A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

© 2012 University of Illinois Press In February of 2012, the University of Illinois Press published Donald R. Hickey's The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, Bicentennial Edition, an expanded and updated version of a 1992 work about the United States' second and last war with Great Britain. Based on Hickey's 15 years of studying and writing about specific topics related to this long-neglected conflict in American history, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, Bicentennial Edition is considered by many historians and literary critics to be the definitive account of "the Second War of Independence," as the three-year clash of arms was dubbed by many of its contemporary supporters. Hickey, who teaches history at Wayne State College in Nebraska, goes beyond the usual "military history" approach of other authors who focus almost exclusively on the battles on land and sea. In The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, the respected author of such books as D

© 1977 Simon and Schuster On September 7, 1977, U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian General Omar Torrijos signed two treaties,  The Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal and The Panama Canal Treaty, in Washington, D.C. Known as the Carter-Torrijos Treaties, these documents guaranteed Panamanian sovereignty over what had been the U.S.-controlled Panama Canal Zone as of 1979 and sole ownership of the Panama Canal as of December 31, 1999. In essence, these agreements - which were highly controversial in American conservative circles before, during, and even after they were negotiated, signed, and ratified by both countries, replaced the 1903 Hay– Bunau-Varilla Treaty, a document which, in essence, ceded the canal and the land adjacent to it (including islands within the canal itself) to the United States.  Earlier in the year, Simon and Schuster of New York published The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama

Photo credit: Professor Peter C. Townsend, Miami Dade Community College Talent show spotlights gifted, unusual acts Catalyst, March 12, 1987 issue Alex Diaz-Granados Diversions Editor If you want to see some of the campus' "class" acts, then you don't want to miss the fifth annual talent show, today at 12:30 in Room 6120. According to Sonia Meistrell, program coordinator of arts, "There will be 12, maybe 13 acts which give us a variety of offerings. This year's show will be a combination of bands, solo singers, a magician and even a classical music act." And it's all students only. "In the past," Meistrell said, "a few faculty members would perform with a group of students, but this year the acts are being done exclusively by students." One of last year's students was Ira Sullivan, a member of Emerald City, which recently played campus. Meistrell said, "We have a few small details to take care of still

© 1989 Putnam Reviewer's Note: I originally wrote this in August of 1989 for the Miami-Dade Community College - South Campus student newspaper, Catalyst.  Summer, that prime time for readers, may be over, but Tom Clancy's The Cardinal of the Kremlin, the third entry in the Jack Ryan series, is a spy novel for all seasons. Ryan, a CIA analyst introduced in Clancy's first novel, The Hunt for Red October, finds himself in a web of intrigue involving a highly placed "mole" - code-named Cardinal - in the Kremlin, a husband-and-wife CIA team stationed in Moscow, KGB surveillance teams, Afghan rebels and a race between American and Soviet scientists to develop a Strategic Defense Initiative ("Star Wars" system. Although this sounds complex, Cardinal is fast-paced and engrossing. And although there's a lot of gadgetry involved, don't expect Ryan to give you James Bond-style heroics. As in his previous novels ( Red October, Red Storm Rising an

Photo Credit: Pixabay Well, hello there! It's been a while since I've written a non-review post. There are several reasons for this, the biggest being that I no longer write as much about my personal life as I used to. Not that there isn't anything new or interesting going on; au contraire, my friends. My life has changed radically in the eight years since I started A Certain Point of View, and maybe someday I'll revisit those changes here or in another venue. Right now, though, I'll just focus on creating the kind of content you've been seeing here for the past few years - namely, reviews and reflections about movies, books, music, TV shows, and the occasional computer game, as well as a soupcon of political commentary should the mood strike me. I was going to write a review of The Capital of Baseball (1950-1960), the seventh episode of Baseball: A Film by Ken Burns, but my heart is not in it. It would entail rewatching the episode, which I ordin

©1987 Simon & Schuster (U.S. Edition) On November 1, 1987, Simon & Schuster published the U.S. edition of  The Korean War, a one-volume history of  a 1950-53 conflict that pitted the United States, South Korea, and 20 member-states against North Korea, the People's Republic of China, and - behind the scenes - Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union in a bloody struggle for control of the Korean Peninsula. Written by British historian Max Hastings and originally published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph, The Korean War examines the controversial clash of arms that is sometimes known in the U.S. as "the forgotten war" from a British perspective, with a sharp focus on the American, Soviet, and Chinese foreign and defense policies in the early stages of the Cold War that made the war inevitable. In retrospect, the Korean War is eclipsed by the conflict - World War II - that came before it and the one that came after it:  Vietnam. The former was a titanic struggle th

© 2003 Modern Library Books. Cover Designed by Wendy Lai. Illustration © Bettman/CORBIS On August 19, 2003, Modern Library, an imprint of publishing giant Random House, published the paperback edition of Grant S. Wood's The American Revolution: A History. As the title states, Wood's modest-sized work is a one-volume overview of the late colonial period in the 13 colonies on the East Coast of North America, the growing strains between the colonists and Great Britain, and the resulting War of Independence (1775-1781) and its aftermath.  Originally published in 2002 as a hardcover, Wood's book is not a detailed, blow-by-blow look at the quarter-century-long span between the end of the French and Indian War and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. What readers will get instead is a scholarly (but still fascinating) summary of the economic, philosophical, and political forces that drove the Founding Fathers and about one third of the total population in Brit