I think the way events transpired was that in the late 50s were published (1) the journals or proceedings of the Continental Congress and (2) the letters of all the Congressmen that they sent in this period. These were large books and each was a multi-volume series, so there was considerable information, more than just about anyone could handle. As a consequence, two books were written that present the main threads and highlights. These very well may have been written by the compilers or directors of the above projects. The book about the journals was by Lynn Montross and this book is based on the letters. But I believe both books, each still quite long, use the other source to supplement and round out their presentations. But it means that the first book is more about what happened and the second book is more about what the delegates were thinking about what happened. Neither one is superior to the other and really, to get a good picture, one should read both books, and even then, the picture remains incomplete. One should also read, probably, to fully understand the Continental Congress, some letter collections and some specialized studies on topics such as their finances, the war and foreign relations, and some biographies of the more prominent delegates. But this book makes for an excellent start, although much compressed from the source material and probably still too long and dry for many.

A reasonable introduction to three of the founders -- Adams, Jefferson and Hamilton, but a little too reliant on secondary sources, for example, Chernow, not even a professional historian. Some of its assertions are incorrect, such as that Jefferson is the second best known founder -- it's probably Franklin. Stating that Adams lacked vision is also highly questionable. A major blunder: stating that Madison was Speaker of the House in the first Congress. Not only was he not, he was never Speaker in any iteration of the Congress. A mistake of this order casts doubt on the correctness of the whole.

I guess it's fun to go galumphing through the ages, but there are so many blunders.
Octavian was Caesar's grand-nephew, not his nephew.
The word "diocese" does not come from "Diocletian".
The point about why Diocletian made the office of Emperor more revered and remote is kind of not made clearly.
And on and on. It becomes really difficult to know when you can trust what is said.
Plus where is the academic underpinning? We're told at the start that it's important because maybe our civilization will also fall someday. But then over the course of several centuries and even at the end this point is never picked up again. Really it's mostly just guilty pleasure of recounting a bunch of old stories.

The book begins with a discussion of different models of how parties should exist, finding parallels in England and the US.

Bolingbroke in the UK and Washington and Monroe in the US supported a model of a single party that would provide for everyone (but without the government preventing other parties).

Hume in the UK and Madison in the US supported the idea of qualified support for parties. Parties as a necessary evil.

Jefferson tended to be with Madison early on, but veered toward the Monrovian attitude later.

The third view is from Burke in the UK and (not yet stated in the book) probably from Van Buren in the US, that parties, beyond being a necessary evil, are actually a necessary good. A loyal opposition keeps the government honest and permits synthetic policy arriving out of differing views.

Suggests that the American Revolution was special because of the relative lack of internal violence and infighting. Here this 1970 book is a little out of date. More recently, colonial revolutions are construed as differing in basic nature from those that are internal to a nation, such as French and Russian examples.

"Washington apparently hoped at first that the unanimity shown in his election would be echoed in at least a near-unanimity on basic ideas. He was bitterly disappointed at the early show of sharp opposition, and in good time, without ever giving up his conception of himself as a man above party, he became a strong partisan of the Hamiltonian Fedearlists. So far as he was show more concerned, the onus for strife, which at first he distributed almost with impartiality, was in the end placed entirely upon the opposition. When the Jay Treaty was at stake, he angrily charged that the opposition to it was the work of a party, without seeming to realize that its supporters also constituted a party."

Very interesting regarding Jefferson and the spoils system. Jefferson began his administration with the following idea regarding officeholders: "Malconduct is a just ground for removal; mere difference of political opinion is not". He expected to replace Federalists with Republicans when the former died or retired. But as time went on, not many Federalists did. Even worse, Jefferson practiced frugal government so he was not adding positions. Pressure to appoint party loyalists grew. So he adopted a new policy. The most politically partisan Federalists would also be removed. "In his eight years Jefferson removed 109 out of 433 men who held office by presidential appointment; and, of these, 40 were in a special category, the "midnight appointments" of the Adams administration, whose validity he never conceded."

After Monroe was elected, he received a letter from Andrew Jackson urging him to appoint a Federalist (!), General William Drayton Secretary of War, due to his loyal service during the War of 1812. Others also requested that the Cabinet include at least one Federalist. But Monroe felt this would be too indulgent to the party of the Hartford Convention and refused. Monroe's strategy was not to give the opposition jobs, but to give them ceremonial events to make them feel included, such as his 1817 trip to the North, which proved astonishingly successful.

Ah, so it is Van Buren the book was leading up to, and also Thurlow Weed.

Hofstadter was advocating the value of party differentiation in the late 60s and early 70s, a time of relative similarity between the parties. He got his wish, and then some more. One wonders what he would say today amid the numerous complaints of too much polarization. show less

Note from a personality types point of view:
Konstantin Levin - INFJ (like Tolstoy himself)
Kitty Scherbatsky - ESFJ (like Tolstoy's wife perhaps)
See also the movie The Last Station.

This book has an interesting topic -- I'm particularly interested in the Antonine Plague -- and it has some useful things to say, but I had a lot of trouble with the writing style. There are so, so many bland, introductory-type or sweeping statements that it started to drive me crazy. Just get to the meat of the information please and leave the grand pronouncements on the cutting room floor. I bet this book could have been a lot shorter and yet a lot better.

The other thing is that the reader for this audio book seemed to mispronounce virtually every Latin name and term. He didn't stop at Latin either. Inundate is a common enough word, right? It's pronounced /ˈinənˌdāt/. See, that second syllable is a schwa and so it's unaccented. But he would repeatedly somehow find the word "nun" in the middle of that word and accent it for all it was worth. There were other long words where this happened as well. I'm reminded of the question, does everyone have to do everything? If one doesn't know or want to know how to pronounce words properly, why become a reader? I started to think he was upset about something and deliberately trying to sabotage the audiobook.

Anyway, while I did find it very interesting to learn about how the heights of Romans changed, how the plague progressed and similar such topics, I think a rewrite might be in order, and a re-recording. It might also be good to split the nebulous topic into two books, one about disease, the other about climate so that the show more book could focus more instead of meandering about. show less

Sometimes it can be good to back and re-read books from childhood. You can lose people or places or even access to the original book you borrowed from the school library (which got rid of a lot of their old stuff), but as long as there is one copy of the text left somewhere in the world you can once again spend time with this old friend. You can savor again all those words you remember enjoying and discover a few ways that your memory may have played tricks on you since, and that is a comfort.

This time I read the 1945 version whereas originally I had read the 1963 one. But it's not too much different, and was almost entirely as I remembered. These mostly wonderful stories about the greatest days of various players of baseball's early days as told by themselves just never get old. Instead, by reading them -- many of which unintentionally reference others -- you recreate in your mind an entire world of heroes, exploits and surprising tales. Actually, I like, and remember, even better than the baseball parts, those little background incidents and asides. How in one game Babe Ruth took it in his head to suddenly try to steal a base. Or how a pitcher learned on the morning of his greatest game that his father had died. Or that another pitcher had been accused of arriving at the mound drunk. They really give each story its special quality and make you want to learn more. Unlike back then, these days we have Wikipedia and can learn so much more about the biographies of these show more players. I've waded in a bit, but one could easily enjoy going in much, much more deeply. show less

There's a lot of interesting information in this book beyond the travel sites.

Jane Austen came from a smart family. A great uncle on her mother's side was master for fifty years of Balliol, one of the oldest colleges in Oxford. He was one of Jane's favorite relatives.

Two of her brothers did amazingly well in the navy, one becoming a rear admiral, the other Admiral of the Fleet, the highest rank attainable.

The Austens also allowed one of their kids to be adopted by a childless couple and he seemed to have a wonderful life, doing the Grand Tour of Europe for several years. The grand house he inherited may have inspired some of the houses in the books.

There's also a lot of information about Jane's activities that might not exactly come up in the same way in a conventional biography.

When her books were getting close to publication, she used to live in London and correct proof copies. While waiting for the next printng, she chose to spend her time at museums, plays and shopping.

It's also surprising, for a writer, the number of places she went to attend balls. Or maybe not so surprising. Probably she saw these as ripe occasions for close observation of human behavior that she could use in her novels.

Turns out she could be a bit harsh as well. She replied to a letter of her sister's asking how she could have danced four times with such a stupid person (p. 151).

Crazy editing error on p. 158. In the middle of one of those wall of text paragraphs, you read two sentences and then show more find them repeated all over again.

Also amusing is the situation with the Prince Regent, the future George IV. Jane didn't like this debauched royal at all, but he liked her work! What's an author to do? He even had his people write her that she could dedicate her next work to him. Jane thought to pass on this option, but oh no, the publisher insisted. So she wrote a tersest dedication possible, but even this the publisher found unacceptable, and substituted a long, flowery one.

Then she had to deal with the prince's librarian who kept suggesting ideas for her next book, always requesting a character based on the librarian himself.

This book covers all six of the novels, and most of the modern movies and series based on them, plus the biographical movies like Becoming Jane and Miss Austen Regrets. Sometimes there's a bit too much detail. Are we really going to visit a place because Austen's cousin or in-law's spouse went there? Doubtful.

But this is really an incredible, magisterial work that covers everything anyone could ask for, and beautifully so. There are even extensive appendices that list family trees, further reading, itineraries and lists of locations for each of the films and series, even some locations not otherwise mentioned in the book. There is even a thoughtful end flap to the back cover, very useful as an ever-present bookmark when carrying the book on the go. show less

Although it may have an axe to grind, don't pass this one up. Written by a Brigadier General, it has some of the best analysis of the 3rd Punic War as well as the clearest and most detailed maps.

The chapter on Al-Jahiz, makes the claim that the formation of the Islamic empire needed writing in order to keep records and write down what the laws were, and that this in turn led a great literary flowering. While not denying the writing needs of empire, I question this. After all, the Parthian empire, in much the same region, had the same kinds of needs, but this did not lead to a literary flowering. I suspect historians need to look elsewhere for the causes behind this development. In particular, they ought to take a look at the influence of the Caliphs, and how they wanted to present themselves and their empires, both to the empire and without.

Academic and needing a pretty good grounding in the history of the politics of the period, but quite readable for all that. Very pithy. Scarcely a wasted word. Footnotes on the page.

Very interesting on the Nullification Crisis of 1833 regarding party formation. Whatever one may think of John Calhoun, he certainly proved capable of causing a sensation, and more than once. On this occasion, by leading South Carolina into disobedience of the federal government, he triggered a strong, nationalist response on the part of President Jackson, which both went against the feelings of a lot of his friends and earned him new friends among the National Republican party in New England and the mid-Atlantic states. In particular, the former Federalist and Hartford Conventioneer Daniel Webster supported his policy. On the other hand, Henry Clay tended to be sympathetic to the nullifiers, leading to a break between the two main National Republican leaders, just at a time when the Bank of the United States needed their mutual support. It appeared for a time that maybe the existing parties would realign over this monumental issue.

The Whigs were not much of a party, as their name reflects. Really they didn't have much to unite them apart from a dislike of "King Andrew" Jackson and the Democrats. (The British Whigs arose in rejection of the powers of the king.) They were a hodgepodge collection of nationalists (often former federalists), but also pro-infrastructure westerners and Louisianans, show more anti-Masons, nullifiers like Calhoun and social conservatives. This last group saw lots of problems in the influx of immigrant laborers and their naturalization, the disposal of public lands, the qualifications of office holders (too many ill-educated "nobodies" getting in), and the growth in the power of the federal government. This is why they tended to run without platforms and just choose a popular general to bear the flag; there were few policies they could all agree on. show less

Has an offhand style that takes some getting used to.

For a book about writers, one would think it would take better care in terms of spelling. For example, p. 44 has "In 1934, an incident occured [sic], inoccuous [sic] in itself, but which would soon have momentous consequences for the nightlife along the boulevard ..." -- two misspellings in a row!

I think in a sense I'm not advanced enough to read this book, as it is about secondary writers of the Golden Age of Hollywood. I would prefer to exhaust learning about the important writers first, even if these are probably the more colorful characters, including as they do, prison inmates, women who slept their way into the job and even members of the Romanoff family.

Has chapters that are off-topic, that is, not about any particular writer. Here's one about a Hollywood bookstore. Another is about a short story magazine. A third about the behind the scenes of a never-made movie about Huey Long, and about I Am the Fugitive of a Chain Gang. Inspired by Moby Dick, maybe.

Wow, two great stories from Niven Busch on the same page. One that explains what the process of spitballing actually was, the other about what it was like pitching a story to the legendary Irving Thalberg. So entertaining as well as revealing of what those folks were like.

The other best chapter is the generic one toward the end on what it was to write at Warner Brothers, including a very good story by, again, Niven Busch.

The book unfortunately lacks an index.

Compared to the other novels in the series, this one seems overwritten. There are too many characters and too much unnecessary text. For example, after a Prior dies, his brother goes to meet with the new prior without preliminaries, we're told, as usual, something he could do because of their brotherhood. At the end of the meeting, the new prior tells him not to do that anymore because they're not brothers and he should follow the procedure everyone else uses. The author should have gone back and deleted the earlier explanation because he has just showed it. There was no longer any need to tell it in advance.

Again, there is an editing problem. Writers should show, not tell. But with the matter of Godwyn and the nuns' money, this book does both. First, the character says what he is going to do, then he does it. It's as if the author thought of the idea and planned to implement it later, but instead decided to pursue it right away. Someone should have gone back and deleted the original telling.

I really grow tired of the constant scheming in this book, and the way that victims, that is, the heroes, so stupidly allow themselves to be schemed against.

Two nuns crossing the channel to follow the army is preposterous. Even if they find the bishop whom they want to adjudicate the dispute, how in the world is he supposed to do so with no facts at hand and only one side of the story to consider? Never would have happened.

The architecture stuff was very interesting, but now they're show more back to scheming again. And it's even the same scheme. *sigh*

The Caris character displays a surprisingly modern understanding of psychology at times.

The author must have a deep belief in nature over nurture. Over and over again people tend to be just like their male parent, even if raised by someone else.

Book club questions:
What messages does the book offer?

Did Ralph become a slightly better person by the end? Learning to deal with Philippa in a more mature fashion. Taking Sam under his wing. Agreeing to give Wulfric and then Davey land`.

Do Caris and Merthin grow as well? They figure out how to bargain for what they want such as closing Kingsbridge because of the plague and also getting someone besides Philemon made bishop. Instead of arguing, they seem to have learned to go and talk to people privately first and enlisting their support.

Did the book play fair wrt. the conflict between Gwenda and Annet? Annet claims that Gwenda had Wulfric all along, but did the author really show us this, or only tell us, at the end? Wasn't it possible Wulfric could leave Gwenda tomorrow?

Does the author put too much emphasis on DNA? Sam is like his father Ralph and Roland is like his father Merthin? Wulfric wanted Annet so Wulfric's son wanted Annet's daughter? Doesn't nurture count for anything? And if so, should we also conclude that Merthin and Ralph had two different fathers? show less

It was more fun for the author than for the reader I suspect. The genre is divided into categories and then a list of the authors in each is given with some words of background about each. If you don't know where to begin in this field, this might be helpful in finding out which authors you might like to try, but missing is a lot of the big picture. What are the trends, when did they wax and wane, what are relative sales, why are these trends occurring, etc. None of this is addressed explicitly even though you may glean some of it from time to time. It seems much more a list of favorite authors. But even this sort of book could be much better. For example, it's stated that Agatha Christie's work is classic and never out of print and therefore must be good. But not one word is ever given about why or what makes it so appealing. This work also does a pretty poor job of covering the historical mystery, evidently not of much interest to the professor. Nothing is said about the very popular genre of Ancient Roman era mysteries and even Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose gets just one sentence. This is a very idiosyncratic, small picture presentation.

Only read the parts about the coming of the revolution and later. Found it succinct and informative.

This book and its prequel, Quizzles, are collections of logical deduction puzzles, an example of which is given below. Included is a clever graphical system which can be used to help in solving them. The book contains 38 problems of varying difficulty, all of them less-complicated than this example:
The question is, based on the following clues who owns the zebra?
There are five houses.
Each house has its own unique color.
All house owners are of different nationalities.
They all have different pets.
They all drink different drinks.
They all smoke different cigarettes.
The Englishman lives in the red house.
The Swede has a dog.
The Dane drinks tea.
The green house is on the left side of the white house.
In the green house they drink coffee.
The man who smokes Pall Mall has birds.
In the yellow house they smoke Dunhill.
In the middle house they drink milk.
The Norwegian lives in the first house.
The man who smokes Blend, lives in the house next to the house with cats.
In the house next to the house where they have a horse, the smoke Dunhill.
The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
The German smokes Prince.
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
They drink water in the house next to the house where they smoke Blend.
Who owns the Zebra?

For the fan interested in the origins of baseball, this dry account is very likely of interest only to professional historians and Spalding family descendants. The playing days of the main character cover only two short chapters and never evince or even try for any excitement. The remainder covers Spalding's activities as a businessman, promoter, owner, baseball mogul, supporter of the theosophist movement and California senatorial candidate. Never does the book ever make us feel we have been swept away to relive those far off times. Having previously read Where They Ain't: The Fabled Life and Untimely Death of the Original Baltimore Orioles, the Team That Gave Birth to Modern Baseball by Burt Solomon, I felt greatly disappointed in comparison. The author intimates that Spalding, while a ferocious, tireless and successful promoter, probably failed to examine all sides of an issue sufficiently before jumping into frays and that Spalding lived more for the process itself than for the result. But despite all of these struggles, they are not told in an entertaining or moving way. In fact the reader is forced to slog through many, many quotes employing the hyperventilated prose of the day which by now has become quite stale. This book is classified as a baseball book, but really belongs in the American culture or American social history section. Unfortunately I cannot recommend it to anyone except researchers already working in this field who will probably enjoy this dry, show more spare, heavily-footnoted account. In fact, the way it reads suggests that the author was working not from passion for his subject, but perhaps from happenstance of a lucky archival find or commission, although I don't know the facts of course and am merely speculating. show less

Some of the history is a little incorrect or out of date, but is probably dead on when it comes to Hannibal's character. Makes for a fun, thoughtful and quick read.

A bit much.
Stats nerds may love this book, but anyone else might want to wade in carefully because from page 1 of the introduction to the conclusion 270 pages later it spits out statistics like a pitching machine gone haywire. Unless you're a computer, your eyes may glaze over long before it's done. If you read on, hoping for a respite in a succeeding chapter, be warned, the breaks are rare and brief. Now the author does have some good points, particularly regarding the 7 shortstops, some of whom are in the hall and some who are not. Another is his idea regarding the number of times candidates have led the league in various categories. On the other hand it is hard to understand why he puts so much emphasis on fielding and ensuring that the hall's population is proportional by position when everyone knows that good hitting is the majority of what wins baseball games. The complaints about certain players being eliminated from consideration by the Veteran's Committee seem overblown, more based on principle than reality, as those players would in all likelihood never be approved anyway. Many reading this review will probably wonder at his views on the number one hot button issue facing the hall for the past decade: his brief on Pete Rose suggests that the hall is being inconsistent on him and on Shoeless Joe Jackson as it appears that two of the game's greatest stars, Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker, are similarly tainted. Overall, what might have been a quaint and somewhat show more satirical history of the hall's induction process is instead turned into a relentlessly hard hitting position paper which lacks any charm for the average reader. Apart from actual hall of fame electors, who should read it but won't, I don't really see a general audience for this book. In the end the lingering question is "why does the author care so much?" and to wonder how much stress he is causing himself by being so passionate over such tiny matters as no doubt the millionaire ballplayers he's writing about haven't lost a wink of sleep over it, or shouldn't. show less

Often wandering all over the map in terms of topic, as well as always very pro-Franklin, is very good on his doings in Britain and in Congress, as well as those of Paine, and on factions within the revolutionary movement. The major reason for his trip to Britain was the try to improve things with the corrupt Penn family who owned Pennsylvania. It was while enlisting the help of Quakers that he started giving support to abolition, at first as merely part of a quid pro quo. He also deserves credit for discovering and helping Thomas Paine during this period. His year in Congress was rather uncomfortable as many thought him a spy for the crown and he saw posts for which he was best suited go to others.

Says that the list of attendees at the Continental Congress that framed the Declaration of the Independence reads like a who's who of the founding fathers. Well, yeah, that's a large part of why they're called founders. The statement is mere tautology.

Makes offhandedly the claim that Jefferson as Vice President used to attend Cabinet meetings until he became too bored and quit because Adams persisted in ignoring him. The orthodoxy about this is that Adams invited Jefferson to attend the Cabinet, even be a sort of co-president, and Jefferson was tempted, but Madison, who never liked Adams, talked him out of it. So I wonder where the author got this. I suspect the author is confusing this with the time that Jefferson as Secretary of State was having his ideas rejected by show more Washington in favor of those of Hamilton and thus resigned.

There is also shading by deciding what to include and what not. For example, there is almost nothing on the negotiations to end the war. So don't trust this book without double checking its claims. show less

Has not held up well. Very predictable and not engaging. As a first time reader as an adult, only good for children at this point I would say.

SURPRISING OR REMARKABLE PASSAGES
PAGES 1-103
While it's well known that during the Adams administration, the three main secretaries cared more about the ideas of Hamilton than of the president, and sent the former reports about everything that was going on, I've never seen before that when the president asked for reports, Hamilton would write the first drafts. Hamilton was doing their homework for them! What a crazy Cabinet.

Adams was all in favor of diplomacy as the solution to the undeclared war with France, while his cabinet members preferred arming and actual war. Hamilton surprised them, however, by disagreeing. Hamilton, it turned out, was looking at things a level above the secretaries. He foresaw that if the US tried diplomacy and it failed - as he predicted it would - then the Republicans would be entirely discredited and the Federalists would be able to pass whatever they wanted, including the war. To make it even better, he wanted either Madison or Jefferson to be in the diplomatic mission. Both of them were too smart to accept this part, however. But in the end, John Adams, with the help of his son, outsmarted them all and actually managed to reach accord with France after all. Unfortunately for him, this happened too late to help in the election or he would have been a two-termer.

Talleyrand had a bit of resentment for America because when he was here, Washington refused to see him. He never forgot that.

When Adams returned to Philadelphia after the yellow fever show more epidemic had subsided, he gave a speech regarding the war. Surprisingly, considering Adams' individualist reputation, most of the speech had been written by Secretary of State Timothy Pickering.

The XYZ Affair should really be called the WXYZ Affair since Adams, in the dispatches, also used the letter W as a substitute for the actual name of a French official.

Before the details of the XYZ Affair came out, many Republicans demanded that Congress be given full access to the dispatches as they suspected that President Adams was making the story sound worse than it actually was. One of the only Republicans not to do so was a man I've noticed being wise in many other matters: Albert Gallatin. As it turned out, the dispatches were not better than Adams' report, they in fact showed that the behavior of the French had been even worse than the president had implied. The Republicans lost public support dramatically.

A number of French-Americans sailed for French possessions in the West Indies simply due to nativist anti-French sentiment and harassment. An underreported, shameful episode in our history.

Congress created the office of Secretary of the Navy primarily because Secretary of War McHenry was seen as a bungler. For such reasons were major measures taken.

President Adams wanted Congress to create a measured response, but had the hardest time getting half measures approved. People in Congress wanted either to go all out into war, or, alternatively, not spend even a dime on preparing defenses.

A general hysteria for war with France took over in the summer - it's always the summer when such things happen - of 1798. People even started wearing all-black cockades to replace the tri-color ones. It was amid this Federalist extremism that Congress passed the infamous Alien & Sedition Acts that are the chief blot on the record of John Adams.

The part that lengthened the period of naturalization from five to fourteen years was to reduce Republican political power since immigrants tended to vote for that party.

John Marshall would be the only Federalist to speak against the Sedition Law, and only after it had already passed. All the others, including Adams, Hamilton and Washington, accepted it.

After creating an army, they wanted Washington to command it. To entice him, they offered him another star. That's how he became a three-star general. Washington picked Hamilton to be a two-star.

To fund the war measures, Congress passed a direct property tax.
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PAGES 103-201
Hamilton wanted to use the Quasi-War as a pretext for conquering Florida and the Louisiana Territory. This would help the Federalists politically, he thought, by dampening western support for the Republicans as well as their sentiment for secession.

Francisco de Miranda proposed that the US and Britain help him liberate South America, Britain to provide the navy and the US the army. As a reward, the US would receive Florida and Louisiana. Britain, Hamilton, Secretary of State Pickering, and Rufus King, the US minister to Britain were all for it, but John Adams was against. He felt that hte public would be against cooperating so closely with Britain. He also felt that currently the US was friendly with Spain and that it would be wrong to change that just for gains. In later years he wrote that engaging in such policy probably would have had unexpected consequences, much as the French Revolution had had.

(It is interesting to see how many projects were founded based on the power vacuum created by Spanish military weakness. Aaron Burr's later murky plan for the southwest was no doubt yet another.)

To determine whether Haiti was safe for US merchant shipping, President Adams sent there Edward Stevens of Philadelphia. Stevens was born in Antigua. His father, a Scottish merchant was the landlord of Rachel Fawcette, Hamilton's mother, and would later become the adoptive father of the orphaned Alexander Hamilton. Stevens quickly became good friends with his adopted brother Hamilton, displaying many similar mannerisms. Both were interested in classics, spoke French fluently, opposed slavery, were interested in medicine, and were considered clever. Contemporaries often remarked that Stevens and Hamilton looked very much alike. Secretary of State Pickering, who knew both men in adulthood, noted that the men were strikingly similar in appearance and concluded that they must be biological brothers. Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow says many aspects of Hamilton's biography make more sense given Stevens's paternity. It would explain why Hamilton was adopted into the Stevens family while his older brother, James, apparently was not. It may have also been a factor in Hamilton's acknowledged father abandoning his family.

One of the main reasons France refrained from declaring war on the US was that they hoped Jefferson would win the next election and they would thus have a more friendly government. It's kind of amazing to think that others were depending on Jefferson for such important reasons while at the same time he was denying that he was even running.

When Congress published the dispatches of the envoys, they were picked up by British and French newspapers. Talleyrand was now in hot water with his masters at the Directory. His response was to disavow all knowledge of W, X, Y and Z and to demand of Elbridge Gerry, their names. Gerry knew that Talleyrand very well knew the names of his underlings - they had all dined together - but went through with the charade of disclosing the name and writing a statement that Talleyrand and his agents had known nothing about it. They must have been impostors.

Talleyrand cleverly opened a second channel to President Adams. He sent one Pichon to his old friend William Vans Murray, who was US minister to the Batavian Republic. Murray was a great friend to John Quincy Adams, then also in Europe as a minister. Quincy Adams would write directly to his father, bypassing Secretary of State Pickering so in this way the president found out a lot about France's thoughts as expressed to Murray.

Elbridge Gerry was snubbed by Boston Federalists for having stayed longer in Paris, trying to stave off a war. Ruffians had also hung effigies in his trees, shouted obscenities to his wife and left a miniature guillotine smeared with blood on her window sill. President Adams treated him kindly, however. He advised him to bear the Federalist abuse in silence.

Pickering even wanted to dock Gerry's salary!

Nelson defeating the French navy at the Battle of the Nile, August 1, 1798, really made it certain that France would not declare war. Too many French ships had been lost.

Adams considered Patrick Henry as a possible minister to France, considered a moderate Federalist at that time.

Pickering held in Trenton a meeting with Washington, Hamilton, CC Pinckney and not the president to discuss what to do about France. Pickering didn't want peace, but a declaration of war.

Pickering even condemned Gerry in a public letter. Gerry send Adams a defense of his actions and from all the evidence he had received from France, Adams agreed with Gerry and told Pickering to publish the defense. Pickering defied the president and refused. Adams decided it was best to retract his request for the moment.

George Logan, a friend of Jefferson, went to Paris as a private citizen and obtained assurances from Talleyrand that France wanted to negotiate. Logan returned to the US with the news and met with Washington in Philadelphia, but the former president could not imagine that he had achieved something the diplomats could not and refused to believe him. He experience a much friendlier reception from President Adams a few days later, however.

Adams decided to try another negotiation. Meanwhile the Cabinet were suggesting a declaration of war. What a stark difference.

Treasury secretary Wolcott did not write his own set of suggestions, but forwarded some secretly written by Hamilton. This recommended doing essentially nothing, not declaring war, but also not sending an envoy. Rather he wanted to wait for France to send an envoy to the US. This was probably because he doubted a declaration could be achieved at present, but one might be obtainable in future.

When Adams told the Cabinet that he would not ask Congress for declaration, they went to the war hawks in Congress to see if it would be possible to get a declaration over the president's head, but it turned out the votes were not there.

Apparently Adams liked Hamilton's writing, however. He took the suggestions as the basis for his speech, but reversing it in some areas. It must have been funny for Hamilton to hear this, his words used against his ideas. In fact, Hamilton, Washington and CC Pinckney flanked Adams on the platform as he gave his speech before Congress.

Unfortunately the speech was not well received. The High Federalists considered it too weak, Jefferson and the Republicans, provocative and warlike. Moderates on both sides, and Paris, saw cause for hope, however.

Adams heard of Hamilton's recommendation for war and wrote, "This man is stark mad, or I am. He knows nothing of the character, the principles, the feelings, the opinions and prejudices of this nation. He Congress should adopt this system, it would produce an instantaneous insurrection of the whole nation from Georgia to New Hampshire."

When Adams decided to name a new envoy to France, the confirmation request had to go to the Senate, where it was first opened, of course, by Vice President Thomas Jefferson, who lost control a little when he read it. Adams had just taken off the table the number one issue the Federalists had for the forthcoming election, but Adams considered it the Right thing to do nonetheless. JFK should have included Adams in his Profiles in Courage.

Luckily for the president, most of the moderate Federalists - Washington, Jay, Marshall, Knox, Stoddert, Patrick Henry - went along with him. His Secretary of State, Pickering, on the other hand, hadn't even been informed, and was incensed. I get the idea that Adams had already started catching on by then that Pickering was a creature of Hamilton.

The Federalists in Congress mulled over how to stop the president. They decided that voting against him was too injurious to the party. So they sent a delegation of senators to meet with him, but Adams refused, saying that was legislative interference in the executive. But, they said, shouldn't France send an envoy here first, as an apology? Adams said he had been in France for years and understood the situation better than they did. Then they said that the nominee, Murray, was not qualified. Couldn't they add two more envoys? Adams told them no, he had made up his mind. Then they decided to reject confirmation. So Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth approached Adams to let him know and encourage him to add two more envoys. Adams felt forced to agree, but rejected the proposal of Hamilton and George Cabot. Instead he wanted Ellsworth himself. Strangely nobody said anything about confusing between the executive and judiciary, or about someone holding down two offices. Adams nominated Patrick Henry as the third. The Senate felt forced to confirm, not wanting an open break in the party in an election year.

After Congress adjourned, Adams departed for Quincy on March 12 and stayed away for seven months.

Patrick Henry declined the appointment due to his age, so Adams appointed another southerner, William Davie of North Carolina, at Ellsworth's suggestion. It's interesting the way the CJ had suddenly become so influential.

The Quasi-War was the only issue that united the Federalists. If it went away, so would all the other things the leadership liked: the Alien & Sedition Acts, the new army and navy, and direct taxes.

Hamilton's attempts to raise an army of ten thousand floundered. Although he got more than the necessary number of officers, regular soldiers only reached a third of the desired total. The ratio of officers to men was 7 to 1.

The cost of war measures had doubled the federal budget. The government was forced to borrow 5 million at 8% interest, a rate Adams considered much too high.

The Jeffersonian strategy with the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions was partly successful in dividing the High from the moderate Federalists. In reaction, some Hamiltonians spoke of the army's need to be ready for civil insurrection.
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The 38-gun USS Constellation pursued the French 44-gun Vengeance in Caribbean waters during a five hour running battle. While both ships were damaged, the US ship was less damaged. The French ship actually tried to surrender twice, but failed because weather conditions were so bad that the Americans could not see that colors had been struck.

While President Adams spent seven months working from home, Hamilton encouraged the Cabinet to take matters in their own hands, citing as reasons that Adams had apparently abdicated and because he thought his policies were mad. Hamilton even offered to go to Philadelphia to take a hand in a palace revolution. So neither working from home nor coups are a new thing in America.

The French wanted to appoint Lafayette minister to the US. Lafayette wrote old friend Hamilton to ask whether he could be successful in the role. Hamilton, not wanting peace to succeed, told him not to come.

Pickering disagreed with the peace mission so virulently that he even shared the mission's secret orders with the British ambassador.

It's interesting that this book goes so in-depth in the second round of peace negotiations, but is so skimpy on the first. On the other hand, the book Charles Cotesworth Pinckney: Founding Father by Marvin R. Zahniser covers the first part very well.

Besides John Adams, the little known, but rather brilliant William Vans Murray is kind of the hero of this book. He seemed to always have an excellent handle on the big picture and used it to be able to predict how the French would think and behave in any particular situation.

Even after Adams learned that his secretaries were in thrall to Hamilton, he kept them, seething with rage on the inside only, because he didn't want to damage Federalist chances in the coming election. It was only after the loss of the crucial state of New York (in its legislative election) that Adams dumped the Hamilton toadies.

Gerry ran for governor in Massachusetts as a Republican, but also, curiously as a friend of Adams, and lost by only 200 votes.

The philologist, Noah Webster, was a moderate and friend of Adams.

Britain saw the election of Jefferson, the friend of France, as a calamity, and share prices of government-funded securities declined as a consequence.

In a bit of clever timing, the day after the peace treaty signing, Spain signed an agreement to turn Louisiana back to France. Had the US peace commissioners known about this, the treaty negotiations might have gone quite differently. This was clever management by Napoleon.

In 1800 Tsar Paul I wrote Napoleon that since Russia and France were so geograhpically distant they could never be in a position to injure each other and that they should therefore work harmoniously. Ha!

When Britain refused to surrender Malta to Russia, she placed an embargo on British shipping and seized 300 ships in Russian ports. Two British ships fought their way out, sinking a Russian ship. The Tsar burned a British vessel. The two nations were practically at war. show less

This book is a series of anecdotes and excerpts on 18th century English travel to Italy. It is very well organized, every topic nicely sorted into an appropriate chapter and section. The rhythm of the writing takes some getting used to, not really for me until about page 100. As is often the case for books from earlier eras, there are frequent quotations in Italian and Latin, untranslated. There are also frequent mentions of by now obscure individuals whom one is expected to know about as there is little to no explanation of who they are. In a lot of ways this is more of a set of resources than a satisfying narrative.

While the sad and magical Lincoln is endlessly fascinating -- often very droll -- the same cannot be said, with the possible exception of Seward, for the rest of the rivals. The book is much better before the 1860 election, during which it maintains a firm focus. The rest seems like a different book, wandering from topic to topic, mostly it seems in search of good anecdotes and with little will to cover matters thoroughly, especially with respect to the war, most of which is silently omitted. The book ends with Lincoln's assassination, providing periscope endings for the rest of the rivals. I would have handled this part differently, discussing Seward later and in more detail, as befits his status and contributions.

- It reminded me of Karl Popper and his idea of a thesis that can never be proven or disproven. But I guess it's more a psychological study with the addition of literary analysis. It does seem very learned.
- He writes of Madison's desire for restraint, but in his own life Madison could be quite given to outbursts. Before one of his early speeches he asked a friend to observe him and if he got to be too much, to intervene. As it turned out he did get too heated, but the friend did not stop him. After cooling down, Madison asked why not. The friend said that he had wanted to, but was too scared!
- Another reason Madison held his notes on the Constitutional convention close in hand is that he wanted to use them as a kind of social security plan. Upon his death or retirement he would cause them to be published so as to provide a large income for Dolley. It didn't really work though and Dolley sometimes even had to borrow money from one of their freed slaves.
- As a study of character, I found reducing each of them to a single adjective or concept a bit restrictive. I preferred the book Presidential Temperament for a more in-depth and nuanced study of characters.

Weird course in which a language geek pedantically tells us not to be pedantic.

It's main advantage is in its comprehensiveness, delving into many kinds of words, including words shared from other languages, idioms and expressions, slang, words from sports, war, and so on.

The conceptualization of the Anglo-Saxon invasion is not to date.

The Indo-European language is not well-explained.

Claims that the OED states that the origin of the expression "touch base" is in British English. But the OED is online now and I checked: it says it's from American Baseball. Now I'm wondering about the correctness of a lot of the other surprising "facts" she cited. (Actually, my instinct was that the meaning of "touch base" works better with the game Tag than Baseball, but I suppose the OED have spent time on this.)

Her speculations on why words have developed the way they have seem almost always wrong. For example, consider the tenses of drink: drink - drank - drunk. She states that some people are starting to say "have drank" rather than "have drunk" and gives as the reason that the "a" vowel is more similar to what is done with other verbs. Never mind that there is a counterexample of "swim - swam - swum", what about the elephant in the room? "I have drunk" or "You have drunk" can sound an awful lot like I, or you, am/are a drunk. So of course people are going to tend to avoid that.

I didn't care for the way she often tried to be funny, failing every time.

I prefer The History of the English show more Language by Seth Lerer or The Story of Human Language by John McWhorter for this type of course, even though more dated in the area of slang. But slang changes very quickly and even this course from the 2012 is often obsolete in this area. show less

Going in I don't buy for a minute the premise of this book, that had Monroe defeated Madison in their election for the First Congress we would never have had the Bill of Rights. There were plenty of others capable of writing amendments. Plus, the amendments hardly entered the constitiution in the form or extent that they came from Madison. Not to mention that there are all kinds of other what-ifs. What if King Charles I hadn't lost the English Civil War? Then Monroe's ancestor would never have come to America so that his descendant could run against Madison. What if Queen Elizabeth I had not died childless? Then the Stuarts would never have come to the throne and King Charles would never have caused a civil war for him to lose. You can go back endlessly with this. BUT... if this is what it takes to get a book that delves into the Congressional contest between Madison and Monroe, I AM ALL IN! (even if I have to skip a few chapters)

Early on it seems like I should probably skip a few chapters. I like the discussion of the ancestries of Madison and Monroe and their early lives, but could do without the recounting of well-known events like the Battles of Lexington and Concord, for example. I very much doubt that this will be the first book about the founders and the Revolution that anyone will read, so it's a bit tedious to revisit all that ground here.

I did go ahead and skip almost all the chapters to go directly the election. Having read biographies of both men, I don't feel show more I missed anything. The election chapter was detailed and good. I would have even liked more detailed, like a day to day account of what they did. It was most fascinating that the two candidates rode to most campaign stops together, spending hours and hours in one another's company! How many people would do that these days I wonder. And how many have had to contend for an election in January for a February 2 election?

The activities in the First Congress also make for interesting reading.

I think I would have framed this book differently. Since so many know their biographies, I would have omitted that part and instead delved in further detail into the lesser known story of their rivalry for the presidency and days of working together in the adminisration.

Puzzled by the book's statement that in the First Congress the Senate was larger than the House. The Senate had, after North Carolina and Rhode Island joined, 26 members. The House had 65 members. Is it talking about a buildig or room? But who would care about that?

After finishing from that point, started reading backwards, chapter by chapter, from the Congressional election chapter.

Interesting discussion of Monroe's evolution in his view of the Constitution, many of which proved prophetic, although he had some errors as well. Good point about his being the only president to oppose the Constitution.

On p. 21 and in the index, misspells "John Dickinson".

The skimpiness of treatments of topics such as the Battle of Monmouth and the Constitutional Convention cause misleading statements. Books on Monmouth do not blame General Charles Lee the way this book does. Madison's Hand, the book on the Constitutional Convention, reveals a different reality than the one presented here. Why are these excursions being provided at all if they are not going to be presented in sufficient detail to make them accurate?

Congressman David Howell is painted in a very negative light, but later on
President Madison would appoint him to a judgeship. So the enmity between them
must not have been *that* strong. show less

The best and most thorough treatment of the subject I've seen. It needs two things:
1. Update from the old Wade-Giles pinyin which has been greatly superseded by the Hanyu, particularly on Wikipedia
2. A chapter on science and technology, though one can use Needham as a supplement in this regard

The author is Dr. Otto Mittler.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/46594049.Otto_Mittler?from_search=true&amp...

Better than expected for a series, introductory book.

The link listed at the end to silk-road.com should be amended now to silkroadfoundation.org.