an excellent adventure, spiced with hints of symbolism. I loved the dialog between the characters. Well worth reading.

A candid look into the future as this conflict grows. Religon and science are the two giants of civilized mankinds mental and social discourse. The continuing conflict is something which involves all of us. Well done.

The use of people to personify the forces of religon and science was well done. I especially liked the charecter of Thomas. He adds a magical quality to the book.

A.J. Downing set the style for country suburban Victorian Cottages and gardens along the Hudson River in the 1830's and 1840's. All of his "cottages" featured fireplaces and architecturally important chimneys, usually with decorative chimney tops. Borrowing from painting and fine arts, Downing had definite opinions about color and appropriate use of materials. Provocative and interesting reading this book of cottage and garden plans and sketches is well worth reading. He set a standard for early Victorian architecture. - Jim Buckley

"Victorian Cottage Residences" is a comprehensive book of twenty-something floor plans, mostly of Victorian houses (obviously) both large and small. For those into landscaping as well, this book is doubly wonderful; otherwise the advice on the apple trees is probably better skipped. However, for anyone who's even remotely interested in old homes or houses in general, this is a fantastic book to check out.

Well, it is clear to me that all of the volumes in the Famous Figures of the Civil War Era series are going to refer to their subjects by their first name, and while calling Stonewall Jackson "Tom" throughout this book does not bother me as much as calling William Tecumseh Sherman "William," I still have a fundamental problem with juvenile biographies that build familiarity between the subject and the reader by this tactic. This is especially true when you are talking about military leaders who led armies slaughtering one another.

That reservation aside, this is an excellent series for teaching young students more about some of the most important figures in the Civil War. Martha S. Hewson does a nice job of capturing the remarkable transformation of Thomas J. Jackson, from an odd professor at the Virginia Military Institute into one of the most brilliant leaders of American troops in the nation's history, immortalized as "Stonewall" Jackson. Hewson does an especially nice job of explaining some of the tactical maneuvers that earned Jackson his reputation. When, after Jackson's death, Robert E. Lee contends that the Confederates would have won the Battle of Gettysburg and therefore the Civil War if Jackson had still been alive, young readers will be inclined to agree. This book is illustrated with historic etchings and paintings, but, surprisingly, no photographs. Side-bars explore details from Jackson's life, such as why the Civil War was called "The Brother's War" and the importance of mapmaking to Jackson's campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. This is an excellent series for providing young students more information about the Civil War.

Two thumbs up for "Touched By The Jacksons!" An impressive tribute to the name that defines entertainment... JACKSONS!

An awesome book! Phoenix has captured the distinctive magic that only the Jacksons possess in all their glory. Their life story is truly an American Dream come true! Phoenix does a wonderful job intertwining the Jacksons career into his own life, and unravels a new appreciation and admiration of the Jackson family.

Read it and you'll know why. You won't be able to put it down! Phoenix gives a front seat view of the Jacksons road to success. A phenominal retrospect of their entire career. Five stars for Phoenix!

This book covers classical Euclidian geometry. It has been around a long time. (The 1982 copyright date is just the last time the text was revised for printing. The pictures etc. date back to the 1940's.) The exercises are delightfully challenging.

Amazon listed the book's reading level as "young adult". I have been teaching advanced HS geometry classes with this book for 6 years, and I can report that most bright students find the language challenging without someone to help them along. If you are homeschooling etc, you may want to investigate whether you can get the solution text from the publisher.

I give the exercises in the book 5 stars. Again and again I find myself saying: wow I never would have thought of that. The text that accompanies the exercises gets only three stars.

This book is one of the worst works ever written on Andrew Jackson. My main problem is that the author seems to want to believe that the Democratic Party has basically been around in much the same form as it was during the New Deal. FDR may have been the savior of America in the 1930s, but Andrew Jackson was his prophet. This just is not true (Schlesinger also attempts to establish the kinship between the two in reverse in his three volumes on Roosevelt as well, but not in the same degree as he does here).
The only real eternal verities in American History are the ones originally represented by Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson at the establishment of the US. Simplified to their essence these are a belief in a strong federal government (Hamilton) or a weak one (Jefferson), a desire for wide spread equality (Jefferson) or confidence in the rich and well-born (Hamilton). Positions on these matters change throughout the extent of US history. There is no continuity between either of the two parties. Schelesinger's primary failing is not to recognize this.

Jackson and Roosevelt may have shared a basic vague sense of equality among the populace, but there the similarity ends. Each probably had a radically different view as to what peoples constituted the American nation. Words like "democracy" also changed over time in the 100 years that separate the age of Jackson with that of Roosevelt.

The biggest difference Roosevelt's notions of what government should and should not do would have been an anathema to Jackson. Jackson, who came into office determined to thwart John Q. Adams and Henry Clay's ideas of the federal government funding "internal improvements," would have been appalled by the New Deal. Jackson hated the idea that the federal government was funding roads and canals, the WPA and PWA would have sent a shiver down his spine. Roosevelt and Jackson had to radically differing views as to the role of the federal government. Arguments for any kinship between the two break down when one compares and contrasts their respective goals and visions. Jackson has more in common with Ronald Reagan than he did with FDR.

Another shortcoming in this book is its coverage of Jackson and the Indians. Were he to live in our own time, Jackson would be the most appalling racist and a large measure of his prejudice was focused against indians. While a number of other people did share Jackson's views, there were also those who did not and were appalled by the forced removal of indians from their property in Georgia for the discovery of gold there. Jackson did love the people, particularly if they were white and land speculators. Indians were not part of his calculation.

While Jackson is an interesting and important president, this is not the first book I would recommend. More useful is Robert Remini's three volumes on Jackson which is better at putting Jackson in the proper context.

I found it very hard to rate this book. In the end, I chose between three and four stars, and went with four. But, at various times, I considered everything from two to five.

This book has several serious problems. The most important is the incredible bias of the author. This bias is evident, to some extent, throughout the book, where Schlesinger's very liberal views taint almost everything he discusses. The last section of the book is particularly outrageous. It is, essentially, a very biased, distorted attack on legitimate policy views held by some moderates and conservatives. (By the way, I am not an arch-conservative; I'm a moderate who agrees with Schlesinger on many political and policy issues, but who doesn't think they should warp his account of history so much.)

Still, the book is a classic, and not without reason. It's well-written (unlike a lot of history I've been reading lately), lucid, and thoughtful. The story of Jackson and the politics of the first half of the 19th century is fascinating and very important to ones understanding of the development of the U.S. At the time at which this book was written, it advanced significantly our understanding of Jackson and this period -- even if subsequent research and analysis has improved on it. And, it's a good read.

So, I recommend this book as long as you go into it knowing its weaknesses and understanding that a lot in it is colored by Schlesinger's own political views.

As has been pointed out by other reviewers, Schlesinger's work is essentially an all-out assault on conservatism in American politics masked as a history of Jacksonian America. Not an attack on the "conservative" position on this or that topic, mind you. Rather, he argues that there is some sort of innate dark side in America - the conservatives - that has consistently and relentlessly tried to deprive society of freedom and liberty at every turn.

Schlesinger twists and bends and stretches American history in his attempt to show how the national saving grace of liberalism has continued in one uninterrupted line from Jefferson to Jackson to Lincoln to Wilson and, finally, to FDR, even though the issues, parties and arguments have changed radically. (Had this book been published in the late- rather the mid-twentieth century, I'm sure the author would have demonstrated the role Johnson, Carter and Clinton played in that continuum.)

Schlesinger saves his most impressive feat of historical casuistry for explaining how and why the Democratic Party wasn't "really" the political party of slavery and oppression. By 1848, in Schlesinger's analysis, the two central parties, Democrat and Whig, existed in name only. All the radical (read "truly liberal") elements of the Jacksonian tradition had joined the Republican Party by 1858 (conveniently allowing them to take credit for the Civil War and destroying American bondage), but were back in the Democratic Party by the time big business usurped the GOP during and after Reconstruction.

With such a contemptuous and sarcastic review, you might be wondering "so why the 4 stars"?

Well, it has been said that the field of economics progresses one funeral at a time - and I would argue the same holds true for the study of history. Whatever this book's faults, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. is one of the most influential historians of the twentieth century and this book shaped the minds and ideas of a generation of liberal intellectuals, including senior Democratic statesmen. For anyone interested in learning more about Jacksonian America and understanding one popular, albeit controversial, interpretation of its roots in modern American liberalism, this book is essential reading.