"Rags to riches" is another common adage; but the route to getting there is what distinguishes the daring from the rest. But the most important factor that has made these great achievers who changed and paved the course of business history is the strong desire to excel against all odds. What else can explain the rise of Andrew Carnegie from the drudgery of working in a dirty shop floor to being the master of one of America's greatest steel company.

Do not read this book in a hurry. Brands has an excellent command on the English language and his style of narration matches the true values that one can derive from the 25 great persons described in this book.

I have recommended this book as the first assignment to my daughter during her summer vacation.

Your search for human excellence ends here.

Brands' theme in this book clearly tracks the arc of Franklin life, from loyal English colonial subject to American Revolutionary advocate. While building a strong career as publisher, Franklin manages to build an infrastructure of public works in Philadelphia, including library and fire department, a colonial postal system, and defense force against hostile Indians. All the while, he gains an international reputation as a scientist and philosopher, and late in life, statesman par excellance.

Brands is to be commended for giving us this well sourced and detailed book, which clearly relates the amazing life of a complex and fascinating American.

Why do I say this? There are several reasons. One reason is that Brands is equally good with narrative and analysis. His way with words is equal to the other two authors. High praise indeed, because if you look at the Morris book there is great writing on nearly every page. Brands has managed to accomplish this also. Regarding Benjamin Vaughan, who espoused the virtues of hemlock to Franklin as a treatment for Franklin's kidney stone, Brands writes that he had "suggested a sub-Socratic dose." Regarding Franklin's voyage from Boston to New York, as a teenager, where his foray into vegetarianism ran headlong into the smell of fresh cod being cooked on board: "Before his vegetarian days he, like most Bostonians, had loved fish: fried, steamed, boiled, stewed. The present smell conjured recollections of memorable meals past, and he decided to revisit the argument for interspecies pacifism. To his delight he discovered a loophole. 'I recollected that when the fish were opened, I saw smaller fish taken out of their stomachs; then I thought, if you eat one another, I don't see why we mayn't eat you.'" But besides writing well, when dealing with Franklin's political life the author is able to explain and analyze and make things clear for the lay reader. (As Brands is a professor of history he has the advantage of his teaching background in this regard.)
Although the narrative was wonderful in the Morris book I found him a bit weak on political analysis. Likewise with McCullough. This could have something to do with their non-academic backgrounds. I also felt that McCullough went a bit overboard in his "Jefferson bashing", as though he felt he needed to build Adams up by tearing Jefferson down. Brands does very little "bashing" of anyone. He has a few comments towards the end of the book regarding Adams' jealousy of Franklin, but it doesn't turn into a diatribe.

Brands has the good sense just to tell you about the remarkable life of Franklin. We all know about the kite and lightning rods but what about Franklin's invention of a musical instrument (the Armonica); his creation of a more efficient stove for heating (the Franklin stove); inventing what he called "double spectacles" or bifocals, as we know them; etc. When Franklin got to Philadelphia he started a public library and fire brigades; later on in life he speculated on scientific matters- the Gulf Stream and a geological theory that was admittedly very rudimentary and not developed- but that had elements of plate tectonics in it. Remarkable. Oh, and something else..... After observing some black children in an "experimental" school setting he came to the conclusion that there were no intrinsic differences in the races. So, not only was he "anti-slavery" but he truly believed that with education all races would be equal. This was very radical thinking for the times....

It is a major accomplishment that Mr. Brands managed to fit everything into this one volume, without skimping on any aspects of Franklin's life. A truly wonderful book.

Roosevelt's other works, including "The Rough Riders", are better known, and this one is not great literature. Instead, it is a remarkable adventure story by an interesting man. The book is essentially Roosevelt's trip diary, colored by his great enthusiasm for adventure and the natural world. Even before reaching the Amazon, Roosevelt stops at a Brazilian snake research lab that so captures his attention that he writes seventeen pages about it. At all times, he makes careful note of the wildlife he encounters, not quite with the depth of a professional scientist, but with the trained eye of a dedicated and experienced hobbyist. He squeezes in some amusing stories about piranha fish that he heard --and apparently believed. Naturalists of the day killed animals in the name of science, which places in context Roosevelt's joy in hunting and his comments: first on alligators ("They are often dangerous and are always destructive to fish, and it is good to shoot them") and later on conservation ("There is every reason why the good people of South America should waken... to the duty of preserving from extinction the wildlife which is an asset of such interest."). The book is most poetic in its description of animal life, and particularly in registering surprise that the myriad insects are far more pernicious than any of the better-known dangers such as alligators, big cats, or piranhas.

The book's is not perfect, and Roosevelt is not a great author in a literary sense, rather making up in enthusiasm what he lacks in prose and penetrating insight. There is no attempt at political analysis, he simply praises Brazilians as good hosts who have started down the road to democracy. He sees the land he travels through as like the United States of perhaps a hundred years earlier, so there are frequent predictions that a promising location is ripe for development. The limited foray into politics is to praise Positivism, the ideology of the Brazilian military class that emphasized modernity and structure, and that not incidentally justified the many instances of military intervention in Brazilian politics over the years. Finally, the one annoyance is the recurring theme (perhaps a dozen times in all) of the true danger of the journey. Over and over we read that the river has never been charted, that it is truly dangerous, that the explorers are not your armchair-adventurer variety, and that such voyages will necessarily be easier for those who follow in the future. We get that.

Roosevelt was an interesting man, his enthusiasm and taste for adventure are infectious. The book is not a literary triumph, but it is a fun read and an excellent journey through the Amazon

Science's loss was politics gain. However, T.R. never lost his interest in nature. Following his presidency, he set out on an expedition to explore and map unknown regions of Paraguay and Brazil on the 950-mile River of Doubt, a previously unexplored tributary of the Amazon River. The scientific endeavor became an ordeal to test the expedition's courage and stamina as it faced overpowering heat, dangerous rapids, wild animals, devouring ants, endless insects, fever, dysentery and more. The expedition collected thousands of species of birds and mammals, but Roosevelt would die a few years after completing the expedition. Roosevelt admired those who lived life with passion and for what he called "the Great Adventure." This story chronicles one of T.R.'s last great adventures in his typical inimitable style.

Second, his writing is greatly under-appreciated. He doesn't breeze over his descriptions of wildlife or the landscape--it's pretty technical stuff--but he does it clearly and concisely. As someone who has labored through countless pedantic textbooks, I took comfort in his words, "Ability to write well, if the writer had nothing to write about, entitles him to mere derision. But the greatest thought is robbed of an immense proportion of its value if expressed in a mean or obscure manner."

Third, despite the above, he could still endure enormous physical hardship at an old age. Battling rapids, hauling canoes, fighting disease, and hunting game, TR had the combination of brawn and intelligence that's seriously lacking in our leaders today, especially the lightweight that now sits behind TR's desk.

This book is also a great window into a time and place forever lost to history. TR's writing projects a clear photo in your mind of undiscovered wilderness and great adventure.

After the Civil War and Reconstruction, America was witnessing revolutions in every field. Not only in industry were there innovations, but in politics, economy, and society as well. These changes, including the emergence of multi-millionaires like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan, labor unions, and the fight for free silver, continued well into the final decade of the 19th century. The 1890's was a time of unrest in America with corrupt politicians, an agrarian downturn, and other problems. H.W. Brands tries to get a hold of this turbulent age in The Reckless Decade: America in the 1890's.

Brands' objective in this work is to illustrate the rich history of the "reckless decade," while at the same time drawing parallels to the modern day. His introduction serves as a reminder of this goal. In it, he compares the end of the 19th century to the end of the 20th century. Both periods felt the "brink of a new era... most pronounced in America's cities." The cities in both eras helped reshape the economy. Brands notes that the politics of both decades were entrenched in fear and weariness. Those of the 1890's feared the change of the lives of the farmers with industrialization, while those of the 1990's feared a "ubiquitous, iniquitous liberalism." These comparisons are offered in the introduction, but not given directly in the book.

Brands covers a startlingly broad selection of events in such a narrow timeframe of history. The competition between the business juggernauts, Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Morgan is presented in almost a narrative form, making a mundane matter of economics interesting. Brands spends a chapter discusses the "other half" of society, in distinct contrast with the aforementioned business magnates. He alludes to the work of journalist, Jacob Riis, in how immigrants managed to get by in the slums of New York. Much of the chapter is taken directly from Riis' gloomy portrayal of the ramshackle apartments. Brands discusses in depth the Spanish-American War, Jim Crow laws and segregation, and the national frenzy over gold and silver. One of the more interesting parts of the book was a retelling of the Homestead Strike of 1892. Brands depicts the event as having "the atmosphere a circus. (The better educated of the Pinkertons might have thought of a Roman circus with themselves as Christians and the strikers as the lions.)" The scope of the book misses very little: educational reform may be the only theme untouched in The Reckless Decade.

The book is written in a very approachable style. Brands is, at times, captivating in his narration of events. Unfortunately, the reading is also slow at some points. The author should be applauded, however, for his extensive research, as the material is exhaustive. The Reckless Decade encapsulates ten years of history in a mere 350 pages.

Those criticisms aside, "The Last Romantic" works as a consitently entertaining and colorful character study. And that may very well have been Brands intention. If so, then he has succeeded marvelously so.

Roosevelt was many,many things: scientist, soldier, rancher, philosopher, statesman, traveller and historian (this is just an abbreviated list) besides a president who put the "conserve" in conservative; and Brands may be his biggest fan. Sharing Brands' passion for TR going into this book, I had my admiration confirmed.

All in all, this book is highly reccomended not so much as historical scholarship, but rather as a fascinating portrait of a fascinating man.

One fascinating conclusion I drew from the book that TR was a man who became president about 10 years too early, then became an old(er) man with his glory days behind him. The last ten years of his life were spent twisting at windmills, bullying friend and foe alike while attempting to regain the power that he willingly gave up after 1909. Allowing a little bit of political opinion, one wonders if we will see similar behavior by the present White House occupant who also will leave a relatively young man. (Something to think about.)

Nonetheless, the book is a fine testament to TR's immense talents, ego and passion. TR was a great man, a great president, but not without his flaws.

Brands posits the "dual character of the Cold War - being both a geopolitical and an ideological contest" and explains: "The ideological gulf between the United States and the Soviet Union gave the geopolitical rivalry unprecedented urgency." In Brands's interpretation, the origins of the Cold War were partly the dynamics of conventional international relations: The United States and the Soviet Union emerged from the Second World War as the only world powers, so, practically by definition, they had to be rivals. But, as Brands, observes, geopolitical competition was intensified by extreme ideological differences. According to Brands: "By the middle 1950s, the American alliance system girdled the globe" and "[a]bout the only thing all the countries in the American system shared was an avowed opposition to communism." Sometimes this proved awkward. Brands reminds us that "Washington could be counted on to praise allies and clients for their opposition to godless communism, if not for their strict observance of the human rights and civil liberties of all their subjects." According to Brands, "by allying with repressive regimes, the American government undercut the popular moral base on which America's containment policy rested." The United States' alliances with unsavory right-wing dictators were prompted by the imperative for national survival. According to Brands, "[f]or the first time in American history, an enemy [possessed] the capacity to strike quickly and devastatingly at America's industrial resources and population." And Brands writes that after Sputnik's launch: "For the first time in their history, Americans found themselves facing the specter of national extinction." But "the anti-communist crusade...[also] served purposes that had little to do with its professed fear for American security." In 1963, for instance, during hearings on what became the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Sen. Strom Thurmond asserted that anti-segregation parades and demonstrations were "inspired by Communists" and were "part of the international conspiracy of communism." Richard Nixon's transformation from Cold War hardliner to foreign-policy realist is an intriguing case-study. Nixon was, of course, an original Cold Warrior ideologue. But the 1969 Nixon Doctrine, according to Brands, provided that the "United States...would no longer shoulder the burden of maintaining internal security for its friends, or of guaranteeing them against local or regional conflict." The Nixon Doctrine, Brands writes, represented "an intention to de-ideologize American foreign policy.... Geopolitics not ideology, henceforth would guide American policy." That was wishful thinking. In 1976, a group of hardliners whom Brands describes as "detente-distrusters" organized the Committee on the Present Danger which "dedicated itself to waking America to the dangers its members believed America faced from Soviet ambitions - in other words, to reviving the Cold War."

The reason, according to Brands, is that "Charles Krauthammer was probably right when he argued that nations need enemies." During the Cold War, Brands writes, "America had an enemy that could hardly have been improved upon. The Soviet Union was officially atheistic...dictatorial... socialistic... militarily powerful...ideologically universalist...obsessively secretive." This was the devil we knew. Brands makes this intriguing point: "[P]erhaps the most important reason for detente's demise was that Americans loved the Cold War too much to let it go." He suggests, therefore, that the Cold War was perpetuated long after there ceased to be a credible threat of a U.S.-U.S.S.R. military confrontation by the sectors of American society which benefitted from the Cold War: Defense contractors, fellow-traveling proponents of military Keynesianism, and right-wing ideologues. According to Brands: "Arguably, the most important effect of the Cold War on American life was the inspiration it provided for unprecedented spending on defense." For instance, Brands writes that "the Reagan [defense] buildup worked wonders for the American defense industry," as defense spending rose between Fiscal Year 1981 and 1985 from $171 billion to $229 billion. The administration's "anti-communism...fueled a new round of military Keynesianism." And Brands quotes New Right activist and fundraiser Richard Viguerie that this orgy of defense spending was necessitated by the false premise that "[c]learly, we have fallen from being the Number One military power in the world to the Number Two power, behind a country whose leaders are totally committed to defeating America and conquering the world."

Brands's final chapter is entitled in part: "Who Won the Cold War?" According to Brands, the United States enjoyed "a brilliant victory....At the end, the Soviet Union was utterly vanquished." He concludes that "the Cold War was no war at all, but simply the management of national interests in a world of competing interests." However, according to Brands, the American people " have an "incurable desire to make the world a better place." In Brands's view: "This save-the-world inclination was largely responsible for the fervor with which Americans waged the Cold War." Brands explains: "The staying power of the Cold War paradigm resulted in no small part from its capacity to combine the selfless with the self-interested." I would only substitute "confuse" for "combine." Others will dispute Brands's premises, as well as his conclusions. But I doubt that any thinking reader will fail to find this book stimulating.

As we can see, clarity is not one of Brands' virtues. (He also is not very good in defining what "conservatism" means.) In fact this is a short, superficial (yet padded) work that adds nothing to our knowledge. Indeed it is little more than a regurgitation of the conventional wisdom, which is done with more wit and panache in The New Republic. In such writing one must be continually interesting yet never actually challenge the bromides of the time. So what we have is a cheap form of paradox: the success of liberalism was the result of the cold war, Nixon was really a liberal, that sort of thing.

We have to define liberalism more closely. If liberalism is dead, it does not mean that "big government" is dead, since the size of the government has not changed very much over time. If liberalism is dead, it does not mean that the American government does not have considerable power, since it has a military regime second to none. That it uses its considerable offices to ensure free trade rather than cut infant mortality or stop AIDS leads us to political questions, and political choices, that Brands does not really discuss.

Let us look at those parts of the liberal agenda which are particularly unpopular or unlikely to pass; abolition of the death penalty, revival of trade unions, systematic economic reforms to counter deindustrialization, national health insurance, national daycare, a civil rights agenda that moves beyond the laws of the sixties. Not all of these are unpopular, not all of these require "big government." They are currently in limbo for complex reasons which Brands does not touch on and does not provide much help in discussing. There is nothing on unions, nothing on feminism. There is nothing on the structures of the political parties or federalism or the congressional and electoral system. But allo these encourage certain vested elites over others, which ensure delay and resistance at every turn. There is no mention of Thomas Sugrue's Origins of the Urban Crisis which shows that even before the Voting Rights Act, let alone black power, that Detroit whites and other Northerners were not willing to pay the price needed for integration. (For no very good reason, Brands argues Americans lost their faith in government a decade later, as a result of revelations of CIA skullduggery.)

What we have is a book in which "popular opinion" is treated as an autonomous force and the not the result of past political struggles. (And the polling evidence he cites is a crude simplification of a complex reality.) There is also an unhelpful tendency to link the passage of every successful reform in the fifties and sixties to national security. This is clearly misleading; as Patricia Sullivan noted, civil rights reform was making progress in the thirties and the forties before the cold war intervened. I doubt very few minds were changed because some people suggested that the South made the United States look bad in the eyes of the world. The portrait of the liberal Nixon is likewise flawed: Nixon did have to face a democratic Congress, who after all were responsible for passing much of the legislation that Brands gives sole credit to Nixon for. His praise of Nixon's "generous" welfare program ignores the work of Jill Quadagno and Rickie Solinger (who points out the demagogic campaigns against welfare fraud at this time). As for Nixon's foreign policy, Brands ignores the fact that Nixon extended the Vietnam war for four years without gaining anything that could have been achieved in 1969, and at the price of dragging Cambodia into the war. On questions of disarmament, the Israel-Arab conflict, Angola, Apartheid, the Pakistan-Indian war, and Latin America, Nixon's foreign policy was as anti-Soviet and belligerent as any conservative could ask for. It is true that conservatives did not always recognize this, but so what? Stalwarts of the right such as William F. Buckley and John Wayne could all agree that Ronald Reagan did not know what he was talking about in opposing the Panama Canal treaty. Brands ignores continuities: notwithstanding the rhetoric of the war on poverty, LBJ and Clinton both thought that poverty was largely the result of the behavioral problems of the poor and underplayed the economic forces that encouraged it. Brands is a noticeably prolific historian. This volume is a good argument for writer's block.

Brand argues that the American people have always been skeptical about the federal government being given too much power. He cites chapter and verse from the Federalist Papers, the history of the Revolutionary War, the U.S. Constution. He notes that during the cold war this skepticism was held in check because Americans, historically, have always recognized that there must be a federal government to wage war and make treaties. Given their long suspicion of big government, it took the cold war the longest war in American history to draw more power to itself both internationally and domestically.

Reagan, the great schizophrenic, wanted it both ways. For those who lived through that crazy house time, Brands analysis makes good sense. Reagan told Americans that big government was evil and incompetent, un-American and communisitic and that business was competent and would fix everything that was broken. But at the same time, from the other side of his mouth, he asked Americans to believe that when it came to prosecuting war, the government was competent and knew what it was doing. I always wondered why we couldn't let business run foreign policy, since they seemed to be running everything else under Reagan's tenure. Culturally, Reagan was a Democrat, (having been an FDR liberal), but politically he was a weird mixture of Calvin Coolidge, and George Wallace. He reached way back to the days of the Robber Baron for his rhetoric about business, spent billions on the military industrial complex so his friends could profit from the war, and cut average Americans out of the big Keynesian spending spree.

America after WWII at last recognized it was a world leader and that isolationism was impossible. Everything done in the name of the American people during those years -- improved benefits, the recognition of labor unions, the expansion of various Social Security and Great Society Programs met with little opposition from Republicans for it was all done as a necessary part of fighting the cold war. It was Reagan's great genius to stop the gravy train the average American was riding on, and clear the right of way for the gravy train's headed for corporations and wealthy Americans. I'll always be grateful to him for showing me how undeserving poor people are, and how deserving the rich are. After all, they are rich and they got that way through hard, hard work!

We are now, since September 11, for the moment anyway, reassuming some of the rhetoric of the cold war. We hear comparisons of al Queda to facism, we hear of massive military spending, billions in gifts to various industries, billions earmarked for security. And so, once again we are launched back into the well-known waters of total war, though like the Gulf War, we know it will only be temporary. Thus the lobbyists know they must take good advantage of the circumstances. A boondoggle that could not get funding before September is now necessary for national defense. New corporate welfare proposals are vital to our domestic economy. I'm so relieved. It's the language we all understand. The schooling of half a century is always at the ready, ready for activation by whatever new threat appears, and fortunately now, we don't have to spend any of it on undserving Americans because we don't have to prove that Operation Democracy is better than Operation Communism anymore. Nobody wants to live in a cave, after all!

Liberalism, Brands argues, is a centralized political arrangement that can only thrive in the U.S. during wartime. Because of the depth of Americans' distrust of the central government, the natural political fallback position of Americans is conservatism. Only during war do Americans drop this instinctual distrust of the federal government and allow it to take over new responsibilities.

So why do some Baby Boomers think that liberalism is a natural and permanent condition in U.S. politics, simply in need of resuscitation? Brands says the duration of the Cold War fooled them. Whereas wars involving the U.S. had been relatively short in the past, the length of the Cold War allowed for a more sustained intrusion of the central government into Americans' lives than ever before.

As Brands' book is only 170 pages long, he merely breezes through U.S. history (surprising for a historian), but nevertheless gives an interesting historical sketch as a preliminary test of his hypothesis. He argues, for example, that the basic nature of both progressivism in the early 20th century and the New Deal in the 1930s were both fairly conservative. On the other hand, he also buttresses his thesis by showing the solid advances in power made by the federal government during WW1 and WW2.

One of the more surprising bits of data that Brands gives is a poll in 1939 that asked Americans whether the U.S. federal government was spending too much money, not enough, or just the right amount. 61% answered that the government was spending too much. Only 10% said too little. And throughout the 30s, even with unemployment rates never dipping below 10%, and once going as high as 25%, most Americans thought it should be a priority for the government to balance its budget and reduce its debt. On the eve of FDR's second administration, 50% of Democrats and 80% of Republicans said they hoped it would be more conservative than his first administration.

Conservatives are probably gleeful to read this. Is there any more palatable thesis to conservatives than that their political philosophy is the natural state for Americans? But while Brands' interpretation of U.S. history is likely to provide some succor for conservatives, his reading of the importance of Reagan will probably turn their stomachs. Reagan, according to Brands, could not overcome the public's distrust of the federal government to enlist its support for new foreign adventures beyond Grenada, or for a more general support of the Cold War beyond increased defence spending.

It's here that Brands' argument becomes strained. Aren't huge increases in defence spending still a sign of American trust in the central government in at least one regard? Brands' book is so short that he never gets around to properly answering these kinds of questions. He says that others must take up his hypothesis to test its explanatory power. Brands should have spent the time to answer these questions himself.

"The Strange Death of American Liberalism" was published just prior to 9-11, but if its hypothesis is correct, such an event might prove to be the resurrection of liberalism as Americans turn once again to the federal government for solutions to problems that only it can provide. But whatever its relevance to current events, this book gives an interesting twist to the traditional conservative/liberal divide.