Phillip Elliott

This is the most accurate portrait of business in China I have read. This is a must read if your going to China, or you just started. The Chinese are hard to get, this book helps.

This is a fascinating book. This book is about a real couple who lived in Berlin during World War 2. Their son was in the German army and was killed during the invasion of France. The couple then started to write and distribute letters and post cards denouncing the war, Hitler and the Nazi regime.

There are many characters in the book. There are several subordinate stories and sub plots written through the novel. All of this is key for me, and American, to understand How Germans lived and what life was like in Nazi Germany. Eventually the couple is caught, tortured and killed. They die with honor and with their dignity intact.

According to Wiki, the book was written, by Hans Fallada in 24 days. He died only a few months after completing the book. The translation works well and there is enough german left to help the book be completely believable. The book was a best seller in 2009, when the English translation was published, and the reason for this is clear when you read it.

There is a great WIKI page about the book, movie and author.

Robin Olds did not write this story. He put together all of the notes, pictures, journals and materials but his daughter and friends wrote it after his death., having said that, this is a fantastic story about the life and times of Robin Olds.

The story line is exceedingly well done. The imagery is vivid and paints great atmospheres around parts of the story and the individual short stories in the book. This is one of those stories about people that cut through what he did, and can be transposed into life lessons in all parts of business life, school and work. His leadership messages have teeth and meaning. Robin’s anecdotes are entertaining and they help the reader understand the man.

The book has no deep meanings, there are no morals to learn, there is no preaching about war, values or nearly anything else. This is just a good read, a well written and entertaining book.

This is a very detailed book about the influenza epidemic. It was extensively researched. Parts of it are long, drawn out, and perhaps overly detailed. These bits of information are important to completely understand the story, the condition and the events, but the author could have gotten to the same point with a few less details.

On the other hand the entire story is woven into this detailed analysis. There are some parts that are very graphic and NOT for the faint of heart. Parts are heart wrenching. All of it is important to having a clear understanding of the most devastating global epidemic in the world's history. At times it seems too long and too detailed. The end was too preachy, and left me wanting less, but then again it is also important and necessary to build our understanding of future global epidemics.

The story starts in the 1800s and talks about doctors and medical schools. It then flows in a linear fashion into world war one, the pandemic and into the 1950s. John Barry, the author, talks about the formation of heath institutions in the United States. He talks about how Roosevelt was afflicted with Influenza and how this may have set historical events into motion that built the foundations for world war two.

This is a fantastic book and offers a great piece of American history, and the birth of modern epidemiology. It is worth your time and energy to finish.

This is an excellent book. I completely enjoyed it. The author chose cars to tell the history of the last 100 years in America. His book, his perspective, the choices of cars and the story were fantastic. This is a great perspective for anybody who wants to review American culture over the last century.

Paul Ingrassia seemed to be worried that his choices would be argued and in conflict, but I can't think of automobiles that have more of an impact on American culture. more than this Paul delves into the lives of the creators and the stories around them. He pulls all of it together into a tidy little bundle for each one. The book could have easily been twice as long and still not completely explored each of his selections. I would have read the book even if it was twice as long.

This is the best book I have read since "Racing in the Rain." I am completely happy with this book. I love Paul's choices of cars and was fascinated with his telling of the story.

This was an okay book. I was hoping for a book about humor not the memoir of Rachel Dratch. She is funny and I did enjoy the book. I just should have read the description a little closer.

This is an excellent history of the dust bowl. I learned so much that American history books treat as an insignificant footnote to history. The entire episode threatened America's ability to feed itself. Thousands died, many more were run off of their land. I had never heard of "Dust Pneumonia" before reading this. After reading it I asked my parents and got another lesson about our family history, the history of the west and American history.

This is a significant event in our history and should be treated that way. Since our collective American propensity for revisionist history is so strong we should all take more time to read more about our collective history. This is one of the books that should be on your list to read.

I have a small amount of American Indian blood in my history. I never read or studied anything in my life until the last few years, when my curiosity started to drive me to study the plight of the American Indians for a while. I have read a number of books trying to understand a bigger picture of what the end must have looked like for the American Indian’s living on the open plains of the west. After reading about Cynthia Anne Parker I had to read more about the children who were captured and raised by American Indian tribes.

I am not surprised but sad to see that this book points out so many inconsistencies in the books that I have read so far. There are so many “lies” (for lack of a better word) told about the Indians and how they treated people. It is also sad to see that we still objectify the Indians and rationalize the genocide perpetrated on them by all of the immigrant Americans, meaning those of European ancestry.

Much like “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee”, this book paints, what I have come to believe is much more accurate picture of how the “Americans” waged a war on the Indians with the intent of wiping them out then named monuments, streets and markers to celebrate those who presided of the slaughter of, relatively innocent women, children and old men. The names of Wynkoop, Chivington, Sheridan, Forsyth and many more, are words that should be used as pejoratives or synonyms of evil.

This is a well written story. The facts as presented stand on their own under closer scrutiny. Unlike my review the author, Scott Zesch, is balanced and measured with his presentation of the facts around the events. The Zesch carried the story through a logical conclusion and wrote a fantastic ending or closing to his book. I enjoyed his style, the book, the presentation of a balanced truth and a viewpoint that I did not have before reading the book. This one is worth your time, even if you only want a taste of life on the prairies of the west.

I have been doing business in China for a number of years. I continue to read and learn what I can in a futile attempt to understand the Chinese and their business practices. Each book I read makes me feel a little smarter and better armed but none have ever given me an “AH HAA” moment, that is until I read “Henry Kissinger on China.” This book is an autobiography of Dr. Kissinger’s work over the years in China. He starts with a history lesson that is complete and comprehensive. Importantly, this history lesson helps to set the stage for a much more complete understanding of the Chinese values and mindset that so often loses me. After Dr. Kissinger sets the stage he has left the reader with a complete understanding of Chinese singularity, and the historical path to modern China.

The reader is then treated to a rare insider’s look at the how the Chinese and the American’s approached each other, worked through many difficulties and misunderstandings to become economic bedmates. Dr. Kissinger’s insight helps to outline the how and why of Chinese policy. The reader can formulate an understanding of the Chinese approach through this lens provided in the book. For me, historically significant events are now understandable. I would never say that I could understand Chinese politics, or would never presume to attempt to predict Chinese political response to an event, I will say that I can now understand the Chinese point of view and I can now formulate better analysis of tact I wish to take in business and I am better equipped to understand Chinese reactions to those events.

The book is logically broken down, chronologically, into neat blocks that stack on one another. Dr. Kissinger closes the book with two thought provoking chapters, “The New Millennium” and “Does History Repeat Itself?” In these two chapters Dr. Kissinger lays out a myriad of possible events and typifies American responses. Then we are asked if we learned anything from the book. I found the book to be extremely interesting and highly educational. I thank my friend for giving this to me as a gift.

I studied physics in engineering school. I taught physics for a while at a technical university. I studied Einstein’s theories off and on over the years and always knew that this was a towering intellect. After hearing about physicists in Italy forcing a Neutrino to travel faster than light, I thought it was time to brush up a little on Einstein’s theories.

I never knew the first thing about the man, his life or the trials and tribulations of that life. I am so glad that I spent the time listening to this. I enjoyed learning about this man, and all of the problems that I never knew accompanied the monumental achievements. This was a great book, and it was rich with information about the man’s life. The book clears up misconceptions about Einstein’s life and helps the reader understand much more about the human aspects.

It turns out that a mechanical problem with a fiber optic cable caused a timing error. Einstein’s theory about the speed of light being the absolute limit of the universe still stands.

This is the latest in a string of books I’ve read about the early years of Soviet communism. I continue to be dumb struck with the cruelty and inhumanity of Lenin and Stalin. I just can’t get my mind around how many millions Stalin killed. Between his purges, his Gulags and the starvation of the Ukraine he killed more innocent people than Hitler, yet the world chose to ignore his crimes and in this century there are those who still hold him up as an example of a great leader.

Solzhenitsyn catalogs the gulag experience. He talks about how efficient the machine was in consuming human life in Russia. Even when the Soviets were about to lose WWII to the Germans he continued to kill and purge, destroy and starve his people. Cruelty without bounds in the name of an economic theory is outlined by Solzhenitsyn. Simply putting the day to day life of a “Polital” caught in the machine designed to chew them up and destroy them was his objective. I think he achieved this end. This is a powerful account of a man’s surviving a trip through hell in all of its vivid detail. Dante missed this level of hell.

There are no possible ends that could be perversely rationalized that would justify this cruelty. One would have a more simple time explaining the ethnic cleansing of the American Indians from the United States than you will justifying Lenin’s or Stalin’s purges and activities.

“The Gulag Archipelago” is an important literary work. This is a powerful part of world history and we are lucky that Solzhenitsyn risked his life to bring it to us. We are lucky that his friends were also willing to risk their lives to contribute to and to protect the work. Solzhenitsyn compiled stories of many of his fellow “58s” and he weaves those into what seems to give the reader a complete picture of Soviet Gulag History. Most importantly, Solzhenitsyn reminds us of what can happen when good people remain silent, when we allow tyrants to reign, when the citizens allow the government to run their lives.