Book Description
The Wizard and the Warrior gives leaders the insight and courage they need to take risks on behalf of values they cherish and the people they guide. Great leaders must act both as wizard, calling on imagination, creativity, meaning, and magic, and as warrior, mobilizing strength, courage, and willingness to fight as necessary to fulfill their mission. Best-selling authors Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal present the defining moments and experiences of exemplary leaders such as Carly Fiorina, Thomas Keller (head chef of French Laundry), David Neeleman (CEO of Jet Blue), Mary Kay Ash, Warren Buffet, Anne Mulcahy, and Abraham Lincoln¾all of whom have wrested with their own inner warrior and wizard. These engaging, realistic case studies are followed by commentaries that will raise questions and suggest possibilities without rushing to resolution or simple answers.
Customer Reviews:
Innovative leadership lessons contrast dual forces.......2007-03-02
The market may be saturated with books about business leadership, but Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal move into fresh territory with this beautifully written, inspirational and practical guide. They impart advice on understanding workplace dynamics and nuances, and emerging as an effective leader. The book offers ample evidence to support the authors' basic assertion: Managers struggle because they have an idealistic approach that fails to account for organizational politics and intangible workplace factors, such as values, creativity and passion. The authors contend that managers who are unwilling to "play the game" will inevitably stumble and never realize their leadership potential. The book's wisdom and insight are built on the real-life lessons and experiences of dynamic leaders. We warmly praise this book and recommend it to any leader or potential leader who is willing to take a good, long look in the mirror.
Lead with passion and power...but also with principle and faith.......2007-02-08
Here is a synthesis of the core concepts in Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal's book: "The wizard and the warrior inhabit two distinct but overlapping worlds. The warrior's world is a place of combat, of allies and antagonists, courage and cowardice, honor and betrayal, strength and weakness...The wizard inhabits a realm of possibility, magic, and mystery. The wizard's strength lies not in arms or physical courage, but in wisdom, foresight, and the ability to see below and beyond appearances. The wizard brings unshakable faith that something new and better really is out there...The greatest leaders move and out of both roles, even if they are more comfortable with one or the other."
Bowman and Deal carefully organize their material in terms of three warrior roles in business, the military, the American presidency, and basketball coaching, respectively: Toxic (e.g. Al Dunlap, Hermann Goering, Richard Nixon, and Bobby Knight), Relentless (e.g. Bill Gates, Ulysses S. Grant, George W. Bush, and Mike Rzewski), and Principled (e.g. Warren Buffett, George Marshall, Abraham, Lincoln, and John Wooden); and in terms of three wizard roles within the aforementioned categories: Authentic (e.g. Liz Claiborne, Norman Schwarzkopf, Ronald Reagan, and Phil Jackson), Wannabe (e.g. Ken Lay, William Westmoreland, Woodrow Wilson, and Rudy Tomjanovich), and Harmful (e.g. Frank Lorenzo, Hermann Goering, Warren Harding, and Dave Bliss). Throughout their narrative, they rigorously examine exemplary warriors and wizards, building a case for their observation that "the greatest leaders move in and out of both roles, even if they are more comfortable with one or the other."
More specifically, the greatest leaders combine the strengths and virtues of Principled Warrior and Authentic Wizard in that they "wield both sword and wand, know how to create as well as defend, accept reality but will challenge it because they see unfulfilled possibilities, learn by sensing and intuiting, are both strategists and visionaries, and combine the power of commander and the courage of a champion with the wisdom of the counselor and the magical powers of the shaman." But they are by no means perfect. However, as Bolman and Deal suggest (and I agree), we admire them because they somehow overcome their human weaknesses to achieve extraordinarily difficult goals. "As is clear from examples like Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela, you need not like war to be a warrior." Bolman and Deal also point out that, the warrior heart "must be found in a cause important enough to justify the costs of combat. For many leaders, heart develops over time through experiences that test their courage and strength in the face of rigorous challenge and worthy competitors."
In this context, I am reminded of the fact that Mohandas Gandhi greatly admired Henry David Thoreau's concept of "civil disobedience" and applied its principles so effectively that India was eventually able to obtain its independence. Gandhi was assassinated. Martin Luther King, Jr. studied the life and work of Gandhi and applied what he learned to his non-violent campaign against racial inequality. He was also assassinated. In certain respects, both he and Gandhi were warrior leaders (i.e. they possessed exceptional intuition, recruit thousands to join their cause, inspired them to persevere rather than be overcome, and skillfully negotiated the alliances needed) but they were also wizard leaders (i.e. they were wise in the ways of the world, recognized the importance of symbols and emblematic events, encouraged a strong link between words and deeds, and were visionaries of what could and should be). Admirable human beings.
In this volume, Bolman and Deal provide dozens of other examples of men and women who also found a balance of the strengths and virtues of both warrior and wizard but it remains for each reader make her or his own determination of which balance is most appropriate. When concluding this brief commentary, I presume to share the fact that there have been times when I have had to be more warrior than wizard; other times when I feel the need to be more wizard than warrior. Such situations are when achieving the right "balance" has been most difficult for me. Thanks to Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal, I now feel better prepared to do that.
Those who share my high regard for this volume are urged to check out any of Warren Bennis' books (notably Geeks & Geezers and the more recently published Leading for a Lifetime, both co-authored with Robert Thomas) as well as Bill George's Authentic Leadership and the more recently published True North, Jean Lipman-Blumen's The Allure of Toxic Leaders, James O'Toole's Leading Change and The Executive's Compass, Martin Linsky and Ronald Heifetz'Leadership on the Line, Heifetz's Leadership Without Easy Answers, and Winning co-authored by Jack Welch and Suzy Welch.
A Strong Article Stretched to Book-Length.......2006-12-11
Friends of mine who have read other leadership books by Bolman & Deal tell me that they have a lot of insights into leadership and that their others books are excellent. I'm sure my friends are right. It is clear from this book that leadership is something they have studied extensively and know much about. Unfortunately, I didn't feel this book brought out the best in them.
The metaphors they have chosen for this book, wizard and warrior, are good ones. They bring out how a great leader must not only be able to fight but must also be able to work magic. They talk about the qualities of a great warrior (heart, mind, skill and weapons) and great wizard (wisdom, soul, icons and rituals). They talk about how warriors and wizards can go right and wrong (toxic, relentless and principled warrior; authentic, wannabe and harmful wizard). They give examples of their meaning by examples from history and business. They make their point.
On the other hand, the book has some series flaws. First, they flog their point to death. This 200+ page book could have easily been slashed to a short article and made the same points better. Second, the bulk of this book is anecdotes. As a rule, I enjoy stories about historical figures but here there are so many of them and they are often repetitive. I most enjoyed the stories about business leaders since I was unfamiliar with many of these but I found myself wishing they'd get on with it already. Third, though I found their highlighting of the need for a great leader to be both warrior and wizard, they didn't offer much in the way of practical suggestions for those who need to develop one or the other or both of these qualities. Certainly, becoming conscious of your strengths and weaknesses as a leader is important but, once you learn about your weaknesses depression awaits if you aren't guided to some solutions. Bolman & Deal are a bit short on solutions.
Ultimately, this book is harmless and may be inspirational for some people. It is short enough and fluff-filled enough to get through quickly and easily. It offers some important insights. But, as Bolman & Deal are clearly experts in leadership, I expected their book to lead me forward with something meatier and more useful. Maybe this is to be found in some of their other books, but I didn't find it here.
Just the thing........2006-05-01
As a business owner myself, and friend to many others, I know that it is important for business leaders to, in an obvious sense, lead. But there's more to leading then meets the eye. One must lead with a passion for what they do, with a love for what they do, and that is what this book teaches. Bolman and Deal do an impeccable job at showing us how to lead with "passion and power" through their examples. But the leader cannot always be passionate, he/she must sometimes become a warrior to make the tough choices that some other leaders could not make. I seriously recommend this book to business owners, team leaders, and really, to anyone as I feel that everyone can learn from what this book has to offer.
Great leadership for a lean manufacturing transformation.......2006-04-22
Although not a book specifically about transforming manufacturing operations, the leadership styles described are exactly what are needed for that difficult task. The transformational leader needs to be a "wizard"... creating the magic and inspiring the passion within the organization to reach the tipping point. And he must be a "warrior" to make the difficult decisions and hold strong when long term plans fly in the face of expectations for short term results.
Book Description
The Pentium Chronicles describes the architecture and key decisions that shaped the P6, Intel's most successful chip to date. As author Robert Colwell recognizes, success is about learning from others, and Chronicles is filled with stories of ordinary, exceptional people as well as frank assessments of "oops" moments, leaving you with a better understanding of what it takes to create and grow a winning product.
Customer Reviews:
Good advice and inside view..........2007-07-16
I thought of this book as a tome of helpful advice for any project manage that has to work on a project that veers far into the unknown. The author was the Chief Architect for the P6 (Pentium Pro) microprocessor. This was a radically new type of processor that broke from previous chip architectures. The team was required to explore untested ideas but at the same time bring them to an operable design. This required considerable balancing and deft handling of various stumbling blocks. The author presents a lot of observations on how to accomplish this. It was also very interesting, for a person who is interested in microprocessors, to see where exactly time is spent in these massive projects. The author gives lots of technical details, but I would have like a bit more. Of course, the intention of this book was as a project management guide, so that isn't necessarily bad.
thin.......2007-04-10
I was looking forward to a history of the depth of, say "Into the Black" about JPL by Peter Westwick, a professional historian. The Pentium Chronicles is thin. I think it's trying mostly to be a project management book. The context is poorly drawn, the technical issues are nearly completely unexplained, and the stories are told without zest. The sidebars make the book feel like it is meant to be bought at an airport and discarded to the next passenger. Colwell is undoubtedly a fine computer architect but his writing leaves a lot to be desired, at least in this book.
Project Management Education.......2007-03-06
This is an excellent case study about Intel's P6 project -- that became the Pentium Pro and part of the lineage for a number of other processors. The author provides the story of compromises made while the project proceded and the corporate politics endured at Intel. He also discusses the Pentium flaw episode and provides a technical rationale that thay may have led to that unrelated debacle. It is fun to read about some of the technical aspects of this project. One flaw to the story is the lack of additional information on why Intel settled out of court and paid millions of dollars for alleged patent infringement accusations relating to the P6 project. The book is surprisingly upbeat considering the author no longer works at Intel. If you like this book, Brian Bagnall's "On the Edge" about the rise and fall of Commodore computer is an excellent follow-up.
How a big project comes together........2006-03-20
On the first page of this book Dr. Colwell gets his marching orders from his boss: 'Your job is to beat the P5 chip by a factor of two on the same process technology. Any Questions.'
'Three,' he replied. 'What's a P5?' What's the process technology plans? Where's the bathroom.'
The P5 became the Pentium chip. The process technology doesn't matter in this book as it was the same. And he found the bathroom.
Dr. Colwell's new chip, the P6 came to the market first as the Pentium Pro, the same basic design was subsequently modified as the basic core for the Pentium II, Pentium III, Celeron, Xeon, and the current Centrino products.
But the details of the chip aren't the strong point of the book. It's the organization and structure of a how a big development team works. From the little details like finding an unused storage room to use as a conference room where the blackboards wouldn't get erased, to hiring, firing and getting the product out.
I can't help but compare this with Tracy Kidders book 'The Soul of a New Machine' written twenty or so years ago. Kidder was a better writer, but Colwell was the one in charge, making the whole thing happen. I would have liked to see a little more technical detail, but I've been in this business a long time and have more interests along these lines than the average reader. As it is, it is an excellent book on project management and I enjoyed it very much.
Solid, practical perspective.......2006-03-05
As may be likely with many readers, I first heard of Mr. Colwell from his IEEE Computer columns, of which I was big fan. Several times I was tempted to send him comments about the insights and occasional humor, but I never did. The same kind of writing and attitude is clearly on display in "Chronicles".
Because other reviewers mentioned "Soul of a New Machine," I agree that it is hard to escape, even though the two books are much different. When I was a young engineer in the early 80s, "Soul" was (and is) a great book. I did not have the experience to grasp some lessons to be learned from the story, and a 1980s version of "Chronicles" would not have hit home, either.
However, Mr. Colwell is completely believable in his anecdotes and in the presentation of the big picture, the project, and countless details both technical and personal. Experienced engineers will no doubt see themselves, their colleagues, and their projects in one form or another. I don't mean just the "Dilbert" moments and inevitable personal clashes, but also the serious business and technical challenges that any complex project must face. I found myself nodding in agreement again and again with his conclusions and advice.
Two reasons I liked Mr. Colwell's columns are that he is not just a techno-geek and that an interesting feisty personality showed through. You see that feistiness at times in the book with stories of taking on the powers that be, for better or worse, without feeling like you are listening to someone covering his tracks to make himself look good. The true engineer comes through, with enough polish to be around executives and to be allowed with customers.
Average customer rating:
- Freeing Spinoza from the Stoics
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Spinoza And the Stoics: Power, Politics And the Passions (Continuum Studies in Philosophy)
Firmin Debrabander
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Customer Reviews:
Freeing Spinoza from the Stoics.......2007-06-23
As a Spinoza enthusiast, I've heard way too many glib efforts over the years to link Spinoza to the Stoics. Thankfully, we finally have a book -- and a very well written one at that -- that analyzes how Spinoza borrows from the Stoics and how his philosophy departs from theirs. DeBrabander's Spinoza comes across as altogether different from the model Stoic philosopher. Rather than burying the emotions beneath that Leviathan known as the Stoic capacity for "self control," Spinoza is shown to be a philosopher who respects the power of passions. In fact, DeBrabander's Spinoza embraces the passions as the "path to salvation."
Well, OK. I'm not exactly suggesting the hero of this book is a wine-woman-and-song hedonist. But I couldn't help but enjoy the vitality of the Spinozist philosopher portrayed in this book. It is infinitely more attractive than, say, the ascetic stereotype of the Spinozist depicted in I.B. Singer's "The Spinoza of Market Street."
"Spinoza and the Stoics" may sound like a narrow topic for a book, but it covers quite a range of topics. Politics, ethics, theology, and psychology are all discussed at some length. For me, the single greatest portion of this work is its ending, in which DeBrabander demonstrates that Spinoza should no more be thought of as a utilitarian than as a Stoic. I am slated to teach a Spinoza workshop next month and very much look forward to sharing with the group verbatim this book's beautiful and insightful conclusion.
Book Description
Whether we are nearing the end of oil or merely nearing the end of inexpensive oil, it is becoming increasingly clear that we need to find alternative ways to meet our energy needs. Biodiesel is one such alternative -- and is one of the fastest growing sectors of the US economy.
Biodiesel in North America is in its infancy. As air quality deteriorates in major centers, governments are scrambling for ways to reduce emissions and are embracing biodiesel in their fleets. Conferences on biodiesel are often "inaugural," as society begins discussing this fuel in earnest.
Biodiesel Power is a chronicle of this emerging industry. Lightly touching on the technical aspects of the fuel, its qualities and specifications, the book is largely about the people and stories of the biodiesel movement. It explores the tensions between
- grassroots activists and their altruistic co-ops
- the profit minded commercial producers and the voices of agribusiness, and
- the current administration - or "the coalition of the drilling."
Far from a third party account, Biodiesel Power comes from one who has experienced it from the grease dumpster to the boardroom. Lyle Estill has made the journey from back yard brewing, to being part of a producer and distributor cooperative, to commercial production.
Compelling and timely, Biodiesel Power is the history of biodiesel in the making. It will appeal to a wide audience including farmers, truckers, backyarders and commercial producers, investors, politicians and all those concerned about the end of oil.
Customer Reviews:
An ongoing primer documenting the importance of this next renewable fuel.......2006-07-23
Renewable energy is becoming even more important an issue as time goes by and oil reserves become less certain: Lyle Estill's BIODIESEL POWER: THE PASSION, THE PEOPLE, AND THE POLITICS OF THE NEXT RENEWABLE FUEL thus holds value beyond its 2005 publication date as an ongoing primer documenting the importance of this next renewable fuel. It follows the people, influences and history of the biodiesel movement and examines pros, cons, commercial interests and organizations alike in an outstanding coverage promising ongoing relevance.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
Biodeisel - the story.......2006-04-30
Lyle is a great writer. I found the book to be an easy read. Funny, well written and environmentally inspriational. This is more of a story than an text book. Although it talks about how to make Biodeisel, it is more about the process and story of Lyle and his trials in figuring out how to do it.
Of course Lyle is my brother so I may be biased.
What a whinner.......2006-04-15
OK, yes, this book did have its moments and the author's "passion" seems to be there - in kind of a self-important sort of way. However, the "people" is very limited - I wanted to know about who, what, when, where, and why biodiesel is being made and used. That was largely lacking unless you want to know about the author and his little band of followers. And the "politics" is just a bunch on whinning. The author's seems to have a "big companies making biodiesel are the enemy and the only true religion is small, make it in your back yard, or you'll go to hell" perspective on biodiesel. However, if you really want to see biodiesel used in any quatity the big companies are the path to making it happen. No, I do not work for a big biodiesel company and yes, I make it myself - for personal satisfaction. Probably half 1/3 of this book is taken right from his web log so why spend your hard earned money?
Overall this book was very disapointing.
New biodiesel book rings true for a homebrewer!.......2005-12-07
I just finished reading Lyle Estill's book "Biodiesel Power, The passion, the people, and the politics of the next renewable fuel". I enjoyed the book so much that I feel compelled to write this breif, amatuer, 2 cent review:
Biodiesel Power is a book about the progression of one small scale producer from back yard tinkerer up to large scale commercial producer. Lyle Estill, of Piedmont Biofuels Co-op in Pittsboro, NC, writes of his adventures and misadventures in pursuit of a renewable, clean burning fuel.
Together with cohorts Rachel, Leif, Oneas, and many others, Lyle started Piedmont Biofuels co-op a few years ago to produce fuel, advocate for small scale production across the state, and teach the techniques of sustainable fuelmaking to the eager North Carolina public. They have grown as many homebrewers aspire to from blender batch, to larger and more efficient reactors, up to their eventual goal of a small refinery. They are also buying commercial biodiesel to resell to members of the Co-op.
Reading this book was extremely entertaining for me as an amatuer small scale producer of biodiesel/ educator/ advocate. Much of the time I was either shaking my head in recognition of the funny mishaps in Lyle's accounts, or else glued to the page to learn some new bit of pertinent information. Lyle and Piedmont Biofuels have done a great deal to advance the cause of the small producer in North Carolina, and many of us may hope to follow in their footsteps. This book, referring in a personal way to many of the pioneers in the small-scale biodiesel movement, left me feeling like a part of the B100 family, both heartened and newly inspired to keep plugging away.
This book is well written and an easy read (with nice big print, but sorry no pictures). Here is a brief exerpt from the last chapter, entitled "The Road Ahead": "Biodiesel is great fun. It's empowering. Nothing feels better than tooling down the highway with the knowledge that you are free. Free of Chevron. Free of Mobil. Free of George Bush. Free of the Saudis. Free of the whole sorry lot. I realize full well that hydrogen is the place to be, but I'm stuck on vegetable oil. It's here now. It works. It's renewable. It's sustainable. It smells good. It creates jobs in the United States. And there is no war required to get it."
Well, after typing all of that let me say that Lyle does write in long sentences and does convey plenty of info that you may not already know. This was kind of a summary paragraph in a summary chapter, for effect.
If you make biodiesel, want to make biodiesel, or are interested in advocating for biodiesel, check out this book. (If you have a spouse who gets frustrated with your biodiesel project this will be particularly humorous for you as well). It's affordable and the proceeds support Piedmont Biofuels coop, check it out!
Note: This book is not a How-to manual on biodiesel production. For that information I suggest The Biodiesel Homebrew Guide by Girl Mark, available at http://www.localb100.com/book.html (Girl Mark and the homebrew guide are mentioned favorably in Biodiesel Power as well. Another option is to visit the biodiesel discussion board at [...] where you will find plenty of information on the subject.
Biodiesel Power, Copyright 2005 by Lyle Estill, printed on recycled paper by New Society Publishers
A classic story of a biodiesel homebrewer.......2005-12-07
For the biodiesel homebrewer, Lyle's book is great. I'm not sure if it would mean as much to non-biodiesel folks, but I found it to be very inspirational (I'm a homebrewer myself). Lyle's book isn't about how-to-make-biodiesel. There are lots of others that fill that need. Lyle's is about the personal interactions, the social and societal aspect of this alternative fuel, told in story fashion. As the cover says: "The passion, the people, and the politics of the next renewable fuel." Lyle is the "Everyman" in this story of the trials and tribulations homebrewers all seem to have gone through. As such it tells "our" story with humor and truth.
Chapter titles like "Stinky Kitchen", "Birth of a Coop", "The lure of the Producer", "The policy layer", and "The road ahead" bring my own memories to mind. I think of it as more of a philosophical journey than anything else. It's also fun, because I can remember running into the same problems, and coming up with similar solutions, using the same thought processes. That might be where the story will lose a more general audience though - will someone unfamiliar with biodiesel feel any sympathy when reading about making 40 gallons of soap? To most people that probably doesn't sound like anything bad, but to a homebrewer it's a nightmare needing no further explanation.
There have only been a few books in my life that I've read in a single day, and this was one. I picked it up from the post office about 3:30pm, read a couple pages in the car, then could hardly wait to finish my chores to read what happened next. I finished it about 2am, 5 hours after my normal bedtime.
Lyle's done a good thing, writing this book. I'm ordering more copies to give away as gifts.
Book Description
In this definitive portrait of the political and social life of Georgetown, bestselling biographer C. David Heymann chronicles the dinner parties, correspondence, overlappings, and underpinnings of some of the most influential women in Washington's history.
"The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club" -- a term coined by Ronald Reagan -- comprises a list of formidable and fascinating women, among them Katharine Graham, Lorraine Cooper, Evangeline Bruce, Pamela Harriman, and Sally Quinn. Their husbands, government officials and newsmakers among them, relied on the ladies for their sharp wit and sensitivity, refined bearings, and congeniality. In a city characteristically and traditionally controlled by men, the Georgetown wives were, in turn, afforded an abundance of behind-the-scenes political clout.
Filled with intriguing and often startling insights into Washington life, from the latter days of the Kennedy and Truman administrations to the Clinton era and the advent of President George W. Bush, The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club is a compelling testament to the sex, lies, and red tape of American politics.
Customer Reviews:
BOOKREADER.......2007-05-30
EXCELLENT BOOK ABOUT GEORGETOWN AND WASHINGTON DC. WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE READ MORE . THE LIFE OF THE GEORGETOWN COMMUNITY AND GREAT LADIES OF POWER CLUBS AND GENTLEMAN FROM WASHINGTON POST TO JFK AND MANY MANY MORE. THE SOCIAL SIDE OF THE LADIES OF GEORGETOWN AND THE WASHINGTON DC AREA AS LIFE IS LIVED IN THE COMMUNITY OF SUCH AN ELITE FEDERAL CITY WITH ITS PASSION IT'S POWER MAKES THIS BOOK AN EXCELLENT SOURCE OF INFORMATION OF LIFE IN OUR NATIONS CAPITAL AND GEORGETOWN............
Extraordinary.......2007-01-10
Spectacular view of how politics was played out in the 50's and 60's Washington DC. A really fascinating book.
WHAT A BOOK.......2006-10-30
I like The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club very much. I have always been fascinated by the rich and/or famous, and this fills the bill very well. All of the women portrayed are or were interesting in their own right but were first actually noticed for their husbands instead of themselves. I believe any of these women could have accomplished anything in business, just like the men did, but unfortunately women didn't count for much in the past except for decorating the husband's arm, raising children and throwing parties. I love this book and recommend it with five stars.
Gossip of the highest order.......2006-01-07
This book falls into the "guilty pleasure" category, and does it ever succeed on that level! It's forty years or so of American political history -- the McCarthy era, the Cold War, Vietnam, Watergate, the Reagan years -- told from the perspective of the Georgetown social set. It doesn't purport to be a comprehensive history of the period. Instead, it chronicles the lives, the successes, and the follies of five wealthy, highly connected hostesses in the nation's capital. Above all, we learn about the spectacular social events that they put on.
This book is like People magazine on steroids. Nasty spats, unsolved murders, extramarital love affairs, lifelong vendettas -- all here. As can be imagined, JFK and his women play a role, as does Elizabeth Taylor in her John Warner years. (Remember the late 1970s?) Some of the sourcing is a bit dubious. Of course, most of the main characters are now deceased and can't sue for libel anyway. Pamela Harriman would not have liked her characterization, it's fair to say.
All in all, lots of fun, and if you learn something about power and privilege in America, all the better.
These were not "ladies".......2005-02-11
THE GEORGETOWN LADIES' SOCIAL CLUB is a fascinating read.
The title of this book actually was a phrase first coined by then-President Ronald Reagan, according to author C. David Heymann.
Heymann has attempted the unusual: A group biography which interweaves the stories of the different members of one discrete, if informal, group.
Heymann does a good job in exploring the personal histories of the members of this club, a troop which primarily included Katherine Graham, Evangeline Bruce and Pamela Harriman. Of this bunch, only Sally Quinn, the youngest, still is alive.
Heymann offers the standard versions of their lives, but he also dishes some dirt about their affairs, promiscuity and family suicides.
It is amazing how much power these women had yielded over the highest ranking members of the federal government. This power was gently applied during socializing at various festivities which ranged from barbecues to black-tie dinners.
The heyday of the ladies was during the Kennedy administration and, in consequence, THE GEORGETOWN LADIES' SOCIAL CLUB re-acquaints its readers with the Camelot myth.
Perhaps unavoidably, in the effort to be scholarly and thorough, the prose in this volume is less interesting than the women it is describing. To paraphrase an old joke, these were no ladies. Bluntly, they sound like witches, every one of 'em. Yet probably just because of this personality trait, their stories make for an fascinating read.
Book Description
As rancorous debates over Confederate symbols continue, Robert Bonner explores how the rebel flag gained its enormous power to inspire and repel. In the process, he shows how the Confederacy sustained itself for as long as it did by cultivating the allegiances of countless ordinary citizens. Bonner also comments more broadly on flag passions--those intense emotional reactions to waving pieces of cloth that inflame patriots to kill and die.
Colors and Blood depicts a pervasive flag culture that set the emotional tone of the Civil War in the Union as well as the Confederacy. Northerners and southerners alike devoted incredible energy to flags, but the Confederate project was unique in creating a set of national symbols from scratch. In describing the activities of white southerners who designed, sewed, celebrated, sang about, and bled for their new country's most visible symbols, the book charts the emergence of Confederate nationalism. Theatrical flag performances that cast secession in a melodramatic mode both amplified and contained patriotic emotions, contributing to a flag-centered popular patriotism that motivated true believers to defy and sacrifice. This wartime flag culture nourished Confederate nationalism for four years, but flags' martial associations ultimately eclipsed their expression of political independence. After 1865, conquered banners evoked valor and heroism while obscuring the ideology of a slaveholders' rebellion, and white southerners recast the totems of Confederate nationalism as relics of the Lost Cause.
At the heart of this story is the tremendous capacity of bloodshed to infuse symbols with emotional power. Confederate flag culture, black southerners' charged relationship to the Stars and Stripes, contemporary efforts to banish the Southern Cross, and arguments over burning the Star Spangled Banner have this in common: all demonstrate Americans' passionate relationship with symbols that have been imaginatively soaked in blood.
Customer Reviews:
A brilliant work by a sensational historian.......2002-10-01
Don't be fooled by all those boring end notes at the back of the book. Colors & Blood is a real page turner. Sure it's also a profound and thought-provoking meditation on the meaning of symbols in the development of a nation's conscience. But it also tells a great story, a story that should be handed down from generation to generation. Look no further for the perfect gift for your dad the Civil War buff, your mom the cook book buff, or your neice, nephew, aunt, uncle, son, daughter, grandparent or in-laws. Colors & Blood has something for everyone. Plus the photo of the author on the dust jacket is pretty cute.
Book Description
Gloria Wekker analyzes the phenomenon of mati work, an old practice among Afro-Surinamese working-class women in which marriage is rejected in favor of male and female sexual partners. Wekker vividly describes the lives of these women, who prefer to create alternative families of kin, lovers, and children, and gives a fascinating account of women's sexuality that is not limited to either heterosexuality or same-sex sexuality. She offers new perspectives on the lives of Caribbean women, transnational gay and lesbian movements, and an Afro-Surinamese tradition that challenges conventional Western notions of marriage, gender, identity, and desire. Bringing these women's voices to the forefront, she offers an extensive and groundbreaking analysis of the unique historical, religious, psychological, economic, linguistic, cultural, and political forces that have shaped their lives.
Customer Reviews:
Simply Excellent!.......2007-08-20
This book is an excellent blend of anthropology, ethnic studies, women's studies, gay studies, and postcolonial studies. Progressives bemoan studies that fail to consider race, class, gender, and sexuality together; well, this is an important intervention in that dearth of material. For those who do not understand the difference between essentialism and constructionism, this will make you understand.
Professor Griff, Winnie Mandela, Robert Mugabe and so many others make false claims that Africa had no homosexuality until Europeans intervened. Dr. Wekker disproves that by showing how Surinamese mati are influenced greatly by West African religion and principles. You could almost say this is an Afrocentric support of Blacks in same-sex romantic relationships. This is a book that Black gay male and lesbian activists all over the Diaspora need to own and read. Some may want to read this book along side "African Homosexualities."
When quoting informants, Dr. Wekker uses their actual Surinamese language and then translates it into English. For polyglots and those familiar with the Dutch-speaking world, this may be informative. However, there is a way that it just takes up space. This book would have been 50 pages shorter without it. Perhaps, Dr. Wekker wants readers to inhabit multilingual terrains, as Gloria Anzaldua did. Still, I think readers like me who don't understand any form or Dutch will skip through a lot. I did love some of the colorful idioms and phrases here. One Surinamese woman says, "Only god knows why he didn't give the horse horns." I'm still trying to find a way to use that phrase in 21st-century America! (By the way, the author writes in American English, rather than British English.)
Dr. Wekker tries to "keep it real." She stands against bourgeois posing intended to impress elite audiences. Still, there is a way that this book makes us Black people look bad. The book is filled with violence, sexual promiscuity, womanizing from either gender, disparagement of marriage, and other things that some may find objectionable. I do worry about what would happen if this book gets into the wrong people's hands.
You can see and hear the author in a documentary called "Middle Sexes" narrated by Gore Vidal. As women's studies departments become gender studies departments, readers may want to peruse this alongside Bana-Shute's book on Surinamese men.
Customer Reviews:
The best (and only) available translation of Schiller plays.......1998-11-24
This is an awesome collection of truly outstanding translations of Schiller's drama, five plays total, including "The Robbers," "Don Carlos," "Mary Stuart," "Intrigue and Love," and "The Maid of Orleans." This whopper of a 700-page volume will allow the modern reader to see exactly why Schiller is justly ranked with Goethe as the second giant of German literature. For anyone interested in an inexplicably neglected major figure in world literature, this book is indispensable!
Book Description
The bestselling author of Philistines at the Hedgerow probes the supersecret world of Manhattan luxury apartments where real estate costs the most and matters even more. Steven Gaines once again trains his sharp eye on rich people behaving badly. This time, the arena is Manhattan luxury real estate and the outlandish displays of ego, outrageous behavior, blood feuds, status hunger, and conspicuous consumption that dominate that world.
Customer Reviews:
Great Little Read.......2007-01-06
This is a great read - especially if you've never really understood what the big deal about co-ops v. condos is or even just don't know the difference. The gossipy tidbits in the middle make it interesting, yet it is still fact-filled. Steven Gaines did a great job with this work!
Seems like Coop Boards have more power than the IRS.......2006-06-24
This book was great! Another fascinating look at the New York real estate market and where there is no limit on what you'll pay for a place to live. Very interesting in how those coop boards can bring potential owners to their knees. The book was well written and provided much insight into property ownership and real estate brokers.
The Sky's The Limit - That says it all!.......2006-03-28
Gains takes you inside the history of many of the top buildings in NYC (A.K.A.- good buildings or GBs) as well as a beginning to present time chronicle of the often stuffy co-ops and the new money, free-frawl condo market. From the builders to the star brokers and super famous buyers, you get a real sense of how top end real estate shakes out in the big city.
Interestingly, he visits the market at the turn of the twentieth century and the boom and bust cycles that created massive fortunes and whipped so many out. A super great conversation piece is that in 1903 there were pre construction condo flips going on at a frenzied pace, and how did that end... I will say that after the depression, which was a few cycles later, luxury apartments that sold for $50,000 were on the market for $500. I welcome every opportunity to be reminded of the cyclical nature of real estate.
Talk about name dropping; how's Andy Warhol, Madonna, Babe Ruth wandering the Anasonia in his bathrobe, Ron Perelman, Denis Kozlowski, Donald Trump, Jerry Seinfeld, Donna Karan, Steve Jobs, Bruce Willis, Steve Jobs, Bruce Willis, Steve Martin, Tommy Hilfiger and Henry Kravis.
Also interesting is how zip codes can often peg your social and financial status, your religion or ethnic background, or your sexual preference.
The deal driven super-brokers Dolly Lenz and Michael Shivo shed some light of what it takes to be a top producer in the super competitive NYC market.
Dolly Lenz the top producing broker, who raked in $3 billion in sales started buying studios when she was 25 years old with her husband and within a few years owned 31 studios.
Michael Shivo on what it takes to be a successful broker-at least an average IQ and a strong will to work. "I don't do drugs, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I work 18 hours a day and I don't sleep. I think sleeping is a waste of time. All of the energy that you see is from real estate."
I'm real estate investor myself that went from $0 to $25,000,000+ in holdings in less than 5 years starting with $0, only the equity in my house. I also wrote a book: A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate: A True Story About the Ups And Downs from Wall Street to Real Estate Leading Up to Phenomenal Returns. It's a step by step, play by play of how my partner and I built our real estate company in a way that anyone can immolate.
Good Luck, Happy Reading.
My Blog: bloglines.com/blog/KevinKingston
Real Estate in the Big Apple.......2006-02-21
Fifth Avenue is the address against which all others are measured, according to Gaines. It is 6.5 miles long, mostly high-end retail space and skyscraper office buildings. On the 1.5 miles facing Central Park there lives the greatest consolidation of private wealth assembled in one place.
Some would say 820 Fifth Avenue was the best address - certainly its co-op board has taken a very aggressive position and repelled three billionaires, including Revlon Chief Ronald Perelman. "The Sky's the Limit" provides insights into co-op board motivations and methods, as well as those of the city's most successful real estate agents.
820 Fifth Avenue has 12 apartments (one/floor), with 7,000 square feet each. Prior residents include a former N.Y. governor, Arthur and Mrs. Murray, Alfred Sloan (former G.M. Chairman and CEO), Pierre Lorillard (tobacco magnate). Co-op applicants are required to provide detailed and certified financial statements (purportedly to ensure that they can cover any unforeseen maintenance required), and respond to a number of lifestyle questions (boards are very concerned about how their new neighbors and their families will comport themselves). The finished product can weight 5 lobs, and cost $10,000 in accounting and legal fees. Co-op boards are likely to look disfavorably on public figures (likely paparazzi disruptions), those who are single (who know what the spouse will be like; questions about attention-grabbing lifestyle), too many Jews (give me a break - I'm just the reporter here), and overly-ambitious renovation plans (long-term noise, dirt). Finally, an interview is also required - timeliness and appropriate attire are important! Gaines reports that about 5% of applicants are turned down. However, he also tells us that many boards are exclusively represented by a selected real estate agent, and one of their primary jobs is to pre-select those who are brought before them.
The original intent of the co-operative plan was to life a million immigrants out of tenement housing - eg. 20 families in sub-divided, freezing housing, sharing one toilet. Under the initial 1879 proposal groups would band together and build a fireproof house, with separate living quarters for each family. However, problems with neighbors and the practice of leasing units out for parts of the year prevented the practice from taking off - by '53 there were only 162 co-operatives, vs. 5,797 apartments in NYC. There are now over 3,500 in Manhattan and 10,000 in all five boroughs.
Condominiums developed partly to avoid co-op boards, and between 1985-1988 over 15,000 were built. At first it was thought that realtors would play little role in their sale, but events have proven that idea wrong. Gaines provides considerable detail about how several successful realtors work, and fight amongst each other.
Finally, it was also interesting to read how even New York City real estate has had its low points - eg. the latest being in the late 1970s, thanks to high-crime, high welfare numbers, and the city being on the edge of bankruptcy. Top units at that time fetched only about $250,000 - vs. today's commonplace $10+ million.
Surprisingly interesting!
Tired Recycled Gossip and No Story.......2005-12-31
I bought this book because amazon recommended it and I was very disappointed. It's a series of unconnected interviews with crass self-promoting real estate brokers, with a few boring socialites I've never heard of thrown in, for spice I think, but they're really just bland. Speaking of bland, who cares about Tommy Hilfiger and why start the book with him? I knew most of the supposedly hot celebrity tid-bits already--they're all recycled from old gossip columns. For $26.95 (okay, even for $18 plus shipping on amazon), I expect more than a 250-page clip-job. Page Six is free on the web! But worse, there's no story, no narrative to speak of, no characters you can care about. It feels as if Gaines was rushing this out, or cashing in on his last, equally disjointed but somewhat more amusing book on the Hamptons, or just phoning it in. What a waste of paper not to mention my time and money!
Book Description
During the latter half of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s, television talk shows, infotainment news, and screaming supermarket headlines became ubiquitous in America as the âtabloidizationâ of the nation’s media took hold. In Tabloid Culture Kevin Glynn draws on diverse theoretical sources and an unprecedented range of electronic and print media in order to analyze important aspects and key debates that have emerged around this phenomenon.
Glynn begins by situating these media shifts within the context of Reaganism, which gave rise to distinctive ideological currents in society and led the socially and economically disenfranchised to access new forms of information via the exploding television industry. He then tackles specific daytime talk shows and tabloid newscasts such as Jerry Springer and A Current Affair, reality-TV programs such as Cops and America’s Most Wanted, and two different supermarket tabloids’ coverage of the O.J. Simpson case. Tabloid Culture is the first book to treat these diverse yet related media forms and events in tandem. Rejecting the elitist dismissal of sensationalist media, Glynn instead traces the cultural currents and countercurrents running through their forms and products. Locating both reactionary and oppositional meanings in these texts, he demonstrates how these particular media genres draw on and contribute to important cultural struggles over the meanings of race, sexuality, gender, class, ânormality,â âtruth,â and âreality.â The study ends by discussing how the growing use of the Internet provides an entirely new realm in which such material can circulate, distort, inform, and flourish.
This innovative and provocative study of contemporary mainstream media culture in the United States will be valuable to those interested in both print and television media, the cultural-political influence of the Reagan era, and American culture in general.
Customer Reviews:
A Very Illuminating Examination of What Others Fear To Touch.......2005-12-03
Please do not listen to the other review of this book: it is clearly written by someone who hasn't read Glynn's carefully argued, very interesting examination of "trash" television. "John Q. Public," as he calls himself in the review, seems to make it sound so simple -- networks play things because they get ratings. But what Glynn answers in a way that all of John Q's love for PBS can't is WHY they get ratings. The answer to this question has so often been astoundingly shortsighted and downright insulting: "People watch trash TV because they're stupid, don't know any better, and never will" or something as asinine and simplistic as that.
But Glynn digs into the populist in a very interesting way, and what he finds is that these shows frequently validate everyday experiences and knowledge of everyday, working class viewers in ways that many instances of "high culture" on television don't. Glynn's point is not at all about aesthetics or artistic value (as John Q. Public assumes, having not read the book, that it is), as he largely leaves this question for the reader to answer: his point is about not just disregarding all these programs AND all their viewers because one has made such artistic judgements. In "trash" TV, Glynn finds many democratic tendencies.
At times, Glynn can overdo it, and at other times, his enthusiasm to defend overlooks, or rushes through, disturbing political content of the shows (such as inherent racism or sexism), but most of the time he is remarkably careful to balance such tensions.
This is an academic text, and so may not be ideal for everyone, though it is reasonably accessible. So, if you want to go beyond complaining that such television shouldn't exist, and if you're actually interested in why it does, and why so many people turn to it, I highly recommend this book. I share the reviewer "John Q Public's" regard for PBS, though I feel it has turned its back on many Americans, and on the real John Q Publics, so to speak. Glynn's book looks at what those John Qs are watching and starts to ask the reasons why. (For more on PBS and "the masses," though, I'd highly recommend Laurie Ouellette's *Viewers Like You?*)
Books:
- The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
- The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts
- Unafraid: Mary (Lineage of Grace)
- Velazquez: Painter and Courtier
- Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
- Wisdom Cards (Beautiful Card Deck)
- Women Embracing Islam: Gender and Conversion in the West
- 212: The Extra Degree
- Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A.
- America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It
Books Index
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