Some history, lots of nonsense.
588603
If you can handle Marvin Kitman's repeated attempts to knock Washington off his pedestal you'll enjoy this book. I was one of those public grade school kids who labored under his stern contenance. He must have been god. Or at least god's right hand man.  We outgrew this. We know he was just a man. A highly flawed man according to Kitman. Flawed, yes, but also good & lucky. George Washington was America first celebrity. We weren't going to be denied. He lost most of the battles but he did win the Revolutionary War. Actually the British tired of it and lost it. This ultimate politician was not political. In essence he was the only game in town. He had Morris & Hamilton as his spin-meisters, shady land deals & girlfriends (Beginning to sound familiar?). He looked like a hero, acted like a hero, mostly told the truth although he didn't talk much. He was very brave & loyal especially to the electoral college delegates.  Kitman asserts that the U.S. Constitution was written especially with Washington in mind. That may be true. They both have survived, no thanks to Kitman
1853997
Interesting historical info,but too  much like a soap opera.
2564496
There is a lot of fluff and un-necessary information here just for the sake of filling pages. If you manage to go through all the fluff there are some good info as well.
3822117
A history book can be a varied and tricky beast.  You can get books that are more like pop history (focused more on the enjoyment of the reader than the scholarship of the material).  Stephen Ambrose's books ("Band of Brothers",  "Crazy Horse and Custer") fit that category.  Some are of the dry, scholarly type (Barbara Tuchman's "Guns of August" is like this).  There are some that are both scholarly and appealing to the reader, such as William Manchester's "American Caesar".  Then, there are those history books that seem to be neither scholarly, nor interesting.  Unfortunately, Paul Jankowski's book "Verdun", on the infamous World War I battle, is just such a tome.

  The tale of the Battle of Verdun is a confounding one.  It was misunderstood and baffling when it happened in 1916 and it continues to be today.  A crisp interpretation of the events that took place could help give a greater understanding to what happened, even if it could not help understand why.  Alas, this disjointed, disorganized chronicle is not helpful on either of those counts.  Jankowski spends time, properly, focusing on the events that lead up to the battle and its initial skirmishes.  Then, he veers off on a scattershot path that makes timelines, actions and points of view hard to follow.  You will spend 20 pages on the first week of the battle, then fast forward to anecdotes from sometime several months into the battle, before returning to the opening week of the battle... and not having any understanding of why you made those leaps.

  It's unfortunate that this is how the book reads, because I would certainly like to know more about this wasteful conflict in the middle of this wasteful war.  "Verdun", however, is not the narrative to do that.
2286859
I always thought reading a book about Gold Rush-era California would be interesting, but Susan Lee Johnson has been able to make it seem not very compelling.
This is a "People's History" sort of book, a tale of the minor characters in history, in particular the miners and their society.  In such a book, there are oppressors (often white males) and oppressed (usually women and non-whites).  Johnson supports this thesis with numerous tales of robbery and murder, which may all be true, but also reflect a political agenda that she is trying to promote.  This removes any real objectivity from her book.
The main problem with this book, however, is it is not very well-organized.  Johnson has filled the book with some good (and some not-so-good) anecdotes, but there is not all that much joining these stories together.  The result is a sometimes informative but usually rambling work.  In the end, I felt like I hadn't learned very much about this era other than a few tales that needed a better context.
1779966
This is deceptively titled. While there are interesting bits about the Bible and some of the early translators and printers--it is ultimately a rant against the Roman Catholic church--factual and well-documented--but a rant nonetheless. I turned it off about halfway through when the theme and purpose became apparent and belabored and overbearing.
1834635
Good summary, but. But all over the place.
1734020
This book was easily 200 pages too long, provided way too much detail about superfluous information like the type of van the Reeds drove etc. The title also suggests that the book is mainly about Clinton's & Bush's  involvement in some shady dealings; it is tangentially about those and a  good chunk is dedicated to Clinton's efforts to get back at Reed, but the  book is mainly about Terry Reed and HIS involvement in those operations.  Not that that's a bad thing, but I don't think it's worth 682 pages. I  would've liked more evidence on the drug smuggling, Reed only has  "proof" of one shipment. I don't doubt that there could have been  (and probably was) a CIA conspiracy, but Reed hasn't proved so beyond a  reasonable doubt. All in all, though, fairly entertaining and informative.
3374430
I really wanted to like this book. I've lived in the city my whole life and am fascinated with it's history, and at first glance this book comes across as a historical text. As others have pointed out, the first few chapters are a pure historical take on the beginnings of the city. Topics such as Cadillac's funding and building the fort and the trading and interaction with Native Americans are discussed at length and are incredibly interesting and well researched. However as the author enters the history of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it begins to read as more of a commentary and less of a historical account. This is where the author lost my interest and I found myself skipping paragraphs, and even pages, at a time as he repeated same assertion of "white flight" and racism being the sole cause of Detroit's demise. It seemed that no matter what the intended topic of the chapter was the author always find a way, warranted or not, to bring the focus back to racism and oppression of black people, and by the end it is very tiring.
I was very surprised, even disappointed, how two very key points in Detroit's history were glossed over and barely even footnotes in the book; the 1967 riot and Kwame Kilpatrick's mayoral tenure. Having lived through Kilpatrick's term as mayor and being personally affected by his actions, I was part of the story from day one, and was interested how it would come across from a historical standpoint after some time has passed. This was barely addressed and was only mentioned as part of Detroit's overall history of corruption. The main focus was on his affair, and only a sentence was given to the racketeering, embezzlement, and other felonies he was guilty of. My grandfather was Detroit policeman during the '67 riot, and I was hoping to read more about the causes and issues surrounding it to go along with his stories. Sadly this was only giving a paragraph or two, and an opportunity missed in my eyes to present one of the city's major events.
One thing I think the author did quite well was the five chapters on Detroiters. It was interesting to hear first hand, straightforward history from people, without any commentary. The people covered span different generations and stories, and it was done very well.
While I may agree with some of the authors points, to present this as a history book is inaccurate. He does present historical facts, and sources them very well, but litters them with his own personal feelings and it really took me out of the book. This book isn't so much a biography as it is an op-ed, and I won't be re-reading or recommending it.
3284296
This is a reasonable effort at a story, but the research is shoddy, at least when it comes to historical perspective.  The author has his hero fighting the
HUK's in the Philippine Islands prior to the war - a rebellion that has its origin in Communist guerrilla actions against the Japanese starting in 1942 and didn't evolve into a pure insurrection until 1946.  That set a tone of suspicion about other facts and when that is added to the irritating insistence on overuse of what the author apparently believes is the way all English troops/upper class folks used in day to day conversations, almost a PG Woodhouse use of slang, it detracts from what could have been a good read.
1297043
I had no idea what this book was about when I received it for a gift. I found a lot of interesting historical information. But, I have to say I was puzzled by the author's quick dismissal of texts found in the Bible.

For example, regarding the beheading of John the Baptist, Crossan says, "Antipas's execution of John cannot be explained by a simple appeal to Mark 6:17-29, even if one took that marvelous fiction as historical fact." And after simply quoting the story from Mark, Crossan says, "Mark's account is best seen as his own creation." Huh? Why? He never says why. Then Crossan says that 200 years earlier in Rome, a Roman leader had a person beheaded at dinner just to please his guest. And Crossan says the author of Mark is basically copying that story. But this is all just the opinion of Crossan.

I would have liked better reasoning in a book like this.
4059446
This book contains lots (and lots) of details, some of them interesting, but the narrative is so poorly tied together, and so packed with inane and pointless analysis, "Mongo" is mostly discardable. Why do people collect things? This question is posed every other paragraph, apparently to fill space. At one point, a psychologist and psychiatrist are enlisted to answer it, whereupon ye olde theme of addiction is recycled: people collect things because of the temporary "gratifying physical sensation" it gives them. "It's like a fetish, or sexual arousal," clarifies the psychiatrist. Equally clueless theories are introduced elsewhere: a fear of death, a desire to snoop, a desire to preserve the past, and/or a need to feel immortal. Never entertained is the possibility that people collect things because they find them interesting.

And the book, while ostensibly about items found in the trash (or on the street, or under the ground), is very much about collecting in general. In fact, many of the items discussed are antiques or collectibles, not ketchup-soaked hot dog wrappers or used, ant-covered yogurt containers, or even soda cans worth a nickel ("Adventures in items retrieved from the trash" does lack the proper ring, though). And so the entire, cliched range of collecting is covered--from the first few pages, we know it's only a matter of time before the crazy-lady-with-400-cats motif shows up, for example. When it does, it's almost a relief. In fact, we get two cliches in one bag: the crazy-lady-with-cats theme combined with the house-piled-high-with-garbage motif. Something else we've never heard before: some street people are mentally ill. (No! Can that possibly be true?) As proof for this radical and controversial thesis, an interview with a psychotic bag lady is included. Her assertions and theories are carefully considered and, ultimately, discarded as too down-to-earth for a volume such as this.
4473650
It shows that the British gained an empire in spite the unbelievable incompetence of its politicians and its military. The book is probably very  valuable to a specialist historian, but overly detailed ( to the point of boredom) for the average reader.
3076466
While there are some interesting facts here, it's quite a stretch to say that "everything you know is wrong."  Many of the facts are based on splitting hairs (i.e. largest city, coldest place on earth).

If you want interesting trivia presented in a way that's not snarky (and is hysterically funny) I recommend The Know It All by A.J. Jacobs.
4082472
As other reviewers have noted, whatever this book may be it is a most certainly not a cultural history of New Orleans. It's more like a city guide with selected cultural background information. It isn't at all linear or comprehensive, and it contains no footnotes.

Unfortunately, as another reviewer alluded to, it's also riddled with glaring errors. Among the ones I caught: pg 18 - contra McKinney intermarriage between Anglo-Americans and white Creoles was NOT uncommon until the 1920s - according to historian Jay Gitlin it was common as early as the 1840s (Bourgeois Frontier, pg 163). McKinney also implies that Anglo-Americans did not outnumber white Creoles in the city until then (pg 130) which is also way too late - try mid-19th century. She thinks "24-7" is a "southern colloquialism" (pg 65) - no, we say that all over the country. She thinks a "late model car" means an old car (159) - wrong. She also thinks Robbie Robertson was in the Grateful Dead (pg 139) - no, try the Band. For the definition of the word "creole," a very tricky matter, she quotes at length from a now-defunct website of dubious authority instead of one of the many dozens of more reliable sources available. Mostly little things, sure, but they add up to an impression that the author is clueless. Couldn't someone fact-check this thing?
4538460
There is a lot of interesting information here, but it's repetitive, somewhat poorly organized, and perhaps even a bit skewed in certain areas. Though I am in agreement with the great majority of what the author says, I have the distinct feeling that something was left out somewhere along the way. Still, there are many jaw dropping facts worth knowing. They are, sadly, a part of American history - more recent history than most of us may realize.

This book is solely about Schizophrenia, which of course covers a wide range of problematic behavior, but do not expect any info on other, less severe forms of mental illness. Definitely worth the read if you're interested in this sort of thing. Academic in tone.
4866101
I've heard David lecture on history, and while this subject got a bit long simply because there is a LOT of information that has been forgotten, ignored, and purposely changed to suit someone's opinion, it was a lengthy read.  If you ever get a chance to go to one of his lectures, DO.  If he tells you something, he has the documents to back it up and he makes it interesting too.