Donald L. Miller (1)Reseñas

I will always love a book that has so much new to tell me about cities. And this book tells me so much about New York that I didn't know before, even if, at the end of the day, I have a few quibbles with the sub-title. Did Jazz Age Manhattan give birth to Modern America? I'm not sure this is true. I'm not even sure I understand what is "Modern America." Is modern America defined by what goes on down on Wall Street or Midtown? Or Silicon Valley. if one stopped the clock at December 31, 1999, then maybe I would agree with the author. But modern America today is so much defined by the Puritan heritage, the religious revivial of 19th century America, by the Gilded Age, by racism, slavery, and not a little of revolutionary America. The southwest and increasingly more the remainder of America is defined by Hispanic California before the American expansion west and south. Donald Miller has brought together for me a lot of great research about Prohibition New York and for sure Prohibition had a tremendous impact on how people sought entertainment in the "Roaring Twenties," a sobriquet he never uses. Hoodlums mingled with producers and athletes, politicians and real estate developers. Tamany-controlled New York politics certainly affected who got elected, what got built and often what legislation got passed. I adored the sections on the beauty mavens of midtown, including Helena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden, Bergdorff & Goodman, and the Saks family. And I learned much about real estate developers, publishers, theatre and radio producers, It is a rich volume. I enjoyed it very much.

Ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag. Some good shit but doesn't tell how jazz age Manhattan gave birth to modern America.

Pretty good overview of coal mining in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but very limited references to Italian coal miners in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, so of limited use to me. Read as part of my research into my Italian family heritage.

Excellent, the definitive one volume book on the campaign. Covers all aspects, Union/Confederate, Army/Navy, slave/civilian, geography and environment.

thorough and great

Wow, expansive books on world War ii are often grinding slogs through wars and maneuvers but this one actually kept my interest for nearly 25 hours. Amazing. I recommend reading because it was so engaging but I wouldn't count on it for in depth coverage of and particular segment. But wow, too write such an all encompassing book and keep it thrilling is darn hard and I commend the author.

Audiobook note :excellent narrator

This is a tremendously well researched book about the Vicksburg campaign from when it starts in Illinois till its completion. There are a lot of battles along the way and Grant, of course, is the central figure. This is a very unbiased book showing both victories and defeats as well as the personality traits of the leaders with their strength and weaknesses. Ultimately Miller argues that it was Grant's ability to see the big picture and his dogged persistence in the face of harsh criticism as well uncooperative weather, terrain and the Confederate army leads to his success. P. S. Grant smoked twenty cigars a day.

Long book! Very thorough history of the 8th. Makes you angry at the early commanders who sent the men to slaughter before anyone was ready. Also will make you hate the Swiss government.½

Masters of the Air is the deeply personal story of the American bomber boys in World War II who brought the war to Hitler's doorstep. With the narrative power of FICTION, Donald Miller takes readers on a harrowing ride through the fire-filled skies over Berlin, Hanover, and Dresden and describes the terrible cost of bombing for the German people.
Masters of the Air is a story, as well, of life in wartime England and in the German prison camps, where tens of thousands of airmen spent part of the war. It ends with a vivid description of the grisly hunger marches captured airmen were forced to make near the end of the war through the country their bombs destroyed.

A very comprehensive history of this remarkable city from its origin to around the turn of the 19th century. I grew up about 80 miles north this city in Wisconsin and also took my first job there out of college. We did not mix well. Chicago's history is dizzying in its twists and turns and dynamic transitions, all captured well here in this narrative by Donald Miller.

From its start, an Indian word meaning either striped skunk or stinking onions, take your pick, Chicago became a city that embodied the can do get it done spirit of this country. Right up to the great fire and battles in the streets of the emerging labor movement it never backed down from reinventing itself. A good book to get immersed in this rich history and what Carl Sandberg most aptly characterized as "the city of big shoulders." That it certainly is.

I read the subtitle of this book and assumed it was a collection of war stories from 8th Air Force crewmen. I'm not a huge fan of oral history but decided to give it a shot anyway. Wow was I pleasantly surprised. It is much, much more than an oral history. MASTERS OF THE AIR examines the entire experience of the 8th AF from POWs to its portrayal in movies and books to race relations to the effect of the American air bases on the social fabric of the English countryside to the whole question of the viability of strategic bombardment. Miller is incredibly well read on a vast amount of literature relating to the air campaign over Europe and draws on many of these sources to produce a rich first-rate history. There is something in MASTERS for any fan of history.

I particularly enjoyed his handling of the sticky question of whether strategic bombing was a success. From the point of view of the pre-war bomber barons the answer is "no". Heavy bombers alone were not able to defeat Germany. But the more important question is whether the damage they did inflict was worth the effort put forth and the answer to that is a resounding "yes".

Miller does a fine job though of making clear that the strategic bombing was not the sole mission of the 8th. Throughout late 1943 and early 1944 the main mission of the 8th was too break the Luftwaffe fighter force by hitting targets the Jagdwaffe would be forced to defend and then shooting down the German fighters. Destruction of the Luftwaffe was a pre-requisite for Operation Overlord and the 8th was the only force able to carry it out. German fighters routinely avoided combat with Allied fighters- it took attacks on key targets by bombers to bring them out where American escorts could get them.

Coincidently this campaign against German airpower also paved the way for later campaigns against oil and transportation targets in Germany. This is where strategic bombing came into it's own. It was never able to win the war alone but it severely curtailed German production efforts in the last months of the war and shortened the war by months.

I'm only touching the surface of what MASTERS offers. If you have any interest in the air war over Europe or the 8th Air Force I strongly recommend this book. It is sure to be the standard history of the 8th

A wonderful read. Miller takes us through NYC in the 1920s using politicians, athletes, publishers, gangsters, musicians, builders, architects, engineers, moguls and others to illustrate his case. The sections on Jimmy Walker, Owney Madden, Horace Liverwright and Othmar Ammann, the chief engineer of the GWB, are especially noteworthy. This is a balanced and industrious writer.

Book describes just what the title says...from training to bombing missions to POW status and everything in between. It's well researched and well written with personal vignettes that are illuminating and illustrative. It's mostly about 8AF and 15AF (the other European numbered air force) gets short shrift in the deal. Probably, the book would have been too long. I enjoyed learning more about that time in history.

I had a mixed reaction to this book. Although I love historical first-person narrative as well as "straight history," I am not crazy about the combination of the two. When Miller does straight history, he is usually pretty good. When he suddenly takes the "mole's eye view" to recount an important historical event from the perspective of just one person, the viewpoint swings too wildly from the telephoto lens to the microscope. I find it distracting rather than enriching of the text.

Not bad but it was a little dry in my opinion.

I'm not very pleased with this, as it's patently not a history of amphibious operations in the Pacific. It spends more time on the Bataan Death March than the fight over the Philippines in '42.
That said it is a good general introduction to the Pacific Theatre, along the lines of Ambrose's works - putting a lot of emphasis on first-hand accounts of veterans to get across the stark-realism of the theatre.

Long in the shadow of New York City, Chicago has struggled to carve a place in the American conscious. City of The Century, never boring, staid or repetitive, is the antidote. Much more fascinating than Erik Larson's over-rated Devil In The White City, City of The Century provides a complete picture of Chicago from the early days of swampy, wetlands settlement to the advent of the Board of Trade. Just like the city of its title, this books is fulfilling and unpretentious.