Ford Reviews

Ms. Wiltshire attempts a lot in this book -- to trace the theme of personal rights over 2000 years of history from ancient Greece and Rome through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and into colonial America, culminating in the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The nature of the task and the size of the book make more than a cursory attempt at a historical lineage impossible. Nevertheless, Ms. Wiltshire has provided some introductory framework for the discussion.

Some portions of the book (particularly her discussion of the ninth and tenth amendments and her attempt to paint the Apostle Paul as a natural law theorist) are contrived.

I thought the book was a reasonable introduction to the subject until I read her conclusion and a separate essay she wrote on the book, in which she stated that her purpose in writing was to place the origin of the bill of rights in a classical, as opposed to a Judeo-Christian, context. While I would agree with her that the typical fundamentalist exaggerates when he paints the framers of the Constitution as almost entirely orthodox Christians, I would disagree with her conclusion that Christianity was not a primary influence. For a better treatment of this view, read Forrest McDonald's "Novus Ordo Seclorum: Intellectual Origins of the Constitution," where he concludes that it is futile to say with any dogmatism that the "founding fathers thought," or "the founding fathers intended," because the framers of the Constitution were a diverse group with diverse backgrounds and interests.

HENRY AND EDSEL offers insight into the characters of Henry and Edsel Ford and what it was that compelled them. The book presents a strong sense of time and the Fords' presence in and contribution to the events around them. The book is filled with interesting anecdotes. The best part for me were the several chapters called "rearview mirror" -- accounts written by eyewitnesses who recorded their version of important events: Edsel's death, the riots, etc. The author also introduced us to some of the hard workers and bright people Henry surrounded himself with in order to get to the top. One person CAN change the world -- but almost never alone.

What will be found in this short volume is not the original writings of these two prolific writers of the Early Church, but a simple and concise outline of the principle aspects of their major works. With the absence of the original writings, these outlines will obviously lack usefulness; however, with these authors' works at hand, this volume will be quite helpful.

It as very good details, but it's not for your casual reader. If you really want to know what life was like without the flowery images of popular culture, this is the one to read. Not exactly subway reading, but you'll understand life for the average person in the middle ages like never before.

A fairly good book, but certainly not excellent. Selina was a young woman returning to her past in Greece. She was orginally only going for a vacation, but she realized she could not escape the long arm of the husband she had fled at 16 years old. Now 19, she has to face her family. Arranged to be marriaged to Alex, the head of the powerful Greek clan, AND her second cousin, she had always carried a crush on him secretly since she was very young. But she felt she was too young to wed him when her mother asked her to, and fled. Now, older and wiser, she thinks she still wants to disavow this marriage, but soon Alex changes her mind. It wasn't so much the age of Selina that got to me when she married, but that it was the same family. I also found Selina very silly and immature even at 19, forever viewing Alex in a childhood light, never as a man. I, at first, disliked Alex, but I soon began feeling sorry for him in how he couldn't seem to break past Selina's illusions. But I still give this book a mediocre thumbs up.
Cyndi

Not being a published author its a lot esaier to critique someone else's work than write your own. What does that have to do with this review? Unfortunately I can not give this book the praise I have others at Amazon.
Ex-alcoholic Paul Tobin gets a second chance to be a plastic surgeon at his brother in law's antiagaing clinic in the Keys. However the patients of this clinic are dying which is the driving point in the plot to this novel.
Unfortunately though Steven Ford raises some timely issues, and his theme is intriquing its been done again and again in literature and fiction. His writing while clean and pure isn't exceptional enough to warrent a strong recommendation to readers who are not Mediacal thriller junkies anxiously waaiting Cook's latest book. Ford has his moments in this book that truly hint at his potential as writer and communicator of ideas using the thriller as his medium, for instance when Paul inevitably fell off the badwagon though not shocking or unpredicatably was handled in a manner that I did find myself rooting for him.
My biggest complaint is that Ford deals with the shades of grey of such things as are acts of maliscious intent evil if there is good cause for them, again while skilfully done in parts on the whole I felt so removed from all characters I didn't really dwell on answer to that, nor was particu;ar;y unsettled by some of the passages that should have unsettled me maybe I'm just too jaded a thriller reader, maybe Mr. Ford's editor's over edited copy, or maybe this is an author on the way to hitting his stride but not quite there yet. You decide.

My girls love tools but some of the illustrations were not very easy to distinguish. For instance one of the pages has a close up of a drill bit. But it's kind of cute and if you have young kids that like tools it will probably be enjoyed. Otherwise, probably not worth the price.

To read a book about the Ford Administration today you are either a die-hard political junky or a relative of someone who worked there. I have no such relatives. The book is actually just like the Ford administration, the most interesting parts all deal with Nixon, whether it is his late night file get away, the pardon or the staff that just did not quite understand that Nixon was not still running the show, these were the parts of the book that had the most weight. Reading the book I kept hoping that the author would provide some facts that would eliminate my view that Ford was lucky to stumble through 3 years and the USA was lucky nothing serious happened on his watch. It just seemed like Ford had short timers syndrome, just riding out his term so that he could collect his pension and get good tee times.

And by the way, is there any book that Al Haig shows up in that he is not roundly bashed, did no one like this guy? One of the interesting parts of the book is the staff that Ford had, it could be called the gangs all here. There is Bush 1, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Scowcroft, Greenspan, Gergen, Buchanan and Speaks. This bunch must travel in a pack from one administration to the next. It is a credit to the author that he was able to make the most politically boring time in recent American history somewhat enjoyable and interesting. Although many of the items I found interesting had to do with the old Nixon guard still causing trouble. Overall the book is probably more of an interest to someone interested in the Nixon administration more then Ford.

This book tries hard to be literary and just misses. It starts very slowly -- the very beginning, in which Elias builds a homestead in the deep woods, is interesting, but then it gets slow with the exception of one scene of really disturbing violence. Eventually, the Civil War starts, and while those scenes aren't badly done, I was put off by the fact that Elias' big action scene is stolen straight out of the life of Nathan Bedford Forrest. The writing here is decent, and it certainly isn't a *bad* book, but there are so many others out there that are better that it probably isn't worth seeking out.

Ken Ford, an English book-seller and amateur historian, has attempted a difficult task: to summarize the Allied offensives to clear the German forces from the west bank of the Rhine River in February-March 1945 and to do this in only the 96 pages allowed by the Osprey Campaign Series format. Although there are American and British official histories that cover this phase of the war in great detail, Ford has succeeded in supplementing the meager collection of one volume accounts of the battles in the Rhineland. Unfortunately, much of the account is overly-generalized and wastes space on well-known facts instead of getting down into the weeds and telling this story as it should be told.

The author gets off on the wrong foot in the initial sections on the origins of the battle, opposing commanders and opposing armies. Ford begins with a three-page discussion of Eisenhower's well-known "Broad Front" strategy that adds very little to a discussion of the Rhineland campaign. Worse, he focuses on very high level leaders like Eisenhower, Bradley, Model and ciphers like Simpson, Hodges and von Zangen. Corps commanders and below, like Horrocks and Meindl get no background detail. Most readers will be aware that Horrocks, as the commander of the British 30th Corps, failed to break through to the besieged British paratroopers at Arnhem in September 1944. Finally, the four pages on opposing armies fails to convey the tactical methods, organization or strengths and weaknesses of either side and instead focuses on the army and army group level. What the author failed to provide was any kind of background on the units that actually fought in the Rhineland battles. Ford calls all German paratrooper units "elite" when in actuality, the two units facing the British were far from elite: the 6th Parachute Division was formed only eight months prior and had been smashed in Normandy and Holland, while the 8th Parachute Division had been in existence for only two months and had no combat experience. Both units were in fact only regimental-size battle groups but Ford depicts them as full-size divisions on his maps. Similarly, the 9th, 11th and 116th Panzer Divisions that Ford mentions were also really just battlegroups with 20-30 tanks each and 3-4,000 troops. Furthermore, in a campaign where river-crossing and obstacle reduction was crucial, the failure to detail Allied engineer assets and capabilities was an enormous omission.

The discussion of the British Operation "Veritable" and the American Operation "Grenade" are succinct but do succeed in linking these operations together. Too often, accounts tend to "de-link" these battles because of nationalistic bias. Ford to his credit, does not. Both sections could have had greater detail however and it is difficult to get a feel for the desperate battles in the gloomy Reichswald Forrest here. Finally, covers the final US 1st, 3rd and 7th Army drives to the Rhine River. This should have concluded the campaign, but unfortunately Ford goes on to recount the subsequent Rhine-crossings and collapse of Germany; this was space that would have been better spent provided greater detail on the actual campaign rather than events outside its scope.

Ford's volume does have a good order of battle for both sides, the battle maps are decent and most of the photographs are excellent. The section on wargaming the campaign is quite good for an Osprey title and even mentions relevant board and computer games that cover the battle. However, this volume does not offer either new information or a fresh perspective on the battle but rather, an overly generalized summary that lacks sufficient background detail.