Hell's Angels: Three Can Keep a Secret If Two Are Dead'

Customer Reviews:

Yves. Again!.......2007-08-16

This is sort of a weird book. Yves starts the book writing in the style of a wannabe Hunter S. Thompson and then decides that he may as well just start "writing". I would say that the abrupt transition starts in maybe the first 80 pages.

I believe that Yves Lavigne is probably the most knowledgeable author in the world about the major motorcycle clubs, other than insiders like Barger (or even Wethern) or undercovers like Queen or Dobyns (through authors), or in-touch contacts like Thompson.

But Yves has some sort of agenda that makes him report every myth and fantasy that has EVER been posited as if it is a FACT. It doesn't take long to tire of this book if you have read everything else, because you have to believe, based upon acquired knowledge, that 30% of what he says is suspect, at best.

I respect Lavigne for his obviously superior knowledge of the topic as a whole. But read every other account and determine for yourself if he has some personal agenda, even if it is as simple as money.

Lame but not all bad.......2007-01-19

The guy that wrote this book was really trying to show how cool he is. I mean the the way he wrote it was over the top. You can tell he was trying to prove something. I have read Sonny's book and others and they much better written.
This guy skips around, repeats things he's previously talked about in the book. And the way he talks to the reader is just crude. I mean, sure he's dealing with a rough subject, but come on, use better english.
And I know what I am talking about. I lived the underground life for many years. I knew people like this, and this writer is someone who has never lived this life. He writes like a person who has never been around the people he is writing about.
This book is an over the top, stereotypical view of the big red machine written by a total sidewalk commando, or rather keyboard commando.
This book could have been a much better or clearer view of the HA than it is, but the writer's crude "trying to prove how cool I am" vocabulary, unfocused chapter organization, and other poor writing errors make this book a real dud. I'm still reading it, it's not so horrible that I put it down, but it came close.
This book should have never been published the way it is. The publisher should be ashamed.

If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand..........2007-01-10

Long live the Big Red Machine! 8181818181818181818181.......

I had a personal inside view into that world in my teens........2006-10-27

I grew up in the the near west suburbs of Chicago from 55-73, when we moved to DuPage County. There were 2 large biker gangs in the Lyons,IL area called the Chicago Outlaws and the Hells Henchmen. I knew several of the Outlaws as acquaintances, there were a few members who I had casually met that were not very nice and I was afraid of them. One member of the Outlaws was my best friends boyfriends older brother, John Klimes. He was always very nice to both me and my girlfriend whenever we saw him. He was murdered in McCook, IL in 1981. There was a huge biker funeral for him and it was on the local news. They never arrested anyone for his murder,but rumor has it that they wanted to kill both John and his girlfriend. His girlfriend worked at a local strip club, Michael's Magic Touch, she could placed the head of the Outlaws as the last person seen with a young woman the night before she was found dead in Busse Woods. There was also speculation that the head of the Outlaws was afraid that John was going to take over the Outlaws Lyons chapter. The talk around town at the time was that "they" were trying to kill both John and his girlfriend. A bomb was planted under John's Bronco and when he went over train tracks in McCook,IL it exploded killing him, his girlfriend was not in the vehicle at the time. I was saddened at John's death because he had always been very nice to me and came to my defense when one of the bikers was threatening me. During the news footage I discovered he had been under surveillance by the FBI for drugs trafficing, prostitution and other illegal activites. That side of him I had never seen. His younger brother was anti-drugs and a very nice guy, we did not meet him until he came home from Vietman in 70-71. John "Burrito" Klimes murder has never been solved. If you go the the McCook Police department website, the open murder is posted there. This book filled in some of the information I was not aware of. Interesting read!

fascinating........2006-09-12

Pretty good read, it did repeat the info quite a bit over and over.
But still a very good look into the lives of the Biker gang.

HELL'S ANGELS "Three Can Keep a Secret If Two are Dead"

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HELL'S ANGELS "Three Can Keep a Secret If Two are Dead"
Yves Lavigne
Manufacturer: Lyle Stuart
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JJOFG2

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HELL'S ANGELS "Three Can Keep a Secret If Two are Dead"
Yves Lavigne
Manufacturer: Lyle Stuart
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JJI680

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HELL'S ANGELS "Three Can Keep a Secret If Two are Dead"
Yves Lavigne
Manufacturer: Lyle Stuart
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JJOB8Y

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HELL'S ANGELS "Three Can Keep a Secret If Two are Dead"
Yves Lavigne
Manufacturer: Lyle Stuart
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JJI180

Book Description

A master historian's provocative new interpretation of FDR's role in the coming of World War II. Brilliant. --Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. American Ways Series.

Customer Reviews:

An insightful look at how FDR edged us into World War II........2003-03-31

For those people who thought Pearl Harbor brought us into the Second World War, Reynolds argues that FDR's actions were bringing us closer to an alliance with Churchill's Great Britain and Stalin's USSR. Pearl Harbor was the last action which convinced the American public that war was necessary. Before that, Reynolds argues that the isolationist mood in the U.S. was high and oppossed to more involvement in Europe. Roosevelt helped as much as possible through the destroyer deal and lend lease to help Great Britain and the USSR. If it hadn't been for Pearl Harbor, NAZI Germany may have overwhelmed the USSR and Great Britain. In this thesis, he also argues that signal intelligence was missed which resulted in Pearl Harbor, but there was no conspiracy.
Reynolds book is somewhat dry, but the details show how FDR worked to get us into the good war. He led the USA into public opinion about the reasons why the country should support the Soviet Union and Great Britain.

From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt's America and the Origins of the Second World War. (book review): An article from: Presidential Studies Quarterly

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From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt's America and the Origins of the Second World War. (book review): An article from: Presidential Studies Quarterly
Deborah Kisatsky
Manufacturer: Center for the Study of the Presidency
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Presidential Studies Quarterly, published by Center for the Study of the Presidency on September 1, 2002. The length of the article is 743 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: From Munich to Pearl Harbor: Roosevelt's America and the Origins of the Second World War. (book review)
Author: Deborah Kisatsky
Publication: Presidential Studies Quarterly (Refereed)
Date: September 1, 2002
Publisher: Center for the Study of the Presidency
Volume: 32 Issue: 3 Page: 620(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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Decline of the West: Volume II, Perspectives of World History
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BEWARE - THIS IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS TO BE

RACE

A brilliant and prophetic work

Fascinating and thought-provoking

An Early Postmodern View of the History of the West

Decline of the West: Volume II, Perspectives of World History
Oswald Spengler
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | World | History | Subjects | Books
Western | Europe | History | Subjects | Books
General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0394421760
Release Date: 1945-06-12

Book Description

Oswald Spengler was born in 1880 at Blankenburg, Germany. He studied mathematics, philosophy, and history at Munich and Berlin. Except for his doctor's thesis on Heraclitus, he published nothing before the first volume of The Decline of the West, which appeared when he was thirty-eight. The Agadir crisis of 1911 provided the immediate incentive for his exhaustive investigations of the background and origins of our civilization. He chose his main title in 1912, finished the first draft of "Form and Actuality" ("Gestalt und Wirklichkeit") two years later, and published the volume in 1918. The second, extensively revised edition, from which the present translation was made, appeared in 1923. The concluding volume, "Perspectives of World-History" ("Welthistorische Perspektiven"), was published in 1922. The Decline of the West was first published in this country in 1906 (Vol. I) and 1928 (Vol. II).

For many years Spengler lived quietly in his home in Munich. thinking, writing, and pursuing his hobbies - the collecting of pictures and primitive weapons, listening to Beethoven quartets, reading the comedies of Shakespeare and Moliere, and taking occasional trips to the Harz Mountains and to Italy. He died suddenly of a heart attack in Munich three weeks before his fifty-sixth birthday.

Customer Reviews:

BEWARE - THIS IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS TO BE.......2007-08-10

This paperback edition is NOT "The Decline of the West" by Ostwald Spengler. It is an abridgement of that work perpetrated by one Arthur Helps apparently from a German abrdigement by Helmut Werner and an English translation (of the original or the abridgement?) by Charles Francis Atkinson. So if you buy this, you're not buying Spengler (leave aside the issue of how much of Spengler you're getting when you have to read it in translation - who would want to give up all the literature in the world written in languages he doesn't read?). What you're buying is sort-of Spengler.
Now, in fairness, at 400+ pages this isn't exactly the Classic Comic Book retellng of Spengler's long and complex work. But it isn't that work either. And it is very hard to tell this from the Amazon announcement or description of the book. And that's simply wrong. It's a deception. I don't think it's one that was done to trick people. It's more likely the product of sloppiness or inattention.
Some people may believe that a shortened Spengler is just fine for their purposes. I have no disagreement with them. My concern is that those who, like me, would never have even considered buying an abridgement of a book like this can be misled into doing so by an inaccurate description of what the book is.
So now I have a book to return instead of to read. I hope to save someone else that inconvenience.

RACE.......2007-07-19

Several reviews comment on the use of Race as an issue in DOTW. One suggests that Race is not a principal issue because it is seldom mentioned.

These miss the point. In thinking of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Racial nature of European Civilization is just taken as a given, hardly needing reinforcement more than rules of math. Blacks, etc were seen as presences within the culture, not part of the culture. It may seem odd to one growing up in 2000 + but that is how it was.

A brilliant and prophetic work .......2007-05-21

A brilliant and prophetic work ... The West, western culture, and peoples, will by all accounts, be finished off, in the next 50 to 100 years.

For example -- An afro chinese Italy is probably the future.

The thing about spengler that you have to ask is "was he wrong ?" ... does western civilization carry with it the seeds of its own destruction ?

The west no longer contains in any great quantity the animating ideas which other cultures such as islam or even the japanese still contain... hence we continue to take comfort in our former achievements even as we are dissolving and other peoples, civilizations, and ideas rise to the top. Not necessarily better peoples, civilizations, or ideas - but stronger more dominant ones. The western liberal humanist, is many things, but he does not dominate. Other, less nuanced ideologies have the advantage of a "home base", simplicity, and a direct knowledge of what it wants. Our poor liberal humanist is a millipede with a thousand easilly injured delicate antennae and no concrete goals.-- in short, he is an easy prey.

So Spengler may be correct when he claims that the west is in a winter phase of its history. Spengler definately "writes from upstairs" without an ax to grind, and has a worldview that spans centuries ... his views can't possibly be understood by contemporary sects or propagandists whose historical/philosophical views barely go back 40 years or depart much from today's newspaper headlines and the "causes of the day".

Fascinating and thought-provoking.......2006-03-30

The Decline of the West is the magnum opus of Oswald Spengler (1880-1936), a German historian and philosopher. In it, Spengler rejects the idea that the future of the West (or indeed of any culture) is an open-ended advance from the primitive past to an ever more glorious and expansive future. Instead, cultures (including the West) experience an almost organic history of Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

According to Spengler, the West moved out of its Summer period with the dawn of the nineteenth century, and into a Civilization phase. This phase is dominated by mega-cities, and money and atheism come into ascendance. And what lies in the future? Caesarism, and a long period of stagnation in the arts and sciences.

Now, the above summary is inevitably bound to be overly simplistic, even to the point of being misleading. The Decline of the West was originally published as two books, and it is a deep and erudite philosophical look at the history of the world, so any small summary is bound to be insufficient to do it justice.

Having heard this work referenced so many times, I decided to read it for myself. In fact, though it does present a deterministic view of history, it does not propose a West that is about to collapse and be swept into the dustbin of history (as some people want it to). In fact, this is a cogent, penetrating look at history, which certainly seems to accurately predict how the West has developed from the first book's initial publication in 1918.

Now, I must admit that like many scholarly books of the era, this one has a dense, thickly argued text that makes for some very heavy reading indeed. But, if you are willing to devote time to the reading of this book, and more time to digest what it has to say, you will be rewarded with one of the fascinating and thought-provoking look at the modern West. Are we at the End of History, or the end of the West? Read this book and find out.

An Early Postmodern View of the History of the West.......2006-01-26

This postmodern chronicle of the western world by early 20th century German historian and philosopher, Oswald Spengler, offers a lot for today's reader despite its flaws. It's an incredibly rich and complex analysis, attacking the causal factors of the development of western culture on many fronts simultaneously: historically, scientifically, artistically, architecturally, ecclesiastically, and so much more. This book is capable of describing many different aspects of western culture to many different readers, depending on who they happen to be and what their interest in western history is. I will only mention three aspects of Spengler's work in my review, since these aspects are what grabbed my attention, bearing in mind that the book contains much more than what I touch on here.

A. Spengler, a westerner himself, constructs detailed accounts in describing the historical development of western Europe. One of his main theses is a distinction between culture and civilization, which he derives from a credible, if difficult to falsify model for a universal cycle of human cultural growth, followed by decline into advanced civilization. For those familiar with biological theory, Spengler's model is essentially a growth curve. The familiar biological model is the lag phase, then the log phase, followed by the stationary phase, and ending in the death phase; which repeats itself virtually ad infinitum. In Spengler's model he labels these phases, respectively, after the seasons, beginning with spring and ending with winter. The spring-time of a people is a mythical phase, where settled economic life grows from a rural peasantry. This is followed by the summer, or cultural phase of strong and dynamic growth in all important aspects of a people; of economic, religious, martial, and other relevant human impulses. Then comes the fall, where dogma forms. Where adult-like reason takes root from the innocent cultural phase and puritan oversight of national religion and government begin to set hard like concrete. Finally, the winter of a people is when the national personality and traditions lose their effectiveness. Civilized and urbane money and economic issues tend to become preimminent over the cultural issues. Technology and irreligion become rampant. This cycle is not a modern phenomena, but repeats itself as seen in ancient Egyptian, Roman, and Aztec civilizations; and again, currently in America.

B. Spengler's style in elucidating a history of the west, and developing an hypothesis of universal and collective human behavior, is punctuated by the era in which he wrote: the early 20th century. Much of the historical analysis before and after this era lacks the materialist, psychoanalytical, and structural influence that typified thinking and literature when Spengler wrote. Published in 1926, The Decline of the West contains that biting air of criticism and structuralism so fecund in those times. This critical structural analysis gives Spengler's work a sharper contrast and greater depth of field than would likely have been possible for a writer from before or after Spengler's time. This is not to take away from Spengler's native insight and acuity, which was nevertheless, likely heightened by the charged literary atmosphere of early 20th century Germany.

C. The way Spengler psychoanalyzes the structure of history through art and architecture is almost wholey absent from the majority of standard historical analyses. Reading Spengler makes one aware of this common lack. This is one of the strong points of this book, since art and architecture express so much of what a culture is and why it thinks in the ways it does.

All in all, despite the typical fallacies of sex and race Spengler repeats, once could say this is a seminal work describing western development and thought which no student of history should leave unopened. An advantage of reading this book today instead of when it was originally released is the internet. If you lack truly comprehensive powers of recall regarding the art and architecture Spengler uses to analyze his subject cultures, then using the internet to pull up the various paintings, sculptures, and architectural examples is most helpful as an active part of reading this work; turning what could otherwise be a dry, boring read into something more alive that captures what the author is trying to convey. If possible, bring up the actual images of the art and architecture Spengler describes at the moment you're reading about it. This gave me a more graphic and focused perspective of the cultures he analyzes. Reading this book was like experiencing a kaleidoscope of mind candy.

THE DECLINE OF THE WEST VOLUME II PERSPECTIVES OF WORLD-HISTORY

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THE DECLINE OF THE WEST VOLUME II PERSPECTIVES OF WORLD-HISTORY
Oswald Spengler
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JWIDVC

The Decline of the West, Volumes I & II: Form & Actuality, & Perspectives of World History: 2 Volumes

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The Decline of the West, Volumes I & II: Form & Actuality, & Perspectives of World History: 2 Volumes
Oswald Spengler
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000N8YFUU

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THE DECLINE OF THE WEST; VOLUME I, FORM AND ACTUALITY + VOLUME II, PERSPECTIVES OF WORLD HISTORY. 2 vols.

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THE DECLINE OF THE WEST; VOLUME I, FORM AND ACTUALITY + VOLUME II, PERSPECTIVES OF WORLD HISTORY. 2 vols.
Oswald. Spengler
Manufacturer: Alfred A. Knopf,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000Q6RBYQ

Book Description

Chase asserts that Yellowstone is being destroyed by the very people assigned to protect it: the National Park Service. Named as one of “ten books that mattered” in the 1980s by Outside magazine and a book of continuing crucial relevance. Index; map.

Customer Reviews:

Exposes the hypocrisy and politics of environmentalism.......2007-09-10

"Playing God in Yellowstone" by Alston Chase is a scathing indictment of the National Park Service, detailing its many misguided attempts to preserve wildlife while making Yellowstone National Park a tourist hotspot. The federal agency's conflicted mission resulted in the park service's becoming the largest killer of animal life in the park, routinely exterminating wolves, bears, mountain lions, big horn sheep, and elk.

The book also shows how politics trumped science routinely in deciding park policy. Decisions were made to preserve some animal species while eliminating others, without the benefit of any detailed biological studies of the park's ecosystem, which historically was not necessarily a natural habitat for many species found there at the beginning of the 20th century (farmers and cattlemen had cordoned off many grazing areas that antelope and other species had used for millenia). The park service favored elk, because they were popular with tourists, but the elk herds were enormously destructive in eating their way through all available food sources that other species needed to survive. What did the park service do when the elk herd grew too large? Shipped the animals to other parks, and arranged for mass slaughters to keep the herds in check.

The park service also ignored the fact that Native Americans were not the nature-loving shepherds of the forest so often depicted in media portrayals. They employed forest fires as a means of driving game into areas where they could be hunted, and nearly exterminated many species before the white man arrived. (Although Chase does cite scientific studies that show the benefit of forest fires in helping to renew the environment for a wide variety of plant and animal species.)

Meanwhile, such "watchdog" groups as the National Audobon Society, the Nature Conservancy, the Boone and Crockett Club, the Wilderness Society, and World Wildlife Fund were guided by former park service and Department of Interior officials, and tacitly endorsed policies that destroyed much of the natural environment. They, and the Sierra Club, encouraged people to visit the national parks, while conveniently ignoring the hugely destructive effects that hikers and campers wrought on forest areas.

The endless God-like tinkering demonstrates a litany of unintended consequences. This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand the pitfalls of misguided environmental policies.

This is a book that makes you really think....what did we do?.......2005-09-22

This is a wonderful book if you are a wildlife biologist or avid wildlife observer. The author does bash the Park Service quite severely, but in all honesty - look into the overall history of the Park Service - he isn't off by far. I truly enjoyed his personal point of view. If you are looking for just a history type book, this really isn't it. This is more of a personal account, more than it is strictly history based about the park service/yellowstone. Highly recommended for those of you with an open mind and a deep concern for our wildlife and national parks.

The uncomfortable truth.......2002-06-27

I first learned of this book when I was working as a volunteer fire fighter in Northern California back in 1989. The subject came up one evening and the dinner table polarized between the Park Service/Forestry workers and the "environmentalist" crowd. (I was just helping out because my house was at risk from the fire and didn't fit into either camp.) The environmentalists hated the book while the professional forestry managers tried to explain to them that Chase had a lot of good points. I was curious enough to seek out the book to read and learned a lot. Chase's main point is that you can't have it both ways - if you don't want to manage these areas actively you are going to end up with the destruction of habitat and species you were trying to avoid - and proves his case in detail using the Yellowstone disaster as an example. His more recent book, In a Dark Wood, provides more evidence (including a depressing acount of how the unmanged elk herds in Yellowstone are destroying entire ecosystems...

An ideological tract.......2001-02-28

It has been almost 15 years since Chase published this book. Over this time it has become an ideological tract for those who dislike the Park Service. In order to understand this line of argumentation, all serious students of public land politics should read Chase.

Some of his criticisms are valid, but for those seeking a broader and more objective perspective on Yellowstone, more reading needs to be done.

One book that is particularly good, and which comments on the limited number of historical sources Chase used before concluding that early Yellowstone had few large animals, is Paul Schullery's "Searching for Yellowstone." Houghton-Mifflin. 1997.

Here is a footnote written to my review above (Sept. 2003). Almost all the deleterious effects of excessive and unamanged elk in Yellowstone which Chase describes have been eliminated by the reintroduction of the wolf. The size of the elk herds have declined somewhat, but of equal or greater importance, willows and aspen are showing rapid growth rather than decline for the first time in many years.

The wolves keep the elk moving and out of the dangerous zones (for elk) along the creeks where the willows grow. So the vegetation florishes.

God's Playground for Man to Feel in Control.......2000-02-20

Chase presents an interesting history of Yellowstone National Park and its human destroyers/protectors. Chase shows the reader how good intentions sometimes do pave the way to bad experiences and worse results. Who could have imagined a national park having fences put up to keep wild animals in? Who would have thought that park rangers would decide that the beavers' dams were too destructive? From my own travels, there is still evidence of beavers and their dams, yet at one point this was nill. That's just one example. Wolves were destroyed because they were seen as a horrible threat, yet now wolves have been reintroduced with brand new controversy. When will we stop playing God? Did we ever not play God in this/and other parks? This is a great read for someone who has interest in national parks and the salvation of these "natural lands." Read it with questions forming, and then go find other sources to answer your questions. This is just one person's research/view point, but Chase gives us a lot to consider and look into. When is it right for humans to interfere? Or is it ever right?

Playing God in Yellowstone : The Destruction of America's First National Park

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Playing God in Yellowstone : The Destruction of America's First National Park
Alston Chase
Manufacturer: Harcourt
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NXSFF6

Playing God In Yellowstone - The Destruction of America's First National Park - with an epilogue by the author

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Playing God In Yellowstone - The Destruction of America's First National Park - with an epilogue by the author
Alston Chase
Manufacturer: Harvest Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OJT0US

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