Morton Downey Jr. puts many of today's Talk Show wannabe's to shame with the antics he himself created on TV over 10 years ago.

Read this book if you are currently addicted to those "shock" Talk Shows. It will show you where many of them originated.

Morton Downy Jr. describes his views on life and the nation in this 200 page book. Chapters include his thoughts on drugs, crime, sex, labor and much else. This is no heady college text, to be sure, more like an easy reader. One has to respect the common sense of a book like this. It is difficult to see how anyone could disagree with most of what is in it (many do). And while Downey is no intellectual giant by any means, he has an uncanny ability to spot 'pablum' spewed out by liberals and others. His book is filled with accounts of foolishness, advocated by those who ought to know better. But Mort's super emotional style does get him into trouble at times. In his chapter on drugs, he suggests we go to war with Mexico to stop the drug trade! His view of Euthanasia is too extreme and he underestimates the complexities inherint in our tax code. He is at his worst when talking about the hundreds of POWs he believes are still in Vietnam. (Another war is suggested here) He is at his best when discussing how he made up with his father after years of fighting, and how he intends to stand up for his brother, who has AIDS. Thirty years ago I would not have recommended a book like this to anyone. I would have found it too emotional, to half-baked and too simple. It is a sad comment on our country that a piece like is actually quite good compared to much else in print.

To my knowledge Downey was the first "outrageous" people's advocate on debate television, who also published a book which essentially was his TV show in print. Ofcourse, Bob Grant, Rush Limbaugh, and now Bill O'Reilly have similiarly "spun off" into publishing.
Downey is the Rebel Democrat/Liberal Conservative/Populist...whatever title...his views were always well articulated through the din of his totally out-of-control show and eventually in this book.
I found his critique of Lawyers to be a bit simple - he's got a grudge and it's not well explained. He seems to be saying that our system of checks and balances is in trouble because our lawmakers are mostly lawyers with a career to protect and an axe to grind for their benefactors.
Unlike the aforementioned Talk Show idols, Downey, Jr. seemed to have no huge organization to monitor his excesses. He did a show out of New York with (apparently) a staff intent on overloading him with too many guests, too much overlapping dialogue, and an over-miked audience. It started out beautifully controlled...then the mess. Then it was over.
Maybe someday we'll get excerpts from his short-lived TV show on home video. In the meantime we can enjoy his book.

This book was used as the text for my junior year AP history class, and it is absolutely awful. The book is extremely difficult to read because there is so much unnecessary information crammed into each section and the authors seemed more interested in simply recording facts than making a coherent assessment of history. My teachers agreed that this book is difficult, uninteresting, and poorly edited and are looking for a new text.

I love history and was excited to take the AP History course but I could not focus on this book for more than five minutes without becoming sleepy and losing focus. The book does present accurate and extensive facts covering the history of the US from pre-colonization to the mid-1990's, but there has got to be a better way to learn them.

I am now a junior in high school and this is the book I use as the main textual reference for my AP US History Class. I agree with Amanda, this book is boring (but there are times when the author of a particular section shows a sense of humor). It is crammed with names of people, places and pieces of legislation that are never explained and, at times, appear to be irrelevant. I read a lot of supplementary material, but still do not have the time to familiarize myself with everything mentioned in the book. It is my opinion that some of the space in this book could have been used for better explanations of specific events rather than a place where the author could list everything (s)he knew about the time period in that BAM, BAM, BAM way (sorry, I have no other way of explaining how that book reads, sometimes it's like an index of events, except not alphabetized).

This text provides the necessary background and factual information to successfully instruct the 11th grade Advanced Placement United States History course throughout the world. Included in the text are appreciated charts, maps, and illustrations.

The text includes all that is necessary for the student and teacher dedicting themselves in combination to fulfill what is needed to score well enough on the national Advanced Placement examination to earn college credit.

The 8th edition includes American History well into the last decade of the 20th Century.

I was disapointed in this book. It largely showcases a few liveries from the 70's to the present. There aren't any of the really old liveries included, and a limited number of airlines -- notable exceptions that jump to mind are American, Northwest, KLM, Cathay (as well as many others).

If you're looking for liveries, especially of older airlines that have gone away, merged, etc., this isn't for you.

This book is a good look at the history of airline liveries. It has some of the most non heard of airlines in it. I would say if you like airplanes than this book is for you.

For a one-volume history of Canada, I'd recommend Roger Riendeau's "A Brief History of Canada" instead. Desmond Morton seems to be attempting to tell the history of Canada as a single narrative, but it's simply too long and multifaceted to be coherent. I found the colorful writing and light tone (e.g. introducing some historical figure by describing him as a "short, stout Scotsman") more annoying than engaging -- I was looking for facts and explanations, not amusing details. Finally, the book doesn't so much end as trail off.

I don't want to say that it's a bad book (Desmond Morton is a well-known and respected historian, and there were several glowing blurbs on the book cover), but it wasn't what I was looking for. Perhaps it might be more interesting for teenagers.

Morton is tackling a tough task for sure, attempting to cover the entire history of a complex nation in only 350 (or so) pages. However, this does not forgive some very significant oversights. Morton dedicates an extraordinarily large portion of his work to discussing Canadian politics and politicians. While politics represents a very significant part of any country's history, it is only part of the story. I was disappointed to find little more than an occasional paragraph dedicated to non-political events: social movements, trade issues, non-political figures, etc.

In addition, I think Morton tries to tackle too much in such a short text. At times, I felt that I was merely reading a chronology of events rather than an engaging, well-woven narrative. The back cover touts Morton's abilities as a "storyteller" - I found few "stories" but a lot of straightforward "this is what happened, then this is what happened next, etc."

Although I was mostly disappointed, this book does convey a tremendous amount of knowledge about Canada - I know much more about the great nation to the north than I did before I read the book. But, I'd have a hard time recommending this book to other "weekend historians" such as myself.

Dr Walker's book is about the usage of a certain product to stop hair loss. I was expecting more objective information; sometimes it looks more like publicity than a scientific review of hair loss treatments. Anyway, I rate it 3 stars because there are good chapters about what hair is, its phases, and nutrition advice. Compared to "The Bald Truth" by Spencer David Kobren, "Bald No More" comes second.

Those familiar with Glen Baxter's work - _Boy's Own_-style cartoons with breathtakingly incongruous elements and captions - can probably guess what to expect here: a mock-earnest mystery, illustrated throughout in fine Baxter form, with much to offer the reader.

That said, it lacks the impact of his single-frame cartoons, and for some reason the entire thing is set in his favourite font which, while certainly atmospheric, isn't exactly readable (especially since it's ALL IN CAPS).

Baxter fans should definitely get this. Others should try _The Impending Gleam_ first.

This book is filled with pictures detailing the history of chocolate. From when Christopher Columbus first tried chocolate up through making it and enjoying it in the form that we do now is covered. Chocolate was first enjoyed by the native americas as a cold beverage, it wasn't until it had been in Europe for 100 years did we begin to make it into the form that we know and love today.
Chocolate is filled with pictures that will make you tongue water. Many chocolate companies were kind enough to show their making process in the book. So perhaps this book is well suited for a younger audience. I am sure you will be the hit of any young person showing this book to them. Even the cover has all sorts of delightful chocolate treats on the cover. There are no recipes in this book, just tasty looking pictures and everything you want to know about chocolate.

Wow, this was a book full of spirit. The book features a fantastic range of aircraft in full view, from the old props right up to the superjet '47s of today. The book was, as I titled this article, a gentle easy read due to the fantastic self taken photos that covered the whole of the page, with small writing at the bottom. It was a great read, and Morton deserves a great deal of acknowledgement for it. Well done, I enjoyed it, Mr. Morton!

This is not a book of theory of free trade. It is a history of FTA and NAFTA between USA and Canada and is a set of some 15 speeches delivered by different key personnel in making it happen. Also has details of different beauracratic problems encountered in achieving this.
It is also bundled with some empirical data of before and after the agreement and also touches the trade with Mexico.

Pennypacker was a historian on Long Island in the first half of the 1900's. He did some groundbreaking research and came up with information about some spies during the american revolution. pennypacker is generally said to have discovered the identity of one of the most active spies of the revolution. however, in recent years, pennypacker, who wrote in the dry way that was typical of nonfiction in his day,has been frowned upon. one big and frustrating reason was he didn't document his sources. Still, this is one of the works from the man who lived a historian's dream and changed our knowledge of history.