José A. Blanco is an author of books on Spanish language learning for English language speakers. He is president and founder of Hispanex. He got his degree in Literature and Hispanic Studies from Brown University and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a writer, editor, translator, and teacher.
I had a hard time in my French classes, but that doesn’t affect my opinion of this textbook. It is a great one, which many different kinds of exercises. Very comprehensive and good for studying French.
I definitely learned more out of my French classes using this textbook than I did from Duolingo or any other method. Any problems I had in my French classes are because of me, not the textbook.