"Happiness Is Not My Companion" The Life of Gouverneur K Warren by David M. Jordan (Insiana University Press, 2001) is a welcome addition to Civil War literature, filling a void in the biographies of key players in the North's bid for victory.

G. K. Warren, a graduate of West point, served in the Corps of Topographical Engineers and then taught mathematics at the Point until he was named lieutenant colonel of volunteers of the Fifth New York regiment. The high point of his career occurred on July 2, 1863, at Gettysburg, when he recognized that the unoccupied Little Round Top was the key to the Federal's defense and quickly positiond troops on its summit and backside to prevent the Confederates from taking that hill and possibly destroying the entire Federal line.

As Jordan tells the rest of the story, Warren's subsequent service was characterized by arrogance, depression, a quick, sulphurous temper, and a bad habit of second-guessing his superior's orders. Just days before Lee's surrender, Warren's superior, General Phil Sheridan, relieved him of duty, casting a shadow of disgrace upon Warren's career and courage.

Unable to persuade General U S Gant to give him a court of hearing, Warren had to wait 15 years before the commanding general William T Sherman approved his application. By the time the inquiry was completed and the findings released (findings which at least partially exonerated him)Warren was dead.

The only other significant biography of Warren was published by his family in 1932, an apology vindicating the General and arguing his place in Civil War history.

Jordan's research includes the vast collection of papers which the General himself had arranged for his defense, but it is not for that reason one-sided or uncritical in its presentation of the General's personality, career, or place in history.

Everyone who today climbs to the crest of Little Round Top sees the larger than life statue of G. K. Warren, erected by the survivors of his first command. Few visitors, however, know that he was wounded there on that hot July afternoon, that he later was responsible for a meticulously exact map of the battlefield, that in spite of his sccess in Pennsylvania he was relieved of duty at Five Forks, Virginia, less than two years later and spent the remainder of his life trying to salvage his good name.

Jordan's book is an honest and revealing look at one of the lesser known but nonetheless significant military leaders of the war. The author's background as an attorney does influence his presentation,providing some analysis that readers may or may not accept. But this book does sit well along side his other Civil war biography on General Winfield Scott Hancock.

Having just finished David M. Jordan's "Happiness in Not My Companion", a well researched biography of General G. K. Warren, I wish to congratulate the author for his thorough and readable account of the general's life, and to recommend this book to anyone interested in civil war history, american military history, or biography of an individual who should be remembered in human as well as historical terms. The first half of Warren's story, describing his civil and military achievements, including his significant role at Gettysburg, through the Army of the Potamac's campaign of 1864, describes a man of ability and leadership, although Mr. Jordan plants the seeds of his future tangles with those in military authority. His relief from command by Sheridan near the end of the war and subsequent history is described with honesty and compassion, ending with Warren's death while attempting to clear his name via a military Court of Inquiry some 18 years after the fact. Mr. Jordan's research is exhaustive and heretofore unplumbed. His extensive use of quotations advances the narrative in an organized and readable style that had this reader unable to put the book down, especially after the battle at Five Forks. The author is to be commended for his research, his objectivity, and his highly readable style.

This biography has the ring of truth and the happy tone of justice done at last. G.K.Warren, born upstate New York 1830, West Point class of '50, brevet Major General in the Union Army, brilliant strategist at Gettysburg, later commander of the Fifth Corps, died in 1883 awaiting the results of hearings he had instigated to clear his reputation. Following one of the last Civil War battles, a Union victory at Five Forks, VA to which he had contributed, Warren was fired by General Sheridan with U. S. Grant's prior approval. With little else of interest to do for the next 18 years, Warren focussed ever more intently on restoring his good name , marching in place while his personal demon, Grant, occupied the White House. Shaara (Killer Angels) did most of the heavy lifting to unearth Warren and Joshua L. Chamberlain, letting Chamberlain stand as The Hero of Little Roundtop. Jordan, more subtle, leaves him as A Hero of Little Roundtop. (Moreover, Jordan's narrative recital of this and other battles is exceptionally coherent.) Warren is a puzzle: was he a depressive personality? an adult-onset diabetic? a Democrat-for-McClellan sore loser? just one more brilliant, touchy, odd-ball Civil War general? Jordan wisely declines any one conclusive answer and gives detailed evidence for several. The hearing commission's report published after Warren's death "cut both ways", as a lawyer (such as the author) might say. To his credit, Jordan lets the report pretty much speak for itself. If you have no stomach for ambiguity, stop with Killer Angels. Otherwise, read "Happiness is Not My Companion...."

With dozens of excellent examples, leavened by the author's trademark sense of humor, this work provides an excellent guide to real-life practical use of the language (my daughter is especially fond of using "Danko ne necesas; vi ricevos mian fakturon" instead of the everyday "Ne dankinde" ;-) ). Jordan is an anthropologist (specializing in Chinese studies, I believe) and this background shows itself in his concern that the student understand from the start that Esperanto is not simply an artificial language, but a "speech community". During the time I was a tutor in the e-mail Esperanto course for English-speaking beginners, I found myself turning again and again to this volume for just the right way to explain to intelligent, curious students why we say it _this_ way and not _that_ way... or why there sometimes _is_ no one answer to usage questions. Its one lack is a detailed cross-index... but even without it, because of the detailed table of contents, it's an immensely useful book. Definitely belongs on the shelf with Wells' bilingual dictionary and Auld's "Pasxoj al Plena Posedo".

This is a wonderful, and up-to-date advanced textbook for English speakers to gain fluency in the international language, Esperanto. While it covers a wide variety of topics, it focuses special attention on those words and grammatical issues that present particular problems for English speakers learning Esperanto. This is a fine addition to any English-speaking Esperantist's library.

Yes, this book did help my esperanto a little, but some of the language is a tad dated. You'd be better off learning it from the internet.

While a straightforward and logical tongue, Esperanto is not English, and beginners tend to think English-ly while writing Esperanto-ly. (And that last sentence is just one of the many ways I could use to demonstrate that one must adjust one's thinking just a tad to become more fluent and universally understood when learning to be more proficient in the language.)
Jordan makes the learning fun. He peppers the book with humor and with wordplay (even the title gets a chuckle) and shows himself the linguist that he is in everyday life. There is much which is fundamental in the book, and yet there are curiosities and rarities that one might find elsewhere only with great difficulty, and these serve to whet the reader's curiosity and lead him on to the next chapter. I loved this book and in a personal letter to the author (before the advent of e-mail) I let him know that my only criticism of _Being Colloquial_ was that there was just too little of the book. Is a mouse the polar opposite of an elephant? In Esperanto, it might be! Jog your grey matter and have fun doing it -- and learn the language which has been, for over a century, the most universal and successful of all planned languages. Talk to non-English-speakers all over the world. Just DO it! It may change your life. I know it changed mine.

There are some fine introductory books in Esperanto (and you can get a pretty good start from the free 10-lesson email course easily found with any internet search engine); this book is probably not the best FIRST textbook (though I think it could be used as a first book without too much trouble), but it is an AMAZING second book, with more information on subtleties of expression in Esperanto (and there are *some* -- it's still a foreign language, albeit one with a very regular grammar, and its logic is not always identical to the logic (such as it is) behind English) than I've seen in any other english language textbook. It's also fun to read.

Once you've wet your feet a little (excuse the metaphor), if you want more, this is an excellent book to own.

A well-written, concise reference covering a diverse range of topics that will be of interest to all who know the frustration of cramming complex OO systems into relational tables.

From a complete design pattern for Object and Object Relational database systems, to design patterns for declarative language symantics; from C++ and Java to SmallTalk bindings; from BNF grammars to compiler models; the book proved invaluable at overcoming the myriad problems presented to the developer implementing an object-relational DMBS.

As a direct result of this reference work I have implemented ORDBMS systems in Java and (can you believe it) JavaScript. The JavaScript implementation provides a complete persistence layer for JavaScript objects running in an ASP environment.

As a result, systems with complex data relationships that would curl the hair on a relational database programmer's head have been implemented simply and with the minimum development time.

I await with anticipation emergence of the JDO from the work of the ODMG.