Lincoln or Code Red

Lincoln: The Presidential Archives

Author: Chuck Wills

There is no better treatment for the life of the great President Abraham Lincoln than this interactive, "museum-in-a-book," which includes accessible text, photography, and removable documents that, combined, provide an educational and entertaining reading experience for the whole family. This full biography covers Lincoln's childhood, his early political career, the Civil War, and his traumatic assassination.

Publishers Weekly

A highly readable general biography of the American icon, complete with replicas of notes, sketches and letters from the presidential collection, this book will delight Lincoln enthusiasts, as well as fans of American history. Wills's text is a well-written account of Lincoln's life, with nods to all of the recent scholarship-from Doris Kearns Goodwin's 2005 Team of Rivalsto recent speculation over Lincoln's sexual orientation-without sinking into too much analysis or debate. Photos, portraits and engravings abound (though, chronologically, they're occasionally at odds with the text), and a dozen vellum envelopes bound into the book hold historic reproductions, including a leaf from Lincoln's school notebook, an 1860 presidential campaign banner and his handwritten copy of the Emancipation Proclamation. Though a bit gimmicky, these replicas do provide unique insight into the man's elusive life; holding a letter from an impatient Mary Todd that begins, "I have waited in vain to hear from you... [but] will be charitable enough to impute your silence to the right cause," one can almost hear the president's exasperated sigh as he turns to his writing desk. (Oct.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Table of Contents:

Frontier Boyhood     6
Honest Abe     20
Starting a Family     34
The Rising Politician     50
Mr. President     70
The Union Divided     82
With Malice Toward None     110
A Night at the Theater     136
A Legacy     148
Bibliography/Image Credits/Acknowledgments     136

Book about: Chasing Life or Harriet Roths Fat Counter

Code Red: An Economist Explains How to Revive the Healthcare System Without Destroying It

Author: David Dranov

The U.S. healthcare system is in critical condition--but this should come as a surprise to no one. Yet until now the solutions proposed have been unworkable, pie-in-the-sky plans that have had little chance of becoming law and even less of succeeding. In Code Red, David Dranove, one of the nation's leading experts on the economics of healthcare, proposes a set of feasible solutions that address access, efficiency, and quality.

Dranove offers pragmatic remedies, some of them controversial, all of them crucially needed to restore the system to vitality. He pays special attention to the plight of the uninsured, and proposes a new direction that promises to make premier healthcare for all Americans a national reality. Setting his story against the backdrop of healthcare in the United States from the early twentieth century to the present day, he reveals why a century of private and public sector efforts to reform the ailing system have largely failed. He draws on insights from economics to diagnose the root causes of rising costs and diminishing access to quality care, such as inadequate information, perverse incentives, and malfunctioning insurance markets. Dranove describes the ongoing efforts to revive the system--including the rise of consumerism, the quality movement, and initiatives to expand access--and argues that these efforts are doomed to fail without more fundamental, systemic, market-based reforms. Code Red lays the foundation for a thriving healthcare system and is indispensable for anyone trying to make sense of the thorny issues of healthcare reform.