Book Description
"Son, we’re going to Hell."
The navigator of the USS Houston confided these prophetic words to a young officer as he and his captain charted a course into U.S. naval legend. Renowned as FDR’s favorite warship, the cruiser USS Houston was a prize target trapped in the far Pacific after Pearl Harbor. Without hope of reinforcement, her crew faced a superior Japanese force ruthlessly committed to total conquest. It wasn’t a fair fight, but the men of the Houston would wage it to the death.
Hornfischer brings to life the awesome terror of nighttime naval battles that turned decks into strobe-lit slaughterhouses, the deadly rain of fire from Japanese bombers, and the almost superhuman effort of the crew as they miraculously escaped disaster again and again–until their luck ran out during a daring action in Sunda Strait. There, hopelessly outnumbered, the Houston was finally sunk and its survivors taken prisoner. For more than three years their fate would be a mystery to families waiting at home.
In the brutal privation of jungle POW camps dubiously immortalized in such films as The Bridge on the River Kwai, the war continued for the men of the Houston—a life-and-death struggle to survive forced labor, starvation, disease, and psychological torture. Here is the gritty, unvarnished story of the infamous Burma–Thailand Death Railway glamorized by Hollywood, but which in reality mercilessly reduced men to little more than animals, who fought back against their dehumanization with dignity, ingenuity, sabotage, will–power—and the undying faith that their country would prevail.
Using journals and letters, rare historical documents, including testimony from postwar Japanese war crimes tribunals, and the eyewitness accounts of Houston’s survivors, James Hornfischer has crafted an account of human valor so riveting and awe-inspiring, it’s easy to forget that every single word is true.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Book.......2007-09-28
Excellent write-up on a little-known story. I had read of the Houston, but not of the fate of the survivors.
Ship of Ghosts - A Must Read for all Generations.......2007-07-31
Mr. Hornfischer graced my University Area Rotary Club in Austin, his home town, with an excellent talk about the saga of some of our bravest men from the greatest generation. Of course, I bought a copy of the book and it took me a few days to get through it before I hand it to my father to read. Hornfisher shows an unlikely ability to truly connect the facts of the USS Houston and her POW survivors together to tell a compelling human story of the horrors of war and the ability of man to overcome any adversity. Hornfischer is a true patriot for documenting the courage of these brave men, and I am a better man for reading this great book.
A good telling of the USS Houston and her crew.......2007-06-18
Ship of Ghosts is Mr. Hornfischer telling of the USS Houston and her crew during WWII. The USS Houston, known as the Galloping Ghost of the Java Coast (because of how many times the Japanese reported her sunk) was the flagship of the US Asiatic Fleet. In WWII she was responsible for holding and delaying the Japanese in taking Indonesia. Any ways, Mr. Hornfischer opens by telling us the early pre-war history of the USS Houston, how she was used by FDR as his yacht, and the history of the gentlemen whom Mr. Hornfischer interviewed.
After telling us about the pre-war years, Mr. Hornfisher jumps into the action of the Battle of the Java Sea and Sunda Strait. This is then followed by telling us about the crews time as POW's and working on the "Death Railway". Most of this book deals with their experience as POW's (btw, the crew of the HMAS Perth has coverage in this book, not as much as the USS Houston, but it is recognized. Also, Mr. Hornfischer cover the men of the 2nd battalion, 131st Field Artillery). In the chapters dealing with the men being prisoners of war we learn about the poor conditions they kept in and how terrible it was working in Burma on the railway (interestingly, the conditions in Thailand were worse). An interesting fact the Mr. Hornfischer points out several times is how the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai poorly represented the conditions the men served under.
Rating wise this book was very easy for me. A solid 4.5 stars. While Mr. Hornfischer did a commendable job telling us about the crew, I had two problems. First, was his book Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors was more solidly written than this one. There I felt as if I was there, this time I had someone telling me of the tale. My primary reason though for only 4.5 stars is that I'd read The Ghost That Died at Sunda Strait(by W.G. Winslow, a true 5 star book). Since I can't leave this as a half star I need to round the number. If I hadn't read Mr. Winslow's book prior, I might round up, however since I've read his book, this one gets rounded down. Sorry Mr. Hornfischer. A very good book though! It complements Mr. Winslow's nicely and picks up where Mr. Winslow chose to leave off. A very good job!
A Last-Minute Tribute.......2007-04-26
With America's WW II veterans dying at the rate of 1,500 a day, we are clearly into "the last lap". Therefore, Jim Hornfischer's excellent treatment of the cruiser Houston comes none too soon. His taut narrative actually involves two stories between the covers of one book: the ship's early combat in the Pacific and the surviving crew members' 3 1/2 year struggle for survival ashore.
There's a lesson for other researchers and authors: "the greatest generation" is fading fast, and its memories are fading even faster. Now is the time to grab the tape recorder or notepad and get the remaining veterans' stories while they are still accessible.
A Missing Piece of History.......2007-04-09
Americans generally think they know about world War II if they know about Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, the Russian Front, and the Pacific War from the perspective of island hopping coming from the east side of the Pacific. What we usually overlook is the war in Southeast Asia. John Hornfischer has written what might be two books, one about the nearly-solo fight of an isloated ship in the face of the Japanese onslsught in 1942, and the other about the unbelievable suffering of prisoners of war in Japanese prison camps building the Thailand-Burma Railroad - familiar to most of us from the sanitized version seen in the movie, The Bridge on the River Kwai. The writing is good (though not overly great); but it is the content that makes this one of the best books written about World War II, the early struggle to give ground only very dearly, the suffering enduured by our soldiers, and finally the failure to meet the real needs of soldiers trying to readjust to society after three years of captivity.
Amazon.com
The Battle of Iwo Jima, fought in the winter of 1945 on a rocky island south of Japan, brought a ferocious slice of hell to earth: in a month's time, more than 22,000 Japanese soldiers would die defending a patch of ground a third the size of Manhattan, while nearly 26,000 Americans fell taking it from them. The battle was a turning point in the war in the Pacific, and it produced one of World War II's enduring images: a photograph of six soldiers raising an American flag on the flank of Mount Suribachi, the island's commanding high point.
One of those young Americans was John Bradley, a Navy corpsman who a few days before had braved enemy mortar and machine-gun fire to administer first aid to a wounded Marine and then drag him to safety. For this act of heroism Bradley would receive the Navy Cross, an award second only to the Medal of Honor.
Bradley, who died in 1994, never mentioned his feat to his family. Only after his death did Bradley's son James begin to piece together the facts of his father's heroism, which was but one of countless acts of sacrifice made by the young men who fought at Iwo Jima. Flags of Our Fathers recounts the sometimes tragic life stories of the six men who raised the flag that February day--one an Arizona Indian who would die following an alcohol-soaked brawl, another a Kentucky hillbilly, still another a Pennsylvania steel-mill worker--and who became reluctant heroes in the bargain. A strongly felt and well-written entry in a spate of recent books on World War II, Flags gives a you-are-there depiction of that conflict's horrible arenas--and a moving homage to the men whom fate brought there. --Gregory McNamee
Book Description
In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.
In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima—and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag.
Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful account of six very different young men who came together in a moment that will live forever.
To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered closed boxes of letters and photos. In
Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of Easy Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island—an island riddled with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight to the last man.
But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened after the victory. The men in the photo—three were killed during the battle—were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley's father truly survived, displaying no copy of the famous photograph in his home, telling his son only: "The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back."
Few books ever have captured the complexity and furor of war and its aftermath as well as
Flags of Our Fathers. A penetrating, epic look at a generation at war, this is history told with keen insight, enormous honesty, and the passion of a son paying homage to his father. It is the story of the difference between truth and myth, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human experience of war.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
The story of Mt. Suribachi.......2007-10-09
It is one of the most iconic photographs ever taken. It has become the symbol for the valor and the attitude of the Marine Corps. IT is the photograph of six Marines raising a flag on Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. All of us have probably seen this photograph and I know that I was always struck by it - it is a classic pattern in art and it also captures a moment in wartime. There are six soldiers raising a flag. you see the taut bodies, the focus and concentration. And, you see the debris all around them. The detritus of war.
This book tells the story of that photograph but also - and more importantly - the story of the men who were captured in the image and the photographer both before, during, and after the war. The story is pieced together and told by a son of one of the men in the photograph - "Doc" Bradley, the only Navy guy in the tale. The book follows the lives of all six men who are pictured from their hardscrabble beginnings, their decision to join the Marine Corps, and then their role in the Iwo Jima battle and beyond. Three of the men died on Iwo Jima; three survived. Of the three that survived, only two had children. One of those is "Doc" Bradley, and his son tells the tale of them all.
This book is not really about how glorious war is and what kinds of heroes these six men were. No, it portrays war in the ugly, brutal, tormenting fashion that it has without skimping on the details of how many ways men can be killed. Nor does it skimp on descriptions of the atrocities that the Japanese committed both before, during, and after this campaign. There is a lot of apologia given by the author for the Japanese behavior during the war. He describes it as a non-typical Japanese time period repeatedly. Towards the end of the book we find out that he spent several years in Japan and at one point in his life believed that the Japanese were forced to start the war by what Roosevelt supposedly did.
By focusing almost exclusively on the life of these six men, the author manages to paint a picture of World War II America and how "the whole country was one" which is an interesting contrast to today's situation.
The yearlong preparations for the battle are described. The battle itself is described in detail with every one of the six men's participation chronicled in exhaustive detail including the way three of them died. Many other stories are interwoven but only briefly touched upon. One of them, that could have been better served by being described more fully was the story of Bradley's "special buddy" Iggy who is also killed on Iwo Jima. Only in the latter parts of the book do we discover how he died.
Doc Bradley himself wins the Navy Cross on Iwo Jima. However, he never displays it and his eight children are astonished to find out about it after his death in the early 1990's. This launches his son to research the group, the photograph, and the lives of all six men.
The story covers the way they were treated after the photograph was published; how they became the main draw in a bond raising tour; how they behaved during the tour; and how they handled the rest of their lives. There is a strong pathos there and a lot of tragic awareness of how these shell-shocked young men were basically told to grin and bear it and how some of them did, and some of them did not. The story of Ira Hayes and his rapid deterioration into drink is a sad one while the story of Rene Gagnon is no better. Only Bradley lives out a normal middle class life but the author is careful to portray even his own father as suffering from the horrors of what he experienced.
This is a good book to read to find out how war affected young Americans during WW2. It is a good introduction to the horrors, atrocities, and pain of war. It is a good book to help you in understanding how America handled and survived WW2. And, it is also a good book to understand why people called it "the good war" and why we can probably never have that kind of feeling again. When I closed the book, I wiped a tear from my eye, laid it down beside me, and thought like Doc Bradley: the only heroes on Iwo Jima were those who did not come back.
A Masterpiece of History!.......2007-09-28
My grandfather fought on Bougainville and Guadalcanal which are both mentioned often in this book. To this day grandpa does not speak of the war. After reading this book, I understand why. This book embodies the human spirit and the fight to uproot evil at its core. It is interesting that such a brutal fight took place on an island that had no real life... just a desolate island of ash and embers that emulated a place of death. Deep within the bowels of the island held a garrison of approximately 22,000 Japanese that were determined to fight to extinction and that is what they did.
Bradley and Powers do a wonderful job describing the Marines training as well as the actions on Iwo Jima. The fact that I came away from reading this book more knowledgeable about the self-sacrifices all Marines made on Iwo Jima, makes my own service in the Marines (1993-1997) a worth while endeavor that I hold near and dear to my heart.
Semper Fi to those that served and especially to Ron Powers and James Bradley for taking the time to research and write an unforgettable and accurate masterpiece of history!
6 people. 1 flag, 1 photo........2007-08-21
James Bradley writes an amazing tribute to his father in this book about the "photo."
The book follows the lives of 6 men from birth until death. Each one of them is unique and has their own story. They all have something in common, and that is that they were all in the photo.
This is NOT a war book, it is a biography of 6 men. A great book!
WOW!.......2007-08-01
This book was AMAZING!!! I knew next to nothing about the Battle of Iwo Jima before reading this book and I learned SO much about the fight for Japan and about what it was like to be a U.S. Marine during WWII.
It is an INCREDIBLE read and a great education, too.
Disappointed.......2007-07-29
I am not sure if it is the fact that the Audiobook is an abridged version but I just didn't find the story that compelling. Somewhat repetitive and too concerned about details which I found boring and uninteresting.
I was looking for a historical account (like the much better "1776" or "Team of Rivals") but this is more like an afterschool special.
Average customer rating:
- Needed for a class, found it put together very well
|
The American Promise: A History of the United States, Volume II: From 1865
James L. Roark ,
Michael P. Johnson ,
Patricia Cline Cohen ,
Sarah Stage ,
Alan Lawson , and
Susan M. Hartmann
Manufacturer: Bedford/St. Martin's
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
All Deals
| Blowout Books
| Stores
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Telecourse Guide for Transforming America: US History Since 1877
-
Reading the American Past, Volume II: From 1865: Selected Historical Documents
-
The American Promise: A History of the United States, Volume I: To 1877
-
Major Problems in American History, Volume II: Since 1865: Documents and Essays
-
The American Promise: A History of the United States
ASIN: 0312406894 |
Customer Reviews:
Needed for a class, found it put together very well.......2007-05-02
As far as textbooks go, it was the formatting that make it what it is. Lots of pictures & primary sources compliment the information being covered in the text. Makes it not as boring a read as most history books. You actually find yourself reading all the little extras.
What makes this series truly great? The fact that they give you a choice on book format to purchase. In a college this textbook would be for a US history 1 & 2. You can chose to purchase the expensive and heavy Hardback if you know you are going to take both parts. Or you can buy a softback of Vol 1 or Vol 2, depending on which class you are enrolled in.
As an adult student, who only recently returned after over 10 year gap I had no reason to want to buy the big textbook. Already had US History 1 credits from the last time around. Through Amazon.com I was able to find the correct edition of the book, while the college bookstore refused to carry it!
Thankful that Amazon.com exists. :)
Average customer rating:
- College student
- AP class
- Textbook price-gouging going on here.
- Worst High School Textbook Ever
|
Liberty, Equality, and Power: A History of the American People, Volume II: Since 1863 (with CD-ROM, American Journey Online, and InfoTrac®) (History of the American People)
John M. Murrin ,
Paul E. Johnson ,
James M. McPherson ,
Gary Gerstle , and
Emily S. Rosenberg
Manufacturer: Wadsworth Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
All Titles
| Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007
| Stores
| Books
Similar Items:
-
After the Fact, with Primary Source Investigator CD
-
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)
-
Miracle At Philadelphia: The Story of the Constitutional Convention May - September 1787
-
Plunkitt of Tammany Hall: A Series of Very Plain Talks on Very Practical Politics (Signet Classics)
-
Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, Volume II: Since 1863, Compact (Thomson Advantage Books)
Accessories:
-
Sources of the Past: Primary Documents for Murrin's Liberty, Equality, Power: A History of the American People, Volume I: to 1877 (with InfoTrac and American Journey Online), 3rd
-
Liberty, Equality, and Power: A History of the American People Study Guide
-
United States History Atlas
-
HistoryNow: U.S. History for Murrin/Johnson/McPherson/Gerstle/Rosenberg/Rosenberg's Liberty, Equality, and Power: A History of the American People, 4th ( Text Book on line )
ASIN: 0534627323 |
Book Description
This is Volume II: Since 1863 of LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER, Fourth Edition. LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER offers students a clear understanding of how America transformed itself, in a relatively short time, from a land inhabited by hunter-gatherer and agricultural Native American societies into the most powerful industrial nation on earth. The authors promote this understanding by telling the story of America through the lens of three major themes: liberty, equality, and power. This approach helps students understand not only the impact of the notions of liberty and equality, which are often associated with the American story, but also how dominant and subordinate groups have affected and been affected by the ever-shifting balance of power. This Fourth Edition retains the narrative clarity, unparalleled coverage, and thematic unity that are the hallmarks of LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER. It updates the text's proven ability to cover social and cultural history with such timely topics as globalization, the impact of science and technology, evolving roles for religion, and expands upon the text's extensively multicultural coverage. Backed by an ancillary package unmatched in this market, LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER makes its thorough, memorable coverage equally accessible to students and instructors. It's available in the following volume splits: LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER: A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, Fourth Edition (Chapters 1-31), ISBN: 0534627307; LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER: A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, Volume I: To 1877, Fourth Edition (Chapters 1-17), ISBN: 0534627315; LIBERTY, EQUALITY, POWER: A HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, Volume II: Since 1863, Fourth Edition (Chapters 17-31), ISBN: 0534627323.
Customer Reviews:
College student.......2007-10-06
I am a great student at college who loves school and I had to take a mandatory history class. I'm not good at history and do not like it but since I wanted a good grade in the class I had to read this book. This book was confusing to me and was not in a logical order. It kept jumping around from topic to topic in the first part of the book. It was too wordy and did not get to the important facts.
AP class.......2007-05-30
In reference to the other reviewers, the complaints here don't seem to address the actual content of the book - $95 is expensive for a paperback, but that's why the same book can be found for $20 under Used&New.
ANYWAY, I'm a high school student who ordered this for use in my AP United States History course this fall. The book is clearly laid out, the prose is engaging, and the parts that I have read so far are comparable to(and in some instances this one surpasses) Alan Brinkley's "American History: A Survey", which is ranked far better. I'll probably drop another review next year after the AP exam, but it seems to be clear and concise, and the resources on the CD-rom are invaluable.
Textbook price-gouging going on here........2005-12-04
$95 for a paperback book is highway roberry.
Have been pricing out college textbooks on Ebay, Amazon, and the college bookstore. It's a bloody medieval guild these publishers have going here and professors who insist on the latest editions of texts are aiding and abetting the rip-off.
This is monopolisitic practice if I've ever seen it. If the industry doesn't rachet down this greed-fest, someone else will - and as far as I'm concerned, it can't happen too quickly. Shame on you all.
Worst High School Textbook Ever.......2005-10-13
I teach an accelerated college prep US History class in a high school. Our department selected this book before I arrived at the school in what I've gathered was a flurry of political correctness hysteria to "The American Pageant's" emphasis on white men. Even if Murrin's book makes an effort to be more PC (sometimes to a fault) it makes the much bigger mistake of assuming that readers already have a fairly sophisticated background in American History. I think it's interesting reading, but then again, I have a degree in history, so trying to learn how the concept of 18th century mercantilism is connected to the 19th century concept of progress all on the same page isn't really a major feat of mental gymnastics. Most teachers in my department don't even use the book because it's too confusing for the kids. If I could have my way, we'd just sell them all and buy something that's (gulp) a little simpler.
To its credit, the book has a nice website with lots of maps and images and resources - but in my memory as a high school student (which was during the age of the internet), a clear, concise textbook was a foundation of learning and more important than a nice website. This textbook is no learning tool.
Book Description
Long awaited Weight Training Workouts that Work: Volume II is finally here!
After the great success people are having with the first Weight Training Workouts that Work (20,000 copies worldwide and growing), Volume II has arrived. A simple, proven 12 week program for the post-beginner to the advanced weight trainer. You will gain strength, build lean muscle, lose weight and look fabulous.
Contains 40 of the best weight training exercises. Each exercise has 3 detailed photos of the complete range of motion and simple bullet point instructions. You will always know exactly how to perform each weight training exercise correctly.
Volume II is to be used at your workouts. Take the portable book with to your workouts, follow and keep track of your progress. The workouts are quick, tested and all planned out for you. They work! Plus the exercises are always at your fingertips for fast reference! The book is designed with the New Openbak Eurobinding. Lays flat, stays open and never falls apart.
*If you are new to weight training or have not lifted weight recently with success, it is highly recommended that you start with the first Weight Training Workouts that Work, then proceed to Volume II.
Customer Reviews:
Worksouts that Truly work.......2007-08-23
I had this set of workout books a few years ago but had lost them in moves. After returning to the gym from an injury, I decided to buy them again. It is like having a trainer without the outrageous costs.
Some good stuff but.........2007-06-28
This book's forte is that it give detailed instructions with pictures for all of the exercises. The bad thing is that the routines in here just contain enough exercises to hit all of your muscles.
Weight Training Workouts that Work:Volume II.......2007-05-13
Easy to use. Very helpful in expanations and use of pictures. Great choice.
Don't cha just love him?.......2007-03-21
I went through this Vol II twice and then added my own grids stapling small papers over the grid sections until midway thru the fourth round. That sums up my thoughts on the book :). Needless to say me and the worn book went bazerk when Vol 3 appeared on his website. It's the same basic layout, so why isn't it offered on Amazon yet? Who knows, but please keep them coming Jimmy!
What a great workout book!.......2007-02-22
This book is so easy to follow and it is just like you have a personal trainer.... I can't wait till his III book is available..... I have lost inches in my waist, stomach and hips and have loss 5 to 6 lbs.....What a difference doing this program makes in your body... this is a way of life for me now... I am almost 50 years old and have workout all my life running and doing all kinds of excercise classes 4 to 5 days a week....I still do my cardio but have added doing this book and this is only my 6st week.... I just can't get over the difference in my body....When you get a certain age it's just so hard to keep your stomach flat and the weight off....Thanks so much!!! Tammy Miller
Book Description
A follow-up to the Dungeon Master's Guide, designed to aid Dungeon Masters and reduce game preparation time. The Dungeon Master's Guide II builds upon existing materials in the Dungeon Master's Guide. It is specifically designed to facilitate play, especially when the Dungeon Master has a limited amount of preparation time. Chapters include discussion on running a game, designing adventures, building and using prestige classes, and creating campaign settings. Ready-made game elements include instant traps, pre-generated locations, treasures, and a fully realized and rendered town.
Customer Reviews:
DM Guide II .......2007-07-23
This book has several good points. It has some new material and a few new things for players and GM's alike. It's one irritating thing is the number of "after you buy the canned game book spend 4 hours reviewing it". It could have had a lot more things to help those of us with a creative mind that like to generate our own worlds. It is, overall, worth the money.
Useful to Any DM.......2007-05-10
All right. Let's begin with a discussion of irony. Not irony as in the Alanis Morissette song (the greatest irony of which almost none of the things she calls ironic actually are). Instead we will talk about true irony.
Those of you who have read my previous reviews may have noticed a certain resistance to a phenomena I call "prestige class bloat." DMG II arrived at my door a bit late for a review copy, and I had some time to think about how I would view the prestige classes in this book. Every other book has drawn my anger, my disdain, sometimes even my pity for their prestige classes. But this book, I thought, "You know . . . I'm gonna give them a pass on this book. They might put the contents into the SRD at some point (it's possible). I'll let this one go."
And there are no prestige classes in this book.
I might weep. I might actually weep.
Anyway. We won't hold that against them. We won't. My review will be objective. Honest.
Actually, that won't be very hard. There's a lot to like in this book. Almost everything is useful. Some of it is downright insightful. When I reviewed the first DMG all those year's ago (all right, the first 3.x DMG . . . I'm not that old, people) I was amazed at how good the advice was. This wasn't just a set of DM specific rules, it really was a guide to being a good DM.
So here we are, years later, holding DMG II.
Chapter 1 deals with the actual running of a game. Now, in many ways this chapter resembles the Gamemaster's Law product from ICE. For years I've said that was the best book on GMing ever written. I'm friends with one of the authors. I'm crushed to say this, but, I like this one better. The bits on how to actually run are pretty blaise, although if your DM routinely shows up surly, sleepy and unwashed you might make him read this book. No, the true genius is the treatment of the different play styles. There was a lot of insight here I've missed over the years. In this section they talk about the different type of players and how to tailor a game for them . . . most importantly, they talk about how to avoid the pitfalls caused by these players. For instance, I've had problems with "Outliers" over the years. These are the players that choose strange class/race combinations, bizarre backgrounds, and seem to set themselves up to fail. An outlier can cause a great deal of trouble in a game if they go out of control at a bad moment. This book gave the simplest advice, to give the outlier the opportunity, a specific set up, to allow him to fail spectacularly early in the session, when it won't hurt anything. By doing this you'll avoid the problem of the character imploding later and taking your plot line with him. It's the simplest advice, but I've missed it for years, and now I know. I'm anxious to put it into use.
Chapter 2 deals with adventures. Now, this was sort of a ho hum chapter for me. When it's useful, I expect it to be very useful, but otherwise I doubt I'll ever look at it. It gives a section on using published adventures that I hope no one needs to read (but if you do, study it. I'm going into business as an e-publisher). It follows this up with some new traps, which are probably the most consistently useful thing in the chapter. Then it moves on to strange locations, such as the tree top city and all the rules necessary for play there. Then it moves onto special encounter rules, such as how to deal with mobs, which again, could be useful. Finally it wraps up with miniature and encounter advice, which was fine.
Chapter 3 deals with building a campaign. Most of the advice is pretty good, but the detailed examples of some medieval environments was truly spot on. I've studied a lot about medieval culture (I'm no expert, but above the gamer layman) and I thought they did a fine job here, especially in examining the fine line between realism and the style of play that is conducive to a good game. You absolutely need to compromise to find the perfect ground between the two, and I loved this book for even trying it. The rest of the chapter treats with general subjects like building a city or magical events and I looked upon it and I called it good.
Chapter 4 outlined the city of Saltmarsh. You know, I could have done without this chapter. I mean it was fine and all, but I thought the locale was a little too evocative of specific images to be as universal as a city in a book like this needed to be. We needed a Homlet, or better yet, a location that doesn't carry the baggage of roleplaying history with it (either good or bad). This chapter just didn't work for me as is. No offence to the writer. I believe this one went astray at conception (and as a game designer, I know the feeling. I've taken the fall for decisions that weren't mine in at least one book.)
Chapter 5 deals with NPCs. Its starts with a treatment of contacts and hirelings, plus a section on unique abilities. Then it hops into my favorite part, the complex NPCs. Lets face it, when you suddenly need a Blackgaurd, you need it now and it's not something you can wing and do it justice. This section gives a nice sampling of these types of difficult-to-improvise characters.
Chapter 6 is the character chapter, it starts with apprentices and mentors and moves on to running a business. Then it hits on teamwork benefits, like those given by special training in Heroes of Battle. I'm still glad these were added into the D&D system and I'm anxious to see more. Then it moves onto prestige classes. Sigh. Now, I was willing to see a few prestige classes in this book, hoping they'd make it into the SRD. Let's face it, only so many people can create versions of the Knight before you're accidently stepping on a half-dozen copyrights. I doubt anyone would sue you over retreading the same ground as everyone else, but we need to stop beating this poor horse. Still, they went a different way. This section is on how to build even more prestige classes. When I read the words, "Why make your own prestige class?" I wanted to find a set of precision needles and stick the one after another into my eyes. Flash forward ten years. "Why did he kill so many people, officer?" "Well, prestige class bloat was bad enough, but then they came out with DMG II. It was the beginning of the end." The chapter wraps up with some stuff on PC organizations.
Finally, the finishes with expanded magic item rules. The book needed this section, and I was happy with it. Of particular note is the section on magical locations which are essentially giant, immobile magic items. These types of locations have worked their way into my campaigns several times over the years. I was happy to see them here.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. I would recommend that everyone who intends to run a game read at least the first chapter. I thought it alone was worth the cover price, and so if you can find a good use for the other material in the book, so much the better. Now I'm going to take a nap an imagine a world where prestige classes are few, balanced, and in some way prestigious.
New stuff is good.......2007-04-26
While this book is not nearly the resource that many of the more staple books are, like the Epic Handbook and PHB2, it is still extremely useful to add more flavor to the campaign. It gives some very good tips to create details and subtlties that make the campaign much more real without seeming narrated to the players. Anyone creating a new campaign could benefit with some of the examples in the Saltmarsh city, novice and veteran players alike.
There are also new and interesting traps, items, and rules that make this book very useful. I havn't read anyone talking about the Teamwork benefits, which are very interesting to me. I intend to implement them into my next campaign, assuming the players want to use any of them. The basic idea is that the group has worked and trained together, so they have studied each other to an extent that you gain special abilities and even feats when certain conditions are met. For example, a character with high Spellcraft and the Evasion ability can teach the rest of your party when to dodge a spell cast by a teammate. This means that the mage can cast fireball right on the fighter wading into melee and he gets to avoid the damage on a reflex save.
The new items, magic locations, and traps have some good ideas behind them, but nothing that a clever DM can't come up with on their own. I'm not saying they are useless, but many are hard to place into a campaign. The magic locations grant the owner specific powers and abilities, but in order for the players to get the location, it almost has to be the entire focus of the campaign. Very few are "side-quest" material, and the majority can take several sessions to get to, capture, find reagents to use them, and defend in order to reap the marginally useful benefits.
Most of the rest of the book is given over to npcs. There is a very large section of sample npcs to use for a fight. Unfortunetly, many aren't optimized, but that doesn't prevent them from being used by a lazy DM that doesn't feel like leveling up every single important npc in case the players fight him. There is also a section on making npcs more distinctive. This can easily be skipped over since DMG1 has a very similar section.
Overall, I have to say there is some interesting material and ideas to make a campaign world more interesting and unique. On the other hand, nothing in this book is game-changing. Useful? yes. Needed in any way? no
A decent read, not great.......2007-02-18
Overall this book contains about 50 pages of useful materials. The rest is really just fluff and made for a beggining gamer/DM who needs ideas for their campaigns.
I would recomend just buying a low level adventure if your starting out as a DM, and save your money on this book as its quite expensive for what you get.
For those who are familiar with the game, there is usefull material in the book on items, treasure charts, etc. Its just a smaller portion of the book.
If you have an extra $35 dollars go for it, it not don't worry your not missing much.
Good supplement.......2006-07-13
This book is a useful supplement for DMs. The new magic item traits and the magical events and locations can really spice up an otherwise stale treasure hoard, and the specialized example NPCs are pretty cool.
While it is by no means necessary (hence it being a supplement), it is not as full of fluff as some of the other d&d 3.5 books out there. Everything in it can be of some use to DMs and players alike.
My one complaint is that WOTC forgot to proofread it before sending it off to the printers. It's chock-full of typos and spelling mistakes (I must say, though, that it's not as bad as the Monster Manual 3.5, which actually has a proofreader named in the credits and yet still manages to come off looking like a rough draft).
Definitely worth getting if you're a DM looking to spice up your game a bit and don't know how/don't have time/can't be bothered to think of ways of doing it yourself. Also useful for new DMs, as it has tips on managing unruly players and the like.
Book Description
FLYBOYS is the true story of eight young American airmen who were shot down over Chichi Jima.Seven of these young men were captured by Japanese troops and taken prisoner.One was rescued by an American submarine and went on to become president. The reality of what happened to the seven prisoners has remained a secret for almost 60 years. After the war, the American and Japanese governments conspired to cover up the shocking truth. Not even the families of the airmen were informed what had happened to their sons. It has remained a mystery-until now. Critics called James Bradley's last book 'the best book on battle ever written.' FLYBOYS is even better: more ambitious, more powerful, and more moving. On the island of Chichi Jima those young men would face the ultimate test.Their story-a tale of courage and daring, of war and of death, of men and of hope-will make you proud, and it will break your heart.
Customer Reviews:
a great book.......2007-06-28
I thought this was a great book. It details the interesting background of Japan, covers coditions that military men had to face, and provides vivid details of the daily activities of the Flyboys themselves. This is the first military type book I've read, and I plan to continue reading them and hope they read somewhat like this one. This has done nothing but increase my interest in war stories. I look forward to reading Flags of Our Fathers shortly.
Flyboys Review.......2007-06-13
"We scorched and broiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo on that night of March 9-10 then went up in vapor at Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined." This is a quote of General Curtis LeMay talking about the firebombing of the Japanese city of Tokyo.
This book is about WWII in the pacific, mostly the Americans fight against the Japanese. It is a book about 8 American flyboys that are shot down over the Japanese island of Chichi Jima. They were held as Japanese POWs until their executions at the hands of the Japanese. The fates of these 8 men were classified and unknown by everyone, even their families, until now. The book takes place mostly from 1941 to 1945. These were the years that America was involved in WWII.
My favorite part of this book was when the Japanese were fire bombed and a lot of the city of Tokyo was destroyed. This was my favorite because all the troops were really excited about it. They all saw it as revenge for Pearl Harbor. This really let me get inside the soldiers heads and figure out how they felt.
The main theme of this book is war and how it affects people. All the violence in the pacific affected everyone. It affected the natives because their homes were being destroyed n the chaos. It affected the families of the flyboys because they were shot down and the families had to hear the bad news and were devastated.
This was an excellent book. It teaches a lot about the history of Japan and the war in the pacific. Most importantly however, it tells the tales of those 8 brave pilots that gave their lives for our country.
My review on Flyboys .......2007-06-05
I thought that this book was a great story. It had a good story line, and the whole book made sense with its flow. This book really intrigues me because I am into alot of the military or shooting books. I love to read a book with a lot of action in it. Truly a great book.
a hidden secret for years..........2007-04-26
what happened to some American flyboys on the island of Chichi Jima was kept top secret for years. James Bradley in a courageous book tells us what happened. Talk about destiny, one of the few pilots that was actually saved was a young George W. Bush. The brutality of war is never easy reading, here, torture, cannibalism and secret rituals will punch you in the gut. Bradley does a good job of presenting of both sides of the story as he tries to present an even handed account of culture differences and the atrocities of war.
Flyboys was a strange title for this book.......2007-03-26
First let me say, that I enjoyed reading Bradley's book "Flags of Our Fathers". I was expecting the same professional and unbiased research in his latest book "Flyboys".
After finishing the first several chapters of "Flyboys", I had to check the dustjacket to make sure that it was applied to the correct book. "Flyboys" is a strange title for a book in which almost half of the book appears to be a personal apology by Bradley to justifiy the atrocities committed by the japanese from the 1930's on toward the end of WWII in 1945.
Once the reader finally gets to the chapters dedicated to the actual title of the book, it is nearly impossible to accept as plausible even the facts Bradley presents about the american pow's on Chichi Jima.
I find it beneath contempt that Bradley uses the story of what occured to american pow's on Chichi Jima as blatant attempt to bring attention to his own biased and distorted world view. Bradley almost singularly blames much of the atrocties committed in recorded history on "Christians" which he clearly identifies as the culprit several times in the first few chapters of his book.
High-minded revisionism is not a tool used by legitimate historians and "Flyboys" clearly indicates that James Bradley has schemed to try to present his on political agenda disguised as a historical book on WW II.
What Bradley does present in his book about the american naval aviators who were taken prisoner on Chici Jima easily could have been presented as a short story.
The publisher could have saved themselves the trouble of wasting a lot of good paper on more PC revisionism.
An example of Bradley's failures as a historian is his attempt to blame the loss of the war on the fact that the japanese didnot place enough value on the "third demension" - a phrase Bradley uses for air-warfare - when in fact, the japanese were actually way ahead of the United States military in that "demension" as early as the late 1930's. The japanese placed much value on aerial warfare and it took the concerted effort of all the industrial resources of America to eventually catch up to and surpass the japanese in the aerial...oops, "third demension" (Bradley seemed to like using that phrase a lot).
I was considering recommending this book based only on the facts presented in the book about the Chichi Jima atrocities but there's already a much better book out there already on the subject titled "Sorties Into Hell: The Hidden War on Chichi Jima" by Chester Hearn so I won't even do that.
Unless one is curious about how to write a book dripping with politically correct biased revisionism presented as a historically factual work, don't bother with this one.
Book Description
Unlike some other world history texts that center on the West, The Human Record provides balanced coverage of the global past. The book features both written and artifactual sources that are placed in their full historical contexts through introductory essays, footnotes, and focus questions.
The text sheds light on the experiences of women and non-elite groups while maintaining overall balance and a focus on the major patterns of global historical developments through the ages.
Customer Reviews:
History from the original source documents.......2007-04-27
"The Human Record" is a collection of primary source documents veering world history from the beginning of written history to about 1500 AD/CE. The text provides context for the original source documents and it typically is used as a companion text for many world history textbooks at the secondary and university levels. "Human Record" includes sample questions which either the student or teacher can utilize to help assess their comprehension of the material presented.
"Human Record" has been regularly updated with new editions that further add or refine previous editions, attesting to its enduring popularity as a resource at both the secondary and university levels. Outside of teachers and students however I cannot imagine there is much appeal. It does represent a wide cultural diversity of ethnic groups and religions rather than showing a Eurocentric perspective, but then again that's become the norm at both secondary and university levels rather than the norm.
4th Edition different from 5th.......2005-09-26
If you are needing the 5th Edition for a class, Do not be fooled that the 4th is the exact same. The majority of the documents are exactly the same but a few key ones are not there. It depends if you want to do the extra work to save a few dollars...so far it's been ok for me...
A Review of The Human Record: Sources of Global History.......2000-05-28
The Human Record: Sources of Global History is an excellent introduction for History students in analyzing and discussing primary source material. The editors have selected not only the most interesting but also the most useful sources in World History. Selections range from the Epic of Gilgamesh, The Book of Genesis, Code of Hammurabi, the Analects, Bhagavad Gita, etc. The only critque I have is that some of the selections are rather short but if used in conjunction with a text book like Traditions and Encounters: A Global Perspective on the Past, and other supplemental material this book will prove beneficial to instructors and students of any World History course. cdeluca@citrus.ucr.edu
Book Description
“This will be a fight against overwhelming odds from which survival cannot be expected. We will do what damage we can.”
With these words, Lieutenant Commander Robert W. Copeland addressed the crew of the destroyer escort USS Samuel B. Roberts on the morning of October 25, 1944, off the Philippine Island of Samar. On the horizon loomed the mightiest ships of the Japanese navy, a massive fleet that represented the last hope of a staggering empire. All that stood between it and Douglas MacArthur’s vulnerable invasion force were the Roberts and the other small ships of a tiny American flotilla poised to charge into history.
In the tradition of the #1 New York Times bestseller
Flags of Our Fathers, James D. Hornfischer paints an unprecedented portrait of the Battle of Samar, a naval engagement unlike any other in U.S. history—and captures with unforgettable intensity the men, the strategies, and the sacrifices that turned certain defeat into a legendary victory.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
An extraordinary well done history.......2007-09-27
It is often said that teaching and learning in high school is a mile wide and an inch deep. All I ever heard and read in high school about WWII and the naval battles against the Japanese Navy in the Pacific is that the United States won the war! This book capably presents the truth that it was never quite a certainty as the battles unfolded. It is a wonderful thing to have a talented writer and researcher as Hornfischer dedicate his extraordinary talent in presenting this excellent well written definitive history of the US and Japanese naval battles near the Phillipines in October of 1944. This book is very highly recommended as an excellent and thought provoking history as well as a true testimonial to the bravery of U.S Navy personnel in battle.
Learned A Lot That Is New.......2007-09-16
I'm about two-thirds of the way through the book. Even at this point, I've learned a lot that I hadn't really appreciated before.
First of all, sometime back I read a book about the naval battle of Guadalcanal. In that battle, it seems as if all the Japanese had to do to sink one of our ships was to get just one hit on it. By the time of the Battle Off Samar, American ship building must have radically improved. Even the American ships that went down were hit literally dozens of times before finally succumbing to the inevitable. And lots of other American ships were hit but kept fighting and were still fighting at the end of the war.
Another realization was the awful damage 16-inch naval guns do to the human body when they hit a ship and explode. The mental picture I used to have of WW II naval warfare was antiseptic. Yes, guys died -- but I saw it as ever so much cleaner than the awfulness of land warfare. The author of the book has descriptions of what the results were. Naval guns were far bigger than anything in land warfare. The biggest shell for field artillery was about the size of a football. In the Navy, the plentiful six- and eight-inch guns had shells as big as a five footballs. And the 16" (or 18" for two of the Japanese Navy's "super" battleships") were as big as a garbage can and weighed as much as a Volkswagen. When they exploded, huge chunks of the sides of ships would be opened up like a tuna can even though it was inch-thick steel. The effect on the human body was even more devastating. Guys were literally ripped apart and sometimes whole compartments of guys were ripped apart so badly that one guy couldn't be identified from another. It was, literally, like an explosion in a meat locker. Never again will I think that naval warfare was antiseptic. (This is also something of a warning that if you read the book you're going to get all those descriptions too. If you don't think you can stomach it, then you'll either have to skip over those sections or skip the book.)
The book also follows the survivors of the ships that went down as they bobbed in the water waiting for rescue. Their time in the water was made more troubling by the fact that they were constantly being circled by sharks. It was their "good fortune" to be covered with bunker oil from the sunken ships that apparently acted both as a shark repellent and a sun block. But, unlike every other book I've read or movie I've seen, the whole story of a naval battle isn't over when the shooting stops. And, it isn't easy to spot guys in the water with a whole ocean to look at. It was also interesting how, despite the desperate situation they were all in, they all worked to help the wounded among them first. (Unlike the movie warriors who are all fight, the tenderness displayed to the worse off among them is remarkable.)
This is a great book for anyone wanting to know what World War II naval warfare was really like.
Also, there are a lot of maps that help to follow ship movements.
Great book, but..........2007-09-14
I enjoyed the book and the heroism of the sailors and airmen who fought the battle has seldom been equaled. However, the whole reason they were in this terrible position to begin with was poor decision making and poor communication from the higher levels, esp Halsey. I found that after a while that fact made the book a bit depressing for me. It seems obvious that such a powerful Japanese fleet should have been given more respect (watched closely, etc.) since Halsey knew it was in the area.
Gene's review of Tin Can Sailors.......2007-09-13
A very good narrative with human interest about an important naval engagement of the WWII. How the US Navy reacted to an almost impossible situation that seemed hopeless. Read his other book about the sailors of the USS Houston who sank and survived to help build the highway in the jungle which included the Bridge over the River Quai. He is a very good author!
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors.......2007-09-13
Having served on 3 destroyers (Tin Cans) 1952-1965, two of the Fletchers, this book brought back many memories, both good and bad, of those years of service and sailing on those ships. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found it difficlut to put down. There are so many heroic stories to be told that have not been revealed, and so many more that will never be told, but I thank this author for telling this one.
Kenneth E. Irons
Books:
- Sixty Days and Counting
- Sophie Scholl and the White Rose
- The Captured: A True Story of Abduction by Indians on the Texas Frontier
- The Color Purple
- The Cure for All Cancers: Including over 100 Case Histories of Persons Cured
- The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
- The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot
- The Historian's Toolbox: A Student's Guide to the Theory and Craft of History
- The History of Sexuality: An Introduction
- The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- The Fair Tax Book: Saying Goodbye to the Income Tax and the IRS
- Real Food for Dogs: 50 Vet-Approved Recipes to Please the Canine Gastronome
- G-2: Intelligence for Patton: Intelligence for Patton
- History: Fiction or Science
- Into the Woods
- The Black Book of Hollywood Beauty Secrets
- Notes from the Shore
- Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2002-2003 Edition
- Insecure Times: Living with Insecurity in Contemporary Society
- European Yearbook of Business History, 2001
Sea of Thunder: Four Commanders and the Last Great Naval Campaign 1941-1945
The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour
The Few
Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany
Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy
