I purchased "American Dynasty" when it was first published in 2004, but never got around to reading it because I still hadn't finished my copy of Phillip's earlier book, "Wealth And Democracy". The Dynasty book gives a long history of the Bush family and its involvement in finance, oil, and military intelligence. I have to be honest. I started reading this book but wound up skimming pages until the end. This would mark only the third book I have not completed. [The other two were "A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man", because its descriptions of Hell were silly and clearly failed to acknowledge what one could endure after an eternity. The other was "Closed Circle" because the author sounded like a smug Brit commenting on the Arab world.] In the end I already knew the Bush family was in business with both oil and military interests. I already know about failed businesses, cocaine abuse, and drunk driving. In addition, I lived through the subsequent banking collapse and saw that which banks lived or died had more to do with who was who's roommate at Harvard than merit. I just felt that I wasn't learning anything new or if I did that it would not alter my life path in any way. Sorry Kevin. The one thing that did stand out was learning that Richard Secord planned the failed Iranian Hostage rescue mission. [You should remember him from the Iran Contra scandal where the retired USAF general was selling arms to Iran, after the rise of the Islamic Republic].