John

Listening to American history from David McCullough's perspective is like hearing it from ones grandfather or trusted friend. I often find myself sitting in my car in the garage for long periods of time - after I have arrived home, not wanting to "put the book down". As far as I am concerned DM is the finest American historian of our age! Fair and without agenda this is the way it is supposed to be written.

The contrast of the two view points - that is the "helpless victim mentality" of the left, as presented by the author and the "no victims allowed" philosophy of Rice's parents is very obvious. The left leaning slant of this book is anything but objective. Ms Bumlier takes every opportunity she can to create class envy and typical rich vs poor babble to minimize the hard work and positive attitude of Condoleezza Rice's family. I learned more about slanted journalism than I did Rice.

I love accounts of the brave men of WWII. This book however is not recommended if you happen to be an American how feels our country contributed greatly to the defeat of Germany and Japan. Mr Vietch, and his self described lefty leanings, takes every opportunity ti portray American air crews as incompetent, disliked by their allied counter parts. According to the men interviewed this hatred was to the degree that in chapter 17 he recounts the RAF and RAAF pilots cheering on the German pilot attacking an American bomber. I have walked away from this book placing the Australians on par with the French, and based on this work, I frankly am of the opinion, we should have allowed the Aussies to become a Japanese colony.

America's best historian!

As a winter Floridian who lives just a half hour south of where these men launched on Feb 28, 2009, I remember well the local news story that became national headlines. I also recall the weather. Cold -windy- nasty! I recall telling my wife those nights, " I can't imagine being in the water on a night like tonight". I never dreamed there would be any survivors. That makes Nick Schyler's story all the more miraculous to me. I felt that cold front come through on land, I cannot imagine what it would have been like in the Gulf.
The narrative was a bit long and repetitious in places but then so were those 40 hours I suppose. I enjoyed the behind the scenes portions of the book and would have enjoyed expansion of the story from those perspectives. All in all a well written book, with excellent narration, looking past a couple of small mispronunciations of local names.

Tim Keller has written a must listen for all Evangelical Christians!

Well woven. Loved every minute!

I found this to be a very interesting collection of interviews of members of the RAAF. Enjoyed the style and delivery, I was surprised however to discover that Americans were held is such low esteem by many if not most of those interviewed. As an American knowing the amount of American blood that was shed to save the Pacific from total Japanese domination it kind of left me with a view of Aussies akin to that of the way the French said thank you. I walked away with a feeling our Allied relationship was similar to that we had with the Russians.