Customer Reviews

Swifter than eagles: Bill White and the battle of Athens, 1946 : a nonfiction novel

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An interesting story of Bill White and town veterans after WW2 and their efforts to return the political process to legitimacy after local politicians had corrupted the system. About 1/5 of the book is about the history of the town, the region, the places. Maybe another 3/5 about one of the main instigators, Bill White, his youth, his time in the Marines fighting in the Pacific campaign and his return home. The final 1/5 is about the actual "Battle of Athens". I was disappointed that there were not more pictures. The author very obviously thought VERY highly of himself and his talents. I enjoyed the book despite the author. Bill White led a very interesting life and I do not begrudge the back story and yet I felt slighted by not having more detail about the incident which was the reason for having sought out the book. I do not regret my purchase of the book (which was a signed first edition) and I did enjoy reading it. I first heard about the incident from reading some content from an organization called Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership. They have a great deal of content available there related to this incident. It turns out that one of my relatives who now lives in Memphis, TN is related to parties mentioned in the book which made it even more interesting (though I didn't find that out until after I'd bought the book). I took 1 star off for the author's arrogance and 1 star off for the fairly minimal coverage about "The Battle of Athens".