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Book reviews for "Bradford,_William" sorted by average review score:

William Bradford: Governor of Plymouth Colony
Published in Library Binding by Bt Bound (March, 2000)
Author: Marianne Hering
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Not just a biography but an excellent Pilgrim history
The Colonial Leaders series offers two different perspectives on the Plymouth Colony founded by the Pilgrims. One book looks at Miles Standish, the "Stranger" who was the colony's military leader, while this volume tells of story from the perspective of the colony's governor, William Bradford, one of the "Saints." So instead of focusing on military exploits and relationships with the Indians, this juvenile biography by Marianne Hering deals with the religious life of the colony and what they did to survive in the New World. Bradford was raised in an Anglican family who intended for him to be a shepherd, but the young boy insisted on becoming a Puritan, eventually joining the Separatists who fled to Holland to escape persecution. This book talks about the voyage on the "Mayflower," the Mayflower Compact, and the peace treaty with the Indians. Bradford was not the colony's first governor, but assumed the post when the first one suddenly died and it was then that the first Thanksgiving was celebrated. It was under Bradford that the colony expanded and Hering focuses on some of the basic democratic principles embodied in his decisions. This book is illustrated with historic pictures of the Pilgrims as well as contemporary photographs of the Plymouth Plantation recreation that tourists can visit. Even more than being a satisfactory juvenile biography of Bradford, this is one of the better histories of the Plymouth Colony that I have read. One of the interesting sidebars in this book dispels some of the myths about the Pilgrims that we remember each Thanksgiving.


The Revolt of Mamie Stover
Published in Hardcover by Amereon Ltd (June, 1984)
Author: William Bradford Huie
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excellent story of triumph in adversity and the human spirit
Read this in the 50's in Australia. Always seemed to me to be a great american story, unjustifiably neglected. A most human tale, probably truer than false. Mamie a triumph in adversity, kindness of one who could have been just a user of people who chose to hold out a helping hand. Yes, I would love to obtain a copy so my wife could enjoy it in these less prudish times. A great human story.

Eye opening for a twenty year old in 1955
I read this book in 1955 while I was working in a Steel Mill in Warren, Ohio. I could see then that I would never be rich earning $16.00 a day after what the "elite" of Hawaii was earning just prior to and during World War II. I agree with the reviewer from Charlotte, N.C., don't know why but I never forgot the book. (NOTE) I believe a movie staring Richard Eagen and Jane Russell was also made in the 1950's however, it did not "tell" as much as the book. I would be interested in obtaining a copy of the book...new or used...

This book is more truth than fiction.
The Revolt of Mamie Stover is the real history of Hawaii. It should have been named "Islands in the Stream". It describes how Hawaii was always stratically located during the wars and skirmishes in the Pacific. It describes how the citizens aquired what is now the Old Money. The elite in Hawaii would just as soon not see this book in print again. It has been a long time since I read the book, but it has always been in my memory.


Can Do!: The Story of the Seabees (Bluejacket Books Series)
Published in Paperback by United States Naval Inst. (October, 1997)
Author: William Bradford Huie
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Huie Can DO!
As a son of a submariner from WWII, I grew up hearing all the navy stories and meeting the naval pals of my father. This garnered me a more than casual interest in things Naval regarding WWII. I also grew up with the John Wayne version of the Seabees. I like Huie's version better. Written during the war, it carries all the flavors of patriotism it was written to impart to the American public. I found it a "page turner" once I got past the first few preliminary chapters as he was setting the story line us. Well worth the money. I am looking forward to reading his sequel: From Omaha to Okinawa.

Great Little Read!
This book is surprisingly interesting and contains a bunch of good "first person" stories complete with unique and numerous photos. The atmosphere is real WWII since the book was written in 1943. Makes you want to find out what happened next.

this is exactly the way things were on each island
i served in the 1st special construction and steverdoring batt. on the canal guadacanal and made 2 trips and ended in sasebo in sept of 45 as soon as the peace treaty was signed. this book has pictures and stories by the men who were there. book was a job well done


Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647
Published in Paperback by Random House (June, 1981)
Author: William Bradford
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Was not what I expected
I was suprised at how gossipy William Bradford was. He told tales about his neighbors and friends and described how the pilgrims constantly bickered with traders and their benefactors over money. My whole fantasy about what I thought the Pilgrims were like has completely changed. Now I consider them petty, self-righteous gossip mongers. The book was good for general information about preparation for their trip and what they actually did when they got here, but as far as historical fact goes, I was unimpressed. Bradford discusses people who stray from the flock, "outsiders" who get girls pregnant, drunkards, and preachers who were not to his liking. It was more like a "dish" session n the Jenny Jones show than something I would be proud to uphold as historical fact to the rest of the nation.

Great!
Excellent book! I read this in combination with the Governer William Bradford's Letter Book and Mourts Relations and Good Newes from New England by Edward Winslow. I am really glad that I have done it this way, because there is further information in the Good Newes from New England that fills in the gaps of certain events.
This is William Bradford's point of view, and the information in it is amazing. If you are into history, then it doesn't get any better than this. Its not very often that you have the opportunity to see events through someone elses eyes, and this does it.

Excellent Adventure Tale
I came across this book quite by accident and didn't think it would be much of a read. Generally speaking I don't read histories and one from the early 1600's was a pretty daunting task - or so I thought. In fact, it was a great tale of adventure and faith and an extremely insightful and thought provoking book about how this country was started and what it must have looked like to those who arrived here some 350 years ago.I really did love this book.

Bradford is an engaging writer whose prose isn't hard to understand. In places his understatement about the death and hardship faced almost constantly is even amusing. Nothing of the kind of challenges that the Leyden pilgrims faced in Massachusetts will seem familiar to a modern reader. Just the same, the fact that it all happened is fascinating. One can almost imagine being there, looking over the decks of the Mayflower and facing all that December gray and wilderness and wondering what you were doing coming here. Told in first person it reads like an adventure as much as a history.

The pilgrims here are also quite human and not at all the diorama characters of a first graders Thanksgiving craft project. They face social challenges and the horrors of death and disease. Attacks by natives actually occured on occasion. The dream of a sort of providence is one that proves difficult in the real world. Bradford mourns the loss of these ideals and the people who imported them. There's something a little sad in his later passages, whether it be age or a truly lost paradise one never really knows. But what Bradford imagined as a sort of religious nirvana clearly doesn't pan out in the end. Nevertheless it is well worth the journey. I highly recommend a read of this American classic.


The Execution of Private Slovik
Published in Paperback by Dell Pub Co (April, 1974)
Author: William Bradford Huie
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Desertion, Dishonor, Selfishness
For what this book is, it is certainly the best written of its kind. What is it? A perfect example of there's no such a thing as a bad boy, society is to blame, who can define duty or patriotism, we are all responsible but the criminal, liberalism.... in other words, a mix of Father Flanigan and George McGovern. Yet it is sharply written, if not reasoned, and makes for a compelling story. Slovik certainly wasn't a duty, honor, country sort of fellow. He was a petty criminal--more a follower and delinquent than anything--who spent four years, as an adult, in a Michigan reformatory. He avoided recidivism upon his release, marrying, holding steady jobs, and enjoyng his 4-F status. Then came the barrel-scraping; the need for replacements outweighing previous standards; so Slovik was drafted. And then the whining begins. Reading Sloviks letters to his wife, one is struck by the self-pity. His whimpering is such that I believe Mother Theresa would have wished to slap him. His letters make Bill Clinton seem another Audie Murphy or Joe Foss. He arrived in France in the summer of 1944 and immediately "got lost." When he finally caught up with his unit--six WEEKS later--he informed his CO that he would desert if put on the line--and desert he did. As jail had once been a comfort for him, the stockade seemed preferable to duty, he turned himself in the next day, writing the confession that almost made his execution a certainty. In it he admitted to cowardice and added in bold print "I'LL RUN AWAY AGAIN." An officer offered to tear up the confession if Slovik would go on the line. He refused. Yes, he was the only soldier executed for desertion since 1864, and yes, there may have been more egregious examples of cowardice, but Slovik took the decisions that led to his fate. And he whined all the way.

very well-done
I found this a well-told account of the only soldier executed by the U.S. in World War Two. I am sure there were men more deserving of execution than Private Slovik. It is another illustration of the wrongness of capital punishment


The Americanization of Emily
Published in Hardcover by Amereon Ltd (June, 1984)
Author: William Bradford Huie
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Cynical, bawdy, witty
I saw the James Garner movie first, and was so impressed by it I
looked up the novel. I think the movie might be a little better,
but the book is definitely worth reading. It's not very long and actually can be read in one sitting. It's funny, sometimes obscene, sometimes cynical, wise, and realistic. The main character is a "dog robber" during World World II; he is a general's aide, and is supposed to get the general everything he wants. Hence, he supposedly would rob everyone he could, including dogs. He is a detached and somewhat cynical man, who, while stationed in England, meets and falls in love with the Emily of the title ("Americanization" is not such a noble thing; it refers to deprived English girls, made poor by the war, who do what they must to survive. This means attaching themselves to the much richer Americans.) Mostly the book is about war and love. It has a very cynical view of war and soldiering. It's message: only love can conquer the horrible. A book that is half comedy and half horror, but wholly entertaining.


Mud on the Stars (Library of Alabama Classics)
Published in Paperback by Univ of Alabama Pr (Txt) (October, 1996)
Authors: William Bradford Huie and Donald R. Noble
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A socially significant work from the era of the New Deal
I read this book on the recommendation of former Speaker of the House Jim Wright. While I found the prose heavy-handed, its appeal to young, politically aware people in the 1940's was apparent. Congressman Wright cited Huie's work as an important part of his education before he entered the Army Air Corp after Pearl Harbor. The human cost of government programs was being tallied at about this time, and the results as revealed in Mud on the Stars inspired men like the Congressman to make government work for people not become a burden. Whether Congressman Wright and his collegues achieved that balance is debatable, but his political motivation was clear.

The other subject of Mud on the Stars was racism, but a racism defined in multicolored, economic terms. That too was part of the education of the generation which fought a great war and eventually presided over the passage of civil rights legislation in the 1950's and '60s.

Huie drew on his experiences as a j! ! ournalist, particularly in the South, but his observations about government, corporations, and race were universal. For present, at least until I am proven wrong, I'd say it is timeless; well worth a quick reading.


William Bradford: Rock/Plymout
Published in Library Binding by Twenty First Century Books (October, 1999)
Author: Kieran Doherty
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The Abridged Walmsley: Selections from the Career of William Aubrey Walmsley
Published in Paperback by Florida State University, Museum of Fine Arts (October, 1999)
Authors: James J. Murphy, Allys Palladino-Craig, and Bradford R. Collins
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Acrylic Painting Kit
Published in Paperback by Walter Foster Pub (December, 1995)
Authors: R. Bradford Johnson and William Powell
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