Jim RasenbergerReseñas

Tonight I finished a very interesting American History book; America 1908. Unlike most history books that can be overly dry and factual, author Jim Rasenberger has a talent for making history come alive! His writing is light and easy with the ability to make the historic ground-breaking events of 1908 extremely exciting.

Those readers who love history, adventure, innovation, and exploration, or have a passionate interest in the progress of our country, will love this wonderful book. I never realized how important the year 1908 was until now.

America 1908 highlights the incredible events of Henry Ford's creation of the Model T automobile that took the country by storm, the exciting and dangerous New York to Paris car race, the horrors of the explorers racing to be the first to discover the North Pole, Teddy Roosevelt's success with the Great White Fleet that logged in 43,000 miles in order to pave the way of creating allies for the upcoming Great War, and lastly the feature event of the year, the Wright brothers sensational conquering of the air claiming fame with their first record-breaking flights! From Kitty Hawk North Carolina all the way to France, they were the heroes of 1908!

Although I read this is sections in between other novels, I found this book simply riveting and a page turner. To learn how our country evolved due to the actions of the leaders and forerunners of the era was eye-opening and fascinating! Five Stars!

Being a panoramic look at one of America's more interesting ragtime years, 1908. The author does a good job of keeping a lot of balls in the air; major themes include the voyage of the Great White Fleet, Theodore Roosevelt, basebal's Merkle game, the Wright Brothers, polar exploration, and the New York-Paris auto race. Rasenberger has a good ear for the telling anecdote and contemporary sources which will bring the year's zeitgeist alive. This book was both informative and entertaining.½

Twice I have been to the little Bay of Pigs Museum while visiting Miami. Twice it has been closed! What a disappointment. This book then may be as close as I get. I can't see how you could tell this story much better. It is written in a thrilling 'you are there' style with little facts adding to its veracity. A quick example: He mentions a weather forecast of possible frost in the D.C. suburbs on the morning of April 19th. I looked it up: Sure enough BWI (then Friendsip Airport) fell to 37F that morning. Dulles Airport records did not even begin in 1962. Where speculation is called for he is more than willing to admit that it is just that. In terms of the never-ending blame game on the Bay of Pigs no one in this account really gets a 'pass' but no one is completely eviscerated either. There is blame and (some) credit for all (well, most). Overall I felt the author did a commendable job of even-handed treatment. The description of all the incredible personalities is just fascinating. I recommend this book highly to anyone with an interest in the Kennedy years, the Cold War, CIA, Cuba and even the path to Vietnam. Splendid work!½

This book came out in 2008 as a "One Century Later!" kind of book. But it's still good in 2014

The author is a teriffic story teller and he has some great stories to tell.

We celebrate 1903 as the year of the Wright Brothers first flight but forget that the 1903 Flyer could only fly straight lines and could (barely) achieve level flight.
It was the 1908 Flyer that figured out wing warping and could comfortably fly figure 8's and bank and swoop. It was the 1908 Flyer that secured the Wrights' claim to "the first practical airplane"

1908 was also the year of the first New York to Paris road race for cars. How do you get from New York to Paris in a car? Easy! Drive up to Alaska and go over on the frozen ice of the Bering Strait. (NOT!)

America was still - pre World War I - the new kid in international affairs and our author tells the story of the Great White Fleet that sailed around the world and basically threw America's hat in the ring and made people take the young country more seriously.

And the great story of "Merkle's Boner" in the 1908 World's Series and generally how baseball was played and reported back in the day.

Great book for dipping into and flipping through - or reading straight through. A lot of fun. A lot to think about.

I never knew much about the Bay of Pigs other than it was a brief embarrassing attempt by the CIA to overthrow Castro. So I picked up this book based on the high reviews. The writing is fantastic, often humorous and novelistic, it goes by quickly. Along the way you learn a lot about Castro and how the US sort of created its own problem in Cuba. It's very much a series of bumbling mistakes and contingencies, the invasion should have never happened but there were so many miscommunications it's a great example of a bureaucracy out of control. I was surprised to learn how serious the repercussions were afterwards, it was like the Ur moment that started the Vietnam War; due to the failure in Cuba, Vietnam was seen as a way of saving face politically. It's good the Bay of Pigs never "succeeded", as the title Brilliant Disaster suggests, because instead of being bogged down in a protracted guerrilla war in Vietnam for decades it very well could have been Cuba instead (or in addition to).

This is a good account of the Bay of Pigs operation. It provides a good overview of aerial opertaions, but has some of the usual errors describing aircraft that seem inevitable from mainstream historians. It is accurate on the timing and composition of the air missions, and has a good bibliography.

I was born 10 years after the Bay of Pigs, so it has never been an important factor in my life. It is even more distant history than the American Revolution or the Civil War because those were taught in school. Because communisim has not been a threat to the United States during my adulthood, I've wondered for the last several years why we continue to have such a strained relationship with Cuba. I finally decided to educate myself.

I'm so glad that I selected Brilliant Disaster as my textbook. It gives an account of the Bay of Pigs that was both interesting and clear. This book does not require that you are a history professor, military expert, or politico to be able to really undersand what happend between the US and Cuba.

I still don't know why we continue to keep Cuba at a distance, but I certainly understand how it came about.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about this interesting time in our history.

My kind of book. The kind I like to read and the kind I wish I could write. Rasenberger does a good job of weaving together the interesting story lines of 100 years ago. You can see the beginning of the modern as he tells his tales. Nicely done!

America was quite a different place one hundred years ago. There are 300 million Americans today. We drive and fly everywhere. We talk on cell phones and chat over the Internet. For the 90 million people living in the United States of 1908, life was slower but the modern age was coming on quickly. Jim Rasenberger recreates the major events of that remarkable yesteryear in his new book America 1908. He describes tit with an unfolding fascination.

Few people had heard of the Wright Brothers or had seen anyone fly when the year began, but reports trickled out of North Carolina and France in the spring and early summer. By August, hour-long public flight demonstrations made headlines around the world. The conquest of the skies changed the world in 1908, but that technological development wasn't alone. Henry Ford debuted his Model T that year, too. Automobiles, a luxurious novelty of the rich, was suddenly within reach of the middle class pocket book.

Rasenberger writes about these major cultural shifts within the context of other news stories playing out the same year. A strange around-the-world auto race (cars were still novelties) attracted crowds on three continents, two men struggled to reach the North Pole, a very popular president (Theodore Roosevelt) made way for his successor, sixteen American battleships circumnavigated the globe, a string of horrific lynchings erupted in Abraham Lincoln's home town, and a bonehead play in a contentious baseball game capped the National League pennant race.

Although the book is chronological in structure, it is narrative in delivery. The author unfolds the stories bit by bit as if you were reading them in a succession of quarterly newsmagazines. It's an effective technique. The only thing lacking is the feel for everyday life. You get small doses of what the average American experienced (the nickelodeon craze, for instance) but the focus is always on the news -- not the common life. The year's news was rich that year, however, and America 1908 is a very good account of those twelve transformative months one century ago.

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