Rating: 
Summary: slanted
Review: Some good stuff in here, but the writer does seem to have a grudge against "liberals". He uses the adjective as an insult in a couple of passages. He also goes out of his way to make it clear that the white man didn't bring the American Indian the horrible practice of scalping (he still doesn't prove it suffuciently), and makes the
genocide of Indians by smallpox look like God's Will. Zacks even reiterates tales of white "heroes" who scalp indians. The tales were originally written by obviously biased white settlers and pioneers, but are retold as truths. Zacks writes of how the mass death of Natives by smallpox was seen as sign from God by settlers, but neglects to state or even imply that the Europeans brought the disease over to North America and spread it both unintentionally and intentionally. (Some colony troops put small pox in blankets and gave them to Indians) Since the best reporting is objective reporting, these biases degrade the book as a whole.
Rating: 
Summary: Weird History
Review: If you like history but are tired of the same regurgatated material, buy this book. It gives you the wierd bits of history your teacher could not talk about. Mr. Zacks taps into our Jerry Springer addict side and gives us the dirt on History. Fun read...will definately become a book you pull out on a regular basis to show people.
Rating:
Summary: buy this book now!
Review: This is one of the best books I have ever read. The material is absolutely delicious and Richard Zacks' style is very engaging. When I was done I was left craving more more more! I just loved it.
Rating:
Summary: An irreverant look at history and historic figures
Review: This is a fun book to read. It has a lot of interesting information that the history books don't tell you. This is not a book of dates and figures. This book is not filled with unimportant trivia. Rather, this book takes a look at the people and events of history and tells you the untold story behind the story. It makes for a lot of fun reading and interesting conversation.
Rating:
Summary: SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
Review: I FIRST FOUND THIS BOOK IN A CATOLOG AND GAVE IT A SHOT. NOW I AM ORDERING FOR THE SECOND TIME BECAUSE MY DAD " BORROWED" IT.
WHAT A GREAT BOOK, IT NEVER GETS BORING. YOU CAN LOOK AT IT AND READ IT FOR HOURS PUT IT DOWN TEN SECONDS, WHEN YOU PICK IT BACK UP YOU'LL FIND SOMETHING NEW. ITS GREAT FOR KNOW IT ALL'S WHO LOVE TRIVIA OR JUST SOME ONE WHO LIKES TO READ AND WANTS FRESH IDEAS. REALLY INTERESTING BOOK! ENJOY.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining, mindless fun
Review: This is book is just entertaining, mindless fun. It's not meant to be taken more seriously than that. Anyone who did bought the wrong book. I would recommend it if you have a slight interest in history and definitely an off-color sense of humor.
Rating:
Summary: Lives up to title
Review: This book is excellent for every reason the previous reviewer did not like it. Let us not pretend that sex and oddities are not interesting. If you're willing to endulge this is an entertaining and quick read.
Rating:
Summary: Too Much Sex
Review: I guess... sells, as this book has a lot of it. I picked this book up after enjoying An Inpcomlete Education and had hoped that it would be of the same quality -- it was not. There were many nuggets in this book that were incredibly interesting (for example, how GE really came into existence), but that type of information was typically sandwiched in between bizaare stories that were not as interesting. Not a total waste of time, but nota gold mine, either.
Rating:
Summary: History that's interesting!
Review: If this had been my history book in school, I would have actually paid attention! This is a great book that covers subjects you thought you knew, but didn't know the WHOLE story. From sex to politics to religion to crime and a myriad of things, like literature, in between about people, places and times unknown, unspoken of and just plain ignored. Had history been about these things and less about wars, I would have been a history buff!
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Summary: Reference book molded into a story
Review: There is a genre of books which I refer to as "debunking books" - books which debunk popular knowledge. All of the books in that category generally contain the same information, because all of the authors have used the same sources (of which the number is limited due to the purging of these sources by the passage of time). Zacks' "An Underground Education" is similar to the others in the genre, and in fact credits many of the other books as sources of his research. If you've read one of these books, you've pretty much read them all, and you can skip this book. There just isn't that much new debunking information out there to serve up in a new book. However, this book does do something that the others don't as well: Present the knowledge in an easy(ier) to read format. Many of these books operate like an encyclopedia of misinformation, but Zacks has reformatted the text into an easy to read, chapter-by-chapter story. The information seems to flow in a loosly-organized fashion, which allows the book to be read cover-to-cover without seeming like one is reading an encyclopedia. If you are really interested in debunking popular culture, this is one of the better books in that genre, due to the format the author employs. If you've read one or two of those "debunking" books already, skip this one - it's largely the same information you've read before.
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