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cunningba's review
5.0
An excellent read, masterfully written.
Beschloss fleshed in a lot of detail about the motivations for the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, and the Korean War that weren't in my history classes in school or in my previous reading. They make more sense to me now, twisted and perverted as that sense is.
It also demonstrates how in every war, the power of the President to wage war has increased, quite contrary to the founders intention in the Constitution. Partly this is because the founders were so naive about how the nature of international conflict was to evolve centuries later, a failure which is certainly understandable. But it is also our fault. Allowing ourselves to fall prey to the myth of the inerrant, all-wise founders allows those who wield 21st century weapons to evade the ineffective controls designed by 18th century imaginations.
Beschloss fleshed in a lot of detail about the motivations for the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, and the Korean War that weren't in my history classes in school or in my previous reading. They make more sense to me now, twisted and perverted as that sense is.
It also demonstrates how in every war, the power of the President to wage war has increased, quite contrary to the founders intention in the Constitution. Partly this is because the founders were so naive about how the nature of international conflict was to evolve centuries later, a failure which is certainly understandable. But it is also our fault. Allowing ourselves to fall prey to the myth of the inerrant, all-wise founders allows those who wield 21st century weapons to evade the ineffective controls designed by 18th century imaginations.
cameronkc's review
4.0
The content is fascinating. I really enjoyed the start of this book. To be clear, while I loved the content and all of the great work Beschloss put into this, the book suffers from a recency problem. The first chapters were succinct and interesting to read. The later chapters (especially the last) had too many quotes to the point I felt my eyes glazing over.
Beschloss did his homework and he shines when he sums up the president's actions in slowly disregarding the founding principles that no one branch of government has more power than the other. It was honestly depressing to see presidents make the same mistakes with more consequences and damage to the lives of Americans and those we went to war with.
Good book and I felt if the final chapters followed the same briefness of the beginning chapters this book would have been a five start. I would recommend reading.
3.5 stars
Beschloss did his homework and he shines when he sums up the president's actions in slowly disregarding the founding principles that no one branch of government has more power than the other. It was honestly depressing to see presidents make the same mistakes with more consequences and damage to the lives of Americans and those we went to war with.
Good book and I felt if the final chapters followed the same briefness of the beginning chapters this book would have been a five start. I would recommend reading.
3.5 stars
ineffablebob's review
informative
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
An informative review of the Presidents who led America in her foreign wars, from the War of 1812 through Vietnam. The author focuses on how the executive used his power and influence during each conflict, and how that power grew over time as each precedent allowed greater latitude. There was quite a bit of dissent in each case, of course, which is documented from various news headlines and other historical sources. It's easy to look back at history and see only the good (for wars won) or bad (for those lost), so I found the overview of disagreements of the time to be interesting...I tend to think of the past as better than our present-day politics, but they had some pretty major arguments then, too! There's also a lot of personal history of each President (and some advisors), much of which isn't what we tend to remember - there were a lot of flaws to go with the greatness. I enjoyed the read, and recommend it to anyone interested in this kind of deep dive into America's war leaders.
everikson's review
4.0
I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway. This book was a heavy, slow read initially. However once I got into the book, it was a fascinating read. The connections from one war and president to the next was amazing and fascinating- to see how subsequent presidents had been a part of the previous conflicts. Will be reading more from this author.
brycee8f83's review
4.0
I was expecting more military leadership but this book was much more about the politics around waging war. Generally I don't like political books but this was interesting because Beschloss does a good job narrating the progression of the consolidation of the presidential power to wage war throughout the history of the US. Also enjoyed seeing the motivations of presidents in war, with some actively trying to avoid war and others actively trying to encourage war; some motivated by political appearance and some motivated by the betterment of the nation, etc.
Writing about 8 wars is hard, so the book was too long in some ways (overall pages) but too short in some ways (not enough detail around some of the wars and individuals).
Writing about 8 wars is hard, so the book was too long in some ways (overall pages) but too short in some ways (not enough detail around some of the wars and individuals).
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