99 of 107 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing, May 2, 2010
This review is from: Lost States (Hardcover)
On the outside, the book looks very interesting. The set-up itself is nice with many full color pictures and maps. Each entry is two pages accompanied with text on one side and a map or other illustration on the other. However, the devil is in the details and they are numerous.
For starters, too many of the entries are completely pointless. Why? For a book called "Lost States," too many examples would never have been considered for statehood nor would ever seriously be considered for statehood. Some examples of this are Rio Rico (Texas), Saipan, Guyana, Boston, Chicago, Sicily, Navassa Island, etc. Most of these are complete jokes because of some complaint over taxes or some nameless politician says something that is never seriously considered.
There are also many amateurish errors. At one point, President William McKinley is referred to as James McKinley. A picture allegedly of Confederate President Davis does not look like him at all (because it is not). The section on Rio Rico completely fails to mention how the Texan town was ceded to Mexico back in the seventies (rather the author implies it is still U.S. territory). He incorrectly says the Northern Mariana Islands were under U.S. control since 1898, when in reality they were not occupied by the U.S. until World War II.
For whatever reason, the author also feels it necessary to criticize George W. Bush and the Iraq War on multiple occasions. The most notable of this is in the section on Iceland. What does Bush and the Iraq War have to do with Iceland's potential statehood? Absolutely nothing. So why mention it there at all?
The book also fails in its omissions. In the section on Cuba, there is no mention of the Ostend Manifesto and the attempts to annex the island in the 1840s and 1850s. There is no section on the proposed Territory of Jefferson (the one that eventually became Colorado).
The author is obviously not a historian or a serious researcher and his writing style shows that.
It might sound like I am just complaining, but I bought this book to learn some new things. How am I supposed to trust information that I am not familiar with when I keep finding error after error on things I already know?
The only sections that are really worth anything are the ones on Deseret, Franklin, and Puerto Rico. The rest is just nonsense.
In conclusion, I do not recommend this book. It is filled with errors, nonsense, and omissions. As another reviewer said, it is "not worth the paper its written on."
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19 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Weak, August 26, 2010
This review is from: Lost States (Hardcover)
This is a rather lazily written book, the layout and graphics are nice but most of the "states" were never seriously considered and basically are just a bunch of "Hey this one guy made a speech and in it he mentioned a state that doesn't exist!" and somehow he relates every other state to President Bush. Honestly this book is half political diatribe on the evils of voting Republican and half urban myths he found on wikipedia.
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37 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed, April 27, 2010
This review is from: Lost States (Hardcover)
This book was recommended to me, and when I read the description of it I thought "hey, this is a great idea for a book." Unfortunately, this is not the book I had hoped it would be.
The layout and design of the book is great. Too bad it was wasted on this product. First of all, the title is misleading... several of the "lost states" preceded the U.S. and it is highly unlikely that any of these would have ever been seperate entities, much less states. These include New Sweden and Charlotina. Others discussed included territorial oddities which were NEVER seriously considered for statehood (like Howland, "Lost" Dakota and Rio Rico). These entries are just annoying.
When it comes to actual proposed states the book is better but only two pages are dedicated to each. Why not leave out the Howlands and New Swedens and put in more stuff about actual state proposals? And there are historical errors, the most egregious one was the depiction of Major-General Jefferson Davis (USA) on page 21, where the picture is clearly meant to be President Jefferson Davis, CSA. These two men are both Civil War figures but they certainly did not look anything alike. The fact that the man is wearing a Union general's uniform should have been a dead giveaway. This fast-food approach to history (as epitomized on the History Channel) really doesn't do the subject justice.
But the most annoying thing about this book, and the thing that will mark it for obscurity within the next year or so is how it constantly knocks President George W. Bush. I'm sorry... was this book originally titled "Lost States and Why It's George Bush's Fault?"
PLEASE, someone use the preliminary research here to write a decent book on this subject!
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