Cunningham Reviews

Lewis Cass is one of the strangest biographies I have ever read. Only rarely in the book is Lewis Cass the center of the narrative. After reading the book, I still do not know if Lewis Cass was ever married or had a family. I know very little about his personality or disposition. I know only about his public career and some of the public issues with which he was involved during his long public career. Cass is presented almost exclusively through his public actions, statements and writings.

His public career is quite a story in itself. This native of New Hampshire move west into Ohio in time for Cass to become a general in the War of 1812, fighting on the front between Detroit and what is now Ontario. He then stayed in Michigan where he served 18 years as territorial governor.

Having grown into a National Statesman, Cass later served Andrew Jackson as Secretary of War, followed by a term as Ambassador to France. Upon to his return to the United States, Cass was a serious candidate for the Democratic nomination for President in 1844 before a deadlocked convention turned to James K. Polk. Four years later, Cass won the nomination, only to lose the election to Gen. Zachary Taylor, a loss which, according to the book, was probably attributable to the candidacy of former President Martin Van Buren on the Free Soil Ticket.

Presidential politics being behind him, Cass served two terms as Michigan's Senator until the rise of the Republican party swept him out of the Senate and into the cabinet President Buchanan's as Secretary of State. It was from this position that Cass watched the dissolution of the country as well as the cabinet in the waning days of that administration.

Returning to Michigan, Cass supported the cause of national unity until his death in 1866.

The most interesting thing about this book is the literary style in which it is written. Throughout the book, Cass is portrayed as a righteous character opposed by a series of villainous figures toward whom attention is directed in the particular sections of the book. Prominent among these are General Hull of the War of 1812, Andrew Jackson and James Buchanan. The general style is to relate a particular aspect of history and then allude to the public role which Cass played in it.

During the section on the War of 1812, Cass' position is contrasted favorably with that of Gen. Hull who is treated most roughly in the narrative. In the section on Cass' governorship of the Wisconsin territory, most of the attention is directed to the French inhabitants who occupied the territory at the start of Cass' tenure. A contrast is drawn the French, who are presented as happy but unambitious, and Cass who introduced American initiative and drive into the territory and, thereby, advanced it into the Western powerhouse which it became.

The section on his service in Jackson's cabinet portrays Jackson in a very unfavorable light, while praising Cass. Cass' service as Minster to France is presented most favorably.

Cass' Senate years were dominated primarily by the issues of slavery which were gradually tearing the nation apart. Cass is portrayed as the creator of the doctrine of Popular Sovereignty in which the voters of each territory would be permitted to decide the issue of slavery for itself. Swipes are taken at Stephen A. Douglas who is popularly remembered as the advocate of that position. The conclusion of the Senate service is seen against the backdrop of the swing of the Northwest from its tradition allegiance to the Democracy (Democratic Party) to the new Republican party which would soon sweep the area and the country into Civil War.

The service in Buchanan's cabinet is used to present the deterioration of the country as well as Buchanan's feeble efforts to deal with the problem.

The style of writing is shockingly judgmental in its treatment of the public figures portrayed in the book. While modern readers may expect to see facts presented in a way as to portray figures in favorable or unfavorable lights, we rarely expect to see the conclusions presented by strong and extreme adjectives.

What real value there is in this book is its portrayal of the general history of the times and places in which Cass played his roles in the nation's drama as portrayed in the 1890s. It is in seeing our history from through the 1890s eyes of the author that we can take the greatest lessons from this book.

I picked up this book hoping to learn a little about the way production is designed, rigged and run for major touring operations. To that end I guess I was satisfied with this book.

However, for those without specific technological know how, I suspect this book will be fairly heavy going.

It is interesting for the gee whiz factor, but I'll be surprised if the average musician can make head nor tail of most of the facts in this book.

It's unclear how someone with Mary Cunningham's self-claimed brilliance could produce so poorly written a book, especially with the help of a ghostwriter. This is Ms. Cunningham's side of the story of the 1980 scandal that forced her resignation from Bendix. Ironically, her disingenuous claims of naivete and selfless devotion make the accusations against her seem more plausible rather than less so. It's a lively read but probably the least credible of several books to cover the Bendix-Martin Marietta merger battle that destroyed the company Ms. Cunningham claimed to love.

I can honestly say this is the most boring and pointless book I have ever read.

It depens on what person you are to enjoy it or not. It was not my kind of book, yet I enjoyed the cat, Ringo. I know some people enjoyed it.

Cunningham and Stuller's book has more errors than I have ever previously encountered in a book, greatly hindering the learning process. It also, is not geared toward beginning circuits students, but instead it finds a way to complicate analysis, which with proper explanation could be quite simplistic. The examples are not near the calibur of what is expected to be learned out of the courses taught with it and they should be corresponding not contradictory and hindering the learning process

The book by Cunningham and Stuller, Second edition was not as good as I had hoped. I thought that the book had way too many errors in it. Another thing the book was geared toward someone with a good view of electrical circuits. The problems given at the end of the chapter were much harder to understand with the overly simple examples in the text. I think that the book could have been written with much better ease of learning. James O. Smith

I thought this book Was so boring! There wasn't even to solve.If you read this book prepared to be bored.

These books really have no meaning. There isn't any depth to the characters or plot. I wouldn't recommend these books to anyone.

If I could give negative stars, I would. To start with, the first word of the title is a lie--"Learn". The author spends a full FIVE PAGES or so explaining every thing there is to know about Assembly Language (and anyone who has even dabbled with Assembly knows this to be an impossibility), then goes on to provide some of the most lame, unproductive, totally forgettable "Routines" that tell the reader nothing about what Assembly Language does. That the back cover of the book claims it is "for the beginner" is even more reprehensible than the title of the book itself-- "Learn Turbo Assembler in a Day." What's next from these people? "Memorize the complete works of Shakespeare while you sleep?" (Actually, that might be a good companion piece to this book, as the people who are reading it are most assuredly sleeping.) Having read plenty of books about Assembly language, from beginner to advanced, I have to say that this one, without a doubt, is the most useless-- I wish I had paid my money for a book filled with blank pages; at least then I could have made some good use of the paper.

So we have a contemporary novel set in a UK seashore resort where a young aspiring actress (and I use the word actress very liberally here) accepts the lead role in a play about sex .....

Our heroine, Holly, while asleep, has a pernicious tendency to have erotic dreams, and, while shes awake, well shes pretty much naked, spread eagle for just about everyone. Yup, even the people she hates have total access to her body .....

OK.. in my view, erotica has to have some element pursuit, capture and ultimate sweet submission, but, when you are nothing more than a live action porn actress you don't have erotica but rater a very very long Penthouse letter ....

Once again, Llewellyn is making the ignorant mistake of equating Brujeria with the Wiccan religion. Wicca is NOT the Brujeria of today--there's already a longstanding tradition called Brujeria which remains the Brujeria of today, thank you. The text is obviously a rote translation from English into Spanglish, with all of the fire of a Babelfish translation. The more I read Llewellyn's titles in Spanish, the more alarmed I become at how little thought seemd to go into the translation. But the bottom line---NO, la Wicca no es la Brujeria de hoy. La Brujeria es la Brujeria de hoy!

When I ordered this book, I was expecting, as in most medically-oriented books, a reasonably well documented work, laying out the most recent research covering the topic, with footnotes leading me to both the sources the author used in writing the book, as well as material for additional research. This book has none of that. There wasn't a hint of the author's background. There wasn't a single footnote. Had I not suffered from RLS for over twenty years, I wouldn't have been able to even guess as to the validity of the material. Fortunately, I have personal experience of most of the conclusions arrived at in the book, and found them to be reasonably accurate, allowing me to infer that the remaining conclusions are also valid.
My recommendation: Don't buy this book. Instead, check out the other books on this topic carried by Amazon, which are better documented, and thus more reliable sources.