Book Review: The Imperial Cruise

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I have a habit of finishing a book on a plane and not having anything to read except for whatever I pick up in the local Hudson News or whatever the airport bookstore is called and the last flight I picked up “The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War” by James Bradley.  I had previously read “Flags of Our Fathers” and enjoyed it, but was extremely disappointed by this book.

I should have read some of the reviews on the Amazon page, but didn’t for some reason this time. 

The book tells the story of President Theodore Roosevelt sending a cruise to Japan and how it laid the seeds for World War II and Japan’s Imperial Ambition. Sounds pretty interesting right?  All a subject I knew nothing about and hoped to learn something interesting.

Problem with the book is that it becomes a complete revision of all American history blaming Aryan philosophy and White Supremacy as the reason behind the founding of our country, expansion out West, and everything else involved in world history.

Look I understand our founding fathers were not the heroes and as squeaky clean as our history books or history books have made them.  However I doubt all of their motivations were based on white supremacy and an Aryan philosophy.  It’s interesting this is the first time in all the history books on our founding fathers, American history, World War II, etc I’ve read (and I have a decent amount of books) this has never been mentioned.

 

Stay away from this book, it’s not worth finishing…. I didn’t

If half of what is in this book is true, Zuckerberg is a big jerk

When I travel I like to read books, actual books, not an e-reader but something I can actually hold. In the airport I picked up the book: The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayalby Ben Mezrich. I have read a couple of other books by Mezrich, Ugly Americans : The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millionsand also Rigged: The True Story of an Ivy League Kid Who Changed the World of Oil, from Wall Street to Dubai (P.S.).. Like the other books by the author I have read, they are a very easy and quick read. The problem I have is that you never really know what is actual fact or what the author made up. The author’s note at the beginning of the book states there are some places he has used creative licenses. Also it seems the people who have the grudge to bear against Zukerberg and Facebook were the only ones that responded to interview requests.

Besides the above complaints about the book, there was a lot I learned about the history of thefacebook, how it was founded, some of the people involved in the different lawsuits, etc. The story is pretty compelling and if provides one side of Mark Zuckerberg. The side shown is one of someone who doesn’t care about his customers, more concerned about his site and not caring about anything else.

The more that comes out in the press and the more that is leaked, more and more of what the book alleges is true.

Waiting for the movie to come out in October as well

Teammates: A review

It’s been awhile since I’ve last written a book review here on this blog, but slowly getting back into it. This doesn’t mean i’ve stopped reading, just means I have quite the backlog of books to get a review written on.

I recently finished The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendshipby David Halberstam (David Halberstam’s author page on Amazon). The book centers around a group of teammates, Dominic DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky, Ted Williams, and Bobby Doerr and their life story. In 2001, Ted Williams is dying and his friends (Dom DiMaggio, and Johnny Pesky) drive to visit him one last time. Doerr’s wife is sick and he is unable to travel with the group.

The book covers two trips, the trip to visit Wiliams in Florida and also the trip the teammates took together in life.

This is a very enjoyable book and provides a very intimate look into the 4 men. While I knew who DiMaggio and Williams were, I knew very little about Doerr and Pesky and this book fixed this. The more important part of this book is the story of the friendship that developed between the teammates. The story makes me long for deep friendships like this that last for a lifetime and for friends that care deeply to call/talk each day with and visit when you are sick.

A review of The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship

If you look at my library you will see two types of non-fiction books: history and baseball history.  I stumbled across this book in the sports section of Barnes and Noble one day and really enjoyed it.  I have read several of David Halberstam’s books and thought I would give The Teammates: A Portrait of Friendship a try and was pleasantly surprised.

Teammates tells the story of Johnny Pesky and Dom DiMaggio who jumped in a car and drove 1,300 miles to see their friend, the great Ted Williams.  Williams was dying at his home in Florida when the two decided to visit and spend one last time with their friend.  One other close member of the group, Bobby Doer was unable to make the journey due to illness.

The thing that amazes me is how close the group all stayed together over the years.  I have always wanted to find friends like this group had but have so far been unable to.

A very enjoyable read and I highly recommend it if you are into sports history and/or baseball

Book Reviews

I devour books, I read them every chance I can.  Not e-books, not on a kindle, but actual physical books.  Something I can get my hands on, bend a page, circle something important, highlight, etc. Also I fly a lot and a Kindle just doesn’t work for me.  The problem is the flight attendants make you turn it off under 10,000 feet.  Above 10k feet I turn on my Dell Mini 9 and just watching a movie or something else instead of reading or if I’m caught up in the book continue.

So I’m starting to write some reviews of the books I’ve read.  If you would like to follow the book reviews feel free to do so via the category, if not that’s cool as well.