Arthur

More like a first person narrative

Revisado: 03-21-21

I listened to the book and the author has some great insights into modern Western rancher politics. However, I didn't learn that much about the siege itself other than the author's personal experiences with Ammon and Lavoy and what he heard about it from people who were there.

He probably could have edited most of the parts about the author's drug abuse, shop lifting and vagrancy out - didn't add much to the story and came across as too narcissistic.

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2 Hours of good content and the rest is filler

Revisado: 05-19-19

I was expecting to learn about Google's algorithms and how they perpetuate racism - which the author does briefly touch on - but does not develop in this book beyond a cursory examination of the original Google search engine thesis. Yes, it is well documented that at least one engineer working on the search engine was racist and sexist - which the author brings up - but how that would affect the algorithm - this idea is not developed - unfortunately. Rather, the author mostly goes off on a tangent on critical race theory and a socialist critique - which comprises most of the book's content.

The author does bring up a good example of how a search on "black girls" brings up a bunch of porn results. I did do a Google search on "black girls," and I was happy to discover that Google had greatly cleaned up its search as the results are now more appropriate than they were when the author did her critique (though there are still sponsered porn sites - however, they are put at the bottom, not at the top like they were a few years ago.) It would not surprise me if Google somewhat cleaned up their results because of this book or similar criticisms.

I do want to learn more about this subject, but it looks like I will have to wait for a more detailed book on the algorithm.

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Thorough coverage of his life

Revisado: 03-03-18

Excellent coverage of his life from childhood, Mexican War, pre Civil War years, Civil War, Johnson administration, 8 years of his presidency, and life after president.

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Adds more detail to the PBS Documentary

Revisado: 10-13-17

I listened to this audiobook and watched the Ken Burns Documentary at the same time. Both were excellent. This audiobook tracks well with the Documentary through 1970 but it adds some more detail such as an analysis of what Kennedy would do if he wasn't assassinated which wasn't in the Documentary.
While the Documentary was excellent and by far the best I have seen on the Vietnam war - I was disappointed with the Documentary's coverage after 1970 - it appears that perhaps the TV producers ran short of funding and did a relatively cursory coverage of the last 4.5 years. That being said, the audiobook continued to have excellent coverage after 1970 and contains a lot that was obviously cut out of the Documentary and that I wish was in there. For example, the audiobook contains excellent analysis of the Vietnamese diaspora which was almost entirely missing from the Documentary.

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Excellent complement to the movie Everest

Revisado: 06-07-17

After seeing the movie Everest twice, I got the feeling that I was missing a lot of the detail of the back story of what happened. I immediately searched Audible and found this book written by a journalist on the Rob Hall expedition. This book definitely filled in the details I was looking for and was perhaps one of the better books I have listened to at Audible.

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Excellent History of Scandinavia after the Vikings

Revisado: 05-05-17

This book does gloss over the prehistoric and Viking age in Scandinavia and spends much of its time in the late middle ages to the 20th century. It is well written considering this period of history is hard to follow. My only complaint is that while it thoroughly covered the history of Denmark and Sweden, it barely covered the history of Norway until the late 1800s - the author justifying this by pointing out that Norway was basically just a province of Denmark.

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Very good and detailed about the Fall of France

Revisado: 03-15-17

There are countless of books in the American English book market about the three days of the Battle of Gettysburg (and I have read many), but I have been searching for years to find a good detailed book about the Fall of France during WW2 - which consisted of over a month of continuous fighting.

Almost all books that cover the Fall of France are written from the British point of view and basically just cover the evacuation of Dunkirk as if that is the only consequential event - and leave many questions such as how did the allies lose when they had superior equipment.

Fortunately, this book did cover the military operations in the deep detail that I have been looking for all these years. I finally have a much better understanding of what actually happened during this battle. As such, I am giving this book 5 stars - not saying that there aren't better books on this subject, but I haven't found them yet.

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Great Book for WW2 history buffs

Revisado: 03-05-17

Those with a good understanding of Hitler and WW2 history will really enjoy this book. If you are looking for a simple one dimensional story on how Goebbels was the evil genius who employed ingenious government propaganda mass media techniques to brainwash the completely blameless German population into mass genocide and Total War - this is probably not the book for you - it is way too long and nuanced and won't keep your attention.

After reading this book, I feel like I have a good understanding about Goebbels, but there are much more details about his life which I could learn about. The book is focused on describing his life. The author does bring up a few psychological theories of narcissism which while probably correct are not the focus of the book and do not detract from the storyline.

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Excellent narrative - hard to put down

Revisado: 11-04-16

This is a story about the Norwegian version of 9/11. Much of this narrative is eerily similar to American domestic right wing terrorist attacks. However, the author goes into much more detail about the terrorist and his victims than most narratives go into for a terrorist attack - at the end of the book, you really feel like you know the terrorist - that he isn't a monster but he literally could be one of your conservative/Libertarian friends who got lost in his own reality. Definitely a good cautionary warning of the new reality in the age of the Internet.

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Great biography of Roger Ailes.

Revisado: 08-19-16

This is a really detailed biography of Roger Ailes and is one of the better biographies I have listened to on Audible. The author does a great job with the resources he had available to him and he does create a balanced perspective which explains where Ailes is coming from.

The book does come across as critical of Ailes as would any biography that is written about a very narcissistic but successful individual. However, as recent events in 2016 show, this book was not nearly critical enough of Ailes. Though to be fair to the author, the Foxnews staff did a good job in keeping some of the darker secrets of Ailes a secret.

Although, the saga of Roger Ailes' life goes on, this book provides an excellent insight into his character and his upbringing that future biographies on Roger Ailes will be hard pressed to match.

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