Challenges Facing the Federal Trade Commission: Hearing Before the Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives

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In the brave new world of the "flexible" corporation, Richard Sennett observes, workers at all levels are regarded as wholly disposable, and they have responded in kind, ceasing to think in terms of any long-term relationship with the organizations they work for. This, he argues, has tremendous negative consequences for workers' emotional and psychological well-being. Even in menial jobs, we extract much of our self-image from the idea of a "career"--a life narrative rendered intelligible by specific loyalties, which is to some degree self-invented but also in some respects predictable. Innovations like "flextime" and bureaucratic "de-layering" seem to promise more freedom to define one's career, but in fact they create jobs in which there's less freedom than ever to be had. The Corrosion of Character is a short, anecdotal book, and while one might wish that it included a discussion of the social and psychological costs of the sheer increase of work time in the average worker's week, Sennett has created a pithy, disturbing picture of the cost of the corporate world's much-vaunted new efficiencies. --Richard Farr

Book Description

In The Corrosion of Character, Richard Sennett, "among the country's most distinguished thinkers . . . has concentrated into 176 pages a profoundly affecting argument" (Business Week) that draws on interviews with dismissed IBM executives, bakers, a bartender turned advertising executive, and many others to call into question the terms of our new economy. In his 1972 classic, The Hidden Injuries of Class (written with Jonathan Cobb), Sennett interviewed a man he called Enrico, a hardworking janitor whose life was structured by a union pay schedule and given meaning by his sacrifices for the future. In this new book--a #1 bestseller in Germany--Sennett explores the contemporary scene characterized by Enrico's son, Rico, whose life is more materially successful, yet whose work lacks long-term commitments or loyalties. Distinguished by Sennett's "combination of broad historical and literary learning and a reporter's willingness to walk into a store or factory [and] strike up a conversation" (New York Times Book Review), this book "challenges the reader to decide whether the flexibility of modern capitalism . . . is merely a fresh form of oppression" (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Customer Reviews:

How Instability and Superficiality Destroy the Inner Meaning of Work.......2007-07-20

Transient consultants have replaced entrenched bureaucrats. Teams and teamwork have replaced adversarial labor/management and individual ego-driven rivalries. Knowledge gleaned from marketing studies has replaced knowledge gained from every day experience. New machines have made the once complex extremely simple, and the once dangerous safely sanitized. Companies that were once entrenched ethnic enclaves are now look more closely like America.

While not totally disapproving, the author looks at these and other current developments and finds them wanting. Work no longer generates the kind of passionate commitment it once did, and he cannot blame the workers, because their employers no longer show the loyalty they once did. In newly created world of permanent transience, little is cumulative, and the only test is who can do the best job now according to given specifications, with little concern for the past or for the future. Individual personal character is corroded--gradually destroyed--because sacrificing for the future makes little sense and virtues like loyalty to coworkers and one's employer are unrewarded, unexpected, and unappreciated.

The author finds the new arrangements are more about glib superficial agreements rather than the creation of authentic human relationships. Teams focus on short-term ends, with leaders who play down their authority and assume the falsely modest role of facilitators. A more adversarial assertion of self-interest and opinion would in the long run serve the companies better, as people bind together from honest discussion and disputes, the author asserts.

The author's individual chapters are each in themselves excellent essays: they are entitled Drift, Routine, Flexible, Illegible, Risk, The Work Ethic, Failure, and The Dangerous Pronoun. The most profound chapters are perhaps those on (1) risk, which documents the odds against success and the difficulty many people have adjusting to this reality; (2) the work ethic, which shows how it is undermined in many different ways by transience in co-workers and authority structures; and (3) failure, which shows both its commonality and the difficulties workers have in dealing with it and crafting a successful future because it is often experienced more as a personal reckoning than as a result of powerful institutional and competitive forces undermining their best efforts.

The author adds statistical tables which document the decline of manufacturing and the rise of personnel and computer and data processing services; declining employment and the rise of wage inequality; lower productivity growth in the U.S. than in France, Germany, Japan; the steady decline in union membership as a percentage of the workforce and its plateau in actual number of workers covered; the rising percentage of women from 22 to 44 in the workforce and the declining percentages of workers in other generational categories; the rising number of workers on flexible schedules; the rising number of workers using computers; the generally falling earnings that job switchers get; the slow rise in jobs requiring a college degree; and the great rise in percentage and numbers within the labor movement of public sector workers.

The strength of the author's approach is that he mixes analysis of anecdotes with scholarly research touching on both workers and working conditions and life in general. The author not only brings a lot of fresh material to the analysis of corporate working conditions, but he provides original and creative analysis to familiar material so that we see it with new significance in new contexts.

No one should consider taking a corporate job, or a job in a large organization, without reading this book. It is sociology at its best, both the critiquing economic trends and relating them to lives of individuals who are both representative and compelling. The author's writing is gripping, passionate, and thought-provoking. He manages simulaneously the difficult tasks of both synthesizing past scholarhip and breaking new ground extremely well.

fight against "de-characterization".......2007-01-04

An important book, in which some of the undesirable effects of the ways our every-day working lives are organized are put under scrutiny and criticized. All those who want to continue to work with real human beings rather than with post-modern robots should read this book.

Sympathetic to workers' problems but you may find little new here.......2006-05-29

A doctor warned me once that people weren't built for rapid mentally jumping from one thing to another and that hi-tech companies tended to use people up. Sennett's warning came quite late.

Sennett's findings seem well intended but not surprising at all to anyone who has worked in hi-tech. I suspect many other workers have noticed the consequences of the "new" capitalism. Similarly, there seems nothing wrong with trying to simplify what is happening by noting a few key characteristics and values. Sennett's observations on the exploitation of "teamwork", although familiar, are welcome. "Risk", "failure", "flexibility" , it all can become as manipulative as political speech about "liberty", "democracy" and "free markets".

However, the 176 pages seem like 20. Despite footnotes, Sennett seems to be writing as if he were the first observer of capitalism, entirely out of character for the profound author of "The Hidden Injuries of Class:. The exact nature of the impact on character in this newer book seems largely unestablished. The efforts of unions, albeit sparse with hi-tech, goes unnoticed. The real consequences on real lives becomes an apparent gentlemenly philosophical exercise. How carefully he closes: "But I do know a regime which provides human beings no deep reasons to care about one another cannot long preserve its legitimacy". If there were, in this book, more sociological and less anecdotal support for such a claim, "The Corrosion of Character" might be worth your reading. As it is, you may well know it yourself.

Sennett does note at the end a "fear of the resurgence of unions". I didn't see that Sennett provided any pointers on where to seek help apart from an abstract appeal to community. Instead of watching your own character corrode, one possibility is seeking out a union on the Web (such as the Industrial Workers of the World).

This book was a big disappointment as I had read Sennett before and been quite impressed, so I may now have expected a lot. It may still be that for some readers this book will help identify for them what is troubling about their work and serve as a basis for discussion of work problems with others.

Yes, but..........2006-04-25

I don't know yet if I learned something I didn't knew from this book. The examples Sennett gives are really entertaining; so much that I think maybe he should follow the Clifford Geertz road (or a more mainstream Barbara Ehrenreich one!). It was also refreshing to listen to old classic names as Smith, some old greek and that one of the Encyclopedia (ah, yes, Diderot). The use of the classics was especially good in Sennett's discussion of character and work, from antiquity passing by Christendom, Calvinism and reaching Weber's 'wordly ascetism' (Ch. 6: The Work Ethic). The rest of the book is not very innovative for the informed sociologist (but I loved the shot in the last chapter against those neo-tocquevillian communitarians Putnam style). So I don't know if recommend this book to you or not. It brings some interesting ideas about the relation of labor structure to character, but mostly does not go deep enough in each facet of the subject. Each chapter could be expanded to be a book in itself, and maybe Sennett's intention was to let us to do it! About those reviewers that are in favour of late-capitalism oppression: enjoy your 'happy life' because nobody's safe. Maybe next year it will be your turn. Anyway we will help you; that is the problem of being from the Left... we care.

Reminds us to think.......2006-04-20

If a book is 205 pages long, and at the end, you have learned 30 pages worth of thought, this can, I guess, been called an incredibly rich book. "Corrosion of character" provides, I would say, a little less, but after all, Sennett is a Sociologist, if I get it right, so diluted messages come at no surprise. Just kidding, of course. I guess people would not buy the book would it be just 25 pages long, and then Sennett could not make all the travels and conversation in doubtlessly expensive intercontinental flights. And the idea of analyzing the working environment of today's people is an interesting one. Not spectacularly new, true enough, but then it comes down to the avility of the author to develop new ideas and show new examples in order to keep the interested. Sennett can do that, and I was only rarely bore, even though I would not be able to define now, that I've read it, what the news really was. There is a floating idea rather than a concrete list of issues: accept that your (our) life needs be permanently refelcted, that you have the liberty to free yourself from the pressures of your environment - and that you should do so at times, because otherwise you may get lost and never have the chance to think about "what went wrong" again. The important message of the book is to remind us of that.

Le travail sans qualites: les consequences humaines de la flexibilite.(Review): An article from: Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations

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Le travail sans qualites: les consequences humaines de la flexibilite.(Review): An article from: Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations
Fernand Morin
Manufacturer: Relations Industrielles
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B0008JADFK
Release Date: 2005-07-28

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, published by Relations Industrielles on September 22, 2000. The length of the article is 1571 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Le travail sans qualites: les consequences humaines de la flexibilite.(Review)
Author: Fernand Morin
Publication: Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations (Refereed)
Date: September 22, 2000
Publisher: Relations Industrielles
Volume: 55 Issue: 4 Page: 793

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

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Great Writing. Scholarly, yet a Pleasure. Pulitzer Prize

Excellent Companion: War Administration

Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom 1940-1945
James MacGregor Burns
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox (Leaders of Our Times Series)

Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932-1945: With a New Afterword (Oxford Paperbacks)

The Politics of Upheaval: 1935-1936, The Age of Roosevelt, Volume III (The Age of Roosevelt)

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The Coming of the New Deal: 1933-1935, The Age of Roosevelt, Volume II (The Age of Roosevelt)

ASIN: 0156027577

Book Description

This award-winning companion volume to Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox concludes the first and most acclaimed complete biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Undoubtedly the most comprehensive study of one of America's most acclaimed presidents, this classic biography is unparalleled in its depth, accuracy, and accomplishment.

Customer Reviews:

Great Writing. Scholarly, yet a Pleasure. Pulitzer Prize.......2005-06-02

This scholarly, yet elegant, book won the Pulitzer Prize, Francis Parkman Prize, and National Book Award. It thoroughly covers Roosevelt's presidency leading up to and including World War II, and yet the prose is unusually engaging for a work with so much information.

"Soldier of Freedom" covers America's dilemma leading up the war. Should America get involved or not? How should Roosevelt lead an isolationist America to responsibly confront the war that waged in Europe? How should America plan for the threat? What strategy to win the biggest war in history? What kind of peace?

Once the war began, America needed to become mobilized. This book tells the story of war administration in scholarly detail. It covers especially well Roosevelt's diplomacy, so important for victory. He understood that alliances would be crucial to win World War Two, which meant tactful maneuvers and calculated trade-offs. The book also presents Roosevelt's interpretation of the meaning of the war and his vision for a better post-war world.

As one of the reviews states on the back of the book, "Soldier of Freedom" combines rigorous scholarship while being enjoyable to read.

"The Time 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century" named Einstein, Gandi and Franklin D. Roosevelt the three most important people of that Century. This book partly explains why FDR was the most important politician of the 20th Century.

FDR created the modern, powerful presidency. He transformed America from weak, uninvolved isolationism into an active superpower. He established the firm posture of moral, yet pragmatic, international leadership (FDR Americanism) that would serve America (and the world) so well through the Cold War.

James MacGregor Burns, the author, is a great scholar and biographer, and therefore I believe this to be a highly authoritative biography. For example, Burns also wrote one of the best biographies of George Washington. He has authored several excellent works about leadership, including the book "Transforming Leadership." I believe his scholarship is highly authoritative and fair.

I remember reading quotes that Burns made in newspaper stating that Ronald Reagan was "a great or near-great president" because Reagan was a "transforming" president, like Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt. (Reagan, by the way, adored FDR, voted for him multiple times, and attended one of FDR's inaugurations - a deeply moving event for Reagan).

General readers interested in Franklin Roosevelt can also choose from many other one-volume biographies by other authors, such as Black's superb "Champion of Freedom," "Leuchtenburg's "Franklin D. Roosevelt," Friedel's "Rendezvous with Destiny," or Jenkins' brief "Franklin Delano Roosevelt."

Finally, Roosevelt was a powerful speaker. In one survey of speech experts, Roosevelt was ranked the greates presidential speeker, with Reagan coming in second. (Reagan borrowed heavily from Roosevelt, both in style and content). Roosevelt's inauguration speech in 1940 is regarded as one of the ten greatest presidential speeches. It wonderfully defined the impending struggle for freedom against Hitler. Here is Roosevelt's speech:

"On each national day of inauguration since 1789, the people have renewed their sense of dedication to the United States.

"In Washington's day the task of the people was to create and weld together a nation.

"In Lincoln's day the task of the people was to preserve that Nation from disruption from within.

"In this day the task of the people is to save that Nation and its institutions from disruption from without.

"To us there has come a time, in the midst of swift happenings, to pause for a moment and take stock--to recall what our place in history has been, and to rediscover what we are and what we may be. If we do not, we risk the real peril of inaction.

"Lives of nations are determined not by the count of years, but by the lifetime of the human spirit. The life of a man is three-score years and ten: a little more, a little less. The life of a nation is the fullness of the measure of its will to live.

"There are men who doubt this. There are men who believe that democracy, as a form of Government and a frame of life, is limited or measured by a kind of mystical and artificial fate that, for some unexplained reason, tyranny and slavery have become the surging wave of the future--and that freedom is an ebbing tide.

"But we Americans know that this is not true.

"Eight years ago, when the life of this Republic seemed frozen by a fatalistic terror, we proved that this is not true. We were in the midst of shock--but we acted. We acted quickly, boldly, decisively.

"These later years have been living years--fruitful years for the people of this democracy. For they have brought to us greater security and, I hope, a better understanding that life's ideals are to be measured in other than material things.

"Most vital to our present and our future is this experience of a democracy which successfully survived crisis at home; put away many evil things; built new structures on enduring lines; and, through it all, maintained the fact of its democracy.

"For action has been taken within the three-way framework of the Constitution of the United States. The coordinate branches of the Government continue freely to function. The Bill of Rights remains inviolate. The freedom of elections is wholly maintained. Prophets of the downfall of American democracy have seen their dire predictions come to naught.

"Democracy is not dying.

"We know it because we have seen it revive--and grow.

"We know it cannot die--because it is built on the unhampered initiative of individual men and women joined together in a common enterprise--an enterprise undertaken and carried through by the free expression of a free majority.

"We know it because democracy alone, of all forms of government, enlists the full force of men's enlightened will.

"We know it because democracy alone has constructed an unlimited civilization capable of infinite progress in the improvement of human life.

"We know it because, if we look below the surface, we sense it still spreading on every continent--for it is the most humane, the most advanced, and in the end the most unconquerable of all forms of human society.

"A nation, like a person, has a body--a body that must be fed and clothed and housed, invigorated and rested, in a manner that measures up to the objectives of our time.

"A nation, like a person, has a mind--a mind that must be kept informed and alert, that must know itself, that understands the hopes and the needs of its neighbors--all the other nations that live within the narrowing circle of the world.

"And a nation, like a person, has something deeper, something more permanent, something larger than the sum of all its parts. It is that something which matters most to its future--which calls forth the most sacred guarding of its present.

"It is a thing for which we find it difficult--even impossible--to hit upon a single, simple word.

"And yet we all understand what it is--the spirit--the faith of America. It is the product of centuries. It was born in the multitudes of those who came from many lands--some of high degree, but mostly plain people, who sought here, early and late, to find freedom more freely.

"The democratic aspiration is no mere recent phase in human history. It is human history. It permeated the ancient life of early peoples. It blazed anew in the middle ages. It was written in Magna Charta.

"In the Americas its impact has been irresistible. America has been the New World in all tongues, to all peoples, not because this continent was a new-found land, but because all those who came here believed they could create upon this continent a new life--a life that should be new in freedom.

"Its vitality was written into our own Mayflower Compact, into the Declaration of Independence, into the Constitution of the United States, into the Gettysburg Address.

"Those who first came here to carry out the longings of their spirit, and the millions who followed, and the stock that sprang from them--all have moved forward constantly and consistently toward an ideal which in itself has gained stature and clarity with each generation.

"The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.

"We know that we still have far to go; that we must more greatly build the security and the opportunity and the knowledge of every citizen, in the measure justified by the resources and the capacity of the land.

"But it is not enough to achieve these purposes alone. It is not enough to clothe and feed the body of this Nation, and instruct and inform its mind. For there is also the spirit. And of the three, the greatest is the spirit.

"Without the body and the mind, as all men know, the Nation could not live.

"But if the spirit of America were killed, even though the Nation's body and mind, constricted in an alien world, lived on, the America we know would have perished.

"That spirit--that faith--speaks to us in our daily lives in ways often unnoticed, because they seem so obvious. It speaks to us here in the Capital of the Nation. It speaks to us through the processes of governing in the sovereignties of 48 States. It speaks to us in our counties, in our cities, in our towns, and in our villages. It speaks to us from the other nations of the hemisphere, and from those across the seas--the enslaved, as well as the free. Sometimes we fail to hear or heed these voices of freedom because to us the privilege of our freedom is such an old, old story.

"The destiny of America was proclaimed in words of prophecy spoken by our first President in his first inaugural in 1789--words almost directed, it would seem, to this year of 1941: "The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered ... deeply, ... finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people."

"If we lose that sacred fire--if we let it be smothered with doubt and fear--then we shall reject the destiny which Washington strove so valiantly and so triumphantly to establish. The preservation of the spirit and faith of the Nation does, and will, furnish the highest justification for every sacrifice that we may make in the cause of national defense.

"In the face of great perils never before encountered, our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of democracy.

"For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America.

"We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God."

Excellent Companion: War Administration.......2000-04-16

This is Mr. Burns' companion volume to his Lion and the Fox (check that out). This focuses on FDR's WWII War Administration: policies, attitudes, hopes and worldly goals.

FDR's dedication to the well-being of the United States in WWII is evidenced by the fact that to start with, he didn't want a third term in office come 1940. Indeed, such aspirations were frowned upon in the political community. It did not stop him; as he saw it, it was his duty and obligation to the American people to keep familiar leadership in time of international turmoil. Other obstacles: struggles to arm allies, constant planning and meeting with allied leaders, and gradual, failing health. Burns also shows FDR's political savvy, using the utilization for war to the nation's advantage. Many unemployed workers were put back to work, which helped shift American industry into an overdrive that didn't stop for decades. Vision: as a disciple of Woodrow Wilson, he had a vision of a United Nations. One that he did not live to see.

For anyone reading about FDR, or World War II, this companion volume on his war administration is a must for anyone's collection, as it has become in mine.

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Roosevelt, The Soldier of Freedom 1940-1945

Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace & Jovanovich, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000GL7W8Q

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An Insightful Study

Roosevelt (The Soldier of Freedom: 1940-1945)
James MacGregor Burns
Manufacturer: History Book Club/Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 1582882606

Product Description

Francis Parkman Prize Edition awarded by the Society of American Historians. Includes illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

An Insightful Study.......2007-07-08

This is a study of Franklin D. Roosevelt's leadership as president between the years 1940-1945. The author is certainly a scholar on President Roosevelt and this study is choke full of information that makes this an extremely informative, but for me, a bit of a slow read. Burns' thesis is that Roosevelt was both the idealist and the realist. His often lofty goals and dreams could often be compromised for the more pragmatic (some might say perfidious) decisions reached. It is indeed a dichotomy that shows throughout this study. But despite this lack of cohesion between an effectual joining of these two traits, Roosevelt's wartime leadership is still heralded by most historians.

For some who might want to know more about the actual military engagements in Europe and the Pacific, you might be a bit disappointed. This book is more concerned with strategies developed by Roosevelt and other leaders for both fronts, where priority should be given, how the alliance worked together and so forth. Roosevelt's respect for public opinion was certainly a major factor for his early hesitancy to rush to the aid of Great Britain. Indeed, Roosevelt was seemingly always guided by popular opinion, though I think he probably was ahead of it in ways.

Some of the interesting facets of this book that helped shed some insight for me on Roosevelt's foreign policy was his belief that China had to be a major player in the postwar world, even though he perhaps overestimated China's military capabilities under Chiang Kai-shek. His understanding of the importance of trying to keep good relations with Russia came through as well. His anti-colonialism was often used to tweak Churchill, though as Burns stated, Roosevelt would never go too far in the risk of jeopardizing allied partnership. In these cases, especially with Russia and Great Britain, we see many instances where Roosevelt would often suppress some of his loftier goals for the postwar world for practical, short term success.

The chapters that I thought were the best were the ones that dealt with the meetings between Churchill and Roosevelt and later between the Big Three at Tehran and Yalta. The chapter entitled Dominion of Mars was also well written and powerful, as was the last chapter. The worries, the tensions, the importance of the times all came through to me in this book. The personality traits of Roosevelt were also illuminated, though as Burns mentioned, he was a complex character and very hard to truly understand.

Burns also proves himself to be a very balanced historian, detailing the things Roosevelt knew how to do and what he did right along with those things he did not excel in. Some have questioned his commitment to Civil Rights for blacks, many have castigated the Japanese-American internment camps, his efforts on helping the Jews, his dealings with Stalin and so forth. I think these and other questions are fair criticisms and let's face it, no man when dealing with so many difficult questions and situations will come off clean on all points. There can be no doubt that Franklin Roosevelt was a giant in American politics and that perhaps he was indeed the right man for the job at such a critical juncture in world history.

Roosevelt : The Soldier of Freedom, 1940-1945

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Roosevelt : The Soldier of Freedom, 1940-1945
James M. Burns
Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OND3Q6

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Roosevelt Soldier of Freedom 1940-1945
James MacGregor Burns
Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O3NO2O

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Roosevelt : The Soldier of Freedom, 1940-1945
James M. Burns
Manufacturer: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJG2VS

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ROOSEVELT = THE SOLDIER OF FREEDOM 1940 - 1945

Manufacturer: HARCOURT .INC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HQK2AK

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ROOSEVELT, THE SOLDIER OF FREEDOM 1940-1945
JAMES MACGREGOR BURNS
Manufacturer: Harvest/Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000IWTTCA

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ROOSEVELT, THE SOLDIER OF FREEDOM 1940-1945
JAMES MACGREGOR BURNS
Manufacturer: Harvest/HBJ Book
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJTUWQ

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Roosevelt: Soldier of Freedom 1940-1945
James MacGregor Burns
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJEECW

Book Description

Victorian Ontario included people from all walks of life from homeless beggars to wealthy gentry. In Much To Be Done we glimpse how life was lived in 19th-century Ontario, not only in the grand mansions, but also in the farm houses and streets where our ancestors lived.

This publication could be your great-grandmother's story, following the cycle of life from courtship to childbirth to celebration and death. Diaries, with some contributions from letters, newspapers and reminiscences, provide a fresh and contemporary viewpoint. Much To Be Done promotes a historical understanding which links people of today with the Ontario of the past.

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Interesting, but...

Painless Backgrounder

Too Reverential

A Great Overview of His Life

Weak

An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland
H. P. Jeffers
Manufacturer: William Morrow & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Political | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Presidents & Heads of State | Leaders & Notable People | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | United States | Historical | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | United States | Americas | History | Subjects | Books
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Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur ([Signature series book])

Chester Alan Arthur (The American Presidents)

Rutherford B. Hayes

ASIN: 038097746X
Release Date: 2000-05-30

Book Description

Grover Cleveland is known primarily as the only president to be elected to two nonconsecutive terms. But his record as a staunch reformer is equally impressive: from fighting powerful bosses in both political parties and vetoing bills he considered raids on the Treasury to resisting American imperialism and robber barons alike. And when he became embroiled in scandal -- from fathering a child out of wedlock to (legally) evading the Civil War -- he faced his past truthfully and confronted his demons directly.

In graceful and enduring prose, H. Paul Jeffers gives us the first full look at a president whose moral timber and courageous administrations have more to say to today's politicians than perhaps that of any other leader in American history.

Customer Reviews:

Interesting, but..........2005-04-01

Please keep in mind that I think three stars means "Okay" and that "okay" isn't a bad thing.

I didn't know anything about Grover Cleveland. After reading this book, I found that I liked him far more than most Presidents. However, I wish that the book went into greater depth or analyzed his life a bit deeper.

The author makes various comparisons between Cleveland's sexual behaviors to those of Clinton's, which is fine. But I would have liked to have had other comparisons as well.

This is an interesting book and it left me wanting to know more about its subject.

Painless Backgrounder.......2004-01-31

Jeffers provides a painless background on one of the least-remembered Presidents for those who need to fill in the blank spots of their US history timelines. The writing is fluent and the narrative moves quickly. But the book is not for scholars. Important issues of the times, including the Financial Panic of 1893, the free-silver movement, Hawaii and the imperialist impulse, and the growth of organized labor are covered in a few passages or pages. I especially found the discussion of Cleveland's racial attitudes and civil rights policies insufficient; for a President governing during the implementation of Jim Crow, more than a few paragraphs about the issue were warranted. For detailed discussions of those important historical issues, the reader will have to go to more specialized sources.

Too Reverential.......2003-11-03

Something is missing from this picture -- a two-time president, three-time presidential nominee and former New York governor who "never, ever" trimmed his sails for expediency, was "always" honest and consistently stuck to his convictions no matter the political cost? Not credible. To read this book one would think that Grover Cleveland was literally the second coming. The portrait is overly worshipful, completely one-sided, and ultimately unpersuasive. In particular, attempts at comparison to Bill Clinton and "Zippergate" (as the author calls it) fall totally flat and are completely gratuitous. There is little real analysis here, and too much regurgitation of what prior biographers have written.

I don't doubt that Cleveland was a unique politician, a man well-positioned in his time to take advantage of the public's increasing distaste for the spoils system and the fractional and petty squabbles that marked the Republican party from 1868-84 (Stalwarts vs. Half Breeds, Conkling vs. Blaine, Garfield vs. Conkling, etc). The early chapters on Cleveland's meteoric rise from an obscure sheriff to mayor of Buffalo to governor of New York to president in a few short years are fairly interesting. But Cleveland the man, particularly during his two presidential terms, comes across as a wooden, cardboard figure; no real flavor or insight into his personality and character emerges. Some biographies are too heavy on psycho-babble, maybe this book could have used some of that.

A Great Overview of His Life.......2003-02-04

In a quest to read a biography of every American president, I found this one of Cleveland a satisfying and easy read. Jeffers doesn't seek to make the bio an in-depth study of his personal knowledge of English vocabulaly; thus the easier read, a welcome break from the 600-pagers of some other presidents. Although over 300 pages, this biography goes fast and I didn't find myself wishing it would end. It gave the facts truthfully, thoroughly and precisely; and that's what I needed.

Weak.......2003-01-10

The author appears to have done no original research. He quotes so extensively from earlier biographies that I wish I could read one of them instead. Alas, they all seem to be out of print... If you just want an outline of Cleveland's life and presidency, then I suppose this books is okay, but if you want any insight or analysis, look elsewhere.

Book Description

National Book Award nominee Beth Kephart's new book is an enchanting midlife meditation on aging, identity, and memory set against the backdrop of Chanticleer garden in Pennsylvania. On the morning of her forty-first birthday, Kephart, a mother, wife, and writer pressured by deadlines, finds herself at Chanticleer, one of the world's most celebrated pleasure gardens. She knows little of the language of flowers. Week after week, she returns to Chanticleer, recalling her childhood self, mulling over legacy and soul, striking up friendships with gardeners and conversations with other visitors. Succored by the seasons and the weather, she finds the grace notes in approaching middle age. There are lessons in seeds, and she finds them. There are lessons in letting go. Kephart writes about questions we all ask ourselves: How do we remember who we used to be? How do we imagine who we'll become? Have we lived our lives as we set out to do? What legacies do we wish to leave behind? The book spans a two-year cycle, and each chapter is accompanied by a gorgeous black-and-white photograph of Chanticleer by William Sulit. Ghosts in the Garden pulses with possibility and purpose, with wisdom that is ageless and transcendent.

Customer Reviews:

Garden of Blossoming Words.......2006-03-21

The author of this small book, that would so easily fit the hands while walking a garden, ready to open while perhaps sitting on a fallen log or stump or among flowerbeds, is a poet in prose. Kephart has written an ongoing essay, covering the seasons of a garden as she covers the changing seasons of her own life. On her 41st birthday, she has a sobering moment of realization. She is about to enter midlife with all its reassessments and transformation and growth, all the realizations of changing roles as wife, mother, woman, writer. Discovering the garden called Chanticleer near her Philadelphia home gives her contemplations a beautiful backdrop, if not a solid grounding to view herself as she views the natural world around her.

Kephart walks the paths of the public garden and observes, then translates poetically to us, her readers, how she gradually learns to accept the changes inevitable in life. She observes nature as she observes the gardeners themselves. On occasion, she takes with her on her walks her young son, other times her husband, who captures Chanticleer in his own art medium - photography - adding his black and white images to Kephart's text.

Perhaps one moment so captured that might sum up Kephart's process of midlife transformation is a short essay about the garden after a storm:

"The garden had been put in its place by weather, and so had the rest of us; we are so entirely miniscule in comparison to wind and rain and hail. We were aware of how everything was angled newly. Made jagged or raw. Thinned out. We were reminded of other storms that had blown in, then turned and vanished.

"On that day only the gardeners seem brave - hauling broken branches and clumps of errant leaves from wherever they had gotten to, straightening the stakes and invisible ties, suggesting, by the way they carried things, that the world would be made right again. The gardeners were muddy and burdened and resilient because love is the only chance a garden's got. For the moment, and in the moment. Now because of then."

The walk through Kephart's garden of words is a path well worth taking.

a poetic, enriching, wise and calming little book.......2005-04-28

I am always worried where I send for little reflective books that the writing will be flat and the thoughts dull. This one shimmers on the page and the simple, wise writing is pure poetry. I also walked in the garden through the pages and found that, as the author learned and grew with the seasons and her brief encounters with others, so did I. I am keeping this one on my night table to dip into often.

Enchanting........2005-03-22

Kephart again uses her beautiful gift of prose to bring us these reflections from Chanticleer. I deliberately took my time with this book, for I wanted to savor each page. The accompanying images add to the peaceful feeling of the book. I highly recommend this book.

A beautiful, lyrical read - great Mothers Day gift.......2005-03-20

This book is lovely. It is beautifully written, reflective - you want to take your time and savor it. The photos are a wonderful complement to the book. I think it would be a perfect Mothers Day gift. Make a cup of tea and read this book. I loved it.

Ghosts in the Garden: Reflections on Endings, Beginnings, and the Unearthing of Self

Average customer rating:

Ghosts in the Garden: Reflections on Endings, Beginnings, and the Unearthing of Self
Beth Kephart
Manufacturer: New World Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N7D85E

Book Description

Radie Britain (1899-1994) was a famous twentieth-century composer whose orchestral compositions have been performed by leading orchestras around the world and one composition, A String Quartet, was performed at the White House. Includes a chronology of events and awards and a chronological list of her works.

Customer Reviews:

It's time for another look at the evidence........2005-11-19

Anyone even the least familiar with the writings of Josephus knows that they contain two references to Jesus. One of them, the most well known, has been dubbed the "Testimonium Flavianum," denoting a "testimony" by Flavius Josephus to events concerning Jesus in Judea.

For centuries, the two references to Jesus, and especially the "Testimonium Flavianum," have been hotly debated by scholars. At issue, whether Josephus really penned the words, or whether they represent a later interpolation.

But many today who know that the authenticity of the Testimonium Flavianum has been challenged through the centuries, do not know that there is much fresh scholarship on the matter, that in fact the scholarship has improved, and, that there is new evidence to bring to the discussion. Not only have more recent manuscript discoveries shed new light on the matter, but it is now universally recognized by scholars that earlier expositions on the matter, both pro and con, were more biased, sectarian motivated, than some of the more recent research.

Some of the new scholarship, more removed from the earlier predjudices, is well worth hearing, not to mention truly refreshing and surprising.

Dr. Alice Whealey (University of California, Berkeley) is one of those brilliant modern minds bringing fresh evidence and insight to the discussion. No matter what "position" a reader may ultimately embrace, he will be enriched, and his education enhanced, by hearing what Dr. Whealey has to say.

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