Zachary Taylor : Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

I enjoyed this book, 2008-08-21
Very Enjoyable. An easy read. President Taylor is a cousin of mine, and it was fun to learn a little bit about him. br /Fred Clark br /www.reverbnation.com/fredclark br /www.myspace.com/fredclarkmusic

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

Facts and details do not a biography make!, 2008-04-13
Sadly, after one slogs through an exhautive accounting of Zachary Taylor's military career presented here, you are neither greatly informed nor satisfactorily influemced about the man himself. Beyond gauging that Taylor was a relatively witless minion bouyed by circumstance into the presidency, one is left empty of opinion as to the depth of his character and definition of his nature. One can know just as little about Taylor without reading this dry and bland text, and enjoy life just a bit more in the not reading.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Good Attempt at a Dry Subject, 2007-09-26
This book is a tough one to get through, not through any fault of the Author but due to the dryness of the material. I am currently in the process of reading a book on every US President and this book seemed to be the best one out there on Zachary Taylor. br / br /I would recommend if you are trying to find out more about the subject, but if you are looking for a great historical page turner, you need to look elsewhere.

0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

Comprehensive but often dull biography of our twelfth President, 2007-09-18
I am currently reading a biography of every President in order and Bauer's book seemed like the obvious choice for Zachary Taylor. br / br /This book is a bit difficult to rate fairly as I doubt any full biography of Zachary Taylor could be made into a great read. Indeed, Bauer's biography is excellently researched and organized. The writing, although a bit uninspired, is easy to read and well presented. At times, however, this book is very dull and in my opinion Bauer tends to error on the side of going into too much detail. Taylor's military career had few standout moments and most of the first part of the book focuses more on Taylor's transfer from fort to fort along the western frontier. br / br /If there is a President for which a short biography would suffice Taylor is it, and while at slightly over 300 pages of text Bauer's tome is by no means exceedingly long, at the end of the book I felt that it could certainly have been cut down by about 100 pages while still providing a comprehensive biography. Undoubtedly, however, this is the best one volume biography of Taylor available (why anyone would need to read Holman Hamilton's two volume work is beyond me) and certainly more than adequate for its task.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Bad attempt with limited research, 2007-03-03
This was a terrible attempt at scholarship. The book is poorly written and gives an overview with no specifics except for military encounters. This author should have focused his efforts on a military account of Taylor's life because after reading I feel I know nothing about the man. Admittedly there are severe source deficiencies when dealing with this subject but a much wider study could have been undertaken. Sadly there is not much written on Taylor and this does a poor job of adding to the scholarship.