“People can spend their time working for good or evil. They can be heroes or villains. They can choose to fight for love and courage and truth, or they can fight for their own egos and agendas. Sometimes, even in retrospect, it’s not that easy to figure out who a person really was.”

The more you study history, the more you find out what you didn’t know. Ten short tales written about key people in American history contained so many new facts that I was amazed I didn’t already know them. Walt Disney wanted to create a utopian city. Alan Turing helped break the enigma code. Pixar should have failed many times over. Woodrow Wilson’s wife ran the oval office for a while.

Dreamers and Deceivers by Glenn Beck continues the unknown tales of history that he told in Miracles and Massacres. I read Miracles and Massacres in 2015 and really enjoyed all I learned from that book. I actually bought Dreamers and Deceivers shortly after reading the other book and have had it in my to-read pile for a while.

I found each of these stories fascinating. Each chapter could be read by itself. The only story I had never heard anything about was the possible spy Alan Hiss. It was interesting to learn how President Cleveland had a secret surgery and how President Wilson was incapacitated at the end of his presidency. Reading about how Charles Ponzi came upon scheming people out of their money made me like him even less. My favorite chapter was about Howard Armstrong. Armstrong invented amplified and FM radio. While he was willing to share his inventions during wartime, he faced lawsuits almost his whole life regarding his inventions.

It is nice that the book has references at the end to show where the research came from and what is true and guessed in each story. I would recommend this to anyone in high school or older, especially if you like history. You will learn more than a few things if you read this book!

Buy the book here (affiliate link).