This is an entertaining, entirely readable book about the men and women who went against the grain and refused to see the virtue in America's interventionism and imperialism in the 20th century.

These are not the people who opposed the war in Vietnam. There are hundreds of books about that. These are the real isolationists: the ones who failed to support WWII in spite of the fact that their dissent ruined their reputations and sometimes careers.

America First! is the ultimate book for people who refuse to follow the crowd and who cannot bring themselves to believe that sometimes it's okay to send young men to agony and death overseas.

As the previous reviewer noted, Kauffman writes about people and the left and on the right because, of course, both parties were unabashedly in favor of fighting both world wars and pacifist conservatives and liberals were always on the fringes. Kauffman offers some memorable anecdotes and introduces some truly interesting characters (like the Roosevelt relative who helped FDR cheat on Eleanor but could not stomach his bloody war and wasn't ashamed to admit it).

If you feel like you're the only pacifist on earth, read this book and discover that you're among some amazing company. Thank you, Mr. Kauffman.

This terrific study of American "isolationism" (i.e., non-interventionism) may be one of the most important political manuals of the last several years. And it may be the first why-to/how-to guide for building a viable Left-Right political coalition. You see, as Kauffman explains it, an America First, mind-your-own-business foreign policy is one area where the far Left and the far Right have often agreed. Therefore, although you might expect this volume to be filled with profiles of Pat Buchanan and other right-wingers, it's not; rather, it examines the ideas of such notable America Firsters as Jack Kerouac, Gore Vidal, and Edward Abbey--all of them Men of the Left. The New Left of the 1960s and much of today's non-interventionist, anti-state Hard Right have a lot in common, Kauffman says. Perhaps it's time the two extremes joined hands in defiance of America's Military Industrial Complex

What other state can claim as many notable small towns as does the Empire State? Cooperstown, Lake Placid, Sleepy Hollow, Woodstock, Watkins Glen, Chautauqua, Corning, Saratoga Springs, West Point, Oyster Bay, several Hamptons, Ticonderoga, Seneca Falls-- Norman Rockwell (who lived a short walk across the state line) might just have been a tad jealous. Only the first and last make it into this book, and just as well. When Country Roads Press sends America's top small-town journalist through America's top small-town state, you don't want to waste him on places you already know.

Bill Kauffman (of Batavia and Elba) has milked a career out of keeping the leaders of the land's great Lost Causes from, as he puts it, "going down the memory hole", in books such as America First! and With Good Intentions, and in frequent pieces in The Wall Street Journal, American Enterprise, Chronicles, Liberty and other magazines. Here he applies the same special talent to a "second tier" of New York villages, and one wonders if he chose these particular communities for an unusual richness in odd stories and characters, or whether he'd have dug these up anywhere he went.

Kauffman's at his best at home in the western snout of the state, where he unlocks the somewhat feudal nature of Geneseo, LeRoy and Angelica. (The obscurer the town, the more fun he has with it.) The pump industry of Seneca Falls, a quarter of the world's total, gets as much of his attention as the distaff business there. And why not? Sanitation has saved more lives than medicine. Hundreds of millions owe their lives to this important town, celebrated for the all the wrong reasons.

His subjects have given us three presidents, Mormonism, women's suffrage and colored gelatin, but if there's something else of note in town, Bill'l let us know. (And if it's in the next town over, he'll cheat and go there.)

Further afield Kauffman's more the tourist, especially across the "soda/pop" line, which is not as close to the city as he imagines. Cooperstown is not quite as cute as he paints it-- indeed, one of its charms is the relative lack of the boutique pollution that has ruined many similar places. And couldn't he find a "country town" left on Long Island? That in itself is sad. However, his analysis of the Burned-Over District is so sharp it will inspire the reader to try his hand at the built-over districs as well.

Finally, some things to look for which aren't in the book (and may no longer exist):

Westfield-- the weird, wing-shaped Theatre Motel and Drive-In on the lake;

Bath (in the Hammondsport chapter)-- the Chat-a-Wyle Café and its grape pie;

Palmyra-- where Winston Churchill's grandparents married, perhaps not in one of the four churches at the intersection;

Oneonta (in the Cooperstown chapter)-- the book mentions the NY-P League team there, but check out their Depression-era ballpark in the Susquehanna valley, one of the handsomest settings in all the sport. (And in "Soccertown, USA", no less.)

If you like a book filled with obscure literary references written in a purely negative, cynical and wiseacreish tone this is the book for you.

Of all the characters in the book, only Rep. Conable and the author's father are not ripped (one way or the other). At least the author does not spare himself from the same tone and negativity.

There is nothing interesting about the book. You can read (over and over) about the urban renewal mall that replaced the old buildings in downtown Batavia. But the author just does not make the reader care (or sympathize) about it. He does nothing to make you want to know anything about Batavia, nor is there anything else to make you read this book (from beginning to end).

Even the writing is difficult to follow. It is choppy and filled with references that a) do not matter; and b) are so obscure you would need a reference library to keep track (of them).

About the only thing the author accomplishes (in the book) is to persuade the reader that upstate New York really has not contributed much in the literary and arts fields. This book did not improve that woeful record.

(Oh, by the way...if these parenthetical references drove you nuts, do not even open this book. I have never seen so many parentheses in a book. Not only are parenthetical references multiple sentences, there are entire paragraphs so enclosed.)

Dispatches from the MuckDog Dispatch is simply a dog of a book.

This book was wonderful. I was born in Batavia and my father's family were the Boorom of Walnut Street. My mother, Leanna Gateson was Elba's first Onion Queen. Mr. Kauffman's descriptions of Main Street with it's store was right on target. Talking about Newberry's, Sleight's, Carr's and Mancuso's was so heartwarming. These were my 1960's and I remember Batavia with a smile.

Being a product of Batavia,NY myself, I devoured Mr Kaufmans memoir on Batavia in three days. I couldn't put it down. I knew the people and the situations that he spoke of. I too left Batavia in the 70's to see the world only to return to our beautiful town destroyed and replaced with a Mall that had as much architectural appeal as a gymnasium. It seems like the same contractor replaced our beautiful St. Joseph church with the same box like structure. I'd like to say that I left and never looked back but I constantly look back. I look back to friends, family and that small town appeal that seems to be lost in this world of busyness. Mr Kaufmans book brought me home for a few hours and answered some questions. I laughed and longed for times past.Mr. Kaufman captured growing up in a small town in upstate New York.

I must be missing something. I bought this book based on the review given it by anothe reviewer. I found this book to be sophomoric. Listen to some of this tripe: "Fred had never abased himself...the martyred populist avatar, the paladin of the people" Then you get such nuggets as" John Huey saw ..rendered nugatory the verities that he learned at his grandpa's knee. The high and the mighty..did not rule by tyranny so much as by acquiesence." Or, finally, "Her thick tongue thrashed in his glossal roughhouse." Huh? This book should win "It was a dark and rainy night" Award.

Every Man a King begins as a hilarious --- but accurate -- satire of Washington, D.C.'s status quo. If you want to learn how things work in our government, this novel will tell you the truth. But then it takes an unexpected and enormously satisfying turn toward exploring the things that matter even more than politics: things like courage and loyalty, sacrifice and love. Bill Kauffman, a brilliant writer who often publishes in the Wall Street Journal and the Spectator, has hit a home run with this book.

Bill Kauffman has written a beautiful book about a young man from western New York who leaves home for our nation's capital, where he gets mixed up with the 'conservative movement.' After he violates the most sacred rule of American political conversation, our hero returns in shame to his hometown. Shame fades, however, as he learns to live and love again on a human scale. In Kauffman's world we can come home again, and only by coming home can we come to our senses.

The damage done to our souls by the destruction of local community at the hands of our deracinated political and cultural elite has been the theme of many of Kauffman's superb essays but nowhere else has he matched the achievment of this novel. Our new sage of Batavia (heir to the tradition of fellow Batavian John Gardner) has produced an American masterpiece that deserves a place on bookshelves alongside the great works of contemporary American fiction. (Kauffman would probably prefer to stay on the shelves reserved for western New York writers but it would be stingy to deny the rest of our countrymen the pleasure of reading this great book).

You won't find a better satire of the culture of Washington, D.C. or a more moving portrait of the people of Western New York. I pray Kauffman is right--that we can go home again. It is the only hope for this perishing Republic.