[jwalburg]

Didn't Stephen Ambrose run into trouble for plagiarism or something lately? That book sounds interesting, but the fact that John Kerry listed it as the last book he was reading makes me hesitate.

[Kirkwood]

Yeah, but when you are pulling that much info together I think you are bound to make a mistake like that. I blame his staff for not keeping closer track of what he wrote and what was written by another author in the citation source.

The book is quite good, whether or not Kerry has read it. It is more scholarly than his Band of Brothers, D-Day, etc writing which were more a compilations of first person narratives. If you think all history is dry, you will want to pass. If you are interested in the minds of Jefferson, Lewis, and Clark, or how the US as we know it came into existence, then you will want to read it.