Book Description
WHEN YOU'RE IN THE DEATH BUSINESS,
EACH DAWN COULD BE YOUR LAST.
Raw, straightforward, and powerful, Ed Kugler's account of his two years as a Marine scout-sniper in Vietnam vividly captures his experiences there--the good, the bad, and the ugly. After enlisting in the Marines at seventeen, then being wounded in Santo Domingo during the Dominican crisis, Kugler arrived in Vietnam in early 1966.
As a new sniper with the 4th Marines, Kugler picked up bush skills while attached to 3d Force Recon Company, and then joined the grunts. To take advantage of that experience, he formed the Rogues, a five-sniper team that hunted in the Co Bi-Than Tan Valley for VC and NVA. His descriptions of long, tense waits, sudden deadly action, and NVA countersniper ambushes are fascinating.
In DEAD CENTER, Kugler demonstrates the importance to a sniper of patience, marksmanship, bush skills, and guts--while underscoring exactly what a country demands of its youth when it sends them to war.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent View into a soldier's life.......2006-11-29
I'm not much on reading a lot of military works. Ed Kugler does an awesome job bringing me inside his world. Writing in a conversational voice, he draws you in and speaks directly from his feelings and views regarding life as scout-sniper during the Vietnam War.
This memiore of his military life brings along side Ed Kugler in the tall grass. Taking and supporting the point as they navigate past booby traps and enemy snipers to hunting grounds. History buffs and military readers will find this book to be a must read.
Ed Kugler does not romanticise war. He gives a direct account with the courage to show his thoughts and feelings, uncaring of judgement. I finished this book with a much deeper respect for my country's military. Men and women live each day fighting for our country and struggle to survive another day. Anyone enjoying this reading of one personal history should feel thankful too.
As real as it gets.......2006-04-19
This book is an excellent choice for those seeking a good war story. It is truthfull to the core. Every aspect of war from the combat to the language used by the troops is graphic. This book is definitly not for the faint of heart. It is jam packed with mind numbing suspense, explosive action, and gripping emotions. You wont be able to put this book down once you pick it up, and beleive me you will have a much deeper appreciation for what our vetrans have done, once you have finished.
Good Story.......2006-02-18
It's about a small town boy who reads a book about the Marines, joins up, and then finds himself in Nam. It's very different from what he thought it would be. This book will keep your attention but it ends abruptly when his tours are over.
Excellent Marine 'Sniper' book .......2005-08-22
Unlike many of this type of book, it does not have dull or boring spots. But, it does a good job of sucking you in personally to what went on & what/how the author was thinking.
I felt it was a very honest book & definitely one of the best personal post-Vietnam books of the many that I have read.
I recommend this to anyone - novices or people very familiar with the genre.
Great Story.......2005-06-27
I met Ed Kugler while installing a vinyl floor in his kitchen and noticed he had a little magnet on his refridgerator of the book cover. I found it quite amazing that this nice soft spoken teddy bear of a man was a marine sniper. He ended up giving me an autographed copy of the book and I thought that was aweful nice of him to do.
I let the book sit for about 3 months only reading a couple of pages at a time. Once I started really getting into the book I was so immersed in the story of his marine tour that I had to remind myself that I met the guy in his house on a hill in montana and that this is a true story...no B.S. Just the fact that he is not dead or missing limb's proves the greek was right. The story's here are top notch and there's never a dull moment in the book. Ed's vivid recollection of events really helps someone that has never been in war really get a good idea what it was like and what kind of things you think about. Definitely reccomend this to anyone over 15 years old for some education on how vietnam was for this group of snipers.
Average customer rating:
- Dead Center Is Not Quite Dead Center But It Is Very Enjoyable!
- Loved it! Loved it! Loved it!
- "Stunned Off-Center" would be a more appropriate title
- Groucho Marx
- Great!
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Dead Center
David Rosenfelt
Manufacturer: Mysterious Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Play Dead
ASIN: 0892960027 |
Book Description
Although New Jersey defense attorney Andy Carpenter has reentered the dating scene, he still has strong feelings for his ex-girlfriend Laurie, a top-ranking cop who has moved back to Findlay, Wisconsin. Then one day Laurie calls him out of the blue. She has recently arrested a young man for murder, and although there was enough evidence for an arrest, Laurie believes the man is innocent. Andy agrees to return to Wisconsin to investigate and soon finds himself face-to-face with a mysterious religious groupone that seems to know a great deal about murder....and other secrets that are best left alone.
Customer Reviews:
Dead Center Is Not Quite Dead Center But It Is Very Enjoyable!.......2007-10-04
Dead Center, Rosenfelt's fourth novel in his series featuring Andy Carpenter and his faithful canine companion, Tara, does not come off as as close to being "dead center" as the three preceding books, but it is very enjoyable and definitely worth reading. Rosenfelt continues to be one of the freshest voices among today's mystery writers due to his ability to provide interesting plots, plenty of surprises, lots of humor and well-developed major and minor characters. Andy Carpenter, the main character who is a wise-cracking suburban New Jersey defense attorney, is one that stays in your mind even after you finish the book and is one that I'm looking forward to 'hang out' with in his future legal adventures. Plus, his dog, Tara, is one I wish I had. I think the main reason I didn't enjoy Dead Center quite as much as Rosenfelt's other books is that it didn't show off Carpenter's courtroom abilities as much. Noneteheless,I recommend Dead Center when you're in the mood for a fast-paced, easy read. However, you might want to first consider reading the other books in the series which I think will further your appreciation of Dead Center.
Loved it! Loved it! Loved it!.......2007-08-28
Being a smart aleck myself, I've always enjoyed mystery novels with sarcastic narrators. Rosenfelt's series of Andy Carpenter books rank right up there with the Myron Bolitar mysteries by Harlan Coben in terms of humor, pacing, and enjoyability.
In this book, Carpenter is recruited by his ex-girlfriend to come to Wisconsin to help in the defense of an accused murdered. The Jerseyite Carpenter's POV narration of life in Wisconsin is dead-on rioutous, and the mystery he soon finds himself embroiled in is engrossing.
Rosenfelt's books never seem overlong, yet always end too soon. This book, and the series, is highly recommended.
"Stunned Off-Center" would be a more appropriate title.......2007-08-11
David Rosenfelt, people keep telling me, is a clever, witty guy. Why, right on the back cover of this very paperback, the Kingston Observer (MA) says, "Rosenfelt is a very funny guy who's got the gift of glib." Yeah, right.
Here is a gem from the man with the gift of glib:
Since she's behind a podium, it would be hard for the viewer to know that she is five foot ten. I'm five ten too, but I always used to claim I was five ten and a quarter. That seems a little obvious, so I changed my height to five ten and a half, which I've since rounded up to five eleven. It's the first growth spurt I've had since high school. [Page 15-16, mass paperback edition]
As soon as you stop rolling on the floor with laughter, try another:
The voice on the phone says, "Hello, Andy." Since it's my phone I've picked up, this is not a particularly shocking statement. [Page 21]
Or this:
"Sandwich?" I ask, thinking he might like one of the many sandwiches I made and brought with us.
"Unhh," he says.
"I've got roast beef, turkey and turkey pastrami."
"Unhh," he says.
"I've never actually seen a turkey pastrami, have you? I mean, do they look like regular turkeys? Or regular pastramis?"
"Unhh," he says. [page 296]
Unhh, I say. Just for comparison's sake, here is a passage from a mystery writer who is not normally regarded as a barrel of laughs:
I rolled over gently and sat up and a rattling noise ended in a thump. What rattled and thumped was a knotted towel full of melting ice cubes. Somebody who loved me very much had put them on the back of my head. Somebody who loved me less had bashed in the back of my skull. It could have been the same person. People have moods. [Raymond Chandler, "Playback," 1958.]
Chandler's gag has exactly the same structure as Rosenfelt's "growth spurt" joke, but it is better crafted, better paced, organic to the action rather than an arbitrary add-on, and leads to a punch line ("People have moods") that is sharper and crisper than anything of Rosenfelt's. That Marlowe, what a wild and crazy guy!
Leaving the mirthfulness quotient of this comedy-mystery series behind, let's consider other aspects. In a review of an earlier Rosenfelt book, "Bury the Lead," I wrote this of the leading character, "Among fictional lawyers, Andy Carpenter is an unkempt, uncultivated clod whose highest ambition is to become an idle, unkempt, uncultivated clod. He is an adult by chronological convention and for no other reason. He is the Anti-Perry Mason." After reading this book, I see no reason to modify that opinion. Rosenfelt certainly does no favor for his hero by devoting the first chapter of this book to an un-needed demonstration of exactly how and why Carpenter is a self-absorbed, self-pitying, self-indulgent, snivelling whiner.
Andy's friends and acquaintances don't come off much better. The (human) love of Andy's life is a police chief. She calls for her out-of-state, ex-boyfriend to rush to her side in order undermine one of her own department's cases, an action pretty well guaranteed to raise eyebrows among her subordinates on the force and her superiors on the city council. She also demonstrates certain other failings in matters of departmental command and control. Her affair with the imported, supposedly hot-shot defense lawyer is carried out with all the adult restraint and gravitas of a pair of starry-eyed and hormonal tenth graders. (And to tell the truth, Andy doesn't seem like much of a catch, although his eight-figure bank account might have some attraction of its own.)
Andy's other friends hardly exist as such. "Enablers" would be a more appropriate term. Most enabling of the bunch is Marcus. He is a blood brother to Robert B. Parker's infamous Hawk. He is the tame bully, the walker on the dark side who props up the hero in the light, the two-legged id-monster who carries out dirty work too tedious for the author to rationalize, the hack writer's dear friend.
Elsewhere you may find comments on Rosenfelt's improbable turns of plot or errors of fact. I shall concern myself only with his failure of nerve. Beginning with the title of the book, a specific entity had been identified and repeatedly characterized in a certain way. Three-quarters of the book are clearly directed toward setting up a climactic confrontation with this rigidly characterized entity. When the time comes, though, Rosenfelt, veers sharply off into a much safer tangent. When all is done, we discover--without Rosenfelt ever saying so in explicit terms--that the entity is not what Rosenfelt had repetitively told us it is, and never was.
(On a lesser but more personal point, Lawyer Andy has a confrontation with the head of a well-established nut cult. As it happens, it's a perfectly tepid affair. I once met the head of a well-established nut cult. The meeting was brief and the words we exchanged were banal. I thought he was a pompous and rather silly man, but there was something about Jim Jones that made a meeting with him anything but tepid, even years before he laced the Kool-Aid with poison.)
This is a would-be legal thriller that reads and feels like a cozy mystery. This is supposedly a glib and witty book in which the comedy is clumsy and ill-formed and the punch lines usually fall to the ground with a thud. This is a book that shies away from its own internal logic. It's not a terrible book, being good enough to read if there are absolutely no alternatives. It's just not a very good book.
Three stars ... with the benefit of a doubt.
Groucho Marx.......2007-07-05
I enjoyed this book immensely. If Groucho Marx were a detective living and loving in Jersey then he would be Andy Carpenter. The one-liners had me laughing aloud. There's always nice unexpected plot twist and beloved character can go bye-bye in a heartbeat, but by the end, you enjoyed the read and the ride.
Great!.......2007-06-08
I'm so glad I discovered David Rosenfelt and his delightful books with Andy Carpenter and Tara. Andy's sense of humor never overshadows the drama of the story and the plots are believable and involved.
Just great!
Book Description
In his fifteen years with the New York City medical examiner's office, Shiya Ribowski has been the primary investigator on more than eight thousand deaths–a harrowing crash course that put him at the scene of the most gruesome and bizarre crimes in the city's history. There was the encounter with mummified human remains, the traveling freak show, bodies dumped under bridges and the crack dens of the nineties–and, most challenging of all, the extraordinary task of identifying the bodies of the victims of 9/11, an undertaking that only recently came to a close in April 2005.
In Dead Center, Ribowsky shares his intimate and utterly unique knowledge of death. From the morgue to the examining table to the darkest corners of the forensics industry, Ribowsky reveals the personal ethics and emotional backbone that allow him to do the job–and, macabre though it may seem, enjoy it. Weaving together fascinating stories from 9/11 and tales of Ribowsky's career at large, Dead Center is a riveting tale of forensic science and murder, and a vicarious thrill ride through New York's criminal underworld.
Customer Reviews:
Ego gets in the way........2007-10-10
This started out promising, but I found the author's ego got in the way of what should have been a very moving storyline. He related several job-related incidents of working in the coroner's office of New York City, and then switched to the upheaval of 9/11. At this point, he seemed to be a one man savior for the identification process, and never missed a chance to question his superiors, or note the time he personally spent. With the exception of mentioning a very few co-workers, which he recruited, he barely mentions the huge staff effort to accomplish the identification of 9/11 victims.
Worth a read.......2006-12-25
Dead Center covers a lot of ground - it's a compelling first-person account of the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster, from scientific, professional, and personal levels, but also illuminating in its description of the Medical Examiners Office, forensic methodology, and relations between that department and the police. It does have a lot of material included for shock value, but it's not as much gruesome as breaking of taboos about discussion of these sorts of thing - and there's a fair amount of objectification and humor in those descriptions.
There's also the occasional policy discussions on current practice and law regarding mortality reporting and other issues that relate to forensics - buried in the text but worth consideration. Recommended.
DEAD CENTER IS DEAD ON.......2006-12-06
I was captivated by this book from the moment I turned the first page. Mr. Ribowsky's experiences at the New York Medical Examiner's Office were gripping and most fascinating. The author shared an insider's view of a place most of us know very little about. Though sometimes graphic, the details were nevertheless riviting. From the harrowing descriptions of real life crime scenes, to the compassion Mr. Ribowsky showed the families after the horrific events of 911, Dead Center was hard to put down.
Captivating and extremely interesting!.......2006-12-05
Incredible insight into the untapped world of a medical examiner's work! I loved this book because although the subject can sometimes be morose, it was still written in a lighthearted manner with dashes of humor and intense detail. Shiya Ribowsky unveils the mysteries of how so many people who've lost their loved ones to tradgedies, can once again be at peace after determining who these unknowns are and where they came from.
One Mans Brave and Honest Experience of 9/11.......2006-11-27
Dead Center is a very, very honest book on 9/11. I enjoyed it start to finish. The author took you with him, step by step, on that fateful day. His honest rendition of what he and everyone around him had to go through is just unbelievable. To function on a day, when kaos is all around you, tell's us what these heros actually went through. I especially enjoyed his telling of his schooling and how he became a medical examiner. It is very refreshing for an author to be honest enough to share a part of his life with his readers, so that we may understand his feelings on that day. I would recommend this book very highly to anyone who wants the behind the scene truth of what went on at the Medical Examiners Office on 9/11. I also want to thank the author for being brave enough, to put into print and not sugarcoat the events of that day.
Book Description
Kevin Cameron is one of the most widely read motorcycle journalists in the world--for reasons that this collection makes immediately and undeniably clear. Here are the feature articles and columns that have made Cameron a must-read for motorcycle aficionados: stories of the racing life; interviews with top-notch racers; profiles of builders and engineers (like John Britten); accounts of changes in the racing world; analyses of riding techniques and winning technology; reports of races; and popular pieces about engine and suspension theory. With short introductions to each piece, Cameron puts his on-the-spot writing on motorcycle racing into context, and offers a quick, clear history of the best on bikes.
Customer Reviews:
Motorcycles, yes indeed!!!!!.......2007-10-09
My husband loved the book and has read it 3 times all ready. If you are excited about the motorcycling world, then this book is for you.
Cycle fan.......2007-09-25
Having read Kevin Cameron over the years it is great to relive those articles. The TZ Yamahas were great machines and its great to remember a simpler time of racing with well told articles.
Clear like glass, crystal etc........2007-09-18
What a great book! Kevin Cameron is the clearest technical writer I know of, and my purchase was a no brainer. I know of no one else who can make the inner workings of an internal combustion engine leap to full-colour life with incredible clarity and detail, and do it so effortlessly that you don't even realise how smoothly the images leap up and you see his point with no deductive effort on your part. The book has sections on racing (insightful, but a bit slow if you're not American), racers (very interesting reading about some not-so-famous, but interestingly driven characters), mechanics (haven't gotten that far down the book yet) and inner workings (about the minutiae of the engines, my favourite section, both from Cycle World and in this book).
If you're even slightly into technical texts about motorcycles, you must have this book. KC rocks!
Genius technology writer.......2007-07-21
Racers who want to climb the sport's greasy pole need the basics: skill, will, energy, luck, focus, money and opportunity. Comparable skills are vital in every phase of racing --machine choice, tuning, tire selection, maintenance, logistics, acquiring sponsorship, managing stress. Another helpful ingredient rises above almost all others: a mentor, sitting patiently alongside, to make sure that we understand what is going on and what to do about it most effectively.
Enter Kevin Cameron with TDC, tracing his racing experience over a 35-year career as perhaps the most knowledgeable and capable man in the field, certainly among its finest writers. Individuals may exceed his skills in narrow areas but no one has assembled the 'package' Cameron brings to the task. The book is a four-part selection of 51 of his writings in CYCLE WORLD from 1973-2005, with current, brief introductions, and helps us understand why he is essential reading for serious enthusiasts.
In his first section, THE RACING LIFE, Cameron analyzes where most racers are coming from: privateers with limited means, the moments and signposts that created today's scene (e.g. 1974, year of the 'slick'), the art of crashing, the two-stroke/four-stroke conundrum, frames, suspensions, disk brakes (remember drums?), pioneering riders, some of the appalling incidents that doomed many racing efforts. Ever slept in a van, worked 36 hours straight fueled by coffee and junk food? He has. You can, um, smell it on the page.
With his second grouping, RACERS, he appraises the great riders--attitudes, character, what enabled them to win: Mick, Wayne, Eddie, Freddie, KR, Kevin. Even if you don't know racing's past greats, their strengths and weaknesses, rendered insightfully by Cameron, resonate today throughout the sport--Colin and Casey, Nicky and Vale. New names and faces, sure, but similar human nature propelling the agony and ecstasy, the triumphs and disasters.
MOGULS, MAVENS AND MECHANICS examines some great characters such as Soichiro Honda, John Britten, Jeremy Burgess, Robin Tuluie, Robert Muzzy, Eraldo Ferraci. These are not sketches but insights into the characters, behaviors, skills and motivations that drove these men. He understands not just their external, public personas, but their minds and hearts.
In INNER WORKINGS, the last selection, Cameron returns to his roots: what the machine is doing, how to understand it. He has the uncanny ability to reach down to molecular levels to explain what is happening inside machinery and convey it with dazzling simplicity. Anyone can write turgid, complex descriptions of complicated physical processes, and many do. Few can render esoterica in simple, elegant terms comprehensible to average minds. No wonder the NEW YORK TIMES turns to Cameron, often. We're still not plumbing his depths: he's expert in many areas, including aviation and the amazing radials of WWII.
Anyone who has ever raced, who is racing or who intends to race, in any serious area of motorsports at any level, or just go to the races, or merely watch them on TV, must absorb TDC. You'll learn more in this one book than in decades at the track, at $26.95 (retail) the least expensive learning and life wisdom you'll ever find. It is The Word. Cameron is motorsports' national treasure and our essential mentor.
A Trip Into Technology's Finest Points.......2007-07-02
Like Peter Egan's Leanings series of books (and Side Glances collections), TDC is a compilation of Kevin Cameron's Cycle World columns of the same name. For those unfamiliar, Cameron is a literal engineering genius and it shows month after month in his works (or page after page here, as the case may be). At times though, his writing style can become a bit overwhelming even for an adept mechanic to ingest. He is hardly to blame though as he prides himself on tackling subjects that are simply mind boggling. Readers should expect an information overload as nearly each and every page of this book digs into the most intricate mechanical processes and somehow manages to make sense of them.
Cameron has a knack for exploring technologies not only current, but also in their inception and race applications. It isn't uncommon for him to take a look at a mechanism that comes as standard equipment on today's bikes then to jump back to the earliest records of its inception (be it military or civilian), discuss the concept's trial and error evolution, get into how it affected race-bikes in the early 1980's, then relate it back to today's stock iteration. And all of this is a single paragraph of one article.
It is clear his thirst for knowledge is rivaled only by his desire to educate others in what he's uncovered. But realize that unlike Egan's works, this can hardly be considered light reading. Cameron rarely spends time penning fluff or downplaying advanced concepts so that younger readers/ beginners can follow along. His columns dive right into the technicalities and continue to pull the reader along whether they're ready or not. I often find myself reading a paragraph over and over in attempt to separate the flood of interesting facts presented into smaller bits. Having KC's works chronologically organized into a single volume turns a solid monthly editorial into a piece of reference literature worthy of any coffee table; Whether it belongs to a meachanic, rider, or otherwise.
Book Description
The shocking true story of murder on Colorado's Snipe Mountain.
Struck by three rifle bullets, newlywed John Bruce Dodson supposedly died in a hunting accident. But District Attorney Frank Daniels suspected Dodson's wife-and would stop at nothing to prove his suspicions before another man suffered the same fate.
Customer Reviews:
Incredible true story.......2004-01-05
There have been stories like this before, but they are very rare, and incredible when told. It is the tale of a black widow murderess who kills her husband for financial gain. Often stories of this ilk rise to national consciousness because it's so astonishing when a woman kills in such a cold-blooded manner. Usually the MO is poison, but not so for Janice Dodson the central character in this murder. She shot her husband on Snipe Mountain in the Colorado wilderness with a high powered hunting rifle, dead center in the chest.
What makes this story so intriguing is the perspective from which it is told. The author is the prosecutor of this case, and he recounts in great detail the complete investigation and subsequent trial. The reader gets a sense of the incredible amount of work and dedication it took from law enforcement and the DA's office to bring this case to trial. That it even came to trial is remarkable, and a true testament to the dogged determination shown by the author and others over a five year period.
All in all, a fascinating narrative of an incredible story and a great read.
great read.......2003-11-09
This book is a great read. You really get the feeling of the hard work and long hours put into investigations, even if arrests are sometimes a bit slow in coming (at least in the minds of us outsiders). I definitely recommend Dead Center.
hunting season, big game.......2003-09-18
Dead Center is a well paced and descriptively vivid and evocative tale of murder on the high plateau. The reader is drawn into the ambiguities of a capital case. Of particular fascination is the ability of the prosecution on behalf of the People to win a first degree murder conviction without a murder weapon and also without specifying whether or not the defendant acted as the principal (pulled the trigger) or as a complicitor. The Colorado Court of Appeals has affirmed the verdict in a case that was extremely difficult to prove.
Exciting and Fascinating Read.......2003-09-14
This book gave me insight to the details of a killer's mind. Janice is someone who could walk amongst us on any given day yet her greed made her take that extra step into evil that most of us are able to resist. The description of the gathering of evidence and of putting a case together so that Janice would not get away with this murder is presented in an organized and exciting way. I highly recommend this book to everyone from those unfamiliar with the investigation and court system to the trial lawyers.
INTRIGUE, SUSPENSE AND JUSTICE.......2003-09-11
My husband and I both enjoyed reading this book. Having been to the Uncompahgre Plateau several times, and having lived and worked in the same area that the main characters in the book lived and worked, it brought the entire story to life for us. We remember when it happened, although we knew none of the characters in the book. It is very well written, easy to follow, and although detailed about firearms, Mr. Daniels wrote an easy book to read. I highly recommend the book.
Product Description
A marine sniper's two year odyssey in the Vietnam War. It takes a certain kind of soldier to become a sniper. Hands as skilled and steady as a surgeon, eyes as sharp as a hawk's. A sniper must be able to kill another man with cold-blooded calculation. Ed Kugler was just such a soldier. Stone cold deadly with an M-14, he was tapped to become a sniper in the 4th Marine Regiment in Vietnam. From a stint with Force Recon, he would soon lead a team of five snipers who worked the rugged Co Bi-Than Tan Valley. Called the Rogues, his team would leave a trail of fear and death throughout VC and NVA territory. Dead Center tells the story of Kugler and his team, dramatically from Midwest schoolboy to Marine sniper to one of the NVA's "Most Wanted." Loaded with first hand accounts of sniper action and evasion, this account vividly relates the grueling training and curshing tension of missions, offering the most complete picture yet of this solitary service.
Average customer rating:
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Dead in Center Field
Paul Engleman
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
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ASIN: 0345309359
Release Date: 1983-06-12 |
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- Ugh!
- Meet Me In The Middle
- The First Good Academic Read on the Clinton Era
- Clinton/Democrats needed Centrism for politcal survival
- BILL CLINTON TRIED TO PLEASE ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME!
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Dead Center: Clinton-Gore Leadership and the Perils of Moderation
James Macgregor Burns , and
Georgia Jones Sorenson
Manufacturer: Scribner
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0684837781 |
Amazon.com
When Bill Clinton first ran for president in 1992, write James MacGregor Burns and Georgia J. Sorenson, "he had professed a strong hope to be a transformational leader who would shape large and lasting changes in American society." In Dead Center, published in the final months of Clinton's second term, they take stock of his emerging legacy. The result is not flattering. Clinton won't be regarded as a "great" president in the tradition of Washington and Lincoln, they argue, or even a "near-great" one, because he pursued a centrist agenda in office. "A contradiction lay at the heart of Clinton's leadership: if he truly aspired to presidential greatness, the strategy he had chosen ensured that he would never achieve it." Pragmatism ("which today means only expedient, narrow, and short-term self-interest") may have kept Clinton in the Oval Office, they go on to say, but it hardly defines a true leader. "The test is 'what immediately works?'--with no consideration of broader, long-term aspects," explain the authors. They don't suggest Clinton has been a lousy president, but that he falls far short of the mark he set for himself early on. He knew how to win, but not how to lead. --John J. Miller
Book Description
"The urgent question of our time is whether we can make change our friend and not our enemy....To renew America, we must be bold...must revitalize our democracy....Together with our friends and allies, we will work to shape change, lest it engulf us."
With those inaugural words, William Jefferson Clinton began his first term as President of the United States. Now, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and a former White House aide provide the first penetrating, thoughtful evaluation of President Clinton's leadership.
Before he was voted into office, Bill Clinton told the authors in an interview that he wanted to be a transforming leader, a president who would fashion real and lasting change in peoples' lives, in the tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But how has this president, who has sought to lead from the center with his vice president, Al Gore, and the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton, measured up against his own stated goals and the aspirations and performances of other presidents since World War II? From the health care debacle and the 1994 midterm elections that swept the Republicans to a majority in both houses of Congress to the effect of scandal and impeachment on his ability to govern, Dead Center examines the leadership style of Bill Clinton and offers a forceful challenge to the strategy of centrism.
There is no more respected presidential historian than James MacGregor Burns, author of several acclaimed books on leadership and the Pulitzer Prize-winning study of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Georgia J. Sorenson adds her own insights as a political scientist and presidential scholar. Their combined efforts have resulted in an incisive, informative, authoritative work and an absorbing read.
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Before he was voted into office, Bill Clinton told the authors in an interview that he wanted to be a transforming leader -- a president who would fashion real and lasting change in people's lives, in the tradition of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But how has this president, who has sought to lead from the center, measured up against his own stated goal -- and the aspirations and performances of other presidents since World War II? From the health-care debacle and the 1994 midterm elections that swept the Republicans to a majority in both houses of Congress, to the scandalous affair with a White House intern (and impeachment that threatened his very political survival), Dead Center examines the centrist leadership style of a president who has divided the traditional Democratic party and tried to rule in new ways.
Customer Reviews:
Ugh!.......2004-06-15
If you read this book, and have a non-blinkered outlook on politics (in which case, congratulations you rare and beautiful thing!), be sure to have a barf bag at your feet. Burns is not a historian. He is a mouthpiece for the left wing of the Democratic party. Of his books I have read (excepting his somehow excellent, but sadly out of print "The American Experiment" trilogy), not one qualifies to be called "history." "Propaganda" is the more fit term.
Meet Me In The Middle.......2004-03-20
This book will be a tad bit aggravating for those of you out there that are fans of President Clinton and do not like criticism placed at his feet. If you do not mind an upfront and realistic review of his presidency then this book is a good start. First off a bit of a warning, this book the purports to try and gage the Clinton Presidency and how it will be judged historically yet it was written while he was still in office. A minor point given when the book was published, but still worth noting. I also want to touch on the fact that this book lists four authors, I usually shy away from books with multiple authors, because I am always bothered by different writing styles commingled. I find I am always on the look out to see if I can find when one author stops and the next begins. This book had none of this; the authors did a very good job of speaking with one voice.
Ok so now we get to the real meat of the review, did the authors do a good job of presenting the Clinton Presidency? I think they did, this book is one of the few I have read that did not spend more then a few pages on the personal scandals and the right wing witch-hunt that took place. The authors spend a good deal of time on the domestic policies issues that Clinton worked on. I think they also did a good job in bringing out the working relationship Bill had with Hilary in regard to the heath care program and subsequent defeat. I would have liked it if the authors had spent more time on the foreign affairs section of the book. I felt they skimmed the Middle East section and could have spent more time talking about Europe. Also completely missed was the issue of terrorism and what the administration did or did not do.
Overall the book was good. It was a well thought out and written book that is a good overview of the first 7 years of the Clinton Administration. It can be a bit dry and it is not a book that can be read with an eye on something else. The authors main point, inserted maybe a bit too freely, was that by always moving to the center and governing by public polls produces an average result and truly great Presidents follow an agenda based on philosophy regardless of public opinion. As for how the authors summed up the Clinton presidency I will leave you with a quote from the book. "If Clinton truly aspired to presidential greatness, the strategy he had chosen ensured that he would never achieve it."
The First Good Academic Read on the Clinton Era.......2002-04-26
Twenty years from now, when time has allowed for an author to look back on and write on the Clinton Presidency with some emotional detachment and real perspective, this book will be in the bibliography. Burns and Sorenson provide the most complete review of Clinton's legacy to date, superceding, as an academic source, Joe Klein's more recent, more opinionated and more reader-friendly "The Natural". That said this book has many flaws. It is denser than frozen cookie dough. Stuffed with the kinds of details that only poltical science professors and their students could stand to bear for even one page (for example, I came across the book while writing a senior thesis on the Post-modern presidency...if that excites you this book might be of interest)so it can be a sluggish read. It is also tilting to the left but that actually makes it's criticisms of Clinton stick more then say, a book written by Right-Wing Conspirators (and there are plenty of those if you are just into Clinton bashing for the love of it).
The book also suffers from the fact that it was published before Clinton actually left office so issues like his last minute pardons are not touched on. In contrast to The Natural, where Hillary comes off as a villain, here, for virtually the same reasons Klein criticizes her, she is the star of the Clinton Era. An oasis of ideolgical purity, striking in its contrast to the vacuous desert of the"the Third Way" centrism that enslaved Clinton and Gore. A bit hyperbolic, but that's the gist of the epilouge, incidentally written before Hillary's run for the Senate so perhaps Burns and Sorenson were on to something.
The book deserves kudos for focusing on substantive policy issues and evaluating Clinton on those rather than getting caught in the trap of focusing the many personal scandals and confusing them with his professional failings. Burns and Sorenson on one page offer one of the best retorts to the vicious, partisan and very often malicious attacks on Clinton. Yet,they aren't soft on him themselves and therefore one can not dismiss this book as propaganda. Rather, it is a truly substantive study that may be driven by the authors policy concerns but makes evaluations based on substance not smoke.
A good academic book. The Natural's conclusions, I think, will stand up as being more historically accurate than Dead Center's but for a really detailed look at the Clinton Presidency this book is indispensible.
Clinton/Democrats needed Centrism for politcal survival.......2001-04-26
This provocative yet thorough analysis of Bill Clinton's tenure in office provides an almost convincing argument against Centrism and its implementor. As a Bill Clinton fan, I must say that the author's arguments nearly swayed me to believe that Bill Clinton may have failed in what they called "transformational" and "principled" leadership of the country. They trace the beginnings of Clinton's presidency, from his inauguration speech of change and renewal, his failure of health care reform, his foreign policies to the Gingrich revolution and finally to impeachment. Within each, the authors argue that Clinton failed to bring any sweeping reform or decisive leadership but instead brought tactical politiking, dealing and governing from the vital Centre. The reader is left wondering whether Centrism is good at all. In fact, one gets the impression that Clinton's legacy lies in a tangled web of disjointed policies and no over-arching vision.
However, I think the authors miss the point that whilst Clinton did promise change and succeeded in some ( balancing the budget, welfare reform, NAFTA) and failed in others (health care reform,arguably race, campaign finance), the political environment he was in and also the post cold-war era constrained such sweeping changes. The Gingrich revolution forced Clinton to think more pragmatically and more tactically as re-election loomed. Impeachment (his own doing) poisoned Congress to a standstill in enacting any later reforms. In fact, whilst I agree that Clinton failed to deliver the high hopes he had promised from the start of his presidency, the situation changed to such a degree, that to survive politically, he had to govern from the centre ( see his triangulation). To a small degree, Clinton's presidency was a product of its times; there was no Cold War or major crisis to display "principled" leadership as with Reagan.
Not everthing is bad news of course. They outline Clinton's foreign policy successes in Ireland and the Middle East but also his hesitant meandering in Haiti and Bosnia.
The overall picture is one of a work in progress - a President learning on the job, trying to enact "bold change", later displaying tactical and political skill and subtly reforming the people's view of government. At the very least, this book strongly initiates the debate on the Clinton legacy and his leadership. It is by no means the end.
BILL CLINTON TRIED TO PLEASE ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME!.......2000-12-09
Historian James MacGregor Burns and Georgia Sorenson have written an interesting book about Bill Clinton's failed effort to be a success by becoming a "centerist" U.S. President. Their excellent book, title DEAD CENTER: CLIINTON-GORE LEADERSHIP AND THE PERILS OF MODERATION(1999), is worth reading.
The authors contend, rightfully, I think, that Bill Clinton tried to please everybody, and ended up pleasing no-one (well, almost no-one). Pulitzer prize winning historian James MacGregor Burns and his co-author Georgia Sorenson argue that the price of centrism is high. They state that in choosing a centrist strategy, Bill Clinton rejected the kind of leadership that might have placed hiim among the historic "greats."
They review Clinton's presidency (which they imply was a failed presidency), and state that Clinton lacked creativity in fashioning new policies, the courage to press for reforms and other changes despite popular apathy and opposition, the conviction to stick to grand principles no matter how long their realization might take (they imply Clinton was a notably mediocre President, and that he must really be grouped in the unprestigious ranks of Presidents who were fence sitters).
Most interestingly, Burns and Sorenson contend that Clinton (and by association, Albert Gore) was notable for his lack of commitment to the people to fight for their welfare at any personal cost. This is quite a charge considering that the main Gore Presidential candidacy battle cry was "I will fight for you!"
Burns/Sorenson review the disasterous faillure of Clinton's 1993-94 health bill and ascribe the failure of it to Clinton's centrism. They remind readers that Clinton rejected the highly intelligent Canadian health plan model, which has been successful for decades in attaining a liberal good, universal health care. Clinton tried to avoid alienating highly paid doctors and insurance companies. The result was that his health plan had no particular idology, pleased nobody, really, and failed miserably. The ironic thing was that Clinton's health bill was the most noble effort he made in his Presidency, which went downhill from that point.
Buy and read this excellent book. It's a good read, and great discussion of how not to be a U.S. President.
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6 Book True Crime Collection; If You Really Loved Me; Dead Center; the Jeffrey Dahmer Story; in the Dark; Every Breath You Take; the Mormon Murders.
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