somehow suffering a great injustice at the hands of the British. An injustice that is really really not that self-evident: the Boston Massacre was not a massacre (the Americans absolved the troops and commander of any blame at the time); the "battles" of Concord and Lexington not being battles but being built into mythic proportions that persist to this day; and why did the Americans really get so rebellious about, of all things, a tax. Still, having said that, compared with comparable flag-waving narrative best-sellers in American history this book does not even rate. The authors even quite correctly describe the sound American drubbing and defeat in the War of 1812. Something that a lot of lesser Americans historians try to obsfucate. No unneccessary flag waving here.

The description of the vital American character is also included in the beginning chapters. The founding groups in the nascent colonies were vastly different from those groups who followed and built similar colonies in Australia, New Zealand and nearby Canada. The battle between dogmatic protestant religious offshoots and secular authority was a basic element of American society. Although religious groups remained strong (Commanger & Steel describe the colonial Massachussets theocracy) their potential to deprive people of their liberty has always spawned a strong rational, reasoned opposition which ultimately wrote the constitution and established America as the strong secular nation she is today.

I would recommend this book to almost anyone without a narrow old-fashioned ideological axe to grind. The pre-1941 part of the book was originally written by pre-1941 people so necessarily includes their world view; the persistant use of the word, American "Negro" and "savages" reminds me a lot of the imperial literature of Kipling. One does not use such language nowadays and one is not influenced by it, but to try to retrospectively change the terminology is revisionism writ large, and one should always be on guard for such small-minded endevours. The book served its purpose for me and will serve as a jumping off point for further readings in US history supplied by its lengthy list of sources at the back of the book.

Being a Canadian not at all versed in the minutea of US History I decided on a solitary visit to the US one summer and, at the Smithsonian, purchased this book. Although my US history is certainly spotty compared to Canadian or British Imperial History I am well used to the "Cook's Tour" narrative style of this type of book; whether it applies to the US, Australia or India, it is impossible to encapsulate all relevant history in one text. How and what one does incorporate is important.

To see the text as politically motivated badly misses the point. People with extreme political blinders of the so-called "right" or "left" will always look for, and find, whatever they want to find. When reading history one finds out as much about the American people who consider this to be their history as one learns about the actual events themselves. The FDR Truman New Deal lives on and for people like me who only know FDR as the reformer he apparently was, this book only reinforces that view. The vagaries of the Robber Barons and Teddy Roosevelt's attempts to riegn them in are also wonderfully free of ideology --- old fashioned excesses of greed and lack of any positive government role being explanation enough.

On the other side of the coin there is also what an outsider would refer to as the typical "pablum" which every American was raised upon: Americans somehow suffering a great injustice at the hands of the British. An injustice that is really really not that self-evident: the Boston Massacre was not a massacre (the Americans absolved the troops and commander of any blame at the time); the "battles" of Concord and Lexington not being battles but being built into mythic proportions that persist to this day; and why did the Americans really get so rebellious about, of all things, a tax. Still, having said that, compared with comparable flag-waving narrative best-sellers in American history this book does not even rate. The authors even quite correctly describe the sound American drubbing and defeat in the War of 1812. Something that a lot of lesser Americans historians try to obsfucate. No unneccessary flag waving here.

The description of the vital American character is also included in the beginning chapters. The founding groups in the nascent colonies were vastly different from those groups who followed and built similar colonies in Australia, New Zealand and nearby Canada. The battle between dogmatic protestant religious offshoots and secular authority was a basic element of American society. Although religious groups remained strong (Commanger & Steel describe the colonial Massachussets theocracy) their potential to deprive people of their liberty has always spawned a strong rational, reasoned opposition which ultimately wrote the constitution and established America as the strong secular nation she is today.

I would recommend this book to almost anyone without a narrow old-fashioned ideological axe to grind. The pre-1941 part of the book was originally written by pre-1941 people so necessarily includes their world view; the persistant use of the word, American "Negro" and "savages" reminds me a lot of the imperial literature of Kipling. One does not use such language nowadays and one is not influenced by it, but to try to retrospectively change the terminology is revisionism writ large, and one should always be on guard for such small-minded endevours. The book served its purpose for me and will serve as a jumping off point for further readings in US history supplied by its lengthy list of sources at the back of the book.

It has been 50 years since I have read a history of the United States, having graduated from college with only in-depth education of courses in the military history of the United States.

I recently had occasion to read George Washington's Farewell Address. I was struck by the scope and scholarship of the amazing document, wondering how our first president knew so much. I then realized that I had not really thought much about the founding of our nation in a long time; that I really didn't remember enough of the founding or the subsequent events throughout the history as a whole.

The Pocket History of the United States fills the bill perfectly for me. What I wanted is all there and can be read in a reasonable length of time.

One of the main reasons I selected this book from a wide selection was that so much was written before the beginning of WWII and therefore I expected that it would have the author's perspective of the world as I knew it in my most formative years. I find that some modern historical writing blurs the black and white, right and wrong, obscuring and slanting the details I wanted to know. I was happy to find WWII and the following eras covered in the same book in much the same tone as the origional author.

Two Gun Cohen is bigger than life. Like most biographies it is not a fast reading book, but it is a great book for anyone interested in the history of western Canada, China or interested in Jewish biography. I read the book after visiting places in England where Two Gun Cohen spent his youth,in the cities of western Canada where he spent his youth and China where he spend his mid life. The book is not for anyone that is not interested in history or biographies of unusual people. For me it was a great book; I wish that it was still available in hard cover, I am buying two addional copies for two friends of mine.

First of all, I should say that my primary reason for reading this book was not because of some particular interest in the story of Two-Gun Cohen. My first attraction to this book grew from my interest in the history of China, and particularly modern China, which I date from the Macartney's mission in 1783. This book did not disappoint. It is a very useful addition to the study of China in the period from the 1911 revolution through the Communist revolution of 1949 and beyond. It gives very little insight into the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), but there is lots of stuff written on that period.

I have not read anything else by this author, so I cannot make comparisons to his other work, but I will say one thing: I like a guy who does his homework. This book is nothing if not well researched. That is, in fact, it's main strength. I used to be a country school teacher-believe me, I have heard every excuse in the book for why the homework wasn't done. And I have become weary in recent years of "historians" who pretend to be writing history, but in fact have no interest in what actually happened. Ever go to a library and try to get Gore Vidal's "Lincoln?" It's in the fiction section. Or how about Oliver Stone, who openly admits (without any sense of shame) that he plays loose with the facts? That kind of stuff sells to a nation of people who are products of the American public school system. But for those who really care about what actually happened, a higher standard must prevail. Daniel Levy holds to that standard, and even helps to establish it, because his careful workmanship serves as an example to those who would address the same period. Bottom line: this is just very good history.

Now to the story. This book addresses the question of who Cohen is in comparison with how he presented himself, or allowed himself to be presented. Cohen was not the "mover and shaker" that he is sometimes said to be. But he was not just a worthless pretender, either. As I see it, Cohen distinguished himself in two areas: He was a very good body guard for Sun Yat Sen, and he also had the dubious distinction of being a first rate gun runner. Other than that, he doesn't seem to have been able to get by without some kind of a hustle. He started life as a petty crook, and this set a pattern that really prevented him from having dependable, gainful employment when the chips were down. I don't mean that he could never get away from the life of crime. What I mean is that, because he took the easy way out as a youth, he never took the time to learn a trade. I always encourage young people to develop a marketable skill that they can fall back on if they ever need to. This is something Cohen never did, and there was a time in his later life when it really would have come in handy. While Sun Yat Sen was alive, Cohen was riding high. But after he died, and especially after World War II, Cohen suffered a long period of marginal or nonexistent employment. Nothing wrong with being an adventurer, but it really helps if you have a trade skill to take you through the dry periods.

Toward the end of his life, Cohen did manage to secure some very good work as a consultant because of his contacts in China. These connections, by the way, were genuine. It would be grandiose in the extreme to suggest that Cohen shaped the future of China. But he was well acquainted with some of those who did. That part of his self-presentation was not made up.

I gave this book five stars because it was so well researched. But it is also a very personal story of a man that I think, in some way, we all aspire to be. I respect Cohen for daring to step out and discover a world that so many of his peers shied away from. He was not satisfied with the ordinary. And he was in many ways a very likeable, if sometimes pathetic person. This was a very enjoyable book. It is not as quick a read as some others, partly because the author went to great lengths to verify his assertions. But I think any honest reader will find it to be a worthy contribution to the literature.

I long ago heard of Two-Gun Cohen, and was pleased when I found out that there was finally a biography of him. Daniel Levy has crafted a clear, well written account of Cohen and taken the time to delve deeply into his life. I was amazed at what Levy uncovered, from Cohen's World War I medical files (I am surprised that such material still survives), to the dossiers the State Department kept on him and the depositions chronicling Cohen's various court visits. More importantly, Levy obviously took pains to get Cohen's life right and to track down those who knew him well. For by going through his encyclopedic footnotes and seeing all the people he spoke to, one realizes that if Levy solely relied on the cold documentary history of records and newspaper clips, Cohen would have come across as a less interesting and much rougher character. What Levy has presented us with is a well-rounded view of this adventurer, and written a riveting and graceful history of an amazing man.

Much ado about _nothing_ sums up this book. Page after page of hints, insinuations, and woeful angst over a climax that is paltry at best. If one of the main characters got a hangnail it would incite tremors of disaster and foreboding for at least 10 chapters. Portions of the story reminded me of Pat Conroy, but Morris doesn't follow through with a truly horrible event that rightfully shapes (or mis-shapes) the characters' lives. Morris moans on in an overly flowerly prose about nothing. Without a good story and cluttered with overworked text, there is very little to recommend about this work.

After finishing Scott Morris' Waiting for April, I was left with the distinct feeling that I had just read work in a writing style that is entirely unlike anything I've read before. It has gusto, with such phrases as the "gauzy noise of night," playfullness, sharp sincereity and an unusual rectitude -- anyway, it was devoid of the gamesmanship I feel in of a lot of pseudo-joyful postmodern writing. I'm really writing this reveiw to respond to the last one I read. I think the writing/language matched the hyped-up nature of the story. And so much happened -- if suicide, murder and false identity aren't enough drama, I'm not sure what would be. I would say more but wouldn't want to give away too much.

Scott Morris' novel interested me from the very start with its attention to the interplay of all "classes" -- upper, lower, trucker, not -- in small-town southern families. The is certainly not what the book is about, but it's worth mentioning. Mr. Morris refuses to categorize or go in for trite phrasing and assumption. For instance, the main character, Roy, can prefer the warmth of his aunt and uncle's trailer (over the often cavernous feel of his mother's house) AND subscribe to the New Yorker. Too often I get the feeling that in the attempt to rid Southern fiction of traditional mint&julips-porch romance, writers forget about the complexity of characters inhabiting both/either the "low South" and the new Volvos. Also, the writing in this book is TRULY exquisite.

While early on the book lagged, it built momentum to the point where I had a hard time putting it down. Examining the circumstances that produced this complicated individual proved fascinating and heartbreaking. Outside events and Bierce himself conspired to find misery and disappointment at every turn. The book is sympathetic to Bierce, but not fawning- he's not praised as a great writer, but he is acknowledged to be the best writer among Civil War veterans. His newspaper columns are also praised, and the erosion of his patriotism after what he saw in the war (not just at Shiloh) is something that can be best understood by post Vietnam-era readers. Many of the cited quotes (particularly the bitingly critical ones) contain a sharp wit that can't be missed. I enjoyed the book and it encouraged me to read more about the era. Bierce was in many ways a forerunner of Walter Winchell (read Neal Gabler's great bio) and you can also see traces of modern observational humorists such as George Carlin. Piece of advice, though- don't tell anyone that they remind you of Bierce!

Ambrose Bierce was similar to J.R.R. Tolkien in one respect: traumatized by the horrors of war at a very young age. Bierce got his baptism of fire in the Civil War, especially at Shiloh, while Tolkien got his in World War I, especially at the battle of the Somme.

The two authors reacted in very different ways. Bierce apparently made an instant decision to hate the human race, and held that course for the rest of his days, while Tolkien apparently realized that the question of Evil had been raised for him, in terms for which his culture provided no sufficent answer. Tolkien's response was more interesting than Bierce's.

Bierce was a very witty and intelligent man, but he did devote most of his remaining years to venomous journalism of the worst sort, becoming widely known as the most fearsome Acid Pen in San Francisco. He had a disastrous marriage, was an extremely poor parent, and suffered the unimaginable pain of learning that his son had committed suicide at a very young age in a quarrel over a girl. His literary production was highly uneven (as was Mark Twain's) and it seems likely that he will go down in history for "The Devil's Dictionary" (where you will find that his definition for the word "alone" was "in bad company."

Quite a piece of work, this Ambrose Bierce. The biography is a good one.

This book gives insight into one of the American literary greats. There are times that the book drags, but I think this is due as much to the author as to the fact that some moments in Bierce's life are so interesting that when you read about the "average" moments in his life, you are left, well , bored. This is a good book for a Bierce fan or someone that would like to learn about an American writer who, deservedly, lived in the shadow of Twain.

Mr. Bennett shows a sad, vindictive streak in this book, which I had not expected from him. He acts as if the whole point of politics is to win debates, using whatever vitriol necessary to score points, with no regard for civility or morality. It is nice to see that for all his liberal-bashing in this text, he found better ground in the future, for in his book on virtues he explicitly makes the point that good, moral people can be liberals or conservatives. If you can ignore the rampant hatred, he makes some decent points. The section on drug policy is a great read, much nicer than his assault on teacher unions when he supposedly is writing about education. I wouldn't really recommend this book to anyone, though it has some positive features. There are more open-minded and insightful political writers out there, like Michael Lind, Richard John Neuhaus or Jim Wallis. Let's not confine ourselves to the angry complaints of a bureacrat like Bennett.

Like most politicians, Bill Bennett seems to like himself a bit too much. And as you might expect, the book reads a little like a closing argument in an anti-trust case. But if you are able to ignore the oppressively partisan slant, it does make for a decent read.

As I spend spare time exposing televangelists, my favorite quote was: "the national conversation on values, public morality, and the proper role of religion in public life was hurt 'when those who protest the loudest fail to live up to morality in their own lives'." [p. 219] And, by the grace of God, he never mentioned Newt Gingrich.... :)

This is a great book. All parents and teachers should read it. Our country needs more people like Bennett. The book accurately discusses current issues in American schools and drug problems in America. I was educated at Princeton and Yale and am now a practicing physician. It is true what Bennett and Bork have said about the harmful effect of unrealistic liberals at prestigious institutions have corrupted American values and have contributed to the decline of American academic and moral standards. This book will help you to sort through the problems faced by someone trying to make sure that their children get a good education in the United States and to avoid the pitfalls of drug abuse and irresponsible behavior.

Shadow of the Mountains is the only book in the Cheney Duvall series that I recommend you skip. It seems that a good deal of effort was put into building up Cheney and Shiloh's relationship in the first book and then in this book it's all torn down. The characters simply weren't as memorable in the first book of the series and it lacks a sense of adventure that the first had. I suggest that you skip this book in the series and move onto the next. You'll be missing nothing.

If you like to read novels with gripping action scenes, this might be a good read for you. However, if character development is more your forte, you might want to look elsewhere.

This is the first Morris & Morris novel I've read. I appreciate that they depict a strong, unconventional Christian woman in challenging situations. However, even after reading it, I don't feel as if I know the woman, or if there's depth within Cheney's character or Christian walk that I'd care to know about. Also, Cheney's decision at the very end of the book seems inconsistent with a person who cares about a community and its continuing medical needs.

Don't want to totally rain on the book. The authors did a commendable job of drawing you into the suspense of the Ozark Mountain feuds--I could feel my heartbeat speed up during these scenes. It was this particular skill (and the money I paid) that kept me reading until the very end.

I enjoyed the book overall, although I wished they had been a little more specific about how the people who wanted to steal everyone's land were convinced to give up their plan. Despite how the synopsis on the cover is written, Cheney actually did make some friends among the mountain people - you would think they were 100% against her in every way by that description!

If a certain city is one of your favorite places, it presumably means that you feel something about it that -- if you are a writer -- you wish to convey to others. That passion is missing from this book, which is an oddly muted tribute to a city I've always wished to visit. In addition, Jan Morris claims this will be her last book. Why should a good writer like her want to go out with such a whimper?

TRIESTE AND THE MEANING OF NOWHERE is, to be sure, a competently written work. All the major themes are present, but the guts just aren't there. What about Sir Richard F. Burton squirming through his last years far from the scenes of his triumphs? What about James Joyce creating great literature while trying to earn beer money teaching? Then there is the withering irony of Hungary's leader Admiral Horthy, at a time when his country had had no port for decades, yielding his country to the Nazis out of craven fear. There is material here for a book that yet remains to be written.

Trieste still sits there at the head of the Adriatic waiting for THE book to be written about it. Until such time, this is an adequate book, well written, but even below the author's standard.

Trieste is a city I knew nothing about, but always had a vague impression of. That impression, of faded grandeur, old-Europe cosmopolitanism gone to seed, and melancholy, is largely confirmed in this, the first of Morris' books I've read. The fishing village at the top of the Adriatic was a sleepy burg until the Austro-Hungarian empire transformed it into it's only seaport and HQ for its imperial navy in the early 1700s. It rapidly became one of the leading seaports of the world, and an international center of commerce. Following the defeat and dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Trieste was handed over to Italy, which already had plenty of ports, and thus it quickly reverted to sleepy backwater. Over the last century it was occupied by the Nazis, Allied forces, was a UN free territory, and eventually reverted to Italian rule. Nowadays, as Morris writes, "It offers no unforgettable landmark, no universally familiar melody, no unmistakable cuisine, hardly a single native name that anyone knows."

And while Morris ably rambles through the city's history (which she first visited in 1946), the book is a bit of a metaphor for human aging and memory. She has vowed this is her final book in a prolific career, and the melancholy tone echoes the melancholy of a city whose glory days lie a century in the past. She writes, "Trieste makes one ask sad questions of oneself. What am I here for? Where am I going?" That's not to say the book is depressing or sad, because her love for the city is evident throughout, as she grapples with its place in her own psyche. While she clearly enjoys recreating in her mind's eye the hustle and bustle of the imperial era, she also finds, "For me, Trieste is an allegory of limbo, in the secular sense of an indefinable hiatus." So while the narrative is studded snippets of history, amusing and telling anecdotes from her own visits, and evocations of past residents such as Richard Burton and James Joyce, it's also rich in introspection. Above all, Morris' meandering prose is beautiful and has inspired me to delve into her past work. I do wish the publishers had included a few historical maps, some photos, and a bibliography of other works on Trieste.

Morris describes Trieste as a city of melancholy, not so much that it is depressing, but that it allows one to be sad in a way that other more agressive towns might not. One ruminates on the meaning of nowhere there and a learns that nowhere is really a little bit of everywhere.

Nor does it hurt to run into Sir Richard Burton's widow burning his pornographic translations from the Arabic, or James Joyce writing poems while visiting prostitutes. Also there are many well-fed cats, dining outside the mayor's favorite restaurant, or in the desert of the surrounding area, the rocky stony Karst, licking up scraps of fish heads and spaghetti brought to them by the local residents.

It is no longer one of the world's greatest ports as it was under the Hapsburgs. It is only the fifth largest port in the Mediterranean.

I have always been a fan of the intellectual debates in the New York Review of Books letters to the editor pages. This book consists of two articles by Crews and the subsequent debates surrounding them. I would have liked to see better defenses of Freud, but none of the eminent defenders of psychoanalysis is able to mount a serious challenge to Crews's devastating attacks.

This devastating book has two parts: (1) The Unknown Freud, where the reader gets a picture of Freud as a dictator, a megalomaniac and egotripper. A pope who alone knew the truth and who founded a secret commission to protect his 'church' against the heathen. He was a bad psychoanalyst (e.g. the Wolf Man case) and a venal man (e.g. the catastrophic Horace Fink case, where he tried to get his own hands on some money of the heiress).
I agree with the author that psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience - statements cannot be tested and the research results cannot be verified uniformly. Although it is not totally without meaning (Karl Popper), it is not a science.
(2) the revenge of the repressed
A frontal attack on the caste of the psychoanalysts, depicted as 'religious zealots, self-help evangelists, sociopolitical ideologues, and outright charlatans who trade in the ever seductive currency of guilt and blame, while keeping the doctor's fees mounting.'
The author is particularly severe with their latest 'school' : the 'recovered memory movement', based on the rape of children by their parents (really!). This lead to false accusations and condemnations of innocent people. No wonder the author predicts an accelerating collapse of psychoanalysis as a respected institution.
A much needed and courageous book to halt a profession riding at full speed on a misty highway. And a much needed angle on Freud as a person, written in a style to slaughter the not so innocent father of psychoanalysis.
After reading this book, I agree with Peter Madawar, who called doctrinaire psychoanalytic theory "the most stupendous intellectual confidence trick of the twentieth century".

Frederick Crews really knows how to tap that deep reservoir of hostility found in modern Freudian psychoanalysts. In 1993 and 1994 FC wrote two essays in the New York Review of Books debunking Freud in the first, and tearing to shreds the recovered memory movement in the second.

These two essays and the letters in response to them have been put into the book The Memory Wars. As someone trained in experimental psychology you can guess my own personal bias in this matter. Crews discusses Freud's botched cases; his frequent vacillation in theory formation; some of his sillier theories; and his serious interjection of personal bias into the formation of his beliefs. The main problem with the whole Freudian system is the total lack of scientific evidence supporting it. Freudian psychoanalysis is founded on anecdote and supported by anecdotes. To be fair, much current non-Freudian therapy is also based on anecdote. Indignant Freud followers write back, and their letters are indeed interesting (and often pompous).

The second half of the book takes on the recovered memory movement. It would be great to poke fun at this movement if it weren't for the fact that it has caused so much damage to all parties involved. Symptoms checklists are published with the statement if you suffer from these symptoms you may be a victim of sexual abuse. Read the list and you will find that the majority of Americans will find that they have been abused. It's all a patient seduction game with the intent to make big money. Hospitals have even set up units to treat such patients (Having worked in the psychiatric hospital industry I am well aware of the "product lines" that such facilities set up in order to fill beds). Crews does an excellent job of dissecting the memory movement, and once again we get to read the indignant responses.

Those who believe that psychological therapy should be based on sound scientific evidence will love this book. Those who have accepted Freudianism with a religious like faith will, of course, hate it. To me this whole subject is analogous to the evolution vs. creationist debate. It's science versus pseudoscience.

The title and pictorial representation leads one to believe that the book would share some light on the past and present exploits of the Clinton's political arranegements. However the book is in fact a catalog of ramblings about unsubstantiated charges of corruption at all levels of government. Additionally an inordinate portion of the text is dedicated to the struggles the Clintons went through in their early lives. It also goes off on tangents that only remotely relate to the Clinton's felonious life style. To the interested student of power brokers this book is replete with redundancies that leads to a boring and sophomoric exercise.

This book detailes the corruption of not only the Clintons but Arkansas and Washington D.C. as well. The book paints a picture of the idealistic and somewhat tortured personal lives of two people who get caught up in the corruption of not only Arkansas, but Washington D.C. The book does get kind of bogged down in discussing tangents to the main theme of the book, the Clintons, but its meant to show what kind of Arkansas and Washington D.C. they came into politically. The book, although defintely not pro-Clintons, avoids purely polemical and emotional language and writing. It is a sad commentary on politics in general and our country when corrupt people can get into high places.

This is an excellent read! If you are unconvinced of the corruption we have had for the last eight years, then this book will cause you to reconsider. It also goes into detail as to how Bill Clinton got into this terrible state.

Anyone who dismisses this book as unsubstanstiated is obviously partisana and also hasn't been paying attention to the news for the last eight years. An objective and reasonable person will see the truth and the truth is what is written is true and well documented. Mind you this is a close friend of Bill Clinton who wrote the book! No agenda - just truth for those who can accept it.

This book highlights the pattern of deceit, drug use and corruption. Frankly, I'd rather not be in denial but admit the obvious about this man. Hopefull the American people will never allow someone of this low calibur ever become President again.