[Give Piece A Chance]

I feel obliged to defend Wills. I've read many of his books and some of them are truly brilliant, like his bio of St.Augustine. Like virtually all writers, he's not consistantly great in either his prose style of analysis, so slack should be cut.

I lost any respect I had for Garry Wills during his shameless whoring for Michael Bellesiles and the now thoroughly discredited Arming America. His NY Times review of this book is one of the most unabashed exercises in advocacy-disguised-as-analysis that I have ever read.

[durasell]

I'm only judging him on the books that I've read by him...mostly the Lincoln book and the Augustine book. Very rarely read his reviews or magazine pieces. Again, the Lincoln book is terrific.