This is a fun book that should help your youngster develop an interest in American History. It is easy to read an has great illustratiions. You will not be disappointed with this purchase. Look for others by the same author.

Guns For General Washington is a great book because of the action and advenerture. Henry Knox, a patroit who goes to Fort Ticonderoga, a fort in New York that has at least 183 cannons, lead for bullets, flint for flintlock muskets. There were also mortars, a type of gun, howitzers, a another type of gun,and a cohorns, another type of gun. They, Henry and his brother and some others who help out, have to go 300 miles to Fort Ticonderoga from Boston and 300 miles back to Boston from Fort Ticonderoga.This takes place in Massachusetts and New York in 1775 and 1776. The conflict is that General Washington is fighting a british general ,General Howe, with no aritillery like cannons and gunpowder.This book has very good action and advenerture

THIS BOOK WAS A VERY DETAILED AND CURIOUS BOOK. IT GAVE YOU ALL OF THE DETAILS NEEDED TO FIGURE OUT HOW THE STORY GOES. USUALLY WHEN I READ A BOOK I STOP IN THE MIDDLE BECAUSE IT IS TOO BOARING, BUT I READ THROUGH TIS ENTIRE BOOK. IT ALWAYS FINDS SOMETHING TO FOCUS ON SO IT DOESN NOT LOOSE YOUR INTREST.IT MAKES YOU REALIZE JUST HOW MANY PEOPLE RISK THEIR LIFES TO MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE SAFE.

As an avid fan of true crime, this book was recommended to me by my mother who told me to read "the original true crime book" (originally published as "The Airman and the Carpenter"). She was right! This book was terribly disturbing and really rocked my faith in the American legal system. I had heard stories about the Lindbergh kidnapping and how Hauptmann was NOT the kidnapper, but hearing those tales and reading the book and seeing everything in black and white are two very different things. The facts are astounding . . . people (including the "heroic" Charles Lindbergh) told outright lies and railroaded Hauptmann. His own lawyer basically said Haputmann was guilty and deserved the electric chair . . . NJ Chief of Police Schwarzkopf admitted that he would "do anything" for Lindbergh, including lie! It is a terrible shame how the media and the public crucified this man; he never had a chance. Everyone assumed his guilt from the beginning, and after actually reading fact after fact after fact that was blatantly ignored during the trial . . . it is disturbing and shocking. So much for "innocent until proven guilty" . . . in Hauptmann's case, everyone around him searched for clues that would make him look guilty, and if that meant fabricating evidence against him, then so be it. This book shows the justice system, the media, and the American public in general at its worst. I found myself becoming more and more angry and incensed as I turned each page, as people lied under oath, fabricated evidence, made up stories, and ignored evidence that would have cleared Hauptmann. I felt terrible for him, his wife, and child. I think people inherently believe that if they are innocent, everything will work out for the best and a judge and jury could not possibly believe lies and invented half-truths. An innocent man was put to death for something he obviously did not do. In this day and age, when a jury can find O.J. Simpson "not guilty," I think Bruno Richard Hauptmann should finally be exonerated and have his name cleared.

This is one of the best books of its kind in the world. The author does a wonderful job of stitching it together. This goes beyond a page-turner: this book will take over your life. If you are at all interested in the tradition of mock trials fronting mock justice, this is one of the most ridiculous examples to ever hit the American big top.

This is one of two books that served to convince me that Hauptmann was in fact innocent. I am delighted to see it is back in print, and with a new forward too!

Richard Hauptmann MUST be exonerated. What a shame it could not be done before his wife passed on.

As a reader of Dr. Blackaby's this journal/book ids a great resource for teens, college age and young adults serious about going deeper in their relationship with God. A great resource for a journey with God.

I bought this devotional about 3 months ago. And I read it daily it has really blessed me. The first day I read several pages and I was in tears. My spirit was truly touched. I highly recommend this book to everyone wanting spiritual guidance.

This book openned my eyes and my heart to the ways God's love is flowing to all of us now. I'm 57, not a teenager, and I've found that every word I've read here speaks right to me in my adult life. It explains things that I've never understood before and draws me in with its questions. Don't miss this extraordinary treasure.

This genre, the slave narrative, created by fugitive slaves, is one that I knew nothing about, but was one that fascinated audiences and often made celebrities out of their authors. Narratives written by escaped slaves were very popular in the mid 1800s as they recounted stories of abuse, cruelty, escape, and their lives as free people in the north.

None of these slave narratives was as curious and compelling as that of Henry "Box" Brown, who actually boxed himself up and shipped himself to freedom in 1849, from Virginia to an abolitionist in Philadelphia. Risking death and/or suffocation to be free showed the desperation of the slaves even in a state like Virginia, where cruelty was purported to be less than in other parts of the south. Brown's story showed this not to be true. His escape was motivated by the sale of his wife and children, sent to parts unknown and never seen again.

His book was originally written by a Charles Stearns, described as a radical, argumentative ideologue and was written in an overwrought style.

Brown fled to England in 1850 when the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. He was a controversial figure, criticized for revealing how he escaped (and profiting from this) rather than sharing it with other slaves who might have used the same method.

When Brown got to England, his book was re-written in a more honest and simple style, and the edition that I am reviewing is the American version of that book. The difference is that this book is said to be written in Brown's voice and the lack of turgid prose makes it 20+ pages shorter.

I have my doubts if this was Brown's voice...it seems to be the voice of a well-spoken, educated person with a large vocabulary, capable of complex sentence structure and high levels of organization. For example, he writes: "I might perhaps have dragged my chains of quietude to the grave, and have found a tomb in a slavery-polluted land; but thanks be to God I heard the glorious sound and felt its inspiring influence on my heart, and having satisfied myself of the value of freedom, I resolved to purchase it whatever should be the price."

Despite this, the book was an incredibly interesting account of Brown's early life, his life as an adult slave, his escape.

We may be thankful that we are no longer producing a particularly American form of literature, the slave narrative. Hundreds of slaves told their stories in the nineteenth century, making some money thereby and striking a blow against slavery when their stories were used as abolitionist tracts. One of the most incredible was the _Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown_ (Oxford University Press). That "Box" as a middle name was adopted by Brown in commemoration of the method by which he gained his freedom. He had himself crated up and shipped from slavery to liberty. His audacious plan worked, and this is his story.

Remarkably, this is the first time this edition has been printed in the US. Brown writes in his preface, "The tale of my own sufferings is not one of great interest to those who delight to read of hair-breadth adventures, of tragic occurrences, and scenes of blood - my life, even in slavery, has been in many respects comparatively comfortable." Of course the telling word there is "comparatively." The torture worse than any was worry about his family being sold away, and eventually they were, and he never saw them again. The other main theme in his pre-box narrative is the involvement of the church in supporting slavery, a hypocrisy which revolts Brown, a religious man. The loss of his family convinced Brown to make his remarkable escape: "The idea suddenly flashed upon my mind of shutting myself up in a box and getting myself conveyed as dry goods to a free state." He arranged to have himself nailed into a wooden crate, 37 by 24 by 30 inches, lined in baize. He was shipped by dray, railroad car, steamboat, and horse cart, 350 miles from Richmond to Philadelphia in 27 hours. The box bore the label, "THIS SIDE UP WITH CARE," but shipping agents back then paid as little attention to those directions as they do now, and Brown had to survive some jostling and spells upside down. Philadelphia's Anti-Slavery Committee sent for the box, and opened it nervously at their office. Brown emerged calmly, said, "How do you do, gentlemen?" and fainted. Upon awakening, he sang the fortieth psalm.

Brown's narrative ends with his emergence from what could have been his coffin, but the useful introduction by Richard Newman explains that Brown went on the lecture circuit, telling about his slavery experiences and of course his curious escape. He had to flee to England to avoid recapture, and prospered on the stage telling his story. His eventual fate is unknown. However, we have his book now, in as near to his words as we can get, finally published in the land he chastised for restricting it's grand freedoms to slave-holders. His stark account of slave life makes a poignant memoir, and of course his brave (or foolhardy) and novel way of escaping it is thrilling. Students of the Underground Railroad already know of Brown, and this new edition of his book should enlarge his merited fame.

Most ESL(English as a Second Language) teachers recommend Oxford Advanced Lerner's or Longman Contemporary, but they are too much verbose and require great stamina to reach the right definition. POD is concise.

The most needed feature for ESL dictionaries is a broad recordings of idioms. At this point, all American ESL or paperback dictionaries are weak.(The papaerback ones are not designed for foreigners, of cource.) POD has decent number of idioms.

The second required feature is the coverage. POD has a little Americanisms - it's an apparent defect. But it contains few geographical or proper names, so it has much more common vocabulary than any other paperbacks.

I enjoy the easy-for-eyes typeface, also essential to old-aged-prone-to-eyestrain learners like me.

I studied in London during college as a literature major and while there discovered that I needed a dictionary to complete my assignments and turn them in with the proper British spelling. I picked up this little dictionary to get me through the semester and loved it so much I carried it home with me. My family quickly realized how useful it was and I've spent a lot of time since searching to discover who "borrowed" it last. My mother is especially attached and has acquired a collection of other oxford dictionaries that either are too big to carry around or "just don't have the word she's looking for." If you have a copy, hang on to it.

"Dangerous if read too late in life", Hemmingway.

This is an excellent book if you can find it.

I have just read this book and I think I could place it among the ones I liked the most (together with Gerald Durrell's ones): what I prefered was the poetic that filled the whole book , in the descriptions of landscapes, and people, that poetic you can't find in modern writers.

Dik Alan Daso's "Hap Arnold and the Evolution of American Air Power" of the Smithsonian History of Aviation Series is an incomplete, if interesting and well-written volume about a unique and visionary man.

Daso's book is an intimate look at General of the Army Henry Arnold from birth up until about 1939. At that point the work becomes distinctly sketchy and leaves out a number of incidents documented in other works, or treats them very lightly. These include several controversies that involved Arnold.

It may be that Daso considered the story delineated in his sub-title did not require treatment of these topics, or that he is too close to his subject. A review by Overy describes the volume as a "sympathetic biography" and one is led to wonder if, out of admiration, Daso tread a little bit lightly around a few issues.

With respect to his treatment of Arnold outside the years of 1939-1945, Daso's is an excellent and readable biography that provides such human detail as to make Hap Arnold live again for the reader. Through Daso's writing Arnold becomes someone you might know and sympathize with, and admire. There is little to criticize in this portion of the effort.

Unfortunately, the gross lack of detail during the period of World War II greatly diminishes the value of this volume as anything more than a personal biography. Daso's failure to treat this period in detail leaves gaping voids for any to evaluate where Hap Arnold really stood on a number of the great controversies surrounding the air war. Other than a few sentences here and there which seem to treat these matters as foregone conclusions worthy of little or no attention, they go unremarked upon.

Thus there is little examination of Arnold's interaction with the other members of the Army Staff, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Combined Chiefs of Staff, Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman, Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Harry Hopkins. Daso describes a number of actions that have implications about how Arnold felt about "precision daylight bombing" but the issue is never clearly examined in its military or moral facets. It is mentioned that Arnold opposed the use of the atomic bomb, but not why. The dispute over the Lend-Lease contracts for Britain depleting stocks for the Army Air Force which landed Arnold in hot water with Roosevelt is treated so lightly as to almost constitute a whitewash.

Daso also fails to shine where his appreciation of certain strategic issues of World War II shows through, particularly regarding the Battle of the Atlantic. From Daso's writing it would seem that this was won offhandedly and primarily by the Army Air Force and due to Arnold's inititative. This highly slanted image is far from accurate. It is also unsurprising, as Daso is a United States Air Force officer and a fighter pilot and not primarily interested in naval matters.

His grasp of the relationship Arnold enjoyed with scientists is, however, exceptional and entirely expected given that he is also the author of "Architects of American Air Supremacy: General Hap Arnold and Dr. Theodore von Karman." Details of Arnold's dealings with academia and industry explain a great many minor mysteries in the development of aircraft as weapons and the air industry as a whole. Just one is that a relatively minor company like Bell should have been the one to produce the first U.S. jet. When one knows the project was personally handed to Larry Bell by Hap Arnold, it explains much. Also interesting is the role Arnold played in the birth of the thinktank Rand Corporation.

Overall, this is an excellent book recommended for anyone interested in learning about who Hap Arnold was, and how the Commanding General of the Army Air Forces came to be the man he was. But it is not recommended for anyone looking to examine high command issues and interactions in World War II. A work that provides a brief synopsis of that period is an eight page entry in D. Clayton James' "A Time for Giants: The Politics of the American High Command in World War II."

Hap Arnold was the most important American airman of the 20th century, since it was he who created the gigantic war machine of the USAAF that flattened Germany and Japan. How curious that he has never before had a real biography--just kid stuff, really.

Daso has filled the gap with a thorough-going biography combined with a history of the development of US airpower during the first half of the century. Personally, I don't find Arnold a sympathetic figure. He was an indifferent student and even an indifferent aviator. However, he got along with men of power, including President Roosevelt and General George Marshall, and he was a logistical genius.

Daso tells the yarn of Arnold getting his advisers together in 1940 and asking them how many planes they needed over the new few years. "Be bold!" he urged them. They came up with a total of about 100. "To hell with you," Arnold replied, and asked for 100,000. He not only got the planes but the men to fly them, and for that the world owes him a debt it can never repay.

This isn't an exciting book, but it's a valuable one.

Well, you learn alot of new things about your family you never knew before, but finding them in a book is a different experience!

This book is a very historical and personal informational insight into the man who founded the United States Air Force! It was interesting to know that my ancestor did so much and was even trained by the inventorst of the airplane Orville & Wilbur Wright to fly. This book even has pictures given to the author by my great-uncle Robert Arnold, which show a more personal side to the general. It was also interesting to note he was one of only thirteen 5-star generals in US military history. The book not only was interesting but did what no book has ever done before, take an inside look at part of my direct family line and ancestry!

The book is good for anyone who wants a quick understanding of certain possibilities of why the North won. However, some of the essays(this is no reflection of the actual book) are not that well justified in my opinion.

Reissue of a classic collection of essays from the 60's...Currents's "God and the Strongest Battalions" is alone worth the price!...Economic, political, social, etc., aspects are all considering by the "big-gun" historians of 40 years past...Scholarly enough for the serious student, yet very reader-friendly for the novitiate...recommended in the strongest possible terms!

This is an excellent book which contains six essays on the various economic, miliary, diplomatic, social, and politiical reasons why the Confederacy lost and the Union won the Civil War. This book saved my butt

This book made me want to scream, or cry. The characters are beautifully rendered, and some of them are dispicable people. That's what made it so unenjoyable to read for me.

The heroine, Isabel Archer, begins her adventures with much vitality and promise, yearning to see life and the world and not to settle prematurely into marriage and domesticity. Although James shows she's not perfect -- she's naive and somewhat conceited -- it's still pretty easy to fall in love with her. You look forward to seeing what great things her life will bring.

And then it all falls apart. After 200 pages of building her up, James marries her to a scoundrel and spends the next 300 pages suffocating her, one liberty at a time. Others have described this book as "uplifting" and spoken of Isabel's strength and courage; I honestly can't see what they could mean. I found it genuinely painful to see such a beautiful character destroyed. With all credit to James's writing skills, this book made me miserable. I couldn't wish it on anyone.

Henry James is one of my favorite authors and The Portrait of a Lady is one of his greatest works. In it, he creates a unique and unforgettable heroine, Isabel Archer, and then proceeds to let her make all the mistakes the young are capable of making. In fact, Isabel is so sure of herself that, at times, I found it difficult to have much sympathy for her poor choices. But one thing I never felt for Isabel Archer was indifference, all to James' credit.

The Portrait of a Lady is truly 19th Century literature at its finest, but that means it also contains elements that might be distracting for the modern reader. There are lengthy descriptions, the pace is rather slow and James never lets us forget we are reading a book. He makes liberal use of phrases such as "our heroine," and "Dear Reader." While all of this was expected in the 19th Century, some readers today might find it annoying.

Those who don't however, will find themselves entranced by a beautiful story of love and loss, unforgettable characters (there are many more besides Isabel, most notably the enigmatic Madame Merle) and gorgeous description, all rendered in James' flawless prose.

Anyone who loves classics or who wants a truly well-rounded background in literature cannot afford to pass this up.

The best thing about 19th century novels is that they take so long to unwind, you know that you are guaranteed a long and satisfying trip into a story. I initially bought this book after seeing the Jane Campion film, (which I actually wasn't too crazy about)but I always think it's a good idea to read the source material. After a few false starts (warning: one needs to devote all their attention to James in order to enjoy him)I finally got into this book, and couldn't put it down. From the great settings of the novel, to the variety of fascinating characters (the liberated Henrietta Stackpole, the sinister Madame Merle, the beloved Ralph Touchett, Ralph's eccentric mother, the flighty Countess Gemini, the deadly Gilbert Osmond, and of course, Isabel Archer herself... James gives characters great names as well) "Portrait" is a great novel not only of self discovery, but self deception. How many of us in this world have liked to have thought ourselevs as free to make our own chocies, and were excited by a future full of "possibility" only to allow something (or usually someone) to get in our way and make us realize just how quickly we can lose our freedom and be in a cage that we need to get out of. (Pardon my bad grammar.) Those of you looking fora Jane Austen type ending, this may not be the book for you, but I think this book is more of a spiritual cousin to Austen than we may think. It all comes down to making choices, and teh effects of those decisions. Throw off any reservations that you may have because this book was written over a century ago, it's as fresh, funny, tragic and riveting today as it was then. (And hey, buy the film soundtrack which perfectly captures the mood of the story for accompaniment..that was a plug!)

I would have thought that a book that I have read three times would deserve the five stars. Maybe it is because, as a history fanatic, I am very interested by many of the chapters presented. But, even though I am not Catholic, I percieve the thesis in this book as too far-fetched and based almost entirely in "what if"s. It's true, the authors state that it's just that, a thesis, but they write the final chapters with a tone that implies that they are taking their conclusions as fact.

I wouldn't want to spoil the book to anyone interested in reading it. If you like historical mysteries, lost treasure tales and the like, you'll find most of the book exciting as a smooth introduction to several historical periods, specially the early middle ages. The facts here shouldn't be accepted as the sole truth, but as a re-interpretation of the 'official' history which is, as the authors state, always written by the winning side.

The second part is much more controversial, though. Any ancient manuscript filled with allegories is bound to have any number of interpretations, and I feel the last part of the book is based on just one. And one of the most radicals by the way.

All in all, it's a very interesting book to read and I would definitely recommended it to anyone who looks for a good time in history books.

A very exciting and wonderful read. Very much a good representative example of conspiracy theories. It could be used as a text book case. The real interesting thing is that one is almost sure that the authors set out to manufacture something that would appeal to the gullible and those without even a rudimentary understanding of how to think clearly about ideas, history and reasoning from first principles. For those who can see this as their true purpose, the book is wildly exciting and has all of the good elements of a detective sleuth story, with convoluted plots, existing theories turned on their head, dark unseen powers manipulating the central characters, and plenty of bad guys.

The central idea is that the blood line of Christ is alive and well and reposited and protected over time by a group of secret societies, mainly the Rosecrucians. But the Knights Templar, Cisterian Monks and other secret societies are also given pride of place in this pantheon of conspiracy vendors.

The line of investigation and reasoning moves very well and for those with a bent for medievalism, you will love the book, with a lot of the basic historical outline being true. But one would never take it as serious history. (If you are interested in the Cathars one should check out Johnathan Sumption's "Albigensian Crusade," a good read and serious history).

Some out there may actually take its contents seriously. The authors leave subtle hints throughout that they are pulling our leg and that is one of the joys of the book. In addition it is interesting to pick apart the reasoning and leaps of logic that are sometimes subtle and sometimes outlandish and funny --- eg, the supposed leaders of those that have been entrusted to protect the blood line.

For those who want a good read that plays with your mind, this is a good read. For those who are gullible enough to believe conspiracy theories in general, I serious recommend that they re-read it or, if still beyond then, add some serious reasoning and skepticism to your diet, by reading some Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins, or Richard Feynman.

This is perhaps the best of the works of modern conspiracy theory, and is a highly entertaining book, although it is along the lines of a vice to read it. Although it is meticulously footnoted and researched, it is implausible on many levels, and clearly a work of speculative fiction.

Briefly: Christ did not die on the cross, but rather was brought to the south of France, where he and his wife, Mary Magdalene, gave birth to a line of Kings, the Merovingians. This family of kings later, after losing the throne, becomes instrumental in the founding of the Knights Templar (of course the Templars have to be involved -- no good conspiracy can exist without them) and the Templars shadowy sister organization, a brotherhood known as the Prieur de Sion (the Priory of Sion). With the reconquest of the Middle East in the crusades, the family is prepared to put a Merovingian back on the throne, but the plot does not succeed. So they go underground. Periodically hints of their existence come to light in Freeemasonry and the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau. The secret head of the order has always been a highly influential person in the world of politics, science, or culture, (Victor Hugo, Isaac Newton are said to have been in charge of the Prieur de Sion), and the organization is said to be playing a part in several Gaullist conspiracies.

The books leaps of logic (if A is possibly true then B is certainly true, so we can now assert the implausible C) and the want of motive for an organization liek the Prieur de Sion to be secret these days -- this isn't the fourteenth century, and even if you are plotting to restore the Merovingian dynasty, well, who cares? -- makes a reasoning person able to shatter its notions pretty easily.

Nevertheless, a good read.