Mark Stein (1) (1951–)

Very interesting topic, vice and the ever-changing definition of vice, and who gets to decide that definition. The writing was good but very, very, very, very (you get the idea) repetitive. So much so that I found some sections to be un-enjoyable reading. Overall, worth a read with some skimming of run-on chapters. Also, I'm not a writer, and I'm not a critic, only a 100 book /yr reader so I can only review from that perspective which ranges from reading so exciting I read through the night to reading that puts me to sleep in the middle of the day. This book had some of both.… (mere)

(2011)A good follow-up to his original book with this one placing the main emphasis on the people behind how states got their borders or came into existence. Even touches on those areas that did not become states such as Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. I came away from this feeling that the common thread as usual is politics. Booklist Stein's How the States Got Their Shapes (2008) described why the American states look the way they do¥how their borders landed where they did. This equally informative follow-up puts the spotlight on the people responsible for shaping those borders. People like Roger Williams, the Puritan minister who was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for advocating against the Church of England and established the township of Providence at the tip of the bay, and Anne Hutchinson, also banished, who secured the rights to a small island called Aquidneck by the Indians and Rhode Island by the British. OrÂ¥and this is a curious oneÂ¥Robert Jenkins, the sea captain whose severed ear played a key role in establishing the boundary between Florida and Georgia. Stein, a playwright and screenwriter, writes history the way it should be written, as an entertaining story and not merely a tedious list of names, dates, and places. This is a very interesting follow-up to the earlier book, but it works equally well as a stand-alone.… (mere)