Russell Freedman has done a masterful job with this Lincoln biography, primarily intended for younger readers. Though touted as a "photobiography," there are not an abundance of Lincoln photos, though there is an excellent assortment of photographs of the time period, as well as pictures of his wife and children. The Lincoln portraits that are printed are among the greatest Brady albumen's ever taken of a prominent person, and show Lincoln's world-weary countenance in the face of the raging storm of the Civil War.

Freedman writes well and he focuses on Lincoln as an individual. I was pleased to see so much space devoted to Lincoln's complex relationship with Mary Todd, the woman who became his wife. The adversity this couple endured is sobering: the loss of Eddie and Willie at young ages, Lincoln's melancholia and spells of profound depression, as well as the strains of the Presidency. Who can imagine the torment of trying to keep a nation together while millions of American boys died in combat? The strain Lincoln endured is beyond imagination. Freedman tries to have the young reader put themselves in Lincoln's shoes. This is an instructive technique. Freedman also devotes considerable time to Lincoln's special father-son relationship with Tad, and his account of the assassination is excellent.

Readers of all ages can glean something from this book, but the target age range would be from 10-15. For young people first starting to learn about Lincoln, look no farther than here. This is a first-rate example of biography for the younger audience.

I first read this book when I was in fifth grade. It was the first "history" book I read that really interested me. Russell Freedman turns history from dates and facts into the lives of real people during an extremely difficult time. I'm 19 years old and currently writing a speech on why it is one of my favorite books of all time.

Russell Freedman's "Lincoln: A Photobiography" represents the ideal book for students who want something more about this subject than a book for younger readers, like George Sullivan's "In Their Own Words: Abraham Lincoln," but who are not yet ready to tackle an adult work like Carl Sandburg's three volume Lincoln biography. Freedman provides a new level of information for those who have read only juvenile biographies of Lincoln. For example, he goes into much more details about Lincoln's courtship of Mary Todd and the strain the war and death of two children caused on their marriage. For many younger readers this will be the first time they read about the complex issues that confronted Lincoln during the Civil War. In the end, students will have a greater appreciation not only for Lincoln's successes but for the problems and failures that troubled him during his years in the White House. Finally, if such things matter to you in tipping the scales, this book received the John Newbery Medal.

In the back of this book you will find "A Lincoln Sampler," which consists of things Lincoln said throughout his life, "In Lincoln's Footsteps," which lists historic sites from Lincoln's life that readers can visit, and "Books About Lincoln" for those interested in reading much more about Lincoln. Yes, the title "A Photobiography" might lead you to believe that this is a book of pictures with detailed captions explaining Lincoln's life. While this is not the case Freedman has included 88 photographs, etchings, paintings, reproductions and such in his 150-page volume. Yes, not all of the illustrations are of Lincoln, but it is perfectly allright in a biography to have pictures of the places and people, not to mention events, important in the subject's life. There were only a certain number of photographs taken of Lincoln in his life and my guess that most of them would be included in here. There is even the one surviving photograph of Lincoln in death, although you will not find the photograph of him right after his speech at Gettysburg. The illustrations remain a strength of this photobiography.

This book tells the story of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia which resulted in the writing of the U.S. Constitution. It starts by describing the dissatisfaction that some states had with the Articles of Confederation. Then, it goes through the issues important to the framers one at a time, describing the conflicts involved and how they were resolved.

Two issues are discussed at some length. First, the authors detail the battle over proportional representation versus equal representation for the states in the (new) Congress, which pitted the smaller states against an alliance between the biggest states and the Deep South states. Next, they discuss all the issues regarding slavery. The last several chapters of the book describe the ideas and compromises about how the government functions -- the role of the president, the method of choosing the president, the presence of a bill of rights, etc...

The book was well written and in most parts a joy to read. It left me wanting to read biographies of several of the men involved in creating the Constitution.

Last summer, before attending the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, I read this work to get a perspective on the city's past and present. Although I am a lawyer, I was unaware of all of the compromises and contentions that went into the forming of the US Constitution. Fortunately, the book is not written chronologically. Rather, the authors deal with their topics issue-by-issue: the separation of powers, the role of the House and the Senate, etc. This provides an even, uninterrupted flow to the narrative. It also helped in December when I reread the sections on the electoral college. Anyone interested in the framers' intent during last year's political circus should buy this book.

The Collier brothers are an amazing act. Authors of the classic children's novel, "My Brother Sam is Dead," they also carry on careers individually as a history professor and writer on jazz respectively. "Decision in Philadelphia" is the story of the Constitutional Convention from start to finish. Told with novel-like drama and narrative flow, this is the first choice for any general reader who wants to know more about the issues driving our country's second national government (the first, the Articles of Confederation, had failed miserably). Very readable, and very interesting, "Decision in Philadelphia" is a book I have my own AP US History students read for its depth of knowledge and ease of reading (although I wouldn't recommend it for anybody lower than high school, unless exceptionally precocious and obsessed with history). All in all, one of the great popular histories available on any subject.

I am a great Julian Simon / Björn Lomborg fan, but this book has a limited number of mostly useless diagrams, especially from non-US perspective. But any other Simon book.

It is fashionable to bemoan the state of the world. The conventional wisdom is that global warming, Terrorism, drug abuse, crime, AIDS and all the rest of the crises threatening humanity lead us to the conclusion that the "good old days" were somehow better, safer and saner than today.

But, if things are so bad why is infant mortality going down around the world? If things are on the edge of anarchy why are proportionately fewer of us hungry, or sick today than one hundred years ago. If things are going to hell in a handbasket why is our life expectancy steadily improving?

These are inconvenient questions. The answers are tough on the prophets of doom.

Luckily, the conventional wisdom is wrong. Stephen Moore and Julian Simon prove this convincingly. Facts are often inconvenient. But, if you want to know the facts, this is the book for you.

It's Getting Better all the Time is an upbeat statistical reference consisting of factual text and colorful graphs.

Fascinating and fun, the book is an essential reference for authors and speakers. It is a treasury of statistics.

And the book has a great title.

As a publisher, author of 28 Books, 109 revised editions, six translations and over 500 magazine articles as well as a consultant to the book publishing industry, I spend much of my time doing research. I will refer to this book again and again.
Dan Poynter, Para Publishing.

This is a "must read" for anyone who smelled a rat in the 2000 presidential election. Written eight years before the fact, the authors accurately predict Janet Reno's inaction and Justice Scalia's brazen decision, which effectively shut down the couting process. Not just theory, the Collier brothers personally discovered and present hard evidence of decades of Florida vote fraud.

The clues point to a systematic corruption of our voting system by the heads of the major mass media corporations. It's no surprise that Bush's cousin at the Fox news decision desk triggered the stampede of "BUSH WINS" graphics. And its no surprise that searching every mass media website will yield no hits on the word "votescam".

This book does not lean towards either major political party. It simply champions democracy, freedom of information and the need to enforce our voting laws. Buy it. Read it. Take action to revive our right to vote.

Don't let the claimed 4-6 week wait dissuade you. I got my copy after a wait of only four days on December 10th, 2000.)

"Votescam", by Collier & Collier, 1992, a documentary book about Florida vote fraud. Details include the witnessing of double-punching vote cards to disqualify ballots, whiich occurs at hand cleaning of the vote cards with tweezers before the first machine counting on election day. The investigation of this federal election fraud was sent to the Reagan Bush Department of Justice, but this investigation was stopped by US Attorney Antonin Scalia. G H W Bush then appointed Scalia to the USA Supreme Court. 12/24/92 Bush pardons mark the first time in USA history that an investigation was stopped by presidential pardons. "Firewall" Lawrence Walsh,the Iran-Contra special Prosecutor, and "The Iran-Contra Report" 1993, over 100 convictions. Also 12/24/92 G H W Bush pardons a convicted by a jury of his peers two ton cocaine felon multi-millionaire in Florida who also gave Jeb Bush 700,000 dollars in campaign contributions, Public Record. The technology for fair , honest and open elections exists and it includes hard copy ballots with the candidates photos and electronic oversight and recording for the Public record. "Votescam" documents the means and methods of fraud. Please read and inform yourself, or as in the words of Aung San Suu Kyi, mother , Oxford teacher, winner of the Nobel Peace prize, author, "Freedom From Fear", and prisoner in Burma of SLORC and USA/FRANCE big oil.... "Use your Liberty to help us attain ours." Godspeed America

Google for it. Victoria House is still publishing this book. There are several partial and complete archives of the book online , too.

This was an interesting book to read. While a lot of war books I have read portrayed angry characters who couldn't wait for war, this book was different, because of the view the characters had.
Johnny, the protagonist, is a small farmer, who lives in the Shenanadoah Valley during the Civil War. When his Pa is wounded, he comes home to Johnny and the family. A few weeks later, Johnny's Pa dies. You can imagine that Johnny was mad about that. Like most people, fiction and realistic, Johnny wants to get even (you can't really blame him, he's only human.) When an offer to join a wagon train and take supplies to the Confederate Army goes by Johnny, he can't resist. It's a chance to get even with those Yanks for killing his Pa.
His mother is concerned about Johnny's safety, but Johnny lies to her so that he can go. She allows him to go and he starts out with the other wagon and teamsters.
A few days after they start out, some Union soldiers (who happen to be black) suprise the wagon train. Johnny tries to escape, but a soldier catches him.
Johnny doesn't like taking orders from Cush, who is a runaway slave. But if he doesn't, then he'll get shot.
Along the way, Johnny is told that if he wants a good meal, he'll have to teach Cush how to read. So he starts to teach Cush everything backwards. Cush asks Johnny to teach him how to read a newspaper clipping, "The Gettysburg Address." Cush acts like the speech is a sacred scripture. But to him it meant freedom, and that's what he liked about it.
A lot of things happen during the book. The characters feelings towards one another change and they become friends. There's one battle scene. The bond between the two grows stronger as they risk life and limb sometimes to help each other.
The book is historically accurate as far as I can tell, and there is an epilouge sort of thing explaining "How Much of this Book is True?" and "About how People Speak in this Book" and Lincoln's speech "The Gettysburg Address."
When I read the book, I felt like a lot of time had gone by. Really it was only about two weeks. Also, it was interesting to see how attached Johnny was to his mules. When he made an attempt to escape, he tried to run away with his wagon and mules. If I were him, I would have run on foot, or just taken one mule. A wagon is slower, because you have to haul it behind you. I knew that without his mules, if he ever had gotten home, his family wouldn't be able to harvest, plow, and plant crops and that they wouldn't be able to support themselves. But this is just one example of where Johnny could've been a tad bit smarter.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. I would suggest it to anyone who likes historical fiction. If you liked this book, then I would also recommend "Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry".

Every Drop of Blood is about the Civil War. A young boy decides to join a wagon train but their is a risk it is in the middle of the war. A black soldier from the Union army ends up captureing him. Even though one of them is black and the other is white they both find out that they have a lot of similar things about them. Towards the end of the book they become really good friends. They end up saving each others lives. This book is really good.

On his deathbed, Johnny's father made him promise not to go fight in the Civil War for the South but to take care of his mother and the little ones. Then, Johnny is offered 400 dollars to go on a mission to supply the Rebel troops with supplies. His family is suffering and he just can't say no. On the road, the wagon train is attacked and Johnny is captured by a black confederate soldier named Cush. Now he and Cush, though from different backgrounds, must become friends in order to get through the war. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was written in a way that I felt like I was there watching it happen. The plot was full of surprises, but easy to follow and to the point. The characters were realistic of the time period in the way that they talked and acted. The book included real places and events from the Civil War such as City Point and Appomattox. These elements made the book very historically accurate.

After reading the reviews on Amazon and other sources I got the impression that Mr. Probst's book was "THE BOOK" to read for modification of the EEC-IV system on my Ford Truck.

I was very disappointed. 95% of the book was nothing more than a SIMPLIFIED discription of each component in the Ford and Mazda engine control system. Mr. Probst very strongly implied that people should not modify their engine control system.

I found Mr. Jeff Hartman's book "Fuel Injection: Installation, Performance Tuning, Modification" much more informative for technical information.

This book is an excellent source of info on Ford engine control. I recommend this book for anyone who works of Ford vehicles. The only section of the book that disappointed me was the performance modification section. The chapter explains why you should or should not install certain mods. It basically tells you to put in a turbo or supercharger. It does not give any technical info or instructions to performance modify your engine. More modification info can be found in any car enthusiast magazine at your local newstand. Otherwise this book is excellent. I recommend they change the subtitle to "How to Understand and Service," not modify, your EFI engine.

This book is topps! Mr Probst uses a friendly, easy to read format. I am now plagued with two problems on my truck, and thanks to this book, I understand quite a bit more. I am a do it yourselfer, self taught, and this book brings things to light. This has given me the tecnical data I need, as where other books are unclear or leave you hanging. This is not a book by any means, it's an investment.
Raise my rent, put another shrimp on the barbie mate, and thank God for simplicity!!

We must keep our history alive and vividly honest. If we forget or rewrite our history we are doomed to repeat it. These are words that we need to live by today more than ever.

If you have been appalled by the tragedy of our government then you must read the story of Mary Surratt. The government has failed before. It seems we learned little from this tragic story.

This book is easily read but best of all it was an "all night" read. I could not put it down until the last tragic moment. This is american history at its best and at its worst.

You will find history, intrigue, mayhem, tragedy, and tons of Civil War info. I hope you'll take the time to read this wonderful book. Enjoy!

Elizabeth Trindal has done a masterful job of weaving 15 years of research into an enjoyable read of a sadly unmentionable subject. That being the Federal Governments unconstitutional trial and subsequent murder of Mary Surratt. This could very well be a 19th Century version of Ruby Ridge or Waco. And like Ruby Ridge or Waco as long as the economy grows and my neighborhood is safe, who cares what happens to a few folks on the fringe of my sphere. I care. I believe Mary Surratt was an innocent who became a sacrafice on the federal altar of "make everyone feel good,"justice. Elizabeth Trindal's sad and truthful account of poor Mary only serves to reinforce the old adage,"bad men cannot make good citizens". I recommend you buy, read and pass along this excellent book. Anyone interested in truthful accounts of our Nation's history will not be able to put it down. Elizabeth Trindal certainly deserves an award and our appreciation for this work.

A few years ago I wouldn't have believed what I read in Mrs. Trindal's account. Now, I not only believe it, I fear it. The same spirit that murdered Mrs. Surratt is alive and well today. That is what makes this book hard to put down. I knew the ending, and I kept hoping against hope that it would change. This is a story that cries out to be told, and the author does an outstanding job of making it read like a murder mystery. Unfortunately, it is not fiction. A must-read for anyone who has questions that aren't being answered by the dominant media.

ABE starts well. Slotkin's portrayal of his early life rings true. The relationship Abe had with his parents and their place in the community sounds very realistic. At this point, I felt Slotkin had a real grasp of what Lincoln might have been like and I was really enjoying this speculative look at the young Abe Lincoln. The trip down the river changed that for me. Slotkin uses Lincoln's flatboat journey down the Mississippi as the basis of Lincoln's eventual political beliefs, but it just doesn't ring true. The journey is one event after another, with social and sexual overtones that intefere with the natural flow of the novel. Eventually, it doesn't even seem that the novel is about Abe Lincoln anymore, but some nameless boy's "journey into manhood along the Mississippi". The best historical fiction gives the reader insight into the characters; this book seems to be trying to make too strong a point, as if it were an actual historical document instead of a picaresque fiction. Like an earlier reviewer, I found this to be less than it could have been.

I will be quite honest, this is a bad book. The research Slotkin did about many of the often ignored events in Lincoln's formative years and the inclusion of some obscure celebrities of the 1830's is impressive, but attempts to connect the two are ridiculous. There is simply no reason to make up a fictional story about Lincoln's upbringing to make it interesting, unusual, and important to his political beliefs. It is thrown together haphazardly and Slotkin's attempts to occasionally use the vernacular (without rhyme or reason all of the characters and even the narrator go in and out of their unique dialects)do not help the story flow or add anything to the novel. Basically it seems that Slotkin is trying to take elements from Huck Finn, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and The Bible, stir them up and add a little sexual scandal to sell a book. It does not work and really makes for a disappointing read. I think historical novels about famous leaders are great, but there should be a thesis the author goes on to prove in it and the later part of that equation is sorely lacking here--Slotkin wants to show that Lincoln's trip down the Mississippi influenced Lincoln's future politics, but he never really demonstrates it even though he was free to make up any dialogue and events he liked in order to do it. Slotkin tried to do many things with this book, and I appreciate the effort, but it just does not work and going against the general feeling of most reviewers on Amazon, I cannot recommend this to anyone unless it all you have available to read.

After the "Lost Years" that preceded the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, the life of the young Abraham Lincoln is one of the great biographical mysteries. How did a boy, born in a log cabin to poor, uneducated dirt farmer become arguably the most important figure in the nation's history? The prominence of this position is based on my belief that no other American living during the time of the Civil War could have preserved the Union. But it is hard to reconcile the author of the rhetorical eloquence of "The Gettysburg Address" and "The Second Inaugural," both of which are carved into the walls of the Lincoln Memorial, with the young boy trying to learn to read by candlelight out on the American frontier.

What little is known of the young Lincoln serves as the narrative framework for "Abe: A Novel of the Young Lincoln." As he explains in his afterword, author Richard Slotkin has taken some liberties with events (he combines Lincoln's two raft trips down the Mississippi into one) and people (Lincoln crosses paths with several prominent people he probably never met). Slotkin is interested in explaining "how a man raised as a 'normal' nineteenth century racist was able to transcend the limitations of his culture." Having authored several books on the American frontier of the 19th century, Slotkin uses that background to select various true stories and add Lincoln to their telling. Readers will see a strong but ironic parallel to Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," which I am sure was intentional on Slotkin's part.

The strength of "Abe" is how Slotkin slowly has the pieces come together for the Lincoln that would preserve the Union. There is a moment relatively early on in the novel where Lincoln gets the hang of telling a story and of making a point "sideways." It is watching the young Lincoln try to make sense of the world around him, not just the issue of slavery but his strained relationship with his father, the nature of republican government, the mystery of women, and how to navigate the Mississippi River, that this novel becomes captivating. The portrait of Lincoln's parents has a resonance beyond what you can find in a Lincoln biography and Slotkin totally captures life on the frontier of Kentucky, Indiana and Elanoy.

This is obviously a work of fiction, so it is not the true story of young Abe Lincoln, but it has the feel of a real story. Certainly Slotkin can be forgiven historical liberties taken in the pursuit of a better understanding of the creation of the nation's most important political figure. Following his assassination, Lincoln, the most vilified President in the nation's history to be sure, was deified as a martyred saint. Slotkin creates a memorable portrait of Lincoln, at the time when the idea first entered his head that his goal in life was to find a part to play, and a stage to play it on. In the end, Slotkin creates a slight but significant gap in his narrative, signifying that the final chapters have caught up with the historical Lincoln (certainly more than the rest of the book). By that point, I think most readers will be willing to agree that he has achieved his goal and told a convincing tale of how Abe became Lincoln.

Great book if you're new to website administration and design. Contains crash courses in how the Web works, server admin, security, HTML, multimedia, and server-side scripting. Focused towards Unix/Perl with little or no coverage of commercial and newer products like Microsoft IIS/ASP, Cold Fusion, PHP, etc. Recommended for newbies.

I came here to see if there was a new edition of this book. I learned my trade as a web developer/web master from this book. But that was a while ago, and the landscape is just enormously different then when this book was written. Lincoln Stein is a perl/bioinformatics god. But this book should either go out of print, or write a second edition.

Lincoln Stein is basically THE guru of web site security. That makes this book, on setting up a web site, stand out from the rest. Heard about the recent attacks that brought down commercial giants' web sites? That's why the foundation of your approach should be sound engineering, with the bells and whistles added later.

Okay, sorry for the sermon. The fact is that this book discusses EVERY topic related to the world wide web. It gives a broad understanding, plenty of detail, and a lot of wisdom as well. I disagree with folks who suggest it is ``out of date''; it still provides the perfect foundation for anybody who is going to build a web site (or wants to know how they work).

If you want to use technology that isn't mentioned in this book, go ahead and get another book on that. But those are just details--this book is the bedrock and foundation. Don't hit the infobahn without it.