Thomas E. Dewey, the epitome of Manhattan Avenue politics to conservative Republicans, was himself born and bred further west than the venerable Robert Taft himself. A product of Owosso, Michigan, Dewey attended the University of Michigan, studying literature and law, all the while pursuing a career as a professional singer. It was music that brought him to New York, one of many surprises unveiled in Richard Norton Smith's biography of one of America's most prolific political campaigners.

Dewey was a capable enough performer that in 1924 he was booked for a solo performance in the cultural heart of America. In the audience was the noted music critic Deems Taylor. Taylor commented upon what he perceived as Dewey's contrived emotional stage effects, but this flaw was dwarfed by a more essential one: suffering from laryngitis, Dewey's voice totally shut down halfway through the program. A thoroughly mortified Dewey was forced to take stock of his career, and as a second choice he decided to pursue a law degree. Columbia University of the 1920's enjoyed a plethora of great legal minds, and even the frustrated singer came to develop a passion for law and the potential theatrics of the courtroom.

Dewey's rapid ascent through the law profession was abetted by two factors: his labors on behalf of New York City's struggling Republican party, and the patronage of George Z. Medalie, who would become Dewey's legal and political rabbi. Medalie, a major character in this treatment, enjoyed a thriving private law practice, but he was drafted for one of the city's frequent, and usually unsuccessful, forays against organized crime, which literally held New York in a stranglehold in the 1920's and 1930's. Medalie, who had once consulted for Dewey's firm, brought this "prodigy" into his investigations of the seamy criminal underbelly of New York including, as it turned out, the disappearance of Judge Crater.

Not even Medalie could have imagined what kind of courtroom tiger he had unleashed. It was to Dewey's advantage that few intrepid souls wanted to tackle the dangers of addressing organized crime, particularly when corruption pervaded the police department and the courts. Dewey became New York City's district attorney in 1935, prosecuting famous gangsters, politicians, and public figures with a take no prisoners approach. Smith describes several of the most famous investigations in considerable detail, but it is Dewey's style that is most intriguing: a workaholic perfectionist whose "when in Rome" style and prosecutorial armtwisting were not for the prudish. Dewey's face became one of the most recognizable in America-through newspapers, newsreels, and a series of Hollywood B-movies in which Dewey lookalike actors reenacted the more famous of his investigations.

After the substantive defeats of Hoover in 1932 and Landon in 1936 many Republican voters in the 1940 primaries turned to the fresh aggressive look of Dewey. By May 1 Dewey stood at the head of the pack, but May 1940 proved to be his undoing. Smith observes that it was not a Republican challenger who derailed Dewey's victory train, but Hitler himself. After the disaster of Dunkirk, Dewey became "the first American casualty of the Second World War," as one wag put it at the time. As the war came visibly closer to American life, Dewey's youth and limited international experience became glaring obstacles to his White House hopes. Defeated for the nomination by Wendell Wilkie, Dewey captured the New York state house in 1942. A genuinely compassionate man, Dewey's lengthy tenure as governor was marked by fiscal conservatism and social reform. His vision was remarkable: he predicted the postwar housing shortage and developed a state surplus for postwar needs. He saw the fiscal possibilities of a better highway system and sowed the seeds for what would become the interstate highway system by his advocacy of the New York State Thruway, which now bears his name.

Had Dewey's ambition been quenched in Albany, he would probably be remembered as one of the most effective state leaders of the century. Regrettably for his posterity, it is his unsuccessful runs for the presidency in 1944 and particularly 1948, when he "snatched defeat from the jaws of victory," that most Americans associate with Dewey. Smith does not psychoanalyze the 1948 event, as many historians do, nor does he demonize Truman, whom he credits with conducting a masterful if brutal campaign. Smith concedes that Dewey's 1948 campaign was too ethereal, but in the final analysis Dewey was a victim of himself. Like Nixon, he was not a natural gladhander, and his perfectionism in crafting his speeches not only resulted in a wooden product but devoured time better spent in personal appearances.

Smith describes Dewey's personal life as that of, well, a rich suburban Republican. Early in his career Dewey made the acquaintance of journalist Lowell Thomas, who gradually drew him into the social circle of Quaker Hill, an exclusive mountain community near Pawling, New York, north of the city. Dewey remained a presence in Republican circles until his sudden death by heart attack in 1971. He labored to keep his party moderate, campaigning vigorously for Eisenhower and against the Taft wing. Smith brings to light several interesting anecdotes of Dewey's later years. In 1970 a coterie of leading congressional Republicans, deeply concerned about the style and direction of the Nixon White House [read Haldeman and Ehrlichman], nominated their former party leader to speak privately with the president. Dewey apparently agreed to approach Nixon, but his sudden death intervened. Smith also records that the widowed Dewey courted Kitty Carlisle Hart [then a panelist on the popular TV program "To Tell The Truth"] and asked her to marry him. [The question was still under negotiation at the time of his death.] On the last day of his life, in Miami, he played golf with Carl Yastrzemski. His final regrets, it appears, had less to do with presidential campaigns and more to do with his belief that he had worked too hard and played too little.

Thomas E. Dewey, unfortunately, is probably best remembered by most Americans as the little fellow who lost the 1948 Presidential election to Harry S. Truman in one of the greatest upsets in American history. But thanks to the work of Richard Norton Smith, we can now see Dewey for what he really was - a crusading, crime-busting district attorney; perhaps the best governor New York State ever had; and the man who "modernized" the Republican Party and allowed it to survive through the Depression years and the 1940's. Dewey came from a small town in Michigan, and his rise to fame and fortune came remarkably fast. A compulsive workaholic and "neat freak", Dewey graduated from the University of Michigan and Columbia University Law School in the 1920's. He briefly considered a career as a singer - he had an award-winning baritone voice and liked to sing Broadway tunes in his bathtub - but decided that the law would be a more stable and suitable career. He married an actress, settled in New York City (although he never really liked New York, and bought a large farm 70 miles north of Manhattan in the late thirties and happily became a weekend farmer). In 1933 Dewey, only 29, became the assistant DA and helped to send several gangsters to prison. In 1935 he was elected District Attorney for New York City, and he soon achieved national fame as the "gangbuster" - the honest lawyer who sent dozens of famous mafia leaders to jail. His most famous target was "Lucky" Luciano, the mafia boss of all New York and who was even more powerful than Al Capone. Dewey's conviction of Luciano made him a national hero and propelled him into presidential politics at the incredible age of 38. Hollywood even made movies about him. In 1940 he ran for the Republican presidential nomination and nearly won, despite his youth and inexperience. In 1942 he was elected governor of New York. During his twelve years as governor he passed the first state civil rights laws in America, lowered taxes AND cut a budget deficit in half, and founded the State University of New York. He also rooted out political crooks and ran a remarkably honest administration. In 1944 he ran for President and came closer to defeating Franklin D. Roosevelt than any of his four opponents. Dewey's great moment was supposed to have been in 1948, when he was considered to be a sure bet to defeat President Harry S. Truman and restore the Republicans to the White House. All the polls showed Dewey winning easily, and Dewey refused to even mention Truman's name - even as Truman insulted and ridiculed him in speech after speech. This was a costly mistake - Truman won a narrow victory in one of the great political upsets of all time. At the age of 46, Dewey was a "has-been". Smith does a wonderful job of explaining why, despite Dewey's honesty, intelligence, and obvious leadership skills he was never able to win the White House. Partly this was due to Dewey's personality - many people felt him to be cold and calculating, a short man with a bad temper and an arrogant attitude towards others. Smith fills this biography with plenty of delicious quotes (Dewey's secretary - "He was as cold as a February icicle"), and he also offers a superb history of the Republican Party in its lean years between the 1920's and the Eisenhower Fifties. Although Dewey will probably always be remembered more for his 1948 upset than for his substantial achievements, Smith's biography will at least ensure that those who read this book will come away with a much better appreciation for the man and for what he accomplished. A terrific book!

Trinitarian theology is a difficult subject. Scriptural references are few and their meaning is not obvious - indeed, they can easily be read as contradictory. In fact, there is no explicit description of the Trinity in the scriptures at all - the orthodox view of the Trinity (three persons in one God) is an inferential conclusion from scripture that took generations to piece together. Having arrived at that conclusion, the next problem was to understand exactly what it meant - a problem difficult enough that many argued that it was simply a mystery the answer to which we might know in the next life but not this.

This famously difficult problem is the subject of Augustine's "The Trinity". In addressing it, he has two motives. His first motive is to combat non-Trinitarian heresy by showing the scriptural support for the concept and by showing that it is not inherently contradictory. His second motive is to attempt to understand the Trinity more deeply, to satisfy the scriptural directive to "seek His face evermore".

"The Trinity" is a long book, the second longest work in the Augustinian corpus, and one that he worked on, intermittently, for sixteen years. He might not have finished it had not the unauthorized publication of the first twelve "books", led him to write the final three in order to avoid having the work available only in an incomplete form.

"The Trinity" begins with a consideration of the Scriptural references to the Trinity, with the aim of reconciling them and explaining them through the supposition of three equal persons in one God. Augustine is at particular pains to maintain the equality of the persons: that the Son is equal to the Father, and the Holy Spirit equal to both. Of particular concern to Augustine are the references to the Son and Holy Spirit being sent, with the implication that the Father who sends must be superior to them. This presentation takes up the first eight books.

From there Augustine aims to develop some deeper understanding of the nature of the Trinity. His approach is to use the fact that the Man was created in the image of God. Given this, Augustine reasons, there should be some image of the Trinity in man. This leads to the consideration of a succession of trinities - the lover, beloved, and love; memory, understanding, and will; the objects of sense, the will to attend to them, and the sense impressions of them; etc. This presentation, which take up the next four books, is interesting, but often perplexing. It is easy for the reader to see that the trinities he names are not analogues of the divine Trinity, and it can be perplexing to attempt to understand how Augustine intends to bring this discussion of the trinities in man together.

It is in the last few books, written after the premature publication of the earlier books, that Augustine works to reverse the centrifugal tendencies of his discussion of the trinities in man and unify them into a whole. The trinities in man are held up not as exact analogues to that in God, but as a ladder, starting with the most carnal and rising towards the most spiritual; we do not find a single Trinity like that of God within ourselves, but we do find a series of them that we can ascend, and in ascending it we approach the divine Trinity and a deeper understanding of God.

There is much discussion in contemporary theology about the Trinity (e.g. Moltmann, LaCugna, Gunton, Pannenberg, Rahner, Barth). In order to appreciate the discussion intelligently, you ought to go back to the source of the Western model of the Trinity. One of Augustine's analogies for the Trinity is the Father the Lover, the Son the Beloved, and the Spirit as the Love. Quite a few theologians are critical of Augustine's emphasis on the unity of the Triune God (e.g. Moltmann, Pannenberg, LaCugna). It is worth reading this work just to put their work in perspective.

This work is more than just an exposition of theology. Augustine has a long discussion of perception (memory, understanding and will), because he needs to give an account for how human seeing can fulfill its supernatural vocation to see God. Some of his discussion anticipates some of the concerns of the Enlightenment. E.g. if the representation I recall in my mind is from my memory, but is also shaped by my will, how do I know I have an accurate representation of reality?

Another reason to get this work is that any attempt to tackle the Trinity ends up by a mini-systematics. In a fairly short space, a close read of the work will pay a mountain of dividends.

In particular, Edmund Hill did an invaluable job editing and translating the work. The introductory notes, the endnotes, and the essays scattered throughout the work are worth the price of the book itself. I have gotten a lot more out of the work because of Hill's commentary (and they are not overly intrusive). Some of Hill's translations are a little bit too colloquial for my taste, but he wanted to write a dynamic translation. If you want a literal translation of this work, you can like in other places.

All in all, this is one of the all-time classics in Christian theology.

As a somewhat novice coin collector (2 years), I've found theEdmund's Coin Price Guide a very easy to use reference.Even moreimportant, the prices quoted in the current Edmund's Coin Prices Guide are right on the mark as to what my coins are worth now. Coin values fluctuate constantly, ... invested semi-annually in the current issue of Edmund's more than pays for itself by keeping my knowledge of buying, selling and trading values current.

Robert O. Hawkins, Jr. writes in a style that is easy-to-read and enjoyable. He does a good job of taking complicated information and making it reader-friendly.

"Alone in the house" is a true thriller! You just mightjump right out of your socks! Joanne, a teenager who is persuaded byher friends to have a party at her house while her parents are out of town. Her friend Cindy opens the door to a few strangers who decide to crash the party. After everyone has left and the house is dark, Joanne begins to hear the sound of flapping wings. When I read this book, I was so scared but I could not put the book down. If you like scary stories and mysteries, you will love " Alone in the house"! Every chapter in this horrifying story is filled with suspense and wide-open eyed moments. If you enjoy this nail-biting thriller then you will want to read Edmund Plante's other horror novels. All of Edmund Plante's books are out of print but I purchased my book at Amazon and they were able to locate a copy in no time at all. Thanks! END

The American Library of Congress holds over 110 million items - many of them unique and priceless - and this charts the history of the Library and its holdings, from its initial 740-book collection begun in 1800 to its miles of bookshelves today. Vintage photos and illustrations pack a presentation which is a 'must' for any who would understand American book history.

i think this is a very good book prescribed. AMAZON.COM&iliked it very much.

Charles Drew knows how to preach and it shows! His images and use of language are very striking. A PCA pastor in Manhattan, and Harvard grad., Rev. Drew really penetrates the Biblical texts. He pushes the reader past moralisms and allegories so common in Old Testament interpretation and takes us right to the Cross. I have never read a better Christ-Centered, Covenantal approach to Scripture. If you are not used to this, it will revolutionize the way you look at the Old Testament. One of my favorite books of the past year.

Underneath the vast differences between the customs and way of daily life in this colorful Eastern land of long ago and the settings of the traditional Cinderella story are enough similarities to enlist the interest and sympathies of the modern-day reader. More important are the universal values which permeate this charming tale-compassion, fidelity to one's family (even if it brings pain,) and justice. An attractive, multicultural tale that can be savored by readers of all ages.