Martin Ansell has written an intelligent, obviously well researched book on Edward Doheny, but just as he has accused the other biographer of Doheny, Dan La Botz (Edward L. Doheny: Petroleum, Power, and Plitics in the United States and Mexico), of having a negative bias of Doheny as seen from the political left, Mr. Ansell's presumptions about Doheny's honorable nature and neglected status as a major, constructive pioneer of the American West is clearly written from the political right.
After reading both these works, I'm still waiting for a book that has some objectivity in its analysis of the life of Edward Doheny. However, due to Doheny having all his records destroyed after his death, any objective book may be about five pages long.

Interesting, historical, about a man that left an impact on the oil industry and California. A special interest to me, I am a distant relative. The Three Doheny brothers came from Ireland, moved to MN, had large families. Many of these decendents were brave and adventureous.

first of all, why would some one go and build a house in the middle of no where and is that by all means practical? second even if you want to enjoy the splender of the desert! then these projects mostly are neither appealing nor logical... i mean how can you create such wide windscreens in a house built in the middle of the desert where the temperature fluctuates between the extremes...! The text doesn't really helps you much and the figures are hopeless...finally the photos are far from showing us exactly what the book is about... i bought the book but i really feel sorry.

A musician from Maine, who headed west and apprenticed to Will Bruder, the godfather of new Arizona architecture, Joy has built little in his ten years of independent practice, and only around his home base of Tucson. And yet, as this delectable monograph shows, he is a master designer. His houses-of raw steel or rammed earth-respond to the brutal beauty and intense light of the Sonoran desert, and, like Glenn Murcutt, he uses the simplest materials and forms to satisfy all the senses. In Pallasmaa's eloquent tribute and the superb color photos, you can feel the heat of the desert wind, run your hand over a rugged wall, and watch the earth change color as the sun sinks beneath the mountains.

Storm Brewed in Other Men's worlds is quite a book. It is breathtaking in both size and scope, but it is not necessarily well written. In fact, it often strays far from its goal as a history of the early southwestern U.S. for the layman. The author did a ton of research with particular emphasis on Spanish archives, and the oral tradition of the Comanche, Pueblo, and Apache tribes. It chronicles just about everything that ever happened in the Spanish administration of the southwest, including all of the governors and other administrators. Yet all the exciting stuff going on is buried in the minutuia the author inists on using. Bottom line: this one is for academics only.

The famous Mexican writer, Carlos Fuentes, said, in effect, that the Hispanic world did not come to America, America came to the Hispanic world. No book reveals this with more clarity and accuracey that this one. It represents 400 years of history of what is now the American Southwest. The author writes with the dramatic eloquence of a seasoned novelist creating a history book that is, of all things, a "page turner." It reveals epics, sagas, villans, and both noted and anonymous heroes. It is a shame so many of our educational systems do not teach this history becasue it is the story of millions of Amerians and fully one-third of United States territory. If anyone has ever looked at a map and wondered why so many mountains, cities, villages, rivers, plains, states, and people have Native American or Spanish names, this book will answer those questions and more, it will help them appreciate Mr. Fuentes' insight.

Fed up with the traditional Lonely Planet I turned to the Rough Guide for an alternative view. While this guide gives detailed historical/background knowledge it severely lacks in the essentials, notably transport prices and detailed maps.@There were just too many times when this book became a more of a frustration than a help. This book is best read before you go and left at home.

This is the first rough guide that I have used. I found it to be easy to use and very thorough in all regards. I would say that this book is a must for all visitors to Thailand.

This book is about Tucket, a fifteen-year-old boy, who is traveling across the Wild West with two orphans, in search of his parents. The three young people encounter a variety of life threatening experiences, such as being kidnapped by a band of Comancheros, outlaws with sympathy for no one. This book features many qualities valuable to the young reader. First, it is filled with suspenseful adventure. It gives detailed accounts of the frightening situations the children get into, and how they always miraculously escape. The story is also exciting because it describes the challenging conditions in which the children live. Paulson explains the landscape, weather, and people exceptionally well, giving the reader a vivid picture of the surroundings. In addition, the author writes about how the children survive, including the way they eat, travel, and defend themselves. They try to be prepared for every unexpected event, especially one that may threaten their lives. In this book, Paulson strongly addresses the universal human concern of survival. He gives the reader a detailed account of the life and death situations with which the children are faced. They are physically abused and generally maltreated by the Comancheros. They are forced to draw upon their every strength in order to endure the conditions. Paulson's focus on the universal human concern of survival is valuable to young readers for several reasons. First, it is important because it teaches children about the way people lived in history, and that not everyone had Nickelodeon and McDonald's! During the time this story took place, people had to live off the land and deal with great hardships due to weather and disease. These are aspects of our environment that we can now have some control over. This theme shows children what we are capable of as humans, and that we can endure a great deal. The children in the story are alone in nature, without their families for security and protection. Their survival is based on how well they can take care of themselves. This is a frightening reality withe which all children can relate. This book is a great source of strength for young readers because it gives them a sense of independence. Reading about children their own age conquering the unpredictable conditions of the West allows children to identify themselves with a group that is strong, resourceful and courageous.

It was an easy book to read. It kept my attention and I read it in 3 hours.

The title of this book is apt, for the author has forgotten to include those Ute groups who lived in, what is now, the state of Utah. This book deals solely with those Ute groups that lived within Colorado. Also the early history of the Utes is largely ignored - 100 plus years of contact with the Spanish is skimmed over in a few pages. Likewise the traditional life and customs of the Utes gets scant treatment.

Most of the book deals with the Colorado Utes history subsequent to the American occupation of the west. The events of the "Meeker Massacre" occupy a large part.

The book was first published in the 1950s and this shows in the way the author, at times, discribes the Utes as "savages" and "bucks". Overall this books merits lie in its desciptions of the events around the "Meeker Massacre" and the removal of most of the Utes from Colorado. Anyone wanting to learn more about the Utes traditional life styles and beliefs would be better served by "The Utes - the Mountain People" by Jan Pettit which is a more up to date treatment of the early history and customs of the Utes (also profusely illustrated.

This has been an very interesting and incredibly thourough journey through history.The book contains Ute Indian stories and historical matters written in detail to near perfection .But how could you possibly go wrong with such intricate research.Nothing is missing from this book...it is filled with Ute Indian facts from early history and developement to religion, marriages and wars.The photos are ample and very intreresting, really portraying the accompanying stories.

And the bereaved mother started to sit on a bench awaiting her daughter's reappearance year after year. This IBSEN's scene might be okay for a Broadway play but highly unlikely for a believable reading. I was fooled by Reynolds for his latest wonderful "PLAYERS" and trying to cover up all of his old works, but could only find disappointments so far in this one and "FRANKLIN'S CROSSING". Both resulted in a bad taste

In a beautiful and deceptive way, Reynolds uses the disappearance of a daughter to introduce the reader into a world that is moved, disrupted and changed by the human heart. By the end of the story, it didn't even matter what happened to the daughter. I only had room in my heart for Ezra the sheriff, Imma the strange mother taking vigil on the courthouse bench, and the haunting yet silent love between the two. And Imma losing her daughter only to find her purpose in life . . . storytelling at its finest!

Of all the presidents I have studied so far, Taylor could very well be the least deserving of the presidency. I think Mr. Bauer is a very good writer and historian, but Taylor is neither a very exciting subject or a very well-documented one (apparently many of his private papers were lost during a sacking of his plantation home during the Civil War).

He was essentially a very average intellect and not very creative either in his politics or his military acumen. Compared to other generals who have risen to the presidency (Washington, Jackson, Eisenhower, Grant), his military capabilities were very dim. His successes in the Mexican War, I think, were due more to capable, think-on-your-feet lieutenants than strategy-making onhis part.

This book confirmed the impression of Taylor that I had formed from reading other works about the era: that he was petty, defensive, couldn't control his temper a lot of the time and was politically naive (not necessarily a bad thing...).

I don't believe a man like him would have been elected today. He benefited from remoteness, little interaction with the press and letting other, more powerful politicians essentially run for him.

Like other presidents between 1845-1860, he also had the misfortune of being president during one of our most challenging periods and when the country was probably really run more by Clay, Calhoun and Webster. You couldn't do much in those days without their support and Taylor seems to have been too naive to either (a) recognize that or (b) go along with it. As a result he accomplished very little during his short tenure. I don't think he would have accomplished much more had he lived longer.

The book itself is well-written but not interesting. Again, I think that has to do more with the subject than the author and I wouldn't mind reading something else by Bauer. Still, if you need to read about Taylor, this is probably your best choice.

Zachary Taylor was one of the most unlikely men to ever serve as president of the United States. Self-educated, an average and conservative military leader and definitely not an intellectual, he was thrust into the limelight because of his success in the Mexican War. Although a southerner, Taylor opposed the extension of slavery and threatened dire consequences to secessionists. He died unexpectedly after serving only sixteen months as president. His death occurred just as he was reorganizing his administration and attempting a recasting of the Whig party. Mr. Bauer does a good job of describing the effect Zachary Taylor had on the nation as well as who he was as an individual.

The only decent piece of evidence presented by the author that could be seen as supporting her thesis of a Zuni-Japanese connection are some apparent language similarities, and even with that she does admit that there is a problem with ensuring that her transcriptions of Zuni and Japanese words into the Latin alphabet are truly accurate representations of how the Zuni and Japanese say those words. The rest of the evidence ranges from intriguing-but-weak to downright laughable. But the book does offer some good background information on the Zuni people in general, which just manages to save it from being a waste of time.

The author suggests that medieval Japanese sea-goers arrived just in time to join the Zuni Native Americans in their search for the center of the world. The Japanese, according to the author, were also on a search for the Western Paradise of the Jodo Shu and Shin-Shu Buddhists. Somehow these two searches became one and the Japanese group over time became part of the Zuni genetic and cultural heritage. Davis points to linguistic, genetic and cultural parallels between the Zuni and the Japanese, reconsiders ancient stories of the Zuni, and presents some dubious artifacts as evidence for her claims. I found myself wishing for more evidence more clearly presented. Still, the thesis is intriguing enough to warrant four stars.

Not unlike Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces, Nancy Yaw Davis, after decades of research, has been on a five-year journey to write this book and has returned with "my theory of a thousand themes". Did a group of thirteenth-century Japanese pilgrims journey to the American Southwest, there to merge with the people, language, and religion of the Zuni tribe? The beauty of this book is that she is a very articulate guide as she takes you back through time in order to understand the present. Why does the Japanese imperial emblem (the Chrysanthemum) look so much like the Zuni sacred rosette? Why are the nearby Hopi Indians the only ones that do sand paintings and why are they similar to Tibetan Buddhist mandalas? Why do the earliest pottery fragments in the New World occur near the tip of South America and not near the Bering Strait? Why do the Zunis and the Japanese share a rare kidney disease? Why did the Zuni veteran of World War II and a prisoner of the Japanese say: "I always wondered why I spoke Japanese so easily"? With 227 pages of easily read text, 98 figures, maps and tables, 49 pages of endnotes and 31 pages of bibliography, she offers the evidence and asks the scientific community to open their minds and begin to think differently. How many Ph.D. candidates will do their thesis on the evidence she offers and the many questions she asks? A good read for everyone and great conversation enhancer.

I was really looking forward to reading this book after seeing it featured on the pbs.org website. My friend had it on her bookshelf so I asked to borrow it. She does write very well and is easy to follow but that is the only positive I saw. It felt like she wrote more about her negative experiences and I kept reading on thinking it would get better but alas never did. It seems to me she had a horrible time and would probably never return again. I also went out and checked out the film version from the library. Besides the title it didn't even look like it was based on her book. Her travel campanion, Jay, wasn't even in it although she was nice enough to acknoledge him in the credits. The book was bland and the film was even worse. I returned the book to my friend and told her to keep it at the bottom of the stack. Read "Catfish and Mandala" for a better travelogue.

I read this book for research for my own trip to Vietnam this summer. Although it's not the best travel book I've read, it's helpful by giving readers insight into Vietnamese everyday life. Although Muller sounds sort of whiny at times, her writing isn't cursed with the naive wide-eyed wonderment typical of a lot of travel writers. The book is both interesting, but at times unsettling...I couldn't help feeling at times that the entire nation of Vietnam existed solely to rip off foreigners. But, maybe I took it too personally because I'm half Vietnamese. Her advice on bargaining is something I haven't found in any of my guide books--most tell you simply to do it, but they don't explain HOW to do it. I would recommend this book to anyone who is planning their first trip to Vietnam, but I would hate for someone to base their opinion of the Vietnamese people solely on Muller's observations.

I did like this book. It is not one of the best gonzo travelogues that I've read, but it made its mark for a number of reasons:

-Karin did most of the travel on her own - I think that a woman traveling alone has more fears to confront than a man, and in this case, she handles them extremely well;

-She went native - eating the food her hosts ate, sleeping in their huts, suffering the same parasites, and learning their language;

-She kept her sense of humor;

And most importantly, her writing style was very "approachable" and fresh - a style which mirrors the subject of her affection (Vietnam) well.