Not only does Thomas C. Kennedy capture the story of Beowulf with page-turning suspense and great storytelling, the words carry a continuous meter without giving in to boredom (like some translations have executed). His preface gives an interesting account of the Anglo-Saxon language, history, metaphors, linguistics, and comparisons to contemporary Fantasy, all within seven pages of interesting reading. Also, notes at the back determine certain word origins, the words best kept in a good translation. And the mead hall is given a proper name "beer hall". Let's face it, reading needs to be fun, as well as entertaining, and this translation is excellent.

I read this book from cover to cover in 1995 and it catapulted my career in Recruiting and Online Consulting. It gave pertinent information for career marketers and job seekers who wanted to branch into the unknown. It did not boast of 100% guarantees but it promised information and delivered. I am a long time fan of Kennedy.

This book should be read by anyone who still believes in the conclusions of the Warren Commission. This long essay was first published in the Paris weekly "L' Express" in 1964. It lacks an index and chapter headings, but applies common sense to the reported stories to refute the "lone gunman" theory. A few hours after JFK's death, a suspect was arrested although there were no witnesses and no confessions! We were told Oswald was a fanatical Communist who hated America. Was this too good to be true? The fact that Oswald was never a member of the Communist party, or the "Fair Play for Cuba" group was omitted from the news reports. Never has such an intricate murder been so swiftly settled, without a confession of eyewitnesses!

Buchanan explains why neither Soviet Russia or Cuba could benefit from JFK's death (pp. 17-21). The first people to claim JFK was murdered by a Communist were just earlier attacking JFK as pro-Communist! Who was pulling their strings? Buchanan states that Oswald could only have been convicted if he was innocent (p.24)! But if he knew how the crime had happened, he would be silenced (p.26). Oswald's assassination by Jack Ruby proclaims that Oswald was not a lone gunman, and powerful forces were threatened by Oswald's existence and talking. Nothing over the last forty years has disproved this.

Buchanan recalls the political circumstances of the assassinations of Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley. You'll find a description of these crimes, and their history, that is skipped in scholastic history books. The important point is that all were done for political reasons, and not of the assassins were crazy. Anything else is just a cover-up (see 'Time' of 11-29-1963). Page 72 explains why Oswald was not insane: he tried to escape, and plead 'not guilty' when arrested. The premeditation says it was not temporary insanity (p.73). Page 91 says the official conclusion was based on the Bethesda autopsy. (Decades later we learned that this 'best evidence' was based on the body of JFK's double, sacrificed to provide proof of a lone gunman firing from the rear. See "High Treason 2" for these pictures.) Pages 93-97 discuss the number of shots, and the impossibility of three shots in less than 6 seconds from a bolt-action rifle. A bullet that struck JFK at that angle could not have struck Governor Connally's back only a few inches lower, and remained intact.

Page 148 mentions Senator Kefauver's 1951 probe into criminal activities in New York, where the police, judges, politicians, and gangsters shared the loot. In the 1930s Senator LaFollette had a similar investigation that showed underworld forces were used by corporations against labor unions. Organized crime is often used to carry out tasks that can't be handled by legal means. The first Gallup poll had 52% believing Oswald represented an extreme right-wing group, gangsters, or some "unknown" force (p.152).

Pages 155-6 note the strange behavior of Oswald in the Marine Corps, which implies he was being trained as a secret agent. I believe it is routine to take a smart and talented recruit from the lower classes to use as a secret agent; they are expendable! While they denied Oswald worked for the FBI or CIA, nobody mentioned the obvious: Naval Intelligence. Page 178 tells of the Dallas ruling class, the how the oil business controls them.

The design of the periodical is lovely, reader friendly and really promotes a sense of who the authors are. But I have long found Glimmer Train stories disappointing. Too many of them feel "writerly," as if the writers, and editors, know that they are writing a SHORT STORY. The writing is too self-aware, and many of the stories ring false, with contrived endings and plots, when they exist. I have to admit that I like a limited number of short stories, works by James Joyce and Alice Munro. These don't even come close to those master works.

This is an amazing literary magazine. Eccentric, full-hearted, and a pleasure to read. Each excellent story by noted contemporary authors is accompanied by a baby picture of the author, and then in the back is a section for each author to write anything he/she wants. You get pictures of people's dogs, a meditation on writing, a funny story about somebody's grandma. A really complete reading experience.

This book handles its subject very well. It was the basic text for my 11th Grade history course, where it provided a good balance of mildly amusing wit and genuinely useful information.

The main advantage of "The American Pageant" is that the author is not trying to push a major political agenda. It lacks the patriotic drivel for which "traditional" history texts are often denounced. However, it also lacks the negative, depressing Socialist philosophy which makes Zinn's "People's History of the United States" so difficult to read.

The end result is a history text which does a history text's job: telling what happened. The book covers politics, economics, and major events in a style which is sometimes amusing and usually informative. Although not overly political, it also pays due attention to such important issues as race and gender.

Not a particularly "specialized" book, but an excellent survey text.

I read this book first in high school several years ago as part of an advanced placement U.S. History course. I hated it then - but love it now. Bailey captures the depth of the issues the nation faced in each step of its development. His accuracy and profound insight keep the subject matter from becoming too dry. What I loved most about the text is that it never over-simplifies the significant historical events such as the political struggles of the 1st and 2nd continental congresses, secession issues and America's position in both World Wars. He digs deep beneath the surface to paint a thorough understanding of what the root causes were of historic events. The 10th addition adds interesting subsections that profile the various immigrant cultures that influenced American history. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand the nation's history and the people who made it.

I can quite clearly remember the amazement with which I first read the opening paragraphs of Bailey's American Pageant six years ago in high school; and even now, after graduating from college in a field completely unrelated to history, I return to this text to read in my spare time just for the sheer enjoyment of it. I hesitate to even call it a text: rather, it is almost a work of art. Personally, I am flabbergasted by some of the negative reviews I've read below. Of course someone will not like this book when they haven't read it all semester, and then they have an approaching final and try to quickly skim the text and learn all the "important facts" of this nation's history. This book isn't written to satisfy the poor study habits of a mediocre, disinterested student who could care less about history; it is written to express history as seen and studied and understood through the eyes of an absolute genius: Thomas Bailey. For those who believe the book is opinionated, I'll agree with that notion. That's what historians are supposed to do -- they shape and mold historical events into tangible, real entities that one can relate to, rather than just relate dry facts and statistics. (That's what an encyclopedia or government records are for.) If I could, I would give this book more than 5 stars -- surely it deserves as much.

The title of the book says it all, A Question of Character. This is one author's attempt at looking at the political life of President John F. Kennedy's, before and during his time in the White House. It details the differences in what the spin is and the private life that is described as being close to Hugh Hefner's. We also get a very detailed and for me, somewhat troubling, view of the constant controls his father, Joe Kennedy's had of JFK throughout his career. Not that comforting given the somewhat dubious reputation of Joe.

The author came close to a Kitty Kelly sex scandal tell all, but did not completely let himself drop that low. I thought the author was almost sad to be telling me, the reader, some of the less then faltering truths here. Almost if he was a firm believer in Camelot and this book and research pained him. Overall this is a well-written book that has some interesting conclusions. The author could have spent more time on the domestic policies and international issues that faced JFK to make the account better rounded. I do not think it is the one-volume definitive story of JFK, but it is a very good start.

As he cuts through the myths of Camelot, Thomas Reeves could have been content with dragging the name of JFK through the mud. That certainly would have been easy enough to do; all the affairs, the dubious origin of the family fortune, the murky ties with organized crime...it all has the makings of a wonderful chop-job, a character assassination.

However, Reeves rises above this. He acknowledges that good morals do not necessarily make for a good president, and that an effective president does not always have a scandal-free private life. This book was written before the Clinton presidency, which would have made for an interesting comparison.

Reeves is not content to throw one prurient revelation after another at the reader; that is Kitty Kelly's job. He is interested in good history. How did these moral defects apply to the man's ability to be an effective president, and how did the president's effectiveness have an impact on the course of our nation's history?

Reeves believes that important theme here isn't the questionable behavior in and of itself, but the fact that Kennedy's lack of any real commitment to anything but the acquisition and wielding of power ultimately made him an overall weak president. Despite Democratic control of Congress, Kennedy could get barely 25% of his legislation passed in Congress in 1962-63. Members of Congress had little regard for the man as a leader, and his luke-warm commitment on various issues did little to induce the Congress to act on his legislation. Compare that with LBJ, whose legislative success rate and mastery of Congress between 1963 and 1966 stands in stark contrast.

Reeves does observe that JFK was beginning to grow into the office by the time of his death, but stops short of predicting a glorious Kennedy legacy had the man lived. It was far from a given that JFK could have won re-election in 1964, and Reeves knows this.

Overall, this is an excellent example of a measured, critical biography that contributes to the scholarly dialogue, rather than simply being a "tell-all" book.

To those who want to get past the hype and drivel, Reeve's well written and researched book makes a convincing case that yes, character does matter. The argument that John Kennedy was a great, but flawed, leader is shown by Reeves to be erroneous. The seeds of the Bay of Pigs disaster was sown in Kennedy's youth. PT-109, interestingly, was the first and only PT boat ever rammed by an enemy destroyer. Not on a foggy night with the men topside, but in clear weather and daylight, with Kennedy and his men below decks sleeping and swapping war stories.

"My story about the collision is getting better all the time," Kennedy told a friend after launching his political career. "Now I've got a Jew and a Nigg-- in the story and with me being a Catholic, that's great."

Kennedy's bringing the U.S. to the brink of war was typical of the disasters he'd made in his personal and military life. The real reason the Soviets put missiles in Cuba was because of U.S. missiles in Turkey. School children are seldom taught that the U.S. had to withdraw its nukes from Turkey in exchange for the Soviets "backing down" in the Western Hemisphere.

From the Kennedys' dealings with the mob to the wiretaps of Martin Luther King, Jr., the fact that Kennedy could not remain faithful in a marital relationship is hardly a dichotomy in leadership.

So yes, Virginia, character does count. Now and in the latter part of the 1990s. Those who say it doesn't are probably also lacking in this area.

Aaron Burr has long been dismissed as one of the bad boys of American history. The Revolutionary War hero and onetime VP under Jefferson shot his political future in the foot when he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804, and was later tried for treason for conspiring to invade Mexico.

Here Roger Kennedy retrieves Burr from the slag heap of history and rehabilitates him as perhaps the most progressive of the founding fathers: a fervent abolitionist, early feminist and friend to the Indians long before such ideals were considered kosher. To Hamilton and Jefferson, Kennedy is not so kind. Hamilton cuts an almost pathetic figure as a frustrated politician who projects his own failures onto Burr and determines to ruin him even at the cost of his own life. Meanwhile, Kennedy's Jefferson is craven, duplicitous and vindictive.

But Burr's image has suffered because he could never match Hamilton's skills as spin doctor, nor could he compete with the voluminous paper trail left behind by Jefferson. Whereas the sage of Monticello meticulously copied every scrap he wrote, most of Burr's papers were lost at sea, along with his last surviving daughter and would-be biographer, Theodosia.

Despite this imbalance in the documentary evidence, Kennedy presents a compelling case that Burr was not a traitor, as Jefferson charged in 1806. (Burr was later acquitted of treason by four separate juries, an indication of Jefferson's stubbornness as much as Burr's probable innocence.) Instead, Kennedy shows that Burr exhibited every sign of loyalty to the young republic, whose borders he probably hoped to expand by force--much as Jefferson would do by checkbook with the Louisiana Purchase.

This is an enormously satisfying book, one that goes farther to rescue Aaron Burr from an undeserved historical contempt than any book since Gore Vidal's elegant fiction BURR. It is still a reflex to dismiss Thomas Jefferson1s first Vice-President as a sly scheming traitor who murdered the well-beloved Hamilton in a one-sided duel where Hamilton deliberately and romantically threw away his shot.. It is all thoughtless and unscrutinized balderdash, and Kennedy has a wonderful time proving it. There are surprising and provocative ideas on every page, and fascinating portraits of the brilliant neurotic Hamilton, and the almost perfect hypocrisy and subtle genius of Thomas Jefferson. Most of all, however, is the picture Kennedy draws of the witty, graceful gentleman who was Aaron Burr. Kennedy calls him America's first professional politician, but he was far more than that. To say that he was an abolitionist or a feminist does not really do him justice; he practiced what he preached, as Kennedy amply describes, fifty, even a hundred, even two hundred years ahead of his time. His generosity was outsized, his intellect without cant or self-delusion. A scion of one of the colonies first and oldest familes, he was an honest to God Revolutionary War hero not once but many times, (unlike The Sage of Monticello, to say the least). Like Jane Austen's Gentleman, Burr never apologized and never explained. This last was a grievous mistake, because his silence, to his contemporaries and to posterity, though elegant, ceded much ground to his enemies. There was much to admire in both Hamilton and Burr, and their contemporaries did so. But Hamilton carried molten envy of Burr for many years, years during which Burr apparently had not a clue that his friend-rival-ally-competitor was viciously and continuously slandering him, sharing opinions about Burr that went beyond the norm of political rivalry, making certain that Burr would not succeed in politics even if it meant that Jefferson whom he despised, would. But Kennedy suggests that Burr was more than Hamilton's opponent; he was the man who, in almost every respect, from military heroism to family background to manners to wit to success with the ladies, Hamilton yearned to be. And everything Hamilton hated in himself, argues Kennedy, he projected on to Burr. And then there is Jefferson. It has become open season on Jefferson these last few years, and high time too. Jefferson's undoubted brilliance as a literary stylist and his extraordinary ability as a practical and cunning politician have kept him at the top of the heap for decade after decade, but perhaps there is less here than meets the eye. Kennedy is wonderful in discerning plausible motives to Jefferson's unquenchable need to destroy Burr, a man who might very well have moved up abolition1s cause by 50 years. The various accounts of back room snakiness by The Sage, and the similarity between Jefferson1s Western machinations both before and after Burr's trial for treason for the same activities(which Jefferson pushed with a Shakespearean malignity) are priceless. There are greater tragedies in American's past, I suppose, than the consignment of Aaron Burr to the Most Reviled Villain Category, but it feels terribly unjust. And the easy unscrutinized way many of our teachers and historians wave airy hands of dismissal does rankle, to say nothing of the ongoing worship of The Sage, also airy, also unscrutinized. Roger Kennedy has created a thoughtful, witty, outraged response to all that.

Roger Kennedy freely acknowledges at the beginning of this study that he has a point of view: Aaron Burr had a greater character and value to our nation than his reputation provides, while Hamilton and Jefferson had lesser character and value to our nation than their reputations. This book is a clear and concise defense of Aaron Burr, amply annotated, easily read, and quite entertaining. On a larger scale, the study gives reason to contemplate the formulation of reputation, especially historically. Had not Burr's daughter perished at sea with all his notes and letters, we might have a much greater opinion of Burr. Any fair reader of this book will come to a much deeper appreciation for Burr, the man, and the failures and shortcomings of Hamilton and Jefferson. I highly commend this book to your attention.

Thomas Mallon has written about Ruth Paine, the woman who found she had harboured one of the most infamous criminals of all time- Lee Harvey Oswald. Whatever you believe about the Kennedy assassination, you'll appreciate Mallon's glimpse at what it was like to be standing right next to one of the most important, disruptive, and tragic events of the twentieth century. Ruth Paine is revealed to be a woman with a very sure sense of who she is and what she stands for, a woman who- almost alone among survivors truly close to the assassination- refuses to be defined by her proximity to what happened that day in Dealey Plaza.

Mallon's skill at conveying a sense of what the world was like in 1963 is remarkable, and very welcome. In several paragraphs, he details just how un-sophisticated a planet we lived on then; it was a day of hand-typed copies instead of Xeroxes and the 8-cent stamp instead of e-mail. As someone who was around at that time, I've often wished that more authors dealing with this topic would take more care to remind readers that the world was a very different place then. Forgetting that has led many assassination researchers and theorists down many a specious and unproductive pathway. One example (which is not to be found in Mallon's work) is Michael Paine's ownership of a Minox camera. Today's researchers have made the most prodigious hay out of that, never suspecting the truth- the Minox was heavily promoted and sold in the early Sixties as a toy for the well-off (which Mr. Paine was, despite his unassuming lifestyle), advertised in 'National Geographic'. The camera- in the context of its time- was no more meaningful than possession of a laptop is today. Yes, both COULD be used for nefarious purposes, but most owners use their laptops for peaceful, private purposes, and so did most Minox buffs. Mallon's work is always scrupulous in remembering the difference between Now and Then, and it is most refreshing.

Ruth Paine seems to have given much of herself to Mallon, and therefore to us. She is revealed to have been very pained at several questions and revelations that came up both before and during the interviews for the book, but she seems never to have cut off the author's lines of inquiry, nor even to have directed them, answering frankly. Touchingly, Mallon's research revealed things to Ruth Paine even she had not known about the central event of her life, and her reactions to them are interesting indeed.

Mallon has not produced a perfect book- there does not seem to have been much direct questioning of Mrs. Paine on some of the topics that assassination researchers raise the most questions about, and so the book will give a great deal of unnecessary ammunition to those who feel that Mrs. Paine has something to hide, rather than clearing matters once and for all. And there are a few places where Mallon does not make clear that he's quoting from previously published material, giving rise to the impression that he interviewed people he did not. While a reader familiar with the subject will be able to discern immediately that, say, Robert Oswald did not grant Mallon an interview, the author waits a bit to let the average reader in on that.

Still, it's a remarkable look at a remarkable witness to history, a woman who has had staggering events roll over her, and like the slender reed she resembles, has sprung back, ready for new life, ready to bend in new directions, respecting the force of the storm, but quietly, serenely confident in her ability to survive it.

Thomas Mallon's book successfully addresses the charges made against the Paines, including the ludicrous attempt to tie them in with the assassination.From beginning to end Mallon intermittantly exposes the charletans who have used this tragedy to promote their own agendas.This book is not for fantasists who continually accept the idea that everyone from LBJ to the Kennedy family were engaged in a vast conspiracy to initiate then cover up the crime of the century.The reader who wants to know the full and true facts about this tragedy can do no better than study this book along with Larry Sneed's "No More Silence" -books written by authors who use common sense and erudtion to explain why and how Kennedy was killed.

I'm currently writing a novel set around the JFK assassination and when I saw this book reviewed in the Boston Globe, I literally made a dive for the bookstore! I've actually read it twice in a row! It portrays Ruth Paine as I've never seen her before--a somewhat naive, but big hearted, generous citizen who tried to please everyone, in some ways to her detriment. (as another reader said, in the tradition of Forrest Gump). The book reads like a heartwarming novel, and the characters are portrayed as very sympathetic--even LHO (whom I believe was a 'patsy' but that's another story.) As told through Mrs. Paine's eyes, the entire tragic episode comes to life and back to us vividly. As the reader, you'll realize that anyone in Middle America can become embroiled in an infamous plot. Mallon did a masterful job of endearing these people to us. Far removed from the documentary, textbookish tones of every book & TV show we've seen on this subject, it's readable, informative, and above all, entertaining....

The Irish American Family Album provides in it's too few pages, a spark of light on the intensely emotional history of Ireland and her children. One could hardly expect an absolute, exhaustive description of the countless people or events that are associated with this topic, yet everyone of Irish descent that I have shared this book with responds to it that same way. They slowly turn the pages with great anticipation. Always hoping that the next page shall help shed more light on their personal family's history of exil from Ireland to a new life here in America. I have even witnessed a tear from time to time in the eyes of these readers. It has been said that we are now witnessing a renaissance of the Celtic spirit and culture. If this is true, then much thanks is due to books such as The Irish American Family Album. For this book and others like it shall be the tools of education for our younger generations. They help to reveal and preserve our culture and history, a history so vast and long that it spands well into the darkness of time. Therefore, every spark of light is a true blessing.

Aside from personally destroying potential evidence in the Oswald case--a note from Oswald in November 1963 that could have shed light on Oswald's frame of mind around the time of the assassination--what does Hosty know to increase our understanding of the JFK assassination? He knows nothing about the real nature of Oswald's activities in New Orleans in 1963--events leading up to the assassination. He knows nothing about the possible role of the USG in the assassination. Forget about Cuba or Russia's role in the assassination events. Could they have switched key frames in the Zapruder film for the use of the Warren Commission? Hoover himself admitted to the FBI's role in this "mistake." Did the Cubans or Russians hide information from the Warren Commission? No, Allen Dulles did so. Did the Cubans or Russians manipulate the writing of the Warren Report? No, Gerald Ford admitted that he changed the language of the report regarding where one of the bullets struck Kennedy (making the report inaccurate but trying to force data into a preconceived notion). Try the books of Dick Russell or Jim Garrison or Gaeton Fonzi instead in order to gain understanding of the events of 1963.

Like I said in the title, it is an interesting read. Hosty deals with the assasination as he perceived it (and it was he who investigated Oswald). He also tries to brush off any conspiracy theories pertaining to the shooting, in particular Stone's "JFK". I must say he does a pretty good job at it, with his claims being solidly motivated. However, I still stubbornly choose to believe in the conspiracy.

Hosty's book provides a candid recounting of the tragic events of Nov. 22, 1963. While Hosty acknowledges his own mistakes, he tries to put the president's assassination in proper context and explain what was really happening behind "closed doors." An exciting read, and a must read for buffs. Hosty's candid recounting will surely get under the skin of conspiracy theorists.