should have stopped after Nixon
598202
Well Mr. Follett wonder which party you belong to. I loved the book until you became so partisan that I could almost not finish it. I find it interesting that you completely omitted any comment about Jimmy Carter, maybe because he was not at all noteworthy, but it would have helped if you had admitted that he was dubbed the worst President in history, until Obama. I was really looking forward to an equal look at the republican era in the White House, but you became so whiny and accusatory, that the whole story fell apart at the end. You needed to stop with Nixon.
172270
of presidential racial politics throughout our history. The rather whimsical title, Nixon's Piano, refers to a minstrel show presented in the White House in 1970 with president Nixon on the piano. The author, Kenneth O'Reilly, sounds like a rather angry man in this indictment of presidential action & inaction for over two centuries. None of our presidents are safe from his scorn save two. Lincoln & LBJ get a pass. Lincoln for his part, may be the only president to pursue his conscience, that being in very special circumstances. Some of our presidents had the very best of intentions &  guilt. Washington & Jefferson knew of the the inherent evil of slavery. They talk piously but in the end did nothing that would jeopardize their wealth & lose their privileged position & fine life. That their peculiar institution must someday end they surely knew. But they also knew by that time they'd be dead anyway. In our first 72 years, 9 out of 16 presidents had slaves. The Civil War changed that of course. After a brief reconstruction, the old southern power structure reasserted itself & things got decidedly worst for the black race. Most early presidents seem to have some sort of return to Africa or anywhere but here scheme. These were failures. The idea of moving millions of people to  a land that was unknown to them was patently impossible, except on a very small scale. So you'd think that the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt would bring some relief to southern blacks. You'd be wrong. His best instincts told him blacks were equal under the law with the rights of every man. His baser instinct told him that  blacks were inferior. He broke bread with Booker Washington in the White House & provide patronage jobs. Meanwhile, throughout his term an average of 80 blacks were lynched in the south every year. This marked the end of the Lincoln's Republican party. The GOP became as lily-white as the Democrats. Taft was worse & the last time, Blacks as a block voted for a Republican. At this point, there were not that many blacks voting. The book covers Plessey v Ferguson  from 1896. The infamous Supreme Court decision that as late as 1953 was being praised by future Justice William Rehnquist. It covers the Jim Crow laws & the dishonorable discharge of over 100 black soldiers in the 1906 Brownsville riots. That wrong was not corrected until 1970 by Nixon.
  This review by & large covers the mostly historic & interesting first half of this long book.
3838273
Don't waste your money on this liberal pablum. I wish Follett would include an after note of todays corrupt, illegal administration.
4157177
OLIVER STONE has made some excellent movies to be sure, but like all directors he miss the marks once in a while. Such is the case here with NIXON ,an old project that stayed on his desk far too long. Never half as interesting as his film about KENNEDY, NIXON is long and often boring to watch. It is not the fault of ANTHONY HOPKINS who gives it a valiant try. One of the most annoying STONE trick is the use of montage to fill the screen with images often unnecessary. The WATERGATE thing has been the subject of an excellent documentary more interesting than this history lesson. Catch this film on a late night tv screening. If you are drunk, then you might think that ANTHONY HOPKINS is really RICHARD NIXON.
1615391
The subject of this book is too interesting to pan this book outright, but I agree with the lower ratings here: this book is way too over-written, with hyperbole and speculation taking the place where real analysis should be. It is too bad, and Henry Fonda deserves a much better biographer. Still, McKinney has done his research; he has just not done any decent writing (note to self: never...NEVER...touch his Beatles treatment; it must be at least four times as over-written as this book).

Let's put it this way: imagine you are in a historic home you are really interested in. As you walk through fascinating room after room, the docent blabbers away, spouting complete nonsense. You can enjoy the house as long as you shut out the docent's incessant love of his own voice. So it is with this book. Caveat Emptor.
3061914
I wanted to enjoy this book, as contemporary history is very fascinating to me.  That being said, the purpose of this book is, apparently, to provide an introduction to contemporary America for Generations X and Y. It fails miserably.
He discusses events such as HUAC's investigations into Hollywood during the blacklist era without adequately explaining HUAC's background or the background of the Hollywood blacklist era.  (As explained above, even though this is an introductory book,  the context could have been more thoroughly explained.)
Brands also takes Alger Hiss out of context as he wrote that Hiss was criticzed and accused of being a communist by McCarthy;  this is true, but Brands does not explain anything further about Hiss, and he does not even mention the Hiss-Chambers case, or even Nixon's role.  Furthermore, he claims that Nixon "borrowed" McCarthy's red-baiting tactics. This is simply false: Nixon's fame as a red-hunter predated McCarthy's, and he first came to prominence as the one who aided in prosecuting Hiss. Furthermore, Ambrose and others have credited Nixon as being one of the few Republican politicians who helped stop McCarthy.
The only saving grace to this book is that the writing style is enjoyable to read.
I would skip this one.
4546157
Richard Milhous Nixon was born to Quaker parents in Southern California in 1913. He graduated from Duke Law School and served as a naval officer in the South Pacific during World War II. Nixon became a congressman and United States Senator. He served two terms as Vice-President under Nixon and after losing to JFK in the presidential contest of 1960 returned to California. Nixon lost the gubernatorial contest for the golden state in 1962. Many Cassandras thought he was done in politics. Nixon returned to win the 1968 race for the White House against Vice-President Humphrey and slaughtered George McGovern in the 1972 reelection battle. Nixon was forced to resign from office in August 1974 as a result of the Watergate scandal. He became an elder statesman and author of several books on world leaders and issues.
  All of the above facts are well known. What Thomas is able to do is to get inside Nixon's brilliant but flawed personality. Nixon hated the eastern elite epitomized by communist spy Alger Hiss whom he was able to bring down. He also hated the press and preferred foreign issues to domestic affairs. While in office his administration did inaugurate the EPA. Nixon was a crafty Machiavellian politician who was also personally kind and sensitive to the needs of others. He loved his wife Pat and his daughters Julie and Tricia but was adverse to wearing emotions on his well tailored sleeve.
  Evan Thomas has written a good book which all persons interested in Nixon or American politics will enjoy./ Recommended!
17873
The story should have stopped after confessor, as initially intended by the author This book (and the following) just annoyed me. If you're a fan of the series, do yourself a favour and don't read on
3907285
The first half of this book was very interesting.....Follett spends too much time describing unimportant happenings and too much unnecessary sex....As a Vietnam veteran, (2 tours), I am offended by his coverage of the war. It was nowhere near my experience and I did spend time in the field and going through villages that were obviously sympathetic to the Viet Cong/ NVA. I agree with some of the reviews that describe his obvious Liberal leanings. I read the book because I had read the previous 2 and I wanted to see how things played out for the characters. This whole series, while interesting, and worth reading is not nearly as good as Pillars of The Earth and World Without End, Those 2 were fascinating.
3856352
Her Husband embezzled so much money, that he would rather kill himself rather than face his crime.  So She decides to go to Oval Office to get a job.  Imagine what the Clinton enemies would have said if Clinton had given a government job to the wife of a huge fundraiser who was a convicted felon?

The tone of her book is just blaming and bitter.  Lie down with swine my dear get covered in Mud.

That said, Clinton should never be forgiven for betraying the people who believed in him, for cheap and lurid sex.

Because of his MonicaGate, we now have to pay with 8 years of the evilest President since Nixon.  Thanks Bill
2415251
One would be better off watching the inexpensive DVD narrated by Charlton Heston. See my review of it, which includes the names of half a dozen historians who have written objective books on this subject.
2353441
(Spoiler Alert) Books 1 and 2 were fantastic and I enjoyed them thoroughly. However, this last book of the trilogy covered historic times that I lived through, and the departure from fact made me annoyed. The fight for civil rights (as described) was very moving, but because of the revisionist history later in the book, now I wonder if parts of that were false or misleading because of things that were glossed over or just left out. The author conveniently left out the disastrous presidency of Jimmy Carter, yet took plenty of time to bash Ronald Reagan. The very end was the most disappointing of all. I can appreciate for black Americans how they felt seeing B. Obama become President, and what that stood for to them, but this current presidency has been a travesty to the United States of America. To end the book with the 'coronation' of Obama - knowing now what a disaster this administration has been - left me with a sick feeling. All Americans, whatever color, deserve a better president than this. Ugh.
2557339
With "Nixon" director Oliver Stone aims for the next "Citizen Kane," and he proves he's no Orson Welles.

It seems odd that a movie sequel can be more melodramatic than its antecedent of fifty years ago but that's exactly the case here, a case made definite by Stone's silly juvenile plagiarism of Kane's beginning. In "Citizen Kane" there's the ominous dark cavernous mansion that bespeaks of a life so grand yet ultimately so empty, followed by the rush of reporters in a newsroom determined to discover the secret of "Rosewood." "Nixon" begins with the Watergate burglars meeting and planning, and then transitions to the White House on a dark night overlaid with ominous music, and then finally to a defeated and alone Richard M. Nixon (Anthony Hopkins).

If Oliver Stone were to simply maintain this blatant plagiarism he would at worst be called a plagiarist, which is not really an offense in Hollywood or in life. Yet he trusts his intelligence and his taste and his instincts to create a powerful drama, and he shows that he lacks in all three.

Consider Richard Nixon's historic meeting with Chairman Mao, who looks and speaks like the devil. "You are as evil as I am," Mao tells Nixon. The melodrama and implausibility of the scene aren't enough for Stone: he has to overlay the scene with Chinese calligraphy and screamingly annoying music.

In the beginning of the movie Mr. Stone has the courtesy to tell us that some scenes are redacted, shortened, or just dramatized from real life -- which is his most comic conceit because it's clear that MOST of the scenes have been imagined. Clearly Oliver Stone believes he is re-making "Citizen Kane," and it is his duty to history to set the record straight once and for all about Nixon.

Thus, we should know that Richard Nixon was fundamentally an amoral man whose conscience was his saintly mother (Mary Steenburgen), and then his mother's surrogate and wife Pat (Joan Allen). Indeed Pat Nixon is the film's moral center of gravity, and it is when she finally in 1968 relents to Nixon's relentless political ambition that she loses her moral authority and Nixon fall aparts.

We should also know that Nixon's presidency was borne of the death of four people, and it was this that haunted Nixon and permitted him as president to sacrifice without remorse Cambodians, student demonstrators, and finally his own loyal White House staff. Tuberculosis killed Nixon's two brothers and permitted Nixon to attend law school, and Nixon's two deadliest political adversaries -- John and Robert Kennedy -- were conveniently assassinated.

In fact Nixon, as the film claims, may have been indirectly responsible for JFK's death by being as Eisenhower's vice-president chair of a secret committee that sanctioned the killing of world leaders sympathetic to communism. As the CIA's Jesse Helms (Sam Waterson) explains to Nixon in one of the film's most outrageously implausible and embarassing scenes, what they created was "organic" and "had a life of its own": no one could have predicted these same individuals they had unleashed to kill Castro would have come back to kill Kennedy -- but then again no one made Nixon attach his name to documents linking him to these murderers.

Stone tries to display different facets of Nixon's personality -- his outrageous paranoia, his self-hatred, his sexual insecurity and jealousy -- but what he best shows is Nixon's pettiness and shallowness and arrogance. And it may be because, despite Stone's professed high-brow cultural impact with his films "Platoon," "Wall Street," and "Natural Born Killers," he is ultimately a petty and shallow and arrogant director. The film in its bloated morality and heavy-handedness treats movie-goers as children to be taught and admonished, as Nixon's mother once taught and admonished him and as Nixon taught and admonished the American people.

"Nixon" is a very flawed film of a very flawed man, and shows a director who we once respected to be very flawed as well.
4653723
Made me so angry. I wanted to dig Nixon up & kill him myself all over again. I lived through Watergate. protested the war & campaigned for Eugene McCarhy, even though I wasn't eligible to vote at the time. (You had to be 21 & I was 18). I distinctly remember the "Saturday Night Massacre" as if it occurred just yesterday. This book reinforced my opinion that Nixon was indeed our worst President (although W is a close second).
611732
Started out fine but then he emphasized secret service over alternative history and I lost interest.  If he wanted to write a spy thriller he should have done that.
3303062
Follet is so blatant in his liberal agenda, I should have stopped after the second book. He also crossed the line when a main character interacts with a real historic person to the extent of trying to rewrite history. I've read my last Follet book.
4801909
A disappointing finale to what had been a good series.  Sadly "Edge of Eternity" seems more a venue to showcase the author's political leanings than a balanced telling of events in the 1960s-1980s.  I must agree with A.K. Don's views regarding Mr. Follet's characterizations of liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, especially pertaining to Civil Rights.  He leads one to think that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a Democrat initiative,opposed by a bunch of racist Republicans. The truth is otherwise.  As Carl Jackson points out "In 1957 Republican President Dwight Eisenhower's civil rights bill was opposed by the likes of Democrat Senators John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. In Anne Coulter's book "Mugged" she describes how LBJ stripped the 1957 bill of its enforcement provisions. Thank God Eisenhower introduced a stronger bill in 1960. Conveniently, Democrats changed their position on racism due to political expediency. Lyndon B. Johnson adopted Dwight Eisenhower's ideas on civil rights as his own, and in 1964 the Republican Congress helped him pass the signature legislation known as the Civil Rights Act of  1964."
Also lacking is any mention of the triumvirate which helped bring down the Iron Curtain.  It was the coordinated efforts of President Ronald Reagan (made to appear as a murdering criminal), Pope Jan Pawel II (hardly mentioned) and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (not even mentioned) that so weakened the USSR financially that Central Europe could break free.  Mr. Follett seems to have a veritable "Gorbasim" in crediting the Iron Curtain's collapse to Premier Gorbachev, who was merely trying to preserve the USSR's Communist system.
President Reagan's attempts to reduce government spending in non-essential programs is also ignored: it was the Democrat controlled congress that quashed his efforts to scale back costs, while Reagan's tax cuts "for the rich" resulted in more tax revenue due to increased economic growth.
To stand as a proper ending to the 20th Century trilogy, "Edge of Eternity" would need a thorough revision.  As it stands it ranks with "Return of the Jedi" as one of the weakest ever endings to a series.