Those interested in the politics behind the war will find Higham's work at times fascinating and horrific. The book really brings home what happened apart from the battlefront. As revered as President Lincoln is today, he made some decisions that would make 21st century citizens of a democracy cringe. Alternatively, Lincoln's detractors and political opponents did the same. It seems unfathomable to me now that Lincoln could have been hated by so many, and this book really pierces the veil of the myth surrounding his presidency and the unity of all those in the Union.

When one really ponders what Lincoln did - suspending the writ of habeas corpus, prosecuting publishers printing unfavorable information, trading with South, etc. - one realizes that Lincoln - just like everyone - is neither complete hero nor complete villain - but a convoluted mix of gray areas.

But a reflection on Lincoln is not an intended objective of this book. Nor does it foster an argument that Lincoln deserved death. The focus here is the plot to de-throne Lincoln and make peace with the South, hatched by shadowy Confederate sympathizers, fringe Confederate spies, the European aristocracy, and some out-and-out crazies, like the chief villain George Sanders and assassian John Wilkes Booth. This objective is fulfilled in excruciating detail.

Also deeply disturbing was the revelation of the "Young Americans" Hitler-youth-type organization, the assertion that Stephen Douglas planned for a military coup d'etat over Lincoln, and the whole affair between Confederate exiles conspiring with British/Canadians to incite war with England.

A fascinating story is marred by the author's continuous barrage of trivial details. He throws so many names, places, and things at the reader that even the most astute Civil War scholar would be overwhelmed.

The book reads like a novel and while that is good for easy reading, one has to wonder how the author dug up so much granular information 150 years later. The source notes - a paltry half-dozen pages at the end - do nothing to convince me that the author did in fact thoroughly validate the accuracy of his assertions. Personally, while I think the book does contain many facts, I have to consider it more a historical novel, like Gore Vidal's "Lincoln", than a history. "Dark Union", another recent and similar book on Lincoln during the war, is much better annotated.

McPherson's "Crossroads to Freedom" is much different than the battle history by Sears in terms of length (it's short) and focus. Less than a quarter of the book describes the battle itself; the majority of it describes the context of the battle - the campaigns leading up to Antietam, Lincoln's behind-the-scenes strategies, the politics and public opinion in both North and South, the personalities, the deliberations in France and Europe as to whether or not to recognize the Confederacy, the Emancipation Proclamation, and why the battle was a turning point in the war.

If primarily looking for battle maneuvers and strategies, "box scores" for the generals, and first-hand descriptions of the excitement and horrors of one of the bloodiest battles in American history, "Crossroads to Freedom" will at best whet the appetite. If looking for a concise and comprehensive look at the battle, "Crossroads to Freedom" is a good choice.

This book was a page-turner and very hard to put down. A good half or more was really an LBJ biography that offered new information not found in similar works I have read. This bio provided some very unflattering data on LBJ that - unfortunately - I really feel is more-or-less accurate. As far as the assertions that LBJ and Edward Clark had JFK assassinated, well that evidence is inconclusive. The assertions that LBJ (and Clark) committed some despicable acts are very arguable, but to advance beyond the other garden-variety conspiracy theories of Kennedy's assassination, the author needs to formulate a better case. The author readily admitted to the use of "faction" in this last chapter or so, but I feel he used that technique well before then. He includes almost 100 pages of photocopied evidence in the book's appendix, but while it may legitimately show LBJ as a dishonest, power-hungry, and pathological man, it falls far short of implicating him in JFK's assassination.

For McClellan to have presented this book as an unflattering LBJ bio and suggested possible involvement in the assassination is one thing, but for him to offer this as definitive proof, "Blood..." fails. For a look at the seamier side of LBJ, and the indictment of legal abuse of the state judicial system, it's a good read.

Several reviewers here complained that "What Should I Do With My Life" is weak as a self-help book. They are correct, but Bronson is very clear in his introduction that he has no experience in this area. As he says at one point in the book after comparing this project to a box of confections that everyone wants to try, he is "NOT XRAYING THE CHOCOLATES".

Instead he says he writes of people who are being honest with themselves in answering the question, in most cases with his prompting and interaction. He intertwines his own experiences in all the stories such that he too answers the question as well through the course of the book.

Each interviewee generally is given their own 4-5 page section, so the book seems to read fast. Sometimes the sections are too concise and disjointed and other times the sections provide just enough information to communicate a message.

What a fantastic project this must have been for him. While for the reader there are no real pearls of wisdon, it makes one reflect, and and it is very enjoyable to read.

As Crowley herself says, if history judges Nixon's presidency on the White House tapes and transcripts, he deserves a chance for his entire life to be judged on all of his life's activities, including his "winter". This book provides an extended view of Nixon in the last four years of his life.

A few of the reviewers here questioned whether Crowley's writings accurately recount Nixon's comments and confessions in an objective manner, and they wonder if he would have really opened up to her... My first take on this was a once powerful, now-fallen, guilt-ridden old man hires an attractive twenty-something female grad student - someone naïve and susceptible he can impress and dominate - to rewrite his legacy, gloss over his mistakes, and show how even after all that happened, he was indeed great. Did she - at this time in her life - have the necessary knowledge, historical context and maturity to discerningly ferret out, deduce and capture the real truth from Nixon's rhetoric?

Soon into the book, I began to realize these worries were moot, as conversations recounted by Crowley show the familiar arrogance, criticisms, paranoia, self-absorbtion and the meddling that are indeed vintage Nixon.

Nixon's musings on the collapse of Communism, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin were very interesting and provided a good review of a monumental set of events of world history. In fact, the first half of the book was a play-by-play of early 90s American-Soviet foreign policy with color commentary by Richard Nixon. So much so it became droll and I find myself skimming along to the sections on Vietnam and Watergate.

Part 3 focused on Nixon's reflections on Watergate. Crowley captures the range of feelings that must have plagued Nixon over his final 20 years - admission of culpability interchanged with minimization of his role and his being a victim of a liberal media and a turbulent time in history. He makes the point that his escapades were politics-as-usual and FDR, JFK, and LBJ all used the same dirty tricks he did. Crowley also captures Nixon's pleasure of seeing Clinton go through the same torture with Whitewater as he did with Watergate.

Part 4 continues commentary from Nixon on political scandal de jour and Part 5 focuses on Nixon's thoughts on philosophy, family and faith. On this last part, I wasn't particularly prepared to visualize Nixon puttering around the house in his pajamas talking about these things, but one realizes that he too was, in fact, human.

The book was not chronological, as each part recounted relevant items to the subject from Crowley's four years with him, which made it a bit difficult to follow on occasion. For the most part, beyond being "linearly-challenged" and the early preoccupation with Russian events, "Nixon in Winter" was fairly enjoyable.

The American political system at its worst! This view of Nixon reveals a despicable man, doing whatever he could do to discredit his opponents, manipulate whoever he could, lie, and cheat to get elected. Hard-working, brilliant, but disgusting. Nixon even tried to undermine peace attempts in Vietnam just before the 1968 election. All that said, the incumbent president wasn't much better, as those peace attempts were really lies propagated by the LBJ administration to influence the election in Humphrey's favor. The 1968 campaign was absolutely horrid and unforgivable. What was different between Nixon and LBJ is Nixon's paranoia and vindictiveness.

It's interesting how Ike never really endorses Nixon, even when his grandson married Nixon's daughter. Finally, from his hospital bed Ike endorses him before the 1968 election, but even then it was lukewarm. Ambrose - who wrote an Eisenhower biography as well - contrasted the two. He says Ike loved life and loved people, while Nixon was distrustful of people, and gave in to hate. Ike brought people together; Nixon tore people apart. Ambrose cites a diary entry from Ike's secretary during Ike's administration: "The Vice President [Nixon] seems more like someone acting like a nice man more than a nice man".

The author commented how much different the Nixon administration may have been had Nixon had his first choice - Bob Finch, a genuine nice person - as his running mate. As it was Nixon surrounded himself with clones, all vindictive and paranoid. All fed his paranoia and anger and goaded his wrath. Their daily orders - delivered via comments in the margins of Nixon's daily news summaries - were very telling (and extremely interesting).

Nixon's foreign policy accomplishments - the settlement with North Vietnam, the opening to China and détente with the Russians - were indeed exceptional. But could these events have happened sooner had Nixon not circumvented his own State department in order to increase the histrionics and guarantee the credit for himself? Also, regarding the China and Russian initiatives, the author poses an interesting rhetorical question - who could have done it but Nixon, since he did not have to deal with a Nixon critic!

This is the middle book of a Nixon trilogy, so you don't get the childhood and Congressional years, or "Nixon in winter", but you get to know the man, and it is depressing.

Good intro / light reading

McConnell's "Software Project Survival Guide" (SPSG) is a good intro to application development projects using the phased-release waterfall methodology. Unlike other software engineering overviews, he does not assume that his audience is sold on process in general, so he spends some time arguing and presenting facts and stats to support structured project management and software development.

The author presents most of the integral concepts of the discipline and maintains a companion website with templates and checklists. He shares his experience on what development managers should expect from their developers, testers, corporate culture and customers. I read SPSG when it first came out and recently completed it again for a refresh. Although the book is now six years old, the material is still relevant because of the level at which it is presented, even in today's landscape of customized COTS and web services applications.

It gets four stars rather than five because in the last third of the book he takes arbitrary dives into detail before he exhausts the breadth of the subject. For instance, he only once refers in passing to regression-testing and never mentions the concept of SDLC environments, yet offers up formulas for estimating defects using pooling and seeding. Chapters seem to get shorter as if he was in a hurry to finish. As SPSG is relatively short at 250 pages, it seems the author could have easily included another 50 pages to hit those missed topics at a high-level.

SPSG is great for the new manager but is less useful for the experienced manager or as a reference. Fortunately, he includes an annotated bibliography on resources that provide more detail.

If you liked the memoirs of Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, and Dan Rather, so too will you like CBS News and "Face the Nation" veteran Bob Schieffer's "This Just In". It is chocked full of historical anecdotes of national issues, national politics and TV news gossip.

Like the other reporters mentioned, while maybe they themselves are not worthy of a memoir, the sheer volume of historical events they witnessed is.

Schieffer's style is entertaining, homespun, honest, reflective and intelligent, and he has most definitely kept his ego in check. Schieffer shares his experiences during JFK's assassination, LBJ, Vietnam, Nixon, Carter, the 2000 election, and Sept 11. I would estimate the book is 75% insight to Washington and national events and 25% insight into the author and CBS News.

Schieffer provides enough personal information and history for his audience to get to know him, but that is less for grandstanding than for helping his audience to understand his background in order to understand how he interprets events. He truly enjoys and respects his work and subjects and it clearly shows in his memoirs.

And never have I found a book's acknowledgements and source notes so entertaining!

Ellsberg's memoir of his life in the 60s and early 70s is fascinating and difficult to put down. It chronicles his journey through the dangerous jungles of Vietnam and through the dangerous jungles of Washington, DC, and his conversion from hawk to dove. He effortlessly carries the reader through his tenure under Robert McNamera, walking point on the ground in Vietnam, his RAND consulting career, life on the lamb, and courtroom battles with the Nixon administration which bleed into the Watergate scene.

Through his discussion of the contents of the 4000 pages of the Pentagon Papers, he systematically refutes the Cold War "domino theory" that the last five presidents had succumbed to. He exposes the governments' entire Vietnam strategy as one of ideological rhetoric, misunderstanding, and miscalculation.

While an exciting page-turner, it is also a depressing/disturbing book based on what it reveals about the Executive branch. Regardless of one's politics, the reader forever will look differently at how his government handles and reacts to foreign wars and agression.

Having twice completed the original "How to Win Friends and Influence People", I found 75% of this is a rehash. The other 25% was mostly modern anecdotes that support the original author's theories. I found little original material.