Tidewater Dynasty is a fictional account of the Lee family. It is based upon historic dates and facts. The glimpses of the Lee family are not true to life. All the Lee husbands are good looking, intelligent, perfect husbands, unselfish, ... All the wives have the same traits. There is one Lee who does not comform to the Lee image. I suppose he embodies all the bad traits of the Lee family so that none of the others had any.

I've always been interested in the Lee family of Virginia, especially Richard Henry and Francis Lightfoot, the Declaration of Indpedence signers, so I ordered this book, hoping it would give me an insight into the world the two lived in. The book did, in a way. Some of the best points were when the authors described the society of Old Virginia, the relationships between the Virginia families, and how the colonists lived. Thankfully, the authors did a good job of portraying Richard H. and Francis L., but after that, the book sort of went downhill. I definitely did not enjoy how the authors portrayed Henry 'Light Horse Harry' Lee. He came off as some whiny, simpering man, and it really annoyed me. But, other than that, this book is a great insight into the society of Old Virginia and a fair look at the Lee family, and their roll in our history

I used this text in my Western Civ course. While it is solid in historical content, it averages at least one typo per page. Obviously it was never even spellchecked. I tried to ignore the first hundred or so but they just keep on coming. Inexcusable.

This trivia book has over 800 questions on Confederate generals. The problem is that numerous questions are re-used throughout the book. There is also a list of the generals in the back of the book that seems far from complete. It's good points is that it's unlike your regular trivia books due to focussing on a specific area of the war, with questions that will make you want to learn more about these men.

If you are looking for a straight-forward walk down memory lane, forget this book. It rambles disjointedly, like someone just writing down random thoughts as they occur to him. I wanted to read this book because I was a former student of the author, and the person that came through in this book is certainly not the person, the professor, that I remember. What may have been an appealing topic gets lost in the hodgepodge of literary devices. Who (unless you are "in" on the jokes) needs the interminable list of names? I can't recommend this book, and I'm very disappointed that it is not the book I thought it would be.

My mother was recently diagnosed, and I bought this book hoping it would be an informative summary of treatment methods, statistics, and coping strategies. Unfortunately, it is not. It contains pretty much the same general information that can be found on the American Cancer Society web site, and I would recommend the National Cancer Institute's PDQ service for much more comprehensive clinical information. Also, my mother's oncologist provided several pamphlets that were just as good or better on treatment side effects and coping strategies. As far as I can tell, this book's main merit is its case studies, all of which have positive outcomes. These may give patients more hope. However, the price of the book is a little steep if that's all one gets from it. I would recommend that patients and families do their own research: it's more empowering, it's free, and the information is better.

Potential readers should know that this book isn't a scholastic history of Robert E. Lee. Like Dwyer's "Stonewall," this book is historical fiction. Furthermore, interposed within its "story," is ultra-conservative-Texan-Christian rhetoric... I'm shocked that Amazon.com doesn't state this in the book description.