Owen Cook

A meditation on Turner's frontier hypothesis that's also a well-crafted story

Revisado: 12-11-24

Packed with vivid tidbits placed within the arc of a compelling and multidirectional story, this book simultaneously grapples seriously with the frontier hypothesis (if you don't know what this is already, don't worry: it's all explained nicely).

The reader did an outstanding job as well, calm and steady, letting the narrative tell itself, yet never falling into monotony. My one quibble was how the reader handled dialect speech, which sometimes felt a bit caricatural -- but that's the point of dialect when so written, it's meant to be caricatural.

As a history geek, I learned a ton, but it felt accessible and step-by-step enough for a newbie too.

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Civil War history as it should be told

Revisado: 09-18-24

The author briskly and cogently surveys a wide sweep of movements and personalities, from the common soldier to the commanding general, in a long-running, pivotal campaign for control of East and Middle Tennessee. The interpersonal relations and discord among generals on both sides was a fascinating recurring theme, while Woodworth also deserves credit for keeping in mind the broader political and social context of the war, including the protection of civilians and ongoing emancipation.

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Very well read, but not what it says on the tin

Revisado: 05-07-24

Apart from the final brief chapter (which would have worked better as an introduction), this is not at all about "how to fix NI". But okay, let's imagine that the title was what the book is really arguing: "Sectarianism in NI: An Enduring Problem". There is some interesting storytelling, some vivid anecdotes, and occasionally a hard-hitting analysis. But overall, I found the bulk of the book repetitive and superficial. It is resolutely Belfast-centred, with Derry and rural NI noticed only fleetingly. O'Doherty fixates on incidents in social media, a single scene from Derry Girls, an anecdote about an acquaintance, in agonizing detail. Meanwhile, his definition of sectarianism seems so elastic as to encompass everything stemming from, reflecting, coinciding with, or constitutive of Northern Ireland's divided society. This feels like padding. Moreover, the author notices positive developments like integrated education so grudgingly as to give the impression that he really disapproves of them. He has the germ of an important idea, but it could have been better expressed in an op-ed or two.

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Clear, harrowing account of an underreported tragedy

Revisado: 05-06-24

Gourevitch does a masterful job of telling the stories of genocide survivors, perpetrators, apologists, and opponents without losing his compass or falling into the all-too-common tropes of both-sidedism or neocolonial dismissiveness. His critique of the international community and humanitarian organizations' response is thoughtful as well as damning.

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A story well worth hearing

Revisado: 08-04-22

Absolutely fascinating and well-balanced. The author gives wide-ranging and thoughtful context, as well as the play-by-play of the Vicksburg campaign, while the reader's performance was more than competent.

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Fascinating story, but listless delivery

Revisado: 06-16-22

The text could easily have been edited down 10% to 20% to deliver a crisper story. But the basic premise is fascinating: Madison metamorphoses twice in response to changing political environments, while maintaining many though not all of his basic principles intact. Criticism of Madison is far too muted, though this is by no means a hagiography. Our reader seemed half comatose, except for direct quotes, which were delivered in a range of inappropriate accents. (Why does he voice Madison, the bookish Southern gentleman, like an overexcited 12-year-old from Schenectady?)

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Lively and accessible bio

Revisado: 05-04-22

The editorial tone is a bit too uncritical, but there is so much to like about Clay in spite of his faults that I enjoyed it very much anyway. There are some errors of fact (e.g. stating that Congress adopted the Compromise of 1850 as Clay wished, directly after his speech, rather than after it was separated into different bills by Douglas et al.) as well as errors of terminology (e.g. any kind of anti-slavery opinion is called "abolitionist", while the abolitionists are called "ultra-abolitionists").

The quality of the reading is superb. Direct quotes are done as a monotone mumble, but this is my only quibble. Even when the reader mispronounces words, he does so with confidence and panache. All in all, a very enjoyable listen.

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A decent intro, lamentably delivered

Revisado: 11-16-21

In terms of content, this is a brief but very serviceable primer on the cultus of one of the most important deities of the ancient Mediterranean world. The reading, however, was disgraceful: Our reader not only is ignorant of the subject matter (as evidenced by his mispronunciation of specialized terminology like "intercalate", "stele", "Ogdoad", and "iconography") but whiffed on familiar terms such as "phallus" and "Oedipus". Worse, he reads direct quotes in a bizarre voice like that of a stereotypical pirate, which was highly distracting, and which he was unable to sustain, so that opening quotes were signalled by the appearance of the Jolly Roger but closing quotes merely by the indefinite trailing off of this affectation. May I humbly ask that women be allowed to read *some* historical books, or failing that, that men be chosen who have a modicum of historical literacy?

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Strong anecdotes, few solutions

Revisado: 09-15-21

The author starts with a seductive premise and catchy title, and offers some very good diagnosis of the problems with recent US military efforts (as well as some foreign ones): short-sightedness, hubris, cultural ignorance, etc. But the book falls apart when it comes to solutions: the author repeats "surge, talk, and leave" like a mantra, but fails to show how such a strategy might have actually worked in real-world scenarios, or to consider alternative approaches. There are many interesting anecdotes, and important questions are posed, but overall the writing was repetitive and intellectually over-ambitious.

The narrator did very well.

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There are diamonds in this rough

Revisado: 01-06-20

A lot of this book was thoughtful, insightful, and funny in Hillary's weirdly quirky way. But a lot of it was pure navel-gazing. Hillary would have been better served by an editor who would make her cut the length in half and keep her message focused and her warnings and take-aways about the future of American democracy more pointed.

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