The critic's review of this book is rather depressing when one considers what happened when Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Productions hired Richard Farnsworth to play the title role in the early 1980s film, The Grey Fox. The film was brilliant from beginning to end as are most of Farnsworth's films. Also, in the film, there is no mention of a gay lifestyle though back in the early 1980s, that was more taboo than today. Find the video and enjoy the story.

John Boessnecker (with the help of Mark Dugan) continues his exploration of the California and Old West outlaw/lauwman history. With works like this one and With Badges and Bullets, and Gold Dust and Gunsmoke he is rapidly taking his place as one the important chroniclers of outlaw/lawman history during this period. Like his numerous other books, this one is both attractive and satifisfactory to scholars because of its properly researched and amply footnoted text and to buffs and interested readers because of its sprightly, generously illustrated and beautifully presented text.

Maybe my expectations were set too high. I had always found it amazing that designers of those state-of-the-art microprocessors were able to squeeze out cycles times that are almost an order of magnitude faster than what I can do on an ordinary asic flow and hoped for a well structured story, which is not to much to ask such an expensive book. I should haved noticed that the authors are listed as 'editors' because a good story is not what I got. Of course, there is some organization (big deal) into different parts (technology aspects, design techniques, clocking issues, fast adders and multipliers etc.) and there are some introductory chapters written by the editors but what you get is essentially a cut-and-paste collection of papers. Papers are usually exceptionally dryly written, cramming as much information as possible in a limited space. Sometimes going in too much detail, sometimes already assuming expert knowledge, almost never hands-on practical. And thus so is this book: overwhelming, dull and highly theoretical. Impossible to read this from front to cover. The statements from the editoral review that this book "Assumes basic knowledge of digital circuit design and device operation" is gross understatement. Be prepared for hard intellectual work while reading this. At one place, for example, a opcode selection circuit is described. For me, a good way of handling this in a textbook, would be to start with a description of the context in which it is used, going to a block diagram and refining into a detailed schematic that evolves into the final solution as trade-offs for speed and area are applied. Not here: the only thing you get is the final, very obscure schematic in domino logic that requires hard labour to figure out. But even after that you can't assess its usefullness since there is no context or anything to compare with. Knowing what I know now, I wouldn't have bought this book. All topics are handled and it has probably its place on some shelves as a reference, but I would have saved a lot of money by making use of the IEEE web access subscription of my employer instead.

If one has not read the three earlier histories of the Supreme Council, SJUSA (1801-1861, 1861-1891 & 1891-1921) then this work will be a very good look into many aspects of the development of the Scottish Rite and the birth of the Southern Jurisdiction. I have to wonder, however, why the author needed to spend as much time as he did on the earlier years of the SJ when it gave so very little new material (and actually less than the earlier works). In short, if you have no history of the Southern Jurisdiction, then this well written and easy to read work will be of value to you and wet your appetite for more information concerning the earlier years of Scottish Rite Masonry in America. If you already have the earlier histories of the SJ, then this will provide you with, at the very least, a nice coffee table book with some good information on the later years of the Southern Jurisdiction.

You need to know that there are NO color pictures in this guide. This book has small b&w photos of what must be nearly all of R.A. Fox's prints with a price guide. It's great to know all the names of the pictures that I have, and the one's that I've seen that I would like to have. However, this book is better for someone with better eyes than I have. For me, the b&w photos are too small to distinguish much of the detail.

Alternative history - that is, the "what if" perspective - is an interesting subject, and the premise of this one is as interesting as any that has been conceived: "What if Sam Ervin had worked as tirelessly to expose Lyndon Johnson's dirty linen as he did to expose Richard Nixon's role in Watergate?"

In real life, Ervin put party loyalty ahead of principle and voted to kill the Bobby Baker probe in 1964; in this book, his conscience won't let him be a party to, as he puts it, allowing Lyndon Johnson to convert George Washington's America into Julius Caesar's Rome.

An honest politician? A Democrat yet? Even in 1964, this must have seemed far-fetched, and from a 2002 perspective, it's sheer lunacy.

But for alternative history purposes, that doesn't matter. The premise IS plausible enough for an excursion into the world of "what if". Or should I say the world of "never could be"?

Anyway, in this excursion, Senator Sam follows the straight and narrow bi-partisan path to exposing corruption wherever he finds it.

As a result, the 1964 election which was shaping up as a landslide victory for Johnson over Barry Goldwater begins to tighten, and well...the Vietnam War also follows an alternative history path as a result.

This isn't a particularly well-written book. The language is somewhat stilted. There are clumsy sub-plots involving fictitious characters which could very easily have been eliminated.

I don't imagine that the author, William Fox Eckbert, worried greatly about the quality of his writing. I think that his goal was to display his knowledge of military and political history in order to qualify himself as a prognosticator of how history would have changed.

And he does this pretty well, I think.

His historical characters are also somewhat flat, but these personalities are varied enough that their foibles still hold our interest. These historical characters not only include the usual round of suspects such as the Kennedy brothers, LBJ, Goldwater and Senator Sam but also lesser lights such as Senator Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania.

And interestingly enough, we also see life from the standpoint of the four members of the North Vietnamese ruling clique, including Uncle Ho. Eckbert is able to make them, as individuals, surprisingly human without whitewashing the brutality of the Communist system that they have imposed.

Eckbert is also able to use this alternative view of history to nod in the direction of real life.

The decision that the President has to make of whether to commit enough military manpower and firepower to capture Hanoi is reminiscent of the debate over a similar decision that was made about Iraq in 1991.

Since this book was published in 1994, I suspect that this similarity was not a coincidence.

However, the CLOSENESS of the Johnson-Goldwater election in this alternative history timeline does bear some coincidental resemblance to the story of the 2000 election, though it is not Florida that is the battleground here.

Once upon a time, I would have said that the coverage of Election Day 1964 was a very dramatic event in this book.

But after the real-life fiasco that was Election Day 2000, it's an unfair task to expect any author to create acceptable fictitious Election Day drama.

And the fact that the loser in this story went down quietly without initiating a series of lawsuits seems absolutely preposterous from a contemporary perspective, but Eckbert can't be blamed for this, of course.

It's also fairly apparent that Eckbert had no idea how to end this story after resolving the Vietnam War.

But again, if you look at this book as a means of light and informative historical instruction, rather than as pure entertainment, that's one more flaw that can be judged leniently.

Recommended reading to all with an interest in this genre and/or in this historical time period.

Last November, I flew into las Vegas for the first time on a bright, sunny day. I had my nose pressed to the window most of the way, and was in awe of the what lay below. I followed the roads through the desert that led to Vegas and vowed to make the drive myself some day. I couldn't believe my luck when I happened across this book. But, the book left me bored and disappointed. Maybe I was expecting too much, but even the author's reader-friendly prose could not make this an interesting read.

What a letdown. Yes, the prose is decent, and the premise is undeniably attractive but, for anybody who holds the drive to Las Vegas close to their heart, these 3 separate tales of driving across the desert toward that glittery focal point called Sin City will all leave you feeling cheated. Why? Well, most of all, the author TURNS OFF THE HIGHWAY BEFORE GETTING TO VEGAS! How can you leave out the final 5 miles!? If you have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into a casino, what in the world are you doing writing a book with Vegas at its center? Yes, the author shows that he knows the road, and what the various mountains are called, etc., but he obviously has no understanding of what compels most of us to take that road so many times in our lives. Skip this book and spend the money on a tank of gas yourself. This book has no Elvis.

Though published by a university press, this is no dry academic tome. It's an unusally creative attempt to capture the spirit and the meaning of the drive through the desert. Fox writes of three approaches to the archetypal desert city, Las Vegas: from Sante Fe, from Los Angeles and from Reno. His writing is personal, captivating and will make you see the desert (and our paths through it) in entirely new ways.

This book was a big letdown. As a native South Carolinian I was looking forward to finding some points of interest that not everyone knows about. To suggest that places like Patriot's Point in Charleston are little known secrets is silly. There's a HUGE naval ship in the middle of Charleston Harbor! How can this be considered "off the beaten path"? This book would be helpful for someone visiting our state for the very first and possibly only time, since it's focus is on the most well known tourist attractions in our state. Fox didn't even have the dates for the South Carolina State Fair correct. Never, in my 39 years, has "the fair" been held in September. In fact, when I was younger it was even later in the year than it is now. I think maybe Mr. Fox has been living in Georgia or Florida and only claiming to be from our great state! He knows well the few restaurants he frequents in the low country, but that is it. The BEST book to check for really interesting places and history is SOUTH CAROLINA: A DAY AT A TIME by Caroline Todd & Sidney Wait. These ladies put our esteemed Mr. Fox to shame with their knowledge of our state.