Ben

I???ll admit that I was sceptical, I was not a fan of the Pillars of the Earth. This was more sweeping in scope, more majestic and human in its drama, and engrossing and epic in every way. I???ve already got book 2 in the series on my nightstand

This was a good intro for somebody looking to know more about the political structure of the Third Reich, especially since it was organized around ???characters.??? I knocked off a star in my rating only because it felt like nothing happened after Hitler???s suicide. The entire captivity of his lieutenants and the Nuremberg trials only got three pages.

The strongest of the series so far. Much more tightly plotted, and having characters in different timelines was a nice twist. Otherwise, the same as before... sex, historical events, sex, and drama. It???s a good middle ground between high literature and brain candy

So many books about WW2 seem to end in the bunker or the Allied victory as though nothing else was worth discussing. It???s nice to have a book length postscript that explores the psychology of the Nazi leaders, which is really the only way to understand a national madness on the scale of the Third Reich

I want to say straight off that I disapprove of Trump and think he should be impeached, so I???ll put my bias (if that it be) out there.

That said, I didn???t find this book particularly useful, but if you need a good primer on the mechanics and history of impeachment, or if you haven???t been paying attention to the news and want to catch up, this is the book for you.

Conservatives, please don???t get turned off by the subtitle. If you need a primer on the mechanics and history of impeachment, this is a good one, and it???s useful information that every citizen should have.

Liberals, if you???re well informed and support impeachment, don???t bother with this book. It won???t tell you anything new.

I had a hard time giving it a star rating, I felt like it was worth three from my perspective but added another because I could see other people getting more out of it than I did

I???m on a mission to read one biography of every president, I???m well aware that the earlier ones do not hold up as models of modern ethics or inclusion, Jackson was not one of the better ones in that respect. I knew that going in. My objections are not with the subject, but with the author.

This book was written in 2005. That???s far too late for a lot of the things that were said. Jackson was described as a kind but firm master to the slaves he owned (I wonder if the slaves saw it that way?) he is described as being definitively not racist toward Native Americans because he adopted and raised a Native American boy (after slaughtering his entire village). Violence between Native Americans and white settlers are portrayed sheerly as aggression by savages toward peace loving civilized European settlers. Indigenous peoples are never - not once! - called Native American, usually Indians is used but once simply as red men. Distinctions between tribes are rarely made. The Trail of Tears is a page and a half followed by ???but really he didn???t have any choice and anyway it???s not like it???s racism??? for three pages. The best? A direct quote from a discussion of the black market in imported slaves ???Purchasers got what they wanted: cheap slaves. Sellers got what they wanted: profits. No one suffered, except perhaps the slaves.???

PERHAPS??? EXCUSE ME???

Like I said, I???ve read lots of these now, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe all owned slaves. Adams pere, while an abolitionist, didn???t come to that stance from a conviction of racial equality. Their biographers did the hard work of calling hypocrisy when needed, using the preferred terms for the subjugated peoples in question, and taking a nuanced look at the triumphs and moral failings of their subjects. This one.... didn???t.

Terrible

I came to this having thoroughly enjoyed A Plot Against America. I picked this book up and read three pages, fell in love with Smitty, and bought the book... only to find that the charm of the intro never came back and we saw very little of the one character worth caring about. Very nearly DNF

It ought to be a good book. The premise is great, the plot good and the characters are decent enough. The problem is that the writing is so dry it???s hard to care about any of it

This is going to be a very unpopular opinion but... this book is terrible.

As in, for the first time in 15 years I gave up mid book and mid series. No plot, characters I hated, a world that wasn???t developed and not even good writing. I got to the last chapter and realized I just didn???t care how it ended.

The first book showed promise and I started this one hoping it would be more fully developed. Not only did that not happen, it actually regressed in this installment.

Good concept, poor execution. This would make a good airplane trip or sick day book, but that???s about all.

If you???re looking for an inside view of the Republican schism between populist and Never Trump wings, this is a pretty solid book, with occasionally pithy writing. If, like me, you want to explore the ???paranoid style??? from the John Birch Society onwards, you???re going to be underwhelmed. Basically it???s a view of the rise of the Tea Party through the first few years of Trump???s presidency from a Never Trump perspective, valuable in its own way but hardly the social or political commentary I was hoping for.

Dark, deep, twisting (and twisted). Totally engrossing and well worth a read

This was excellent. Highly informative, and so well written that it was like baiting a favorite and very cool professor into rambling about the topic of his dissertation for a long, lazy class period.

I knocked off a star for two reasons. One is that there were times that the book assumed that I knew things that I didn???t. There were phrases like ???by this time, of course, Mussolini had been captured.??? Um. Ok, when, how, and by whom? If it was important enough to mention, it was important enough to explain.

The other is that this telling was largely military history. There were lots of discussions about this operation or that battle, which is necessary. But I felt like I was missing the things that Hitler and his functionaries were involved in on a day to day basis. Propaganda? Politics? General management? There were people who warranted a death sentence at Nuremberg who were mentioned for the first time in that context. So I felt like I learned a lot about World War II but very little about Nazi Germany. Which is fine, but it wasn???t the book I was looking for.

So basically I???d say that I would absolutely recommend this book to someone interested in embarking on a serious study of Nazi Germany and World War II. I would not recommend that this be the first book they read in pursuit of that project

I really thought this was going to be another cheap Dracula knockoff. Instead it was so rich and absorbing that you sometimes forgot you were talking about a character that has been written about and satirized from every angle. Excellent book. Would read again

This was absolutely amazing. Story, characters, dragons, epic fantasy... you name it, this book has it. I could wish it had the highflown style usually associated with fantasy, but not enough to knock it a star or keep me from running out to get the other books by this author, so on balance not much of a complaint

The weakest so far of the series. Character development went straight downhill and there was a lot more shark jumping and a lot less organized plot line than the previous books. I???ll still read the next one, though