Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I had really high hopes for this book; the time leading up to and immediately following Pearl Harbor encompassed one of the most dramatic shifts American life has ever seen. However, the errors contained in just the first two chapters are enough to make me put off, if not permanently stop, reading this book. Many of them have been pointed out in other reviews -- such as Walter Winchell changing from a conservative to a "leftist," and the US giving "battleships" to Britain as part of lend-lease. In addition, there's a preposterous statement that the Royal Air Force had 500,000 pilots and the Luftwaffe one million (these may be a reasonable total personnel count for the services at that time, but that's not the same as "pilots"). There's also a reference to Henry Luce's magazines supporting FDR and interventionism; while Luce was an internationalist, he was anything but a fan of the second Roosevelt. In addition to these factual errors, there seems to be a strong bias against elites, intellectuals, and liberals. Look Magazine is described as being "a downright pap sheet for FDR, the Democrats, and the New Deal," and one Look article's authors are described as having "hopelessly leftist" politics. The book has a great concept but the factual errors coupled with gratuitous political potshots make it unreliable and unenjoyable.