Accurate History-riveting
357097
This movie tells it like it was without any shading by the LDS Church. The R rating made it hard for LDS to see it however.(for the violence).
Having read several accurate texts about this 9-11 massacre in 1857,it is true to the tee,except for the individual romance which helps make the story more palatable.
The survivors pictured at the end special section , helps one fully realize that this was a real life event.
I only wish the LDS.leadership would acknowledge that there were more implicated than John D.Lee the only one executed for his part. Orders definitely did come from higher up.
3350677
100% historically accurate, with a new twist--the possibility the Patton was assassinated.  Two possible perps: Stalin and Wild Bill Donovan.  Nothing in the way of direct evidence, but the circumstantial does raise an inference supporting the assassination theory.  As for the two perps, the method was too subtle for Stalin, but does bear the hint of cold war spy vs spy assassinations, so I vote for the CIA's predecessor.  So, a superb history lesson, with a subtext that General Bradley failed to heed recent history, as the Battle of the Bulge was set off by a panzer attack following the same route of Germany's previous invasion of France, through a lightly defended Ardennes forest line.  Ike shares the blame, too, for pandering to Monty, when all should have known better.  This book should be required reading in all high school history classes, or, at least the ones that still do.
3663195
The plot in this book is so well-crafted with realistic historical data that it had me feeling it was an actual piece of history. This author clearly did her research. The suspense also made it very difficult to put this book down. Definitely worth the read!!
1516068
I was totally engrossed by this well researched, documented (each chapter with over 50 detailed footnotes in the original German and English)and riveting account of the rise and fall of East Prussia. The historical recounting is made very human and emotive through the referencing of personal memoires, letters and official records. It was difficult to put the book down and the footnotes tell as much about the subject as the text. Mr. Clark has masterfully combined an historian's fine comb for facts and details with a novelist's skill of weaving and maintaining a common thread throughout the book. Moreover, Mr. Clark ties together historical antecedents and provides a larger context to events that have unfortunately fallen through the cracks of received knowledge, especially as concerned the discussions and agreements among Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin during World War Two. This book answered many of my questions and corrected numerous misconceptions of East Prussia, such as the basis of the mutual brutalities between the Soviets and Nazi Germans during World War Two. The last phrase of the book is a poignant and succinct lesson to  be taken away by all: he who sows the wind, reaps the storm.
1487021
Historical facts written in a compelling way.
1170435
Historically accurate and well written. Could not put it down. After reading the book I went and did a little research regarding the story line about the refloating of the battleship Maine and how it was done by the army core of engineers. Very interesting and made the whole story that much more interesting to learn some history and be entertained at the same time.
410429
A number of previous reviewers have given detailed summaries.  I strongly endorse their recommendations.  This is a well-written historical account that uses anecdotes and oral history to take into the events as they happened.  A page-turner like a good action novel, yet these events actually happened.  The historical event, the Battle off Samar, is remarkable in its own right.  Mr Hornfischer does a wonderful job of compiling and synthesizing the events and anecdotes into a smooth-flowing narrative. I highly recommend this book.
1894908
From the first pages of introduction to the story, I was gripped by the historical account of families desperately torn apart by unthinkable acts of war against Jews. Knowing every word of this book to be true and realizing these horrific things happened to real people made this a book that was difficult to pick up and impossible to put down. The author, Alexandra Weinbaums parents emigrated to the United States in the 1930s, but her extended family stayed behind in Poland. The entry to the book laid the foundation for what was to be experienced when reading the compendium of personal letters written between family members during the tragedies of World War II. I cant imagine the haunted feelings the author must have had as she read the translated letters and postcards written in German, French, and Polish from Jewish family members enduring the ravages of the Holocaust. Alexandra says of the two women who translated the documents, They were confronted with many challenges deciphering so many different handwritings; researching historically specific references to films, books, and political events; and translating proverbs from Russian or Yiddish. They captured the consistency of voice across individual writers letters, especially my parents voices.

The author, herself, is a historian so the entire book is produced with impeccable accuracy and the wholly personal journals are completely credible as sources of facts. This book is an authentic roadmap of history. The inclusion of 169 letters and postcards, photo reproductions and accurate journals summarize the depravity of conditions Jews lived with during this extended period of unthinkable torture. While the letters speak to the living conditions, they also illustrate the hopefulness of the human spirit that is Alexandras legacy.

After my father died [shortly before his seventy-third birthday] I found carefully kept records of the patients he treated, often with operations that restored vision and hope. This was my parents legacy and they worked at it with devotion that people admired. Their history, and that of friends and relatives left behind, was carefully preserved in the carton, Careful  Old Letters.  Alexandra Weinbaum
4057025
I read Middle Passage over the course of a weekend. This is significant for two reasons: 1)I was to meet Charles Johnson that following Monday and 2) I have a three-year-old and an infant who slowed my reading to a crawl and cut my opportunites to sit down with the book to a minimum. Had I not been so distracted, I would easily have digested Middle Passage in a matter of hours. It is an excellent read. Its protagonist, Rutherford Calhoun, comes off as a latter day Huck Finn, only this time black and educated. The wit and wisdom is very nearly the same.
 Despite what other reviewers may have felt, and despite what one may construe as anachronisms within the book, I can attest that such is not the case. I had similar concerns about the novel's historical accuracy and when I finally did have an opportunity to speak with the author, I voiced those concerns. Mr. Johnson assured me of the veracity of virtually every aspect of every detail; he cited the genesis of the scene in which the dead slave is thrown overboard as an example. As an avid (dare I say slavish?) note-taker, Mr. Johnson had apparently done some research for a project having nothing to do with this novel. Indeed, the research notes to which he refers were taken in the early seventies! They came from a police detective friend of his and detailed the effect water had on the human body after death--unusable for the article for which he had originally been researching, but quite useful for the graphic turning point of Middle Passage.
 Other evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, proved that Mr. Johnson did indeed have an extensive and authoritative command of American History, the History of the slave trade (made so believable and accurate by the inclusion of the Arabian slave trader in Africa, and by the rounding up of slaves from the African interior--two very historically accurate details),as well as of the ship and her voyage. Thus the exhaustive historical detail is quite effective in the telling of the tale.
 One point in which the author and the novel falter lies in the books inability to follow through on its Magical Realist ambitions.  Perhaps Mr. Johnson might have included in the dedication an apology to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, most notable and accomplished writer of magical realism. The African god of the Allmuseri is well developed and effectively presented. Its potential for malevolence is a quality keenly felt by this reader and should be noted as an accomplishment on the part of the author. However, the supernatural quality of the unnamed entity deteriorated too quickly into an ineffectual stasis nearly forgotten by author and reader alike; it is only brought back to life to function as a bridge between Rutherford's life at sea and Rutherford's life on land. The problem is that the maneuver is at once clever and contrived and therefore weakened. Mr. Johnson is a clever enough writer. He may simply have gotten too clever for his own good.
 Middle Passage is an accomplishment that well represents the National Book Award. It is a well written and finely crafted book worhty of becoming literature. Its foray into the realm of the magical realists is entertaining if only somewhat distracting and should not be considered as a detriment as it does not "undo" anything the author "does". I highly recommend your purchase of Middle Passage.
238671
Well-written and researched - very engrossing
1116481
I'm not sure how accurate this book is, but it is explosive in content and thoroughly researched and extensively footnoted.

I highly recommend this short historical account because there is much here that you will not read elsewhere.
3257831
I loved this book. My husband is a World War II Historian, and I have always steered away from anything involving wars, as he talks incessantly about "the big one." This, however, was an amazing book and one I found difficult to put down until finished. Well written. Authentically compiled. A very important part of our history. And - I recommended to my husband, who enjoyed it as well.
2958670
This is a very well-researched (check out the book's extensive online bibliography via the MNHS Press's website) yet unintimidating-to-read book on the history of Bdote, and the Fort which was built on it. Whereas previous writings about Fort Snelling have generally painted actions done by white people in power who were involved in a positive, more forgiving tone, or neglected to discuss what they really did altogether, this one is actually accurate, and really tries to center the Dakota people, who consider Bdote to be the site of the creation of their people, in the conversation. Good historians should have been doing this all along. This book does justice to the complicated history that has occured at this place, and the role that white people played in the destruction of the Dakota people. It also discusses other things that happened at Fort Snelling, including Dred and Harriet Scott, who were enslaved there; and the Japanese Americans who helped the U.S. Military during World War II, while their comrades were detained in internment camps elsewhere in the country. Fort Snelling is not just a historic site where you can see cannons go off; lots of interesting, tragic, and important things happened at that site, and they deserve to be told openly and accurately, not swept aside or hidden; this book does that. I'm looking forward to more by this author.
2333038
As a native of Crescent City and a descendant of one of the town's founding families of 1853, the story of the Brother Jonathan was a big part of the mythology of my childhood. I am very pleased to see that the full story of the ill-fated ship, the salvage operations, and the ensuing legal battles have been so accurately and thoroughly documented in this engrossing and detailed book. Mr. Powers' telling of the story fascinated me from beginning to end, and filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge of the subject. The author's background as an attorney served him well in explaining and recounting the legal battles over the salvage operations in the 1990's. I had thought that I might lose interest as I entered that last half of the book, but I was proven wrong as I turned page after page late into the night. That part of the book almost serves as a text book on how NOT to fund and carry out a shipwreck salvage operation, especially where the State of California is involved. In the end, the author comes across as successfully walking a fine line in staying fair and impartial in his accounts of the various personalities involved in the salvage operations and legal battles, with all their personal qualities and flaws. If there is any real villain in the story, it is the State of California and its California State lands Commission, not surprisingly.  Incidentally, Powers tells how Dr, Larry Holcomb, one of the major players in the late 20th Century search operations, was inspired to begin his decades-long quest for the Brother Jonathan by the tales of one of his high school teachers, an elderly Crescent City native. That teacher was my grandfather, and he fired my imagination and fascination with the wreck and its treasure, and love of local history as well.
906996
Loved this book! Can't wait to tell my Book Club about it! Seemed such an accurate account of the history at that time, plus, listening to it on CD in the car was an extra-special treat.
3272332
Finally, a book that makes American history interesting, only because it tells the truth!  Some conservatives may criticize this book only because it dispels the false and harmful notion that this country was built primarily on the effort and intelligence of white men with honorable intentions. The book doesn't have any political agenda except to tell the truth. The author gives a realistic portrait, based on primary sources, of what has really happened in our country, the motives of the main players, and how those past events affect the way we live and view our country now.  And plus the accounts in the book are riveting, sometimes heartbreaking, and give insight as to how historians actually study and draw conclusions about history.  This book is definitely an exciting read that has kept me up at night trying to fend off sleep, itching the next day to tell my friends of what I've learned.
2366850
In an age when "Academics" with overwhelming motivation to hide the truth are seeking to make top dollar, historical accuracy can often be compromised for the sake of an acceptable story. "Acceptable History", as some call it, surely makes for a comfortable read if the reader is willing to accept conventional wisdom as fact; yet these stories often offer up a few pieces short of the whole puzzle.
There is irrefutable proof that the Imperial Treasure fleet was real, that it traveled around the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and that it was disassembled around the year 1421. These facts, in combination with what is proof of a Chinese presence in the Americans, lead to several fascinating revelations. This is not revisionist history, as those vested in the status quo would have us believe.  Menzies successfully discredits the claim that Columbus's "discovery" was original.  Menzies's book does everything but follow along with current trends of thinking.  BRAVO! To be sure, Eastern, rather than Western, discovery of the "new world" would have little effect on most things Americans have learned in high school about American history. Questioning, exciting, revealing, challenging!
Menzies tells a great historically accurate story! He was able to convince me of the soundness of his argument!