Beisdes being an incredible tract on falconry (modern ornithology has yet to surpass it, really. Doubly impressive, considering Frederick was writing some three centuries before the scientific revolution). This book is a cross-section of one of the most profound minds in all of Western history. Frederick the Second was the most magnificient of all the latter day emperors. From nothing he raised the throne of the Roman Empire to transcendant limits, defied both God and the Church, and brought in the fabled "third age" for the superstitious people of medieval Europe, who believed that he was either the bringer of Peace before the apocalypse or the Anti-Christ himself. His memorable utterance "...I am tired of being the anvil. Now I shall be the hammer!" was the inspiration behind Nietszche's work 600 years later. The Empire died with the next brilliant generation of the Hohenstaufen.

In light of all this, his book of falconry is indespensible. It shows us Frederick the Renaissance man, engaging in Scientific method in an era of revealed truths, and it shows us Frederick the hunter: shrewd, catching every detail, and always for the love of the chase. This book will amaze you to no ends!

As a practical guide to modern falconry, I don't believe this book would be as helpful as some on the market, but as a primary source from the middle ages it is first rate. The intricacies and details of the hunt, the housing, the care given to the birds, hounds, etc. . . . for this, the book is priceless. If you are looking for summaries of the hunting practices in the middle ages, Marcelle Thiebeaux and Anne Rooney are among the best authors to seek. If you want the actual details of the way it was by someone living at the time it was practiced, there is no better source than Frederick II's book (and few even close).

This is the perfect book for whoever wants to learn about what falconry was like a long time ago. However, I would not reccommend it to anyone who wants to learn about present day falconry. After you get your license, I would reccommend it. The reason I say this is because it can confuse the apprentice. It confused me. It does teach a lot though, and can give insight to diff. ways of training hawks. Belongs in every falconers library!

Wow, I just finished Skip Atwater's book and I must say it was an incredible read about a remarkable time in our nation's history. The evolution of the program which utlimately became known as 'Stargate' is an incredible journey. One that wouldn't let me put the book down.

I recently had the pleasure to see Skip speak recently about his work on HemiSync technology and was very impressed with his scientific approach towards the subject. He is an incredible speaker as well and is an intriguing individual.

His book showed to me the other side of Skip, one that places trust in 'guidance' that we recieve throughout our lives, leading us ever closer to our destinies. It was truly a great read, and I have taken his message to heart, to live my life through guidance knowing that the path we seek will utlimately materialize because guidance is always with us.

I just finished reading Captain of My Ship, Master of My Soul. It is a wonderful book. But the facts behind the story are mind bending. I had the great opportunity to attend a forum last fall in Fort Collins, Colorado, where Skip was one of the speakers. The forum, four days long with numerous presentations, was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life, and Skip, one of the speakers, was one of the very best. I bought his book at this event and obtained his autograph, imagine my surprise when I opened the book for the first time three days ago (6 months after the forum) and found a personal observation about me along with the autograph. This only enhances my perception that Skip is a warm and friendly individual besides having unusual abilities and way above normal intellect.

This charachter trait also comes through in this book which details his extraordinary experiences throughout his life, during his army career, including the Stargate program, and with his ongoing work with hemi-sync at the Monroe Institute.

I am deeply interested in all facets of the paranormal/metaphysical and this book is a great source for factual data which is not forthcoming from most other mainstream scientific sources. Skip is one of the few exceptions. I found the data regarding remote viewing exceptional but my interest is really geared to an interest in hemi-sync and what the potentials are for me to utilize this program in a search for spirtual growth, for a deeper understanding of the levels of consciousness, and potentially an awareness of the other realms of the universe. If you too are looking for these opportunites, you will start finding some answers in this excellent book.

One of the more extraordinary of the stories about Edgar Cayce’s psychic ability is the time he was preparing to do a reading for a client in a distant location. As he, he noted that the client was not present at the location mentioned in the client’s letter requesting the reading. In a moment, Cayce announced, “Oh, here he comes now” and began the reading. The client had just returned home.
A few years back, on a television program called “Put it to the Test,” they showed a demonstration of Joseph McMoneagle, who had worked as a “psychic spy” for the CIA. In the session, McMoneagle was asked to psychically spy a location far away known only to a couple of individuals. It was the Los Angeles harbor. McMoneagle does a pretty good sketch of the major visual elements of the scene. As he does so, a large freighter passes through that point in the harbor. McMoneagle notes that something has come onto the scene that is blocking the view. The television reporter was flabbergasted at the immediacy and accuracy of McMoneagle’s demonstrable psychic abilities.
That particular television program was in response to the startling revelation that the CIA had been using psychic spies. In an unusual break with secrecy, the existence of “Stargate,” the code name for the government project to use the clairvoyant skill of remote viewing as an intelligence gathering method, was headline news. The fallout of this revelation was gradual “coming out” of persons who had participated as psychic spies. Another fallout was that remote viewing catapulted from an arcane laboratory methodology to the subject of many new consulting firms serving corporations and investment firms who wanted to gain the latest advantage.
The impression created about remote viewing from the publicity surrounding its birth into public awareness was that it was a “psychic power” with all the ambivalence that the word power evokes. It could be used for competitive advantage and personal profit. It was lacking in spiritual value. The term remote viewing, with its technological tone, adds to that impression of sterility. What would be a spiritual use of remote viewing? Edgar Cayce once surmised that the highest use of psychic ability would be to hear the voice of God. As remote viewing is outgrowing its birthing rags, it is beginning to approach the idealism of Cayce’s vision. It would seem that intuition, or psychic ability, first had to be put into the most sterile, technological and practical of terms to gain recognition, and now can be rejoined with its spiritual roots.
A supreme example of this evolution has its seeds in the military’s Stargate program itself. It is the book by F. Holmes “Skip” Atwater, Captain of my ship: Master of my soul (Hampton Roads). Atwater was in Army Intelligence when he “happened” to be Johnny on the spot with his knowledge of remote viewing to create the military’s psychic spying operation. He was, in fact, McMoneagle’s trainer. I used the word happened deliberately, as the subtitle of Atwater’s book is “Living with Guidance.” As he tells his life’s story, he had many psychic experiences as a child. His parents, members of the Unity Church, normalized his experiences with responses that made him feel that “everyone knew that.” His parents also taught him about spiritual guidance. As a teenager, he used his abilities to see into his hot rod’s engine to facilitate repairs. He was guided to join the army, to apply for the intelligence division, and to then start the remote viewing operation. After retiring from the Army, Atwater joined the psychic training organization, The Monroe Institute, near Charlottesville, Virginia. In this atmosphere, Atwater expanded the remote viewing methodology to embrace spiritual guidance. He proposes a variation of Cayce’s vision of “oneness” with the idea of “All That Is.” Psychic ability is a natural byproduct of our being one with “All That Is.” He explains that remote viewing is not really “traveling” or “seeing,” but merely an expression of our being “All That Is.”
Atwater’s tone is down to earth, personable, and reassuring. Reading the book makes you feel that you, too, can realize your connection with “All That Is,” to know your spiritual identity, to realize your purpose for this lifetime, and to gain the necessary guidance for the next step of your mission. The book certainly turned around my feelings about remote viewing. In his final words, echoing Cayce’s ideal of “individuality in oneness” Atwater writes,
“Open your heart. And with an open heart, speak the truth. Say to yourself from your heart, ‘I reveal the truth and realize that I Am.’ Put a smile on your face and carry love in your heart. Show the world you know that you are a divine expression of God I Am. See you around the campfire.” (reprinted from...

I couldn't put the book down. Seriously. I started it yesterday and finished reading it at 12:30 am. Powerful info, yet easy to understand and actually fun to read. Great practical tips that I could immediately apply. While I'm familiar with much of what was in the book through my MBA statistics and market research courses, and from conducting many surveys for employers and clients, this book provided me with new insights and a highly useful framework for methodically approaching survey analysis to ensure thorough and accurate results.

It's rare to find a book that provides such depth yet is at the same time highly readable and even humorous. A must-read for anyone looking to conduct customer service surveys!

This is an excellent resource on the Customer Surveying process and how to (and not to) structure customer surveys, questionnaires, etc. Author has passion for the topic and terrific credentials. Must read if you need to learn the true pulse of your internal and external clients through the vehicle of customer surveys. Thanks Dr.Frederick C. Van Bennekom!

My 8 year old son LOVED this book!! He wants the rest of this series. So do I!

This book is very good because, I mean kids turning into dinosaurs is just cool. If you like dinosaurs this is a book that you must buy.

WOW! Could you imagine yourself trapped in the body of a gigantic T-Rex? Or even a Triceratops? Wouldn't that be awsome if that could really happen to us? Well, in this stellar new book series, written by Scott Ciencin, he in fact, does make four kids go back in time, only trapped in the bodies of dinosaurs. There is also something about this series that I have just realized about: it is somewhat in realation to the Animorphs series, by A.K. Applegate; only with dinosaurs, and without the alien invasion thing. But still, Ciencin is a new and remarkable author, that I think will have many great things happen to him in the future. His work of fiction really makes you feel as though you have somehow went to the world of dinosaurs, along with the characters in his stories. I have just recently checked out these new series at my local Barnes & Noble Booksellers store, and wow, was I impressed! I've read half-way through the first book, and can't wait 'till the new books come in! Keep up the excellent work, Scott Ciencin! If you love Animorphs, you will most certainly love Scott Ciencin's Dinoverse, full of non-stop suspense and thrills, keeping you wondering what will happen next. That's what I love about reading. The suspense that keeps you hanging and wanna read the whole thing. And Dinoverse has it all: action, trills, chills, and spills. Wou would resist reading these magical tales of wonder and adventure? Anyone who is in love with dinosuars, this is the book series for you! These books are filled with powerful imagination. If the kids in "I Was a Teenage T-Rex" thought it was tough now days, they better hold their breath, because they're about to face reality in a whole new way--or should I say, in a whole new BODY! OK, I think I should stop writing here, so that I won't give out any more secrets to this face-paced thriller-adventure of a novel. So if you haven't checked out the Dinoverse series, then what are you waiting for? Go ou and buy or check them out in your local library, if they have any copies of the Dinoverse book series. Who knows? Maybe one of these days we might really actually go back to the age of the dinosaurs and experience real adventure. Anything's possible. Right?

This is more than a kids's book to me: it is a treasured family heirloom.

The Volland Edition of Mother Goose Nursery rhymes is a well-worn book that sits on our lowest shelf for our kids to access freely. This has resulted in a bit of fraying on the edges of the pages and a binding that has started falling apart. But I have no regrets that my kids have returned to this book often and with anticipation when I announce that it is story time.

In this Mother Goose collection, you will find all the favorite rhymes in their original form; beautiful, sentimental, at times seemingly savage to our 21st century sensibilities - they were all written without regard to political correctness. For instance, the little old woman who lived in a shoe actually whipped all her children soundly before sending them to bed (not "kissed"), and Jack and Jill really do "break their crowns" instead of their hats or just bumping their heads. A few other selections mention the deaths of children and animals. Parents will have to prepare to explain some serious things to children after reading some of these rhymes.

The language back then was apparently more sophisticated than modern versions: consider "The Cat and the Fiddle" in which the little dog laughed to see such craft, which rhymes rather better than the later versions' (dumbed down) sport or play. In my opinion, that only adds to their color and charm. Hey, you can use it as an educational opportunity to teach new word usages to your kids.

But the real reason to choose this rhyme book is that the Volland Edition of Mother Goose is illustrated with an eye to beauty that you simply won't find in modern nursery rhyme books. That is what really sets the Volland Edition apart from all the modern collections; magical, perfect watercolors for each rhyme. No picture book since the Volland Edition has matched the quality here and I do believe that children enjoy good artwork and benefit from it greatly. In my case, this very book was inspirational in setting a high standard for my aspirations to become an artist someday.

As a great way to teach children poems and rhymes that will stay with them their whole lives, or as a valued heritage from another century, the Volland Mother Goose is one book every family should experience IMHO.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle

So many memories of this book with my children! Wonderful illustrations for receptive language. The picture of Mother Goose's house on the inside cover with so many details, especially the cat asleep under the bench by the door was a favorite. I gave this book to many, many friends for years and invariably it became a favorite. Though I kept an old copy which I gave to my first grandchild, I now have three more grandchildren. Wish that it would be reprinted. I would stock up! We also enjoyed other Gyo Fujikawa illustrated books.

My grandmother read this book to me over and over again when I was very small. I loved the illustrations, especially the one for "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" at the end of the book that shows a tiny child watching the stars outside at night. This book captured my imagination and stirred my senses like no other. I hope it will last through my own children and maybe my grandchildren, too!

This is required reading for well-rounded New Testament readers. Most of it is chronological, as opposed to topical, but the index is pretty good. There is a lot of good material here and Bruce does a good job of balancing views from different historians and sources.

2000 years back is a little far to think. But Bruce brings it
much to life and is a known reliable New Testament scholar. If
you must know, he was a Plymouth Brethren. H.L. Ellison is also.
I also like Bruce's commentaries on Acts and Hebrews.

Bruce has written books explicitly on the reliability of documents and so forth, but this is much more relevant to
me personally. What was it like? is what I'm after.

***NOTE***: Searching on Bruce's name in amazon.com gives
tons of other stuff somehow, so the best way to focus on
his works is to find one of them and then do the "all works
by same author" search from that book.

I thought I knew something about the history of the Church - until I read this book.

It is MUST reading for ANY and ALL Christians. You'll know why the late F.F. Bruce is so widely quoted and so authoritatively referred to if you do.

Buy this book before it goes out of print for another thirty-five years!

If Golding's Ovid is not, "the most beautiful book in the language," it's among the top two-dozen "most beautiful books" you can find in English. I've searched for a second-hand copy of the 1965 Simon and Schuster edition since the late sixties, ever since I read Pound's ABC of Reading. I never had any luck finding it, though I did come across a non-circulating copy in a university library once. Its title page explained that only 2500 copies had been printed and that the previous edition -- the one Pound must have used -- was a small, deluxe Victorian production, itself unattainable by 1965.

After all my years lurking in second-hand bookshops, Paul Dry Books has finally done the decent and brought Golding's Ovid out again, this time as a beautifully printed, well-bound, but inexpensive paperback. I grabbed up my copy at first sight.

Is this an "accurate" translation of Ovid? As a previous reviewer has said, if you really want accuracy, you should read Ovid in Latin and leave the wild Elizabethan translators alone. Unlike that reviewer though, I'd say that, if you want Ovid in perfectly accurate modern English, with his poetry and voice included, you should read him in Mandelbaum's beautifully rendered version; but if you want an accurate modern English translation -- the type of thing your Latin prof would give you excellent marks for -- then read him in Melville's able, though sometimes sightly flat translation.

But if you love Elizabethan literature, then you should read Golding. You read his Ovid for the ripe, quirky, full-on Elizabethan English, deployed in his long, rambling fourteeners. Golding's metre was becoming antiquated in his own day but, as with a good deal of his rustic vocabulary, he didn't seem to care much about literary fashion. Reading him now, I find it's his joy with his original that matters. Open the volume anywhere -- at the Cyclops Polyphemus singing to the Nymph Galatea for example -- and there is Golding rolling magnificently on:

"More whyght thou art then Primrose leaf, my Lady Galatee.
More fresh than meade, more tall and streyght than lofy Aldertree.
More bright than glasse, more wanton than the tender kid forsooth.
Than Cockeshelles continually with water worne, more smoothe."

Where "forsooth" is outrageous metrical padding, and "forsoothe/smoothe" was probably a forced rhyme even in 1567. But who cares? Golding's music carries the reader past any such concerns, and the beauty and energy of the thing are undeniable.

So buy the book! Make sure it sells tens-of-thousands of copies! Give the publisher a reason to keep reprinting, so it never disappears again.

I'd like my review to correct what seems to be an over-hasty, unreflective lionization of Golding's translation by the other reviewers. Yes, it is a "great translation," in the sense that Marlowe's translations from Latin are, or Motteaux' Don Quixote is, or Pope's Iliad, or Robert Lowell's Imitations, or Pound's Chinese "translations," or even Ted Hughes' Tales From Ovid: that is, it is an powerful, compelling, wholly literary work in its own right, but it is nowhere near the original in terms of accuracy. The Latinless reader would do much better to buy Melville's excellent Oxford translation (which lacks nothing in poetic splendor) or perhaps Allen Mandelbaum's. As for the poetic "quality" of Golding's verse, that's of course subjective, but I could easily think of at least ten Elizabethan poets who are more satisfying to my taste. Golding's chief literary interest, as Nims points out, is his absolutely odd-ball English; attentive readers will find him a veritable storehouse of strange, funny, quaint Elizabethanisms that didn't quite make it into Shakespeare or the other mainstream writers of the period. (Much of the same joy can be found in Chapman's marvelous translations of Homer, reprinted by Princeton.) And the much-quoted Pound maxim comes from his wonderfully cantankerous ABC of Reading, certainly a fascinating book, but one in which Pound indulges in various critical pronouncements that seem, at times, merely whimsical or rhetorical. Much of Golding is rough, much dull, much of its interest is linguistic rather than poetic. He also adds a lot to round off his fourteeners (which I can't imagine are palatable to most readers for long stretches): his additions are fun, but they're not Ovid. Golding "Englished" Ovid to a great degree: his imagery often comes from English culture, not Mediterranean. Of course, any translation is fallible, and Golding's faults as a translator are, in my view, his greatest strengths as a poet, but he's definitely not a good place to start reading what is certainly one of the world's greatest books. This is a fine book, well worth the five stars, but emphatically NOT for the reasons cited by my colleagues. If you want Ovid, go for the original; failing that, Melville's your man.

This edition presents the Arthur Golding translation just as it would have been read at the time of its publication (1567). The Elizabethan spelling is maintained but is not an overwhelming problem (and really not very difficult at all and really adds to the charm of the translation (poetry) itself...) The print of this edition is also perfect in look (black print) and size and is the type of print that gives words a more substantial look...(that's not a small thing in a work like this...) Arthur Golding was not only a Protestant in times when faith was very political, but he was a Puritan...(he also was famous for translating John Calvin...) This edition reprints his preface where he justifies his efforts in translating Ovid. It also reprints his Epistle, or, dedication... I noticed on the copyright page that this is a reprint of an edition that was published back in 1965 by Simon and Schuster which interested me because I've been looking for an edition new or used of the famous Golding translation all my reading life (which began well after 1965...) and had never had any luck, so I would say if you come across this edition or it's not out-of-print by the time you see it here on amazon.com and you've always wanted to read it (I, by the way, had never been able to find the Golding translation in any libraries either...) then don't put-off aquiring it... Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses is really a basic book (there are only about 40 of those at last count...don't ask me to document that though...) Why is Golding's translation of this work so intriguing...? It, for one thing, looks on the page like sunlight looks when it's dancing and flashing off the water of a running brook...

"The Art of Chesley Bonestell" is an extremely high quality Science Fiction art collection that comes around once in a decade or two. The last Chesley Bonestell collection of this calibere, "Worlds Beyond: The Art of Chesley Bonestell", was published in 1983. Chesley Bonestell's art goes back to the golden age of Science Fiction of the late 1940's, 1950's and 1960's. His work was displayed on the covers of SF periodical magazines, SF paperback books, and Space Science books of that era. His style is realistic and his work is breathtaking! His concepts of other-worldly-visions are naturally realistic and have a Zen-like feeling of mystery to them. The color plates in this book are of awesome quality. I guarantee this book will increase in price, as the 1983 collection has. The 1983, "Worlds Beyond: The Art of Chesley Bonestell", sells for around $100 or more. Buy this 2001 book, "The Art of Chesley Bonestell" now, because it will only cost MUCH more after it goes out of print.

I bought this book for the space art but found out there are many other excellent paintings to go along with them. Bonestell's art makes you want to be at the places he's painted except for places like New York under nuclear attack and ancient Egypt being bombarded by comets. The space art is incredible. I only wish I could get large prints of some of the pictures to frame them. I'm even considering buying another book and cutting out some of the pictures that are barely large enough to frame.

I am among the hundreds of thousands -- perhaps millions -- of people who owe their lifelong interest in matters of astronomy and space science to a childhood discovery of the art of Chesley Bonestell. I remember vividly pawing through the pages of The Conquest of Space at the age of about ten, my mouth open as I saw the marvels of the universe displayed.

It was thus actually rather nerve-racking when I opened this new book for the first time. Could the reality of his art possibly match my childhood memories? Could all of that vividness and excitement have been magnified in my mind's eye over the succeeding decades? Was I in for a disappointment?

I most certainly was not. If anything, the fabulous art inspired and excited me even more than it had way back then.

And there's a lot of that art here -- a real feast of it, superbly reproduced. And I discovered as I kept turning the pages, hands quite literally trembling as I discovered treasure after treasure. Even more excitingly, I found that Bonestell had worked in areas of art I'd never suspected before: fabulous landscapes, stunning sketches ... I have perused many, many art books, but I've never before reacted quite as strongly as to this one.

And it gets better. There's a long, beautifully written and utterly fascinating illustrated biography of Bonestell written by Ron Miller. It's almost as if one's getting two books in one.

An earlier reviewer (who cannot spell "Chesley") talked of this as if it were an expanded version of The Conquest of Space. He was talking through his hat. This is a completely new book covering the entirety of Bonestell's career both visually and textually; it contains a big selection of illustrations from The Conquest of Space (all the best ones), but they form only a small part of the huge and sumptuous collection on display here.

This is a gorgeous book, and an extremely valuable piece of work -- the authors/compilers deserve the highest praise for having brought this treasure to us.

The battle scene in the second half of the book was worth putting up with some of the long scene-setting of the first half. Dialogue was superb. There is a fine line between showing and telling and it takes some practice for good non-fiction writers or good historical-fiction writers to get it down. In my humble opinion, the reader has a sixth sense about knowing which is which. Chiaventone is learning his craft well.

Having served with Frederick J. Chiaventone in a previous life, I was curious about his book. I have not read his first book, but I'm going to now. Moon of Bitter Cold is a tremendous work. His attention to detail and storytelling ability kept me from putting it down. This is a book that both a recreational reader and the historian will appreciate. Free of bravado, historically accurate, and characters fleshed out without bias, it's the best historical novel I've read. Congratulations Fred.

Frederick J. Chiaventone has been selected to receive the annual "Wrangler Award" for "Moon of Bitter Cold" as the Outstanding Novel of the American West 2003. The National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum announced the 2003 winners of the 42nd Western Heritage Awards. Other recipients of the award this year include Jeffery Katzenberg of Dreamworks SKG and actor Patrick Stewart. Past recipients of the coveted award include actors Clint Eastwood (for Unforgiven), Kevin Costner (for Dances With Wolves), Tom Selleck, and Sam Elliott, and authors A.B. Guthrie, Dr. Brian Dippie, David McCullough, Alvin M. Josephy, Thomas Berger, and James A. Michener.

Chiaventone's previous novel "A Road We Do Not Know" about the disastrous battle of the Little Bighorn won the Ambassador William Colby Award for Literature. Both novels deal with the dilemma of the clash of cultures which results in military catastrophe. Chiaventone is a retired Army officer and former Professor of International Security Affairs at the US Army Command & General Staff College where he taught guerrilla warfare and counter-terrorism operations to senior officers. He is also a member of the Colby Circle of military authors along with fellow writers Tom Clancy, Mark Bowden, WEB Griffin, and others.

The best thing about this book is that unlike most other ones about the depression it was written by someone who experienced it at the time they experienced it - 1939. Spanning 1929 to 1939 it gives you a you-were-there feeling.

Most of the political commentary is just matter-of-fact with very little bias. Many depression books seem to be left-leaning and written by authors with political agendas, not this one. The fact is that many things actually were very corrupt in the years leading up to the depression.

Allen obviously liked FDR very much and yet he still always countered accolades for him with opposing opinions and even agrees with them at times.

This is not a hard-hitting expose' of the Depression years, but it is a highly informative book that is a great lesson in history.

Frederick Lewis Allen begins this short book (346 pages) where he left off in his last book ('Only Yesterday') - with the stock market crash of 1929 - and ends it with the
advent of World War II in 1939. Allen skillfully weaves the minor events of this decade (the fads, books, crimes, machines, gadgets, personalities, movies, fashions, etc.) together
with the major events (the stock market crash, the 'Great Depression', and 'the New Deal') in a delightfully entertaining, informative fashion - assuming, of course, that you
enjoy American history!
The '29 crash had been immediately preceded by the 'Big Bull' market that had carried investors and stocks onward and upward for some 2 years before it finally peaked. Investors, by then, were 'programmed' to buy, buy, buy. All feared that they might miss one last opportunity to get richer. Stock transactions sometimes became so hectic that Wall Street could not keep up with the paperwork (no computers!). Some pundits of that
day were issuing warnings that stock prices were overvalued, that investors were investing too much borrowed money, but few investors were heeding these warnings. When stock prices began falling, nothing could stop them. By the time stock values hit
bottom on 13 November investors had lost enough money to finance World War I once, or pay off the national debt twice! In a matter of months 25% of the work force was unemployed; many of them were now standing in the ubiquitous breadlines, or peddling
apples for 5 cents on street corners.
The market crash triggered another major event of the '30's - the 'great depression'. President Hoover insisted that the economy was only experiencing one of those 'cyclical
business cycles', that it would eventually 'self-correct', and that life in America would again be just great. He approved some actions to aid businessmen and failing banks, and
to create some jobs by expanding some federal work programs, but basically Hoover opposed any kind of relief for the unemployed or their families. The government, he thought, should do nothing to damage Americans' 'initiative and 'rugged individualism'. Later, Hoover approved some expenditures for seed and for animal feed, but vetoed any proposals to help the cold, the starving, or the unemployed. Hoover was above all
determined to balance the federal budget and he was certain that nature (and economic problems) would eventually run its course and that his 'hands off' (laissez-faire) economic policy would prove to be the proper government response to the depression.
Between the crash of '29 and the presidential election of 1932, however, there was no visible improvement in the economy. Consequently, Hoover's defeat in the upcoming 1932 election was preordained. That's what happened; Franklin Delano Roosevelt
became president.
FDR and Hoover had diametrically opposed views with regard to the federal government's role vis-à-vis the national economy and the depression. Once elected FDR immediately launched his various (alphabet soup-like) 'New Deal' programs: they
included the NRA (to deal with economic planning, wages and working conditions, child and women's labor, etc.), the CWA and the WPA (to provide jobs); the AAA (to deal with farm problems); the CCC (to provide jobs related to environmental protection, tree planting, etc.); the PWA and the TWA (to build dams - thereby creating jobs, electricity, water for irrigation, flood controls, etc.). He also created the RFC, the FHA, the FCA,
the NYA, etc., etc. FDR was unafraid to create a government agency to deal with a problem. 'If one approach fails (frequently the case)', he would say, 'We'll try another.'
'The unemployed', he maintained, are not bums! They are victims of an economy over which they have no control.' (A 1933 congressional investigation - a la Enron, Anderson, et al) indicated that the crash had to a considerable extent been generated by 'wheeling-dealing' brokers, bankers, financiers, corporate managers and their pyramiding
schemes, mergers, etc.). FDR's role model cousin, Theodore Roosevelt, had said earlier that it was the government's responsibility to protect those who were unable to protect
themselves. FDR, in turn, said something similar, using different words: 'It is not the government's duty to further enrich those who already have much, but, rather, to assist
those who have little.' FDR's words resonated with most Americans. They re-elected him again, again, and again. The Republicans soon recognized that FDR and his Democratic 'New Deal' programs were basically anathema to what Republicans stood
for (small federal government, low taxes, etc.), and they began fighting FDR and his programs (the Democratic-Republican fight that FDR started continues to this day.), but FDR won most of the battles because he always enjoyed great majorities in both houses of congress and eventually he also had a friendly Supreme Court - because he personally made a total of 9 appointments to the court.
There is much more to say about this book, about FDR's struggle with those 9 old men of the Supreme Court, about the repeal of Prohibition, about the rise of organized crime,
etc., -- but you get the idea. My final word: Lewis is a delightful writer and the material is fascinating!

Allen covers the period from September 3, 1929, to September 3, 1939. Interestingly, the first date is when the Bull Market reached its peak, and the last date is when England and France declared war on Germany. The book is an excellent contemporary account of the 1930's. The topics that Allen thought were noteworthy in 1939 are still noteworthy today. Anyone who reads this book should also read "Only Yesterday" which is Allen's account of the 1920's.