Submitted by Richard Seymann, Nov 24, 2007 10:00

The joy of reading a Simmons book review often eclipses the review's target. Yet, who else can assure those of us who are not academic historians that this is a book worthy of our consideration.

"He [Joseph Ellis] writes for the curious, not the tendentious. Most refreshingly, he doesn't slavishly heave the mandarin preoccupations of his colleagues in the academy who espouse ideas that, to put it gently, could flourish only in the artificial, tenure-protected hothouses where the looniest flora of the mind is permitted to grow."

Well said, Mr. Simmons.

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