I am a high school student. We are using this book as out textbook. I highly dislike the book because it does not come with any form or worksheets even end of the chapter questions. It is very hard to follow though may be informative. It is a very boring book and I would much rather read a different book and get less information than read a book that is so jam packed with information I can not take any of it in. It is just fact after fact after fact after fact. It is very hard to study from. I used to like history. Not anymore.

I am a highschool student in Tulsa, OK and we are using this book for my Oklahoma History class. This book is rather boring and long. There aren't any pre-prepared workbooks or questions to go with it, so all you do is read and then take a test. To say the least I haven't learned very much from this book and I don't think many other highschool students have either. This book would be vastly improved if they chopped it up more into sections. Also if there were questions at the end of each chapter or section it would help.

I was really surprised that I turned out to like this book. It was the required reading text for a section of Oklahoma history I took in college last semester and though I am majoring in history, I expected it to be a really boring, sugar-coated synopsis. When I thumbed through the first few pages, I was disappointed to see that it was written more for high school level history (which is rarely if ever in-depth enough) but after I read more, I was impressed. Baird and Goble are not afraid to speak about Oklahoma's embarrassing moments--i.e. the disenfranchisement of African Americans after statehood, the common declaration of martial law, the support of socialism, the Tulsa Race Riot, the election of a certifiable lunatic to Congress, etc. I learned much more from this text (and the college class of course) than I had ever imagined and I would highly recommend it for teachers and for anyone seriously interested in learning more about Oklahoma.

Mostly touchy feely pointless antedotes. At most one page of useful information.

I found that this book would have been helpful for pond plants or if I needed a recipe to cook something I had raised in a pond, but I wanted information on keeping fish in a pond. Specifically I was interested in catfish, and silly me, I 'judged the book by its cover.' This book provides very little helpful infomation on raising pond fish as a hobby. If you're interested in spending several thousand dollars to commercially raise fish such as trout, then this book has something to offer. Otherwise don't bother.

This is a beautifully written book! It contains many whimsical anecdotes on the process of building a pond, also much practical information on plants, fish, frogs, turtles, and ducks. Having just built a pond, I found this book just the ticket. It doesn't have much about the actual digging and construction--that information is best obtained from your local Soil and Water Conservation Office. But I highly recommend this book if you're building a "real" pond (not one of those plastic pool things).

If you've never read a Ford bio, this is a decent introduction. But the book has three problems. It has very little interpretation and evaluation of the films. Much of the book is about Ford's flaws as a human being, especially his cruelty to the people he worked with. Film by film, he piles up examples of Ford's bad behavior without explaining what all this nastiness has to do with Ford's achievement as an artist. Finally, much of the book's material comes from interviews. In a bibliographical essay, Davis lists all this material. In the text, however, he never makes it clear where he got a particular quote. Davis did quite a few interviews for the book. Those don't need further citation. If you want to track down quotations from other interviews, however, forget it. There's no way of finding out when an interview was given or what the context for the quote is.

Although this book does a reasonable job of delivering the essential information about one of Hollywood's great directors, it spends too much effort attempting to analyze the dark side of John Ford, and too little time dealing with the art he created. The author speculates on Ford's drinking, his sexuality, and his family problems. If you want to know Ford's work, don't buy this book...buy one or two of his movies, instead....or buy Harry Carry Jr's book, or Peter Bogdanovich's book.

I recently read the John Ford biography by Ronald Davis, PhD, and found the book to be well written and very informative. After reading this book, it became quite obvious that Ford had an unhappy personal life. While Ford was in control of his professional life, his personal life was out of control. Ford was a represed man who lived a lie...

This book is not recommended for those interested in accurate information on the subject. Whereas I counted countless errors, I think the most telling is that the authors did not know that Cesar Chavez was the eldest son in the Chavez family. At least three times they mention his brother Richard as being older. If biographers can not get this important fact correct, you can imagine how accurate the rest of the book is. I would say reading it is a waste of time.

Cesar was the second born in the chavez family that had 6 kids. After reading this incredible book (TWICE) I have found no errors. This book is true to the core. GOOD BOOK! The other reviewer was obviously a drunk monkey!

Glenn was an Oklahoma Lawman and as such his predjudice keeps this book from being as good as it could be. Your reviewer is the son of Oklahoma bootleggers and a descendent of a Doolin gang member...as you read the book notice how many times Marshalls supposedly call from perfect ambush positions.."hands up"....For someone who has seen Oklahoma law enforcement at close range I find those scenarios tough to swallow....not that I blame the Marshalls for this, these outlaws were desparate men and have already killed 3 marshalls in a direct confrontation in Ingalls....to his credit he does show the importance of informers as opposed to smart detective work...all in all if he wasn't so ready to swallow whole all the Marshalls accounts this would be a better book..but then in so many instances the lawmen were the only surviving witnesses

Glenn Shirley provides a wealth of information on various outlaw groups of the Old West. West of Hell's Fringe earmarks the accounts of gunslingers that occupied Indian territories inside what is today Oklahoma. Shirley has gone through what seems to be great detail in separating what are factual and fictional accounts of the episodes that occurred. Such names as the Dalton Gang, Bill Doolin, Charley Bryant, the reader not only gets lured into the eyes of these outlaws, but it gives them a taste of how life was in an era infamous for lawlessness and liquor. The book is brought more seemingly to life through the pictures shown of the outlaws and their captors. The book places repeated emphasis on the U.S. Marshals of the time. The book not only tells the story through the glimpses of the outlaws' eyes, but it allows one to stare down the barrel of the lawmen's guns as they and their posse's ride for the wielding of justice and the standing reward. Glenn Shirley does an excellent job documenting the accounts given in the book. Every complex and tangled idea that is presented is well annotated with: where the information is gathered, and where further information can be located. What is really exciting about the book is it offers up the accounts of the United States Marshals and their rides by giving up the false deception, and by offering the information that this is the most widely held belief. It also says this is what could have happened as well. The subheading of this book tells all Crime, Criminals, and the Federal Peace Officer in Oklahoma Territory, 1889-1907.

Looks like a quick effort to get something published and cash in on the hysteria surrounding the bombing. The author search for material to fill the books 276 page span but only comes up empty and trite. Pseudo-theological observations just add to the overall cheesiness. Skip the books and wait for it to come on A&E or something.

This is an incredible book! It really shows the truth about what happend that terrible day in Oklahoma City. Not only does it tell the stories about the lives that were lost it also tells about how God touched people that were involved. I cried as I read the entire book. First, tears of major sorrow and anger. But, the writter and the photographer did an amazing job of showing how God was with the people who were hurt and within the entire Oklahoma City community. At the end of the book I cried tears of joy just in the thought that God is with us even in the worst of times. He (God) can't prevent the evil humans do to eachother, but he has an amazing promise that he will always be with us! This book really answers the hard Question of "Where was God at 9:02 a.m."

This book had a great idea, but there was to much war talk and not enough love talk. I got lost in the details of the war and sometimes just couldn't wait for the chapter to end. I hoped the next chapter would kick in with some romance, but it fizzled. If you want details about what it would have been like to have been in World War II, and a prisoner of war, then this is a good book for you. If you are a women who wants a romantic tale, I would skip this one.

This is not a primary textbook or reference. This is not a concise review book for the week before USMLE. This is definitely not as good a reference for visual learners as Lippincott's Illustrated Review of Biochemistry. This book, however, does one thing well that these other books don't do: it presents nice introductions to and discussions of various topics in medical biochemistry in clear, easy-to-read prose. I found this book very helpful in my medical biochemistry course at the beginning of my in-depth study of the material, as it laid out the "big picture" and fleshed it out with key details, without letting the trees keep me from seeing the forest, which is always a risk when you sit down to study your lecture notes and the more dense texts and review books. Many people like the "Ridiculously Simple" books for the same reason, but the biochemistry version of "Ridiculously Simple" is limited to metabolism, and doesn't hit on key areas of study such as protein biosynthesis, mechanisms of genetic disease, regulation of gene expression, molecular endocrinology and membrane biochemistry.

This book was poorly researched, and is lacking in factual content. The Ruby Ridge incident was described with many errors, and the fact that this book was written 5 years after the incident occurred, when many of the actual facts were known, and proven in court, the author should have had the facts on this issue straight. If you are thoroughly knowledgeable about what happened at Ruby Ridge, you can begin to realize that this book is biased, and full of untruths. From the point of the Ruby Ridge description on, I did not take the book as factual or objectively written.

Who bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and why? Was it just a meth snorting, ex-soldier, down-and-out, government-hating punk, or is there more to this than that? Could the government itself be behind the attack or at least involved in some way? If you want a serious look at these questions then this book is definitely NOT what you want to read.

I found this book to be a very well written and clear reporting of the party line that Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols were solely responsible for the OKC bombing; them and no one else. This could be, but there is significant other evidence and testimony to the contrary that the government just doesn't want to address head on and this book doesn't either. The author does address some of this other evidence but only in the most cursory and unconvincing fashion. For instance, an Air Force general with a background in weapons systems claimed in writing that the bomb McVeigh supposedly used could NOT have done the kind of damage inflicted on the A. P. Murrah Federal Building and that there must have been more or different bombs involved. This stunning claim is waved off by the author with a single valueless sentence: "This thesis is disputed by physicists on the grounds that the five-thousand-pound truck bomb did have the capacity to blast upward and outward, like a balloon". What kind of "evidence" is that? Who are these physicists and why should they be believed? It's things like this (and there are other examples) that make this book seem like government spin doctoring and not a serious look at who is behind the biggest single act of terrorism on U.S. soil and why it was committed.

The author addresses the Ruby Ridge and Waco incidents in a similarly odd way. He does say that the government botched both of those raids but he does so in the absolutely least offensive and most excusable way to downplay the government's mistakes. He leaves out critical details, downplays significant events and gets some things completely wrong that are not disputed facts regarding these cases. This kind of writing lacks credibility in my mind.

This author would have you believe that everything's just fine now that McVeigh has been caught and that you are a twit if you believe anybody but the government. Don't fall for this and, for that matter, don't fall for every conspiracy theory you hear either. By all means read this book but also read others like "The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror", "Others Unknown: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing Conspiracy" and others and then THINK about what is or isn't the truth based on credible evidence. There's more to this than we're being told and the folks who died in this attack deserve better from us than to just shrug our shoulders and go back to what we were doing just because the government says it's OK now.

I must admit that I was late to discover this book. What a pleasant surprise. Dr. Hamm presents important and insightful facts into the terrible crime that far too many researchers overlooked. History will treat this book well. It is a must read for any person who wants to understand the motivations behind McVeigh and his "brotherhood." JD Cash