Biased perspective...
920899
If it were possible, I'd give it ZERO stars. It doesn't take long to recognize that this author is biased and has an agenda. He isn't searching for truth but he twists the scriptures until they are shaped just the way he thinks they should be. If you doubt my observations, conduct your own research...but...don't read this book or any other book except the Bible. Find every Biblical reference to alcoholic beverages and then study the context, the application and just listen to scripture and allow the facts to speak for themselves; I did!
3397836
To clarify - if 3 1/2 stars were available that is where my gut would have put this book. Whilst this book serves a good historical perspective of the evolution of information age warfare in US Government and Civil Agencies (and in particular the DoD) it left me a tad disappointed. The author definitely, as highlighted in other reviews, makes some extremely pertinent points (nuggets is probably an apt description) on the future of war how it may be fought he perhaps doesn't pursue these as far as I would have hoped and I was left with the impression that the book, whilst an interesting and easy read, was unnecessarily 'padded' out with historical examples. This aside, it is easy to criticise, and I wish to note that Chapter 12 dealing with assassination in the information age is a particulary good discussion.
1575224
After reading some of the reviews for this book I am wondering if the reviewers have thought through what they are saying.  Every author is biased.  Every author has a perspective.  To say this book is a poor treatment of history because the authors start with a premise and sustain it throughout the book is ridiculous.  Every author who has ever written a book does the same thing.  You may disagree with Manuel and Marshall's opinions and give the book a poor rating, but do not ostracize for having a perspective and admitting it from the start.  When you do this you not only betray your own bias, but you also do discredit to the Amazon.com reader looking for advice on buying the book.
Having read this book, I give much credit to the authors for their extensive use of quotations.  Many historians edit out "religious" themes attempting to show historical characters as the modern reader would want to see them.  But the true student of history does not mind reading about the religious influences of the founding fathers.  They understand that, even if they disagree with a historical figure's theology or belief system, these people did believe these things and they lived their lives based on those beliefs.
One example of this from the book is the character of Christopher Columbus.  The book quotes Columbus's journal where he states that God put it in his mind that he could sail to the West Indies.  A modern historian may choose to leave this quote out of their history book because they don't believe that God put the idea in his mind, or they don't think their reader cares.  But in both cases they have secularized historical facts.  By showing us the religious slant in Columbus's thinking, Manuel and Marshall have broadened our understanding of Columbus, and shown themselves to be less biased than most modern historians.
Accusations of whitewashing history are quickly erased in Columbus's case when the authors present the depressing facts of how the pursuit of gold in the new world became a greater influence on Columbus than did his original idea of God's calling him to discover America.  This pursuit leads to the genocide of what is now Latin America in the 16th Century.
So, read this book for what it is.  The sub-title on the front cover gives the authors' hypothetical question:  Did God have a plan for America?  If you view the book from the perspective of Manuel and Marshall attempting to answer this question; you will have read the book form its intended viewpoint.  And you will not be disappointed
3139552
Please don't consider this book "objective" history. It's gotten great press, and it contains some valuable information, but reader beware: Yasmin Khan has a definite pro-Muslim bias. Her version of Partition is one deliberately shaped to make Muslims appear the victims of Hindus. Khan is smart enough not to make overtly prejudiced or inflammatory statements--how credible a historian would she be in that case? Her biases comes through in her selection of the facts. She repeatedly portrays Hindus carrying out violence during the Partition, while Muslims are for the most part terrified victims--running from this village, slaughtered in that town. Naturally she must describe Muslim violence to some extent, in the interest of credibility and conscience, one hopes, and to some extent she does portray the violence against Hindus as well, but the preponderance of her examples describe Hindus perpetrating violence and Muslims suffering at their hands. In one chapter,almost every attack noted is carried out by Hindus. I kept waiting for an example of Muslim violence and was shocked her sympathies for Muslims were so blatantly displayed. Khan is the granddaughter of a Muslim League politician of the 40s, and though she describes herself as being distant from those politics, not all her loyalties can be left behind. Curiously, in some instances when Khan describes atrocities committed against Hindus, she will not name the group who commits them. Instead of using the noun "Muslim," the attack on Hindus is simply described as if carried out by an anonymous force. Where she can, she will avoid assigning blame to Muslims and will spare them the slightly mocking tone she occasionally uses with Hindu leaders. Khan's biases are insidiously wrought, and her dishonesty is subtle. She will not allow herself to be accused of overt bias, and it seems she does see Muslims as other than just victims, to some small extent, because she is critical of Pakistan at moments. She does admit to instances of Muslim League violence and gangsterism. Still this does not detract from her general portrayal of Hindus as the villains. She never addresses the glaring point that tens of millions of Muslims continue to live in India today, while virtually no Hindus are left in Pakistan, having fled West Punjab within weeks of Partition, threatened with massacre in a Muslim land. How's that for victimization?  An objective historian would have examined that phenomenon as a significant point, not neglected it. Khan's mentor, the historian Ian Talbot, is even more biased than her, and in his book on Lahore and Amritsar you can see it's because he sees the Muslims of West Punjab as an underclass who finally had a chance to overthrow the Hindu upper classes with Partition. With Khan you don't even glimpse that class sympathy. With her, its presumably ethnic ties, blood ties--the most visceral ties--the very ties that resulted in the bloodshed of Partition--that keep her biases alive despite the layers of elite education over it.
2376339
Far too biased with many generalizations taken as facts.  In their zeal to promote their beliefs, the authors have gone to extremes to make their case.  This only convinces those whose minds are made up or just not thoughtful readers.  Citing one example as representative of a complex issue will never make converts of those who can think.
4970346
Author had some interesting points, but its a very biased, irrational view of the rest of the world - a little paranoia going on here.  It would have been interesting hearing the wife's side.  The book has both their names on but there wasn't even one line written by her.
2589448
I liked most of the book, but some things written are very biased towards a more leftist view point.  It's a shame that someone has to put their liberal views in a child's book. Why couldn't Ms. Laurie Calkhoven simply give us BASIC FACTS, void of any bias? She makes sure to belittle republican presidents and lift up the democratic ones. Very disappointed. Will be returning.
809462
Well written and informative but with a heavy slant towards the liberal view.  If you are a Bush Basher or an Obamamaniac, perhaps you will enjoy this. In my opinin, if this author can't be trusted to write accurately about today's events, I certainly did not trust him to be open minded about events long past.  The fact that a book with such obvious bias towards any radical position is sold as History was very disheartening to me.
2496621
As I am a fan of Baptist history I enjoy reading books that have to do with this subject. The author (a man I am personally acquainted with) has an obvious bias against fundamental Baptists that shows time and again throughout the book.
3720400
There was a lot of historical information in the book and from what I've read and seen it seems to be factual and consistent.  This made it somewhat interesting; however, the bias this author has for Diane de Poitiers makes the book almost painful to read.  I couldn't make it through the epilogue because this bias was even worse than in the book, which was almost more than I could stomach.  Diane de Poitiers was not the perfect "goddess" as depicted in the book.  No one, no matter how wonderful they were could be this perfect much less a mistress of the king who used him and her position to the fullest.  Who could blame Catherine de Medici for her anger, humiliation and pain, even in those times where mistresses were common?  She is described horribly and it is known that she was not a horrible person.  I can't believe I was able to read the entire thing but once I was invested I had to finish it.
3136382
The author has stated as a fact several situations in which there are multiple conjectures - based on my reading of Many other competent authorities - as to what
 Might have occurred.  THIS book, based on all my reading on the subject, is a biased, one-sided account of the author's personal opinion and NOT a factual representation of historical events.
2965693
I'm a very recent high school graduate who read "A People's History of the United States" when studying U.S history, well I should say  I read excerpts for each time period we were studying but it was enough to get picture of the books message. My teacher told us every time we were given our Howard Zinn packets (after we silently groaned) that it was full of good information but was biased. Looking back and reading the reviews... I would have to agree. It does paint the U.S in a very negative light from the start. I know that he states his bias from the beginning and well... at least he stated he's biased. I do agree that history has a tendency to be told by the victors, and I like the fact he's telling history from a different point of view, points of view you don't hear to often is nobel and wonderful. Though I didn't like reading this simply because the writing was a little challenging for my 17 year old self and reading was slow going, it definitely gave a more rounded picture than the text book alone (which was a piece of crap in general)

That being said, it is very one sided as Zinn said it would be. Also, while useful for giving a more rounded picture as I stated before, I feel it may be slightly outdated now. Please keep in mind this is my opinion as a student. Take his chapter about Columbus. Of corse as little kids we hear the poem "In 1492 Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue" which is all fine and dandy when they're really small. However once I got into middle school and then high school I learned the truth. I learned about Columbus and how he and the Spanish abused and killed and enslaved the natives. I learned about how many of the founding fathers were for freedom and equality for all but still owned slaved and never even considered giving those freedom to women. I learned about the harsh conditions of the workers, the greed and ambition of people like Rockefeller and Carnegie and Morgan. I learned about the Japanese Internment during WWII in fifth grade and read personal accounts when studying it again in High School, and believe me I was so disgusted I couldn't even finish reading the packet. I could go on.

So while the purpose of the book is a interesting one, I believe, based on my own PUBLIC education that things have changed since this was published. And while it is very much one sided it did help create a rounder picture and does seem like an interesting read-but I would definitely read other books to get a fuller picture.

Again this is just my point of view as a student who read a fair amount of selections from this book.
3376592
The authors of the book present themselves as unbiased, but I found the book to be extremely biased against alternative treatments in general.  Their discussion of chiropractic in particular is blatently biased against the profession and includes all sorts of rumor and innuendo, glaringly absent of any of the data they so fervently profess to subscribe to.  I say, either substantiate your claims or don't, but the authors seem to like to play both sides of the fence in order to pursue their agenda.  Now that these guys have "proven" that chiropractic is a sham, I have to go to little Anna and tell her that she has to stop walking.  If chiropractic is only good for some back pains, it could never have gotten her to throw those crutches away and walk for the first time in 6 years and after 7 doctors told her she never would.
This book is a tremendous disservice to the world: a scathing indictment of treatments, some of which simply do not operate in the realm that the narrow reductionist paradigm of western science can currently measure.  "Evidence-based medicine" relies on studies like randomized clinical trials as the gold standard (a standard that medicine itself rarely applies to its own treatments).  Yet RCT's fail to take into consideration the emotional, mental, interpersonal and spiritual component of the healing process.  EBM in fact considers these factors to be "disruptive" to the pursuit of quality data.  However, the fact is that a person's emotional, mental, interpersonal and spiritual experiences are critical and dynamic elements of their healing process, whether western medicine and science can measure them or not.  Alternative therapies like chiropractic do not consider these elements distractions or "placebos", they are integrated into a comprehensive paradigm for healing.  Had this book been impassive and objective as it describes itself, it would only be reckless.  As it is, a highly biased and narrow minded joy ride, it is directly harmful to the public, most of whom will be unable to discriminate between the facts and the opinions.  Were their intentions purely unbiased as they claim, their next tome would be a scathing indictment of western medicine and it would be called, "Maybe Acupuncture is not such a bad idea: the Lack of Evidence in Modern Medicine".

John P.A. Ioannidis, chief of the Prevention Research Center at Stanford University, and medicine's top "mythbuster", set out to subject biomedical research to its own standards of proof: evidence and data.  His question: how many biomedical studies are wrong?

His answer: most.

According to Ioannidis, the unbalanced treatment of positive and negative trials (the negative ones being those which show a drug or treatment failing to be effective- these, he discovered, "sit in a file drawer, or the trial keeps going in hopes the results turn positive.") lead to skewed research results.
`"People are being hurt and even dying" because of false medical claims, he says: not quackery, but errors in medical research", reports Sharon Begley in Newsweek (Jan 24th, 2011)  Ioannidis' early work debunked several claims that certain genes were the cause of illnesses like Parkinsons (debunked in 2010) and cardiovascular disease (2009). Begley writes: "Geneticists have mostly mended their ways, tightening statistical criteria, but other fields still need to clean house, Ioannidis says.

Surgical practices, for instance, have not been tested to nearly the extent that medications have. "I wouldn't be surprised if a large proportion of surgical practice is based on thin air, and [claims for effectiveness] would evaporate if we studied them closely," Ioannidis says."

I'll stick with chiropractic, thank you very much.
4198972
I enjoyed the book for it's view into London life and the musical scene of the late '70s, and found Wobble's observations about himself and how he steered his career quite  striking.  But one has to keep in mind that this is a biased POV of one person recalling events from some years past.  For example his dismal personal view of PiL co-founder Keith Levene comes off as quite lopsided, as if over the years Wobble could only recall the bad and little of the good.  There's no mention of latter musical sessions with Levene, for example. But, hey, that's just the way of autobiographies. Take everything with a huge grain of salt. For a fuller (though still biased)  picture of the PiL years, read Lydon's "No Irish ..." and Google around for assorted interviews with Levene (until he writes his own book).

BTW, I agree with another reviewer who said the last quarter or so is a rather sparse leap through more recent times. Still, a fun read, worth the 10 bucks or so for the book.
520239
Obviously biased in his approach but informative about the Progressive point of view about its accomplishments and its view of the Conservatives.
3575172
I am a history teacher and have just returned from a seminar where Dr. Schweikart was the featured speaker. His book, "A Patriot's History...." was the required reading. I found the book to be incredibly biased toward all things "Republican", to the point of absurdity. For example: Schweikart devotes considerable space to Whitewater, Monica, "Travelgate", and other Clinton scandals, but Does Not Even Make Mention Of IRAN-CONTRA! How could this be even remotely "Fair and Balanced?

During the seminar with Dr. Schweikart I was allowed to question him and I asked about this conspicuous omission and was told that he didn't think IRAN-CONTRA was significant enough to make it into print. Also, I asked Dr. Schweikart for a definition of just what a CONSERVATIVE is? After stuttering and stammering, Dr. Schweikart came up with an answer that left me and my collegues scratching our heads. Something about a downtrodden man in a ditch and what a Conservative would tell him as opposed to what a "Liberal" would say? Anyway, this book is useful. I plan on using it when I next teach my unit on "Detecting Bias".
1218058
The book, particularly the chapters regarding the origins of Islam, fully represents a Western view of Islam and the prophet of Islam, and this is competible with the name of the publisher of the book: "Westview." Advocating that there is a competition between Islam and Christianity, the author seems to take one of the two sides eventhough he tries to avoid this bias. Thus, he appears to stay away from the objectivity criterion and look at the phenomenon from a narrow perspective only, that is "orientalist" in Edward Said's term.

In addition, it is clearly understood that the writer is not qualified to write on this topic, and his limited interviews with people from the Middle East societies seems problematic. It seems that these interviews were made with some people from the elites (probably seriously influenced by Western ideas) of those societies he encountered as a journalist rather than with experts on Islam. Consequently, his assumptions and allegations reflect one side's perceptions only, without providing adequate evidence to support his arguments.