Tom ClavinRezensionen

This is the story of the Dalton Gang and their members from start to finish and there is not a happy ending. The book also traces some of the earlier outlaw gangs and the members of law enforcement that try to keep them all in check. The book is effortless to read and gives a voyeurs perspective into their personal lives from inception to demise. There are many graphic photographs of the principals both alive and dead. Entertaining.

A reasonably good book in the narrative style that Clavin has demonstrated in previous books. As in the other books, the main event, the botched robbery of two banks in Coffeyville KS, occupies only a small part of the book. The rest is the background of the Daltons and those associated with them, the lawmen who pursued them and what happened afterwards. Rather light however on any overall look at their times. Recommended if you like Clavin's other books.

An incredibly detailed inside look into the notorious Dalton Gang and later the Doolin branch. Clavin's writing style makes this book a must read for anyone with an interest in the doings and undoings of the characters that made up these bands of miscreants that roamed the wild west of the era.

How he uncovered the endless episodes is in itself pretty amazing. But his packaging of the rough and tumble shoot outs, standoffs and escapes makes the volume a real page turner. What struck me again and again is how some of these bad guys kept going and going from one venture to the other and escaping justice. But ultimately very few it seems escaped with their lives or parts of thme when the bullets flew from the other side.

The legends that tracked these bandits down are also well covered and we are introduced to some very dogged and determined fellows whose courage seemingly never waived in getting their man.

Just an engaging and captivating read for even the casual reader of history in the American west and curious about those notorious outlaws who made life on the edge theirs.

Audiobook.½

A thorough, tactical level study of a Marine defense of a mountain pass near the Chosin Reservoir in 1950 during the Korean conflict. The maps include the placement of many active members of Fox company. The battle descriptions include the movements of these soldiers and even how they got wounded, obviously requiring the active participation of survivors or an active imagination on the part of the authors.. The strategic situations and the war in general are adequately dealt with, but that is not this book's strongpoint, which is the heroic description of how a small group of Marines survived and held-off the many attacks of thousands of white clad Chinese. Other than the commanders, the Chinese soldiers are not named or known in any way. An informative and intriguing interlude.

I enjoyed this brief account of the Dalton gang's bank robbery and demise in Coffeyville, KS in the late 1800s. The writing style is very readable, and the story moved quickly once the action got going. I found some of the lead-up to the main event a bit tedious, particularly all the family history of some of the minor characters. I wondered a bit if there was not actually much known about the Dalton's beyond the robberies. I will read some of the author's other history of the Western U.S.½

Superb, mostly accurate, overview of the town of Tombstone and the infamous shootout at the O.K. Corral. Tom Calvin is an entertaining pop historian and I look forward to reading more of his works.

Clavin tells as near as he can the straight up story with no embellishments and it’s still a compelling tale. You really get the back story and how these characters ended up in the OK corral. I was surprised to learn how easily some characters switched from one side of the law to the other, and also at how much the law was entangled with the boom town gambling.½

This book just breaks my heart.

The Last Outlaws: The Desperate Final Days of the Dalton Gang by Tom Clavin
Overview: Tells the true story of four brothers and their gang who moved from horse thieves to bank and train robbers in the late 19th century.
Take-aways: True crime is always popular with students. Use the story of the Dalton Gang as a reflection of the final years of the Wild West.
ARC courtesy of St. Martin’s Press, an imprint of Macmillan.

What a wonderful book! Thank you to Thom Calvin for giving me a great gift idea for the men in my family. This is a must read for anyone who loves history—especially the history of the Old West.

Having preciously read about the Younger Gang and other notables from that era, such as Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp, I felt this gave another side to what all was happening during that time in history. I also loved that Clavin gave family background on many of the people mentioned in the story.

There was never a dull moment in reading this and I enjoyed all the side stories about the people involved. This was classic Old West and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Many thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for allowing me to read an advance copy. I am pleased to recommend this to readers who share a love of history and the Wild West.

I see that Clavin has written many history books. I hope at least some of the other ones are better than this hodge podge. He states that he wants to start with the Texas, but the biggest events, i.e. the Alamo and the Mexican-American War, are dismissed in a couple of paragraphs. When he does get to McNelly, the coverage is anecdote and third person driven, the reader never gets a real sense of the man. He doesn't leave the environs of a cartoon character or a movie trailer. History at its thinest.

I tried this as an audiobook, and couldn't tolerate the read-aloud footnotes. I've put it on my wishlist to try in print.
What I did gather, from the first several hours, is that this book is solidly de-romanticizing the Lakota warriors by presenting some gory details about how they treated their enemy (whites) including women and children.

I love nonfiction historical books, especially those having anything to do with the old "wild west", so you can imagine how excited I was to read this book. I'm always a bit nervous when I start said books because I'm afraid they won't live up to my expectations, but I needn't have worried about this one! The Last Outlaws was everything I hoped it would be, and more. Not only did we get to learn everything we wanted to know about The Dalton Gang, but side stories about other major players in the Dalton Gang saga were included, as well. The book was very detailed, and gave you a bunch of information in a short amount of time, but it didn't feel like it was being dumped on you. It was told in such a way that you were able to take it all in and process it quite easily.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book so much, I intend to get my hands on more of Tom Clavin's work.

5/5 stars.

*** I would like to thank NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Tom Clavin for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This is an excellent book about how the lives of Bat Masterson and Wyatt Earp intertwined throughout their days in the Old West. Much of the book is spent on their time together in Dodge City, Kansas - one of the roughest towns during the latter part of the 1800s.
Masterson, Earp, and their many respective brothers were respected lawmen who could be counted on to protect the lives of those they served. I especially liked the large number of anecdotes and other Western characters that author Tom Clavin shared throughout the book. The amount of research that he did to produce this story was extensive and, as a college history major, it was appreciated by this reader.
If you want to read mostly factual information, not mythical, about this period of American history and these impactful characters, then grab a copy of "Dodge City..." today.½

Drury and Tom Clavin (read 6 Mar 2023)This 2005 book tells the typhoonAdmiral Halsey sent his fleet into in December 1944. Three ships were lost, as well as some 800 lives. It is a fearsome tale. I read it in two. It is grippnAddount½

FROM BARNES & NOBLE: It is the mid-eighteenth century, and in the thirteen colonies founded by Great Britain, anxious colonists desperate to conquer and settle North America’s “First Frontier” beyond the Appalachian Mountains commence a series of bloody battles. These violent conflicts are waged against the Native American tribes whose lands they covet, the French, and the mother country itself in an American Revolution destined to reverberate around the world.

This is the setting of Blood and Treasure, and the guide to this epic narrative is America’s first and arguably greatest pathfinder, Daniel Boone—not the coonskin cap-wearing caricature of popular culture but the flesh-and-blood frontiersman and Revolutionary War hero whose explorations into the forested frontier beyond the great mountains would become the stuff of legend. Now, thanks to painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of the brutal birth of the United States is told through the eyes of both the ordinary and larger-than-life men and women who witnessed it.

This fast-paced and fiery narrative, fueled by contemporary diaries and journals, newspaper reports, and eyewitness accounts, is a stirring chronicle of the conflict over America’s “First Frontier” that places the reader at the center of this remarkable epoch and its gripping tales of courage and sacrifice.

I just finished [b:Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier|53137966|Blood and Treasure Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier|Bob Drury|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1593448400l/53137966._SY75_.jpg|79888442]Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First Frontier by Bob Drury. I wound up liking it, though I very nearly aborted my reading a few pages in. Let me explain.

Any book about the U.S. frontier must necessarily treat with the contentious subject of the American Indians/Native Americans. I have done a lot of reading on the subject, including [b:1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus|39020|1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus|Charles C. Mann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1545238592l/39020._SY75_.jpg|38742] by Charles C. Mann and [b:War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage|328446|War Before Civilization The Myth of the Peaceful Savage|Lawrence H. Keeley|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1348973227l/328446._SY75_.jpg|319073] by Lawrence H. Keeley. The narrative of "white man bad, everyone else good" wears thin. The Native Americans had hardly created an idyll before European explorers hit the New World's shores. Long before purposeful settlement occurred, smallpox, diphtheria and other diseases had decimated them. The book's prologue referred to the "slow-motion genocide for the Hurons and Iroquois... and the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, and Choctaw...(and the) Seminoles." On Page 99, the story of Henry Bouquet's distribution of smallpox-drenched blanks to the Ottawa tribe was repeated. There is much controversy about that story, some having to do with the question of how the gifters of the blankets themselves did not get very sick in the process. The epilogue again returns to the theme of the deliberate destruction of Native Americans. Nevertheless I decided to read the book through and I am glad I did.

While I consider myself a history buff, having majored in American History at college, I have done little reading about the pioneer period. The major exception is [b:The Journals of Lewis and Clark|236830|The Journals of Lewis and Clark|Meriwether Lewis|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1439914405l/236830._SY75_.jpg|2761980] by Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, Bernard DeVoto. William Clark's older brother, George Clark, features prominently. It took me surprisingly long to read this book, perhaps because it contained a lot of information with which I am only vaguely familiar. Suffice to say that Boone's ingenuity, heroism and imperviousness to hardship are properly legendary. Boone and others like him are the real story behind the expansion of the U.S. beyond a cluster of colonies on the coast. This is part of the tale of the greatness of America, one which should be told with fewer apologies than is now fashionable.

Although the author is not a historian, he is an excellent storyteller and presents a biography both interesting and informative. Personally, I think this is the best of his works.

With an icon like Wild Bill, it is difficult to distill facts from fiction. However, this account does a nice job of presenting an objective and unbiased account while at the same time painting a fair portrait of one of the Wild West's most intriguing figures.

A recommended read.

I had no idea

Bullard was born at about the same time, and literally just down the toad, from my maternal grandfather, a Klansman, who also served in WWI. I could not help but parallel their lives as I read, and wish that my family had known his story, that so much of Black and Indian history wasn't invisible to the white world.

The book is well written, seems thoroughly researched, and Bullard led such an amazing life that you are hooked from the first page. Given the obstacles he faced here, it's astounding what he accomplished. With only a second-grade education, he not only learned to fly but became fluent in two additional languages.

The authors' easy reading, user friendly writing style will appeal to general readers. The work itself does an excellent job of capturing the life and times of Daniel Boone, a frontiersman who is just as fascinating in real as in myth.

Unfortunately, the authors can sometimes seem like Native American apologists, which perhaps is simply a sign of the times. A more balanced historical narrative of the brutal conflicts would have been appreciated.½

Dramatic true story of a maritime military operation interrupted by an enormous typhoon. Admiral Halsey’s fleet was preparing to support MacArthur’s invasion of Luzon in the Philippines in 1944, when they steered directly into the course of Typhoon Cobra with its 90-foot waves and over 100 knot gusting winds. This book tells an inspiring story of sailors confronting life-or-death situations. Though much of the story is tragic, the highlight is a valiant rescue effort by a relatively inexperienced captain and crew of a small Destroyer Escort.

The first part of the book sets up the military objectives and participants. The second part tells of the gathering storm, leadership decisions, and the ships’ maneuvers. The rescue effort is riveting, and it is worth reading the book just for this portion. The travails of the sailors contending with the elements, wounds, sharks, madness induced from drinking saltwater, and numerous miseries are heart-wrenching. Though the authors do not dwell on the carnage, the graphic descriptions are not for the faint-hearted.

The authors are journalists, trying to determine if the sinking of ships and loss of life was preventable. The transcripts of the U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry had been recently declassified and formed much of the basis of their analysis, along with survivors’ stories and in-depth research. These stories jump around a bit, and it is sometimes difficult to keep track of which ship is being referenced. The personal anecdotes are particularly effective in showing what the sailors encountered as their ships were battered by the storm.

Two examples of these personal accounts include:
“Clinging to the top of the Cape Esperance’s center mast with every muscle in his body, Paul Schlener was not sure what to do as the storm increased in intensity. His watch was technically over, but whether through oversight or intention, no crewmate had relieved him and no officer had signaled for him to climb down. In fact, the scud was so thick that he could barely make out the deck sixty feet below. He was petrified.”
and
“Kosco sat upright in his bunk. He was overwhelmed “with a feeling of great, leaden weights pressing on [my] shoulders.” He threw on his heavy weather gear and scrambled up the iron skipper’s ladder to the navigation deck. Leaning into the wind and listening to the pounding surf, he surveyed the otherworldly tableau; giant, mottled whitecaps stretched endless in every direction under a black, starless dome. If the dark side of the moon were covered by sea, he thought, this is what it would look like.”

I am very glad that meteorology has progressed since WWII, and it is unlikely that a fleet would be unaware of the location of such a large storm today. There are definitely lessons in leadership to be gleaned from this book, primarily related crisis management. It definitely creates food for thought on how the reader would react in a similar situation. Part military analysis, part man vs. nature, part survival story, this book is filled with peril, catastrophe, and heroism. I read it in observance of Veterans’ Day and found it a powerful tribute to the Brotherhood of the Sea.

Tom Clavin delivers a good yarn about a man so covered in legend and tall tales I’m surprised this book isn’t 500 pages long. This was a quick, entertaining read about the man and his times.

Read my review here: https://wildmoobooks.com/2019/03/04/review-wild-bill-by-tom-clavin/

This was a fantastic book. I feel I’ve learned a lot from reading this. I had heard the name Danial Boone before from movies, etc. but this really introduced me to a historical figure I’m surprised I didn’t know more about. Boone didn’t have an easy life. It just mystifies me how brutal man can be to man. Very well written.